Tom Verlaine is not a name that surfaces much these days. But in the 70s with the band, Television, Verlaine and his co-horts, including Richard Lloyd, created quite a stir with the ringing guitar sound of its debut album Marquee Moon.
‘Adventure,’ their sophomore offering is just as good, I think. Released in 1978, Adventure continued the guitar sound heralding punk’s transformation into more melodic music. New Wave was upon us.
Verlaine and Richard Lloyd were the guitarists, alternating lead and rhythm. Some of the longer guitar parts sound like a smoother Neil Young epic (think ‘Cowgirl in the Sand’ or ‘Like a Hurricane.’)
I remember getting this in Athens, Ga. at WUXTRY, it came out my senior year in high school.
Motown, the extremely successful record company, left no rock unturned, no trend passed over.
Call it psych-soul or soul-psych, this was soul music tricked out to take advantage of the late-1960s, early 1970s, popularity of psychedelic music.
Norman Whitfield, a Motown producer who worked quite a bit with the Temptations, was the key player behind this outreach.
Billie Calvin, Brenda Evans and Joe Harris were the members of this group. The group had a No. 3 hit, ‘Smiling Faces, Sometimes,’ written by Whitfield.
Whitfield liked to cover his bases by giving songs to multiple groups inside the Motown stable which explains why the Temptations also did the ‘Smiling Faces’ song. (Whitfield also gave the song ‘War’ to the Temptations and then to Edwin Starr who took it to No. 1).
Other songs on this debut album include a surprisingly faithful rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone; the 60’s psych-pop classic ‘Aquarius;’ and the much covered groove song, ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine.’ Written by Whitfield, and Barrett Strong for Gladys Knight and the Pips, the song was ultimately covered by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Marvin Gaye.
Gaye’s version is considered by critics to be the definitive one. I like Gaye’s and the Pips’ and CCR’s — it’s fun to listen to try to discern what goes into the very different arrangements.
Also on this album is ‘Ball of Confusion (That’s what the world is today).
‘People movin’ out, people movin’ in, Why, because of the color of their skin,’
One of many rock’n’roll songs that helped shape my world view as a kid.
However, the version I heard on the radio was probably the Temptations’ hit version of the song. (There goes Whitfield again, hedging his bets.)
It’s the little things that Lewy body dementia makes more difficult.
Tearing open a wrapped cookie. Typing. Remembering where you put your glasses.
Parkinson’s Disease, Lewy’s cousin, can work much of the same territory.
Remembering what day of the week it is. Picking up your feet to walk. Putting on a shirt.
I don’t know if it’s better to have a pull-over shirt so that I may tie myself into a knot as I push my head through a sleeve instead of the neck hole.
Like a newborn baby getting pushed out of the birth canal my pulled-tight face, stuck in my sleeve, looks real funny in the mirror.
Or should my early morning hijinks start with a buttoned-down shirt where I spend 15 minutes to push those plastic buttons sideways into a too-small hole only to find out that the buttons on the right side of my shirt didn’t go into the correct holes on the left side of my shirt. Aaaaargh!
Maybe I’ll leave it, no one will notice. OK, that might have worked except, upon further inspection, I missed with the buttons by two holes each. My shirt looks like a Picasso painting.
Ah, maybe I should button the shirt beforehand and then pull it over my head? That might work except there’s already a tangled up, pull-over shirt halfway on my torso. So I walk (carefully) downstairs looking like a shirt rack and approach my beloved wife and caregiver and meekly say: Help.
It’s the little things.
Like climbing out of the bed in the morning.
I’m pretty sure that someone rolls me up in two sheets, a quilt and a blanket, sometime in the middle of the night while I’m sleeping. Houdini could not get out of this straightjacket. I push away bad thoughts that Catherine does this as revenge for all the button and pull-over mishaps. (Hmm. It does buy her more peaceful coffee time before she’s confronted with the walking shirt rack.)
Wrapped like a mummy in bed sheets, I’m limited on how to contact help. I cannot stand up, so I can’t walk down for help. She keeps her phone with her so I could call her with my phone which is on the night stand about six inches from my face. My arms are tied, but I briefly entertain the idea of trying to peck at the phone with my nose.
It’s the little things. Lewy minutia, I call it.
But when you’re shuffling down the hallway, unable to find your glasses, with your head stuck in a sleeve, it can seem rather daunting.
NOTE: This is a fictionalized account based on real events. And the names have not been changed.
This is the soundtrack to the movie some critics have called the greatest rock concert movie of all time. They aren’t far off base, although I think the Martin Scorsese film featuring the Band and many others, ‘The Last Waltz,” is a worthy adversary for that ‘best’ title. Some might say Woodstock.
The movies are similar only in that rock music was being played.
Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, is a concept performance that totally works. It makes the Talking Heads seem better than you thought they were. And they were good.
Filmed live over four nights in Los Angeles, the movie starts with David Byrne, the Heads’ lead singer and chief songwriter, walking on stage with a ‘boombox,” setting it down and seeming to turn it on. It’s the song Psycho Killer and Byrne sings solo with the beats. For each song another musician joins Byrne on stage so by the time they get to ‘Burning Down the House,’ the entire group is playing.
Byrne is wearing a ridiculous oversized business suit as they go through their songs. This whole thing wouldn’t work if it were not for the song quality. Songs like ‘Once in a Life Time,’ ‘Life During Wartime,’ ‘Slippery People,’ and the Al Green cover ‘Take Me to the River.’
A song about living in violent times, Life During Wartime, is just as relevant today:
This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, This ain’t no fooling around No time for dancing, or lovey dovey, I ain’t got time for that now
There are many more great lyrical lines: ‘This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife …Hey how did I get here ‘ from Once in a Lifetime.
Every song is a winner and played live so perfectly that it sounds studio produced sometimes on the record where you can’t see the performance.
If you are to buy only one format, I’d probably buy the DVD. I didn’t do that because I rarely buy DVD’s, especially movies I have seen.
Feargall Sharkey in the 1970s was lead singer of the northern Irish punk band The Undertones. I believe I still have my CD anthology of this influential group best known for its song ‘Teenage Kicks.’
The band eventually split over differences in musical direction, according to Wikipedia’s bio. It’s easy to figure out the differences upon listening to Sharkey’s solo albums. His music was glossy and very poppy. Feargall was going for the big commercial score.
His bandmates updated their punk-pop sound of the Undertones by launching the hard-edged band That Petrol Emotion. I will review that album later (if I can find it.)
Sharkey’s albums are overproduced and inoffensive shmears of big band, balladeer and dance. I know what your thinking. If they are bad, why do you have two. OK, the first album got me with its two inexplicably catchy singles: ‘A Good Heart,’ and ‘You Little Thief,’ songs that had a little oomph to them. So, I bought the second album on the basis of those two songs on the first album. (Maybe there would be four or five good songs this time? But, eh, no.)
‘You Little Thief’ does have a great line in a break-up song: ‘There’s no hard feelings, there’s no feelings at all.’
‘A Good Heart’ was written by Lone Justice singer Maria McKee.
ALBUMS: Life in the Foodchain (1978); Amerika (1980) La Bomba (1982); Romeo Unchained (1986); Notes From the Lost Civilization (1987)
MVC Ratings: Life 5.0/$$$$$; Amerika 4.5/$$$$$; La Bomba, 4.0/$$$$; Romeo 4.5/$$$$$; Notes 4.0/$$$$
Well, it’s finally time. Time for one of my favorite artists. Tonio K. (Real name Steve Krikorian; He takes his moniker from Tonio Kroger, a novel by Thomas Mann.)
I fell for Tonio K. the first time I heard the song ‘Life in the Foodchain’ at a watering hole/hamburger place in Athens, Ga., about 1980, or somewhere in that vicinity. I remember it took me a while in those days before Google to find anything about Tonio K. You couldn’t just find bios and histories and contact information with a few keystrokes on a search engine.
I ended up finding Tonio K. through my record expert Chuck at WUXTRY Records. Readers of this blog know I bought a significant amount of used records from WUXTRY, both in Athens and Chuck’s spinoff in Birmingham and Cahaba Heights.
Tonio K. was right up my alley. He was glib, cynical, angry and funny. I mean funny. I go back and listen to the records sometimes and marvel at the wordplay.
“Baby don’t leave me here alone, don’t break up our happy home, think of the children,’ Tonio sings. ‘I know we ain’t got no kids, but think of if we did, it would surely upset them.’
Another song, he sings she’ll be waiting for him ’till the cattle come home.’ He changes cows to cattle. One word change and he sets up some ‘t’s.’ so he can punctuate his angry delivery rat-atat-tat. That’s the small stuff.
His debut album was alternately a punk metal precursor to a group like the Bay Area’s punks Rancid and the already crazy Warren Zevon going more crazy. His first band while a teen was called Raik’s Progress, a psychedelic punk band worth seeking out a recent re-issue.
The opening lines tell you about the harsh realities faced in a survival-of-the-fittest world.
‘Well your mother was there to protect you’ (Wham a one-chord punctuation mark)/Your papa was there to provide (wham)/So how in the world did the excellent baby wind up in this hotel so broken inside.’
Then a little later: Cause it’s dog eat dog/and it’s cat and mouse/it’s watch your step and cross yourself and get back in the house/and it’s do or die/it’s push and shove/because everybody’s hungry and there just isn’t quite enough.
Beyond this survival theme, broken relationships seemed to be his inspiration. Here’s from the not-so-subtle H-A-T-R-E-D.
‘I wish I was as mellow, as for instance Jackson Browne, but ‘Fountain of Sorry’ my ass $%^&***/ I hope you wind up in the ground.
But then Tonio K. got religion, or at least his music did. From ‘You Will Go Free’ with T-Bone Burnett on back-up vocals.
You can call it the devil/call it the big lie/call it a fallen world whatever it is, it ruins almost everything you try … But in the midst of all of this darkness, in the middle of the night/The truth cuts through like a razor, a pure and holy light.
Tonio was in the Buddy Holly band, the Crickets, after Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. He has also collaborated with Burt Bacharach and has written songs for numerous other artists.
I see his musical career in two parts. The angry Tonio of younger years, hurt in relationships, wounded in love. That would encompass the Life and Amerika albums. Then La Bomba was kind of a transitional piece. The guitars were less grungy — just as loud — but not the same as amped up Earl Slick, Nick Van Maarth, Albert Lee and Dick Dale.
After the hard (but clean) rock of La Bomba, Tonio K. moved into a slicker 1980s sound with Romeo Unchained and the Lost Civilization that to these ears almost pushed the music to boring. Couple standouts though, ‘You Will Go Free,” and ‘Perfect World’ on Romeo and ‘You Were There,’ — which always makes my wife cry — and ‘Children’s Crusade on Notes.’ The records had talent to burn with the entrance of T-Bone Burnett. The albums appeared on an A&M subsidiary that promoted Christian artists.
This is not the full extent of K.’s discography. Go to his website www.toniok.com for more. I highly recommend getting Ole’ which has songs to match many on this playlist.
Spun Gold is about the only song on here that I truly enjoy. It’s the last song on the album. Other decent songs are here but others are just irritating.
Singer Michael Quercio needs to learn exactly what to do with that high voice. I’m a fan of odd voices and even higher than usual ones (Freddy Mercury, Prince, Geddy Lee even). Quercio sounds great in Spun Gold, a swirling round of a song, but too often the voice is a distraction.
Guitarist Louis Gutierrez is a solid player. He just needs better songs to wrap around. The Three O’Clock was part of the so-called Paisley Underground, an LA based tag that plagued some of the artists in it. The Bangles were so labeled. I see the all female Bangles as less Paisley and more retro 60’s style. Green on Red is another so called Paisley Underground badge wearer but GOR was much more raw, rocking and funny to be Paisley anything.
The Three O’Clock were the Herman Hermits through a 1980s prism and Quercio is Davy Jones in a higher octave.
And now for something completely different as Mr. Python used to say. A banjo record.
Sure enough all 11 songs on the Real Turkey Records label in San Francisco feature banjo and more banjo. By the cover it appears our six band members include an upright bass, a drummer, a singer, and three banjo players. There’s also piano on some tracks. Several try vocals occasionally but banjo is the theme.
And to put it on the turntable is to turn the beat around. Banjo is scene changer. And this one proves Steve Martin’s line: “The banjo is such a happy instrument–you can’t play a sad song on the banjo – it always comes out so cheerful.”
For that reason this might be fun throwing on when things need livening up or things are getting heavy. But I would recommend only one play (front and back) because too much banjo music has the opposite effect. In a longitudinal study, excessive banjo music (dubbed Banjomama) results in irrational fear of player pianos and suspenders.
Interestingly, I have another album that is based in banjo, but the two records couldn’t be more far apart. ‘Kaleidoscope’ is a California psychedelic album featuring future Jackson Browne guitarist and award winning banjo player David Lindley. Kaleidoscope was a jazzy progressive rock jam while Medicine Ball leans more on traditional songs and ‘happy’ playing.
How many other musical artists can say they had Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton play on their solo album?
Stephen Stills is one I can think of. In fact, the only one I can think of off the top of my head. Clapton and Hendrix played on different tracks, recorded at different times on this Stills’ album, so it wasn’t like they were physically in the same room at the same time.
But a nice score for Stills nonetheless.
Two good songs too. Hendrix plays lead guitar on ‘Old Times, Good Times.” (Hendrix fun fact: He played the guitar left-handed so he would flip a right-handed guitar and re-strung it for a lefty.)
Although known for his aerial string-bending assault on the boundaries of music, he was quite restrained here and also quite tasty.
Clapton plays lead on ‘Go Back Home,’ his Fender Stratocaster cutting through all the other instruments as he takes off on his precision runs.
And Stephen Stills is no third-stringer here, playing lead guitar throughout most of the rest of the album (and organ too).
Good solid album. The hit was ‘Love the One Your With.’
In his many iterations Stills has sold 35 million albums.
ALBUMS: The Classic Performances of Ten Years After (1975); A Space In Time (1971); Undead (Live) 1968.
MVC Rating: Classic (4.0/$$$$;) A Space in Time (4.0/$$$$); Undead (4.5/$$$$$$)
Ten Years After was a hard rock, blues band from England that had their career launched into orbit after their performance at Woodstock.
Alvin Lee played guitar like a man possessed with picking so fast that some have called him the father of the shredding style of guitar playing which emerged a decade or more later in the 1980s.
At Woodstock the group’s ‘I’m Going Home ignited the crowd.
The group’s highest charting hit was ‘I’d Love to Change the World.” It’s a nearly perfect rock songs musically with slow picking intro, segueing into power chord riffing as the vocals kick in amid it all.
The only thing that made me uncertain about the song were the lyrics.
‘Everywhere there’s/ freaks and hairies/dykes and fairies/ Tell me where is sanity .. Tax the rich/ feed the poor till there are no rich no more
I’d love to change the world … but I don’t know what to do
It’s hard to figure what the group meant by the lyrics which insinuate by these examples the world is messed up. The question surfaces in the actual examples themselves, it sounds a bit like an old, crotchety man blaming the state of the world on those long hairs. Yet the message seems slightly odd coming from a group of four musicians with hair down past their shoulders. But, hey, the music sounds good.
The third album I have is a live one cleverly called ‘Undead” and it gives us ‘Woodchopper’s Ball,’ a Woody Herman song that Alvin Lee tore the cover off of. Lee grew up listening to his father’s record collection, heavy on jazz and was pushing the group toward jazz at every turn.
