A Picture is Worth 1000 Words. However, They Don't Tell You WHICH Words...

Heh.

Okay, sorry -- I got lazy today. A fun Weekend Essay question will appear on the morrow by way of atonement.

Great Lost Singles of the Sixties (An Occasional Series): Special "I'd Be Very Surprised if Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd Didn't Have a Copy of This Album" Edition

From their eponymous 1968 waxing, please enjoy shoulda-been-contenders NYC folk/rock/psychedelic/proto-New Wave band Autosalvage and their astoundingly prescient and fabulously jangly "Land of Their Dreams."

Attentive readers will recall me singing (heh) the praises of these guys several times over the years, but never specifically this song, whose aural mismash of symphonic strings, bluegrass influenced guitars, Dylanesque vocals and kick-ass rhythm section has confounded me (in a good way) ever since I stole a vinyl copy of it from my college radio station shortly after its original release.

Seriously, it's one of my forever faves, a haunting and stunningly abstract piece of jangle-rock that has always seemed (to me) to be utterly outside of time. I mean, for years, before and after it finally got reissued on CD in the late 90s, I used to play it for people and ask them to guess when and where it was recorded.

Invariably, the answer would come "Athens, Georgia, mid-to-late 80s?"

Heh.

Anyway, the short background version: Despite Autosalvage being a big deal on the local NYC scene back in the day, their sole LP never sold much, and the concensus has always been that they missed out by not moving to San Francisco in time for the Summer of Love, when their mix of psychedelic jam stuff and tight concise song structures would probably have gone down a storm.

They were also an interesting couple of guys. Guitarist Rick Turner, who I interviewed once, was a charming dude who went on to a hugely successful career as a luthier on the West Coast; he used to write a column for Guitar Player magazine, and he made and maintained all of Lindsey Buckingham's custom instruments for ages. Bassist Skip Boone was the brother of Lovin' Spoonful bassist Steve Boone, and went on to be a seminal figure, as a producer and recording engineer, in the Baltimore alt-rock music scene. And the band's rhythm guitarist Darius Davenport was the son of one of the founders of The New York Pro Musica, among the first and best original instrument groups performing medieval and early baroque classical stuff. (His dad is on the album somewhere, actually.)

But I mean seriously -- what I wouldn't have given to have heard these guys cover a Wilson Pickett song with backing by a crumhorn section.

Anyway, the even shorter version: If the song above doesn't remind you of Television (the band) you're just not paying attention. Which is the larger point this post is about, duh.

I thank you.

And Speaking as We Were Last Week of Moby Grape...

...I discovered this over the weekend and it just blew my tiny mind.

That's the Grape's classic "Sittin' By the Window," written by Peter Lewis, and performed by -- hole. e. shit -- his daughter Arwen.

The short version: that's from an entire album of Grape covers Ms. Lewis did in 2015, which apparently none of you bastards ever bothered to tell me about; I have been listening to it obsessively since Sunday, and I just can't get over how wonderful it is, both in execution and conceptually.

I should add that I love that her name on the guitar case is in the same typeface as the old Grape logo. Oh, and John Sebastian (yes, him) is on another track from the record; remind me and I'll post it later in the week.

Annals of Art Direction (An Occasional Series): Special "Hey, It's Actually Not So Bad!" Edition

[The following is a true story. I first posted it here in 2008(!), but I've just tweaked it for inclusion in my forthcoming Greatest Hits book, and in case you missed it back in the day, I hope you get a kick out of it. --S.S.]

So...Back in the dim dark past (by which I mean the Hyborian Age, when Conan the Barbarian actually walked the earth) I got a gig (life-changing, as it turned out) as the rock critic at my college (C.W.Post) newspaper. I got it not out of any special qualifications, of which I had none; in fact, if truth be told, the reason I got it was that nobody else had bothered to ask for the job. I, on the other hand, had correctly reasoned that the major record labels were then in the process of dispensing vast largesse on anybody with a byline anywhere, and thus -- dreams of free LPs dancing in my head -- I petitioned the paper's powers that be (who were doing massive quantities of drugs, if memory serves) and was given a weekly column to do with as I pleased.

Anyway, sometime in the spring of 1970 I received a large package from Warner Bros./Reprise Records. I don't recall everything that was in it -- I'm thinking an early T-Rex album, although I can't be sure -- but one LP in particular stood out -- No BS, by a then obscure Detroit band called Brownsville Station. And by stood out, I mean it REALLY stood out.

Like, it sported perhaps The Worst Album Cover of All Time.

I mean, really, embarrassingly, horrendously bad. So bad, in fact, that I didn't bother to sell it for beer-and-cigs change, as was my wont with most of the free promo LPs I knew I was never going to listen to, but rather kept it around, still shrink-wrapped, as a cautionary exemplar of esthetic hideousness. (I later learned that before Warners picked up No BS for distribution, it had been a D.I.Y. effort self-released on the band's own label, mostly to sell at gigs, which in some ways excused the cover's awful amateurism. But still, I thought -- dudes, you're on a major label now; hire somebody who can actually draw.)

Anyway, like I said, the album -- which I showed, with much guffawing, to everybody I knew for a few weeks -- eventually went into my collection in the milk crate with the rest of the B's (I was one of those geeks who alphabetized his albums) and I got on with my life.

Cut to: a party in early 1973. I found myself chatting with an absolutely adorable young woman (long dark hair and bangs, and I was a goner) who, as it turned out, had grown up in Detroit and knew everybody in the rock music community there. She told me some amazing stories -- at 13, she had painted Bob Seger's psychedelic van -- and she thought I was fairly cool because I knew who (local Detroit faves) The Rationals were. After many drinks, we adjourned to a local Greenwich Village watering hole (it was run by legendary Max's Kansas City restauranteur Mickey Ruskin, who said hello to her when we walked in, impressing me mightily) and I proceeded to fall completely head over heels. And then -- around midnight, I recall -- she mentioned that she really wanted to do album covers when she got out of art school. I asked if she'd ever done one, and, somewhat ruefully, she mentioned Brownsville Station.

Yup -- the object of my affections was the woman behind The Worst Album Cover of All Time. And in in case you're wondering if I told her I knew it, let alone that I thought it was TWACOAT, I'm going to assume you know absolutely nothing about guys.

Anyway, the story has a sort of happy ending. The woman in question and I proceeded to have a long and mostly delightful run as the Nick and Nora Charles of 70s Manhattan, and we're still friends to this day. Carol Bokuniewicz (that's her name) went on to do some much better album covers -- you might remember this one --

-- and eventually achieved, deservedly, lasting fame when she co-founded the hugely influential design firm M&Co. You can find out more about her...

...and her most recent work over at her official website HERE.

Incidentally, a few years after Carol and I became an item, I interviewed the guys in Brownsville Station, who were then riding high on their hit "Smoking in the Boys Room." All went well until I mentioned that I was living with the woman who had done their first album cover, at which point I was nearly ejected from their hotel room.

When I asked what was wrong, band leader Cub Koda would only say "Shit, man...that's the worst album cover of all time."

La Fin de La Semaine Essay Question: Special "There is Nothing Like a Dame" Edition

So I was saddened to hear that Gallic chantoosie/major babe Francoise Hardy passed away last Tuesday at age 80.

Attentive readers are aware that I have a particular fondness for all those existential French popstar gals of the late Fifties and Sixties (where have you gone, Juliette Greco?)...

...and Hardy was one of my particular favorites. For obvious reasons.

I mean, if you had to be as good looking as Brian Jones to even have a chance with her...

That said, in all honesty, Hardy's music...

...was no better or worse than the rest of the commercial French pop purveyed by her ye-ye contemporaries, which is to say there's a reason none of that stuff ever made it to the Anglo charts (with the exception of Jane Birkin and the overtly smutty "Je T'Aime," which was essentially a novelty record). But I loved her anyway.

Which brings us, as you may have suspected, to the weekend's business. To wit:

...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Beatles English-language rock/pop/country/soul/folk gal singer is...???

No arbitrary rules, but by post-Beatles we mean, obviously, someone who came to public prominence AFTER the release of the hit recording "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and the invention of the blow dryer.

Discuss.

Oh, and my choices (one of which I suspect may surprise you -- hell, it surprised me!) for favorite are...a tie!!!

Beginning wth...

Chrissie Hynde, of The Pretenders!!!

Who, as you can hear in the above clip, has the uncanny ability to call to mind ALL the greatest diverse Sixties girl singers who preceded her -- from the wistfully teenage Claudine Clark lamenting that she can't go see the "Party Lights" to the imperiously regal Sandy Denny as she bemoans the fate of the murdered adulterous "Matty Groves" -- in just about about every rock/pop genre imaginable.

And then, of course...there's the late Rachel Nagy of The Detroit Cobras!!!

And why?

Silly mortals...because SHE HAS THE MOST F**KABLE VOICE IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY!!!

Seriously, as I said when I first posted that video in 2007, "is there another woman on the planet who can make the three syllable phrase 'cha-cha-cha' absolutely drip with lust?"

I think not.

Anyway, those are my nominees. What would YOURS be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Holy Cow -- Simels Just Posted an Actual Power Pop Song For a Change!!!

And a great one, to boot!

From his accurately titled new album Let 'Er Rip, (which drops, as the kids say, tomorrow) please enjoy Mark Ward and his absolutely killer first single "I've Been Around."

Which, as it turns out, is also accurately titled.

MARK WARD is an Alaska-raised singer-songwriter/guitarist and former member of bands Last Train and Ryebender, whose albums have garnered national airplay and critical acclaim. As a multi genre artist, Mark writes about what moves him, giving voice to his passions through heartfelt lyrics set to power pop, rock, Americana and roots-based music.

Anyway, the whole album is terrific -- you can (and should) listen, stream and download it over at Bandcamp HERE.

I am also informed that actual physical CDs will be available soon via our friends at KOOL KAT MUSIK -- I'll keep you posted as things develop over there.

I should add, and for the record (as it were), that "I've Been Around" is one of my absolute favorite things so far this year. I love everything about it -- the wise-ass snotty vocal, the classic chiming lead guitar riff/hook, and just the whole sound. Man, what I wouldn't give to have a chance to cover it live with a band, and higher praise than that I can not bestow.

It's True -- Clothes Make the Man!

Hey -- if you had told me back in the day that some time in the future I'd be walking around in a promo shirt (decorated front and back with album covers) for a band I was once in, let's just say I would have chortled in your general direction. 😎

The short version: Floor Models fan, long-time Friend of PowerPop© and all around swell guy Phil Cheesebrough had some of those gorgeous tees made up out of the immense goodness of his heart recently. (Gerry got one too, as did a certain Shady Dame and our late drummer Glen Bob's widow Eddie.)

I should add that Phil gifted similar shirts to both Brian and Michael D'Addario, better known these days as The Lemon Twigs (who actually got onstage with the Flo Mos during our 2019 reunion gig), and I am informed they too have been known to be seen in them in public.

Wear 'em in good health, everybody, and bless you Phil -- you're a real mensch.

Closed for Monkey Business

Too much stuff on my proverbial plate today.

Serious new music you'll enjoy will be here on the morrow.

And Speaking of Nothing in Particular...

...for reasons I won't bother you with, I had the occasion to print out this old piece of mine (from the May 1993 issue of The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review) over the weekend...

...and I must say I thought -- hey, that's pretty darn good writing there, pardner. And more important, right on the money, in terms of the band in question. (You can click on it to enlarge and read, if you're of a mind to.)

Anyway, as a result, I suddenly recalled the video below, which just blew me away, as I think it will you.

A latter day version of the Grape, doing business as The Moby Grape Guys, with their signature tune "Omaha" at SXSW in Austin back in 2010.

That's genius original Grape guitarist Jerry Miller stage right, and original frontman Skip Spence's son Omar channeling his dad on lead vocals and guitar on the left. If memory serves, that's also original drummer Don Stevenson (a super nice guy, BTW, who's been known to peruse our work at PowerPop on occasion) on percussion and vocals stage center.

Bottom line: if the performance above doesn't put you in seriously good spirits, it's time to check in with your physician.

I mean -- really. That's like one of the greatest rock-and-roll songs of all time, done to absolute perfection.

Make America Grape Again!!!

La Fin de La Semaine Essay Question: Special "In Search of Leo Gorcey” Edition

Okay -- this is just too cool for words.

The short version: Cherry Red Records -- pretty much the hippest rock reissue label on the planet -- is assembling a three CD box set whose theme is Stuff and Records Having to Do With People Who Played at CBGBs in NYC in the Mid to Late 70s.

And somehow, the people putting this project together had not only heard of the 1976 indie single my old band The Hounds -- who did in fact play at CBs a couple of times, including opening for a pre-stardom Blondie -- put out back in the day...

...but they figured it was catchy/historically important enough to include in said forthcoming package.

They're using the A-side, thankfully...

...which was recorded at Electric Lady Studios circa 1975. Attentive readers will recall that story, which involves a cameo by Ron Wood of The Rolling Stones.

In any event, said CBGBs box set is apparrently scheduled for release sometime late this year, and I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, that leads to the business at hand. To wit:

...and your favorite (or least favorite) Bowery band (or album track/single by an artist associated however tenuously with the CBGBs New York downtown scene of the '70s) is...?

In case you're wondering, my favorite folks from out of that gestalt is/are, hands down, the great Mink DeVille. If you don't know from them, I'm not going to get into their history right now, but there's a new documentary about them that should be available for streaming momentarily. (Also, get me drunk and I'll tell you an amazing story about my encounter with frontman and auteur Willy DeVille at the offices of Atlantic Records in 1981. It's hilarious and creepily terrifying.)

But my favorite single track, however, (and yeah, yeah, I know about Talking Heads, Ramones, etc etc) has got to be this power pop gem -- from the unjustly critically pooh-poohed Live at CBGBs album -- by the unjustly forgotten Laughing Dogs.

God, I love that song. It's like the Brill Building meets the Lovin' Spoonful and Steely Dan and then they all go to Schrafts for lunch.

I should add that the Dogs also get points for having had the funniest album cover of all time.

Discuss.

I.e., rant away while I'm gone.

And have a fantastic weekend, everybody!!!

Your Thursday Moment of Why Didn't I Get the Memo? (An Occasional Series)

From 1966, please enjoy (arguably the inventors of Power Pop) The Who and their astonishing cover of The Everly Brothers(!)' 1964 "The Man With the Money."

Dunno how I'd missed that previously; it appeared for the first time on the super expanded version of the A Quick One album in 1995, and I was alive back then. In any event, I must confess that I was totally unaware of it until I stumbled across it by chance yesterday.

Wow.

Meanwhile, here's the Everly's (slightly differently titled) original which I just looked up. Don and Phil wrote the song, BTW.

I dunno how I missed that one either.

Have I mentioned wow?

Hope I Die Before I Get Old -- Hey, Wait a Minute! No I Don't!!!!

So Suzi Quatro turned 74(!) last Monday. I was gonna make note of it here at the appropriate time, but I'm older than she is and it slipped my senile mind. Mea culpa.

That said, and I originally posted about this here several years ago, I bring the whole thing up because in honesty I was never particularly impressed with Quatro back in her early 70s glam-rock stardom period. Although in retrospect a lot of her records -- which were hits pretty much everywhere in the civilized world except the USA -- were actually pretty good.

To me, though -- and I say this despite the fact that my first ex-wife was a refugee from the Detroit rock scene and had lots of funny true stories about Suzi and the rest of her Motor City colleagues -- the only reasons I ever particularly took notice of her at all was because a) her name actually was Suzi Q (c'mon -- how cool is that?); b) she played Leather Tuscadero, the sister of Fonzie's girlfriend Pinky, on Happy Days ; and c) there was a credible rumor going around that she (Suzi) and Rick Derringer were in fact the same person.

Seriously -- did YOU ever see the two of them in the same room at the same time?

I think not.

In any case, I knew that Suzi -- and pretty much the rest of her immediate family -- had been in an all-girl 60s Detroit garage band called The Pleasure Seekers in those pre-stardom days...

...but I'd totally forgotten that the Pleasure Seekers had released a single (in either 1965 or 1966) that may in fact be the most astounding piece of garage rock ever waxed.

Ladies and germs -- behold in breathless wonder "What a Way to Die."

In case you can't quite make out the lyrics through the low-fi mono murk, Suzi is sending the following tender blandishments toward a potential lover (and Iggy, eat your heart out).

Well I love you baby
I’m telling you right here
But please don’t make me decide baby
Between you and a bottle of beer.

Baby come on over
Come on over to my side
Well I may not live past twenty-one
but WOO!
What a way to die!

Your lovin' fluctuates baby
And everybody knows
But the temperature always stays the same
On an ice cold bottle of Strohs

When I start my drinking
My baby throws a fit
So I just blitz him outta my mind
With seventeen bottles of Schlitz

You’ve got the kind of body
That makes me come alive
But I’d rather have my hands around
A bottle of Colt 45

Baby come on over
Come on over to my side
Well I may not live past twenty-one
but WOO!
What a way to die!

WOO?

In a word -- wow.

Yes, obviously, on some level the song and the record are kind of a joke. As anybody who ever went to a high school dance back then knows, the Pleasure Seekers probably didn't really want to die before they got old, i,e, before they got laid a lot.

But still...that kind of gonzo nihilism, even if it was a pose they barely understood, was not only unprecedented for a bunch of suburban adolescent gals, but also, clearly, a huge influence in all sorts of unexpected ways on the rest of rock history.

Speaking of which, I think we need to research whether the song's lyrical mention of Strohs, Schlitz and Colt 45 was some kind of innovative product placement or just alcoholic bravado.

Tomorrow: that cool new power pop song I promised you guys yesterday. Sorry for the delay.

Is It a Good Day for Byrds News? Part Deux: The Folk Process at Work

Okay, for starters -- my apologies; I know I was supposed to put up a zip file link with all the music from the Byrds-ish CD that accompanies this months' MOJO today --

-- but for the life of me I can't figure out how to do it. Sorry to be a tease, but I promise -- I'm gonna make it my project for the next couple of days. I mean, there's a shitload of music I've always wanted to be able to post here for you fine folks, and I really should get on the ball.

That taken care of, here's a fun sort of Byrds-themed mini-playlist you might enjoy.

We begin with -- and this version, which appears on the aforementioned MOJO CD, was heretofore unheard by me-- a performance of "Kız Çocuğu" ("The Girl Child"), the classic anti-war poem by Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet originally written sometime in the early post-War era.

Hikmet was an interesting guy, BTW -- very political in a lefty sort of way, and frequently in trouble with the right-wing Turkish dictatorships of his day. He's apparently now considered quite the hero in his home country; you can find out more about him over HERE. In case you don't speak Turkish (cue The Firesign Theater) the poem itself conveys a plea for peace from a seven-year-old girl who perished in the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

We then move to 1952, when Pete Seeger set an English translation of the poem to the melody of an old Scottish Child ballad (first anthologized circa 1860), and called it "I Come and Stand at Every Door."

Here's the original folk song, courtesy of Joan Baez...

...and here's Seeger's adaptation of it and the Hikmet poem.

Are we getting exhausted yet?

Anyway, in 1966, The Byrds -- remember them? -- covered it on (my personal fave of their albums) Fifth Dimension. I still remember the first time I heard it; suffice it to say the original folk song had been a huge influence on me (I actually wrote a solo piano semi-classical adaptation of it in 8th grade) and hearing it with those metallic folk-rock guitars and that brilliant David Crosby harmony on the last verse just completely blew me away.

Have I mentioned the song was a complete and total cultural touchstone for me? To the point where, in 2019, when I got a chance to make my first solo single, I decided to cover it as the A-side?

Man -- what a great idea. A deeply depressing song about a kid burned to a crisp in a nuclear attack. Talk about No Commercial Potential.

Anyway, I'll spare you most of the other extant versions, although I will say that the 1997 take by vastly overrated Brit punk poseurs The Fall...

...is not merely awful, but a crime against humanity in its own right.

Coming tomorrow: Actual upbeat melodic new music more appropriate to the theme of the blog you're reading.

Is It a Good Day for Byrds News? It's ALWAYS a Good Day for Byrds News!

[Acknowledgements to the great Charles Pierce for the title of today's post. -- S.S.]

So there's a really nice cover story about my all-time fave band just out in the July issue of MOJO. Complete with a smartly programmed accompanying CD as a bonus.

I don't see MOJO as often as I used to, alas, for the simple and infuriating reason that I haven't been able to find an actual magazine stand that features it in NYC for what seems like years now. Anybody else having a similar problem where they are?

In any case, from that aforementioned CD, here's the irrepressible Dinosaur Jr. with their balls-to-the-wall yet still very effective cover of the feathered ones classic "Feel a Whole Lot Better."

From the CD liner notes (which are actually in the magazine, not on the CD sleeve):

A bratty 1989 tear through Gene Clark's beautiful song; J. Mascis later admitted he found The Byrds "too wimpy" and was not a fan at the time of recording. Nevertheless, Dinosaur jr.'s full-throttle version shows how robustly Byrds songs can not just withstand irreverent treatment, but also showcase much noisier guitar innovators.

Mascis found The Byrds "too wimpy"? Really?

I knew there was a reason I never particularly cared for that pretentious punk-snob putz when his band was fashionable. (I keed, I keed!)

Anyway, the MOJO story is well-worth reading for Byrds fans of any age or musico-ideological stripe, and the CD -- which has a lot of interesting oddities, including one in Turkish (about which I will have more to say tomorrow) -- is definitely worth a listen. If I can figure out the tech issues, I'll see if I can post a link to a zip file of the disc as well.