Vox Pop

Rude yahoos leave fan moody blue over concert

2010-03-12T06:00:00Z

I go to concerts to hear the music.

I have a few friends and family who feel the same. Yes, I know -- that's not exactly a news flash . . . or maybe it is.

When a friend mentioned she went to hear the Moody Blues in concert March 6 at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre, I was anxious to hear her verbal review. It's not often that one of rock's most venerated -- dare I say elegant? -- bands visits this area of the universe.

And so she told me about one of the most memorable moments of her date with the Moodys -- the drunk "whackos," a middle-aged husband and wife, who proceeded to yell and stand and flail wildly during the entire show.

The low-light, my friend said, came when the man yelled "F******** yoooouuuuuuuuu!" over and over to the band. No, this "fan" didn't seem angry or disappointed with the performance. Rather, she surmised, such a verbal salutation seemed to be this drunken yahoo's way of showing affection for the Moodys.

When my friend confronted the mega-rude couple, their reaction -- yep, you guessed it -- was to amp up their obnoxious behavior. The ushers were no help: They merely advised my friend this couple weren't worse than the projectile-vomiting patron at a previous show.

Why is it that purchasing a ticket to a rock concert makes some people feel they've also purchased a license to get drunk and act like a Neanderthal with a lobotomy?

Of the 500 or so concerts I've attended in my lifetime (many as a critic, some as just a fan), about 300 of them were rock concerts. At about half of those, there was a chimpanzee or two (they usually travel in pairs) within earshot, who decided they couldn't have a good time unless they danced with their beers over their heads and splashed their brew on their neighbors, or yelped and whooped from start to encore, or shouted to their fellow chimp -- during the ballads, of course -- about the time they got "@*&#-faced" at the last concert they attended.

The low-light of my concert-going times came about eight years ago when I saw Paul McCartney in Sunrise while two women seated to my immediate left talked to each other during the ENTIRE show -- even when a quivering-voiced Paul was eulogizing his deceased friend John.

These "fans" didn't appear drunk. They just seemed strangely oblivious to the fact that one of the musical geniuses of the 20th century was performing in their presence.

When I finally addressed their rudeness, the two squawking parrots responded by -- yep, you guessed it -- sneering at me and amping up their chatter.

I'm not alone. As the entertainment writer and pop music critic here at The News-Journal, I constantly hear from fans who have similar experiences.

A colleague of my Moody Blues-loving friend e-mailed me this week: "Every concert I've been to lately, and the ones I hear about from others, are full of inconsiderate people who want to talk or text or watch TV on their phones, or out-of-control drunks. I've had to say nasty things to at least one person at each one. If I'm going to drink until I pass out, I'll do it at home, not at a show I paid a lot of money to see. I just don't get it."

Me neither. I'd rather hear McCartney perform than chat with a friend at a McCartney concert. I'd rather hear the Moody Blues perform their celestial rock than shout cuss words at the band.

I'm not against having crazy fun at concerts -- at the appropriate times.

If I don't get at least one beer spilled on me while Lynyrd Skynyrd is performing "Sweet Home Alabama" . . . hell, I ask for my money back. If I don't hear at least 20 Dukes-of-Hazzard rebel yells and see at least three people upchucking (I'm hoping not on anyone else) at a Hank Williams Jr. concert, I know it wasn't a good show.

For certain artists in certain settings, I would expect no less.

But here's a warning to all you chimpanzees determined to ruin more civilized shows in the future: I will fight back against excessive chatter with excessive chatter, spilled beer with spilled beer and, if need be, vomit with vomit.

Please just shut your mouths and your beer taps and listen to the music.

Rick de Yampert is The Daytona Beach News-Journal's entertainment writer. He can be reached at rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com

Bikers face tough times in pop culture

2010-03-05T06:00:00Z

My earliest motorcycle dream came when I was a grade-schooler reading Beverly Cleary's excellent novel "The Mouse and the Motorcycle."

If Ralph the mouse can ride a motorcycle, I can too!

It was all downhill from there.

While I was still in elementary school, my parents bought my teenaged older brother a motorcycle, then a bigger one and yet another, even bigger one, so that he was tooling around Los Alamos, N.M., on his Harley-Davidson 900 Sportster during his senior year in high school.

I had inherited a few sweat shirts and a baseball mitt from my older brother, so I looked forward to inheriting his motorcycle, too.

Around the time of my brother's Sportster glory, however, my mom inexplicably got the idea to ban motorcycles from the family (with my brother's bike grandfathered in). All my grand motorcycle dreams, first conjured by Cleary's biker mouse, were squashed.

Only this week, during the 69th annual Bike Week here in Daytona Beach, did I finally figure out why my mom turned anti-bike: pop culture.

As the entertainment writer here at The News-Journal, I decided to mark this Bike Week by picking my list of the 10 greatest biker moments in pop culture, whether on film, in music, in novels, etc.

And so I began churning over possible nominees. It got ugly -- quick.

When it comes to motorcyclists portrayed in pop culture, the basic formula is: Bikers = hooligans/squared X rebel foolhardiness divided by disaster = Death.

Yeah, I know. That bikers have a bad rep in movies and TV shows and other pop-culti stuff isn't a news flash. But, in concocting my list, I was struck by the amount of downer stuff.

The first biker moment that popped into my mind: Altamont.

Sorry about that, bikers. As a journalist, I have to report the truth. If a psychiatrist plays word association with me and tosses out the word "biker," I will reply with "Altamont," that infamous, chaotic, violence-plagued 1969 concert headlined by the Rolling Stones.

Altamont forever became connected to biker lore when an 18-year-old man, brandishing a pistol near the stage and later determined to be high on meth, was stabbed to death by a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang.

The killing was captured in the documentary film "Gimme Shelter," released a year later. (A still from the movie is shown above.)

Also in 1969, my mom and dad loaded up my two brothers and me in the station wagon and we went to see "Easy Rider" at a drive-in in Albuquerque.

My 11-year-old mind was blissfully digging on these hippie biker dudes -- Capt. America, cool! -- until (spoiler alert!) George got whacked (which was a bit of a bummer, kind of like Bambi's mom), and then (mega-spoiler alert!) -- BOOM!

Big bummer.

My family also had seen daredevil Evel Knievel perform at a raceway in Albuquerque in summer 1968. Unfortunately, Evel had broken a leg during a jump a few weeks before his appearance, so all he did was pop a few wheelies around the track.

But Evel's broken leg, coupled with his notorious, horrific crash at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas just six months earlier, must have given my mom major willies.

And my mom's psyche also was pounded by Altamont, "Easy Rider," Marlon Brando's "The Wild One" from the 1950s and Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels" from 1966 (with a soundtrack album that spent a lot of time on the stereo we brothers shared). Throw in any number of outlaw biker B-movies from the 1960s, Steppenwolf's brain-bruising, proto-metal biker anthem "Born to be Wild" (quite scary at the time), the goofy simpleton Eric Von Zipper from those Frankie Avalon beach flicks, and the Zen-infested title character of the short-lived 1969 TV series "Then Came Bronson" (who was a good guy, but he seemed awfully lonely).

No wonder my mom decided to outlaw motorcycles and their insidious, Svengali-like influence.

And now I'm wondering if my mom, the better to protect my young mind and heart, ripped out the concluding pages of "The Mouse and the Motorcycle."

Given the dire fate of Capt. America and other bikers, I wonder if Ralph the mouse got his head blown off as he was gleefully riding across America in search of himself. In pop culture, that just seems to be the biker way.

Rick de Yampert is The Daytona Beach News-Journal's entertainment writer. He can be reached at rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com

Fame game has Tiger by the tail

2010-02-26T06:00:00Z

Apology not accepted.

Sorry, Tiger, but I don't want to be part of your uber-calculated plan to restore your reputation -- and your riches.

When you, or your doppelganger, buffaloed your way into the media spotlight last week to say "I had affairs. I cheated," I not only didn't care -- I was offended that your megalomania thought I cared.

(Yes, my colleagues of the media, including this paper, willfully and gleefully followed you to that bizarre podium like you were some head of state addressing nuclear disarmament. And yes, I ended up watching bits of your performance in later "news" bites, even though I avoided your live confessional).

Tiger, when you admitted to your infidelities, you might as well have been a stranger who approached me at the mall and confessed "I had affairs. I cheated." Tiger, you are a stranger to me -- always have been, always will be, although you are a famous stranger. And yet you chose to drag me and the rest of the public through your slime.

You don't owe me an apology or a confession. As you yourself have stated, that's between you and your wife. But the fact that you fobbed an apology-confession on we the public showed how much you've bought into the fame game -- how much you've bought into the very tabloid mentality that you condemned (which, ironically, was the one moment during your supposed self-flagellation that you seemed to abandon robot mode and display some true emotion).

By thinking I give a damn about your private life (apparently sordid, but who am I to judge), you acted just like the paparazzi and sleaze tabloids you (rightfully) scolded for hounding you, your wife and child. You chose to turn what should have been a private matter into a public spectacle.

News flash, Tiger: I. Don't. Care.

But yes, this celebrity thing makes us little people and you Very Famous People do strange things.

About the most insightful comments I've ever encountered on the fame game came when I interviewed famous rock star Peter Frampton in the late 1990s (well, by then he was a formerly famous rock star). In the wake of the tragic death of Princess Diana, I was working on a story about how celebrities deal with that bitch goddess known as success -- how celebs deal with issues of fame, their fans, the media and privacy.

While Frampton observed that the paparazzi's hounding of Princess Di was often egregiously, horrifically out of bounds, he confessed that for himself and other celebrities: "We wanted fame."

Yes, he said, he missed being able to browse in bookstores without being pestered. No, he insisted, fans or media did not have the right to peek into his bathroom window.

But Frampton admitted he willingly had struck a bargain with the devil. Accepting the bad (to an extent) with the good was part of the deal.

(A press colleague of mine had a testy fame-vs.-privacy encounter with Frampton in 1986, when the rock star was holding a publicly advertised bankruptcy sale at his home in New York state. As Frampton was leaving his gated mansion, he told this reporter not to come onto his estate. An organizer of the sale later invited the reporter to drive his car inside the estate and up to the home. Upon returning, a distraught, irate Frampton chased the reporter away.)

Of course, as Wu-Tang Clan said in song many years ago, the Tiger case ultimately is "C.R.E.A.M." -- "Cash rules everything around me."

Tiger's confessional dog-and-pony show wasn't about apologizing to his wife, family, fans or me and you. It was damage control to begin repairing the Tiger brand and to assuage the corporations who have signed him to mega-lucrative endorsement deals.

Much as we have witnessed paparazzi chasing Tiger, Frampton, Michael Jackson, Brangelina, Mr. Squiggles, Mr. Ed, Jack Nicholson, Scooby-Doo, Britney Spears and every other famous being, we now will witness Tiger scrambling down a crowded avenue, hovering in a helicopter, pathetically chasing after his badly bruised reputation . . . Tiger chasing his own tail.

Stay tuned -- or not. It won't be pretty.

Rick de Yampert is The Daytona Beach News-Journal's entertainment writer. He can be reached at rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com

Pope rocks out, Lil Wayne isn't the world

2010-02-19T06:00:00Z

Don't be surprised if you hear a screaming "Turn that mess down!" emanating from the Vatican these days. Seems the home of Pope Benedict XVI has become one rockin' and rollin' joint.

Last week the pop music critics of the Vatican's official newspaper, L' Osservatore Romano, published their "semi-serious guide" to the top ten rock and pop albums of all time.

Their picks (which they listed in chronological order) included the Beatles' "Revolver," Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon," Oasis' "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?," Michael Jackson's "Thriller," U2's "Achtung Baby," Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours," Donald Fagen's "The Nightfly," Carlos Santana's "Supernatural," Paul Simon's "Graceland" and David Crosby's "If I Could Only Remember My Name." (Editor's note on that last pick: Huh?)

Wait a minute, you say: The Pope's paper has pop music critics? Well, yeah . . . sorta. Which, by the way, means you shouldn't be fooled by all those headlines on newspaper internet sites breathlessly proclaiming "Pope picks fave rock albums!"

As the Wall Street Journal noted, "In the last two years, under new editor-in-chief Gian Maria Vian, L' Osservatore Romano has shed some of its serious image and taken a more open approach, finding merit even in popular movies such as the 'Harry Potter' series and 'The Lord of the Rings.' "

Also, a L' Osservatore Romano article in late 2008 praised the Beatles and forgave John Lennon for his "We're more popular than Jesus" remark. The top 10 albums article actually was written by two rockin' dudes, Giuseppe Fiorentino and Gaetano Vallini.

Yes, it's assumed that his holiness is the top-dog editor at his own newspaper, and that L' Osservatore Romano is his "voice." But I'm betting the pope vetted the article about like he thumbs through a Playboy to get to the centerfold.

As for the pope doing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" dance or singing the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" in the shower ("Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream -- it is not dying") . . . Well, if you believe the pontiff does that, I have some miters autographed by the pope, John Lennon and Jesus that I'll be willing to part with for an appropriate amount of monetary compensation.

In other news . . .

History has been made with the remake of "We Are the World."

Akin to the original song recorded 25 years ago to benefit African famine relief, the remake, titled "We Are the World 25," features a gazillion pop music stars coming together to sing a line or two, this time to benefit Haiti.

The new version is historic for one reason: It sports the two worst celebrity guest vocals to be featured on a charity single since the dawn of time. Who invited rapper Lil Wayne and soul rasper Jamie Foxx to the party?

Even a slight Auto-Tune treatment doesn't rescue Lil Wayne's semi-barked verse, while Foxx evidently decided to go to a bad Ray Charles imitation for his line.

Which brings up the question: Has producer Quincy Jones lost his ear, or was he a coward and too afraid to cut Lil' Wayne and Foxx from the final mix?

Yes, it's all for a good cause, but if you haven't seen the video or heard the song on radio, you've been warned.

Rick de Yampert is The Daytona Beach News-Journal's entertainment writer. He can be reached at rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com

Valentine's Day not a time for 'Paranormal Activity,' Gilligan, 'Catcher'

2010-02-12T06:00:00Z

In case any of you guys out there happen to be on the e-mail list of the PR firm that handles publicity for a certain brand of DVD rental kiosk, PLEASE READ THIS COLUMN!

Are you among the clueless and in a panic over what to get your sweetie for Valentine's Day? Then do not -- repeat, do not! -- follow this PR firm's V-Day advice.

A recent press release e-mail, sent to us journos for potential use as story fodder, suggests treating your babe to an "affordable date-night at home." That is, simply rent such DVDs as "The Proposal" (a romantic comedy), "Extract" (a comedy) or . . . "Paranormal Activity"???!

Guys, this is not a chick flick. Treat your lady to a Valentine's Day viewing and you may end up like the guy character in this horror film about a couple haunted by eerie, horrific occurrences in their home.

And if you and your babe watch the DVD's alternate ending . . . well, let's just say she'll think Dexter (the psychopathic killer of the Showtime series) is Prince Charming compared to your sicko mind, and she won't let you out of the doghouse until Sigmund Freud has cleansed every inch of your brain with Comet.

Perhaps the press release was meant to be tongue-in-cheek? Hmmmm. No.

That PR firm's e-mail says the DVD rental kiosk folks came up with their suggestions by polling more than 1,300 customers across the nation.

That means up to 1,300 ladies are going to receive a Valentine's date-night at home that will scar them for life.

In other news:

A few years ago I came across an episode of "Gilligan's Island" while channel surfing. Remembering that Gilligan was more important to me in my childhood than crayons or G.I. Joes, and almost equal to Hot Wheels, I decided to pause and watch and take a nostalgic trip back to my youth.

Thought. I. Was. Gonna. Die.

If there is a personal hell awaiting each of us when we pass out of this life and into the next, then mine will be a 24-hours-per-day eternity watching "Gilligan's Island" reruns. Loved it as a kid, now realize it was an evil plot to disintegrate children's neurons and prepare us for life as lobotomized robots. Or else it was merely a show whose humor made, say, the Three Stooges seem like Lenny Bruce.

I flashed back to my Gilligan encounter when I heard about the death of J.D. Salinger (below), the author of "The Catcher in the Rye."

A few years ago I came upon "Catcher" in my library at home, and I decided to pause and read it and take a nostalgic trip back to my teenage days.

Thought. I. Was. Gonna. Die. Again.

"In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw," says Holden Caulfield, the novel's teenage narrator, after he sees a man and woman squirting water out of their mouths at each other. "Sometimes I can think of very crumby stuff I wouldn't mind doing if the opportunity came up. I can even see how it might be quite a lot of fun, in a crumby way, and if you were both sort of drunk and all, to get a girl and squirt water or something all over each other's face. The thing is, though I don't like the idea . . . you're supposed to like her face . . . ."

If ever a novel has an expiration date, it's "Catcher." Holden's crumby adventures should be banned from anyone over the age of 18. Attempting to re-read "Catcher," I figured out why Salinger retreated into his legendary seclusion at some point after his novel's publication in 1951: He became embarrassed that he had penned the greatest kids-only book ever written.

Holden should hang out with Gilligan. They'd have a great crumby time together.

Stupid Quote of the Week: "I never liked music until I heard my own" -- Felix Cartal.

Who? He's an unknown dance/electronica music artist. It's part of the PR 101 curriculum that the best way to get media attention is to say something stupid or outrageous, and have your PR folks fan the flames.

Cartel's PR people say he was just joking, but then they tease with "it's hard not to wonder if he wasn't just a little bit serious."

Felix, here's your 15 minutes .¤.¤. er, seconds of Warholian fame.

Rick de Yampert is The Daytona Beach News-Journal's entertainment writer. He can be reached at rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com

Hey Kanye: Taylor pulled a Swift one at Grammys

2010-02-05T06:00:00Z

Where was Kanye West when we needed him?

Cute, country music pixie Taylor Swift walked away with Album of the Year at Sunday night's Grammy Awards. I kept hoping that the evil Kanye, that egomaniacal hip-hop rock star, would bum-rush the stage -- just like he did at last fall's MTV Video Music Awards -- and tell the world that Swift shouldn't have won, that others were more deserving.

Yeah, I know -- wishing Kanye on Taylor again makes me a brute, a cad and a lessor jihadist.

Taylor, this is nothing personal .¤.¤. well, yeah, I guess it is. I just don't believe your album, "Fearless," was that fearless musically. I just don't believe it was worthy of absconding with Grammy's most prestigious prize.

You now are tied with the Beatles for number of Album of the Year Grammys -- one apiece. And you have one more Album of the Year title than Miles Davis, Johnny Cash, the Rolling Stones, Public Enemy, Ella Fitzgerald and John Coltrane combined. Yes, not one of those immortals ever won an Album of the Year accolade.

The four Grammys you won Sunday are four more than either Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin or the Doors ever won in any category -- yep, Zep, Jimi and Jimbo Mojo-risin' got skunked by Mr. Grammy throughout their entire careers.

Taylor, I believe your poppy-pop country -- all the rage in Nashville for more than a decade or two now -- should not have even won Country Album of the Year, which it did.

Nothing personal, Taylor -- well, yeah, I guess it is. I'm sort of passionate about music.

Yes, it's been 35 years since I got into one of those my-band-can-beat-up-your-band dust-ups (I spent many, many hours of my teenage days explaining to my younger brother why Led Zep were the overlords of rock music and Kiss, his fav band, were fleas on a dog's buttocks).

But damnit, I get sick and tired when the Grammys -- allegedly the most prestigious music awards in this sector of the universe -- screw up the musical space-time continuum with their goofy, inexplicable votes that reward the safe and innocuous while damning the innovative, the dangerous, the deeply visionary and the seriously, complexly multitalented.

And I'm telling you, it's not just us rock and hip-hop freaks who are shaking our heads and muttering "What the frak?"

You, Taylor, are one of the very few country artists ever to win Album of the Year, joining Glen Campbell in 1968, the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack in 2002 and the Dixie Chicks in 2007. But what about that gagging sound I heard rumbling down from Possum Hollow, Tennessee, on Sunday night? That was George Jones and Merle Haggard choking on their respective tequila worms as pundits began proclaiming a "country" artist had won the biggie Grammy for only the third time in the history of the universe.

"Yessir Merle (cough cough), she's pretty and all, but the yodelin' that Yao Ming Chinese basketball fella does in his locker room shower is more country than her!"

Indeed.

But you watch -- one of my music critic colleagues, somewhere, will write a snarky piece about how you, Taylor, actually deserved your Album of the Year Grammy, and how we "defenders of the true faith" are self-righteous, elitist jugheads who pull Toby Keith stickers off car bumpers and write college thesis papers on "The Hegelian Dionysian-Apollonian Dialectic as Reflected in the Genius of G.G. Allin."

Meanwhile, music fans, suppose an impish genie comes up to you and says, "In the afterlife -- your afterlife -- you have a choice of two soundtracks to listen to: Either all the music that has won Grammy Awards, or all the music that has not. Choose, quickly!"

Me, I'll choose that great iPod in the Sky that includes the Beatles' "Revolver" and "Abbey Road," Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet," all the work of Hank Williams, Roxy Music, the Supremes and the Waterboys, some Petty, all but one Marvin Gaye song, all but one Louis Prima song, some Dino, etc.

Taylor, I suggest you do the same .¤.¤. nothing personal. Yeah, I guess it is.

Rick de Yampert is The Daytona Beach News-Journal's entertainment writer. He can be reached at rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com

Devilish metal still tries to shock and awe

2010-01-28T19:04:14Z

Gazing at the subject line in my e-mail inbox, I thought that heavy metal -- out of the spotlight for so long -- might be raising its purposefully putrid head in order to once again disturb mainstream America.

"3 INCHES OF BLOOD TEAM UP WITH BLOODYDISGUSTING.COM TO DEBUT NEW 'BATTLES AND BROTHERHOOD' VIDEO CLIP."

We in the news biz value a catchy headline, so who wouldn't want to read more when enticed by such a subject line?

Yep, 3 Inches of Blood is a metal band, but (allegedly) not just any run-of-the-mill metal outfit. Their PR trumpets the band as "the biggest defenders of traditional heavy metal."

The band's new video for their song 'Battles and Brotherhood' made its debut on the self-proclaimed '#1 source for all horror, Bloody-disgusting.com.' Checking out the video, we learn that medieval barbarians, while watching bloody to-the-death battle-ax fights between their champions and their unfortunate captives, were quite the babe magnets. Who knew?

But, alas, the ax-slinging barbarians of 'Battles and Brotherhood' look like Vatican choir members compared to the mayhem-loving brutes of the 'Grand Theft Auto' video games or the gun- and knife-happy spies of 'Archer,' that over-the-top FX network animated series.

BTW, don't be frightened by that photo of 3IOB in which one member is wearing a T-shirt with an inverted pentagram -- the sign of the Church of Satan. Anton LaVey, the late founder of the Church of Satan, disdained almost all so-called 'satanic' metal music.Instead LaVey, writing in his essay collection 'The Devil's Notebook,' claimed real satanic music was that which intensified or agitated emotions, rather than blunted or soothed emotions. He cited such classical works as Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, Wagner's "Tannhauser," Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and Ravel's "Bolero."

Peter Gilmore, the current High Priest of the Church of Satan, agrees with LaVey. In an interview at wikinews.org, Gilmore says: "One conception I want to dispel is the stereotype that satanism is always associated with metal and the cookie monster voice. That's satanism? No."

For Gilmore, an academically trained composer with a degree from New York University, "Satanic music is specific to each person. So to me, satanic music is the symphony, which to me is the highest art form. So Beethoven, Mahler, Bruckner, Shostakovich -- to me that's some of the most satanic music ever written because the architecture is there, the expressivity is there. The reflection on the human condition is all present and it's not idealistic. It's mostly questioning or showing what a human is capable of doing."

BTW No. 2: 3 Inches of Blood have not cracked my top 10 list of most disgusting-disturbing metal band names. The top spot goes to Zyklon-B, a Norwegian black metal band. For those who don't know their history, Zyklon B was a gas used to exterminate Jews in Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust.

Others on that list: the Greek band Rotting Christ, the Nevada band Goatlord (just sounds creepy), the New Orleans band Goatwhore (even more creepy), the Italian band Graveworm and the Finnish band Impaled Nazarene (according to Wikipedia, a band member came up with the name after reading a pamphlet about Christ appearing to be a vampire).

BTW No. 3: Ask Floridians about our state's native music and the default answers will include Daytona's own Allman Brothers, Gainesville's Tom Petty and South Florida's Gloria Estefan and KC and the Sunshine Band.

But metal-heads will smile grimly to themselves and recall how, once upon a time in the 1980s, Florida was the cradle of death metal. The Sunshine State is where the band Death was birthed, as well as Obituary, Morbid Angel and Deicide. Florida became known as the Death Metal Capital of the World before the Scandinavians took over and morphed death metal into the even more extreme, and brutal, black metal (see the shudder-inducing book 'Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground' by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind).

So, what are we to make of a 3 Inches of Blood video that depicts some hairy brutes feasting at some outdoor gathering, groping turkey legs and babes and watching bloody duels to the death? In the universe of heavy metal, that's just another day at the office.

PHOTO CREDIT: Adrenaline PR

Those 'mutant' Beatles still rule

2010-01-20T19:28:56Z

Luddites and baby boomers, rejoice!

The Nielsen SoundScan folks, who track music sales, airplay and digital streams in this sector of the universe, have released their data on the top-selling music of the past year and the past decade.

With apologies to that music critic Mark Twain (who noted there are three kinds of lies -- "lies, damn lies and statistics"), the SoundScan statistics clearly indicate that today's music is crap, and the music of yesteryear rules.

What was the top-selling album of the past decade? A set by a group that hasn't recorded a track since 1970 -- "Beatles 1," a greatest hits set by the Beatles, with 11.56 million sold.

Who was the top-selling artist of 2009? Michael Jackson, with 8.3 million albums sold.

Following Jackson as 2009's top-selling artist were Taylor Swift in second, and the Beatles third (a ranking spurred by the remastering of the Fab Four's entire catalog).

For the record, country pixie Taylor Swift had the top-selling album in 2009 with "Fearless," followed closely by Susan Boyle's "I Dreamed a Dream" and Jackson's "Number Ones." Other top 10 albums in 2009 included works by Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, Hannah Montana, Eminem and Jay-Z.

Following the Beatles in the decade's top 10 albums list were N' Sync's "No Strings Attached," Norah Jones' "Come Away With Me," two albums by Eminem plus sets by Britney Spears, Usher and Linkin Park.

The decade's top-selling artist was Eminem with 32 million albums sold, followed in order by the Beatles with 30.2 million and country guys Tim McGraw (24.8 million) and Toby Keith (24.5 million).

As those T-shirts covering beer bellies on the beach proclaim: Old guys rule!

Sure, Jackson's success once again proves that old adage (likely coined by Twain): "Death is a good career move."

But how do we explain the Beatles' rule over past decade? OK, OK -- aging boomers and ex-flower children have mucho disposable income and lap up any repackaging of the Fab Four, the better to relive the 1960s.

But consider this: Will Eminem, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, N' Sync or any other artist cited above sell 11.56 million albums 40 years after they record their last work?

Will Eminem, though he's a wickedly clever rapper, or Taylor Swift sell even 10 albums four decades from now? Wanna bet?

On the Luddite front: SoundScan reported that digital music accounted for 40 percent of all music purchases in 2009, and digital track sales set a record with 1.16 billion sold.

However, more vinyl albums were bought in 2009 -- 2.5 million -- than in any single year since Nielsen SoundScan was founded in 1991.

The top-selling vinyl release of 2009: the Beatles' "Abbey Road" with 34,800 copies, followed by Jackson's "Thriller" with 29,800 copies.

Back in 1983, one of my college professors proclaimed the Beatles were "the classical music of our time" -- meaning that the Fab Four were serious musicians and composers who were creating music that would speak across the ages.

Timothy Leary famously said: "I declare that the Beatles are mutants -- prototypes of evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with a mysterious power to create a new human species, a young race of laughing freemen."

I believe both my college prof and Mr. Leary may be right.

Irish rock band showed its King-ly pride

2010-01-15T07:40:00Z

As rock record covers go, this one certainly was edgy, unexpected.

No, my shock in that autumn of 1984 wasn't spurred by the photo of the dour-faced lads of U2 -- even though they looked like young, thuggish dock workers who had just gotten shafted out of their pay.

Rather, it was the back cover photo that was more stunning than a pic of Bono clutching a severed head and dancing with Satan.

What's a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. doing on the cover of this single, "Pride (In the Name of Love)"?

I had spent my high school years only 100 miles from where King had preached in Montgomery, Ala., where he had launched the civil rights movement. But I was puzzled.

What's this Irish rock band got to do with King?

The answer, I soon would discover, was simple: The song was about MLK. The civil rights leader was one of Bono's heroes.

That wasn't so readily apparent in the oblique, but lofty, lyrics: "One man come he to justify, one man to overthrow in the name of love, one more in the name of love."

In fact, other references -- "one man betrayed with a kiss," "one man washed on an empty beach" -- summoned images of Jesus, and of those sad photos of dead World War II soldiers lying on the shore of Normandy.

But astute historians and rock critics noted another lyric in the song: "April 4, shot rang out in the Memphis sky. Free at last, they took your life. They could not take your pride in the name of love."

In case listeners lacked knowledge of American civil rights history, the Irish rock band decided to drive home the lesson with a black-and-white photo of King on the single's cover, and a quote from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech: "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant."

As for those listeners who lacked knowledge of American civil rights history -- that was me at the time.

Never mind that I had spent my high school years during the mid-1970s in Dothan, Ala., not far from where Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat, and where King and others organized the bus boycott. Many times I had traveled mere miles from King's Montgomery home, which had been bombed in the '60s. I had crossed the bridge where the first Selma march ended in "Bloody Sunday."

But such history (it's American history, not just African-American history) was largely absent from my high school education. Growing up in the South, I had known only the headlines -- the Washington march, King's assassination -- and my grandparents' fear that some sort of race war was brewing.

U2's "Pride" was a wakeup call from four Irish lads to learn more about the history that was still playing out in my backyard -- a place where, during my tenure at the Dothan newspaper in the mid-1980s, one of my editors referred to King as a "troublemaker."

Throughout my journalism career covering pop music, I've often asked artists some variant of the question: "Can music really build bridges between cultures?" (See my interview of Marvin Hamlisch in this edition of Go 386.) I've heard various answers to that question.

As America prepares to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day Jan. 18 (his actual birthday is Jan. 15), I can say that one song can build bridges, can make a difference. Four Irish guys spurred me to take a journey down the streets of history that passed right by my front door.

Beyonce is best? Critic's list stirs debate

2010-01-08T06:06:16Z

A funny thing happened on my way to listing my top 10 albums of all time a few years ago: I decided to list the albums that I actually listened to.

Yes, I know -- that's a radical concept. Imagine me, a music critic who makes part of his living pontificating about the good, the bad and the ugly of popular music, compiling a top 10 of stuff I actually like.

I suspect that's what Associated Press music critic Nekesa Mumbi Moody did when she wrote about her picks for best albums of the past decade. When her list ran in The News-Journal two weeks ago, it generated a lot of discussion among all the closeted music critics around the office here -- because her decade best was all R&B, soul and hip-hop, including Beyonce and 50 Cent, and was devoid of any Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, U2, Bob Dylan or, indeed, any work that featured guitar.

What's up with that?

I suspect Moody did what I did several years ago. While working on a story for which News-Journal readers submitted their lists of the top albums of all time, I decided, Hey, for my top 10 I'm gonna list the stuff I really like, the stuff I listen to!

That wasn't always the case for me. At the turn of the last millennium, when I and many other critics used the occasion as an excuse to list our top 10 albums of the past 1,000 years, I retired to my critic's hermitage. There I put on my musicologist's wizard hat, plotted the sonic horoscopes of past decades, fed the data into my bio-computer and delivered my top 10 list of The Most Significant Musical Statements Ever Conceived by Human Beings.

Half of that list was stuff I still listened to on a regular basis: the Beatles' "Revolver," U2's "Achtung Baby," Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet" and Led Zeppelin's fourth album among them.

The other half were works I respected, works that, in my opinion, reflected genius. But they also were albums that I wouldn't shed a tear over if Martian overlords landed and burned them from the collective consciousness of the human race: the Rolling Stones' "Beggars Banquet," Elvis Presley's "The Complete Sun Sessions," Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue."

I rarely, rarely actually listen to any of these paragons.

But, while working on that later story that polled our readers, I was surprised when I interviewed music writer and Rolling Stone contributor Anthony DeCurtis and asked him to submit his list.

"I want my choices to actually be good -- not just 'hip' or make me look clever," he said. "If somebody, old or young, checked out one of these albums, I want them to be struck by it. I always try to use the 'desert island' model. I really do ask myself what would I want to be listening to if this were all I could listen to."

What would I want to be listening to if this were all I could listen to?

Inspired by DeCurtis' bold calculus, my new top 10 (which accompanied that 2004 story), still included "Revolver," "Achtung Baby" and "Fear of a Black Planet," but I replaced the Zep album that includes "Stairway to Heaven" with the Zep album that's like oxygen to me, "Houses of the Holy." Out went Miles Davis and Elvis -- in came Tears For Fears' "Songs From the Big Chair" and Roxy Music's "Avalon."

When Moody peopled her best-of-the-past-decade list with Beyonce, R. Kelly, Usher, 50 Cent and Erykah Badu, did she ignore works that deserved her respect for works that she "merely" likes?

That was the crux of the debate that circulated here among my News-Journal colleagues: Should a critic apply standards that somehow transcend his-her personal tastes? Or is it OK for a critic's picks to reflect -- egads! -- his-her personal favorites, an approach that seemingly reeks of some sort of nebulous bias?

As a critic, I will still (mostly) apply the former approach -- I will heap praise on an album that I respect but will never listen to again after my initial encounter.

But, if I end up in Hell, I hope my punishment is not being forced to listen to every album I've given a four-star rating. I'd rather spend eternity with Tears For Fears than Miles Davis.

New year's predictions: Sainthood for Bruce, a right hook for Kanye

2010-01-01T06:28:38Z

Ancient prophets believed the future could be foretold by haruspicy -- the art of interpreting the entrails of sacrificed animals.

We modern people have moved beyond such foolishness. We now know the future can be predicted by interpreting the droop in Mick Jagger's jowls.

Having carefully inspected Sir Mick's jaws during the recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts, I can safely predict here are the headlines you'll be reading in the coming year. Guaranteed.

Playing in his first golf tournament since returning from you-know-what, Tiger Woods scores a 63 -- on the first two holes. Tiger retires from golf before teeing off on the third hole, then signs a $2,183 contract to star with Danny Bonaduce, Gary Coleman and a Kardashian sister to be named later in a revival of the reality series "Mad Mad House."

Rolling Stone magazine decides not to wait until 2020 to continue its deification of Bruce Springsteen, and goes ahead and names the Boss its Artist of the (coming) Decade. Bono weeps.

"We got word the Vatican was gonna move in on our turf and canonize the Boss," Rolling Stone editor JannWenner says in a huff. "What's next -- the pope uses his connections to get an exclusive interview with Springsteen? No one beats us at enshrining his Bruce-iness!"

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad halts his country's nuclear weapons program after viewing a bootleg of "Avatar" and mistaking it for a top-secret Pentagon film on new U.S. military technology.

Ahmadinejad jump-starts a new program to have Iran's soldiers painted blue and fitted with prosthetic tails.

Rolling Stone magazine reviews the new album "Music From the Vatican -- Alma Mater, Featuring the Voice of Pope Benedict XVI."

"This guy's music is crap!" writes Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner in his one-star review.

The National Inquiring Tattler reports that Tiger Woods had an affair with British singing sensation Susan Boyle.

"She's got talent!" Woods blabs in the headline.

The pope cancels his subscription to Rolling Stone magazine, then canonizes Bruce Springsteen the next day.

"All praise St. Bruce of Asbury Park," his holiness proclaims during the induction ceremony. Afterward, during the traditional all-star saint jam, the pope gets his miter signed by his Bruce-iness.

The National Inquiring Tattler retracts its story that Tiger and Susan Boyle were doing the hanky-panky. Instead, under the headline "Cute Couple!," the Tattler reports that Boyle and Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards are engaged to be married.

"Wild horses couldn't drag me away," Richards says. "Too bad I didn't hook up with Susan back in the '60s. My band coulda used a great chick singer instead of that guy we had."

Rapper Kanye West bursts onstage at the Richards-Boyle wedding while the bride's version of "Wild Horses" is playing over the church sound system. Kanye shouts that Beyonce deserves to be Keith's bride. Boyle lays out Kanye with a punch to the jaw.

Pope Benedict canonizes Susan Boyle, praising her right hook and citing her miraculous work in keeping the world safe from stage-crashing rappers.

'A Christmas Story' has a leg up on holiday movies

2009-12-25T06:32:56Z

The first time I saw the movie "A Christmas Story," I was discombobulated.

When I was a tyke growing up in Los Alamos, N.M., I hadn't noticed Jean Shepherd, the guy behind "A Christmas Story," hanging out with my family around Christmastime. I hadn't noticed Shepherd taking notes as my Old Man became ... er, perturbed with the "assembly required" toys. I hadn't witnessed Shepherd smiling and nodding while my mom advised me and my two brothers to "Don't break your neck!" when we went sledding on the snowy hills around our home.

Shepherd was the writer whose short stories and semi-autobiographical, humorous anecdotes became the book "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash," which later became the comical movie "A Christmas Story."

I was convinced after seeing the film (released in 1983) that Shepherd had somehow magically channeled my childhood Christmas experiences.

OK, I don't recall my Old Man scoring a sexy leg lamp around Christmastime. But when Ralphie, the boy hero of "A Christmas Story," notes that his dad, his "Old Man," was a Picasso of blue language, I figured Shepherd had been spying on my Old Man, whose artful cussing made Shakespeare's language seem like a gorilla's grunts.

Ralphie yearns for Santa to bring him a BB gun, but his mom always applies the "classic mother BB gun block: 'You'll shoot your eye out!'" My perpetual childhood Christmas dream -- a scooter. But my mom would always apply the classic mother scooter block: "You'll break your neck!"

No shaman-like Santas, no magic elves, no miracles, no reindeer and no time-traveling angels appear in "A Christmas Story." It's simply an Everyman ... OK, an Every Family tale about a semi-dysfunctional middle-class clan holding on to simple Christmas dreams while navigating the hassles of daily life.

Yet several polls have named "A Christmas Story" as the most popular Christmas flick of all time.

It's become a tradition at our house on Christmas Day to set the TV to TNT, which always airs "A Christmas Story" for 24 hours straight beginning at 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas, Ralphie.

In other Christmas news ...

Dear Santa,

Speaking of childhood Christmas memories, I remember you bringing me G.I. Joes, toy tanks, plastic toy soldiers and play rifles and pistols -- all this on the day when much of the world is celebrating the Prince of Peace.

Those war toys didn't warp me, and I'm not ungrateful. Still, I'm just sayin' ....

The mystery of Boxing Day solved: Internet sources say Boxing Day, which is observed Dec. 26, derives from the British tradition of giving seasonal gifts (in the form of a Christmas box) to servants and other laborers who had to work on Christmas Day.

Nope. Boxing Day got its name from a tradition that dates back to ancient Mesopotamia -- a tradition that developed in any family with two or more children. It refers to the day after Christmas when, inevitably, one child would notice his-her sibling received a cooler toy from Santa, and they'd duke it out for possession of that lone, really cool toy.

The mystery of Boxing Day solved, part two: Some Christmas historians theorize a different origin of Boxing Day. It refers to the day after Christmas when, inevitably, toys begin to snap, break and disintegrate like toothpicks in the jaw of Godzilla. Such toys are, of course, unceremoniously dumped into the toy box -- never to be seen again.

Happy Boxing Day.

From Baghdad to Grammy, Iraqi musician rebounds

2009-12-18T06:22:49Z

When Iraqi musician Rahim AlHaj fled to the United States in 2000, a charity organization in Albuquerque, New Mexico, found him a gig.

Rahim spoke no English, but the exile and academically trained oud player would let his music speak for him. After all, Rahim had been playing the oud, that Middle Eastern lute-like instrument, since age 9. He had studied under the renowned oud master Munir Bashir. Rahim also had studied both Western and Arabic music at the Institute of Music in his native Baghdad.

But a disappointed Rahim quickly recognized that the venue was not suitable for his oud playing -- the gig was at a McDonald's. Then came more disappointment -- the gig was washing dishes.

Since then, Rahim has found a way to let his oud speak for him again. He became not only a U.S. citizen but also a working musician. Earlier this month Rahim was nominated for his second Grammy Award. His latest album, a duo work with Indian sarod master Amjad Ali Khan titled "Ancient Sounds," has been nominated in the Best Traditional World Music Album category.

Reading about Rahim's remarkable journey from Baghdad to New Mexico, anyone would be struck by the strife and sadness he endured. But I was amazed by what Rahim says was the saddest moment of his life.

Rahim was imprisoned twice in the late 1980s for opposing Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime. (Rahim wasn't exactly covert -- his song "Why?" had become an anthem for Iraq's underground revolutionary movement.)

During the Gulf War in 1991, Rahim fled to Jordan after procuring (buying) false papers with money from his mother.

In was then, says the biography on Rahim's Web site (rahimalhaj.com), that the oud player endured "what he calls the saddest moment of his life -- his instrument was confiscated at the border."

Perhaps only another musician (and I'm one) can empathize. Rahim had endured prison, threats from his government, and the bombing and invasion of his native Baghdad. He was about to become an exile separated from his family and friends.

And yet what ripped his soul? Losing the vehicle to express his soul: his oud.

The border guard who confiscated his instrument may as well have taken a hammer to Rahim's tongue, or fingers.

If only that border guard could hear Rahim AlHaj now.

We humans squiggle with more and more knowledge

2009-12-11T06:41:57Z

Philosopher Robert Anton Wilson observed/discovered a truth of humanity that he labeled the "Jumping Jesus Phenomenon."

"Let us define the measurement of known scientific facts in the year 1 A.D. as 'one jesus,' using the name of the celebrated philosopher born that year," the late Wilson wrote several decades ago. Wilson estimated it took homo sapiens 40,000 to 100,000 years to accumulate its collective knowledge up to that time.

We humans took "only" 1,500 more years to double our knowledge to "two jesuses," Wilson estimated. The next doubling, to four jesuses, took only 250 years and came in 1750 A.D. Wilson guestimates humanity reached "256 j" around 1979 and 512 j in 1982."

He also postulated that we humans' collective knowledge would soon be doubling at an ever accelerating rate, until one future time when we will acquire a new "jesus" of knowledge each day, then hourly.

"In short, we are living in a mental transformation space expanding toward infinity in all directions," Wilson wrote. "And the electronic center of this halo of 'mentation' is possibly everywhere. It is all available to you right where you are sitting now. Just plug in a terminal. The machine doesn't care who or what you are."

Wilson was on to something -- and remember that he crafted this theory years before the invention of Google.

However, I apply his "Jumping Jesus" theory to pop culture, which these days is changing at an alarming rate. Here's some recent evidence:

Mr. Squiggles. Two weeks ago I was listening to a report on National Public Radio about this holiday season's shopping outlook, and the piece featured a quote from Amazon Vice President Craig Berman: "One of the hottest toys is Zhu Zhu pet hamsters -- they are little soft hamsters, and each has a name, and right now Mr. Squiggles is the third best-selling item in our toy store."

Hmmmm, I thought, Amazon is selling live pets?! After all, the guy did not say electronic hamsters -- the "e" word appeared nowhere it his description of the "little soft" creatures.

Only after Mr. Squiggles made the news a few days later, because a watchdog group claimed he might contain toxic chemicals, did I feel like an idiot. (BTW, it appears the electronic beastie has been proven safe for kiddies after all.)

But what does it say about humankind when "pets" has become synonymous with electronic toys?

HD radio. Several weeks ago, Orlando public radio station WMFE-FM announced it was kicking its classical music programming to the curb -- well, to its HD radio sister channel. I confess I knew more about Mr. Squiggles than this newfangled HD technology.

After hearing from classical music fans who were more bent out of shape than Tiger Woods' golf clubs, I did some research. Nope, you and I cannot listen to WMFE-FM's HD2 station (their new classical channel) on the antique, Marconi-era wireless we currently have in our cars and homes.

We need a new device (of course we do). However, a search on Amazon.com and Bestbuy.com revealed that HD devices for both car and home begin at under $50. And the really good news for classical fans: WMFE-FM HD2 is Beethoven and those dudes 24/7 -- none of that crappy talk/news/information programming that makes us think, ponder life and increases humanity's collective intelligence so that we jump into another "jesus."

Pope rap. OK, it's not hip-hop-style rap by Pope Benedict XVI that's featured on the new CD "Music From the Vatican." Rather, the pope is heard speaking and singing in Latin, Italian, Portuguese, French and German over eight classical works commissioned from three contemporary composers. The CD's press release, by the way, trumpets that the three composers are Catholic, Muslim and "undeclared."

Can the pope out-gun Susan Boyle on the charts? Did the pope bring on the Muslim and the undeclared guys to attract market share beyond his Catholic fan base? Will Jay-Z guest-rap on the remix album?

These questions and others will be answered as we humans acquire yet another "jesus" of knowledge.

Tiger opens gate to media mania

2009-12-04T06:52:44Z

Of all the many witty aphorisms conjured by Irish writer Oscar Wilde more than 100 years ago, none seems more appropriate to our age of instant media and celebrity culthood than this gem: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

Hmmmm -- I wonder if Tiger Woods is feeling Oscar right about now?

As television bloated its news cycle with coverage of Tiger-gate, and newspapers (including this one) plastered Woods on their front pages while relegating actual newsworthy news to inside pages, here are some lessons to be learned (and re-learned) about life on Planet Celebrity (like it or not, that's where you and I live):

For the famous and not-so-famous alike, remember Tricky Dick's Law -- a corollary of Murphy's Law that gets its name from disgraced President Richard Nixon: The cover-up will be viewed more harshly than the crime.

Schadenfreude. I first encountered this $10 word in a New York Times article during one of the political or celebrity scandals of the past decade or so -- perhaps Lewinsky-gate, Hugh Grant-gate, Mark Sanford-gate, Sen. Larry Craig Bathroom-gate, R. Kelly-gate, Eddie Murphy-gate, Woody Allen-gate, Michael "Cosmo Kramer" Richards-gate, Don Imus-gate, Dustin Diamond It's-Screech-in-a-Porn-Tape!-gate or Britney-No-Panties-gate (when Britney Spears had her very public meltdown -- how soon you forget!).

Schadenfreude is a German word that means "pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others."

Schadenfreude is why the National Tattletale, the National Inquiring-Minds-Wanna-Know and other tabloids and even mainstream newspapers (including this one) go ape-gaga with coverage of, say, a famous mega-millionaire who kills a fire hydrant with his Cadillac at the end of his driveway at his home in a gated community populated by other mega-millionaires.

For the record, I agree with the editors of this paper who plastered Tiger-gate on our front pages. We Americans love us some schadenfreude!

If we had put the story in its proper place -- a two-inch brief on Page 20 in the Z section -- then we would have annoyed 99.7 percent of you, our readers, by making you work to get your schadenfreude on. (And a certain newspaper columnist might have missed his opportunity to pontificate about schadenfreude.)

Labeling every scandal with the sub-fix "gate." The blame for this lies, of course, with Tricky Dick Nixon and that Watergate thing. (Yes, Dick, we still have you to kick around.)

Yes, I agree that Dustin Diamond It's-Screech-in-a-Porn-Tape!-gate is a bit cumbersome (although it nicely sums up all we care to know about that incident).

But we journalists get a pass for coining Tiger-gate. After all, the incident took place in a gated community and in the vicinity of the gate to Tiger's mansion-fortress.

Whenever a new "-gate" explodes here on Planet Celebrity, both you famous folks and us commoners would do well to recall more words from Oscar Wilde: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."