Christmas Music - Love It or Hate It?

I celebrate Christmas and there are a lot of things I love about the season. Since I'm a musician, you'd think music would be one of those beloved things - not so much. It doesn't help that the Christmas music starts pouring out of store speakers and radio stations as early as November 1 - about 8 weeks before the actual arrival of Christmas. The older I get, the more I can do without another pop singer's take on "Santa Claus is Coming To Town," "Baby It's Cold Outside," and the tedium of "The Little Drummer Boy." I'm also not a fan of more experimental takes on holiday music - but maybe you are. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we'll be closed, but we're open until 9 PM today (12/23/09) unless the weather goes foul. Here are some highly unusual Christmas CDs in our collection - of course, we have plenty of the standard issue variety as well. Happy holidays, whatever it is you celebrate.

• We Wish You a Metal Xmas and a Headbanging New Year - featuring Lemmy, Dave Grohl, Alice Cooper and Ronnie James Dio, just to name a few.
  
  
• Christmastime in Larryland - um, "Larry the Cable Guy," anybody? I assume this was funny at some point in recent history.
  
  
• A Looney Tunes Sing-a-Long Christmas - the lyrical stylings of Marvin the Martian, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzales and Pepe Le Pew make for a very diverse, multi-national holiday collection.
  
  
• A Colt 45 Christmas - by Afroman. Comes with a Parental Advisory Sticker. I'd advise this if Christmas makes you very, very angry.
  
  
• Mistletoe Jam - Christmas Jug Band. A full album of jug band Christmas tunes might actually make you long for Mariah Carey again.
  
  
• The American Song-Poem Christmas : Daddy, is Santa really six foot four? - The title alone is a real head-scratcher, but how about "songs" like "Rocking Disco Santa Claus" and "Santa Came On a Nuclear Missile."
  
  
• Finally, the puzzling The First Christmas for Baby: the Story of Christmas in Words and Song. Maybe I'm cynical, but can baby actually understand the words of the Christmas story?

If you get here and these gems are all taken, there's still time to browse the carts of Christmas music you'll find on the third floor. Happy holidays and don't bang your head too hard in 2010.

What Am I Listening to?

I have been listening to band called Muse. They've been around for a few years, but they are new to me. Their newest album is called The Resistance. They are alternative rock in the vein of Marilyn Manson, Radiohead, or System of a Down. You may have already heard of them, since they get a lot of radio airplay.

What is interesting to me is how I discovered them. My 16-year-old was listening to them and I listened long enough to say, "Hey that is really good, who is it?" So I got a couple of their CDs from the library and it is good. It makes me wonder if my dad ever liked any of the stuff I was listening to as a teen in the 80's. He loved his music, and I loved mine. I remember getting a lot of those, "How can you listen to that noise" comments when I blasted Metallica and Iron Maiden. But we probably found some common ground in the classics (Beatles, Stones, etc).

At home, now that I am listening to Muse, it is probably no longer cool. That's how it goes. Maybe I will tell him I got the CD from the library and I don't know how he can listen to that noise.

Unwrapping the Brit Box

My favorite monthly magazine is a British publication called MOJO. If you care about rock music in 2009, it's practically the only magazine worth reading. However, reading it as an American means donning your thinking cap, for one needs to frequently translate British slang (larky beano, anyone?) and rack one's brain remembering bands that were a blip on the US radar but huge in the U.K. Blur, Pulp, Suede - even Oasis didn't make much of a dent in the eardrums of American listeners.

If you feel, as I do, that some of that music might be worth exploring, check out The Brit Box: UK Indie, Shoegaze, And Brit-Pop Gems of the Last Millennium. Plenty of familiar tunes here to help you get situated: The Smith's ubiquitous ""How Soon is Now?", The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" and Echo/Bunnymen's "Lips Like Sugar" (their anti-U2, "We're so serious about our art" prose in the accompanying booklet now prompts quite a chuckle, IMHO). You may not recognize The Sundays and The La's, but you know their slightly flaky pop songs, "Here's Where The Story Ends" and "There She Goes."

Once you've waded into that warm, cozy pool, dive into deeper waters and try these tracks, which caught my attention:

• "Lorelei" - Cocteau Twins
• "Step On" - Happy Mondays (covered quite well by Def Leppard on their "Yeah!" album)
  
• "Stay Beautiful" - Manic Street Preachers
• "In A Room" - Dodgy
• "Something 4 the Weekend" - Super Furry Animals
• "Service" - Silver Sun
• "Kite" - Nick Heyward (remember him from Haircut 100?)
• "Sleeping In" - Menswear
• "Alright" - Supergrass
  

Overall, I was a little iffy about The Brit Box. I checked it out specifically to hear tracks by Spacemen 3/Spiritualized, and wow, was I underwhelmed by those. To be fair, this is billed as "BritPop" and pop it is indeed - very few tracks have the snap and crackle of rock music. Apparently I am too aggressive to make it as a shoegazer. The opening salvo in the souvenir booklet reads, "British pop music never recovered from The Beatles" and the collection supports that view, rather than refuting it. The booklet is nicely done although the bile directed at Kurt Cobain and U2, amongst others, tastes of sour grapes. Some of these songs sound disarmingly similar to the artists on the receiving end of the sneers. Still, if you feel like British music in the 1990s passed you by in a (ha ha) Blur, check out The Brit Box. You'll find it shelved with our oversized CD sets.

Man, I haven't heard them since 1985!

I can't believe they're still making music! A lot of times when I am looking through the new releases, I'll see that someone has a new album coming out, first one in ten years, and I say, "Wow, whatever happened to them?" And here they are, still rockin'. Hopefully the new stuff is as good as the old stuff. So here are a few bands that have come out with new CDs this year that I hadn't heard much from in years (now I feel old).

• The Black Crowes
  - Before the Frost
• Cheap Trick
  - The Latest
• Depeche Mode
  - Sounds of the Universe
• Lita Ford
  - Wicked Wonderland
• Foreigner
  - Can't Slow Down
• Ace Frehley (of Kiss)
  - Anomaly
• Gwar
  - Lust in Space
• Living Colour
  - The Chair in the Doorway
• New York Dolls
  - Cause I sez so
• Sonic Youth
  - The Eternal
• Spinal Tap
  - Back from the Dead
• George Thorogood & the Destroyers
  - The Dirty Dozen

ps, if you've been following one of the above band's every move for the past 20 years, please don't flame me. Instead let the rest of us know of which missed CDs are worth revisiting. And if there is anyone I am forgetting, please leave a comment.

Jazz. Try it. You might like it.

I'm the first to admit that jazz - true improvisational jazz, not smooth jazz, jazz-lite - can be an acquired taste. A bit like opera: you either get it or you don't. Real jazz can be confusing, alienating, challenging to eardrums that are used to rhyming lyrics, A-B-A-B arrangements, 4 chords and a hook. Sometimes you can tap your foot to jazz. Sometimes.

There are so many different flavors of jazz, however, and you're bound to find one that appeals to you. If I can offer a word of advice, I'd say that you need to experience jazz music in a live setting before you'll develop much of an interest in the recordings. Watching and listening to the creative interplay of jazz musicians is thrilling and once you appreciate it, you'll hear the recordings in a whole new light.

We have amazing local jazz talent in the Chicago area. One ensemble I would highly recommend is Wertico, a group of musicians centered around award-winning drummer Paul Wertico. Beyond Wertico's group projects, all of these musicians are worth seeking out for their own concerts and recordings as well. Look for names like John Moulder and - insert disclaimer here - my very good friends Brian Peters and Nick Bisesi.

Check out Wertico's events page and you'll find three opportunities to hear these extraordinary talents live this December. But if you're feeling brave enough to try this at home, check out Wertico's StereoNucleosis from our collection. The colors and textures on this album are remarkable. Every "song" transports you to a different space and perspective, from a driving downpour in "We Needed the Rain" to the lyrical meditation of "What Would The World Be." I can't list any "standout" tracks because the whole thing is so good.

I sometimes find jazz difficult. I LOVE the album StereoNucleosis. Maybe you will, too?

Bands Under the Radar: Vast

Vast (stands for Visual Audio Sensory Theater) is the brainchild of Jon Crosby. Crosby was profiled in 1989 in Guitar Player Magazine as a promising new guitarist at the age of 13. Vast is Alternative Rock with a hint of Goth. We carry three Vast albums at the library.

Turquoise & Crimson (2006) is a compilation of their earlier work. It reminds me a bit of Depeche Mode on the mellower songs and Nine Inch Nails on the heavier ones.

April (2007) tones down the angst for a more reflective acoustic sound. The songs are beautiful, reminiscent of the more introspective U2 songs (like One and With or Without You).

Me & You (2009). I am still trying to wrap my ears around this one. It has 3 or 4 beautiful songs similar to the ones on April. But there are several that have a sort of country/western sound.

Check these out at the library and let us know what you think.

just can't get enough!

For a premier post, I thought I'd highlight the mountain of 80s compilation CDs I checked out over the weekend. That very stack gave this blog its name. I couldn't come up with anything clever and did not feel like going the "blog by committee" route, so I flipped through the CDs, saw The Kings' "This Beat Goes On" and made up my mind.

Even though I went to high school in the 80s, I'm iffy about a lot of the music. All those cheap Casio synthesizers and novelty songs...However, 25 years have passed and in a few weeks, I may have to serve as DJ at my high school reunion, so it was time to reacquaint myself with these tunes. There is plenty of good stuff to be found in DPPL's large assortment of compilation or "various artists" disks. Browse the "Rock Collections" section for titles like "New Wave Hits of the '80s," "Sedated in the Eighties," and "Poptronica." You can use those links to see the contents of these CDs.

Songs I think are worth the dig:

1. "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" - Japan
2. "Local Girls" - Graham Parker
3. "The Metro" - Berlin
4. "The Politics of Dancing" - Re-Flex
5. "Send Me An Angel" - Real Life
6. "Promises, Promises" - Naked Eyes
7. "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" - Human League
8. "Poison Arrow" - ABC
9. "Making Plans for Nigel" - XTC
10. "Train in Vain" - The Clash

plus plenty of others. If your only knowledge 0f 80s music comes from current bands borrowing that sound (think The Killers, Moby, The Ting Tings), go back to the source.

welcome to "this beat goes on"

The Des Plaines Public Library has more than 20,000 CDs available for checkout - and this is not your grandma's CD collection (well, unless your grandma is unbelievably cool - only you know the answer to that). In this new blog, we'll share with you the hidden treasures of our CD collection so you can check 'em out for yourself. If you're interested in discovering the music you're NOT hearing on the radio these days, stop in at "this beat goes on" every few weeks and we'll let you know what's new, old, unusual, rare, spine-tingling, mind-blowing, just plain weird and worth listening to at DPPL, your public library.