Another Steve Albini engineered song from the Pixies’ first, Surfer Rosa. Gigantic features bassist Kim Deal on vocals and the kind of sly hard rock songwriting that actually has pop appeal, like she wrote for the Breeders. Not that it was any sort of hit when it came out.
A friend posted a link today to Bill Plummer’s recording of “The Look of Love,” which features a sitar, psychedelic cover art and a prominent bass line. When I saw the link I thought: The baseball player? Or the bass player? Or have I got the names screwed up? I didn’t have the names screwed up.
If you Google Bill Plummer, the baseball player comes up. He played from 1968 to 1978 for the Cubs, Reds and Mariners. He was primarily a backup catcher, put together 1007 PA with a .188 BA and 14 homers during that time. As so often happens with catchers, he ended up a manager for the Mariners in 1992, when they had a .395 winning percentage.
The only reason I knew Bill Plummer, bassist, is because if you read the inner sleeves of the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street elpee, Bill Plummer shows up as an acoustic bass player on some of the songs. I have to admit, I don’t remember the name of everybody who plays on every album, but not only did I play Exile a lot and read the notes closely, but I also discovered that my “hi-fi” set at the time—a belt driven AR turntable and a fairly cheap but wood boxed desk radio with stereo RCA inputs—was capable of letting me get deep into the Stones’ mix. I couldn’t believe I could hear Bill Plummer in all that grimey noise. The mix is brilliant.
Plus, it couldn’t have escaped my attention at the time that a catcher on the Reds and a bass player for the Stones had the same name, and from such linkages memories are made.
The songs Plummer played on are “Rip This Joint,” “Turd on the Run,” “I Just Wanna See His Face,” and “All Down the Line.” I know all this because I found a website devoted to the Stones that is plug ugly, but goes on and on and on with interesting facts, documents and conversation, called iorr.org. It’s a good place to go if you want to get caught in the sway of the Stones.
I also learned at iorr (which is the acronym for It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll) that Bill Wyman later claimed that he played bass on at least some of the tracks credited to Plummer. And the posters at iorr.org credit that info totimeisonourside.com, another website of dubious aesthetics that seems to get the job done Stones-wise. Just as the Stones and Bill Plummer, among others, get the job done with this one. . .
When my daughter was a kid she (and we) fell in love with Bill Callahan, who a while back (before she was listening to music) recorded as Smog, and is a fantastic singer-songwriter, with all the baggage that comes with that.
This was a fairly early (1995) and shaggy Smog tune, engineered by Steve Albini. The thing to look at here is the vividness of the guitar and the vocals. Totally out front.
Watched an episode of 30 Rock tonight in which Kenneth, needing something he’s yearned for, asks for a reunion of the cast of Night Court. And Tracy delivers! Ellen Foley (who was the other voice, not Meat Loaf nor Phil Rizzuto, on Paradise by the Dashboard Light) isn’t involved in the reunion, but this put me in mind of this duet she sings with her boyfriend of the time, Mick Jones, written by Strummer/Jones and backed by the Clash, on an album called The Spirit of St. Louis. I have to say, I hated that show, but in spite of its pretensions, I like this album.
I’ve been reading Zadie Smith’s novel NW, which is set in Willesden, in NW London, which reminded me of the Kinks corny country song, “Willesden Green,” and which I always imagined (because I didn’t look it up) as the locale for Village Green Preservation Society. (It turns out that isn’t true, the Village Green is really in the country, call it Devon.) Willesden is a part of London that was once kind of middle class, but is now a hodge podge of old timers and immigrants, some middle class and lots of poor. Smith’s story, similar to her fantastic first novel, “White Teeth,” is about how the old ways have been overcome by the new ways, just like the Kinks were saying 35 years ago.
Well, Chapter 6 of NW starts: “We are the village green preservation society…” and proceeds until its end as a collage of Kinks lyrics, which got me to thinking of this song, Berkeley Mews, which I know from the odds and sods and some hits compilation double elpee, The Kinks Kronikles. I’ve always liked the tempo changes and the way that it rocks when it wants to, plus the catchy lyric, “I stagger through your shitty dining room, but I don’t blame you, I don’t blame you.” Still, it’s certainly of the post-rock Kinks era.
Somebody in the Greenwich Village scene turned me onto Joe Ely, a Texas songwriter, and then the Clash embraced him, too. It was a reminder that punk was about rock and roll, and that roots music (what demographers call Americana today and what back then we probably called, for example, Texas rock) is a big part of that. Ely was also a member of what was, until their unreleased album was released, a legendary Texas band called the Flatlanders, but in 1978 it was his solo energy and a set of excellent songs that propelled his rocket to stardom.
I never became a Damned fan, meaning I never bought an album, but at the point in 1977 when Neat Neat Neat and New Rose came out on 45 every bit of the new music coming from England was like discovering there were new flavors to be savored. Who knew the elements of music could be rearranged in such pleasing yet odd ways?
We hear a lot of my daughter’s music around the house these days, and she plays no song more often than the new one from Ellie Goulding. Goulding is English, kind of a folkie singer-songwriter who got mixed up with dubstep and Skrillex, grew pop ambitions, and whose songs marry a big drum sound with colorful synths and front her wispy soft voice seducing with sneaky melodies. Like in much of the music world these days, credits on the tunes are something of a mashup of original writer, producer, fixer writers, Ellie and her friends. This is the pop music machine, and Burn is her first single to reach number one on the British pop charts, but I like her music. It is defined by her qualities and talents. What got me thinking about it today was the MGMT album, which sounds like it should be pop music, maybe it wants to be pop music, but isn’t at all poppy. Maybe MGMT, who started out as popmeisters, have withdrawn, but it sure feels like these guys should be marrying whatever other ambitions they have with their skill making popular sounds. Making pop noise without pop pleasing form (and, importantly, craft) seems like a waste. Burn is certainly not a waste and has a big pop form, and while that commerciality may be suspect, I really like the way the production’s prettiness turns anthemic, and when the big drums pound toward the end my heart lifts in a good way.
A little something before bed from the band’s Brighten the Corners Brighten the Corners album, just because of that line about Geddy Lee and the way Malkmus sings, “Listen to me, I’m on the stereo!”
So Ritchie Cordell, who wrote I Think We’re Alone Now, produced the Joan Jett and the Blackhearts cover (in 1981) of I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll, which became a number one hit that kind of established Jett as one of the crowd.
What I didn’t know is that the article-free Arrows wrote the song in 1975, supposedly in response to the Stones’ It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (and I like it). For whatever reason, Arrows version didn’t hit, but it did get them notice and a TV show. Joan Jett, in England, saw the TV show, loved the song and recorded it with Cook and Jones from the Sex Pistols, which became a b-side.
Two years later, with Cordell, the Blackhearts did a version that became a hit. Good for everyone.
Still, Arrow’s version is well worth savoring. The bones are strong.
Of course there is a little more amp to the Joan Jett version.
