Category Archives: live

Elliot Murphy, “Last of the Rock Stars”

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Around the time the Dolls and Springsteen were going for stardom, Elliot Murphy was the darling of Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, which didn’t lack for cachet because of that whole Velvet Underground thing.

One day when I was in high school I was in New York City for some unremembered reason, and I was on the Long Island Railroad headed home reading Interview, a feature about Elliot Murphy, and I look up and there on the danged LIRR car is Elliot Murphy, wearing a neon blue (aqua) feather jacket, like a true rock star, with hangers on (friends) and everything. On the Long Island Railroad! Though I’m not sure the record was even out yet, which may explain something.

Murphy didn’t endure nor soar the way the Dolls and Springsteen have. I don’t have a theory why. He seemed very delicate and kind of made up on the train. Aquashow was a good album, but careers get derailed in many ways. Stardom selects in reverse. Many aspire and a few survive the gauntlet.

In any case, Murphy didn’t stop. Here’s a version from a live show in Italy in 2006. No longer innocent nor callow.

Radio Radio

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I was at dinner with some friends the other night, when talk turned to Elvis Costello’s new book, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink. Many people there that night claimed fandom, but I think I won with my story of being at the first show at the Bottom Line, standing on our chairs so we could look over the fucking piano, and telling the bouncers to go to hell, since we didn’t want to look in the stupid mirror they had for those of us in our blocked seats.

I also told the story of hanging at the bar with Joey Ramone, talking about just how sucky the Tuff Darts (opening act) were.

But then I told the story of seeing Costello and the Attractions on Saturday Night Live, and I got the whole story totally wrong. In my head, the label wanted Elvis to play Allison, and he instead played Radio Radio.

But the clips are clear. He was scheduled to play Less Than Zero, a track about British fascist Oswald Mosely, and who could know it would later become a Bret Easton Ellis post teen drug romp novel and movie, but played instead the insolent and immature but uberly catchy Radio Radio.

For this, Lorne Michaels or NBC, I’m not sure which, banned Costello from NBC shows. Wow.

But on the 25th anniversary of SNL, Costello was back, recreating the moment (equally awkwardly) and played Radio Radio with the Beastie Boys. It’s cool, and I think shows just how tight the Attractions were.

New York Dolls, Pills

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The Bo Diddley original is something of a calypso, but the Dolls don’t bite on that. Their version rocks, and what most impresses in this clip is how hard these guys work the harmonies and the front line attack. That’s music.

While the pumps, and the balance they require, are rock.

Syl’s face paint seems to presage Kiss’s face paint, which Kiss started wearing around the same time. I don’t know the history here.

Is it more likely that Kiss copied the Dolls? Or the Dolls copied Kiss? Remember that the Dolls’ biggest hit was Looking for a Kiss, before Kiss even had a hit.

Here’s the Bo Diddley original:

Breaking News! Lord Rockingham Ghostwrote Hillary Clinton’s “Hard Choices”

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This isn’t really breaking news. This link leads to a story from June 2014, but it’s new to me.

Yes, it seems that the Upper Crust’s Lord Rockingham, an Upper Crust member in 1995 through 1997, wrote Hard Choices, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s inside look at the choices and challenges she has made and faced.

But not Bernie Sanders.

The linked story has some clips, but let’s add one more. h/t to Cindy Brolsma.

As if that’s not enough, there is a surprise Upper Crust documentary, that features plenty of Ted Widmer, aka Lord Rockingham.

I’ve just started it, but, um, it is called Let Them Eat Rock!

 

Happy Birthday Bruce.

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When I was in high school, maybe junior year, a new kid named Robert Ellis moved to town from Cherry Hill New Jersey. I guess we shared a class and became friendly, and one day he came over my house and we spent hours arguing whether Springsteen or the New York Dolls were better. It accrues good will to us that we weren’t arguing between Foghat and REO Speedwagon, these are two of the greatest rock artists of all time in their infancy, but I still remember him saying that the Dolls didn’t even play their own instruments, as if they were the Monkees or something. I loved the Monkees.

Robert was right, the Boss was boss, and I in fact had no problem with Greetings from Asbury Park or the Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, except they weren’t the Dolls.

Today, or maybe yesterday, is the Boss’s birthday, and there is a post on Gothamist ranking all of his records. I’m so over that, I didn’t even open it, but it did make me think about the songs that speak to me. Top of the list is Rosalita, which should probably be everybody’s favorite song and lets be done with it. Then these two came to mind:

This is a really early version I’d never seen before!

Totally frightening, never old.

 

Lightning Bolt, Dracula Mountain at the Unitarian Church of Philadelphia in May 2015

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I posted a great video of this tune yesterday, but this one has brighter color and is from just a handful of months ago. It also has a camera dude who is clearly not committed to not rocking.

Before the video, here’s a little of what I learned today about Lightning Bolt. They’ve been playing together for 20 years. They’ve made a number of records. The most recent came out in May 2015. The previous came out in 2009.

Brian the Bass Player has a regular job as a game designer, and worked on Guitar Hero. They live in Providence RI, so maybe he worked with Curt Schilling! Don’t know, but it seems possible.

What’s in My Bag is a show in which musicians go to a store and select stuff, and then talk about what they selected. I can tell from what Lightning Bolt selected that they’re educated and experimental. That’s a little too bad, but maybe that’s why they do what they do so well. Here’s the clip:

But much better yet, here’s more music, from a band that does away with the stage and invites the audience to stand as close as possible to them while they play. Loudly. I’m still blown away.