Recommended Reading: Inkling Media & I Threw A Brick Through A Window

If you've joined That's What I Was Going To Say's Fan Page on Facebook, or if you follow @TWIWGTS on Twitter, you know that there have been hints about a new series of posts being launched here today. This post begins a weekly feature, Recommended Reading. Have you ever taken the time to scroll down through all the goodies on the left-hand side of the page here, down to the list of blogs I read regularly? Yeah, didn't think so. Many blogs carry such "Blog Rolls;" many blog readers miss out on them because they stop by, read a post or two, and then are off to the next webpage. Curse this ADD world we live in!

So, beginning today, every Thursday, I'll be featuring a blog from my Blog Roll in a "spotlight post." I've been in the process of contacting the bloggers who pour their heart and soul into these works and getting them to answer five simple questions about their blog and themselves, to give you a little insight into who they are and what their writing is all about. I have only one request of you, Dear Reader: give their blogs a chance. Visit them and read at least a post or two. You just may bookmark more than a few...

Ken Mueller was one of the first people I interacted with when I joined Twitter in the fall of 2008. My beloved Philadelphia Phillies were in the playoffs, headed towards their first World Series victory in 28 years, and I discovered a fellow fan in Ken - in fact, one of our first conversations began at my mention of Bake McBride, centerfielder for the 1980 World Champion Phillies and owner of one of the greatest baseball names ever. Over time and the course of conversations on both Twitter and Facebook, Ken and I learned that we had common interest in other areas: radio, music, and this newfangled Social Media craze. In addition to common interests, we found that we shared a common friend: the same guy who was General Manager of the University of Richmond (VA) radio station WDCE the year that I was Music Director there worked as an assistant to Mueller at a time when Mueller was heavily involved with the Museum of Radio and Television in New York City.

Remarkably, it wasn't until after these connections were discovered that I learned that Ken lives about six blocks away from me. Here is a person who has turned out to be a good friend and a fountain of valuable information and advice as I have begun navigating the Social Network Marketing waters both for my employer and myself, and who is virtually within shouting distance of me; yet without social media, we might never have met.

That Social Network Marketing creates that kind of serendipity more often than not fuels one the two blogs that Mueller authors, Inkling Media. The blog is really an offshoot of his Social Media Consulting business, and is a treasure trove of information and advice for both the novice and the experienced online marketer. What makes the blog a daily read for me, though, is that Ken takes that marketing advice and applies it to life in general. His advice could be (and, on a certain level, is) geared toward basic lessons in how to restore a sense of neighborhood and community in your own world. He has the ability to take situations we are familiar with, from the mundane to the topical, and glean axioms from those situations that apply to both Social Network Marketing and to basic human interaction, present them in simple terms, and all the while make you feel like you're just sitting with him on his fabled porch sharing some neighborly advice and some sweet tea.

Mueller also authors his own personal blog, I Threw A Brick Through A Window, where he writes about his other areas of interest. A bit more eclectic and a bit less formal, ...Brick... isn't updated as often as Inkling Media, but is always a treat when it is. Recent posts there have focused on historic radio broadcasts and broadcasters, and have seldom failed to inspire me to do a bit of Googling on my own to learn more.

In both blogs, Mueller invites reader participation through the occasional weekend music games and, in the case of Inkling Media, turning the reigns over to the occasional guest blogger.

I asked Ken the five questions that you will soon become very familiar with in this series of posts, as a way for him to introduce himself and his blogs to you. Here's how he responded:

What or who inspired you to begin blogging?
KM: Originally it was just a way to give voice to things on my mind. Not sure there was an inspiration. The Brick Through Window blog has evolved quite a bit over the years. For Inkling, it's a way to write about my field and give information to others.

Is there a story or meaning behind your blog or its name?
KM: Threw A Brick Through A Window - from the U2 song...and much of what I blogged about early on could be considered...throwing bricks thru windows...
Inkling - blog and company name came from my love of the literary group The Inklings - consisting of CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, etc.

Which post would you choose from your archives if you had to provide only one that best represents what your blog is all about?
KM: Brick Through Window - I'm On A Porch
Inkling - I Live In An Amazing Community

When you first log on to your computer each day, what is the first site you go to? Why?
KM: I usually fire up Twitter, my G-mail, and my own website. I go to my own site to make sure my blog of the day get's published. Twitter and G-mail allow me to connect with my community and the world.

What one other blog would YOU recommend that you read regularly, and why?
KM: That's a tough one. So many great blogs. I think to keep up on social media stuff my favorite lately has been Social Media Examiner.

So there you have it, a little bit about Ken Mueller and two blogs that he writes that I highly recommend you check out, Inkling Media and I Threw A Brick Through A Window. Read a few posts, and then come back here and let us know your thoughts.

My sincere thanks to Ken Mueller for agreeing to be a part of this series and taking the time out of his busy schedule to share his responses with us.

We've Lost Alex Chilton

Image by Karen Hoffmann via Flickr

"Children by the millions sing for Alex Chilton when he comes 'round
They sing 'I'm in love'
What's that song?
I'm in love with that song..."
-The Replacements, from the song "Alex Chilton"

Alex Chilton passed away unexpectedly last night at the age of 59, at his home in New Orleans, Louisiana.

I had just logged onto one of the message boards I frequent online, one that is not a music-related board. The first thread topic that jumped out at me was "RIP Alex Chilton." I just stared for a moment before I actually clicked on it, hoping perhaps that by hesitating I would increase the chances that it would turn out to be just unsubstantiated rumor and quickly proven incorrect. Sadly, it's true. Alex Chilton is gone.

Chilton's name is perhaps better known in rock critic circles than rock fan circles, and that is truly a shame. However, virtually everyone who has ever turned on a radio or a TV is familiar with Chilton's work.

"Invisible man who can sing in a visible voice..."
- The Replacements

Back in the year I was born, 1967, it would not have been uncommon to hear Chilton's voice growling out of transistor radio speakers. That's his gravelly vocal propelling The Box Top's classics "Cry Like a Baby" and "The Letter." As the 1970's dawned, Chilton had moved on to form the legendary Big Star, and with that band penned many songs that could easily challenge for the title of Best Pop Song Ever. Most casual fans are more familiar with other artist's covers of Big Star's material, notably The Bangles cover of the jangly "September Gurls" and Cheap Trick's reinterpretation of "In The Street" as the theme song to That '70s Show.

In the 1980s, Chilton's solo material received less attention than it deserved, until he was celebrated in song by The Replacements on their 1987 album Pleased To Meet Me. That same year, Chilton had a minor college-radio hit with "No Sex." Chilton continued to record up through turn of the century, and continued to play live shows either as a solo act or as part of Box Tops or Big Star reunions, until his passing.

"If he was from Venus, would he meet us on the moon?
If he died in Memphis, then that'd be cool, babe."
- The Replacements

The Replacements did not accurately predict where he would be when he passed. Though Chilton was born and raised in Memphis, he had settled in New Orleans in the 1980s. His name briefly surfaced in the news in 2005, when he was initially among the missing in Hurricane Katrina. An apocryphal story made the rounds that he was eventually found sitting in a bar wondering what all the fuss was about; in actuality he had simply boarded himself up in his home with enough provisions to last a couple weeks and waited for the storm to pass, eventually being rescued by helicopter.

Choosing a clip to post in tribute to Chilton is difficult - he wrote so many wonderful songs. "In The Street" still ranks among my favorites, and the way Chilton wrote it originally and recorded it with Big Star is a very different reading than it received as a TV theme. RIP, Alex.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

THE POGUES - Sally MacLennane
Uploaded by twid. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

Viral Video (Re)Creates Another Celebrity Out of Left Field!

Eduard Khil' is everywhere these days.

By now, you've either seen his jaw-dropping, mind-bending performance from decades past of the song "I Am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home" (which has become known online as "The Trololo Song" or simply "Trololo"), or you've been exposed to any of the myriad remixes and parodies of it.

If you've been living in a cave for the past few weeks and have no idea what I'm talking about, go back and read my post from March 5th, A "WTF?" Explained, to see the original clip and get the story behind it.

The clip quickly entered the hallowed realm of the viral video, and all these years later, Khil' himself has been tracked down...and he has a challenge for us all!



I don't know what I find cooler - that Khil' has been found, that he is clearly reveling in his renaissance, or that he still has the same bad brown suit and haircut!

What is undoubtedly awesome is the idea of writing "real" lyrics to the song and having Mr. Khil' himself sing it anew!

More details to come as they become available regarding dates and places for submissions. Now then, I have lyrics to write...

New Wave for the New Week #57

XTC via last.fm

"When we started off our driving energy, our driving force, was to have a lot of beer in the dressing room and be very, very rich and famous. Umm, we've had the beer in the dressing room..."
-Andy Partridge of XTC

There is no real need to go into extensive discography or biography here; most of you who would be reading this are already humming your favorite XTC songs in your head.

For those uninitiated, here is a quick "pocket guide" to XTC: Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding met up in Swindon in the UK in the early 1970's, and began playing New York Dolls-inspired glam rock as The Helium Kidz. By 1976, drummer Terry Chambers and keyboardist Barry Andrews had joined them, they changed the band's name to XTC, and found their own sound within the Punk/New Wave scene.

Playing keyboard-driven, syncopated, chirpy-punky-pop with elements of funk, reggae, and baroque music tossed in, they were hyperactive, skittish, and easily identifiable among the onrush of bands forming in the wake of The Sex Pistols and The Ramones. This lineup lasted through two albums, White Music and Go 2, before Andrews left the band to create what would eventually become the band Shriekback.

Andrews and his keyboards were replaced by Dave Gregory and his ringing guitar, and the band's sound made a noticeable shift toward more Beatlesque rock. In this variation, XTC hit their stride with singles like "Respectable Street," "Living Through Another Cuba," "No Thugs in Our House," and "Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me)." By 1982 they were regularly hitting the UK Top 40 and were developing a huge cult following in the US, where they were the darlings of college radio playlists across the country. They were set to launch on a huge multi-country tour when Partridge had a complete mental breakdown, which manifested itself from that point forward in crippling stage fright. XTC never played in front of a live crowd again.

However, much like the Beatles (to whom they were beginning to be compared at least stylistically), the cessation of touring did not slow their musical output. Chambers left the group around this time, not wanting to be simply a studio musician, and Partridge, Moulding and Gregory forged ahead. The studio version of XTC saw them begin to expand their musical horizons, often finding themselves on more acoustic-ballad turf then they might have expected. This version of the band sold more records in the US than ever before (although they never scored a big breakthrough hit here), especially 1986's Skylarking and its associated single, the controversial "Dear God."

Their recorded output had been with Virgin Records from the very beginning; by 1992 the band and the label were embroiled in bitter dispute over unpaid royalties. Partridge and Moulding asked the label to release them outright, won a settlement over royalties due, and began to record independently as a duo. Shortly thereafter, Moulding decided he was done with the music industry. Partridge didn't want to continue XTC without Moulding, and the band ceased to exist.

The continued popularity of the band was demonstrated in the fact that they won their spot as this week's NW4NW entry in a poll conducted over on That's What I Was Going To Say's Facebook fanpage (if you're not a fan yet, get yourself there lickety-split and fan up!), where XTC took 57% of the vote in a field of five bands! I've chosen two clips: the first, from their Barry Andrews keyboard era, "Radios In Motion," and the second from their Dave Gregory guitar era, the wonderful "Senses Working Overtime." Enjoy!

The Runaways Biopic - Could Be Good, Could Be a Complete (Cherry) Bomb

The trailer is now online:



In theaters March 19. I suppose I'll watch it; I'll try to keep an open mind, but these things so rarely turn out well...

Meanwhile, time to dig that legendary first Runaways album out of the archives for a few spins on the turntable. It's a great, great record - hopefully the movie will at least give it a renewed life and exposure to a new generation of kids. Here's the original clip for their first single, the still-stunning-after-all-these-years "Cherry Bomb":

Blogging Advice for a Friend

My friend Janine has a blog, which she's not sure she wants anyone to read. Last night, she sent me an email asking for advice and seeking support.

Now, I'm no professional blogging coach. I am not to be counted among the innumerable Blogging Gurus, Social Media Mavens, Big Kahunas o' Online Interaction (yes, I actually saw one person refer to himself that way), or other supposed "experts" who have been popping up everywhere like crabgrass over the past few years, promising that by following their sage advice you, too, can become the author of the most widely read and highly monetized blog in the history of Ever!

Two points about these folks:

1. If someone has to tell you repeatedly that they are an "expert" in any field, they aren't, and...

2. Remember P.T. Barnum's famous and wise words: "There's a sucker born every minute."

With every coming technology and every coming fad, the hucksters are there ready to take your money to sell you their "Big Secret to Success" in whatever field it is, and all the secret ever turns out to be is either something anyone with an ounce of common sense and who has ever taken a basic composition course in high school already knows, or tickets to a seminar where they try to get more money out of you by selling you books filled with even more not-so-secret "secrets."

Now, before my inbox becomes inundated with the hue and cry of the converted, let me say that there ARE good folks out there with good ideas and valuable coaching to offer. The folks at Mashable, for example, are filled with good advice and ideas for anyone who wants their voice heard above the Internet throng. Chris Brogan offers great tips, as does Inkling Media. All of these work under the wider umbrella of Social Media Marketing, but their suggestions apply to promoting your own blog as well as promoting your own brand or business. As far as blog-specific advice, ProBlogger is a must-read.

Back to Janine. She's not looking to become the best blogger in the universe, or to become independently wealthy through her blog alone (not yet, anyway!). At this point, she's simply looking for a comfort zone:

"I'm working on my blog as we speak. I'm so confused by it. It's feminism, handy-person advice, product tips for a condo-owner, editorializing...so I don't show it to anyone.
Any advice? I'd love to promote it, but only if I can find my own focus.

I'm so hard on myself..."

Boy do I know that feeling! When I started out with this blog two Decembers ago, I was in the same place. I wanted to write; I wanted to be heard. But the worry over whether anyone would want to listen to what I have to say was, at times, paralyzing.

The great thing about the blogging community is that we all seem to be so willing to help each other out and give each other encouragement along the way, because we've all been there. I had friends who had been blogging far longer than I to offer me advice and coaching then. I am certainly willing to offer whatever words of encouragement I can now to the Janines of the blogging world.

Here, in part, is the response I sent her. It is advice I would offer, based on my personal experiences, to anyone out there who is starting out in this crazy blogosphere:

"The best advice I can give you is the same advice I got from a fellow blogger back when I started out: JUST WRITE. Don't worry about "finding a focus" or whether it's "good enough" or whatever - just throw it out there, warts and all. You'll find your voice. Actually, you've already found it, you just don't realize it yet.

My blog is all over the place. I write mostly about music, but also sometimes about baseball, sometimes about shit that happened to me that I want to rant about, sometimes about politics, sometimes about things happening here in Lancaster, sometimes about free coffee. I used to worry that being unfocused like that was a bad thing. For my 100th post, I put up a poll asking for feedback, and one of the questions I asked had to do with whether people would rather see the various topics I write about split into individual, "focused" blogs or whether they liked the mish-mash I was posting. You know what? Overwhelmingly, they said they liked the mixture.

I have a white board on the wall of my home office, and on the top of it I have one quote that has been there so long I don't think it can be erased anymore: "Write to one person." It was the best lesson I've learned: in your mind, create the person who is a representation of the audience you want to reach. Is this person male or female? Are they older, younger, or your age? Single, in a relationship, or have a family? Every detail - make this imaginary person as real and complete in your mind as you can. Then, write every post as if you are writing to that one person.

Stop worrying about pleasing an audience or pleasing yourself. Just write. Your audience will find you. Trust me, they do show up! I get frustrated because I don't always get the feedback I would like - I wish my readers would comment on every post and get into conversations and such, but they don't. My readers give me feedback in other ways - sometimes on Twitter, sometimes on Facebook, sometimes in an email.

I know what it's like to be a perfectionist - I am one, and I am my own harshest critic. I don't know what you think of my writing, for example, but I generally am not happy with most of it. But I've learned to just put it out there, and you've seen that I promote it like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Develop an ego! Role play as if your blog is already successful and widely-read. Promote it as if people would be crazy not to read it and love it. Be unapologetic about it, be cocky about it, be proud of it.

Most importantly, just be real in what you write. Don't try to force it or it will come off sounding phony, and that will turn people off. Write the way you talk; again, write as if you were writing to that one person. Your voice will change from day to day, and that's fine too - that's real. Go back and read several of my posts, and you'll see sometimes I write more formally and sometimes more conversationally, depending on the topic and on how I am feeling the day I happen to write it.

My last piece of advice goes against everything you've ever been taught about writing: don't keep editing and editing. Don't do a bunch of rewrites. Write your piece, spell check it, do at most ONE rewrite if you feel it necessary, then POST IT. For perfectionists like us, it's the scariest thing to do, but the most necessary. But it forces you to put it out there, and you're writing is by default more raw and more real - more you."

And now, I turn to those of you out there who are bloggers yourselves. What advice would you add? What would you suggest differently from what I have, and why? There's always more than one way to skin a cat, as they say. How did you go about getting over that initial trepidation that we all feel/felt to some extent when it comes to baring our words to the universe?

FREE COFFEE!

Coffee is good. And "free" is good. So click on the linky picture-y thing below and get yerself some free coffee from Dunkin' Donuts!



You're welcome!

New Wave for the New Week #56

February 22 saw the release of "Retro Rockets," the brand new single from The Stranglers, taken from their forthcoming Decades Apart album, which will be their 17th (!) album since their 1977 debut, Rattus Norvegicus. But The Stranglers have actually been going for longer than that...

The band started off in the early 1970s as The Guilford Stranglers, and made their initial mark on the British Pub Rock scene. As early as 1974, the band was shocking audiences with their ragged-edged gutter-level songs focusing on the uglier side of life. Hugh Cornwell's gutteral growl was murky and animalistic, and their misogynistic lyrics and sometimes violent themes set them apart from their contemporaries. When The Ramones made their first highly influential first tour of England in 1976, it was The Stranglers (with their newly cropped name) who opened for them. Resultantly, The Stranglers found themselves shunned by the fading Pub Rock scene and lumped in with the swiftly growing Punk Rock crowd. While that tag may have helped them find their true audience, it was at best an ill-fitting label. Many of the UK kids following The Sex Pistols and The Damned and The Clash around saw The Stranglers as a bunch of old geezers trying to jump on the punk rock bandwagon. They played keyboards like The Doors for heaven sake!

Over 17 albums, The Stranglers' music has evolved from the early gritty, ugly, vulgar world of "Peasant in the Big Shitty," "Bring On the Nubiles," and "Down in the Sewer" to a more refined, in fact beautiful, pop sound (see "Skin Deep," "Always the Sun," etc.) The pop sensibilities were always there, though, audible from the first single, "(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)," whose burbling keyboards and sing-along chorus helped The Stranglers begin a long string of British chart hits.

As their sound evolved, so did their popularity. 1984's Aural Sculpture helped them become a commercial success throughout the rest of Europe, and charted well in Australia; in the US it saw considerable airplay on college stations but could not cross over to mainstream appeal. By 1990, they were clearly aiming for the US charts by covering The Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night," but they remained a cult band here. At that point, founding member and co-lead-singer Cornwell left the band.

The other singer and co-founder of the band, Jean-Jacques Burnel, soldiered on under The Stranglers moniker through some lean years, until the band returned to the British Top 40 in 2004 with "Big Thing Coming." In the ensuing years, the band has enjoyed something of a resurgence. The early records have been discovered by a new generation of fans, and though most of the band is pushing 60, they are still churning out some great music. The new album is highly anticipated; "Retro Rockets" sounds as good as any of the finest Stranglers tunes.

For this week's NW4NW, we look back to one of my favorite Stranglers singles, 1977's "Straighten Out." In many ways, it is the epitome of The Stranglers' sound: harsh yet melodic, ugly yet catchy, with clear ties to punk, pop, new wave...and even those Doors-like keyboards.



Over the course of this week, additional Stranglers clips will be posted on That's What I Was Going Say's Facebook page...become a fan today so you don't miss out!

A "WTF?" Explained

Those of you who are among my Facebook friends and/or Twitter followers know that earlier in the week I posted this wonderfully odd clip, challenging anyone to watch it without finding that same goofy grin as the singer has plastered upon his face plastered upon their own:



Those who found the words with which to comment after seeing this responded with the same mixture of horror, joy, and just general WTF?-ness that I did when I stumbled upon the clip in the first place. I declared that it would henceforth be my personal theme song, played whenever I enter I room, which I would do with glazed grin and mannequin-like wave as our singer does here, if not always clad in a similarly outdated brown suit as his; this declaration prompted at least one friend to state that I would be shot should I walk pass his porch one day singing the song! (No worries - no vocalizations I can muster come anywhere near the realm of what sane people would deem "singing.")

Weirdness experienced and chuckles had by all, we all moved on with our lives, likely never to encounter our fashion-stunted but joy-filled Russian singer again. And then...

Today I came across this in-all-ways-wonderful post written by Justin E. H. Smith, which not only seeks to explain what in blue blazes the clip was all about, but provides remarkable historical and cultural context for it. A brief tidbit:

"The man singing is Edward Hill, also known as Eduard Khil', or, better yet, Эдуард Хиль...The song he is interpreting, "I Am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home," is an Ostrovskii composition, and it is meant to be sung in the vokaliz style, that is to say sung, but without words...Recent interest in Hill has to do with the perceived strangeness, the uncanniness, the surreal character of this performance. There is indeed something uncanny about a lip-synch to a song with no words, and his waxed face and hair helmet certainly do not carry over well. But once one does a bit of research, one learns that the number was not conceived out of some desire to cater to the so-bad-it's-good tastes of the Western YouTube generation, but in fact was meant to please --to genuinely please-- Soviet audiences who were capable of placing this routine, this man, and this song into a familiar context."

Smith goes on to provide, as counterpoint, a rendition of the same song performed in a 1960 film, and then begins a fascinating dissection/celebration of Hill's performance. It is an informative and entertaining piece, well-written and appreciated by those of us who, while enjoying the clip at face value, still wondered...well...WTF?!?

However explanatory Smith's piece may be, a reading of the comments left for Smith by his readers again brings about the cloak of oddness: an ongoing, scholarly discussion of Hill's performance as symbolic of the wide cultural gaps between peoples of the world?!? When one commenter declared this clip to be a reflection of "the ethos of the Brezhnevian era: hell hidden behind pastel tones," I began wondering whether this wasn't all some big put-on. Heck, why not summon the ghost of William F. Buckley to debate with Gore Vidal the value of Edward Hill's performance as allegory to the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and the perceived elitism of America by the rest of the world while we're at it?

Still, a fascinating read, and the very fact that such a blog post as Smith's and such responses as those of Smith's readers would be inspired by so downright goofy a clip as this amuses me to no end. That I find myself inspired to write this blog post about that blog post is somewhat frightening; if any of you reading this feel compelled to write a post about this post about that post about that video, I recommend seeking professional help.

Or, just scrap the whole thing, put on a bad brown suit and a silly grin and sing along with Edward Hill. "Tra-la-la-la-laaaaaaa......"