Hey, It's Halloween, Bitches!!!

And I've got MY trick-or-treat outfit.

Okay, the tie's not really authentically skinny enough. So sue me.

PS: Here I am earlier today, having lunch with a friend.

Nobody Ever Erected a Statue to a Rock Critic

John Malkovich in a one-man show about the great classical composers being dissed by their critical contemporaries?

Okay, how did I miss the memo on this?

From the press release:

Schumann fancies himself a "composer“, while Brahms is a "giftless bastard“ and Claude Debussy is "simply ugly." Aleksey Igudesman has created a sardonic mix of the most evil music critiques of the last centuries written about some of the greatest works of music. Equipped with a frivolous potpourri of musical insults, John Malkovich slips into the role of the evil critic who believes the music of Beethoven, Chopin, Prokofiev and the likes to be weary and dreary.

Aleksey Igudesman, Hyung-ki Joo and other great musicians beg to differ and fight back. The grand finale is "The Malkovich Torment“, a horrific review about Malkovich himself, which Igudesman has set to music in a uniquely sardonically humorous way.

“I have always loved the opportunity to collaborate on The Music Critic with Aleksey Igudesman, Hyung-ki Joo, and many other gifted and thoughtful young classical musicians. We are all happy to be back on the road, and for the first time also in the USA, participating in an evening which consists of some of the greatest compositions in the history of classical music, paired with the perhaps rather unexpected initial reactions those compositions elicited from some of the world’s renowned music critics, along with some other surprises.” -- John Malkovich

This actually played in NYC Saturday night just passed, and like a schmuck I didn't get tickets, although in my defense, I wasn't even aware it existed till last Friday.

In any event, the whole idea of it tickles me, for obvious professional reasons, and then, of course -- Malkovich. I need say no more.

Oh, and BTW, the quote paraphrased in today's title has been attributed to various folks over the years, but the concensus is that it was originally uttered by Jean Sibelius, the beloved Finnish composer I'm sure some schmuck scribbler once said something nasty about.

Also, you can find out more about the show, including where it's playing next, over at its official website HERE.

[h/t Tony Forte]

Weekend Listomania: Special "That's Meh Up on the Jukebox!" Edition

Okay, it's Friday, and you know what that means. Yes, my Congressional manual dexterity consultant Rep. Lauren Boebert [R-Victoria's Secret] and I will be repairing to a nearby dinner theater to enjoy a dimly lit road company version of Willie and the Hand Jive: The Musical. So regular posting will necessarily be fitful for the next few days, for obvious reasons.

That being the case, here's a hopefully stress-relieving diversion to keep you all occupied until our sweaty-but-satisfied return. To wit:

Post-Elvis Pop/Rock/Soul/Country Performer(s) Whose Work You Recognize as Important, But Otherwise They Just Don't Do it For You!!!

No arbitrary rules here, but basically we're talking about bands or solo acts who simply aren't your cup of tea, even though you cheerfully concede they have the musical goods. In other words, if their stuff came on the radio, you wouldn't turn it off, but you still wouldn't buy their albums for your personal collection.

And my totally Top of My Head Top Five is...

5. Talking Heads

Daivd Byrne's preppy anxiety attacks have always struck me as just a wee tad pretentious -- so sue me. In any case, this is the only Heads song I have ever listened to for pleasure, and then only in the rocked-out Bob Clearmountain remix, which seems to have vanished mysteriously from YouTube, alas.

4. Led Zeppelin

Figures that the only thing of theirs I love unreservedly would be this stylistically left-field vaguely Latin excursion from their final album. You know -- the one most Zep fans don't care for.

3. Van Halen

Hey -- I've seen Back to the Future; I get why people a generation younger than me dig them, and think Eddie's a cool guitarist. The above is still the only song of theirs that doesn't reduce me to scowling fidgets.

2. The Band

Love 'em being all spooky and stuff behind Dylan, think Garth Hudson is the greatest rock organist ever, but couldn't care less if I never heard any of their records again.

And the number one household name musical icon that pretty much everybody else loves, but I could easily and without regret live without is ---

1. Elton John

What can I tell you -- this one slays me, but other than that I have never listened to a single one of his songs under a pair of headphones for enjoyment. I should add that the "Tiny Dancer" scene in Almost Famous makes me wanna hurl.

Alright then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!

An Early Clue to the New Direction: Special "There's No Accounting for Taste" Edition

[This originally appeared in the Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review in 1975, snd I've posted it in these precincts once or twice before. I'm putting it up today, however, as a hint at the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania, and a coveted PowerPop No-Prize© will be awarded to the first of you jamokes who guesses it. I should add that I have made a couple of reivsions to the original list, out of sensitivity towards today's more enlightened sensibilities. In any case, enjoy. -- S.S.]

MY FRONT PAGES

My younger brother's passion -- or perhaps it's a mania -- for film exceeds even mine for music. I mean, he'll sit through four hours of a Republic serial without even going to the john! But his mania has its uses; not long ago I was browsing through an esoteric film journal in his collection whose basic premise I have decided to crib. Titled simply "Things We Like," it was a completely and openly subjective (what else?) catalog by two film nuts of moments they found memorable in various motion pictures. One moment that stopped me -- and it's the only entry I can remember, by the way -- was the opening: "Mariette Hartley's wedding in Peckinpah's Ride the High Country." Lovely.

Anyway, after worrying away at my own list culled from twenty-odd years of rock-and-roll, I've decided at last to air the dirty linen in public. What follows is simply a random rundown of things that have given me pleasure, rock-wise, over the years -- specific songs, events, brief musical bits. I won't pretend, as much as I'd like to (ought to?), that any of them have any significance other than showing where my own head is at, but never mind. This is strictly for browsing; I'm willing to bet any rock fan could come up with a totally different list that would be equally valid and just as much fun.

So, without further ado, "Things I Like."

•George Harrison's last guitar harmonic on the solo from "Nowhere Man."
•Charlie Watts hitting the bell of his cymbal on the final line of "Dead Flowers."
•The opening a capella harmonies on Fairport Convention's version of "Percy's Song."
•The Beach Boys' background ah-ohm-wop-diddits on "This Whole World."
•Smokey Robinson's heartrending wordless vocalizing at the end of "Ooh Baby Baby."
•Keith Richards' guitar solos on "Down the Road Apiece."
•Dave Davies' finger-picking on the fade-out of the Kinks' "See My Friends."
•Roy Wood introducing his solo on "Turkish Tram Conductor Blues" with a coy "Oh, yes."
•All of Bruce Springsteen's "Rosalita."
•Bob Dylan's spoken introduction for "Like a Rolling Stone" on the Albert Hall bootleg.
•The back-up vocals on the last verse of the MC5's "Shakin' Street."
•Steve Marriott's screaming at the end of the Small Faces' "Tin Soldier."
•David Crosby's harmonies on the last verse of the Byrds' "Fifth Dimension" and "I Come and Stand at Every Door."
•The drunken Dixieland band on the Stones' "Something Happened to Me Yesterday."
•Arlene Smith's singing on the Chantels' "Maybe."
•The production (especially the percussion) on Martha and the Vandella's "Dancing in the Street."
•Paul McCartney's bass line on "A Little Help From My Friends."
•Keith Moon's drumming on the final break of "Happy Jack."
•Eric Clapton's lead guitar on the studio version of "Badge."
•Stevie Winwood's organ work on the ending of "I'm a Man."
•Jeff Beck's guitar solo on the Yardbirds' "Train Kept A-Rollin'."
•Keith Richards forgetting to turn on his fuzz-tone during "Satisfaction" on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1966.
•Todd Rundgren's guitar work on the Nazz's "Under the Ice."
•Leon Russell's piano on Dylan's "Watching the River Flow."
•Johnny Johnson's boogie-woogie piano break on Chuck Berry's "School Days."
•Jimi Hendrix's solo on "Little Wing."
•Roger Daltrey's "Yeahhhhh!!!!!" after the instrumental section of the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again."
•The censored original cover for Beggars Banquet.

•Steve Stills' and Neil Young's guitar duet on the original "Bluebird."
•Skip Spence's mumbled vocal on Moby Grape's "Seeing."
•The rave-up during the Kinks' "Milkcow Blues" (studio and live versions).
•Buddy Holly's version of "Slippin' and Slidin'" with posthumously overdubbed backing by the Fireballs.
•The Stones doing "Under My Thumb" at Altamont, as seen in Gimme Shelter.
•Van Morrison's harp break on "Mystic Eyes."
•Joni Mitchell's long-held notes and guitar work on "Marcie."
•Ian Hunter's primal (what else?) screaming on Mott the Hoople's "The Journey."
•The fact that Bob Dylan is removing Pete Hammil's liner notes from Blood on the Tracks
•The back-cover in-concert photo on the English EP version of Got Live If You Want It.
•Paul Buckmaster's orchestral evocation of Vaughan Williams at the conclusion of "Moonlight Mile."
•Paul McCartney's vocal on "Long Tall Sally". (Not to mention Ringo's drumming or George's second solo.)
•The out-of-tune twelve-string and falsetto vocal on the Stones' "Singer Not the Song"
•Gary Brooker's scream of "Here I go!" from Procol Harum's "Rambling On."
•Nicky Hopkins' electric piano solo on the Beatles "Revolution."
•Zal Yanovsky's solo album.
•Lou Reed's singing on the last verse of the original "Sweet Jane" on Loaded.
•John Fogerty's blues-wailing harmonica on "Run Through the Jungle."
John Mendelssohn's review of Led Zeppelin II.
•The Move's "Tonight."
•Beatles VI.
•Joan Baez's unintentionally hilarious attempt at soul singing on the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (in the 1966 film The T.N.T. Show.
•Almost anything by Dave Edmunds.
•Carly Simon's legs (if not her records).
•The echoed handclap before the ending of the Zombies' "Tell Her No."
•John Lennon forgetting the words to "Help" on the Ed Sullivan Show.
•John Entwistle's bass figures on the "teenage wasteland" portion of "Baba O'Reilly."
•Rod Stewart's "Whooo!!!" on the Faces' "Had Me a Real Good Time."
•Iggy Pop's Ray Davies imitation on "Gimme Danger."
•The Beatles' Shea Stadium Concert film.
•Elvis' weight problem.
•Alan Price's two-fingered organ solo on the Animals' "Boom Boom."
•Jack Cassady's eyebrows. (Also, his bass on the Airplanes' "Other Side of This Life.")
•Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild," as featured in the credit sequence of Easy Rider.
•Keith Richards' teeth.
•Carl Wilson's twelve-string break on the Beach Boys' "Dance Dance Dance."
•B.J. Wilson's one-measure drum solo on Procol Harum's "The Devil Came From Kansas."
•Neil Innes' "worst guitar solo in history" from the Bonzo Dog Band's "Canyons of Your Mind."
•West, Bruce and Laing titling a banal slow blues "Slow Blues."
•And, of course, just everything from Exile on Main Street.

The Nazz Are Blue

From 1969, and their quite astounding sophomore album Nazz Nazz (originally titled Fungo Bat, which would have been much funnier), please enjoy the aforementioned Nazz (with some guy named Todd Rundgren on guitars) and their sublimely Who-ish "Under the Ice."

That song, and the album it's from, were pretty much game changers for me back in the day, and it/they remain favorites of mine after all these years. I should add and for the record that Thom Mooney -- the cute one with the classic rock star look bottom center in the album cover photo -- is one hell of a great drummer.

Reason I bring all this up is because friend of PowerPop Sal Nunziato, over at his invaluable Burning Wood blog, shared the bad news that Nazz lead singer/keyboardist Robert "Stewkey" Antoni had passed away earlier this month at the age of 75.

That being the case, and by way of tribute, I figured this was a good excuse to re-post a cover of "Ice" by another friend of PowerPop, the incomparable Tommy Stewart.

That's from 2013, but the music link that originally accompanied the post has long since disappeared into the ether. Hence, the above, which I was delighted to find still kicks major ass.

Have I mentioned that this death shit is really starting to piss me off?

Closed For Senior Citizen Monkey Business

Had a wonderful birthday weekend, and as a result lacked the time or the energy to get an entry ready for today.

Sad, really.

Regular posting resumes on the morrow.

The Sweet: In Everyone's Life There's a Summer of '75

Okay, this is going to be massively self-indulgent, and please bear with me.

So friend of PowerPop (and me) Sam Walters, a heavy metal kid whom attentive readers will remember me touting as the lead singer for an incomparable NYC band called King Hell -- seen here live, doing to Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" what always should have been done to it....

...has apparently developed (or perhaps finally copped to) an obsession with 70s British glam rock gods The Sweet. As witness this item he put up at Facebook last week. (If you can't read the caption, it says ""So, Sam, what do you do?" "I listen to Sweet around the clock and drive my wife @#$!* nuts.")

For those of you who don't remember the Sweet, you're not alone, at least in this country, where they're mostly known solely for their 1972 hit "Little Willie," which was sort of bubble-gum Who.

Me, I loved that song at the time (still do), but most of the rock critics in the Rolling Stone axis never took the band terribly seriously, and perhaps as a result, they never quite caught on here. In the rest of the world that listened to pop music, however, they were household word superstar teen idols. I mean, we're talking like the biggest glam act of them all.

In any event, this song, from 1975, is more or less considered their signature tune, and at the time it was a smasheroo, there were probably very few places on the planet (save for the USofA) where you wouldn't have heard it blasting out of your neighbor's stereo at all hours. (I should add that the video also gives you a pretty good idea of what a cool live act they apparently were; I particularly dig drummer Mick Tucker's Buddy Rich/Gene Krupa inspired stick-twirling action.)

Anyway, I hadn't thought much about them lately until Sam posted about his band-crush the other day, and I thought I'd share my response at the time (slightly re-edited). As I said, this is massively self-indulgent.

Hey Sam -- the summer of 75 that "Fox on the Run" was a hit everywhere but the USA, I spent a week on vacation in Spain -- Torremolinos, and it's a hell of a town. The night before I was due to fly home, I found myself at a local club chatting with a lovely British gal -- a governess, BTW -- who I had met that evening. Her name was Stefanie, and she was from Bournemouth (which I found terribly exotic) and she was totally out of my league, with jet black bangs, alabaster skin, a plummy accent and the bluest eyes I ever got lost in. I had not previously heard FOTR, but somehow, I found myself dancing with her every time it came over the sound system (which was at least thrice, if memory serves) and I was in heaven each time. Nothing further (or unsuitable for mentioning in a family blog) transpired, and I never saw her again after saying goodbye that night. Still, it remains one of the most vivid and magical memories of my adult life. And for this -- if nothing else -- I will forever be in the Sweet's debt,

Hey, I said this story would be self-indulgent. I didn't mention that it would also be boring.

La Fin de la Semaine Essay Question: Special "Sharp Dressed Men" Edition

From 1965, please enjoy the incomparable Beau Brummels and their hilarious garage-rock ode to surviving existential alienation "In Good Time."

A fabulous song, I think you'll agree, but it is perhaps worth noting that for obvious doctrinal reasons it turned out to be obsolete, religiously speaking, almost immediately after it was released.

Which is too bad, because I still think this...

...Don't mind eating fish on Fridays...

...is one of the funniest lines in all of '60s rock.

The bottom line, of course, is that the Brummels are one of the most unaccountably unheralded bands of their era -- remembered, just barely, as sort of one or two hit folk-rock wonders, whereas in reality they were far far better than that. I mean, listen to this obscurity -- from the same album as the above --

...and tell me this wasn't a very major group indeed,

Go on -- I dare you.

In any event, this leads us to this weekend's subject for discussion. To wit:

...and your candidate for the most over-or-underrated post-Elvis pop/rock/soul/country artist(s), song(s) or album(s) is/are...?

No arbitrary rules whatsoever, but be polite to each other.

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!

PS: Tomorrow is my birthday, so effusive compliments on my superb stewardship of this here blog over the years will be cheerfully accepted.

R.I.P. Dwight Twilley

Apparently, he passed suddenly and unexpectedly yesterday.

I don't think NYMary will disagree when I say that this blog probably wouoldn't have come into being had it not been, to a significant degree, for Twilley and the records he made.

I've said it before, but this death shit is really starting to piss me off.

An Early Clue to the New Direction: Special "Shameless Taylor Swift Clickbait" Edition

Okay, here we go.

I think Taylor Swift is a terrific person, I like her politics, she's obviously ridiculously talented, and what I think of her music -- which is not much, as witness this very blah cover of a great song by somebody else -- is irrelevant since I'm not remotely her demographic.

That said, objectively speaking, I can't see how anybody can make a serious case for her as having added anything to the art of popular music. In other words, yeah, sure she's the biggest cultural phenomenon since The Beatles, but if you're trying to sell her as anything other than a competent singer and songwriter with mad marketing skills, I have some bridge-front property in Brooklyn I'd like to discuss with you.😎

There, I've said it. I didn't mean to say it, but you dragged it out of me.

In any case, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize© will be awarded to the first reader who gleans the above's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Essay Question.