Dolly Parton

"9 TO 5 (1980). The greatest audience movie ever made. I saw this when it was released in 1980 in a theater in Zion - at the dusky dawn of the Reagan era. Of course, we all loved it. Singing and clapping along to Dolly’s theme song. Cheering and bursting into applause everytime one of the ladies would reach the end of their rope with Dabney Coleman. It was like a rock concert. The last time I saw it was during a Dolly Parton film festival at the @musicboxchicago in flaming liberal Chicago - and the reaction was exactly the same. As great as Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin were (and are) in the movie, I have to think this universal adoration is mostly due to Dolly - the woman the New York Times once named the only thing ‘we can all agree on’. A person of endless positivity and good cheer - but cut with street smart awareness and a winking sex appeal. She knew who she was and she could see a jerk-off asshole coming a mile away. And I’m sure she saw a LOT of them - but l’d also wager that she never wasted a whole lot of time worrying about any of them. What’s the point? And besides — nobody’s perfect. Someone sent me a text today that read ‘This country no longer deserved her anyway’. That may be true - even though a truer sentiment would be that maybe we need her now more than ever- but Dolly never would’ve tolerated that kind of cynicism and defeatism. It wasn’t in her. Or her music. And it shouldn’t be in us. R.I.P., Dolly. We will always love you."

Local H's Scott Lucas remembering Dolly Parton. There's a lovely tribute to her on the Local H podcast Lifers this week.

The Giraffes

21 years ago this month, on summer break between junior and senior year of college, I drove solo to the Black Cat in Washington DC to see one of my favorite bands since 6th grade, Local H. The openers were a rowdy, sketchy-looking quartet that seemed like they could be fun. Before I knew what was happening, the lead singer's hand was in my hair. They started a beer fight with the crowd, had at least half the band in the audience while the rest was on stage, and got us screaming along with hooks like "You're going home in a fuckin' ambulance" and "Having fun with assholes" seconds after we learned them. I bought their newest CD after the show and was a little surprised by how nice the band members I spoke with were. My ticket was $12 and there wasn't a phone in sight. I had just met the Giraffes.

Luckily, they were from New York, a short Metro-North ride from school, and I tried to see them as much as I could over the next several years. I booked them to play my college (it took a lot of work convincing student senate to sponsor something that wasn't indie rock or folk) and watched them turn our cafeteria space into Mad Max. I wrote about them for whichever publications would let me (thank you Beyond Race and Metal Injection) and interviewed them on my college radio show (thank you WSLC). Their manager Chris gave me a high standard of music business professionalism, and the Giraffes gave me a high standard of everything—performances, albums, and just showing that a bunch of deviant, weirdo artists can still be cool to their fans. The music industry is more overrun with creeps than any of us will ever know, and the older I get the more I realize that (Aaron voice) "you have no ideaaaaa" how rare folks like the Giraffes are.

I often think of Mishka Shubaly in Ted Manitatakos' fabulous Giraffes movie, pulling out Meet Me in the Bathroom and pointing out the glaring omission in the "G" section of the index. The Giraffes have never gotten the bank or the audience they deserve, despite having more crossover appeal than your average punk/metal/surf/garage/indie/I still don't know what to call it trailblazers. They've also never phoned it on, on stage or on record, in any instance I've experienced them. At their possibly final show last Friday before Aaron escapes to Italy, they were still full of surprises. I usually avoid looking at people's phone footage of shows, but this time I keep thinking "Did that really happen?" before going back to check the Giraffes' stories to confirm yes, it did. Yeah, they do it. That's how they do it. And they do it so good.

Thank you Damien, Drew, Aaron, Hannah, Josh, Jens, John, Tim and everybody else who's been a part of this incredible story so far.

Planet of the Wolves

Planet of the Wolves

1. Mastodon, "The Wolf is Loose"
2. Guitar Wolf, "Planet of the Wolves"
3. Ozzy Osbourne, "Bark at the Moon"
4. X, "Hungry Wolf"
5. The Cramps, "I Was a Teenage Werewolf"
6. High on Fire, "Speedwolf"
7. Motörhead featuring Michael Palin, "The Wolf"
8. Misery Index, "Fed to the Wolves"
9. Metallica, "Of Wolf and Man"
10. Converge, "Lonewolves"
11. The Dillinger Escape Plan, "Sunshine the Werewolf"
12. Hole, "Hungry Like the Wolf"
13. Ramones, "Howling At The Moon (Sha-La-La)"
14. Local H, "Wolf Like Me"
15. Amon Amarth, "Father of the Wolf"
16. Rancid, "The Wolf"
17. The Hu Band, "Wolf Totem"
18. Megadeth, "She-Wolf"
19.  Queens of the Stone Age, "Someone's in the Wolf"
20. Danzig, "Killer Wolf"

For KIP.

"Lights, please"

1. Run-D.M.C., "Christmas in Hollis"
2. The Waitresses, "Christmas Wrapping"
3. Vince Guaraldi Trio, "Christmas Time is Here"
4. Big Star, "Jesus Christ"
5. Donny Hathaway, "This Christmas"
6. Eels, "Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas"
7. The Pogues, "Fairytale of New York"
8. Otis Redding, "Merry Christmas Baby"
9. Joni Mitchell, "River"
10. Harry Nilsson, "Remember (Christmas)"
11. Elvis Presley, "Blue Christmas"
12. John Prine, "Christmas in Prison"
13. The Pretenders, "2000 Miles"
14. The Tall Pines, "Christmas Morning Coming Down"
15. Local H, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"
16. The Kinks, "Father Christmas"
17. Jackson 5, "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town"
18. Wham!, "Last Christmas"
19. Bob Dylan, "Here Comes Santa Claus"
20. Tom Waits, "Christmas Card from a Hooker In Minneapolis"
21. Sinéad O'Connor, "Silent Night"
22. Ramones, "Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)"
23. Morphine, "Sexy Christmas Baby Mine"
24. Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Deck the Halls"

For RAB.

Do Not Go Jenny Into That Good Night

Do Not Go Jenny Into That Good Night

1. Pavement, "Gold Soundz"
2. My Bloody Valentine, "Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)"
3. The Church, "Under the Milky Way"
4. The B-52's, "Roam"
5. Morrissey, "Suedehead"
6. New Order, "Age of Consent"
7. David Bowie, "Life on Mars?"
8. Nico, "These Days"
9. The Wrens, "This Boy is Exhausted"
10. Nick Drake, "Pink Moon"
11. Queen, "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy"
12. Nina Simone, "Pirate Jenny"
13. Patti Smith, "Dancing Barefoot"
14. The Velvet Underground, "Rock and Roll"
15. Têtes Noires, "True Love"
16. The Pretenders, "Back on the Chain Gang"
17. The Grateful Dead, "Ripple"
18. Soul Asylum, "Just Like Anyone"
19. Local H, "For Lovers"
20. The Replacements, "Nowhere is My Home"

Happy birthday, JA.

Local H, "Another February"

Local H, "Wolf Like Me"

Brian St. Clair, one of modern rock's best drummers, is leaving Local H at the end of their fall tour. That news gets more serious when you remember that he's 50% of the band and that he's played with Scott Lucas for 14 years, even longer than Local H's original drummer, Joe Daniels. Surpassing Daniels' role at the kit seemed unthinkable in 1999, but four horribly underrated albums since then, St. Clair has written more of the band's history than anyone outside of the founder/songwriter. His replacement, and there will definitely be one, has huge shoes to fill.



I love the way that St. Clair's drumming drives Local H's version of "Wolf Like Me," originally by TV on the Radio. Their more minimalist approach than TVOTR's puts St. Clair entirely in charge of the song's rhythm, and he scores. It'd be easy for him to show off and play circles around Jaleel Bunton (see Local H's more recent cover of Rush's "2112 Overture/The Temples of Syrinx"), but here St. Clair paces himself for the song's benefit. By the second verse, you should be getting tickets to one of these shows.

Meow Mix

Shortly after I met Erica, we put together a playlist of our favorite cat songs (my contribution to the mix was called Cat Power, hers was Kool 4 Cats.) Now that she's leaving New York, I've whittled the playlist down to one going away mix for the road.



Meow Mix

1. Elton John, "Honky Cat"
2. The Presidents of the United States of America, "Kitty"
3. The Pogues, "Wild Cats of Kilkenny"
4. The Vaselines, "Monsterpussy"
5. The Coasters, "Three Cool Cats"
6. Muddy Waters, "Crosseyed Cat"
7. Squeeze, "Cool for Cats"
8. Joe Jackson, "We The Cats (Shall Hep Ya)"
9. The Rolling Stones, "Stray Cat Blues"
10. Johnny Cash, "Mean Eyed Cat"
11. The Kinks, "Phenomenal Cat"
12. Trout Fishing in America, "The Cat Came Back"
13. David Bowie, "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)"
14. Janet Jackson, "Black Cat"
15. Pantera, "Cat Scratch Fever"
16. Grateful Dead, "China Cat Sunflower"
17. The Cure, "The Love Cats"
18. Little Willie John, "Leave My Kitten Alone"
19. PJ Harvey, "Cat on the Walk"
20. Stray Cats, "Stray Cat Strut"
21. Scatman Crothers and Phil Harris, "Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat"
22. R.E.M., "Star Me Kitten"
23. Primus, "Tommy the Cat"

Better than Cats the musical and almost as good as Local H's Pack Up the Cats.

Not all of these songs are technically about cats, one might argue, but all of them pay tribute to the coolness of the feline, whether it's Elton John's hillbilly vagabond, Mick Jagger's back-clawing stray or something that Jerry Garcia ate. There's an especially big presence from '40s and '50s-style swingers, of course, where all that anybody ever wants to be is a cat, and the oft-reworked "The Cat Came Back" reveals that cat songs even predate the swingers. I picked Trout Fishing in America's version for being sweetly traditional and modern, and also because they got their band name from Richard Brautigan.

Many of these songs have been passed down for decades. Ry Cooder and the Beatles both have great versions of "Three Cool Cats," but I ended up going with the original, the Coasters' beloved b-side to "Charlie Brown." Johnny Cash first recorded "Mean Eyed Cat" in the 1950s, but didn't perfect it until he met Rick Rubin 40 years later. Pantera's smoldering run through "Cat Scratch Fever" makes me forget who wrote it. "Star Me Kitten" was once recorded with William S. Burroughs, but even the most fanatical Naked Lunch scholar can tell you that Michael Stipe was the better singer.

Finally, a few of you might remember that I made an all-dogs mix a few months back. Only three artists made it to both mixes--Johnny Cash, David Bowie and the guy who does the voice of "Tommy the Cat."

Bum Notes

Local H are bums. Not the proudly ignorant type of whomever Avril Lavigne is engaged to this week, but somewhere in the 47% of Americans whom Mitt Romney (who appears here, along with Bill O'Reilly and Sarah Palin) thinks get out of paying income taxes. Songwriter Scott Lucas doesn't posture or get on a high horse, but he does still fight for concepts, albums and concept albums on the H's latest, Hallelujah! I'm a Bum.

Lucas and drummer Brian St. Clair are still flinging out minimalist riff-rock in the vein of Cheap Trick processed through Mudhoney, but on Hallelujah! I'm a Bum they're sounding more like Titus Andronicus and the Japandroids' ancestors than grunge descendants. The minimal arrangements and violent energy that characterize more recent E Street indie give songs like "Night Fight to Paris," "Cold Manor" and "Feed a Fever" a distinct bite, backed up by Lucas' unstoppable riffage. He's gotten weirder--"Paddy Considine" plays like a Chicago take on Lou Reed's "Good Evening, Mr. Waldheim," and the canine romp "Look Who's Walking on Four Legs Again" almost pretends to pretend to be alt-country. "Here Come Ol' Laptop" drags a horn section into a Stooges-esque grind. A few minute-long transfer tracks help string together a theme about the Chicago "L" train, and references to the 2012 election are abundant ("He says 'Yes, we can'/But we're grains of sand," Lucas bemoans on the record's Townsend-worthy closer, "Waves Again.") Local H don't pretend to have answers, but they also don't have to remind you that they matter.

By the time Local H's next album is out, they'll still be bums, and the Black Keys still won't have any songs as good as these.

California Punk

Punk rock songs about California deserve their own box set. None of these are making it to my final mix CD, but that doesn't mean that they don't deserve your ears. More outtakes:

Dead Kennedys, "California Über Alles" and "Moon over Marin"

The two most accidentally melodic DK tracks are dedicated to the state's Jerry Brown Part I-era conditions. Jello Biafra's lyrics sound dated, even escapist in a post-Dick Cheney America, but the tunes rescue them.





Fear, "I Love Livin' in the City"

Mr. Boddy from Clue croons of his favorite city and all the debauchery that it encompasses. Eat your heart out, Randy Newman.



The Stooges, "L.A. Blues"

Call it noise-rock, if noise-rock ever got this good. "L.A. Blues" ruined music for everyone (except for maybe Thurston Moore and G.G. Allin.)



Sleater-Kinney, "Hollywood Ending"

Proof that Sleater-Kinney's deep cuts run deep. Outside of the Beastie Boys, no alt-rock vocalists played off each other as well as Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein.



Frank Black, "Los Angeles"

"I want to live in Los Angeles, not the one in Los Angeles." Of course not, Frank.



Rancid, "Journey to the End of the East Bay"

I spent a week laboring over this bassline, and even tried playing with three fingers, like Matt Freeman. Somehow, it never sounded quite like this.



The Misfits, "Hollywood Babylon"

Laugh at Glenn Danzig all you want. No one, not even the Cramps, ever captured the macabre psychobilly sound quite like he did with the Misfits.



Local H, "California Songs"

It kills me to not include this. I've seen Local H play this for eight years, and every year there's a new terrible hit about California for Scott Lucas to dedicate the song to. When Local H write about hating California as much as they hate the music it inspires, it'll go on a mix for my sister.