Friends of Mine: Songs by People I Actually Know That I Played on Capt. Al's LOST AT SEA Last Week Which You May Have Missed (Part I)

From their 2001 greatest hits album 3000 Nights in Babylon, please enjoy the incomparable White Animals -- featuring the song's auteur Steve Boyd on lead vocals -- with their power pop masterpiece "This Girl of Mine."



I should add that the song itself derives from the Animals 1984 indie album Ecstasy, and that both it and Babylon are still available over at Amazon.

I've written about the White Animals before, but herewith a little refresher for newbies.

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.

I wrote that 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, the Floor Models 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 us off the stage. In the nicest and most supportive way possible.

And here's a video that just slays me.



Also yes: Unless I miss my guess, the title of today's post is the longest one in the history of this here blog.

Well, It's Not Like Bob Didn't Warn Us

How depressing and infuriating that so little has changed since Dylan wrote that.

It's Time for...SPACE FORCE!!!

And speaking as we were earlier this week of the great Buchanan and Goodman and their Flying Saucer records, here's the great Albert Brooks, from 1975, and his brilliant homage/parody of same -- "Party From Outer Space." Featuring phony hits as the cut-ins.



BTW, the album the above is from -- A Star is Bought -- is one of the genuine post-modern masterpieces of its genre, and I highly recommend it; order it over at Amazon HERE. I guarantee you'll thank me -- it's worth it for the dead-on parody of a 1940s radio show a la Jack Benny alone.

Have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Programming Notes From All Over: Special "This Time It's For Real" Edition

Swear to God, I'm going to be on friend of PowerPop Capt. Al's intertube radio show Lost at Sea today over at the soon-to-be-shuttered Area 24 Radio.

The show will begin at 7pm EST and you can access it at the link HERE; when you get there, just click on the LISTEN HERE link.

My guest slot will begin circa 7:20, and while I won't give away the theme of my segment, let's just say that it has a lot to do with a certain Zombies song from Odessey and Oracle.

Look, I know I said the same thing last Saturday, and then the whole freaking thing crashed, technically, but I have been assured not this time.

Keep Watching the Skies!

From 1957, please enjoy Buchanan and Goodman -- the great comic geniuses of the original rock era -- and their second official Flying Saucer record, i.e. the sequel to the ones I posted yesterday.



I've said it before but it behooves repeating -- Buchanan and Goodman's stuff literally changed my life. Unfortunately, B&G's stuff obviously changed Elon Musk's life too, except he didn't get the joke.

Buchanan and Goodman Rule! (An Occasional Series): Special "It Came From Outer Space" Edition

From 1956, please enjoy the original Flying Saucer records -- the aptly named "The Flying Saucer Pts. 1 and 2," by the comic geniuses of the original rock era Buchanan and Goodman.




For those of you too young to remember, the Flying Saucer records -- also known by the more generic term cut-in records -- were all done pre-digital, i.e. actual human beings had to sit around in the studio and manually edit magnetic tape by physically cutting it and then re-attaching the pieces via plasic adhesive.

I should also add that those records were one of the three great influences on my early comic sensibility, along with Groucho Marx on TV and Mad Magazine. And in any event, given the reports in the news of late -- about the Pentagon releasing new and somewhat convincing UFO footage it seems like a good time to revisit them.

BTW, and I didn't know this until this very morning, but Bill Buchanan plays the disc jockey and Dickie Goodman plays reporter John Cameron Cameron.

Your Monday Moment of Steve Fulfills a Life-Long Dream

So thanks to the miracle of modern technology, I just got to sing and play with the freaking Byrds.

The back story: As you may or may not know, I am in the process of putting together a final Floor Models record -- specifically, either an album or an EP that will be a tribute to The Byrds (titled In-Flyte Entertainment, courtesy of friend of PowerPop and moi Tommy Perkins. Thanks. Tommy!). This is going to feature a lot of my musician friends -- some of whom you will be familiar with -- but the core group of players is going to be the surviving Flo Mos before we shuffle off this mortal coil, which could be any minute now. Heh.

In any case, I've been kicking this idea around since last year, and at the time I was conceptualizing it, I was hobnobbing with our late great drummer and dear friend (or, as I used to refer to him, my musical director for the last 50 years) Glen Robert Allen. My idea was that we'd restrict the Byrds songs being covered to those they had done between their debut LP in 1965 and their final album involving David Crosby in 1967, i.e. just their folk-rock and psychedelic stuff, before they went country-rock. The music that had principally influenced the Flo Mos.

Glen, however, being the brilliant guy he was, said to me "Uh, Steve -- that's great, but if you don't include "Tulsa County," the gorgeous country song from the Ballad of Easy Rider LP, then you're a mongrel idiot." I was not immediately convinced, but I do in fact love that song and on reflection -- not even considering Glen's health issues at the time -- I ultimately agreed with him.

Bottom line: A few weeks ago -- the intertubes being the wondrous things they are -- I found an instrumental track of the Byrds recording of said song, sans lead vocal and with a barely audible bass. And then last Thursday I went into the studio and put a new vocal and bass part on it.

Which is to say I finally got to collaborate with my favorite band of all time.

The track isn't done -- ultimately we're gonna replace all the original instrumentation, including adding an electric 12-string to it, which should make it sound less country-rock and more 1966. But in any case, this rough version is now the favorite thing I've ever done artistically in my entire life. I think it really sounds like an authentic Byrds outtake I just happened to sneak onto when they weren't paying attention.

I should add that I barely recognize my voice, which is a good thing. I'm well aware that I've never been a particularly good singer; basically, I can negotiate a sort of snotty sounding nasal Jewish suburban punk Lou Reed kind of thing at best. But here, I think, I've done better; to my ears, the vocalist on this genuinely sounds like his heart has been broken.

I'll keep you up to date on the progress of the track and the album itself as things develop. And god bless you, Glen.

[cross-posted at Floor Your Love]

Programming Notes From All Over: Special "The Long Goodbye" Edition

Going to be on friend of PowerPop Capt. Al's intertube radio show Lost at Sea tomorrow over at the soon-to-be-shuttered Area 24 Radio.

The show will begin at 2pm EST and you can access it at the link HERE; when you get there, just click on the LISTEN HERE link.

My guest slot will begin circa 2:20, and while I won't give away the theme of my segment, let's just say that it has a lot to do with a certain Zombies song from Odessey and Oracle.

Have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Songs I Wish One of My Old Bands Had Covered (An Occasional Series)

From their 1986 album In the Heart of the Heart Country please enjoy future Garbage members Butch Vig and Duke Erikson (here doing business as Fire Town) and their fabulous jangly neo-folk rock anthem "Carry the Torch."



Vig and company released that on their own label, and when it crossed my desk at the Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review, I flipped over it and wrote it up as a Best of the Month (I'd find a link to the review, which is online somewhere, but I'm too lazy; maybe next week if I have more energy). They got signed to Atlantic soon after, and made one album that went nowhere; eventually, Vig got the gig (ooh, I made a couplet) producing Nirvana and the rest is history.

In any case, Heart Country is a great album; you can order it over at Amazon HERE.

How Come You Dance So Good?

Somebody's nana gets down with her bad self to The Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar."



In the immortal words of Jan and Dean -- go granny, go granny, go granny go!

[h/t Frank]