Category Archives: steve

Worst Beatles Song Ever

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Mentioned a post or two ago that my friend got a big box of CDs at a yard sale and I got second dibs. Three of the CDs I got were later Beatles – Past Masters Volume Two, Sgt. Pepper’s and Abbey Road.

Somehow I’ve sheltered myself from the late Beatles all my life, except for the radio stuff, which covers a lot of it. But on my long drive to and from seeing my kids a couple weekends ago, I listened to these albums.

My blasphemous quick take on the late Beatles:

Lennon: Doing all kinds of envelope-pushing stuff. Some works, some doesn’t.

McCartney: Writing either meaningless pop ditties or overly maudlin tales of woe. No wonder Lennon was pulling his hair out trying to exist with this guy at this point.

Harrison – Diddling on the sitar every third song. In between, some quite cool stuff.

Ringo – Belting out sincere-sounding pop ditties in his wonderful so-different-from-the-others voice which truly sound good to me amidst the rest of this.

Then I heard “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” I may have heard this somewhere along the line before, but not often.

It’s awful. And I’m both ignorant and confused. Is this Lennon’s answer to Zeppelin? Both Abbey and the first Zep arrived in 1969, but, even if Abbey was first, that doesn’t mean Lennon didn’t already have the buzz on Zep. Maybe my thought is preposterous and stupid.

Anyway, the Beatles aren’t equipped for heavy. The guitars aren’t heavy. The drums aren’t heavy (and I love Ringo in his element). The song is boring and NEVER WANTS TO END.

Perhaps I’ll follow this up by why I think Sgt. Pepper’s is not only not the best album ever, it isn’t even a real good Beatles album.

Perhaps I’ll push the seven readers we have on this blog to persuade Mike Salfino to come back for a few “Nothing Will Ever Beat The Beatles” articles (which, from what I’ve heard, had as much readership as anything around here ever).

Thank you and good night.

The Healing Power Of Rhythm Guitar

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I found the best live Led Zep album ever.

A friend of mine bought a huge box full of CDs for $30 at a yard sale and he let me pick through them after he took first dibs. I picked a bunch of later Beatles that I didn’t have (more on that later) a couple early Metallicas (maybe more on that later) and Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes – Live At The Greek.

Good God, the Page album kicks some serious ass. And you know why? Rhythm guitar. Go ahead, try and find me better live Zeppelin. Why the Zeps never bothered to just hire some schmuck to hammer out chords I’ll never know. Big mistake in my book.

Chris Robinson isn’t quite Robert Plant, but he’s damn close. And he’s certainly better than the current croaking Lawr version of Plant. The drummer? Hey, Bonham’s my favorite drummer of all, but I guess this teaches me that it was more his innovative style than difficult technique because I don’t miss anything here. This bass player can’t match JPJ on the Lemon Song solo, but it’s not that big a deal.

This has depth and crunch and balls like nothing Zep ever released live.

If someone were to find some buried old Led Zeppelin live tape and it sounded like this, the entire rock world would shit its pants. I swear to God.

Larry The Lamb

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Being the lemming I am, for all these years I’ve referred to Marc Bolan’s voice as “Larry the Lamb” because I’d read it elsewhere. This morning I realized I didn’t really know who Larry the Lamb was.

Mystery solved. He was a cartoon character in a Davey and Goliath/Gumby-like childrens show.

Take a look. It’s actually pretty funny for as long as you can stand it. Stick around for at least a minute and a half for this exchange:

Larry: I thought you were a fairy.
Cop: A fairy? Me? Do I look like a fairy?
Larry: I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. Baaah.
Cop: Then be careful what you say, my lad.

A Must-Have

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Got my copy of the pretty-recent double-CD reissue of the T. Rex album (you’ll recognize the front cover on the youtube).

It’s simply kick-ass fantastic. As epic as are Electric Warrior and The Slider it’s hard to find this any less epic while listening.

This is the transitional T. Rex album, sharing elements of acoustic Tyrannosaurus Rex before and electric T. Rex to come.

I’m the first guy to call bullshit on bands and so much of Marc Bolan/T. Rex is bullshit – the Larry the Lamb vocals, strings, the silly fairlyland lyrics. Hell, I’d say any rock music including bongo drums is two strikes into bullshit territory already.

But T. Rex is great bullshit. I liked this album back in the early 80’s when a real punk rocker I loaned this to made off with my copy (among other stuff) when he suddenly moved back to the LA Hardcore scene with no notice. I hadn’t heard all of it in a long time. The song I offer, Beltane Walk, along with Jewel and One Inch Rock are up there with just about anything. And most everything else is pretty darn close.

Beltane Walk is another choice of mine for a perfect pop song with its hooky chorus. I’m also a sucker for the upstroke guitar clucks during the verses. Love the guitar tone too.

The extra disc includes lots of raw stuff that’s fun to listen to. On one cut, Bolan honks a jump up to a Larry the Lamb falsetto with a frog in his throat and the recording ends right then and there.

I’ve said this many times before and I’ll say it many times again, but the fact that Bolan/T. Rex isn’t in the Rock Hall of Fame (and isn’t really even in the conversation) make the whole endeavor a joke all by itself.

“And then we’ll a-woke. . .”

Best Music Website Ever

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I shared this with the Remnants a while ago, before we were Remnants. Thought of it again the other day, went to recheck it out and it has moved. The original site is now about yeast infections.

This site is automatically great because it’s the greatest site ever. Read the Hellacopters and Turbonegro reviews to realize this woman could probably be my soulmate. (I don’t even know a woman with “supershit” in her vocabulary.) Reviewing your entire collection, one-by-one, is a great idea, something I still aspire to do since I’ve kind of given up on having the time to write a book.

The bad part of the site is it’s hardly updated (maybe never) and you can read the whole thing in a couple hours (maybe that’s not a bad thing).

Click and enjoy:

http://thisisnotpitchfork.blogspot.com/

Second Consecutive Terrible Post From Steve

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I am going to see Bryan Ferry at the Tower Theater in Philly in October 4th, my birthday. I’m pretty excited. Since I see a concert about once every five years anymore (what’s to see? – Hellacopters are broken up), this is a true event.

I’ll make a good post this week, I promise. Surely you’ve had enough Robert Cray and Alison Krauss.

I’m Offended

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Peter, I really like the updates you made to the rectangular banners atop this site, except for the one of the “punk” chick lying on top of her “punk” boyfriend. Modern day poseurs like that are exactly what Rock Remnants is not about (or at least shouldn’t be). (Along with Beyonce and Ellie Goulding and Lorde.)

I vote to take that banner down. What in hell made you choose to put it up in the first place?

Shaggs Part Two

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Frankly, any discussion of The Shaggs must begin with My Pal Foot Foot which you’ll find on many “Worst Song Of All-Time” lists. I love this video version, actually one of my very favorite music videos period:

By the way, that creature running around is Foot Foot, drawn by one of the girls as part of the album art. We always assumed it’s supposed to be a cat.

The first Shaggs album is like nothing else. It adheres to very, very few musical conventions. It’s truly its own thing. I don’t know if these girls’ parents kept them trapped in a closet or what, but what they invented is a different animal (Foot Foot?).

I’ve often thought of how difficult it would be to cover one of these songs in a band – not a new rendition – but attempting to copy The Shaggs note-for-note, rhythm for rhythm. I suspect it would be next to impossible.

However, these girls know what they’re doing in their own little world of their own little invention. They clearly rehearsed these songs before recording them in their dad’s studio. There are stops, starts, planned part patterns in the songs, background vocals, etc. But just concentrate on the drum part in Foot Foot to get a flavor of how crazy this invention is. The drummer executes this strange combination of snare drum, clicking on the side of the drum and cymbals. It’s other-worldly.

The more The Shaggs progressed (they made at least two more albums, I believe), the more musical conventions crept in, making initial listenings more tolerable, but never quite capturing that insane “something” on the first album.

As for other renditions, I own a fairly obscure Shaggs tribute album called Better Than The Beatles: A Tribute To The Shaggs. Most of it adds at least a little bit of traditional musicality to the Shaggs’ own world and some turns out pretty good. I noticed today that now-somewhat-mainstream Deerhoof actually does the Foot Foot cover. Back when I bought the album years ago, Deerhoof wasn’t any more recognizable to me than the other bands.

I’ll leave you with Philosophy Of The World by Ida. Lawr often uses the term “haunting.” I think this is pretty haunting and the lyrics are actually quite profound.