A Desert in the Oasis

Drums of Death - Noel Gallagher w/UNKLE & Mike D (mp3)
F**kin' in the Bushes (live) - Oasis (mp3)

Beady Eye. High Flying Birds. Whether these names mean anything to you depends on where Oasis falls in your musical universe.

When Oasis split up in 2009, the world yawned. Back in 1995, my longtime friend and music nut told me of his love for this supercool new band by describing them thusly, “They’re like the world’s greatest bar band... only with a massive Beatles fetish.”

“World’s Greatest Bar Band” isn’t the most original superlative, I’ll grant you. But if NRBQ and Southside Johnny can lay claim to such a title, I’m happy to give one of my votes to Oasis. I’ll bet Oasis blew the f**kin’ windows out of bars and stripped the paint off the walls in their early days.

The problem with even the best bar band, however, is that eventually it’s closing time, and Oasis kept playing even as the lights went up, the chairs were turned upside down on the tables, and the manager swept up the floor and locked the doors.

The sibling drama between Liam and Noel Gallagher might have amused their fanatics -- it did a sublime job of inspiring a character in LOST -- and it certainly helped sell a few Brit tabloids, but for modest fans like myself, we didn’t give a flip. Make music and make it good, and whatever you do backstage to each other is beyond our fleeting prurient concerns. I’m more interested in what kind of stroller Jennifer Garner buys than I am about why the Gallagher brothers might be breaking bottles over one another’s skulls.

Reasonable minds can differ on exactly when the barlights went up on Oasis, but for me the answer is fairly easy: 1997. The following year, Oasis released The Masterplan, one of the greatest B-side compilations in rock history, which created the illusion of a band still overflowing with creative power. But they were already on the backslide.

Be Here Now, their third release, was less than highly regarded by critics. Not because the music was bad, but more because the Gallaghers didn’t know when the hell to stop a good song. Of the dozen songs on that album, only three dip below the 5-minute mark, and one of those is a 2-minute “reprise” of a 9-minute song. The other two under-5-minute songs clock in at 4:22 and 4:88.

Overlong songs are fine for a prog rock act like Rush, or for a jam band like Widespread Panic, but it’s deadly for a pop rock act or a bar band that idolizes the Beatles, a band who kept some ⅘ of their songs under the 3:00 mark and 95% under the 4:00 mark.

Had Oasis stopped drinking -- alcohol, and a little less from the cup of their own hype -- they could have cut this album down by 20 minutes and had a piece of pop rock art every bit as amazing and infectious as What’s the Story Morning Glory? and Definitely Maybe. Instead, you’re constantly pushing the NEXT button halfway through the song. Unless you’re drunk.

They lumbered through four more albums, each equipped with two or three catchy gems and a lot of forgettable crap, before Liam smashed Noel’s guitar backstage in The Moment That Killed Oasis for good in 2009. (Or at least until the 2015 “20th Anniversary of Morning Glory Reunion Tour.”)

In the past nine months, Oasis has emerged as a two-band Yin and Yang. Liam & most of the other Oasis band members formed Beady Eye and released Different Gear, Still Speeding last spring, and Noel and his High Flying Birds released their eponymous collection in late October.

And the truth of Oasis is in these two releases: Liam has the 'tude; Noel has the brilliance.

Liam was voted the greatest frontman in the history of rock by Q magazine (no, I’m not kidding) in 2010, besting all the names you, dear reader, immediately think of as the obvious choice for this title. While I won’t go as far as Q, I certainly appreciate the key factors that make Liam a helluva stage presence.

Different Gear... comes with plenty of self-confidence and moxie, but that’s about the alpha and omega of what’s good about it. Seriously, I can’t even remember the name of two songs, nor could I begin to hum the lyrics of a single Beady Eye tune. Until yesterday, I hadn’t listened to a single track on that album since the two weeks after I first bought it. Moxie is fun in the moment, but it’s the lipstick on the musical pig.

If High Flying Birds has a flaw, however, it’s the lack of lipstick. They’re the cute girl who could be a supermodel with a little bit of lighting and makeup.

Although neither brother was going to be immortalized for lyrical talents, Noel was definitely the more gifted lyricist, and he was also the one capable of injecting a diversely-inspired sonic assault that managed to wink lovingly to his Beatles while also stealing from hip-hop and electronica and numerous other styles. Noel is -- as most successful modern rock artists are -- a master thief who happily leaves his calling card on the table.

Listen to “Drums of Death,” one of the rockinest mostly-instrumentals ever to bleed out your ears. Listen to “F**Kin’ in the Bushes,” which is basically Noel telling everyone else in the band what to do. (Which, by the way, is exactly why they hated him, because he knows better than they do and probably wasn’t shy on reminding them of that fact.) With rock candy like this, who needs lyrics anyway? (Which probably annoyed the crap out of Liam, since nasally whiny vocals was basically all he brought to the table.)

If you’re not well-versed on the Oasis oeuvre and need a place to start, I recommend The Masterplan. If you want to start with their most recent best work, then you’re much better off starting with High Flying Birds and jumping straight back to Heathen Chemistry or even Morning Glory.

HFBirds, is IMO, the best non-B-side compilation album by a Gallagher in 14 years. If it just had a little more lipstick, it would be awesome. As it stands, it’s just really good.

My Musical Malaise

Birth School Work Death - The Godfathers (mp3)
I'm Not Okay (I Promise) - My Chemical Romance (mp3)

Friday, March 4

Dear Diary,

When it comes to music, the last few weeks can be summed up by a single word: MEH.

Musically, I’m somewhat bipolar. In my manic times, I’ll download 40-50 songs submitted to our BOTG mailbox, listen to them and my many other new purchases voraciously, and then post a “Music Bonanza” of my favorites. I’ll make mixes for people. I’ll be sitting in my office or a meeting, and a song will pop into my head because of some random comment or dialogue. When I’m musically manic, the 9,000+ songs on my iPod are like non-corporeal entities swimming around me at all times.

The downside comes in the depressive phases like the one I’m in now. For the last week, I’ve barely listened to my iPod. I’ve acquired half a dozen new albums over the past month, but none of them are getting spins. One might be inclined to think this is due to the lack of quality of said purchases, but in times like these, who’s to say?

Saturday, March 5

Dear Diary,

As a test, on my way home yesterday evening, I turned off NPR and put on my “Five Star Playlist,” the list of some 300 songs that should never, under normal circumstances, stop playing once they’ve begun. The most important 3% of my collection. And what did I do? I skipped past the first five. I skipped through half a dozen more in the 23 minutes it took me to make it home.

This, people, is dire. It is musical malaise.

Sunday, March 6

Dear Diary,

Things are so bad that tonight I actually sat next to my wife on our couch and disintigrated almost two whole freakin’ hours of my life watching the 25th Anniversary concert of Les Miserables.

I realize that thousands of music-loving souls think Les Miz is just about the greatest piece of artwork since the Sistene Chapel, but I ain’t one of ‘em. What’s more, it wasn't the entire musical. It was just the actors half-acting, but without any of the stage movement. Just standing in front of mikes singing the songs.

While my dear wife drifted off on a heavenly cloud of “One More Day” and “On My Own,” my daughters asked dozens and dozens of machine-gun annoying questions, all justified, because being young girls, they desperately wanted to know WTF was going on so that they could like and understand WTF they were hearing and WTF was making their mother so orgasmically joyous.

The only explanation for me enduring this estrogen-stirring spectacle with my female family was that I’m in a deep, deep musical depression.

Monday, March 7

Dear Diary,

I think I’ve figured it out.

The National, The Civil Wars, Lori McKenna, Justin Townes Earle. These are the highlights of my recent acquisitions. It’s all great music, but it can be a little somnambulant at times. The albums I bought attempting to perk me up failed. "Perky" isn't really what these bands are shootin' for.

Once in a while, the gravitas of my preferred musical leanings wear me down. It’s like the hangover our society felt after the grunge overload of the early 1990s. And at times like these, I need Eric Stoltz to raise up that adrenalin needle and slam it right down into my heart. A few years back, it was The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance.

I know most True Music Fans detest MCR, and I ain't about to go trying to convince anyone of their musical genius. But when you’re drowning in the quicksand of folk acoustic singer-songwriters, nothing pulls you out quite like the seething screamy electric war. MCR were my Dread Pirate Roberts diving in after me and pulling me out of my quagmire of musical malaise.

So last night, in a desperate attempt to wash the taste of Les Miz from my ears, I bought the latest Dropkick Murphys album Going Out In Style for $5 at Amazon.com. (If you must know, The Boss makes a guest appearance on "Peg 'O My Heart"; that fact, plus the discounted price, plus the awesomeness of their song in The Departed all combined to make this a no-brainer purchase.)

I still love my pop music, but increasingly an acoustic guitar, a little harmonization, and some straightforward production quality sends an arrow through my heart more effectively than bombast. But like any drug, too much of a good thing leads to serious consequences, and I was drowning in the wonder of too much heavy dirge and too little superficial lightness of being.

In come a bunch of punky Irish laddies from Boston, driving their Irish car bomb 120mph into my droopy ears, jolting me back into reality faster than talk of tiger blood and rock stars from Mars.

Thank you Dropkick Murphys. You can't sing well, and your songs kinda all blend together in my head, but you rescued me, and you have therefore entered a small but select group of bands capable of curing my musical malaise.

Just in time for St. Patty's Day.

Rock. Out.

Note: as is the apparent norm in this "business," today Bob's file storage site disappeared completely from the Internet, leaving his current song posts unplayable and leaving him without an immediate option for putting up songs in conjunction with this post.

I hope to resume normal programming shortly.

Last Saturday night, I did something that I haven't done for a long, long time.

And, no, I'm not talking about sex.

My family was out of town, and so, I put very, very loud music on in the living room and rocked out. I haven't done that since I don't know when. It reminds of how I haven't played my purple Stratocaster in over a decade and am about to loan it to a former student to see if he can get some use out of it. Apparently, it being a 1972 Strat, it has increased in value since I bought it, so I don't know if I can sell it to him for the price I originally planned (or at all), but I am going to send it his way.

The loud music is the same way. Music, the way it should be heard, has been isolated and compartmentalized--relegated to alone-time in the car or headphones.

When I became a parent, I put away non-parentish things.

But last Saturday night, I got to take them out again. Loud music is college. Loud music is not background music. Loud music is the evening, not part of the evening. Loud music does not need assessments or any other talking about. In fact, the person who has anything much to say beyond "This is rocking my ass" really doesn't need to speak while loud music is playing.

And, oh, the joys of hearing that music the way I've always liked hearing it. Immediately, of course, I wanted to hear live music. I found online a Springsteen concert from New Year's Eve 1978, the Darkness On The Edge of Town tour that I loved so much live and now love in nostalgic ways. It's the tour where Bruce decided he wanted to show off his guitar prowess; though he may not be a master guitarist, he is an idiosyncratic one who, when you hear him, you know it is him playing the solo, and that is what does it for me. The guitarists who have an identity are the ones I really love. And so, I let songs like "Streets of Fire," "Badlands," and especially "Prove It All Night" blast my ears.

From there, I moved on to Tom Petty. "Rebels," "The Waiting," and "Southern Accents" all live.

The next day, I said to my wife, "I'm back into Tom Petty."

"So what else is new?" she returned.

But that's the way it goes. Get to hear somebody loud and live, and all of a sudden, they're back on your radar.

I think we forget most of the time that music is the point, not the window dressing to some other event. I think it takes a night of nothing but you and the music to remind yourself of that.

When I was a child, there were days when I would come back home from somewhere, maybe a friend's house, and there would be no one home but my dad, and he would be in the living room, blasting Glen Miller from the RCA console and when I walked into the room, he didn't turn it down, he didn't ask me how my time had been with my friend. He just said, "Listen to this."