A Better Bond Theme Song

Image Credit: Columbia Pictures

They picked who? As was teased yesterday, Barbara Broccoli and Co. made the disappointing choice of Sam Smith as the artist to sing the latest James Bond theme song. I’m looking forward to the Spectre film, but awarding such a prestigious gig to a singer whose biggest hit was a rip off of Tom Petty is a bummer. There are so many better singers and bands out there that seem more deserving. Following Adele and her excellent “Skyfall” isn’t an easy assignment. You need someone bold with a big voice. You need someone with a unique sound and legitimate chops. Sure, you can say I’m jumping the gun here. I haven’t actually heard Smith’s effort yet. We have to wait until September 25th for that particular sonic experience, but my expectations are pretty low. Here are my five favorite picks that I think could have done a better job. Maybe next time.

The Heavy – The songs of this British rock band have been featured on quite a few television shows, movies, video games, and commercials already, but it’s tough to go wrong with their funky James Brown kind of sound. Here’s a little taste: https://youtu.be/sVzvRsl4rEM

Alabama Shakes – If you want a choice that’s a bit less obvious, how about this southern r&b-flavored rock band that features the fantastic Brittany Howard. You won’t find a bigger, more soulful voice. If anyone can compete with Adele, it’s Ms. Howard. Check her and the band out here: https://youtu.be/jW0ZjNl-QW0

Rival Sons – Okay, enough soul. What about some straight-forward rock and roll ala Jack White and Alicia Keys’ take on the theme for Quantum of Solace? I give you Rival Sons, a California outfit that could blow the doors off the theater if given a half a chance. Check this one out: https://youtu.be/wRfRIXg2spo

Foo Fighters – Maybe the good folks at Eon Productions want a bigger name to do the song. Perhaps they even want to try to outdo the gravelly-voiced menace of Chris Cornell’s excellent contribution to Casino Royale. I’m pretty sure Dave Grohl and crew are up to the challenge. Foo Fighters have a ton of hits, but here’s one of my favorites: https://youtu.be/wRfRIXg2spo

Depeche Mode – Talk about a big name, Depeche Mode has been churning out great songs since the early 80s. No, they won’t out-rock the bands I listed above, but if Ms. Broccoli wants to give her next film more of a Duran Duran “View to a Kill” or Madonna “Die Another Day” vibe, these British hit-makers would be a great pick. If you’re wondering if they’ve still got it after all these years, give this one a listen: https://youtu.be/Fy7FzXLin7o

Punk Fiction

Image Credit: Roberta Bayley

Yep, I’ve rebranded my blog. Gone is the generic Handle on Fiction. Going forward, I’m calling it riff. Why, you ask? That’s actually a bit deeper than just the cutesy acronym it’s got going for it.

riff (according to Merriam-Webster)

music : a short and usually repeated pattern of notes in a song

: a short set of comments on a particular subject

I caught the last three episodes of Dave Grohl’s HBO series, Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways last week and I was reminded again of what I see as the parallels between writing fiction and playing rock and roll. Anyone that reads this blog with any regularity knows that I absolutely love music. I remain convinced that I was born to be a rock star and simply took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Writing has become my creative outlet instead.

The parallel became clearest to me during the seventh and eighth episodes of the series which focus on the music history of Seattle and New York City. Dave interviewed people involved in Seattle’s grunge scene of the 90s to talk about bands like Nirvana and the punk rockers of the 70s in NYC such as The Ramones. What all of them kept turning back to was that none of them made music back then with any real hope of financial success. They weren’t playing in garages and dingy clubs because they expected record deals or legions of fans. They simply played because they loved making music. Many of them weren’t particularly talented musicians either. They just had a passionate need to share their feelings and ideas through their songs.

This reminds me of the self-published authors of today. Sure, most of them aren’t very good. In fact, many are downright awful. But they love what they do. And the best of them have a raw sense of urgency, a sort of blue collar beauty that you just won’t often find in the pages of traditionally published literary fiction or the sterilized world of mass manufactured genre work. After all, the big publishing companies are businesses. By their nature, they need to focus on the bottom line. Experimentation doesn’t typically go over very well with stockholders.

So it’s typically left to the self-published and small press writers to push the boundaries. They can take chances with characters, narratives, styles and structures that other authors just can’t. No, it doesn’t always work, but it’s fun to try and once in a while, something truly special is the result.

So does my self-published work stand above the crowd? I’d like to think so, but ultimately that’s up to you, the reader, to decide. In between working on those longer pieces, I’ll keep riffing here on my blog, playing my own personal brand of rock and roll.

Monuments to an Egotist – Thoughts on Billy Corgan

Photo Credit: Pitchfork

I’m a fan of Smashing Pumpkins. I have been since they first hit it big in the early 90s and I was a lackadaisical college student that had a lot more time to listen to new music and a lot less things to spend my hard-earned money on. Now I’m a married father of three with a house and car payments, so many trips to Kroger that I ought to own stock in the company, and a taste for music that generally requires more than a cool band name and a flashy video.

That’s not to say that Smashing Pumpkins weren't more than that. They were. They were loud, they were odd, and they created fantastic hooks that caught you up in their melodies even as their guitars and drum did their best to blow out your speakers. I remember cranking tunes like Cherub Rock, Today, Disarm, Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Zero, 1979, and The End Is the Beginning Is the End while cruising around Athens, Georgia thinking it didn't get much cooler than this.

But then Billy started firing band members. And he released lesser albums such as Adore and Machina/The Machines of God. He worked on side projects like Zwan, a solo album, and even a book of poetry. He abandoned the type of music that had earned Smashing Pumpkins their legions of fans and saw his sales drop precipitously as a result.

In the last few years he’s made several bizarre PR choices such as starting a wrestling league, hawking specialty teas, and conducting an 8 hour musical interpretation of the existential novel, Siddhartha. There might be a fine line between being eccentric and being completely incomprehensible, but often it feels as if Billy zigs over that line when he should have zagged.

Now Billy has a new album out under the SP banner entitled Monuments to an Elegy and is doing a round of interviews to try to create some enthusiasm about the project. I haven’t heard anything more than the first single so far, but based on that sample, I’m not overly confident it’s any better than his last several efforts. The only truly memorable song he’s produced in the past 14 years in my opinion was Tarantula from the 2007 disc, Zeitgeist. It’s a shame, but all the more curious when you listen to his recent conversation with Howard Stern. You can read about and listen to portions of that interview here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/10/billy-corgan-pearl-jam-foo-fighters_n_6301122.html

Billy takes the time to call out the groups Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters for being lesser bands. I happen to agree with him concerning the former’s lack of an impressive collection of material, but a man in his position might want to reconsider throwing stones. Claiming that Foo Fighters haven’t grown as artists feels like justification for the fact Billy is unable or unwilling to create more of the type of music old Smashing Pumpkins fans love. If he wants to claim stooping so low as to sell tea bags and fake wrestlers is more artistic than say, creating songs like the Foo’s Best of You, The Pretender, My Hero, These Days, and Rope, then I guess that’s his prerogative, but I hope he doesn't expect his dwindling audience to agree with him. He lost most of us a decade ago. The rest are still holding onto the hope he decides that maybe being true to the sound and vision that first brought him into the limelight might not be such a bad thing after all.