Susan Lucas (aka Soo Catwoman) was known for her distinctive hairstyle and makeup that made her one of the most recognizable faces of the mid-to-late ’70s British punk scene. iconic fashion aesthetic — part feline glare, part art-school provocation — helped elevate her to a kind of underground celebrity, with her image splashed across magazine covers and emblazoned on T-shirts.
Soo’s insider proximity to the scene also gave her a foothold as a performer. She appeared with the band the Invaders and occasionally stepped out on her own, less as a traditional frontwoman than as an extension of punk’s anything-goes ethos — where attitude and presence could matter as much as technical polish.
Today’s SotW is her 1998 solo cover of “Back Stabbers”, originally recorded by The O’Jays. Here, Soo handles the vocals, backed by Derwood Andrews (Generation X) on guitar and Rat Scabies (The Damned) on drums — a lineup that immediately signals a very different intent from the silky precision of the original.
Musically, the transformation is striking. Where the O’Jays’ version glides on lush strings, tight harmonies, and a groove rooted in Philadelphia soul, Soo’s rendition strips the song down to its bones and rebuilds it with a jagged, punk sensibility. The rhythm section hits harder and more directly, Andrews’ guitar slashes rather than soothes, and Soo’s vocal trades refinement for attitude — more sneer than croon. The result is less about seduction and more about confrontation, turning the song’s theme of betrayal into something raw and immediate.
While the O’Jays’ original remains impeccable, this cover earns its place by reimagining rather than imitating. It’s a reminder that a great song can survive radical reinterpretation — and sometimes even reveal new edges when filtered through a completely different lens.
Rock stars from the ’60s and ’70s classic rock era are dropping like flies these days. Some of these passings hit me hard; usually, I can see it coming. But when I learned this week that Dave Mason died on April 19, I was surprised by how deeply it affected me.
I’ve long been a fan of Traffic, and it’s sobering to realize that only Steve Winwood remains from the original quartet. I followed Mason not only through Traffic, but also in his work as a sideman and across his solo career. I won’t attempt a full recap of his accomplishments here; the recent obituary in The New York Times does that far better than I could.
To honor Mason in today’s SotW, I’ve chosen “Only You Know and I Know” from his debut solo album Alone Together, memorably released on collectible marble vinyl on the Blue Thumb label.
“Only You Know and I Know” was later popularized by Delaney & Bonnie, who covered it on their 1971 album D&B Together — a record Mason himself played on, alongside an impressive roster that included Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, and Leon Russell, among others.
The track has a driving yet laid-back feel, pairing a catchy pop melody with a loose, rolling groove. It gallops along on a sturdy bass line and shuffle beat, accented by Mason’s distinctive, fluid guitar lines.
Although Mason is credited with writing a number of rock classics — most notably the oft covered Traffic track “Feelin’ Alright” – “Only You Know and I Know” may well stand as his true masterpiece.
I’m posting today from New Orleans, where I’m back in town for another French Quarter Festival — a weekend of great food, plenty of drinks, and fantastic local music.
Keeping with that theme, today’s Song of the Week is “Cocaine and Chicken Fricassee” by John “Papa” Gros.
Gros (pronounced “Grow”) is a multi-instrumentalist and a fixture on the New Orleans music scene — an active performer and an in-demand sideman. His style is a true gumbo of rock, funk, and blues — in other words, quintessential New Orleans music.
Over the years, he has released albums featuring both covers of NOLA classics and his own compositions, first with his band Papa Grows Funk and later as a solo artist.
He has also contributed keyboards on sessions for Little Feat, Better Than Ezra, The Neville Brothers, The Funky Meters, Bonerama, and Anders Osborne, among others. He appeared as a performer in the HBO series Treme and was part of the house band for the 2014 all-star tribute The Musical Mojo of Dr. John: Celebrating Mac and His Music, produced by Don Was — a show I was lucky enough to attend thanks to the foresight and generosity of my cousin Kevin J.
When you can experience this level of talent for free, it’s easy to understand why I look forward to the “Quarter Fest” every year.
The British band Pulp, led by Jarvis Cocker, released More in 2025 — its first studio album in twenty-four years. The record was met with widespread critical acclaim, landing on numerous year-end “best of” lists from publications such as AllMusic, The Guardian, Mojo, NME, and Rolling Stone, among others.
A standout track is the album’s opener, “Spike Island,” which has enjoyed heavy rotation on Sirius XM for months.
Critics have noted the song’s disco inflections. In its October 2025 review, Clashmusic.com observed: “It starts with a high-pitched whistle, a cymbal count-in, then erupts into glorious, technicolour Pulp. Accompanied by a bassline that’s just begging for a remix (no doubt on its way), the guitar lick is brand new yet instantly familiar.”
The title references the legendary 1990 concert promoted by the Stone Roses’ Phil Jones and attended by an estimated 28,000 “baggy people in bucket hats.” Cocker’s lyrics were inspired by a story from the song’s co-writer, Jason Buckle, who had been at the show and recalled a DJ repeatedly exhorting the crowd – “Spike Island, come alive!” — a phrase that ultimately became the song’s hook.
I suppose you had to be there… or simply listen to “Spike Island.”
The L.A.-based band War was one of the great soul/funk groups of the 1970s, and one of their finest achievements is “Slippin’ into Darkness.”
A true collective effort, the song was written by band members Charles Miller, Harold Ray Brown, Howard E. Scott, Lee Oskar, Leroy ‘Lonnie’ Jordan, and Thomas ‘Papa Dee’ Allen — with only bassist B.B. Dickerson absent from the songwriting credits.
Built around a repetitive, almost trance-like groove, the track draws on African and Latin rhythmic elements. It’s less about traditional verse-chorus structure and more about circular motion — music that feels as though it’s caught in its own hypnotic loop. Over this foundation sits a strong lead vocal, supported by sweet, soulful harmonies.
A gospel-tinged vocal introduction sets the tone for the seven-minute album version, which also features a second verse omitted from the shorter single edit.
Lyrically, the song traces a descent into isolation following the loss of a friend — possibly to alcohol:
I was slippin’ into darkness When they took my friend away
You know he loves to drink good whiskey (Wo ho ho ho) While laughing at the moon
In the second verse, a mother’s warning cuts through the fog, suggesting that grief is curdling into something more dangerous:
I was slippin’ into darkness When I heard my mother say Hey, what’d she say what’d she say You’ve been slippin’ into darkness (Wo ho ho ho)
Pretty soon you gonna pay, hey
This is a song that demands to be played loudly — ideally through headphones — where each instrument reveals itself in sharp relief: guitars, horns, harmonica, keyboards, and percussion all occupying their own space. It’s a small miracle of ensemble playing.
Today’s SotW is the next installment of my Contrast Series — this time on the subject of high school. Class is in session!
There’s a certain mythic power to the phrase “high school” in rock and roll — less an institution than a pressure cooker, a stage, a prison, or a launching pad. Across three different eras, Jerry Lee Lewis, MC5, and Ramones each seized on that setting and turned it into something revealing about youth culture at the time. Their songs – “High School Confidential,” “High School,” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” — don’t just depict teenage life; they refract it through three distinct musical languages: rockabilly exuberance, revolutionary proto-punk, and bubblegum punk.
What’s immediately striking is how differently each song sounds, and how those sonic choices shape the meaning of the lyrics.
“High School Confidential,” recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis in 1958, is a masterclass in controlled chaos. Built around his pounding, percussive piano style, the track practically explodes out of the gate. The rhythm is loose but propulsive, driven by boogie-woogie patterns that feel both joyous and slightly dangerous. Lewis’s vocal is a yelp, a sneer, a laugh — all at once. Musically, the song embodies rebellion without ever fully breaking form; it’s still tethered to the swing and blues traditions that preceded it.
Lyrically, that tension plays out in a kind of wink-and-nod subversion. The “high school” of the song is less about education than about desire barely contained within institutional walls. The famous opening – “Come on over, baby, whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on” — spills over from his seminal, earlier hit into this setting, collapsing any distinction between classroom and juke joint. Authority figures exist only to be ignored. There’s mischief here, but it’s playful, coded, and very much of its late-1950s moment, when transgression had to be smuggled in under the guise of humor.
A decade later, “High School” by MC5 detonates that ambiguity. If Lewis’s performance suggests rebellion, the MC5 demands it. Musically, the band trades piano swing for overdriven guitars, a relentless backbeat, and an almost militaristic intensity. The groove is tighter, louder, and far more aggressive — proto-punk in its rawest form. Where Lewis plays with rhythm, the MC5 weaponize it.
The lyrics strip away innuendo and replace it with confrontation. This is not a mischievous high school fantasy; it’s a critique of the institution as a site of repression and conformity. The tone is urgent, even desperate. There’s a sense that the stakes have escalated — from sneaking around behind authority’s back to rejecting its legitimacy altogether. Context matters here: late-1960s Detroit, political upheaval, and a youth culture increasingly aligned with protest movements. The high school becomes a microcosm of a society that the band wants to tear down and rebuild.
The kids know what the deal is They’re getting farther out everyday We’re gonna be takin’ over You better get out of the way
By the time we get to “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” Ramones offer a third perspective — one that’s neither coded subversion nor outright revolution, but something closer to gleeful escapism. Musically, the Ramones distill rock and roll to its essentials: short, fast, hook-laden, and deceptively simple. The guitars buzz with a uniform, almost mechanical precision, while the melody carries an undeniable pop sweetness.
Lyrically, the song reframes high school as a battleground between boredom and liberation, but without the MC5’s ideological weight. The solution isn’t revolution — it’s rock and roll itself. Lines about not wanting to be taught and preferring music to textbooks aren’t calls to arms so much as declarations of identity. The Ramones turn rebellion into something communal and joyous, a shared language rather than a political program.
Well, I don’t care about history Rock, rock, rock ‘n’ roll high school ‘Cause that’s not where I wanna be Rock, rock, rock ‘n’ roll high school I just wanna have some kicks I just wanna get some chicks Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock ‘n’ roll high school
Their high school is oppressive, yes — but it’s also ridiculous, something to be laughed at, escaped from, and ultimately blown up through three chords and a chorus.
Taken together, these three songs trace an evolution in how rock music engages with youth and authority. Jerry Lee Lewis hints at rebellion from within the system, using musical exuberance and lyrical suggestion. MC5 reject the system outright, matching their radical politics with equally uncompromising sound. Ramones, in turn, sidestep ideology in favor of immediacy, transforming rebellion into style, attitude, and, perhaps most importantly, fun.
In that sense, “high school” becomes less a setting than a mirror — reflecting not just teenage experience, but the changing ambitions of rock itself.
The English rock band Humble Pie was born out of the ashes of several notable groups — Small Faces (Steve Marriott), The Herd (Peter Frampton), and Spooky Tooth (Greg Ridley) — in 1969. Yet after years of relentless touring and three albums on Immediate and A&M, the band struggled to live up to its considerable promise.
For their fourth album, Rock On (1971), Humble Pie enlisted legendary producer Glyn Johns. Johns evaluated the situation and decided the band was unfocused and needed direction. His solution was straightforward and firm. Steve Marriott would take charge as lead vocalist, while Peter Frampton would concentrate on lead guitar. For the others, the directive was simple — stay in your lane.
That discipline, combined with material the band had already road-tested, resulted in what is arguably Humble Pie’s most cohesive and fully realized studio album.
The standout track on Rock On is “Stone Cold Fever,” credited to the entire band.
Peter Frampton brought in the opening riff — one of those instantly arresting figures that anchors the song from the first bar. From there, the band shaped the arrangement collectively, including an unexpected jazzy midsection that allows Frampton to stretch out and reveal a more expansive musical vocabulary. Nineteen-year-old drummer Jerry Shirley holds the performance together with crisp, driving precision, while Steve Marriott delivers a raw, soulful vocal that locks in perfectly with Frampton’s more measured, melodic guitar work.
Marriott reportedly wrote the lyrics in about twenty minutes — and it shows. There’s little in the way of narrative; instead, the song leans on immediacy and emotional force, using the vocal as another instrument riding the groove rather than telling a story.
“Stone Cold Fever” stands as a testament to what Humble Pie could achieve when its considerable talents were aligned — focused, collaborative, and firing on all cylinders.
The expression “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” has come to signify a sexual quickie — abrupt, transactional, over almost before it begins. But like so many bits of pop vernacular, its journey into common usage runs straight through the jukebox.
Its first notable appearance in song form came in 1950, when Western swing bandleader Hank Penny recorded “Wham! Bam! Thank You, Ma’am” as the B-side to his “Jersey Bounce” single. That same year, Dean Martin cut his own version for Capitol (1139), smoothing the wink-and-nudge hillbilly humor into something more cocktail-lounge urbane.
A dozen years later, the phrase resurfaced in a very different context. Jazz visionary Charles Mingus included the instrumental “Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am” on his 1962 album Oh Yeah. The record was already unusual — Mingus played piano rather than his customary double bass — and the title suggested a kind of bawdy exuberance translated into avant-garde swing.
In 1969, British mod heroes Small Faces wrote and released their own “Wham Bam Thank You Mam” as the B-side to “Afterglow of Your Love,” giving the phrase a late-’60s rock strut.
For many listeners, though, the line achieved immortality when David Bowie deployed it in “Suffragette City” (1972), the turbo-charged glam stomper from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie uses the phrase with theatrical precision, building tension toward a false ending before snapping the song back to life with that perfectly timed exclamation — “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” — both punchline and propulsion.
The glam connection didn’t end there. In 1975, Slade released “Thanks for the Memory (Wham Bam Thank You Mam)” as a non-album single. It climbed to No. 7 in the UK, though it failed to chart in the U.S., proof that the phrase’s cheeky bravado traveled better at home than abroad.
What began as a sly bit of postwar country humor became a durable pop-cultural refrain — migrating from Western swing to jazz experimentation to mod and glam rock — each time retaining its wink while dressing up in new stylistic clothes. A throwaway line, perhaps, but one that has echoed across decades with a grin.
There is so much great music in this world that trying to keep up with it can feel overwhelming.
I’m a volunteer usher at The Guild Theatre in Menlo Park, California — a position that allows me to see live music once or twice a week. I often arrive having never heard of the artist on the bill. Yet time after time, when I listen to their recordings or catch the set from the back of the hall, I’m struck by just how talented these musicians are.
I also read hundreds of reviews of new releases, most faithfully in MOJO. Through the magic of Spotify, I can immediately sample the albums that catch my eye. Still, the sheer volume of new music is staggering. The field is so vast that separating quality from quantity can feel like a full-time job.
Take, for instance, Can’t Take My Story Away, the latest album by Elles Bailey. It’s a terrific collection of contemporary, country-tinged R&B. To my ear, Bailey sounds like a compelling hybrid of Mavis Staples and Bonnie Raitt – with earthy, smoky vocals. What really astonishes me, though, is that I’m only discovering her now, with the release of her sixth studio album (in addition to two live records). How did it take me this long?
There are many strong tracks here, but “Better Days” stands out.
The song began as a composition by Matt Long, singer, songwriter, and guitarist for the band Catfish, who died last October after a battle with cancer. Long’s parents shared the song with Bailey, who reshaped it into its current form. She has said, “I felt like I wanted to bring a piece of him onstage with me, and it’s a beautiful song with a simple message that I think we need to hear.”
In a world awash with new releases, the challenge is not whether great music exists — it clearly does — but whether we can keep ourselves open to finding it. Keep up the good fight. If you do, you’ll be rewarded with discoveries like Elles Bailey: artists who were there all along, just waiting to be heard.
In the summer of 2021, “Chaise Longue” by Wet Leg went viral. The post-punk earworm from the Isle of Wight duo fronted by Rhian Teasdale was inescapable — quirky, deadpan, knowingly absurd. To my ears, it felt like a novelty destined for the rock almanacs under the label “one-hit wonder.”
Last year the band returned with their second album, moisturizer, their first new release since their 2022 debut. Buried within it is “Mangetout,” a track that has taken up permanent residence in my head.
Wet Leg still deploys Teasdale’s trademark talk-sung vocal style, but here it sounds more self-assured. The song is a high-energy banger, driven by an urgently catchy guitar riff that feels less like a punchline and more like propulsion.
And then there’s the title. “Mangetout” stopped me cold. Is it mange tout — French for “eat all”? A wink at the snow pea? Or is it three words slyly compressed: man, get out? Maybe it’s a triple entendre, all meanings operating at once.
You think I’m pretty, you think I’m pretty cool You wanna fuck me, I know most people do Here, take this packet, you read it, it says, “Mangetout” I gave you magic beans, I hope you’re gonna get out soon
This isn’t flirtation; it’s eviction. She’s sending that self-satisfied hanger-on packing. He’s overstayed his welcome, crowding her space, “standing in my light.” The fairy-tale “magic beans” are less promise than punchline — a transaction completed, door firmly shut.
So much for the novelty tag. There’s no one-hit wonder here. If anything, Wet Leg have pulled off the trick every buzzy debut act hopes for: they’ve turned a viral moment into a career arc. Call them the comeback kids — only this time, they sound like they plan to stay.
