Ring The Cowsills Into The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame This New Year's

Geez, I can't believe it.

At this, the end of the year, and as a pretty average middle-aged guy I guess I've got enough problems in my life to be concerned about without mentioning today's blog subject. It's just that it's the niggling little stuff that gets me going sometimes.

On the surface, it seems so trivial. Look at the week we've had: political assassination; animal attacks; missing people; I could go on. So what am I writing about today? The Cowsills.

The Cowsills then- click on the pic to go to the official Cowsills website-

I've got bills to pay, kids to feed. I've got half a foot of snow coming down right this minute. There's enough on my plate to deal with. So why does this band rate today's mention?

It's just so unfair.

It seems that I found myself on the official Cowsills web site today, and discovered that there is a petition drive to consider the band for nomination in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. What I find hard to believe is that they are about 6500 signatures short!

The Cowsills today- click on this pic to sign the petition-

This is the Cowsills, folks!

Comprised of a family whose name really is Cowsill, the band is probably best known (or didn't you know) as the real-life inspiration for the TV series 'The Partridge Family'. A real family whose real mom sang with them. In my book, very cool.

The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, or 'Mecca', if you're a music lover like me- Click on the pic to hear a classic Cowsills cut-

I doubt that I have many readers to this blog, but I'm going to ask whoever happens by to jump on this bandwagon. Let's get the Cowsills into the Hall of Fame for the new year!

It's What We Believe About Animals That Is Wild

From the Project Gutenberg EBook of Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy, by Frank Richard Stockton- click on the image for the book-

With all due respect to the victims of the tiger attack and their families-

Not long ago I was reading the latest newsletter of our local zoo. The photo accompanying the article (unfortunately for me) illustrated how the zoo has changed over the years. Although not exactly spelled out, I know that the changes reflected the difference between how we perceived our role among wild animals in captivity when the zoo was first created and now. To be brief, the focus then was on creating a 'zoological park'; the emphasis was on making an appealing flow of foot traffic. The walkways were straight and led into clusters of cages/exhibits or gardens/fountains/ponds to break up the monotony. In other words, the park focused on creating a display that appealed to the consumer.

But as times changed, effort was made to ensure the relevance of the zoo as a viable form of entertainment. The old zoo system must have been perceived as quaint and even cruel, as it seemed to encourage a sense of subduing or conquering of the wild. Perhaps it conjured up images of the big game hunter demonstrating his prowess in the last great wild frontier, stuffed heads displayed over his mantel and bearskin carpeting his floor. The new system reflected a more progressive (read 'kinder, gentler') stance; it stood to swing diametrically in the other direction, raising the image of the captive beast to that of unwitting victim, nature's survivor, the endangered species now fated to live out its life in captivity as it had become impossile to live as it had in the wild.

A tragic story of loss in the name of being well-intentioned- click on the image to see the trailer for this movie-

For reasons that I don't understand, we seem as a society to be given to extreme and radical responses to the questions of our times. While it's true that an era now ended saw animals as something to be conqured, a creature to prove dominion over, those of our own time seems bent on forcing the wild into an equally abhorrent caricature, that of the hapless victim requiring our strategic planning to ensure its very survival. Neither of these views are entirely correct.

Click on this image to read an article on zoology-

Whether someone is culpable in the recent tiger attack remains to be seen. But whether habitat design or human misbehavior contributed to the animal's violent response, one thing is certain; either scenario underestimates the unpredictability of what we used to call 'nature'. I don't mean 'nature' as in 'mother nature', but the word we use to describe what someone or something is liable to do. Wild animals are beautiful and they do entertain us, but they never lose their nature. And here's another fact that is bound to frustrate our litigation-silly culture; you can't sue an animal! Isn't that amazing? There are no laws or rules to govern the behavior of animals. There are all kinds of laws to govern the behavior of humans, who, incidentally, have a nature, as well.

Another tragic miscalculation in the name of entertainment; click on the image to read an article on this attack-

Today, when I visit our zoo (I can call it ours, since my commitment goes above and beyond the price of admission) certain glaring differences from the way it was when I was a kid are apparent; less use of 'houses' (remember the monkey house, or the reptile house, or the bird house?). If houses are used at all anymore, they are used as souvenir shops or grudgingly for animals whose habitat is more easily adapted to it. I photographed empty cages in a house the last time I was there. The architecture, by the way, was gorgeous, if you like that sort of thing (and I do)- lots of deco light and shadow play. Another difference is an increase in the language of conservation and recycling- good habits in and of themselves. I have no complaint against them. The only thing is that I often feel chided when I walk around and have to be reminded that my decision to clothe my children in disposable diapers has an impact on the ecology. There is also a greater ephasis on fundraising and all of it in the name of protecting wildlife for future generations. What happened to the resources that weren't used to protect them for this generation? To put it another way, how did they ever make it without us?

Click to read an excerpt from the book Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West (Hardcover)by Eric Baratay (Author), Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier (Author)

I was a kid once, going through my dad's collection of National Geographics. Less a sense of entitlement or a need to dominate, their approach was to learn from and appreciate the wild, but never to lose sight of the fact that there is the nature to contend with. There was never anyone to blame but ourselves in case a mishap should occur. Even our domesticated pets had a nature that could not be denied, but now they are a member of the family and thereby entitled to as full a life of possibilities as our children, complete with health insurance and dental plan.

I guess that's what bothers me the most; it's not that I belong to one side of this issue and it seems we are losing debate in the court of public opinion, it's that as I grow older I continue to realize that from generation to generation as we advance in technology we regress in plain old fashioned horse-sense. We literally forget from generation to generation the things about ourselves and the world around us that are wonderful to know. Like amnesiacs we need to relearn things we should have had all along. But those voices in our culture- Madison Avenue, political affiliation and lobbiest influences, the media and even organized religion make us to be less than animals. They bring shame to our very existence when they tell us to not behave according to our nature and not to expect other species to act according to theirs.

Click on the book to follow the link to Amazon.Com for Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West (Hardcover)by Eric Baratay (Author), Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier (Author)

Ride To Chemo Brings Positive Christmas Memory

As adults, we try to create these perfect holiday scenarios for our children. After all, we reason, that is what our adults did for us. But when you reach adulthood, you find there is no 'perfect' and that very 'un-perfect' elements juxtapose themselves into our little self-fashioned worlds, creating along the way Christmas memories that at first blush are more 'mutant' than 'hybrid'.

This is one of those memories.

It was during the year my mom was diagnosed with cancer that certain stirrings were awakened in me, stirrings that did not reach fruition until a number of years after she had already passed on when I left the home of my parents, married and had children of my own. My brother was proceeding nicely, making sound decisions on his education and developing solid relationships, one that would lead to marriage. I, on the other hand, was not ready, either for marriage or career, or it seems to see my brother move out and move on.

That was my situation around the time my mom began chemotherapy. As I look back now, it seemed almost like grace to me; after all, one of my brightest early memories was as a family on the weekend car errands. This was when stuff would happen, like shopping for school supplies and clothes- really, any of the more occasional necessities than groceries would be shopped for on those errands. It was then that we had a chance as a family to take a breath before the work/school week began. It was a time before the landscape was dotted with food chains. In fact, a kid could get thirsty in the back seat, or hungry as he passed by his favorite burger joint, and back then parents actually could and would say no to any requests to stop. Now, just marvel on that; to say 'no' and have it stick.

But mom, in her resourceful and accommodating way, would keep a can of diet soda and some ginger snaps in her purse. And to this day, if I was to smell kleenex tissues that had been hanging around with Doublemint gum inside a purse, and I just happened to be eating ginger snaps washed down with warm diet pop, well, I guess I'd just about mist over, that's all.

So we'd pass around the supplies, one can and oh, maybe 10 or 15 snaps, and it always seemed like enough. In fact, it seemed like more than enough, now that I think of it, because we always seemed considerate to one another. I don't remember that particular trait being hammered into us, but it was a part of the family fiber- neither cajoled nor threatened into us, it was simple respect, an unwritten rule of the road. There was enough for everyone because everyone looked out for one another.

When mom began chemo I had the luxury of being able to set my work schedule around her appointments. My dad did so as well, more often than not. Again I say this must have been grace, since, if we did have to say goodbye, it was this sort of memory that would affirm and validate the love we shared for one another. Our trips to the old Chicago neighborhood to the doctor's office beneath the L tracks became an odd assortment of juxtapositions: a sense of gladness in the midst of concern; a celebration of Christmas and a desire to give and share, while life and time were ebbing away. One would think it horrific, morbid or gross to think of it in these terms, but so much of life is about the ideal in the midst of chaos. If we wait for ideal circumstances to celebrate ideal notions, we miss out on a lot and we cheat ourselves of joy. I can't believe it to see myself even write this, but it's true. It doesn't seem right to have, for example, Christmas displays in a ward full of terminal cancer patients, but in a greater way, it doesn't seem right not to. For these were the people who made Christmas for us; this was their circumstance, and just then we were being called on to accompany them toward their greatest journey. I don't mean to wax poetic, but we would escort our loved ones to the grave, then turn back toward our lives. They would continue their journey without us.

Trips to the doctor's office were not complete without some discussion as to what we could do for the nurses that had been so good to mom. She liked to give, liked to remember people at Christmas. As we became part of the regular crowd there, I remember that when one of the nurses went out for lunch to a local spot, we gave them our order as well. It may seem like strange bedfellows, but at least there were bedfellows, and nice ones at that.

On return trips, I would grow silent as I drove the mini-van through slushed streets home before going on to work. We began a tradition then and continued another one. Mom developed this taste for McDonald's cheeseburgers, (not bad when chemo patients sometimes lose their appetites) so we would buy a sackful. The diet pop was in her purse, still warm, and she was still bringing ginger snaps for us to eat. Only this time I was not in the back seat, not a kid anymore; I was driving, and only beginning to drive toward married life and family. We did eventually lose mom, not through cancer as it turns out, but complications of congestive heart failure. It was like an ugly trick to have been out of the woods with cancer, but not to get better. But during that time when it seemed my own life was on hold it was good to be able to return in some small way the gift my mom, my parents gave to me; that confidence that indeed we were in this together, this life of ours, and we were faithful to one another to the end. I don't imagine that is unique among families, but to see it played out at home was and is meaningful. And it gives weight and meaning to those times of celebration.

I wanted to mention as I wrap this up that I wish it was much better written, more polished. I don't always have the luxury of the second draft. But this topic wouldn't be complete unless I mentioned about the oxygen bottles. One of my roles as 'Tank Tonto' was to go to the hospital to trade out empty bottles for full. It meant going through to the old neighborhood hospital complex and sometimes parking a way's out to do this errand. It meant walking through the neighborhood and passing by homes decked out for Christmas. As somber as it seemed my errand was, I wondered what sort of challenges were behind the doors I passed. I knew we were not the only ones struggling with illness and I hoped the others bore up ok as well.

The oxygen bottles rolled loose on the floor of my van until I got home to unload them. I remember hitting the brakes and hearing this clang like a bell. I would think about how the tops of those things could shoot off under pressure and do me some damage. Again, Christmas decorations in the hospital oxygen department, along with a conversation with one of the techs I was familiar with; no, people who are on oxygen don't usually go off it again.

Driving through Chicago after work I would pass a tiny church. The sign out in front said it was Pentecostal, and that is what I considered myself to be. To make a long story short, this church represented the next step toward my life today. I used to think about and pray for the people who attended there. I imagined families generations deep who attended there. I met a nice girl there who thought it strange that a single man such as myself would drive a minivan, when he had no family; "looks kind of strange, you know?", she would say. Funny, it never occured to me. At that time in my life it seemed to fit me pretty well.

I made a vow a while back not to ever post music on this site. I am going to break that promise today. I won't promote it, and I won't provide links for you to buy it. But if you'd like to, you can hear a different Christmas song that was significant to me and my mom by clicking on each of the pictures on this post. I hope not to be fined for using copyrighted music. Maybe the association would understand, it being Christmas and all. -Joe

New CD Titles Can Feed Children Half A World Away

Click on this box to hear a sample of 'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" as read by Miss Natasha of Storynory

Click on this box to hear a sample of 'Neverending Game' by Quietus

Oh yes, Christmas is a time of giving. Sometimes we give out of gratitude and sometimes we give out of our need, demonstrating faith that our own need will be met. This Christmas, I decided to ramp up my involvement with Feeding Children Worldwide, my favorite nonprofit humanitarian organization, by offering new CD titles I have produced, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting their efforts to relieve global hunger. Specifically, the funding will go toward sponsoring food packing, where local groups can pack the actual food made available to feeding programs working in distressed areas.


Our very first title is 'Rikki Tikki Tavi', a children's audiobook, featuring the classic Kipling tale of a courageous pet and the family he protects from a cunning snake. The disc has about an hour's material and is read by Miss Natasha of Storynory (see Prince Bertie the Frog).


The music title is the work of Quietus, a prog-rock band and friends of mine. Their EP release is titled 'Neverending Game' and features 4 songs with about 15 minutes of music. The revenues of both discs benefit FCW and are available at amazon.com, but if purchased from our estore, FCW will receive more of the profits.


Both discs are professionally produced and the material is top-notch. I have enclosed samples at the bottom of the page. Click on the title covers to go to our estore. Both titles are very gift-worthy, not second-rate projects and the monies go to a worthy cause- what have you got to lose? Send out a little karma this season, and a Merry Christmas to you!

Click on this stack to go to estore for 'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"

Click on this stack to go to estore for 'Neverending Game' by Quietus

Click on Prince Bertie the Frog to go to Storynory web site (with thanks to Hugh & Matthew!)

On A Cold Chicago Morning, Gratitude

OLA memorial, Chicago- click image for original blog

There is nothing bleaker than a mid-winter day in Chicago. And it seems that even though it's getting pretty close to Christmas the streets and buildings and backyards dusted with snow evoke the hardness of the season. Think about the opening of 'Good Times', which was filmed in Chicago; the sun filtering through the cold air seems to mock you as you make your way from one place to another.

Another particular about living in Chicago is that every resident is a student of history. The city literally unfolds his past from the lakeshore outward. From the suburbs backward to the lake the buildings get older, the streets & alleys narrower and garages modified to fit cars newer than a Model A. The older buildings, especially those still heated with steam, bring up their past in the form of odors; like the memories themselves, they are heavy and unyielding. The smell of old varnish. Paint. Wallpaper paste. A variety of pest controls. Floor tile adhesive. These raise the familiar ghosts of memory whenever a renovation is undertaken that exposes multiple coats of paint, numerous layers of wallpaper, even 3 or 4 recoverings of linoleum.

This was my experience while watching the WTTW production of 'Angels Too Soon' a documentary of the beyond tragic parochial school fire that claimed lives, devastated families and communities and ushered in a whole new wave of fire safety reforms.

The topic of the Our Lady of the Angels fire of December 1st, 1958 is so well covered in print and on line that I won't attempt to rework the issue here. You can find some helpful links at the bottom of this page if you want to research it.

One can't help watching a documentary like that, although your keener sense tells you to look away. The images are so pregnant with memory: the period styles of hair and dress; the lumbering round cars loping through the streets; familiar Chicago intersections and of course the children. When it comes to children, there is no 'us' and 'them'; all children are our children. That's the way it is in a community and I don't suggest that it's exclusive of Chicago. But here is where this happened; the tragedy and the aftermath are our own.

Pictures now faded and grainy remind us of the promise of possibilities. Film footage reveals accents and neighborhood dialects that indicate an inner-city substructure of solid working-class families. More was devastated than people, than families; a community and a parish were drastically altered.

But beyond all that, remembrance of the infamous fire of OLA brings something more to me than the sheer horror of the event. Because I know a survivor of that school fire, it brings me a personal sense of gratitude.

I have looked over at my friend worshiping at our church; I know her mother, her brother and husband. Her family has been like family to me, and it is because of this that I cannot waste too much time contemplating the why's of life; I simply respond in gratitude. I choose a simple, almost childlike response.

When I was a child and my own sister would come home for a visit, it was in the cold of midwinter that I remember best the hugs; that's because you could take in this embrace with all your senses, but particularly your nose, which reported to you a heady and complex wonderful elixer of cologne, of coffee and cigarette smoke and the cold itself. The cold, for lack of a more graphic description, smells like cream to me. That was my sister, more than in name or face or activity; it was her in essence, as though you could smell the love, the peace and lack of conflict.

In an inate sort of way I am embracing a family in thought today. We are all Chicagoans, although I have transplanted a little ways north of town. We have roots here, memories. Our common experiences celebrated the joys of life and mourned the reality of loss. But there is one thing among us, more often unspoken than spoken, and every Christmas season it arrives like the early winter snow- it's gratitude that our friend, our daughter, sister and wife came home on that day and is with us still.

I don't know why tragedies happen or why one family is touched and another is not. Frankly, that begins to matter very little. Life and living become less a matter of what could have been, less a gradation of shades and more black and white. What could have happened, didn't.

Click on the pic above to go to OLA memorial/information website

Click on the book to order from Amazon.Com

http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/disasters/text/code.html
Read the Chicago City Council Amendment to Chapter 78 of the Municipal Code, 1959

http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,7,1,1,2
Wttw page on documentary w/link to purchase dvd

In Memoriam

Like many of us, I last saw Tammy Faye on clips from the Larry King interview she had done recently. And I thought of my own mom, her struggle with cancer, and her passing- all too soon for us.

That Tammy Faye has left us is no great surprise; she had been battling illness for some time. That she was, in the latter years of her life, the subject of ridicule and vehement scorn over a very public collapse of the work it took many years to build may seem for some poetic justice. For me, it just proves she was human.

That she was willing to subject herself to the public's scrutiny, and criticism about matters over which she had little control, made her something more. She was brave; a brave human being and a brave Christian.

See, she was a public Christian at a time when Christians were enjoying a sort of 'golden moment' in time; the 'I Found It' movement had happened and the PTL club was mainstream enough to welcome guests from all walks of life. It really was a cultural phenomenon of the time.

Tammy Faye lived up to the role of minister's wife, then the global televangelist's wife; she committed herself to her role wholeheartedly, and I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job of it. But as she satisfied her role, she never really 'played up' to it; she was natural (in that she was true to herself) and even self-effacing. I think that when there is so public a fall, society expects the fallen to just go away. And somehow this very public person has to figure out how to put together the pieces of their life and go on. Tammy Faye did. I admire that.

I have a memory to pass along; I remember reading about the early years of Jim and Tammy Bakker. I read that they found a collection of doll heads that was on bottles of shampoo being sold at clearance. That was their start; a puppet ministry. I don't think a couple who starts out in a puppet ministry tells themselves as they go to sleep at night, "that's ok- someday I'll hit the big time". They were a product of, and perhaps a victim of, the phenomenon of their day.

Tammy Faye, I will miss you. I am saddened that you are no longer on this earth. You remind me of a day when my faith was very new to me. You remind me of a day when my family was coming apart at the seams in the wake of my brother's passing, and how Christ came in and bridged that gap for us. You were not perfect, but you were honest- what we saw was real.

Now it's up to those of us who remember you to be honest in our lives and faith about who we are. I can't imagine a more fitting tribute.

When The Shoe Fits, Make Sure The Bag Matches

"Gucci, Gucci, Goo!"

There I was, watching television, and I noticed a pattern becoming more evident.

Certain ads, repeatedly played through the evening, were beginning to genuinely annoy me.

Was I just getting grumpy in my middle-age? Not enough bran? It seemed to me that my anger was misplaced, that it had no basis in fact. Until, that is, my anger triggered a memory.

My anger is directed at companies/individuals who start off rich and end up richer as a result of their understanding of finances and the average shmoe's lack of understanding. No one is getting fleeced here; there's no slight of hand, no deception. It's just the wealthy playing the game they have played for so long; it's called, " let the guy who's cash-poor twist in the wind a little, then rustle a couple of bucks under his nose. Buy him out of his equity/legal settlement. Trade a little money now for a lot of money later."

The guys who offer "refi" loans. The fellows who ask you why you should wait for payments, why not get a lump sum of your settlement. The guy who extols the virtues of filing 'chapter 13'. How about the shops that give you cash against an anticipated paycheck? (Remember Jimmy Stewart in 'It's A Wonderful Life'?

"Can't you understand what's happening here? Don't you see what's happening? Potter isn't selling.Potter's buying! And why? Because we're panicky and he's not.That's why. He's picking up some bargains..")

It's our own fault, after all, our lack of cash-savvy, our naivete'. But damn it, it's no reason to pick a guy's pocket, just because he's so pickable.

My memory; it's a sad tale, but not too long in the telling. At least the way I'm going to tell it.

It all started one evening at my job. The girls who answered the phones started getting unusual crank calls. Repeat calls, mostly on Friday evenings, Saturday evenings. A youngish teen trying to convince them she was Chinese. (News flash, and I'll bet you didn't know this; you don't have to actually understand Chinese to smell a phony.) Annoyance calls, mostly. The girls would be cordial, professional, polite, and hang up. She upped the ante. Told them matter-of-factly that she could see to it that they would be fired. Called them vile names. It was easy to see that she was venting; the calls were a weird sort of release for her.

Nothing they would do to stop her worked. And it got like it gets when a persistent pest gets in your face a little too much, I became curious and decided to work on it a bit.

Here, if you hadn't already guessed, is where it gets interesting.

Over the course of time she said alternately that her dad was president- of Benetton, and of Patagonia. Both fashion companies were popular with girls whose parents could afford them. (Remember Benetton? Made a name for themselves by creating controversial ad campaigns? One is included here, for your enrichment.)

So I wondered who had it in for these girls. Who was just intimate enough with the office that our number was handy to them? Our office was located around the higher-income suburbs, and that might make this a local girl.

I got myself a blank cassette, and the next time she called, I had the girls put her on 'speaker' and recorded the whole conversation, just let her vent and babble along. All her classic shtick; the Chinese girl routine, the 'I could get you fired", "my dad is president", etc. Now, I understand this would not hold up as evidence in court, but a lawsuit was not what I was after. It was to end the annoyance of the pest.

One day, I come in to work. My boss shakes my cassette at me; "That girl called again last night, you know. I told her, 'hey, I've got something you should hear' and played the tape. She hung up and didn't call back no more!"

I had her.

It was the daughter of the company president.

How did I know that? Local girl, dad is president, familiar with and able to buy high-priced fashions, very materially-oriented. Dad probably had the office number on speed-dial. She was bored (maybe resented) being left alone at home on the weekends, which was also a clue. If she was too young to make her own plans while the family was out of the house that would have put her at just about the right age.

I made a number of assumptions. Maybe I jumped to a lot of conclusions. One was that we, the nameless unwashed masses, were the topic of discussion around the family dinner table. That there was a sense that there is a fundamental difference between them and us, a gap that would never be bridged. We had our purpose, like a boot-wipe would, but we didn't really have the respect of the 'first family', as it were.

(Gee, I'm sorry, but this is the only pic I could find of the unwashed masses. Although the speaker in this image happens to be Goebbels, in no way do I mean to compare my experience at that job with a whole country being led around by the nose by a backward, dictatorial, fascist elitist government. Really.)

That hurt. And it opened my eyes. That's why no one can ever convince me otherwise. I've been told that the wealthy are among the very hardest-working, thrifty-but-generous and gracious people one would ever want to meet. Philanthropists (did I spell that right?) all. That may be true; I don't think I have any in my circle to ask. But these folks who are a little lower on the rungs, like the upper-middle class (or upper-upper, if you like) are like this; they'll see you work like a dog, they won't speak into your life or mentor you regarding your erroneous attitudes toward money, they will never really tell you you're doing a great job and they will be sure to satiate themselves and their own at the trough before you even get a crumb. And sometimes, just for sport, they will deny you that as well.

(The always-fashionable 'little black dress'; take special note of the lack of a head to direct its actions . . .)

And what happened to the tape? Well, I gave it to our president's assistant. Told him all about the situation, because I thought it was uncool for someone to toy with another person's livelihood. He assured me he would take care of it, and boy, did he.

The tape disappeared, and the matter was never discussed again.

Quietus- Rock Heard 'Round The World

I'm going back on my word. I promised never to upload music again. This is different, though. I happen to know this band and their web site has their song clips to download. Anyway, I'm pretty sure they won't mind.

Today, Quietus is a local band. I think it's just a matter of time. They've got what it takes- drive. perseverance and they write. Even this combination is no guarantee, so all I can say is just listen. Quietus is a combination of rock, alternative and jazz fusion (and probably more) and they remain loyal to their roots. By that I mean they have a strong sense of musicianship and they rely on that and a more basic lineup. They are lean and spare (think 'power trio', like Cream) and that is definitely where they shine.

I could go on.

Just listen. (Click on each band member's photo for a different song clip) If you're in the Chicagoland area, keep an eye open for upcoming shows. Buy their demo; click on the album for their web site.

James Jamerson, Motown's Unsung Hero

When I was taking electric bass lessons, I was introduced to the work of James Jamerson. What fascinates me is that there is little that has developed that you could look to and say, "this guy was the one". In this case, Jamerson was indeed the one; he revolutionized music and the role the electric bass plays in modern music.

If Motown is roots, then Jamerson is the roots of Motown.

In my humble opinion, I believe Motown would have been huge without him, but it would not have the permanence or the wider range of acceptance it has enjoyed through the years. Yes, Jamerson is also responsible for mainstreaming Motown.

The book, "Standing In The Shadows of Motown" chronicles this artist's life and work through anecdotes and pictures but what makes this special is that many artists whose careers came after his pay tribute by dissecting a song he had worked on. A cd set accompanies the book and the bass line is prominent for analysis. I offer as exhibit A, the Stevie Wonder song, "I Was Made To Love Her". Jamerson throughout the song goes off on flights of fancy, only to return and emphasize the riff, over and over again.

One anecdote has a bassist invited to fill in on a session for the regular artist. When he was told the one he was covering for was Jamerson, he turned on his heel and left. There just was no filling his shoes. My favorite involves the description of his equipment. While most players favor new strings, his were old, dead and showing the build-up of years of playing, which he called "the funk". His strings were set higher, more like a stand-up bass, which he had mastered before, and most of us don't posess the hand strength to play an instrument like that.

Sadly, he died before the attention his work has received of late had come, but he is becoming more and more memorialized as entertainers continue to be inspired by his musicianship and his innovative technique- one that mainstreamed a relatively new instrument.

The Second Coming

Oh, yes I'm back. No doubt you've heard about how the industry intends to sue downloaders of music for illegal use. Individuals, not bootleggers, are coughing up thousands to settle out of court. Ok, I said; I'm done.

But, ya know, it makes me mad. I like my blog. And I don't know for sure why you would tune in otherwise, but there is no music on this site. I just don't need the hassle.

I guess you could say I'm perturbed- like I said, I'm not a bootlegger selling my wares out on the street corner, so it doesn't faze me. But to think back on my history with the music industry- I've been a good, a pretty regular customer for as long as I can remember. Bought albums, and bought them again. Bought 'em to give away as gifts. Replaced worn out copies. Collected specialty items. In other words, my eggs for this industry were pretty golden.

So for me to hear that after years of loyalty and the understanding that whatever media we purchased (and upgraded to over the years) has been overpriced, with the profits no doubt going straight up someone's nose- oh, did I touch your demon? My bad.) that downolading one song, any song, whether current or out of date, on the charts or hopelessly off the radar, would be considered a form of stealing and therefore subject to the full extent of the law, well, you could say I have lost all interest in subsidizing what I consider to be "intellectual property welfare". And I guess that's just a symptom of my middle years but, hey, it was due.

No problem. Middle-age tells you something else;

there are more important things out there.