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VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR: 3 songs for 2008

The general consensus opinion about 2008 out there on the blogo- and mediasphere — including this well-written tirade by fellow Enquirer columnist Robert Warner — seems to be this: Stuff it.

We're tired of you, and we want something more, something different, something brighter and happier.

Some called 2008 "epic" because of the breadth of the economic collapse and the historic nature of Obama's victory — but I still say 2008 just sucked, and I'm ready for a fresh start.

With that in mind, here at the three songs I think best tell 2008: "Up yours, chief."

"I HOPE YOU DIE," THE BLOODHOUND GANG

'LIKE A CALIFORNIA KING,' EVERCLEAR

'OH, GODDAMMIT,' BY THE HOT HOT HEAT

Welcome 2009 with rock and soul

My colleague Lori Holcomb did a great job with this story, talking about all the area New Year's Eve events happening.

Here are some of the events that will feature live music, easily filtered out of the longer list for you, my fellow music geeks:

Planet Rock

• WHEN: 8 p.m.
• WHERE: 191 Angell St.
• COST: $15 per person or $25 per couple.
• INFO: New Year's Eve Party featuring live music. Call 962-2121.

Spanky's Tavern

• WHEN: Open till 4 a.m.
• WHERE: 1414 W. Michigan Ave., Urbandale.
• COST: $15 per couple, $10 individual.
• INFO: Snacks, door prizes, raffles and live entertainment by Sam Moore. Call 963-6004 for more information.

Stagecoach Barn

• WHEN: Doors open at 8:30 p.m.
• WHERE: Blackhawk Bar and Grill, 8940 N. 32nd St., Richland.
• COST: $15.
• INFO: A party featuring The Frankie Ballard Band with snack buffet, party favors and champagne toast at midnight. Guests also have the option of booking dinner reservations before the party and will receive $5 off admission. Call 629-9460.

Ale House

• WHEN: Dinner at 7 p.m.; music at 8.
• WHERE: Springbrook Golf Course, 1600 Avenue A.
• COST: $24.95
• INFO: Live music by Legend and fireworks at midnight. Free appetizer for the first 25 couples to make reservations. Call 441-3663.

Eclectic Gallery

• WHEN: 8 p.m. to 1 a.m.
• WHERE: 60 Calhoun St.
• COST: Free.
• INFO: Live music, refreshments, local art work, midnight toast; must be 21 or older. Call 781-0192 for more information.

The Ball Joint

• WHEN: 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.
• WHERE: 4720 Beckley Road.
• COST: $20 in advance; $25 at the door.
• INFO: Live music with The Bronk Brothers Band. Call 979-0080 for more information.

Palermo Ristorante and Cannoli's Sports Bar

• WHEN: 9 p.m.
• WHERE: 3905 W. Dickman Road.
• COST: $15 per person or $20 per couple; free admission to party with dinner reservations.
• INFO: Live entertainment, free snack buffet, party favors and champagne. Call 969-0700 for more information.

Comstock VFW

• WHEN: 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.
• WHERE: 5990 E. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo.
• COST: $15 per person, $25 per couple.
• INFO: Live music featuring the Road Masters. Call 753-4023.

My band mates, my brothers

Family, family, family ... It makes me feel better inside just to write those words, though sometimes I don't know why.

Family is safety and security and love and support. Family is being at the base of a very tall mountain and feeling no doubt about getting over the top. Because euphoria will get you there, and you know that if you fall someone will catch you and get you back on your feet. And you will do the same for your family.

I always love my band mates like my brothers. We've been together for six years, and we finish each other's thoughts musically (most of the time). I can play a chord and my drummer can tell, without discussion, the kind of rhythm I'm about to head into. That's plenty of practice and also the same kind of love that makes my biological know exactly how I'll react to good or bad news.

My band mates and I share no mother or father, but we do share blood, because each of us have left it on a stage somewhere at some show, and that is a unity unrivaled by any other kind of friendship.

I have been with women, and I have tried drugs here and there, but nothing compares to the kind of high exhaustion that rushes like high-voltage power signals through the heart when I and my band hit that final chord of a song in perfect unison. Or we rock that transition from soft to hard chords with a well-licked drum roll and good scream into the microphone.

I always love my band mates, but I love them more when that happens. And we had the chance to do that over and again for two long sets this weekend, first at Planet Rock and then at the Corner Bar.

I have believed since I was 6 years old that music could save the world, and that happy, familial bond is just one reason why.

Forget the madness; go start a band.

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The American Birdbrains' "I Know a Place Where It's Raining":

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In today's WOW, multimedia

In today's WOW, you will find:

• This story on Grog.

• This Rock Column: Don't let carols be the only magic songs

• This week's top 5: Top 5 Christmas songs

5. "Little Drummer Boy," by Bing Crosby and David Bowie

4. "I Will Be Hating You for Christmas," by Everclear

3. "Happy Christmas (War is Over)," by John Lennon

2. "Please Come Home for Christmas," by The Eagles

1. "If I Get Home on Christmas Day," by Elvis

A young heart's Christmas wish

I've been sitting here at my desk by the western window in the newsroom, watching slowly throughout the day as the weather turned from rain to ice to snow, to somehow a combination of all three.

I've been trying to think about what I asked Santa for in the letter I wrote to him when I was 6, 7, 8, 9 ... Any year. I barely remember what I wanted last year.

The things that matter are those damn hungry feelings, memories: I remember the nutcracker penny jar I made for Mom out of construction paper and a Tootsie Roll jar (remember those tall, cylindrical things?) and feeling proud when she liked it. I remember the first year we had a tree (I was 10) and Mom brought home that stupid Santa doll with motion detectors that the dog seemed to trip every night no matter where we put it and how we laughed.

I remember the first holiday ham and Christmas movies in the dark living room and feeling. I remember helping Dad shovel and learning how to do it right so it gets done quicker, and feeling grown up.

All the things, no matter how pretty they were wrapped up, are long gone. The heart remembers so much better than the head.

So this Christmas, Santa, I don't want DVDs or CDs or anything with an acronym attached. I don't want anything high-definition or high-resolution or high-capacity.

I just want to hear a sound, please Lord, a sound. High and bright and full of silver and light, carry to me a sonic vibration of the purest kind.

By this time next year, please let there be at every business door a sound humming so happy from within that it warms my heart, like that very first holiday ham and that towering tree.

I want music, Santa, and Christ, or whoever's out there, up there listening. Bring it to me, please, and I'll make good for all of wrongs. I can do it. I know I can. Just hear my wish ...

Because when I someday will be into go, on any day of any week, and find on stage a local heart laid out bloody and warm beneath a microphone, then I know can reclaim those old family feelings, and that will last. That will last longer than anything you might slip beneath my tree this year.

Alone at night with music and mania

Music, like all art, tints all of life with the dramatic and zeal. In music, love is always life−altering and mountain−moving and flowers in the air. The lovers in songs are always giving over all of themselves to the other person, completely relinquishing their own wants and needs and thoughts for the better of the other.

In love songs, there is no misunderstanding or doubt, only certainty, 100 percent of the time.

I think I based my understanding and knowledge of love on what I heard in songs, because for much of my young life, I've no more immediate example.

For a long time, I thought falling in love was something like "Faithfully," by Journey or "When a Man Loves a Woman," by Percy Sledge. I thought love−making was exactly like "Colorblind," by The Counting Crows or "Crash Into Me," by The Dave Matthews Band. Friendship was exactly like Bill Withers' "Lean On Me" and moving in together would be just like "Fast Car," by Tracy Chapman ...

Sometimes, love is as music shows it, but sometimes it is not. Even the most adamant husbands and wives doubt and worry and question sometimes. Love−making is sometimes as awkward and funny as it is beautiful. Friends can't help you through everything, though they can most times, and love, as much as we'd like it to, does not pay the bills. It does not fix the sink or put gas in the car.

— Justin A. Hinkley, April 3, 2008, Rock Column

Hunter Thompson once wrote that you know you're in trouble when you start quoting yourself. I'm in deep, I think, because I've made a useless art form out of that vice.

I quote myself all the time, because I think some of the things I say need to be said more than once. I think maybe if I say it again, someone will hear it, and it will make a difference. Someone will, instead of putting their fist through a wall or a pill down their throat, will put on a pair of headphones, as I have, and see different horizons of this stupid little life we all live and be OK.

What's the definition of insanity? Saying the same things over and over and expecting different results.

But I keep on keeping on, getting a little more stupid with love for all this music that always loves me back. I once said that it takes a very particular kind of person to need something as ultimately trivial as pop songs, and I was cut from that mold. The gods threw out that mold long ago, finally finding its defects after 40 years of quality control research. I am one of the last.

Which makes it all the more peculiar, particular, unique and lonely. The kind of lonely where I can't stand to see all this pretty white snow just two days before Christmas. And I'm not in the mood for carols. I want The Kinks: "This time tomorrow, where will be? On a spaceship somewhere, sailing across an empty sea ..."

I feel caught in a circle, like using a drug to try to calm the pain of withdrawal, knowing that hours from now the stomach shakes will come again. Have you ever felt that? It makes you want to scream.

But still I long for my guitar, which always loves me, and my Everclear, which never leaves. My guitar is always silently admiring me and knowing what things can come from us, and Everclear coming dirty out of my ear phones knows where I've been, where I am, and screams always "I SURVIVED!"

But then love, and loving music, does not pay the bills, fix the sink or put gas in the car. No matter how loud you turn it.

Local R&B artist CD signing this weekend

This is from colleague Lori Holcomb:

Local R&B artist Quincy “Hershey” Jones will hold two CD signing events Saturday in Battle Creek and Portage.

Jones will sign and sell copies of his recently released album, “What About Me” at the For Your Entertainment (FYE) stores in the Lakeview Square Mall from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and beginning at 2:30 p.m. at the Crossroads Mall in Portage.

Jones, also known as QD and “Tha R&B Seduca,” is an Battle Creek native and a firefighter. He said the 15-track album is mostly about relationships and includes several songs from a previously released shorter album.

For more information about Jones, visit www.myspace.com/qdhershey.

Local live music tonight, this weekend

Some local live music happening this weekend, provided the shows aren't canceled by weather:

• At Planet Rock: Tonight was canceled because of the weather. On Saturday, it's The American Birdbrains, The Illusion Is, Love Muffin, Tripp-Hazzard, Our Fate In Hell and King Of The Forest perform for a S.A.F.E. Place benefit.

• At The Corner Bar: Last Encore, Port Of Aidia and Killing For Sport are on tonight; The Arrogant Bastards, The Extinctions and Georgia Moon are on Saturday.

• At Bell's Eccentric Café: Twistin' Tarantulas are on Saturday, followed by Songwriter Sunday with Luke Winslow King and Michael Beauchamp.

• At the Stagecoach Barn: The Bonk Bros. are on tonight and Saturday.

• Also, click here for more in local nightlife.

• Click here for a list of upcoming Michigan concerts.

• Click here to join a forum discussion about the best albums of 2008, and help me write my Jan. 1 ROCK COLUMN.

In today's WOW, multimedia

In today's WOW, you will find:

• This story on Origin Of Fate.

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Origin Of Fate's "Diary":

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• This Rock Column: Musicians, the giving kind

• This week's Top 5: Top 5 down-and-out songs

5. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," by The Rolling Stones

4. "Sick and Tired," by Everclear

3. "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself," by The White Stripes

2. "No Fun," by Iggy & The Stooges

1. "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again," by Bob Dylan

Better than two little pills

People trained in these sorts of things tell me that these two little pills in my palm are supposed to cure whatever crooked rottenness it is that troubles my mind.

Take one each every morning, the doctors say, and one each every night, and — sure, you'll feel a little tired and more than a little groggy — but the anxiety will ease its way out of your system. Like antibiotics attacking the little life-suckers that make you bedridden, these pills attack that wicked imbalance, the doctors say, and you will feel more at ease, you'll cope better.

Well, that may be true, but I know that I rarely feel better than I do with two shaking hands gripped tight to the railing at the base of a live music stage. All that fantastic noise, so loud with amplification and scream that it's almost visible. You can see it hit you, see it creep its way up your nostrils and through your ears and straight to whatever brain section it is that controls emotion.

It melts there, a balm for the burning wounds of life, and quickly soothes away all the freakish worry.

And it does so better than any two little pills. And it doesn't make you groggy or put a bad taste in your mouth.

And I can't be alone; it's not possible I'm the only one with such a perverse addiction to the sounds of the soul. I couldn't bare it if I was.

And that is why I think music will survive in my hometown, the setting for all my manic depression, and the setting of the pretty snow skies and summer clouds that give me room to think. Better than two little pills, music can help us through.

And if you doubt my optimism, leave me alone, and let me have it, because it isn't hurting anyone.