I was parking the car when this came on WFUV, a college station with professional DJs that is currently playing a mix of album-friendly tunes from across eras and genres. Grandaddy, it turns out, got their start 30 years ago in Modesto CA and have dabbled in various indy grunge psychedelic styles ever since.
I’ve played a bunch of their music and it has a mostly muted energy but pops with clever ideas, lyrically and musically. I suspect as I listen more I’ll like some of it more, but Watercooler is immediately classic.
Though some of the links don’t work and I could not find any references to Steve Moyer’s not-DC but close band, the Forward Fashion Monkeys, this is well worth a look. It’s amazing how visceral the graphics and bandnames are. And the links that do work dig deeper and closer. And then there is the music, loud political hard not to mosh to:
A very sad and troubled obituary for the drummer Anton Fier, who lived a rocketship of a life full of celebrity and achievement but could not reach escape velocity from his own inner demons. Read it here.
I saw him live twice. He was backing the guitarist Tony Scherr in front of a crowd of maybe 30 15? people in the intimate and far from sold out Living Room on New York City’s Lower East Side. I was there because my friend Walker was a fan of Scherr, who played guitar on at least some of Norah Jones’ records. It turns out I wrote about Fier and the Golden Palominos here in 2014.
“He was playing drums because that’s what he does.” Here he is playing drums with Bill Laswell and Fred Frith in Japan in 1984, ferociously. Rest in peace.
We loved In the Hall of the Crimson King when it came out, and we love his production of the first Roche’s album, which was so gorgeously perfect it’s hard to imagine better.
So, now he’s on the road with his manager, speaking and giving Guitar Craft lessons, and he just seems like a heck of a guy. Read the interview here.
The Times screws up credit for Frippertronics, so here’s a demonstration:
In 1973 Johnny Mercer selected 1,800 pieces of vinyl for the White House with as much Pat Boone as the Beatles. Six years later John Hammond with John Lewis, Kit Rachlis, and Bob Blumenthal created a second set that included the Ramones and Parliament Funkadelic among others.
Jimmy Carter’s grandson became a little obsessed about what happened to all these disks, and tracked them down, eventually having a bit of a listening party in a White House conference room, playing I’m So Bored with the USA while President Obama governed upstairs.
This story is that story and it’s kind of neat. Read it here.
A sad occasion to remember a fine singer and excellent band.
This obit goes out of its way to credit the Saints as groundbreaking because they beat the Sex Pistols and Damned to record release, but omits all of those who came before who weren’t called punks. Seems sloppy, and does not diminish what Bailey and the Saints did.
One of the first posts here at Rock Remnants was Mike Salfino’s brilliant imagining of the album the Beatles might have made if they hadn’t broken up, based on the best songs from their initial solo albums. You can read that here.
Today I stumbled across a blogpost about a show Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe did for the BBC, playing acoustic covers of (mostly) Everly Brothers tunes as the Beverly Brothers. It’s excellent.
Paul, the creator, created scores of elpees out of material that is thematically related but was never released. The blog ended with a third album of Tom Jones duets taken from his TV show, some of which we’ve posted here through the years.
Right now I’m listening to an album of Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello demos.
The albums exist, archived on a Fileshare site called Zippyshare, which seems to be alright. At least my virus software didn’t pick anything up. It’s well worth being careful, but also well worth checking out this ambitious and accomplished project’s website.
