Weekend Listomania: Special "DJ Shaggy" Edition

[I originally posted a version of this so long ago I can't even deal with the guilt. Consequently, I've rewritten a lot of it and swapped in some new entries, and blah blah blah. Enjoy!!! -- S.S.]

Well, it's Friday, and my beloved pussycat Mickey Six-Toes© has survived another week without having been devoured au poivre by marauding non-citizens of Ohio.

Whew. Although who knows -- if I was to nod off even briefly, it could get ugly.

But in the meantime, here's a fun little project to help us all wile away the darkening hours:

Best or Worst Post-Elvis Record Referencing Hair (or Hair Care Products or Hair-dos or Whatever) in Either Its Title or Lyric Or Band/Artists Name!!!

No arbitrary rules.

Oh wait -- if you nominate the crappy theme song (best known in the version by The Cowsills) from the world's crappiest Broadway musical, I will come to your house and slap you within an inch of your life.

Sorry -- that's just the way it is.

And my totally Top of My Head(Hah!!!) Top Eight is/are:

8. Lady Gaga -- Hair

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know Gaga's rip-off of that titular show tune I mentioned above probably saved some poor deeply sensitive kid's life, despite the fact that it's a piece of utter pompous crud in the abstract. But hey -- I felt obligated to include something recorded in the 21st century.

7. Nazareth -- Hair of the Dog

I've had a soft spot for these guys ever since they turned Joni Mitchell's "This Flight Tonight" into a thoroughly convincing piece of pop-metal (I've always wondered what Joni thought about it, come to think). This one, of course, deserves a special wing in the Cowbell Hall of Fame.

6. The Crew Cuts -- Sh-Boom

To this day, I can't figure if this is sad period schlock or some kind of interesting white-guy doo-wop. Your thoughts?

5. CSNY -- Almost Cut My Hair

Very silly stuff, thank you Mr. Crosby, but the Stills/Young guitar interplay is awesome, no?

4. Daddy Cool -- Teenage Blues

"I've been thinking a lot about getting a job, but I'm paranoid about my hair" has to be one of the greatest opening lines not just in pop music but in the entire history of literary endeavor going back to the Greeks. Or so I thought when I originally wrote that; I could be wrong. In any event, it's the work of one of the Great Lost Aussie Bands, and you need to hear the entirety of that album, trust me. Order a vinyl copy over at Amazon for the ridiculously inexpensive price of $8.70 HERE.

3. The Morells -- Growin' A Beard

An ode to the uses and cultivation of whiskers by the greatest party band of them all (they were The Skeletons in a later incarnation). Seriously -- I've said this before, but if I'd had an unlimited budget for a shindig and could have hired any rockers in the world as the featured entertainment, these are the guys I would have hired. And yes, I would have chosen them over NRBQ.

2. Syd Barrett -- Terrapin

"Well, oh baby, my hair's on end about you." BTW, and to give you an idea of just how long ago I first wrote this, I originally referenced the Smashing Pumpkins 2009 cover version and Billy Corgan's sad and pathetic cueball noggin in this slot.

Wow -- is it just me, or does anybody else totally not miss those pretentious putzes?

And the Numero Uno follicularly-fabulous tune of them all is obviously...

1. The Lovin' Spoonful -- Bald Headed Lena

And speaking of cueball noggins, heh heh. That's the late great Zal Yanovsky on lead vocals and "electric gorgle" (or so it says on the second Spoonful album liner notes) BTW.

Alrighty, then -- and what would your choices be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Nancy's Record Collection (And Mine): An Occasional Series

From 1987, and their brilliant The Sound of Music album, please enjoy The dBs -- with the incomparable Syd Straw on guest vocals -- and the (should have been a massive hit) Peter Holsapple-penned (and sung) country/power pop weeper "Never Before and Never Again."

God, what a great song, and their voices fit together like Gram and Emmylou.

I should add that I had completely forgotten about the above until I stumbled across it online a few days ago, and it reduced me to a puddle of tears.

I think the lyrics had something to do with it.

This is the story of a mixed-up teen
What a dilemma, what a crazy scene
They had it out for the very last time
Never again, they made up their minds

She grew her hair and it changed her style
She wanted to stay that way for a while
She took a step and she didn't fall down
And that was just fine as long as he's not around

She got really small, hardly there at all
It took some days before she'd answer his call
And when she did, it just wouldn't sink in
Never before and never again

Never again and never before
Could two in love try to even the score
Never be lovers before you are friends
Never before and never again

He got a job, became immersed in books
His hair grew too, and that improved his looks
He stayed out nights, sometimes parties till four
Until he'd had enough, never again he swore

He took himself very seriously
He lost some friends and made some enemies
Still there were nights when he'd call out her name
Before he realized it was never again

Never again, she cried never again
We're too far apart and the days will not end
We're too far apart and I've taken the step
I've got a home now, not a place I've just slept

Never again and never before
Can two in love try to even the score
Never be lovers before you are friends
Never before and never again
Never again
Never again

Oh god -- the stuff about their haircuts is so wonderfully tragic/funny I can't even deal with it.

I should also add that there are people who are of the opinion that The dBs never really recovered artistically from the departure of estimable co-founder Chris Stamey.

Those people are -- what's the word I'm groping for? -- wrong.

Your Wednesday Moment of Words Fail Me

That photo was shot around the corner, i.e., a block away from where a certain Shady Dame and I currently live in Forest Hills (aka the Paris of the North East).

None of those store fronts are still there; now it's a Starbucks, a CVS and a Fed Ex, among others.

But I can tell you from first hand -- the spirit lingers on!!!

Oh, and BTW -- I wanna know what happened to those two gals second and third from the left in the front row. Especially the brunette with the big black hairdo.

I bet they were a riot. 😎

You Know, Some Days I Really Have Problems With My Generation

From his forthcoming (momentarily) new album 1967 Vacations in the Past, please dig Robyn Hitchcock and a thorougly lovely remake of The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset."

"Waterloo Sunset," of course, is at this point pretty widely recognized as being the most beautiful pop song written in English in the second half of the 20th Century; as for Hitchcock's version, let's just say I think he did Ray Davies' creation justice.

As for rest of the new album, it's a mix of (mostly) covers of stuff from the titular year (a nice "Itchykoo Park," for example) and new originals that are thematically relevant to the year in question.

I'm not gonna comment on the latter stuff, but I must say that of the former, this one is pretty freaking awful.

In fairness to Hitchcock, of course, the song itself -- written by John Phillips, and don't get me started -- was a cynical exploitive piece of shit from jump, and the fact that it was conceived that way -- i.e.. as a wanna-be theme song for the bullshit that was the Summer of Love -- makes it all the more unlistenable to my contemporary ears.

Hitchcock may be making the same point, but hey, who knows -- maybe the above is meant straight. I'll reserve judgement on that until I digest the entire album a little more.

Songs I'd Forgotten Existed, Let Alone Loved (An Occasional Series): Special "The Tallest Guy in Rock" Edition

From 1991, and his album Perspex Island, please enjoy frighteningly NBA-sized Brit rocker Robyn Hitchcock (with The Egyptians) and the little power pop masterpiece that is "So You Think You're in Love."

In keeping with last week's Listomania, I should add that the above is a song I listened to obsessively when it first came out (and desperately wanted to cover with the Flo Mos, which was not, alas, to be). Hadn't seen that charming video before yesterday, however.

I should also add that I had more or less forgotten the whole thing until I learned recently that Hitchcock has a forthcoming (October) new album in which he pays tribute to the music made in 1967.

What I've heard from it so far is...er...interesting. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post for an early tasting.

Weekend Listomania: Special "Solipsism is Great, Everybody Should Try It!" Edition

[I originally posted a version of this back in 2009, when I was still 5'81/2" tall (don't ask). Anyway, I've done some rewriting and added some new entries, this despite the fact that I've had a terrible week and I can barely rouse myself. Sheesh -- the things I do for you guys. Anyway, enjoy. -- S.S.]

Well, it's Friday, and we're all still losing sleep over the innocent cats and dogs Donald Trump (aka Donny Demento) has informed us are being devoured au poivre in the wilds of Ohio.

That being the case, here's a fun little project to take our minds off the looming Pet Holocaust -- to wit:

Post-Elvis Singles or Individual Album Tracks That Changed Your Life!!!

Self-explanatory, I think, so no arbitrary rules this time. Except that we're specifically talking here about ONLY singles or album cuts, NOT whole albums (a topic for another time). Also, I'm disqualifying anything by The Beatles on the grounds that there are just too damned many tunes by the Fabs to choose from and that they're a little too obvious choices in any case.

Okay, and my totally Top of My Head Top Ten, in no particular order, is...

10. The Replacements -- I Will Dare

The lead off track from Let It Be. I had never heard a note by these guys before it came out, and the only reason I bothered to listen is that a colleague wrote a rave about it in the Village Voice. Needless to say, my head exploded when I heard it. Really, I couldn't believe people were still making music like that.

9. The Rolling Stones -- It's All Over Now

The Valentinos original of this (featuring Bobby Womack) is superficially similar -- two guitars, bass and drums, and a singer up front -- but if you've ever heard it, you know that it's actually kind of jolly. The Stones rethink keeps the basic arrangement model intact, but the guitars are stripped down to ominous Travis-picking meets scrubbed metal Chuck Berry, and the whole thing is invested with a palpable sense of menace completely unprecedented in pop music at the time. Plus: the concluding fade-out, with those circular guitar riffs altered just slightly each time as the echo creeps in, marks (no doubt about it) the birth of the style and esthetic we'd later call Minimalism. Alas, in the 70s, that moron Phillip Glass went on to adopt it for four-hour operas, thus totally missing the point, but this is what it's supposed to sound like.

Bottom line: Hearing this under a pillow via transistor radio over WMCA-AM is when I decided that Andrew Oldham's liner note claim -- that the Stones weren't just a band, they were a way of life -- wasn't as asinine as it seemed at first.

8. The Byrds -- The Bells of Rhymney

As I have said here on numerous occasions, if there's a more beautiful sound in all of nature than that of a Rickenbacker 12-string guitar well played, I have yet to hear it. In any case, this song -- even more than "Mr. Tambourine Man" -- is where the Church of the Rickenbacker opened. Nearly six decades later, I'm still dropping by for services, if you'll pardon the perhaps inelegant mixed metaphor.

7. The Beach Boys -- When I Grow Up

Obviously, it's melodically gorgeous and the harmonies exquisite. But it's also the first rock song (for me anyway) that combines adolescent angst and something like mature wisdom; when people say that Brian Wilson invented the whole confessional California songwriting school that people usually associate with Joni Mitchell or Jackson Browne, this is the song they have in mind, I think. Although "In My Room" or "Don't Worry Baby" are contenders as well.

6. The Miracles -- The Tracks of My Tears

This wasn't the first r&b record I loved, but it's the first one I bought and played as obsessively as I did any Beatles 45. Everything about it just killed me; the oddly sinister yet lovely sound of the guitars at the beginning, the way the rhythm section falls effortlessly into place, the sensual longing in Smokey's voice contrasted with the almost churchy background vocals...I still can't listen to it without thinking there's some detail I've missed, one that if I could only hear at last then some tremendous secret would be revealed. I suspect I'm not the only person who feels that way, BTW.

5. Jimmy Cliff -- The Harder They Come

A great song and a great voice, to be sure, and recognizably rock-and-roll, but at the same time it was indisputably...well, something else. If Sly Stone hadn't already titled an album A Whole New Thing, the movie soundtrack this astounding song derives from could easily have copped it.

4. Bruce Springsteen -- Spirit in the Night

The first time I heard this, the snare drum and near-mythic sax wail that open it hit me so hard that I thought I'd been wacked upside the head with a 2X4. Then I noticed the lyrics and had the absolutely eerie sensation that Springsteen had been reading my mail. Want to know what it felt like to be a a 20-something with no direction home in the early 70s? All you have to do is listen....

3. R.E.M. -- Radio Free Europe

Some records just have a vibe about them. Here's one (and the same can be said of Murmur as a whole) that has it in spades, a certain indefinable something that simply grabs you (or at least me) and won't let go. First time I heard it, I remember thinking it sounded simultaneously space age modern and as old as the hills. Still an apt description, actually.

2. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers -- King's Highway

From Into the Great Wide Open, and co-produced by Jeff Lynne, which I'd forgotten. In any event, after I first heard this I couldn't be bothered with the rest of the album, estimable as it is; I lost track of how many times I played the song. I should add that I hadn't heard it in a while, but I stumbled on the live version above last week and when Petty sang "I don't wanna end up in a room all alone/ Don't wanna end up someone that I don't even know" I just completely lost it.

And the Numero Uno mind blower, it's not even a contest, so don't give me any shit about this is ---

1. The La's -- There She Goes

Like "Tracks of My Tears" years before, when this first came out I played it over and over and over again in the hope of finally being able to hear into the sheer sonic density of it. I still do, from time to time, and to this day I haven't quite figured out what that twelve-string riff means. Or why Lee Mavers' voice sounds so simultaneously familiar and eerie. Or, finally, who she is and where the hell she's going.

Awrighty then -- what would your choices be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Capt. Al's 21st Century (Part IV): Hey -- With a Name Like That, I Was Expecting Some Kind of Welsh Witch!!!

[As attentive readers will recall, our old friend (and more important, Friend of PowerPop©) Allan Rosenberg, aka Capt. Al, has been toiling on a series about his fave recent artists for a while now. The third installment of these musical musings -- dedicated to Lydia Loveless -- appeared here end of August. Now, as promised, here's episode le quatrième! Take it away, you old sea doggie!!! -- S.S.]

Welcome to the “Best Rock 'n' Roll Music of the 21st Century, Part 4”, by Captain Al

Let me remind both you (Simels’ wonderful readers) and myself that these columns are about what I consider my favorite new music of the still new century. Coincidentally, I just happen to think the best has been made by women. And once again I will be throwing you a curveball with today’s selection: Rhiannon Giddens.

Her music (and possibly her) personality is a study in contrasts. She studied to be an opera singer. She is part of a movement to reclaim the banjo as an African-American musical instrument, And she's also a human rights activist.

Getting right to the point -- I think Rhiannon and her music could ONLY have been created in the 21st Century, precisely because of the traditions it draws on (stretching back hundreds of years). Which is to say I feel it could not have been created before now: it needed to percolate its various influences until OUR time.

Okay, let's examine some representative work. First, here she is as roots music creator:

Now let’s check her out on the banjo:

And finally, here are some of her semi-classical/operatic excusions:

Rhiannon presents quite a past and future for music, and I find her artistry both fascinating and beautiful. I wish I had some deep background to explain what makes her so special on a musical level but alas I don’t. So all I’ll say is -- just give into her magic and follow its wonderful paths.

You're right, Capt.; She's really something. I have to admit I was only fitfully aware of her work previously, but wow.

I mean, that evocation of Edith Piaf alone is kind of a jaw dropper. And the banjo stuff really makes you know who's records -- that superstar gal whose initials are Beyoncé -- sound like the work of a dilettante.

In any case, thanks for the music, pal, and I'm looking forward to episode five!!!

Weeklings Rule, OK?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

From that just-released Raspberry Park album I've been noodging you about lately, please enjoy the aforementioned Jersey guys and the niftiest cover of a Bruce Springsteen song imaginable.

Seriously -- a sorta tongue-in-cheek pop/punk version of "I'm on Fire"? What's not to like?

COMING TOMORROW: The next installment of Capt. Al's on-going series saluting pop music artists of the current century.

Hint: This one's a gal with folkie tendencies who's named after a fabulous hit song of the 70s.

Your Tuesday Moment of Words Fail Me

From 2024, (possibly), please enjoy The Cheatles and their quite brilliant ode to everybody's favorite pre-Russian Revolution tsarist-beloved religious nut "Rasputin."

In case you're wondering, I stumbled across this over at YouTube yesterday, and my jaw still hasn't been seperated from my apartment floor.

About the Cheatles themselves, I can find little info except that they seem to be one of the most well regarded Beatles tribute bands in the UK.

Irregardless, on the basis of the above they clearly deserve to be immortal. 😎

I'm gonna send them the link to this post; I'll let you know what if anything develops.

Album of the Year? Could Be, Could Be!!!

From their just released (and brilliantly monikered) Raspberry Park, please enjoy power pop deities The Weeklings and their quite remarkable cover of the Fabs' Sgt. Pepper highlight "She's Leaving Home."

Attentive readers will recall my posting two earlier cool tracks from the album -- specifically, a Buffalo Springfield/Stones mashup and a glorious cover of "I've Just Seen a Face" -- but the above is, I think you'll agree, equally gorgeous and perhaps even more innovative. I mean -- the utterly surprising horns and guitars notwithstanding, I can't recall another cover of the song by anybody -- save perhaps Richie Havens -- that was particularly notewothy on any level.

In any case, having just perused the entire Weeklings album, I gotta say -- it's like totally wowsville and you need to get it now.

You can stream it over at Amazon here.

Or order a physical copy, either in the esoteric (heh) CD format or, in the more prosaic (heh again) yellow vinyl medium, at the same link.

I gotta say, as you can see, the vinyl particularly appeals to me. Which is something I never would have expected. 😎

[h/t Marty Scott]