Music Documentary Project: Late April Update

. . . because you all cared.

Here's the latest in my COVID-caused quest to watch 100 music documentaries. Or at least "a bunch," to clarify the metric.

Five more down. Not that many, but none of them were abbreviated, and in fact, one was a big 'un.  I'm still loving the genre, although anything more than two music docs in a row starts to get a wee bit monotonous, so either turning off the tube or switching to something sports or idiocy-related is a help.  But there's so much good stuff out there, and that keeps me tuning in.

Sound City (2013)

Dave Grohl's ode to the beloved, trashed music studio in Van Nuys, CA. Perfect to watch right after the Rumours doc, since Mick Fleetwood met Lindsey Buckingham right there in the studio, and the rest was history -- including the recording of the ensuing Fleetwood Mac album, which put Sound City on the map. Stories and interviewees aligned nicely. Beyond that small component, a great visual history of a recording studio through the years. Nevermind, Pinkerton, Neil Young, tons of Petty, and many more. Fun fact: Rick Springfield's guitar work wasn't up to snuff, so Pat Benatar's axe man Neil Giraldo sat in and helped make "Jessie's Girl" famous.

Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns (2003)

Rob and I traveled to Silver Spring, Maryland exactly one time together. In 2003, we went to the AFI Silver Theater to take in this documentary. He and I have each seen They Might Be Giants live a number of times -- well into the double-digits, and many of times we saw them together. Terrific, fun, band. The stories in this one are amusing but not shocking, which, if you know the band, is... not shocking. The production herein is slightly lower-grade than some of the other documentaries I've seen, which is just perfect for two guys who used to perform with a guitar, accordion, keys, stick, vocals, a drum track, and no other performers onstage. But the Johns are great humans and great performers, there are goofy segments interspersed, and this was well worth another viewing after 17 years. Best scene was when the Johns talk about each other -- a rare getting of the chills in an otherwise quirky little piece. And Dial-a-Song was the coolest thing ever.

If I Leave Here Tomorrow (2018)

Gone with the Wind: The Remarkable Rise and Tragic Fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd (2015)

Yeah, that's right. I watched four and a half hours of content surrounding a band that -- for all appropriate purposes -- ceased to be four years and one month after the release of their first album. I first watched the shorter, more recent, and better-publicized doc; I'd seen parts of its 3-hour mammoth predecessor, so I got a hankering and took it down next. That's a whole mess o' Skynyrd.  Which was better? They're both solid, for sure. Last man standing Gary Rossington was only interviewed in If I Leave Here Tomorrow, which is both good and bad. I'll leave it at this -- for coming in at "just" 95 minutes, the shorter doc has some strange filler like interviewing people in bars who cover Skynyrd.

Unlike TR, I do love this band, and have since high school. Jam band folks prefer the Allmans, rock-song aficionados go the route of Lynyrd Skynyrd. The story intrigues, and while nobody is going to follow suit and watch these back-to-back like I did, it was worth doing. Different takes on the same events were interesting, and more is better when you dig a band. And Ronnie was a fucking tour de force. 

It Might Get Loud (2008)

For the unfamiliar, this was Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White getting together to talk about guitars and guitaring, play some stuff, and have some fun.  Backstory content was included, and that might have been the best part. Three generations (or eras) of rock and roll are represented, three upbringings, three styles, and it's all good fun -- for the music geek. Folks external to that category might be slightly less enthralled. Random amusement: The Edge playing and singing the Ramones tune "Glad to See You Go" from his revisited high school locker room. Fun fact: Jimmy Page played on Shirley Bassey's Goldfinger theme song.

More soon to come! 

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We reached 20 posts again this month. Fine work, team.

Putting Our Stamp, Totally Convincingly, On Unlimited New Things

(and creating new acronyms)

Staff Member Guestie

Not-all-that-grumpy old man Dave Fairbank has been made an official member of the G:TB staff, but he professes not to understand this newfangled blogging technology, though I guarandamntee that he had to deal with any number of content management systems during his professional career. Furthermore, I've tasked the Doofus Overlord with training our newest hire, but he's too busy strutting the runway in Milan:

In any event, here's a Corona Diary from OBX for your reading pleasure.

My wife’s phone pinged at 7:30 a.m. Her friend’s text message was brief: I heard Publix is re-stocked with TP and cleaning products. You might have a chance if you go now.

We weren’t to the point of using old magazine pages and bleach-soaked rags, but opportunity is opportunity. We hustled the half-mile to the grocery store. As we approached, we saw people lined up in front of the building, waiting to enter. Nearly everybody wore masks. My wife parked, put on her homemade mask, and jumped out to get in line. One store worker was at the door, letting in a few people at a time. A couple others retrieved shopping carts in the parking lot and wheeled them back into the store.

Some shoppers emerged with carts full of groceries. Most came out carrying small plastic bags and oversize packages of toilet paper and paper towels under their arms. My wife went straight to the paper and cleaning products aisles. They were stocked, but emptying rapidly. She grabbed a bundle of TP and the last two canisters of Lysol disinfectant wipes, one for us, the other for her friend. When she reached the checkout counter, a worker informed her that the wipes were just one to a customer. My wife asked a woman behind her in line if she needed wipes. The woman said she did. My wife told her, I picked up the last two and had to set one aside, so there you go.

Score!

My wife was in and out in less than 10 minutes and came back to the car a little frazzled. The tension and anxiety within the store were thick as August humidity. She wanted no part of an extended trip, not first thing in the morning, not among that scramble of shoppers. The mission was toilet paper and wipes. Everything else could wait.

Similar scenes are playing out all over the country, thanks to the pandemapalooza. Everybody’s off-balance, a little shaggier, a little crispier. Normal, always a moving target, might as well be a flock of swallows – African or European, laden or otherwise.

It feels peculiar here, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We’re a community of about 35,000 people spread over roughly 100 miles. But we have a disproportionate number of grocery stores large and small, particularly on the northern end of the island, owing to the tourist economy and numbers of visitors and rental properties. In the summer, when the island bulges with 150-175,000 people, it’s not uncommon to go into grocery stores and find depleted stocks of certain items – meat, paper products, beer. Frequent deliveries guarantee that shortages are generally no more than a day, or perhaps just hours. Tourism, y’all. Early-morning grocery rushes and empty shelves in March and April, however, are sure signs that something’s amiss – never mind masked shoppers.

Normally at this time of year, everyone would be gearing up for the season. Businesses and restaurants hiring, musicians lining up gigs, visitors trickling in when the weather’s decent. All that’s on hold. Some restaurants and bars have closed temporarily. Those that are open offer take-out and delivery only. Traffic and people flow feel more like January than springtime.

Our county, Dare, permits only residents and essential personnel – medical, delivery, construction and maintenance workers. Officials even prohibited non-resident property owners for the past month, which frosted many of them, as well as those who depend on their business. Non-resident owners will be permitted in starting next week. There’s no sign yet of allowing visitors. Gov. Roy Cooper issued a ‘stay home, stay healthy’ order weeks ago and has indicated that he’ll need to see at least a couple weeks of flattening the curve and significant diminution of new virus cases before he’ll consider opening beach communities to visitors.

I don’t have answers. I feel for folks who depend on tourism and the summer months for their livelihood, as well as anyone in the restaurant and service industries whose lives have been upended. Some local folks itching for the county to re-open point to the fact that we’ve had fewer than two dozen cases overall and no new cases in more than two weeks, and that most of those cases originated outside the county. That indicates we’re pretty clean and that measures we’ve taken are working, though it’s foolish to think we’re immune. Without comprehensive testing and tracking, it’s a little like bird-watching at night. Given that we’re about two steps up from a rural community six to eight months of the year, if some asymptomatic person or people came here and went all Johnny Appleseed with the virus, it would quickly overwhelm the local medical structure’s capabilities.

The summer here almost certainly will be different than any we’ve seen. My wife and I are more fortunate than many, and I don’t think we’ll have to make a lot of 7 a.m. grocery store runs. But I’m still going to hold off dumping old magazines in the recycle bin. Never know.

Home Is Where the Studio Is

In between your binge-watching completism and maybe working on your novel, you've probably watched some musicians of varying celebrity record and/or play stuff live.

For the masses, the Stones did so in a grandly publicized manner.



For Rob, we have some Crowded House.



For kicks, here's a high school classmate of mine (also a Monroe Dormitory resident at the same time as Dave, Rob, Hightower, and several other Pi Lams) having fun.



And for me and only me, here's this. The video and sound quality are terrible all because of me. I was caught slightly off-guard by the timing.


Keep the creative light in this dark time!

Pod Report

Our man with the Sentences has recommended some excellent podcastery over the past several months, and I'm certain I would've learned something had I listened to anything he singled out. I'm still mad that The Test went off the air, so I ignored him.

I hope the rest of you will give this shout a bit more consideration.

I've long been a fan of Men in Blazers. Hell, I'm basically a cast member, as you'll recall. And while Rog and Davo remain the most entertaining U.S.-based soccer podcast, they've branched out in recent years. In particular Roger Bennett has established himself as an accomplished interviewer. There are those that may criticize his ever-enthusiastic appreciation for his guests, but to my mind, it's less obsequious than a measure of his authentic joy.

In November, Rog interviewed Warriors coach Steve Kerr. The roughly 25-minute interview covered everything from Kerr's upbringing in foreign locales from Egypt to Tunisia to his father Malcolm's assassination during Steve's freshman year at Arizona, to his time with Michael Jordan's Bulls, to his current run as three-time NBA Champion coach.

In the interview, Kerr touches on so many of the things that are foundational to my worldview as a leader that I found it uncanny and reassuring. Kerr speaks of the importance of empathy, of the extreme value of joy in personal and team health and success, saying, "I love the concept of joy in sports. It's one of the most important values to me and the Warriors. Steph Curry, you watch him play, there's so much joy. It's a powerful emotion. A powerful factor for any team in any sport."

The interview closes with a discussion of perspective and priority. Kerr told a story about his father, who would tell him, "Steve, you're a modest fellow, with plenty to be modest about." Coaches Greg Popovich and Phil Jackson both offered Kerr similar lessons, Jackson saying, "Treat every practice, every play as if the fate of the world rests on your effort, with full awareness that this is a frickin' basketball game and nobody cares." Popovich's favorite phrase was "Get over yourself", according to Kerr. Kinda like, "take everything you like seriously, except yourself".

Pretty Gheorghie, that Steve Kerr.

Men In Blazers · Men in Blazers 11/18/19: Steve Kerr Pod Special

POTUS: Doctor & Lifestyle Consultant

While the president has caught a lot of shit for suggesting that folks mainline bleach into their systems, maybe....just maybe, he was on to something. If the treatment doesn’t kill you, you could get some pretty awesome side effects. 

Getting your starfish a glorious pearly white might be worth the risk of potential death. If this works, we could get a whole generation of covid cured, Fox News watching, over 65, potential porn stars. While politically conservative, mature, tushy play adult entertainment is a niche market, it’s probably underserved meaning this also creates jobs!  POTUS is playing 4D chess (which I think is a lot like Crossbows & Catapults if you added a time machine) while the rest of you liberal, unbleached poopholers are still playing Hungry, Hungry Hippos. 

Going Back to New Orleans

A goodly number of gheorghies are NOLA fans.  You know, the Northernmost Caribbean City. I'm talkin' New Orleans, boys and girls. Nawlins. 

I miss it. It's been three years since I was in my favorite city in the entire world.  Post-COVID, if it ever happens, I'm going back post-haste.

Ten (10) times since April 1998, I've ventured down for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, a long weekend of revelry unlike much else. Sometimes with fellow gheorghies in tow.  Music, food, people, and drinking in astounding doses.  Devilish debauchery, beautiful sounds, and laissez-faire life. Le Bon Temps Roule. Good gracious, do I love it.

Sadly, JazzFest is another amid a long, long list of cancelled events in 2020.  Who wants to join me there in '21?

In the meantime, there's no reason not to enjoy the Fest in spirit.  NOLA radio station WWOZ has lined up the cubes, and they kicked off yesterday.  They're playing Fest outings of yore by an wide assortment of old favorites. It's a killer backdrop to doing work or writing G:TB posts.

It's not the same as laying out the blanket and parking it before the Fais-Do-Do stage with a belly full of Crawfish Monica and Abitas, ready to soak in some smooth sounds of squeezebox, sax, and spoons whilst sitting in the sun. But it's a start, and it makes me smile. Seriously, who's with me next year?

Tune in to WWOZ here.

Oh, and don't forget that the Crescent City is an hour behind. And a million miles ahead of the rest of the world in having fun.

Porcupine Racetrack

When they write the history of Gheorghe: The Blog, I hope they spell my name right. I also hope they describe us as a mix of Sports Illustrated, High Times, and The State. Also, Cat Fancy. Can't forget about Cat Fancy.

That intro is really just an excuse to post this epic absurdity from the cast of The State, who reunited in COVID-style to reprise their insane and very, very, Stately 2009 musical sketch, Porcupine Racetrack. Rolling Stone describes it here, so I won't. I'll just invite you to enjoy.

This Is Not An Album Review

There's a school of thought that music, and any form of artistic expression like it, should be unencumbered from linear measurement. It is simply one person's or one group of persons' creative output.  As I have said here and elsewhere for years, art is art, and as such there can be no universal good or bad; there's just shit you like and shit you don't.

Singer extraordinaire Neko Case feels a bit like this when it comes to the categorization of music:

There's a contrary school of thought -- the Econ class, if you will -- that would insist that the moment said art is placed for sale into the capitalist economy, valuation becomes necessary, and with that categorization, rankings, and good/bad assessments follow.

As much as I do stand by my take above, I also look at it simply like this: Most people lack the time, interest, and requisite years of comparative exposure to dig in on any piece of art (I mean rock and/or roll music for the purposes of this post) and do better to refer to someone else's recommendations.  Reviews, rankings, and lists -- including the Les Coole year-end playlists, can be viewed as having someone else do the legwork for you busy, hard-working folks.  It's the way a novice listener will learn that even though Exile on Main Street and Black and Blue are separated by just four years, there's a vast difference in lasting quality between the two records, so they should proceed directly to the former.

It's an inherently fallible concept, leaving it to some other person to gauge how much you'll like a song or an album. Read reviews of Sandinista! in 1980 or Paul's Boutique in 1989. (Or Exile in 1972, amazingly enough. Lester Bangs called it "the worst studio album the Stones have ever made.") People get it wrong, especially critics with bloated egos. 

But music reviews with numerical scoring designations have their place. Always have.

I myself gravitate to amalgams like metacritic.com, aggregates of prominent reviews from around the world.  That way a one-off pan from some cranky critic only affects the overall score a tiny bit (mean, median, and mode, but not range), whereas if that one critic wrote for your go-to ragsheet, you might miss Social Distortion and go after 12 Inches of Snow.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that I haven't -- if ever, it hasn't been often -- seen such unanimity on that site for any album.

Wow. 

• The New York Times (100) - a bold, cathartic, challenging masterpiece.
• Pitchfork (100) - Fiona Apple’s fifth record is unbound, a wild symphony of the everyday, an unyielding masterpiece. No music has ever sounded quite like it. 
• Paste (97) - Fiona Apple is Mesmerizing Beyond Belief on Fetch the Bolt Cutters; the singer’s brilliant fifth album is eerily clairvoyant and brash in the most extraordinary way
• Variety (96) - It may be way early to say it’s the most satisfying album of the year, but if there are any more to come along this good, 2020 is not going to feel like such a waste of time after all.
• Boston Globe (90) - sense of awe giving it a defiant energy. ... A thrill ride.
• The AV Club (100) - a zenith of liberation and experimentation
• Consequence of Sound (100) - an Untethered Masterpiece
• The Guardian (100) - a glorious eruption
• Glide Magazine (100) - triumphant; the album exudes freedom, it exudes breaking constraints, it exudes Fiona Apple, and it might just be the album that we look back on when we think back to this COVID-19 era.
• The Line of Best Fit (100) - Albums like this feel important because they unflinchingly capture the smorgasbord of life.  On the other hand… releases like this don’t happen often, so why squander the moment? Fuck it. Fetch the bolt cutters. This feels special.
• Exclaim (100) - The scope of Fetch the Bolt Cutters' meaning, its infinite feeling, will likely take years to fully absorb. An album like this doesn't come often, and an artist like Apple will never come again

Dig in here for more, and for links to the actual reviews.

Here's my thought on it, after listening to it 4 or 5 times since Friday. Nearly every review says something similar, but in more flowery, SAT (RIP) terms:

Fiona Apple recorded this in her house, and she incorporates some unorthodox instrumentation (whacking kitchen utensils as percussion) and sounds (dogs barking and washing machines washing) into a mix of her enviably pretty vocals, her piano/keyboard, and a few other instruments. The lyrics, issued in lovely song, aggressive chant, or spoken word, are Fiona Apple-style rebellious and resentful, angry and not only not taking your shit any more, but calling you on the carpet.  The poetry is as impressive as her otherworldly voice. The music is decidedly not studio-grade -- in a mostly great, D.I.Y. way, which is what the fuss seems to be mostly about. Tom Waits in the 80's sort of stuff.  Ultimately, I like but don't love it. I am drawn to hookier melodies than she offers. I do appreciate its style and merit; I just don't know how much I'll come back to it in the years to come.

Not a review. Just another Dear Diary moment from Les Coole and/or Whitney.

Fetch the Bottle Opener.

4/20 4:20 Open Thread

Why yes, that is my dog enjoying a blunt on this most auspicious of days.

Feel free to add your high-quality content.

Music Documentary Project: The Origin Story

I've already had productive and fun conversations with you cats about my quest to watch way too many music documentaries this quarantine.  I'll keep you posted, and please keep the suggestions coming.

I somehow forgot to mention in the previous post why I got to compiling the list of the best-ever rockumentaries and set about watching them.

It's this. Arriving at AppleTV+ next Friday:

It's an interesting format that could potentially bleed into the contrived and talky, but hey, it's two of the three MC's and they're on the go.  (Abednego is missed very badly.) And it appears to be tons of old footage and stories.

This has to be worth my time and then some. 

And speaking of upcoming documentaries, one that needs no additional hyping from the likes of me starts tonight. Curious what the level of interest and commitment to watching among the gheorghies is.

Happy watching.

Sample This

In these times of quarantine, stay-at-home, lockdown, house arrest, or whatever you're calling this downtime from the world, it sure helps to have a hobby.

(Clarification: it helps to have an indoor hobby. Dave is going berserk not being able to run around and play sports. Check out his madness at Gheorghe's sister blog.)

I have two activities of choice lately, and they're closely related.  Listening to / watching music and writing / making music.  The latter is a long-standing work in progress; I've threatened to complete an album in the home studio for a while, and -- with inspiration from Dave and FOGTB Lecky -- this is my chance to get there, or at least get close.

In the meantime, while people I know and articles I read advise me on which series to binge watch, I am going against that grain. With certain exceptions (John Oliver, reruns of classic sports events I loved, etc.), I am limiting my programming to one genre: music documentaries. I'm off to a great start, but there's a long way to go.

Step 1: Compile the list.
There are more search returns for "best music documentaries of all time" than you can count -- by a long shot.  And those lists are, as you would figure, a mixed bag.  I made my own list based on culling those recommendations, falling back on my own knowledge of good music docs, and also just pursuing work about bands I like.

My list is now set, but only until someone else whose opinion I value (yes, that includes you people) chimes in with a new rec and I add it.

Step 2: Prioritize.
Eh. I have been a little haphazard. I am trying to juggle 'twixt genres and long form vs. quick hitters to some degree. But so far it's been somewhat random. One x-factor is how I can watch them; if a music documentary is on Netflix or Amazon Prime, I don't know how long I'll be able to see it for free, so it inches up the list.

Step 3: Watch.
This has been fun. It's interesting to watch music docs in succession. It definitely makes the terrific ones stand out, and I catch myself critiquing any time there are any sorts of lulls that drag. You get why some film critics are irascible and stingy with stars; a movie I happen to like may be just fine, but when some reviewer saw three things this week that absolutely blew them away, the one I like simply ain't gonna measure up.

I've also noticed that Hobby 1 bleeds into Hobby 2. Watching scenes about the recording process, studio tips and tricks, or just hearing a good song gets the creativity brewing.

Current Status
Here's where this project stands. First, there were entries on the list that I had seen semi-recently, and even the best ones aren't getting re-watched when I have so much more to view. They included:

I told you how much I liked the Dead doc (saw it in a local old theater), and similarly, the Tom Petty one is a long but great 4-hour number.  We've also had back and forth in the comments on Country Music; it's amazingly good. And I'm an easy mark for The Clash, R.E.M., and Talking Heads, so those were all banner. But anything I watched in the last 2 years won't be revisited.

Nota Bene: Stop Making Sense is one of the few concert films that made this list.  I really wanted true documentaries, not footage of music being played. Of course I love a good show, but this quest is different. I think only Aretha, Prince, and Zeppelin made the list with predominantly concert films.

The First Batch (in order of viewing)
David Crosby: Remember My Name (2019)
The one that launched my plan, it's been on HBO a bit. It's solid, informative, and well done. The takeaway: Crosby is a dick, he knows it, he can't help it, and he wishes he could change. But man, can he sing. Great old footage and photos of CSN and CSNY.

Searching for Sugar Man (2012)
The best thing I have seen in a very long time, period. Someone urged me to watch this years ago, and I put it off. Stupidly. Don't read about this one, please just go watch it.

ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band from Texas (2019)
After that, I wanted to veer in another direction. This worked just fine. I forgot how good ZZ Top was in the '70s and early '80s. Lots of big, blues-based guitar sound. And lyrical dick jokes. Highly enjoyable.

Sample This (2013)
An oddity that would be the strangest of the lot, were it not for Sugar Man. Cohesion and production values aren't as high, but it does not want for a more fascinating story. My interest stemmed from my favorite Beasties song, "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun," which samples, among many other pieces, a 1973 song called "Last Bongo in Belgium" by a random outfit called the Incredible Bongo Band. On that same album is the IBB's take on the song "Apache," and their rendition has been sampled... wait for it... 613 times since. (Ed. Note: it read 611 when I started writing this post. No bullshit.) It's been said that pretty much every hip-hop act has sampled this particular song at least once. Anywho... the backstory, the legacy, and whole thing makes for a super interesting homeboys bonanza for music nerds like me. Check it out.

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010)
Yep, I wanted to get involved in this debate. Great film. I'm never going to love that much of Rush's music, but I certainly appreciate the band more, and like TR offered, there are quite a few nuggets of Did You Know??? And "Tom Sawyer" is still a lot of fun. Neil Peart's passing earlier this year makes it more impactful, and it's just a well-developed chronology of an influential trio who's been making music longer than anyone not named ZZ Top.

Fleetwood Mac -- Rumours ("Classic Albums” series) (1997)

I figured this would be light fare, and in some aspects, it is. It's just over an hour long, and it's simply what went into one hit album. While it offends any punk rock sensibilities I have, I like Fleetwood Mac and this album quite a bit, so I gave it a whirl. Most of the intrigue involves the dynamics at play among the band members when it was recorded -- basically two intra-band couples were splitting and Mick Fleetwood, the odd man out, was being left by his wife. And yet they came together and made a record that sold a bazillion copies.

That story is told a bit like a soap opera, but it's interesting. More appealing to me is the behind-the-recording stuff. A number of scenes at the mixing board with the engineers and a couple dozen tracks for any given song, and they deconstruct it accordingly. You won't hear a song the same way after it's been broken down like that -- for the better. It also inspires studio fun. "Gold Dust Woman" has tracks of harpsichord, dobro, and other instruments layered into the mix.  And in the scene Lindsey Buckingham describes "Second Hand News," he plays a track from it that's... chair.  A pleather chair in the studio, repurposed as a percussion instrument. Gets you thinking in your own studio.

* * * * *

Okay... so far, so good.  Here's what's left on my long list. You can look up any titles that aren't self-evident. I have seen a number of these before, anywhere from 4 or 5 to 25 or 30 years ago. Long ago enough that it will feel like the first time, to quote a band whose documentary (if it exists) I likely won't be watching.

What do you think?  It beats watching mindless shows about Floridiots with tigers.

Cool Human Tricks

Starting about a week ago, my team started a ritual in which one team member has to start each day by sharing a song via our Microsoft Teams chat. Some of it has been predictably middle of the road, and some has been a fun glimpse into my team members' personalities. For example, the youngest member of my team, a late twenty-something, has an old soul. He rocked us with Hall & Oates, Skynyrd, Kansas, and Tom Petty. And a few things have genuinely been revelations to me.

Like today, when one of the women on the team played a song called Pretty Lady by an Australian solo artist named Tash Sultana. It's a catchy enough tune, with a fun, affirming video - watch it, because affirming is a thing that's really good right now.



But the video isn't what I came here to share. I let it play past the end because I was multi-tasking, and a Tiny Desk Concert featuring Sultana started playing.

It blew me away.

They're a damn force of nature (and they're nonbinary and use the pronoun they), all joy and pain and love and heartache and music. They use a ton of effects to sound bigger than a one-man band, but it's organic, if that makes any sense at all. Do very much enjoy, my good people.

Thinking of a Master Plan Gives Us Something to Believe in

Eric B & Rakim, Poison and Israel are helping me frame thoughts as I think about when we can get ourselves out of quarantine.

News today out of Israel suggests they have a gradual plan to resume economic activity. They're thinking of a master plan. It seems extremely logical and hopefully can be mimicked over here. This plan calls for a four-phase move back to normalcy, as laid out below. Each phase would have a two-week buffer to evaluate its efficacy, before subsequent phases are rolled out. And current rules on social distancing, masks, etc. would remain in place. People over 60 and with health issues would be excluded, which will be a sticky issue for some (but not me!).

Phase 1: Technology, finance and some trade-oriented industries come back. These industries employ 10% of the population

Phase 2: Commerce and retail come back.

Phase 3: Restaurants, hotels and education come back.

Phase 4: Recreation (sports, travel, entertainment) comes back.

Not sure why, but this plan has me excited, if only because it offers a glimmer of hope. It gives me something to believe in. Even if we run out of Smithfield pork by then.

COVID-757: The Musical

Picking up where Zman and then Rob left off, it's time to highlight a few musical selections whose theme can be summarized by a decades-old borrowing from the venerable Adam Yauch:

I come from Norfolk 'cause that's where I'm from.

Rob bastardized the Zeezus' original concept, but I'm gonna take it back to simply this: 20 tunes by people from around my way.  My way, as I did it, means Norfolk, VA and the surrounding entities.  Hampton Roads, if you will. Tidewater, if you would have 30 years ago. Coastal Virginia.  The Norfolk-Virginia Beach area. The Seven Cities.  SEVA.  The 757.

A quick and obvious asterisking... the finest musician/singer ever to come from these parts is undoubtedly the Queen of Jazz, the First Lady of Song, Her Majesty Ella Fitzgerald. The breadth of her ability can't be encapsulated in just three songs, but you would do yourself a favor to listen to "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Dream a Little Dream of Me," and "Airmail Special (Live At the Newport Jazz Festival" to get a sampling that stretches from gorgeous rendition to heart-warming duet to kick-ass scat talent that seems to forerun hip-hop as if ancestry.

Her work stands apart in style just enough to leave her be and corral the rest of the locals for a 757 playlist.

Here we go:

SPREAD THE LOVE
Track 1. "Happy," Pharrell Williams (Virginia Beach)
Track 2. "Get Ur Freak On," Missy Elliott (Portsmouth), produced by Timbaland (Norfolk)

"THE NORFOLK SOUND"
Track 3. "Quarter to Three," Gary U.S. Bonds (Norfolk)
Track 4. "If You Wanna Be Happy," Jimmy Soul (Norfolk)
Track 5. "Just Ask Me," Lenis Guess (Norfolk)
Track 6. "That Man of Mine," Barbara Stant (Norfolk)

ROCKABILLY, BEACH MUSIC, AND THE BLUES
Track 7. "Be-Bop-A-Lula," Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Norfolk)
Track 8. "I've Been Hurt," Bill Deal and The Rhondels (Portsmouth and Virginia Beach)
Track 9. "Savin' Up," Clarence Clemons and the Red Bank Rockers (Chesapeake)
Track 10. "Smoking Gun," Robert Cray (Newport News)

INTO THE EIGHTIES
Track 11. "Copperhead Road," Steve Earle and the Dukes (Hampton)
Track 12. "Mandolin Rain," Bruce Hornsby and The Range (Williamsburg)
Track 13. "Queen of Hearts," Juice Newton (Virginia Beach)
Track 14. "This Little Girl," Gary U.S. Bonds (Norfolk)

UNDER YOUR RADAR BUT NOT MINE
Track 15. "My Latest Girl," The States (Norfolk)
Track 16. "Baby Jane," Waxing Poetics (Norfolk)
Track 17. "My My," Seven Mary Three (formed in Williamsburg)
Track 18. "Switzerland," The Last Bison (Chesapeake)
Track 19. "Another Man's Woman," Carbon Leaf (lead singer from Norfolk)
Track 20. "We Are Doing Fine," Super Doppler (Norfolk)

Enjoy, and keep the music flowing.

I Am A Pretty Big Deal

Here's a question for you to ponder (for a few seconds - I'm gonna answer it in the next paragraph): what do I have in common with Stan Kroenke, Bob Kraft, Malcolm Glazer, and Rocco Commisso?

The answer? Like those titans of American industry, as of today, I too own a stake in a European soccer club. I'm the proud holder of 100 shares in FC Pingzau Saalfelden (FCPS), known in its Austrian homeland as Pingzau. FCPS is in the third division of Austrian professional soccer, one of six teams in Regionalliga Salzburg competing for promotion to Austria's second division, 2. Liga.

Community ownership of sports clubs isn't a new phenomenon. Across the world, from teams as large and renowned as FC Barcelona and Real Madrid to local outfits like Congleton Town FC in Cheshire, England, supporters own stakes ranging from token to 100%. Here in the U.S., the Green Bay Packers have famously been owned by a community trust since 1923.

What makes Pingzau different is the ambition of the club's U.S.-based leadership team. CEO Mark Ciociola grew up in Wisconsin a fan of the Packers, so he knew about the community ownership model. Later, he became a season ticket holder of Real Salt Lake, immersing himself in soccer's supporter culture. When he looked around for an opportunity to invest in the game in the U.S. using a community-owned model, the price tag and MLS ownership rules proved a high barrier to entry.

So he went abroad.

Austria's first division, known as the Bundesliga, is the 11th-ranked league in Europe, and as such offers league members two entries into the Champions League and three into the Europa league. Compared to other similarly-situated countries like Turkey and Holland, the path from lower divisions into the Austrian Bundesliga is relatively easy. Not a cinch, by any means, but not a daunting gauntlet. So Ciociola and his partners, including Real Salt Lake's former head of marketing Trey Fitzgerald, chose the little alpine nation as their home.

My stadium is pretty damn picturesque

As Ciociola says, “We get to play in the same league as those teams spending hundreds of millions of Euros, and we can do it for much cheaper."

They also get to do it with a big name at the helm of the club. German international Christian Ziege became the club's head coach in Spring 2019. Ziege, who played for Bayern Munich, AC Milan, Liverpool, and Tottenham, in addition to earning 72 caps with Der Mannschaft, happened to be living in Saalfelden when the new owners took over the club, and his addition to the team is both a symbol of the ownership group's seriousness, and a media draw. As Fitzgerald says on the FCPS website, “Our single biggest recruiting tool, by far, is the sterling reputation of Christian Ziege. He is that DNA, that connective tissue.”

From the beginning, the Pingzau ownership's plan was to sell shares of the team to fans across the world. In particular, Ciociola and his partners hope to capitalize on the rapid growth of deeply invested soccer fans in the U.S. Pingzau's initial public offering is scheduled for April 24, but it's possible to get in now via the crowdfunded investment site Wefunder. The club is valued at $26.3m, so I'm holding a cool 0.000038% share. I also get two tickets in the owner's box in Saalfelden for a game of my choice each year, and a bitchin' pullover.

I'll get you tickets when we make the Champions League final (oh, yeah - it's "we", baby). And I'll try not to let my mogul status give me a big head.

30 Years of Fear

Public Enemy released their masterpiece "Fear of a Black Planet" 30 years ago today. This makes me feel very old, and like posting some of the tracks that still hold up.

"Brothers Gonna Work it Out" and "Welcome to the Terrordome" still bang. Some of the hardest conscious hiphop ever.





I stupidly put this song on a Unit M party mix one time. The Burg wasn't ready for it.



I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Chemical Brothers, Prodigy and the rest of those late-90's electronic were just ripping off PE. They owe The Bomb Squad at least half of all the money they made.



I think "Fight the Power" is a little played out but it cannot be ignored when talking about "Fear of a Black Planet." The intro to this version is still relevant today, unfortunately.

A Close Shave on Mill Mountain: A Very Special GTB Guestie

From the Star City comes a tale of heroism and facial topiary. Enjoy, and says thanks that our man Rootsy is still with us.

Those of you who have visited Roanoke may recall the large neon star that sits atop Mill Mountain, about 1000 feet above the city, just southeast of the city center. Having a mountain in the middle of town is pretty great. There is a great network of trails, some for hiking only, and others permit cycling as well. There are also two paved roads that can take you to the star. There’s the original ‘Old Road’ that switchbacks up the north face of the mountain and serves as vehicular access to a few homes along it, before becoming a pedestrian/cycle only path for the remainder of the ascent. There’s also the ‘New Road’, which goes around and up to a saddle, then makes a sharp turn back up to the top of the mountain.


As my fellow Virginians among the GTB readership know, our Governor has issued stay at home orders, but allows for outdoor exercise. Since my business is considered essential, we’ve continued operating with reduced staff and hours (and drastically reduced revenue). I spent last week reviewing the available small business assistance, completing applications and compiling documentation, along with doing actual work that I don’t typically have to do, so I was ready to spend some time alone outdoors on a beautiful spring weekend. After doing some work on Saturday morning, I decided to take my road bike out for a quick trip to the Mill Mountain Star and back before the Teej’s epic 44th bday z**m party (feat. Kato Kaelin).

I knew that effective last Friday morning, the City of Roanoke had closed the many miles of greenway paths located within the city limits. No problem, as I knew I could get to the old road and grind my sorry ass to the mountain top. Now, I also knew that the city had closed the new road where it turns up the mountain, but not until I approached the summit did I realize that they had closed the old road as well.  I’d planned to exit via the closed section of road anyhow, so I proceeded down the mountain on the closed road.  If you’ve ridden a skinny tired road bike down a mountain before, you know that it doesn’t take much effort to pick up speed, and that is just what I did. I rounded a curve, still gaining speed, then looked up and saw a closed brown gate, approaching rapidly against the black ashpalt. I pulled both brake levers harder than I ever have before and headed towards the gate in a barely controlled skid, and tried to aim for the approximately 14 inch center gap between the two sections of gate.

My mind raced with what would be the best part of my body to take the impact of a steel gate. I had on padded bike shorts, but aiming for the crotch seemed questionable. I kept squeezing the brakes, aiming for the tiny gap, and clipped my right shoe out of my pedal so I could try and slide through like a figure skater holding a pose. My bike mercifully came to a stop inches from the gate, and I gently laid it down.  Had I not stopped in time, here’s how much room I had to spare:

I got up, took a grateful breath, put my chain back in place and rode down the mountain and home with black greasy fingers. I hit the shower with some lava soap and scrubbed clean and joined many of you to wish the Doofus Overlord a happy birthday. If any of you noted the shit eating grin during the online meetup, it because was filled with gratitude that I survived that ordeal without an injury, in addition to seeing all of you.

On Sunday I rode back up the mountain (the legal way) with some materials to better mark the gate for scofflaws like me who could end up in the same situation. Fortunately in the intervening 24 hours, some yellow reflective tape applied to the gate. I surveyed the scene and retraced my skid marks – there were 81 feet of them, ending 3 feet from the gate, and lined up pretty well with the gap. I may have made it through unscathed, but I’m grateful that the brakes eventually did their job. Perhaps I’ll see if I can put some hydraulic disc brakes on my road bike, so future close shaves are a little more comfortable.

As a bonus, here’s a little collage of my facial hair journey from the previous weekend. What can I say? My life is full of excitement.

Pandemic Party FTW

Massive thanks to Team Gheorghe and all my friends who decided to celebrate this decrepit old man's birthday on a Zoom call yesterday. If you're gonna have a pandemic party, go big or go home.

And boy oh boy did one FOGTB go big. Folks, I think Kato Kaelin and I are besties now.

The N-U-C Playlists

Zman

Whit recently gifted me a few months’ worth of Spotify. He’s a mensch, to be sure, and famously generous. But the cynical Yankee jackass in me notes that this effectively doubles his capacity to find good music (I frequently text him stuff I find) and serves as a balm to his ego (I tell him that the stuff he sends me is outstanding, furthing the legend of his impeccable musical taste).

Snark aside, it’s a great gift. And it gives us something to do during these odd times.

The other day Whit proposed “dueling playlists with the same inspiration within one post” and asked me for “three one-word sentiments/principles/themes for the playlists.” I love this shit.

My first response was “nooners.” If I didn’t have kids this shelter-in-place order would be great. Nooners all the time! Nothing cuts through monotony like a nooner. If you haven’t tried it you’re missing out.

Then I said “uplifting.” We all need some uplifting music right now.

I concluded with “cocaine.” So many great songs involve booger sugar. I could just do 15 Rae and Ghost songs. Hell, I could just make a playlist out of Cuban Linx and call it a day. Or I could pull together a bunch of Boogie Down Productions stuff. But cocaine crosses all musical genres. It seemed like a great idea at the time, if not a great fit for the current state of the world.

Whit’s response was “Ah, the old N-U-C.” And thus two playlists were born. Enjoy them while locked at home alone or with your kids, not getting any noontime action.

Whitney

At my advanced age, I just enjoy when people are sporting. Something about taking life less seriously. Like when I chuck out a goofy idea and somebody says, "Yep, let's do it."

Zman is that kind of dude. And a wealth of music suggestions that are not on my radar.

You down with N-U-C?

The Last Guestie (?)

We have extended our man in the OBX an invitation to join the paid staff here at G:TB (Note: "paid" is just four letters I included in this sentence for formatting purposes. It doesn't actually mean anything.), but he's still trying to figure out how to get his rotary phone to connect to the interwebz. So for the time being, we're manually curating his stories. Not for nothing, yesterday was the first day that Fairbank's boon pal David Teel wrote his first column for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and he chooses to slum with our band of idiots. We are, truly, not worthy. But we're grateful.

As everyone adjusts to life during a pandemic, I thought I’d share a story about a story and the value of scrambling, desperation and a bit of imagination when things go sideways.

Early in the 2001 college football season, the University of Virginia was scheduled to host Penn State. This was long before the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal came to light, which rocked the school and program, and led to the dismissal of legendary coach Joe Paterno.
Heading into the Virginia game, Paterno was one win away from tying Bear Bryant for the career record for wins as a Division I-A (now FBS) head coach. Before the season, the boss assigned me to write a piece about Paterno for that week.

I contacted Penn State officials to try and arrange a few minutes to talk to Paterno and athletic officials, perhaps a player or two. I was told that because they were swamped with media requests, Paterno and others weren’t doing separate interviews. He would be available to local reporters in attendance and only during his 10-minute segment on the Big Ten Conference’s weekly coaches teleconference. I was welcome to listen in and squeeze in a question, if I could.

I told the boss that I had no access to Paterno or others at Penn State. He was only marginally sympathetic and said we still needed a story, since Joe Freakin’ Paterno was coming to Charlottesville. I was stuck and bordering on panic. I knew bits and pieces about him and learned through research that he had donated millions to various academic pursuits – endowments for scholarships and professors’ chairs. He raised millions more for libraries and research, and even had a wing of one of the campus’s main libraries named after him.

Desperate, I started dialing up campus librarians and professors whose departments had benefited
from Paterno’s efforts. I explained who I was and asked if they were willing to discuss Paterno’s impact on campus and on their departments. They were very gracious, though several mentioned that they didn’t get phone calls from sportswriters and deferred to their supervisors or department heads.
One memorable exchange: I reached a department head in his office, introduced myself and said I was working on a piece on Paterno’s impact on campus and academics. He responded with, “Dave Fairbank, one of my favorite sportswriters.” I paused and said, “Excuse me?” He repeated, “You’re one of my favorite sportswriters.” I thanked him and said I didn’t understand. He said that he was a student of early American history, and that he regularly made trips to Williamsburg and southeastern Virginia. He often bought our newspaper when he visited and had been reading me for years. Too weird. Of course, he was helpful.

I got a couple of quotes and some insight from the athletic director and the school president, when I made clear that I was interested in their thoughts about Paterno’s academic impact and not football. Between them, the academic figures I reached, and some Paterno quotes from teleconferences, I cobbled together a passable piece.

Even in his brief appearances on those teleconferences, Paterno was at times introspective, and his classical education peeked through. He was asked about a coveted recruit from Pennsylvania who chose Miami over Penn State. Revealing little detail, Paterno conveyed no disappointment and chalked it up to personal decisions, adding: “There are a lot of Pyrrhic victories in recruiting.” I included that remark in the piece.

(Brief aside: the story ran the Sunday before the game, scheduled for that Thursday – Sept. 13. Terrorists flew airplanes into buildings two days earlier, changing life as we know it. The game was rescheduled and played Dec. 1.)

I guess the message of the story of the story is that sometimes it pays to look in an entirely different direction than your experience and habits would suggest. Sometimes it’s necessary due to circumstances beyond your control. Other times, another perspective can be refreshing and enlightening. Be as nimble as possible.

But just so you know I don’t have all, or even many, answers, I ended the story with this observation: “With Paterno, there have been no Pyrrhic victories. Everyone has benefited.”

That didn’t age well.