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Pop Talk
With David Segal
Washington Post Music Critic
Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2003; Noon ET

For a few years, he played guitar and sang in a deeply terrible cover band, the Bremers. The highlight of the group's show was a stalker version of "Leavin' on a Jet Plane," which was retitled "You're NOT Leavin' on a Jet Plane." He's been at The Post for going on eight years, first as a Book World editor, then a Business section reporter and finally as pop music critic. He enjoys the work and would like to point out that he is writing his bio, even though it's written in the third person, like someone else wrote it. Segal is doing that so he appears more important than he is, which is hilarious when you think about it!

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

David Segal: We're back and bigger than ever.

Want to start by plugging a band called Vic Thrill. They're from Brooklyn and have recently released their debut, CE-5. For some reason, no one has written about these guys, although I think this album is pretty special. This band is the new Devo. I tried a couple weeks back to describe the sound in a short review and here's the best I could do:


It sounds like a bunch of deranged aliens singing cartoon theme songs. No, wait, it's more like a barbershop quartet of robots making speed-disco at a prom in the future. Or maybe it's polka for lunatics. Whatever it is, "CE-5" is the kind of album that is more fun to laugh
along with than define.

You know you've landed in a wacky parallel universe within 15 seconds of the opening track, "Hummingbird Pneumonia." The song has a trotting, vacuum-packed synth beat and a chorus of IBM computers singing like happy pirates. (Maybe it's actually the Thrill and band mates Goth
Castrado, Saturn Missile and Aure Dextra.) The verse from "Afrological" could be inspired by David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" days, but the chorus
perks into something not even Ziggy's backup band, the Spiders From Mars, could have imagined. None of the lyrics make any sense ("Lived under a river with a friendly sound / Ran a villa nova above the ground," Thrill sings on "Pneumonia") which just adds to the
interplanetary weirdness.


Anyway, these guys are goofy fun. I recommend this CD.

Ok, a trivia question. It's about a Beatle. Why? Because I don't have anything current in my head, ok!?

Before Ringo joined the group, he contemplated moving to a city in the U.S. and actually sent away for the paperwork to apply for a work permit (or maybe it was residence, I don't know.) Too many forms to fill out and Ringo ditched the idea.

Which city did he want to live in? And why?

Let's get it on...

Washington, D.C.: Do you have any response to local author George Pelecanos' remarks about you and your abilities as a music critic? On his Web site, he writes:

"I'm not a rock critic, so I don't have to protect my street credentials by denying the merits of certain artists just because the unwashed masses happen to like them. The Beatles, The Stones, Al Green...all were tremendously popular. Does that mean they weren't "any good?" This lame logic has often been applied to Bruce Springsteen. To wit: one of the rock writers from a New York alternative weekly recently belittled Springsteen's music because his fans are bridge-and-tunnel people, the ultimate in uncool. Meanwhile, my hometown-paper critic first informed us that Springsteen was "discovered" by Clive Davis -- it was John Hammond, pal -- and then went on to pan "The Rising" because it lacked, he said, "permanence." Well, I've got news for both of you: out here in the actual world we're laughing at you. Not only because you don't get it, but also because you know jack about music. Having gotten all that off my chest, I have to admit, I was a little cool to "The Rising" the first few times I played it. But after a while, nearly every song burned itself into my head like no other set from the last year. As in all good records, it was the music itself, and not the lyrics, which initially hooked me in (the hairs on the back of your neck will stand up on "Countin' On a Miracle," when, after the bridge, The Big Man steps up and blows from here to eternity). The ballads haunt, the rockers rock hard, and the E Street Band has not sounded this tight, nor has Springsteen sung with this kind of passion, in years. And now the lyrics have got me, too. I have no doubt that "The Rising" will continue to elicit feelings about September 11th and its aftermath for years to come. In other words, this is a record with permanence."

David Segal: George Pelecano called me his pal! Did you see that? His pal! We're buddies. I think that's very sweet of him and I appreciate the warmth.

Ok, not a lot of warmth coming from Mr. P. We'll have to disagree about The Rising. That's a matter of taste and one that I've defended so often that I fear any regulars out there will be bored by joining this fight once again.

But no fair, pal, claiming that I said Clive Davis "discovered" Springsteen. I never wrote such a thing. Davis is not mentioned in my review of The Rising. And the only time Springsteen comes up in the same piece as Davis is in a profile I wrote a while back. It happens in a section about all the credit that Davis has mongered in his years as a label head and all the people who can't stand him for that trait. In my piece, I avoid the particulars of this dispute and write:

"What's beyond doubt is that starting at Columbia Records in 1967
and at Arista about a decade later, Davis signed check after check for
jazz-rock and white-soul acts (like Chicago and Blood, Sweat &
Tears), singer-songwriters (Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Paul Simon,
Laura Nyro), master guitarists (Carlos Santana and Johnny Winter),
hip-hoppers (Puff Daddy and Wyclef Jean), country stars (Alan Jackson,
Brooks & Dunn) and so on."

So George, did I say that Davis discovered the Boss. No, I did not. Pal.

Ringo's City: Minnneapolis.

David Segal: Nope.

Ringo's home away from home: was it intercourse pa?

David Segal: I like it. But no.

Washington, DC: Submitting early as I have an appt. during lunch...I love reading in this chat about all the great music out there...As we all know, it's next to impossible to find it on mainstream radio. Short of taking the plunge with XM, are there internet radio stations out there that you would recommend where one could listen to the more-difficult-to-find music discussed here (I'm thinking Doves, And You Will Know Us..., Wilco, stuff along that vein)? Thanks!

David Segal: I'd check out Internet radio. It's pretty good if your connection is working well. Check out some college radio programming. I'll plug our local offering, WGTB, the Georgetown station. Some good stuff on there, depending on the dee jay. WGTB923.com. That's a start.

I'd also recommend taking the plunge and buying XM. Nobody I've talked to has regretted it.

Washington, DC: Diamond Dave,

Any word on whether Paul Weller will be bringing a full band to his show at the 9:30 Club, or is it a solo thing? Either way, I thought his new CD is pretty good for an old geezer.

David Segal: I believe it's a band, but a quick check of his web site doesn't help me confirm that. I like his new one, too. Got to say though that I went back to the Jam's "Setting Sons" a few months back and it just seemed mediocre to me. The problem is the politics -- the sound is superb, the musicianship every bit as great as I remembered. But the lyrics! All this patronizing crap about how the working guy is a dupe for working, i.e. the drudge who stars in "Smithers-Jones." Hey, we can't all be rockers, now can we? Way too much moralizing going on. When Weller just rocks, as he does on "Girl on the Phone," he's amazing. "Girl" is a spectacular song.

Washington DC: Have you gotten a chance to hear Ry Cooder and Manuel Galban's album, Mambo Sinuendo? What do you think?

David Segal: Really lovely. I think our very own Dave McKenna nailed it today. It's got loads of atmosphere and it'll be in every cafe where mojitos are sold for the next decade. I'm awed by Cooder's production skills. I know of no one else who can make you feel like you're right in the room with the musicians. He gives you the feeling of three dimensionality, which is what live music provides.

Radio: The 8am-9am (PDT) playlist of KEXP out of Seattle www.kexp.org

Stereo MCs
Caural
Laika
Chemical Brothers
Charlatans
Doves
Clinic
Rogers Sisters
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - new CD!!!
Spoon
Jets to Brazil
Dolour
My Morning Jacket
Whiskeytown

Public broadcasting. No commercials. Be responsible - when you become addicted please contribute....

David Segal: Wow. That's excellent.

Charlottesville, Va.: It was Houston, Texas to work in a factory
for Ringo.

David Segal: Ok, Houston is correct. And he might well have intended to work at a factory, but he could have found a factory in Liverpool. No, something else appealed to him about Houston.

Anyone?

Not a pal. . . : . . . just ignorant.

Who -is- George Pelecano and why should we care?

David Segal: A local novelist who has collected some really fine reviews, though not being much of a novel reader, I've never read him. The reviews make the books sound pretty damn fun and quite smart, FYI.

Washington, DC: I don't want to be a shill for Launch on Yahoo.com, but I find their service (free) to be great during the workday. Lately, I've tapped into a Son Volt "fan station," which features lots of SV, Wilco, and Uncle Tupelo tracks, as well as other artists in the genre and other artists you rate favorably. Plus, my custom station rocks. vast library of music. Thumbs up here.

David Segal: Another fine idea.

Washington, DC: Ringo wanted to be a cowboy.
he wanted to go to Texas (Dallas?Austin?Houston?)

David Segal: No, not to be a cowboy.

Alexandria, VA: Are the record companies really going to stop issuing ordinary CDs with the CD logo, and instead issue some mangled product that can only produce one MP3 per song?

If they do, will you still buy $15.98 retail albums?

David Segal: I haven't heard that the record labels are going to start issuing CDs that will only produce one MP3 song per album. I know they're in the lab, working on a whole variety of possible solutions. Got to admit, they've got a huge problem. For now, you can take any album and copy that sucker dozens of times on 20 cent blanks. That is turning out to be a far larger problem than Internet downloading, which is pretty painstaking. For any artist you dig these days, you'll easily find a group of fans trading albums live shows and rarities, usually via snail mail. You can't do that with a DVD because the DVD was designed after the CD burners went national.

At any rate, the labels are going to have to try something. Their challenge is to do it without infuriating fans or coming off like idiots because they're piracy "solution" gets hacked. So far, all of them have.

January Questions: Hi David,

There's a whole bunch of new music being released. Why January? Why not late fall for the xmas buying season? And what other times of the year are standard release months?

Speaking of new stuff, any opinion on new/old Sea and Cake, Nick Cave, and/or Rainer Maria (I love all three)? Thanks

David Segal: December is a very slow month for new releases, but a bang up month for best of collections, reissues and X-mas themed records. It's so big in fact that artists with new material hold off on lobbing more tunes into this stew. Also, artists don't tour much during the holiday season, perhaps for the simple reason that they, too, would like to be home during those weeks. And usually, you want to show up in town soon after you loose your CD.

The summer is biggest release season. Also the biggest tour season, not coincidentally.

Richmond, VA: Radio Paradise is an Audion Internet Streaming preset that I have found to be amazing. Go to their site and you can always see the last three tunes they played...also, the PBS station in Philly probably streams and they are also good that way.

David Segal: More good ideas.

Dave: I went to the one and only Jam show ever in DC - 1983 at Ritchie Coliseum just after The Gift came out. That quasi-UK working class disdain for a bourgeouis American audience was palpable, but I would have expected nothing less.

Yeah, Setting Sons is Paul at his preachiest. What about All Mod Cons or Sound Affects? Great records!

David Segal: Sound Affects holds up a better, indeed. "That's Entertainment" is a pretty preachy, but such a great tune you don't mind as much.

Power Pop Land: Dave:

This is embarrassing, but I can't that song, "Baby Blue," by Badfinger, out of my head. Great power pop. Any new power pop bands you can recommend?

p.s. "Honeycomb, won't you be my baby, oh honeycomb be my own . . . what a darn good life when you've got a wife like honeycomb" i used to love that song, too! what was the first rock song you learned all the way through on guitar?

David Segal: First song I learned all the way through was "I Fought the Law." For a long time, I fought the song and the song won. But a buddy explained that I had my fingers arranged like a lunatic when I was supposed to be playing a G chord. That helped.

"Baby Blue" and Badfinger in general is terrific power pop. If you're looking for more stuff like that, you really have to check out a label called Not Lame. Those guys are addicted to power pop. Among the best: the Model Rockets, whose latest, "Tell the Kids the Cops are Here," is really fun and reminds me, as I think I've said before, of Squeeze doing Guided By Voices. Also on that label is Myracle Brah, a terrific band with a terrible name. Head to Not Lame's web site and feast away.

Richmond, VA: I've always heard that Ringo wanted to be a hairdresser. At that time in TX they had big hair.

David Segal: Nice try. But no.

You're right. Ringo once said he'd like to be a hairdresser. "No," he added, "I'd like to be two hairdressers."

Charlottesville, Va.: Maybe Ringo wanted to work for NASA as
an astronaut in Houston.

Since I'm the one who said Houston first,
in my earlier post, I should win a CD,
right? This is how these radio contests
work if I'm not mistaken.

David Segal: Dude, you think you're on the radio?

No, to win, my friend, you need to get both questions right. Everyone is now half-way home. First person to cross the finish line wins.

Arlington, VA: Did Ringo want to be President of the US?

David Segal: Hmmmm... I doubt it. If you're ambition is to be a hairdresser, hard to imagine you're fall back being chief executive of the U.S.

Ringo/Houston...: NASA!!! The flight center there.

David Segal: Nope.

Old Man in DC: Sigh....I miss the Kinks, Rockpile, Brian Eno (before all that "Ambiant" crap) and Graham Parker. I turn on WHFS every so often and, it seems, ALWAYS hear that way tired "Jane Says". God...ain't that song as old as me?!?

David Segal: I actually wrote a piece a long time ago about "Jane Says" and it's weird deathlessness. Here's the top of it. Write me if you'd like the rest.

"Clocking in at roughly five minutes, it's indulgently long by the
standards of radio. Most of it is a mere two chords, played with
merry-go-round monotony. It was never released as a single, nor did it
get a promotional push courtesy of an MTV-ready video.


But somehow "Jane Says" just won't die. The song, by California's
pre-grunge pioneers Jane's Addiction, pops up incessantly on radio
stations all across the country. It's a regular on modern-rock stations,
which means it has the youth cachet to hang with the latest in
alternative music, like Staind or Tool. And it's spun more than 100
times a week on the nation's album-rock stations, so it mixes and
mingles with elder-statesmen acts like Eric Clapton and ZZ Top.

For program directors panicking that listeners are going to touch
that dial, "Jane Says" is apparently irresistible. In the first six
months of this year, it was broadcast more than 12,000 times, according
to Mediabase, a company that monitors radio airplay.

"We play it to death," says Oedipus, the singly named program
director of Boston's WBCN. "It's in the pantheon of great rock songs. It
has that intangible, undefinable magic about it that continues to make
it compelling, which is what all great songs have."

Internet Radio: Some more great, commercial-free college stations broadcasting on the internet: WMUC (from our own U-MD), WXYC, WXDU, WMBR, WBER - all searchable on those call letters. And I'll second that recommendation for KEXP in Seattle.

David Segal: Excellent.

Great music, all day, every day: I listen to www.xpn.org (the website for WXPN out of Philly) all day every day at work on my computer. I finally joined the station this year, since I'm still bitter about WAMU and what they did to bluegrass, although it sounds like they're making an effort to regroup and put more of it back on the air. Slightly. Still, my bucks are following my listening patterns at the moment, and 8-10 hours a day of XPN is great. I highly recommend it. It's similar to that Seattle station mentioned above--no commercials, fascinating and knowledgeable DJs, a huge range of music including deep cuts off a variety of albums that otherwise aren't heard on the radio, etc.

David Segal: Also a great idea. Thanks.

Ringo and Houston: He wanted to play country music?

David Segal: Nope.

Washington, DC: What do you think the future is of the so-called "High Rez" formats (SACD and DVD-A)? Do you prefer one over the other? Why?

David Segal: I'm not much of an audiophile. When I listen to albums, the sound quality doesn't really concern me. In fact, a lot of my favorite albums sound pretty shabbily produced and listening on an high-rez format wouldn't help make them sound better. Let me tell you, I profiled a bunch of audiophiles last year and those guys were on the path to madness. This one gent -- a really delightful character, by the way -- had spent $120,000 for his system. He urged me sit not just in a certain spot in his living room, but with my EARS AT A CERTAIN HEIGHT.

Not that asking about high-rez CDs is anything comparable. Just don't let yourself get out of hand.

Arlington, VA: Amoung other types of music, I really enjoy bluegrass. When WAMU curtailed their bluegrass offerings, I was ticked. However, their replacement, www.bluegrasscountry.org, is a great place to go. One (possibly sad) statement is, the offering with the best mix of new stuff is a rebroadcast of a show from Sydney, Australia. Go figure.

David Segal: Another fine idea.

David Segal: Ok, here's a hint. Ringo wanted to be in Houston to be close to a musical hero of his.

Anyone? Time is running out...

Columbia, Md.: Hey Dave, never heard you mention them here,(but numerous times in the Post) any thoughts on the Dismemberment Plan breaking up. Definetly one of DC's most innovative bands. Keep up the great work.

David Segal: It's a bummer. I liked the lads and actually wrote about them during my Business section years and they ended up on the front page of the Post, photo and everything. But my piece was about the difficulties of making it as a band these days and since that piece was written, it hasn't gotten any easier. The DPlan had a ton of talent and a sound that was unmistakeably (sp? Editor, clean this up before you send it out. Thanks.) theirs.

The Ya Ya Ya's: Ever heard of 'em? I'm told they're all the rage in Brooklyn.

David Segal: They're really excellent. Sadly, they've only released about five songs. You can pirate a couple others from the Net, but there's a pretty tiny library of YYY stuff out there. I love the lead singer's voice. She sounds like she's always on the verge of a nervous breakdown. You can actually hear her nuttiness when she sings. I recommend their five-song EP strongly.

Northern,Va: OK, I have to get something off my chest. I have had it with people at the 9:30 club who talk INCESSANTLY during the shows. That venue is out of hand. They need to hire people to walk around and get people to shut the hell up. I went to go see Neil Finn last night and I could barely hear him singing "Message to My Girl" over all the talking. And it was mostly coming from the VIP section. So maybe because all those radio people and bored label reps don;t care about the show, especially because they got in for free--but I paid to hear an artist and instead all I heard about was some Melissa's new colorist and that her boyfriend pick his nose. Screw that! Help me get the word to the club that people are getting sick of not being able to hear the music!

David Segal: AMEN DUDE!

I'm with you. I can't stand it. Is there any other type of performance where it's ok to blab your face off in the middle of the show? People are forever yammering around me. And yes the 9:30 club is particularly bad for some reason. Theaters needs ushers. The 9:30 needs shushers.

re:Internet radio: I listen to www.wonc.org pretty much all day. College radio from Naperville/Chicago IL. They call it "pure rock" everything from the 60's to today. Depending on the DJ it skews a little more one way or the other between "classic rock" and more progressive/indie stuff. The RealOne Player has links to lots of stations. Just browse around until you find one you like. I like Idobi.com too. A little more power poppy.

David Segal: Excellent idea.

Power Pop?: I started hearing that term in the '80s. What bands were the first to be labeled as power pop? I know a lot of bands don't like to be labeled.

David Segal: I'm guessing that Big Star is one of the originals, though Bad Finger has to be included in there, too.

Ringo: Buddy Holly....

David Segal: Nope.

Ringo: He wanted to start his own oil well.

David Segal: Nope.

DC: Memphis to be near Elvis?
Philly to be on American Bandstand?

David Segal: Nope. He did want to move to Houston.

Vienna: A few things about Pelecanos that might be of interest to this chat; I've read a few of his books. Most are set in DC--the real DC that you and I live in, not the weird society/political DC of TV/movieland. He is a "hardboiled" style writer who perhaps has crossed the line a few too many times into "overcooked" (mostly the prose style). His books, though, are brimming over with music references (so many, it seems, that it's like he's desperately trying to impress the reader with his hipness). Definitely worth checking out a few of his titles, if you can get past his self-importance.

David Segal: Good tip.

Ringo: Was it Carl Perkins?

David Segal: Nope.

Pixieland: Hey Dave, did I miss that big Frank Black story you were working on last December, or is it still a work in progress?

David Segal: I think my editors are really eager to publish that one because THEY HAVE SAT ON IT FOR WEEKS! Very annoying. I'm going to have to head over there as soon as we're done and throw one of my much publicized hissy fits!

Ringo's Hero...: Gotta be Ry Cooder....

David Segal: Nope.

DC: Don't forget the internet feed from WFMU (New Jersey) - the most eclectic station in the country.

David Segal: Yet another idea.

Ringo: Waylon Jennings

David Segal: No sir.

Re: Jane Says: Great observations about that song. Personally I think that people like it because it deals with a very sleazy, druggy side of life that people find appealing (like heroin-chic a few years ago)...it's voyeuristic. Its also very no-nonsense description of addiction and dealing with a messed up life...not overly glamorized or overblown. And then the steel drums make it "different".

David Segal: I talked to Jane -- the original Jane -- for that piece and she was indeed an addict for a long time. She'd cleaned up when we spoke, so there was sort of a happy ending there.

Ok, people time for me to scoot. Much obliged for your participation.

The answer to our trivia question: Ringo wanted to move to Houston to be near one of his musical idols -- Lightnin' Hopkins.

An odd reason to pack up and leave your family and country? I'm not here to judge.

See you in two weeks.

Till then,

Rock on with your bad selves.

David

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