Lunch Break: The War on Drugs, “Red Eyes”

by

They played in the city last week and I saw some video of their shows in Philly, which the writer at Gothamist raved about. I didn’t get real excited by the tunes, but for modern jangly indie rock they sounded pretty good. I thought I’d keep my eye out, in part because they have a good name.

They also have a new album coming out. I haven’t heard it, but I have heard this:

I like the propulsion, the simple drumming, the guitar and layers of shimmery sounds, and I like the way it breaks a couple of times (you’ll see what I mean if you listen). I’m not keen on the reverby buried slurred vocals. I’m not predicting this is going into my rotation, though it might, but it is new rock of some interest, which is rare.

Breakfast Blend: Sic Fucks

by

This band, if I recall right, was kind of a misanthropic joke at the time. But I was looking for clips of the old days and they all seem to have been deleted for copyright reasons from YouTube. But I did find this 2011 reincarnation, which does a pretty good impersonation of the Tubes.

But the original young Fucks were similarly theatrical. I think this is the original recording. Time is a bitch.

Night Music: Richard and Linda Thompson, “Walking On A Wire”

by

Richard and Linda Thompson were members of the great English folk group, Fairport Convention. They left and made an amazing sequence of great albums of folk/rock music, which culminated with their breakup album, Shoot Out the Lights, which rocked as hard as their hearts undoubtedly hurt.

It is a harrowing collaboration telling the story of their estrangement, its vortices and its troughs. Afterwards, Linda of the lovely voice lost her ability to sing for a while, but managed to win an Oscar for best song anyway. But Richard never stopped playing the songs, no matter how darkly he was implicated. Making such solos seems to be why he is here.

Lunch Break: Frank Zappa, “Eddie Are You Kidding?”

by

As a result of some odd Tout Wars drafting machinations last weekend, I was prompted to write about that, and in the process, brought up Frank Zappa and his band The Mothers of Invention.

After which it occurred to me that we have never given the brilliant, funny, and iconoclastic–not to mention great guitar player–much due on this site.

So, I will try to rectify that.

My appreciation of the man dates back to 1968, when as a long haired kid I attended a John Birch Society meeting wherein the backwards rednecks presented a program on how rock music corrupts our youth, making them become long haired degenerate dope smokers (just like me?).

I went with a handful of friends, and it was very scary as these guys were–and still are–neo-Nazis, but now I can look back on the whole affair with some kind of romantic eye.

A few years later my oldest and closest friend, Stephen Clayton and I saw the Mothers, on one of the weirdest bills ever. Opening was the band founded by then ex-Quicksilver guitar player, John Cippolina, Copperhead. Next was the jazz fusion band, Weather Report (who I have since seen three more times), and then Zappa and his mates hit the stage, playing Chunga’s Revenge that I can remember.

Zappa has also been sort of an American version of John Mayall, with the likes Lowell George, George Duke, Terry Bozio, Ansley Dunbar, and eventually Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (AKA Flo and Eddie, ex-patriots of the Turtles), among other luminaries, in his band.

The tune I picked for today’s edification is the eternally funny Eddie Are You Kidding from the album Just Another Band From L.A. (note too that Zappa’s influence moved, as year’s later the great Los Lobos paid homage by naming their compilation album, Just Another Band from East L.A.).

Just for fun, I also added this terrific clip of Zappa appearing before Congress in 1985, testifying before Tipper Gore’s stupid committee who were monitoring music and lyrics at the time for appropriateness. Note that Zappa, John Denver, and Dee Snyder–three artists who could not be more different–all testified, and all three dissed the whole process as a bunch of shit.

Rightfully so! Anyway, Zappa was smart, funny, and eloquent as you will see if you hit the clip below.

 

 

 

Breakfast Blend: One Track In Spurts

by

I may have had this thought before, but this song from the Heartbreaker’s LAMF is basically the same song as Richard Hell and the Voidoid’s Love Comes in Spurts.

Hell was in the Heartbreakers, but left. One Track Mind is credited to Walter Lure (who sings) and Jerry Nolan. Love Comes In Spurts is credited to Richard Hell.

Here’s a live version of the Heartbreakers with Hell playing Love Comes in Spurts. Interesting how similar the arrangement is to the album version recorded with Richard Gottehrer later.

 

Night Music: John Lennon, “Oh Yoko”

by

I was in a bar tonight, the Gate, with my buddy Jon.

For my beery friends I had a Bell’s Java Porter, a Captain Lawrence IPA x 2, and a Boat Beer from a brewery in New Jersey.

The Bell’s is fantastically rich and wonderful, desert, dinner and an aperitif all at once. The Captain Lawrence is super hoppy, while the Boat Beer, a session lager, was a little citrusy, but also reminded that the New Jersey water isn’t perfect. Not bad at all, but not delightful.

As for the jukebox, it was prime. But the tune that stood out was this one, which seems to have a pretty nice slide show to go with it. Unless you have a unnatural hatred for Yoko. I don’t. I loved her movie with the camera tilts up legs.

 

 

Night Music: Canned Heat, “Rollin’ and Tumblin'”

by

This is a Muddy Waters tune, and Canned Heat does a great job. Enjoy.

At the same time, it should be noted that these are the least authentic looking but good sounding Blues guys you can imagine. I mean, the band was never in danger of being sharecroppers.

So, big surprise, nerdy Blues aficionados rocking the blues. It happens in every college town. And has forever.

But Bob Hite is a charismatic guy with an original bluesy voice.

The filmmaker seems mostly interested in the gals.

 

Song of the Week – Better off Dead, La Peste

by

TheRatInWinterIGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

In the late 70s – early 80s the best place to see and hear rock ’n roll in Boston was basement club The Rathskeller – known as The Rat, for short. For those of you who were never in Boston back in those days, The Rat in Kenmore Square was Boston’s equivalent to New York’s CBGB’s.

Not only did The Rat have great music, it was also home to the ground floor rib joint called the Hoodoo Barbeque. The Hoodoo was relocated to The Rat after its predecessor, The Rainbow Rib Room (at the corner of Mass Ave and Newbury St), closed. Chef James Ryan had a recipe for the best ribs and barbeque sauce I’ve ever tasted and the onion rings were out of this world. They were cooked by comedy sitcom writer/producer Eddie Gorodetsky who was then a student at Emerson College and entertained his customers with his humor, cracking wise while performing his fry cook duties. Both spots had fantastic, eclectic juke boxes with records by everyone from The Clash to Tom Waits to John Coltrane.

But I digress.

The radio station I was a DJ at (WZBC) was transitioning at the time. We were quick to pick up on the US and British punk/new wave music of the day – before the big Boston commercial stations, WBCN and WCOZ. We also played the music of a lot of local bands, doing our best (with only 1000 watts) to help break them. Human Sexual Response was a favorite at ZBC. If you’ve never heard them, check out their first album, Fig. 14, on Spotify as Fig. 15. Or better yet, try to find a live performance on YouTube. They were really performance artists, so the visuals were as important as the music.

The song I’ve chosen for today’s SotW is by La Peste – one of the local scene’s most notorious punk rock bands that appeared frequently at The Rat.

“Better off Dead” is also a straight ahead punk rock record – three in-your-face chords and angry, abrasive lyrics about a daughter having under aged sex that the parents can’t do anything about.

The band was a trio fronted by Peter Dayton. Their recorded output was very slight but “Better off Dead” alone is good enough to keep their memory alive. Dayton is now a fine artist based in Long Island.

This is just one example of the vibrant local rock scene in late 70s Boston.

Enjoy… until next week.

Night Music: Bob Dylan, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.”

by

Bob_Dylan_-_Blonde_on_BlondeBob Dylan has been mentioned all over the place on the site since we started waxing quasi poetic about what music means to us. And, Dylan’s phenomenal Blonde on Blonde made the group’s consensus Top 50.

But, I cannot remember a Dylan song actually being singled out in the same way all the other stuff works its way to the top of our collective creative urges.

Blonde on Blonde is my favorite Dylan album by a long shot, and that actually says a lot.

But, my  love for it traces back to around April, 1967, when my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. For that year, in honor of the occasion, my father bought my mother–and I suppose the family–a big Magnavox stereo in a big piece of mahogany furniture.

That was ok, but what it really meant was that I could lay claim to the family’s portable Admiral phonograph, which I then stashed in my bedroom.

I had pretty much stopped buying singles by that time anyway, so every night, before free-form FM worked its way to the Sacramento airwaves to which I would be stuck for a few more years before I could return to my beloved bay area for good, I would drop a stack of albums on the spindle to lull me to sleep.

The Beach Boys All Summer Long and Surfin’ USA were staples in those days, along with early Beatles and Stones. But, since albums cost a lot–$4 in those days, which was a lot–I did not purchase too many, too often. Meaning like when I first was buying 45’s, five years earlier, I would listen to both sides of everything simply because the song was there and I could.

So, every night side two of disc one, which feature I Want You, Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat, Just Like a Woman, and the clip link linked below, of Blonde on Blonde hit the changer as well.

With Al Kooper on keys, and Robbie Robertson on guitar, along with Rick Danko and Joe South among others, Blonde on Blonde was recorded both in Nashville, then New York.

And, well, spending the past few days in New York, in anticipation of Tout Wars, I thought a number of times about early Dylan while enjoying walking up and the streets, cos New York is such a great walking city. But I also thought of the man, and just what a great artist, singer, songwriter, and generally pretty good guy he has been, and is.

Further, I would like to think that his deconstruction of his own catalogue over the years has been brilliant, keeping him and his songs fresh and valid in a way the audience might not appreciated, but that I hope I do.

In fact this version of Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again is quite different from the one I fell in love with as I went to sleep in the later 60’s, but it is just as great and fun.

Love ya Bob. Always will!

http://youtu.be/_hKSEIAXzCU

 

 

 

Night Music: The Stooges, “The Passenger”

by

Unless Rachel Kushner is referring to an actual incident, she beggars my imagination.

Here are the Stooges with Iggy, not getting pissed on his satin pants, pulling off a pretentious bit of white reggae and also sounding fine. More than fine, really.