Notes from a Padded Cell: Where Do You Get Your New Music From (A Junkie's Sample Chronology) Pt. 5
Posted by Jesse Coy on 04.23.2007
Well, it had to happen eventually in this chronicle… a journalist is (er, uhm, sort of) born. Yet another outlet, this one reserved for the few, the brave, and the proud, who take up the pen and scribble away like mad. We reward them with new music. The song and question remain the same… Where Do You Get Your New Music From?
No time to recap, fellow junkies. If you've been on the ride this long and you're still with me, you know what I mean when I ask, Where Do You Get Your New Music From?
(I look like a music junkie, now don't I?)
N. Music Journalist
Once more, I already wrote this in thinly veiled fiction in Vargo Enterprises and the Vagrant, so why do double work. Beyond that, I actually have a record of my first journalistic assignment, tough guy! Those fava beans are making me as sick as a dog! I brought all of my shoes, too… so I have them. Read on.
1. Entertainment Writer for Savo News
I actually got this job, in part, due to another job that I had, which was not really a job, which is why I did not list it (plus, I did not think of it), as much as it was a hobby... but, as it is a prelude to the one into which I am about to delve, I will include it. I had volunteered to be on the editorial staff of Splinters, the annual university literary publication.
Our task was to judge and select which literary pieces would grace the pages of Splinters. The publication was quite nice-looking, since it had the backing of university funds, and had won awards in the past. It was eight inches by six inches, or some such measurements, and was eighty to ninety pages long. One fourth of the pieces came from those on the editorial staff. While not entirely guaranteed, it was highly probable that, if a member of the staff submitted several pieces, one would be selected. So you must take the concept of unbiased judging with a grain of salt. Besides this quarter, another quarter came from people who knew people on the editorial staff. Initially, of course, names of individual authors were covered while everyone read and judged the pieces. As an unsupervised body that governed itself, we had to settle upon a means of judging, which was a ranking system from one to ten. I will say, though, that in such a group format, with ten to fifteen staff members, reading and judging in the same room at the same time, idle chatter made the process difficult to maintain.
To turn the tables, though, I will say that, besides the other half of pieces that came from unknowns, and even amongst the half of work by us or our friends (and after all, at a time when majors in literature were on the decline, replaced by those majors that promised a quick or secure buck in medical, business, or law fields, it should come as no surprise that many of us, or those we knew, submitted the pieces, because the literature circuit was a small one), we did weed through a lot of crap, of people who simply could not write. If this makes you ask the question, dear reader, who am I to judge... I say, by entrenching my life in the field and practice, both composing extensively and studying others exhaustively, I was just as confident then as I am now that there are standards in writing, and elements which make literary pieces excellent or complete failures (about which I could compose another book). The law of averages has it that most works of literature are of average quality. Yet, the law fails in that the superior pieces of writing are outnumbered a thousand to one, not just a hundred to one, by those that are complete and total dung piles.
To cut through this aside, the reason that I explained the above is because there is a connecting point to my job as a newspaper columnist, who goes by the name of Oliver. He was one of the quarter of writers who knew someone on the literary publication staff... mainly, me. Knowing him quite well, I recognized his work immediately while reading it, and heaped it with all of the appropriate praise that it deserved. Oliver was a year older than me, a tall, slim fellow from England, who had started off as an English major, but switched instead to Physics. He later dropped university studies entirely to pursue an acting career in London. Oliver knew that I knew that he had submitted a piece to Splinters and, being unknowledgeable of the whole judging process, he came to believe that I was solely responsible for it being there. I explained otherwise, that while I had strongly petitioned for it, others were impressed by it, too. It made it into the publication on its own merit. He thanked me all the same.
Two months later, as the spring semester began, he acquired the duty of being an editor for the entertainment section of Savo News. I would pop by his office from time to time to chat with him. One day he said, "Say, Coyle, I need someone to take a train down to Washington, D.C. to catch a movie premiere and interview one of the blokes who's in it afterwards. Can you do it?"
I had never considered writing for a newspaper, nor had I ever taken a journalism course. As a writer of fiction, in addition to the boring essay papers mandatory for my literature and history courses, I figured, how hard could a newspaper article be? And seeing as how the excursion to Washington, D.C. was all paid for, how could I refuse?
And so began my newspaper career, which would last on a university level for a year and a half, until I graduated. That spring semester, I would stroll into Oliver's office, chat, and look through some of the promotional CD's that he had received.
"I heard about this one," I would say, holding one up. "It's supposed to be pretty good."
"You want it? Give me two-hundred and fifty words on it and it's yours."
In addition to receiving five dollars per every article, I got free CD's, passes to movies, tickets to concerts, and other perks. As for the concerts, whenever a show came around that I wanted to see, I simply called up the record label of the musical group, connecting with the promotion department.
"Let me speak to the publicist." Pause. "Yes, I'll wait." Two minutes later. "Hello, this is Coyle Temp from Savo News in Philadelphia. I'd like to get two for the guest list for the upcoming [fill in the blank] show." Pause. "Okay, great. Good-bye."
It was as easy as that. I had developed a great racket, too, because I would invite one of my friends to go along with me.
"I'll get you into the show if you pay for the booze and subway fare."
"Okay."
Oliver left after the end of the spring semester. I worked under different editors for the next two semesters, amassing a little over forty articles. During the last semester, I wrote few articles for Savo News. They were in the process of eliminating the newspaper format all together, to be replaced by an internet version of the paper. I did a bit of work, accepted on the basis of the pieces that I had done for Savo News, for the University Times (UT). Not much, though. They did not offer me as much free stuff, and no pay for articles.
Speaking of Omar, he asked me if I wanted to do an interview with those prank masters, the Jerky Boys, next Friday. It'd be a bus trip down to Washington, D.C., with a complimentary meal. Omar got the position of head of the entertainment division which means I may be able to do reviews this semester. There is a Slayer and Biohazard show lurking in the future with free tickets for me.
Feb. 2, ‘95
This was the day of the Washington, D.C. trip. As I expected, it started out pretty hectic, but I was looking forward to it all the same. Lisa ended up bailing out, so I went down myself. I rushed through classes, and then dashed back over to the room to throw some food into my system. I couldn't find a handheld recorder. My train left for Washington, D.C. at 4:17 and I got more than fifty pages of reading done on the two-hour ride. By the time we were hitting the city, the view out window was quite good. I watched the lights of the city. From Union Station, I had to hop on the metro to get to the Tentley stop. Washington, D.C.'s subway system compared to Philly's is amazing. The metro was clean, a large domed area with beautiful architecture that reminded me of a sci-fi setting. The subway itself had carpeting on the floor, and cushioned seats, quite a difference from Philly. I'm also used to being the only white person at Philly on the trains, especially at night. There were predominantly whites in business suits on this subway.
I had my eye on a cute girl who I sometimes thought was looking at me. At my stop, she also got out. The escalators to the surface were huge. I got dizzy for a second looking down. Outside at the surface, there was a Wiz Record store where I asked for directions. The guy rather rudely informed me that there were two theaters, three blocks down in opposite directions. First, I walked left and didn't see an ad for the movie at that theater. So I turned back to go to the other one. Here, I had gone the right way to begin with. Huffing, I turned and walked all the way back. I was bitching about my luck then, but as later on will prove, it all worked out quite well. I sat off to the side to watch the movie. Two ditsy girls sat behind me, and when they got a box of candy, they opened it the wrong way. I listened to the candy spill all over. The movie was over at about 10 of 9, and I had my problems to worry about. I only had $20 that I could use for a cab to the hotel where the interview was.
Outside, I bumped into three people who asked me if I wanted a free ticket to the movie, even though it was expired. I said no, because I already saw the movie, but I asked them if they knew where the Madison Hotel was. They asked me if I was a journalist, and I said that I was from a college paper. So were they… Georgetown, but they'd missed the movie. They asked me if I wanted a ride. I'm pretty sure the guy was gay. He and the one girl were the heads of their school paper, and the other girl, the driver, was their photographer. They gave me their card. We got to the hotel, and were brought to a dining area in the back of the dining room, with soda in super fancy cups, and pretzels, chips, and peanuts in expensive trays, which was good, because I hadn't eaten since early noon. There were about twelve of us waiting there for the Jerky Boys. A guy across the table had a recorder, so I asked if he could make me a copy of the interview, only his recorder used those little tapes, and he didn't know how to dub from those. So a guy next to me, he also had one of those handheld recorders, but he said that he could make me a copy. So I gave him my address as I munched away on pistachios.
The Jerky Boys came into the room, and thus began our questions. I guess it lasted for about a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes. At one point, right in the middle of asking Johnny Brennan a question, he asked if he knew me. Nope, unless I'm leading some secret life I don't even know about. I was lucky enough to get a ride with the same people back to Union Station, where I had an hour to wait for the midnight special. I read the Harold Pinter play that I brought along. Halfway through the wait, a cop shuffled by to kick this old man out (white hair and enormous beard… drab clothes). I often wonder what someone like him has seen through his eyes in his whole lifetime. He mumbled unintelligibly, finally stumbling away. I read on the ride back. Got into Philly at 2. The wind was blowing, a freezing February Philly night. I had to walk about eight blocks to get to the bus. It's amazing how much you can appreciate things after being in the cold for twenty minutes. I could've died on that bus.
(end journal)…
So basically, thus began my part-time "journalism career." I was a writer for a couple years for the Citizen's Voice, one of the main two newspapers in my home area in Pennsylvania (I actually briefly wrote for both the Citizen's Voice and the Time's Leader, until I got caught, at which point I found out that that was a big no-no, as one is union and the other nonunion, and as it was explained to me, "you can't work for McDonald's and Burger King" at the same time). In Arizona, I was a travel writer for AZ Tourist News, and got a lot of free perks on our weekend road trips throughout the state.
And in Seattle, I was a music reviewer for the now defunct Rocket, the Pacific Northwest's main music publication at the time. How did I find out they went belly up? I went down to the office as I did every other week. Only, the office was locked and closed, with a big R.I.P. tombstone sign on the door. Below this was written, The Rocket Is Gone. And it was.
But now 411Mania has given me refuge. Alas… a junkie sighs with relief. Being an online publication, this is a bit different and new for me, but even more fun in a number of ways. And tying it all back into Where Do You Get Your New Music? … I can list a number of bands I got into at each place. Some of the bands you maybe heard of, and others you didn't. No matter… the point is that I heard of them in this manner, as a reviewer, and some of those releases became favorite albums.
Temple News? I was fondly inducted into Southern Culture on the Skids, Supernova, Spacehog, Stiffs Inc., Siberia, Francis Dunnery, Big Audio Dynamite, Three Mile Pilot, the Psyclone Rangers, Omatic, the Wrens, and Garbage.
(SCOTS)
The Rocket? There was Blue and Holding, Mindless Self Indulgence, SMP, the Blue Plate Specials, MDFMK, Babyland, Rorschach Test, Spahn Ranch, Sofa Glue, Static X, Hartwood, Nocturne, Expansion Union, Spiv, Snake River Conspiracy, Damage Manual, and Sin.
(MSI)
411Mania? Well, still relatively new here, there's been Bird and the Bee, Cat Empire, and Kings of Leon.
(Meow)
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING BLACK SABBATHLY DIFFERENT
Email roundup will return next week. I just wanted to throw a Black Sabbath comment out. I've got them on the mind (or at last Heaven and Hell), as that is the next concert I'm geared up for in May.
That said, I read through the two reviews of the Black Sabbath: the Dio Years release, one more critical and one less critical. Don't get me started on Greatest Hits releases (as though a time period of only three studio releases needs a Greatest Hits treatment) (I'm gearing up for that Greatest Hits column, and also the Hall of Shame bonus tracks/re-released CD's column)… but I did have to mention this.
Both reviewers picked the Dehumanizer album as the low point. I know, as the saying goes, there's no accounting for taste (I mean mine), but if you haven't heard the album, like the old sound of Black Sabbath, and wondered what it would've been like had Dio sang in that version of Black Sabbath, here it is. To me, the band returned to form, and I wish they would've kept on that path.
They touch upon it with Tony Martin on "Virtual Death" and "Illusion of Power" (yes, the track on Forbidden with Ice T as a guest vocalist, but it's actually quite good, not terrible, as some detractors paint it to be… it's not like he's rapping lines, he's basically half-narrating them, and for me, not only the first Body Count album, but also his duets with Slayer, Motorhead, and Pro-Pain are credentials enough to make this a wicked team-up).
The first three tracks of Dehumanizer are great, in my opinion, and the rest of the album is pretty darn good.
Call me crazy (and you may be doing so even as I type this), Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die are not too far off in tone musically than are Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules (or Born Again and The Seventh Star, for that matter). It's a lighter, more rock ‘n' roll based Black Sabbath. It has its moments, and I can enjoy it for what it is, but to me, Black Sabbath's "After All" and "TV Crimes," Judas Priest's "Painkiller," and even Dio's solo "Wild Ones" were all awesome responses to thrash music at the time.
Here were heavy metal pioneers getting heavier, kicking ass, possibly influenced a bit by some of the thrasher music, just as most of that music began to slow down and get more metal melodic (the only exception being Slayer, or eventually Testament, when they rebelled on their last release before being dropped, the uber-intense Low).
Anyway, my main point is twofold. I'd recommend you try Dehumanizer if you like older Black Sabbath. I also wanted to point out the value of really good, analytical reviews (Where Do You Get Your New Music From? ), because even though I don't agree with Dehumanizer's tracks being weaker tracks, the first Black Sabbath: the Dio Years review has made me very curious about Elf and Rainbow (lovely… another couple bands to put on my to-get list) (maybe I'll make it a heavy metal foundations month, and get Elf, Rainbow, Samson, and Hawkwind all in the same time span)….
