From the Stacks: Holiday for Pianos

“Say, gals, freshen those cocktails?”

“I don’t mind if I do, Louie.”

“You dames ever been on a boat?”

Deep Cuts: In Defense of Styx

 Let’s just get this out of the way right now:  There won’t be very many deep cuts on this list.  Styx is one of those rare situations where radio programmers have gotten it right.  The reason that you hear the same Styx songs over and over is because they are awesome.

Dennis DeYoung did a great job of beating the coolness out of the band, but if you can overcome your Babe-related PTSD there are some choice cuts in the Styx catalog.  Here we go:

65. Wherein I Am Completely Wrong

“You just have to look at the facts,” I said.

Matt didn’t even look up from our frog.  “The only fact is that it sucks and nobody cares about it.”  The frog didn’t say anything.  He was pinned to a board, limbs splayed like a Froghouse centerfold.

Zappa Plays Zappa at the Crest Theatre, 2/18/12

Sacramento, California’s Crest Theatre is a beautiful landmark.  In its current form the Crest has been around since 1949, but as the Empress Theatre it dates back to 1912.   That’s one hundred years of vaudeville, movies, concerts and other stage appearances.

Tonight covers about the last forty-five of those of years for both the artist and me.  Dweezil Zappa is on stage playing the music of his father, Frank, and I am sitting in the balcony with my two kids, hanging on every note.  Both of my kids are Zappa fans.  I might be the only parent in a thousand mile radius who can make that claim, though there are a lot of parents and grandparents here.  That’s one of the joys of living in Northern California:  A show like Zappa Plays Zappa brings the first generation hippies out of hiding.  There are more horseshoe mullets in this theater right now than anywhere else on Earth.

Of course it’s not Dweezil up there alone.  Zappa’s music is too complex for that.  On stage tonight we have:

From the Stacks: Party Party, Original Soundtrack

Never released in the United States, Party Party’s soundtrack at least makes it look like one of the stupid Eighties teen movies that have been this week’s topic. Maybe some of you UK readers can leave a comment and let us know what we’re missing.

Deep Cuts: Top Ten Songs from Nic Cage Movies

 Nicolas Cage’s career is a beautiful car wreck.  It started off fast and wild, careening from weird to weirder.  No matter how bad some of those early movies were he was always so brilliant that it didn’t matter.  Part of the fun was waiting for him to drive into the ditch.

In a lot of ways Nic was almost like the genius front man of a band.  Like any other great front man he seems to have gotten addicted to the fame and the fortune and started making the film equivalent of latter day Rolling Stones or U2 albums — safe, bloated boring.  And like those bands that took the money and ran, Nic alienated his rabid early fan base in the process.

Anyway, scattered throughout the Cage filmography are some very tasty cuts. Here are my top ten Nic Cage soundtrack songs:

On My Turntable: A Different Kind Of Truth

 I picked up Van Halen’s latest album, their reunion with front man David Lee Roth, for the same reasons that I Facebook friended the hot girl from my high school.  I hoped that she was still pretty, but on some level I welcomed a horrible train wreck.  Twenty-seven years is plenty of time to get bloated, wrinkly, methed out and toothless.

She’s still hot, by the way, and so is Van Halen.  This, the band’s twelfth studio album, is the best since their third record came out back in 1980.  In fact, I’m willing to bet that you could slip this album into the number four slot in the Van Halen discography and the casual listener wouldn’t know the difference.

64. I Started Drifting To A Different Place

Valley Girl opened the same weekend as The Hunger.  I didn’t have any interest in seeing it.  As far as I was concerned the film makers were morally destitute thieves who ripped off Frank Zappa, which was an even worse crime than Zappa making a hit record with his daughter.

Help Stripmall Architecture, Score Some Cool Stuff

Stripmall Architecture is working on a new album, Lowbrow in the Evening, and they’re opening up the vaults and cupboards to make you a part of it.

This is a truly great band: atmospheric, moody, melodic, and Rebecca Coseboom has an amazing voice that’s both powerful and fragile as glass.  It’s really a wonder.  They’re another one of those bands that should be much bigger than they are.  That’s where you come in.

From the Stacks: Mr. T’s Commandment

Don’t be a fool.  You can trust me. I have a mohawk and twenty pounds of gold chains.  My tube socks don’t match.  Stay in school, don’t do drugs.  Now get in my van and help me find my puppy, sucka.