Category Archives: Breakfast Blend

Breakfast Blend: Looking Good

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The whole issue of physical shape and attraction is fraught. Folks have issues with weight, some that matters (health!) and some that doesn’t (if that silicon barbie doll is what you’re in to, go ahead and move along). In any case, this tune is a hit these days, though I didn’t know who Meghan Trainor was until tonight. She’s got a visual presentation like Taylor Swift, and an accent like Iggy Azalea, and a shtick that is likely to have legs. Plus booty.

My first connection was that Johnny Soul calypso hit from 1963, If you wanna be happy.

But Natty Dread with Sly and Robbie and the Mad Scientist solved this in 1981. No?

Breakfast Blend: Hot for Teacher

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I came across this survey of different songs with the same name recorded by different bands, and the description of a Boston band who released one album in 1974 seemed intriguing. Their album was called Teenage Suicide and their one sort-of hit was called Hot for Teacher. Descriptions of them on the internet rank them as the legendary Boston missing link between glam and punk. You be the judge.

Van Halen, of course, had the better Hot for Teacher song, some years later, and the better video, too.

Breakfast Blend: Sittin’ On Top of the World

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Okay, this is going to mess you up. This tune was written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon of the Mississippi Sheiks. Sam Chatmon was Lonnie’s brother. He sometimes played with the Sheiks, but here’s a recording of him playing the song for Alan Lomax in 1978.

But since we were talking about Cream, it’s worth noting that they recorded this tune on Wheels of Fire, in 1968. It’s a little bit different.

Breakfast Blend: Johnny B. Goode

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I was listening to the Pink Fairies today and thought I heard a piece of the Dead in their version of Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode. So, I found a live dead version from Winterland in 1978. Here it is.

What I like about the Fairies is they respect the structure of Berry’s song, but they twist it into something a little faster, a little more grand, without losing the rock. The sound here sucks, but as much as I cherish my memory of the Dead playing this classic, I’m loving this contemporaneous mess from the Pink Fairies. And this was 1971, when analog reigned. On the stream I was getting today from Google Music the sound had been cleaned up considerably.

Of course, Chuck Berry’s version is the best.

Breakfast Blend: Pet Sematary

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I don’t know if you remember the beginning of the movie of Pet Sematary, but it is great stupid fun. Plus it involves a tractor trailer truck.

Here’s a cover of the Ramones’ classic theme song for the movie, by a Swedish band from the 80s called the Backyard Babies. Good solid stuff. I don’t think anyone would mind if this were the original, though it ain’t the Ramones.

What is most definitely not the original is Blondie covering this song live, which they did often through the years after it’s debut in 1989. Blondie’s modus was to play great songs, regardless of style, so that explains that. This recording isn’t great, but Debbie is and you get the idea.

 

Breakfast Blend: The Only Ones

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I own the UK version of the first Only Ones album because I couldn’t wait for a US release, which eventually combined their first two elpees when it eventually did arrive.

Coming upon England’s Glory this week got that US album in heavy rotation at my house. It is stellar, above and beyond the hit that categorizes them as one hit wonders, Another Girl Another Planet. So, listen to the whole thing if you get a chance, but here’re two for kicks.

 

This clip shows the vastly superior UK cover art.

Breakfast Blend: Luther Vandross

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I had a very brief flirtation with Luther Vandross in the early 80s. Part of my shine was reactive. Should I listen to fake soul, like Style Council, or should I listen to the real thing? There was a lot of real thing out there. From Parliament/Funkadelic to the Sugarhill Gang to sounds from Africa. But there was also pop radio soul, which could be awful. But not always.

Luther Vandross had a great voice and apparently a taste for awful treacly songs. But sometimes the pool of his emotion filled a song that could hold it. These two did it for me, perhaps I should note, in some of my darkest personal days.

Breakfast Blend: Happy Birthday, January 8 (Elvis and Ziggy)

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“Lindsay With an A” on KTKE noted this morning that today was her birthday.

More important, she shared the date with some pretty good names, like Stephen Hawking, who is an amazing 73 years old today.

Today Elvis would have been 80, so I thought I would drop in a favorite of mine by the King. Though I must say among the work of Presley, the stuff I like the best are the Sun Sessions. Still this one shows I was a rocker at 10 years old.

The fun does not stop there as January 8 is also the nativity commemoration for David Bowie, who is 68 today.

I love Ziggy, and all the stuff Bowie did with Mick Ronson for sure, but I also loved his Man Who Fell to Earth Heroes/Low phase. But, this song, from Diamond Dogs, remains my favorite Bowie cut.