Waxing Nostalgic Connecting the Dots: Kansas, “Carry On, Wayward Son”

By Jeffery X Martin

I grew up listening to the Moody Blues, so I was no stranger to pseudo-mysticism and lyrics that some people would consider “heavy.” In third grade, I knew what The Lost Chord was. I understood revolution in the streets as well as how to call occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary, craft. Was I a weird kid? Were all pre-teens in the Seventies like that?

Maybe we were all weird kids, regardless of when we were born.

Carry on, my wayward son . . .

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Concert Review: Goblin with Secret Chiefs 3 at The Orange Peel

By Jeffery X Martin
All photos by Hannah Martin

Asheville, NC
October 3, 2013

It takes a special kind of nerd to drive to a different state to see a band best known for their soundtracks for horror movies directed by one guy, mostly, and they’re all Italian. This is a niche, you understand. It isn’t like saying, “Oh, we’re going to see Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

Being a Goblin fan takes commitment.

When Goblin played the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC on October 3, it was the second night of their first North American tour ever. This is a band that’s been around over 40 years. For horror score fans, this was Geek Zeppelin.

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Waxing Nostalgic Connecting The Dots: Al Stewart, “Year of the Cat”

By Jeffery X Martin

At the age of eight, I stopped hearing music and began actively listening to it. Matching artists with their music became a thing of great importance. I needed to know lyrics. I began learning the names of everyone in a band, not just the attention-hogging lead singer. It was the next phase in becoming a real music fan. I wanted to listen to as much music as I could, as many different kinds as possible and all of it, faster than now.

At that age, I developed more fears than I conquered. There were certain songs that, for reasons difficult to pinpoint and harder to explain, scared me. My abandonment issues and fear of sounds in the night were blooming like nightshade. My love of music corresponded with that and mirrored it. Good thing I didn’t collect creepy porcelain dolls.

This brings us, strangely enough, to Al Stewart’s seven-minute pop opus, “Year of the Cat.” The song is a weird fusion of smooth jazz and progressive pop. The lush orchestration belies the stark piano part that takes the spotlight shyly, almost with embarrassment. This is secret music, played from far away.

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Waxing Nostalgic Connecting The Dots: Mary MacGregor, “Torn Between Two Lovers”

By Jeffery X Martin

1976 was the year of America’s 200th birthday. We walked smugly around our little town in ugly red, white, and blue shirts. We shot off fireworks while Europe rolled its eyes and told us to stay the hell of its lawn. Jingoism, patriotism, and parades were the order of the summer. Eagles and sno-cones, commemorative quarters and flags, colors that refused to run. We picnicked under the shadow of thousands of unseen missiles, our thin windbreakers and bravado enough to shield us from the chill of the Cold War.

As fall crept in and the charcoal grill fires slowly died, something insidious began to snake its way through the country. I see it now as a virus, its simplicity masking its evil intent. By the time winter rolled around, we were all infected. We wouldn’t be the same for years.

You know what 45s were, right? They were like full-length vinyl records, except they were singles. One song per side, and they had to played at a faster speed then LP’s, for reasons that I don’t know enough science to fully comprehend. The first 45 I ever bought was Mary MacGregor’s “Torn Between Two Lovers.” I was seven years old.

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Music Review: Sunset Graves, Variant

By Jeffery X Martin

Sunset Graves is the creative brainchild of Andy Fosberry. Their debut album is called Variant.

That’s all I know. I kind of wish I didn’t even know that much. I want it to remain this beautiful, ethereal thing, a gift we won’t be able to understand until much later.

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DVD Review: V/H/S/2

By Jeffery X Martin

Here’s a fun experiment to try! Sit ten people around a campfire on a moonless night and start telling scary stories. Everyone takes a turn. What you’ll find quickly enough is that not everything scares everybody. One person may be frightened by ghost stories. Another may be terrified of demonic possession tales. One never knows.

That’s the joy—and the potential for failure—found within any horror anthology film. They’re all scattershot. Even the most ambitious of them (I’m thinking The ABCs of Death) have sections that miss the mark completely (although “D is for Dogfight” was a harrowing piece of storytelling).

2012’s V/H/S was the most consistently enjoyable of the new wave of anthologies, gathering together a conclave of great directors, such as Ti West and Adam Wingard, and letting them do what they do best: scare the shit of people. There are some genuinely unsettling moments in the film (that final sequence, directed by Radio Silence, still haunts my thoughts).

This year’s sequel, V/H/S/2, is better in every regard. The framing device is tighter, the stories are better and the scares are more frequent and more intense.

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Waxing Nostalgic Connecting the Dots: Maria Muldaur, “Midnight at the Oasis”

By Jeffery X Martin

When the Sixties ended, they made a noise like a whoopee cushion. Peace and love were replaced with polyester and The Sierra Club. Even The Beatles said to hell with it and bailed out before the Seventies really got rolling. A lot of people got tired of Serious Rock, and in response to the backlash, the music business gave us a lot of bubblegum pop. It was sweet and nice with nary an iota of substance. We got lots of one-hit wonders this way.

The first time I remember hearing “Midnight at the Oasis” was in a hair salon. I was waiting for my mother to get whatever the hell she was getting done, done. I was five years old. I could already read at a high school level (math was a different story), and I had already flipped through all the magazines that interested me. The hairdressers were yammering on about what pains in the asses men were. Hairdryers hummed away.

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Waxing Nostalgic Connecting The Dots: The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (1971)

By Jeffery X Martin

The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge connects Covington, Kentucky (the town of my birth) to Cincinnati, Ohio (the town that, as a teenager, became my stomping ground). At the time of its completion, in 1866, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, with a span of 322 meters (1057 feet).

Let’s get down to brass tacks here. Driving over the Suspension Bridge is scary as shit. As soon as you hit the surface of the bridge, the road surface changes. No smooth blacktop or asphalt here; it is nothing but closely spaced thin strips of steel. That’s all keeping you and your car from pulling a Mothman Prophecies and plunging hood-first into the Ohio River. When you drive over it, the car begins to vibrate, and this hideous hum begins emanating from your tires. Rubber meets metal, and the entire vehicle shakes and swerves.

It’s not pleasant.

Unless you’re two years old and don’t know any better.

Here’s the odd thing. Depending on how fast you go, the friction of the bridge against the tires produces a musical note. I know for a fact that as my mother drove across the bridge that day, she was playing an open A chord without realizing it.

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Waxing Nostalgic Connecting the Dots: Phasing

By Jeffery X Martin

In 1971, I was two years old the house was awash in mild psychedelia. We had an aluminum Christmas tree, all silver. The branches were metal spikes that fit into a pre-drilled steel tube. Reflective bits of Mylar replaced the false pine needles. We also had a color wheel, four plastic cels of colored plastic revolving slowly in front of a bare light bulb. Groovy? Yeah, man.

The living room awash in color, my father had the music playing as usual. I was sitting on the couch under my own power, which was a relatively new thing for me. The speakers were huge and he liked it loud. He took a sip from his drink, looked at me levelly, and said, “Phasing.”

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Waxing Nostalgic Connecting The Dots: The Moody Blues

By Jeffery X Martin

I can’t remember the first song I ever heard. It seems like very few people would. I can remember the first song I remember hearing, but I know that’s not the first song I ever actually heard. There’s no way to divine the actual first piece of music I ever heard, but I can get close.

From what I’m able to gather, the first album my parents bought after I was born was To Our Children’s Children’s Children by The Moody Blues. That record came out in November of 1969. I came out in June.

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