Dear Darling Ones,

There’s something going on in my brain or my soul that requires listening to “Magic Man” by Heart at least two times a day. So far today we’re at four.

It’s strange that I’ve chosen “Magic Man” because for a very, very long time I did not like this song. Please forgive me Ann & Nancy Wilson, I love you dearly.

“Magic Man” was one of the songs my Aunt Cathy would listen to endlessly when she entered her “druggie” phase in like 1985 or 1986. She was also fond of The Rolling Stones’ “Angie,” which I still fucking hate.

Growing up, my Aunt Cathy and I were tight. She’s only two years older than I am, and from the time I started remembering things until about 1987 I would spend at least one week every summer with her. When Cathy and my grandparents still lived in Savage my Aunt Sherry would take us swimming at her apartment, and we’d drag chairs across the street to peer over the fence at a baseball game played by maybe the Savage Fire Fighters? I don’t know. I know my Grandpa Cub would bring us cold bottles of orange soda and it is one of my most cherished memories.

Once they moved to Shakopee we’d spend more time hanging out at the mall, specifically the arcade there, or swimming at the community pool. A typical day would involve rising around 2 p.m., going to the mall or pool, coming home to eat pizza, play endless games of gin rummy while watching MTV until the sun came up. It was heaven. Then Cathy discovered boys, cigarettes, and marijuana and I wasn’t so into any of that.

This may come as a surprise but I was a goodie-goodie. I still kind of am. This was the “Just Say No” eighties. The “this is your brain on drugs” frying pan & egg eighties. This was the Regina Morrow died after doing coke one time. ONE TIME. In Sweet Valley High #40 On the Edge eighties. I was a fool who believed Nancy Regan that if you have a single puff from a joint you might as well just die from a heroin overdose right now.

I held onto these beliefs for much longer than I care to admit. Once at Grumpy’s after a class at The Loft, one of my friends was all, “oh yeah, we did a bunch of coke before going to see Elvis Costello at The Longhorn,” or something to that effect. My eyes popped out of my head, “YOU DID DRUGS?” People who did drugs did not grow up to be successful mothers and aspiring writers. Nancy Reagan said they died in a gutter. People who tried drugs were not smart they had fried egg brains or died after trying coke one time. ONE TIME.

Of course, I dabbled in pot in college (notably for the first time before Mudhoney show, because 90s). I wasn’t a fan. It made me feel disconnected from my brain and kind of stupid, a feeling I hate. Mostly, it made me want to go bed.

One time a very cute boy named Benny asked me if I wanted to get high and I said, “No it just makes me want to go bed.”
He smiled at me very charmingly and said, “That’s okay, Chromes, as long as you go to bed with me.” And I did nothing about that because I was a twenty-two-year-old ding dong. Regrets, I have a few.

Whenever that summer was that Cathy discovered pot and boys and classic rock was not my favorite. We never went to the pool or to the arcade. She spent a lot of time explaining to me what “Comfortably Numb” and “Come Together” were while figuring the perfect amount to burn the end of an eyeliner pencil. I spent a lot of time ignoring her while working through V.C Andrews’ catalog of incestuous novels and trying to figure out what the fuck Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying was about. We stopped spending summers together because her druggie friends were way more fun than I was. I mean, that’s totally true. Who wants to hang with a 6’1″ goodie-goodie who can’t figure out what a zipless fuck is?

Eventually she would runaway from home to live with her boyfriend and only move back once she was pregnant at eighteen. I would continue to be a giant fucking nerd. That’s how life goes. You’ll be happy to know that Cathy did not die in a gutter. Instead she’s a happily married grandma and I see her every year for Boxing Day Lunch.

Tomorrow I go back to answer the Googlers’ questions. Today I’m gonna listen to “Magic Man” three more times and then try to make scalloped potatoes.

Jodi

The post The COVID Diaries: Forgive Me, Ann Wilson, For I Have Sinned appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hello Darling Ones,

While I was doing my taxes last night one of my twitter pals expressed an interest in my Top 10 Music Memoirs List. Because the only two things I need to do are make potato salad and work on The Beast, making this list is what they like to call productive procrastination.

Before we get to the list, I broadened the category. I’ve read a lot of memoirs by musicians. A lot. Maybe forty? Fifty? I’ve read twenty-six memoirs just by female musicians. Tonight I’ll be starting Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. I’m on the library’s hold list for Brandi Carlile’s Broken Horses.

I’ve also read memoirs by men too. From Keith Richards and Pete Townshend to Bob Mould and Ben Folds.

Here’s the thing, a lot of musician memoirs are shockingly similar. The only thing that really changes are the dates. So yeah, I broadened the category to include nonfiction books about music or musicians.

One more caveat: I did not include Trouble Boys Bob Mehr’s biography of The Replacements because it is fucking boring. Scandalous! But if you really want to know where everyone who ever met the ‘Mats was born and where they went to high school, this book is for you. Did you know Tommy Stinson’s grandma was from Shakopee? You would if you read Trouble Boys.

Also missing is Michael Azerad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, which I need to revisit. It’s been nearly twenty-years since I read it, so my memory may be fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure there are absolutely zero women in the book. None. I know none of the bands featured include women, so it doesn’t make the list.

I only mention these two books because they’re the ones I expect to get the most flack for not including. Also, one more preemptive shut-up. Yes, I know about Lester Bangs. And Robert Christgau. And Greil Marcus.

Wanna know what else I know? Men have been writing about and controlling the story of rock & roll since its inception. They’re the ones who choose what is good, what is bad, what is lauded, and what is forgotten. That is some bullshit. As I always say when someone gets all horny about The Beatles or The Stones being the greatest of all time, “It’s not hard to be the best when you only compete against other white men.”

So, now, on with the show!

1. Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music by Ellen Willis

This book changed the way I think about and consume rock & roll. I read in the spring of 2012 and it caused a paradigm shift in my soul. I often joke that I’m unsure about God, but I believe in Ellen Willis and thus she is my deity of choice. What I love about her writing is the social and political context she gives the music she writes about. And it’s so refreshing to get that context through a feminist point of view (rather than the male sexual gaze)

2. Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock and Roll by Ann & Nancy Wilson

This one is so damn fun. I love that Ann and Nancy tell the story of Heart. I love that we learn there is another Wilson sister who is not in the band. I love the stories of pre-grunge Seattle and touring with ALLLL those dudes. I love that they talk about sexism and fatphobia and being in Seattle right before grunge broke. But my favorite is they are the first of all the women I’ve read who talked about wanting to be a Beatle and not marry a Beatle (this is a recurring theme in a lot of memoirs by women).

3. Rat Girl by Kristen Hersh

Quoting myself here: “If you’ve ever felt music was your religion or your life or had a deep, confusing, inexplicable relationship with Rock & Roll you should read this book. While I believe Hersh’s relationship with music is wholly unique to her, she writes about it in such a way that it gives those of us who have yet to find the words hope that those words are still out there.” She has a new memoir out too. My cup overflows.

4. Just Kids by Patti Smith

Come on! This probably the most lauded, awarded music memoir of all time. Justifiably so.

5. It’s a Long Story: My Life by Willie Nelson

Wanna know what’s so good about Willie Nelson’s memoir? He leaves out all the boring shit. This doesn’t happen a lot when men write their stories (see: Townshend, Richards, Mould). It’s folksy as fuck and has so many fun facts! Charlie Pride sent him his first email! Tons of ’em about “Pancho & Lefty” I won’t spoil for you. It’s a super fun read.

6. Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc. by Jeff Tweedy

Hi. I feel like I have not shut up about this book since I read it in March. I talk about it a lot, almost as much as the Sylvia Plath biography. This one is such a great read because Tweedy is funny, self-deprecating, a little catty, totally vulnerable, and smart.

7. My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love by Dessa

You know that sentence that I wrote about the Jeff Tweedy memoir? Same goes for the Dessa minus the catty but make the smart, super smart. I’ve read this one three times. There’s a passage where she writes about singing with Aby Wolf that when I read it I get goosebumps and when I talk about it to people my throat clogs with tears. It’s that beautiful.

8. Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways by Evelyn McDonnell

I fell in love with Joan Jett when I was eight or ten or whatever age it was I discovered her cover of “Crimson & Clover.” I fell hard. So hard that at my 40th birthday party, childhood BFF Jodi Hanson glared at my cousin Laurie and asked, “Were you the one with the “Crimson & Clover” forty-five?” I played the song a lot. This biography of The Runaways blew my mind. There was so much I didn’t know and, again, McDonnell gave me so much context for the band I didn’t have before.

9. Nobody Ever Asked Me about the Girls: Women, Music and Fameby Lisa Robinson

This book is a lot. There’s an entire chapter about rape and sexual assault and how that played out in some women’s music. There’s also chapters about marriage and sex and babies and Lisa Robinson never fails to point out the hypocrisy in how men never get asked these kinds of questions. Go for the Madonna-snark and stay for the keen insight on how female musicians are portrayed in the media.

10. Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren

I think this book was so revelatory because it was the first time I experienced Janis outside of the male gaze. George-Warren presents her as a flawed, complicated woman with all the care her story needed and never seemed to get.

I could probably make a list of Top 10 Fiction Music Books, and I might.

For now, it’s time to make the potato salad,
Jodi

The post The COVID Diaries: Top 10 Nonfiction Music Books appeared first on I Will Dare.

This morning on Teenage Kicks, Jacquie Fuller played two hours of side one, track ones in honor of The Current’s upcoming “High Fidelity” showing at The Fitz.

It was, as you can imagine, totally awesome, even though, she chose the wrong Replacements’ song (went with Hold My Life off of Tim).

Since High Fidelity os one of my all-time favorite movies. I can quote most of the movie from memory, even Rob Gordon’s Top Five side one track one. Since you can’t hear me. I’ll just embed this little bad boy.

Top Five Side One, Track Ones

1. I Will Dare, The Replacements, Let it Be
2. Barracuda, Heart, Little Queen
3. Bad Reputation, Joan Jett, Bad Reputation
4. Cover Me Up, Jason Isbell, Southeastern Oh, kind of a new record. In a minute. Very nice, Jodi. A sly declaration of new classic status slipped into a list of old safe ones. . .
5. Sick of Myself, Matthew Sweet, 100% Fun

Contenders that were ultimately dismissed

Greetings to the New Brunette, Billy Bragg, Talking with the Taxman about Poetry
Tangled Up in Blue, Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
Stupid Boy, The Gear Daddies, Billy’s Live Bait
Lost Horizons, Gin Blossoms, New Miserable Experience
Closer to Fine, The Indigo Girls, The Indigo Girls
Blue, The Jayhawks, Tomorrow the Green Grass
It’s Only Dancing, Jeremy Messersmith, Heart Murmurs
Valerie Loves Me, Material Issue, International Pop Overthrow
Set out Running, Neko Case & Her Boyfriends, Furnace Room Lullaby
F.N.T, Semisonic, Great Divide
Windfall, Son Volt, Trace
Misery, Soul Asylum, Let Your Dim Light Shine
Untouchable Face, Ani DiFranco, Dilate
Mad About You, Belinda Carlisle, Belinda

About the photo: My nephew Cade watching as the needle drops on The Pixies’ “Doolittle” (Side One, Track One = Debaser.) As my friend Caroline said, “Awesome is about to happen. Rarely captured on film.”)

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We were at Grumpy’s, because of course we were. All my stories that don’t start with “I woke up from a nap” start with “We were at Grumpy’s.”

It was fitting because I was grumpy as fuck. I’ve been grumpy as fuck for a long time. Itchy, unsure, cranky, not depressed, and not afraid, but just generally unpleasant-like in my brain. I know why I’ve been like this, because I haven’t written a goddamned thing worth a goddamn in about seven epochs. Knowing this does nothing to alleviate any of it.

Also, I pulled a hamstring on Saturday night which adds to the general level of crank. I was barely aware that I had hamstrings and pulling one has made me abundantly aware about what a cocksucking motherfucker my right thigh is.

So anyway, I’ve been stewing in this acidic swamp of crabbiness for what? Six weeks now? And then yesterday I got news that I did not get a grant that I applied for and I seriously contemplated plummeting into a pit of despair, because at least I’d have a good reason? However, plummeting would have taken a lot of energy and I was currently using all my energy to be a surly fuck.

Swearing is my new thing now.

And then I got to Grumpy’s to see my friend Melanie and I promptly set to the airing of grievances regarding my hamstring and the arts’ board critique and how it stung to be called “pre-professional” and I probably bitched about my fingernails and how cranky I was about having to breathe all the time with the in and the out and the oh my god I hate all stuff and things.

Then when I let her speak because I was too busy whimpering and stewing she said, ” I saw this Heart thing and I almost sent it to you.”

And I cheered momentarily because I do love to talk about Heart.

“They played “Stairway to Heaven” for Led Zepplin at the Kennedy Center Honors,” she said.
“I know I’ve see that,” I said.
“It’s amazing, she said. “Robert Plant cried.”
“I know!” I screeched a little and then because I get carried away thinking about Heart, it made me forget the hamstrings and the cranky and the “this doesn’t sound like any liner notes I’ve ever read.

I took a deep breath and uttered the immortal words that probably strike fear in the hearts of people who know me I said, “Did you know that Heart started out as a Led Zeppelin cover band?”
“No,” Melanie said and I choose to believe she was interested in what I was going to say next because Melanie is kind.
“Yeah, Ann was in a Zeppelin cover band in Vancouver. And did you know that they were like the godmothers of that whole grunge scene in Seattle in the 90s? The night Andrew Wood died all those guys went to Ann Fucking Wilson’s house but of course nobody ever talks about that, how supportive she was of those guys, well, except for Kurt Cobain who sprung fully-formed from the Space Needle.”

As I took a breath to start the second part of my Heart lecture, Melanie laughed. She laughed really hard, gasping for breath, and sputtering “fully-formed from the Space Needle.”

My actual heart grew three sizes that night (it was last night) and we spent the next three hours talking about all the things and it reminded me that there were still some things that I liked (sex, music, feminism) and still things I hated (all the Shakespeare and Hobbitty stuff). She reminded me that it was okay to put The Beast down for awhile but my excuses had all dried up and it was time to get back to work.

And so I did. Today. And it was good.

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If you are smart enough not to follow me on Twitter you really have no idea how annoying I was while listening to the audio version of Heart’s memoir Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock & Roll, lucky for you I will recreate that annoyingness right here for you in more than 140 characters.

Let’s go.

So yeah, Heart. If you’re of a certain age you probably think of the feather-y haired sister behind songs like “Barracuda” or “Magic Man.” If you’re of a slightly younger certain age, the name Heart conjures up images of corsets, improbably big hair, and smokey videos. This is the Heart I remember and until I started listening to the memoir, had totally forgotten I loved with all my ninth-grade heart in like 1986.

Now, I love them with my whole entire heart for an entirely different reason, mostly because these two women are totally charming badasses who survived four decades in the rock and roll industry and tell a story about it that is so enthralling, I kind of binged on it.

Holy Buckets this was so good and fun and eye-opening and awesome and all the things that you want in a rock and roll story — sex, drugs, music, someone famous being kind of an asshole, and someone famous being totally awesome. Also, there’s a healthy dose of the misogyny inherent in rock & roll and the Wilson sisters not being afraid to call out that total bullshit.

Where to begin? It’s hard to begin because there is just so much and it is all good.

So you want an origin story about how Ann took off to Vancouver to follow love and work in a Led Zepplin cover band? You got it. You also get how the band was on their very last bag of rice and their van broke down and they were just at the end when they got a call to open for Rod Stewart in Montreal. Hot damn.

You want a tale of two sisters who were super close because they grew up as military brats and had to move all the time and how they fell in love with The Beatles and were puzzled by their friends who wanted to marry a Beatle when the Wilsons wanted to be The Beatles? It’s there.

How about we ponder the song “Barracuda” which Ann wrote about a predatory radio station asshole and Sarah Palin tried to co-opt for her campaign as John McCain’s VP much to their chagrin.

Shall we talk about how when they might have seemed on the verge of irrelevance as grunge broke all over their hometown Seattle scene instead of being bitchy diva queens they, instead, fostered the young’uns in the scene? They were there the night Andrew Wood died. Ann’s story of watching Chris Cornell comfort Jeff Ament that night gave me goosebumps.

Let’s not forget the coke-fueled slumber party with Stevie Nicks.

Oh, and how the 80s music that soundtracked my junior-high years always felt a little false to them, except for “These Dreams” (my personal favorite). Plus, they had to deal with the managers and business people who wanted more cleavage and bigger hair. Also, Ann & Nancy’s take on the ridiculousness of All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You is worth the price of admission.

There’s also Cameron Crowe and John Cougar Mellencamp and Def Leppard and talk of selling out and the Wilson’s total fandom of other musicians.

And there’s all kinds of issues around being woman. From Nancy’s struggles with infertility to Ann’s weight, which is heartbreaking. She tells how one asshole reviewer over the years choose his adjectives based on how much Ann weighed. At one point she busts out this bit of wisdom:

“I am a feminist & a proud one, but this country’s obsession with weight is the biggest problem women have ever had,” Ann Wilson.

A bit hyperbolic, perhaps. I don’t know if weight is the biggest problem, but our whole beauty-myth/rape culture is a disaster.

Shall I go on? Because I totally can. This is the kind of rock and roll memoir I’ve been waiting for exactly my whole entire life. While I loved Kristin Hersh’s Rat Girl because she wrote about music unlike anyone else on this planet, and Patti Smith’s Just Kids because of the rose-colored romanticism, I love Kicking & Dreaming because it feels like rock & roll without ever getting boring (I’m talking to you Pete Townshend & Keith Richards, whom I can’t even link to because I quit your book).

This book is just everything I love about being alive and human: music, feminism, politics, sex, love, family, and it’s all so wonderfully told that I cannot even being to find all the wonderful adjectives for it.

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