talking about music with dudes in the nighttime

I flicked though my old Flickr photos looking for one that embodied "dude talking about something" and I think this is it.


Wednesday:
Lou Reed, Take No Prisoners - Live
James, Laid

Here is a partial list of the people at whom Lou Reed takes swipes during the fantastic 10:44 version of "Sweet Jane" opening Take No Prisoners: the microphone tech, the crowd, himself, Barbara Streisand, Randy Newman, people from Wyoming, clerks, people who save money, political people, Patti Smith, snobs, writers, comedians. I forget which song is it where he calls out Robert Christgau by name.

I had a good across-the-room yellin' twitter chat late last night with @sleepbucket about this record and from that, I recommend reading the Lou Reed page of Christgau's collected Consumer's Guide reviews. If you are into that sort of thing.



The Take No Prisoners version of "Street Hassle" starts off like carousel music version with the band trying to mimic the string quartet but it settles into the brilliant, shimmering thesis that song always is for me, even if Bruce Springsteen doesn't pop for a "hey, bro" wisdom moment like he does on the studio album. The horn section vs. guitar racket vs. one snare drum vs. Lou Reed running out of things to say around the 11-minute mark is cataclysmic contemporary opera.



It's "Walk on the Wild Side" where he calls out his critics, Christgau in particular, and the media and everything. It's luminous. I love how in 18 minutes he scarcely ever gets around to the actual song. I had a literature teacher in college that would go deep into any tangent that presented itself, and once someone asked when we were going to discuss the text. "We have our whole lives to discuss the text. The text is going nowhere."

Thursday:
Styx, The Complete Wooden Nickel Recordings
Tindersticks, Falling Down a Mountain and BBC Sessions


A bunch of us dudes went for a beer after guitar (dude) lessons on Wednesday and we extolled the virtues of 70's pop culture, a conversation that spilled over into Facebook twice after admitting that talking about music with dudes in the nighttime left me Thursday morning with Styx in my head.



Friday:
The Sisters of Mercy, First Last and Always
Thin Lizzy, Bad Reputation
Dr. Dog, Be The Void
The 484 South Band, 21 Miles of Bad Road
The Chrome Cranks, Ain't No Lies in Blood 
Sir Lord Baltimore, Kingdom Come
Witch, Paralyzed

This egotistic compulsion to list all the media I'm taking in paid off in the dividends of talking about it with real people in the world and through the tubes of the Internet. The media begets mediation, which becomes another media. It's like Heraclitus and how everything is water but with music and dudes being cool! And Styx! Which is a river!



Jerri says I should up the ante, so I'll see yesterday's Styx and raise you all a Billy Thorpe. One of the dad's also chaperoning  Maya's Valentine's dance last night said he had a music question for me and then never asked it. All the major dudes will tell you I'm up for the discussion.