Corky & Siegel-Schwall (1971)Before purchasing an original concert poster of the band Siegel-Schwall (from this week’s website pick, Wolfgang’s Vault) I was curious to know more about the unfamiliar band.
I found this phenomenal youtube clip where classical chamber music meets the blues and love it! Sadly it’s not exemplary of all their musical releases which (from a quick browse through iTunes catalog) seem more traditionally blues.
Lou Gramm and Gerard McMann (1987)Even though it seemed inevitable, I was truly saddened by the news of Corey Haim’s recent passing. My sister and I grew up with the guy as a major pop culture icon and I still count myself a major fan of his best work, The Lost Boys. While the entire soundtrack was hardly pure gold (Jim has a real hard time with Echo and the Bunnymen’s ‘People are Strange’ cover), two songs stand out and are still on my iPod to this day.
So, in memory of the goofy kid whose voice would break, whose sideways smile would elicit sighs from preteen girls the world over, and who lived his adult life, tragically, as a lost boy, let’s play some Lou Gramm (Say hello to the night [lost boys] lost in the shadows!”) and, while we’re at, spin Gerard McMann’s Cry Little Sister (though shall not fallllll).
Wow, even just thinking about these songs memories of the tumultuous emotions and achingly conflicted and full heart I had to contend with in sixth grade come flooding back; these were the days my friends and I wanted to be in the Vampire cult (we made up the belief that if you used a ouija board in the deepest room in the house –in my case the basement laundry room – you could summon the spirits to turn into a vampire) and took major dressing cues from Star. It’s funny, it all seems so long ago, but when triggered by these songs, that intense time is as close as ever.
by The Bangles (1987) and Simon & Garfunkel (1968)As the last flurries of one of the biggest snow storms in city history go floating past my window, I feel compelled to listen to (and recommend) a winter-time song, possibly my favorite winter-time song: Hazy Shade of Winter, which, as a maniac fanatic of the Bangles, was first introduced to me when it appeared on the Less Than Zero soundtrack.
But more than that, this song holds a memory from my school days. I was the new-ish kid in school and the talent show was approaching. The most popular girls with the biggest bangs (Holly and Molly) needed one last person to round out the lip-syncing magic they were to unveil at the sixth grade class talent show. They cornered me in the bathroom and asked/insisted I play the part of Michael or as they called her “the ugly one”. Naturally I complied and someplace in the depths of my parents house, a VHS tape of the mediocre results just might still exist.
An older and wiser me discovered that the song was originally performed by Simon & Garfunkel with a softer touch.
by The Yardbirds (1966)Whether it’s presaging the darker sludge of Black Sabbath (Since the World Began), a gentle Crimson and Cloveresque beauty (Shapes in my Mind), a roadhouse rattle (Nazz are Blue), some psychedelia (Hot House of Omagarashid), or capturing an energetic catchiness (Over, Sideways, Under Down) The Yardbirds’ Roger the Engineer is a perfect snapshot of the sound of its time.
This album is pre-Page Yardbirds with a heavy influence by the innovative guitarist Jeff Beck. The reissue I have includes several bonus tracks as well as a combination of both the US and UK original releases which were inexplicably different.
The band never seemed to resonate with the American public quite as strongly as other British Invasion acts did, but as it was the launching pad for Beck, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page, it’s hard to look back on the Yardbirds without wonder. Roger the Engineer is an eclectic display of their talents and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorites of the era. Plus, I adore the cover art: a wonky, trippy pen drawing by band member Chris Dreja.
Click here for the rest of Roger the Engineer
by Queen (1986)If you’re anything like me then you have more than a few X Files reruns filling up your DVR; and if you’re a lot like me then you get to relish, albeit ever so briefly, the final seconds of the Highlander theme song (“I am immortal/ I have inside me blood of kings!!”) as the sub-par television show comes to its rightful end and the the compressed credits, which have been running at triple speed below and to the right of a Caprica teaser, increase to their full size and the song’s volume increases… It’s a moment of sheer bliss for me (find joy in the little things, right?), that I try to take in at least a couple of time a week.
Unsurprisingly, the song’s awesomeness is due to the glittery talent of Queen who, back in the day, were the go-to act for science fiction epic songstressing (see the incredible Flash Gordon theme). The theme is actually entitled Princes of the Universe and has a video where Freddie Mercury does battle with Chris Lambert (see below) – although I wish it were Clancy Brown as The Kurgan sparring with FM… though how could so much greatness accurately be captured on-screen at one time?
Click here for the rest of Princes of the Universe
by Matt Berry (2005)It’s common knowledge that I suffer from periodic fits of Matt Berry obsession; fortunately, there’s always something new to discover and to fall in love with concerning the man with the golden baritone. This time it’s Opium, his semi-comedic album (available on iTunes!) that has lifted my spirits this week more times than I can mention.
If you thought the Snuff Box theme got in your head (due to the fact that it’s played at least twice per episode), you’ll be happy to hear that the same catchy melody resurfaces, and is set to new lyrics, on Opium. Another high point on an album replete with high points is a sexual escapade called ‘Taking Control of Your Body’ that’s bound to inflame the libido of fans of Barry White, Serge Gainsbourg and “Weird Al” Yankovich alike.
Opium is a difficult piece of music to attach a label to. It is, of course, not entirely serious – there are bizarre spoken word sections about visiting an old-timey prostitute in a tavern and lines like, “They want dancers, young gay dancers!” or, “I need some kind of black magic reggae to sort this one out,” and yet I’ve been listening to this record so, so much this past week that the irony has vanished and has been replaced with a sense of pure, familiar enjoyment.
It’s my dream to see the man in person, he plays out often in London (I even priced a trip out there for one of his shows, but it seemed a bit extravagant just to see One Track Lover – which is not included on Opium, FYI – though not quite as pricey as the trip Jim conceived around a rare Maddy Prior/Tim Hart appearance a while back) but there are no NYC dates listed on his site…
American audiences have yet to catch on, and the kind of specific and offbeat humor Berry deals in may not be immediately appealing to legions of Yanks, so my dream is likely to remain just that… Opium feels the void nicely though.
by Guns N’ Roses (1991)Do you remember the good old days when Edward Furlong was a promising young upstart that you had a teenage crush on? When Axl Rose was still kind of kicking ass and taking names (but those names were NOT Tommy Hilfiger)?
Remember when another notch in the Terminator franchise was actually something to get excited about? I remember those days, back when I had a small allowance burning a hole in my pocket which I used to purchase the You Could Be Mine single cassette tape (yes, the early nineties still saw plenty of cassette sales, particularly for single releases). It all came flooding back to me in the single millisecond of humor/frivolity in the bleak and forgettable Terminator Salvation when the now gruff voiced and angry John Connor listens to a lyric or two before doing something… I’ve forgotten exactly what at this point, but I’m sure it triggered a nearly 45 minute action sequence entirely devoid of suspense.
To further take yourself back to those heady days, do enjoy the music video below/after the jump where Arnold Schwarzenegger attends a G N’ R concert only to determine that Axl is a waste of ammo. Excellent foresight, Governor.
Click here for the rest of You Could Be Mine
by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (1994)Calling Let Love In a masterpiece is almost too little praise for such a brooding, effective, and wholly unique album. If you’ve heard Red Right Hand, probably the most popular track on the record, you know what you’re in for: a rumbling, jangling and creepy ride with murderous swagger and joyfully dark imagery. It embodies the fire and brimstone that Cave is known for without ignoring the heart aching ballads.
In an accomplished oeuvre that includes stints with The Birthday Party, Grinderman, and of course the Bad Seeds, Let Love In is among his very best which. Several of the songs (like the aforementioned Red Right Hand, Do You Love Me – so awesome it’s broken into two parts – and Loverman) qualify as epic, so this is not one you listen to idly in the back ground. Oh, and Metallica’s Loverman cover, with its slick production and lack of shadowy urgency, only highlights how far from Cave’s caliber of raw awesomeness they have fallen .
Click here for the rest of Let Love In
Phish, live at the UNH Fieldhouse May 8, 1993Phish has never been an easy band to love, it takes hard work and an extremely specific social context for the music to take hold – but once it does, once it becomes the official soundtrack to youthful good times, it never fully leaves the lives of its long-time listeners.
The concept is pretty straight forward: stoned nerds meet up in the late ’80s in the Burlington, VT area. Channeling the sounds of the Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa, they become the ultimate bar band on acid, then they cross over to playing colleges. Over the next ten or so years they produce some of the most popular and enduring music of the ’90s (yet never really appear on MTV or FM radio) with a serious bent towards goofiness and a penchant for mind-bendingly intricate musicianship. Constantly touring, they close the decade out as one of the world’s highest grossing live acts.
What’s so appealing about this music is that it’s always in good spirits – it’s always ready to affect your mood in a positive way – and the song I’ve selected here is a prime example of the band at their finest… or, more accurately, phinest.
If you spent any time at all around a high school parking lot or university hacky sack green in the early to mid 1990s, you’re probably familiar with the refrain ‘Bag it, tag it, sell it the butcher in the store’. If not, I’m sorry because you totally missed out.
Reba is comprised of three distinct movements (and a parenthetical fourth: the final, whistled refrain), the first, which includes the lyrical portion of the song, tells the children’s booky tale of an over-eager cartoony home-chemist (kind of betraying Trey’s roots as the son of a woman who wrote songs for Sesame Street); the second portion sounds like what you might expect if an early 1960s eastern European master of animated film commissioned an avant garde jazz quartet to score an unfinished film he created based on the first part of the song (the narrative of Reba mixing all these crazy ingredients in her bath tub); finally, at around the 6 and a half minute mark, the song opens up and… well, you really ought to hear for yourself.
Click here for the rest of Reba
For Your Eyes Only, a song on the strange four track release Cherry Bomb: Cherie Currie of the Runaways, sounds a like leather clad, big haired, lady-rock B-side from 1989 though interestingly enough, it was released only a couple of years ago – but I can't find any information on whether the recording itself is new or only just released… But I'd like to think it's a new recording and that Currie just felt compelled to do a brief 2007 recording session between giant chainsaw sculptures (her current passion).
Even though this is pretty an obscure track, it is available on iTunes.
I can't quite remember how I stumbled across The Monks and Black Monk Time, but I am glad I did. They remind me of many of the British invasion stuff I most enjoy, like The Troggs and The Animals, but it's a bit more raw and strange. The band, made up of American GIs stationed together in Germany were more original than just post-Beatle wanna bes. In fact, according to wikipedia, founding member Remy Essen:
“”designed” the Monks as “anti-Beatles”: short hair with tonsures, black clothes, ropes around the neck, image of being hard and dangerous”.
Their sound is sometimes abrasive, always rhythmic, and sometimes a bit silly but somehow beneath all the shouting, spoken word, banging drums and strange costumes, there is a pop sensibility at the heart of it all.
The once obscure band and album has gotten a renewed life with a recent re-release and wildly praising reviews from among other spots, the usually non plussed Pitchfork:
“When you hear it barked out by Monks lead vocalist Gary Burger over an otherworldly groove, though, it's an unlikely call to arms, and an immediate auditory stamp for one of the most strikingly original bands of the mid-60s.”
Listening to John Cale's sophisticated folk pop album, Vintage Violence, is as pleasant as looking at his handsome face. His first solo album after an unamiable split with the Velvet Underground sounds startlingly modern. The soft pleading beauty of Amsterdam, the slow dancey Please, and the far away Charlamagne (that hints at the work to come in his amazing Paris 1919, the album which led me to love the man in the first place) are examples of simple American sounding timelessness, while the bubbly Cleo and Hello There draw from retro pop history.
Cale is such a distinct voice in modern music, one that I'm enjoying discovering with each album. In an interesting side note, this particular album was recorded during his brief marriage to cart-wheeling maniac Betsey Johnson. She's pictured in the album looking more toned down than her shirtless hubby, but no word on whether or not any of the arty lyrics refer to or were inspired by her.
If you wanted to really make a conservative homophobe's blood boil, you couldn't find a better album than The Frogs It's Only Right and Natural. It's an explicitly over the top homo erotic lo fi masterpiece that was denounced by an enraged Pat Robertson but gained the band a cult following that included Billy Corgan (who had them open for Smashing Pumpkins) and the late Kurt Cobain (who called the album his favorite record… ever).
It's an acquired taste musically but I have grown to love listening to Dykes are We, Been a Month Since I Had a Man and Homos in the mornings to start my work day. The lyrics are daring, funny, and highly satirical and the music is akin to Beck and Syd Barrett.
An assortment of record label money problems caused the band's demise, but they still claim many devoted fans and even tour. In fact, I designed a poster of a girl jiggling with her junk for their show at Emo's years ago when I was an underemployed art school grad; I regret that I didn't get to see the actual performance.
Why do I mention it now?
Because it's confirmed that the franchise that shaped by childhood, that started Johnny Depp's career, and introduced this fabulous song to the world (in a scene featuring invisible kung fu fighting no less) is finally getting the inevitable Offspring video director turned crappy movie director remake treatment, and essentially destroying a small part of me. At least we have the music and can reminisce.
Here's what I said back on 10/16/06:
I have been in love with this song since I bought the single in Jr. High and even then I was royally disappointed by the look of the band. Clearly, these dudes are not cool, even the band in Lost Boys was more respectable, and yet this song is cool–way cool.
It also became a mystery, I knew it was from a movie at some point, but which one? I thought Valley Girl, perhaps. Wrong – it is from the movie I was obsessed with for a long time – Nightmare on Elm St. 4 – The Dream Master . You know, the one with Alice, who starts meek but ends up doing nun-chucks; the one with her totally fine brother who has to fight an invisible Freddy in a Steven Seagal worthy set and ends up a meatball on Freddy's pizza; the one with the brainiac girl with asthma; the one with the girl who works out to Sinead O'Connor's “Put Your Hands On Me” only the be turned in a roach at Freddy's Roach Motel; the one that starts with Kincaid's death in the car junkyard…. Yes, that one! See I can remember nearly every frame, but couldn't remember that this, one of my very favorites, was in it. Oh, for shame, Brittany.
I never counted myself as a particular fan of Bon Jovi's mega hit and working class romance, Livin on a Prayer until my brother's wedding, where the excellent band belted it out and the best rock out dance of the night was had.
My parents have always been huge Talking Heads fans and I grew up listening to this album. It's still one of the best to lift my spirits on my commute to work. Of course, the Jonathan Demme concert film of the same name is also a must.
While I am not a huge Elton John fan, I can't stop listening to this glamrock song. Elton John does David Bowie.