MUSIC: Frank Turner shows his scars on 'Tape Deck Heart'

It seems that Frank Turner is feeling a little run-down these days.

Not that you’d know from his music -- his explosion of folk-punk and salty balladry is as fresh and expressive as ever. But on his new album “Tape Deck Heart” (Interscope), his lyrics are rife with allusions to personal scars both emotional and literal, a cocktail of frustration, desperation and scorching defiance that makes for one of his most pungent collections to date.

The rough-and-tumble odes to love and country on Turner’s last disc, 2011’s “England Keep My Bones,” seemed almost regal in comparison to the loud but downtrodden laments on "Tape Deck Heart.” “I’ve been dipping in my darkness for serotonin boosters, cider and some kind of smelling salts,” shouts the emotionally ailing narrator of “Recovery,” and it’s the winding trip down the “long road out to recovery from here” that provides the album’s backbone.

Turner’s always at his best when marrying punk sensibility with folk melodies, and these tracks are no exception. On “Four Simple Words,” the album’s nod to rock ’n’ roll salvation, music hall piano gives way to full-out punk frenzy as he dismisses fair-weather rock fans: “If the hipsters move on why should I give a f--?” he asks, and who can argue?

In fact, there seems to be a new resignation in the profanity of “Tape Deck Heart”: “Plain Sailing Weather” is another driving shouter in which Turner simultaneously brags and laments his ability to “f-- up anything,” and the F-bombs also fly in the folky lost-opportunity ballad “Good & Gone,” landing squarely on Hollywood (and, oddly, Motley Crue) for promoting false expectations among dreamers.

Turner’s ire and melancholy is mostly reserved, though, for the women, past and present, who’ve abandoned him, let him down or otherwise slipped out the back: the nameless girl of “The Way I Tend To Be” whose perfume he detects in a crowded space; Amy on “Tell Tale Signs,” who’s taken to task for the scars she’s left and for refusing to grow up; his fellow “sinking ship” on the wistful “Anymore,” whom he’s finally gotten the nerve to tell how he doesn’t feel.

All of this makes “Tape Deck Heart” sound like a downer, and it does have its tough moments. But something about Turner’s spirited delivery and anthemic arrangements pushes it, finally, into the realm of the hopeful.

To paraphrase one of his earlier songs, Turner still believes in the healing power of rock ’n’ roll, old friends and even true love, if you’re lucky enough to track it down. Being able to follow him on his rough and rambling search for it is a tonic in and of itself.

Massachusetts State Rock Song: Why does no one ask us about these things?

It’s a controversy the likes of which we haven’t seen since the debate over the official Massachusetts donut (Boston Crème, duh): Legislators are grappling over what classic ditty should be crowed the state’s Official Rock Song. How we’ve lived without one this long I’m not sure.

The brouhaha began when state Rep. Marty Walsh, D-Dorchester proposed the state adopt “Roadrunner” by The Modern Lovers (fronted by Natick’s Jonathan Richman) as its official rock anthem.

On the plus side, the song includes a fair number of local references and declares, “I’m in love with Massachusetts.” On the other hand, the only people who actually know this song are that small subset of rock fans who were listening to WBCN in the summer of 1976 and weren’t so high that they’ve since forgotten everything they heard.

Apparently unsatisfied with Walsh’s pick, state Reps. James Cantwell, D-Marshfield, and Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, filed a bill Monday nominating Aerosmith’s “Dream On” for the honor. It’s obviously a slightly better known song, albeit lacking any Massachusetts-specific lyrics (or anything-specific lyrics … it’s basically just about singing, and dreaming, and more singing).


The reps cite how it was written by “Marshfield resident Steven Tyler,” but it’s worth noting that Tyler (nee Steven Tallerico) is actually … brace yourselves … a native New Yorker. (I know because my aunt went to high school with him in Yonkers. No, seriously.) Can we really have a state song written and sung by someone who grew up a Yankee fan? Also, when he sings “Dream on, dream on, dream on” at the end, windshields have been known to crack.

The other problem with these picks is they display a clear south- (and southwest-) of Boston bias. Where’s the North Shore love? It’s time one of our local legislators jumped into the fray, and I have the perfect song to do it with: “Rock and Roll Band” by Boston. I lay out the argument here:

1. It’s sung by Brad Delp, an actual native of Peabody.
2. It has a local reference, i.e. “just another band out of Boston.”
3. They may have met a sad end, but the band’s name is Boston, for crying out loud.
   
   

So listen up, candidates in the April 2 special election for Peabody’s new state rep: Better make this your first order of business, before the state loses its ability to rock!

Column: Putting the 'do' back in doo-wop

Hear ye, hear ye! I come in praise of the sh-booms! The shu-wops! The bom-diddy-boms! The ring-a-dong-dings! (Well, not so much that last one, but all those others.) I’m talking about doo-wop, that marriage of R&B and early rock ’n’ roll that started on city street corners in the 1950s and had doo-wah-diddied its way into the oldies bins by the time the Beatles got here.

I was reminded of my longtime romance with doo-wop by “Acapella,” the new album by Kenny Vance and the Planotones, which showed up in my inbox earlier this month. Vance, a founding member of Jay & The Americans, is clearly a man on a mission: He’s recorded some of these classics before, but never sans instruments, and his sheer love and appreciation for the songs is palpable — from the first bom-bom-bom of The Cadillacs’ “Zoom” to the last “wee-hee-eee” of the Flamingos’ gorgeous “I’ll Be Home.”

In between, Vance and his group go deep on oldies that most people probably haven’t heard unless they’re among the group that popped the originals onto their turntables 50-plus years ago.

“I felt like it was time to do a tribute to the days when we started,” Vance says, and on “Acapella” he nails numbers by such long-forgotten groups as The Charades, The Collegians and The Paragons (not to be confused with The Paradons, who are also represented here with a silky-smooth version of their one hit, “Diamonds and Pearls”).

Even though I’m not part of the demographic who heard these songs their first time around — KISS, Queen and Foreigner were on my school-bus soundtrack — I’ve had a soft spot for doo-wop as long as I can remember. And for that I have to credit my father, who was growing up in the Bronx when Dion DiMucci was just a guy from the neighborhood, not the frontman for The Belmonts.

To hear my dad tell it, pretty much any group of guys with the inclination could (and would) gather on the street corner and form a doo-wop group. He even recalls doing a doo-wop competition with his sister and two friends at Mt. Carmel Church Hall in the Bronx, a gig that he thought went well until the other groups got up — all of them made up of “black kids who sounded like they should have been on the radio,” my dad recalls, laughing. “We didn’t even stay for the rest of the contest.”

Even if his doo-wop career stalled by high school, though, he retained a love of the music that ensured a steady diet of oldies on our family stereo: WCBS-FM in New York was in its heyday, and Sunday nights featured “The Doo Wop Shop with Don K. Reed,” played every week in its entirety in our living room.

Even as a kid, there was something that struck me in songs like the Five Satins’ “In The Still of the Night” and Vito & the Salutations’ souped-up version of “Unchained Melody.” First and foremost were of course the tight-knit arrangements of nonsense syllables that made up the backbone of every track. Beyond that, though, was the way the songs captured the simple joy of a bunch of guys singing in a tiny studio (or possibly a bathroom) — the production was simple and the lyrics were almost always of the you-true-blue variety, but that was part of the charm.

“Acapella” is certainly slicker than any of those early records, but Vance — who at 69 somehow manages high notes and harmonies that would be impressive for someone a third that age — captures their heart and soul. True to the originals but not slavishly so, The Planotones imbue songs like the rollicking “Zoom Zoom Zoom” and the smoky “Mio Amore” with sparkling, vibrant personality.

Vance also somehow avoids the Lite-FM vibe of a Manhattan Transfer or the college a cappella group smarm that can neuter these songs’ street-corner grittiness. Don’t take my word for it, though — here’s what my father, the erstwhile doo-wopper, had to say after a few spins through “Acapella”:

“As someone who’s familiar with most of the original renditions of these songs, I tend to be disappointed when they’re covered by another group,” he admits. “With this album, I found I enjoyed some of the songs just as much as the originals.” When the doo-wop is this good, he points out, you don’t miss the instruments.

Dad’s favorite from “Acapella” is “You Cheated,” which he describes as “unbelievably true” to the 1958 original by The Shields. But the whole package, every track, is true to the doo-wop spirit that helped fuel early rock ’n’ roll: Close your eyes and you may even find yourself back shu-bopping on a Belmont Avenue street corner — whether or not you were there in the first place.

IN AND OUT 2013: Entertainment

Admit it, you want to live with these people.

IN: History
Maybe it’s that we tend to cling to the familiar during tough times, or that nobody’s had an original idea since sometime last century. (Original ideas are out.) But there’s very little in the current world of entertainment that doesn’t seem at least vaguely reminiscent of something that came before, in most cases because it’s EXACTLY THE SAME.

Case in point: Of the top 10 movies of 2012, eight were either sequels, based on books and/or comic books, or, in the case of “The Amazing Spider-Man,” a remake of another movie that came out 20 minutes ago. (Ah, 20 minutes ago … those were the days.)

Of the other two, one, “Brave,” is by Pixar – where the last remaining original thinkers have apparently sealed themselves off from the rest of society, like the final survivors of a zombie invasion – and the other, “Ted,” features a foul-mouthed, sex-crazed teddy bear. Sex-crazed teddy bears are in, God help us.

But don’t worry: The most highly anticipated movie event of the coming years is the production of another three “Star Wars” movies by new owners Disney, which are sure to find new and original ways to ruin your most coveted childhood memories. Ruining things is in. (This means you, Disney and George Lucas, not necessarily in that order.)

Judging by the rockers who got trotted out for the high-profile 12/12/12 Hurricane Sandy relief concert, no one born after 1960 has ever blurted out even a note of rock ’n’ roll: Bruce Springsteen, 63, looked like the model of youth in this bunch, which featured The Rolling Stones, The Who and Paul McCartney (combined age: one meeeeeellion). So getting down to music first recorded four to five decades ago is in; hoping you die before you get old is apparently out.

Of the younger artists, a lot of them tend to sound exactly alike – quick, tell us the difference between Katy Perry and Carly Rae Jepson! See? But there are some glimmers of hope, such as Mumford & Sons and Phillip Phillips, who sound like each other but not like Katy Perry and Carly Rae Jepson, which is a step in the right direction.

Even better, fun., they of the lower-case “f” and unnecessary period, are almost startlingly original, as if they must have escaped from the Pixar compound. Their exact opposite would be One Direction, whom Simon Cowell molded out of clay and animated like an ancient Golem. (Ancient Golems are in.) And Taylor Swift will never, ever, ever find an ex-boyfriend she couldn’t write a hit song about. (Ex-boyfriends are in.)

OUT: Literature

A lot of bookstores (remember them? Bookstores are out) used to separate “Literature” into its own section, primarily to make sure you knew they were the books you had no interest in actually reading. Sorry Nathaniel Hawthorne, but you’re out.

When it comes to books people do read, there are exactly two that are in, neither of which are what you’d call classic literature: “The Hunger Games” and “50 Shades of Grey.” Someday someone will come up with an idea that combines both of those concepts and it will be a huge hit, and also the final sign of the pending apocalypse. Pending apocalypses are in.

A lot of other in entertainment fare isn’t exactly literate either: On TV, the clever and informative shows – such as “30 Rock” and “Rock Center with Brian Williams,” along with any number of other shows with “rock” in the title – tend to be out. Shows featuring “real” people who may or may not have the ability to read, such as the casts of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” “Dance Moms” and “Moonshiners,” are in. Cue pending apocalypse.

But there are some signs that not all entertainment is aiming at the lowest common denominator. Shows like “Modern Family,” “Downton Abbey” and “Homeland” cater to people with brains, while “The Walking Dead” caters to people with brains who like to watch zombies eating brains, but in an intellectual way. And in theaters, the in release of the season is “Les Miserables,” which is almost exactly like classic literature, except with singing. Singing is in.

And not all lowbrow entertainment is in: Adam Sandler is out after a few recent outings tanked, including “That’s My Boy,” which was so bad it may have dragged Andy Samberg out with it. (Although Sandler will always be in on Boston’s North Shore, where he just filmed “Grown Ups 2,” a movie not expected to break his out streak.) And while Tom Cruise is in when he’s driving fast cars and breaking heads, he’s out when he’s singing, at evidenced by “Rock of Ages.” Singing is out.

Speaking of which, Justin Bieber got (temporarily) dumped by his girlfriend, the inexplicably in Selena Gomez, and flopped in the Grammy nomination department – could this mean he’s on his way out? Ha ha! Just kidding, True Beliebers! Remember, coming after people who make Justin Bieber jokes with tiny little pitchforks is out.

Monday: Sports

Where have I been? Writing an eBook, that's where

In case you've been wondering where I've been as my posts slowed to a trickle these last few months -- anyone? -- I actually have an excuse. I was writing Glory Days: Springsteen’s Greatest Albums, my new eBook from Endeavour Press. Yes, it's short, but it still took me a while to fit all the words together.

If you're familiar with my Springsteen blog Blogness on the Edge of Town, you know I'm a big fan of other people’s Springsteen books — I've reviewed Springsteen-centric titles by Peter Ames Carlin, Marc Dolan, Lawrence Kirsch, Louis Masur and plenty of others in recent years. But now I have one I'm really excited about, because if you buy it, I get money.

In "Glory Days," I analyze in depth eight different Springsteen albums I argue deserve to be in contention for the title of Best Springsteen Album Ever — and then in the last chapter, I pick the one I feel rises to the top of the heap. You’ll definitely want to read it, if only so you can get mad about my choices and send me angry emails.

From the introduction:

OK, admit it: You’ve come here to mock me

After all, it’s pretty clear that choosing the “greatest” Bruce Springsteen album is in many ways a fool’s errand. Just look at what I’ve got working against me: a 40-year body of work, most of it highly acclaimed, almost all of it ambitious and socially relevant. It’s tough even to decide where to start, much less pick the one collection that rises above all the others in terms of artistry, impact and cultural significance.

But I figure somebody’s got to do it, fruitless enterprise or not … No matter what, I hope these essays strike a chord with you, and maybe remind you of why these albums, and Bruce Springsteen himself, meant so much to you in the first place. And most of all, I hope they inspire you – to borrow a line from “Mary’s Place” – to put your favorite record on the turntable, and drop the needle and pray.

And the best part is, it’s only $2.99. (Plus $200 give or take if you don’t have a Kindle yet, but we won’t dwell on that. You can always download the Kindle software for PC or the smartphone/tablet app — hold that phone close enough to your face and it’s just like reading a real book!)

So I hope you’ll consider giving it a spin — and letting us know what you think afterward, of course. Don’t worry, I can take it.

Column: This year's reasons to be thankful, sort of

As you may recall, every year at this time I like to offer up a list of reasons we have to be thankful. And while it's true that you may be somewhat frustrated with certain developments – such as the election results, or the deteriorating environment, or your inability to tell apart the Kardashians – that doesn’t mean there isn’t also a lot to celebrate.

For instance, you should be thankful for the fact that:

1) You didn’t go into this month believing, in your heart of hearts, that you were somehow going to become the president of the United States.

2) You’ve managed to keep your illicit affair a secret, or if you didn’t at least keeping illicit things secret isn’t supposed to be your primary occupation. Or if it is … we never had this conversation.

3) You didn’t think that hey, maybe it might be fun to manage the Boston Red Sox this year.

4) You didn’t open opposite "The Avengers." ("A Little Bit of Heaven" starring Kate Hudson, we hardly knew ye.)

5) You weren’t chosen to appear in the Opening Ceremonies for the 2012 London Olympics, which I don’t think ever actually ended – you’d probably still be there, pounding on metal canisters while dressed like a refugee from "Les Miserables."

6) You weren’t the one who had to drive Karl Rove home from Fox News on election night. Awkward!

7) You didn’t get nominated in the same category as Adele. ("Firework" by Katy Perry, we hardly … well, actually we knew you a little too well.)

8) You didn’t invest your life savings in the Facebook IPO. And if you did, don’t worry, because word has it you’ll soon be able to trade your shares for Farmville cash to buy virtual chickens.

9) You have a job. Well, 92.1 percent of you have a job. The rest of you will have to stick with the Farmville cash.

10) Donald Trump has not taken an interest in any of your personal records. Yet.

11) The NCAA hasn’t imposed any sanctions on you. Yet.

12) You’re not dating Taylor Swift, because let’s face it, that wouldn’t end well.

13) You weren’t locked out of your job and forced to work in Slovakia with Lubomir Visnovsky, no matter how much fun it may be to say "Lubomir Visnovsky."

14) You weren’t the one who had to drive Big Bird home from Sesame Street after the first debate. Awkward!

15) You haven’t started any sort of petition or campaign against Ellen DeGeneres, because let’s face it, that’s just crazy talk.

16) While the Fiscal Cliff could wind up pushing the country back into crippling recession, you won’t LITERALLY have to go over a cliff, like lemmings or Toonces, the cat who could drive a car.

17) You’re not the backup quarterback for the New York Jets.

18) You didn’t invest your life savings in "Rock of Ages," the Tom Cruise musical. And if you did, don’t worry, because it might manage to make back its cost in foreign markets where they’ve never heard music before.

19) You haven’t said anything within range of Joe Biden that might make him open his mouth to emit a thunderous guffaw, blinding you with the overpowering glow that emanates from his incisors.

20) Last time you filled in for somebody at work it probably didn’t result in the Patriots losing to the freaking Cardinals and you getting booed by 70,000 drunk people.

21) Clint Eastwood hasn’t gone anywhere near your furniture.

22) You probably won’t be standing between David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen when they finally come to blows, the sheer force of the altercation causing their decrepit bodies to crumble into a chalky dust that smells vaguely of bourbon.

23) You haven’t been rebooted in 3-D.

24) You’re not a candidate for office who thought it would be a good campaign move to tell women you know more about their bodies than they do. And if you are: Dude, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

25) Even if you did go into this month believing that you were somehow going to become the president of the United States … At least you didn’t manage the Boston Red Sox.

Column: What did Ella Fitzgerald do to deserve Rod Stewart?

Followers of this column may recall that I am used to receiving emails from famous people — for instance, there was the time that Joan Collins sent me three identical emails about her new jewelry line. Of course that was in 2007 and I haven’t heard from her since, but I’m sure she’ll get back in touch with me if she has anything really important to share, such as another new jewelry line.

But I have to admit I was surprised this week when I got an email from none other than Rod Stewart. At first I wondered what Rod Stewart could possibly want with me — I figured he wasn’t emailing to ask for $5 like Barack Obama and Joe Biden do two or three times a day, since Rod Stewart has plenty of money, which he uses on important charitable activities such as buying himself new wives.

As it turns out, though, Rod was writing me to let me know about his impending Christmas album, “Merry Christmas, Baby.” (I use the word “impending” because “upcoming” somehow didn’t seem sufficiently apocalyptic.) It was the subject line of the email that immediately caught my eye: “New album featuring collaborations with Michael Bublé & Ella Fitzgerald,” a statement so fundamentally wrong that I’m fairly sure I heard the heavens crack open and rain a torrent of bitter tears for all eternity.

I’m not talking about the Michael Bublé part — I don’t know much about Michael Bublé other than that he’d probably be right at home next to Rod Stewart, perhaps even joined with him at the torso, like Chang and Eng. It’s the second part, about dueting with Ella Fitzgerald: For one thing, Ella Fitzgerald died in 1996, and for another, I’m pretty sure her final words were, “Well, at least now I’ll never have to do a duet with Rod Stewart.”

Not that I’m completely against duets with dead people. I didn’t really mind the one Natalie Cole did with her late father, Nat King Cole, which you couldn’t help but think was sweet and moving as long as you’d taken enough Zoloft. But there are plenty of far worse examples, such as the album “Duets” by Frank Sinatra, who was alive at the time but only technically.

But I’ll go on the record as being completely against the idea of a Rod Stewart/Ella Fitzgerald “collaboration,” which is really only a collaboration in the way that eating a hamburger is a collaboration with the cow. First of all, Ella was known as the “First Lady of Song,” and pairing her with Rod Stewart would seem to indicate that he was perhaps the “President of Song.” This is completely and entirely false unless the song in question happens to be “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” in which case he would be running unopposed.

Just so as not to jump to any conclusions, though, I did watch the “trailer” for the album, but it didn’t have any snippets from the Ella duet. (Although it did have a clip of a Christmas video with Cee Lo Green, who looked sort of like Burl Ives, if Burl Ives had been eaten by Cee Lo Green.) It also had plenty of Rod Stewart, shamelessly showing off how he has monopolized the United Kingdom’s entire supply of gaudily colored plaid jackets. Rod is now 67 and apparently can no longer lift his arms above chest level, possibly because his skin has been tightened so many times it’s started to affect his armpits.

Frankly, though, I don’t have to hear it to know that his duet with Ella is a bad idea. I’m not saying Rod Stewart should never sing with other people — for instance, there was that time he sang that song from “The Three Musketeers” with Bryan Adams and Sting, which is still reportedly in heavy rotation at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

But when it comes to Ella — who in her day had mopped up the floor with such duet partners as Sinatra, Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby — he’d be doing himself a favor by sticking with someone more in his league, and alive enough to make the decision on her own.

I’m thinking Joan Collins may be available.

When Bruce Springsteen met Pete ...

Yes, I know: The title of this post might give you the idea that Bruce Springsteen and I recently sat down over Cabernet and crullers to discuss music theory and world politics. Actually, our encounter was slightly more fleeting — it took place during the final chorus of “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” at Gillette Stadium, when Bruce was running by me at the approximate speed of a charging rhino. But never mind that — what’s important is that it was CAPTURED ON FILM.

Well, maybe not film per se — this is actually a screenshot from a YouTube video. But as you can see, it looks exactly like Bruce has just told me a very humorous anecdote (possibly involving Stevie Van Zandt getting thrown out of some amusement park or another), and I’m responding with a hearty guffaw. Or maybe I was just delirious from my temporary proximity to his sweaty aura. One of those two things.

If you're interested in my take on Springsteen's recent concerts in Boston, I wrote A LOT about it. Check out reviews of Fenway night 1, Fenway night 2 and Gillette Stadium. And check out more (much more!) at Blogness on the Edge of Town.

At Large Fake News Tuesday: Springsteen's E Street Band Suffering From 'Exhaustion'

HELSINKI (CAP) - Several members of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band were admitted to the Helsinki University Central Hospital last week, apparently suffering from exhaustion following a concert at Olympic Stadium that lasted anywhere from four to nine hours, according to various reports.

"It was harrowing ... they just started dropping like flies," said Lasse Hamalainen, one of the few audience members to make it through the entirety of the mammoth performance.

Most accounts have keyboardist Roy Bittan, 63, being the first to show signs of fatigue, missing some notes in the piano solo on "Backstreets" around hour five, and then falling unconscious with his head on his keyboard.

"It made sort of a plinky sound," noted Hamalainen.

Others soon followed, including guitarist Nils Lofgren, 61, who collapsed behind the horn section Fender guitar in hand, and bassist Garry W. Tallent, 62, who curled up into a fetal position on one of the stage risers.

Witnesses say that shortly thereafter Max Weinberg's arms froze in an upraised position during "Candy's Room" and the 61-year-old drummer fell over backwards, "sort of like an uprooted Greek statue," said Hamalainen.

All through the carnage Springsteen, 63, continued to rally the crowd, waving his arms, sliding across the stage on his knees and hanging upside down off his microphone stand.

"He never slowed down, except when he tried to crowd surf over the 'pit' in front of the stage and as it turned out most of the crowd had passed out by around hour eight," said Hamalainen.

Luckily for Springsteen, two large men who had managed to stay conscious - identified only as "Aleksi" and "Joonas" - were able to hold him aloft until he could get back to the stage.

Witnesses report that by the 12th encore the entire band was strewn out around the stage in various states of consciousness, from staggeringly dazed (saxophonist Jake Clemons) to full-fledged coma (Steven Van Zandt, looking not unlike his character Silvio Dante in the last episode of The Sopranos).

"When he realized there was no one backing him up anymore, he ran offstage and grabbed his acoustic guitar" - Springsteen's guitar tech had apparently also passed out - "and started doing a solo show," said Hamalainen, who had taken to keep himself awake by pinching himself and burning his arm hairs off with a cigarette lighter.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

Column: Where have all the oldies gone?

It's hello Nicki, goodbye Dusty.

I can only imagine what Boston radio listeners thought last week when they turned on Oldies 103 with the full expectation of hearing “Brandy” by Looking Glass and instead heard the opening rap of “Starships” by Nicki Minaj. They probably figured the funky sugar cubes they ingested at that Iron Butterfly concert in 1968 were finally catching up with them, like those health class movies always said they would.



Of course what actually happened was that 103.3 had become AMP 103, a Top 40/dance pop station. I was surprised at how upsetting I found this development, even if Oldies 103 didn’t have the most startlingly original programming — they tended to play the same 10 oldies over and over again, and eight of them were “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac. It also wasn’t really an oldies station, at least not anymore — because if “My Life” by Billy Joel was now an oldie, what does that make ME?

But I did, and do, remember when the station debuted in 1987 and played songs from 1955-1969. Having grown up with New York’s classic CBS FM — thanks to my father, whose first record was Chuck Berry’s “School Days” and who always instilled in us the importance of a saxophone solo and a good guitar riff — I found the new WODS comforting during my early college years. Even if I was the only one in the dorm who knew who the Five Satins were. (Hint: Not a bowling team, probably.)

It didn’t take long for the station to add the ’70s into the mix, and eventually the ’80s. The ’50s songs, meanwhile, disappeared the same way “Music of Your Life” faded out when I was a kid, leaving my poor grandfather to listen exclusively to ball games. His only other option was to risk hearing Kool and the Gang staking out Frank Sinatra’s former airwaves and consequently having to smash his transistor radio with a rock.

I couldn’t quite relate, though, until last week, when Katy Perry weaseled her nondescript little voice into Dusty Springfield’s former territory on 103.3. (The running joke among my kids, ages 10 and 13, is that I tend to ask wincingly “Who IS this?” every time a Katy Perry song comes on the air, as if my brain refuses to store her musical DNA no matter how many times it has the misfortune of passing through there.)



It’s not like I was an everyday listener, but there was something reassuring about flipping on Oldies 103 at a backyard cookout and hearing “These Eyes,” “Sister Golden Hair,” “The Loco-Motion” and all the rest. (Not to mention honest-to-goodness real rock ’n’ roll from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Credence.) If the bass is turned up loud enough on AMP 103, on the other hand, I get the impression it could short-circuit the barbecue-goers’ nervous systems, leaving them flopping around the pool like deranged salmon.

I should mention I’m not completely repulsed by the AMP 103 playlist, Katy Perry aside — my daughter and I recently came up with a list of common-ground songs, and it had Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, that girl who sings about calling me maybe and even some Nicki Minaj. (Yes, I’ve been known to find myself singing “jump in my hoop-de-hoop-de-hoop, I own that” while doing dishes. I didn’t say I was proud of it.) But didn’t we get enough of that on KISS 108, 104.5 XLO, MIX 104.1 — the former WBCN! — and all the rest?

Now the Boston oldies crowd is left with 105.7 WROR, but their promos are starting to tout music from the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s “and even a little bit of the ’90s” — which means they’re probably getting ready to jettison the ’60s like a bad batch of patchouli oil.

Fortunately these days there are other options, like satellite, HD and Internet radio (where Oldies 103 lives on) and the omnipresent iPod app. In honor of WODS, I embraced my oldification and downloaded one called the “True Oldies Channel” so I could listen to some Guess Who, Tommy James and Three Dog Night — the whole time thinking that they don’t make ’em, or at least play ’em, like that anymore.

Not that I’ve given up on everyday radio. There’s always the ball games.

At Large Fake News Thursday: 7 Arrests In Susan Boyle, Diana Krall Entourage Brawl

NEW YORK (CAP) - Police are still trying to determine the causes and culprits behind last weekend's bottle-throwing brawl between the drunken, swearing entourages of singers Susan Boyle and Diana Krall.

Police have yet to establish what sparked the incident at Manhattan's Carnegie Club Cocktail and Smoking Lounge, but if either Boyle or Krall were directly involved then charges will be filed, said NYPD spokesman Paul Brownie.

"We don't care how emotive your interpretation of I Dreamed A Dream is, or how stunning your contralto vocals are," said Brownie. "You attack a half-dozen smooth jazz and easy listening enthusiasts with bottles, you're going downtown."

Seven people were arrested immediately following the melee, including Krall's yoga instructor, feng shui expert and her two personal Reiki practioners, and Boyle's nutritionist, hair consultant and a woman who follows her everywhere and cries when she performs Autumn Leaves.

According to sources close to the club, Krall had sent Boyle's party a bottle of Chivas Regal, and Boyle, or someone in her entourage, responded by sending Krall a note saying, Don't you think you should sell a few more records before you go spending that kind of brass on boozy-woozy, dear?

"That's when the bottles started flying," said the source.

San Antonio Spurs player Tony Parker, who was at the club after attending a performance of Broadway's Sister Act, was injured when one of Krall's cronies squirted him in the eye with the juice from a lime and elderflower martini.

"I went right to the emergency room," said Parker, wearing an eye patch, a neck brace and some sort of gauze turban, and choking up at the trauma of being caught in the brawl. "Now I'm going to have to watch the new production of Porgy And Bess with one eye," he sighed.

The feud between Boyle and Krall has apparently been long simmering, and recalls the 2011 incident when members of Lady Gaga's entourage shot at "Weird Al" Yankovic from sparklers attached to their bosoms, and another earlier this year when Jimmy Fallon, Brian Williams and Jon Stewart got into a massive brawl over Bruce Springsteen's attention.

"And don't forget the feud between Sting and everybody else in the music business," commented two former members of The Police who declined to be named.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

Column: There's a pop star in my backyard

Watch out for snakes, Colbie.

Listen to Mix 104.1 all Memorial Day weekend for your shot to win tickets to the Gavin DeGraw/Colbie Caillat show on July 25 at the Bank of America Pavilion. Everyone who wins tickets will qualify for a shot at the grand prize — a Backyard BBQ with Colbie at their house when she comes to town in July!

— Mix 104.1 website

Hi Ms. Caillat … er, can I call you Colbie? That’s a really interesting name. Is that short for Colbert? No? I had a friend in elementary school named Corbin, but we just called him Corbin. Anyway, thanks for coming here to my backyard and everything.

Sorry I didn’t get a chance to mow the lawn, but it rained for the last few days and I had to work late, and last weekend was just crazy with driving the kids around and napping and such. But as you can see I put these old comforters out for us to eat on and they sort of smush the grass down. Don’t worry, it’s been weeks since we’ve seen a snake … although that’s probably just because the grass is so high.

That smell? Oh, that’s just the grill. I tried to scrape all the black stuff off but darn it if it doesn’t seem just calcified on there at this point. You’ll notice how certain areas of the grill look like they’re on fire and others get no flame at all — weird! Anyway, it shouldn’t affect the hot dogs … I defrosted them a few weeks ago, but hot dogs never really go bad, right?

So I hear you’re a singer? To be honest I haven’t heard any of your songs … I just entered the contest to get the Gavin DeGraw tickets. And even with those it turns out I was actually thinking of Gavin MacLeod. You wouldn’t know it necessarily but he has a wonderful voice — I saw him in a dinner theater production of “Annie Get Your Gun” in the early ’90s.

Come on, Gavin McLeod? From Mary Tyler Moore? I think I have the Chuckles the Clown episode on VHS if you want to borrow it. VHS — it was a video format. How old are you, anyway?

Did you bring your suit? We just got around to opening the pool last week. I know it looks green, but chemically it’s perfect, almost. If you go in it would be great if you could bring the strainer thing in there and scoop out some of the leaves. No? That’s OK, the dogs are in there now anyway. They love a good swim, but they need some help getting up and down the ladder.

Jeez, is Bob using the chainsaw again? Sorry, that’s just my neighbor … BOB! STOP USING THE DARN CHAINSAW! I’VE GOT COLBERT CAILLAT OVER HERE FOR A BARBECUE! NO, NOT THE DEFENSIVE END FOR THE CARDINALS — THE SINGER! NO, I NEVER HEARD OF HER EITHER.          

Sorry about that … Can I get you something to drink? A lemon-lime soda maybe? It’s the Market Basket brand, but it’s just as good as Sprite, almost. Not as good as those Grand Union sodas with the penguins on them that they used to sell in the ’70s, though. The ’70s — it was a decade. Came before the ’80s. How old are you, again?

Watch out, the dogs are coming out of the pool! Yikes, dogs, do you have to shake off right here? Sorry about your boots, Corbin … Are those suede? You probably shouldn’t be getting those wet like that.

Oh, you have to leave already? Well, glad you could come by … No, you have to pull up to open the gate … no, UP. Then pull the thing back — that’s right. Wow, I’ve never seen anyone get in their car so fast.

DON’T FORGET TO MAKE A LEFT AT THE VFW TO GET BACK TO THE HIGHWAY! GOOD LUCK WITH THE CONCERT! TELL GAVIN HE WAS AWESOME IN THE LOVE BOAT!

At Large Fake News Tuesday: Lady Gaga/Man-Bat Tour Reportedly In Jeopardy

JAKARTA (CAP) - Faced with opposition from several hard-line conservative groups, Lady Gaga has postponed her Indonesian spring concert tour with her scheduled co-headliner, Man-Bat.

"While we realize that Dr. Kirk Langstrom was just trying to cure his own deafness when he developed his bat sonar extract, the fact remains that it turned him into a hideous man-sized bat hell-bent on mindless destruction," read a statement from the Islam Defenders Front.

"Now, in addition to promoting pornography and satanic values with her music, Lady Gaga is putting the entire population of Jakarta at risk of being terrorized by Man-Bat, and possibly his wife, Francine Langstrom, a.k.a. She-Bat," the statement continued.

News of the postponement has devastated Indonesian fans, who had been clamoring for a live Lady Gaga/Man-Bat collaboration for years.

"Boy George was on the bill too, but we weren't as excited about that," noted diehard Gaga fan Daren Sibarani, who had planned to welcome Gaga and Man-Bat with a flash mob of 124 students, half of them dressed as bats, the other half wearing meat.

"Mostly dead chickens," said Sibarani.

The tour was to have had several stops in Indonesia featuring various performers in addition to Lady Gaga, Man-Bat and Boy George. These included She-Hulk, Boyz II Men, Lady Antebellum and Man Ray, the late avant-garde Dadaist photographer.

"Not Man Ray the SpongeBob SquarePants character," noted Sibarani. "That would just be silly."

Gaga, for her part, has said she thinks the hardline groups are overreacting, noting that every time Man-Bat has gone on a rampage previously, he's been fairly easily subdued by Batman and his companion, Robin the Boy Wonder.

"Two of my favorite Little Monsters, incidentally," noted Gaga, adding, "Bat-paws up!"

Batman and Robin have both gone on the record as being big Lady Gaga fans, and have reportedly even consulted with her on her fashion choices, particularly the ones involving black molded rubber.

"And I think it's just wonderful what she's done for the LGBT community," said Batman, re-polishing his hard rubber codpiece. "Not that Robin and I would have any sort of vested interest in that."

Batman's promises to protect Indonesia from the Man-Bat weren't enough for the Islam Defenders Front, however.

"We refuse to place the safety of the people of Jakarta in the hands of a vigilante like The Batman," stated an IDF spokesman, "and besides, Lady Gaga is still promoting pornography and satanic values whether Man-Bat goes on a rampage or not."

"Ugh, I hate it when people call me The Batman," responded Batman.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

You remember record stores -- don't you?

The other day my kids were watching an old episode of “Drake & Josh,” which is a Nickelodeon show that, like all the other Nickelodeon shows, is about young teenagers yelling at each other. What was interesting about this particular episode — which I can only assume took place during the shows original run of 2004-2007 (I looked it up) — is that it had several scenes that took place in a record store, and it might as well have been set in a milk truck or a cobbler’s shop. Teenagers in a record store? That’s so … well, not today.

As depressing as that concept was (even more depressing than Nickelodeon shows usually are), there is something we can celebrate: Tomorrow, April 21, is officially the most exciting day to be in a record store in 2012. It’s Record Store Day, and if you’ve been at your local independent record store when the doors opened on this day over the last few years, you can attest to the party atmosphere. Frenzied vinyl collectors scoop up the limited-edition specials, clerks give away bags of cool stuff, there’s candy … it’s enough to make you want to hug the heavily pierced person trying to elbow you out of the way for the last copy of that 7″ Clash reissue.

Bruce Springsteen, as has been his practice for the last few years, has his own special offering coming out, a 7″ vinyl single of “Rocky Ground” b/w “The Promise” from his 2010 Asbury Park "carousel" concert. (Whether it will be spelled “The Pomise” is yet to be seen.) But with special releases by Eddie Vedder, Leonard Cohen, Arcade Fire, fun., Grace Potter and dozens of others, it’s worth a trip down to the record store no matter what you wind up leaving with.

And don’t forget not to wait a year before going back.

Column: What's with all the Bruce bashing?

I will admit to a certain lack of objectivity when it comes to Bruce Springsteen: I discovered his music as an impressionable teenager, at that exact time when you’re ready for what’s coming out of your radio to be about something other than girls and dancing and pop fantasies — although definitely those things too.

These days, though, I remain faithful to Springsteen mainly because he still has something to say — he’s engaged in the world around him, his work and his sound continue to evolve, and at 62 he’s somehow still bringing it on stage, as he likes to say, “night after night after night after night.”

But I figure even if he’s not exactly your thing, you have to respect his body of work, and his longevity, and his work ethic, right? There’s no reason to, say, revile him with the intense, burning hatred of a thousand suns. Oh, there is? My mistake.

Yes, as tends to happen every time Springsteen ramps up a new album and tour, critics have jumped up not simply to parse the vagaries of his latest album, “Wrecking Ball,” but to declare him a worthless, no-talent phony who’s somehow managed to hoodwink millions of unsuspecting fans — not just into buying his albums and concert tickets, but into believing this manufactured corporate hack is worth even a second of anybody’s time.

Take Victor Fiorello’s piece for Philadelphia Magazine on “Why I hate Bruce Springsteen,” which is so all-over-the-map — He’s from New Jersey! He wears an earring! — you have to wonder if it’s actually just a brazen play for Google hits. And John Sharkey III in Philadelphia Weekly trots out the argument that Bruce is a fake when he sings about the working man: “How did he pull it off?” Sharkey asks, intimating a vast conspiracy worthy of a Warren Commission report.

I admit that when I read screeds like this, I have to ask myself: Am I the one who’s crazy? I consider myself a smart person who knows a little bit about music — have I somehow been tricked into thinking these songs are about something? Is that feeling of elation I get at his concerts a mere mirage? Is Springsteen in fact a hologram?

It doesn’t help that the standard arguments never seem to hold water. I don’t see how Springsteen can be declared a fake just because he’s made money; he grew up poor with an often unemployed father, and we all know you are who you are well before you hit your 20s – that’s why people who grew up during the Depression still sit around with the lights off. Your childhood stamps you forever, and in Springsteen’s case it’s provided the thread of his entire career.

What most confuses me, though, isn’t the criticism but the unabashed hatred, the seething bile, the utter contempt for Springsteen’s stupid, deluded devotees. What’s driving it? I don’t like Rod Stewart’s 47 albums reinterpreting the Great American Songbook, but I don’t begrudge his fans their enjoyment of them, or want to strangle him in his sleep, usually.

I guess one possibility is jealousy: Can these writers simply not believe they’re still slogging away anonymously while Springsteen continues to log No. 1 albums and sold-out tours? I find it interesting that, in a particularly frothing piece, the Montreal Gazette’s Juan Rodriguez wears a bad review he gave Springsteen in 1977 as a badge of honor, like some old folkie still yelling “Judas” at Bob Dylan for going electric in 1965.

Or is it that these critics are completely disconnected with what it’s like to be a real, actual human being? Jon Caramanica of The New York Times decries “the sodden workingman empathy” of Springsteen’s new song “Jack of All Trades,” saying it “literally made me nauseous.” Meanwhile, the day the song debuted, the E Street Radio satellite channel was deluged with calls from people saying they felt the song could be about them, or a friend or a loved one. It spoke to them, and not in a nausea-inducing way.

Maybe what it comes down to, though, is that for whatever reason these critics are irrevocably put off by the way this man’s music actually helps people better understand the world, or carries them through some of life’s toughest moments. Or by how his concerts — those legendary three-hour celebrations of life and love and rising up from the depths — send them out into the night, exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.

They just can’t grasp it, so instead they pile on, and try to poke holes in his image, and make fun of his earring and the fact he’s from Jersey — and for that I feel sorry for them. I hope someday they find something that means to them what Bruce Springsteen’s music means to us.

But until then, guys … Leave us out of it.

MORE ON BRUCE: Energy, emotion propel Springsteen in Boston

Music, we've got music!

I'm not all about fake news and what my dogs did last night, you know. I also listen to records. Er, electronic music files. To prove it, here's some of my recent music writing. Read these and you too can pretend to be hip.

• Bruce Springsteen, 'Wrecking Ball'
• Lee Rocker, ‘Night Train to Memphis’
• Leland Sundries, ‘The Foundry EP’
• Recent and recommended: Tennis, Craig Finn, Leonard Cohen, Josh Ritter
  

Column: Something's wrong with my radio

One interesting aspect (and there are many) of having a daughter rapidly approaching her teenage years is that I get a firsthand glimpse into what music “the kids are listening to.” That way when I saw a possessed Nicki Minaj grinding against fake monks and priests on the Grammys I was only mildly traumatized, as opposed to some other people over 35, who are still curled up in the corner of their divans, muttering to themselves.

We spend a lot of time in the car listening to top 40 radio, although I’m not sure what makes a song “top 40” these days. (Number of downloads? Most views on YouTube? Ryan Seacrest breathing on them? It could be anything.) I should mention that I had planned to be one of those parents who were hip to their kids’ music, until I heard it and my eardrums shriveled up like snails in beer.

For one thing, none of today’s music seems to have any guitars in it, or if it does you can’t hear it over all the drumbeats and synthesizers and the rapper who comes in after the second verse. It’s perplexing — without guitars, how do aspiring musicians expect to impress girls? By talking into the Auto-Tune app on their iPhones? For crying out loud, I could do that.

But when I thought closely about my critiques, I realized a few things:

1) I’m this close to turning into Grandpa Simpson, muttering on about my pills and how I used to wear an onion on my belt.

2) Our music was pretty bad, too.

Not all of it, mind you — not Bruce Springsteen or Dire Straits or anything from the “Back to the Future” soundtrack — but some of it was just as inane as anything you hear on the radio today, and yes, I’m talking to you, Captain and (to a slightly lesser extent) Tennille.

Of course, I was fortunate to have grown up in an era when radio stations played more than one style at a time, which would explain why when I think about my childhood it has “American Pie,” “Rubber Band Man,” “I Will Survive” and “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” playing in the background. Between that and the pants my mother put me in it’s no wonder I still wake up sweating.

Jukebox heroes

But I don’t think I felt the full impact of modern music until someone thought it would be a good idea to install a jukebox in the middle school cafeteria. I can only presume this was done to raise money and not to introduce us to the collected works of Shalamar, but apparently the PTA couldn’t see far enough past all those shiny new quarters to anticipate the obvious: that it would take the sixth grade about 12 minutes to figure out which songs were the most suggestive, and then play them constantly until the end of time.

There were a few options that made it into heavy rotation — “Makin’ It,” “Le Freak” (it was French — it had to be dirty) and pretty much everything by Blondie, who was clearly a wanton woman, even though as it turns out she wasn’t a she but actually a band. But as the eventual non-stop, play-on-repeat favorite, the sixth grade finally settled on “Good Girls Don’t” by The Knack, which included the popular refrain: “Good girls don’t … but I do.”

Don’t what? Do what? We had no idea, other than that it had to be something inappropriate for consumption in a middle school cafeteria. More quarters!

The jukebox didn’t even come close to lasting the whole year, although we never found out who was behind its removal. (I always suspected the math teacher, Mr. Rose, who was apoplectic over the fact that we couldn’t seem to understand “We don’t need no education” was supposed to be ironic.) But not before I got to hear all sorts of music, some of it good (Queen, Pretenders, Tom Petty), some of it bad (Leif Garrett, Anne Murray, whoever sang “Biggest Part of Me”), but all of it mine. Well, ours, if you include all the other sixth-graders who had no idea what Kool and the Gang meant by “Ooh La La.”

Musical mish-mosh

And so now, my daughter has music that’s hers. Some of it, like Adele and Lady Gaga, I can appreciate. Some of it, like Rihanna and Lil’ Wayne, sets off my built-in parenting alarms and sends my hand screaming toward the station dial. And some of it, like any song sung by a child whose day job is acting on the Disney Channel, strikes me as what I imagine a carbon monoxide alarm must sound like to a Sheltie.

But as mine did, my daughter’s tastes will mature over time (I’m hoping in a direction that has guitars in it), and for better or for worse, these songs by LMFAO and Drake and Katy Perry will someday make up the soundtrack of her adolescence. And like me with my mish-mosh of teen music memories, she’ll look back on them fondly, no matter how bad they may be.

No offense, Captain.

AT LARGE Fake News Wednesday: McCartney Album Feared To Promote Bottom-Kissing

LONDON (CAP) - In the wake of criticism from country star Brad Paisley, detractors are now coming out of the woodwork to express concern about former Beatle Paul McCartney's new album, Kisses On The Bottom.

"It's only February, but Sir Paul is an absolute lock for worst album title of the year," wrote Paisley on Twitter, who took pains to point out that, like most country artists, he is typically both pro-kisses and pro-bottoms. "Just not together," he tweeted.

Sources close to McCartney said they tried to steer him away from the controversial album title, but it was apparently the least offensive of several options McCartney was considering, including Pecks On The Rump, Busses On The Buttocks and More Silly Love Songs.

That fact seems to be small consolation to McCartney's critics, including the watchdog group One Million Moms, who recently chastised Ellen DeGeneres for turning its members gay.

"Funny that Paul McCartney thinks that giving his album a lewd and inappropriate title will spur sales when most of his listeners come from traditional families, whatever that means," said One Million Moms president Karen Grabower. "In our organization, many of our members who enjoy music barely even have bottoms, and certainly don't kiss them if we do."

And Tipper Gore, former wife to onetime Vice President Al Gore, has even revived her Parents Music Resource Center in an attempt to stem the tide of bottom-kissing she's sure McCartney's album will cause.

"We're not looking to stifle Mr. McCartney's creative freedom - we just want to protect the young people," she said. In response, the world's young people texted "WTF is a Paul McCartney?"

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

Column: Bob Dylan tribute both far- and way-out

Listening to “Chimes of Freedom,” the new 76-song Bob Dylan tribute to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Amnesty International (motto: “Keeping You Out of Jail Since 1962”), is almost a stream-of-consciousness experience. There are so many styles — rock, punk, folk, country, reggae, cabaret and even classical are all represented — you sometimes feel like you’ve accidentally stumbled into the most way-out coffeehouse in some alternate-universe Greenwich Village, sitting on a beanbag chair between Sinead O’Connor and the Kronos Quartet.

Two overarching impressions become clear fairly quickly: One, it really is impossible to ruin a Bob Dylan song (although he’s mangled a few himself over the years), and two, none of these manages the tricky task of surpassing the original. Beyond that, it’s probably best to just pull up a beanbag and let the impressions flow:

Johnny Cash’s newly recorded duet of “One Too Many Mornings” with the Avett Brothers shows that he’s the best-sounding dead guy still releasing records. (Sorry, Elvis.)

How does Tom Morello get his guitar to make those noises? I think it may actually be a space alien he has trained as a pet.

I want to have Diana Krall and Elvis Costello over to dinner. I get the sense she’d hang politely on my every word, and he’d complain about the fish.

Yes, it’s impossible to ruin a Bob Dylan song. But Ke$ha comes close with “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” … I think she may have had stomach cramps. Or something else I don’t want to know about.

Seventy-six songs and no “Positively 4th Street”? They’ve got a lotta nerve.

All this time I wondered what “Love Sick” was missing, and now that I’ve heard Mariachi El Bronx’s version, finally I know: Maracas!

Mark Knopfler has sounded like he’s been waking up from a nap since 1995. That’s better than Sting, who’s apparently still asleep, and Jackson Browne, who’s in a medically induced coma. And judging from “Corinna, Corrina,” I fear Pete Townshend may have already shuffled off this mortal coil. RIP, Pete.

Wow, this is a really nice country version of “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.” Wait, it’s Miley Cyrus? Excuse me while my head explodes.

It’s official: Everyone in the world has now covered “Make You Feel My Love.” But Adele’s may be the best. (Sorry, Billy Joel. And Garth Brooks. And Joan Osborne. And …)

A punk Dylan tribute needs to happen, judging by these versions of “Desolation Row” by My Chemical Romance, “Ballad of Hollis Brown” by Rise Against, “The Times They Are A-Changin’” by Flogging Molly and “Song to Woody” by Silverstein, all of which make me want to break something. I mean that in a good way.

Isn’t “I Shall Be Released” sort of the unofficial Amnesty theme song? So why is Maroon 5 singing it like it’s in the background of an Applebee’s commercial?

Michael Franti can’t believe he gets paid for this.

Eskimos must have hundreds of words for “boring,” because every one of them fits Kris Kristofferson’s version of “Quinn the Eskimo.”

Paul Rodgers and Nils Lofgren turn a Dylan song you’ve probably never heard, “Abandoned Love,” into an instant classic. That’s how it’s done, whippersnappers and sleepy old dudes!

Mick Hucknall and Jim James of My Morning Jacket need to have a Bob-off to see who does the best Dylan impersonation. Jimmy Fallon can be the judge. (He’s not on here, but he should be.)

Natasha Bedingfield can ring my bells anytime! Wait, that came out wrong.

Finally, even if the Dylan-cover soundtrack to “I’m Not There” is generally better, at $18 for the MP3 version of “Chimes of Freedom” you’re paying 23 cents per song — the majority of which are keepers — and supporting a good cause. Bob would want you to buy it.

And if you don’t, don’t blame me when you go to jail.

For a full track list and more information, visit amnestyusa.org. Peter Chianca is editor in chief for GateHouse Media New England’s north-of-Boston newspapers and websites. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca.

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: Van Halen Reunion Leads To Run On Assless Chaps

LOS ANGELES (CAP) - The reunion of iconic '70s and '80s rock band Van Halen - who will release a new album and launch a massive U.S. tour this year - has led to a tremendous spike in assless chaps sales, according to representatives in the assless chaps industry.

"Sales of assless chaps are already up more than 300 percent in the first quarter [of 2012]," confirmed Sal Bloomingfield of the United States Assless Chaps Association (USACA). "Frankly it's been more of a specialty item the last few decades, so we couldn't be happier."

Assless chaps experienced a renaissance of sorts in the early 1980s when they became popularized by Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth, who wore them during concerts, in music videos, on interviews and, by many accounts, while relaxing around the house.

"Let's face it -- they're just comfortable," said Bloomingfield. "They breathe."

The chaps became a hot item, surpassing Lego Technic and the Care Bears to become the top-selling Christmas gift of 1984. But soon after Roth left the band their popularity plummeted, and many of the assless chaps sold during that period wound up tucked away in people's closets, unworn.

"I remember going to a church mixer in the spring of '85 and looking up to realize I was the only guy wearing assless chaps," recalled Bob Fernstrom, 45, of Great Neck, N.Y. "That was an eye opener," added Fernstrom, who noted he was threatened with arrest on indecent exposure charges unless he went home and changed into parachute pants.

The Van Halen reunion seems to have rekindled interest, however. Jon Zincway, a writer for the Live Daily music website, said he pulled his old assless chaps out of his bottom drawer as soon as it was announced that Roth would return to the band.

"Now this is what Van Halen is all about," said Zincway, who noted that after replacing Roth as lead singer, neither Sammy Hagar nor Gary Cherone ever exposed their butt cheeks on stage.

Zincway said he plans to wear his chaps to work every day throughout the tour, but added, "I just wish they had a pocket" since he needs somewhere to hold his iPhone so he can Tweet the setlist of every concert.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]