Staff Trax: Beans, Grant Hart, Lifetime and George Harrison

Welcome to Staff Trax (formerly Check Out This Jam!!!), the weekly feature here on DC9 where we shed some light on the music we've been enjoying of late, regardless of the touring or album release schedules that tend to bear the focus of most of our coverage. Also, it's a chance for you readers to get more insight into our own personal tastes. Anyway, don't think too much about it. Just listen, brah.

Hüsker Dü was my favorite band throughout high school and college. It literally broke my heart when guitarist Bob Mould and drummer Grant Hart went their separate ways in 1987. And though both Mould and Hart have each made some good solo records, nothing they have done apart approaches the awe-inspiring power of prime Hüsker Dü.  That being said, the most recent effort from Grant Hart, Hot Wax, is actually pretty damn good. The first single is called "You're the Reflection of the Moon on the Water" and the video matches the song's creepy garage rock mood. --Darryl Smyers


Lifetime has the rare distinction of being a band that, even after 10 years apart, could put a record that picks up right where it left off. Though there was much hullabaloo about the label that released the bands fourth proper record (Pete Wentz's Decaydance imprint), thankfully longtime fans could just press play and realize that this wasn't their favorite band getting a guyliner makeover sound. Sonically, this band has the moody melodies found in Archers of Loaf and Seaweed, but played at hyperdrive speed. Its second and third albums, 1995's Hello Bastards and 1997's Jersey's Best Dancers, are classics, but 2007's Lifetime ranks up there. --Eric Grubbs


I've been listening to George Harrison's "I'd Have You Anytime" from his 1970-released All Things Must Pass album a lot lately, and something about it has really begun to bug me: The song, which was co-written by Bob Dylan, contains the line "Let me roll it to you" at the end of the opening stanza. Four years later Paul McCartney would repeat the phrase ad nauseam in 1974's "Let Me Roll It." This latter, of course, is widely believed to be McCartney's response to Lennon's jabs at him in "How Do You Sleep?" (which also featured Harrison on slide guitar). To further complicate matters, Lennon jacked the guitar riff "Let Me Roll It" for his song "Beef Jerky" from 1974's Walls and Bridges, continuing the trend of Beatles playfully stealing from one another in the '70s. It's not like Ringo is completely innocent either--it wasn't until a few years ago that he admitted that Harrison wrote "It Don't Come Easy," which he released as a single in 1971, despite the fact that Starr claimed the writing credit on the original album sleeve. Despite what the Beatles may have thought of each other personally in the early '70s, the one thing that is clear is how much they desperately craved each other's creative influence. --Cory Graves