Each of these blogs attempts to reveal how or why a particular song came about. Some songs I do not actually write. They write themselves. I just serve as a medium. Most have been provoked by a subject of interest to me.A song may stew in my head for decades before I attempt to actually write or record it. There are a few stewing right now.
Studies show that using dancing girls in a headline increases readership by 30%. Dancing girls in a video provides an even greater impression. And that’s why dancing girls are so popular: they increase readership and viewership.
What would the world be without dancing girls? Or tools?
Ask Me For a Tool may be the world’s only music video categorized as Holiday-Tool-Cheeze-Rock. It combines dancing girls with the suggestion of Holiday tool gift giving. And it’s suitable for the entire family. I wrote the song because it needed to be written. Yet another Tool TV ground breaking moment of questionable magnitude. Berland’s House of Tools is your Holiday tool gift giving headquarters.
The video features Glen Kosche(drums), Chuck Kawal (guitar), Dave Allen (keyboard), Randy Riley (bass), Kellie Halihan & Rachel Veltri (dancers) Stana Claus Dabrowski and yours truly on vocals. Dwight the Toolman makes an appearance at the end.
Tool TV, the infotainment spectacular that occasionally graced Chicagoland's UHF airways from '94-'05, was especially festive during the Holiday Season. What could be more loving and practical than the Gift of Tools?
Illustration by John Eggert
By 2000, we had developed a crack production crew and a regular cast of characters that subjected viewers to an unrelenting barrage of useful tool information as well as preposterous and absurd skts and musical numbers. My only regret is that the show never aired in England. Brit cousins of mine who have viewed episodes of Tool TV deemed it cheeky.
This 4:50 clip features Stan Dabrowski (typical male slob), Ginifer King (housewife), Kellie Halihan (red dress), Dave Allen (piano), John Hess (Daddy) Mark Jakeway & Meredith Siemsen (Daddy's kids), Dwight Sherman (The Toolman). All songs by Roger Bain copr. 2000. Music engineered & mixed by Dr. Charles Kawal. Thanks to Berland's House of Tools.
There are over 70 million dudes with Male Pattern Baldness in the U.S.A. Including me. Baldy. Chrome dome.
In studies, baldness is associated with social maturity and intelligence. (This study does not include rural white men who shave their heads.)
I demonstrate my social maturity and intelligence
Men with male pattern baldness are wise to be self-depreciating about it. Being testy and sensitive is unsettling to others in the room. Hairy guys who make bald jokes—and think they are funny—are boorish and difficult to tolerate. Hell is filled with hairy guys who have repeatedly made fun of bald guys and thought they were funny.
Fact: We still must go to the barber.
Another fact: There are also about 75 million males who wear glasses. 4 eyes. Goggle face.
Without doing a government study, it’s safe to assume then, that 10s of millions of U.S. males are bald with glasses. I thought it wise to write a market segment anthem for us guys.
Benjamin Franklin is the honorary inspiration for the song.
Even in my dreams I'm bald with glasses
Is your crown thinning? Eyesight weak? Forget about cures, preventions and causes. Just join the club and sing along. What’s Wrong With Being Bald and Wearing Glasses?! Recorded in about '95/96 with Tommy, Chuck, Heather, Kim and Garth.
I’ve been married to the same woman for over 3 decades. Guess that makes me an expert on marriage. Want some advice?
I’m not giving any advice, because in reality, we’re all amateurs in this department.
But I will say this to any man or boy about to get hitched: Before you go through with it, spend some time with her mother, because your bride will one day turn into some rendition of her mother. This happens in every culture. Try as she might, she will eventually become her mother. 3 generations to check out.
If there are a lot of things you don’t like about your girlfriend’s mother, is it wise to proceed with the relationship? It’s your call. Marry her if you feel up to it. Of course, by the time she becomes her mother you might have become your father so neither of you is the same person anymore.
After you have checked out the mother, and you proceed with the marriage, how should you treat your wife?
Why not spoil her?
Spoiled mayonnaise or spoiled kids can be a disaster. But spoiling your wife can be a successful strategy. Sure it’s possible that you will have created a monster. But you may have avoided something worse—a vindictive wife. No husband suffers more than one saddled with a vindictive wife.
Before trying this, guys, take note. It is a delicate process.
By spoiling her I don’t mean be a patsy, a panty waste or a namby-pamby. I just mean be sure she has a good time. Make her feel special. Take her out. Tell her she smells good. Keep her favorite wine varietal in stock. Pet her once in awhile. When her girlfriends come over, leave the room and let them talk. Stuff like that.
Mental pudding is absurdity’s cousin. It is very obtuse. Not really a solid or a liquid.
Maybe it's a gas? Why, certainly. A natural gas.
Mental pudding flies in the face of those who take themselves too seriously. Those who believe their shat hath no stank.
A daily dose of mental pudding plus an apple keeps the mailman away.
The first example in today's lesson is the Purple Bloatino, which requires little if any explanation. Not only is this extremely stupid, it is also incredibly cheap. The Purple Bloatino
The Hammer Dance was executed in Arlington Heights, Illinois in honor of Dance Anywhere Day 2011. Motorists were exposed to mental pudding in large doses.
"I Doktor" was either way ahead or way behind its time: 1982. We actually snuck in to an NBC network affiliate studio one Sunday night to shoot this mentalpiece. No expense was spared on the props. In order to actually conceive and write this tune, I must have been overcome by a bout of mentalpudding.
And be sure to download the Mental Pudding anthem. Be patient as there is a rather long fade up.
Who says that humankind has but one home—planet earth?
Throughout modern history, thinkers like Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking have been alerting us of the need to have a “plan B.” Mr. Hawking, the brilliant physicist with A.L.S. (Lou Gehrig’s disease), believes we need to have this plan by 2110. Space migration, anyone?
"Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward-looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space."
“The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet,” states Hawking.
Makes sense to me. If we care about the survival of our species, we must consider Space Migration. That's the title of a song I wrote in the early 1980s. The song idea was actually provoked by Timothy Leary in his post-LSD phase. He equated the extra terrestrial migration of humans with the Christopher Columbus “lurch” of the 15th century.
Timothy Leary was not noted for conventional thinking. When has conventional thinking ever progressed the species?
Look where civilization is today. Could our ancestors have guessed that Friendster and MySpace would lose popularity so quickly or that Twitter would grow so rapidly? 20 years of modern change might now be the equivalent of 1,000 years of civil evolution during the first millennium. Who can guess what we’ll look like or behave like in a hundred years? Colonizing a different planet is not outside the realm of possibility.
Will Saturn be assigned a zip code?
Before 15th century explorers began to prove that the world is round, the typical dark ages dimwit was pretty skittish about unknown encounters on the high seas. There was a general fear of sailing right off of the flat earth.
An equivalent fear today is what awaits in deep space. The concept of our species migrating to another planet or a different galaxy unsettles the couch potato. It does not comfort, like the idea of going to heaven. But let's be fair. Over the years, Heaven (with a capitol H) has received better PR than space . Space Migration might benefit from capitol letters and an ad campaign: Space, Home of the Angels. (Note: Mr.Hawking does not believe in heaven, a notion he equates with a fairy tale. Damn scientist!)
M81 Galaxy is a mere 11.6 million light years away.
This song, Space Migration, is not nearly as heavy or mystical as said subject matter. It's from the viewpoint of a guy who has quite simply had it with earth and all its mundane bullshit. When the verses and choruses are done, the song uses a playground taunt that my daughter once chanted. The boys go to Jupiter to get more stupid-er
The girls go to Mars, to get more candy bars
This a definite headphone song. It is a song I hope you will enjoy while still on this earth.Exquisite engineer/mix/soundscape by Mitch Rosenow.
Staring at screens and digital distraction is a recent challenge to our ability to focus.
We humans have needed to focus from the beginning of time. Stay focused, stay alive. Picture the hunter of 20,000 years ago, poised with spear, waiting for prey. The hunter’s gaze fixed, unwavering.
Today we have different prey. Our focus is no longer fixed upon a a sabre tooth ungulate or a herd of Mylodon. It is more often fixed upon a screen. We don't use spears but instead we use our thumbs. We tell everyone what we like, using our thumbs and other digits. We select an emoticon to quantify our mood. We lol. We take family pictures and post them for the world to see.
And I, who have always used technology yet at the same time been a bit skeptical of it, am trying to figure out how the recent change in mass behavior, the recent change in our gaze, is affecting me. And us.
It seems like everybody's staring at a screen.
Today's youth enjoying a quiet moment before
commenting on what they've just seen on their screens.
When we are in the company of others, our small screen often takes precedence. The screen can be more important than the human flesh in the room. Screens come in a variety of sizes. Each size provokes staring. The smaller the size the more intimate the stare.
When I say that I'm a skeptic regarding technology, I mean that I am not an early adapter. I do not stand in line at the Apple store for the latest holy gizmo. But I am not a trogolodyte. I've enjoyed the challenge of making this website. It's more a case of not being consumed by technology. I prefer being a consumer rather than being consumed. I use technology but I also get satisfaction from a trowel. A finely made trowel. The trowel gives me less frustration. I do not feel that I am perpetually behind the curve when it comes to trowels.
Healthy skepticism is an essential part of society. I try to imagine previous skeptics who have questioned each new level of mass communication—stone tablets, scrolls, books, telephones, televisions and now internet tablets. Who was the dude that questioned scrolls?
My hope for our species, is that we cling to some of the non-virtual aspects of daily life. What a marvelous planet we live on. Get too wrapped up in digi-mania and you may lose the ability to ponder. Pondering is a wonderful pastime.
A Double-crested Cormorant spied on a recent walk along the San Antonio River.
The song, Everybody's Staring at a Screen, was partially instigated by a friend's suggestion that I write a song about Facebook. The first line came easily: “Everybody’s staring at a screen.” Then another line: “Everybody wants to be my friend.” These lines sat on my computer for months. Usually my lyrics begin on paper but this subject matter seemed to call for a screen. Eventually, I fooled around with a riff on my guitar. Kind of a march-y punky beat, a bit of exasperation on the part of the protagonist, and finally the song was born. A slight detour from a song bout Facebook but in the same vicinity.
Nearly two years passed before I recorded the tune with Geoff DeMuth, an excellent guitarist and curator of musical knowledge. Geoff used guitar sounds to enhance the subject matter and mood of the song. I realize that you have been staring at a screen to read this so the joke is on me.
When I produced Tool TV, the nonsensical yet no nonsense tool review television show, I needed to create songs about tools. In about 1997, the Senco company had introduced the first commercially available cordless autofeed screwgun. That tool name had a very lyrical quality. And the tool was practical: plenty of power but no lousy cord to get tangled up in. What a great tool to brag about! Seemed a natural to write a song from the viewpoint of the guy doing the bragging.
For dramatic tension we needed a female POV. She’s skeptical about the tool and she couldn’t care less about the guy who is singing about it. He truly believes, though, that his tool will impress her. He believes that a way to a woman’s heart is through his tool. Or something like that. That is the genesis of Cordless Autofeed Screwgun, the song.
The video stars Stan Drabowski and Ginifer King, who each made plenty of appearances on Tool TV. It was shot on the near west side of Chicago by Count Randolph Von Reisen. I scouted the neighborhood the week prior. On shoot day we careened around the neighborhood in a van, hopped out, turned on the boombox for lip sync purposes, shot a scene and jumped back in. The entire shoot took 4 or 5 hours. I directed. Paul May edited. Thanks to Laura and Ruthie for wardrobe and makeup! Chuck Kawal played lead guitar and engineered. Recorded at Chicago Trax. Available on“The Songs of Tool TV.
Take one part extraterrestrial satellite, one part coax cable, a dash of telephone pole, a herd of pole climbers, a slew of ex-telephone company employees, a row of satellite dishes pointing to the CATV heavens...add a bunch of salesmen, a few visionaries and voila`—Cable TV For You and For Me. Cable was a big deal in 1980. It was the hot new medium. Everybody’s life was going to be changed by it. Everyone could have his or her own public access program. Everyone could communicate his or her own vision to the community. Local access, baby! The electronic hearth! We would no longer be fed viewing choices dictated solely by big media corporations.
For those who thought TV was a wasteland filled with crap, well, we could now begin to make our own crap. On shoestring budgets. I made mine at Sunflower Cablevision in Lawrence, Kansas. It became a laboratory of the absurd. Here's an example that we made in my home one day over lunch break.
You might actually be familiar with this. Another example of extreme low budget nonsense with a $14 budget. Dip Head actually made it to "America's Funniest Home Videos."
Directed by Dave Clark. Featuring Rusty Laushman. I get concept, writing credit. We did this after work one day at Sunflower.
I was the self-appointed Marketing Director at Sunflower. Originally I had been hired to sell advertising time on the local Kansas Jayhawks and Lawrence Lions delayed cablecasts on Sunflower 6. That is a high-powered ad sales position! But I wanted to expand beyond selling ad time so I suggested that I be named the Marketing Director. That had a nice ring to it. GM Dave Clark had no objections, which he rarely did, so I was now a cable marketing man.
Sunflower GM Dave Clark & I cementing a deal.
The concept of HBO for Christmas was real groundbreaking stuff.
Like every situation I find myself in, this new cable arena was ripe for songs. Below is my singing resume, "I'm the Cable TV Marketing Man." This video enjoyed a certain vogue at various cable conferences and annual meetings. It aired a number of times on WTTW's (Chicago) Image Union and KTWU, the PBS station in Topeka( thanks to Gerry Cullen). Directing credit to Dave Clark, the only cable GM I ever knew who could also edit and direct.
During this time frame, Ted Turner, the industry's star, had been making his move. He was brash. He rubbed broadcast execs the wrong way. He told them that they were doomed. He was a cablecaster not a broadcaster. It wasn’t just television anymore. It was the delivery system and the promise of what could develop because of this new technology.
In 1982 I attended a seminar in Atlanta hosted by CNN for local cable companies. When we broke for lunch, sitting at one of the dining tables was The Man—Ted Turner. I slid into the seat next to him. "Hi, Ted. I'm Roger Bain from Lawrence, Kansas." "Hi, Roger. Excuse me while I take a bite of my sandwich." The guy was frenetic, freewheeling, juiced up on his own self, full of swagger, and worried that we were going to get blasted into the Stone Age by a nuclear firestorm. (Reagan had been rattling the sword of late, creating a feeling of dread.)
Ted had just returned from a trip to Cuba where he’d hung with Castro. He told me that Fidel was also mighty nervous about the world situation. That stoked Ted’s own nervousness. "If Fidel's worried, I'm worried." (This was probably the time when the cable mogul began thinking of buffalo ranching.)
Ted puffs on a recent gift from Fidel Castro while
I get in a word
After the CNN seminar meal, which consisted of variety lunch meats and cheeses, tomato slice, lettuce and condiments, including pickle, Ted lit up one of Fidel’s cigars and told me with a wave and a puff that Castro had actually cut a CNN promo but Ted couldn’t air it because of a guaranteed backlash from the Miami Cubans. "This is Fidel Castro and you're watching CNN."
I wrote many theme songs and promotional ditties while at Sunflower but they are mainly on 3/4" videotape, alternately melting and freezing in my attic. Here's one that has been salvaged. Television Isn’t the Same Anymoreis a brief song that features the guitar of Mitch Rosenow and mystery background vocals. Mitch recorded this around 1980. I can't recall if we used it for anything.
This is the story of how my one and only 45 RPM record came into being.
Baseball was the obsession of boys across America in the late Fifties.I started playing when I was about five. It became my life for the next ten years. We played some form of baseball after school when it was not freezing cold out, then all day long every day during summer vacation.
We played street baseball with a tennis ball. Every kid in the neighborhood played, from the smallest to the least coordinated. Even the nerds. Both genders. Baseball is what kids did.
We played home run derby with a whiffle ball. (The strike zone was the lower half of the aluminum storm door on the front step.) We played catch with a hard ball. We played pickle or man-in-the- middle. We went to the diamond at the park and played “Peggy-move-up.” I rode my bike to Little League games with my glove hanging from a handle bar and my cleats tied together and dangling around my neck. (I'm middle row, 2nd from right.) We played Pony League and American Legion and summer high school league. (I'm tall one with glasses in back row.)
The most popular major league heroes were Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. But in Chicago, they had competition—number 14 on the Cubs, Ernie Banks. Ernie had an ethic that captured the spirit of the diamond game. His enthusiasm about baseball inspired us. It matched our own. We watched him on the Lead Off Man on WGN-TV. “Let’s play two today,” proclaimed Ernie. We didn’t know his salary. Or where he lived. Or if he was married. We just knew he loved to play baseball. Like we did.
Ernie couldn’t have weighed more than about 170 pounds. He got around quick on the ball. His home runs were line drives into the first few rows of the left field bleachers. I have heard the trivia statistic that all 512 of his home runs were hit to left field.
In 1959 my Dad took me to Wrigley Field to see Mister Banks in action, a year that Ernie was MVP. The Cubs probably lost. There were no expectations at all in 1959. Cub fans did not yet perceive what a long road laid ahead. We didn't expect the Cubs to make a run for the pennant and they lived up to our expectations.
Turns out that also in 1959 my eventual wife, Linda, actually lived just a block away from Wrigley, at Waveland and Racine. Before and after the games she set up a Kool Aid stand on Waveland Avenue with her brother and her cousins. Maybe I passed by her stand? And maybe we noticed each other? .
Here she is with her cousins on Easter, the Wrigley scoreboard in the background.
I attended a lot of games in the 60s. Jumped onto the field one time after a Cubs victory in about ’66 or ‘67. My flight from over the left field wall—this was before the retaining basket fence was put up—was a beeline to the box seats next to the Cubs dugout. Fans pulled me off the field before the Andy Frain ushers could tackle me. My friend Tom had preceded me and actually slid into second base just seconds after the final out. He declared himself to be safe but was escorted to somewhere beneath the stands. The cops let him go, though, because that day the Cubs had climbed into first place. The crowd was ecstatic!
In 1979 I had been writing songs for at least a half dozen years. Ernie Banks, my favorite baseball player of all time, seemed a natural song topic. All summer long When I was a kid It seemed about the only thing that I did Was play baseball and follow the Cubs My middle dresser drawer filled up with bleacher ticket stubs
A $6,000 workman’s comp settlement from the year before had been burning a hole in my pocket. (Result of a broken ankle in a van crash on the way home from carpenter gig.) My wife suggested that it be a down payment on a house but we never gave that serious consideration. Instead, I would record Thanks Mister Banks in a real studio.
The Exceptions studio was in Topeka, my favored city to ridicule. The recording sounded pretty nice. In fact, everyone thought it sounded great! This was my first time recording in a professional studio. Recording cohorts included Mitch Rosenow, Jaisson Taylor and Ardys Blake.
So I took a cassette copy to Chicago. One of my Dad’s friends was a cameraman at WGN-TV. My Dad suggested that I give it to him for a listen. The cameraman was impressed and he passed it to Roy Leonard, the midday host on WGN radio. Roy liked the song and aired it, giving me a plug. He played it again the next day. WGN was the biggest radio station in the entire Midwest. Because I was clueless in these matters, I told Roy not to play it anymore until I could get a record out. What an idiot! You never keep a radio station from playing your song! Roy Leonard
Meanwhile, a friend of a friend gave me the number of a record promo guy who worked for one of the bigger Midwest distributors. He was impressed that Roy Leonard had played the song. This promo guy encouraged me to press 10,000 45s.
(photo by Joe Amari)
I went back to The Exceptions studio and recorded Weather Girl as the flip side then sent word to Mr. Leonard that I was ready. He said he would premiere Thanks Mister Banks on opening day, about three months after the initial two airings. So I pressed 10,000 45s. And I greased the promo guy's palm with a couple fifty dollar bills, which I imagine he snorted. What else he did I'm not sure.
Note the Barking Gecko label.
Sure enough, WGN Radio invited me to attend opening day 1979 plus an invite to Roy’s live broadcast before the game. His guests that day were Ernie Banks and Ron Santo. When Roy spun the record, I was in an adjoining booth, watching through the glass. Ernie stood up and danced. He waved his arms and bopped around. An enthusiastic guy! Quite a thrill for me to watch my boyhood baseball hero dancing to my song on one of the biggest radio stations in north America on Cubs opening day! Ernie declared it to be “disco,” which it wasn’t. But disco was the current craze so this may have been Ernie’s way of saying he liked it. He was definitely smiling, like always.
I was not a fan of disco and was a bit puzzled that Ernie could be so wrong about his tribute. But Ron Santo saved the day when he told Roy and the listeners that old American Bandstand line: “I’ll give it a 98. You can dance to it!” Ron had witnessed Ernie dancing to it. I was introduced to various WGN executives, each with white hair, a reddish face and a large desk. If you were casting for a white guy executive spoof movie, this is where you would go—WGN. I was handed a box seat ticket and off I went to Wrigley. I have no recollection of the game or who won. It was cold.
The following week, when I called Roy Leonard to ask about more airplay, he confessed that he liked the original mix on the tape better than the 45. He wouldn’t be playing it again. Actually, I think it may have been more a performing rights situation. I had registered the record with BMI licensing and I don’t think WGN paid a BMI license fee. They were a talk station.
I made the rounds at Chicago radio stations, getting appointments with program directors and attempting to schmooze. Handed $50 to a couple of them—at the suggestion of the promo guy.
I was lousy at payola. Most stations played it once or twice and that was it. A couple of months later, the promo guy told me that it had been played for three weeks on morning drive at the Number One station in Rockford.
(photo by Joe Amari)
Of the 10,000 45s pressed, I still have a few hundred. Want to buy one? The others may have been melted down for their wax.
