Music Review - John Lennon - Double Fantasy

A grand album I first owned on cassette tape. I understand it a whole lot more as an adult than I did as a twelve-or-so year old kid. Originally released in 1980 after a five-year absence, Double Fantasy was presented as a "dialogue between men and women, and their fantasies" with the tracks alternating between Lennon and Ono penned songs. Released just a month before his tragic death, Double Fantasy was Lennon's final album. Now digitally remastered and with three bonus tracks, this odd mix of Lennon classics and Ono experimentalism is again available for public consumption. The original artwork has been retained and enhanced with additional photographs from the era. While this album contains three classic Lennon songs ("Starting Over", "Watching the Wheels" and "Woman"), the strength of his writing only contrasts more strongly with Ono's, ahem, songs. Back in 1980, I had to either listen through the Ono tracks or try to fast forward through them just enough to get to the next Lennon song. Thanks to the miracle of these new-fangled compact disc players, you can program just the Lennon songs, resulting in a much shorter, but in my opinion a much more enjoyable, album.

In addition to the well-known Lennon trio of classics, there's also "Cleanup Time", a great bath time song for kids that begins with Lennon mumbling about bubbles before the jazzy horns and fairy tale lyrics kick in, and "Beautiful Boy", a song used to contrivance in Mr. Holland's Opus. On the Ono side there's her orgasmic groans on "Kiss Kiss Kiss", a barely post-disco "Give Me Something", and her strongest track, the palatable vaudevillian "I'm Your Angel." I had forgotten the two-song cycle of "I'm Losing You" and "I'm Moving On" which uses the same instrumentation and similar musical ideas to effectively contrast the two sides of a deteriorating relationship… fun for the whole family!

The first bonus track is a roughly recorded Lennon demo of piano and vocals, framed by humorous Lennon chatter. "Walking on Thin Ice" is the Ono track that was completed on December 8, 1980 just hours before Lennon was assassinated. There are quite a few interesting timbres but again, the classic Ono monkey-wails detract more than they add. The final bonus "track" is a mere seventeen seconds of dialogue between Lennon and Ono. Despite the fact that I find nearly half the tracks unlistenable except with a morbid curiosity, Double Fantasy stands as a classic album with many songs worthy of your time.

This review first appeared in WhatzUp, January 2002.

Music Review - Dog Fashion Disco - Anarchists of Good Taste

I remember really liking the music on this one and wanting to search out later albums but the subject matter and constant cussing has kept me away.

And now for something completely different. This debut by Dog Fashion Disco is quite a trip. Think Korn meets Mr. Bungle in a blender operated by Zappa with more mood swings than any politically correct analogy can capture. For instance, "9 to 5 At The Morgue" goes through four different intense changes before the song is thirty seconds long. In the middle of the song a flute part lulls you into a false sense of serenity before plunging down a 90-degree incline on a roller coaster run by evil clowns in S&M gear. With song titles such as "Leper Friend", "Cartoon Autopsy", and "Pour Some Urine On Me" the lyrics are tongue-in-cheek (although the tongue is pierced and so is the cheek) albeit rough and crude and only sometimes humorous. A brief sample: "Don't fall asleep or we'll mutilate your genitals" followed by demented muchkin singing. "Vertigo Motel" is quite appealing, beginning with a soft piano which changes to a bit of Super Furry Animals that turns into samba for about six seconds then some heavy angst and later a John Zorn-inspired sax and piano duet. Elsewhere, keyboards are used to enhance the wicked-carnival feel with lines seemingly borrowed from members of the Adams Family. This aberration of an album also helped me answer the burning question of how many times I can stand to hear someone shouting "Shut the f**k up you maggot" (Answer: A lot less than is supplied in "Corpse is a Corpse"). Musically I'm all over this album. Each song is a carefully choreographed obstreperous donnybrook with enough energy and musical changes to keep even the most Ritlin-deprived youngster interested. There's funk, jazz, metal, classical, rock, classical rock, ska and much that defies description. Lyrically, well, maybe I'm getting older. I was a hard-core Alice Cooper fan so humorous gore in lyrics is nothing new to me... I just don't like having the camera plunged into wound again and again with such reckless glee. Those with strong stomachs and extremely adventurous tastes (or the curious rubbernecker who slows down to look at bloody accidents) would do well to investigate the hardcore nu-metal circus of Anarchists of Good Taste. If you're not a fan of autopsy specials, you might want to see what The Black Crowes have been up to lately.

This review first appeared in WhatzUp, June 2001.

The Worlds Most Expensive Vegetables - Part 14

Has it really been almost a month since I made a garden post? YIKES! Well, in the last month it's been harvest time and bug time and leaves mysteriously going white or dying off.  Good times!

First the good!  Lots of vittles have come out of the garden:
1#+ green beans ($2.00 organic price est)
2# green beans ($3 organic)
2# green beans ($3 organic)
1 Italian squash $1
3 Zucchini - $5 (total of 12 cups shredded)
4 small black peppers - $1
rosemary - meh - no charge
Carrot lovers - $1
Handful of small carrots - $1
More cherry tomatoes - $1
Head broccoli - $1
4# green beans - $5 organic
5# roma and cherry tomatos - organic $6
Big buncha carrots - 3# - $5 organic
More onions - $1
More strawberries - They keep on pumpin out - $1
=$37 making the cost so far $445 ($482 balance - $37).  WHOO HOO!

  We loves us some colorful carrots!

We are also on the verge of TomatoGeddon 2014!  The Bonnie's Best are giving us about one lovely orb per day but this other plant is gearing up for an assault.

And then there's my "experiment", the only tomato plant started from seed that has yet to ripen any fruit. I have a problem with "experiments" in that I see a weed or something and I leave it alone because I'm curious what it will become. But I forget to take notes so by the time it's ready I forget what I was wondering about.

Our corn is doing well. I didn't plant many because at the time my family was allergic. Because of the few plants I've had to hand germinate the tassels, a fun time for early morning hours. Then I found out that sweet corn is plentifully available just a mile down the road. Oh well. In the big city you don't find your neighbors selling cheap sweet corn and tomatoes but in the sticks it's a different story.

Let's talk about melons, shall we? I didn't know cantaloupe grow in paints, looking up very gonady. My fingers are crossed that these will actually make it to maturity before the vine dies off. I've had problems with dying vines.

Or the vines turn white and spotty. Naughty naughty!

However here's one that may end up in my belly, a white fleshed watermelon. Beside it is the only honeydew that fruited but the vine died off before it got larger than a baseball. Inside it smelled like a cucumber (most of my cucumber vines have dies, by the way) and the kids ate it even though it was only partially ripe. Silly rabbits.

As a final note to self, I very recently planted some fall harvest carrots and expanded our pea patch, also for fall harvest. I also tore out some more broccoli. I just don't have luck with this... the head seems nice and then I forget to cut the head off and by the time I remember it's all gangy and not appetizing. Also the cauliflower plants all have nice big leaves but no head for us to eat.

Music Review - Alice Cooper - Hey Stoopid

I was so stung from Trash that when 1991 rolled around I didn't even know Alice released Hey Stoopid*. Which is a good things because the man attempted to cash in on his recent ultra-major success# with a similar album, though the magic producer Desmond Child was unavailable so he turned to someone not as magical. My local library has this album in their collection so I'm lucky I didn't have to shell out real money for this heap**. That's right, it's a heap. You can only suppress your true self for so long and Cooper's personality leaks out a bit more on Stoopid than it did on Trash, but it's still pretty generic pop-rock music. To make up for the weak song writing and lack of singable melodies, the album is packed with musical guest stars, a bad sign. Hold on there, little square dude, I'll mention who at the appropriate time***.

If you don't like massive walls of vocals then you'd best not even start on this album because they are everywhere, even starting the first (title) track which is one of the few decent songs. Slash and Joe Satriani both add their guitar prowess, though I really don't hear much playing that sounds like either of them. Ditto for Ozzy Osbourne who sang on the song, the entirety of which is "You know I know" a few times. Still, the song has some great energy appropriate for the crowd-singalong rock anthem that it was engineered to be. The lyrics for "Snakebite" are, pardon my French, completely idiotic****. "Burning Our Bed" isn't too bad, being a break-up anti-ballad with more Satriani and a pleasing nod at longtime fans with the line of "Sometimes a man can bleed." "Might As Well Be On Mars" was co-written with longtime co-writer Dick Wagner. This power ballad reaches high, for epic status even, and just barely misses it's goal. I wonder what Bob Ezra would do with this song?

"Feed My Frankenstein##" made some news because both Joe Satriani and Steve Vai played on it. The best parts of this song are the guitar solos by these boys. The lyrics make no sense, either directly or as the intended inuendo. And then there are the background vocals saying "He's a psycho." Uh, I'm not getting it, Mr. Cooper. Can you make it more simpler for me to understand?***** "Die For You" is ANOTHER ballad. It's the best one so far but there's such a thing as too many ballads and that line has definitely been crossed. "Wind-Up Toy" attempts to add some Cooperism at the very end but it's too little, too late, sounding cheesy and hammy### in the context instead of creepy or even humorous. The rest of the songs on the album aren't even worth writing about.

Rank: For Mr. Joe Blow Bud Lite who goes to concerts and thinks he likes Alice Cooper but really only knows the hits.

* Plus I might have been on a "Christian music only" kick.

# Meaning they didn't even bother with a tour stop in itty bitty Fort Wayne Indiana.

** That is if you don't count money from my property taxes which goes to buy a whole bunch of garbage I wouldn't pay for in real life, like teen vampire fiction.

*** Except I didn't so I will here. Vinnie Moore of U.F.O., Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars#### of Motley Crue, and Elvira. I thought two guys from Aerosmith here on this but that must have been Trash.

**** Would you like a refill on your coffee Mister Snakebite?

## Two Frankenstein songs in five years? Bad form, Mr. Cooper.

***** Though I have to smile at the line "Make my tattoos melt in the heat" because Alice has no tattoos. Yes, very odd in todays inked up rock culture but his bassist of many years (since 2002- I think that's a record for Cooper), Chuck Garric, more than makes up for Alice's clear skin.

### Mmmmm.... ham and cheese.

#### Have you seen Mick Mars lately? He makes the Rolling Stones look like fresh-faced twenty year olds. The rock lifestyle can be a hard one.

Music Review - Alice Cooper - Trash

And now we come to Trash. This was Coopers biggest selling album since Welcome To My Nightmare and if you ask Mr. Joe Blow on the street (and he's under fifty) to name an Alice Cooper song he'll likely say "Poison." As for me, it's the last song I'd name. To put it bluntly, I don't like this album. Not even a little. There are music snobs out there who dislike an album just because it's popular and while I'll admit that I may have had such inclinations when I was younger those things no longer matter to the older, wiser me. If the music is good, I like it.

Let me back up a bit to 1989. I must have sent a SASE to Alice Cooper Fan Club or something or other because I received a postcard* telling me about the new Alice Cooper album. WHOO HOO! His last album, Raise Your First And Yell was an incredible splatter metal masterpiece and I was hungry for more! For the first time in my life I drove to Wooden Nickle Collectors Store on the album release date and laid down my money. I more than likely broke a few speed limits getting home but eagerly dropped the plastic platter into the tray of my Sony CD player. Huh? Where's the metal? Where's the gore? This song's about sex. And so's the next one. And what the heck's this? A ballad? I thought he said "No more ballads**!" I felt betrayed. I gave it a few more listens over the next few days which confirmed that these were generic, glossy hair band songs that contained next to no Cooperisms, that these songs could have been written and recorded by Bon Jovi. In fact, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora were on the album as were members of Aerosmith. Why not bring back Liza Minelli? And the whole garbage heap was produced by hit-maker supreme Desmond Child. Now at the time I didn't really know these names, aside from Bon Jovi and Aerosmith, because I didn't care for their music***. This was not an Alice Cooper album, it was a Bon Jovi album with Alice singing. This album was... well, it was Trash! In the end I did the only honorable thing... I melted the CD in the microwave and videotaped it.

And so it has been for twenty five years until I started this series and realized that I needed to give the album another listen. Fortunately my library has a service where you can download three free songs a week (for keepsies!) and Trash was one of the options, so it cost me nothing to replace what I melted a quarter century prior****. Surely my eighteen-year-old self had been overly dramatic and overreacting by melting the CD. After all, it's my man, Alice Cooper, and a lot of people like this album. Clearing my palate, I did my best to set aside any judgements against Trash and to give it a virgin listen. I've been able to do this before and have, at times, been surprised to "discover" great music that I had previously written off*****.

But in this case I was spot on. It's still trash. There's a lot of sheen and money on these songs but they're just polishing up turds. I wish I was wrong but I have to call 'em like I hear 'em. As each new song started I would hope for the best but ultimately ended up wincing, knowing that these lame, bland songs are beneath Coopers full potential. Even the ballad isn't very good. So indistinct are these songs from one another that I won't go into any details except to say that "Hell is Living Without You" is almost halfway decent except for the whiney, slidey voice Cooper uses (on this any many other songs on the album) that is quite annoying.

I wish it were different, that I could rejoice in finding some great songs I had earlier dismissed, that my earlier disdain was just because I felt betrayed. But alas, the album is junk. I'm happy for Herr Alice, that this album allowed him to pad his retirement account and pay his bills and launch him into another round of popularity****** but as for me, I'll pass. For some reason, though, I think Alice agrees with me. Look at that album cover! Yeah, you hang your head in shame, Alice. You know this is beneath you.

Rank: For Mr. Joe Blow Bud Lite who goes to concerts and thinks he likes Alice Cooper but really only knows the hits.

* You younger readers might want to look up "SASE" and "postcard."

** See footnote here.

*** Bon Jovi, that is. I liked early Aerosmith and their "comeback" album Permanent Vacation.

**** And besides, I had paid my "right to own" money back in 1989 the record company lawyers should be satisfied.

***** The music of Mark Heard is a prime example.

****** Continuing the trend of the 80s to dust off popular seventies acts with a gloss of big-haired glam. Heart, Yes, Aerosmith come to mind. I'm sure there are others.

Music Review - Alice Cooper - Raise Your Fist and Yell

In returning from his semi-retirement with the 1986 album Constrictor Alice Cooper encountered a surprising amount of backlash, notably from Al "Make-a-Green-Buck" Gore's wife Tipper Gore who has trying to "protect the children" from that horrible rock music, forming Parents Music Resource Center (PRMC) and lobbying Congress to have artists from Cooper to W.A.S.P. to Cyndi Lauper put their lyrics on the outside of their albums*. Alice Cooper's Constrictor album was one of the first that was forced to comply. This resulted in an amazing first side of Raise Your Fist And Yell, a collection of songs aggressively promoting Constitutional ideas of freedom and healthy rebellion against authority. What more could a teen (mullet wearing) male want?

How about gore? Not Tipper or Al but slasher movies. During this time these blood-fests had become mainstream. Cooper had particularly been targeted by the PRMC for his horrific shows** so he decided to give them something worthy of their criticism and upped the ante of his live shows, making them almost live slasher movies full of simulated deaths and spraying blood***. To back this up, the second side of his album concerns a serial killer. What could be better for a male teen in the late eighties than slasher movie metal music?

Whereas Constrictor was a test drive, Raise Your Fist And Yell finds Cooper comfortable with this new machine and he opens up the throttle to see how far he can push it. From the very beginning it's obvious that these attacks spurred Cooper's creative juices. "Stop pretending that you've never been bad / You're never wrong and you've never been dirty****" are the first lyrics on the album from the single "Freedom", accompanied by machine-gun metal guitars and pounding drums. The chorus is pure teen anthem: "Nobody better tell you / How to live your life" and "Freedom to rock / Freedom to talk." And yes, the snarl is back! As good as this song is, "Lock Me Up" is even better as Cooper taunts and flaunts how he's going to cover the stage with blood each night*** and if you don't like it, well... The stomping beat of "Step On You" is almost industrial metal and you can forget the "almost" for the masterfully chunky mechanical dissonant bridge. "Not That Kind of Love" is a superb cautionary tale for daughters but told from the excruciatingly honest point of view of the male. "Don't get ideas / This won't last forever / I just want to touch you / I just want to feel you" are what to expect in this hair metal bonanza.

Side Two begins with "Prince of Darkness" from the John Carpenter movie of the same name, of which Alice had a very small part*****. The song is definitely about Satan, giving Cooper a chance to sing about an aspect of his faith, and has some amazing period clean guitar tones, rising far above the movie for which it was named******. This unsettling song sets the tone for what follows, "Time To Kill" and "Chop, Chop, Chop"... the titles say it all. Even better is "Gail*******", a creepy song akin to "Mary Ann" but with a harpsichord and concerning a victim yet to be found with bugs who "serve time in her skeletal jail." Alice's chosen guitarist for this and the previous album was a Rambo beefcake named Kane Roberts who had a guitar shaped like a machine gun. Indeed his playing style was much like a machine gun, fast riffing but not thrash. Nowhere is this more evident than in the last hyper-energetic song, "Roses on White Lace", where the killer sees blood drops on the dress of a bride as roses, spouting splatter lyrics like "In my own way / I lovingly kiss the bride / With your ring in your hand / Your heart and your mouth open wide." Everything about this song is kinetic and explosive, a jaw-dropping way to end an album.

If you can't tell, I really liked Raise Your Fist and Yell. Still do. Somehow Alice was able to write a late eighties metal album that was free from most of what became genre cliches******** such that even now the album refuses to sound dated. Lyrically and thematically the album is also very strong, confidently treading on familiar, creepy Cooper territory. Quick! Someone hit the repeat button!

Rank: Essential Cooper

* Whew! That was a long sentence, wasn't it? Thanks for sticking with it.

** This was before GWAR had released an album so if you wanted over-the-top bloody stage antics this was it!

*** Of which I can attest. During the Fort Wayne show, after he decapitated the monster, which then leaned over and sprayed the crowd with fake blood, I got blood in my eye and on my jean jacket. Ruined a contact, it did. And yes, I was wearing the standard Alice Cooper eye makeup... why do you ask?

**** Can I hear an Amen? Isn't this the first step of presenting the gospel, admitting your sin? GO COOP!

***** But large enough that it coaxed me into the theater! Okay, coaxed nothing... I RAN!

****** The movie was confusing and not very enjoyable. A decade or so later, after reading a number of glowing reviews about how Prince of Darkness is an overlooked Carpenter masterpiece I watched it again. It still stunk.

******* Alice's wife's middle name is Gail. How about THAT for a tribute?

******** Okay, so the album cover is a bit cheesy and period heavy.

The Worlds Most Expensive Vegetables - Part 13

It's been a tough couple of weeks in the ol' garden. Tough for bugs, that is.

About three weeks back my six year old daughter, ever the inspector, brought to my attention that there were yellow and black striped bugs in the garden. I had noticed them before but figured, "What's a garden without some bugs?" That was a mistake. These were cucumber bugs and they will destroy anything on a vine: melons, cucumbers, squash, you name it. Not only do they eat the leaves but they carry a disease that makes the plant wither and die. As my garden contains a whole lotta melons, etc I soon realized that this meant war! I'm too cheap to buy the goopy stuff that attracts and then traps these vermin (not technically vermin and I probably won't be too cheap to buy the stuff next year). Although I found them on all my vining plants, they were particularly heavy on one plant. Because I had "helpers" and didn't take especially good notes when transplanting this row of plants I'm not 100% sure of which kind of plant these bugs are chowing on, though I think it was a cucumber. I was half hoping that the plant would set some fruit so I could identify and use it next year for a decoy but alas, for all my effort this plant withered and bit the bucket. That effort was night after night of going outside with a flashlight, catching these buggers often while buggering, and squashing the squash eaters between my fingers. Early on I killed about two hundred in ten minutes but near the end my efforts had paid off to where I only found about a dozen. This same inspector daughter also noticed squash bore eggs on the zucchini plant. Tessa has earned the right to eat whatever she wants from the garden!

Just when I thought my melons were safe, though, my two year old ran over one of them in a PowerWheels car. Not just ran over but literally ran the big grinding back wheel right over the mound where one variety was growing. Fortunately they recovered and I am now extra vigilant whenever said daughter takes the wheel. Who gave her a permit, anyway? This naughty daughter also picked a wee little pumpkin that was just two inches around.

In other failures, something is eating my cauliflower plants. And the first set of broccoli plants went to seed almost immediately. It turns out that I didn't give them enough food and they starved to death. Oops.

Fortunately I was in time to fertilize batch #2 and this weekend one plant provided a tasty head of organic yumminess!

Last week was very busy after work so I barely spent any time out in the garden. However on Saturday morning I noticed that one of my cherry tomato plants had lost most of it's leaves. Weird. Since I over-planted cherry tomatoes I didn't think much about it until later in the day when I saw a big green thing moving on the wire cage. Scroll down if you're squeamish.

Yeah, it was this big yucky beast! After looking up what it was and learning that I needed to do a better job weeding around these plants I went back out and started some weeding. The sure was a lot of odd caterpillar poop around this particular plant. An awful lot. Too much and... WAAAAAAAH! THERE'S ANOTHER ONE RIGHT IN MY FACE!!!! AND ANOTHER! AND ANOTHER!!! Eventually all five of these massive nasty squishy horrible beasts were trapped in a jar where I intend to let them die a slow horrible death of either starvation or being cooked by the sun. Am I mean? Perhaps. But to show that I'm not all wretched, I captured a five legged grasshopper on a butternut squash plant and relocated him to the creek, a few hundred yards away.

Now on to the successes! We harvested a pound of delicious green beans as well as thinned out some yellow and white carrots. As of right now we have approximately two hundred and twenty green bean plants, planted over the course of two months. I hope we're buried in produce!

The Italian squash plant is starting to produce cute, keen and stripey squash, as is the zucchini but that's not a surprise to anyone. If the world ever gets destroyed by a nuke all that will be left will be cockroaches and zucchini.

Also stripey is this surprising find, a white watermelon known as Fred, or Cream of Saskatchewan. It's about four inches across already, even with our colder than normal weather, and it's got a twin and four small siblings! If this plant is able to churn out watermelons up here in Northern Indiana then I'll be one happy man!

In the "Free" department, I went poaching along the creek and brought back black raspberries. What is shown is about a fifth of what I ultimately picked. I also returned with this specimen for a bug-loving child:

So now it starts to be payback time. I spent $500 putting the garden in and have so far harvested:
1# green beans - $1
1 pint red rasp - $2.50
small strawberries - $1
5 organic beets - $3
Lettuce - 7 salads - & chives & parsley- $4
4 parisian carrots - 50 cents
mound of basil - $2
1 head broccoli - $1
Sugar Snap Peas - $3
=$18, meaning that my overall balance sheet is only $482 in the red!