2 thoughts on “Night Music: Frank Black, “Hang On To Your Ego”

  1. The goofy lyrics (look who cares about lyrics all of a sudden) remind me of this Shaggs classic. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if The Shaggs were greatly influenced by Brian Wilson. I’m dead serious about that.

    http://youtu.be/hxPsXPCR5MU

  2. First off, I cannot believe the Shaggs vid. For one thing, I cannot keep time to it to save my life. Not that it is bad: just hard to lock into. Second, this surely is definitive of finding “remnants of rock.”

    Second, I LOVE Frank Black., In fact, I wrote about the Pixies and his solo stuff just about a year ago.

    And, this song is the bomb.

    Oddly, over the week, when we were up at the lake, we watched a 1976 (second season) SNL in which Jodie Foster hosted (hot off “Taxi Driver”) and Brian Wilson was the musical guest.

    I did not remember Wilson’s performance when we watched, but to say he was awful does not really do it justice.

    For sure his voice was toast, and his band was carrying him. Which is OK I guess. Just sad.

    The first time I saw the Beach Boys, in 1963, at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium (which is where the Beach Boys Concert album was recorded, and I was at that show, too), they were still new enough that somehow I got into a receiving line after the show, and got to shake hands with all five of them.

    This song is actually the best one of the three he did (a sad Good Vibrations, and some other insipid love song where he was singing out of tune, but that vid was not to be found on youtube), but it still pretty bad for the guy who wrote “Don’t Worry Baby” and “Wouldn’t it be Nice?” among others.

    Even more pathetic, is 50 years after the Beach Boys and 20 after the Pixies, I like Frank Black a lot better than Wilson.

    http://youtu.be/ROwemzJ4tNs

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