LISTENING PARTY: Radio KAOS

I think that what the world needs more of is sci-fi concept albums. I know that we all have our favorites: Kilroy was Here by Styx, 2112 by Rush, Psychoderelict by Pete Townsend, that album that Isaac Asimov recorded with Rage Against the Machine. But my favorite, by far, is Roger Waters' Radio KAOS. And it's not because it's the story of a paraplegic boy interfacing with the world's computer systems to threaten the world with nuclear annihilation. It's not because Roger Waters believes in the power of a radio DJ to save humankind. It's because he believes that the soundtrack of the future is white English guy funk.

"Radio Waves"- There are some concept albums that have a loose concept that you really can only glean from reading the liner notes and interviews with the artist (e.g. any album Tori Amos has ever released)and there are some that act like a soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist, with the concept hinted at with interstitial material between the songs (The Wall, before The Wall movie existed) and then there's "Radio Waves", where Roger Waters just tells us about Billy in his wheel chair, picking up radio waves through the computer system that allows him to communicate. This isn't really enough to fill up an entire four minutes, so Waters just spends the rest of the time naming US cities. Highlight: when he sings "Oklahoma City" and then lets out a 'Yeah!' after it.

"Who Needs Information?" So we get our first snippet of dialogue before this song, where DJ Jim Ladd plays DJ Jim Ladd who takes a call from Billy. Billy tells him he's from the Valley, and when Ladd thinks he means San Fernando, Billy calls him a schmuck and tells him that he meant Wales. Isn't that kind of a ridiculous thing to expect a DJ in L.A. to guess? It would be like I told you I spent the day in the city, and you, knowing I live in Southeastern Massachusetts, guess that I meant Boston, and I was all like, "No, The Emerald City of Oz! Jesus, you douche!" Okay, the song's about halfway over and I still haven't even started talking about it yet. Waters gives us a snippet of information about the plot of Radio KAOS, which somehow involves Billy watching his brother throw a cinderblock or something off an overpass. That's like two lines in the whole song, the rest of which is just typical Roger Waters-I hate everybody especially everybody else from Pink Floyd that isn't me. And it segues, rather unconvincingly from R&B background vocals, and a lite funk horn part into a Welsh choir. Because I always put those two things together. Just like I put together the plot from 'My Left Foot' with 'War Games.'

"Me or Him"- Let's slow things down here guys. Let's enter ballad territory and explain a little bit more about where everybody's coming from. So, apparently, after throwing a cinder block off an overpass, Billy's brother gets sent to jail. I don't know what he was expecting. Like, I've heard of people spitting off an overpass, but a cinderblock is just a whole other level of douchery. So Billy, all sad that his cinderblock throwing brother is in jail, decides to start calling into radio shows, and apparently he becomes so popular that people all over the world tune in to listen to him. Which seems about as likely as someone from Wales starting WWIII, so you can see that the window of disbelief is closing rapidly. This doesn't really work very well as a concept album because so much shit is happening, so much backstory needs explaining. That's why the best concept albums have such simple concepts. You know when your mother sees a really complicated movie, and she starts trying to explain it to you, and it doesn't make any sense because she just tells you snippets and forgets to fill you in on the most important parts. Now imagine if she wasn't your mother, but instead was the former bass player of Pink Floyd. And imagine while she's telling you about it, a competent but lifeless band played lite funk tunes behind her. There, I just saved you $8.99.

"The Powers That Be"-So three songs into his eight-song masterpiece, Roger Waters has decided to abandon the storyline he's been building so compellingly to throw in a song about how the world is run by a powerful cabal of leaders and businessmen who don't care about the common man, common men who can communicate with complex computer systems with their brains. And then he's decided that Mike & the Mechanics isn't going to steal his thunder, so he invites Paul Carrack to sing much of the lead vocal on this track. I wouldn't be surprised if that makes this the most successful song of Roger Waters solo career, because Carrack also sang lead on Squeeze's biggest hit, "Tempted." Which I think was about packing toothbrushes and combs and also about Cold War politics. I THINK.

"Sunset Strip"- I can't believe this song is written by the same guy who wrote "Animals." Because it sounds like mid-80s Don Henley. Except instead of the smooth California vocal stylings of the Eagles, it's sung by someone who sounds like one of the weird angry Muppets who used to appear on early Saturday Night Live.


"Home"-Okay, we've only got three songs left, and the plot hasn't really moved in two songs, and Waters includes a long DJ bit about different kinds of fish. I've struggled to tie it in as a metaphor for what's happening on the album, but it seems more like a private joke between Roger Waters and Jim Ladd. Although that seems unlikely, since can you picture Roger Waters being part of an private joke? This guy has only laughed once, and that was only the scary maniacal laugh at the end of "The Dark Side of the Moon." Also, we just passed my favorite part of the whole album, when Waters sings "Cowboys and Arabs" and he double tracks it, because it needs to be highlighted. I'm assuming Cowboys are the U.S. and Arabs are well, Arabs. This song also has nothing to do with the over-plot dealing with Billy's plan to annihilate the world because he's...bored? Pissed his brother was incarcerated for throwing a cinderblock off an overpass? Maybe he just hates the radio programming on radio KAOS. And since it seems to only play really lame lite-funk tunes by Roger Waters, maybe Billy's got a point. My second favorite of the whole album just passed by, too, where Waters sings "could be a baker, could a Laker, could be Kareem Abdul Jabar" which is the first time I've thought about Kareem since I was seven years old.

"Four Minutes"-Okay, right after "Home", Billy tells Jim Ladd that he's pressed the button, and Ladd laughs and hangs up on him. And then, for some reason, Ladd seems to really take it seriously, and starts to make announcements about the end of the world coming. A woman, it might be Clara Torres-who was the lady who orgasmed all over 'The Great Gig in the Sky' on Dark Side, is now orgasming all over this track, which is called four minutes to represent the four minutes I guess Waters thought we would have from when the Ruskies pushed the button and actual nuclear annihilation. I think a really good Twilight Zone episode would be if the button were actually pressed and then somebody sat down to listen to 'Four Minutes' and then halfway through just looked over at his wife or someone and said "Shit, it's really taking its time, huh?" Waters is really throwing out all the stops here, including using the sequencer part from 'On the Run' (again from Dark Side) as well as snippets of Margaret Thatcher speeches, and then it all builds to a crescendo: "Goodbye Billy," Jim Ladd says. And you think maybe the album is over. But you didn't count on one thing: Bob Geldof.

"The Tide is Turning (After Live Aid)"- Okay, as far as I can tell, Roger Waters was so moved by Live Aid, the big all day concert Bob Geldof put together to battle famine in Africa, that he wrote this song. And I guess I'm supposed to guess that Billy also saw Live Aid and then decided not to destroy the world after all. I have another hypothesis, though. Billy did destroy the world, and the afterlife is this song, over and over again. That's right, for our sins, we've all gone to Hell. This is probably the catchiest song Roger Waters has ever written, and I remember feeling moved when I watched his concert from the Berlin Wall, where he played the whole of "The Wall" one of my favorite albums of all time, and then closed out with this song, because after the fall of the Berlin Wall, maybe it did feel like the Tide was Turning, more so than Freddie Mercury rocking the crowd at Wembley Stadium with "Another One Bites the Dust" or something. Okay, so the song is winding down, and Roger Waters sings 'The Tide is turning' over and over again, and near the end, he says 'The Tide is turning, Billy', which of course is a reference to the main character of his thirty-seven minute epic (who has only like four lines, and isn't even mentioned in half the songs) but then, the very last line is "The tide is turning, sylvester." WHO THE HELL IS SYLVESTER? I have no idea. Is it the cat from those cartoons? Then who is Tweety? Who is the Old Lady? I think maybe I've missed Disc 1 of this album. This can't be it. But at the same time, I thank God that it is. Because I made it about thirteen minutes into this before I wanted to destroy the world. And scarily, it's actually an album I like. Especially since it includes this guy:


Who represents....maybe American imperialism? Or mutually-insured destruction? Or just cats with lisps?

LISTENING PARTY: Zooropa

I spent two summers during my teenage years at a summer study program at Bridgewater State College called PCC; I subsequently have spent seven summers and counting there as an adult, working first as a residential counselor and for the past several years as a master teacher. It's a difficult experience to put into words; needless to say, putting five hundred teenage boys and girls in a dormitory for six weeks, limiting their sleep, and ginning up their hormones is a recipe for a disaster, and kids usually leave the program in some kind of stupefied funk: nothing will ever be as good as those six weeks were, ever, never ever. The program closes tomorrow, and while as a thirty year old, I am slightly bemused by the melodrama my students are going through (and writing about!) I am also sympathetic. I remember leaving PCC as a student. I was thoroughly depressed. Luckily I had U2's Zooropa album to comfort me.

"Zooropa"- Released in August of 1993, Zooropa was intended to be an EP recorded during U2's ZooTV tour in support of their monstrously successful Achtung Baby record. As with everything U2 does, excessiveness took control, and the EP exploded into a full fledged studio album. It opens with the title track which certainly bears the influence of their producer Brian Eno with its almost robotic bass line, strange voices, and every instrument compressed until they sound like they come from outerspace. Seriously, Eno is so good at compressing stuff, he hires his production skills out at vineyards to work the grape presses. I have no idea what this song is about, or what a zooropa is, but if you listen to this song you will feel like you live in a dark abandoned tunnel. Which as a 14-year old boy, I certainly did, emotionally at least.

"Babyface"- I'm not sure if this is about Kenneth Edmonds or not. It does have a cool toy piano part in it, though, so if you are the father of a small child, you can play this and pretend it is a children's song, but only if your child is a German nihilist. Brian Eno helps the Edge make his guitar sound like rayguns. So it's like a battle between Raffi and Space Invaders.

"Numb"-Now The Edge's guitar sounds like something you would use to open a can of beets. This song is probably one of the few I can think of where the song was enhanced by the video. The Edge's vocals sound eerily disinterested, which makes them great. But it's something Bono couldn't pull off. He'd get two lines in, start thinking about children in Istanbul and the emoting would start. That's probably why U2 has been so successful, because it is a band comprised of a singer who looks like he cares way too much all the time, surrounded by one guy who looks like he doesn't care because he's trying too hard to look unbreakably cool (Larry) another who looks like he doesn't care because he's too busy trying to make his guitar sound like someone raping a sealion (the Edge) and another guy who looks like he doesn't care because, well, maybe he doesn't (Adam).

"Lemon"-This is the first song that sounds like it might have been fun, although Eno came by and compressed all the fun right out of it. Bono sings the whole number in his crazy falsetto. Edge and Eno sing background vocals about light being projected and capturing color, and all sorts of other weird things that sound like they were left over from Talking Head's Remain in Light album. While this album doesn't have the afro-poly rhythms of that TH record, one thing it does share is the sense that you're getting dirty listening to it. Not because it is overly sexualized, but in the same way that you get dirty when you bury yourself up to your neck in your parents' garden. Because that's what listening to this album feels like. The backing vocals end the song by repeating that midnight is where the day begins, which is true, although I don't know if I want my days starting out with infomercials about "Girls Gone Wild" which they start playing at midnight every night.

"Stay, Faraway So Close!"- This is the classic ballad from the record, and while it's also the least "processed" song on the record, it's kind of dirty by being surrounded by all the other songs on the record. It's also the only song that has that trademark U2-lift in the chorus, which might have briefly lifted me from the darkness of my father's basement where I spent most of the month of August '93. But the song is still pretty dark. Case in point: it's a love song named after a Wim Wenders movie. That's like basing the interior decorating of your kitchen on a Francis Bacon painting.


"Daddy's Going to Pay For Your Crashed Car"-The drums have been processed so that they sound like somebody's playing your vinyl siding with PVC pipes. This is the beginning of U2's interest in electronic music, and I'd guess this album did better in Europe than it did here. When I worked at a used record store, we had so many copies of Zooropa that we stacked them up and made a patio out of them. That's not to say that it's a bad album. Far from it. But used record stores (those that still exist) are loading to maximum capacity with copies of the difficult album a band released after its multi-platinum smash hit. If Newbury Comics had a nickel for every copy of Guns N' Roses "The Spaghetti Incident?" they had, well then that probably means they'd have sold out of Guns N' Roses "The Spaghetti Incident?" because I think they sell them for a nickel. So they'd have a shitload of nickels, is the point.

"Some Days Are Better Than Others"- I can decide if Bono was being oblivious with the title of this song, or beautifully zen. It's kind like a koan, right? Or one of those things wealthy rock stars sing about when they try and think about the common man. Because it is my firm belief that every day being Bono is an equally awesome day.

"The First Time"- This album actually came with a warning label. "Caution: Before allowing any emotionally wound up teenagers listen to 'The First Time', please make sure to remove all sharp and blunt objects from their bedrooms." You know how their 1988 song "All I Want Is You" starts out slowly, with a faraway and dark sounding guitar, with all the other instruments kind of growling and bubbling under the surface until the song opens up triumphantly? Picture that song minus the triumphant opening. This song is dark. Like so dark that no light can escape it. I mean, lyrically, it's relatively positive "for the first time I feel love" but dear god, making a 14-year old boy who just had his heart crushed for the first time at summer camp listen to it is torture, even according to John Yoo.

"Dirty Day"- Darrell pointed out to me years ago that the brilliance of U2 is that they play to their strengths, that they developed musically before any of them really knew what they were doing, so that when the Edge started using his guitar as more of a sonic paintbrush, the job of holding down a lot of the melodic and harmonic work fell to the bass player (think "With or Without You".) So listen to any bass line from any U2 song and you'll be able to tell what song it is. This song has a pretty great bass line, is what I'm saying. The end of the song picks up in intensity, and the guitar part is reminiscent of some of the more rocking tunes from Achtung Baby, so that's cool. As far as the rest of the song? Well, I still wouldn't be leaving that depressed kid alone if I were you.

"The Wanderer"- Signs that you have made a difficult follow-up record to a smash hit: 1)Severely obtuse production. 2)Severely obtuse cover art, usually not featuring any band members photos. 3) Severely obtuse song titles that sound like you've been watching too many German or Swedish films, or that you've been spending too much time with spoiled dilettantes and 4) Severely obtuse guest vocals. U2 do their part by having Johnny Cash sing lead vocals over the final track. It is probably the only instance of the Man in Black singing over what sounds like 1980s Europop. I don't know why I even bothered saying probably. This was well before Johnny Cash had gained his "hipster cred" and was known mostly at the time as the "Ugly One" in the Highwaymen, (and that was saying something.) But honestly, if you'd just sold 10 gajillion records, what would you do? Record a similar sounding follow-up? Or record a series of duets with KITT the car from Knight Rider? I don't think I need to tell you where I stand. This is a pretty good song, and I wonder if there is a version of this song recorded in a more traditional guitars/bass/drum fashion somewhere in a vault. The same vault where my heart has been locked away for all time. Whoops, that was 14-year Ryan talking.

LISTENING PARTY: Transverse City

I have never wanted an album like I wanted Warren Zevon’s “Transverse City”. I first became a Zevon fan the end of my sophomore year of high school when I picked up his then most recent album, “Mutineer.” In short order (well as short order as a 15 year with no money in the pre-internet days when people had to go to record stores and buy records with money instead of just stealing them off the web) I picked up “Mr. Bad Example”, “Sentimental Hygiene”, “Learning to Flinch”, and “A Quiet Normal Life” (the best-of collection of his 70s work.) I had read somewhere (and where did we learn things before the internet allowed us to just look up whatever we wanted? I think it was from one of the Rolling Stones Album Review Guides) that Zevon released an album between “Sentimental Hygiene” and “Mr. Bad Example.” I had never seen this CD at any of the record stores I frequented (although I feel like I made a lot of my CD purchases at places like “Circuit City” and “Lechmere’s” at the time) and when my friend Kris told me that she had tried to order the CD for my birthday and was told by our local record shop that the title was unavailable I learned a terrible, horrible phrase: Cut-out. I was never going to be able to find “Transverse City.”
It was about 10 months later (an eternity when you are 15-16) that I learned of a second phrase: Cut-out bin. And in this cardboard bin filled with cassette tapes with their spines sliced, I found a $2.99 copy of Warren Zevon’s “Transverse City.” It was at an old music store frequently found in malls called “The Wall” and I was with my friend Kris, who lent me the $3 I needed to pick up the tape, bringing the whole thing full circle. It is hardly the best Warren Zevon record, but it is my favorite. You can probably make an argument that it is not as warm sounding as the best of his 70s records, or that it lacks the punch of its predecessor, “Sentimental Hygiene.” And that it points the way towards the more simultaneously garish and cheap-sounding production of his 90s work. You may complain, like Zevon’s mother did, that there are no funny songs. But I rejoinder with three simple words:
CYBERPUNK. ROCK. OPERA.

“Transverse City”- I feel like Zevon has been listening to lots of Kraftwerk before recording this song. Or maybe that Taco guy. There’s something so German and Math-y about the way this song opens. Luckily he brought Jerry Garcia to play lead guitar on the track. That’s right, the leader of the Grateful Dead is playing on German Synth-Rock. Did they have to give Garcia a B-12 shot before he started playing? The lyrics sounds like they come from Blade Runner: The Opera. He keeps singing to some girl named Pollyanna, and if I were him I would’ve invited Haley Mills to appear in a music video where she dances around a bank of computer screens and slow dancing with robots. But maybe that’s why Virgin has never offered me a record contract.

“Run Straight Down”- I want to be a chemist so I can make what ever compound Zevon is naming under the music of this song. I bet whatever it is could eat through a safe door. Listen to the video clip. He sounds like he’s naming the ingredients in “Fruity Pebbles” after sugar and rice. Continuing the guest-guitarists-from big-bands theme he’s got going, Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd plays lead guitar on this track. At least Gilmour has experience playing guitar on inscrutable concept albums. I can totally see Gilmour just nodding as Zevon explained his idea. “It’s going to be a concept album about a dystopian future in which people are controlled by chemicals and consumerism.” Gilmour: “One of our albums had a pig singing through a vocoder.” Point: Pink Floyd.


“The Long Arm of The Law”- Zevon is great at dropping completely disarming details into his lyrics. The song just kind of details somebody who is a criminal, and most of the lyrics are pretty generic “When I was born, times were bad, when I got older, they got worse. First words I ever learned were ‘Nobody moves nobody gets hurt.’” But then he has one verse in the middle that talks about a war in Paraguay back in 1999. This album came out in 1989. He’s talking about the future! I love reading about futures that have already passed. Like how Logan’s Run took place in like 1992. “We’ll all be wearing shiny uniforms by then, and they’ll kill all the old people!” Guest star for this track: Jazz pianist Chick Corea, who doesn’t seem to do anything that worth bringing in a jazz great for. Maybe it’s part of Zevon’s theme: in the future, there will be jazz pianists, but they’ll only be able to play on MOR radio albums, way, way down in the mix.

“Turbulence”- This song is about a Russian secret agent. My favorite lines? “Well, I’ve been fighting the mujahaddin, Down in Afghanistan. Comrade Gorbachev, can I go back to Vladivostok, man?” I love that he refers to Gorbachev as “man.” If Zevon had had another verse where he had somebody say to Khrushchev “Bummer, dude” I think it would be the best song of all time. Also, I had to consult the lyric sheet for the spelling of Vladivostok, and there’s a verse that Zevon sings in Russian, and in the lyric book it says [there is Russian lettering here] [unable to re-type] [what should we do?] Guest star: JD Souther on harmony vocals. We’re a long way from the Hotel California, JD.

“They Moved the Moon”- I really like this song. It’s more of a mood piece. Jerry Garcia’s back on guitar for this one. I like to pretend that they just couldn’t get Garcia out of the studio. He just kept on hanging around. It sounds like he was just noodling around, and Zevon puts a bunch of post-processing on the guitar to make it sound like different things. Like outer-space machines. Or something. The song really is pretty awesome, although I like to pretend that the chorus is literal. Or like, if the guy in the song met up with a third grader. “They moved the moon, when I looked down. When I looked away, they moved the stars around.” “Yeah, mister. It’s called the Earth’s rotation.”

“Splendid Isolation”- This song doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the tracks. It’s also the only song that anybody who doesn’t own this album may have ever heard. It’s all about going off to live in the desert like Georgia O’Keefe. Or Michael Jackson in Disneyland. Best line ever: “Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand. And lead me to the world of self.” This song is really a classic. Bonus: harmony vocals by Neil Young, and a great harmonica solo by Warren Zevon. Although that may be a liner notes error, because I know how much Neil Young loves the harmonica. And because it doesn’t sound like the voice harmonizing with Zevon is that of a sick Canadian bobcat. God, how could I be so cruel to Neil Young? Now that I listen to it, the harmonica is most likely not Young, because it doesn’t do that thing that Neil Young harmonica solos do, where it sounds like he just thought that all you had to do to play the harmonica was breath in and out of it really hard. There are individual notes, Neil!


“Networking”-This song brings back the sound effects, where we open with the sounds of people eating lunch. This song utilizes a number of Heartbreakers, so it has a nice organ sound on it courtesy Benmont Tench. And apparently since Zevon had his own bass player, Howie Epstein gets to play the banjo. I think that’s buried way down in the mix. My fiancee loves this song, especially the chorus where Zevon tells you that you upload him and he’ll download you. She always sings along with that part. I love imagining that for many people back in 1989, those two words meant nothing. Oh, Warren, you were so ahead of your time. Open question: is upload/download supposed to be a sexual thing?

“Gridlock”- Alright, we’re never going to make it to the 1999 War in Paraguay if we can’t through this traffic! God, it sucks to think that in the future we’re still going to be sitting around , bumper-to-bumper. Where are our jetpacks and flying cars, Warren? I think Warren must’ve been kicking himself when he realized that by 1999 we eliminated the need to physically move ourselves around at all, able to teleport our minds and communicate telepathically. Man, Gorbachev, let’s just get out and walk. Neil Young on guitar, this time.

“Down at the Mall”- Wait. Americans are consumerist freaks? We like to buy stuff? Malls are really big? After you’re done recording this song, Warren, I have the broad side of a barn I need hit. Would you mind coming down? There are a few nice touches, like when he’s naming all the stores he’s going to go to, and there’s a second voice talking over the list, and it says that they’re going to stop to buy some oriental imports. I like that. Also, I like that he let Howie Epstein play bass, instead of giving him a banjo and telling him to sit in the corner and shut up. At this point I should probably point out that both Warren Zevon and Howie Epstein are dead, which makes me a very insensitive person.

“Nobody’s In Love This Year”- I love this song, and it’s one of the great Zevon love songs. I’m sorry, one of the great Zevon we’re-not-in-love songs. This might be my favorite song title of all time. Guest appearance by Mark Isham on flugelhorn. . Zevon was a great writer, if he wasn’t always a great performer of his own material. Case in point: the “orchestra-hit” keyboard line throughout the song. But the guy is all class, because he pronounces maturity as “ mah-tour-ity” as opposed to “match-err-ity.” He’s like Frasier.

(There is no live version of "Nobody's In Love This Year" I could find, so here is his great we're-not-in-love song from "Mr. Bad Example" instead. "Searching for A Heart")

This album was reissued on CD in 2002 to capitalize on…I’m sorry, commemorate Zevon’s passing. And as such they dug up probably the only bonus track they could find, a demo of “Networking” which frankly ruins my listening experience, because “NILTY” is such a great album closer, and they only include one bonus track? I’m listening to it, because I said I would, but it really cheeses me off.

The album cover is Zevon surrounded by a fractured background of cars and stores and other signs of the capitalistic black spot on the soul of America. I used to think his hair was deliberately styled to make him look like a mad scientist or like Renfield from Dracula, but looking at video performances from the time, this was apparently how Zevon wore his hair. Two years later he would show up with a beard, and I think I can say on behalf of people who look at faces everywhere, it couldn’t have come a moment too soon.