The Best New Artist of 1978, A Taste of Honey, is considered by many to be the most shameful winner in GRAMMYS history. The band won the award based on its smash disco hit, “Boogie Oogie Oogie”, but the real critical beef here is not the band’s hit song but, rather, the fact that GRAMMY voters had the nerve to overlook Elvis Costello.
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Live Review 02/08/06
Jonathan Richman feat. Tommy Larkins @ Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA
Jonathan Richman is the buskering “Everyman.” His Look: a plain white t-shirt, plain white sneakers, unkempt hair, probably 3 days of unshaven beard, and a pair of black pants. You almost expect your Mom to pop out and say, “What did he, roll out of bed in that shirt?” And even before then, this is when you do believe that the guy spent weeks sleeping on someone’s couch in NY to gather his ideas and get his start, catch some Velvet Underground shows, and go on to form The Modern Lovers.
The first song that I ever heard by Jonathan Richman, was out of my first boyfriend’s older brother’s record collection; the song, “Ice Cream Man” (this same collection of Jim’s also brought us The Clash, The Jam, Billy Bragg, and The Blue Aeroplanes). I remember alternately loving that song, hating that song, and then loving that song again (it seemed to go on forever!) – but even Jonathan Richman has a sense of humour about his music as he knowingly sang last night, “…you will love me or you will hate me”. Continue reading »
Poor guy seems down in the dumps, if this new interview on The AV Club is any indication.
The A.V. Club: How are you doing?
Andy Partridge: I’m not doing great. My mouth has come back to life after some heavy-duty dentistry earlier this afternoon, so I’m not talking like Quasimodo now. But my tinnitus is roaring—Jesus Christ, it’s going loud today. I have really appalling tinnitus after a studio accident last year.
AVC: Does the tinnitus come and go?
AP: No. I’m afraid I have it 24 hours a day, screaming feedback. It makes up for all the years I yelled at monitor men on stage. “Get these fucking things working! Stop that whistling!” Somewhere in the ether, there’s a heavenly monitor man laughing: “Hee hee, I’ll give you feedback 24 hours a day!”
AVC: Does the tinnitus make it hard to play or listen to music?
AP: I tell you, it’s really put me off music in a big way, because I find a lot of sounds upsetting now. Where before they were thrilling or beauteous, I just find a lot of them annoying now. I’ll stop scraping the violin, it’s boring, but I’m going to see a supposed expert on tinnitus in London tomorrow, and hopefully she will say “If you do this, this, and this, it will calm down a bit.”
And so on.
Lou and friends sounding the way his musical contributions to the GRAMMY Awards have always been meant to sound…at least until his next GRAMMY appearance.
We feel it would be of benefit for those of us who feel compelled to tune in for at least a stretch of the GRAMMYS to have a “treasure hunt”-style checklist of expected moments to track. Perhaps you will want to take a drink whenever one of these Obligatory GRAMMYS Moments takes place, but that is optional.
Things we expect to add to this list, which we will make available as a downloadable .pdf document, include the following:
You get the idea. Please help add to this list. Ideally we’ll come up with a list to publish here later tonight. Thanks!
Townsman kpdexter submits the following:
In 2003, Robert Pollard released an album on Off Records called Beard of Lightning. What’s interesting about this album, besides the fact that it features some of the most intense, challenging, and exciting music of his career, as well as incredible melodies and lyrics, is the concept behind it.
Bob was given the master tapes to Phantom Tollbooth’s 1988 album, Power Toy (released on Homestead), and allowed to recreate it, wiping the original vocals and replacing them with his own vocals and lyrics, in effect creating a brand new lp. With the band’s blessing, he set about reshaping the album, laboring over it for months, trying to get it just right. Continue reading »
I was thinking about The Trashcan Sinatras the other day. Now some of you may not even know who they are and some of you may not even care. And perhaps a few of you on here may even already know them and like them. They’re a Scottish indie-pop band who have been around since the late ’80s. As evidenced by the video above for their 1993 single “Hayfever”, they were often tagged in the press as “the poor man’s Smiths”. Of course this isn’t entirely accurate. Sure some of their material bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Morrissey and Marr, but more often than not, it can also resemble bands as diverse as Aztec Camera, Prefab Sprout, The Housemartins (and by extension, The Beautiful South) and Orange Juice while simultaneously forging a unique identity all their own.
After an 8-year hiatus, The Trashcan Sinatras came back in 2004 with the masterful Weightlifting, showing a depth, maturity, and poise that can only come with age and experience. In that way they’re similar to Nick Lowe’s more recent records in that they’re definitely about making music for adults, but not in the generic adult-contemporary sense of the word. Now I know a lot of you dislike The Smiths and other similar artists, but other than going on about the greatness of The Trashcan Sinatras, there’s another, more pressing (and more vital to RTH) question at the heart of this post.
What bands that are generally considered “2nd division” do you like better than those to whom they get compared to? Are you a bigger Undertones fan than a Ramones fan (as I am)? Do you prefer The Kinks or even The Small Faces to the Fab Four or The Stones? Survivor to Journey? I think you see my point here. I look forward to seeing your responses on this topic.
