And now, newly rescued from the vaults as part of our ongoing project to digitize every loud noise I ever made, please enjoy The Hounds' 1975 cover of the (then obscure) Jeff Beck Group (with Rod the Mod) b-side "Drinking Again."
Not bad for a bunch of bozos from New Jersey, I think, although the vocalist (the lovely and talented Lucinda Albiston) was forced to sing it in an uncomfortable key due to the incompetence of the producer (me). And I recently listened to the original Beck/Stewart version and was rather surprised to find that my guitar solo, which I have been referring to for years as "a note for note recreation of the one on the record," is actually missing a couple of Beck's little flourishes. Oh well.
A true story: A few months after we recorded this, I interviewed Rod Stewart, then flogging Atlantic Crossing (the solo album which turned out to be pretty much the last one before the rot and self-parody set in) and somehow I had the brass to make him listen to our version of "Drinking" in its entirety. Stewart endured it with great patience and grace, and when it was over he completely resisted the urge to tell me to get the fuck out of his hotel room, a kindness that I have always treasured.
...genuine blue-eyed soul phenom or just a slightly more credible version of that Taylor Hicks idiot from American Idol?
YOU make the call!
Well, okay -- actually I will.
Seriously, I've been meaning to write about Reed for a while now, and not solely because because the good folks at MOJO have been singing his praises for what seems like forever. Actually, what I'd heard from Reed's two indie albums had been impressive, which is to say the guy had all the right vocal influences -- Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, James Brown, to name the ones that spring most immediately to mind -- and was apparently a hell of a bandleader and frontman.
On the other hand, the fact that Brits were hyping him made me nervous -- it seemed a little bit like somebody's rather too obviously calculated attempt to come up with a male version of Amy Winehouse, i.e., an easily marketable retro soul/r&b/blues star. Although in Reed's case, one without the encumbrance of a) being nuts and b) having a spouse in prison.
Anyway, I figured that Come & Get It, his just released major label [Capitol] debut, would tell the tale, i.e. would they slick him up to make him palatable to the masses or just let Reed be Reed? Well, I've been listening to it for a couple of days now, and so far it sounds pretty damned authentic; as you can perhaps glean from the title track above, the obvious analog is a better produced version of the first two Southside Johnny/Asbury Jukes albums, although I don't think the material is quite at that transplendent level. Yet.
So yes, I think the guy's very definitely the Real Deal, and you should check out the album posthaste.
I should add, of course, that I'm going to see Reed and company at a club show in NYC later this month; I'll get back to you if it makes me change my mind.
Could have sworn that I posted that Gaga item for Tuesday.
Damn Blogger, playing with my head again.
Oh well, enjoy this SCTV classic until Wednesday, when a real post will (hopefully) appear as scheduled.
Abbott and Costello's Midnight Express Special. The boys (Tony Rosato and Eugene Levy) get sent to a Turkish prison and perform "Who's On First" for Wolfman Jack.
Alarming news has just come to me via the Intertubes.
LADY GAGA CROSSES HER LEGS TO PROTECT HER...CREATIVITY? [LA Times Gossip Blog -- August 2, 2010 | 1:37 pm]
Lady Gaga sings like a bird in the September issue of VANITY FAIR, opening up about drug use, isolation, success and the extremely private place where she stores her creativity.
"I have this weird thing that if I sleep with someone they're going to take my creativity from me through my vagina," Gaga says...
Uh, babe -- I don't think what's leaking out down there is your creativity, if you know what I mean.
Oh, and if somebody can tell me why the chorus boys she's having sex with in the "Alejandro" video...
...all look like Moe Howard from The Three Stooges, I probably wouldn't believe you anyway.
Just to put a coda on our little discussion of the relative merits of Stevie Ray Vaughan the other day --
Here's Danny Gatton, sometime in the early 90s, just fooling around.
When the video runs out, after about six minutes, he still hasn't run out of ideas.
Gatton departed this world by blowing his brains out, for reasons that apparently remain mysterious. Also mysterious, at least to me, is how any guitarist can watch the above and not want to do the same.
Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my beautiful Oriental pneumaticist Fah Lo Suee and I are off to...
Sorry. Given the weather here in the Paris of the Tri-State Metropolitan Area, once again I just don't have the energy to make the obligatory joke about the Rightwing Shithead du Jour.
Although the guy who wrote that piece in in the current issue of TIME, which says Rush Limbaugh may have a point about the Gulf oil spill not being such a big deal, should really rot in hell. IMHO.
In any case, supposedly the weather's going to be nicer over the weekend. And while we wait, here's a (hopefully) fun little project for us all, and for a change I'm almost positive I've never done anything exactly like it before.
Post-Elvis Album/Album Track/Song/Single You Discovered Long After the Fact and Immediately Wondered How You had Lived Without It!!!
And my totally top of my head Top Six is...
6. Sonic's Rendezvous Band -- City Slang
SRB, of course, being a sort of Detroit supergroup featuring ex MC5 guitarist Fred Smith and several other worthies. I'd heard of the single, which came out in 1978, for years, but didn't get around to listening to it until fairly recently. Needless to say, the damn thing is pretty much hard rock at its most intense, and god only knows what I was waiting for.
5. Candy Butchers -- You Belong to Me Now
The most seraphically beautiful love song of the last decade; it came out in 2002, but I didn't hear it until Kid Charlemagne clued me in here. Have I mentioned that the production on this is stellar as well? That I would kill to have come up with the bass part? That the guitar solo is to die for? And that Mike Viola's singing just breaks my heart?
This is a perfect record, is what I think I'm hinting at.
4. Los Shakers -- Always You
The Beatles of Uruguay, and every bit as good as anything by their role models, IMHO. I got hipped to this one courtesy, once again, of Kid Charlemagne, and I have to say -- of all the great songs I've discovered since NYMary gave me the spare set of keys to this place, this is the one that means the most to me.
3. You Am I --Mr. Milk
First heard this one (which dates from 1996) sometime around 2003, over the sound system at NYCD, the late lamented (and still the coolest in history) indie record store on Manhattan's upper West Side run by our pal Sal Nunziato (currently the proprietor of the indispensable Burning Wood). How the best Australian band since the Easybeats had previously gotten by me remains a mystery I may never solve, but I am in forever in Sal's debt for having played this one loud.
2. Sam Cooke -- Night Beat
It sounds, deliberately, like a late night blues/soul/gospel jam session at a small smoke-filled club, and it's probably the greatest pop music album of the last fifty years that most people still don't know about. Cooke cut it for his own label in 1963 and it went out of print pretty much immediately; the American CD reissue from 2001 (which is when I first heard it) got pulled due to legal wrangling (love that Allen Klein) almost as quickly.
And the Numero Uno Where Have You Been All My Life? classic actually has to be...
1. The Cat's Meow -- La La Lu.
Just found this 1966 garage rock gem (which definitely should have been a radio hit) the other day; apparently, it's fairly well known in Nuggets circles, but I'd never run across it before. In any case, a simply wonderful piece of Revolver-ish bubblegum punk; the band was from Staten Island, if that's at all germane, and you can read a fun interview with their lead guitar player and catch some cool period photos over here.
Alrighty, then -- what would your choices be?
[Shameless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania -- theme: best dramatic film with a plot line ripped from the headlines -- is now up over at Box Office. As always, I would take it as a personal favor if you could shlep over there and leave something snarky in the comments section. Thanks.]
From 1969, please enjoy post-hippie wiseguy Dan Hicks (along with His Hot Licks) and his old-timey kiss-off classic "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?"
To be honest, I was never much of a Hicks fan -- gimme his original band, The Charlatans, any day -- but this song tickles me none the less. And if you're interested, you can download the entire album this is from, free and quite above board, over here.
In any case, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded the first reader sensitive enough to glean the clip's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.
I do not now get, and have never gotten, the late Stevie Ray Vaughan.
By which I mean, I don't get why I was ever supposed to be more impressed with him than, say, an average hot blues guitarist of the sort you can find at an average blues bar anywhere in the country on any given night 24/7.
Okay, I'm sort of kidding here, but I figured that since last week's cheap shot at Frank Zappa unexpectedly generated beaucoup de comments, I should perhaps try something similar.
Okay, this is actually a little cruel of me, but I can't help it.
By way of preface, if you were around for last week's Listomania -- theme: unsavory pop music trends -- you may recall that somebody (I won't name names) felt compelled to post a link to the following video, of a song I had (up until Friday) mercifully blocked from my memory.
That is, of course, the 1972 smasheroo "How Do You Do?" by the Dutch duo Mouth and MacNeal, and pretty hideous stuff, obviously. After I watched it, however, it struck me that, although I couldn't really give a rats ass about what might have happened to Mouth(!), his partner was actually kind of hot in a 70s/ABBA-ish porn star sort of way. So I went looking for a more recent video.
And found this, from 2008. MacNeal, now toiling in a new duo called the Dutch Divas.
I think the words that immediately come to mind are "oy" and "gevalt."
Just to clear the air a bit after last week's little Frank Zappa brouhaha -- no, I don't hate the guy or his music.
Actually, and for example, I think that the 1966 "Trouble Every Day," from the Mothers' debut album, is a great rock-and-roll record.
No snark intended here -- that's one genuinely kick-ass piece of apocalyptic blues, and (alas) the lyrics are, if anything, even more to the point than they were when Zappa wrote them.
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