TOMORROW NIGHT ON THE CATHOLIC CHANNEL - DAVE MATTHEWS' MUSIC

Tomorrow night I'll make my first appearance of 2012 on The Busted Halo Show on SiriusXM's Catholic Channel. It's always fun to hang with Father Dave, Robyn and Brett. Now they have a new board op, a good friend of mine named Christian.  I hung out with Christian at the Rock The Bells festival two summers ago, and we've worked together a number of times since.

Anyway, I'm dedicating my appearance to a friend who is no longer with us.  She was a huge Dave Matthews fan, so I'm playing some Dave songs in her memory.  It's all songs with The Dave Matthews Band, not from his solo stuff or his live material with Tim Reynolds.

A lot of people blow off Dave: in some ways, he combines two things that are very "uncool" in hipster circles: his roots are in the jamband scene, and he has huge appeal with soccer moms.

To me, Dave is a bit different than the rest of the jam band scene in that his lyrics are pretty important (and I don't think he gets the credit he deserves for being pretty heavy and dark). Also, he keeps the songs relatively short (at least in the studio) and tuneful... hence, he has a ton of hit singles. Hence, his appeal to soccer moms. He isn't a metal dude or a punk dude or an "alternative" dude or an indie rocker. He's a regular guy with a kind of awkward sensibility. I'm not the hugest fan: I have most of his studio albums and some live ones.  I don't need to have every one.  I rarely see his concerts - the long jams just aren't my thing. But I have a ton of respect for the guy, he deals with his stardom as well as probably anyone.  He enjoys it, but doesn't let it dictate what he does creatively. I've had the pleasure of interviewing him, and he seems to be a great guy.  

I had two songs that I definitely wanted to use - "Ants Marching" and "Everyday."  "Ants Marching" was the first song I ever heard by Dave.  I was at the H.O.R.D.E. tour and I heard this weird riff coming from the small stage.  I went to check it out.  This band featured black and white guys, guitar, violin and sax.  I thought, "man, this is great, but they'll never get big, they're too different." Oops! I think of that every time I heard the riff.  "Everyday" is a rare instance of a video really enhancing the song.  If you've never seen it, check it out.   I "crowdsourced" the third song on my personal Facebook page, and if you want to hear what song it is, well, you gotta tune in.  If you have a subscription, great! I'm on The Catholic Channel at 7:20 pm-ish.  If not, go here to get a free online trial subscription.

THE POWER OF JOE STRUMMER

Tomorrow night, I make my return to The Busted Halo show on SiriusXM's Catholic Channel. It's been a while since I've been on the program. I'm definitely looking forward to it, it's always fun to talk about music with Father Dave.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the amazing music of Joe Strummer. I think about him a lot lately: I think he would have loved the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and the other ones that it has inspired across the globe.  But whatever your politics are, most people can get inspiration from the way that Joe always stuck up for the underdog.  Whether or not I agree with the tea party, they feel that they're the underdogs!

I'm sure a lot of young (and not-so-young) people can relate to a song like "Career Opportunities." Ditto for "Clampdown."  But while I was doing my research for the program, I listened to "Rock The Casbah," I hadn't really thought about that song (or video) for a long time.  But when I watched the video on YouTube, I kind of forgot how it impacted me as a kid.  First of all, it may have been the first time I saw a  punk rock band.  I was a big metal fan, and I thought of punk rock as sort of cartoony, I guess.  I don't know that this video changed my mind, actually.  But what did make an impact on me was the storyline: first, that it was about an orthodox jew and an arab looking guy hanging out and getting along.  And second, because the thing that they bonded over was music.  I haven't thought about this in a while, but I know that that made an impact on me.

Having just finalized the list of songs that I'm bringing to the show, I just realized that there was nothing from Joe's solo albums, and I feel bad about that.  I know he took a lot of pride in the albums he made with his backing band, The Mescaleros, and rightfully so. So I'll take this opportunity to recommend Rock, Art and The X-Ray Style, Global A-Go-Go and Streetcore.  Let me also recommend The Clash documentary Westway To The World, and the Strummer docs The Future Is Unwritten and Let's Rock Again.

I'll also take this opportunity to remind people about the incredible speeches that The Edge and Tom Morello made about Joe and The Clash when The Clash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a few years ago.  Watch The Edge's speech here, and read the transcript of Morello's here.

TOMORROW NIGHT ON THE CATHOLIC CHANNEL: MAVIS STAPLES DISCUSSED

Tomorrow night I make my first guest appearance on SiriusXM's Catholic Channel in two months. Longtime readers of No Expiration know that usually, every month or so, I am a guest of Father Dave Dwyer on his Busted Halo Show.

Tomorrow night, I'm going to talk about Mavis Staples.  Her album, You Are Not Alone, was my second favorite album of 2010, and over the past few years, I've become a big fan of the woman.

Unlike the other artists I've discussed on Busted Halo in the past, Mavis doesn't always write her own songs, but her voice is so incredible that she brings a kind of ownership to them anyway.  Some of the songs I suggested for tomorrow night are traditional gospel, and she adds her own lyrics to them.

I was planning on talking about Mavis on my next visit to the show - but after seeing the President's speech tonight, I felt that it gives some of Mavis' songs a bit more weight, and I'll discuss that too. It's such a great thing about music, how it can adapt to your needs sometimes.  When I talked about You Are Not Alone on The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick a few months ago, it was also pre-planned... and then just happened to be after Tyler Clementi too his own life. The song felt like it was written for him, and I wished he could have heard it. But tonight, during the President's incredible speech, it felt like the right song for tonight also (as did The Staple Singers' "Respect Yourself").

MIKE NESS DISCUSSED: TOMORROW NIGHT ON THE CATHOLIC CHANNEL

Longtime readers of No Expiration know that every few weeks, I pop up on SIRIUS XM's Catholic Channel's Busted Halo Show to discuss the music of a certain artist. Last time it was Annie Lennox. Tomorrow night it will be the music of Social Distortion leader Mike Ness.  If you've read this blog, you know that I'm a huge fan - I saw them this summer and they blew me away, as they have every time I've seen them... starting with a bizarre arena gig in 1990, where they were the opening band on a bill with Neil Young & Crazy Horse and Sonic Youth at Nassau Coliseum.

Anyway, sin and redemption has always been a theme throughout Ness' music (including his solo albums, which I'll touch on tomorrow night as well) and I think that that makes him perfect for discussion on Busted Halo.  Also, I'm going to see them tomorrow night at Roseland Ballroom right after I leave Father Dave's studio! So expect a review in the next few days.

TONIGHT ON THE CATHOLIC CHANNEL: BLACK SABBATH

For those of you who are new to No Expiration, about once a month I go on SIRIUS XM’s The Catholic Channel’s Busted Halo show to talk about music. Tune in at about 7:20 pm ET on SIRIUS channel 159 and XM channel 117. Thursday nights are “Faith & Culture Thursdays” and we usually talk about a certain artist. We’ve discussed Bruce Springsteen, U2, George Harrison and Bob Dylan in the past, and tonight we’ll be talking about Black Sabbath. Seriously!

Not being of the faith myself, I was a bit worried that this would seem blasphemous. The perception of Sabbath and frontman Ozzy Osbourne is a lot different than the reality. I have interviewed all four original members (we’re only talking about the original lineup) – Ozzy, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward – for The Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath 1970-1978, which I wrote the liner notes for (and I mention this at every opportunity, sorry about that). They used the scary imagery, not because they believed in black magic or whatever, but because as young guys, scary music was cool. I’m not trying to play these guys off as angels, but they weren’t Satan worshippers. In fact, they told me one story about a bunch of actual Satanists who were waiting to meet them at their hotel after a concert, and they all kind of rolled their eyes about it.

Geezer Butler wrote most of the lyrics, and actually came from a Catholic home. Songs like “After Forever” are actually very pro-God, it actually expresses sympathy for atheists and cynics. So, hopefully no listeners will be offended, it should be an interesting discussion.

TOMORROW NIGHT ON THE CATHOLIC CHANNEL: TALKING ABOUT BOB DYLAN

Well, Father Dave, Robyn and Brett from The Busted Halo Show on SIRIUS|XM's The Catholic Channel have invited me on the show again tomorrow night at 7:20 pm ET. It is always an honor, and a great time too. After talking about Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison and U2 on the show, tomorrow we'll be talking about Bob Dylan. I got the idea for a few reasons: (1) Robyn and I were at the same Bob Dylan concert a few weeks ago, (2) at that concert and others on this tour, Bob opened with one of his "Christian era" songs "Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking" and (3) he just released his Christmas album, Christmas In The Heart.

A lot of people see Bob's "Christian" phrase as a really bad era in his career, and he probably pissed a lot of people off at the time by refusing to play any of his older, secular songs in concert. But if you check out the albums from that era, 1979's Slow Train Coming, 1980's Saved and 1981's Shot Of Love, there are a lot of great songs. I'll go on a limb and call Slow Train a classic. Even if you don't like his versions (the production is very much of its era), you should check out Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs Of Bob Dylan, which came out in 2003. Aaron Neville, Dottie Peoples, The Fairfield Four are all on the album, and Bob does a duet with Mavis Staples. Even though Bob eventually turned away from Christianity, and supposedly re-converted to Judiasm, he still sings these songs like he means them, because I think he finds God in songs about God, no matter what denomonation the songwriter is coming from, and I think that's a beautiful thing. He also sees The Bible as a great story to draw from, which I guess it is.