Smash (The Offspring, 1994)

After playing the connections game the previous week, here we have genuine outlier in the collective. It's not that The Offspring are some kind of obscure band (ha ha), but, as you may have noticed, I don't have a whole heap of punk/hardcore/whatever in the library. Before I forget to mention it though, I did find one tiny link into the fray, through drummer Pete Parada (not on this album), who appeared on a single track on Halford's debut album, Resurrection. So the links are pretty tenuous at best.

A good question is: why do I even have this album? Well, if you're going to have just one Offspring album, this is probably the one. Songs like "Self Esteem" and "Come Out and Play" have worked their way to the foundations of the 1990's music zeitgeist, and I'm pretty sure I inherited this when my sister was purging her CD collection years back. It's still the only album of theirs I own and I credit KROQ for keeping me apprised of their later work, so I really don't feel like I'm missing out on anything as long as I own a radio.

Smash was the band's breakthrough album. I'm a little hesitant to say it was their bestselling album, as I think they topped it at least once in the decade to follow. There are two albums before it (never heard them) and lead guitarist Noodles was on the verge of returning to his original career in school custodial work if this album had failed.

As mentioned previously, it did not. Carried largely on three big hit songs, it propelled the band to the front of a crowded scene of Orange County punk. However, after another recent listening, I don't think it was dumb luck. Although there are a number of stock tricks like hidden tracks and short throwaway bits, it's a musically sharp album, with riffs that get stuck in my head more than I care to admit, especially "Genocide" and "Smash" seem to run through my head. I was going to remark that they seemed pretty ska-resistant, but make it far enough into the album and you'll get some of that, a few years prior to telling us all to get a job.

As seems to be the case with so many of these bands (Bad Religion, I'm looking at you), success turned them against their label, Epitaph, and all future releases were major-label. The band seems to have found a pretty comfortable place in their sound for the past twenty years and only minimal lineup issues (the drummer, of course). While good for their sanity, it doesn't make for great tales of explosive band bust-ups, but sometimes that's just the way things work out!

Redshirts (John Scalzi, 2012)

I don't want to write too much here out of concern I might give something away. All I'm going to say, skirting the shoals of spoilers, is that the synopses on Goodreads and the book jacket are deliberately vague and I'm sure most people go into this thinking it's a thinly disguised Star Trek comedy novel. I know I did.

Scalzi has the trope dead to rights. For those not aware, the "redshirt" effect is a Star Trek plot device where a group of series regulars plus 1-3 extras in red uniforms go on a mission and the regulars return safely (thereby surviving to participate in future episodes), while the extras are phaser fodder, killed and never discussed ever again. You would think these ensigns/crewmen would start realizing that away missions were hazardous for their health....and so Scalzi goes there.

This book was a really fast read (it only seems like I've been at it for awhile because I've been bad about posting in a timely manner, plus another book kept getting in the way). It's funny and entertaining, and I even dare to say you don't need to be a fan of Star Trek to appreciate the humor, since the characters are also trying to wrap their brains around what is happening to them. At times the meta-humor gets so crazy that the logic of it all is threatened (and what would Spock...I mean...Q'eeng have to say about that?!), but overall it's just a minor issue.

I'm embarrassed to say that I think this book has been on my to-read list since its publication, which means I need to step up the SF reading. Look for more in future posts!

Fresh Cream (Cream, 1966)

This summer I've been playing the "connections game" in selecting the music I listen to, meaning I start with something, then move on to another album by the same artist, or another group featuring somebody from the previous album. Sometimes it is really easy to shift around, and other times you get stuck somewhere and need to get creative (shared producer, shared song, shared appearance on a compilation, etc.). So, for example, I've meandered from last week's Diary of a Madman as follows:

• Hoochie Coochie Men: Danger: White Men Dancing (Bob Daisley)
• Tony Ashton & Jon Lord: First of the Big Bands (Jon Lord)
• Ashton Gardner & Dyke (Tony Ashton)
• Badger: One Live Badger (Roy Dyke)
• Yes (Tony Kaye)
• Flash: In the Can (Peter Banks)
• Two Side of Peter Banks (Peter Banks)
• King Crimson: Larks' Tongues in Aspic (John Wetton)
• King Crimson: Starless and Bible Black (John Wetton)
• Mogul Thrash (John Wetton)
• Brian Auger's Oblivion Express (Brian Auger)
• Pete Brown & Piblokto: Things May Come And Things May Go But The Art School Of Dance Goes On Forever (Jim Mullen)
• Cream: Fresh Cream (Pete Brown, who co-wrote "I Feel Free")

And there you have it. It's as if Ozzy and Cream are one and the same. Sort of. Or not really. That's the fun of making all of these random connections. And since the album is quite short, I've traipsed on to even further fields: The Baker-Gurvitz Army, The Gun, The Graeme Edge Band, The Moody Blues, Ray Thomas, The Ian Gillan Band, Roxy Music, and Hard Stuff. I'm sure Atomic Rooster is just around the corner.

Back to Fresh Cream, though, it's one of those iconic albums you will likely find in any decent collection of classic rock. In fact, if you want to embark on your own game of connections, I can't think of a much better place to start. If you work from the roots you can go back to the Graham Bond Organisation, the Yardbirds, or John Mayall. That's enough to send listeners in all directions, but for an even greater adventure, try going forward! (see below)

Although iconic, Fresh Cream is also one of the most timid albums recorded by the trio that invented the power trio. They were far more in their element on the stage than in the studio. Side one is their original work (with the exception of "Spoonful"), while side two is all covers (with the exception of "Toad"). All but three of the songs ("Dreaming", "Cat's Squirrel", "Four Until Late") would be released in live form on later albums, most of them far longer in duration, with "Sweet Wine" and "Spoonful" crossing the 15-minute mark. Obviously squishing down these songs to the 2-3 minute range and jam-free sort of saps them of their mojo. Then again, if the iconic "Cream Jam" isn't your thing, this may actually be a good thing. Compared to later albums, you can still detect a whiff of mod in the work, soon to be washed over by the next album's psych leanings. Jack Bruce in particular arrives with the much musical chops, followed by Ginger Baker, who would redefine rock drumming until the onset of Led Zeppelin. While Eric Clapton is hardly a slouch compared to these two, his main contribution to this album is keeping it partially anchored in the blues. On this album he is fresh out of John Mayall's Bluesbreaks boot camp, which broke him out of the de-bluesing trend of the Yardbirds, but didn't give him a lot of tools in the singing and writing departments, which is largely left to Jack Bruce here. Not to worry, Clapton-maniacs, he manages to partly resolve this shortcomings just one album later. Problems aside, he was the best-known of the trio, so just his name alone put Cream head-and-shoulders above the competition.

Cream was one of the most combustible outfits around, lasting barely two years. While the combined talents of Bruce, Baker, and Clapton provided a lot of early gains, being in a band where every man was a leader proved to be a disastrous concept. Even before their formation, Bruce and Baker were just one heartbeat away from an open fistfight. The later albums would exhibit increasing disjointedness and the collapse resulted from Clapton finally giving up on his bandmates and Bruce and Baker being legally forbidden from killing each other. Of the three post-Cream careers, Clapton's is the best documented (Baker initially in tow), mingling with the more celebrity-level musicians. Jack Bruce is a little more down-and-dirty in his associations, largely affiliating with mid-level names like Robin Trower and Mountain. Ginger Baker enjoyed the most diverse career path of the three, initially following a similar path to Bruce, but in later decades appearing in strange places, like Hawkwind and Masters of Reality (!). So, to return to the original point here, you can go a million different directions when you start playing musical connections from Cream. Try it out and see where you end up!

(Ugh, I meant to post this sooner and just forgot to publish. Still on track! Wish I could say the same with my reading....)