Upper Crust at Bowery Electric. Late Night Report Updated.

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2015-04-23 22.46.43

UPDATE: Tech issues made posting last night a nightmare. Here are a few quick notes this morning before work.

Went out to dinner with Mrs. Rotoman and two friends, Lisa and Terry, at a tasty and crazy Bengladeshi place off Sixth Street. Good food, good fun.

Walked over to Bowery Electric in the cold, and got hands stamped (always fun). As showtime approached we met another friend, Walker, and headed into the charming room downstairs. The crowd was mostly middle-aged rockers, probably 150 or so souls. I didn’t feel old, for instance, but I did feel preppy.

The UC emerged at 10:47, two minutes late. Count Bassie kept his pinkie extended, politely. The crowd cheered. The band plugged in, Lord Bendover said, “we are here to roq-cue you,” and they played Let Them Eat Rock.

Another early fave was “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” Bendover introduced “Badminton” by saying it light of the impending summer they would play a song they rarely played live. It was a rare song in which the vocals weren’t crisp and clear, which was too bad, since they’re delightful.

Other highlights were the Duc d’Stortion-sung I Shall Winter Elsewhere, a lively ode to winter holidays set to a Chuck Berry riff, and Count Bassie on vocals for the Small Faces’ like Come Hither Fair Youth, followed by the stomper I’ve Got Class Up the Ass.

Yet another friend, another Lisa, had arrived a bit late. I found her upstairs on the mezzanine. The show wound down at midnight, with one encore that came after they took off guitars but didn’t leave the stage. “We must conserve our energy,” Bendover said while remounting.

It was a great fun show by a most unusual band. Who knows why they keep doing it, playing smallish clubs has to be a hassle and not that remunerative. But they are a tight rock band playing songs in a variety of hard rock styles with truly clever and funny lyrics and stage patter. That never gets old.

Here’s a bad clip (and big file that will take some time to load) to give just a taste. I’ll find more on the rocking web and post later.

The Moving Sidewalks, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”

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There are some reasons to grok ZZ Top. Or dig, if you prefer.

Hard guitar sounds and rockin’ blues are virtues. But this cover of the Beatles hit, by the Moving Sidewalks, which included Billy Gibbons, is an excellent reason to question his taste and ideas.

The Beatles wrote a great pop hit song. The Moving Sidewalks take that song and add a lot of Hendrix moves that add, um, zilch. Right?

Comment if you disagree, but this is so profoundly awful it can’t go uncommented on.

22 Hours Left: The Upper Crust, “Eureka! I Found Love”

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Funny lyrics are standard with the UC. Latin and Greek, too. Because that’s funny.

The popish impulse here falls short, these guys have a hammer, not a Merseybeat, but I’m looking forward to seeing them live.

Fun No Fun, “Secret Agent Man”

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funnofun

Another Fun No Fun song has surfaced. This comes to mind because while walking around Manhattan Sunday I happened upon this sign outside of a bar on the Upper West Side.

Of Mild Interest

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This isn’t as good as I thought it would be, but we’ve discussed this stuff before, so it probably belongs on the site:

The Upper Crust, “Badminton”

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Two days to our epic visit to Bowery Electric to see The Upper Crust. They go on at 10:45pm, I’ve learned, if you want to skip the Grannies. #RockRemnantsMeetup

What I know is some folks I’ve played Badminton with will be attending. Though we’ve played croquet and tennis, too. Should be quite a show!

LINK: The Longest Story Ever About A Band I Love That Everyone Else Who Doesn’t Love Them Should Read, But Won’t Because It’s So Long And It Might Not Change Their Minds

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Screenshot 2015-04-21 15.25.21Tim Marchman has written something very long about The Mekons over at Deadspin (on the Concourse, whatever that is). It is a history of the band and an attempt to explain why they’re so great (and were so especially in the 80s), by discussing their elpees of that period in Tim’s order of preference.

I thoroughly enjoyed it because I learned some things about the band I didn’t know, there are good funny quotes from the band, and his song choices and clips are excellent and I enjoyed listening to them all.

On the other hand, the idea of convincing someone that a rock band is great because of the way they embody the moral ethos of failure, and embrace it like a lover or a murderer or something like that, seems kind of pretentious and beside the point. The reason a person might get into the Mekons and think about their history and the way they changed over the years and struggled with lack of sales but also wore that proudly as a badge of honor, is because you fell in love with the music. In other words, you heard a song, you went to a show, and it turned out to be one of the best shows you’ve ever seen. That’s when these other ideas start to have some importance.

I mention this because I think if you didn’t like/weren’t interested in the Mekons you might throw your computer at the wall as Marchman goes on and on, like this about the band’s album, Rock ‘n’ Roll:

“This is basically how the whole record plays out, as a very good and very bitter joke; there are reasons why many aficionados claim this is the Mekons’ best record, and why they may be right. They were certainly never tighter, more confident, more focused, or better engineered than they are here; the whole thing is just a straightforwardly great rock and roll record, which they seem to be uncomfortably aware of. It’s hard to think they meant lines like Throw another rock n’ roll song on the fire, or This song … is in a pretended family relationship with the others on this record and on the charts all that sincerely, and while they may have been mocking a gringo military fighting a rock and roll war, you know they had a little sympathy for them, too. The Mekons may not have wanted to be a great rock and roll band, but they were, and perhaps consequently, they were too honest to either moderate their view of rock and roll as an expression of imperial capitalism’s worst impulses or to take it at all seriously.”

Play the damn song! Fortunately he does.

Rock Remants Meet Up! Let them eat rock!

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Okay, Lawr and Gene and Tom won’t be here, but this Thursday night, Steve and Peter will be rocking our asses off to the sounds of the Upper Crust at Bowery Electric (which is a place for music in New York City).

In case you don’t know the Upper Crust, here is a clip. More links to come.

Cage Match: Kent Tekulve v. The Edge

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tekulveAs I walked into BileTones (I guess that is the correct spelling) practice the other day, my mate Tom Nelson handed me a pamphlet that had a pic of Phillies hurler Rick Wise on the cover.

Tom told me he got the little handout–the title of which is Balk–at a Twins game at Metropolitan Stadium back in 2009. The whole little brainchild of Balk was by David Selsky, who along with former Pirates closer Kent Tekulve concocted an hysterically funny collection of baseball cards of bespectacled players.

The names and pics are priceless: Gary Gross, Rick Reuschel, Lee Walls, Carl Sawatski, Chris Knapp, and Craig Kusick (just looking at his beak on a card makes me wonder how he wound up a hitter and not a plumber?).kusick

However, the whole thing made me think of submariner Tekulve, and for some reason I contextualized his skill set with that of the Edge, the guitar player from U2 who I like and who Steve does not.

Let me say this to start: I have never had a friend quite like Steve. For some reason, about half the things we believe in and process could not be more simpatico; however, the remaining 50% could not be more diametrically opposed. Very strange.

Back to the philosophy, Tekulve was not a hard thrower. In fact, to the contrary, he threw underhand and lived on sinkers, location, and delivery deception to build a pretty successful career with a 98-90 record, 2.80 ERA, and 184 saves. But for sure, he did not overpower hitters a la Goose Gossage or Eric Gagne or Aroldis Chapman.

But, he got the job done, satisfactorily, and were he pitching today, Tekulve would be a well thought of Fantasy Baseball closer (1.250 career WHIP).

OK, so to the Edge, where the guitar player does not really approach his craft like Eric Clapton or Mick Ronson or Keef, who are clearly masters of the axe. edge

Edge relies more on sonics and harmonics–though he can play blues licks for sure–and pedals, along with dropping the fifth of the chord very often, to attain this signature chorusy shimmering sound.

Now, I get that Steve doesn’t really consider this playing, but my philosophical question to start the week is what the Edge does any less successful–and thus worthy of our approval–than was how Tekulve nudged his outs via groundballs by frustrated hitters?

Since I do like the Edge (and U2), and can not legally see without my spectacles, I approve swimmingly of both.

But, I guess it is a personal thing.

What do you say?

Song of the Week – Grim Reaper, Detective

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Led Zeppelin has been hot in recent months. The40th anniversary of the release of Physical Graffiti in February seems to be spark that lit the fire. Just about every magazine and blog that covers rock music has featured them recently.

Today’s SotW is from the Zep related band Detective who recorded two albums for their Swan Song label. The Rolling Stone Record Guide (1st edition) said those recordings were “Credible but uneventful late-Seventies hard rock from a band led by ex-Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye.”

The brevity of the review says a lot about the group’s (lack of) critical acceptance when their recordings were on the shelves. They were quickly dismissed as nothing more than a Led Zep wannabe band. But occasionally things (wine, music) improve with the passage of time.

“Grim Reaper” is from Detectives’ self-titled debut.

The muscular drums and the tight pants vocals by Michael Des Barres, could easily pass off this cut as a Led Zep outtake. I like it!

Enjoy… until next week.

BTW, today is Record Store Day. Take a nostalgic trip to your favorite local bricks and mortar record store and see if you can’t find something to add to your collection.