...and a certain Shady Dame and I are celebrating by a) going to see the Dylan bio-pic this afternoon and then b) following it up with an italian dinner at one of our fave mamma e papà restaurants in our nabe here in the Paris of the Northeast (that's Forest Hills, Queens for you out of town philistines).
I should add that, depending on how peppy I am given the rigors of the holiday, I'm planning to post both my thoughts on Timmy-the-C-as-the-Voice-of-a-Generation AND my nominees for Best Album of the Year on Friday.
Yeah, yeah -- restrain your enthusiasm, everybody. 😎
Anyway, in the meantime, it occurs to me I should end 2024 with something actually germane to the mission statement of this here blog, i.e. some bona fide no fooling around totally rockin' power pop.
And in that spirit -- from 1967 -- please enjoy Los Angeles heroes The Merry-Go-Round doing a medley of "Live" (famously covered by The Bangles), "You're a Very Lovely Woman" and "Listen, Listen." The cute singer, of course is none other than tragic genre hero Emitt Rhodes, seen here not long after his testicles descended.
And yes -- the guy introducing the band halfway through is Don Knotts. Who as you may know is currently starring in a holiday remake of this horror classic.
Anyway, I wanna thank everybody who helped yesterday with the links to the new list of music blogs that's going up in the next couple of days; you know who are you are, folks, and you're the best.
And a happy and healthy New Year to all our readers. Here's hoping, despite our current appalling historical-political moment, that 2025 brings you and yours every joy you all so richly deserve.
Okay -- as long time/attentive readers are doubtless aware, over on the left hand side of our homepage, directly underneath the section dedicated to Bands We Love, there has always been a listing of recommended music blogs. And a rather lengthy one at that -- close to twenty or 30 links, if my geezer memory serves.
The aforementioned long time/attentive readers, however, will have noticed that the listings are now down to a rather feeble two.
Why is that?
The short version: Late last week, I was trying to add a link to the blog recommendations, and given my level of internet illiteracy -- seriously, I still think Myspace and Napster are hot stuff -- it should surprise nobody that I accidentally deleted the whole fucking thing.
I mean -- this was a list that dated back to the days before NYMary gave me the metaphorical keys to the car around here, and I totally trashed it. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the recommended blogs were ghost sites and no longer worth accessing.
Bottom line: over the weekend, I figured out how to restore the mega-link, but not the ones to the vanished individual blogs themselves. For the simple reason that I've forgotten what they were.
Therefore -- I'm asking you guys to send me recommendations for music blogs YOU like, complete with links (or not, if you're lazy), and thus enabling me to restore some semblance of a similar list. Only now updated to reflect more contemporary sensibilities.
Thanking you all in advance, I remain yours truly etc.
[I posted the original version of this back in 2008(!) and oy gevalt, just kill me now. It struck me as still relevant, however, so I've done a little rewriting, changed the critical parameters and swapped a couple of new entries in. Enjoy, and Happy Holidays. -- S.S.]
Okay, it's the second day of Christmanukkah, and you know what that means.
Well, actually, no. At least, I don't know what that means.
So, that being the case -- we probably should get immediately to the business at hand. To wit:
BEST OR WORST POST-ELVIS CHRISTMAS SONG OR RECORD WRITTEN OR PERFORMED BY A LADY OR GENTLEMAN OF THE HEBRAIC PERSUASION!!!
No arbitrary rules, although -- obviously -- if you nominate the Velvet Frog and that song of his whose name I won't mention, I will come to your house and pummel you with a large gingerbread pastry.
Okay, and my Totally Top of My Head Top Seven (not quite enough for a Minyan) is/are:
7. Randy Newman -- Christmas in Cape Town
A song about exactly what its title suggests, and for once Newman isn't being ironic or snarky.
6. Neil Diamond -- Happy Christmas (War Is Over)
Obviously, a Diamond and peace is a twofer.
5. Carly Simon -- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Hey -- if I had found Carly under my Hanukkah bush, I could have died a happy guy.
4. Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme -- Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Another twofer -- to my surprise, I just discovered that Eydie, who I had always assumed was Greek, was actually a nice Jewish girl.
3. Neil Sedaka -- What Child Is This?
Any other song on his Christmas album would work as well. Or not. If you know what I mean. 😎
2. Barbra Streisand -- Jingle Bells
How do you say "words fail me" in Yiddish?
And the number one Jews of Christmas ditty, like you thought it was something else, obviously is --
1. Lou Reed -- Xmas in February
One of the darkest songs from the great New York album, but hey -- consider it this Listomania's equivalent of a lump of musical coal in your stocking.
Seriously, I don't know about you guys, but I'm finding it very hard to get into the holiday spirit given that we now live in a country whose Moron-Elect is (among other promised horrors) seriously threatening to invade Mexico and annex Greenland.
That said, the other day a youngster friend/music fan asked me what my favorite Christmas record of all time was was, and my immediate response was "The Little Saint Nick" by The Beach Boys.
Which I dearly love, as I'm sure so do many of you guys as well.
But then it dawned on me -- actually no, that's not my fave. In reality, it's this one, which of course has a far more appropriately Dickensian outlook.
I should add that somehow I had missed that video until yesterday. No fooling. Never saw it, and I owned the 45 back in the day (which was 1977, BTW. Oy gevalt.)
It also occurred to me that I've never posted about the song here before. How weird is that?
Oh well. In any event -- Merry Grimble, everybody! And may all of you get through the day without encountering seasonal "music" by either Mariah Carey or George Michael.
Ever wonder what The Velvet Underground would have sounded like if they'd been around in 1940 and fronted by Billie Holiday...
...or Frank Sinatra?
In any case, the question that needs to be answered ASAP is -- who the fuck is responsible for this stuff?
I can't believe it's AI generated, but if it isn't -- i.e., if it's recorded/produced/performed by actual living musicians -- why the hell can't I find any credits for it?
Also -- if it really is AI, then please just kill me now.
Seriously, when I first chanced upon that "Waiting for the Man" clip over the weekend, I played it for a youngster music fan/friend of mine who immediately said "gotta be AI." To which I responded -- "Nah. It's too good."
But now, having heard a bunch more of these things, and -- as I said, without being able to find any living musicians willing to put their names on it -- I am reaching the depressing conclusion that, yeah, it is machine-generated.
And I can't tell you how terrifying that strikes me.
I mean, that's straight out of some Isaac Asimov sci-fi story about computers replacing mankind that does not end well. 😎
You know him as one half of hippie duo Brewer and Shipley, i.e. as the "One Toke Over the Line" guy...
...hey, I bet he absolutely loved the Welk version!!!
But, more to the point of this blog's mission statement, to me, he will always be the ultra-cool pop/garage punk/psych dude who co-wrote (t's credited to his partner, but both he and Shipley were actually responsible) one of the truly great lost singles of the Sixities.
So please enjoy LA hepsters The Poor and their Brewer-and-Shipley penned 1967 regional hit "She's Got the Time (She's Got the Changes)."
The Poor -- whose bass player was Randy Meisner. who later found fame and fortune in both Poco and The Eagles -- had seemingly everything going for them, including being managed by the same Greene/Stone team who handled the Buffalo Springfield, but alas it was not to be. I can, however, verify that the above received significant airplay; in fact, I actually bought the 45 version at Sam Goody's (at the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus New Jersey) after hearing it several times on Top 40 powerhouse WMCA-AM in New York City.
Speaking of which, along with the news of Brewer's passing, I also learned last week that the next to last Sam Goody store in the nation is about to close. Talk about the end of an era.
I should also add that the above Poor single featured prominently on a fabulous mix-tape playlist I compiled back in the 'aughts, appropriately entitled Great Lost Singles of the '60s. Which I have burned to CD and gifted to various friends over the years.
Hmm...I should probably post more of those songs. Maybe next week.
In the meantime, farewell Mike Brewer; here's hoping you're now residing happily in the great train station in the sky. With a heaping bag of free cannabis gummies from the smoke shop nearby.
From his brand new and quite splendid 2024 album Common Sense, please enjoy veteran/Grammy-winning Nashville guy Gary Nicholson and my two randomly determined favorite tracks.
First -- the drolly amusing product endorsement that is "Bob Dylan Whiskey"...
...and then the obviously-and-frighteningly relevant to our current historical moment "Follow the Money."
As you can probably intuit, the album can justifiably be interpreted as a commentary on life under the incoming Vic Hitler Jr. administration. But even forgetting that, it's a splendid piece of acoustic-ish Americana songwriting, and it also just sounds great, thanks to the instrumental contributions of such worthies as guitarists Rick Vito and Anson Fundergurgh. I should add that it has now become an entry in my surprisingly short list of Albums of the Year.
Seriously -- it's that good.
In the meantime, you can find out more about Nicholson, and hear (and order) more of his music, OVER HERE.
Which brings us, however obliquely, to the other subject at hand. To wit:
...and your favorite or least favorite largely (or somewhat) acoustic-instrument based album that might be (or has been) characterized by the less than reputable genre name "Soft Rock" is...???
No arbitrary rules whatsoever, but as you no doubt have realized, we're mostly talking about post-Beatles singer/songwriter stuff here.
And in case you guys are wondering, here's my favorite song from my favorite album of the genre.
I should add that I include it largely because Carole King's piano work on it is so goddamned brilliant it hurts. As it is on the album as a whole; as far as I'm concerned, she's the record's secret weapon.
Man, what I wouldn't give to be able to play stuff like that.
From the December 1979 issue of Stereo Review, please enjoy...
NIGHT OF THE LIVING POODLES
One of the interesting things about pub crawling, especially in a major metropolitan area, is that sometimes you chance upon the birthing of a whole new sociological phenomenon. Usually, of course, you don't realize it untill a few months, even years, later, after you've read about it in some-trend-sensitive, circulation-under-forty-thousand tabloid, but that's the risk you take. For example, seasoned observer that I am, I had no idea, on a long-ago summer night in 1973 when I stumbled into a stygian Bowery dive and noticed the bass player of the band rending his T-shirt on a tiny stage between solos, that this was the soon-to-be-legendary Richard Hell in the process of inventing punk rock fashion. In the immortal words of the 2000 Year Old man -- who knew?
Be that as it may, I have noticed that an entire new subgenre of rock-and-roll -- utterly without redeeming social value, shamelessly anachronistic, and bereft of any media attention whatsoever, has been festering of late, like some some hideous herpes, right under our collective nose. Cogniscenti (there are a few of us) refer to it as Poodle Rock, though not because it has anything to do with the antics of the group affectionately known as the Fab Poos. Briefly stated, Poodle Rock is the music purveyed by any group of musicians sporting long shag haircuts, flashy eye make-up, platform shoes and immense stacks of Marshall amplifiers. It is invariably loud and heavy on the macho posturing (even when performed by women) and it invariably sounds like a variant of what Bad Company plays on an off night, although there are some exceptions.
In New York City, Poodle Central is a place called Great Gildersleeves, located on the Bowery just down the street from the shrine known as CBGBs (and easily sighted because of the expensively garish neon sign out front). Gilderseeeves started out as a sort of less-uptight alternative to CBs; they booked blues bands, mainstream rockers and three-chord weirdos without a thought about what was hip and what wasn't. Unforunately, the major labels began using it as a showcase room for aging heavy-metal veterans, attendance picked up and the owners realized they had a potentially good thing going. The result? An endless succession of the most boring, obnoxious (and proud of it) bands in Christendom, complete with tired old theatrics (smoke bombs in this day and age?) vacuous groupies, and an audience dressed exactly like the performers.
On an average night at Gildersleeves you might see...the Richie Scarlett Band. Scarlett is a guy capitalizing on a physical resemblance to Keith Richards in such an obsessive manner tht it verges on the pathological. He gets this year's "Jeff Beck Erect Left Nipple" award for performing in a leather jacket without a shirt. His music sounds like what a Sherman tank looks like, and it has been known to reduce more than one listener to whimpering "I'll talk, I'll talk..." Then there are The Brats, who've been playing drivel in white-satin gangster outfits since the days of the Mercer Arts Center, apparently without wising up. At a recent performance they attracted nonmusical media attention when one of their flash-pots exploded prematurely, sending several patrons to the hospital, Any press is good press...Or you might take The Bonnie Parker Band -- please! Ms. Parker is a bass-playing young woman with a voice like Gabby Hayes and a stage demeanor that suggests Rod Stewart on angel dust and testosterone. And there's Falcon Edy, a power trio with a lead singer really bugged that he's not as good looking as Roger Daltry...Moonbeam, with a lead guitarist who will answer much in heaven to Jimi Hendrix...and Face Dancer, of whom I will say nothing except that their name is not the worst thing about them. There's more, but I'm, uh, pooched out.
When I reread this recently for the first time in years, I actually laughed out loud.
Anyway, the reason I bring it up to begin with is that over at a rock critic's forum I frequent on Facebook, there was a mini-brouhaha the other day over a so-called genre that's been dubbed Yacht Rock. (The fight, among other things, was over whether Steely Dan and Christopher Cross both belong in it. I found the whole thing pretty stupid, actually.)
In any event, it reminded me that I had invented a much more apt genre/and title back in the day, and I figured it needed to be re-introduced to a waiting world.
Hence the above.
I should add that out of curiosity, I looked up a couple of the bands/artists name-checked in the column and to my, er, delighted surprise I discovered that some of them -- Richie Scarlett, Bonnie Parker and a couple of the others -- are still plying their trade in public here in the 21st century (although their home club Gildersleeves, which was my actual subject, has been gone for ages).
To which I can only say, in all sincerity -- Rock-and-roll Lifers of the World, I salute you!!!
Had a rotten day -- chased (unsuccessfully) our pussycat around the house without being able to grab him and take him to the vet (he was supposed have dental surgery) and then had to shlep into Manhattan in the rain for a doctor's appointment of my own. (Nothing to worry about, but a pain in the tush, not meant literally.)
Delightful new music resumes on the morrow, scout's honor.
You know, some days it really pays to get out of bed.
More specifically, I got this e-mail the other day, out of the blue, and was frankly gob-smacked.
Steve:
I was finally (finally) cleaning up the garage and going through some old boxes of tapes and such and I found this…
We (then girlfriend, now wife) listened to it a lot back in the day. She always said The Floor Models were her 2nd favorite band in the Village. That’s because she liked mine better, but you would expect that, right?
Thought you might get a kick out of seeing it.
All the best,
Tom Scarpino
I frankly (to my shame) did not remember Tom off the top of my head, so I asked him about his band.
We were called The Silent Types. (Name was meant to be ironic, ended up being literal — no one heard of us).
I do remember you saw us once at Kenny’s and were generous in your appraisal. All a long time ago. Good times nonetheless.
Alas, I still didn't remember those guys -- and I ran it by my Floor Models compadre Gerry Devine, who didn't remember them either -- but it was still a complete gas to be reminded of that part of our life. Those Kennys' days in the Village really were good times. So thanks, Tom.
I should add that I'd love to hear a transfer of that cassette, which was -- if memory serves -- the first demo we were naive enough to be providing to the music biz types we thought might make us stars. I'm not sure I even still have the particular versions of those songs. Wow.
...and your favorite -- or least favorite -- cover version of a song by Bob Dylan is...???
Discuss.
BTW, here's my favorite. And I gotta say -- I suspect it's gonna strike a lot of our long-time readers as surprising. Hell, it strikes ME as surprising.
In case that's a new one on you guys, that was actually a minor AM radio hit at the end of 1967. I remember thinking at the time it should have been much bigger, and being kinda pissed that it wasn't.
I should add that I haven't been able to find the musician credits anywhere online, so I 'm not sure who's playing (brilliantly) on it. I mean, I think it's Paul Butterfield on harmonica, but I can' t be sure. And the rhythm section just kills, but who are they?
I should also add -- and I'm not even remotely a Peter, Paul and Mary fan as a rule -- that a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance noticed the other day that Mary Travers' vocals on it are oddly reminiscent of Carly Simon. Interesting.
An amusing postscript: My old college band The Hounds used to do a fabulous live cover of the song, but because we were wiseguys we used to sing it as "Say hello to valium/Say hello to librium."
That's the work of the great Barry Blitt, of The New Yorker fame, in case you were wondering. And the Charles Bukowski caricature is a particularly droll touch.
BTW -- click on the image to embiggen it.
I should add that, yes, I'm looking forward to seeing Chalamet's Dylan bio-pic, although I'm profoundly skeptical going in.
I mean, he may be a great actor, but he just reads too goyische for me to find him convincing in the role.
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.
An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop.
All suggestions for postings and sidebar links welcome, contact any of us.
