Roger O Green

X is for X; yes, that’s the name of the band

“In 2003, X’s first two studio albums, Los Angeles and Wild Gift, were ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as being among the 500 greatest albums of all time.”

Hello there, ABC Wednesday people.

Sometimes I’ve introduced you to bands I’m surprised you don’t know (The Kinks, Fleetwood Mac). Sometimes, it is groups I doubt you know (the Roches). Today, I’m sharing a band I very much doubt you know. And when better to do so than on the most difficult letter of the round. The name of the band is X. Just the letter X. And yes, I have those first four albums, on vinyl, all of which were produced by The Doors’ keyboard player, Ray Manzarek.

From Wikipedia: “X is an American punk rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1977. Established among the first wave of American punk, the original members are vocalist Exene Cervenka, vocalist/bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom, and drummer DJ Bonebrake.” The family band connection: Exene and John were married from 1980 to 1985.

“The band released seven studio albums from 1980 to 1993. After a period of inactivity during the mid to late 1990s, X reunited in the early 2000s, and currently tours.”

“X achieved limited mainstream success but influenced various genres of music, including punk rock and folk-rock. In 2003, X’s first two studio albums, Los Angeles and Wild Gift, were ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as being among the 500 greatest albums of all time.”
Here is Los Angeles.

“1981’s Wild Gift, broadened the band’s profile when it was named “Record of the Year” by Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and Village Voice.
Here is Wild Gift.

My long-time friend Karen, who’s in the music business, once told me that John Doe was “like us.” By this, I believe she meant that he was not a pretentious jerk as some of the people she has worked with.

“X then signed to Elektra in 1982 to release Under the Big Black Sun, which marked a slight departure from their trademark sound. While still fast and loud, the album’s country leanings were evolving, and its raw punk sound was channeling raw guitar power chords. The album was heavily influenced by the death of Exene Cervenka’s elder sister Mirielle (Mary) in an automobile accident in 1980.”
Here is Under the Big Black Sun, which is Exene’s favorite album.

“1983 saw the release of the More Fun in the New World album. X slightly redefined their sound with this release, making it somewhat more polished, eclectic and radio-ready than in previous albums. With the sound moving away from punk rock, the band’s rockabilly influence became even more noticeable.”
Here is More Fun in the New World.

“A side project of some of the band members was Poor Little Critter on the Road in 1985, under the name The Knitters: X minus Zoom, plus Dave Alvin (of The Blasters) on guitar and Johnny Ray Bartel (of The Red Devils) on double bass.” Dave Alvin taught Exene how to play guitar, and was briefly in X.
LISTEN to Someone Like You – the Knitters.
Walkin’ Cane – the Knitters
And for good measure: LISTEN to I’m Shakin’ – The Blasters from their eponymous album I also own; in fact, I probably bought the LP for this song.

My collection of X ends here save for Shoot Out the Lights (LISTEN), a cut on a collection of Richard Thompson covers. Though I DO have one John Doe and two Exene solo CDs.

A couple more LISTENS:
Burning House of Love – X
Burning House of Love- Knitters (2005)

I’m going to guess that, of the four albums, most of you may find the last album more accessible, and the first less so. Or not.
***
Exene sells some of her memorabilia.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

Cheney and Iraq

Megan Kelly to Dick Cheney: ‘Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir.’

Charlie Rose’s PBS show was on one night a couple of weeks ago, and Thomas Friedman was on, talking about this climate change movie he was involved with; I taped to watch the next night. One sentence jumped out at me. In the places where Arab Spring seemed to have worked, notably Tunisia, it involved an understanding that there needed to be a sharing of power.

Then I started watching the NBC Nightly News, and the foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, was back in Baghdad, Iraq. He explained that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was able to progress so quickly because the central Iraq government of Nouri al-Maliki failed to foster shared governance among his Shiites with the Sunnis and the Kurds. As a result, the country of Iraq is, for all intents and purposes, dead and has been replaced by three successor states, former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden said.

It occurred to me that:
1. Friedman and Engel were saying the same thing: if you don’t play share the toys with each other, bad stuff will inevitably take place.
2. Maybe Joe Biden was right back in 2006 when he suggested essentially a trilateral government. It made sense to me at the time, but he was roundly criticized.

Given the usual predictable partisan rhetoric, I have been in shock of late:
Fox News’ Shep Smith Gives Iraq Hawks A History Lesson
Glenn Beck Admits “Liberals, You Were Right” On Iraq; so does Pat Robertson
*Andrew P. Napolitano’s A Libertarian View of the Iraq War is to stay out.

And maybe the biggest surprise:
FOX News’ Megan Kelly slams former Vice-President Dick Cheney:
“Quoting from Cheney’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, Kelly read, ‘Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,’ before adding, ‘Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir.’
She then proceeds to list some of his most blatant lies – [Weapons of Mass Destruction], liberator’s welcome, etc – before asking ‘what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?’”

In a rare consensus, Sunnis and Shiites tell Cheney to SHUT UP. Too bad that piece was satire.

Clearly, Cheney is hardly the only Iraq ‘expert’ who is always wrong about Iraq this century. The odd thing about Cheney, though, was that during and after the first Gulf War in the 1990s, he repeatedly said that invading Baghdad would create a quagmire. Despite the Mission Accomplished banner in May 2003, that’s what happened. And it was George W. Bush who signed the order for American troops to leave, not Barack Obama, after failing to get a different arrangement from the Iraqi government.

I do feel very sad for the American veterans of this war and their families. During the recent D-Day remembrances, those old soldiers got to go back to the places they liberated. The Iraq soldier who fought to win Tikrit, the military family whose son or daughter or spouse or parent died in Mosul must wonder about the value of their sacrifice. Unfortunately, a quote attributed to Herbert Hoover has long been true: “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.”

The roots of this conflict are very old, long before the clumsy partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, maybe going back to the origins of the Shiite-Sunni split.

The US reentry into Iraq is making me very nervous, but we’ll see how it plays out.

Now Trending: Ask Roger Anything

I have a squadron of trained monkeys, who, like the ones unleashed on typewriters of yore, might be creating Shakespeare, but more than likely…not.

You know, I no longer remember from whom I ~~stole~~appropriated the idea for Ask Roger Anything. Did it come from Jaquandor, who used to do his own iteration every February, but now also takes requests in August? I’m pretty sure Arthur the AmeriNZ swiped the idea from me. I KNOW SamuraiFrog did, and with my encouragement.

I mention this because, perhaps if you read these other bloggers, you might just think of the SAME questions to ask them and get two or three or four different answers. Economies of scale, and all that.

To remind y’all: you can ask me ANYTHING, and I will answer, reasonably soon, generally within thirty days. Last time out, I kept getting follow-ups, which, BTW, are fine, but it took a bit longer than I had anticipated.

Now, I will answer, to the best of my ability/memory, honestly, though if a little obfuscation creeps in, what I can I do? It’s not as though I write this thing every day; that would be crazy. Instead, I have a squadron of trained monkeys, who, like the ones unleashed on typewriters of yore, might be creating Shakespeare, but more than likely…not.

You can leave your comments below. If you prefer to remain anonymous, that’s OK; you should e-mail me at rogerogreen (AT) gmail (DOT) com, and note that you want to remain mysterious; otherwise, I’ll assume you want to be cited.

Ray Davies of the Kinks is 70

The Kinks Ultimate Collection showcased the songs I always associated with other bands: Dandy, which I own by Herman’s Hermits, and Stop Your Sobbing, covered by the Pretenders;

ALSO for ABC Wednesday, Round 15, D is for Davies

I loved the early Kinks hits, but I didn’t buy many singles, of anyone. After buying Muswell Hillbillies and the subsequent Everybody’s In Show Biz LPs, I STILL had no Kinks hits collection, and I just don’t know why, because there were plenty of them out there. Got a couple albums from the early 1980s (Give the People What They Want and State of Confusion), and Lost & Found, a live album from 1991.

It wasn’t until early in the 21st century when I finally got The Ultimate Collection. Not only did it have the hits I knew, but it also showcased the songs I always associated with other bands: Dandy, which I own by Herman’s Hermits, and Stop Your Sobbing, covered by the Pretenders; the Pretenders’ lead singer Chrissie Hynde was going out with the chief singer/songwriter of the Kinks, Ray Davies, for a time, and they had a daughter together.

He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame just last week.

Here’s my post about Ray Davies from five years ago. Listen to the first 75 minutes of Coverville 1034 for 19 Kinks covers, a couple featuring the birthday boy himself.

Favorite Kinks songs

The ones cited as MH were linked previously; the ones starred (*) are linked here.

25. Skin and Bones, from MH

24. Give the People What They Want, from Give the People What They Want (1981) – a kicking song about consumerism, and how the people get harder to please.

23. Holiday, from MH

22. Better Things from GtPWTW – an optimistic ending to an angry album.

21. (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman, from Low Budget (1979) – hey, I had to have the comic title on here, did I not?

20. Complicated Life, from MH

19. Where Have All the Good Times Gone, from The Kink Kontroversy (TKK) (1965)

18. Who’ll Be the Next In Line, b-side of Ev’rybody’s Gonna Be Happy single.

17. Oklahoma U.S.A., from MH

16. Don’t Forget to Dance, from State of Confusion (1983). I think this is quite the sweet song.

15. I’m Not Like Everybody Else, b-side of Sunny Afternoon single (1966). I didn’t know this song until I bought the greatest hits collection.

14. Destroyer from Give the People What They Want (1983). Story is sequel to Lola, and borrows from a couple more Kinks songs as well.

*13. Tired of Waiting for You’ From: Kinda Kinks (KK) (1965)

12. Apeman, from Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One (1970). There’s a song called The Monkey, by Dave Bartholomew, and in different ways, it seems to be the same message.

*11. ‘Till the End of the Day’ from TKK

10. Come Dancing, from SoC.

*9. Lola, from LVPatMPO

*8. Waterloo Sunset, from Something Else by the Kinks (1967)

7. Alcohol from MH

*6. Victoria, from Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969)

*5. Sunny Afternoon, from Face to Face (1966)

*4. You Really Got Me, from Kinks (1964)

*3. A Well Respected Man, single (1965)

*2. Celluloid Heroes, from Everybody’s in Show-Biz (1972)

*1. All Day and All of the Night, single (1964)

Will the Kinks re-form? Maybe.
***
Gerry Goffin died. He wrote a lot of songs you know.

Almost on the BBC

International code 44 and all that on my message machine.

I had written this blog post on March 28 about the Adagio, attributed to Albinoni, which also appeared in my Times Union blog the same day. On the latter, I received this comment on April 4 at 7:30 a.m.:

Dear Roger,
I’m making a programme for BBC Radio 4, Soul Music about Albinoni’s Adagio. This series looks at those pieces of music that never fail to move us.
I would love to know more about your choir mom.
Please would you be kind enough to email me with your number so we might have a chat.
With many thanks
Lucy

ALSO, I had written this blog post on April 2 about Marvin Gaye, which again appeared in that day’s TU, and generated THIS comment, also on April 4, at 9:02 a.m.:

Hello Roger, Great article. I’m trying to get in touch with you for a radio programme I making- could you drop me a line please and I’ll explain more.
Milly

I wrote to both of them, letting them know that they had both contacted me, and where the posts had first appeared. Milly wrote back: “Yes I work with Lucy- sorry to trouble you twice! Thanks for getting back to me.” I replied, “I’m not ‘bothered’, just surprised!”

Then I received a telephone call from Lucy on April 6. International code 44 and all that on my message machine. Unfortunately, I was not home. I wrote her back the next day, but never heard back, I gather for time/logistical reasons.

I was only slightly disappointed, but then I thought: “I was considered by the BBC. Twice!”

Moreover, both the granddaughter and the daughter-in-law of Arlene Mahigian, my late choir mom, were touched by the piece.

So it’s all good.