I can hardly believe it’s been almost a year since I wrote “The Greatest Song in the World“. I always had it in my head that I would follow it up with the greatest album, but it’s honestly taken me all of this time to decide exactly what album that is. As with said greatest song, I surprised myself with the answer.

None of the following took the big gold ring, but in my arsenal are armfuls of unquestionable classics that every home should have - (a house just isn’t a home without them). For your own good, I hereby present the runners-up in no particular order:

David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars

ABBA: Arrival

T.Rex: Electric Warrior

Kiss: Alive!

Alice Cooper: Love It To Death

Coheed & Cambria: Good Apollo…

Journey: Frontiers

Adam & The Ants: Kings of the Wild Frontier

I include Adam and the Ants in this list as once upon a time, I did believe it to be the greatest thing ever. Just because I was 13 doesn’t negate it from entry - however, it was obvious from the start that it was never going to take the top spot. Interestingly, if you stopped me in the street, handed me some chalk and asked me to draw the Ant Warrior logo (the Ant Music For Sex People/Sex Music For Ant People thing for those in the know), I could. Some things get embedded so deeply into your psyche that they never leave. Adam Ant was a genius. Probably still is, only everybody has stopped listening.

ABBA Arrival was the other album that was never going to win but I do recall everybody in my class at school raving about that piece of shit debut Sex Pistols album while I only had this slice of genius. If that made me the biggest anarchist in the class, it was lost on me. I just wanted great songs. Looking at the cover of the album, none of them look particularly happy about being the biggest band in the universe - ever. If you can forget that Dancing Queen exists, you have to admit that Benny and Bjorn wrote some seriously great songs. Look closely and you’ll be able to see the angst seeping out from the bottom of those beards. Then again, being on the road with your friend and your combined wives/husbands, has got to be the biggest recipe for disaster one could ever consider.

A strong, strong contender for the title was Ziggy. I love this album. I have loved this album from the very first time I heard it and I still love it now. Whenever I put it on, I have to listen to it from the beginning to the end. In order. Some things in life are not meant to be shuffled. There isn’t one bad song on Spiders (unlike the album that won the title) and yet it is flawed in the way that only a true rock n roll album can be whilst remaining perfect. There is nothing else to say about Ziggy Stardust, It simply is.

Journey’s Frontiers meantime should probably be Escape but it’s not. Frontiers is a strange album. The track listing is all wrong, the two sides don’t work well together, the artwork is dreadful and I still don’t know who or what a Rubicon is. Yet for all that (or maybe because of it) it’s a solid album with a group of incredibly talented musicians performing at their absolute best. Four huge songs out of five on side one of an album? Loses valuable points also for the free poster inside of the guys in the band parachuting from a plane. As much as I’ve always known Steve Perry to be the greatest singer in the world, I really don’t need a picture of him with a backpack on above my bed.

Electric Warrior - ah, Marc, Marc, Marc… when you were great, you inspired me and when you weren’t you were still better than everybody else. I’ve not listened to this for the longest time and now I come back to it, I find that familiarity has bred a small amount of contempt. It’s not your fault but I’ve heard all of these songs out of their proper environment so many times now that it’s hard to actually judge Electirc Warrior as an album at all. Note to self. Learn how to fall in love again…

Coheed & Cambria’s Good Apollo still lays waste to my senses. If you’ve never experienced the greatest story ever told, shame on you. Listening to Apollo is similar to being locked in God’s flotation chamber and having all three Lord of the Rings films streamed into your head. Simultaneously. They may try for the rest of their lives but they will never capture the chemistry and depth of vision they did with this. This one came second (and I rather suspect that’s because it’s not that old).

And so we come to Kiss and Alice. I don’t have to say anything about either of these albums, so I won’t. You already have them and you know why they are on my list.

So, to backtrack somewhat, what is the greatest album in the world? Looking at the artists on my list, you may be forgiven for thinking I was going to pitch something rockingly similar in your direction but it is of course, Carole King’s Tapestry (1971).

This was a mainstay of my old man’s record collection, so I was exposed to it from being very young. Very young - I was four years old. 

Let’s get the downside out of the way because I really don’t want to continue with this if I have to mention it again. Smackwater Jack is not a good song. It never was and it never will be - well, maybe if Trent Reznor does a number on it, it could be but that’s a long shot now. We shall also not be discussing any re-release bonus track remastered variants. We will be working with an original well-loved vinyl copy - just as it should be.

From the very beginning, it’s evident that the whole point of this album is love. It’s delivered with love, is about love and expects the unconditional same in return. Whether your background is metal or opera, reggae or soul, if you deny that the first three opening tracks are anything but a wanton display of a total understanding of the song-writing process, you are lying to yourself and you will look stupid. Forever. 

I Feel The Earth Move, So Far Away and It’s Too Late all form the core of an album so perfect, it was put together in just a few days and yet held the Number One slot for 15 weeks, staying on the chart for six years. That’s 312 weeks of music fans consistently making an effort of getting off their ass, going to the store and making a definitve purchase. This amounts to over 25 million copies of it sold - and while that probably includes whole tribes of pot-heads forgetting where they had left their copy and having to buy another, it’s still an awful lot. Couple this with King looking like the girl nextdoor that every boy fell in love with and every girl wanted to be and the deal is done - and while it might smack of hippy drivel, this is simply because you’re not listening properly. 

I feel totally vindicated in my research on this because no matter the albums I have sold, given away, lost or smashed in my 40 years of listening pleasure, this one has never been very far away. It has been with me through glam rock, space rock, jet rock, cock rock, big rock and whatever other kinds of rock phenomena - Will You Love Me Tomorrow can still make me cry. King’s vocal delivery lays me like a carpet every time. It’s the most soul-wrenching piece of art ever committed to vinyl and if you do not recognise this, bad things will happen to you in the afterlife.

I want to say so many things about this album but I can’t. Tapestry is not a record to me anymore, it’s a feeling. It’s an emotion that can’t - or won’t - be explained. You can take 3 months or 3 years in the studio, you can pay an audio-ringmaster millions of dollars to perfect what you think you have, you can tell a hundred journalists a hundred lies but what I think it comes down to is this: if you can’t say what you have to say in three and a half minutes on an acoustic guitar or a piano, you need to go back and find the real reason you want to make music - Chinese Democracy would have sold just as many copies if it had been done like this.

Sion Smith is a writer from the UK who specialises in popular culture.  To follow the (almost) daily happenings of a man with too much information in his head, subscribe to his blog at www.zodiaclung.blogspot.com

By Jim Walsh | Published Wed, Jan 13 2010 2:46 pm

http://www.minnpost.com/artsarena/2010/01/13/14942/greetings_to_the_new_dylanette

In his liner notes to Patches and Gretchen’s 11-song sophomore stunner, Honeydogs leader Adam Levy writes: “I don’t think I’m going out on a ledge by arguing that Patches and Gretchen’s ‘Sugar Head Pie’ is a freak-out folk-punk masterpiece. There are a few contenders: Pavement’s ‘Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain’; Syd Barrett’s ‘The Mad Cap Laughs’; maybe some solo Roky Erickson. If Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams and Chrissie Hynde had a lost weekend of debauchery and songwriting, it just might look like ‘Sugar Head Pie.’ … The feel is classic but it’s never looked or felt like this before. No whiskey bottles, no Pentecostal churches, honky-tonk barstools, preachers, or dirt roads — instead it’s Sequoia and Trails of Tears, poisoned hot dishes, lonely trailer park moms, scab pickers, Minnesota lilac breezes, morphine gypsies in Sault Saint Marie.”

Levy’s assessment is dead-on: It says here that the most hypnotic rock record of the new decade has been delivered by an ad-hoc Minneapolis punk outfit led by one Gretchen Seichrist, a 40-something single mom who sings, swears and spits her Dylanesque poems with an old-school mystique laced with modern-world damage. A timeless album, in other words, for all those who still believe in such revelations, but while its roots invite comparisons (I hear “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “Exile in Guyville,” “Salesman and Racists,” “Horses,” etc.), this is a post-nostalgia work that has its own center, its very own howl.

Backed by acoustic/electric guitars, tube amps, leathery drums, the occasional banjo-fiddle, and Terry Eason’s Crazy Horse benders, Seichrist sing-shrugs stuff like, “I always wanted to be raised by wolves and be the chosen one,” giving voice to every primal artistic urge known to human. Sing it: Everybody knows this is nowhere, everybody knows you can’t fake desperate, and in this case, desperation is the mother of invention, and great reinvention.

To that end, the swaggering barroom blast “Tired of Chicken” is the set’s mini-manifesto amidst many maxi-anthems, with the singer jabbing at all the jealous souls, real and imagined, who would take umbrage at her decision to not go quietly into that night of middle-age. Instead, by lurching into a career as a recording artist and band leader, she’s engaging in a very public pursuit of happiness that she knows, ultimately, may not bring happiness at all.

Still, the proof is in the pudding. Sounding like Kirsty MacColl in “Fairytale of New York,” the MCAD survivor and ferociously fecund painter bawls, “Just who am I hurtin’ if I get in one more a-va-voom before they lower the curtain?/And if it makes you feel better, I’ll soon be knitting sweaters/Eatin’ microwave dinners, with a cat on my lap and unbearable lonely winters.”

Playing for keeps
Recorded at Rich Mattson’s Sparta Studio in Sparta, Minn., there is something vaguely southern about “Sugar Head Pie,” from its hard-knock heroine to its worship of hallowed Native American ground to an intensely organic feel that at times feels like dirt and clay running through the listener’s hands.

“Woncha come and play sugar head pie with me?” Seichrist sings to her girlfriend-slash-would-be-playmate, yearning for a return to their childhood and a time when you made things for fun, not for sale. The dark side of that care-freedom rears its head in “Blood Suitcase,” an apology to her kids about the nuisance of looking for a new place to live — again. The drag is palpable, and when she sings, “I guess we’ll find out what is essential and what belongs to the past,” you can almost see the hobo’s bindle sticks slung over their shoulders as they hit the road.

That wanderlust also sows the seeds of genuine independence. “I’ve got to start thinking about myself/And I’m gonna do it all by myself … and I don’t need your help,” she sings on “Time of the Lilacs,” while “Black Market” rails at the “middle man” (indifferent record companies? lazy rock critics? paid-off deejays? one-night lovers?) who stand between her and her dreams. All of which would be so much predictable me-first angst in less nuanced hands, but when Seichrist seethes, “We’re not young, but we’re restless,” she does so for anyone of any age who has ever felt imprisoned by their own skin and wanted to “see a wheat field come to me for a change.”

And “Sugar Head Pie” is nothing if not sprawling. The 10-minute closer “Everything Is Indian” is Patches and Gretchen’s “The Wasteland” or “Howl,” in which white liberal guilt is recast as reparation hot and mournful. Here is the sound of someone tilling raped hallowed ground, traipsing over Native American landmarks and lakes, and communing with the spirits of the night. Make no mistake, “Sugar Head Pie” is a political record, in that the personal is political, and that we’ve all got our and our sins, individually and as a society. No wonder she sounds like the drunk village idiot, spewing her history lessons to deaf ears around Franklin and Chicago.

Masterpiece for the ageless
Trolling the brightly lit but brutally grim aisles of Blockbuster while fighting bronchitis and winter ennui the other day, I held in my hand no less than 20 (I counted) would-be time-killers deemed  a “masterpiece” by some critic or another. Masterpieces, then, come cheap nowadays, or maybe not. Maybe there are so many DIY masterpieces being cranked out now that We the Inundated can’t keep track. All I know is that this is an important record and you should hear it.

You know a masterpiece when you hear it. One of those addictions you played the hell out of, start to finish, over and over. An album. A collection of songs written and recorded and sequenced with great care and consideration for the listener, the art lover, the reader, the lucky one who stumbles upon this aural glue that connects you with the past and future and nails what Jon Stewart was talking about at the Kennedy Center Awards recently, about Springsteen’s “ongoing conversation with his audience.”

That’s what I have with “Sugar Head Pie” — an ongoing conversation — and it’s a beautiful thing. At the moment, we’re opening a bottle of Malbec and cranking up the electric fireplace and talking about existentialism and the idea that, at any age, life is in fact meaningless unless and until you give it meaning. We’re talking about how people die and fall apart, but also about how they grow, change, figure things out, get better, richer, deeper.

We’re talking about how we make each other feel. How music makes us feel less alone, and we’re starting to wonder how people who don’t glean sustenance from art and music slog through this thing called life. We’re talking about how “Sugar Head Pie” unfurls like a great aural pin cushion snuggy, and how it already makes us feel wistful for this time, these first few weeks of the new decade, when the Twin Cities was awash in so much good new music it felt like the Roaring 10s.

We’re talking about how masterpieces inspire us. We’re thinking about what Anaïs Nin said about that inner voice you can’t ignore, and about how “the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

We’re needling each other. We’re daring each other. We’re calling each other up, every morning with coffee, and every evening with wine, and sometimes in the afternoon just before the recess bell clangs, just to see who can be the first to say to the other, “Woncha come and play sugar head pie with me?”

New York, NY January 12, 2010 – After announcing the early release of his new album “Take a Seat,” singer-songwriter TJAY wowed fans with a special interview and performance on the internet TV show “Rew and Who.” Viewers saw TJAY perform in an intimate setting, and heard the upstate-New York native speak for the first time about his unique history as a record breaking baseball player at Binghamton University, his experience with the Major Leagues, and how he got into music.

TJAY, known for his smooth blues/rock vocal styles and amazing guitar mastery, began performing concerts while in college to “earn a little extra cash,” at the same time playing Division One Baseball for Binghamton U. With a 90-mile-an-hour throwing arm, ranked in the Top 5 for career hits, home runs, RBIs, and breaking the college’s career doubles record, TJAY was attracting Major League attention.

“Baseball is a tough business to break into,” says TJAY, “very similar to the music industry.” The longer the Major Leagues waited to call him up, the larger the crowds grew at TJAY’s performances. During the winter off-season, his music really started to take off.

Now, TJAY performs an astounding 200+ shows per year.  You can see TJAY perform on Friday January 22nd at Palmers Crossing in Larchmont, NY just outside NYC. You can also view TJAY’s interview and performance from “Rew and Who” by visiting the web links below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eApHtKihQmc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8JKvrRxgM0&feature=related

Visit www.myspace.com/tjaymusic for additional dates and more information.

New York, NY  December 15, 2009 - Singer-songwriter TJAY is scoring major league points with his fans as he continues to perform around the tri-state area throughout the month of December and into the New Year.  The upstate-New York native has been drawing crowds wherever he plays and so impressing music lovers in the audience that they have been clamoring for copies of his new CD.  Entitled “Take A Seat,” the album was scheduled to be released in early 2010 but TJAY has had to push up that date in order to fulfill requests.

“It’s remarkable and very rewarding,” says the musician.  “People have been coming up to me after my concerts asking to buy my CD.   They were disappointed hearing that they had to wait until February, so we just decided to get it out now!”

TJAY knows a thing or two about having hits.  Having received a scholarship to play Division One college baseball at the University of Binghamton, TJAY was simultaneously pursuing a career as a professional baseball player and playing gigs on the side to earn a little extra cash.   During the winter off-season, as TJAY played more and more shows, word started to spread and the crowds grew. From there, the choice was easy.

Now, TJAY performs an astounding 200+ shows per year.  He loves connecting with his audience and writes from the heart; his songs are autobiographical and tell the story of someone breaking away from the norm to live his dreams.  TJAY is known for his smooth blues/rock vocal styles and complete guitar mastery - his funky guitar riffs are one of the cornerstones of his music.

TJAY’s concert schedule is as follows:

December     3        Cold Spring, NY
December     4        New York City, NY (M.E.A.N.Y. Fest “Honorable Mention” show)
December     17      Kingston, NY
December     23      “Rew & Who?” Internet TV - live interview & performance
January        9        Binghamton, NY
January        20      Pleasantville, NY
January        22      Larchmont, NY
February       5        Stamford, CT
February       7        Florence, NJ - Rock on Radio - live interview & performance
February       25      Kingston, NY (solo acoustic)
Feburary       26      Kingston, NY (with the TJay Trio)

Visit www.myspace.com/tjaymusic for additional dates and more information.

303 Fifth Avenue • Suite 702• New York NY 10016 • Ph 917-338-6199• Fax 917-338-6515
www.islpr.com • islpr@aol.com

AUDIENCE TO HEAR PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED JOEY RAMONE SOLO RECORDINGS

Celebrating what would have been the 58th birthday of punk icon JOEY RAMONE, the annual JOEY RAMONE BIRTHDAY BASH will take place Tuesday, May 19th at The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza.  Mickey Leigh, event organizer and brother of Joey Ramone, has announced that, as part of the 9th annual Bash, fans will be treated to a special advance sneak peek listen to rough mixes of never- before-heard Joey Ramone solo recordings.  Various producers, including long-time Ramones producer Ed Stasium, are currently preparing tracks for a full album worth of material, slated for posthumous release at the end of the year.
 
This year’s headliners are Fishbone and Supersuckers.  The spectacular party will conclude with The Friends Of Joey featuring Richie Ramone, Handsome Dick Manitoba, Jean Beauvoir, Ivan Julian, George Tabb, Al Maddy and Mickey Leigh.  Also appearing are Death and Rough Francis (both bands were the subject of a feature story in the New York Times on March 12), Uncle Monk (featuring Tommy Ramone), Bebe Buell, and Tom Clark & The High Action Boys.  As the audience enters the venue they will once again be greeted by musician Tracy Thornton, playing Ramones songs on the steel drum.  And, in what has become a Birthday Bash tradition, Sean O’Sullivan’s Punk Pipers will round out the night on the bagpipes.  The fete will be emceed by Matt Pinfield and Peter Aschner.  Additional surprises are expected at the evening’s events. 

RAMONE, who passed away in April 2001 after a seven-year battle with Lymphoma, had a history of encouraging up-and-coming bands in New York’s downtown music scene by showcasing them at his special “Joey Ramone Presents…” events.  Since RAMONE’s passing, his brother and their mother Charlotte Lesher carried on the tradition “by featuring bands that make great music and getting together some of Joey’s friends to celebrate him on what would otherwise be a sad, somber day,” Leigh explained.

This year’s Bash is being sponsored by Manic Panic, Trash & Vaudville & Tripp, and Village Voice. 

Tickets are available in advance at the Fillmore box office for$25 ($30 day of show) or through http://www.livenation.com/edp/eventId/404523.  The Fillmore is located at 17 Irving Place, corner 15th Street, NYC.  Doors open at 7PM.

For ongoing updates, visit www.joeyramone.com.  Net proceeds from the Bash go to support the Joey Ramone Foundation for Lymphoma Research.

For more information or to request press and photo credentials contact ISL Public Relations at islpr@aol.com; 1-917-338-6199.  

The Strange Case of Bob Lefsetz vs Gene Simmons

Right up front, I have to state - rather emphatically - that this is not a random posting about Kiss because I felt like it. Over the last couple of weeks Ida has been mailing me various links to an “argument” that has been gathering no small amount of momentum on the web and as a Kiss fan I find it more than intriguing. The two sides appear to be this: Gene recently spoke at a music seminar, Bob retaliated saying it wasn’t very good and that Gene had his head up his ass. Gene came back with a few choice comments resulting in Gene and Bob appearing in a live debate situation which you can view here. (http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2009/03/13/gene/) VIDEO HERE: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ziIwZRl7U&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Flefsetz%2Ecom%2Fwordpress%2Findex%2Ephp%2Farchives%2F2009%2F03%2F14%2Fyoutube%2Dclip%2F&feature=player_embedded)

If you can put aside the mudslinging for long enough to think about it, it comes down to this: Gene is old school. He thinks that talking relentlessly about himself and/or his product will sell himself/his product. Bob on the other hand thinks that there is a new music business model afoot and the odds on Gene being correct are very slim. This is putting it nicely. Check out the video - there’s some killer laughs in there… mostly at Bob’s expense.  Gene’s comment of “I don’t even know who the fuck you are” is well placed. I don’t know who this guy is either but he does make a good case. I think. Call me shallow, but I found it hard to take they guy as seriously as I should have while he’s slouched in a chair. It’s always the little things…

Let’s ramp up the experiment a little and hope I don’t get my chops busted for standing in the middle of the battlefield. Let’s say I have a band. Let’s call this band Baby Dynamite because that’s what my band was called (hey - shut the fuck up… I learned from the best!). Baby Dynamite has a rough cut of an album called Blacklisted and we’re looking to crank our careers up to the next stage. This means, as Gene rightly points out in his speech that we need some help. We need either a) a company who will figure out all the crap for us, advance us some cash to clean up the album, sort the merchandising and get our name in front of as many people as possible, very fast or as Bob also rightly points out, b) an internet based plan whereby we build a loyal following direct with the fans and take all of the money from low sales (at first) instead of very little money from a lot of sales.

Bob makes some excellent points. MTV does not play music anymore… not really, but to be fair, if I’ve made a great video for what I consider to be the lead single off the album (incidentally called Creature Feature), I know who to ask at the Scuzz channel (UK audiences only!) what our chances are of getting it aired - even if it is on the other side of the witching hour. Nobody I want to sell to watches MTV anyway - they are watching Scuzz because that’s where the action is. I can also post it wherever the hell I like in the next five minutes and begin drip feeding the entire globe with a link.

The real-life scenario however is this: Baby Dynamite (there I go again) are so hungry for the big time, that we’re going to do both. Any serious band would! No band in their right mind is going to turn down development under the wing of Simmons/Universal, but likewise, we are dubious about the end result. Van Halen aside, no band Gene has touched has really made a serious dent in the world - and there have been many. I love Black n Blue as much as the next guy, but it really didn’t happen. Then again… looking back on my band (Baby Dynamite in case you missed it), which split in 1995 after seven years of not very much happening.. well, there is my point illustrated exactly. Looking back I would give my eye teeth for what Black n Blue had - four decent albums and a few trips around the globe. Hey - Tommy even got to be a member of Kiss and while the hardcore amongst us sometimes reel from the fact that Ace isn’t in the band anymore, if Gene hadn’t made the decisions he did, we wouldn’t have got much past Destroyer without it imploding.. and then there would have been no Baby Dynamite.

What’s that line from Three Men and Little Lady? “It’s tough being Papa Bear…”

I’m finding this hard going now because as an editor/fan/critic whatever you want to call me, I don’t really care where the model comes from. All I want to do is hear great music. So long as I get to hear it, it’s your problem as to whether or not you’re as clued in as me once I’ve told you about it. If Kiss choose to release their next album through the mega-chains in the States, that’s fine, count me in, but I’ll also be churning up independents such as The Dreaming (ex Stabbing Westward guys) who are running the gauntlet pretty much alone and I’m going to listen toand talk about just as much. Business models aside, this is how the world works now. Fans are greedy and will take their music from wherever they find it - and tomorrow it will be two different bands.

I really want to like Bob because I hear what he’s saying. Sadly, the other guy on the stage is a) one of my heroes b) dressed for business c) articulate d) massively intelligent and e) quick witted even if f) I suspect he might be wrong. Case in point: Gene rallied around his artist BAG a few years back. It’s a great album, it really is. Did you hear it? No you didn’t. Where is he now? Who cares - and that’s the sad truth about this. Gene gets more mileage from pimping his acts than his acts do - there’s a serious lesson to be learned there. Gene is Gene. Anybody who gets into that bed should expect nothing less. He is the Vince McMahon of rock and to pick a fight is utterly foolish. Bob can never win this argument because of that simple fact. Nobody knows or cares who he is. What would have been fantastic TV was if Bob was Marilyn Manson or Trent Reznor.. man, I would have paid to see that.

In the aftermath, Bob was still very vocal about how badly Gene treated him on TV. Gene however went back to making money and forgot all about it, whilst I considered the impact on my life of putting Baby Dynamite back together.

I learned a lot from Gene Simmons over the years. Today I learned a lot from Bob.

If you’re going to bring down a giant, get your shit together before you start and polish your shoes.

Sion Smith is the founder and editor of BURN magazine. He is also the writer/creator of the comic book series Too Hot For Dogs and some other inane fiction. If you’re in the mood to follow the semi-daily ramblings of a man with too much information in his head, check in with his personal blog at http://zodiaclung.blogspot.com/.Every Sunday he spends some time in Kiss or Alice Cooper make-up to remember why this journey was started in the first place. 

 FURTHERANCE FROM OUR OTHER GUEST BLOGGER:I have, of course, been following this and must say it is a match made in butt-ugly heaven for both Bob and Gene. You might recall that I knew Gene before the success when he and Paul (Stanley) would come into the Music Box record store on Union Turnpike in Queens where I worked during college. Paul would brag about their future success and Gene would act like a mute. Sadly, I really don’t relate to either POV from Gen or Lefsetz. Their topic is not the music biz. It is a self-centered scenario allowed by the internet for bob and celebrity for Gene. None of it has much to do with music.

James J. Spina

VP Editor in Chief
20/20 Magazine

The Greatest Song In The World: Not a Tribute

by Sion Smith/UK journalist & editor

From the humble office desk to the most raunch-infested tour bus, the eternal question has been posed more times than that of the existence of Santa.  “What is the greatest song ever?”  I can answer this - but you’ll have to put up with a few hundred words before I do, otherwise it would be a pointless exercise (not that it isn’t anyway, but that’s half the point of a blog isn’t it?). As time has meddled with my plan for immortality and whittled down my options, I find I must have posed the question to myself many times and I believe that until very recently, my response was based on the song that happened to be my favourite at that particular time - which is a mistake many people make - you need to dig far deeper than this. Part of the solution can be found in the names of the songs that repeatedly turn up on such a list, but first, let me give you some examples of making grievous and shallow errors in judgment using this criteria: 1. At some point in 1987, I would have sworn on my life and yours that the Poison cover of “Rock n Roll All Nite” from the Less Than Zero soundtrack was it. Reasons? a) Kiss cover b) party song c) the cool addition of the words “Mr Rocket” at the beginning. I see now that this is foolish in the extreme - particularly after listening to it again as I write this just to be sure. Idiot. 2. The first song that ever made me cry was “Red Army Blues” from the Waterboys - this was a strong contender for many years but if it had been that good, surely more than seven people would know what I’m talking about… One could carry on like this for a long time, but I’ll save you from the inanity of it all and myself from any further embarrassment.  The other mistake people make is listening to others opinions. The two stalwarts of this list that are the easy way out for all radical non-free-thinkers of the world - Stairway to Heaven and Bohemian Rhapsody - are misnomers. They are two of the greatest rock songs ever but they don’t sweep the board of all the pieces. Respectively, one is captivating and brilliant in its execution, the other is captivating and brilliant in its execution of attracting people that simply don’t get the first choice. We must cast our nets much wider than this.  We must avoid ABBA (see previous blog post) due to their appeal to only homosexuals and housewives who never go out of the house (OK, and me). We must avoid the catalogues of the Gods also. The Beatles, the Stones, The Who, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis and Roxx Gang are not allowed to play. The choices are too obvious and whichever song you choose, a like-minded fan is able to come along and say things like “but what about….” and you will respond “Hmm - that’s a good point” and then out-think yourself. Is there any mileage in including anything from the last decade? I think we can all agree that would be a waste of time. How about two decades? Let’s make it three! That’s a little bit harder but nothing is springing out of the trap-door that can wipeout my pitch. Which basically leaves us with approximately thirty years of music to dive into - 1950 to 1979 and that’s a mighty big playing field.  One really doesn’t have to look too hard through those years though. There are many mighty songs from all three decades but I’m talking about the ones that stay with you forever. The ones that make you reach for the volume control when it comes on the radio. The song must transcend gender, generations and genre-fication. The damn thing has to make you stand naked out in the street and cry because you wish you had written it. The tournament was not however won without a fight. There were some strong contenders: Charlie Rich - The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, Carly Simon (and Toni Stern) - It’s Too Late, Don McLean’s materpiece American Pie amongst others, all fought hard for the title, but it was a no contest before they even got in the ring. Without question, the best song ever written in the entire history of songwriting comes from the magical pen of Tom Evans and Pete Ham. I can hear what you’re saying… who the hell are they? These guys are from BadFinger and the track in question lay buried - and with good reason, still does - at the tail end of their 1970 album No Dice. There it would have stayed forever were it not for the keen ear of one Harry Nilsson who took it, gave it a good shake and delivered the most brutal song the world will ever witness.  That song of course is Without You.  Most people think Nilsson, as one of the most prolific and talented writers of the era, wrote it himself - a fact that I’m sure he wasn’t overly vocal about correcting. Anybody who knows anything about songs and their structure, either from an educated level of having done it themselves across to those who are simply able to appreciate the art-form, will find nothing is missing from Without You. There is not a lyric out of place or a chord that doesn’t seamlessly melt into the next.  Many have tried to ride the coat-tails of Nilsson and all have failed. Even Mariah Carey didn’t have the balls to pull it off. This is because Without You is a man’s song. It doesn’t sound right coming from lips of a woman. When Nilsson delivers it, you see a man on his knees, a man about to cut his heart out with a rusty spoon. A man who above all else, has lost his single reason for being. Carey delivers it like the great singer she is but that’s just not good enough to cut through the ethereal ribcage that protects the soul from harm. Women may be the only ones who bleed but it takes the emotional train wreck of a damaged man to truly show the high price of being human. Now - if I can get Ms Langsam to activate the comments on this blog, Let’s see who’s with me. You know I’m right.

Sion Smith is the founder and editor of BURN magazine. He is also the writer/creator of the comic book series Too Hot For Dogs and some other inane fiction. He can be contacted through the new Burn website at www.burnmagazine.co.uk or, if you’re in the mood to follow the daily ramblings of a man with too much information in his head, check in with his personal blog at http://zodiaclung.blogspot.com/.
Every Sunday he spends some time in Kiss or Alice Cooper make-up to remember why this journey was started in the first place.

The Year the Earth Stood Still

I found myself at a real dumb-ass New Year party this year. Admittedly, it’s the first New Year party I’ve been to in about ten years but I do remember what parties are supposed to be like to know this one fell into the ‘below-par’ bracket. The last one I went to lasted for three days and finished 280 miles away from where it started. This one was at a neighbours house and to be fair, most of the street voluntarily turned up with the intention of a good time rather than a fist fight. After a few drinks, for once in our lives, we were all getting on swimmingly well. With the assistance of a few close Bud’s, I ‘weised up to the fact that this was a functioning microcosm of the ‘general public’ - not something that those of us in the music business experience very often. In other words, it’s the chance of a lifetime to base my 2009 predictions on what’s happening in the ‘real world’.

Firstly though, let me tell you what this microcosm had to reveal about the state of the world: ABBA will never go out of fashion. Ever. No matter what business people tell you, ABBA are without doubt the most popular band in the universe and also the best songwriters this planet has ever seen. Fact. The only reason the world thinks it is the Beatles is that Beatles fans are obsessive. (*editor: Yes, we are, and damn proud of it!)  ABBA fans run with the wind and could care less about owning “the gatefold sleeve” version. In fact most of them don’t even own CD players let alone ipods. ABBA song lyrics are culled by the masses from the combined memories of a time gone by. I’m not too proud or too ‘rock’ to say that I actually won the competition that followed by knowing all of the words to Gonna Sing You My Lovesong and Sitting in a Palm Tree - songs that all of these people had never even heard of. That would be their second album from 1974 if you’re asking. This illustrates two important points: 1) Radio made ABBA what they are - that and the almost annual release of the Greatest Hits album for the last 30 years and 2) A good song will tattoo itself indelibly on your psyche until the day you die. In another world, ghosts probably like to haunt to the sounds of Move On (ABBA - The Album, 1977). Let’s make it three points: 3) My head is full of useless information.

Anyway, much like the mythical Millennium Bug, good as it is, the leviathan of Chinese Democracy arrived without that much of a bang. Truth be told, although we’ve all been using the phrase for at least a decade, the music business really has turned into a treadmill. No matter how much the media builds Act X to be the next big thing, tomorrow will see Act Z take the belt from them and so the 24 hour cycle spins. We’ve brought it on ourselves. All that’s happening around us is a self fulfilling prophecy of ‘freedom’. I did wonder for a time if I was simply damaged goods. The days of me hunting down a copy of an album in a particular format are over and that’s really sad. Download. Done. Next. Still, this is the world we created. The ‘real people’ present at said party however will content themselves with listening to all of this on via radio.

I suspect that in 2009 glam rock will come back with a vengeance. Not the garish, lovable style of olde, or indeed the big hair variety of the late 80s/early 90s but a new harder edged version. The emo/goth fraternity have made ‘dressing up’ and make-up very acceptable so it’s only a matter of time before this genuinely has to spin off somewhere else - and there ain’t many places left to go. If I was Generation X and the proceeding posse was Generation Y, then this forthcoming/already here Generation-i (I really should copyright that), will change the future of music for the foreseeable future. We’ve had enough misery now and with pop bringing back feeling good as an acceptable way to be, it can’t help but filter back out into the system. This will be propelled in the US by a new feeling of optimism with your new Mr President coming into office, though over here in the UK, it looks like we’ll have to put up with our lovable Mr Brown for a little while longer. Even the name summons up images of monotony, so over here, we’ll have an Anglo version which will be called Glum Rock. This will be spearheaded by the dreaded Coldplay who already have a head start on making us all feel like walking the plank…

As chains of banks and well known stores hit the bricks, so there will be record company casualties. Maybe not so much at the top but certainly in the mid level arena. Only this morning I was watching an episode of TNA Impact! (the wrestling show) and saw Billy Corgan pimping his independent song to the masses. The winners? Billy Corgan and TNA who now both have something cool to peddle. The losers? Well the absence of a record company suggests artists are starting to prove they don’t need big guns in their corner. As I said in my previous post, we’re now in the hands of publicists and marketing strategies and only the very smartest free thinkers will win that war. There is a little caveat to this though. How does the artist become big enough in the first instance to pull something like this off? That is one of the questions we’ll all have to chip away at through 2009.

Maybe it will come in the shape of bands contributing free slices of their music to independent movies in exchange for exposure. It will also come from authors, comedians and other public figures who freely pimp their favourites to an otherwise uneducated audience. Just take a look at what Neil Gaiman achieved by working with Amanda Palmer. Wise musicians will be gearing up for this - to churn up an example, there must be a rock band out there who are prepared to write a worthy theme tune to the re-imagining of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser - and for those who see what I’m talking about, there are hundreds - even thousands of indie movies made every year who normally have to pay for soundtrack songs without the budget to do so. It may be nothing, it may be something, but one thing is clear - you now have to think outside the box. The plus side of this of course is that these type of escapades give you some collateral as an artist, so if you really do want a good record deal, you have something to bring to the table as opposed to being just another band who thinks they can.

Inside of this new world order that we have created, I also predict the return of the ‘celebrity journalist’ and ‘celebrity

photographer’. Actually, I think the photographers pretty much kept that mantle sacred anyway, but there’s certainly room for new blood to make their mark on the world. The writers however, are so out of vogue it’s untrue. Cast your mind back to the ”70s and ’80s. I could name a phone book full of writers whose names were known and even respected from back then, but as we moved into the ’90s there was suddenly a flood of ‘taught’ writers, all as nameless and faceless as each other. Come full circle, there are now so many magazines and websites - all featuring the same bands/movies/books/shows* (*delete as applicable) - that the only way to rise above is by building up the writer again. Writers with a little flair, writers not afraid to piss off the editor now and again, writers who write like they are alive not report. It will come. I know this because there is no other answer to the problem. My sweeping statement is a tiny little bit unfair as Chuck Klosterman is rocking the house down wherever he goes. Lucky is the publication that has his name onside. Kudos Sir.

It’s no stretch of the imagination at all to know that downloads are the new base commodity. Over here, our (very worthy) X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke hit the Christmas number one slot with a version of Cohen’s Hallelujah. Scarily, fans of Jeff Buckley rose up behind this and instigated a rebel uprising, pushing his version of the song to number two based on downloads and fan fury alone! That my friends is how the future will work - it’s amazing what people do in the name of ‘justice’ so long as it costs less than a dollar. As the Amazing Digital Man®, I think this is fantastic but I still hanker for something extra and I’m not the only one. Thus I also predict that bands will start putting out ‘extras’. Great looking hardback tour books, spin-off non-music related projects and killer merch will all play their part in the new world. Sometimes, these things will become more essential than the music itself. Take a look at Gerard Way’s Umbrella Academy and tell me that doesn’t boost MCR’s profile during their album downtime.

I’m probably at the limit of my word count here (see above about pissing editors off), so I’ll wrap up with the following five predictions;

1. Due to the advent of RockBand, Guitar Hero and SingStar, there will be less new bands on the block this year. Is there a way of measuring this? This will pay off sometime in the future by keeping the talentless busy in the evening instead of wasting all our precious time. I also predict that somebody will have the idea of televising such games. At this point, the world will truly end.

2. Leona Lewis will become the biggest star on the face of the planet by releasing a song that will make every human being cry.

3. Rolling Stone and/or Spin magazine will suffer a huge blow and find itself having to publish exclusively digitally to save the brand. This will set a precedent in which we will see the western world following suit with more products than they ever believed possible.

4. Season five of Lost will be the best show there has ever been on TV although 24 will give it a good run for its money, but Californication will still be my favourite.

5. Somewhere in the world, a bell will fall from a clock tower and injure exactly one person who thoroughly deserves it. (I’ll be in serious demand if that one comes off.)

Until next time - be cool to each other.

Sion Smith
Sion Smith is the founder and editor of BURN magazine. He is also the writer/creator of the comic book series Too Hot For Dogs and some other inane fiction. He can be contacted through the new Burn website at www.burnmagazine.co.uk or, if you’re in the mood to follow the daily ramblings of a man with too much information in his head, check in with his personal blog at http://zodiaclung.blogspot.com/.

Every Sunday he spends some time in Kiss or Alice Cooper make-up to remember why this journey was started in the first place.

As we head into 2009 in just a little under 10 hours, I want to wish you all the very best for the new year.  May we all experience health, happiness, success and prosperity.  The one good thing about a recession (if there is a good thing) is that it generally prompts artists to use their creativity to express their frustrations.  Therefore that bodes well for lots of new talent to come to our attention over the coming months.  Will there be another comeback a la Britney this year?  Another reunion like NKOTB?  Another teenage fantasy craze like “Twilight” - or will that continue?  Who knows, but it’ll be fun to watch it all unfold, participate in it, and then reflect on it next December 31st.  So to you wherever you are from me here in a very cold somewhat snowy New York City, I send musical, magical wishes that you have a fun and safe celebration as you watch the ball drop in Times Square just 11 blocks away from ISL PR headquarters.  I’m going home to watch the craziness on TV just like most of you.  CHEERS!