From 2008, please enjoy my old friend/former bandmate Ronnie D'Addario and his genius offspring Brian and Michael (AKA The Lemon Twigs) and the wonderful pop confection that is "Trophy Girl."
Okay, that just kills me on a number of levels.
For starters, it's a fabulously crafted pop song/record. Ronnie plays everything and wrote/produced it, and it's not an exaggeration to say it could have (should have) been a hit.
I mean, c'mon; just on the conceptual level, it's hilarious. Teenage boys singing about a trophy girl? Words fail me.
I should also add that I love the fact that the Twigs sang it before their voices had changed. And brilliantly, I might add.
Have I mentioned that it could/should have been a hit?
Oh well. In the meantime, you can order "Trophy Girl" and much much else, on Ronnie's delightful 3 CD box set retrospective Don't Wait For Yesterday 1986-2017 over HERE.
Get going to the link, and tell 'em PowerPop sent you!!! 😎
So the great Dick Van Dyke, who has made 99 revolutions around the Sun to date, and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin (who hasn't), have made a video together.
I'm sorry, but that's about the most touching thing I've ever seen.
Hell, I even like the song (which is from Coldplay's latest album), and I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a fan of the group.
But hey -- I really hope both Dick and yours truly are around for his next birthday.
Just to hear those guys' next collaboration, of course. 😎
[An early version of this originally ran here in 2008, and obviously words fail me. I've rewritten a lot of it, dropped one entry and added three new ones, on the theory that the less I look like a geezer slacker, the better. In the meantime, enjoy. -- S.S.]
Well, it's Friday and you know what that means.
Yes, my Oriental arm candy/stress management expert Fah Lo Suee and I will be taking an emergency meeting with the Prince of Darkness, i.e., Satan himself. Trying to figure out what we're supposed to do now that we're living in a Retro-Nazi fascist dictorship under that weirdo Trump guy with the heavy orange make-up.
That being the case, further posting by moi will be sporadic for a day or two.
In the meantime, then, here's a hopefully fun little project for us all:
Most Memorable Drums, Drumming or Drum Simulation on a Post-Elvis Pop/Rock/Folk/Soul/R&B/Hip-Hop Record!!!
Arbitrary rules: No actual drum solos, per se, unless they're deliberately brief show-off kind of things. You know -- like two measures, tops. Fills, more than solos.
Also: No jazz or jazz-rock records need apply. And absolutely NO prog-rock or fusion. Seriously, I couldn't care less if Bill Bruford can play in 12/8 or whatever, and if you try to sneak any of that crap onto the list I will come to your house and rip your lungs out with a set of fireplace tongs.
Other than that, though, pretty much anything goes.
BTW, my own choices here, as you'll see, have more to do with sound and vibe and sheer novelty than with great drumming or any musical expertise per se.
And my Totally Top of My Head Top Ten is:
10. The Knack -- My Sharona
The quite amazing (and underrated) Bruce Gary on drums. C'mon -- that intro? It doesn't get any better.
9. The Miracles -- The Tracks of My Tears
Funk Brother Uriel Jones on drums. Those between verse breaks are just astounding in their sublety and power.
8. Esquerita -- Esquerita and the Voola
An utterly confounding record, beginning with the idea that somebody at Capitol in 1958 actually thought that this howling weirdness could be a hit. That said, although the track's mise-en-scene clearly belongs to its crazed auteur, I think we can all agree that Esquerita would have been nowhere without the credited-on-the-label drumming of Ricardo Young. Kudos and huzzahs to both of them, obviously.
7. Cozy Cole -- Topsy Parts 1 & 2
This was a double sided smash in 1958, although (as you'll note) I've always been partial to the more popular B-side, if only for the spoken introduction, delivered by Cole (one assumes) with just the right note of on-the-nod aplomb. In any case, few who've ever heard this have been able to resist the temptation to drum along with whatever utensils were immediately at hand.
6. The Beatles -- Long Tall Sally
Ringo, making the dawn come up like thunder. The fact that there are still people out there who think he couldn't play just blows my tiny mind.
5. Outkast -- Hey Ya!
Apparently, the video notwithstanding, there is no actual drummer on this, i.e. it's all programmed or computerized or whatever. Frankly, I don't care -- this is one of the most kick-ass tracks of its decade.
4. The Wonders -- Dance With Me Tonight
From That Thing You Do -- Tom Hanks simulacrum Tom Everett Scott as Guy Patterson, my favorite fictional drummer of all time is playing the clip. In real life, nobody seems to be quite sure who actually plays that killer drum part.
3. The Legendary Stardust Cowboy-- Paralyzed
A perennial candidate for worst rock record ever made, obviously, but producer T. Bone Burnett's contribution, as the song's trash-can drum soloist, can't be over-emphasized. Titular star The Ledge (as he is known to his friends) has never had backing as sympathetic.
2. The Rolling Stones -- Honest I Do
A Jimmy Reed cover, and as laid back as that entails, but seriously -- Charlie Watts plays the entire song using only one hand. I'm not making this up -- just listen to it. And if you still don't believe me, get me drunk sometimes and I'll mime to the track and prove the point.
And the numero uno assault on those pagan skins (perhaps only metaphorically) clearly is...
1. The Roues Brothers -- Gloria
For my money, the definitive live version of the Van Morrison/Them proto-punk classic. Some asshole whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels is on vocals; listen for history's greatest drum solo, by my hero Ed Steinberg, beginning at approximately 5:04.
Okay -- and what would YOUR choices be?
And have a great weekend, everybody!!!
[*H/T once and future Weasels drummer Michael Sorrentino, who actually said it and meant it.]
Okay, today we're resurrecting a tradition that the geniuses at the old SPY magazine used to refer to as "Log-Rolling In Our Time."
So -- from their 1996 album Hourly, Daily, please enjoy second greatest (after The Easybeats) Australian rock band You Am I, and their power pop masterpiece "Mr. Milk".
The short version: Sometime after that song was originally released, I happened to wander into NYCD, the fabulous record emporium on Manhattan's Upper West Side that I lived a few blocks away from. The above song was playing on the store sound system at the time, and I had no idea what it was or who had done it and it flipped me fucking out. (I mean -- is that 12-string riff the coolest or what?)
Fortunately, friend of PowerPop and proprietor of the invaluable Burning Wood blog Sal Nunziato was behind the counter at the time, and was able to provide me with the track's backstory.
Bottom line: Thanks, Sal!
Ah, those were the days, n'est-ce pas? 😎
P.S.: Oh, and by the way -- the reason I'm bringing this whole thing up?
It's because the other day Sal put up an absolutely fabulous You Am I live cover of an Easybeats song that I was previously unaware of.
From just now in 2024, please enjoy wonderful be-Rickenbackered Irish pop/rocker Barry J. Walsh and his absolutely killer new single "The Sound."
Attentive readers will recall I first raved about Walsh back in August; the short version is Barry used to be in a '90s Irish power pop band called The Fireflys, who were named after Groucho's character in Duck Soup, so I love him unreservedly from jump.
In any case, Barry modestly describes the above track as fading in "with a chainsaw riff before shuffling between the strut and stomp of Mod, four on the floor Northern Soul and the snark and swagger of New Wave, all the while surfing a wave of chugging guitars and stacked, heavenly Powerpop harmonies. It’s a gobstopper popsicle of a song so suck it and see."
And I couldn't agree more.
Meanwhile, you can find out more about Barry and download or stream more of his music over at Bandcamp here.
Okay, this had totally dropped off my musical memory radar until somebody posted it on FaceBook yesterday.
From 1970, and what ultimately became the Gene Clark album Roadmaster, please enjoy all five members of the original Byrds and a single that should have been huge -- "One in a Hundred."
Okay, that's sort of my definition of gorgeous. And it's no secret that I've spent most of my adult life as an attempted artist trying to chase that sound.
Kind of like a punk twit from New Jersey version of Moby Dick, now that I think of it. 😎
Of course, she's better known around these precincts as A Certain Shady Dame of My Acquaintance, or BG, but you get the idea.
In any case: I love you, kiddo, and I owe you more than I can express. I mean, for starters you (literally) saved my life a few years ago.
But now a couple of footnotes.
Number One: And I don't know if I've ever mentioned this here at the blog before, but we originally bonded over the fact that we had both attended The Yardbirds' legendary 1968 concert at the Anderson Theater in New York's East Village.
I should add that while the Anderson was (if memory serves) a 3000-seater (tops), at the point in history when BG and I first met, approximately 50,000 people were already on record as claiming they'd attended that historic show. So let's just say there was a certain amount of trust involved in our hooking up.
Number Two: I have another story involving us and the Yardbirds which I don't think I've previously shared either.
(And which also -- and more importantly -- proves just what a twit your humble scribe actually is.)
The short version: Sometime in 2010, after BG and I had been an item for a while, I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands (specifially, I had just parted ways with the folks at Box Office Magazine, for whom I had been doing a daily online column for a couple of years). Anyway, as a result I decided to compile a greatest hits album by The Floor Models, i.e. the '80s band I had toiled in and which never received the popular/critical acclaim I was convinced we were due.
I also had a cover concept for said theoretical CD, and since I knew that BG was a terrifically talented graphic artist, I thought I might shnorr her into doing the actual artwork for said cover.
So anyway, I took her out for dinner one evening, the idea being that I would proposition her for the job at some point. And as we were waiting for dessert, I made the following pitch.
ME: Hey toots -- so am I correct that if I wanted to do a Floor Models album cover based on the front of the Yardbirds American debut LP, all I would need is four playing-card shaped photos of me and the other guys in the Flo Mos, and then a talented designer like you could subsitute our photos where Jeff Beck et al had originally appeared?
BG: Uh sure.
ME: Great. Would you like the job?
BG: Uh sure. And you're gonna call it "Floor Your Love," right?
ME: (fainting, and falling off my chair).
Swear to god -- that title had never occured to me.
Not even once.
Have I mentioned there's a reason I call her my beautiful and brilliant girlfriend?
Anyway -- happy birthday, babe. You're the best. Period.
[This is a revised version of one of the very first Weekend Listomanias ever (I originally posted it in early 2007, which as you know is several centuries ago in dog years.) As is my wont, I have done some re-writing, substituted some different video clips, and added two new entries, in part to have something actually recorded in the current century. Enjoy!!! -- S.S.]
Okay, kids here's a fun project for us all to contemplate:
Best or Worst post-Elvis a cappella Pop/Rock/Soul/Country/Folk/Hip-Hop Harmony Song -- by which we mean either totally a cappella, or with a cool a cappella section of whatever length!!!
And also -- I don't just mean doo-wop. Group harmony is group harmony, okay?
Okay -- and my totally Top of My Head Top Ten is:
10. Pentatonix -- Video Killed the Radio Star
Wow, that sucks.
I should add that I had no idea who those clowns were till a few days ago, when a Gen Z friend of mine informed me that there was actually a big shot no-instruments band in the current larger Top 40.
In any event, they're basically Manhattan Transfer without the sincerity and the street corner soul roots. I mean -- yuck.
9. Steeleye Span -- Gaudete
I don't know what's more amazing -- the Span's stunning medieval harmonies on this or the fact that at the time it was recorded, the band were actually pop stars in England with hit records on the charts. I should add that I was lucky enough to see them do that live. Heh.
8. Petra Haden -- I Can See For Miles
The Who's power pop classic done solely with mouths turned to eleven. Utterly mind-boggling.
7. Fairport Convention -- Percy's Song
The Dylan song, and the brief acapella intro for this is one of my all time favorite things; amazingly enough, the performance gets even better as it goes along.
6. The Beatles -- Because
Of all the reasons to hate the Fabs, the fact that they were -- on top of all their other talents -- absolutely astoundingly good harmony singers may be the most plausible.
5. Big Daddy -- Eye of the Tiger
The Survivor song recast as street-corner doo-wop, as it probably always deserved. The traffic noises at the top are a particularly droll touch.
4. The Benzedrine Monks of Santa Dominica -- (Theme from) The Monkees
Big Daddy again, but doing business under a Medieval nom du chant.
3. Crosby Stills and Nash -- Find the Cost of Freedom
The a cappella at the end is pretty spine-tingling, I think. One of their better songs, although the a-side -- "Ohio" -- sent the same message somewhat more forcefully with loud guitars.
2. The Beach Boys -- Their Hearts Were Full of Spring
A straight cover of the Four Freshmen's original, but if it doesn't bring a tear to your eye, I probably don't want to know you. And this despite the immense dickitude of Mike Love.
And the number one all-time top acapella pop/rock madrigal is ----
1. Imogen Heap -- Hide and Seek
I first heard this in late 2006 when it was used in a montage at the end of an episode of the short-lived Ray Liotta TV crime show Smith, although I'm told it had also figured earlier on The O.C. In any case, I remember practically falling off the couch at the time and thinking it's the most bizarrely haunting thing I'd ever encountered. It's almost a whole new genre -- Android Doo-Wop, anybody?
Alrighty now -- what would YOUR choices be?
And have a great Thanksgiving weekend, everybody!!!
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