Neil Young in Melbourne

I made the trip to Melbourne to see Neil Young in concert on Wednesday night. A few observations...

Neil Young still rocks

I was worried - I'd read a comment on a website from somebody who said he'd seen Young in concert a couple of years ago and said he was awful, especially his voice. I needn't have worried - Young sounded great. His voice sounded fine - just like you hear on all of his songs going back 40-plus years now. His guitar playing was as great as you could expect. He and his band played for two solid hours, and were very good.

Some complaints - I only knew about half of the songs he played. Some of the stuff, new and old, he played I just wasn't familiar with, although they all sounded good. And after great versions of "Spirit Road" and "Cinnamon Girl" - the highlight of the show - followed a long set of Young's more countrified stuff, including a couple of songs off of Harvest.

But then he finished with a fiery "Keep On Rockin' in the Free World."

When he came out for the encore and started the song and singing, I was disoriented. I knew the song - but this wasn't a Neil Young song. A split second later I realized it was the BEATLES' classic "A Day in the Life." And wow, Neil Young totally owned it. I was wondering as the song built up, how he and his band would handle the "wall of sound" parts of the song. The Beatles never had to worry about that - they had quit playing live shows by the time they released this song on Sargent Pepper's. Young and band just thrashed the guitars, drums, bass, and keyboards to build it up.

Despite muffing a couple of words (the bit about "found my way upstairs and had a smoke, somebody spoke and I went into a dream"), it was great. And the the final wall of sound to end the song was a loud, long, messy, glorious bit of rock-and-roll over the top performance. By the end, Young's guitar strings were breaking and he was using them to flail at the other strings. It was quite a performance.

This was one of the two most surprising encores I've heard. The other? Wilco doing "Don't Fear the Reaper."

But I was still disappointed not to hear my favorite Young song, "Like A Hurricane."

My Morning Jacket

I was glad to see Young - but the presence of Lousville, Kentucky country/prog-rockers My Morning Jacket made me really want to go. These guys are brilliant. They have a reputation for strong stage shows, and they were very good in their 45 minute set.

But...

Outdoor Venues Suck

But this was at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, an amphitheater featuring a big lawn in a park by the Yarra River in Melbourne. And it had all the problems that this sort of place has. The ground is hard. People walk all over you. Smoking. The music isn't quite loud enough, so the morons around you can still carry on a conversation. And clearly most of the crowd didn't know MMJ, and all around me people were carrying on conversations while MMJ played. I'll have to catch them somewhere when they are the headliners.

Plus Melbourne was in the middle of a heatwave. The daytime high on Wednesday was 44C. That's 111F in American. Either way it's HOT. By the time MMJ started at 7:30 (a full 30 minutes BEFORE my ticket said the show was supposed to start, glad I was there by 7:15) it was still in the upper 90s. At least the sun had stopped beating on us.

And New Devices to Blather At Us

One more thing. Advertisers continue to find new ways to direct commercial messages at us. They especially like captive audiences. And Melbourne Airport has a new (to me) device. A little TV screen that comes on automatically. It is on those hot-air hand dryers! You put your hand under their to dry (no paper towels so you have to) and a little commercial comes on the little screen. It's enough to make a guy want to skip washing his hands.

Think About Kink

I saw this little blurb in the Washington Post about Ray Davies of the Kinks playing at the 9:30 Club in DC. Sounds like a good show. I saw him at the 9:30 Club a couple of years ago, and it was great, makes me hope he and little brother Dave could get back together for a Kinks reunion tour.

Which reminds me - a few days ago I was in a JB HiFi here (sells music, videos, computers, etc). After going through the cheap CDs and the alternative shelves, I looked at the classic rock shelves. I looked for the Kinks. I found Carole King. I found LOTS of King Crimson. For pete's sake I even found TWO albums by the Knack.

And not one single, solitary CD of the Kinks. Inconceivable.

Flashbacks, Courtesy of Def Leppard

Earlier this week I went to a concert with some friends here in Canberra. A Melbourne band called the Galvatrons were the opener (sounded like they were channeling Van Halen - specifically "Jump"). The group I really went to see was Cheap Trick. And the headliners, Def Leppard.

Funny, because this is the second time I've seen Def Leppard in concert because they happened to be playing on a three-band ticket featuring a group I really wanted to see.

The first time? 1980. Heavy Metal Sunday at Hara Arena, an ice-hockey rink in Dayton, Ohio. Tickets were $6.50. Headliners were Judas Priest, on their British Steel tour. The special guests, the band I wanted to see, were the Scorpions. And Def Leppard, a bunch of young kids from Sheffield, England, who had just released their first album, were the warm-up act.

So the concert was kind of a flashback for me. I kept on casting my mind back to that earlier concert, to the friends that I went with, high school buddies, some of whom I'm still in touch with, some that have headed off to places like Texas and New Mexico and I've lost contact with. Ah, nostalgia.

Def Leppard themselves were quite different! In 1980 they were unknowns; I'd heard one song by them on the local rock station. By now of course, they've become rock veterans. They had their period in the mid-1980s where they were arguably the Biggest Band In the World. You couldn't turn on rock radio in 1083 without hearing Def Leppard - their video for "Photograph" even knocked Michael Jackson's song "Beat It" off of the #1 Most Requested on MTV.

Now they have a new album out - and they played four or five songs off of it. But much of their show focused on the classics. The crowd was interesting, too. True for other long-lived rock bands I've seen like Pink Floyd back in 1994, there was a mix of young people - teens, college age - who seemed to react more strongly to the new stuff. And there were the over-30 crowd - many SIGNIFICANTLY over 30, by decades - who didn't know the new songs but were there for "Rock of Ages" and other old classics.

And I have to say, even though I was really there to see Cheap Trick and Rick Nielson's five-necked guitar, Def Leppard blew them out of the water. They still have it. Joe Elliott really knows how to work a crowd. They never missed a beat. It was a great evening, all the better for including pleasant memories.

Something Was Missing

I went with a buddy the other night to a club to see a Van Halen tribute band called X Halen. They were strictly a David Lee Roth-era VH band - no songs after DLR left and was replaced by Sammy Hagar and That Other Guy.

Their David Lee Roth guy was pretty good - long DLR-like hair, sang very much like Roth (including sometimes too-frequent howls and screams in place of lyrics). And when he spoke between songs (again, too much) you could never tell that he wasn't a nice Jewish kid from Indiana - absolutely NO hint of his native Australian accent on stage. But when he was circulating through the small crowd between sets, he was obviously Australian.

The rest of the band was very good. The guitarist was excellent. So was the rhythm section. Their versions of the various Van Halen classics were very good. And the lead singer several times criticized the Real Eddie Van Halen for firing bassist Michael Anthony in favor of his song Wolfgang (I agree).

They hit most of the highlights from each of Van Halen's first five albums, with more emphasis on Van Halen and 1984 (after all, they probably had the most hits for the originals) than the others. I particularly liked hearing "Dance the Night Away," always one of my favorites, and a smoking version of "You Really Got Me" (thanks again Dave Davies).

But they didn't play "Running with the Devil."

It was weird. It was getting to the end of the show. They'd just done "You Really Got Me" and then "Jump." Then the faux David Lee Roth was rambling and vamping about songs they would play next, semi-coherently just like the real DLR. The bass player tentatively began with the "bmm...bmm...bmm...bmm" bass line that begins "Running with the Devil" but faux Diamond Dave said something about "we already played 'Panama'" (which they had). The guitarist did a couple of goofy riffs from "Panama". Somebody else yelled something, and our ersatz David Lee Roth started riffing about when it's hot you want something to cool you off... and they played "Ice Cream Man."

It was a great song. And then they took their bows and the lights came on. No "Running with the Devil?" Whaaa?

Unfortunately, that put a mild damper on a very fun evening with great music and a crowd full of oddballs. The most uncomfortable thing was how the mock Roth kept calling up a guy called (I think Jimmie) on stage to bring him some more Jack Daniels (iced tea I think). Jimmy works at the club - his shirt said Security.

Jimmy is also about three feet tall - he's a Little Person. It was a little weird - not clear whether the Aussie Diamond Dave (who was about five foot tall himself) was laughing AT Jimmie or WITH him.

In any case, I didn't know they made leather pants that small.

Thunder from Down Under

Yes it's true - AC/DC are now working on a new album to be released some time this year. More thunder from down under - except they are actually recording in Vancouver, Canada. Oops.

Anyway, if you hit this link you will get a bootleg video of an early take of one of their new songs, called Creme My Egg, an Alas Yorick exclusive.

A "Diva" Passes The King

News today that confirms the degradation of American pop culture: Mariah Friggin' Carey has just had her 18th #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. That puts her past Elvis Presley into second place; only the Beatles (with 20 #1s) are between this lame "diva" and Billboard immortality.

Showing a surprising level of self-awareness, Carey said "I really can never put myself in the category of people who have not only revolutionized music but also changed the world."

Ain't that the truth - although on a closer reading, it appears she IS taking credit for revolutionizing music, but not for changing the world. Fittingly, the song that took Carey past The King was called "Touch My Body." Oh boy, another song by Mariah Carey that urges the listener to do her. Profound stuff, that. And original

Carey's music is pablum, interchangeable ballads about her T&A and love life and little else, immediately suitable - nay, even IMPROVED - by the Muzak treatment. It is the sort of soft dreck that could be performed by anybody with a passable voice and a big set of boobs to flaunt. At the very least, it helps to have the boobs so you can land yourself a senior recording studio executive to marry, which certainly can't hurt a young singer's career prospects.

Carey's songs and performances are the musical equivalent of cotton candy - essentially insignificant, no real substance to it, and if you consume enough of it, it will rot your brain (or teeth).

Bah, humbug.

Alas, Yorick Looks at the One Hit Wonders

One hit wonders - they've been around a while. Oddee says they are generally "novelty songs that are, to an extent, deliberately short-lived, recorded for humor or to cash in on a fad." But even in the Oddee list below there are clearly songs that were not recorded for humor or to cash in on a fad, so their definition is needlessly limited. And there are even some that I would argue really weren't one-hit wonders anyway.

But have a look at them, and see what the chief music critic at Alas, Yorick has to say about these tunes.

(Band - song)
1. Los Del Rio - Macarena (1996) Painful, a true national nightmare. Please think of the children before playing this one. And get your damn hands off my hips.

2. Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby (1990) Lots of rap is self-referential. Most rap isn't this bad. Be thankful this was only one hit.

3. Baha Men - Who Let the Dogs Out? (2000) A travesty. Put the dogs back in, please.

4. Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy (1991) OK, this was a novelty act. But dammit, it was really catchy. "I'm too sexy for this song." Genius.

5. Dexys Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen (1982) I don't think they meant to be a novelty act. DMR were a big thing in Britain, definitely NOT a one-hit wonder. And this song, admittedly overexposed on MTV, wasn't bad.

6. Joan Osbourne - One Of Us (1995) This was an odd tune, with its imagining God spending a life riding the bus like the rest of us. But I liked it. And Osbourne is still performing.

7. Nena - 99 Luftballons (1984) Okay, this song definitely hit a chord with the American public in the cold war days of the mid-1980s, with nuclear freeze movements all over Europe and the US and real concerns about nuclear war. But it was a good song, and Nena was big in her native Germany.

8. The Knack - My Sharona (1979) Great great song. And much more decorous than "Good Girls Don't".

9. Meredith Brooks - Bitch (1997) Never heard of it. Didn't get much airplay in Mongolia, apparently.

10. Survivor - Eye of the Tiger (1982) Truly awful, it was a relief that Survivor were in fact a one-hit wonder.

11. New Radicals - You Get What You Give (1999) Huh?

12. 4 Non Blondes - What's Up (1993) Sorry, don't know it.

13. Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares to you (1990) Painful. Like all of her music.

14. Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry Be Happy (1988) You know, if you don't hear it every 30 seconds, this is a catchy little tune.

15. Minnie Riperton - Lovin' You (1975) She had a great voice. She died young, of cancer aged only 31. Maybe she wouldn't have had just one hit. Seems a bit cruel to include her.

16. The Cardigans - Lovefool (1996) I've heard some Cardigans' songs, but not this one. That's OK with me.

17. Soft Cell - Tainted Love (1982) A great song.

18. The Archies - Sugar, Sugar (1969) This definitely fits Oddee's idea of one-hit wonder. But what a great, sweet one hit this was! I used to sing this song in bed when I was a kid.

19. Europe - The Final Countdown (1986) I WISH this had been the only Europe song I'd ever heard, but unfortunately I was exposed to many. The best thing about Europe is they made Asia seem not so bad.

20. Lou Bega - Mambo No. 5 (1999) Apart from the fact that his last name is the same as a prominent cheese-making center in Australia, I have nothing to say. Oh, except that mambo snakes are highly poisonous, even though they are not found in Australia.

21. Aqua - Barbie Girl (1997) This song got Aqua into some trouble when Mattel sued over its rather sexual depiction of Barbie the doll. But hey - it was accurate, wasn't it? I mean, what are you supposed to think about a doll with 46-22-36 measurements? Exactly.

22. EMF - Unbelievable (1991) Unbelievable that I have never heard of this song. Probably just as well.

23. Eifel 65 - Blue (Da Ba Dee) (1999) Looks like a wonderful song judging from the title. Too bad I never heard of it.

24. The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony (1997) One of the bittersweet episodes in rock history. Great song, interesting video. Song features a short sample - repeated many many times - from the Rolling Stones' song "The Last Time." The band (or their management) failed to get permission. Big lawsuits, and the label that owned the Rolling Stones' back catalogue won 100% of the royalties from this, the Verve's first big hit after years in the biz. Band breaks up. A sad story.

25. Falco - Rock me Amadeus (1985) This was just fun. That's OK.

26. Spandau Ballet - True (1983) True ... ly awful. Sorry. I don't like real ballet, either.

27. Chumbawamba - Tubthumping (1997) This was a great song, but anarchist rock bands and corporate record labels don't mix well...

28. Haddaway - What is love (1993) And what is this song?

29. Des'ree - You gotta be (1994) You gotta be kidding me. Never heard it. I probably would have hated it.

30. Blind Melon - No Rain (1992) Blind Melon may have had more hits if their lead singer hadn't died of a drug overdose.

31. Ziggy Marley - Tomorrow People (1988) Not to be confused with Bob Marley, who was a one-hundred hit wonder.

32. Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star (1979) The answer to a trivia question, "What was the first song played on MTV?" It was a fun bit of new wave.

33. OMC - How Bizarre (1996) How bizarre that I never heard of this song.

34. Lipps, Inc. - Funkytown (1980) Truly funky. Part of the disco section on the otherwise rock-and-roll soundtrack to my high school life.

35. Semisonic - Closing Time (1998) NOOOO!!! NOOO!!!! MAKE IT STOP!!! Lame tune and truly inane lyrics. I have spent thousands of dollars in therapy trying to get this song out of my head. And now it's back. Thanks, Oddee. Be sure to check carefully before stomping out that burning bag on your porch tonight.

36. A-ha - Take on me (1985) Interesting animation for its video. Otherwise, I could forget it happily.

37. Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax (1984) ZZZZZZZZZ... huh, what's that?

38. Church - Under the Milky Way (1988) Hmm, missed that one.

39. Deee-Lite - Groove is in the heart (1990) My local rock station must not have played this one.

40. Wild Cherry - Play that funky music (1976) OK, THIS one is NOT a one-hit wonder. Sure, this is the only thing we heard by Wild Cherry - and it was a GREAT song. But lead singer Donnie Iris was at least a FOUR-hit wonder. Before Wild Cherry, Iris was with a band called the Jaggerz (hi, Mick!) and they had a great song called "The Rapper." You'd know it if you heard it. After Wild Cherry, Iris went solo. And he had at least two more moderate hits, with "Ah Leah" and "Do You Compute", both GREAT songs. Iris was no one-hit wonder. In fact, I think I need a greatest-hits compilation by him.

41. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians - What I Am (1989) Slightly repetitive... but not bad!

42. Carl Douglas - Kung Fu Fighting (1974) Definitely in the novelty category - but WHAT a song. Every boy in the sixth grade was high-kicking to this tune!

43. Gary Numan - Cars (1979) Electronica... slightly sterile. I've heard worse.

44. Gerardo - Rico Suave (1991) Que?

45. Toni Basil - Mickey (1982) The biggest problem with this wasn't the song (which at the very least gets credit for inspiring Weird Al's "Rickey"). It was the beefy cheerleaders in the video! Little known fact - they filmed this video on the cheap, and used some East German track athletes who had defected to America.

46. The Weather Girls - It's Raining Men (1979) I managed to miss this one. Good thing too, it would hurt to be hit by such big raindrops. (On second thought, I think I might vaguely remember this. Maybe.)

47. Afroman - Because I Got High (2001) Missed it.

48. Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag (2000) This is a GREAT SONG. And the Iron Maiden geek teenage dirtbag gets the cute metal-head girl! What's not to like?

49. L. A. Guns - The Ballad of Jayne (1989) It is a wise policy to avoid hair metal bands.

50. Cornershop - Brimful of Asha (1998) This title doesn't even make sense to me unless it refers somehow to say an Indian singer like Asha Bhosle. Guess I missed it. Oh well.

Now, Oddee also missed some other one-hit wonders. Such as:

Flash and the Pan - Hey St Peter

Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin (wait, there may have been one other song...)

Satellite - The Hooters

Tell Me Why (I Don't Like Mondays) - The Boomtown Rats

The Monster Mash - Boris Karloff

Check Out This List

I really like end of year lists; it's one of the good things about dividing our lives up into years.

Here's an interesting variation on the theme - the year's worst album covers, courtesy of the music snobs at Pitchfork.

They're pretty well on target - these are some cheesy album covers.

Pitchfork also did a list of the top 200 songs of the 1960s. I went through and calculated that I have about 47 of them. There were a lot of songs I don't own but are fine music, lots of great Motown, girl-groups, country, etc.

Number one? "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys. It's a good song, but I don't even think it's the best song off of that album. Still, you can't expect the Pitchfork people to pick something obvious like, say the Beatles "A Day in the Life" (#5) or Aretha Franklin's RESPECT (not in the top 200). But they gave lots of props to the Kinks, so it isn't all bad.

The Best Album You've Never Heard Of

Over the past few years I had come across a few glowing references to the 1960s LA group Love, specifically some critics saying how their 1968 album Forever Changes was one of the finest psychedelic records of all time.

Then earlier this week, I was nosing thru the $10 CD table at a local music/video store and saw a copy of Forever Changes. So I bought it, and when I got home I put it on.

It's been a long time since I listened to new (to me) music that floored me like this album. I can't really begin to describe it, so I'll lift the description from allmusic.com:

It wasn't a hit, but Forever Changes continues to regularly appear on critics' lists of the top ten rock albums of all time, and it had an enormously far-reaching and durable influence that went way beyond chart listings. The best fusion of folk-rock and psychedelia, it features Arthur Lee's trembling vocals, beautiful melodies, haunting orchestral arrangements, and inscrutable but poetic lyrics, all of which sound nearly as fresh and intriguing upon repeated plays. One of rock's most organic, flowing masterpieces, every song has a lingering, shimmering beauty, including the two penned by the band's other talented songwriter/guitarist/singer, Bryan MacLean.

Not a weak song on the album. In particular, "You Set the Scene," the album's seven minute closer, is just fantastic and haunting, with great and thought-provoking lyrics (sample: This is the only thing that I am sure of, And thats all that lives is gonna die. And therell always be some people here to wonder why, And for every happy hello, there will be good-bye.).

I just can't stop playing this album. And I don't usually go so ga-ga for an album like I have for this one.

Buy it, put on your headphones, and dive in. It is the best album you've never heard of.