Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

The lights are off, and I'm in bed watching television. The year is 1992.  I'm supposed to be sleeping -- I have school in the morning, but I can't stop watching Liquid Television . Images are flashing across the screen, a kaleidoscope of colors and mangled drawings. The characters are unbelievable -- Crazy Daisy Ed, Aeon Flux, Beavis and Butthead, Dogboy. The scenarios are even wilder -- "Cut-up Camera,"" Invisible Hands," "Stick Figure Theatre, The Art School Girls of Doom" -- each escalating in delicious promise and craziness. When the TV is off, these images swarm through my mind. Odd music, odder scenarios, forming memories, re-routing synapses, shocking parents across the greater USA. At the time, I was unaware that many of these short vignettes were from the minds of underground cartoonists who were just trying to make a buck beyond book covers and advertising. MTV transformed a few of these into later series that didn't retain the...

Wikipedia defines blue-eyed soul as "rhythm and blues and soul music performed by white artists . . . and first used in the mid-1960s to describe white artists who performed (such music) that was similar to the music of the Motown and Stax record labels." The term has been increasingly used to describe many white artists who take a soulful approach to music or sing certain kinds of torch songs. I was surprised to not find an entry concerning the form in The Rock Snob's Dictionary but the style doesn't seem to hold the cache of such genres as Americana or 70's AM folk. Even so, the entry for Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham shares some anti-hipster disdain for the "Memphis-based song writing duo invariably praised for being 'real soulful for white boys'" with tongue firmly entrenched in cheek. While the style does have its share of detractors, there is no mistaking that such songwriters as Penn and Oldham wrote some of the best soul songs of the 60...

The world is awash with random events. I sit here drinking at the bar. Nirvana cranks from the speakers. Cobain sings about the hinterland just like the hi-fives. Live from the Wishkah, hah. As if he slept under various bridges waiting for that final night and I as a poet use a cellphone to record my thoughts against beer and a 90s soundtrack. Ruth Ruth and all those forgotten bands from indie and grunge scenes are revitalized. Hah. I record the malaise of a lost decade. Recording those indecisive nights on a machine that didn't exist then, except in Zach Morris's time-stopping daydreams. Huzzah. I am lost.

This is the world held within two points On the borders of sheen and stripped Darkness not alert from the cry Of a distant owl fluttering and coasting Along the borders of the forest Hunting desperately for food In boundaries of dark and twilight Piercing cries and shrieking crimes Unnatural and distant in the brightest light Ley lines of extremities unshorn What of it. Imaginary or real. The hunt for sustenance Be it shattered bones or feathers.

Staring at the unrelenting forgiveness of the shower wall, I stumble into the regrets of the past. Each year ticks off the clock and goals fall underneath the wheels of graduate school and time, slowly slipping towards a reaper with few words and little sympathy. The wall is clean, yet the grout is stained. Dark dirt sleeps in the crack of the shower nozzle. It might hold redemption or just another ray of chlorinated water slipping down the drains of the world. The water circles backwards and forwards, unceasing. Its blues and greens match the eyes of the world's watchers. Here I am, I think. Another day or week older, another step closer to some goal, another shadow of my former self. The mirror reflects a cracked visage, one a little rounder, a little more grizzled, perhaps, a little wiser. So much time is spent in the bathroom examining and reexamining, warbling long forgotten pop songs. Thinking, thinking, thinking, and more regret. It is here that honesty exists within each ...

Sometimes record engineers, band members, label people, or other unknown individuals will inscribe funny messages or insider jokes on the run-out grooves of records. These spaces near the label of the record are often inscribed with matrix numbers that contain record manufacturing or label information. Dates, pressing number, plant identification, logos, initials, and other information can be gleaned by the avid record fan. These details may reveal when the record was cut, who engineered it, where it was pressed, etc. The numbers, for instance, usually are different than the catalog number, yet many minor labels print the catalog number and record side in the groove as well -- probably because their pressing runs are smaller. For example, Green Day's Slappy EP has a matrix number of L35573, but also has Lookout 35-A designating the label number scratched into the wax, as well as the initials, D.W.K. Many major label  records have less information, which may refer to the order of ...

As a vinyl collector, I find myself getting more adventurous every year. Albums I would never have purchased, even five years ago, make it into my stack more and more often. If I find a dusty ol' record that looks interesting, I will buy it without hesitation (especially if I'm paying 5 bucks or less). This is how I managed to own not only most of the Top 40 Fleetwood Mac, but also a sizable collection of prog records by Yes and Rush -- these records get played once and filed as I have still not, nor probably ever will, garner an appreciation for 25 minute songs. Give me sugary 60's pop any day. Of all the thrift store records I own, the Byrds perhaps get the most play. When I pick through those dusty thrift store bins, brimming with Mitch Miller and Neil Diamond, I always hope to find a Byrds record I don't own. This is surprisingly easy as many people don't respect them enough. All the sappy David Crosby songs and missteps in the later years have turned people o...