When I posted my top 20 Albums of All-Time, Peter was particularly affected by “More Specials.” And, bless his heart, later I found out he’s listening to the Queens “Rated R.” Thank you, Peter. Thank you. This is for you. Yes, The Specials version is much better, but I like this. Kind of like Metallica doing “Wire Out” by Supershit (which they should).
Have you guys heard of Ghost BC yet? I swear they’re gonna be a next big thing. Combining a singer with the best face paint ever and backup musicians with no names (just Nameless Ghoul number whatever) is pretty cool. Apologies to you older guys, but I still get caught up in my childhood KISS fixation with bands like this. Believe it or not, KISS was once scary and menacing (my younger brother, who is now an elementary school principal – way too much principaling in my background – was frightened by the first KISS album cover when I bought it way back in ’73) even though they’ve been family-friendly for as long as most anyone can remember. Believe me, I’m put off as you are, knowing now that Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were only out to rape me of the little money I made as a 15-year-old back in the day.
Then there was The Misfits, the KISS of punk, whom I adored. Saw them at the legendary 4th Street Saloon in Bethlehem, PA back when they were small-time. The guitarist, Bobby Steele, chucked his guitar into my friend’s leg (and it hurt!). We – as a bunch of little under-age kids (under-age kids could get into bars back then) – “hung out” with them backstage in a cramped little room where they pretty much ignored us. Saw them later at Northampton County Community College with Reagan Youth (if you want to read a f’d up story, read about their singer Dave Insurgent/Rubinstein on Wiki).
Anyway, I wanted real bad to discover something new with Ghost BC. A friend of mine introduced me to them months ago and, now since they’re getting more attention, I checked them out again. But the music is just too damn poppy. I’m the last guy for death metal and cookie monster vocals, but the music should be more menacing than this.
Oh well, the new Queens album is out now and I can’t wait to DRIVE TO THE RECORD STORE AND BUY THE CD. More on that later.
What do you think?
What does it mean? A square full of tiles. A square not quite full of tiles. A square even less full of tiles. Is it artsy? Is it fartsy? WTF?
By Michael Salfino
The Beatles are that rare group whose epic popularity is matched by the almost unreal quality of their artistic output. They broke up with these creative powers still intact.
But how long could they have continued to function artistically as the greatest band in the world? Here, we imagine (to borrow a word) the next Beatles album that never was.
There are rules by which we must abide. Everything had to be recorded by January 1971. Despite George Harrison’s rising stature as at least Lennon and McCartney’s equal at that time, we can only put two Harrison songs on the album as was the group’s long-standing agreement. We do not get the benefit of having some of the weaker material transformed by the group environment. Think of “Come Together” without the menacing groove of McCartney’s bass riff, and that was despite Lennon essentially barring McCartney from any collaboration. After a lot of thought, here are the results. We’ll call it “What is Life,” which seems an album title all the Beatles could have agreed to. And it’s another concession to Harrison’s growing creative status. (Click the tracks to hear the songs.)
Side 1, Track 1: It Don’t Come Easy. We’re cheating already. While credited to Starr, this is clearly a Harrison track. But Harrison ended up giving all the songwriting credit to Starr in reality so why wouldn’t he have done that here? Starr kicking off an album would have shocked the world, too. As would the quality of this song as opposed to his prior, mostly jokey Beatles efforts. Recorded February 1970. Highest chart position: No. 4.
Side 1, Track 2: Another Day. Written and previewed for the Let it Be sessions. Lennon would have resisted, in all likelihood. He famously blasted it in “How Do You Sleep” (“The only thing you done was Yesterday, and since you’ve gone you’re just Another Day”). But Lennon lost all these battles before (Ob La Di, Ob La Da; Maxwell’s Silver Hammer), and this song is far superior to both of them — even Lennon would have admitted that. Recorded January 1971. Highest chart position: No. 5.
Side 1, Track 3: Instant Karma. Sort of a follow-up to All You Need is Love, which has the same chord progression. The ‘50s studio sound would have stood in stark contrast to the first two tracks. Peaked at No. 3 on the charts. It’s smart and cynical, yet somehow anthemic. Recorded January 1970.
Side 1, Track 4: Junk. The Beatles passed over this song twice, once on The Beatles (The White Album) and then on Abbey Road. It’s a perfect, earthy and plaintive response to Instant Karma’s broad call for man to take responsibility for his fate. McCartney seems to be saying that our objects have meaning in the memories they’re a part of, yet we’re constantly seeking to replace them and with it, unknowingly, a piece of ourselves. Released April 1970.
Side 1, Track 5: Remember. Continuing on the idea of nostalgia, which literally translates into “the painful desire to return home.” But then at the end, Lennon literally blows up the past, so it’s unclear if he wants us to find peace in our childhood memories or whether the dreams we had and that others had for us are a weight that we must release. The staccato rhythm is like a clock ticking, relentlessly. Recorded October 1970.
Side 1, Track 6: What is Life. Despite peaking at just No. 10, this is exactly the kind of song you imagine when someone talks about a hit record. So simple yet uplifting and life affirming. Musically, it stands as an enduring testament to the Phil Spector Wall of Sound. It’s also the greatest riff Harrison ever wrote and arguably one of the best in rock history.
Side 2, Track 1: Maybe I’m Amazed.
Side 2, Track 2: Wah-Wah. Very non-Beatlesesque in how it’s about to fall apart at any moment, with the horns and guitar overdubs too numerous to count. There’s a thrill in hearing a song like this. It’s at the core of the Rolling Stones appeal, for example. Another classic Harrison riff, with another assist from Clapton. The lyric is a snipe at some of the petty business disputes that ripped the band apart (or were threatening to, in this alternate reality). Recorded Summer 1970.
Side 2, Track 3: Mother. Raw and aching. A primal scream for relief from childhood pain that never leaves us. It was somehow released as a single and actually peaked at No. 43, as a nearly four-minute festering wound. This song highlights Lennon’s amazing vocal ability. The two most underrated things about the Beatles are Lennon’s singing and McCartney’s bass playing. And Harrison, always Harrison. Recorded September 1970.
Side 2, Track 4: That Would be Something. Harriso
Side 2, Track 5: Working Class Hero. I wrote the lyrics to this song as my essay in business class when I was a senior in high school and got an A. What can you say? Lennon, post-therapy and post-drug addiction, was peaking again after a pretty quiet year (for him). This was really his last great run of songs. Recorded Fall 1970.
Side 2, Track 6: Teddy Boy. A Beatles attempt is on Anthology. In the context of this album, it’s a perfect response to Mother. Putting them right after one another is perhaps too obvious. This is C-plus McCartney material, but it’s still McCartney. Recorded originally in 1969 with the Beatles.
Side 2, Track 7: God. “God is a concept by which we measure our pain.” Talk about getting in the last word. He’ll say it again, too, in case you missed it the first time. If this is the last Beatles album, its ending is as poignant as The End: “And so dear friends, you’ll just have to carry on. The dream is over.” But there’s also the uplifting call to believe in yourself and in the love you’ve made. Another epic Lennon vocal, too.
Album grade: Are you kidding me? Five stars, easily.
The two best shows I ever saw were both the Heartbreakers. I saw all their early shows, starting with their debut with Walter Lure at CB’s in July 1975. They had played a no-one-knows gig at Coventry in Queens as a trio: Johnny, Jerry and Richard.
Truth be known, the Heartbreakers really made CBGB. By that time Television was drawing but not packing the place. No one else was even on the map, except Patti Smith who was working her way up along with Television. For the Heartbreakers debut it was packed out into the street. I got there early and sat at a front table with my buddy from work Steve, who was four years older and curious.
We saw I think six bands that night and I’m trying to remember them. Possibly Talking Heads was one but they may have opened for the Ramones about a week later. The Shirts for sure, a band called Cracked Actor, and definitely Mink DeVille. It was a great show and The Heartbreakers topped it easily, but it wasn’t their best show.
That show was their 3rd gig at CB’s, the night that they debuted their version of Love Comes in Spurts, which was eventually recorded in a much different version on the Voidoids first album. That night I went with my best friend Dee, and the two of us and the whole house were blown speechless. Maybe someone else can do it just as well but no one can do it better.
Naturally, they couldn’t get a record contract. Everyone was scared of the junk and the failure of the Dolls. Richard left the band in early 1976. Johnny, Jerry and Walter disappeared for 2-3 months and emerged with Billy Rath on bass. The Hell songs were gone and in their place were Get Off The Phone, It’s Not Enough, I Love You, All By Myself and Let Go. They gigged around a bit and went to England at the end of the year, as it happened on the very night that the Sex Pistols were on the infamous Bill Grundy Show. The Heartbreakers were on the Sex Pistols tour, along with The Clash and briefly The Damned. Briefly too because the tour only played six dates what with the threat to England of Johnny Rotten, but the boys stuck around after the tour gigging extensively all over England and even Paris.
In the summer of ’77, that anarchic summer, they came back to New York to play a long weekend at the Village Gate. No doubt me and the boys would be there. It was the week that Elvis died.
Another wild scene. I don’t mean uniforms either. What came to be “punk” fashion was much more an open question then. The looks were various and imaginative. The band was hanging out among the crowd and they looked perfect early 60s gangster, except for the hair of course (there is a Facebook page called Johnny Thunders’ Hair). It took several years for the junk to really show. Any number of members of NY bands were also there, in addition to all the band’s fans and lemme tell ya they were an active bunch. The little headline in the Daily News said “Crowd Steals Show at Heartbreakers Return.”
But not for us. The band stole the show. They came out smoking with Chinese Rocks, absolutely on the money with the hugest sound I ever heard, right into One Track Mind, and just blistered their way upward. Halfway through, Robert Gordon gets up on stage and they do Jailhouse Rock for Elvis and Be Bop a Lula. All of us walked out of there soaked and full of wonder. Actually, three of us decided that night that we were going to do this; we would make music like this. The fourth guy said “I’ll be your manager.”
