"...In This Case, They Doth Protest Just Enough..."

Only two things sure, it is said.

Death and taxes.

I'd suggest there's, at least, a third.

There really is no such thing as new.

Semantic distinctions and splitting of hairs notwithstanding, pretty much everything that is, or even has yet to be, is, if researched to the core, merely an evolution of, or variation on, a theme long ago discovered and/or created.

That observation is, of course, fair game for discussion and debate.

But let's save that for another, more existential moment.

Nickelback has, what I think is, a very cool song out now.

Give it a spin, cats and kitties....



Now, regardless of your philosophical predilections, there can be no denying that this piece is as catchy as all giddyup.

But, when you listen past the groove, the beat ripe for tapping of toes and/or fingers and the hey-ay-ay-ay-yeah daring you not sing along and zero in on the lyric, you discover that nestled amongst the aforementioned groove, beat and sing along, like an overlooked Cadbury egg in a gnarl of green plastic grass, is a lyric that can without much convincing be described as "protest".

As in "protesting the shortcomings of society and the cultural implications of said shortcomings, ad nauseum, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".

So to speak.

And although this song is moving up the airplay charts only at a pace that a fairly alert snail could best, I've been featuring it on my radio show because, like I said, it's catchy as all giddyup.

Protest is profound.

But catchy is cool.

And, in that light, this song qualifies as being both profound and cool.

But not new.

Nigh on fifty years ago, 1962 to be exact, an industry respected, but little known publicly, folk singer named Malvina Reynolds wrote a song lamenting the, then new, nasty habit of atmospheric nuclear testing.

And, in a beautifully poetic fashion, highlighted the potential damage possible to the air we breathe and the rain we danced in from the fallout created by the nuking.

Two years later, in the midst of the British Invasion, The Searchers (of "Love Potion Number Nine" fame) recorded a version of Malvina's song in 1964 Mersey beat/orchestrated style.

It was never a "hit" hit, making it to the top twenty in the UK and the top twenty in the USA.

But it was then, and remains now, a remarkable version of a remarkable piece of work.

Profound.

And catchy as all giddyup.

"...Somebody Heard Them Sing and Said...'Man, That Was Righteous, Brother..'...Voila! A Duo Was Born..."

A picture is reputed to be worth a thousand words.

A song, on the other hand, can conjure up a thousand pictures.

Do the math.

This song, along with the thousand plus images conjured, has not only a timeless sound but more than just a few facts coming along for the ride.

It was co-written and produced by Phil Spector whose 50's and 60's pop genius was later overshadowed by his unfortunate habit of playing with loaded guns.

Although the song was recorded by The Righteous Brothers, the focus, and bulk, of the presentation is the baritone work of Brother Bill Medley (later to find further fame and fortune musically helping keep Baby out of the corner, with the assistance of Jennifer Warnes, on "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life" from "Dirty Dancing".)

One of the backup singers on "Lovin Feelin" was a young protege', and later singing partner and wife, of Phil Spector's then A&R guy, Salvatore Bono.

Cher.

And because, in the day, it was believed that a ballad that ran almost four minutes (actual time, 3:45) would never make it past the program director's desk to the station turntables, Spector solved the issue by simply having the label printed 3:05, instead.

And if all of that don't make you wanna close your eyes anymore when he/she kisses your lips, try this on...

As of 1999, the original 1964 Righteous Brothers version of this song has been documented by BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc) as the song that has been played more on radio and/or television than any other song in the 20th Century.

It is, quite simply, a love, a love, a love, a love you don't find every day.

And it was meant to be heard, now and forever, on a turntable at 45RPM.

Like this...

"...Chances Are, This Is What We Get For Constantly Telling Kids to 'Grow Up'..."

Listen.

Here that?

It's the sound of envelopes being pushed.

Take a look/listen.

I'll be right here when you get back.


http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/--223419387


Music being the subjective little scamp it is, I'll take a pass on climbing the slippery slope of offering up any critique here.

You either like this or you don't.

Are offended by it or not.

Will ban your kids from it or not.

Good luck on that, by the way.

I'll offer you simply this.

In another place, in another time, in a completely different context, I think Nicolas Cage called it.

"...well...it ain't Ozzie and Harriet..."

"...STELLLLLLA!...........JUUUUUUSTIN!...........STELLLLLLA...........JUUUUUS...."

Substance abuse is, to any reasonable mind, an insidious affliction.

It occurs, though, that there's an even more insidious affliction hidden inside the aforementioned insidious affliction.

Romancing the stoned.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — In the days following Justin Townes Earle's arrest last September in Indianapolis, he slipped so deeply into a cocaine psychosis it began to change his personality.

Gone was the brash, cocksure young singer-songwriter who against the steep odds of addiction and a tough upbringing had transformed himself into a true artist with the critical acclaim to prove it. In its place was a 150-pound wraith haunting the East Village in New York City with an overriding paranoia brought on by an eight-ball of cocaine and a half-gallon of vodka every day.

The continuous binges were destroying his talent and making his intense live shows occasionally forgettable. They were destroying his friendships one by one. Nearly six years of sobriety, all gone during an increasingly tight downward spiral over a year's time.

Earle fixated on an erroneous news report that said he hit a woman while destroying his dressing room in an Indianapolis club. For a man raised by a single mother, the idea he would hit a woman was devastating. It prompted a five-day bender.

"I'd just be walking down the streets in Manhattan thinking everybody was looking at me," Earle said. "I thought everybody knew about what happened and it absolutely was just crushing me. I remember vaguely calling my publicist at the time — I fired my manager not long before that had happened, and my publicist and my booking agent were the only people still working for me — and just hysterically crying and saying I just didn't want to do this anymore. I didn't want to tour any more. I didn't want to make records."

Not long after, Earle entered formal treatment for the 13th time.

In the 10 months since he completed rehab, the 29-year-old son of country rebel Steve Earle has experienced a series of highs and lows he shared in several interviews.

He's slipped back into heroin use and rallied, turning to a new treatment that seems to have helped him settle into a healthier routine. He's been hailed as a new voice for his generation and targeted by cruel attempts at gallows humor. He split with his old girlfriend and started a new relationship that's brought him back to his hometown.

Today he's on the "marijuana maintenance plan" and enjoying the benefits of anti-addiction drug Soboxone. He's exercising and feels as fit as he ever has. He's touring much of the fall and is preparing to record his fifth record, a significant step that has Earle pointed directly into the future.

"And I'm as content as I've ever been," Earle said. "Which doesn't mean I'm content, but I'm as content as I've ever been. I'm still always going to be a little bit discontent because I'm a little bit crazy and I'll always want more than I have. That's what keeps me going. That's what keeps me driven to keep on doing what I'm doing."

Perhaps it's that drive that's kept him alive so long.

___

Sometimes, Justin Townes Earle is amazed he's still above ground.

Images flashed through his head as he sat backstage at The Mercy Lounge last November, staring out a window at bejeweled luxury high rises. The Nashville he's looking at doesn't much resemble the lazy town with the seedy side he grew up in during a nearly feral, often lonely and always confusing childhood. At the same time, some things look very much the same.

"I remember when you'd look out this window and there wasn't (expletive) anything there," he said. "It was a rail yard. Well, hell you can still buy crack on 8th Avenue."

A few weeks out of rehab, Earle admits his mind is often on drugs. He catches himself falling prey to the classic addict behavior of daydreaming about scoring.

"I feel good now, but at least once a day I come up with some kind of hare-brained scheme to get high and get away with it," he said with a laugh.

The view out the window seems to jog memories and he spends an hour telling stories that would fit nicely in a "Scared Straight" curriculum ... of a childhood spent mostly alone after his famous father Steve Earle, extremely gifted but also haunted by drugs, left his mother ... of crimes committed as if they were nothing ... of difficult relationships that still sting ... of horrors no child should have to endure.

"I've come to the decision basically or the belief that it's just who I am," Earle said. "I'm a songwriter. I'm an artist. I am my mother's son. I am my father's son. And I'm a drug addict. And it was a behavior that I displayed very early on in my life. When I was a kid, my mom would buy granola bars and stuff and I would eat the whole box. One after the other until I was sick."

His mother, Carol-Ann, had to work and the home was often empty. But there were times when it was too full as well with the occasional boyfriend. The result was the feeling that he had no safe haven.

Drugs quickly became a diversion from an existence that "hurt all the time."

"I remember I got high the first time when I was 10 off of reefer and I just loved it," Earle said. "By 11 I was just an avid marijuana smoker. I smoked constantly. It wasn't heroin, it was Dilaudid, the pharmaceutical pain killer, that was first thing I got my hands on. I just remember getting hit with it and it just felt like everything was just going to be OK, until of course it wore off and I was sick as (expletive) until the next morning. But even with the sickness, I wanted to go back and capture that feeling again, you know? I started to shut down at that point."

His teen years flashed by, a montage of searches for drugs, living with both his mother and father at times before leaving to live on his own in his late teens.

He went to Chicago at 18 and found really pure heroin for the first time in his life. He eventually had to come back home, penniless, hopelessly addicted and pretty much washed up already as a performer. He sold what he thought would be his last guitar at 20. He awoke one morning and couldn't believe what he saw in the mirror of his rundown motel room.

"My hair was singed from smoking crack," Earle said. "I had this mustache that was just burnt to pieces. I was missing my front tooth. I weighed about 125, 130 pounds. My arms looked like somebody had been throwing darts at them. I remember just standing there and looking at myself and having no clue who it was I was looking at."

___

It took years, but Earle pulled out of it. He tried a number of treatments, including four years of methadone, which left him with a soft-brained feeling for years. He had good days and slips and eventually reached a kind of equilibrium that allowed his gifts as a songwriter to emerge.

"At 20 years old I just had to start learning to live," he said. "I just had to learn what it meant to be a man. That's a thing I'm still completely totally devoid of. I think I'm learning, but I still don't think that I know what it really is to be a man."

He released three increasingly well-received records and appeared to be carving out a career with six years of sobriety in tow.

Then he started smoking a little weed from time to time. And having a drink occasionally. By the time he was ready to record his highly acclaimed 2010 breakthrough "Harlem River Blues" a year later, he was a raging addict again.

"I produced that (expletive) record doing an eight-ball of cocaine a day and choking down pain pills, you know, just loaded," Earle said.

He'd party all night, roll into the studio around noon still tweaked and somehow managed to pull off an album of folk- and rock-tinged country that would cement his status as a rising young star, net him song of the year at the Americana Honors & Awards this week and earn him more cash than he'd ever had.

While pleased with the reception, the album, tour and critical acclaim, all that was secondary to his need to feed his habit.

By the time he climbed in the van to head to Indianapolis for a show, he'd fired his longtime manager and lost most of the folks who worked for him. Tour manager Lauren Spratlin, who became Earle's girlfriend a few months later, quit soon after.

"I called him and told him I love working for him and I'd be happy to do it if he would get sober," Spratlin remembered. "But the way things were going it was too hard. It was too much emotionally to watch him. ... It was all bad."

___

Spratlin wasn't alone. Earle's closest friends pleaded with him not to throw away his future. His best friend, Joshua Black Wilkins, watched him quickly change from a reasonably engaged guy to something unpredictable.

"You didn't know if he was going to get into a fight or pass out on the bar," he said.

Knowing everything was at stake, Earle listened. He knew the difference between famous and infamous. It seemed to go well and he relaunched his tour. But he emerged with the old feeling he wasn't done with drugs.

"I've just become easy with it," he said last November. "I know that I have a slim chance of staying clean for the rest of my life and I have a very great chance of drinking and using drugs again, you know. It's as simple as that. I think it's amazing when drug addicts do stay clean."

The sentiment feels a little like a prediction. Earle stays clean for about three months, working his way across the United States and England. But along the way chronic back pain flares up. Instead of treating it by visiting a chiropractor, he says he turned to codeine on a solo tour of Australia.

By the time he returned, he was ready to slip back into the life of a heroin addict. Looking back, he calls it "my little vacation in the ghetto for like a month."

"Once that part of me comes out — the really, really wants to get high part of me — there's really nothing I can do to stop it," he said.

Earle realized there was too much on the line this time, though. He decided to take a more direct approach to recovery. He traveled to New York where a specialist put him on Soboxone, an addiction-battling drug that's an alternative to methadone.

Four days later he was back on stage. It's a recovery that feels something like a whirlwind compared to his previous experiences. He calls Soboxone "absolutely perfect" and notes that he's exercising, eating well and is probably in the best shape of his life. This time around recovery feels less temporary.

"Heroin, opioids are kind of like the mother of all drugs to me," he says. "And so it's definitely saving me in that aspect."

That fact is on his mind as he finishes writing a new album he plans to record this month. He started writing the new songs while clean, then continued during his backslide, and finished them up in July. After his treatment began he went back and paid particularly close attention to the songs he wrote while high to make sure they stand up.

He says he can see how the heroin affected his writing.

"I think I was just a lot meaner," he said. "I'm a lot more unfeeling and mean when I'm junked out. And, you know, it's kind of an interesting perspective to write from. It allowed me to write one of the meanest songs I've ever written toward a woman called 'Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now.' But then it also allowed me to, at the end of the record, write a song that examines what's left of my boiling (expletive) angst towards my parents. I called my stepmother (Allison Moorer) and told her just to be ready, because this (expletive) record's really heavy with daddy issues."

___

Wilkins is intrigued by the relationship Earle has with his father. They are brotherly friends, he says, who talk often on the phone.

Listen to them talk about each other and that's not always clear, though. Wilkins says hurt feelings remain, but there's also something of a rivalry developing.

"They are both very competitive against each other, which is really interesting to me because they're both making great records," he said. "Justin doesn't want to have his dad outshine him and Steve doesn't want Justin to outshine him."

You can hear it in the way the two talk about each other. Justin notes he's broken through at a younger age than his father. Steve notes Justin sounds an awful lot like him, whether he wants to or not.

"The stuff Justin does get from me he usually gets by going as hard as he can in the opposite direction of where he thinks I am, and then arriving back at what I would have done anyway," Steve remarked in an interview last spring in New York. "It's just the way that is. It's the way it is with fathers and sons."

Asked if he's had to watch Justin learn some of the same lessons he learned about life himself over the years, Steve said: "Sure, but you can't do anything about that. ... I can tell him, and I do, but he doesn't listen."

For the record, Justin says, his relationship with his father isn't hostile. His father really is a "generous" person and they get along as well as they ever have. The two occasionally pop up together — they did an episode of the HBO series "Treme" last year.

After much consideration, the younger Earle has decided his father did what was best for him when he left all those years ago. The life of a junkie and that of a father are not a great mix, he knows. Steve Earle battled heroin addiction and alcoholism for years and was sentenced to prison for a year on drug-related charges in the 1990s. He left Justin's mother early in his son's life and wasn't much of a physical presence afterward, though Justin did occasionally live with Earle and Moorer.

"It's one of those things that still kind of baffles me even," Justin said. "I don't think either of us really understands what our relationship with each other is. We're father and son but not in any traditional sense whatsoever."

In the last few years, Justin has started to think about having children of his own. He knows he's not ready and wouldn't bring a child into the same situation he found himself in as a child.

"But I think I know how to handle it now: I know basically to do the opposite of anything my parents ever did," he says.

Thinking about the future, he can see a kid in a few years in the house he shares with Spratlin if things keep going this way.

And he can daydream about a career measured in decades rather than years or even months.

"I'm in the best position I've been in in my entire life," Earle says. "I actually look forward to next year instead of dreadfully wondering what the (expletive) is going to happen next."


First, and this is only a sidebar, when, exactly, did the definition of news get stretched this far?

And, cutting slack in a benefit of the doubt spirit, if this piece is more "human interest" than breaking news, when did feature writing for a news site expand its parameters to allow said piece to end up the length of a wanna be best selling novel?

Meanwhile, back to the point.

No person possessed of the least little heart could deny compassion for the struggles of a fellow flawed mortal.

We all gots our issues, know what I mean?

But Justin's public profile, and especially his choice of career path, don't make his issues any more unique or, God forbid, dramatic than the local high school teacher who is trying to put down the bottle or the neighborhood grocer who likes the bong just a little too much.

Painting the picture that way distorts the paradigm.

And just so we're clear here, I'm less inclined to shoot the messagee than I am the messenger.

If only for these two telling passages in the endless story.

Earle fixated on an erroneous news report that said he hit a woman while destroying his dressing room in an Indianapolis club. For a man raised by a single mother, the idea he would hit a woman was devastating. It prompted a five-day bender.

The Nashville he's looking at doesn't much resemble the lazy town with the seedy side he grew up in during a nearly feral, often lonely and always confusing childhood.

First of all, substance abusers don't need much of a shove to fall off wagons and the whole "devastated at news report/five day bender" slant here is meandering melodrama at its most mediocre.

Second of all, "nearly feral, often lonely, always confusing childhood"?...excuse me, Mr. Want To Be Tennessee Williams Drama Boy, but take out the feral and who amongst us hasn't been lonely and/or confused at some time(s) in our childhoods?

And if you count the state of our bedrooms through about the age of 18, you can put feral back into the mix, too.

And while we're at it...

Raised by a single mom?

Check.

History of substance abuse in the family?

Check.

Broken home.

Yo.

Sums up about seventy five percent of the people I've known in my life to this moment.

Present company included.

Carol Ann was a friend/co-worker years ago.(and there was no falling out here, we just lost touch through the years...C-A, if you read this, how are you? catch me up sometime..)

And she did as good a, if not better, job of raising her kid than anyone I know of.

And Justin surely deserves props for his courageous willingness to keep dueling with the demons.

But they both deserve a lot better than having their story shared by a "reporter" sorely in need of a big jar of cliche'/stereotype remover...

And an editor.

"...Rodeo, Schmodeo....This Ain't Our First Gaga, You Know...."

Elvis, arguably, was the first.

The Beatles pulled it off nicely from time to time.

Madonna had a fair run at it.

But Gaga seems to have taken it to a whole new level.

Playing the game.

The game, in this instance, being defined as mastering the skill of flouting convention without being denied mainstream acceptance and/or success.

Fifty years ago, the elders were aghast, aghast I tell you, at the lip curling, pelvic gyrating antics of that morally corrupting boy from Memphis, Tennessee.

But he sold millions of albums, sold out hundreds of shows and had an across the age groups fan base numbering in the tens of millions that was unwavering in its loyalty right up to the day he died.

And still.

Forty years ago, the elders were aghast, aghast I tell you, at the long haired,chain smoking,foreign born foursome who had their tween daughters screaming themselves hoarse with the devil's own patented brand of backbeat before evolving into spokesmen for a generation that didn't want to be coerced into fighting a war they didn't believe in or be told there was anything wrong with wanting to enjoy tangerine trees and marmalade skies.

But they sold tens of millions of albums, sold out hundreds of shows and had an across age groups fan base numbering in the tens of millions that was unwavering in its loyalty right up to the day they broke up.

And still.

Thirty years ago, the elders were aghast, aghast I tell you, at the smarmy, borderline slutty antics of the girl from Detroit who had not only the gall to preach to her young followers about papas not preaching and enjoying the joy of new love as if it were virginity taken but compounded the offense by actually being named after one of religions more sacred charter members.

But she sold tens of millions of albums, sold out hundreds of shows and had an across the age groups fan base numbering in the tens of millions that was unwavering in its loyalty right up to the day she went from being like a virgin to being like a wife and mom.

And then there's Gaga.

The elders, right on cue and time, are aghast, aghast I tell you, at the over the top antics of this bizarrely cosmetically enhanced, sexually suggestive strutter who bleats of bad romance with a poker face while all the while berating those who belittle those who were born that way.

While selling tens of millions of albums, selling out hundreds of shows with an across the age groups fan base numbering in the tens of millions who are unwavering in their loyalty as they take her to the edge of glory.

Pop music, at least in the form of rock and roll, has always, at its heart, been about, in some measure, about shaking, rattling and rolling the foundation while not completely knocking down the pillars of society.

And, naysayers saying nay notwithstanding, so far, so good.

But each of the aforementioned pop pantheons share another, less discussed, talent.

The ability to inject the mainstream with a jolt of adrenalin without damaging its heart, creating chaos in the culture without crumbling its walls and doing all of it, not with the reckless abandon of raving revolutionaries, but the studied skill and panache of a plastic surgeon, putting the scalpel to the skin in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to simultaneously change the look, refresh the presentation and make everything old new again while never cutting so deep as to maim or mutilate.

Put simply, each of these cage rattlers knew, or know, exactly what they're doing.

Talented writers, singers, dancers?

Obviously.

But the hidden genius is in their ability to write, sing and/or dance all the while winking at the audience that shares the secret with them.

That it's all just a game.

And we all play it together.

And the best part?

You don't have to be all that hip to play.

Even Hillary gets it.

"...I Tend To Prefer A Different Flavor Of English Tea...Imagine That..."

First, a disclaimer.

If you are under the age of, say, forty, this piece is going to have very little relevance to your life.

Even less if you are under the age of twenty.

So, if you are pressed for time and have no particular interest in ploughing through what will very likely read to you as an arcane, bordering on anachronistic, assessment of a events that took place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, please know that no offense will be taken if you opt to jump off the page and move along with your day at the conclusion of the very next, and very short, paragraph.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tomorrow, John Lennon would have celebrated his seventy first birthday.

And like most birthdays, this one has the dual effect of reminding us there is cause for commemoration and/or celebration as well as reminding us that yet another year has rolled over on the meters of our own personal life taxis.

Made out of newspaper and appearing on the shore.

And, then, there's that whole "oh, Lord, here comes another twenty four hours, give or take, of not being able to swing a dead cat without hitting a TV or radio that is, has been, or is about to be, playing some or all of "Imagine".

Or, better or worse depending on your personal pop palate, "Birthday".

Yes, we're goin' to a party, party.

In 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis poetically lamented, following the assassination of her husband, John F.,"...so now he is a legend, when he would have preferred to be a man...".

Loath as I am to put words in anybody's mouth, I can't help but think that John Lennon would feel the same way.

Lennon himself alluded to the concept, years ago, when he summed up, in one of the myriad of interviews he and his fellow fabs gave along the way, how he perceived his particular place in the sun.

"...we were just a good pop band that got very, very famous...".

And, given his rebel with a cause approach to most things, I imagine (sorry, the word does inevitably show up as a verb now and then), that he would have experienced a considerable disdain at becoming the fodder of tribute shows, coffee mugs and weekend music marathons.

Especially given the way he sardonically, if not too subtly, mocked the way his much loved/loathed kindred spirit/sibling ran willingly into the limelight of mainstream adoration and acceptance.

And what's wrong with that? / I'd like to know.

Personally, I remained musically loyal to John and his work pretty much right up to the end.

Truth be told, though, I lost interest somewhere shortly after the first solo album.

Actually, even midway through it.

Because my affection for the work was rooted in the love of the taste of the entire recipe.

I never much cared for coleslaw by itself.

But I totally relished it as long as the three pieces of extra crispy, mashed potatoes and gravy were along side to make it all come together (right now..over me).

So, to each his own noted and notwithstanding, I'll be taking a pass on any media musings on the life and times of the "leader Beatle" today or tomorrow and, in the process, will hopefully avoid having to do any weekend wondering about how easy it would be if I try.

And if I should meander into a mood that demands a little looking back, I'll pull a couple of tunes that say more to me about the diversity and depth and talent, as both singer and/or songwriter, of the guy than any dozen imaginings.

Happy birthday, Johnny. You're the toppermost of the poppermost.