Author Archives: Tom Muscarella

Song of the Week – New York Groove, Ace Frehley & Hello

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As 2025 came to a close, I found myself reflecting on the loss of so many important rock figures.  There were major stars like Brian Wilson, Sly Stone, and Ozzy Osbourne — and then there were countless others whose passing quietly marked the end of particular musical eras.  This article from the New York Times covers it very well:

NYT – The Musicians We Lost in 2025

This post is meant to recognize one of them: Ace Frehley of Kiss, who died in October 2025.

Back at the height of Kiss’s popularity in the 1970s, I didn’t think much of the band. Authenticity mattered more to me than spectacle.  I gravitated toward artists in denim and flannel — the Allman Brothers, Neil Young, Creedence — not makeup and costumes.

Over time, though, I’ve come to appreciate the music Kiss made, once I learned to set aside my long-held disdain for the over-the-top showmanship. Strip away the fire and greasepaint, and there was solid rock craft underneath.

Today’s Song of the Week is a Kiss-adjacent track: “New York Groove,” from Frehley’s eponymous 1978 solo album.  Released as a single, it climbed to #13 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“New York Groove” was written by Russ Ballard, a prolific songwriter whose résumé includes hits for Three Dog Night, Hot Chocolate, Santana, Rainbow, and others.  Ballard was also a singer and guitarist in Argent — that’s him on lead vocal on “Hold Your Head Up” — and he maintained a long creative relationship with Roger Daltrey.

What many listeners don’t realize is that Frehley’s version was actually a cover.  The song was first released in 1975 by the British glam rock band Hello.  Their version reached #9 on the UK charts but failed to chart in the U.S., which likely explains why it’s been largely forgotten on this side of the Atlantic.

Still, Frehley’s version is the better one.  It opens with a crisp drum intro before his guitars kick in, locking into a Bo Diddley–style beat.  The chorus features unexpectedly sweet harmonies, and while the arrangement stays fairly close to Hello’s original, Frehley brings more swagger. It’s smoother, less plodding.

Frankly, it would be a lot more fun if this were the song played at Yankees games instead of “New York, New York.”

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Do You Remember That, Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby

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Wreckless Eric (born Eric Goulden) made his reputation with “Whole Wide World,” a 1977 single released on England’s Stiff Records and featured on the label’s influential sampler A Bunch of Stiff Records.

Amy Rigby is an American singer-songwriter known for her bracingly direct lyrics about sex, love, and relationships.  Despite years of critical acclaim, she has never achieved widespread commercial popularity.

The two first crossed paths in 2000, when Rigby performed “Whole Wide World” at the Bull Hotel in Hull.  They reconnected four years later at a Yo La Tengo show in New Jersey, eventually marrying in 2008 and beginning a fruitful musical partnership soon after.

Between 2008 and 2012, they released three full-length albums together, each stronger than the last.  The final entry in that trilogy, A Working Museum, earned an A+ rating from the famously exacting critic Robert Christgau in 2012.  He singled out Rigby’s “Do You Remember That” as, perhaps, the love song of the year.

The autobiographical song opens with lyrics that are both tender and perfectly timed:

It was a cold December night
I was sorting out my life
You were headed for a mess
But you didn’t know it yet
As I pushed in through crowd
You were turning your amp up loud
Then our eyes met
Do you remember that?

From there, Rigby adds detail upon detail, small moments accumulating until the full picture comes into focus: a love story that leads, improbably and joyfully, to marital bliss.

Musically, the song bounces along on a strummed acoustic guitar and a simple electronic drum beat.  It gradually builds with harmony vocals and Eric’s fuzzy guitar lick, tastefully enhanced by judicious feedback.

As we reach the end of another cold, rainy December, it’s hard to imagine anything better than a charming love song like this to draw the holiday season to a close.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Au Pays du Cocaine, Geese

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Knowing my taste for contemporary music leans toward indie rock, my daughter and one of her best friends recently suggested that I listen to Geese.  They were confident I’d like what I heard. So, I did — and they were right.

Brooklyn-based Geese released their latest album, Getting Killed, last September.  Wikipedia’s list of their influences includes “the Velvet Underground, Television, the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Radiohead, Women, Deerhunter, Animal Collective, Ween, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Harry Nilsson, the Beatles and Funkadelic.”  These are all bands I love, and most have already been featured in a Song of the Week post.

The track that keeps me coming back is “Au Pays du Cocaine”.

A key feature of the cut is lead singer Cameron Winter’s gentle baritone.  Many reviewers compare his voice to Thom Yorke (Radiohead) or Mick Jagger.  To my ear, it sits closer in timber to Bill Callahan (Smog and solo): grounded, unhurried, and quietly expressive.

A simple piano-led motif and chiming guitar riff ride atop a steady rhythm track that gradually builds toward an energetic, atmospheric climax, without ever losing its emotional restraint.

The song’s title is a wordplay riff on the medieval myth of “The Land of Cockaigne” (Het Luilekkerland in Dutch), an imaginary realm of abundance, ease, and excess.  Geese intentionally mangle this idea into mock-French, using it as a metaphor for a relationship built on unconditional acceptance.  The narrator offers himself as a stable home base for a lover who needs the freedom to wander, evolve, and explore — with the reassurance that returning is always an option.

Like a sailor in a big green boat
Like a sailor in a big green coat
You can be free
You can be free and still come home

Getting Killed landed in the Top 5 on many year-end “Best of 2025” lists.  Mojo placed it at #32, Pitchfork at #7, and Rolling Stone at #5. Not bad for an up-and-coming group — and even better when your kid turns out to be right!

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – I Surrender, Eddie Holman

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Eddie Holman scored a #2 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 with the soul classic “Hey There Lonely Girl”, delivered in his trademark falsetto.  That success, unfortunately, has landed him in the dubious category of a “one-hit wonder.” It’s a shame, because Holman recorded several other tracks that deserve far more attention.

One standout example is “I Surrender”, the B-side to a 1969 single “I Love You”.

“I Surrender” packs two minutes of upbeat, danceable rhythm, punctuated by bright horns, and lush, Philly-soul strings.  It’s a bona fide floorshaker.  Holman’s vocal gliding easily between his ringing falsetto and his rich tenor.

The song’s staying power is undeniable: over the years it has become a Northern Soul favorite in UK dance clubs, landing on numerous compilations devoted to the genre.  Even the collectors’ market tells the story — original 45 RPM copies are currently available through Discogs for $60 – $271 – further proof of its enduring appeal.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Try Not to Breathe, R.E.M.

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This past week has been very difficult. A loved one was hospitalized, took a turn for the worse, entered hospice, and passed away last Monday.

Because I tend to live my life in song, my thoughts quickly went to R.E.M.’s “Try Not to Breathe” from Automatic for the People (1992).

Michael Stipe’s lyric is written from the perspective of someone on their deathbed, contemplating their final moments after choosing hospice rather than life-support machines.  Unable to communicate, the dying person’s internal thoughts are revealed:

I will try not to breathe
I can hold my head still with my hands at my knees
These eyes are the eyes of the old, shiver and fold

I will try not to breathe
This decision is mine
I have lived a full life
And these are the eyes that I want you to remember, oh

I need something to fly over my grave again
I need something to breathe

I will try not to burden you
I can hold these inside
I will hold my breath
Until all these shivers subside
Just look in my eyes

I will try not to worry you
I have seen things that you will never see
Leave it to memory me
I shudder to breathe

Stipe has said that the song was inspired by witnessing his grandmother’s death.

In addition to Stipe’s lyrics, the other band members contributed beautifully to the poignancy of the track.  Guitarist Peter Buck plays the dulcimer, giving the song its distinctive, trembling texture.  Bassist Mike Mills added a gorgeous countermelody, coming in at about 1:50.  In an interview with Devon Ivie of New York magazine, Mills recalled:

“So the countermelody I sing on “Try Not to Breathe” is one of my favorites because everybody else left. I’m in the studio and looking in the control room — I know there’s something that’s going to be good in this spot of the song. I try all these different things and I’m not finding it. And then I hit the right thing and I locked eyes with Scott McCaughey from 40 feet away. We just both knew that was the direction. It was very thrilling to have that moment.”

The song captures, with startling empathy, the anxiety and clarity that might fill the mind of someone living through their final moments on earth. It is both tremendously sad and quietly comforting.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Don’t Go, Hothouse Flowers

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Formed in 1985, the Irish rockers—whose sound carried a heavy dose of gospel and soulful uplift — burst onto the scene after years spent busking on the streets of Dublin. Their rise was accelerated by the enthusiastic support of fellow countrymen U2, who championed the band early on.

Their first single, “Don’t Go,” became an instant favorite at home, climbing to #2 on the Irish Singles Chart in consecutive years (1987 and 1988). While it failed to make an impact on the Billboard Hot 100, the song found an American foothold on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, where it reached a respectable #7.

“Don’t Go” is a celebration of life’s simple joys — love, companionship, and the quiet beauty of everyday moments. Its lyrics evoke a serene, sun-dappled world filled with fresh-cut grass, blossoms in bloom, children playing on the beach, and drivers smiling as they pass by. At its heart is a plea to linger in these fleeting moments with the people who matter most, underscored by the recurring, gently urgent refrain: “Don’t go.”

Musically, the track rides a strong, infectious groove, propelled by earnest energy and lifted by a cool, melodic saxophone break that gives it its distinctive character.

The band’s short ‘80s popularity was so pervasive that they were featured on numerous charity compilation albums (Greenpeace Rainbow Warriors) and CD samplers (Details Music Matters series).

Earlier this year, Cherry Red Records released Hothouse Flowers – The Older We Get – The London Years, an expansive overview of the band’s seminal recordings. It’s a welcome opportunity to revisit a group whose early work remains vibrant, soulful, and unjustly overlooked.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Second Choice, Any Trouble

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In 1980, Any Trouble — a Manchester pub-rock quartet fronted by Clive Gregson — released their debut album, Where Are All the Nice Girls? on the iconoclastic Stiff Records.  At the time, it failed to chart.  Yet, like a vinyl buried in a dusty crate, it has since emerged as a power-pop classic.

One spin of the opening track, the standout “Second Choice,” makes it clear why.

On first listen, it’s hard not to hear echoes of Elvis Costello — the vocal inflection, the nervous energy, the incisive regret.  Critics at the time weren’t shy about the comparison, and Gregson’s bespectacled appearance only reinforced it.  The comparison is undeniable, but it hardly counts as a slight; after all, Costello was at the height of his powers during that era.

The production of the album, handled by John Wood (best known for his work with Nick Drake and Richard Thompson), gives the record a clarity and timelessness.  According to Gregson, Wood helped shape the arrangements without chasing trends — recording the LP in roughly three weeks, they captured a rawness and freshness that still carries decades later.

One of the more unexpected inclusions on the album is a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Growing Up”, perhaps a nod to their origins as a covers band.

Gregson himself went on to provide backing vocals on Richard and Linda Thompson’s exceptional Shoot Out the Lights, which led to further collaborations with Richard Thompson on Across the Crowded Room.

Listening to Where Are All the Nice Girls? today, you feel both the earnestness of a band learning its wings and the weight of unfulfilled promise.  Gregson may have sung about being “second choice,” but in the long arc of pop history, this album feels anything but.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Forever Never Ends, Jeff Tweedy

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Jeff Tweedy, of Wilco, is a remarkably prolific songwriter.  Since 1995, he has released 14 studio albums with the band, along with four solo records — one each year from 2017 through 2020.  He’s also penned material for the three albums he produced with Mavis Staples and contributed songs for Sukierae (2014), his collaboration with his son Spencer.

Even by those standards, Tweedy has outdone himself with the September release of his latest solo project, Twilight Override — asprawling triple album featuring 30 new songs.

One highlight, “Forever Never Ends,” revisits his high school prom night — though the tale may be at least partly fictional — and ends with him puking Peppermint Schnapps and calling his father for an embarrassing rescue.

On the side of the road
In a tuxedo
Three below zero
In a red cummerbund

I had to call my Dad
I knew he’d be mad
I’d never seen him not mad
Vomit in the frozen grass

Peppermint Schnapps
Well, here come the cops
They don’t even stop
Oh, there they go

Musically, it’s a simple, catchy alt-country/Americana number — very much in the vein of Neil Young’s more country-leaning moments.  But when the chorus arrives, the volume swells, and a jagged guitar solo cuts through the mix, giving the tune an unexpected edge.

As triple albums go, it’s too early to know whether Twilight Override will take its place alongside the giants — All Things Must Pass by George Harrison, the Grateful Dead’s Europe ’72, or the Clash’s Sandinista! — but it’s a bold statement that demands attention.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Cultura e Civilização, Gal Costa

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Gal Costa was part of Brazilian Tropicália royalty.  In her youth, she befriended Sandra and Andréia Gadelha, whom she considered her “sisters.”  These sisters in spirit would later marry two of Brazil’s most important musicians: Sandra wed Gilberto Gil, and Andréia (known as Dedé) married Caetano Veloso.  Through these friendships, Gal was drawn into the same creative orbit as Veloso, Gil, and Maria Bethânia (Caetano’s sister), forging deep personal and artistic bonds.

In Bahia’s vibrant 1960s music scene, such childhood and teenage friendships often blossomed into lifelong collaborations.  They created what could only be described as a musical family—shared ideals, movements, and artistic experiments that blurred the line between personal and creative connection.

By 1967, Costa had released her debut album, Domingo, a collaboration with Caetano Veloso.  It was a beautiful, if conventional, collection of bossa nova songs that hinted at her vocal warmth and interpretive skill.  But by 1969, she was ready to move beyond convention.  That year’s Gal Costa album ventured into more experimental territory while keeping one foot in her bossa nova roots.

Later that same year came Gal, an audacious, full-on embrace of the psychedelic energy then sweeping Brazilian music.  Listening to this record is an experience like no other — fuzz guitars, swirling arrangements, and Costa’s mercurial voice shifting from sweet harmonic blends to wild, unhinged improvisations.

One standout is “Cultura e Civilização” (Culture and Civilization), written by Gilberto Gil.

The song distills the Tropicália movement’s radical tension between high art and pop culture, between Brazil’s colonial inheritance and its modern identity.  Costa’s performance is both intellectual and erotic.  She treats the lyric with a knowing wink, simultaneously critiquing and embodying its opposites.  Her phrasing veers from sarcastic grandeur to earthy inflection, reasserting her Bahian roots with every turn of phrase.

As Gregory McIntosh noted in his AllMusic review, “Gal is an indescribable, unpredictable, ambitious, and fun record preserving a slice of time when Brazil was at its most controversial state musically and politically, and is a must-have for any psychedelic collection.”

If you’re up for the “trip”, listen to the rest of this groundbreaking album.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Come Home Baby, Wilson Pickett

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The mission of Song of the Week is summed up in the three-word tagline: Ignored. Obscured. Restored.  Finding deep cuts and overlooked gems that have slipped below the radar is what this blog is all about.

A fine example is today’s SotW pick — “Come Home Baby” by Wilson Pickett.

Pickett had already tasted success as lead singer for the Falcons on the 1962 hit he co-wrote, “I Found a Love.”  But a few years later, searching for another breakthrough, he signed with Atlantic Records in 1964.

Atlantic paired him with producer Bert Berns and arranger Teacho Wiltshire to record a new song written by Brill Building legends Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, already known for the song “On Broadway.”  Berns cast the track as a duet with Tami Lynn (though some sources mistakenly credit Cissy Houston).

The result was a slick pop-soul record, in keeping with Berns’s polished productions of the time.  But the single didn’t chart, and it’s largely remembered as a minor misstep — too smooth and urbane, lacking the raw, gospel-infused grit that would later define Pickett’s Southern classics like “In the Midnight Hour” and “Mustang Sally.”

Author Joel Selvin offered a vivid take on the song in Here Comes the Night:

Instead of his customary gospel chorus on “Come Home Baby,” Berns paired Pickett with the sole female voice of Tami Lynn, whose guttural growl rolls right into the foreground alongside Pickett’s more mannered vocal, starting with a snaking Ooh, yeah inserted between the first two couplets over the introduction.  The dialogue between the two vocalists takes hold on the chorus, while the horn section builds behind them, giving the production the grandeur of a Phil Spector record without the murkiness.  Every detail of Teacho Wiltshire’s arrangement – the spare verse accompaniment, the brassy crescendos, the muted trombone on the instrumental bridge – is in front of the production.  Pickett, unlike most lead vocalists on Berns productions, sounds slightly remote from the emotional content of the Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil song, reluctant to fully commit, but with the background vocalist singing rings around him on the chorus, literally, his reliance on a cool professionalism seems judicious.

Even though the track sank into obscurity upon release in early 1965, it stands tall as a lost treasure — a hit in my book.

Enjoy… until next week.