“Gimme Some Truth” – John Lennon

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Dave's Strange World

From the 1971 album “Imagine,” here’s John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth,” a residual track from Lennon’s Phil Spector / primal scream era. A wonderfully angry, self-righteous song about the quest for truth and authenticity. Yes, you can blast 10 million holes in this by a mere fart, but it’s still a great song.

I would also present the equally awesome cover by Billy Idol’s punk band Generation X, but allegedly those clips have been blocked by YouTube due to “copyright” reasons. Funny, I can show you John Lennon, but not the band that Billy Idol was involved with before he became famous. So it goes, so it goes…

“Uphill” – Can

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This is a song from what was supposed to be the German rock band Can’s debut album in 1968, when Malcolm Mooney was lead singer. The tracks did not attract interest, so they wrote “more accessible” tracks which resulted in the immensely awesome “Monster Movie” album in 1969. The early demos were later released in the “Delay” compilation in 1981. “Uphill” is a particularly awesome track from that compilation.

“Dirt” – Neneh Cherry and the Thing

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Here’s Neneh’s wonderfully sleazy, avant-garde, and punk-jazz cover of Iggy and the Stooges’ nihilistic S&M masterpiece. This sounds like an outtake from Sly and the Family Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” … only with Iggy’s passion, anger, and brain full of God-knows-what. Neneh has evolved into a cross between Nina Simone and Diamanda Galas. This is some seriously deep and scary s–t. If that’s not a cool f–kin’ concept, I don’t know what is!

“Sweet Talkin’ Candy Man” – The Carrie Nations (aka The Kelly Affair) from Russ Meyer’s 1970 film “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”

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Here’s the fake Clinger Sisters … OK, not really, but this is the kick-ass female band The Carrie Nations from the Russ Meyer-directed and Roger Ebert-scripted 1970 film “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.” In addition to the killer song, there’s lots of groovy editing, overacting and dialog in this scene. Oh, and needless to say, women that actually look like women. Gotta love the late 1960s … and Russ Meyer for that matter.

As much as I despise the idea of a remake of this classic film, I do have some casting ideas if one ever comes to fruition: Johnny Depp (or Robert Downey Jr.) as the flamboyantly fey Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell, Ashton Kutcher as gigolo Lance Rock, Lindsay Lohan as Kelly McNamara, Beyonce as Petronella Danforth. If you have better or different casting ideas send them to Dave’s Strange World Productions via the comments section below …

“Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'” – Crazy Elephant

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A stupendous rip-off of Bob Seger’s “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” that’s so good that I like it better than the song it’s ripping off. Crazy Elephant were promoted as a band of Welsh coal miners, but were actually studio musicians created by famed bubblegum rock producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz. “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'” was their only real hit, but if you’re going to have one hit, this is a damn good one to have.

“Good Times” – The Clinger Sisters

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This is the Clinger Sisters doing a really awesome cover of the Easybeats’ “Good Times.” Just try not to frug too violently when you here this.

Re: the Clinger Sisters, I don’t know much about them, other than they were a group of Mormon sisters from Utah that used to perform with the Osmonds when they were very young, but then got the rock and roll bug and hooked up with the legendary and infamous self-proclaimed “Lord of Garbage” Kim Fowley, a scenario that sounds like the Russ Meyer-directed / Roger Ebert-scripted “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” … but probably not … who knows?

If you’re not sure who Fowley is, he was the manager and producer of Joan Jett’s and Lita Ford’s first band The Runaways. If you see “The Runaways” film, he’s the guy in short shorts and makeup throwing garbage and yelling obscenities at his teenage proteges (a brilliant performance by Michael Shannon, by the way).

“Too Drunk to F–k” – Dead Kennedys

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One of the funniest anti-drug songs ever recorded, this song with the f-bomb in the title actually made the Top 40 in Great Britain in 1981. When British radio announcers were forced to acknowledge the song, they referred to it as “a record by the Dead Kennedys” like it was a piece of dog poop that inadvertently wound up on their hands.

The DK’s supplied a sticker to record stores that could be placed over the single that read: “Caution: You are the victim of yet another stodgy retailer afraid to warp your mind by revealing the title of this record so peel slowly and see…” However, much to the band’s amusement, some of those stickers wound up on Tom Petty’s “Damn the Torpedoes” albums instead.

The song can now be found on the compilation “Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death,” which achieved Gold status by the RIAA in 2007.

“Lexicon Devil” – The Germs

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One of the Germs’ earliest and best singles. Much better than the admittedly decent version that later appeared on the classic Joan Jett-produced Germs’ debut album “GI,” you can actually make out lead singer Darby Crash’s lyrics on this one. Contains one of my all-time favorite lyrics: “Let’s give this established joke a shove!” Yes, indeed.

“White Girl” – X

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Live in the studio, here’s the band X with arguably their best and most famous song “White Girl” from their stellar 1981 album “Wild Gift” and album that placed #2 for the year (behind the Clash’s “Sandinista”) in the Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll for album of that year. In this clip, you’ll see producer Ray Manzarek of the Doors working the knobs and nodding his head. From the terrific documentary about X “The Unheard Music.” The song was later sampled in the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s song “Good Time Boys.”

Trivia note: Singer Exene Cervenka used to be married to Oscar-nominated actor Viggo Mortensen. In addition, singer / bassist John Doe has acted in a number of films over the years, most notably as Julianne Moore’s character’s ex-husband in “Boogie Nights.”

“Blue Nile” – Alice Coltrane

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I didn’t discover Alice Coltrane’s music until I heard her music on a sampler CD back in the late 1990s. Alice Coltrane played the harp and the sounds that she and her band achieved are truly mesmerizing. After doing some research, I discovered she was John Coltrane’s second wife. While she’s gotten much renown in jazz circles, her work has unfortunately been overshadowed by her husband’s success. An artist truly worthy of further research. From the 1970 album “Ptah, the El Daoud”