PowerPop: Baby That is Rock 'n' Roll

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Baby That is Rock 'n' Roll

Okay, here we go.

Tom Petty.

"You Wreck Me."

It doesn't get any better, Seriously.

Rock 'n' Roll, I mean.

And we'll be posting other examples for the next couple of days.

6 comments:

racymind said...: We missed this song during the Tom Petty earworm-a-thon yesterday at eschaton.; 6/19/2013 10:13 AM
FD13NYC said...: Great song! One of my definite faves by him.; 6/19/2013 2:14 PM
Anonymous said...: Next: Good Time - Easybeats!

Allan Rosenberg; 6/19/2013 4:24 PM
elroy said...: He played it in LA a couple weeks ago, 'twas an excellent show. That was not the night the fire marshals shut him down early.; 6/19/2013 6:15 PM
mister muleboy said...: What Allan said!

The folks are gone and the place will be mine.; 6/20/2013 8:15 AM
Anonymous said...: Three minutes of deliciousness.

Let's not forget Mike Campbell as co-writer and the perfect rock guitarist. He never overplays. Every note counts. He moves me. And then he gets out of the way. Perfect.

Petty is definitely one of the greats. He's instinctual and intuitive. His stuff is real.

Some of the albums are spotty and the Last DJ was embarrassing. It was thirty years too late. Came off as reactionary to me. But I hate Jim Ladd, even if he was the best thing left on AOR in L.A. That ain't saying much.

But Petty has a pretty good winning percentage, and the hits are montsers. Not bad for a Gainesville pothead gone Encino stoner.

This is the kind of stuff Elliott Murphy would never be able to do. He's way too self conscious. He's memorized chapter and verse, he worships all the right gods, believes in all the correct tenets. But he will always be a poser to all but his rock critic buddies.

With album titles like "Lost Generation," he gives his self-importance away. Funny, my older sister, who is not a rocker in any sense of the word, mistook Elliott for Neil Diamond when she heard me play "Hollywood." You know what? That about sums it up. But enough about someone only the French can tolerate. They also find Jerry Lewis movies to be masterpieces.

I still love Petty's first album the best. I bought it after I saw him open for Blondie at the Whisky. Every thing on it works for me.

But I'm just a girl who loves to dance and slide. Sometimes short is extra sweet. 10 songs averaging three minutes that I can shake and hip roll to works for me. Beats Tales From Topographic Oceans. (Though, if you edit the first half of the studio version of "Ritual" with the second half of the live version from Yesshows you will fathom hell, and, soar angelic).

Plus TP was kinda cute in the early days. I loved that he had a deep sexy southern voice when he talked and it was totally different when he sang.

To Elroy above: I got the entire six-pack of Tom at the Henry Fonda earlier this month. I was very upset that they shut down early on Saturday.

My partner Sandy and I got in early because Petty's sound guy, who we know through his landscaper, was letting us patch in and record 24 tracks on our MacBook Pro. It isn't often we get this kind of carte blanche so we were thrilled. Big acts usually frown on this. It took about an hour and a half to get our rig and mics up and running. During the soundcheck, Petty just shook his head at us and smiled.

He remembered us from Palm Springs/Indian Wells back in 2006 when we also did a multi-track recording.

Unfortunately the Fire Department stopped the show about a half hour before they were done. We captured all of this on tape.

They said there were too many people in there. Quite frankly, I had been to the previous three and the opening night was far worse.

It was a shit move on the FD's part. They shut down a band just before they got into the home stretch because there were 100 too many people in the building. It was the Saturday night Show for Christ's sake! Plus they fucked up our multi-track recording!!

I hadn't seen baloney like this since the late 60's/early 70's. But those were usually involving counterfeit tickets and the crowd riots that resulted from the oversell.

Hendrix at the Swing in 1970 was the worst. San Bernardino's finest decided to tear gas the crap out of a 5000 seater. Not cool.Truth was, they just hated longhairs. They loved to fill "paddy wagon" buses with the stoned and naked rabble.It was their duty. They were protecting and serving.

But, with regard to the Petty shows, all was not lost because we were able to get Monday's show in it's entirety. It was definitely worth going to all the shows. Tom tried to do a good portion of unique stuff each night.

Vickie Rock; 6/26/2013 1:34 AM