La Fin De La Semaine Essay Question: Special "A Study in Scarlet" Edition

Okay, I can now die happy -- that "bands that played at CBGB" box set (featuring a track by my 70s group The Hounds) that I've been tediously bending your ears about recently is officially released today, at last.

On Cherry Red Records, a/k/a the Coolest Label in the World™.

I promise I won't bore you about it further in the future, but at this juncture I feel obligated to mention that my candidate for the most underrated of the big time bands out of CBs -- and by far my personal favorite of all of them -- is without a question Mink DeVille.

Seriously -- those guys sounded like an unholy out of this world shtup between the Stones, Dylan, the Drifters/Ben E. King and some half-remembered NYC latin rock group. And their two albums on Capitol (produced by the great Jack Nitzche) remain astounding. I should also add that a) it is one of the great regrets of my adult life that I never got to see them live and b) that if you get me drunk sometime, I will tell you an absolutely terrifying story about what happened when I interviewed front man Willy DeVille in 1981.

But anyway, speaking of Cherry Red, now comes word that they're giving a similar deluxe box set treatment to -- be still my beating heart -- The Lovin' Spoonful.

From the official press release:

7 CD, 170-track box set compiling the complete 1960s recordings by The Lovin’ Spoonful.

• Mastering is by Grammy nominated archivist/producer Alec Palao.

• Includes their first four studio albums 'Do You Believe In Magic' (1965), 'Daydream' (1966), 'Hums Of The Lovin’ Spoonful' (1966) and 'Everything Playing' (1967) in both stereo and mono plus stereo mixes of their two soundtrack albums 'The Lovin’ Spoonful In Woody Allen’s ‘What’s Up Tiger Lily?' (1966) and 'You’re A Big Boy Now' (1967).

• Also contains the Joe Butler-helmed final album 'Revelation: Revolution ’69' (1969), original guitarist Zal Yanovsky’s solo album 'Alive And Well In Argentina' (1968) and stereo and mono versions of the early Lovin’ Spoonful tracks included on Elektra’s 1966 compilation 'What’s Shakin’, the mono mixes appearing on CD for the first time.

Including all of their hits: ‘Do You Believe In Magic’ (US #9), ‘You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice’ (US #10), ‘Daydream’ (US #2, UK #2), ‘Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind’ (US #2), ‘Summer In The City’ (US #1, UK #8), ‘Rain On The Roof’ (US #10), Nashville Cats (US # 8, UK #26), ‘Darling Be Home Soon’ (US #14), ‘Six O’Clock’ (US #18) and ‘She Is Still A Mystery’ (US #27).

Bonus tracks include ‘Alley Oop’, an out-take from their debut album sessions plus demos, alternative versions and instrumentals.

The Lovin’ Spoonful’s first seven singles gave them seven consecutive US Top 10 hits. Often described as Americas answer to The Beatles, The Lovin’ Spoonful were so much more. They rose out of the Greenwich Village folk boom and adjacent to the British Invasion hit big with their ‘good time music’, an exhilarating mix of jug band, blues, folk, rock and roll and big-hearted pop. MOJO Magazine’s Lois Wilson describes the members in the notes as “John Sebastian, a hugely talented, often underrated songwriter with a preternatural command of words and melody; Zalman Yanovsky, a protean guitar player, capable of fuzzed out psych, mercurial blues and fingerpicked folk; then Steve Boone and Joe Butler, bass and drums respectively, who provided a rock ’n’ roll framework with a jazz player’s lightness of touch”.

Just to let that sink in -- that's pretty much every single note they ever recorded in one handy dandy package.

The set is due to be released on March 27th, and let me just say that if anybody reading this here blog wants to get me a copy for my birthday I wouldn't say no. 😎

Anyway, that leads us to the subject of the weekend's business. To wit:

...and your favorite (or least favorite) track by John, Zal, Steve and Joe is...???

Discuss.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, here's my fave, which I think will surprise you.

Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!

The Boss Speaks For Me

He names names, too.

Lyrics at the link.

You know, I've described myself as sort of a lapsed Springsteen fan for a while now, but the above is the kind of thing that made me a fan in the first place.

Loudest New Song of the Week

Spın̈al Tap's great bassist Derek Smalls has a new single out.

Inspirational verse:

"IT TAKES BALLS TO MAKE A PIZZA WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO COOK."

I think we can all agree that goes to eleven. 😎

Incidentally, the highly anticipated third Tap movie -- Spinal Tap at Stonehenge: The Final Finale, a concert flick shot live in 2025 at the actual Stonehenge -- is apparently on hold as a result of the tragic murder of director Rob Reiner and his wife last December.

Well, This Seems Pertinent

Veteran British punk folkie Billy Bragg and "City of Heroes." A tribute to the people of Minnesota that apparently he wrote and recorded just the other day, for obvious reasons.

I've been saying it a lot lately, but one way you can tell when you are living in troubling times is when the folk music starts to get good again. 😎

Tuesday's Cartoon Chortles

The Byrds one absolutely slays me, for obvious reasons. 😎

Your Monday Moment of Words Fail Me

Oh. My. God.

From the brilliant but short-lived (only four episodes) 1977 The Richard Pryor Show please enjoy ...and the Pips!!!

Without you-know-who, obviously. 😎

I actually saw that when it was originally broadcast and I remember a) thinking that it was an absolute genius bit and b) almost falling off my couch laughing.

I should add that the extremely funny black woman who's bracing Pryor at the beginning of the clip is (another) ground-breaking L.A. stand-up comic -- Shirley Hemphill, who went on to star in both the sit-com What's Happening!! and its later syndicated sequel What's Happening Now!!.

You know what? Seeing stuff like the above again, it occurs to me that the '70s were actually a lot better, pop culture-wise, than their current reputation suggests. 😎😎

Weekend Listomania: Special "If Brevity is the Soul of Wit, How Come the Minimalists Aren't the Funniest Guys Ever?" Edition

Hey, we're all busy these days, so let's get directly to the business at hand! To wit --

Best or Worst Post-Elvis Pop/Rock/Soul/Folk/R&B/Country/Hip Hop Record Immediately Identifiable by Its Opening Riff/Instrumental Intro!!!

No arbitrary rules, you're welcome very much, but I have to say that after putting this together I was struck -- to my surprise, actually -- by how heavily slanted towards music from the Sixties it is. Then when I thought about it, however, I realized that yeah, opening riffs/intros are pretty much a lost art in contemporary pop.

More to the point, I was in an Uber the other day for about 45 minutes, and the driver had the radio tuned to WKTU, which is a New York station that used to be Disco Central and is now just the link you click that plays all the hits, or the genre officially called Adult Contemporary (yecch!). And I heard recent songs by Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Adele, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande and a few others of that ilk and not one of them had anything like an interesting intro (or even an intro per se period. And don't get me started on the drum parts, none of which were played live on real drums).

Anyway, my Totally Top of My Head Top Ten is...

10. Tone Loc -- Funky Cold Medina

Sampled guitar riffs from Foreigner and Kiss get smushed together and then they all go out to Chipotle.

9. Cream -- Sunshine of Your Love

Hey, when Cream were bad, they really sucked. I mean, that ponderous pompous insufferable riff...yeesh. Seriously, if they were trying to write the "Louie Louie" of the late '60s, couldn't they have rocked a little harder?

8. Norman Greenbaum -- Spirit in the Sky

I don't hate this song as much as a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance does, but I gotta say that when that opening fuzz riff comes on the radio or in a TV commercial I generally (to paraphrase Mission of Burma) start to reach for my revolver.

7. The Beatles -- A Hard Day's Night

The most famous opening (G7sus4) chord in music history, justifiably.

6. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles -- The Tracks of My Tears

From Motown, the home of the Great Opening Riff©.

I gotta tell you, every time I hear that chiming guitar and bass thing at the top of this one I get all warm and runny.

5. Nirvana -- Smells Like Teen Spirit

Well, those kids certainly knew how to grab your attention, didn't they?

4. The Byrds -- Mr. Tambourine Man

Actually, this should be a tie with the Byrds' subsequent hit "Turn Turn Turn," whose opening is equally memorable.

3. Eddie Cochran -- Summertime Blues

Rockabilly anticipating metal, and if you prefer the Who's version, I won't hold it against you. I like the twang on the original a lot, though.

2. The Easybeats -- Friday on My Mind

Those chiming introductary octaves -- be still my beating heart!!!

And the Number One You Know What It Is From The Very First Note song obviously (and don't even try to change my opinion on this) is...

1. The Rolling Stones -- Satisfaction

I should add that I've always loved the fact that the riff came to the song's co-writer Keith Richards in a dream (or so he claims), and that he immediately woke up and recorded it on acoustic guitar onto a cheap mono cassette and went back to bed. And that when he woke up again afterwards, he had forgotten how to play it until he listened to the tape. I mean -- talk about a mysterious creative process.

Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!

[Oh -- and a coveted PowerPop No-Prize© goes to reader Anonymous RS who came up with this week's theme! Congratulations, my elusive pal!]

Closed for Monkey Business

Oish -- I was gonna post something today that Friend of PowerPop© Sal Nunziato had already posted at his place yesterday. Way to go, Steve. Not.

Anyway, an absolutely fabulous new Weekend Listomania goes up tomorrow. Cross my heart etc. 😎

The Kids Were Alright

Eight year old Emily Christine conducts a drum tutorial to show how it's done.

That was shot in 2012, so Emily is now a ripe old 22 if she's still around, which hopefully she is. (I've looked -- so far I haven't found any info about her online that's more recent than 2019).

But wouldn't it be great if she was playing in a band somewhere?

God, I hope so.

[h/t Frank De Stefano]

Tuesday's Cartoon Guffaws

You know, some days I really miss the late Sam Gross. 😎