The Post-Rockist

[Editor’s note: We’ll be at Pitchfork this weekend, but since we’re going to miss Friday, we wanted to give Public Enemy some much needed preemptive lovin’.]

Public Enemy - “Bring the Noise”
(from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back)

When I first heard It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, I thought it sounded outdated and a little too old school for my tastes. After all, it had been a little over a decade since it was released, so it wasn’t surprising that it didn’t seem incredibly relevant to me at the time. The reason I picked it up was because it was one of those albums that consistently made all the Best Albums of All Time lists, in everything from The Source to Time magazine. From what I could tell, its importance and cultural impact weren’t up for debate and it was a classic in every sense of the word. Being a curious music fan with limited knowledge and taste, I wanted to understand what all the fuss was about and see if it could live up to the hype. So after hearing it a few times, I was a little disappointed that it hadn’t changed my life.

That would come later.

It Takes a Nation sat on my shelf for a couple years before I listened to it again. It had become one of those albums in my collection that I set aside before fully absorbing, as I waited until I was in the right mood for it. After all, you can’t force music to reach you when you aren’t ready for it. Like wine, music can require a bit of patience, but oftentimes it’s well worth the wait. So that year I decided I was going to listen to as much hip hop as possible, since it was a genre I enjoyed, but didn’t know a whole lot about. Being a middle class white kid from a small town in Michigan, the only hip hop I was exposed to growing up was whatever I saw on MTV in the nineties. As I was making my way through classics I had missed like Raising Hell, Paid In Full and Three Feet High and Rising, I figured it was time to give Public Enemy another try.

So I put It Takes a Nation back on my stereo and it felt like I just got punched in the face. I was immediately struck just by the sound of it. I’d never heard production as dense as this before. It felt like all my senses were being bombarded at once. How could I have ignored this before, I mean physically? There were samples colliding all over the place from police sirens to James Brown horns and beats to Malcolm X speeches to guitars from Slayer and David Bowie. Plus they were even sampling themselves! It was music that forced you to pay attention to it since there’s so much going on and it’s never pretty. Production team The Bomb Squad wasn’t interested in creating music that was even remotely pleasing to the ears. They wanted to hit you over the head repeatedly and without mercy. Their production assault mixed with DJ Terminator X’s up front scratching technique created a sound that was totally relentless. (Continued)

Lately, I’ve been telling pretty much anyone who’ll listen that the Beach Boys’ 1971 album Surf’s Up is, without a doubt, the most terrific pop album I’ve heard all year. Maybe I’m overcompensating because I’m 37 years late to the party, so let me explain why I’m bringing it up now: it’s summertime, I’ve been on vacation (hence the lack of updatage from yours truly), and I’ve been on a huge Beach Boys kick. Ample enough reason for me.

“Don’t Go Near the Water” is the opening track on Surf’s Up. It’s an unexpectedly political and (perhaps?) unintentionally goofy song, but I think it’s those odd quirks that make it such a memorable and catchy tune. And as much as everyone loves to hate Mike Love, it’s songs like this that make me tip my hat in his favor.

The below video clip is from YouTube, so of course the audio isn’t great: the harmonies are condensed; the slinky, descending Moog bass riff on the chorus is muffled; and Al Jardine’s high notes aren’t quite as piercing as they are on the record. Even so, thanks to YouTube, you get to scope their wicked early ’70s garb: they look like a group of surly merchant marines on shore leave waiting to be picked up by the Mystery Machine to help investigate some spooks on the dock. Dig those beards!

“To be cool with the water is the message of this song.” Really, Mike? That’s soooo deep.

And in case you can’t get enough of Mike Love and his scraggly beard (I know I can’t), then you’re in for a real treat with cokemachineglow’s list of the Top 22 Pictures of Mike Love Looking Like a Douche. Behold:

I nearly choked on my tongue looking through this list. The photo of Love looking like a douche above looks like it was taken during the video shoot for 1969’s “Break Away” single. Everyone else in the band decided to go with white leisure suits, but not Mike Love. His attire of choice? Jesus robes. (Were Jesus robes his “thing” for a while circa 1969-71? Czech out the video of “Long Promised Road,” also from Surf’s Up. There, at 2:35, again with the Jesus robes! But seriously, though, do watch the video. Not only is Carl Wilson absolutely adorable, but I promise the song is better than any other song dealing with long roads released that decade.) (Continued)

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to run upon these two Thomas Dolby videos. My dad had the Thomas Dolby cassette tape (in Stereo!) when I was a kid and it was my favorite cassette after The Beach Boys’ Surfin’ Safari. I barely remember these videos from the early daze of MTV, but could they be any more innovative or cooler? Seriously, I wish I could go back to grad school to write a paper on the video for “Hyperactive.”

Here’s a breakdown of the estimated amount of times I’ve listened to “Hyperactive” in my life.

Age Birth to 4-years old: N/A
Age 5-6: probably 400 times
Age 7-29 years: maybe 1-2 times, if it was on the radio or playing as background
Today: 14, at the time of this posting

Some people light fireworks on the Fourth. Some BBQ. Some watch the History Channel to figure out why we’re celebrating this day in the first place.

I take 5 minutes out of my day to listen to Aimee Mann’s take on Independence Day. As you can probably guess, it’s kind of a sad take.

But it’s one of the best I’ve heard.

Aimee Mann - Fourth of July
from Whatever

The Shins - “Gone for Good”
(from Chutes Too Narrow)

As with all these sorts of things, I saw it coming, but it still came out of nowhere. It was like a basketball to the face; of course you see it coming, but you can’t move out of its path, and you don’t really believe it’s going to hit you until you hear it collide with your skull.

It wasn’t one of those “big” breakups. We’d only been together for a couple of months – enough time to get to know each other, but not enough time to understand the mechanics, which I think makes things worse – when you don’t know why things happen the way they do in a relationship, when you’re not sure what made those formidable bridges of expectation fall to bricks all around you.

Jens Lekman - “A Little Lost”

Appropriately for a post-rockist romance, we met at a Jens Lekman concert, where the starry disco lights, swelling ballads and the sweet Swedish crooner’s honey tones set just the right mood for a swoon. Then we found out that we knew each other already; I’d commissioned him to do an illustration for my magazine months ago, and we had exchanged a lot of pleasantly-mannered and modestly flirtatious emails. If every great love needs a great story to hold it together, this one, I thought, was clearly meant to be. How could an encounter so enchanted not lead to a legendary affair?

(Continued)

This video is absolutely fantastic on so many levels. But first, before you click ‘Play,’ let me give you a preview of the awesomeness you’re about to experience: the 1970 incarnation of the Flying Burrito Brothers (consisting of three ex-Byrds, one future Eagle, and “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow on pedal steel) prancing around on a boat, lip-synching “Older Guys” for some poorly scripted television program I’ve never heard of before.

Now, if you’re anything like me and your mix of 2008 summer jams consists mostly of 38-year-old country rock singles, then your heart’s already beating a little faster. But hold on to your wild horses, kiddos, because it only gets better. The obvious focal thrust of the video is Gram Parsons, hamming it up for the camera and displaying the sort of affectations you would expect from a man who was born to a wealthy Florida citrus magnate and grew up to spend too much time indulging in the company of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But the image that will forever etch itself into your mind is that of Bernie Leadon popping out of the hatch to sing back-up in all his unibrowed glory. Wow.

As a pre-MTV music video, the awkwardness of what to do in front of the camera is clearly evident. What do we do during the guitar solo? Hold your instruments close together and smile! Because if there’s anything more rock & roll than a boatful of foppish country dandies waving their hats about and exchanging boyish smirks, then I don’t want to see it.

Okay, enough of my yakking, just watch the clip. It’s a great song.

Bo Diddley - “Hey Bo Diddley”

Bo Diddley - “The Story of Bo Diddley”
(from His Best: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection)

The Diddley Daddy is dead, and it’s a sad scene over here at Post-Rockist HQ. I’m alone, disheveled in a dark room blasting Bo Diddley’s greatest hits, half choking back tears, half laughing my ass off at his brilliantly witty ditties (”I look like a farmer, but I’m a lover/You can’t judge a book by lookin’ at the cover.”). I’m a mess. More than any other early rock’n'roller, Bo Diddley was a true pioneer through and through. He not only regularly created his own guitars out of salvaged junkyard materials, some as small as a cigar box and some too big for one man to carry, he was also one of the first popular musicians to create his own home recording studios, and, to top it all off, this poor boy from Mississippi created his own damn rhythm — the “Bo Diddley beat,” a tense, wound-up, one-chord wonder that manages to build up excitement with each successive scratch. Just listen to “Hey Bo Diddley” — that crude, busking rumba beat with Diddley’s electric Gretsch skittering about while he mythologizes himself to the tune of “Old Macdonald.” It’s beyond incredible. His singles may not have met with as much chart success as his contemporaries Little Richard and Chuck Berry, but his impact on the world of rock’n'roll culture is too great to overstate. Look at it this way: Keith Richards stole his chops and Andre 3000 stole his style. Quite simply, the man is a legend. But he doesn’t need me to tell you that, Bo’s been toasting and boasting himself since before anyone put a microphone in front of his mouth. I’ll let him tell it:

I was born one night about 12 o’clock, ha ha ha
I come into this world playing a gold guitar
My poppa walk around stickin’ out his chest, hee hee
Aw Momma this boy, he gonna be a mess, ha ha ha ha ha
Yeah, uh huh
Oh, uh huh
Now, people came from miles around
Just to hear my little guitar sound
Now some of ‘em said I had what it takes
If I keep on practicin’ I’ll be famous one day, ha haa
Whoo, I’m a mess, I’m a killah dillah
Early in the middle of the night
A car drove up with four headlights, ha ha ha ha
Now a man stepped out with a loooong cigar
He said, ‘Sign this line I’m gonna make you a star’
I said, ‘Now what is it man? What’s in it for me?’
He said, ‘Just play your guitar, and wait and see’
Here I am, Wheeee!
The girls like me
They say I’m crazy
Say I’m nice
My first engagement was in Chicago
I played for some people I never seen before
It was good too
They liked it
Ha ha ha ha ha
Wheeee! Yeah!
Killah dillah

Bo Diddley, you will be missed. R.I.P.