Yeah, I know we’ve done ABBA once already this year, but in celebration of “Mamma Mia” stinking up theater screens nationwide, I figure we should probably take a look at one of the earliest glimmers that ABBA were more than just your standard bubblegum pop group.

While early singles “Waterloo” and “Honey, Honey” were decidedly lightweight, the Swedish foursome showed a more mature side with “Mamma Mia’s” b-side,  “Hey Hey Helen” (download), a track taken from their second, eponymously titled album.  A guitar-driven glam track from when the group was experimenting with glitter rock (see “Ring, Ring”), “Helen” took an adult look at divorce and single motherhood in a time when the divorce rate was up and the traditional family unit was taking a beating.  At first, the lyrics seem a bit judgmental, until you get to that last bit in the chorus where the girls assure the newly single mother that she can, in fact, make it alone:

So at last you’re free
It’s the way you wanted it to be
And the price you paid
To become a woman of today
Is it worth the pain to see the children cry
Does it hurt when they ask for Daddy

Hey hey Helen
Now you live on your own
Hey hey Helen
Can you make it alone
(Yes you can)

I’m surprised that considering the theme of the song, it wasn’t used in the “Mamma Mia” musical or movie.  Perhaps it wasn’t considered a popular enough tune to make the cut, even though the group mimed it for quite a few TV appearances at the time.  Here’s the quartet lipsynching the song on “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” in 1975: (more…)

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This feature’s been a little too Detroit Rock City-heavy. While ’tis true that the Motor City and the surrounding region was so incredibly loaded with fiercely competitive bands that collectors today gravitate toward that scene more than, say, the crummy garage-rock put out near Schenectady, Des Moines, and of course, Eau Claire…

…OK, OK, y’all’s convinced me to keep the Lo-Fi spotlight on Detroit. Here’s the Soul Benders’ cover of “Seven and Seven Is.”

What in the bleeping name of Pete Best are we doing with this cut, you may ask. Here’s the original “Seven,” below, done by Love, which might not be the most familiar name in rock. In fact it was the only top 40 hit for the band, a record left to the bonepile of obscurity for musicologists to rhapsodize about and lord their superior knowledge over people who would give them credibility.

In the world of cool no-hit-wonder garage bands, The Soul Benders are actually pretty cool, because they sound great, but more importantly, they were on Fenton Records of Sparta, Michigan. The big thing about garage and psychedelic music listening/fandom/collecting is that a lot of these bands sucked. They didn’t make it anywhere for good reason. (more…)

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Years ago, after packing away most of my old 45’s, I gave several to my friend Steve for prosperity’s sake. Among them was Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song,” one of their greatest triumphs from their third album, released in 1970. However, the treasure of this particular single was the rare B-side, “Hey Hey What Can I Do,” unavailable on any Zeppelin album (until the release of the first Led Zeppelin box set in 1990). I would never call Steve a big Zeppelin fan. (This may have something to do with an incident when his mom scrutinized “Whole Lotta Love” blasting through the tape deck. There’s nothing worse than having to explain Robert Plant’s sexual moans to your mother.) Steve preferred the angst and teenage wastelands of the Who, anyway; always a lyric guy. Being a drummer, I was drawn to the rhythm and blues, and the grunge and the groove, of Zeppelin. Like all of our friends, we discovered Zeppelin and the Who on our own, before there was a format known as “classic rock,” instead relying on the tastes of our peers (or peers’ older siblings). At a time when Zeppelin was only beginning to receive renewed radio airplay, it was quite unusual to hear “Hey Hey What Can I Do” on the radio. Luckily, I was able to track down “The Immigrant Song” at a record store so I could give it a spin whenever I liked.

On a warm summer night in June 1985, Steve and I bunkered down in my house while the parental units were away for the weekend. That night, we sat through Ken Russell’s interpretation of Tommy, sampled the booze from the decorative liquor bottles in the wet bar (replacing the missing contents with water, because, you know, parents never notice) and wound up meeting a couple of girls at the city park around the corner from the house. One of the girls was my ex-girlfriend. No, we didn’t hook up; in fact, there was no hookage that night, just some innocent flirting between my best bud and the ex. I didn’t mind. She had broken up with me back in the fall — my first break-up (complete with embarrassing Favreau-esque/Swingers-like phone calls on my part… ugh, painful). I realized I’d never have another shot with this particular beauty. What kind of friend would I be if I stood in the way of Steve’s teenage bliss? That night I basically gave him permission to date her, nullifying the guy code about dating your best friend’s ex-girlfriend. Eventually, Steve and I returned from the park and switched on the video of Zeppelin’s concert film, The Song Remains the Same. Giddy from our moonlight encounter, we pranced around the house like idiots, using my old crutches as guitars, imitating Jimmy Page drooling on himself during his killer solos. (more…)

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Over the next year Terje Fjelde has agreed to listen to nothing but David Foster on his iPod. He’s loaded the thing with over 1,200 songs produced, arranged, composed, and/or played by David Foster. A deal with the devil? He keeps wondering.

Let’s return to the 1970s today, shall we? Up for some pre-teen pop, maybe? Wait, don’t go! It’s better than you may think.

The Keane Brothers by The Keane Brothers (1977) is another early David Foster production. The record was released when John Keane was 11 and Tom Keane 12, and all songs (save one) were written by the brothers themselves. Both of them were multi-instrumentalists and they were coached by their dad, Bob Keane, musician, producer and owner of Del-Fi Records. These guys were pretty amazing — take a look at this clip from a TV show in early 1977. It’s John on drums and Tom on piano and vocals. “Amy (Show The World You’re There)” refers to Amy Carter, by the way:

The Keane Brothers consists of light pop with some unmistakable David Foster trademarks. He produced and arranged the album and, as usual, he’s in good company: The Tower of Power horn section, Bill Champlin on background vocals and arrangements, Larry Carlton and Jay Graydon on guitars, Jeff Porcaro, Ed Greene and Nigel Olsson on drums and Lee Sklar and Mike Porcaro on bass.

All these guys had settled as first-call studio players by this time, and you can find them on most of Foster’s productions (and just about everything else recorded between 1977 and 1990) along with the rest of the gang: Dean Parks, John Robinson, Dave Hungate, Abe Laboriel, Mike Landau, Ray Parker, Jr., and so on — you’re a Popdose reader, so you probably know the deal.

Now that you know who plays on all these records I’m writing about, I guess there’s no need for me to ever bring it up again. Too bad; I love listing session musicians. (more…)

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Brian Vogan - Little Songs (2008)
purchase this album (CD Baby)

I didn’t mean for it to be this way — and every time I review one of these, I grow more afraid that Mrs. Davis is going to kneecap me for horning in on her territory — but I seem to have become the kids’ music guy at Popdose. It’s hard to complain about this too much, though, because I keep ending up with free copies of CDs that my daughter loves — and the latest, Brian Vogan’s Little Songs, is the best yet.

Seriously, you guys. Seriously. Even if you don’t have kids, don’t want kids, hate kids, you might want to pick yourself up a copy of Little Songs — it’s smart, funny, well-produced, and charming as all get-out. Vogan, a former pre-K teacher, used his job as an early childhood music educator to craft the songs on the album, introducing them to his classes as projects that they all worked on together, week by week. You wouldn’t think that songwriting with a committee of toddlers would result in songs as immediately appealing as “Racecar” or “Animal ABCs” (download), but the evidence suggests otherwise.

The album isn’t without its low points — “Chess” aims for TMBG-style whimsy, but will leave you aiming for the “skip” button, and “Spring” lacks the irresistible energy of the rest of the record — but trust me when I tell you that the young ones in your life will be won over immediately by Brian Vogan’s Little Songs, and listening to it repeatedly (as I’ve done for the last week and a half or so) won’t drive you crazy either. What else could you ask for?

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I had been driving for what felt like a hundred years. My buddy Treebeard and I had been trading off behind the wheel for three days. Our destination was finally in sight, but we had to make a long detour around the flooded wastelands of Iowa.

The detour took us further and further north until finally we saw the orange detour sign that pointed eastward. It had been a long day’s drive through the dark heart of nothing, and even after we knocked back strong coffee and found decent veggie burritos somewhere in Ohio, our day’s driving quota was far from met. I had many miles to go before I could collapse on another sketchy Motel 6 full-size. Somewhere near West Virginia we stopped for gas. I was tired, and I watched as yet another $60 was leeched from my bank card and into the bowels of the great blue beast we drove. It was the first time during the trip that I began to feel serious burnout. I just wanted to park on a roadside, sleep, and take my chances with whatever the morning brought.

“DUDE, LOOK!”

And there was Treebeard, walking — no, skipping – out of the minimart with a six-pack of beer held over his head. That’s how I discovered Magic Hat.

Treebeard was familiar with this magical elixir from his days in New England. Magic Hat comes from Vermont, and it is so very Vermont that the six-pack even came with a contest entry to win tickets to a stop on Mike Gordon’s summer tour. We loaded up on the stuff and headed into the darkness.

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One of my favorite Popdose experiences to date came in the wake of Part 9 in our colleague Dave Steed’s wonderful “Bottom Feeders” series. He had identified his first CD purchase, and dozens of his readers spontaneously took the opportunity to share their firsts — CDs, LPs, singles, MP3s, etc. In a shameless attempt to replicate the Kumbaya togetherness of that key moment in Popdose history, I’m launching an occasional series inviting readers to share your experiences as fans, haters, critics and/or ignorers of some of the greatest acts in rock history.

The rules will be simple. Every few weeks I’ll choose an act, offer up a story about a particular song that has affected me, and then open up the request lines for you to talk about a song by the same act that has affected you, positively or negatively. (If you’d like to suggest an act for a future column and offer your own story – in essence, to take over the column for a week – please write me at jon.) I’m counting on you all; if you don’t play along, I’ll kill the column and I’ll be very, very disappointed in you.

Starting things off with an easy one, this week’s artist is U2, the song (for me) is “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and here’s my story:

On March 9, 1987, I was a senior at Northwestern relaxing through the “study period” preceding winter-quarter exam week. I’d slept in that morning, and was walking into town (that’s Evanston, IL, for the uninitiated) just before lunchtime for my Tuesday ritual of checking out the new album releases at Vintage Vinyl. I had just descended the steps in front of Northwestern’s somewhat-famed clock tower when a black, late-model sports car pulled up in front of me and the driver yelled, “Cumshot!”

Now, only one guy had the Bush-ian temerity to nickname me “Cumshot,” or “Cumquat,” or “Cummilingous,” or choose your favorite: my friend/rival John Heilemann. John usually, but not always, got the better of me in our continual attempts to one-up each other as budding journalists, but he and I shared a giddy devotion to riding the crest of the pop-culture zeitgeist. So I walked up to the passenger window and Heilemann simply said, “Get in. I got it.”

“It,” of course, was The Joshua Tree, and Heilemann had gotten to the store first (bastard!). (more…)

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It was either Soren Kierkegaard or Wayne Campbell from Wayne’s World who said: “Once you label me, you negate me.” And so it goes with Sia – whose latest release, Some People Have Real Problems, was filed in the electronica section of my local record store. Sia’s career veered into the electronica territory when she did some vocals for Zero 7, and her musical contribution to Six Feet Under’s series finale (“Breathe Me”) demonstrated she can be a rather intense singer.

Flash forward to 2008, and Sia sounds like she’s ditched electronica to dabble in jazz, show tunes stylings, and straight-ahead pop. The most radio-friendly tunes on Some People Have Real Problems being “The Girl You Lost to Cocaine” (download) and the hidden track at the end of “Lullaby.” Sia even does a cover of the Pretenders’ “I Go to Sleep” that is quite lovely — and almost surpasses the original.

Perhaps it’s my penchant for odd songs that made me warm up to “Academia” (download), but I found that the semi-robotic style of Sia’s vocals (with additional vocals by Beck) helped make it one of the strongest cuts on the CD. I don’t quite know how to classify this CD other than to say, that at times it has “Featured at Starbucks” written all over it. The first five songs are pleasant and thoughtful pop tunes for the furrowed-brow crowd who enjoy sipping coffee combinations at a certain famed coffeehouse behemoth. After “Academia,” however, the songs sound a little less conventional and a little more interesting, with some compositions inviting comparisons to Fiona Apple.

If you still buy CDs, you may find Sia’s Some People Have Real Problems in the electronica section. But get ready for a collection of songs that defy labeling.

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Ah, the re-remix. Knives out, everyone.

There are two schools of thought on the subject of unearthing a track for a modern-day update. There are those who are turned off by the limited production techniques of the time when the song was originally recorded, and would prefer to give said song a studio upgrade, while another group believes that running a song through this week’s drum machine of choice actually makes the song even more dated than the original, and at the same time strips the song of the very qualities that made it so unique and likeable in the first place. Over time, as dance music mutates evolves, people in the former group will join the latter group, though the opposite almost never happens. The only ones who stay in the former group are professional DJs, but only because they have to.

People actually started tackling music from the ’80s as early as 1987, when Dead or Alive producer Zeus B. Held turned in a fabulous – though very timely – mix of Gary Numan’s “Cars.” By 1989, re-remixes were all over the place, notably Real Life’s “Send Me an Angel” (which bests the original) and M’s Robin Scott giving his lone hit “Pop Muzik” the house treatment. Some of the best re-remix work, though, was being done by a group of DJs from England who worked for a company called Disco Mix Club, or DMC for short. The truly amazing thing is that, up to this point, they never had access to the master tapes of the bands they were “mixing.” They were just editing the existing mixes, but they were so good at it that eventually they were granted access to the masters. Quite an honor, to be sure, and they did not disappoint.

The best remixer of the bunch, for my money, was Steve Anderson, one half of the production duo Brothers in Rhythm. He made what I still consider to be the Best Remix Ever (sadly, you’ll have to wait until the September 24 installment of Mope Like Me for that one), but his take on the Human League’s “Love Action (I Believe in Love),” which he mixed in late 1992, is not far behind. Anderson definitely had a pattern to his work – start with a brand-new slate, add layer upon layer of synths, vocals, and percussion, then slowly fade in the song’s key riff – but once that meow-meow keyboard comes in and the kick drum starts thumping, it’s off to the races. Anderson had a thing for opening the first verse without a drum track, too. Not sure how that worked in a club, it made for some mighty fine home listening. Also, check out the “Once in a Lifetime”-ish keyboard during the “I believe, I believe, what the old man said” bit in the bridge.

It’s been a long time since anyone has made a mix of an ’80s song that I can listen to without wanting to put knitting needles in my ears – Irene Rockstar’s mix of Book of Love’s “Boy,” from the Future Retro compilation, is the only one that comes to mind. Like my Popdose bio says, once they changed what “it” was, and once what I was “with” wasn’t “it,” what became “it” was weird and scary to me (i.e. relentless, droning trance music at 180 beats per minute). I think about the fact that I once considered working as a club or party DJ for a living, and all I can say now is: thank God that never happened. The window closed on me almost immediately after I decided against it, the Chemical Brothers excepted.

So, for your ’simpler times’ listening pleasure, enjoy the Human League’s original version, followed by Anderson’s 1992 makeover. See you in two weeks, club kids.

Human League – Love Action (I Believe in Love) (Steve Anderson Mix)

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Every now and then I like to talk about what I have deemed “inappropriate ghetto moments.” These moments occur when I have the windows open in my car, the stereo turned up really loud (there isn’t any other volume), and some really bad song is playing as I’m driving through the ghetto.

Now, this doesn’t happen often. Most of the time I drive straight home from work and I don’t pass through the ghetto at all. But on days where I stop to get some food on the way home, I have to take the long way back and, well, there goes the neighborhood. We’re definitely talking a lot of 40 oz. bottles of fine malt liquor, one or two crack whores, and maybe someone starting a fight outside of the Fried Chicken Shack. Oh, and the homeless man with the broken right leg. Yet even with this sunny description of the area, my fat belly often yearns for a double cheeseburger from some grease pit, so I risk it.

Anyway, the story is not about the food I eat but rather the songs coming out of my speakers. The first time I ever spoke about “inappropriate ghetto moments” came as I was riding down the street and a group of thugs were stollin’ along the sidewalk while I was playing El DeBarge’s “Who’s Johnny.” (Yes, I realize this song comes up all the time in my posts. I swear I listen to it way more than anyone should.) Another time was a 12-inch remix of “Electric Youth” by Debbie Gibson. And it usually doesn’t hit me right away either. After a half dozen people give me weird looks, it’s only then do I realize the reason and stop singing along.

So how do I top Debbie Gibson, you ask? Well, I think I did last week. I had four dudes walking down the yellow line in the middle of the street as I pulled up blasting the very beginning of “Ears of Tin” by Jethro Tull, off their Rock Island record. If you don’t know this song, it starts off with a fierce flute passage (typical), and of course nothing says “I’m a big pussy, please carjack me” like Riverdance-sounding bullshit bumpin’ outta da hooptie. And this time I was going through the ghetto for nothing more than a sweet tea — if I’m going to die it’d better not be while listening to Jethro Tull and sipping sweet tea. That’s far less cool than my plan of dying when I’m 90 during an orgy with barely legal teens after realizing my Levitra-induced erection has lasted more than the four hours they warned me about on the commercial. This, of course, only holds true if they don’t create some kind of bionic penis in the next 60 years. If they do, then maybe death by Tull will have to do.

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