Song of the Week – Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely, Hüsker Dü

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

I have to admit that I’ve never been a big fan of heavy metal or its offshoots. My college roommates loved Black Sabbath. I just didn’t get it. Hair metal? Speed metal? Not for me. Over time I did open up to it a little. There was a time that I couldn’t stand AC/DC, but I love them now.

But there are always exceptions and that brings me to today’s SotW, “Don’t Want to Know If You Are Lonely” by Hüsker Dü.

Hüsker Dü was a post punk band from Minneapolis. They played a brand of hardcore speed metal, but with less screaming and more melody. They were a power trio with two terrific songwriters in Bob Mould (guitar/vocals) and Grant Hart (drums/vocals), and Greg Norton on bass.

“Don’t Want to Know…” is a Hart song from the band’s 1986 major label debut, Candy Apple Grey. It’s another in the long tradition of Rock music break-up songs.

I’m curious to know exactly how you are
I keep my distance but that distance is too far
It reassures me just to know that you’re okay
But I don’t want you to go on needing me this way

And I don’t want to know if you are lonely
Don’t want to know if you are less than lonely
Don’t want to know if you are lonely
Don’t want to know, don’t want to know

The day you left me, left me feeling oh so bad
Still I’m not sure about all the doubts we had
From the beginning we both knew it wouldn’t last
Decisions have been made the die has been cast

The phone is ringing and the clock says four A.M.
If it’s your friends, well I don’t want to hear from them
Please leave your number and a message at the tone
Or you can just go on and leave me alone

Hüsker Dü never achieved the commercial success they deserved. When I listen to their records (an amazing six albums – two of them doubles – and two EPs released between 1983 and 1987) I can’t imagine a Nirvana or a Green Day without them. (In fact, Green Day recorded “Don’t Want to Know…” for a scrapped MTV pilot called Influences.

Enjoy… until next week.

John Cale, “Pablo Picasso”

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Compared with the David Bowie version, this is genius. It was the first version I heard, and was more rudely funny than anything.

David Bowie, “Pablo Picasso”

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This is horrible. There is no reason it should exist. Experience it at your own risk!

Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, “Lonely Financial Zone”

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My friend Angela posted a link to a listicle about things New Yorkers who are older than 40 have done.

I’m older than 40, and I’ve done most of them, except for go to Max Fish. It seems.

But No. 11 on the list references the spectacular desolation of lower Manhattan back in the 60s and 70s. I loved walking around that neighborhood in those days, and then I heard this Jonathan Richman song, which gets it completely right.

Rolling Stones, Loving Cup (1969)

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I’m not clear about the origins of this track. It may be Mick Taylor’s audition. It dates from 1969 and what you hear in the left track is Keith. The piano player, most important, is Nicky Hopkins. The guitar in the right track is Mick Taylor.

It’s a great raw version of a great song years before it ended up in a great version on elpee. Can’t get enough…

Black Crowes, Lovin’ Cup

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The Stones’ version is better, but I was in a bar tonight and heard this cover and was so glad someone thought that this great song was worth covering.

I have to say, the biggest difference is Jagger, who knows way more about the way words work and perform.

But even without Jagger and Bobby Keys (who is missed terribly, too) this version is fine. Though maybe more a reminder about how great the Exiles on Main Street performances and mixes are, and how a great song can make a less than great band seem good enough.

Vin Scelsa Has Retired the Idiot’s Delight.

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Photo by DVanderheyden

Photo by DVanderheyden

He was a DJ on Sunday nights on WNEW when I was in high school. Back then NEW was a free form radio station. The DJs played what they wanted. This meant that you might get a mash up of different styles, hard rock and jazz in the same sequence of songs, or show tunes complementing something odd. Or they’d play pop songs sometimes.

The thing about free form radio was that you really got to know the DJs. They had taste and they demonstrated it every show. Sometimes the music was your style, sometimes it was something you’d never heard before in a style you didn’t know existed.

This is different than Pandora, which tries to match you with bands that play in a similar style to the bands you like. Free form mostly exists at college stations these days, and most of those shows feature a DJ known for playing a single style, at least most of the time.

But back in the hey day, the big palette was a virtue, at least for those of us who loved it, and WNEW was an incredibly great station while it lasted. In those years I also lived in Los Angeles and San Francisco, both of which had great free form rock stations, and Boston, which had a great oldies station.

Today, Boston has one of the best college stations in the country, at Emerson College. WERS is sort of free form, like Fordham’s WFMU (Scelsa’s last radio home), but is also fully aware of the value of having contributors who enjoy (and pay) for the programming.

Free form radio was (and is) great art, but it is niche. The Iheartmusic industry is built on the scientific finding that most people like to hear what they know, and are repulsed (or bored) by what isn’t what they already like.

Perhaps the best free form radio station today is WPKN in Bridgeport Connecticut. It takes no commercial or syndication money and relies solely on listener contributions. This is great, but most PKN shows are dedicated to a form. Bluegrass, polka, country, blues, free jazz, you name it. There is a show, but it isn’t a Vin Scelsa show.

Vin Scelsa’s thing was wild leaps of musical imagination, a love for Firesign Theater (if I’m remembering correctly), and a digressive patter that could extend to long closely-tended tales that I’ve long forgotten, but the memory of which produces astonishment still.

When I started this website, my heart was in this free form mixing of styles and enthusiasms and the energetic exploration of different stuff. That’s because of Vin Scelsa. And Jonathan Schwartz. WNEW DJs when I was in high school. And my high school (11th grade?) social studies teacher, Charlie Backfish, who is to this day a DJ on the SUNY Stoney Brook radio station.

There is an archive of Idiot’s Delight (the name of Scelsa’s show for all those decades) recordings, where you can get a short or long taste.

Nick Paumgarten writes about him in this week’s New Yorker, which does a good job of capturing Scelsa’s quirky personality.

Paumgarten also mentions that for his final show Scelsa opened with Sopwith Camel’s Hello Hello and finished with Lou Reed’s Goodnight Ladies. Both feature a brass bassline that sounds good to me.

I Love the Pink Faries!

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I’ve discovered some bands here at Rock Remnants, and maybe the most important of those are the Pink Fairies.

It’s hard to explain why, but there is this: https://youtu.be/yskXftKkRbE

Enjoy. Your French rock. And great camera work.

Song of the Week – I Wanna Stay Home, Jellyfish

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTOREDjellyfish-shoes

The Paisley Underground was a mid-80s genre of rock music that paid homage to the psychedelic California garage/folk rock bands of the 60s (especially The Byrds) through their usage of pop melodies, vocal harmonies and jangly guitars. The term was coined by Michael Quercio of The Three O’Clock, one the movement’s purveyors. Other bands in the The Paisley Underground were The Dream Syndicate, The Bangles and The Long Ryders.

Another group loosely associated with the genre was Jellyfish, a group formed in Pleasanton, California – an east bay suburb of San Francisco.

Jellyfish was a short lived band that put out two critically acclaimed, but sadly forgotten, albums in the early 90s – Bellybutton (1990) and Spilt Milk (1993). If you are a fan of Squeeze, Crowded House or XTC, you are (or will be) a fan of Jellyfish too.

Today’s SotW is “I Wanna Stay Home” from Bellybutton.

The song is a melancholy ballad that starts with an acoustic guitar intro before the full band joins. The plaintive verses are sung solo but with “ba, ba-ba-ba” background vocals. The lyrics long for the simple joy of living the life of a homebody.

When you need someone
And there’s no one there
There is always the nine o’clock train
To take you out somewhere

I take the train in town
Like I did for years
There is only seven more blocks
I could walk from here

Some tasteful trumpet playing is added to the chorus by Chuck Findley. Beatle-esque harmonies come in on the bridge.

When I realize the weight
That’s firmly on my shoulders
On my shoulders
I just try and find the place
I can take a walk on my blind side
On my blind side

Then a short, thick stringed guitar solo is played before the song returns to the final verse and chorus.

When these memories fade
In my ripe old age
Please remember my dear

I wanna stay home
I wanna stay home right here
I wanna stay home today
I wanna stay

This is a perfectly written and performed pop song. They don’t come any better.

If you listen to more of Jellyfish’s music (available on Spotify and YouTube) you’ll hear lots of other influences – Queen, The Beach Boys, and power pop titans such as Badfinger, Big Star and the Raspberries. They also imitate The Beatles, especially Paul McCartney. I have a live bootleg where they play his solo hit “Jet.”

Most people have never heard of Jellyfish, but once you discover them you’ll never forget them.

Enjoy… until next week.

Louis Johnson is Dead.

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Louis Johnson was a bass player in the Brothers Johnson, a soul band my cohort made fun of back in the 70s because of the word Johnson.

Louis Johnson ended up being Michael Jackson’s bass player, which was no doubt a lucrative gig that landed him spots on many giant records.

Louis Johnson died this week, at the age of 60, which is frightening for those of us who wish to be immortal.

Now, after the fact, we can see that Louis Johnson added significant bass to a lot of songs. I can’t get past Strawberry Letter #23, which is an old Shuggie Otis song that the Brothers covered, and made a hit of.

Quincy Jones produced the Brothers Johnson’s Strawberry Letter #23, and, of course, produced all of Michael Jackson’s hits. Louis Johnson was there for all of that.