HAMELL CON CARNY

Join Hamell on Trial at Field Day in Ireland, where he watches Gary Busey and Jodie Foster in Carny, then goes to the carnival, where he declares that one ride is "fuckin' goin' down tonight."

Ed Hamell picked up the guitar at age 7 and started writing songs not long after. In his early 20s, Mr. Hamell was the front man and writer for an original band, but local bands were a dime a dozen in the tough, working class neighborho ods in Syracuse, NY. So he launched a one-man act called Hamell on Trial. Six albums (plus a live one) and countless shows later, Hamell himself is one of a kind. Catch him on tour this summer in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY

New tomes concerning the Spice Girls, indie band survival techniques, and cool.

The Indie Band Survival Guide: The Complete Manual for the Do-It-Yourself Musician, by Randy Cherktow and Jason Feehan (St. Martin’s Griffin) 

Someday I’ll write a guide. It will be called, The Fuck Up’s Guide to Life: The Complete Manual for Underachievers, or How to Get Paid Spewing Bitterness and Invective on The Internet. Until that day, my fellow slack asses, you must content yourself with the Cherktow and Feehan manual—just the ticket your piss-poor band has been waiting for. Read up, learn how to market yourselves, build a cult following, stumble into obscurity, toss your musical hopes and dreams into the dust bin, and become an orderly at a retirement community earning minimum wage. How’s that for a career arc? Seriously, though, if you’re serious about making it in the music biz, and if you have a modicum of talent to pull it off, you might want to get a hold of this book. Useful as hell.

Clawing at the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever, by Farah Jasmine Griffin and Salim Washington (Thomas Dunne Books)

You like jazz? Yeah, me neither. But you gotta appreciate its role in American history and literature. Without it, we wouldn’t have Jack Kerouac and the dope-addled Beat movement of the 1950s and ’60s. And without that, well, we’d all still be reading Jane Austen and Evelyn Waugh with our thumbs up our collective asses. So any history of Jazz greats is at least worth a nod of respect. Plus it’s bound to have some great heroine-related tales, since Miles Davis injected enough junk to bring down a water buffalo. 

Spice Girls Revisited, by David Sinclair (Music Sales, 2^nd edition) 

WTF? This book required a second edition? Who are the assholes who bought all of the first editions? I lose faith in humanity a little more each day.

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams. 

RATED EX

Perhaps you’ve gotten this far through life and never heard of Frederick Exley. Let me introduce you.

Exley, or “Ex,” was one of those “one hit wonder” kind of novelists. In 1968 he published A Fan’s Notes, and if you haven’t read it, then you need to turn off your computer, fire up that shitty minivan, and head on over to the local soul-killing, super-sanitized Mega Bookstore and get it. Chances are they won’t have it, and you’ll have to contend with the dull-eyed stare of the 20-year-old clerk when she says, “Would that be, like, maybe a study guide or something? Like, maybe, Cliff’s Notes?” If she says that, you have my permission to set the place on fire.   

Anyway, A Fan’s Notes is a brilliant piece of semi-autobiographical fiction (in the same vein as On the Road) chronicling Exley’s obsession with football legend Frank Gifford (husband to that insufferable ditz Kathie Lee Gifford) and the New York Giants. Now, before you freak out at the idea of reading a “sports” book, let me explain something: A Fan’s Notes is only tangentially about sports. It’s more like a memoir of alcoholism and mental illness. And not fitting in. Anywhere. Walter Kirn described it best in Slate about a decade ago: “A Fan’s Notes divides the world into two camps: tortured, bewildered misfits (Exleys) and serene, fair-haired conformists (Giffords).” Nerds versus jocks, if you want to over-simplify it. But with boozing, sex, and electroconvulsive therapy thrown in for good measure.

Exley penned two other books which were flops. You can skip those. But despite some elements in Notes that seem a little dated and kitschy now (Perpetual angst! Stints in mental hospitals!), the book is really more relevant than ever with its examination of celebrity, obsession, middle class perfection, and what it means to constantly encounter images of beautiful, successful people living a life you will never, ever know—you loser. Stick with A Fan’s Notes, and soon you, too, will be hating all the pretty people. As if you didn’t already.

P.S.: For an excellent biography of Ex, check out Jonathan Yardley’s Misfit.

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams. 

FAHRVERGNÜGEN

I love driving. The freedom to just go, $4/gallon be damned. Inherently and wonderfully American, isn't it? But as carbon-footprint-conscious as I like to think I am (and although I've never [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentati on of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

Chuck Eddy dusts off his old vinyl and scratches his head. We all win.

Greetings, BLURT readers. This column’s theme is fairly simple: Basically, I sort alphabetic ally through my shelves for dusty old 7-inch vinyl indie singles from acts that aren’t household names, and try to figure out why I wound up keeping them in the first place. This is the 5^th installment (first two appeared at Idolator.)

***

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS “Typical Girl”/”Attack Of The Chiggers” (no label flexi-disc, 1997): Slow slimy sludge-shtup shtick shtuck to the bottom of some sadistic prison guard’s big boot, from Ann Arbor post-Stooge proto-punk avant-garage performance-art legends, allegedly recording live in ’75; the flexi apparently came inside a zine the band put out several eras later. “Typical Girl” addresses its nastiness, in ways sickos may have found erotic, to an unnamed “little girl”: “I know you so good like the back of my hand.” “You look like everyone else! You’ve got no self respect!”  “You’re so typical like all the rest/ That’s why I like my baby the best.” At least he can’t be accused of high standards. A woman gets pulled onto the stage, sounds like, and starts squealing, “Don’t touch me! Get him out of here!,” then gasping amidst rubbing noises from a sax, or saw, or strings, or something. Maybe it’s staged, maybe it isn’t, but either way you get the idea you’re hearing something you shouldn’t. Second song is even slower, with a more distanced vocal; guy yells out “attack of the chiggers!” as guitar makes itchy chigger-attack sounds. On purpose or not, the “ch” word might easily be confused for an “n” word. (www.myspace.com/destroyallmonstersdetroit)

DJ BLAQSTARR “Feel It In The Air”/ BUSY P “Pedrophilia” (Fader, 2007): “I can feel it in the air/I can feel it in the street/I can feel it in my balls/I can feel it in my feet” – or words to that effect. DJ Blaqstarr plays a variation of so-called “Baltimore club music” (sort of a Tourette’s-inflicted distant relative of early Chicago house, Miami bass, and/or Detroit ghetto-tech), with skippity beats under a sample that goes “caw! caw! caw!”; eventually the silly lyrics fall out, so the caws and skippities are all you’ve got left. Busy P, from Paris, makes an even more shapeless brand of hipster-sanctioned dance music – namely, the squelchy, mildly rock-infused techno identified with French label Ed Banger Records, from which Justice also emerged last year. Two electronic themes criss-cross; one fades out while a voice squeaks “Busy P!” Eventually, it slims down to a few isolated bloops. No idea how one would dance to it -- seems kinda slow. But I like the Southern Comfort joint venture slogan on the label: “Start and end things right. Drink responsibly.” (www.myspace.com/blaqstarrmusic; www.myspace.com/busyp)

DOILY “2000 Dumb”/”Welcome Home” (Broklyn Beats, 2001): The martial rhythm sounds submerged – on a submarine, maybe. Springs and gadgets and bellows (both kinds) succumb to nautical miles of deep-sea echo. Deadpan spoken phrases, seemingly  from movie dialogue, emerge out of the abyss: “Shot down in cold blood.” Gradually the music turns into a busted pinball-machine on tilt, or better yet a firing range, heard through static over a broken field radio in the back of a Jeep with no doors. That’s the A-side; the B-side has not-quite-tuned-in shortwave transmissions evolving into dub reggae, or some bassline’s recognizable approximation thereof. The transmissions fade in and out, do backflips over Pymgy of the Ituri Forest drums, thicken into quicksand until you start losing your belongings. Word is that some Brooklyn gal pieced it all together. (www.broklynbeats.net)

DYKEHOUSE “Chain Smoking”/”FYD” (Ghostly International, 2003): The label’s from Michigan and specializes in electro, but the A-side’s music is almost a conventional indie guitar-jangle breakup song – guy makes out with girl in backyard, tries to undo her pants, but now he’s chain smokin’ ‘cause his heart’s broken, so he rhymes “frown” with “upside down” and “loud” with “mushroom cloud.” His voice really does have some of that two-packs-a-day gruffness to it, too, and the melody has some of the pop feel of mid ‘80s Hüsker Dü, but more twee and British. “FYD” starts with a higher voice – probably a guy attempting a Princely falsetto – and has more synthesizers, but depicts a situation no less concrete: “At the club last Friday/You’re all done up in black/I knew I had to have you my way/When I saw you arch your back.” So he buys her a drink, drives her home in his Mercedes, takes her up to “Big Daddy’s room,” where he brings out his “Dutch love broom,” whatever that is. (I chuckled at it, I admit.) Then he switches into minstrel-boast mode, updating a trusty old seduction growl from Isaac Hayes or Barry White amid wah-wah effects: “Who’s the motherfuckin’ pimp? My big dick just won’t go limp.” Not as funny as he hopes. Then simulated sex moans – maybe like fellow Ann Arborites Destroy All Monsters years before. There was a minute or two there in the early ‘00s when work from weirdos named Morel and the Horrorist hinted that techno might turn into a new kind of singer-songwriter music; this’d be another example, I guess, but the idea didn’t seem to stick around for very long. Maybe the problem was that the mundane clubland situations depicted seemed too shallow for listeners to care about them? Just a thought. (www.ghostly.com)

EL CAPTAIN FUNKAHO ”Space Slut”/”Bootay”/“My 2600”/”Evil Goat Interlude” (Stones Throw, 1998): From a reportedly moonlighting San Francisco library clerk, more cartoon pimp shtick, though of the outer-space variety this time. Chipmunk-punked robot aliens seek booh-tay, harking back to Bootsy Collins and Captain Sky and especially Jimmy Castor: El Captian Funkaho requests that you hand over your tutti fruity, and soon it’s time for the post-Hendrix feedback solo. “My 2600” opens with a mega-heavy riff out of Black Sabbath’s “Electric Funeral,” then turns attention to old videogame brands, many of which I’m unfamiliar with: Atari, Asteroids, Bezerk, Combat, Pong, Pac Man, and (in a possibly intentional reference to the great 1984 Rebbie Jackson hit of that name) Centipede. The artist starts rapping like he’s auditioning for Newcleus, and yet more psychedelic freak-funk pours in. “Evil Goat Interlude,” named perhaps for the Satanic inverted ibexes of black metal fame, is just a few seconds of chattering and guitar growl. The 45 sleeve colorfully depicts a mad scientist with star-shaped sunglasses and maroon Bozo the Clown hair, furiously joysticking. There are also goats. What else do you need? (www.stonesthrow.com)

 [Photos, top to bottom: Destroy All Monsters, Dykhouse, Funkaho]

…TO BAKE COOKIES ON MICK’S BARE ASS

Martin Scorsese lights up animatronic rock dinos the Rolling Stones.

I think people have the wrong idea about Martin Scorsese’s Shine a Light (Paramount, 121 minutes), mostly because of the name in front of the title. Neither Scorsese nor the Stones have been culturally relevant in over a decade. Why should their IMAX concert film be any different? It’s little more than a public service to folks who can’t afford a C-note for the real thing; and with that in mind, it does a bang-up job. Gathering a dream team of camera men who light up New York’s Beacon Theater with enough bulbs to bake cookies on Mick’s bare ass, Scorsese captures the Stones at their animatronic best; one-time rebels who still managed to keep their self-respect. No one can ever accuse the group of not putting on a show. And that is the real point of Scorsese’s film: how a band that seemed destined to self-destruct managed to survive and thrive well past their prime. There are no direct answers to that question, although it’s posed to the group in countless flashback interviews—most amusingly when Keith Richards is told by a journalist that’s he’s the musician most likely to die next. “I’ll be sure to let you know,” he deadpans, as only a walking corpse can. Just as Scorsese knows that Shine a Light is only a snapshot in yet another cinematic coffee table book about band whose story is still being written. Shut up and enjoy the pictures.

As far as the guest artists go: Jack White is out of his league, Christina Aguilera is out of sync, and Buddy Guy nearly blows the walls out the back of the theater. Extras on Blu-ray include four extras performances and a supplementary featurette that delivers a better backstage vibe than the film itself.

Straight outta the third most dangerous city in America—Saginaw, Michigan—Greg Walton writes from a basement bunker. His only window to the outside world is a sweet surround sound set-up and 65" inches of hi-def glory.

BOOZE CREWS

Harry Crews: one-stop shoppin’ for no-bullshit, hard-drinkin’ prose.

How on God’s green earth could I have missed this: Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, along with Lydia Lunch and Sadie Mae, teamed up in the late 1980s to form a band called Harry Crews. They released one album, Naked in Garden Hills (1989). Considering the fact that I’ve been on gorging myself on Sonic Youth for the past two months, how in the name of all things holy did I miss that one?

Now, I’m also a big fan of Harry Crews the writer, ever since I read Car way back in high school—which was far more bizarre than my half-congealed, teenage-reptilian brain could handle. Whereupon I promptly scurried back to the safety of Penthouse Forum as my primary source of literary sustenance. But I couldn’t shake Crews’ no-nonsense, hard drinkin’ prose, and went on to consume about a half dozen of his other novels over the course of a year. Crews navigates the same psychological back roads as Larry Brown (another writer often cited as a musician’s favorite), but often steers into darker territory, usually when you least expect—or want—it. For starters, try Classic Crews: A Harry Crews Reader to sample from the buffet of one of America’s most distinctive writers.  

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams. 

THE PLIGHT OF THE NAUGHTY GIRL

Samantha Fox blazed a trail for skanks’ rights in “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too).”

Every once in a while, I have to dig my way out of the avalanche of promos and find the oldies but goodies that remind me why I’m in this racket in the first place. This week, revisiting one of the most respected songs of the 1980s has thoroughly reinvigorated me and renewed my faith in music as a means of social change: Samantha Fox’s “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too).”

Up until the late 1980s, it had been long understood that much like camels in the desert, naughty girls could go for long periods of time without love. But in 1987, twenty-one-year-old Samantha Fox, a successful model and aspiring actress from London, exploded that misconception with her hit single “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too),” in which she admitted that while it’s fun not being on Santa’s nice list, she and others like her in fact do need love too. It’s difficult to overestimate the impact these new findings had on society, and the controversy was immediate and intense. The Catholic Church reasserted its ban on naughtiness before marriage, parent-teacher organizations across the country decried the song as anti-nice propaganda, and many critics accused her of inflating anecdotal evidence to try to speak for all naughty girls.

Unbowed by the new pressures facing her, the young Fox confronted her opponents in a startling video that at the time was panned as overly conceptual. Now, however, it is regarded as one of the most influential clips of that decade, alongside Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” and Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.” Having dyed her hair pink for the shoot—an unmistakable sign of outrage and dissent—Fox dances in a poor urban neighborhood, clearly conveying the idea that the plight of naughty girls is as crucial an issue as poverty, racism, and bared midriffs. What remains especially disarming about this protest song, however, is Fox’s naked vulnerability: “Please don’t tease,” she sings, her despair increasingly palpable, “if you lie my heart will freeze.”

Twenty-one years later, it seems hard to believe there was ever a time when naughty girls were systemically denied the love they need, but the success of artists as diverse as Beyonce, Rihanna, and Joanna Newsom shows just how far we have come in acknowledging the needs of naughty girls. And we all have Samantha Fox—singer, model, activist, naughty girl—to thank for it.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

LETTERS FROM THE ROAD: ASHTON ALLEN

Guest Post this week from one of my favorite artists, Ashton Allen: Dear Music Industry, So, I have a question. I'm confused. Ok, so you got Miley Cyrus, right? And then there's Hannah Montana. Buuuuuut...ok wait. Are they the same person? Cause umm, one's a brunette annnnd...the other's blonde annnnd....but....I heard it was the same girl....but then I was thinking...wow...I guess that's working out well for her ...or them..or...her dad [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentati on of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

BIG TITUS AND THE HOLDING COMPANY

Bite me, Tolkien. Peake is better.

My fifth-grade teacher was a fool for J.R.R. Tolkien. The walls of his classroom were adorned with crude paintings of characters from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (this was in the days when teachers could get away with that). If we didn’t feel like doing our math, this teacher would permit us to drop everything and read a novel, such was his passion for fiction. The room was stocked to the rafters with books—including multiple copies of the LOTR trilogy. In Mr. R’s class I read the C.S. Lewis books, the Black Stallion books, a novelization of the first Alien movie, countless Heinlein books, and Watership Down, among others. I pretty much owe my addiction to books to this guy, and I can thank him for the fact that I can’t solve a math problem to save my sorry white ass. But I have to disagree with Mr. R on his choice of “fantasy” lit. I’ve become a big fan of Mervyn Peake’s trilogy The Gormenghast Novels [amazon link: ]. Kudos to you if you know about it … you, me, and about four others in this country. The books, beginning with Titus Groan (the best of the three), trace the life of Titus and the Gormenghast family in their sprawling, decaying castle—with nary an orc or a broadsword in sight (thank God). The tale and the language are lush, rich, dark, Dickensian, and something you must experience to appreciate. Don’t expect panoramic battles and plucky elves. This is far darker, more complex stuff that walks a fine line between fantasy and realism.     

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams.