From 2023, please enjoy archetypal contemporary New York rockers Pan Arcadia -- their motto: "Making tracks in a Brooklyn shack since ‘21" -- and their uncharacteristically jaunty romp through the outer boro transit system "Sorry I Was Late."
A very cool song, no? And they have lots more. In short, I really like these guys -- I hear hints of The Strokes and Television in their style, which is obviously a good thing -- and if you're curious and are going to be in the Brooklyn vicinity on Saturday, they're performing at a club charmingly monikered Baby's Alright (which is at 146 Broadway) beginning at 8pm. If you attend, tell 'em PowerPop sent you.
In any case, I'll have more to say about Pan Arcadia next week, in part because as it turns out I have a sort of six-degrees-of-separation backstory with them I should share with you.
In the meantime, you can and should find out more about the band and their music over at their website HERE.
But now on to business. To wit:
...and your all time favorite (or least favorite) Big Apple rock band or solo performer is...?
Discuss.
BTW, I don't usually weigh in on these Friday issues, but this week I just have to.
My favorite underground NYC band ever? These guys, hands (heh heh) down.
And I should add that not only were they transplendently great (live -- yeah, I actually saw them in a club in 1966), but one of them also engineered the Live at CBGBs album ten years later and cooler than that it does not get.
Meanwhile -- have a great Memorial Day weekend, everybody!
In fact, from 2023, it's Kelsie Kimberlin and "Road Trip."
In theory, I shouldn't like the above (which crossed my desk unsolicited the other day) for a number of reasons, starting with its violation of Simels Rule # 1: NO AUTO-TUNING!. But to my surprise, it got under my skin right away anyway.
Could be the car, which is way, I mean WAY, cool. Mostly, though, I suspect it's the song's we-gotta-get-outta-this-place sentiment, which -- given how fucking horrible everything going on in the USA is at the moment -- is obviously resonant. And I bet I'm not the only one who'll watch that video and relate.
Neat guitar solo, too, which helps.
In any event, Kimberline -- who is Ukranian-American and has something impassioned to say about what is happening to her homeland -- obviously has quite a lot on the ball; you can hear more of her music and find out more about her over at her website HERE.
The cover to the forthcoming solo effort by my longtime Floor Models bandmate Gerry Devine. Art direction by my beautiful and brilliant girlfriend Wendy Cohen (who, as usual, is working cheap).
Just to whet your appetite. More details coming soon.
So the other day I was browsing back issues of The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review -- excuse: looking for stuff for possible inclusion in my forthcoming greatest hits book -- when I chanced upon this review and album I had totally lost in the mists of memory.
To wit: Here's Johnny, Casablanca's 1974 double LP set devoted to great moments from the Tonight Show during Johnny Carson's tenure as host.
Here's the review in question. Click on it to enlarge, obviously.
Wow. Apparently I was a ittle bit cranky when I wrote that. Although I basically still agree with most of its critical judgements, especially the bit about how Johnny should have quit the show years earlier and transitioned into the movie career he so richly deserved as (IMHO) the potential Cary Grant or William Powell of his generation.
Anyway, the Tonight Show take-off I mention in the review appeared on this 1973 album...
...which was written and performed by (among others) the great Harry Shearer and Micheal McKean, of Spinal Tap fame. And which in fact is an absolute comic masterpiece that's even funnier than I remembered.
And so, because I love you all more than food, you can listen to the entire original two disc Carson set over at YouTube HERE.
And then you can listen to the Credibility Gap's devastating parody over at the Internet Archive HERE.
You're welcome. And look at the clothes the Doctor is wearing!!!
From the absolutely great Del Shannon and his 1991 swansong Rock On, please enjoy the album's concluding -- in more than one sense -- track "Let's Dance." Produced by Jeff Lynne and Mike Campbell, with a little help from Tom Petty.
Yours truly, from The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review, September of that year. (Click to enlarge, obviously).
I stand by every word of the above (although in the second graf I meant to say "idiosyncratic" rather than "interesting") and especially the bit about "Let's Dance." The first time I heard that, in fact, I almost fell out of my plush office chair at TMFKASR.
A Zydeco party song? Sounding dark, haunted and desperate, as if its creator had a hellhound on his trail?
To quote Richard Dean Anderson in Stargate SG-1 -- "Well, THIS is new."
In any event, if you don't know the album you need to acquaint yourself with it toot sweet. Especially since i just learned that the 2007 reissue has a half dozen very interesting bonus tracks.
From 2023, please enjoy Colt Clark and the Quarantine Band and their wise beyond its years rendition of The James Gang's 1971 hit "Walk Away."
Oh god, those kids are great; I could watch the one on the right nail the Joe Walsh guitar solo forever. I should add that they have several other equally priceless videos up; I'm particularly fond of their take on "We Got the Beat," which behooves beholding as well.
But now to business. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Elvis pop, rock or soul group with members related by blood is...?
Arbitrary rule: No such groups with members related by marriage need apply.
From 1965, please enjoy criminally underrated singer/songwriter Jackie DeShannon and the original solo demo of her folk-rock classic "Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe."
The song, of course, is better known from the inspired re-imagining by The Byrds on their debut album (released that same year)...
,,,but the DeShannon version -- which I was alas unaware of until two days ago -- has really gotten under my skin. Yes, as a friend observed, I kinda miss the Bo Diddley beat. guitar tremelo and "oh-oh" vocals the Byrds decorated the song with, but there's something quite haunting, in a minimalist way, going on with that demo.
I should add it occurred to me I've never heard anybody else do the Byrds' take, which seems a bit weird. In any case, if there's a jangly young band out there reading these words I can only say -- get off your tushies and work up a cover of the damn thing already.
[I originally wrote the following for the comments section back in 2006, before NY Mary had given me the metaphorical keys to the car around here. It was occasioned, specifically, by Mary's surprise that I rated the Beach Boys as high as I did in the American 60s pantheon; she didn't agree, obviously, and I thought it might be fun to try to make some kind of cogent statement on the subject. In any case, I stand by the resuts, and I am reliably informed that Mary has mellowed on the lads from Hawthorne over the years. As I also thought it might make an interesting entry in my forthcoming greatest hits book, I've taken the liberty of reposting it in advance here while changing a minor thing or three to more accurately represent my current, er, thinking. Enjoy!]
NYMary:
I must confess I find it a little odd to be writing this -- the Beach Boys music is pretty much my lingua franca, and the idea that they need defending feels weird to me given how much I love them (although I understand your skepticism, at least in the abstract. After all, Mike Love sucks).
In any event, here's why I think they deserve respect from mere mortals like you and me.
TEN REASONS THE BEACH BOYS ARE SELF-EVIDENTLY ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT
AMERICAN BANDS OF THE SIXTIES.
IF NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT.
1. They invented an instantly recognizable sound of their own,
one that practically defines a genre. Very few rock artists can make that claim. (Chuck Berry with "Johnny B Goode", The Byrds with "Tambourine Man," the Ramones, and maybe U2). That alone should guarantee the Beach Boys immortality.
2. What Raymond Chandler did for California in prose the Beach Boys did in music. They reflected a place and a time and made a kind of poetry out of it. They were not fake.
3. Five part harmonies, astoundingly gorgeous. And Brian's conception -- mating progressive jazz voicings a la the Four Freshman with classic doo-wop -- was totally unique. Here's a 1965 live clip that proves the point -- and if this a capella version of the Freshman's "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring"doesn't put a lump in your throat, you need to check your meds.
4. From their inception in the early 60s, they were pretty much the only self-contained rock band in America. Wrote all their own songs, produced their own records. Who else was doing that?
5. Kick-ass live act. If you doubt it, listen to "Beach Boys Concert," get a video of their closed-circuit show from '64, or find "The TAMI Show" video, in which -- performing on the same bill with the Stones, James Brown and most of the Motown acts, they tear the audience to shreds. Carl Wilson was a killer surf guitarist, and the rhythm section was as good as anybody in rock at the time.
Here's their British TV debut on Top of the Pops -- from 1964, totally live versions of "I Get Around" and "When I Grow Up."
6. Contrary to myth, they were not white bread at all. Carl and Dennis Wilson were as soulful singers in the r&b sense as anybody else working in the mid-Sixties. And that includes Stevie Winwood or Felix Cavaliere.
7. The car and surf songs are actually quite brilliant. Who else ever conceived of writing love songs to a carburetor? And has any rock song ever conveyed as much sheer teenage elan as "Fun Fun Fun" or "I Get Around"?
8. Brian's best songs from the early period anticipate the confessional singer/songwriter LA genre. "Don't Worry Baby" may be as nakedly emotional and self-revealing as anything Joni Mitchell ever wrote. Ditto "Warmth of the Sun" or "In My Room" or "When I Grow Up."
9. The albums that preceed the sainted Pet Sounds and Smile are masterpeices. The Beach Boys Today, Brian's first real studio concept album, is masterly; "When I Grow Up" isn't even the best song on it (try "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" or the astounding Sinatra goes r&b of "The Back of My Mind" sung by Dennis). It's every bit as good as Rubber Soul in terms of consistency and melodic invention. The follow-up -- Summer Days and Summer Nights, of which "California Girls" is simply the icing on the cake, is even better -- it's every bit Brian's Revolver. He never used the studio more impressively than "Let Him Run Wild" or emulated the Beatles with the riffy brilliance of "Girl Don't Tell Me."
10. The album that follows the sainted Pet Sounds and Smile is another masterpiece. Wild Honey is one of the handful of great white r&b albums of the period, and if you doubt it check out the title song or Carl's gorgeous reading of Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made to Love Her." And in it's back to basics way, it's very much of a piece with the Beatles White Album.
I could go on about the Beach Boys early 70s output -- you could make a fabulous comp album with songs like "Marcella" (one of their best ever rockers), "This Whole World" (Brian's canniest pocket symphony), "All I Wanna Do"(the most glorious use of reverb in history), "Bluebirds Over the Mountain" (progressive rockabilly, if you can believe it), "Do It Again" and any number of others up through "Trader" on Holland.
The decline after that was appalling, to be sure, but you get my point....the Beach Boys have a huge body of really transcendent work, and Brian wasn't the only big talent in the
band.
No, really. Somebody is actually putting together a Best One Thousand Albums Ever project.
Says a guy with way too much time on his hands:
It’s NOT a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. I’m not qualified to do that. I’m not sure that anyone is.
This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective take on what my best 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style.
Okay, pal, you had me from that reference to the Nick Hornby novel and film. But thanks for clearing that up.
Anyway, there's a lot more about the project -- which seems an inadequate word to describe it, actually -- over at its combination statement of purpose and manifesto, which you can read over HERE. But in case you were wondering, the short version is that it's the brainchild of the estimable Eric Berlin, who has this to say about himself:
In addition to being a digital product manager by trade, I’ve written, edited, and published thousands of pop culture articles over the years, many of which focused on music and television. I helped run pop culture-centric blogging community Blogcritics back in the day, and more recently have written about pop culture, politics, and post-pandemic life in my newsletter, The Berlin Files.
In other words, you know -- a heroic world class geek as obsessed with that kind of stuff as me or you or anybody who has ever read this here blog more than once.
If that rings a bell -- and if it doesn't, what the hell are you doing here? -- and you want to get involved in such a sublimely Quixote-ish quest, feel free to jump in over at the OFFICIAL WEBSITE and suggest a candidate of your own. And be ready to provide a cogent justification for your choice.
And, of course, tell 'em PowerPop sent you!
Oh, also -- if YOU'VE got a little extra time on your hands, please see if you can convince Eric to sneak this one in.
From 1964, please enjoy The Cinderellas and their instantly addictive shoulda-been-a-bigger-hit "Baby, Baby (I Still Love You)".
I must confess I had never heard this -- or heard of it, for that matter -- untill our pal Sal name-checked it over at Burning Wood last week. The writing and production credits, are of course, familiar -- it's a collaboration between the great hitmaking team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill with Russ Titelman, who is perhaps (unfairly) better known for having been an exec at Warner Brothers Records for a few decades rather than his cooler credits, like having been a member of the Shindig TV show house band. Who the girls are, however, i have no idea.
In any event, this one knocked me out before the vocals even came in; clearly, it's an A-minus artifact of Brill Building songcraft and performance.
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.
