North Carolina punk band. Good one, in its way. For some reason the vocals are buried way under the rock. If you turn it up you can almost imagine the growl as you watch the singer front the band in the video. And yes, she uses that unappealing hardcore growl. You can hear it in other videos of the band, and not miss it here.
While you were hating Nirvana and Pavement and actual crap indie bands in the 90s, the Moldy Peaches advanced.
A suburban rock guy with a love of noise meets a socially challenged preschool teacher who is a great song writer, what can happen?
Great songs can happen. (Though the record that made their names, as it were, wasn’t out until 2001.)
This video was made by fans, which makes it especially valuable. But I like the song.
Not classic, but awfully good.
Darren Viola posted this song on Facebook today. I’d totally forgotten about these guys, though I’m pretty sure I have the vinyl of this one in the boxes in the basement. I happen to have the poster for the movie The Long Riders in my office. No direct relation, but Ry Cooder did the music for that classic film, and these guys took their name from the movie.
My friend Angela found a version of the Modern Lovers’ Old World today which is pretty swell. I mean the video. This is one of rock’s greatest albums, and Warren Loft’s videos, at least the three I’ve seen, capture the music’s kinetics and precision and depth. I’ll be watching the rest of them, but what better way to start than Roadrunner.
The day after Diane Linkletter, daughter of the tv celebrity host, defenestrated herself while on LSD (a cautionary tale of the time in my junior high), John Waters made this cruddy movie, apparently while testing sound gear. It was never released as anything and the transfer here on YouTube is clearly the result of plenty of generations of VHS copies.
For me, despite all the production value problems, Waters and his actors (including Divine, as Diane), are technically clumsy but emotionally on it. This is like rock ‘n’ roll without music and rhythmic pleasure. But at times funny.
A campy and surprisingly, to me, excellent find, a jolt to the heart of parental paranoia.
This is a fantastic tune by Peter Perrett, the singer songwriter at the heart of the Only Ones. This is by his 1996 band, the One, and was released on an elpee also called Woke Up Sticky.
It makes total sense that between their like (love?) of drugs, their romantic perspectives (cut by jaundice), mastery of classic rock tropes, and ability to twist them to their visions, Perrett and Johnny Thunder would bond.
Nostalgia, pure, simple, awesome.
Bruce Springsteen: 41 Years on Thunder Road from Phil Whitehead on Vimeo.
My friend Vincent posted this on Facebook recently. Vincent is the French horn player in this band. Sun Ra, of course, is one of the greats. And Billy Strayhorn’s tune Take the A Train is one of the greats.
Enjoy, punk rockers and everyone else.
When I was in high school I could be an asshole. My friends could be assholes, too. We hated this song, which seemed like the ultimate in cheese. That is errant and random emotional expression without a regulator.
But children should not always be believed.
I spent yesterday in the car, driving many hundreds of miles, sometimes listening to my phone, and sometimes tuning in the radio. Sometime in mid afternoon, this giant hit came up.
It was a giant hit because of the melody and the Pips, but it is also a fabulously complex statement of ambiguous love and, ultimately, devotion. With awesome hooks and smart lyrics. Wow.
