Alice in Chains - Rooster (Dylan's Dumb iPod #4)

Dude...let's go back in time for a bit. To a time that was more pimply faced. A time where confusing erections came and went with all the frivolity and seeming regularity of blossoms on the Apricot tree. A time where it was socially acceptable...nay, encouraged to bleach only the top part of one's hair. When boys and girls would date each other only between the hours of 8:30 AM and 3:30 PM. To a time when everyone reeked of maxx-hold gel, Michael Jordan cologne and fruit roll-ups and finding a ride to the movie theater was one's only weekend objective. Middle school bro.

Now, truth be told, Alice in Chains pre-dated my middle school career. By the time I started 6th grade (1998), they were already on their big hiatus, Jerry Cantrell was set to release a solo album, and the band was still resting on the laurels of their Unplugged performance ("Friends don't let friend's get haircuts.") It doesn't take away from the fact that in middle school, I was obsessed with this band. While the nation had turned away from "alternative music" to focus on the bastardized staccato of the rancid Nu-metal beast that was emerging, me and my friends got heavily into the "grunge" bands we'd just been introduced to by older cousins in elementary school.

To date, hearing "Rooster" in the wee hours of the morning during the summer between my 5th and 6th grade year on an FM radio call-in show...well it stuck with me. It's probably because it was late, and I was younger and (ostensibly) stupider, but somehow it seemed really heavy. "Rooster" is a heavy song. Not heavy like Crowbar or Madball...but it had an emotional depth I couldn't really fathom as a kid. Those cooing gospel sighs at the beginning, Layne Staley's crackerman drawl and the slowest example of Jimi Hendrix style whammying I'd ever heard. Unreal. I knew it was about war. It had to be. It's a sad song, and it was a sadness that I identified with...for reasons unknown.

I misinterpreted a bunch of the lyrics. I still can't tell if he's saying "walking tall the chicken man" or "walking tall machine gun man." The line about "got my pills 'gainst mosquito death/my buddy's breathin' his dying breath." You wanna give a 12 year old the shakes? Holy damn.
There's conflicting opinion as to why the song's titled "Rooster." I guess something about the flare of a gun looks like Rooster feathers or the Eagle insignia that Vietnam soldiers wore on their arm. Something like that. The video actually had real soldiers come and re-enact and it's been praised for it's realism. The song was referenced in a Beavis and Butthead episode too. They talk about "snuffing a rooster" with a war veteran.

All I know is that I waited by the radio, blank cassette in hand and my finger poised above the "Record" button to snag it the next time it came on. It's a song I listened to incessantly (still do) because it's got a slow crawl and a leaden punch that I haven't seen replicated in many other places.

As I got older, my hardcore friends got all high and mighty about Alice in Chains, saying they were too slow, or citing their bonehead demographic. They weren't far off the mark, but I stayed loyal...though I haven't really been following their new stuff (new singer? It's alright, but they should just change the name of the band).

Maybe people listen to this song and get reminded of horrifying war time experiences they've endured. Korea. Vietnam. Desert Storm. I don't get any of that. It just makes me think about rainy school bus rides in the rain, bad Adidas and all the other horrors of middle school...and somehow it still makes sense to me.



The song is from the Alice in Chains album Dirt, 1993, Sony Records, bluh bluh bluh

Beady Eye - Millionaire (Dylan's Dumb iPod #3)

Maybe people were genuinely excited about Beady Eye. I guess I kind of was…but as solid as Different Gear, Still Speeding may have been (nods to Andy Bell on that one) much of the time it sounded kind of stunted and played out like mid-late (bad) period Oasis. Still, it’s not always fair to compare the two bands, what with Noel Gallagher (Oasis’s primary songwriter) up-and-leaving his brother Liam to try and cobble it together (Let’s not forget that Liam’s contributions to Oasis pretty much begin and end with those soaring vocals. His songwriting credits are scant) with the remaining lineup…a lineup that’s seen more upheaval than the Louisiana coastline.

Still, the record wasn’t bad at all (I reviewed it in a mag I write for) and defied many skeptical expectations. Liam sounds great imitating all his favorite British singers (John Lennon and Paul Weller mostly) and the band sounds loose and fluid, (more than ever) incorporating little strains of sixties psyche and pop into their sound.

“Millionaire” is an Andy Bell/Liam Gallagher/Gem Archer composition and was released as the second single for the album. It’s supposed to be about driving around Spain and looking at light shining through a stained glass window, admiring Salvador Dail paintings or something else completely underwhelming like that.

It’s got a weird “swamp” feel to it (maybe it’s that steel guitar) and the melodies are sticky sweet (and the lyrics are kind of a mouthful). I detect a heavy La's influence here too. Beady Eye certainly isn’t one of the most memorable bands, but I never regret playing their records and you can’t go wrong playing them for others either.

Video for “Millionaire”

This stuff is all taken from the Beady Eye album Different Gear, Still Speeding 2011 Beady Eye/Danger Bird Records, bluh bluh bluh.

Ride - In a Different Place (Dylan's Dumb iPod #2)

Good golly, if Ride isn’t one of the most fantastic bands in existence. Heavenly though it may be, a good lot of shoegaze (especially anything retro) is fairly indistinguishable…but Ride always managed to stay above water. Most nerds herald Nowhere as their zenith record and probably one of the genre defining masterpieces. Cool people love that wall o’ sound shimmer and they can appreciate that awesome cover art.

I’m sure there’s a gamut of opinions as to what this song’s about. Drugs (“blowing bubbles, lying down” sounds kinda gross to me) tuning out (“you and I were in a different time.”) and being impervious to weather (“Even if the rain falls down, and all the sky turns cold/ I will still be fine.”) Maybe it’s about the euphoric charge a youngster feels when foolishly falling in love or huffing keyboard duster (or that weird game we used to play where we’d pass someone out by cutting off airflow to their head. To get real extreme, when their eyes had rolled back and they’d lost a little consciousness, we’d run out the door and turn the lights off so the poor asphyxiate would wake up 12 seconds later completely disoriented…really dangerous. Don’t do it).
I’m a sucker for those drums because they sound like the kind of drums that God would play if he was mixing a Kyuss record and then playing it underwater. Swirling, kaleidoscopic guitars that chime and hiss and everything is just a beat or slower than you’re used to…dreamlike…or as if you’re walking as fast as you can through a swimming pool.

A dude in my American lit class (Junior year o’ college) used to wear a Ride Nowhere shirt. I was (am) painfully lonely so I tried to make conversation with him. It came to light that he was from San Diego (nothing wrong with that) and was into longboards and Fleet Foxes (plenty wrong with that). Forever alone.

What if stoner kids in middle school wore Ride shirts and not Sublime ones?

(Song by Ride from Nowhere. 1990 Sire Records).