Weekend Listomania: Let Us Now Praise Inexplicably Not Famous Men (and Women)

Okay kids -- in an attempt to distract us from the latest outrage perpetrated by President Mediocre Columbo Villain, here's a hopefully entertaining diversion:

MOST UNFAIRLY OBSCURE BAND OR SOLO ARTIST OF THE SIXTIES!!

No arbitrary rules, thank you very much, but if you cite some local band from your hometown, I will come to your house and slap you silly.

And now, here's my totally Top of My Head Top Eight:

8. The Rising Sons



Featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder, before either of them got famous. They were apparently a shit-hot live band who couldn't really get it together recording-wise. This unplugged session track is spine-tingling, obviously.

7. Evie Sands



This gal had it all -- except, unfortunately, the hit records. She's still at it, BTW, and if you're ever in Los Angeles when she's gigging, don't miss her.

6. Autosalvage



Psychedelic folk/rock band from New York City; the bass player was the brother of The Lovin' Spoonful's Steve Boone. Stole a copy of their sole LP from my college radio station in 1968 and have played it obsessively (in its CD version) ever since. The concensus is that if they had moved to San Francisco they could have been huge.

5. The Poor



Future Poco and Eagles member Randy Meisner's first band; the song was written by either Brewer or Shipley. They were managed and produced by the guys who did Buffalo Springfield, and that song got a fair amount of airplay, at least in my neighborhood in the Tri-State Metropolitan Area. I actually owned the 45.

4. Bob Lind



Yeah, yeah, I know -- "Elusive Butterfly" is one of the goofiest artifacts of a goofy era, but the B-side, as you can hear, kicks genuine ass. So much so that The Blues Project, unquestionably one of the best American bands of the day, did a killer cover of it.

3. Chrysalis



Absolutely wonderful NYC folk/rock psych band with a girl singer to die for and, as you can hear, some really beautiful songs. One album and out, alas.

2. Lothar and the Hand People



Yeah, the band with the theremin. I saw them live, opening for The Byrds, and they were incredible; very charismatic (and snazzy dressers to boot), musicianship to burn and terrific tunes. This one has been a fave of mine for decades, and I find it almost painfully poignant (as well charmingly melodic).

And the number one shoulda-been-household-words act of the Sixties, it's not even close, obviously is...

1. The Nightcaps



Five kids from Dallas who were among the first white punks to get down to the heart of hep. Their sole album, released in 1960, is the kind of thing that The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds would be doing three years later, and although nobody outside of Texas ever heard of them, they were remarkably influential; Jimmy Vaughan idolized them, and both his brother Stevie Ray and ZZ Top recorded their songs.

Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!!

An Early Clue to the New Direction: Special Amnesia For The Amnesiacs! Edition

From 1962, please enjoy Don and Juan and their classic ode to short term memory loss "What's Your Name?"



A coveted PowerPop No-Prize© will be awarded to the first reader who gleans the song's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.

Closed for Monkey Business

Long and productive night in the studio; barring objections from my producer, Reg Thorpe, I think I finished my cover of The Byrds' classic "I Come and Stand at Every Door."

In any case, regular posting -- including a clue to the theme of Friday's Weekend Listomania -- resumes on the morrow.

Your Tuesday Moment of Death Metal, John Cage Style

From the Open Culture web site:

When we think of silence, we think of meditative stretches of calm: hikes through deserted forest paths, an early morning sunset before the world awakes, a staycation at home with a good book. But we know other silences: awkward silences, ominous silences, and—in the case of John Cage’s infamous conceptual piece "4’33” -- a mystifying silence that asks us to listen, not to nothing, but to everything. Instead of focusing our aural attention, Cage’s formalized exercise in listening disperses it, to the nervous coughs and squeaking shoes of a restless audience, the ceaseless ebb and flow of traffic and breathing, the ambient white noise of heating and and the suspended black noise of death metal….

We're used to seeing "4’33” performed as a classical exercise, with a dignified pianist seated at the bench, ostentatiously turning the pages of Cage’s “score.” But there’s no reason at all the exercise -- or hoax, some insist -- can’t work in any genre, including metal. NPR’s All Songs TV brings us the video above, in which -- 64 years after its debut performance by pianist David Tudor -- death metal band Dead Territory lines behind their instruments, tunes up, and takes on Cage: “There’s a setup, earplugs go in, a brief guitar chug, a drum-stick count-off and… silence.”

Pretty hilarious, not to mention hands down the best death metal I've ever heard.

[h/t Rebecca Littman]

Memorial Day 2019

From 1969, The Zombies' "A Butchers Tale (Western Front 1914)." Still, for my money, the most powerful anti-war song of them all.



And speaking of war, I note without comment that President Mediocre Columbo Villain had the good grace to not, as he had threatened, pardon any war criminals criminals today.

Holy Crap -- Yet Another Song by Bram Tchaikovsky!!!

Oh wait -- actually this is by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.



I regret the error.

In any event, the musicians on that -- which dates from 1962 -- are a bunch of L.A. session cats including the great Earl Palmer on drums; the record was a hit in both the US of A and the UK.

I should add that Emerson, Lake and Palmer did quite entertaining live and studio covers of that back in the '70s, but which will not be included here due to our eminently sensible long-time policy of never posting clips involving any member of that band unless it's Keith Emerson doing Meade Lux Lewis' "Honky-Tonk Train Blues."



Have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Holy Crap, It's Turning Into Bram Tchaikovsky Week!

From 1981, and his Funland LP...

...please enjoy the aforementioned Mr. Tchaikovsky as he asks the musical question "Why Does My Mother Phone Me?"

Why does my mother phone me?
Just to tell me that she doesn't like me?
Why does my mother phone me --
Why doesn't she just disown me?

Why when I run away
Do they send the police to get me?
Why when I run away
Do they pretend that they just can't catch me?

If life is just a game
Why isn't anyone smiling?
And if life is just a game
There shouldn't be rules and there shouldn't be blame

Ooh la la la la la la la la
Ooh la la la la la la la la

Why am I always happy
When everybody else is scowling?
Why am I always pleased
When everybody else is down on their knees?

Ooh la la la la la la la la
Ooh la la la la la

When I sound like some kind of fool
Do I sound like I'm the only one sane?
Do I sound like I'm a fool
Because I've nothing to lose and nothing to gain?

Ooh la la la la la la la la
Ooh la la la la la

Why does my mother phone me
Just to tell me that she doesn't like me?
Why does my mother phone me --
Why doesn't she just disown me?

Ooh la la la la la la la la
Ooh la la la la la....

This is one of those where-has-it-been-all-my-life? songs; NYMary actually burned me a CD of the Funland album some years ago, and I know I listened to it, but somehow it just never registered at the time. And then more recently another friend played it for me and I felt like I'd been smacked upside the head with a 2X4.

It's about madness, rather obviously, but from a very writerly perspective; you don't get the feeling, as you do with, say, certain Syd Barrett songs, that you're hearing a cry from a genuinely troubled psyche, although it's still completely believable. In any case, the way the lyrics proceed from basically mundane, albeit funny, observational head-scratchers to existentially scary and rather profound non sequiturs is quite brilliantly managed, I think, and the production and arrangement, as the vocal layering piles up while the track moves along, reinforces the general feeling of dislocated wigginess as well, up to and including the almost surreal Spanish bullfight music finale (those castanets and trumpet just fricking slay me -- you can practically see the guys in mariachi outfits materializing out of nowhere.)

In sum, a fabulous and inexplicably moving record, IMHO. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but the whole thing -- and particularly that ending -- makes me sorry, for a change, that this is one 80s song that never occasioned a music video, although I can't for the life of me think of a director back then who could have done the record justice.

Your Wednesday Moment of Words Fail Me

And continuing in our tribute to the shoulda-been-a-household-word Bram Tchaikovsky, from 1979, please enjoy his astounding version of what New Yorkers of a certain age refer to as the theme from the Milford Plaza.

Okay, it's actually "Lullabye of Broadway," from Gold Diggers of 1935, and this rendition is pretty much the most amazing thing I'd never heard until yesterday.

[h/t Brett Milano]

Guys and (Inflatable) Dolls

From sometime in the late 1970s, please enjoy Bram Tchaikovsky and an insanely great live rendition of his best known song, the transplendent "Girl of My Dreams."

On Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, of all places.



I had never seen that clip until last weekend, and I must confess I had no idea that these guys were such a kick-ass live band. The song itself, obviously, is one of the most magnificent slices of the music that provides the raison d'etre for this here blog ever heard by sentient mammalian ears.

Your Monday Moment of Words Fail Me

From last week, please enjoy Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, as they join Jimmy Fallon and The Roots, in a beyond cosmic live performance of "Won't Get Fooled Again" on classroom instruments.



Apart from being absolutely the greatest thing in the history of greatest things -- make sure you stick around to the very end of the clip, so you can the genius move that Pete makes.