From the September 1993 issue of The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review, please enjoy my musings on the then-new Broadway version of The Who's Tommy.
Click on it to enlarge, obviously.
I hadn't read that it in a while, so I was pleased to discover that it was still pretty funny; as you can tell, I really REALLY disliked the show.
I had forgotten, however, that the people who adapted the album for the stage had (to me inexplicably) turned the child-molesting Uncle Ernie into a sympathetic character. Given recent events, you gotta wonder how that will play if they ever stage a revival at (the apparently soon to be renamed as the) Trump Center in DC. 😎
In any event, I think the above has gotta go into the Steve's Greatest Hits book I've been nattering on about here for the last couple of years.
And while I'm on the subject -- actual news about that is coming soon. Possibly even next week; I'll keep you guys posted. 😎😎
From his 1981 debut solo album Law and Order, please enjoy pop genius auteur Lindsey Buckingham and the world class nuttiness that is "Bwana."
Those falsetto glissandos...those Munchkin background vocal "ra-ta-ta-tas"...oh my god.
Frankly, I flipped for this song from the moment I first heard it, and to this day it a) absolutely cracks me up and b) I have no freaking idea what it's about. (I should add I'm not sure Buckingham could get away with the lyrics in 2025. I mean -- "Bwana"? Not exactly PC -- it's kind of the poetic equivalent of wearing a gorilla suit.) 😎
Let's just say our younger readers can have no conception of how subversive this guy was when he arrived in the 1950s -- as a DIY underground sensation, who released his own records on his own label.
BTW, the song above got premiered on a 1965 prime-time TV show called That Was the Week That Was; Lehrer was a regular for a while and was very often a little too controversial for the suits at the network. I bring this up because it's particularly pertinent to today's repressive media climate, i.e. one where the Trump administration is installing an "official bias monitor" to censor CBS if they get too uppity in the future. (I did not make that last up, BTW; this is the world we're living in).
Anyway, the guy was a pop genius, and I can only imagine what he must have thought about the Manchurian Cantaloupe.
Oh, and here's what seems to have been the last song he wrote and recorded (it originally appeared as a bonus track on a Rhino Records Lehrer box set in 2000).
[I originally posted this one back in 2012, when this blog and the world had not yet endured the reign of the Manchurian Cantaloupe and the attendant destruction of American democracy. In any case, given all the Beach Boys stuff I posted the other week (occasioned by the death of Brian Wilson) I thought it might be fun to revisit it. As per usual on these occasions, I've done some re-writing and swapped out a couple of songs, although the list itself remains from the original version. Enjoy, if possible. - S.S.]
Okay -- here's a fun and hopefully relevant little project with an amusing subtext that we can all get behind while I take a long and well deserved nap:
TOP TEN MOST IMPORTANT AMERICAN ROCK BANDS OF THE SIXTIES!!!
No arbitrary rules, except that I said "bands" -- no solo artists or folk duos need apply (sorry Bob, sorry Paul, sorry Artie etc.)
And no singing/vocal groups either. Which means that if you nominate The Mamas and the Papas or any of the Motown acts other than Jr. Walker and the All-Stars I am going to taunt you mercilessly. We're talking bands here -- with people who, like, play guitars and drums and stuff. Okay? Okay.
And so, my totally top of my head Top Ten, in no particular order except for Number One, is/are:
10: The Rascals
Blue-eyed soul. Nobody did it better and with more rock attitude.
9: The MC5
"The American Ruse" indeed, and it's really quite horrific that this song hasn't dated a whit. I should add that the above live version was totally unknown to me until yesterday.
8: The Velvet Underground
Nelson Algren meets the Rolling Stones. If you think that anybody at the moment is doing something as innovative, gutsy and avant-garde, please e-mail me at Just Blow Me.Com. Thank you.
7: The Blues Project
Maybe you had to be there, but these guys were among the most exciting live acts I've ever seen. And they sounded EXACTLY like this in person.
6: Jefferson Airplane
America's loudest band. I was actually at this show, so I know what I'm talking about.
5: Moby Grape
The greatest debut album in all of American rock. And the two that followed were pretty damned good, too.
4: Buffalo Springfield
There's very little to be said about this bunch that hasn't already been declaimed by wiser folks than moi, but may I simply add -- I will never forgive Neil Young for bailing on the group's 2012 reunion tour before it got to NYC, i.e. before I finally got to see them live. Miserable bastard.
3: Paul Revere and the Raiders
FANG!!!
Seriously, that's it. 😎
And the Number 1 best/most significant/whatever American band of the Sixties is -- A FREAKING TIE!!
2/1: The Beach Boys...
...and The Byrds!!!
The short version? Apart from everything else, both the Beach Boys and Byrds invented a sound. Hell, a genre. Very few people in music history can make that claim.
And before somebody goes "What -- Paul Revere and not The Band?", let me just say the The Band would have been my number 11, and that -- heretical as the judgement may be -- they have never really rocked hard enough for me. Sorry.
And also, before somebody brings up The Grateful Dead, let me just say that while it's hardly a secret that I am not now and have never been a fan, I would nonetheless submit that the albums on which their reputation mostly rests -- American Beauty and Workingman's Dead -- were both released in the 70s. And that their work prior to that was mostly along the lines of a fairly meh white blues band with a mildly irritating experimental bent.
The Lemon Twigs, from the other night, in Lyon France(!), with a casually brilliant live version of The Beach Boys' classic "In My Room."
You know, it occurs to me these kids are roughly the same age that Brian Wilson was when he wrote that. I mean, I suspect they relate to the song for more than just musical reasons.
In any case, the idea that the sons of a former bandmate of mine are now the best fucking rock group in the world kinda blows my mind. 😎
From their 1970 debut album, please enjoy Argent and their melodically masterful (Russ Ballard-penned) ode to the charms of a "Schoolgirl."
I mean -- like wow.
I haven't heard the album in a million years, so I have no idea if the rest of the stuff on the record is similarly great, but I should add that not only is the song, objectively speaking, about as hauntingly gorgeous as pop rock gets, but unless I am very much mistaken, it's the only song Argent ever did that really betrays the provenance of its leaders previous band, i.e. The Zombies.
I mean, c'mon --can't you hear Colin Blunstone singing that?
In any case, may I just say again -- like wow. 😎
From 1998, prepare to have your minds blown by Aussie power pop gods You Am I and a live version of their classic "Mr. Milk."
Be advised -- among other things, what you're about to watch is essentially a master class in how you do this stuff, from the incredible Rickenbacker opening riff to the background vocal "oohs!" to the ultra-cool stage outfits.
In any event, I got turned on to the above live version over last weekend, and I freaked out all over again; the performance here is a little faster and a little more aggressive than the studio take, but it has every bit of the world-class polish of the original, and the only other phrase I can come up with to describe it is "fucking amazing."
Seriously -- it's enough to restore an old guy's faith in the magic of rock-and-roll.
Wait a minute...didn't Robert Klein do a bit along those lines? 😎
K-tel Presents -- Every Power Pop Record Ever Recorded! Exactly that! We drive a truck to your house!!!
But seriously folks: Attentive readers will recall my posting a few months ago about I Wanna Be a Teen Again: North American Power Pop of the '80s, the 3CD box set coming out on Cherry Red Records and featuring the likes of (among others) Cheap Trick, The Bangles, The Go-Gos, Rick Springfield, The Shivvers, The Smithereens, Phil Seymour, Dwight Twilley and...wait for it...The Floor Models (a band featuring some guy whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels on bass).
Well, the thing got released today, so what are you waiting for?
You can buy the package (which I'm told includes amazing photos and terrific liner notes) over at Amazon HERE or -- if you're as pissed off at Jeff Bezos as I am -- directly from Cherry Red over HERE.
As you can imagine, I'm kinda around the moon over this; I only wish my two departed bandmates Andy Pasternack (our 12-string ace) and Glen "Bob" Allen (our beloved drummer) had lived to see it.
In any event, I want to thank everybody over at Cherry Red, and especially fab gear Aussie publicist Dave Laing, who got us the gig.
But more to the point -- I'm dying to know what any of you guys think about the set. So get the hell over to one of those links and snag a copy!
Now, people!!! 😎😎
And have a great weekend everybody!!!
PS: And in other amazing news, if you're in the Los Angeles area in August, there's a preview screening of the forthcoming documentary The Power Pop Movie -- as a benefit for The Wild Honey Foundation -- at the Foundation's backyard amphitheater (heh). The festivities happen at 7 PM Pacific time on August 17th; complete details -- including directions on how to get there -- can be found over HERE.
Aforementioned attentive readers will recall that said film includes lotsa yakking about the music -- its history and meaning -- by the past and present proprietors of this here blog, i.e. NYMary and that Sleeve Nimels guy...
An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop.
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