Monthly Archives: May 2015

Richard and Linda Thompson, “Wall of Death”

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Different than the metalchoreography. This was from Shoot Out The Lights, my first brush with Richard and Linda Thompson, in 1982. A breakup album, they toured together to support it and I saw them at Lone Star Cafe, when it was on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 13th Street (with the big lizard on the roof). There was palpable negative energy between them on stage, but when I hit the bathroom later they were hanging out by the Asteroids machine and there was the eau d’ herb about. I spent the next few years working slowly through the back catalog, which is uniformly fantastic, while Richard went on the rampage as a solo artist, releasing a lot of music in the 80s. But all starts here.

Lunch Break: Bob Mould, “Turning of the Tide”

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Peter’s fine Bob Mould post reminded me of…Bob Mould.

Like Steve I was a fan of Husker Du, and then Sugar, but I was more than surprised when Mould appeared as a contributor to Beat the Retreat, a compilation/tribute (ugh, I hate that word in this context) to guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson.

I am pretty out there as a huge Thompson fan. He is my favorite live performer and songwriter, and well, he was my favorite guitar player till I got turned on to Bill Frisell and appreciated Mick Ronson as much as I do now. Still top three with some pretty good company.

Anyway, Mould covers this fine Thompson tune, and kills on guitar, but he also really nails the timbre of Thompson’s voice. Best of all, I found a couple of other Mould covers of Thompson, so more to come!

Bob Mould, Tomorrow Morning and Kid With a Crooked Face

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I missed this loud performance of new songs on David Letterman last February. There is something tonic in hearing this much noise on mainstream TV, even if Mould’s melodies are so narrow that it’s hard to tell where one song starts and the other begins.

And that bass solo sounds a little too much like the theme from Friends for comfort, but the rest is as comfortably loud as Danzig on Mothers Day.

Breakfast Blend: Wilco (and the BileTones), “Outtasite (Outta Mind)”

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I am a big fan of the Chicago-based band, Wilco, in fact their fantastic Yankee Hotel Foxtrot made my essentials list.

The wonderful thing about Yankee Hotel is that it was recorded when the band was signed to Sony Records, and they delivered the album which Sony determined was “unlistenable,” so the the brains at Sony rejected the disc and released Wilco from their contract.

Undaunted, the band toured, performing songs from the album, looking for a new deal. During their road adventures, the band delivered the same buzz that got them signed in the first place (well, that and they formed out of the terrific Uncle Tupelo so that helped), and suddenly there was a bidding war which was won by Interscope records who gave the band a $200,000 signing bonus.

Yankee Hotel went on to become a critics fave, much to the chagrin of Sony, but the real beauty is that Interscope is owned by Sony, meaning they paid another $200K to be able to release the album they rejected in the first place.

Ah, sweet karma.

But, this tune is from the band’s fine Being There disc, and it totally rocks. In fact, the BileTones are such Wilco fans that we have a half-dozen of their songs on our ever growing set list, and always play two or three per show.

And, of all those songs, Outtasite is a mainstay.

So, first, here is the band killing it on Letterman.

And, for fun, here are the Tones at Raymond’s in Cazadero, Ca, near the Russian River.

Happy Mother’s Day: Lucinda Williams, “Lake Charles”

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OK, this song has nothing to do with Mother’s Day, and it is not particularly upbeat, but, it has great guitar, it is Lucinda, and I figure Gene will love the line “..in a yellow El Camino, listening to Howlin’ Wolf.”

I do love Lucinda (she is in the Chrissie Hynde please walk on me with spiky heels club in my not-so-secret-diary of wishes). Saw her once, long ago, and would be happy to again.

Happy Mother’s Day all!

Song of the Week – Waiting for the Sun, The Doors

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

I’ve always found it interesting when a band names an album after a song that’s not on that album, but on an earlier or later disc. The most famous example of this is Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. That was the name of their fifth album, but the song by that name was on their next – Physical Graffiti.

The first example of this disconnect that I noticed was with The Bee Gees. Their first album, Bee Gees’ 1st (1967), contained a song called “Cucumber Castle.” They later used that name for their 1970 album.

There are further examples of this throughout rock history.

Artist / Title / Album Song Appears On
Elvis Costello / Almost Blue (1981) / Imperial Bedroom (1982)
Tom Waits / Frank’s Wild Years (1987) / Swordfishtrombones (1983)
Smithereens / Especially For You (1986) / Green Thoughts (1988)

Today’s SotW is The Doors “Waiting for the Sun” from their fifth album, Morrison Hotel (1970).

The name of that song was also used as the title for their 1968 album release. The story goes that the band worked on the song for their third album but didn’t like the way it came out. Funny then that they still wanted to name the album after a song that didn’t make the cut.

Thankfully they continued to work on it and came up with a gem for Morrison Hotel a couple of years later.

Can you come up with any other examples? (Greatest hits compilations and live albums don’t count.)

Enjoy… until next week.

Hot Chocolate/Stories, “Brother Louie”

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It was the cover of this tune, by Stories, that was a big hit in the US in 1973. The arrangements of the songs are different. Hot Chocolate has more of a soul feel, with flangy guitars and strings, while Stories rocks the guitars more, but the biggest difference in this story of interracial love is the point of view.

Hot Chocolate wrote the song, so you have to give their version primacy. In Hot Chocolate’s version, contrasting vignettes of Louie and his gal at their respective parents’ homes, and their fathers’ spoken word intolerance demonstrate that there is no difference between black and white in the worst possible way.

Stories version changes the story, as it were. Louie brings his black gal home and there is some kind of unspecified scene. That’s it. Gone is the equal opportunity prejudice, as well as the strings and the spoken word. In Stories’ version the white parents are the bad guys, in a vague way, and they shouldn’t be. You know what I mean?

I remember at the time hearing that this song was an answer song to Richard Berry’s Louie Louie, which is apparently not true.

Louie C.K. adopted Brother Louie as the theme song for his show, Louie, in which he plays a dad in an interracial marriage that is now defunct. Interestingly, the show uses the Hot Chocolate arrangement of the song, with vocals by Stories’ Ian Lloyd.