Brandon's Buzz

Billy Joel — “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant [live]”
(from The Complete Hits Collection [1973-1997]) —

My last word on Seattle (’cause I know you’re sick to death of hearing about it already): if you happen to find yourself in the city’s Wallingford neighborhood — as A and I did when we stopped in to visit one of his childhood friends — and you’re struck suddenly by an untenable hunger, the place you absolutely must check out is Bizzarro Italian Cafe, a tiny but impossibly charming little hole-in-the-wall pasta joint which has some of the absolute best food I’ve ever had the pleasure of noshing upon. The waitstaff is brilliantly courteous and attentive, the bolognese sauce is so terrific it deserves its own chair at the table, and the liquor-laced ladyfingers in the deviously delicious tiramisu just melt in your ever-grateful mouth like a Tootsie Roll on an August day. Trust me: if you only have plans to visit one Italian ristorante for the rest of your life, do your level best to make sure it’s this one.

Temple of the Dog — “Hunger Strike” (from Temple of the Dog) —

Because I love that boy dearly, I’m offering A a bonus grunge-era classic (albeit one to which he’s already had previous exposure, though I suspect he may have already blocked that all out) to put a kind of punctuation mark on our recent pilgrimage to Seattle. In eulogizing Amy Winehouse last week, NBC Nightly News‘ anchor Brian Williams stated that she forever changed her part of the music business, and while I’m still not so sure Williams wasn’t overselling the farm with such a confident declaration, I take his point well. You know, you listen to this song, this accidental collaboration between Messrs. Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder — the two most cocksure frontmen of their era, of their decade — and you can’t help but ponder if they had even the slightest clue when they recorded this that they were literally on the cusp of radical, mind-stomping success, that they were just about to change and change forever their corner of the bidness. (For those who don’t know the story, Cornell’s best friend had died of a heroin overdose, and he pulled together the friend’s bandmates to create a tribute, a tribute which grew to include Vedder, who had flown to Seattle to audition to be the lead singer of the band which was to become Pearl Jam. Vedder ended up sitting in on the Temple of the Dog sessions as a background vocalist, and when he saw that Cornell was having trouble with some of the lines in “Hunger Strike,” Vedder stepped up to the lead mike and so impressed Cornell and the band that the song was refashioned as something of a duet — “Up Where We Belong,” except with a grungier ethos — between the two men. Within a year, both Cornell’s own band, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam would have conceived and created their breakthrough efforts, and the rest is platinum-plated histree.)

Nirvana — “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (from Nevermind) —

Tori Amos — “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (from Crucify) —

Even though he thinks he’s not a fan of the music from the grunge era, A was quite upset that none of the genre’s classics managed to make their way into this space during our trip to Seattle — the musical movement’s epicenter — last week. So, to appease his wailing soul, we’re going with the classic, the epic ode which captures with a brilliance that is as perverse as it is pristine the dizzying drama of teen angst, the one tune without which none of those other tunes would have stuck their landings. The specter of Mr. Cobain’s tortured spirit hovered over a goodly portion of this particular vacation; A and I spent a riveting morning at Seattle’s Experience Music Project, which is currently running an in-depth exhibit that examines Nirvana’s inexorable participation in, as they put it, “bringing punk to the masses,” and we also spent a pretty powerful bit of time just outside Kurt’s former home, a lovely and disturbingly unassuming abode which sits on the banks of Lake Washington. (Outside looking in, naturally, and would Kurt have had it any other way?) On the plot of ground just beside the home sits a cozily secluded park with a pair of benches, onto which have been etched and scrawled a literal thousand messages to Kurt — thanks, prayers, wishes, a marvelous mural of grace and gratitude, wooden (but strangely alive) paeans to what could have been but also to what was — and though we didn’t write anything on them ourselves, it was impossible not to be rocked to the core by seeing the words “hello / how low” painted on one of the seat backs. (I’m also including my beloved Ms. Amos’ magnificently mellow cover of “Teen Spirit” — recorded roughly a year after the original — here, because it still fascinates and bumfuzzles me, even a full two decades after I first heard it. What I wrote four years ago on this very topic I still believe to this very minute: “In one of the ballsiest moves popular music has ever witnessed, the wickedly ambitious (and then-largely-unknown) Amos decided to take Kurt Cobain’s aural touchstone and, using her piano as a flashlight and her piercing voice as a divining rod, flesh out the pain and haunting sincerity in his words, almost daring to use the phrases against him, almost begging the lyrics to defy their author, to bring him to his knees.
The utter resignation in her tone as she slips into the final chorus is chilling.” Hello, how low in-fucking-deed.)

The Buggles — “Video Killed the Radio Star”
(from The Best of the ’80s: The Millennium Collection) —

Happy 30th birthday, MTV.

Angelo Badalamenti featuring Julee Cruise — “Falling”
(from Twin Peaks [Original Television Soundtrack]) —

Yesterday evening, A and I drove out east of the Seattle metro area and into the tiny burg of Snoqualmie, Washington, whose edifices and landscapes once upon a time stood in for those of Twin Peaks, ABC’s riveting and revolutionary soap which hit the airwaves in 1990 and flamed out a scant year later after twenty-nine mind-bending episodes. Badalamenti’s lushly evocative original theme for the series remains one of the most brilliant pieces of modern music ever composed for television — hell, ever composed period — but there’s something about the addition of Cruise’s hauntingly compelling coo here that brings this thing to a whole other level of stunning, striking magnificence, and throughout the entire experience, the tune, still so iconic even after two decades, was playing on a cruel, lovely loop inside my skull.

Tori Amos — “Past the Mission” (from Under the Pink) —

Another dispatch from Seattle, dateline Wednesday: A and I headed downtown to check out the famed Pike Place Market, which contains a lovely farmers’ market, a multiplicity of bakeries with pastries from urry nationality under the moon, and, by the by, the original Starbucks store (founded in 1971, and still a mortifying madhouse some forty years hence — literally, it was so busy, there was a poor woman in the middle of the shop directing traffic!). After braving the crowds for an hour or so, we made our way up to the Hard Rock Cafe to grab lunch, which proved to be quite a marvelous marriage of amazing food and aural frolic: we split a chicken sandwich, which was heavenly, and a side of funked-up mac and cheese (paradise on a plate, believe it). But the highlight of the meal was, without question, its soundtrack: the walls of the Cafe were liberally dotted with flat-screen televisions playing music videos, and each table had a touch-screen device on which you could vote, from a series of six choices, for the next song to be played throughout the restaurant. As huge a fan of the democratic process as I am, I got so excited when I saw the goddess’ name popping forth from the first series of names that I nearly leapt plumb out of the booth, and I was even more thrilled when my vote won and the “Mission” videoclip suddenly appeared on every television in the place. (Picking my absolute favorite Tori Amos song would, I suspect, be roughly as difficult as picking my favorite nostril or kidney — like, I wouldn’t even know where to begin; I love so many of them, and for so many different reasons! But let it suffice to say that the magnificent “Mission” — a hauntingly gorgeous shuffle about sex, sin, and the secrets that pass between two girls, which features a bone-chilling harmony vocal from the frightening Trent Reznor — ranks at or near the very, very top of the list.) A and I quickly traded seats so that he could snap some pictures of me and the dazzling duchess of devil-red hair; as you’ll see from the pic below, the camera clearly knew which of the two of us on which to focus its full attention. And we all lived — and jammed — hap’ly ever after. (In case you’re curious, the other songs I voted for successfully during the course of our meal: George Michael’s “Faith” (which video really holds up, and not just because it heavily features King George’s denim-swaddled backside), Florence + the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over” and The Cranberries’ “Zombie” (both of which were least-of-all-evils elections; better them than that heartwrenchingly wretched trollop Ke$ha, if you axe me.).)

Damien Rice (with Lisa Hannigan) — “Volcano” (from O) —

My adventure with A in the Pacific Northwest kicked off yesterday afternoon with a trip to Mount St. Helens, which I found to be absolutely riveting, even though the top of the mountain, sadly, was obscured by stubborn clouds which refused to part for even a bit. Looking at the landscape in the valleys around the volcano — still barren, and most of it still ash-gray, thirty-one years after the destructive eruption that devastated the area — it’s nearly impossible to get your mind to fathom what it must have been like for the people who made their entire livelihoods on this land — on the lake, in the forests, on the terrain in the shadow of this natural monster — only to watch it all get washed away in just a few excruciating moments. (As the thousands of remaining stumps bear witness to, not even the trees were strong enough to withstand the fury.) But the stark, serene beauty of what remains is arresting, is literally powerful enough to steal your breath wholly away.

Amy Winehouse — “Tears Dry On Their Own”
(from Back to Black) —

I have been swamped with other projects the past few days, so the Hive has unfortunately gotten short shrift as a result. Besides, even though the announcement was hardly a surprise, given everything we knew about her attitude and antics, I’m still struggling to wrap my brain around the idea that Winehouse — she whose phenomenal success as a brilliant-beyond-her-years throwback surely set the stage for something like Adele’s ball-busting breakout this year — is no longer with us. (Incidentally, shouldn’t someone do a study on why a non-trivial number of our most profoundly gifted artists — Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and now Miss Amy, to name but four — have, at the age of 27, died so tragically young? And that doesn’t even take into account a Jeff Buckley — a mere 30 when he drowned in a tragic accident — or a Shannon Hoon (28 when he overdosed)!) Every time over the past few days that I have devoted any mental energy to this story, I continually come to the great Natalie Cole — who, it must be noted, spent most of the late ’70s and early ’80s as high as five kites before staging one of the most thrilling comebacks in the history of popular music — and how incensed she was three years ago when Winehouse swept the Grammy Awards, winning five of the six trophies for which she was nominated, including Record of the Year for a tune that (of all things!) essentially mocked the efforts of drug rehabilitation. Cole’s take on the whole situation was that the Academy, in honoring such a seeming hot mess, was sending the message that nothing else matters if you’re talented, and that heinous behavior should be rewarded. I’m still not certain we want organizations like the Grammys to be arbiters of civic, social, and personal decorum, but, now that we have a clear(er) sense of how Winehouse’s story has apparently ended, part of me wonders if Cole doesn’t have a perfectly valid point. Part of me wonders if the staggering success that Winehouse achieved in such a lightning-quick flash of time is precisely what doomed her to the fate she always seemed to be barreling right toward. (Incidentally, speaking of Mr. Cobain: I’m spending the next few days in Seattle, so don’t be surprised to hear a grunge classic or two emanating from the Hive ‘fore the week’s up.)

Abra Moore — “Birthday Song” (from On the Way) —

I turn thirty-five on this day, so says the calendar, and I choose to spend this day with my absolute favorite wackydoo of them all. (I had the distinct honor of welcoming Ms. Moore to Brandon’s Buzz Radio in February 2009, and if you missed that enlightening conversation, you can catch it here.)

Adele — “Set Fire to the Rain” (from 21) —

I’ve no qualms about saying how much I love Adele, or admitting how high 21 is likely to land on my year-end top ten list. (Answer: very.) But I have to tell you, I have officially reached my saturation point on “Rolling in the Deep” — the album’s monster smash leadoff single, which seems to have taken up permanent residence on just about every radio station on the dial (I’m sure we’re just weeks away from a hit country cover, as well!) this summer and has so blanketed the collective cultural consciousness that even our grandmothers know who this heifer is. Dell, baby, it’s time to let this one go and move on to numero dos before we all start marching through the interiors of our skulls trying to eradicate every last trace of our affection for you. (Please!)

Janie Fricke — “It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Easy” (from Greatest Hits) —

It may or may not surprise you to learn that there exists a corner in the deep, dark interior of my soul — a corner of sleepy yearning, a corner of desperation and perspiration — which gets in a weird mood sometimes, a mood that only exposure to the furiously magnificent Fricke, a long-forgotten and criminally underappreciated two-time winner of the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year prize in the early ’80s (and one of the great heroines of my childhood), can quench and quell. (Suffice to say that I’m struck by one of those moods today.)

Coldplay — “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall”
(from Every Teardrop is a Waterfall) —

I’m still not totally sold on this one: the lyrics are yet another hunk of dopey, pretentiously British-y cornpone, though the melody soars on eagles’ wings (which is essentially another way of saying, it’s not so different from any other Coldplay song). But at least Chris Martin (for the most part) doesn’t come off like a morose whiny-baby here — matter of fact, he almost sounds (gasp!) happy — and whoever came up with that freaky-fab guitar riff that sounds like a blast of bagpipes gets my early vote for man of the year. If not a full step in the right direction for these guys, Teardrop is at very least a glance.

Gavin DeGraw — “Not Over You” (from Sweeter) —

The Hive kicks off its second year of life with a request from Sherry Ann, who texted me last week and commanded me to give this song some attention and love. No sweat: DeGraw — a troubadour straight out of the old school, but laced with a funked-up modern sensibility (to say nothing of his hella fine piano chops) — is one of the few real deals to have emerged in the past decade, and though I suspect he faces a tough trudge with this tune — the terrific lead single from his fourth album, due in September — at pop radio, which has all but abandoned melody of late, it’s great to see him bravely fighting the good fight nonetheless.