This is the third installment of a series. Due to the subjective nature of what quantifies a One Hit Wonder, how much of the band must be dead to be a One Hit Wonder With Dead Guys, etc., etc., etc., there will be some shifting of the goal posts across these essays. Such is life and rock ‘n roll.
Goal Post Shift 1: Big Star never got anywhere near a hit. Big Star’s singer/guitarist Alex Chilton did have a #1 – “The Letter” – with his previous band, The Box Tops, for four weeks in the summer of 1967, when he was sixteen (with a much older voice). But the closest Big Star got to the charts during their existence from 1971 – 1974 was nowhere, and the closest they got to public acclaim was in 1998, when the song “In the Street” was appropriated as the theme song of…
Yes, I know, cover versions of songs can suck eggs. Sometimes they are slavish imitations of the originals, hoping to cash in on familiarity. Sometimes they try so hard to be wildly different than the original that they succeed only in being wildly different than the original. No matter what, though, the original usually is better than the cover.
The song “I’m Shakin'” has been around the block a couple of times.
Little Willie John, whose 1956 waxing of “Fever” went to the top of the R&B charts, did the first version of the song, way back in 1961.
The Blasters never failed to get the crowd moving with their jazzier version, first recorded in 1981. I remember almost being knocked over a couple of times when they played it at one of their shows.
The new edition of the song by John Anthony Gillis, known better as Jack White — formerly of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs and many other bands and one-offs — is a rollicking, no-holds-barred workout with a couple of slicing guitars, some hand claps and female back-up singers added to the mix.
The AllMusic guide White’s version of “I’m Shakin'” “clumsy” and “cabaret.” If it is “clumsy,” its perfectly “clumsy,” consistent with White’s analog, tape and razor blade approach to record-making. He makes “I’m Shakin'” entirely his own. It is indeed a record, in the best mid-70s meaning of the word. It’s over-the-top in a good way.
So, here it is. I dare you to remain still while listening. The thing just moves. And enjoy the wacky home-made video mash-up featuring the Soul Train dancers:
The last post on this blog displayed a decided preference for the easy, the breezy and the casual in rock music over the making of Big Statements. Rock musicians just ain’t philosophers.
That got me thinking about the most simple, catchy two-chord pop punk issued over the last year. And it was put out by a guy — along with his family — with a natural penchant for navel-gazing and the issuance of important proclamations about life.
That would be “I Want Revenge” by The Boo, a side-project of the occasionally self-important Billie Joe Armstrong. While Green Day certainly has put out a lot of catchy two minute pieces of pop punk goodness, it occasionally shows bloat rock tendencies. However, the band’s earlier side project, The Foxboro Hot Tubs, put out a terrific — and quite fun — record a couple of years ago steeped in the British Invasion and Garage Rock. It made no Big Statements.
The Boo, though, is even more simple, consisting of Armstrong, his wife and their two sons. It sounds positively 1979. Its fast. Its kind of repetitive. Its kind of obnoxious. It conveys a single theme over three buzz-saw minutes — “you broke my heart, I’m gonna get you back.” It thus has all of the elements to have been featured prominently on Rodney on the Roq way back in the day. Here it is:
Heck, the packaging even looks like a 45 sold at Rhino Records back in 1979:
Channeling 1979
You can call “I Want Revenge” nostalgia. You can call it backward-looking. Or you can just call it fun. It makes no Big Statements. It doesn’t even try. And that’s a really good thing.
I just checked the Billboard Top 200. The top-selling long player? The latest by Usher. No. 2? The latest by Rush. Really? Who wants to hear a bunch of old prog rockers with high voices and phony libertarian politics? Here’s how the AllMusic guide describes that one, which is a “concept” album:
It centers on a loose narrative about a young man following his dreams. He struggles with inner and outer forces of order and chaos; he encounters an expansive world where colors, images, territories, and characters are embodied by pirates, strange carnivals, rabble-rousing anarchists, and lost cities. His enemy is the Watchmaker, a ruthless authoritarian presence who attempts to rule the universe and all aspects of everyday life with fascistic precision.
Yep, unicorn rock. Come sail away, lads.
But in the meantime, I recently downloaded some long players from Rhapsody for a couple of coast-to-coast flights. They feature real electric guitars, real acoustic guitars, real pianos, real cymbal crashes, an occasional mandolin, finely crafted melodies, and occasionally perfect harmonies.
One of them was “Down By The Old Mainstream” by Golden Smog, a supposed alt-country supergroup. Yes, they plowed some country fields. But this long player from 1995 is chock full of pure pop hooks and wistful melodies via Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Gary Louris of the Jayhawks. It was so far out of the mainstream in 1995 that it didn’t even make the Billboard Hot 200 album chart. Seventeen years later, its downright obscure.
But it shouldn’t be. It starts with a bit of pure melodic brilliance powered by piano hooks, a paean to a long-gone girl simply named “V.” Its worth a listen — or many listens — even if you have to watch a silly cell phone commercial first:
Two songs later you get “Pecan Pie,” Jeff Tweedy’s decidedly un-serious folky, extended metaphor for the girl of his dreams: “And a piece of pecan pie. And you that’s all I want. Just a piece of pecan pie. And all I want is you.” Then he sings about the whipped cream.
And that’s the other big joy of this long player. Its loose. Its ragtag. It never takes itself seriously. Its not about pirates, ruthless authoritarians and fascistic precision. Its just, well, fun. What else can you say about a collection with a song called “He’s A Dick,” about a guy that borrowed some cash from you years ago, did not pay it back and then looks away whenever he sees you? That happens in real life. But its not weighty enough stuff for those intellectuals in Rush and their Number 2 record in the nation.
But back to this music. Also check out “Friend,” which shifts nicely between casual mid-tempo mellowness and pounding power pop. “Down By The Old Mainstream” does that simply because it can. Its all over the place. By design.
I made up a category of music: Blatantly Psychedelic Songs.
Sometimes its the sound. Sometimes its the title. Sometimes its both. Most of the songs hail from the late-1960s, of course. The songs are not only “psychedelic,” but they are “blatantly” so.
Some of the finest examples of this entirely made up genre include:
“See Emily Play” — Pink Floyd
“Incense and Peppermints” — Strawberry Alarm Clock
“Pictures of Matchstick Man” — Status Quo
“Paper Sun” — Traffic
And, of course, “Strawberry Fields Forever” — The Beatles
A particularly cool exemplar, however, is “I Can Hear The Grass Grow” by The Move. Hearing the grass grow? Now that’s blatantly psychedelic.
The Move, unfortunately, did not achieve success in the U.S. as “The Move,” although they were all the rage in the U.K. in the late-60s. They did achieve success in the U.S. when they later morphed into “ELO,” but that’s another story.
Back to listening the growing grass. Here’s some choice verbiage:
My head’s attracted to/Magnetic wave of sound/With streams of coloured circles/Makin’ their way around
I can hear the grass grow/I can hear the grass grow/I see rainbows in the evening
Not the stuff of normal consciousness.
But there’s also the sound:
That’s not only “psychedelic” in a 1960’s sense, but it sounds a lot like “modern rock” or “alternative rock.”
Ahead of its times? Yes, and quite influential on what came next.
“I Can Hear The Grass Grow” and two dozen other choice cuts can be found on an import remastered “Very Best Of” disk:
The MC5 were known for their loud, brash punk rock a decade before punk rock supposedly existed. Their debut album, “Kick Out The Jams” (1969), was recorded live and presented a sonic onslaught of guitars, bass, drums, uncompromising revolutionary politics, sex and drugs. All par for the course in 1969.
Their rallying cry, “Kick out the jams, motherf*ckers” caused the album to be banned by a number of different retailers, propelling it naturally to the Top 30. It even hit Number 45 on the R&B chart.
“Kick Out The Jams” was, in no way, a melodic pop album:
Things changed a year later. Jon Landau, who later worked with Bruce Springsteen, produced “Back In The USA” and imparted a clean, compact sound that was radically different than what it succeeded. And did it ever succeed.
Its best song, “Shakin’ Street,” managed to be power pop before power pop supposedly existed. It managed to be new wave before new wave existed. Its strummed and chiming guitars will cause you to shake and to move. The song itself sounds like it was moving to wherever “Shakin’ Street” is located.
And, its got great characters. Besides Little Orphan Annie and “Sweet Sue too,” there is Streetlight Sammy coming “all the way from New Jersey on his girlfriend’s tips.” He came to meet “skinny leg Pete.” And then there is Sally Baker who “wants to shake her shaker.” They all came to a world-wide party on “Shakin’ street, where all the kids meet”:
“Shakin’ Street” is another song that was years ahead of its time. As I wrote previously, that is a testament both to its influence on everything that came after, and to its overall greatness.
Butch Walker has the innate ability to put sounds and words together in such a way so that they rattle around in your head for days, months or even years. He writes great hooks and wraps them in endlessly hummable melodies. He’s also quite witty. I still can’t get this verse out of my mind two years after the release of “She Likes Hair Bands”:
She likes hair bands/On satellite radio/But I was in one/So that’s a little too close to home
On his not-so-new album The Spade, Walker and his band The Black Widows serve up thirty-six minutes worth of snarky, semi-autobiographical rants and raves about the past and the present. Its loud, its boisterous, its endlessly catchy, and sometimes it even gets downright bluesy.
The band is at its best when looking back in time to understand the present. At first glance, “Summer Of ’89” seems like a rehash of the “life is all downhill after high school” theme that occasionally litters pop music (see, e.g., “Jack and Diane”) with its rousing chorus:
Can I go back to when/I was the winner/Way before the rain came/And washed away the sinners/Everyone was something and/Nothing was done right or wrong
Walker notes, however, that this is all just useless nostalgia about stoners, minimum wage jobs, high school jocks, fast cars and mindless sex:
Or he’s 46 and alone/Cast the heaviest stone/Suburban cover band playing Bad To The Bone/In a bath tub of meth/You can smell your own death/You know when you can’t look the past in the eye
Heady stuff cast in fist-pumping, anthemic guitar rock:
“Day Drunk” is about how yesterday’s next big thing can turn into today’s also-ran after the supposedly “cool kid” drowns “in a pool of his own hype and beer.”
After a “false start,” “Bullet Belt” begins with a fuzz of bass and Walker singing over a rocking beat about his dad smoking pot in the parking lot at an Iron Maiden concert in Carolina. That where Walker is from: “Maybe I’m not that crazy/I’m just playing with the hand I was dealt/ Maybe I’m not that crazy/Just a chip off the old bullet belt.”
“Synthesizers,” written by band member Jake Sinclair, along with Micheal Trent, runs with the basic theme of doing “what feels right instead of waiting for the next big compromise.” Even better, it talks about the virtues of getting down “like Duran Duran in 1985” and about getting down “like Frank Poncherello on a motor bike”:
The Spade is fun, and a concise listen at only thirty-six minutes. There is no filler. Walker and the band also make some big statements with loud guitars, but without sounding like self-important navel gazers. This is not U2, thank goodness. Its just cool, and funny. So much so that Little Steven picked it as his single coolest album in the world for 2011. Indeed it is.
Music has the ability to blow you away. Sometimes, its fun. Sometimes, its meaningful. Sometimes, its surprising.
I decided to listen to a Christmas album during my afternoon commute. It wasn’t your typical Christmas album. It wasn’t sweet or sentimental or traditional. It wasn’t the kind of stuff that pop radio stations play over-and-over again in December.
It was, instead, Under The Influence Of Christmas by the Grip Weeds, and it is “surprising.”
Under The Influence Of Christmas
In fact, “under the influence” is the perfect title. The album is “influenced” by Christmas. But it is in all respects a rock and roll album that just happens to contain eleven Christmas songs, some traditional, some not. All are done in the Grip Weeds’ signature rocking, slightly psychedelic, jangle pop style.
The album gets off to a great start with “Christmas Dream,” which just happens to be “The Coolest Song In The World This Week'” on Little Steven’s Underground Garage. Grand and soaring, it’s reminiscent of “Speed Of Life,” which kicked off their 2010 double-CD Strange Change Machine.
Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & The Raiders fame lends some rougher-hewn vocals to the bluesier original tune “Santa Make Me Good.”
The Pretenders’ “2000 Miles,” with its wistful “it must be Christmastime” plea, gets the full jangle treatment, with guitar assists from Pat Dinizio and Jim Babjak of the Smithereens.
“Merry Christmas All” is a bit of 60’s West Coast sunshine pop about that “very good time of the year.” And so it is.
The band gets (somewhat) traditional on “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “Hark The Herald Angels Sing.” The former gets a driving guitar and swirling organs. The latter is anchored by a beautiful Rickenbacker guitar. Both have gorgeous harmonies.
Toward the end of the set is another original song, “Christmas Bring Us,” which you can hear band members Kristin Pinell and Kurt Reil perform “live” in acoustic glory, here:
It all ends with a rockin’ version of “Welcome Christmas” from none other than How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Oh, and for good measure, they even cover Jethro Tull and Emerson Lake & Palmer.
Under The Influence Of Christmas (sound clips of the entire set can be heard here) is simply the best Christmas album I have heard. Ever.
A mantra of mine lately has been “if it jangles, I’ll listen to it.” I never thought of myself as a “jangle pop” person back in the 80’s when “jangle pop” became a genre, but I always had a soft spot for the more melodic parts of the left side of the dial. The Replacements’ “I Will Dare” beat their “Dose Of Thunder” hands down. I could listen to Husker Du’s “I Apologize” and “Hate Paper Doll” any day of the week.
The Red Button takes a decidedly mellower approach to the same melodic formula. Their first album, “She’s About To Cross My Mind,” put 1965 and 1966 into an update machine to craft the perfect pop record that stays in your mind for days, weeks and months at a time. The word “girl” figured prominently. The ninth song on “Rubber Soul” is, of course, “Girl.” I put their “Free” on a playlist right after The Beatles’ “Rain.” Two more perfect companions might never be found.
Their new record, “As Far As Yesterday Goes” might be even better. Its reach certainly is greater.
Flourishes of Burt Bacharach’s sophisticated 60s pop come in an out. The title song could have been on The Zombies’ “Odyssey and Oracle.” “Easier” does Emitt Rhodes better than Emitt Rhodes does Emitt Rhodes. And, keeping with tradition, there is “Girl, Don’t,” a perfect power pop gem. Jangles can be heard throughout. They also can get breezy with “On A Summer Day”:
“As Far As Yesterday Goes” is my favorite collection of 2011. It’s smart and catchy. It wears its influences without being nostalgic or derivative. It’s sophisticated without being bland. It has an edge without being trendy or falling into alternative rock cliches. And, just like in 1966, its less then 40 minutes long. Brevity is a virtue.
Sometimes a song seems in retrospect to be “ahead of its times.” That usually means that the song or band proved to be influential. The song thus sounds contemporary, even though its old.
Rolling Stone picked “September Gurls” as the 180th greatest song of all time. “A nonhit from [Big Star’s] second LP . . . ‘September Gurls’ is now revered as a power-pop classic.”
“September Gurls” was destined to be a non-hit, coming out in 1974 as rock became bloated and self-important. Instead, Big Star looked back to the British Invasion with concise, elegant guitar pop. In turn, they influenced everyone that followed — REM, The Replacements, Matthew Sweet, Wilco, The Posies and Teenage Fanclub, just to name a few. What sounded old gave birth to the new.
“September Gurls” sounds as fresh and as beautiful as it did 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, etc. That is one of the makings of a great song.
Pop That Goes Crunch! 