La Fin de la Semaine Essay Question: Special “Tienes Que Verla” Edition

From 1999(!), please enjoy Blondie, featuring the incomparable you know who up front, and their power pop/New Wave comeback hit "Maria."

I must confess, I'd pretty much forgotten this one, and on rehearing it, I can't get over how great everything about it is, starting with those percussive guitars and the propulsive drumming of the reliably inspirational Clem Burke. As for La Harry, her vocal here is utterly fab -- tonally beautiful, sexy without breaking a sweat, and with an impressive dynamic range (I actually think her voice is stronger and richer on this than on any of Blondie's better known early hits). I should also add that I love the video itself, particularly the very funny ending, in which Debbie catches a speeding bullet between her fingers like some impossible Bowery rock diva version of Superman.

Have I mentioned that I think the whole thing is just fucking great?

But now to business. To wit:

...and your favorite post-Beatles(!) song featuring a girl's name in the title is...?

Discuss.

Oh, and let me reitirate -- when I say post-Beatles, I mean post-Beatles. None of those 50s song dames need apply, thank you very much.

And have a great weekend, everybody!

Closed for Monkey Business

Regular posting -- beginning wth a thoroughly swell weekend essay question -- resumes on the morrow.

Rockers Who Can No Longer Play in Florida For Obvious Reasons (An Occasional Series)

No, this isn't Blondie doing the cover of Parallel Lines in 1978.

Actually, it's Britpop youngsters Blur doing Blondie doing the cover of Parallel Lines in 1991. How I missed it at the time I'll never know.

Anyway, good for 'em -- I would never have guessed that lead singer Damon Albarn could pull off such a convincing Debbie Harry impression.

If truth be told, however, I never particularly cared for Blur -- hey, if you name a new album Modern Life is Rubbish, I can be forgiven for dismissing said album as an example of the very thing you're ostensibly criticizing. But that photo cracks me up nonetheless.

Still, if Governor Woke DeWokeWoke gets a look at it, there could be hell to pay at the Sunshine State's remaining record stores. A word to the wise, if you know what I mean.

Perry Mason and The Case of the Swingin' Savoyards

Okay, I didn't see this one coming.

That's the splendidly droll title track from my old friend (and occasional bandmate) Ronnie D'Addario's forthcoming new album. And apparently I didn't get the memo about Ronnie mutating into a latter day disciple of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Meanwhile, attentive readers will recall that Ronnie is also the proud father of the hippest young band on the planet, (who also have an album due out momentarily), the Lemon Twigs. Seen below in an appearance on the Jools Holland show, using my vintage Fender Bassman amp...

...on stage right.

In any case, you can and should order or stream Ronnie's new album (which, from what I've heard so far is more traditionally rock oriented) over HERE. (His earlier albums, which are all rapturously melodic power pop, are available there as well.)

A message from Ronnie:

"Release date is May 11th. Perfect Mother's Day present! The Lemon Twigs album is out May 5th. I hope I don't take away from their sales."

Your Monday Moment of Words Fail Me: Special "Switchblades and Metamucil” Edition

From 2023, please enjoy once and future Sex Kitten of the Western World Ann-Margret and (from her new album of rock covers) the damndest version of the biker-rock classic "Born to Be Wild" ever.

You will note that la chanteuse is backed in this endeavor by long-time downtown NYC faves The Fuzztones. I should add that I have a sentimental fondness for those guys, due largely to the fact that their lead singer, Rudi Protrudi, has the coolest nom de rock in the history of 60s revivalist posers. In any case, I think you'll agree they kick more than the requisite amount of ass on this track.

I don't know how this project (also titled Born to be Wild) slipped under my radar, despite the single having been released last year; in, fact, I was unaware of it until a lengthy appreciation of AM and the album by my friend, rock critic Jim Farber, appeared in the New York Times two weeks ago (you can read it HERE).

In any case, as borderline campy as all of this may be, I may have to bite the bullet and just buy the damned CD.

Why? you ask?

Because I just looked up the credits and not ony does Pete Townshend play lead guitar on a cover of the Everly Brothers' "Bye-Bye Love," a conceptual masterstroke if I've ever heard one, but the drummer on AM's take on "Rock Around the Clock" is none other than a gentleman named James McCarty, who you may recall was and is the drummer for (gasp!) The Yardbirds.

Have I mentioned that words fail me?

La Fin de la Semaine Essay Question: Special "Loud Fast Girls Rule, Okay!" Edition

From 2023 (right about now, in other words) please enjoy legendary local hero Minnesota punkette rocker Cindy Lawson and her kick-posterior new single "Don't Come Crying to Me."

YMMV, but I hear a lot of Patti Smith in there, and more than a hint of the early (i.e. when she was still in Detroit) Suzi Quatro, but whatever influences you wanna cite, the above is as infectious and makes-you-want-to-jump-around as it gets. Let me be blunt: If I had stumbled into a show at some dive club years ago (or last week, actually) that resembled the above, I would have been hopelessly, embarrassingly smitten on the spot.

Honesty compels me to note that I was previously unfamiliar with Lawson, but she's apparently been in a succession of cool bands in the Minneapolis area for quite a while; the current batch she's playing with got together last year, when her album New Tricks, her first in a quarter century(!) was released on Rum Bar Records. That new song is from her forthcoming waxing, also titled Don't Come Crying to Me, which will be out any minute, also on Rum Bar. You can learn more about Cindy, not to mention hear (and order, 'natch) more of her music, over at her official sort-of-website HERE.

I should add that the gentleman playing guitar on the right in the video is named Jerry Lefkowitz. Jerry's a friend I've never met in person who used to be in a brilliant Minneapolis-area band called Something Fierce; I've written about them in these precincts a number of times, but if you missed those posts, here's a link where you can get the back story. And quite a story it is, trust me.

But now to business. To wit:

...and your favorite punk/New Wave gal singer (preferrably in a band, but solo artists are okay) is...???

Discuss.

And have a great weekend, everybody!

Life is a Carnival. Well, actually Une Carnavale Des Ames.

From 2023 (i.e., right now) please enjoy Toronto singer/songwriter La Faute (aka Peggy Messing) and her haunting and atmospheric new single "The Crown."

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking -- hey Steve, the above doesn't really have anything to do with the mission statement of this here blog. Well, that's certainly true, but there are two mitigating factors. First of all, the song is genuinely spooky, and it's a perfect fit with the visuals in the video. And second, as you film buffs may have noticed, said visuals are appropriated from Carnival of Souls, a once-seen-never-forgotten indie sort-of-horror low budget cult flick from 1962 that's one of my favorite things of its kind ever.

Anyway, let's just say the auteur of that song has, as they say, got it, IMHO. And in the meantime, you can (and should) find out more about her and hear more of her very cool music over at her official website HERE.

Also, you can order the fantastic Criterion Collection version of Carnival of Souls over at Amazon. Trust me -- you won't regret it.

Closed for Monkey Business

Real life hassles. Regular, and hopefully amusing, posting resumes on the morrow.

Songs I'd Forgotten Existed Let Alone Loved (An Occasional Series): Special Splendeur dans l’Herbe Edition

From 1965, please enjoy the great Jackie deShannon -- backed by none other than the original Byrds(!) -- and her quite ineffably touching "Splendor in the Grass."

In stereo, as nature intended, I might add.

I can sort of get why this wasn't a hit at the time -- the band's playing is a little raggedy if truth be told -- but there's no question the record deserves to be much better known (Byrds fanatic that I am, I actually had never heard it myself until 2010, when my late bandmate Andy "Folk Rock" Pasternack brought it to my attention). I mean, yeah, it isn't slick, but the song is, IMHO, to die for, and the minute David Crosby comes in with that unmistakable low harmony I just lose it. DeShannon eventually released another more MOR version of the song, and there were a couple of covers by other artists -- there's one on YouTube by an L.A. band called The Boys that gives it the full Mamas and Papas treatment -- but the understatement of this one is moving and sweet in a way that the others just don't get near.

In any case, I bring it up in part because of a curious accident of fate. DeShannon is married to Randy Edelman, a singer/songwriter and film composer of some repute I actually went to high school with, and I was already planning to have a little fun with something of his. Stay tuned -- we'll get into THAT on the morrow.

By the Teenage Bottlerocket’s Red Glare

From their just released EP...

...on Pirates Press Records, where it belongs, please enjoy irrepressible Wyoming(!) pop/punk wiseguys Teenage Bottlerocket, and their infectious and funny meditation on the culture(?) that surrounds us all, "So Dumb."

As you can perhaps guess, the song was inspired in part as a reaction to our recent COVID-related malaise. “I wrote ‘So Dumb’ because I was pretty frustrated with people's inability to seek common ground and try to make things actually better,” says bassist Miguel Chen. And a splendid job he did, too; in fact, I haven't stopped giggling snce I first heard the song's line "“No one really gives a shit / About the suffering of another / There's no need to even bother / I quit” when the link to it crossed my desk last week.

In any case, you can -- and should -- order the EP (on pink vinyl, no less) over at Pirates Press HERE. And tell 'em PowerPop sent you.