However, since I'm a nice guy and because I love all of you, here's a very nice outtake version -- from the sessions for his eponymous debut album on Elektra -- of "Poor Poor Pitiful Me."
Perhaps my favorite Zevon song of them all, if truth be told.
You know, I really wish Waddy Wachtel would wear a buttoned shirt on-stage, but in the studio I guess it doesn't matter. In any case -- is he great on this or what?
From 1966, please enjoy the quite remarkable "You Used to Ride So High" by Abilene Motorcycle.
This is an unreleased demo, but as you can hear, it's a pretty amazing mashup of Mamas and Papas harmonies, a Buffalo Springfield-ish band track and the "dit-dit-dit-dits" from "Friday on My Mind."
The performers -- and there are two of them -- both went on to become quite famous a few years later, one as a producer and the other as a celebrated singer-songwriter.
I think it's great, and could have been a hit, although I will admit that the guitar solos -- which seem to have been played by Jerry Lewis --
--are kind of heinous.
In any case, if you already know who did it, please don't give it away in the comments.
Because I'm a nice guy, you can find a photographic clue to their identity here; if you think it makes it blindingly obvious (and I don't think it does) please don't give it away in comments either.
I should add that I had no idea myself of the existence of this until last week, when it rather blew my miniscule mind.
Attentive readers with long memories may recall my paean to local rap-metal guys King Hell, who I first encountered and wrote about in these precincts back in September of 2010. A sort of unholy schtup between Judas Priest and Parliament/Funkadelic, they were so theatrical, funny and musical when I chanced upon them at a Battle of the Bands back then that I became an instant fan, despite the fact that the genre they were mining was not by and large my cuppa tea.
Anyway, to my chagrin they broke up soon after, but in the interim since I have become chums with their charming co-lead singer Sam Walters, who is now fronting a slightly more straight ahead outfit called Driven Mad, and it gives me great pleasure to post some new music by them.
So -- please enjoy the aforementioned Driven Mad and the appropriately monikered salute to their raison d'etre that is "Mania."
A song, I would venture to say, that makes the most effective use of the word "motherfucker" I've heard in a long long time.
An amusing postscript: Sam is, as you can hear, pretty much of a 100 percent metalhead, but we were discussing music a few weeks ago (I took him to see John Cale doing Paris 1919 live at BAM, which was great fun, and only partly because I'm old enough to be his granddad, which I find hilarious) and he let it drop that he was hugely a fan of -- and hoped someday to be able to perform the music of -- this guy.
You could have knocked me over with a feather frankly, but I have no doubt he could do Mr. Brown justice. And one of these days I hope to hear him do that very thing.
In the meantime, you can still get King Hell's Rhythm and Bruise album over here at Amazon, and definitely should, if only to hear them doing to Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" what should always have been done to it.
Okay, I've decided what my creative project for 2014 is.
I'm gonna make a music video -- featuring me, Steve Simels, as Groucho Marx -- doing this song.
Seriously -- this may be the greatest thing ever written.
One night in Bixby, Mississippi,
We watched the clouds roll by.
I said "My dear, how are you?"
And she whispered "So am I"
And obviously I've got some Groucho drag in my past.
Hey -- this is precisely the kind of thing you're supposed to do in retirement. Or senility.
Okay, I'm just kidding; obviously I'm not going to do this. It's fun to fantasize about, though.
And I should add that the Groucho bootleg pictured above is available for download on the web (somewhere -- I forget where I got it) and you should try to find it. Seriously, it's one of the most entertaining compilations (by anybody) you'll ever hear.
Here's a Floor Models outtake I almost played on last night's radio show [Theme: "Does Humor Belong in Music? And Fuck You Frank Zappa Regardless] which turned out to be a lot of fun, BTW.
The song is "Fade Into Grey," a different version of which appears on our album. This version was recorded semi-live at WBAI-FM circa 1983; ace 12-string player Andy Pasternack edited out a dramatic, sort of Police-like middle section that worked better on stage and replaced it with sitar samples from The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows," thus giving the tune a delightfully cheesy faux psychedelic feel.
I think it's hilarious, but on balance it was probably a wise decision on my part to play a track by Spike Jones on the show in its place.
For those of you with nothing to fill the gnawing void at the center of your hollow lives, I will be guesting on my old chum Allan Rosenberg's intertube radio show Lost at Sea today.
Between 5-7pm.
The streaming audio can be accessed at the link above, 'natch.
Incidentally, the theme of today's program is "Does Humor Belong in Music?", which is ironic in that I mostly detest Frank Zappa, do not think he's funny, and will not be playing any of his recordings.
Two hours of hilarity will ensue, however. Trust me.
A Floor Models fan in Spain -- and I can't believe I just used, without irony, the phrase "a Floor Models fan in Spain" -- made this video for one of the songs from Floor Your Love and passed it along to me last Friday. I had not previously suspected this was in the works, BTW, so you can imagine how astounded I was when it arrived.
Words more or less fail me, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the fan in question has something to do with the estimable Spanish language website Power Pop Action!, which seems to be a spiritual brethren of ours.
In any case, I am utterly blown away over this. Wow.
And speaking as we were earlier this week of the fetching Ellen Foley, from her 1979 debut elpee -- produced, quite wonderfully, by Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson -- please enjoy her absolutely fab cover of Timi Yuro's "What's a Matter Baby."
I don't know how I missed this album back in the day, but I gotta tell you, having now finally listened to the thing, I fully concur with the commenters here on Tuesday -- it's a keeper for sure.
That said, I can't imagine Foley was any less nonplussed by the video below...
...than, frankly, I was.
Seriously, whoever those people are, I'd be interested in a detailed accounting of what controlled substances they were on.
From their latest EP, Hipster Apocalypse, please enjoy Louisville, KY-based indie power popsters The Uncommon Houseflies and their suspiciously familiar sounding ode to the great ennui, "Nothing New."
Obviously, this is a little more cynical than the similarly themed "It's All Been Done," by the Barenaked Ladies, but I for one not only appreciate the sentiment but also the fact that they were able to flog the conceit for over three minutes without boring me.
I should also add that they had me with the line "Repetition is the death of art."
An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop.
All suggestions for postings and sidebar links welcome, contact any of us.
