Category Archives: night music

Night Music: Reform School Girls, and Don’t Touch Me There

by

If you have ever been in a band–and I hope my buds Steve and Gene affirm this–you are doomed to play covers.

Speaking for myself, and the Biletones, between my own catalog of originals, and that of  bandmate/singer/rhythm guitarist Tom Nelson, we could easily play a two hour set of tunes we penned.

However, especially if your group does not have, shall we say, “a name,” then for the most part you have to get used to playing Little Queenie, Dead Flowers, Moondance, and a zillion other tunes that I have played way more often than I wish.

Still, it goes with the territory, as people want to hear and dance to stuff they know. We do play Tom’s Rich Girlfriend as a regular tune, and have done my own Geography Matters, as well as a couple of more Tom wrote (Bad Dreams, DUI Bars) but for the most part we have to squeeze the desire to play originals into playing more obscure covers.

That means we play a chunk of Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, and Wilco, all of which are fine by me, to go along with Queenie and the more mainstream cover ilk.

Sometimes those odd covers work (Gravity’s Gone, by Drive by Truckers) and sometimes not (Having a Party by Sam Cooke, and Borrow your Cape by Bobby Bare, Jr.).

Well, about a month ago, the song Reform School Girls, by Nick Curran and the Lowlifes appeared on the weekly practice list.

The song is a great paean to the Phil Spector sound, as well as an homage to the Bitch Groups like the Shangri-Las, and well, once we started playing it, I found myself humming it for days at a time.

Written by the very talented Curran, who sadly passed away from oral cancer in  October of last year at the age of 35, Reform School Girls is as beautiful a send up to the genre as is the Tubes Don’t Touch Me There.

Enjoy!

Night Music: Humble Pie and Ray Charles, “I Don’t Need No Doctor”

by

When I was out in Arizona seeing AFL baseball games a reporter from the NY Times called, and I did an interview while standing on the mezzanine behind first base at Talking Stick in Scottsdale. The subject was primary care physicians, and we had a nice chat. The story has a little less scope than I imagined, but just as in Larry Schechter’s new book, Winning Fantasy Baseball: Secret Strategies of a NINE-TIME National Champion, out the first week of January, the first two words in this story are “Peter Kreutzer…”.

The Humble Pie version of this song is the one I grew up with. Heck, I probably thought they wrote it, or I didn’t care. This analog YouTube video has typical analog sound, but don’t be afraid to turn it up. THe distortion makes it all the more like a 1971 8-track.

I think I must have heard this Ray Charles version at some point, but tonight it surprised me. It’s the original recording of the song, which I learned from the “video” was written by Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson and Jo Armstead. Sweet!

Night Music: The Spirit of Radio

by

I have never really been a big Rush fan.

Not that I was ever against them, but sort of like Masters of the Universe, I was born  too late for them.

By the time Rush hit what Wikipedia refers to as the band’s “Mainstream Success” years (1977-81) I had run from the Arena rock of ELO and Queen to the Punk bands from England and New Wavers out of New York.

Furthermore, Rush was a Prog Rock band, and I had already grown weary of Yes, not that I did not respect the musical chops of Steve Howe and his mates. Yes’ music just seemed a bit on the forced/overwritten side to me compared to the visceral guitars of the Pistols and Eddie and the Hot Rods and the Records, et al.

Actually, the real bottom line was that the Prog Band of my adolescence was The Moody Blues, and then Pink Floyd, both of whom were cutting edge in the late 60’s, before Yes and Rush and even Fripp and Eno (there was Roxy Music out there too, though they were more Pop/Art Rock than Prog in my opinion).

I was given a copy of Rush’s single, New World Man when it came out in the mid-80’s, and it was OK, but I more remember a photograph of a Dalmatian on the cover (our family had one as I was growing up) than the actual song.

Over the years, I have heard songs by Rush on the radio waves, and with their distinct style and Geddy Lee’s falsetto vocals, they are pretty easily recognizable. And, they are not bad in any way. I never turn them off or change the channel: I just never crave more.

Except for the tune The Spirit of Radio which I have heard from time-to-time on said radio, and which I thought was a really great cut, but which I had never really listened to, if that makes a lick of sense. And, I certainly did not know the title of the tune.

However, I did catch the Band’s live performance  as part of their introduction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and lo and behold the band played a red hot version of said song.

Again, I noted I liked it a lot, but I still did not know the title till the other night when I was returning from band practice, and the local hard rock station (the Bone at 107.7) played the original album track from the 1981 album Permanent Waves.

Of course with its unmistakable Alex Lifeson riff that runs through the tune, it is pretty hard to miss, but the truth is, since I heard it that last time, I cannot stop hearing in my head.

For now, that is a good thing.

 

 

Night Music: Mayer Hawthorne, “The Stars Are Ours”

by

I’m not sure what to do with this. I was just out parking the car and I heard this song on the radio. Well, first there was a cover of the Rolling Stones’ I’m Free by a band called the Soup Dragons, which was weird but cool. And then this song came on.

I felt immediately that I’d heard it a thousand times, and yet I was pretty sure I hadn’t. I’ve now played it three times and I’m struck by how it seems to jam the ur-Stevie Wonder song into the ur-Steely Dan song, with pretty smart lyrics about being young and feeling special. I’m dumbstruck and awestruck at the same time. I should hate it the way I hate Bruno Mars appropriating the Police, but I don’t. Not yet, anyway.

Night Music: Esther Phillips, “Don’t Put No Headstone on My Grave”

by

I remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard this song on the radio in 1973, sung by Jerry Lee Lewis. (I was digging ditches to install lawn sprinkler systems in Littleton Colorado.) It turns out it was written by Charlie Rich, but I fell in love with the song immediately. Years later I tried to find the 45 of the JLL version, but the only record of his that seemed to have him singing it was a multi-CD live recording from the Palomino. Today I found this, which is pure gold. Different and beautiful.

Night Music: Jerry Lee Lewis and Tom Jones, Medley

by

Television made (and makes) all kinds of surprising combinations, often with corny introductions which do no one any favors. Jerry Lee Lewis says he doesn’t drink in this clip, and looks sharp and energetic and collected here. And the musical cross section these two create is full of corn and rhythm. But what about that microphone placement?

Night Music: Deelight, “Groove Is In the Heart”

by

The spelling of Deelites’s name, which I may not have right, has obscured their brilliant if short-lived career. I have no idea what any of them did after they were in this band, but while in this band they made one of the great albums of the, well, certainly 80s. Great hooks, good rhythms, a huge vision of the world, funny clothes. Deelite kills on this live performance. Delovely.

Night Music: Of Montreal, “The Past Is A Grotesque Animal”

by

I wanted to go with a Jobraith, thanks to Jody Rosen’s 60 great forgotten albums list, but while it’s interesting (stuff can be said) it’s not very good. Some grade b funk and lots of crap. But the funk put me in mind of overproduced campy self mythologizing, which reminded me of Of Montreal. I’m not a fan, but I happen to know this one Of Montreal song that I think kind of kicks it.

I look at this one as the “Roadrunner” of a club soundtrack that (even now is six years old) has a hypnotizing pulse and a first person spiel that goes on for a really long time, I would like to see this live. Or maybe I would have in 2007.

But the rest of this album, full disclosure, and my further samplings of their/his more recent stuff, dissuade me. Icelandic mythological sexist fantasy? Let’s leave that to Onan the Barbarian. And agree that the past is a grotesque animal. Duh.

Night Music: Yellow Dogs, “Dance Floor”

by

This is a fun song and video with a sad backstory. I’d never heard of the Yellow Dogs until two days ago. They were Iranian friends who loved playing rock music in Teheran, where the music is banned. You may know that there are two very different Irans, one that shares many Western values and culture and prides itself on its modernity, and the other Islamist Iran which controls the government and political institutions. The Yellow Dogs, like the heroine of Persepolis, loved rock music and risked jail because of that love. They also had parents wealthy enough to help them get out of the country and set them up in the US, in my home town of Brooklyn, in political asylum.

And they were doing okay until two days ago, when another Iranian musician, a former member of another Iranian band called the Free Keys, broke into the house the Yellow Dogs lived in and shot it up, killing three (including two of the Yellow Dogs) and wounding another before shooting himself. Apparently the shooter had been kicked out of the Free Keys because he’d stolen some money or sold some equipment that wasn’t his, and his subsequent efforts to redeem himself and get back in the band were rebuffed. An awful story. He apparently carried the gun he used in a guitar case.

There are a few Yellow Dog songs on YouTube, and profiles of the band done by eMusic and Converse sneakers. They were doing okay, and this song shows why.