Closed for Monkey Business

Too much stuff on my proverbial plate today.

Serious new music you'll enjoy will be here on the morrow.

And Speaking of Nothing in Particular...

...for reasons I won't bother you with, I had the occasion to print out this old piece of mine (from the May 1993 issue of The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review) over the weekend...

...and I must say I thought -- hey, that's pretty darn good writing there, pardner. And more important, right on the money, in terms of the band in question. (You can click on it to enlarge and read, if you're of a mind to.)

Anyway, as a result, I suddenly recalled the video below, which just blew me away, as I think it will you.

A latter day version of the Grape, doing business as The Moby Grape Guys, with their signature tune "Omaha" at SXSW in Austin back in 2010.

That's genius original Grape guitarist Jerry Miller stage right, and original frontman Skip Spence's son Omar channeling his dad on lead vocals and guitar on the left. If memory serves, that's also original drummer Don Stevenson (a super nice guy, BTW, who's been known to peruse our work at PowerPop on occasion) on percussion and vocals stage center.

Bottom line: if the performance above doesn't put you in seriously good spirits, it's time to check in with your physician.

I mean -- really. That's like one of the greatest rock-and-roll songs of all time, done to absolute perfection.

Make America Grape Again!!!

La Fin de La Semaine Essay Question: Special "In Search of Leo Gorcey” Edition

Okay -- this is just too cool for words.

The short version: Cherry Red Records -- pretty much the hippest rock reissue label on the planet -- is assembling a three CD box set whose theme is Stuff and Records Having to Do With People Who Played at CBGBs in NYC in the Mid to Late 70s.

And somehow, the people putting this project together had not only heard of the 1976 indie single my old band The Hounds -- who did in fact play at CBs a couple of times, including opening for a pre-stardom Blondie -- put out back in the day...

...but they figured it was catchy/historically important enough to include in said forthcoming package.

They're using the A-side, thankfully...

...which was recorded at Electric Lady Studios circa 1975. Attentive readers will recall that story, which involves a cameo by Ron Wood of The Rolling Stones.

In any event, said CBGBs box set is apparrently scheduled for release sometime late this year, and I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, that leads to the business at hand. To wit:

...and your favorite (or least favorite) Bowery band (or album track/single by an artist associated however tenuously with the CBGBs New York downtown scene of the '70s) is...?

In case you're wondering, my favorite folks from out of that gestalt is/are, hands down, the great Mink DeVille. If you don't know from them, I'm not going to get into their history right now, but there's a new documentary about them that should be available for streaming momentarily. (Also, get me drunk and I'll tell you an amazing story about my encounter with frontman and auteur Willy DeVille at the offices of Atlantic Records in 1981. It's hilarious and creepily terrifying.)

But my favorite single track, however, (and yeah, yeah, I know about Talking Heads, Ramones, etc etc) has got to be this power pop gem -- from the unjustly critically pooh-poohed Live at CBGBs album -- by the unjustly forgotten Laughing Dogs.

God, I love that song. It's like the Brill Building meets the Lovin' Spoonful and Steely Dan and then they all go to Schrafts for lunch.

I should add that the Dogs also get points for having had the funniest album cover of all time.

Discuss.

I.e., rant away while I'm gone.

And have a fantastic weekend, everybody!!!

Your Thursday Moment of Why Didn't I Get the Memo? (An Occasional Series)

From 1966, please enjoy (arguably the inventors of Power Pop) The Who and their astonishing cover of The Everly Brothers(!)' 1964 "The Man With the Money."

Dunno how I'd missed that previously; it appeared for the first time on the super expanded version of the A Quick One album in 1995, and I was alive back then. In any event, I must confess that I was totally unaware of it until I stumbled across it by chance yesterday.

Wow.

Meanwhile, here's the Everly's (slightly differently titled) original which I just looked up. Don and Phil wrote the song, BTW.

I dunno how I missed that one either.

Have I mentioned wow?

Hope I Die Before I Get Old -- Hey, Wait a Minute! No I Don't!!!!

So Suzi Quatro turned 74(!) last Monday. I was gonna make note of it here at the appropriate time, but I'm older than she is and it slipped my senile mind. Mea culpa.

That said, and I originally posted about this here several years ago, I bring the whole thing up because in honesty I was never particularly impressed with Quatro back in her early 70s glam-rock stardom period. Although in retrospect a lot of her records -- which were hits pretty much everywhere in the civilized world except the USA -- were actually pretty good.

To me, though -- and I say this despite the fact that my first ex-wife was a refugee from the Detroit rock scene and had lots of funny true stories about Suzi and the rest of her Motor City colleagues -- the only reasons I ever particularly took notice of her at all was because a) her name actually was Suzi Q (c'mon -- how cool is that?); b) she played Leather Tuscadero, the sister of Fonzie's girlfriend Pinky, on Happy Days ; and c) there was a credible rumor going around that she (Suzi) and Rick Derringer were in fact the same person.

Seriously -- did YOU ever see the two of them in the same room at the same time?

I think not.

In any case, I knew that Suzi -- and pretty much the rest of her immediate family -- had been in an all-girl 60s Detroit garage band called The Pleasure Seekers in those pre-stardom days...

...but I'd totally forgotten that the Pleasure Seekers had released a single (in either 1965 or 1966) that may in fact be the most astounding piece of garage rock ever waxed.

Ladies and germs -- behold in breathless wonder "What a Way to Die."

In case you can't quite make out the lyrics through the low-fi mono murk, Suzi is sending the following tender blandishments toward a potential lover (and Iggy, eat your heart out).

Well I love you baby
I’m telling you right here
But please don’t make me decide baby
Between you and a bottle of beer.

Baby come on over
Come on over to my side
Well I may not live past twenty-one
but WOO!
What a way to die!

Your lovin' fluctuates baby
And everybody knows
But the temperature always stays the same
On an ice cold bottle of Strohs

When I start my drinking
My baby throws a fit
So I just blitz him outta my mind
With seventeen bottles of Schlitz

You’ve got the kind of body
That makes me come alive
But I’d rather have my hands around
A bottle of Colt 45

Baby come on over
Come on over to my side
Well I may not live past twenty-one
but WOO!
What a way to die!

WOO?

In a word -- wow.

Yes, obviously, on some level the song and the record are kind of a joke. As anybody who ever went to a high school dance back then knows, the Pleasure Seekers probably didn't really want to die before they got old, i,e, before they got laid a lot.

But still...that kind of gonzo nihilism, even if it was a pose they barely understood, was not only unprecedented for a bunch of suburban adolescent gals, but also, clearly, a huge influence in all sorts of unexpected ways on the rest of rock history.

Speaking of which, I think we need to research whether the song's lyrical mention of Strohs, Schlitz and Colt 45 was some kind of innovative product placement or just alcoholic bravado.

Tomorrow: that cool new power pop song I promised you guys yesterday. Sorry for the delay.

Is It a Good Day for Byrds News? Part Deux: The Folk Process at Work

Okay, for starters -- my apologies; I know I was supposed to put up a zip file link with all the music from the Byrds-ish CD that accompanies this months' MOJO today --

-- but for the life of me I can't figure out how to do it. Sorry to be a tease, but I promise -- I'm gonna make it my project for the next couple of days. I mean, there's a shitload of music I've always wanted to be able to post here for you fine folks, and I really should get on the ball.

That taken care of, here's a fun sort of Byrds-themed mini-playlist you might enjoy.

We begin with -- and this version, which appears on the aforementioned MOJO CD, was heretofore unheard by me-- a performance of "Kız Çocuğu" ("The Girl Child"), the classic anti-war poem by Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet originally written sometime in the early post-War era.

Hikmet was an interesting guy, BTW -- very political in a lefty sort of way, and frequently in trouble with the right-wing Turkish dictatorships of his day. He's apparently now considered quite the hero in his home country; you can find out more about him over HERE. In case you don't speak Turkish (cue The Firesign Theater) the poem itself conveys a plea for peace from a seven-year-old girl who perished in the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

We then move to 1952, when Pete Seeger set an English translation of the poem to the melody of an old Scottish Child ballad (first anthologized circa 1860), and called it "I Come and Stand at Every Door."

Here's the original folk song, courtesy of Joan Baez...

...and here's Seeger's adaptation of it and the Hikmet poem.

Are we getting exhausted yet?

Anyway, in 1966, The Byrds -- remember them? -- covered it on (my personal fave of their albums) Fifth Dimension. I still remember the first time I heard it; suffice it to say the original folk song had been a huge influence on me (I actually wrote a solo piano semi-classical adaptation of it in 8th grade) and hearing it with those metallic folk-rock guitars and that brilliant David Crosby harmony on the last verse just completely blew me away.

Have I mentioned the song was a complete and total cultural touchstone for me? To the point where, in 2019, when I got a chance to make my first solo single, I decided to cover it as the A-side?

Man -- what a great idea. A deeply depressing song about a kid burned to a crisp in a nuclear attack. Talk about No Commercial Potential.

Anyway, I'll spare you most of the other extant versions, although I will say that the 1997 take by vastly overrated Brit punk poseurs The Fall...

...is not merely awful, but a crime against humanity in its own right.

Coming tomorrow: Actual upbeat melodic new music more appropriate to the theme of the blog you're reading.

Is It a Good Day for Byrds News? It's ALWAYS a Good Day for Byrds News!

[Acknowledgements to the great Charles Pierce for the title of today's post. -- S.S.]

So there's a really nice cover story about my all-time fave band just out in the July issue of MOJO. Complete with a smartly programmed accompanying CD as a bonus.

I don't see MOJO as often as I used to, alas, for the simple and infuriating reason that I haven't been able to find an actual magazine stand that features it in NYC for what seems like years now. Anybody else having a similar problem where they are?

In any case, from that aforementioned CD, here's the irrepressible Dinosaur Jr. with their balls-to-the-wall yet still very effective cover of the feathered ones classic "Feel a Whole Lot Better."

From the CD liner notes (which are actually in the magazine, not on the CD sleeve):

A bratty 1989 tear through Gene Clark's beautiful song; J. Mascis later admitted he found The Byrds "too wimpy" and was not a fan at the time of recording. Nevertheless, Dinosaur jr.'s full-throttle version shows how robustly Byrds songs can not just withstand irreverent treatment, but also showcase much noisier guitar innovators.

Mascis found The Byrds "too wimpy"? Really?

I knew there was a reason I never particularly cared for that pretentious punk-snob putz when his band was fashionable. (I keed, I keed!)

Anyway, the MOJO story is well-worth reading for Byrds fans of any age or musico-ideological stripe, and the CD -- which has a lot of interesting oddities, including one in Turkish (about which I will have more to say tomorrow) -- is definitely worth a listen. If I can figure out the tech issues, I'll see if I can post a link to a zip file of the disc as well.

The Greatest Weekend Listomania of All Times: Special "I've Wanted to Do This For Years and Years" Edition

Okay, as you may have heard, Apple Music has just posted a list of what are supposed to be the Best Albums Ever Made.

To predictable outrage from the sort of people that take this kind of online shit seriously and should know better. Myself included.

In the Apple Top Ten?

Six words. Lauryn. Hill. Frank. Ocean. Kendrick. Lamar.

I mean, gimme a fucking break.

Seriously, look I know, these lists are nothing but clickbait, and this one is no more ridiculous than any other one. And yeah, it's a generation gap thing, and there's no accounting for taste, and fuck you boomers, and blah blah blah.

That said, there actually are, objectively, records that should be on a list like the above, and I happen to be an expert in this regard.

So here they are, in this blog's traditional Weekend Listomania form, and after you've perused them you can nominate your own, which I will doubtless have nothing but justified scorn for, you morons.

To wit:

All-Time Best Post-WWII Records Ever Recorded -- In Any Genre!!!

As you can see, there are no arbitrary rules. Oh wait -- fuck that laissez-faire shit.

Sorry...no hiphop/indie rock/Phillip Glass or Steve Reich-ian Minimalist shit/Taylor Swift albums -- or anything from the 21st century -- need apply. Because obviously all of that sucks*.

On the other hand: If you want to nominate a dopey novelty single, go for it. What the hell do I care?

Okay -- and my totally top of my head Top Ten is...

[*The following list is only partially meant tongue-in-cheek. Just so we're clear. -- S.S.]

10. Miles Davis/Gil Evans -- Sketches of Spain (Columbia, 1960)

Ahh, Miles. If ever a dude bopped in from an alternate universe, it was him.

9. The Firesign Theater -- Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers (Columbia, 1970)

The Beatles of comedy? Uh, yeah. This album is that good.

8. Alex North -- Spartacus (The Sound Track Album) (Decca, 1960)

Have I mentioned that Alex North may have been one of the greatest American composers of the second half of the 20th Century? And if you don't believe it, dig the Spartacus main title above.

7. Nervous Norvus -- Transfusion (Dot, 1956)

Rockabilly meets the Age of Anxiety and then they all go to Golden Corral for lunch.

6. Marty Robbins -- Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (Columbia, 1959)

For the proto-leather bar album cover alone, although the uncut version of "El Paso" is also great when you want to signal your party guests to go home.

5. Bidu Sayao and Heitor Villa-Lobos -- Bachianas Brasileira No. 5/Cantilena (Columbia, 1952)

A chick singer, a small string section and a haunting melody. This is the hit that every bad prog band has been chasing since forever. And please -- don't give me any of that Joan Baez shit because I don't want to hear about it.

I should add that I actually had the original LP version. Love that album sleeve.

And if memory serves it was a ten-inch, if you'll pardon the expression. Heh.

4. Dennis Brain and the Philharmonia Orchestra with Herbert Von Karajan -- Mozart Horn Concertos (EMI, 1953)

Hey -- apart from the fact that his playing (and not just of Mozart) was virtuosic and meltingly gorgeous, his last name was actually freaking Brain. Sheesh. There isn't a rock star ever who wouldn't have killed to be able to pull that off.

3. The Singing Dogs -- Jingle Bells (RCA, 1955)

Inter-species music making. Obviously, it doesn't get any better.

2. B. B. King -- Live at the Regal (ABC, 1964)

Everybody, by which I mean rock critics, agrees this is the greatest blues album ever made, and yet none of them (including me) has ever bothered to listen to it. How cool is that?

And the most significant thing ever recorded down through the echoing corridors of time and even into the far distant future (if any) unmistakably is...

1. Tonio K. -- Life in the Foodchain (Columbia, 1978)

C'mon -- like you (and especially long-time readers) didn't see that coming FROM A MILE AWAY DOWN BROADWAY?

Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be? (Don't worry -- they can't possibly be sillier than the some of the ones on the Apple list).

And have the most transplendent weekend in world history, everybody!!!

Closed for Transplendently Brilliant Monkey Business

Hard at work on Friday's Weekend Listomania, which will be beyond the pale of human experience great and I am not exaggerating. In fact, that's a hint to the theme of the thing.

See you tomorrow!!!!

If It's Wednesday, There Must Be a Stairway to Heaven

From 1989 or '90, and the Australian comedy talk show show The Money or the Gun, please enjoy highly fetching Sydney-based New Wave/power popsters The Whipper Snappers and their adorable take on that insufferable Led Zeppelin classic.

The show must have been a lot of fun, BTW.

Each week a guest would perform their own version of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". Versions would occasionally tie in with the theme of the episode ("Guns - the Musical" had a Broadway-style version by Jodie Gilles as the conclusion, while the episode on Australian Comedy had the Doug Anthony All Stars performing it with the assistance of Barry Crocker) but the most surprising of all was the version by Rolf Harris which eventually reached number 7 on the UK singles chart. Generally the performance of "Stairway" would be a break in the program and the artists would have no other part in the program. The CD release won an Aria Award in Australia in 1993 and was subsequently released on the Atlantic Label in the USA though truncated.

I'm told there was also a commercially available video with 27 of the STH performances, but alas, it only made it to VHS.

[h/t Peter Scott]