Hey, it was a long time ago. You know -- before digital streaming services put indie musicians out of business. (Just kidding.)
In any event, faithful readers will recall that I have, for more years than I care to think about, been toiling with some old high school garage band pals on various recorded musical follies. Specifically, making defiantly low-fi DIY albums in a dank Jersey basement, beginning about two decades before Guided By Voices honcho Robert Pollard did something similar in the late 80s/early 90s and thought he was so cool.
And we called ourselves The Weasels, which is a better fricking name, too.
Anyway, I (hopefully) haven't inflicted too many Weasels songs on you guys over the years because, if truth be told, most of them don't really fit into the powerpop template as such, but today I'm going to make an exception with this one because I think it does. In fact, when we were recording it -- which was somewhere around 1973-74 -- I definitely thought of it as our big Badfinger move.
So -- from that long ago vanished era -- please enjoy "Only You (Nobody)." Written by long-time Weasel Glenn Leeds and recorded on the four-track Teac reel-to-reel then recently acquired by fellow Weasel David "Jai Guru Dave" Hawxwell for an album aptly titled Crimes Against Nature.
For the sake of the historical record, the personnel here is me (the guitar solo), the aforementioned Dave on vocals and acoustic guitar, the aforementioned Glenn on the out-of-tune upright piano in Dave's living room, Allan Weissman on bass, and Mike "The Drummer" Sorrentino on one of those rare occasions when he graciously consented to keep the beat for us. I should add that the overdriven and highly compressed sound of my solo was achieved by plugging my 1957 Les Paul into a Pioneer cassette deck with a built-in limiter; where the interesting tape delay (or whatever the hell it is) came from has been lost in the mists of memory.
Oh, and the flutes at the end, in emulation of the Mellotron stuff from "Strawberry Fields," are in fact actual flutes also played by Glenn, talented multi-instrumentalist that he is.
You're welcome.
[h/t Steve Schwartz]
6 comments:
Hell YEAH Badfinger!
Excellent track.
Definitely Badfinger-y.
Was the Teac recorder dragged up to the living room to record the piano or was a very long microphone cord run from the basement to the piano?
Captain Al
Badfinger -,perhaps at top of my list, giving the Kinks a run for their money.
Huge fan of the Magic Christian with Sellers, Ringo and Badfinger sound track.
No wonder George used them as his Bad.
Such a sad ending - I referenced the Kinks, listen to Life Goes On and think of Pete
rob
Bass part is killer! Way to go Al!
It's a hit. Driving me nuts trying to figure out which combination of songs this reminds me of. The Badfinger element is obvious. But there are other reference points to which the song alludes. It's right on the edge of my mind. Btw, interesting tone on that tasty, economic guitar solo. No offense, but I think I'd rather have keys than real flutes at the end. Small quibble.
VR
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