Can You Hear That Thunder?

So if you're into this whole blog thing and you like to hear what people have to say about themselves in a semi-public format, you may want to check one or more of the links I've added to Chazzbot over there on the right. The most recent is from Australia, where Bruce, who posted a comment on Chazzbot a few days ago, files his Diary of a Dilettante. Intrigued by how the other half lives, I've visited the site a few times and found it to be a good example of how a blog doesn't need cute graphics or flashy links to convey a real human voice. Bruce is a good and rather witty writer and worth a read. My site counter tells me that Diary of a Dilettante emanates from Maribyrnong, Victoria, Australia.

Australia is on my short list of places to relocate to when the shit hits the fan in the U.S. (more on that in a future post), along with Newfoundland and the Yukon Territories. Actually, I guess New Zealand is higher up on the list, if only so I can see where Gandalf lived. Anyway, we were talking about Australia, yes?

It's entirely coincidental (and please excuse the lameness of this segue), but last night I was revisiting the music of Men at Work as part of my ongoing attempt to rid myself of my rather large and now somewhat antiquated collection of cassette tapes. Basically, I've been going through the tapes (I've managed to collect over 900 of them since I was a kid) and deciding what needs to go, what needs to be converted to CD, what I'm willing to replace, and what can never be duplicated.

Last weekend, I burned some of my Beatles vinyl to CD; namely A Hard Day's Night and Beatles for Sale, along with some of the singles they made in between those albums. Remarkably, the Beatles churned out, during about a six month period in the latter half of 1964, those two albums, two or three singles, and a steady schedule of live appearances. Those two albums in particular contain, IMHO, some of the finest of the Beatles' early recordings, including such gems as "If I Fell," "And I Love Her," "Tell Me Why," "Any Time at All," "I'll Be Back," "I Feel Fine," "I'm a Loser," "Baby's in Black," etc. etc. I can't think of any other act that was both so prolific and so influential on popular music. No act will ever have the same impact on music and culture as the Beatles. Though I hear Insane Clown Posse might be in the running.

The other part of this weekend’s Festival of Burning involved Men at Work, a band once touted by some overworked music writers as Beatlesque. Of their albums, I have Business as Usual, which contains most of their best-known songs (“Who Can It Be Now?” and “Down Under”), on vinyl, and Cargo, their follow-up, on cassette (a cassette, now that I think about it, that probably originally belonged to my brother; in the early 80’s, I was too busy listening to Dr. Demento and my dad’s ELO albums to bother too much with anything more contemporary. And I certainly wouldn’t have been listening to anything my brother would have wanted to hear.).

I was rather surprised to hear how well Business as Usual holds up after 20 years. The songs are all catchy and memorable (with the possible exception of the final cut, “Down by the Sea,” which plods on for nearly seven minutes) and most of them feature Colin Hay’s distinctive vocals. In fact, several of the songs on the album are better, or at least as good, as the ones you already know.

Cargo doesn’t hold up quite as well, although it still contains some very lovely songs, especially “Overkill,” which is as good as any song I’ve heard since 1983, and better than most of them. Hay’s lyrics neatly capture both the fear of being alone and the dread that accompanies any mingling with the city’s inhabitants:

Alone between the sheets
Only brings exasperation;
It’s time to walk the streets,
Smell the desperation.
At least there’s pretty lights,
And though there’s little variation,
It nullifies the night
From overkill.

When’s the last time you heard a word like “nullify” in a pop song? And Hay’s vocals are both gorgeous and haunting. An underplayed gem, that one.

Another engaging number is reminiscent of a lot of those patented 80’s-era songs of nuclear anxiety (you know, like “Two Tribes” or “1999”). “It’s a Mistake” is driven by a jaunty reggae-like pulse and, again, Hay’s disarming (sorry) vocals. Although the song references Ronald Reagan in its denunciation of short-sighted war hawks, it could easily be heard as a commentary on the current SNAFU in Iraq, with its boys “cockin’ up their guns” and the U.S. commanders declaring that they’ll “not fade out too soon / Not in this finest hour.”

Deciding that both of those albums were worthy of digital preservation, I also dug up some of the band’s 45’s and found another great track. The B-side of “Who Can It Be Now?” features a great little instrumental called “Anyone for Tennis” that, as far as I can tell, has never made it to CD, at least in the States. The song provides as much evidence as you might need of this band’s skills, with the notable exception of Hay’s vocals. Jerry Speiser’s snare keeps the band at a brisk pace throughout, even near the end when it sounds like someone brings in a kazoo. This is a song well worth looking up online. If I knew how to post MP3’s to the blog, this would be the first.

I was rather pleased to find that the music I liked as a kid is still worth listening to today. I can’t honestly say that nostalgia for my wasted youth doesn’t have a part to play in my assessments, but nostalgia only goes so far. On the other hand, I’m not very far along on this archeological project of mine, and who knows how I’ll feel about the next album I decide to dig up? (Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger looms on the horizon like a giant Chinese gong.) Anyway, if anyone’s in the market for some vintage 1980’s cassettes, you know how to reach me.

Before I sign off, a programming note. Tomorrow, I begin a week of academic indoctrination at the unfortunately named Dixie College, so I will probably start posting in the evenings. I can’t imagine that anyone who has read this far is terribly concerned about when my posts show up. It’s a bit of a conceit with this whole blog business that anyone notices you’re posting at all.

But if you find yourself wondering when my next post might show up, try giving me about a day’s lead time and you won’t even notice anything has changed.

Hopefully, that is. Uh, hello? Is this thing on?