It is always difficult to hear a new band in a new context and get a good idea about what they’re doing.
Radio Birdman ruffled some feathers back in the late 70s into the 80s. As alt-pop culture in Sydney this is important. As indie records culture in NY this means somthing, but how important it is overall is why we’re talking about it.
So, listen, and let’s try to figure out what comes next.
Peter posted last week on the ever-fun Lee Michaels (sigh, no relation unfortunately) and his biggest hit, Do You Know What I Mean?
I was a big Michaels fan back then, and I think I saw him at Winterland and Sound Factory and various little northern California venues four times with my childhood friend Stephen Clayton.
I never saw him play with anyone but his great and behemoth drummer, Bartholomew Smith-Frost aka “Frosty.”
Further, I always remember he was barefoot, and from what I could see, his feet were really dirty (even back then, he was a stoner after my own heart).
I remember loving Michaels’ first pair of albums–Carnival of Life and Recital–after which he released Barrel, the work the artist insisted was his first real album. That is because Barrel was just Michaels and Frosty whereas the first two efforts featured the likes of studio-men Eddie Hoh and Hamilton Watt and friends.
The problem is as much as I liked Michaels and Frosty live, similarly I thought those first two albums were full of great tunes and some decent crunch and psychedelia.
The song I picked here is Streetcar which was my fave on that first Carnival of Life album.
As I was searching for Michaels information to assemble this little ditty, I did come across his website, which is kind of a hoot in a “peace and love I am a bit of a scattered stoned out hippie but that doesn’t mean I am stupid or anything” way.
Here is the link:
http://www.leemichaels.com/LeeMichaels.com/no_war.html
As they say at Penny Lane, “very strange.”
In 1974, an Australian band called TV Jones went into the studio in Sydney to record an album. They recorded a couple songs but things fell apart, the album was cancelled, the band broke up, the tapes were erased.
But they weren’t. In 2000, a cassette tape with the recordings was found. A single of Eskimo Pies b/w Skimp the Pimp was released.
Only later was it discovered that the version of Eskimo Pies on the single wasn’t the TV Jones version, but a demo of the song for the band’s guitarist/vocalist Deniz Tek’s next band, Radio Birdman. Bummer.
Radio Birdman later signed with Sire records in the states and had a storied and erratic career. By the way, Deniz Tek’s website is an excellent slice of the remnant side of rock history.
But it all started with TV Jones (which is also the name of one of the premier makers of guitar pickups).
We had breakfast with Sugar Pie this morning, but this is great. I’m heading to Littlefields.
This tune popped up in my Youtube list today, because (I’m pretty sure) Sugar Pie DeSanto is doing a show a Littlefields, a small club in my nabe, in a few weeks. So I played the song. Sugar Pie DeSanto and Etta James cut this one in 1966, and it rocks.
So I thought that it might be good fun to see Sugar Pie, even though Etta James died a few years ago. But then I found this clip and I was conflicted.
On the one hand, the band seems strong, if kind of professionally bland. And she’ll be playing with a different band. On the other, Sugar Pie seems more adept at dirty dancing than singing these days, as that clip shows.
So, what do you do? Do you go to the show? Or do you avoid the discomfort?
Efterklang is a Danish rock band. I went with a friend a couple of years ago to see them play at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. We had some really expensive and tasty cocktails on the roof before the show (it’s fantastic up there, hovering over Central Park), and then made our way down to a medium sized auditorium with excellent acoustics and sightlines for a fantastic show.
I’d never heard of Efterklang, I was tagging along, but I knew they were playing with the Wordless Music Orchestra, which is a small classical ensemble that seems to create interesting hybrids with non-classical music. The first time I saw Wordless Music they performed a symphonic piece written by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, as well as a fantastic piece by Ligetti. It was a fine show, more memorable for the Ligetti, but you have to give Greenwood a lot of credit for stretching. And for the record, I’m not much of a Radiohead fan, but maybe I’m missing something.
Efterklang (which means Reverberation, which is nice) turns out to be these delightful Danish rock guys, who for whatever reasons decided to extend their range into a world involving strings and woodwinds. And a drummer using brushes. And backup singers. This is not my definition of rock music, but it was a wonderful show, which took this rock band all around the world as they performed with different symphonies of players who usually play the classics in each city.
I’m assuming they were paid enough to not regret giving up their day jobs.
Apart from all the prelude, this song is just great, even if the drummer uses brushes.
The thing about the Oxford comma is that some assholes will be doctrinaire, and make a big deal about it. They’ll scold you! This is stupid, but at the same time, the Oxford comma is a great weapon for clarity. Use it right, your reader will know.
This video offers no clarity. But this could be the best song about grammar I know.
French rockers tackle the 1963 No. 1 hit by the Singing Nun. They do a nice job with it!
During that crazy Mozart fad, back in the 80s, an Austrian toff had a crazy hit that Lawr had suppressed from memory. One of only six Billboard No. 1 hits in a language other than English. Not including Love is Blue and Grazing in the Grass. For the record, here it is. Don’t start with the volume too high.
Like most hits, Rock Me Amadeus has been covered many times. Sturmgeist, a Norwegian black metal band, is neutered by this awful awful song, but brings all their tools, hoping for a miracle.
I’m looking for a death metal version of Dominique.
John Denver wrote this song, which from his lips is thin and sentimental. Sentiment is a key part of its appeal, but back in the 70s Toot and the Maytals found a delicious reggae groove beating under it’s melodic heart.
Many years later, in Japan, Hayao Miyazaki wrote the great “Whisper of the Heart,” a movie love story in which the protagonists’ dreams all come together with a down home reworked rendition of Denver’s classic tune.
