The unkindest irony

People need libraries more than ever:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/28/recession.libraries/index.html

Local governments are bleeding their libraries dry:

http://www.tribstar.com/local/local_story_047233527.html
http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/02/13/news/local_state/doc499502dceeefb016143206.txt

I respectfully disagree with the sentiment in the CNN article that this recession is a "boon" for libraries. This is a disaster for libraries. I have nothing against more patrons, but to cut library services knowing that people are relying more on their libraries to help them is simply irresponsible.

This represents misconceptions at their most painful:

• You don't cut police because they protect the citizenry from the bad guys.
• Firefighters are heros so they can't be cut, either.
• Librarians shush people and read books all day at taxpayer expense - CUT!

Along with slashing education, shuttering libraries is one the great components in the Dumbing Down of America. Cutting libraries and education may provide some immediate budget relief, but you also get the collateral damage of a dumber population causing a scarcity of ideas that could be used to save money without bloodshed down the road. Don't get me wrong: we need police and we need firefighters to protect us from the worst elements of society. But don't destroy the libraries and schools, and in doing so deny yourself the best elements of society in your community.

I live in an area that is well known for classic conservative thinking. The newspaper believes that their should be equity in pay between the private and public sector, and that public sector employees are overpaid. Again, librarians are a favorite target. We get lumped with bookstore clerks as "similar jobs" between the sectors. Having worked both sides, I can tell you this is a total joke. Bookstore clerks get hired based on the question "Can you work nights and weekends?" Librarians have to get a Masters degree in the field. Bookstore employees work with the collection their are given from some central brain elsewhere in the nation. Librarians need to assess the needs of their community and develop a collection that supports these needs. Bookstores want your money. I cannot imagine a community that reduces their libraries to the status of bookstores, or, even better, they close the libraries and let the bookstores provide. They are tearing out their own souls to save money. If your local library is no more than a Borders or Barnes & Noble, then your community has forfeited its cultural heart.

Attila reconsidered

RAWR! We are ***ATTILA***!!!

Monday marked my latest (and first for 2009) music acquisition, the suppressed, self-titled and only album by the band Attila from 1970. Most people have no idea what makes the lone Attila album so interesting, so I will clue you in: the notorious personnel. On drums: Jon Small, formerly of the Hassles. On everything else: William Martin Joel, also of the Hassles and prefers to be called "Billy". Yep, Attila was Billy Joel's "heavy metal" band.

First, some perspective: by “heavy metal” I don’t mean the opening act for Metallica, Slayer or Napalm Death. In 1970, the heaviest sounds around (that most people were aware of anyway) were coming from Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Jimi Hendrix. Attila was the natural progression from the garage and psychedelic output of the Hassles and many bands were moving into a much heavier direction. Joel pretty much does the work of three musicians with the kind of distorted Hammond sound he developed for the album. The discordant grinding sound at the beginning of "California Flash" is particularly good and the wash of static that slams into "Rollin' Home" is pretty cool, too. Small pulls off a few nice tempo switch-ups throughout the album, so his contributions should not be overlooked. The lyrics are pretty silly throughout, but I don't care; they are on par with a lot of other stuff being released at the time. Vocal delivery varies throughout, but I have to admit to this sick thrill I get hearing Billy Joel scream out "Jesus Christ!" (the exclamation, not the prayer) in "Wonder Woman". Really, though, look at the cover of this album and tell me that Joel and Small were out to a create a deadly serious piece of work. The whole thing is meant to be fun and relatively mindless, a point some people completely miss.

Critics hate this album. They hate it passionately and with a vengeance. Get a load of this review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine. I think much of this has to do with some kind of embarrassment that the "Piano Man" not behaving like the sensitive singer-songwriter we’ve come to know and love. Critics seem to be allergic to the different and uncharacteristic of the artist. Diehard Billy Joel fans probably don’t care for this kind of music, but for somebody who is indifferent to most of his output since 1971, listening to Attila gives me a new and more open-minded perspective of the man. (Oddly enough, allmusic.com stamped the album an "AMG Pick".)

Billy Joel HATES this album. He calls it "psychedelic bullshit" and has suppressed every track save an edit of "Amplifier Fire" that appears on the Billy Joel box set. Trying to dismiss the album, to me, feels like denying you pegged your pants in the 1980's and burning any pictures of yourself wearing eighties clothes, or refusing to admit that you said some dumb things to strangers when you were a little kid. Like physical growth, musical development is a series of phases and not all of them give us warm, fuzzy memories.

My take? If you want to find this album guilty of something, then press inconsistency charges. When I see a title like "Amplifier Fire Pt. 1: Godzilla" I expect a heavy slab of monster-grade hard rock, not a Jimmy Smith inspired instrumental. And yet "Amplifier Fire Pt. 2: March of the Huns" is exactly what "Godzilla" was not. It's either Jimmy Smith style music ("Brain Invasion") or hard-hitting drums and keys ("Rollin' Home", "Wonder Woman") and the two styles lead a somewhat uncomfortable coexistence.

I classify Attila with three other unusual listening experiences: (1) the self-titled album by Armageddon, which was ex-Yardbird Keith Relf’s final and heaviest hurrah, (2) Sam Gopal’s Dream, featuring Lemmy Kilmister, later just "Lemmy" of Motörhead, and any of the singles by Ronnie and the Prophets, the band fronted by Ronald Padovana, aka Ronnie James Dio, of Rainbow-Sabbath-Dio fame. I guess I'm a sucker for those "before/after they were famous" moments that put the entire musical output of an artist in a whole new light.