Just added Love It To Death, Killer and School’s Out to the album troika list, then decided I had to hear me some Alice. Went to youtube and stumbled upon this.
Appears to be a genuine attempt at a music video, way before music videos were a thing.
Not an A+ Alice song, nothing extraordinary about the video either, and guessing you guys have seen this before, but it’s very cool to see footage of Alice and the band in their prime.
Parallels to the 2016 election would be too easy:
Pete “Overend” Watts, bassist for Mott The Hoople, has died at 69 of throat cancer. There are several important Motts still left (I’ve heard Ian Hunter’s latest is really good and I plan to get it), but this makes two down as drummer Buffin died a year or two ago.
I didn’t see Mott The Hoople, just Mott a little later, but Overend was certainly the rock ‘n’ roll shit, strutting around with his seven-inch heel boots and hairstyle you’d probably know better as Johnny Ramone’s.
MTH meant and still means a lot to me. My first taste came from an 8-track of The Hoople that I bought off a kid I worked with at Dorney Park in the summer of 1976 for a couple bucks. It’s one of my all-time faves, making both my top 50 when we did those lists a couple years ago and my Teen list last week. In usual backwards style, I first got into the last-gasp Hoople, with Ariel Bender on guitar, then “progressed” to Mott (probably because they existed) and then went back years later to catch up on the also-excellent earlier Mick Ralphs stuff. Maybe it’s due to the order I learned it, and surely it’s Dave Marsh heresy, but I always preferred Bender’s more over the top guitar style to Ralphs’ subtlety. It’s all good.
Before someone posts one of the obligatories, I’ll give you Pearl ‘N’ Roy, from The Hoople, maybe my favorite track on one of my favorite albums, arguably my favorite Mott song of all. Particularly love the sad, wailing guitar solo as the song fades.
RIP Overend!!!
Just finished reading a book that was a Christmas present from my girlfriend. It’s called There, I said it – Bob Dylan is overrated. She knows the author/editor (Joshua Shelov), I forget how. Maybe she knows somebody who knows him.
Anyway, for me, the book concept gets an A. The execution, maybe a C. It’s some disappointingly short essays by different intelligent folks (some ESPN people, film people, actual professional musicians, etc.) each taking a personal crack at an untouchable artist.
The Dylan essay is good (by the author/editor, presumably where the entire project began). I like the Steely Dan essay. I think the Stevie Wonder essay is well done.
On the contrary, the Beatles essay never gives any kind of concrete reason whatsoever for not liking The Beatles. The Billy Joel author’s essay proves to me that the guy knows way too much about Billy Joel’s music to hate it. (Plus, he tries way too hard to be funny, as do some others.)
Frankly, I think the four founding Remnants would do a much better job producing the same book.
Go buy it if you’re intrigued. My girlfriend would be happy you supported Joshua Shelov. It’s certainly a quick and easy read.
Within the book, there’s mention of “a bit floating around the internet, with Dave Grohl railing against American Idol, how it’s destroying music, and so on.” As sad as I think it is (in more ways than one) that Dave Grohl seems to be the only official spokesman for rock ‘n’ roll anymore, I had to find it.
This is the best match I could find. Perhaps you’ve seen this a million times already; I had not. Although I wish it were nastier and more direct, as a guy who certainly believes the popular music of today is firmly in the shitter, it speaks much truth.
Please go find them yourself.
Headliners are Radiohead, Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar. If any of these bands(?) were playing in my backyard would I bother to look out the window?
There are certainly plenty of acts.
Are any of them good?
Are any of them rock ‘n’ roll?
How many of them do you know?
My over/unders are zero, one and three.
Wasn’t Coachella originally an alternative rock festival?
Does music suck today or what?
Remember Sheer Mag? Hardore-y band from Philly with a chick singer who Peter discovered a while back. I liked what Peter posted, but they didn’t have any kind of CD or album one could buy at the time (at least easily), so they kind of fell by my wayside.
Well, apparently somewhere along the line, they made a full-length CD and this track was mentioned as a Best Song of 2016 in Washington Post today.
Kicks ass IMHO. I’m gonna order the CD on Amazon immediately. Start with Thin Lizzy duel guitars and you always have me halfway there right off the bat.
When Howard Stern’s on vacation (seems about a third of the time between four-day weekends and two-week vacations every couple months), I’ll listen to Little Steven’s Underground Garage on my XM in the car. It could be way better for sure, but it’s as good as radio gets these days, by leaps and bounds.
Complaints:
1) Way too much Joan Jett
2) Garage is the main course (of course – and that’s OK), but when it’s not garage the leaning is more toward Americana than the hard rock I’d prefer. Some hard rock gets played, but not nearly enough.
3) Seems The Ramones I hear is always of the later “suck” variety.
For me, The Ramones are 80 percent the first three albums – all masterpieces, whichever one I’m listening to is the best. The fourth, Road To Ruin, is pretty damn good. The Phil Spector album has its moments. After that, it’s shit city.
I hear this song on Underground Garage more than any other Ramones and it’s horrible. Where’s Johnny’s guitar? The hard edge is completely gone in a wash of poppy, keyboardy drivel. If The Ramones were this from the beginning, I wouldn’t even like them.
Kept looking at “Slate” and wishing it was “Slade” and it led me here. All kinds of silly here, but one can’t deny those Noddy pipes. Perhaps the most underrated singer in rock, says me.
Believe it or not. Now I know it’s time for me to move on to the next life.
My research led me to this sentence in a turntable review. Too good not to pass on:
“I forgot how one focuses when listening to a record rather than a 102 song play list. You end up reading the record jacket and actually listening.”
Here’s another Primal Scream.
Condensed Wiki story of this band, for those who care or not:
1) The singer was the drummer for Jesus & Mary Chain.
2) They did all kinds of critically acclaimed experimental stuff early on.
3) Eventually, they decided to do a simple, straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll album, Riot City Blues, where both the songs I posted live. It was critically meh, with some severe pans.
4) This song was their biggest hit single in England. I don’t think it’s as good as the other one, but it’s good enough that I’m gonna buy the album. Will report back later if necessary. The video is easy to watch, if nothing else.
Heard this on Little Steven’s Underground garage over the weekend and like it quite a bit. Don’t know this band; must investigate. Certainly nothing new here, but sounds refreshingly good.
Singer is the son of Stiv Bators and Joey Ramone.
Garage-y.
