Fugazi – "Bulldog Front" (1988)

It’s all attention to armor

To the armor you wear so well

My weekly trivia contests always include one or more questions about pop music.

There’s always a three-part question where the host plays brief snippets from three records that have something in common, and asks players to identify either the titles of the songs or the artists performing the songs.  (For example, last week the host played three excerpts from covers of Prince songs, and asked us to identify the three recording artists doing those covers.  The week before that, we were asked to come up with the titles of these three songs, all of which referenced major-league baseball teams: “Royals” by Lorde, “Red Red Wine” by UB40, and “She Talks to Angels” by the Black Crowes.)

There are often other questions related to popular recording artists as well.  On occasion, the ten-point “bonus” sheet asks us to match ten song or album titles to the artists who recorded them, or the years when they were released.

One reason a successful trivia team almost always has a mixture of younger and older players is that very few people who know sixties music also know nineties music, or aughts music.  

I’m old, and I’m great on the records that came out when I was in high school and college, but I don’t know squat about the newer stuff – that’s why I like to have at least one thirtysomething or fortysomething teammate.

*     *     *     *     *

A few nights ago, I had a dream about getting a trivia question about songs with “dog” in the title.

After waking up, I lay in bed and tried to think of songs that fit that description.  Here are ten that I came up with off the top of my head:

“Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley (1956)

“Walking the Dog” by Rufus Thomas (1963)

“I Wanna Be Your Dog” by the Stooges (1969)

“Hey Bulldog” by the Beatles (1969)

“Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin (1971)

“Me and You and a Dog Named Boo” by Lobo (1971)

“Diamond Dogs” by David Bowie (1974)

“Hair of the Dog” by Nazareth (1975)

“Bulldog Front” by Fugazi (1988)

“Who Let the Dogs Out” by the Baha Men (2000)

*     *     *     *     *

There are a fair number of records with “cat” in their title as well.  Here are ten of them:

“What’s New, Pussycat?” By Tom Jones (1965)

“Nashville Cats” by the Lovin’ Spoonful (1966)

“Stray Cat Blues” by the Rolling Stones (1968)

“China Cat Sunflower” by the Grateful Dead (1969)

“Honky Cat” by Elton John (1972)

“Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin (1974)

“The Year of the Cat” by Al Stewart (1976) 

“Cat Scratch Fever” by Ted Nugent (1977)

“Cool for Cats” by Squeeze (1979)

“Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” by David Bowie (1983)

*     *     *     *     *

Of course, there are some very well-known records whose titles reference animals other than dogs or cats.  Here are ten examples:

“White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane (1967)

“I Am the Walrus” by the Beatles (1967)

“Monkey Man” by the Rolling Stones (1969)

“War Pigs” by Black Sabbath (1970)

“A Horse with No Name” by America (1971)

“Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd (1973)

“Rock Lobster” by the B-52s (1978)

“Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor (1982)

“Hungry Like the Wolf’ by Duran Duran (1982)

“When Doves Cry” by Prince (1984)

*     *     *     *     *

Each of those three lists has some truly great records.  But I think the records on the third list are probably stronger on average than the records on either of the first two.

If I had to choose between the records on the dog list and the records on the cat list, I think I’d go with the dog records.  (There are some truly awful records on the cat list.)

I’ll send all three lists to the company that puts on the trivia games my team plays in and tell them they’re free to use them to construct future questions – no charge!

*     *     *     *     *

I’m embarrassed by the fact that 2 or 3 lines has never featured a Fugazi record until now.

I lived in Washington, DC during the heyday of that city’s “harDCore” punk scene.  But I never saw Fugazi – or Minor Threat or the Bad Brains or Tru Fax and the Insaniacs or any of the other great local bands of that era – perform live.  

Why didn’t I ever go to one of their shows?  Because – to quote the immortal Red Forman – I was a dumbass!

I could have gone to this Fugazi
show if I wasn’t such a dumbass

Fugazi was immensely influential on punk and alternative music in the eighties and nineties.  Nirvana admired them and Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam said that seeing the band live “was a life-changing experience.”  They were a favorite of Joey Ramone of the Ramones and Joe Strummer of the Clash – Strummer told Rolling Stone in 2000 that Fugazi was the band that best exemplified “the spirit of punk.”   Jack White and individual members of groups as musically diverse as Arcade Fire, Blink-182, Blur, Bon Iver, the Drive-By Truckers, Linkin Park, Modest Mouse, Paramore, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tool – to name just a few – have also cited Fugazi as an influence. 

Click here to listen to “Bulldog Front,” which was released in 1988 on Fugazi’s eponymous debut EP.  (It was re-released the following year on the band’s first full-length album, 13 Songs.)

Click here to buy “Bulldog Front” from Amazon.

Dogs – "Boy" (1980)

Girl, you’re got mournful eyes

They are eyes that paralyze

And they are eyes that mesmerize me, too

Most of the music that I heard on Steven Lorber’s “Mystic Eyes” radio show back in 1980 was by American or British bands.

But Steven played a fair number of records by Dutch, French, and German groups, too – including today’s featured song, which was recorded by a French garage/punk band called the Dogs in 1980.

Dogs frontman Dominique Laboubée

The Dogs formed in Rouen – the French city where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake – in 1973.  The band took its name from the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

Allmusic described the Dogs as a “treasured cult band,” but none of the dozen or so albums that the group released were big sellers.

In 2002, the Dogs travelled to the U.S. for its first American tour.  The band’s frontman and songwriter, Dominique Laboubée, collapsed during their first concert – which took place in Worcester, MA – and was taken to a local hospital.  The 45-year-old Laboubée was diagnosed with cancer, and died two weeks later.

Click here to listen to “Boy,” which was released on the Dogs’ second studio album, Walking Shadows, in 1980.

Spencer Davis Group – "I'm a Man" (1967)

If I had my choice of matter

I would rather be with cats

Even though dogs are smarter?

Sorry, cat lovers – but it’s the truth.  

According to an article by Professor Suzana Herculano-Houzel of Vanderbilt University and several other scientists that recently appeared in Frontiers of Neuroanatomy, the average dog has 530 million cortical neurons in its brain, while the average cat has only 250 million.  (Humans have 16 billion.)

You can click here to read that article.

Professor Herculano-Houzel, who admits she is “100 per cent a dog person,” explained why the number of neurons is important:

[T]he absolute number of neurons an animal has, especially in the cerebral cortex, determines the richness of their internal mental state and their ability to predict what is about to happen in their environment based on past experience. . . . [D]ogs have the biological capability of doing much more complex and flexible things with their lives than cats can. 

Professor Herculano-Houzel with her dog

A golden retriever’s brain has more neurons than the brain of a lion or brown bear.  And everyone knows goldens aren’t exactly the sharpest knife in the canine drawer.  (Imagine how many more neurons the brain of a member of a smart dog breed might have.)

By the way, the brain of a raccoon has as many cortical neurons as the brain of a dog but is the size of a cat’s brain.  (I don’t care how smart raccoons are, they’re still assh*les.)

*     *     *     *     *

Of course, Steve Winwood wasn’t singing about four-legged cats in the “I’m a Man” lyrics I quoted above.  I took those lines out of context.

Here’s the entire verse:

If I had my choice of matter

I would rather be with cats

All engrossed in mental chatter

Moving where our minds are at

And relating to each other

Just how strong our wills can be

I'm resisting all involvement

With each groovy chick we see

Winwood and his pals – or “cats” – are typical males: they’re more interested in engaging in some highly intellectual “mental chatter” than in wasting their time with groovy chicks.

“I’m a Man” is a stick of dynamite.  The megatalented Mr. Winwood was only 18 years old when the Spencer Davis Group recorded the song, which he and producer Jimmy Miller co-wrote.  

Miller produced dozens of great rock albums, including several by Traffic – the band Winwood founded after leaving the Spencer Davis Group – and possibly the four greatest Rolling Stones LPs.  Miller was also an accomplished drummer who was the cowbell player on “Honky Tonk Women.”

“I’m a Man” made it to #10 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in 1967 about the same time that Winwood left the band.

Two years later, Chicago Transit Authority – who became simply Chicago – covered the song on their first album.  Its 7-minute, 40-second version of the song is fabulous, but the shorter and less complicated original version of the song is the winner and still champion.

Click here to listen to “I’m a Man” by the Spencer Davis Group.

Click on the link below to buy the record from Amazon: