Yeah, I don't know.

So this blogging thing takes a lot more time and effort than I figured. And seeing as I can count the number of people who actually read it without taking off my shoes, I wonder if it's worth it. Since I intended this as basically an online journal, i.e. something for my own benefit and not necessarily anyone else's, I guess it shouldn't really matter. Yet somehow it does.

Anyway, here's something I wrote last week.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony was on VH1 this past weekend. I always watch it, even though I get annoyed at the fact that this purported celebration of rock music takes place in a banquet room at the Waldorf Astoria, with everyone in tuxes and gowns sitting around tables and rather staidly nodding and clapping. Come on, man! It’s ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL. This year’s show was opened by the O’Jays. How do you not dance to “Love Train”? I’m dancing around my living room and making crazy gestures, inviting people all over the world to join hands and start a love train, and everybody who’s in the actual goddamned room with them is just SITTING THERE. Worse than that, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Hall this year they had Jerry Lee Lewis and Bo Diddley close things out, and STILL nobody got out of their chairs. Jerry Lee turns 70 this year, but believe me, he can still play the shit out of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”. Ladies and gentlemen, THAT IS THE KILLER UP THERE. HE’S ALMOST A SEPTUAGENARIAN AND HE IS ROCKING FOR YOU. GET THE FUCK OUT OF YOUR CHAIRS.

I watch because even though the performances can be spotty, there’s always a gem or two that makes it worth it, and because even though the induction speeches can be lackluster, there’s always a moment or two that moves me (and if Bruce Springsteen is inducting someone, as he did U2 this year, and as he seems to most years, I know I’m in for 10 minutes of stellar oratory).

This year, as I mentioned, U2 was inducted, as were the Pretenders. (There were others as well, but those two groups were the most significant to me.) Although I stopped being interested in U2 twenty years ago (I think I knew it was over when I went to see them in ’85 and was more into opening act Lone Justice than I was them), during the first half of the ‘80s, man, I loved them. I remember when I was 15, 16 years old, I used to take the train up to Westchester to visit my cousin on long weekends. We were so into music and it was all we talked about. We were both learning to play guitar, and we’d always show each other new stuff we’d figured out. We wanted to be in a band more than anything. I remember these endless drives through dark woods, on our way to some party in a field in the middle of nowhere, blasting U2’s Boy on the stereo. That and the Police’s Outlandos d’Amour. Those were a couple of great records, and at that time they sounded so new and so different than anything I’d listened to before. I didn’t even want to get to the party, I just wanted to be in that car, hurtling through the darkness on a country road with the music playing. When I started writing songs a couple of years later, U2, along with the Police, the Clash, and REM, was one of my biggest influences. In fact, the first demo that my band ever recorded (the band that I eventually formed with the aforementioned cousin) included a song called “Remembrance Day” that was, shall we say, heavily indebted to U2. They lost me when they got to the plodding basslines and numbing sameness of The Joshua Tree, but those early records were something, and War in particular stands as one of the greatest albums of the ‘80s.

The Pretenders had an even bigger effect on me: Chrissie Hynde was one of the reasons I even picked up a guitar. The first song I ever heard by them was their cover of the Kinks’ “Stop Your Sobbing”, and it was one of those “Who the fuck is that?” moments. I’ve always thought that Chrissie has one of the most original and arresting voices in pop music. It was her look that really got me, though: with her skinny, leather-clad body and black bangs hanging in her heavily-lined eyes, she looked like the lost Ramone sister. She was tough, but not in the pouty, posturing way that, say, Pat Benatar was (or tried to be). She was cool, but not in the aloof, movie-star-beautiful way that, say, Debbie Harry was. She was as tough and as cool as any man yet sacrificed none of her femininity (whatever that might mean), which couldn’t be said of, say, the deliberately androgynous Patti Smith. (No disrespect intended toward Benatar, Harry, or Smith, all of whom I like.) And she played guitar. I wanted to be just like her.

Of course, the Pretenders were more than just Chrissie Hynde. That is to say, they were more than just a singer-songwriter and her backing crew, they were a band. Unfortunately that became all too clear with the deaths of Pete Farndon and James Honeyman Scott, from which the band never recovered. They kept recording, obviously, but as Chrissie herself has pointed out, they were basically a Pretenders tribute band.

When I think of the Pretenders, I think of my freshman year in high school. High school was not a pleasant time for me, and getting up in the mornings always sucked. But in 1980, “Brass in Pocket” was all over rock radio, and I have this memory of golden sunlight streaming in through my bedroom window, and those shimmering chords, and Chrissie’s half-swaggering, half-vulnerable vocal insisting “I’m special, so special” that somehow made everything okay.

Top 5 U2 Songs

5) “New Year’s Day”
4) “An Cat Dubh”
3) “The Unforgettable Fire”
2) “Bad”
1) “Sunday Bloody Sunday”

Top 5 Pretenders Songs

5) “Show Me”
4) “Talk of the Town”
3) “Message of Love”
2) “Brass in Pocket”
1) “Kid”

On a tangential note, “Kid” is definitely my favorite Pretenders song and I adore their version of it, but close behind is Tracey Thorn’s heart-stoppingly gorgeous rendition on Everything But The Girl’s Love Not Money.