Wikipedia says this band is a glam band from the 70s, but has no info.
Evan Davies led his WFMU show off tonight with this tune, which has an opaque edition on YouTube, which you’ll see below.
But first, my comments. This is good! Not the sound quality, though it doesn’t really hurt, but the guitar, and the song itself, and the drummer is working hell hard. Plus the bass is in there churning.
Maybe Evan will see this on Facebook and fill us in with whatever details, but in the meantime, Thanks Evan!
Evan’s show is great, I don’t listen enough, but we also have to remember he gave us the fabulous Graveyard. Thanks Evan!
My friend Vincent pointed out that the backup singers are perfectly synched with head flips in this Aretha Franklin cover of a Burt Bachrach/Hal David tune, which is awesome.
This is not a rock song, not really an R&B song, but Happy Birthday Aretha. Nobody else could make this song mean so much.
This is a mournful little roots rocker that ends with a haunting dub section, all very dark and sad and, of course, rebellious too. But that’s not why I bring it up here. It’s from a Roots compilation that is in my iTunes library, and there is a good chance I’ve never heard it before. There’s another song on the compilation that I know, and have listened to lots. But Health and Sorrow? It doesn’t feel like it.
I’m listening to the Kinks Kronikles, a double album I bought when it came out. It was a curated sample of some hits, some b-sides, and some rarities, which John Mendelson compiled. For me it defines the ur Kinks, the Kinks I grew up with. Here’s a link to the album:
Victoria is a gorgeous pop song about the days of Queen Victoria, a paean to old values, namely colonial conquest, set in a jazzy orchestrated brilliantly complex and simple rock setting. Whew.
Village Green Preservation Society mixes satire and house frocks, with rock drums, to somehow describe a shambling beautiful world where NIMBY and progressivism meet. God Save Donald Duck and Strawberry Jam.
I’m writing about this because I’ve been listening to this album pretty repetitively the last few weeks. It’s a compilation album, a compilation by a rock writer, but like the Rolling Stones’ Between the Buttons, it captures the many facets of the band in some ways better than their regular elpees.
Berkeley Mews is a barroom stomp of classes clashing, and a favorite song of mine.
Holiday in Waikiki is an odd song, a Chuck Berry riff, about getting scammed on vacation. The vibe is surprisingly similar to the Sex Pistols’ Holiday In The Sun. In other words, catchy as hell.
Willesden Green is a country lope about going back to Willesden, a nostalgic bit of cowboy rock, apparently satirically talking about live in Willesden as a utopia of a sort. This is Zadie Smith territory. Her excellent and highly recommended books White Teeth and NW are set in Willesden.
This is Where I Belong is another rocker, a plaintive and truthful cry of the heart, which says, I have no ambitions to get out of town. Which is exactly the opposite of most every rock song. An anthem for slackers, long before there were slackers.
Waterloo Sunset is a pop song about, well, looking out the window and being totally happy because of the sunset. But the point isn’t the point of the song. This is a lovely ode, set in a rock tempo, to taking solace from the sunset. It’s really beautiful about just how freaking nice a good sunset is.
David Watts is a strict tempo song about a regular guy, who wishes he could be strong and smart like some guy named David Watts. The twist is the David Watts won’t go out with all the local girls who fancy him, but Davies ends by saying he still wishes he could be like David Watts. The Jam covered this song, a perfect match.
Dead End Street has that ballroom gait, and a tale out of La Boheme. But the way the chorus responds to the cold depravity of the narrator’s story, is rebellious and rocking. Like much of Kink Kronickles, the orchestration is complex, while the rhythms are solid (if variable). I would call this a great song, but so were almost all the songs before.
Shangri La has Ray limning the same themes of privilege versus doing your job, with a guitar and some other instruments. Plus harmonies. Simple becomes something else in a hurry, but the fact is that Ray is writing songs about stuff no one else is writing pop songs about. This is great, stomping orchestral rock by the time it is through. Well done.
There is a coda about water rates and contradictions and other stuff. Which rocks and reassures and reminds us all about the crap of classes and dreams. Plus rolling trap drums, make this all urgent and powerful and enduring.
There is a whole lot more great music from the Kinks on this album, which for some reason better describes them than any of their individual elpees. Hell, we didn’t even get to Lola. But it’s here.
I should post notes on the rest of this fantastic album soon.
There was a story in yesterday’s NY Times about Harley Flanagan, who has always been a presence in the NY rock scene. Most notably as the drummer bass player in the Cro-Mags, one of the most notable bands of the city’s hard core scene in the 80s. All age shows at CBGB in the afternoon were a fixture, and perhaps explain why I never really paid much attention. Too old! But this clip is terrific, reminds me of Penelope Spheeris’s fantastic movie, Suburbia, and it even better than that. You probably won’t want to listen to it all the time, but I hope you enjoy it first time through.
This is Billy Borsey and his band’s third album, but at this point most of his original band was gone. Soul survivor Louie X. Erlanger on guitar was joined by Elvis Presley’s rhythm section, Jerry Scheff and Ron Tutt, in Paris, as well as keyboardist Kenny Margolis and others for an amazing adventure recording a record no one knew what to do with. Or, at least, Capitol Records was flummoxed when it was done.
This was a rock record that drew equally from hard rock, chanson, and Brill Building tunes filtered through Phil Spector, produced by Spector henchman Steve Douglas. Willy wrote some of the songs with Doc “Save the Last Dance for Me” Pomus, covered the Jive Bombers’ Bad Boy, and didn’t mind exploring the Cajun life, too. The wonderful thing is it feels all of a piece, a slice in time and eclectic taste, even as it slides from genre to style. I’ll admit, this record’s breadth reflects my
Listening to it again recently is to be reminded what a major figure Willy was, maybe not in his sphere of influence and celebrity, but in the pure fact of his craft, his musical skills and his songwriting talent. The other four CBGB house bands (Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, Ramones) were iconic figures in the punk eruption. Mink Deville was no less iconic in its way, but resisted the punk label, and while they were all just as talented and accomplished, he didn’t find a way to star quite so brightly as the others.
No disco for Mink Deville. (But he did have a huge hit from the soundtrack of the Princess Bride.)
Rolling Stone’s critics poll called Le Chat Bleu the fifth best album of 1980, for what that’s worth. What’s certainly worth your time is the whole album.
Here’s the first tune, This Must Be the Night, which echoes Springsteen’s sounds, but is a pretty fresh take on that sound. Or is it playing tricks on me?
Here’s the Borsey/Pomus collaboration on the World Outside.
A rocker.
Cajun, in French, a cover of a song from the great Queen Ida.
I’m not sure these are the best songs. Listen to the whole thing and make up your own mind:
This is a sappy song with a heart felt series of verses, and a gumptious elaborate arrangement of strings and stuff on the chorus.
But there is detail and structure and melody here that make it a great song. Not a riff song, not a rock song, but a pop song that expands people’s horizons rather than shuts them down. It’s a song that addresses adult concerns (who lives where, and why) rather than adolescent ones (who grinds where).
That isn’t rock, but it is a bit rockish in that whole Rambling Boy idea. Feel free to search for all the alternative versions on YouTube. They all help explain how a simple story became a trope. And how songwriting transcends genre. This is a song that is a short story. Or an anecdote. Or both.
In my never-ending quest to learn nothing about bands I discover, I learned something anyway. This band is basically Nick Saloman and the odd musician he picks up. He seems to be eclectic in his rock styles but the few other songs I’ve heard fall into the “interesting but hardly compelling” category. But I like this one, basic power pop with folk-rock leanings. Good guitar solo. I even like the lyrics that I can understand.
There is so much going on here. Muddy seems to be copping to the idea he’s not up to the barely legal conversation. That’s the opposite of the mannish boy. But whatever is going on with that pales beside Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson’s guitar, which is bigger than life.
On this album, a live album, Johnny Winter makes some excellent appearances. He’s a great guitar player, but lordy, Luther makes a fairly straight blues into something else altogether. I know I’m sati-fied.
Wikipedia says this band is a glam band from the 70s, but has no info.