Yesterday I was flipping back and forth between a particularly bad start to a Phillies game (which ended in stunningly successful fashion) and an episode of Austim City Limits, featuring The Polyphonic Spree. My son was as fascinated as I was by the ridiculous be-robed gesticulations of these clowns, yet he couldn’t quite grasp the majesty of their schtick. “This is like opera!” he kept saying. Good boy. Some Hispanic rock band followed that also was heavy on multi-instrumental band members and was led by a singer with a screeching voice. “Does every band on this show have to have a stupid singer?” my son asked.
Rock ‘n roll is rife with highly successful schticks, from Freddy and the Dreamers to Sha Na Na to The Residents to The White Stripes. More power to all these practitioners of rock schtick, I say. But how about the great schticks of rock that pretty much went nowhere? How about Nash the Slash? I’m sure you’ve got a favorite rock schtick that went nowhere.
In the past, we’ve covered one of Rock’s Doomed Fashion Trends, the Headband. Today, I’d like to take a look at one of Rock’s Resiliant Fashion Trends.
Check out the following video, in which Toni Childs’ duets with a famous soul man and a star-studded supporting cast.
Despite the overall fine performance alongside the legendary Al Green, despite Carlos Santana‘s flaming red suit, despite the star-studded, mulleted backup singers, the real star of this clip is Toni Childs’ Look, which I’m calling the Suburban Guerrilla Look. Continue reading »
I think I struck a nerve in a Townsman the other day when I referred to “mediocre” Costello songs that were made by Attractions bassist Bruce Thomas. He wanted to know what songs I had in mind. Leaving out Brutal Youth, an album on which even Pete Thomas starts to sound limp and on which Nick Lowe actually plays some bass (and I don’t want a Pince Nez pulled on me if I incorrectly give Bruce credit), as well as a fantastic, nearly non-song like “Lipstick Vogue”, which is made equally by both Thomases in the Attractions’ rhythm section – in no particular order – here are 10 mediocre Costello songs that were made interesting almost solely by the bass playing of Bruce Thomas. Continue reading »
The Great 48 has submitted the following Critical Upgrade. I’ve never heard this album, only knowing their popular debut, which a friend burned me years ago and which I enjoy but wish was less silly. The Great One’s description of the band’s overlooked follow up makes me want to check it out. Let us know what you think and whether the Critical Upgrade filing is in order.
First, some set-up is in order: De La Soul was formed in 1987 by Kelvin Mercer (Posdnuos), David Jolicoeur (Dove), and Vincent Mason (Mase), three teenagers from Amityville, Long Island. That last part is important: De La Soul were the first important New York rap group not from the five boroughs, but from a middle-class suburb. Under the guidance of Paul Hudson (Prince Paul), a slightly older hip-hop producer who was also a member of the mid-80s group Stetsasonic, De La Soul got a deal with Tommy Boy Records and released their first single, “Potholes In My Lawn”, in 1988. This song, the chorus of which featured a jews harp and a yodeler, sounded basically like nothing that had ever come before in hip-hop, and when their debut album, Three Feet High and Rising, came out in the spring of 1989, De La Soul were immediately the hottest thing on the scene.
Some historical placement: although Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, and some other acts were already expanding the sonic parameters of hip-hop, most hip-hop singles in ’88 and ’89 were still fairly simple, bare-bones affairs along the lines of Run-DMC’s hits. Three Feet High and Rising was worlds apart from that: the songs were still largely sample-based, but although Mase was nominally the trio’s DJ, their sound was created in-studio by Prince Paul and the group out of loops, samples, sequencers, live instruments and found-sound tapes, which made their music far more complex than anything else that was going on at the time. Listen to Three Feet High and Rising today, and unlike just about any other hip-hop record from 1989, it doesn’t sound dated. And it attracted a different sort of white audience than any previous hip-hop album: I can state for myself that although I was mildly interested in hip-hop and buying singles and occasional albums starting with the early run of classic Grandmaster Flash sides on Sugar Hill (other than Blondie’s “Rapture,” my first hip-hop purchase was Flash’s “It’s Nasty,” a great 1982 single based on the riff from Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love”), there was always a vaguely sociological angle, if you get what I’m saying. I barely had any personal connection to Run-DMC’s lyrics, much less Public Enemy.
But once you get past the proliferation of in-jokes, goofiness, and random nonsense on Three Feet High and Rising, the songs are about television, junk food, being slightly scared of girls even when you’re getting off with them (“Jenifa Taught Me”), moral equivocation on the topic of drugs (“Say No Go”), and personal identity versus conformity (“Me Myself and I”), topics that any suburban teenager of any race could get behind. Plus there were the samples. Along with the usual James Brown and George Clinton samples (that last song is built on Funkadelic’s “Not Just Knee Deep”), there were samples from Hall and Oates (“Say No Go”), the Turtles (“Transmitting Live From Mars”), Steely Dan (“Eye Know”), and of course the Johnny Cash sample at the end of “The Magic Number” that gave the album its name. This was music that a teenaged white boy from the ‘burbs recognized. Continue reading »
While listening to selected cuts from Elvis Costello & the Attractions’ Blood & Chocolate album this morning I had the following thoughts, which can be applied to broader Rock Meditations:
What’s your most difficult rock loss to process? For me it’s Costello’s loss of bassist Bruce Thomas. His bass playing drove so many otherwise mediocre Costello tunes. For instance, “Five Gears in Reverse” is a pretty bad song if not for Thomas’ bass part.
The echoed scream that signifies the fadeout of “Tokoyo Storm Warning” is a recorded moment that I wish Costello could retract. “Why’d he do that?” I think, every time I hear it. It almost ruins the fairly cool song. What recorded moment by an artist you love makes you think Why’d he/she do that?
There’s a song I wrote years ago that’s never moved beyond home demo stage for various reasons, beginning with the fact that it’s probably not very good. The song means a lot to me, however, and the middle eighth is a complete ripoff of Blood & Chocolate’s “Blue Chair”. I don’t care. Have you ever ripped off a part in a song you love so directly that you just don’t care?
Unrelated, other than my listening to “Ship of Fools” from The Doors’ Morrison Hotel earlier, What’s your favorite coda in a rock song?
In what is truly exciting news for members of Rock Town Hall, Sons of Champlin‘s first three albums have been released on an upcoming compilation entitled The Ariola Years. The collection features A Circle Filled With Love, Loving Is Why, and The Sons of Champlin/Goldmine.
Surely members of Rock Town Hall need no introduction to the works of this legendary San Francisco band, but it’s reported that new and longtime fans alike will be dazzled by the first-time appearance of these remastered tracks from the original tapes. Bonus outtakes and live tracks are not scheduled for this release, although Sons of Champlin founder Bill Champlin has confirmed discussions for a future release of this nature. “It’s important,” said Champlin, “that we stem the tide of bootleggers. Besides, we owe it to our fans.”
If news of this release is not enough, the Sons have announced a Fall Tour, which kicks off September 14, in Redwood City, CA!
