A few years ago Chuck Berry was inducted into some songwriter’s hall of fame. A friend said, “Chuck Berry?” Hell yes.
Berry’s rep has diminished thanks to Keith Richards (his bastard son, who disavowed him) and Chuck’s impecunious behavior, but the fact is that Johnny B. Goode, Maybelline, Back In the USA, Roll Over Beethoven, and almost every hit he ever wrote except My Dingaling, ranks among the best rock and roll tunes of all time.
I should bless you with Carol, here, but this will have to do:
I hate all this bogus old-style band shit, the band you’ve known for all these years, which is the weakest part of that Beatles album that everyone thinks is so great. But this Youtube video appears to separate out each of the ultimate four tracks of the original masters on the title track, and that isn’t nothing.
These are mixed down versions of what were other multiple tracks, so there are guitars and horns on one of them. But you do seem to get things isolated somewhat, and I like hearing how hard some of it sounds. That’s important, because the Beatles wanted to rock.
We’re also given Paul’s reverbed vocals in isolation, and he rocks it, too.
Funny how my reaction (and maybe yours) to the track today isn’t rock. The artifice rules. But the sounds are from the rock playbook. Billy Shears indeed.
I couldn’t watch the political news today. Too depressing.
So I streamed KTKE and on came the Straits, a band I had not heard for a while.
During the new wave rush, Dire Straits were a serious fave of mine, and Mark Knopfler was similarly both a fave guitar play, and songwriter too.
With riffs (dude fingerpicks, which makes me totally wonder how he gets such a throaty sound out of his leads sometimes) influenced by Richard Thompson (Knopfler once said he learned the most from listening to Thompson) and Dylan-esque words and vocals, Dire Straits were just different enough, just edgy enough, and way good enough to survive.
Somehow they seemed way smart enough too, which may sound snotty, but I mean it in the sense that the band played challenging music. But, I think if we all look at the bands we really loved the most–The Velvets, Replacements, The Stones, Dylan, Iggy, etc.–all dared us to ride along on their artistic and musical journey.
Dire Straits third album, Making Movies made my essentials list. Making Movies jumped the band ahead from their early sound to what sounded like new territory at the time. The entire album is fabulous, and since I was jonesing for a little crunch from Mark and his axe, here you go.
This may be my favorite Sonic Youth tune. It seems to be all about getting psyched to make music, to think big thoughts, but then also recognizing that what the kids want matters, too.
Or maybe it’s about something else. I have to say I never really thought about meaning until just now.
What I like is the way the guitars resonate and chime, interweave and resonate, and chase the rhythm section, and the way Thurston Moore’s words evoke something, specifically, yet don’t seem to be pinnable to anything but his particular story.
Seven minutes never went by so fast. That means something.
Wading back into the Sonic Youth songbook, all the popular Sonic Youth songs actually do sound a little like Wilco, though Sonic Youth got there first.
A band that lasts the better part of 30 years has it’s different phases, so there’s more to explore than just another catchy tune that didn’t chart. This one is quintessential SY, however, from the 90s, and is not only a little rifftastic, but danged listenable.
Peter’s post of Legs by ZZ Top prompted me to comment that if we, as humans, keep at a talent long enough, eventually the work and experience will coalesce into a representative work.
I suppose this harkens to the old give a typewriter to a monkey and eventually the ape will give you back a novel.
I don’t mean it that way, especially in the context of Sonic Youth, who have always worked to produce challenging music that pushes the bounds of art as rock.
Still, when they released their album Rather Ripped in 2006 (the band’s 14th) as the closest thing to a collection of pop tunes, the Youth finally scored a hit a la the Top with Eliminator.
I have seen the band a couple of times and while they were interesting, they were never as accessible as this. With a pair of guitar players, and a pair of bass players, no less.
I spent more than few hours in the George W. Bush Airport in Houston today. Infrastructure historians know what a boondoggle that airport was. Baseball fans know that George HW Bush president, sold everything and his name, so that the airport could be built where it is. Oh, did I mention boondoggle? Which paved the way for his son to become Texas Rangers president, a taxing job, and US president, a task better outsourced to Cheney and Rumsfeld.
From Yorkshire, produced by Chapman and Chinn. New to me. Chapman and Chinn wrote hits for Suzi Quattro, Sweet and Hot Chocolate, all recently featured here.
