Show #134 May 9, 2015

This one's for Christi- anne!

Christi- anne- The Early Hours Evolution
It's A Surprise- Orbits Q: What... Ans: Nothing... 
Cryin For A Love- Warm Soda Symbolic Dream 
We Were Happy There- The dB's Repercussion 
I Need Your Love- The Boyfriends Lost Treasures 
Agent Unknown- Greg Pope Fanboy 
Get Yourself Right- Velvet Crush Stereo Blues 
Keep On Dreaming- Vibeke The World Famous Hat Trick 
*Life of Surprises- Prefab Sprout Life Of Surprises 
*Come As No Surprise- Sunnyboys Get Some Fun 
*Goodbye Surprise- Flo and Eddie The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie 
X-Ray Spex- Starz Attention Shoppers! 
Forever And Ever- Culture Shock Forever + ever 7" 
Achin' to Be- The Replacements Don't Tell a Soul 
*Surprise- Hollins Ferry Hollins Ferry 
*Surprise Surprise- X See How We Are 
*Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird Of Paradox)- John Lennon Walls And Bridges  
Follow Me Blind- The Grip Weeds How I Won The War 
Nobody Slows- The Wake Ups Wanna Meet 
To Be A Boy- International Q International Q - 45 RPM Queue Music 
*Dark Surprise- Radio Birdman More Fun! 
*Taken By Surprise- The Outfield Voices of Babylon 
*Surprise Me Again- Haircut 100 Pelican West 
Nova- The Bizarros PUNK 45: Burn Rubber City Burn 
Let It Ride- Mike Viola and The Candy Butchers Falling Into Place 
Disconnected- The Slickee Boys Uh Oh… No Breaks! 
>You Took Me By Surprise- The Seeds You Took Me By Surprise 
>>Surprise Surprise (I Need You)- The Troggs Surprise Surprise (I Need You) 
Baby Teeth- Sugar Stems Only Come Out At Night 
Keep Swinging (Downtown)- Sloan Commonwealth 
I've Been Hurt (So Many Times Before)- Silent Noise I've Been Hurt (So Many Times Before) 7" The Big Surprise- The Elms The Big Surprise 

^Power Pop Peak: 

*SacroSet[s]:  Surprise Songs  

>Power Pop Prototype:  1972
>>Bonus Power Pop Prototype:  1968

I've never been a big fan of facial hair, even before I learned that my attempts to grow some would yield results closer to Samwell Tarly (above right) than Khal Drogo.  This figures in my "Record Shopping Rules," cited in the blog post for Show #39 :

• No facial hair. Name one great punk rock band (aside from The Stranglers) that has a guy with facial hair. Now, name one Southern Rock band with a guy who ISN'T sporting whiskers. See?

This also helpfully applies to most Indie rock bands- those

Beard:  Islam vs. Indie

dudes are a scraggly lot!  These days it seems like every guy under 35 is wearing stubble- many no doubt carefully maintaining their consistent four day beard growth.  Truth be told, I did have a beard for a while in the 90's.  As I was also about 40 pounds heavier at this time, I was a few bowling shirts and a pair of sandals away from being "that guy."  Like most men, I found it hilarious to torment my wife Jaime by removing my beard in stages, starting with a regrettable mustache/ goatee with (un) complimentary side burns.  At this point you can finish up with the flavor saver "soul patch" or do what I did and bring the pain with an "Adolf Hitler" that never left the house but did horrify my wife for ten fun minutes.  

The worst thing about my facial hair is that it lacks density- you can clearly see my skin through it, even from ten feet away.  That is just wrong.  I was in the play Glengarry Glen Ross during this time and as soon as I saw the press photos I went home and shaved.  I asked Jaime how she could let me go out of the house like that she said "I've been telling you that for months- then I just got used to it."  That's the problem with women they're too accepting of all the stupid stuff we do.  Anyway, every day since the Glengarry fiasco up to about two weeks ago, I've used the same Braun electric shaver; no lie the thing is 25 years old!  After replacing numerous foils and cutters the Braun has been slowly dying over the last 18 months.  A few times I've thought "I should get another shaver before this thing eats my face, leaving me horribly disfigured" but then I'd put it back in the medicine cabinet to only take it out the next day and do it all over again.

Two weeks ago the razor started making this low pitched grinding noise and the foil broke.  Surprisingly it did not shred my face (nice design Braun engineers!)  Coincidentally, auditions had come up for Steven Sondheim's Assassins which goes up in Sonoma in September.  I saw the 2004 Broadway revival with Neil Patrick Harris and while I'm not a huge Sondheim fan, this show works for me.

2004 Assassins: Hinckley, Moore, Zangara, Booth, Oswald, Byck, Fromme, Guiteau, Czologz

The audition notice called for the actor playing Charles Guiteau, the role I am most interested in, to have a beard.  So, my razor dies at the exact same time I need to have a beard for a part- hopefully this is the universe's way of telling me I'm going to get it.  Otherwise, it's like the universe is just screwing with me to be mean.

Charles Guiteau, bearded crazy

Like his fellow assassins in the show, Charles Guiteau is a total nut job, but unlike the others his lunacy is informed by a unique blend of optimism and patriotism.  He wrote a speech for President Garfield, who probably never read it but did win the 1880 election so naturally Guiteau expected to be rewarded as the next Ambassador to France.  When things didn't go his way, Guiteau shot Garfield- who died eleven weeks later.  

While Guiteau's beard is far from impressive, sadly my own facial hair growing abilities have not improved with time.  What's more, my beard hair is freaking gray!

WTF?

My head hair isn't this gray so why is my facial hair gray?  Seriously, I want to know!  I shaved about five minutes after I got home from the Assassins call backs- just looking at the picture above makes my face itch.  It's a sign of our scraggly times that I got a lot of positive feedback on the whiskers.  That said, my daughter Nica thought I looked gay (not "gay" as in "lame"- we raised her better than that- but actually homosexual) and every time I tried to kiss Jaime she'd turn her head away giggling "no no, I don't like it." Many people over the years have told me I look like Tom Hanks.  Jaime gleefully pointed out that with the beard I still look like Tom Hanks, but instead of this:  

it's more like this:

OUCH!  Needless to say, my NEW Braun shaver is working out quite nicely....


Download link for this week's show is below (click to stream or, to download right click and "Save Link As")
ALL KINDSA GIRLS #134