WEDNESDAY JAM: Pass the streetlight, out past midnight

Not the same ol' thing we did last week.

On Tuesday evening, I drove home along the new commute to which I’ve grown accustomed over the course of the last two-plus months.

For almost 15 years, it had been a left turn out of the Banner lot, a block and a half south, then east on Washington Street, all the way past where most of you take the jog over to Indianapolis Road between Dairy Castle and Kork & Keg. No, I stay straight there until Washington turns into Avenue D and eventually make a left turn into my driveway at home sweet home.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that’s not been possible since early April due to the U.S. 231 project. Now it’s Franklin to Durham or Arlington over to the accessible part of Washington, or perhaps even Franklin all the way the Indianapolis Road and then onto Percy Julian.

Anyway, as I drove along Franklin, I kept glancing over toward Washington, seeing “Road Closed” signs and barricades rather than the “No Left Turn” signs that had been in place.

“Washington Street is completely closed,” I thought, before adding, “but it’s not torn up yet.”

Of course, contractors will begin tearing out the road completely between Bloomington and Jackson streets, perhaps as soon as Thursday. But for now, the road was closed but still intact — at least as intact as you could consider that sorry stretch of road to be.

“I could just walk right down it without getting hit,” I thought of what is probably the busiest street in town under normal circumstances. “I won’t have this chance again.”

A few hours later, my son and I set out for a walk. While I wasn’t really up for the three-mile hike that a round trip to the courthouse would be, I mentioned my idea to Miles.

“Then we have to do it, Dad,” came his response.

As we continued westbound, I kept saying I didn’t want to, but on we walked … past Percy Julian … past Wood Street … past Arlington, Durham and approaching Bloomington Street.

As I was the first one to take a step out onto the closed street, Miles waited for a police officer to jump out of the bushes. That, of course, didn’t happen.

We walked all the way from Bloomington Street to Jackson along the closed portion of street. There were, of course, no repercussions. We weren’t, after all, walking in the excavated portion of Washington Street where we would have the chance to mess with construction equipment or get hurt. (Even if we had, again, no one was around to stop us.)

That’s probably the most juvenile delinquent thing you’ll get out of this 43-year-old dad and his 13-year-old son, but it was still amusing.

As we got back home, though, I had a song about trouble making kids stuck in my head, so why not share it here?

Big Star is probably one of the best bands you’ve never heard of. And if you have heard of them, then you’re probably a music nerd like me — the kind of guy who reads about his favorite band’s favorite band then goes out and buys that band’s album.

Big Star hailed from Memphis, Tenn., perhaps the most fertile musical crossroads of music we have in this beautiful nation of ours. Levon Helm (native of Turkey Scratch, Ark., not too far from Memphis) put it best during an interview with Martin Scorcese in “The Last Waltz.”

That's kind of the middle of the country, you know. back there. So, when bluegrass or country music, you know, if it comes down to that area and if it mixes there with rhythm and dances, then you've got a combination of all those different kinds of music. Country. Bluegrass. Blues music.

Pressed by Scorcese about what you called that kind of music, Helm said with a big grin: “Rock-n-Roll.”

Rock-n-roll, of course (with a touch of country) — Sun Records and with it Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash.

Plenty of R&B as well — Otis Redding and Booker T & the M.G.’s of Stax/Volt fame, Al Green (as well as Otis Clay, O.V. Wright and Ann Peebles) of Hi Records.

Out of the amalgam of sounds emerged a different sort of band in the early 1970s. Drawing influence from the Beatles and the Byrds, Big Star mixed pop hooks with high-energy rock performance and thoughtful, folk-inspired songwriting. It’s a mix we now call power pop, but I don’t think people knew what to call it back in 1972 when Big Star’s debut album came out.

Ironically (and perhaps tragically) it was named “#1 Record,” and it was anything but. Memphis-based Ardent Records knew how to record and make a band sound great. Lacking was the promotion and distribution to get the great sounds to the masses. Critics were able to get their hands on the records, and they loved them.

But no one could get their hands on the record. In that light, they buying public moved on, leaving Big Star and “#1 Record,” the only of its three albums to feature co-singer/songwriters Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, to flounder.

Over the years, though, it became a cult classic, influencing early alternative bands such as R.E.M. (who made the big time) and the Replacements (who self-sabotaged their way to cult status as well) as well as a number of bands in the 1980s and 1990s.

And while I’ve been led astray a number of times by my favorite bands (I don’t care what Eddie Vedder says, Fugazi kinda sucks.), they were all absolutely right about Big Star.

“#1 Record” really is a classic, provided you like catchy lyrics and jangly guitars.

And one of those songs – the one featured for you below – you probably already know if you’re a sitcom fan.

Big Star may have never had a big hit with “In the Street,” but the producers of “That ’70s Show” understood what a good song it was, hiring Todd Griffin to record it for the theme song in Season 1.

Then for Season 2, with the show a big hit, they had it re-recorded by Cheap Trick, another power pop act who came in Big Star’s wake and actually hit the big time.

But I’m playing the original for you here. Sorry, there’s no “We’re all alright” screamed at the end of this one, as that line was borrowed from Cheap Trick’s 1978 single “Surrender.”

I think you’ll enjoy it anyway.

Have a good time out there people, and don’t get caught, particularly not if you’re doing the stuff Alex sings about in the second verse.