Fighting Hunger With a Bowl

AT&T Park for UCLA v. Illinois (Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl). Hot day, small crowd, better game than predicted.

'Cause There Was No One Around

Black Francis, 1991: "Hey everyone, I've got this new song; it's about an alien that gets into rock music after hearing distant radio frequencies in space. He goes looking for Earth, accidentally lands on Mars, and is told, no, keep going, this ain't the planet of sound. What do you think?"

Kim, Joey, and Dave (in unison): "Yeah, ok. Let's play it loud."

No Longer Looking at Things

Kim Jong-Il: this was your life. (See also this.)

Hitch

"Unlike other countries, [America] was founded on written proclamations. America is an ideal as well as a republic. Its documents are open to revisions. They're works in progress. There's an invitation to participate." - Christopher Hitchens, RIP.

Bad Jokes #3

Someone at my local Peet's: "Didn't you used to be the Foursquare mayor here?"
Me: "That was a tough recall election."

Terry Bradshaw - "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" (1976)

It's actually pretty good! Incidentally, I wonder if a young Hank Jr. saw this, and decided he too was ready for some football.

Ships Without Captains (or Infielders)

Wait, you mean to tell us Miami didn't get Hanley Ramirez on board before signing Jose Reyes? Teams that want to contend talk about managers and players buying into a "system." This is the opposite of that. Between this and the SEC investigation of the new stadium's funding, it seems like no one's got their hands on the wheel at Marlins HQ. If this is an indication of things to come, Pujols and Buehrle should run for the hills.

Bad Jokes #2

On return flights from Vegas, is Virgin legally obligated to change their name to Not Anymore?

Cut It Out!

Eddie Money: the Dave Coulier of rock.

(Also, that's Apollonia at 0:43 in the video. Also also, this is a great song.)

According to My Parents...

...my 91-year-old grandfather drank a sake bomb last night. #myhero

Bad Jokes #1

Just saw a woman drive by in an Audi while eating a bowl of cereal. Must be one of those crash diets.

A Very Low Tolerance Level for Stupid Bulls**t

This "National UnFriend Day" pseudo-movement aimed at Facebook users is juvenile (I know, it's not like Jimmy Kimmel has ever said anything childish before). I think George Carlin sums up my knee-jerk reaction to this nonsense.

Don't misunderstand me -- I like Jimmy, especially the much-loved show pieces featuring his late Uncle Frank. And as for juvenile things, I have no problem still being a fan of these guys. But this one idea is rather, well, stupid.

Look, you never know who you'll reconnect with professionally or socially in the future. I think the issue is in Facebook's choice of the word "Friends" when referring to our connections, rather than a more neutral term (which Google+ attempted to remedy with their Circles concept). And hey, if we're concerned that certain contacts (e.g. bosses, parents) might be offended by the content we post, then it's probably not worth sharing in the first place. Not everything needs public airing.

Then again, the Internet is full of people taking cheap shots at each other anonymously. And it's getting tiresome. If you choose to put your opinions out there for friends, colleagues or otherwise...just put your name on it. Seems like the grown-up thing to do.

The Celebrity Value Index (CVI)

After reading Bill Simmons's recent piece about Eddie Murphy's undervalued status as both a comedian and cultural force, I started thinking about the way we view entertainment icons after certain points in their career. Did we undervalue Murphy because he didn't die young and creatively untarnished? Did we choose to ignore him because, quite simply, he survived?

What does this mean for other entertainers that stick around long enough to - God forbid - get older and slow down, like real people? Does anyone still recognize Ice Cube's lyrical prowess now that he's starring in family comedies and light beer commercials? And can we agree on a way to measure this downturn in affection for our favorite performers?

I may have a solution. Using my Celebrity Value Index (or CVI), we can calculate several factors that play a part in how we write off mercurial talents past a certain shelf life. Result: the lower the CVI number, the more likely we are to take performers for granted. Let's take a look:

CVI = (Number of Peak-Era Seasons*) + (Number of Peak-Era Releases, Awards, or Championships) / (Years Lived Past Age 27) + (Number of Embarrassing Sexual Revelations) + (Number of Post-Peak-Era Releases, Awards, or Championships) x 100

(*Note: I'm counting each individual peak year as a season, as in sports. For the formula to be fair regardless of who's being measured, I think celebrity non-athletes should be subject to this. For example, The Beatles released all of their new, official recordings as an active unit between 1962-70, and while that may be a period of 8 calendar years when counting backward in time, it's actually 9 individual "seasons" of releasing new material; 1962 is one season, 1963 is another season, and on.)

With this formula, Eddie Murphy shoots a mere 36 (devalued). Kurt Cobain, on the other hand, scores an incredible 156 (highly revered).


Here's the breakdown:

EDDIE MURPHY

9 (1981-1989) + 10 (SNL cast member, 48 Hrs, Delirious, Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, '84 SNL hosting spot, '85 MTV VMAs, Cop II, Raw, Coming to America) = 19

divided by:

23 (he turned 50 in April) + 2 (the tranny incident; Eddie's support of Brett Ratner's gay slur) + 28 (everything after Coming to America; see Simmons's list) = 53

x 100

Total: 36 (rounded up from 35.8)

--
KURT COBAIN

5 (1989-1993) + 9 (Bleach, Nevermind, knocking Michael Jackson(!) off the Billboard #1 Album position, '92 Reading Festival "comeback" concert, '92 MTV VMA performance, Incesticide compilation, In Utero, MTV Unplugged concert, Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! video** = 14

divided by:

0 (duh) + 1 (everything we've learned about Courtney Love since Kurt's death) + 9 (MTV Unplugged  album/video release, From The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah live album, Nirvana (best of), With The Lights Out, Sliver: The Best of The Box, Journals, Kurt Cobain: About A Son, Live At Reading DVD, Live At The Paramount DVD)***

x100

Total: 156 (rounded up from 155.5)

(**Though it's technically a posthumous release, L!T!SO!! was intended for issue, with Kurt's approval, in 1994. The rest of the band oversaw the final edits following Cobain's death in April of that year.)

(***I realize I'm counting a handful of content associated with Nirvana's peak seasons as post-peak releases, because those items were officially released after Kurt's death; that's why you see the Live at Reading DVD listed here. The audio and some of the video from that 1992 show had been popular in the Nirvana trading community for years, but as far as we know, were not intended for official release during Kurt's lifetime. Live at Reading feels like a nostalgia-driven cash-in, which arguably could have also been released even if Kurt had not taken his own life. Bottom line: with Cobain either alive or dead, it's still a post-peak-era release.)




So where does that leave other legendary performers? Surely Elvis Presley, for all his iconic status, has one of the all-time lowest CVI numbers. Think about it: compared to the number of celebrated singles, TV appearances, and movies in his early career (respectively: "Heartbreak Hotel," his not-entirely-filmed-from-the-waist-up Ed Sullivan Show debut appearance in September '56, and King Creole, to name just a few), his post-Army career is absolutely clogged with inconsistent material and moments. That's 18 seasons (1960-1977) of content to sift through to separate the good from the bad...and that doesn't even take into account the three-and-a-half-decades-worth of compilations, exclusives, and nostalgia releases being sold after Presley's untimely death at age 42.

As if to prove that it's a collective downer to see icons age and/or decline in productivity, Denis Leary infamously proposed a solution to this dilemma. I'll instead offer that both of the following are true: Western society loves to obsess over our heroes' golden years, and, in equal measures, some icons don't always know when to quit. The Celebrity Value Index is, for now, a much cleaner resolution to an ongoing, chicken and egg (or in Elvis's case, peanut butter and banana) question.

--

These Go To 11/11/11

At exactly 1:29 in this video (I've cued it for you), Nigel says today's date in full. Awesome.


(Embedding disabled, so you'll have to click through. Trust me, it's worth it.)

Scott Walker - "The War Is Over (Epilogue)"

PROLOGUE: WAIT FOR THE SIGNS

A few weeks back, I had this post about Scott Walker's 1970 song "The War is Over (Epilogue)" locked and loaded, ready to share. At the last moment, I got the bright idea that I could quickly expand the piece to include the entire album on which this song originally appeared, 'Til The Band Comes In, with little effort. Big mistake.

Spending more time with 'Til The Band Comes In as a whole, I discovered some surprising threads connecting Walker's earlier work (crooning, string-drenched, melodramatic) to his more recent material (atonal, avant-garde, and, er, melodramatic). I even wandered down a few side streets exploring the origins of the cover songs featured at the end of Side 2.

This process birthed many new ideas for pieces, all of which were connected in some way to this record, and all of which distracted me from completing my original task: say something about this damn song.

I decided to put those greater and smaller pieces on hold for the moment. So, first thought, best thought: let's take a closer look at "The War Is Over (Epilogue)."



PART ONE: IT REALLY ISN'T FAIR

Scott Walker's 1970 album, 'Til The Band Comes In, is a record that has frequently been dismissed or ignored within Walker's discography. Compared to the praise heaped upon The Walker Brothers' best-selling singles, Scott's solo highlights Scott 1-4, and his post-1978 avant-gardisms, 'Til The Band Comes In seems to exist in a critical limbo, where the album itself is rarely discussed, yet several key tracks turn up on Walker compilations and retrospectives.

One of the better regarded of these songs -- no doubt because it recalls quintessential Scott ballads "It's Raining Today" and "On Your Own Again" -- is “The War Is Over (Epilogue)."

It's the final (non-cover) song, from arguably the final album of Scott’s baroque solo period. The proper endpoint of the "classic Scott" era depends on who you ask: those who feel Scott 4 marks the close of that phase could point to the number of genres Walker plays with on TTBCI, making the record stand alone in his catalog. Alternately, a case could be made that those earlier records moved between pop, jazz, rock, folk, and modern classical as frequently as this album, and hey, if the record had just been titled Scott 5, we'd be telling a different story about TTBCI relative to Walker's solo discography.

PART TWO: OUTSIDE THEY SING

(Note: If you're the kind of person who likes to read about music while listening to it, please cue the track in the video above and continue reading. If not, take a moment to listen to the song at least once without my interference, then read on, and listen again upon reading the end of this post.)

Can a song be simultaneously featherweight and exhausted? This one sure sounds like it. It's a relieved collapse following an extended struggle, fictional, musical, or otherwise. It's loaded with space, something at which Scott and his arranger/conductors (in this case, Peter Knight) excelled.

Instruments pan around the track, nearly empty, barely playing. First, chimes, then bass, guitar, piano, vibraphone, finger cymbals; left to right, center, and back again. A gently picked arpeggiated guitar continues throughout. Now, the voice. Scott is autumn and woodgrain, phrases ending in vibrato:

Everything still
everything silent
as after the rain
we lie here listening to night close down

Seriously, go back and listen to this part again. The lyric and music complement and further each other's actual sound. When Scott sings "everything still," the musicians barely move. When the instruments create droplets of sound, Scott sings, "as after the rain." You don't often hear this kind of marriage between singer and band, word and music, each intentionally underlining the other's mood and tenor. We continue:

Stare like a child
Wait for the signs to decide once again
Just when they looked here to stay

Scott holds out that last word - "stay" - in a highly romantic fashion, almost an exaggeration of the MOR ballads of the day. Only he's not singing a love song. This is something stranger, darker, more melancholy. That word cues the string section's entrance and the bass guitar's descending line.

Where to leave
Our world, our air
It really isn't fair

From the plea of "stay" to the motion of "leave." The music is now moving, just like the lyric. That balance again: interlocked (sturdy), ethereal (light). And another chord change on "our world." The track has motion, but still it floats: "our air."

Outside they sing, "the war is over,
raise your blinds, the war is over"
Sell your deepest dark
Goodbye

The horn section, often used in music in a cheerfully drunken manner, announces sobriety this time, memory, context for what came before. The weight is in Scott's voice, the horns, the timpani. The lightness is in everything else, even the drum kit. And a head-fake here: not really a "goodbye."

A distant waltz
turns in the head of an old lady's night
waiting hands unfold within the dark

There are brief moments in the verses where nearly everything drops out, leaving only a picked guitar figure, the reverberations of the other instruments hanging the air. This song is as much about the moments when the musicians stop playing, as when they combine into a larger picture.

Lighting her lamp,
seeing Prince Albert,
recalling the sight

Scott was an American living in London in the 1960s. Somehow, I don't think the above lyric was referring to this (NSFW).

They waltz again
through the park

That last phrase, however, recalls another similar, dramatic late 60's production, composed by the man who also wrote this song. Was Scott aware of Jimmy Webb's work? Hell yes. Scott covered several of Webb's songs during his 1970s "lost" period.

Floorboards creak
beneath the moon
the room below just sighs

The mention of a room, a floor, the moon, is an unexpected lyrical link to Scott's future: "Clara," his terrifying 2006 song about Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci.

Outside they sing, "the war is over,
raise your blinds, the war is over"
Let me get some sleep
Tonight.

The recording studios of the day were designed to house orchestras, and condenser microphones (and multi-track recording) helped capture that enormous, enveloping sound effectively. No wonder so many of these records are compact cathedrals, sonic architecture. Coupled with dramatic vocals, stark drumming and punchy horn arrangements, the sum total of these songs are towering things. "The War Is Over" is no exception.

EPILOGUE: EVERYTHING SILENT

There's some revisionist history about Scott becoming a recluse in the early 1970s: the story goes that he "disappeared" due to an intense fear and loathing of commercial success and the attention celebrity brings, only to resurface, dramatically, puzzlingly, with a more avant-garde sound in the 1980s. It probably makes for a better story, but at best, it's an exaggeration, and at worst, a load of PR bullshit.

The reality is that he continued to release major label records right up until, and including, the Walker Brothers' 1975 reunion. When was the last time a recluse did that? Indeed, he was likely frustrated by the fame game, and his move into MOR covers albums suggests he was equally dissatisfied with either the presentation of, or the response to, his own original compositions. Most likely, he simply involved himself less in the promotion of those records based on the standards expected of celebrity of the day.

Then again, Scott also spent those years, in his own words, doing "a whole lot of drinking."

Everything still
everything silent
as after the rain

So then: Scott's early-to-mid 1970s. Movie music and cover songs, one short-lived Walker Brothers reunion, and lots of booze. As a writer, however, he came out the other side around 1978, rediscovering his muse in frightened soundscapes, with four highly original pieces for the Brothers' Nite Flights album.

Let's consider 1970's "The War Is Over (Epilogue)" as a glance through a closing door, from the title, to the lyrics, to the ache of the strings.

Still we are,
after the rain.

Still and silent. Featherweight and exhausted. Goodbye classic crooning, hello modern terror.

END
--

Note: a (very) highly condensed version of this piece originally appeared in a blog post I wrote on my old band's Tumblr account in 2010.

Hey, aspiring felons!

It used to be that your only mainstream career options were in governments, churches, and big business. But thanks to the folks at Penn State, now you can add "elite universities" to your checklist! Come on, don't be afraid of Greek letters, pencil-pushers, and football boosters who care a little too much. You'll get all the protection and cover-ups a criminal could want. What are you waiting for? Apply to a major university today!  [Disgust-fueled sarcasm over]

It's Gettin' Dark, Too Dark To See

"This was for a particular scene in the movie when Slim Pickens is dying and that’s the first time I ever cried while I played. It was the combination of the words, Bob [Dylan]’s voice, the actual music itself, the changes, and seeing the screen…In those days you were on a big soundstage, and you had this massive screen that you can see on the wall, [with] the scene…running when you’re playing. I cried through that whole take.” - Jim Keltner, drummer on Bob Dylan's original recording of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" (as quoted in Bob Dylan: The Complete Guide)

(Sadly, embedding is disabled for the clip Keltner describes in the above quote. I've included a YouTube video below featuring only the audio of the song, but I'd encourage you to also watch the film clip.)

Too Busy Trademarking The Feared Beard

Odd story from the SF Gate yesterday. In short: San Francisco Giants begin using a script logo in 1993, forget to trademark it, and now an unaffiliated merch company has trademarked it -- and sued the Giants. How did both the Giants and MLB screw this up? We all know Uncle Bud loves that merchandising revenue. And seriously, those knock-off black and orange "San Francisco" jackets have been all over the city for years. Why did no one from the Giants or MLB act sooner?

Ultimately, this will be a nice little payday for the attorneys on both sides. Yes, the mark obviously belongs to the Giants, but there's no one to root for here. Incompetence vs. sleaze? Pass.

Boston Globe: Inside The Red Sox' Collapse

Devastating piece about the Red Sox' September collapse, and it seems to confirm most of the speculation floating around the web: booze, bad attitudes, failure to lead, and upper management distracted by a myriad of business interests. Only Dustin Pedroia comes out looking good.

To be fair, one can't help but feel that the timing of the report is suspect, with Theo Epstein reportedly leaving for Chicago, and the Terry Francona dirt is out of bounds, regardless of what team you root for.

The Beatles - "Revolution 1" (unedited Take 20, recorded 1968, leaked 2009)

To celebrate what would have been John Lennon's 71st birthday today, here's the unedited, 11-minute version of "Revolution 1" from the The Beatles (aka The White Album).

Recorded in June 1968, this is how John Lennon first envisioned the song, before splitting it in half and creating "Revolution 9" as a companion piece. No electric guitar overdub or horns in this version (as on the album), but there are instead lots of other vocals, effects and sound collage stuff that ended up being edited into "Revolution 9." Really, really fun listen.

Tebow No

Are we done talking about Tim Tebow's NFL non-career yet? Single most overrated athlete in America (sorry, Florida's 2009 national championship means nothing in the NFL). His obsessive supporters are a) sports writers who are only in it for the page views, b) religious fundamentalists who see Tebow as "one of their own," or c) overzealous fans who treat Timmy like a teenage pop idol. Is Siberia still scary and jail-y? Whoever decides these things, let's send Tebow, Favre, LeBron, and Tiger there, yesterday.

Ozzie Guillen to Marlins

I like this move, for both Ozzie and the Marlins. There's generally two kinds of successful managers in baseball: the Stoic (Torre, Francona, LaRussa) and the Hothead (Weaver, Martin, Piniella). Ozzie falls into the latter group, and has been pretty good at his job (up until this season). The Marlins need some leadership and energy, and Ozzie's the right guy. So, the 2012 Marlins: new stadium, new team colors/identity, and now, new manager. If only they could trade their owner...

Bogus Bands, Part 1: Filmshow (the fake one, not the real one I was in)

PROLOGUE

It is Wednesday, May 24, 2000. The spring sun is slowly setting on a warm night in Rochester, New York. Five young men, who spend their free time playing in a rock band called Filmshow, are waiting anxiously backstage prior to performing their debut gig at one of the city's favorite venues, Water Street Music Hall. It isn't often that they play live in front of an audience, so the band feels some self-imposed pressure begin to take hold.

Thankfully, a diversion in the form of the concert promoter soon arrives. The promoter, an affable guy we'll call Dave, tells the musicians he needs a press photo for his company's website, and would they mind terribly if they took the picture right now. The band comply, since they like Dave, and they momentarily abandon the free sandwiches and beer, in favor of the open air of the venue's back parking lot.

Dave asks them to just line up together in front of the concert hall's brick rear wall; it's a suitable backdrop for a quick pic. He asks the guys to move closer so they're all in frame. Closer. No really guys, closer. Ok, that's fine.

CLICK.

CLICK.

CLICK.

Three snaps and it's over.

The restless band head back inside. SHOWTIME. They climb the stairs to the stage with anticipation, donning their instruments with shaky hands. And off they go...

Their performance at the start is solid, uneventful, workmanlike. They gradually loosen up and have fun, and the audience of friends and music scene regulars register their approval with warm applause and the odd hoot. After their set, the band exhale and head into the crowd, exhilarated yet relieved. The post-performance drinks begin to flow. It's been a good night.

A few days later, the promoter's website posts some raw video footage from Filmshow's set, along with the "best" of the three promo photos taken before the set.

When the band sees the photo, they cringe. And shrug. And laugh. And some absurd ideas are born.

- -

CHAPTER ONE: WTF?

Below, you see a fake advertisement, for a fake record, by a fake late-1970s band called Filmshow. Confusingly, it is based on a picture of my real early-2000s band, also named Filmshow. Why we didn't create a new name for this bogus band, I have no idea.

I can assure you that the description and appearance bear almost no resemblance to the real Filmshow. This ad was cooked up by me, our drummer Joe, and someone else (one of the other band members, or possibly Joe's cousin Adam, I can't remember who) when we were bored one evening in Summer 2000. We thought the original pic was full of so many rock cliches (brick wall! pouty faces!) that we decided to make fun of ourselves. Simple as that.

Let's break down the photo, from top to bottom...

CHAPTER TWO: THE BAND MEMBERS (L-R)

- Johnny "Sticks" Wilson: a play on the fact that his "real" identity is that of our drummer Joe ("Sticks" = "drumsticks"), but in my mind, the name was more a cross between this guy and this guy (hence the fish sticks joke in the fake Filmshow timeline...wait, I'm getting ahead of myself). The hard-to-read "STUD" graphic on his shirt was our idea of what a rock hero with white trash roots would think was cool. Too bad the lettering is wimpy as hell, thus deflating the joke.

- Jackie Daniels: not much of a surprise where that came from (and clearly, lots and lots of others have associated that brand of whiskey with rock 'n' roll). He's played by our keyboardist James (who actually did have long hair; we just changed the color and softened his facial features to give him a more feminine appearance. You're welcome, James). And of course, "howlin' mad whiskey vocals" is an obvious nod to this guy.

- Timmy "Noggin" McGillicudy [sic]: we goofed here. The more common spelling is "McGillicuddy," but since we screwed that up in the photo, I let it remain consistent throughout the written piece (again, I'm getting ahead of myself). The character, played by our singer Matt, has a name that references Matt's Irish heritage, as well as his father's first name (great guy, by the way). The "Noggin" nickname only came about because Joe and I got careless with Photoshop and accidentally gave Matt a receding hairline. The joke, like the character's hair, was pretty thin, and it all went downhill from there.

We decided that unlike Matt, this guy was a bit of a dope, so in a moment of inspired immaturity, we gave him two lit cigarettes to demonstrate 1) his lack of short term memory; and 2) his devotion to the sponsor whose logo he proudly wears on his shirt. Oh yeah, "big bottom drums" is a blatant anachronism, because if this poster were really from 1979, they'd have no knowledge of Spinal Tap (1984).

- Stevie Thunder: well, duh. But to be fair, seeing as this character is a bassist, he's also descended from the God of Thunder. The detail on Thunder's jacket pocket is a reverse Mudflap girl. And, oh yeah, that's actually me underneath the fake mullet and badly drawn beard.

- Rocco D’Giovanni Santirocco [sic, again]: man, were we careless. His middle name should be "DiGiovanni," with no apostrophe (what can I say, this was all created pre-Google). As with the McGillicudy misspell, this one stands. Rocco is actually our bass player, Brian. The "XXX" isn't just for sex, it's for moonshine; a vague reference to Brian's occasional homemade beer brewing hobby.

CHAPTER THREE: THE SONGS

I imagined that these guys would have been big Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger fans, but they lacked the talent to reach those artists' heights (kind of like the real Filmshow; the fake Filmshow is really just an avatar for us, if we had been born 20 years earlier, listened to hard rock, and actually got signed to a major label). The fake Filmshow's music would have probably come off sounding more like a combination of Brownsville Station's "Smokin' In The Boys Room" (the original -- Motley Crue's version was a cover) and this Ian Hunter song (later covered by Great White).

(Side note: interesting how hair metal bands of the 1980s went through a phase of recording covers of 1970s "party rock" anthems; they were most likely songs they grew up with. See also Slade's "Cum On Feel The Noize," which most kids my age thought was a Quiet Riot original, though it could be argued that this Oasis performance bests them both).

Some of the fake song titles came from email exchanges with my friend and sometime musical cohort Jonathan Bakert (more -- much, much more -- on him in a future post). Pretty sure that "Teacher Don't Rock" and "You Took (Your Love), Rock" were Jon's creations; "Rock 'Til We're Blue," "(Let's Make This Town a) Rockin' Town," and "She Said (Rock Don't Pay The Bills)" bear my writing style. Redundant and/or incorrectly used parentheses in rock songs were a minor recurring joke for us at that time.

CHAPTER FOUR: OTHER INFO

"Gunther Smythe-Nevins" is a nonsensical, vaguely Anglo-Germanic name that suggested "music biz veteran," with a dash of European cool. I figured that in real life, Columbia Records would really have sent a big-time, disciplined producer to corral a bunch of talented (or talentless?) goofballs from rural America into making a commercial pop-rock record, and thus secure their investment in the band.

GFI Studios is a real studio in Rochester, NY (not Burbank, CA) where the real Filmshow (aka us) actually recorded a few sessions. Nice place.

"8-Track Cartridges" -- the specific language here (rather than "8-Track Tapes") was suggested by my friend and 70s music enthusiast, Ian Maginnis. Thankfully, at least one sentence in the ad is authentic.

ASCAP? I think we thought at the time that it was a legal thing. We had no idea what the hell we were talking about.

In the real world, one of the bands that we, aka the real Filmshow (see how stupid this is getting!? Why didn't we give the fake band a different goddamn name!) played with that night, FM Green, has a neat timeline of their shows posted online (scroll to the bottom of the page for our date). It was the only reference to this concert I could find online.

- -
EPILOGUE

We passed the finished pic around via email, and got enough of a laugh out of it, that my fevered mind went into overdrive and began to flesh out the fake Filmshow's backstory. Result: the timeline you'll read further along in this post.

The timeline was written in August 2000, when I was 22. Most of it is enthusiastic but immature, and in places, I blatantly created bad rewrites of other well-known parodies. I'll leave that to you to decipher.

Also, as you read the timeline, note that the Daniels and Thunder characters are using stage names, rather than their given names (Christopher Hauptmann and Mieczyslaw Krzyzewski, respectively). This was a dig at the old showbiz practice of forcing up-and-coming talent to change their names to something more exciting or less ethnic, according to standards of the day. I retained Santirocco's birth name as an exception to this rule, though the mention of his uncle is something I'll elaborate upon in a future post.

So, there you have it. A phony, funny ad for a non-existent rock band, and now, my (insanely juvenile) bonus presentation: Filmshow, The Timeline (1977-1997). Enjoy(?).

----------------------------------------------------------

APPENDIX

Filmshow: The Timeline (1977-1997)

February 1977
Filmshow form in Hathaway Beach, Florida. Lineup consists of singer Jackie Daniels (real name Christopher Hauptmann); guitarist Johnny “Sticks” Wilson (nicknamed not because of drumming abilities, but because he hailed from “the sticks”); bassist Stevie Thunder (real name Mieczyslaw Krzyzewski); pianist Rocco D’Giovanni Santirocco (nephew of rock manager Rock St. Rock); and drummer Richard Spangler Jr. Begin writing songs and gigging earnestly around Florida.

October 1977
Filmshow fire drummer Richard Spangler Jr. due to his lack of “party skills.” Replaced by Timmy “Noggin” McGillicudy, formerly drummer in Boston-based prog-rock group The Merry Men. McGillicudy nicknamed because of permanent forehead inflammation which resulted from vast helium intake as teenager. McGillicudy is younger brother of acclaimed jazz saxophonist James Cartwright Gill (born Seamus Patrick McGillicudy).

April 1978
After months of intense gigging in the southeastern United States, Filmshow are noticed by Dallas music promoter Van Harper. Agrees to listen to their 4-song demo, She Said No! and promises to send copies to various rock DJs around the South. Instead, he passes on Filmshow in favor of taking role as Andy Gibb’s American tour manager. Harper struck by lightning at Doobie Brothers concert in Houston later that year.

July 1978
Filmshow sign a two-album deal with Columbia Records after their performance at a Miami radio station-sponsored festival. Filmshow nearly botch meeting when a severely hungover Johnny “Sticks” Wilson vomits on Columbia A&R rep in a crowded coffee bar.

September 1978
Filmshow begin first cross-country tour of North America. Stevie Thunder arrested for possession of Quaaludes at United States-Canadian border, which forces band to cancel all 8 Canadian concerts.

October 1978
Filmshow play the famed CBGB’s in New York City. Among those in attendance include Joey Ramone, Debbie Harry and David Byrne. Filmshow described by Byrne post-gig as “shitty.”

December 1978
Sessions for the first Filmshow record hit a wall, when after 5 weeks of recording in Burbank, California, pianist Rocco D’Giovanni Santirocco disappears with a surfboard to “find” himself. Santirocco quickly finds himself…penniless on the street with no clothes. Santirocco returns to the group to complete the album.

March 1979
Filmshow’s debut LP Rock ‘til We’re Blue…Vol. 1 hits stores nationwide, and is released soon after in the UK, Europe and Japan. Despite near-universal panning by music critics and scholars, it goes on to sell 4 million copies worldwide over the next year.

May 1979
Filmshow face lifetime ban from NBC television network after a controversial performance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, during which Jackie Daniels exposes genitals to television and home-viewing audience, while simulating sex with microphone stand as the band perform “(Let’s Make This Town A) Rockin’ Town.”

June 1979
“(Let’s Make This Town A) Rockin’ Town” rockets to Number Three on the Billboard singles chart, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the Tonight Show performance.

November 1979
Filmshow world tour ends in turmoil as a cocaine-addled Stevie Thunder quits the group to start a New Wave-tinged solo career. Jackie Daniels leaves the next day, and forms hard rock outfit Silver Midnight in the following weeks. The group hastily records their first record.

February 1980
Silver Midnight’s North American tour begins. Two weeks into the tour, the band’s debut LP Hammer On Rye is released. The album is greeted with widespread apathy, as the public discovers the album (contrary to the band’s metal-edged live shows) sounds exactly like a wimpy bastard child of The Eagles and Foreigner.

March 1980
Wilson, Santirocco and McGillicudy reconvene and head out on the road to perform acoustic versions of Filmshow’s hits, with all three taking over lead vocals. Filmshow respond to poor ticket sales by introducing 35-minute Medieval-influenced folk opera as set-opener.

April 1980
Stevie Thunder releases his cover of Gary Numan’s "Cars" as debut single a mere two weeks after the original hits the American Top Ten. It crawls to Number 39 nonetheless, and plans are made for a follow-up single.

July 1980
A financially strained Jackie Daniels returns to Filmshow following the disastrous response to Silver Midnight’s first (and subsequently only) album. Gives a candid interview to Rolling Stone in which he bemoans “the biz” and promises a new Filmshow LP within the next three weeks, much to the chagrin of Johnny “Sticks” Wilson, Timmy “Noggin” McGillicudy and Rocco D’Giovanni Santirocco, who have no other new material. Daniels swiftly fired upon publication of interview.

August 1980
Stevie Thunder’s second single, "Hey, Check Out My Bass," tanks and he finds himself without a record contract. Checks into rehab, where he meets up with a newly-dry McGillicudy. Thunder is invited back to the group, but declines. Disappears to study Eastern medication for the next 14 years.

February 1981
Upon release of the patchy live LP Suck This Rock – Live!, the remaining members of Filmshow announce the group’s dissolution. Johnny “Sticks” Wilson goes on to successfully produce and market his own brand of fish sticks, called Johnny’s Super Sticks. Rocco D’Giovanni Santirocco attempts to gain a part on the culturally diverse children’s program Sesame Street, but is told by the show’s producer that he’s “too greasy-looking.” Opts for a recurring role as the elderly, female African-American neighbor Gladys (despite being a 26-year-old Caucasian male) on sitcom The Facts of Life instead. Timmy “Noggin” McGillicudy becomes a motivational speaker for the deaf.

March 1991
After a ten-year break from recording, Jackie Daniels appears as a backing vocalist on the successful "Voices That Care" single, released in support of US Gulf War troops.

October 1995
Rumors begin circulating that Filmshow have reunited and are writing and rehearsing new material for a second studio LP, and a spot on the “Monsters of Rock” tour, also featuring AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne. These later prove to be false, as Filmshow have actually reunited to pay their outrageously high child support debts.

April 1996
Filmshow announce the dates for their highly anticipated reunion tour with all five members. Original drummer Richard Spangler Jr. invited to perform as second percussionist/backup vocalist, but he opts instead to sue Daniels, Wilson, Thunder, Santirocco and McGillicudy for copyright infringement and owed royalties.

May 1996
As promotion for the upcoming concerts, Filmshow release one-off hip-hop/hard rock single "Rock Dat Ass." The wildly inventive song, which was inspired by the collaborative rock & rap Judgment Night soundtrack, is praised by stunned critics who cite it as the band’s best work. However, it’s virtually ignored by all but the most rabid Filmshow fans, as radio won’t touch the 8-minute track, which the band refuse to edit down.

June 1996
Tragedy strikes during the opening notes of "Rock ‘til We’re Blue" at the first show on the Filmshow reunion tour, as Johnny “Sticks” Wilson is instantly killed when his amplifier falls into a prop tub filled with water and electric eels onstage. The band try to continue the show, ignoring his smoking corpse at the side of the stage, but the crowd riots and attacks the band, who flee into a helicopter. Elton John performs "Candle In The Wind (Goodbye Mr. Sticks)" at Wilson’s funeral the next week.

January 1997
Timmy “Noggin” McGillicudy attempts suicide by jumping into New York’s Hudson River, but instead breaks both legs on the Hudson’s impenetrable frozen surface. McGillicudy tells arriving EMTs that he has regained the will to live, but is tragically killed en route to the hospital when the ambulance he’s being transported in collides with a limobus full of screaming children from the Hamptons.

February 1997
Bored one afternoon, and not wanting to be outdone by McGillicudy’s unusual death, Stevie Thunder is decapitated by his neighbor’s dogs.

July 1997
Jackie Daniels and Rocco D’Giovanni Santirocco organize a benefit concert in memory of their fallen bandmates. During a heart-wrenching performance of “You Took (Your Love), Rock” with Jon Bon Jovi and Billy Corgan, both Daniels and Santirocco fall off the front of the stage and are crushed by unruly fans.

August 1997
An accidental fire at the Columbia Records main office and adjacent record plant results in the destruction of the original Filmshow master tapes and all subsequent pressings of the band’s back catalogue. Original copies of the band’s records had been universally recalled 16 years previously due to pressing errors, which featured Miles Davis compositions tacked onto the middle of every album. This results in the complete loss of all Filmshow recorded material, in addition to the surviving family members selling themselves on the street to afford food in the absence of royalty checks.

September 1997
Ex-drummer Richard Spangler Jr. attempts to abscond the name Filmshow, and re-record and perform the group’s hits on tour with hired hands, but he instead changes his name to Ben Affleck and begins acting.

October 1997
Spangler/Affleck stabbed by Matt Damon.

--

Phil's Super 2000 Mega Proto Blog!

Several years ago, my friends and I played in a rock band called Filmshow (there's still some audio of us out there; I'll leave that to you and your search skills if you're really curious). Speaking purely in terms of role assignment, I was pretty much the pre-1966 George Harrison of the group, if I may offer so bold a comparison (screw it, I just did).

As a slightly hyperactive "lead" guitarist without much of a lyrical outlet, I appointed myself ghostwriter for most of our press releases, emails, and website news entries. For example: one phrase I coined for our 1999 bio declared that Filmshow's music was "cinematic, layered, sugar-free pop." As Bill Simmons would say, let's just move on.

I probably could have, or maybe should have, put down my guitar and managed Filmshow. I'd have saved everyone in the band a lot of headaches; then again, I would have lost out on some valuable creative lessons along the way, so it was worth it in the end. (Whoa, did I just get to the feel-good ending before even kicking into the main point of this post? Hey man...slow down.)

Reposted below are the written contents of my personal page from our website (and here's the Internet Archive link to the original page). I've reordered the entries chronologically to make for easier reading, and I've kept the formatting intact for your amusement (more on that in a moment).

Looking back, it's pretty clear that this was some kind of proto-blog. I think blogs were not quite mainstream yet; Blogger was in its infancy, but I hadn't yet clued into it. Myspace didn't exist. There was no Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr for communicating with an audience. No SoundCloud, iTunes, or TuneCore with which to release your tracks. Bandcamp wasn't a music site, it was a reference to American Pie. Nope, you just had a website. That's it.

As you read through the below entries, you'll get a glimpse of the younger me; cocky, clever, waxing pseudo-intellectual, stumbling into a few salient points along the way, but mostly showing off my grasp of pop culture (and Jesus, have I really been listening to The Fall this long?). Happily, I can say I also wrote this stuff for the sheer fun of it, as a way to personalize the band, and frankly, to give people something to read on our kinda empty site. In that respect, it works.

Now, about all that lowercase type. It was influenced primarily by Radiohead; namely, guitarist Ed O'Brien's 1999-2000 recording diary and singer Thom Yorke's dumping ground of lyrics and prose, from a slightly earlier version of their official site. Pretty fucking meta and nerdy.

Then again, I suppose that's what you do when you're twenty-two.

-----------------------------------------------

12 april 2000
i was recently interviewed for some sort of ragtag publication and it dawned on me: what is the point of an interview? why put someone in the spotlight, deserving or otherwise, just for the sake of a one-way conversation? all the subtle nuances of speech, gesture, mannerism are completely lost in the transfer from physical presence to black ink. this is where the phrase "out of context" must come from then. we're currently assembling our new web site as we prepare to play our first live dates of the new year. these of course will be the first shows since we changed our name to filmshow. to be honest, just a few short months ago we didn't even think the band would still exist at this point. not because of a lack of initiative or interest in writing/recording/playing etc., but simply because certain band members had left the group or were on their way out. which i suppose leads us to the name change. it's more than just the logistics of finding a more suitable moniker or avoiding confusion with other similarly-named acts. changing the name was, on a small scale, a way to start fresh again with the same five people, odd as it may sound. so for the record, we're still the same band, we still play the same songs (plus some more new ones) and we're still completely incompatible on any bill with any other band we can think of. how's that for a quote?

book: high fidelity/nick hornby
record: this nation's saving grace/the fall
film: mr. smith goes to washington/frank capra

--------------------------------

8 august 2000
stinkin thinkin......we're in the middle of writing new material right now. reread my previous comments for fun. anyway, hang on - - we should have the site fixed up this month and we'll be playing out again before too long. that said, the rest of our dates will likely be out of the area. we're looking at the following cities/locales at the moment: albany / syracuse / ithaca / buffalo / nyc / pittsburgh / columbus / cleveland / chicago / toronto. from there, we'll maybe play one rochester date, hopefully at christmas, which i really want to do. colored lights, free gifts and everything. if you're (we're) lucky, more press coverage and studio time will be in the cards soon. from the birth of existence to the lazy shits on suburban couches, we find filmshow. love, phil.

book: let it blurt: the life and times of lester bangs/jim derogatis
record: fear of a black planet/public enemy
film: being john malkovich/spike jonze

--------------------------------

28 november 2000
we've been killing some time while preparing to enter the studio...a bit too much time, but i digress. in less than two weeks, this ramshackle five-piece will be back in a proper studio again (first time in nearly two years). we'll see how things go...we're either going to get fairly straightforward renditions of two songs, peppered with our own studio-bred touches, or another squeaky pop mess. in the meantime, everybody's been keeping busy...with what, i have no idea. i've been setting up a little pseudo-studio in my living room (dubbed by i. maginnis as "phil's radio shack") and in between FINALLY getting back to multi-tracking some new songs, i started a remix of the elusive "deathbed resurrection" (written by paul o'neill aka litmus, and our own m. t. dailor). bollocks to guitars...

book: this side of paradise/f. scott fitzgerald
record: remixes 10+3/various artists, warp records (available on matador in the US)
film: when robots attack/carl diehl

--------------------------------

19 january 2001
moment from the filmshow timeline: two years ago this evening, we did a live set on a radio show called "rochester sessions." the program director wouldn't bail out a few members of the band when we were given parking tickets, despite the fact that the place we were specifically instructed to park (by this clown) was apparently off-limits...well, at least i wrangled my way out. on another note, the studio has been a drawn-out, but nonetheless good experience...for most of us at least. rough mixes of the recording are showing that we went in the right direction with these songs in the studio, and i personally have had an amazing time working with the band and nic. despite my well-documented comfort with live performance, i'm just more excited to be in a studio, tearing a song apart and finding specific sounds for each instrument. that being said, what is holding things up is vocals...or the lack thereof due to fluctuating illnesses (and fluctuating attention spans) that matthew keeps falling prey to. morale is not really the issue...it's really just motivation. we promise we'll have a finished recording sometime soon. although it seems like we've been in there for ages, none of these sessions has been a full day, and we've often worked odd hours. we're not in stone roses territory...yet.

book: coming of age/studs terkel
record: selected ambient works, volume II/aphex twin
film: o brother, where art thou?/coen brothers

--------------------------------

2 april 2001
mentally recovering from a difficult march (and a not-so-difficult birthday)...in like a lion, out like a liar. turning back again to the "filmshow" brand name, it would appear that once again i am going to completely contradict matthew and say that the band doesn't exist - well, not as matthewbrianjoejayandphil - for the time being. yes, the band turned into a studio project, and yes, i loved that...so much so that i got back to work on my demos, which range from wall-of-sound histrionics to synth-based neuro pop. i'm also currently producing a five-song demo for an as-yet-unnamed (and unharmed) band whose songs sound like a mixture of gomez, jeff buckley, and the unbelievable truth. joe is doing some session work on that recording too. that said, although matthew and i may be writing different things within these digital pages, we're thinking very similarly. i don't know what filmshow is going to emerge as, or if it will collapse, but for now matthew and joe and i will likely pool a few songs together and maybe just continue some soundtrack-ish things we've fooled with individually. a recorded release? i doubt it. something new, up on the website? more likely.

Marvin Gaye
2 april 1939 - 1 april 1984

Sir Alec Guinness
2 april 1914 - 5 august 2000

book: the sun also rises/ernest hemingway (15 months to finish...snooze)
record: modern life is rubbish/blur (an old favorite)
film: small time crooks/woody allen

John Lackey, TMZ, and the Ease of Cognitive Dissonance

Allow me to demonstrate that it's possible to have two seemingly opposing thoughts in your head at the same time, both of which make sense:

1) TMZ and other tabloid media are the scum of the earth for invading people's privacy;

2) John Lackey is a fucking coward for divorcing his wife while she battles breast cancer.

See how easy that was?

We're Not Scared, We're Outta Here.

R.E.M. announced today that they've broken up after 31 years.

When you're a moody, volatile 14-year-old kid who listens mainly to smart-ass punk rock and nihilistic rap, you're lucky when you discover music that offers warmth, optimism, and mystery. That's what R.E.M.'s best songs gave me.

And it helped, a lot. R.I.P. R.E.M.

Fake Morrissey Song Titles Are The Only Reason I Continue To Exist

Last week, I was cleaning out my email inbox when I noticed a long-forgotten folder: "Morrissey Takes." [1.]

Uh oh.

Let me take you back to the beginning. In January 2006, Stereogum.com posted the tracklist for the then-forthcoming Morrissey album Years of Refusal, and invited readers to comment with their own fake Morrissey song titles.

Morrissey, as many music fans know, has a singular and memorable way of naming his songs, whether as the singer with The Smiths ("Barbarism Begins at Home;" "Frankly, Mr. Shankly") or as a solo artist ("We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful;" "I Have Forgiven Jesus"). The longer you listen, the easier it becomes (in theory, at least) to parody the man's approach to titles; the fun is in skating the line between knowing references to his work, and absurd self-unaware exaggeration.

Being a fan of Morrissey, The Smiths, and terrible jokes, I sensed an opportunity. I had good fun contributing my own affectionate parodies to the Stereogum thread; you can find my postings under the alias "Will E. Maykit". [2.]

But somehow, that wasn't enough. I decided to get 4 of my Moz-loving friends involved over email, and...well...things got out of hand.

The following is a complete, one-month-long (!) exchange of fake Morrissey song titles, albums, and EPs (with a final email written 3 years later, acting as a coda for the entire thread). How deep did we get? My fake "Stay Handsome" song title comes directly from a Moz quote at a December 1983 performance in Derby, UK (a bootleg DVD of this show fell into my hands during the twilight hours of the pre-YouTube era. Don't ask.).

We even waded into an ugly part of the mythology of Morrissey -- tabloid accusations of racism, usually based on hearsay and assumption, regarding statements he allegedly made about non-Whites in Britain. "Evidence" was everything from his brandishing a Union Jack at a 1992 Finsbury Park concert (the UK music press completely changed their tune a few years later, when they accepted and even championed the Spice Girls and Oasis doing nearly the same thing), to song titles like this. We pretty much said to ourselves, "What if Morrissey really were a racist asshole? What kind of lyrics would he write then?" Hence, some of the riskier titles you'll see below.

Again, I hope it's clear that we're fans of both Morrissey and The Smiths. I thought I should restate that before a more extreme gladioli-wielding member of the Moz faithful at True To You or Morrissey-Solo begins linking to this piece, with posts titled "The Blogger Who Must Be Killed" or "Stop Him If You Think You've Heard This One Before." (See? The parodies write themselves.)

A few things to consider before you dive into this rabbit hole:

1. Yes, this nonsense was written by gainfully employed grown men in their late 20s. No, we didn't have problems attracting women.
2. Yes, this really went on for an entire month. No, we were not recluses.
3. Yes, we may have had brain damage. No, we may have had brain damage.

So, thanks Brian, George, Ian, and Kevin, for playing along, making me laugh, and being such clever swine. A few footnotes before we proceed, and then we're off:

---
FOOTNOTES:

[1.] Incidentally, "takes," in this context, is a term that's frequently associated with The Jim Rome Show. For newcomers: it's a syndicated Los Angeles-based sports radio talk show, where the aforementioned host delivers a variety of thoughts and observations, or "takes," often in a sarcastic manner, and frequently peppered with comedic call-backs and references.

[2.] Will E. Maykit is a misspelled reference to a joke I read as a kid in the Think and Grin section of Boys' Life, a magazine for Boy Scouts. The joke went something like: "A Book Never Written: Race To The Outhouse, by Will E. Makit and Betty Wont." Am I getting obscure enough yet?

---

BEGIN THREAD

---

From: Phil Maves
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2006 at 1:31 PM
Subject: Fake Morrissey Song Titles Are The Only Reason I Continue To Exist
To: Brian Gebhardt, Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, George Ford

Stereogum.com posted the tracklisting to the forthcoming Morrissey album this week, and urged readers to post their own fake Moz song titles. I posted a few, and with additions, here are my Fake Morrissey Song Titles. I was going for authenticity, stupidity and/or general over-the-topness.

Feel free to add your own! It's fun! (Helpful hint: mix it up between overly long titles, vague puns, alliteration, conversational phrases and extreme melodrama.) At the end, we'll vote for our favorites and maybe write a fake Moz tune!

-Laughter is One Letter From Slaughter (And Love Is A World Away)
-My Teachers Were My Torture
-Dying In A Lorry Would Be Better Than Working
-Foreman Grilled
-That Was Your Very Last Joke At My Expense
-Lovable Looters
-Dubya's Persian Abattoir
-I Know All The Greatest Obscure Footballers
-We're Waiting For Your Answer, Tony
-At Last The Old Shopkeepers Will Have Their Revenge
-I'm Not Sure I Like Your Face, Ramona
-Newsreader In Peril
-Andy, Johnny, and Mike, You Owe Me A Career

PCM

--------------

From: Brian Gebhardt
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2006 at 2:30 PM
Subject: Re: Fake Morrissey Song Titles Are The Only Reason I Continue To Exist
To: Phil Maves, Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, George Ford

So, actually, Morrissey has TWO new albums coming out. Here's the tracklisting for his other new album Bastard and Burden:

01. Derelict In Love
02. Leave Me Alone You Bore Me to Death
03. Father Drove A Lorry
04. Venus of the Disco
05. Albatross In Flames
06. Venetian Holiday Gone Wrong
07. Patience Is A Virtue That I Lost Long Ago
08. I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight
09. Trapped In A Lift With You Is Heaven And Hell
10. Neighborhood Full Of Thieves
11. Who Will Save Me From Myself
12. Busy Signal From God

--------------

From: George Ford
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2006 at 3:13 PM
Subject: Re: Fake Morrissey Song Titles Are The Only Reason I Continue To Exist
To: Brian Gebhardt, Phil Maves, Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes
Cc: Liz

Brian, I think someone is pulling your chain, because I have it on good authority that this is the real track list:
-George

01. Your Linoleum Floors Are Killing Me
02. Filthy Bangladeshi Grocer
03. Mother Incest
04. All Blokes From North Leeds Are Bastards
05. We Love It When the Napalm Falls Upon Our Enemies
06. Auntie, Won't You Knit Me a Sweater (In a Lorry That's on Fire)?
07. Wanker on Rollerskates
08. Bank-Bencher in Short Pants
09. Calamity Is a Word I Know Well, and So Is the Word Injustice, Which Is Also a Word That I Know Well, and So Is Visigoth, Too
10. Gluesniffer

--------------

From: Phil Maves
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2006 at 4:30 PM
Subject: Re: Fake Morrissey Song Titles Are The Only Reason I Continue To Exist
To: George Ford
Cc: Brian Gebhardt, Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, Liz

Not so fast, you clever swine. I have it on good authority that Morrissey is also releasing a new EP to promote the tour that follows the album. Tracklist here:

1. How Many More Times Must You Smash My Heart In?
2. James Dean's Groin
3. If I Tell You, Then Surely I Shall Have To Kill You, Judy
4. The Morose Know The Most (Avalanches Remix)

PCM

--------------

From: Phil Maves
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2006 at 4:46 PM
Subject: Re: Fake Morrissey Song Titles Are The Only Reason I Continue To Exist
To: George Ford
Cc: Brian Gebhardt, Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, Liz

And let's not forget the double A-side single he's releasing for Christmas:

A. Bologna Is Vile
AA. Muslim Mullets

PCM

--------------

From: Kevin Dedes
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2006 at 6:15 PM
Subject: Re: Fake Morrissey Song Titles Are The Only Reason I Continue To Exist
To: Phil Maves
Cc: George Ford, Brian Gebhardt, Ian Maginnis, Liz

This is what I found when I Google searched his new album. I found it on this link www.morriseyishugeineasttimor.com.

1. Kevin's Nose Or His Nimble Brow?
2. You've Got Michael Keaton And Tina Yothers On Your Side, I'll Have Gene Wilder On Mine
3. A Nail In The Coffin Is Too Much For Seth
4. Frankie Cocktail
5. Ubiquitous Ursula's Uvula
6. Her Dresser's A Liar
7. Using Pencils Is Very Much Akin To Digging Up Your Grandmother's Body And Skull-Fucking Her While Laughing And Eating Sheperd's Pie (In The Back Of A Lorry)
8. Pure Cane Sugar
[Ed. note: Where's #9?]
10. 'Twas Nothing, D'Artagnan
11. Gosh, I'm a Mite Peckish
12. Sincerely, Mrs. Grierly
13. Thither Go I
14. Salome Salami

--------------

From: George Ford
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2006 at 6:40 PM
Subject: Re: Fake Morrissey Song Titles Are The Only Reason I Continue To Exist
To: Phil Maves
Cc: Brian Gebhardt, Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, Liz

My roommate Liz uncovered this bootleg, which I think was from the sessions to his unreleased album "I've Got a Match: The Queen's Bum, Disraeli's Face." Take it away, Liz:

1. All I Ever Learned from You Was How to Boil an Egg
2. Eggs Are Vile
3. To Be Back in Mummy's Tummy
4. Samson Has Gone Haywire (and Now He's on the Loose)
5. You Must Have Been a Beautiful Ovum, 'Cause Fetus, Look at You Now
6. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, Johnny's Down the Well
7. Eunuch in a Tunic
8. If I Were a Savion Glover, I Would Soft-Shoe on Your Face
9. Tell Me Truly, Julie, Were You Always Such a Whore?
10. Some Albums Sell Better than Others
11. Don't Touch Me, Mrs. Happenstance, Or I Will Kill You Dead

--------------

From: Ian Maginnis
Date: Sun, Jan 8, 2006 at 4:26 PM
Subject: Morrissey Album
To: Brian Gebhardt, Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, George Ford

Where are you guys getting your info from? I've got it on good authority (The Buffalo News' Gusto section) that Morrissey's New CD has the following titles...

1. Polari In A Lorry
2. Crimean Pornography Made For A Messy Boxing Day
3. Pakistanis Are Alive and Well in Los Angeles, and I've Found They're Called Mexicans
4. Pissing on Urinal Cakes is Murder
5. The Year NME Stopped Sending Me A Christmas Card
6. Last Night I Dreamt My Bank Statement Contained More Than Three Digits
7. Demanding Cats Can Be Spayed Only If The Price is Right
8. Sucking My Thumb Was the Heroin of My Youth
9. The Only Thing the Workers Have to Lose Is Their Chains! (An Ode to El Lissitzky)
10. The Flaming Hips (Remix by Ladytron)
11. (Hidden Track) The Whisper Song (Ying Yang Twins Cover)

The album drops this summer!!!!

Ian

--------------

From: Phil Maves
Date: Mon, Jan 9, 2006 at 11:45 AM
Subject: Scraping The Barrel for Morrissey Tracks
To: Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, Brian Gebhardt, George Ford

Bangers and Mash Your Face In: The Unreleased Morrissey Sessions

1. Stay Handsome
2. The Olde Grey Stool Sample
3. It's All Over For Dearest Uncle Ben & Kindly Aunt Jemima
4. The Wrestler's Wig
5. Please Please Please Let Me Get A New TiVo
6. Use of Unnecessary Violence Against Dan Aykroyd Has Been Approved
7. Gluesniffer (extended version)
8. Take Me In Your Lorry, Laurie
9. Your Lorry Just Bores Me
10. 50 Ways To Leave Your Lorry
11. The Lorry Song (instrumental)
12. We May As Well Be Phoning It In
13. The Boy With The Lint In His Pocket
14. It Was Miss Scarlet In The Library WIth The Lead Pipe
15. Kisses From A Leper
16. Paris Hilton Is Like A Boot Stamping On A Human Face Forever
17. David Bowie's New Album Is Murder
18. Yes, I'd Like Three Large Orders of BBQ Chicken Wings, A Steak Sandwich, Two Turkey Pot Pies, and A Dozen Burgers, And While You're At, Keep The Change, Wally. (spoken word)
19. Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch (So Bitchy)
20. Who Gives A Shit?

--------------

From: Kevin Dedes
Date: Mon, Jan 9, 2006 at 5:54 PM
Subject: Re: Scraping The Barrel for Morrissey Tracks
To: George Ford
Cc: Phil Maves, Ian Maginnis, Brian Gebhardt

Just heard about this one...

1. It was O! So Strange When Those Aliens Recalibrated My Cerebral Reticulator (From A Space Lorry) Whilst Swimming With Cetaceans In The Caribbean, Leslie.

--------------

From: Ian Maginnis
Date: Mon, Jan 9, 2006 at 1:46 PM
Subject: You're Yanking My Chain?!?
To: Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, Brian Gebhardt, George Ford

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's premier website, stonewashedchessking.com, is reporting that a Laserdisc only release is in store for Morrissey fans found in all countries that were once a Soviet Socialist Republic. Its content is a rare documentary filmed in late 2004 in which Moz is demoing an EP titled "Don't Throw Flowers, Just Send Money."

Tracklisting

1. Overdraughting on the First of the Month
2. Doctor, Doctor, I've Had A Recurring Dream In Which R. Kelly Is Urinating on My Soul
3. Johnny Marr Caught Syphilis, And Whilst Caring For Him I Developed Florence Nightingale Syndrome
4. A Concert for Bangladeath
5. Viagra For the Asexual Reproducer
6. What Do You Mean Contempt of Court?

That's all I've got for now...any scraps left?

Ian M

--------------

From: Phil Maves
Date: Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 2:25 PM
Subject: Re: You're Yanking My Chain?!?
To: Ian Maginnis
Cc: Kevin Dedes, Brian Gebhardt, George Ford

According to Taiwanese pop culture blog WantonWonton.com, there's a special 78 RPM record included with the Laserdisc. The bonus 10'', made of authentic 1930's heavy shellac, and consisting of poetry readings, studio chatter and Morrissey's band tuning their guitars, features:

1. Loafpincher
2. Luke Perry Fan Club
3. Wanker In a Tanker
4. Stuck In A Tanning Booth You Can't Get Out Of (feat. Bono)
5. Oh Blimey, We're Out of Non-Dairy Creamer

--------------

From: Kevin Dedes
Date: Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: You're Yanking My Chain?!?
To: Ian Maginnis
Cc: Brian Gebhardt, George Ford

According to a gay-philanthropist friend of mine who lives in SoHo, the first single to be released from the album is "Martini In A Bikini, Sweetie" He said it was fabulous.

-Kevin

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From: Brian Gebhardt
Date: Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 2:15 PM
Subject: Re: You're Yanking My Chain?!?
To: Phil Maves, Ian Maginnis
Cc: Kevin Dedes, Brian Gebhardt, George Ford

This is getting ridiculous. Apologies for any repeated themes...

From God's Brain to the Tip of My Calligraphic Pen
When You Spat In My Afternoon Tea
This Carpeting Must Go
Now My Heart Is Full, Like a Lorry Full of Mexicans
On Musical Crimes Perpetrated by J. Marr and Other Various Atrocities
Ballad of Frank the Tank
Reel Around the Garden Gnome
Say What You Will, But I Still Like Paisley
New Orleans, I've Cried for You
The Ventura Freeway at Rush Hour Can Eat a Big Fat Dick

--------------

From: Phil Maves
Date: Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 6:08 PM
Subject: Re: You're Yanking My Chain?!?
To: Brian Gebhardt
Cc: Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, George Ford

NASA has announced that Morrissey has recorded exclusive tracks for an unmanned Mars landing mission. The songs will be played one time only via loudspeaker across the Martian surface upon the craft's touchdown in 2009. The music will not be commercially available, and will be left behind on Mars upon completion of the mission in order to torture Morrissey fans & collectors.

Tracks are as follows:

1. Mars Is a Four Letter Word
2. I Have Forgiven Mark Hamill
3. In Space, No One Can Hear You Spill Your Latte
4. NASA = Need Another Successful Album

--------------

From: Ian Maginnis
Date: Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: You're Yanking My Chain?!?
To: Phil Maves

Phil,

I can't think of anymore fake tracks, but this set for the Mars Landing has made me spit my coffee all over my computer screen.

LMAO-ROF

--------------

From: George Ford
Date: Fri, Jan 27, 2006 at 8:20 AM
Subject: Re: You're Yanking My Chain?!?
To: Phil Maves, Brian Gebhardt
Cc: Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, Liz

This rare 5-song EP was produced specifically for a scheduled Moz appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2003. Sadly for fans of Oprah and the melancholy pop star, the appearance was abruptly canceled -- word had barely reached only a few of the most in-the-know fans -- after a bitter dispute between Morrissey and Oprah protege Dr. Phil.

Details are hazy, but it seems the argument stemmed from Moz's objection to a "surprise" segment planned for the show. According to unnamed sources at Harpo, Johnny Marr was to walk out onstage mid-show with Dr. Phil, who would then try to counsel a reconciliation between the former bandmates.

It isn't known how Morrissey found out about the planned segment, but when he did, according the same source, he "went apeshit. But a really weird, fruity kind of apeshit. He was yelling and screaming, but most of it was in Latin. Then he just stormed out of there."

Morrissey was hastily replaced by substitute guest Craig T. Nelson.

1. Oprah Knows I'm Miserable Now
2. I Have Forgiven Your Studio Audience
3. Stop Me if Your Book Club Has Read This One Before
4. Dial-A-Lifestyle-Makeover
5. Thunderthighs

-George

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From: Phil Maves
Date: Fri, Jan 27, 2006 at 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: You're Yanking My Chain?!?
To: George Ford
Cc: Brian Gebhardt, Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes, Liz

AP Wire Services reports that former Smiths frontman and mope-rock icon Morrissey has died in Rome. Born Steven Patrick Morrissey, the Irish-bred, British-born 46-year-old singer had just completed work on another album, Ringleader of The Tormentors, due out in April. Morrissey is survived by his mother, father, sister and most assuredly, a cult of devoted fans around the world. He will be buried in the Oscar Wilde wing of Manchester, England's Ancoats Cemetery. His forthcoming tombstone reads as follows:

Steven Patrick Morrissey
22.5.1959 - 26.1.2006
Now My Grave Is Full

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From: Phil Maves
Date: Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Subject: Morrissey! (again)
To: George Ford, Brian Gebhardt, Ian Maginnis, Kevin Dedes

Wait until you read the song titles on Morrissey's new album, "Years of Refusal" - they sound like the ones we made up!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_Refusal

...and the CD/DVD bonus track is called...wait for it..."Wrestle with Russell."

(HUGE LOL!!!)

I think he really missed an opportunity on the original tunes he and I recently wrote together, such as:

"Sophisticated Bandits"
"Inebriated In Ibiza"
"Get Away From Me, Rodney"
"Nocturnal Omissions"
"Donna's Done it Again, Gerald"
"Shipwrecked on the Cape of Good Hope"

Phil

--------------
END

Rhymes with Chill Waves

Welcome to PhilMaves.com. Wow, what a clever name.

Despite the eponymous title, I'm not going to spend much time writing about my life, because frankly, any (and every) jackass over the last decade has done exactly that.

Instead, I'm going to look outward at music, sports, travel, pop culture, and my weird friends (don't worry, they're ok with it...so far). I will do my best to get out of the way, and let each piece do the talking. If we're lucky, something resembling entertainment may begin to take shape.

And hopefully, it won't end up looking and sounding like this (you may have to refresh once).

See you on the other side,
Phil