When we first heard the Strokes they sounded like guys glomming on to all that was already good about rock ‘n’ roll. But now, many years later, they sound a little like the last breath of fresh rock ‘n’ roll. I’m not sure what the real context is, today, but this was a band that always sounded like they were ready for pleasure. That is a very good quality.
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
Happy Valentine’s Day. What better time is there to feature a SotW by a band called Love that is itself, a love song (of sorts). It is called “Andmoreagain” from the classic 1967 album Forever Changes.
I like some of how Matthew Greenwald reviewed the song at AllMusic.com, though I don’t necessarily interpret the lyrics the way he does:
“Andmoreagain” is another example of Arthur Lee letting the song he was writing lead him, rather than the other way around. Its lilting, slightly spaced folk melody is somewhat similar to Burt Bacharach, as well as Neil Young’s “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing.” Loaded with sweet, major-7th chords, its calm, infectious beauty is, in a word, mesmerizing. Lyrically, it’s another example of Lee free associating on his acid-magnified state of mind, meditating on reincarnating his own defense mechanisms. The line “undone, wrapped in my armor/’cause my things are material” bears this out. One of Lee’s best-loved compositions, it’s always been included in his concert repertoire, even after disbanding Love.
To me, the lyrics are a text book example of the kind of hazy, mystical, psychedelic mumbo jumbo to come out of the “Summer of Love;” so vague and cryptic that they can be construed an infinite number of ways.
I’ve heard interpretations that the title refers to the girlfriend of Love’s leader Arthur Lee, or the film and TV actress Ann Morgan. (I think it’s just a word that is sung to sound like a name.)
I’ve heard that it is about love’s “duality” – the light and dark of love. But my favorite theory is that Angmoreagain is a succubus, defined by Wikipedia as “a female demon or supernatural entity in folklore (traced back to medieval legend) that appears in dreams and takes the form of a woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual activity. The male counterpart is the incubus.” Now that’s cool!
And if you’ll see Andmoreagain
Then you will know Andmoreagain
For you can see you in her eyes
Then you feel your heart beating
Thrum-pum-pum-pum
And when you’ve given all you had
And everything still turns out
Bad, and all your secrets are your own
Then you feel your heart beating
Thrum-pum-pum-pum
And I’m
Wrapped in my armor
But my things are material
And I’m
Lost in confusions
‘Cause my things are material
And you don’t know how much
I love you
Oh, oh, oh
The music has a baroque rock (The Left Banke) feel. Arthur Lee’s vocal is reminiscent of Bee Gee Robin Gibb circa “I Started a Joke” but not nearly as maudlin.
Forever Changes is a great album that really deserves your attention if you’re not familiar with it. It has received numerous accolades — #40 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, #11 on Mojo’s list of the 100 greatest albums ever made. Other songs to check out include “Alone Again Or”, “The Red Telephone” and “You Set the Scene.”
Enjoy… until next week.
Gene McCaffrey posts here. He’s a Remnant. I wrote about Steve Wishnia’s novel here. But we’ve never posted this song, which seems to be the only one from Fun No Fun on YouTube. The rest should be up there. I’m happy to do the uploading, just say the word. This is good rockin’ fun! (I love spelling songs.)
And I hope it will get Gene back to writing his NYC punky memoirs. That was good stuff.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band didn’t only rock. But they did bring heaviness to moments that might have been kitsch.
But, of course, for those of us stateside, it was a Welshman with an awesome set of pipes, who turned this piece of shite into a hit.
Most interestingly, in recent times, Tom Jones has been criticized for advocating violence against women. He’s not having it.
Sure, good to talk about content, but this is a murder ballad, a form steeped in murder. And shouldn’t our art reflect all the base impulses? And if it doesn’t, can it even be called art?
This clip seems to cover it, baby. So much so this is the second time I posted it.
I got an email yesterday that tickets for the Mats were going on sale today, well, a pre-sale actually, and because I subscribe to LiveNation, I got a chance at them.
How exciting! So, I logged in this morning at 10 a.m. when the tix went on sale, got put in a queue for ten minutes, and by the time I was atop the queue, the pre-sale tickets were gone.
They go on regular sale tomorrow, so I will try again, but, well, I would be bummed to miss them, as would my friend Michele Friedman, with whom I usually go to concerts with these days. That is because Michele’s husband Jeremy Steinkoler, who is a fabulous professional drummer, just isn’t that into grunge, and my partner, Diane, only goes to concerts when my band is playing.
But, Michele’s friends Michael and Tracey wanted to come as well, as the three of them saw the Mats around 1980, so they wanna re-live their youth.
Keep your fingers crossed that we can get tix tomorrow.
In the interim, here is Paul and the guys at their loudest and bestest (no disrespect Tommy Stinson fans).
Here’s a post about Karl Ove Knausgaard and the Beatles. Come Together is an excerpt from Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book Three, Boyhood.
It is the story of a first love, sort of, and gives a good idea of the flavor of these books.
The Beatles song that’s quoted in the story and gives it its name is one of my favorites from the band’s later period.
The recording is the studio version, even though it is cut to live visuals.
The story ends citing a tune called No Way Back (Ingen Vei Tilbake) by the Norwegian band, The Aller Værste. Here’s a live version of the song, from 1980, which is about the time when the story takes place. You can listen (and sing) along when you get to that part.
Don’t know if we’ve mentioned Sensational Alex Harvey Band at all here at RR. Don’t know why I got to thinking about this gem that I covered in a hard rock band years ago.
SAHB did some other good stuff, but there’s also a lot of nonsense on their albums. This is their masterpiece, for me at least, a song that would likely make my all-time Top 25. It’s clearly the blueprint for Bon Scott AC/DC, up there with just about anything else in my book. (My favorite rock singer of all-time, Bon admitted mimicking Alex Harvey’s vocal style. As always, everything’s a copy of something else.)
It’s also a great example of how, for me, vocals are way more about melody and flow and iambic pentameter and sounding good together than about what’s being said. Do you know what the hell Alex is singing about? I have no idea. But it sounds great.
Alex Harvey died suddenly of a heart attack, now long ago in 1982. His birth date is before my dad’s.
This video is about as cool as a lip-synch can get:
I got here via an email from my friend Steve, who asked why the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard named his magnum opus (six volumes, uncountable pages–volumes 4-6 aren’t even available in the US yet) Min Kampf. I mean, provocation or what?
Steve was asking because I kept writing about the books, of which I’ve read three so far, and their music content, on Rock Remnants. Plus the very amazing joy they bring because of their artistry, which has to do with writing and aesthetics and structure and mastery of the language, which is always a challenge with translation. But the books are fantastic, on their own terms and, I promise, on yours.
I today found this story at the newyorker.com, which does a fair job of limning the issues. But ultimately, isn’t it all a bit of Blitzkreig Bop?
What make’s Costello’s version of Belsen Was a Gas so much more resonant was the white reggae and a pretty savvy observation that any relationship can turn into a battle of emotional fascisms (the original name of the elpee was Emotional Fascism), fighting it out until one little Hitler does the other one’s will. Musically, nicer than the Sex Pistols, but conceptually, maybe more corrosive.
I was really, really excited when I tried out my freshly magic-markered CD of the Hans Condor album that isn’t available on CD, Sweat, Piss, Jizz & Blood. Somethin’ Happenin’ Here, the opening track, strikes me as a cross between the Dolls, The Replacements and The Unband, as does the whole album. And that’s a good thing.
This first track is a bit more Stones-y than anything else included and I found myself unable to pull it out of player before it was complete. It’s rare these days that I can even get through most things I haven’t heard before. I’ve been through the album four times in its entirety now, so here goes:
The first four tracks absolutely smoke, climaxing with Conversations, my personal favorite. I wanted to include a youtube of that song but the only thing available is a barely-recognizable, horrible-audio live version from Philly in 2011. Believe me, it’s not worth finding, but the album version is.
Unfortunately, from there the album disintegrates into an early Replacements album, a great tune (Stitches), a good tune (Time, Rhyme, Reason) and an OK tune (Just Remember Have Fun) live among some jokesy-folksy stuff and, for me, a boring clunker (My Lyin’ Mind), which may be the consensus highlight of the album for reasons unknown to me.
Overall, I like the rawness, but certainly wouldn’t mind hearing the band with proper production either. Overall, I like the rawness, but I’d love a rhythm guitar in here too.
I’d rate the album somewhere between good and very good and it will give me something to listen to for a couple weeks. Those first four songs are mighty and I wish the rest of the album could keep up.
