Breakfast Blend: Cake, “Short Skirt, Long Jacket”

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I have to admit I never really know just how to compartmentalize Cake.

Surely, by Steve’s definition they are not rockers, and despite the trumpet, the band is neither soul, nor jumpin’ jive a la the Squirrel Nut Zippers, as an example.

The band’s vocals are not really sung, and well, if there is the beautiful ability of a band to coordinate back-up vocals and harmonies as Steve has pointed out, Cake breaks a those rules by shouting out the back-ups, in unison, and in tune, but hardly sung.

If I had to use a word for them, it would be quirky.

I believe the band hails from Stockton, California, a somewhat sleepy largely farm community about 40 miles southeast of Sacramento which also produced the equally offbeat Pavement.

My late wife, Cathy Hedgecock, was a reporter for the Stockton Record for a few years back in the late 80’s, in fact she was the first woman assigned to the farm beat in the history of the Record, something that may seem ho-hum these days, but at the time was a big deal.

Cathy actually wrote a collection of short stories called The Draping Effect that focused on the bizarre things that came through the newsroom of a community that was too big to be a town, and not quite big enough to really be a city. In fact, Cathy often said if there is a strange crime that occurs on the planet, chances are it was six degrees of separation from Stockton.

Anyway, here is my favorite Cake to go with your coffee this morning.

Night Music: The Who, “My Generation”

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My dad is old and he has lost almost everything that makes life worth living but his mind, which is still working overtime clocking the stuff that happens. But isn’t that great at enjoying the daily stuff that is happening outside himself.

I’ve spent much of the last week in the Sunshine State trying to figure out a way for him to live the best life he can in his decline. The hell of it is he can still be charming and funny, but the toll taken by his body’s decline means he’s often playing a defensive game. And he’s not that charming or funny, because even at his most expansive he’s thinking more about what he isn’t than what anyone else is.

It’s awful.

Plus, he’s pretty much constantly fending off those who want to strip him of his liberty, which is to his credit. Except that the facts of the last couple of years show he can’t really handle liberty. Given choice, he chooses badly (or at least, the way of the rotting flesh).

I think an 86 year old has the right to choose badly, as long as they’re not bringing those around them down too, and unfortunately he has a wife who is apparently incapable of escaping his vortex. So he’s not helping her, at the least.

Which makes me think I don’t want to ever get old. Oops.

Great Song

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Who says folk rock is dead? Unlike most of it this does rock in its own way. I bet Lawr and Peter really like it but I’m curious about Steve and the rest of you. I heard it on my Pandora and it the chorus just nails me.

Lunch Break: REM, “What’s the Frequency Kenneth” and “Man on the Moon”

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It is hard to appreciate just how on top of the Remnants Peter is till he leaves for a few days.

Meaning guilt is enough of an impetus for Steve and me to acknowledge the void, and to try and fill it up a tad.

So, I thought I would turn to a band I really have loved over their career, who have a great body of work, and yet who have barely merited a whisper in Remnantland.

I was a fan with my first listen to Radio Free Europe, and with their third album and the song Fall on Me the issue of buying their next disc sight unseen was beyond settled.

I do have all their albums, and I think I put their brilliant Automatic for the People on my essential 30 or 50 or however many albums we listed a few years back.

For a sample, I picked a rocker from the great Monster album, a song fostered by a news miscue elicited by Dan Rather, but not meant to be heard by the viewing public when he asked “What’s the frequency Kenneth”, ostensibly of the sound guy on the news show.  This is kind of a fun live version, with a couple of different performances spliced together.

For a second piece, a live treatment of the beautiful Man on the Moon that concludes said Automatic for the People as perfectly as does The End wind up Abbey Road.

We Miss You Peter

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Even though you are verbose and some of your music sucks.

In your absence, I’ll post one of my all-time favorite vids. Not actually the cherished Turbonegro Ass Cobra version, this is a cover by The Real McKenzies (with bagpipes). I dare you to watch just once.

Maximum Riffage

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Chose this Top 50 classic for my errand run last night. Was particularly touched by this tasty brontosaurus burger of a riff. If you wanna call this the greatest riff of all-time, I will not argue.

To this, I like to imagine my team lumbering over the rest of the league’s dead, decaying bodies in the XFL at the conclusion of the 2015 season.

Night Music: Marshall Crenshaw, “Someday, Someway”

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We are up at the Tahoe house for a week which means no TV (save DVDs) and no radio (save streaming).  Right now it means pouring down rain banging off our metal roof, and maybe in a few hours it will mean the first snow drop of the year. Irrespective, we need the water, so bring it on.

But, it also means I am near KTKE HQ in Truckee, and while streaming this morningDJ Lindsday with an A spun this great Marshall Crenshaw tune from his equally fine self titled debut disc from 1982.

I had high hopes for Crenshaw and his Hollyesque delivery (these days I reserve that for Jake Bugg) and saw Crenshaw in the early 90’s at the Fillmore. He was good enough (and paired with the great Jimmy Dale Gilmore) but he hadn’t really advanced much beyond that first album.

Which is ok, I suppose. I just hope for growth out of an artist I like. Still, a tight little cut.

Finally, A Cause I Can Get Behind

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Lorde’s “Royals” banned in San Francisco.

Let’s take this nationwide! And make it permanent!

I’m not posting the video because everything about it is too sucky.

Sine qua non

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Now that he’s made it to Viagra commercials might as well hear other great ones. As much as I hate to see the commercials they do get the music out there. We shouldn’t be snobby. My son Peter was at a high school dance last night and the DJ played Smokestack Lightning and the kids danced to it. This shit is eternal, and lest I stand accused of favoring my own era the 50s are not my era. I was born in 1955. I hardly heard any 50s music until WCBS-FM in New York became an “oldies” station in 1971, which then basically meant the 50s. At that time I 15-16 years old and was way into the Stones, Beatles, Led Zep, etc. No doubt age 16 is still the formative years, so in that sense sure it’s part of my formation, but I came to realize then and since that almost everything I like is variations and developments on blues, doo wop, and rocknroll/rockabilly. And Howlin Wolf is just in a class by himself. He’s like Ty Cobb – few you CAN compare him to and those few, well, Muddy Waters is Tris Speaker.

 

Song of the Week – What Is and What Should Never Be, Led Zeppelin

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Today’s post will be short and sweet. (I’m still jet lagged due to my return flight from Europe yesterday.)

Wednesday, October 22nd, marks the 45th anniversary of the release of Led Zeppelin II (1969). The album quickly ran up to the top position on the worldwide charts – knocking The Beatles’ Abbey Road out of that spot here in the US. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to, do they?

The SotW is “What Is and What Should Never Be.”

The song was one of the first to have lyrics contributed by Robert Plant. It’s a slow blues that uses the soft/loud dynamic that Led Zeppelin employed to such great effect. MOJO recently made a list of the 50 Greatest Zeppelin Songs and WIaWSNB came in at #26. Writer Clive Prior had this to say about it.

Plant’s half-whispered, phased vocal is both seductive and covert, the invitation to his lady friend to visit his nearby castle sounding playful as well as slightly absurd on a song of alleged deep confession. Then in a dramatic vocal switch, he assumes his strutting Golden God persona, his strident vocal bursting dramatically forth. Page’s intimate production adds a smoothness to the atmospherics served up by Jones and Bonham, the drummer’s gong pressed into service for the first time on record at 1:09 to shimmering effect.

Enjoy… until next week.