SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Rock and Roll Over (1976).
After Alive!, Kiss released what I think of as the cartoon albums. These next three discs all had cartoon covers, which also coincides with their huge ascent into fame. I tend to think of Destroyer and Love Gun more than this one (maybe full-bodied pictures are more memorable than just their faces), even though this one has a huge share of important Kiss songs like “I Want You” (which has an amazingly long version on Alive II).
I never really liked “Take Me,” there’s something about the chanting backing vocals that irks me (although “Put your hand in my pocket, grab onto my rocket” is one of my favorite Kiss couplets). But “Calling Dr. Love” is a wonderful twisted song (the falsetto backing vocals are so doo wop, it’s funny to contemplate the band’s musical direction at this point). I loved this song so much it even features in one of my first short stories.
As an eight year old, I could never figure out what Gene would be doing in the “Ladies Room”–since he was a boy and all. Naiveté is a wonderful thing to have as a young person listening to Kiss–I had no idea what was going on in most of the songs–I wonder if my parents bothered to listen to the lyrics at all.
I also never really liked “Baby Driver” all that much–I don’t know if it’s Peter’s voice, or that I can’t figure out what the hell this song is about but it’s still just okay to me–although I like the guitars at the end. I love the solo in “Love ‘Em Leave ‘Em”–although the sentiment is not the best. Of course, the sentiment in “Mr. Speed” cracks me up: “I’m so fast, that’s why the ladies call me Mr. Speed.” Did that mean something different in 1976?
“See You in Your Dreams” was covered by Gene on his solo album, and I think I like that version better (it’s more theatrical). Although this one has very interesting use of Beatlesesque harmonies. “Hard Luck Woman” is wonderful song, and I do like Peter’s voice here, yes. But who the hell is Rhett? “Making Love” ends the disc. I like the break in the middle and the awesome guitar solo. Also, Paul’s vocals have some cool effects on them.
This is a fun album. Even the songs I don’t love are still songs that I like quite a bit. It’s a nice contrast from the bombast of Destroyer. The amazing thing is that both this album and Destroyer are barely over 30 minutes long. Were they making albums so frequently that they didn’t have any more songs, or were they just following the Beatles model: make an album every 7 months to stay in the public’s eye?
[READ: October 2, 2011] Dogwalker
I can’t believe how quickly I read this book. I wasn’t even planning on reading the whole thing just yet, but I started the first story and it was so quick to read and so enjoyable that I couldn’t stop. I finished the whole book in a couple of hours (it helps that a number of stories are barely 4 pages and that it’s barely 150 pages). The title of the book is something of a mystery as there are a lot of dogs in the stories, but walking is about the furthest thing from what happens to them. I was also somewhat surprised to see how many of these pieces I had already read (Bradford was in five of the first six McSweeney’s issues).
This collection is certainly not for everyone. In fact when I recounted the story “Dogs,” Sarah was disgusted and said she would never read the story. Bradford definitely pushes some boundaries, but they’re mostly in an attempt to find humor, so I think that’s cool. Sarah even admitted that the end of “Dogs” sounded funny (although she was still disgusted). The two things I found odd about the stories were that two of them featured a three-legged dog, which seems a little lazy to me–although I don’t know what the dog might signify. And two of them featured someone or something singing unexpectedly and the narrator getting a tape recorder to surreptitiously save this special recording. Again, it’s a really unusual thing to happen at all, but to have that happen in two stories?
Aside from those little complaints, the stories were fun, funny and certainly weird. (more…)
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SOUNDTRACK: NADA SURF-“Meow Meow Lullaby” (2004).
On the For the Kids Too! compilation, Nada Surf have a wonderful song called “Meow Meow Lullaby.” It’s got a beautiful melody and is a really adorable song. Lyrically it is very simple: “I am just a kitten, hardly fit my mittens, much too small I figure, one day I’ll be bigger.” And the chorus is predominantly the band singing the word “Meow.”
I Just Read About That... 