All posts by Christian Crumlish

About Christian Crumlish

xianChristian (xian) Crumlish was raised on classical music, show tunes, and Frank Sinatra - with a maudlin Harry Chapin interlude in there - and then started listening to his older sister's pop records, from Sgt. Pepper to Jim Croce and Cat Stevens and later Foreigner. He discovered WPLJ in NY in the mid-seventies and was indoctrinated by repeated airings of Steely Dan's Aja and Steve Miller's Fly Like an Eagle, teetering on the edge of a soft-rock pablum heck.

In high school he was exposed to the Doors, rediscovered the Beatles, and got hep to Ian Dury and the Blockheads. In college he went retro, succumbing to the lysergic web of inquiry surrounding the mid-to-late-early-mid-late Grateful Dead, but also got on board with old school (at the time new school) hip hop like Run DMC and Fab Five Freddy, obscure reggae from his DJ roommate, and New Romantic hits coming from the UK.

In Reagan-era job-slavery hell he finally caught onto the SST scene as it was waning, developing a life-long love for D. Boon, Mike Watt, Hüsker Dü and the Meat Puppies. Camper Van Beethoven somehow pushed all his buttons at once. He also learned he could trip out and dance at P-Funk shows sometime around then as well.

Sometime after that it all stopped making sense and his thousands of CDs began to bore him in an ever-rotating sequence. He looks to his social network for music recommendations now and values randomness and serendipity above all else.

Astral Days

bonerama_3604_big.gif I’m on my annual pilgrimage to New Orleans, the big not-so-easy-anymore, checking out the first weekend of the Jazz and Heritage Festival, or JazzFest for short. Fest is an orgy of music, food, and crafts, not necessarily in that order. Every year we try to revisit some old favorites, check out a few ringers, and stumble over some music we’d never heard before. Last year’s discovery was twisted Louisiana piano perfessor Bobby Lounge, who we’ll be seeing again tomorrow. This year so far I’ve fallen in love with Bonerama (not what it sounds like) and have two more days to discover something totally fresh.

Between the soft-shell crab and cochon du lait po-boys, rosemint ice tea, popcorn shrimp, and beignets today we heard jamming’ string-band music from Jeff and Vida and caught snippets of Zachary Richard, Trombone Shorty, Soulive, and Percy Sledge. We ended the day by shoving our way to near the front of the Acura stage (where they’ve finally outlawed those obnoxious frat/sorority style easy-chair encampments), to watch Van Morrison prove he’s still got it with a country-ish (dobro and fiddle included) band offering five-party backing harmonies. Dr. John came out to sit in on a Fats Domino tune but it looked like they had woken him up from a nap or a nod, because he tootled on the piano just a little bit and interspersed a little response to Van’s call in his inimitable “Y’at” drawl. Van opened with “Moondance” and took his time with “Cleaning Windows” and country classics like “There Stands the Glass” before my arthritic knee threatened to kill me if I didn’t hobble off the green and find some place to rest.

Continue reading Astral Days

Goodbye, Ruby Grapefruit

piso mojado In an interview I did once with psychedelic guitarist Steve Kimock, I asked him why, when I hear music that isn’t familiar, I often find myself relating it to something I do know. For instance, a song by his then-band Zero had a hook that reminded me of the chorus of a Beatles song. One of his guitar riffs reminded me of Mark Knopfler’s playing on “Money For Nothing.” Zero’s cover of “Baby, Baby” (aka, “Baby, I Love You,” made famous by Aretha Franklin) smacked of a Dead song (“The Love Each Other”).

“Cultural preconditioning” was Kimock’s explanation. He was also talking about our familiarity with western scales and harmonies.

I can’t help thinking there’s something a mite odd about the way my brain will take some string of music fed into and run this frantic search to find even an approximate match in my memory. But then, it’s not just me, is it? In the Onion‘s ’03 classic “I Have An iPod—In My Mind,” the fictional writer touts the superiority of his built-in iPod:

There are no firewire cords or docks to mess with. I just put my hands behind my head, lean back, and select a tune from the extensive music-library folder inside my brain….

You say those iPods have customizable playlists that allow you to line up songs of your choosing? Primitive! I can put together a playlist, say “Best-Ever Heavy Metal Anthems,” while I’m sitting in traffic. My mind is light-years beyond that, though. Does your iPod have the “That Reminds Me Of Another Great Song” feature? Well, my mind does!

But I can go the fictional Ted Lascowicz one better. Given an arbitrary string of words my mind will come up with a somewhat relevant lyric. For years I’d find myself humming “Ruby Tuesday” (in my mind, that is) while shopping at the legendary Berkeley Bowl. Eventually I realize this song recall was being triggered by the stacks of ruby grapefruits.

And just this morning I noticed a bilingual wet floor sign in a stairwell at work. I’m going to assume that piso mojado means what I think it does. But a good ten minutes later I caught my mind cueing up Janis Joplin as she broke into perhaps the greatest cover song of her career, and singing

I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take another little piso mojado, baby,
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah.
Hey! Have another little piso mojado, baby, yeah.
You know you got it if it makes you feel good.

Oh yes indeed.