Grant Lee Buffalo, "Mockingbirds"

There are some days when it feels kind of pointless to maintain a music blog. When a vice presidential candidate deems it "gotcha journalism" when she's called out for not knowing shit about anything national or global in scope. (Yes, Ms. Palin. You don't know shit. Get the fuck off the stage before you hurt America irreperably.) When the Dow endures its largest single-day point loss as a near-direct result of GOPers throwing a fit of pique over Nancy Pelosi speaking unkind truth to unkind power. When the Chinese dilute their milk products with a substance that sickens if not kills thousands (and successfully kept that fact hushed throughout their PR campaign of an Olympics). When Robert Mugabe still mystifyingly is permitted to remain in power in a land where he murders his own people (c'mon, tell me how long before Tsvangirai is murdered too).

Some days this stuff hits harder than others and it becomes difficult to extol the virtues of sunshine pop. So I'll just post something I was listening to a lot in the darker days of 1995-96, though it came out in late '94: some intricate lyrical craft hidden behind an overly college-artsy video (Anton Corbijn would later do far better work than this). Grant Lee Buffalo's Mighty Joe Moon remains one of my favorite albums of the decade, and "Mockingbirds" is a primary reason why.

Jim Croce, "I Got a Name"

There's a temptation to look for date hooks when posting almost-daily blog entries. But I don't want this blog to be "On This Day in Music History." Still, many anniversaries deserve to be noted, and I missed one a little over a week ago: September 20 marked the 35th anniversary of the death of the wonderful Jim Croce.

Croce was as unlikely as pop stars get: with a nose and a mustache his face could barely contain, and a stage outfit of worn dungarees, he looked more like someone who'd spent the day painting houses than someone who was sharing the charts with Bowie and McCartney and Stevie Wonder and Cher. And that's one of the glories of the early '70s in pop and rock: you really could rise on the quality of the songs. And Croce, in his short chart career, had a magnificent quality to his.

"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" is one of the very first songs I ever remember hearing. (Helps that its chorus mentioned a junkyard, at a time when I owned a board game called Junkyard and was watching a lot of Fat Albert and Sanford & Son - junkyards were a frequent theme in the mid '70s in my world.) It's a wonder of storytelling, as are its related "You Don't Mess Around With Jim," and on the other side of the coin, the gentle "Operator" and the seemingly Spanish wind of "Time in a Bottle."

But my favorite was, and is, "I Got a Name," a declaration of independence and identity that has guided me through many a moment of self-doubt. Jim knew the value of keeping one's dreams at the front of one's heart, even if it means walking a path alone while trying to actualize those dreams. He went there proud, and succeeded fabulously, even if he tragically did not get to reap the rewards of his work, his songcraft. Life did not pass him by, and I hope we can all say the same for ourselves.

Friday Funtime: Pop Argot Takes On Washington

Mr. Argot goes to Washington this weekend ... just long enough to get off a bus and into a car, en route to a celebration of Oktoberfest in Frederick, Maryland. Beer will be drunk, brats downed and polka danced to. But I dare not subject you to a Friday of "The Too Fat Polka." ("I don't want her, you can have her ...") Instead, here are some songs related in some way to DC and the people within it.

1. Parliament, "Chocolate City"
2. Schoolhouse Rock, "Tyrannosaurus Debt" (!!!)
3. James Brown, "Funky President (People It's Bad)"
4. Magnetic Fields, "Washington, D.C."
5. Alice Cooper, "Elected"
6. Pink, "Dear Mr. President"
7. Stevie Wonder, "He's Misstra Know-It-All"
8. Marvin Gaye, "You're the Man"
9. The Presidents, "5-10-15-20 (25-30 Years of Love)"
10. Presidents of the United States of America, "Lump"

Bee Gees, "Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)"

A tribute to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, AIG, and the glories of underregulation of a free-market economy, since Wall Streeters can be counted on to do the right thing in the absence of oversight. Fannie, be tender with my loan!

(If you still think deregulation of Wall Street and privatization of Social Security are good ideas, I'd love to hear you explain away this decade of nonsense.)

PS: A word or two about the song itself: What a glorious absurdity it is. Thanks to the wonders of multitracking, I think I hear six or seven Bee Gees on this, each soaring higher and higher like a vocal Icarus. And who doesn't love a tender Fanny?

Kermit, "The Rainbow Connection"

Happy birthday to Jim Henson, surely one of the most important people in my childhood. Thanks for everything.

Also, a belated happy birthday to Bruce Springsteen - poet, performer, beautiful man of the people, who'll get an entry of his own soon.

War, "Why Can't We Be Friends?"

This year's nominees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame were announced yesterday. I happen to dig the concept of the Hall - I appreciate lifetime-achievement awards and the idea of musicians respecting their foremothers and forefathers - but I am frequently frustrated by the Hall's selection process.

And increasingly, I'm frustrated by the Hall's name. Noise has been made in recent years over the induction of artists who were not "rock & roll" by its standard definition: doo-wop, jazz, heavy metal, disco, and most recently hip-hop. And that's kind of silly. Despite its name, the Rock Hall's purpose extends to all of popular music, and it's needlessly rockist (and potentially racist) to deny an act as influential as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five just because they weren't or didn't "rock." There's a sizable strain of music critics who harbor unfounded assumptions about popular music: that it should have a foundation of guitar, bass, and drums; that it should be written by the performer; that it should have a tough, pounding energy that especially comes through on tour. It's a needlessly narrow definition, and it has led to the induction of novelty acts like the Ramones and Sex Pistols in the absence of artists with larger bodies of successful work (like the Monkees, Donna Summer, and Three Dog Night) or broader influence (Chic, Afrika Bambaataa).

This year the Hall is finally giving finalist consideration to one of my personally championed bands: War, an eight-piece out of L.A. whose sound combined rock, funk, and Latin grooves in a reflection of their hometown melting pool. Few bands scored Top 10 hits in such a wide array of styles: the stoner jam of "Spill the Wine," the curious quacking funk of "Low Rider," the aggrieved desperation shout of "The World Is a Ghetto," the slamming tipsy grooves of "Cisco Kid" and "Gypsy Man," the mellow reverie of "Summer."

And a big favorite of mine, the joyous and often silly "Why Can't We Be Friends?" They went over the top with this promo video (come on, a bro-hug with a Klansman?), and Lee Oskar'll never win any awards for his lyric-writing or delivery, but it is impossible to get through this round, where everyone gets a turn, without a smile crossing your face.

I hope you make it in, guys.

Bobby Goldsboro, "Summer (The First Time)"

As summer draws to a close this afternoon, I figured I'd offer one last tribute to the season. Bobby Goldsboro, the man behind such dreck as "See the Funny Little Clown" and "Honey," had his final Top 40 hit with a winsome look back at the loss of his virginity 10 years prior. I'm generally weirded out by deflowering songs, but this one was actually the best of his efforts. Which isn't saying all that much, but hey.

"Summer (The First Time)" was the first MILF anthem - "She was 31, I was 17" - and a far, far less icky one that Boomer Castleman's Elektra-complexioned "Judy Mae." Now, Millie Jackson did a far superior version of this song as the closer to her concept album Caught Up (a topic for another day, as she and the album deserve their own space), but I couldn't find a clip to post here. So we'll make do with Goldsboro's original, a perfectly competent story song with fewer forced rhymes than his usual and an arragement that nicely suggests the first hint of autumn winds taking the stickiness out of tense, anticipatory summer air.

Friday Funtime: Pop Argot Celebrates "Talk Like a Pirate" Day

YARR!

1. Cher, "Pirate"
2. Jefferson Airplane, "Long John Silver"
3. Crosby, Stills & Nash, "Wooden Ships"
4. Traditional, "Yo Ho Ho (And a Bottle of Rum)"
5. The Cure, "Pirate Ships"
6. Sly Stone, "Loose Booty"
7. Beastie Boys, "Professor Booty"
8. Jimmy Buffett, "A Pirate Looks at Forty"
9. The Commodores, "Sail On"
10. Cyndi Lauper, "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough"

ETA: I should have included Sister Sledge, "We Are Family"!!

Edwin Starr, "Stop the War Now"

R.I.P. Norman Whitfield, who had a hand in writing and/or producing an astonishing proportion of my favorite R&B songs of the golden era of rock 'n' soul (1966-1975, by my definition). Here's one of his politically charged efforts, and you can decide for yourself whether "Stop the War Now" as a follow-up to the #1 hit "War" was an opportunistic knockoff or a more panicked and desperate cry from someone who feared his message hadn't been sufficiently apprehended the first time around.

And since that message is being forgotten right now in light of our current focuses on U.S. financial meltdown, hurricanes and tornadoes, and presidential back-and-forth (not that we shouldn't be concerned with those things) - STOP THE WAR NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS!

PS: An additional R.I.P. to Jimi Hendrix, gone 38 years ago today. I'll say more about him another day.

Steve Winwood, "While You See a Chance"

September 17 is an important holiday for me, a major anniversary in my timeline: It was on this day in 1996 that I moved from my hometown in the semi-rural suburbs of Pittsburgh to San Francisco. It's a story I've told friends before, but I never mind telling it again.

I was a year out of college and utterly stagnating in the summer of 1996, paralyzed by some level of depression, a perceived lack of job and social opportunities, and a fuzzy understanding of what I was to do with my life. My late friend Brandon, who'd moved to SF immediately following our college graduation in May 1995, got back in touch with me and extolled the virtues of the city. I told him how much I'd always idealized SF - going back to my junior high school days of discovering the Jefferson Airplane and certain components of hippie culture - and how I'd long wanted to live there.

"So why aren't you here?" Brandon asked me point blank. He was good at cutting through clutter that way.

Six weeks later, with his offer of a place to stay and help finding work, I was on a plane on a Tuesday morning with a suitcase and a duffel bag of my meager possessions. I touched down and taxied to the corner of Market and Montgomery, looked around, eyes agape, mystified immaculate. That afternoon, en route to a pilgrimage to the Airplane's old residence at 2400 Fulton Street, I paused in the Panhandle adjoining Golden Gate Park, nervous about this great change I'd brought upon myself. I pulled out my walkman and nudged its radio dial, looking for a radio station to come in clearly. As I wondered if I'd made the right decision, a song suddenly came in, clear as sky: "Are you still free? Can you be?"

Since that day, Steve Winwood's "While You See a Chance" has held a talismanic power for me, a constant reminder that yes, I am still free. I'll have more to say about Brandon another day; this is my day to celebrate and thank San Francisco for its role in my becoming the man I wanted to become.

Bay City Rollers, "You Made Me Believe in Magic"

While walking home from Sunday football-watching, I came across a box of discard vinyl, and took the opportunity to add to my modest record collection. Among the recovered was It's a Game, a 1977 album from the Bay City Rollers that included their last two pop hits, "The Way I Feel Tonight" and "You Made Me Believe in Magic".

Most people, if they know the BCRs at all, know them only for tartan outfits and an earworm of a chant: "S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT!" But I far prefer YMMBIM, an example of encroaching disco giving trash singles their last gasp on the radio. Where at the start of the '70s there was plenty of room for nonperforming songwriters to pitch pleasant if disposable tunes to nonwriting performers, as the decade progressed there was a larger expectation to write one's own material and be more complicated about it. Still, you'd get the occasional appearance on the radio of an assembly-line discofied melody rendered competently by an artist who probably didn't use more than a take or two to get it down: Jimmy Ruffin's "Hold On to My Love," Pink Lady's "Kiss in the Dark," even Leif Garrett's "I Was Made for Dancing." And "Magic," which is utter bullshit - the boys, having been touring for years and no doubt already realizing how many millions they were being swindled out of, surely had gotten over believing in magic by this point - but that rasp on the refrain-concluding "into my li-uh-ife" is such a great half-twist that it doesn't matter that he sings it the same way each time.

The Bay City Rollers may not have brought much to "You Made Me Believe in Magic," but neither did they get in its way, and they were rewarded with a surprise Top 10 hit by the people who actually do believe in magic and being truly in love. Whom I kind of envy sometimes.

Lee Mallory, "That's the Way It's Gonna Be"

Thank the gods for sunshine pop, particularly on a day when world events have me in a resolutely sour mood. (Can November get here any more quickly?) My friend Mike, who sometimes posts in the comments here, turned me on to this phenomenal obscurity last week. Lee Mallory's "That's the Way It's Gonna Be" only made it to #86 on the national charts, but Wikipedia helpfully informs me that it made it to #1 in Amsterdam and #2 in Seattle. (Now that's street-teaming!) The Phil Ochs tune gets an Associations-esque production from their main man Curt Boettcher, who knew his way around a vocal arrangement and went off the jazzy deep end on this one; keeps the backing minimal, as if inspired by Love's grungy garage take on Burt Bacharach's "My Little Red Book"; and gets more insanely wonderful as it goes.

It won't make bankrupted funds reappear, nor will it end a war or make politicians tell truths instead of lies, but it's all I've got today, so it'd better do.

Friday Funtime: Pop Argot's Back-to-School Set

10 songs from 1991 to 1995 that make me reminisce about the college years:

1. PM Dawn, "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss"
2. Barenaked Ladies, "Jane" (God I love the dulcimer on this one)
3. Counting Crows, "Mr. Jones"
4. Gin Blossoms, "Hey Jealousy"
5. The Jayhawks, "Waiting for the Sun"
6. Adam Ant, "Wonderful"
7. Duran Duran, "Ordinary World"
8. Ini Kamoze, "Here Comes the Hotstepper" (Ex-cuse me Mistah Officah!)
9. Annie Lennox, "No More 'I Love You's"
10. Oasis, "Champagne Supernova"

Ray Charles, "America the Beautiful"

Ray Charles, "America the Beautiful"

Face to Face, "10-9-8"

Just an obscure minor hit from the '80s (#38 in 1984) to take advantage of today's date, which folks in the U.K. would render as 10/09/08. "10-9-8" is kind of a dumb song, and man, those outfits haven't aged well, but it's all of its time, and I remember the tune vividly from the days of listening to AT40.

And I'm posting about it so that I won't devote more syllables today to those assholes behind the McCain-Palin campaign. Faux outrage and recurrent lies are no way to present a future for America, people.

Curtis Mayfield, "Freddie's Dead"

So the federal government has taken over two private, for-profit institutions because they were failing and threatened to have domino-toppling effects on other financial structures. OK, if that's what has to be done to prevent the economy from tanking further, fine, let's do it. But let me take this opportunity to point out to any Republicans who might be reading this that this is - shock, horror - unquestionably and incontrovertibly a Big Government activity. Isn't that something only those evil Democrats advocate for?

Here's a teachable moment, folks: There are some things - many things, I would argue - that command and deserve a big government involvement. Katrina of course comes to mind. Our response this week to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suggests this is another of them. So any Republicans who continue to demonize Barack Obama and the Democrats for not minimizing government's function can take this Bush-administration-enabled debacle and go eat it with a big bowl of fuck.

I'd further like to take this opportunity to remind Sarah Palin what I typed above: that Fannie and Freddie are private, for-profit institutions. She was apparently under the impression that the programs were taxpayer-funded, as the Huffington Post reported with relish. So I'd like to humbly suggest that while she's safely secluded from the evil media as she bones up on GOP talking points, perhaps Governor Mooseolini might want to bone up on a few factual points as well? (How sad, the lack of an intersection in that Venn diagram.)

Meantime, Freddie's not quite dead, but here's Curtis Mayfield anyway. He was a truth-teller for his generation, and man, do we need a lot more of those today in America's current anti-intellectual climate.

Paper Lace, "The Night Chicago Died"

Congratulations to a Nottingham, England, band who didn't realize - and neither did the tune's songwriters - that Chicago doesn't have an "East side." (That would be a lake.) "The Night Chicago Died" is nevertheless a fun ragtimer of a story-song pop single, and it made it to #1 in this year's countdown of the top 100 songs as measured by requests/votes received by longtime Boston DJ Barry Scott for his weekly "Lost 45s" program on WODS-FM.

"Lost 45s" has been essential listening for me for many years, and I highly recommend it for all fans of '60s-'70s pop, particularly trash singles. Barry has over the years introduced me to literally dozens of songs that have become major favorites of mine. But I've been thinking that Paper Lace would have been better served with the inclusion of their rendition of "Billy, Don't Be a Hero", which came out at the same time as Bo Donaldson and the Haywoods' hit version.

Friday Funtime: Pop Argot Kicks Off the NFL Season

First Quarter:
Louis Armstrong, "When the Saints Go Marching In"
Chicago Bears Shufflin' Crew, "Super Bowl Shuffle"

Second Quarter:
Mel & Tim, "Backfield in Motion"
Terry Bradshaw, "I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry"

Third Quarter:
David Geddes, "The Last Game of the Season (Blind Man in the Bleachers)"
Jim Weatherly, "The Need to Be" (Weatherly was an All-American Ole Miss QB before writing hits for Gladys Knight & the Pips and others; this was his only hit for himself, and damn, I can't find a YouTube clip of it)

Fourth Quarter:
Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson, "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys"
Deion Sanders, "Must Be the Money"

ETA: Mike reminded me of a great one I omitted. We'll make it the OT track:
Michael Henderson, "Wide Receiver". But really, it deserves a post of its own someday.

Devendra Banhart, "The Other Woman"

I admit that I had never heard of Sarah Palin as recently as two weeks ago, and I'd like to think I kind of stay on top of political affairs. Her selection as John McCain's vice-presidential nominee threw me for a loop, and I initially wrote it off as crass gender politics, a means of co-opting disappointed PUMAs and Appalachians.

Clearly there's more to her than that. She's certainly an impressive person, fearless and able to spot an open door in a labyrinth; but the more I learn of her, frankly, the less I like. As a rationalist I'm dismayed that she considers creationism on a par with evolution as theories go. As a feminist I'm appalled at her refusal to countenance abortion even in cases of rape. (Obama got this one right: we can disagree on the topic of abortion, but we can agree to work together in education and policy to minimize the need for them.) As a realist I'm stunned that while disavowing abortion she simultaneously specifically slashed funds from a program designed to help overly young mothers adapt to adult life with their children. And as an American I'm saddened by the concept she holds of the country she wants to help lead.

Palin's speech last night was light on promises and heavy on invective; she stretched facts and in cases outright lied - which one might expect from any politician, but she went further. Not content to simply critique the qualifications of her opposing candidates, she saw fit to critique entire groups of people, chief among them community organizers; and what I took from her speech is that she desires not to lead America, but to lead those Americans who share her values. As a liberal, as a homosexual, as a non-Christian, I simply do not exist in Sarah Palin's America.

So here's one for you, Governor: Devendra Banhart's "The Other Woman". As someone who wants America to be for all Americans, not merely the Christofascists, I trust history will put you back where it found you.

Temptations, "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone"

"It was the third of September
That day I'll always remember
(Yes I will.) 'Cause that was the day
That my daddy died."

OK, the selection today's due to the conceit of the date, but DAMN do the Tempts truck on this one. Orchestrated soul is one of my very favorite of musical styles, and this is one of the very best examples. The song's been covered numerous times over the years, including an audacious treatment from George Michael as part of a medley with Seal's "Killer," but no one could approach the Temptations' ability to trade off lines like a seasoned relay team handing off a baton.

Glen Campbell, "Sing"

In theory I really love the new album from Glen Campbell, in which he's re-recorded 10 mostly modern-rock songs to introduce himself to a new generation of music listeners. Practice tells another story: His performance of Travis's "Sing" on Jimmy Kimmel Live! was a bad call. The song isn't terribly good to begin with - and I am a Travis fan - and Campbell doesn't bring anything new to its arrangement or give an especially effective delivery. Only capability, and that's not enough. Is it he who's missed the point here, or me? I'll check out the rest of the album and report back.

I hope I like it. Campbell has long been an underrated interpreter, and he was one of the very first musicians I knew by name as a child. (I remember my brother at age 4 doing an impersonation of him in his variety-show days: "Hi, I'm Glen Campbell, and I'm so happy I could drop a log!") "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Southern Nights" are among my earliest musical memories. But as regards the present material, I've been thinking that I'd much rather have heard him sing the Carpenters' "Sing." But not Annie Lennox's "Sing."

Earth, Wind & Fire, "September"

Well, what would you play today? You were expecting the Strawbs' "Part of the Union"? Sorry - I'd rather dance today. And the opening of EWF's "September" is one of the most memorable, magical - and danceable - moments I can think of. Even if I have no idea what Philip Bailey and Verdine White are singing throughout the chorus. Orio-io-iole?