I have to admit that for the most part Christmas music does very little for me.
A lot of that is probably rooted in my Semitic upbringing.
Not that Little Saint Nick, or especially Father Christmas(which Peter gave a nod too earlier) are not great tunes. Hell, even though I am not even close to being an Adam Sandler fan, I do love his Hanukah song.
However, the other day the ever unpredictable KTKE played a pretty cool tune by the Dropkick Murphys that I liked a lot.
Meaning this is likely to be my only contribution to this genre (but you never know).
I had to drive up to our house near Lake Tahoe on Wednesday for the simple task of installing our new DSL modem.
You see, even though the house is buried in the Tahoe National Forest, and we neither get–nor want–television or our cell phones to work, we do often have to work from the house. So, being able connect with the world is essential.
My whole time at the house took about 20 minutes for the install, but the drive is around three hours each way. But, since we do rent the house out, particularly to skiers this time of year, and we advertise the house has high-speed, well I had to make sure we delivered upon what was advertised.
I usually would have just streamed KTKE in Truckee (the town about ten miles from our house) but for some reason I just plugged in my iPhone, put it on shuffle, and let it go.
Most of the storage on my iPhone is gobbled up by music (7.2 GB as I write) so there is a pretty good array of stuff, and it was good fun listening to the digital DJ take a turn at spinning tracks, and as Pavlov (one of our dogs joined me for the trek) and I wound our way up in altitude, shuffle handed out a few songs by The Pixies, a band I really love a lot.
Among them was Dig For Fire from the band’s terrific Bossanova album. Such a great cut (I saw the band once, opening for U2 on the Achtung Baby tour).
Well, since I am a big Pixies fan, it presumes I am also a Frank Black (aka, Black Francis) fan as well, so I figured I would throw in a cut from his album Teenager of the Year, with Frank and his band The Catholics.
Not that I was ever against them, but sort of like Masters of the Universe, I was born too late for them.
By the time Rush hit what Wikipedia refers to as the band’s “Mainstream Success” years (1977-81) I had run from the Arena rock of ELO and Queen to the Punk bands from England and New Wavers out of New York.
Furthermore, Rush was a Prog Rock band, and I had already grown weary of Yes, not that I did not respect the musical chops of Steve Howe and his mates. Yes’ music just seemed a bit on the forced/overwritten side to me compared to the visceral guitars of the Pistols and Eddie and the Hot Rods and the Records, et al.
Actually, the real bottom line was that the Prog Band of my adolescence was The Moody Blues, and then Pink Floyd, both of whom were cutting edge in the late 60’s, before Yes and Rush and even Fripp and Eno (there was Roxy Music out there too, though they were more Pop/Art Rock than Prog in my opinion).
I was given a copy of Rush’s single, New World Man when it came out in the mid-80’s, and it was OK, but I more remember a photograph of a Dalmatian on the cover (our family had one as I was growing up) than the actual song.
Over the years, I have heard songs by Rush on the radio waves, and with their distinct style and Geddy Lee’s falsetto vocals, they are pretty easily recognizable. And, they are not bad in any way. I never turn them off or change the channel: I just never crave more.
Except for the tune The Spirit of Radio which I have heard from time-to-time on said radio, and which I thought was a really great cut, but which I had never really listened to, if that makes a lick of sense. And, I certainly did not know the title of the tune.
However, I did catch the Band’s live performance as part of their introduction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and lo and behold the band played a red hot version of said song.
Again, I noted I liked it a lot, but I still did not know the title till the other night when I was returning from band practice, and the local hard rock station (the Bone at 107.7) played the original album track from the 1981 album Permanent Waves.
Of course with its unmistakable Alex Lifeson riff that runs through the tune, it is pretty hard to miss, but the truth is, since I heard it that last time, I cannot stop hearing in my head.
I have a memory of waking up one morning in 1978 or 1979 and the clock radio was playing this song. Or maybe it was another Cars song. What I remember is that it marked the beginning of a format on WPLJ called “The Next 25 Years of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and at the time I didn’t know that the drummer in this band had been the drummer in the Modern Lovers. I remember thinking that this was weird music for the radio, though now the Cars don’t sound weird at all. But the next 25 years, according to WPLJ, which had had a progressive rock format until that morning, was going to be jangly new wave and punk, when the weird became normal.
I was in Boston last week and heard the Cars on the radio, and it all sounded homespun.
This came to mind because I just watched the Frontline doc about the NFL and CTE, a disease apparently caused by repetitive impacts to the head. The show does a stately and fairly orderly recitation of the facts, and the efforts by some doctors at Boston University working with the wives of former players afflicted with the disease to get the NFL to acknowledge there is a problem. The League has been doing a dance around the issue for 20 years, no doubt in part because (as one player in the program says) what kind of game would football be without the collisions?
What kind of band would the Ramones be without those banging drums and guitars? One that comes up with exceptionally clever melodies and lyrical strategies, as they do on this one. The audio is only fair, but when the volume is up it doesn’t matter that much.
How much have about 30 years altered this list that was put together by Dave Marsh in the Book of Rock Lists? We have a few guitarists on the site, so I’m interested to see what they think.
4. James Burton (Elvis)
5. Pete Townshend
6. Keith Richards
7. Scotty Moore (Elvis)
8. Steve Cropper (Booker T. and the MGs)
9. Link Wray
10. Eric Clapton
Other notables when the list was published in 1980/81: Eddie Van Halen (13), Duane Allman (17), Jimmy Page (22), Mick Jones (24), Steve Jones (25), Bruce Springsteen (29).
As much as I love Springsteen and his guitar playing, I wouldn’t have him on this list. I’d put Prince in the top 30, though I don’t know where. I’d have Mick Taylor (29) higher. I’d have Marc Bolan and Mick Ronson on the list. Jimmy Page would be in my top 10 because he wrote so many great riffs but I know that a lot of guitar players think he’s sloppy. I can’t hear it though. I think Tom Morello belongs on the list after seeing him with Springsteen.
I remember talking to Moyer years ago about guitarists and I questioned the extent that leads should influence the rankings and he said that there isn’t a great guitarists who didn’t play great leads. I countered with Keith Richards and Steve had to admit that I had him there. Of course, Richards played, and wrote, many of the greatest riffs in rock history.
My mates here have been lamenting the passing of several notable clubs, known for booking bands who often made it big, to larger (sic Arena) venues.
Make no mistake, paying your dues, and working the club circuit is no easy way to simply try and make a mark on the music world (let alone make a living). And, for most young musicians, it is pretty much the only path forward there is.
I know both my partners Steve Moyer and Gene McCaffrey have paid these dues, and as younger guys than I. Meaning, they did it as a job, which is indeed a hard row to hoe.
I have probably been playing dive bars off and on for the past five years, but for me it is simply because playing out is so much fun (and, since I make a comfy living outside of music, no pressure). But, at my advanced age, I don’t really have any illusions that anyone will ever discover the Biletones. In fact, though we are pretty disciplined, practicing at least every week, I know we will never be good or tight enough to be considered a serious band.
Of course that does not diminish the pleasure, for just a little over a week ago the Biletones played Rooster’s Roadhouse in Alameda, drawing a pretty typical crowd for us of about 75 folks. Which is actually not so bad for a bunch of guys in their 50’s and 60’s (well, me anyway).
Truth is I have never really played a huge venue (about 400 is the most) and I am not knocking the Arena circuit, but truth is also that I have very little use for it any more.
The best concerts I ever saw were generally at Winterland, the Fillmore, and a great old club in San Francisco that passed on a la CBGB’s and Maxwell’s, The Old Waldorf. For, I saw the Cars (first US tour), U2 (first American tour), Ian Hunter (with Mick Ronson), Hall and Oates (during their punk period, with a young G. E. Smith and Ray Cooper), The Records, Bram Tchaikovsky, Leo Kottke, Romeo Void and a lot of other bands in a venue that only held about 250 people.
There is nothing like seeing a band–especially a hot one–in a little club, however. Nothing like it for the band, and nothing like it for the crowd, for the energy feeds symbiotically, elevating the experience all around.
More to the point, I also find I am just not that interested in elbowing my way through thousands of people to sit half-a-mile away from the stage (which at my age I cannot really see too clearly anyway). In fact, most of the time I don’t even need an opening act. Let alone standing in line for 20 minutes for the honor of using a Port-o-Potty.
As it was, this past week I have been in Chicago, doing some work, but then helping Diane’s cousin Cherie and her husband Mike move into this cool house they built in Woodstock, about 40 miles northwest from the center of town.
On Saturday, I had committed to watch the Blackhawks and Bruins duke it out with Mike and his friend Jeff at a local bar, Rosie O’Hare’s, where their friend Steve Hopp, a carpenter by day, oversees the smoking of meat at night (it is good, too).
Now, I am not much of a hockey fan, but watching sports in Chicago is generally a lot more fun than watching sports in the Bay Area. Not that ATT does not rock, or even the Coliseum when the Athletics are hot. Plus, the Niners, Sharks, and Warriors all have devoted followings, and even the piece of shit Raiders (call me bitter) have the “Black Hole.”
But, football here is so different than at home, and these locals go ape shit over their hockey team (I am actually looking forward to watching the next game with Jeff and Mike, and like I said, I am not a hockey fan).
Anyway, after the game–in fact we got a two song taste before Saturday’s overtime began–the local band Jimmy Nick and Don’t Tell Mama completely blitzed the place with solid Chicago Blues.
A young band (I believe Nick is just 22 years old), grabbing the blues tradition pretty well, these guys have a great local reputation, in fact the clip here was recorded just a few weeks back at the very same Rosie’s. (They laid down a great cover of Los Lobos’ “I Got Loaded,” that featured a blazing guitar solo centered around the theme to “The Andy Griffith Show.”)
After we split from Rosie’s, Mike drove the long way back home, showing me that rural Chicago has a pretty active bar scene, and I really liked that. Kind of like I like that my mates Steve and Tom Muscarella always implore us to go to brick and mortar record stores.
For though I appreciate the fact that bulk purchasing allows big business to offer lower prices, there is something indeed to be said for supporting small business. For, those small businesses–and I am talking about mom and pop establishments, not companies like Koch Industries that masquerades as small business because only two guys own it—are largely our neighbors and community.
So, we should do what we can to keep them rocking.
There are bars with music and there are legendary bars with music. Maxwell’s, in Hoboken NJ, will be one of the legendary ones for just another two months. I lived in Hoboken in 1981, when Maxwell’s, just three years old, wasn’t yet venerated. At that time it was too new and too exciting, regularly booking the same bands that were playing CBGB, across the river, and serving as something of a home club for Yo La Tengo and the Feelies, among others. During my Hoboken days I remember going to see bands at Maxwell’s, drinking beer at Maxwell’s, having brunch at Maxwell’s, but I don’t remember at this point what bands I saw at that point. At that point the point wasn’t the names, but the music, which was still lively and energized by punk, hugely broadly do it yourself, full of folks making their own legends (and sometimes succeeding) making rock or what became known as Alt-Country, in a movement that changed the tastes of the nation.
The first show that I remember going to see at Maxwell’s by design involved commuting across the Hudson River via the PATH train to see the legendary British punk band the Mekons, whose amazing country record (and that does not do it justice) was called Fear and Whiskey in the UK and had just been released in the US (with some extra tracks) as Original Sin. The room with the music at Maxwells was small then (and is still the same small), an irregular box with a myriad of obtuse and acute angles on the perimeter, plus columns in the middle, kind of the shape of a game controller, only you’re on the inside. There were some chairs and boxes for sitting around the edges, a bar in the back, and the band was crammed into a nook at the other end of this rhomboid box, crushed amidst whatever speakers and amplifiers were stacked up there to help them make noise. The Mekons that night had at least seven people jammed on the stage, and it seemed like 20, playing the usual guitar, bass and drums, with Sally Timms on vocals, and also a fiddle player and an accordion player and a few others who banged on things this and that and who sang along, too, at the sing-songy parts.
The room was packed with expectation on June 20, 1986. The Mekons had always been a political band, but arch, funny, engaged, enraged, also aware they they were playing music ferchrissakes. Their first single, released at the height of punk mania, was called “Never Been in a Riot.” Unlike the Clash.
Their music in 1977 was brittle, angular, clangy, totally amateur. They couldn’t play. A legend arose that if you learned to play your instrument the Mekons kicked you out. The Mekons were masters of the ethos of the naif, the beginner, but over the years their chops improved and their ambitions grew. Jon Langford developed as a guitarist and songwriter. He fell in love with Hank Williams and he steered the band toward the fabulous hybrid they developed in Fear and Whiskey. It’s country, but not afraid of reggae and afropop, in places, homespun but raging with anger about the injustices of the Reagan/Thatcher years and the darkness at the heart of the soul. And that isn’t the half of it. Love songs, sex songs, passion, history, politics, metaphor, but most of all joyous strange music that often sounded trad., music from the ages, but was played by a big rock ensemble with passion and craft. It was was wholly original, like nothing exactly you’ve ever heard before, but full of the spirit that courses through your soul, maybe like marrow. At least on your good days.
This was quite suddenly a band at the top of their game, at the top of anyone’s game, Fear and Whiskey representing the first of a string of maybe five albums (Fear and Whiskey, The Edge of the World, The Mekons Honky Tonkin’, So Good It Hurts, Rock and Roll) that are as first rate as any such sequence in rock history. This was a band for whom the motives seemed to be purely moral, large of heart, full of sensual pleasures that come from making great rocking music with your friends. That sweaty woozy hot night at Maxwell’s I had the unalloyed joy of being in a packed room full of people who were becoming members of the band that was up on stage, the audience pushing them hard, the band embracing their fans and embracing the push, and making music back at us! Encouraging us! By the end we felt like we’d been invited onto the tour bus for the rest of our lives, and while we get off here and there, the many times I’ve seen the Mekons live since, as soon as the band comes on stage, it’s like you’ve never really been away. We’re all serious friends, here to laugh and to grouse together. Together.
Maxwell’s owner announced this week that the club was closing. In this obit in the New York Times owner, Todd Abrahmson, said that they could probably make the business work for another year or two, but that the changes in Hoboken’s demographics make the club’s demise inevitable. “If you think of Willie Mays playing outfield for the New York Mets — I didn’t want us to wind up like that,” he said.
Abrahamson now books the Bell House in Brooklyn, which happens to be on my street, a few blocks down the hill in Park Slope, and where I saw the Mekons play last year. Somewhere I have a file with a recording of that show, but what I was really excited to find was a recording of that show at Maxwell’s back in 1986 at archive.org. Not like being there, but a swell souvenir and not a waste of your time.
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.”
