These guys took on a few shapes over the years, and made some of rock’s greatest songs. I didn’t know this one until today. But, wow. If you haven’t heard this you haven’t rocked.
Category Archives: Lunch Break
LINK: In Godlis We Trust
Vice has an interview with pictures by a photographer of the punk scene named Godlis, with lots of good shots of the bands and people you would expect. Nice stuff.
Lunch Break: X, “When Our Love Passed Out On The Couch”
From the great Wild Gift.
Lunch Break: 16 More Tons
Maybe the measure of a song is how many people see fit to shape it to their own musical styles, kind of like mining.
Stevie Wonder imagined the song as a Motowny bit of danceable social protest in the 60s:
An English socialist rock band with the appalling name The Redskins recorded a jazzy rockabilly version.
And you can’t overlook the Swedish death metal band Momento Mori’s swinging version from 1993.
And there are thrash metal, hip hop, folk, a cappella and other versions, that maybe we’ll get to another day when we’re deeper in debt.
Sunday Brunch: Lou Reed Plus, “A Perfect Day”
This Lou Reed and company (Pavarotti!) is an ad to promote the tax the BBC exacts for every TV (and radio?) sold in the UK in order to pay for itself.
But that seems less important than the simple loveliness of the whole thing. Right now I can’t imagine a more positive and less maudlin tune with a catchy melody. You hit me with your flower.
Fun sightings for me: Shane McGowan (I think that’s him without the teeth), Dr. John (who got me here), and Robert Cray. You’ll have your own.
LINK: Loving the Replacements as a teen, long after they broke up.
Amy Rose Spiegel was 22 when she wrote this story at Buzzfeed, about going to see the Replacements during their reunion tour in 2013.
She was a one year old when the Mats broke up originally, and grew up and into a fan who never expected to get a chance to see them live. But then she did.
Along the way she has some observations about teens and musical passion and the Mats, as well as the way music imprints on teens and how teen taste reflects teen values, that seem to fit here.
Spiegel prefers the introspective songs, by the way, which in the piece seems a little sadly stereotyped. But fortunately she will put up with the noisy ones, because they matter to her, even if she doesn’t like them as much.
Lunch Break: The Knitters, “Fourth of July”
Well, a happy Independence Day to you all, especially in these times of political strife and angst.
Being the progeny of immigrants who fled Germany with what little they could drag with them, leaving fortunes and family behind to perish at the hands of the Third Reich, I find it frustrating these days to see the perverted way in which the Tea Party and right wing have somehow co-opted the ideas of freedom that the then left wing Sons of Liberty–the bulk of whom were Deists, not Christians or Puritans at all–represented.
For the conservative faction of this country does not understand that during the revolutionary war they would have been Torries, embracing the edicts of King George (as the Bush family, who actually date back that far did, actively supporting the crown during the war of 1812), opposed to the path of independence chosen by Samuel Adams, his cousin John, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington.
Similarly, that same right wing does not seem to get that one of the reasons the American Revolution worked was that it was indeed a guerrilla war, fought on our own soil, against a potentially more dominant foe (England), but an absentee one. Meaning every time we think of invading a foreign land, like Iraq or Iran or Viet Nam, we should remember the three points the home field advantage affords in football.
In other words, it is tough to win an away war.
That said, I am a seriously patriotic and freedom loving first generation American who believes in liberty and justice for all, and that indeed all men are created equal, despite the initial success of our country being rooted in the slavery of African Americans and the genocide of the Native Americans.
For the truth is we all have our dark side: the problem emanates from denying that fact.
Which brings me to the great LA punk band X, founded by John Doe, DJ Bonebroke, and Exene Cervenka, who work a side project with Blasters founder Dave Alvin, and Jonny Ray Bartel of the band The Red Devils.
That band is The Knitters, who released a first album of roots music, Poor Little Critter on the Road in 1985, and then followed up with a second disc in 2005 entitled Modern Sounds of the Knitters.
When asked about the 20-year gap between albums, Doe deadpanned, “The Knitters, like their music, don’t do anything hasty. Since our last record’s been out for a while and it did pretty good, we figured it was just about time to put out another.”
What is better is the song I chose to acknowledge our Independence Day is not on either album the Knitters produced, in fact I could not even find a youtube of the band performing this great song, so I had to stick with this version by Doe and his cohorts, which I like a lot better than the couple of more countrified versions out there by Alvin and his mates.
The recording is a little rough, but I suspect just like our revolution was sort of a rag tag affair at its inception, and one that gathered momentum as it continued, so is the song.
It is also a standard of the Biletones set list, and if we had a video of us cranking it out, then I would have happily posted it.
But, we will have to stick with Doe, for he and mates do it justice despite the funky sound.
A safe and wonderful holiday and holiday weekend to all: just, as you enjoy BBQ and fireworks and savoring our freedom, remember the notion came from progressive (though admittedly imperfect) men who had a vision. Let’s stay true to that, and not the idiot demagogues who preach their vision of freedom, but dismiss any other.
Lunch Break: Graham Gouldman, “Bus Stop”
So, the story goes, I found this website, a blog really, and, um, where did today go, anyway?
Powerpop.blogspot.com doesn’t immediately catch my attention, I’m not that interested in a power pop blog, but a little more browsing unearthed this version of one of my favorite songs.
Graham Goulding was a writer of Dreadlock Holiday, featured in this space last week, and all of 10 C.C.’s songs. Before that he wrote For Your Love and Heart Full of Soul for the Yardbirds, No Milk Today for Herman’s Hermits, and Look Through any Window and the classic Bus Stop for the Hollies. Two of the Hollies best.
The original Bus Stop is a fantastic but brittle pop tune, maybe a little over produced (how many singers are there?), but classic. I’m not complaining about it. Goulding’s own version, which was apparently recorded for a 10 C.C. greatest hits collection, is mellower and at least for the first half is a more agreeable version. A true love song, a true pop song, and both elevated together.
Take it to lunch!
h/t to Powerpop.blogpost.com.
Lunch Break: The Pretenders, “Boots of Chinese Plastic”
Here’s a throwback cut from the Pretenders’ last elpee in 2008.
Lunch Break: Donovan and the Jeff Beck Group, “Barabajagel (Love Is Hot)”
Donovan Leitch was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame yesterday. There is always a goofiness about his songs, a goofiness that his not Hall of Fame quality, and a catchiness and hookiness that certainly. Jeff Beck Group plays guitar on this one, with his band (but apparently not Rod Stewart). What makes that interesting is that listening to the backup singers, mostly female, I thought I heard some familiar male voices (though not Stewart’s). I couldn’t find definitive credits, but I did find the blog, Lady Garfunkel’s Song of the Day, which covered the song in May of 2009. She reports speculation someplace that the Robert Plant-like voice in the mix might actually be Robert Plant. Could be, but you be the judge.