"cant seem to make you mine" by the Seeds

Borne of the psychedelic garage scene in 1960s Los Angeles, the Seeds were a four-piece band that toiled in relative obscurity before finding sudden but short-lived fame. And despite the success of their top 40 hit “pushin’ too hard,” they gained little notoriety and were soon forgotten. This song however, their first 7-inch, is totally cool. Released as a single in 1965 before leading off their debut album in 1966, it’s the first-person account of a man who’s lost the woman he loves and, you guessed it, he just can’t seem to get her back. Singer Sky Saxon, trapped within the dreary confines of his self-imposed state of depression, plays the role of dejected lover well, singing in a dismal drawl and sounding genuinely lugubrious. Even though he references her mean-spirited nature when he warbles “the only thing you do/is try to put the hurt on me,” he realizes that he can’t let her go. His problems effectively compounded, he pleads to her, “can’t you see what you’re doing to me/you fill my heart with misery,” before continuing, “in every breath and step I take/I’m more in love with you.” The song itself is driven by a simple bass line and the ceaseless but faint shaking of a tambourine. It limps along at an easy pace, plodding gently down the well-worn path of melancholia. The backing track is flavored by some deftly plucked notes that guitarist Jan Savage allows to linger, thereby reinforcing Saxon’s feeling of not being able to let go. And though keyboardist Daryl Hooper adds some texture to the verses, his most notable contribution is the tinkly solo after the second verse that sounds as if it’s sprinkling pixie dust on Saxon in an effort to relieve his heartache. But Hooper’s attempted remedy proves to be all for naught as Saxon’s pained howls between lines grow more impassioned as the song progresses and nears its climax. The end of the barely 3-minute song finds him repeating the title refrain and retreating deeper into despair, wailing before expiring for having never made her his. I’m reminded of a fitting line from a Tennyson poem: “’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

dig a pony

I'm in awe of civilization. The fact that people play roles in the grand scheme is really cool to me. Some people work; they have jobs. These jobs, however menial, trivial or inconsequential they may seem, are still important. Of course some people play bigger roles than others but the fact remains, everybody contributes something. We're all in this together.

What if some creature from a totally different world or galaxy dropped by to observe the way we exist and operate as a peopled civilization? What would they think of us? Maybe we could learn something from them, or they from us. They'd probably just see us as the petty, puny humans we are and destroy us.

think about that

So the US Navy successfully shot down a rogue satellite that the government said posed imminent danger to us. However, it's actual threat was questioned by experts. What's more, others are saying it is a spy satellite containing sensitive information that might be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. President Bush recently criticized China for doing the exact same thing. Strange, eh? Perhaps this satellite wasn't as dangerous as we had been told. Perhaps this was a thinly veiled excuse to test our long-range missiles. Perhaps it was meant as a demonstration of our ballistic might. Either way, it's got me thinking about our nation's role and reputation among the other world superpowers.

LISTEN TO BOOKER T. & THE MG's

FACT:

The densest natural substance on Earth is osmium, a blue-white, brittle metal that is one-sixth denser than gold and slightly denser than iridium. An ingot of osmium the size of a dollar bill and an inch thick would weigh nearly 13 pounds. Fascinating!

Valentine's Day

I guess Valentine's is a legit holiday from long ago. It's rooted in ancient Roman tradition. I always thought it was a Hallmark holiday created by some corporate bigwig to get dudes to buy stuff for their ladies. Either way, I'm a fairly enthusiastic participant.

So it is on this joyous day of affection that I am reminded of a certain pair of lovebirds. Both of them work in the same building as me and they are pretty remarkable (in the sense that they deserve remark). The female, whom I guess to be in her early 20s, is a typical Portland rock and roll girl. She's not wholly unattractive and not overweight; some might find her cute. She wears a lot of hip, black clothes and has short, cropped hair. She may be older but there's no way she's above 30. I've talked to her in passing and she seems cool and totally normal. Which is why her taste in men seems so puzzling. I'd seen her around for awhile with this really old and scary-looking guy. He had to be pushing 55 and had deep, sunken eyes. With a grizzly, gray beard, he dressed very plainly in drab, dirty colors. At first glance, I judged him to be a communist. Not only that, he was bald and paunchy and wrinkly. Initially, I thought they were just working together on some project. Over time though, they became more amorous. I'd see them together more often, usually on break, and the girl was really trying to get closer to him. She'd try to kiss him or hold his hand and he'd be kindly hesitant. After a couple months of this behavior, he relented, and before long, it appeared to be official. Now they're like two kissy peas in one strange pod. They make an odd couple but they seem content with each other. I don't want to make their business my own but it's hard not to notice. I don't know whether to be happy they found each other or creeped out.

Happy Valentine's day!

burrrrrrr

Record lows in Minnesota! Forty below near the Canadian border! The land of 1000 lakes has frozen over! It's so cold, your loogie bounces! How does the wildlife survive?

rocks off

Dig this: the Rolling Stones are way cool. Everyone knows how Led Zeppelin carved their own niche and the WHO arguably invented punk rock, but of the four most influential British invasion bands, the Rolling Stones might be my favorite, if not the coolest. While the Beatles consistently broke ground and revolutionized rock, roll and pop music, setting a standard that nobody's been able to touch since, the Stones took black American music and made it their own. There's no glory in thievery but the Stones added their own personal touches to black soul and R&B, delta blues and Chuck Berry's rock. Making their mark on other people's sounds, they were unabashed copycats and left their filthy fingerprints on tunes from the likes of Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. I think it was only on their third UK release that the Stones first contributed original material.Even though their sound was fueled by a healthy dose of the music of black America, the influence of wine, women and illegal narcotics was clearly evident on their late 60's, early 70's records. Consider Keith's guitar solo at the end of "stray cat blues;" he must've been more faded than a half-shaken etch-a-sketch. There's virtually no melody or structure to the solo at all. Soaked in reverb and dripping through an echoing amp at top volume, the singular notes pierce my ears and shimmer with a liquid-like quality. I picture him recording this in front of a stack of Marshalls, eyes closed, swaying or wobbling gently as the sound blows past him. The solo is so simple and sophomoric that I figure he was just wasted and digging the sensation of the sound itself, not the arrangement of the actual notes (of which there are maybe two).
Mick, of course, was a force to be reckoned with. A serpentine tease who oozed sexuality and possessed a voice that was torn and frayed, he'd steal your heart away clad in tight pants and a t-shirt. Turning on the repressed youth of the post-war generation, the Stones [and all the other acts from this period], couldn't have come at a better time. Charlie found shelter behind the rest of the band and kept time with a laidback jazz style. In sharp contrast to the unbridled energy of Keith Moon, Charlie was Mr. Cool. Where other drummers might throw in a little flourish or embellishment, he'd hold fast to the groove and in doing so, propel it forward. Though he had a soft touch and was somewhat stingy with his fills and rolls, Charlie defined what a rock drummer could be.

How's that saying go? A band is no greater than the sum of its parts. Something like that. But with a rotating cast of guitar and bass players, the triad of Mick, Keith and Charlie has remained unbroken for nearly 40 years. These dudes are still touring and raking in the loot. I like to think they do it for the love of the music, but it's probably about the money. Maybe it's both.

Travis Millard

Travis Millard draws all sorts of cool stuff. Like dudes fighting. I think it's cool how the guys are middle-aged and trashy and they claw at each other's faces like girly animals. I like to imagine that the characters are drunk and that their fight is slow and very laborious. Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and while a painting of a bowl of fruit or a pretty landscape or portrait is nice, I'm happy that artists are getting noticed for drawing pictures of scrappy old dudes in the heat of pointless battle.