Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce

 Such an awful week, but it ended well for me and Mrs. Spew.  For her big birthday, I splurged on tickets to see Bruce Springsteen.  I have been to less than 10 rock concerts in my life as I tend to fall asleep--watching people make music just doesn't entertain me much, but I figured Bruce would be an exception.  And I was not wrong. 

Bruce and the E Street Band put out so much energy that even in the very last row at the back of the arena, I could not help but have more energy at the end of the night than at the beginning.  And that is despite weathering one of the more severe colds I have had.  

I am not a musician (Oberlin let me in to prove they don't discriminate against those with no musical ability), so I can't speak to the musicianship of the band.  All I can say is that they have great stamina and passion as Bruce would do the count for the next song as the previous song was still echoing in the arena.  The choir occasionally took breaks, but for much of the concern, the band and especially Bruce just kept going and going.

I was surprised it took about 1.5 hours before he told his first story (and the only one) of the night.  It was about how his first bandmate from his first band died recently.  Yep, Bruce is sensing his mortality, especially with the loss of two members of the band (Clarence Clemons has been replaced by his nephew).  But he sure doesn't play like a 75 year old.  I hope I have about 25% of his passion and energy and physical fitness when I get there.

I never saw him live before, so I never thought of him as a talented guitarist, but he did some excellent work there.  The kazoo?  That I knew a
bout.  

Bruce didn't yank up a young woman to do Dancing in the Dark, but he did bring up a boy and had him sing a bit.  Nope, the kid was not a good singer, but the moment was special nonetheless.  

It is easy to rank this concert given how few I have seen.  It was either the best concert or second best to Billy Joel in London or San Diego.  I am glad I got a chance to experience the 2.5 hours of Bruce in person.  

And, yes, I was a bit surprised by one of the encores, but it is close enough to be seasonally appropriate, but I can't seem to be able to post my video of Bruce singing Santa Claus is coming to town.
 

Ten Pick Me Up Songs

Chuck Wendig asked tonight:

NIGHTLY QUESTION: what is one song that always makes you happy no matter how often you hear it

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) May 15, 2020

And we need so many pick me up's that I can't stop at just one.  How about a listicle of ten, as required by blogging norms?

1. Don't Stop Me Now by Queen gets me going as much or more than any other song.  It is hard to sit still when this comes on.  And the message is very much needed in normal times, but now?  Oh my.  Thank you, Mr. Farenheit!
2. Anyway You Want It by Journey works for me more than other Journey songs that I like more.  This one just hits the energy button.
3. One Way or Another by Blondie.  The combo of guitar and Debbie Harry's growling version of this song.
4. Twist and Shout by the Beatles.  The song is good on its own, the imperative to get up and twist, and, then, yes, how it invokes the best parade scene in all of the movies (even better than the one in Animal House).  Ferris, thanks for bringing this song back.
5. 1985 by Bowling for Soup.  Because, well, 1985.  And the video is delightful.  To be fair, many Bowling for Soup songs make me smile.  They have some of the most fun songs/lyrics.
6. Stacy's Mom by Fountains of Wayne.  Because it is funny and snappy (the recently departed Adam Schlesinger knew how to make delightful earworms. And Rachel Hunter.  
7. I Wanna Marry My Stalker by Goldfinger.  Because it is funny song.  
8. Eight Days a Week by the Beatles, of course.  Lots of Beatles songs can go here, but this one has the right amount of pep to always bring a smile.  Plus it was one of the first songs I fell in love with when I was 12.
9. Paradise By the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf.  Teen lust, a combative duet, Meatloaf meatloafing, changes in tone/speed/etc.  
10. Take It Easy by the Eagles.  It has special meaning because my daughter and I passed through Winslow, Arizona on the way to her starting her adult life in Los Angeles.  That song will always make me smile know as I remember the day I hobbled on my freshly sprained ankle in the wrong direction to get to the red flatbed ford to get a picture before sunset:

 

Queen Leading the Way

I saw Bohemian Rhapsody last night and really enjoyed it. Queen's biggest hits were a big part of the soundtrack of my teen years, so the movie, despite its inaccuracies, rocked.  As the movie directly addressed Freddie Mercury's sexuality, it got me thinking about music and sexuality and how my attitudes changed over time.

When I was a teenager, I was uncomfortable with homosexuality.  I thought that everyone had a right to lead their lives as they saw fit, but public displays of homosexuality made me uncomfortable.  I was one of those who thought that being called gay was the worst insult, and, yes, that disco was gay and therefore to be shunned.  So, yeah, I was very surprised last night to realize that Another One Bits the Dust was Queen's disco song.  Male fragility was a thing, I suppose, for me way back when.  

As an adult, I wondered if I disliked Duran Duran, Wham and Boy George because I was homophobic as a teen.  Then I realized that I liked Queen, David Bowie and Elton John.  So, it turns out that it was the music that was key--that Queen and Bowie and John are terrific and those others very much not.  I think that as my teens wore on, my attitudes shifted in part because I liked Queen and the others so much--that these flamboyant men* were incredibly talented and interesting and entertaining.  My attitudes also probably began to shift because of a research paper in my senior year in high school on the AIDS crisis just as it was becoming well-known.

* And yes, gay men, not lesbians, challenged my sense of sexuality.  

Of course, the real key was going to a college where there were lesbians, gays and bisexual people were out of the closet.  While I may have had gay friends before college, I didn't know it.  I did know it in college.  I was hit on once by a gay friend in college, which probably would have provoked a stronger reaction had it happened in high school.  I wasn't really that much more secure about anything at that point in time, but I guess I had started being a bit less homophobic.  Then I went on to grad school where I had more gay friends and professors and more since.

When I was playing poker online about ten years ago, I would be surprised that people would insult each other in the chat boxes by calling them gay.  My reaction was that I must be playing against 12 year olds--I was surprised that people continued to use gay as an epithet.  Some people don't mature, not realizing that there are LGBTQ+ people all around us or not caring if they are aware.  And, yes, I was and am aware of anti-LGBTQ+ violence.

Anyhow, I use the Semi-Spew to ruminate about a variety of things.  Last night got me thinking about growing up in the last 70s and early 80s, and how specific musicians made a big difference in how I see the world. That diversity is not just something to be tolerated but to be enjoyed. Freddie left us far too early, so I will be playing a heap of Queen (I really don't know any of his solo stuff) in the days ahead.  Starting with what I would want as my intro music:

Teen Albums

Which albums were the ones I listened to the most when I was a teen?  This is a facebook trend, so why not?  Mostly classic rock but some new wave.

• Supertramp, Breakfast in America
• Pat Benatar, Crimes of Passion
• Blondie, Parallel Lines
• B-52s, the B-52s
• Chicago, 16
• Graham Parker, Squeezing Out Sparks
• Rush, Moving Pictures
• Journey, Escape
• Billy Joel, Nylon Curtain
• Steve Miller Band, Greatest Hits 1974-78

Queen would have been on this list had the songs been concentrated in one or two albums, same for Bruce, Devo, Styx, Yes, .38 Special, and a bunch of others. 

Anyhow, time to go to bed in Japan, where I am thinking of Cheap Trick, Live at Budokan!

Favorite Music: I Am Old and Mainstream

I have not come up with a favorite bands/musical acts list, which is strange given all the other stuff I have ranked/listed over the years.  A friend pushed me to do so on twitter so that she could comprehend how I could possibly like Rush so much. Yes, many Canadians don't like the best band their country produced.  I don't get it at all.  Canadians, as demonstrated last month, love the Tragically Hip, and I will just say that I don't get that.

My musical tastes run very mainstream, so I am prepared to be mocked by my friends who are far more hip than I am.  I have not listened to much new music lately partly because my kid is away and partly because I tend to listen to podcasts these days.

The other caveat before getting going is this: I like music, more than movies or tv shows, by how they make me feel, mostly by whether I feel propelled off my couch to sing or dance (and I do both badly).  I really have no clue about what counts for quality music, whereas I can understand what makes for a great TV show or a great movie even if they don't move me much. The feeling various songs and artists induce have a lot more to do with the time I first heard them than tv shows or movies (although Mrs. Spew thinks my relative distaste for Voyager is because it didn't hit me at the right age).  As a result, most of the music listed below is pretty old.  For a post that lists my faves of the 2000's, go here.

I am going to go from easiest list to hardest list, packing a bunch of lists into one post since I have not written much about music.

I don't like musicals much, but a few stand out
5.  Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  Because it was funny. Oh, and the girl who played the lead role at camp was very cute. 
4. Grease.  I was 12 when the movie came out, the music had some dirty stuff, and Olivia Newton-John was, um, wow. Hmm. I sense a theme. Since then, it has gained additional resonance thanks to it being eminently karaoke-able with the right people. 

3. 1776.  Some of my friends were in the Oberlin version of it, and I loved it for its humor and its politics.
2.  Fiddler.  Because it is the only musical I have ever been in.  My drama instincts were largely denied in high school and summer camp because I can't sing, so I dodged the various musicals.   But I got drafted by friends, and I had much fun playing multiple roles.  I got lots of different one or two line parts that got cobbled together.  I also danced with a bottle on my head.  Well, mostly.
1.  Avenue Q.  Too much fun.

Favorite One Hits: these are songs by bands that might not have been one hit wonders, but they produced a single song that I really, really like.

• My Sharona, The Knack,
• The Breakup Song, Greg Kihn,
• Twilight Song, Golden Earring
• Blinded by the Light, Manfred Mann (tis better than Bruce's version)
• Lamer than Lame, Nerf Herder. Silly song by a band named after Star Wars reference
• What I Like About You, The Romantics
• 867-5309, Tommy Tutone
• I Was a Teenage Anarchist, Against Me!
• Damned If I Do Ya!, All time Low
• The Geeks Get the Girls, American Hi-Fi 
• Sometimes When We Touch, Dan Hill
• Happenstance, the dB's

Favorite Songs--this, of course, changes a lot of time, depending on how I am feeling, but the current top twenty-five are:

• Almost, Bowling for Soup. 
• Eight Days a Week, Beatles 
• All the Small Things, Blink-182
• Somebody's Baby, Jackson Browne.  From Fast Times, one of my favorite movies and because a running theme here will be crushes and broken hearts
• One Way or Another, Blondie.  I heard Blondie the first time at my first rock concert (Graham Parker).  They were not there, but their music played before the start of the concert.  
• Born to Run, Bruce.  Just gets me up and moving.
• Hard to Say I am Sorry, Chicago.  Hit me square in my broken heart. 
• Tusk, Fleetwood Mac.  Marching band FTW!
• Baker Street, Geoffrey Raferty and covered nicely by Foo Fighters
• Stalker, Goldfinger.  Just too much fun. "I want to marry my stalker."
• Good Riddance, Green Day.  I am so easily jerked by a moving song.
• Don't Stop Believin, Journey.  I needed this desperately when I was in high school.
• Favorite, Liz Phair.  We overlapped at Oberlin, but I never met her.  This song is just fun, comparing men to favorite underwear essentially.
• Rock and Roll Dreams, Meatloaf.  I swear this song came out when I was a teenager, but seems to be only on Meatloaf's later album.
• Welcome to the Black Parade, My Chemical Romance.  Like most of my favorite songs, when it comes on, I feel like I just got injected with caffeine.
• Don't Stop Me Now, Queen.  Lots of Queen can go here, but this one gets me going these days.  Bohemian Rhapsody, Under Pressure, and Somebody To Love come real close.
• Heartbreaker, Pat Benatar
• Teenage Lobotomy, The Ramones
• Freewill, Rush.  Mostly these days because I love quoting a key passage, but it has the usual Rush stuff--sharp guitars, heaps of drums.
• While You See A Chance, Steve Winwood
• The Kids Aren't Alright, The Offspring 
• MakeDamnSure, Taking Back Sunday
• Dreaming, Weezer.  So hard to choose. 
• The Boys are Back in Town, Thin Lizzy 
• Twisted Sister, We're Not Gonna Take It 
• Is She Really Going Out With Him, Joe Jackson

Fave Canadians

1. Rush
2. Neil Young
3. Arcade Fire
4. Triumph
5. Bryan Adams
6. Feist
7. Alanis Morissette
8. Bare Naked Ladies
9. Tegan and Sara, if only for Everything is Awesome! 
10. Robin Sparkles

Honorable Mention for Fave Musical Acts (Bands/Singers/etc)

Bon Jovi, Simple Plan, Sum 41, Blink 182, Kansas, Van Halen, Fountains of Wayne, Supertramp, Graham Parker, Beyonce, Heart, Prince, Aerosmith, The Who, Jimmy Eat World, Bowling for Soup, Cheap Trick, Green Day, Steve Miller, Amy Grant, Def Leppard, AC/DC, Devo, B-52's, REM, Foreigner, Linkin Park, The Offspring, Talking Heads

Top Ten
10. John Williams. I am not a fan of classical music.  His stuff is the only thing I have played by orchestras, but the music that has been married to my favorite movies is among my favorites, I cannot deny.
9. Journey.  Really.  Used to be higher up on the list.  How un-cool!
8. Rush.  There it is.  Not at the very top, but I like a lot of their music.  .
7. Blondie.  I didn't love everything they did, but what I liked, I liked a lot.
6. Pat Benatar.  She did hit me with her best shots again and again.  Her videos were also fun.
5. Eagles.  The soundtrack of my youth.  It took me far longer than it should have to realize how many songs I liked were by the same band.  Steve Miller-esque in that way.
4. Bruce.  So good for so long.
3. Weezer.  I just love damn near everything.  Makes me laugh and jump.
2. The Beatles.  First band I listened seriously to, and it was at a pivotal summer. 
1. Billy Joel.  I have more of his music than anyone else.  His music evolved, and it seemed to always catch me at the right time (see this post about his Kennedy Center honor).  Also, I have only seen two acts twice--Billy and Graham Parker.  And I like so much more of Billy's music.  This makes me cheezy and conventional, but I like what I like.

That was harder than I thought it would be.  But the answer to the original question: I like Rush both because the music is fun--heaps of guitar, heaps of drums--and the lyrics are fun.  A song about trees...

Random Ranking: Oscar Songs

We were listening to Glory on the way to seeing a movie tonight--Hot Tub Time Machine 2, and I realized that this might be my favorite Oscar-winning song ever.  I had to check out a list and see where it stands on my top five:

1. Glory
2. Streets of Philadelphia (Neil Young's song, also nominated, for this movie is seriously underrated).
3. Chim Chim Cher-ee ... because any Mary Poppins song has to be near the top for historical reasons (got our family through toddler surgery).
4. Jai Ho
5. I Just Called to Say I Love You

Live and Let Die would be number one but it didn't win--just nominated, losing to The Way We Were.  Glory may be at the top due to recency bias, but  I doubt that any previous Oscar winning song was as moving with the possible exception of either of the two songs from Philadelphia.

Embarrassing Pop Culture Confessions

I cannot believe I did not see this whole video before now:


I did belatedly become a Weezer fan, as I tended to lose to old music in the early 90's and only discovered much of the 1990s stuff right around the time I got an iPod and got onto iTunes.  My realization that a heap of songs that I liked were by Weezer was kind of like my realization in the late 80s that much of what I had liked was either Steve Miller or the Eagles.

So, finding this video, thanks to the Grantland story on the 20th anniversary of Weezer's debut album, was quite delightful.  I, of course, grew up with Happy Days, so I enjoyed watching the splicing of various HP episodes with this song, even if it violated the time line (Al and Arnold?).

Anyhow, I am embarrassed to admit that I had not seen this video until now. 

Play Me a Song Tonight

I was too busy seeing my predictions come true last night on the field in Dallas to watch the Kennedy Center Honors, but the joy of the DVR is that I could watch the part I wanted to see today: the Billy Joel part.  They saved him for the last part of the show, which makes sense since his music was most widely shared by the old and the not so old in the audience.

I was really moved to watch Billy be really moved by the performances, as he always made music that touched me.  Yeah, some folks think he is schmaltzy but then again, so am I.  While his oldest stuff is the most well known and most played, I have also really enjoyed his later stuff.  Each of his last few albums came out at a time where my mood and the songs on the album matched quite well, especially the sequence of the The Bridge to Stormfront to River of Dreams.

• The Bridge came out while I was in college.  "Running on Ice" indeed.  "Temptation" yep.
• Storm Front came out while I was in grad school, studying IR, so "We Didn't Start the Fire" made a whole lot of sense and became a song I used often in the first day or two of Intro to IR years later.  "Downeaster Alexa" about the decline of fishing was timely for me as I was just learning about collective action problems.  "I Go to Extremes" captured much of what I was feeling at the time--elation and frustration, joy and not so much. "Shameless"?  Yeah.
• River of Dreams came out as I was finishing grad school and starting my first job.  And "No Man's Land" hit me right when I was working at a place that did not want me.  "Shades of Gray" spoke to me for a variety of reasons, both in terms of IR and personally.  "Lullabye" became a bit more relevant a few years later.

My first instinct upon coming home after one of my biggest career setbacks was to blast one of his songs.  Now, in my year of declaring success, The River of Dreams has been in my mind more often than not.  I just wonder what could have been--what music he might have produced in the latter Aughts when I was trying to move on.

Watching the show was a heap of fun to see Michelle Obama, Snoop Dog (or whatever), Anna Kendrick and others bop along to Billy Joel's songs as sung by the dude from Panic at the Disco, Don Henley, Garth Brooks, and Rufus Wainwright.  And, of course, it got mighty misty when the Vietnam Vets came out to sing with Brooks Goodnight Saigon, which has renewed relevance in a time of PTSD as America's latest longest war comes to some kind of end.

My fave Billy Joel song at the moment is Matter of Trust.  I hadn't seen the video of it until today, so I am so struck that it is depicted here as a song about a community (a NY one, of course).  Given the role he played in the aftermath of 9/11 and again after the storms last year, I should not be surprised that this song, which I thought was about relationships, turned to be about something else as well.  For a man so troubled in his own life, it seems strangely appropriate that his music got me through some of the more difficult parts of my life.  Thanks, Billy.



Come to think of it, this might be my favorite still:

Party Like It's 1985

I was already a fan of Bowling for Soup's 1985, as it hit a bunch of my nostalgia buttons.  Thanks to this video about a Canadian family living like it is the mid-80s, I got to see the video for the song:


There is some confusion online about whether the woman dancing on the car is the one from the original Whitesnake video (Tawny Kitaen) or someone new.   I just love the silly way the band imitates the various acts of the 1980s and, indeed, mocks the Whitesnake video. 

Good times for this Gen x-er.

Billy!

I had to drive to Quebec to pick my daughter up from summer camp as it is in between sessions (one more to go!), and listened to Alec Baldwin's podcast.  He is actually quite a good host, and he had Billy Joel on.  It was a very interesting hour, as Alec asked Billy about various points in his career and the evolution of his music.  They both are very gifted mimics so they went on interesting tangents.

I have long been a fan of Billy Joel, and did find his later albums to seem to be well timed to match the points in my life--like when I married a super-model.  Seriously, it was funny how several of his albums did catch my moods at the time well. 

Anyhow, check out the podcast--it is a breezy, interesting hour.

A Quick Musical Education

History of Rock and Roll in 100 guitar riffs:


Of course, this reminds me of my favorite marching band version of a goodbye song:


 Which is always a good lesson: don't plagiarize.

Winning Theme Song?

Maybe, as recommended by https://twitter.com/#!/ConBGone/.




Why does this video work?  Well, the gauzy lens-ing helps to obscure things, not unlike the denial sauce NATO likes to pour on stuff at times.  There are explosions!  "A world with too much choice" sounds like one with wars of choice to me.  "Be Anywhere"?  Ok, then: Afghanistan!

Any other suggestions for theme song for "NATO and Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone"?

Searching for a Theme Song

Because we are in the final stages before we submit our manuscript, my co-author, Dave Auerswald, and I are contemplating a theme song.  Hell, why not?  The book focuses on the complexities of alliance warfare--how countries manage their participation in multilateral military operations with most of the focus on ISAF and Afghanistan (we have a chapter on Libya). 

Thus far, the nominees via Facebook and Twitter are:

• "Leaving on a Jet Plane" nominated by Stephanie Levitz.
• "He Ain't Heavy" nominated by Tricia Wood.
• "You Can't Always Get What You Want" nominated by Erin Simpson. This happened to be my first thought as well.
• "The Bravery of Being out of Range" nominated by Ora Szekely.
• "Citizen CIA" nominated by Peter Trumbore.  I don't get it either.
• "Land of Confusion" nominated by Alexandre Carette (I prefer the Disturbed edition), who has spent significant time in Afghanistan working for Canada's Foreign Affairs department.

 So far, the winner appears to be:

Choosing the Right Lyrics

This guy decided to use Blink-182 lyrics as pick-up lines:"


First question: is it the lyrics or the delivery?  I am not sure he really sold it.
Second question: is this the right band?  I do enjoy Blink-182 very much, but perhaps start with the Beatles or some less, well, somewhat angry music?

Just a thought: what say you?

Completely Different, pt II

Continuing my journey back in time:

Axl Rose: Hard to work with?  Who would have thunk it?

One of many videos that MTV was surprisingly reluctant to play.


Tone Loc: Wild Thing.  MTV took a while to get to rap, but not as slow as I.

Now For Something Complete Different, pt I

No, not Monty Python.  Just a few videos that caught my eye.  I read the new MTV oral history book, and thought I would check out some of the videos that had interesting stories.

First, Milton Berle and RATT:


Then, a classic A-ha, Take On Me:

Interesting Map of the Week

Metal bands per capita!

So, what does this tell us?  Besides that the vikings of the past are metal-heads?  I would have guessed that metal would be less popular in the Mideast than in Sub-Saharan Africa.  I also would have guessed more metal bands per capita in the former Soviet space. 

Thanks to http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/09/metal-bands-per-capita/

Do notice that similarities of metal band density do not appear correlated with peace, unlike the McD's peace. What other social science observations can we glean from this?

The Latest in Recruitment

Check out the latest US Marines Recruitment video:


Ok, so it's a Katy Perry video.  But the Marines facilitated it.  We are definitely in the 21st century.  Oh, and we know KP is dangerous because she is wearing a hoodie.

What I Will Miss Most

The students.  McGill students are clearly the very best part of the institution, even when they leave me on the cutting room floor:

The Atheist Song

Steve Martin remains brilliant.  First King Tut and now this:

H/T to Frank Sposito