The Gift

Here I am, doing this again... it's been a rough year for musical greatness.

By now I'm sure all of you have heard that Prince died earlier today at his home/studio. The details are as yet unknown, or at least are not yet being shared with the public.

I got a text from a friend saying, "You introduced me to his music." I responded that I was only able to do that because someone else introduced me to it. In this instance, I knew who Prince was, and I had probably heard a couple of his early songs, but it wasn't until my sophomore-year RA, a law student, loaned me his copy of 1999 that my personal experience with Prince's music began.

I grew up in a household where music was on a lot. My father was a big fan of all the Motown artists, plus James Brown, Ray Charles, Sly and the Family Stone, Wilson Pickett, and many others. I knew R&B and soul before I knew any other style or genre of music. And what I loved so much about Prince was how he smashed and fused genres, while at the same time drawing a line from the R&B of the '50s through Jimi Hendrix, 1970s funk, and all kinds of rock, showing us it was all part of a larger whole.

I consider myself really fortunate that I got to see Prince live twice (both times at what used to be called the Worcester Centrum), first on the Purple Rain tour in March of 1985 (the tickets even said "wear something purple" so I wore a skinny purple tie), and then again in October of 1988, the amazing spectacle that was the tour for the album Lovesexy. I wish I could remember more than I do from those shows, but it's enough to know I was there.

He was only 57. That's sad, and also ridiculous. I mean, if anyone was going to be wheeled onto a stage somewhere in his eighties still able to turn a guitar into a flamethrower, it was going to be Prince. That's the thing; we live with the music of a great artist for decades, it becomes a part of us, and it feels like its creator is immortal. Then something happens, and the artist is gone.

But the music does convey immortality, in a way. It lives on, reminding us of all the moments where it played a part in our lives. Being a musician is complex and challenging, but it also gives a gift to the world. Music changes people, transports them, heals them. And I think we're all so lucky to benefit from those gifts, to share our world with these artists. I think it makes being alive so much better.

So let's remember Prince by celebrating what he gave us. He was a goddamn genius.

Update: a fitting tribute from Boston.

Checking Back In

Wow, where did that week go? They have been feeling like I'm in a tunnel lately. I emerge from the tunnel for weekends, but as I said to the Mrs. last night, it almost didn't even feel like I'd had two days off. And just like that, it's Monday morning again.

I didn't write anything about the passing of Glenn Frey last week. With apologies to him, I never felt about The Eagles the way I did about David Bowie. The Eagles were a constant presence on Top 40 FM radio during my formative years in the 1970s, so of course I knew their songs. But I never owned any of their albums, not even Hotel California. Their music was always there on the radio, like background music, and I didn't feel strongly enough about it to want to be able to play it whenever I chose. By the end of the decade I had embraced new wave, and figuratively turned my back on much of what was coming out of the Top 40 stations.

That said, 67 is quite a young age at which to go. It's also a reminder that none of us knows how much time we have. It sounds corny, but every day is a gift.

Early Influence

I woke up to the news that David Bowie had left us over the weekend. Part of the surprise comes from not knowing he was ill (he was always intensely private, for which I respected him) and part because his latest album had just been released on Friday, which was also his birthday. I tended to think of him as a perennial, a rock star who managed to age with grace and dignity and who used that longevity to inform his songwriting. I admit I have not always followed Bowie's career closely, but I have always been aware and appreciative of his work.

There have been other musician deaths that hit me particularly hard (Joe Strummer comes immediately to mind), but Bowie's significance in my life was due to another reason. My interest in music developed early, thanks to my father's albums: Motown, soul, R&B. There was music playing in our house a lot, and the sense of it is one of my earliest memories (though I realize it's not a memory of a specific person, thing, or event).

My first music purchases were 45s. The first album I bought with my own money was a Partridge Family LP. There were a couple more of those, and a John Denver album. But the first rock album I ever bought, at age 11, was Bowie's ChangesOne, a hits collection that came out in 1975. For me there has always been tremendous significance in that choice. It was informed, as was almost every other music purchase I made at the time, by what I heard on the radio. (The 1970s was truly a golden era for Top-40 FM radio, with a variety reflecting the sales charts.)

David Bowie's music showed me, for the first time, that there could be deeper meaning in a song beyond the melody and lyrics. I'm sure I didn't understand everything that was being conveyed in those songs at the time, but that album was the experience that taught me how music could make you feel. And that's really the whole point of it, right?

Some time back I read an article about him, and his wife Iman was quoted as saying that he liked walking around in New York, where they lived, because he typically went unrecognized. After that I used to fantasize that I might encounter him on one of our visits to the city. I wouldn't make a big deal about it, I'd just smile and nod in his direction as we passed on a sidewalk. It would have been tempting to talk to him and tell him what his music meant to me, but I think verbalizing it would have diminished its significance. Thank you, David, for all the doors your music opened to me.

Concert (Ticket) Vault: April Fool

I have not done one of these in a while, so let's jump in the time machine and head back to 1988...

Robyn Hitchcock was beloved by music critics in the late 1980s (and probably still is). The distinctive points of view and odd lyrics of his songs resonated with a certain type of person, and I definitely wanted to see him live. This tour was extra special because he brought along Peter Buck of R.E.M. to play guitar.

The week leading up to this show I was pretty ill, and I wasn't sure I would be able to go, but I managed to get well enough in time. In addition to being April Fool's Day, April 1 happened to be Good Friday that year, and there was also a full moon that night. Hitchcock ticked off all these points at the start of the show, then remarked, "I'd say that's quite an auspicious start to things, wouldn't you?" Yep.

(The ticket price index is at $8.50 here. Today, in some bars and clubs you can barely get a beer for $8.50.)

Concert (Ticket) Vault: An Opening Act Surprise

There are certain musicians whose names always make the eyes of guitar aficionados sparkle. The presence of Adrian Belew in his late-1980s band The Bears was enough of a draw for a friend and I to attend this show, especially since I had missed seeing him during his first stint with King Crimson a few years prior.

But truthfully, the most memorable thing about this show was the opening act, a group of guys from New York called Living Colour, who had just released their debut album Vivid. Vernon Reid's name has since come to be perhaps even more revered than Belew's for guitar virtuosity, and Corey Glover was a powerful and charismatic vocalist. They came out and simply blew away the whole audience, most of whom (us included) had never heard of them.

I'm happy to report that Living Colour is still around, and I saw the band play about two years ago, also at the Paradise. They sounded as good as ever, and the band members have local connections so playing in Boston is especially meaningful for them.

Other notes: the concert ticket price index registered at $9.50 for a general admission show in 1988; this show was on a Tuesday night, but I was only 24 at the time so going out on a weeknight was no big deal, even though I had an office job I needed to be at by 9 the next morning.

Concert (Ticket) Vault: Pilgrimage

Ah, this is a good one: on May 3, 1985, which will be 30 years ago next week (gulp...), I was fortunate enough to see R.E.M. play live at MIT. The band was doing a spring college tour in the months leading up to the release of their third album, Fables of the Reconstruction.

(For once it made sense to take the photo vertically)

The show was limited to MIT students and their guests, but one of my dorm mates had a brother who was enrolled there, and he was able to get tickets for about half a dozen of us (many of the same people I'd seen U2 with just a few weeks earlier). I remember walking across the Mass. Ave. Bridge on an incredibly beautiful spring evening to get to the show.

As it happened, this was not the first time I had seen R.E.M. Two years earlier, The English Beat had played a show at BU that I went to with some friends, and R.E.M. was the opening act. Both bands were on the same label, and R.E.M.'s first full-length album Murmur had just been released. It was one of those shows where you know you're witnessing something special and it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches on.

Concert (Ticket) Vault: Unforgettable

This ticket is from a U2 concert at the Worcester Centrum in April of 1985, just a few weeks after the Prince show. This tour was for The Unforgettable Fire, which had been released the previous fall. It's the one and only time I saw U2 live.

I didn't win this one, I bought the tickets for myself and five of my friends. It was near the end of my final semester in college, my course work was winding down, but finals were still a few weeks away. But we still had to get out to Worcester, and with a group of six the bus didn't seem like a preferable option.

Back then, there were places around that rented out older cars for much lower rates than the big companies, and they didn't care so much how old drivers were as long as they were licensed, so one of my friends was able to rent a full-size Ford LTD that was about five years old.

Cynical types will say that the time to see U2 was on their previous tour, for the album War, when the band wasn't as popular and played the Orpheum; or their first-ever American show, which was at the Paradise; or even a couple of years later when The Joshua Tree came out. I do think that's a stronger album than The Unforgettable Fire, though I think by that point they were playing stadium shows at venues like the old Foxboro. And I do wish I'd seen them when they toured for Achtung Baby, because that is my favorite of all their albums.

But any U2 concert is still a pretty special event. We had floor seats, maybe 20 rows back, and we got to spend a couple of hours engulfed in the music. I happen to think it's one of those things everyone should experience at least once.

And if you're keeping track, this ticket cost $13.50, which was $4 less than the Prince show.

Car Stuff: Fantasy Garage #17

I admit that last week's alley-found Volvo was something of a stall tactic, as I tried to figure out what I wanted to feature in the Fantasy Garage this time around. I think the time has come for the FG to turn somewhat autobiographical and include a car from my early years.

For a good chunk of time we were a station wagon family. Wagons were so common as family vehicles in the 1960s and '70s that us having one made me feel like our family was a little bit more normal, because we were at least superficially like so many other families, at least in that respect. (Eventually we got a car that wasn't a wagon, but it's never been clear to me why, because it was still a full-size car. Maybe by that point my parents thought a station was no longer necessary.) There was also a Blazer and a Subaru wagon, but those didn't come along until after I went to college.

In fact, we had only three station wagons. The first was a 1965 Chevrolet Bel Air in turquoise ("Artesian turquoise" was its official GM name) with a matching interior. The seats were vinyl and were very hot in the summer. If you look at this catalog image (from Old Car Brochures) it's the car at the bottom, but the color of the car at the top (it was brighter than how it looks in this image).

A few years later we got another Chevy wagon, one year newer but a Caprice, which was the top trim level and a new model that year. (These were used cars, by the way.) Chevy had decided they wanted to go after the Ford Country Squire more directly, and in order to do that they needed to offer a wagon with woodgrain side trim.

After wood-bodied station wagons became too costly to produce, Ford started doing the fake-wood thing in the '50s, but other companies didn't offer their own versions until some time later. After Chevy jumped in, just about every other wagon maker brought out its own version. Ours was white like this one but the interior was blue, not red. And my recollection (which may be wrong) is that the interior was a cloth and vinyl combo, which was considered classier at the time.

In 1972 we got a 1970 Plymouth Sport Suburban. I've posted about this car before, and it's probably my favorite of all the cars we had when I was growing up. Ours was dark green with a dark- and light-green vinyl interior. Other than the color it looked just like this one, right down to the wheel covers. But ours didn't have the third seat; none of our station wagons did. We still rode in the "way back," just sitting on the hard metal floor.

The hidden headlights were my favorite feature of the Sport Suburban. The twin bulges on the hood had optional turn signal repeaters which faced back toward the driver; they're the same basic idea as the ones you see today on cars' side mirrors, except those are more for the benefit of other drivers.

So yes, I want a Sport Suburban for the Fantasy Garage, for nostalgia's sake more than anything else. The '71 was pretty much the same car, but the grille was different (it still had the hidden headlights), and Chrysler eliminated the vent windows from its full-size cars that year. But they also took away the hood bulges, so it's sort of a toss-up. I think I'd probably stick to a '70 just because it's what we had. I used to include the '72 on my wish list, but over the years I've come to like its styling less and less.

Concert (Ticket) Vault: Let's Go Crazy

Friday night already? I must be having too much fun, or something... anyway, here's another ticket, this one from Prince and the Revolution at the fabulous concrete Worcester Centrum in late March of 1985.

This was the year after the gigantic success of Purple Rain, both the movie and the album, and this tour was still being billed as "the Purple Rain tour." Note that the ticket says "wear something purple." In my case I was otherwise dressed in black and white, but I did wear a purple satin tie that was about an inch wide. What I'm wondering here in 2015 is, why did I already have that before I knew I was going to the concert? Well, it was the '80s—that's the only answer I got, so it'll have to do.

Prince had Sheila E as his opening act, which was pretty cool. At the end of her set, she did this thing with light-up drumsticks, and all the other lights were lowered so she was playing the drums in the dark with lighted sticks. Gimmicky, sure, but still fun.

I think I won these tickets as well, though there was no bus ride as part of the prize, so my date and I (yeah, I took a young lady to this, because that's what you do when you win Prince tickets) took the bus. Getting out to Worcester wasn't such a big deal, but finding our way from the Centrum back to the bus station in an unfamiliar city wasn't great, but other concertgoers had done the same thing, so between asking one or two people and following others (whom we could tell by their dress had also been at the show), we managed to find our way to the station, where we found that we had to wait another hour or so (maybe longer) for the bus back to Boston to arrive. I don't remember what time we got back, but I do know the T had stopped running so we took a cab back to BU.

Concert (Ticket) Vault

Last week my friend Just Bud Fox (supplier of some of the photos for Random Sightings) posted a photo of a ticket from a Replacements concert we went to back in 1987. This pleased me greatly, and then it gave me the idea to do the same. I have a stash of tickets from most of the concerts I attended during the 1980s and '90s, and I think it would be amusing (if only for me and a few other people) to post some of them.

I'll inaugurate this (semi-recurring?) feature with the oldest ticket currently in my possession, from a Police concert in August of 1983. This was after Synchronicity had come out and hit big, and The Police played a stadium tour; this show was at Sullivan Stadium (later called Foxboro Stadium), which some of you may remember as the home of the Patriots before Gillette Stadium was built.

Being a big outdoor show, it was a triple bill, with A Flock of Seagulls and The Fixx appearing (in that order) before The Police took the stage. (Other parts of the tour got different opening acts, as I recall.) Also, I won the tickets from the radio station WBRU, which at the time was Providence's only real option for hearing anything approaching alternative music. The prize also included a bus ride from the radio station to the concert and back, which was probably worth more than the ticket price, as any of you who have been to a concert (or a Patriots game) at Gillette will know.

Coffee Break

I was thinking about coffee this morning, as mine was brewing. I don't think there are any other food items that I consume every single day. There's also beer, but there are occasional days when I don't drink a beer with my evening meal.

I was first introduced to coffee when I was around five, when my mother added a little to my milk. But I didn't start drinking it with any regularity until near the end of high school. That's also around the time I started visiting Dunkin' Donuts, which is when I discovered what half and half was. Cream was never used in our household, and I guess I had never noticed it in the grocery store either. If you haven't done a direct comparison, coffee with milk tastes markedly different from coffee with cream. (I don't use sugar, it's just more unnecessary calories and I think it ruins the taste of the coffee.)

In college my roommate had a coffee maker, and when I lived alone as a senior I acquired my first one. I couldn't even count how many of them I've had since, but it's probably at least a dozen. I remember a roommate in a house a couple of years out of college having one of the earliest Braun models that used the cone-shaped filters. I was struck by the thought that had gone into the various elements of the design. Of course I wanted one for myself and I did get one, eventually, but it was a few years later.

Around that same time I tried to develop a taste for drinking coffee black because it seemed like a cool thing to do. Aside from the harshness (which cream does an excellent job of mellowing) and the stomach discomfort, I found that with black coffee there was a very small window between "too hot" and "too cold" and I always ended up missing it, so that experiment was short-lived.

It's funny how some people never make coffee at home, and their only relationship to it is through their office or a coffee shop. I guess it goes along with trying to eat breakfast but I've always wanted the ability to have coffee before leaving the house. But there were times when that wasn't always the most convenient option.

In the mid-1980s I worked at the Harvard Coop, back when it was still an independent store that sold things like records, housewares, and non-university-logo clothing. I always worked Saturdays, and the bus I took to work during the week either didn't run on Saturdays or didn't run as frequently, meaning I would have had to get up significantly earlier (unthinkable in one's early 20s) or take a different route.

This also happened to be during the period when the Mass. Ave. bridge was being rebuilt, and as with the Longfellow Bridge now, there were traffic restrictions. The 1 bus had to be rerouted, and the alternate route took it through Kenmore Square, past BU's main campus, and across the BU bridge to Memorial Drive and eventually back to Mass. Ave.

Where I lived at the time, the 57 bus stopped right in front of our house, so on Saturday mornings I'd take that bus down into Kenmore, go into the old Dunkin' that used to be there (back when they still had counter service), get the recently-introduced Big One (20 ounces, which I think corresponds to their current large) for around $1.25, cross the square, and wait for the next 1 bus to come through.

Amazingly, the timing always seemed to work out perfectly, even during the winter. I think there was only one time when I had to forego the coffee and make the bus connection in front of Marsh Chapel in order to get to work on time. And getting that Saturday coffee was something of a treat, a reward for having to get up and go to work while others were sleeping in.

Car Stuff: Back to the '70s

I love street scenes, especially ones with lots of vintage cars on view. I grew up in Rhode Island and used to go on shopping trips "downcity" with my grandmother; by 1979 or so I was venturing into downtown Providence by myself on the bus to shop for clothes and records.

Conveniently, several images from the city of Providence's online photo gallery showed up on the Hemmings blog on Friday. I went to the city's website to see what else they had. It seems like these are all from no later than 1977 or so; it's hard to say exactly, but I don't think I see any cars newer than that year.

This shot is looking south on Dorrance Street (possibly from the old train station), with the western edge of Kennedy Plaza at the left and City Hall at the right. The white Mercedes S-class coming into the bottom of the frame is a bit of a surprise, but they were starting to make inroads into the market by the mid-'70s.

Looking at more or less the same spot but from down at street level, there's the Haven Brothers diner truck about to pull into its regular spot adjacent to City Hall. Food truck, old-school style. The blue car at the left is around a '73 Oldsmobile Delta 88; the black one is a Mercury Monarch, one of the newest cars I can spot in any of these pics.

From the same spot, a pivot to the right gives us this view looking west down Washington Street. The edge of City Hall is at the left, and just beyond the right edge of the frame is the Biltmore Hotel, which is still around. A Pinto! A Checker cab! Look at all those VW Beetles!

Back to the first photo, but the photographer moved a block south and turned back around looking north across the intersection of Dorrance and Westminster Streets. You can see that the building at the left in the top photo is the same one the camera is facing here. Check out that granny's pedestrian move. That old Plymouth is a bit unusual, even for this point in time. Behind it, going the other way, the black car looks to be a Chevy Monza, which came out in '75. And there's an old green RIPTA bus on the right.

Here the photographer has crossed Dorrance and turned around to look west down Westminster, which at the time was a pedestrian street closed to vehicle traffic for several blocks (and I'm pretty sure they stole the idea for that from Washington Street in Downtown Crossing). It makes sense that Old Stone Bank would have had a branch across the street from its competitor Hospital Trust. (Trivia: I spent the summer between high school and college working for Old Stone as a mail clerk in their operations center. They licensed Fred Flintstone to use as their mascot in commercials, and their ATM card was called Ready Freddy.)

Those two station wagons cruising past are basically the same car: the silver one is a 1972 or '73 Ford Gran Torino. The red one is a 1977 Mercury Cougar, which had previously been called the Montego and was made as a Cougar for one year only.

This photo is from a couple of blocks further south, along Pine Street looking across a parking lot (since replaced by a parking garage) at the Weybosset Street entrance to The Arcade, a National Historic Landmark building built in 1828. Behind it, and looming over downtown, is the old Industrial National Bank building, which many Rhode Islanders refer to as "the Superman building" because of its resemblance to the building used for the Daily Planet in the old Superman TV show. (Sadly, it now sits vacant and unused.) The green car is a first-generation VW Scirocco, extremely scarce now.

I realize there are no cars in this photo, which is at a point further west on the Westminster Street pedestrian mall. I included it because of the stores. Shepard's department store went bankrupt in 1974, but the building still stands (as does the clock) and today it houses the University of Rhode Island's continuing education department. Chess King! It's embarrassing to think about it now, but I did shop there for a while. And further back, with the red facade, is B. Dalton Bookseller, which eventually became part of Waldenbooks.

Holiday Travel Memories

Many of us traveled somewhere to visit our families this week. The other day while I was volunteering, I was reminded that the building we were in was on the site of what used to be the old, decrepit bus station on St. James Avenue near Arlington Street and Park Square. It prompted me to reflect on more than three decades of going home for holidays.

For me, a big part of going to college was moving away from home. Like many young people I wanted to experience independence, but I didn't want to be prohibitively far away. Even as a freshman I met people who had to travel as far as California for the brief Thanksgiving break. But since I was from Rhode Island, home was just an hour's bus ride away. The station was primarily for Greyhound buses, but the Providence route was operated by a company called Bonanza.

That old bus station was grimy and run-down, and typically had an assortment of questionable people hanging around. But bus service to Providence ran pretty much hourly, so it was usually not necessary to spend any significant amount of time waiting in the station. The station in Providence was also not a place one would want to spend any time, but I knew that a ride would be waiting when I arrived, or I could walk a couple of blocks and catch a local bus the rest of the way.

A few years later, I discovered the pleasures of taking Amtrak from Boston to Providence. (This was still during the 1980s, prior to commuter rail service; later, after that service was established, it was initially not available on weekends.) Wider seats with more room to stretch out, freedom from traffic issues, the bar car—it was a much more hospitable ride.

But the train was more expensive than the bus, so I continued to use both. At some point (maybe the early '90s?) Providence got a new bus station, north of downtown and adjacent to route 95, so the bus drivers didn't have to navigate narrow streets. Originally the bus company operated a shuttle from the station to downtown for people who needed to make other transit connections, but I don't know if that is still in effect.

Boston's bus station moved also, to a spot adjacent to Dewey Square. I think it had something to do with the merger of two bus companies, because the terminal had been there for some time but I had never had occasion to use it. It was convenient to the subway at South Station, and to where I was working at the time, but it was just as dreary and forlorn as the one I had been using for years.

But time passes and things change. By the mid-1990s I was living with the Mrs. and we were driving to RI for holiday visits. Had it existed in the 1980s, commuter-rail service to Providence would have been very convenient; the recent extension to Green Airport would have been even more so, as my family's home is only about a mile from there. Today the bus terminal sits above the train tracks at South Station, with dedicated highway ramps for bus use. It's not fancy, but it's a far more pleasant place to wait for a bus than the ratty old Greyhound terminal.

Car Stuff: Family History #2

(This post was delayed due to technical issues: our printer has become extremely temperamental about scanning things, so I was forced to take pictures of this picture with my phone.)

This was my family's 1970 Plymouth Sport Suburban, which my parents acquired early in 1972, when this picture was taken. It was our "family truckster" for a number of years at a time when full-size station wagons were at roughly the height of their popularity.

Prior to getting this car, we'd had two Chevrolet wagons, a 1965 Bel Air in "Artesian turquoise" (which was closer to aqua) and a 1966 Caprice in white with wood siding (very much like this, but with a blue interior). The Plymouth also had the distinction of being the newest car my parents had owned up to that point.

Although this was Plymouth's top of the line wagon for 1970, it was not equipped with lots of the stuff we take for granted as standard on our cars today. It didn't have air conditioning, the radio was AM only, the windows were manual (except for the one in the tailgate); such luxuries were still optional on most cars at that time. Since it was a used car, my parents did not have the choice of whether or not to get the third seat; this car didn't have one. It was not strictly necessary, as we were perfectly content to ride in the "way back" sitting on the hard floor, but I'm sure if it had had the third seat, we would have made use of it.

I remember being pretty excited about it when we got it; about the only thing that I thought was cooler at the time was the new 1972 version, which I'd seen an example of either in the showroom at the dealership or on the lot, plus in the brochures I enthusiastically took home; even though I knew our budget would not allow for the purchase of a new car, I guess my young brain wanted to imagine the possibility of a quick trade of this car for an even newer one.

In hindsight the '70 was much better looking than the '72 (see for yourself). With the passage of so many years, it's become my favorite car of all the ones we had while I was growing up. That's partly because I like how it looks and partly because we went so many places in it: Disney World, Cape Cod, Lake Winnipesaukee. There's one other picture I was able to scan, from our Florida vacation:

That's my grandmother, who accompanied us on our voyage. This was taken at a rest stop/welcome center just over the border when coming into the state from Georgia on route 95. Taking family trips by car is one of those things that it seems people don't do as much anymore, but when I was growing up it was much more common than traveling by air, at least for average families like mine. (I did not travel on an airplane until I was nearly 21.)

Retro Video Unit (4/26/13)

With everything that was going on last week, I completely forgot about this. Sadly, once again this feature becomes an occasion to remember a performer who has passed away.

Christina Amphlett, lead singer of the Australian band Divinyls, died last weekend at only 53, a victim of both multiple sclerosis and breast cancer. The band will probably be best remembered for the 1991 hit "I Touch Myself," but Divinyls released six albums over the course of a decade and a half. While popular at home, most of their work received little attention elsewhere, and they remain one of the most underrated bands from the early 1980s.

Amphlett's stage persona, at least early on, was something like a mix of Chrissie Hynde and early Britney Spears (and I never, ever thought I would put those two names in the same sentence). She had the gift of an immediately identifiable voice, and she was a true badass, a trailblazer who became an icon for later performers like Shirley Manson of Garbage.

My favorite song of theirs is one of their earliest, "Boys In Town," and it happens to be one that I've had in mind for this feature for a while. As with many music videos from the early 1980s, it's a low-rent production, but is distinguished by the presence of a light-up mike stand. How cool is that?



And just for fun, how about a fierce live performance of the same song from the 1983 US Festival?



Thanks for the music. You will be missed.

Retro Video Unit (5/18/12)

Another tribute would seem in order, due to the untimely passing of Donna Summer earlier this week. Now I realize that her music doesn't fit with the clips I tend to post here, but you have to remember that I grew up in the 1970s. At this point in my life there's no harm in admitting that I had a disco phase during high school, but even if I hadn't I would still love her and her music.

Her music wasn't included in Saturday Night Fever, but Donna Summer defined the disco era as much as the Bee Gees, KC And The Sunshine Band, and the Village People did. And she was a gifted enough artist to transcend her early work. She was a great performer, and her music meant a lot to me. Here's a performance of "On The Radio" that I found on YouTube.

Another One Bites the Dust

On Wednesday the Phoenix Media/Communications Group announced that it was selling WFNX to Clear Channel, considered by many the evil empire of radio. Almost all the staff were immediately laid off and, assuming the sale goes through, the station will likely switch to a different format.

WFNX had been around for almost 30 years, and like WBCN before it, was a crucial part of my musically formative years. From the time it went on the air in 1983 it was the cool kid among Boston radio stations, and I welcomed the station as a place on the radio dial where I knew I could find the music I cared about and wanted to hear. Over the years 'FNX introduced me to hundreds of new artists, some that wouldn't merit airplay on any of the other, more commercial station in the area.

Part of its appeal was its status as an independent station, the last remaining one in Boston. But as much as I loved and appreciated WFNX over the years, I had not been a regular listener in a long time. Part of that was simply because I don't drive, which is where many people listen to most of the radio they consume. But I had pretty much stopped listening to any radio, not because of technological changes, but because it just wasn't as satisfying to me anymore. I did listen to music much of the time at work, but I used my personal iTunes library; for some reason it never occurred to me to click into 'FNX's streaming feed.

So now WFNX becomes another piece of our shared past that's gone, with nothing left but memories and nostalgia. Or maybe not quite. I did have a personal connection with the station that most other listeners didn't. Back in the late 1990s WFNX used to do a fundraising event for World AIDS Day. In 1998 midday DJ Julie Kramer offered listeners the opportunity to join her in hosting the "Leftover Lunch" show in exchange for a contribution. The Mrs. made the donation as a gift for me, and I did my show the following January. They made a copy of the broadcast for me on a cassette tape, and a few years back I converted it into an mp3 file. Here's the playlist:

David Bowie: "'Heroes'"
The B-52's: "Legal Tender"*
INXS: "Don't Change"
Elvis Costello: "Radio Radio"
New Order: "Temptation"
U2: "Out Of Control"
The Lucy Show: "Ephemeral (This Is No Heaven)"
Pretenders: "Talk Of The Town"
Roxy Music: "Over You"
X: "The Hungry Wolf"
Dumptruck: "Island"
Shriekback: "Hand On My Heart"
The dB's: "Never Before And Never Again"
Robyn Hitchcock And The Egyptians: "Heaven"
O Positive: "With You"
Tommy Keene: "In Our Lives"
Graham Parker: "Discovering Japan"
The Church: "Tantalized"

(*a request from the Mrs. that I had to play, since she was the reason I was there)

Thank you Julie, and thank you WFNX, for all the great radio memories.

Empty Basement

Perhaps by now you've seen/read/heard the news that Filene's Basement is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, for the third time in a decade or so. But this time it's permanent; all stores will close by January 2012, and parent company Syms will be shutting down along with the Basement.

This is sad to hear for anyone who has spent time searching for treasure in the Basement (and by that I of course mean the real one, the original Downtown Crossing store) over the years, especially for people who are, say, at least 40. When I arrived here 30 years ago to start college, I was already familiar with the ways and wonders of the Basement, including the famous automatic markdown plan. My mother used to take a bus to Boston for shopping day trips with a friend, and eventually I got to go along. I don't remember if I ended up buying anything or not, but by the time I got here as a college freshman, I knew the Basement was a key source for great deals.

I have great memories of hopping on the subway and heading downtown to shop at the Basement, both alone and with friends. Back when I was a student in the first half of the 1980s, I used to get stuff like Brooks Brothers shirts, Italian-made corduroy pants from Louis Boston, and Shetland wool sweaters from England. And the suit department was a joy to behold: the suits came from the best stores and were made of the best fabrics. I bought suits from the Basement to attend at least a couple of weddings.

Finding an item that had survived long enough to hit the Basement's 50% markdown was a point of pride, and of course that 50% was off the original Basement price, which was already significantly less than what it had sold for (or at least had been priced at) farther back in its history. At one point in my post-college years, I scored a $500 suit (which would be at least a $1000 suit today) for $125. It still had its price tag from Saks attached.

Back then, there was hardly any competition in the off-price corner of the retail business, but that soon began to change. Along with stores like Marshalls, there were changes in manufacturing patterns, and even higher-end stores had more of their merchandise made in the Far East. Now there are more sources than ever for low-price clothing, yet the merchandise that's available just isn't as good, and the divide between the mass-market stuff and the really good stuff has grown even wider.

When the Downtown Crossing Basement closed in 2007, that was essentially the end, though we didn't want to think so at the time. But even before it shut down, all you had to do was walk through the store to realize its era had passed. In the later years the stuff the Basement was selling was mainly just past-season overstock from mainstream mall chains and department stores, nothing like what you could get back in the good old days, if you were willing to do a little digging and, occasionally, successfully hide something in an out-of-the-way corner until its next markdown day arrived.

Thanks, Steve

Well, I guess I really have to get an iPhone now...

I always thought Steve would be around, fostering innovation at Apple for decades to come. Even when he resigned in August, I didn't want to believe he could really be so gravely ill.

Personally, Apple's products have meant a lot to me. Macs are the only computers I've owned. I bought my first, a Mac Plus, in 1992 from someone I worked with, who had bought it from someone else we worked with (who was the original owner). I still have it down in the basement, though I doubt it would work at this point. In fact, I still have four of the five Macs I've owned, including the one I'm using to write this. (Seeing that written down makes me realize that perhaps I might have some issues around holding onto stuff longer than necessary.)

Back in the '90s, it wasn't easy to be a Mac partisan. Software was less available, and typically more expensive. I knew that making a conscious choice to be a Mac user at least in part because it was a sort of identification: I am different because I choose to do this. Even before I bought my first Mac, I always felt like that was the group I belonged with.

I'm also lucky enough to use a Mac at work, and at other jobs I've had as well. When my mother asks me questions about how to do something in Windows, I usually don't know the answer. (The Mrs. has helped out with some of those.) I've had a couple of iPods, so it seems only right that I should be moving on to an iPhone.

My boss showed up today wearing jeans and a black mock turtleneck, to honor Steve. (He's a guy not generally given to that sort of expression.) But it made me realize that there's a bit of Steve in all of us Mac users, and in our computers, music players, phones, and tablets.

Thank you, Steve. You gave us so much. I hope you felt like you got something from us in return.

Music of My Life

Yesterday's New York Times contained obituaries for two important pop music songwriters. Interestingly, Jerry Leiber and Nick Ashford both died on Monday, on opposite coasts.

Leiber and his writing partner Mike Stoller were responsible for songs performed by Elvis Presley, The Drifters, former Drifters lead singer Ben E. King, The Coasters, The Shangri-Las, Peggy Lee, and many others.

Ashford, along with his wife and songwriting partner Valerie Simpson, wrote songs for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Chaka Khan, and more.

I'm of an age and upbringing where I was exposed to songs co-written by these men from an early age, and with frequency. My earliest musical memories involve Elvis and Motown, and encompass nearly all of these other performers. This was the popular music of the day, and while it's not my aim to disparage any current artist, when I look at what's popular today it makes me sad.

This short list of songs will give you a glimpse of the gifts these two men shared with the world. The first six are Leiber and Stoller compositions; the other five are Ashford and Simpson compositions.

"Hound Dog"
"Jailhouse Rock"
"On Broadway"
"Spanish Harlem"
"Stand By Me"
"Chapel of Love"
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough"
"You're All I Need to Get By"
"Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing"
"Solid (As A Rock)"
"I'm Every Woman"