A&W.

Okay, then.

The Guest House is done!

It's done. If you would like to live here, let me know asap.

Guest House Renovation - Final Week

Just a little video update. Almsot done!

Guest House Renovation Update, week 3

I know that I haven't been that quick updating this blog regarding the guest house but, eff it, I've been busy. Doing things like, you know, merging unions, acting, auditioning, raising kids...so suck it, inner guiltifying blogosphere.

Truth is, there just wasn't much to report. Except that it looks really good in there. Admittedly, there can be touch ups made to the exterior, not exactly sure what yet. But, it's really coming along and lo and behold, we already have people asking about the place. Even just those who are driving by have asked for an application.

Here's a couple pics that should give a little sample. Very little, since it's just a couple rooms. But maybe it'll give an impression.

Here's the shower. This alone makes me wish I was living here. It's like getting in and out of a time machine.

This was the front office. Go check out some of the older posts to see what that room used to be. We built out a little closet so the room *could* be used as a bedroom, but more than likely it should be an office. Or den. Or tv room. Or kid's room.

And this is just a shot of windows in the main bedroom that look out over the deck of the main house. They haven't been opened in over 20 years. Amazing.

About that Screen Actors Guild election...

Oh, yeah.

 I won.

Not to slice the pie too thin but I was the highest vote getting, non-incumbent, non celebrity.

So, there's that.

Thanks to anyone who voted for me.

Prediction 2012 - 2106

In 2008, after spending 250+ hours on the Obama campaign (A number which fluctuates depending on just how self-aggrandizing I feel) I made a prediction. Immediately following BO's win I turned to my wife and told her that I believed that now the Republican party would split in two, with the tail wagging the dog. After all, you can't invite the crazies and fundamentalists (Often one and the same) to the table and then just push them away after they've suckled at the golden teat of power.

I believed that the party would split for other reason but primarily because I heard the rhetoric from the asshats who didn't have an intelligent way of saying that they just didn't want a black guy in office.

Call after call when I was phone banking I was, not exactly shocked, but dismayed at the ignorance of the people who made up the right wing electorate.

I also happened to marry into a family that lived in the bible belt, in the heart of a swing state and one, non-blood, in-law, was as red as red comes. I used to enjoy riling him up as he drank (a case of shitty beer) and puffed generic unflitereds to the point where he blamed the lack of lumber to build adequate schools on the use of said lumber for the creation of abortion clinics.

But I was used to him because years before I lived in the armpit of California: Lancaster. Meth capital of the state, I was told. And home to an inordinate number of self-proclaimed "Patriots".

If you don't know about the patriot movement, these are people who try to live off the grid by never using zip codes (a tool of the government) and relinquish their social security number for "9 numbers". They believe every crazy thing you are afraid that they believe and they are fervent and arduous in those beliefs.

So, I've been there. I've seen em up close. And I knew what their endgame was. They want to take over the government because they hate...well, just about everyone that isn't them. So, that was what I believed would happen.

I also believed that, after a while, the country would tire of the lunatics and the right wing party would give rise to a powerful centrist right coalition. A coalition that would commandeer the GOP, start talking sense, and rule for about 20 years.This hasn't happened yet. Nor will it for a long while. Or maybe sooner but i doubt it.

See, the GOP has nobody to beat Obama. The news will never say that. They need the race to get ratings. This is high pressure, top dollar ball to these clowns. A good (or well ginned up) presidential race is akin to the Yankees vs the Cubs in the series. Or, better: It's 2003 Red Sox vs The Cubbies. It means moolah.So, they will never admit that there's no there there.

The reason Herman Cain is surging is that he is the sacrificial lamb. Nobody else of any value really wants it. Nobody wants to be a 21st century Mondale. Cain can't beat Romney, but the right doesn't even like Romney. I'm not sure Romney wants to run, really. But at this point he's pot committed.

But let's take a look at what happened this week.

Palin? She's out. Why? Because she knows she can't win. She's been out there testing the waters, running up bigger speaking fees. She's probably looking at 2016 by which time the world will have tired of her permanently.

Rubio? Why has he refused the Veep spot? Because he's going to run in 2016. In fact, I would expect him to be a big speaker at the convention next year. If he is and it's Keynote, look out. He's the chosen one.

But he's going to have to contend with: Chris Christie. Christie is smart enough to know he can't win and smarter enough to know that he can't say that. I don't buy the "he's too fat" bullshit. In fact, I think that gets him MORE votes. The trouble with Christie is that he is EXACTLY the kind of center right politician that I am thinking about. And I don't know if the Tea Party will have run out of gas in six years. Four more years of Obama is going to keep them right where the left wants them: all riled up and ready to make the country scared.

And the GOP machine can't control Christy. Maybe they can and I'm all wrong about this but I get the feeling that CC is his own man. And that makes the corporations scared.

What I am more interested in is the left in 2016. There is no heir apparent. Biden is no Al Gore. There's no passing of the torch here.

So, what's my prediction?

Look at Massachusetts. Watch that race. If Elizabeth "straight talking, rhetoric spewing, bullet point" Warren wins, expect her to become a front runner four years later. I see a strong, all female ticket that I think could be formidable. Ex governor Jennifer Granholm. She's been out there, fighting the good fight. Not apologizing, making sense and flexing a great politician's muscle. Both women show humor, grace, knowledge, and understanding of the world stage.

That's what I'm predicting tonight, October 6th, 2011:Warren/Granholm vs Christy/Rubio. All this will change...tomorrow. But for now....

Update: I've been informed that Granholme was born in Canada, so she is ineligible. Sigh....

Guest House Renovation - Day 2

Just a short video to show the progress. Taken from a crappy androidcam. Sorry. Also, there has been a small change: Instead of the groovy shower with two seats, we're going for something groovier. Photo at the bottom.

Guest House Renovation - Day One Pics

This is the "living room".

Living room from another angle. The blinds haven't been opened in years.

The kitchen. Sorry about the blurriness. Hard to maintain balance.

This was a bedroom. Yes. Someone lived here. Slept here. Amazing.

It's important to remember that the tenants were a 75 year old church deacon and his 41 year old security guard son. So, those are holy scriptures, I guess. Not judging, not judging!

Guest House Renovation - Day 1

The tenants in our back house bounced a check in June.
Then they didn't pay July's rent.
Then they said they would have "something" for me by the last weekend of July, but they didn't.
Then they didn't pay August.
Then we went to court. That was a horror show, with accusations galore. Accusations from them. That because I am jewish I never served in the military.
Yuck.
They were evicted. And rather than squatting, they just bolted. October first they dropped off the keys.
Today the workers went in to start the refurbishing process. It's going to be expensive, but it will be worth it.
We hope.

I know, I know

I haven't finished the Queen for a Day. I just got tired. Sorry. I will. Maybe. Yeah, I will.

And I haven't done a Listening Post in a while, mainly because, with Spotify I can just easily talk about the music I listen to on Facebook.

Alas...progress...

The Elizabeth Lulu Scholarship Foundation Radio Spot

So I'm running for the board of Screen Actors Guild in Hollywood

If you or your friends or your cat or your cgi dog can vote for me, please do.
;)

So, I'm running for the board of Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles

If you can vote for me, great, I would appreciate your vote. Or your friends' votes. Or, well, anyone that can cast a vote for me, actually.

Queen for a Day - Leaving Home Ain't Easy

Brian also wrote a ballad for this album. Truth is, he is the one who comes off best on the record, even though Freddie wrote the biggest hits.
Like a cousin to She Makes Me, Leaving is in the trope of '39 or Long Away. If one put together an album of Brian's mid tempo acoustic tracks frommthe 70s I think they would have made for a pretty standard California rock sounding album.
I dig this song even though the subject matter is trite and on the nose. Like i said earlier: give the boys a phrase and they'll conjure up a tune,

Grade: B


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Queen for a Day - Fun It

Queen goes disco!
Roger came up with this percussive heavy, electric drum, chic guitar track replete with roller disco whistles. As you can see from this song the band was already playing with the style that would garner them great fame and then great enmity in a short time.
My trouble with all the shit on Jazz is that it's all impertinently hummable. The boys are such craftsmen that they can turn crap into, well, not diamonds, but at least zircons.

Grade: B-


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Queen for a Day - Dreamer's Ball

Brian May wrote this for the late Elvis Presley. Sure, why not?
This is a band that has almost completely run out of ideas.
A simple acoustic campfire ditty with a noodley lead accompaniment, the song is trying to evoke a seaside, Leon Redbone sound with Freddie Mercury crooning along.
Meh.

Grade: C-


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Queen for a Day - In Only Seven Days

John Deacon.
I really shouldn't have to say anything more. This is a crappy list song. I hate list songs. In the list he is on vacation and meets a woman who he then can't find and then does...
It's like a shitty movie, Summer Lovers or something. It makes Friday by that Rebecca Black chick seem like genius.
Freddie does his best but this is the band's nadir.

Grade: F


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Queen for a Day - Dead on Time

Opening like the introduction of a second act of a Rawk Show, Dead on Time is the song you play for people who THINK they Queen but only know the hits.
A blues breaker unequaled in the band's repertoire, I played this track for my lead guitarist to show him...well, to show him why I loved Queen.
Building on the shredding of Keep Yourself Alive, Dead takes it to a whole bother level. It's more aggressive then Brighton Rock or Stone Cold Crazy combined.
The harmonies are sparse but they kill when they need to. Freddie is there to serve the song, as is the rest of the band and they are all there to seve Brian's guitar god majesty.
If you think you know Queen or you THINK because you like Tie Your Mother Down you are versed in Brian May and his contribution to the annals of rock, sit down, give this a listen and learn.
A masterpiece.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - If you Can't Beat Them/Let Me Entertain You

Just look at those titles. The first thing that comes to mind, for me, is, hmmm, I think these guys have run out of ideas and are just sitting in the studio, tossing out random phrases and writing songs about them.
Hey, what about a song about being jealous?
You know, if you can't beat them...hey, waitaminnit.
And so on.
Both songs are as trite as they appear, the former is saved by an epic guitar solo that takes the song over and remakes it in it's own image.
The latter is bolstered by Freddie's ego, pomp and pomposity.
Without them, however, they are trash.

If:
Grade: C-
Let:
Grade: B-


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Queen for a Day - Bicycle Race

Dumbest song in the catalog or the most fun?
I particularly love the bike bell battle followed by the descending quarter solo guitar battle.
And the song lends itself perfectly to mashup with eminem 30 years later.
It's goofy, it's piffle and it's a blast.
Credit Freddie and the ensuing all female naked bike race for turning me into an avid cyclist.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - Jealousy

Freddie at his most androgynously treacly. He was always cheeky this qy, hedging his bets and keeping American audiences from running away from him and his co-horts.
Jealousy sounds like an old song from Queen II but it quickly turns into a super ballad that has a toe in Day at the Races and a whole foot in the "we ran out of things to sing about" songbook.
This track would almost qualify as a guilty pleasure if it was pleasurable. Thats not really fair. It has a nice melody. But it feels as though it was written during one bored evening in the studio while waiting for the other band members to arrive.
They've done better.

Grade: C-

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Queen for a Day - Fat Bottomed Girls

Drop D tuning, baby. When I ask my band to learn this song (we never ended up covering it) the guitarists so loved the tuning that they went a wrote the music for a song that would become one our biggest fan favorites, Age of Consent.
Probably the last time Brian really wrote something that sounds like it came out of the Foghat songbook.
That this song would become a single is great. Jazz is one of Queen's least celebrated albums but with RTB back at the controls it's easily one of their best. And this song is a big reason why.

Dirty, raunchy, big and ballsy.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Mustapha

I bought Jazz one summer in Maine and made my father come in and listen to this track with me.
First off, I loved sharing music with my dad. One of my best memories of him is him sitting in my room, listening to the Doors' Greatest Hits with me and asking me questions about why I liked it. He was great that way. He died 21 years ago yesterday.
He had no idea what Freddie was singing. My dad was Israeli, I should mention but much of the lyrics in the song are gibberish, it turns out.
First mostly gibberish song I can totally sing along with.
And what an audacious way to open a record!
I adore Jazz, and a lot of what I love can be found on this song.
It's tight. Great, economic harmonies. Blistering guitar solo.
One of Queen's best.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Melancholy Blues

Freddie Mercury on piano. A dash of Roger gently swishing his drums. Deacon on a jazzy sounding bass. Imagine a late night bar or strip joint.
In another era, this could have been a standard. If Freddie wasn't so flamboyant chances are Sinatra might have recorded it. Or Tom Waits!
Why it isn't an oft recorded classic is beyond me.
A masterwork of maturity.
A high note, for sure,

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - It's Late

And then this comes on and all is right with the world.
It's Late is Brian's attempt to write a three act play. It works on so many levels. It's a killer 70s rock track, complete with heavy, grinding riffage and guttural vocalizing by Freddie.
Brian employs the finger tapping technique that Eddie Van Halen would get the credit for. I'm not saying Brian was the first, just recognizing his forward thinking-ness and mastery.
If Roy Thomas Baker had been retained as producer I'm sure this would be a classic radio staple. As it stands it's a pleasant surprise late in an album that everyone owned for the hits but mint not have stuck around all the way to hear.
Too bad.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Who Needs You

Man, I'm behind. Sorry about that.

John Deacon is back, this time with a Spanish flair. The lyrics are trite, the song matter is banal. Brian's playing is perfect, however. It's about here that Queen fans might have to wonder: do these guys even care anymore?

Grade: C


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Queen for a Day - Sleeping on the Sidewalk

Brian's blues entry for News is a cautionary tale about a trumpet player who becomes a star in the music world told in first person, with his guitar sitting in for the trumpet.
The character goes from obscurity to fame and...well, you get the story. He eventually falls on hard times trying forma hit and is told he has money to pay back...yawn.
It's cute. Deacon's bass playing is actually the star here. The story is trite, the playing mediocre, the singing weak. It's not a great tune.

Grade: C+


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Queen for a Day - Get Down, Make Love

And now it's Freddie's turn. Listening to parts of NotW I cannot begin to understand the "surprise" of Hot Space. The faux soul of this song predates Another One Bites the Dust even.
Its right here. A salacious bit of hedonism-rock, the song is basically an unholy amalgam of Body Language and The Prophet's Song.
If that makes you wanna listen...okay. But there's no reason to pursue this. The spacey breakdown in the middle is enough to make one scream. I, for one, have not listened to this song in almost 30 years, until this project, and listening again, I get why.
The Oscar Wilde of Mr. Mercury has been abandoned for the Plato's retreat of New York's gay subculture. I'm glad Fred found it, for him (although it could be argued that that experience is what eventually took him from us) but the Queen fan is left wishing he hadn't.

Grade: D+


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Queen for a Day - Fight from the Inside

For some reason Roger fancied himself the keeper of the soul or groove of the band. I guess it's because he was the drummer. Trouble is, he's not that great at it. Until his solo record, that is.
And that's what this is. Save a little help from Brian, Roger is solo on this track. He plays everything and sings.
Consequently he seems to have invented the sound for Hot Space.
Forgettable, with a catchy riff.

Grade: B-


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Queen for a Day - Spread Your Wings

Trivia alert! This is the first Queen song without the use of backing harmonies!
It's also the first Jon Deacon song that I actually like. It's a story song with a narrative about an underdog who wants to do something more with his life than just sweeping up the Emerald Bar.
Catchy hook, great vocals by Freddie. It's a weak tune, but most of this album is, it would have to be downhill after Races' masterwork status.
I never understood why Freddie would sing "Wery" for "Very" at some point of the song. More proof that the band is bored.

Grade: C+


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Queen for a Day - All Dead, All Dead

Rumor has it Brian wrote this song about his dead cat. Talk about excess. Reaching the point where your so insulated from the world that you take influence from your cat.
A pretty song sung by Brian, it's harmless and quickly forgettable.

Grade: C-


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Queen for a Day - Sheer Heart Attack

Yes, Roger wrote a song named for their third album and yes, it's also either an attempt to emulate punk or to prove that they could do it do and yes, it's awful. Hard to listen to, poorly produced. Junk.

Grade: D


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Queen for a Day - We Are the Champions

Timeless. Anthemic. Remarkable. The song that cemented Queen's indelible mark on the world for all time. It will be played at stadiums and sports events forever. And it should be. It is absolutely nothing more than it aspires to be. And what it aspires to be is what it is.
Nothing more really needs be said.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - We Will Rock You

After conquering Japan and Europe what was left? The big one. America.
Is there a rock song from the 70s that sounds more American than We Will Rock You? Hardly. It's big, it's boisterous, it's cocky, it's great.
A virtual rap, sung a Capella over a poundingly effective drum beat/hand clap, the tune isn't a song, really. It's a couple verses, an infectious chorus and a big ass guitar solo at the end.
My problems with this and the forthcoming songs is the prodution. Jettisoning Roy Thomas Baker to self produce, the album is dry. Almost as though it was recorded in a vacuum. It's airless. And one thing I want above all else from Queen is flavor. I don't need them to try to be the Stones. I already have that. I don't have enough of what Queen is and can do.
But it's still tremendous.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together)

Queen was big in Japan before anywhere else. Knowing where their bread was buttered Freddie wrote a love song to his fans. Doubling as a standard issue love song, the chorus is sung alternately in English and Japanese, at once pandering and loving.
On top of that, Teo is a gorgeous mid-tempo work which ends their masterpiece with elegance and aplomb.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - Drowse

A loopy, calliope of a tune, Roger avails himself of recent travails. It's still a bit morose, rog ain't the happiest of guys. The "fantastic Drowse" "bores you to rages of tears". See what I mean?
The good news is this song pretty much winds down the album and the playing and production elevates it above a retread of I'm in Love...which it sounds awfully like, to be honest.
Roger's voice fits his song well, I guess, and this precursor to The Wall has a lot of the prog rock elements Floyd would employ.

I would say they should have covered it, but it's not as good as anything Roger Waters could come up with.

Grade: C+

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Queen for a Day - Good Old Fashion Lover Boy

A ditty. Not as cute as, say, Seaside Rendezvous or Lazing, but not disposable, either. And light years from Killer Queen.
It's an overblown, over produced, kitchen sink of a love song with a toe still wading in the 20s striped full body bathing suit era Freddie seems to love. And as close to cabaret as they've ever come.
It's a treat but it's really not about the song. It's the call and answer backups that make it work. And work it does.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - White Man

I hate this song. It's the Sweet Lady of this album. An apology ode to Indians the song is basically another in a long line of Brian May blues rockers. Pick a riff, write a song.
There's nothing fun on it, it's the song you fast forward on cassette. A track that made you hate 8 tracks as much as you did when you had to listen to The Prophet's Song. (a lot of these are May contributions...)
I've spent too much time talking about a song that cribs from every cliche in the rock songbook. This is Queen as Jimi Hendrix meets Mick Jagger. Ugly through and through and not very fun to listen to much less write about.

Grade: D-


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Queen for a Day - Somebody to Love

And then there's this. This was my late daughter's favorite Queen song. Took me a while to be able to listen to it again. I'm glad I can.
If Bohemian Rhapsody represented a level of superstardom for the band it also was something of a novelty tune. With it's opera section and bombast and all.
Somebody to Love is like that song in that it's a centerpiece and an epic and a masterpiece replete with guitar solo and equal bombast but it's also a clearly perfect piece of gospel/rock. The band couldn't have done this without the previous hit. They needed the hubris that a song like that takes. And the practice.
The multi-layering vocals of the band as choral group on this song works so well it's astonishing. it's as though all that they've done before prepared them for this.
This song alone might be their crowning achievement.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - You & I

Ugh, this is one of those treacly, obnoxious, John Deacon songs. It's also grammatically incorrect. It smacks of everything that was cheesy in the 70s. All it's missing is Kiki Dee.
We get it. John loves his wife. She's his muse. But the "de-doo-doo"s and the galloping ramp up to the solo are at once ironic and earnest.
This is a Bay City Rollers song elevated by the band's craft and skill.

Grade: C-


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Queen for a Day - The Millionaire Waltz

I've always though of this song as Races' answer to Bohemian Rhapsody. It's not the showstopper that comes a few songs down, but it's different, and better. Starting and stopping semi-fitfully, it's a song made for the broadway stage, not rock and roll. Forget the 3/4 time waltz tempo, which in and of itself could render it "uncool", the song explodes in the mid section because, well, Queen are a rock band.
Make no mistake, though, this is a piece of eclectic glam rock, supported by money and ego and hubris and talent.
When it turns in on itself for it's most baroque section, Brian is right there with a killer solo that bridges the 19th and the 20th centuries.
When it crumbles into itself and Freddie turns into a German accented cabaret mc it only gets weirder and more sublime.
Definitely a tune that would turn off headbangers and leave rockers scratching their heads, but, for the rest of us, it's sublime.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Long Away

Now we get to the song that I alluded to on an earlier post. The one that galvanized my adoration for the band above all others.
It's not the best song in their catalog. Not by far. But, it was a complete surprise to me at the time I heard it.
I knew of Queen. I wasn't a fan yet. I was into New Wave and punk. My younger brother liked them. He was 9 at the time. I was 14. It was 1980.
He had the 8 track to A Day at the Races and I put it on one day on the downstairs stereo. Then I went up to my room after I cranked it up loud enough for me to her it while I was reading some science fiction magazine.
No one was home and I would often do this, much to the chagrin of my neighbors.
When Long Away came on, I thought I had made a mistake. This wasn't Queen. I knew the song, I had heard it on the radio, but it couldn't be Queen. I always thought it was Fleetwood Mac. Queen were the guys who did that glammy stuff. Bohemian Rhapsody and Killer Queen, right?
But it was and is them.
An acoustic guitar driven song, like the last album's '39, Long Away is obsessed with stars and the universe, etc. But it's prettier; a jaunty 70s acoustic rock epic that gets it's power and success from Roger and John's simple but effective rhythm section. And his reedy, weak voice works on this record where it has failed him so much in the past.
Brian would try this kind of song many more times on future records but never get it quite as right as he did here.

Grade: A



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Queen for a Day - You Take My Breath Away

How lovely is this song? Opening with a flurry of harmonies done by Freddie it features him on piano singing an ode to a great love. One that does what the title says.
As we move to the second verse, he is accompanied briefly by his own backing vox.
The song builds (big surprise) after a "chorus" reminiscent of the multi-layers that were used so well on II.
Then a brief guitar solo, backed by layers of guitars, then Freddie is back. He says what he means, clearly with an "I love you" and we're done.
A few seconds later, a heady swirl of voices eventually reveal themselves to be, once again, the title of the song.
Take My Breath is one of my favorites in the band's catalog and shows quite a bit of maturity. Coming second after the rocking masterstroke it's a sure sign that the guys are secure in their writing, performing and the strength of their music.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - Tie Your Mother Down

It opens with a guitar based, quasi japanese theme. It turns into a swirl of sounds that gives way to a massive, Jimmy Page style riff that, according to the liner notes, was labeled "sheer bloody poetry" by The Times.
After the hodgepodge of the last album, and the weak blues rock entry of Sweet Lady, this is most welcome.
The band is more than up for task, especially the writer, Brian, whose solo is the best he's come up with so far. A true 70s arena rocker of a solo.
But Freddie shows his feathers and flair and crushes this tune. It's like the back end of BoRhap set free and made into it's own.
The Times was right. With this song, Queen took it to the next level.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - God Save the Queen

As an homage to Hendrix, as an album coda, as a bit of pomp and circumstance, this song is the perfect album closer. Do we need it? No. Is it offensive in any way? No. Useful? Yes. Using this song in concert allowed the band to soar to new heights of royal theatricality.
It's 1 minute of your time. It's nice. Toothless. But nice.

Grade: B+


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Queen for a Day - Bohemian Rhapsody

I wonder if, really, anything needs to be said here. Has there been a song about which more has been written over the years?
We know about Freddie adding more and more "Galileos". We know about playing it on RTB's glass piano. We know about...everything.
If you aren't familiar with it, you weren't alive during the last quarter century.
My favorite nugget about BoRhap comes from Wayne's World. Before 1992 i still felt as though being a Queen fan was like being Kurt Hummel in Glee. Then, boom. Queen was cool. And then Freddie's song "Barcelona" Became the theme to the Olympics and vindication was at hand. Then Metallica and Axl Rose played Queen songs at The Concert for Life.
And Queen fans in America never needed to hide their heads again.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Good Company

After the blues breaker, the skiffle and the prog rock, Brian is back, this time with a bit of fluff. His ukelele in tow, Mr. May tosses off a little familial disappointment (sort of a hidden forte, it seems) with Good Company.
It's more than a wee bit loopy, perhaps inspired by the fab four but coming across more like the Mael Brothers.
It's a catchy ditty, sure, and it certainly isn't out of place on this record, but after Seaside Rendezvous and Lazing on a..., it comes across as a bit of envious wannabe-ism.

Grade: B


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Queen for a Day - Love of My Life

Is Love of My Life the most beautiful song Queen ever produced? Arguably. It's definitely up there. It somehow become a stadium anthem, especially in South America.
A pretty piano. An acoustic guitar. A harp. It's treacly and yet it works.
Expanding on the love-abandoned theme of Nevermore, the singer basically begs to have love returned that once was. It probably won't. But Freddie's earnest devotion tugs at your heart and that simple Red Special solo coupled with that crescendoing piano, exploding into a climax of pain, with the requisite multi-Freddie backing vox make this one one of the band's best ever.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - The Prophet's Song

Ugh. I've been not looking forward to this one since I started this project.
When I had a copy of Night on 8-track (lord...) this song was split up between track 2 and 3 which meant listening to the album was always a chore.
TPS starts off as some 70s hippy shit that should have been left on their debut, never to be seen or heard again. But if that's not bad enough, this Jesus Christ Superstar wanna be then devolves into a over produced, multi layered extended vocal solo, then harmony session that lasts a good 2-3 minutes. And you will hate it.
The song is based on a dream that Brian had about Noah's ark.
I haven't heard it in almost 20 years. It's just as pretentious and bad as I recall.

Grade: D


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Queen for a Day - Seaside Rendezvous

Freddie and Roger imitating horns and woodwinds? Count me in. If you forget that the last three tracks exist and just go straight to this one an image begins to emerge of this album.
It's the Freddie Mercury show and everyone else is just along for the ride.
Now, not a rock song by any stretch, it's a turn of the previous century jaunt. Imagine full body, striped bathing suits and umbrellas. A honkey tonk piano.
jollification? Tres charment?!? Spectacular.
Let's ride upon the omnibus and then the casino.

Grade: A+

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Queen for a Day - Sweet Lady

The first song I ever heard by Queen that made me think, "eh, standard 70s fare". This May tune is the kind of mediocre blues breaker that you expect to hear on the soundtrack to Almost Famous.
It's poor latter day Stones.
Unremarkable in almost every way.

Grade: C-


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Location:W 25th St,Los Angeles,United States

Queen for a Day - '39

For a long time this was my favorite song on the record. It's written y and sung by Brian and is a loopy little skiffle ditty about interstellar travelers who leave "in the year of '39" to look for planets to populate and when they come back, everyone they know has died due to the way time works in space.
None of that really matters as this is a track that is at once completely out of place amidst the bombast and fits perfectly in with the kitchen sink mentality of the record.
I think it's important to note that this is the first time a Brian May song has not opened a Queen record and that his first offering comes after everyone else has had their shot. Additionally, it's the sweetest thing the guy has come up with however, I've always felt that the production was a bit muddy. Nonetheless, I always dreamt of just picking up a guitar anywhere (the earliest fantasies was in high school after hours) and playing this tune.
I would finally learn it 20 years later but it wasn't the same...

Grade: A-


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Location:S Congress Ave,Los Angeles,United States

Zoe and the X-men

Guess who got sucked in to the marketing of the new X-Men movie.



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Queen for a Day - You're My Best Friend

John Deacon rears his songwriting head and comes up with the band's second, sure fire, radio friendly, super massive hit.
Starting off with a cheesy wurlitzer organ, the song comes across like the sound of the day. Meaning, it's dangerously close to the Captain and Tenille.
Rogers giant drums, the multi harmonies, Freddie's earnest singing, Brian's killer guitar work and RTB's production, elevate the song so high that it still turns up in movies and commercials. Nearly 40 years after it's release.
On the remastered you can really hear the xylophone-esque keyboard in the background.

It's cheese, but ready made wedding cheese.

Grade: B-


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Queen for a Day - I'm in Love with My Car

A truly ridiculous song. Truly. A love song to a car. Four albums in and Roger continues to prove that as a songwriter he's an awesome drummer.
Yet, it's catchy as hell. Why? Well beyond rhyming "forget her" with "carburetor", it's also earnest while at the same time knowing just how dumb it is.
It's a bad song, but those harmonies are killer. And it made roger a rich man since he begged Freddie to let it be the B side to Bohemian Rhapsody. Therefore it sold with that song and made a fortune for him. It's not the worst thing ever but it's pretty stupid.

Grade: C+



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Queen for a Day - Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon

A hard left turn after the opener, Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon is the closest the band comes to sounding like Sparks.
A trifle at barely a minute, it features multi layered vocals by Fred as well as some sweet almost honkey tonk piano playing.
Even more effete than he's ever been before this is another side of Freddie as Wilde. It also represents a nice palette cleanser from the screed that came before and, like the previous two records, represents part of a larger whole as it smashes into the next song with senseless yet perfectly sensible abutting.

Grade: A+

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Queen for a Day - Death on Two Legs (dedicated to...)

By time queen went in to the studio to record what would be, at that time, the most expensive album ever recorded, they had broken up with their manager, Norman Sheffield. A man so evil by all accounts that, despite having a number one hit, Freddie had to beg to borrow a few quid to buy a new piano. Shameless.
So, Freddie penned a screed so hateful, funny and lacerating that it could be used as a poison pen letter for, well, just about anyone or any circumstance warranting it.
The studio magic is effortless and leaps above anything they had done before. In a way it calls to mind Ogre Battle in it's sheer bombast but there's a biting subtlety or nuance to it.
Starting off with a piano as calliope, it descends into madness and then back to glam meets rock theater piece. It's got teeth, this one, not just lyrically. This song is loaded for bear. Better heard on headphones, there's so much going on, fitfully stopping, disappearing, starting again, soloing, it's the kitchen sink of Queen.
And then it's gone.

Fred's pissed off but he's still above it. On this track, he transforms himself from pomp rocker to the Oscar Wilde of music.

Grade: A+

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Queen for a Day- In the Lap of the Gods...revisited

The first real "anthem" in the bands catalog, Lap has little to do with the Side Two opener save the name. Instead, it's a stadium ready beast that seems to say (well, Freddie is the one saying it, really) "we are meant to pay for thousands, nay, HUNDREDS of thousands of people and we can pull it off!"
And pull it off he does. I mean, they do.
A true coda, a genuine finale, to a near perfect record and one that stands the test of 27 years' time.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilletoes)

Utilizing a wall of sound, heavy breathing and some elegiac harmonies reminiscent of The Monkees' The Porpoise Song, Brian May comes up with the only...ballad?
It's a fitting coda to this hodgepodge of a record if the least inventive or interesting. I enjoy the nightmare city sounds that overwhelm the song toward the end but thats about it. Not a lot of thought went into this one.

Grade: C

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Queen for a Day - Bring Back That Leroy Brown

Another harbinger of what would come on the next record this is a retro vaudeville song complete with brian may on ukelele, jangly piano, some terrific noodling by Brian on electric and some neat bass playing by John. The real treat here is Freddie. Doubling, tripling, acting, echoing, he does everything.
The economy of the song is remarkable. It packs an epic into a tight, taut, 2+ minutes.
Perhaps my favorite song on the record, it's hard to imagine that this was the same album that started off with the hard rocking Brighton Rock as we are now in full on eclectica.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Misfire

The first John Deacon penned track is the tritest song on the record. And the one that harkens the most to The Beatles. Mostly in instrumentation, with the loopy lick and the bouncy McCartney bass line. The song itself is the definition of forgettable, so thank goodness it's just 1:50. Hard to believe that the writer of this song would go on to write some of the band's biggest hits.
This is not one. However, Neko Case, on her solo album, covered this song, for some reason and it turned out pretty spiffy. Maybe it just needed to be sung by a woman, that way the lyrics can sound like bad come ons rather than poorly misguided double entendres, which I don't think they were meant to be, but seem to be.
Trite indeed.

Grade: C-


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Queen for a Day - Dear Friends

In keeping with the concept of this being the boys' Abbey Road, Brian May follows the shredtastic Stone Cold Crazy with a piece of piffle. A little piano piece featuring Freddie's exceptional vocals. Another song that could be longer but end up being the perfect length and just over a minute. Its almost an interlude. An interlude to what, i don't know. But it works. Gentle and sweet. And those backing vocals...wow. Just beautiful.

Grade: A-


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Queen for a Day - Stone Cold Crazy

Have you ever heard Metallica do this song? They really didn't have to do much to make it sound authentically metal. It's a shredder of a piece. Spitfire rapped out verses with no melody to speak of sandwiched between the title as chorus sung as in signature harmony. There's a killer riff all over this track and a fiery solo. It's a blast. It's the Polythene Pam of Sheer Heart Attack. And it sounds fresh almost 40 years later.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - In the Lap of the Gods

Perhaps the most bizarre song in the bands earlier catalog. It's not the first operatic venture (March of the Black Queen) but it is easily the main precursor to BoRhap. But much weirder.
The opening verse starts with the obligatory opera shrieks but turns into a ballad where Freddie's voice is mangled to the point of unrecognizability, then the chorus is some bastardized Beatles latter day track and the scat wails by Roger echo Pink Floyd.
And the words "Lap of the Gods" are just repeated for a few mintues until the song disintegrates into nothingness replaced by the next. It's as though the guys had been listening to side two of Abbey Road non stop and this is what they came up with.
As a song, it's ho hum at best. As an experiment in studio manipulation and band boldness? It's a smash.

Grade: B+


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Queen for a Day - Now I'm Here

The first real stadium ready, blues breaking, anthem in the bands repertoire, comes at the end of Sheer's first side.
It's raucous, fun and a showcase for Brian. Who perhaps was making up for lost time on the first record.
Sort of the spiritual cousin of Brighton Rock, Now is the hybrid of glam and blues. A real tour de force that shows the band maturing into something great.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - Lily of the Valley

The kindred spirit of Nevermore. It's a lovely, if super short ballad featuring Freddie on piano and vocals and vocals and vocals. Wen the rest of the band comes in, you'd swear this song is longer and even more fully realized than it is. But it's just 1:45. And it's awesome.
This sort of sound and ballad would be expanded on in a few years on A Day at the Races.

Grade: A

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Queen for a Day - Flick of the Wrist

Another suite! Funster leads right into the dark screed that is Flick of the Wrist. A song that warns against signing with a devilish recording manager, it's well known that, in the early days, Queen were indentured servants to their management company. Hit songs on the radio and Freddie begging to borrow money to pay for a new piano. In the future the boys would become so guarded about their image that the propaganda would be off putting and impenetrable.
This song is a warm up for Death on Two Legs.
Here its a terrifically angry anthem. Multi vocals harmonizing like soaring bats and gargoyles. No filigree, no fat, just theatre and rock.
The song doesn't end, however, and that's a sorry part, as it tries to emulate the previous album by folding into a ballad.
But that's for tomorrow.

Grade: A

http://m.youtube.com/index?client=mv-google&desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US&rdm=4mltwaush#/watch?v=jeGZf97Q4m4


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Queen for a Day - Tenement Funster

It's the Roger song, what does that mean? Mid-tempo rocker, all down beats, relatively colorless. It is nothing more than a dress rehearsal for "I'm in love with my car".

Grade: C+

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPAkL3wO27E

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Queen for a Day - Killer Queen

Sorry about not posting this yesterday, the whole day got away from me. But the good news is that today is a twofer. Since it Tuesday, that seems appropriate.

Queen has a hit! Finally.
The funny thing is it's nothing like one would have expected, given their output the last two records. It's a piano/harpsichord driven piece of jaunt about a high class hooker. It's lyrical, yes, but musically, it's so steeped in the "glam" sound of 1974, it could have been written by Sparks. Or Raspberries, if they had the sensibility.
Killer also contains the tastiest and most melodic guitar solo Brian May had ever recorded.
It's a "pop" single in the purest 1974 sense of the word,yet it's also timeless.
Confection is a word often used to describe stuff like this and it fits for a reason.

Grade: A+

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cEsOP9nQU

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Queen for a Day - Brighton Rock

Named after a candy, the first track off Queen's first breakthrough album, Sheer Heart Attack, is a Brian May tour de force. All the more interesting in that Brian was in the hospital with hepatitis during much of the album's initial recording, it's a real lead guitar tour de force. At about 3 minutes in the entire band drops out save for Brian and his multi-layered contrapuntal, six string electric call and response. In fact, the whole song is almost just an excuse for that and one that would show some real muscle in concert.

Freddie plays both the male and female in the song, who are worried that their love tryst will be found out and he avails himself well, as do the rest of the band, but, make no mistake, this is s Brian May Show. The third time in a row that a song by Brian would open a Queen album.

Grade: A

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdUKi3_QntE


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Queen for a Day - Seven Seas of Rhye

On the first album this song was half finished and yet, to whet the appetite for the future listener (read: fill time), the band included it. That version was sluggish and not well though out.
Things are mighty different this time out.
The piano is played with purpose. The guitar glisses are cinematic. The band is tighter. And, most important, Freddie is in full glam-bat out of hell vocal regalia.
There is tension as we come out of the solos that suggest an army of bat Ike gargoyles swooping down with a vengeance.
The song ends with a happy beach going chorus fighting their way in to be heard, and they win out in the end, suggesting out emergence from whatever funhouse fantasia this album has been.

Grade: A

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsXJ_bfy98c


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Queen for a Day - Funny How Love Is

Queen would never sound like this again. Employing Phil Spector's "wall of sound" technique, this tune actually harkens back to Freddie's Larry Lurex "I can hear music" days.
It's a fun tune, whimsical, with multi-layered vocals flying all over the place, I'm not sure any other other members are on it save Roger. The fourth track in the Side Black suite, it was never performed live, which is a shame, since it would have been such a fun song to sing along to.

Grade: A

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnIOd6EioWw


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Queen for a Day - March of the Black Queen

It starts off simply. A piano and an interstitial guitar. Within seconds it explodes with multilayered harmonies and before you know it, it revs up into a high gear, like a juggernaut. Even when it turns into a near a Capella it still rolls at 100mph.
Then, a guitar solo amidst a march the Red Queen would have been jealous of.
In short, it's March of the black Queen, the centerpiece of Queen II. And I've always wondered why anyone would have been surprised at the operatic hit a few years later since that's what this song is: opera.
If there is one song that truly represents all Queen was about, it's this one. Everyone shines from the players to the producers. There are so many surprises (and a beloved harpsichord) and treats and movements, it's an impossible song to deny. It plays like a five act play. Truthfully, all of side black begs to be turned into a musical theater experience.
Sublime.
(note: Blogger's servers were down yesterday when this was supposed to publish. There will be another entry later tonight.)

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Nevermore

Clocking in at 1:15, the ballad in the middle of the four song suite acts more like the turning point in a musical. The banishment from love that freddie is singing about could just as easily be the banishing of a prince or princess. It's not. It's a love ballad, a sad one and one that doesn't linger for very long. The harmonies are majestic, far reaching and elegiac, the piano playing sparse and delicate. It's a lovely little piece, a harbinger (again) of music to come in about two years. It works fine as a sketch, a doodle. It's s little treacly but I don't really mind that either. Sweet.

Grade: B+



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Queen for a Day - The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke

So, Freddie saw this painting by Richard Dadd and wrote a song describing everything in it. In just over 2.5 minutes. It's speedy, it's wordy (a good apothecary man?!?), there's a guitar solo PRECEDED by a HARPSICHORD solo!! The song is an epic part of the multiple song suite that makes up Side Black and it was never played live. Why should they? At best it's piffle. Middle earthian piffle.
It's also one of the best songs Queen ever produced.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day -Ogre Battle

Okay, here we are. Finally.
How to describe "ogre battle"? It's metal/glam explosion of backwards masking, sudden harmonies, mythological creatures that aren't annoying, bombast, and musicianship.
If you marry the early 70s obsession with middle earth to a combination of of metal and pop rock, you *might* get an idea of what this song is all about.
"Ogre Battle" starts off Side Black, the side of the record that is 100% Freddie Mercury. Most of it is one long seamless suite of bombast and theater. Everything that would coalesce into their biggest hit just one year later, the song that still stands as one of the greatest of all time, can be found here in side black.
"Ogre" may be dumb in subject but it's brilliant in craft.
It's really best to just listen to it. I think you'll agree.
(I will provide a link when I am at my actual computer. No way to link from e iPad.)


Grade: A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DvlYv5RrVQ&sns=em


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Queen for a Day - Loser in the End

Roger Taylor's contribution to Queen II is a generic Taylor Tune. Mid-tempo, downbeat, slave to its rhythm (hey, he's a percussionist!). Roger would get this formula right in a few records and eventually score a number one hit about 13 years later with it. I should make a Roger Taylor only playlist just to see how similar his songs are.
If there is a theme in Queen II, "Loser in the End" fits nowhere in it. It's a song about how mothers are discarded and unneeded as one gets older. Pity her, she's a sad case.
Wow, how appropriate that this tune lands on Mother's Day.
It's a glorious mess of aimless guitar soloing, schizoid percussion and cowbells (At least I think they're cowbells..).
And thus ends the Mercury-less side of Queen II.
Tomorrow Queen really gets going.

Grade: B-

Queen for a Day - Some Day, Some Way

In a few weeks we will get to the track that made me fall completely in love with Queen. Because I thought they were Fleetwood Mac. And it's not like I love FM.
This isn't that song, but it's very similar. Just about every Queen album includes a skiffly acoustic track written by Brian. This is that song. It's cute. It's a little too in love with the stars. A little too trippy (on the Red Special solos).
But worst of all for this blog series:
It's not sung by Freddie. Since this series was dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Mercury's death I just thought it was important to point that out.
That aside, the trouble with May's vocals is he's trying too hard to be an accomplished vocalist. You can hear it in his very forced vibrato. Brian always had a weak voice. Certainly not a rock voice. Or a rock voice that fits the power of this band. Fortunately on this song, power isn't necessary. So, it's fine. It's not great. Just passable.

Grade: B-

Queen for a Day - White Queen (As It Began)

(Update: This post was accidentally named for the song that follows. I apologize for any confusion. Don't be confused! All 3 of you that read this blog!)

Continuing the Brian May dominance on Side White of Queen II, the lead guitarist offers the sadly lovely White Queen (As It Began). I have often wondered which came first, this or the Freddie penned March of the Black Queen on the other side. Doesn't really matter, they're completely different. And exactly what they should be in this almost Wizard of Oz-ian Queen records. I say that because once we get past the relative normalcy (albeit a funhouse mirror of normal) of the first side, the album shifts gears and becomes a completely different animal.
This track calls to mind some middle earthy tones. It's majestic. It's almost too Tolkien. And it could have taken that dive and not recover but the May/Deacon/Taylor power rips that theme to shreds. The song almost dares Freddie to take his theatrics to a new level. He doesn't take the bait. And that's a great thing. Instead, he offers the sweetest balladeering that we've heard from him so far. With weaker production and less studio time, "White Queen" could have easily been just another half assed track like the stuff from the previous record. Instead, it soars into a prog-rocky territory that resembles Yes, ELP and, I'm going with Priest. Or someone. It's not the greatest track ever, but it fits perfectly. Side White would soon become the side of the album that you never played. So, when a track comes up on shuffle that is from that side, it's always welcome.

Grade: B

Queen for a Day - Procession/Father to Son

Okay. Now that we're done with the shite that was that first record we can get to the album that really begins to solidify the Queen sound and sensibility. I came to Queen II late in my adoration of the band. I think I was 15 and had no idea it even existed. But once I saw it and put it on the turntable that summer in Maine in 1981, it never came off. I moved the record player and a speaker into my parents' store on Main St so, when I opened the store I could play this record.
Divided into two sides, White and Black, it has been universally accepted that White opens the record and for good reason. "Procession" is a guitar laden pomp and circumstance into to royalty, laying the foundation for the kind of sounds Brian May would exemplify and, in doing so, become a guitar hero to a legion of young players.
The next song, "Father to Son" could just be a message from a father to his son but since it flows seamlessly from the Procession, I've always imagined some royal highness aspect to it.
As a musical experience, it's a monster. The sheer enormity of it is easy to discount in retrospect because we've come to expect that from this band, but they really invented it right here with this song. The remnants of prog and hippitude are divested and replaced by a stadium ready anthem sound.
The multi-layered vocals, the harmonies, the acoustic guitars fighting for dominance with the electric, the cinematic fade into the next track...it's all so delicious that I am loathe to stop here.
I will. Because this record just gets better and better with each listen.

Grade: A+

Queen for a Day - Mad the Swine

Much as I would love to be moving on the next Queen record (which is a personal favorite) I would be remiss if I didn't include the previous to 1991 unreleased "Mad the Swine". According to Wikipedia the reason it was left off was that producer Roy Thomas Baker and the band were unsatisfied with the quality of the percussion. I would hasten to add: also cuz it's a really dumb song. I say this because a) I've never had an issue with the percussion, in fact I think it's the best thing on the song and because b) it's a dumb song about a prophetic angel who has come back but "this time I wear no sandals". He is Mad the Swine who has come to save everyone ala Jesus. In fact, from everything Freddie sings (Crap like "Let me take you to the river without a fall") its the story of the return of Jesus. But why is his name "Mad"? And why is he referred to as "the Swine"?
Ugh. I think they just blamed Roger for the fact that Freddie wrote a piece of shit and they recorded it. This song stinks of early 70s love-fest, Godspell-ian hippy, robe-flowing crap.

Grade: D

Queen for a Day - Jesus/Seven Seas of Rhye

Okay, today's a bonus day. Two songs for one day! But, not really.

Jesus is awful. It's a trippy, neo-quasi-semi psychedelic telling of the story of Jesus of Nazareth. It wasn't uncommon for metal bands to mine the bible (or Tolkien, or the middle ages) for material. I don't recall anyone being as blatant as this entry by Queen. It's a pretty boring song and it ends a mediocre album for good reason. If you made it to the end you might become a fan. With it's plodding, marching rock sound meets Andrew Lloyd Webber-esque flowing robes/flower power sentiment, it's just a long exercise of dumb rock. May's solo toward the end shows some promise, though.
Now, I can't totally blame Queen for all of the mess that this song and the rest of the album is. They only got to record on off hours as part of their deal with their management and Trident Studios. So, it's no wonder the record is a hodgepodge. Things would only get better.
Right?

The other song is the actual album closer. A "coda" if you will. The legend goes that Freddie wasn't done writing "Seven Seas of Rhye" but they included what they had anyway. It sounds incomplete. Like a band that has great ideas but not enough time or money to complete them. Freddie's playing hints at some really great things to come. I've always been curious about the decision to put a half written, not entirely conceived song on an album. Seems like a weird thing to do. It's not like it's long enough to qualify as "filler". Oh, well. They'll get back to it.

Jesus Grade: D
Seven Seas of Rhye: C



No Vid for Seven Seas. You're just gonna have to wait....trust me.

Queen for a Day - Son and Daughter

Jeez, guys, Sabbath much? This is Queen at its heaviest. Sludgiest. One of the (few) things I like about this song, as opposed to dislikes, (like freddie's mic...) is the sudden burst into multi-harmonies from the vocals. It doesn't last long but it's a high point and it aims right at what their signature will end up being.
Now, about Freddie's mic...He's modulated way to high and pushed to the point of distortion. He sounds like Julian Casablancas would 30 years later on the first Strokes album. It's a mess. The production here is a disaster and the song isn't much to write home about. The playing is pedestrian, the orchestration sloppy. The song showcases John Deacon a bit but he doesn't have that much to do here besides holding down the sludge.
Skip it. I'm not going to post the original recording. Watch the live version from the 74 Rainbow show instead. It's better. If the song sounded like this on the record it would have gotten a grade and a half higher.

Grade: D-

Queen for a Day - Modern Times Rock and Roll

For years this was my favorite song on what I would have described as a half-assed attempt to be current, schizophrenic debut. It's barely a blip, coming in at under 2 minutes. It's speed metal with feedback, full stops, lightning solos and, surprisingly no drum flash. Given that it was written by a drummer.
Sure, it really wants to be a Zeppelin track. But it also wants to me thrash metal, which predates a lot of that stuff. Roger was always the rock and roller in the band. The guy voted most likely to sleep with models and have babies out of wedlock (I believe he conquered those). He was the one with the candy stripe suit in pictures inside Live Killers. Roger was the guy i wanted to be. He seemed like he was having the most fun. With Keep Yourself Alive, this is as straight ahead rock as this album was going to give.
I dig it.

Grade: A

Queen for a Day - The Night Comes Down

Oh, if ever there was a song that sounded like a band obsessed with Jimmy Page it's this one. Written by May between Smile and Queen it smacks of all that is annoying about 70s frilly-hippy-metal rock. Goofball lyrics ("Lucy was high and so was I), a sound so desperate to be pulchritudinous in it's adoration of the southern california sun-baked music that it just fails on so many levels. Put it this way: if this was the direction the band had followed, in other words, if Freddie wasn't there to take them on a theatrical journey of over the top stadium glam, Queen would have been one and done.

Grade: D

Queen for a Day: Liar

Liar opens Side Two of Queen and it is truly the moment when the band declared their importance in the pantheon of theatrical rock. It's credited to Freddie Mercury but that was mainly because he decided that the lyricist (and hence the writer of the melody) should be the writer of note. But it's obvious that this is a song written by an entire group with a focus. It's closest not to Bohemian Rhapsody, although it is the spiritual cousin of that song, but to Now I'm Here. At the moment I'm writing this I'm listening to a dual guitar solo attack by May that breaks into a percussion based "All Day Long" breakdown. Which, like BoRhap later, is replaced by a crescendoing May led instrumental section. As it concludes it turns into a sort of theater coda, an almost symphonic denouement.
There's no chance one guy wrote this song. Not these guys at this time.
It's a stellar work, however and deserving of ranking among the best of the band's canon.

Grade: A

Queen for a Day - My Fairy King

As we close the side one of the debut album we are privy to the first real taste of the Queen Sound. Multi-layered baking vox, histrionic vocals, triumphant falsetto, balladeering mid-section and some fiery ferocious piano playing (the first we've gotten to hear from Freddie) all result in a splendid suggestion as to what would lay in store. This song (and others on the album) are the real roots for the next album's theatrical style, and it shows Freddie in all his glory.
He would decide, from the lyric in this song "Oh Mother Mercury, see what they've done to me", to change his last name and become Freddie Mercury, no longer Farookh Bulsara.
And a star is born.

Grade: A-

Queen for a Day - Great King Rat

Oh, the 70s. Queen was one of those bands that, in their early days, got caught up in the middle earthian mythologies that groups like Zeppelin were dabbling in. Sandals, middle ages, pomp, etc. While Great King Rat is not about that, per se, it sounds like it should be. It's just a goofy prog-metal tune about an evil dude who died from syphilis. The lyrics are insipid but they work. Because Queen was about not the content as much as the spectacle. They would pretty much invent stadium rock, along with many other greats of the era and this smells of that.
It's also noteworthy in that it changes so many times throughout, tempos, styles, it's less a song than it is a tryout for what would become their signature song, a template for one of the biggest tracks in rock history. It's not the last time this would happen, either.
Great King Rat is Freddie's first written song in the band's catalog. It's got a lot going for it, if it's not a pure success. Like much of their work, it's a showcase for what they could and would be able to do.

Grade: B+

Queen for a Day - Doing All Right

The second track on Queen's debut record is a dribbly ballad that wishes it was Zeppelin but comes across as a treacly ode to the burgeoning California sound. It breaks into sections, falls into a minor key, comes back as a jazzy groove number, it's all over the place and then it explodes for no real reason. It's a schizophrenic as a song could be. And just when you think it's going to go over the top it submits to it's own naive ineptitude and repeats this cycle, playing out as the hard rocker it never was and resolves itself to be a footnote in the band's catalog. Co-written by Brian May's Smile bandmate Tim Staffell, it's the last time an outside co-writer would be included until the band's final year. Good thing.

Grade: D+

Queen for a Day - Keep Yourself Alive

On November 24th 1991 Freddie Mercury died. He was my age. That just really blows my mind...
Queen really started in 1972 although they formed 2 years prior, and, like lightning, were topping the british charts in no time. They exploded here for a while and by 1985 had almost retired from making music. It was the Live Aid show that reignited them. In those 15 years they did everything from glam, pop, rock, metal, dance, you name it. So, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Freddie's death I present Queen for a Day. Each day, one queen song, in released order, in album order. About 100 words and some media to go with it, if I can find it.
Let us begin at the beginning.

Queen - Keep Yourself Alive - from the album Queen - 1973.

Ironic, isn't it? In the end that's really what Freddie was trying to do. But the song isn't about that. It seems to be about not rocking the boat and just keeping status quo to get by. The narrator talks about being told that there's so much adversity out there that he should just keep himself alive and make due. And then it switches in the second verse and the narrator is a success and sated and still unsure of what his goal should be. Basically, it's a paean to avarice, greed and unrest. But that's not what the song is.
What it is is a tour de force, out of the gate, uber-rocker. Hard to believe that this group was just three guys and a lot of power. It's all about Brian May's overdub guitar playing. he would do this throughout the band's career; make one guitar sound like an orchestra, with delay pedals and a genius imagination.
The song COULD fall apart and be just another glam rock, power pop track. In fact, after listening to it back to back with some music of the era, I can definitely hear Bay City Rollers or Raspberries, but May won't allow it to crumble because he's a Hendrixian and those bands never had any of that. And Taylor won't allow it either, because he's as full of bombast as Mercury. This is a song with not one, but two breakdowns. One of them is a DRUM SOLO that prefaces the GUITAR SOLO in the same break! The other one is a call and response.
One of my favorite studio techniques in the song that I tried to find a place for on Throttle Back Sparky's album was how Freddie's voice will trail off and the next line will come in before the previous one is done. It's electric because it's obvious showmanship that never once detracts from the flow of the song. In fact, I think it enhances it.
The track is really a calling card. Queen are here. Deal with it.
It's a showstopper. That they chose to open the record and their career with.
Brilliant.

Grade: A

Listening Post: The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come

The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come - 2009

I've been listening to the 27 part Yale lecture series on the Civil War which I downloaded from iTunes. The lecturer, David Blight, is an expert on the subject and suggests a series of corollary works to read alongside the class.
I am NOT going to do that.
I'm just going to enjoy the lecture and learn what I can.
This is the same approach I am taking to the new Mountain Goats album. Why does it matter? Because every song is named after a passage of the bible and I have no intention of looking them up and figuring out how they relate to the subject matter.
I think that's a little too much work, truly.
This is also the first Mountain Goats that I am really not that interested in recommending. Why? Well, to be honest, it's a little petty. The lead single track, Genesis, was so evocative, the perfect little MG ditty that I was so excited to hear the next collection of songs after the brilliance of Heretic Pride.
But that was not the case. The rest of the songs are so quiet, intimate, difficult to penetrate, that I kind of feel like someone said, "Hey, John, we need a single." And we were given a track that could have been on the previous record.
Look, this is standard issue Mountain Goats. The songcraft is there, the topic matter is there. Its just that this is the first time that I feel like it's a yawn. We've been here before.
Still, there are haunting moments of Goats-ian brilliance. But this isn't an essential Darnielle record in the least.

Grade: B
ASide: Genesis 3:23
BlindSide: Psalms 40:2, Hebrews, 11:40
DownSide: Matthew 25:21

Listening Post: The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride

The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride - 2008

This review was originally presented in Shuffleboil.

In “San Bernadino,” the second track on The Mountain Goats’ new album “Heretic Pride,” John Darnielle sings, “We got in your car and we hit the highway.” A simple line that, through the economy of language that is Darnielle’s specialty, gives away the entire relationship of the couple that has pulled off the side of the road to park at the motel and have their baby in bathtub. A married couple shares their cars. Single people own their own vehicles. It’s her car. It’s their baby. They aren’t married. And they “will never be alone, no matter what they say, [they’re] gonna be okay.” We believe him. Everything will work out just fine. It’s an optimistic piece to say the least. And it embodies everything that is great about The Mountain Goats.





The economy of language. The true power lies in the nuance. God is in the details. Most singer songwriters never get this. Most poets hide behind veils of symbolism and simile. John Darnielle inhabits his subjects and conveys their essences with just a turn of phrase, a specific pronoun, a descriptive Marcus Allen t-shirt. The album’s title is taken from one of the best tracks and in his press release/comic Darnielle makes a point to let us know that the heretic who is empowered by the “reckoning”, emboldened by his martyrdom, strengthened by his physical abuses, dies shortly after the song ends. The author is god to his creations and takes glee and pride in knowing that their lives don’t just begin at the first drum beat and end at the fade out. His characters pre-exist and post-exist in this universe that is The Mountain Goats.

That Darnielle is a master of the music-as-novella is not new information. The “alpha” characters who have been chronicled over the years in various songs and then as the main protagonists of “Tallahassee,” the first album The Goats did for 4AD, are fully formed, constantly evolving people who Darnielle keeps coming back to. Keeps writing about. They are, however, fiction. Making the colossal nature of the work that much more spellbinding.

There isn’t a substandard moment on “Heretic Pride”, though some have felt that it isn’t as focused as “Tallahasee” or “The Sunset Tree”. It doesn’t have a song as shattering as Get Lonely’s “Woke Up New” A MUST download track for everyone who has ever lost someone through breakup or death. This album is more of a collection of songs.




Like “Autoclave,” an urgent and ironically folky retro new wave throwback about a person who is so incapable of love that his heart acts as a dentist’s autoclave, destroying any emotion that comes near it.

Or my personal favorite (of the moment), “Lovecraft in Brooklyn.” In the case of that song, it isn’t a depiction of the famed horror writer who moved to Brooklyn to be with the woman he loved only to find himself more xenophobic and racist than before. Rather it’s how the main character of the song describes his own feeling of xenophobia and racism. He feels “like Lovecraft in Brooklyn.” Darnielle is nothing if not literate. This is Indie rock of a different sort. In a way, John Darnielle (The only real member of The Mountain Goats) is really an heir apparent to Bruce Springsteen. The Springsteen of Yore. When his songs were populated by “the magic rat” or “Wendy” or “Mary” or “The Saint in the City.” Springsteen fans have long lamented that the songs filled with stories of fictional characters through whom we could relate our own lives have given way to solid rockers and a more expansive worldview. Darnielle has remained true to his canon of characters. Creating new ones along the way, he inhabits these people, these works of fiction and, almost never does it feel confessional. Except that he is so true to his subjects that they almost always seem confessional. That is some great writing.




As a whole, “Heretic Pride” is a terrific and rewarding album. It only gets richer with each listen. And, as for a place to start listening to The Mountain Goats (who have some 14 albums to their name dating back to 1991), there really is no better place to start.

Grade: A
ASide: Sax Rohmer #1, Heretic Pride, So Desperate, Michael Myers Respendent
BlindSide: San Bernardino, Autoclave, Lovecraft in Brooklyn, Sept 15th 1983,

Listening Post: The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely

The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely - 2006

Get Lonely will always have a very special place in my heart. If you scroll down this blog you'll see the video for "Woke Up New", a song that perfectly describes my feelings of loss after my daughter Lizzie died.
The album gets points for having that song. If a song can make me cry every single time I hear it, it deserves a special place in my world.
The entire album is of no surprise; Darnielle tells you what to expect in the title. Unlike the last three Mountain Goats albums this one's title is descriptive. The Mountain Goats get lonely. The songs are about being alone. Left. Abandoned. Isolated. Interestingly, they are all more accessible than most of the ones that we've been listening to. It's as though the catchiness of "You or Your Memory" took hold and, in the case of, say, "Half Dead", could be recorded by Jimmy Buffett. Save the isolation, desperation, sadness, etc.
There are moments on Get Lonely that I highly suggest not be listened to if you are a) recently dumped by a girlfriend b) very very high and paranoid or c) very drunk on single malt anything. The title track and the next song "Maybe Sprout Wings" are enough to elicit a complete sense of hopelessness. A life bereft of reason. Darnielle was married at the time he wrote and produced this album which suggests not that it's autobiographical, but that he is a brilliant writer of fiction. Able to craft characters so real and inhabit them & paint them so vividly that its impossible not to think they are all confessional.
That singular focus of Get Lonely can get a bit weary. It's a lot to ask of an audience to sit through a dozen songs about being sad that you are alone. The good news is that John Darnielle is also a good songwriter but, if you've been with the Goats so far, you can pass on this one. Get "Woke Up New", though. That's a keeper.

Grade: B
ASide: Woke Up New
BlindSide: New Monster Avenue, Maybe Sprout Wings, If You See Light


Review number 468

Listening Post: The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree

The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree - 2005

The soft piano, the brushes on the drums, something's a little different on The Sunset Tree. Now, albeit I have refused to go deeper into the past of The Mountain Goats. I'm not interested in all that lo-fi stuff recorded on boom boxes in the back of department stores and stuff. I have limited time, you know? So, maybe this isn't all that uncommon, I mean, there was some piano on Tallahassee, right?
This is different though. The Sunset Tree is a lush, delicate investigation into John Darnielle's youth, which was dominated by an abusive step-father, who gets credited with a thank you on this record.
Each track paints another vivid image of this suburban hell. Whether it be the crappy motel room in Los Angeles in "You and Your Memory" or the white shag carpet thick with pet hair on "Broom People" or the escape and return on "This Year", (the first time I would actually say The Mountain Goats can swing hard, Jack.) a song as vivid in its portrayal of that terror as it is clean in it's delivery.
I'm not sure why Darnielle has my number. Maybe it's because we are close in age. When he talks about Watergate being on the tv in "Dance Party" I remember my childhood. I think I'm a couple years older but not by much. His suburbia is NOT Spielberg's of Poltergeist and E.T. Darnielle's is realer. My parents were together and there was no abuse in ours (unless you call Jewish guilt and boomer refusal to admit culpability abuse...) but Darnielle manages to capture adolescence of that time perfectly. It might be universal, I don't know. I know that it hits home for me.
Sure, The Sunset Tree gets tired toward the end and, after a bit of reflection resolution. On "Pale Green Things", the monster is finally dead. Even though John is released I can't help but weep. Maybe its because I've been a stepdad. Maybe its because, as an adult when I didn't need it, I had a stepdad that I didn't like. I don't know.

The Sunset Tree is like a musical memoir. It's pure, it's wrenching, it's terrifying and it's brilliant.

Grade: A+
ASide: You and Your Memory, This Year, Lion's Teeth, Pale Green Things
BlindSide: Broom People, Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?

Listening Post: The Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed

The Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed - 2004

John Darnielle is a fantastic storyteller. At once confessional and then, hard right turn to observational. Comfortable in 1st person, 3rd person, 2nd person, he's what you should think of when you hear the term "Rock Poet Laureate". He takes what Craig Finn did with Lifter Puller and The Hold Steady and, instead of exploding it, made it more reductive. I'm not qualified to determine whether or not he's the "New Dylan", as I'm no expert in the old Dylan.
We Shall All Be Healed is not a collected work like the preceding "Tallahassee" or the forthcoming "The Sunset Tree". It's a collection of songs, each one acerbic, biting, tense, the people who populate the vignettes are vivid and each track is a minor epic. WSABH is a little more accessible than Tallahassee and for that reason it's just not as good. It's more polished, less haunting. The knife doesn't wield as sharply as it did on that one, and the record does veer into the uber-lo-fi of Darnielle's earlier work ("Home Again Garden Grove", "Quito") but these are but quibbles as one after another the songs invite the listener into the realm of Darnielle's story craft.

Grade: B
ASide: Slow West Vultures, Mole
BlindSide: Letter from Belgium, Your Belgian Things
DownSide: The Young Thousands, Home Again Garden Grove