And speaking as we were last week(?) of bands that deserve to be big for their group moniker alone, please enjoy pride of Bergen, Norway neo-pop rock classicists Herr Nilsson, who I'm assuming without proof (or any facility in Norse patois) are named in honor of the guy who sang that song about putting the lime in the coconut (and much much else beside).
That's from a just released new album called Good Morning Rock and Roll; they've have been around since the early 'aughts, however, and I should add that apart from the amusing nom de musique, I really really also like them for their attitude.
From their press kit:
Much like Lennon & McCartney wrote catchy hooks out of practical necessity—lacking a tape recorder, they had to hum melodies until their next meeting—Mr. Nilsson crafts buoyant pop tunes out of sheer survival instinct.
"The songs simply have to be good," explains frontman and principal songwriter Terje Bringsvor Nilsen. "Otherwise, at least one of us loses interest, and our rehearsals devolve into alcohol-infused knitting clubs."
In any case, you can hear more of their music and find out more about them generally over HERE.
Okay, I'll have some more to say about last night's Ringo Starr show here in Forest Hills, AKA The Paris of the Northeast, next week.
For now, let's just say we had a much better than expected time. Ringo was in fine form -- funny, charming, and a monster on the skins -- and the supporting folks (including a couple of Totos, the bass player of the Average White Band, and Colin Hay of Men at Work) covered themselves in glory, both in support and in their solo turns. Plus, I'd totally forgotten what a beautiful (and power pop adjacent) song "Photograph" is. In other words, a splendid time was had by all.
Which leads us, inevitably and inexorably, to the subject of today's business. To wit:
...and the pop star/musician, living or dead, you would most like to see/have seen as a member of Ringo's All-Starr Band, is...???
Discuss.
In case you're wondering, here's my nominee.
And in case you're wondering why -- well, forgetting how great a singer the guy is, I just think it would be a total gas to hear Ringo getting down to that Memphis Hi Records groove thing, which I have no doubt whatsoever that he could deliver with his customary aplomb.
So -- if today's title has led you to suspect something Fab Four-related, give yourself a High Five, because you're right.
More specifically, this very evening a certain Shady Dame and I will be attending a performance by ex-Beatles pagan skins pounder Ringo Starr...
...and his latest incarnation of the All-Starr Band at historic Forest Hills stadium. Which is more or less in our proverbial back yard.
And apart from the splendid time that is guaranteed for all, said show is even more historic because the last time Ringo played there was in 1964 (specifically, August 8th of that year) with his old band.
Oish, an obscure Brooklyn Dodgers reference in today's title. Mea culpa. 😎
In any case, that's brilliant Australian pub rock/New Wave band The Sports and their utterly fab 1979 hit "Who Listens to the Radio", a song which seems newly relevant given the once unthinkable levels of drivel that now pollute our air waves here in the third decade of the 21st century; sometime soon I really gotta do a think piece on the larger issues raised by that. I would also like to add that the guitar player on the right hand side in the video has some of the coolest jumping stage moves in the history of rock-and-roll.
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. 😎
An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop.
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