Billy Joel Stole My Life

My parents are rock fans but fans in the barest and most conventional sense of the term “rock fan.” They completely date themselves. They wholeheartedly, without knowing it, believe in generationalism and ironically laugh when I tell them I like bands such as The Byrds, (to this day my mom will walk into my room when I’m playing Beatles albums and say something like, “Oh wow. Getting into the Beatles now?” forgetting that I’ve had their entire discography since I was 11.). They believe there are only about three good bands in the history of rock music (Fleetwood Mac and John Melloncamp reign supreme over The Beatles any day in their book). If my parent’s knew the date of their impending deaths, they would be utterly content knowing they would die with only ten different band’s Greatest Hits c.d.’s sitting in our living room. To their credit, they have expanded their musical tastes. However, these expansions tend to drift down the dark alleyways of Bed, Bath, and Beyond Easy Listening compilations and Enya singles off Barnes and Nobles Café rack. That is their life and they enjoy their limited knowledge of the powerchord. Still, my mother, whether she knows it or not, turned me into the person I am today (a music nerd). This, in turn, I credit for morphing me into a book and film nerd, which in turn kept me indoors for most of my life. This has made me the happiest man alive. But just how did this happen? Billy Joel.

Above any band or artist, the boxing pianist who once drank a bottle of furniture polish before striking gold rules my mother's world. As the tortured songwriter. for every bell-bottomed, satin short clad rock fan from the '70's, this man represents all that is right with song writing in the history of music. Bob Dylan and Beethoven never existed in her eyes. When I was three years old, my mom would put her Billy Joel tapes in my Teddy Ruxpin doll. To the syncopated bass drum beats of Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway), Teddy would blink his eyes in time with the music. I fell asleep listening to Songs In the Attic and The Nylon Curtain albums as the toy’s gears wound noisily to the fury of safe piano rock. During the seemingly endless car trips to my Grandma’s house in Allentown, PA (a city of same name as a 1983 Joel Top 40 single), my mother would blast The Piano Man’s Greatest Hits Vol. I & 2. I played air piano on the dashboard. It was during these long drives I became fascinated with the concept of rock albums as an entity, song structure, and a musician’s career. An hour and a half in a car lasts three weeks when you’re four.

Although completely unconscious of the fact at the time, I was becoming a rock snob, cataloging all the Billy Joel tapes we kept in the glove compartment of our Toyota Corolla.
“Mom, do you have all of the Billy Joel tapes?,” I asked one day.

“Yes, I do. All of them so far except Kohuept,” she informed me. I later found out Kohuept was an unnecessary live in Leningrad album recorded when Mr. Joel became one of the elite few to play in Russia during the dwindling years of the Cold War. See. All you need to spearhead world peace is 88 keys and Christie Brinkley for a wife. “I even have two of his albums on these new things called CDs” my mom added.

I began to stack all the tapes on top of each other, reading the liner notes. I became fascinated that the sax player on his second album was not the same as the one on his sixth album. I noticed the name Phil Ramone showed up under the title of something called Producer on a few of them. Song titles began to intrigue me more than episodes of Eureka’s Castle. I was hooked.
“Mom, one day I’ll buy you Kohuept and you can have all the Billy Joel albums,” I told her once, trying to be mommies little hero, even though I probably only had six dollars in my Dick Tracy wallet and knew not where these tapes were sold.

As I got older, I began to find out exactly where tapes were sold. My musical tastes shifted from kid rap groups who wore their clothes backwards to radio safe alt-rock singles before I knew what “alternative” music was. Still, I never forgot about Billy Joel. And as my mother began to replace her tape collection with CDs, the impression had already been cast upon me. I knew that if I did like a band, you MUST, under all circumstances, collect everyone of their albums ever made, whether the album fell hard off the edge of mediocrity (Billy Joel’s Cold Spring Harbor and Storm Front) or equivocally ended world hunger upon repeated listens (Glass Houses and The Stranger). And this is where I expect a check of compensation from Billy Joel. Through his albums, I learned that a songwriter or band goes through phases, releases chunks of brilliance and moments of uninspired filler. I learned that creative growth occurs through experience and so does commercial complacency. This fascinated me and has since cost me thousands in music related purchases. Still, after all this, I never seemed to notice that my parent’s never owned all of The Moody Blues’ or Genesis’ albums. If they did, who knows, I may have become a politician or a driving instructor?

Instead, I became a slacker. The same mother, who once told me she never liked Jimmy Hendrix, The Doors, and more than six Rolling Stones songs, turned me into a music hoarding geek, spending every dollar I could on shiny 5 inch pieces of plastic in square cases. In fifth grade, when I finally got my first c.d. player, I went to Tower Records and bought all of the overpriced They Might Be Giants albums available, because that’s what I thought you were supposed to do. Then, I repeated this process with the next band, and the next. Eventually, my action figure/comic book fund became an all out conquest to obtain every cool band’s complete musical history.

It wasn’t until eighth grade when I was chatting to my friend about NOFX that I realized everyone wasn’t like me.

“I don’t really like their third album, S&M Airlines. How ‘bout you?”
“Uh…. what’s that?” my friend said.
“Oh, never mind. How about the album Liberal Animation? Do you like that one?”
“No. I guess not?” he said.
“What the hell? You said you thought they were fucking awesome!?”
“Dude, I’ve only heard three songs by them.”

It was then I came to the conclusion the term, “I like that band,” did not mean you had to own all of their albums. Or did it? Still, I could not fathom this concept. How could one wholeheartedly devote themselves and study the emotions and maximum guitar riffage of a band without listening to every song you could possible wrap your ears and mind around?
I once watched a television special about a two year old girl who got stranded in the woods. A pack of wild dogs ended up raising her. When she was discovered as a young teen she walked on all fours, growled incoherent gurgles, and ate dirt and berries off the ground. It seems that we are inherently nurtured through the nature that surrounds us. In which case, I accidentally became a record collector, going into over draft protection several dozen times on the debit card I didn’t ask for when I turned 18. I’ve spent my brother’s birthday present money on new Pavement re-issues from Matador Records. Weeks of running on fumes and canceling social plans because I had spent all my money at the Princeton Record Exchange the week before is now a way of life. All because my mother, a women who knows way more about baking than rock music, kept all the goddamn Billy Joel tapes in the car.

Today, I now look at all of the NOFX c.d.’s on my shelf and ask my-eighth-grade-self, “What were you thinking?” I also have 13 awful c.d.’s from The Queers, all of The Ramones useless late 80’s albums (including 4 live albums), and plenty of forgettable audio yellowing in the dustbin of my mind and left wall of my bedroom. These were not the best purchases, but at the time, it was the only means to an end. These were dire times of consuming, listening, memorizing, filing, and shaping my true identity. Some kids go out for sports. I spent hours in my room hitting the repeat button, memorizing liner notes incase anyone I talked to would ever want to know that Keith Richard’s co-wrote the last song on Tom Waits’ Bone Machine album. Did you know that? Did you want to know that? Oh well, now you know. So what if I became a fat kid who didn’t get much sun? Vitamin D is overrated anyway. Especially when you’re the first kid on your block to know all of Minor Threat’s lyrics and own The Clash’s god-awful Cut the Crap album. Billy Joel, you stole my life, and I don’t want it back any time soon.

Has-Been Comedians and Your Grandmother's Favorite Show

I hate this show.

This show is the canker sore of prime time television. You know the kind of sore that hurts so bad to acknowledge, yet you find some twisted private pleasure in poking it with your tongue. Yeah. That‘s what this show‘s all about. Deal or No Deal is the epitome of American laziness. It sums up where we, as an American society, are in our meaningless lives. And this show could not have come at a better time, or era. Here, you have a show that takes skill out of the game show, the very show that has required, since the beginning of cavemen, the use of some semblance of skill.

For those of you who don’t know about the hottest (no wait, ugliest) thing to hit your television screen since Janet’s tit fell out of her dress and hit the back of the boob tube with a nauseating thud, here’s a quick rub… ahhh, rundown. Contestants stand up on a stage that looks like a mix between a sterile art gallery and a main showroom from some tacky, suburban dream store like Pier 1. Then, over-the-hill, obsessive compulsive, comedian, Howie Mandell, stands up their with a mobile phone looking like a creepy Mr. Clean at a sweet 16 party. He then asks the contestant, who has a suitcase next to him or herself (generally a stocky soccer mom or a loudmouth, greasy Italian guy), if they’d like to accept a set amount offered to them by the good people at CBS, or try to win the amount in the case. To win the amount in the case, the contestants must continually choose the “no deal” option and take a gamble by opening a variety of suitcases guarded by a swarm of matchstick models. Never have I seen so many anorexics in one place. Anyway, the ultimate goal is to hope the case you’ve chosen contains the one million dollars, the amount all Americans seem to strive for with religious fervor, and, for some reason, only seem to be able to achieve by being on some sort of ratings staggering game show. I don’t think anyone’s going to work anymore (well, at least stocky soccer mom’s and loudmouth, greasy Italian guys aren’t).

As I watched this show, which I generally don’t do out of sheer boredom, just like Flavor of Love, it dawned on me why this show is the worst thing sucking on the brains of us lazy fuckers. The game show requires no skill what so ever. There is no questions, besides “do you feel lucky?” and “what does your husband/wife do for a living?” which come up as small talk from Mandell. It’s simply people opening suitcases. If I wanted to watch that, I’d go over to Newark Airport and hang out at the baggage check area. At least maybe then I could watch a possible terrorist lose his homemade shirt-bombs or a politician with a suitcase full of eight year old boy. Now that’s what I call luck.

Where other ratings raping shows like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Greed used to draw a huge American viewing audience, with the possibility to win a million dollars, those shows, at least, provided a challenge and cranial skill. In general game show tradition, the contestants had to apply some arcane knowledge to questions only a certain demography of nerds tended to know, as they hoped they might fall into that demography, just for the night, in hopes of winning the million. But Deal or No Deal offers nothing like that. The only time the brain has to function is when the contestant wonders if they can get a big enough hot tub in their suburban home if they win big. At a time when God-awful sitcoms arrive on the scene with a dagger already lodged in their chests, Deal or No Deal breaths a breath of rank air into the chests of primetime television. And at a time when we can only be bothered with loading more songs onto our iPods (only listening to the first thirty seconds of the song, so you can show you’re friends what other killer tunes you jammed into your digital fortress of eternal music), incoherent MYSPACE bulletin posts full of phrases like “U R DUM“, and the little conflict in the Mid-East we can’t fully view on our television, there’s no better time not to think in America. I mean, they’ve figured it out didn’t they? Who the hell has time, or the drive, to think on or about something as trivial as a game show?

Don’t get me wrong. There have been other terrible, parasitic game show which followed similar standards. There have been shows like Let’s Make a Deal where contestants had to make a life-or-death choice and choose what happened to be behind the door. They would then often get “zonked” when the door would open and a small, shit stained donkey would he-haw out on the stage, ready for the contestant to take home. This show worked well in the drug fueled era or the sixties and finally folded in the cocaine dust cloud of the late 70s. However, throughout it’s run, this show justified itself by humiliating these greedy guests for the low-life’s that they were on a game show that acknowledge that it was useless, trashy, and pure primetime pulp. Meanwhile, Deal or No Deal is purely safe. This show just promotes greed as contestants push themselves to the edge of their luck, endorsing needless material want and gambling. And we wonder why the kids on Super Nanny say things like “I want to be the pussy queen” and “Fuck off and die mom” at the age of four. I mean if you’re gonna watch some gambling on television, at least tune in and watch Rosie O’Donnell throw inedible chips on the table next to Jason Alexander, and his dead career, as they throw around poker lingo like censored sailors on a hokey celebrity poker game. Shit, even the in The Gong Show you had to be able to do something.

Deal or No Deal is too classy, too safe, too shallow, and too hopefully hopeless. It’s just what America needs and wants, because at this point we’re so far off the deep end in the bottomless pool of cultural and intellectual shit. There’s no going back now. Unless, of course, when they open up the case at the end of the game they find a dead puppy instead of the million bucks. That would serve them right and add a little spice to the show. Until then, we just have tolerate washed up comedians (Mandell, Bob Saget, whatever the hell William Shatner is calling himself these days), wear lint free suits, strutting around a clear stage with somber attitudes in place of their lame comedy (Yeah Yeah I know. Who cares if Bob Saget always talks about sucking dick in his stand-up? Is that really supposed to be that shocking? Maybe I’ll host a show of American home videos. But on my show the videos will be of families having sex with each other and then that would actually be both shocking, and maybe, sometimes, funny).

Where's Bobby's World on DVD anyway?

-Eric Truchan

My Top 10 (...no wait....11), albums of 2006!

(The following has aged a few weeks but still holds true.)

2006 Year End Review- Best and Worst of 2006 (according to Eric Truchan)

Hello music lovers,

First of all, my opinion doesn't mean shit in the scheme of things. Who am I? A nerd who spends too much money on c.d.'s and Netflix? Yes, that's right. But here is my tiny voice screaming in a sea of know-it-all snobs and fashion-core kids. In the spirit of Spinal Tap, here are my top 11 albums of the year.My Top Eleven Albums of 2006:

11.Sunset Rubdown "Shut Up, I Am Dreaming"-Lo-fi side project from Spencer Krug, member of Wolf Parade (the best band to come out and temporarily disappear from 2005), delivers an enjoyably stripped down effort of Canadian creativity.

10.The Oxford Collapse "Remember the Night Parties"-Guitar, bass, and drums. All too affective and catchy. Taking cliche's, odd tempos, and cheesy hooks and turning it into gold.

9.Built to Spill "You In Reverse"- Not their best but much better than "Ancient Melodies..." Just happy Doug Martsch isn't dead or a gimmicky recluse like Jeff Mangum (who am I kidding... come back Jeff).

8.The Hold Steady "Boys and Girls in America"-Never have I had such a good time listening to something so unimpressive. Drinking songs to make you contemplate how useless your life is, in the key of Good.

7.The Blood Brothers "Young Machetes"-A migraine headache stuffed in a blender full of poisonous coffee. One of the most forward-thinking, spazztastic bands today that get written off for not being "cool" to like anymore. Challenges "Burn Piano Island Burn" for best album.

6.Yo La Tengo "I'm Not Afraid of You and I will Beat Your Ass"- Terrible album title but the band tackles every style in the vain of "I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One" A nice recovery and return to form.

5.Islands "Return to the Sea"- No more Unicorns? SHIT! Then check out Islands. Even the 10 minute opener and amateur rapping tickle my fancy, in between multi-instrumental, saccharine crusted tracks.

4.Sonic Youth "Rather Ripped"-Their catchiest album to date, still filled with cacophonous guitar meandering and lusciously rich, feedback induced melodies.

3.Mission of Burma "Obliterati"-Dare I say, this is their best album yet? Even better than their 1982 classic "Vs."? Yes, I do. Bob Weston's continued production puts this one over the top. The fine wine of indie rock

2.Tom Waits "Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards"-Not quite an album but the best fucking collection of songs gathered into a box set this year. Everything is worth hearing. Everything! Tom Waits should be the next Santa Clause or Jesus, when either one of them resign.

1.The Thermals "The Body, the Blood, the Machine"- No synths, programming, or ego. Just guitar, drums, bass, and the best album of the year.

Biggest disappointments of 2006:

Cursive- "Happy Hallow"- Useless horns (that sound like they're from a dimestore synth), and filler dominate over usually great Curisve quality songs.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Show Your Bones"- "Maps" was a fluke, not a career change.

The Decembrists "The Crane Wife"-Sill boring and overrated. BORING.

Jay-Z "Kingdom Come"- Ego doesn't rhyme with shitty. That's why this new album blows.

Beck "The Information"- How many years in the making versus the number of great songs? The math doesn't add up.

Robert Pollard "Normal Happiness"- While his Jan. 2006 release, "From a Compound Eye" may be in my top 20, this October album was boring, embarrassing, and full of aged confusion rather than Guided By Voices type hooks.

Make Believe "Of Course"- The over abundance of beating off totally fucks up the amazing music found on this c.d. Should have been a really good six song EP rather than a so-artsy-you-won't-get it full length.

Thanks. Let's hope 2007 is better.