Friday, October 30, 2009

Hanging on the Telephone

[Editor's Note: Just in case you missed the news on the Thursday Screamin' Jay Hawkins post, Weekend Listomania is on a one week hiatus while I digest all those heavy Ohio sauces consumed during my Dayton vacation. We now resume our programming, already in progress..]

You know, much as I love him, I don't, generally speaking, really think of Richard Thompson as a powerpop guy. Which is one reason I just dig the hell out of this 1998 RT live version of "She May Call You Up Tonite," my third favorite song on The Left Banke's classic and genre-defining 1966 album.





I've actually got a live tape -- which I may post one of these days -- of my 90s band doing this at a club somewhere, with me on keyboards. It's nowhere near as good as this, of course.

In any case, I bring the whole thing up because our good pal Sal Nunziato, over at the incomparable Burning Wood, just posted about a recent Richard show he attended, and he let the following mind-boggling bit of tid drop almost in passing.

Someone requested 'She May Call You Up' by The Left Banke, which Thompson performs live often. He offered up some info that will forever haunt me. "I could play the whole Left Banke first album."


To which Sal added, and to which I can only echo: "WHEN?"

12 comments:

Feral said...

No Listomania? I'm going into withdrawal...

Enjoyed the Dayton Diaries all the same, and a previous post gave me a possibile future Listomania idea - artists or bands you totally had a crush on.

fmcg said...

Steven, your absence from RT's recent all-request show in NYC is excusable--your commute would been transatlantic. Je regret I have no excuse.

The Kenosha Kid said...

NOW I understand the look you are going for.

steve simels said...

TKK --

Coincidence, actually. Great minds -- or bald pates -- think alike...
:-)

John Fowler said...

Steve,

Powerpop does it again! Thank you so much, that is =wonderful=!

I was unaware of this song, and now am having a great Friday afternoon, merely due to this 2+ minutes of notes strung together...

How did I survive for years without this blog?

Who Am Us Anyway? said...

I most sincerely second what John Fowler said.

And Steve, sometime can you give up the backstory to the Dayton, Ohio, thing. I know it's got to be a good one & must involve some dingbat somewhere somehow but ... what?

Or but if giving up the backstory would RUIN the backstory (a circumstance I could imagine), never mind!

Alex said...

Richard Thompson's "Valerie" (from the Mitchell Froom-produced Daring Adventures in 1986 is a definite slice of power pop... so much so that Marshall Crenshaw covered it on his '89 album Good Evening.

Okay, I'm done name-dropping now. :)

steve simels said...

Actually, there's a couple of RT things that impinge on power pop. Some of the stuff on "Amnesia" in particular.

But he's such a doom and gloom from the tomb kind of guy normally...
:-)

Unknown said...

Dad's Gonna Kill Me is as Power Pop as it gets, in all the right ways.

And how can we overlook his cover of Ooops, I Did It Again;>

MBowen said...

You want RT playing power pop? Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtyCsSkIALk

steve simels said...

Who Am Us Anyway:

The deal with Dayton is obviously kind of an in-joke; the short version is that it involves a real shithead who posts over at a political blog I hang out at.

Walking Oliver Productions, Ltd said...

I've been a huge RT fan since "Across A Crowded Room" (Ahem, thanks to a rave write-up in Stereo Review years back by someone who writes frequently on this blog) and have a shelf filled with his stuff. Hearing him do this song is a real pleasure, and I'm ashamed to say that, other than Walk Away Renee, I'd never even heard of The Left Banke. Live still has its little pleasures. :-)
Thanks!
PK