Day After Day #183: 4th of July

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

4th of July (1994)

My first memory of a July 4th celebration was in 1976. I was 9 years old and we were on vacation in Florida, so it was the first time I'd ever been in the U.S. on the 4th. It also happened to be the Bicentennial, so things were extra amped up. I remember we had sparklers and there were big fireworks displays. But then a few days later, we were back home in Canada and I didn't think about it much. Of course, as it turned out we ended up moving to the U.S. at the end of '81 and have been here ever since. 

I've never been a particularly jingoistic person, but I can appreciate the value of independence. That said, my favorite songs related to July 4 are never the typical ones. I have a few that I always tend to listen to, but Soundgarden's "4th of July" is my favorite, probably because it's not really about the holiday at all.

Soundgarden got their start in the early '80s around Seattle with a band called the Shemps that included bassist Hiro Yamamoto and drummer and singer Chris Cornell; after Yamamoto left, the band added guitarist Kim Thayil to replace him. After the Shemps split up, Cornell and Yamamoto started jamming together and were joined by Thayil, and the trio formed Soundgarden in 1984. Scott Sundquist took over on drums in 1985 so Cornell could focus on vocals. The group's first three recorded songs appeared on historic 1986 comp Deep Six on C/Z Records; it also featured songs from Green River, Skin Yard, Malfunkshun, the U-Men and the Melvins. Eventually Sundquist left the group and was replaced by Matt Cameron.

After releasing the Screaming Life and Fopp EPs on Sub Pop in 1987 and 1988, Soundgarden signed with SST and released their debut Ultramega OK in 1988. The band's sound was very heavy, balancing proto-punk influences like the MC5 and Stooges with hard rock touchstones like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. The band then signed with A&M and made Louder Than Love, a heavy album that both embraced and lampooned the metal scene. Right before the tour began, Yamamoto quit the band and was replaced by Jason Everman, who had briefly been the second guitarist in Nirvana.

Everman was fired after the tour and replaced by Ben Shepherd, who joined in time for the recording of the band's epic 1991 release Badmotorfinger. Cornell's careening vocals made songs like "Outshined," "Rusty Cage" and "Jesus Christ Pose" even more powerful. The album came out at the same time as Nevermind and Ten, but eventually audiences caught up with it. Soundgarden toured heavily for the album, opening for Guns N' Roses and Skid Row and then joining the 1992 Lollapalooza tour.

But the biggest album for Soundgarden was 1994's Superunknown, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 and spawning the hits "Spoonman," "Black Hole Sun," "The Day I Tried to Live" and "Fell on Black Days." I quickly tired of the songs that got the most airplay like "Black Hole Sun" and "Spoonman," but the deep cuts on this album were my favorites. 

One of those was "4th of July," which starts with a slow, grinding guitar intro before Cornell sings quietly about an apocalyptic vision.

"Shower in the dark day, clean sparks diving down/Cool in the waterway where the baptized drown/Naked in the cold sun, breathing life like fire/I thought I was the only one, but that was just a lie/'Cause I heard it in the wind/And I saw it in the sky/I thought it was the end/I thought it was the 4th of July." 

The song picks up steam as the vision continues, with Thayil's sludgy guitar leading the way.

"Pale in the flare light, the scared light cracks and disappears/And leads the scorched ones here/And everywhere no one cares, the fire is spreading/And no one wants to speak about it/Down in the hole/Jesus tries to crack a smile/Beneath another shovel load."

Cornell told RIP magazine in 1994 that he wrote the song about an acid trip he had. "One time I was on acid, and there were voices 10 feet behind my head. The whole time I'd be walking, they'd be talking behind me. It actually made me feel good, because I felt like I was with some people...It was kinda like a dream, though, where I'd wake up and focus once in a while and realize there was no one there. I'd go, 'Oh fuck, I'm hearing voices.' '4th of July' is pretty much about that day. You wouldn't get that if you read it. It doesn't read like, 'Woke up, dropped some acid, got into a car and went to the Indian reservation.'"

Soundgarden released one more album, 1996's underrated Down on the Upside, before splitting up in 1997; the band later blamed tension among the group members and burnout from the music business as reasons for the breakup. In the years afterward, Cornell released solo albums and formed Audioslave with three-fourths of Rage Against the Machine. Cameron joined Pearl Jam in 1998 and remains in the band. Thayil and Shepherd both worked on various projects. 

The members of Soundgarden got back together in 2010, headlining Lollapalooza and then releasing a new compilation album. In 2012, they released a new studio album, King Animal. They had begun work on a new album in 2016, but the following May, Cornell was found dead after a show in Detroit. That was the end of Soundgarden.

I caught them on the Badmotorfinger tour at Avalon in Boston in early 1992, then at Lollapalooza that summer in Mansfield and one more time at Fitchburg State College in the summer of '94. The band was pretty impressive, to say the least. It's too bad Cornell isn't still around to enjoy the legacy he helped build.

Soundgarden's "4th of July" isn't your typical flag-waving anthem, which is perfectly fine by me. I'm a big fan of sludgy dirges about acid trips.

Day After Day #182: No More Mr. Nice Guy

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

No More Mr. Nice Guy (1973)

It's kind of crazy to think that "shock rock" has been around for nearly 60 years, and that its main purveyor is in his mid-70s now, but here we are. Alice Cooper doesn't shock anybody anymore, but he can still entertain.

Vincent Furnier started playing music in a Phoenix high school band called the Spiders. After graduating, they named themselves Nazz and released a single, but soon discovered that Todd Rundgren also was in a band called Nazz. They chose the name Alice Cooper and played a brand of psychedelic rock that got them a record deal from Frank Zappa; their debut was 1969's Pretties for You.

The shock rock image happened by accident at first; at a concert in Toronto in September 1969, a chicken got on stage and Cooper picked it up and threw it into the crowd, thinking it would fly away. The chicken, however, fell into a wheelchair section and the concertgoers there reportedly tore it to pieces. The incident made the front page of national newspapers, which reported that Cooper had bitten off the chicken's head and drank its blood on stage. Zappa asked Cooper if the story was true and the latter denied it; Zappa said he should keep that to himself and take advantage of the publicity. 

The band's 1970 album Easy Action failed to chart on the Billboard 200; the band moved to Pontiac, Michigan, where crowds were more receptive to harder rocking acts like the Stooges and MC5. The band's stage theatrics and costumes were getting more elaborate, emphasizing dark, violent themes that reflected where the 1970s were going after the hippie flower power of the late '60s. 

Producer Bob Ezrin began working with the band starting with 1971's Love It to Death, which featured the hit "I'm Eighteen." Warner Bros. purchased Alice Cooper's contract from Straight Records and reissued the album. The 1971 tour featured mock fights and torture, with a staged execution of Cooper by electric chair; artists including Elton John and David Bowie attended Alice Cooper shows in Europe.

The band's next album was 1971's Killer and the first single was "Under My Wheels," a sub-3-minute blast of hard rock that featured Cooper at his straightahead best. The following summer, Cooper released "School's Out," which went top 10 in the U.S. and topped the charts in the U.K. Cooper's androgynous stage look and anti-establishment attitude had British officials trying to ban the group from performing there.

The general reaction to the band inspired "No More Mr. Nice Guy," a single off 1973's Billion Dollar Babies, which went #1 in the U.S. and U.K.

"I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing/'Til they got a hold of me/I opened doors for little old ladies/I helped the blind to see/I got no friends 'cause they read the papers/They can't be seen with me/And I'm gettin' real shot down/And I'm feeling mean/No more Mr. Nice Guy/No more Mr. Clean/No more Mr. Nice Guy/They say 'He's sick, he's obscene."

Cooper said he wrote the song about the reactions of his mother's church group to his stage performances; as it turns out, his father was an evangelist in The Church of Jesus Christ, which acknowledges the Book of Mormon as scripture but doesn't consider itself to be a Mormon church.

"My dog bit me on the leg today/My cat clawed my eyes/Ma's been thrown out of the social circle/And dad has to hide/I went to church incognito/When everybody rose, the Reverend Smith/He recognized me/And punched me in the nose, he said/No more Mr. Nice Guy/No more Mr. Clean/No more Mr. Nice Guy/He said, 'You're sick, you're obscene.'"

The song went to #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #10 in the U.K. "No More Mr. Nice Guy" has been covered by Megadeth and Pat Boone (on his "metal" album) and featured in Dazed and Confused, Family Guy and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 

Billion Dollar Babies also had hits with the title track and "Elected." The band's stage show got increasingly elaborate, with special effects, decapitated baby dolls and mannequins and a working guillotine designed by magician James Randi, who appeared on stage at some shows as the executioner.  1973's Muscle of Love album was the last to feature the classic lineup of the band (guitarists Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith). The album didn't perform as well as its predecessor and the band went on hiatus. 

In 1975, Furnier officially changed his name to Alice Cooper and returned as a solo artist with Welcome to My Nightmare; he worked with Ezrin and Lou Reed's backing band (including guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter). The album featured the top 20 hit "Only Women Bleed" and went top 10; it was a concept album that featured narration from Vincent Price and an accompanying prime-time TV special in April 1975.

Cooper decided to continue as a solo artist, while Bruce, Dunaway and Smith formed a short-lived band called Billion Dollar Babies, making one album. Cooper had a few more hits before going into rehab for alcoholism; at his peak, he was reportedly drinking up to two cases of Budweiser and a bottle of whiskey PER DAY. He sobered up for a while and released a few more albums in the late '70s, as well as appearing on The Muppet Show and in the movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as a villain. 

Cooper's early '80s musical output has been called his "blackout albums" because he can't remember making them, thanks to his cocaine addiction. He went new wave on 1980's Flush the Fashion and sales were dropping. He was hospitalized again in 1983 for his alcohol problem; he got sober and has remained so to this day.

In 1986, Cooper re-embraced his old image and put on the black snake-eyes makeup for his album Constrictor, which had hits with "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" (also the theme for Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives) and "Teenage Frankenstein." His hard rock sound was embraced by the mid-'80s metal scene; his band included Kane Roberts on lead guitar (who made his career on looking like Rambo) and Kip Winger on bass (yes, THAT Kip Winger).

Cooper has continued to release albums and remain part of pop culture, appearing in Wayne's World and Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, appearing on albums by Guns 'N Roses and Insane Clown Posse and playing Herod in the London cast recording of Jesus Christ Superstar. He reteamed with the original Alice Cooper band for six songs in 2006 at his annual charity event in Phoenix. Cooper was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in 2011. 

I saw Cooper in 2012 opening for Iron Maiden at the amphitheater in Mansfield, Mass., and he was great. He's 76 now and touring this summer with Rob Zombie. Old shock rockers never die, they just keep going.

Day After Day #181: I Predict a Riot

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

I Predict a Riot (2004)

In the glory days of early 2000s indie rock, certain songs quickly became iconic. Just as guitar-driven bands like the Strokes, Interpol and the White Stripes were emerging on this side of the Atlantic, there were similar acts coming out of the U.K. and Europe. One of the latter was Kaiser Chiefs, an indie rock act from Leeds, England that had released an album as Parva in 2003 before renaming themselves after getting dropped by their label.

Inspired by '70s and '80s new wave and punk, the band released their Kaiser Chiefs debut album Employment in March 2005. Their first single "Oh My God" was released nearly a year earlier and became a hit when it was re-released in February 2005, hitting #6 on the U.K. Singles chart. The second single, "I Predict a Riot," was released in November '04 and then re-released in 2005, hitting #9. 

The song is a snapshot of the heavy drinking club scene in Leeds at the time. Drummer Nick Hodgson used to DJ at a club and would drive home past another club where drunken patrons would fight police and sometimes bang on the windows of his car. 

"Watching the people get lairy/It's not very pretty I tell thee/Walking through town is quite scary/It's not very sensible either/A friend of a friend he got beaten/He looked the wrong way at a policeman/Would never have happened to Smeaton/An Old Leodensian/I predict a riot/I predict a riot."

Singer Ricky Wilson is a charismatic frontman, bringing Britpop charm to the proceedings as he describes the unfolding insanity on a typical Friday night.

"I tried to get to my taxi/The man in a tracksuit attacks me/He said that he saw it before me/And wants to get things a bit gory/Girls scrabble 'round with no clothes on/To borrow a pound for a condom/If it wasn't for chip fat they'd be frozen/They're not very sensible/I predict a riot/I predict a riot/I predict a riot/I predict a riot/And if there's anybody left in here/That doesn't want to be out there/I predict a riot."

In addition to being a fairly huge U.K. hit, the song got some play in the U.S., making it to #34 on the Alternative Airplay chart and getting plenty of notice on the MP3 blogs I was following at the time. Kaiser Chiefs also were the opening act at the Live 8 charity concert in Philadelphia in 2005 (part of the 20th anniversary of the Live Aid concerts), which had an estimated 800,000 people in attendance.

Employment became the fourth best-selling album in the U.K. in 2005, going to #2 on the U.K. Album chart. Since then, the band has released seven albums, including this year's Kaiser Chiefs' Easy Eighth Album. Their success has been primarily in the U.K., but that makes sense because they're a very British band. The band hasn't made much of a splash over here since their second album, 2007's Yours Truly, Angry Mob, but it hasn't deterred them. Nor should it. 

Day After Day #180: At the Hundredth Meridian

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

At the Hundredth Meridian (1992)

It's Canada Day, which for the uninitiated, is Canada's version of the 4th of July. I'm a proud Canadian, even though I haven't lived there in 43 years. Plenty of Canadian musicians have transcended the border and become big stars down here in the lower 48. Still others have been fairly huge up there but haven't been able to cross over. 

One of those bands is the Tragically Hip, a quintet from Kingston, Ontario that formed in 1984. Bassist Gord Sinclair and guitarist Rob Baker had been playing music together and teamed up with singer Gord Downie, drummer Johnny Fay and sax player Davis Manning. The group played covers of songs by the Rolling Stones, Them and the Monkees in local bars and built a following. In 1986, rhythm guitarist Paul Langlois replaced Manning and the band played across Ontario before they eventually caught the attention of an MCA executive. 

A self-titled EP was released in 1987, followed by their 1989 debut album Up to Here, which contained nods to the band's roots rock influences but also branched out with folk, country and hard rock sounds. Downie's lyrics elevated the group beyond your run-of-the-mill bar band, as did the Hip's live shows, which featured Downie's trance-like and sweaty improvisations during longer jams. The album featured a few songs that got some rock radio play in Boston, including "Blow at High Dough" and "New Orleans is Sinking." I bought Up to Here on vinyl and enjoyed it, but really became a fan when I was visiting Toronto in the summer of 1990 and saw a Hip concert recorded at The Misty Moon in Nova Scotia on MuchMusic, the Canadian version of MTV (I've since seen that show on YouTube and it's being included as part of an Up to Here reissue coming out later this year).

The band's second album, 1991's Road Apples, was recorded in New Orleans and saw Downie's lyrical references getting more literary and obscure, as he wrote about Canadian artist Tom Thomson and political tensions in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The band was getting tighter and more potent live; I caught them at the Paradise in Boston on this tour on a weeknight and there were only about 30 people there, but man, what a show. The album went to #1 in Canada but didn't chart in the U.S. 

For their third album, the Hip traveled to London and worked with producer Chris Tsangarides, who was well known for his work with hard rock acts like Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest and Gary Moore. The album, Fully Completely, came out in October 1992 in Canada but wasn't released in the U.S. until January of the following year. I was visiting Toronto in the fall of '92 to catch some Blue Jays games and heard the first single "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)," but wasn't able to buy it for a few months after I returned home. The album was again chock full of Canadiana, including references to author MacLennan, explorer Jacques Cartier and Bill Barilko, the Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman who scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in 1951 and then died in a plane crash.

"At the Hundredth Meridian" was the album's third single, referring to the 100th meridian west, a line of longitude that separates much of Western Canada from the Central and Atlantic regions of the country.

"Me debunk an American myth?/And take my life in my hands?/Where the great plains begin/At the hundredth meridian/At the hundredth meridian/Where the great plains begin/Driving down a corduroy road/Weeds standing shoulder high/Ferris wheel is rusting/Off in the distance."

In addition to being a geographic divider in Canada, the 100th meridian could also be seen as the dividing line between the conservative-leaning west and the liberal east.

"Left alone to get gigantic/Hard, huge and haunted/A generation so much dumber than its parents/Came crashing through the window/A raven strains along the line of the road/Carrying a muddy, old skull/The wires whistle their approval/Off down the distance."

In concert, the band would stretch out the song and introduce newer songs in the middle. And similarly, the Hip's version of its 1987 B-side "All Canadian Surf Club" from the Live at the Roxy May 3, 1991 album (released two years ago) featured a few key elements that would end up in "At the Hundredth Meridian" a year later.

"I remember, I remember Buffalo/And I remember Hengelo/It would seem to me/I remember every single fucking thing I know/If I die of vanity, promise me, promise me/They bury me some place I don't want to be/You'll dig me up and transport me/Unceremoniously away from the swollen city breeze/Garbage bag trees, whispers of disease/And acts of enormity/And lower me slowly, and sadly, and properly/Get Ry Cooder to sing my eulogy."

Fully Completely was a huge hit in Canada, but not so much south of the border. I remember hearing "Courage" playing in a March Madness bumper going to commercial on CBS, but then not hearing the song much after that. As it turned out, MCA stopped doing U.S. promotion of the album after a whole two weeks. 

Instead of doing a normal tour for the album, the Hip put together a traveling summer festival in Canada called Another Roadside Attraction, which also featured Midnight Oil, Hothouse Flowers, Daniel Lanois and Crash Vegas. The festival didn't come down to the U.S., but I actually saw the Hip at the Middle East downstairs in the spring of '93 and then saw Midnight Oil, Hothouse Flowers and Ziggy Marley at Great Woods in Mansfield a few months later.

As the '90s rolled on, the Hip continued to do big business in Canada, playing arenas up there while playing clubs and small theaters here. They tended to do pretty well in college towns and near the border, attracting plenty of Canadian ex-pats like me and roadtripping current Canucks as well. In 1995, they were the musical guest on Saturday Night Live thanks to the lobbying of fellow Kingston resident Dan Aykroyd. They also were the first band on day 2 of Woodstock '99.  

The Hip's sound evolved as well, moving away from the bluesy rock of the early albums and earning comparisons to bands like R.E.M. and Midnight Oil.

The band continued releasing albums until 2016's Man Machine Poem, which had its release delayed after Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in December 2015. The Hip didn't release news of the diagnosis until the announcement of the album in May 2016; they also announced they would be doing one last tour across Canada. The final concert was broadcast and streamed live by the CBC and viewed by an estimated 11.7 million people. Downie, who had released four solo albums prior to the diagnosis, ended up releasing two prior to his death and two posthumously. He died in October 2017 at the age of 53.

The Tragically Hip ended as a recording and touring entity with Downie's death, but the surviving members have been releasing archival material and reissues since.