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Okay, I'm still decompressing from our quite wonderful Scottish vacation. So without any further hoo hah let's get directly to the subject of our new weekend business.
To wit:
...and the post-Elvis rock/pop/folk/r&b song/record you absolutely adore and couldn't live without by a major league band/solo artist the rest of whose work you otherwise couldn't give a shit about is...???
Discuss.
My pick to click? Gotta be this one.
Hey -- the freaking Cure, when I'm not giggling at head honcho Robert Smith's fashion choices, mostly bores me to scowling fidgets. But wow -- if there was a more gorgeous three and a half-plus minutes of anything in the last forty or so years, I for one haven't heard it.
The charmingly monikered Northumbrian pipe virtuoso Kathryn Tickell and her infectious "The Wedding."
And Scottish folk rock band Rura with the interestingly minimalist and quite lovely "Elliott's."
By way of explanation I should add that a certain Shady Dame and I took a particularly fun afternoon trip out to the Highlands and Loch Ness the second day we were in Bonnie Scotland. And our tour guide/bus driver, a delightful gentleman named Alex McClure, had some interesting playlists of sort-of traditionalist Scottish music prepared for the excursion; the two songs above particularly caught my ear.
I should also add that both Tickell and Rura are considered in the vicinity of national treasures by their fellow Scots. And yes, the Tickell song at times sounds (amusingly) like the music accompanying a Nintendo game. 😎
Flying home from our fabulous Scottish vacation; weather, Delta Airlines and Gestapo Security permitting, we should be decompressing in Forest Hills around 7pm EST tonight.
Regular music posting will resume on the morrow.
But here, as promised, a little taste of our just completed adventure.
Those hairy Highland Cattle (seen during a day trip tour of the countryside we took) are more or less the National Animals of Scotland now, and at this point they're pretty much farmed strictly as pets.
In any case, trust me -- they're absolutely hilarious in person.
Not gonna be home from our Scottish adventure till late Tuesday, so no normal (heh) posting till Wednesday (jetlag/time change permitting) due to the difficulties of one-fingered typing on my IPad Mini. Sorry.
Okay, possibly some amusing photographs.
I mean, wait till you see the one of the long-haired Highland Cow I caught actually mooing...
Yes, as some of you may be aware, a certain Shady Dame and I are having a great time on vacation in Bonnie Scotland, and I'll be favoring you guys with a photographic record of some of our exploits once we return (Tuesday, of next week, weather and Homeland Security permitting).
But in the meantime, I chanced across this online the other day...
...and it reminded me that I forgot to give a big PowerPop [insert Yiddish word for shoutout! here] to Rosh Hashanah last Tuesday.
All of which suggested a terrific topic for this week's Listomania. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I originally posted a version of this back in 2010; as is my wont, I've done some rewriting and swapped in two new entries, if only as a way to underscore my puritan work ethic while we're off frolicking in the goyische heather).
So without any further tzuris, let's get to it. To wit:
Best or Worst Post-Elvis Pop/Rock/Folk/R&B Record/Song Either Written By, Performed By, or Simply About Our Jewish Brothers and Sisters!!!
And my totally top of my head Top Seven is:
7. Drake -- Passion Fruit
His mom was an Ashkenazi Jew(ess), which means that he's...well, you know. Or perhaps I should say -- who knew?
6. HAIM -- Gasoline
Nice Jewish girls, obviously; I like to think of them as Joey Ramone's much younger Bat Mitzvah-ed sisters. Fun fact (from Wiki): For their first gig, the trio played at a Jewish deli in Hollywood and were paid in matzah ball soup. 😎
5. 10cc -- Wall Street Shuffle
Featuring the great Grahame Gouldman (a nice Yiddish kid from England) on bass. And a song about money -- who'd have thunk it?
4. Desmond Dekker -- Israelites
I have no idea what this song actually means, by the way; I've been told it reflects rather unflatteringly on my fellow Red Sea pedestrians, but given its impenetrable Jamaican patois I've never really been sure.
3. Two Live Jews -- Oy It's So Humid
When we say these guys are def, we really MEAN....etc.
2. Fountains of Wayne -- Strapped for Cash
Another song about money written by a Jew -- what are the odds?
And the Numero Uno "Iceberg, Goldberg, what difference does it make to the Titanic?" hit of them all simply has to be...
1. The Blues Project -- No Time Like the Right Time
Left to right: Mssrs Blumenfeld, Kalb, Katz, Kooper and Kulberg. Not for nothing did they call these guys the Jewish Beatles.
From their just released sixth(!) album Baby Moon, please enjoy fabulous and cute as a button Australian power pop/rockers The Wellingtons and the official video for their new single "Sad Today."
Which I am informed is bassist/lead vocalist Kate Goldby's personal tribute to a lost friend and mentor.
In any case, these guys have been around for quite a while (although they hardly look it) and I was gobsmacked to discover that I'd forgotten (senility is a horrible thing) I'd first written about them back in 2007. When, as you know, both this blog and the world were young. 😎
Meanwhile, you can sample (or purchase) the rest of the new album over at their Bandcamp page HERE.
And since the clip for the band's 2007 song that got me started on them in the first place has inexplicably disappeared from my long-ago post, I'm re-appending it here. A darn good track in its own right, IMHO.
These guys are highly worth checking out, is what I'm saying. 😎
Tomorrow: Something from my current vacation in Edinburgh, swear to god!!!
Hey -- a big "Hi!" from Edinburgh, and also Rosh Hashanah greetings! More on both of those later in the week (and that last Jewish reference was a clue to Friday's Weekend Listomania, BTW). 😎
Meanwhile -- from 1973, please enjoy legendary UK folk-rockers The Strawbs lip-synching (live on German tv's Hits à GoGo) to their fabulous, and deserved, hit "Lay Down."
I don't think I'd thought about/heard that song in five decades or more, until the other day when it showed up on the soundtrack of the British time-travelling cop show Life On Mars, which I've been binge-watching of late and which I heartily recommend. The series is set in 1973 (hence the song's inclusion) and I gotta say, as period-accurate as it is, none of its underworld characters have teeth even remotely as bad/disturbing as Strawbs' drummer Richard Hudson in the video above. 😎
Consequently, and because I love you all more than food, I'm appending another video for "Lay Down"; this one has genuine high quality stereo sound, and lets you enjoy the song without having to watch that band of weirdo hippies in the German clip. 😎😎
You're welcome very much.
Tomorrow: Travel notes from the first day of our Scottish vacation. No fooling!!!
More specifically, it's an Italian language (obviously) cover version of the Stones' "Paint It Black." From a recent (2022) period heist movie (set during WW II) called Robbing Mussolini. And no, I never heard of it (the film) either, but Wiki informs me it was ill-received by critics. The track itself, being warbled by fetching co-star Matilda De Angelis, is apparently also featured on some compilation album somewhere, but I have not been able to track it down so far.
In any case, I haven't decided what I think about that musically (IMHO the film looks interesting, though), and as a companion piece, it occurred to me to dredge up the Italian language remake the Stones did of "As Tears Go By" (one presumes for the Eurovision Song Contest) back in 1965. So here it is.
Hadn't heard that in ages. A harmless bit of shlock, obviously, but certainly not their finest hour. 😎😎
Before we get started, a little non-musical news for you.
Just wanted to let you know that beginning Monday, a certain Shady Dame and I will be off on a vacation to Bonnie Scotland; for 8 days we'll be based in Edinburgh, and making excursions both in and out of the city (Loch Ness or bust, baby!!!).
I'm gonna try to interrupt our busy pre-trip schedule of getting flu shots and packing our clothes to write a few normal posts for next week before we leave, but what success I'll have in that regard is an open question. In any case, I figure you'll have to endure at least a couple of entries devoted strictly to our Scottish tourism. I beg your indulgence for this in advance.
Okay, with that out of the way, on to our traditional weekend mishegass.
Anyway, Petrusich has a piece in the most recent issue about current chart-topping pop tart Sabrina Carpenter, which I read with a certain degree of skepticism. And, initially, it struck me as just the usual indefensible cutesie puff piece from Petrusich's patented "Everything's Great Including the Obvious Shit" school of cultural musings.
But she begins the essay with a longish exegesis of Carpenter's latest single ("Manchild") and in the interests of critical responsibility, I gave the video of same a look-see.
And to my considerable surprise...
...I kinda (emphasize: kinda) liked it. The song is moderately catchy, the lyrics are legitimately funny, and the production -- and this floored me -- is really pretty good; the thing rocks, and there's even an actual, if brief, guitar solo for heaven's sakes. Couldn't stand Carpenter's singing, which sounds auto-tuned even if it probably isn't, but hey, you can't have everything.
Which brings us, inexorably, to the subject of our latest group discussion. To wit:
Proposed: Most current commercial pop music -- i.e. the stuff that sells -- is by and large the worst crap we've had to endure since the pre-rock Fifties.
Discuss.
By which, of course, I mean weigh in yea or nay.
I'm leaning towards yea, in case you haven't guessed, but I do wonder if this isn't just me being a grumpy old man who's turned into his parents. And then I hear something like the Carpenter song above and I grudgingly think -- y'know, maybe these kids today are not so bad. 😎
Alrighty, then -- which side are YOU on?
And have a great weekend, everybody! See you in Scotland!!!
From their forthcoming (November 3) 8-song EP The Completely Fictional History of This Great Nation of Canada (heh) please enjoy Toronto pop/punk powerhouse The Mendozaz and the utterly amazing lead-off track "Late Stage 12 Gauge."
Inspirational verse:
Why do I
Always have to
Come up through the cellar
When all we ever do
Is watch Penn and Teller
Seriously, what a terrific song and hilarious video. Plus, as you have doubtless intuited, it's depressingly relevant to our current cultural climate, if I may make a Charlie Kirk reference without being dragged from my apartment by masked ICE agents dispatched by Pam Bondi. 😎
In any case, these guys -- who've been around without registering on my radar since 2017 -- have three previous albums on their resume, and all of them presumably display the same vastly entertaining mix of melodic guitar hooks and snot-nosed harmonies.
You can download the earlier stuff and pre-order the new one over at their Bandcamp site HERE. They also appear to have an official website where, presumably, you can learn more about them, but at the moment I can't get the link to work; I'll see if I can get that resolved and get back to you.
Now excuse me, I have to go get my shotgun and head off for a discussion with a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance. 😎😎
Specifically -- a star-studded new (musically fab) tribute to power pop gods The Raspberries that's due out momentarily. And two of the acts participating are personal friends who I've actually played music with. 😎
The above video, of course, features current Greatest Rock Band in the World The Lemon Twigs covering the 'Berries "Play On" and (drop dead gorgeously) "Let's Pretend," plus an utterly infectious update of "Cruisin' Music" by the Twigs' proud dad (and occasional bandmate of mine) Ronnie D'Addario.
To which I can only add that God's in his heaven and all's right with the world.
Seriously, the two CD set -- unsurprisingly titled Play On: A Raspberries Tribute -- is one of the most entertaining things of its kind I've heard in ages. I should also add that it features Rick Springfield(!) doing a killer version of "Go All the Way," plus equally smashing tracks by Robin Zander, Marshall Crenshaw, Lou Gramm (absolutely nailing "Tonight") and Shoes (with a particularly jaw-dropping revisit to "Overnight Sensation").
Plus scads more great stuff; you can check out the complete track listing and pre-order the thing (official release date is October 10th) for purchase or streaming over at Amazon HERE.
So what are you waiting for? Get over there and snag a copy right this minute!
And tell 'em PowerPop sent you!!!
P.S.: Oh -- and I've been meaning to say this for a while now, but if the Lemon Twigs aren't musical guests on Saturday Night Live this season, I swear to god I'm gonna take a hostage. 😎😎
Okay, I was gonna post about the new and fab Raspberries tribute album today, but then I chanced across the clip below and had a physical reaction so intense that if I hadn't taken my blood pressure pill earlier in the morning I would have been in serious medical trouble.
I've always loved that song, and I'm sure I must have seen that video before. But still -- just now when Ronnie shimmied onto the set in time for that first "Be my little baby" chorus...I mean, no fooling, I got chills merely typing the preceding bit of this sentence. 😎
I'll post on that Raspberries tribute tomorrow -- word of honor. If I live, of course. 😎 😎
So me and a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance went to see Spinal Tap II: The End Continues yesterday.
Here's the trailer, which gives you a pretty good idea of the feel of the thing...
...and here's a song from the soundtrack album, featuring Paul McCartney. I particularly enjoyed his reaction to the ersatz "Penny Lane" trumpet part. 😎
So how did I like it? The short version...it's wonderful. And as for Valerie Franco, the heavily tattoed blonde punkette cutie who plays Didi Crockett, their new drummer (and she's really playing the drums)...
Let's just say that a star is born. 😎 😎
Seriously, if you enjoyed the original film you're gonna be delighted with this one. Trust me.
And I'd tell you more, but there's no way I can really do that without verging on spoiler territory.
I should stipulate up front that today's titular quote has been attributed to Marilyn Monroe; apparently she said it in real life, not in a movie, although a Google search has not disgorged a citation for it.
Anyway, if you were here yesterday, when I posted that kinda goofy rocked up version of J.S. Bach's "Air" by Dutch band Ekseption, you probably saw the subject of today's esssay question coming down Broadway, as they say.
So without any further ado, let's get right to it. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Elvis pop/rock/folk/r&b record by a group or solo artist demonstrating either an overt or implied influence of European classical music in the writing or performing or both, is...?
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules, but just to be a little more specific, what we're talking about doesn't have to be some kind of obvious borrowing from a particular classical composition; some of my favorites aren't, as you will see shortly. And when I say post-Elvis, that's to make sure none of you bastid kids nominates one of those godawful 1940s hits like "Full Moon and Empty Arms," which actually appended sappy lyrics to a melody from Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto. And yes, you're allowed to put up prog shit if applicable, as distasteful as I might find that personally. 😎
And my nominees? It's a tie. Between this...
...and this.
That's the late Alan Civil playing French horn on the Beatles track, BTW; in case you're unfamiliar with him, he was considered to be perhaps the greatest exponent of his instrument in the second half of the 20th Century. You should hear him do the Mozart horn concertos with Otto Klemperer, is what I'm saying. 😎😎
An ad in Billboard, March 28, 1970. Boy, those were the days.
And here's the band and song in question, performing fake live on Dutch TV a few months earlier.
That's kind of appealingly Procol Harum-ish, no? And that keyboard player is really a lot of fun.
Anyway, I either never heard of those guys previously or I'd simply forgotten them, both of which possibilities strike me as odd, because as long time readers are aware I'm a fan of Dutch rock in general. In any event, when I stumbed across the above the other day, it was a very pleasant surprise.
Not to fear, however. Regular, less self-indulgent posting -- i.e., the traditional weekend essay question -- will resume on the morrow.
More to the point, it's a superb new (2025) fan remix of the Fabs' inexplicably undervalued "Hey Bulldog." I always thought this song was one of their coolest ever rockers, but now here it is as nature intended.
Wow. I mean -- that's a bit of a revelation, 'innit. 😎
Or as the guy who put it together points out in his YouTube notes, one of the clearest examples of how exciting The Beatles could sound as a live band.
And you're welcome very much, of course. 😎 😎
Mike Viola, as you all doubtless know, was the front guy/chief songwriter of the fab gear Candy Butchers, and voiced the lead singer of fictional band The Wonders in Tom Hanks' perpetually amazing That Thing You Do.
I was unaware of the above clip, however, until the other day when a musician friend turned me on to it, and it totally blew my miniscule mind. I mean -- wow.
I should add, and just for the record, that I am beginning to think it might not be an exagerration to suggest that Viola is, conceivably, the world's greatest living male rock vocalist. In the meantime, you can find out where's he playing live in the future -- and see some more utterly amazing video clips -- over at his official website HERE.
Courtesy of Pulitzer winning critic/friend of PowerPop Tim Page -- from the New York Times, here's the greatest mismatch of photo and caption in newspaper history,
Click on it to enlarge, if you can't read it. You'll thank me, honest.
I mean, I'm not much of an opera fan, but man -- what I wouldn't have given to see THAT production. 😎
From his brand new (and superb) album The Great Yellow Light, please enjoy the incomparable Willie Nile (and band) and the video for the lead-off single "We Are We Are."
Long time readers are aware of my enthusiasm for Willie's work over the years, but at this point it's just getting ridiculous. I mean, The Great Yellow Light (the title is a reference to Vincent Van Gogh's letters to his brother, Theo, and the light that inspired him in Arles, France) is by my count his 15th(!) studio effort since making one of the greatest debut records of all time back in 1980. And the fact that this new one one is of comparable quality -- and in fact sounds, in its brash high-energy and passionate intensity, like the work of some young artist who wasn't even born when that first one came out -- is nothing short of amazing.
I should add that, if you order a physical copy of the album (which you can do over at Amazon HERE or at Bandcamp) you get a little bonus sticker featuring a cameo appearance by your humble scribe.
And I stand by the judgement thereupon. 😎
Oh, I should also add that if you're in the NYC area, Willie and band are going to be doing two (Nov. 26 and 28) early and late career retrospective shows at the Loft at City Winery; the first one, which will feature songs from that aforementioned debut album, will very likely be in the spirit of his legendary gigs at the old Kenny's Castaways. Be there or be square -- a certain Shady Dame and I will definitely be in attendance, and we look forward to seeing you. 😎😎
Okay -- and, for reasons that will be obvious in a moment, that leads us inexorably to the weekend's business at hand. To wit:
...and the post-Elvis pop/rock/folk/soul artist -- solo or band -- who's done the most consistently excellent work over the space of a multi-decade career is...?
Discuss.
I don't really have a dog in this hunt; obviously, Willie would be one of my candidates, but other than him, top of my head I'm not sure who I'd nominate.
In any event -- alrighty then, who would YOUR choices be?
Sorry to have been slacking two days in a row. Have no fear, however -- you'll find that tomorrow's Weekend Essay Question is particularly substantive, if I do say so myself, and I'm offering it in penance. 😎
BTW, I don't usually like (or approve of) those so-called Nancy "remixes" that are omnipresent on the intertubes lately, but the Iggy joke was too good not to include here.
Okay, I realize that I'm late to the party, but this song and video (from 2020) by New Zealand punk/pop mavens The Beths (who I first discovered and wrote about last Thursday) is/are the most wonderful thing(s) I've seen/heard in ages.
Seriously, I love just everything about that -- the guitar interplay, the harmonies, the whole instructional premise -- but when the bass player suddenly showed up as Paul McCartney I nearly fell off my desk chair.
...and in its honor, we give you honorary American Neil Young going all up the workers with his classic "Union Man."
I should add that the above song is something of a holiday tradition in these precincts. Originally, I used to post The Strawbs' British hit "Part of the Union," which I always assumed had been designed to piss off Margaret Thatcher, may she rot in hell, but I have since been informed by several genuine Limeys of my acquaintance that in the UK the song is actually read as being ANTI-labor. Go figure. In any case, as a result, Neil is now my go-to guy for songs with a pro-prole bent. At least till I discover a really cool more contemporary song echoing the same sentiments.
I should also say that the above seems especially pertinent given that we are currently living in the kind of country that inspired Woody Guthrie's guitar to kill the kind of people now running it -- and hey, is Donny Demento dead yet? But I lack the energy to go into that at the moment, and I'd rather (and I bet you would too) just enjoy today's lovely weather.
So have a nice one, and regular power pop themed posting resumes on the morrow.
Okay, it's a holiday weekend, and consequently I have better things to do than write some kind of long sardonic intro to the following.
So let's just get to the business at hand with no further foo farrah. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) song/recorded performance (live or studio) by Bob Dylan is...?
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules, obviously, but just to be clear -- we're talking about one of Bob's songs, or Bob performing one of his own songs or Bob performing a song by somebody else. No Dylan covers by other artistes need apply.
And in case you're wondering, my favorite -- by a mile -- is...
That's absolutely spellbinding, but I should note here and for the record (as it were) that I was actually planning to post the electric studio version of same that Dylan did with The Hawks, and which I first heard on a Trademark of Quality bootleg circa 1974.
And which is right up there in my Top 10 Greatest Performances of Anything by Anybody list. 😎
Alas, to my surprise, it's not up at YouTube, so I went with that almost as fabulous live Aussie version from the same period (1966).
And speaking of which, I originally heard that on another Trademark of Quality bootleg, the one with this hilarious album cover by the great William Stout.
Okay, and moving right along, my least favorite Dylan performance, and man, is it fucking awful, is...
As you may have noticed, Bob's singing a duet with himself on that in both his normal and his Nashville Skyline voices, so it's possible -- perhaps, maybe, could be -- that it's meant tongue-in-cheek.
I doubt it, though. 😎😎
Have a great holiday weekend, everybody!!!
Oh wait -- I found that studio version of "Johanna" with The Hawks. Enjoy!!!
From their about to be released (Aug. 29) new album Straight Line Was a Lie, please enjoy New Zealand power-poppers The Beths and the album's utterly infectious title track.
In the interests of full disclosure, I must confess I was previously unaware of these kids -- who've been around for a decade, actually -- until somebody at a political blog(!) I hang out at posted a link to the above the other day. In any case, I was instantly charmed and (assuming you don't already know from them) I suspect you will be too.
In the meantime, you can (and should) find out more about them -- including tour dates and where to stream more of their music -- over at their website HERE.
I should add that seeing them live has now become a bucket list thing for me; fortunately, they're scheduled to perform in NYC in early December. 😎
And speaking as we were yesterday of Bruce Springsteen in 1975, attentive reader VR has inquired whether I was in attendance for any of the Boss's legendary August week-long 10-show run at the Bottom Line, the performances that directly preceded the release of Born to Run 50 years ago yesterday.
The answer -- yes, I was. I saw three of the shows in fact (three and a half, if you count the early one broadcast live on WNEW-FM, which I made sure to listen to/tape at home before I went out to see the 11:30 follow-up).
What can I tell you -- I was a hardcore fan.
Here's one of my favorite performances from the aforemetioned radio show. BTW, I seem to recall there was later a very fancy shmancy two-LP bootleg of it that I went on to play countless times in several different apartments of mine. 😎
I should add that -- believe it or not -- I was bitterly disappointed by the first of the shows I attended, and for possibly the stupidest reason imaginable. To wit, that some of the guys in the E-Street Band -- particularly Miami Steve Van Zant (who I had never seen playing with the group before) -- hit the stage wearing white ice cream pimp suits, rather than the usual casual street attire. I don't know why, but it struck me as some kind of ghastly betrayal at the time. I kid you not.
Hey, by the second show I had gotten over it. 😎😎
Today is the 50th anniversary of the release of Born to Run. Seriously -- just kill me now. 😎
Okay, in actual fact the good news is that in celebration of the event, Springsteen just released this quite splendid outtake from the original album sessions. Probably wouldn't have fit in with the album as released, but it's a pretty cool song nonetheless.
I should add that I remember the aforementioned release day of BTR beyond vividly. It was around 4pm on a Friday, and a messenger from CBS Records dropped it off for me at the old Park Avenue offices of Stereo Review. It came in a soft cardboard gatefold cover (without a spine), and with the iconic photo of the Boss and the Big Man on the front, but with the title stuff (artist and album name) in a script typeface (like the above) rather than the familiar plain cap letters. And nothing else inside or on the back cover. The disc itself had a white label with no info on it at all, not even the album title.
Needless to say, I immediately played it through from start to finish and thoroughly kvelled. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever heard, and my opinion has not changed substantially since then.
I should also add that said copy of the album would fetch quite a pretty penny on the collector's market today, but needless to say I gave it away to somebody -- I forget who -- years ago.
So I originally did a version of this in 2008(!), back when the world and this blog were young, and if you had told me then that our noble republic would someday be in the hands of a demented short-fingered vulgarian with a vocabulary of approximately 700 words and the emotional maturity of a toddler, I would have suggested you were fucking high.
In any event, it turned out to be true, which is one of the reasons (i.e., I'm really exhausted coping) I've recyled it now. It also seems newly relevant, given that the aforementioned SFV is -- post his occupation of our nation's capitol -- now threatening to send Federal troops into other liberal cities, specifically including the Big Apple.
Hey -- good luck with that one, Donny. To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca -- "There are certain sections of New York, shithead, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade."
Which leads us, inexorably, to the subject of today's business. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Beatles Pop/Rock/Folk/Soul song/record about/referencing New York City and environs in the title or lyrics is...???
Okay, no arbitrary rules here, but if you nominate any version of "New York, New York" I will come to your house and kill you AND your family. Sorry.
Obviously, NY-themed songs are almost too numerous to mention, but in case you're wondering, my fave(s) is a tie between...
...and...
As you may recall, Fear was a band much beloved of John Belushi, and the song above holds a special place in my heart because they performed it during their legendary SNL appearance, at which they almost literally brought the house down (a story I'll perhaps retell on another occasion).
As for the Tradewinds record, hell -- what could be a more poignant existential dilemma than being the only living surfer boy in New York? 😎
So the other day I'm channel surfing and I chanced across some ESPN kind of thingie and they were talking about an upcoming Yankees/Boston contest.
And I suddenly flashed on a song I hadn't thought about for several decades.
From their self-titled 1968 debut album, please enjoy Beantown band Earth Opera and their obviously conflicted plaint about how "The Red Sox Are Winning."
When you are gone I keep track of the time
In my diary line by line
And the past is behind
It was so long ago
When believing and beauty
Celebrated the birth
It was green, lovely green
We could fly like milkweed
But nowadays no one seems to care
They laugh at me when I ride my bike
Turn away in shame when I fly my kite
I spend my Saturdays
Alone in the mirror
Arranging my hair
In the end, what is there?
To talk of passing time
Should I turn off the TV?
Or go to the race track
And bet on the dogs
And the weather is strange
No summer this year
In the days of the war
But the Red Sox are winning
As you can tell from all of the above, these guys were very echt-late Sixties in their melding of folk-rock, psychedelia and general mishegass. I actually owned the album (and its successor, the even wiggier American Eagle Tragedy -- don't worry, I didn't buy them, but rather stole them from my college radio station). But the baseball song was the only one I played a lot; for some reason its sledgehammer irony really spoke to me at the time (Vietnam, and all that).
In any event, two members of the group -- David Grisman and Peter Rowan (who wrote the song) -- went on to much better things as members of Old and in the Way with Jerry Garcia and Vassar Clements; their self-titled LP became the best-selling bluegrass album of all time.
Meanwhile, if you want to hear more of the Opera guys, the full album can be listened to -- for free -- over at YouTube HERE.
From their 1999 album Hooray for Boobies(!), enjoy (if possible) wiseguy Pennsylvania punk band the Bloodhound Gang and the, er, interesting video for their re-imagining of The Association's 1965 classic "Along Comes Mary."
Seriously, watching that I don't know whether to laugh or cry. And that's just over how they removed the melody from the original song. 😎
I should add that the aforementioned album was actually a Number 1 hit (and "Mary" in the singles Top 10) in...wait for it...Germany. 😎😎
From a fascinating essay by critic Adam Gopnik in the Aug. 4 issue of The New Yorker:
With minimal ingenuity, any historical period can be made to dissolve into the ones around it. Take the rock revolution—that great shift which, emerging in the mid-nineteen-fifties and established by the mid-sixties, definitively separated the Broadway-and-jazz-based tunes that had previously dominated popular music from the new sound. The break ravaged record companies and derailed careers. In the fifties, the wonderful jazz-and-standards singer Beverly Kenney performed a song she’d written called “I Hate Rock ’n’ Roll,” and then—perhaps for other reasons, but surely for that one, too—took her own life [emphasis mine - S.S.].
Okay, I was unfamiliar with Ms. Kenney and her tragic end, so as you can imagine that got my attention.
You can find out more about her over HERE; it's way fascinating, trust me -- she should be remembered for a whole bunch of cool things rather than suicide.
And here's the anti-rock anthem in question.
Seems a little extreme to me, but obviously it was a different time. In any case, I'm a fan of that whole Fifties deadpan cool girl jazz singer genre -- I adore Chris Connor, for example -- and Ms. Kenney is obviously a superior representative of same.
I should add that the above is from a 1958 live performance on the old Steve Allen show, but alas the actual video of it has not made it to YouTube.
Okay, the great climate change hoax NYC weather has been really kicking my ass of late, so while I'm still conscious, let's get immediately to the subject of today's business.
To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Elvis pop/rock/folk/soul record that sounds much more like the work of someone other than who it actually is, is...???
Discuss.
Oh, and no arbitrary rules whatsoever, you're welcome very much; as you may have gathered, I lack the energy to posit any. 😎
In case you're wondering, my fave is a tie between...
...the greatest Aretha Franklin record Aretha never recorded and...
...a bunch of bar band guys from Bergenfield, New Jersey doing the best Beatles sound-alike of all time? Who'd a thunk it?
Meanwhile, my least fave is...
U2 without the warmth? Spandau Ballet without the sense of humor? God, those guys suck. 😎😎
So I got an e-mail out of the blue the other day including the video below and the following explanatory stuff:
Hi Steve, hope you're well!
My names Miles, but I'm emailing on behalf of my band Orchidelia. We’re a power pop group from Sheffield, England. We have just released a new single, "You’ll Never Know," but really we’re just emailing to say hello and introduce ourselves. We’re all pretty young, 20/21 [emphasis mine -- S.S.], and we love power pop so it’s great that you’re blogging about it, keeping the torch burning.
There’s not many young bands who play or write this sort of stuff, fewer who market themselves as being “a power pop band”. Most people we’ve spoke to don’t even know what it is, they think it’s a term we’ve invented. It’s a shame because there’s a timeless quality about the music, but it doesn’t seem to be connecting with a mass audience like it once did. It could all change though! But yes, we just wanted to let you know we exist, and we’d love to hear back from you!
Frankly, they had me at "from Sheffield, England." 😎
Seriously, I can't tell you charming I find the above, including the song, which is a terrific piece of earworm pop craftmanship. And the fact that they're youngsters doing stuff like that is, as you can imagine, downright inspirational in my book.
Oh -- I should add that Miles assured me the single "is out everywhere," which I assume means at all the usual streaming/download sites. So what are you waiting for?
From her forthcoming album Fix the World, please enjoy power pop chanteuse extraordinaire Carmen Toth and the video for the infectious lead-off single "Pretty Dresses."
A song, as you'll hear, that has some interesting things to say about the issues of beauty and belonging.
Plus that animation just cracks me up. 😎
Toth, a Canadian who's been doing this sort of thing for going on two decades, was previously unknown to me, but after hearing the above I plan to do the research, as they say.
If you are similarly inclined, you can start to find out more about her, including where and when she's gigging in the future, over at her official website HERE. In the meantime, the album drops, as today's young people say, on October 7; I presume it will be available at all the de rigeur digital outlets, but I'll let you know more as we get closer to the release date.
Okay kids, I know I don't usually post blues stuff (for obvious reasons).
But I stumbled across this 2024 video by my long-time hero Dion (who transcends genre) and some drop-dead gorgeous friend of his (lip-synching the part sung on the actual record by Shemekia Copeland) and I just had to share. Sorry, I can only post the link -- if anybody knows how to get the video to show in blogger, lemme know.
From 1968, please behold in breathless wonder not untalented Sinatra-wannabe Frankie Randall and the damndest cover of The Who's classic "I Can See For Miles" ever heard by sentient mammalian ears.
Really -- words kinda fail me on that. I am informed, however, that the album it's from -- The Mods and the Pops -- is a minor masterpiece of similar mishegass, including swinging remakes of The Move's "Flowers in the Rain"(!) and Donovan's "Lelainia."(!!)
In any case, I had completely forgotten that Randall's version had appeared on one of Rhino's Golden Throat compilations, which leads us, inexorably, to the subject of today's business. To Wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) unintentionally amusing/stylistically inappropriate/or just plain freaking weird cover version of a well known song originally done by a post-Elvis pop/rock/folk/r&b singer is...????
In case you're wondering, apart from the above, my new fave has gotta be this.
I mean -- how surreal is that? He's actually mentioned by name in the lyrics. 😎
From 1986, on MTV's much-missed Basement Tapes show, please enjoy The Silent Types and their lost power pop classic "I Can Live With That."
I know very little about those guys, except that apparently they were playing in Greenwich Village around the same time in the '80s as The Floor Models. Lead singer Tom Scarpino informs me that I actually saw them perform at Kenny's Castaways, but highly potent drugs were probably being consumed at the time and I don't really remember. Which is probably a good thing, since I have no doubt that if I did see them I would have been intensely jealous.
In any event, I'd been meaning to post that video for ages. I mean, that's a genuinely great freaking song; if they were doing that when I saw them at Kenny's, it's even more embarrassing that I don't recall it. 😎
[I originally posted this piece here back in 2007; it remains my favorite thing I've ever written. Have I mentioned that this death shit is really starting to piss me off? - S.S.]
I'm gonna get horribly self-indulgent now, so please forgive me in advance.
Here's the deal: I stumbled across this clip yesterday and I'm finding it difficult to describe just how moving I think it is. A caveat before you watch: The video quality is just barely adequate, but the audio is mostly fine. Listen to it with headphones -- you'll miss the bass, otherwise.
Okay, the backstory: The song of course, is the Kinks' gorgeous "Waterloo Sunset," and the guy singing it is Brit cult figure Terry Reid. If you don't know him, suffice it to say that he's a brilliant songwriter and vocalist (think a more soulful Steve Marriott) who made a couple of wonderful albums in the late 60s and early 70s but alas his career never really took off for all the usual reasons. What makes him slightly more than a fondly remembered footnote to history is that Jimmy Page actually offered him the frontman slot in Led Zeppelin; considering that he's also a terrific guitarist, the fact that he punted on the gig probably changed the world in unfathomable ways. Seriously -- can you imagine what Zep might have been like with a better singer and a twin-guitar attack? Wow. In any case, the clip derives from a series of club shows Reid did in L.A. in 2002; the band is led by longtime scenester Waddy Wachtel, and apparently all sorts of 70s and 80s B-list rockers did guest shots at one point or another.
So -- why do I find the vid so emotionally shattering? Well, the song itself has something to do with it, of course. Longtime readers are aware that I am occasionally of the opinion that it's the most beautiful song written in English in the second half of the 20th century. To my ears, it's about somebody who, for whatever reason, has concluded that they will never themselves find love, but who can watch other people -- total strangers, actually -- who have, and has decided that the solace they get from that is ultimately enough. It's a perfectly observed little vignette that manages to be both heartbreaking and strangely uplifting in its generosity of spirit; it's also, probably, the most revealing thing Ray Davies has ever written (and frankly, I can't think of another songwriter who could have pulled it off).
Reid gets all that of course, but he adds a lot more. It's a wonderfully theatrical performance, and at the heart of it is the not so dirty little secret of so much 60s Brit rock, i.e, that as much as the English pop boom owed to blues and r&b, it also owed to that now vanished English institution -- the music hall. The examples are almost endless -- see Sgt. Pepper or the Small Faces "Lazy Sunday" -- and one of the first things that struck me watching the clip is that Reid, singing his heart out up on that cramped little stage, could almost be a tragi-comic version of Archie Rice, the title character from John Osborne's The Entertainer. To really understand that you have to remember that back when Reid was an almost star, he was one of those skinny pretty boy rock god types. Here, of course, he looks like nothing less than one of those slightly puffy second tier expatriate Brit actors at Warner Brothers in the 30s. And he's not posturing like the pop idol he briefly was; instead he's swanning around in that ridiculous ice cream suit like Herbert Marshall in The Letter. It's laughably hokey but it's also quite brave; he's playing the fool and yet it's as if his relationship to the song and the audience and to the whole idea of being a rock star parallels the relationship of the song's narrator to the starcrossed lovers. There's something just enormously compassionate about it, and it just chokes me up.
And don't even get me started on Wachtel's solo or that gorgeous riff he introduces at the end to ride the song out (neither are on the actual Kinks record), or how Reid trails off into wordless falsetto, thus finding an unsuspected link between Davies' teddibly British original and the American street corner romanticism of old Doo Wop and Goffin-King songs.
Alright, I''ve gone on about this for a little too long, and yes, perhaps I'm reading too much into it. In any case, I'm gonna go watch it again, and thanks for stopping by.
PS: I forwarded this to my old pal Eric Boardman (who's a fan and lives in LA), wondering if perhaps he'd been in the audience when it was shot. Just got his reply.
I was not (SIGH) at that show, but have been to Waddy's Monday night jam at The Joint quite often. A great scene as who's-who in rock drop by. Check the concert & club listings as to which bands are in town for the week-end and gamble. For instance, I saw Keith Richards play for an hour, including a few Chuck Berry numbers and a torn-up version of "Down The Road Apiece."
Terry Reid's album with "Horses in a Rain Storm" kept me company summer of '70 along with "After The Gold Rush" and Donovan's "Open Road."
The trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, i.e. the forthcoming Boss bio-pic starring The Bear's Jeremy Allen White.
I gotta admit -- when that excerpt from White doing "Born to Run" live with (whoever's impersonating) the E-Street Band appeared at the end, I actually got kinda choked up. 😎
I should add that so far I can't determine exactly whether White is gonna be doing a Timothee Chalamet -- i.e., himself singing and playing guitar in emulation of Springsteen -- or rather merely lip-synching actual real Springsteen records. And to be honest, I'm not even sure I actually care.
In any case, it's scheduled to open October 24; I'll keep you posted as things develop.
Or so said pretentious frog auteur Jean-Luc Godard, but what the fuck did he know?
In any case, I bring it up because a certain Shady Dame and I have been bingeing on documentaries of late -- specifically, music/rock-and-roll documentaries. I can't remember all of them, but I do know that in the last two weeks we watched docs on The Cowsills (creepy and sad), The Hollies (lotsa fun), Led Zeppelin (a little dull) and Billy Joel (a must see, even if you're not particularly a fan of either the man or his music. Among other things, it's an amazing time capsule of the last 60 or so years of pop culture).
All of which leads us, inexorably, to the subject of the business at hand. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) non-bio-pic film about a post-Elvis pop/rock/folk/soul/r&b/country group or solo artist is...???
No arbitrary rules here; obviously, I'm talking about documentaries per se, but I understand that, for example, a lot of good music movies blur the distinction between docs and concert flick. So if that's what floats your boat, then go for it!
Anyway, in case you're wondering, my choice in the fave category is this one.
Great story, great music and a charismatic figure at the center of it -- what more could you want?
From the September 1993 issue of The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review, please enjoy my musings on the then-new Broadway version of The Who's Tommy.
Click on it to enlarge, obviously.
I hadn't read that it in a while, so I was pleased to discover that it was still pretty funny; as you can tell, I really REALLY disliked the show.
I had forgotten, however, that the people who adapted the album for the stage had (to me inexplicably) turned the child-molesting Uncle Ernie into a sympathetic character. Given recent events, you gotta wonder how that will play if they ever stage a revival at (the apparently soon to be renamed as the) Trump Center in DC. 😎
In any event, I think the above has gotta go into the Steve's Greatest Hits book I've been nattering on about here for the last couple of years.
And while I'm on the subject -- actual news about that is coming soon. Possibly even next week; I'll keep you guys posted. 😎😎
From his 1981 debut solo album Law and Order, please enjoy pop genius auteur Lindsey Buckingham and the world class nuttiness that is "Bwana."
Those falsetto glissandos...those Munchkin background vocal "ra-ta-ta-tas"...oh my god.
Frankly, I flipped for this song from the moment I first heard it, and to this day it a) absolutely cracks me up and b) I have no freaking idea what it's about. (I should add I'm not sure Buckingham could get away with the lyrics in 2025. I mean -- "Bwana"? Not exactly PC -- it's kind of the poetic equivalent of wearing a gorilla suit.) 😎
Let's just say our younger readers can have no conception of how subversive this guy was when he arrived in the 1950s -- as a DIY underground sensation, who released his own records on his own label.
BTW, the song above got premiered on a 1965 prime-time TV show called That Was the Week That Was; Lehrer was a regular for a while and was very often a little too controversial for the suits at the network. I bring this up because it's particularly pertinent to today's repressive media climate, i.e. one where the Trump administration is installing an "official bias monitor" to censor CBS if they get too uppity in the future. (I did not make that last up, BTW; this is the world we're living in).
Anyway, the guy was a pop genius, and I can only imagine what he must have thought about the Manchurian Cantaloupe.
Oh, and here's what seems to have been the last song he wrote and recorded (it originally appeared as a bonus track on a Rhino Records Lehrer box set in 2000).
[I originally posted this one back in 2012, when this blog and the world had not yet endured the reign of the Manchurian Cantaloupe and the attendant destruction of American democracy. In any case, given all the Beach Boys stuff I posted the other week (occasioned by the death of Brian Wilson) I thought it might be fun to revisit it. As per usual on these occasions, I've done some re-writing and swapped out a couple of songs, although the list itself remains from the original version. Enjoy, if possible. - S.S.]
Okay -- here's a fun and hopefully relevant little project with an amusing subtext that we can all get behind while I take a long and well deserved nap:
TOP TEN MOST IMPORTANT AMERICAN ROCK BANDS OF THE SIXTIES!!!
No arbitrary rules, except that I said "bands" -- no solo artists or folk duos need apply (sorry Bob, sorry Paul, sorry Artie etc.)
And no singing/vocal groups either. Which means that if you nominate The Mamas and the Papas or any of the Motown acts other than Jr. Walker and the All-Stars I am going to taunt you mercilessly. We're talking bands here -- with people who, like, play guitars and drums and stuff. Okay? Okay.
And so, my totally top of my head Top Ten, in no particular order except for Number One, is/are:
10: The Rascals
Blue-eyed soul. Nobody did it better and with more rock attitude.
9: The MC5
"The American Ruse" indeed, and it's really quite horrific that this song hasn't dated a whit. I should add that the above live version was totally unknown to me until yesterday.
8: The Velvet Underground
Nelson Algren meets the Rolling Stones. If you think that anybody at the moment is doing something as innovative, gutsy and avant-garde, please e-mail me at Just Blow Me.Com. Thank you.
7: The Blues Project
Maybe you had to be there, but these guys were among the most exciting live acts I've ever seen. And they sounded EXACTLY like this in person.
6: Jefferson Airplane
America's loudest band. I was actually at this show, so I know what I'm talking about.
5: Moby Grape
The greatest debut album in all of American rock. And the two that followed were pretty damned good, too.
4: Buffalo Springfield
There's very little to be said about this bunch that hasn't already been declaimed by wiser folks than moi, but may I simply add -- I will never forgive Neil Young for bailing on the group's 2012 reunion tour before it got to NYC, i.e. before I finally got to see them live. Miserable bastard.
3: Paul Revere and the Raiders
FANG!!!
Seriously, that's it. 😎
And the Number 1 best/most significant/whatever American band of the Sixties is -- A FREAKING TIE!!
2/1: The Beach Boys...
...and The Byrds!!!
The short version? Apart from everything else, both the Beach Boys and Byrds invented a sound. Hell, a genre. Very few people in music history can make that claim.
And before somebody goes "What -- Paul Revere and not The Band?", let me just say the The Band would have been my number 11, and that -- heretical as the judgement may be -- they have never really rocked hard enough for me. Sorry.
And also, before somebody brings up The Grateful Dead, let me just say that while it's hardly a secret that I am not now and have never been a fan, I would nonetheless submit that the albums on which their reputation mostly rests -- American Beauty and Workingman's Dead -- were both released in the 70s. And that their work prior to that was mostly along the lines of a fairly meh white blues band with a mildly irritating experimental bent.
