MERLE HAGGARD RIP

I really liked Merle Haggard’s music. I have been a fan of his since I sought out his and George Jones’s records after hearing versions of their songs on SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO and ALMOST BLUE. His early records are best because they featured more of his original songwriting. Of all the enjoyable parts of his music, I think he may be the best country music songwriter in history combining lyrical voice character studies (which people mistook as his own right wing opinions), hard luck stories, the setting of the country music archetype – drinking and bad women, the language of exaggerated blue collar misery of a personal nature, a surprising amount of sensitivity in his later songs about relationships. He also had made good choices in the songs by other writers he chose to cover. Lyrically, he was a clever wordsmith. “I threw away the rose and kept the thorn” a line that turned up in other artist’s songwriting. Musically, he wrote more like someone from the British Invasion short punchy songs verse-chorus – Bakersfield rockabilly style – less saccharine pedal steel.

More importantly, his hard early years – son of Okie dust bowl migrants to Tulare County, they lived in a converted railway car, his father died when he was nine, he served time in juvenile hall for car theft then later served two years in prison for a botched robbery attempt….Hard early years gave his music character and experience that modern country music lacks. I have already seen a number of obituaries make this point but modern country music is worthless and soulless. Will we ever see performers like Merle Haggard and George Jones again? RIP

A funny Haggard story I read – When the Hag first met Johnny Cash, he told him this isn’t the first time we met, Johnny. We also met at your San Quentin concert. Cash told him he didn’t remember him on the bill that day or playing with him. Haggard said no he was in the audience as he was a prisoner at San Quentin at the time.

My Favorite Merle Haggard songs (an abbreviated list)

I Take A Lot of Pride In What I Am

Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down

Loneliness Is Eating Me Alive

I Threw Away The Rose

I’ll Be A Hero (When I Strike)

Things Aren’t Funny Anymore

The Emptiest Arms In The World

Misery and Gin

Here In Frisco

Mama Tried

WHO'S THE BIGGER LIAR? HILLARY CLINTON OF COURSE!

Every word out of Hillary Clinton's mouth is a lie. Here's a list of all the lies she has told about Bernie Sanders in this campaign.

Misrepresented Sanders’ vote on the 2000 CFMA

Misrepresented Sanders’ vote on the 2007 Immigration Reform bill

Misrepresented Sanders’ vote on the 2008 Auto Bailout

Misrepresented Sanders’ 2006 stance on indefinite detention regarding undocumented migrants

Used the Import/Export Bank debate to push the narrative that Sanders and the Koch brothers had a close tie and were helping each other.

Suggested dishonestly that Sanders lied about his civil rights record.

Pushed the narrative that Sanders was a misogynist over his “Shouting” comment on gun control

Pushed the narrative that Sanders was a racist over his “Urban” comment on gun control

Pushed the narrative that Sanders’ campaign was running negative advertisements attacking Clinton, referencing this ad: youtube /watch? v=z4kcH42oxYw

Labeled Sanders a “one issue candidate” over his “one issue” focus on corruption via campaign finance, revolving door employment, and lobbying

Disingenuously claimed that Sanders has also “accepted money from Wall Street” through the DCCC, and that he’s therefore no different than Clinton on accepting major donations from the financial sector

Pushed Univision’s out-of-context narrative of depicting Sanders as someone who wholly supported and praised Fidel Castro

Used scare tactics to dissuade voters away from Sanders’ single-payer healthcare proposal by disingenuously stating that Sanders would get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, etc.

“Where was Sanders when I was fighting for Healthcare?!” when he was involved in the efforts on multiple levels, as was acknowledged by Clinton at the time and even appeared with her in public.

Compared Sanders to communist dictators such as Hugo Chavez

Suggested Sanders is anti-Israel and a poor Jew because he has criticized Israel’s human rights abuses

Suggested Sanders was a godless atheist at a Methodist fundraising event and thus made an untrustworthy candidate

Spread the rumor that Sanders’ campaign was busing in out-of-state voters to cheat a win in Iowa

Misrepresented Sanders’ intentions in pushing someone to challenge Obama in the ’12 primaries

THE HOOPLE BY MOTT THE HOOPLE

Recently was the 42nd anniversary of Mott the Hoople's last record THE HOOPLE.

It's not as good a record as the one before it MOTT their best record a true masterpiece of songwriting but is very consistent and I'd almost use the word groovy (not a word I would associate normally with Hoople's bar band/singer songwriter/futuristic glam/pre punk combination).  I just think they are a great band.

Ian Hunter was now in total control as Mick Ralphs had left (to join Bad Company???!!! can't think of a former member of a band I liked as much who went on to such a sh*tty next band ) but that's fine as Hunter is in fine form as a singer and as a songwriter and as a musician(All the good MTH songs in the past were written by him anyway with the exception of All The Young Dudes). I consider this is his first solo album in a way.

Standout musical moments….Great rockers - The Golden Age of Rock n' Roll, Crash Street Kidds, Roll Away the Stone and moving ballads - Trudi's Song, Through the Looking Glass plus the requisite glam rock weirdness -Marionette....Also the re-issue adds two great non lp singles Foxy Foxy and (Do You Remember) The Saturday Gigs?

A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT DAREDEVIL SEASON TWO

First off, Daredevil Season Two is paced a lot better than Season One without the long boring stretches of conversation and other padding. I like this version of The Punisher (which is based on the PunisherMax adult comic series of the 2000's - Some scenes are directly taken as is how Jon Bernthal plays him) more Death Wish than the classic heroic square jawed Punisher of the 70's and 80's and also of the last Punisher film - Ray Stevenson also excellent in the role. The first four episodes are full of great moments - The Punisher walking into a hospital carrying a huge gun, The Punisher beating a kiddie porn seller to death with a baseball bat, Daredevil's fight in the hall and the stairwell and the first floor with a motorcycle gang which tops the first season's hallway fight, the long conversations between DD and the Punisher on the rooftop and the graveyard, Matt finally getting close to Karen Page with the sound of raindrops and the sense of touch amplified by his special ability - very sexy,....Of all the Easter Eggs, my favorite little in joke and hopefully one that might lead to something in a future season is when Melvin Potts picks up the saw blades while arguing with Matt - In the comics he becomes the saw using supervillain Gladiator, love to see that character in the TV show.

However, the Punisher storyline is significantly better than the Elektra storyline. When Frank Castle takes on a large number of men in a jail fight, well that is one of the most visually impressive fight sequences I have ever seen. I liked Elodie Yung as Elektra, ethnically she fits this exotic role a lot better than Jennifer Garner but I did not like the change in her origin (as a result she is a much less sympathetic and likable character) and wasn’t excited about her part of the story except for the great fight scenes. The elephant in the room going forward is Bullseye who in the comics killed not only Elektra but Karen Page too. He’s a must for the third season although not sure how he figures into Elektra’s story now they’ve so altered the events of her life.

TWO RECORDS - EVERYTHING YOU'VE COME TO EXPECT BY THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS AND GOOD GRIEF BY LUCIUS

The 2nd album by The Last Shadow Puppets (the collaboration between Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys and Miles Kane) feels like a slightly less immediate and quieter version of their debut THE AGE OF THE UNDERSTATEMENT. In the eight years since UNDERSTATEMENT, Kane has kind of come into his own as a successful solo artist while Turner has kept plugging away with Arctic Monkeys. This is certainly a beautifully produced record with swooping strings and pitch perfect vocals in harmony or solo (mostly by Turner). A little bit of a nod in the direction of Brian WIlson besides the regular 60's-70's influenced chamber pop especially on the title track which is my favorite song after two listens. I hope we don't have to wait so long for the next Puppets record. IMO it's better than the last couple Arctic Monkeys records.

Underneath the pretty vocals and the various beats and instrumental flourishes on this second album by the musical duo Lucius(I especially like sound of the synths here) is some really great songwriting, nifty wordplay lyrics, big choruses, slow burning melodies that reveal themselves gradually like a burlesque dancer disrobing....I imagine most artists would kill for a tune as good as "My Heart Got Caught On Your Sleeve"

A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT THE 28TH ANNIVERSARY OF VIVA HATE BY MORRISSEY

It's The 28^th anniversary of Morrissey’s first solo album VIVA HATE.   

Not his best solo record but an excellent start to his career with no bad songs on it.  I remember it came out less than a year after The Smiths last album and break-up and immediately after that the music magazines were all saying Moz would be nothing without Johnny Marr who they said had a bright future ahead of him.  This was not the last time they would write premature eulogies for Moz’s career.

I also remember when this record came out and being happy because it was actually pretty good.  Producer/co-songwriter Stephen Street was a very good writing partner and sympathetic arranger for Moz framing his voice in a number of different situations.  Aside from the hits Suedehead and Everyday Is Like Sunday, I especially like voice and strings Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together, the epic Moz freakout Late Night, Maudlin Street (which introduced me to poet Elizabeth Smart whose verse Moz “borrows”), Booming Vini Reilly guitar showcase Alsatian Cousin and the weird little fragment Little Man, What Now?.  I can even ignore the casual racism of Bengali in Platforms (great tune nonetheless).  

However, my favorite tune and one of Moz’s greatest solo songs, for sure in my top five, is The Ordinary Boys.  Beautiful mournful tune with a brilliant piano part as an inspired Morrissey, his raw nerve pure expression voice here exactly tuned into what he wants to say, describes in painstaking detail the high school losers he grew up with.

Ordinary boys, happy knowing nothing
happy being no one, but themselves
Ordinary girls, supermarket clothes
who think it's very clever to be cruel to you
for you were so different
you stood all alone
and you knew
that it had to be so
avoiding ordinary boys
happy going nowhere, just around here
in their rattling cars
and ordinary girls
never seeing further
than the cold, small streets
that trap them
but you were so different
you had to say no
when those empty fools
tried to change you, and claim you
for the lair of their ordinary world
where they feel so lucky
so lucky, so lucky
with their lives laid out before them
they're so lucky, so lucky
so lucky, so lucky

A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POETRY OF OCTAVIO PAZ

The last week or so been I have been working my way through a collection of the poetry of Octavio Paz.  I have liked the individual Paz poems I have come across occasionally (years ago had an instructor in college that was really really into his work) but have never sat down and read a bunch of his poems together at one time.

Two things I like about his poetry and one thing I don’t like….

1.) His poetry in terms of language seems well thought out but the language he uses is always simple but never repetitive.  He can move feeling that way and that’s a hard thing with such modest verbiage 2.) I like how he breaks up his stanzas.  That may be taken for granted, a given for the poet but I am often reading garbage modern poetry where a guy writes a line then two spaces then one word then a space then three lines of a run-on sentence.  That’s not a poetic/literary device, that’s just gimmickry.

What I don’t like abut Paz is I don’t think he has a lot to say.  I think he has visions in his mind of reliving encounters with other people, women etc.  and he compare all those to the usual (nature, space, emotion, geography, weather)but there’s no universality to it….At least none a word Marxist like myself can detect.

Paz is basically like a more calm, less grand Whitman.  He is not as anywhere near as explosive or powerful as Walt W. but sees some connections between himself and the object of his desires, between the world and love/lust/desire.

Many consider SUNSTONE his best poem….It really reminds me of Whitman, only more dreamy than thunderous.  http://www.mysterium.com/sunstone.html