tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57668816769540017722024-03-05T21:53:07.011-08:00Desert Island Mix TapeJon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-57113795458529846702021-10-22T07:04:00.012-07:002021-10-23T12:39:10.790-07:00Hey, Hit The Highway<p>In a new biography loaded with family photos, interviews
with dozens of bandmates, critics and associates, and spanning nearly 70 years,
the best assessment of John Mellencamp’s career comes in a quote from the
artist himself.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“[W]e weren’t playing the best songs in the world. A lot of
my songs weren’t that great, but they were good enough,” Mellencamp remarks
while discussing his all-conquering 1987-era touring outfit. “And as far as
putting on a performance and entertaining goes, we were undeniably great. I wish
I would’ve been able to enjoy it, but I was too busy slogging.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif4KdsE_-DfEoLo4obGo3vpQG2UW9tj4ffvZfaMtLz8hjJJRMp3dPwpMReKxp63bslT3LN_dJbORSvo-nQdz6FFoV-SMhp1fIS0093PkU9g7HT97Jc9F5uIGrcMaJqVzTR5bPrfhiEn-4/s453/rees.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif4KdsE_-DfEoLo4obGo3vpQG2UW9tj4ffvZfaMtLz8hjJJRMp3dPwpMReKxp63bslT3LN_dJbORSvo-nQdz6FFoV-SMhp1fIS0093PkU9g7HT97Jc9F5uIGrcMaJqVzTR5bPrfhiEn-4/s320/rees.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>MELLENCAMP, by the British music writer Paul Rees, tells the
story of a belligerent and tightly-wound blue-collar outsider who through hard
work as a creator and bandleader overcame those limitations over a 24-album, 45-year,
hall of fame career, smoking four packs a day and fighting The Man the whole
time.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Born in 1951 in Seymour, Indiana to an electrician and a
homemaker, John Mellancamp grew up rebellious in the tradition of his grandfather
Speck and others in a rowdy and downcast extended family around Southern
Indiana. He barely escaped childbirth, Rees writes, requiring risky neurosurgery
to remove a growth on the back of his head. Having survived the operation for
spina bifida made him something of a favorite of his grandmother, who never let
him forget he was lucky. “You get told that enough and you start to believe it,”
he says.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Young John was a schoolyard bully, and a rebel who loved
competing-- in sports, and in music, which he absorbed via late-night soul radio
signals from Detroit, forced attendance at Church of the Nazarene and its Appalachian
folk and gospel, his parents’ “bongo parties” and as a frontman for a
succession of teenage bands, most notably, an interracial combo called Crepe Soul. Married
and a father before he finished high school, Mellencamp became determined to try
his luck as a recording artist, making several fruitless sojourns to New York
with a homemade demo cassette before hearing from Tony Defries, the British Svengali
who’d overseen David Bowie and Lou Reed’s careers and recognized in Mellencamp the
raw materials for a project: “Puppy-eyed like a young Elvis, rough around the
edges as James Dean,” Rees writes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a scene out a hundred music bios, Mellencamp signs on the
spot, cobbles together some recordings with friends, and discovers to his
horror that Defries would release it, as is, under a stage name—Johnny Cougar.
The 1976 MCA debut CHESTNUT STREET INCIDENT is savaged by <i>Rolling Stone</i>,
which writes “Johnny Cougar is a comically inept signer who unfortunately takes
himself seriously.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUZTz1MmQHWz38X6jou4f5brlx4_0_tcPwW6FI_fP_AtOeLdg0ZNtkiojfJs1GV-oXGMESPTLLZtWjuL4jyHIrWlYMp1HBAyz9SaScff694es64D9AgtSL8UMuXUIkpRNXwrZrtjGBR5k/s1400/cougar.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUZTz1MmQHWz38X6jou4f5brlx4_0_tcPwW6FI_fP_AtOeLdg0ZNtkiojfJs1GV-oXGMESPTLLZtWjuL4jyHIrWlYMp1HBAyz9SaScff694es64D9AgtSL8UMuXUIkpRNXwrZrtjGBR5k/w200-h200/cougar.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>To his everlasting credit, Mellencamp took this and other
criticisms to heart, and learned by listening to contemporaries he considered ahead
of him like Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, John Prine, the Kinks (opening
for them, Mellencamp studied Ray Davies’ leadership on stage) and the Cars (“those
motherfuckers know how to make a pop song,” he observes). Cut loose by Defries,
he finds a second home with Rod Stewart’s manager, Billy Gaff, whose Riva Records
releases A BIOGRAPHY in 1978, though only in Europe. This includes the majestic,
misogynistic rocker, “I Need A Lover,” which goes to No. 1 in Australia, and is
praised by Billy Joel, covered by Pat Benatar, and released in the U.S. as part
of a next album, called JOHN COUGAR (1979).<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mellencamp’s next three records establish a pattern of similarly
dumb, radio-friendly hits and accompanying filler of various quality. The
pop-flavored NOTHIN MATTERS AND WHAT IF DID (1980) includes “Aint Even Done
With the Night” and “This Time.” AMERICAN FOOL (1982) was another step ahead
with hits “Hurts So Good” “Jack and Diane” and “Hand to Hold Onto.” The harder-rocking
UH-HUH (1983) produced “Crumblin’ Down,” “Pink Houses,” “Authority Song,” and “Play
Guitar.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3dJ86TLiBYi0lKid_riI7ysYitsOXEWbAdNKEqvX03K-vG72fdsaXE_TGfuja3wQYjfJyAvvEcj8MKAkJVjnGI9s2njjtqQsNOdmKl8VKCJLAKxmT0rVpOo23TZEJfT8wQy_WRfqYKc/s400/kid.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3dJ86TLiBYi0lKid_riI7ysYitsOXEWbAdNKEqvX03K-vG72fdsaXE_TGfuja3wQYjfJyAvvEcj8MKAkJVjnGI9s2njjtqQsNOdmKl8VKCJLAKxmT0rVpOo23TZEJfT8wQy_WRfqYKc/w200-h200/kid.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">During early sessions for “Fool,” a herky-jerky song John had
been at work on called “Jenny at 16” gets a lift when the Bee Gees, recording
in adjoining Miami studio, loan them a Linn drum machine establishing a beat. Listening
in, Bowie’s former guitarist Mick Ronson suggests adding an opening fanfare and
the “let it rock, let it roll” bridge. It all comes together when drummer Kenny
Aronoff connects them with an explosive fill. “Jack and Diane” is Mellencamp’s
biggest hit. Mainman took leftover tracks and shoved out THE KID INSIDE (1983) to
coast on the moment but it died on the shelf: Cougar had
already changed his name.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By this time, Mellencamp had settled on an agreeable
producer (Don Gehman), established a recording studio in Indiana, and assembled
a crack band of local players (the thunderous <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOTjf8P0mF8">Aronoff</a>, who was made to
observe session players for the NOTHIN MATTERS LP), guitarists Mike Wanchic and
Larry Crane, Doc Rosser on keys, Toby Myers on bass) and a lyricist (George
Green) who would absorb their leader’s admonitions, foul moods and abuse for
years but provide him the words and music. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Aronoff describes making AMERICAN
FOOL “like going to Vietnam.” Mellencamp demanded his band come up with their
own parts to accompany his songs, often gave them homework in the form of songs
he wanted them to listen to and absorb, and demanded they learn new instruments
as a means of changing the soundscape over time, but encountered frequent frustration
expressing precisely the sound he wanted, and did so with little tact or
sensitivity. He also taxed the band physically, quarterbacking a band football team
which played hotly contested games in Bloomington against local radio stations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mellencamp had given up drinking and drugs following a
beating he absorbed in high school, but found stress all around as he worked to
take control of his career. He suffered regular panic attacks, exacerbated by his
heavy smoking and coffee intake, and would burn through three marriages. He
found touring stressful. He saw record executives, and often his bandmates, as his
enemies. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Guided by Green’s Biblical lyricism and released just as artists
with a social message were hot again, SCARECROW (1985) was a triumphant record
spawning big hits (“Lonely Ol’ Night” “Small Town” and the excellent “Minutes
to Memories”) that cemented Mellencamp’s identity as Midwestern Springsteen. Comparing
SCARECROW’s highs to his previous work, Rees writes, required “a yardstick put
up so far down the road as to be invisible, all but unimaginable from where he
started.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SQMkRzWT8mo" width="320" youtube-src-id="SQMkRzWT8mo"></iframe></div>Like Springsteen, Mellencamp’s songs now strongly imparted a
sense of place and an underlying cause, though his own opinion of being tagged “the
voice of the Heartland” was nuanced and reflected his considered perspective as
an outsider. “Indiana is red state,” he explains, “and you’re looking at the
most liberal motherfucker you know. … If I was the voice of the Heartland, my
songs would be vastly different.”<div><p class="MsoNormal">SCARECROW, Rees relates, was something less than a true
concept album, including as it did side B fillers “Rumbleseat” and “R.O.C.K. in
the USA.” The latter was intended to have been a throwaway based on the 60s
soul playlist Mellencamp had issued his band before recording but was included
on the album at the insistence of Mellencamp’s then-manager, Tommy Mottola, who’d
also argued that it be the record’s first single (it was the 4<sup>th</sup>). The
book, and my accompanying streaming of the catalog as I went, didn’t quite disabuse
the notion I’d had going in that most Mellencamp releases were weighed down by
a few stinkers—as Robert Christgau described him, “a well-meaning cornball with
Kenny Aronoff in his band”—that said, the overall quality of them holds up and
will surprise.<o:p></o:p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">During the stadium-filling tour, the band grew through
new members Lisa Germano (fiddle), vocalists Crystal Talifero and Pat Peterson;
and keyboard-accordian player John Cascella.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The sound of the fiddle and accordian awakened Mellencamp to
new possibilities, and he moved toward a soulful Americana sound on THE
LONESOME JUBILEE (1987). “Paper in Fire” lyrically and musically conveyed Mellencamp’s
famous temper (“This is the best song I ever wrote. Don’t fuck it up,” Mellencamp
warned his bandmates as the sessions began). Though an ordeal to record, JUBILEE
also produced the hits “Cherry Bomb” and “Check It Out” with a sound that stood
far apart from late-80s contemporaries, and was the best-reviewed LP of his
career, but the above-mentioned tour burned him out and ended his second
marriage.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">The ruminative and melancholy BIG DADDY (1989), followed as
a kind of TUNNEL OF LOVE to Springsteen’s BORN TO RUN. Mellencamp however
refused to tour, preferring instead to paint in a home studio. Mellencamp had
inherited painting from his mother, who advised him it was an outlet he could engage
in throughout his life. One of his daughters tells Rees she thought he was a painter
growing up. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Painting came with less associated stress than creating music,
which “intensified and riled him, made him more antagonistic, combative and
selfish,” Rees writes. More convinced than ever he was an artist, Mellencamp
also wrote, directed and starred in a movie, <i>Falling From Grace</i>, which
was a failure (Rees’ book also goes into deep detail on <i>Ghost Brothers</i>,
a musical play conceived with writer Stephen King that became something of a
long work-in-progress also meeting little success).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Two years in relative seclusion ends when he reassembles the
band in 1991, giving each of Wanchic, Crane, Myers and Aronoff a $1 million loyalty
check. This gesture causes mutinous tension when Crane expresses on behalf of
his mates that taxes would make each payment closer to $600,000; Mellencamp responds
by firing them all on the spot.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/R7eve-kJHSA" width="320" youtube-src-id="R7eve-kJHSA"></iframe></div>All but Crane—who is cast out forever—eventually are
welcomed back to record WHENEVER WE WANTED (1991), whose rocking tunes,
enhanced by replacement axeman David Grissom, recalls UH-HUH in too many ways—it’s
“John’s least satisfying work in years,” according to Rees. Elaine Irwin,
pictured on the album’s cover and in the “Get A Leg Up” video, becomes John’s
third wife.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The arrival of grunge and hip-hop complicates Mellencamp’s
musical direction for the next decade. HUMAN WHEELS (1993) took months to
record. It produces hits “What If I Came Knocking?” and the resplendent grieving
title track, but its recording is clouded by the sudden death of Cascella, to
whom the album is dedicated.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fdVEEi8_4K0" width="320" youtube-src-id="fdVEEi8_4K0"></iframe></div>
<p class="MsoNormal">“As HUMAN WHEELS slipped off the charts, with it he felt
himself being shunted to margins, forced out to pasture,” Rees writes. A
frustrated Mellencamp throws a punch at a record executive in a meeting in New
York and departs the confrontation determined to make his next album in three
weeks or less.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That becomes the slight, wispy DANCE NAKED. Time was saved
in part through eschewing a bass guitar to Myers’ dismay, although Meshell Ngedcello
is brought in as a bass player in the duet of Van Morrison’s “Wild Night”—proving
to be Mellencamp’s last visit to the Billboard Top 10.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The tour for DANCE NAKED is interrupted when Mellencamp has
a heart attack and takes another two years off, returning in 1996 with the
ironically titled MR. HAPPY GO LUCKY (1996), which like HUMAN WHEELS, is
enhanced with hip-hop guitar and drum loops and features new band members Andy
York on guitar, Moe Z on Hammond organ and violinist Miriam Sturm, who arranges
an album-opening Overture. The single is “Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First).”
The critical reception is muted. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mellencamp blames Phonogram for disappointing sales and
bolts for a new deal with Columbia but the self-titled JOHN MELLANCAMP (1998)
is disappointing and chaotic even by Mellencamp’s standards. It’s the first to
go off without Aronoff, who refused to bail on a gig backing Bob Seger. This
album also led to a break-up with Green over a disagreement on the lyrics of the
doomed single “Your Life Is Now,” whose recording included an incident where
Mellencamp threw a punch at York (“I’d say John had serious confrontational
issues,” York tells Rees). The band, now with the Heartbreakers’ Stan Lynch on
drums, was briefly fired during its recording. Myers quit on the ensuing tour. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Bandmembers interviewed by Rees, many in oral-history style,
will concede that Mellencamp meant well and approached performing and
preparation as he ought to have given the material. “Come on—sell this fucking
thing!” he'd admonish on stage, Aronoff relates. “He was unstoppable.” <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Columbia, according to Rees, was looking at Mellencamp with
an eye toward Santana’s SUPERNATURAL comeback. But When CUTTIN HEADS (2001) failed
to improve, Mellancamp released a blues cover album called TROUBLE NO MORE (2003)
and departed Columbia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">FREEDOM’S ROAD (2007) is most notable for spawning a
Chevrolet commercial accompanying “Our Country”—the kind of sellout Mellencamp
had long resisted (he’d told a hot-sauce company to hit the highway when they sought
“Hurts So Good” for a campaign) but reasoned was OK given the difficulty of
connecting with listeners in a market yawning at late-career releases from
heritage artists like Springsteen and Tom Petty. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For 2008’s LIFE, DEATH, LOVE AND FREEDOM (c’mon already with
these titles), Mellencamp engages producer T Bone Burnett, whose signature spare
arrangements featured the singer’s roughening voice and was seen as something of
a comeback in Americana/Folk and Adult Alternative radio formats. The same tact
has since been applied to subsequent platters including the revisitation of Southern
folk and gospel, recorded live at iconic studios, NO BETTER THAN THIS (2010), PLAIN
SPOKEN (2014) and a half-done album of collaborations with country singer Carlene
Carter, SAD CLOWNS AND HILLBILLIES (2017).<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Mellencamp by now was divorced a third time, running with
actress Meg Ryan, and exhibiting his artwork in galleries (Rees includes
testimony from an art dealer disabusing the notion he’d used his celebrity to become
a painter: “The reality is, a door may open if you’re a celebrity, but if you’re
poor at what you do then it doesn’t stay open very long.”)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Rees' book comes to life when describing his personal interviews with Mellencamp, and while highlighting material that at once is overexposed and yet underexplored (the 2 or 3 cuts on each album you don't yet know by heart). The inevitable duet with Springsteen—a despairing, weepy folk-ballad
called “Wasted Days”—was released in time for Mellencamp’s 70<sup>th</sup>
birthday (and Springsteen’s 71<sup>st</sup>). Happy birthdays, guys. Don't celebrate too hard.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hHLGZxlBpLA" width="320" youtube-src-id="hHLGZxlBpLA"></iframe></div><br /></div>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-13449558799120471722020-12-14T17:50:00.003-08:002020-12-23T14:09:20.009-08:00New Music for Old People<p>Pretend as we might to try to and keep up with new music we may as well also surrender to the notion that there's really no escaping our formative frames of reference. So when I come across New Music By Old People (politely called "Legacy" or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheVaporsOfficial/photos/a.1127589600639129/3330569097007824/" target="_blank">"Heritage"</a> I have learned) it's often a cool compromise, even if nobody buys it or hears it.</p><p>Following are a few unpopular comebacks from 2020 you may have missed. Thanks to my friends out there in space for the tips </p><p><b>THE VAPORS</b></p><p>The Vapors were short-lived British new-wavers remembered for--and doomed by--"Turning Japanese," a semi-novelty hit that may not have aged particularly well. But the debut album that spawned it 1980's NEW CLEAR DAYS is loaded with similarly tuneful and frenetic pop with the same forgotten nervous energy. Thirty-nine years after the 1981 followup MAGNETS, three-fourths of the original quartet--singer David Fenton, guitarist Edward Bazalgette and drummer Steve Smith--reunited for TOGETHER and it's like stepping into a time machine.
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wgFakYxrCW8" width="560"></iframe>
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="text-align: left;"><b>THE PRETENDERS</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">Chrissie Hynde never really went away but the last thing I can remember streaming were goopy Cougar love duets with JP Jones. When I heard "I Didn't Want to Be This Lonely" for the first time this spring I could barely believe it wasn't a leftover from 30 years ago. Maybe it was. If you're a sucker for the Bo Diddley beat, and who isn't, good stuff. </p></div>
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<div><br /></div><div><b>MIDNIGHT OIL</b></div><div>For their first new music since CAPRICORNIA in 2002 sees the Oils doing a guest-laden EP to support aboriginal rights in Australia. "Gadigal Land" is like the Oilest thing ever--righteous fury, a little guitar jangle, gigantic drums and a brassy arrangement, even brings back the breakdown technique of "Jimmy Sharman's Boxers" and their repeated phrases. Klabamm.</div><div><br /></div>
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<div><br /></div><div><b>THE EMPTY HEARTS</b></div><div>This is the second effort from a new wave era supergroup that plays 60s style garage rock (Romantics singer Wally Palmar, the Cars' Elliot Easton, Blondie's terrific drummer Clem Burke). I'm taking their advice and telling two people.</div><div><br /></div>
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<div><br /></div><div><b>TODD RUNDGREN & RIVERS CUOMO</b></div><div>I don't know what I thought a combo of the unpredictable duo of Todd Rundgren and Weezer's Rivers Cuomo would sound like but it turns out, this. Not sure that accent is going to over well in today's sensitive environment but the message sure did. This one goes out to my Trump-addled Facebook polluters.</div><div><br /></div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ty9oS6d0FKE" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><b>DAVID JOHANSEN</b></div><div>He had the very same idea. This song is probably three minutes too long.</div><div><br /></div>
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<div><br /></div><div><b>WILLIE NILE</b></div><div>This probably wasn't the right year to introduce a shout-out-to-every-demographic love-letter to NYC Nightlife but I admire Willie Nile's spirit and old-school directness and he's really become the elder statesman of NYC Dad Rock.</div><div><br /></div>
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<div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-84254091028392661082020-04-10T05:46:00.002-07:002020-04-10T06:17:22.862-07:00Tifford & Dillbrook<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm pleased to learn it's not only me who occasionally conflates Chris Difford and Glenn Tillbrook, the co-founders of Squeeze. Chris Difford's memoir, SOME FANTASTIC PLACE, mentions it happens quite frequently, even with real media types who ought to know the difference.<br />
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For me the confusion was so intense I read several dozen pages of Difford's new book under the impression that it was guitar-playing singer and composer's work and not his froggy-voiced, dark-haired lyricist's. That's one issue I probably wouldn't have had without the darn Kindle which is nice for volume and convenience but pretty weak when it comes to absorbing the details that a physical-book reader wouldn't help but notice, like the cover, for instance.<br />
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It did seem strange to be learning our frontman was a daydreaming teenage skinhead writer wannabe with a pack of imaginary friends but I didn't put it all together till he told the story of posting a note in a London shop window seeking actual bandmates to join his imagined group. The only respondent was Tillbrook, and this combination of introverted lyricist and a differently introverted songwriter gave rise to one of New Wave's most tuneful combos and a kind of spiritual, durable and underrated successor to the Kinks and 10cc.<br />
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Partly, it's that same lack of a true, distinguished personality, along with multiple lineup changes and frequent break-ups over the years, that prevented Squeeze for all their quirky charm, pocketsful of terrific tunes, and critical praise, from getting wider recognition for how good they really were and are. As Difford relates in the book, it wasn't as though the quintet was populated with album-cover-worthy faces. Neither Tillbrook nor Difford were especially comfortable as showmen so it was left to original keyboardist Jools Holland to interact with audiences and that skill led his departure following 1980's breakthrough ARGYBARGY album and eventual career as a popular British TV host.<br />
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Holland's replacement, the gadfly singer-for-hire Paul Carrack, stuck around long enough only to lend his smooth lead vocals to perhaps the band's most-lasting U.S. hit, "Tempted" from the following EAST SIDE STORY album of 1981. (Carrack's vagabond career deserves its own examination I hope to get to someday but I keep learning about more and more bands he sung with everyday). Bass players and drummers also came and went (and several even came back again for a while and left again) but for my money the COOL FOR CATS and ARGYBARGY lineup of 1979-80 (Difford, Tillbrook, Holland, bassist John Bentley and the burly drummer Gilson Lavis) were the classic five, performing Tillbrook's distinctively catchy English-rockabilly-soul-pop-carnival tunes with Difford's lovelorn hungover sad-sack lyrics, often sung by both leading men not in harmony but an octave apart, a Squeeze signature. Lavis, Bentley and Tillbrook, on lead guitar, could also really play.<br />
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So many Squeeze songs came off as effortless big hits purposefully obscured by Difford's dense and descriptive lyrics. "Vicky Verky" for example musically conveys all the thrills of a summer teen romance, only one that races into an abortion, not typically Top of the Pops subject matter. The brokenhearted stoner in "In Quintessence" can't get out of bed despite the pop accompaniment that would have listeners dancing. Their skill had critics calling Difford & Tillbrook the Lennon & McCartney of the 80s and Squeeze drew lot of admirers among peers, but only "Tempted" the very English "Pulling Mussels," the Elvis Costello-influenced "Black Coffee in Bed" and later, "Hourglass" ever really penetrated everyone's radios.<br />
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As you wouldn't be surprised to learn, heavy drinking played a role in Squeeze's tumultuous rises and falls, particularly among Difford and Lavis ("He liked to drink, it's safe to say" is Difford's droll first impression) who burned out following SWEETS FROM A STRANGER (1982)--their fifth album in as many years--and they broke up for the first time, only not for the last.<br />
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Reading, I worried that the terrific highlights of the band's career until this moment were already covered well before the halfway point in the book, and sure enough much of the second half relates Difford's admirable and continuing efforts to live a 12-step life (he describes finally kicking his coke and drinking habits, and a few wagon-falls since), his delicate emotions (this man cries <i>a lot</i>), and so many failed relationships, so many managers and producers, so many homes, so many Squeeze reunions and dis-unions, its easy to lose track and/or interest, which is what happened to me. I get it, your life story can't be contained to your 20s and one takeaway is that life indeed goes on. <br />
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I also learned a little about Squeeze and how it all worked. The triumphant EAST SIDE STORY began with a vision as a 4-sided, 4-producer record (Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Paul McCartney--all Squeeze admirers). I learned how they found their stride as a group only after awkward early sessions with the Velvet Underground's John Cale who wanted them to perform not as Squeeze but as Cum and seemed to want to package and sell the first album to a gay audience. I also took some interest in the many projects of Squeeze's second, third and fourth lives. Difford himself is indifferent to some of it, speaks highly of other projects (like the above from CRADLE TO THE GRAVE (2015), much depends on his own creativity or sobriety. Like a lot of their contemporaries that made a New Wave splash they were involved with Police mastermind Miles Copeland and Elvis Costello's Jake Riviera, and their influence is coming into perspective the more I read up on this era.<br />
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Virus-willing, Squeeze still record and tour with the two frontmen who share deep professional respect for one another if not the chummy relationship my teenage self imagined they would. Difford confesses he has no idea where Tillbrook lives anymore. I've seen them play several times (beginning with what we thought would have been their last-ever appearance 38 years ago!) and as Tillbrook ages his skill with guitar becomes ever more pronounced, his vocals more soulful and rootsy. Easy, Squeezy.
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QhGuZ8F9J9M" width="560"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-40319825432734304142019-11-03T10:27:00.000-08:002019-11-03T10:46:34.491-08:00And So It GoesA newly published biography turns a rare spotlight on Nick Lowe, the clever British songwriter, producer and singer who influenced the New Wave and roots movements before crafting a second-act career that's become a refreshing display of cool dignity for aging rockers, with nearly all those developments taking place just below the radar.<br />
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CRUEL TO BE KIND, by musician turned writer Will Birch, features a lot of witty and wise quotations from the subject, with whom he has been acquainted since they each were struggling musicians in the 1970s (Birch was the drummer for the Records) and again as adults in lengthy interviews, funerals and projects with mutual collaborators. Birch relates an engaging if lengthy tale of a droll, versatile but fame-cautious pop craftsman who continues to evolve decades into a career of more near-misses than hits.<br />
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Nicholas Drain Lowe, born in 1949, was the son of a buttoned-up WWII Royal Air Force pilot, and a dancer mother from a long line of entertainers. He grew up in Surrey and for a time in Jordan and Cyprus, where his father was stationed in the RAF, taking an interest in the 50s rock and roll originating in America, and learning songs on a toy ukulele. At boarding school in England, teenage Nick played the banjo, spent more time discovering new music than studying, and assembles any number of bands as a means to attract attention from girls. Some of these groups would include fellow student Brinsley Schwarz, whom Nick joined with a homemade bass guitar he tuned with a pair of pliers.<br />
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A stint in a community college got Lowe a job as low-level gofer for a local newspaper, but that ambition took a back seat to a desire to sing in a band and drink with his Mod pals. Birch relates a tale of Lowe flaming out of the newspaper gig after sleeping through a film he was supposed to be reviewing. His school friend Brinsley Schwarz called asking Lowe to join his band, then called Kippington Lodge, and signed to EMI. Kippington played a brand of harmless post-Sgt. Pepper pop, and had a string of unsuccessful singles including the B-side "I Can See Her Face," Nick Lowe's first written-and-sung recording, at age 19.<br />
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Kippington was going nowhere, and after Nick is nearly killed in an on-stage electrocution, the band in 1970 rebrands itself after its guitarist's name and pursues a country-roots-and-harmony sound then becoming popular with the rise of Crosby Stills & Nash and The Band. A big-thinking Irish manager, Dave Robinson, pulls an elaborate promotional stunt-- flying a planeful of Brit music journalists to a showcase in New York where the rookie band was to make its stage debut. As Birch relates in detail, the promo was a monumental flop: The band encountered visa problems, the jet carrying the journalists ran behind schedule, and though the show went on, it badly underdelivered on the hype, with writers assailing them as "inept twerps" in Lowe's recollection and dooming them to a second-tier status.<br />
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So though Brinsley Schwarz had eyes on flying the world as a first-class attraction, they instead become a budget-friendly communal bar band, producing six albums over five years and performing not in arenas but in pubs. Lowe however was sharpening his pop songwriting chops, some in partnership with Brinsley's new addition, Ian Gomm. And in contrast to emerging arena rock performed by peers, the group developed a reputation as Britian's "quietest band," traveling with the smallest amps they could find to highlight the Americana/roots sound they were pursuing.<br />
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The approach yielded few hits but plenty of fans. Their influence helped to spawn a number of group with a similar grounding working the same circuit, including Graham Parker & the Rumour, Martin Belmont (of Ducks Deluxe), and Ian Dury. Fans included a Liverpool teenager named Declan MacManus, whom Birch says passed Lowe a homemade tape after a show and began a relationship that would eventually result in one of Lowe's Brinsley songs ("What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding" becoming a breakout smash for MacManus under his performing name Elvis Costello. Lowe would become the producer of Costello's first five albums.<br />
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Lowe calls penning "PLU" as "the seismic moment" of his songwriting career. While there's obvious irony and hippy ridicule to the lyric, the delivery is just earnest enough. This sense of clever playfulness is a strain running throughout Lowe's writing, and can be seen in brilliant if sometimes over the top punmaking and wordplay that lent his work a sense that it was intended primarily for those who got the inside jokes ("The Abominable Showman," You Stabbed Me in the Front," "Time Wounds All Heels." He once titled an EP BOWI, a sly reference to a David Bowie album called LOW).<br />
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The Brinsley's broke up in 1975. Lowe fell in with manager Jake Riviera, penned and performed (as the Tartan Horde) a ridiculous novelty song "Bay City Rollers We Love You" and was recruited to produce the debut album for Graham Parker. Lowe had zero experience as a producer but didn't fret over the details, instead using his humor and his feel for musicians to inspire performances, earning the nickname "Basher" for the speed at which he produced.<br />
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Touring with Graham Parker as they opened for Thin Lizzy, the latter's "The Boys Are Back In Town" helped to inspire a Lowe original, "So It Goes" which became a Stiff Records single and a cut a 1978 debut solo album (called JESUS OF COOL in the UK and PURE POP FOR NOW PEOPLE in the US). Stiff was a spirited independent label co-founded by Lowe's manager Riviera and his former manager Robinson that collected a roster of pub-rock vets and others in the scene including Dury, Wreckless Eric, and MacManus, now known as Elvis Costello. The opening chords of "So It Goes" basically launched the New Wave movement on its own.<br />
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Lowe's records with Stiff drew strong reviews but the performer wasn't necessarily fit for stardom, Birch writes. Stiff package tours were to feature a rotating lineup of its acts but Lowe preferred to go first so as not to interrupt his post-show drinking time (Lowe spent much of the 70s and 80s drunk, Birch reveals, and his prodigious intake of acid interfered with Schwarz' success). In the studio he was frequently collaborating with older counterpart Dave Edmunds, the Welsh guitar whiz who'd produced Brinsely's last album. Those two, along with Billy Bremner, and drummer Terry Williams, backed Edmunds on two albums for Swansong and Lowe on 1979's LABOR OF LUST but Rockpile, as they would eventually be known, weren't billed as such due to competing solo contracts of its co-leaders.<br />
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Rockpile toured as Edmunds' anonymous backing band, regularly upstaging headliners Bad Company on a U.S. tour, gaining Rockpile a stateside following and critical praise. But between songwriting, a solo career, production work and his drinking, Lowe was never fully committed to the band and didn't always see eye-to-eye with Edmunds, himself an enigmatic and committed drinker. Edmunds eventually tangled with Riviera and Rockpile died after one billed album, SECONDS OF PLEASURE (1980).<br />
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Lowe had much more still to pursue. He'd met the American county singer Carlene Carter--whose mother, June Carter, was the wife of Johnny Cash-- during a London recording session in 1977. It would be many years before Nick would summon the courage to write a song for his one-time father-in-law, but when he did years later, "The Beast In Me" was a standout of Cash's chilling 1994 AMERICAN RECORDINGS comeback.<br />
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Lowe's work in the 1980s showed an increasing increasing influence of American roots and country even if his popular reputation as a new waver never really went away as "Cruel to Be Kind" -- one of only two Lowe singles to reach the Billboard Hot 100 -- endured in popular popular memory (it peaked at No. 12 in 1979; "I Knew the Bride" peaked at #77 in 1986). This tune from 1984's NICK LOWE & HIS COWBOY OUTFIT should have been a hit but wasn't:<br />
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As he had with Rockpile in the 1970s, Lowe fell in with a pack of like-minded roots musicians backing one another in the studio. Lowe, singer John Hiatt, guitarist Ry Cooder and drummer Jim Kelner played together on Hiatt's excellent BRING THE FAMILY (1987) and Lowe's PARTY OF ONE (1990) and eventually the group recorded and toured as Little Village in 1992 but like Rockpile, the project died after a single album and tour.<br />
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Lowe's obscurity was only deepening when a performance of "Peace Love and Understanding" by singer Curtis Stigers latched onto the bazillion-selling soundtrack LP for the 1992 film "The Bodyguard," and the ensuing financial windfall allowed Lowe the freedom to hone his songwriting craftsmanship and release a series of paced-out late-career albums beginning with terrific THE IMPOSSIBLE BIRD (1994) as a kind of hip white-haired grandfather of country-swing rock and songs with Sinatraeasque singing, Lowe-like wit and the ability to pack an understated wallop like the reflection on drinking from THE CONVINCER (2001). As Birch makes clear it's a refreshing break from the parade of contemporaries still trying the same act they did 40 years before. Most recently he is touring and recording with the American surf/roots band Los Straightjackets. That they perform while wearing Mexican wrestling masks goes unremarked upon.<br />
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Similar to the feeling I'd had <a href="https://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2015/06/it-all-depends-upon-your-appetite.html" target="_blank">r</a><a href="https://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2015/06/it-all-depends-upon-your-appetite.html" target="_blank">eading Billy Joel's bio</a>--another book relying heavily on after-the-fact reflections of the subject-- there's probably too much reflection on balance in Birch's book. Lowe gives great quotes but in his style they're arch and detached so much it reads more as look back then a as-it-happened bio, and it's awfully long even if you skip the family history in the appendix. But as a chronicle of a clever and important figure who's career is overdue for recognition and reflection, "it will make the hardest-hearted of critic's hearts melt."<br />
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<br />Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-35228559508774555472019-01-21T12:16:00.003-08:002019-01-22T04:52:03.923-08:00Listenin' With A Young Man's Ear<br />
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“Any career disappointment I had didn’t center around the cliché
of being the ‘New Bob Dylan’” Steve Forbert writes in his new book, BIG CITY
CAT. “…In my case, my illusions were shattered when I didn’t manage to follow
the success of “Romeo’s Tune.” I had been under the impression that I could
accomplish pretty much anything I wanted to do. For a while I could. And then,
lo and behold, I couldn’t.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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To the extent there’s blame to go around, Forbert confesses his
part. He badly wanted success but was uncomfortable having attained it, and the
same hard-headedness that allowed him to cut a path as a folksinger in New York’s
punk-driven downtown of the 1970s played out in some bad decisions in the
studio and in his personal life that eventually had professional repercussions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Just as ALIVE ON ARRIVAL captured the energy of a wide-eyed Mississippi
kid’s happy ambition to make it, BIG CITY CAT provides honest and at times
funny perspective on that magical ascent, and then on a career once its
trajectory had changed for good. Along the way Forbert conveys an underlying appreciation
for music itself that has kept him going 40 years later.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The popular story Forbert fans (like me) knew until now was
that he blew into New York from Mississippi with a denim jacket and acoustic
guitar, but Forbert reveals that came only after years of trying to make it as
a rocker down South. And New York was actually the second city he’d tried to
establish himself, recounting a brief but futile trek to Atlanta with a
bandmate. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Forbert was always absorbing a scene, listening and learning.
“I began to see that one member with a discerning approach to material and some
sort of original overall vision is worth at least three hot-shot guitar
players,” he notes. Widening tastes lead him away from British-Invasion influences
to Americana, he starts writing and playing more acoustic guitar, and departs for
New York alone when he realizes his bandmates aren’t feeling it quite the way he
is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Forbert would render his struggle to make it in the city
musically in ALIVE ON ARRIVAL, while the book provides the details including
excerpts from a diary he kept then that are every bit as charming. He played
anywhere he could, for anything he could earn, while holding down a day job as
a messenger. He cracked the punk scene at CBGB’s on his personal appeal to
owner Hilly Kristal, who fancied himself a country singer. Forbert soon picked
up the same managers as the Ramones, who never got over the young singer
beating them to a hit. A rave review of one of his performances in the New York
Times – “Mr. Forbert is the kind of performer who makes you realize his worth
the minute he begins to sing,” John Rockwell wrote – starts a label bidding war.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Forbert’s idealism could be his enemy. As a rookie recording
artist, he brazenly overrules top-notch session sax player David Sanborn by
keeping what Sanborn considered a goofed solo, and nearly sentences ALIVE ON
ARRIVAL to death on arrival on an insistence that it not include reverb—only
the opinion of Bonnie Raitt can convince him otherwise. He followed it up with the
rockier JACKRABBIT SLIM (1979), containing his signature hit, “Romeo’s Tune” recorded
with the same musicians he’d been touring with. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Forbert flubbed on “Romeo’s” momentum. He stunned management
by refusing an offer of a ROLLING STONE magazine cover feature, and instead of
giving fans more of what they wanted—there was more than enough material
leftover from ALIVE and JACKRABBIT for a third record—opted for an abrupt sonic
reinvention on LITTLE STEVIE ORBIT (1980). That record, led by the hard-drinking
English producer Pete Solley, was a critical and commercial flop. And by the
time he returned to ALIVE producer Steve Burgh for 1982’s STEVE FORBERT, his
moment seemed to have escaped but his issues with the big time were only
beginning. As an aside I’m one of the few people in America to have acquired
that one, and I never had a problem with it (especially side A) or really with
any of Forbert’s efforts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih5dAOIlAk-fnfWW9uGtsuuFNZEqiRkVCwSJtzIbIJzpYVR-2pVkJqX2QEkUcm_u9QiVMjp894wMJv1JBr3coLTmQZ5pBtol2YpHtmX3MNRyax5QeidNuq_Zu78oYOn0RXsvNwp0Z9mGA/s1600/heresyourpizza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="500" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih5dAOIlAk-fnfWW9uGtsuuFNZEqiRkVCwSJtzIbIJzpYVR-2pVkJqX2QEkUcm_u9QiVMjp894wMJv1JBr3coLTmQZ5pBtol2YpHtmX3MNRyax5QeidNuq_Zu78oYOn0RXsvNwp0Z9mGA/s200/heresyourpizza.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Forbert attempts to restart with Columbia and engages Neil
Girardo as a producer but the label rejects submitted tracks, and subsequently
refuses to release him from his contract. Steve speculates that the freeze-out
was personal in nature—he’d slept with the secretary of CBS boss Walter
Yentikoff—and he’s in recording limbo for years but still writing and touring
with crack bands, the Flying Squirrels and the Rough Squirrels. An encounter
with a Steve Forbert fan--Springsteen’s bassist Garry Tallent—finally leads to
a new contract with Geffen and STREETS OF THIS TOWN comeback, positioning Forbert
somewhere in the Springsteen/Mellencamp arena, and a 1992 followup THE AMERICAN
IN ME (1992), which leaned more toward Americana.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Back on the road as a solo performer Forbert has continued
to release albums independently ever since, describing writing a new “manifesto”
every couple of years. He describes raising a family—including twin sons who
interestingly enough toured for a time in a death-metal outfit—in Nashville, a
divorce, rehab for a drinking problem, a subsequent marriage to a Jersey girl, a budding photography hobby, and passing time between gigs listening to CDs in his car. “When you’re on top, the job—although stressful—is
made as comfortable as possible for you, and it pays incredibly well,” he
observes. “On less successful levels you do a lot of work all over the place
but can soon wind up wondering if it’s all worth it.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="350" scrolling="no" src="https://www.deezer.com/plugins/player?format=classic&autoplay=false&playlist=true&width=400&height=350&color=007FEB&layout=dark&size=medium&type=playlist&id=5364189322&app_id=1" width="400"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-90048318723777003562018-08-08T15:08:00.000-07:002018-08-08T19:19:05.233-07:00All About A Good Time On A Saturday Night<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz67QtWrpjYTCxH8EyUUwstna-umDehAW3oGEGwLMe3Ow1JR53t5C3M6UV0VpSC6nkg9xvlNDRJEbucw90eGpAe0PTvuFRxsRQ_aGY4nmxlHAsqdCTsXaLpbjy_3T_dAltANQjd4OQAjk/s1600/Tommy-Conwell-Live-268x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="268" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz67QtWrpjYTCxH8EyUUwstna-umDehAW3oGEGwLMe3Ow1JR53t5C3M6UV0VpSC6nkg9xvlNDRJEbucw90eGpAe0PTvuFRxsRQ_aGY4nmxlHAsqdCTsXaLpbjy_3T_dAltANQjd4OQAjk/s320/Tommy-Conwell-Live-268x300.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">High-flying</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It was 30 years ago today -- 8-8-88 -- that Tommy Conwell's debut album was released by Columbia Records, which if you were around Newark, Delaware at the time was something of a big deal.<br />
<br />
Conwell and his band, the Young Rumblers, played a brand of party blues pop that sort of bridged the gap between area icons: the more traditional R&B of George Thorogood, who'd been at it for 15+ years by that point and was a national star albeit with an older audience; and the bright, heartland dance-pop of The Hooters, who'd only recently raced up the charts on the strength of a radio-loving debut the kids ate up.<br />
<br />
Conwell had the same management firm and record label as The Hooters, and similarly got a deal after demonstrating skill as a crowd-pleaser in live shows and locally released recordings that attracted airplay from Philadelphia's then-influential WMMR. Especially around the Delaware Valley, Conwell looked as close to a can't-miss rookie as comes along.<br />
<br />
But top prospects don't always become all-stars, and sometimes the hype is all that shows.<br />
<br />
By the time <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.muckrack.com/portfolio/items/375111/conwell.pdf" target="_blank">I wrote this article</a> -- nine years after Conwell's debut and seven since he'd last released a record -- he had long since returned to the local bar scene that birthed him and obviously had had plenty of time to put the whole experience into perspective. I'd done a little bit of background work before we met, but it was a single, extraordinarily candid interview with the artist that really carries the story. I read where some interpreted Conwell's remarks in this story as bitter but let me assure you he was anything but. I've always thought this was one of my better attempts at writing about music, and about growing up.<br />
<br />
Here's the album in all its overpackaged glory.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://www.deezer.com/plugins/player?format=square&autoplay=false&playlist=false&width=300&height=300&color=007FEB&layout=dark&size=medium&type=album&id=747401&app_id=1" width="300"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-62845804243719309932018-07-16T04:51:00.002-07:002018-07-16T04:52:22.662-07:00Sharing This Night That Will Soon Be A Blur<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPXxEv0o00tlgGGGeJ9ZjtO6WgAOkKGPj-V04Rqp2iDK7hGQvsFbOeG6iiOE0OD0UTcNcKm94mjlhKwtItTherVgzroIPF_rjtToLxeYO8wTxChbK9z51C2be6btXhtSp-zd-WAnREXYU/s1600/miller1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPXxEv0o00tlgGGGeJ9ZjtO6WgAOkKGPj-V04Rqp2iDK7hGQvsFbOeG6iiOE0OD0UTcNcKm94mjlhKwtItTherVgzroIPF_rjtToLxeYO8wTxChbK9z51C2be6btXhtSp-zd-WAnREXYU/s320/miller1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span id="goog_689740810"></span><span id="goog_689740811"></span><br />
Ignorance of contemporary music can have its rewards if you're not scared to arrive at a party a 20 years too late.<br />
<br />
That's sort of how I felt watching Rhett Miller perform at City Winery this week. It was the first time I'd seen Miller, who is best known as the front man for the Texas-based alt-country rockers the Old 97s. That band's 90s and oughts heyday was largely overlooked by me: I'd vaguely known who they were, but until a few years ago hadn't done enough to distinguish them from others in their ballpark. For a while there I conflated the Old 97s and the Old Crow Medicine Show, in a manner not unlike my brain tangled the Hoodoo Gurus and Husker Du in the 1980s. I just didn't know better.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQaEgA9GFAVfNtjbe3jcTW4BrWOOXn6vQtEpNr9lOqOdpvH40ylcs1B6i6An_n1ui0Y8y8dwuEk2nEJSmNTYuce70YG34r9aEMjZ92NrYvqGWNhppHuT9vwkQCWn_erME7IVVfqFnpzmM/s1600/MMU.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="320" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQaEgA9GFAVfNtjbe3jcTW4BrWOOXn6vQtEpNr9lOqOdpvH40ylcs1B6i6An_n1ui0Y8y8dwuEk2nEJSmNTYuce70YG34r9aEMjZ92NrYvqGWNhppHuT9vwkQCWn_erME7IVVfqFnpzmM/s200/MMU.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
It wasn't until 2014 and MOST MESSED UP -- the band's 10th album! -- that I finally caught on. That album is so good -- funny, hardrocking, full of goofy energy, a classic of the life-on-the-road genre and only the slightest bit Western twangy -- to inspire a journey into the past where I discovered these guys had lots of terrific stuff I'd overlooked.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, I'd had a second connection to make: the name Rhett Miller had bubbled up through my power-pop feeds over the years, and I was familiar with his album THE INSTIGATOR (2002). Eventually I pieced it all together and realized the singer and the band belonged to one another and had parallel careers. The whole load of it eventually worked its way into heavy rotation around the house and so for me, going to this show was as though I was seeing a hot band.<br />
<br />
Little did I know there were still more surprises ahead.<br />
<br />
Miller is something of the David Lee Roth of solo acoustic performers, bringing a huge physical energy, charm and a bag of tricks -- most notably a windmilling strum hand and shag-shakes -- to the act. He's got an expressive yelp conveying the sad-sack, whiskey-dicked losers at the heart of most of his songs. I can't imagine there were many at the show like us who hadn't seen Miller before, but that was our reward. We rocked and we laughed, totally entertained.<br />
<br />
Recently, Miller authored this <a href="https://thebaffler.com/salvos/long-distance-rocker-miller" target="_blank">sobering takedown</a> of the modern music industry, wondering whether domination by gigantic streamers, "Swedish hit factories" and YouTube leaves anything for young musicians to aspire to. I wish I knew a solution. I will note that the stream -- particularly the late lamented Rdio -- is what I have to thank for having discovered the Old 97's and Rhett Miller to begin with. The economic model is most messed up, if you will; and so it's not without internal conflict I am sharing the below sampler.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://www.deezer.com/plugins/player?format=square&autoplay=false&playlist=false&width=300&height=300&color=007FEB&layout=dark&size=medium&type=playlist&id=4672975468&app_id=1" width="300"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-17242797098854578232018-05-25T08:01:00.002-07:002018-05-25T08:52:47.839-07:00He Is The EntertainerI've <a href="http://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2013/05/between-you-me-and-staten-island-ferry.html" target="_blank">written </a>before about my <a href="http://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2015/06/it-all-depends-upon-your-appetite.html" target="_blank">complicated relationship</a> with <a href="http://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2013/01/that-wont-happen-to-us.html" target="_blank">Billy Joel</a>, who meant a lot to me when I was very young, but whom I rejected along with most everything associated with Long Island as I got older and worked a little too hard to be cool.<br />
<br />
The time to scratch that itch for real came about this week when I finally cashed in the birthright of millions of my neighbors and saw the man perform a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden. There was something more satisfying to having "won" our tickets by bidding on them at a PTA auction for our son's school; it felt good to contribute but as it turned out, the seats were donated from the "band friends & family" pool and so we learned as we entered we had excellent seats in the lower bowl, very close to the stage.<br />
<br />
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Until now I'd only seen him riding his bike around Huntington and getting ice
cream with Christie Brinkley at Baskin Robbins while they were still secretly
dating 40 years ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcNAjiXCcUXca6D-1t7zl-zEAb7Niv_lkbBXJY1wU1nvc9rkwOuEvPxrZqeC512brIj3d_sDn7TVZSQRhCs4JPIzZyrcjJcfww8LleQ1KMBa0OxYwmo8IP-zyXfRCGP21MIrHRbvLWuII/s1600/20180523_215858.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcNAjiXCcUXca6D-1t7zl-zEAb7Niv_lkbBXJY1wU1nvc9rkwOuEvPxrZqeC512brIj3d_sDn7TVZSQRhCs4JPIzZyrcjJcfww8LleQ1KMBa0OxYwmo8IP-zyXfRCGP21MIrHRbvLWuII/s400/20180523_215858.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Billy is front and center with a grand piano on a
rotating platform. His seven-member band of course is top-notch; we'd seen Mark Rivera (sax, tambornie, vocals etc) lead the "Breakfast w/ the Beatles" band
before. The guitar player, Mike DelGuidice, was an excellent singer who did some Zeppelin
snippets (Kashmir, Rock n Roll).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We got a kick out of all the dressed-up Long Island Moms in attendance. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Just like the outstanding SONGS IN THE ATTIC, recorded on the same stage 38 years before, he opened with a stirring "Miami 2017" and we were off. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Billy was in good spirits and good voice, mentioning he'd just turned 69
("I used to like that number."). My brother, who used to work at the Garden tells a story of watching Billy rehearse a show as part of his Elton John tour years back only to get so drunk during the course of the day he couldn't go on that night, but Billy is apparently clean and sober now and whatever he was drinking came out of a mug. He dedicated "Don't Ask Me
Why" to a little girl in the audience I guess was a granddaughter seated near us. The first
half of the show was what he called "fielder's choice," letting the crowd choose which of two songs off various albums they would perform. I won with "Vienna" (over "Just the Way You Are," thank the lord, and with "Zanzibar," (over "Stilletto"), but lost big time with "She's Got A Way" (over "Everybody Loves You Now"). I cheered for "Root Beer Rag" over "The Entertainer" but the latter was performed and turned out to be one of the better selections on the night.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's Fleet Week here, and so as "Goodnight Saigon" starts a
dozen uniformed sailors come out on stage and sing the chorus arm in arm. It
was cheesy but the audience loved it and learned the True Meaning of Memorial
Day. That's as political as Billy dares to be. I would have liked him to rip
Trump a new one and challenge his fans in a new verse or two of "We Didn't Start the Fire" but Billy hasn't
bothered. Twenty-five years without a new pop album!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I mentioned this to my friend Edward who in no time had penned a clever suggestion:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mike Pence, Manafort, kneeling players ruin the sport<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sean Spicer, Kelly Ann, the truth about crowd size<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Health care, got no plan, gotta do a Muslim ban!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fox News, Hannity, parrot all my lies<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ronny Jackson says "Great shape!" Mueller, find
the pee-pee tape<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
US Nazis, they're so fine, Putin is a friend of mine<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fuck our allies from the West, Mexico don't send the best!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sheriff Joe gets a pardon! DAUGHTER GIVES ME SUCH A HARD-ON!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>We didn't start the
fire!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Obama lit it! O, Fake
News, admit it!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>We didn't start the
fire!</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>There was no
collusion! It was a spies intrusion!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
Give it a shot, Billy. If I can change, you can change!<br />
<br />
The hard bargain of the Billy Joel MSG phenomenon played out as he totally went "back wall" with "Stop in Nevada" off PIANO MAN and folks went flying to the men's
room and hardly any remaining audience members even applauded. I thought, do you need to hear "New York State of
Mind" again? Me, I got up and peed for "Italian Restaurant" -- another chestnut beaten into banality for me by way too many classic-rock radio spins.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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I enjoyed the three-sax chorus in "Movin' Out" and the brass was activated again for "Half A Mile Away," which Joel described as a "fukuka" song the band had never before performed live. I could barely believe that was true; in my Southside Johnny-influenced youth that was one of my favorites. "I Go To Extremes" on the other hand came out after I'd already decided Billy Joel was the uncoolest guy ever and would never listen to him again on purpose, but everyone including me enjoyed that one quite a bit. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After a while I feel into a spell thinking how much of Billy's Winning Streak material was just ripped off stylistically from others, performing the one he ripped off from the Cars ("Sometimes A Fantasy") and the one nicked from Graceland-era Paul Simon ("Middle of the Night"). Billy to his credit never considered being "derivative" a criticism. I guess we all have a idea of what Billy Joel <i>ought </i>to be (for me the post-singer-songwriter, pre-superstar TURNSTILES is the ideal) but he is what he is. There was just no way to stop him from playing Side A of his Greatest Hits at the encore.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He is The Entertainer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Setlist</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Miami 2017<o:p></o:p></div>
Pressure<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don't Ask Me Why<o:p></o:p></div>
Vienna<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Zanzibar <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She's Got a Way <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Entertainer <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Allentown<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Goodnight Saigon<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Movin' Out <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Followed by 'Kashmir' (Led Zeppelin) snippet)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stop in Nevada<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
New York State of Mind<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Half a Mile Away<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She's Always a Woman<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I Go to Extremes <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My Life<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes a Fantasy<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The River of Dreams<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nessun dorma<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Piano Man</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Encore:</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We Didn't Start the Fire<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Uptown Girl<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's Still Rock and Roll to Me<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Big Shot<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You May Be Right<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(with "Rock and Roll" (Led Zeppelin) snippet)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-22448397018611904102018-05-11T05:59:00.003-07:002018-05-11T05:59:27.595-07:00Kihnetic Energy<blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Dear Sirs,<br />
Lookihn back, my career went fuckihn nowhere.<br />
Signed,<br />
Greg Kihn<br />
Workihn in a Burger Kihng</blockquote>
</blockquote>
As far as I can remember it, that was the parody "letter to the editor" published in a mid-80s copy of the <i>National Lampoon</i> we had in the dorm room. I miss this kind of savage comedy today even if it took an unfair shot at Greg Kihn, whose career didn't really go nowhere. You might call him a "two-hit wonder" but that's not really accurate either. He wrote two songs you'll never forget, several other near-hits, and you probably also know his album titles were all puns based on his name.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieMGOhQcpKK6l1Up3uKG5MKU3TbVeghCIDdfVMX6-I37MTFEfM6qzBWO-DtKYXODxmBdpsMxBg32wEHy3YaKSsMhM4i5qI0j8VlQZGEPIP3q7l9n3909EVDyR-WnXzfuRxN-NeUAnI6iE/s1600/greg_kihn_band-next_of_kihn2-291x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieMGOhQcpKK6l1Up3uKG5MKU3TbVeghCIDdfVMX6-I37MTFEfM6qzBWO-DtKYXODxmBdpsMxBg32wEHy3YaKSsMhM4i5qI0j8VlQZGEPIP3q7l9n3909EVDyR-WnXzfuRxN-NeUAnI6iE/s1600/greg_kihn_band-next_of_kihn2-291x300.jpg" /></a></div>
Or so I thought. It turns out there were more Greg Kihn albums (most credited to the Greg Kihn Band) than I ever knew and not all of them came with a punworthy title. As I went back in time to listen to them I was somewhat disappointed to learn that he'd flirted with the idea, then dropped it, only to resume it in time for his midcareer breakout then lose it again.<br />
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Greg Kihn was born in Baltimore, though came into his own after moving to the Bay Area. Having grown up amid the British Invasion, its not surprising to learn he would come of age in the first wave of Power Pop artists, though Greg was by no means a purist; he was a stylistic borrower who had no problem mixing in the odd 50s style ballad, folk-rock, reggae beats, soul covers, keyboard-driven dance pop, and Springsteen Lite to his pop-rock core. He was considerably more mainstream than Beserkley labelmates the Rubinoos or especially the Modern Lovers.<br />
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The Greg Kihn Band was established following a self-titled singer/songwriter debut, and spanned most of the era: bass player Steve Wright; drummer Larry Lynch; guitar player Dave Carpender; and keyboardist Gary Phillips. Wright co-wrote a number of songs with Kihn including "Jeopardy" and 'The Break-Up Song." Wright also took lead vocals on some album tracks, as did Lynch.<br />
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Kihn made a lot of records. Exactly one every year for 11 straight years, 1976 to 1986. The good stuff was generally pretty good, the less-good stuff wasn't awful, and most of it presumably sounded better on stage than on record, since until MTV came along and a string of "concept videos" made him a kind of star, touring was the only alternative to Burger King.<br />
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I was inspired to go back and listen to the Kihn Katalog due to my admiration for an odd non-single, "Madison Avenue Man" buried on Kihn's second album, GREG KIHN AGAIN. I like everything about this song: starts off as a bush-league "Day In The Life" cowbell-clanger, then suddenly springs to life with an irresistible chorus straight out of "Ricky Don't Lose That Number" and goofy lyric I guess pokes fun at the music biz "Let me touch your money with my Madison hands."<br />
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Kihn was also among a group of 70s artists who recognized Bruce Springsteen's burgeoning songwriting chops sooner than most. He covered "For You" (AGAIN, 1977) winning the Boss's own admiration and a BORN TO RUN outtake, "Rendezvous" (WITH THE NAKED EYE, 1979). The guy had taste.<br />
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"The Breakup Song" (ROCKIHNROLL, 1981) hit No. 15; and the danceable "Jeopardy" (KIHNSPIRACY, 1983) went all the way to No. 2, but couldn't beat "Beat It." Beserkley folded following 1984's KIHNTAGEOUS, but he Kihn-tinued under EMI with the the very 80s sounding and solo-credited CITIZEN KIHN (1985), then got the band together again for LOVE ROCK N ROLL (1986). The latter two appear to be whatever the streaming-era equivalent of "out of print" is although you can still find some videos online.<br />
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Kihn became a deejay and part-time horror novelist following his run on the pop charts, and a year ago put out a <a href="http://gregkihn.com/blog/" target="_blank">new record</a> that may or may not prove they write 'em like that anymore, but to celebrate the harmless, punmaking, reliable rocker here's a playlist with one handpicked track from each of his 9 Beserkley platters in the 76-84 Kihn Dynasty.<br />
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Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-40774837687736396382017-05-14T09:21:00.000-07:002017-05-14T10:35:19.340-07:00Up There on the PlatformI was a freshman in college and must have been talking up, I dunno, Dire Straits or something when a much cooler guy in my class said "well, if you like guitar you should listen to Midnight Oil."<br />
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So I bought "10-9-8" and later RED SAILS IN THE SUNSET and was brought into the world. They mixed Twin-Lead-Guitar Action with power protest anthems, and were really creative in the studio -- big 80s productions and effects but also with a bar-band feel. RED SAILS in particular had an oom-pah band and didgeridoo and psychedelic surf guitar. It was out there.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moginie, Garrett, Rotsey, Hillman: Still in shape.</td></tr>
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Everybody caught on by the time the confident and tune-packed DIESEL & DUST came out in '87 and made them stars; Midnight Oil at that point to me had become an alternative U2: each had a charismatic, passionate singer and Big Rock guitar and were occasionally too much to take. I always preferred the Aussies, though I'd fall in and out of the mood for their stuff over the years. Often I forget their songs, and how many of them I know, until I hear them again, so it was a treat to be reminded of their terrific body of work in the live reunion tour that hit Webster Hall this week.</div>
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I was surprised how easily they got the crowd to bash right into it, cleverly opening with "Sometimes" which I remember as the <i>last </i>song on D&D. They are all in their 60s now and singer Peter Garrett looked the oldest of them, not quite the dervish he once was and to me occasionally looked to be sucking wind, not that he wasn't working hard. He eventually had the career in politics he almost had in the 80s that might have derailed the band: Their themes -- environment, race, nukes, globalism -- are remarkably prescient and vital today. Peter didn't shy away from pointing out the sad reality that the CEO of Exxon -- whose former 6th Ave. headquarters was the reluctant site of the Oils' most famous appearance in New York -- is today the Secretary of State. We need bands like this.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeuuQnJjPe67MXl8qf60-j-UcKo4cVda23O3d1lNbiarssKPQ1393pDBTTSokquPFIkizadawBtFNasZIkkkDVm9hi_R9OvP-WZH10ybV5qiSZ0euBaFGasjgkHUWDOCqtLGIMbGNQNQw/s1600/20170513_215957.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeuuQnJjPe67MXl8qf60-j-UcKo4cVda23O3d1lNbiarssKPQ1393pDBTTSokquPFIkizadawBtFNasZIkkkDVm9hi_R9OvP-WZH10ybV5qiSZ0euBaFGasjgkHUWDOCqtLGIMbGNQNQw/s200/20170513_215957.jpg" width="200" /></a>They more or less broke up a decade or more ago. It wasn't that they'd run down musically, but I think, the very idea of the protest song had become a quaint notion. I've pointed this out before. I'm happy to report nobody got fat, and the classic quintet are all still there (bassist Bones Hillman is the newest member but joined in 1987). Drummer Rob Hirst, who's also a great singer, is about as ripped as any 60-year-old guy I've ever seen. They brought him out front with a tiny kit to sing "Generals" and "My Country." They employed a multi-instrumentalist to fill-in on drums, brass and keys so they didn't cheat their productions, I appreciated that very much.<br />
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They played for about 2 hours including several "new" songs I didn't know well -- new meaning, post BLUE SKY. The highlight for me was "Warakurna" which I also think of as the blood-and-guts of D&D but I don't think was ever a hit, or I ever heard on the radio. Jangle, thump and a big sing-along: I seriously got emotional when they played it. They tried a cover of "Instant Karma" on the 1st encore but Peter forgot the second-verse lyrics.</div>
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My friend Kenny remarked the other day Midnight Oil might be the most underrated band of all-time and ought to be easy rock Hall of Famers, and it's hard to hard to argue either point. Here's hoping the tour, which accompanies a re-release of their catalog, reminds us. Who can remember? We've got to remember!<br />
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<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-version="7" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding:8px;"> <div style=" background:#F8F8F8; line-height:0; margin-top:40px; padding:50.0% 0; text-align:center; width:100%;"> <div style=" background:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAApWqozAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAAAFzUkdCAK7OHOkAAAAMUExURczMzPf399fX1+bm5mzY9AMAAADiSURBVDjLvZXbEsMgCES5/P8/t9FuRVCRmU73JWlzosgSIIZURCjo/ad+EQJJB4Hv8BFt+IDpQoCx1wjOSBFhh2XssxEIYn3ulI/6MNReE07UIWJEv8UEOWDS88LY97kqyTliJKKtuYBbruAyVh5wOHiXmpi5we58Ek028czwyuQdLKPG1Bkb4NnM+VeAnfHqn1k4+GPT6uGQcvu2h2OVuIf/gWUFyy8OWEpdyZSa3aVCqpVoVvzZZ2VTnn2wU8qzVjDDetO90GSy9mVLqtgYSy231MxrY6I2gGqjrTY0L8fxCxfCBbhWrsYYAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;"></div></div> <p style=" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BUDtWnFgQ6C/" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Who's gonna save me</a></p> <p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by Jon Springer (@jon.springer) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2017-05-14T03:38:09+00:00">May 13, 2017 at 8:38pm PDT</time></p></div></blockquote>
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Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-15368731645027002082017-02-20T12:47:00.000-08:002017-04-05T06:12:28.112-07:00Oh LordHow much Phil Collins is too much Phil Collins?<br />
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It's written in the book -- a new autobiography detailing his ascension from prog-rock drummer to mawkish 80s celebrity to a seemingly bitter industry dropout.<br />
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As NOT DEAD YET reveals, Phil Collins' enthusiasm for just about everything and everyone he encounters is endearing and genuine but leads him obliviously into one project after another his public image could have better survived without. In just about every case -- launching a Big Band with Tony Bennett, blurring and then erasing the distinctions between himself and his band, Disney soundtracks, a Broadway show, MIAMI VICE appearances, Royal Family charity hobnobbing, guesting on whatever, producing whomever-- his decisions invariably come down to asking himself "how could I say no to that?" That could be the title of the book, in fact.<br />
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Phil's not exactly apologizing for having overexposed himself -- to us at least. The years of sold-out stadiums and bazillion selling records in his wake would suggest he did us all a favor. Phil instead saves the regrets for his family -- three wives and a half-dozen neglected kids -- and for own health, ravaged by too many loud shows, too many steroid shots to save his voice and finally, to alcoholism that replaced his workoholism.<br />
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Phil Collins grew up in Hounslow, West London, and was a performer from the start. A toy drum he receives at Christmas when he's three years old "is the gift that keeps on giving," he writes. At 13, landed the role of the Artful Dodger in a West End production of OLIVER!, enrolled in a performing arts school, and was cast as an extra in A HARD DAYS NIGHT, but regretfully recounts how his appearance was left on the cutting room floor.<br />
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As a teenager in mid-sixties London, Collins absorbs the musical revolution around him. He gets a job sweeping up the Marquee club in Soho, where as a side benefit he's a witness to early performances by the Who, Yes, and the Yardbirds including the debut appearances of both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. His own musical apprenticeships include a variety of resort cover bands, R&B combos, original acts, unsuccessful auditions for Robert Palmer and Manfred Mann and finally, a doomed recording session at Abbey Road for George Harrison's ALL THINGS MUST PASS to which Collins devotes a funny chapter of youthful self-laceration.<br />
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In the summer of 1970, Collins responds to a classified ad and finds himself at the country estate of the Gabriel family, whose son Peter fronts a band of "immaculately bred" wealthy boarding-school mates called Genesis. He's the fifth drummer in the short history of the band, which already has two albums to its credit, and his outgoing personality -- and ability to sing background -- proves a valuable fit for the otherwise buttoned-up, ambitious and cerebral quintet.<br />
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Genesis make a series of well-regarded prog albums and Gabriel's surreal performance art becomes a focus of their live show but the leader departs for a solo career in 1975. Collins makes it clear he was not anxious to replace Peter himself, saying he'd prefer to perform as an instrumental quartet than sing -- but after hundreds of inquiries and more than 30 auditions, rehearsals with Collins as the interim lead vocalist, and the strength of the material making up the embryonic A TRICK OF THE TAIL record are convincing. Collins will disappoint those who were hoping to see mud slung between the past and future Genesis vocalists; he professes they share a mutual professional and personal admiration from the beginning. Phil likes Peter; he seems to like people in general.<br />
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The departure of Gabriel affects the Genesis sound in other ways, freeing up Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks to pursue pop songwriting only hinted at in Genesis recordings until then. "They've always wanted to write like the Kinks and The Beatles," Collins insists. This becomes evident when "Follow You Follow Me" off ...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE... becomes an international hit in 1978 and starting with DUKE in 1980, the trio-era Genesis peppers the pop-rock charts for years to come.<br />
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Collins owes his big-bang as a solo artist indirectly to his first wife Andrea, a one-time high school sweetheart and mother of his oldest son and adopted daughter. While Phil was out touring with Genesis, "Andy" took up with a decorator at their home, and Phil poured the ensuing heartbreak into home-studio experiments that became the basis of the FACE VALUE LP, including the explosive "In the Air Tonight." That song's enormous drum sound was arrived at so as to preserve the intimacy of the home-studio recordings through producer High Padgham's "gated reverb" technique, ironically first used on a Gabriel solo recording with Collins drumming a year before.<br />
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Phil summons an eclectic set of his musical heroes to back him on FACE VALUE revealing his enthusiasm for American soul music that seeps increasingly into additional solo records -- the smaltzy HELLO I MUST BE GOING (1982) and the dance-focused NO JACKET REQUIRED (1985). Padgham is meanwhile on board as a producer for future Genesis records and they too include blasts of brass, artificial beats and pop/dance arrangements first showcased on the funky FACE VALUE. "We wanted Phil to do well," Tony Banks remarks, as a means of a backhanded compliment. "Just not that well."<br />
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The recordings make Collins and Genesis stadium-filling superstars and accelerate Phil's transformation into a kind of Elton John of the 1980s. Suddenly, he's everywhere, getting back into acting, indulging a big-band project in which he manages to have artistic differences with Tony Bennett, and Disney's TARZAN movie and stage show. He plays Live Aid in London and in Philly, managing to piss off Led Zeppelin along the way. He quits Genesis, and scuttles a second marriage by trysting with another former high-school sweetheart, then takes up with a half-his-age third wife. This draws an enduring backlash that blunted any and all appreciation for his considerable versatility, innovation or work ethic. "I will hold my hands up and admit that, with all the success, it's quite possible that I've been giving off an unintentional smugness," Phil writes of the initial critical backlash. And when a note faxed to his second wife regarding their marital troubles gets into the hands of the press, they have a field day. How 80s.<br />
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Decidedly no longer in style or in much demand, Collins vanishes to Switzerland -- home of his on-again, off-again third wife -- only to reveal in surprising final chapters that he'd filled the creative void by becoming a falling-down drunk and embarrassment to himself and his family, and that injuries endured over a lifetime of performing left him partially deaf, walking with a cane and unable to operate a drumstick.<br />
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I was out running in the neighborhood a few years back when I came across these hipster yuks engaged in a ironic "tribute" to Collins that illustrated how dated and uncool he'd become in the eyes of young people. The embodiment of earnest Dad Rock from 30 years back seemingly had no place in modern popular culture except as a joke.<br />
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But there's always time for re-examination -- not surprisingly, the book accompanies a re-release of his solo albums and cites their importance by mentioning their embrace by contemporary hip-hop and R&B artists like Kanye West, Bone Thugs n' Harmony and Lil' Kim. Phil himself is forthright with criticisms of his work, but as the book ends, he's unwilling to necessarily pack it in for good. How could he say no?<br />
<br />Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-88086957860505746012017-02-11T19:33:00.000-08:002017-02-11T20:51:57.898-08:00I'll Get Back Up SomehowHow does a talent as mediocre as Sammy Hagar become a phenomenon as big as Sammy Hagar?<br />
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It's all in a book I can't believe I just read, not to mentioned enjoyed a little bit -- albeit with the same guilty pleasure I get from some of his songs.<br />
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What I learned was the Red Rocker is possessed not only of extraordinary self-determination and confidence but a related inability to be discouraged or embarrassed when things go wrong. He's a happy-go-lucky and at times ridiculous star whose self-styled success is never really about hitting the right note, writing the perfect song or cutting a great album, but rather being at the right place at the right time, knowing the right guy, and making the right bets.<br />
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That he's become a resort restaurant magnate, millionaire and walking lifestyle brand for aging rockers all over provides an ironic contrast to his one-time bandmates in Van Halen who had a million things going for them musically but are basically incapable of sustaining successful lives. Not that Sammy's bio is deep enough to point that out.<br />
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Sammy Hagar was born to a poor family in blue-collar Fontana, Calif., in 1947. His father Bobby was an abusive alcoholic and one-time prizefighter whom Sammy says once set the all-time record for being knocked down in a single fight -- 20. This and his mother's lesson in fighting off poverty forges young Sammy's determination. "Rock-and-roll and pussy," as he puts it, provides career aspiration.<br />
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At different times in the book Sammy confesses to wanting to be like Eric Clapton, David Bowie, Mick Ronson, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck but one way or another always found himself alongside serious guitarists, starting with Ronnie Montrose, whose eponymous band and influential first record Sammy provided vocals for (then a young veteran of regional bar bands, Sammy opines he got the Montrose gig because the leader was an egomaniac frightened that a star would upstage him).<br />
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Financial problems and acrimony between Sammy and Ronnie ends Hagar's Montrose run after two LPs, but the nation-rocking debut would only gain stature in the years to come (inspiring the Van Halen brothers, to name two). I predict the first relief pitcher who uses "Space Station No. 5" as warmup music will record 59 saves.<br />
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Though Hagar is fired by Montrose, some leftover songs find their way to influential manager John Carter and soon enough Hagar is on an album-a-year solo career and supporting his young family as a touring rocker, building regional followings in places like St. Louis, Dallas and the Northwest (he never really penetrated New York that I could determine beyond newsstand appearances in Circus and Creem). These albums from NINE ON A TEN SCALE (1976) through VOA (1984) mix melodic rock, some metal edges, cover songs and plenty of filler. None are huge hits, but each give fans at least a little of what they like. He's fortunate to be in the thick of it when MTV debuts and his distinct if inelegant visual style (red clothes, red guitars, frizzy blonde afro) was video-friendly from the get-go.<br />
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Why red? Well, as Sammy's not afraid to tell you he's got a special thing for red. Along with the number 9. He believes a psychic foretold his entire career. He thinks UFOs are out there and that aliens walk among us. This strain of prideful ignorance -- in combination with what my friend Edward describes as the rich-guy libertarianism behind the dumb protest anthem "I Can't Drive 55" -- gives off a Trumpian whiff that turns me off but helps to explain that "Red" state appeal.<br />
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Succeeding the legendary David Lee Roth at the front of Van Halen wasn't a job for the feint of heart but Hagar takes it in stride, knocking out the band's best-selling if not most loved album right off the bat in 5150. At the same time he's under no illusions that he can save the band from the brothers' unstoppable drinking habits (Testimony to Hagar's own use is more than a little inconsistent, though he comes off primarily as a recreational user). Some of the most compelling passages in the book describe Alex Van Halen's drinking excesses and Eddie Van Halen's sorry state of physical and mental health that spoiled a 2003 reunion tour.<br />
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Roth by the way comes off as a jerk too, refusing to share the spotlight in an ill-fated co-headlining tour while both singers were on the outs with the brothers. Hagar in the meantime grows closest to sacked bassist Michael Anthony, who provides an eff-you to the Van Halens in the guise of a foreword.<br />
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Beyond proudly blowing hundreds of thousands on sports cars, Hagar's entrepreneurial nose has him investing in Fontana house-flipping, the mountain-bike business, a travel agency, airport restaurants, bookwriting (this bestseller from 2011 and an even newer cookbook) and a resort property in Mexico. The latter took some time to succeed, with Hagar buying out early co-investors Edward and Alex Van Halen, only to find them interpreting the whole thing as an elaborate scam once it blew up. "Cabo Wabo" made Hagar a millionaire many times over (his share in a tequila associated with the resort sold for $80 million) and turned Hagar into the Jimmy Buffet of headbangers.<br />
<br />Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-919525175963406132016-12-16T15:46:00.000-08:002016-12-17T08:54:11.204-08:00A Bell In Your Head Will RingAs I was saying, Todd Rundgren's a weird guy. An ambitious and prolific musical explorer whose 50-year output includes gorgeous Philly soul ballads, blistering guitar rock, dense psychedelia and prog, sugar-coated power pop, novelty songs, electronica, new-agey stuff, solo records where he played everything, bands where he was strictly a guitarist, you name it. Some of his work has been incredibly accessible, some barely listenable, some a little of both.<br />
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His parallel life as a producer and engineer for other artists is explored in Paul Myers' A WIZARD, A TRUE STAR, which argues for Rundgren's import in the golden age of rock studio recording, and details the steps Rundgren himself took to make such a job obsolete today. It is well-researched behind primary interviews with Rundgren himself and with many of the musicians whose albums he produced in the 1970s and 80s, with chapters devoted to albums produced for The Band, Sparks, The Psychedelic Furs, Patti Smith, Meat Loaf, XTC, Cheap Trick and others.<br />
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Though Myers' telling of the story is largely admiring of Rundgren's talents, the man isn't necessarily the hero of all of his stories. Musicians who have worked with Rundgren call him prickly, impatient and irritating, and at times describe frustration and tense disagreements in the studio. And like Rundgren's own musical career, their projects are a jumble of well-intentioned flops, surprise successes and shoulda-been hits.<br />
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As the book primarily focuses on the recordings Rundgren made, we get a brief introduction: Rundgren was born in 1948 in Upper Darby, Pa., was a disaffected teen with interest in technology, popular music and self-made recordings, and left home at 17 with a used guitar on his back. He joined and quit a blues-based jam band, Woody's Truck Stop, and brushed with success as a guitarist and songwriter with the Nazz, whose British Invasion influenced style was more up his alley.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Songs by Jim Steinman; Motorcycle effects by TR</td></tr>
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Nazz made its first album in 1968 under a label-assigned old-school producer who had little interest in the project itself: While he was away, Myers writes, Rundgren would toy with the recording equipment, quickly developing a musical understanding of studio engineering. His curiosity -- and subsequent influence on the Nazz sound -- didn't sit well with bandmates and Rundgren departed the group to seek a behind-the-scenes job even before a second Nazz album could be released.<br />
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Rundgren found work as a house engineer and producer with legendary folk-rock producer Albert Grossman, and built a reputation as a "boy wonder" with a photojournalistic ability to pursue and then capture a sound even in difficult conditions: The Band, for example, was in disarray (drug use and internal disagreements) and didn't particularly like its young engineer's impatience and sarcasm (at one point, Levon Helm chased him from the studio with a drumstick) but Rundgren was able to guide its STAGE FRIGHT album to the finish line.<br />
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As noted, his projects were a mixed bag. Future hit-machine Hall & Oates' WAR BABIES was so free of anything resembling a hit it got them dropped from their first record label. Cheap Trick's NEXT POSITION PLEASE might be an overlooked gem, but it was overlooked for sure. On the flip side Rundgren developed a reputation for midcareer turnarounds for his work with Grand Funk (WE'RE AN AMERICAN BAND) and XTC (SKYLARKING), getting each of those bands unlikely U.S. hits.<br />
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He also took on unusual projects -- debuts for weirdos Sparks, the New York Dolls and an artist everybody passed on, Meat Loaf. Rundgren recognized BAT OUT OF HELL's theatrical grandeur, Myers writes, and brought it gloriously to life.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Night time is the right time</td></tr>
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Myers shares tidbits from each of these sessions and reveals a few secrets along the way. Rundgren found the drum sound he was seeking when he placed his wallet on a snare drum during Sparks' debut recording. He encouraged Grand Funk to let drummer Don Brewer sing a powerful lead on "American Band." He strapped on a guitar and fiddled with amplifier knobs until he arrived at the "motorcycle revving" bit in "Bat Out of Hell." He papered over the vocal booth walls of Utopia Sound so that Psychedelic Furs singer Richard Butler could imagine it was night while recording within Rudgren's preferred daytime hours. He stood up to XTC's dictatorial Andy Partridge, choosing to record more of bandmate Collin Moulding's tunes for SKYLARKING than was typical.<br />
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If there was a signature Rundgren sound they can be heard on his 70s and 80s solo records and those of Utopia (multitracked harmony singing — Rundgren confesses Chorus was the only class he paid attention to in school; a taste for Philly soul and Beatlesque pop) — but also, a willingness to experiment with technology as demonstrated by pioneering video (he ran a spectacularly unprofitable TV studio); an "interactive" solo album the listener could choose to assemble at home under the TR-i name; and a charge into digital recordings that was ahead of contemporaries and hastened the demise of his own production career.<br />
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Testimony to Rundgren's talents at times is as grudging as his exclusion from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is baffling -- but Myers captures a good summary in the introduction from guitarist Lenny Kaye: "Todd's aphorism was 'If you know what you want, I'll get it for you. If you don't know what you want, I'll do it for you.'"<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8wPsZa_N7jY" width="560"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-78490869223543617162016-12-01T19:33:00.003-08:002016-12-02T05:30:28.718-08:00Forgotten But Not GoneWhat you have here just might be the greatest New Wave album of all time, and one of the most unusual to boot.<br />
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It came and went in a flash in 1982, and despite a minor MTV video hit, is easily overlooked among the varied projects and complicated narrative of Todd Rundgren, including the entire Utopia thing. It was released on a label doomed to a quick death and featured a helping of 15 would-be power-pop classics spread over 3 vinyl sides - A, B, C and a blank side D. Weird.<br />
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The Utopia of this early 1980s era was a far cry from the early assemblages under the same name in the 1970s, with only Rundgren participating across its lifetime. Utopia initially was Rundgren's touring band accompanying the leader's "psychedelic" era, and its first album -- then under the "Todd Rundgren's Utopia" moniker -- saw them performing dense, progressive songs including a single 30-minute song ("The Ikon") that ate up an entire album side.<br />
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Rundgren, described by some as a "genre tourist," never stayed in one place for long. He and Utopia gradually morphed from a prog outfit into a tight, pop-leaning quartet (Rundgren, McCartneyesque singing bassist Kasim Sulton, drummer John "Willie" Wilcox and keyboardist Roger Powell) with a goofy sense of humor where each of its members contributed songs and vocals. Powell dated to the psych era; Wilcox was Hall & Oates' drummer who joined following Rundgren's production of their WAR BABIES album; and Sulton was an up-and-coming player with Cherry Vanilla.<br />
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ADVENTURES IN UTOPIA (1980) bridged Utopia's evolving sound profiles with an album generating a few arena-like FM radio hits like "Caravan," the title track and Sulton's "Set Me Free" but that vibe didn't last either when they followed up with DEFACE THE MUSIC, a poker-faced pastiche of the Beatles where each and every song was a recognizable take-off of pre-1966 Fab Four classics.<br />
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By then quite busy serving as Rundgren's go-to backing band on a variety of his big and not-so-big production work (Meat Loaf's BAT OUT OF HELL for one, teen idol Shaun Cassidy's bizarre reinvention attempt WASP for another), Utopia drew well on the road but didn't sell many records, in part because the prolific Rundgren released slightly-more successful solo albums for each Utopia effort.<br />
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Bearsville Records was reluctant to pull the trigger on Utopia's next album, SWING TO THE RIGHT, a collection of off-kilter political pop-rock inspired by the dawning of the Reagan era. Utopia fled to upstart Network Records to establish itself again with the self-titled album reviewed here just as Bearsville relented and released SWING, resulting in a two-and-a-half new Utopia albums hitting shelves within months of one another, crowding a market that already had little appetite.<br />
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But if you could forget all that and just consider the album, UTOPIA was a stupefyingly taut, magnificently manufactured effort in which Utopia offered 15 variations on the three-minute, keyboard-and-guitar pop song, divided the songwriting and lead vocals in four easy pieces, harmonized beautifully and wrote particularly snappy lyrics making nearly every song a gigantic, awful pun. It wasn't exactly great art, but it was everything New Wave aspired to be.<br />
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Opener "Libertine," sung by Sulton, is one of the best rockers on the record, and should have been a hit. Others in that vein include "Princess of the Universe" sung by Wilcox, and Powell's ridiculous "Burn Three Times" which tells a lust story via awful kitchen metaphors: "I'm no Burger King/I'm no pizza pie spinner/It's a gourmet thing/not a TV dinner."<br />
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Rundgren's "Hammer in My Heart" -- an irresistible older cousin of his forthcoming solo smash "Bang the Drum All Day" -- was a minor dance floor hit based on the exact rhythm Utopia had laid down for Cassidy's bomb of a "Rebel Rebel" cover off WASP:<br />
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Wilcox's beat also anchors the psychedelic rave-up "Infrared and Ultraviolet" in which Rundgren and Sulton harmonize over the swirling noise of Powell's keyboards. "Chapter and Verse" "Bad Little Actress" "There Goes My Inspiration" "Neck on Up" and "Say Yeah" are jammed with power hooks and stuffed with silly metaphors. There's also a requisite Rundgrenesque ballad -- "I'm Looking at You But I'm Talking to Myself" -- and the country-ish "Forgotten but not Gone."<br />
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For pure goofiness it's difficult to beat the Powell-sung "Feet Don't Fail Me Now" and accompanying "state of the art" comedy video that early survivors of MTV should remember fondly.<br />
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Network Records folded only months following the release of UTOPIA and the band was largely forgotten when Rundrgren's EVER-POPULAR TORTURED ARTIST EFFECT solo album of 1983 produced "Bang the Drum All Day." Utopia hung around for a few more platters: OBLIVION (1984) and POV (1985) but they didn't have quite the spark.<br />
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Here's the entire glorious three-sided, four-singered thing:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/slOc8W6HsLg" width="560"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-12781275612568714322016-10-22T15:42:00.000-07:002016-11-03T05:43:30.041-07:00Squeeze My LemonI was never going to be the biggest Led Zeppelin fan on my block, not with the Korf boys around, and between those guys, and New York rock radio in the 1970s, I never felt the need to get any more into them that what could be absorbed simply by arriving at the bus stop every morning before school, or tuning into <a href="http://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2013/01/up-all-night.html" target="_blank">Carol Miller</a> at night. That was always more than enough.<br />
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And so it went for some 40 years till coming across a used book shop and this irresistible compact paperback with a NEW chapter on the Live Aid reunion!<br />
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I'd actually read Davis' more recent follow-up, LZ '75, as well as Michael Walker's <a href="http://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2014/02/hello-hooray.html" target="_blank">reflection on their 1973 U.S. tour</a>, a few years back but by dropping in in the middle of "the Led Zeppelin Saga" those books only illuminated brief moments following the establishment of their superstardom, and said little of what drove them, how they came to be, or whatever became of them. This book is that, and it's not all that pretty.<br />
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The strenuousness with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_of_the_Gods_(book)" target="_blank">which surviving Zeppelinites dismiss</a> HAMMER OF THE GODS as sensational and exaggerated suggests to me Davis cuts closer to the bone than the band ever wished to be examined. It's undeniable that Zeppelin's rise to the top accompanied a hostility toward the press which was repaid in kind with harsh reviews of their art, and why Zeppelin took their sound directly to their audiences whose fervor broke down barriers of radio. It's also why skeptics like me figured a little Zeppelin was enough.<br />
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As you probably know, Zeppelin arose from the ashes of the Yardbirds, the U.K. guitar-rock pioneers whose alumni included Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. A friend of Beck's named Jimmy Page was a young London studio wizard with hundreds of session credits recruited near the end of the Yardbirds run -- shortly before the band would disintegrate under personnel issues and years of dubious record-company interference that attempted to present them as a crossover pop act. Nevertheless, they still had a booked Scandivavian tour to complete in the fall of 1968.<br />
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With the help of Peter Grant, the Yardbirds' street-smart thug of a manager, Page sought to assemble "the New Yardbirds" in the image of its latest splinter, the Jeff Beck Group. They would traffic in a blues-based heavy rock sound they were convinced America would love, and were determined to do so free of the artistic shackles that had tripped up the Yardbirds.<br />
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New bass player John Baldwin, aka John Paul Jones, like Page, was a versatile London session veteran and arranger. A search for a dynamic frontman led Page to Robert Plant, a free-spirited, 19-year-old wailing blues fanatic who according to Davis "looked like a fairy prince" and had fronted several bands around the Midlands blues scene. Plant recommended hard-hitting, up-and-coming drummer John Bonham, with whom he'd previously played in Band of Joy. Bonham had little interest initially, but after Page saw him in action, a spirited recruiting effort secured his services when he might otherwise have gone on to play with another U.K. blues comer, Joe Cocker.<br />
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This group set off to complete the Yardbirds' obligations in September of 1968 and returned confident they'd make their own. The chemistry was there: Jimmy liked Bonzo's big beats; Robert's wailing voice could echo Jimmy's wild solos. They renamed the band after a skeptical remark by the Who's John Entwistle, taking out the "a" in Lead so that Americans wouldn't mispronounce it.<br />
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Conceived from the start to conquer America, Zeppelin didn't let anything stand in its way, including ethics. While they can't be faulted for their taste, their list of <a href="http://www.deezer.com/playlist/1468275757" target="_blank">uncredited ripoffs</a>, most from the early years, is a long one. Grant and road manager Richard Cole in the meantime felt the old rules of the touring game shouldn't apply to them and as a result revolutionized arena and stadium performances. When promoters didn't give Zep what it wanted, no problem: Cole, Grant and the roadies literally beat it from them.<br />
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Davis' story, appearing heavily sourced from Cole, is loaded with such wild tales from the road: Page's taste for young -- real young -- girls, and Plant and Bonzo's eye-opening introduction to American groupies of the early 1970s may have appeared salacious in 1985 but look practically horrifying today. The road gave license for the boys to forget they had devoted families at home, and for the drinking and drugs that would eventually destroy them.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rock's version of the 1985 Mets</td></tr>
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Zep's take-no-prisoners approach at times obscured the fact they had a sense of humor, but it afforded them the freedom to pursue musical visions and peculiarities together. The precocious Page had an interest in black magic and firebombing guitar blitzes. Plant had a thing for mystic Celtic folk (a cousin to American blues), and his lyrics could be dumb, but his effort can't be denied. Jones, who virtually escapes scrutiny amid Davis' larger-than-life profiles of his bandmates, brought textural versatility to the arrangements. Bonzo anchored it all with fearsome thump, but was dangerously wild and unpredictable when drunk, which was most of the time. They dropped sinister bombs-away thunder and folky acoustic psychedelia inspired in equal measure by blues legends and Joni Mitchell. Plant and Page traveled the world, absorbing exotic sounds in places like Morocco that would turn up in the grooves of their later records.<br />
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These enormous appetites would also be their undoing, Davis writes. On a tour break on an island in Greece in 1975, Plant was involved in a bad automobile accident that nearly killed his wife Maureen (who was driving while drunk) and resulted in serious injuries to Plant, their daughter, and the daughter of Page, who was also in the car. After a long break while Plant recovered, Zeppelin's 1977 U.S. tour was interrupted when Plant's young son died suddenly of a rare respiratory virus. Bonham, Cole and Grant in the meantime were facing charges that they assaulted and hospitalized a security guard at a concert in Oakland.<br />
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"It was as if the disaster that struck Robert Plant's family sapped Led Zeppelin of its remarkable good fortune and the group's insatiable will for domination," Davis writes. What's more, he said, the superstitious Plant may have blamed Page's dabbling in the occult for the tragedies that visited him. Page by this time had developed a heroin addiction and was working erratically in the studio and on stage: He rushed through production of 1976's PRESENCE, considered one of Zeppelin's lesser efforts, and by the time 1979's IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR dropped, Jones was leading the band musically.<br />
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The final tragedy came as Led Zeppelin prepared for a U.S. tour in 1980. Bonham was drinking heavily at Page's home in London, passed out, and never awoke. He was only 31. Zeppelin, after eight studio albums over a dozen years, essentially died with him.<br />
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I remember that day -- I was home from school faking an illness when the news came over the radio, and intercepted my friends after the school bus dropped them off my street. The Korf boys wouldn't believe it.<br />
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Like Zeppelin itself, HAMMER OF THE GODS is audacious, controversial, often brilliant and inspiring, inasmuch as it got me to consider Led Zeppelin for the millionth time, but also the first.Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-77209994822483021272016-07-28T19:26:00.002-07:002016-12-02T05:30:49.611-08:00A New Sensation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Like Foreigner, INXS is one of those bands you'd never consider particularly remarkable until confronted with the sheer volume of songs of theirs you can't help but know by heart. But unless you really love them, and I don't, you may as well skip the autobiography.<br />
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Co-authored by the surviving five band members and American writer Anthony Bozza, INXS: STORY TO STORY at times reads like a 300-page article in Tiger Beat, impressed by just about everything about them (the songs, their looks, their fame, how much drugs they did, how many girls they slept with) while working hard to craft a narrative that they were musical revolutionaries of the 1980s, "intense, edgy and progressive in their compositions, poetic in their storytelling, and romantic in their outlook."<br />
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And then it gets to their good points...<br />
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There is a story there. The Farriss brothers (Tim, Andrew and Jon, oldest to youngest) were sons of an insurance executive who grew up in Perth, and later Sydney, where they encountered schoolmates and acquaintances that would complete the sextet -- jocky bassist Garry Beers, geeky sax/guitar player Kirk Pengilly and charismatic vocalist Michael Hutchence. They would remain a unit until Hutchence died in 1997, releasing 10 albums over that span but ultimately destined to be remembered as a "singles band" and phenomenon of the 1980s.<br />
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Performing first as the Farriss Bros., young INXS was a Pink Floyd influenced "groove band" whose character developed during punishing van trips back and forth across Australia (drummer Jon Farriss, then still in high school, accompanied his parents when they retired to Perth but the band found the scene there myopic and returned to Sydney, dropout Jon in tow).<br />
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In Sydney, they caught a break as an opening act and foil for fast-rising rockers Midnight Oil, whose manager gave them a new name (in-accessible? In excess?), and encouraged a flamboyant stage show before becoming a born-again Christian with designs on turning them into Jesus vehicle. Instead, INXS pivoted toward an abrasive young rival promoter, Chris Murphy, who’d grow into the into the band's “seventh member,” and ruthless and influential dealmaker.<br />
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Nearly all of the writing for INXS fell to Andrew Farriss and Hutchence, mirror images of one another. Farriss was introverted, chubby, a homebody and a Beatles fan and spent most of his stage time seated behind the keyboard; Hutchence the handsome sexed-up manchild with a taste for dance music and a magnetic presence. Their partnership crafted a modern sound suited for the "new wave" movement and distinct from their hard-rocking peers in Sydney's club scene. Their lyrics were rarely more than words to accompany Jon Farris and Beers' dance rhythms, augmented by three guitars and/or guitar/sax/keyboard, as the tracks from their self-tiled debut (1980) and 1981's Talking Heads-ish UNDERNEATH THE COLOURS demonstrate:</div>
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Producer Mark Opitz signed on for SHABOOH SHOOBAH in 1982, a record that squeezed out two home-run singles -- "Don't Change" and "The One Thing" -- the latter becoming the band's first U.S. hit and an early MTV staple. Bozza describes their first trips to the U.S. as a kind of boys-club crusade, stealing Adam Ant's girlfriends and tour-bus trysting with various Go-Gos. They liked to party.</div>
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INXS knew it was onto something when their burgeoning dance-pop caught the ear of New York producer Nile Rodgers, who called on Darryl Hall to sing backing vocals on "Original Sin," the lead single from 1984's THE SWING and the band's first worldwide hit. It was a similar pairing of Australian brother act and dance producer that <a href="http://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2014/01/my-date-with-bee-gees.html" target="_blank">launched the Bee Gees to the stratosphere</a> 10 years before. A string of similarly slinky funk-pop singles followed from 1985's LISTEN LIKE THIEVES (What You Need, Shine Like It Does); 1987's hit-jammed KICK (New Sensation, Devil Inside, Need You Tonight, Never Tear Us Apart, Mystify, four of them reaching the U.S. Top 10); and 1990's X (Suicide Blonde, Disappear) -- making them superstars.</div>
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Hutchence, raised by a celebrity make-up artist mother in Japan, Beverly Hills and Sydney, by then was a swaggering free spirit and embodiment of the 1980s front-man, with killer looks and a sensuous, confident, and often sad delivery. Offstage, he was a fool who could barely care for himself, maintain a healthy relationship, or turn down a drug. He never cleaned up after himself, or bothered to get a driver's license.</div>
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One late night in Copenhagen in 1992, Hutchence was knocked cold in a street fight with a cab driver. He hit his head on the pavement, triggering a brain injury that among other things, took away his sense of smell and left him thereafter prone to wild mood swings and violent outbursts, once pulling a knife on bandmate Beers.</div>
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Bozza speculates that his loss of smell -- a condition often accompanied by depression -- may have contributed for a thirst for stimulation that killed Hutchence, who was found dead in a hotel room believed to have been practicing autoerotic asphyxiation (he was ready for a new sensation. Too soon?). Hutchence was despondent at the time over his inability to win custody of the children of girlfriend Paula Yates. Their father, Yates' 18-year husband and British rock royalty Bob Geldolf, sensibly wouldn't allow it. The Hutchence-Yates relationship (they had a daughter together) was scandalous from the start and drew the paparazzi wherever they went.<br />
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The band by then was in a rapid popular decline. 1992's WELCOME TO WHEREVER YOU ARE saw them trying to keep pace with the alternative revolution in a manner not unlike U2 would at the same time. They live up to their name gloriously on "Baby Don't Cry" but the hits didn't follow, especially in the U.S.<br />
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Australian audiences in the meantime grew resentful of the band, particularly after they big-leagued a benefit festival in Sydney in 1992, demanding larger dressing rooms, a bigger budget and more elaborate equipment than the supporting acts, and then delivering an aloof performance (The star of that show was Crowded House, Chris Bourke wrote <a href="http://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-blind-date-with-destiny.html" target="_blank">in his book</a>: "Hutchence, dressed in white, struck messianic poses and finally deigned to speak to the crowd six songs in. 'Hello,' he said. 'You all turned up. Let's just play some fucking music.'")</div>
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Chastened, INXS deliberately dialed back the glitz on 1994's FULL MOON, DIRTY HEARTS, going so far as to break with a carefully crafted visual branding and feature a cover photograph of them wearing street clothes in the back of van, and booking small clubs on a tour, but the back-to-basics act only served to make them look further out of touch, and it was obvious Hutchence's heart and mind had departed. ELEGANTLY WASTED, recorded between Hutchence's solo recordings and burgeoning acting gigs, was released shortly before his death in 1997.<br />
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Perhaps as a means of cashing in on whatever future Hutchence's death robbed them of, INXS has continued as brand if not a band, in the years since, cranking out among other things a made-for-TV movie, the reboot experiment of the ROCK STAR reality television show and the authorized biography reviewed here. They'll always have the singles.</div>
Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-47340965514886146212016-07-23T08:55:00.001-07:002016-07-29T04:32:36.149-07:00The Old New DylansAt some point in my mind, Steve Forbert and Willie Nile ceased to be distinct identities and merged into a single performer I remembered only as "Steve Forbert."<br />
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It was the turn of the 1980s, and both guys had shot out of New York as singer-songwriters, swimming directly against the current of punk and new wave. Each were delivered the "New Dylan" kiss of death, probably in the same article I'd read about them. Further conflating them was the fact that each of them had a minor radio hit in the form of a bight, jaunty moonlight serenade: Forbert's "Romeo's Tune" from JACKRABBIT SLIM reached as high as No. 11 in February of 1980; Nile followed months later with the lead single of his self-titled debut, "Vagabond Moon."<br />
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Though not exactly dead ringers for one another, the thematic and aesthetic similarities were obvious and they became a single entity to me after both artists vanished from the popular landscape almost as abruptly as they arrived. Forbert had a bit more staying power -- he appeared as Cyndi Lauper's groom (Captain Lou Albano was the father-in-law) in the ridiculous "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" video -- and spit out four albums before conflicts with his record label prevented him from releasing anything for more than six years. Nile sputtered out after a second effort, GOLDEN DOWN, tanked in 1981.<br />
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They had significant differences too. Forbert, originally from Meridian, Mississippi, came from the folk tradition and would make the majority of his career as an acoustic solo troubadour with a string of big-label near-misses and modest indy successes, just about all of them gentle, funny-sad ("Good Planets are Hard to Find") and confessional. Nile at heart was a swaggering rocker from Buffalo, and his best work would be while fronting a band in the tradition of a AAA Springsteen.<br />
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Forbert came back to me first, re-emerging on Geffen with the terrific STREETS OF THIS TOWN in 1988, produced by Springsteen's bassist, Garry Tallent. The cover, pictured here, tells you all you need to know. Inspired, I went back and filled in the blanks -- his superb debut ALIVE ON ARRIVAL, the neglected followups to JACKRABBIT, and made it a point to catch him live on several occasions. You can spin nearly any of his 16 albums and have an exemplary folk-rock listen, with the ocassional hootenanny.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grandpa Rocks: Willie Nile at Brooklyn Bowl, July 2016</td></tr>
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It was 25 years before Nile reappeared to me. He'd chipped out only two albums since GOLDEN DOWN, but in 2006 released the astonishing STREETS OF NEW YORK, a crackling reflection on the thrills ("Asking Annie Out") and chills ("Cellphones Ringing in the Pockets of the Dead") of a post 9/11 city. It was only then I'd rediscovered "Vagabond Moon," and just as Nile was launching a late-career renaissance -- six albums in the last decade including the new WORLD WAR WILLIE, jammed with call-and-response rockers, power-pop gems and the occasional piano ballad.<br />
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Like Forbert, Nile's perceptive and sometimes funny, and most of his material concerns the forgotten and downtrodden. And both men in recent years released tributes to members of The Band: Forbert's crushingly direct "Wild as the Wind" remembers Rick Danko as a hard-drinking virtuoso:<br />
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Rick was backstage loaded<br />
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Nile's joyous "When Levon Sings" celebrates Levon Helm. Both included in the 10-song sampler below.<br />
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<br />Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-25052649489819533222016-02-05T11:01:00.000-08:002016-02-06T10:41:06.569-08:00I'll Come Flying Like A SparkI thought that maybe finishing the book and writing about it would cool this Crowdie jag I'm on but I have a few more observations to share, if only with myself.<br />
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* Neil's songs are just the sneakiest. At heart they're very simple but so many will take a subtle turn or unusual route and then blindside you hooks. I can't much explain how (and for all that went into that lengthy bio, that doesn't either) but it's definitely a skill of his, and something I now realize <a href="http://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-does-he-do-it.html" target="_blank">I'd pointed out before</a>.<br />
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Often, this musical sneak attack is a match for introspective lyrics examining the dark reaches of the male psyche, as in this slow-burning but explosive cut from TEMPLE OF LOW MEN.<br />
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* That's Split Enz' Eddie Rayner in the corner on keyboards by the way (he played with them and sometimes toured in the band's early days). Thanks in part to Mitchell Froom's big bag of tricks in the studio (he was George Martin to Finn's Lennon/McCartney act) and guest musicians like Rayner and Tim Finn, Crowded House were a trio that hardly ever sounded like one.<br />
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* Notice too that song embeds a very obvious callout to other songs with the lines: People Are Strange/God Only Knows. Neil also does this a lot, even getting two Beatles references in the first couplet of "Don't Dream It's Over": Within/Without and catching the rain "in a paper cup." Can't be a mistake!<br />
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* Other songs nick bits of his influences, and they're all great too: The jangly "Weather With You" is "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in disguise; peel back "Into Temptation" and find "A Day in the Life" while "Pineapple Head" is a more obvious "Norwegian Wood" tribute but with another sucker-punch hook.<br />
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* I probably came off too hard on "Chocolate Cake" below. I like it enough, and it doesn't offend me personally. But it was an odd choice for a single. Ultimately, the problem with seeking an "edge" for Crowded House was that their strengths were often so well hidden.Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-67072394157860475002016-01-30T12:23:00.002-08:002016-01-30T16:55:36.999-08:00A Blind Date With DestinyThey had a worldwide record contract before they'd ever played a gig, and a debut single that went top 10 on three continents.<br />
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Yet for a band designed to be a commercial endeavor from the start, Crowded House would find it difficult to sustain its early success, particularly in the U.S. There were any number of reasons for this, from fickle consumer tastes to an inconsistent lineup to record company politics and occasionally to the band's own indifference to it. But there was rarely any music to blame: Crowded House, Chris Bourke writes in the biography SOMETHING SO STRONG, was led by one of the world's most accomplished songwriters, if one of the least celebrated around here.<br />
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Crowded House arose from the ashes of the zany New Zealand art-pop outfit Split Enz, which mirrored its descendants by succeeding nearly everywhere but the U.S., where they're remembered popularly if not quite accurately as "one-hit wonders."<br />
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Tim Finn and his younger brother Neil were born to Irish Catholic immigrants in Te Awamutu, New Zealand. In the Irish tradition the family would sing together, and though six years Tim's junior, Neil would keep up with his brother's interest in music: they learned guitar and piano at the same time. Tim would found Split Ends (later amended to Enz, the 'NZ' referring to his home country) while a college student in Melbourne. Known in their early days for theatrical, avant-garde art-rock powered by virtuoso keyboardist Eddie Raynor, an 18-year-old Neil would replace guitarist and co-founder Phil Judd in 1977. In part because Neil was still mastering his instrument, the band pivoted to a simpler sound increasingly influenced by Neil's growing skill as a pop songwriter. Neil was partial to the classic British pop tradition (BEATLES FOR SALE was a favorite) and his contribution as singer and songwriter alongside Raynor's distinctive keyboard produced the band's biggest international hit "I Got You" off 1980's TRUE COLOURS album.<br />
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Two followups dominated by Tim's songs -- WAIATA (1981) and TIME AND TIDE (1982) -- included early MTV hits like "Six Months in a Leaky Boat," and encouraged the elder Finn to pursue a solo career. A Neil-led Enz released CONFLICTING EMOTIONS in 1983 (featuring his ballad "Message to My Girl") and finally SEE YA ROUND (1984), by which time Neil was ready to leave his brother's shadow and form his own group.<br />
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He took along Enz' most recent drummer, Aussie Paul Hester, with whom he'd developed a particularly good rapport. Their performance as a duo at a Melbourne party attracted young bassist Nick Seymour, who asked to join them.<br />
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Determined to avoid the common obstacle of Australasian music reaching international shores months after release in their home country, the trio purposefully sought worldwide label and distribution deals before they ever so much as toured, recorded or even had a name (they initially went by the Mullanes after Neil's middle name). In Los Angeles, they signed with Capitol, and recorded their debut album as Crowded House after the Hollywood apartment they shared while it came together.<br />
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Though dominated by Finn, who wrote and sang nearly all their songs and held the power to hire and fire (Hester referred to the band as "Two dorks and a dictator"), Crowded House were very much a sum-of-their-parts act, Bourke writes. Hester provided vocal harmonies and a wild sense of humor bringing life and character to the live act. The stylish Seymour was a talented artist and painter who crafted stage clothes, and influenced their image. He painted all of their album covers including the outstanding TEMPLE OF LOW MEN pictured here. Capitol appointed American keyboardist Mitchell Froom to produce: Froom would craft a refined, retro sound virtually free of the gaudy production of his mid-80s contemporaries. The "Whiter Shade of Pale" style organ solo highlighting "Don't Dream It's Over" was his, and Froom performed with the band as it set out to take on the world.<br />
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Capitol officials were reticent to debut the act behind a ballad, so initially promoted the rousing "Mean to Me" as the lead single off their first album. But there was no denying the appallingly gorgeous "Don't Dream It's Over" with its weary-but-hopeful message and gigantic chorus, heavenly organ and Neil's boom-chucka guitar known in New Zealand as the "Maori strum." Helped also by an award-winning video, the song reached No. 2 on the U.S. singles charts, No. 1 in in New Zealand and Canada, and as high as No.7 in Europe. Nearly 30 years later, it's proven one of the most enduring pop singles of all time.<br />
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The success of "Don't Dream" paved the way for follow-up chart singles in '87 like "Something So Strong" and "World Where You Live," giving the band plenty of momentum to plow into TEMPLE OF LOW MEN. Though nobody doubted TEMPLE was a fine record, an air of doubt surrounded it, with the band joking it should have been titled "Mediocre Followup" and Capitol kicking itself for being unable to convey ultimately borne-out fears that it lacked a comparable hit single. The Froom-produced disc is a somber affair carried by ballads "Into Temptation," "Better Be Home Soon" and "Mansion in the Slums" but lacks a punchy energy beyond the jazzy"Sister Madly."<br />
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Dismayed by the relatively weak reception for TEMPLE, Finn battled a case of writer's block (for which he blamed Seymour, who was temporarily sacked) and didn't regain his touch until a songwriting session with his brother Tim, whose solo career was also missing its mark. Contemplating their collaboration for a Finn Brothers project, but also under the gun to deliver a Crowded House disc that Capitol would accept, a compromise ensued whereby Tim Finn joined the band in exchange for using his co-collaborations for the 1991 WOODFACE album.<br />
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An airy, upbeat collection featuring brotherly harmonies, WOODFACE nevertheless proved problematic for Crowded House's identity. Now three-fourths ex-Split Enz members, it blurred an already cloudy picture. Who was the front man? Seymour and Hester weren't exactly on board with the change either. Capitol once again made a curious lead single choice, going with Tim's "Chocolate Cake" -- an uncharacteristically snotty song criticizing Americans for being fat televangelism worshippers. An American band like the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVXjBMK3EkI" target="_blank">The Hooters</a> might get away with that; but who were these guys? As Bourke tells it, "Cake" was a compromise, ultimately won out by those believing the band needed more traction amid a growing taste for "alternative"rock. But it was nobody's idea of the best song on the record, with a half-dozen others easily better, ranging from Hester's quirky "Italian Plastic" to folky ballads like "She Goes On," to the irresistable, Beatlesque "It's Only Natural." (Check out Shea Stadium in the video!)<br />
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They all whiffed here, although the album was a bigger hit in U.K. and in Australasia. Despite lifesaving contributions as a collaborator, Tim Finn was an odd fit with the band's character; abruptly dropped out during a tour and was replaced by American multi-instrumentalist Mark Hart, then touring with support act Sheryl Crow.<br />
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For all the understated elegance of Crowded House records, none to this point had captured the energy and spontaneity of its live shows, a point Bourke makes repeatedly in describing show after show (after show). With Neil relocated to New Zealand with his family, production for fourth album TOGETHER ALONE convened at exotic Karekare Beach with producer Martin Glover (aka "Youth") of the British band Killing Joke. Fueled by massive intake of pot and a haphazard approach that was the complete opposite of Froom's fussiness, TOGETHER took months to complete but stretched the band out musically, incorporating a psychedelic mix of Finn's Irish and Maori heritage complete with native drummers and a brass band. Now a fulltime member, Hart encouraged Finn to turn up the volume on a ballad morphing into the lively, tambourine-shaking power-popper "Locked Out" (from the 'Reality Bites' soundtrack) but the album's highlight is undoubtedly "Distant Sun" including all the elements of a Finn classic: it's a dreamy, melancholy love song with a verse just as strong as the chorus. McCartney couldn't do any better. It is glorious.<br />
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Buoyed by the emergence of the "Adult Alternative" radio format, "Distant Sun" peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard alternative charts and helped to melt an undeserved reputation as middle-of-the-road kind of band before the strain of touring wore the group out. Suffering a crippling depression, Hester packed up and flew home to Australia during a tour stop in Atlanta. The band carried on with a replacement, but Finn officially broke up the group afterward, and they completed their commitment to Capitol with a greatest-hits package. Considered national heroes in Australia they would reconvene with one-offs TIME ON EARTH in 2007 and INTRIGUER in 2010 amid various Finn solo albums and a second collaboration with Tim Finn.<br />
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Seymour joined the band Deadstar and continues to work from time to time with Finn. The bon vivant Hester took a role as "Paul the Cook" on the Aussie kids' TV show The Wiggles among other acting gigs, but he never beat depression. He took his dogs for a walk in Melbourne in 2005 and never came home. He was found hanging from a tree in a public park.<br />
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Bourke's anguish in telling that bit of the story is palpable, reflecting a book borne of unparalleled access (a New Zealand-based music journalist, he was there from the start) and his personal admiration for the band. At times it's a bit much for the casual fan to take in, but certainly worth a spin.<br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="300" scrolling="no" src="http://www.deezer.com/plugins/player?format=square&autoplay=false&playlist=false&width=300&height=300&color=007FEB&layout=&size=medium&type=album&id=1453908&app_id=1" width="300"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-86429501511868804952016-01-27T18:55:00.001-08:002016-01-27T19:12:53.555-08:00Here Comes TroubleAny Trouble were a quartet out of Manchester whose Stiff Records' 1980 debut, WHERE ARE ALL THE NICE GIRLS was jammed with lively, jangly, witty, irresistible new-wave pop AND a cool rockabilly cover of Springteen's "Growing Up." What more could you ask for?<br />
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The only track that casual listeners may remember was the reggae-influenced minor hit "Second Choice," promoted with a dull video in the early days of MTV that highlighted their shortcomings in visual appeal way more than it showcased their music. I'm sure the listening public got a load of these guys and figured they were a skinny-tie wearing Elvis Costello ripoff act with a shlubby balding singer who didn't even wear stylish eyeglasses.<br />
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Be that as it may, WHERE ARE ALL THE NICE GIRLS is just terrific. "Playing Bogart" one of the most unique and underlooked songs of the era (that song is actually a cover from an even less-known band known as 23 Jewels, I discovered). If there's a better young-guy-struggling-to-get-his-shit-together-before-you-go-out song I'd like to hear it.<br />
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A couple more albums with similar stuff and results, and Any Trouble were out of business by 1984. Singer and songwriter Clive Gregson went on to a successful career as a songwriter and performer in England but has reformed Any Trouble twice: Once for 2007's LIFE IN REVERSE, and just now for PRESENT TENSE.<br />
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A couple spins would suggest little has changed with the jangle-pop formula. Although at an hour and 10 minutes I haven't gotten to the end yet, and the lead single is a countrified tribute to Glen Campbell, it's pretty good.<br />
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="300" scrolling="no" src="http://www.deezer.com/plugins/player?format=square&autoplay=false&playlist=true&width=300&height=300&color=007FEB&layout=&size=medium&type=album&id=11600932&app_id=1" width="300"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-72819213620706015302015-12-22T17:35:00.001-08:002015-12-23T17:52:03.110-08:00Impossible to Verify: The 2015 Top 8About this time last year, struggling amid a what-to-play-next crisis, I impulsively embarked on a plan to solve that issue by <a href="http://www.xpn.org/music-artist/885-countdown/2005" target="_blank">streaming every album on WXPN's "Top 885" all-time countdown</a>, bottom to top. With the exception of a few handfuls of unavailable titles, and granting myself the option to play live albums, I tackled more than 400 of them this year, and I'm somewhere in the mid-300s now.<br />
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Given the scope of the project -- and the fact that the list itself was published in 2005 and so by definition pinned me back a full decade at least -- I didn't leave my ears a whole lot of time for new music discovery in 2015, and find myself even less familiar than usual with the contemporary year-end lists you see this time of year.<br />
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With a couple of exceptions I was tempted to listen to new stuff mainly in cases where I had at least some familiarity with the artist going in, and so as I review my favorites they're about as Dad Rock as ever. As I can't recommend 10, please enjoy selections from my top eight 2015 releases.<br />
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<b>Robert Foster SONGS TO PLAY</b><br />
The elderly singer of the 80s band the Go-Betweens comes off as an elegant Aussie Lou Reed jangle-rocker. Can't find an embeddable version of "Learn to Burn" but that's <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2015/08/04/429022726/song-premiere-robert-forster-learn-to-burn" target="_blank">worth a listen</a> too.<br />
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<b>Frank Turner: POSITIVE SONGS FOR NEGATIVE PEOPLE</b><br />
There's no denying Frank Turner knows how to write a rousing song, and this collection of 'em is an improvement on his last one but its getting to the point that I don't get what he's so stirred up about anymore. The weather? It's about half the record.<br />
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I detect Frank's "core" punk fanbase is dismayed at his increasingly listenable output -- writing lyrics to a song called "Get Better" all over his old album covers I think sends a message too -- but I'm looking forward to the day he's ready to <i>truly </i>abandon his roots, fuse that fist-pumping energy with some soul; swap out the barrelhouse pianny for a hammond organ, mandolins for horns, etc. etc. Still, this one fires you up!<br />
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<b>The Front Bottoms: BACK ON TOP</b><br />
Low-fi, funny-sad garage band with an incredibly expressive singer who manages to strain against the hopelessness at the heart of one catchy tune after another.<br />
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<b>Franz Ferdinand Sparks: FFS</b><br />
Churning out underappreciated, theatrical weirdness for 40 years, Sparks gets a jolt of new energy from younger collaborator Franz Ferdinand, themselves a bit of a quirky outfit I also like. A "pick any song" kinda record.<br />
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<b>Joe Jackson: FAST FORWARD</b><br />
Joe's first "new" record in seven years is actually a double-album recorded with four different bands in four different cities. So it's literally all over the place, but as well executed, well arranged, and well played as ever, and several are lyrically interesting particularly on the ruminative title track. I particularly the New York and New Orleans sides, the latter producing the Beethoven-inspired selection below. I'm ready to start a campaign to get Joe into the rock Hall of Fame.<br />
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<b>Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds: CHASING YESTERDAY</b><br />
I admire the way the classic-rock ripoffs on this album are so plainly in sight. The very first song begins "There's something in the way she moves," while the one below borrows the melody and a lyric from David Essex's "Rock On." Other song titles include "In the Heat of the Moment" and "When the Song Remains the Same." About half of this album is great, and the other half isn't, but that was enough for me this year.<br />
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<b>J.D. McPherson: LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL</b><br />
This is the only guy on this list who was completely new to me this year, and I don't remember how I first encountered him, but this is fun stuff, 50s roots rock and a great singer with a dirty -- but not filthy -- edge.<br />
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<b>Josh Ritter: SERMON ON THE ROCKS</b><br />
Reflective, wordy, literate and sometimes funny, Josh Ritter captures both the golden light and chilling shadows of Autumn. There's some fire-and-brimstone -- opener "Birds of the Meadow" is creepy and "Henrietta, Indiana" is bleak -- but the same themes of religion and small-town folk are tackled joyously on "Getting Ready to Get Down," and "Cumberland" later on in the record, and all of it is interesting, listenable and evocative.<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lhJ4CRJO-Os" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Here's a little more:
<iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" src="http://www.deezer.com/plugins/player?format=classic&autoplay=false&playlist=true&width=500&height=350&color=007FEB&layout=&size=medium&type=playlist&id=1477253327&title=&app_id=1" width="500" height="350"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-83295686696055858552015-12-03T17:25:00.000-08:002015-12-03T17:48:29.567-08:00You Really Got Me NowIf the Beatles' crucible were the rough-and-tumble clubs of Hamburg, Germany, Van Halen's were poolside backyards in sunny Pasadena. Greg Renoff's new book VAN HALEN RISING puts the reader in the crowds of teens paying $1 admission for illicit outdoor keg parties where an ascending Van Halen provided the entertainment, and forged its spirit.<br />
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An immersive, well-researched tale of pre-fame trajectory, VAN HALEN RISING also makes a convincing case for how revolutionary they were upon arrival — a conceit that's easy to overlook beyond the considerable chops of Eddie.<br />
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The Van Halen family arrived in California as Dutch immigrants in 1962 with little more than a piano to their name. Father Jan worked as a jazz clarinetist in Europe and followed relatives and a vague promise of opportunity to California, settling in working-class digs in suburban Pasadena.<br />
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His two sons, who didn't even speak English when they arrived, dutifully took piano and violin lessons until their restlessness for experimentation became too great and they morphed into aspiring rockers. Drummer Alex and guitarist Edward fronted a variety of cover bands playing under names like the Broken Combs, Trojan Rubber Company, Genesis, and Mammoth. The latter two names would be retired upon learning that other bands went by the same handles: The eponymous surname they eventually settled upon, Renoff reveals, came not from them but from an influential new frontman.<br />
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The Van Halens and David Lee Roth first came across one another as musical rivals, and they could not have been any more different. The son of a wealthy ophthamologist, Roth pursued stardom as obsessively as Eddie pursued guitar. Drawn to what he recognized were the area's best musicians, Roth auditioned to sing for them only to be rejected — twice. Undeterred, Roth eventually wormed his way into Mammoth against the better judgement of its existing members, in part by relieving Eddie of unwanted lead vocal duties, but mainly by possessing a PA system they needed to gig. Using the PA as leverage, Roth would at times loan the equipment in exchange for a chance to sing and others just as an excuse to hang around. When they could no longer stand to be in Roth's debt, they surrendered and made him the singer. Renoff calls this "the greatest rock and roll power play of all time."<br />
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Then a cover band noted for their ability to deliver note-for-note renditions of heavy rock classics, Mammoth were an odd fit for Roth, whose influences included cheeseball crooners like Louis Prima and whose tastes leaned toward Motown, glam and funk. Beyond that, he wasn't anyone's idea of a good singer. But his influence was a crucial ingredient in the Van Halen formula, Renoff notes. He got the band to lighten up on plodding, blues-rock jams and aim instead toward tight, melodic rock you could dance to. He convinced them to cover songs like Billy Preston's "Will it Go Round in Circles." He also injected the band with a sense of style, encouraging his bandmates to adopt flashy stage clothes instead of the jeans and flannel shirts they typically wore.<br />
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This new approach also required the band improve their singing, leading to the addition of bassist Michael Anthony. Anthony, whose soaring background vocals would become another distinct element of the Van Halen sound, proved to be "the final piece of the puzzle," Renoff writes.<br />
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As Van Halen graduated from backyard jams to club dates it had several brushes with success — most notably a doomed come-on from KISS' Gene Simmons who not surprisingly had per$onal goals in mind. But in a time when metal was dying, disco was soaring, punk was coming, and California was still exporting soft-rockers, the notion of breaking a heavy rock act was considered a longshot by the industry, and several labels passed.<br />
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In the end, talent won out. Ted Templeman, a house producer for Warner Brothers whose clients included both heavy-guitar acts (Montrose) and three-part harmony singers (the Doobie Brothers) caught them at an LA showcase. "I saw Ed and I was fucking knocked out," Templeman tells Renoff. "He was the best musician I'd ever seen in person."<br />
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Still, Van Halen was a hard sell: Templeman was careful to present them first to Warners' open-minded president Mo Ostin as opposed to its chief A&R man, Lenny Waronker, at the time a leading advocate of the soft-rock "L.A. sound." And as the label prepared for the release of their first album, members were horrified when an early version of the cover packaged them as though they were a punk band.<br />
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Renoff's case for Van Halen as rock revolutionaries was made not only by its fresh sound profile -- hard-hitting riffs with melody and vocal harmonies, accompanying Eddie's stunning virtuosity -- but also by the tours in support of their debut album. Aging metal masters Black Sabbath purposefully selected Van Halen to open a 1978 tour for them with the idea that casting an unknown would keep the fans' focus on them, but the scheme backfired spectacularly as Van Halen shocked one audience after another, while brashly going toe-to-toe with any musicians who'd outparty them. The tour so demoralized Black Sabbath that singer Ozzy Osbourne would soon set off on his own, and as the record took off -- peaking at No. 19 on the Billboard charts, but destined to stay in the top 200 for 169 straight weeks -- hard rock was the never the same.<br />
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Renoff ascribes the subsequent success of platters like AC/DC's BACK IN BLACK, the Scorpions' LOVE AT FIRST BITE and Judas Priests' SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE to the cultural breakthrough of Van Halen. While Van Halen were never a "metal" band per se -- Roth preferred the term "Big Rock" -- they influenced the genre with bands like Priest, KISS and others shamelessly borrowing their best tricks, while a generation of young guitarists had a new hero.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="400" src="https://rd.io/i/QGJDPkIgbw/" width="400"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-67520499184744266682015-06-22T19:56:00.001-07:002015-06-22T19:57:46.217-07:00It All Depends Upon Your AppetiteFred Schruers' new Billy Joel book had origins as ghostwritten memoirs, but was recrafted into a bio when the subject pulled out with cold feet. The result is something of a mess that resembles Joel's own career: There's some good stuff early on, then a whole lot of nothing, plenty of bombast and lots of applause.<br />
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Much of the early stuff, unfortunately, is marred by comments from a distance of 40 years: Important moments in Joel's career don't happen, they're reflected upon. Although Schruers endeavors to plumb a range of sources in addition to his own conversations with Joel, as in an autobiography it's Joel's own quotes and time-mellowed perspective that carry the narrative. That voice can be witty and perceptive but isn't necessarily objective or in the moment, leaving a book that will confirm fans' best impressions and leave nonbelievers to wonder what more there could be.<br />
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To those of us who came of age on Long Island as THE STRANGER exploded, Billy Joel is something of a birthright. But there are things I didn't know. His family fled a successful business in Nuremberg with the rise of Nazism. Joel's father Howard, himself a gifted musician, was left conflicted and bitter following World War II and would return to Europe alone when his family was still young, leaving Billy to bring himself up, countering a geeky piano habit with boxing lessons. Supposedly telling his Mom he preferred to matriculate at Columbia Records over Columbia University, Joel dropped out of high school so as to pursue life with a procession of local bar bands including The Echoes, The Hassles and a ridiculous heavy-metal duo, Attila.<br />
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In one of many unusual and troubled relationships Joel would forge, he hooked up with and later married the then-wife of Jon Small, his housemate and drummer in the Hassles and Attila. In addition to becoming the muse of "Just the Way You Are" among many other songs Elizabeth Weber would take over managing Billy's career after a solo debut album, COLD SPRING HARBOR flopped.<br />
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With the support of influential Philly radio station WMMR (which also championed Springsteen) Billy (like Bruce), was signed to Columbia Records. He relocated to the singer-songwriter capital of California, worked in a piano bar, and honed a backlog of songs into the PIANO MAN album.<br />
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Joel's songs were frequently inspired by interpretations of actual events in his personal life, and Schruers' book spends an awful lot of time quoting lyrics as though to show it. Wife Elizabeth, who had big ambitions as Joel's manager, is the "waitress practicing politics" who succeeds Jon Troy, aka "John at the bar/ quick with a joke/light up your smoke" (Troy is also "Johnny" in the terrific "Say Goodbye to Hollywood"). This practice would continue throughout Joel's recording career, and tiring of revealing himself in such a way is about the only explanation offered -- or pursued -- for Joel's retirement from the pop game, now going strong at 20+ years.<br />
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Joel's career proceeded through a hasty, snotty PIANO MAN follow-up (STREETLIGHT SERENADE); rebounded behind the return to New York contemplated in TURNSTILES before hooking up with producer Phil Ramone for the careermaking STRANGER album of 1978. Stylistic and thematic experiments would continue as Joel moved from the jazz influence of 52nd STREET to the rock and new-wave GLASS HOUSES to the doo-wop, 50s pop and soul he explored in the Brinkley Era.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdv9LTQDr6Mwh426OwrB_MRVyPkuPpfNBjLbn-K4EhnxYDgUb9MuDUMBHWKrWwHqZ5Qc00UwxwHCqBGQfg_TOAkcr0Nk5tiKK5erEAFybMEh2ECd_fn3fHjwN4iJDENAmqiE0Th3rj6U/s1600/glasshouses2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdv9LTQDr6Mwh426OwrB_MRVyPkuPpfNBjLbn-K4EhnxYDgUb9MuDUMBHWKrWwHqZ5Qc00UwxwHCqBGQfg_TOAkcr0Nk5tiKK5erEAFybMEh2ECd_fn3fHjwN4iJDENAmqiE0Th3rj6U/s320/glasshouses2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Joel straightforwardly confesses his stylistic promiscuity and doesn't apologize for crowd-pleasing but acknowledges being called "derivative" -- as a criticism, at least -- wounds him. Critic Robert Christgau might have described Joel more accurately as "knowing nothing but going for the pop jugular." I'm generally down with those who've forgiven him for being too popular, too Long Island and too uncool in the 80s and 90s but I still haven't gotten around to assessing STORM FRONT or RIVER OF DREAMS with any seriousness. Schruers offers a little insight into how Joel did all this -- unlike many contemporaries, he wrote melodies first, then the lyrics, and was careful in almost all his songs to include elements in a minor key with sad or doubtful lyrics to match, providing his songs with a depth of feeling that many others working the three-minute symphony circuit could not, even if it cost him cred as the rocker he sometimes thought he was.<br />
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Unfortunately, Schruers devotes nearly half his book to examining Joel's largely uninteresting post-pop career. There's a complex legal tangle between the record label, Joel, his business manager and their lawyers (Lesson: After splitting with wife, don't trust financial affairs to her slimy brother). Then there's the divorces, affairs and re-marriages, the car accidents, the rehab stints, the homes on the East End and North Shore, various falling-outs with Elton John, his boats, his custom motorcycles. (Note to all rock stars and biographers: I don't care about your friggin' boats). The last 100 pages are practically unbearable with Schruers going so far as to quote school-newspaper reviews and blog posts in an attempt to flesh out a portrait of Joel as a crusty mensch with a gift for pop songs, forgiveness for his enemies, and weaknesses for his daughter, attractive women, and alcohol. We get that. The whole "Last Play at Shea" thing figures prominently as well: <a href="http://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2013/01/that-wont-happen-to-us.html" target="_blank">As previously noted</a>, I found Billy's claiming the Shea musical legacy for himself to be personally distasteful, but that appears to have been a strategy by a remorseless road manager.<br />
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For all the hard work that went into Schruers' book, there was little insight into Joel that wasn't more efficiently and entertainingly executed in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/billy-joel-on-not-working-and-not-giving-up-drinking.html" target="_blank">New York Times Magazine article</a> I linked to here a few years back. Let's hope the next swing breaks some windows.Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-85652374132671547382015-05-14T21:46:00.001-07:002015-05-15T04:25:44.832-07:00Dee PlusDee Snider probably doesn't need 400 pages to convince anyone that behind the lingerie and stage makeup he's just another kid from Long Island with oversized ambition and bravado but you also shouldn't be surprised that he uses them all.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjyweKwmaXpZboOskpGsnjoDr0RGpnH-HZDGcsXAbZwszhzyp9ULMFlMFdvs7-2Yok0ToamPk6I9P0xEFj6WZM6C_r5vrn7cKcBuIT3CUtfwrNp7Mp6Zit5-AAo_Sxmg1wZ4KwTp14Yg0/s1600/dee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjyweKwmaXpZboOskpGsnjoDr0RGpnH-HZDGcsXAbZwszhzyp9ULMFlMFdvs7-2Yok0ToamPk6I9P0xEFj6WZM6C_r5vrn7cKcBuIT3CUtfwrNp7Mp6Zit5-AAo_Sxmg1wZ4KwTp14Yg0/s320/dee.jpg" width="212" /></a>His new-ish biography SHUT UP AND GIVE ME THE MIC tells the story of Dee from his high-school choir to Twisted Sister's rise and fall to whatever it is he's doing today with plenty of good humor, a lot of shout-outs to those who helped him along, and a little bit of the obligatory score-settling.<br />
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Twisted Sister, we native Long Islanders know better than most, wasn't just a short-lived 80s phenomenon but the product of years of reaching for the stars that culminated in a brief moment in the MTV spotlight. Some of the best stuff in the book concerns Twisted Sister's ambition to go beyond the local club scene when they didn't really have to: In the 70s and early 80s, Dee writes, being a popular band on the New York club circuit -- Rumrunners, Detroit, Hammerheads, Speaks, My Father's Place -- was a living in itself. Twisted contemporaries like The Good Rats (a heavy rock-jazz combo whose late vocalist Peppi Marchello sounds like a Dee Snider forefather) chose to remain local heroes instead of chasing the big time mainly because it was easier on their schedules and families while still affording them the sports cars and the good life, Dee contends.<br />
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Break through at your own peril. Twisted Sister futzed around with various glitter-rock looks and sounds before hitching onto the so-called "New Wave of British Metal" and modest success as the genre's American import and pet of Motorhead's Lemy Kilmister. Back in the USA, they secured a deal with Atlantic but resisted when the label assigned them producer Tom Werman despite the massive success he'd have with STAY HUNGRY.<br />
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Snider contends Werman robbed the band of its heavier character but at the same time he makes no apologies for imagining Twister Sister as a vehicle that would bring "metal to the masses." His songs in the meantime pandered blatantly to children and teens, and the associated videos, casting ANIMAL HOUSE actor Mark Metcalf completely out of context, bore still more markings of a disposable gimmick band.<br />
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Naturally, Snider was too busy counting the money to take notice, much less heed the advice of his own STAY HUNGRY mantra, and plowed into the much more expensive, much less successful COME OUT AND PLAY in 1985. By this point the band was fracturing -- you don't get the sense that Snider and Twisted founder Jay Jay French were ever particularly close, while bassist Mark "The Animal" Mendoza and guitarist Eddie "Fingers" Ojeda resisted the whole popularity grab -- although what was to be a Snider solo album was recast as the even less successful LOVE IS FOR SUCKERS in 1987. That really killed the band.<br />
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Dee's obviously a bright guy but hardly a giant. He reminds us often that he possesses the gift of being able to create on the spot, yet also confesses that every song the casual fan will ever know of Twisted Sister (The Price, We're Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock) were written in a single day. His witty and courageous standing up to Congress amid the PMRC hysteria was admirable but won him little regard. His fame stuck around but his fortune was gone within a few years, necessitating a Chapter 11 filing. He moved out of Howard Stern's neighborhood, and eventually, back into the working-class Long Island from which he came.<br />
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Here's their Atlantic debut:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="400" src="https://rd.io/i/QGJDPkrN0A/" width="400"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766881676954001772.post-14913794270085351112015-05-07T06:35:00.002-07:002015-05-07T06:39:00.996-07:00A Little Rockin' Record I Want My Jockey to PlayWhile lots of my childhood friends intended to be musicians, some even succeeded, my secret desire was to DJ. Pat St. John, who worked afternoons on my beloved WPLJ, was about as cool as they came: Great voice, with what I realized later was a Michigan accent, and even within the tight confines of PLJ's "AOR" format, he always made you feel as though you were hearing just what he wanted to play.<br />
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The WPLJ I knew and loved has been dead for more than 30 years but I was pleasantly surprised to come across Pat doing weekend shifts on CBS-FM, the erstwhile "oldies" station.<br />
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That gig too ended just recently, as word came that St. John was headed to California to be a full-time grandfather -- and continue a part-time satellite radio show from a home studio. So while most of New York is (rightly) <a href="http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/28/vin-scelsa-host-of-radios-idiots-delight-to-retire/" target="_blank">mourning the end of Vin Scelsa's career</a>, here's a little shout-out to Pat St. John.<br />
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St. John's departure by the way accompanied <a href="http://www.estatesale.com/sales/view/48960.html?ss=kw&u=5525fd3687597" target="_blank">an estate sale</a> I didn't attend, perhaps luckily, because I probably would have bid my retirement account for the Joe Jackson gold record pictured here. Pat's final show on CBS, which I also missed, was said to have concluded with the extended version of his clever WPLJ "montages" which used bits of songs to tell a musical story and promote the station and its jocks. I loved to hear these come around as much as any single song, and in their own way taught me how much fun music can be. If these don't make you smile I don't know what will (the below two hosted by Pat's colleague Carol Miller, whom I <a href="http://desertislandmixtape.blogspot.com/2013/01/up-all-night.html" target="_blank">wrote about here</a>).<br />
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Thanks a lot, Pat. You were great.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j5xHOeEaSp8" width="560"></iframe>Jon Springerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710796221469999018noreply@blogger.com0