War is Over (If You Want It)

From today's Guardian (UK):

Teenager Who Gatecrashed 1969 Bed-In Puts Peace Anthem's Lyrics Up For Sale
By Mark Brown, arts correspondent

Twenty-seven years after his death John Lennon is to make good a promise he once made to a star-struck Canadian teenager: that he would always look after her. In one of the most keenly anticipated sales of rock memorabilia for years, Gail Renard, now a TV comedy writer, is to auction Lennon's handwritten lyrics of "Give Peace a Chance," which have hung in her study for years. The lyrics - "Everybodies talking bout [sic] /Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism, This-ism, That-ism" etc - will be sold by Christie's this summer for an estimate of between £200,000 and £300,000.

The auction has brought to light the remarkable story of how Renard was given the lyrics nearly 40 years ago.

Lennon and Yoko Ono were in Montreal for their Bed-In in 1969, a week of staying in bed calling for peace capped off by a recording of Give Peace A Chance sung by Lennon and 50 or so others in the hotel suite, including the singer Petula Clark and the beat poet Allen Ginsberg. With them for most of the week was Renard who, with a friend, got into the hotel via a fire escape with a present for Ono's five-year-old daughter, Kyoko, waited for security on Lennon's floor to change and then simply knocked on the door. "It's incredible the things you'd do when you're young that you wouldn't do now," she said.



Renard and Lennon bonded, and the self-described "hyperventilating teenager" was allowed to stay until the media circus ended. Then Lennon refused to be interviewed by the DJ Roger Scott for the city's radio station and asked Renard to do it: "Can you imagine? A 16-year-old."

Renard says she had an amazing week and remembers in particular watching A Hard Day's Night with Lennon on the TV. "My mother spoke to him and made it quite clear what the rules were - 'you keep my daughter away from sex and drugs or you answer to me' and he did. He got me home for bedtime each night, although that's probably when the drugs came out."

Lennon gave Renard several mementos, saying they would be worth something one day. He also kickstarted her writing career by telling the editor of the Beatles Monthly magazine to publish her review of the Bed-In. He promised he would always take care of her and gave her a "magic" phone number to call any time. Renard subsequently carved out a successful comedy writing career in the UK and won a Bafta in 2001 for the CBBC drama Custer's Last Stand Up.

The lyrics have hung in her study for years, but when her roof leaked she thought it was time to let them go.

Helen Hall, head of popular culture at Christie's, said she expected the lyrics to beat the $450,000 paid at Christie's in 2003 for the original of the Beatles' Nowhere Man. Also up for auction on July 10 will be several original photographs from the Bed-In.

A few months after the Bed-In, half a million anti-Vietnam protesters sang Give Peace a Chance outside the White House. Lennon said it was "one of the biggest moments of my life".

[h/t Steve Schwartz]

Better Dead Than Shred

Words fail me.



I mean, I was only being slightly snarky when I dissed this guy's fast fingers.

But no, the above is not a parody a la Nigel Tufnel and Spinal Tap -- it's the apparently completely serious Michael Angelo Batio and his Quad Guitar.

I can only speculate that drugs are involved, either in the playing of the music or the enjoyment of it.

[h/t who am us anyway?]

The Spy Who Boinked Me

Troubled pop diva my girlfriend Amy Winehouse may have a new gig.

Amy Winehouse is working on a theme song for the forthcoming James Bond film with Mark Ronson, the producer has confirmed to the BBC. But Ronson said there are no guarantees the track will be used for Quantum Of Solace as they have not been officially signed up to release the song.

"Hopefully it will get used. We're working on it and we'll see what happens," the producer told BBC 6 Music. "They asked Amy, and I think Amy said that if she did it, she'd want to do it with me. So hopefully something will come of it," he told the station's Music Week's show. "The demo sounds like a James Bond theme, hopefully. But I don't know if it'll get used."

He added: "I'm sure there are loads more really famous people that probably we're competing with and we don't know about. I'm not sure.

"But hopefully I'll still be alive for at least 12 more Bond themes. If we don't get this one maybe we'll get another one."

This is good news, I guess. Don't know if Amy's the martini type, though. And I'm not sure I can picture Daniel Craig with multiple tattoos...

Postscript: Apropos the above, just chanced across the following in the May issue of MOJO, courtesy of Portishead drummer Geoff Barrow: "[Mark] Ronson is to soul music what Shakin' Stevens was to rock 'n' roll."

Tuesday Pop Quiz

Off to NYC to audition -- yet again -- for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Back tonight.

In the meantime, a question:

Is the guy singing this song



(A) Full of shit?

(B) Rather full of shit?

(C) Incredibly full of shit?

Discuss.

A Summer's Night With a Magic Moon

The great Jackie DeShannon in 1964, performing her self-penned "When You Walk in the Room."



Truly, one of the canonical power pop classics, and if it will make you feel any better until fairly recently I didn't know she'd had her own version of it out before The Searchers either.

Oh Joy!

Madonna has a new album!! And a new video!!! And Justin Timberlake's in it!!!!



I'm sorry, but this whole deal where it's now supposed to be cool to like Timberlake, despite his lame boy band past, because he's some kind of all around entertainer who's not afraid to poke fun at his image (cf. the forthcoming Mike Meyers movie The Love Guru) strikes me as, at least on some level, a perverse camp affectation. Like when the MTV crowd pretended to, like, you know, really dig Tony Bennett.

As for Ms. Ciccone herself, the great cartoonist/singer/songwriter/guitarist Peter Blegvad probably said it best.

"A teaspoon of talent."

I Bet You Look Crappy On the Dancefloor

Full disclosure: Heretofore I have studiously avoided encountering MySpace faves Panic at the Disco in any way shape or form, largely because the very word Emo makes me break out in hives. That said, I caught them on the Saturday Night Live rerun over the weekend and found myself fairly impressed, especially by this little ditty.



"It’s influenced by the music our parents listened to: the Beach Boys, the Kinks, the Beatles", says lead singer Ryan Ross.

Really -- you think? I mean, no shit Sherlock.

BTW -- you can't tell from this video, but whoever dressed these guys on SNL really wasn't doing them a favor. Seriously, I like this song a lot but I can't remember the last time I saw a dorkier or less attractive looking young band. Except maybe for these guys.

The Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing

And speaking, as we were downstairs, of keyboard genius/all around soulful dude Alan Price, here's the man himself with more recent and very cool live versions of both the songs in Friday's Listomania.



Seriously, underrated (at least in this country) doesn't begin to describe this guy.

Weekend Listomania (Special Dave "Baby" Cortez Lives! Video Edition)

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental amanuensis Hop-Sing and I are off to Paramus, New Jersey (a mere stones throw from my digs in the Paris of the Tri-State Metropolitan Area). Something about brown bears on a rampage. I'm not sure what the deal is; perhaps they're eating old Jews. Doesn't seem right.

Hey. It's late and I was stuck for a joke. So sue me.

In any case, as a result, posting by moi will necessarily be somewhat fitful for a few days.

But until then, as always, here's a fun project for you all to contemplate:

BEST ORGAN LICKS ON A POST-ELVIS POP/ROCK RECORD !!!!!!

As we stipulated for last week's piano list, once agin by "best" we mean the most melodic, the most effective, or the most inventive. It can be a solo, an entire part as played through the length of a song, or simply a riff -- whatever gets you off.

And just to belabor the obvious, we said "organ." No pianos, clavinets or synths need apply. You heard me. But in the interests of common sense, we're waiving the four minute time constraint this time -- there are too many good songs that run well over that arbitrary limit -- although I do hope you'll have the good breeding not to nominate anything by Yes.

Okay, that said, here's my totally top of my head Top Twelve, with credits for the fine folks who actually play the notes appended:

12. Arcade Fire -- My Body is a Cage (William Butler)



Just so we have something recorded in this century. This sounds a lot like some other, older band from Canada, though...can't quite think of their name.

11. Booker T. and the MGs -- Time is Tight (Booker T. Jones)



Get me drunk and I'll actually claim that this is one of the best short pieces of instrumental music, in any genre, written in the second half of the 20th century.

10. The Beatles -- We Can Work It Out (John Lennon)



That's John on harmonium, of course, which is a primitive form of pump organ so don't give me any crap. In any case, this may be the most perfect early Beatle record, largely due to those organ swells adding color and texture during the verses. And the out of nowhere liturgical riff at the end, of course.

9. A tie:

The Animals -- Boom Boom (Alan Price)



The Alan Price Set -- I Put a Spell On You (Alan Price, natch)



Price is kind of a household name in England; in this country, alas, less so. But if there was a more soulful keyboard guy and singer tossed up on the shores of the British Invasion, I can't think of him.

8. Spencer Davis Group -- I'm a Man (Stevie Winwood)



Well, maybe Stevie.

7. Brinsley Schwarz -- Surrender to the Rhythm (Bob Andrews)



This clip simply slays me. Astoundingly lyrical organ work; the young Nick Lowe wrote the damn thing and is trying hard to be the focus of attention here, but Andrews absolutely steals it.

6. Another tie --

? and the Mysterians -- 96 Tears (Frank Rodriguez)



and

Sir Douglas Quintet -- She's About a Mover (Augie Meyers)



Genuis simplicity or moronic mindlessness? YOU make the call!! Seriously -- the cheesy 60s organ sound that pretty much defines pop retro begins here.

5. Another tie --

Bob Dylan -- Like a Rolling Stone (Al Kooper)



and

Elvis Costello and the Attractions -- Pump It Up (Steve Nieve)



Kooper invents the quicksilver 60s folk rock keyboard sound in the former, Nieve updates it for the immediate post-punk era in the latter.

4. The Zombies -- Time of the Season (Rod Argent)



Argent's playing here is dazzling, of course, but the decision to overdub a second solo on top of the first one on the fadeout was sheer genius.

3. Procol Harum -- Pilgrim's Progress (Matthew Fischer)



Like "Layla," this is a song with a lengthy, seemingly unrelated instrumental coda appended from out of the blue. Unlike "Layla," this one has no guitar histrionics whatsoever, and yet it's just as gorgeous. Remarkable.

2. Alabama 3 -- Woke Up This Morning (Orlando Harrison)



This is possibly the simplest organ lick ever recorded -- really, I could teach my cat to play it in five minutes -- and yet damned if it doesn't work in the context of the everything but the kitchen sink stuff these guys surround it with. Of course, this is now essentially the state song of New Jersey, so I may be overrating it....

And the number one coolest, it's not even a contest for crissakes, organ grinding on a pop/rock record of all time is indisputably ---

1. Oh crap, it's another tie!!!

The Band -- Chest Fever (Garth Hudson)



and

The Call -- The Walls Came Down (Garth Hudson)



The Mad Professor at his maddest and grandest. And it is perhaps no accident that both these songs, as lyrically different as they are, have magnificently primal hard rock riffs at their core.

Awrighty then -- what would your choices be?

An Early Clue to the New Direction

From 1967, here's Brit Invasion faves The Zombies and a rather astounding live (non-lipsynched) cover of the Isley Brothers' "This Old Heart of Mine" as performed on teevee in the land of the Ignoble Frog.



Viewing that, of course, there's really only rational response:

In conclusion, Rod Stewart -- bite me.

In any case, as is customary, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded to the first reader who divines the clip's relevance to Friday's Weekend Listomania.