Compare and contrast: Iconic Rudy Gernreich model/muse Peggy Moffitt -- she of the famous topless bathing suit -- in a photo from 1965 I just chanced upon...
...and increasingly annoying prosciutto dress wearer Lady Gaga, just the other day.
Seriously -- if this woman ever had an original thought it would die of fricking loneliness.
We here at Power Pop wish a very happy birthday to John Murphy of Shoes.
In the last year and a half, I have logged probably a couple hundred hours talking with John, who is a charming guy: funny and warm, generous with his time (though admittedly a little meandering in his conversation), and has a memory so detailed that his nickname has become "Johnny Gingko." I can't tell you the number of times he's filled in a missing plot point or mentioned in passing something which opened up a whole new episode (which is why I have to declare this thing done: it will never really be finished).
In any case, today is his natal day, and we wish him a good one.
You know, I was pretty much a lapsed Springsteen fan for the longest time. Since...oh, I dunno, The River, actually. And I didn't really come around till recently, i.e. Magic, which I think is some of his best work ever.
But even now -- there are times when I think, "yeah, yeah, Bruce is great, but it's old and I've seen it all before" and like that.
And then, he goes and does something like this -- on the Jimmy Fallon show Tuesday night -- and once again I'm, you should pardon the expression, a believer.
This guy is 60 and rocking out like that? Sweet mother of fuck, as Dexter's sister might say.
Seriously -- if that performance doesn't give you chills down to the cellular level, then you just don't like the form, if you know what I mean.
Just wanted to let everyone who watched the Ollie Cam last week know that the world's sweetest pussycat is home from the hospital and happy as the proverbial bi-valve.
Also, thank you all for the kind wishes for the little guy. He came through the radiation therapy with flying colors.
Still, there's something about him that seems....different. I think it's those eyes.
Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental foreclosure dominatrix Fah Lo Suee and I will be heading to an undisclosed airport to have somebody at the TSA handle our junk.
It's a couple of old analog TVs we finally got around to replacing -- normally, we'd just leave 'em on the curb in front of our condo, but for some reason the garbage guys in Hackensack aren't allowed to pick 'em up anymore. Go figure.
That being the case, and because things will thus be somewhat low key around here until our return, here's a perhaps educational AND entertaining little project to help us wile away those idle hours:
Cult Figure(s) Who By All Rights Should Have Had at Least One Fricking Top Ten Hit Over the Course of Their Career, But By Now It's Looking Extremely Unlikely They Ever Will!!!
And my totally top of my head Top Five is:
5. Rob Laufer
Laufer is another alumnus of Beatlemania (see my number one choice, below) who turned out to have genuine talent above and beyond doing imitations of the Fabs. And as I've probably said here on several occasions, his 1995 Wonderwood album is one of the greatest power pop records ever made, with at least three songs -- including the Robin Zander-covered "Reactionary Girl," heard here in the composer's version -- that in any sane world would have been ubiquitous on every radio in the land.
4. R. Stevie Moore
Bloomfield, New Jersey's king of D.I.Y, and still either too smart, too weird, or both, for the room.
3. The Rutles
Okay, granted, their legend was never going to last more than a lunchtime, but I was convinced that at least one of the songs -- like the ominously Lennon-esque "Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik" -- from their 1996 pretend vault exhumation set would finally get Rutland's finest to the toppermost of the poppermost
2. Peter Blegvad
Singer/songwriter/guitarist/cartoonist Blegvad's "Daughter" got a lot of exposure via Loudon Wainwright's very nice cover on the 2007 soundtrack of Knocked Up, and justifiably so, but what a pleasure it would have been to hear the composer's original 1995 version on the radio. And he's got boatloads of songs this good, in case you were wondering.
And the Numero Uno it's-lonely-being-a-genius pop/rock act of them all simply has to be...
1. Marshall Crenshaw
Technically Crenshaw did co-write the Gin Blossoms' "Till I Here I Hear It From You," which cracked the Top Ten in 1995, but please -- at least one of the countless gorgeous songs he's recorded under his own name since his 1982 debut album should have been a bona fide smash. I mean, come on.
Alrighty, then -- who would your choices be?
[Shamless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania -- theme: feature film that for good or ill would be unthinkable without its iconic musical score or theme song -- is now up over at Box Office. As always, it would be a mitzvah if you could take a moment to go over there and drop a comment. Thanks!]
From his self-titled 1993 solo album, here's Cheap Trick heartthrob lead singer Robin Zander, and a killer cover of unsung powerpop hero Rob Laufer's "Reactionary Girl."
Or as we at Casa Simels call it "The Christine O'Donnell Story." Heh.
Already dated political cheap shots aside, I have to say that "Baby, have a bitchen summer, see you next fall" is definitely in my Top Ten list of Great Rock 'n' Roll Kiss-Off lines.
And as per usual, a coveted PowerPop no-prize will be awarded to the first reader who gleans the clip's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.
From 1970 and their Todd Rundgren produced debut album, it's the (one assumes ironically monikered) Philadelphia band The American Dream and the quite strikingly Moby Grape-esque "Raspberries."
The LP this is from is not bad, overall -- love that three guitar attack -- and it's obviously historically interesting as Todd's first full-length production for somebody other than himself. Actually, you can hear a bit of a Nazz influence in the above song, now that I think of it.
More interestingly, the blond guy standing at the top of the picture -- bass player Nick Jameson -- went on to join, and produce several albums for, Foghat. Even more interestingly, he's also had a very successful career as an actor; you could have knocked me over with a feather when I learned that the treacherous Russian premier on the 2010 season of 24 (that's him on the right, next to President Cherry Jones) was the same guy who played bass on "Fool for the City."
In case you haven't heard, a certain sweetest-feline-on-the-planet, belonging to a certain Shady Dame, is in the hospital recovering from radiation therapy for a thyroid problem.
Until he comes home, you can watch the little guy on the fabulous Ollie Cam! from approximately 8am to 8pm every day.
If you get a chance, go over there and send him some love.
Bill Hicks, the last American comic/social critic conceivably possessed by genius, died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 32. I was a late convert; when an indie publicist sent me his then new CD Relentless in 1991, I had never even heard of the guy. But then I listened to it for the first time and it was barely two minutes in before I had one of those genuine Oh My God moments. Like the first time I read Catch-22, or heard The ReplacementsLet It Be. Here was somebody telling me the unvarnished truth, in other words, and I was an instant fan for life.
Okay, obviously Hicks was funnier than Paul Westerberg, but now that I think of it, it's not that ridiculous a comparison. In any case, I'm sure you take my larger point.
Hicks' reputation has actually continued to grow in the years since his death, mostly (I suspect) because his work not only holds up but still seems kind of prescient. Although it may be a generational thing, too; he's St. Lenny (Bruce) for the Gen-Xers, except Hicks had the good fortune not to live long enough to sell out or get hounded to death by the powers-that-be he skewered so hilariously. Actually, as horrible as this is to say, I've always considered it a bit of a blessing that Hicks died before a second President Bush lied us into war with a country that hadn't attacked us; I think it (not to mention what's happened to America in the years since) would have absolutely broken the guy's heart.
Anyway, I bring all this up because the good folks at Ryko were kind enough to send me the latest Hicks compilation in time for the holidays, and I can't recommend it highly enough, especially if you've always wondered what the fuss was about. The Essential Collection (pictured above, obviously) is a 2 CD/2 DVD set with a nice mix of previously released stuff and recent exhumations from the vaults, i.e. choices bits from his albums along with heretofore unheard standup performances and a bonus (downloadable) disc of his original song demos (like "She's a Woman")...
...which, while often charming, mostly prove that as a musician Hicks was a great comedian. Also included is Hicks' early cult short Ninja Bachelor Party, some interesting interview footage, and liner notes by (among others) Henry Rollins.
This is probably the point where I should mention that the main reason you need to check this stuff out is because Hicks was absolutely drop-dead, laugh out loud hilarious. In case you hadn't already guessed. But let the man speak for himself, from one of my favorite bits on the set.
"By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalization for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no fuckin' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself...borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil fuckin' presence."
You can order Bill Hicks: The Essential Collection over at Amazon here.
From 1955, it's Queen of Country Kitty Wells and the original hit version of the sublime "Making Believe."
From 1977, it's the preternaturally beautiful Emmylou Harris and her heartbreakingly pure remake of same.
And finally from 1993, here's former hardcore SoCal punks Social Distortion with a slightly less rarefied but no less heartfelt recreation.
I've been mildly obsessed with "Making Believe" for the last few days, and I'm not sure why. I do know, however, that said obsession ultimately dates back to an afternoon (sometime in the mid 90s) when I wandered into NYCD, the lamented worlds-greatest-indie-record-store hosted by our pal (and current proprietor of Burning Wood) Sal Nunziato at a moment when the Social Distortion version was blasting on the store stereo. I half-remembered the song from my childhood, of course, but having never heard SD (and singer Mike Ness's surprisingly expressive adenoidal vocal stylings) before, nor even imagined that the song could be played in such a bracing and unexpected way, I had something of an epiphany on the spot.
Anyway, it's as great a country song as has ever been written (in this case, by the amusingly monikered Jimmy Work); I suspect that it's all but impossible to perform it badly.
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