Okay, this video is freaking fabulous and the song is pretty damn good too.
The big influence there is, obviously, Steely Dan, which has always been a good thing in my book, and don't give me any of that Yacht Rock shit, because I don't want to hear it. In any case, Jackson's evocation of that 70's sound has a nice (admittedly subtle) contemporary edge to it, and frankly if you profess not to enjoy the result you're just being difficult.
The album that it's on is coming out momentarily; other than that I haven't been able to find any info on the guy or the album (or Tim's history -- obviously, he's been around for a while) but I'll do the research and get back to you ASAP.
Okay, so I'm not feeling 100%, physically speaking (a couple of broken vertebrae, and don't ask). Not to mention the President of the United States is a sundowning psychotic ignoramus, which is seriously upping my stress level.
So let's get directly and inexorably to our business at hand.
To wit:
...and the post-Elvis pop/rock/soul/folk/country/hip-hop solo artist or band you feel could have been hugely commercially successful based on their name alone is...???
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules whatsoever, by which I mean if you want to nominate somebody who was/is actually famous go for it.
In any event, my nominee is these guys...
...who were a kind of big deal in the NYC underground of the 80s. (By kind of a big deal, I mean that I used to see flyers for their CBGBs gigs on lampposts in my Village neighborhood all the time). In any case, I never got to see them live, but I always thought their moniker was hilarious. And I should add that after stumbling across their music online recently, I really regret having missed them back in the day -- as you can hear, their shtick was a kind of unpretentious, often amusingly rootsy racket that I would have dug the most in a small club.
Alrighty then -- who would YOUR choice(s) be?
And have a great weekend, everybody!!! 😎
PS: You can find out more about these guys -- including the skinny on their upcoming (November) NYC reunion show -- over at their official website HERE.
Okay, actually this has more than three chords, but not by much. 😎
Ladies and germs, please enjoy (from 2019) an absolutely staggeringly great live (sort of unplugged) version of Vampire Weekend's sublime "This Life."
In all seriousness, I think this is the best pop song/record of the current century so far. Everything about it makes me tingle, beginning with the jangly "Brown Eyed Girl"--Meets--Graceland acoustic/electric guitars.
And this is sheer poetry.
...darling our disease
Is the same one as the trees
Unaware that they've been living in a forest
I should add that I've been grooving on the official/studio single video of that for years...
...but I stumbled across the live version above the other day and just totally lost my shit. I mean, don't even get me started on lead singer Ezra Koenig's plaintively breathy vocals.
I don't know how I missed this ode to my nabe -- Forest Hills, Queens (aka the Paris of the Northeast) -- but if this doesn't crack you up you need to check your meds.
Seriously, that's one of the the funniest things I've ever seen. Plus a lot of it was shot within walking distance of the digs I share with a certain Shady Dame. 😎
High temperatures gonna be in the low 70s/high 60s for the forseeable future here in Forest Hills (aka the Paris of the Northeast) so it seems appropriate to revisit a classic.
I can't hear that without going "wow." In fact, if truth be told, there are days when I think that's the Kinks' all-time greatest song.
The short version is that I stumbled across the above the other day and figured -- nah, it's gonna suck. To my delighted surprise, it doesn't. In fact, it's enormous fun, and let's just say that it was no surprise that Link Wray is one of the coolest dudes on the planet.
Which leads us -- inexorably and inevitably -- to the subject of today's business. To wit:
...and if you were picking any other guitarist --living or dead -- to add to the roster in the vid, who would it be and why?
Discuss.
My choice? I haven't a frigging clue. I mean, Steve Cropper is already up there.
And yeah, I know -- Keith Richards. I was leaning more towards Tom Verlaine.
From their about-to-be-released new EP (October), please enjoy sublime Australian pop/rockers The Summertimes and their goose-bump inducing "Save You Now."
These guys have been around since 2023, and if there's any justice they'll be household words before the year is out. As for the song itself, it's so gorgeous I listened to it like ten times before I noticed that the lyrics dealt with some ripped from recent headlines political issues, which is not usually the case for the band's genre. I can't find a website link with more info and streaming options, but I'm doing the research and I'll get back to you.
And may I just add, and for the record, that the above pushes just about every power pop button I have? I mean, the massed dry-but-jangly guitars alone sent me around the moon. 😎
And given the current price of diesel, that's pretty damn cheap.
But seriously, folks, I've gotten hooked of late on a news/political website called No More Mr. Nice Blog. Hosted and written by the charmingly abbreviated Steve M, who seems to be a weepy old bolshie like moi, it's consistently entertaining and thought provoking, and I recommend it highly in today's troubling times.
More to the point, Mr. M had this to say in a recent piece making sport of a conservative pundit at the NY Times who thinks the Republicans are winning the wider culture wars because there are a couple of hit western shows on teevee at the moment. M saves his larger thesis for the conclusion. To wit:
...As for music, country might be thriving because it continues to embrace satisfyingly basic pop song structures, at a time when hip-hop rarely does and there's no energy left in rock apart from eccentric acts like Geese and Angine de Poitrine, or abrasive, laryngitis-inducing metal. Noah Kahan, Taylor Swift, and Olivia Rodrigo write old-fashioned songs, and they're hugely popular (and all politically left-leaning). Maybe verse-chorus-verse songs are what Americans want, not social conservatism
And you know what -- I think he's onto something there. In any case, you can read the whole piece over at the link above.
[An earlier version of the below originally ran here in 2009, a time so distant in the past that my testicles hadn't yet descended. I've added the essay question section of it and done some rewriting on the rest in yet another vain attempt to convince you guys I'm not the slacker you all know I am. -- S.S.]
From 1970, please enjoy bubblegum legends The Ohio Express and their infernally addictive (and more substantial than the genre usually gets) "Sausalito."
Written by -- wait for it -- Graham Gouldman. Yes, him.
Anyway, the interesting (I know, I know -- you'll be the judge of that) thing is that the guys in the clip were NOT the guys who played and sang the record. The clip guys, who admittedly have the then contemporary rock star look down pretty good, were a Mansfield, Ohio band called Sir Timothy & The Royals, who were renamed The Ohio Express and hired by the Kasenetz/Katz bubblegum factory to represent, as the kids say.
So who played on the record? Well, given Gouldman's fingerprints on the thing, you might guess it was his future band 10cc, and you'd be right; "Sausalito" is, in fact, the work of the same pop geniuses behind records like "Rubber Bullets" and "I'm Not in Love." Gouldman and company spent a year basically toiling as Brill Building hacks for Kasenetz and Katz; they had their own recording studio which they were trying to turn into a viable commercial enterprise at the time, and grinding out bubblegum tracks for K&K paid the bills. For more on the whole history of the Ohio Express, you should probably go over here.
And all of which leads us, inexorably and inevitably, to the larger subject of the business at hand. To wit:
...and the post-Elvis pop/rock/soul/folk/country song you would most like to cover or have covered either live or in the digital domain as a solo artist or band member is...???
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules, except that if you actually are or have been a musician it can't be something you have already covered at some point in what passed for your career.
Obviously, my first choice would be the song above, but since I love you all more than food, I'll pass along my runner-up.
Unfortunately, that came out in 1997, which is to say two years after I hung up my bass guitar and retired from performing. But man -- what I wouldn't have given.
In theaters last night, with an encore performance Sunday September 13th. Consult your local listings.
I gotta say, I've always thought that song was brilliant, by which I mean coulda/shoulda been a hit single, and the above is both the most recent and the best of the several versions of it over the years.
And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I once actually got to meet/interview the guys -- Mike, Bill and Kevin -- in 1996, when they were doing a book tour in support of their then just-released MST3K Amazing Collossal Episode Guide. An hour which remains one of the greatest thrills of my adult life.
Seriously -- I was just a huge fan, and as far as I was concerned, it was like getting to be in a room hanging out with the Beatles or something. 😎
Okay, as you may have heard yesterday over at our pal Sal's invaluable BURNING WOOD BLOG (or elsewhere on the Intertubes), but there's a brand new six disc (CD and Blu-ray) box set of The Who's 1975 album The Who By Numbers just out. I haven't heard it yet, nor am I likely to anytime soon; frankly, a) it's a little pricey, and b) I'm still trying to digest the recent 7CD complete Lovin' Spoonful anthology on Cherry Red I got as an early birthday present the other week. Plus, at this point in life, my attention span is pretty much shot to shit, and I'm reminded of a friend's comment when I asked if he'd seen Christopher Nolan's recent and much-raved about film version of The Odyssey. "Are you kidding?" he replied. "Jeebus, it's like four hours long."
Yeah, yeah, both he and I were kidding about the above to some degree, and in fact, I've loved most of TWBN since forever, although to be equally honest I haven't listened to it since probably sometime in the last century. Still, upon reading Sal's thoughts on the album, I got curious as to what I had said about it when it was new. So here, exactly as it appeared in the January 1976 issue of The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review, is my critique. If you have difficulty reading, you should be able to click on it to enlarge.
I'm not sure I still completely agree with all the judgements expressed in the piece, but I think I got most of it basically right. In any case, please enjoy if possible, and cut me some slacque, Jacques -- I was a kid at the time. 😎
From 1982, please enjoy the irrepressible Gary U.S. Bonds and his ironically upbeat ode to unemployment "Out of Work."
Attentive readers will recall that the above is something of a holiday tradition around these parts of late, primarily due to the fact that its predecessor in that regard, The Strawbs' "Part of the Union," turns out to be considered something of a Tory anthem in its home country (I'm still a little puzzled by that, actually). In any event, I've always loved the Bonds record, and it remains, to this day, pretty much my favorite of all the songs Bruce Springsteen gave away to other artists.
In any event, enjoy your holiday barbecues, and my apologies for the weekend screw-up in the comments section; I have no idea what caused the problem, but apparently it's been resolved.
Apart from Ronnie's usual batch of to die for new 60s-inspired pop confections, ss you can see from the track listings, there are a lot of really brilliantly chosen cover songs on the album -- here's a venerable folkie classic that Ronnie assures us is pretty much his favorite of the bunch.
Attentive readers will of course recall Ronnie both as the father of The Lemon Twigs and as a frequent contributor to some of The Floor Models recordings in the current century; if you're familiar with the music his kids make, you'll grok that talent is inheritable, and that in this case the proverbial apples don't fall very far from the tree.
In any case, Ronnie's been releasing stuff as good as the above on his own CDs since the 80s (or maybe the '90s, but I'll check) and I couldn't be happier that he's finally getting the kind of critical recognition that he has long deserved. I don't have the CD purchase/streaming link for the new one yet, but I left him a message about same (it was his birthday this past Wednesday) and I'll put the link up as soon as Ronnie recovers from his celebratory hangover (I keed, I keed!!!). I should also add that one of the most admirable things about him is that he differs from most contemporary musical icons in that he has a genuine work ethic reminiscent of the 60s musicians -- Beatles, Byrds, Beach Boys -- who inspired him. Here's what I had to say about his last album (which he did with The Twigs, who work pretty hard themselves, come to think of it) and which dropped (as today's yutes say) all the way back in the misty dim historical recesses of late November last year.
You should get that one too, it goes without saying. 😎
Meanwhile, have a great holiday weekend everybody!!!
Okay, now here's something you don't hear as often as you used to.
By which I mean a quirky, unbelievably well produced, conceivably even commercially-radio ready pop-rock confection that clocks in, remarkably, at under two minutes.
That's LA duo Scaled Alps and "Celestial Sighs," the second track from their just released new album Let the Alpine Play. I haven't really completely digested it (the song) yet, but in its own surprisingly accessible way, it strikes me at the moment as kinda the most genuinely contemporary-sounding thing I've heard (and more confoundingly actually liked) in what seems like ages.
You can find out more about these guys -- and order the above and the rest of their earlier output -- at this convenient link OVER HERE.
From some time in the 'teens, please enjoy pride of Massachusetts The Ticks and their, shall we say, interesting cover of The Beatles' "Because."
The Ticks, I should point out, are an all-gal band from the Cape Cod Area; one of them is also a cashier at a Trader Joe's in Hyannis, which is where my long time friend/Weasles bandmate Allan Weissman recently discovered them. I'm not 100% sure what I think of their rendition -- the synth keyboards strike me as a little schmaltzy and the vocals occasionally veer into pixie-ish -- but overall it's certainly attractive and I think on balance does justice to the song.
Which leads us, inexorably and inevitably, to the subject of today's business. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) cover of a song by the Fab Four -- either by the group itself or by an individual band member solo -- is...???
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules whatsover, and I can't wait to hear what you go for.
And in case you're wondering, these are my favorites in the Favorite category.
Simply gorgeous in both cases. And I'd tell you my candidate in the Least Favorite category, but I'd feel like too much of a party pooper. 😎
From their utterly brilliant eponymous debut album (in 1987), please enjoy The Desert Rose Band (featuring hero of my youth Chris Hillman) and their to-die-for country rock confection "One Step Forward."
Hillman has made so much good music in so many different band contexts -- beginning, obviously, with The Byrds in 1965 -- that it's almost supernatural. That said, the abovementioned Desert Rose LP is a particular fave, and it was nice to discover that it hasn't dated a whit since I heard it last (some time in the '90s. if memory serves).
I should add that I had the opportunity to interview Hillman back in 2020, on the occasion of the publication of his terrific autobiography Time Between, and he couldn't have been more gracious, charming and funny.
Hey -- that has not always been the case when I've encountered longtime musical idols. 😎
That's an ad she took out in the music trade press (from 2022), and in case you were wondering, she was inducted into the Hall that year despite her demurrers. Words fail me over how cool that is anyway, of course.
I should add that I was lucky enough to see Dolly at a small NYC club in 1977 (just before she crossed over to pop and become a movie star). Utterly amazing.
Also, my then girlfriend -- who was relatively short -- actually acquired one of Dolly's stage outfits from that period (one of those one piece bell-bottom jumpsuits with the mirrors running down the side of both legs) at a charity auction. I'm not exactly sure how that worked, but the short version is that it fit her like the proverbial glove.
And speaking, as we weren't, of Billy Joel the other day, from the December 1982 issue of the Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review, here's my of review Joel's then new The Nylon Curtain. Funny thing is, it's a lot less negative -- both about the album itself and its auteur in general -- than I had remembered from before I stumbled on it in the archives recently.
BILLY JOEL'S late-Seventies records have revealed a songwriter with a fair amount of wit, a tough, unsetimental view of generational and class concerns, a real gift for the melodic hook, and a not-inconsiderable skill as a bandleader. If he sold records in slightly smaller quantities, I have no doubt the critics would have made him a cult figure on the order of, say, Warren Zevon. The unforgivelable sin of his vsat popularity notwithstanding, it should be obvious that, compared with his commercial competition -- the Styxs, REO Speedwagons, and Journeys that glut our airwaves and pretty much define mainstream above-ground rock -- he comes off as a genius. Or at least an honest respectable craftsman.
That said, Joel's new Columbia album The Nylon Curtain feels like something of a throwback to his earlier, dismissable work. (The songs that made his initial reputation -- "Piano Man" and the like -- seem overheated and faintly embarrassing now.) The admirable Long Island bar-band rocker who had emerged in his recent work is strangely muted here, as is the social diarist, and in their place at times seems to be just aother cabaret artist. The songs, when they're not weighted down with shameless and inexplicable musical references to Sgt. Pepper, are vague and far too personal. Theyre not annoyingly confessional in the usual manner of the nakedly emotional singer/songwriter; they're simply cryptic. Instead of sketching specific incidents and letting them stand as metaphors for experiences we've all had, they pile on so many specific, unconnected details that they become unintentionally surreal. "Scandinavian Skies," for eample, is basically just another band-on-the-road song, but Joel has tricked it up to the point where I defy anybody who wasn't along for the ride to know what the hell he's talking about.
Other songs that might have worked are scuttled by their length. "Laura," a potentially interesting portrait of a desperately unhappy girl of a type we have probably all known, goes on longer than War and Peace (well, perhaps it just seems to). And some are simply overambitious. "Goodnight Saigon," for example, tries for a large-scale statement about the horror of the Vietnam War but collapses in a confused welter of irony and second-hand period scene-setting that sugggests its author OD'd on home viewings of Apocaypse Now.
There are two marvelous exceptions, however. "Pressure" is a satisfyingly spiteful put-down song in the great tradition (an upwardly mobile "Like a Rolling Stone," perhaps) in which the singer sneers at a young woman whose world view seems limited to college psychology courses and Time magazine, Musically, it's a neatly executed mix of New Wave electronics and a kind of of demented nineteenth-century classicism, and it makes a splendid single. Even better is "Allentown." Over a great, chugging instrumental track (comeplete with some discreet factory sound effects) Joel recounts a story as contemporary as the morning paper, a story of broken promises and fading dreams in America's industrial heartland. It rings utterly true, evoking a genuine mood of contemporary despair without once lapsing into mawkishness or cheapjack cynicism. It's a grand song -- and the most overtly rock-and-roll cut on the record, which may not be coincidental.
While The Nylon Curtain isn't a great album, or even a topflight Billy Joel album, it has to be accounted a partial success for these two songs. Their presence is all the more laudable in an era when the musical mainstream is deliberately bland and the "avant-garde" is recylcing devices from fifty-year-old Dada manifestos. -- Steve Simels
BILLY JOEL: The Nylon Curtain.
COLUMBIA TCT 38200.
I should add that the above ran in the same issue as my thoughts on Bruce Springsteen's also then-new Nebraska, an album that I was, to my surprise, far less taken with than the Joel effort. In any event, I bring the whole subject up because I really kinda disliked Joel for the longest time (heh heh) until well into this century, when I saw one of his now legendary shows at Madison Square Garden and became a forever devotee.
Which leads us, inexorably and inevitably, to the subject of the business at hand. To wit:
...and the post-Elvis pop/rock/folk/soul solo artist or band you were largely meh about when they were at their commercial and cultural peak of popularity but have since turned into a rabid fan is...?
Discuss.
No arbirtrary rules of any kind, but I will add that if you want to flip this -- give an example of a band or group that you loved, nay lurved back in the day, but now you go "what was I thinking?" when you consider them today -- I wouldn't object.
And in case you are wondering -- and I suspect long-time readers will have guessed this -- my nominee in the original category is Queen. Who I really disliked when they were big, but since seeing the bio-pic I now worship the ground they walked on.
Sad news -- Frank Beard, aka the drummer guy in ZZ Top who didn't have an actual beard, has passed at the age of 76. The world is a significantly duller place in his absence.
And now a true story, which I am sharing to make all you kids jealous at just how fabulous it was to be involved, however periphally, in the music biz back in the day.
So sometime in the early-to-mid-70s, I happened to meet a visiting gal pal of a friend of mine who worked at the William Morris Agency in Manhattan, and became immediately smitten. Said gal pal lived, inconveniently for me, in Houston, so it occured to me there might be a way to shnorr a Texas trip. At which point I called up another gal I know at another big agency (for some reason the vast majority of the agents and publicists I knew back then were women -- I have no idea why), inquired if they had a band playing in the Houston area anytime soon, and was informed that the Top -- who were still more or less a local act, having not yet glommed onto the Sharp Dressed Men shtick they developed to world wide acclaim in the MTV 80s -- had a show coming up in a week or two at some Texas arena, and would I like to go?
I said yes, conned my bosses at Stereo Review into paying for a local hotel, and then hied myself off to the Lone Star State for a weekend of music and partying with the object of my affections. (In case you're wondering, the Top, who I had never previously seen live and wasn't crazy about their albums at the time, struck me as unremarkable, but the young woman who occasioned my Houston sojourn and I had, shall we say, a lotta fun).
The pre-facial hair ZZ Top a year or two before the time I saw them live
BTW -- I said it was a true story. I didn't say it was an interesting one. 😎
From 1988, please enjoy wise-ass Texas roots-rockers (heh) The Wild Seeds and their plaintively wistful "I'm Sorry, I Can't Rock You All Night Long."
I actually reviewed the album that's from at The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review when it first came out, and if memory serves I loved it, especially "I'm Sorry." Nevertheless, I seem to have lost my copy, and until I chanced across the above on FB the other day, I had totally forgotten that the song had ever existed, let alone that it was such a pitch-perfect skewering of 80s hair band machismo.
Inspirational verse:
I'm sorry
So sorry
I can't rock you all night long
It's an interesting idea, baby
But it would be wrong
Lord knows, we've all known the feeling as we age, but it's rarely been expressed so eloquently.
Okay kids, as some of you may know, I had a weird freak accident (a fall in my kitchen, no less) two weeks ago, and as a result I've been in excruciating back pain ever since. So today's business is, necessarily, gonna be something essentially tossed off and not up to my usual standard of excellence. (And if truth be told, I've probably done a variant of it sometime in the blog's dim dark past.)
Hey -- how do you say "cut me some slack, Jack!" in Yiddish? 😎
Anyway, by way of introduction, let me note that yesterday marked the 4th anniversary of the arrival of our beloved pussycat Mickey -- a rescue from the Bronx, thus named after Mr. Mantle -- at our digs in Forest Hills.
He's a real sweeteart, and you'll note that he's also polydactyl, i.e. he has six toes on each paw. Pretty cool, no?
In any case, that leads us inevitably and inexorably to the subject at hand. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Elvis pop/rock/soul/folk record/song
referencing animals either in the lyrics, title, or name of the artist/band is????
Discuss.
In case you're wondering, my nominee is this.
The song itself is sort of a guilty pleasure; it's a tad dated, obviously, but I think I just kinda dig the idea that these guys might possibly have named themselves after the hilarious absurdist play by Ionesco.
Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?
And have a great weekend, everybody! And hope that the Heroin Jr. pills my pain specialist just prescribed for me make my weekend a little more bearable than I'm used to of late.
From 1970 and their sophomore Boppin' the Blues album please enjoy the original five-piece lineup of NRBQ and their hilarious and irresistible "Flat-Foot Flewzy."
As most of you guys know, our good friend Sal Nunziato has been running a "Songs That Totally Rock" sort of contest this week over at his Burning Wood blog and the above song -- which I had not heard or even pondered in five decades -- got nominated. Imagine my pleasured surprise when it turned out to be an absolute unmitigated delight after all these years.
Now excuse me while I go check out both of the Q's first two albums, which I seem to recall as being just chock full of stuff as great as that.
And speaking of one-hit wonders as we were over the weekend, I was reminded of a band who I loved back in the day (I owned both of their albums) but I haven't thought about them in ages. And in any case, they never got the larger kind of critical acclaim I always felt they deserved, probably due to their commercially ill-advised anti-counter-cultural image.
I refer of course to Every Mother's Son, they of "Come On Down to My Boat" fame.
In any event, estimable as that song is, it's not my favorite of theirs.
That would be a cross between this one, from their debut album...
...and this one (from their second and final effort) which was actually a moderate hit in a lot of markets, including my own in the Tri-State area.
I think we can all agree that both of those are exemplary pop/rock confections. The first, I have long maintained, is the greatest Monkees record that the Monkees never made, and it is one of the most poignant regrets of my adult life that the Floor Models never got around to covering it. The second, of course, is merely two-plus minutes of flat-out folk-rock gorgeousness in that sort of baroque/moderately psychedelic style that was one of the genuine pleasures of its period.
I should add that the band's keyboard guy, Bruce Milner, went on to become a very ritzy upscale dentist on NY's Upper East Side; back in the 90s, he was a regular at my then Manhattan watering hole. Very nice guy, but I could never really get him to talk about his days as a minor league rock star.
From 1997, please enjoy the mostly obscure White Town and his insinuating claim to fame "Your Woman."
From Wiki:
White Town auteur Mishra has said, "I'm a mediocre singer, I'm a terrible guitarist, I'm a pretty good keyboardist, I'm a good producer, not amazing, but good."Noting his status as a one-hit wonder, he said it is "better than a no-hit wonder" and elaborated, "To be a professional musician and to be entertaining people twenty years after my biggest hit, I feel like I'm the luckiest person alive. Just to have one song that connects with people—most musicians dream their entire lives of having that."
Which leads us, inevitably and inexorably, to the subject of today's business. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite, however unlikely that may be) post Elvis-20th century pop/rock/soul/folk/or whatever one hit wonder song (and artist) is...???
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules whatsoever, but I've included the 20th century proviso because commercial music in the current era is so built-in forgettable that it just seems unfair to compare to it to an earlier time. White Town being an almost exception that proves the rule.
Oh, and BTW, in case you're wondering, my fave is pretty much this.
I mean, that's so freaking good it kind of boggles the mind they never had another hit.
The good news -- saw my doctor yesterday, and I do not appear to have done any serious damage to my back. The bad news -- I am in serious pain a lot of the time and I'll be getting two MRIs later today. Please forgive ny slacking off on today's post.
Barring the unforseen, regular stuff -- including an amusing Weekend Essay Question -- resumes on the morrow.
The song itself was written by Mick and Keith (in 1963) but the Stones demo remains unreleased; the song was given to Brit popsters The Mighty Avengers by Stones manager/producer Andrew Oldham and their record actually charted in England in '64. The dawn-of-the-'80s version by The Inmates (which was the first one I heard) was a big fave at Casa Simels for a long time; the Inmates themselves were the sort of missing link between pub rock and punk. The Lonely Boys (who were Swedish, and not to be confused with the American Los Lonely Boys, who came later and were something wholly other) were previously unknown to me, as was their version of the song.
I kind of love all of the above in equal measure, although if pressed the Inmates take is marginally my favorite, if only for sentimental reasons.
A pretty fab song overall, though, and it is one of the great regrets of my adult life that the Floor Models never got around to covering it.
Those are my two favorites on the record, but trust me -- the rest of the songs are similarly terrific and will get under your skin post-haste.
Attentive readers will recall my raving about Lance's work in these pages previously, but if you missed those here's the backstory. Lance's day job is as Nashville's savviest music publicist. I've known him in that capacity since the '90s, and over the years (both when I was a small bigshot at The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review and, more recently, as a poor scribbler at this here blog) he's hipped me to a lot of great stuff I might otherwise not have heard (thanks, Lance!). Ironically enough, however, I only vaguely knew that he also had an out-of-the-office secret identity as a singer/songwriter.
The new album is very much of a piece with his earlier efforts, which is to say it ain't a rock record of the type that usually is the subject of my postings here. But however you categorize it-- folk/country/Americana/whatever -- it's inarguably wonderful. Lance's songs are literate, melodically memorable, and poignant on subjects both contemporary and historical (like "William Cooper Smith," an old West saga that touches a remarkable number of bases). And as I've noted before they're sung by him in a deeply affecting Bruised Everyman voice that I'd kill to have. I should add that the instrumental backings are sheer understated perfection; the delicate, almost chamber music-ish acoutic guitar and piano interplay on the opening of the title song is the most ineffably lovely listening experience I expect to have in my apartment anytime in the forseeable future.
But enough of my yakking; you can find out more about Lance, and buy the new album (and the two that preceded it) at his official website OVER HERE.
In any event, all of the above leads inevitably and inexorably to the subject of today's business. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Elvis pop, rock, country or folk album whose arrangements are mostly/largely driven by acoustic instruments is...???
Discuss.
In case you were wondering, my candidate for least favorite is the album this is from.
From earlier this year please enjoy Banda AL9 (yeah, I don't get the name either) and their effortlessly effervescent "She Can Do It All."
As longtime reader Dave Leonatti (who turned me on to them recently) observed -- that really checks all the power pop boxes. I mean seriously -- that's the most infectious pop/rock confection I've heard in ages
In any case, they're brothers (no shit, Sherlock) who've apparently been doing this kind of stuff since around 2010, and the above is from their amusingly monikered new album Hey! Hey! We're Banda AL9!. They don't seem to have an official webpage or any online presence that I can find, but I'll keep you posted if that changes.
The short version: Was puttering around in my kitchen last night, had a dizzy spell, lost my balance and fell flat on my back. I am now in so much pain I can barely walk.
Assuming I'm better, regular posting -- (hello, Lance C.😎 ) -- resumes on the morrow.
So yesterday, as you are doubtless aware, our good friend Sal Nunziato at the invaluable Burning Wood blog posted a playlist whose overarching theme was that innumerable 60s songs by The Who were clearly power pop as we understand the term. To which I can only say -- I couldn't agree more.
Which leads us, inexorably and inevitably, to the theme of the weekend's business. To wit:
...and your favorite pre-Big Star/Raspberries proto-power pop song is???
Discuss.
Long-time readers -- by which I mean who've been around since the 'aughts, when NYMary first gave me the metaphorical keys to the car around here -- will doubtless have guessed MY candidate.
I mean -- that drum opening, the chimes and guitar riff on the chorus, the background "oohs"??? Power pop fer sure.
I should add that it's the first cover song the savage young Floor Models learned, and in fact the very first thing we ever performed live in front of an audience (at our sneak audition for a gig at Kenny's Castaways). Alas, no live version of that has survived, but it was a staple of our repertoire for the longest time, and it was an absolute gas to play.
...that was, of course, The Bangles and their hit cover version of Jules Shear's "If She Knew What She Wants."
Long time readers are aware that I consider those kids to be not just (obviously) the most fab/gear girl band ever, but one of the all-time great rock outfits period. That said, I hadn't listened to that song or watched that video in a couple of decades, and when I chanced across it the other day (hence Monday's post on Jules Shear) I was absolutely gobsmacked. Everything about that is perfect -- Susanna Hoff's haunting lead vocal, the ethereal harmonies, the jangly guitars, the rhythmic groove, the overall mood...a power pop masterpiece, in other words. Wow.
I should add that the above motivated me to check out Shears' original, which I had never heard previously.
From 1978, please enjoy New Wave faves Jules (Shear) and the Polar Bears and their infectious "You Just Don't Wanna Know," the lead-off track from their debut album Got No Breeding.
That was a big hit around my office at Stereo Review at the time, if not alas with the public at large. Shear, of course, went on to considerable success writing for other artists like The Bangles; in fact, it was listening accidentally to one of those songs that prompted me to revisit the Polar Bears.
More on THAT, however, will have to wait for Wednesday's posting. 😎
From 1971, please enjoy pub-rock genre-creators Brinsley Schwarz -- featuring auteur songwriter/bass player/lead vocalist Nick Lowe -- and their serenely Buddy Holly-ish folk/rock/pop masterpiece "Unknown Number."
And when I say Buddy Holly-ish that's not an exaggeration; as you may have noticed, the song's riff is pretty much identical to that of "Words of Love."
Which leads us inevitably and inexorably towards the subject of today's business. To wit:
...and your favorite post-Elvis pop/rock/folk/soul/jazz/country song featuring (either by suggestion or literally) a number either in the title or the lyrics is...???
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules, although I'm gonna be pretty annoyed if you chose an album rather than a song. I mean -- none of that Chicago III crap, okay?
And in case you're wondering about my choice -- it's this.
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.
