Pittsburgh Dish

Rock songs listed

The Post-Gazette and WYEP have theirs. Dish does too.

Photo by Kathleen Cei©

Everybody likes lists. Not only are they easy to consume, they're presented in sequential format, which is nice and convenient. Lists are also charming in that readers can easily take issue with the order in which the listed  items are listed. Say you're reading a list of the top 10 cleaning products and SOS pads are ranked number one while your preferred cleaner, a homemade mixture of water and vinegar didn't even place. Right there, instant argument!

Below is a list of the top 50 popular tunes of all time, as assembled by chum of Dish, Drew Cucuzza. Read the list, dissect the list, argue with the list, post perceived omissions from the list in the comments section, print out the list, make love to the list, make your own list, develop a cloying lisp. It's all up to you. Let us all give thanks to our friend, the list:

1) “Louie, Louie”-The Kingsmen

It might not be about pussy and beer, but it sure sounds it.

2) “I Want to Hold Your Hand”-The Beatles

No other song has captured the excitement of teen romance as well as this.

3)  “Waterloo Sunset”-The Kinks

When Ray Davies was at the height of his songwriting powers he captured regular people’s lives like no other songwriter could or wanted to.

4) “In the Still of the Night”-The 5 Satins

Doo-wop’s greatest, achingly romantic, filled with emotion and more than a touch of sadness

5) “You Really Got Me”-The Kinks

This just explodes out of the speaker like nothing that came before it.

6) “Maybeline”-Chuck Berry

Without this, most of the other songs here wouldn’t exist. This wins out over other Berry songs for coining the word “motorvating”.

7) “And Then He Kissed Me”-The Crystals

The “best wall of sound” single, and a story song to boot.

8) “Fortunate Sun”-CCR

It might be the only timeless Viet Nam song.

9) “This Is My Country”-The Impressions

Four words that dismiss racism as powerfully as any MLK speech. Surely the only charting song that contains the phrase “welts on my back”.

10) "Walk Away Renee"-The Left Banke

Baroque pop genius, and on AM radio too.

11) “A Day in the Life”-The Beatles

Sit down and listen to it for the first time again. There’s a whole world in there.

12) “Peggy Sue”-The Crickets

For those drums alone, but also one of the first great white rock songs.

13) “I’ll Be Around”-The Spinners

Heartbreak incarnate, with strings.

14) “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”-Jerry Lee Lewis

Is it really all that surprising he married his 13 year old cousin? The epitome of wild man rock and roll.

15) “The Harder They Come”-Jimmy Cliff

Dismissing religion and yet profoundly spiritual, it’s “Imagine” without the high fructose corn syrup.

16) “Something Else”-Eddie Cochran

There are nights when I stand in my driveway and stare at my ’66 Bel Air and wish there was a woman with me.

17) “Bummer in the Summer”-Love

Timeless and haunting, like capturing summer’s end in a bottle.

18) “In My Life”-The Beatles

Maybe the greatest love song ever, and that’s only the half of it.

19) “Sweet Jane" (full version with bridge)-The Velvet Underground

Yearning, hopeful and desperately romantic (with the bridge restored), the fact that’s it’s about drag queen doesn’t make its expression of those feelings any less universal.

20) “Feel a Whole Lot Better”-The Byrds

The word “probably” changes the whole meaning. Few songwriters captured ambiguity like Clark did.

21) “There Goes My Baby”-The Drifters

Not just the first R&B record with strings, it’s “Needles and Pins” with soul. You can feel the singer’s pain.

22) “The Same Old Song”-The Four Tops

Motown truth and wisdom at it’s finest.

23) “Jailhouse Rock”-Elvis Presley

It’s been around so long, it doesn’t seem dangerous anymore. It is.

24) “I Only Have Eyes for You”-The Flamingos

The fifties as another country.

25) “Omaha”-Moby Grape

Frenetic, psychedelic pop , with one of the greatest intros ever. And you could have caught it blasting out of the AM radio in your Dodge Coronet in 1967.

26)  “Desolation Row”-Bob Dylan

Ten minutes where Bob Dylan really does sound like a poet.

27)”Riding in My Car”-NRBQ

The greatest song to catch on the radio, guaranteed to make you think of someone for the first time in years.

28) “Pale Blue Eyes”-The Velvet Underground

For a guy with his reputation, Lou Reed can be devastatingly vulnerable.

29) “I Want You Back”-The Jackson 5

The greatest bubblegum soul single, with enough hooks for two songs.

30) “Rock and Roll”-The Velvet Underground

I never thought Lou was being metaphorical when he talked about being “saved by rock and roll”.

31) “Tumbling Dice”-The Rolling Stones

For once Mick Jagger sounds like he cares, and from the album where Keith Richards finds the real white blues.

32) “Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale"-Love

It’s simply beautiful, with the trick of having the last word of each verse dropped only to become the first word of the next.

33) “Blitzkrieg Bop”-The Ramones.

How do you pick one Ramones song? Easy, chose the first song on their first album.

34) “Blue Train”-John Coltrane

The opening riff feels like a New York street scene from 1958.

35) “Box of Rain”-The Grateful Dead

Robert Hunter’s most direct lyrics are especially moving coupled with a gorgeous Phil Lesh tune. it’s resigned and hopeful at the same time.

36) “The Boys are Back in Town”-Thin Lizzy

It makes me want to get drunk with my friends from college. And only “Summer in the City” comes close as a Summer song.

37) “More than A Feeling”- Boston

If you could distill being 15, high and hanging at your friend’s house after school into music, it would sound like this.

38 )“Wang Dang Doodle”-Howlin’ Wolf

Pure raunchiness, and the Wolf doesn’t curse once.

39) “Sing Me Back Home”-Merle Haggard

I don’t care what he did, I want him pardoned.

40) “Is She Really Going Out With Him?”-Joe Jackson

Admit it, you’ve lived it.

41) “Peter Gunn Theme”-Henry Mancini

The personification of cool, it makes me hope the “wrong woman” walks into my office.

42) “In My Room”-The Beach Boys

Emotionally, it’s everything Pet Sounds needed to be. I’d like to think it prevented a suicide or two. It came out the month of Kennedy’s assassination, too.

43) “Walk On By”-Dionne Warwick

Heartbreak for adults from pop’s greatest singer/songwriter team.

44) “Rise Above”-Black Flag

The only hardcore song you’ll ever need, the “We Shall Overcome” of its scene.

45) Tutti Frutti-Little Richard

Imagine what this must have sounded like in 1955. It’s outrageous now.

46) “Irene Wilde”-Ian Hunter

It’s a true story, and that’s really her name. Hunter might be the most sensitive rocker ever.

47) “Monday, Monday”-The Mamas and Papas

Changes the world you’re living in while you’re hearing it.

48) “Saturday Night”-The Bay City Rollers

Exciting as sex before you knew what it was.

49) Sweet Home Alabama- Lynyrd Skynyrd

“Southern Man” is shrill and whiny but this makes its point and rocks as hard as any Stones song. The most misunderstood band of the seventies.

50) “Just Like Me”-Paul Revere and the Raiders

Punk rock before there was punk rock, and on daytime TV no less.

Photos: Gal with records (Model Jamie Arabolos), hot rod, heart graffiti, Finnegan's Wake and "Phoney Club" by Jeff Glagowski; Chairs by Sara Scranton

Dish's Album of the Year

The Hold Steady.

by Drew Cucuzza

My friend Sully likes to leave lenghty rambling voice mails. I usually delete them as soon as I figure out that there’s no need to call back (i.e.he's drunk), unless I’m really hankering for an involved conversation about Dinosaur Jr. But I’ve listened to the last two long-winded messages--the ones about The Hold Steady.

Brooklyn-based The Hold Steady is the kind of band that makes fans preach to total strangers. Since I first heard them two months ago, I have not had a conversation about music without bringing them up, and I have a lot of conversations about music.

Leader Craig Finn creates the sort of characters Springsteen once did, back in the 70's before he became a frat boy's Bob Dylan. The songs are like short stories, without ever coming across as pretentious even with Finn’s verboseness and references to literature. You believe and care about his characters, even if the whole point of their existence is to get wasted. No wonder Sully loves them.

There are traces of “Greetings” era Springsteen, ”Darkness” era Springsteen, Elliot Murphy and A&M era Soul Asylum. And that’s just the first track. The Thin Lizzy and Stones references come later. “Hot Soft Light” would fit nicely on “Jailbreak," while "Massive Nights” is simultaneously a paean to partying and a lament for the kids who live their lives for it. “You Can Make Him Like You” is nothing short of heartbreaking:”You don’t have to go the right kind of schools, let your boyfriend go to the right kind of schools. You can wear his old sweatshirt, cover yourself like a bruise."

In “Chillout Tent," Finn serves as narrator for the story of a couple who meet at a festival’s med tent, with Dave Pirner and Elizabeth Elmore as the trashed lovers, who never see each other again. What Joni Mitchell’s “ Woodstock ” was to the Aquarian Age,” "Chillout Tent” is to today, except it’s far more accurate.

Why did Sully have to tell me? After I’d left the bar he brought in his iPod and proceeded to play the new album for whoever didn’t get away fast enough. Nobody gave a shit. I never like that bar much anyway.

Concert preview: Robyn Hitchcock

Geeks hate it when their heroes disappoint them, especially when their heroes sign to major labels.

by Drew Cucuzza

Geeks hate it when their heroes disappoint them, especially when their heroes sign to major labels.

Robyn Hitchcock had a devoted cult following in the mid-eighties, even though only one of his albums either solo or with his band the Soft Boys had managed to get released in the states. He blended John Lennon, Syd Barrett and Bob Dylan to become a classic English eccentric. Like your favorite uncle, but if he frequently showed up at your home with prawns and zucchini. When Creem magazine ran a Hitchcock cover with the caption “God Walks Among Us," his fans took it as fact, not hyperbole. Like Springsteen in 1976 and the Hold Steady today, he reminded a lot of people of why they loved rock to begin with. All this fervor get him signed to the major label A&M after years of small indie labels.

And then…

He promptly begins to make the least interesting music of his career culminating in “Perspex Island," where some amazing songs are ruined by the major label polish.

Since leaving the major labels behind he’s regained his muse recording for the kinds of labels he started off with.

His latest “Ole Tarantula” features a supergroup of sorts with REM’s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey of the Minus 5 plus appearances from members of the Soft Boys.

It’s easily his best electric album in twenty years. And in “(A Man’s Got to Know His Limitations) Briggs” he somehow manages to write a downright moving song based on the Dirty Harry movie “Magnum Force."

Robyn Hitchcock plus arcane movie references make me one happy geek.

Robyn Hitchcock and Venus 3 featuring Peter Buck

Monday, Nov. 13, 7:45 p.m.

Rex Theatre, 1602 East Carson Street, South Side, 412-381-6811

Cyberburgher: Dreaming Ant

Pittsburgh through a Connecticut Yankee’s eyes.

by Drew Cucuzza

I live 500 miles from Pittsburgh. But if I moved there, I’d live at Dreaming Ant.

Netflix is convenient, but so is McDonald’s. And Blockbuster Video is everywhere, but, come to think of it, so is McDonalds.

But you’ll never get into a conversation about themes that run through Larry Cohen’s movies with NetFlix. And the kid at Blockbuster will never tell you that he knows you love Blaxploitation and maybe you should check out the films of Jamaa Fanaka, starting with “Soul Vengeance.”

The folks at Dreaming Ant, a little shop on a one-way street in Bloomfield, would.

The early video stores were all independents. And since the big movie studios were fearful that home video was going to cut into their movie going profits, selections tended to be older films or low budget drive-in fare. It’s a bit like movies on TV in the fifties but with a steady diet of Italian cannibal flicks. Yeah, I’ve seen “Make Then Die Slowly,” but I’m not proud of it.

Then the major studios saw that video could increase their profits and the “mom and pop” stores got pushed out by the chains. The selection of these stores pretty much defines “lowest common denominator”. You can find 60 copies of the latest Hollywood “product” but not a single copy of a Hershell Gordon Lewis movie.

The first DVD I noticed on Dreaming Ant’s website was the Beastie Boys’ “Awesome, I Fuckin’ Shot That.” Yep, no asterisks or dashes. And there are not one, but two blog entries on French filmmaker Jaques Tati.

You can look up films not just by genre, but director and country. If you want to know what Algerian cinema is like, Dreaming Ant is your new best friend. Their site has links to local filmmakers, musicians and press. One of their customers even wrote a jingle for them.

Make no mistake, Dreaming Ant is a community. Even 500 miles away.

Cyberburgher is the first in a series of stories that Dish will publish. If you fancy something about Pittsburgh via the Internet, please email editor@pittsburghdish.com.

Singer-songwriter series kicks off at Monterey Pub

WHEN: Saturday, March 11th

WHERE: The Monterey Pub on the North Side

WHO: leSonique; Gina Kaz

TIME: 10:00 p.m.

COST: No Cover

by Drew Cucuzza

Let’s face, people like to drink and they especially like to drink on Saturday night. People also like to listen to music. They also especially like to do this on Saturday night. Independent musicians like to play for people. They, too, especially like to do this on Saturday night.

Unfortunately, what your local bar patron usually ends up listening to is a series of covers played by someone who has no problem playing “Piano Man” on guitar and could play the Eagles’ Greatest Hits in his sleep.

Local singer-songwriter leSonique is giving local music fans an alternative to the umpteenth version of “Brown-Eyed Girl” played by that guy with the acoustic guitar and tip jar. He’ll be hosting a monthly singer-songwriter showcase at the North Side’s own Monterey Pub.

The first in this series will feature Gina Kaz, a Philadelphia based singer-pianist who’s been compared to Sinead O’Conner and Tori Amos. She has a gorgeous voice and an emotionally powerful piano style. You can check out her website or, better yet, go see her Saturday night. You’ve got nothing to lose and some great music to hear.

Unless, of course, you really need to hear another cover of “Ants Marching."

Hey, that little man kicked a touchdown

The story of a football neophyte.

Story by Drew Cucuzza; Photos by Kathleen Cei.

This Sunday men around the country will be pounding each other on the back and shouting at large screen TVs. They’ll drink beer, order apps and savior the glory that is the six foot sub. I’d bet cash that a few lucky shirts will be worn. What will I be doing while America’s men are waiting to see the new Bud Light commercial? More than likely cleaning out the litter box while listening to Roxy Music, or checking out Eames clocks on eBay. Let’s just say I won’t have much to talk about at the water cooler Monday morning. And I’m sure to hear some crack about “What kind of guy are you?”

I have a rule about drinking. I will only drink what Robert Mitchum would drink. That means beer, Scotch, wine, maybe a screw driver or an old fashioned. No “slippery nipple” or “sex on the beach." The only time I’ll ever drink any shot other than Jack Daniels or whiskey is when a woman suggests something else. Yeah, a nice rack can make me pretend to enjoy Southern Comfort or something that looks like a Frappucino. I never let women pay and when I buy a round of drinks, if a guy orders something stupid , I tell him I’ll buy him the single malt Scotch of his choice, but there’s no way I’m ordering something called “Red Death” for a man. But I’ll get a woman a “White Zin” all night and never let her reach for her purse.*

I also drive a 1966 Chevy Bel Air with a 327 that I’ve been known to describe as being “Cherry." I love Clint Eastwood movies and can tell you the tagline of all five “Dirty Harry” films. A friend of mine once cleaned my bathroom at 2 a.m. because she was so horrified by it: “Anyone who thinks you’re gay would see this and know you’re not."

I’ve taken extraordinary measures to get a second look at an especially spectacular butt.

But I couldn’t care less about football or any other sport. My dad is from Sicily and would rather talk about Fellini and De Sica or Louis Armstrong than Astroturf. I doubt he even knows what an expansion team is. And I think I set a record for consecutive number of times being last picked for teams in gym class.

I've always dreaded this time of year, although at least it’s better than the World Series, which lasts at least four nights instead of the Super Bowl’s far more merciful one.

I’ll be in the elevator at work, minding my own business, when some guy will get on and ask what I thought of last night’s touchdown (or interception, or pass, or whatever). What am I supposed to say? That I not only didn’t watch the game, and don’t know who was playing, but at the same time the game was on, I was watching “Mildred Pierce”? And then decided to look up Ruth Welcome’s “Zither Magic” on the internet?

John Waters once said that he wanted to hop into a cab and ask the driver what he thought of the new Fassbinder film. I sometimes think I should respond to these guys with something like this:

“What’s your take on the new Ramones box set? Do you think that by trying to give space to their later, post Dee Dee, post Sire Records stuff it ends up giving short shrift to their earlier CBGBs years, which, after all are punk’s ground zero? I mean come on; the Pistols and the Clash wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the brudderz from Queens, let alone stuff like Green Day, Rancid and all that Emo crap. And really, isn’t the whole Emo thing just a wimpy version of what the Huskers did better over 20 years ago? But the box really did get it right with those EC inspired covers, don’t you think? The outside cover reminds me of some Al Feldstein’s work before his editorial duties cut into his time too much. And the cover of the booklet is a perfect Jack Davis cop, even if the inside artwork varies a bit too much between underground commix, Archie stuff and the non-Marvel/DC stuff from the ‘80s for my tastes. You know, it’s funny how much in common the independents of music and comics from that era have in common, like the whole “Love and Rockets” connection or the ironic use of cartoon iconography…”

Now you know how I feel when sports fans talk about a “scrimmage," whatever the hell that is.

Nevertheless I’ll be watching and rooting for the Steelers this Sunday. Pittsburgh is a great town and they’re a great team--far better and nobler than the Seahawks. Plus I like their logo more.

*The author wishes to point out that he does not think that all women drink sweet drinks with popsicle colors, merely that he has far more tolerance for a woman drinking such concoctions. Indeed one of the few people who can drink him under the table is a woman. Who orders Guinness.

Photos: Natual progression: The author learns that a Towel is not just a towel.

Amad Jamal: Too popular for jazz snobs?

Pittsburgh's export performs tonight at the Byham Theater.

by Drew Cucuzza

I’m a jazz fan, as I’ve mentioned before. My cat Coltrane is staring at me as I write. But I don’t have so much as one friend who I would consider a “serious” jazz fan. And I think I know why.

Jazz fans are the original snobs. Long before Indie hipsters screamed “sell-out” when their favorite bands signed to a major label and dared to have a hit, many (but not all, I have to say) jazz fans were unswervingly purist. That’s why someone as daring as Dave Brubeck was frequently dismissed by jazz fans when he (gasp!) sold a lot of records to people who couldn’t care less about what 78 is considered the first jazz record. They listened to music to enjoy it. Years later “soul jazz” was dismissed for the same reason-people danced, drank and well, screwed to it.

What’s this got to do with Ahmad Jamal?

Jamal committed the sin of being popular. His "Live at The Pershing: But Not For Me” hit number three on the pop charts and he had a hit single with his signature song “Poinciana”. How dare he occupy the same space with the likes of Elvis Presley and Pat Boone? Plus he kept selling albums, like he was a teen idol or something. It also didn’t help that he was on a subsidiary of Chess records (home of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley) who’s other big jazz success would be with Ramsey Lewis who had people dancing at his shows. We’re not talking Blue Note Records here.

The irony is that Jamal’s music is far more complex and influential than many critics' darlings. Its complex enough that non-musician me would have to plagiarize to explain it. The man influenced Miles Davis and John Coltrane, who influenced almost everyone who came after them. Hell, Davis once called him his favorite piano player: pretty impressive from a guy who played with Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock and John Lewis.

And you know why he sold so many records? Because his music is beautiful.

Presented by the Mellon Jazz Festival. Tickets: $40.50. Call 412-456-6666.

Wallflowers beware the Fleshtones

If you go to see the Fleshtones at the 31st Street Pub (3101 Penn Ave., Strip District, 412-391-8334) tomorrow night, I have some words of advice for you: Don’t sit down.

by Drew Cucuzza

Or if you do, try to stay out of sight of lead singer Peter Zaremba. You might not be sitting for long.

I had a friend whose very boring boyfriend thought she should be very boring, as all very boring boyfriends must. I decided that she needed to learn how to have good time so I took her to see the Fleshtones.

By about 20 minutes into their set, Zaremba is dancing, the audience is dancing, and the bartender is dancing. Hell, I’m dancing. Meanwhile my friend is sitting alone at a table off to the side of the stage, nursing a beer. Halfway through a song, the singer stops the band and looks over at her. ”You, over in the corner, little Miss Too-cool-to-dance, get up and enjoy yourself”. With the entire bar watching her, she gets up and joins the crowd and proceeds to have a good time. She never tried to be boring again.

The Fleshtones are party rock, a mixture of garage and soul with a healthy dose of good old fashioned showmanship. Think of Jackie Wilson fronting The Raiders or The Kingsmen with songs and a singer who isn’t holding his nose like he’s asking for ransom. They’re everything that used be good about radio, before playing “In-a-gadda-da-vida” was considered a revolutionary idea (in reality it was a chance to smoke a joint or get some nookie).

I’ve seen Zaremba lead a crowd around a club in a conga line. At a Halloween college show he jumped off the concert stage and sang with the audience. I was dressed as a nun so he blessed me. You can’t leave one their shows in a sour mood. The Fleshtones, more than anything else, are fun. Consider them the anti-Smiths.

Plus they have some of the coolest haircuts ever.

With The Breakup Society and Grammer C Riffs. $8.

Top photo: Robin Edgar; bottom photo: Now Toronto

Preview: Richard Thompson

Dowe's on Ninth

Oct. 18

Tickets: $34.50

by Drew Cucuzza

I’ve been a record collector since grade school, and an especially anal one at that. The movie “High Fidelity” touches on the great alphabetical vs. chronological debate, but it never addresses our second favorite organizational issue, categorization. Sure even regular citizens will probably separate their jazz from their rock (you do, don’t you?), but OCD collectors like myself thrive on dividing our collections into the most hair splitting categories possible. I once counted 32 different categories in my LP collection. Don’t even get me started on the soul vs. R&B vs. jump blues debate.

But Richard Thompson was my worst nightmare.

Since co-founding the definitive British folk rock group Fairport Convention in 1967, he has shown a remarkable diversity unequaled by almost any other artist. He recorded American style folk rock with Fairport before line up changes resulted in the “Liege and Lief” album which mixed traditional British folk with a rock sound. Consider it the “Sgt. Pepper” of Brit-folk. After leaving Fairport he’s made relatively “straight” rock albums, acoustic recordings, a wholly instrumental album, world influenced music and a series of albums with then wife Linda, culminating in “Shoot Out The Lights.” Made as their marriage disintegrated, and possibly chronicling that dissolution, it’s a remarkably tense work, up there with George Jones and Tammy Wynette’s final recordings. He’s also recorded two albums with art rock “supergroup” French-Frith-Kaiser-Thompson. Should I mention “The Bunch," a loose collective that recorded early rock classics? How about the traditional British dance music of the “Morris On” group? That’s quite a contrast from his work with “Ashley Hutching’s Big Beat Beat Combo," a tribute to the Ventures/ Shadows/Duane Eddy guitar style.I suppose that if you’ve read this far you know that he’s revered as both a great songwriter and guitarist and that’s he’s had two tribute albums devoted to him, one by mostly “alternative” artists and the other by mostly folksingers. He’ll be playing solo at Dowes on Tuesday the 18^th. And by the way, I just filed all of Thompson’s records under “British Folk Rock." I’m still not happy about it.

Henry Rollins at the Byham

Punk.

by Drew Cucuzza

I’m 39 years old and there’s only one song left that’s guaranteed to make me raise my fist in the air like I’m eighteen years old at a Ramones show and that’s “Rise Above” by Black Flag. I was never into hardcore punk. I didn’t realize just how screwed up my parents were until I was 25 and it’s pretty hard to grow a Mohawk when your hair is about to recede. When I did listen to hardcore I preferred The Dead Kennedys’ more satirical approach to Henry Rollins' “hard guy” bit. But I did own Black Flag’s “Damaged” which leads off with “Rise Above”:

Jealous cowards try to control
Rise above
We’re gonna rise above
They distort what we say
Rise above
We’re gonna rise above
Try and stop what we do
Rise above
When they can’t do it themselves

We are tired of your abuse
Try to stop us it’s no use

Society’s arms of control
Rise above
We’re gonna rise above
Think they’re smart
Can’t think for themselves
Rise above
We’re gonna rise above
Laugh at us
Behind our backs
I find satisfaction
In what they lack

We are born with a chance
Rise above
We’re gonna rise above
I am gonna have my chance
Rise above
We’re gonna rise above

For my money, it’s the “We Shall Overcome” of punk rock. When it’s playing, I really believe that maybe a few pissed off, disenfranchised people can make a difference. Even at my age with a mortgage and a white collar job, the song reminds me of just how screwed up society can be and how little I often want to do with it. Not many songs can make a middle aged guy feel like a pissed-off teenager.

Although Greg Ginn was the main songwriter in Black Flag, Henry Rollins was the vocalist (from "Damaged” on, anyway). It’s Rollins, more than anyone who pushed the “spoken word” performance, predating Jello Biafra by a year or two. Of course, with even Marky Ramone doing spoken word, you can either credit or blame Rollins for it.

Recently, Rollins put together a Black Flag tribute album as benefit for the West Memphis 3. The WM3 are three young men from West Memphis, AK who were convicted of murders they did not commit. They were essentially convicted for being the town freaks, as documented in the “Paradise Lost” films. Imagine being on death row for your choice of band t-shirts.

The album is called “Rise Above” and Rollins sings the song himself. Let’s hope the lyrics prove true for the West Memphis 3.

If it ain't nailed down

Last week, many odd items were swiped from many odd places. The following is a round-up of thievery in Western PA culled from area blotters, along with Dish's theories as to motive:

Hempfield Township

Theft from a motor vehicle, a car radio taken from Melanie Shearer's truck at the West Penn junk yard. Hey, Car Talk was on.

Burglary and theft, extension cords and five-gallon gas can from shed belonging to Kathleen Giles, of Swede Hill Road. The thief was once a potential contestant on Let's Make a Deal and lost when he couldn't provide extension cords and a five-gallon gas can.

Retail theft, 23 candles stolen from Bath & Body Works in Westmoreland Mall. Loss set at $598. According to math, the average cost of each candle is $26. B & B claims they can charge that much because they claim they smell really really good.

State police arrested a man and a woman Wednesday accused of stealing a donation can from a countertop at the Panera Bread restaurant intended to benefit a Uniontown juvenile cancer patient. Stealing "bread" from a bread and coffee restaurant. A bold blend of stupidity and sensibility.

Theft, two empty cremation urns from viewing area at mausoleum in Westmoreland County Memorial Park. The perpetrator placed them Giant Eagle blue bags and headed to the nearest recycling center. Hopes were dashed when the urns didn't fit in the little holes.

Westmoreland County

Theft, 40 scrap bronze cemetery marks from outside maintenance shed at Westmoreland County Memorial Park. With Halloween approaching the culprit has to outdo his neighbor Stan who last year placed an honest-to- goodness coffin on his front lawn.

Tonight: Going to the Go-Go?

Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Presents

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas

Tonight: 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.

PCA’S MELLON PARK
CAMPUS (SHADYSIDE)

Tickets are $25 (general) or $150 (VIP)

412-361-0873

by Drew Cucuzza

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas played the Rolling Stones to Diana Ross and the Supremes Beatles. Most of the Motown “girl” acts had a certain supper-club sheen to their music. Martha Reeves had the sense of poise and propriety that Motown owner Barry Gordy demanded of all his acts. That’s to be expected as he had them take a finishing course (try to picture oh, say, Master P doing that). But unlike the Supremes whose records where unquestionably pop productions, glossy and somewhat soulless, Reeves came from a Gospel background and showed it. Her voice was poignant like the Four Tops' Levi Stubbs and her best music had the same tension between emotional vocals and immaculately orchestrated accompaniment that gave the Tops such an immediate sound. Contrast this with Diana Ross. Is there ever a moment when the listener actually believes that the head Supreme (and Queen Bitch) is actually feeling what she’s singing, that she really is happy to be back in your arms again? On “Nowhere to Run” Reeves is pretty damn convincing as someone who can’t let someone go. UK rock acts must have felt the same thing. The Who covered “Heatwave” and the Kinks did “Dancing in the Streets.” There is a pretty credible theory that the latter song is about the civil rights movement and not just, well, dancing in the streets.

The Dish doesn’t know about dancing in the streets, but there will be go-go dancers (not to mention something billed as a “Love-In) at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts 60 Anniversary and House Party. Guests are asked to wear 60s garb. Check the website for other festivites that evening.

Music preview: Al Martino

18th Annual Summer Italian Festival

September 2-3-4-5

Presented by PENNSYLVANIA MACARONI COMPANY 

Chevrolet Amphitheatre at Station Square

Sept. 3, 8: 45 p.m., Main Stage

-by Drew Cucuzza

Al Martino was “Artist of the Week” on my local jukebox for 37 years. The song was “Living a Lie” and the place was Johnny’s Bar and Grille in West Haven, Conn., the kind of bar that had pickled eggs behind the bar and Ballentine on tap. The song was a top thirty hit in 1963, twenty five years before I first went to Johnny’s for an eighty-five cent draft. Maybe it stayed on juke because the serviceman could have time for a boilermaker if he never bothered to change it. But I have another theory.

Every Friday night the same guy comes in and sits at his usual spot at the bar. He’s got his paycheck, so he cashes it at the bar and orders a shot and a beer, takes his change and makes a beeline to the juker. He’ll play some Sinatra, some Bobby Vinton, maybe even some Elvis. But no matter what he always plays “Living a Lie”:

Why cry when she tells you she's leaving?

A teardrop or two won't keep her loving you

Be grateful she's gone, no more to lead you on

Only fools want to try living a lie


You can't change her mind with your grievin'

It's wrong to pretend, let it end

This first love may die but you've still got time, give it one more try

And that's better than living a lie


Be grateful she's gone, no more to lead you on

Only fools want to try living a lie


This first love may die but you've still got time, give it one more try

And that's better than living a lie

And that's better than livin' a lie

He has a few more drinks. Maybe he plays the song again, maybe he sings along softy, but he never cries. When he’s done he leaves his change on the bar and heads out the door to an empty home and a lonely double bed. And as long as he keeps showing up, the bartender makes sure his song is there.

Al Martino’s career dates back to the fifties. He was a childhood friend of Mario Lanza and played Johnny Fontaine in The Godfather and himself in Sinatra In Hollywood: The E! True Hollywood Story.

He’s one of the last of the great Italian-American vocalists.

Go see him.

Short notice concert preview: Dish drops the ball

You've got 27 minutes. But it's worth the effort.

Thursdays With A Twist

Market Square
Thursday August 25th, 12:00 pm

Five Guys Named Moe. Free.

Duke Ellington isn’t the only composer who makes me want to put on a fine suit and order NY strip. And Fats Waller is far from the only musician who makes me long for scotch and regret quitting smoking. But Louis Jordan is the only jazz guy who makes me want to eat fried fish and get arrested. And I don’t even like fish.

When the so-called swing revival (would be hipsters should note that most of what they tried desperately to dance was actually jump blues, not swing) was being marketed in the mid nineties, it was the other Louis, Louis Prima that got the most attention. Prima’s glory days were much more recent than Jordan’s and he might have had the wildest show in Vegas, but Louis Jordan helped invent not only R&B, but rock and roll, too. Ray Charles, often called the founder of rhythm and blues, cited Jordan as a major influence as did Bill Haley. And it was Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock” that jump started rock and roll two years before Elvis.

One of the first black artists to break through to the white market, Jordan essentially brought jive to the masses. How far did he cross over into pop culture? Cartoon superstar Tom (of Tom and Jerry) donned a makeshift zoot suit and serenaded a would be girlfriend with Jordon’s “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby?”

“Five Guys Named Moe uses Jordan’s riotous songs and hysterical, jiving personality to assemble a musical with hardly a trace of plot. But who needs plot lines when you have “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens” and “What’s the Use of Getting Sober (When You’re Going to Get Drunk Again?”).

Jordon is not the only jazz artist to have a musical based on his work. Both Waller and Ellington have had their work adapted for the stage. But he’s the only one who sang about “Fat Back and Corn Liquor”.

No arrests made

Things are a tad slow around Dish HQ today. But for good reason.

On Saturday night, Dish hosted it's official launch party. OK so we've been around since May but, well, we're a touch on the slothful side. That deadly sin aside, we also felt it smacked of self importance to do such a thing. However, we've received such overwhelming support from friends, neighbors and the community-at-large we felt the need to give a little something back. And we wanted to drink beer. Dish likes beer. Beer. But back to that something and the giving back of it.

That something, we hope, is our continued effort to make readers chuckle, kill a few minutes at work and maybe offer a good story or two. In the near future we look forward to scooping the big dailies (we can dream can't we?) and hope to hatch our own Best of Pittsburgh awards to rival the annual advertiser arse-smooch fest at the CP and alt weeklies around the world. These and other goals were discussed over wonderful food, fine beer, tasty wine and robust coffee at Dish HQ.

Our thanks to Penn Brewery for supplying Mr. Dish's favorite beer, Aldo Coffee in Mount Lebanon for the fuel (our hungovers especially thank you), Cynthia Petno for her graceful catering (she can be reached by either calling or stopping by the Monterey Pub 412-322-6535 on the North Side), The Wine Thief in New Haven, Conn., for their usual superb selections (damn you state store system!), Reverend Ron Wanless of New Hope United Methodist Church on the North Side for his pull with the man upstairs who stopped the rain, our North Side neighbors (especially Arthur for capturing a big bug in the kitchen and Chris, who turned his home into a flophouse for weary travelers), Dish intern Katie Johnston, the Jackometer, our chums at the Post-Gazette and our always supportive and far-too-talented Connecticut friends--Kathleen Cei, Kyle Summer (Dish web designer), Mandy, Dawn, Laurie, Jeff, Chris, Tucker and Dish A & E editor Drew--who drove more then humans should in one day to help us celebrate.

And thanks to our readers who were with us in spirits, er, spirit.

 

Photos by Kathleen Cei and Colleen Van Tassell

Top to Bottom: Drew & Cynthia; Patrick, Cherise, Demitri & Dish Intern Katie; Chris, Jeff, Dawn, Mandy; Cynthia's freshly-made bounty; Katheen & Kyle; Shawn Casey & PG Morning File's Bill Toland; Mr. Dish and Eric, Dish's scanner guy; Mr. Dish, Bill & Steve; Shawn, Bill, Rachel & Casey; party shoes; our dear friends from Connecticut who we don't deserve.

Ramones box set released today: leather jacket sales up

Rhino Records today released the box set Weird Tales of the Ramones that compiles 85 tracks onto three discs of music and include the DVD debut of Lifestyles of the Ramones.

by Drew Cucuzza,

A & E editor

In 1988 I saw the Ramones more times than I saw my relatives. My family would get together three times a year for holidays. The Ramones would play my town every April, August and December. That summer my friends and I decided to catch an extra show in New York. God only knows why, since it wasn't as if the set list was going to change.

The strange thing is I expected my grandparents to be gone by now, but not the Ramones.

The precise moment that the door slammed shut on my adolescence was April15, 2001, the day Joey Ramone died. I spent that night taking and making calls, spreading the news and reminiscing about the band that changed our lives.

 

I can remember the day I bought my first Ramones’ albums (Ramones and Rocket to Russia) used for three bucks. I bought “Animal Boy” the day I got busted, “Too Tough to Die” hours before my friend Jim came out of the closet and “Brain Drain” minutes before I went to tell a girl I loved her. Like the Time Life “Soundtrack of Our Lives," but with pinheads, cretins and lobotomies.

I saw them a total of 12.25 times. The first time I saw them (March 1984) was when I watched the tail end of a show through a broken window of a club, my great teen rock and roll moment. We were underage and the doorman wouldn’t take our fake IDs, although some other friends with the same IDs got in, probably because they had a cute girl in tow. Of course, not having a cute girl with us almost certainly meant that we needed to see the Ramones far more than our friends who could get dates, but doormen (then and now) aren’t known for their sense of social equality.

The first time I got to see a whole show was at a college “spring fling” weekend. They were on the same bill as Kool and The Gang. Not since Jimi Hendrix opened for the Monkees was there such an unlikely double bill. They played outdoors, in daylight. Years later in their final days they did a lot of shows like this, playing for drunken college kids shouting for “I Wanna Be Sedated," like the Beach Boys in leather jackets.

They played their last show in August, 1996. The last time I went to see them was Dec. 1989. By that time Dee Dee Ramone had left the band, ostensibly to be a rapper. Let’s just say that the video for his song “Funky Man” proves the title wrong, very wrong. Johnny Ramone was trying to keep pace (literally) with the hardcore bands that followed in the Ramones wake. This is like the Beatles trying to keep up with Gerry and The Pacemakers. The crack that the Ramones’ songs all sounded the same went from myth to reality. Without onetime drummer Ritchie or later on, Dee Dee to counteract Johnny’s “loud fast rules” approach, the live show might have been loud and fast, but it certainly didn’t rule.

Worse than that, after the release of the best of “Ramonesmania” in 1988, they began to attract more and more frat boy and jock types, who thought that moshing was about aggression, not release.

Johnny died of cancer in 2004. Dee Dee bless his heart, died a rock star death, overdosing in 2002. No old man’s death for him. The core trio of the band is gone.

But sometimes, even now at 39, if I’m feeling out of sorts, I reach for the Pleasant Dreams album and “Come On Now, my 11th grade anthem:

“I’m just a comic book boy

Looking for something scary to enjoy,

Freak admission, stroll inside

I was born on a roller coaster ride”

Now if only my leather jacket still fit.

From Baltimore with love

For some kids it’s when they see their first baseball game. For others it’s seeing a band play on TV. And I’m sure more than a few John Waters fans found their calling when they stumbled across their mom’s L’eggs and decided they weren’t the Toughskins type.

If there’s a moment that crystallized who I am, my “Catcher in the Rye” experience where I was thrilled to know that I was not the only one, it’s the first time I saw “Pink Flamingoes."

No, I’m not a transvestite, I don’t eat dogshit and I’m actually pretty horrified by the “singing butt hole.” It was seeing folks with a sense of the outrageous, a love of what can only be described as a trash esthetic (pompous, but accurate), a love of the obscure and bizarre that made me feel a little more at home in the world.

It’s the Ramones, horror movies and John Waters that made me the relatively well-adjusted guy I am today. I’m proud of my true crime collection, dammit. But what influenced Waters, the filmmaker who didn’t make people feel like they weren’t freaks; he made them feel it was OK to be freaks. The man who took bad taste (almost) to the mainstream will be showing a few of his favorite films at the Warhol Museum through Aug. 28.

-Drew Cucuzza