'When I Was Born For The 7th Time'

I remember seeing the video for "Brimful of Asha" at my mother's house a year or so before going to college. There was something I liked, but there was even more that I thought was missing.

In hindsight, I wonder if it was my first ever real exposure to independent music that sounded like independent music. I'd heard of unsigned bands constantly. But nothing that had the aesthetic of Cornershop or Belle and Sebastian.

The album is interesting mostly because none of it really sounds like "Brimful of Asha." It's a mishmash of hip-hop beats, turntable scratching and a host of Indian staples from the tabla and the sitar. The founding brothers are actually of Asian descent although growing up in England. Although never leaving behind their ancestral sounds and picking up hip-hop beats, the pair fully embraced the sensibilities of the Stone Roses and Oasis to pair the sweet of the sour.

'Green Onions'

Keyboardist Booker T. Jones was 17 years old when he joined with 20-year-olds Steve Cropper, Lewie Steinberg and Al Jackson Jr. as a house band for Stax Records. There, they began by backing up legendary vocalists such as Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett. There are worse ways to earn a living at 17.

Jamming, the group came upon a keyboard riff that they'd later turn into their most famous singular recording, "Green Onions," a single from the album of the same name. It's a song you couldn't avoid even if you tried.

The entire album is a collection of instrumentals borrowing from the R&B they were playing in studio and the stylings of Ray Charles that they heard on the radio.

Along the way, they defined southern and Memphis blues and became one of the first integrated bands on the scene, which is saying something for the early 1960s.

Booker T. and the MGs were a testament to the amount of talent languishing, so to speak, in studios throughout this era. The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and The Wrecking Crew were other examples of backing bands that found a certain amount of fame, but nothing near as to what the MGs found with Green Onions.

'Back To Mystery City'

I knew Hanoi Rocks for one reason and one reason only: Mötley Crüe's "Behind the Music."

The band's "claim to fame" was their drummer, Razzle, dying in a drunk driving incident thanks to Crüe lead singer Vince Neil intoxicated behind the wheel. 

I'd never heard Hanoi Rocks, and I was really shocked to listen to this album. It's not metal or glam hair metal at all. It is actually pretty poppy. 

Anyway, Razzle was just a dude. Hanoi Rocks singer Michael Monroe happened to meet Razzle, a fan, at a Johnny Thunders show. They met backstage and Razzle declared that he wanted to be Hanoi Rocks' new drummer. They fired Gyp Casino and Razzle was fatefully given the drummers gig. You could say it was one of the worst chance meetings in music history. 

'The Man Who'

I've always considered Travis as the unpopular Coldplay. They both broke around the same time and each played a milquetoast version of either U2 (Coldplay) or Oasis (Travis). 

Then Coldplay continued to get more famous. Travis didn't get more famous at all. 

This is my first long listen to Travis and this album, at least, isn't terrible. Quite good actually. They're an odd band that's had an odd number of bad things happen to it. 

Early on, they won a contest only to have it oddly rescinded and they wound up not even on the list of Scottish bands to be considered. 

Lead singer Fran Healy had his grandfather die. Afterward, he went into a short seclusion and came back out with a totally new vision for his band. 

Later,  their bass player wound up diving into a shallow pool damaging his spinal cord and nearly drowning. 

Otherwise, they've had a relatively piddling career, making albums, touring and whatnot. Peaking, maybe, in 1999 with this album. 

'Low Life' & 'Technique'

Ian Curtis, leader singer of Joy Division, killed himself the day before the band was supposed to tour in support of its upcoming release, Closer.

Curtis would go down as a sort of hipster genius that died too soon and Closer would become a seminal record influencing bands 20-30 years later.

The rest of Joy Division split off and became New Order, a group that was phenomenally more popular and longer lasting than the previous group, but lacking the real credit and panache among critics, at least compared to what they were with the previous lead singer.


You wouldn't know these records unless you like New Order or were in college between 1985-1990 and liked dancing and doing drugs. Technique is the album in which the band perfected their electronic sound. Neither album has a hit as any of their true radio hits were scattered between the albums.

'AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted' & 'The Predator'

O'Shea Jackson's agent is a genius.

Few were as hot button in the 1990s, particularly in popular culture or the rap scene, than Ice Cube (you have to wonder if anyone knows who O'Shea Jackson is considering Ice Cube is synonymous with the man). After his stint in N.W.A. (which struck fear in any white household), he recorded some of the heaviest music of the era with AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted and The Predator, both released within two years of each other.

Stoking the flames of racism and popping the cork on tensions in the streets and the hearts of Americans as riots stormed. The period was a Noah's flood sort of cleansing the land; getting real feelings out in the public before everyone went crazy.

In hindsight, although initially terrified of artists like Cube, his albums and those of Public Enemy and others, probably prevented untold amount of harm giving African Americans a popular release and whites the ability to understand the lingering effects of slavery, Jim Crow and racism.

Through all this, somehow the man became one of the safest African American action and comedic actors. His acting career started in John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood. Singleton encouraged him to write a screen play. It became Friday, which became the launching pad for his second career and Chris Tucker's brief, but enigmatic, career.

Now he does family comedies and beer commercials.

Although, one must consider that although Ice Cube knew the hard streets, he also came from a reasonably stable home life, with parents who worked steadily. Cube himself went to college to study architecture. Maybe he was always destined for Are We There Yet?