[Editor's Note: Just in case you missed the news on the Thursday Screamin' Jay Hawkins post, Weekend Listomania is on a one week hiatus while I digest all those heavy Ohio sauces consumed during my Dayton vacation. We now resume our programming, already in progress..]
You know, much as I love him, I don't, generally speaking, really think of Richard Thompson as a powerpop guy. Which is one reason I just dig the hell out of this 1998 RT live version of "She May Call You Up Tonite," my third favorite song on The Left Banke's classic and genre-defining 1966 album.
I've actually got a live tape -- which I may post one of these days -- of my 90s band doing this at a club somewhere, with me on keyboards. It's nowhere near as good as this, of course.
In any case, I bring the whole thing up because our good pal Sal Nunziato, over at the incomparable Burning Wood, just posted about a recent Richard show he attended, and he let the following mind-boggling bit of tid drop almost in passing.
Someone requested 'She May Call You Up' by The Left Banke, which Thompson performs live often. He offered up some info that will forever haunt me. "I could play the whole Left Banke first album."
To which Sal added, and to which I can only echo: "WHEN?"
Well, for those of you keeping score, I'm home at last, and yes, as in the Chuck Berry song, I'm so glad to be back in the USA. After, admittedly, a rather magical week in Dayton, Ohio, if you know what I mean.
In any case, I should mention that while en vacance I did in fact prepare a Weekend Listomania for tomorrow, but somehow it must have disappeared from my computer into the Gallic ether.
That being the case, I've decided to take my first vacation from Listomania in over two years (since I started posting the series, actually. I'm sure you'll understand).
So -- no clue later today, and just normal posting tomorrow and ditto til next Thursday.
But while we wait for WL's return, here's a final tribute to the City of Lights.
From 1958, please enjoy the late great Screamin' Jay Hawkins and his sui generis paean to the great city "I Love Dayton Paris."
Incidentally, the album that's from -- At Home With Screamin' Jay Hawkins -- is one of the first (from the concept on down) rock album masterpieces, and behooves behearing. "I saw a Mau-Mau kissing Santa Claus" indeed.
So the other day I'm wandering around the fabulous Carnavalet, the French history museum in beautiful downtown Dayton, Ohio, when I ran smack into this striking portrait of one of the great babe obsessions of my youth.
That is, of course, the incomparable Juliette Greco, who -- for you whippersnappers -- is without doubt the sexiest Beatnik chick in black tights to ever sing a suggestive song. Usually while sitting on a stool and silhouetted by a single spotlight.
Here she is, from 1967, with one of her signature tunes, "Deshabillez-moi." Which means exactly what you think it does, BTW.
Okay, this is the most pretentious thing I've ever done, but I've wanted to do it for years and years and now I have.
From 1967, please enjoy the pre-cosmic Moody Blues with the great Denny Laine and their oh so sad and haunting ode to Parisian heartbreak, the gorgeous and very French -- dig that accordion! -- "Boulevard de La Madeleine."
It's a sad day in Paris With no girl by my side Got to feeling so badly Like a part of me died It would have been So good to see her I never thought She wouldn't be there There's no girl standing there And there's no one who cares And the trees are so bare On the Boulevard de la Madeleine
I was luckier than the song's protagonist, of course; I got to stand on the street with a certain shady dame taking the picture, if not quite by my side (until we were done, obviously.)
Okay, this one's just cool. Which is to say I knew that George Harrison's 1987 hit was a remake of an oldie, but I had never heard the original and knew nothing of its provenance.
So -- from 1962, please enjoy James Ray and the original r&b version of "I've Got My Mind Set on You."
Although the song wasn't a big hit in its day, Harrison discovered it when he bought Ray’s album of the same name during a holiday visit to his sister in the US in September 1963. Obviously, it struck a nerve with George thematically; it is perhaps no accident that in Help!, two years later, there are already several references to the quiet Beatle being, how you say, a little tight with the cash. (The DivShare clip, incidentally, is to the longer album version, not the single itself, which is reputedly a lot shorter.)
And here's George's take, produced by Jeff Lynne. Nobody realized it at the time, but this was clearly the beginning of the whole Travelling Wilbury's thing -- clearly, this wouldn't have been out of place on their epochal first album.
If truth be told, Ray's version is a weird stylistic mishmash -- it's got a real Jamaican feel in spots, and even a bit of a lounge vibe, and to be honest, for a change I prefer the cover, inauthentic as it may be.
All of us here at PowerPop extend our sincere condolences to his family, in particular to his rock star sons Hunt and Tony Sales and, of course, to hero of Steve's youth, the unforgettable Pookie the Lion.
Please observe a moment of silence, and when it's over, Soupy will send you a postcard from Puerto Rico.
We now resume our regular programming.]
Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, a certain shady dame and I will be heading off to the City of Lights -- incomparable Paris, France -- where we'll be hanging out in anti-American boites on the Left Bank, sipping absinthe and screaming "Ou est les Existentialistes?" while...
Oh, who am I kidding. Feh. Everybody knows we'll actually be in a crummy Motel 6 in downtown Dayton, Ohio.
In any case, posting by moi will more than likely be sporadic for a little while.
But in the meantime, here's another little fun project for us all:
Post-Beatles Song or Album Whose Meaning Remains Baffling to You No Many How Many Times You've Contemplated It!!!
No arbitrary rules; just vent about the ones that make you scratch votre tete till you bleed. I should also add that this edition is blessedly free of anything featuring Billy Corgan's pretentious cueball noggin, on the theory (which is mine, and I have it) that there actually isn't a Smashing Pumpkins song that means anything.
And my totally top of my head Top Five is:
5. Bob Dylan -- I'm Not There
Okay, I realize I used this one as the clue yesterday, but frankly it's too weird not to include again. Seriously -- the damn thing is like a musical/literary Mobius Strip; I've listened to it countless times and I'm still at a loss.
4. Procol Harum -- All This and More
True story: My college buds and I were kind of obsessed with Procol, and this song -- lyrics by Keith Reed, 'natch -- had a line we never could parse. To wit: "Like Maddox in the days of old/We'll feast and drink until we fold." Who the fuck is Maddox?, we puzzled long into several stoned dorm room nights. Got to be an obscure English lit reference, right? Trips to the college library and entreaties to various profs proved unavailing, so you can imagine our excitement when Procol Harum arrived, in the flesh, to play a show at our old school, and I conned my way backstage to confront the Great Lyricist himself.
Anyway, I finally cornered the guy -- who was basically sitting all by himself in the hospitality suite, playing with the roast beef -- and asked him breathlessly "Hey Keith -- to who were your referring with that Maddox line? What 16th century sonnet is that a metaphor from?"
He looked at me with some alarm and, before turning on his heels and fleeing, he said "Well, first of all, it's not Maddox. It's mad ox."
Like I said, true story. To this day, I don't know what the significance of a mad ox in the days of old is.
3. Guided By Voices -- The Official Ironmen Rally Song
I love this one unreservedly (it's the first GBV track that made sense to me, if you must know) and having just become the proud owner of this gorgeous guitar, I am in the process of learning how to play the cool riff. But what the fuck does the lyric mean? Hopefully your guess is better than mine...
2. The New Pornographers -- Letter From an Occupant
"For the love of a god, you say -- not a letter from an occupant." Everybody's (and mine) favorite indie alt-rock (or whatever) single of 2002, and if you have any idea what it's about, please e-mail me at WTF@Ihaventaclue.com.
And the numero uno headscratcher in the entire rock canon, I will brook no dissension on this matter, unquestionably remains...
1. The Jaynetts -- Sally Go Round the Roses
Nearly fifty years later, it remains the most mysterious and enigmatic song to ever have cracked the Top Ten. Who is Sally? Why should she go round the roses? What does going round the roses even entail, for heaven's sake?
From 1968, and whichever of the thousand volumes of The Basement Tapes, please enjoy Bob Dylan's gnomic in the extreme "I'm Not There."
This is, of course, also the title song of the fabulous Gus Van Sant Todd Haynes movie of the same name, starring Cate Blanchett as the Highway 61/Blonde on Blonde Bob, an incarnation in which he exuded, in Lester Bangs' famous phrase, all the androgynous fascination of a strung-out Puerto Rican hooker.
In any case, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded the first reader who gleans the clip's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.
In the same basic vein as the fan video for The New Pornographer's "Bleeding Heart Show," (a video I still adore for its uncomplicated adolescent faith in romance and being yourself), please enjoy another I stumbled across, British this time, for The Shins' "Turn a Square." Too funny.
Tell me that's not adorable. I love the boys giving each other the chocolates.
The other day, you may recall, we were talking about the amazing Bonzo Dog Band (I forget the context -- Listomania, probably) and I happened to mention that I had been lucky enough to see them during their only (1969) American tour (triple billed with The Kinks and Spirit at the old Fillmore East. Yes, those were the days.)
The Bonzos, of course, were pound for pound the funniest satirical rock band ever seen or heard by sentient mammalian eyes and ears, and don't give me any of that The Mothers or The Tubes or whoever shit 'cause I don't want to hear it.
Anyway, shortly thereafter I got an e-mail from my old pal Gregory Fleeman, still pound for pound the funniest serious satirical rock songwriter ever seen or heard blah blah blah.
Turns out Greg had his own encounter with the Bonzos back in the day, and I thought I'd share it with you, as it's fascinating on several historical levels.
Wrote Greg:
In 1969, I was a freshman at American University, and as my extracurricular activity I worked at the college radio station -- WAMU, or as we referred to it,“W A M All Over U.” That kind of thing passed for wit in my younger days.
The best word I can use to describe WAMU is “retrograde”. The station manager was REALLY into Steve and Eydie, Al Martino, etc. This was, what, 2 years after the Summer of Love, which clearly did not affect AU at all -- I was required to wear a Freshman Beanie for Rush Week (which lasted about 45 seconds on my particular calendar…) Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that I was considered quite the freak at the radio station, being into things like The Bonzos or Randy Newman or The Beatles. Also, stealing records from the radio station that no one else played became the basis of my record collection.
At some point, I somehow found out that the Bonzos were going to play the Fillmore East, so I decided to make my debut as a “rock journalist.” I had no fucking idea what to do, so I just called up Liberty Records and told the receptionist that I was a disc jockey in Washington, DC, and I would like to interview the Bonzo Dog Band, if you please. She said, “One moment please,” and the next thing I knew I was connected to someone in the publicity department –- someone who clearly had nothing better to do than sit around waiting for assholes like me to call. The guy said sure, you can go see the Bonzos, and in no short order I had tickets to two shows AND BACKSTAGE PASSES for the upcoming Fillmore East dates.
I had no idea it was that easy.
I borrowed a tape recorder from the music department (without their knowledge), hitchhiked to NYC and eventually found myself backstage interviewing my idols. Wow, Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes are talking to ME! (Of course, in retrospect, nobody else was back there interviewing them –- clearly, the PR guy had found them a bit of a hard sell.) Anyway, they were very pleasant and funny and we made arrangements to continue the interview at their hotel on Sunday. When I got there on Sunday, they all seemed sort of depressed. I asked them why they were so sad, and there was an awkward silence. Finally, Vivian Stanshall replied, “Well, we just broke up, you see.” I could only think, “This is an amazing scoop. I am the first “journalist” with this astonishing news, AND I HAVE NO ONE TO TELL IT TO." Rather sad, that.
I think they did one or two more contractual gigs, and then they went home.
One sort of amusing postscript: This was the first time The Kinks had played NYC in years (having been banned by the Musicians Union for whatever reason) and at one point, while walking around backstage with my little tape recorder, I accidentally wandered into The Kinks dressing room, and found myself face to face with…Ray Davies! I was rather stunned at this turn of events. I said to Mr. Davies, “May I interview you?” He graciously agreed. It was only then that I realized that I was so starstruck at meeting Ray Davies that I had NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT TO ASK HIM. I stammered a bit and finally coughed up that hoary old standby, the sine qua non of lame rock interview questions, “Who would you say are your biggest influences?”
Ray paused, smiled gently,said “I think Mick Avory can answer that,” and then got up and left the room.
I still find that funny.
Me too, Greg, me too.
And as another hopefully equally amusing postscript, please enjoy this fan video for the Bonzo's hilarious "The Intro and the Outro."
Okay, this one's freaking me out, mostly because I had no idea.
Remember Millie Small's 1964 Brit Invasion hit "My Boy Lollipop"? The record that, in retrospect, turned out to be the first exposure any of us State-side had to the pre-reggae Jamaican music called ska? And, coincidentally, the song that put Island Records honcho Chris Blackwell on the map?
Well, turns out it's a cover of an obscure 1956 r&b hit by Barbie Gaye (no relation to Marvin)
I think in this case the cover is clearly better -- it's better sung and much poppier (the horns are an added hook) and, well, just better.
Incidentally, if you're wondering why the hole in the Barbie Gaye label is so small, that's because it's a 78 rpm record. Back in 1956, you could still buy pop singles in two formats, i.e. either easily breakable ten-inch 78 or the more familiar seven-inch 45.
Okay, this one's just cool. Which is to say I knew that George Harrison's 1987 hit was a remake of an oldie, but I had never heard the original and knew nothing of its provenance.
So -- from 1962, please enjoy James Ray and the original r&b version of "I've Got My Mind Set on You."
Although the song wasn't a big hit in its day, Harrison discovered it when he bought Ray’s album of the same name during a holiday visit to his sister in the US in September 1963. Obviously, it struck a nerve with George thematically; it is perhaps no accident that in Help!, two years later, there are already several references to the quiet Beatle being, how you say, a little tight with the cash. (The DivShare clip, incidentally, is to the longer album version, not the single itself, which is reputedly a lot shorter.)
And here's George's take, produced by Jeff Lynne. Nobody realized it at the time, but this was clearly the beginning of the whole Travelling Wilbury's thing -- clearly, this wouldn't have been out of place on their epochal first album.
If truth be told, Ray's version is a weird stylistic mishmash -- it's got a real Jamaican feel in spots, and even a bit of a lounge vibe, and to be honest, for a change I prefer the cover, inauthentic as it may be.
I refer of course to the unidentified tape our friend David Klein (who does business over at the wonderful Merry Swankster) discovered in his archives and tried to track down with our help back on October 8.
As you may recall, he originally recorded it some time in the mid-80s off WFMU-FM, and forwarded it to us via a low-fi cel phone mp3. Have a listen and refresh your memory.
My guess at the time was that it was somebody's homemade basement demo from the period. Others -- specifically intrepepid reader Dominic Cordisco -- noted its uncanny resemblance to a rather obscure song from an even more obscure movie soundtrack by The Cyrkle, of "Red Rubber Ball" Fame. Which sounded equally plausible to me, if truth be told.
In any case, Dave e-mailed me with the answer over the weekend.
The song is by Jim Price, a WFMU DJ and musician. It appears on a compilation that went out solely to FMU listeners in 1987, so there's no mystery as to why it was so hard to identify: the only people who heard it were various free-form radio listeners from 20 years ago. Ace DJ Bob Brainen played it on my behalf this morning on his show, and it was swiftly ID'd by one of the faithful. Now it's on to the next obsession...
Which means that, yes, it is somebody's homemade basement demo from the period.
And also, of course, that I am, indisputably, The Man.
And speaking as we were last time of white boys covering Bobby Womack -- and because commenter Walking Oliver, Ltd asked for it -- please enjoy Bobby with The Valentinos and their epochal 1963 r&b hit "Lookin' for a Love"...
...and then from their 1971 sophomore album, it's The J.Geils Band with their blues-rock take on the song, a staple of their live act for years.
To be honest, I'd never heard the Valentinos record until last week (Womack, of course, had a gorgeous solo hit with a 1974 remake), and the Geils cover has always been a favorite of mine. On reflection, however, as much as I enjoy the way the Boston Jewish kids turned the song into a party anthem, I have to admit -- the original has oodles more soul.
While you're cataloguing the assholes, let me stop by to say that: yes, my laptop died; no, I didn't lose the book; and yes, donations to the powerpop fund in the left sidebar are gratefully appreciated. I replaced it, because I had to, even though I could honestly not afford to. So if you can toss me five bucks, that would be wonderful.
Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental full-frontal design specialist Fah Lo Suee and I are heading off to Juno, Alaska, where we'll be hosting a charity fete to pick names for former Governor Sarah Palin's next kid that would be predictive of the little tyke's future career. In the running at the moment are Tarp (Yankee Stadium groundskeeper), Tripe (Wall Street Journal editorial writer) and Turk (Oily Levantine), although that last one makes no sense to me.
In any case, posting by moi will more than likely be sporadic for a little while.
But in the meantime, here's another little project for us all:
Post-Beatles Pop Star Who is (or Was), Indisputably, a Huge Asshole!!!
Self-explanatory, obviously, but I've decided not to nominate anybody based solely on their politics. My feeling is that the name of this blog is PowerPop, not Pissed-Off Lefty or National Review Groupie, so out of a decent respect for the opinions of our diverse readership, I myself won't be dissing...oops, almost gave the game away there.
That said, if the rest of you guys feel the need to trash our Pop Star betters for no other reason than their ideological proclivities, feel free. My hands are clean.
And my totally top of my head Top Five is:
5. Leo Sayer
Never buy an album from a man who looks like he should be singing the lead in Pagliacci.
4. Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins)
C'mon, you knew I was going to do this. Billy Corgan: His pretentious cueball noggin, his orchestra and his chorus.
3. Ed Kowalczyk (Live)
What was I saying about pretentious cueball noggins?
2. Mike Love (The Beach Boys)
For a zillion obvious reasons. Honorable mention: Occasional Beach Boy John Stamos, who's so big an asshole he actually cheated on Rebecca Romijn.
And the numero uno braying jackass in pop music indisputably is...
1. Neil Tennant (The Pet Shop Boys)
An entire career based on his seething resentment of the fact that nobody took his favorite disco records as seriously as he did. What a jerk.
Awrighty then -- who would YOUR choice(s) be?
[Shameless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinemania -- theme: best or worst movies with a single letter or initials in the title -- is now up over at Box Office. As always, it would give both myself and management a nice warm and fuzzy feeling if you could see your way to going over there and leaving a comment. Thanks!]
From 1968, please enjoy the incomparable Bonzo Dog Band and their hilarious paean to the glories of celebritydom in the fabulous business that we call Show -- "Look at Me I'm Wonderful."
As always, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded to the first reader who gleans the clip's relevance to tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.
Oh, and BTW -- I would like to go on record here at last to say a hearty "Fuck you!" to the execrable Death Cab For Cutie for copping their name from one of the Bonzos best songs.
From June of 1964, please enjoy the original r&b version of "It's All Over Now" by The Valentinos (featuring co-composer Bobby Womack on guitar and lead vocals)...
...and then from a month later, the Rolling Stones' pop cover.
I bring this up partly because I love both of these, but also because the Stones record kind of gives the lie to the cliché about white rock musicians ripping off and diluting the work of black artists blah blah blah. The Valentinos original, wonderful as it is, is positively jaunty, as if the singer was secretly amused by the fact he's done with the woman in question, while the Stones take -- done with the identical instrumentation, i.e. two guitars, bass and drums -- all but drips anger and, frankly, menace. Which is to say the Stones totally made the song their own, and no apologies needed. (Womack, of course, was delighted with the large royalty check he received after the Stones version went Top 40.)
It is also worth noting, I think, that the fade-out at the end, with those circular guitar figures (repeated over and over with only the tiniest variations) is for all intents the first real example in pop culture of the musical esthetic we now refer to as Minimalism.
A final bit of trivia: The Stones were turned on to the Valentinos original by legendary New York DJ Murray the K. "We thought he was a cunt," Keith Richards told Rolling Stone some years later, "but he gave us a great record."
...I've been looking for a digital version of this particular live bootleg (I can't recall what happened to my vinyl copy) for years. And now, thanks to the intertubes, I've found one.
From February 5, 1975, please enjoy Bruce Springsteen, Roy Bittan and violinist Suki Lahav, live on WMMR-FM at the Main Point in Philadelphia, with perhaps the definitive version of "Incident on 57th Street."
Seriously, as some film critic whose name escapes me famously said of the ending of Robin and Marian -- if this doesn't make you cry, I don't want to know you.
Interesting news for any PowerPop readers who may be in the greater Nashville area this Saturday night -- specifically, near The Crow's Nest, at 2221 Bandywood Drive.
Some very cool guys will be reuniting for a gig you should try to check out.
The White Animals are the great lost American rock band of the 80s -- a ferocious live act (any band that shared a stage with them did so at their peril) and true musical visionaries whose ahead of its time mix of 60s garage-punk energy, British Invasion song structures, and dub reggae soundscapes by way of Lee Perry still sounds utterly fresh and contemporary. Perhaps the world wasn't ready for the Animals back when, but with the release of their long overdue career retrospective, "3000 Nights in Babylon," we've been granted a second chance. Don't blow it, world. -- Steve Simels, STEREO REVIEW
I wrote that blurb back in 2000, on the occasion of the release of the aforementioned CD retrospective, but I first met these guys -- who basically ruled the college alt-rock/frat party scene down South in their heyday -- in the late 70s while interviewing the redoubtable Marshall Chapman. Years later, my skinny tie band had the great pleasure of opening for them on one of their infrequent trips to NYC.
In any case, I stand by the review assessment, and I hope you enjoy the mp3 of their mind-altering version of the ultimate garage epic "Gloria" (from the aforementioned career retrospective).
Animals drummer (and all around good guy) Ray Crabtree assures me there are still a few tickets available for the show; if you're in the vicinity of Music City Saturday night, you owe it to yourself to try to weasel your way in. For more info, call the Crows Nest at 615-783-0720.
Ferguson, founding member of NRBQ and one of the greatest and most underrated rock guitarists ever, died of cancer on October 7.
Incidentally, the above cover of Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody" is one of the great lost singles of the 60s and in a sane world would have been a huge hit.
It is also worth noting that (according to his MySpace page) although Ferguson was one of the rare non-superstar musicians to actually have medical insurance, he was nowhere near covered enough to actually pay for his cancer treatments.
Okay, don't get me started on health care reform....
Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental fille de woohoo!Fah Lo Suee and I are heading off to [insert your own vaguely smutty and/or political joke here -- it's been a tiring week and I'm frankly out of gas].
So posting by moi will more than likely be sporadic for a little while.
But in the meantime, here's another little project for us all:
Most Memorable Post-Elvis Record Referencing One of the Deadly Sins in Either Its Title or Lyrics!!!
Okay, just so you don't have to look them up -- said sins are Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth.
I think I've probably mentioned this somewhere down the line, but one of my great regrets in life is that I never had seven kids so that I could name one after each of them. I think "Sloth Simels" really has a ring to it, don't you?
In any case, my totally top of my head Top Five is:
5. MC5 -- Teenage Lust
4. Billy Bremner -- Green With Envy
3. The Bonzo Dog Band -- Suspicion
Anger + envy + lust = jealousy, which of course is what the song is about. The Bonzos version is the definitive one, of course, and included mostly for that priceless monologue in the middle. "If you have been deceiving me...well, it's a neat bit of jiggery-pokery."
2. Elvis Costello -- I'm Not Angry.
Uh...yes, he was, actually. Pissed as hell, actually.
And the numero uno ode to les septs classical no-nos quite obviously is...
1. Fairport Convention -- Sloth
For fairly obvious reasons, I think.
Alrighty then -- what would your choices be?
[Shameless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania -- theme: scariest or most disturbing movie ostensibly aimed at kids -- is now up over at Box Office. As always, if you could see your way to going over there and leaving a snark-filled comment, it would get me in good with management and thus facilitate an upcoming trip to Paris in the company of a certain shady dame. Thanks!]
From 1961, please enjoy the great Ernie Kovacs' brilliant visualization of bandleader Juan Garcia Esquivel's space-age bachelor pad take on the venerable "Jalousie" (and a few other things).
Why do I think that the Jon Hamm character on Mad Men had that Esquivel album on his stereo at some point?
In any case, as always, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded the first reader who gleans the clip's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.
Anyway, frequent commenter David Klein (who does business over at the wonderful Merry Swankster) just e-mailed the following plaint:
"I broke out an old cassette the other day and was digging a song I recorded off WFMU years ago, which I've never been able to identify. It's a pretty chamber pop confection whose chorus is "I spend too much time dre-ee-min'..." It also goes, 'you linger on my mind/like a melancholy song/sad refrain...' Any idea?"
And then this followup:
"I actually got in touch with a venerable WFMU DJ (been there for 20+ years) whom I thought played the song originally, and while he said it felt familiar and thought it surpassingly lovely, he couldn't ID the sucker. I wonder if you'd consider posting it--as lo-fi as it is, the melody still comes through--and seeing if one of your smart-as-heck listeners can enlighten me"
So here's the track. And when David says low-fi he isn't kidding; he digitized it via his cell phone.
So -- anybody know who this is? I haven't a clue, if truth be told, although if I was a betting man I'd say it was a homemade basement demo of some sort.
So the other day I was sitting in my local Hell Octaplex waiting for some piece of formulaic Hollywood product to start -- if memory serves it was Love Happens -- when I heard a song that seemed designed with my mind in mind.
This is a very rare occurrence, I should add; the music they flog before the coming attractions at AMC Theaters is usually the worst kind of commercial Katy Perry/Taylor Swift mega-dreck imaginable. But this one -- which the fake DJ actually IDd as "Super Sun" by Cloud Eleven -- totally charmed me; something about the twelve-string guitar riff and those angelic harmonies. Finally, I thought -- a new song by a new young band that I actually can get behind.
Imagine my chagrin, then, when a Google search turned up the fact that these guys have been around since 1999, and that the song in question is five years old.
We here at PowerPop wish Matthew Sweet a delightful birthday, who clocks in today, err, somewhere between NYMary and Kid Charlemagne. Here's one from his delightful 1995 record, 100% Fun.
A sort of postscript to Sunday's obit for Bill Bartolin, lead guitarist and songwriter for Ohio powerpop gods Blue Ash:
Please enjoy the band's irresistible cover of Bob Dylan's "Dusty Old Fairgrounds," my second favorite track from their glorious 1973 debut album.
DOF was a pretty obscure and at the time unreleased Dylan song when Blue Ash covered it; it derives from the famous bootleg of Bob's 1963 Town Hall Concert. I don't know if the band were particularly big Dylan fans, but I do know that they got the song from the guy who signed them, the late Paul Nelson. Paul was a rock critic before there even was such a term -- he was publishing a folk music fanzine when he was a college kid in 1961 -- and he was one of the very best of the breed, writing brilliant stuff for The Village Voice, Rolling Stone and the lamented Musician Magazine well into the late 80s.
He also had a brief stint as an A&R guy at Mercury Records in the early 70s, which is where he was when he discovered Blue Ash. After that, he famously went out on a limb to sign The New York Dolls; when neither of their albums sold, he was unceremoniously dumped by the label. History has vindicated him, obviously.
I knew him professionally (he reviewed the first Patti Smith album for me during my first tenure at Stereo Review) and to a lesser extent socially (which is to say I used to see him at band shows and yak about stuff). He was a lovely guy as well as a terrific writer, although during the 90s he more or less dropped off my radar, so I was both saddened and surprised to hear of his death in 2006. For the last several years of his life, it turned out, he had worked at a mom and pop Manhattan video store, where he could indulge his other major enthusiasm (for film). When he died, however, he was alienated from and all but forgotten by the profession he had helped to create.
And speaking as we were last week of covers of Beach Boys/Brian Wilson songs -- or, more to the point, the paucity of really good ones -- a recent and very lovely example of same popped into my head the other day, and frankly I'm a tad embarrassed that it had slipped my mind previously.
From 2006, and their quite wonderful album of 60s covers, please enjoy Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs (aka Sid and Susie) and their pleasantly reverent take on the Beach Boys' gorgeous B-side "The Warmth of the Sun."
I should add that our pal Sal Nunziato, proprietor of the incomparable Burning Wood blog, who did business on this topic last week as well, has forwarded this flavorsome live version by the equally incomparable Vince Gill.
Bartolin, lead guitarist and songwriter for Ohio powerpop gods Blue Ash [top right in the picture], passed away this morning of complications from cancer. He had been diagnosed in September.
If you don't know these guys, let's just say they should have been household words and leave it at that.
The song above -- "Abracadabra ( Have You Seen Her)" -- is the leadoff track from their 1973 debut album, which remains essential listening.
Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental hand/groin coordination consultant Fah Lo Suee and I will be off to an undisclosed location in Maine for our traditional appearance in the annual Shakespeare in the Nude Festival. This year: It's us, plus Senator Olympia "Woo-Woo" Snowe and an otherwise all midget cast in productions of The Merchant of Venice and As You Like It.
So posting by moi will more than likely be sporadic for a little while.
But in the meantime, here's another little project for us all:
Most Memorable Post-Elvis Record Referencing Hair in Either Its Title or Lyric!!!
And my totally top of my head Top Seven is:
7. Nazareth -- Hair of the Dog
I've had a soft spot for these guys ever since they turned Joni Mitchell's "This Flight Tonight" into a thoroughly convincing piece of pop-metal (I've always wondered what Joni thought about it, come to think). This one, of course, deserves a special wing in the cowbell hall of fame.
6. CSNY -- Almost Cut My Hair
Very silly stuff, thank you Mr. Crosby, but the Stills/Young guitar interplay is awesome, no?
5. The dBs -- Never Before and Never Again
A duet between dB Peter Holsapple and the great Syd Straw, and for my money the most heart-rendingly sad and funny song about the aftermath of the breakup of a long-term relationship in rock history. More to the point, both the guy and the girl in the song grow their hair out, which improves their looks if not necessarily their moods.
4. Daddy Cool -- Teenage Blues
"I've been thinking a lot about getting a job, but I'm paranoid about my hair" has to be one of the greatest opening lines not just in pop music but in the entire history of literary endeavor going back to the Greeks. Or so I thought this morning; I could be wrong.
3. The Morells -- Growin' A Beard
An ode to the uses and cultivation of whiskers by the greatest party band of them all (The Skeletons in an earlier incarnation). Seriously -- I've said this before, but if I had an unlimited budget for a shindig and could hire any rockers in the world as the featured entertainment, these are the guys I would get, and that includes even NRBQ.
2. Smashing Pumpkins -- Terrapin
"Well, oh baby, my hair's on end about you." Proving yet again that there's no Listomania theme, no matter how ridiculous, that we can't shoehorn Billy Corgan's pretentious cueball noggin into, even if it's just on a Syd Barrett cover. Nice level of irony, of course.
And the numero uno follicularly fabulous tune of them all is obviously...
1. The Lovin' Spoonful -- BaldHeaded Lena
And speaking of cueball noggins, heh heh. That's the late great Zal Yanovsky on lead vocals and "electric gorgle" (or so it says on the liner notes) BTW.
Alrighty, then -- and what would your choices be?
[Shameless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania -- theme: best Issue picture (fiction film or documentary) -- is now up over at Box Office. As always, if you could see your way to going over there and leaving some little snarky comment, it would put me in good with management and help me to get an advance before I head off to Paris with a certain shady dame in a few weeks. Thanks!]
From 1979, please enjoy the fabulous Finn Brothers, Neil and Tim, in one of their earlier incarnations as Split Enz, and their wonderfully frenetic Farfisa-driven New Wave pop hit "I See Red."
As always, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded to the first reader who gleans the clip's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.
From 1973, and his quite wonderful first solo album, please enjoy "Going for a Song," Procol Harum organist Matthew Fisher's melodically charming and hilarious kiss-off to his ex-bandmates (and to a certain hit record he would later sue to gain authorship of).
It's not that I dislike the words Though I must admit there are better words around But every time I hear that tune It really brings me down....
And then the organ lick from "A Whiter Shade of Pale" comes in. Never fails to crack me up...
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