The Aladdin Gyro-Cery; the Jam’s 4th album; Corvus & Co.’s vegan stir fry

I’m All Lost in… the three things I’m obsessing over THIS week.

#26 (half a year of minor obsessions)

1. Aladdin Gyro-Cery, the late night kebab, shawarma, rice-platter, mezze-appetizer, and Mediterranean-salad gyro shop—open until 2 am, and 2:30 on the weekends— is always crowded with cohorts of students bunched around one of the many booths and tables spread across the capacious, bright white linoleum layout. I keep landing here to get their delicious and sloppy vegan foule and olive oil pita pocket sandwich.

I take it as a good sign (in this student strip plentiful with other tasty cheap-eats options) that there’s invariably a long line at the hectic front counter where the alert staff takes orders as kitchen workers yell out numbers and place your food on red plastic trays. Rest assured, the line moves quickly and lends itself to late night conversations, struck up among hungry, Existential strangers.

The one time they were out of the foule (a traditional Ethiopian comfort food made from mashed fava beans, Berbere spice, garlic, and cumin), I happily went with their Fried Veggie Sandwich, a warm, fluffy pita pocket jammed with tahini-doused roasted cauliflower and fresh lettuce falling out the sides.

I headed straight for my latest gyro-cery fix last Friday night after I watched pop star Fatoumata Diawara, dressed up like Osiris, shred her electric guitar on stage at the nearby Neptune Theater.

Also nearby, the witchcraft bookstore and the light rail station.

2) This week, I’ve been revisiting a 1979 album on repeat: Setting Sons, an ambitious power pop melodrama by the London-centric Mod revivalist band, the Jam. It’s built on tunesmith songwriting, overlapping electric guitar figures, and jet plane bass lines.

The Jam were the socialists and the lesser known band in the Sex Pistols (anarchist) Clash (Marxist), 1976 class of first-wave U.K. punk acts. But of the three, all of whom helped define my teenage years, the Jam were my pop patron. Their full, power-pop melodies, throwback Industrial Revolution Chartist politics, and youth urbansim provided a timely segue (and necessary nudge), transitioning my 1960s infatutions into the 1980s.

Setting Sons (the band’s 4th LP)—more Beatles than their Pistols inflected earlier records In the City (1977) and (the inexplicably underrated) This is the Modern World (1977)—was the first Jam album I bought; it was the summer after 8th grade, 1980. I had no idea who they were. I ended up with the LP simply because, wandering into the indie record shop in old downtown Bethesda, I told the record store guy (announced, really) that “I like New Wave.” In hindsight, his Jam recommendation was a bit off point; 1980 was the epicenter of proper New Wave with releases from Devo, the B-52s (I already had that one), the Vapors, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, the English Beat, the Police, Martha & the Muffins, and Human Sexual Response among many others.

Maybe I also said something about liking Punk? Nonetheless, he slid the guitar-driven, much more-rock-than-New Wave, Jam record into my hands.

From the (American version) album’s opening track, the anti-capitalist parable ”Burning Sky,” I was stuck on Jam songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist Paul Weller’s Margaret Thatcher-era council bloc consciousness and sneer.

With the crisp barre chord progressions (reminiscent of John Lennon’s svelte Revolver tracks and Pete Townshend’s Big Beat A-side singles, like 1965’s “My Generation” and 1967’s Pictures of Lily”) driving Weller’s instant-nostalgia melodies, Setting Sons was as stunning as it was comforting. A teenage bedroom apotheosis.

I’ll always remember first hearing Side Two’s “Private Hell.” When Weller sang “the morning slips away/in a Valium haze/and catalogues/and numerous cups of coffee,” my eyes widened. I was certain 14-year-old me had met my cynical and sophisticated soul mate.

Weller’s songwriting and lyrics are unabashedly literal and sickly earnest, even ham-fisted. But, so was I. The fact that Weller’s ingenuous Percy Bysshe Shelley ideals hit my brain at such a formative time works out to mean, for better or worse, the Jam is my jam.

They released six albums between 1977 and 1982, and as a Romantic high schooler, I cherished them all. Over the course of the Jam’s career, they evolved from an aggressive 2-minute-pop-punk singles band into pop-art rockers and, more so, into Motown bass line revivalists. In 1983, the quite cocky and good-looking Weller tried his hand at metrosexual espresso shop songwriting with his new band The Style Council, releasing the LP Café Bleu in 1984. I bought it out of loyalty and, though I was a bit confused by the jazz chords, I quietly liked it. Along with their 1985 follow-up, Our Favourite Shop, the obviously cloying Style Council remain underrated practitioners—along the lines of the Smiths, Haircut 100, the Pet Shop Boys, Spandau Ballet, and later Belle and Sebastian—of Fashion Shop Pop.

I don’t know why I suddenly felt like listening to the warm tube amp drive of Setting Sons while riding the light rail on Friday night, but, headphones on, I cued up the whole record and tried listening for the first time ever, all over again.

Weller’s angular guitar polyphony overdubs (definitely New Wave) stand out more than I remember. And the anti-war epic “Little Boy Soldiers” (“they send you home in a pine overcoat/with a letter to your mum/saying find enclosed one son/one medal/and a note to say he won”) still gives me the chills. Meanwhile, the masterclass songwriting—the defiant rocker “Saturday’s Kids,” the exuberant single “Strange Town” (“rush your money to the record shops”), and the wistful finale, “Wasteland” (“Meet me on the wastelands later this day/we'll sit and talk and hold hands maybe”)—remain sweet knock outs all.

A bit of kismet: A few days into my lovely Setting Sons reunion, social media tracked me down and alerted me: Paul Weller has suddenly announced a 2024 tour (his first in 7 years) to support his new album. Weller’s solo albums (16 of them between 1992 and 2021, repeatedly confirm my disparaging assessment about his overwrought aesthetic. But he did me right when I was a yearning teen. So, once again, I took the recommendation. See you live (for the first time) in September, Mr. Weller.

3) Even though it opened relatively recently (2016), Corvus & Co., billed as an Asian street food and dumplings place, reclines into the cozy ease of a grunge-era, 1990s Seattle neighborhood hang out.

With bountiful scoop after bountiful scoop of tofu, corn, broccolini, bell pepper, spicy & sour sauce, rice noodles and water chestnut garnish, Corvus & Co’s vegan stir fry (listed as “Uncle J’s Vegan Stir Fry”) is just one of the vegan delights on the lengthy menu at this oddly elegant dive bar. There’s also the “Mushroom Gravy Noods” (chinese-style noodles with carrot, cucumber, green onion, and cilantro, topped with mushroom gravy) and their signature vegan dumplings, filled with tofu, mushrooms, and assorted veggies. There are—and mostly— plenty of enticing dishes for carnivores too; my pal got the Pork Rib Stew, or maybe the lamb dumplings.

With its roomy dark-wood booths, chill staff, alcohol-free cocktail options on the otherwise boozy drink menu, Corvus & Co is a perfect spot to catch up with a close friend or go solo for some productive reading and writing time while you dig into some healthy-ish comfort food.