"If you yell 'PLAY FREEBIRD!' one more time, I'm gonna punch you in the neck!" - Part II

Greetings and Felicitations, Loyal Reader.

Every time I force my loved ones to do their best imitation of Jacob Two-Two I'm reminded of the sheer scale of abuse I've put my ears through over the years.

If I had a time machine I'd do a lot of cool, responsible and awesome things.  Like go back and force Spielberg and Lucas to shoot Frank Darabont's original script for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" versus the decoy script that obviously got filmed by mistake.

Oh, and the second thing I would do is warn "L'il Dave" about the dangers of not wearing earplugs at concerts and standing adjacent to a floor-level stack of Marshal amps.

So, in the spirit of fair warning, here's "Dave's Top Five Concerts That Led To His Currently Shameful State of Hearing":

5.  WILCO  March 3'rd 2010.  Y'know, after some of the other cochlea-stripping shows on this lists, the Gods were soon screaming in my ear to wear plugs for every show.  But since I was partially deaf by then I guess I couldn't even hear the booming, Laurence Olivier-esque delivery of the Gods anymore.  By rights, if they had really intended for me to get the message, they should have used telepathy.  Like in that episode of "W.K.R.P. in Cincinnati" when God talked to Johnny Fever.

"DAVE, I WANT YOU TO BE A GOLF PRO!  OH, AND START WEARING EARPLUGS TO CONCERTS, YOU SILLY B!%$#."

Anyhoo, I didn't wear earplugs to this Wilco show 'cuz I thought: hmmmm, nice little alt-country band...it'll be okay.  WRONG!  These f#@$%&^ were loud!  Maybe it's because I was wedged into the crowd, shoulder-to-shoulder mere meters from the stage and the Halifax Forum Multi Purpose Room is a pretty teeny place, comparatively speaking. Whatever it was my ears were a-ringin' for days. 

The show itself was fantastic.  It was a real mix of modern faves and selections stretching all the way back to the beginning of their prolific careers.  At one point during the show lead singer Jeff Tweedy stopped the show so we could sing "Happy Birthday" to a  member of the merch crew.  He then tasked the audience to deliver a "Superstore" slab cake intact from the stage to the back of the venue, passing it above our heads like a crowd-surfing edible oil product.

If you don't know anything about Wilco, by the way, here's your chance to become informed and enrich your life.  Also if you think I was hedging my bet regarding the show's potential volume, just watch this clip of them performing the beautiful "War on War" on Letterman's show and then try and convince me that I had to roll a hard "6" that night to avoid a punctured eardrum...




Peppy, but not exactly "Slayer" is it?  Tha's what I'm sayin', G!


4. DINOSAUR JR. SEPTEMBER 4'TH, 2006  Well I was positively pickled tink when one of my fave defunct alt-buzz rockers from the late-Eighties/early Nineties reunited for a series of small club gigs.  By this time I'd smartened up a bit and was habitually wearing earplugs to live shows.

Unfortunately I was also in the habit of tearing the earplugs in half for fear of not getting the "full concert experience."  After the Dinosaur Jr. show I was also made painfully aware that earplugs had a decibel limit.  The band's sound system would have tested the structural integrity of the heartiest earplug at the best of times, let alone a pair that had been ripped in half (?!).

I always tell myself before a show: "Y'know, it's okay.  You don't have to go to the front of the stage.  You can hold back and enjoy yourself from a distance."

Yeah, I can't even keep a straight face as I type that.  I never listen to myself.  I always wanna be as close to the s#!% as possible.  I want the visceral experience of being perspired upon by the performer.

This usually means that I find myself standing next to a stack of amps as the bass slowly turns my major organs into pudding like some sort of Congo-spawned audio-virus.

Regardless of the fact that I had to use a pair of tweezers from the game "Operation" to fish the plugs out of my inner ear canal at the end of the show, it was still pretty impressive.  I'm convinced to this day that J. Mascis and company had no idea that a crowd had actually gathered to watch them play.  They didn't do much to engage the audience but were forced to acknowledge our presence a few times when the appreciative crowd went feral between each impeccably delivered tune.

They played a set almost entirely composed of tracks from their first three pre-original member breakup albums.  That was fine by me since each and every song was a flawless storm of distortion, melody and infallible musicianship.  Usually when bands use feedback live it's as irritating as f#@$ but Dino Jr. make it a fourth instrument.

Oh, and drummer Lou Barlow is a friggin' god.  

Despite the ear injury this is a gig I'll cherish forever.

Here's a tasty tidbit:    


 
3. SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET, 1991.  Canada's early-Nineties surf kings who were renowned for providing the theme song and transition music for "The Kids in the Hall".  Long before Jersey Shore's "The Situation" was invited by the "Pacifico" to pollute the downtown core the same space was used by the "Pub Flamingo" to exhibit real, live talent in an intimate cabaret setting.  And when I mean intimate, I mean very intimate.  I mean being crammed into an elevator with a three piece band and fourteen people intent on moshing.  And no one is wearing pants. 

I'd played SMOASP's album "Savvy Show Stoppers" incessantly in preparation of the gig, oblivious to the fact that the bands all-instrumental, surf music would be amplified exponentially in the small club.  The result was that every note, every riff was the equivalent of having "Animal" from the Muppets use your ear drums to beat out a particularly frenetic version of "Wipeout".

Oh, and instead of drumsticks, someone's given Animal a pair of railroad spikes to use.  

At the time I was totally oblivious.  When asked I characterized their sound as "sharp and flawless".  A bit too sharp and flawless perhaps?  Not only were my ears adrift in a "COME IN TOKYO" sea of static for days,  this one actually physically hurt me.

Here's a sampling of their amazing sound.  After you listen to this I'm sure you can see the potential of grievous bodily harm if it's cranked up to "11" and contained in a space the size of a phone booth:



2. MOTLEY CRUE November 16'th, 2006  This was the show that convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that earplugs would need to become a default component of my concert-going uniform.

As a concert goer, I've actually been pretty lucky.  If you were to take that oft-mentioned time traveling device back to 1983 and ask L'il Dave what his three favorite musical acts were at the time he'd tell you (with voice a-crackin' like the pimply-faced teenager from "The Simpsons"):

1. Ozzy Osbourne
2. Iron Maiden
3. Motley Crue

I've been lucky enough to appease my inner 13 year old headbanger by seeing all three of my metal heroes live in concert, albeit a few years later than desired.

When me and three fellow fans caught the Crue (I hear there's now a shot you can get for that, by the way) we had no expectations whatsoever.  But the boys came out like a house on fire, like they'd just piled out of a van, were pointed towards the stage and then played as if they were trying to earn new fans for the first time ever.

There were elaborate stage sets, pyro, video screens, gratuitous boobage, drums on risers, wire acts, a high-flyin' Tommy Lee and of course, prodigious amounts of of bone-shattering vollume.

Here are a few typically tranquil moments:





During the early goings of the show the band actually blew out a fleet of speakers and had to pause momentarily before the back ups kicked in.  Co-incidentally they also obliterated what was left of my ragged eardrums. 

1. Gowan 1990   You read it correctly here first.   The "Strange Animal" himself.  Lawrence friggin' Gowan.

That's right, folks.  Wee little be-mulleted, Peter Pan booted Larry Gowan almost single handedly cost me one of my five senses.  

Now, I know what you're thinking..."Gowan? Go onnnnn!"  

Geddit?  See what I did there?  Gowan?  "GO ON!"   Funny, huh?  Funny cuz it sorta, y'know...sorta sounds the same.  Kinda.  *Ahem.* 

Actually it's much more my fault than his.  Me and two other university buddies saw him at "The Palace".  This was back in the day before tech crews elevated the stacks so that the sound dispersed into the ceiling rather than through the bodies of unsuspecting concert-goers like s#!$ through a goose.

So, like complete idiots, the three of us stood there next to the monolithic wall of speakers by the stage for the duration of the entire show, oblivious to the fact that the din was stripping the cilia off the inside of our ears as expertly as a sandblaster attacks graffiti.

Despite the impending life-long handicap the show was terrific.  The funny thing is I'd gone that night not because I had some sort of fetish for Gowan, but mainly because it was something to do.  We kinda went as a lark.

But THE MAN shut us up pretty quickly.  Gowan was a friggin' dynamo, a human whirlwind, a little Scottish Bono-clone prone to fits of prancing, split-dives, fist-pumps, Spring-Heeled Jack style vaults, scissor kicks, spins, and whirling keyboards.

Don't believe me?  Check this s#!% out...




I'm tellin' you man.  Respec my boy.   He was the Mac Daddy.  Or the Daddy Mac, I'm not sure which.

Gowan: the only live act to dissuade my temptation to heckle by performing like a house on fire and rendering me deafer than Marlee Marlin. 

Watch the volume kiddies and wear yer 'plugs!  

EPIC:


BONUS EPIC:



FAIL: http://www.youth.hear-it.org/page.dsp?page=5154

"Dude, the soundtrack for your biopic sucks!" Part I

Hello, y'all!

I just picked up two CD's yesterday and tonight I'm going to a Wintersleep concert. It's hard to believe that there was a time in my life when music didn't mean anything to me.  What a stupid six year old kid I was!

Yes, I was exposed to music at quite a young age.  I loved the melodic quality of the 50's music my parents often listened to.  Here are two of my favorites:


Buddy Holly "Rave On"

The Dovells  "Bristol Stomp"

Like most people in their larval stage, music was often just background noise at the time.  And at that time the state of the union was dire.  Radio was awash in disco.  Like this:

Stars on 45 "Stars on 45 (Video)"

If you got through more than three minutes of that crap, by the way,  you're made of sterner stuff than I am.

With disco so prevalent, it was only a matter of time before it seeped into my consciousness osmosis-style, yo.  When I was eight years old I asked for the Spirits Having Flown record by The Bee Gees.  I played that s#!& incessantly, often caterwauling along to the song "Tragedy" (much to the delight of my parents).

As a possible omen (or perhaps it was an ottoman) of better things to come, my ears were also piqued the following year by Peter Gabriel's "Games Without Frontiers".  He's the vid:

But for some odd reason I didn't ask for or buy the album.  Alas, my interest in music continued to be pretty superficial as I entered the Eighties.  My listening and purchasing trends continued to be based around the philosophy of "Well, if it's popular, it's gotta be good!"  This resulted in some tentative but ultimately, misguided "Columbia House" disasters.  Such as purchasing my very own copy of Culture Club's Colour By Numbers album (although I still insist it's a pop classic what with the vocal stylings of Boy George and backup singer Helen Terry on display).

Now having said that, some other ventures into Eighties pop continue to resonate with me to this very day.  You may scoff (actually I can hear the scoffage right now) but I still play Cargo and Business As Usual by Men At Work quite often.  It was the first time music spoke to me so directly, so color me delighted that I have so much in common with this pack of homely Aussie weirdos.  

Songs like "Who Can it Be Now?", "Helpless Automaton", "Be Good Johnny", "Overkill", "Upstairs in My House", and "It's a Mistake" all touched on heavy topics like paranoia, isolation, disconnect, parental pressure and fear of nuclear holocaust.  In other words, stuff that most pre-teens in the Eighties likely struggled with.  Here's a sample:

But by then, thanks to my cousin Jason, there came from beyond something called THE METAL (special nod to Jack Black).  THE METAL made me forget everything that had come before it.  As an increasingly antisocial and angry kid with a penchant for horror films, Motley Crue's consciously vacant (or is that vacantly conscious?) Shout at the Devil album was a game changer.  I'd been a bit too young for both KISS and Alice Cooper so when "The Crue" came along it was the perfect storm of time, place, aggression level and modest rebellion.

I was hooked.  These leather clad, makeup-wearing, be-studded punks were obnoxious, dark, loud, boorish and appeared to be wasted twenty-four-seven.  Yes, they were loutish.  Yes, you suspected that they smelled awful.  And you were vaguely amused when Nikki Sixx defended his band against charges of satanism when confronted with the album cover. His rejoinders sounded weak even to a twelve year old ears:

"Uh, yeah, it isn't satanic cuz, uh, you can see by the title of the album that we're...uh, shouting at the devil, not...uh, y'know...with him."

Dude, weak.     

Back then THE METAL was also the perfect foil to terrify parents, kinda like the modern day equivalent of...well, actually there is no modern day equivalent.  Which bring me to a point - why is music so damned safe now?  A few years ago it might have been Marilyn Manson, gangsta rap and death metal.  But what terrifies parents now?  I think I just heard someone say "emo", but that's actually pathetic not EEEEEE-vil.   Where the hell is the EEEEEE-vil in music now?  That's right, I said EEEEEE-vil, not just "evil."  There's a big difference there.

THE METAL proved to be fertile ground for my imagination and self-esteem.  The small-minded people that railed blindly against THE METAL had no idea how much self-empowerment and solace THE METAL gave to shy, angry kids.  I cheered when Tipper Gore got pwned by Dee Snider during the PMRC hearings:

Until the mid-Eighties, THE METAL continued to infuse my wasted youth with tremendous color. I soon found myself be-mulleted, wearing baseball style T-shirts, castration-prone jeans and leather armbands.  I worshiped at the portable stereo altar of my sonic heroes every night.  Ozzy Osbourne wrote about self-conviction in "Believer", Iron Maiden fueled my interest in history and poetry with "Aces High" and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Judas Priest railed against surveillance in "Electric Eye", and Ronnie James Dio (R.I.P. Ronnie!) gave me an appropriately cheesy soundtrack to my Dungeons & Dragons days with "Sacred Heart".

But by the time 1986 rolled around my metal gods were forsaking me.  Motley Crue released Theater of Pain and shed their bad-ass EEEEE-vil trappings.  Suddenly Vince Neil was tying scarves to his mike stand just like every other glam metal loser.  Ozzy got a perm circa The Ultimate Sin.  Judas Priest invited me to be their Turbo Lover ("WTF is this crap!?"), which is kinda interesting in retrospect given Rob Halford's eventual revelations.  Even the wheels fell off my old standby Iron Maiden when No Prayer For The Dying came down the pike.

THE METAL was moving into thrash and increasingly aggressive tendencies and I had outgrown it.  Looking back, I realize I shouldn't have missed the boat with good metal bands like Anthrax, Slayer, Metallica, and Megadeth but this is how it went.  It was not to be my destiny.

I fell in with a group of friends who joined an Amnesty International group in High School purely to ramp up their sad odds of meeting girls who might mistake them as "sensitive".  I was chided for listening to The Scorpions so I began a "Conscience Rock" phase which involved Rush, The Police, Simple Minds, Peter Gabriel (Yay!) and U2.  Peter Gabriel I dug right away 'cuz I had previous exposure.  I was pre-disposed to Rush already since they were somehow socially-conscious metal.  I stuck with them until the execrable Roll The Bones album was pooped into existence.  I took to The Police right way thanks to their punky first album.  U2 was initially a tough sell to me, but I borrowed their Live At Red Rocks album from a friend and it eventually grew on me.  Thank God I didn't see the accompanying concert footage until years later since the band's appearance would have been a deal-breaker right there, especially Bono's prototypical mullet, Peter Pan boots and tendency to stage prance.

And, oh yeah, Simple Minds bored the crap outta me.

Coming up:  I delve back into classic rock, eventually find a musically passion that has sustained me to this day and why liking Nickleback is just plain laziness!

FAIL: http://www.cracked.com/video_17618_black-eyed-peas-have-officially-written-worst-song-ever.html

"My Humps" is still worse, IMHO.

Also, here's this week's totally non-music-related comic: