Jukebox Heroes

Remember jukeboxes? The only place I see them now are Waffle House and the occasional bar, but they used to be as much a part of the landscape as pinball machines, pay telephones, and other stuff that’s gone the way of the dinosaur. Jukeboxes, especially the original ones that had the giant ring of 45 rpm singles in them, were cool to watch, and when I find one I’m still drawn to checking out what’s in them. Waffle House ones have actual original Waffle House songs plus the kind of classic country, rock, and semi-current pop you’d expect.

The jukebox inspired many songwriters over the years–here’s a list of my favorite jukebox-related songs. If you have others, add yours in the comments.

“Jukebox Hero”, Foreigner: classic rock referencing a rock classic, the jukebox, as the ideal career destination. Now, this would be written as “American Idol Hero”, probably.

“I Love Rock and Roll,” Joan Jett & the Blackhearts: I used to know every word of this song by heart and I even remember singing it as a kid at a party my parents were having.

“Please Mr. Please”, Olivia Newton-John: From her early country phase, this one made people look for B-17 on jukeboxes for years. A great example of the jukebox as an active part of someone’s relationship, or breakup in this case.

“Wild Night”, Van Morrison: “And the jukebox roars out just like thunder,” goes the line in this one…Van the man knew how magical a great jukebox could be.

“Don’t Rock the Jukebox,” Alan Jackson: A late entry chronologically but a great chorus and a typically country turn of phrase in this pro-country anthem.

“Bubba Shot the Jukebox,” Mark Chesnutt: Country music’s full of jukebox-related songs, but this is the only one I know of where the juke is destroyed in the process.

For pictures of some classic jukeboxes and other great memorabilia, check out this California retailer, Brooks Novelty.

The Connells Revisited

Ran across some Connells videos (while I was looking in vain for one of fellow NC band Dillon Fence’s “Frances”) and hearing some of those songs reminded me how much I liked the band’s music, especially their first couple of albums, including their best, Boylan Heights.

While they sound much like many other jangly Brit-influenced college radio darlings of the late 80s (The Reivers, Dreams So Real, Dumptruck, etc.), with the friends I circulated with, they were about one rung above Hootie & The Blowfish on the ladder of coolness. Most of this attitude, I’m convinced now, was due to their popularity among the frat and sorority crowd, who packed every show I attended back then.

Listening to the almost Celtic-sounding, majestic tones of “Over There,” or the insistently poppy chorus of “Scotty’s Lament” now, the only thing that matters is that these are great songs.

Mandy Moore, v 2.0

Is it just me, or is Mandy Moore the only one of those teen-pop artists to actually grow up sane? She has been more about making movies than music lately, but a new album is coming out May 26th called Amanda Leigh, which I’m assuming is her given name. The single already out is a great slice of pop with attitude: “I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week.”

Kill The Music: A Novel

Kill The Music
By Michael G. Plumides

The author of this book would like you to believe it’s about issues of censorship and freedom of speech, and there is a story line that concerns a club being shut down due to an “obscene” performance, but that’s not the real subject addressed in Kill The Music. No, what’s really going on here is more about the author than anything else—thankfully, he’s a pretty entertaining storyteller, in the same way that guy you knew from college can still tell great stories about when he was in school twenty years ago as if the events transpired only last week.

Michael Plumides was a cocky asshole when I first met him and I doubt he’s changed much since. The problem with branding him a jerk, however, is that he was pretty good at whatever he chose to do; whether it was picking up beautiful college girls or playing disc jockey at WUSC (or, much later, getting a law degree). We were both student DJs there in the late 1980s, the time and setting of the first section of this book. Plumides’ two years at USC is explored in some detail, with the high point being stories of interviewing Lemmy from Motorhead and Dave Mustaine from Megadeth.

Plumides manages to convey vividly some of the petty political atmosphere surrounding the USC radio station at the time, though he’s changed most of the names that he criticizes for various offenses against him. He’s properly congratulatory of the station, though, for its then very influential standing in the world of college radio, and he manages to drop enough familiar names (Mark Bryan of Hootie & the Blowfish, Art Boerke, Danielle Howle, and others) to make it interesting for anyone who was around in those days. (Full disclosure–He even worked my name into one of the minor plot line stories, though it is just part of a list of people who were at a particular party.)

The scenes set in Charlotte at the 4808 Club which Plumides owned for several years are less revealing and more geared toward getting to the point of the book, the censorship debates of that time which gave us Tipper Gore and the PMRC. The central event of this half of the book is the GWAR concert that gets the club shut down, but it’s not necessarily the best part. Plumides manages to convey some of the anxiety of being a club owner—will people come out to see the bands, can I pay rent this month, will the fire marshal shut me down if too many people show up, etc., and he also reveals a bit of his own growing up in the process.

It is this personal passage into adulthood that makes the story line meaningful in some sense other than letting people know how cool he thinks he was in college or pontificating about censorship issues, and that means people other than his former USC classmates might want to read this, too.