Comments on: Swinging Modern Sounds: Heliotropism

By: peter breslin

peter breslin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:49:56 +0000

Thoroughly enjoy your description of Tucson. The town feels like a hilarious, sprawling, sad and wrecked mess, yet quaint by comparison with the Great Hell that is Phoenix. (allow me to indulge in a bit of “you think you’ve got problems” oneupmanship). Talk about running out of luck, or never having it, or both. Phoenix is something like Vegas minus the culture…or a fake LA. Imagine. While Tucson may be a sort of bellwether, Phoenix is the apotheosis of everything declasse, tasteless, grotesque, gauche, ham-fisted, hideous and banal about the US. Even the local “alternative” weekly newspaper, The Phoenix New Times, owned by no less than Village Voice Media, is an ass backward, ignorant rag. Fearlessly and proudly so.

One of the great American musical iconoclasts grew up near Tucson, in Benson. Harry Partch. He even has the right last name.

By: unreliable narrator

unreliable narrator — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:54:57 +0000

I’m late for this particular party, but just wanted to say that my partner and I only became fans of the Meat Puppets when we moved to Tempe last year and suddenly songs like “Lake of Fire” and “Scum” made a lot more sense. Kirkwood et al. share a profound understanding of the genuine hellishness of life in central Arizona.

Thank you for not even MENTIONING that Other Famous Band from Tempe.

By: Rick Moody

Rick Moody — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:57:37 +0000

Well, I never saw them live, and so I defer there. But I might, just on the level of semantics, make a distinction here between “showoffy” meaning “outsized” or “entertaining” or “ridiculously over the top,” versus “showoffy” meaning “displaying inordinately technical skill.” Steve Vai, e.g. Despite being great musicians, the Tubes never wanked. Ever Roger Steen, a remarkably versatile lead player, did not wanked. Did they showoff in the sense of making spectacles of themselves? Every night, as far as I can tell from the video documentation. ut their play was always, in the end, musically just and appropriate to what was happening. No Tube had to be the center of attention. You can tell: none of them has gone on to any solo anything. (Regrettably, I think.)

And I have heard Love Bomb, which has some nice touches, and a nice cover of “Woolly Bully,” right? Of Rundgren productions, I sort of prefer Remote Control. I actually really really like Remote Control at the time.

By: matt

matt — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:44:31 +0000

I saw the Tubes 12 times. They were UTTERLY showoffy in a musical sense. Their chops were never restrained. Just for the record. Your right, those first (I’d say) four albums were Manna. And if you never heard their Todd Rundgren produced LOVE BOMB, it’s pretty inspired too (I don’t know whose inspiration it was).

By: Jeff Banister

Jeff Banister — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:30:17 +0000

Nicely rendered if a little overblown. I like the blending of land- and music-scape: there is a kind of sui generis cross-pollination of the two here in Tucson (I know next to nothing about music, however). The voyeuristic thrill of grit and poverty–oft-repeated in discussions and descriptions of Tucson–creeps me out sometimes. I don’t know; this, too, is a form of exploitation. On the other hand, I understand it, admittedly share in it. Living in this city is, after all, to live a contradiction. I suppose that’s clear in this piece, and I appreciate being reminded of that.

By: Rick Moody

Rick Moody — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:44:33 +0000

Elisa, I really like Book Stop too, as I think I said above. And I have to say I love love love love love Tucson. Tucson speaks to the hope I have in me somewhere. I hope that much is obvious. But I want to try to love it for what it is, not what I want it to be. I see the good stuff, but it coexists with the bad stuff, and that is the way it should be, as far as I’m concerned. I love Tucson for the same reasons I loved NYC in the late seventies and early eighties, for the same reason I liked Times Square better when it had the sex business in profusion. Not because I love the sex business, but because I love the truth. Tucson has some of that darkness, for all its voluminous sunlight. And so it seems honest to me, and genuine.

By: Elisa

Elisa — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:18:17 +0000

I’ve lived in Tucson since I was 5, originally from Calexico(how ironic) and completely understand the feeling of “this is not how its supposed to be.” Maybe that’s why I’ve resorted to hiding out on 4th Ave and dying my hair purple(which I’m serious about). But it really is the esque of 4th Ave that keeps me here, along with being a University student. Down there, you meet the right people, the ones who can’t go to Border’s because all you have is a bike (myself included). Antigone is a great book store, along with The Book Stop (has the vintage of the vintage) books on south 4th Ave.

As far as local music, check out Monterey (you’ll find them on myspace) and as well as The Dusty Buskers (great authentic folk).

Maybe there’s a bright side to Tucson you’re not seeing. But all I have to say is I won’t be here forever.

Ciao.

By: Rick S

Rick S — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:41:48 +0000

I take solace in your well-written post, coming as I do from Buffalo, New York, a pretty hard-luck town. It was once elegant, with Frank Lloyd Wright houses and Olmstead parks, but just as it was having it’s coming-out party to the world, the Pan-American Exposition of 1901, Leon Czolgosz shot President McKinley (who died a week later in what eventually became the student parking lot of my high school). It’s been downhill ever since: urban decay, lost manufacturing jobs, racial tension, white flight, four consecutive Super Bowl defeats, not to mention the miserable 5 ½-month winters: need I go on? Out of this dismal milieu came Mercury Rev, Ani DiFranco, the Goo Goo Dolls and the Buffalo wing, and there’s not much bad to be said about the Buffalo wing.
I also share your enthusiasm for the 70s Tubes. They were a scrappy, hard-luck outfit themselves: I remember reading in Rolling Stone how they were broke and owed thousands of dollars to their old label, A&M (probably from the cost of their elaborate shows) when they wrote “Talk to Ya Later” in 15 minutes and revived their career for another decade. I take solace in this too.

By: Juangordo

Juangordo — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:56:39 +0000

Maggie is a one of a kind person, singer, songwriter & poet. If you get the opportunity to meet/see her perform, I recommend it highly. She is just fabulous.

By: luigi monteferrante

luigi monteferrante — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:18:47 +0000

Buongiorno, as much a desert is my hq in winter; the gift of isolation, time, but the dinamo is self-generated; its result, the ensemble of music and poetry from a Canadian author who’s drifted across the sea. lend an ear…