Author: Renfield

spider gourmand
Posted on // 5 Comments

Power Pop Dictator

 

If you’ve gone to see a power pop band in recent years, you might have noticed that most fans are pretty old.  If you were ever in a band, went to clubs, spent time in an indie record store, or perused online fora, you might have noticed that some power pop devotees can be surly, limited, and intolerant.  To be fair, that’s probably true of any genre, but you might expect that all those hooks and harmonies would leave power pop fans happier.  Some people grow out of at least some of their intolerances.  Some don’t, and this video has a lot of fun with aging sourpuss power poppers.  Your mileage may vary, but I found the whole thing hilarious.

Posted on // 8 Comments

Experimental Matrimony

Ah, the emptiness of modern comforts…

Can a song be both great and ridiculous?  Fifty years on, I’m still wondering.  But I still love this and almost everything from Roxy’s first five albums.

Posted on // 4 Comments

Who Woulda Thought

If someone had told me in the 70’s that Al Green would one day cover Lou Reed, I might have urged that someone to get mental help.  But here we are.  Predictably, there’s quite a difference.  Al sounds like he’s genuinely enjoying a perfect day, whereas Lou sounded like he was suffering through someone else’s idea of one.  Maybe he thought he should be enjoying it but couldn’t, or maybe he was enduring it to preserve domestic peace.  Or maybe he was participating out of sheer boredom.  Or maybe he was mocking someone else’s “perfect day.” Whatever the reason, Lou (or his character) was clearly not thrilled with his perfect day.

A good cover should offer a fresh take on a song, not just fill time or gratify a singer’s narcissism.  This qualifies.  And Al sounds great for someone pushing 80.

Posted on // 3 Comments

Number Go Up

I’m only halfway through this book, and the author has already gone from innumerable parties of insufferable “crypto bro’s” and NFT suckers in the US  and Carribean (the funny parts), to the edge of Cambodian forced-labor complexes where victims of human trafficking are forced to lure marks into sending them bitcoin—so far the only successful real-world application for cryptocurrency (the unfunny parts)— to El Salvador, where almost no one will accept Bitcoin, despite the president’s naming it an official currency.  I got the Kindle edition after watching this interview.  The book is just as entertaining, if not more.  Highly recommended.

Posted on // 6 Comments

And Now For a Bassist Who Sucks

Who’s the opposite of Jamerson or McCartney?  Phil Lesh, of course.  I could not listen to all of this, I just sampled here and there.  What I did hear sounded like the noodlings of a tin-eared fifteen-year-old who recently took up bass.  There is nothing remotely interesting going on musically or technically.  What he needs is a nun to slap his hand with a ruler.

Posted on // 3 Comments

Pop-Punk Candy

Mrs. Renfield put me on to this sugar rush of an album (really more like a longish EP).  Many tracks are one-idea songs, but who cares when the hook’s good and they don’t belabor the idea: all but one are under two minutes.  It so happens this band/person/whatever played Gonerfest last week, although it was an afternoon slot on a 90-degree-plus day, so can’t say I’m sorry I missed them.  But this stuff hits my sweet spot.  Good hooks throughout.  Here’s another:

Posted on // 3 Comments

Children of Despair

In the 50’s or 60’s, Marshall McLuhan coined the term “class transvestism” to describe the then-recent trend of leisure-class youth wearing jeans, which previously had been worn mostly by people who actually worked for a living.  I think the term also applies to some current well-heeled parents who expensively dress their children like storybook orphans or 18th C. French peasants.  It’s just not cool to look rich, but you need to be rich to look poor in a non-Walmart way.  Throw in some kids who are very good at looking grim, and you’ve got something that looks straight out of the rollicking Werner Herzog.

There are more videos about clothes.  They’re all hilarious.

But wait!  There are toys too.

Posted on // 3 Comments

Gerhardt Leigh Ludvig!

Thanks to G for mentioning this album in the Nashville Teens comments, which got me to finally listen to it.  If you haven’t heard it, it’s a smoker.  Jerry Lee’s in top form, and the Nashville Teens are red-hot.

There’s something funny about Germans going apeshit over Jerry Lee Lewis.

Many Memphians have Jerry Lee stories.  Mine might be unique, as it does not involve sex, drugs, or guns (maybe because I never encountered him personally).  Anyway, back in the mid-80’s I dated a girl for a while who lived downtown at the Waterford, which overlooks the Mississippi.  Her apartment was a couple of stories down from the penthouse, where JL was living at the time.  I never saw him (although said girl claimed he hit on her in the elevator a couple of times–he was in his 50’s and she was 19 or 20), but sometimes we could hear him playing.  On nice evenings we’d hang out on her balcony.  He must have had his balcony door open to catch the river breeze, because we could very clearly hear him practicing and noodling around.  So I have this sort of magical memory of our lounging on the balcony, drinking beer, watching the sunset over the river, enjoying the breeze, and eavesdropping on the great JL playing the piano.  A good time for sure.