Scary Songs: The Beach Boys, “Monster Mash/Papa Oom Mow Mow”

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OK, so it ain’t that scary, it’s fun. And, maybe you expected the original from Bobby Boris Pickett, but this song was a staple of the Beach Boys live set for a while. Every time I saw them, they played it.

Couple of things I noticed, though:

Brian plays the bass with his thumb, rather than all his fingers or a pick.

Never realized Carl played a Rickenbacker sometimes. I always saw them all play white Fenders.

Mike Love seemed goofy back then, but the truth is he was fucked up crazy all the time. He just realized his potential in the interim. I mean, I get Brian has had his issues, and well, Dennis and Carl were sort of sad stories. But, that troika was raised by the equally fucked up Murray Wilson.

Love was their cousin. He is a crazy right wing Ted Nugent-like nutcase. Being Dracula pushes him just that much closer to sane.

 

Kim Gordon: Touring With Your Ex

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Screenshot 2015-02-24 15.25.43Kim Gordon was Sonic Youth’s bass player for 30 years, until she and husband Thurston Moore split up. Moore, 52, had found another woman. Gordon has now written a memoir, Girl in a Band: A Memoir,
and this excerpt is a description of the band’s last show at a festival in Brazil. It’s a weird and naked document, with a side-eyed look at the rock ‘n’ roll life that feels very real and unfiltered.

The first tune they played that night was an oldie. Let it be your soundtrack.

Morning Borning: The Real ZZ Top

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Everybody comes back and now the hot topic is The Sound Of Music. Rock ‘n’ roll! Yeah, sure.

Listened to ZZ Top’s best last night, Tres Hombres and Fandango. Them be two mighty fine albums, folks. I don’t think I included either in my Top 50, but they wouldn’t be far below. And if I re-did my list today, they might crack it. The live side of Fandango is mostly a waste, but the studio side makes up for it by being near-perfect. Tres Hombres isn’t perfect, but consistently excellent throughout.

This song was in Dazed And Confused, which we’ve discussed recently and kudos to Linklater for including this and not just the obvious Tush.

The feel of this song has a lot in common with early KISS. I don’t understand how one could like one and not the other. My guess is it’s that damn facepaint and antics. The song has little in common with later boring, commercial, synthesized, beardy ZZ Top. I’ve read they’ve somewhat come to their senses and returned to their roots, but I haven’t gone there (yet).

Hope this driver had a six-pack for the road.

Night Music Too: Bjork, “My Favorite Things”

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Movie clips are a problem, of course. Without the context, does it mean anything?

Lars Van Trier is one of my favorite directors, and Bjork has long been my favorite Icelandic vocalist. Put 1 and 1 together and you get way more than two. Though I think you’ll have to watch Dancer in the Dark to see what I’m getting at.

For now, this is a disembodied clip of a singular singer coping in a musical she wishes she’d never signed up for. Still, she shines, and it isn’t all Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.

Night Music: John Coltrane Quintet, “My Favorite Things”

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One good thing came out of The Sound of Music.

Afternoon Snack: David Bowie, “Diamond Dogs”

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Today is National Dog Biscuit day.

pupsI am not sure how the rest of the country is reacting, but my three canines have taken the news lying down. After all, it is sunny, and our pups are older, so, unless there is a reason to get up–like someone giving them a biscuit–that is what they prefer (to the left are Jazzmine’s and Pavlov’s heads, while the white fluff behind them is our white Shepherd, Mahi).

Anyway, dogs rule, so in honor of them and Walter Kendall’s Fives (beef, vegatable, cheese, charcoal, and ginger),  the brand our childhood dog Babe got, here are Bowie and Ronson et al, with what I think is my favorite songus, canus.

Material Needed: Midnight Moses Volume II/I

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The batphone rings at my house when no one (mostly Peter) posts in 24 hours.

A while ago I posted that fantastic lip-synch video of Sensational Alex Harvey Band doing Midnight Moses – one of my all-time faves. Later I found this, the original Midnight Moses, also written by Alex Harvey, but pre-SAHB.

Over the past 20 years or so it’s been very common to re-do hard rock with orchestras, bluegrass outfits, horns, etc. But what genius it was to perform the reverse way back in the early 70s. Gotta love those Shaft-y guitars.

Up All Night: Sebastian Bach Interview

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Six minutes I’ll never get back, and yet not worthless. This is the core of Rock Remnants, no? The core, not the fruit.

Night Music: Hans Condor, “My Lying Mind”

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I keep playing their album, and find no reason to stop. Steve is right, the first four songs are the best, but he’s wrong about My Lying Mind. You be the judge.

Scary Songs: Metallica, “Enter Sandman”

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I am not sure why human beings like to be frightened, and yet hate to be scared?

We love a scary movie, or a wild crazy roller coaster, or even riding on a bike of any kind, skateboard, skis, car, pretty much anything capable of independent locomotion, really fast.metallica

Yet, if we get home alone, and it is dark and late and no one else is home and you have to go upstairs which means traipsing through the house, under the right circumstances, it is scary. Yet, again, watching someone do that in a movie–knowing the person will get sliced to pieces with a chain saw–is fun?

Anyway, I was thinking about this, and I remembered sometime back Steve said one thing he liked about one of his albums as a kid was that it scared the shit out of his brother, and, what prompted all those synapses to snap was hearing Enter Sandman on the radio the other day.

I cannot claim to be a huge Metallica fan (note that I was working a Giants game the day the band did the National Anthem at ATT). I like them well enough, but by the 80’s, when they were hitting full stride, I was in my mid-to-late 30’s, hiding behind Bruce Springsteen and Crowded House, waiting for Nirvana and The Stone Roses to reclaim me, (like the Pistols and Clash did 15 years earlier).

And, they are a fine band, and even more important, from El Cerrito, Ca, which is where I live (it is right next door to Berkeley).

So, in honor of Steve scaring the shit out of his brother, I came up with this category. I can think of some more songs that are essentially scary in their essence. As for Enter Sandman, if I had heard this when I was eight, I would have loved it and it would have scared the shit out of me.