This clip seems to cover it, baby. So much so this is the second time I posted it.
Category Archives: night music
Night Music: Elvis Costello and the Attractions, “Two Little Hitlers”
I got here via an email from my friend Steve, who asked why the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard named his magnum opus (six volumes, uncountable pages–volumes 4-6 aren’t even available in the US yet) Min Kampf. I mean, provocation or what?
Steve was asking because I kept writing about the books, of which I’ve read three so far, and their music content, on Rock Remnants. Plus the very amazing joy they bring because of their artistry, which has to do with writing and aesthetics and structure and mastery of the language, which is always a challenge with translation. But the books are fantastic, on their own terms and, I promise, on yours.
I today found this story at the newyorker.com, which does a fair job of limning the issues. But ultimately, isn’t it all a bit of Blitzkreig Bop?
What make’s Costello’s version of Belsen Was a Gas so much more resonant was the white reggae and a pretty savvy observation that any relationship can turn into a battle of emotional fascisms (the original name of the elpee was Emotional Fascism), fighting it out until one little Hitler does the other one’s will. Musically, nicer than the Sex Pistols, but conceptually, maybe more corrosive.
Night Music: Matumbi, “Point of View”
After college I had an office job, working as projectionist and advertising manager for an independent film distributor. Maybe not your typical office job, though I did a bit of filing, too.
Our offices were in the Lincoln Building, across the street from Grand Central Station. It was a weird job, perhaps because I really had no idea what it meant to work in an office. And spend part of my time in the projection room, recommending movies that would become classics (but were rejected), like Ms. 45 and Diva, to company owners who made some smart choices on their own, like Breaker Morant and Eating Raoul.
One of the distractions of the day was hitting the Disco-mat store across the street on my way home from work. I bought the US version of The Clash there, and the Rolling Stones Emotional Rescue. I also found an album by a band I’d never heard of that seemed promising because of the cover, which was a thin-collared brown suit on a field of green and yellow. It was the opposite of two-tone, and yet seemed unheard of a piece. Perhaps more importantly Dennis Bovell, producer of the Slits, was in the band.
The second Matumbi album is a brilliant commercial roots reggae move. It has giant ambition stamped on it, though it landed like a cult item among US reggae fans who didn’t mind the polish. And this song charted in 1979, for obvious reasons.
Night Music: Sham 69, “Hurry Up Harry”
After the initial rush of great punk UK bands there came a cascade of second-wave punk bands that were so clearly copping punk rock’s simple structures that there should have been outrage about the copying (and there was), but who brought catchy tunes and direct subject matter and filled a hunger for new material that the best bands alone couldn’t keep up with.
Sham 69 was one of these bands. A party band, to be sure, with the deft cartoonishness of the Ramones filtered through the eyes of English estate lads, with just enough outrage to seem politically relevant and enough sense of the drinking song singalong to touch all the bases. In other words, strong attitude and solid execution trumps any type of originality.
Oi! These guys were fun.
Night Music: Billy Lee Riley, “Red Hot”
Bob Dylan won an award the other night from a group called MusicCares, which I gather has an emergency fund for indigent musicians who need help. Dylan’s speech is a marvel of candor and self grandeur and interesting connections from Bob to the songs that fed his creativity. If I was a professional blogger I’d summarize the whole thing, but since I’m not let it suffice that he doesn’t mince words and rips Merle Haggard and Tom T. Hall and others new ones.
He also claims that he is the sole singer to get criticized for lack of range and excessive growling, while Tom Waits, Lou Reed and Dr. John get off scot free. Some of it is kind of batshit.
But a lot of it does make connections, and the one that matters most praises MusiCares for taking care of Bob’s friend Billy Lee Riley, who never really had a hit, but was nominated for a Grammy for his 1997 comeback album, Hot Damn!
But the song that made Bob Dylan fall in love with Billy Lee was this one (with Jerry Lee Lewis playing piano), which he heard on the radio in 1957, when he was a boy with dreams in Minnesota.
Night Music: Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, “Too Much Fun”
An old favorite. Billy C. Farlow on vocals.
Night Music: Queen, “I’m In Love With My Car”
I was reminded of this one tonight while reading Karl Ove Knaussgard’s third volume of My Struggle, which was about his Boyhood. At one point he says this is the record he loved most as a third or fourth grader.
This is the song I loved most from this album. Lots of Brian May (and how do I remember that?) and less Freddie, but the same grand style, travertine and fountains really, but also big rocking ovals of pleasure.
Night Music: Smashing Pumpkins, “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”
Ok. I’m just going to say it. This video is super awful and super powerful, but the song is mostly just powerful.
In other words, the video lowers the median score, unfairly I think. It’s a song!
Dynamics, explosive language, heavy guitars and propulsive rhythm, lots of bottom as it were, and some swing, too. The Pumpkins were feeling it, they weren’t machines, not by half.
So much of our appreciation and hatred for tunes comes from context. Smashing Pumpkins’ legacy has been colored by the declines of the band’s personalities, especially head genius Billy Corgan (who loves cats). But sorry, this isn’t fair! He loves cats! And dogs, too. We need to be fresh about these canards that are too easy.
As an antidote, here is this. I make no claim about the character of the artists, but the fact that they made this song (not the video) is worthy of massive respect.
After that, let God sort them out.
Night Music: The Doors, “Gloria”
According to YouTube this is the dirty version, which was apparently recorded at a sound check with no audience, since if Jim sang such stuff about cocks to the crowd just months after getting arrested in Miami for exposing his own, well that would be stupid.
Whatever.
The power of this music is that the Doors, by plan or by psychosis, played every show differently. Morrison was obviously the wild card, but how the band adapted to his, um, excursions mattered a lot, too.
And the power of Morrison’s music cannot be underestimated. He’s the voice, the face, the vibe of this band, even if Manzarek and Densmore are super players. Which they are. They pale beside the mountain of good and bad news that is Morrison. We all would, wouldn’t we?
In any case, I love the video here, even though it obscures or maybe recontextualizes the song. It is old archival video, which is gold but doesn’t always suit the meaning of this particular audio.
At the same time, I know Patti Smith heard this, and good for her.
Night Music: Talking Heads, “Born Under Punches”
There is a lot of irritating in David Byrne. Right?
While he no doubt started out as an artist, his instincts and skills put him into the churn of business and commercialism, and Talking Heads thrived without obviously selling out. That’s a great accomplishment. But it comes with its own negatives. Becoming the object of lust for a cult of deranged college kids can create unfortunate associations. Qu’est-ce que c’est.
But he’s done amazing things in his life, both musically and with bike racks.
Like many of our great artists of the last decades, he has also worked with Brian Eno, and some of his most amazing work was made with Eno.
I love this song. It is a bubbling pastiche of rock and soul and afrobeat and high life, with clever mzungu lyrics, and a dark universal chorus. The African influence and the arty fartsy punk context are brilliant.
And you can dance to it.