Category Archives: youtube song

Obit: Paul Revere (1938-2014)

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Way back in February, Peter wrote a Night Music piece on Paul Revere and the Raiders and I started to write this very article I am now updating.

I saw the band a couple of times in the early 60’s, opening for the Beach Boys, who played Sacramento a lot. In fact I was at the show that became The Beach Boys in Concert, and the Raiders played that gig.

The Raiders, headed by Paul Revere, were a more than entertaining collection of players who knocked out some very good pop hits. Just Like Me, Kicks, Louie Louie, and Him or Me, What’s it Gonna Be?, to name some.

But, Revere and band hold kind of a funny and dubious place in history.

At the time the first wave of British bands were washing onto the American shore and airwaves, the head of A&R at Columbia Records was none other than Mitch Miller. You know, the Sing Along With Mitch guy, who had a Van Dyke to give the illusion of beatnik coolness, but who in reality was as square as they come.

Convinced that long hair and Brit Pop were just a passing fancy, Miller dissuaded the Columbia powers that the company should not sign any of the zillion bands just waiting to be discovered, and by the time it was realized this was a business/tactical error, The Raiders were the first band signed, for a million clams.

Not that the band was bad: they were just a lot different than the British invasion bands.

Miller skedaddled from Columbia, and Clive Davis took over to a pretty successful run, but the plan definitely waylaid the company for a few years.

Anyway, Revere, the leader, passed away Saturday, perfectly enough at the age of ’76, and irrespective of Miller’s acumen, the Raiders were excellent showmen and musicians and songwriters.

I will leave you with a taste:  Hungry.

 

Breakfast Blend: Skateboarding

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I was camping in Vermont this past weekend and we had the usual hootenany, which means singing a collection of classic rock songs in loud voices with banging guitars. Lots of Stones, which is fun, and a nice debate about Yer Blues were the highlights. Heard It Through The Grapevine was probably the nadir. Not singing well can sometimes be a curse.

But Tom Petty played well, too. He’s a classic rock star who has managed to make classic easy rock popular through a long career. One of the songs we demolished the other night was very attractive Free Falling.

Most notable to me, reviewing the official music video, is that when it came out in 1989 the gal boarding seemed rad. Now she’s just lame. They couldn’t find a gal who could do the tricks? Times change.

Since returning from camping I started reading Karl Ove Knaussgaard’s novel, My Struggle. Knaussgaard is Norwegian, but finds himself in Sweden, father to three children he has to get off to school while trying to write literature. It makes him cranky and think about death a lot. But he is a fine explicator of art, and has a way with narrative detail, plus kids are great even when they’re monsters, all of which perhaps explains why the book is one of this year’s surprise hits.

In any case, in one scene he’s in his office listening to a Swedish rock band called Dungen, while his family is in the rooms around him, getting ready for the day.

I’d never heard of Dungen, but it turns out they actually had a bit of a US breakthrough, even though they sing in Swedish. I know, weird. They’re categorized as progressive and psychedelic, and they have songs that are quirky, but they’re also pretty ingratiating. And this song features skateboards, which makes it a nice match with Tom Petty.

Night Music: Rage to Live, “Enough Is Never Enough”

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ragetolive69628As is the case with all collegiate rock, influence rules. The Hoboken band Rage to Live introduced me to the great, brave, sordid novels of John O’Hara (he wrote one called Rage to Live).

Rage to Live was founded by Glenn Morrow, who was a writer for New York Rocker magazine, and a founder of Bar None Records (Rage to Live’s first album was Bar None’s first release).

The only song I could find from them was this tuneful thing, which is distinguished by its assertive vocals mixed up high, and a genuine organic hook. This music dates from the mid 80s, a time when disco and hardcore and synthpop were tearing up the world of rock. This is a time when I listened to a lot of music from Jamaica and Africa, but also a time when smart pop-rock bands like Yo La Tengo, Rage to Live, the Silos and many others emerged.

They sounded awfully good.

Breakfast Blend: Jawbreaker

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I got an email from my friend Walker yesterday afternoon. He was walking in the East Village over the weekend and ran into the singer/songwriter Rachelle Garniez, with whom he’s friendly. She was with a woman who was in the band The Friggs named Palmyra Delran. Walker looked the Friggs up on Wikipedia. He found, he wrote to me, a prize-winningly unique line.

“The Friggs’ song “Bad Word for a Good Thing” appeared in both the films Jawbreaker and Fuck.”

I checked and am pretty sure he’s right. No other song can make that claim.

I happened to see Jawbreaker in a press screening before its opening in February 1999. The Friggs’ song has a good sound that Blondie got to 20 years earlier.

Another song from the Jawbreaker soundtrack is Imperial Teen’s winning confection Yoo Hoo, and it’s weird and vivid video, which is a lot more winning than I recall the movie to be.