I See Dead People... Two Weeks In A Row

A few weeks ago I was playing cards on a Sunday afternoon with my wife’s family who was visiting from Utah. I was listening to my ipod and had randomly decided I was in the mood for The Jeff Healey Band – Hell To Pay, an album I haven’t listened to in about 13 years.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Jeff Healy Band for 3 reasons
1) He was blind.
2) His music was really solid, but sounded like it may have a short shelf-life even when it first came out. Even at their peak you could tell the novelty would wear off soon.
3) They played the bar band at the Double Deuce in Road House, one of the greatest films ever made. (So great that it deserves its own posting some other time).

Their biggest hit was Angel Eyes, but I was always partial to their cover of Mark Knopfler’s I Think I Love You Too Much (which was on Hell To Pay). It wasn’t as wussy as Angel Eyes. In fact, it rocked pretty hard with some amazing guitar acrobatics and pulverizing drums.

The next day I see in the news that Jeff had died the day before of cancer. This means, I could very well have been listening to him either just before he died, while he was dying, or just after. Trippy!

So, the very next Sunday it’s about 8 at night and I decide I’m in the mood to watch Car Wash, which I had DVRd, earlier in the week. That movie always takes me back to college. TBS played the heck out of it back in the mid-to-late nineties and it became a running joke with me and my buddy/roommate Dave Haughey because we swore we saw those orange jumpsuits almost every night around 2am. We had countless conversations that went something like this.

I couldn’t sleep last night.
So, what did you do?
Got up and watched TV. Thought maybe Car Wash would be on.

Or, after a late night Denny’s run.

You ready to get back to the apartment?
Yeah, maybe Car Wash is on.

Or, while staying up late to study.

Man, I’m spent.
Me too, maybe Car Wash is on.

I hadn’t seen it in about 10 years, but I had a serious jones that night for some big afros and funky music.

While watching, I was really taken with the character of Lonnie, the cigar chomping ex-con with the strong moral code who’s trying to go straight and raise a family. I look him up on imdb and see that he’s played by Ivan Dixon, who also used to be on Hogan’s Heroes. Now, I never watched that show, but I knew who all the actors were from seeing the opening credits a million times.

And, what happens? The very next day I see that Ivan Dixon died the day before. For the second week in a row, I had been in the mood to experience something from someone who would die the next day.

There's a couple minutes left in this Sunday. Maybe I’ll see if there’s a speech from President Bush running on CSPAN.

In A Big Country

The spark of motivation for starting this blog was created during an email exchange with my friend Chris Standish (my wife's sister's boyfriend) about bands we love. Me being the 80s junkie that I am, I asked him if he had any feelings about Big Country, one of my faves. God bless him, he felt like I do. This jumpstarted an exchange I've wanted to preserve because it nailed my feeling on, not only Big Country, but love for my fave bands and the responsibility of fans to support their rock heroes.

For those who don't know, Stuart Adamson, lead singer and guitarist for the band committed suicide about 7 years ago and it still doesn't sit well with me. He wrote such passionate songs about life and love and yet he couldn't muster the same passion to save his own life. It's so incongruous and heartbreaking. It's lyrics like "I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert, but I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime" that inspired me to begin writing and naming this blog. Below is excerpts of Chris and I's exchange. Maybe some readers can relate in some form.

"I've always wished I could have let him know somehow that I thought he was great, in case it would have made a difference. That's lofty, I know. When your rock heroes kill themselves, especially guys like Stuart and Paul [Hester, drummer for Crowded House, my all-time favorite band above all bands] who are in bands long out of the public eye, but completely entrenched in my heart, I feel some personal responsibility, like I wish I could have been there to nurture them back to health. If they did it because they didn't feel loved, well I loved them a lot! You know? Maybe just knowing that would have changed something. I'm sure it wouldn't have, but it would make me feel better.

"The first Big Country album I ever bought or owned was Peace In Our Time and it's terrible. It was high school and I took it to school once and it got stolen and I never bothered to replace it. It was just so far from their early great stuff. I think because that is where I started with their albums, it took me a while to pick up any more. I got their Best Of in college and it, along with Talk Talk - Natural History, are priceless. It gives you all you need to know about the latter work. "Wonderland" and "East Of Eden" are my faves. So, [then I go to work for Tower Records in their marketing and advertising department] and have access to free cds, as well as a lady friend I had at the time who loved Big Country too, which served to enhance and strengthen (if not even create, women will do that) my devotion, so I asked their label, Navarre, to send me whatever stuff they could. I got 3 of their Rarities discs. Not essential, but it helped to jumpstart my collection. Then, I pick up Why The Long Face for a buck somewhere. Again, not a great album, but by now I was willing to accept them faults and all. Finally, about a year or two ago, I bought The Seer and The Crossing. (Oh, Steeltown was obtained during a visit to the Bay Area by said lady friend. That's when I finally broke through to the good stuff and regained some trust after the Peace In Our Time disappointment).

"I find that I've begun to gauge my love of a band by how much money I've spent on them. So, used and Tower freebies don't count toward them because they wouldn't have seen any royalties. In that case, they were paid when I bought Peace, Seer, Crossing and Best Of, and the rest don't count. When I go through my collection and see how few bands I love that I can say I've spent that much on, I'm happy for them. Bands are like political candidates, if you believe in what they're doing, you have to show it by opening your wallet. Otherwise, they aren't given any indication how much you care. It's sad but true."

Chris pointed me to a beautiful article written by the one-and-only Dave Eggers about the band right after Stuart's suicide. Isn't it ironic that the man that admonished us to "Stay Alive!" couldn't do the same. The link is here: http://www.spinmagazine.com/features/magazine/2004/07/now_less_informed_opinion/