Put Me in Coach

The rock band KISS has recently bought themselves an Arena Football league team and named them after themselves, the LA Kiss. I did some research and found out they aren’t the only musicians getting into the sports ownership business:

Lady Gaga and members of the Goo Goo Dolls worked together to purchase a minor league soccer team based out of Washington State. The Walla Walla Ga Ga Goo Goos are playing in their first season but struggling. Many fans are blaming their uniforms. The Gaga designed ensemble includes a loin cloth over a pair of metallic Speedos, blue and silver body paint in lieu of a shirt, cleats with six inch heals and pinched toes, and atop their heads a cap with a 3 foot replica of the space needle.

Boston bad boy Steven Tyler purchased an independent league baseball team: The Plymouth Ak-Ak-Ak-Ows. Some of their promotional attempts to attract fans have had poor results: A free ounce of marijuana to the first 100 ticket holders ended with 100 arrests by Plymouth police and “Lost in a Barbiturate Haze Night” sent 27 people to the local hospital. On the field, the team itself took a cue from its owner by tying multi-colored scarves to the end of their bats while hitting and there is 31% more crotch grabbing in an Ak-Ak-Ak-Ow game than in any other.

Pop songstress Taylor Swift bought a majority stake in a minor league basketball team, the Nashville Exes. The team started out strong, winning their first 8 games. Since then, however, Taylor has dated the entire starting five and an assistant coach causing a lot of hurt feelings and bad publicity. “I knew something was wrong on our third date,” said point guard Web “The Comet” Jordan. “All during dinner I was telling her about my favorite movies and she was writing a song chorus rhyming comet with vomit.” The team is currently riding a 13 game losing streak but Taylor has another number 1 CD with “Songs from Half Court”.

Canadian rockers Rush have become the owners of a minor league hockey team, the Yukon Snowdogs. As lifelong fans of the sport, this was a dream come true for Geddy Lee, Neil Peart and Alex Lifeson. To help gain attendance the band wrote a team song that’s played before every game. The tune, titled “Epithet for a Dying Sport: Suite Bobby Orr, Opus 243 (Drop the Puck)” has caused consternation among fans however, as it is 23 minutes long with lyrics in three different languages as well as references to Tolkien’s The Silmarillion and ancient Indian myths. Hockey is never mentioned.

These are just a few of the examples I found. Bruce Springsteen has bought himself a professional dodge ball team, U2 own a third tier tetherball franchise and rapper Flo Rida has a jai alai team called the Or Lando Playas. The list goes on and on thanks to KISS.

A Rhyme, A Rhyme, My Kingdom for a Rhyme

I love music and over the past 30 years have expanded my interests to many different styles, but when I was in middle school I listened to only hard rock: Aerosmith, Kiss, Kansas, Foghat, REO Speedwagon, April Wine, AC DC, Ted Nugent, etc. The other day while listening to the radio, I was thinking that no matter how much I still revel in this music you can’t argue they wrote some horrid lyrics.

The song I heard on 98.5 The Peak was Kiss’s highly suggestive “Lick It Up”. Here are the lyrics:

Don't wanna wait 'til you know me better
Let's just be glad for the time together
Life's such a treat and it's time you taste it
There ain't a reason on earth to waste it
It ain't a crime to be good to yourself
Chorus: Lick it up, lick it up, oooh, (it's only right now)
Lick it up, lick it up, ooh yeah
Lick it up, lick it up, oooh, (come on, come on)
Lick it up, lick it up
Don't need to wait for an invitation
You gotta live like you're on vacation
There's something sweet you can't buy with money
lick it up, lick it up It's all you need, so believe me honey
It ain't a crime to be good to yourself
chorus
Come on - it's only right now (it's only right now)
Ooh yeah (ooh yeah) ooh yeah (ooh yeah), yeah yeah
chorus repeats

This is God-awful. Basically they came up with a sexual innuendo for a title and then rhymed a few words to create a song. There are 36 words in the chorus and 66% of them are “Lick it Up” and another 3 of them are “ooh”. The bridge is even better: 20 words, 4 of which are “ooh” and 6 are “yeah”. Well done boys. I’m sure the 8 minutes you spent writing this was very profitable.

Ted Nugent is a master of just abysmal lyrics. I could pick any of 2 dozen songs to mock but the one I chose is in honor of my sister. I listened to a lot of Steady Teddy growing up and if I had my stereo turned up loud, my sister was forced to listen as well against her will. There was one song she could never get her head around: “My Love is Like a Tire Iron”:

Oh, baby
it’s a catastrophe what you do to me
But that’s all right honey
I find it rather funny
sympathy is what you want from me
But I got news
You’re gonna lose
My love is like a tire iron
My love is like a tire iron
My love is like a tire iron
and I like it stiff as steel

Look at me
What do you see
A man on the run
A loaded gun
check me out
what I’m all about
I got some news
you don’t want to lose

chorus

This is gibberish. There is no point to anything being sung here: no context, no story, nothing but rhyming words. And then he sings the chorus which has nothing to do with the rest of the song nor does it ever explain how the hell love can be like a tire iron. This is one of Ted’s most pointless songs.

Tygers of Pan Tang are a late 70s, early 80s band from England named for something out of fantasy novel. They never made it big but my friend Rob and I always liked them a lot. They played great, simple guitar riffs and sang some of the dumbest lyrics you’ll ever hear, such as these from “Money”.

Walk a mile in my shoes
You won't know what hit you
Wasn't born with a silver spoon
Take no ride on a fat man's tomb
Babe I need the money too
Hey, come over here you
Now I've got money for you
Do you believe that's true?
Now I've got money in the bank
Ah well, that's a prank
And I've got money for two
Do you believe that's true?

Where can I even start? It’s hard to analyze something this bad. This is the epitome of merely rhyming words without trying to have any meaning. If I said Kiss spent 8 minutes on their song, the Tygers couldn’t have used more than 2 to write this mess of unrelated nouns and verbs.

Now that I’m done trashing these songs I will reiterate that I also like all of them. But it’s obviously not for the lyrics. I’m a sucker for a cool guitar riff and at least one finger-dancing solo. While I’m playing my air guitar with the song I’m trying to sing along but usually end up laughing and that’s my challenge to you. Try listening to the lyrics of a Kiss or Ted Nugent song and not guffawing, chortling or at least tittering. That’s a double dog dare.

The Art of Cheese

Why do we listen to KISS? Yes, I’m talking about the rock band that performs in wild star child, cat, warrior and spaceman makeup and studded leather. I’m talking about the band no one paid any attention to until they put on the makeup and when in the 80s they took it off, we screamed to God on high for them to put it back on because we had forgotten how intensely ugly they were.

I was around 12 years old when KISS exploded in popularity and while I never joined the KISS army, I did read some of their literature. I had the albums like all my friends and we debated whose makeup was cooler. Even now 30 years later I pull their greatest hits CD out and enjoy a listen. My question is why, because if you pay attention while you’re listening, they’re not very good. They’re not great musicians, the music is simple and an elementary school student could write better lyrics. Sure, little Billy’s verses wouldn’t have as much overt sexuality as Gene Simmons’ but they would have better rhyming structure.

So why do we like cheese? No, not tasty Muenster or Gouda, I mean music and movies and television shows that we know aren’t high on the art scale but we enjoy them all the same. For example, I really like the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation. But the acting wasn’t the greatest after you get past Patrick Stewart and my brother and I can punch plot holes in the scripts like we’ve shot it with an AK-47. When they did a “message” episode they beat you like the proverbial dead horse, buried you, dug you back up and beat you some more. You screamed “I get it! Message received!” but the blows just kept coming. Still, its one of my all time favorite TV shows.

I guess the simplest answer is these shows and music give us something we’re looking for. They provide an escape and while we’re in our little off-kilter world we can overlook the things they don’t do very well. We use them for our amusement but never admit our addiction.

With Star Trek: TNG there was the obvious desire to flit among the stars as easily as I now drive to the Wal-Mart for cat litter and I liked the characters and the way they interacted with each other. I think I would have enjoyed hanging around with them.

This brings us back to KISS. For me the facileness of the music is actually a plus in this case. I like simple hard rock guitar riffs and a good back beat. While I’m jamming with Ace Frehley I can ignore the ridiculous lyrics and the taint of machismo that comes off of every song like an incontinent musk ox.

It turns out cheese can be good for you. I mean, don’t sit down and listen to 9 straight hours of European power metal or watch the entire series run of Bosom Buddies right away. You have to ease into it. But when your tolerance is built up, invite Buffy and Hildegard into your home and serve them up with a delicious plate of Feta and Havarti.