I hope all you Christmas shoppers took my top ten list from last week with you as a guide for giving the gift of music this year and marched out to a slowly-dying-everything-must-truly-go-final-sad-sad-holiday season-ever Tower Records store to let the impoverished, shivering Dickensian soon-to-be-jobless help limp down the aisles of dwindling stock, past the ghosts of Tower Christmas past and dodgers with fingerless gloves waiting for grey gruel in a bowl and grab some of those liquidation prices from the former music media super-store as it rasps out its final “and God bless Tiny Tim.” It really is sad, but I thought the chain had passed on like a month ago, hit its final note and closed its doors. Instead they have remained to continue liquidation, like a lingering illness, driving home the actual reality of a truly Tower-less world in our near future. I remember one very sad Christmas day when I was still a teenager and suddenly isolated from all my family for the holiday then devastated by the news that my new boyfriend’s room mate was actually his partner of many years. He was the doctors wife and I was just a gullible teenage mistress. Inconsolably heartbroken I demanded that a friend take me to Tower records in Concord and I bought more records, all for me, than I ever have in my life. Many were imports, among them Iggy Pop’s The Idiot and David Bowie’s Heroes—real cheery stuff but helpful ultimately on that Christmas day when all roads led to the only place that could make me feel better
Yet another Tower Records memory that marks a happier time was when Sonic Youth promoting their new album, Goo, played a live show at 12 noon in the parking lot of Tower on Columbus Street. They arrived distributing donuts to the crowd and Thurston Moore approached the microphone and said, “This song is our first single from the record and its called “Suck My Motherfuckin Dick” and Kim Gordon stepped up to the mic and echoed “Suck My Mother Fuckin Dick.” They played almost all of the new LP out in the bright sunlight of lunch hour, catching many of the weekend punks in their downtown work clothes. It was beautiful. I’ll miss Tower. For some reason walking into any Tower store always felt like you walked into musical Mecca, you might even see a movie star or some real punk rockers. I’ll miss not going to the Tower Records in every city I visit. I kind of wonder why the chain is disappearing. Is it really the result of downloading music illegally that has finally showed it’s predicted losses for the music industry, taking one of the largest music retail outlets as a casualty? Who really knows, and how might this affect some of the smaller independent record stores? Hard to say, but giving the gift of music for Christmas could be a slightly cheaper option and a nice chance to say goodbye to a regular shopping haunt. Let’s not forget the video/dvd portion of Tower Records also, boasting one of the biggest and best magazine and alternative ‘zine selections not to mention limited edition creepy and ghoulish doll collectibles, Emily the Strange merchandise, and horror movie action figures, Kiss dolls, the works. I didn’t even mention the vast Criterion Collection of great landmarks throughout film history available there on DVD. These many things shall be missed when Tower finally shuts its doors, and remember shoppers, the gift of music rarely fails to please. You know what to do.
Just after I featured my top 10 records of the year last week, I started thinking and remembering some blaring examples of greatness that I had left out of my list completely, forgotten things released very early in the year, and a lot of random moments that definitely rate but just happened to slip my mind. The one release I should be most punished for failing to include was the Bellrays LP, Have a little Faith. The riverside California based combo who have been around forever and get stronger all the time with their maximum rock and soul sound and the absolutely incredible vocals of Lisa Kekaula, hit a more versatile stride into some outright funk and soul excursions with horns and string arrangements yet their garage band/punk fury edge takes its rightful place here too. I saw them on a late night talk show, their national television debut and they knocked the crowd back with a short sweet and uncommonly sexy performance that gave me chills. Lisa is a force of nature—astonishing and beautiful. One of the best live bands in America hands down.
Another favorite from this year was the Drones follow-up record to their critically acclaimed Australian music prize-winning best album of 2005 Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By, the more somber but no less intense and darkly menacing Gala Mill. Recorded on a remote farm in Tasmania, this disc concentrates on some of the darker points in the history of Tasmania as a former penal colony. This four piece band can gradually build up a song from whispered hushed tones to raging explosive passion that takes your breath away. Guitarist/vocalist Gareth Liddiard sings with such fervor and raw emotion its frightening and unhinged, plaintive and gorgeous placing him in such fine company as Neil Young and Kurt Cobain and fellow Australians The Beasts of Bourbon. The Drones might not be for everyone but their stark desolate and brutal evocations envelop the listener and take you on a journey through several searing layers of honest emotion. This band is genius.
The Melvins, have just released a new LP called Senile Animal and there are two long final cuts, “Mechanical Bride” and “A Vast Filthy Prison” that are pure unadulterated melvins —loud drums, slow beat, hooky heavy guitar at sludge-pace and shouted lyrics. 7 minutes long each ,14 minutes of unapologetic awe-inspiring sludge-core heaven.
I was recently turned onto a Funkadelic record from 1975 called Hardcore Jollies and it was a revelation to me. How did I miss this vital visceral psychedelic romp, the hard pumping sexy funky bass covering the low end while a literal army of guitar playing madmen rip through an un-ending celebration of rock and roll heroics—solos that sting with virtuosity yet have an unpredictable sense of direction, Hendrix-like intensity and more rock and roll swagger than you thought a funkedelic could muster up. So intrigued by this I investigated several early LPs by them and found tons more of this incredible mixture of styles and mad skills. Funkadelic has got it going on and had it going on 30 years ago. Amazing.