For Those About To Rock

30-Day Song Challenge, Day 30: Your Favorite Song

Dave Matthews Band with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
"#41" (Live on April 20, 2002)
From The Best of What's Around, Vol. 1: Encore [2006]

Well, we made it.

Thirty days done. Now I know how Morgan Spurlock felt on more than one occasion.

As a reward for sticking with me, I've saved the best for last.

I could've filled in a DMB song for nearly every day of this project. I can't think of one I can play on an instrument and they definitely don't qualify as "a band you hate," though.

Remember on Day 24 when I talked about playing an absurdly long Dave Matthews Band song at my funeral and boring the mourners? This 32-minute rendition of "#41" would fit the bill comically well.

It's the longest rendition of any song the band has performed that we know of. There are rumors of a 37-minute, soundcheck rendition of "Drive In Drive Out," but I think that's just a rumor that sprang from a poor game of telephone.

I don't love it because it's the longest, however. I love it because, astonishingly, about 28 minutes are loosely improvised and they sound so good.

"#41" is a setpiece in the DMB canon. It's opened shows. It's closed shows. It's been an encore song.

It's been as short as 3 minutes and 56 seconds during an appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman" and as long as, well, this 32-minute rendition.

So why this lengthy thing?

People hear 32 minutes and say, "That can't possibly be worth it." And, in fairness to them, the last four minutes or so could be lost and few would miss them.

But the song takes many twists and turns on the road there. It could really be viewed as movements rather than a single song ...

Part I: 00:00-03:49 — Introduction and lyrics
Part II: 03:50-04:28 — Boyd Tinsley violin solo
Part III: 04:28-07:06 — LeRoi Moore saxophone solo
Part IV: 07:07-10:25 — Bela Fleck/Victor Wooten interplay
Part V: 10:26-12:07 — "The Sojourn of Arjuna"
Part VI: 12:08-15:11 — Jeff Coffin saxophone solo
Part VII: 15:12-19:47 — Drum jam
Part VIII: 19:48-20:55 — "Sojourn" phrase returns
Part IX: 20:56-23:05 — "Because I'd Never Flew Before"
Part X: 23:06-24:59 — Classic #41 outro/Dave improv outro
Part XI: 25:00-32:03 — Cool down

To be really accurate, because of "The Sojourn of Arjuna" interpolation, it's my favorite song with the horn groove from an original Victor Wooten composition dropped into it.

The song is a mini-history of DMB packed into its frame, even without 25-plus minutes of jamming goodness.

Bela Fleck — the guy rockin' the Tim Burton-era "Batman" shirt in the video — and the Flecktones have a rich history when it comes to DMB, so richly intertwined that when saxophonist LeRoi Moore was injured and died in 2008, Jeff Coffin of the Flecktones took over as his full-time stand-in.

That makes it an unwitting link between different eras of DMB as both Moore and Coffin perform on this rendition.

The two groups first performed together during DMB's 1997 New Year's Eve show, arguably the finest gig in the band's history.

But wait. There's more!

What the heck is that thing Futureman is playing? Why, that's the drumitar, baby!

It's an instrument that is designed to look like a guitar and be performed similar to a guitar but sound similar to an electronic drum kit.

I love "#41" because it reminds me of cool summer nights at DMB shows. It's a crowd favorite. It's great for guests or for the band to play by itself.

It was supposedly written about money squabbles between Matthews and the band's first manager, although the band's namesake insists he doesn't know its inspiration anymore.

Given how different it sounded during its first performance, it shows how the band relentlessly tweaks, refines and recasts songs in the live setting.

That's part of what makes them a joy to see over and over.

Honorable mention
· Jeff Buckley, "Hallelujah" from Grace [1994]
· Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Proud Mary" from Bayou Country [1969]
· Dave Matthews Band, "Crush" from a fan recording of the May 9, 2009, show at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Nev. [2009]
· Dave Matthews Band, "Dancing Nancies" from The Gorge [2004]
· Dave Matthews Band, "Tripping Billies" from Live Trax 2008 [2008]
· Dave Matthews Band, "Warehouse" from The Best of What's Around, Vol. 1 [2006]
· Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone" from Highway 61 Revisited [1965]
· Foo Fighters, "Everlong" from The Colour and the Shape [1997]
· The Jesus and Mary Chain, "Just Like Honey" from Psychocandy [1985]
· The Jimi Hendrix Experience, "Red House" from Are You Experienced [1967]
· John Lennon, "Imagine" from Imagine [1971]
· Led Zeppelin, "When the Levee Breaks" from Untitled [1971]
· Metallica, "Sad But True" from Metallica [1991]
· My Morning Jacket, "Golden" from It Still Moves [2003]
· Pearl Jam, "Man of the Hour" from Big Fish soundtrack [2003]
· Peter Gabriel, "Solsbury Hill" from Peter Gabriel [1977]
· Radiohead, "Everything in its Right Place" from Kid A [2000]
· Josh Ritter, "Thin Blue Flame" from The Animal Years [2006]
· The Rolling Stones, "Tumbling Dice" from Exile on Main St. [1972]
· Sigur Rós' "Untitled #8 (Popplagið)" from ( ) [2002]
· Smashing Pumpkins, "Cherub Rock" from Siamese Dream [1993]
· The Standells, "Dirty Water" from Dirty Water [1966]
· Van Morrison, "Into the Mystic" from Moondance [1970]
· The Velvet Underground, "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" from Loaded [1970]
· The White Stripes, "Seven Nation Army" from Elephant [2003]
· Wilco, "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot [2002]

Concerts awaken interest in overlooked songs

A few days after I saw My Morning Jacket (at right, lead singer Jim James) at the Fox Theater, I was still humming “O is the One That is Real.”

I’d never really given the tune a lot of consideration before. The studio cut, stashed away on the obscure Split EP, sounds like a lot of MMJ’s other early material, which is defined by gallons of reverb in a low-fi jug.

However, in a live setting, MMJ turned it up to 11, delivering a bouncy, driving rendition at the group’s recent sold-out gig in Oakland.

“O is the One” isn’t the first song I’ve hummed for days after a show. The post-show earworm phenomena happens regularly for me. I leave with a newfound enthusiasm for a particular song and I’m hooked on it for a few days.

Earlier this month, it was the “Kick the Darkness” remix of “I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” following U2′s massive 360 Tour stop at the O.co. Coliseum. I actually got to see the show, unlike those who were stranded on Interstate 880 or desperately driving in circles around Oakland looking for parking.

Though I know U2 and My Morning Jacket’s catalogs pretty well, it also happens after shows of artists with which I’m less familiar.

“Auto Rock” stayed with me last month after a then-stranger from Fresno spontaneously invited me to Mogwai the day of its gig.

These songs are earworms, which is the term for getting a song stuck in your head. They dig themselves in and don’t let go. I spent the next few days after the U2 gig singing, “She’s a rainbow and she loves the peaceful life / Knows I’ll go crazy if I don’t go crazy tonight.”

Why does this happen?

Our opinions about songs and artists change over time. I recall hating Deftones’ “Change (In the House of Flies)” the first time I heard it. After a few more listens, it wore me down.

Maybe repetitious listens are what’s at play here. I don’t always like something the first time I hear it. In fact, I try to listen to things several times, even if I don’t really like it upon first listen, just to be sure I’m getting all of the details.

Repeated listens is something I did with No Line on the Horizon, the U2 record from which “I’ll Go Crazy” comes. It was highly praised upon its release, receiving five-star ratings from Blender, Q and Rolling Stone magazines among others.

My response was quite different. I rank it among U2′s weakest efforts. It’s not nauseatingly bad like parts of Pop, although “Get on Your Boots” is a bit of an eye roller.

For the most part, there isn’t much there. I played it multiple times. A few tracks stand out, but most of it — including the critically lavished “Moment of Surrender” — doesn’t grab me.

But the evolution of a song doesn’t end when an artist presses it to wax.

The “I’ll Go Crazy” remix grabbed me because it is so radically different from the studio version. It turns a ballad into a head nodder the guys from “Night at the Roxbury” would’ve loved. “Take it to the Mission District now,” said Bono as they launched into the song, with Adam Clayton’s thumping bass line kicking in on cue.

Different delivery in a live setting might be what sparks the post-show earworm. “O is the One” stripped the reverb and sharpened its hooks. I’d never heard “Auto Rock” before, but the way it wound around a climbing piano lick left me hunting the song down as soon as I got home.

There also is the truth that seeing a live show is a more visceral experience than listening to a record. It’s easy to listen to a record as background music while cooking or popping on an old favorite while doing the floors.

However, being at a show grabs the concertgoer and forces them to pay more attention. People gave their undivided attention to hear songs such as “Auto Rock,” “I’ll Go Crazy” and “O is the One.”

They had mine on the night of those shows and, as the post-show earworm phenomena shows, a few days after, too.

30-Day Song Challenge, Day 29: A Song From Your Childhood

"Weird Al" Yankovic
"Fat"
From Even Worse [1988]

I have a clear memory of being about 6 or 7 years old, riding my bicycle down the street on which I grew up, playing this song on a hideously cumbersome cassette player that looked something like this. It even had that handle.

I knew every word and was singing along, despite the fact I didn't understand all of the jokes. I know for a near certainty that "When I go out to get my mail / It measures on the Richter Scale" baffled me because I had no clue yet what was the system for measuring the magnitude of earthquakes.

In the fashion that continues to make Al fun and enduring, it's lacking in maliciousness. The mention of his character's inability to use a phone booth is greeted by today's youth as, "He doesn't use a what?"

Even Worse was one of the first albums I remember loving, as ridiculous as that seems. I was so young that I knew many of the songs because of their parodies rather than their originals, such as "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long" poking fun at the lyrical simplicity of George Harrison's final major hit, "Got My Mind Set on You."

And it wasn't until I listened to Even Worse about 20 years after its release that I came to realize "Twister" is a style parody of a younger Beastie Boys.

For some reason, though, that image of riding down the street and listening to "Fat" has stuck with me.

I can't hear Michael Jackson's "Bad" without slipping into the lyrics to "Fat," a problem Don McLean admitted he has on "American Pie" after Yankovic's Star Wars-referencing parody, "The Saga Begins."

For the honorable mention list, I tried to pick songs that I remember from the ages zero to 10. I remember an evening around 6 or 7 when my mom was playing some of her favorite songs, including Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry" and Loverboy's "Turn Me Loose."

"Small Town" makes me think of a time I was in the car with my father and the John Mellencamp song came on the radio. I think he was still Cougar at that time.

I remember boasting something about feeling like the song was about me because I grew up in a small town.

My father laughed at me and I know I didn't understand what was so funny. My dad told me that Aurora was one of the largest cities in Colorado.

I remember looking at him puzzled, not understanding why he was saying that.

I don't think I fully understood it until I went to college and interviewed a volleyball player named Erin. She told me there were about 1,000 people in the town where she grew up on the Eastern Plains of Colorado.

"There were, like, 750 people in my graduating class," I told her.

"That's cos you're a city boy," she said.

Though Erin helped me realize how right my dad was, there are some parts of that song that still ring true to me no matter where I go: "No, I cannot forget from where it is that I come from / I cannot forget the people who love me ... "

Honorable mention
· AC/DC, "Hells Bells" from Back in Black [1980]
· Berlin, "Take My Breath Away" from Count Three and Pray [1986]
· Phil Collins, "Another Day in Paradise" from ... But Seriously [1989]
· Fleetwood Mac, "Don't Stop" from Rumours [1977]
· Peter Gabriel, "Big Time" from So [1986]
· Genesis, "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" from Invisible Touch [1986]
· Don Henley, "Dirty Laundry" from I Can't Stand Still [1982]
· Michael Jackson, "Billie Jean" from Thriller [1984]
· Billy Joel, "This is the Time" from The Bridge [1986]
· Kenny Loggins, "Danger Zone" from the Top Gun soundtrack [1986]
· Loverboy, "Turn Me Loose" from Loverboy [1981]
· John Mellencamp, "Small Town" from Scarecrow [1985]
· The Rolling Stones, "As Tears Go By" from December's Children (And Everybody's) [1965]
· Scandal, "The Warrior" from The Warrior [1984]
· Toad the Wet Sprocket, "All I Want" from Fear [1991]
· USA for Africa, "We Are the World" from We Are the World [1985]
· U2, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" from The Joshua Tree [1987]

30-Day Song Challenge, Day 28: A Song That Makes You Feel Guilty

The Flaming Lips
"Do You Realize??"
From Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots [2002]

This is a big stretch.

I sat and I thought a lot about a song that makes me feel guilty.

I guess "Do You Realize??" could be considered one because it has that stop-and-smells-the-roses, carpe diem aspect to it, reminding us that the world is both beautiful and sad.

The song was written as the Lips' singer, Wayne Coyne, watched band member Steven Drozd work to kick heroin.

"Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?"

It's a sobering reality that punches you in the gut and makes you sad all at once. It makes me feel like I should take more time to tell people I appreciate them and that I enjoy being on this little spinning ball with them.

That's where the guilt comes in. I feel bad that I don't do that enough. I guess we all feel like we take people for granted sometimes.

In the honorable mention section is Dave Matthews Band's "Don't Drink the Water," which brings to mind a particular, peculiar, slightly guilty recollection I had as I saw the song performed live once at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

The song is about Manifest Destiny, the persecution of American Indians and its correlation, though the eyes of the group's South African-born singer, to apartheid.

As one can see here, the seats are covered and a lawn area sits behind that. The entire facility is surrounded by woods, some of which is visible from underneath the roof.

Hearing the song and staring out at the trees, I thought there was a certain level of irony present — the band was performing a song about America's sometimes poisonous history in a place that was once occupied by Iroquois tribes.

"What's this you say? Your father's spirit still lives in this place? Well, I will silence you."

Hearing that line and thinking about the history of the land on which we were standing sat a little uneasy with me. I didn't necessarily feel guilty — neither me or my ancestors were responsible for such actions — but there was some sort of strange feeling that I oughtn't be enjoying that moment as much as I was.

Most of the other honorable mention selections don't make much sense, but their guilt is connected to personal association rather than the song's content.

Honorable mention
· Barenaked Ladies, "It's Only Me (The Wizard of Magicland)" from Disc One: All Their Greatest Hits (1991–2001) [2001]
· Dave Matthews Band, "Don't Drink the Water" from Before These Crowded Streets [1998]
· Deftones, "Change (In the House of Flies)" from White Pony [2000]
· The Flaming Lips, "Do You Realize??" from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots [2002]
· Metallica, "All Within My Hands" from St. Anger [2003]
· Simon & Garfunkel, "Homeward Bound" from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme [1966]

Edited 4:16 p.m. June 28

30-Day Song Challenge, Day 27: A Song You Wish You Could Play

Led Zeppelin
"Heartbreaker"
From Led Zeppelin II [1969]

I wish I could shred.

I want to be able to walk into a guitar shop, pick up an ax, whip out Jimmy Page's solo from "Heartbreaker," set it back down and walk right out of the store with everyone going, "Who the (bleep) was that guy?"

Yeah. That's the dream. Right there.

"Heartbreaker" was one of the first songs to come to mind because that solo is so distinct and its riff is so monstrous.

If you're gonna melt some faces, "Heartbreaker" is the one to do it. It's almost like two different songs, the way the chugging blues section comes to a halt about halfway through and Page puts on his speedy solo with all those hammer-ons and pull-offs.

All right. But anyone can pull stuff off through studio trickery. Let's see if Page could do it live.

Huh. Whaddya know? He sure could. Even better, actually.

Think of all the songs I could play if I could shred like that.

"Purple Haze" would definitely be high on the list, too. Truthfully, I would like to do that one like Hendrix did at Woodstock, tearing a hot, white hole in "The Star-Spangled Banner" and then segueing into "Purple Haze," but let's take this one guitar landmark at a time.

From that pendulum-swinging, tick-tock, tick-tock riff that kicks off the song and never returns to the psychedelic conclusion, "Purple Haze" is so classic that I would only even attempt to do it if I thought I could even touch it, which might never happen.

Plus, if all I'm doing is playing the riffs, that's great, but there's much more to the pure rocking power of "Purple Haze" than Hendrix's monster riffage.

Though it doesn't require massive guitar chops, "Tumbling Dice" is one of my favorite songs. If I join a band in my 30s, we're covering "Tumbling Dice." No question.

And no list of monster rock shredding would be complete without mentioning "Eruption."

Doesn't anyone who wishes they could play guitar dream of tearing it up like Eddie Van Halen on "Eruption?"

Honorable mention
· The Beatles, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from The Beatles [1968]
· Jimi Hendrix Experience, "Purple Haze" from Are You Experienced [1967]
· Metallica, "One" from ... And Justice for All [1988]
· Radiohead, "The National Anthem" from Kid A [2000]
· The Rolling Stones, "Tumbling Dice" from Exile on Main St. [1972]
· Smashing Pumpkins, "Cherub Rock" from Siamese Dream [1993]
· The Strokes, "Take it or Leave It" from Is This It? [2001]
· Van Halen, "Eruption" from Van Halen [1978]
· The White Stripes, "Seven Nation Army" from Elephant [2003]

30-Day Song Challenge, Day 26: A Song You Can Play on an Instrument

Nirvana
"All Apologies"
From MTV Unplugged in New York [1993]

There are surprisingly few songs I can play on guitar, mostly because I lacked the discipline to stay with the instrument until I improved.

One that I did work at until I got it was Nirvana's "All Apologies," which is pretty simple to play. Nirvana's cover of the Meat Puppets' "Plateau" should be the first song they teach anyone who is learning to play the instrument.

As someone who has never owned an electric ax, I hooked up the acoustic rendition of "All Apologies" for this entry, but the original was issued on In Utero.

Given what we know about his fate, it's difficult to have any sort of happiness or peace about the way Kurt Cobain left this life.

A number of people have attributed or tried to past meaning onto "All Apologies," as if it's some sort of suicide note or musical mea culpa for his actions.

"In the sun, I feel as one." Some have speculated that this is the voice of Cobain from the afterlife, calling back to us and letting us know he has arrived safely. That's a nice thought, but to suggest we have any idea that he wrote the line with that intention would be speculation.

We are allowed to graft our own meanings onto things and whatever you think about Cobain or how he passed, the conclusion of this song allows room for plenty of interpretation as well.

The last words we hear Cobain sing in a studio album are "All in all is all we are." It has the same open-armed tone of acceptance as the hit "Come As You Are."

Being "the voice of a generation" was never a mantle Cobain seemed to want or accept. To me, the line always read as a cry from a man who has been put on a pedestal as a rock god trying to snap his fingers and make everyone awaken from a trance-like state to realize we are all equal.

As to why I learned how to play it, well, I thought the guitar lick sounded cool and simple enough that I could figure it out.

The instrument on which I might be most proficient, however, is saxophone.

I don't remember too many songs from my saxophone playing days way back in middle school, but I remember thoroughly enjoying Henry Mancini's "Theme From Peter Gunn," which we did as an ensemble. It was particularly fun for me because the horns are bratty and dirty, defining the song.

Despite my stated distate for Christmas songs, I could play a mean "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing" on the alto sax, too.

I can play some basics on piano, such as "Chopsticks" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb." I also spent an arduous few days during a sleepover at a friend's house as a boy willing myself to figure out the one particular phase from the theme for "Jurassic Park." I can still play the defining bit from it, but if you asked me to do the entire song, I'd come up with shrugged shoulders.

Honorable mention
· Jewel, "You Were Meant for Me" from Pieces of You [1994] on guitar
· Henry Mancini, "The Peter Gunn Theme" from The Music From Peter Gunn [1958] on tenor saxophone
· Nirvana, "Plateau" from MTV Unplugged in New York [1994] on guitar
· John Williams, "Jurassic Park Theme" from Jurassic Park Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [1993] on piano
· "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on tenor saxophone, alto saxophone, guitar, piano and banjo
· "The Star-Spangled Banner" on alto and tenor saxophones

Show time: My Morning Jacket @ Fox Theater, 6.24.11

My Morning Jacket's Jim James plays "Dondante" June 24 at the Fox Theater in Oakland.

My Morning Jacket may hail from Louisville, Ky., but their love for the Bay Area is so apparent, lead singer Jim James shouldn't need to say it.

He did, of course, near the conclusion of a nearly three-hour set Friday night at the Fox Theater in Oakland, but it was unnecessary as the band had delivered a wordless thank you to its NorCal fans: A setlist chock full of energetic jams, blistering guitar work outs and guest performers.

It was another entry in a list of top-notch shows by MMJ in the area, a list that includes a mythical three-hour gig in heavy fog at the Greek Theatre in 2008, a fun-filled New Year's Eve run in '06 and the recording of the band's only full-length live album, Okonokos, at The Fillmore in 2004.

In the early part of Friday's set, the night focused on the band's latest release, Circuital, with eight of the first 13 songs coming from it.

Its "Victory Dance" proved an exceptional opener, with it's slow-building power surging into the chaotic finale. "Slow Slow Tune" was a late-night blues crawler, with James closing his eyes as he mournfully reached for the high notes.

"Outta My System," another Circuital number, may have been the night's lone misfire, with the music coming off a little too stiff for the track's humorously wise tone.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night came when M. Ward, James' cohort in his Monsters of Folk side project, joined the band on "Wonderful (The Way I Feel)." James jokingly introduced him as the man who invented the catalog for home shopping, saying the M. stands for Montgomery.

Ward took the song's second verse, although the spotlight insisted on shining on sharply dressed bassist "Two-Tone" Tom Blankenship instead.

Wedged early into the set was a muscular "O is the One That is Real," an obscure track from the band's 2002 EP, Split. The sold-out crowd roared in response, approving the song's dusting off.

In the second hour, the band lit the wick for a cannon-fire stretch that included "Steam Engine," "Wordless Chorus," "Phone West West" and "Mahgeetah."

On "Wordless," James strut around the stage donning a black and purple cape, winding up as he danced back and forth between lines.

He's almost impossible to ignore as he pogos across the stage from one place to the next. During his solo on "Mahgeetah," James moved to the lip of the stage, his long, stringy mop of brown hair bouncing up and down in front of his face as his entire body coiled around the guitar to coax from it the sounds he desired.

But even then, they weren't nearly done. For the first encore, a 20-plus-minute segue between four songs, the band dimmed its visuals, setting a darker tone. Lava erupted with "Run Thru," scorching the earth with hard, driving blues built to a strobe-lit climax.

James, Blankenship and guitarist Carl Broemel were seen in snippets, one moment feet planted on the stage, the next a flash in mid air, the next blip a few feet away, exorcising their instruments.

As the clock creeped toward midnight, the band welcomed the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to the stage for the final four numbers of the night, starting with "Holdin' On to Black Metal," the lead single from Circuital. The Thai pop-influenced number benefited from the presence of the horns, giving it the bluster it has on the new record.

"Highly Suspicious" caught the group in a full Prince send up, with James howling in falsetto against a bass beat so heavy, it literally shook the building.

The night closed with two cuts from 2003's It Still Moves, a fiery "Dancefloors" and "One Big Holiday," their signature song.

Friday's gig may not have rivaled their renowned four-hour-long 2008 Bonnaroo set that ended at 4 a.m. or their Madison Square Garden New Year's Eve performance, but it stands easily as one of the best shows in the Bay Area in 2011 so far.

When it comes to MMJ and the Bay Area, that kind of effort seems par for the course.

Setlist: Victory Dance / Circuital / The Day is Coming / Off the Record / Anytime / I'm Amazed / Golden / Outta My System / You Wanna Freak Out / First Light / O is the One That is Real / Wonderful (The Way I Feel) [with M. Ward] / Slow Slow Tune / Steam Engine / Gideon / Wordless Chorus / Phone Went West / Mahgeetah / ENCORE ONE / Dondante / Smokin' From Shootin' / Run Thru [Partial] / Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 2 / ENCORE TWO / Holdin' On to Black Metal [with Preservation Hall Jazz Band] / Highly Suspicious [with Preservation Hall Jazz Band] / Dancefloors [with Preservation Hall Jazz Band] / One Big Holiday [with Preservation Hall Jazz Band]

30-Day Song Challenge, Day 25: A Song That Makes You Laugh

Flight of the Conchords
"1353"
Unreleased

This is a newer song from New Zealand's fourth-most popular folk duo and one of their lengthier efforts, but it cracks me up.

I first heard of it last summer, when I saw the band at the Greek Theater in Berkeley.

The song casts Jemaine Clement as a man who sets out, unknowingly, to be a suitor to the princess ... in the year 1353.

He gets "a rose-scented rose that they call a rose," the finest clothes, a new haircut, a massive horse and sets off to woo the lady.

And how does he do so? "Woo-ooh ooh-ooh ooh-ooh ooh, woo, lady, I am wooing you ... "

The princess is unimpressed and informs him of her pending nuptials.

"If you want my hand, you'll have to challenge (the king) to the thing on the horses with those pointy things."

If that doesn't make you crack up, maybe the Conchords aren't for you.

Maybe Randy Newman is more your speed.

I love Randy Newman. Go ahead and get your giggles and your "Family Guy" references out. I'll be waiting for you in the next paragraph.

OK? Still with me?

Newman is pretty great. For example, not only does "Rednecks" make me laugh, in the genius, unappreciated way of Newman, it is skewering and poignant social commentary on race in America.

His voice often gets him dismissed as novelty. "I Love L.A." does nothing to help that image, nor does penning cutesy soundtrack cuts such as "You've Got a Friend in Me." But don't forget that he did the music for "The Natural," too.

The genius of Newman is he knows exactly how his voice sounds and uses it with alarming sharpness.

In many other performers hands, the ironic smirk in "Political Science" would've read as dead-on seriousness.

And if you don't hear the Cuban dance mix of Coldplay's "Clocks" and at least smirk, you may not have a funny bone.

Honorable mention
· Coldplay, "Clocks [Cuban Dance Mix]" from Rhythms Del Mundo: Cuba [2006]
· Most Flight of the Conchords songs
· My Morning Jacket, "Highly Suspicious" from Evil Urges [2008]
· Randy Newman, "Political Science" from Sail Away [1972]
· Randy Newman, "Rednecks" from Good Old Boys [1974]
· Randy Newman, "You Can Leave Your Hat On" from Sail Away [1972]
· Josh Ritter, "Galahad" from To the Yet Unknowing World: B-Sides, Demos & Rarities from So Runs the World Away (EP) [2011]
· Tenacious D, "F--- Her Gently" from Tenacious D [2001]
· Most "Weird Al" Yankovic songs

30-Day Song Challenge, Day 24: A Song You Want to Play at Your Funeral

Dave Matthews Band
"#34"
From Weekend on the Rocks [2005]

I have actually given this one some thought before, macabre as that may seem.

I usually thought of a different DMB song, though.

The one song that never fails to plaster a grin across my face when I see it live is "Lie in Our Graves."

The sound of Boyd Tinsley starting the solo in that song is what summer sounds like to me. If I wasn't attending shows and seeing the song, I was downloading shows and listening to it.

I think because people so frequently think of me as "The DMB Guy" that connecting them to something which always made me think of summers with my favorite band would be an instant connection.

It'd have to be a live version, of course.

And that's when I started thinking that maybe it isn't such a great idea.

Most live renditions of "Lie in Our Graves" stretch out beyond the 10-minute mark, and I can just see my friends who don't enjoy the group rolling their eyes.

It's sort of funny to think about, actually. I get this picture of my friends and family sitting and listening to the song on some sort of sound system.

As it begins, they're sad, crying and holding each other, thinking about me and the band and some memories from throughout my life.

As the song goes on and on and on, one minute stretches into the next and Tinsley's violin solo turns into Butch Taylor on the keyboards taking a turn in the spotlight before handing the baton over to LeRoi Moore for a sax solo.

After about six or seven minutes, they start twiddling their thumbs and wondering when, mercifully, it will be over.

As it drags toward the 10-minute mark, they start thinking, "OK, Nick. Really? This is enough already. Is this really what you liked?"

Then they're all sort of looking at each other uncomfortably and waiting impatiently for the song to end together.

This is why I think if someone does decide to play "Lie in Our Graves" at my funeral, it's gotta be the rendition from Sept. 13, 2000. It's from a gig they played at The Woodlands, Texas, with Bela Fleck.

It's also 18 minutes long. Ha!

To the person choosing such a song, do not play DMB's "Say Goodbye." I don't think that title means what you think it means.

All kidding aside, I don't see how it could be anything other than a DMB song. While I love the sentiment of "Graves" — "I can't believe that we would lie in our graves wondering if we had spent our living days well" — there is something peaceful, reflective and mournful about "#34."

But, as a nod to the 50-plus shows I've seen, it can't be the Under the Table and Dreaming rendition.

It's a rarity and I've been lucky enough to see it three times.

The rendition in the YouTube clip above is from the band's Weekend on the Rocks set, recorded at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colo., in 2005.

I was there, seated about 30 rows up, with my friend and fellow DMB diehard, Chris. We've been to nine of the same shows, including this one.

It was a wonderful moment, seeing our favorite band play such a rare song in a beautiful, natural mountain venue. Because of our vantage point, we could see beyond the stage and, glowing in the distance, was the Denver skyline.

At just under six minutes long, I think those I leave behind will avoid the awkward, but comical waiting-for-the-song-to-end moment by playing "#34" instead.

In my honorable mention list is "Spirit in the Sky," which I can see being played in the funeral scene of a movie some day, much to the surprise of the mourners in attendance.

Honorable mention:
· Louis Armstrong, "What a Wonderful World" from What a Wonderful World [1968]
· The Beatles, "The End" from Abbey Road [1969]
· Dave Matthews Band, "The Last Stop [Reprise]" from Before These Crowded Streets [1998]
· Dave Matthews Band, "Lie in Our Graves" from Crash [1996]
· Norman Greenbaum, "Spirit in the Sky" from Spirit in the Sky [1969]
· Pearl Jam, "Man of the Hour" from Big Fish soundtrack [2003]
· Sigur Ros, "Hoppipolla" from Takk... [2005]
· Van Morrison, "Into the Mystic" from Moondance [1970]
· U2, "One Step Closer" from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb [2004]

Album art thriving, but liner notes dying

Everywhere I look, I see Kreayshawn eating a red popsicle.

Multiple music blogs and sites have the 21-year-old Oakland rapper donning baseball-sized lenses with her tongue extended suggestively ready to taste the chilled treat in an advertisement for her debut single, "Gucci Gucci" (at right).

The song has gained plenty of traction, racking up more than 3 million YouTube views and inking her a record deal with Columbia, a speedy hitmaker turn to which Matisyahu can relate.

For some, "Gucci Gucci" is the summer jam of '11. Others are debating whether, as someone who is white and female, she's a hip-hop tourist.

I keep thinking about that cover. That's an unmistakable image in a long line of them when it comes to album covers and album art, from The Beatles' iconic stroll across a London street for Abbey Road to Carly Simon in a black negligee, stockings and knee-high black boots for Playing Possum to the naked baby in a pool on the front of Nirvana's Nevermind.

Despite arguments to the contrary, album art isn't dying. It is morphing.

When Apple made the fifth-generation iPods capable of portraying a full-color image, they restored value to cover art in the digital age. Music message boards are flooded with threads asking for high-quality cover art scans and images when a new album is issued.

All of my earlier examples were of records at least 20 years old, but there are some incredible, recent examples of how album art continues to dazzle: Animal Collective's optical illusion for Merriweather Post Pavilion (at left), Beck's do-it-yourself sticker pack for The Information, Lil Wayne's funny and alarmingly tatted toddler on Tha Carter III (below right), The Black Keys' charmingly themed Brothers.

There is an element related to album art that is dying, however. Liner notes are disappearing faster than the printed novel.

It is a lost art. Detailed descriptions of instrumentation and clues about the genesis of the song are gone.

They haven't been replaced. They're bygones of an earlier time in music.

It's symptomatic of the larger picture, which is artists not getting or receiving credit for their work, even if that credit comes in the form of cold hard cash. Digital sales might be on the rise, but as a delivery system for liner notes, the results thus far are less than impressive.

Legally, songwriter credit information needs to be out there. Even Sigur Rós' purposefully wordless ( ) album art has the necessary legal mumbo jumbo tacked on in tiny print. Some artists are opting to put this on their websites instead.

This isn't an issue with physical products, but as CDs continue a slow, steady decline into the dollar bin, even the resurgent sales of vinyl isn't enough to compensate for the difference.

Lyric sheets are nice, but more of a luxury item. They help guide and explore our journey through a record better, but they're not absolutely necessary tools.

When people could start getting the music for free, many fans took a laissez-faire attitude about the liner notes and the cover art, which is a shame because there are so many clues, connections and tidbits of information which can be packed. There's little revealing connections that even songwriter credits can tell you, such as the M. Jagger and K. Richards listed on The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" that explain why the British group earned exactly zero dollars for that song.

While that may be changing, album art is still vital and Kreayshawn is a purposeful, polished image why.

While there isn't anything particularly thought provoking about Kreayshawn being an instant away from lapping up that red popsicle, it is a memorable image. It doesn't tell you much about the music contained within, but neither do Coltrane's Sound or Cut Copy's Zonoscope (at left).

What the cover for "Gucci Gucci" does say is that the artist is white, young and has an intense interest in frozen sweets.

And those are things that will have people discussing her long after that popsicle melts.