Category: Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Mark Ronson and the Business INTL

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This week, Jennifer reveals the quirky interests of her childhood and sees Q-Tip! (Oh, and this Mark Ronson kid.)

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Mark Ronson and the Business INTL

I have spent a certain amount of time in the last couple of weeks listening to Record Collection and pondering the question of how to descibe the sound of Mark Ronson and the Business INTL. A potpourri made of hip-hop and synth-rock electronica? The soundtrack to someone else’s glamorous life? The kind of thing that would be playing the background of a Wes Anderson movie? All of the above? I finally settled on: a delicate, complicated game of vocal pick-up sticks with hot dance beats, though The Business’ Twitter bio says they’re “Nature’s The Traveling Wilburys”, which might also be a wholly accurate description.

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Stuart Zender (Jamiroquai) and Alex Greenwald (Phantom Planet)


Ronson has certainly managed to pull in an eclectic collection of musicians, representing multiple generations of multiple genres. I was at the Webster Hall show, where in addition to the Business – Rose Dougall, Alex Greenwald, Stuart Zender, MNDR, and MC Spank Rock – hip-hop artists Q-Tip and Pill showed up to jam. At his UK shows, audiences were treated to Boy George (!) and Duran Duran (!!).

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MC Spank Rock

What all of that talent in one place translates to is some great tunes amd a really, really fun show. I’ve already expressed my appreciation for the title track; I’m also especially fond of You Gave Me Nothing and The Night Last Night. It’s important to note here that I am normally not so much into synth-pop; back in the early ’80s, while my sister was wearing out her Rio tape, I had my radio dial tuned to hockey games, Larry King Live and Loveline. But these grooves are kind of irresistible.

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Q-Tip

Also, for those of you who are squinting at your screen right now thinking Mark who?, his previous (concurrent?) incarnations include being a DJ and, perhaps most notoriously, Amy Winehouse’s producer. Though he’s worked with a whole lot of other people as well, in fact he made a handy flow chart for an interview he did with New York Magazine.

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MNDR and Mark Ronson

In conclusion: If you did like synth-pop, or still do, and in particular of you prefer your synths poppy and untroubled by industrial undertones, there is a lot for you to love here, and you should totally check them out.

— Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Fall Mix

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Not the Fall as in Mark E. Smith, but fall as in the season. This week, Jennifer shares some thoughts on her current favorite tunes.

School foiled my concert-attending plans last week, so today you get a selection of things currently in heavy rotation on my iPod, along with some pictures from my recent travels.

1. Love Hurts, Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons feat. Emmylou Harris – Yes, it’s that “Love Hurts.” You may be more familiar with the Nazareth version — I was — but this one is 90% less cheesy and ridiculous. The song is infinitely better as a country love song than as a heavy metal power ballad. The lyrics have a lot more oomph now that I can listen to them without laughing.

2. Slink (A Hymn), Theme song for The Good Guys, Locksley – This band signs off all of their news emails with a cheery “Be in love” which makes me both grin and half-roll my eyes every time. Oh, babies. I’ll work on it, okay? I’m a cranky old lady, though, so you have to give me a running start. Meanwhile: this song is a delightful story about falling in love with someone else’s lady on the dancefloor, or maybe just about flirting via dancing. I’m not quite sure. But it’s definitely a whole lot of fun, and never fails to pull me out of the end-of-a-12-hour-day dumps.

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Waterfire, Providence, Rhode Island, October 2010

3. Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Flamingo, Brandon Flowers – This song should be the first thing travelers hear upon deplaning at McCarren Airport. And it should be turned up loud enough to drown out the sound of the slot machines. (I was sure “slot machines at the airport” was an urban legend until I walked off the plane and saw them, and the lights of the Strip flickering in the distance.) There are a lot of love songs on this record; this one is for Las Vegas herself.

4. Cheat on Your New Lover With Me, Inconvenient Dreams, Jail Weddings – From what I can gather from the Internet, there’s a kind of ’60s revival going on in certain circles of the Los Angeles music scene. There’s the mods ( The Like), the surf-pop (The Young Veins), and then there’s the rockers: Jail Weddings. If I was put in charge of remaking Grease, Frenchie and the rest of the Pink Ladies would totally get down to Jail Weddings’ grooves. I think of this one as Rizzo’s song. It’s a filthy, irresistable suggestion, the kind of thing one would whisper to a hot boy in a fast car before hopping in and putting your feet up on the dash while he guns it for the state line. I like to listen to it while I walk to the train in the morning. True confessions: I had the whole five song EP on repeat for a while. It really is that good.

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A seabird @ Asbury Park, New Jersey, September 2010

5. Blackhawk, Wrecking Ball, Emmylou Harris : Listening to Grievous Angel and Wrecking Ball on shuffle will break your heart, because when she comes up on her own, her sweet clear voice sounds so lonely without his warmer tones harmonizing. Blackhawk is a requiem for a love story — though not theirs, necessarily — and it is a gem. Also beautiful: Wrecking Ball, the title track, and Waltz Across Texas Tonight.

6. Brian Eno, Congratulations, MGMT – I’m so late to the MGMT party that everyone who’s already there is at the “sitting on the front stoop looking mournfully at empty solo cups” stage of the evening. Okay, I’m not going to abuse that metaphor any further. I love their second record, and this song in particular, because it sounds like Scooby Doo. If I was making videos for them, there’d be lots of cartoony effects and “RUT ROH!” thought bubbles. Also possibly willowy boys in miniskirts and go-go boots chasing a caped miscreant through a candy-colored dreamscape.

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Lion statue, Washington Heights, September 2010

7. Love Drunk, Love Drunk, Boys Like Girls – The first and so far only time I have seen Boys Like Girls live was in the summer of 2009, at the (unintentionally hilariously misnamed) MTV Sunblock Fest, on a miserable, wet, cold July day at Jones Beach. It was raining so hard there was water whipping across the stage in sheets, and the crowd was huddled in hoodies and ponchos, sipping hot chocolate. I had gotten good and mostly-soaked watching the opening bands I had come to see (Gym Class Heroes and The Academy Is . . .) but for whatever reason – curiosity or cussedness – I stuck around for Boys Like Girls. This song is one of the many reasons I was glad I did. It’s a classic break-up song of the “Don’t let the door hit you on the behind on the way out!” variety, and it’s got a satisfyingly bouncy melody as well as entertaining lyrics.

8. Na Na Na, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, My Chemical Romance – I did not want to like this song, or their new record. I was fully prepared to be sulky and cross about their metamorphasis into brightly-colored dance punk being broadcast from 2019. (I like brightly colored dance-punk and post-apocalyptic futures, mind, but we had been teased with early reports of a gimmick-free punk rock record.) I may have done some grumbling about too much California sun rotting their brains. And then somewhere between a killer opening guitar riff, eight legs to the wall/hit the gas/and the wall/and we crawl and let me tell you ’bout the sad man/shut up and let me see your jazz hands, I caved, and now I’m hooked. I take it back, My Chemical Romance; I’m in. Bring on the candy-colored cap guns and awe-inspiringly ridiculous stage costumes. If you’re ready to dance, I’ll pogo with you.

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Cactus from Brown University greenhouse, October 2010

9. Club Can’t Even Handle Me Right Now, Step Up 3D (soundtrack), Flo Rida , feat. David Guetta – This song is ridiculous and I love it. It’s bubblegum pop from a movie whose main conflict resolution device is dance-batttles and I can’t stop listening to it. I suggest you put this one on if you have a tedious chore to do and need something fun to ease the pain and/or pass the time.

10. Record Collection,Record Collection, Mark Ronson and The Business Intl. , feat. Nick Rhodes, Simon Le Bon and Wiley – Part of the peculiar alchemy of this record, and also this song, is how many people Ronson has brought in to share
the singing duties; the overall effect is of a big game of vocal pick-up sticks. This particular track, sung by Mark Ronson, Simon Le Bon and Wiley is a sweet synth-pop confection of a tune that is mainly about the perks, trials and tribulations of being a pop star. Sample lyrics: I drive ’round cities in a chariot, I get preferential treatment at the Marriott, but if the truth be told I’m naked under all these clothes. I’ll tell you what it is on my mind, I only want to be in your record collection.

— Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Free Energy

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Free Energy gets their own spotlight this week. Jennifer digs her some punk pop.

And now, as promised: Free Energy, who were so awesome they needed their own post. I came into the show knowing nothing about them and about three songs in I was up on my toes, grinning at them and clapping along with the rest of the crowd. This band is fun, y’all, in all of the ways pop-punk should be.

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Musically, they have big hooks and catchy choruses; it’s the kind of thing that makes you want to dance, and also sing along. Also, it was the last night of a long tour, and lead singer Paul Sprangers was still bouncing around the stage and dancing with a tambourine. I tried to get a picture of it, which didn’t work so well. The one below conveys the general spirit, though:

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When I checked their MySpace to see if they’d be back to visit New York any time soon, I saw they are starting North American tour with Foxy Shazam in mid-October. Tragically, I will be away for Thanksgiving when they get here, but y’all should check their dates and your calendars make it your business to get out to see them. I promise you it will be an evening of high-energy joy-inducing punk rock. Free Energy is also jumping over to France for a week in November, to play some festivals with, among other people, Surfer Blood. If we have any French readers: You are also seriously in for a treat!

— Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Titus Andronicus

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This week, Jennifer gets excited about some punk fuckin’ rawk.

The best way I can explain The Monitor, the new(ish) record from Titus Andronicus , is to say that it is like two photographs, one from the 21st century and one from the 19th, carefully overlaid so that their elements blend and the eye is left with the challenge of determining what is now, what was then, and what is both, eternally suspended on the thin webbing of successful illusion. Internet, I have listened to this record a lot. I was really, really excited to finally be able to see them live.

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Patrick Stickles (l) and Ian Graetzer (r)

Following opening acts Screaming Females (solid punk band; their singer can also really shred) and Free Energy (pop punk so awesome they get their own post next week), Titus Andronicus kicked off the show last Saturday night at Webster Hall with A More Perfect Union, a song which references, among other things, the Newark Bears, the Garden State Parkway, Born to Run as well as both the Battle Cry of Freedom and the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The recorded lyrics include the phrase tramps like us, baby we were born to die, but Patrick Stickles sang born to run instead, infusing (and transforming) the line with howling punk rock defiance. Naturally the pit went crazy. And it only got better from there.

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Amy Klein, playing her violin while wearing her guitar

One of highlights of the show came during The Battle of Hampton Roads. The song is 14 minutes long and they played all of it. The middle section is instrumental, a fusion of fuzzy guitars, parade drums and what I thought were bagpipes on the record but live turned out to be keyboard effects. It sounds like a column of weary Union soldier walking home on a dirt road in the rain. It is the kind of thing that just begs for a drum line. And so the barrier provided one: we stretched out our hands, all of us, all the way down as far as I could see, and pounded on the stage. Meanwhile, the floor was vibrating from the pogoing feet of the pit behind us.

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l to r: Patrick Stickles, David Robbins, Eric Harm, and Ian Graetzer

In conclusion: that was awesome, and I can’t wait to see them again when they open for the Felice Brothers in Poughkeepsie in October. If you live in the tri-state area and are waffling about going to that show, BUY A TICKET NOW. It’s going to be good.

— Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Blake Mills

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As I was nearly employed in nefarious plans to acquire the object of desire in Jennifer’s post today, I am glad for the happy outcome. Jennifer suggests those seeking to obtain the below-mentioned artifact for themselves contact the Venice Beach location of Mollusk Surf Shop.

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Internet, last week I did something I haven’t done since (probably) 1998: I bought music on a cassette tape: Break Mirrors, by Blake Mills, formerly of Simon Dawes, who are now just Dawes. (Trivia: First cassette I bought, in 1986: Bruce Springsteen, Born in the USA and The Hooters, Nervous Night; last cassette I can remember, before this one: Jerry Cantrell, Boggy Depot.) You may, rightfully, be wondering whatever possessed me to do such a thing, especially since I had already acquired the actual music on the cassette in digital format and have been happily listening to it for some time now.

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The answer to that question, is, essentially, that this was less about the tunes (though they are very good; more on that in a minute) and more about the artifact. I am not the kind of music nerd that has an opinion about vinyl. That I have three actual records in my apartment right now is more due to the fact that they come as part of special packages then any desire of mine to listen to them in that format. Also, I don’t have a record player.

My first motivation was to see the liner notes and more of the album art – the collage on the cover is only the beginning, but as it turns out, all of that is part of the CD version – but more than that the idea of a cassette tape was weirdly compelling. I suspect because it is the kind of retro I can feel a real connection to, in the sense that I am the kind of music nerd that, in 1989, spent several months carefully combing the aisles at Tower Records to assemble Tom Petty’s entire back catalog, and then spent hours sitting on my bedroom floor with my stereo making three 90 minute mix tapes solely devoted to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Later I would make several driving mixes, one tape on the topic of Heavy Metal I Have Loved, and, finally, six carefully curated identical mix tapes as high school graduation gifts for my friends. I suppose that’s not a lot, all things considered, but my point here is, the prospect of the weight of the tape in my hand made me happy.

And as it turns out, one of the many random objects that has traveled with me through the last nine years, six moves, and three states is my walkman:

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As you can see it’s gotten somewhat battered over the years – when and where someone taped the lid on, I have no idea – but I’m pleased to tell you that, after some judicious wiggling of plastic parts, it still works. And the record sounds just as good, if not better, than it does digitally; I was sure I could hear more layers, and definitely a broader, richer drum sound.

Outside of all of that, I am once again and as usual at a loss for fancy music critic language to describe it to you. I can say that, sound-wise, he’s less country/Americana-y than Dawes has become, with much more of an indie-pop sensibility, and that the lyrics are interesting; he tells stories I want to listen to over and over again.

He’ll be on tour with Band of Horses this fall in Iowa, Ohio and Kentucky, but in the meanwhile, here he is performing Hey Lover with some friends, courtesy of YouTube user seizediem :

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2_bnB6haLA?fs=1]

–Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: A Few of My Favorite Things: Nerds and Novelty Songs

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This is Jonathan Coulton performing at the High Line this past April. He is the uncrowned king of the nerdy novelty song. My iTunes informs me that his genre is “Unclassifiable” which I think is an unusual misspelling of “Awesome.” My personal favorites are Code Monkey, a love song for J. Alfred Programmer; Skullcrusher Mountain, in which a lovelorn mad scientist asks isn’t it enough that I ruined a pony, making a gift for you?; and Shop Vac, a tale of suburban disaffection and despair with a catchy sing-along chorus. I’m also really very fond of his cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s Baby Got Back. Those last two might not be all that nerdy but they are a whole lot of fun.

The next song on my list of favorites, MMO RPG by Alex Greenwald (Mark Ronson and the Business Intl., Phantom Planet) – truly a piece of digital ephemera, as it is, for now, only available on YouTube – explores some of the philosophical complexities of on-line gaming:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv8HJ_mB2Nw?fs=1]

I will confess I’m not actually all that into computer games – the graphics tend to give me vertigo, and I prefer the low-tech joys of running around in the woods with capes and fake swords and the adrenaline rush when the elves come out of hiding in the middle of an otherwise routine trade conversation – but the song still fills me with glee. I am only sad that the “P” in the middle defeats my attempts to chair-dance to it YMCA-style.

Finally, there’s the song made by a band full of nerds that, on first hearing, I thought was a novelty song, but wasn’t: Teenagers , by My Chemical Romance. The video won’t embed, but you can listen to it here:

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F2936031%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-v5nxZ&secret_url=false My Chemical Romance – Teenagers by spatzkiersten

A breather amid the heavier themes of the The Black Parade, this one is for anyone who has ever been baffled or a little scared by their high-schooler, or had the urge to tell anyone to shut up, get off their lawn, and pull up their pants. I enjoy it tremendously, and all y’all should check it out.

— Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Stone Temple Pilots/Cage the Elephant, Jones Beach, 9/4/2010

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Jennifer bids adieu to summer by spending some time with former Ohio boy Scott Weiland and crew.

I have some thoughts about Stone Temple Pilots, but we’ll get to them in a minute. First I would like y’all to meet Cage the Elephant:

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Matt Schultz, Jared Champion (drums) and one of their guitarists

They were the second opening band – I missed the first one, TAB the band – and the best description I can give you is: high-energy blues-punk fusion. One of my favorites from their set was Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked, which sounded like it had just rolled in from the Delta. Meanwhile the lead singer was busy shimmy-shaking himself all over the stage and into the audience (three times!) like Iggy Pop. I was worn out just watching him. I also concluded I’d like to see them at their own show with their fans in the pit because I suspect it would be the best kind of epic rock and roll madness. (Translation: Please, please come back and play at Irving so I can stand in the balcony and really feel the bass rattle my bones while the kids go berserk on the floor. :D?)

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Matt Schultz

I can also tell you that whoever decided to send them out with Stone Temple Pilots gets a gold star, because it was another moment of beautiful musical congruency between new and old(er) acts. Anyway, yes, Stone Temple Pilots, let’s talk about them!

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Stone Temple Pilots, megaphone in full effect!

This was another band I never, ever expected to be able to see live. (I think we all know why.) And while it might have been a little strange watching Scott Weiland dance around in chinos and a tie (?!), my adult self was glad to see him alive and well and in one piece and making music, and my inner 17-year-old was really happy to hear that big grunge roar come out of the speakers. It turns out I had really missed those guitars.

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When not dancing awkwardly and trying not to flail into my neighbors, I contemplated the ways in which one imprints on things like music, how the sounds I loved, age 18, are still the sounds I love now. I was also contemplating how some acts grab the gold ring of a round two with both hands, and some have to learn the hard way that it isn’t 1991 anymore. STP has had their share of difficulties, but last Saturday night they came out and rocked it, no fuss, no muss, no diva shenanigans.

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All of that aside, I am also pleased to report that Weiland’s voice is still intact, and that their new stuff sounds great. I don’t have any fancy music critic terms to describe it for you, but I can say this: there was kick in the reverb and shimmy in the bass, and it was delicious. The next time I update my music library, I’m definitely getting their new record. If you ever cranked up Plush or Sex Type Thing and sang along, you might enjoy it too.

— Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Clarksdale

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Jennifer’s ready to drop some thoughts on our visit to Clarksdale, Mississippi, the city widely felt to be the home of delta blues music.

To Jennifer’s eternal credit, she passed the visit without outward complaint.

April has already shared her memories from our trip to Clarksdale. Here are some of mine:

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Kitchen window, Ground Zero Blues Club

Readers, I must tell you: this place creeped me out. I’m from New York, and Ground Zero – problematic and inaccurate though the label may be – only means one place. The blues club opened in May 2001, and so technically came first, but still, despite the delicious fried cheesecake (!), it ranks high on my list of disquieting dining experiences.

I was excited to get out of there and go to the Delta Blues Museum. That lasted for about an hour and three cycles of the video playing in the Muddy Waters cabin. (Keith Richards, what did you do your head??) At that point I had seen everything I wanted to see and thoroughly investigated the gift shop (why does Mississippi not believe in keychain souveneirs??) and April still had half the museum to go. I was kind of ready to claw my face off, so I left Cam and April to their own devices and took myself for a walk around town.

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Blues Alley, Clarksdale, MS

Blues Alley starts at the Delta Blues Museum (formerly a railroad depot) and runs more or less the length of the town, and is a useful navigational tool if you don’t have a map. I didn’t have an agenda, either, so I just sort of wandered.

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Mini-park, useful for respite from the unrelenting heat

What I discovered, sadly, is that large swathes of Clarksdale are boarded up and closed. Though in addition to the mini-park, I did find a scattering of restaurants, a rock and roll museum (about to close, so I skipped it), the site of the weekly farmers market, and a folk art outlet (still no keychains!) which had some lovely but impractical-for-roadtripping items. After I had made two circuits of the folk art store, I realized the Delta Blues Museum had probably closed, so I backtracked and caught up with my companions. We then stopped at the former Greyhound station for additional sightseeing guidance:

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Greyhound station, now re-purposed as a tourist information center

April has already told all y’all about our visit to the Riverside Motel, so I’m going to skip over that part and get to the place that I had been most keen to see: Robert Johnson’s Crossroads.

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We had passed it on the way in to town, but, anxious about having enough time in the Blues Museum, we left it for the last stop. As you can see it’s not quite as exciting as the legend would make it sound, though that may be due to the evolution of modern life. It’s hard to imagine a dramatic moonless-night bargain taking place in a busy intersection surrounded by gas stations on streets lined with stripmalls, but the place does have a certain kind of magic just the same.

–Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Postcards from Disparate Voyage

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The theme for my concert-going this summer seemed to be “voyages” and in particular water voyages, both to the water, or at least a couple of different beaches, and also on the water, specifically, the East River. As the temperature cools and the fall rainy season drifts in, I bring you some postcards from my last couple of trips:

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Willie Nelson, Circus Maximus Theater, Ceaser’s Atlantic City: The show was a little bit more subdued than I was expecting, perhaps a concession to the venue, the age of the audience (there were people in the front row celebrating their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary), or a reflection of Willie Nelson also getting up there (77 and still touring!), or some combination of those things. But it was still a great show. It was, in many ways, something of a relief to be able to just sit down and listen to someone sing familiar songs, undistracted by festival crowds or complicated stage business. He did, among others, Good Hearted Woman, All the Girls I’ve Loved Before and City of New Orleans, and I left refreshed, as if I had been visiting with old friends.

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Local Natives/We Barbarians/Young Man, The Beach at Governor’s Island: Young Man was kind of dreamy and pleasant to listen to while half-dozing on the sand; We Barbarians woke me up with their more muscular, drum-driven sound, and then Local Natives came on and got everyone dancing. They’re all a little bit more jam-band-y than I normally go for — I found myself thinking I bet this sounds better in southern California, where it’s sunny all the time and they have palm trees that don’t glow in the dark — but on the whole it was a pleasant way to spend a summer evening.

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The Diamond Doves

The Felice Brothers/Diamond Doves, Rocks Off Concert Cruise, East River, NY: You may recognize the Diamond Doves from their alternate incarnation as Elvis Perkins in Dearland’s back-up band. I had never heard them in that context, but doing their own thing they were pretty great. (Especially the guy playing the horn and the keyboard at the same time. Now that is multi-tasking!) And the Felices were, of course, their usual rockin’ selves, though the set was, once again, kind of heavy. Most of my pictures are of the Diamond Doves; the boat was packed and by the time the Felices came on I was too far back and too short to get anything good. I reckon y’all know what they look like by now anyway.

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William Beckett and Michael Guy Chislett, The Academy Is . . . (top); Gene Simmons, KISS (bottom)

KISS/The Academy Is . . ./The Envy, Jones Beach Theater: When this tour was announced earlier this summer, the part of the Internet that keeps up with TAI . . . did a double-take, turned to each other and said WHAT?? and IS THIS A JOKE?? Now that I’ve seen the results, I’m even more curious about who came up with this particular line-up. The Envy, of Toronto, Canada, were vaguely gothy hard-rock; all I can really tell you is they didn’t get lost in the arena, which is easy to do at Jones Beach. Then TAI . . . bounced out and did a solid set, pulling mainly from their somewhat heavier back catalog rather than their newier, poppier work and winding up with a cover of Fox on the Run. I enjoyed them tremendously, but the rest of the KISS audience seemed to be politely and quietly baffled. Then KISS came out amid fire and lights, and I hung around to watch the spectacle until I just couldn’t take one more minute of Gene Simmons’ tongue waggling on the jumbotron. I found they left me pretty cold, all things considered. Odd, perhaps, given my fondness for fire, glitter and ridiculous costumes, but I just couldn’t get into it. Also noted: high volume of attendees that were both a) kindergartners and b) wearing full faces of KISS make-up, which was adorable, but also underscored how the whole thing was more carnival than rock concert.

— Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Graceland

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On our Great Southern Roadtrip, we trekked over to Graceland, home to Elvis Presley and his family from 1957 until sometime after Elvis’ death in 1977, after we visited Sun Studio. Personally, I was underwhelmed and a little weirded out by the experience. To my mind, it was a sad comment on the deadening excess that too often accompanies the success of music that is born out of raw passion.

Jennifer has a different take on it, so in honor of Elvis week, we give you Graceland…

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The first time I went to Graceland I was 17. It was during a particularly packed (and fraught) college visiting trip with my mother, an hour or two taken out to do something that probably wouldn’t result in mutual seething. At the time it seemed enormous and glittery and truly awe-inspiring, and I loved it. I got a small metal pink cadillac key-chain as a souvenir, which I have referred to as the “pink cadillac of freedom” ever since. It represented everything I thought college would be: my chance to get out of the house, to be glamorous, to be, essentially, not what I was, which was dumpy, suburban and square.

Of course that dream only partially came true. I got out of the house, but remained who I was (and I more or less still do), but I still have the pink cadillac in my pocket, to, I suppose, remind me to dream big. Or maybe that the road is there, and I just have to get in the car and get on it.

The second time I went to Graceland was almost approximately seventeen years later. To my adult eyes, Graceland seemed much smaller and far more pedestrian, and yet, readers, can I tell you a secret? I still love it.

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The Pool Table

I love it because it is glittery and awe-inspiring, frankly ugly in places, and kitschy in a way that is oddly comforting. I still feel incredibly peaceful when I step into the Jungle Room, even though it is not as Jungle-like as I remember, as if they had renovated it, which of course is not possible.

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The Jungle Room

Everything about the place is just a little bit overblown. It appeals to the part of my heart that also loves Brandon Flowers (The Killers) for wearing his sequins unironically. If you’re going to be a rock star, if you’re going to glitter, best to do it in a gold suit:

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But on a more sober, detached note, it’s a little sad to walk past the movie posters and the platinum records and feel the narrative shifting. To watch the years march on and the costumes become more ornate and have to start the internal countdown to the end of the story. Graceland itself doesn’t soften the blow; you walk out of a room full of awards and jumpsuits, it’s only a short path to the end:

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But even the stark finality of the grave seems somehow unreal. Elvis Presley died 33 years ago this week, and yet, he lives forever. At Graceland, in our hearts (yes, even mine), in the pages of supermarket tabloids, on the radio, and blasting out of the speakers at beach bars. His spirit is still backstage at dirty rock clubs everywhere, hair slicked back and ready to walk out on stage to swivel his hips, make the rafters ring and the girls swoon. He’s bigger than life, he’s rock n’ roll, he is, indeed, the King, and Graceland is his castle.

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— Jennifer