Give it up, Moondog!

Rock and roll historians and those who live in the Cleveland area are well-schooled in the event known as the Moondog Coronation Ball. A celebration on March 21 every year commemorates Cleveland DJ and rock promoter Allan Freed's famous overbooked 1952 fiasco. Here's an excerpt from the Fifties-Web piece:

What was novel was the idea of people going to a big municipal hall to dance. The Globetrotters played there, not musicians you'd heard on the radio. Today the idea of a Rock concert being held in a huge facility is commonplace.

But this is where the dream and the reality collided. Even after the hall was full to capacity, those crowds were pushing and shoving. Doors crashed open, glass exploded. Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams was on stage when the first fight broke out. And still they poured into the Arena, just to be a part of it. Dancing, moving wildly, the crowd became more and more unruly.

Even the big glittery sign proudly announcing "Moondoggers" came tumbling down.

That's when the Fire Marshals came and shut it all down. Nobody else got to play, not the Dominoes, Tiny Grimes, or the Rockin' Highlanders. Not Danny Cobb or Varietta Dillard. This hugely famous concert and only one song was played.

Why do I bring this up? Well, there are definitely no rock and roll fans trampling each other to buy a Face of Stephen CD on eBay for $49.98, posted by a seller going by the name of Moondog. This has been up for months now. I emailed him, but he hasn't responded. I don't blame him; I made quite a bit of fun of his stupid auction in the email. And I'm really good at that, as many of you know.

Of course, all you "Raindoggers" know that if you want the tunes from Face of Stephen you can download them here for a fifth of the price of Mr. Lunar Canine's eBay listing. in this way you can also stop promoting the destruction of our planet with all that nasty plastic which they need to use to make a CD and still rock with some choice tuneage, Kimosabe.

So give it up, Moonie... Stingin' Rain is in da house, dog!

We can't live with or without Bono

If I'm a sucker for anything besides rock and roll, it's got to be deprecatory comedy writing. And I agree with most if not all of this piece even though I remain a hardcore fan of pre-Achtung U2 and Bono, who is probably one of the nicest multi-millionaires out there, albeit not the sharpest crayon in the box. Excerpt:

The wordless, wailing refrain of "With or Without You" still sends shivers down your spine, but Bono is lucky he's such a nice guy and he's even luckier that he makes such an enigmatic frontman because he's one of the sloppiest, wackiest lyricists in the game. Because the tunes are so indebted to that most cliché-ridden of genres (the blues), because his range is truly impressive, and because nobody can mic impassioned, British Isle hollering quite like Eno (just ask David Bowie), Bono gets away with a lot that a lesser man would not. The tropes are inoffensive, since even Dylan rhymes "fire" and "desire," and the clichés are forgivable, since rain and tears are pretty similar, I guess (though he does sing about rain an awful lot for a record that's named after a desert), but two decades on, can someone finally acknowledge how dumb these similes are? The guy clearly never met a mixed metaphor he didn't like: How exactly can "stinging rain" drive nails into "souls on a tree of pain," and since when do bullets "rape the night," even figuratively? Every now and then, though, Bono drops a gem: Has romantic anxiety ever been captured more accurately and succinctly than in the refrain, "I can't live with or without you"?

As for his politics, Bono is often accused of being sanctimonious, but on Joshua Tree he actually sounds detached. There's the blossoming of Bono's liberal outrage in "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Mothers of the Disappeared," which were inspired by a trip to South America but which are so mired in hammy imagery and Jim Morrison-posturing ("So how does it feel to see the sky ripped open?/To see the rain through a gaping wound/Pelting the women and children/Who run into the arms of America?") that he completely misses the polemical power of addressing actual pain in actual countries with actual people. It's not a criticism you can level at, say, "Sunday Bloody Sunday."

Still, there's something charming, even refreshing, about the way Bono's lyrics try so hard. It's difficult to remember, but there was a time when Europeans didn't hate America (de Toqueville! The Statue of Liberty!), and aside from the sorta-enraged "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Mothers of the Disappeared," Bono sounds legitimately in awe of our nation's people and topography; depending on where you look, it sure can feel like "God's country." Beautiful sights will bring out the cornball in most anyone, and Bono's earnestness is perfectly supported by Eno's extraordinary production work; rarely has a work of art been so majestic and yet so stupid.

The truth is that Newlin is right about the opening song of the album, "Where the streets have no name" being an awesome feat of rock producing and possibly one of the greatest songs of all time. I mean, the first time I heard it I was blown away, and I suppose at that moment became unconsciously ready to forgive Bono and crew of every cliché and overwrought political commentary on the rest of the album.

As far as politics goes, Bono has never been far left like a lot of recording artists. His criticisms of America have always been couched in terms of the United States not living up to her own high standards and don't bear much resemblance to the patchouli-drenched boomers marching around Berkeley every full moon chanting "America is evil and must be destroyed!" At least from the criticisms I've heard, his views are somewhere to Bruce Springsteen's right. He even met with Bush, a meeting from which a slightly awkward photo exists. Let's just say it was not an "Elvis-meets-Nixon" moment.

Later on I guess I was less ready to forgive U2 for Achtung Baby which I never got, though I tried with all my might. I know that I'm in the minority among U2 fans for this opinion. I guess lines like "Well you lied to me 'cause I asked you to / Baby, can we still be friends?" made me want to hear about bullets, fighter planes, $100 bills and third world people living in mud huts again.

Search Engine Static

It's fun to guess how our band experience would have been different if it had somehow miraculously occurred 10 years later in the midst of the Internet Age. But ultimately, all such futuristic speculations are a fantastic waste of time, as proved years ago by the Jetsons.


Furthermore, this is why these goofballs writing books about "robot love" should be ashamed of themselves. Well, among other more obvious reasons.

And we should never forget our oft-repeated maxim, "A second can change time."

As it stands, I've been googling the terms "Stinging Rain" for years, finding meaningful hits here and there, cutting out references to the lyrics to "Bullet the Blue Sky" and the 6th track on Capercaillie's self-titled album. I remember one listing on eBay cracked me up -- someone was trying to push a CD of "the dream" for $150.00. Needless to say that auction ended with no bidders. The Gathering Field page was a fun hit when I found it by including the phrase "Grove City" in quotes. Hitting the page of this compilation, "In the land of Milk & Cookies", brought back some scary memories. A few good ones, too, I'll admit.

Then along comes Misery Signals and their song "The Stinging Rain". If your curious, watch a few seconds of this.



Sorry -- there was really no easy way to break it to you. If you want to read the full lyrics to this screamo anthem, go here. I'll include a pertinent sample:

Gentle were the words that set her free
She became the stinging rain
She became the hurricane
No love lost
Purge you animose
That serpent coiled within my stomach
Temperance fell from her without weight
Gone with the storm
We are not meant to contain the sadness of this world
I whispered in her ear and drew her close....

Yeahhhh.... OK. Truth be told, it actually hurts my voice far more than my ears. This kind of material is also referred to as "Math Rock". But I wouldn't recommend playing this for your preschooler to improve his/her future test scores.

And just in case some Misery Signals fans find their way over here to gripe: the suicide hotline number is 800-784-2433.