My buddy Gene wrote this song, and with each iteration he raises the level of the vocals and the cleanness of the mix. Which is good. But the reason to love this song are the propulsive guitars and the rock solid drums. This thing kicks from the stall to the cleaning stall and probably even to the sleeping stall (I’m borrowing my daughter’s horse vocab here).
A metaphor lives forever.
http://www.reverbnation.com/bluegene/song/19254234-this-is-the-end
If you have ever been in a band–and I hope my buds Steve and Gene affirm this–you are doomed to play covers.
Speaking for myself, and the Biletones, between my own catalog of originals, and that of bandmate/singer/rhythm guitarist Tom Nelson, we could easily play a two hour set of tunes we penned.
However, especially if your group does not have, shall we say, “a name,” then for the most part you have to get used to playing Little Queenie, Dead Flowers, Moondance, and a zillion other tunes that I have played way more often than I wish.
Still, it goes with the territory, as people want to hear and dance to stuff they know. We do play Tom’s Rich Girlfriend as a regular tune, and have done my own Geography Matters, as well as a couple of more Tom wrote (Bad Dreams, DUI Bars) but for the most part we have to squeeze the desire to play originals into playing more obscure covers.
That means we play a chunk of Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, and Wilco, all of which are fine by me, to go along with Queenie and the more mainstream cover ilk.
Sometimes those odd covers work (Gravity’s Gone, by Drive by Truckers) and sometimes not (Having a Party by Sam Cooke, and Borrow your Cape by Bobby Bare, Jr.).
Well, about a month ago, the song Reform School Girls, by Nick Curran and the Lowlifes appeared on the weekly practice list.
The song is a great paean to the Phil Spector sound, as well as an homage to the Bitch Groups like the Shangri-Las, and well, once we started playing it, I found myself humming it for days at a time.
Written by the very talented Curran, who sadly passed away from oral cancer in October of last year at the age of 35, Reform School Girls is as beautiful a send up to the genre as is the Tubes Don’t Touch Me There.
Enjoy!
The site can never have too many kick-ass videos.
There has been a lot of banter among us about what really constitutes rock ‘n’ roll.
For those of us who have contributed to the site–as well I suspect to those who have been kind enough to read us–we all have our interpretations and definitions of the musical form that ushered our generation into control of the various airwaves.
For certainly no matter what else be said, when Led Zeppelin and Steppenwolf and even the Beatles Revolution are the sound backing mainstream TV commercials (for the cynics, note that Joni Mitchell has never let a song of hers be used for advertising purposes) then the influence of rock in our culture simply cannot be denied.
But, it has struck me with the first challenge tunes going back to the very early days of the genre Alan Freed so aptly named, the real soul of the music belongs to the African American community.
Not that I am the first to note this, but when we do talk about the music and its roots, and what it really means, Bill Haley always gets a nod. And, that is fine for Haley was a trendsetter, and had a great band and deserves some respect there.
But really it was Shake, Rattle, and Roll, recorded in February of 1954 by Big Joe Turner, five months before Bill Haley covered the same tune and three months before Rock Around the Clock was recorded and released, that probably owns the title of the breakthrough song pushing the then new form to the masses.
Of course, what cannot be denied is that irrespective of the quality of either version of Shake, Rattle, and Roll, it is the Haley version that got the ink and reaction and coverage in those days. It was also a much bigger hit, as was his cover of Rock Around the Clock.
However, it is important to remember the context of why, and the large reason Haley enjoyed more success than his African American counterparts was that in 1954, the civil rights movement was still in its infancy.
So, aside from the fact that Haley reached a bigger market, white America’s attitude to the African American community was such that music, styles, food, hell virtually anything from the rich culture that emerged from slavery, and to a large degree out of the notion that necessity is the mother of invention (guess whose band grabbed at that one?) was driven by evil dark forces.
It was in May of 1954, that the Brown v. The Board of Education case declared that segregation, and the notion of “separate but equal” was unconstitutional. And, that decision, was 15 months before Rosa Parks and her dog tired dogs, after a hard day of work, refused to step to the back of the bus.
Even with that, it was seven more years until James Meredith was granted admission to the University of Mississippi, the first African American to gain entrance to that institution, and one that met with a fair amount of violence at the time (I still remember reading the headlines, and not being able to understand who cared who went to what school as a then nine-year old). Mind you, that was almost a decade after segregation was ruled unconstitutional.
But, as with Pat Buchanan, inexplicably announcing before his dismissal from MSNBC a few years ago that America was built on the backs of white people, the real grunt work of the country–and like it or not, our current music scene–can completely be owned by that same African American community in the same sense that the Egyptians or the Romans can take credit for their great civilizations, but the building of the cities and the pyramids was completed by slaves.
And, while I can give that respect to Haley, for example, I can give none to Pat Boone for bastardizing the true rock ‘n’ roll of Little Richard. For, Richard, and Chuck Berry come as true to defining the form for me as anyone (and the truth is, it would not matter to me if they were pink Martians, they still rocked the shit out of what Boone and his ilk turned into pablum).
For Boone’s treatment of Little Richard was sanitized out of the fearfulness that the African American community–particularly their men–simply wanted to get white women drunk and/or stoned and then have sex with them, using music as part of the means to that end. And, if that sounds outrageous, try reading Daniel Okrent’s excellent narrative on Prohibition, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. (Also remember that the Volstead Act was repealed barely 20 years before the Brown V. the Board of Education decision.)
In fact, in reviewing Okrent’s tome to that troubled period in our history, Publisher’s Weekly notes that ” He unearths many sadly forgotten characters from the war over drink—and readers will be surprised to learn how that fight cut across today’s ideological lines. Progressives and suffragists made common cause with the Ku Klux Klan—which in turn supported a woman’s right to vote—to pass Prohibition.”
If you wonder about this, here is a vid of Boone’s treatment of Tutti Fruitti:
And, now, here is the man, Little Richard showing us exactly how it should be done:
But, essentially the blues form, and rhythm and blues, and Motown, can all be looked to as the seeds of modern rock and pop whether anyone likes it or not, for virtually all modern rock ‘n’ roll stems from that 1/4/5 chord motif that the blues presented.
Further, if you look to the British wave of music, that followed Haley and Richard by ten years, the bands who made a difference–The Beatles, The Who, The Stones, for example–all cut their early chops playing a heavy dose of Motown and Soul music.
In fact, it really was that amalgamation of American rhythm and blues and the Noel Coward sort of tin pan alley that formed the essence of the Brit-pop that invaded America and changed the musical scene around the world forever.
Oddly, despite now being almost 60 years beyond Brown V. the Board of Education and Shake, Rattle, and Roll being released, we are still essentially fighting the same stupid fights, with laws about immigration and diversity (which are the essence of America’s success) and voting rights.
It is easy to get sanctimonious about all of this, but, at the end of the day, as noted by another great freedom fighter, Mohandas Gandhi, “in the end, the truth is still the truth.”
Long live Chuck, Richard, Turner and rock! They started it all (with a little help from their friends).
It was my idea. I thought it would be fun for each of us to make a list of what we thought the essential albums of rock were, then compare them and make an Essential Top 50 Rock Albums. My idea, the way I explained it to the lads, was that if Mork were to land on our doorstep, these are the albums we would use to explain rock and roll to him. Then we would create Amazon links and make a minuscule amount of money when people bought them.
The methodology was jury rigged. Each of the five of us made a Top 50. Some of us ranked them, some did not. Some of us limited our lists to only one album per artist, to give Mork a broader range of musics, while others felt free to list five or six albums by favorites like the Beatles and the Hellacopters because these are among the best albums of all time. Most of us seemed to enjoy the experience. One of us railed about the stupidity and un-rock and rollness of commonality. He was certainly right about that.
But I think the list we came up with together demonstrates the power of the classic music, and also the veins of taste and enthusiasm that course out of it. In any case, if you’re from Mars and want to know what rock and roll music to listen to, this is a good place to start. But first, before we start, here are the six albums that got votes in the final round, but didn’t make the Top 50.
We’ll be counting down the Top 50 over the next two weeks or so, right here. Feel free to comment.
56. The Crystals, Best of the Crystals
Listening to this set, I find myself trying to argue that this is the greatest rock music ever created. (PK)
55. Kanye West, The College Dropout
The world’s biggest asshole isn’t the story. He didn’t start out that way. This incredible music made him famous, and was just the beginning of an amazing run of innovative and challenging popular music that rocks. (PK)
54. Lucinda Williams, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
All songs so well written, and then so wonderfully delivered by Lucinda. (LM)
53. Devo, Q:Are We Not Men?
A bunch of geniuses far ahead of their time. Often wrongly dismissed as a joke. (SM)
52. The Beatles, For Sale
I forgot this one. It’s the best of all. They rocked. (GM)
51. The Pillows, Happy Bivouac
Nirvana meets the Beatles and the Pixies at the Ramones’ house. You know who you are. (GM)
I’m trying something new. Whenever I find a band that I like, I don’t learn anything about them. I minimize my Pandora when I see “Northern Japan” in The Pillows bio. Lots of times Pandora has no biographical information at all and that’s even better.
I want the music. There are a rare few interesting music stories, or should I say variations on the same came from nowhere too much too soon death/disappearance and here they are with an abysmal comeback album yawn. I am sick unto dry heaves of the Legend of Keith Richards. I would be delighted to read about how Keith wrote “Connection,” or why they never finished “I’d Much Rather Be With The Boys,” or how those 378 great little touches on Stones’ songs came about. I don’t care where he shot up or how pharmaceutical his speedballs are.
So now I don’t wanna know and we’ll see how that works out. It’s not wholly possible for one thing. I already know that The Pillows are two guitar players, a drummer and a rotating guest bass player (just like Roxy Music!). I know that the Raveonettes are a guy and a girl. I like a band called Rogue Wave and I know that they are from California and have at least five members and that’s it. I’d like to keep it that way. I’m curious what y’all think of this band, they are softer than I usually like. Start with this:
The two best shows I ever saw were both the Heartbreakers. I saw all their early shows, starting with their debut with Walter Lure at CB’s in July 1975. They had played a no-one-knows gig at Coventry in Queens as a trio: Johnny, Jerry and Richard.
Truth be known, the Heartbreakers really made CBGB. By that time Television was drawing but not packing the place. No one else was even on the map, except Patti Smith who was working her way up along with Television. For the Heartbreakers debut it was packed out into the street. I got there early and sat at a front table with my buddy from work Steve, who was four years older and curious.
We saw I think six bands that night and I’m trying to remember them. Possibly Talking Heads was one but they may have opened for the Ramones about a week later. The Shirts for sure, a band called Cracked Actor, and definitely Mink DeVille. It was a great show and The Heartbreakers topped it easily, but it wasn’t their best show.
That show was their 3rd gig at CB’s, the night that they debuted their version of Love Comes in Spurts, which was eventually recorded in a much different version on the Voidoids first album. That night I went with my best friend Dee, and the two of us and the whole house were blown speechless. Maybe someone else can do it just as well but no one can do it better.
Naturally, they couldn’t get a record contract. Everyone was scared of the junk and the failure of the Dolls. Richard left the band in early 1976. Johnny, Jerry and Walter disappeared for 2-3 months and emerged with Billy Rath on bass. The Hell songs were gone and in their place were Get Off The Phone, It’s Not Enough, I Love You, All By Myself and Let Go. They gigged around a bit and went to England at the end of the year, as it happened on the very night that the Sex Pistols were on the infamous Bill Grundy Show. The Heartbreakers were on the Sex Pistols tour, along with The Clash and briefly The Damned. Briefly too because the tour only played six dates what with the threat to England of Johnny Rotten, but the boys stuck around after the tour gigging extensively all over England and even Paris.
In the summer of ’77, that anarchic summer, they came back to New York to play a long weekend at the Village Gate. No doubt me and the boys would be there. It was the week that Elvis died.
Another wild scene. I don’t mean uniforms either. What came to be “punk” fashion was much more an open question then. The looks were various and imaginative. The band was hanging out among the crowd and they looked perfect early 60s gangster, except for the hair of course (there is a Facebook page called Johnny Thunders’ Hair). It took several years for the junk to really show. Any number of members of NY bands were also there, in addition to all the band’s fans and lemme tell ya they were an active bunch. The little headline in the Daily News said “Crowd Steals Show at Heartbreakers Return.”
But not for us. The band stole the show. They came out smoking with Chinese Rocks, absolutely on the money with the hugest sound I ever heard, right into One Track Mind, and just blistered their way upward. Halfway through, Robert Gordon gets up on stage and they do Jailhouse Rock for Elvis and Be Bop a Lula. All of us walked out of there soaked and full of wonder. Actually, three of us decided that night that we were going to do this; we would make music like this. The fourth guy said “I’ll be your manager.”
Most of the worst bands that make it big don’t last long. They have a moment with their fingers up the pulse of the people, and that’s it. Kansas, Asia, Boston, Palookaville, I sense a theme here.
Oh, wait a minute. I have to address the subjectivity issue. Yeah, everybody has different tastes and there is no good and bad. Half bullshit.
What we like in music, what we call taste, comes from our mindsets and, if you will, our soulsets. What we are feeling and what we are thinking. Now, if you contend that what we are feeling is beyond objectivity, I agree. But plenty can be said objectively about mindsets. For example, if your mind is closed to anything but what you already like, you WILL have bad taste, except perhaps in those things you already like, and even there I rather doubt it since nothing good can come of atrophy. Old wine in new skins eventually becomes vinegar.
Part of greatness in music is that the music reaches beyond itself, pointing to something new. Not necessarily grand concepts because details count too, a lot. Whether it’s the Beatles combining Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers with Tin Pan Alley zing, adding instruments and new electric sounds as they went, or the Misfits doing their twist on the Ramones and the sick joke tradition, the music is good partly because it’s staking out its own turf. This is why pure genre exercises can never be great.
Which is one of the reasons Aerosmith sucks. Yes, back to the top: Aerosmith is a really bad band that has thrived as long as any band from the 1970s unto today. I ask myself why.
I was prepared to like them, way back then. I must have seen some at least mildly intriguing publicity, and I did know that they had the same management as the New York Dolls, my favorite band at that time (and still right up there). If memory serves, their first hit, Dream On, did not become a hit until their second album had been released, or very close to it. Anyway, I bought their 2nd album before I heard Dream On, which was on their first album, and not a half bad song for AM radio at the time. Anyway, I bought the album and slapped it on the turntable and…blah. By far the best song was their cover of The Train Kept a Rollin’, which was actually more a cover of the Yardbirds’ Stroll On, but the songs are basically the same anyway. In 40+ years they never did better.
The rest was just Heavy Rock boilerplate: flashy but instantly forgettable guitar, thud, thud, thud on the bass/drums, and the usual sex cliché lyrics, Spinal Tap without the wit. And that’s all they’ve been doing ever since.
I heard a story about Dream On. I don’t know that it’s true, but for me it rings so I’ll repeat it. Seems that the song was written by a band that was rehearsing in the same studio as Aerosmith, and they left it taped on the wall. The rest is history. I believe the story because they never developed that strain of “their” music, and this is a band if ever there was one who milked what worked.
It’s almost impossible to slog around in blues/rock riffs for that long and not come up with something good. Grand Funk did it. Foghat did it. Deep Purple did it. Hell, Modern English did it. I’ll give Aerosmith their due: parts of Sweet Emotion are sharp, and the end of Sick as a Dog (stolen and improved by the Sex Pistols) is fine shit. And that’s it. I confess that I have not listened to everything they ever did. They probably do have another one or two minutes of good music in there somewhere. But life is too short and first they have to give me a reason.
What really gets me about Steve and Joe and the boys is the pure exploitation, which of course is more a comment on those who allow themselves to be exploited. I suppose there is some Warholian genius in their flagrant genericness. When the “anybody can do it” ethos was first promulgated about Punk (by critics who had obviously never tried it), it should have been said of Aerosmith. They should have added “and everybody will buy it.”
But then why couldn’t other bands seize the obvious and ride it to fame and profit? Well, they did: all those 80s hair bands were Aerosmith’s children, up to and including Guns n Roses who at least had a few good tunes. Such bad boys. They probably had drug problem consultants – “tailoring your drugs to YOUR image!”
Yeah, the de rigeur drug problems, the leering fuck-me-now-or I’ll-jerk-off-right-here lyrics, the scarves on the mike stand that you wanna stuff down Tyler’s throat, the image ripoff of everything the Stones had already made safe and the Dolls had already taken two steps further, the seamless transition to TV celebrity status and fast food commercials – these guys are Pat Boone with eyeliner.
Welcome to Rock ‘n’ Roll Remnants. Here’s a song by a band called the Remnants, who prove that doing it really well is really hard.
