Have you ever had one of those songs that gets stuck in your head for days…weeks…years? Sure you have. These are the songs that always make the cut. The songs on repeat. We all have them. I have a ton. Welcome back to Endless Loop.
“Those Were the Days” by Mary Hopkin
Thanksgiving is just a few days away, and I’m sure we’re all very busy, so let’s just get to the point.
My very dear, fellow Joupers:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days – perhaps tonight. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when Thanksgiving should be no more.
Tis hard to see the mighty prancing of reindeer, trampling the turkeys and pilgrim hats beneath their merciless feet. No cranberry or pumpkin to administer relief in that hour the most sad in the history of holiday cheer. O the holiday cheer. O the horrors premature twinkling lights and Black Friday sales. Truly it may be considered the most cruel and awful scourge which can befall the period between Halloween and Christmas. Heaven grant there may be an end soon.
Have you ever had one of those songs that gets stuck in your head for days…weeks…years? Sure you have. These are the songs that always make the cut. The songs on repeat. We all have them. I have a ton. Welcome back to Endless Loop.
“Romneydale” by Weyes Blood
This article is dedicated to former Deerhunter bassist Joshua Fauver, who tragically passed away this past Sunday. Thank you for helping to shape a sound that shaped my music tastes as a whole.
Have you ever had one of those songs that gets stuck in your head for days…weeks…years? Sure you have. These are the songs that always make the cut. The songs on repeat. We all have them. I have a ton. Welcome back to Endless Loop.
“Fire Woman” by The Cult
There are so many bands and artists out there that I will never get the chance to see perform live due to death or circumstance or whatever. I’ve made my peace with that, but there are an equal amount of bands and artists out there right now that, for whatever reason, I just haven’t seen perform either. And it’s a damn shame that one of those bands is The Cult.
The Cabaret Metro in Wrigleyville neighborhood of Chicago (well known as just the Metro now) has hosted a great number of stellar acts since 1982. Some of which I have witnessed, and most of them were with our group “The Fish Guys.” Brown and Crosse and Sonny frequented multiple times with me to see a number of acts like Jon Spencer’s Blues Explosion, The Jesus Lizard and The Reverend Horton Heat. The Metro holds about 1100 people. So it’s a larger venue in the city but by no means as massive as say the Aragon Ballroom. And it can get loud…really loud. I remember that from JSBX show…just piercing but somehow cathartic.
That was not the case this past Wednesday when the four of us took in the reincarnation of the MC5 headed by guitarist Wayne Kramer under the guise of the MC50. While it rocked for certain, the sound in the Metro that evening was well, perfect.
Krammer is one of two original members of the MC5 still kicking and has toured as the MC5 in various lineups for good part of the past 15 years. The original MC5 were together until 1973 releasing 3 major label LPs. Then a 20 year hiatus and a reformation of the group in 1993 for a tribute to late singer Rob Tyner. In 2003 Kramer took to the road again and gigged with his two other original band mates Michael Davis on bass and Dennis Thompson on drums. They gigged with supporting members until 2012. This past year Kramer recruited Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) on second guitar, Billy Gould (Faith No More) on bass, Brendan Canty (Fugazi) on drums and front man extraordinaire Mark Durant (Zen Guerilla) to celebrate 50 years of Kicking out the Jams.
As much as labels on art frustrate me they do indeed serve a purpose. One could say that a band sounds like melting plastic and I would know exactly what it means but to most folks it is not specific enough. Bands from the 1980s have labels like Synth, New Wave, Post Punk and Neo something or another and such labels never much appealed to me as a young Midwestern boy. The stuff that I grew up knowing as New Wave usually squeaked from my sister’s pink Panasonic jam box. My sister, three years my elder was into bands like Depeche Mode, New Order and Duran Duran. My bedroom was adjacent to hers but my sound system was much louder and I was usually blasting The Stones, AC/DC or Led Zeppelin. I was a rock- head and to me if it was not heavy music it was never going to penetrate my soul.
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