Category Archives: night music

Night Music: Rage to Live, “Enough Is Never Enough”

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ragetolive69628As is the case with all collegiate rock, influence rules. The Hoboken band Rage to Live introduced me to the great, brave, sordid novels of John O’Hara (he wrote one called Rage to Live).

Rage to Live was founded by Glenn Morrow, who was a writer for New York Rocker magazine, and a founder of Bar None Records (Rage to Live’s first album was Bar None’s first release).

The only song I could find from them was this tuneful thing, which is distinguished by its assertive vocals mixed up high, and a genuine organic hook. This music dates from the mid 80s, a time when disco and hardcore and synthpop were tearing up the world of rock. This is a time when I listened to a lot of music from Jamaica and Africa, but also a time when smart pop-rock bands like Yo La Tengo, Rage to Live, the Silos and many others emerged.

They sounded awfully good.

Night Music: Portugal. The Man, “Modern Jesus”

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I don’t know anything about this band. Wikipedia says they’re a rock band from Wasilla Alaska. No word if they’ve gotten into any punch outs with the Palins. The music on this cut isn’t rock. There’s lots of electronics and the vocalist is doing a blue-eyed soul thing, and then when they get into chorus it gets kind of over overlaid and sonically compressed, like modern hit songs. Not rock. The album this is from, Evil Friends, was produced by Danger Mouse, who got famous mixing up the Beatles White Album with Jay-Z’s Black Album. He called it the Gray Album, and it was pretty good, but the work of a studio artist, not a hacker. Then he made that giant hit Crazy, with CeLo Green.

In any case, the lyrics on this song are great, “the only faith we have is waking up,” the attitude is strong and I like the vocals and the song itself. And the video is fab. This may be the sound of a rock band turning into a pop band, but I like it.

Night Music: The Modern Lovers, “I’m Straight”

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I found this song a few years ago. I think it is an outtake of the Modern Lovers album John Cale produced, but I don’t know that for sure. It reflects something of what Gene pointed out about Jonathan’s busking days.

What I know for sure is that Richman soon after the Cale sessions rejected the negative vibes he was giving off with great songs like She Cracked and Pablo Picasso and wrote and performed a few great albums of perky and twee tunes that were also really fantastic.

But I’m Straight is a song from derangement, though it erupts from great discipline and an obvious challenge.

It is not a great a pop song or rock song by any stretch, but as a heartfelt expression by a songwriter it stands very naked and tall. And weird.

Night Music: Grateful Dead, “Friend of the Devil”

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I’ve had many friends who were Dead Heads. I once rode on an Amtrak train north of NYC that was full of Dead Heads going to Syracuse, if I remember correctly, for a giant show at the Orange Dome. Beautiful people, but not me.

But I also think that the Dead, and Garcia and Lesh and no doubt others I’m not thinking of now, are great American rockers. Two drums? That’s good. More guitars? Can’t hurt. They did that early in the game.

They were always loud, always rhythmic, but they did move from innovative surrealism to smart social satire, as the years passed. And they got famous for two perfect albums of restrained country rock (Working Class Blues, American Beauty) and exquisitely long live jams that lent themselves to derangement via whatever hallucinogen was nearby.

I think those two albums are close to perfect, and while I write this I wonder why that happened then (and didn’t happen before or after). But for tonight:

Night Music: Frankie Ford, “Sea Cruise”

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Cosimo Matussa also engineered/produced this one, which is just a perfect pleasure. I can remember the first time I heard it. I’d bought a compilation of early New Orleans music, curious about these oldies that weren’t on the radio. It was full of great tunes, but this is the one that beckoned over and over.

I got to boogie woogie like a knife in the back.

Night Music: Liz Phair, “Turning Japanese”

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When I wrote earlier today the Sonics in 1961 were juvenile I was immediately reminded of the Liz Phair recording Juvenilia. The ep includes some of the songs that she recorded with the band Material Issue on a series of tapes released as Girly Sounds, before she signed with Matador. Before Exile in Guyville.

It also includes a muscular cover of the Vapors’ hit song, Turning Japanese, also backed by Material Issue, and which judging from the YouTube comments might be about masterbation. You moron!

I was going to pair it with the Vapors’ version, but this is much better. There are a lot more comments on the Vapors version’s page, however, including a discussion of why masturbating would be called Turning Japanese rather than Turning Chinese or Turning Asian. Maybe having to do with the number of syllables. Not to be missed, but first, this: