After a decade of odd musical diversions, Neil Young came back like a motherf–ker in 1989 with the positively brutal “Rockin’ in the Free World,” which laid waste to most of the heavy metal of the prior decade, as well as most of the punk. “Free World” sounded like it would have been at home on Husker Du’s “Zen Arcade.” Over 20 years later, it still packs a wallop.
Siouxsie (of Siouxsie and the Banshees) does her solo thing, circa 2007. “About to Happen” sounds like Siouxsie’s homage to 1970s glitter rock. From her album “MantaRay.” Play extremely f–king loud!
The lead-off track to the Jesus and Mary Chain’s classic 1985 debut album “Psychocandy,” “Just Like Honey” was also put to great use in Sofia Coppola’s 2003 film “Lost in Translation.” Never has distortion sounded so majestic.
One of the earliest videos I remember seeing on MTV and arguably, the best song the Pretenders ever recorded, “Back on the Chain Gang” was a lamentation about the drug-induced death of former bandmate James Honeyman-Scott. An incredibly deep song that has not lost its resonance, despite its frequent appearance on classic rock and oldies stations over the years. This was the Pretenders highest-charting song in the US (it made it all the way to #5 on the Billboard charts in 1982).
A classic from the late 1960s and a song that meant a lot to a friend of mine, who has since passed on. Hopefully, he’s found a more positive vibe wherever his soul has landed.
The title track from Charles Bradley’s most recent album, Bradley is keeping the flame of Otis Redding and James Brown alive in the 2010s. A terrific song from a terrific album. Damn, what are you waiting for ?!?
This sounds like it came from Muscle Shoals circa 1967, but it was actually recorded in 2011. This is Charles Bradley’s Stax-Volt -style cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” and it is damn magnificent. From Bradley’s stellar album “No Time for Dreaming.”
It says a lot about a song when artists from different backgrounds, genres, and perspectives all record the same song. “Dream Baby Dream” was originally written and recorded by the seminal two-man punk duo Suicide (Alan Vega and Martin Rev), who did their thing long before there was such a thing called punk (they started in the early 1970s).
Many famous musicians were fans of Suicide, most famously, Ric Ocasek of the Cars (who produced one of their albums and had them perform on the 1970s NBC program “Midnight Special”) and Bruce Springsteen. You can hear a lot of Suicide’s influence in Springsteen’s minimalistic “State Trooper” from the 1982 album “Nebraska,” especially the shouts and whelps that come directly from Suicide’s monumentally distressing song “Frankie Teardrop.” Included here is an absolutely lovely live version of “Dream Baby Dream” by Springsteen interpersed with clips from F.W. Murnau’s monumental silent-era film “Sunrise.”
And … Neneh Cherry … who lately has been coming on strong as a punk Billie Holiday from hell, filtered through “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” -era Sly and the Family Stone and Eno-era Roxy Music, has her own killer version of “Dream Baby Dream,” from her monumentally awesome album “The Cherry Thing,” released in 2012.
The attached clip is legendary underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger’s short film “Puce Moment” from 1949. While I like the film, the music Anger added to the film in 1966 made a bigger impression on me. The music, composed and sung by Jonathan Halper, are two songs “Leaving My Old Life Behind” and “I Am a Hermit.” “Life” and “Hermit” are damn good psychedelic folk tunes, but Halper’s sneering vocal is what draws me in every time. Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins should be paying Halper royalties.
On a side note, I had heard about Kenneth Anger for years, but his films were impossible to find in most video stores back in the late 1980s. So I felt like Coronado finding a lost city of gold, when I discovered my college library had an extensive video collection and I was able to catch up on a lot of terrifically obscure films that weren’t available anywhere else. The tape that had this Kenneth Anger film on it, along with Robert Downey Sr.’s “Putney Swope,” were the first ones I watched on that glorious Sunday evening. The library’s big orange chairs and puny video monitors were this film fanatic’s saving grace in a pre-Netflix era.
Another terrifically trippy late 1960s British psychedelic pop gem, this time by the band Tomorrow, which featured Steve Howe (later of Yes) and Twink (later of the Pink Fairies). A more conventional, hard rock cover by Nazareth in the mid-1970s was a hit in the British Isles, but I much prefer the original.
Dave's Strange World 