PowerPop

I Resent That Remark!!!

2012-01-29T11:48:00.002-05:00

Ed Kilgore, at the Washington Monthly, describing Newt Gingrich's performance at the Florida debate the other day:

“He sounded bad, he looked bad, and generally came across like a weasel who had finally been cornered by Animal Control.”

This is deeply offensive. For obvious reasons, if you were around on Friday.

Still -- Heh.

Your Sunday Moment of Words Fail Me

2012-01-29T00:14:00.000-05:00

Seriously -- I cannot express just how absolutely great this is.

Venerable punk band Bad Religion's cover of Bobby D.'s "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."

As I mentioned, I lack the words, so I'll let the estimable Sal Nunziato (from whom I learned about it) speak for me:

"You need to hear this one to believe it. The energy is insane. It's a thrasher and still, it doesn't disrespect Bob or The Byrds."

Oh, and in case you were wondering, it's from Chimes of Freedom, a brand new 4 CD set of mostly previously unreleased Dylan covers celebrating 50 years of Amnesty International.

You can -- and apparently should -- order it over here.

Great Minds Think Alike. What Explains the Following, However, Remains a Mystery.

2012-01-27T00:06:00.000-05:00

Long-time or attentive readers are no doubt aware that I've been an on again/off again member (currently on again) of a recording/performance rock-and-roll collective/band called The Weasels since the early 70s.

Here, to refresh your memory, is the cover of our very first recorded project (circa '73 or '74), entitled The White Album, for reasons way to embarrassing to get into.

Anyway, like I said, we've been at it for quite some time now, so imagine our surprise a few weeks ago when we learned, accidentally via the intertubes, that there was another recording/performance rock-and-roll collective/band called The Weasels, who've been active around Albany, New York since the mid-'80s.

We reacted to this news, as you might expect, with the maturity and grace that has always been our hallmark, i.e. we looked at each other and said "Hey, we're gonna sue those bastards so fast their heads will spin."

Fortunately, when we took a moment to actually check out their work, we noticed that the theoretically faux Weasels were actually really smart and really funny. So we've -- or in this case, more accurately I've -- decided to forego the lawsuit and just give 'em a little free publicity and a tip of the Hatlo Hat instead.

Some history, from their Wiki article:

Inspired by the response to their Ear Jam performance, the expanded band polished their basement tapes and released Meat the Weasels: Volume 1, Fondue Cabaret in 1993. In addition to [members] Doctor Fun, Roy Weasell and Chris Graf, this record featured Jonathan Cohen (bass guitar and slide whistle, sometimes billed as Jonny Weasel), Rocky Petrocelli (drums) and David Maynard (guitar). Maynard had once been a member of the New York Rubber Rock Band, whose 1975 single "Disco Lucy" was named "Worst Single of the Year" by Billboard Magazine.

The Weasels continued to perform live in support of their early material, though with continued instability in the drummer’s seat, which was occupied at various times in their early years by Petrocelli, Jordan Cohen (later of Powerman 5000 and Blue Man Group), Dave King, Doug Klein, Dan Roberts, Steve Scoons, Dave Berger and Steve Candlen, with the latter two emerging as drummers of choice for their middle recording period. The album’s opening cut, “Let the Killing Begin,” is the first in a series of Weasels songs about notorious killers, in this case Henry Lee Lucas. It incorporates a tongue-in-cheek adaptation of the soliloquy from the Doors’ “The End”.

I should add that some of these guys' song titles are particularly droll. My favorites, at the moment, include "Klaus Barbie and Ken," "Paging Larry Storch" (a heartfelt tribute to the F-Troop star, and apparently part of a Larry Trilogy), "Officer Gerbils" and "Bitch is All Business," described at the official website as "an ode to feminism." I am also fond of an album of theirs entitled Uranus or Bust.

Here's the cover to their latest masterwork, the trenchantly monikered Axis of Weasel...

...which the band informs us "was released in the sense that the CDs were manufactured and we have several hundred copies out in the garage if anyone wants one."

And here's a video, for the recent "Do the Teabag." A title that has a certain relevance to last Tuesday's rant, for what it's worth.

So, in conclusion -- get over to The Weasels website and give 'em some love.

And tell 'em The Weasels sent you, obviously.

A Shouting Comes Across the Sky

2012-01-26T00:02:00.000-05:00

As promised last week -- another previously unheard song from the 1981 CBS demo by genuine underground power pop legend/cult figure David Grahame.

This one's called "True Believers."

As before, David is playing all the guitars and singing all the vocals. Your humble scribe contributes bass and a very simple piano part intended to be all George Martin/Beatles VI-ish; the incomparable Glen "Bob" Allen is on drums.

As I'm fond of saying -- and speaking of gorgeous...

Wednesday Programming Note

2012-01-25T01:56:00.001-05:00

Barring a last minute disaster of some sort, I've decided that next week -- for reasons that I won't get into at the moment -- is going to be GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!-themed.

Heh.

I should also add -- in a typically shameless piece of self-promotion -- that you can listen to an mp3 of the latest noises I made on guitar with my now geriatric garage band high school buddies over here.

Pretty slick, I think, but YMMV.

If It's Tuesday, It's an Apology and a Rant!

2012-01-24T09:46:00.001-05:00

In case you missed it, long time commenter Anonymous posted this the other day.

It's an election year, hard to ignore politics but have enjoyed your postings more without the weekly reference to your most-hated at the moment politician, er...Republican.

Just remember they're all phonies and crooks (you might even stumble upon Charlie Rangel's homage to Adam Clayton Powell when you're down there along with the Clinton's holdings....er...hidings in the DR).

To which I can only reply...actually, you've got a point.

Seriously -- I've said here on numerous occasions that I'm aware the name of this blog is PowerPop, not PissedOffLeftie. And for any number of reasons (including the courtesy I believe is owed to our valued readers who do not, perhaps, share our political perspective) I strive (to the best of my ability) to resist the urge to use the forum NY Mary has given me to wax all doctrinaire Dirty Fucking Hippie.

That said, it's not a secret that the traditional first paragraph Weekend Listomania joke has mostly always been (as they said at Warner Bros. in the '30s) ripped from the headlines, which is to say topical. To which I can only add, uh yeah, I'm lazy and lacking in a certain level of comic inspiration, so what do you expect?

That being the case, I think you'll agree that there's really not much interesting or appalling happening on the Democratic side of the spectrum of late. Certainly, nothing that compares to the on-going Carnival of Crazy we call the Republican primary race. And I think it's also fair to say that said televised train wreck has struck even a lot folks on the right, who would dearly love to retire President Obama in November, as troubling. In particular, the in your face homophobia, blood lust, and racism exhibited by the audiences at the debates.

All of which is a long-winded way of leading up to the following:

For at least the forseeable future, I'm gonna strive to be as bi-partisan in the snark department as I can. Unless I can't, of course.

Oh -- and no Listomania this week, due to a killer schedule.

Previously Unreleased Stereo Mixes of the Gods (An Occasional Series)

2012-01-23T17:19:00.001-05:00

Uh, excuse me -- but did I somehow miss the memo on this one?

From the 2002 Abkco reissue of the Rolling Stones first greatest hits collection of the '60s, please enjoy "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" in glorious totally real stereo.

Seriously -- how did this get past me? Does everybody already know about it?

In any case, this is NOT a bootleg of an alternate take or weird mix featuring extra instruments; this is the same version as the single we've known in mono for all these years, only in very effective multi-channel.

For what it's worth, and as glad as I am to finally hear this, I think on balance the familiar mono version is just a tad punchier, but jeebus, this sounds great.

Of course, I'm still irked that none of you guys ever mentioned it to me before.

A Spy in the House of Love

2012-01-23T00:00:00.000-05:00

As promised, that parody Bond poster from the February 1977 National Lampoon.

Incidentally, if you left-click on this two or three times, it enlarges significantly.

Hey -- I meant in case you wanted to print it out.

Jeebus, what's wrong with you people.

Weekend Listomania (Special The Spy With the Biggest Penis You Ever Saw in Your Life!* Edition)

2012-01-20T00:03:00.003-05:00

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental lotus blossom for hire Fah Lo Suee and I are off to the lovely Cayman Islands, where we're going to try to find the off-shore tax haven/blind trust where presidential hopeful Willard "Mitt" Romney is reported to have stashed his manhood.

That being the case, and because it will be preternaturally quiet around here for a couple of days (unless I miss my guess) here's a fun little project to help us fill the aching void in what passes for our shriveled souls:

Best or Worst Use of a Pop/Rock/Soul Song in Either a Credit Sequence or Non-Musical Scene in a Film Drama or Comedy!!!

No arbitrary rules, except -- of course -- no concert films, documentaries, or features starring The Beatles need apply.

And my totally top of my head Top Five is...

5. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross -- "The Immigrant Song" (as heard in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo)

I didn't care for the opening montage that accompanies it, but Mr. Nine Inch Nails' remake of the Led Zep song, which sets up the tone of the subsequent film perfectly, is just one of many reasons that David Fincher's Hollywood adaptation of TGWTDT is light years better than the Swedish, hippo-root sucking, original.

4. Van Morrison -- "Into the Mystic" (as heard in Panic in Needle Park)

I dunno if Van was thinking "heroin" when he wrote it, but the scene with Al Pacino and Kitty Winn (whatever the hell happened to her, BTW?) shooting up to to its slightly melancholy strains is one of the most indelible images in American films of the 70s. IMHO.

3. Herman's Hermits -- "I'm Into Something Good" (as heard in The Naked Gun)

Okay, it's a remake, but it is Peter Noone singing. I should add that the scene from the montage where Nielsen and Presley come out of Platoon laughing hysterically never fails to crack me up.

2. Gary Glitter -- "Rock and Roll" (as heard in Moolight Mile)

I was gonna nominate the film's Rolling Stones title tune, which is beautifully used, but it dawned on me that the Glitter track, from earlier in the same scene, is actually surprisingly effective despite being about as massively over-familiar as anything can be. Fun fact: After Robert Plant saw the film, he called up Mick Jagger to tell him how much he had liked "Moonlight Mile" (the song) and asked him what album it was on and when it had originally been released. I am not making this up.

And the Numero Uno not so hot they're-gonna-put-me-in-the-movies tune of all time simply has to be...

1. Alica Keys and Jack White -- "Another Way to Die" (as heard in Quantum of Solace)

I have no problem with either Keys or White, but I think we can all agree that this one is pretty unmemorable as James Bond theme songs go. Or maybe it just seems that way knowing that it was supposed to be Amy Winehouse.

Alrighty, then -- what would your choices be?

_________________________________________________

*[Hey, don't blame me -- "The Spy With the Biggest Penis You Ever Saw in Your Life" was an actual parody poster in the February 1977 issue of the National Lampoon. If you ask me nicely, I'll scan it and put it up one of these days....]

An Early Clue to the New Direction: Special "We're in the Money!" Edition

2012-01-19T00:04:00.002-05:00

Hey -- I got quoted in this year's Village Voice Critics Poll yesterday!

You realize, of course, what this means. It means that a) I'm still culturally relevant, even at my advanced age, and b) I will be receiving a check momentarily, and thus will have earned at the very least a stunning fifteen dollars!!! for freelance writing in 2012!

Here's what I wrote...

Not a very good year for pop music, again, but even worse -- not a very good year for jokes about pop music, although I still await the (theoretically feasible) Goo Goo Dolls/Lady Gaga Tour (which, for sheer glorious marquee value would surpass even the fabled Madonna/Supertramp excursion of yesteryear) for obvious reasons. Still, in that regard, I'm now really kind of embarrassed over the just-how-fucked-up-is-Amy-Winehouse? joke I made in the 2009 Pazz & Jop; that sort of thing really stopped being remotely funny after Winehouse proved incapable of showing up in the studio to record the opening credit music for Quantum of Solace. I mean, this was a woman who for all intents had been genetically bred to sing the theme to a James Bond movie, and when she blew the opportunity we shouldn't have been laughing...

As you can see if you already clicked the link, the Voice editors only ran the second half of the above, but what the hey -- in this economy, fifteen dollars is fifteen dollars. Seriously -- if you know you're getting a check for that amount every January, you can plan around it.

In any case, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded to the first reader who gleans the quote's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.

Apparently Mojo Nixon Was Right -- Elvis IS Everywhere!!!

2012-01-18T04:04:00.000-05:00

Okay, I know that this is a one-joke bit extended a little longer than it should have been, but it just cracks me up anyway.

From 1979, and the wiseguys at Rhino Records, please enjoy The International Elvis Impersonators Convention.

My personal fave: "The Leaping Loincloth of Gunga Maharesley!!!"

It Came From the Vaults (An Occasional Series)

2012-01-17T09:58:00.001-05:00

Okay kids, prepare to have your tiny minds blown. And this is not hyperbole.

From 1981 and a frighteningly brief demo session at CBS studios in New York City, please enjoy genuine underground power pop legend David Grahame and the remarkable on countless levels gem that is "If You Think You Need Me."

A little biographical data: David was one of the original McCartneys in the first Broadway production of Beatlemania (Marshall Crenshaw was one of the Lennons); a few years later he was a member of The Mix, a Small Faces-ish combo who made one great under-distributed album which should have been huge. In 1991, he co-wrote the infernal Mr. Big hit "To Be With You," which has presumably been paying his rent ever since.

"If You Think You Need Me" itself is, in my humble opinion, one of the most flawless Brit Invasion/power pop/Beatles/Hollies/Big Star/Shoes/Rundgren-inspired concoctions every heard by sentient mammalian ears, for a number of reasons beyond the obvious hookiness and cool guitars. For starters, you'll note that it has two (count 'em -- two!) different bridge sections, which is structurally brilliant (and when the second one comes in, at approximately the 1:40 second mark, the effect is almost chemical.) For another thing, the first verse lyric "Simple words cannot express/my delight when you undress" just might be the funniest and most profound line in the history of Western Literature, let alone pop music.

Credit where credit is due: David is singing and playing everything on the track save for almost inaudible rhythm guitar (by me) and the fabulous drums (my old chum Glen "Bob" Allen.)

I should also add that the CBS A&R guy who authorized the session was the late Paul Atkinson, guitarist for The Zombies. In fact, while we were working on the song he showed up briefly at the studio (tennis racket in hand, on the way to a weekend in the Hamptons) and I will not mince words -- I almost lost it, in a fanboy "I'm not worthy" sense. Meeting him was actually one of the great thrills of my adult life.

Just a Little Bit Excited...

2012-01-16T09:25:00.003-05:00

Those of you who are my FB friends know that I am in Chicago, wrapping up the final edit of Boys Don't Lie: A History of Shoes. It was supposed to be done a year ago, but what's a year among friends?

Seriously,the rewrite has been totally worth the time.The text is more textured and thoughtful, supported by more data and even more interviews (you wouldn't believe the people I dug up!) and,on a strictly journalistic level, really, really solid. Much of that credit goes to my friend Moira McCormick, who's been writing about Shoes and music for lo, these thirty-odd years, in the Illinois Entertainer and Goldmine and Trouser Press, in Rolling Stone and Billboard. She's been so much more than an editor, and her credit on the book will reflect that. Once you've sat side-by-side with someone, Woodstein-style, there's a whole 'nother dynamic at work.

We've been doing intensive editing for several days, but last night took a night off to hear the other big Shoes news of 2012: their new record, as yet unnamed. We heard the whole thing in rough demo mixes, and though some songs are more complete than others, the whole thing is a gorgeous tapestry, more Stolen Wishes than Propeller. I won't get into specifics here, but if you're a Shoes fan, you're going to be very, very happy quite soon. I know I'm still flying, hours later. (What is it about those harmonies?)

In preparation for launching their new record, Shoes have developed a new website and gotten a Youtube channel (blackvinylshoes), and have an official FB group where news is posted regularly. (if that doesn't work, because it's the link I follow, just go to Facebook and search "Shoes: Official Fan Page")

The book should be out in relatively short order (I kill me!), and the record not long afterward.

2012 looks to be a great year for this long-dormant-but-still-got-it crew: don't miss it!

Rockin' the Van Allen Belt!!!

2012-01-16T00:06:00.001-05:00

Okay, this one has the virtue of being both drolly amusing and musically stupendous.

From 1983, please enjoy the late great Steve Ferguson -- original guitarist of NRBQ -- doing business as Brother Steven and the Humanitarians, with a beyond smoking rendition of "Outer Space Boogie."

I am reliably informed, incidentally, that the performance was originally aired on WTZA (from Tappan Zee to Albany!) Channel 62, Kingston, New York, i.e.; the kind of local UHF station that probably doesn't exist anymore.

The lovely hostess, Tudi Wiggins, was a former soap opera star who reinvented herself as a talk show impresario with "Hudson Valley Today." She died in 2006, age 70.

Ferguson, alas, went to the great jam session in the sky in 2009, where more recently (last week, actually) he was joined by NRBQ drummer Tom Ardolino.

[h/t Matt Wright]

Who Could Have Predicted?????

2012-01-13T10:22:00.006-05:00

The things your can learn via the intertubes -- in this case, via a commenter over at love of my life Charles Pierce's superb political blog on the Esquire magazine site:

Brisbane is, and always has been, a massive twatwaffle. We here in Kansas City had to put up with him at the Star twice. During his first run, when he reviewed Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps album, Brisbane went on a long rant about how terrible it was that Young was glorifying a punk rocker who did heroin and killed his girlfriend. Because, of course, Brisbane didn't know the difference between Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. This level of knowledge has been fastidiously maintained throughout his career.

The Brisbane in question, of course, is Arthur S. Brisbane, the current public editor of the New York Times, who -- after a little kerfuffle this last Thursday -- is now widely conceded to be the stupidest man in American journalism.

Alas, the archives at the Kansas City Star don't go back to the '70s, so I wasn't able to find that Neil Young review. Nonetheless, it's kind of interesting to learn that before Brisbane became a clueless press watchdog he'd had an earlier career as a clueless rock critic.

Friday Moment of Horribly Self-Congratulatory Self-Indulgence

2012-01-13T00:06:00.000-05:00

[Okay, this is the last Terry Reid entry for the forseeable future, guaranteed.

I originally ran this in October of 2007, and I have to say -- of all the stuff I've posted here since NYMary gave me the metaphorical keys to the car, it's pretty much the one I'm happiest to have written. I should also add that the video that occasioned it still strikes me as just as ineffably wonderful as it did at the time. -- S.S.]

Here's the deal: I stumbled across this clip yesterday and I'm finding it difficult to describe just how moving I think it is. A caveat before you watch: The video quality is just barely adequate, but the audio is mostly fine. Listen to it with headphones -- you'll miss the bass, otherwise.

Okay, the backstory: The song of course, is The Kinks' gorgeous "Waterloo Sunset," and the guy singing it is Brit cult figure Terry Reid. If you don't know him, suffice it to say that he's a brilliant songwriter and vocalist (think a more soulful Steve Marriott) who made a couple of wonderful albums in the late 60s and early 70s (you can buy them here) but alas his career never really took off for all the usual reasons. What makes him slightly more than a fondly remembered footnote to history is that Jimmy Page actually offered him the frontman slot in Led Zeppelin; considering that he's also a terrific guitarist, the fact that he punted on the gig probably changed the world in unfathomable ways. Seriously -- can you imagine what Zep might have been like with a better singer and a twin-guitar attack? Wow. In any case, the clip derives from a series of club shows Reid did in L.A. in 2002; the band is led by longtime scenester Waddy Wachtel, and apparently all sorts of 70s and 80s B-list rockers did guest shots at one point or another.

So -- why do I find the vid so emotionally shattering? Well, the song itself has something to do with it, of course. Longtime readers are aware that I am occasionally of the opinion that it's the most beautiful song written in English in the second half of the 20th century. To my ears, it's about somebody who, for whatever reason, has concluded that they will never themselves find love, but who can watch other people -- total strangers, actually -- who have, and has decided that the solace they get from that is ultimately enough. It's a perfectly observed little vignette that manages to be both heartbreaking and strangely uplifting in its generosity of spirit; it's also, probably, the most revealing thing Ray Davies has ever written (and frankly, I can't think of another songwriter who could have pulled it off).

Reid gets all that of course, but he adds a lot more. It's a wonderfully theatrical performance, and at the heart of it is the not so dirty little secret of so much 60s Brit rock, i.e, that as much as the English pop boom owed to blues and r&b, it also owed to that now vanished English institution -- the music hall. The examples are almost endless -- see Sgt. Pepper or the Small Faces "Lazy Sunday" -- and one of the first things that struck me watching the clip is that Reid, singing his heart out up on that cramped little stage, could almost be a tragi-comic version of Archie Rice, the title character from John Osborne's The Entertainer. To really understand that you have to remember that back when Reid was an almost star, he was one of those skinny pretty boy rock god types. Here, of course, he looks like nothing less than one of those slightly puffy second tier expatriate Brit actors at Warner Brothers in the 30s. And he's not posturing like the pop idol he briefly was; instead he's swanning around in that ridiculous ice cream suit like Herbert Marshall in The Letter. It's laughably hokey but it's also quite brave; he's playing the fool and yet it's as if his relationship to the song and the audience and to the whole idea of being a rock star parallels the relationship of the song's narrator to the starcrossed lovers. There's something just enormously compassionate about it, and it just chokes me up.

And don't even get me started on Wachtel's solo or that gorgeous riff he introduces at the end to ride the song out (neither are on the actual Kinks record), or how Reid trails off into wordless falsetto, thus finding an unsuspected link between Davies' teddibly Bitish original and the American street corner romanticism of old Doo Wop and Goffin-King songs.

Alright, I''ve gone on about this for a little too long, and yes, perhaps I'm reading too much into it. In any case, I'm gonna go watch it again, and thanks for stopping by.

PS: I forwarded this to my old pal Eric Boardman (who's a fan and lives in LA), wondering if perhaps he'd been in the audience when it was shot. Just got his reply.

I was not (SIGH) at that show, but have been to Waddy's Monday night jam at The Joint quite often. A great scene as who's-who in rock drop by. Check the concert & club listings as to which bands are in town for the week-end and gamble. For instance, I saw Keith play for an hour, including a few Chuck Berry numbers and a torn-up version of "Down The Road Apiece."

Terry Reid's album with "Horses in a Rain Storm" kept me company summer of '70 along with "After The Gold Rush" and Donovan's "Open Road."

By the way, I sing it, "Eric meets Julie."

Terry! Terri! Terré!

2012-01-12T08:55:00.005-05:00

Okay, I swear to god that I a) really had planned to do a Weekend Listomania tomorrow and b) I was only kidding yesterday about this being Terry Reid Week. Honest.

But it looks like, uh, it is.

By which I mean -- from his 1979 album Rogue Waves, please enjoy old Superlungs and his absolutely astounding cover version of The Ronettes classic "Baby I Love You."

And if that doesn't give you goosebumps, please consult your physician.

I should add, BTW, that I was gonna wonder why this wasn't the hit that finally put Reid on the map until I saw the Rogue Waves album cover.

Seriously -- I was gonna link to it, but it's so fricking hideous I won't inflict it on you; Google it if you're stout of heart. Talk about art direction career
killers....

[h/t FD13NYC]

UPDATE: The Rogue Waves cover.

Yeah, yeah...I know, I said I wouldn't. But I lied.

Jeebus fuck, is that the ugliest and most clueless piece of sub-Spinal Tap shlock you've ever seen in your life?

I should also add that it was issued in 1979. When let's just say that there, uh, were other sorts of things taking place in rock.

Okay, It Turns Out Sonny Bono Wrote More Than One Great Song....

2012-01-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

The other one is "Needles and Pins," obviously.

In any event, this seems to be turning in to Terry Reid week, so here's Reid's quite brilliant 1968 cover of the ahead of its time (Gogol Bordello would have killed to have written it) Cher ironic gypsy/punk single "Bang Bang."

Food for thought: Reid was offered the frontman gig in Led Zeppelin and turned it down, thus altering history in unfathomable -- and in my opinion, unfortunate -- ways.

Speak Now or Forever Keep Your Fricking Trap Shut

2012-01-10T09:21:00.000-05:00

The Terry Reid original of that cult fave song we were discussing yesterday, from his second album (1969)

I still say Reid's version is a) better than the Cheap Trick cover, which I think is bloated and misguided, but b) not as good as the Christopher Milk remake, which has much cooler guitar stuff and much more of a power pop sensibility in terms of the production.

Give The Drummer Some

2012-01-09T14:42:00.004-05:00

Aw hell.

Tom Ardolino, who pounded the pagan skins for NRBQ -- a band that encompassed power pop and just about every other kind of popular and semi-popular music worth listening to -- passed away on Friday at age 56, after a long battle with an unidentified illness. .

He and the rest of the Q's were practically teen idols in Japan, amusingly enough. Here's a live version of their "I Want You" -- recorded in Tokyo in 1996 -- that shows exactly why.

Fuck you, Death. Seriously -- you're beginning to piss me off.

Those Who Can Rock, Do. Those Who Can't, Become Rock Critics.

2012-01-09T01:22:00.002-05:00

Okay, here's some stuff I've been trying to locate for going on four years now, and which I finally stumbled across on the Net yesterday -- thus proving that a) I need a life and b) the Intertubes remain a wondrous thing.

From 1973, then, please enjoy L.A. glam-rock almost contenders Christopher Milk and their surprisingly credible cover version of Terry Reid's cult-favorite "Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace."

I say "surprisingly credible" for reasons that will become obvious in a few moments, but in any case, Christopher Milk were the brainchild of the irrepressible John Mendelssohn [the tall guy with the bad hair second from right in the photo]. He and a few of the other Milks had previously been in an early version of Sparks with the Mael Brothers, but John was mostly known at the time -- late 60s and early 70s -- as one of the most influential (and certainly the funniest) of the reviewers at Rolling Stone; he famously wrote a pan of Led Zeppelin II in which he opined that Jimmy Page was "the absolute number-one heaviest white blues guitarist between 5'4" and 5'8" in the world."

On a more personal note, I should add that John won my heart as an early champion of The Kinks (he compiled and annotated the vastly influential The Kink Kronikles double LP for Reprise) and that his rave RS review of The Move's Shazam quite literally changed my life. I also was privileged to assign him a couple of pieces during my early tenure at The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review; at some point, there was some kind of a problem (as there often was) with my editor-in-chief, and John -- like Paul Nelson, later -- become persona non grata at the rag. But to my knowledge there were no lasting hard feelings, and I've talked to him, quite civilly although occasionally, over the years since.

But I digress.

In any event, the Milk began their career with a 7-inch EP available as a promo-only on United Artists, which I remember as being sort of vaguely sub-Zappa whimsy/mishegass, but they soon got signed to a major label -- Warner/Reprise (where John had connections thanks to his promo work for the Kinks) -- and in 1972 they unleashed their one and only album, the amusingly monikered Some People Will Drink Anything, to a largely uncaring world. The album should have been better than it was, in part due to first-rate production by former Beatles engineer Chris Thomas (who of course went on to make truly great records with everybody from Procol Harum to the Sex Pistols and The Pretenders), but alas it was hampered, perhaps fatally, by wayward songwriting and the fact that Mendelssohn was probably not as memorable a frontman as he most likely saw himself. I actually listened to the LP several times back in the day -- Mendelssohn, after all, was the first rock critic to secure a big time recording contract, and if he could, anything seemed possible (if you catch my drift). But try as I might, I was never able to remember a single song on the album (save for a less amusing than it should have been heavy metal cover/parody of "Locomotion" which may or may not have influenced Grand Funk and Todd Rundgren) after I was done.

Which brings us to "Speak Now," recorded for a 45 in a last ditch attempt (unsuccessful, obviously) to get a hit and prevent Reprise from dropping the band from its roster. Like I said, given everything it's surprisingly credible. In fact, it's one of the Great Lost Singles of the '70s -- perhaps not quite as well sung as Reid's version, but in all other ways, to my surprise, superior both to the original and to the later and more celebrated Cheap Trick cover; clearly it's also the highpoint of the Milk's career in the studio.

Of course, the b-side, a version of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand' done as a send-up of Bob Dylan and Leon Russell, is shall we say less impressive.

I mean, I know it's supposed to be a piss-take, but I find it mostly unlistenable rather than risible. Your mileage may vary, however.

Anyway, if you're curious, you can download -- gratis -- both the United Artists EP and Some People in their entirety over here, although I offer no assurances that you'll thank me if you do.

[h/t The Pipe]

Compare and Contrast

2012-01-06T13:01:00.004-05:00

The incomparable Wondermints -- taking a break from their day job as part of Brian Wilson's touring band -- with a 1999 live in Japan club version of "Open My Eyes."

Not as slick as The Bangles version discussed downstairs...

...but then again, what do you expect? It's fricking live...

Friday Moment of "And Speaking of Gorgeous"....

2012-01-06T00:44:00.001-05:00

Still recovering from the holidays, so no Weekend Listomania today. Have no fear, blah blah blah, the List will be back next week, tanned rested and blah blah blah.

Have I mentioned blah blah blah?

Anyway, in its stead, please enjoy (and you'll thank me, I warrant) once and future power pop goddesses The Bangles and the concluding track from their absolutely wonderful 2010 album Sweetheart of the Sun -- a transplendent remake of the Todd Rundgren/Nazz classic "Open My Eyes."

If memory serves, this hasn't been covered as often as you might expect -- I seem to recall a pretty good live version by The Wondermints on some compilation or other, but that's about it. Back in my feckless youth, I always wanted to play it onstage with somebody, but it was not to be, alas; closest I ever got was a thrown-together club version (with my '80s skinny tie band) of Todd's other genre-defining tune, "Couldn't I Just Tell You."

In any case, I think this update is actually better than the original, thanks to the gals still spine-tingling harmonies and a characteristically flawless production by the great Matthew Sweet. I must confess, however, that I miss original bassist Michael Steele (not the former RNC chairman); I always thought she was the cutest Bangle. Something to do with that aubergine hair, I suspect.

Literary Notes From All Over

2012-01-05T08:34:00.001-05:00

Okay, I'm not gonna make a totally big deal about this -- the book speaks for itself -- but the review the New York Times ran of Kevin Avery's splendid new bio of the late rock critic Paul Nelson two Sunday's ago is really the most reprehensible hatchet job in memory, and I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention it.

The author is David Hajdu, who once wrote a very good biography of Billy Strayhorn, but has apparently gone mental since then.

Here's the opening paragraph.

Paul Nelson, a propagandist committed to some dubious values, had a gift for imbuing disreputable, even dangerous ideas with discomforting grace. You might almost say he was the Leni Riefenstahl of rock criticism. One of the first writers of the post-Elvis era to take the popular music of his time seriously, he never liked black music and thought the blues were overrated, negligible in comparison with the work of overtly cerebral and conspicuously poetic artists of the ’60s and early ’70s like Bob Dylan and Jackson Browne. Nelson revered Browne. He subscribed, both in his writing and in his life, to the macho outcast myths of noir movies and pulp fiction, and he seemed blind to the importance of the great female artists nearly absent in his writing, like Joni Mitchell and Aretha Franklin.

Wow. If you don't write about Joni Mitchell you're as bad as one of Hitler's PR people.

Words fail me on that one, Dave.

This one bothers me too.

Nelson made fans, chief among them other writers and musicians who shared his devotion to the ideology of the white American bad boy. Nick Tosches, in the book’s foreword, calls Nelson “one of the most singularly subtle, eloquent voices of his time.” Bruce Springsteen, about whom Nelson wrote with acuity as well as fervor, tells Avery: “Paul’s writing meant a lot to me emotionally. . . . When you went onstage that night you remembered: Hey, you’re working on a promise to keep, not to just yourself but to him. He put his ass on the line for you in that last story, so you better be good. . . . You felt like: This guy needs this thing as much as I do, needs this music or whatever that spirit is you’re trying to manifest or need to feel manifested.”

Let's just say that anybody who can describe Springsteen as as an ideologue of "the white American bad boy" has not exactly been paying attention.

Look -- I know David Hajdu, and in fact I owe a lot of what I laughingly describe as "my career" to myriad professional kindnesses he's showed me over the years. So I'm loathe to say this, but frankly that review is just shameful. I don't know if David or somebody at the Times had some kind of personal animus against Paul Nelson, but the rest of the essay simply reeks of score-settling, and the Times did itself absolutely no credit by publishing it.

End of rant.

Don't Look Now, But I Think There's a Bustle in Your Hedgerow

2012-01-04T09:39:00.002-05:00

The Doors -- yes, them -- do to "Stairway to Heaven" what perhaps always should have been to done to "Stairway to Heaven."

Okay, it's actually some smartass doing a parody of the Doors doing "Stairway," but it's no more obnoxious than the Frank Zappa version.

Slacker Tuesday

2012-01-03T09:17:00.002-05:00

Apparently I have a bad case of Jimmy Carter-style malaise, or else I'm just a little burned out from the holidays.

Taking a 24-hour break, in other words; posting resumes tomorrow.

Everybody's a Critic

2012-01-02T00:32:00.000-05:00

Troubling news from Friday's edition of The Indiana Star:

INDIANAPOLIS — Oh, say can you . . . sing?

And, more importantly, can you sing it the "right" way -- the way one Indiana lawmaker thinks the national anthem should be sung?

Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville, has introduced a bill that would set specific "performance standards" for singing and playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at any event sponsored by public schools and state universities.

The law also would cover private schools receiving state or local scholarship funds, including vouchers.

Performers would have to sign a contract agreeing to follow the guidelines. Musicians -- whether amateur or professional -- would be fined $25 if it were deemed they failed to meet the appropriate standards.

Fortunately for Jose Feliciano and Roseanne, this can't be enforced retroactively.

Nonetheless, I think somewhere in Hell, this guy...

...is getting really pissed off.

Post-Mortem & Playlist

2012-01-01T06:41:00.010-05:00

Well, that was fun.

A three-hour playlist ended up running 5 hours and change, partly because we worked in some requests and questions from listeners, partly because we got talking about weird corners of things, partly because, well, that list was pretty long to begin with, and it was never going to have fit in three hours even if I had been silent as the tomb. I had included some "maybe" songs: we were having so much fun, we ended up playing them all. And people really seemed to like it!

But because we were between semesters (the only reason there was that kind of empty time to fill), the wireless was dodgy and I wasn't able to record what we were doing, which was a shame.

Anyway, here's the playlist.

Hour 1 (1964-73)
Opening: Fountains of Wayne, “Red Dragon Tattoo”

British Invasion & American Effects

1. The Kinks (Aug 1964): “You Really Got Me”
2. The Who: (Dec 64) “I Can’t Explain”
3. The Beatles: (1966) “And Your Bird Can Sing”

4. Byrds: (1965) “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better”
5. The Cyrkle: (1966): “Red Rubber Ball”
6. Paul Revere & the Raiders: (1967) “Him or Me”
7. The Beach Boys: (1967) “Heroes & Villains”

68-73

8. The Move: (1968): “Fire Brigade”
9. Emitt Rhodes: (1970): “Fresh as a Daisy”
10. Badfinger: (1970): “No Matter What”

11. Big Star: (1972): “When My Baby’s Beside Me” &
12. “September Gurls”
13. Blue Ash: (1973) “Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)”
14. Raspberries: (1972): “Go All the Way”

Hour 2: Keeping the thread alive/ High Power Pop (1973-1980)

The magazines: Ira Robbins (Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press)/ Greg Shaw (Bomp!)

15. Dwight Twilley: (1976) “I’m on Fire” (but I played the single version!)
16. The Nerves: (1976) “Hangin’ On the Telephone”
17. Flashcubes: (1978) “Christi Girl”
18. Cheap Trick: (1978) “Surrender”
19. The Jam (1978): “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight”
20. The Undertones: (1978) “Teenage Kicks”

The Class of 79-80
21. Blondie: (1978-9) “One Way or Another”
22. The Knack: (1979) “My Sharona” &
23. “Good Girls Don’t”
24. 20/20: (1979) “Backyard Guys”
25. Shoes: (1979) “Tomorrow Night” &
26. “Too Late"
27. Paul Collins Beat: (1979) “Rock and Roll Girl” &
28. “I Don’t Fit In”
29. The Records: (1979) “Starry Eyes”

30. The Kings: (1980): “This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide”
31. The Vapors: (1980) “News at Ten”
32. Martha and the Muffins: (1980) “Echo Beach”
33. XTC: (1980) “Respectable Street”
34. Split Enz (1980): “I Got You”

Hour 3
The Critics: Jordan Oakes (Yellow Pills), John Borack (Goldmine), Steve Simels (Stereo Review)

35. Ail Symudiad: (1981) “Garej Paradwys”
36. The dBs: (1981) “Bad Reputation”
37. The Plimsouls: (1983) “A Million Miles Away”
38. Replacements: (1984) “Unsatisfied”
39. Redd Kross: (1987) “McKenzie”
40. Replacements: (1987) “Alex Chilton"
41. The Bangles: (1984) “Hero Takes a Fall”

Alternative Pop
42. Material Issue: (1991) “Diane” &
43. “International Pop Overthrow”
44. Teenage Fanclub: “Star Sign”
45. Matthew Sweet (1991) “Girlfriend”
46. Red Kross: (1993): “Jimmy’s Fantasy”
47. Pixies: (1991) “Head On”

48. Sugar: (1994) “Your Favorite Thing”
49. Matthew Sweet: (1995) "Sick of Myself"
50. Smashing Pumpkins: (1993) “Today”
51. Weezer: (1994) “In the Garage”
52. Guided by Voices: (1995) “Game of Pricks” &
53. “My Valuable Hunting Knife

54. Old 97s: (1999) “Murder (or a Heart Attack)”
55. Rooney: (2007) “I Should’ve Been After You”
56. Rifles: (2008) “Darling Girl”
57. Tinted Windows: (2009) “Kind of a Girl”
58. Fountains of Wayne (2011): “Richie & Ruben”

Some of you were listening: thanks so much! I hope you enjoyed it!

A Happy New Year's Theater of the Mind!!!

2011-12-31T07:58:00.005-05:00

Well, I'm off to Gomorrah-on-the-Hudson, where later this evening I'll be quaffing elitist chardonnay with several satanic socialist Kenyan Muslim pals from Eschaton.

So here's hoping -- and I think I can speak for Kid Charlemagne and NY Mary (who kicked major ass on the radio earlier today, BTW) -- that the New Year brings you nothing but the best. And here's hoping as well that no matter where you end up tonight, you have as much fun as the folks at the New Year's party heard below, adapted for radio (hmm, I'm sensing a theme) from the wonderful 1936 comedy/mystery film After the Thin Man.

Of course, it omits the my favorite line from the movie.

Nora (Myrna Loy) to Nick (William Powell): "Oh Nick, I love you because you know such interesting people."

Power Pop: On the Radio

2011-12-31T05:40:00.005-05:00

So I've become buddies with this terrific guy, Chris Kocher: he writes for the local paper, knows everything about the Kinks, has a radio show on the college station where he plays whatever the heck he feels like.

Over Thanksgiving, a remarkable confluence of bad luck (on his side) and good luck (on mine) threw us together in a car for an extended period, and we had a long talk about the neverending manuscript (I'm promised two solid weeks to finish, starting Monday!), the genre of power pop, and other important matters.

Long story short: this morning, Saturday, Dec 31, I'm going to appear on his radio show doing a three-hour history of power pop. UPDATE: The show is supposed to run 10am-1pm, but we might run a little over.

Stream it here.

He asked me, if I was going to introduce the genre with one song, what I would begin with, so we'll start here:

(Fun fact: I spent the last week not a stone's throw from Utopia Parkway, a real street in real Queens.)

Then it's onto the history: the precursors(Kinks! Beatles! Who! Paul Revere & the Raiders! More!), the lonely souls who kept the thread alive in the early 70's (Emitt Rhodes! Big Star! Blue Ash! Dwight Twilley! More!), the brief flash of commercial success (Nerves! Knack! Jam! 20/20! More!), and the inevitable shift into Alternative (Replacements! Matthew Sweet! Weezer! More!). And finally, by a commodious vicus of recirculation, back to the current scene and environs (Fountains of Wayne!)

As my blogmate is given to say, should be a hot one!

Listen streaming here.

Word is still out on possible podcast/download-ibility. Will let you know.

From the Crypt!

2011-12-31T05:35:00.001-05:00

The great, lost Shoes video, from 1990's Stolen Wishes. It's intended ironically.

Days of Future Passed

2011-12-30T00:00:00.001-05:00

This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the mission statement of the blog you're currently reading, but if you haven't seen it before, it's just so fricking amazing I have to share.

From yesterday, December 29, in 1964: Craftsmen Richard Datin, Vern Sion, Mel Keys, and Volmer Jensen pose outside of Jensen's Los Angeles model shop with the just-completed original 11-foot version of the starship Enterprise.

It's obviously been a long and exhausting project for these guys, but I think -- if you look closely (by which I mean double click on the photo to enlarge it) -- you can sort of tell that they knew EXACTLY what they had wrought.

Great Lost Christmas Records of the '80s (An Occasional Series)

2011-12-29T09:14:00.002-05:00

From 1988, please enjoy the aptly monikered Rudolf's Nightmare and their fast and furious (and furiouser) take on the venerable holiday standard "Silent Night."

This was an indie single and (IMHO) a should-have-been seasonal novelty smash. I seem to recall that Dr. Demento has played it on occasion, but in any case it certainly deserves to be more widely known.

I should add that it was produced by my old chum Lars Hanson, who plays the fabulous Jeff-Beck-on-illegal-stimulants guitar stuff; my bandmate of several thousand years Glen "Bob" Allen can be heard pounding those pagan skins.

Wednesday "I Hate the Holidays" Total Self-Indulgence

2011-12-28T06:25:00.001-05:00

Experiencing massive holiday fatigue at the moment, so please excuse a certain shocking laziness on my part until next week.

And in that spirit, enjoy some band called The Hi-Beams live on the radio in Woodstock in 1995. Featuring some guy whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels on bass and vocals.

Those are my chums Gerry Devine (guitar and vocals), Doug Goldberg (way cool James Burton-ish lead guitar and vocals) and Glen "Bob" Allen (drums); the song is by Gerry. It was the opening track from our indie CD of the same year, but this version just kicks its ass. I also think it's my finest moment as a bass player.

Instrumental Backing Tracks of the Gods: Yet Another Beatles Song Edition

2011-12-27T09:28:00.004-05:00

From the (as it's called) White Album -- of which Cameron Crowe, who makes movies or something, famously said "you still can't buy a better record" -- please enjoy the once and future Fab Four and the instrumental track to George Harrison's astounding "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."

Let's be honest -- there's no way Bernard "Pretty" Purdie played on this one.

[h/t ROTP(Plumber)]

Instrumental Backing Tracks of the Gods: "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" Edition

2011-12-26T00:13:00.001-05:00

From 1964, please enjoy the once and future Fab Four and their classic "I Feel Fine" -- the first example of feedback on a pop record? No man can say! -- sans vocals.

Sing along, won't you?

Two things in particular need to be said about this track. For starters, as you can hear below, it was inspired by a song we know to have been in John Lennon's record collection at the time -- Bobby Parker's wonderful 1961 r&b hit "Watch Your Step."

This has several layers of irony, given that Parker's record is pretty obviously inspired by Ray Charles "What I'd Say." The folk process in action, ladies and germs.

Secondly, in E-Street Band/Conan O'Brien musical director Max Weinberg's wonderful 1984 book The Big Beat -- a collection of interviews with some of the greatest rock drummers of all time -- r&b session guy extraordinaire Bernard "Pretty" Purdy claims that he overdubbed and replaced the original drum tracks on several Beatles records, including "I Feel Fine." When pressed by an incredulous Weinberg, Purdy insists that Brian Epstein brought Beatles master tapes to New York City where the overdubs were done, and that Epstein hushed the whole thing up, thus explaining why Purdie never got the credit he felt he deserved.

This is, to put it charitably, a rather dubious claim for all sorts of reasons, including the fact that the recording technology of the time would have made it extremely difficult to have achieved the substitution with the requisite level of seamlessness.

That said -- if anybody can listen to the mp3 above without concluding that the drum performance is the work of one Richard Starkey M.B.E., I have some bridgefront property in Brooklyn I'd like to discuss with you.

[h/t ROTP(lumber)]

It's the Most Wonderful Day Blah Blah Blah

2011-12-25T00:07:00.000-05:00

I first posted this last year, but it's still my favorite rock Christmas record.

So please enjoy -- from the otherwise forgettable early 90s alt-rock Xmas album A Lump of Coal -- The Odds and a wonderfully Crazy Horse-ish take on "We Three Kings."

Happy Holidays, everybody.

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (For at Least a Week)

2011-12-23T06:15:00.001-05:00

No Listomania this weekend, due to holiday overload, but in its stead, enjoy the greatest Christmas music performance since the actual birth of Jeebus.

And Happy Holidays of whatever persuasion to each and every one of you. Seriously.

"Thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we've passed the audition"

2011-12-22T00:54:00.002-05:00

Rock-and-roll, a very wise person once said, is primarily about moving large black boxes in the back of your car from one side of town to another. That being the case, I have rarely regretted the fact that I have not had an occasion to appear on a stage, playing rock-and-roll, for any reason whatsoever since the mid-90s.

I mean, sheesh -- I'm incredibly old, and my back is fricking killing me.

That said, if I were to feel the need to shlep equipment at any time in the future, it would be for the opportunity to play a song like this one again.

Ladies and germs, please enjoy Gerry Devine and the Hi-Beams -- from the sessions for a live radio broadcast on WDST in Woodstock on August 17th 1995 emanating from the fabulous Tinker Street Cafe -- and their spirited rendition of the fiendishly catchy "That's What I Want."

Featuring some guy whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels on bass (apologies for the flubs) and occasional harmony vocals.

The song itself is by a guy named Mark Johnson, who was a fixture in the Village in the late 70s and early 80s, and who I thought at the time, of all the folks who featured in the Bleecker Street revival of the day -- which included Shawn Colvin, The Smithereens, Chris Whitley, Willie Nile, The Roches and Suzanne Vega -- was by far the most abundantly talented. A natural born songwriter -- Dave Edmunds and Robert Gordon recorded some of his tunes -- and a riveting singer and stage presence, he really should have been a contender; why he wasn't comes down to the usual demons and/or bad luck blah blah blah, but he's still active and pretty much one of the genuine underground legends of power pop. You can find out more about him here; he's also got an official website, which behooves beholding.

As for the above performance, it dawned on me as I was listening to the just made mp3 transfer today that it marked the very last notes the Hi-Beams played together as a band. Thank god it sounds like we were still having fun, to which I can attest -- emphatically -- that we were.

Wails From the Crypt (An Occasional Series)

2011-12-21T00:07:00.001-05:00

Said it before and I'll say it again -- it continually boggles my tiny little mind that there remain very cool albums from the '60s by really cool bands that somehow I've managed to miss for all these years.

Case in point: the LP below by The Nightcaps, who are a primo example -- in Nick Tosches' immortal phrase -- of a bunch of young white punks getting down to the heart of hep.

From the All-Music Guide (courtesy of my old colleague Bruce Eder):

The Nightcaps were one of those great overlooked bands of the late '50s and early '60s. By rights, they deserved the kind of recognition accorded outfits like their Texas compatriots the Bobby Fuller Four, or even Buddy Holly, but somehow they never made it to a national following. Lead singer Billy Joe Shine, rhythm guitarist Gene Haufler, lead guitarist David Swartz, bassist Mario Daboud, and drummer Jack Allday were all high school students in Dallas who started playing record hops and school dances in 1958, and also began writing songs as well. It turned out that they were good in both departments and got a lot of gigs locally. They were also noticed by a local entrepreneur named Tom Brown, who tried and failed to get them signed to RCA Victor and then put the Nightcaps out on his own local Vandan label (it sometimes seems like a quarter of the businessmen in Texas had record labels at one time or another). The Nightcaps' debut single, "Wine Wine Wine" b/w "Nightcap Rock" (the latter owing more than a little bit to "Night Train"), became a hit in Dallas and was heard enough in other parts of the country to get the band offers from locales they'd never played or even visited. When their second single, "Thunderbird" b/w "Ole Jose," released in 1960, was also a hit in Dallas, the group was prevailed upon to record a complete LP, Wine, Wine, Wine.

The Wine, Wine, Wine album was one of the best rock & roll LPs of its era, a solid mix of rockabilly, blues ("I Got My Mojo Working," "Sweet Little Angel," "Mojo Man"), and instrumental rock that still sounds good more than 40 years later. Apart from the excellence of Shine's singing and the band's musicianship -- David Swartz was a first-rate blues player, his virtuosity and feeling for the music showcased on the instrumental "Tough That's All" -- was the one major addition to their lineup, jazz saxman John Hardee, who had returned to his native Texas by then and was teaching at around the time that the Nightcaps needed a reed man. Their album never got anywhere near charting, but it was good enough to be pirated around the country and was a sufficiently impressive showcase for the Nightcaps that they were soon getting bookings across the south. The British Invasion should have doomed them, but it proved little more than a slight interruption of momentum and broke their string of steady local radio play for a short time -- the Nightcaps proved enough of a going enterprise to last right through the 1960s, past the British Invasion and through numerous lineup changes. At one point, Gary Mears of the Dallas-based Original Casuals passed through the ranks of the group.

During this period, they became a major influence on such future luminaries as Jimmie Vaughan -- who apparently learned every song off the Nightcaps' LP -- and his younger brother, Stevie Ray Vaughan, who thought "Wine, Wine, Wine" was just a great record, and ZZ Top. Vaughan would later record "Thunderbird," and ZZ Top used it to open their Fandango album. Ultimately, advancing maturity (as much a killer to a rock & roll career as drugs, alcohol, etc.), marriage, and weariness led the members into regular jobs and professions, but by all account, Billy Joe Shine was still fronting a version of the Nightcaps on weekends in the 1990s and is still a well-known musical figure in and around Dallas.

Here's their version of "Got My Mojo Working" from the aforementioned LP.

Remember -- this was three years before the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, Butterfield Blues Band, et al, made this sort of thing fashionable.

In any case, you can download the entire album here. It's a rip from vinyl, alas, but more than serviceable.

Great Lost Singles of the '90s (An Occasional Series)

2011-12-20T09:23:00.000-05:00

From 1996 and their self-titled indie CD, please enjoy The Prostitutes and their demonically catchy ode to la vie enfer, the astounding "Down Below."

As you can hear, these guys perfected a pretty much flawless admixture of the amusingly portentous side of The Doors and the power pop smarts of The Smithereens, which is something that wouldn't have struck me as remotely feasible before I heard them. It shouldn't work, but goshdarnit it does, and brilliantly.

I should also add that they were a classic downtown New York City rock band in the great tradition of The Velvet Underground and The Heartbreakers, and speaking as somebody lucky enough to have seen them perform at several low dives over the years, I can tell you that they had charisma to burn, the hearts of bruised romantics (if you listened carefully), great songwriting chops, and -- unlike later posers like The Strokes -- an air of genuine danger about them.

Know what I'm saying, girls?

In any case, I love just about everything about "Down Below" -- the snap of Jonnie Miles' drums, the cool Kinks-ish guitars, the sly Morrison-esque leer of the vocals by Frank Newberry, and the totally blueswailing harmonica that snakes its way into the mix towards the end (courtesy of guest artiste Jon Paris). The damn thing should have should have been a huge fricking hit, IMHO, and frankly, I think if it was re-released today it still could be.

The Secrets of the Universe (An Occasional Series)

2011-12-19T00:03:00.001-05:00

The opening chord of "A Hard Day's Night," deconstructed...

...via Randy Bachman and Giles (Son of George) Martin.

According to at least one reference book I checked, there's a George Martin piano chord on the original recording somewhere, too.

But in any case, as Bachman says -- isn't that fantastic? I mean, seriously -- after the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth, is there a more instantly and universally recognizable intro to a piece of music anywhere? I think not.

[h/t jac, satyrical]

Weekend Listomania (Special Familiarity Breeds Contempt Audio/Video Edition)

2011-12-16T07:10:00.001-05:00

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental Michelle-ma-belle Fah Lo Suee and I are off to (insert joke here).

[Seriously, I'm drawing a blank on the traditional gag this week, so consider this an audience participation sort of thing. Thank you in advance for your diligence in this regard. -- Ed.].

That being the case, and because -- if all goes well -- things will be a little quiet around here until Monday, here's a fun and hopefully thought provoking little project to help you wile away the idle hours:

Beatles Song You Wouldn't Totally Hate to Hear in a New Cover Version By Somebody!!!

No arbitrary rules whatsoever, you're welcome very much, but I should mention that this theme was inspired by a conversation I had online last week with somebody who said, and I'm paraphrasing, "You know, I like the Beatles and their music, but frankly I've heard every one of those songs so often I really have no interest in hearing any of them again ever."

To which I can only add that, although I disagree, I know the feeling. In fact, I've been saying publically, since the late 70s at least, that if I'd been exposed to Bach's Mass in B-Minor as often as I've heard Sgt. Pepper, I probably wouldn't want to encounter that sublime masterpiece again either.

And my totally top of my head Top Five is/are:

5.Long Long Long

Arguably the most obscure/unloved song on the White Album, and I find it utterly haunting nonetheless. Come to think of it, it's one of my top five George songs.

4. Misery

"It's gonna be a drag..." Words fail me, except to say that this one remains my favorite of their early Brill Building emulations.

3. Sexy Sadie

John's falsetto at the end of this is possibly the all-time greatest use of that vocal device on a pop record, and I say that knowing full well that both Smokey Robinson and Brian Wilson remain alive.

2. I Saw Her Standing There

Teenage lust, perfectly expressed and embodied, and thus timeless.

And the Numero Uno recycled fab-fourness of all time would simply have to be somebody or other's cover of...

1. Every Little Thing

John at his simultaneously pop-iest and most soulful, plus that great guitar riff. Seriously, I think it would be all but impossible to do a bad remake of this, although I don't want to encourage Justin Bieber to actually try.

Alrighty then -- what would your choices be? [Bonus points if you posit the artist(s) who could plausibly do the song's justice.]

An Early (and Totally Drummer-Driven) Clue to the New Direction!

2011-12-15T09:05:00.000-05:00

From sometime in the late 80s, please enjoy Keith Richards and the X-Pensive Winos live with John and Paul's "I Wanna Be Your Man."

Words fail me, except that this one kicks astoundingly major ass (and kudos to the great Steve Jordan on those pagan skins, where he is -- IMHO -- primarily responsible for the level of the astoundingly major kick-assedness). You will, of course, note the interesting irony that Keith and the boys are NOT playing the arrangement of the song that provided the embryonic Rolling Stones with their first hit single, but instead the poppier Beatles arrangement.

In any case, as always, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded to the first reader who gleans its relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.

[h/t Sal Nunziato]

Literary Notes From the Hood

2011-12-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

So last night I had the great pleasure of hearing Kevin Avery, author of Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, do a reading/discussion from/of the book at a local indie book store. I raved about Everything in these precincts a few months ago, but it's finally out officially -- you can order it from Amazon over here -- and again, I can't recommend it highly enough. And no, it's not because I knew its subject professionally and am quoted, briefly, in the bio section of the book about said professional relationship.

The fact is that Paul Nelson was one of the handful of people who have scribbled about rock-and-roll over the years who might be described as a genuinely important writer, regardless of the (some would say) transience of much of his subject matter. In that regard, while re-reading Everything I was struck by how little any of it has dated; the various reviews and think pieces Avery has anthologized are as passionate, perceptive and hilarious as they seemed back in the day, and given that most of them have been out of print since forever (in fact, almost all the work collected here has never been between hardcovers) this is a major piece of cultural exhumation at the very least. I should add that some of the previously unpublished pieces are themselves worth the price of admission; my favorite is Paul's account of his tenure as a publicist and then an A&R guy at Mercury Records in the early 70s which is, perhaps, the most scabrously funny and dead-on accurate account of the inner workings of the music business as you will ever be appalled to read.

So why am I quoted in the book? Therein lies, as you might have guessed, a tale, the short version of which goes like this.

In early 1976, while toiling at the Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review, I was looking for somebody cool to write about Patti Smith's debut masterpiece (IMHO) Horses. I would have written it myself, but I had been contributing adulatory fanboy gush about Smith to SR for some months previously, and it occurred to me that Paul, who had done a couple of reviews for the mag over the years, would be the perfect guy for the assignment, not least of which because he was known for having been one of the earliest and most eloquent supporters of Patti's muse Bob Dylan at the time he went electric. Paul readily consented to do the piece for me; he also surprised me by saying that he really hated the record, but from my perspective that made him an even more interesting choice. In any case, the review came in a few weeks later, and it was -- not to my surprise -- absolutely brilliant (although I disagreed with almost everything in it).

Here's how it appeared in the April issue of the mag; click on it a couple of times and it should enlarge enough to be readable...

....and this final paragraph not only sums it up, but is so fricking gorgeous that it (still) makes me furious that I'll never write anything as good.

Poetry, I suppose, is the part which defies translation. Patti Smith is a good poet, but the best of her work seems -- I've struggled hard to characterize it -- pointlessly pregnant. Horses is too pregnant to be taken seriously, yet it is surely not funny nor meant to be. It is pregnant past the point of aesthetic return, so heavy at times that it cannot make the simplest movements with grace. And when those huge coils of self-important surrealism unwind aggressively toward me, I find it urgent to look for a way out of this place. I've been here before, and it hasn't aged well. Razorblade Alley and Eyeball Lane still look the same, and over there on Arcane Avenue at the Dying Swan Motel and Piano Shop, where only the upper cases hang out, they still measure a man by the width of his donkey and the height of the A in his Art. And you never could get a good meal there anyway. In the early Sixties, I had a friend on Philosopher's Row; he used to play all his "serious" records in a dark room lighted only by black and purple light bulbs and iridescent art. Incense burned. Nonsense reigned. He would have loved Horses.

The sad postscript here -- and the reason I'm quoted in the bio -- is that a few weeks after this appeared, my boss called me into his office to inform me (angrily) that he'd learned that the review had appeared, a month earlier, in Boston's Real Paper in all but identical form; apparently Paul had no ethical problems about selling the same piece twice. Needless to say, I was embarrassed and personally disappointed. I got over it, of course, and my relations with Paul remained cordial when I would subsequently bump into him at clubs and such, but I wasn't able to use him as a reviewer after that, which I regretted a lot.

Ah well. I should add that Avery has a companion book out, a collection of previously unpublished early 80s interviews Nelson did with Clint Eastwood, which you can also order from Amazon and which is a smashing read in its own right.

I should also add that the aforementioned indie book store -- The BookCourt -- is around the corner from the Brooklyn home of a certain shady dame of my acquaintance, in what I consider, on careful reflection after lo these many years, to be the greatest neighborhood in urban America ever.

Or as I like to call it -- Cobble Hill: Where All Your Shit's in Walking Distance©.

"All they do is give awards in this town...Best Fascist Dictator: Adolf Hitler."

2011-12-13T08:49:00.003-05:00

Just got finished submitting my Top Ten Albums of the Year list to the Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review, along with the rest of the reviewers on the masthead. The issue with the results won't be out till next year, but here's a hint at what album made the top of my list.

Well, it's more than a hint, obviously. And also not much of a surprise...

Annals of Career Suicide (An Occasional Series)

2011-12-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

Ever watch something and go "You gotta be fucking kidding me"?

Seriously -- forget the ripped t-shirt/crawling across the floor Flashdance stuff. But the skipping/aerobics?/wrist-waving moves Squier does here are SOOO sexy I can't imagine why guys all over the country aren't trying to do them in front of their bedroom mirrors to this very day.

Okay, actually I can. Two words: Ed Grimley.

And this, from Squier's Wiki entry, is particularly delicious:

"Rock Me Tonite" was Squier's biggest Pop hit. It reached #15 on Billboard's Hot 100, as well as #1 on the Album Rock Tracks chart in late 1984. However, the video for the track (directed by Kenny Ortega), which shows Squier dancing around a bedroom in a pink tank top, was named by Video GaGa as one of "The worst videos of all time". On the VH1 show Ultimate Albums (Def Leppard's "Pyromania" episode), Squier blamed the end of his career as a chart-topping rocker on the release of the "Rock Me Tonite" video.

Heh.

[h/t Laura G.]

Your Weekend Moment of Zen

2011-12-10T10:04:00.002-05:00

Apparently, and against my better judgement, I'm gonna have to see the Ferrelly Brothers' forthcoming The Three Stooges movie.

I should add that this is largely because the nun -- played by Larry David(!) -- is named Sister Mary Mengele.

I also have a theory of Devo-lution about this. To wit:

1. 60s kids rediscovered The Marx Brothers.

2. 70s kids rediscovered The Three Stooges.

3. 80s kids rediscovered The Brady Bunch.

I rest my case.

I Got Nothing...

2011-12-09T00:20:00.002-05:00

Seriously. I'm completely at a loss today after a fairly busy and stressful week.

Oh, except for this video clip -- which actually seems to be a 15-year-old Mick Jagger doing rock climbing or something.

Talk amongst yourselves or something.

[h/t Steve Schwartz]

Instrumental Backing Tracks of the Gods (An Occasional Series): Folk You!

2011-12-08T09:11:00.004-05:00

No Listomania clue today, for the simple reason that it's been a crazy week and I didn't have time to get a Listomania together. Rest assured, however, that the List will return next week, in fighting trim.

Also, that intertube radio show appearance I made on Tuesday is now archived over at Area24; when you get there, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Lost at Sea for December 6th. Pretty funny stuff, I think, and some interesting music gets played as well.

And finally, just because I'm that kind of guy, here's something quite gorgeous -- the almost final take of the instrumental track to The Byrds' epochal recording of "Mr. Tambourine Man" from 1965. After this was released, the world became a seriously different place, and that's actually not hyperbole.

Said it before and I'll say it again -- a Rickenbacker electric 12-string guitar, well-played, is the most beautiful sound occurring in nature.

It Came From Nashville!!!

2011-12-07T07:53:00.000-05:00

You know, as much as I loved Jason and the Scorchers, my favorite pioneering indie-rock band from Music City U.S.A. was....The White Animals.

And here they are, on their hometown local TV in 1982 -- a clip I did not know existed until yesterday -- with a great song about "Girls."

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

I wrote that blurb back in 2000, 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.

I should add -- as I suggested in the blurb -- that they blew my band off the stage. In the nicest and most supportive way possible.

[h/t Ray Crabtree]

Video Gave the Radio Star a Wedgie

2011-12-06T09:30:00.004-05:00

Shameless self-promotion: I'm gonna be on an intertube radio show this evening. Hosted by my old chum Allan Rosenberg.

You can can hear it over at Area24Radio.com. Once you get there, click on Lost at Sea.

Today's show streams live between 5-7pm, and I'm informed that if you miss it -- and frankly, what kind of a schween would you be if you did? -- that it will be archived at the site no later than Thursday.

In any case, we'll be playing whatever the hell tickles my fancy -- this is free-form radio, as you remember it in your ~~nightmares~~ dreams -- and I hope I don't make a complete buffoon of myself.

The Way They Weren't

2011-12-05T00:09:00.001-05:00

So I was going through some of my old clippings the other day when I chanced across this (I think) amusing little interview with a bunch of sci-fi novelists, from the cyberpunk school, that I did in 1987 (on the occasion of the publication of an anthology called Mirrorshades).

If you click on the image above you can enlarge it to the point where you can actually read the piece, but the reason I'm bringing it up is because Bruce Sterling -- one of the cyberpunks in question -- went on to write a really remarkable short story a few years later, one of whose protagonists was World's Greatest Rock Critic© and star of last week's Some Girls marathon Lester Bangs.

In case you're wondering, the other protagonist of the story was a real-life underground cartoonist named Dori Seda...

...who also died young (and around the same time as Lester). And I can say, pretty much unequivocably, that even if you know nothing of Bangs or Seda (and I must admit I hadn't heard of her at the time I first read the story) you'll find Sterling's alternate universe recounting of the shared history they actually never had both very funny, very savvy about the workings of pop culture, and ultimately very moving.

You can download a PDF of Dori Bangs at the link here, and I think you'll be glad you did.

Weekend Listomania (Special Some Girls Week Finale Edition)

2011-12-02T00:03:00.000-05:00

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental Taco Belle of the Ball Fah Lo Suee and I are off to beautiful London, England where we'll be participating in the very first protest of the Occupy Joanna Lumley's Knickers! movement. Hopefully, Joanna will be home at the time.

That being the case, and because things are doubtless going to be traditionally quiet around here for a bit, here's a hopefully fun and definitely relevant little project for us all to contemplate:

Best or Worst Rolling Stones Track -- Cover Version or Original Song -- That was NEVER Released as a Single!

No arbitrary rules whatsoever, you're welcome very much.

And my totally top of my head Top Five is/are:

5. She Said Yeah (from December's Children)

An r&b cover (originally recorded by Larry Williams as the b-side of "Dizzy Miss Lizzie") rendered at a breathless 1:40 in length. And with Keith's fabulous speed-of-light guitar solo.

4. New Faces (from Voodoo Lounge)

An embarrassingly self-conscious attempt to invoke a "Lady Jane" vibe, and one of the more cringe-worthy songs from perhaps the Stones most best forgotten album.

3. Downtown Suzie (from Metamorphosis)

Bill Wyman, it should be noted, is the only Rolling Stone who ever had a single ("In Another Land") released under his own name during the band's 60s heyday. In any case, this quasi-music hall charmer -- which first showed up on a mid-70s outtakes collection -- proves he should have written more.

2. Miss Amanda Jones (from Between the Buttons)

Said it before and I'll say it again -- one of their best ever guitar rockers, and still fresh as paint. And twice as infectious.

And the Numero Uno wasn't-ever-a-45-(what's a 45?) of them all simply has to be...

1. Dancing With Mr. D (from Goat's Head Soup)

This one actually makes my best and worst simultaneously. On the one hand, as Lester Bangs famously said at the time, it's about exactly what you hope it isn't about. On the other, that fricking riff is to die for.

Alrighty then -- what would your choices be?

Some Girls Week: A Quite Remarkably Out of Tune Early Clue to the New Direction

2011-12-01T08:54:00.000-05:00

From 1966, and the December's Children LP, please enjoy the Rolling Stones and the Jagger-Richard 12-string pop beauty "The Singer Not the Song."

I love this song with a white-hot passion, fully cognizant that it is quite as ridiculous on some levels as Greil Marcus observed in that review of Some Girls I referenced yesterday. In fact, I actually used to sing this with a couple of my old bands back in the 70s. Okay, to be scrupulously honest it might be more accurate to say that I used to yowl this, although that's a subject for another occasion.

That said, until I found this clip on YouTube recently, I had no idea whatsoever it had ever been released as a single.

In any case, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded to the first reader who gleans its relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.

Some Girls Week: If You Can't Say Something Nice....

2011-11-30T08:47:00.002-05:00

Okay, it's now considered a classic by most folks, but the other day, as I was researching the original reception to Some Girls, I recalled that that I had given an assignment to write about the album to Lester Bangs (i.e. Greatest Rock Critic of All Time©).

Figuring he would dig it.

Boy, was I wrong.

From the August 1978 issue of (The Magazine Formerly Known as) Stereo Review:

After the collage of fluff that was Black and Blue, I thought that nothing could get me interested in the Stones again, but I just had to review Some Girls. Hearing "Miss You" and "Far Away Eyes" on the radio, I marveled at how these guys could actually manage to fit so much contempt for so many -- Stones fans, disco fans, Latin women, country audiences -- onto one little single. The album cover of this one, with its take-off on Frederick's of Hollywood drag-queen sleaze, shows quite explicitly not only what the Stones think of women, but also what they think of themselves; they consider both to be cheap, tawdry trash, good only for a quick transient kick. It's fitting that they should end this way (and though it's protracted beyond belief, the end is certainly coming) because anyone who heaps as much contempt on as many people as the Stones have these past few years must inevitably come to an even greater contempt for themselves. Some Girls is supremely indicative of what "decadence" is really about; passivity and boredom.

Almost all the songs here are supposedly about women or the Stones' feelings towards them, yet not one depicts a real relationship or any genuine emotion other than greed. What, for instance, is "Miss You" about? Where is the expression of true longing, the lineaments of true love? Mick seems to be singing from some indifferent twilight, occasionally emerging just long enough to embarrass himself with a limp display of heavy vocal calisthenics: "People think I'm craaaaazzzzzy...."

The title track is perhaps the most disgusting song of all in its attitude towards women -- or perhaps toward other humans in general. If empathy is too much to expect, one might at least ask for some insight, and "Some girls take the shirt off my back/And leave me with a lethal dose" just doesn't quite fill the bill. What it really comes down to is a matter of what portion of humanity can be bought and sold.

Money is a crucial factor in "Beast of Burden," which may be why what might have been a worthwhile song about the difficulties of love degenerates so quickly into cliché: "You can put me out on the street/Put me out with no shoes upon my feet." And are those imitation Bee Gees falsetto chirpings that we hear in the bridge? The Stones have always followed the trends of the day, but once they took them up as a challenge. Now they just tag along after them meekly, melding them with those Same Old Stones Riffs and occasional bits looted from other (usually black) sources. "Respectable," for instance, is "All Down the Line"/"Silver Train" stapled to an old Isley Brothers cop. It's almost fun, except that you've heard it all before. Meanwhile, Keith Richards and Ron Wood play guitar solos. They play a lot of guitar solos on this album, on all kinds of guitars. I'm told that between the two of them, they own hundreds, and I think that's very nice for them. But why do they play with such faraway hands?

"Just My Imagination" is just inferior, though comparing it with the Temptations original does remind you of what, besides true gut-bucket kick, has been missing from the Stones music for a long time; heart. Even those who would say that the Stones never had much heart in the first place (which I don't believe) would have to give the band that used to stand inside these shells credit for honesty. And there are two songs here that sound like they might be about halfway honest. Keith's "Before They Make Me Run" suggests that he might have a future in drugged out country-rock. This is the only song on the album that's about an instantly recognizable real-life situation -- Keith's recent Canadian drug bust. There's a similar sort of tentative tiptoe towards self-recognition, on Mick's part this time, in "Shattered," but any real soul-searching is averted through pretentious quasi-sociological jottings: "Rats on the West Side, bedbugs uptown...." Like "When the Whip Comes Down," "Shattered" could be in part about a male hustler, but seen without compassion (something even male hustlers, perhaps especially male hustlers, deserve) or even understanding.

Supposedly the Stones selected the ten tracks here from about eighty recorded in Paris at the same time. A guitarist friend remarked cynically the other day that now they can just sit back and keep releasing the rest for the next five years. If these are really the best of the bunch, I would invite you to join me in responding to such a gesture of contempt in kind; by sitting back and not buying any more of this drivel, for who has really bought it this time is the Stones themselves.-- Lester Bangs

I should add that I totally disagreed with Lester's take on the album at the time -- and still do -- but that I was tickled pink to run such a scabrous review in the pages of SR, for all sorts of reasons.

I should also add that it almost didn't run at all, because my bosses thought it was just too negative. Also actionable -- one of the lines I was forced to cut (over my strenuous objection) was Lester's description of Jagger as "a jaded old catamite."

Heh

In any case, I much preferred the review by living secular saint Greil Marcus in the Village Voice. Particularly these paragraphs.

When one returns to 12 X 5, or December's Children or The Rolling Stones Now, the flaws are obvious; guitars are out of tune, Mick is flat, the lyrics are often corny, tempos are blown. By any sensible standard, "The Singer Not the Song" is a ludicrous performance; a cliched and clumsy guitar line, hopelessly strained singing on the choruses. And yet, it can still move a listener deeply -- maybe even more deeply -- than it ever did. That, after all, is why you can't turn rock-and-roll into sheet music. It may be that some years from now, when the novelty has worn off, the Stones' "Just My Imagination" will seem as shoddy as some people already think it is; it may be that it will still be breaking hearts.

As for the concept of Some Girls -- what it all means, how it makes culture out of music or history out of those who hear it -- the concept of Some Girls is the idea of the Rolling Stones, fifteen years after they came to our attention with hot new versions of songs by Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, making an album as surprising as any they have put their name on.

Seriously -- the Stones version of "Imagination" has been breaking my tiny heart for more than three decades now. And I think Lester would have come around to it eventually.

Some Girls Week: Remixes of the Gods

2011-11-29T09:03:00.001-05:00

Okay, ladies and germs, please enjoy one of the rarest -- and certainly one of the most exciting -- Rolling Stones rarities of them all.

From 1978, it's the Bob Clearmountain remix of the great Some Girls track "Before They Make Me Run." Which kicks the album version's ass bigtime.

How rare is this? Pretty damned rare; it was released as a limited edition 45 for critics and press only (with that fabulous Annie Leibovitz photo of Keith as the picture sleeve) and over the years it's pretty much disappeared down the memory hole. I'd been trying to find a copy since the old Napster days, with no success, until I stumbled across it at a torrent site in 2009.

In any case, I think it's absolutely unconscionable that nobody in the Stones camp figured that this should have been the very first thing on that otherwise fabulous disc of bonus stuff on the Some Girls deluxe edition. I mean, we're talking a much better edit and an overall level of sonic sheen that's quite revelatory.

True story: A few months before I found the thing online, I e-mailed Bob Clearmountain himself (he has a website, obviously) and asked if there was any chance he could spare an mp3 of this magnum opus. I assured him that I wasn't going to bootleg it or anything, but that I simply wanted to have a copy for my personal listening pleasure.

He got back to me right away -- nice guy -- but his answer was "Sorry, Steve -- to be honest, I have absolutely no recollection of ever having done the record."

[h/t Gummo]

Some Girls Week: Monday Battle of the Bands

2011-11-28T00:02:00.001-05:00

[Yes, this is the beginning of five days of Rolling Stones-related stuff, inspired by the fact that I shnorred a promo copy of the quite excellent -- with cavils, which I will note as the week progresses -- new deluxe edition of the band's last classic of the 70s. You're welcome. -- Ed.]

Beatles or Stones -- that was the existential dilemma my generation faced. (Bill Clinton chose Elvis Presley, BTW, which is why I never trusted that rat bastard from day one. But I digress.)

So -- let's have it out on a level playing field.

From 1964, and a session with the BBC, here's the Fab Four -- John singing lead -- with a smokin' version of Chuck Berry's venerable "Carol.

And from just about the same time, here are the other guys on The Mike Douglas Show with a got-live-if-you-want-it version of the very same song.

Discuss.

Review: Vegas with Randolph, Above the Blue

2011-11-25T07:22:00.004-05:00

As the weather cools and I realize that holy-crap-fall-is-over-and-I-haven't-accomplished-a-thing, I'm looking back on what I've been listening to over the fall and see that, overwhelmingly, it's centered on 2 CDs: the breathtaking Sky Full of Holes, and Vegas with Randloph's Above the Blue.

I've obsessed about VWR here before, and all the songs mentioned here are indeed on the CD, which was released at the end of the summer.

But Above the Blue is a lot more than that: the title itself references a conscious decision to turn away from the traditional melancholy of power pop (see: Shoes, no The), and the title track is a soaring anthem, or as much of an anthem as power pop can have:

The CD is, somewhat ironically, set up like an old-school vinyl album, with a clear side 1 and side 2. Side one consists of, say, the first ten songs: "The Better Part;" "Above the Blue" (above); "Some Time to Live;" the catchy commuter love song "Supergirl;" a duet with Liverpool songstress Maxi Dunn, "The Lesser Fool;" "She Does it for Me" (the only one of these without a YouTube accompaniment; more on that below); "Summertime," which makes me want to drive around in a convertible in a beach town (something, I hasten to add, I have never done, but I imagine it feels just like this song); the totally understandable chronicle of obsession, "Marisa" (that's Marisa Tomei, for those of you playing along at home); the seasonally-appropriate, take-the-guesswork-out-of-it "Lagavulin for Christmas" (below); and the ethereal, beautiful "Tree Song," which reminds me uncannily of "India Song," and if someone could explain why, I'd be grateful. (Title? Feel? Unusual instrumentation (orchestrated by Win Oudijk)? All of the above?)

If we define the parameters of power pop as being, roughly, Big Star on one end and the Ramones on the other (and I'd claim both of them, though there's obviously a ton of debate to have on the relative positioning) then VWR really runs the gamut, with "Tree Song" on one end and "Some Time to Live" on the other. But they're not just adhering to the formula, there are some genuinely clever lyrical moves in some of these songs--the kind of "minutiae of life" Gummo mentioned last time we talked about this band--and some terrific, understated stylistic flourishes as well. (For example, you know that moment in Fountains of Wayne's "Mexican Wine," at the end of the first verse, where Chris Collingwood says, almost under his breath, "Yep"? Well, in VWR's "Supergirl," there's a similar moment when, blown away by the hot girl in the next car, left behind at a stoplight, John Ratts whispers a single, awed "Damn." I love that kind of thing.)

What I take to be side two of the CD aspires to an almost operatic scope, in the mode of--okay, I'll go there--side two of Abbey Road. They call it "Double Play," the six songs vary in length from :30 ("Alone") to 3:09 ("Even Though"), and all together tell the story of a far-from-perfect relationship and its aftermath. (One particularly vivid moment occurs in "End of the Party," where the obviously ambivalent, but stoically-trying-to-talk-himself-into-it protagonist, says "you've got something I can't deny/ you get the quarter in the cup every single time." I've been at that party; have you?) It's kind of unusual in power pop, unless you're say, Guided by Voices, in which case you just let the fragments fly. This is a little more cohesive than GBV tends to be. And though "Double Play" is not completely successful, it's ambitious and interesting, and worth a bunch of listenings.

I saw and met VWR at the beginning of this month, when they played IPO in New York. They were really tight, pulling off harmonies completely without monitors and playing a taut, intense set. Live, Brock Harris's guitar rips even more than it does on the recordings, and his liberal use of the pick-slide touches my geeky little heart. Nice guys, too.

A completely nuts-and-bolts observation: VWR seems to have really mastered the idea of using the tools of the web for marketing purposes. Note that pretty much all of the songs on Above the Blue have YouTube videos: that's what you need now, to make sure that people can link you easily. In addition, VWR have come up with an online press kit: the same set of interviews that used to be sent out with record albums in a three- or four-page flyer. Pretty nifty. Are these common? I've only seen a couple of them.

And to inaugurate the holiday season, I'll close by mentioning VWR's Christmas song, "Lagavulin for Christmas," which answers the perennial conundrum with the simplest answer possible: single-malt Scotch.

In short, Above the Blue is highly recommended. Enjoy it with your Langavulin!

Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Weekend Listomania

2011-11-25T00:27:00.000-05:00

Hey -- it's the Thanksgiving weekend, and I pretty much had my hands full the last day or two getting a holiday dinner together for my Maternal Unit. So no Listomania today, but have no fear -- the List will return next week, all tanned, rested and ready.

But it in its stead, and given some of the current events of the last couple of weeks, please enjoy -- along with your leftover turkey and stuff -- The Call and "When the Walls Came Down."

Still the best political/protest rock record ever made, IMHO. Certainly the catchiest and the most sadly prescient, in the sense that's it's as depressingly relevant in 2011 as it was when it was recorded in 1983. And certainly the one that occasioned the most exciting video.

Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down
They'd all been warned
And the walls came down

They stood there laughing
They're not laughing anymore
The walls came down

Sanctuary fades, congregation splits
Nightly military raids, the congregation splits
It's a song of assassins, ringin' in your ears
We got terrorists thinking, playing on fears

Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down
They'd all been warned
But the walls came down

I don't think there are any Russians
And there ain't no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playin' with tanks

Okay, the reference to the Russians dates it a bit, but other than that....

And yes, the mad professor on keyboards is Garth Hudson.

Many Happy Returns!

2011-11-24T07:40:00.004-05:00

We at Power Pop would like to wish a very happy birthday to John Murphy of Shoes!

Murphy was a scrawny, quiet kid with killer art skills and a massive record collection (which he shared with his younger brother) when the guy sitting next to him in sophomore English, a tall jock he didn't know named Gary Klebe, looked over his shoulder and saw the caricature he was absent-mindedly drawing of the teacher. Gary asked him if he wanted to draw pictures for a satirical high-school magazine he and some of his friends were putting together, and John agreed. Nothing came of it immediately, but when junior year began, Gary walked up to John and handed him a copy of the magazine, Lime.

The friendship between the two blossomed, and by the time they were headed to college, they'd decided to have an imaginary band. They had a name, Shoes, and they drew comics to each other fantasizing about how famous they'd be, though they didn't have instruments, let alone any idea how to play them. An idea it stayed, until Jeff, John's younger brother, bought himself a TEAC-3340S four-track recorder. He needed a band to learn how to use it, and so John and Gary buckled down and actually tried to figure out how to play for Jeff, and with him, and the three moved forward together.

Now, John and his bandmates are finishing up an

as-yet-untitled record

(link goes to their new website), due sometime next year, probably about the same time I finally get my book, Boys Don't Lie, a History of Shoes, out into the world. It's the first new Shoes music in 17 years, and they're giddy as hell about it, I can tell you that much. (No, I haven't heard anything, in case you're wondering, but I heard plenty about it.)

Over the last two years, I've logged a lot of time with John Murphy, and he's a warm, funny guy I like a lot. Warmest greetings from all of us here to him.

And Speaking of Unsettling....

2011-11-23T10:18:00.003-05:00

Saw Ray Davies in concert over the weekend -- a lovely show, including the stuff with the Dessoff Choir, which worked far better than I had frankly expected it to. And of course, the "and then I wrote..." format isn't really hard to take when the person who's singing the songs has the sort of back catalog that Ray has.

But here's a song of his -- from the early 80s -- that he didn't do on Sunday, and I'm kind of glad. "Art Lover."

Which is not to say that it isn't a great song -- it is. But it's either about a pedophile or a divorced dad who's being prevented from seeing the young daughter he adores by a horrid ex-wife, which is to say that it's kind of heartbreaking and kind of creepy at the same time. In fact, its deliberately calibrated ambiguity is probably even more fine-tuned than Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and Ray's own "Lola" combined.

It's also infernally catchy, with -- given the aforementioned thematic ambiguity -- an emphasis on the infernally.

And Speaking of Gorgeous....

2011-11-22T00:12:00.002-05:00

From 1968 and German television, please enjoy Procol Harum's original classic lineup with the quite astonishing "Quite Rightly So."

This is by far the best video clip I've ever seen of the original 5-piece PH, and I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say they're actually playing live, given the differences between Gary Brooker's vocals and Robin Trower's guitar from the album track (although if memory serves, the single version was a little different, and perhaps they're lip-synching to that). In any case, this is exactly what PH sounded like in concert.

I've taken a fair amount of ribbing over the years in these precincts due to my enthusiasm for these guys, but I've said it before and I'll say it again -- I have never heard a more magnificent sound emanating from human beings on a stage than the one I encountered at various shows performed by Procol Harum (Mark 1) during their approximately three year run. I will further add that the group's seamless fusion of J.S. Bach and Ray Charles made them the only progressive rock band that ever mattered. So there.

Incidentally this was the first single from the group's sophomore LP (Shine on Brightly), as well as -- in its 45 incarnation -- the first music in stereo anybody heard by PH.

[h/t Laura G]

The History of White People in America (An Occasional Series)

2011-11-21T06:49:00.004-05:00

Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders on The Jackie Gleason Show, sometime in the late 60s. Words fail me.

The thing is, as ridiculous as the idea of a Caucasian James Brown might seem in the abstract, Cochran actually was kind of the real deal. He wrote "Last Kiss," too, which means he deserves respect from mere mortals like you and me and Eddie Vedder.

Apparently he's found Jeebus in his old age, which of course isn't all that big of a shock.

Weekend Listomania (Special The Dogs Breakfast Audio/Video Edition)

2011-11-18T07:20:00.001-05:00

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental biohazard Fah Lo Suee and I are off to lovely Zuccoti Park in downtown New York City, where we are hoping to pick up a case of scabies. Hey -- Mayor Bloomberg promised us we could get one, and he NEVER lies.

That being the case, and because as you might expect things are going to be fairly quiet around here until Monday, here's a fun and morally uncompromised little project to help us wile away the empty hours until our return:

Best or Worst Post-Beatles White-Boy Blues Performance!!!

And my totally top of my head Top Seven is:

7. Pussy Galore -- Stop Breaking Down

Jon Spencer's low budget, low-fi cover of the Stones' Robert Johnson cover, recorded in a hallway somewhere before there was a Blues Explosion in his pants. I've heard worse, but then again I've been around an awfully long time.

6. John Mayall -- Room to Move

I'm sorry, I know it's not supposed to be funny, but I can't listen to this without cracking up.

5. Wilderness Road -- The Authentic British Blues

"I've got just the thing
To liberate your mind
Some asshole on a sitar
Playing 'My Darling Clementine'"

"Now wait a minute!!!"

Tick...tock...tick...tock...

4. The J. Geils Band -- Serves You Right to Suffer

From their great debut album, and this track has been giving me chills for over forty years now. Well, not continuously, of course; that would be rather debilitating, now that I think of it. But a great performance any way you slice it.

3. The Rolling Stones -- Good Times, Bad Times

Astoundingly authoritative -- Keith's acoustic 12-string work almost beggars belief -- and even more remarkable when you consider they were, not to put too fine a point on it, a bunch of pimply post-adolescents when they recorded it.

2. Steppenwolf -- Disappointment Number (Unknown)

From their 1968 sophomore LP, which is one of the most underrated hard rock records of the decade, here's a sort of history of the blues in a concise four minutes.

And the Numero Uno "They've Suffered for Their Art -- Now It's Your Turn" bluesola of them all simply has to be...

1. West Bruce and Laing -- Slow Blues

A performance as emotionally compelling as its title is imaginative.

Alrighty then -- what would your choices be?

An Early (And Alarmingly Sloppy) Clue to the New Direction

2011-11-17T08:02:00.001-05:00

Keith Richards and Johnny Depp jamming on "Key to the Highway" last month at the premiere party for The Rum Diary.

Which, by the way, is a pretty great little flick. And I can't believe that it's the first thing that writer/director Bruce Robinson -- who did Withnail & I, hands down the best film ever about the '60s counter-culture -- has been hired to helm in close to two decades.

In any case, 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.

[h/t Gummo]

Well, Here's One Andrew Sarris Never Called "The Citizen Kane of Jukebox Musicals"

2011-11-16T08:50:00.006-05:00

So I was casually browsing that making of A Hard Day's Night book I wrote about last month and something I had somehow overlooked absolutely jumped out at me.

One of the first film offers the Beatles received was to do a cameo in a movie called The Yellow Teddy Bears, a lurid drama about teen sex and pregnancy set in an all-girls school in the English suburbs. The boys were asked to play a band that backs up one of the film's male characters, who dreams of being a pop star. Because director Robert Hartford-Davis wanted to write all the music the Beatles were meant to play in the film himself, they declined (another Beat group called the Embers took their place).

To which I can only add -- wow. Which is to say that, obviously, history might have been changed in unfathomable ways had the Fabs actually gotten involved with this project.

The film itself appears to be pretty much of a sexploitation period piece -- director Hartford-Davis seems to have had a rather undistinguished career, save for the 1965 sci-fi musical classic Gonks Go Beat -- but if you're curious you can order it from Amazon over here.

As for the Embers, the pop combo that took the place of the Beatles in the film, I can find no information whatsoever.

Instrumental Backing Tracks of the Gods (An Occasional Series)

2011-11-15T07:02:00.005-05:00

Interesting Rolling Stones news -- apparently the expanded Exile on Main Street reissue did well enough to occasion a similar deluxe edition of Some Girls, with live bonus tracks.

Here's Britain's The Guardian with the details.

And on a related note, here's something that just blew me away -- one of my favorite tracks from Between the Buttons -- "Yesterday's Papers" -- without the vocals. Recorded sometime between the 3rd and the 11th of August, 1966 at RCA Studios in Los Angeles, with the late great Jack Nitzsche on harpsichord

Words, as they often do, fail me.

[h/t Eric C. Boardman]

Monday Video Alert: Special Spores R Us Edition)

2011-11-14T00:13:00.002-05:00

Terrific news from the good folks at the MGM Limited Edition Collection -- a first-rate version of The Quatermass Xperiment (aka The Creeping Unknown in its American incarnation, but either way one of the creepiest and most original sci-fi thrillers of the 50s) is just out and at a quasi-bargain price.

Tautly directed by Hammer Films stalwart Val Guest (who also did The Abominable Snowman and The Day Earth Caught Fire, two equally memorable B-movie genre classics) the 1958 Quatermass stars Brian Donlevy as the titular driven scientist who shoots the first manned rocket into orbit, only to find the crew inexplicably disappeared -- save for one, who's suffering from some degenerative disease nobody can explain -- after the spaceship crashes in the British countryside. And after that...well, I don't want to spoil any of the film's still effective low-budget shudders, although I will say that the original story for the film is by the great Nigel Kneale, who might be described as the Rod Serling of Britain.

Here's the trailer for the American version.

As you may know, the Limited Edition Collection discs -- burned as DVD-R's on a by request basis -- don't feature film restorations per se; instead they're re-mastered from whatever was the most recent video transfer lying around the studio vaults, and are thus rather hit or miss. In the case of The Quatermass Xperiment, the print/transfer is the same one currently being aired on Turner Classic Movies, which is to say by far the best version of the film I've ever seen. In fact, it looks well nigh pristine, with negligible scratches and dirt and absolutely razor sharp black-and-white images.

You can -- and if you're any kind of a sci-fi buff really should -- order the DVD over at Amazon here. You'll thank me, honest.

Incidentally, The Quatermass Xperiment -- like the two film sequels Hammer later unleashed -- was based on a wildly successful Kneale-penned BBC-TV live mini-series. Alas, the kinescope for the first of them has not survived, but the other two have. Even better, you can watch (or download) both, in very high quality print/transfers, totally for free over at the invaluable Internet Archive.

Quatermass II, aka Enemy from Space, can be found right here.

Check out the remarkably Lovecraftian Quatermass and the Pit, aka 20 Million Miles to Earth, here.

I should also add that these TV versions, for a variety of reasons, are actually even more atmospheric and creepy than the films. Which is really saying something.

Weekend Listomania (Special No Matter Who You Vote For, The Government Always Gets In Audio/Video Edition)

2011-11-11T00:01:00.001-05:00

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental palm pilot Fah Lo Suee and I are off to...and at this point I was going to write [Insert Penn State/Joe Paterno joke here] except that...well, except that the whole business really isn't funny.

At all.

So -- because things will nonetheless be quiet around here, as is customarily the case, until Monday, here's a fun and hopefully otherwise relevant little project to help us all wile away the idle hours till my return:

Most or Least Fatuous Post-Beatles Politically Themed Pop or Rock Song(s) Ever!!!

And my totally top of my head Top Six is/are:

6. The Butthole Surfers -- The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey Oswald's Grave

These guys were such kidders...

5. Freda Payne -- Bring the Boys Home

A terrific piece of pop/soul with a message that resonated quite powerfully at the height of the Vietnam War, and still does alas. Of course, given that "Band of Gold," Freda's previous hit, had been about her husband's inability to cut the proverbial mustard when it counted, one did have the feeling listening to this one that her pining for the boys' return might be an example of the personal as political. If you know what I mean.

4. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young -- Almost Cut My Hair

Yeah, Dave -- that'll show 'em.

3. John Lennon -- Woman is the Ni-clang of the World

Honorable mention: Patti Smith's "Rock 'n' Roll Ni-clang." Hey -- I'm sure everybody involved with those songs meant well, at least.

2. Graham Nash -- Chicago

Sorry, I can't take a political song that rhymes "change" and "rearrange" seriously. YMMV.

And the Numero Uno Total-Victory-is-Ours-Comrades! ditty of them all simply has to be...

1. Sha Na Na -- The Vote Song

The Nixon reference dates it, obviously, but it's still pretty relevant and pretty funny. Incidentally, while it's true that one of the Sha Na Na gold suit guys has turned into a Teabagger, it was nice to see lead singer Jon "Bowser" Bauman on Tuesday night celebrating the unions win in Ohio.

Alrighty then -- what would your choices be?

An Early "Teach Your Grandchildren"-ish Clue to the New Direction

2011-11-10T00:27:00.001-05:00

So grizzled old DFH's Graham Nash and David Crosby showed up at Zuccotti Park last Tuesday to show solidarity with the OWS protesters, and our pal Watertiger, of Dependable Renegade renown, caught this image via her cell-phone camera.

Actually, if you were watching Keith Olbermann on Current TV Tuesday night, he had video footage of this where you could clearly glimpse El Tigre in front of the stage taking the photo; unfortunately, that part of the segment isn't included in the clip on the Current website, so I couldn't grab a screen cap of her getting the shot, meta as that would have been.

In any case, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded to the first reader who gleans the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania from the above.

The Kitty With the Atom Brain II

2011-11-09T00:02:00.001-05:00

Well, I'm afraid there's some breaking bad news in the saga of Ollie, the World's Most Radioactive Pussycat©.

If you were with us a year ago, you may recall that we told you that the little fella had come through his thyroid therapy with flying colors.

That was true enough at the time; however, as you can see from this just taken photograph, there seem to have been late-developing side effects of a devolutionary nature.

Surgery to remove that weird growth on his head is scheduled for next week; we'll keep you posted, and please keep your fingers crossed.

You're Not Getting Older, You're Getting MUCH Older

2011-11-08T06:59:00.000-05:00

Did I mention that Garland Jeffreys was on the David Letterman show last month?

Damn, he sounds good.

By which I mean, in part, much better than he did on that 1970 ersatz Band record I posted about yesterday....

Monday Mystery Track

2011-11-07T07:31:00.005-05:00

From (well, I won't tell you when, just to be difficult) please enjoy (I won't tell you who, either) and their apparent homage to all things The Band and Music From Big Pink entitled "And Don't Be Late."

The short version: The group in question made exactly one album (which sank like a stone, unheralded) although they also backed John Cale on his first post-Velvets LP. And the band's lead singer/frontman went on to be a well-respected New Wave phenom and scenester. He's still active, too; in fact, he was on Letterman just last month.

In any case, the Woodstock-ian country rock on the commercial flop album in question doesn't seem to have a lot to do, style-wise, with what the lead singer/frontman has done subsequently.

As always, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded to the reader who first guesses the band and the lead singer/frontman's identity. And no Googling!!!!

I should also add that I was able to score the album courtesy of our chum Leonard over at the estimable Red Telephone 66; once you've figured out who's responsible for the track, please head over there and give him and the site some love. Or money, via the fundraiser now in progress.

Friday Mea Culpa and Catblogging

2011-11-04T07:27:00.000-04:00

Okay, I lied when I said there would be a Listomania this week; the post-vacation jet lag has proven insurmountable, so we'll have to postpone the traditional festivities till next time.

By way of apology, however, let me leave you with -- The Kitten Covers Collection!!!

I'm not sure which one's my favorite, although the kitties in the plastic flowerpot hats cracks me up completely.

[h/t Watertiger]

The Holy Grail

2011-11-03T08:57:00.004-04:00

The Beach Boys' legendary 1966 masterpiece Smile -- the real thing, essentially complete -- dropped (as the kids say) yesterday.

I have the two-disc version on order, but friend of PowerPop and all around swell guy Sal Nunziato has the super-deluxe version with all the outtakes and kindly shared this one. Brian conducting (for want of a better word) the sessions for "Surf's Up."

Words fail me.

There'll Always Be a France (Part Deux)

2011-11-02T10:29:00.001-04:00

Still decompressing from jetlag occasioned by my recent return from the land of the Ignoble Frog, but until regular posting resumes I thought I'd share something I stumbled upon at the fabulous Pompidou Center in Paris while waiting to get into the Edvard Munch show.

From 1963, please enjoy Roger and his Son by remarkable Polish-French modernist Balthus.

And then tell me the son in the painting doesn't look disturbingly like this MTV icon.

Seriously, I have no idea if Mike Judge had this painting in mind when he created Beavis and Butthead, but the resemblance strikes me as too close to be an accident.

I should also add that there actually is another rock-and-roll connection with this painting -- Bono (yes him) sang at Balthus' funeral. Go figure.

There'll Always Be a France (Special plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose Edition)

2011-11-01T10:43:00.004-04:00

Well, we're back from the land of the Ignoble Frog, safe and sound, but still decompressing. Regular, relatively serious, power pop blogging will resume later in the week.

But in the meantime, here's a 1968 painting -- entitled Poverty -- by American surrealist Peter Saul that we glimpsed while wandering around the fabulous Pompidou Center in Paris last week; clearly, it displays a certain prescience where the current activities of Occupy Wall Street are concerned.

If you don't get the joke immediately, click on the image till it increases in size and look carefully at the name of the financial institution the tree figure is holding.

MICKEY KAUS SPOTTED IN PARIS!!!

2011-10-31T03:44:00.000-04:00

Seriously...we were on the Metro today and there was a street musician in the car -- a bagpiper, actually -- who was blowing a goat.

In any case, flying back to the States today; slightly more serious posting will resume on the morrow.

There'll Always Be an England!!!

2011-10-28T03:33:00.013-04:00

No Listomania this week -- I'm on vacation in Paris, for heaven's sake.

Fear not, however -- the list will return next Friday, all tanned, rested and ready after five days of croissants and heavy sauces.

But in the meantime I thought I'd share a bit more from last Monday and Tuesday's sojourn to London.

First -- noted without comment: A street sign glimpsed in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey.

This is the high rent district, apparently.

And then there was this charming establishment, which a certain shady dame and I discovered near the house where Jimi Hendrix and George Frideric Handel once lived (at different times, obviously).

Imagine my amazement when a Google search revealed that it is not, alas, a local aberration, but rather one of 80 similarly titled pubs in the UK. Predominantly situated in London, South East England and the Midlands, but also elsewhere in England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man

Even more alarmingly, I discovered that "4,843 people like The Slug and Lettuce" on Facebook as of this writing.

You know, some days it seems more and more improbable that this was the nation that in the 19th century actually bestrode the narrow world like a collossus.

London Calling!!!

2011-10-27T03:07:00.000-04:00

Well, I had to do it, obviously.

Here I was, on Monday. And you know where...

...watching an actual Waterloo Sunset.

Let's just say Ray Davies got it right.

Wednesday Late Travel Notes

2011-10-26T18:31:00.003-04:00

Just arrived in Paris, deep in the heart of the land of the Ignoble Frog.

Out having a disgustingly rich dinner; normal posting resumes tomorrow.

Tuesday Video Roundup: Attack of the Killer Criterions

2011-10-25T07:18:00.001-04:00

I've been a fan of the Criterion Collection's deluxe video versions of interesting and important films from the beginning. And I mean that literally; back in 1984, when I was toiling at the late lamented VIDEO REVIEW magazine, I reviewed Criterion's first two laserdisc box sets, Citizen Kane and King Kong, which featured all sorts of bonus materials (trailers, commentaries, documentaries, alternate endings, deleted scenes, et cetera) and which established the special edition format that has since become the standard for DVD (and now Blu-ray).

In any case, herewith some musings on a bunch of the most recent Criterion releases; I should add that each of them would make an appropriate (and doubtless highly appreciated) Christmas gift for any film buffs on your list. Also, they can all be ordered (or pre-ordered) over at Amazon or at the Criterion website.

1. The Four Feathers (Zoltan Korda, 1939)

Stiff-upper-lip British colonials in the desert adventure epics don't get any better, and with the possible exception of Lawrence of Arabia, they don't get any more visually stunning either. In any case, this is one is world's better than the 2002 remake with Kate Hudson, thanks to a great ensemble cast of actual Brits (including Ralph Richardson and C. Aubrey Smith) and luscious Technicolor photography by Blood of a Poet cinematographer Georges Périnal. The new transfer is suitably eye-popping, and bonuses include a recent interview with Korda's son plus the original theatrical trailer and a short film featuring his old man at work on TFF's set.

2. Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton, 1932)

Charles Laughton hamming it up in an ice cream suit, Bela Lugosi (all but unrecognizable as the hirsute Speaker of the Law) asking the immortal question "Are we not men?" and some of the most disturbing and believable monster makeup ever photographed add up to perhaps the best American horror film of the 30s that wasn't made at Universal. Criterion's pleasingly crisp new transfer includes some pre-code dialogue scenes that were censored in subsequent re-releases over the years, and you also get an interesting discussion between American Werewolf in London director John Landis and make-up master Rick Baker.

3. The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)

Kubrick's peerless film noir racetrack heist, a B-movie that transcended its genre, was the commercial breakthrough that put him on the Hollywood map and it's still as taut and suspenseful as ever. Co-written with genius pulp novelist Jim Thompson, and with a dream cast including Sterling Hayden, Elisha Cook Jr. as a sap of a small time crook and Marie Windsor (in the role she was born to play) as the Jezebel/moll who sells him out. Bonuses include excerpts from a French TV interview with Hayden, and -- worth the price of the set all by itself -- a restored high-def digital transfer of Kubrick's somewhat artier 1955 noir Killer's Kiss.

4. Cul-de-Sac (Roman Polanski, 1966)

Polanski's second English language film (and perhaps still his most perversely original) is a one-of-a-kind mashup of film noir crime flick and black comedy of the sexes, with Donald Pleasance (the most neurotic looking actor since Colin Clive) pitted against gravel-voiced (and then blacklisted) vulgarian tough guy Lionel Stander in a weird menage a trois with Francois Dorleac (in real life, Catherine Deneuve's younger and even more ethereally lovely sister). Weirdly funny and suspenseful stuff; Criterion's new high-def widescreen digital transfer comes blessed by Polanski himself, and there's a 2003 making-of documentary and a TV interview with the director from 1967 as bonuses.

6. Orpheus (Jean Cocteau, 1950)

Cocteau's gorgeous re-imagining of the Greek myth as a mix of apocalyptic sci-fi (those black riders on the motor-cyles rock!), pretentious post-war Left Bank Existential reverie and big-budget surrealist F/X film. And worth seeing if only for the reverent way cinematographer Nicholas Hayer's camera lingers on star Jean Marais, a French icon who (in David Thomson's immortal phrase) is perhaps the most fatuously good-looking slab of beef in movie history. Criterion's new digital restoration is sharp as a woodcut; engrossing bonuses include the original theatrical trailer, a documentary on Cocteau, and a 1957 film interview with the great man himself.

Monday Moment of Bonjour Tristesse!!!

2011-10-24T08:06:00.001-04:00

It's vacation time!!!

Which means I'm off to London (and thence) Paris, so posting will be weird and inconsistent for a bit.

But while I'm waiting in an airport lounge, please enjoy something I find I'm rather inordinately proud of -- new music by my high school and 70s garage band chums The Weasels.

Recently recorded on a laptop, in an attic somewhere in the wilds of New Jersey, the song -- a rough mix, to be sure, but getting near the finished product -- is written and sung by Glenn Leeds, who also contributes the jangly guitar stuff up the middle. My old chum Allan Weissman is on bass, and I'm doing the guitars left and right plus the solo mishegass.

I suspect I'm gonna rework the second half of the solo when I return from the land of the Ignoble Frog, and obviously that drum hit before the fade-out needs to be...well, let's just say it's a problem in search of a solution.

In any case, I think this is a very cool track, and frankly I can't quite believe it's us.

I should add that the "album" that will include this is entitled, as of this writing, either Weasels 65 (for obvious reasons) or Blame the Victim.

Bringing Down the House: Adam Marsland

2011-10-23T21:45:00.005-04:00

Spent last night at a house concert with Adam Marsland.

Marsland was the frontman of the late 90's critical darlings Cockeyed Ghost, whose truncated career is a tragedy, if not on the level of Big Star, then not far below it. Enjoy here their moody, melodic paean to the twilight state of transition, "Ludlow 6:18."

(Marsland's Best Of is called Daylight Kissing Night, from this song. Review here.)

Marsland then went on to a series of solo projects, including playing keys for Stew's The Negro Problem for a time, and basically just busted hump playing on his own any damn place that would have him, and making a living in the LA scene.

But I have a bone to pick with his online biographers. Marsland most certainly did not "grow up in California." He grew up not 40 miles from where I now sit, in chilly, gray upstate New York. We went to the same college (at the same time, for one semester), and the earnest garage band I ran sound for (they called me "Sound Chick" and it never occurred to me to be offended) played all the same venues in the same crappy small town as Marsland did when he was starting, with all the drama and petty politics and grudges that such a scene engenders. The smaller the stakes, the larger the investment. I didn't know him then, or at least I don't think I did, but we knew all the same people at the same time, so it's possible that we met at some point without remembering it. By the time he went to California, he was in his early 20's: still plenty of growing up to do, of course.

In any case, I'd heard his work on and off over the years, and I knew he was My Kind of People, so when I saw somewhat accidentally that he was going to play a house show in town, I leaped at the chance to attend.

House shows by their nature are peculiar affairs, oddly intense and intimate. And Marsland gave an astounding performance, by turns funny and serious, self-deprecating and thoughtful about his experiences. He did what he called "the singer-songwriter thing," providing context and descriptions for every song, welcoming all of us, the people he'd known for years and the ones who only knew his music, into the narratives of his songs and his life. It was pretty incredible.

He did a few songs from the Cockeyed Ghost catalog, like "Ludlow 6:18" and "Big Big Yeah," and a few from 2004's You Don't Know Me, including the incomparable "The Big Bear." (Actually, his performance last night was pretty close to this one here.) There was also a sturdy selection from the double concept album, 2009's Go West. (I was particularly taken with the acoustic rendition of "Half Life.") A further handful from the pissed-off road album Hello Cleveland (written over a few days, recorded in under eight hours), impressed my spouse, who still prides himself on a certain retention of his adolescent sensibility. "That's punk rock," he said, in an awed, serious tone.

I had been excited for this show. Marsland did not disappoint.

And he was pretty damned versatile. As the show wound down, he turned to the piano in the living room, noting jokingly that he has transposed some of his keyboard-based songs to the guitar, not realizing there would be a piano. He asked for requests: not just his songs, anything. Riffing off an earlier performance of Marsland's "The Night I Bought Micky Dolenz a Beer," someone asked for "The Porpoise Song," and damn if he didn't pull it out of his ass. Several Elton John songs followed, and a dreamy rendition of "God Only Knows," back on the guitar.

We hung out for a while afterward, rehashing our small-town scene from 25 years ago with a few other key participants, and talking about his role in the golden bubble of time and energy that was Poptopia. I haven't felt so energized in ages, and my thanks go out to Chris and Crystal, our lovely hosts, for allowing us the opportunity to hear this terrific performer.

Weekend Listomania (Special Got Live If You Don't Want It! Edition)

2011-10-21T00:01:00.001-04:00

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Today just happens to be my birthday, and also -- according to the Rev. Harold Camping, whose track record is admittedly less than stellar -- the day the world officially comes to an end. That being the case, to those of you who have already wished me well, I thank you, but assuming the good Reverend is in fact correct this time, I also just want to say that it's been swell knowing all of you. -- S.S.]

Well, it's Friday, and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental fils de woo hoo! Fah Lo Suee and I are off to...

Okay, all kidding aside, in real life what's actually going on is that a certain shady dame of my acquaintance and I are heading to beautiful Paris, France on Monday. This will be our fourth annual sojourn in the City of Lights; this year, however, we're spending a day in London first, and then taking the Chunnel to the land of the Ignoble Frog. Current plans include having our picture taken at Waterloo Station at sunset, so you might want to check back here on Wednesday for the grisly evidence of my unhealthy obsession with Ray Davies.

In any case, what with packing and last minute stuff, things will probably be a little quiet around here until next week, so here's a (hopefully) amusing little project to help us all wile away the intervening hours:

Worst Live or In Concert Album by a Rock/Pop Artist or Group!!!

No arbitrary rules of any sort, you're welcome very much, and yes, you can include bootlegs if you're so inclined.

And my totally top of my head Top Five is/are:

5. The Rolling Stones -- Love You Live

A wonderful club version of Bo Diddley's "Cracking Up" notwithstanding, this was pretty much two LPs worth of total dreck.

4. The Rolling Stones -- Still Life

A very bad live album from possibly the worst tour of the Stones' career.

3. The Rolling Stones -- Flashpoint

A live document of the Steel Wheels tour, and as professional and uninspired as the album that occasioned it.

2. The Rolling Stones -- No Security

Guys -- you're never going to top Ya-Yas. Please stop trying.

And the Numero Uno art-imitates-life-badly artifact of then all simply has to be...

1. Mummenschanz (Original Cast Recording)

A mime show. Recorded on-stage in 1978. You can check out the track listing over here.

Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?

An Early, Northern New Jersey-Centric, Clue to the New Direction!!!

2011-10-20T00:01:00.003-04:00

From the fabulous George's Club 20 (in reality, a tiny little dive) in Hackensack, New Jersey -- the Paris of the Tri-State Metro area, and the current home (and childhood neighborhood) of your humble scribe -- please enjoy Jimi Hendrix (doing business as Jimmy James) with Curtis Knight and the Squires, in a spirited performance of "Driving South."

Recorded live, with better sound than you might expect, on the day after Christmas of 1965.

It is perhaps amusing to contemplate that barely a year after this performance was committed to tape Hendrix was a pop star in England on the cusp of becoming one of the most indelible icons of the 60s.

It is also amusing to contemplate the fact that I was Christmas vacationing in the neighborhood on 12-26-65, and had I had a clue who Hendrix was going to be -- or a little more courage about being the only white teenager in a bar on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks -- I could have attended the gig in question.

In any case, 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.

POSTSCRIPT: George's Club 20 was at the corner of Moore and Bridge Streets in Hackensack, so I took a walk over there yesterday with my new twenty dollar digital camera. Imagine my disappointment at finding that the building no longer exists.

A line from a Joni Mitchell song seems to come to mind, for some reason....

POST-POSCRIPT: The center photo below shows what that corner looked like in 1965. You can't see it in the photo I took, but the house next door is still there, unchanged.

I particularly like that George's is called the "Mecca of Cafe Society."

Everybody's a Critic

2011-10-19T13:11:00.001-04:00

A classic exchange in the comments section of a recent CNN/Money article about KISS:

I play in a rock band. KISS songs are easy to cover. Rock N Roll All Night is super duper easy to do. But when we play it, something is missing and all of a sudden it sounds like crap. KISS music is easy and simple, but without KISS doing it, it ends up less somehow. They are the artists that take simple brush strokes and create masterpieces of music. Easy to play the notes, almost impossible to create the music.

And the reply:

Maybe your band sucks worse than Kiss. Ever consider that?

Bad Career Move of the Century

2011-10-19T05:06:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like history could have been changed in unfathomable ways if only somebody had looked in their mailbox.

LONDON Oct. 17, 2011 (AP) -- Somewhere, an aging drummer (identity unknown) is probably still kicking himself. A newly discovered letter found folded in a book at a Liverpool yard sale has shed new light on the Beatles' early days, revealing that Paul McCartney offered an audition to a mystery drummer in 1960, just a few days before the band left for a formative two-month gig in Hamburg, Germany.

The letter, to be auctioned next month by Christie's, has surprised Beatles scholars. It was written two years before the band bounced drummer Pete Best in favor of Ringo Starr, who arrived just in time to help the Beatles' conquer first England and then the world, earning untold millions along the way.

The Aug. 12, 1960 letter handwritten by McCartney offers an audition to someone who had advertised their availability in the Liverpool Echo newspaper four days earlier. The unsigned ad said simply: "Drummer--Young--Free."

McCartney, who was then playing guitar in the band while the late Stuart Sutcliffe handled bass guitar, offered the drummer an audition with the caveat that if he joins the band he must be ready to travel almost immediately to Hamburg. The Beatles honed their musical chops playing at low-rent clubs in the German's city's famed red-light district.

"Expenses paid 18 pounds per week (approx) for two months," McCartney writes. "If interested ring Jacaranda club."

The letter is signed, "Yours sincerely, Paul McCartney of the BEATLES."

It is not known if the drummer came for an audition, and failed to impress McCartney and the others, or if he simply didn't followup. McCartney addressed the letter "Dear Sir," assuming the drummer was a young man, as there were very few female drummers on the Liverpool rock scene at the time.

Christie's spokeswoman Leonie Pitts said the auction house's Beatles experts are certain that the letter was not an early feeler to Starr, who was a successful drummer with a rival Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, before he joined the Beatles.

She said auctioneers had not contacted McCartney to ask if he knew anything about the drummer who had placed the ad.

"We think he's on his honeymoon," she said. McCartney married U.S. heiress Nancy Shevell eight days ago. His representatives did not immediately return an AP request for comment.

Christie's auction house said Monday the letter would likely draw more than 7,000 pounds ($11,000) when it is sold Nov. 15 along with other pop memorabilia.

The letter was discovered by a man from Liverpool who has asked to remain anonymous. The auction house said he is a devoted collector of antique coins who regularly checks yard sales.

Wow, obviously.

But I've said it before and I'll say it again -- it boggles my mind that after all these years, there's still stuff left to be discovered about the Beatles.

[h/t Brooklyn Girl]

Cries and Whimpers

2011-10-18T08:41:00.002-04:00

A couple of interesting and/or alarming social and cultural notes for a Tuesday.

1. I did a phone interview last week with the producers of what looks like a really interesting (and long overdue, obviously) documentary on power pop gods Big Star.

The particular subject under discussion was the band's legendary performance at the notorious Rock Writers of the World convention in Memphis in early 1973, which I attended despite having been a professional rock critic for approximately four days at that point.

In any case, here's the official website for the documentary; if you putter about over there, you can probably find the review I wrote of Big Star's Radio City for The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review back in the day.

And here's an early trailer.

2. A few days after posting the second of the restored videos by my 70s garage band The Weasels, I received the following e-mail from a young woman in the former USSR. And I swear this is not a joke.

hello Steve!
my name is Angelina, im from Kiev, Ukraine
just saw your blog - http://powerpop.blogspot.com/ and a band named The Weasels wanted to ask if there is a possibility to download their album somewhere?
i really like them, but i have only two songs and that makes me sad please write me back if you have a chance
thank you very much,
cheers

Needless to say, I immediately burned and dispatched three Weasels CDs to Angelina's home address. And I can't tell you how hilarious I find it that the alleged music my now geriatric friends and I made for our own amusement in a basement in Teaneck when we were kids will now be listened to by a 20-something in the Ukraine, i.e. a land where my ancestors spent a lot of time trying not to raped by Cossacks.

3. Thanks to real world concerns -- dealing with an ailing mom, a Paris vacation with a certain shady dame, and the whole holiday hoohah upcoming -- it's now obvious that The Floor Models reissue project I've been bugging you about all year will not, realistically, see the light of day until early in 2012.

In the meantime, here's a cut that won't be on the album -- a recently re-discovered four-track home demo (perhaps our earliest, circa 1981) of "Wheel Comes Around."

A vastly more exciting live version will kick off the forthcoming album, but this one -- produced by Beatlemania alumnus David Grahame -- has its charms, particularly the handclaps on the guitar solo.

I should also add that if you haven't been following the Floor Models saga, the entire history of the band can be accessed over at our semi-official website here.

The Way They Were

2011-10-17T07:05:00.001-04:00

The Beatles in Hamburg, 1960. One of the most iconic photos of the second half of the 20th century -- rock or otherwise -- as you've never seen it before.

That Astrid Kircherr really had an eye, didn't she?

[h/t Steve Schwartz]

Return of the Jayhawks

2011-10-16T07:47:00.002-04:00

A friend of mine says the new Jayhawks record is the best thing she's heard in years. Will look into that and report back.

But for now, enjoy this recent interview.

In 2000, The New York Times ran a story on The Jayhawks with the headline, "What If You Made a Classic and No One Cared?" — a reference to the band's unsung sixth album, Smile, as well as its failure thus far to break big in the pop world. Louris says that flying under the radar frustrated him at the time, but has proved to have an upside.

"I certainly wanted to be bigger; I think Mark just wanted to be good. That shows you how shallow I am," Louris jokes. "[But] the fact that we were never part of any particular scene, or had the one big radio hit or whatever, has kind of worked to our advantage. We have that thing called longevity going for us."

Weekend Listomania (Special Honey, They Shrank My Masterpiece! Edition)

2011-10-14T00:05:00.003-04:00

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means, Yes, my Oriental fille de boinquage Fah Lo Sue and I are off to...well, I can't tell you just yet, but it involves yet another amazing find here in the Paris of the Tri-State Metro Area. A couple of blocks down the street from The Record King, actually.

I will say that although the address seems to still exist, the establishment that used to be there is long gone. And said establishment once hosted a certain rock star who became world famous a year after he recorded a live album there.

The results of this little archaeological dig will be revealed next week, if all goes well.

In the meantime, because as usual things are going to be a tad quiet around here for a bit, please wile away the idle hours till our return by pondering the following little project:

LP-Era Rock Album Whose Cover Art Has Been Least Well Served by Reduction to CD Size!!!

And my totally top of my head Top Five are:

5. Led Zeppelin -- Physical Graffiti

It just doesn't work without the die-cut windows from the LP package.

4. The Rolling Stones -- Exile on Main Street

At LP size, this one looked really seedy and surreal. Reduced to a CD, it just looks seedy.

3. The Beatles -- Revolver

I think I need to have my eyes checked, because I can't make heads or tails out of this one anymore.

2. The Monkees -- Head

Seen on the LP racks in 1968, the silver foil packaging here was kind of interestingly trippy. As a CD, however, it looks like the cover of a Spinal Tap record.

And the Numero Uno reductio-ad-absurdum sleeve job of them all simply has to be....

1. Mark Levine -- Pilgrim's Progress

I discovered this extremely obscure little slice of vintage folk-psychedelia earlier this year, and I love it dearly, but jeebus -- that cover may have looked charmingly rustic on a 12 inch piece of cardboard, but on CD it just looks like some kid's scribbling.

Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And Speaking of Gorgeous....

2011-10-13T08:08:00.001-04:00

The Fabs in the studio, August 14th of 1964, working on "I'm a Loser."

Words fail me.

Oh, and speaking of the Fabs, there's a surprisingly good little making-of book on A Hard Day's Night just out.

I've been less than enthusiastic about some of the earlier entries in this series, but this one is a fun read. It's a clip job, of course, but author Ray Morton has done the research, and he also talked at length with David Picker, the visionary exec at United Artists who instantly grokked what a non-schlock Beatles movie might be like, and who provides some personal insights. In any case, there's all sorts of interesting bits of tid here, including background history even this Beatlemaniac hadn't previously been aware of, and once you've read the thing, I can pretty much guarantee you'll want to listen to the album of the same name and watch a video of the film ASAP.

You can order it over here.

And yes -- there will be a Listomania tomorrow, but the clue was yesterday's record store post.

Coelacanth Discovered in New Jersey!!!!

2011-10-12T09:05:00.001-04:00

Actually, something even rarer, that I frankly didn't even know still existed.

An indie record store.

That's The Record King, at 303 Main Street in Hackensack, New Jersey, more or less just around the corner from where I grew up. I noticed it a couple of years ago when I moved back to the old neighborhood, and I've been meaning to stop in ever since, but it took me till yesterday to finally check it out.

Bottom line: I haven't seen so much vinyl in one place since the last time I was in John Swenson's loft. (An obscure rock critic reference -- sorry).

In any case, I chatted with the proprietor -- The Record King himself -- and he told me that he has been in residence at the place for 30 years, but that the store itself has been there since the early 60s. This blew my mind, because I don't remember it at all. And I spent a great deal of my teenage years on that very block, where the now vanished Fox and Oritani movie theaters used to be. (The Oritani, you may recall, was the venue where the young me first viewed The T.A.M.I. Show).

And my mind was blown yet again when I mentioned this to a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance, who also grew up in the neighborhood, and she instantly remembered the place. In fact, she informs me that she purchased a (what would now probably be quite valuable) promo copy of The Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'" there a week or two in advance of the single's official release in the fall of 1966.

Anyway, a very cool establishment. If you're in the neighborhood stop by; besides more LPs and 45s than you can shake the proverbial stick it, they also have some very cool T-shirts [two words: Palisades Park] and all sorts of interesting vintage stereo gear and other obsolete technological marvels.

Or simply check out their website at www.therecordking.com for more info. And tell 'em PowerPop sent you.

Tuesday Mystery Track

2011-10-11T08:49:00.003-04:00

The Beatles' classic "Baby's in Black." As performed at a jingle house demo studio in Manhattan, sometime between 1975-77 by -- guess who?

Hint: The artist in question is as close to being a powerpop god as anyone currently wearing shoeleather.

[h/t A Certain Unidentified Reader]

CORRECTION: A friend forwarded this post to the great Marshall Crenshaw himself.

His response:

"That ain't me.. I have no idea who it is, where it came from, nada..
Sometimes I pretend not to know what things are if they embarrass me but this really has nothing to do with me, honest..."

I regret the error.

Songs for the New Depression

2011-10-10T00:01:00.001-04:00

Finally got around to scoring a copy of Del Shannon's 1964 country album Del Shannon Sings Hank Williams, which I've been curious about for years.

As you can hear from that version of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," it's remarkably authentic for a rock guy. In fact, it's easily as accomplished as anything that was done four or five years later during the initial country-rock boom, and I include the sainted Byrds and Gram Parsons in that assessment. Shannon, of course, came to his love of the genre honestly; country was the first music he listened to as a kid and the first that he played semi-professionally.

That said, you can also hear that the above version lacks the profound ache of Hank's original, but of course that can be said of just about every cover of the song by anybody.

I should also add that "Let's Dance," the final track on Shannon's gorgeous 1991 Rock On album -- recorded in 1990, just prior to its auteur blowing his brains out with a .22 caliber rifle -- has that haunted Hank vibe in spades.

On first encounter, it seems to be an upbeat country/zydeco hybrid, a party song. Listen to it again, however, and you can't miss a desperation behind the music that's almost scary. And Shannon's vocal is, unmistakably. the work of a guy with a hellhound on his trail.

Friday on (the Canyons of) My Mind

2011-10-07T00:02:00.001-04:00

Attentive and/or long time readers may perhaps recall the story of my first high school rock band, The Plagues, and our 1965 adventures in the recording studio. Or not.

In any case, about two years after those epochal sessions -- during the fabled Summer of Love, if memory serves -- Allan Weissman, my old chum from The Plagues, and I were hanging out in his basement in sylvan Teaneck, New Jersey, when he informed me that he had just written a song in a style that might be considered Dylanesque. After he played it for me -- it was called "Cassandra," as in the Greek babe from the ancient legends -- I concurred, and we soon worked out a rudimentary arrangement; Allan was on bass and vocals, while I flailed around on a crappy Japanese guitar of some sort (I hadn't scored my fabled 1959 Les Paul goldtop at this point).

I decided that the song needed some kind of opening figure, a la the stuff Roger McGuinn did for The Byrds, and I finally came up with one. Unfortunately, given my limited guitar skills, what I came up was not merely lame, but in fact The Lamest Riff in History©. Which is to say a simple ascending and then descending single note sequence that was essentially...uh, just a G-major scale. And even that description overstates its level of inspiration.

Undeterred, Allan and I recorded a version of the tune, in mono, on one of those Wollensak reel-to-reel tape machines that everybody, including your high school AV department, had in those days, and I seem to recall thinking even then that my contribution to the track was vaguely cringe-inducing. What I would think now, I have no idea, because the tape itself has long since disappeared. And hopefully will remain so.

Anyway, cut to 2010. I had just reconnected with Allan and the rest of the high school chums with whom, as those same attentive and/or long-time readers mentioned above doubtless know, I had toiled for years in a subsequent garage/basement band called The Weasels. And Allan had given me a CD of (Weasel) The Other White Meat -- a home-made album the guys had recorded (without me, obviously) in 2004.

And suddenly, after I put the CD into my computer -- THERE WAS THE RIFF!!!!

Yes, nearly four decades after it was first committed to magnetic tape, the guys had done a remake, if that is the word, of "Cassandra." A song which is actually pretty cool, despite my...well, you know.

And here it is, exactly as my astonished ears first beheard it again.

The feeble contemplation that is going on inside
The mutilated warnings that they won't let you confide
Oh, ring the trumpets on their ears
The new Titanics come with years
Cassandra, turn your head to other people.

Hold your banner high until it stretches to the ground.
Shake the dead; the old, the buried recognize the sound.
Put yourself in ages hence
Glance, the foundlings never sense,
Cassandra, turn your head to other people.

Shout the call; the air is dead;
They'll never understand.
It echoes off the tired feet that walk upon their hands.
Deny the cradles, rob the graves,
The sirens drone, the prophet raves;
Cassandra, turn your head to other people.

I thought at the time, and still do, that "the tired feet that walk upon their hands" is one of the most, shall we say, remarkable lines ever.

I should also add that it is a mark of what a mensch I am that, despite the centrality of my riff to the entire "Cassandra" experience, I have never asked Allan for a co-writer credit.

Thursday Video Hoo Hah (An Occasional Series)

2011-10-06T07:53:00.001-04:00

Okay, two interesting and alarming new titles have just crossed my desk from the invaluable MGM Limited Edition Collection, and I thought I'd share.

In case you're unfamiliar with the imprint, it's similar to what the folks at Warner Archive have been doing in recent years, i.e. they pick obscure but theoretically interesting films from the studio vaults -- films that wouldn't necessarily have enough admirers to warrant an official DVD rollout -- and make them available in bare-bones budget editions on a burn-on-demand basis.

The fly in the ointment -- or rather the factor that makes the whole venture economically viable -- is that the films in question are not remastered or restored; they're burned, instead, from whatever the most recent prior video master happens to be. Which means quality is hit and miss; some of them look great, some of them less so. And the widescreen entries aren't always letterboxed.

Exhibit A, in any case, is Captain America. Obviously, this isn't the not terrible 2011 extravaganza; rather it's a 1990 Cannon Films piece of crap (pardon the redundancy) directed by Albert Pyun.

Like millions of other folks, I didn't see this back in the day, but I must confess to a certain fondness for its auteur, who happens to be one of the four most heinous living filmmakers, after Jess Franco, Jim Wynorski, and the Spawn of Satan himself, Michael Bay (who at least isn't as prolific as the rest of them).

As for Pyun's Captain America, it has a pretty decent cast -- dependably hissable Ronny Cox, Ned Beatty, Michael Nouri -- and star Matt Salinger makes a believable pre-super powered Steve Rogers without the benefit of the CGI that converted Chris Evans into a 90 pound weakling in the 2011 version. Unfortunately, Pyun's film also features perhaps the least convincing mutant monster lab rat in film history, and after that I can think of very little else to say in its behalf.

Fortunately, Hickey and Boggs -- the 1972 urban film noir directed by Robert Culp and starring its auteur and his I Spy pal Bill Cosby -- is a genuine knock-out. Culp and Cosby, whose chemistry is if anything even more palpable than in their TV days, play a pair of down at the heels hard-drinking private eyes who get involved in a search for a missing girl. In classic noir style, nobody is who they appear to be, and the whole thing gets positively existential by the end, with a body count to rival a slasher movie and an extremely dark windup.

Fledgling scripter Walter Hill's screenplay didn't really click with critics in 1972, but in retrospect it's obvious he got the seamy underbelly of Los Angeles exactly right, and there are some fabulous character parts (a young Michael Moriarty is memorable as a small-time hood, and Rosalind Cash is aces as Cosby's ex-wife). This is, in sum, one of the most underrated movies of the 70s, and if there's a Cult Film God in Heaven, the occasion of this new DVD will bring it to the wider audience it so richly deserves.

Here's the trailer to give you an idea.

Alas, the new DVD version is not, as it claims on the box, in widescreen, but the print is otherwise fine.

In any case, you can order Hickey and Boggs -- and Captain America too, if you're somewhat perverse of eyes and ears -- over at the MGM/Amazon website here

And Speaking of Gorgeous...

2011-10-05T07:39:00.001-04:00

...our chum Sal Nunziato, over at Burning Wood, discovered this quite seraphically beautiful mix of "Wendy," from the Beach Boys first great album All Summer Long (1964).

And he has an interesting critical perspective on it.

"Come down a bit on the reverb and vocals and turn up the bass, guitar and drums a tad higher, and what you have here may be one of the very first power pop songs. I've listened to 'Wendy' countless times, but it was always a fly-over tune, never a Beach Boys destination for me. Now suddenly, I actually hear it and I can't stop. The magic of music."

Obviously, I agree, although I've had a thing for this song since forever. In any case, as some of you may have already guessed, I'm mostly posting this as a big "I lurve you!" to a certain shady dame of my acquaintance.

UPDATE: I just found this live version from the Ed Sullivan show -- which I'd never seen before -- and the word "awesome" is inadequate.