https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYbKpdWB3Gw
One of my favorite scenes from “Boyhood.” The father played by Ethan Hawke gives his son a mix CD and tries to explain why it’s so great. His son, played by Ellar Coltrane, graciously accepts the CD, but has a look on his face that he’s been down this road many times before with his Dad. The Hawke and Coltrane characters are good people, but let’s just say, I’m trying really hard NOT to be that kind of dad re: pop culture and my kids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdG-ITxL8ok
On the surface, the Carpenters epitomize the nadir of middle-of-the-road 1970s AM pop. But “Goodbye to Love” is a great song. Granted, a lot of my love for this song has to due with the very prominent fuzz guitar by Tony Peluso. But that guitar sound adds a tremendous edge to the lyrics which rival Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave in their immense pessimism and depression. Seriously, this is one hell of a great downer song. Had this been sung by Cohen or Cave, this would be considered more of a classic than it is. Because it’s sung by Karen Carpenter, it’s considered AM-radio cheese. However, I would argue that her beautiful voice makes this song even more perverse. Either way, I love this.
If you decide to give your song this title, you better have the chops to back it up. And I’m happy to report the Dollyrots deliver in spades! If you love rock n’ roll, there’s no way you can listen to this without a huge grin on your face. The fact that this was recorded for Joan Jett’s Blackheart label comes as no surprise.
“The only thing that rock ‘n’ roll did not get from country and blues was a sense of consequences … In country and blues, if you raised hell on Saturday night, you were gonna feel real bad on Sunday morning when your dragged yourself to church. Or when you didn’t drag yourself to church.”
-Bill Flanagan … from an interview with Neil Young (1986)
Greil Marcus’s “The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs” is one of the finest, most beautifully written books about music, art, and culture of all-time. When Marcus wrote this book, he decided to avoid songs that most people would insist would be on a list of ten songs that would explain rock ‘n’ roll. The songs Marcus selected are:
“Shake Some Action” – The Flamin’ Groovies
“Transmission” – Joy Division
“In the Still of the Nite” – The Five Satins
“All I Could Do Was Cry” – Beyonce
“Crying, Waiting, Hoping” – Buddy Holly / The Beatles
“Money (That’s What I Want)” – Barrett Strong / The Beatles
“Money Changes Everything” – The Brains / Cyndi Lauper
“This Magic Moment” – The Drifters
“Guitar Drag” – Christian Marclay
“To Know Him is to Love Him” – The Teddy Bears / Amy Winehouse
The songs he selects are all great in their own way, but may not be obvious choices in many peoples’ definitions of songs that define rock ‘n’ roll. Yet, these songs, in the way Marcus describes them, tell an incredibly rich story of not only rock music, but American culture / history… with a few sidelines into British culture. Marcus has been one of our finest cultural critics for over 40 years and this book equals his classic 1975 book “Mystery Train,” (which has since gone through 7 editions with additional notes by Marcus).
I will let Marcus explain why he included “Shake Some Action,” from an interview he did with Henry Rollins, who narrated the audio version of the book:
“When I came up with the idea for the book, I knew that ‘Shake Some Action’ by the Flamin’ Groovies would be the first thing I would write about,” he said. “It had to be there, and that’s because from the first time I heard it, and every time since, I’ve just been so shocked by it. It’s like, ‘This is it. This is what rock & roll is. This is everything rock & roll wanted to be. This is a performance that isn’t jazz, that isn’t blues, that isn’t country, that isn’t pop, that isn’t anything but rock & roll. Nothing like what you hear on ‘Shake Some Action’ was in the world before there was rock & roll.”
“The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs” is a terrific achievement and even if you don’t agree with Marcus’s selections, I guarantee he’ll make you a true believer. If you need further convincing, you absolutely need to check out the audio version narrated by Henry Rollins. Rollins is an extraordinary orator and the way he conveys Marcus’s words shows a profound respect for Marcus and his thoughts. Easily one of the five best audio versions of a non-fiction book … and that includes Robert Evans reciting “The Kid Stays in the Picture.”
At the link below is a lengthy interview Rollins did with Marcus about the book that’s worth hearing:
My favorite song of the year so far. Local H singer/guitarist Scott Lucas wrote “One of Us” while he was on his way to a wake for a friend. As Lucas told the Onion AV Club last April “It’s a funeral song, but I didn’t want it to be morose. I wanted it to be unsentimental and kind of triumphant, and above all else, unapologetic. Anything less would’ve felt like lying.” This is an amazing, powerful song, the best highlight of many highlights from their terrific album “Hey, Killer.”
Before you watch this clip, here’s some background …
Elvis Costello made his US debut on “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) in early 1978. He was supposed to perform “Less Than Zero,” a song about racism in England and Costello got through about 15 seconds of the song before he abruptly cut it and launched into “Radio Radio,” an extremely critical song about the increasing control of media by corporations.
Cut to 22 years later … SNL is broadcasting a 25-year tribute show. The Beastie Boys perform their hit “Sabotage” when Costello runs on stage and … well … I think you can figure out where it goes from there … a clever way to pay tribute to one of SNL’s most notorious moments and a terrific performance of one of Costello’s best songs with help from one of the most innovative rock / rap groups of all-time.
Even nearly 40 years later, the lyrics still bite:
“Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead.
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed.
You either shut up or get cut up, they don’t wanna hear about it.
It’s only inches on the reel-to-reel.
And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin’ to anesthetize the way that you feel.”
“Schoolboy Blues” is the infamous song the Rolling Stones recorded to get out of their contract with Decca Records, when they were told they owed Decca one more single before their contract was up. Again, be careful what you wish for or what you demand. Decca, of course, were horrified by the results and never released this officially.
Objectively speaking, this isn’t quite so bad. Musically speaking, it sounds like a rawer version of “Sister Morphine,” only with the subject matter being male prostitution instead of heroin. This is the Ramones’ “53rd and 3rd” six years earlier … only a LOT more explicit. So explicit in fact, that I will say this is … ahem … not safe for work. OK, you’ve been told the tale. Either listen or don’t listen.
Here’s an early, rawer version of “Can’t Hardly Wait” that was originally intended as a song for the Replacements’ 1985 album “Tim” but was later reworked into a much slicker version for 1987’s “Pleased to Meet Me” … with the requisite horn and string section that was de rigeur for 1980s major label rock recordings. All I can say after hearing this earlier naked version is “Holy f–king s–t!” This was a great song even with the “slick” arrangement, but hearing it without all the polish is revelatory.
Here’s a real find … the incredibly tasteless, but extremely funny late 1970s short film “He May Be Dead – But He’s Elvis” which mercilessly satirizes the exploitation of Elvis Presley’s death by taking said exploitation into even darker territory. I first read about this film years ago in Greil Marcus’s legendary analysis on American rock / soul music “Mystery Train” (now in a recently updated 6th edition) and while re-reading it the other day, got the notion that this short may be on YouTube.
Again, the humor is pretty sick, but not that far removed than a lot of stuff you see nowadays via reality TV. I can only imagine what this looked like back in the late 1970s. If you have a strong stomach, Dave says check it out.
And while you’re at it, if you’ve never read “Mystery Train,” check that out too.
“Thunder Road,” the opening track from Bruce Springsteen’s classic 1975 album, is widely regarded as not only one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs of all-time, but one of the most uplifting and positive ones as well. However, this version of “Thunder Road” that Springsteen recorded, likely as a demo, is starkly different in tone and feeling. Without changing any lyrics, this version of “Thunder Road” is mournful and very sad. Instead of being the inspirational tale of a young couple leaving a small town to make their dreams come true despite the odds against them, this version is a tale of desperation and regret. And all because of an arrangement that would feel right at home on a Leonard Cohen album. While the “Born to Run” version of “Thunder Road” will make you feel like you can conquer the world, this acoustic version breaks your heart.
The fact that Springsteen can evoke two different emotions with the same lyrics speaks to his power as a songwriter and performer. As Nick Hornby said about this version of “Thunder Road” in his book “Songbook” (aka “31 Songs”): “It’s slow, and mournful, and utterly convincing: an artist who can persuade you of the truth of what he is singing with either version is an artist who is capable of an awful lot.”
For another contrast, I would also urge you to check out this live version of “Thunder Road” from a 1975 concert at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. This is closer to the version on “Born to Run,” but it’s mainly done with a solo piano and no rousing guitar work. Again, it’s not depressing like the acoustic demo discussed earlier, but this version is a lot more melancholy than the version on “Born to Run.” Apparently, this was the way “Thunder Road” was performed in concert until around 1977 or so.
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