This song was written by Jack Bruce, with words by Pete Brown, for Bruce’s solo Songs for a Tailor album. My grandfather was a tailor and I found this picture of him and my grandmother in his shop on Fifth Avenue, probably in the 60s.
Maybe it was in this room that my grandfather made me a Nehru jacket, which was tres sharp.
In any case, Felix Pappalardi, who produced Songs for a Tailor, brought the song to Leslie West, and Mountain recorded it for their classic and great album, Climbing. They also played the song at Woodstock and it is on the Woodstock 2 album, but this is the studio version.
Bruce subsequently joined Mountain’s Leslie West and Corky Laing in West Bruce and Laing, something of a supergroup that didn’t make that much of a splash, though my friends and I were enthusiastic fans.
Jack Bruce died this week, and he was a huge star because of his work with Cream, but he also created a substantial body of work that didn’t have that much to do with Cream. We still have that, too, and shouldn’t forget it.
Answer songs go back at least to early jazz and probably long before that. They’ve always been big in rap but disappeared from Rocknroll when Rocknroll became Rock. But Johnny Thunders got pissed when he heard the Sex Pistols’ “New York.” Johnny explains his reasons. Johnny rounded up Pistols Jones/Cook on guitar/drums, with Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy on bass. A young Steve Lillywhite produced. Certainly one of and maybe the best “fuck you” song ever.
I’m pulling this from the liner notes for Joe Walsh’s box set Analog Man, explaining where this cool artyfact came from. Joe Walsh says:
“I found this is an old box of tapes I had. It is a recording of The James Gang jamming with Little Richard in Cleveland, Ohio about 1970. Me on guitar, Jimmy Fox on drums, Dale Peters on bass and featuring Little Richard at his best. I remember we played a couple of shows in the Midwest with LR and, I think, Chuck Berry on the same bill and on a day off in Cleveland we decided to go into Cleveland Recording and mess around. We did a few songs, but this is the only one that survived. I called LR for permission to include it on Analog Man and he said “It makes me wanna go out in the yard and yell LAWDY LAWDY!” Little Richard is one of the true founding fathers of rock & roll and a huge influence and inspiration to every musician I know including me. It’s an honor to know him and to be able to share this magical moment in time with all of you. God bless you LR! Thank you.”
The tune is credited to (Walsh, Jim Fox, Richard Penniman, Dale Peters).
Obvious cut from a band we listened to in high school a lot, though kind of guiltily. They were uncool but rocking. I wish I could recover the conversation explaining why they were uncool. Now the song is a little overfamiliar, but the video is nice. Real nice.
My dad is old and he has lost almost everything that makes life worth living but his mind, which is still working overtime clocking the stuff that happens. But isn’t that great at enjoying the daily stuff that is happening outside himself.
I’ve spent much of the last week in the Sunshine State trying to figure out a way for him to live the best life he can in his decline. The hell of it is he can still be charming and funny, but the toll taken by his body’s decline means he’s often playing a defensive game. And he’s not that charming or funny, because even at his most expansive he’s thinking more about what he isn’t than what anyone else is.
It’s awful.
Plus, he’s pretty much constantly fending off those who want to strip him of his liberty, which is to his credit. Except that the facts of the last couple of years show he can’t really handle liberty. Given choice, he chooses badly (or at least, the way of the rotting flesh).
I think an 86 year old has the right to choose badly, as long as they’re not bringing those around them down too, and unfortunately he has a wife who is apparently incapable of escaping his vortex. So he’s not helping her, at the least.
Which makes me think I don’t want to ever get old. Oops.
We are up at the Tahoe house for a week which means no TV (save DVDs) and no radio (save streaming). Right now it means pouring down rain banging off our metal roof, and maybe in a few hours it will mean the first snow drop of the year. Irrespective, we need the water, so bring it on.
But, it also means I am near KTKE HQ in Truckee, and while streaming this morningDJ Lindsday with an A spun this great Marshall Crenshaw tune from his equally fine self titled debut disc from 1982.
I had high hopes for Crenshaw and his Hollyesque delivery (these days I reserve that for Jake Bugg) and saw Crenshaw in the early 90’s at the Fillmore. He was good enough (and paired with the great Jimmy Dale Gilmore) but he hadn’t really advanced much beyond that first album.
Which is ok, I suppose. I just hope for growth out of an artist I like. Still, a tight little cut.
Now that he’s made it to Viagra commercials might as well hear other great ones. As much as I hate to see the commercials they do get the music out there. We shouldn’t be snobby. My son Peter was at a high school dance last night and the DJ played Smokestack Lightning and the kids danced to it. This shit is eternal, and lest I stand accused of favoring my own era the 50s are not my era. I was born in 1955. I hardly heard any 50s music until WCBS-FM in New York became an “oldies” station in 1971, which then basically meant the 50s. At that time I 15-16 years old and was way into the Stones, Beatles, Led Zep, etc. No doubt age 16 is still the formative years, so in that sense sure it’s part of my formation, but I came to realize then and since that almost everything I like is variations and developments on blues, doo wop, and rocknroll/rockabilly. And Howlin Wolf is just in a class by himself. He’s like Ty Cobb – few you CAN compare him to and those few, well, Muddy Waters is Tris Speaker.
This one is utterly beautiful. So is a Man Needs a Maid. And the Needle and the Damage Done. But the content doesn’t always match the package.
That said, I love this clip. I’m going to see my old man in a few hours, and whether I like it or not I’m a lot like he is (this is what led me to this tune tonight).
This morning’s Crowded House blue-eyed soul reminded me of this homoerotic video and shirts-off performance by Paul Weller.
It’s hard to imagine exactly what scenario the lads are acting out here, or how hot Weller’s bony torso is supposed to fire us up, but whatever your persuasion the message is a jumble.
I know, I know, I know, this song is a joke, I get that. But it raises all kinds of questions.
Let me set the scene. I spent 4+ hours in the car today, and I listened to the radio. I’m in New York City, I could listen to scores of radio stations, but some of the college stations fade in and out. The one that doesn’t is WFUV, the station of Fordham University.
WFUV has been a decent enough radio station, even though it doesn’t sound like a college station. The DJs aren’t learning their craft. Some of the top DJs from WNEW in the 1960s and 70s heyday still work at the station. So, in spite of the collegiate affiliation this is a professional non-commercial station.
Until recently they played the format known as Americana, mostly, which meant trudging through the dull dirt waiting for the occasional gems. Those days were mostly inoffensive and sometimes good, and since I don’t spend that much time riding in the car in NYC, not a problem. WFUV was reliable if often dull.
Now, it seems, WFUV has changed to something you could call a discovery format. From my experience today they play a mixture of old and new, aiming for the older listener who may recall the AOR (Album Oriented Radio) days fondly.
So, on my drive, I heard Devo and the Dolls, Big Star and Crowded House. Chuck Berry, the Coasters and the new album from Stars. Good, right? You can read today’s list here. But I also heard Nigel Hawthorne and Weezer, the Dave Matthews Band and this.
I knew it wasn’t the B-52s, because it obviously sucked, but it also caught my ear because in a way it seemed in some way to be talking back to the effete socialists in the Delta 5 and Gang of Four and the Mekons. It was saying, us ‘Merkins love our crackers and our surf rock and don’t go messing it up with your jangly angular allusions and arch lyrics. Eat my drool, lick my lil Debbies, suck ass.
Which doesn’t, on the face of it, seem like a losing strategy to me, necessarily, and maybe SCOTS have done better, but this song? I can imagine why it might have been made, it probably seemed funny at the time, and someone clearly paid, but why is someone playing it on the radio today?
Maybe it was in this room that my grandfather made me a Nehru jacket, which was tres sharp.
