I’m sure I’ve seen this before. Maybe I’ve even posted it, though I didn’t find it when I looked. Made me smile, so I share. Click to enlarge.
Monthly Archives: November 2014
Night Music 2: Sonic Youth, “100%”
Wading back into the Sonic Youth songbook, all the popular Sonic Youth songs actually do sound a little like Wilco, though Sonic Youth got there first.
A band that lasts the better part of 30 years has it’s different phases, so there’s more to explore than just another catchy tune that didn’t chart. This one is quintessential SY, however, from the 90s, and is not only a little rifftastic, but danged listenable.
Night Music: Sonic Youth, “Incinerate”
Peter’s post of Legs by ZZ Top prompted me to comment that if we, as humans, keep at a talent long enough, eventually the work and experience will coalesce into a representative work.
I suppose this harkens to the old give a typewriter to a monkey and eventually the ape will give you back a novel.
I don’t mean it that way, especially in the context of Sonic Youth, who have always worked to produce challenging music that pushes the bounds of art as rock.
Still, when they released their album Rather Ripped in 2006 (the band’s 14th) as the closest thing to a collection of pop tunes, the Youth finally scored a hit a la the Top with Eliminator.
I have seen the band a couple of times and while they were interesting, they were never as accessible as this. With a pair of guitar players, and a pair of bass players, no less.
Welcome to New York, Taylor Swift!
Last week Taylor Swift’s new album dropped and broke huge. She also released a video tribute to New York City, explaining why she has bought a home in New York, because those of us who live here just don’t get it.
Meantime, the lower east side documentarian Clayton Patterson uses Swift’s epistle to remind us that many other musicians and others got to New York first, and paved the way for pop’s biggest star of the moment. One of them was named G.G. Allin.
Night Music: ZZ Top, “Legs”
I spent more than few hours in the George W. Bush Airport in Houston today. Infrastructure historians know what a boondoggle that airport was. Baseball fans know that George HW Bush president, sold everything and his name, so that the airport could be built where it is. Oh, did I mention boondoggle? Which paved the way for his son to become Texas Rangers president, a taxing job, and US president, a task better outsourced to Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Breakfast Blend: Breakfast in Bed
Woke up with this bit of Dusty in Memphis, written by Eddie Hinton and Donnie Fritts for Dusty Springfield’s weird and wonderful classic, in my head.
But before I knew Dusty’s original I’d heard Lorna Bennett’s 1972 reggae version, from the This is Reggae Music Vol. 1 compilation. Those drums kill and Lorna charms.
On a later volume of This is Reggae Music there was this remix, with the toaster Scotty adding his signature to the tune, released as Skank in Bed.
Good morning.
Night Music: The Cars, “It’s All I Can Do”
It ‘s after 1 AM in Phoneix, and Shnalderfest, as Steve calls it, is nearly done.
Three days of baseball and jokes and music, spending time with my terrific mates in the baseball industry.
There are too many wonderful moments to recount, and I am ready for sleep, so I will lull off with Cars in a dreamy way.
Song of the Week – The Gouster samples, David Bowie
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
Rock and roll has a long history of albums recorded by big name acts that never saw release (except on bootlegs, of course). There was The Beach Boys’ SMiLE (but that’s now been released), The Who’s Lifehouse (though many of its songs came out on various other Who albums), The Kinks’ Four More Respected Gentlemen (most of which was released on The Village Green Preservation Society and The Kinks Kronikles) and Prince’s The Black Album (ultimately released 7 years after the originally planned release date). As you can tell, these recordings almost always eventually see the light of day.
But back in 1974-75, David Bowie was working on an album tentatively titled The Gouster. (If you want to know what a gouster is, check out this post at darkjive.com.
DarkJive.com – Gouster or Ivy Leaguer?
The Gouster may have been Bowie’s prototype for the “Thin White Duke.”
It turns out, early in the sessions, Bowie recorded about five songs in the Philly soul style that was popular at the time that never made it onto the album that was ultimately released as Young Americans. Three of them were released on either the Sound + Vision boxed set on Rykodisc (1989) or as bonus cuts on the remastered release of Young Americans (2007). They were:
– John, I’m Only Dancing
– Who Can I Be Now?
– It’s Gonna Be Me
But there were two other songs that have never been released – “I Am a Lazer” and “Shilling the Rubes.”
We only have these snippets to hear for now. Where did they come from? In 2009 a reel of tape from the sessions came up on eBay for $15,000. The seller let us “sip out of the cup” in order to validate the tape’s authenticity. The speculation has always been that Bowie bought back the tape to prevent it from being exploited.
In any case, we only have these fragments to whet our appetite for full versions sometime in the future.
Enjoy… until next week.
Night Music: Smokie, “Don’t Play Your Rock ‘n’ Roll to Me”
From Yorkshire, produced by Chapman and Chinn. New to me. Chapman and Chinn wrote hits for Suzi Quattro, Sweet and Hot Chocolate, all recently featured here.