Manic Street Preachers @ The Metro 10/01/2009

I meant to write this blog over two months ago, but somehow the words could never quite come together. You see, Manic Street Preachers are my FAVORITE BAND OF ALL TIME, and seeing them live for the first time was a momentous occasion right up there with losing my virginity or graduating from community college or receiving a DM on Twitter from Jane Wiedlin. I overuse the word "epic" like a motherfucker, but that's the only word I could use to describe the feeling. Nervous and giddy like a schoolgirl, I could have floated on a cloud to Chicago, so driving five hours and change didn't seem like that big of a deal. We're talking about the band that literally changed my identity and helped shape me as a person here!

I honestly thought it would never happen. Except for an aborted tour with Oasis over a decade ago, the Manics haven't bothered to tour in the US, which is the only country that never appreciated or understood their music. Once upon a time, they were the biggest band everywhere else in the world but here. As I got older and more jaded, I pretty much gave up all hope. The band that defined my years as a young adult did nothing but disappoint me in the 2000s. A lot of people look to religion for guidance, but I looked to the Manics. From Generation Terrorists to Everything Must Go (not to mention 20+ b-sides that are easily their equal), every word and melody from those dudes was like a sacred text. Anxiety is freedom. We don't care about love, we only want to get drunk. All I want to do is live, no matter how miserable it is. I laughed when Lennon got shot. We don't want your fucking love.

Maybe it was creeping middle age or the lack of firepower that their tragic, long-gone lyricist Richey James Edwards supplied, but everything the Manics did bored the fuck out of me for a long time. I moved onto new obsessions but still kept in touch, always giving a fair shake to the oddball synth-pop detours and mediocre solo albums they coughed up on occasion. Did I really have a right to be so disappointed? I got older, and so did they. The bored, intellectual, pissed off kids that released "Motown Junk" were adults now, and they had every right to move on. Still, the lifeless, sleek Euro-pop of Lifeblood offended my ears. The chest-beating passion seemed to be gone, and I began to question why I loved them so much in the first place. It was like watching a family member slowly dying.

It might have been a desperate PR move, but last year the Manics announced the release of a new album, produced by Steve Albini and featuring lyrics from one of Richey James Edwards' notebooks he left behind. Of course, I was sold right away! It might have been pandering, but "Sugar Sugar" by the Archies is one of my favorite songs of all time, so shameless pandering is A-OK with me. The fact that the resulting album, Journal For Plague Lovers, is freakin' brilliant made me really happy. That it also resulted in a US tour made it absolutely momentous. So, I assembled a crew of friends who I'd turned onto the Manics like a pied piper and headed for Chicago on a cloud, or in a Ford Focus which needed an oil change. Same deal!

Manic Street Preachers @ The Metro, 10/01/2009

Photo: Bridget Volle

I guess at this point you're expecting a bunch of rapturous accolades, but for once I was truly speechless. My favorite band of all time was playing my favorite songs of all time right in front of me. That's all I really wanted, and that's all I got. This was my first time at the Chicago Metro and the one thing that struck me was how small it was! After playing impersonal European soccer stadiums for over a decade, I could tell that the Manics were seriously jazzed to be playing to a tiny group of followers that had waited forever to see them and like myself, driven hundreds of miles for the pleasure. Whether it was gorgeous gals decked out in raccoon-eye makeup and homemade spraypainted "Forever Delayed" t-shirts, dudes in "Faster"-era military hats, or stockbrokers dusting off their "If you tolerate this, your children will be next" shirts for the night, everyone shouted all the words and looked on with blissful adulation. For one night, the awkward confusion of the bar scene was put to the side. All I saw was a bunch of stupid grins that silently shouted "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!!" It felt like New Year's Eve, the best birthday ever, and armageddon all rolled into one.

Manic Street Preachers @ The Metro, 10/01/2009

Photo: Bridget Volle

Once upon a time when the Manics were mythical beings to me, it was impossible to look at them objectively. When I was a kid trying to sing along with the high notes in "Motorcycle Emptiness," I just lost myself in the perfection of the song. Seeing them right in front of my face though, I marveled at how James Dean Bradfield could play those riffs while singing like a seriously wounded angel. And they had the nerve to open with it! The most epic song of the '90s not called "November Rain" exploded in front of me in glorious living widescreen. All we want from you are the kicks you've given us. All we want from you are the kicks you've given us! Approximately three minutes and forty-five seconds into the set, I felt like a goddamn fool for ever doubting their passion and fire. Under neon loneliness, everlasting nothingness. They were discovering their love of rock n' roll again in front of a bunch of faithful converts in real time.

You are pure, you are snow, we are the useless sluts that they mold. Rock n' roll is our epiphany. Culture, alienation, boredom, and despair. Like any kid who obsessed over the iconic cool of Richey James carving "4 REAL" into his arm for a jaded NME reporter, I jammed my brain with broken heroes, loved their myths, and adored their failures. They made a few wrong turns and wised up, then emerged slightly apologetic and fired up, more honest and wise then they were before. That's a part of growing up, right?! One day, you have to accept your heroes as people and take them for who they really are, not just as impossibly beautiful pictures on magazine covers. The Manics had given me so much and taken so little, but even after they blew my mind a million times over, they still managed to give back.

It was cold and rainy as fuck after the show, but for whatever reason, the Manic Street Preachers decided to hang out on the sidewalk outside the Metro for awhile. I was a kid when they first came out, so I was well aware of their reputation as the junior Clash. Still, they pulled some Joe Strummer shit that I will remember forever. James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire, and Sean Moore stood outside of the Chicago Metro in the pissing rain and smiled and talked shit to everyone with the nerve to say hello until everyone who had the nerve to say hello went away. For a minute, I wished I'd brought my Japanese import copy of The Holy Bible that I'd spent serious cash on and waited forever for back in the day. Instead, I just shook James Dean Bradfield's hand and told him the Manics were my favorite band of all time. My friend Emily Kate took a pic, but she was drunk as piss so all she got was my shoulder. I don't give a fuck though, because that shoulder is the happiest one of all time.

Zach B. and James Dean Bradfield @ The Metro, 10/01/2009

Photo: Emily Kate Taylor

I keep coming back to the song "Condemned To Rock N' Roll." The past is so beautiful, the future's like a corpse in snow. I think it's all the fucking same. It's a life sentence, babe. I finally got to see my favorite band of all time and I'm still seriously fucking excited several months later. As much as I wanted the Manics to bust that song out, I understand why they didn't. Back in 1990, all they wanted to make was an epic statement to serve as an epitaph for setting themselves on fire on live television. Like I said before, the Manics have kinda shaped my whole life, and I'm glad they didn't go through with it. There's nothing I wanna see, and there's nowhere I wanna go. I kinda like it that way.

The Leaving Trains Are The Best Band You've Never Heard!

Back when I was a teenager, bands released CDs and I went to stores to buy them. It seems like such a foreign concept now, but that's how it was circa 1995. I didn't have a car, just boundless enthusiasm and a pocket full of money stashed away from not eating lunch at school for weeks at a time. I had an entire lifetime to eat powdered mashed potatoes and cardboard pizza, but I was a music junkie and didn't know where my next fix would come from. Once I discovered Black Flag and the Descendents, shit was over! Those bands blew my mind a thousand times over and completely changed my outlook on life. Back then, I wasn't able to learn everything about them with a few mouse clicks, though. All I had was a few lines of credits and a vivid imagination. I became well acquainted with the starkly printed SST Records catalogue thoughtfully stuffed into each CD I took away from Borders or Camelot or wherever. Instead of planning my future, I laid around wondering what bands like Zoogz Rift and Slovenly sounded like. I didn't come around to listening to the Leaving Trains until a few years ago, but I became obsessed almost instantly. Judging by the lack of internet press coverage, everyone has either forgotten about or ignored them, and I think that's a tragedy! Frontman Falling James Moreland and his Leaving Trains might be the best band you've never heard.

The thing is, I really can't put my finger on why the hell I love the Leaving Trains so goddamn much. If I did a cursory listen to records like Kill Tunes, Fuck, and Transportational D. Vices, I'd probably write them off as an inept group of savages. This doesn't even take into account their albums in the '90s, which were loaded with brain-dead joke songs like "Women Are Evil" and "Gas, Grass Or Ass" and marred by more lineup changes than Hawkwind and Guns N' Roses combined. Falling James kinda lost his mind, married Courtney Love for a brief spell, became a drag queen, and ended up releasing Smoke Before Beauty, a concept album about the joys of smoking weed, I think. Again, all of this adds up to the Leaving Trains being a giant load of raging crap, but somehow, some way, everything they've ever released absolutely RIPS.

On the surface, Falling James is a half-wit junkie Jim Morrison-wannabe who fills his songs with bad poetry that doesn't make a lick of sense, no matter how hard you try. "30,000 feet over probably Arizona I spit out the window, you call rain" isn't all that deep or profound, is it? If anything, it makes me wonder why the average stewardess would let a long haired punk rocker hock a goober from the escape hatch of a speeding airplane. But the thing is, that bad poetry sounds REALLY GOOD when shouted over piledriving guitar chords. The Leaving Trains always resembled a halfway house for useless dirtbag musicians, but when it came time to record, they always turned it on. Something magical happens when the band is in full flight, and I just can't figure that shit out or put it into words. "Turn off the moon, cuz I wanna sleep!" Indeed.

"Terminal Island" off Kill Tunes is the best example of the Leaving Trains' dunderhead brilliance. In fact, up until a few days ago, I was so completely WRONG in my interpretation of it, thinking that it was just another tortured, drug-addled love song. This isn't so strange, considering I pretty much think every song is about girls, even ones that are obviously about the economy or whatever. "Holiday In Cambodia" by the Dead Kennedys? Totally about chicks, and I can prove it! Anyways, "Terminal Island" starts with a slinky guitar riff before Falling James yells "Because I've already drowned in your eeeyyyyyes," followed by another one of his patented howlers: "I was planted in a field of depression, just keeping my eye on the crows." Wait, did he just say that? WOW! Then, there's a chorus of "We get high in the underground" and the final line, "There is a certain grace in a self-destruction." Yeah, was I so wrong to think this was a punk rock masterpiece of self-loathing and regret?

The Leaving Trains - "Terminal Island"

Well, I had a revelation while I was driving around in my car, which is where all good revelations occur when you're not on the toilet. I was poking around the Leaving Trains official site last week, which hasn't been updated in over three years unfortunately, and made my way to the lyrics page. Well, it turns out that he's been singing "We CAN'T HIDE in the underground" all this time! I didn't think much about it, filing it away with "I've been eatin' bear claws," "Sugar fried honey nuts," and all the other hilarious and embarrassing misheard lyrics I've chuckled over in the past. But you see, I was driving around listening to "Terminal Island" on repeat, shouting and shaking my head and punching the upholstery, and it hit me. No, not a horrendous westside Cincinnati driver, but the TRUTH!

If you're a history buff or an average yokel who knows their way around Wikipedia, you'd know that Terminal Island is a strip of land off the coast of Los Angeles, which was once an artificial paradise inhabited by Japanese immigrants. When Pearl Harbor went down, shit got real, and the US army killed, raped, and imprisoned all those poor fools. After I thought about it awhile, Falling James stopped being a wasted Sunset Strip crash-pad lothario and became a tiny Japanese gal that fell head over heels for an American serviceman among all the pointed guns and chaos. She's in L-U-V and totally doomed, pining for a happy ending that isn't coming. They can't hide in the underground, he's got God, country, small town morals, and FDR on his side for fuck's sake! She's planted in a field of depression, keeping an eye on the crows, and watching the runway, knowing that it's all a silly fantasy comin' down. The last verse suddenly all makes sense:

"There was a dance floor on the navy base

A kick under the table and a brush against your arm

Grey ships, stretching steeples rising from the bay

There is a certain grace in a self-destruction"

Does she set herself on fire? Take a cyanide capsule? Who knows?! At that point, we're mixing wars and reference points and cliches together and muddling the truth. It's still a punk rock masterpiece of self-loathing and regret, but now that I know what's up, it sounds positively epic, and dare I say it...PROFOUND?! Perhaps Falling James Moreland wasn't a moron after all. He kept the Leaving Trains going for over a decade, spitting out amazing albums no matter how fucked up, sociopathic, or useless his band-mates became. Much like Neil Young, he didn't spend years crafting sterile, perfect songs with all the edges rounded off. The best Leaving Trains albums are glorious and ragged, stocked with head-scratchers and moments of brilliance. He did the absolute best with the resources he had, and if that isn't the very definition of an American success story, then I don't know what is. I love it when a boy makes good, and it seems like a bit of a cop-out, but that's why the Leaving Trains are the best band you've never heard. Mostly because I said so!

Random Old Records Podcast #15 is out NOW!

Yes indeedy, the latest episode of Random Old Records Podcast is out NOW and ready for your downloading and streaming pleasure. #15 spotlights two of the most underrated rock n' roll bands of the 1980s: The Leaving Trains and Redd Kross. Dig on a selection of classic tracks from those bands, plus an EPIC set of 80s hair metal from the likes of Cinderella, Britny Fox, LA Guns, Hanoi Rocks, Ratt, and more! Not only that, but you'll hear the likes of Vince Neil, Bret Michaels, Don Dokken, and others pontificate on the rise and fall of the Aquanet n' heels generation. It might be the most entertaining hour you'll have all day, so don't forget to check it out!

As always, you can stream or subscribe the show by pointing your internets over to http://rorpodcast.mevio.com, or you can also subscribe by clicking the iTunes icon on the right so you never miss an episode! If you're a creep and dig Mediafire links, you can snag it HERE. Not only that, but you can hear the PREMIERE of Random Old Records #15 streaming over at Real Punk Radio at 4 PM EST. Check it out, and as always thanks for listening!

In other news, it is now 2010, and this is going to be the year of Cincinnati, without a doubt. I've been screaming about it for months now, and it's finally time for all the talented musicians, writers, and artists in the Queen City to blow the fuck up in everyone's faces, like a rainbow escaping a bottle or a carelessly-tossed cigarette butt landing on a pack of cheap old firecrackers. There had to be one last blow-out before the year began, and it just so happened to be on Christmas Day 2009. There's been rumours that Cincinnati-by-way-of-Burlington, KY garage rockers The Lions Rampant are possibly signing a deal to release the shit-hot album they've got in the can, and it's about damn time. This night at the Mad Hatter, they were on top of their game.

The Lions Rampant @ Mad Hatter, 12/25/2009

Photo: Rachel Elliott

The Lions Rampant don't just stand around, bang out some songs, stare at their guitar necks and mumble into the microphones. They put on a SHOW. Frontman Stuart MacKenzie is constantly smiling and sneering as he stomps, duckwalks, and shakes his mop of Muppet hair with the type of clumsy grace only associated with people who actually play rock n' roll for the sheer fucking JOY of it. Instead of jumping trends or pandering to the big city blogs, they just play the music they enjoy with passion and honestly, and in this case, that music is a glorious cross between prime Grand Funk Railroad, late '60s proto-metal, and a dash of call-and-response Southern Soul. There's kind of an ecstatic gospel fervor to Lions Rampant shows, and the holiday spirit made things even more perfect. A bevy of dancing girls in front of the stage added to the jolly atmosphere, but I was too full of prime rib and PBR to shake a leg. Check out the Lions Rampant's free EP on their website, it might just knock yer socks off!

The Lions Rampant @ Mad Hatter 12/25/2009

Photo: Rachel Elliott

If you've made it this far, well thanks! Cincinnati's gonna straight-up rule this year and i'll be around to document it until everyone else falls into line. Check back to this space for an upcoming blog on the genius of the Leaving Trains, which is a companion to the brand-new podcast. Also, keep checking Boil It First for new posts from me and a crew of INCREDIBLE Cincinnati writers. My last post was a FREE mixtape with detailed instructions on the art of seduction. Or something. Hell yeah!