Steve Gibbons, at the time this record came out, was sold as something of a UK Bob Seger. That is, a rock vet finally being recognized for his powerful original worth.
The album this was on had, what seemed at the time, a progressive song about racial mixing, like why not, and some other rock songs. And it had this obvious chart attempt, mixing Gibbons’ rock heart with Dire Straits’ lyricism. I find the music quite winning, as I do all of Dire Straits when that style is working.
But the lyrics? The concept? OMG. What is this story? It seems to be based on the idea that WWII soldiers, during the war or just after, find a naked girl in the bunker, and then stuff happens, as long as one doesn’t lose… um, well, that’s it. Well, until they um… How far do they go? No one knows.
I’ll be the last to inhibit anyone’s fantasies, in private, but if you’re going to turn this loaded scenario into a hit song, Steve Gibbons, you should do better. Great tune, really bad lyrics, unless on the off chance your fantasy involves women disrupted by war (and naked) desiring soldiers to, um, satisfy their desires. That would be B-movie worthy, at least a little, even if exploitable. But in the context of Gibbons’ song, the womenhave no desires at all. That’s too bad.
I so loved the punk movement. I was 25, and actually in London the week of the Stiffs Live. I remember getting on the Underground to go back to my Grandmother’s in Finchley and the punks who had been at the shows that featured Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, Larry Wallis, and Ian Dury and the Blockheads were on the same train.
Blue Mohawks-crap, any Mohawk on a white kid in the fall of 1977–and pierced tongues and such were still a little outrageous in the states where ELO and ABBA ruled. In fact Roxy Music, 801, The Tubes, and Queen were about as far as I could push the envelope before that fateful trip to London to visit my Granny and cousins for the first time on their turf.
What a great time I had! I remember sleeping on a boat hostile in Amsterdam with a bunch of other kids, and getting up in the morning to eat some yogurt and fruit and cheese (remember, I am in Holland) with Marshall Tucker’s “Can’t You See” blasting in the dining area.
As previously noted, that was the first time I heard the Sex Pistols: in the tub in my Granny’s home, listening to my Aunt Hedda’s tinny transistor radio, tuned to John Peel and Top of the Pops. “Anarchy in the UK” blasted out and life would never be the same for me.
I came home hungry, riding the new wave as it broke here, a pierced (yep, did my ear the first time right after I got back), tattooed (long story, but that was actually a couple of years earlier) ever the long-hair who still fit right into his Berkeley community.
I saw as many of the English and New York bands as they arrived as I could, and being near San Francisco, that was pretty easy to do, and it was cheap, too. $3.50 or $4.00 to see three bands at a great venue.
Anyway, Gene commenting on (I’d go the) Whole Wide World, that “punk opened things up” suggesting Eric would not have happened in 1972 is so dead on. But, with the Pistols and Malcolm McLaren and the Clash, all bets were off.
Never prior to John Lydon did any band ever seem to consider that there was the radical difference between singing harmoniously and being an effective vocalist had suddenly fallen away. In fact, I remember arguing similarly with my life-long friend Karen Clayton at the time about Elvis Costello. Karen called Elvis a lousy vocalist, and I noted that maybe he was a lousy elocutionist, but he was a great lyricist and voclalist.
Enter Ian Dury, and Sex and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll, a really wonderful song: funny, self deprecating, and yet brutally honest.
But, because Sex and Drugs… seemed more like a gimmick song, it was hard to take much else by the Blockheads seriously. In fact it was hard to take Sex and Drugs… seriously.
Too bad, because they were a pretty tight band, and if you know the song Sweet Gene Vincent, you know this to be true. Not just a great song that links the same attitude of Little Richard and Chuck Berry to that of the punks, the song moves to that place using Vincent–Mr. Be-Bop-A-Lula and maybe THE original punk–as a vehicle.
This version of the song is from the The Concert for Kampuchia, and joining in the Blockheads is the Clash’s Mick Jones, by the way. And, let me tell you, we are far from done with the subject.
Lawr posted Eric’s greatest song (good one, Lawr!), but this tune is one of those songs that plays in my head at specific times, like a sound effect. When something happens (like seeing a hearse on the highway) this is the song that pops into my head. So, it’s kind of ingrained, worn a deep trough, but really only the part that goes, “THERE’S ONLY ONE DESTINATION IN THE FINAL TAXI!”
When I played it this afternoon I was reminded that it has a catchy reggae beat and a surprising, shocking element in the mix that seems wacky at first, but then turns this dark subject into a pop song.
Also, the video is just a slide show somebody added. It’s not terrible, but it can be distracting. You don’t need it.
I am not sure what even prompted me to buy Jane’s Addiction’s second album, Ritual de lo Habitual.
Maybe because they had sort of been hyped, I bought the disc to prove to myself that they were crap. That is because the one song that got airplay–Been Caught Stealing–was but nothing special at the time.
Maybe it was because the sexually ambiguous cover is so intriguing. Maybe, after finding myself single after 12 years of marriage where I never really felt like myself I just wanted to explore and listen to shit that was not just Bruce Springsteen (not knocking the Boss, just wanted some new direction) and ugh, not having my family play Journey’s Escape and 90125 endlessly. Both of which I hated, but my newly adolescent step sons loved.
But, somehow when I went to the record store, Ritual found its way into the bag.
I did not listen to the disc right away, and as my life had changed, one of the other things I had started doing back in the early 90’s was running.
So, one Sunday, when I had completed a 10K and gotten back home, I decided to soak in the tub, and with a mineral water, a doob, and some candles lit (how trippy) I put the disc on the player and slid into the hot water.
I am not sure I knew at the time just how appropriate the candles and joint were since I didn’t know the Jane’s were really a neo-psychedelic band, but I don’t think I could have put together a better confluence of items than I did.
The album just killed me right away, and it even found its way onto a cassette (the old days, and I still had a Walkman) with Joe Satriani’s Surfing With the Alien on the flip that I used for downhill skiing music for a couple of years.
Back then I was also just starting to play guitar seriously, and I found the basically simple E-A-D-E progressions of the Jane’s easy to figure out, and extra easy to practice to (Cheap Trick is pretty good for this too).
Anyway, Three Days from the album hopped out of my shuffle the other day, and though I love that song (it really belongs somewhere with Steve’s best songs over seven minutes), I chose something a little shorter, but no less great.
That song is Obvious. Note that I did search for a live version and though there are a few out there on You Tube, the sound quality for all of them was stretched. Too much bass, too many highs, or something, but the mix on the original studio piece I originally fell in love with worked the best. BTW, Been Caught Stealing has proved to be my least favorite song on the disc.
I was at Madison Square Garden to see the Knicks tonight. I enjoy watching great basketball players occasionally make great plays. But for years I’ve hated the entertainment bubble the Garden blows up around you. Relentless noise and flashing lights, it was an embarrassment.
They remodeled the Garden in the past year and it is a different place. The architecture is better, though the $95 seats are crammed together in humiliatingly long rows, so if you’re in the middle you have to climb over 20 people to get out. And without clear rows to walk in the arena you have drop under the seats to move around the auditorium. Every once in a while some guy climbs over you, steps on your toes (because there’s no knee or leg room) to get to the next aisle over. It is a design of density, with little care for customer comfort. As sucky as that is, everything is nicer, plainer, less like some pervert’s basement and more like the Barclay Center.
In any case, I’m not here to analyze, but only to say that it was not awful enduring the interstitial schtick that takes up so much time during any sporting event. One of those highlights was music mixes during the game that skewed hip hop, but grabbed snippets of new and old, catchy and hard, mixed with soul and rock so that one was never ground down by relentless ugliness. In fact, most of it was pretty nice (helped by an excellent sound system).
And after the local community dance troop finished their set on the floor at half time, we had a some good tunes. One of which was Love is the Drug. Nice.
Golden Palominos were the drummer Anton Fier’s band, abetted by the bassist Bill Laswell and guitarist Nicky Skopelitis. At the start they had Airto Lindsey and Fred Firth on board for a loud dischordant rant. Subsequent records featured lots of guest artists and often featured the charming vocalist Syd Straw. The music ranged from arena rockish to alt-country rockish. On their second record John Lydon, Jack Bruce and Michael Stipe guested. On the record after that it was Peter Holsapple, Richard Thompson, and T-Bone Burnett, among others.
I was a big fan of this band, and saw them a few times over the mid 80s. Last time was at Studio 54, with the Ordinaires opening.
But I don’t remember this song, from their fourth album, which features Bob Mould on vocals and Richard Thompson on the guitar.
A few years ago my friend Walker suggested we go to the Living Room to see a guitarist, Tony Scherr, a guy who had played with Bill Frissell and Sexmobb and Willie Nelson, who was writing his own songs and playing out, trying to start a fire. He is an excellent guitarist and a good enough songwriter, but he didn’t break out. Or hasn’t yet. That night there were maybe 15 people in the audience, the music was terrific, and the drummer was Anton Fier, helping out a friend. Playing the drums because that’s what he does.
It never occurred to me (until tonight) to dig deep in the oeuvre of Zager and Evans, who are known almost entirely for their No. 1 hit song in 1969, In the Year 2525. Zager and Evans are famous for being one of the only bands to have a No. 1 and never having another charting single.
But Zager and Evans did not just disappear. And they were not forgotten. This song was apparently used in a movie that had Jack Black in it. And a YouTube commenter said this:
So Zager and Evans are immortal for smart dancing.
Another song that is a question, this one without the question mark. That Tower of Power track, What is Hip, reminded me of this, but Compared to What predates it by at least a few years.
McCann and Harris are a more trad jazz ensemble, and I first heard their version of the song driving around Long Island with my buddy Peter. I had heard lots of 40s jazz at home growing up, but this was my introduction to something wilder and more interesting. It sounded angry and beautiful, too, and is one of the reasons I listened to a lot more jazz in my life.
It turns out that the song was written by Eugene McDaniels, and first recorded by Roberta Flack. Her version, on her first album, is more traditional, focused more on the words of the message than McCann and Harris’s version, which delights and twists the knife on the refrain, and pumps up the music. Theirs is greatness, but Flack illustrates where the song started.
I’m kind of impressed how often Burt Sugarman’s Midnight Special surfaces as ace performances. But of course, back in the day we stayed up to watch it, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.
Lowell George introduces this clip as featuring the backup singers, Emmylou Harris and Bonnie Raitt, but the actual tune has them vamping. There aren’t that many harmonies to be found in Lowell George’s blues.
It’s a great clip, but it reminds me of the critique I tried to get across earlier today. Little Feat is kind of like the Steely Dan of Southern Rock. There is almost no way to argue against what they played, but for me the emotional point of entry is obscured. Despite the funky sounds, I hear more head than heart, and that makes me less interested.
