Song of the Week – Solar Marmalade, The Bevis Frond

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

One of the dilemmas I face when I post each week is introducing my readers to songs that will appeal to the widest audience possible. But I’ve learned that when doing what I do (writing about obscurities) there will be large blocks of people that will HATE a certain percentage of my offerings. So I thank those of you that continue to read even when I suggest two or three songs in a row that you simply can’t stomach.

So be forewarned… today’s SotW will not have a broad appeal. But I know there are at least a few of you that would love to hear a good guitar wig-out. If you’re one of those people that appreciates guitarists that have huge pedal boards and use every one on it (e.g. J. Mascis), you will enjoy “Solar Marmalade” by The Bevis Frond. You know who you are!

“Solar Marmalade” is an 8 minute instrumental that starts “at 11” and never lets up. It employs fuzz, wah-wah and a whole lot more. It’s a bit psych, a tad proggy and just a little jazzy. Influences cover the spectrum from Hendrix and Black Sabbath to Punk and Grunge. The song is on the 30 cut, 1991 album, New River Head.

While you’re listening, here’s a little about the band. The Bevis Frond was the solo studio pseudonym of British guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Nick Saloman. He devised the alter ego in 1985, recording at home in the spare time he could squeeze out while raising his daughter as a stay at home dad. Once things started to take off, he formed a touring band.

If you like this “Solar Marmalade” but aren’t familiar with the band, check out their discography – it’s huge. By my count, they released 22 albums in the 18 years between 1987 and 2004 (and they’re on Spotify). The eclectic New River Head – with touch points from The Byrds to Husker Du — may be the best!

Enjoy… until next week.

First Ramones

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Partially because this was Rolling Stone’s #1 punk album of all-time I listened to it, among others, on my way out to LABR last Friday.

1) There are several other albums I could argue for #1, but I could also easily defend this one.

2) Joey’s vocal inflections are classic, “Now I Wanna Snib Some Glub” and “I Don’t Wanna Go, Down To The Basem” come to mind immediately. There are plenty of others. What’s the source of this genius/idiocy?

3) Realized on the flight out that I know every single word to every single song on this album. In my world, bars would host “Sing Along To The Ramones Debut Album” night. Fuck EDM. Fuck EDM again. For good measure.

4) Tommy’s drumming. Hypnotic. Does it get any better?

5) I include this song because of a stupid college story. I discovered this album as a freshman in college (1978 – yes, I was late to the Ramones party). There was this really ugly freshman girl named Renata and our entire floor would sing “I used to make a living man, pickin’ up Renata.” I can still see her picture in our freshman class picture book.

6) Is this rock ‘n’ roll? (Nice when it’s a rhetorical question.)

Song of the Week – Funky Stuff, Kool & the Gang

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Back in the early 70s I played high school football. The tunes that were played in the locker room covered the entire spectrum of music that appealed to the diverse socio economic groups that were attracted to pay football.

Some (white guys) guys were into the Stones and Allmans. Some liked Zeppelin and Bowie. There were prog rock fans into Yes and ELP. There were singer/songwriter fans into James Taylor and CSN&Y.

Then there were the African American guys that turned us onto Al Green, the Chi-lites, the Stylistics, the O’Jays and Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly. I loved, and still love, all those groups. But one of my favorite albums that I first heard in the locker room was Wild and Peaceful by Kool & the Gang. Today’s SotW is that disc’s “Funky Stuff.”

Now if your only familiarity with Kool & the Gang is from the wedding reception standard “Celebration” (1980) you may decide to stop reading right here and check in again next week. That would be a mistake.

Wild and Peaceful is a great album that contained three bona fide classics – “Jungle Boogie” (#4), “Hollywood Swinging” (#6) and “Funky Stuff” (#29). “Jungle Boogie” was revived in 1990 when master soundtrack programmer Quentin Tarantino used it to great effect in Pulp Fiction. (It starts after the credits and plays through the car radio as John Travolta and Samuel Jackson have the famous McDonald’s/Burger King discussion.)

Beside the hits are other great songs like the spoken word “Heaven At Once” and the 10 minute funk workout title song closer.

But back to “Funky Stuff”… It is the perfect album opener. It immediately grabs you with a whistle call to attention and its blaring, James Brown inspired horn section intro and doesn’t let up when the party starts. It adds a chugging, funky bass line, R&B guitar lick and more disco era whistles.

This is the real deal.

Enjoy… until next week.

Shameless #Humblebrag

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Last April The Biletones went into the studio to drop down five tracks for an EP, and while we were at it, a friend of the band, Andre Welsh, who does camera work in Hollywood, agreed to video the band in action. It was kind of fun and intense, but also ugh city.

As in for the Route 66 video, we played the song 11 times so the film crew could focus on different aspects and players during the song.

The four remaining tunes we played were It Takes a Lot to Laugh (check out Steve Gibson’s killer solos), It’s All Over Now (I sing lead), Don’t Cry no Tears, and lead singer Tom Nelson’s Rich Girlfriend. Do click to the third cut and check out Girlfriend. It is one of our strongest tunes (it is third on the playlist in the upper right corner of the Route 66 vid).

Song of the Week – Love Surrounds Me, Dennis Wilson

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Today’s SotW was written by another guest contributor, Ron Marcus. Ron has guested for the SotW a couple of times before. He is an exceptional musicologist and rock historian. He’s also a (tie) dyed in the wool Dead Head, having attended almost 300 Grateful Dead concerts by 1993. Ron is also the drummer for Rockridge Station, a band based out of San Francisco’s East Bay that performs original songs and covers of Americana deep cuts.

The Beach Boys have spread their music around the world since 1961. Brian Wilson has written hundreds of songs and has been immortalized by his uncanny craft for hit songs and incredible production, especially vocal harmonies that have hummed in the heads of millions of people for generations. His story was on display in the fantastic biopic Love and Mercy and he just finished a worldwide tour honoring the 50th anniversary of Pet Sounds, his seminal album that inspired the Beatles to produce Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (considered by many the greatest recording of all time). His battles with mental illness are legendary and represent survival against many odds to come out so gracefully on the other side. Hardly Ignored or Obscured!

However, his brothers Dennis and Carl are a different story. Carl was a great surf guitarist, very underrated in his influence on other guitar players and his vocals on “Good Vibrations” and “God Only Knows” are as beautiful as any ever sung. Dennis (the Beach Boys’ drummer) is known more for being the only one in the band who was actually a surfer and car racer. He was the one that nudged Brian to write surf and car songs, which paved the road (and waves!) to their legacy. He also is known for being a drunk and druggie who was eventually fired from the band. Of course, he was also infamous for his association with Charles Manson and his family; quite a way to be remembered.

This week’s SotW is called “Love Surrounds Me” by Dennis Wilson. It is from the previously unreleased Bambu, the follow up to his seminal 1977 solo album Pacific Ocean Blue.

POB was critically praised and a seller of 200,000 albums, and it was the first solo release from any Beach Boy. Momentum high, he continued to write incredible, deep textured songs that were slated for inclusion on Bambu, recorded in 1978 and 1979.

As his personal life fell apart, he descended into such self-destructive behavior that he lost all the friends and believers who engineered and produced these songs. So the project died on the studio shelves where it stayed until 2007, 34 years after his tragic death. The engineers and producers finished the mixes and gave the world a treat releasing Pacific Ocean Blue on a 2 CD set that included outtakes and the aforementioned, unreleased Bambu.

“Love Surrounds Me” shows a sensitive side of the wild Beach Boy. He plays most of the keyboards and drums. The harmony vocals are so particular that he went to 6 different studios for final mixing! This track features future girlfriend Christine McVie, from Fleetwood Mac, as one of the singers,

This is just a taste of the depth of Dennis Wilson’s catalog. By the way, none of his songs are about surfers or cars! Just for the record, he is the uncredited writer of Joe Cocker’s 1974 hit ‘You Are So Beautiful.”

Enjoy… until next week.

Rock’n’Roll Is More Than Three Chords

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Before I retired, I was a pretty high level Project Manager at ATT, a gig I worked my last eight years with the company.

Of course at work we all have our own styles, and my boss decided to audit a meeting I was holding one day. This was fine: I liked my boss a lot, and was good at my gig and always got good reviews and such.

And, with my job, I usually ran between 4-6 meetings a day. As it happened, during one of the agenda items the day my boss listened in, a couple of team members got tasks accomplished that should have taken at least another month and I blurted out, “you guys so rock it.”

The only comment Yolanda made about handling my duties was suggesting maybe another word than “rock” was appropriate. But, after another year, she retracted since my clients mostly loved my work and style telling me, “Just keep doing what you are doing and be yourself. That seems to work quite well.”

It was a big moment, for being told professionally to be yourself, was not something I have ever been used to hearing in any environ.

I have thought about that incidentt in concert with the stupid and incessant discussions (nee arguments) on this site about what RockRemnants is about.

It is clear to me that in Steve’s view, we should only be writing around Rock’n’Roll for as he points out, that is in the name of the site.

But, aside from that being boring, not to mention smacking the face of Aristotle, our first literary critic, who said writing should “teach and delight,” Steve’s provincial view of the term as it applies is just a bunch of crap.

For one thing, we all have views and the site is for fun, so suggesting some category of music or art shouldn’t be included is specious. If all he wants to write about is the Germs, fine. Boring, yeah, but again, if that is what he likes, who am I to call him “an idiot” or suggest he “ramble incoherently?”

But, to me, as I have stated repeatedly, Rock’n’Roll is about attitude and the music is simply a subset of that mindset, irrespective of whether Allan Freed named the shit before he saw Elvis swing his hips or not.

For sure Rock’n’Roll is in the first licks of Johnny B. Goode, but it also lies within the words of Howard Beale (Peter Finch in Network) when he screams “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore.” Rock’n’Roll is in the soul of any teenager who ever sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night to meet a lover in secret, or see a forbidden band, or ride fast in cars with one’s mates. And, like it or not, it is within Johnny Paychecks words when he said “take this job and shove it.”

So, for fun, here are some things that define Rock’n’Roll as far as I see it.

  • Muhammed Ali’s poetry and left hook.
  • James Dean’s smile.
  • Johnny Rotten’s sneer.
  • The Doors saying fuck you to Ed Sullivan with Jim Morrison screaming “girl we couldn’t get much higher” rather than the “much better” Sullivan insisted upon.
  • Mick and Keith’s on-stage interplay.
  • Joni Mitchell refusing to sell her song rights for commercial use.
  • Prince refusing to allow Itunes and Spotify stream his songs.
  • Marilyn Monroe’s voice.
  • Raj Davis’s homer to tie the 2016 World Series, and Ben Zobrist’s tenth inning double to tie it back up.
  • The wings at Virgil’s.

I could list more, but I think I make my point, and well, this is how I will continue writing and supporting the site because to me, Rock’n’Roll is indeed a music genre, but it is also part of a musical bigger whole, and music is one of the arts–like movies and painting and writing and all the other slices of imagination–the Muses ruled over.

To make one more point, if by having the name RockRemnants we are supposed to be limited to just Steve’s definition of the words and art form, then I suppose “all men are created equal” should only be applied to rich white landowning men, right?

And, if this song by Gabby Pahinui doesn’t kill you and tell you Rock is in everything, well, I feel sorry for your parochial existence.