The five most misleading album covers in my record collection

One thing I really like about buying vinyl records – they’re often cheap enough that I can afford to take a gamble on a band I’ve never heard of just because I like their cover art. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is often possible to judge an album by its cover, especially when you’re dealing with psych-rock, prog or funk. Sometimes, though, I fall victim to the old bait-and-switch. It’s uniquely disheartening to discover that the insane record sleeve I’ve so graciously invited into my home is nothing but a façade for garden-variety garbage. After thumbing through my collection, I’ve called a few of the worst offenders on the carpet.

Brick – Good High

Is that not one of the greatest album covers of the 1970s? Just looking at that beaming dude and his illicit candy bar is enough to get your toes tapping. You have to assume that this is going to be one tripped-out funk record, or at least something with a cool reggae influence. Instead, it’s a fairly standard proto-disco funk disc, boasting a few nice breaks and a lot of filler. It’s not an awful album by any means – the much-sampled “Dazz” is pretty hot – but the chasm between my expectations and reality has seldom been deeper.

Dreams – Imagine My Surprise

You have to figure a band cool enough to commission cover art by Gahan Wilson – the macabre cartooning icon who’s like a bridge between Charles Addams and Gary Larson – is going to bring something to the table, right? Especially since they were apparently fine with Wilson drawing them pajama-clad and on the verge of being swallowed by a giant vagina monster? Sadly, what’s inside is undistinguished horn rock that could charitably be called “a poor man’s Chicago.” Dreams bassist Will Lee did go on to a lifelong gig with David Letterman’s house band. I guess that’s something.

Don Ralke – Bongo Madness

Look at that cover. Look at how much fun those folks are having. Maybe their little bongo party hasn’t spilled over into full-scale madness yet, but it’s in the mail, that’s for sure. It’s just too bad that the accompanying record inspires exactly none of the emotions on display in that image. Oh, there’s bongo, to be sure, but the madness is regrettably hard to come by. These tepid easy-listening grooves are more like Bongo Mildness.

Casiopea – Eyes of the Mind

OK, you’ve got your astrological band name, your eyeball-and-spacescape cover art and your pretentious album title. Then you flip the jacket over and find that not only was the album released in 1981, but the band is also entirely Japanese. Is there any conceivable way that this is not some bizarre lost classic of prog rock? Well, yeah. Apparently the other option is that Casiopea is an elevator jazz combo that churned out the blandest Muzak knock-offs this side of my neighborhood Pamida store.

Barrabas – Watch Out

I have no recollection of buying this record. I assume it was a trophy from one of my psychedelic shopping sprees at Reckless Records in Chicago that got filed away before I got around to putting it on the turntable. Whatever the case, I was hyped when I pulled Watch Out out of my stacks a few months back. The Biblically inspired band name coupled with a nude snake-woman teasing her hair in an oppressively purple dressing room carried the promise of something dark, trippy and deeply psychedelic. But no worries, Barrabas – you guys go on ahead with your watered-down Euro-disco. Oh heavens no, your undeniably killer album cover is in no way tainted by the sub-roller-rink jams you’ve seen fit to preserve in vinyl. Whatever gave you that idea? Say, what’s Spanish for “infinitely forgettable”?

Of Lou Reed, Susan Boyle and the dreaded "Hallelujah" effect

I was as moderately tickled as anyone when the whole Susan Boyle phenomenon kicked off last summer. It was a nice moment of underdog catharsis that I figured would flare up and burn out quickly like any good viral video. I didn’t expect Susan Boyle would still be registering on my consciousness in November of 2010, and I certainly didn’t expect that my main man Lou Reed would be pulled into her vortex.

And yet, here we are. Lou recently took some heat for allegedly refusing to let Boyle sing his lovely junkie ode “Perfect Day” at some benefit or awards show or what-have-you, a slight that apparently reduced England’s latest rose to tears. Now, of course, it all turns out to have been some big misunderstanding, and Lou is inexplicably eager to make sure that nobody thinks he’s maybe sort of a bit of a jerk (a textbook case of too little, 40 years too late).


We all know that Lou doesn’t do anything half-assed (The Raven notwithstanding), so a mere apology simply wouldn’t do. No, Lou stepped up to the plate and offered to direct the music video for Boyle’s “Perfect Day” cover. It’s a very Lou Reed type of favor, in that he gets a chance to look like a good guy even as he advances his decade-long agenda of being taken seriously as a genuine artiste. The video is okay in my estimation – Lou shoots some nice, moody landscapes and Boyle’s Enya-esque vocals are decent if not stunning. It’s a handsomely mounted, crowd-pleasing production, and therein lies my concern.

I remember back in the day having arguments with my music nerd buddies about the superlative rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” – Cohen’s, John Cale’s or Jeff Buckley’s. (I stand by Cale, though Buckley seems to be the consensus pick.) Ah, but those were different times. Somewhere down the line, Rufus Wainwright’s edition of “Hallelujah” was licensed for use on the Shrek soundtrack, thereby catching the attention of a generation of bland young songbirds. Since then it’s become nigh unavoidable, spilling from the glossy lips of unimaginative vocalists on prime time TV shows, in karaoke clubs and at acoustic open mic nights. Cohen’s masterwork of sexual frustration and Biblical allegories has been stripped of its power and reduced to a higher-minded “You Light Up My Life” for the new millennium. I used to adore “Hallelujah,” but it’s gotten to the point that I cringe as soon as I hear a breathy intonation of “I heard there was a secret chord.”


The “Hallelujah” effect is what I fear for “Perfect Day.” Aside from maybe “Sweet Jane,” it’s already probably Lou Reed's most frequently covered song. That makes sense – “Perfect Day” works well in unexpected contexts. Its use as the backing track to a heroin overdose in Trainspotting was transcendent. Duran Duran scored a solid hit with their 1995 cover. Reed prodigy Antony’s rendition is beyond haunting.

But few songs can withstand a “Hallelujah” style vault into ubiquity, and these two share some unsettling traits. They’re both very pretty songs about some ugly subjects. They’re both literate enough to lend some unearned gravitas to nearly any singer. And they’re both written by guys who can be easily name-checked for instant street cred.

I got a little nervous when “Perfect Day” was featured prominently in a very tasteful ad during the recent Winter Olympics. It already holds a surprisingly high profile in the UK thanks to a fairly dreadful, “We Are the World” style 1997 charity recording featuring Lou and a cast of all-stars. Now this Susan Boyle business makes me worried that it’ll be popping up whenever an aging pop starlet wants to prove something with more “serious” material, or worse yet, when American Idol or Glee feel like working a little edge into the mix. Hell, the Norwegians are already all over it:


I know it’s silly to be so protective of someone else’s song. After all, can anyone ever really own a work of art? But heck, I freely admit to my snobbery. I understand that “Perfect Day” belongs to the world, and that’s what scares me. I mean, have you seen some of the stuff the world is into these days?

Tom Emmer believes in having seven children

When it comes to politics, I suppose I’m what they call a single-issue voter. I really don’t give a lot of thought to budgets or tax breaks or things like that. What I’m mainly concerned about when I walk into my local polling place is where the candidates stand on the issue of having seven children.

That’s why Tom Emmer is my man in this year’s Minnesota gubernatorial race. Tom Emmer made it very clear right out of the gate that he is strongly in favor of having seven children. In fact, he's made having seven children one of the cornerstones of his run. His earliest campaign ad was entirely dedicated to this immensely important issue. The ad prominently featured the smiling faces of Emmer’s kids, all lined up outside the family home in an easy-to-tally fashion. If anyone ever tries to tell you that Tom Emmer is soft on having seven children, you can count them for yourself: One, two, three, four, five, six… seven!


Even when Emmer doesn’t include his own seven children in his campaign advertising, the topic is clearly never far from his heart. Subsequent ads run on Emmer’s behalf have featured a variety of multi-ethnic children being traumatized by the policies embraced by Emmer’s opponents. Some might say that this is pandering or overselling the concept, but I don’t believe so. These ads simply reflect Tom Emmer’s passion for and tireless dedication to having seven children.


I don’t mean to disparage Tom Emmer’s worthy opponents, both of whom have some admirable qualities of their own. But the fact of the matter is that Emmer is the lone candidate with the courage to have seven children. It’s difficult for me to fully embrace Independence Party candidate Tom Horner’s wishy-washy position of having three children. To me, that suggests hedging one’s bets and playing things too safe. Worse yet, DFL candidate Mark Dayton showed a disturbing lack of backbone when he joined the “two children of a failed marriage” camp. Despite any other winning traits these men may possess, I’m afraid I just can’t look past their lack of commitment to having seven children. At a certain point, one simply has to wonder whether the poor planning that contributed to Dayton and Horner’s failure to have seven children will bleed over into their governance.

I know what you’re thinking: “But what about Tom Emmer’s history? Hasn’t he flip-flopped repeatedly on the having seven children issue?” It’s true. At various points in the past, Tom Emmer has adopted multiple views on this topic. Among other positions, he has previously adhered to the doctrine of having six, five and, yes, even two children. If one follows the paper trail back far enough, there is even evidence that Emmer took a steadfast position of having no children for much of his youth. Some see this as hypocrisy, but I think of it as an indicator that Tom Emmer is a man willing to learn, expand his worldview and grow as a person. Past positions aren’t important. What’s important is that Tom Emmer is currently committed to having seven children, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

I fully understand if you’re not swayed by this analysis. I realize that I have a certain degree of tunnel vision when it comes to this issue, but it’s one that I hold dear to my heart. As always, I encourage my fellow Minnesotans to follow their own hearts when they head to the polls this November. I, for one, will be voting for Tom Emmer.

Because Tom Emmer believes in having seven children. And that’s what matters.

Stephen Malkmus sums up the Pavement reunion (and reunion tours in general) in one pithy bit of stage banter

"The fuckin' '90s were cool; hummus was exotic."
- Stephen Malkmus, September 12, 2010 at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in Saint Paul, MN

A Modest Proposal for BP CEO Tony Hayward

Dear Mr. Hayward,

Let me just say right at the top that I know you have already taken far more heat than your limited personal involvement in BP’s Gulf Coast oil spill probably merits. I have no doubt that the events leading up to the spill occurred too far down the corporate food chain for you to ever notice until it was too late. That said, you are the company’s CEO for at least a few more months. Fair or not, the buck stops with you. It is human nature to want to attach an individual face to any major event. Yours is the face of many of BP’s past successes, and it will forever be the face of this catastrophe. To paraphrase Batman’s rationale for sacrificing his reputation to uphold Harvey Dent’s in The Dark Knight, this crisis needs a symbol. That symbol has to be you.

I do hope that you count yourself lucky, Mr. Hayward. You are getting out of this morass with only a presumably brief period of unemployment (subsidized by a multi-million-dollar pension, no less) as your penance. That is a lenient sentence by anyone’s standards, especially considering the very public penalties paid by your counterparts in China. Had this happened in Chinese waters, you may well have been executed for your negligence, just like a number of officials and executives who oversaw recent safety violations by Chinese corporations.

Now, far be it from me to advocate China’s philosophy toward crime and punishment. Their human rights record is far too heinous for me to ever seriously endorse their punitive methods. Still, it is oddly refreshing to consider a system that regards the architects of massive corporate violations as roughly equivalent to hit men, drive-by shooters and other profit-oriented murderers.

And make no mistake, Mr. Hayward – you and BP are indeed murderers. Even beyond the 11 lives snuffed out in the initial explosion, beyond the myriad animal species driven to the brink of extinction, your callous incompetence has shattered the existences of thousands of families across the Gulf Coast and beyond. Worse than that, the ongoing devastation wrought by your oil spill threatens to effectively extinguish one of the last vestiges of indigenous society in America. The Louisiana bayous are home to a distinctive Creole and Cajun culture that has survived for hundreds of years. Now your oil is on pace to obliterate the livelihood and surroundings that have previously sustained that culture through all manner of natural and man-made disasters. I hope that I am wrong, but it is quite possible that BP has launched what amounts to environmental and economic genocide.

I’m sure you genuinely believe yourself to be mostly blameless in this whole debacle, Mr. Hayward, but as a human being you must understand our need to see someone suffer some consequences for this. That, I believe, is what is especially maddening to many observers – the knowledge that neither you nor anyone else from BP will spend so much as a day behind bars. Yes, I know there are possible criminal charges pending. You know as well as I do that BP’s pool of attorneys runs too deep for anything of substance ever to come of those. The worst the company is looking at are a few hefty fines and maybe some probationary sanctions.

Fortunately, I believe I have identified an acceptable middle ground between state-sponsored execution and getting off scot-free. Mr. Hayward, the most honorable action you could take now is to commit seppuku. I am not the first to suggest this course of action for you and your associates, but as the situation has developed, it seems more and more like the only satisfactory solution. So long as you continue to draw breath, your existence will stand as a constant reminder to Gulf Coast residents that the people who destroyed their way of life are still out there moving freely and making money. Even if you were to somehow end up in the prison cell you so richly deserve, you would still be a living, breathing, taxpayer-subsidized symbol of the arrogance and negligence that has savaged us in more ways than we can count.

So seppuku it is. It needn’t be an ignominious thing. In fact, it could be a borderline heroic acknowledgment of your sins against humanity and nature. Like Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.” If you are truly a friend to the people who have dedicated their lives and labors to making you and your cronies obscenely wealthy, then I would advise you to rent The Godfather Part II and take some tips from the final conversation between Tom Hagen and Frankie Five Angels. Or, if you really want to make your contrition known to the world, you might read up on the very public demise of State Senator Budd Dwyer of Pennsylvania. Either way, your passing would be a symbolic act above all other symbolic acts.

I suppose there might be one other way for you to redeem yourself and begin the healing process on the Gulf Coast. You could liquidate that golden parachute BP so generously strapped across your shoulders, withdraw all the contents of the numerous bank accounts you no doubt hold and dedicate that money exclusively to the oil spill clean-up and restoration effort. You could then call in favors from your presumably extensive network of expert colleagues in the energy industry and devote yourself wholly to developing clean, sustainable alternative fuel sources that will help to eliminate future spills like the ones currently destroying Louisiana, Nigeria, Michigan and so many other places around the globe.

Oh, but who am I kidding? That scenario is much too far-fetched. No, best to stick with the original plan. Please, Mr. Hayward, for the good of yourself and everyone involved, fall on your sword, as literally and as quickly as possible.

Four songs to break a Hipster Dad’s heart

Disclaimer: My pal Doc Waffles recently congratulated me on not letting fatherhood push me into "going all Mitch Albom" with my writing. Apologies to the Doc, but this column is where I let my inner Albom get the better of me. If you have a low tolerance for sentimentality, I suggest you skip this one. I'll be back to our regularly scheduled irreverence soon enough.

I knew going into fatherhood that a lot of my entertainment options would change. I wouldn’t be attending nighttime concerts with any regularity for quite some time, for instance, and I’d have to wait for the baby to fall asleep to pop in those Breaking Bad DVDs. But I didn’t expect just how much impact having a kid would have on the way I hear certain songs.

For some reason, I’ve never been especially bothered by songs about children dying. I think that’s just too big a concept and too far-removed from anything in my own experience to make a real impact on me. That hasn’t changed since I’ve had a child of my own. I can still listen to Violent Femmes’ “Country Death Song” or The Decemberists’ “The Rake’s Song” – both sung from the perspective of a father who murders his own kids – and regard them as appropriately macabre murder ballads.

No, what really get me are songs about kids living, or to put it more accurately, songs about kids aging. I’m not talking about obvious tear-jerkers like “Cat’s in the Cradle” or “Puff the Magic Dragon.” Those songs are a bit too on-the-nose and preachy to really grab me. The ones that knock me for a loop take a subtler, more lived-in approach that makes me think the songwriters have really been there. That type of song has always done a number on me, but now that I have a son of my own, they’ve become downright hard to listen to. Here are a few that consistently put a lump in my throat.

Joni Mitchell – “The Circle Game”


I can’t always take a whole lot of Joni Mitchell in one sitting, but I’m an unabashed devotee of her Ladies of the Canyon album. Even amongst all the stellar songwriting on display there, “The Circle Game” stands out as a spot-on, only slightly sentimental assessment of a child growing into manhood. Mitchell captures the wide-eyed wonder of growing up while avoiding the fetishization of childhood that tainted much of her contemporaries’ work. Joni remembers that terror and frustration (“Words like, ‘When you’re older’ must appease him / And promises of someday make his dreams”) are huge parts of being too young to fend for oneself.

The part that slays me, though, is one line in the last verse: “So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty / Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true.” That hits awfully close to home. I’ve never dealt well with the way advancing years force us to sacrifice and alter our dearly held dreams. Sometimes that’s a good thing – at 20, for instance, I was just starting to get the idea that the world wasn’t going to fall at my feet and vault me into the pantheon of Great American Writers unless I put in some years of hard, thankless work. Now that I’m 31 with more than a decade of writerly labor under my belt, I’m still clinging to my dream of fame and prestige, but it becomes a little harder to believe in with each passing year.

It terrifies me to think that my son will have to abandon his dreams one day. For the moment, it’s not a big concern. His current dreams seem to involve propelling himself forward rather than back, getting a hold of his mom’s Nalgene water bottle for gumming purposes and maybe being as tall as he is when I carry him on my shoulders. Soon enough, though, he’ll be able to assess the world and decide what he wants from it. I truly hope that he will be able to realize the dreams that matter most to him, but deep in my heart I know that few people ever do.

Neil Young – “My Boy”

(Sorry for the cover - Neil is pretty touchy about his videos being shared online)

Oh man, I have a long emotional history with this one. It’s from Young’s underrated country record Old Ways, an album I received as a Christmas gift from my dad when I was 15. My dad’s not really one for picking out presents, so when he does, it usually means the gift is something personal that he knew the recipient would specifically appreciate. My copy of Old Ways was dubbed from his friend’s record collection onto the B-side of a cassette tape, with Van Morrison’s Moondance occupying the A-side. Some might think giving a dub as a gift rather chintzy, but in my estimation the hand-lettered cassette case and the time dedicated to picking a record and playing it through as it recorded just gave it all the more sentimental value.

But on to the song itself. The summer after my freshman year of college, my dad and I took a road trip in his Toyota Camry station wagon to visit some friends in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Somewhere in the middle of the Nebraska flatlands, I popped Old Ways into the cassette deck. We’d hit that point in every long drive where chit-chat fades away into hazy silence when “My Boy” came on the stereo. We sat there quietly, staring out on the vast nothingness of rural Nebraska, listening to Neil Young wistfully asking his son why he was growing up so fast. I couldn’t help but wonder if my dad was feeling something similar, taking a cross-country trip with a young man who used to be his little boy.

To me, that sounds like a realization both painful and wonderful, terms that seem to appear in conjunction an awful lot in the course of fatherhood. As tough as I know it will be to let go of my son when the time comes, I hope I’ll at least have been able to pass a few totems of art and beauty along to him like my dad did with Old Ways.

Ben Folds – “Still Fighting It”


Folds’ Rockin’ the Suburbs was one of the first albums I ever reviewed, way back when I was a lowly intern at New Orleans’ Where Y’at magazine. It was a positive review overall, but I was underwhelmed by a few songs. I specifically singled out “Still Fighting It” for trafficking in what my 22-year-old self thought to be trite, maudlin observations about the nature of aging.

What a difference nine years makes. Oh, and a baby. The baby makes a fair bit of difference too. Listening to “Still Fighting It” now, I hear the song for what it really is: a young father sending his child an advance apology for the painful realities of existence and his own failings as a human being. The former is, of course, something we can’t do much about. The latter, though, is something I imagine to be a near-universal source of fear for parents.

I know it is for me. Since my son has been born, I’ve been on a personal improvement campaign. I’ve improved my diet, committed myself to working out consistently and re-energized my dedication to making art. I’ve never been much of a sleeper, but these days I’m clocking more hours of consciousness than ever as I work my day job, keep myself in shape, try to complete a novel, shop around old writing to publishers and, most importantly, take care of my baby. The way I see it, I’ve been in a holding pattern for too long. Now I’m in a race against time. I only have so long to make myself into someone my son can look upon with genuine pride and awe. I want him to be able to tell his little playground buddies, "My dad writes books!" The last thing I ever want is to have to look him in the eye and say, like Folds’ narrator, “You’re so much like me / I’m sorry.”

Low – “In Metal”


Even six months into his existence, I’m amazed at how quickly my own son is, to quote Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes, “speeding forward through the plate glass of maturing selves.” As much as I love seeing him grow and develop, part of me wants to cling to his infancy and not let go. Sometimes when I’m holding him in my arms, I consider the fact that I’ll only be able to do this for a very limited period of time. When my wife and I put him to bed each night, I often ponder that the boy we’re laying down will be gone in the morning, replaced by a noticeably older, larger, more self-sufficient edition. He’s already so much bigger than he was just a few weeks ago. The day is fast approaching when he’ll be so big that I’ll never be able to cradle him again. That breaks my heart beyond belief.

And so I am totally with Mimi Parker when she sings this beautiful, wrenching ode to the tininess of babyhood. The tears come right to the surface every single time I hear “Partly hate to see you grow / And just like your baby shoes / Wish I could keep your little body / In metal.” I can’t wait to see what he’ll become, but I know I’ll always miss what he is right now. And right now. And right now.

- Ira Brooker

"Lou Reed's Concert in the Bark" or "Old dogs, Lou tricks"

6/5/2010

To: Mr. Lou Reed

From: Mr. Ira Brooker

Re: Concert for Dogs




Dear Lou,

You don’t owe me anything. In fact, with all of the joy and enrichment your work has added to my life, I probably owe you even more than the hundreds of dollars I’ve spent on your albums over the years. I just want you to know that I’m not speaking as some kind of falsely entitled fanboy here. No, I’m announcing this as a dedicated fan who cares deeply about your art and your vision: I give up.

I give up, Lou. Not on you or your music; quite the contrary, actually. What I’m giving up on is hoping that you’ll ever conform to my expectations. I understand that you’re not entirely satisfied with your status as a music icon, that you need to identify yourself as a paragon of artistic versatility. That means different things to different people. Tony Bennett, for instance, still croons with the best of them while also finding satisfaction in painting pretty good portraits of his celebrity cronies. Russell Crowe, Juliette Lewis, Billy Bob Thornton and at least a dozen other big-name actors fill the space between gigs by making mediocre music. And I won’t even get into the baffling sphere of celebrity fragrances.

But you’ve always been far too hip to take that easy a route, no matter how much Middle America yearns to smell like Lou Reed. When you expand your horizons, you push them in directions nobody else had on their radars. The past decade or so has seen you dabbling in theater, photography, Eastern meditation, literary myth-building and even mobile phone app-building. You’ve done a little bit of pretty much everything, except, of course, record a new album.

And now I hear that your latest venture is a concert for dogs. Australian dogs, at that. There was a time not too long ago when this would have upset me, both as a music fan and as a dog hater. I’d have been on the internet within minutes voicing my displeasure, wondering why you’re wasting your time with silly, pretentious art stunts rather than heading into the studio to wash the taste of The Raven out of my mouth. But that was then, and now I’m more inclined to step back, assess the situation and give you a heartfelt, “Huh.”

I mean, sure, there are things I’d rather see you do than spend 20 minutes playing inaudible notes for an audience more interested in Gravy Train than “Sweet Jane.” I’d rather see you do pretty much anything else, really. But I have to admit there’s a certain Andy Warhol/Laurie Anderson vibe to this thing, which makes sense, obviously. At this point, I’ve sat through so much of your weirdness that I’m content to chalk this up to just Lou being Lou. I can't do much more than smile, nod and count myself fortunate when you deign to lay down a track with Gorillaz or The Killers. If and when you decide to go back to doing what you do best, I’ll be waiting with open ears.

And if you ever release this dog concert dealie on CD, I’ll go right out and buy it like the tunnel-vision acolyte I am. I can’t say I feel good about that, but that’s my problem, not yours.

Hang tough,
IOB