Thursday, July 31, 2008

An Unusually Early Clue to the New Direction

Off to the city for a screening of What We Do Is Secret, a bio-pic on the seminal LA punk band The Germs starring Bijou Phillips. Could be a hot one!!!

In the meantime, from 1967, here's the original Youngbloods (with the very cool Jerry Corbett singing lead) on American Bandstand with their almost hit single "Grizzley Bear." As you can see, at this point they were hardly the hippie band they've been painted as (and to an extent became, later); they were instead a snazzy, stylish NYC folk-rock band who were thinking about the pop charts, a la their contemporaries the Lovin' Spoonful. Seriously -- if you've never heard their first two albums, you're the poorer for it. (And the third album has the transcendent "Darkness Darkness," which behooves behearing as well).



As always, a coveted Powerpop No-Prize will be awarded to the first reader who divines the clip's relevance to tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.

13 comments:

TMink said...

Cool song, that pre-hippie kind of jug band vibe in there.

Songs with animals in the title?

Trey

Anonymous said...

Songs about waking up in the morning?

OR

it's got something to do with "E-lectrical Banana" which can be either a LSD reference or a dildo reference. or of course, a Donovan reference.

Anonymous said...

drummers with their stick up their nose? lol

Padre Mickey said...

Banana-smoking hair pullers?

TMink said...

Hair smoking banana pullers!

Trey

steve simels said...

I should really end the suspense here, but....
:-)

MBowen said...

Bands with Zal Yanovsky imitators?

steve simels said...

MBowen said...
Bands with Zal Yanovsky imitators?

Actually Banana -- a/k/a Lowell Levinger -- was phenomenally talented. He was the lead guitarist -- and a damn good one, as you can hear -- plus he also played keys even better. I think he was the best American rock piano player of his day, actually. There's a wonderful classical/jazz/Floyd Cramer country intstrumental on their third album that's just to die for.

Anonymous said...

Dance songs.

ROT(Plumber)

PS: Grizzley Bear & Darkness, Darkness are two of my all time favorite songs!!! Grizzley Bear was a top 20 hit.

steve simels said...

Okay, I'm a little irked to say this, but Trey hit it first thing out of the box. Obviously, he's reading my mail.

His coveted no-prize is coming at him by carrier gnu as we speak.
:-)

Anonymous said...

I thought it was going to be bands where the frontman had a risible name change. Perry Miller from Queens became Jesse Colin Young, the man from Owl Creek.

steve simels said...

Okay -- this is VERY annoying, but apparently Blogger is going through some kind of nervous breakdown, and they're not allowing anybody to publish new stuff until they're certified as not Spam Blogs.

Hence, the weekend's Listomania is in limbo until they resolve those issues.

I'm assuming there have been howls of protest across the Intertubes about this, so with luck this will happen sooner rather than later.

Thanks for your patience....

Cleveland Bob said...

I know that I'm howling like Ginsberg this morning!

Pretty happy though about getting Fratellis HOB tickets a few minutes ago for the 1st of Sept. show so it all balances out.

I'm even Steven.