More specifically, from the 1987 album by Adrian Belew's pop band of the (more or less) same name, here are The Bears. Channeling the spirit of the Revolver-era Beatles better than anybody this side of XTC with the utterly delightful psychedelic pop ditty "Raining."
That song just makes me grin from ear to ear. Jeebus, what a chorus.
Incidentally, the album cover is by the great Mad (magazine) artist Mort Drucker. I went to college with his lovely daughter, and Mort once did a very Mort-esque poster for a college theater production of the musical version of Canterbury Tales she and I were involved in. I don't remember much about the show at this point, although I seem to recall that I played King Arthur as Groucho. Hey, it was the 70s.
The poster was really cool in any case, but of course I lacked the foresight to keep a copy.
Believe it or not, this is the very first pop record I ever owned and played on my own little record player.
From 1950 -- although I probably didn't actually encounter it until maybe four or five years later -- here's weepy old Bolshie folksinger Sam Hinton and his hit version of the Ban the Bomb talking blues classic "Old Man Atom."
In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that the 78rpm version of this I owned was on Columbia Records, which licensed the original master for national distribution after legendary New York disc jockey Martin Block played the edition pictured above on his influential Make Believe Ballroom program.
Jeebus, sometimes I can't stand the fact that I'm actually old enough to remember all this crap.
In any case, I think this is actually a terrific -- and obviously still relevant -- song, and a heck of a performance. Also, whoever produced the track obviously knew what they were doing; the little hint of reverb that sneaks in on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki..." choruses is really effective, and that explosion at the end is an especially nice touch; totally creeped me out when I was a kid, in point of fact.
"So listen folks...here is my thesis: Peace in the world -- or the world in pieces."
Apologies for the Bandstand reference, but here's a brand new song and accompanying video that conjures up a couple of Proustian madeleines, as it were.
"Chandeliers," by Summer Fiction.
I'm informed that Summer Fiction is the bandname for Philadelphia-based singer/songwriter Bill Ricchini, and that his/their influences include The Beach Boys, The Smiths, The Zombies, Nilsson, Ronnie Spector, the third Velvet Underground album, plus " bad girl crushes and Catholic School blues." Sounds about right, actually.
This sort of thing can often verge on the oppressively twee, even for somebody like myself who shares a fondness for (most of) the above, but "Chandeliers" got under my skin almost immediately.
It helps that the video looks like every party the awkward high-school aged me ever attended in a suburban finished basement, of course.
I'm also informed that the band will be performing at The Living Room in Manhattan on Saturday, Dec.4th. I'm gonna be in Brooklyn seeing my pals King Hell, alas, but if you're in the neighborhood check out Summer Fiction and tell 'em PowerPop sent you.
From 1956, it's Chuck Berry with a little intrumental called, in an example of the dazzling wordplay he was so famous for, "Chuck's Boogie."
And from 1964, here's Brit r&b/garage punks The Downliner's Sect and a cover version that replicates Chuck's original to a tee, albeit with the charming lack of swing that made them the poor man's Pretty Things rather than international superstars still packing stadiums today. If you know what I mean.
And finally, from 1966 and the great Roger the Engineer album, here's The Yardbirds featuring Mr. Jeff Beck, and a version of the tune -- fittingly retitled "Jeff's Boogie" -- that sends it rocketing past the Van Allen Belt and out into the vast reaches of intergalactic space.
No Listomania today -- sorry. I'm using the long holiday weekend as an excuse for some well-deserved slacking off, but we will return to traditional business next week.
In the List's place, however, I offer a meditation on (among other things) rock-and-roll, prompted both by my ranting about Lady Gaga over the last day or two and the fact that I had occasion this week to re-read Jules Feiffer's superb 1965 The Great Comic Book Heroes, still one of the best books ever written about pop culture. Feiffer concludes it with the following paragraph; he's talking specifically about comics, but I think the point he's really making is somewhat broader.
Comic books, which had few public (as opposed to professional) defenders in the days when Dr. Wertham was attacking them, are now looked back on by an increasing number of my generation as samples of our youthful innocence instead of our youthful corruption. A sign, perhaps, of the potency of that corruption. A corruption -- a lie, really -- that put us in charge, however, temporarily, of the world in which we lived and gave us the means, however arbitrary, of defining right from wrong, good from bad, hero from villain. It is something for which old fans can understandably pine -- almost as if having become overly conscious of the imposition of junk on our adult values: on our architecture, our highways, our advertising, our mass media, our politics -- and even in the air we breathe, flying black chunks of it -- we have staged a retreat to a better remembered brand of junk. A junk that knew its place was underground where it had no power and thus only titillated, rather than above ground where it truly has power -- and thus, only depresses.
As I said, Feiffer was talking specifically about comics, but he might just as well have been talking about rock, no?
Discuss.
[Shamless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania -- theme: best or worst holiday-themed films -- is now up as usual over at Box Office. Hey -- no slacking over there, it pays the bills. In any case, I'd take it as a particular favor this week if you could find a minute and maybe go over there and leave a comment. Thanks.]
The Beatles, recorded live at the Karlaplansstudion, Stockholm, Sweden. October 24, 1963. With a ragged but ultimately miraculous version of "Twist and Shout."
Because, of course, nothing says Happy Thanksgiving like John, Paul, George and Ringo.
This is an outtake from the same broadcast that showed up on volume one of The Beatles' Anthology back in 1995, by the way.
I don't know about you guys, but it never fails to amaze me that -- after all these years -- there are still Beatles performances left to amaze me.
From last October's Buffalo Springfield reunion show(!) here's Stephen Stills, Ritchie Furay, and Neil Young and the still delightful "Go and Say Goodbye."
Okay, it's an audience tape, the guys are all playing acoustics, and the performance is a little ragged. Who cares? It's the Buffalo Springfield, for heaven's sake.
And as a chutzpah-defining bonus, here's an audience recording of the fabulous Floor Models -- featuring some guy whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels on bass -- covering the song at the Other End Cafe in 1982.
Our version has a lot of pep, I'll give it that at least.
An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop.
All suggestions for postings and sidebar links welcome, contact any of us.
