Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun

If you know what I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about.

I spent the weekend in sunny Luddington, Michigan, at the wedding of my dear friend Michelle and her new husband Rob. (You’ll remember Michelle as the gal who is responsible for your favorite blog’s name. Without her, you’d probably be reading my second name choice, timmysblogismorepowerfulthangalactusthelivingtribunalandthemadtitanthanoscombined.net.) It was a delightful weekend. Since I’m not really great at expressing mushy feelings of gratitude and joy, I’ll let it suffice to say that I have them and will instead give you my thoughts on some of the extraneous, though still noteworthy, elements of the trip.

# Firstly, the beer. As soon I showed up, I tried an IPA brewed by the Jamesport Brewing Company, which operates a great brewpub in downtown Luddington. It was very tasty! Although probably not so tasty that I can remember its charms four days later. So oh well?

What I DO remember is the beer on tap at the wedding: Oberon, a summer beer produced by Bell’s Brewery down in Kalamazoo. This stuff was great: a little heftier than your usual wheat beer, with a slight orange taste at the front of your mouth, a little bit of spice in the back, and a sunshiney essence in every sip. I can’t stop raving about this stuff. (I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that this excellent beer AND America’s Greatest Hero, Derek Jeter, hail from the same town. Just saying!) It’s distributed primarily in the Midwest, unfortunately, although Nick, the Official Philadelphia Correspondent of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun, reports that he’s seen a sixer of it at the store down the block from him. Lucky guy!

# On occasion since I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve presented you with a few great ideas in action. Here is perhaps the greatest one I’ve ever come across.

It was an outdoor wedding, so there was a fancy trailer hitched out back with a men’s room and a ladies’ room. Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun know I have the bladder of an infant, so it wasn’t long before I was in there, making use of the facilities. Once I was done, I go to reach for the flush, but there was no handle. Hmm? I look around, and I see that attached to the bottom of the toilet is a pedal. A foot-flush pedal. So I pressed it, the toilet flushed, and I was good to go.

The question is, why doesn’t every toilet in every public place have one of these!
The entire bathroom microbe safety system is predicated on two hopes: that people don’t whiz all over themselves, and that everyone washes their hands. This obviously isn’t too much to ask, but people routinely fail on either, or both, counts. What the foot pedal does is eliminate one of the major grossness vectors: if everyone is pressing with their feet, their hands are free to not be engrossened by a flushing handle. The handle on the door to the bathroom is still and issue, but you have to admit, eliminating any contact your hands have with any part of the toilet is a big plus! Let’s get these installed in every bar in town!

# Have you ever heard a song, but for the life of you, you couldn’t figure out the name? Maybe it’s on a commercial or in a movie, and you don’t have an opportunity to find out what the title is. I’ve had one for years. I remember seeing one of those TV-order oldies compilations one time that included it, but I never caught the title. Then I would hear it in some random movie, and it would bug the hell out of me. Infuriating.

I’m at my table, enjoying some appetizers, and the awesome country music band that Michelle’s folks found performed my song. I’m thrilled, obviously. Once they’re done, the singer asks “Does anyone know the name of that song?” And immediately, I hear someone say “‘Sleepwalk,’ by Santo and Johnny.” Yes! That’s it! Give it a listen, and you’ll immediately recognize it.

# I took some pictures, also, which I wanted to include in this post. Of the IPA I mentioned earlier. Of Lake Michigan (you can’t see the Wisconsin side from the Michigan side! It’s a lake!) Of a sign from a Tea Party Republican Congressional candidate. Of the Luddington High School wrestling team t-shirt I bought at a fundraiser. But Wordpress isn’t letting me put them in this post! Your loss!

Anyway, congratulations, Michelle and Rob, and thanks for a great weekend! (They’re two of my precious readers, so I know they’ll see this. That’s part of the bargain, guys: if you feed me steaks and beer, you’ll get a post about your wedding. I do what I can.)

Listen to Will Dailey sing a song about my beloved former neighborhood.

Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun know that I’m a cover fiend. So you can imagine my unrestrained joy upon coming across this video of Taking Back Sunday’s Adam Lazzara performing “Question,” by the Old 97’s, which I’m currently trying to learn on the ukulele.

And if you want to hear the original, it’s best listened to in this commercial for Fuse from a few years ago. Also, if this isn’t the most wicked precious thing you’ve ever seen, I would advise you to go to your doctor and ask her how you possibly could have survived so long without a fucking heart.

I was making dinner tonight (cherry tomatoes and parmesan over fettuccine), and once I got the olive oil out of the cupboard, I started singing “EVOO Woman” to the tune of the Electric Light Orchestra song of the almost same name. Hopefully it’ll stay in your head as long as it’s been in mine.

Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun should, by now, be very intimately familiar with my taste in music. I’ve said many times in the past that I’m not ashamed of the music I listen to, and I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. But still, that doesn’t mean I’m closed off to new stuff! In the interest of growth, self-improvement, and exploration, I’ve been dipping my toe into some of the Pitchfork-approved indie-type bands that the cool kids are apparently listening to these days.

This isn’t like, an official blog project or anything, so don’t expect any updates or insights or anything like that. It’s just something I’m giving a try. I started off going through LCD Soundsystem’s first album, which everyone told me was like looking into the face of God, but I found to be kind of meh. Probably not my cup of tea. I also went through Passion Pit’s first album, Manners, which I liked much more. Passion Pit, for the unintiated, are from Cambridge, and are what Carles would describe as an indy bleepy bloop band. You’ll recognize their music from this Palm Pixi commercial, as well as a recent Radio Shack commercial which I can’t seem to find.

The song used in that Radio Shack commercial is called “Little Secrets,” and it inspired me to write this blog post you’re reading right now. Here’s the weird video for “Little Secrets”:

It’s a pretty catchy tune! You all know that I love a good falsetto. But listen to the music behind the words. What do you think of when you hear those bleeps and bloops? I pride myself on having my finger on the pulse of my readership, of being on the same wavelength, but I’ll forgive you if you didn’t, like me, immediately think “This sounds like the soundtrack to a Sonic the Hedgehog game.” I know not everyone was raised on Sega.

But still! It kinda sounds like a really well-produced level for Sonic 4! Now, the Sonic games always had good music. And Passion Pit is a relatively popular group. Does anyone else smell crossover appeal?

What I’m saying is, instead of going through all the trouble of developing new synth melodies, why doesn’t some enterprising young indie band just sample the eff out of one of those awesome Sonic songs? This sort of thing isn’t unprecedented. Go to Youtube and you can find all manner of dance remixes to Sonic the Hedgehog songs. Like this one:

That’s a hot track, no? Now imagine this: write up some kooky lyrics, spruce up the 16-bit music, slap on a strong backbeat, and you’ve got a pretty awesome indie song with Hill Top Zone as a base:

Now, this isn’t to diminish the kind of music that Passion Pit makes. I thought that album was pretty good! What I’m saying is, I think whatever person that wrote the Sonic soundtracks was a pretty good musician too, and in fact, she might have been ahead of her time. Someone ought to finish the job, and get some bumpin’ indie tracks out there.

All this said, I don’t think my little foray into indie hipster music will go very far. I remember listening to LCD Soundsystem and thinking “This sounds a bit like the White Stripes, but instead of face-melting guitar, it’s got a synthesizer.” So I talked to a pal of mine who was a fan and asked him why I shouldn’t just listen to the White Stripes in the first place. “Precision!” he said, which seemed to me to be a poor substitute for face-melting guitar. Then again, I was raised on Clapton, Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin. If you were ever wondering from whence I derive my musical philosophy, listen to the last two and a half minutes of the Hold Steady’s “Most People Are DJs.” And if you don’t get it after that, then I’m really not sure what to tell you.

Where did Music Is My Imaginary Friend come from? I really wish there were a captivating story behind this one, treasured readers, but the fact is that posting a music video at the end of the day is a common convention on a lot of political blogs I read, and I straight up stole it.

The first-ever MIMIF, from back in my Blogspot days, was a live rendition of This Providence’s “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.” I since learned to try to steer away from live videos, just because they often lean in the crummy direction, and if I’m trying to share some of my favorite tuneskis, I want them to sound good!

As soon as I made the switch to DD&U.com, I wasted no time posting a Cure video. I can’t really tell you what put me in a particularly emo mood that day, unfortunately. If only there were some venue for me to have written that down somewhere . . .

As for the title, what do you think? That there’s a not lame story behind it? Ha! Remember that commercial, from when the iTouch first came out? I was looking for a song about music to name my little feature after at the time, and this delightful song by Cansei de Ser Sexy fell right into my lap. What luck!

Anyway, in the grand tradition of MIMIF, take a listen to “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex.”

Hat-tip to my pal Nick, the Official Philadelphia Correspondent for Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun, for this one. I’m sure I’m late to the party on emo mashups, but what else is new with this sucky blog? The concept of this sort of thing is obviously right up my alley, but I feel like the execution in this case could be a little better. Still pretty awesome, though!

Anyway, listen to, um, “The Quiet Infidelities That No One Ever Screams.”

Remember way back when I was writing about Frankie Valli? And I promised I would put up a post about Nicole Atkins? Here you go!

Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun know how much of a weakness I have for turbo foxes with guitars, but Nicole Atkins is almost in a league by herself. We’re dealing with a voice crafted by God Herself and handed down to a singer in the greatest state in the world, New Jersey! I had a real hard time picking out a song to highlight here, because they’re all so enchanting. Please feel free to explore her entire catalogue. But first, listen to this live rendition of “Together We’re Both Alone.”

So I saw the inimitable Butch Walker last night at the Paradise in Allston. You remember B-Dub, he of DD&U’s Fifth Favorite Album of the Decade. He’s a tremendous showman, and it was a dynamite performance. My only complaint: he didn’t play the song that he’s presently most famous for, his cover of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me.”

Oh well. He more than made up for it. Have you ever been to a performance by a guy that used to be in another band? I’ve seen Straylight Run and Fred Mascherino (both late of Taking Back Sunday), as well as Jack’s Mannequin (whose frontman, Andrew McMahon, was, obviously, the singer for Something Corporate). I go to these shows because I think the music these artists put out is really good. But every time, there’s something in the back of my head wishing desperately to hear some of the old tunes. (Full disclosure: when I saw Jack’s Mannequin, they played “Me and the Moon,” but let’s be honest with each other, precious readers: “Me and the Moon” isn’t “Hurricane,” and it’s most definitely not “Konstantine.” So, you know.) I understand this is unfair of me. After all, the whole reason John Nolan, for instance, went off and started a new band was to avoid playing Taking Back Sunday songs.

So you can imagine my delight when Butch Walker, former frontman of Marvelous 3, sat down behind the piano and played one of that band’s best songs, “Cigarette Lighter Love Song.” Excellent tune. Listen to it live below, as well as Butch recounting a bit of the story of his travels through the record industry. Enjoy.