20 (Can We Please Just Rock Now Please?)
Mick stopped by before his Fenway gig. I kind of figured he would. He was wearing a Prada silkprint and new Adidas. His hair was a magnificent clump.
"You still pissed about Bush, mate?" he said.
"Pretty much," I said.
"He's buggering the whole world, isn't he? Trotting out all this tough-guy rhetoric from 30 years ago, so he and his buddies can get rich."
"Right."
"And what are these young blokes doing? The White Strips and Ronco and the rest of ‘em. Sure, Bono does stuff here and there, Mr. Debt Rocker, but he's compensating, right?" Mick did one of his spin moves and landed kind of wobbly. "And all these arseholes slagging us on the telly. The late-night poofs. My face may look like an old lunchsack, but I've got news for you, Mr. Jay Lennon: it isn't. You can't put dried fruit and chips and things in my face and carry it to school. A Yoplait. It wouldn't work! So think about that."
I nodded. Pretty soon he'd want to know if I had any single malt in the pantry.
"That's why I wrote 'Sweet Neo-Con.' I wanted to speak to the boomers, sort of wake 'em up. The silent majority, right?"
He began warbling:
You call yourself a Christian, I call you u a hypocrite
You call yourself a patriot, well I think you're full of sh*t.
"I thought of that last bit, with the asterisk. Clear Channel didn't want the whole word. Fine. I can live with a bloody asterisk. Everyone knows what I mean."
"Very soulful," I said.
Mick nodded. "We're saving people, mate. I truly believe that. You coming to the show, then?"
I shook my head.
"Couldn't get a ticket?" Mick looked pleased. He pulled out his Motorola and checked something on-line. "Cheapest we could do at this point is $4500." He whistled and rubbed at a scuff on the leather of his shoe. "It's super-competitive out there. There's a lot of tickets to move ... It's capitalism. It's America. It's 2005."|AMP|#8224;
"Right," I said. "I keep forgetting."
† = Actual Mick Jagger Quote
1. Howard Tate
Get It While You Can – The Legendary Sessions
(Polygram, 1995)
Tate was the singer Otis Redding wished to become. He cut two dozen songs, all of them soul classics, then vanished into thick air. No other vocal artist loses his composure with such astonishing grace. "How Come Your Bulldog Don't Bite, Baby?" should be legally required at all divorce proceedings.
2. Kings of Leon
Aha Shake Heartbreak
(RCA, 2004)
The Brothers Karamazov of alt rock: three sibs (and a cousin) who make pulsating heartbreak noise. Imagine the Violent Femmes with a scuzzy twang. "Soft" may be the greatest single kiss-off song in the history of sound.
3. Marcelo D2
Acústico MTV (Disc 2)
(Sony Music Brazil, 2004)
I have no idea who Marcelo D2 is, or what he's saying, nor do I care. This is what is sounds like when hip hop and samba have really good sex. (Shouts to Capt. Kirkus McGirkus Semple, who nabbed this badboy down in Bogota.)
4. Ike Reilly
Junkie Faithful
(Rock Ridge Music, 2005)
If Denis Johnson played music, he would be Ike Reilly. He would stand on the corner of some forsaken avenue and plead for booze and you would ignore him and later that night you would hear him outside your window, half frozen to death, softly howling songs to keep you alive.
5. Sonya Kitchell
Words Come Back to Me
(Velour, 2005)
She's sixteen years old. She's winsome. Her teeth are exceedingly clean. Suspicious? So was I. But Kitchell writes bright odes to the bruised regions of the soul. "Can't Get You Out of My Mind" should cure your Norah Jones for good.
6. 22-20s
22-20s
(Astralwerks, 2005)
There's just three of these buggers, though it sounds like about nineteen. They play blues rock of the sort that Mick and Keith used to, back before the apocolypse of their own egos. No wasted notes, no surrender.
7. Lauren Hoffman
From the Blue House
(Free Union Records, 1999)
There's something incredibly delicious about a bitter chanteuse. The standard Hoffman song begins with a sweet, whimsical melody, then descends into sardonic rage. File under: chick folk for people who can't really stand chick folk.
8. Chuck Prophet
Age of Miracles
(New West, 2004)
No one alive is making songs as sly and gorgeous as Chuck P. (If there were, we'd be married already.) This is music for the advanced frottage students, dipped in pop and fried in funk. "Monkey in the Middle" makes me hot enough to rub my Rumsfeld.
9. Decemberists
Her Majesty Presents
(Kill Rock Stars, 2003)
Self-dramatizing? Yep. Pretentious? Kind of. Enthralling? Totally. The Decembrists specialize in yearning ballads and sea shanties that call to mind widow walks and bloody rocks. "Stripped Bare" may be the most incandescent death song on record.
10. Mike Doughty
Haughty Melodic
(Ato 2005)
All you old school Soul Coughers can quit your bitching now. Doughty is all done being skittish. He still makes beat-poet-jazz-pop of unrivaled quality. Only this disc rawks, too. You better get used to the hooks – they're going to be with you for months.
A Special Let's Pretend to Care About Poor People! Presidential Bonus Tip
Allen Toussaint
The Allen Toussaint Collection
(Reprise, WEA 1991)
"Well, I wanna say, first, I hope we're not gonna play some kind of blame game when it comes to this tip, have a bunch of folks accusing me of choosing Allen just because he's a Negro, because he's from New Orleans. No. The reason I like this album, don't misinterpresent me on this, is because Mr. Toussaint makes very spiritual music. Me and Laur, we like to listen, some nights, sure, do some prayer, do some of the funky chicken dance, the one with the chicken. It's hard work."