The Killing Floor

It's Not Dark Yet: Summer Songs

Where Mike talks with Brendan Hogan about the 10:00 hour of his radio show Dark Was The Night.

 



5/18/13

Mike Mellor: Man, I woke up this morning (Thursday) and it's suddenly Summer, like we just skipped past Spring. You know what my favorite thing is about Summer?

Brendan Hogan: Public, drunken arguments on the street at night?

Mike: Well, I love those, too...but no. It's Hot Pants!

Brendan: Ha. Yes, I'll take that any day of the week, any season.

I thought you were going to say that your favorite part is the students vacating town.

They can bother mom and dad again with this for a few months.

Mike: Hahaha. Still, decades later, sometimes I find myself singing the verse in my head:

"Your pop caught you smoking, and he said, 'No way!'
That hypocrite smokes two packs a day
Man, living at home is such a drag
Now your mom threw away your best porno mag"

Does that sound as awful to folks our parents' age as this sounds to me?

Brendan: The thing is that the Beastie Boys wrote their song as a total farce. They were making fun of the people who went on to use that song as their personal party-hearty anthem. Of course, the meanings of songs are often taken out out context by those who connect with them, and are thus assigned new context and meaning in the process. It's the same fate assigned to Nirvana's "Polly", which is a song about sexual abuse that people sing along to like it's a lullaby or something, or like Reagan using "Born in the USA" as an anthem of American exceptionalism on the campaign trail in '84. I'm not sure Kesha is being subversive, though. I could be wrong. I'm too old to tell. Always have been, actually.

But speaking of being too old, what's with baby boomers and their monopoly on good-time youth culture? Maybe Kesha really is onto something. Maybe she represents a new Summer of Love, done Millenial-style. Maybe it's just a big middle finger to this:

Mike: It's Ke$ha, Brendan.

But I think you might be on to something. I seriously doubt Ke$ha is being intentionally subversive, but one thing I love about the culture of Millennials is that it owes nothing to the baby boomers.

I don't know what it is about those damn narcissists, but ever since the '60s happened the boomers have been shoving their romanticized, revisionist histories of themselves in our faces. I swear, people between the ages of 30 and 45 know more about their parents' culture than they do their own.

Thankfully, the kids these days don't give a fuck, and they have the DIY internet to shield themselves from the crap the old people put on TV to tell you how cool they were.

God bless them.

Brendan: Ah, it's just rich kids acting like rich kids have always acted. Too much time, money, and comfort are all the ingredients you need to start celebrating a great Summer. Amen.

Dark Was the Night airs on WUMB Saturdays from 8pm-midnight.

Listen online or at:
91.9 FM Boston, Worcester, Falmouth
91.7 FM Newburyport, Stow, Marshfield
1170 AM Orleans

It's Not Dark Yet: Drinking & Drugging

Where Mike talks with Brendan Hogan about the 10:00 hour of his radio show Dark Was The Night.

Cookie at Tin Pan Alley, NYC
[Nan Goldin (American, 1953 - ) 1983
Cibachrome, 76x102 cm; Matthew Marks Gallery, NYC]



5/11/13

Mike Mellor: Before we get into it I think it's important to remember our friend Shirley Lewis, who passed away this week. You spent more time with her than I did, but that seems almost irrelevant because it didn't take Shirley very long to get close to anybody. She had an endless supply of warmth that she gave to anybody willing to accept it, not only on stage but in just about everything she did for anybody she came across. We're going to miss her around here.

Brendan Hogan: That's the kind of person Shirley was. To me, she's an angel. There are some people who are channels for something beyond the concrete, some kind of energy that we're all tapped into, but only few notice. Some people are more keyed into it than others; they're better tuned to carry its resonance and ring like a bell. That's Shirley.

You could hear it in her music. It was all about energy and feeling: spontaneity and celebration. She vibrated. Shirley was whatever she was feeling, and onstage it might never come out the same way twice. That was pretty thrilling to watch and be a part of, and is the mark of a great artist. It's the most honest way of creating.

But above all, Shirley was just a good human being; kind, intuitive, selfless, and resilient. An angel, really, who touched the lives of many people.

Mike: No doubt. It's been heartwarming for me to see the grieving process for Shirley across social media. People who I thought couldn't agree on anything have been sharing their love for Shirley and their grief at her loss.

One of the best ways to grieve is to reminiscence on the joyful times you spent with that person. Several generations of the Boston blues community have been doing that this week and I doubt any of them have a shortage of memories to work with, as she was usually the person who brought the joy to the room, or else amplified it with her energy. I hear you're dedicating the first half of the 9:00 hour tonight to Shirley's music. I'll be sure to tune in to that.

Another way to grieve, of course, is by drinking, which is part of our theme this week. With a name like Hogan I'm sure you're familiar with the Irish wake tradition, but are you familiar with the song "Finnegan's Wake?"

When Tim Finnegan the boozer " fell off a ladder and broke his skull...they carried him off a corpse to wake...with a gallon of porter by his feet and a noggin' of whiskey by his head." The next day they held the wake, which of course included music, dancing, drinking and eventually fighting. In the fight somebody threw a bottle of whiskey, which broke and spilled all over Finnegan's body. Naturally, the uisce beatha revived him and brought him back from the dead.

Only the Irish, man.

Brendan: I was wondering how you were going to segue into this week's theme. Yes, the Irish definitely know how to hold a wake. But this week we'll look at the flip side of drink and drug and focus on the downside; the non-celebratory side. Why? Just for the hell of it.

So often it's a subject glorified in song and in pop culture, and that's all well and fine, but I want to take a look at reality. Booze and drugs are consuming. I'm all for a good song about good times (so long as it's good), but when getting loaded crosses the line, as it so easily does, into something that you'll do anything to service, then it's a problem. Problems make for interesting stories, though, and that's why we're so compelled to hear them.

Is there anything more desperate than a person who needs their fix, but they just can't get it? Jonathan Byrd tells the story of a man late to meet his dealer because he's stuck behind a jack-knife on the highway. This guy's relationship with dope is a bad love affair; like going insane.

Mike: "I don’t know how I got so low. No, I don’t know how I got so mean.
Diggin’ for change in the backseat clothes. And it’s been a long time since I been clean."

I don't mean to glorify the wake, or other oft-glorified enabling moments like sporting events, weddings, cookouts, bachelor(ette) parties, or whatever. I mean, so many of us are inculcated by these booze-soaked "rites of passage" that get us acclimated to the juice in the first place. Byrd's song is a reminder that, as memorable as the drunken nights of meaning may be, there are far fewer of them for the addict than there are mornings trying to piece last night together, or those endless mid-days where all you think about is the who/what/when/where of getting what you crave...while never examining why. It's a desolate space far removed from the social reverie of group consumption.

What we're talking about is a complicated social construct that fucks up the lives of individuals. And it's not only the junkie on the corner, or the drunk slumped on the bar at 7:00 in the evening. This affects mothers and fathers, grandmas and grandpas, brothers, sisters, cousins and children, plus friends and co-workers and the people we get romantically involved with, all at different stages of their dependency and coping with it differently. There's no easy solution because the population of people who suffer, and the methods by which they cope, is so diverse.

"I Drink" is a good reflection on my personal perspective on it. I'm not saying that my experience is bleak the way Mary Gauthier paints the picture, but I'm tight with people like that, and there is something in the resignation of the song that resonates with me.

"Chicken TV dinner / 6 minutes on defrost, 3 on high
A beer to wash it down with / Then another little whiskey on the side
It's not so bad alone here / It don't bother me that every night's the same
I don't need another lover / Hanging 'round, trying to make me change"

It's amazing how quickly the social habit can turn into a socially isolating prison.

Brendan: Yeah, I didn't think you were glorifying anything, I was just speaking to the culture at large, which as we know, is pervasive. All one has to do is turn on the TV, go to a social or sporting event, even just meet new people, to understand the reach of drinking culture in particular. But addiction is addiction, and Byrd's song, to me, spotlights the kind of desperation, and all-consuming drive, to feed one's addiction.

That singular motivation in the addict's life is what ultimately messes them up, because nobody can live that lifestyle forever. It can't stand. And as you point out, and Mary Gauthier so brilliantly depicts in her song, it's problematic not only to the addict, but to everyone in their life.

"Fish swim / Birds fly / Daddies yell / Mamas cry / Old men sit and think / I drink".

That relates a kind of stubbornness in an addict's attitude that is destructive in its own right.

What should be noted about our culture, though, is that we haven't shied away from these things, at least in popular song over the past century, especially among blues singers. It comes up with Victoria Spivey in her 1927 song (that features a killer low-tuned guitar sound from Lonnie Johnson, by the way) in "Dope Head Blues". There's that same denial, the same stubbornness to face reality.

"I feel like a fighting rooster / Feel better than I've ever felt / I got the double pneumonia / And I still think I've got the best health".

Mike: Yet reality always wins against the stubbornness to face it.

That particular song is about a Vietnam vet who got hooked on heroin, which isn't so different from the Iraq/Afghanistan vets who got hooked on oxycontin. Heroin and oxycontin are both opiates and that returning veteran could just as easily be you or me or nearly anybody else in this country. On one of Prine's live albums he introduced the song by saying:

"We went over to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I'd never been there before. I'd seen pictures of it. So I looked, both Al and me looked up guys in the telephone book there. That's what it looks like. They've got these little phone books and you look up the person's name you want to see. It tells you which part of the wall to go to.

So we looked up our friends in there and went and found their names on the wall. And when you stand there looking at their names, it's black marble. You can see your reflection in the wall.

So if you ever get the chance to go there I suggest you go to the place. It's a pretty fitting memorial."

You can see your reflection in the wall. I hope people can also see their reflection in these songs, whether or not they are or ever were addicts. Not only can it happen to the best of us, it has happened to the best of us.

Brendan: John Prine is our Mark Twain. There's an incredible amount of weight to the simplest of lines in his songs. "Jesus Christ died for nothing" is not a throw away sentiment to Sam Stone; it means he's given up, and Prine lets us see that to the end.

Then there's "Dead Flowers", a song that has come to epitomize drug chic. Keith Richards' iconic status owes as much to his intake as his output, but it's important to remember he has lead the life of a millionaire since his 20's, and has benefited from the luxuries that come along with that. Townes Van Zandt, and so many countless others aren't so fortunate.

Mike: Neither are you.

Brendan: Well, I am fortunate. The thing about stubbornness is that it can be used against itself. It's called willpower. Ultimately, though, it comes down to a choice between life or death, and everyone has to choose every day. Except maybe Keith Richards.

Dark Was the Night airs on WUMB Saturdays from 8pm-midnight.

Listen online or at:
91.9 FM Boston, Worcester, Falmouth
91.7 FM Newburyport, Stow, Marshfield
1170 AM Orleans

It's Not Dark Yet: Boston's Musicians Part II

Where Mike talks with Brendan Hogan about the 10:00 hour of his radio show Dark Was The Night.

 



5/4/13

Mike Mellor: Last week you mentioned how the seeds of Gram Parsons' groundbreaking mix of country, rock and poetry were planted in his mind while he was a student at Harvard. More or less, he heard Merle Haggard plant one foot in the history of country music and the other in the the emerging camp of anti-establishment popular songwriters. Parsons was duly impressed, but wanted to take it even a step further.

It was like a chain reaction. Haggard was inspired by folks like Jimmie Rogers, Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Cash and Buck Owens, and his influence did two things; it legitimized the alternative leanings of fellow country acts like Willie, Waylon, Kris and Johnny, and it passed all those folks on to people like Dylan, The Band, The Byrd, and Parsons. Haggard probably represented the far right of the movement and Parsons the far left, and in between those two poles was a big space in which to make American roots music.

Boston formed a pretty decent country scene from all of this, led by acts like Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys, Chuck McDermott & Wheatstraw, The Estes Boys, Tina Welch and my favorite, John Lincoln Wright and the Sour Mash Boys. They played places in Harvard Square like Passim and Jonathan Swift's Pub, and there was even a place in Park Sq. (where the Legal Sea Foods and the parking garage are now) called the Hillbilly Ranch that looked like this:

John Lincoln Wright wrote a song about it:

The thing I love about Wright's music is that he imbues country music with a New England sensibility. In the clip below he talks about his involvement as a young man with the "Bosstown Sound" and how he developed into a country singer, then plays a song about his mixed Yankee and Irish heritage.

Is there anything more Cantabrigian than, "Never call another man a fool. Fools always speak for themselves?"

Brendan Hogan: I feel the same way about Bill Morrissey's music. Although he's not a Bostonian per se, his songs often represent that New England sensibility that Boston is so much a part of. We're just a large fishing and mill town, after all. Or at least the roots of that still stretch through the region.

Personally, I've sometimes struggled with the idea of whether or not Boston can be a legitimate home to or incubator for Southern culture, be it country or blues music, BBQ, whatever. On the artistic sde of things, I've wondered if it's possible to have a healthy scene in a town like Boston that contributes to the culture without fetishizing it. But then I listen to Bill Morrissey, John Lincoln Wright, or Peter Rowan and I realize that we live in an era that blends regionalism and influences. Musically, it goes back to some of the first recording stars of the 1930s, people like Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, or Bob Wills: When you distribute a lot of something over a wide area (in this case recorded music), a cultural feedback loop is created that doubles back on itself and winds up blurring the lines of regionalism and opening channels of influence.

Bill Morrissey clearly listened to Mississippi John Hurt and Robert Johnson records. He was also from a New England mill town and sang about Boston girls. It all makes total sense in our post-modern world.

Boston Eyes

Mike: That broadcasting and feedback loop is what made Dylan, sitting in his room as a teenager with a transistor radio taking in the music from radio signals that travelled up the Mississippi River. It's also what made you and me to be the people we are, immersed in cultures foreign to the people who raised us. This question of authenticity you raise is really important, for understanding history and understanding the present, but I think the rules have changed. Presently it's more about knowledge and feeling than it is geographical and familial proximity to the "source".

That being said, we are still emotionally tied here in New England to our fishing and early industrial heritage, not to mention our small family farming heritage. I think this is the major tension between people like us who are multi-generational New England and people who arrived here from other places. They see Boston for what it presently is (academia, health care, biotech, finance) and we see it through the lens of our family's history. The magical thing to understand is that both perspectives have value, and both have a legitimate stake to claim in our cultural present and our cultural future. Sometimes I wish the newcomers would value our side a little bit more, but I'm sure they could say the same thing about our side.

This leads me to Patty Griffin, who is a Mainer but came down here to start her performing career. Unlike many Massholes I think of most of Maine as sharing the same heritage we do, even if we diverged in the end of the 19th Century. In that way I feel that Maine is a close cousin, whereas New Hampshire is that fucked up cousin from that part of the family you only tolerate seeing at weddings and funerals. But, I digress; this is about Patty.

I think of her as the impressionist songwriter of the New England experience. She doesn't deal in narrative or linear, but the way she paints portraits of regular folks and their observations is heartbreakingly yankee. Her song "Making Pies", about an aging spinster who works at the Table Talk Pie factory in Worcester, is devastating in how it lays out a mindset of New England resigned loneliness. Before the song's crescendo the narrator tells us stories about her job at the factory and how close it is to her home, her nephew, and the friendly priest she spends time with. After this we learn about her favorite and least favorite memories:


Did I show you this picture of my sweetheart
Taken of us before the war
Of the Greek and his Italian girl
One Sunday at the shore

We tied our ribbons to the fire escape
They were taken by the birds
Who flew home to the country
As the bombs rained on the world

Never a plea for sympathy. Just a statement of reality. The problems of the socio-economic class that goes to war. The back and forth between the factory in the center of the state and the eastern shore. The tremendous loss of something...love, life, freedom, happiness. Yet never a plea for sympathy. That is tremendous writing of the New Englander psyche.

Brendan: Yes, "heartbreakingly yankee" is a great way to describe that song. Is there anything more New England than a Table Talk apple pie? Patty does a great job of telling a story that is particular to a certain person, or kind of person, in a way that is universal, accessible, and understandable. That's the mark of a good storyteller, and that's why she is an internationally-recognized artist and star who has created great work with Robert Plant, Buddy Miller and others, in addition to her own.

I was just looking into the life of Mark Sandman. (It was so strange to me to see all the news coverage a couple weeks ago down the street from where Sandman set up Hi-n-Dry studios in Cambridge, near Inman Square.) I learned that, among other things, Sandman had been a cab driver before Morphine really started to take off. Is there any better way to become intimately acquainted with your home town than by knowing its streets and neighborhoods, and by ferrying its people around? If so, maybe its by learning to play music in front of and among the same people.

In an interview with French TV he did in the early 90's, Sandman was prodded to talk about what made Boston a unique music city. The interviewer suggests that Boston is an incubator for alternative culture because it is a college town with many universities. This may be true, but Sandman's answer speaks more to the homegrown nature of the city. Boston is small, consisting of many close knit neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has a handful of places where people gather, whether they be bars or whatever, where musicians are welcome to play, so long as they don't piss off the locals or regulars. So long as you don't piss them off, you're free to make music any way you please, without pressure. That is an amazing gift. It allows creativity to happen. As I said before, Boston is a breeding ground. Art is made here for the sake of art. We're not New York, LA, or Nashville, but every now and then a band from Boston breaks through nationally or even internationally. When they do, they are often unique and unto themselves because they were allowed to just be in their formative stages. Creativity comes first because there are no big breaks to catch in Boston; as a musician you're just trying not to piss off the locals.

Mike: Funny you should say that. One of my uncles was a cab driver in Boston in the '70s and '80s. Another was a house and commercial painter. So much of what I've said in our Boston conversations I've learned from them, denizens of the Hillbilly Ranch, Jonathan Swift's, Club 47, Paul's Mall, the Speakeasy, the Blue Sands. You've just made it clear that what we've been doing this whole time is documenting oral/aural history, a people history of our home. Thanks for that persepctive.

Dark Was the Night airs on WUMB Saturdays from 8pm-midnight.

Listen online or at:
91.9 FM Boston, Worcester, Falmouth
91.7 FM Newburyport, Stow, Marshfield
1170 AM Orleans