Financial Advisor

Typically, the tellers at my bank are very friendly and they go about their business in a "If you don't talk to me, I won't talk to you" kind of way. The way I like it.

That's why it was weird today, when at the end of our transaction, my teller asked "Would you like to sit down with one of our financial advisors?" in a hushed voice of speaking. Except she said it so quietly, that I responded with what, in retrospect, was an over-the-top "What?!?" She repeated herself. I smiled and said no. Then with an incredulous frown, she asked, "Are you sure?" I repeated my answer. And that was it.

Do you think the powers-that-be are pushing all tellers to ask this now? Or do they put red flags on the accounts of people who's balance stays quid pro quo no matter what calendar month or year it is? Or is it because my previous transaction was giving $xxxx.xx to a credit card company? Is it because I believe that x is a number?

No. More than likely it was because the check I was cashing today was for the amount of $2.99. It was a rebate check for some Motrin that I'm sure either my mother or grandmother bought and sent into the rebate center in my name and address, knowing that every little bit helps in a young gent's life. This happens frequently enough that I've stopped asking questions when a mysterious check for a couple dollars shows up in my mailbox and instead just thank the rebate gods for the extra income.

Songtown - Vol. 7 (Kitty Can)

Artist: The Bee Gees
Song: Kitty Can
Album: Idea
Year: 1968
Download



As a kid, I would cringe whenever my mother would talk about or listen to the Brothers Gibb. They were just some lame ass high-singing disco band with ridiculously poofy hair. Tom Petty, Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne. I could get down with them, but I never understood her fascination with the Gibbs, or with Neil Diamond for that matter. So now, it only makes sense that I listen to the Bee Gees more than I listen to the Beatles.

First off, let's look at how these guys have aged phsyically. Not well, I'm afraid. I just typed up an exposé on how the bros have turned from goofy cute to extremely creepy over the last 40 years, but it was suffering royally, so I ix-nayed that route/route. But do a Google search and you'll see that Barry used to be a bonafide heartthrob in early years, even through the disco era. And that Robin...well, that dude is simply very interesting to look at.

Anyhow, the song. "Kitty Can" comes off of their third album, Idea, a period when they were just the poor man's Fab Three.

Man, do I still have to type about this song? I've now been listening to this song for an hour straight, and I still love it, but man...I'd love to hear something else. Alright, I'll trudge through.

I should note that this is not the "album version," but instead an exquisite alternate mix made available on a reissue from a couple years ago. I won't go into the differences, but there's a lot more going on in this version. Some horns. Some more violin. Some nonsensical whispering and vocaling.

So, the drums. Listen to these drums. When they first enter the verse, you think that something has gone terribly wrong and the drummer most definitely fucked up. But no, he's just doing something interesting! When I learn to play drums as a middle aged man, I'll play this one first.

The song tells the age-old story of a guy who's trying to decide between two girls. The first verse harps on Kitty. The narrator thinks that Kitty is the bees knees, except maybe that he lets his emotions get a little too wound up in hers:

When Kitty smiles, the world stands still
I see a thousand golden daffodils
But when she cries, the world just dies
I see a million tears in Kitty's eyes

There's nothing better than when Kitty is happy, but when she's not, oh God, it just hurts so much. And then there's the second verse which is all about Eve. Eve is a nightmare.

Now Eve is bad and treats me cruel
She loves to see me looking like a fool
I find a way with words I say
To be in love in such a lonely way

She's exactly the type of person you want to keep away from. There's no redeeming qualities here. The choruses further drive home the idea that Eve shouldn't even be spoken about in the same song as Kitty. "Eve never pleases me and Kitty can." Which makes the last verse particularly complexing:

Now they are two and I am one
I cannot fall in love with everyone
So I must choose between the two
Made up my mind, now I am choosing you

How could you even be confused? Eve is the devil. She's an awful human being. A trainwreck. Kitty offers everything to you! Sure, she gets sad sometimes and since you're so in love with her, you can't help but magnify the situation, but come on! Get over it, Barry!

And look at that last line of the third verse. " Made up my mind, now I am choosing you." Are you singing to "you" simply because it rhymes with "two" or is there some deeper meaning here? You couldn't possibly be thinking about choosing Beevesabub, could you? I know. You won't be the first and you won't be the last to settle down with someone who does nothing but berates you. But that typically comes from desperation. Why would you be so desperate? Are you already married to Eve? What's wrong with Kitty? Is she dying? Is she married? Are you two related?

Or could the "you" be a third? Is there someone else in the picture?

I'm not entirely sure when I stopped talking to the readers and started yelling at Barry Gibb.

Songtown - Vol. 6 (Master Jack)

Artist: Four Jacks & A Jill
Song: Master Jack
Album: Master Jack
Year: 1968



Boy oh boy. I love this song. This one appeared to me about a year ago, when I bought Hard To Find 45s on CD, Volume 6: More 60s Classics. I don't need to explain anything about this CD, because the title says it all. I bought this collection solely to get the original version of "Witchi Tai To," which we've already talked about. As with all of the world's greatest gifts, they come attached to other stuff even better. Yeah yeah yeah. Anyhow, this collection had some classics that I already know like "Walk Away Renee," "Lightning Strikes" and "(Just Like) Romeo and Juliet." But then there are the ones that WQSR never bothered to archive. Like "Master Jack."

This one seems like the type of song that the White Stripes would have rough and rolled their way through as a b-side at some point, but fortunately, I don't think they've gotten around to it, yet. So for now, it can just be yours and mine.

Four Jacks and a Jill is the name of the band. Internet research has told me that the band was formed in 1962 as The Nevadas. Back then, it was just a couple of Jacks not actually named Jacks. They later changed their name to The Zombies, not to be confused with the American Zombies. Shortly thereafter, Glenys Lynne Mynott came along and they wisely changed their name to the Four Jacks and A Jill. I say "wisely" simply because I'm in love with this band name. And I'm even more in love with the band name PLUS the fact that "Master Jack" is the only song that I'll likely ever hear by them. It just seems perfect.

You'll find that the less I know about a band, the more I'll try to create my ideal false reality regarding them. If you can, strike the last paragraph from the record.

In 1966, big game hunter Jack Richmond decided to try his hand at music production. He invited four orphaned teenage boys named Jack (Bilff, Leckerson, Tonlinky, Mookus) and a girl named Jill Poaklyn up to his estate to "help out." Well, it was all fun and game [sic] for all of a weekend before Master Jack starting pushing them to sing him a bunch of songs that he had written from their perspective. All in return for the food and shelter that he provided. And so went the next seven years. The young ones resented Master Jack, but with time, they grew to secretly admire him. Even if his unrequited love for Jill was a bit creepy.

Finally, when they reached their twenties, Master Jack let them out into the world. As their final gift to the Master, they performed this song that they had written in his honor. You can sense the tension, but in the end, the good outweighed the bad, and they had to thank him. And you know what? That Jill might just be a little in love with Master Jack.

Epilogue: Their next single was to be called "Mr. Nico" and that's not even part of my false reality. I have to track down this song.

Neverending String Dream 2008

This won't be long, but I've decided to create an ongoing tally of how many instances of the "never ending string" dream that I have. To catch you up, I wrote about this in a myspace blog two summers ago...

"I have two recurring dreams. Neither are very dreamy. One is frustrating, and the other is also frustrating. Not sure which one is which.

The first starts with me discovering a seemingly small piece of string/floss/rope (thickness varies) in my mouth. As I start to pull it out of my mouth, its revealed that it actually extends down my throat. I pull and it is longer than I think it is. In fact, I never find out how long it is. It just keeps coming. I wrap it around my hand and snap it off at a certain point and try to return it how I found it, but unfortunately, it constantly bothers me, so I keep going back to pull on it. It becomes very embarrassing and I do my best to hide the fact to anyone who comes around. I use my other hand to block what I'm doing. That sort of thing. Very frustrating."

Well, the dream continues to pop up once every month or two.

Last night was its first appearance of 2008. This time it was trying to mask itself as a different dream, but I saw through it. I had bubblegum stuck to every tooth on the left side of my mouth. I would pull at it and it would stretch out of my mouth but it would not break away from my teeth. The more I pulled, the more gum appeared and the less I could keep it contained inside of my mouth. As per usual, no one actually noticed, although I continued to shield my mouth and I spent a lot of time in stairwells.

Yeah yeah, I have some secrets or something.

Each time that I have this dream, I inevitably Google it the next day and it scares me that other people have pretty much the same dreams as me. How is that possible? Was there a movie about this that I was unaware of watching and hence has got stuck in my mind?

What's a bit more odd (and can also be chalked up to my bad memory and how I never use the same search criteria) is that my Google search never results in the same pages. Each time, I find new instances. This time, they're not exact matches, but related nonetheless...

You don't really have to read this or this .

Neverending String Dream Tally 2008: 1

I posted this just in case I don't get a chance to listen to a song today.

Songtown - Vol. 5 (Did I Say)

Artist: Teenage Fanclub
Song: Did I Say
Album: Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-Six Seconds: A Shortcut To Teenage Fanclub
Download



In an unprecedented move, this week, I'll be attempting to only reminisce about three-syllabled songs that end with an -ay sound. If I can successfully navigate to this goal, I'll buy everyone a meal at Chile's!

So, you had to figure it was only a matter of time before I started breaking out the Teenage Fanclub. I fear that I use to talk about this band way too much, so I've attempted to distance myself from them over the last few years. But rest assured, they're still probably my favorite of the still-going variety.

In 2003, the Fannies released a career retrospective. Retrospectives are the wave of the future as fewer and fewer bands are writing great hits. Although this release boasted a few remixed and remastered tracks, in addition to a Pink Floyd-esque sleeve, the real draw were the three new tracks. One from each of the chief songwriters. Raymond McGinley continued to improve his songwriting with "The World'll Be OK." Gerry Love continued to coast on cruise control with "Empty Space." But Norman Blake took it to the next level with "Did I Say."

I remember taking some sort of Beatles appreciation class at CCBC-Essex where the topic turned to love songs within one of the first few sessions. It was brought to my attention that it took the Beatles something like five albums before they wrote a song that wasn't about love. On a grander scale, this is obviously true in terms of pop music in general. 99 out 100 songs are going to be about love. But it wasn't until that class, that I fully comprehended this reality. It also made me feel a little better about my own songwriting. I feared that I was becoming a bit too one-note, and probably had, but I could now

That's why it was weird when Teenage Fanclub released 2005's Man-Made and Norman didn't have one song about love on there. Later, I read an interview with him where he said that he thought he had written enough love songs (read: nearly every single song before this album). So, as of this moment, this means that "Did I Say" is the last love song that he'll ever write. I'm sure he's already returned to the topic, but, if not...

This is the ideal last love song. Its a simple reflection upon the blossoming of his marriage...or something. "Hey, did I say that I smiled when I first heard your name? Fell in love and now I still feel the same way." How semi-precious is that?

The production is just gorgeous on this one. The harmony never leaves the lead vocal's side. The piano and string sounds are ones that I'd never be able to reproduce. Those rolling snare fills all over the place. This makes me feel like riding a horse.

And what time signature is this in? I once spent a whole afternoon driving around listening to this on repeat, attempting to "teetee ta ta" my way through it. Once a song isn't 3/4 or 4/4 anymore, I lose track almost immediately. I know that I write songs and I know that I once studied math, but, really, no clue. Please, someone make me feel like an idiot.

Songtown - Vol. 4 (Once A Day)

Artist - The Triffids
Song - Once A Day
Album - In The Pines
Download



So, I spent two years working at a record store. During my tenure, I took home at least a thousand promotional copies of new CD releases. At first, it was mainly stuff that I had been anticipating or had least been told to look into. It wasn't long until I started taking anything home that featured letters from any of my favorite alphabets. I'd drop it into iTunes immediately and figured the good stuff would find its way to the top eventually.

Then came the day that they finally issued reissues of two of the The Triffids albums. Except that I had no clue who The Triffids were and frankly, still don't. I've never listened to the two albums in their entirety and I've come to enjoy a couple of the songs that have popped up on the iPod while in Shuffle mode.

I think was a sticker on one of the cases that said they were an influential band from 1980s New Zealand or something. That's the extent of what I know about them. And at this point, a year later, I'd like to keep it that way. After I finally heard "Once A Day," I convinced myself that this was their only song.

The song seems like its obviously a cover song, but I've never heard the original. Although I love the song, I've decided to not research its origins. I think its a much more romantic idea just to imagine that it was a bunch of kids (I also like to pretend that they were and still are in seventh grade) from New Zealand that had written it. I dream that one of their dads worked as a janitor at the local watering hole and that he somehow convinced the owner to allow his boy's band to play a Sunday night gig for the regulars. The owner's one stipulation was that his daughter Pagoda had to sit in on the violin. [And she nailed it!]

With my previous false reality established that this was their first and only song, my story continues that this song comprised the entire set. [The story is foggy from there, but its possible that they might have played this one multiple times.] The crowd gives them some ironic applause, hoots and hollers ("Look at these kids trying to sing about heartache!") as the song starts up. But upon the arrival of the first chorus when the rest of the band starts belting out the response to the janitor son's call, you can really start feeling the irony turn into pure adoration, and by the final chorus, you'll hear the entire pub screaming that response.

My favorite part is in the third verse (nearly a carbon copy of verse two) when Janiboy switches out "I'm so glad I'm not like a friend I knew one time" with "I'm so glad I'm not like this wino I knew one time." What does a 13 year old know about winos??!? It doesn't matter. This boy's got himself a broken heart.

Pagoda!