An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop.
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Okay, as I mentioned earlier, I've had to go out of town unexpectedly for a couple of days, and consequently I've had to keep my scribbling to a bare minimum until my return.
So without further ado, this leads us inexorably to the subject of today's business. To wit:
...and the best/most immediately memorable lead-off track to a great album is...???
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules whatsoever, although I was tempted to add "excluding the Beatles or Stones". But heck -- if that's the stuff you wanna pick, go for it.
In any case, if you were wondering what I'm going for, it's this (which may surprise you).
To which I can only add -- wow. And the song that opens their previous (debut) album is pretty fucking amazing too. 😎
Had to go out of town unexpectedly for the next couple of days (family mishegass -- nothing too serious) so I didn't have time to write something for today. Mea culpa.
Regular posting -- by which I mean a particularly interesting Weekend Essay Questiion -- resumes on the morrow.
From Second to None, the just-released new album by Toronto's ace jangle-rockers The Get Alongs, please enjoy the band (plus a small but enthusiastic invited audience) live in the studio with the album's killer lead-off track "Come On."
I gotta say, as much as I appreciate that song in the abstract, the video has an old-fashioned (duh) garage band vibe to it that I just find irresistible. I was not previously familiar with those guys, who I'm informed have been around since 2017, but after seeing that I am an instant fan.
I should add that, as charming as the live rendition is, the studio version from the actual album is on a whole other level of great. You can hear it (plus the rest of the album and lots of their earlier stuff) over at their Bandcamp site HERE.
From January 1967, please enjoy the original (i.e. with Jerry Corbitt as the Lennon to Jesse Colin Young's McCartney) Youngbloods, and their utterly exquisite "All Over the World" (La La)".
An absolutely perfect mashup of Brill Building romanticism and folk-rock; proto-power pop too, come to think of it.
Pardon me for one more day's obnoxious geezer self-indulgence, but I happen to believe that the eponymous debut Youngbloods album, from whence that derives, is an absolute freaking masterpiece on every level. And let's not even bring "Get Together" into the discussion.
In any event, the song seemed like a fitting late coda to last week, in which we argued for the virtues of the Youngbloods contemporaries The Sopwith Camel and Chrysalis. Especially considering that I saw those Youngbloods guys at the tiny Greenwich Village dive the Cafe Au-Go-Go (seating: about 200-300) immediately after the album's release. And that the band sounded exactly -- and I mean EXACTLY -- like the above.
Sometime in the '90s, I suddenly and unexpectedly came into a hefty chunk of cash, and having recently gone through another of the Great Girlfriend Crises that have punctuated my life on numerous occasions since college, I decided to indulge myself. And no, that did NOT mean (as I have no doubt longtime readers are assuming) splurging it all on hookers and blow. 😎
Instead, I planned to go into the recording studio to make a solo album or EP; it was going to be a concept record entitled More Songs About Anger and Embittered Self-Pity (for obvious reasons) and I had a whole list of songs I wanted to cover that fit the bill and some musician friends who were ready to accompany me on the journey.
The short version: Cooler heads ultimately prevailed. After a couple of rehearsals, I decided that the project was kind of silly, and I proceeded to piss away said hefty chunk of cash on...I frankly don't even remember what. Probably just the blow (but not the hookers). 😎😎
Hey, what can I say -- it was the '90s, and we were all a little over the top.
Anyway, that leads us now, inexorably, to the subject of today's business. To wit:
...and if YOU were going to make your own version of More Songs About Anger and Embittered Self-Pity, what songs by which artists would you include?
Discuss.
In case you're wondering -- and this will come as no surprise to the abovementioned longtime readers -- my Numero Uno pick, both then and now, would be this. In fact, I think I actually rehearsed a punkish take on it with a guitarist friend of mine from The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review who could do a very good Johnny Ramone impression. (Hi, Mike!!!)
So this past Monday, in our discussion about sadly underated first-generation SF band The Sopwith Camel, our good friend and faithful reader Capt. Al mentioned another (far more) obscure fave of mine, the upstate (Ithaca) NY band Chrysalis, who made one very interesting album in 1967 and then were similarly lost in the mists of history.
I absolutely adored said album (Definition, released by MGM) and after getting myself over to YouTube and listening to it for the first time in about 40 years, I thought I'd get all self-indulgent and share.
I find both of those genuinely haunting, and IMHO there are several songs on the album at least as good (yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking). That said, if you conclude that their whole gestalt is just insufferably twee, I will not dispute you. I mean, at the very least, it's hard to argue that they were not, shall we say. very much of their time.
I should add that I saw them live (twice, I think) and their songs sounded vastly better in that context; as much as I dig the record, the production is pretty undistinguished/undernourished. I should also add that I think singer Nancy Nairn has one of the coolest voices ever and (you'll have to take this on faith) that they had a lot of charisma onstage.
Self-indulgence now over. More recent music, more suited to the actual theme of this here blog, resumes on the morrow. 😎
And speaking as we were last week of genius producer Erik Jacobsen, here are three songs (recorded in 1966-67) he helmed by unfairly treated by history first-generation San Francisco band The Sopwith Camel.
Pump up the volume on these and prepare to have your tiny minds blown.
Man, where even to begin? 😎
Let me just say, though, and for the record, that one of the reasons these guys aren't as famous as they should be is that the album pictured in the vids above came out -- to my knowledge inexplicably -- almost a year after "Hello Hello", the Top 10 single that made them briefly a thing. A year, of course, is a lifetime in pop music terms, and what the hell were they thinking?
I should add that "Treadin'" was the B-side of the aforementioned Top-Tenner, and I get chills just thinking of the glorious jangly folk-rock guitars that decorate it. I should also add that it was not included on the original Camel LP, and that the stereo version above was not available till a CD reissue sometime in the 90s.
Needless to say, I can still vividly recall my delight when I heard it in all its two-channel glory for the first time. 😎😎
So me and a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance have gotten hooked on/are bingewatching a teevee show called (Sky Arts) Portrait Arist of the Year.
It's been running annually since 2013; the season we're currently enjoying is from 2019. In any case, the format has remained consistent since its premier. Nine artists -- professional and amateur -- have a paint-off portrait contest where they start by doing quick (four hour) studies of live sitters who are mostly B-list (usually British) celebs -- tv stars, actors, comics, pop musicians, sports figures etc -- and then they whittle the contestants down to one.
Who then gets to paint -- over a much longer period, i.e. a couple of weeks -- a 10,000 pound commission portrait of an A-list celeb for a major Brit Art institution. (In the season we're currently watching, the sitter is Sir Tom Jones for a museum in Wales.)
In any event, it's a fabulously entertaining show, and most of the art is world class and brilliant.
Which leads us, inexorably, to today's theme. To wit:
...and the post-Elvis pop/rock/country/folk/jazz/hip hop music star that you personally would most have liked to have painted a portrait of -- from life -- is...????
Discuss.
And if you're wondering who my ideal sitter would have been...
Ah, the late great Ms. Winehouse.
For multiple reasons that I probably don't need to go into. 😎
From their eponymous 1972 debut album, please enjoy (if possible) The Sidewinders and their shall we say interesting instro version of the venerable "Flight of the Bumblebee." Kinda like The Ventures on acid.
The Sidwinders were hugely hyped by their label (RCA) and they had a certain je ne sais quoi in the downtown NYC rock scene of the early '70s. I actually had the album at the time and listened to it often enough that I decided their underground cool did not make up for the crappy production by the young Lenny Kaye. Great album cover photo, however.
In any case, they never took off commercially, and these days if they're remembered at all, it's as the band that launched the careers of power pop deity Andy Paley (credits too numerous to mention) and Billy Squier (before he you should pardon the expression stroked out). 😎
I mean, I know they say that everybody has a doppelganger (i.e. somebody who looks just like them) somewhere in the world, but coming face to face (heh) with mine -- the dude in the middle with the sunglasses -- was not what I expected this morning.
In any case, those guys are a vintage rock tribute band from Santa Fe NM; the picture is apparently a promo for a gig they did seven years ago.
I should add that according to their official website they're still at it (god bless 'em). But in the more up-to-date group photos and vids over there my double now just looks like a generic old guy.
And continuing, if obliquely, with the theme of the Weekend Listomania just past, from 1969 please enjoy Norman Greenbaum's other, better (IMHO) single "Canned Ham."
Forgetting the built-in irony of one of my fellow Red Sea Pedestrians singing an ode to a defiantly non-Kosher product, this record (which, granted, was a sales disappointment) simply slays me; in fact, when the colored girl at the end asks Norman (plaintively) 'When you gonna buy me some canned ham, Greenbaum?", I fall out of my chair laughing every time.
I should add that this (like "Spirit in the Sky," AKA "Norman's Meal Ticket") was produced by the great Erik Jacobsen, who also did brilliant records by Tim Hardin, Chris Isaak and (the classic hits of) The Lovin' Spoonful.
And who is, to our knowledge, another nice Yiddish boy, and definitely somebody who's unjustly fallen through the cracks of history and should be a subject for future research.
[I originally posted this one back in 2010 (oh my god!) when both this blog and the world were young and uncircumcized. Sadly, though, it seems more relevant than ever to our current troubling times. As is my wont, I have done some re-writing and added a new entry, in my usual ineffectual attempt to convince you guys that I'm not the pathetic slacker I actually am. -- S.S.]
Well, its Friday and you know what that means. In this case, my lovely Oriental hide-the-kosher-salami consultant Fah Lo Suee and I will be recovering from an epic Manischewitz binge occasioned by the latest Cease Something going on in the Middle East.
Which means that posting by moi will be at best fitful until next week.
But in the meantime, consider if you will this excerpt from Nick Tosches' Unsung Heroes Of Rock 'n' Roll, still the only rock book that knows what it's talking about (or so said the late great Samuel Beckett in the Foreword, despite the fact that he was dead at the time):
The history of rock 'n' roll has been obscured by a great deal of misknowing and ignorance, and by a great many lies. There are those who believe that rock 'n' roll was a sudden, magical effusion; that a young man named Elvis Presley one day rose, dipped his comb in water, swept his hair into a duck's-ass, bopped out into the world, and created -- thank God, Alan Freed was there to give it a name -- rock 'n' roll. This is perhaps the most popular and abiding myth. It is merely another lesson learnt from that cherished American history book that taught us that Peary went to the North Pole alone.
At the other extreme, there are those who believe that rock 'n' roll was created by black people, than seized and commercialized by whites. This is merely a lesson from a revised edition of that same cherished history book. One could make just as strong a case for Jews being the central ethnic group in rock n roll's early history [my emphasis]; for it was they who produced many of the most important records, wrote some of the best songs, cultivated much of the greatest talent, and operated the majority of the pioneering record companies.
I happen to think Tosches is right about this, in the main, which is to say that rock-and-roll, more than any other form of American music, has always been a mutt. Of course, you may disagree; if so, feel free to do so in the comment section. In any case, in the spirit of the above, here's an obviously pertinent and yet inclusively diverse little project to wile away the hours until I return:
Best or Worst Post-Elvis Pop/Rock/Soul/Folk/Country Record/Song Either Written By, Performed By, or About Our Jewish and Arab Brothers and Sisters!!!
And my totally top of my head Top Ten (but for you marked down to Top Nine) is:
9. Gene Pitney -- Mecca
My late great comic songwriter friend Gregory Fleeman used to close his club act with a cover of this that was without question the all time funniest thing I have ever seen/heard on a stage.
8. 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?
7. 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 Jamaican patois I've never really been sure.
6. Ray Stevens -- Ahab the Arab
From 1961, when you could apparently get away with stuff like this. Although in the current climate -- who knows?
5. Two Live Jews -- Oy It's So Humid
When we say these guys are def, we really MEAN....etc.
4. The Regents -- Barbara Ann
Regents singer Chuck Fassert, like his brother Fred (who wrote the song) were of Iranian descent, so you can imagine the irony when that asshat John McCain sang this one as "Bomb Iran" during the 2008 campaign. And yes, I know that Iranians -- or Persians, as they're called in that fekakte Disney flick whose title I won't mention-- are not technically considered Arabs. So sue me.
3. Fountains of Wayne -- Strapped for Cash
Another song about money written by a Jew -- what are the odds?
2. The Blues Project -- No Time Like the Right Time
Left to right: Mssrs (Andy) Kulberg, (Al) Kooper, (Danny) Kalb, (Steve) Katz, and (Roy) Blumenfeld. Not for nothing did they call these guys the Jewish Beatles.
And the Numero Uno "Iceceberg, Goldberg, what difference does it make to the Titanic?" hit of them all simply has to be --
1. Gefilte Joe and the Fish -- Walk on the Kosher Side
So Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood turned 79 last Monday, and when I heard the news I immediately flashed on this song from his 1974 solo debut album.
Now granted, that features Keith Richards singing lead, which seems a bit odd given that the name of the record is I've Got My My Own Album to Do, but hey -- it was the '70s, and we were all a little over the top.
In any event, it's a to-die for rocker, and as I can testify from personal experience, a ton of fun to cover live.
P.S.: I've told this story before, but it behooves repeating. The short version is that my '70s band The Hounds was recording at legendary Electric Lady studios sometime in 1974 or '75, and during a coffee break, I found myself in the studio lounge with none other than -- you guessed it -- Ron Wood. Who presumably was working next door in one of the studio's bigger rooms on what became IGMOATD.
I was utterly awestruck, as you can imagine, but Wood couldn't have been more of a nice regular guy, and while pouring himself a cuppa, he leaned over and said "Here, mate -- have one of these."
And gave me one of his custom guitar picks...
...which I never used either on-stage or in rehearsal, but rather left in a little ceramic dish on my coffee table, where it remained one of my most treasured possessions until I lost it during a traumatic move to a new apartment some two decades later.
I should add that the song we were working on the day Ronnie gifted it to me later became the A-side of our 1976 indie single. Available now on the fabulous 2026 bands that played at CBGBs boxset on Cherry Red Records.
So and speaking as we sort of were last week of the Great American Songbook hoo hah...
In case you're wondering, that was the B-side of the sublime "Concrete and Clay"; I know this because I actually owned the 45 back in the day (1965).
Well, actually I owned the American version on London Records, but you get the idea.
The song itself -- co-written by the great film composer Victor Young -- was originally a hit for Doris Day in 1952, but don't worry...I won't inflict that on you at this late date.
I should add that I have always loved U4+2's version; in fact, I wore out the b-side a lot faster than the putative hit.
I should also add that I stole today's title from Oscar Levant, who knew whereof he spoke. 😎
Okay, by way of introduction, from 2021, please enjoy my old friend/occasional bandmate/actual father of The Lemon Twigs (heh!) the remarkable Ronnie D'Addario and his genius-level cover of Frank Sinatra's classic 1945 plea for tolerance "The House I Live In"
In the style of the "Mr. Tambourine" era Byrds, i.e. 1965.
My god, that's brilliant. Both conceptually and execution-wise.
And I would be remiss if I didn't post the original proto-music video of the song, which won an Academy Award in 1946, just so you can see how transplendent Ronnie's cover is.
Anway, I bring all this up because the other day a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance and I were watching Robert Altman's fabulous 2001 Agatha Christie detective mystery pastiche Gosford Park, and I flashed on how much I loved co-star Jeremy Northam's performance of Brit pop songwriter Ivor Novello's 1924 hit "The Land of Might Have Been."
Seriously, I think that's gorgeous and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Lack of blues influence notwithstanding. 😎
And all of which leads us, slowly but inexorably, to the subject of today's thought experiment. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) pre-Elvis English or American trad pop song that's sort of become a standard or you just like is...???
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules whatsoever, and because I'm a nice guy, if you nominate something from the mid-50s or early '60s -- i.e., from My Fair Lady, West Side Story or The Music Man -- I will let you slide. But it's gotta be non-rock and nothing later than "Till There Was You"!!!
Anyway, in case you're wondering, here's my pick. By the Gershwins -- George and his lovely wife Ira. 😎
From just now in 2026, please enjoy the brand new remix/reissue of Aussie punk/power pop pioneers The Eastern Dark's 1985 Ramones homage single "Johnny and Dee Dee."
I must confess to being heretofore unaware of those guys, who hailed from Sydney, although the guitar player had earlier been in The Celibate Rifles, who I recall enjoying back in the day. In any event, a terrific song; I particularly like the contrast between the delicately mournful instrumental intro and the buzz-saw guitars of the rest of it.
I should add that you can order copies of the newly pressed limited edition 45 -- in your choice of black, yellow, green and red vinyl -- over here at the website of Grown Up Wrong Records!.
BTW, get me drunk some time and I'll tell you about the, er, meeting I took with Dee Dee and my literary agent sometime in the '90s. The idea was they were gonna pitch a Dee Dee autobiography to some unsuspecting publisher and I was supposed to be the co-author.
Let's just say it was one of the creepiest experiences I've ever had.
I should confess that the above Nashville Teens song is one of my favorite secret guilty pleasures of the Brit Invasion. Your mileage may vary, obviously.
In any case, actual new music directly relevant to the actual raison d'etre of this here blog will resume on the morrow.
Okay, I really love this one. Actually wrote it up in a 1973 or '74 column in Stereo Review (having heard it on a Bowie bootleg) expressing my pleasure and surprise that I actually liked something by the guy. 😎
Pretty sure I didn't know that it had ever been officially released, however.
In any event, if Ziggy Stardust (the album) had sounded this Eddie Cochran-ish and cool, I would have probably spent the rest of my career/life raving about how much I dug its auteur. 😎😎
Okay, this seemed kind of prescient/timely in the era of President Inepstein.
That is, of course, the incomparable Something Fierce, who as long-time/attentive readers will recall, I have described as the greatest pop/rock band you've never heard of unless you're from Minneapolis.
Of the song itself, I famously opined (at the time of its release in 1996):
"One song [from A Sound for Sore Ears] deserves particular mention...specifically, 'Watergate,' in which [they] posit -- over a hilariously overdramatic instrumental bed -- that A Girlfriend From Hell is the metaphorical equivalent of the Nixon scandals and sustain the conceit for more than five fricking minutes. If nothing else, this must be the first song in history to contemplate rhyming 'spill the beans' with 'Haldeman, Mitchell and Dean,' and I would like to go on record, at this juncture, as saying that this song remains for my money the most audacious conceptual masterstroke on any '90s rock album by anybody. So there."
And I stand by every word.
Which leads us, subtly but inexorably, to the subject of today's thought experiment. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) song centering on a person or people who are at the very least not so nice (and at the worst really evil) in the title or lyrics is/are???
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules whatsoever, but bonus points if the song you pick actually has the actual word "bad" in it somewhere.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, my fave is this fabulous Larry Williams cover you might possibly have heard before. 😎
As you may have gleaned by now, that's Pete Fij(alkowski) and his self-described jangly/soaring new single "Don't Bring Me Sunshine" (from the forthcoming in September album Up's the New Down. Heh.)
Frankly, he had me by "I need someone like you to show me the way/through the backstreets of the human heart." And when that twangy echoed single note-guitar solo came in at the end, I was a goner.
From his bio: "Pete first burst onto the scene in the early 90s as the frontman and guitarist of post-shoegaze / pre-Britpop band Adorable, whose 1993 album Against Perfection, released on Creation Records, is regularly referred to as a lost indie classic..."
I must confess to being heretofore unaware of the Fij-ster, but I was less than thrilled with a lot of those '90s Brit bands, so it's no surprise I missed his previous work. But after hearing the above, I guarantee I'm gonna do the research and catch up with his ouevre in the subsequent years.
In any case, you can check out more of his stuff -- and keep abreast of future live gigs if you're lucky enough to live in the UK in the age of President Inepstein -- over at his Bandcamp page HERE.
Long-time/attentive readers are no doubt aware of my fondness for Mr, Wilder, i.e. the self-described Last of the Full Grown Men and Idol of Idle Youth. 😎
The song itself, which absolutely slays me in a kind of Keith-Richards-Meets-Power-Pop sort of way, is from a 1991 album that I think on balance is his best; suffice it to say that nobody has come up with a better synthesis of Hank Williams, The Beatles and Andrei Tarkovsky.
And speaking as we were the other day of The Everly Brothers, from 1966 and their fab gear album Two Yanks in England, please enjoy the thoroughly swoonerama folk-rock ballad "Signs That Will Never Change."
Penned, like most of the album, by the Hollies' Clarke-Hicks-Nash songwriting triumvirate.
Apparently the Hollies provided the instrumental backing tracks for most of the album as well, although Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones are rumoured to be in there too.
Oh, and because I love you all more than food, here's the Hollies themselves doing the song, as it turned up a year later as the b-side to their classic "Carrie-Anne."
I actually got a copy of that 45 (from the fabulous Sam Goody record store in Paramus NJ) practically the day it came out, and if truth be told I played "Signs" more often than I played the hit (estimable as it was); when people talk about great double-sided singles this one really should get props. 😎
From their just released EP American Teenage Prophecy, please enjoy fetching LA neo-punk/New Wavers Kid Sistr and their quite blistering "Boys in Skirts."
I think we can all agree that the above is a wonderfully kick-ass Blondie-derived rock-and-roll record (with an actual guitar solo!!!). And that the video -- which would have been considered no big deal/utterly inoffensive, say, 20 years ago -- now seems unexpectedly transgressive, doubtless due to the newly repressive cultural climate we're all enduring in the age of President Inepstein.
You can watch Kid Sistr's hilarious origin story over HERE; they don't seem to have an official website, but for you old people who still use Facebook you can find out more about them at their FB page OVER HERE.
All of which leads us, inexorably. to the subject of today's business at hand. To wit:
...and your all-time favorite (or least favorite) all-or-mostly-all lady rock band is...?
Discuss.
And in case you're wondering, my faves are these kids. Now and in perpetuity.
And let me just add that it is one of the great regrets of my adult life that I never got to see them in person.
From 1965, and their lost in the mists of history Beat & Soul album, please enjoy The Everly Brothers and their remarkable cover of Mickey and Sylvia's 50's rock classic "Love is Strange."
Quite an interesting re-imagining of the song, I think; it was a big hit in England, where the EBs remained Top of the Pops, even though they had been rendered suddenly un-hip in the States by (ironically) the very British Invasion they had helped inspire.
In any case, a lot of the Everlys' mid-Sixties albums are due for critical re-assessment; I'm talking about (in particular) the great "Two Yanks in England", where most of the songs they essayed were provided to them courtesy of The Hollies Clarke-Hicks-Nash songwriting triumvirate.
The trailer(!) from Cal Everett's just released Weight of Early Promise...
...and a complete clip of one of the album's best songs.
This stuff is as impressive a slice of power pop craftsmanship as I've heard this side of The Lemon Twigs in years; when they say in the trailer that it's recommended for fans of Paul McCartney and Emitt Rhodes, they're not overselling it.
I must confess that I was previously unaware of this guy -- whose late 70s/early 80s band 4 Out of 5 Doctors is apparently highly regarded by genre afficianados -- but this is his first solo effort ever. You can find out more about him -- and check out the rest of Weight..., which is a 23-track pop opera concept record -- over at his official link HERE.
And may I just say, and for the record (as it were), that between this and the new Twigs album, 2026 is turning out to be a very good year for the kind of music that comprises the raison d'etre of this here blog.
...and had either a good mordant chuckle at its lameness or else a moment when you threw up in your mouth a little. (Jay-Z? Really?).
In any case, I think we can all agree that it was meant to be provocative, in the sleazy click-bait sense, so it probably really isn't worth the effort to make fun of it.
But I'm gonna try anyway.
You know -- just because. 😎
So here, and to be consumed with a large grain of salt, is my take on the subject.
Oh wait -- before we get going...I would be remiss not to mention that the Times omitted Neil Young and Joni Mitchell on the grounds that they were born in Canada. Uh, sorry Times -- they've lived here and done all their work here for like 60 years. I mean, c'mon -- the people who wrote "Ohio" and "Woodstock" obviously qualify as Americans.
And one final note: Jay-Z is on the cover of the actual physical copies of the magazine; online, the cover person is Taylor Swift. Make of that what you will.
And now, with that spleen vented, let's get to work!
TOP 10 BEST AMERICAN SONGWRITERS INEXPLICABLY/CRIMINALLY OMITTED FROM THE TIMES LIST
And in no particular order (except at the end where number 2 and number 1 are basically a tie) they are...
10. John Fogerty
How many great songs has this guy written?
9. John Sebastian
Hey, what can I tell ya -- if you don't think those guys were one of the greatest American bands ever there's no hope for you.
8. Jackson Browne
And just for the record (as it were) I should mention that sometime before I die I am gonna do a Stones-ish cover of that song somewhere.
7. James Taylor
Pop Quiz: How many people spent hours weeping over that album in their college dorm room?
6. Tom Waits
Wow. All that and Keith Richards (guitar and vocals) too.
5. Paul Westerberg
Paul's omission probably pisses me off more than any of the others, if truth be told. I mean, the Times included a nose to the ground commercial hack like Diane fucking Warren instead of him?
4. Gerry Devine
Okay, I'm obviously joking here, but not completely. I mean, I'll say it again -- the Times included Diane fucking Warren?
3. "Weird Al" Yankovic
He's the greatest pop music satirist since Tom Lehrer. I think that qualifies him.
2. Billy Joel
Oh, so being the Irving Berlin of his generation wasn't enough to get Joel onto the list? Fuck that shit.
And the Number One it's-so-embarrassing-he-didn't-make-the-list-instead-of-Diane-fucking-Warren guy is...
Okay, this is NOT one of those snarky musician photo funnies I've been posting lately. This is an actual flyer I saw on a lamp post near my digs in Forest Hills last weekend. And I lack the words to tell you how wonderful it makes me feel, and for a myriad of reasons.
Click on the photo to enlarge it, BTW.
LOCAL YOUNG ROCK BAND SEEKS BASS PLAYER
Hello. We are Bad Vintage. We are a young (high school and early college) local rock band comprised of a singer/guitar player and a drummer. We have been playing shows around Queens and Brooklyn but we lost our bass player recently so if you are a young bass player (if you can sing a little harmony that's a big plus) and you want to play some rock and roll, please reach out and let's talk.
Some things we love: the songwriting of the Rolling Stones, the style of Bowie, T-Rex/Bolan and English glam, the awesomeness of John Bonham and maybe a little old school Van Halen party vibe.
Wow. My kind of guys, obviously. I mean, c'mon -- if I was a little closer to my teenage years, I would have answered the above on the spot.
In any case, if anybody reading this is a bass player in both their neighborhood and demographic, you can get in touch with them via email at badvintagebandsearch@proton.me. And you can find out more about them over at instagram.com/bad_vintage_.
BTW -- I just heard from the guys; they sent me an audio clip of one of their original songs, which was terrific, and even better, a live video of them covering the Stones' "Miss You" at a bar around the corner from where I live (it's the smallest world in the world, right?). The short version is they look and sound like the kind of band you would have encountered at some Bowery dive in the early '70s (which, for reasons obvious to any longtime readers, is high praise in my book) and I'm now a total fan; as soon as I can figure out how to embed either clip, I'll post them and you can see and hear what I'm talking about.
In the interests of full disclosure, I interviewed Wakeman over an expensive lunch sometime in the '70s, and he was the most unpretentious and hilariously funny rock star I ever encountered. 😎
We were treated very kindly (considering we were Americans, if you know what I mean) in both stores, and both of them had fabulous assortments of vintage music. In Nice, a certain Shady Dame scored a vinyl copy of this way cool 1972 import Rolling Stones compilation...
...which has all their best early blues stuff, while aux Paris yours truly snagged CD versions of a fab EP by The Detroit Cobras and a three-disc box of the complete works of The Traveling Wilburys.
As I meant to imply, both stores were great, but Crocodisc in Paris was particularly cool in that it's been open in the same location -- across the street from the Sorbonne(!!!) -- since 1978. (For more info about the place, you can check out their website over HERE).
I should add that, alas, neither store had the French vinyl EP that I was most yearning to score a copy thereof...
Okay, we're back -- safe and sound and both physically and spiritually refreshed -- from our vacation in France.
And consequently raring to go with more of the insouciant postings you've come to expect from this here blog.
Which leads us inexorably to today's business. To wit:
...and the members of a freaking fantastic supergroup you would assemble from currently alive pop/rock/folk/jazz/pop/r&b musicians -- of any gender or age -- would be...???
Discuss.
BTW, kudos to a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance for giving me the above idea. As usual, she's working cheap, I'll tell you that for free.
And in case you're wondering -- my candidates for such a supergroup would be these guys.
I bring all this up because, as somebody pointed out to me recently, we haven't had any supergroups in what seems like ages, so certainly the time is ripe.
I mean seriously -- can you imagine how great those dudes would be together as a band, even in their current ancient states?
