Houston Music Blog

The only thing more disheartening than being a one-hit wonder is having your one hit's lyrical intentions misconstrued from here to eternity. Bruce Springsteen didn't write "Born in the USA" as patriotic anthem, but Ronald Reagan sure thought he did. Pat MacDonald, formerly of Austin's Timbuk 3, knows this reality all too well. His group's song "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" was not as happy and optimistic as it sounded. It was actually an ironic look into the future of a young scientist who had a rich, successful career ahead of him making weapons of mass destruction for the government.

Yesterday, Bright Men of Learning (right) guitarist and solo performer Ben Murphy (far left), known to everyone on the Hands Up Houston message board as "bdm," announced his intention to start a cassette-only label whose first release would be a tribute tape to pacesetting '90s indie-rockers Sebadoh.

Has enough time elapsed so people are nostalgic over the same pop and hiss that used to drive them crazy, not to mention cassettes' annoying tendency to get tangled in the tape player if you played them often enough? (R.I.P., Shake Your Moneymaker.) Apparently so. Rocks Off emailed Murphy earlier today to get the lowdown on this most lo-fi of ideas.

Rocks Off: What are you calling this label, and what do you plan to release on it?

Benjamin D. Murphy: It's not in concrete, but I'm thinking about using the name "I Play Guitar Like a Robot." Why? Because it's long and annoying and awkward to use. For example:

Q: What label is that on?

A: I think it's I Play Guitar Like a Robot records... I mean tapes... Wait... What?

Realistically, I dunno. That's just a phrase in my head. A friend had a labelmaker and after a show once, years ago, gave that to me. It was on my guitar case for years. As for the releases, I've got a handful of names everyone in the local music indie-rock/whatever music scene will recognize, but I don't wanna run my mouth too much until it's a done deal.

I don't want to say I'm putting out so-and-so's tape and then look like a ding dong when it doesn't happen. But I'll keep you posted as info develops. So far it's looking good for a first batch of five releases - short runs, maybe only 50 tapes each. Bear in mind I just sent my first email and made my first phone calls only a couple days ago. Let's not jinx anything. 

So, just in time for its 20th anniversary, the Beastie Boys' landmark Paul's Boutique album is gonna be reissued in a deluxe, remastered edition. As we all know, the album is masterpiece of sampling technique, unencumbered by the prospect of litigation and emboldened by a true sense of sonic adventure. That, and it will forever and always be the most effective mating call of ballcap-clad dudes seeking drunken last-call liaisons.

While this news inspired some doting on the enormity of Boutique's impact, what Retro Active's mind quickly turned to was long-muddled memories of one of the Beasties' earliest vinyl appearances, the 1984 Speed Trials album. Documenting a five-night New York music festival that went down in 1983, Speed Trials put the then-hardcore-playing Beasties in the mix with, uh, Swans, Sonic Youth, the Fall, Live Skull, Lydia Lunch and other denizens of the downtown skronk scene.

Bono and Luciano Pavarotti, "Ave Maria"

Every year, at almost exactly this time, if you're like me, you can't get U2's goddamned "New Year's Day" out of your head. And, if you're like me, it drives you insane, not because of the quality of the song, but ... well, yeah, it is the quality of the song. It's a great, stupendous and amazing song, full of life and optimism and righteousness and all that stuff that made us pay attention to U2 in the first place.

But this year, as the publicity/marketing machine for U2's upcoming Eno-produced disc is getting geared up with news of there being five (yes, five) different release formats, the predictably massive world tour and, somewhere along the way, Bono dropping gold bars into Somalian refugee camps, it's becoming harder and harder to remember the band that once was. This year's excellent reissue of Under A Blood Red Sky (from which the linked "New Year's Day" was taken) was a good start, but the fact of the matter is, Bono has become shorthand for pretentious gasbag and no reissue campaign will ever cover up for this.

Of course, there's also this great rundown of the band's ego growth over at McSweeney's. - Jason Ferguson

Ian Gillan on his brief stint in Black Sabbath
Last week, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi filed a lawsuit against Live Nation, claiming that one of the promotion behemoth's subsidiaries, Signatures, sold a bunch of Sabbath merch after a licensing agreement expired in 2006. Though the idea of Black Sabbath "jewelry and fashion accessories" (as noted in the complaint) is kinda funny, you can't really begrudge the guy for being super-protective over the Sabbath "brand."

After all, it was Iommi who kept Black Sabbath in operation well after its sell-by date, releasing albums throughout the '80s and '90s that - at least after Ronnie James Dio left - few people paid attention to.

OK, sure, the truly worst '80s Christmas songs are doubtlessly "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" and Band Aid's (above) "Do They Know It's Christmas?" But everyone knows this. However, there were many other holiday songs released during the '80s that nearly reached such heights of crapulence

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BIlly Squier, "Christmas Is the Time To Say I Love You": It's hard to decide what's worse about this clip: Is it the drunken MTV staffers who display their outright disdain for the concepts of melody, harmony and rhythm? Or is the fact that Billy Squier was once deemed relevant enough to be the point man for the station's attempt at a holiday number?

Christmas seems to activate a latent part of all musicians' brains that inspires them to spread their holiday cheer all over a perfectly good season. (The scientific term for this part of the brain is called "My Accountant.")

Musicians in the '80s were certainly not exempt from this need to whip out their yule logs, and, as with most things back then, the results were often mediocre and pastel-colored. However, there are a few Christmas songs from that decade that were notable for either their awfulness or, more rarely, for their excellence Watch for the five worst next week.

Prince, "Another Lonely Christmas": Skinny-dipping, suicide, self-medicating with banana daiquiris ... yeah, that's Christmas at Prince's house. He touches none of the typical Yuletide bases with this 1984 B-side, but manages to sing about orgasms and ice-skating in a way that, though far from festive, is evocative and emotional.

Run-D.M.C., "Christmas In Hollis": You tried to sneak this cassette onto the hi-fi right before Christmas dinner, didn't you? I know I did. Unfortunately, for the longest time, the only cassette that had it was the Very Special Christmas compilation, which meant that the beatbox era spiritual successor to "Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto" was surrounded by MOR/AOR tripe by Bryan Adams, Stevie Nicks and Bon Jovi. Which made it easier to trick your parents into letting you play it, but reminded you of the sacrifices you were willing to make - even then - for art.