Very Strokes-ish, which means it sounds pretty good. It’s two years old, and would be a welcome sound on the radio. On the other hand, could there be a worse band name than Mainland?
Listening to other tunes, they are pretty good at mining the same commercial rock vein as the Strokes, but the rhythm section doesn’t hit quite as hard, and the songs aren’t quite as good. And the arrangements can veer toward, ugh, the commercial crap we try to avoid (and ambitious rockers sell their souls to achieve).
But this one just dropped, and apart from the fake English accent it’s pretty jangly and rocking.
Lindsay turned me onto these guys a couple of years ago, and I really liked the cut she sent, The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1. But, I sort of forgot about the band and while I was Xmas shopping on Amazon, up the band Neutral Milk Hotel appeared along with that wonderful, “people who bought this also bought nnnnn” where “n” is the variable for what you bought or are buying.
So, I dropped the album on my Spotify playlist and it is kind of fun: Every once in a while a song from the album pops up, like this really nice cut, Ghost.
I like these guys. And, it is fun to have some new shit to listen too. I am a cranky old man: so hard to please.
Remember Sheer Mag? Hardore-y band from Philly with a chick singer who Peter discovered a while back. I liked what Peter posted, but they didn’t have any kind of CD or album one could buy at the time (at least easily), so they kind of fell by my wayside.
Well, apparently somewhere along the line, they made a full-length CD and this track was mentioned as a Best Song of 2016 in Washington Post today.
Kicks ass IMHO. I’m gonna order the CD on Amazon immediately. Start with Thin Lizzy duel guitars and you always have me halfway there right off the bat.
Another contribution to great Beatles covers, this is one hell of a deconstructed version as well, one I love, and one that is so appropriate for the holiday.
That is because I first heard this song, driving home from my friend Cathy Fabun’s, on Christmas Eve of 1977.
Cathy lived in Richmond, about five miles from where I lived in Berkeley, and she was a pretty new friend at the time. Cathy always held court Christmas Eve, so I was invited and it was good fun. At the time Columbian was still the dope we smoked, but Maui Wowie did make an appearance each fall, and that fall I had some.
I left Cathy’s house around ten, and it was indeed a beautiful, crisp night. Instead of driving on Interstate 80, I took the Eastshore Highway which parallels 80, but is a two-lane road that hugs the bay. The lights of the bridges and city were glistening so beautifully–and they still do for me–that I wanted to drive closer.
And, at the time, I drove one of those mid-engine Porsche 914’s which was kind of like a little spaceship.
So, I am stoned, driving down by the water in some otherworldly fashion, and this tripped out psychedelic version comes on KSAN, then the killer FM free form station that served the area.
“What the fuck is this?” I wondered. Next day I bought the album, I also own it on CD. It pretty much kills all over. And, this is the lead track.
They’re publishing 17 pieces about Stevie Wonder over at Slate this week. The idea seems to be an effort to appreciate our greats before they pass on, which is a nice idea but also a bit embalming of someone who is alive.
Is this really the greatest Beatles cover? Off the top of my head I think I’d go with Wilson Pickett’s Hey Jude, but I’m sure I’m forgetting something even better.
I keep meaning to write about the new Stones album, Blue & Lonesome. It’s their first in 10 years and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart. Which is likely why I heard the first single from it, Just Your Fool, so many times on the radio in recent weeks. But I keep getting distracted.
For instance, one of my favorite old blues guys is Little Walter, who contributes a number of songs to this collection of covers. Little Walter is a revolutionary harmonica player, the guy who turned the mouth harp from something small to something big. He’s the most virtuosic harp player out there, the Segovia of the harmonica, if you catch my drift. He was also a great songwriter and terrific singer. So it’s great the Stones cover his tunes on their look back on the blues they have loved, but when I listen to their cover of Just Your Fool all I hear is Little Walter. What extra are they bringing?
It’s amazingly little. Here’s Little Walter.
Here’s the Stones.
The Stones version is so good because it totally mimics the original. Fine. I suppose if they did something different they could be charged with some sort of crime of appropriation, but for the time being the Stones version seems less than essential, we already have that, and that’s not the way their old blues and R&B covers felt.
Plus, that album cover! Ugliest thing ever!
You can listen to Lonesome & Blue and enjoy it, these are great old rock musicians who love the blues playing the blues. But I’m not sure they bring much more than appreciation and chops to the project, and you’re probably better off searching out the original versions. That’s easy on YouTube.
And if you’re in to eye candy, here’s a video of Eddie Taylor’s Ride Em On Down starring Kristen Stewart! Case closed.
Here’s a Top of the Pops clip of Robert Wyatt covering the Monkees’ I’m a Believer. There’s so much going on here I don’t know where to start. Just listen, this version changes everything.
A Google thing reminded me that Steven Biko would have been 70 years old today. Which reminded me of this Peter Gabriel song about him called Biko.
I like some political songs, and don’t like others. The dividing line for me seems to be similar to the one I apply between songs I like and songs I don’t. Catchy, compelling, somehow feels like it means it.
In this case, Peter Gabriel’s Biko is an incantation, a testimony to someone who gave his life for the cause. It is understated and honoring, and it wins for me because I don’t hate it. I worry about a super rich rock star lending his power to the cause of a martyr, but what better use is there for rock presence? And what better use for an artist’s sense of style and grace.
Arlo Guthrie’s Victor Jara is an earnest tribute to Jara, a folk song, and when I hear it today I’m still outraged by what happened in Chile in 1973. The song is more a marker for that outrage, but serves as a reminder.
