Pop Geek

What Ben Folds found in William Shatner is a man with a genuine gift for lyrical interpretation, if not a gift for singing. Certainly Shatner's record from the sixties, The Transformed Man, has mockable elements, but only because you are stacking his interpretations up against the Beatles, Sinatra, and others. Taking a song sung by a real singer and then reassembling it as a staged reading is a process doomed to failure (although Shatner pulled it off pretty well with his "Common People" cover of a few years back). 

Here Folds creates a character for Shatner to play, writes out a monologue, then sets that monologue to a rhythm and a floating, keening melody. Shatner sinks his teeth into the performance to such a degree that the "character" he creates in this Conan clip is far different from the one he created on the record--more swagger, more cocksure, and in his way, more pathetic. Shatner feeds off the crowd, almost unable to keep from laughing, that same brilliant look on his face as always--like he's in on a joke you could never understand.

It was sometime in 2004 that I realized the following:

1) I owned several hundred music CDs.

2) I was rapidly acquiring a great number of mp3s, which I would then burn to CD-R, thus increasing the quantity of CDs in my life.

3) I could use an mp3 player to literally carry ALL of my music with me at ALL times.

So I bought one, a Creative Zen Jukebox, 60GB, and I returned it a few days later. Something told me something better was out there.

I got an iPod, also 60GB, one of the first video-enabled versions. I got it for Christmas one year and spent several nights after the holidays dilligently ripping all of my CDs as 192kbps mp3 files. The CDs went into a box; a few years later, I sold them all.

There was no looking back. 

**

I have an iPad, a decent Android phone, two laptops, several external hard drives, and a little iPod shuffle I use when I do yard work. 

My 160GB iPod Classic is the most important consumer electronic device I own. 

To most, the idea of 160GB worth of music on one's person at all times is insane. But if that idea makes sense to you, then it makes A WHOLE LOT OF SENSE. 

I have about 200GB of music on an external portable hard drive. It includes those several hundred CDs I ripped years ago, many bootleg recordings, stuff I bought from iTunes and Amazon, and albums I've acquired through a variety of not-quite-legal means. The "essential" material from that library lives on my iPod Classic.

If I'm driving, I usually start with playlists I have set up to capture all the songs I rate four or five stars. It's like a personal radio station that continues to grow its playlist as I explore records and find new great songs. 

If I hear a song that reminds me of a great album, or puts me in the mood for a certain artist, then a few spins of the click wheel takes me to that album, or that artist. That may not seem important to you, but to a music geek, it's invaluable. 

For me, music is like this endless constant conversation going on every day of my life. In the car, at the office, I'm frequently listening to something. Each song, each record, leads me onward to the next. 

The iPod Classic is what makes that possible. I hope it never goes away. 

I currently have 1,884 albums on my 160GB iPod. I will listen to them all, in a random order, and write about them.

I recall 1995 for Bruce Springsteen mostly as the height of his "dirt-road troubador" phase, where he grew his hair long, wore it in a ponytail, and favored flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up. He had just released The Ghost of Tom Joad and was touring solo with his acoustic guitar, his voice transformed to a Guthrie-esque mumble. He'd launch every show with a half-joking speech to invite his audiences to "shut the fuck up." If you were lucky, he'd strip down one of his classic rockers and give it the folkie treatment in the encores.

For the occasion of the opening of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, a gigantic concert was held, and on the bill was Bruce Springsteen...and the E-Street Band. This was no small moment for Bruceheads; he hadn't played with the full band live in a very long time, and some had given up hope that he'd ever reunite with the boys (and girl) for any further music. 

I don't really know what the situation was surrounding the show; knowing Springsteen, it seems unlikely that the gang wouldn't have met up at least briefly a few days before the show to rehearse. But what I love about this opening tune especially, a cover of Big Joe Turner's "Shake Rattle & Roll," is that you can hear the band learning to play together again, chomping at the bit to unload, slipping riffs into whatever opening they can find and stepping over each other occasionally in the process. Not in a sloppy way; this group couldn't put on a sloppy show if their lives depended on it. It's more of an unhinged exuberance. 

Springsteen himself uncorks with a killer solo, but of course, only after giving Clarence "Big Man" Clemons a chance to skronk up the joint. Drummer Max Weinberg sounds like he's trying particularly hard to maintain his composure through a fairly restrained blues shuffle beat; in fact, I'm almost certain you can hear him slowing the tempo down a bit about a minute into the tune. 

The rest of the set would feature Springsteen and his band backing Jerry Lee Lewis and ending with a fiery if bleak take on "Darkness on the Edge of Town." The only true nod to Springsteen's own rock history is a version of "She's the One" from Born to Run. 

I was at this show, and just coming into my own as a Broooce nutjob; even this small taste of the righteous firepower of the legendary E Street Band was enough to drive me bonkers with excitement. I was practically in the last row of the since-demolished Municipal Stadium, some shithole of a dump where the Browns used to play, and it was one of the finest musical moments of my life, like a family reunion you never imagined you'd be able to attend. 

(No, that doesn't make Clarence Clemons my grandpa. LET ME HAVE MY MOMENT.)