You know how you’re going from place to place on the internet, and then you end up someplace and you have no idea how you got there? Tonight that happened to me, when I landed at clubdevo.com.
Devo would seem to be an internet savvy band, all techno and futuristic, even if that represents the devolution of humankind. But clubdevo.com is a wasteland. Only the Twitter feed is alive with content. You can check in here: http://www.clubdevo.com/
But better to check this:
I bought the Basement 5 album 1965-1980 unheard. Cool logo, promise of reggae-punk fusion, and I’m not sure what else. Did I know the drummer was in the Blockheads? I don’t think so, but maybe I did. Don Letts sang with the band at some point, but they weren’t Clash or PiL associated that I remember at the time. But who knows, it was a long time ago.
I stumbled across the artwork yesterday, remembered I owned the disk, then found that the elpee had been rereleased recently on vinyl by Rough Trade. And then I stumbled upon this Peel Session recording from 1980, which sounds a whole lot better than the album did. Or does.
I was talking about this at dinner last night at a friend’s house, the song immediately appears on our host’s Spotify over Sonos magnificent sound system from the elpee, and it sounds terrible.
Peel Session sounds great. Last White Christmas is a keeper. My attention has wavered on and off after that one. But for an obscure one-off from a long time ago, having one song worth listening to is pretty darn good.
There is good playing here, and a minimum of offensive show biz (while there is plenty of show biz). It feels amazing that this clip is from a Grammy Awards show, but who knows? The last time I watched one of those might have been in 1986. This is fun, musically, and larded with a ton of contextual social stuff that someone else might like to unpack.
For me, it is the playing and seeing these big stars live (on tape).
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
Today’s SotW is another installment of the “evolution series.” The featured song is “I Can’t Let Go” that was written by Al Gorgoni and Chip Taylor. (Not to be confused with the great Lucinda Williams tune with a similar title.) Gorgoni was a NY based session guitarist that played on hits for everyone from the Four Seasons to The Shangri-Las to The Monkees and Van Morrison (and more). Taylor is most famous for also writing “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning,” an odd combination, I know! He’s also lesser known as the brother of Jon Voight (and uncle to Angelina Jolie).
The original version was released in 1965 by a 19 year old Evie Sands but didn’t receive much airplay outside of her home base of NYC. It was a bigger hit by the artists that recorded and released it after her.
Poor Evie Sands was star-crossed. She released a cut of “Angel of the Morning” as a follow up to “I Can’t Let Go.” It was initially popular but sunk like the Titanic when her record company (Cameo-Parkway) filed for bankruptcy. Merrilee Rush “rushed” out her own version a few months later that made it into the Top 10!
The Hollies released their 1966 recording that topped off at #46 on the charts in the US.
The Hollies always had the uncanny ability to recognize a good song and put their own twist onto it by giving it a British beat feel with soaring harmonies. This is the best version and one of my favorite tracks by the Hollies.
Linda Ronstadt reached #31 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1980 with the rendition she released on her Mad Love album.
A few weeks ago I took a mild swipe at Ronstadt, so I’m making amends today. This is a fine recording – well sung, well played and well produced. My only gripe would be that it so closely follows the Hollies arrangement.
All in all, it’s a strong cup of blue eyed soul in all three styles.
Enjoy… until next week.
My daughter went to elementary school with a boy whose father writes for the Please Kill Me web site. I’ve only met Todd a couple of times, in passing, so he’s not my friend, but he wrote this weirdly cool history of Dave Alexander, who played bass on the first two Stooges albums and was then kicked out and died.
What I like about Todd’s treatment is he reports what people said or wrote about Dave. He goes easy on the dramatic build up and is beautifully empathic to the storytelling of Alexander’s peers by using their quotes. Plus he includes some choice descriptions of behavior by various Rolling Stones. This is classic rock storytelling, for sure, but easy going the way rock should be.
You can read, should read, Todd’s piece here.
You’ll get the chance to play the video of Down On the Street while you read the piece, but you might also play it now.
One last thought. How different is Down on the Street from some Doors songs? Especially live? Which provokes the question: When it comes to classifying rock, do we maybe distinguish too much between hitmakers and their edgier cooler peers? The Stooges are punk pioneers on Elektra records, sounding here like the Doors, who made many hits on Electra records at roughly the same time. That’s a sonic fact, but not a complete one. But what is the real story of sound, aesthetics, ambition and commercial viability? Every one thing changes all the others.
This is a reason to read Greil Marcus’s Doors book, which goes deep into the band’s non-hit life as a live band, how they sounded different than the hits, and darker than the public image.
At the Music Hall of Williamsburg, in my neck of the woods.
This came up on my Pandora and caught my ear. Roxyesque. It seems to be very popular.
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
Jeff Buckley was an artist with unlimited potential that left us all too soon. While working on his second album in Memphis he drowned in the Mississippi River. His fully clothed body was found a few days later. He was only 30.
His first album, Grace (1995), was received with boundless critical acclaim. It contained his take on Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” that may have been responsible for causing that song’s ultimate ubiquity.
Today’s SotW is “So Real,” the last song to make it onto the album. It was co-written by Buckley and guitarist Michael Tighe, who contributed the song’s distinctive riff.
“So Real” packs an emotional punch both vocally and musically. It begins with a gentle guitar figure. Buckley’s fragile voice describes a mundane situation that is “so real” to his senses – the smell of a woman’s dress.
After the second verse and chorus the song breaks into a fuzzy, distorted rave and a false ending. This builds the tension that leads into the final section of the song where the band rocks out and Buckley continues to wail.
The pain in his voice raises the possibility that the love that is so real to him may not be reciprocated. He cries “I love you, but I’m afraid to love you.”
Considering the way he died, there is another line in the song that is particularly creepy – “And I couldn’t awake from the nightmare, that sucked me in and pulled me under.”
Buckley was the son of the 60s folk and jazz artist, Tim Buckley, although Jeff only met his father once when he was only 8 years old.
Enjoy… until next week.
Was cooking dinner the other day. . . Nah. I have no clue how to cook.
Speak the truth, Bo Carter.
I was making dinner tonight. Sauteed green beans and broccoli rabe with a creamy lime dressing, and some shrimps. For some reason I put on Little Willie John, who I see has been referenced on the site only once. His biggest hit, a John Cooley/Otis Blackwell tune called Fever, is no remnant. But I think we’ve been neglecting a great singer who sang great songs.
Mr. John, as the Times would say (no they wouldn’t), was a hit making machine for a while, and like many hit making abusers of alcohol, he died in jail.
His brother wrote this song.
This is a terrific song. This is the version I hear when I think of the song.
This is great.
So is this. This is the blues.
Charming interview with LWJ’s sons and biographer. A story of Detroit.
