Today’s SotW is a guilty pleasure dating back to 1974, the year I graduated from high school. Maybe it’s that connection that keeps the song so fondly in my memory. It is “Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)” by the fake band Reunion.
A few months ago I wrote a post about the Pooh Sticks. On their web page (thepoohsticks.blogspot.com) they did a countdown of their top 50 songs. “Life Is a Rock” came in at #17.
Joey Levine, the song’s lead singer, was also involved in other fake bands including bubblegum music giant The Ohio Express (“Yummy Yummy Yummy” and “Chewy Chewy).
This single established the template for songs with scores of cultural references spit out in a machine gun like, rapid fire delivery. R.E.M’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” (1987) and Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (1989) followed in a similar vein.
Listen closely… some of the references are pretty hip for 1974, bubblegum music fodder.
I just learned that Phil Austin of the Firesign Theatre has passed away. He was 74. Although the Firesign were not musicians, they’re brand of comedy epitomized the spirit and culture of Rock ‘n Roll.
When I was in college, my roommates and I listened “The Further Adventures of Nick Danger” (and all of their other routines) endlessly. We knew and could recite the dialog by heart.
I brought one of their films (Everything You Know is Wrong) to campus and once did a 4 hour Firesign marathon on WZBC (Boston College radio).
I also finally got to see the group perform at Boston’s Orpheum Theater, I think it was the late 80s (could have been early 90s). They were great sports, letting the audience recite all of their most popular lines.
Since Peter Bergman died in 2012, the Firesign Theatre is down to two. That is sad news.
RIP Phil (Nick Danger) Austin. You will be missed.
The Undertones were a late 70s/early 80s rock band from Derry, Northern Ireland. Their brand of three chord pop punk led to comparisons to Sire label mates, The Ramones. Their songs dealt primarily with teen subject matter, mostly girls and such. (They steered away from political subject matter such as the violence and conflict they were surrounded by at home during “the troubles.”)
They gained their first notoriety when the influential British DJ John Peel championed the band by playing their first single, “Teenage Kicks”, twice during one radio program. He famously named it his all-time favorite song – in fact, a line from the song (“Teenage dreams so hard to beat”) is inscribed on his gravestone.
Today’s SotW is the lead off cut from the band’s second album Hypnotized (1980). It is the tongue-in-cheek titled “More Songs About Chocolate and Girls.” It also pays tribute their other Sire label mates, Talking Heads, whose second album was called More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978).
It comes on with a catchy guitar lick and friendly reggae lilt. It could be a peppier cousin to The Clash’s version of “Police and Thieves.” Later, lead singer Feargal Sharkey implores with his unmistakable warbly vocal:
Sit down, relax and cancel all other engagements
It’s never too late to enjoy dumb entertainment
Today’s song of the week is “Cattle and Cane” by the Australian group, The Go-Betweens.
The song lyrics were written by Grant McLennan about the loss of his father to a heart attack when Grant was just 4 years old, and his family’s subsequent return home to a rural Queensland Australian farm from his English birthplace.
The stutter step rhythm (11/4 time?) and acoustic guitars meld perfectly with the somber lyrics and beautifully understated vocal.
I recall a schoolboy coming home
Through fields of cane
To a house of tin and timber
And in the sky
A rain of falling cinders
From time to time
The waste memory-wastes
I recall a boy in bigger pants Like everyone Just waiting for a chance His father’s watch He left it in the showers From time to time The waste memory-wastes And the waste, memory-wastes
I recall a bigger brighter world A world of books And silent times in thought And then the railroad The railroad takes him home Through fields of cattle Through fields of cane From time to time The waste memory-wastes And the waste memory-wastes
Spoken: I recall a saying A reply A pain once had From time down to mine That time was bad Until I knew where I was Alone and (so) far from home
Further, longer, higher, older
This performance is in perfect balance. The wordless backup vocals after the second verse, the bass melody in the break and the spoken word verse all effectively complement the song’s melancholy.
Sadly, like his father, McLennan suffered an untimely death by heart attack at the young age of 48 in 2006.
I have to admit that I’ve never been a big fan of heavy metal or its offshoots. My college roommates loved Black Sabbath. I just didn’t get it. Hair metal? Speed metal? Not for me. Over time I did open up to it a little. There was a time that I couldn’t stand AC/DC, but I love them now.
But there are always exceptions and that brings me to today’s SotW, “Don’t Want to Know If You Are Lonely” by Hüsker Dü.
Hüsker Dü was a post punk band from Minneapolis. They played a brand of hardcore speed metal, but with less screaming and more melody. They were a power trio with two terrific songwriters in Bob Mould (guitar/vocals) and Grant Hart (drums/vocals), and Greg Norton on bass.
“Don’t Want to Know…” is a Hart song from the band’s 1986 major label debut, Candy Apple Grey. It’s another in the long tradition of Rock music break-up songs.
I’m curious to know exactly how you are
I keep my distance but that distance is too far
It reassures me just to know that you’re okay
But I don’t want you to go on needing me this way
And I don’t want to know if you are lonely
Don’t want to know if you are less than lonely
Don’t want to know if you are lonely
Don’t want to know, don’t want to know
The day you left me, left me feeling oh so bad
Still I’m not sure about all the doubts we had
From the beginning we both knew it wouldn’t last
Decisions have been made the die has been cast
The phone is ringing and the clock says four A.M.
If it’s your friends, well I don’t want to hear from them
Please leave your number and a message at the tone
Or you can just go on and leave me alone
Hüsker Dü never achieved the commercial success they deserved. When I listen to their records (an amazing six albums – two of them doubles – and two EPs released between 1983 and 1987) I can’t imagine a Nirvana or a Green Day without them. (In fact, Green Day recorded “Don’t Want to Know…” for a scrapped MTV pilot called Influences.
The Paisley Underground was a mid-80s genre of rock music that paid homage to the psychedelic California garage/folk rock bands of the 60s (especially The Byrds) through their usage of pop melodies, vocal harmonies and jangly guitars. The term was coined by Michael Quercio of The Three O’Clock, one the movement’s purveyors. Other bands in the The Paisley Underground were The Dream Syndicate, The Bangles and The Long Ryders.
Another group loosely associated with the genre was Jellyfish, a group formed in Pleasanton, California – an east bay suburb of San Francisco.
Jellyfish was a short lived band that put out two critically acclaimed, but sadly forgotten, albums in the early 90s – Bellybutton (1990) and Spilt Milk (1993). If you are a fan of Squeeze, Crowded House or XTC, you are (or will be) a fan of Jellyfish too.
Today’s SotW is “I Wanna Stay Home” from Bellybutton.
The song is a melancholy ballad that starts with an acoustic guitar intro before the full band joins. The plaintive verses are sung solo but with “ba, ba-ba-ba” background vocals. The lyrics long for the simple joy of living the life of a homebody.
When you need someone
And there’s no one there
There is always the nine o’clock train
To take you out somewhere
I take the train in town
Like I did for years
There is only seven more blocks
I could walk from here
Some tasteful trumpet playing is added to the chorus by Chuck Findley. Beatle-esque harmonies come in on the bridge.
When I realize the weight
That’s firmly on my shoulders
On my shoulders
I just try and find the place
I can take a walk on my blind side
On my blind side
Then a short, thick stringed guitar solo is played before the song returns to the final verse and chorus.
When these memories fade
In my ripe old age
Please remember my dear
I wanna stay home
I wanna stay home right here
I wanna stay home today
I wanna stay
This is a perfectly written and performed pop song. They don’t come any better.
If you listen to more of Jellyfish’s music (available on Spotify and YouTube) you’ll hear lots of other influences – Queen, The Beach Boys, and power pop titans such as Badfinger, Big Star and the Raspberries. They also imitate The Beatles, especially Paul McCartney. I have a live bootleg where they play his solo hit “Jet.”
Most people have never heard of Jellyfish, but once you discover them you’ll never forget them.
We were all very saddened to hear that B.B. King passed away yesterday. Of course I was tempted to pay tribute to him with today’s SotW, but there were so many words written about him yesterday that I have nothing new or special to add. Rest in peace B.B. (and Lucille too).
I recently finished Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits with The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Eric Clapton, The Faces . . ., written by the legendary engineer/producer Glyn Johns. It’s an insider perspective of classic rock and roll that few people can offer. He was in the room when some of the most important albums in the history of rock and roll were recorded.
When Led Zeppelin recorded “Dazed and Confused” he was in the room.
When Mick Taylor and Bobby Keys ripped off those amazing solos on Sticky Fingers’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” he was in the room.
When Roger Daltrey let out that blood curdling scream toward the end of “We Won’t Get Fooled Again” he was in the room again.
As I read the book I was excited about the prospect that Johns would help me to (re)discover some gem of a record that I had overlooked or forgotten. That came in the chapter about the Pete Townshend/Ronnie Lane album Rough Mix.
I’ve always enjoyed that album but often focused on its most popular songs – the ones that got FM radio air play – “My Baby Gives It Away” and “Street in the City.” But it is a lesser known cut on the album, “April Fool”, that Johns says is “among the few moments in my recording career that I treasure.”
The track was almost finished when Eric Clapton offered to add a Dobro part to complement the song.
“I played him the track and I noticed that his foot was tapping as he ran through the song. I quickly put a mic on his foot and we recorded the next run-through. It was note-perfect and quite beautiful. Eric reacting in the most natural and emotive way to the song and Ronnie’s performance of it. Up until that moment I had paid very little attention to Eric as a musician and therefore never really understood what all the fuss was about. I thought he was just another bloody white kid playing the blues. That was very clearly my loss. In a matter of a few minutes I had been completely won over. This was a perfect example of what I have always thought about Eric’s playing. He never allows his brain to get in the way between his heart and his fingers.”
The instrumental title cut (also with Clapton on lead guitar) is pretty cool too.
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.)
Today’s SotW is a Northern Soul classic. When most people hear the term “Northern Soul” they assume it means American soul music that came from acts based in the northern United States instead of from Memphis or Muscle Shoals. In actuality the term refers to a style of American soul music popularized in dance clubs in Northern England. Part of the Northern Soul music culture is to avoid the popular hits in favor of obscure singles often recorded for small, local, independent labels.
Frank Wilson’s single for Motown’s Soul subsidiary in 1965 fits the bill. “Do I Love You (Yes Indeed)” was recorded just before he became one of Motown’s important producers. The story goes that only about 250 copies of a demo 45 were pressed and then later destroyed when Berry Gordy decided it wasn’t worth the effort to promote an act that was planning to focus on a production career, not to become a performing talent.
But a few copies survived, making it a very valuable disc. (One of the few copies known to exist sold in England for over £25,000 in May 2009.) Now, thanks to the magic of digital recordings and the affordable cost of free, you can hear it too!
But its rarity alone doesn’t make it valuable. It’s its quality that creates the demand. “Do I Love You” has all the trappings of a Northern Soul classic – a crisp rhythm, solid beat with evocative lyrics sung from the heart. It’s a song that’s sure to fill the dance floor.
Surprisingly, the backing music wasn’t played by the Funk Brothers – Motown’s house band. No, this song was recorded in LA using Wrecking Crew musicians – Billy Strange, Glen Campbell, Hal Blaine, Al De Lory, Carol Kaye and Tommy Tedesco.
If you’re intrigued by this backstory and would like to learn more about it, check out this long form article that was originally written to support the auction that resulted in the 2009 sale mentioned above:
Although this song languished in obscurity until the late 70s/early 80s, Wilson did enjoy a successful career as a producer and songwriter. In fact, he received a co-writing credit for his production of Brenda Holloway’s recording of “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” which was covered by Blood, Sweat & Tears and hit #2 in 1969.
Back in the 1980s there was a record label out of LA that signed a lot of very cool bands. Slash Records focused on the local LA scene with bands like X, Los Lobos, The Germs, the Blasters and more. They also ventured far afield to sign other “roots rock” acts like the BoDeans, whose T-Bone Burnett produced debut – Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams – is a classic. A song from that album deserves to be a SotW, and probably will be some time.
But this week I’m choosing a song from another Slash act, “Backseat Nothing, by Boston’s Del Fuegos.
The Del Fuegos were brothers Dan (guitars/vocals) and Warren (guitars) Zanes, and Tom Lloyd (bass) and Woody Giessmann (drums). The album was produced by the then young Mitchell Froom, who also added some keys to the set. (It was one of his earliest gigs as a producer.)
“Backseat Nothing” is from the band’s first album, The Longest Day (1984). It is very typical of their R&B/rockabilly garage band style – closer to The Rolling Stones than The Clash – which was pretty unusual in the mid 80s when MTV was minting stars and Madonna and synth pop ruled the airwaves.
This approach endeared them to a relatively small but loyal audience. But when the band accepted a sponsorship from Miller Beer to star in a cinema-verité commercial, some of their more sensitive fans smelled a sell out and abandoned them. That’s a little hard to fathom today when even top tier rock stars license their music to peddle goods or accept corporate tour sponsors. But back in the 80s (and before) it was taboo.
One last bit of trivia… “Backseat Nothing” was used in an episode of the FX Network firefighter program (starring Denis Leary) Rescue Me from Season 4 called “Babyface.”
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
