Going to see The Who on their 50th anniversary tour on Saturday at the newly refurbished and reopened Forest Hills Tennis Stadium.
And, coincidentally, going to attend my 50th anniversary high school reunion on the Saturday after that.
In honor of both these depressing occasions, the obvious musical accompaniment would have to be the Japanese stereo remaster of "My Generation."
It sounds great, obviously, but in case you think you're not hearing all the guitar parts from the familiar hit mono version, you're right. Pete Townshend added some extra stuff for the mono mix using a technique that we used to call "sound on sound." It's not really overdubbing in the modern meaning of the term, and in any case that added guitar part does not exist in the stand-alone sense.
Okay, kids, it's Friday, and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental fille-de-whoopie Fah Lo Suee and I are off to the Cannes Film Festival, where apparently women wearing flats are not being admitted to press screenings. I am not making this up, BTW. In case, Fah and I will be attending barefoot by way of protest.
But in the meantime, here's a fun little project for us to contemplate till Monday:
BEST OR WORST POST-ELVIS TOPICAL OR PROTEST FOLK/POP/ROCK/SOUL SONG/RECORD EVER!!!!!
This was inspired, obviously, by our earlier little mini-dustup over the merits of Prince's new single "Baltimore." In any case, no arbitrary rules of any kind, although if you nominate a pre-rock song like "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" or anything by Woody Guthrie I will show up at your house and honk my horn in the middle of the night.
And the winners are --
Holy crap,it's a tie!
1. Bob Dylan -- The Times They Are A-Changin"
and
1. Barry McGuire -- Eve of Destruction
And I don't mean just a tie -- I consider this a tie for best and worst simultaneously! A Listomania first, I should add.
Seriously, I strongly dislike both of these as songs -- the Dylan in particular struck me as insufferably smug back in the day, and still does, and of course "Eve of Destruction" is just dopey.
That said, both of them inspired cover versions I dearly love, by The Byrds...
Doctor crap today. A brand new Weekend Listomania -- it's actually already written, no fooling! -- goes up tomorrow.
BTW, that plaque is for real. I was wandering around the east 30s in Manhattan last year, and there it was, outside some medical building. Laughed my ass off, and fortunately I had my handheld device with me to take the picture.
Long time readers are aware that my file sharing program of choice when I wanted to post an mp3 was Divshare. I used it because it was mostly free, easy to use, and basically reliable.
Did I mention that it was mostly free?
Anyway, you may however have noticed that I haven't put up any Divshare links in several weeks, and that all the links I ever posted over the years no longer play. And I have have been unable to find any news online about what the hell is going on over there; they may be out of business for all I know. Basically, it seems that Mr. Divshare he dead.
So -- has any got a suggestion for another service that does what Divshare did? Soundcloud looks promising, but I'd appreciate any advice you can give me.
To the best of my recollection, I only saw him live once, at the Fillmore. His brand of blues was always a little too urbane for my taste, but obviously the guy was a one of a kind master.
I should add that when I was growing up it was an article of faith in musician and critics circles that the live album presented in its entirety below -- taped when B.B. was still playing what used to be called the chiltlin circuit -- was one of the greatest records ever made. And yes, it holds up.
Just heard -- via our good pal (and record mogul behind the Floor Models CD) George Matzkou -- that the great John Wicks, auteur of power pop gods The Records, is seriously ill.
That being the case, George will be donating the proceeds from sales of all remaining stock of The Records tribute album he released last year to help with John's medical needs.
You can (and should) buy the album -- which is one of the best things of its kind ever -- over here. And light a metaphorical candle for John, who on top of everything else is a hell of a nice guy.
Snazzily dressed in my new Hugo Boss suit but looking a tad demented at the wedding of an old friend's daughter this past weekend. Photo courtesy of a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance.
Nevertheless, a splendid time was had by all. I particularly liked when the rabbi announced that the happy couple's life together "would be awesome." I don't think I've ever heard a rabbi use that phrase before.
Regular musical postings, rather than faux GQ spreads, resume on the morrow.
Holy crap -- I actually love a new album by a young artist that was released in 2015!
Giddens may be old news to you guys -- cut me some slack, I'm a geezer -- but I hadn't heard of her until a month ago when I stumbled across the video version of that New Basement Tapes project that Elvis Costello chaired last year (Giddens steals it, BTW). In any case, it's pretty obvious that she's the real deal.
I should add, however, that I have some kind of a mental block -- perhaps because of the fact that she's named after a Stevie Nicks song -- that forces me to mangle her moniker. The other day, I actually referred to her as Persimmon Gilgamesh.
Went to see the reliably wonderful Willie Nile do a literally unplugged (no amplification whatsoever) set at the Rubin Museum in Manhattan Friday night. It was (unsurprisingly) terrific, with Willie pulling out all sorts of gems from his now ridiculously extensive song catalog; all told, the show was so good that I didn't miss the absence of drums and other loud stuff one whit (and if you know my general lack of tolerance for most acoustic troubadors you will understand what high praise that is).
Here's one of my favorite performances from the show (a studio version of the song can be found on Willie's 2010 album The Innocent Ones).
That said, Willie has a new two-disc live set out (deriving from performances at the Bottom Line in 1980 and 1990) in which he is backed by the aforementioned loud stuff, and at the very least disc one -- with his five-piece original band, featuring Patti Smith Group drummer Jay Dee Daugherty and Television bassist Fred Smith -- is now on my short list of the greatest live rock records ever made.
And here from disc one (the 1980 show) is the completely mind-blowing jangle-riffic assault that is "Vagabond Moon."
Seriously, opening numbers don't get any better than that. Hell, rock-and-roll in general doesn't get any better than that.
I should add that that said 1980 show marked the very first time(!) Willie had performed in front of an audience with a backing band, a fact which still blows my tiny mind after all these years. I should further add that disc two of the new album, with Willie's then band The Worry Dolls, has a much harder rock feel than the earlier show, but it's overall almost as good, and includes a very nice cover of The Who's "Substitue" to boot.
Also -- if you're unfamiliar with Willie, here's a link to the last thing I wrote about him at this here blog -- a sort of career retrospective occasioned by the release of his then (2009) latest album House of a Thousand Guitars, which behooves behearing. The money quote:
Let me get the gushing out of the way up front and stipulate for the record that the man is a bruised romantic with the soul of a poet and the sly heart of a standup comedian, a brilliant songwriter, a riveting performer, and as natural a rock 'n' roller as has ever worn shoe leather.
I stand by that assessment (and everything else in the linked piece) and I will also say, once more and for the record, that Willie's debut album (from whence most of the songs on the first disc of the Bottom Line album derive) is a stone masterpiece that belongs in everybody's collection.
In any case, said debut album (and the rest of Willie's album work) can be found over at Amazon, so what the fuck are you waiting for?
An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop.
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