Author Archives: Gene McCaffrey

Hear It Anew

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Never thought of this as a rocknroll song but they rock the shit out of it. I heard that Keith wasn’t happy with this song in particular and that’s why the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus was never aired. Typical musician. Embrace the garage, Keith.

Also notable in that Brian Jones is still around. Maybe Keith was pissed because the camera is on Jones when Keith is playing.

Roots

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Have we done anything on murder songs? We should. This one isn’t exactly murder but the threat is refreshingly explicit.

I wonder how many real murders have been directly – inspired isn’t quite the word here – influenced shall we say – by songs? It must have happened a few times. Music has been a major player in various murder cults of course, and war of course, but individuals who committed murder under the influence of a song – how rare is that? Inquiring minds want to know.

Anyway, Sonny Boy II has his very own blues style, and I happen to think that he’s one of the greatest singers ever, not to mention maybe the best harp player, both instantly recognizable at any rate, and his band swings the blues good.

 

Straddling Lines

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Part of the fun and most of the drawback in writing about music is finding comps. Tracing the roots and the blending of styles is a great game, but it tends to rob the artists of their own identities. The more traditional the music the harder it is to escape the trap in print. The J. Geils Band, George Thorogood, ZZ Top – I mean, they were all really popular but not critically respected. Mink DeVille was another, not as successful but they could have been. The big critics hardly wrote about them. Christgau dismissed them with faint praise as genre-mongers, Greil Marcus never heard of them (or the Dolls or the Heartbreakers either, he probably hated Humble Pie and The Stooges too). I don’t think Lester Bangs said anything. Only Robert Palmer ever gave them their due: “Mr. DeVille is a magnetic performer, but his macho stage presence camouflages an acute musical intelligence; his songs and arrangements are rich in ethnic rhythms and blues echoes, the most disparate stylistic references, yet they flow seamlessly and hang together solidly. He embodies (New York’s) tangle of cultural contradictions while making music that’s both idiomatic, in the broadest sense, and utterly original.”

Something very few if any critics ever say: these guys rock. It’s the crucial datum scrupulously avoided.

Mink DeVille was one of the few real rocknroll bands in the early CB’s/Max’s scene. They opened for The Heartbreakers many times and always knocked us out.

As Palmer noted, they straddled genre lines. This song has John Lee Hooker and rockabilly and Aftermath but is a thing of its own. It’s not even their best song but I’ll hear it out every time.

 

Political Song with no illusions

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I can’t get away from all this political bullshit – yeah, “both” “sides”  – so might as well join in. I represent the Reverb Party. I might have posted this before but I love it because it rocks LAMF AND it’s pop. And the words that I can understand are great. I don’t want to understand all the words at first, it’s better when you discover them gradually. It took me 25 years to figure out that Jagger was saying “burns like a red coal carpet” in the 2nd verse of Gimme Shelter. I never looked at a lyric sheet, which are often wrong anyway, especially with the Stones and others who are hard to decipher.

 

There’s Great And There’s Uniquely Great

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I first heard this in the summer of 1969 but it was released in March of 1967. A few months before Sgt. Pepper. The big songs in March 1967 were Ruby Tuesday, Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields, and Happy Together. The Supremes’ Love is Here and Now You’re Gone also made it to #1 and is a better record than any of them but that’s another story.

Denise Fumo of all people introduced me to Heroin. I was 14 and madly in love with Denise but she only liked me as a friend. I was ready for some miserable music. Denise had many older boys in pursuit including the lifeguards, one of whom played it for her, and by the way that’s what I call sophisticated pickup technique. Denise was floored, bought it and played it for me, and thus I learned that there was more to this music thing than I thought.

Anyway, this song is every bit a product of 1967 as the others. And you Sgt. Pepper fans, which sounds more visionary now? Heroin by a mile.

Another thing is that Lou Reed covered the song more times than he could count, and he never came close to playing this song. That’s because of Mo Tucker and John Cale and Sterling Morrison. We used to play it in practice in Fun No Fun and did good things with it but not like this.