Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

Now that summer is here in the wilds of Illinois, I have the time that I wanted in order to read, write, camp, hike, and ride my bike. Bike riding is all I have accomplished so far. Here is a nice mix of my top riding albums (the reasons aren't so obvious).  1). Eleven Hundred Springs --This Crazy Life 2). Scott H. Biram -- Graveyard Shift 3). All -- Greatest Hits 4). Birdcloud -- Birdcloud EP 5). All Eyes West -- All Eyes West 6). American Aquarium -- Burn, Flicker, Die 7). The Avengers -- Avengers EP 8). Baroness -- Blue Record 9). Bottle Rockets -- The Brooklyn Side 10). Chelsea Light Moving -- S/T 11), Crimpshrine -- Duct Tape Soup 12). The Dictators -- Blood Brothers 13). Fifth on the Floor -- Ashes & Angels 14). Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit -- Live in Alabama 15). The Leghounds -- Various Demos 16). Lifetime -- Jersey's Best Dancers 17). The Menzingers -- On the Impossible 18). Mudhoney -- Vanishing Point 19). Night Birds -- Fre...

“ Seventh Son” A hazy mist covered the ground in the cemetery. Green saplings bent to the ground. I walked solemnly, looking behind me every couple of minutes. My chest beat and my legs felt tense. I had been meeting my brother in Shadows Grove Cemetery for several years. Well, I guess I couldn’t really call it meeting him. He’s dead. I just walked to the cemetery to talk to him. He was the only person whom I could really trust when he was alive. You see, my dad died before I was born and my mom -- well, she’s crazy. She tells me that I’m crazy for talking to Randall. She says, “He’s dead. When are you gonna realize that? I raised a dip shit kid who talks to fucking angels.” She isn’t all that bad, though. At least, she doesn’t hit me anymore. As I approached his plot, I saw a big and nasty crow. It cawed at me and flew into the grey sky, then alighted near Randall’s gravestone and dashed back into the sky. The sun was beginning to make me tired. I felt it on my skin and s...

I drove up to northern Wisconsin yesterday through alternating rain and sun. Once I drove past Tomahawk the rain turned to slushy snow and sleet. Turning onto highway 8, traffic trailers, trucks loaded down with planks, and general messiness slowed me down. The trees up here are still struggling to leaf out and the brown, dirty grass attempts to push past random snow piles. In Illinois, the trees are in full bloom, yet the nights are cold and wet. I'm glad to be back in the North Woods, if just for a couple of days. The place is lovely even in its worse vernal dress. The birds are attempting to sing, hastening the full arrival of spring, then summer -- all before the darkening doom and gloom of the change back to fall in the northern woods. The seasons here change in a heartbeat. The earth and the people are always hopeful that the seasons might just last a bit longer. Luckily, they don't have to put up with stretches of 100 percent humidity for weeks at a time that ...

I've always had a fascination for lesser-known power pop bands and singles. Whether this means singing the praise of 20/20's second album, championing Brendan Benson's pre-Raconteurs efforts, or even calling Pansy Division's Absurd Pop Song Romance the greatest power pop album, I sometimes find myself reaching for that sugary, disposable pop single. Albeit, I generally grab one that won't make the radio or even get noticed in this age of increasing vocoder usage and auto-tuned pop atrocities. Case in point, these two songs by the pop punk band, Weston off of their 1996 album, Got Beat Up , are so dynamic, poppy, and well-written that they deserve space in the echelon of killer pop tunes. While the rest of the record is an excellent pop punk record with the type of sugary licks that Weezer wishes they used, these two songs stand out due to their maturity. No small feat on a record where most of the songs deal with immature love and the awkwardness of being young an...

Gilman Street bootlegs are a funny thing. Many times the sound quality is bad because they were recorded by audience members by any means necessary. For example, Lint Rides Again , which chronicled the last Operation Ivy (interestingly enough they played with an embryonic Green Day) show has fairly poor sound quality, but is listenable. Most sound better than earlier hardcore bootlegs, especially if they were taken from the soundboard. Regardless of sound quality, the energy level and enthusiasm at these shows makes them worth a listen. Songs are debuted, loose sloppy versions of early songs are auditioned for an enthusiastic audience, an errant cover song will slip out as if by chance or happenstance. Green Day shows are no exception. The between song banter is as interesting as historical chronicle and the list of later fan favorites that the band plays is exemplary. The crowd knows many of these songs, even as Billie Joe Armstrong continually plugs Kerplunk . The album had be...

I'm sitting here listening to Charlie Rich's 1974 LP, The Silver Fox on this snowy evening, drinking hot cocoa, and once in awhile glancing at the snow as it drifts slowly to the ground. The record came out shortly after his countrypolitan breakthrough, Behind Closed Doors , but surpasses that overproduced, yet very satisfying album. Rich feels at ease on this one, telling stories about his development as an artist. The Billy Sherill production does not seem as overblown, and Rich's natural delivery anticipates the MTV Unplugged performances of a decade  and a half later. He does an interesting medley that includes classical pieces he learned as a child, a satisfying bluesy version of "Don't Put No Headstone on My Grave," and a rocking and rolling version of the song "Break-Up," which he had recorded earlier for Sun Records. Rich was a musical chameleon who excelled at many styles and it is never more evident than on the Medley's choice mix of s...

I wasn't originally entirely taken with Scott H. Biram. He wrote quite exceptional country and blues songs that were filtered through a lo-fi vibe that recalled later era Hank the third and Joe Buck. I didn't see the passion and originality at first. Biram is revivalist, but brings real soul and dedication to his bluesy rave-ups. I first heard the song, "Go Down Ol" Hannah" from his 2009 record, Something's Wrong/Lost Forever on shuffle mode. It sounded like a vintage 1930's blues song. I actually asked myself whether it was John Lee Hooker or Lightnin' Hopkins. When I looked and saw that it was Biram I was amazed. Like he was channeling an old blues singer, he gives his all and makes the song sound like an original even though it has really good production for a Biram album as most of them are fairly lo-fi. By the next song, he is as dirty as ever. As a one man band, he not only can bring different styles at a drop of a hat, but is clearly ca...