Song of the Week – Let Me Go, The Rockets and Three Dog Night

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Today’s SotW is about a band that is a mere footnote in rock ‘n roll history, but an important one at that – at least if you’re a Neil Young fan.

Back in 1968 a band called The Rockets released their one and only album. The band was made up of Danny Whitten (guitar), Billy Talbot (bass), Ralph Molina (drums), guitarist brothers Leon and George Whitsell and Bobby Notkoff (violin). It’s been said that the album only sold about 5,000 copies, but it came to the attention of Neil Young who recruited half the band – Whitten, Talbot and Molina – to be the backing band for his second solo album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. He renamed the band Crazy Horse and the rest is history.

The SotW is Danny Whitten’s “Let Me Go” from that 1968 album by The Rockets.

It starts with about one minute of vocals then goes on for more than 2 and a half minutes of guitar jamming that often sounds more like a chain saw than a musical instrument. (That’s a good thing in this case.) You can clearly see why the “Godfather of Grunge” Young was so intrigued by their sound.

But Young wasn’t the only one listening. Back when Three Dog Night was cool (yes, they were cool for a few albums) before they resorted to recording dreck like “Joy to the World” and “Black and White”, they were covering tunes by some of the best unknown songwriters of the day. Their first hit, “One”, was written by Harry Nilsson. They also performed songs by Laura Nyro, Randy Newman, The Band and Traffic.

As a Beatles fan, I was confused by the Lennon/McCartney credit given to a song on their first album that I’d never heard called “It’s For You.” It was many years later when I learned the Beatles never recorded it. Instead they gave it to another artist Brian Epstein managed, Cilla Black, who took it to #7 in the UK. (It didn’t chart in the US which partially explains my ignorance.)

One of my favorite songs from their sophomore effort, Suitable for Framing, was “Lady Samantha”, written by an as yet undiscovered Elton John.

And this all leads me back to “Let Me Go” as recorded by TDN on their debut.

While The Rockets version is a worthy psych/garage take, TDN makes it a shorter, tighter pop song. It has more spark and puts a spotlight on their harmony vocals. I have to admit, I like it better. How about you?

Enjoy… until next week.

Breakfast Blend: Dancing Barefoot

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When Patti Smith was awarded the Swedish Polar Music prize in 2011, her song Dancing Barefoot was sung by two up and coming sisters from the suburbs of Stockholm who go by the name First Aid Kit.

The incantatory power of that song gets me every time, but I wonder what Patti is thinking. Her visage is stern, but it’s hard to believe she is being hypercritical at that point. And by the end she too seems caught up in the power of her song and the loveliness of the harmonies and then the audaciousness of the poetic recitation (and maybe the length of her history, at this point).

The incantatory power of Dancing Barefoot bubbles up in this clip from Rockpalast TV in 1979, too. I’ve watched many Rockpalast TV clips and don’t recall being aware of the audience, particularly, but in this churning version of the song, which wouldn’t be out of place at a Quicksilver Messenger Service show, the audience suddenly breaks through and Patti has to handle the mess, and she does. It is very strange theater that comes with a terrific vocal performance and her very solid band. Plus, she blesses the pope!

Night Music: Taken By Trees, “Greyest Love of All”

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The album this cut is taken from is called East of Eden, which was released by the Secretly Canadian label, which was at that point (2009) also home to Antony and the Johnsons and Jens Lekman. So I’m not sure exactly how I found Taken By Trees, but the connection is almost certainly in some way Secretly Canadian.

Victoria Bergsman, who goes by the name Taken By Trees, moved to Pakistan for her second “solo” album, from Sweden, and recorded the album with Pakistani musicians. The result is a pretty appealing hybrid of her decidedly Swedish folk-punk internationalist backpacking roots style and the sensibilities of the local Pakistani musicians and their traditions.

It is not a rock record, I feel compelled to offer as a disclaimer, but it is only rock musicians who have prowled the world and created these unlikely hybrids, without coopting or marginalizing or archiving the local musicians. And man, does it sound nice.

Special props to the video.

LINK: The Most Boring TV Show In the World

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Abbey-Road-Album-Cover-rhcp abbey road

A story in the Independent has a story with an embed of a webcam pointed at the zebra crossing the Beatles and Red Hot Chili Peppers used as album covers. Seems that the spot is a tourist attraction and people stop traffic just to cross the street, and you can watch them!

There’s also a documentary about the crossing, which is fairly short and atmospheric and notes that the photo for the album cover was taken two weeks after Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon!

Lunch Break: Jens Lekman, “I Know What Love Isn’t”

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More Swedish darkness, with a pop twist, sort of. A ballad.

 

Breakfast Blend: Jawbreaker

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I got an email from my friend Walker yesterday afternoon. He was walking in the East Village over the weekend and ran into the singer/songwriter Rachelle Garniez, with whom he’s friendly. She was with a woman who was in the band The Friggs named Palmyra Delran. Walker looked the Friggs up on Wikipedia. He found, he wrote to me, a prize-winningly unique line.

“The Friggs’ song “Bad Word for a Good Thing” appeared in both the films Jawbreaker and Fuck.”

I checked and am pretty sure he’s right. No other song can make that claim.

I happened to see Jawbreaker in a press screening before its opening in February 1999. The Friggs’ song has a good sound that Blondie got to 20 years earlier.

Another song from the Jawbreaker soundtrack is Imperial Teen’s winning confection Yoo Hoo, and it’s weird and vivid video, which is a lot more winning than I recall the movie to be.

 

Night Music: Jens Lekman, “Black Cab”

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Swedish. One of my favorite artists of the new millennium. (Posted about his appropriation of the Mamas and Pappas here some months ago.) And this is real night music, about deciding to take a cab home from a party when you don’t have much money. Albeit in Gothenburg.

Echoes: Imperial Teen, “Imperial Teen”

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Liked this band’s harmonies back in the 90s, but had forgotten about the song from which they took their name.

Breakfast Blend: The Terrible Stones

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I’m starting this post having just stumbled on this one, which is irredeemable. Awful. Even though the groove might work. If I had a liberal definition of riff, this isn’t a terrible one. But it is an absolutely terrible song.

There isn’t much to redeem this one, Indian Girl, either. If you last to the end you may rank it lower than She’s So Cold. Maybe.

But those are my worst Stones songs. Post yours in the comments.

SUPPLEMENTAL: We Are The Best clip!

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No music in this one.