Vox Pop

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."

King of Pop trumps King of Rock

2009-11-27T06:11:39Z

Two dead kings are walking the earth again.

There's Elvis on the cover of his new box set -- the young buck rock 'n' roller on stage somewhere in the 1950s. His buxom acoustic guitar swings freely as his right hand clutches a microphone. The ink-black hair, the sideburns and, of course, the snarl -- all there.

Eyes closed, the young Elvis looks ecstatic, like a Pentecostal preacher about to snatch a lost soul from the gaping maw of Satan.

But those aren't the most eye-popping elements of the young rock 'n' roll god. Legs clad in black pants and flexed at his knees, Elvis is forcing his toes, inside white shoes, to go impossibly en pointe.

Nijinsky, you ain't got nuthin' on this Mississippi hick.

Meanwhile, the King of Rock 'n' Roll's one-time son-in-law -- the self-proclaimed King of Pop, Michael Jackson -- is half-strutting, half-sashaying across the silver screen. Michael is taking another star turn in "This Is It," the posthumous movie documenting the rehearsals for his never-to-be comeback concerts.

In the film Michael, oddly, eschews his signature moonwalk during "Billie Jean." No matter.

At age 50, Michael has impossible, inhuman joints in his bones. During "Thriller," "Beat It" and his other hits, Michael glides like a supernatural marionette -- knees, elbows, hands, feet, ankles, shoulders all seem to be independent electrons gracefully or ecstatically orbiting the protons of his body.

Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, you got nothin' on this guy from Gary, Indiana.

Round one -- round one in this dead celeb battle for the title of Greatest Entertainer of All Time -- goes to ... Michael Jackson!

Of course, the estates of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson didn't plan it this way -- this posthumous battle of legacies.

No one is surprised that the Elvis estate has found yet another excuse to release yet another repackaging of Presley's music. In this case, the new four-CD set, "Elvis 75 -- Good Rockin' Tonight" (due out Dec. 8), is touted as celebrating the 75th centennial of Presley's birth.

And no one is surprised that the Jackson estate took the extensive film footage of Michael's rehearsals for his string of London comeback concerts and fashioned them into a visual memorial.

But the result is this: The King of Rock 'n' Roll and the King of Pop are once again battling for supremacy in the pop culture universe.

Is "Thriller" a "better" song and video than "Jailhouse Rock" and that choreographed, proto-video that Elvis filmed for that hit? Is "Billie Jean" "better" than "Hound Dog"? Fans of either king will passionately argue their case.

After seeing "This Is It," I score a big knock-out for Michael.

Yes, Elvis the Pelvis pioneered rock 'n' roll's hippie-hippie shake. Yes, James Brown's insane showmanship and Mick Jagger's kinetic energy cemented the idea that pop music can be and should be a physical as well as a sonic medium -- that any art form so obsessed with sex damn well better be of the body as well as about the body.

But no one -- not Soul Brother No. 1, not Mick, not Elvis, not Prince -- ever moved like Michael. Watching "This Is It" after Jackson spent so many years on the tabloid stage instead of a concert stage, I was reminded how much Michael's body is an instrument. His dance steps and body movements communicated something beyond the showy splits of the Godfather of Soul, Jagger's manic rooster steps or Jim Morrison's spastic shaman twitches.

Watching Michael, I thought of the line from a poem by William Butler Yeats: "O body swayed to music, o brightening glance, how can we know the dancer from the dance?"

Jackson's comeback concerts were primed to be a mega-spectacle. From the glimpses in the film, Michael and his band, dancers, video, sets, special effects and more would have rivaled the alpha tours of the Rolling Stones, U2 and Pink Floyd.

And at the center of it all was a singing dancing-machine/showman who could pen a sonic groove that would have had Beethoven moonwalking.

Elvis, hand over your crown.

Tim McGraw raises his 'Southern Voice' -- to blacks and whites

2009-10-30T05:01:07Z

As William Faulkner famously wrote in his novel "Requiem for a Nun": "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

Is country superstar Tim McGraw aware of that particular quote by Willie? In the raucous title track of McGraw's new album, "Southern Voice," he gives a shout-out to the Nobel Prize-winning writer.

"Will Faulkner wrote it," McGraw shouts as he romps through a roll-call of Southern icons -- Hank Williams, Alabama football coach Bear Bryant, the Allman Brothers Band, Scarlett O'Hara, Dale Earnhardt, Billy Graham, Charlie Daniels and others.

For sons of the South such as myself, Faulkner's insightful epigram is inextricably bound up with race. I'm still discombobulated when I recall that -- in my lifetime -- I saw "Colored" and "Whites only" signs hanging over two separate but supposedly equal water fountains at a car dealership in Smackover, Ark. That was in the early 1960s. I was about 5 years old.

I still recall the stares a date and I received when we went out on the town in Dothan, Ala., in 1986 -- she and I were fairly certain those stares were due to the different pigments of our skin.

I still recall hearing the "N" word dropped oh-so casually by a few folks around town when I visited Smackover in 1996.

Yep, Willie was right: The past isn't dead, especially in the South. It's not even past.

Maybe McGraw feels the same way. After all, his song "Southern Voice" also mentions Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Aretha Franklin, Chuck Berry and other African Americans.

"Hank Aaron smacked it, Michael Jordan dunked it," McGraw sings. "Pocahontas tracked it, Jack Daniel drunk it, Tom Petty rocked it. Dr. King paved it, Bear Bryant won it, Billy Graham saved it."

So, you think McGraw isn't unleashing a rebel yell in "Southern Voice"? After all, he's not taking a stand or throwing out any U2-style social commentary. He's merely throwing out a catalog of famous Southern folks, both black and white ... right?

Consider this: McGraw may have mentioned more black folks in this one song than in the entire history of country music.

In her book "My Country Roots," Alice Randall provides list after list of various categories of country music songs, from "Honky Tonk Angels," "Hookers" and "Mama" to "Divorce," "Cheaters" and "Jails & Prisons."

But Randall admits she had to struggle to come up with a list for her "Black" country song category: "Unfortunately the African-American experience in the South and the Southerner's observations of that experience are far less evident" (than other subjects).

But maybe McGraw's song isn't such a big deal, I thought -- even if country is the most segregated music in the nation.

And so I poked around on the Internet, trolling for examples of country artists crossing the racial divide, and I remembered that Garth Brooks had performed at some sort of tribute concert for Martin Luther King Jr.

A Google search of "Garth Brooks Martin Luther King" brought up a list of sites, including mlkmemorial.org.

I clicked on the site ... Oops, my mouse shifted and I accidentally clicked on another site -- a page of a white supremacist site on which various, ranting posters had lambasted Brooks as a "traitor" and worse.

Maybe Tim McGraw thought he was crafting a simple, joyous song about Southern culture and Southern heroes. However, I don't think everyone is going to hear it that way.

Rockers appear human in rock hall jams

2009-10-23T11:23:39Z

Each year when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame stages its induction shindig, we rock fans get all giddy. We wonder what sort of musical magic will unfold as the honorees strap on guitars, honey-coat their vocal cords and pick up their drum sticks to perform during the now-traditional concert and jam.

Like the time Axl Rose and Bruce Springsteen jammed on the Beatles' "Come Together" when John Lennon was inducted as a solo artist in 1994 ....

Like the time Tina Turner joined Mick Jagger to sing "Honky Tonk Women" when the Rolling Stones were inducted in 1989 ....

Like the time the Beatles were inducted in 1988 and the jam on "I Saw Her Standing There" found the stage elbows-to-butt-cheeks with the likes of George Harrison, Jagger, Springsteen, Jeff Beck, the Supremes' Mary Wilson, a morose-looking Bob Dylan and a dozen other rockers, both royalty (Brian Wilson) and court peons (Journey guitarist Neal Schon, Paul Shaffer).

Like the time the Lovin' Spoonful were inducted in 2000 ....

Those moments and many more -- except for the Spoonful gig -- are captured on the just-released, nine-DVD box set "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live."

Along with 125 performances spanning the 24-year history of the museum, the set also includes backstage footage and the induction speeches of stars lauding stars (Little Richard inducting the Isley Brothers, Steve Winwood inducting James Brown, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler inducting Led Zeppelin -- and remembering how his girlfriend became his ex-girlfriend after she encountered Jimmy Page during an early Zep tour of America).

But this monster box set ignores one of the most remarkable performances during the rock hall ceremonies.

It was, Lovin' Spoonful bassist Steve Boone told me during a phone interview in 2006, "a rather horrendous induction performance I'd like to forget about."

The Lovin' Spoonful, that 1960s folk-rock, pop and jug band revivalist group, were inducted into the hall in 2000. During rehearsals with keyboardist Paul Shaffer and the house band for the Spoonful's induction performance, the Spoonful members were "jamming and getting warmed up," Boone said. "Shaffer stopped the rehearsal and said, 'Man, I can't believe you haven't been playing together all this time. You sound terrific.'"

Then, when vocalist John Sebastian "got up to sing, you could hear a pin drop -- or a jaw drop," Boone said. Age had ravaged Sebastian's voice.

"It was obvious then that John couldn't sing the leads," Boone said. "The feeling in the room was like 'Oh God, this is bad.' And it (the band's induction performance) was. It was too delicate a situation. You don't want to be the jerk who makes waves and refuses to go up there. This is not a news flash. I've told anybody who asks me that it was one of the most embarrassing nights of my life in public performance."

While I couldn't find the Spoonful performance among the hours of footage on the DVD box set (surely it's not included), ironically there are plenty of moments when the cameras catch these musical gods and goddesses being all too human.

Very few of these stars appear comfortable or confident addressing an audience with a podium rather than a guitar in front of themselves. For example, Aerosmith's Joe Perry, inducting Zep along with bandmate Tyler, comes across like a nervous third grader reading a class book report.

Even more ironically, it's the star-powered jams that make these rock gods seem human.

Speaking at the induction of Cream in 1993, Eric Clapton said he was against the idea of a rock hall: "Until recently I didn't believe in this institution ... It seemed to me that rock 'n' roll should never be respectable." But Robbie Robertson convinced him that "minor and major miracles take place in here."

Then Clapton noted he was reuniting with "two people I love very dearly (his Cream mates Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker). Yesterday we played together for the first time in 25 years."

And, as the trio performed "Sunshine of Your Love," they looked like giddy school kids who were making noise in their first garage band.

That same carefree glee -- of discovering (or rediscovering) that youthful, even innocent rock 'n' roll fire that first ensnared these artists 30, 40 or 50 years ago -- plays across the faces of these aging music titans again and again.

And we fans are grateful that these stars chose to embrace Danny and the Juniors' "Rock 'n' roll is here to stay" mantra rather than that the Who's "Hope I die before I get old" credo.

(The nine-DVD box set is available only online at rockhalldvds.com or timelife.com. A three-DVD set will be available in stores on Nov. 3.)

For Alice Cooper, life and music a Theatre of Death

2009-10-01T16:50:48Z

Alice Cooper, the King of Shock Rock -- make that the Grandfather -- has forsaken his crown.

In the early 1970s, Cooper concocted a rock 'n' roll stage show in which he chopped up baby dolls, cavorted with a live boa constrictor and portrayed his execution by guillotine.

Never mind that the Grand Guignol theater in Paris beat Cooper to the punch, shocking people with macabre, bloody antics way back during the 1890s. Picket-fence America had seen nothing like Alice. Parents were dutifully outraged by Cooper's grisly shenanigans, while such songs as "School's Out," "Eighteen," "Elected" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy" became Top 40 hits, and the albums "Killer" and "Billion Dollar Babies" sold platinum.

But, Cooper said during a phone interview with The News-Journal, "I don't think you can shock an audience any more."

That doesn't mean Cooper has given up his ghoulish theatrics. His Theatre of Death Tour comes Oct. 5 to Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach. During a recent tour stop in Australia, Cooper took time off from his golf game (no kidding -- he loves the sport) to talk about shock rock, death metal dudes both real and fake, and the hard work behind having your head chopped off each night on tour.

"Along Came a Spider," your latest CD, is a concept album about a serial killer. What was the album's inspiration? A newspaper headline? Are you a fan of the "Dexter" TV show?

I love "Dexter," of course. That's a terrific show. We got addicted to that on the bus.

Most of the time I tell a story in my albums. And I thought, "What about a serial killer who fashions himself after a spider?" All his victims are wrapped in silk, like a spider with a fly. There's one leg missing. You start figuring out, "Oh-oh -- eight victims, eight legs, spider." And then the twist ending.

In the beginning, the girl says, "We found his diary today, describing all the murders." And in the end, he's saying, "They found my diary today." And he's talking to his pet spider, and he's in an institution in a straitjacket somewhere. And he says, "It couldn't have been us, because we've been in here for 28 years." So it leaves the audience with either all of these murders only happen in his diary, or there's another killer. I love that you're leaving the audience on that wire, going "Well, what?"

How prominently does "Spider" figure in the current Theatre of Death Tour?

There's a piece of it. This show is very, very choreographed. It's in four sections -- four different personalities of Alice. And after about five songs of each personality, they put that one to death. They'll cut his head off in that one. He goes to hell. Then he gets a lethal injection. Then they hang him.

If people are enthralled and can't wait to see Alice's demise at the end of the show, which has become a tradition, then let's kill him four times. Let's give them four times what they're waiting for.

You want to give them all the songs they want. I used to think it was the theatrics they were coming for. I realized later that's the icing on the cake. They really want to hear the hits. It's the same thing with everybody, with Ozzy and Aerosmith. As much theatrics as we put into it, it's a byproduct of the hits. They want those songs to sound like on the record.

Did I read that your old buddy the guillotine is back?
    Oh, the guillotine, the hanging, the lethal injection, and another one is this box they put me in and run spikes through it. And none of them are comfortable. Every single night, four times a night, I go, "Boy, I hope this works."

And we thought Mick Jagger had to be in shape to go on tour. We always read he works out before the Stones go on the road.

Well, he's five years older than me. And the fact that he does three hours onstage without stopping. We do 95 minutes, and I don't stop. But I keep thinking, "Jagger does three hours, and he does a half-hour on the treadmill before the show." So I have to give him the credit. He's still the prototype king.

But he's not getting his head chopped off.

No, no. You're right about that (laughs).

When you were taking a hatchet to baby dolls, that was pretty shocking to a lot of people. Do you still try to shock your audiences, or are today's audiences more jaded and more tough to shake up?

I don't think you can shock an audience any more. Honestly, with the advent of CNN, there is no such thing as shocking an audience. Think of it -- I used to hang myself onstage in 1970, and people were shocked by that. But now you turn on CNN and there's a guy getting hung -- Hussein hung in front of everybody.

They chop my head off, but you turn on CNN and there are terrorists literally cutting a guy's head off. So when reality turns much more shocking than anything I or Marilyn Manson can do onstage, then you have to leave shock alone and just do theatrics and try to entertain the audience.

I've always tried to design Alice as being a sort of strange, dark vaudevillian character. I think our show is closer to vaudeville than anything else. It's just a modern-day rock vaudeville where anything can happen. But it definitely has a dark sense of humor to it. And horror and comedy do sleep in bed pretty nicely together.

I saw a copy of Metal Hammer magazine this past week and the cover was some Scandinavian death metal or black metal band in ghoul face paint, and in the interview these guys seemed very, very serious. Have those bands, or have any other rock or hip-hop artists that followed in your wake, shocked or disturbed you, either with their music, lyrics or stage show?

I think when you eat your lead singer. One of the bands ate their lead singer. I kind of thought that might have been going too far. Only because the next guy that auditions goes, "What happened to your last lead singer?" "We ate him. Would you like to have lunch with us?"

I mean, the funny thing to me is looking at these death metal magazines, every band wants to be more evil than the last band. And none of them are really evil. I mean, they might talk a big game, but then I meet these guys -- you know, it's Warrockfjord! -- and here's his mother, and she baked cookies for you. It's all role-playing.

I doubt very seriously if any of these guys are into anything satanic. If they were going to be satanic, you know what they would look like? They would be dressed as politicians, or they would be dressed as car salesmen (laughs). Because Satan, trust me, does not have horns and a tail. He is the slickest looking guy you've ever seen, who could sell you a refrigerator in Alaska.

You hit on the point: I don't see any dark humor in these bands.

You're absolutely right. If it is there, it's there unintentionally. Sometimes I look at these bands and I go, "Really? There's a market for Viking rock? Honestly, do you really think that people are going to be way into this whole Viking thing?"

It's play-acting. It's almost like "Star Wars" nerds, where you ask what political party and they say, "We're Jedi."

But didn't some of those Scandinavian metal bands actually freak out?

Oh they did. The guy died, and from what I understand, they literally ate him. And a lot of them go out and burn churches. And they get so carried away. It's almost like the rap artists that started out playing the part of gangstas, and then became gangstas.

And you're sitting there, and here's a guy with a No. 1 record who's shooting people. You're going, "Guys! It's a game. You play this game to be characters, but you don't really shoot people!" I think some of them go so far they say, "Well, if we have any credibility at all, it has to be because we shot somebody." And I go, "What?"

It's taking it to the point of going, "Would you guys please get this together? You're musicians. If you want to write about that, great. I'm never going to really kill the nurse. I'm kidding, OK?" Whereas these guys think they really have to do it. It's the most amazing, weird thing, taking things way too seriously. The idea of rock 'n' roll is fantasy. That's what you want -- fantasy.

If You Go
WHO: Alice Cooper
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 5
WHERE: Peabody Auditorium, 600 Auditorium Blvd., Daytona Beach
TICKETS: $40-$55 plus service charge, available at the auditorium box office and Ticketmaster
INFORMATION: 386-671-3462

It's shocking -- Alice isn't only extreme performer!

2009-10-01T16:27:10Z

When Alice Cooper birthed shock rock in the early 1970s, he certainly wasn't the first stage entertainer to go ghoul. (Google "Grand Guignol" to discover all the brain-drilling, throat-slashing, eye-stabbing antics that horrified Parisians in that theater during the 1890s and later).

And Alice wasn't the last rocker or rapper to attempt to shock and awe mainstream society.

In honor of Cooper's concert Oct. 5 at Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach, here's my list of the seven most shocking/disturbing/freaky moments in pop music history, whether concerts, album tracks or videos:

7. Eminem, "'97 Bonnie and Clyde," from his 1999 debut album, "The Slim Shady LP." Eminem has never sounded more chilling than on this track. In his Slim Shady persona, the rapper weaves an unnerving tale about a father who coos baby talk to his infant daughter and lets her know he put her mama in "time out." But listeners know he has slit the mother's throat and is taking his daughter along on a drive as he looks for a place to dispose of the body.

6. Rolling Stones, Black and Blue Tour, 1976. Freudians had a field day when the Rolling Stones toured in '76 -- exactly what was Mick Jagger hoping to convey with that giant inflatable penis that unfurled across the stage?

5. Nine Inch Nails, video for "Closer," single from 1994. Never mind that NIN auteur Trent Reznor uttered a very naughty word on this track. The video version finds a goggled, bound Reznor trapped in some chamber of horrors that the abominable Dr. Phibes would adore, replete with pig heads and other animal carcasses merged with machinery. Meanwhile, our hero moans that's he feels "closer to God."

4. Alice Cooper, various tours, 1971-present. A man, his axe (chop-chop!), his boa (the constrictor kind, not the feathered kind) and his blade (of the guillotine sort). What more could horror rock fans want?

3. George Harrison, "Long Long Long," from the Beatles' "The Beatles" (better known as the White Album), 1968. Not long after the White Album was released, I was listening to it in a dark room (I think that was my older brother's idea) and "Revolution No. 9" kicked in -- and my 10-year-old brain thought the world was ending.

But a more chilling moment came with "Long Long Long," Harrison's whispery ballad -- which ends with a banshee howl inexplicably high-jacking the song. What was George thinking?

2. Dr. Dre with Snoop Dogg, Daz Dillinger, Kurupt and Jewell, "Bitches Ain't @#*%," from the album "The Chronic," 1992. It was one thing for N.W.A. to hurl an F-bomb at the police on their 1990 album "Straight Outta Compton." It was another for Dre, Snoop and others to go mega-misogynistic with this track from Dre's debut album, which took gangsta rap across white picket fences and into the heart of everyday American culture -- the set peaked at No. 3 on Billboard's album chart and sold over three million copies.

1. Al Stewart, "Love Chronicles," title track from the Scottish-born pop-folkie's second album, released in 1969. This sprawling, autobiographical, 18-minute track detailed seemingly every encounter Stewart had experienced with a female, from kindergarten through adulthood. And the gentle-voiced, literary-minded Stewart also deployed a naughty word as he explored his memories of the ladies in his life.

Though pop music historians have variously cited several old blues recordings, Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula" (from 1956), or the numerous recordings of "Louie Louie" as the first record to drop the F-word, some consider Stewart the definitive holder of that crown.

Stewart's deployment (in its gerund form -- ask your English teacher) was all the more shocking because he used the term conversationally, without malice or anger, to contrast the mindless sex of his past with the love (or near-love) he had finally found.

The effect was like John Keats dropping the F-word into "Ode to a Nightingale" ... well, sorta.