My Oh My was Slade’s last hit, and a remarkable difference from this one, their first. Today’s palette cleanser…
I guess the point of last night’s rant wasn’t that there was anything wrong with being popular, but that maybe over time a popular artist has to find new ways to reach the mass audience. And maybe one of the ways is to go with sentimental prettiness rather than stronger sounds and words. Or maybe it’s just that over time good new ideas run out, squeezed like toothpaste from a tube.
By the way, John Legend’s first Top 20 single was also his first No. 1. Yuck.
If we’re paying any attention to popular music, shouldn’t we pay attention to what is popular? I think the better answer is no, fuck them all. But I want the music I love to be popular, and I want popular music to be the music I love.
Is there something wrong with that?
I loved John Legend when he was striving, and I don’t get at all what he’s become.
Slade fans can probably better explain this tune, which is catchy and lovable and like giving whisky to drunks. In other words, great crap.
Today’s SotW was written by guest contributor Gil Roeder. Gil is a guitarist/songwriter and a member of Rockridge Station. He has also written about music professionally. When he’s not focused on his musical interests he holds down a day job!
Sure, sure … finding your lifetime partner and significant other can bring love and happiness, companionship, children, emotional support, etc. etc. All wonderful stuff, but let’s not overlook one of the great benefits of entering into a long-term romantic relationship: combining music collections!
Today, I suppose, this is a routine Bluetooth or Thunderbolt file exchange for most couples. But back in the vinyl era, a significant ritual in the progression of a serious relationship was sitting on the floor of your new shared home, sifting through each other’s crates of records to cull the duplicates (“let’s see, your copy of Rumors is in better condition, my copy of Sticky Fingers has the original Andy Warhol zipper on the cover”), and discovering the quirks in your S.O.’s musical tastes.
When my future wife and I first set up house together, I came across a 1980 album in her pile by the British singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke, called Sportscar. I was immediately smitten: Tzuke’s belting vocal style and inventive rhythms and harmonies set her apart from many mainstream female artists of the time. Our SotW features two cuts from that album.
“Living on the Coast” portrays a recent migrant to (presumably) Southern California, basking in the sunshine and sea breeze while aching with loneliness:
Living on the coast
You see no one beyond the waterline
You make yourself feel better
By breathing in the air
The arrangement seems inspired by contemporaneous Steely Dan records (Aja, Gaucho), with a catchy bass-keyboard interchange, jazzy 11th and 13th chords over abrupt rhythmic transitions, and serpentine guitar fills.
“The Rise of Heart” is a better showcase for Tzuke’s voice.
Her powerful upper range and steady, vibrato-less fermatas at times resemble Rickie Lee Jones. Her band shines here, with a delicate bass riff that gets picked up by the guitar, a dramatic keyboard countermelody in the chorus and an intelligent guitar solo by Mike Paxman that is straight from the Larry Carlton school of jazz-rock.
Tzuke’s story illustrates how important luck and timing were in the star-making machinery of that era. After modest success in the British pop charts with her initial albums and singles, she got her big break — signing with Elton John’s Rocket record label and opening for him on his 1980 U.S. tour. From all accounts, confirmed by YouTube clips of her live performances around that time, she seized the moment and killed on stage. The high point was playing to half a million people in New York’s Central Park.
But the machinations of the recording industry conspired against Tzuke. Elton John had switched U.S. distributors just before the tour. According to her web site, “MCA consequently decided to stop all tour support and promotion for the acts on the Rocket label, which meant that Judie was playing to huge audiences … but no-one knew who she was and her records were not available in the shops.” Despite a quick fade to obscurity, she has continued to self-produce albums and tour the U.K. to this day, sometimes with her two musician daughters.
My flurry of Declan McManus posts earlier in the week started with a search for a great B-side non-album cut called Heathen Town, that was recorded in the Punch the Clock sessions, I think.
Heathen Town is a great song, melodic and moody, elegant and dark, damning and just a little proud, too. But, amazingly, I could not find a youtube version up right now. I thought. Then, after I found that fabulous video of the Hoover Factory, and after I fell into the delightful rabbit hole of Radio Sweetheart and that excursion into George Jones’s world, things changed.
Tonight I went to see a friend of my daughter’s in his high school musical version of Guys and Dolls. Julian was Nicely Nicely Johnson, which meant he sang the show’s showstopper, “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat.” Which has the line, “The devil will drag you under, by the…” which is also a line in Costello’s Heathen Town. So I searched again and was pleased to find this demo recording of Heathen Town on YouTube, an apparent English-y b-side to the English-y single of the fantastic pop song (but not so popular tune) Everyday I Write the Book.
The great thing about the demo is the Elvis overdubbed harmonies, which are lovely. The great thing about the actual produced recording that isn’t out there for free consumption, at least, is that those harmonies are encased in a psychedlicious mix that I’m sure the Flaming Lips would be proud of–a quarter century later.
But, more importantly, it all started with Guys and Dolls. Please pass the Bacardi.
I’m embarrassed to say that until today I had no consciousness of this song. I’d heard it, I’m sure, but I never really heard it.
That is surprising because I’ve long been apocalyptic. I don’t think our demise is imminent, but I’ll be surprised if we outlive our ability to share jpegs.
This Bowie song is a primitive warning. How could he know?
A friend of mine bought a huge box full of CDs for $30 at a yard sale and he let me pick through them after he took first dibs. I picked a bunch of later Beatles that I didn’t have (more on that later) a couple early Metallicas (maybe more on that later) and Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes – Live At The Greek.
Good God, the Page album kicks some serious ass. And you know why? Rhythm guitar. Go ahead, try and find me better live Zeppelin. Why the Zeps never bothered to just hire some schmuck to hammer out chords I’ll never know. Big mistake in my book.
Chris Robinson isn’t quite Robert Plant, but he’s damn close. And he’s certainly better than the current croaking Lawr version of Plant. The drummer? Hey, Bonham’s my favorite drummer of all, but I guess this teaches me that it was more his innovative style than difficult technique because I don’t miss anything here. This bass player can’t match JPJ on the Lemon Song solo, but it’s not that big a deal.
This has depth and crunch and balls like nothing Zep ever released live.
If someone were to find some buried old Led Zeppelin live tape and it sounded like this, the entire rock world would shit its pants. I swear to God.
kidsinterviewbands.com is a website where two 12-year-0ld girls post their interviews with rock bands as they come through Columbus Ohio. Bands they’ve talked to include Slayer, the Melvins and Tegan and Sara, and many others.
Being the lemming I am, for all these years I’ve referred to Marc Bolan’s voice as “Larry the Lamb” because I’d read it elsewhere. This morning I realized I didn’t really know who Larry the Lamb was.
Mystery solved. He was a cartoon character in a Davey and Goliath/Gumby-like childrens show.
Take a look. It’s actually pretty funny for as long as you can stand it. Stick around for at least a minute and a half for this exchange:
Larry: I thought you were a fairy.
Cop: A fairy? Me? Do I look like a fairy?
Larry: I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. Baaah.
Cop: Then be careful what you say, my lad.
Got my copy of the pretty-recent double-CD reissue of the T. Rex album (you’ll recognize the front cover on the youtube).
It’s simply kick-ass fantastic. As epic as are Electric Warrior and The Slider it’s hard to find this any less epic while listening.
This is the transitional T. Rex album, sharing elements of acoustic Tyrannosaurus Rex before and electric T. Rex to come.
I’m the first guy to call bullshit on bands and so much of Marc Bolan/T. Rex is bullshit – the Larry the Lamb vocals, strings, the silly fairlyland lyrics. Hell, I’d say any rock music including bongo drums is two strikes into bullshit territory already.
But T. Rex is great bullshit. I liked this album back in the early 80’s when a real punk rocker I loaned this to made off with my copy (among other stuff) when he suddenly moved back to the LA Hardcore scene with no notice. I hadn’t heard all of it in a long time. The song I offer, Beltane Walk, along with Jewel and One Inch Rock are up there with just about anything. And most everything else is pretty darn close.
Beltane Walk is another choice of mine for a perfect pop song with its hooky chorus. I’m also a sucker for the upstroke guitar clucks during the verses. Love the guitar tone too.
The extra disc includes lots of raw stuff that’s fun to listen to. On one cut, Bolan honks a jump up to a Larry the Lamb falsetto with a frog in his throat and the recording ends right then and there.
I’ve said this many times before and I’ll say it many times again, but the fact that Bolan/T. Rex isn’t in the Rock Hall of Fame (and isn’t really even in the conversation) make the whole endeavor a joke all by itself.
This orthographically challenged band poses something of a mystery. The song is credited to George Morton, the famed producer of the Shangri-las (and the New York Dolls–he produced Too Much Too Soon and wrote the song Great Big Kiss), but no one knows who the Beattle-ettes actually were. It is assumed that the extra t in their name is a mistake, though maybe it was some savvy copyright policing.
As it were, the record quotes liberally from the Beatles hits, though notably not My Sweet Lord. Maybe some Shangri-las sang on this or not, it really doesn’t matter. It’s a naked grab for cash, and still kind of catchy and sweet. And I had no idea it existed until yesterday (no quotes from that either).
