Saturday April 19th Is Record Store Day

The rise of downloaded music has not only made iTunes the number one music store in America and threatened the entire business model for corporate record labels, it has put a horrific beating on record stores–chain and independents alike. While many chains (Tower Records, Sam Goodies) have already bit the dust, many independents are still managing to hold on.

A recent article on the Princeton (NJ) Record Exchange profiled a proud independent that is making a go by catering to audiophiles that prefer vinyl records, employing insanely knowledgeable clerks and being a cool place to hang. Independents may have a better chance than chains to be the last holdouts for boomers that prefer to buy records rather than download mp3 files. All the chains can offer is a huge selection–but that’s the internet’s main advantage. Literally anything can be found online. But you can’t feel like part of a community, get a cup of coffee and discuss the merits of dub v. dancehall reggae online. Well, you can–but it’s not as satisfying.

A coalition of independent record stores have designated April 19th as Record Store Day and hundreds of stores across the country are participating with sales and in-store performances. So, on Saturday, go check out the best local record store: Soundgarden on Walton St. in Armory Square.

I will be celebrating all the memorable record stores that I’ve hung out in in my life:

Camelot Music in the Fayetteville Mall. In the 1970’s they ran a discount promotion for an album of the week if you brought in three candy bar wrappers (feeding two of my addictions.)

Gerber Music, a store that I spent a goodly amount of money in at all of their locations, but who fired me from their Fairmount Fair location for my persistent inability to run the cash register and for turning up the volume on Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” to earbleed level.

Plastic Fantastic on the Penn campus where I trolled the used bins every week.

Spectrum Records at S.U., especially when it was located in a since demolished house on University Ave., for making me feel like a sophisticated and cool college student, even when I was a wannabe high schooler.

Record Theatre on both the SU campus and on Erie Boulevard. They used to give out trading stamps that you pasted into a booklet that gave you a discount on completion. Wednesday’s were always the day to go, because it was “double lick” day, twice the normal number of stamps!

Apple iTunes Now #1 Music Store In America

According to research by the NPD Group, the research firm that tracks U.S. music sales, these are the top selling music stores in America, by percent of overall sales:

iTunes Store 19 percent
Wal-Mart (stores and online) 15 percent
Best Buy 13 percent
Amazon 6 percent
Target 6 percent

The death of the CD is upon us. Recently a friend gave me an iTunes gift card as a birthday present–I’m still using it as a bookmark! I’m sure I’ll get around to using it, but I’ve since bought albums at Soundgarden, including one I had to special order. I’m a Boomer Luddite–my technology, my music.

Tolkien Reading Day

I ain’t tellin’ no lie.
Mine’s a tale that can’t be told,
My freedom I hold dear;
How years ago in days of old
When magic filled the air,
‘Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor
I met a girl so fair,
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up
And slipped away with her.

–“Ramble On,” Led Zeppelin

Today I went to the first annual Tolkien Reading Day event in Syracuse. Syracuse Post Standard columnist (and blogger) Sean Kirst is actually the creator of the entire idea of a Tolkien Reading Day, as he explains in a recent column. Sean wrote to the international Tolkien Society and asked why there wasn’t a Tolkien equivalent of the Bloomsday celebrations that fans of novelist James Joyce celebrate across the world. The society said, “hey that’s a great idea!”

So, I went to the event held at the Broadway coffee shop, corner of Midland and Seneca Turnpike (the guys who decided not to sell out to a convenience store/gas station–one of the best planning decision made in this city recently. Stop in and get a coffee, a sandwich or try the homemade ice cream they sell out of the adjacent Arctic Island stand.)

I went, not for the Tolkien, but because I liked the fact that donations would go to the Ted Grace reading program at Corcoran High School. In fact, I thought that I had never read or heard any Tolkien before (never being a big fantasy/SF reader.) But when I heard some of the people there reading from one of his Lord of The Rings books, the Led Zeppelin song quoted above drifted into my head. Jimmy and Robert obviously were devotees, so years of FM radio listening has obviously softened me up for the trilogy. The Reading Day program was great, even though I’m still not sure I’m going to read any Tolkien (I’ve got stacks of unread books all over my house that are already waiting in line, somewhat patiently.)

What was truly inspiring were the stories that all the readers told before launching into their piece of the Tolkien chapter read aloud at the event today. Readers both young and old, male and female, told wonderful stories about how they had gotten the Tolkien fever. One woman told of reading aloud from Tolkien’s trilogy for an entire summer as her younger sister recuperated from an illness–an experience that not only inculcated a love of the stories, but an even stronger lifelong bond between the sisters. Some of the youngsters came to the books through the recent movies. Others stumbled across the dogeared copies of their parents’ Tolkien books and got hooked that way. Some of the parents had gotten hooked through college English classes. One retired professor had another of today’s readers in his class. A different retired professor’s husband taught yet another of today’s readers in his class. She had been introduced to Tolkien by one of her students.

What was great about the stories was the obvious love of reading related by everyone in the room. In a time when we’re all online and kids seem to spend more time on video games than books, it was wonderful to see people transfixed by the written word. A wave of boomer nostalgia washed over me, even though I’ve never read a word of Tolkien. But I do remember the days when summer trips to the library with my mom were highlights of my vacation. I remember the times I stuck a paperback in my back pocket and went somewhere outside and private to read. I remember using a flashlight to read under the covers after my bedtime (and my reading fanatic mother never once busting me.)

Now I’ve got to find a Hunter S. Thompson, Flannery O’Connor or William Kennedy event! Thanks Sean, see you next year.

Life Begins On Opening Day

Back in the 1980’s, Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post wrote a book about baseball called Why Time Begins On Opening Day. I only read excerpts of the book, so maybe that’s why I have always recalled the title as Life Begins On Opening Day.

I like my title better. Spring: the earth is unthawing, plant life starts growing and baseball starts. When I was a kid, spring meant little league sign ups and just tossing the ball around in the back yard (or if you had three guys, monkey in the middle–the better to practice your rundown skills, both defensively and as a base runner.)

As an adult, I may get in some catch every now and again, but baseball is now largely rooting for the Red Sox. And life began again today, albeit at 6 in the morning and in the Tokyo Dome. The Sox beat the Oakland A’s 6-5 in 10 innings, thanks to a two-run double by Manny Ramirez. It’s a weird way to begin the year–fly to Japan to play the first two regular season games of the year, then fly back to the United States and play a few more exhibition/pre-season games.

Oh well, our magic number over the Yankees is now . . .  

He Doesn’t Get Plato’s “Republic” Either!

Dani Rodrik is a Professor of International Political Economy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  He recently posted a wonderful piece on his blog about catching the newly appointed New York Times columnist William Kristol making a flawed economic assumption in a recent column.

Wiliam Kristol was the former Chief of Staff for Vice President Quayle and is the editor of the right-wing opinion magazine The Weekly Standard. His political views fall slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.

However, Professor Rodrik was able to use Kristol’s weak economic argument to excorcise a longstanding demon and say the words that he has waited nearly 30 years to say: “Mr. Kristol, you get a C in economics.” He goes on to tell how Kristol gave him C grades for all his essays when Kristol was the teaching assistant at Harvard and Prof. Rodrik was a student.

The clear implication of his post is that Mr. Kristol gave low grades to students with whom he disagreed politically. The post warms my heart too, because in 1979 Mr. Kristol was an adjunct professor teaching my Intro. to Political Philosophy course at the University of Pennsylvania. I had no idea of Kristol’s background and the discussions in class were not that revealing since they rarely touched on modern politics. (Besides everyone was talking about our school’s trip to the Final Four that semester).

I had the same grade pattern though, C’s for papers that I thought were relatively well expressed and betrayed a modestly liberal political view. I even had other poli. sci majors read my papers to see if I wasn’t crazy. They all thought I was being graded harshly (of course, they were all liberals, too.)

So, Professor Rodrik, thanks for calling bullshit on Mr. Kristol. Of course, if Kristol had been any good as an academic, our nation might have been spared his forays out into the world at large.

P.S.: My bias against Mr. Kristol isn’t because of his politics, but because his politics clouded his opinion of students.  I had David Eisenhower as a teaching assistant during my junior year and he was awesome. He used to hold wonderful informal discussion groups and was always helpful. 

The End Of The Year

A few thoughts at the end of the year:

1) I hate award shows, agreeing with the sentiment expressed by Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall: “Awards! That’s all they do is give out awards, I can’t believe it. “Greatest Fascist Dictator: Adolph Hitler.” But there is great news for award show haters everywhere. The Writer’s Guild strike has the potential to outright kill the Golden Globes and force the Academy Awards to ad lib all performances and have no access to film clips. Many movie, tv and rock stars will boycott award shows because they will not cross picket lines. Union, forever!

2) While I hate award shows, I love year In review lists. Top 10, Best Of, Worst Of–I read them all. I have found the motherlode of lists, the website Fimoculous. The website describes itself: “A fimoculous is a micro-organism that consumes its own waste for sustenance . . . and Fimoculous.com devours the filth expunged on the mediascape.” Fimoculous has a link to hundreds of best of lists on topics such as books, movies, art, architecture, sports, business etc. Currently, there are 176 lists just on the best music of the year.

3) I will remember 2007 fondly, but I will also always be reminded that behind the joy was a tinge of sadness:

We moved into our beautiful new home and had my wife’s parent’s move into our old home, less than a mile away. While we enjoy our house and the proximity of our family, I’m reminded that the passing of my father and my inheritance is what enabled us to finance both projects.

Bruce’s new album and tour (especially the concert we saw in Albany!) were impressive events: full of the inspiration, hope and joy that his music always inspires. But the music is shot through with the acknowledgement that our everyday lives are being played in front of a backdrop of war, torture and government mendacity.

The Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the second time in four years, establishing themselves as the dominant team in the game. OK–no sadness whatsoever behind that one! Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in 44 days. Happy New Year.

The Unbearable WASP-ness Of Being

A very interesting discussion is currently hiding in the comments section of a recent post on NYCO’s Blog. The post, ”Limbo”, is a review of a book whose subtitle is “Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams.” The book looks at persons with working class backgrounds as they enter into a more middle class existence–college education and a white collar profession.

NYCO and Sean Kirst of the Post Standard trade observations on what that feels like, the pressures, trade-offs and family reactions. I haven’t commented because I initially thought that this feeling of limbo was not my experience. In fact, it is part of my experience, but I come at the issue from a totally different angle.

I grew up in a professional, college-educated family. While my family was not rich, we were comfortably middle class–two kids, two cars, stay-at-home mom, colonial in the suburbs. My family tree includes lawyers, accountants, stockbrokers, historians and government officials. College was not only expected, a prestige college was expected. I attended an Ivy League school but realize that Bob Dylan most accurately summed up my college years: “you went to the finest school alright . . ./but you know you only used to get juiced in it”. I started law school, but dropped out after a year.

I realize now that I was rebelling against those expectations that my class had placed on me (and that I was lazy.) If I had listened to my father I would have graduated from the best business school in the country right at the beginning of the financial boom of the go-go ‘80’s. I could have made, lost and re-made another fortune by now in accounting or investment banking. Even if I’d buckled down and finished at the lower-tier law school that my grades got me into I could have made an extremely lucrative living.

That never interested me and it took me almost 10 years of floundering to find the career that has afforded me happiness and professional satisfaction–community organizing. I help low-income folks learn how to to wrest some power away from the powers-that-be, in order to improve their neighborhoods.

So I have experienced this sense of class limbo. I have turned my back on upper-middle class definitions of success, yet I don’t have the working class roots that sustain other organizers with a sense of solidarity and purpose. Mike Gecan, a lead organizer in the Industrial Areas Foundation network, is able to spin tales about how he learned the true nature of power by watching his father being shaken down for protection money to keep his working class tavern in Chicago open (and how it was burned down when his father missed a payment.) A young female labor organizer I know is able to trade stories with grizzled union vets by drawing on her first-hand knowledge of her father’s life in the Laborers union.

My passion for social justice is cerebral, like any good Ivy Leaguer I drag my erudition around with me. I am left with a hunger for a more authentic working class experience, something that my white bread, suburban upbringing doesn’t provide. I value the labor unions, the ethnic social clubs and bars, the machine politician balancing corruption with the ability to uplift his people, all things that I have experienced only in books and movies.

So, I am betwixt and between. I’m not a titan of industry and I’m not a knight of working class resistance. My tenacity was forged on the tennis court, not on the shop floor, but I’ve found my own way to bridge the class divide. I use my knowledge and skills to help those not fortunate enough to have my class advantages and education. I give back in the best way I can.

Wild & Innocent In Albany

What can you say when you go into a concert with incredibly high expectations and those expectations are exceeded . . .by a lot, a whole lot! This is why Bruce’s music means so much to me. Powerful, eloquent, playful, uplifting, emotional. After awhile you start to run out of adjectives.

Some thoughts:

Bruce played nine out of the eleven songs on his new album “Magic.” The clear standout was “Gypsy Biker.” I’ve never heard a song about such a sensitive topic (a family dealing with a relative who died in the Iraq war) be both tender and rock with such force that the guitars would strip the paint off your house.

On a totally different note, “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” seems destined for Bruce concerts for years to come, if the number of couples standing, holding hands and swaying together while singing the chorus is any indication.

The three “message” songs that end the new album “Devil’s Arcade”, “Last To Die” and “Long Walk Home” were also played together in concert. The first two are improved in a live setting, particularly “Last To Die.” The musical energy that the E Streeters let loose allows you to transcend the repetitive lyrics. Not so with “Long Walk Home”, the earnest and unbelievably repetitive lyrics are trapped in a relatively stagnant musical setting–the only misfire on the album and in concert.

The title track “Magic” gets over the message that “Long Walk” fails to convey using grim imagery, wrapped in a subtle yet lovely song that leaves you wishing for more. Performed largely with Bruce on acoustic guitar and Soozie Tyrell on fiddle (with minimal assists by Max and Nils) Bruce lays out how our nation’s values have been subverted by our current administration and how we are despairing of ever putting things right. As Bruce stated in his intro to the song: “We say every night that this song isn’t about magic, but more about tricks.”

Of course, since Bruce shows last more than two hours, hard core fans spend a great deal of time speculating on what songs will be played from his over 30 years of back catalog. On a Springsteen tour, the rough outlines of the concert are set and then different songs are run in and out of the lineup. Sometimes Bruce has been known to call an audible and decide on the spot to play a different song than the one written on the evening’s setlist.

The hardcore Springsteen world has been abuzz about this Albany show because he played two rarities from his 1973 album “The Wild, The Innocent & The Street Shuffle”: “Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” and “E Street Shuffle.” Sandy is a hymn to Bruce’s adopted hometown, as well as an acknowledgement that he was outgrowing his youth and being forced to grow up. Singing this song as an adult staring at his AARP card, Bruce pulls off a beautifully nostalgic moment, without being maudlin. The highlight in concert though was musical: Danny Federici steals the show with his turn on the accordion.

“E Street Shuffle” is just the opposite, it revels in its quasi-legal street life and its lyrics are rapid fire and its run-on sentences threaten to jump off the written page. On the album, several members of the band take up various brass instruments to supplement Clarence Clemons’ sax. In concert, Bruce and Little Steven took up the bulk of the musical chores with incredibly funky guitar work. The musical coda that ends the song was astounding–a rising crescendo of guitar and saxophone.

These two songs exemplify why the E Street Band is the best ensemble since the days of the Funk Brothers at Motown and Booker T. & The M.G.’s at Stax. Bruce can throw out two songs that they haven’t played live in years and the band responds like its been playing these songs day in and day out. The heart and soul of the E St. Nation.

All this and I still haven’t even hit my personal highlight of the show. I became a Springsteen fan in 1978. Just before I left for college I bought “Darkness On The Edge of Town.” I had admired “Born To Run”, but I still wasn’t a huge fan. I liked hard rock and Bruce just seemed too soft. Darkness changed all that. (That and going to college in Philadelphia–one of the two main epicenters of Bruce fandom.) The songs were urgent, realistic and rocked like a motherf***er. For a young male just starting out in the world, unsure of my future and wondering what’s next, Darkness spoke to me like nothing ever has, before or since:

There’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor
I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm
Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground
Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost andbrokenhearted

CHORUS:
The dogs on Main Street howl ’cause they understand
If I could take one moment into my hands
Mister I ain’t a boy no I’m a man
And I believe in a promised land

I never had the opportunity to see Bruce in concert during this era (my first concert 1/27/85 at the Carrier Dome–Born In The USA), so to see Bruce perform four songs from my favorite album was something I will always remember–”Promised Land”, “Candy’s Room”, “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” and “Badlands.”

Singing along with the delirious crowd, these songs still speak to me, nearly 30 years later. I guess we are always struggling to find ourselves and to make sense of the lives we’ve made, even if the life on whole is fairly positive. I left the Times Union Center hoarse, dehydrated, exhilirated and exhausted. One sentence reverberated in my head–the very first words Bruce uttered on stage: “Is there anybody alive out there tonight?”

Yes, Bruce. I’m alive. Thanks for asking.

A Joyful Tension

Boston won the World Series last night, breaking a two year championship drought that repeatedly crushed the hopes and dreams of millions of residents of Red Sox Nation. Well, I guess you can only go there once. I didn’t cry last night like I did in 2004. I didn’t go out into my backyard and have a long conversation with my father, who passed away a year before the 2004 victory (Instead I did a Big Papi chestbump followed by a double-armed pointing up to the sky.) I think he understood.

Boston sportswriter Charles Pierce has a great piece on Slate.com where he compares the difference between the historical win of 2004 and the rather workman-like victory last night. Entitled “Red Sox Win Again. It Feels Great, Thanks For Asking,” the article debunks the theory floated by many that Red Sox fans were married to their angst and would never survive a championship. We can accept victories, I just hope we don’t emulate the worst of the Yankee fans (and management) and start viewing championships as entitlements.

I was brought up short by my wife after my mini-tantrum in Game Three when the Sox nearly blew a six-run lead, only to come right back and score four more runs. She asked me why I wasn’t more joyful, after all the Red Sox were playing in the World Series and doing real well. It was then that I realized that I was rooting for the victory, rather than rooting for my team.

Game Four saw me in a much better frame of mind, my wife even watched the last couple of innings with me. I did get a tad nervous when the Rockies pulled to within one run, but told my wife: “I’m O.K. A little tense, but it’s a joyful tension!” A little later, I jumped off the sofa, threw my hat in the air, did my Big Papi point for my dad and cranked up “Dirty Water” by the Standells, the official song of Red Sox victories.

How long till spring training?

A Couple Of Thoughts Heading Into Game 1

For only the fifth time in my forty years of fandom, the Red Sox are heading into the World Series. Here’s some thoughts a couple of hours before the first pitch.

Ceremonial first pitch tonight by my all-time favorite player Carl Yastrzemski, joined on the field by many of his 1967 “Impossible Dream” teammates. I caught the fever in 1967 while visiting my grandmother on Cape Cod during summer vacation. My father bought me a Sox Yearbook at the local grocery and then I followed the games down to the last day of the season. I remember that the TV broke into the telecast of Gentle Ben to announce that the Red Sox had won the A.L. pennant. My mom wondered why I was so excited and my father, a Giants fan since his youth, knew that I was lost to the “junior circuit”.

When the Sox went down 3-1 against the Indians, I changed my hat from the bright red Sox cap unveiled during this spring training and put on the white with blue bill model that I wore after the Sox went down 3-0 to the Yankees in 2004. So this hat is now riding an 11 game post-season winning streak.

I tend to wear my Sox caps obsessively. The responses to my cap in the middle of Yankee country have been interesting. My favorite happened this summer when we took a tour of the state capitol building in Albany. The guard at the metal detector stopped me and said I had to go to the back of the line. When I asked why, he said: “Because you’re a Boston fan.”

I’m living in a different house than the one I watched the 2004 World Championship unfold. My new house has the TV on the second floor, so my wife and doggies can more safely hide from my hand-wringing, pacing and occasional shouts of either joy or anger. Last time they had to huddle in the back room of our ranch house, the dogs shaking and hiding under beds, tables and desks.

Go Sox!