OK, so it ain’t that scary, it’s fun. And, maybe you expected the original from Bobby Boris Pickett, but this song was a staple of the Beach Boys live set for a while. Every time I saw them, they played it.
Couple of things I noticed, though:
Brian plays the bass with his thumb, rather than all his fingers or a pick.
Never realized Carl played a Rickenbacker sometimes. I always saw them all play white Fenders.
Mike Love seemed goofy back then, but the truth is he was fucked up crazy all the time. He just realized his potential in the interim. I mean, I get Brian has had his issues, and well, Dennis and Carl were sort of sad stories. But, that troika was raised by the equally fucked up Murray Wilson.
Love was their cousin. He is a crazy right wing Ted Nugent-like nutcase. Being Dracula pushes him just that much closer to sane.
I am not sure how the rest of the country is reacting, but my three canines have taken the news lying down. After all, it is sunny, and our pups are older, so, unless there is a reason to get up–like someone giving them a biscuit–that is what they prefer (to the left are Jazzmine’s and Pavlov’s heads, while the white fluff behind them is our white Shepherd, Mahi).
Anyway, dogs rule, so in honor of them and Walter Kendall’s Fives (beef, vegatable, cheese, charcoal, and ginger), the brand our childhood dog Babe got, here are Bowie and Ronson et al, with what I think is my favorite songus, canus.
I am not sure why human beings like to be frightened, and yet hate to be scared?
We love a scary movie, or a wild crazy roller coaster, or even riding on a bike of any kind, skateboard, skis, car, pretty much anything capable of independent locomotion, really fast.
Yet, if we get home alone, and it is dark and late and no one else is home and you have to go upstairs which means traipsing through the house, under the right circumstances, it is scary. Yet, again, watching someone do that in a movie–knowing the person will get sliced to pieces with a chain saw–is fun?
Anyway, I was thinking about this, and I remembered sometime back Steve said one thing he liked about one of his albums as a kid was that it scared the shit out of his brother, and, what prompted all those synapses to snap was hearing Enter Sandman on the radio the other day.
I cannot claim to be a huge Metallica fan (note that I was working a Giants game the day the band did the National Anthem at ATT). I like them well enough, but by the 80’s, when they were hitting full stride, I was in my mid-to-late 30’s, hiding behind Bruce Springsteen and Crowded House, waiting for Nirvana and The Stone Roses to reclaim me, (like the Pistols and Clash did 15 years earlier).
And, they are a fine band, and even more important, from El Cerrito, Ca, which is where I live (it is right next door to Berkeley).
So, in honor of Steve scaring the shit out of his brother, I came up with this category. I can think of some more songs that are essentially scary in their essence. As for Enter Sandman, if I had heard this when I was eight, I would have loved it and it would have scared the shit out of me.
As I have written, there is not a lot of music Diane and I agree upon, but early AC/DC is one.
And, well, those of us here in Remnantland might have our differences in taste and style, but I can promise you all of us loved vocalist Bon Scott, who died 35 years ago yesterday, of what his death certificate said was “death by misadventure.”
I suspect Bon probably had a good laugh about that one somewhere the great beyond (or wherever).
Since A Long Way to the Top (my favorite AC/DC song) has visited here before, let’s filthy and chintzy.
Diane and I, as noted here before, don’t have a lot in common musically.
Surely, my partner has a shuffle, and a bunch of tunes she likes to listen to when she is running, but virtually none of the songs are ones that interest me. She likes hip hop, and dance songs from the 90’s, mostly, although occasionally an AC/DC (Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap) or Boston (Foreplay/Long Time) song will sprinkle into her play list.
Not so, JCSS, which, when we discovered we each loved, caused me to download the original 1970 version from Amazon. Diane also was most familiar with that version, that featured Ian Gillian and Murray Head, although she also likes watching the movie when it appears at Easter (kind of like I enjoy watching Ben Hur at Christmas time).
What is also funny, was shortly after we both discovered a mutual love for JCSS, I was at our local recycle center, where in addition to dumping cardboard and styrofoam peanuts, there is an area where folks dump books and old records and DVDs (well, more like VHS tapes), and what was on top of a stack of vinyl but a copy of the original album (no liner notes, though). So, I grabbed it, and played it last week going through my vinyl binging.
When that album first came out, in 1970, I confess that I knew virtually nothing about Jesus historically. Having grown up as a nice Jewish boy in Suburban Sacramento, the subject just didn’t come up.
But, I did buy the cassette for some reason back then, and at least learned the Rice/Lloyd Webber take on the final week of Jesus’ life. And, I thought (and still do) that the whole work–vocals, lyrics, arrangements, and the musicianship–are just fantastic.
In particular, that body of players who delivered the guitars and bass and drums were indeed the part that has intrigued me most. Culled largely from the Grease Band, who toured behind Joe Cocker (check them out at Woodstock: killer) the principle rock musicians in JCSS play so beautifully, and appropriately, that it is almost sick.
Led by Henry McCullough (the Grease Band, and Wings) and Neil Hubbard (the Grease Band, and Roxy Music) on guitars, bass player Alan Spenner (the Grease Band, Mick Taylor, Alvin Lee, and Roxy Music), and drummer Bruce Rowland (Fairport Convention, and the Grease Band), Jesus Christ, Superstar is arguably the best of that oddity known as the rock opera. That means I like it better than either Tommy, or Quadrophenia, both of which I love to pieces, meaning this is high praise.
I do puzzle, though for usually rock’and’rollers don’t sight read symphonic charts, which I would guess is what was produced, and conversely, I have a hard time with Rice/Lloyd Webber thinking in terms of bending an “A” to a “B” starting on the seventh fret of the fourth string, with a little bit of reverb for a fill, so I do wonder just where the collaboration starts and stops.
Fortunately, it is simply a philosophical question, and in no way interferes with just how dead on the drums are, how the strumming and guitar play just enhances the words (which are very good), and how the bass interplays with both.
You can look down your nose at this work, and it might not even be your cup of tea, but no doubt these guys can seriously play.
I got an email yesterday that tickets for the Mats were going on sale today, well, a pre-sale actually, and because I subscribe to LiveNation, I got a chance at them.
How exciting! So, I logged in this morning at 10 a.m. when the tix went on sale, got put in a queue for ten minutes, and by the time I was atop the queue, the pre-sale tickets were gone.
They go on regular sale tomorrow, so I will try again, but, well, I would be bummed to miss them, as would my friend Michele Friedman, with whom I usually go to concerts with these days. That is because Michele’s husband Jeremy Steinkoler, who is a fabulous professional drummer, just isn’t that into grunge, and my partner, Diane, only goes to concerts when my band is playing.
But, Michele’s friends Michael and Tracey wanted to come as well, as the three of them saw the Mats around 1980, so they wanna re-live their youth.
Keep your fingers crossed that we can get tix tomorrow.
In the interim, here is Paul and the guys at their loudest and bestest (no disrespect Tommy Stinson fans).
Another pioneer of the rock’n’soul scene left us last week with the passing of Don Covay.
My first memory of Covay was when his hit Popeye Waddle was released in 1962, but his legacy and influence actually date half a decade earlier, and lasted a lot longer than the Waddle, which peaked at #75 on the Billboard charts.
Covay started his pop music career with the Rainbows, a singing group that also featured Marvin Gaye and Billy Stewart, and in 1957, joined Little Richard as both his driver and opening act. Richard also produced Covay’s first single, Bip Bop Bip.
Covay then formed the band The Goodtimers, and also began songwriting in the Brill Building, penning songs for Solomon Burke, Gladys Knight, and Aretha Franklin (Chain of Fools).
But, his best know song is probably Mercy Mercy, recorded with the Goodtimers, released in 1964, which peaked at #35, and was covered by a number of artists including the Stones (on Out of Our Heads) and which featured Jimi Hendrix.
Covay continued to work with some big names: Steve Cropper and Booker T., Paul Rodgers, and Ronnie Wood (who organized a tribute album for Covay) and others.
Similarly, his songs were recorded by a large and varied crowd, including The Small Faces, Gene Vincent, Wanda Jackson, Peter Wolf, Steppenwolf, and Connie Francis.
Covay died of a stroke last week, but he leaves some good stuff behind.
I did a lot of cooking this morning. I don’t really have any family in this country, so fortunately, my late wife, Cathy’s, family decided to hang onto me.
I say this because Cathy’s mom, Edie, turns 80 on Monday (go girl!), and later today we have a celebration planned.
Where the dust comes in is that Thursday morning, as part of the spate of rain we have been jonesing for in Northern California for the past six months, it got cold where Cathy’s brother, Eric, and his wife Jill (these would be Lindsay’s folks) live, and Jill slipped on some black ice. The results were a broken wrist and fractures to her cheek (hopefully she won’t need surgery there), meaning a nasty fall.
This meant a couple of things: first, Jill is on a soup diet for a spell, and second, Jill always makes birthday cakes (except for her birthday, when I do it) and well, no way that was going to happen.
So, I took it upon myself this morning to both bake Edie her cake (blueberry-buttermilk bundt with glaze), and also make some soft stuff Jill could eat (creamed spinach, honey-pepper-cheese grits, and tomato basil soup). If you don’t get this yet, I really love to cook, so I had a good time doing this.
But, inspired both by Peter’s posting of I’m in Love With My Car, and Tom’s Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White, I decided to fire up the turntable while cooking for a few hours, and listen to some stuff I had not heard for a while. Plus, I like vinyl.
I started with A Night at the Opera, per Peter, and it was so fun. Death on Two Legs is wonderful, as is Sweet Lady (“you call me sweet, like I’m some kind of cheese,” what a line), and then I went to the first side of Jesus Christ, Superstar (sorry, guilty pleasure, but the band is killer, and well, it is sentimental for Diane and me), t0 Their Satanic Majesty’s Request (who hoo, In Another Land, and Citadel), then Boston’s first (sorry, another guilty pleasure, but a fun guitar album), Idlewild South, and finally to Then Play On.
When I first bought it, Then Play On was my favorite album, and it was followed by Kiln House. I cannot remember which, but I believe one of those made my 50 essentials.
Then Play On is really Peter Green’s album, and a beautiful one it is. So vast and varied, and well, it has the iconic Oh Well, but that is not even my favorite cut on the album. In fact, I don’t know what is.
But, where the dust comes in is I have not played a few of these albums in a while, maybe 20 years, and I cleaned them before playing, but they had so damn much dust, it took playing the sides or songs a few times before I could get a real listen.
But, it was worth it. This recording is really just the studio one from the album, but it has two-plus minutes of stoned out banter and mistakes before the song gets underway (which was the song on the album after Show Biz, and I tried to find a pairing because the two work so well together), but it is pretty good fun.
We will get to more of the Mac, one of the most interesting bands of all time, another time.
For now, dig Peter A, whom if you listen, Santana got his sound from.
I responded to Peter’s I’m Your Puppet post regarding James and Bobby Purify with a version I like by Yo La Tengo.
So, Peter posted a fine version by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell (actually, probably Valerie Simpson).
But, what got me from that version was the graphic that featured the song on “Ric Tic” records.
In truth I have been told I have a photographic memory, though I think this is not so. I mean, I forget to buy toilet paper and lose my keys, things that overall are way more important than remembering Don Demeter’s batting average in 1960 (.274).
It isn’t like I try to remember that stuff, mind you. It just sticks.
Well, my brother and I collected 45’s (those would be vinyl singles to all of you born after 1980) and still have a pretty good collection of those discs, including all the Beatles and Stones singles with cool picture covers.
But, what I noticed about Peter’s response was the record label for Marvin and Tammi’s I’m Your Puppet was “Ric Tic,” and that immediately triggered this song, Gino is a Coward, by Gino Washington. That is because, as you can see, Gino was on Ric Tic as well.
I knew this right off because remembering labels and songwriters and producers of singles was no different than remembering batting averages, or film directors, or the order of Mark Twain’s novels for me. I can’t help it. I just remember this shit.
Back on track–if there is one–I thought it would be fun to revisit Gino and his hit from 1964, and the truth is, the song is pretty good. For the time, it totally rocks, with a pretty advanced guitar solo, machine gun drums and fine walking bass. Gino has pretty good range, as well, and the words are basically pretty funny.
