In many ways, Creem - self-proclaimed as “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine” - set the template for current music blogs and new media sites. The outsider perspective, personal and subjective approach to stories and content, willingness to champion relatively unknown bands, and ability to spot trends early (Creem allegedly coined the term “punk rock”) are just some of the ways this Detroit-based publication helped revolutionize music journalism for future generations.
Of course, while Creem may share these characteristics with contemporary blogs, it also did all of these things about a hundred times better than anything out there right now. Where else could you read a live review of a Rolling Stones show written by Charles Bukowski (framed entirely around the venue’s coincidental proximity to a racetrack he enjoyed visiting)? Or enjoy a glossy cover hand-drawn by R. Crumb? Or have Lester Bangs, Cameron Crowe, Robert Christgau and Nick Tosches all on the same masthead? Exactly. From 1969 to 1989, Creem dared to elevate music journalism as a form of artistic expression in its own right.
I highly recommend checking out the recent hardcover Creem retrospective for an absolute assault on the senses. From this collection, we’ve culled some of our favorite cover shots over the years that we feel capture the spirit and energy of their particular era as well as of Creem’s own reckless bravado.
Read more…
From the Inside Looking Out is our opportunity to have those involved within the music world tell us a bit about things from their point of view. This time around, we have Daniel Neely
At some point during the summer of 2002, my mother-in-law sat my wife, her sister and I down to tell us how she “just loved that Ozzy Osmond and his wife Sharon,” because they took such good care of their kids. It was around the time the Osbournes reality show was getting popular and I think it was her way of being hip with the kids. It was probably the lounge-y version of “Crazy Train” they used for the theme that drew her in. Anyhow, two weeks later, we had finally stopped laughing about “Ozzy Osmond” and it began to dawn on us that Ozzy and his music had become more mainstream than we had realized.
This didn’t strike me as a bad thing. I grew up playing guitar and on occasion–like every adolescent boy with six strings and a dream–my friends and I would get together on Sabbath tunes. In fact, every kid in every band I knew growing up played Sabbath tunes. It was a kind of rite-of-passage that everyone went through. In my work Directing the New York State Musicians Index and Archive (NYMIA), I’ve come to notice that this hasn’t changed, so I started up a little project I call the “New York Black Sabbath Covers Project”. Here’s how it came about.
Read more…
Michigan-based quintet Mason Proper released their outstanding sophomore album Olly Oxen Free (Dovecote Records) yesterday. A tightly coiled collection of smart hooks, patient songwriting and restrained arrangements, Olly Oxen Free is both a creeper and an instant obsession, forging a comfortably warm landscape that often makes it damn hard for the listener to stop playing the first three songs on repeat (that is, until you realize how great the rest of the record is too). Bands like this - and albums like this - just don’t materialize from thin air, people. To that end, we cornered lead singer Jonathan Visger and prodded him with a vague series of origin-themed questions, from songs to cover art and lasagna to the gentle art of naming one’s band. Enjoy the inquisition… Read more…
Whether by design or sheer coincidence, two seemingly unrelated Top 100 lists have popped up within the past week to forge a sort of perfect storm of pointless analysis and time-wasting critique. The lists themselves are enormously interesting and informational; it’s my own uncontrollable urge to conflate the two that presents the black hole of inanity. Vain hopes of unlocking the hidden synchronicity amongst their ordered logic consume me. Numbers swell backwards and forwards in a taunting ebb and flow. 100 to 1 and 100 to 1. What’s the connection? Your asses are mine, lists; show yourselves. Read more…
The best words in music don’t always have to flow forth from painfully constructed song lyrics. Often enough, it’s the peripheral white noise of everyday idle chatter, catty back and forths, out-of-context quotes, musings, ramblings and ill-advised blog postings surrounding the actual music that provides the most fun and enlightenment for the armchair frontman.
Part “they actually said that?” part “wow, that’s fairly interesting” part “no shit dummy” part “Musicians: they’re just like us! (in that they also speak and write?)” and part “oh that quote must belong to Courtney Love”, we offer you a bit of a roundup of the latest words heard round the campfire over the past few days. Turn your thinking caps off… Read more…
What’s this? It’s a pop song BATTLE! With a twist. Instead of only two artists squaring off over the same song, like we did last time with “See You Again” by Miley Cyrus, we’ve got four different artists and five different versions of the same song this time around. It’s a Royal Rumble! Our song: the post-punk goth classic “A Forest”. Our competitors: The Cure (original composers of our contended song), Bat For Lashes (art school student turned rock chanteuse), Nouvelle Vague (Bossa nova cover version maestros), Toadies (composers of ’90s alternative hit “Possum Kingdom”), and The Cure (again, you’ll see). How did we get here, and where are we going? Read more…
Oh, Pretty Boy, Can’t You Show Me Nothing But Surrender?
Horses, horses, horses, horses
Comin in in all directions
White shining silver studs with their nose in flames,
He saw horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses…
So opens Steven Sebring’s (above left) new film, Patti Smith: Dream of Life––or at least the photographic equivalent of the well-known Smith verse does. The first shot poetically depicts a slow-galloping pack of horses against a red background. Enter Smith’s narrating voice and a series of even more elegant images.
Patti Smith: Dream of Life endeavors to be true to its subject matter. It is a reflection of the artist and her art, reaped from the very root of her ideas. Accordingly, the film bends common conceptions of narrative and genre. It is neither a concert documentary, nor a biography of Smith’s life. It does not dwell on Smith’s music or poetry, nor does it expound upon the historical or social context of her art. No, Sebring’s film is a rhythmic meditation on an artist, an act of observance and detached reverence. By employing such a grand visual collage, Sebring reveals that his love for Smith is quite a brainiac-amour. But no more.
Steven Sebring met Patti Smith in 1995, when Spin magazine hired Sebring to do a photo-shoot with Smith. Smith agreed based on the recommendation of Sebring by Michael Stipe. Something magical must have happened on that shoot: for the next 12 years Sebring followed Smith all over the globe, immersing himself in her home life, her stage persona, her personal adventures, her entire world…
In an interview with Filmmaker magazine, Sebring describes a relationship that, to some, may resemble stalking: “I would usually meet her on tour. Like when she went to Japan, I said, ‘I’m going to go to Japan,’ and she wouldn’t believe me. And then I’d show up and she’d be like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ That’s the way it was. At her mother and father’s house in Jersey, it was like ‘I’m gonna go to my Mom and Dad’s house — do you wanna come?’ I said, ‘Yeah, of course!’ So it was like that kind of thing throughout the years.”
But this is obviously the most natural way to film a Smith biography. I mean, let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to follow Patti Smith around? Going to each and every concert, visiting the graves of Arthur Rimbaud and William Blake, hanging out with her both at home and backstage, not to mention chilling with her parents in the house Smith grew up in… Yes, you can accurately state that Sebring is one lucky bastard. If I had a job like that, I think I’d just continue following her around for as long as possible, never actually making the film, but pretending to by carrying around a video camera at all times.
However, Sebring’s reverence––obsession, if you prefer––presents an alternative implication. One scene, in which Sebring follows Smith to the grave of Arthur Rimbaud, casts this relationship under a fresh light.
The camera shows Smith wandering around Rimbaud’s gravesite, focusing on the way she absorbs his spirit from the natural setting. Next Smith stomps around a wooded area where he once stomped, and sits in a urinal he used more than a hundred years ago. Patti Smith never had the chance to meet her hero, so she settles on the sensation she garners from his gravesite. Recognizing these poetic and musical influences is essential to understanding her art. Smith’s music and lyrics are inextricably linked to dead poets and rockers: to Gregory Corso, to William Burroughs, to Jim Morrison, to Jimi Hendrix. Their spirits enable her to create a beauty all her own.
Steven Sebring grasps this phenomenon and imitates the process; but the key difference is that his muse is still alive and in front of his camera at all times. Sebring travels to be around the spirit of his muse while she travels to be around the spirit of hers. Again: the only natural way to make a Patti Smith film is to be around her at all times, soaking in her energy and watching her soak in energy from her own sources. These are the transferences that guide this film and give it life.
Patti Smith: Dream of Life is the product of an intricate relationship. By persisting in close proximity to Smith’s creative energy for twelve years––by watching and observing and learning from his muse––Sebring was able to make his own, very remarkable, work of art. Go Sebring, go and do the watusi, oh do the watusi.
* * *
View the Patti Smith: Dream of Life trailer.
Visit Patti Smith on MySpace.
Below you will find a list of some of our favorite music-focused sites on the web, one for each letter of the alphabet. Though this can not be viewed as a complete list (some letters are bigger (and better) than others, which means many quality sites have been left off), this list does in fact feature twenty six of the best music sites in the world, covering a variety of styles, formats, and genres. Please leave suggestions of your own favorites, or ones that should’ve been included here, in the comments.
Allmusic.com - though it’s often one of the slowest loading sites on the web, it’s also one of the most comprehensive. An essential visit for information about nearly any musician/music industry type who has ever be involved in making a record.
BrooklynVegan - if you can refrain from getting sucked into the mindless vortex of the comment section, BrooklynVegan is worthy of multiple daily visits to find out who is/has played New York area shows and to find out other pertinent musical (with an indie slant) news and events. Consistently solid photos and mini-features that are getting better and better.
Contrast Podcast - The Contrast Podcast started in March 2006 and has seen the production of one episode each week since then, usually published on Tuesdays. The podcast works like this: a theme is chosen and then a variety of contributors choose songs based on that theme and record witty and interesting spoken introductions which they send to Tim Young who compiles them into a lovely podcast.
Daytrotter - slowly becoming today’s version of the Peel Sessions, this site compiles fantastic live sessions with artists at Futureappletree Studio One in downtown Rock Island, Ill. The Session Archive should keep you happily busy for a month or so.
Elbo.ws - this music blog aggregator tracks the posts on thousands of sites and reproduces them as snippets with tagged MP3s. If you’re looking for a song online, start here. It’s well designed and essential.
Fluxblog - the Godfather of music blogging, Matthew Perpetua posts about songs and the occasional live show with equal parts personality and nerdy insight. Great taste to boot.
Gorilla vs. Bear - want to keep up with all of the in-the-know middle America Joneses and see a few backstage Polaroids of musicians too? Then this is your site. It’s got a great taste filter that continually assures quality music is being posted.
Heartonastick - not always strictly about music, and not updated as often as I’d like… but still, J from Heartonastick is one of the best writers out there when he’s on. Also, a refreshingly competent researcher and scourer of the internets. Good times.
Idolator - some of the posts feel as though the staff is being whipped by a slave master who is forcing them to pump out post after post after post. SOME. However, the rest of the articles make up for the drivel as they feature breaking news, lists, links, and (often) seriously well thought out essays.
John Peel Everyday - currently undergoing some technical difficulties but “back soon”, this site posts recordings of old John Peel radio shows because, as the author puts it, “I miss John Peel every day and I know I’m not alone in this”.
KEXP - one of the top radio stations on the planet that lets you listen live online. Their programming is top notch.
Largehearted Boy - daily news bits, daily (legal) MP3s, the best new release tracker online, and frequent features on books and reading make this one of my very most favorites sites. Once you start reading you’re sure to go back every day.
Merry Swankster - great writing from a staff that’s spread out across the country… in a world of alllooksames this site stands out.
NYC Taper - records New York area shows and posts them as FLACs and MP3s for users to download. Top notch bootleg sound. If you go to a show in NYC check in here to see if they’ve attended as well - it makes for a great way to relive that amazing concert.
Oh My Rockness - New York, LA, and Chicago music fans should be checking this site for continually updated concert listings. If you like indie rock, they’ve got you covered.
Pitchfork TV - forget about the other Pitchfork, this one’s where the good shit is happening. Goodbye MTV. Hello Pitchfork TV!
Quiet Color - it’s a new one, but Quiet Color is showing promise with good taste, tons of updates, and some rather well put together words, stills, and videos.
RollingStone - inching towards irrelevance, this deity of music journalism is still worth visiting in online form, at the very least, because of their searchable archives.
Said the Gramophone - good writing is often hard to find when it comes to music sites. When it comes to Said the Gramophone, you’ll find good writing and great music posted nearly every day.
Tiny Mix Tapes - swell design, good writing, articles, reviews, features, and the old trusty Automatic Mix Tape Generator keep this site ranking very high on my list of favorites.
Uncensored Interview - is “a broadband video platform for indie music artists and fans to be seen and heard in their truest form - uncensored and real.” Basically, it rules.
Vulture - NY Magazine’s entertainment blog covers music news, live shows, rumors, lists, celebrity sightings, and leaks. Worth a visit once a week.
WOXY - “the future of rock and roll” is still alive and well online. Easily the best radio station that I’ve ever heard.
XLR8R - reviews, news, features, MP3s, videos… this site has it all. Plus, it’s also published as a magazine. Hot.
You Ain’t No Picasso - ever want to know what your average college aged Midwestern American male music nerd is listening to? Check out You Ain’t No Picasso.
ZME Music - comprehensive blog covering a very wide variety of genres and styles but focusing on the more popular bands out there, ZME Music is well-designed and has a few features worth keeping an eye on (such as the apparently deceased Wednesday Smiler Jerker).
*front image from HERE.
From the Inside Looking Out is our opportunity to have musicians tell us a bit about the music world from their point of view. This time around, we’re thrilled to have Leo Maymind from Spanish Prisoners detail his experience opening for and playing with Daniel Johnston.
Daniel and I sat on a small, squat couch in a room filled with people. I had no idea whom most of them were, and I’m fairly certain Daniel didn’t know or care who they were either as he sipped on a diet soda and stared into one corner of the small green room of the Highline Ballroom unknowingly. Read more…
Sexuality: perhaps the last frontier in the neuroscientific field of Things Deep In Our Hearts That Confuse And Scare Us That We Have To Confront Someday But Not Just Yet. “Sexuality is not simply an attribute one has or a disposition or a patterned set of inclinations. It is a mode of being disposed toward others, including in the mode of fantasy, and sometimes only in the mode of fantasy.” So says Judith Butler in Undoing Gender, arguing that sexuality and even gender itself are big, fat lies, performances not grounded in anatomical reality—and not just in Bangkok, right here in God’s America. To which I say, where do you draw the line between performed and real, Judith Butler? Date My Mom? Ohio State v. Michigan? Rock Band??
These are questions we in Music Video Studies now must grapple with, like it or not, thanks to Katy Perry. With the June release of “I Kissed a Girl” to the YouTubed masses, Ms. Perry seemingly flaunts her “disposition” in a gold lamé muffin-wrapper dress. In the video, as you see, she’s able to “try on” her newfound mode of being in an environment safe from men, dark colors, and normative sexual constructs. “It’s just human nature,” she coos, unconvincingly. Sounding like an ebullient, beautiful songbird trapped inside a talkbox, Perry prances across two whole sets with a cadre of carefully-selected-to-include-all-the-races women. The camera cuts, at intervals, to close-ups of breasts, bare legs, and the like, helpfully reminding the viewer that there are appealing aspects of women. At 2:08, a pillow fight develops. Pretty anodyne lipstick (or indeed, cherry chapstick) lesbian fare, but that’s all right—we eagerly anticipate the song title’s all-but-promised money shot…er, resolution of the discourse of sexual subject reification.
Spoiler alert: I am about to disclose the details of the titular girl-kissing. 2:49, alllllll right, here we go. 2:52, she’s in bed, should be any second now… 2:58, she’s…wait, is that…is that a man in bed with her? 3:05, it’s over. Tee-hee, it was all a dream! No girls were kissed in the filming of this music video! Are you serious? Are you truly serious, Katy Perry? Not a split-second of mouth-to-mouth? Like you, dear reader, I approached this video with just one modest but resolute expectation: the kissing of a girl (and at least a simulation of liking it would have been an added bonus, certainly). This foulest of deceptions is like buying an ice cream cake, but when you cut it open, it’s filled with bees instead. Or, maybe not bees, but it’s filled with regular old cake filling, which in some ways is almost worse, since no one’s going to care about your stupid mislabeled-ice-cream-cake story unless there are bees involved. “I Kissed a Girl” is a video that delivers neither bees nor delicious ice cream filling.
Back in the warm and comforting bosom of heteronormativity, Ms. Perry, we find in the end, was simply in the mode of fantasy, as J-But herself might have predicted.
But this isn’t the first time Perry has interrogated our performances of sexuality. Another winner of a Katy Perry original “Ur [sic] So Gay,” set against a backdrop of blue sky and Super Mario World smiley-face clouds, gives mellifluous voice to thousands of mute Facebook wall posts; indeed, the more cumbersome working title was “OMG Ur So Gay.”
The casting choice in this stop-action gem is an apt one. The gay in question is a soy-loving Ken doll who drives a hybrid (why? Try a word association: hybrid > electric transportation > trolleys > San Francisco > Treaty of San Francisco officially ending World War II > gay). He primps, he pouts, he posts pensive self-portraits on his MySpace. He gives cupped-hand high-fives to dudes, which is the gay terrorist fist jab. Meanwhile his would-be Barbie cuts and dyes her hair, to no avail, for in the dramatic final scene, all is revealed, Ken-wise: below the belt, there is a void. Barbie is thrown for a loop of course, but just beyond the scene sits Judith Butler, looking all smug.
Where “I Kissed a Girl” is frustratingly murky on the subject of how gay one should or should not be (”felt so wrong,” but then consider: “felt so right”) and the extent to which one should like that, “Ur So Gay” is refreshingly unequivocal. Girls, forget these dickless, shiraz-guzzling, environment-caring-about homos, Ms. Perry advises. A real man greets his girl with a heart full of Pepe Lopez and a head full of I’ll stay out however the fuck late I want and you know there should be a bowl of cookie dough waiting for me when I get home, woman.
What’s it like to start a record company? And why on earth would anyone decide to start one in an era when the head of Capitol Records probably can’t afford having Baja Fresh for lunch? Aren’t compact discs dead?
Precisely the point, dear reader. Meet Keith Abramson: music fan, A&R rep for Kemado Records, and harbinger of the CD’s apocalypse. His new Kemado imprint Mexican Summer launches in September with a unique business model, pressing very limited quantities of vinyl - with accompanying digital downloads - available on a subscription basis and at a select group of retailers (mom and pop not Wal and Mart) across this great land. In other words, vinyl and digital only. Sorry CDs, you’re fucked. We recently chatted with Abramson to hear firsthand about this exciting venture… Read more…
I probably take it for granted that war is one of the furthest things from my mind on a daily basis. It just doesn’t do much for me.
Real war? Nah. Fake war? Well let’s see, if I have night terrors after playing Tetris, what are the chances of a solid night’s rest after an evening spent hunkered down with a first-person shooter video game? War movies? Platoon was decent but can’t compare to the scene in Hot Shots! Part Deux when father and son Sheen pass each other on a riverboat and exclaim, “I loved you in Wall Street!”
War fails to stir my blood. This seemed to be a given until last Sunday evening when I found the new-best-greatest-most-amazing piece of programming on television: Generation Kill. Read more…
From the Inside Looking Out is our opportunity to have musicians to tell us a bit about the music world from their point of view. We’re happy to kick off the feature with the premiere of a new song and a special look inside the workings of one of EAR FARM’s favorite bands: Goes Cube.
Listen: “Clenching Jaws” by Goes Cube
“You should title your songs,” people would tell us. “Why don’t you guys have song titles?” people would ask. “But we DO have song titles,” we’d always say. “They just happen to be song titles with numbers.”
Not long ago, we decided that “Goes Cube Song 58″ should be called “Sorry, Were You Sleeping?”, “Goes Cube Song 59″ should be called “Read Right,” “Goes Cube Song 61″ should be called “Loose Ends,” “Goes Cube Song 62″ should be called “Gravestones Like Chess Pieces” and “Goes Cube Song 63″ should be called “Clenching Jaws.” “Goes Cube Song 60″ will change, too, but it’s an instrumental and not recorded, so we’re taking our time picking out a real interesting title for that one. (At shows it has been performed under the titles “We Love [insert any number of friends' band name],” “Stop Judging Me,” and “Let’s Get So Weird, We Don’t Know How To Look At Each Other.”)
Shortly after this decision, we had to submit some paperwork to Fearless Music, which included a list of the songs we’ll be performing on their show (they just taped last Friday, but we don’t know the airdate). I filled in the information and brought it over to our friend’s office where we could fax it. She glanced at it and said, “Hey, wait a minute… Are these song titles?”
“Well, we’ve always had song titles.”
Recently, we came back from tour and played our first show in New York in nearly three months. “This song is called ‘Gravestones Like Chess Pieces,’” I announced before we started playing that particular song. After the show, some people noted that we now have song titles. Of course, we’ve ALWAYS had song titles…
Recently a gentleman from SESAC, our performing rights organization, called to verify our song titles (the ones with numbers). He was unclear whether they were actually titles, or perhaps cues for a score. I explained that they were the titles, and then we got into a long discussion about titles (and the possible dangers of our system). “Typically,” he said, “bands will simply title their songs the first words of the chorus, or the main hook.” I know, I said, but how can that be a reliable system? What if a song is instrumental? Explosions In The Sky features song titles like “Remember Me As A Time Of Day.” You’re telling me that’s not confusing? And they don’t even have vocals. I mean, it would be one thing if they were singing that over and over again, but there’s no singing whatsoever.
Let’s put aside Explosions In The Sky and Pelican and other instrumental bands for a second. Let’s look at the bands I listen to who do have choruses and refrains and whatnot. Mostly, I can’t understand them anyway. After all, there’s a lot of screaming. And then you’ve got Fugazi. One of my favorite Fugazi records is Steady Diet Of Nothing. Speaking of which, the two best tracks on that record are “It’s Time To Be Jamaicans” and “Simpatrick”. Right?
When it comes down to it, more bands ought to be naming their songs with a simple numbering system like we did until recently. I mean, maybe I’m just kind of a nerd about this stuff, but if Mastodon did it like that, and on their next record, “Mastodon Song 3″ was sandwiched between “Mastodon Song 97″ and “Mastodon Song 94,” I’d think, “oh, hey awesome they recorded one of their first songs for this new record!” But no; instead it’s all “crystals” this, “blood” that, “man-eating trees” the other thing.
Of course, I don’t really believe any of this. I’ll be the first to admit that if some band got up in front of the crowd and said their song was their band name then a number, I’d think that’s pretty gimmicky right there. But, I swear to you: it never was a gimmick for us. The way we write music, I don’t write the words until long after the song is done. But we still need to refer to that lyric-less song as something, so we just called it what number it was in order of when we wrote it. “Goes Cube Song 57″ is quite literally the 57th song we’ve ever done.
But it doesn’t matter. People aren’t familiar with how and why we do things. So, most took it as being gimmicky. (And confusing, we’ve been told.) But Goes Cube is not a gimmicky band. Of course, we ARE a STUBBORN band. So for all that we didn’t want to be viewed as gimmicky, we also didn’t want to just change it ‘cos people said we should.
Finally, though, we accepted that the time had come to change it. The truth is, we were all getting kind of tired of the system. After all, what if you really did want to have a song called “The Opening Band Featuring The Imitation Joy Division Music With The Frontman Who Wears Tight Jeans And A Tie Would Like You To Know They Are Playing Bowery Ballroom In A Few Weeks. Once Again: Bowery Ballroom. Repeat: The Bowery Ballroom. In A Few Weeks. Not The Mercury Lounge. The Bowery Ballroom. Did Someone Ask Where? The Bowery Ballroom…”? (That one was inspired by a show I saw recently that had a band on the bill who spent more time talking more about their upcoming Bowery date than they did actually playing music. I was grateful, ‘cos the music was terrible.)
Still, it’s weird for me. We finally have song titles. After all these years… After all these songs… After all the times we said no, we wouldn’t start titling our songs…
I mean, what? …We’ve always had song titles.
See Goes Cube live:
15 August @ Union Pool w/ Aloke, Villa Vina
Visit Goes Cube on MySpace.
If you’re a musician who would like to contribute to this feature, please get in touch.
1908. It was a leap year starting on Wednesday. It was the year in which a ball signifying New Year’s Day dropped in New York City’s Times Square for the first time, Mother’s Day was observed for the first time, Henry Ford produced his first Model T automobile, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series by defeating the Detroit Tigers 2–0 in the fifth game (their most recent Series victory), and, coincidentally, the song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was written by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer.
Written one hundred years ago, the song would go on to become one of America’s all-time classic songs. This was not, however, due to the original version of the song (lyrics HERE) nor was it a result of recordings made by popular artists such as The Andrews Sisters or Frank Sinatra (listen below). No, the song would not achieve the worldwide renown until sometime after 1971 when (then) Chicago White Sox announcer Harry Caray first started singing the song along with Comiskey Park organist Nancy Faust. In 1976, White Sox owner Bill Veeck asked Harry if he could give him a microphone so he could sing for the entire stadium during the seventh-inning stretch. Initially, Harry wanted no part of it. Thankfully, as Caray was doing it one afternoon, WMAQ radio producer/broadcaster Jay Scott decided to open the booth mikes on him without his realizing it and a tradition was born. Harry began working his magic to the delight of crowds at Comiskey during each game until, in 1982, Caray joined the Chicago Cubs organization. It was at this time that the Harry Caray seventh-inning show grew to become legendary, largely thanks to nationally syndicated cable channel WGN.
Though I first remember learning and singing the song with Little League friends/teammates prior to watching any Cubs games on WGN (fair warning: I’m a Yankees fan who grew up watching Scooter on WPIX), “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” didn’t really have much significance in my world until I first saw Harry Caray sing it on television sometime in the summer of 1985 (watch Harry sing the song in 1985 HERE). The game was a blowout, the Cubs were getting killed, but suddenly here came this friendly sounding old man leaning out of the broadcast booth and warming up the entire crowd. Everyone got out of their seats and sang along and the atmosphere in Wrigley Field was instantly transformed. I’d like to say it revitalized the team as well and led to a late-inning comeback, but it didn’t. It did, however, make a long lasting impact on me as the baseball stadium tradition of all baseball stadium traditions.
Harry Caray continued that tradition of singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” until he died in 1998. At that time the Cubs began a practice of inviting guest celebrities, local and national, to lead the singing Caray-style (see a partial list below). Many memorable (and horrendous) versions of the song have come about as a result, and it’s grown into a fine tribute to the tradition begun by Harry Caray some thirty plus years ago.
As “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” celebrates its 100th birthday this year, ESPN has asked nine popular musical artists to record a version of the song in a battle of the bands competition with a winner to be announced on July 13th. Voters have already culled the entrants down from nine to three, with the three top vote-getters now competing for the title of “Best version of ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’”. Check out the three remaining contestants below and vote for your favorite HERE.
“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” by Gretchen Wilson (above)
“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” by Ozomatli (above)
“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” by Punch Brothers (above)
Again, recorded versions of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” did indeed exist prior to Harry Caray’s trademark take on the song - we’ve got two of them for you below (one from The Andrews Sisters and then also from Frank Sinatra & Gene Kelly). In addition you’ll find three more modern versions from Dr. John, the infamous William Hung, and Carly Simon. Of course, when it comes to the one hundred year old American classic “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, nobody does it better than Harry. I can still hear him now - starting up like a beat-up old jalopy in that trademark Caray fashion… “Alright! Lemme hear ya! Ah-One! Ah-Two! Ah-Three!”
Listen:
“Take Me Out To The Ballgame” by The Andrews Sisters
“Take Me Out To The Ballgame” by Dr. John
“Take Me Out To The Ballgame” by William Hung
“Take Me Out To The Ballgame” by Carly Simon
“Take Me Out To The Ballgame” by Frank Sinatra & Gene Kelly
Below is a list of recording artists, bands & musical acts that have performed “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Wrigley Field during the seventh inning stretch (with video of a select few) - full list of guest performers HERE:
Trace Adkins ‘03, ‘07
Frankie Avalon ‘98
Lance Bass (’N Sync) ‘01
Chuck Berry ‘01
Dick Biondi ‘05
Michael Bolton ‘00
Kix Brooks (Brooks & Dunn) ‘01
Meredith Brooks ‘02
Jimmy Buffett ‘98, ‘99, ‘03 (watch)
Peter Cetera ‘03, ‘07
Chicago ‘06
Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) ‘98, ‘03
Deborah Cox ‘99
Kevin Cronin (REO Speedwagon) ‘07
Charlie Daniels ‘00
Dennis DeYoung (Styx) ‘00
Joey Fatone (’N Sync) ‘01
John Fogerty ‘06 (watch)
Peter Frampton ‘02
Debbie Gibson ‘05
Andy Griggs ‘02
Buddy Guy ‘98, ‘99
Mickey Hart (The Grateful Dead) ‘00
Kid Rock ‘03
Cyndi Lauper ‘99
Simon LeBon (Duran Duran) ‘08
Richard Marx ‘99, ‘03
Martina McBride ‘98
Joe Nicholas ‘05
Kellie Pickler ‘07 (watch)
Oak Ridge Boys ‘03
Tony Orlando ‘00, ‘02, ‘04
Ozzy Osbourne ‘03 (watch)
Kenny Rogers ‘99
Frank Sinatra Jr. ‘03
Koko Taylor ‘98
George Thorogood ‘07
Shania Twain ‘03
SheDaisy ‘04
Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) ‘98, ‘03, ‘06-’07 (watch)
Mary Wilson (The Supremes) ‘01
The B-52’s ‘00
Big Head Todd and The Monsters ‘02
The Buckinghams ‘00
Cheap Trick ‘98
Chicago ‘99
Faze 4 ‘01
The Fray ‘07
The Grand Ole Opry ‘00
Hootie and the Blowfish ‘99
Journey ‘04
KC & The Sunshine Band ‘00
NY Radio City Rockettes ‘00
Poi Dog Pondering ‘07
The Red Walls ‘05
Styx ‘04
Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts ‘03
“Rent” cast members ‘99
Lee Ann Womack ‘06
You’ve no doubt heard of the Jonas Brothers, but have you heard them?
You’ve almost certainly seen their names bandied about, but do you actually know their names or anything else about them?
Why stay in the dark? Knowledge is power. Is it that their non-threatening caterpillar eyebrows, freshly-scrubbed faces and mop tops threaten you? Or is it the imminent cold sweats and night terrors that await when assessing their potential standing as the Beatles and Nirvana to a current tween generation? It’s okay, I’m scared too.
I just sat through the latest original movie offering from the Disney Channel – the newest in a self-created genre that also spawned the wildly successful High School Musical 2, which you’re also probably aware of without actually knowing anything about – in its entirety and lived to tell about it. It’s called Camp Rock, and lest you think our Wild Card Wednesdays are surreptitiously sponsored by Disney (we did talk about Miley Cyrus just last week, I know I know), I can explain.
See, we need to face our fears head on. I am afraid of the Jonas Brothers, the Disney Channel, the words “High School Musical”, and people younger than me named “Zach”, “Vanessa”, “Hannah”, and “Miley” (hey Disney, what ever happened to Huey, Louie, and Dewey?). So I took one for the team, and much to my roommate’s bewilderment I DVR’d Camp Rock this past weekend. I wanted to decode and make sense of what our future musicians, actors, and artists are being weaned on. Here’s what I found: Read more…