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Review: Pop Gun’s “American Soul”

Music is one of my main coping tools, and I’ve latched on to a new CD from some old friends that I know will get me through the stresses of a new job and the slow commute that goes with it.

I’ve already determined that Pop Gun’s American Soul is an excellent soundtrack for ensuring the painful wind from the Longfellow Bridge across Storrow Drive and onto I-93. I could swear at the drivers around me and bang my fist on the steering wheel. Instead, I’m listening to Pop Gun.

Mood music:

(Disclosure: I know these guys well. I worked with drummer Greg Walsh at a small weekly newspaper nearly 20 years ago. In more recent years, I’ve gotten to know bassist-vocalist Harry Zarkades and guitarist-fellow Hillie James Melanson.)

I’ve had Pop Gun’s Trigger CD for a long time and have my favorites for sure, but American Soul has a depth and weight that comes with the 20 years of life experiences these guys have had since the songs for that first CD was written.

My favorite track is “Love and Wine,” written and vocalized by former guitarist Bruce Allen, who recently moved to Colorado. (Harry Sabean replaced Allen.) It’s a song full of light and fresh air, especially when Allen sings, “The sun will shine, and love is a vine that we’ll tend together.” When he sings that love is like wine, “sweet when it’s young and it only gets better,” it resonates with me after nearly 15 years of marriage.

“Bitter Heart” is another favorite. Melanson sings this one, and the mix of melody and crunchy riffs remind me of some of Boston’s classic bands, like The Cars and Aerosmith, with a bit of The Neighborhoods mixed in for good measure. His vocals are a smooth contrast to Zarkades’s more serrated tone. That’s one of the things that makes this album work for me: the vocal variety in the songs.

Erin and I attended Pop Gun’s record-release concert last week and the new tunes passed the critical test of scoring direct punches live.

If you’re a fan of Boston rock, this CD carries on the rich tradition that makes me proud to call this place home.

Buy American Soul. You won’t regret it. The best place to order one is the Pop Gun Facebook page. The guys will get back to you in short order.

For locals, you can pick up the disc at The Record Exchange in Salem, MA, and Dyno Records in Newburyport, MA.

Pop Gun
Photo by Melanie Carr
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I Wish Hard Rock Stations Had More Class

It’s not easy being a rock ’n’ roll fanatic some days, especially when it comes to the choices I have on the radio dial. Oh, don’t get me wrong: The Boston area has plenty of great stations, especially RadioBDC and Rock 101 in Southern New Hampshire.

But some radio stations, in the Boston market and beyond, that play my kind of music have to ruin it by appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Mood music:

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It’s always been this way, of course, and once upon a time I didn’t mind. One of my local stations, WAAF, has cranked up a humor based on sexual crassness for as long as I can remember. Hell, this is the station that brought us shock jocks Opie and Anthony. They shocked Boston until April 1998 they told their listeners as an April Fools’ prank that Boston Mayor Tom Menino was killed in a car accident while transporting a young female Haitian prostitute. In more recent years, I’ve tuned in to hear women on the morning show being asked about the shape of their vaginas.

As a 20 year old, I loved this stuff. But somewhere along the way I grew up, and my radio stations didn’t. (The RadioBDC DJs, formerly of WFNX, have always been more mature in this regard.)

It’s a drag for two reasons:

  • I can’t listen when my kids are in the car, which is most of the time.
  • Thanks to the Internet and, more specifically, Facebook, I have to see a lot of meathead comments from WAAF and its followers. This morning, for example, WAAF posted these comments above pictures of the women they talk about:
    • “Here’s math teacher Iowa Ashley Nicole Anderson who allegedly had relationships with FOUR different students! Would you??”
    • “Here’s Mandy Caruso, the cosplayer dressed as “Black Cat” who was upset about being sexually harrassed at NY ComicCon.”

The comments to the latter post have a few mature comments, but most of them are abusive name-calling. One jerk calls her a “cumdumpster” and someone else asks, “What does she expect when she looks like that?” Forget that these women are human beings, prone to all the mistakes we’re all prone to. The woman in the latter case did nothing wrong. She was at a comic book convention and was in costume. That doesn’t give some asshat the right to ask about her cup size.

I’m no prude. I do come from Revere, after all, and have been known to swear like a sailor. When my sons let the bathroom humor flow, I admit I laugh inside even as I’m scolding them.

But there are lines I’ve decided not to cross anymore. I want my rock ’n’ roll delivered to me by DJs whose thinking and sense of humor are something above the Stone Age stuff.

I’ve unliked the WAAF Facebook page and don’t plan to listen to the station again anytime soon.

Thankfully, I have RadioBDC and, when I want to cut out all the talking, Spotify.

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Former FNX DJs Get Second Chance on Boston.com

In a recent post about WFNX being sold and gutted by Clear Channel, I predicted that this would not be the end of the story. It turns out I was right. Boston.com announced this morning that it’s launching a live streaming radio station featuring alternative music and well-known personalities from WFNX-FM.

Mood music:

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In a Facebook exchange this morning, longtime DJ Henry Santoro told me: “All I can say right now is that they came to us, and the magic started happening from the very first meeting.”

“The Boston.com station will have a presence on the website’s homepage,” reported Boston.com, “and it will feature a variety of live programming: music, commentary, contests, interviews, and exclusive online content.”

Effective today, the following former WFNX employees will become Boston.com employees: DJs Henry Santoro, Julie Kramer, and Adam 12; former program director Paul Driscoll; former sales rep Johnny L. Lavasseur; and former operations and promotions director Mike Snow.

The launch date for the new streaming radio station will be announced later this summer, according to Boston.com.

As a kid who received a lot of solace from the music these DJs played during the darker periods of my life, this is great news to wake up to on a Monday morning.

Raise your coffee mugs, and toast a second chances.

WFNX Logo

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When Fakes Go for the Kill

We do a lot of stupid things to gain acceptance among others. Many of those things go back to being a fake. Some of you have been guilty at some point. So have I. The question is if anything good can come from our shenanigans.

Mood music:

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I’ll start with myself. Someone who means the world to me recently suggested that I’m the star-struck type. I love making friends with musicians, especially when I’m a fan of their music. It sounds sick, but I’m kind of proud that some locally famous “rock star” types read this blog and think I’m worth having a conversation with. I get the same way when respected people in my industry give me the time of day, not to mention other writers. Sometimes, my desire for acceptance in these circles will influence how I dress and even how I talk.

I’m almost ashamed to admit it all. If there’s any redeeming aspect of this, it’s that my star-struck nature has led me to some real friendships — friendships that have made me a better person. And if someone is an asshole, I’m not going to try being their buddy no matter how much I love their music or respect whatever else they do for work. Still, I can’t deny the behavior exists.

It’s all the funnier because I can be the most judgmental fuck on the face of this planet when I see other people being fake.

When the wannabes think it’s cool to throw verbal bombs online to get attention (some call this trolling), I’m quick to stare down my nose at them. I pat myself on the back for not being a troll in these moments, but is that really true? I’m a product of the news business, where editors try to make headlines as attention-grabbing as possible. One could legitimately call that a form of trolling.

I know people who turn fake when they want the world to think they’ve found the perfect soulmate. They post lovey-dovey comments to each other on Facebook all day and jam cyberspace with pictures of them hugging and smiling. Then you find out from people close to them that it’s all for show, that they argue all the time.

There are those who want to be accepted in wealthy social circles even though they may not have a lot of money. They max their credit cards out on clothes and cars to look the part and kiss asses all day in the country clubs and five-star restaurants. Then they go home to their leaky roof, chipped paint and stack of unpaid bills.

Then there are those who want to be accepted so badly in the political world that they’ll pull their principles inside out and say whatever will make people like them. Mitt Romney, this year’s likely Republican nominee for president, has been accused of being this way. Al Gore was accused of it, too, as was John McCain. A pity, because they all show signs of greatness when they’re being themselves.

I think one of the reasons some of us become addicts is because we know we’re fake and want to numb the shameful feelings that go with that look in the mirror. I think it’s why some of us suffer from depression, too.

Nothing sucks quite like knowing you’re not keeping it real. Being fake is exhausting work.

So what do we do about it?

There’s probably not much we can do because we’re dealing with flaws at the very core of human nature. For my part, I just try to figure out who my real friends are along the way and try to nurture those relationships. Maybe some of my friendships started with me being a star-struck idiot (those friends would probably laugh at this, because they know they don’t qualify as genuine stars), but the ones that became real friendships have made me better.

Or, at least, it’s made me take a sober look in the mirror more often. Hopefully, the man that emerges over time will be the real deal.

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Why Reports of WFNX’s Death Are Premature

During this blog’s hiatus a terrible thing happened: Boston’s Phoenix Media/Communications Group sold WFNX 101.7 FM to Clear Channel Communications, essentially killing another bastion of Boston rock.

Mood music:

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It saddened me on many levels. Through Facebook I’m connected with some of the DJs, and I’ve enjoyed their posts, but I could see and feel their pain on that social networking site after the sale was announced. I was also reminded of how WFNX was there for me during many difficult times in the late 1980s and 1990s. I felt equally bad when WBCN met the same fate a few years ago.

Some will argue that these stations lost their way in recent years — and their points are valid. But that’s not the point. These stations are still living, breathing entities and should be treated as such. We humans often lose our way. Sometimes we stay lost until we’re forgotten or we turn up dead. Other times we find our way again and people love us all the more for it.

For the latter reason, this post is no eulogy. It’s about things in life going away and coming back, always different but usually better.

The signs of life after FNX are already evident. Sunday, the day The Boston Globe ran an article about FNX and the precarious state of Boston rock radio, DJ Julie Kramer announced on Facebook that she was engaged. Her job at FNX may be over, but her life goes on. You can’t keep the strong ones down.

Meanwhile, a petition drive to save FNX is gaining steam, and there’s always the opportunity to bring the station back via the Internet. BCN has been reborn online, though the message hasn’t gotten through to enough listeners to call it a success story yet.

Much of my music listening has shifted to the Internet. I like Pandora, though I like Spotify a lot better because I’m able to find most of my favorite albums there. One could argue these newer choices are what’s killing traditional rock radio, but I think we’re simply in the middle of a transitional period. As terrible as it is to see revered radio stations die, the story has a long way to go. In the years to come, I think we’ll see a more complete marriage between traditional radio and the Internet. We’re merely traveling through the fog right now, lost and disoriented. It sucks, but the fog always burns away eventually.

Saturday Erin and I went to a charity concert that was teeming with mourning FNX fans. My friends Pop Gun opened the show and did a blistering, satisfying set. They were followed by New Wave legends The Psychedelic Furs. The latter band was never my cup of tea, but I enjoyed them and was amazed that I knew as many of their songs as I did. They can thank FNX for that. People still hunger for alternative rock in this town. FNX’s sale leaves a vacuum, and we know by now that nature never allows a vacuum to go unfilled. Who better to fill it than the former DJs of WFX?

The possibilities are endless. And even if FNX doesn’t come back, the station will always live on in our memories. Allow me to share some of mine.

As a kid from Revere with a boulder-sized chip on my shoulder, I turned to heavy metal to sooth me after my brother’s death, family rancor and too many Crohn’s Disease flare-ups to count. In the 1980s, a good Boston metal station was hard to come by. There was WAAF, but their DJs were always too juvenile for my tastes. I loved BCN, but they never played enough of the heavy stuff to keep me satisfied.

I turned to WFNX not because it was playing metal. It wasn’t, obviously. I gave them a try because my late friend Sean Marley was a fan and back then I copied everything he did. In doing so, my musical horizons were broadened in wonderful ways. I discovered bands like The Ramones, REM (I don’t listen to REM these days, but I liked them back then), The Pixies and Nirvana and DJs like Kramer, Angie C. and Duane Bruce, who could play kick-ass music and conduct themselves with class instead of going for the shock value. In the first years of my relationship with Erin, we both enjoyed FNX. And when Sean Marley died, I turned to FNX for the comfort of bands like Weezer.

In more recent years the metalhead in me has re-asserted itself, but I’ve continued to love the bands FNX introduced me to. I’ve also come to enjoy the Facebook presence of its current and former DJs.

Clear Channel can never take that from me. And it can’t kill a powerful musical movement as long as there are people around to pluck the torch from the ground and re-ignite it.