Closed for Monkey Business

Had a long, extremely productive but exhausting, night in the recording studio yesterday.

Friends of Mine Week, complete with blow your mind music. resumes on the morrow.

It's Friends of Mine Week!!!

Attentive and/or long term readers of this here blog may recognize the name Ronnie D'Addario for two reasons.

First, because out of the great goodness of his heart, he sang the angelic McCartney-esque background vocals on Letter From Liverpool, a song featuring a band with a bass player whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels.

And, secondly, because he's the proud dad of the hippest young band on the planet The Lemon Twigs.



But even coooler than that, Ronnie's also been producing exquisite Beatles-influenced pop/rock -- both as a one-man band (a la Emitt Rhodes, who is probably the figure he most closely brings to mind) or in various group contexts going back for decades.

And now, at last, he's got a CD set showcasing some of that work.

Here are two songs from the collection (the second is one of my favorite indie singles of the New Wave era) that should give you an idea of just how terrific he is.





In any case, I think we can agree that First Songs is one of the most impressive early career retrospectives ever heard by sentient mammalian ears.

You can -- and definitely should -- order it over at Amazon HERE or at You Are the Cosmos HERE.

You're welcome.

I'll Be There For You

As you may know, The Zombies just completed an American tour where -- to rapturous applause -- they performed their masterpiece Odessey and Oracle in its entirety.



You may be able to guess from the Odessey song above how the rest of the week here is gonna go. No coveted PowerPop No-Prizes if you do, however.

I should add that, to my delight, another Odessey track is now the unlikeliest radio hit of the current century..

Your Friday Moment of A Tail for Which the World is Not Yet Prepared !!!

From 1995, please enjoy Canadian (don't hold it against him) singer/songwriter Jay Semko...

...and his brilliant avant-garde screenplay masquerading as a pop record/absolutely flat out fabulous on every level "Mouse in a Hole."



I must confess that prior to a few weeks ago I knew nothing about either this guy or this song. And if truth be told, I was hipped to him/it by possibly the most offensively stupid/anti-Semitic/douchebag it's ever been my misfortune to have to deal with via the intertubes.

That said -- blind squirrel/nut. I mean, this is really great.

Have a terrific weekend, everybody!!!

I Deny Everything

New Procol Harum album is out; I must confess that it mostly leaves me cold -- i.e., it doesn't sound much like vintage PH -- but this track is really pretty and wouldn't have been out of place on one of their lesser mid-70s LPs.



Plus the title appeals to me for several obvious reasons.

He Puts the Pluto in Plutocrat

Donald Fagen and Todd Rundgren nail our latest national nightmare.



And you gotta love that they did this before Trump went Nixon on steroids yesterday.

Here Comes the Night

Saw BANG!: The Bert Berns Story over the weekend.

Bottom line: If it's playing anywhere near you, run do not walk.



The incredible music aside, there are so many great stories told in the flick that it would be criminal for me to give any of them away. That said, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that a) the song-writing production team of Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, and Richard Gottehrer -- better known as the guys in The Strangeloves who pretended to be Australians -- may be the funniest comedy trio since the Marx Brothers and that b) I had no idea that Van Morrison, who gets lots of screen interview time, is so normal.

Oh yes -- the music. Most of the songs in the film -- all either Berns-written or produced or both -- will be familiar to anybody who's listened to pop music in the second half of the 20th century. But one track in particular, for me, was a revelation.

This is one of the most spine-tingling vocal performances I've ever heard, and after you listen to it, I think you'll agree that Freddie Scott deserves to be talked about right up there with the greatest soul singers ever. It's not on the movie soundtrack CD, alas, but there's a comprehensive Scott best-of that you can still find at Amazon.

Have I mentioned that you should run not walk to see this if it's in your neighborhood?

Closed for Monkey Business: Special Vive La France! Edition

Got so emotional watching the scene outside the Louvre yesterday, after the French turned back the forces of darkness, that I was too drained to post anything musical.

Regular non-political pop stuff resumes on the morrow. Now excuse me -- I have to go score some brie.

Your Friday Moment of the Worst Song of All Time

I don't know why this one popped into my head this morning, although it's possible it has something to do with Satan.



I must admit, however, that I had forgotten that one of Liz Taylor's exes was responsible for it.

I should also add that at Casa Simels when I was growing up we used to refer to RCA platters as New Orthopedic recordings.

Have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Willard's Wormholes 2007-2017

The greatest download site in the history of the intertubes...

...is no more.

If, like me, you were worried that Willard had either had some kind of personal crisis, or had been shut down by the Intertube Police, not to fear: I e-mailed him yesterday and he said that, no, it had been ten years and he figured it was time for him to retire and do other things. I think I speak for many when I say -- good luck with that. You're a mensch, and our music collections would be much the poorer if not for your work over the years.

I'm still pissed that I never got around to downloading the soundtrack to the original Outer Limits, however.