Baby and Daddy, fighting the power.

My wife and I took our 10-month old daughter Zellie on the Occupy LA march over the weekend. It was a very peaceful, if somewhat subdued moment of people coming together to express their common frustration with the state of our country. I was pleasantly surprised at the diversity; I know the coverage of Zuccotti Park tends to focus on the punks and hipsters, but every age and walk of life was represented at Occupy LA. I would even say it skewed old. Turnout felt somewhat sparse when I was in the thick of it, but the local news estimated the crowd was between 10 and 15,000 strong, which sounds like a pretty impressive figure to me. Zellie did not seem that impressed, but the only thing that really excites her at this age is bananas.

It was the first march I've ever been a part of. I've always been more of a complainer than a protestor. My civil disobedience mostly takes the form of snarky Facebook status updates and rambling emails to my friend. That's not a typo, I really only have one friend. My only real involvement in politics to date consisted of attending the Ralph Nader rally at Madison Square Garden in 2000 (Tim Robbins showed up as Bob Roberts! Don't worry; no one got it then, either) and making a few hours worth of phone calls for Obama in 2008.

Oh, I also went to see George Bush Sr. speak in high school, but that was for a girl. The President was on a Whistle Stop train tour that whistled to a stop 20 miles from my hometown, and the highly crush-worthy Julie C. invited me to join her family at the station. Under those kinds of circumstances, how could I refuse? You show me a guy who won't drive 20 miles to watch the President wave from a sweet-looking vintage train with the girl he wants to bone and I'll show you a guy who doesn't believe in America.

For someone who spends an obscene amount of time reading about current events, my lack of direct involvement has always been a source of shame. I've made some phone calls to my representatives over the years on issues that I really care about, but I'm always secretly hoping it will just go to voicemail. My involvement tends to be the quiet kind, the kind that occurs only in my head. The only thing my protesting disrupts is my own sense of inner peace.

Until now, it's always been pretty easy to excuse myself. In my lifetime, protests have had a slim record of accomplishment. I was in New York during the 2004 Republican National Convention, when everyone in the world who hated George W. Bush came to town to scream about it. As it turned out, an awful lot of people hated George W. Bush. Approximately 90% of New York City and approximately 100% of everyone in every other country in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people blanketed the streets for days, and no one outside of New York cared or noticed. If hundreds of thousands of people can swarm the streets of the country's media center for several days and no one gives a shit, doesn't that kind of discount the act of public protest itself?

That was a rhetorical question. The answer is yes. Public protests are just standard operating procedure at this point. Politicians propose something infuriating, people take to the streets in a desperate attempt to make themselves heard, infuriating thing happens anyway. On to the next infuriating thing. There's nothing special in a protest; it's just business as usual. Eventually, everyone goes home.

Until they don't. And that's the great thing about Occupy Wall Street: they're not leaving. It's easy to discount protestors when they show up on your lawn, hoot and holler for a couple of hours and take off; it's much harder to ignore them when they start their own city.

There's nothing new in the concept of a sit-down protest. A lot of the commentaries I've seen try to make the case that this wouldn't be possible without Twitter and cell phones, but I don’t really see how technology makes much of a difference. There's nothing particularly high-tech about plopping a tent in a park and refusing to leave. No one is afraid of OWS because the protestors know how to check-in to Zuccotti Park on Foursquare. They're afraid because no one knows when it will end.

And make no mistake about it: people are afraid. It may not seem that way when you watch Fox News and the anchors are belittling the people in the crowd for wearing weird clothes or not being able to have in-depth policy discussions off the tops of their heads. But the question all the skeptics are asking -- "What do they want?" -- betrays an underlying admission of fear; i.e. I do not understand this. So, as bullies are wont to do, they pick on the thing they can understand -- look at that guy's stupid haircut! – to distract attention from their real, palpable fear that they are no longer in control. The world is changing around them and they have no idea how to stop it. Gandhi said it best: "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. "

A lot of people are putting pressure on the protestors to come up with a list of demands, as if having a ransom note would somehow increase their credibility. In my opinion, one of the main things the movement has going for it is the lack of concrete demands. There's this constant pull to bring the conversation into terms the prevailing paradigm understands – the terms of argument. If the protestors say, "this is what we want," that gives the opposition the opportunity to tell them why they can't get it, to remain within the cynical bubble where they feel comfortable. "Oh, that's what you want from your government? Well, you can't have that because of X, Y, and Z. Stop being naive." It's that kind of conversation that's been keeping us down for so long. We're tired of arguing. We've been arguing for years, and it doesn't make a lick of difference, because the argument is happening on your cynical terms. We've told you what we want a million ways to Sunday and you're not listening. Maybe it's time you started speaking our language instead of us trying to speak yours.

Besides, you already know what OWS wants, because it's the same thing everyone wants. We want the return of the middle class. We want a clean planet. We want a government that favors the needs of its citizens over the desires of corporations. We want a strong public school system, we want dependable healthcare, we want jobs that give us a humane amount of vacation time and a decent living wage. We want a government that protects us … from poverty, from hunger, from illness. After all, isn't that the point of having a society in the first place? So that we don't have to spend our lives fending for ourselves? If you really want to be on your own, it's not that hard. Don't get married. Don't have kids. Don't talk to your neighbors. Just go off in the woods and live alone. There are plenty of places in America where you can still do this and no one will ever bother you. If, however, you still see some benefit in connecting with other people, then maybe it's time you spoke up.

In the OWS movement, I see a glimmer of hope, maybe the first real glimmer I've seen in my adult life. I think people have finally had enough. We're tired of being forced to adopt this isolationist worldview. We're tired of living in fear of everyone around us and we're tired of supporting a system that tells us our fear is necessary. Our goal in life should not be to make enough money that we can wall ourselves off from the rest of humanity. I don't know when that became the American dream, but it sure ain't mine.

It's high time we had a government that worked in the people's favor, instead of actively preventing us from experiencing personal fulfillment, happiness, and the ability to enjoy this gorgeous planet we've been lucky enough to appear on. It is our right and our duty to ask our government to protect the things that really matter: Community. Family. Health. Nature. Life. Call me a hippie if you want to; I'm tired of being part of your cynical, defeatist, anti-humanitarian worldview. You'll come around. And if living in an equal society that is free of fear doesn't appeal to you, might I suggest Yellowstone? It's quite large, with plenty of room to hide. Just remember to hang your food up when the bears come around.

I do not have any interest in being famous. I'd like to be respected. That would be nice. I'd like to make works that people enjoy. I'd like to be wealthy enough to not have to think about how that box of Ben & Jerry's ice cream bars is going to affect my grocery budget. All of those things would be great. But famous? For the birds, in my opinion. The worst part would be having people bother you all the time. Leave me alone, dammit! I'm just trying to get my legs waxed in peace like a normal fellow!

That's why I would not want to be an actor. Because the only way to succeed as an actor is to be famous. I mean, I guess you can be that guy who's in those things that no one has ever heard of. But I would doubt there are a ton of actors striving to be that guy. If you're an actor, the winning trajectory is to make the most of a small role so you can get better roles in bigger movies where you will be seen by more people and make more money.

Not that it's all about making more money - I would imagine most actors sincerely enjoy pretending to be other people. But what I'm saying is it isn't a job that can exist in a vacuum. Sure, you can pretend to be other people all by yourself in your bedroom, but I'm not sure how to turn that into a viable career path. A successful actor doesn't just love pretending to be other people, he loves pretending to be other people in front of other people.

Unfortunately, along with all that pretending to be other people and making lots of money comes a few job requirements. One of those requirements is publicizing the movies you just got paid a shit ton of money to be in. Sometimes this promotional period can last for weeks. You might have to do one interview after another for a whole day. A whole day! Can you imagine? Like, 20 interviews in a single day, talking about the same thing. You might have to say the same thing 20 times! You will be fed and coddled and you will sit in a comfortable chair and you will almost certainly be treated in a very deferential manner by everyone who talks to you. But you might have to say one thing 20 times in a row!

I am being facetious because you know what? That does not sound very hard to me. But apparently it is the hardest thing in the world to Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, because in this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly they sure do complain about it!

"I can't do the tits-and-teeth stuff," Craig, 43, says when asked about the grind of promoting a movie. "I'm not hardwired to do that. I can't sell." Ford, 69, is even more succinct: he just growls slightly.

First of all, "tits-and-teeth?" Daniel Craig just made that phrase up. Second of all, if Harrison Ford ever growled at me I would punch him in his wrinkled old man mouth. Look, Harrison Ford, I know you've been around the block a few times. But also: YOU HAVE BEEN AROUND THE BLOCK A FEW TIMES. You should know at this point in your career that being interviewed is part of your job. If you don't feel like doing press for the movie, TELL YOUR PRODUCERS. I'm sure they'd be happy to give your cushy acting job to someone nice, like Sir Ian McKellen.

Well, you and Rachel Weisz did have a very private wedding. Why did you decide to get married that way?
Craig This question answers itself. You said we had a private wedding and now you want to ask about the wedding. You are barking up the wrong tree. No disrespect, but if you think it through, that's the reason we've said fuck all on that subject. Because it was private.

Oh, give me a fucking break, you ass. You're a celebrity who recently married another celebrity. What do you think Entertainment Weekly is going to ask you about, your views on Palestine? And who really gives a shit about your stupid wedding, anyway? Tell the poor writer it was a lovely ceremony and move on.

Look, I understand you don't want paparazzi hanging around your wedding. Keep it private, do something respectful. Great. But refusing to even talk about it afterwards? Can you imagine if a normal person responded this way? "Hey Dave, how was your wedding?" "I cannot believe you would have the gall to ask me about that." Asshole.

That ring on your wedding finger, Daniel--what's that made of? It looks almost like copper.
Craig [smiling coldly] Really. You just see a line in the sand and want to fucking step over it.

Oh give me a fucking ... IT'S ON YOUR FUCKING FINGER! Not only can we not mention the wedding, we can't even talk about the ring now? It's right there! WE CAN ALL SEE IT! You are not wearing a private, secret ring!

Have either of you actors turned down jobs and later regretted it?
Ford There have been roles that I've turned down because I just couldn't figure out how to do it. And people have made great successes out of them.
For example?
Ford No. You know, Tom Selleck doesn't go around saying he was the first choice for Indiana Jones. You don't do that. It doesn't matter.

These guys and their rules! Since when don't you do that? And why shouldn't Tom Selleck go around saying he was the first choice for Indiana Jones? If I was Tom Selleck, I would tell that to anyone who would listen. I'm sure Stephen Spielberg is kicking himself that he didn't give the job to Selleck, 'cause then he wouldn't have had to spend four movies working with this prick. I bet Tom Selleck's a wonderful guy to work with. I bet he shows up on set on the first day with home-baked cookies for the crew. Tom Selleck! What a mensch.

I know that an enormous amount of discussion went into the choice of Harrison's hat in Cowboys & Aliens. The last thing you wanted was for it to look like a fedora, like Indy's How many different hats did you go through?
Ford I would reject them without even putting them on. I said, "This guy wouldn't wear this hat. If I put that hat on, I don't know who this guy is."

Oh for fucks ... IT'S A FUCKING COWBOY MOVIE! What were they trying to give you, bowlers? Berets? Can you imagine if you were a poor costume designer on Cowboys and Aliens, and you show up to set with five hats, all of which probably look exactly alike, and Harrison Ford is like, "I refuse to even put that hat on my head." Or better yet, if he did put the wrong hat on his head and suddenly he's playing his character with a cockney accent. Ha! Also: ugh!

Also: Harrison Ford, it doesn't matter what hat you're wearing, all of your characters are going to sound and act exactly the same. Because you are not a very good actor!

(Claps his hands.) All right! Coffee time! Let's do this shit!

Me at Starbucks (in line behind him): You look great!

Okay, they're more homogeneous than we are. They have way higher taxes. What else? It's cold? I mean, you know that money doesn't make people happy, right? Plenty of happy people who aren't rich, plenty of miserable people who are. Some brain devil tells us that we would be different. Maybe other people are unhappy being rich, but I would not be. Well, I declare hooey! You would be just as sad and lonely as you are now. The only way money could ever make you happy is if it could buy you a machine that would let you travel back in time and murder your parents before they fucked you up.

The alternative to that kind of machine is a high quality of life. And all those things would go on my quality of life wish list. If it means I've gotta pay a little extra for it, so be it. I already give 60% of my income away to charity* ; why not just donate it to building a better society?

* I totally don't give 60% of my income away to charity.

Ultimately, if [American Apparel] and Abercrombie sink, it will less likely be the fault of dubious business practices and "improper management" (although they sure don't help) than the same thing that affects everybody in the world fashion – plain old changing tastes. There will always be young beautiful people who can get away with ugly tank tops, but frankly any company that's in the "polyester high waist pleated pant" business has likely been on borrowed time from the get-go.

Am I confused about something? I thought the whole point of American Apparel was that its clothes are super basic and mix-and-match. They sell t-shirts and tank tops and zip-up hoodies in primary colors. Granted, they have chicks in giant, dumb-looking glasses in their ads and what not. I understand that their ads are hyper-stylized and trendy. But the clothing itself? It's just, like, your most basic definition of clothes, right?

Also, for what it's worth? I always thought their ads were pretty hot. Even the ones with chicks in giant, dumb-looking glasses. Don't hate!

Who is Molly Sims? This is, I guess.

Let me be perfectly clear: if Heidi Montag & Molly Sims hang glided into a mountain it would not affect my life in the slightest. I don't care about either of them, except for in that vague way where you're supposed to think people should live or whatever. But what I do care about is when people pretend they are not assholes by being even bigger assholes. That is the crime I have come here today to rectify. According to The Huffington Post, Molly Sims had some "harsh words" for Heidi Montag in an interview with Health Magazine:

But Sims dished out some real talk for Montag, who once had ten plastic surgery procedures performed in one day. Sims remarked, "I think Heidi Montag is a really sick girl, something is off. You don't get F-size boobs. And I'm not judging her. I feel sorry for her."

First of all, Health magazine? Is that one of those tiny magazines in the grocery store checkout line? That doesn't count as a real interview! Second of all, dear editors of Health: I know models look really skinny, but skinny is not the same as healthy. Third of all, dear Molly Sims: phrases like "something is off" and "a really sick girl" count as judgments. Also, Molly Sims, there is possibly nothing more disingenuous then the combined sentences, "I am not judging you. I feel sorry for you." I am not judging you at all. I feel sorry for you that you do not know you sound like an asshole.

When Jeffrey asked me to come up with some sort of “Best of 2009” list for Awkward, I told him, “Listen, Hot Lips: I’m an old, crotchety douche bag who lives solely in the past… and not even my past! I’m talking about the past of some stinky old hippie who got beaten with pool cues at Altamont! I haven’t seen ten movies in 2009 worthy of recommendation. I read maybe three books that were published this year, only one of which didn’t give me the dry heaves. Albums? Do they even make those anymore? Yes, Jeffrey, I recommend you take your ‘Best of 2009’ project and stuff it into your tear ducts, because I bet that would hurt like a mother.”

When Jeffrey stopped sobbing, he said, “Pretty please.” Now, I’m not made of stone, so I told him I’d toss him a piece I was already posting on my own site: the award-winning* Psychobabble. He said, “Whatever.” So, here’s The Fifteen Best Old Albums That Were New to Me in 2009. Enjoy!

*Awards may be self-administered.

15. I’ve Got My Own Album to Do by Ron Wood (1974)

On the cusp of the collapse of The Faces and his recruitment into the Rolling Stones’ ranks, Ron Wood went into the studio with a few buddies and a few bottles and cut a characteristically sloppy solo record. Surprisingly, I’ve Got My Own Album to Do wound up being more than a bundle of drunken jams. “Am I Grooving You” may be a dumb lyric slapped onto a lazy guitar lick and “Crotch Music” may marry a dumb title with dated jazz-rock fusion, but there are a surprising number of quality songs on this record. Wood duets with future fuehrer Mick Jagger on “I Can Feel the Fire”, getting the record off to a rousing start (although it would turn into an even fierier item during live performances with The Faces), but the ballads may provide the most memorable moments of I’ve Got My Own Album to Do. “Far East Man”, co-written with George Harrison, is gorgeously reeling, and “Mystifies Me”, on which Wood goes pipe to ravaged pipe with Rod Stewart, is a lovely, ragged, countrified love song. Stewart also steps in to give a little boost to the Chuck Berry-esque rocker “Take a Look at the Guy” and mask Wood’s drunkenly tuneless delivery of “If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody”, but this remains Wood’s show all the way through.

“Far East Man”

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14. I Want Candy by The Strangeloves (1965)

If scientists were capable of distilling a beer-drenched party down to its essence, melting it like wax, and refashioning it into 33 1/3 revolutions of Rock & Roll revelry, the results would probably sound a lot like I Want Candy. We all know the stomping title tune (though more may know it via Bow Wow Wow’s icy ‘80s remake than the hot-blooded original), and if that’s your cup of malt liquor, you won’t be disappointed by the rest of this record. With the exception of one token ballad (which doesn’t even make it to the two-minute mark), there isn’t a moment of respite as The Strangeloves bash out their tribal beats on originals like “Cara-Lin”, “No Jive”, and the garage-tastic “Night Time” (which scored a spot on Lenny Kaye’s original Nuggets). They deliver equally electrifying covers of “Hang On Sloopy”, “New Orleans”, “Willie and the Hand Jive”, and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, which adds on the beefy horn section Keith Richards always wished for that song. Turn it up loud and do some keg stands.

“Cara-Lin”

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13. You Baby/Let Me Be by The Turtles (1966)

Everyone already knows about the backlash against Bob Dylan when he made his transformation from topical folkie to absurdist Rocker (queue squeals of “Judas!”). Far less legendary is the similar path The Turtles took at the beginning of their career. Yup, believe it or not, the group best known for creating knowingly schlocky ditties like “Happy Together” and “Elenore” once had a following of serious folk fans, who gravitated to the band after it scored a hit with Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe” and covered protest songs like P.F. Sloan’s apocalyptic “Eve of Destruction”. When The Turtles tackled Sloan’s “You Baby”, a wad of bubblegum thick enough to clog the works of Big Ben, the folkies’ screeched their standard declarations of betrayal and headed for the exit. Thus The Turtles were left to develop into the hit-making machine we know and love today, but the shift was not a sudden one. Their second album You Baby/Let Me Be, is just about as striking a transitional album as there is, right down to its title, which name-checks the last of their folk-rock hits and the wonderfully poppy piffle that gave them their second wind. The rest of the album is no less schizo, trading off sardonic rallying-cries like the conga line-inspiring “Down in Suburbia” (“Nobody’s ever un-American in suburbia / Everybody has a list of negros, Jews, and communists, and checks it off before their daughter marries…”) and the bluesy “Pall Bearing, Ball Bearing World” with frivolous, frantic blasts of garage rock like “Flyin’ High” (which features one of Al Nichol’s hottest guitar riffs) and “Almost There”, and the pure pop of “You Baby”, “I Know You’ll Be There”, and “Just a Room”. Regardless of what The Turtles attempt on You Baby/It Ain’t Me Babe, they invariably get it right with their impeccable harmonies and tough backbeat, not to mention the guys’ budding songwriting skills.

“Flyin’ High”

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12. Montage by Montage (1969)

Keyboardist/composer Michael Brown had been the mastermind behind The Left Banke, the enchanting baroque-pop quintet responsible for “Walk Away Renee”. When Brown wanted to retire from touring to take a more Brian Wilson-like studio role, the rest of the band balked and went their separate way (they also wanted to distance themselves from Brown’s father, who was trying to step in as the group’s manager). Brown barely paused before glomming onto a band called Montage and working his magic on their sole album. Arranging the vocals, providing his trademark elegant piano work, and co-writing all but one track, Brown essentially turned Montage into a Left Banke album. In fact, many regard it as a more worthy successor to the Banke’s classic debut, Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, than their proper second album. Personally, I think this is unfair to the highly underrated Left Banke Too, which includes the definitive version of “Desiree”, but Montage is, indeed, a fine album that sounds very much like a Left Banke record. Singer Vance Chapman is even a ringer for The Left Banke’s Steve Martin. There are a couple of weak moments among the album’s brief 25 minutes: “An Audience with Miss Pricilla Gray” is a music hall jaunt out of step with an otherwise moody collection of songs and “Men are Building Sand” has Chapman singing sour notes because Brown misguidedly wanted to create some disharmony to reflect the song’s anti-deforestation message. Otherwise, this is a superb record that may not be The Left Banke album that never was, but will surely appeal to anyone who digs that group.

“I Shall Call Her Mary”

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11. Radios Appear by Radio Birdman (1977)

Radios Appear is considered one of the best Australian Rock albums ever made, but I’d never even heard of Radio Birdman until reading Clinton Heylin’s Babylon’s Burning recently. I may be arriving late to the party, but I’m glad my invite didn’t get permanently lost in the mail, because Radios Appear is one goddamn exciting Punk record. The lyrics are all shouted in unison not unlike those on the Strangeloves album a few notches up on this list. The rhythms are equally manic with odd exceptions, such as the smoldering Doors-homage “Man with Golden Helmet”. Apparently, the version of Radios Appear I got my hands on is a 1995 reissue that juggles and embellishes on the original track listing, but as the reissue adds amazing tracks like the “Hawaii 5-0”-quoting “Aloha Steve & Danno” and the dark, delirious frenzy of “Non-Stop Girls”, I’d feel remiss in recommending you hunt down the record as it was initially intended.

“Non-Stop Girls”

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10. Hyaena by Siouxsie and the Banshees (1984)

On their fifth album, the tremendous A Kiss in the Dream House, Siouxsie and the Banshees finalized their transition from the strident fury of their first records to the frosty Goth-pop that remained their bread and butter for the remainder of their career. Record number six, Hyaena, is another masterstroke of cool melody and brittle production (which compliments Siouxsie’s sound more than practically any other ‘80s artist). The two singles are among the band’s best: “Dazzle”, with its Walt Disney orchestrations and galloping beat, and the spooky, surrealist “Swimming Horses”. The poppiest moment on Hyaena didn’t make it to the radio, although I like to believe that “Belladonna” was an inescapable smash in some parallel universe. Less commercial but more evocative are the jittery “We Hunger”, the controlled burn of “Take Me Back”, and the spaghetti-western atmospherics of “Bring Me the Head of the Preacher Man”, while “Running Town” rocks out to a tortured guitar riff. Music to play the next time you find yourself in the Arctic with nothing but a tab of acid.

“Belladonna”

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9. Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells (1968)

Tommy James and the Shondells’ whole-hog plunge into psychedelia was one of the weirder moments in ‘60s Rock, yet it’s a pretty short leap from the utter nonsense of “My baby does the hanky panky” to the utter nonsense of “Crimson and clover, over and over.” By jettisoning the faux intellectualism that defined so much psych, the group frees themselves up so they can just get down to cranking up crazy sounds and hooks as candy-sweet as any of their earlier bubblegum hits. The title track is a monument of inspired insipidness and one of the greatest singles of the ‘60s, with its mind-melting tremeloed backing vocals and warped wah-wah guitars. The shimmering amphetamine-exultation “Crystal Blue Persuasion” and “Sugar On Sunday” were memorable singles as well, although the party-anthem throwback “Do Something to Me” sounds slightly out of place here (it’s still a pretty exciting track, though). The album-only cuts are nearly as good as the hits: “Kathleen McArthur” is a pretty psychedelic ballad, “Breakaway” a hard-driving chunk of funk, and “Smokey Road” is swoony pop-soul. But the real undiscovered gem is a glorious explosion of acid-steeped insanity on which James finally reveals his true self: “Hello, banana, I am a tangerine.” Just what I suspected all along.

“I am a Tangerine”

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8. Unhalfbricking by Fairport Convention (1969)

Unhalfbricking did not hit me as immediately as Fairport Convention’s subsequent album, Liege & Lief, but its rewards were worth the slight effort it took to root them out. Unlike Liege, which is nearly conceptual in its reliance on antiquated English folk, Unhalfbricking is a bit of a jumble. There are a couple of quirky covers— “Si Tu Dois Partir” (a Cajun-flavored, French language version of Dylan’s “If You Gotta Go, Go Now”) and an amorphously alluring rendition of the traditional folk song “Sailor’s Song”— as well as definitive versions of Dylan’s stately “Percy’s Song” and his deliriously rollicking “Million Dollar Bash”. Richard Thompson gets off two good originals with the quietly seething “Genesis Hall” and “Cajun Woman”, a scorching slab of Rock & Roll, but it’s Sandy Denny who supplies the classics. Her “Autopsy” pointedly recounts the death of a relationship while see-sawing between swirling waltz passages and a standard-time shuffle. The defiantly Zen “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” became a modern folk standard covered by artists ranging from Judy Collins to Nina Simone to Cat Power. No matter what the Convention attempts, it’s all buoyed by Denny’s powerful voice, Thompson’s sassy guitar licks, and a hardworking rhythm section. Unhalfbricking may take a mercurial path, but it’s one worth following.

“Million Dollar Bash”

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7. Once Upon a Dream by The Rascals (1968)

Following the Sgt. Pepper’s phenomenon, every band in late ‘67/early ’68 was expected to whip up their own psychedelic freak-fest. To The Rascals’ credit, they did not sacrifice their blue-eyed-soul strengths for over-reaching artiness even as Once Upon a Dream expands their sound with the usual post-Pepper trappings (weird sound effects, tape experiments, orchestrations, sitars, trippy segues). While this was The Rascals’ first album to lack major hits (the groovy “It’s Wonderful” barely poked its head into the top twenty), it hangs together as a complete listening experience better than any of their earlier records even though it’s their most eclectic release yet. There’s a little rustic blues (“Easy Rollin’”), a little urban blues (“Singing’ the Blues Too Long”), a little New Orleans soul (“I’m Gonna Love You”), a little snaky Rock & Roll with jazz aspirations (“Please Love Me”), a lot of Brian Wilson-style orchestral grandeur (“Rainy Day”; “My Hawaii”, the title track), and a rare raga rocker that actually delivers the raga and the Rock in equal proportions (“Bells/Sattva”). These disparate elements all add up to a minor masterpiece that should delight fans of the cosmic and the earthbound alike.

“Rainy Day”

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6. Ghosts of Princes in Towers by The Rich Kids (1978)

Only a dope would dispute the importance of The Sex Pistols’ role in establishing Punk as a major force. They were the genre’s poster boys, the one Punk group your Grandpa has heard of. With his spiky hair, permanent grimace, shredded attire, Cockney yowl, and dentally-challenged grin, Johnny Rotten gave the genre a face. Steve Jones suggested Punk’s danger when he told that “fucking rotter” Bill Grundy what he thought of him on live T.V. Sid Vicious proved it when he knifed his girlfriend in the Chelsea Hotel before O.D.ing. All historically significant incidents for sure. Their music, though? Eh. Yes, “Pretty Vacant”, “Anarchy in the UK”, and “God Save the Queen” are all great anthems, but taken together on The Pistols’ only album, they are less interesting. For a genre built on brief, lo-fi, speedily spat-out songs, Punk is not best represented by The Sex Pistols’ long, overly polished, mid-temp recordings, and Never Mind the Bollocks doesn’t pack a level of excitement or memorability to match its looming reputation. Far more interesting— yet far less appreciated— is the band that Glen Matlock formed after he was allegedly kicked out of The Pistols for “liking The Beatles.” As spurious as that story is, The Rich Kids certainly have a greater grasp of melody and variety than The Sex Pistols ever did. I know, I know, punk is not supposed to be about melody or variety, but let’s face it, all the best Punk groups—from The Clash to The Damned to Siouxsie and the Banshees to The Buzzcocks—were melodic and eclectic (let’s call The Ramones “the exception that proves the rule”). Ghosts of Princes in Towers fires blinding bullets like “Cheap Emotions” and “Put You in the Picture” that I find to be much more electrifying—much more Punk— than anything on Bollocks. But it also has moody dirges like “Strange One”, with its twinkling organ line and massive, fuzzed out guitars; heavy Rock like “Hung On You”; and exhilarating power pop like “Young Girl”, “Bullet Proof Lover”, and the magnificent title track, which unashamedly displays Matlock’s love of The Beatles. Most of the reviews you’ll read of Ghosts of Princes in Towers dismiss it. Never mind those bollocks, though. This is the real classic to come out of the Pistols’ camp.

“Ghosts of Princes in Towers”

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5. Suddenly One Summer by JK & Co. (1968)

I discovered this ominous assemblage of funereal psychedelia while perusing Mojo magazine’s “A-Z of U.S. Psych” this past spring. Everything I subsequently read about Suddenly One Summer compared it to All Things Must Pass. As George Harrison’s masterpiece is one of my favorite albums, the comparisons were impetus enough to hunt down JK & Co.’s obscurity. Apparently, the album is so obscure that most of the people who’ve written about it haven’t actually heard it, because it doesn’t sound much like the Harrison record. With its backwards tape-loops, distorted guitars, bleary-eyed lyricism, and lysergic airiness, Suddenly One Summer is far much more psychedelic than All Things Must Pass. The morbidity of this music belies the fact that Jay Kaye was a mere 15-year-old when he wrote and recorded it. Tracks like “Nobody” (in which Kaye moans “My happiness is in a needle”), “Magical Fingers of Minerva”, and “Dead” are chilling. Even the bouncy love ballad “Christine” and the incongruously spry “O.D.” are coated in spooky somberness. Perhaps J.K. and his company of session men were so dour because they sensed Suddenly One Summer would be both their first and final album, but as such, it’s a potent statement.

“Fly”

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4. Power in the Darkness by The Tom Robinson Band (1978)

Tom Robinson was an upper-class kid with a serious identity disorder. His first group was Café Society, a folk trio that by most accounts was pretty terrible, but Robinson’s songs must have indicated his talent enough to charm Kinks-leader Ray Davies. Davies signed Café Society to his newly formed record label, Konk, vowed to produce their debut album, and left the group to twist in the breeze while he pursued projects with The Kinks. Frustrated by Davies’s inattention, Robinson jumped ship, adopted a Cockney accent, discovered punk, came out of the closet, and put together a fierce new band. Mind you, Tom Robinson was a street punk like Mick Jagger was a street fighting man, but there’s still a righteous fury to Power in the Darkness that is every bit as authentic as the most politically charged statements by The Clash (and, lest we forget, Joe Strummer was the son of a foreign-service diplomat...not exactly a gutter upbringing). The rhetoric can be a bit heavy handed, but that does nothing to diminish the excitement of “Up Against the Wall”, “Grey Cortina”, “Aint’ Gonna Take It”, and “The Man You Never Saw”. Robinson’s audacious stance as the first openly gay rocker lends purpose to even his most cliché-riddled cuts. Power in the Darkness is also one of the more eclectic records to emerge in punk’s earliest days. The electric-piano driven “Too Good to Be True” is a moody dollop of blues-rock, “The Winter of ‘79” borrows liberally from Springsteen’s act, and the funky “Better Decide Which Side Your On” pre-dates similar efforts by The Clash by several years. The title track is a dramatic, swaggering anthem that couldn’t sound more removed from the speed-and-spit revolution even as its message will get you raising your fist in the air like the image on the album cover.

“Man You Never Saw”
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3. Move by The Move (1968)

The Move have long been among my favorite British psychedelic groups, but I’ve somehow never plunged into their debut, perhaps because I already knew half of these songs and wasn’t sure if the remaining tracks would provide sufficient revelations. For the uninitiated, the Birmingham quintet delivered childlike, sing-songy tunes with the vivid, pop-art explosiveness of the early Who. The Move released three of the greatest singles of 1967, but was slow to produce their first album. Finally appearing in March of 1968, Move included both sides of their previous two UK hits (“Flowers in the Rain”/ “[Here We Go Round] The Lemon Tree” and “Fire Brigade”/“Walk Upon the Water”), a handful of newly recorded originals, and a triad of covers. The covers range from red hot (a rendition of Eddie Cochran’s “Weekend”) to inessential (a too-faithful version of Moby Grape’s “Hey Grandma”) to bloody awful (the schlock-o-la standard “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart”), but the rest of the new recordings are worthy of sitting alongside the hits. “Yellow Rainbow” and “Useless Information” have all the melodiousness and Mod ferocity of the Move’s best singles. The baroque ballad “Mist on a Monday Morning” may be less electric than the other tracks, but its overwrought arrangement of harpsichords, strings, and woodwinds makes it as spectacularly unsubtle as the rockers. “Cherry Blossom Clinic” mashes such orchestral elements together with electric instruments for a heady, bursting-with-color climax. When The Move began recording albums properly, they veered more into epic-length, indulgent experimentation (their next album, Shazam, features an 8-minute long remake of “Cherry Blossom Clinic” that incorporates a bizarre medley of classical pieces by Dukas, Bach, and Tchaikovsky), leaving the stitched-together Move as one of their few long-players to indicate what a great singles act they were.

“Cherry Blossom Clinic”

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2. The United States of America by The United States of America (1968)

As a psychedelia enthusiast, I should have checked out the one and only album by The United States of America a lot sooner, because this is the most psychedelic album I’ve ever heard. Everything is layered with thick coats of spacey noise and experimental tape loops and filtered through various distortion and phasing effects. With an exotic line-up consisting of violin, synthesizer, harpsichord, calliope, fretless bass, an assortment of percussion, and the ultra-cool voice of Dorothy Moskowitz, The United States of America forgot to add one integral element of all psych—and all Rock— albums: the electric guitar. The complete absence of six-string may be the most radical quality of The United States of America, but like all great psych efforts, the songs are more important than any unconventional instrumentation or swathes of freaky effects. The United States of America is loaded with great numbers that leap into all the various nooks of the psychedelic fun house. There’s floaty, Floydian atmospherics (“The American Metaphysical Circus”, the astonishing “Cloud Song”), free-form freak outs (“Hard Coming Love”, which features a distorted violin every bit as raunchy as Hendrix’s axe), bracing energy rushes (“The Garden of Earthly Delights”), jaunty music-hall goofs (the defiantly weird “I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife for You, Sugar”), pseudo Gregorian chants (“Where Is Yesterday”), and avant garde epics (“The American Way of Love (Part I-III)”. There is so much to dazzle the ear on The United States of America that it can probably be heard hundreds of times before revealing all of its intricate and outrageous layers. That this stuff remains so hummable makes it all worth while.

“I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife for You, Sugar”

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1. Cast of Thousands by The Adverts (1979)

Time is very kind to some albums that were initially misunderstood. Cast of Thousands, the record that essentially destroyed The Adverts, is one of these. Released at the tail end of punk’s first wave, fans and critics were baffled by T.V. Smith and the gang’s decision to augment their raw and rough rockers with acoustic guitars, various keyboards, bells, and— weirdest of all—a full choir. Such accoutrements were highly unacceptable to blinkered listeners more concerned with the most restrictive Punk ethos than the kind of unfettered self-expression that set the best bands aside from the most disposable. The rejection of Cast of Thousands meant The Adverts’ sophomore album was their last, which is near tragic considering what a tremendous record it is. The title song, which contains the choir that so appalled former fans, is a magnificent piece of music; as fierce and wild as The Advert’s earlier singles, but epic and majestic as the greatest pop anthems. With T.V. Smith’s feral screams on the outro vamp, “Cast of Thousands” is Punk’s “Hey Jude” and every bit as thrilling as The Beatles’ classic. “The Adverts” is a humorous bit of propaganda (“Pretty soon you’ll be… living like the Adverts. Things could be worse”) set to a driving rhythm augmented by glittering piano runs. The acoustic “My Place” is a beautiful melding of folk-rock and Punk-rock, and “Television’s Over” manages to be brutal even as it’s invaded by a carnivalesque organ and the return of that controversial choir. “I Will Walk You Home” is a dark, dramatic dirge with moody mandolins. Alas, all of this glorious music was tentatively tasted and puked out by Punks in the late ‘70s, but hearing it today reveals a true lost classic. Cast of Thousands deserves to sit alongside The Clash’s London Calling and The Damned’s Machine Gun Etiquette as one of the greatest albums by a Punk band that dared to smash out of the confines of the genre’s primitive dogmatism.

“Cast of Thousands”

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Well, I'm not missing out this time around. I'm hopping on this sexting bandwagon. I'm going to start sending naked pictures of myself to everyone I know. And then they have to naked me back, right? Isn't that how it works?