A Kinks Korrection

I posted about the wonderful Kinks song, Berkeley Mews, a mash up of rock and beer hall styles that was the b-side to Lola, a couple of years ago, partly because I loved the line quoted in my original post. It just seemed too perfect.

And it was. Turns out the word “shitty” should be “chilly,” and when you listen that way it surely is.

But shitty is better.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Lunch Break: “Jar (Jar) of Whiskey,” Metallica (sigh, Star Wars)

jarjarDon’t get me wrong, I love the first six Star Wars films. In fact I saw the new one, The Force Awakens last Friday, and I will review the film at my Mastersball site Wednesday.

But, the local rock station was doing Star Wars for lunch last Friday which meant space songs mostly, but this one cracked me up because it is such a stretch, so right, and a pretty tight little sort of pop tune for Metallica (whom we rarely cover, if ever here).

(BTW, reading the comments under the video is a very strange seemingly non-sequitur randomoness that is kind of funny in a sad and weird way.)

Tenement, Garden of Secrecy

Here’s another power-pop band that isn’t totally in the thrall of their influences, so they’ve gotten a fair amount of press (which goes to show that something isn’t dead). I do hear different influences in each song, but the quotes are slippery, shadows of sounds that are in my head but hard to put a anvil or stirrup on. Which means some of the songs I kind of like because they remind me of Graham Parker or Rage to Live, while others, like this one, sound like they might work (with a little work) in an arena.

This one sounds like the hardest song Joe Jackson ever recorded.

No Joy, Hawaii

A random find on YouTube, this sounds so much like Sonic Youth at the start I almost stopped. But the video is strange and sensual, and the song such as it is comes and goes and is perfect for the video (or maybe it’s the other way around). Song with video? Video with song? I don’t know.

I posted because their first live show was with Husker Du’s Grant Hart and their first record was produced/mixed by the Raveonette’s Sune Rose Wagner.

Royal Headache, “High” and “My Own Fantasy”

This song is pretty good.

These guys are from Australia and seem to have found a way to make the virtues of straightforward rock feel uniquely their own. It helps to have a great singer, this one is named Shogun, and catchy clever songs.

Plus, Royal Headache is a good name for a band.

Update: Here is an interview with Shogun that is not your typical rock singer interview.

 

Back To School, The Amen Break

My friend Julie sent me this post from Open Culture about the Amen Break.

What is the Amen Break? It started out as a drum break on a b-side of a 45 by a R&B band called the Winstons, performed by GC Coleman. The a-side won a grammy for best R+B song that year. The b-side became the most sampled six seconds in music history. The link above has the whole story, and it’s long and worth it, I think.

At least that’s the sell here. The video is fun and scholarly about sampling. The influence of the Amen Break is more on hip hop, it seems, and UK street styles that have too many qualifying names to remember, but have to do with drum and bass.

I’m sympathetic to Mr. Reynold’s analysis about current copyright law, but he doesn’t do a great job of selling that part of the story. But who cares?

For me, the cool idea is that a drummer in a band in 1969 created a sound that crawled through all of our culture, and became classic. And we know it.

Here’s the original of Color Him Father, which is awfully sweet.