That new Journey CD I mentioned a couple days ago is a great summertime listen, but the album I’m really waiting for — man, that feels weird to even think, let alone admit, because this is the first time in a very long time that I’ve actually been anticipating a new music release — is Venus in Overdrive, the latest from my main man, Rick Springfield. It’s not hitting stores and online sellers until July 29, but the first single from it, “What’s Victoria’s Secret,” is already peeking out from behind the curtain: The Girlfriend heard a few seconds of it on the radio yesterday, and I’ve just found the video below. This may or may not be the “official” video — I’m not sure if this is just a performance on some TV show or if this is the actual promo clip made to go with the song — but give it a click anyhow and see what you think:

I like it — there’s a definite “Jessie’s Girl” vibe there, but that’s okay by me, and it suggests that maybe Rick is trying to get back onto the charts after a long time in the wilderness. The press release for Venus confirms that he’s going for a more light-hearted, radio-friendly sound than his recent efforts (shock/denial/anger/acceptance was a great album and a fine artistic achievement, but song titles like “Every Night I Wake Up Screaming,” “Your Psychopathic Mother,” and “Idontwantanythingfromyou” don’t exactly appeal to a mass audience, you know?), with Rick even going so far as to refer to the new album as “Son of Working Class Dog.” Hopefully that’s a good descriptor of what the fans are likely to be hearing shortly: some good-time pop-rock with strong hooks and maybe just a hint of grit around the edges. (Working Class Dog was, of course, Rick’s big breakthrough record, the one that spawned “Jessie’s Girl” and a couple of other singles; it was also the very first LP I ever owned, and lyrically a bit darker and more grown up than most people remember.)
In any event, it’s shaping up to be a great summer, musically speaking at least…

If you’ve been scratching your head all weekend, pondering the meaning of the previous entry, allow me to explain now: on Friday night, The Girlfriend and I went to something that seems to be turning into an annual event for us, a little thing we like to call “the Old Fart Triple-Threat Summer Nostalgia Party-time Concert™.” As you may recall, last year’s line-up consisted of The Stray Cats, The Pretenders, and ZZ Top. This year, it was Cheap Trick, Heart, and Journey. Yes, I’m well aware I have the musical tastes of a mullet-headed, Camaro-lovin’ fifteen-year-old from the year 1985. Did you have a point?

Anyhow, to be honest, we almost didn’t go to this one. We only bought our tickets a week beforehand, following about a month of conversations that were all variants on the theme of, “Do you want to go?” and “I dunno, do you want to go?” What finally clinched it for us was picking up Journey’s latest album, the aptly named Revalation. It’s their first release featuring their new lead singer, Arnel Pineda, and it is, in a word, incredible. Sonically, it could’ve been recorded at the band’s peak 25 years ago, and yet the songs are deeper than anything on Escape or Frontiers — it’s the same old sound, but now coming from a more mature place, and it’s immensely appealing if you like these older bands. I’ve had it on nearly constant rotation in my car the last couple of weeks. Even so, it was Anne — who I must remind everyone was always a New Wave girl back in the day, and is most definitely not an aging rocker like me — who finally said she really wanted to see Arnel live, based on the bonus DVD that comes with Revelation. We managed to find some reasonably decent seats, considering how late we finally made up our minds, and we were off…

Continue Reading…

No, really, just try… give a shot…

It’s currently 94 degrees in the SLC, and there’s a gaggle of bare-chested, tattoo’d, and be-pierced skateboard punks sprawled on the plaza outside my building, in the shade near the fountain. I think it’s safe to say that summer has finally arrived.

To celebrate the arrival (which I’ll no doubt be cursing a month from now when 94 becomes 104), let’s have a listen to one of my favorite tunes, a golden oldie that always makes me think of summer for some reason, “Be My Baby” by Ronnie Spector and The Ronettes. The year was 1965, before most of us were born, kids:

Ronnie was a sexy little thing, wasn’t she? In a mid-Sixties, big-haired sort of way. Not that there was anything wrong with that at the time.

As a special bonus, here’s another summertime song that featured Ronnie twenty years after “Be My Baby,” Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight,” from 1986:

Talk about big hair…

I was listening to one of my old Jimmy Buffett CDs yesterday, and a couple of lines from the song “Pencil-Thin Mustache” grabbed my attention:

Now I’m gettin’ old, don’t wear underwear
I don’t go to church and I don’t cut my hair
But I can go to movies and see it all there
Just the way that it used to be

It’s weird when something seems to have been written exclusively for you, isn’t it? I mean… how did he know? Well, aside from the bit about the underwear. I’m not a fan of chafing…

Coming home tonight after a late evening out, I was thinking about this song:

That’s Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night,” if you don’t know it. I’ve always liked this one; it’s probably my favorite Benatar tune, even though it was one of her lesser hits and seems to be somewhat unknown these days (at least, I rarely hear it out there in the world; whenever the oldies station — sigh — plays a Benatar song, it’s almost invariably either “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” or “Love Is a Battlefield”). I groove on its combination of romantic melody and rock ‘n’ roll bombast, I guess. I vaguely remembered the video showed her in a cockpit singing into an old-fashioned microphone, but wow, it turns out to be quite the little epic, doesn’t it?

A couple of thoughts:

• I don’t know what kind of planes are featured in Pat’s daydream, but they’re not P-51 Mustangs, as shown on that poster she’s looking at in the framing scenes.
• This was made in 1982, the year after Raiders of the Lost Ark came out. Could the Nazi theme have possibly been inspired by Raiders‘ success? It seem like there were a lot of Nazis and 1930s/1940s things in pop culture around that time, but did Raiders begin that or was it merely another example of the same zeitgeist?
• Did you catch Judge Reinhold and Bill Paxton as the pilot in the red cap and the Nazi radio operator, respectively?
• And finally, is it just me or are women in 1940s-style flying gear damn sexy? Maybe it’s me…

A couple of days ago, I brought you the wonder of a Japan-ified “Smoke on the Water.” Now as a little Saturday morning wake-me-up I present The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” played — quite well, incidentally — by two guys with ukeleles. Why? I dunno… it just amuses me:

In honor of Salt Lake’s fourth annual Japanese Festival this Saturday, here’s an example of cross-cultural pollination that you simply have to experience to believe:

Cheerfully ganked from Javi.

For the record, I consider U2 to be one of the most overrated bands of the last two centuries.

That remark is based, of course, on the fact that the active phase of their career stretches across both sides of Y2K — there’s a term you haven’t thought about in a while, I’ll bet! — and not because I think U2 sucks hard enough to make them stand out against the vast catalog of recordings that 200 years would encompass, if there actually was 200 years worth of recorded music. Which there isn’t, because recording technology is only 131 years old. But that’s beside the point, because as I said, U2 doesn’t suck that hard. I actually do like a good bit of their music, at least enough of it to warrant buying the basic greatest hits package that was released a few years back.

However, I’ve never understood the intense, near-religious devotion so many of my acquaintances seem to feel for these guys. A couple of my co-workers speak of Bono as if the man can make the blind see and the lame walk simply through the awesomeness of his blue wraparound shades or something, and, well, I just don’t get it. In fact, I so don’t get it that I find it rather distasteful. C’mon, people! The band has a unique sound, but I don’t think their lyrics are profound so much as opaque (occasionally bordering on the tedious), and I also tend to distrust the sincerity of rock stars with causes. But maybe I’m just an old grump that way.

What I do get is, though, is the power of iconic imagery, and there’s no denying that U2’s biggest album, The Joshua Tree, was graced by some beautiful and unforgettable photography that remains instantly recognizable and evocative even 20 years later. And that’s why, despite my ambivalence about the band itself, I found this site so interesting. I love comparing “then and now” photos of changing landscapes, and when they’re familiar landscapes, as these are, my emotional reaction to the changes can sometimes be unexpectedly strong.

Which is my way of saying that I felt rather bad to learn that the Joshua tree has died and toppled over…