Lo-Fi Mojo: The High Numbers

Lo-Fi Mojo

In early 1964, a London-based R&B club band called the Detours – rhythm guitarist Roger Daltrey, lead guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle, drummer Doug Sandom and singer Colin Dawson – were struggling to take things to the next level. They were fairly successful on the local pub and dancehall circuit, and, having seamlessly incorporated American style R&B (think Motown) into their act, started making inroads into the burgeoning mod scene, a 1960s subculture that incorporated cutting-edge fashion, Vespa scooters and such music genres such as rhythm and blues, soul and Merseybeat (think the Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers et. al.).

After Dawson left for a number of reasons (not least of which was Daltrey’s rough-and-tumble personality and bandleader status), Daltrey became the singer, leaving all guitar duties to the more-than-capable Townshend. They then changed their name to the Who, after discovering a band also sporting the Detours moniker. When a failed audition for Fontana Records precipitated the departure of the less-than-convinced Sandom and the arrival of Keith Moon, the lineup that would help change rock history was in place.

Around this time, they were “discovered” by Pete Meaden, himself a mod, with all the baggage participation in that scene implies: drugs (mostly amphetamine and other uppers), fashionista-like spending habits, and a generally overdriven lifestyle that was as untrustworthy as it was energizing. Totally enamored of the mod subculture, Meaden wanted to remake the former Detours as a mod magnet band. First order of business as their manager/publicist? Changing their name…again. Meaden rebranded them the High Numbers, a reference to the numbered T-shirts favored by mods at the time (ie, that month, or that week). Second order of business? A hit single calculated to appeal to their notoriously fickle audience, and to entrench the High Numbers as the mod band. (more…)

Lo-Fi Mojo: Cactus

Lo-Fi Mojo

From its inception, the band Cactus was always supposed to be a supergroup. The rhythm section of late-‘60s psychedelic sludge rockers Vanilla Fudge – namely, bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice – had planned to form a group with Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart, but their plans got sidetracked after Jeff Beck was laid up for a year and a half after a car crash. Rod Stewart ended up joining the Faces with fellow Jeff Beck Group member and future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood.

Bogert and Appice eventually hooked up with Jeff Beck in 1972 to form Beck, Bogert & Appice, which adjourned after a couple of years and two albums (the self-title studio album, and Live In Japan).

In the meantime, Beck’s accident and lengthy recuperation didn’t put too much of a dent in Bogert’s and Appice’s plans. They found suitable journeymen replacements in guitarist Jim McCarty (from Mitch Ryder’s Detroit Wheels and The Buddy Miles Express) and singer Rusty Day (from the Amboy Dukes – yeah, The Nuge’s old band).

Call it a not-quite-as-super supergroup, but this lineup put out three albums of pure, unadulterated early ‘70s bloozy boogie rock before interband squabbling did ‘em in. Bogert and Appice hired a few more guns for a fourth combination live-and-in-studio album in ’72 before dissolving the band and joining Beck for BB&A.

Apparently, Cactus has been referred to as “The American Led Zeppelin,” but tracking down the original quote has proved elusive, so it’s tough to verify who said it, where and when. Nevertheless, the band’s short-but-impressive run turned enough heads so that, years later, such rockers as Van Halen, David Coverdale, Kid Rock and Ted Nugent, among others, have gone on record as being Cactus fans. (more…)

Lo-Fi Mojo: Proto-Little Feat

Lo-Fi Mojo

The original Lowell George-led Little Feat had a string of classic albums in the 1970s, from their self-titled debut on through 1978’s live Waiting For Columbus, their best seller.

After George died at the age of 34 in a hotel room in 1979, of an apparent heart attack, during a tour in support of his one and only solo album (Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here), Little Feat reformed in the late ‘80s, featuring all the surviving former members. They’ve been successfully touring and releasing albums in one incarnation or another ever since.

But as successful as late-model Little Feat is (was?) – their 1988 “comeback” album Let It Roll went gold and contained the band’s career-first No. 1 hit (on the Mainstream Rock Chart at least), “Hate to Lose Your Lovin’” – and even though they’ve been Little Feat longer without him than with him, the shadow of Lowell George will forever hang over them.

Lowell George was best known for his phenomenal slide guitar playing. He got a distinctive sound primarily due to his use of a socket wrench instead of the traditional glass or steel tube, which he apparently started using due to an injury to his hand involving a model airplane propeller.

But George’s talents weren’t limited to his guitar playing. He also had an amazingly soulful voice, and as a songwriter he’s penned enough classics to ensure his place in the pantheon of great rock ‘n’ roll songwriters. George also played on John Cale’s landmark 1973 album Paris 1919. And as a producer, his most famous credit (beyond Little Feat’s own albums) was the Grateful Dead’s 1978 masterwork Shakedown Street (though due to his drug use he had to be replaced.

Here at lo-fi central, however, we’re not as interested in the classics as we are the prototypes of those classics. So in regards to Lowell George and Little Feat, we’re reaching back to a few tracks recorded prior to their 1971 self-titled Warner Bros. debut, all pulled off the career-spanning box set Hotcakes & Outtakes: 30 Years of Little Feat released in 2000.

”Lightning-Rod Man” was recorded in late 1966 by The Factory, a pre-Little Feat Lowell George group that also contained Martin Kibbee (a future George songwriting partner co-writer of such Little Feat hits as “Dixie Chicken” and Rock & Roll Doctor), Richie Hayward (the drummer who’s still in Little Feat more than 40 years later), and none other than Frank Zappa, who, in addition to adding piano and distinctive backing vocals, also produced the cut. Two years later, in fact, George joined Zappa’s band (Weasels Ripped My Flesh era) for a stint. The story goes that George was booted from the Zappa camp because of George’s song “Willin’,” which contains some none-too-subtle references to drug use (“weed, whites and wine”) – though it could just have easily been due to a violation of Zappa’s well-known no-drug policy for his players.

The next three songs were recorded in 1969 by the earliest version of Little Feat, and feature bassist Roy Estrada (an original member of Zappa’s Mothers of Invention), as well as Hayward and keyboardist Bill Payne (the second-longest member of the group who’s tenure has remained current through the present day). The recordings also feature Elliot Ingber (guitar) on “Teenage Nervous Breakdown” and “Juliet.” Ingber went on to play in Capt. Beefheart’s Magic Band (after being renamed Winged Eel Fingerling).

“Little Feat – Crack In Your Door”

“Little Feat – Teenage Nervous Breakdown”

“Little Feat – Juliet”

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Lo-Fi Mojo: “Farmer John”

Lo-Fi Mojo

Like most listeners, the first time I heard the song “Farmer John” was on the Neil Young & Crazy Horse return-to-form album Ragged Glory in 1987. It seemed almost tailor-made for the proto-punk, garage rock stylings of the sometimes barely-competent but always glorious guitar skronk of Crazy Horse.

The song’s got a history all it’s own, however. It’s one of those chestnuts that gets unearthed every decade or so. That’s a sign of either staying power or novelty, usually…in this case, perhaps a little of both.

The definitive version, and the one that Young & Crazy Horse and any other act to cover it since the ‘60s is referencing, is from 1964, by The Premiers. Featured on the Nuggets box set, it has one of the strangest openings you’re likely to hear on record.

“Has anybody seen Kosher Pickle Harry?,” asks an unidentified emcee. “Noooo,” a group of revelers drunkenly (?) bawl. “If you see him, tell him that Herbert is looking for him.” More crowd noise ensues (including a shouted “Who’s Herbert?”). Then the band is introduced to screams of delight before it kicks into the simultaneous drum-guitar-sax opening stomp. Party noise threatens to overwhelm the song throughout the roughly two minute duration, with drunken, pitchy harmonizing (“Oh WAY Ohhhhh”) adding to the general sense of mayhem. Crazy, man, crazy. Dig it. Most of the “audience” noise was courtesy of the all-girl Chevelles Car Club, on hand at the Hollywood studio where the cut was recorded.

The song became an unexpected breakout hit, moving from local to regional to national fame within weeks, ultimately reaching #19 on the charts in that summer of ’64.

”Farmer John,” like so many other hits of that era, was a rocked-up (read: “Louie Louie”’ed) remake of an earlier, more basic ‘50s R&B song. Don & Dewey were a Los Angeles-based vocal duo. “Don” is none other than Don “Sugarcane” Harris, best known as the electric violinist on Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats, Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh albums, as well as his appearances as a sideman with John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers.

The Searchers (of “Needles and Pins” and “Love Potion No. 9” fame) also covered the song, in 1963, a version of which I could not track down. But, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals have been playing this gem in concert for a few years now, a version of which is below.

Don & Dewey – “Farmer John”
The Premiers – “Farmer John”
Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Farmer John” [from Ragged Glory]
Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Farmer John” [from Arc/Weld]
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals – “Farmer John” [Live]

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Lo-Fi Mojo: Vivian Girls

Lo-Fi Mojo

Brooklyn-based trio Vivian Girls have lived a lifetime in blog years, going from virtual unknowns to hipster music blog celebrities to backlash victims in about 14 months. But regardless of any blowback caused by the ever-shortening PR cycles in the blogosphere, this punkish, fuzzed-out update on the classic girl-group sounds of the ‘60s was a welcome discovery in 2008.

And what a year it was. The Vivian Girls – Cassie Ramone (the blonde; guitar/vocals), Kickball Katy (the redhead; bass/vocals) and Ali Koehler (the bespectacled brunette; drums/vocals) – released four 7” singles and a full-length LP, played continually throughout NYC, toured their asses off, opened for such alterna-stalwarts as Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo, and did a lot of press. In short, they’re doing everything a new band should be doing.

Their music references a whole bunch of stylistic argot: The harmonies and overall mood (and reverb!) will recall such ‘60s girl-groups as The Crystals, The Ronettes, The Shangri-Las and so forth. The fuzztone guitar in a lot of their songs and the general loose feel of the arrangements feel like garage rock. That some songs devolve into squealing cacophony is bit shoegaze-y. Surf music gets a nod in both their vocal harmonizing and some of their song choices (a recently released cover of the Beach BoysGirl Don’t Tell Me,” for instance). Their look and attitude recalls the best of the riotgrrl movement. Toss a little shambolic C86 in there, too. Hell, go all the way back to The Raincoats, if you want. And the whole affair is presented in glorious lo-fi, Slumberland-y, knocked-off brilliance (hey, if it were as easy as it sounds, don’t you think there’d be more of it?). (more…)

Lo-Fi Mojo: Black Pearl

Lo-Fi Mojo

black-pearlI first heard about Black Pearl from Lester Bangs. Not first-hand, of course. But from his 1971 Creem magazine essay “Of Pop and Pies and Fun,” reprinted in the essential (and first!) anthology of his inspired and gloriously lunatic writing, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung. Hey – how do you discover “new” old bands? Especially when you’re on the hunt, antennae at the ready, for specific sounds to quench your lo-fi jones, and another trip through the Nuggets/Pebbles/Rubble anthologies isn’t cutting it? It’s a little game I like to play – call it “follow the musical breadcrumb trail.” If I like Band X, and in an article, review, column or what-have-you, Band Y or Z gets mentioned in the same breath as Band X, then it stands to reason that I should like – or at least check out – Band Y or Z, too. Especially if the author is Lester Bangs, and we’re talking about garage rock or slabs of garage rock-inspired noise. Sometimes this method of musical discovery pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. In the case of Black Pearl, it paid off.

The specific quote in the above-mentioned essay – a typical Bangsian 3,000 word rant subtitled “A program for mass liberation in the form of a Stooges review” – that made my lo-fi antenna quiver was this:

“Black Pearl appeared with a promising first album – no real experiments, but a distinct Yardbirds echo in the metallic clanging cacophony of precisely distorted guitars. Their second LP fizzled out in bad soul music.”

Yardbirds echo? Metallic clanging cacophony? Precisely distorted guitars? Oooh, yum. Time for a little online research and, hopefully, sonic discovery.

Turns out Black Pearl was a Boston band. Well, ultimately San Francisco-based, but originally from Boston (and coming from that area myself, there’s always a place in my heart for a Boston band). And their backstory is one of those classic gems you love to uncover when doing musico-archeology. (more…)

Lo-Fi Mojo: Clinic, “Tomorrow”

If I wasn’t a sucker for fuzzed out sonic bliss – and bands, songs and albums that are driven more by passion than musical ability – I wouldn’t have agreed (read: jumped at!) the chance to take over writing “Lo-Fi Mojo” from the estimable Mojo Flucke. As fellow aficionados of classic garage rock and its myriad offshoots, the good doctor and I have long traded lo-fi nuggets anyway (pun intended, natch), so I was a natural to step into his outsized shoes. Don’t worry, Mojo fans…he’ll continue penning Mojo’s Cold Shot and other features.

I’m also going to use the opportunity to expand the definition of “lo-fi” to whatever suits me, of course. Which leads me to the subject of this edition of Lo-Fi Mojo.

For most people even aware of the group, Clinic was over and done with either after they toured with Radiohead in 2001, or after receiving a Grammy nomination for their second album, 2002’s Walking With Thee. To a certain extent, I understand the post-hype abatement of the critical tongue-wagging – their low-key, garage-punky sound hasn’t changed much since then, and yes, they’re still wearing those damn surgical masks. Not much new fodder for the near constant noise culture of a million bloggers blogging about the new next big thing. I get it.

I guess I’m a little less inclined to give up so quickly on bands, sounds or styles that mean something to me. Clinic has always surprised me with the eclecticism of their supposedly one-dimensional approach. I’m also continually surprised at how I can continue to find new layers of sonic meaning in songs that sound so basic. Case in point, the latest single from Clinic’s 2008 album Do It!, “Tomorrow.” A basic, almost bluesy acoustic guitar riff with a meter that’s hard to pin down leads into a simple arrangement of kick drum, harmonica (or melodica? some kind of keyboard sound?), a oddly-tuned electric guitar for counterpoint, and Ade Blackburn’s uniquely identifiable slushy vocals. It’s not much…but like the best of Clinic’s understated and raw music, it’s enchanting in a way that’s hard to put your finger on.

And if you need your sonic fuzz more updated than that, there’s always “Tomorrow (DFA Remix),” which isn’t exactly lo-fi (for my tastes at least), but hey, the kids seem to dig it. It also shows how, in the right hands, a seemingly rudimentary foundation can be expanded upon ad infintium.

Lo-Fi Mojo: The Fleshtones, “Stocking Stuffer”

Gather round the fire, kids, let’s roast some chestnuts and let Uncle Mojo tell you a story: Back in 1990, he was a blithely ignorant intern at Billboard, so happy to get any byline in the rag that he joyously accepted the retail section’s “Christmas in July” preview so all the purchasing pros out there in subscriberland could decide which holiday CDs would be featured on their shelves.

That was a job for suckers, he soon found out. There is nothing worse than country and rock holiday piffle—except having to hear the garbage in July. Just like Janis had her man take another little piece of her heart, this so-called music took another little piece of your sanity away with each successive play. Don’t believe me? Just keep watching Popdose after Thanksgiving. The semisane people among the ranks have already packed their bags and headed for the hills as you read this. Mojo’s about out the door hisself. You won’t believe who’s left behind and what they’re planning on doing.

Anyway, back to the story. Flash-forward two summers: Using his Billboard clips to hook-and-crook his way into an editor’s job for a thin, biweekly newspaper tab catering to indie record stores that ran on apparently a thinner shoestring than the actual stores themselves (but paid more than Billboard, which was still about on par with Burger King, by the way), Uncle Mojo got branded as “The Christmas Music Expert.” For several consecutive Julys, he was forced to listen to “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “Let It Snow” rendered in Irish Folk, dumb contemporary country, old Jass, new wave, acoustic folk, glass harmonica, undignified blues, sweet harp, dirty bass clarinet, dogs barking, people farting, theremins wheezing, and who can ever forget the insidious Dr. Elmo and his homicidal reindeer?

It chapped more than Uncle Mojo’s lips. (more…)

Lo-Fi Mojo’s Book Nook: “The Encyclopedia of Punk”

In what better ways could musicians reject the status quo of Led Zeppelin, the musical bollocks of disco, and the pop pablum du jour like Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” than to rip your clothes, dye your hair, stick a safety pin up your nose and play a guitar at top volume even though you might only know a chord or none?

“Brilliant!” as the professorial whackos from the Guinness commercials might say.

Flash forward 30 years, and one can still see why the poorly executed, sometimes ugly and definitely very smelly genre of punk rock and its power-pop, new wave, post-punk progeny–and all the other disciples of Joey Ramone and Johnny Rotten–hold such hallowed places in our collective rock-n-roll heart.

For those uninitiated in the tales of yore–or old fans who want to take a brutally vivid walk down memory lane (if you’re a punk, that’s actually some unnamed glass-strewn service alley smelling of urine and vomit)–Brian Cogan’s brand-new Encyclopedia of Punk does a fantastic job of rehashing the old stories and shedding new light on some topics, such as the history of CBGB’s and the Clash, taking a 30-year view from the mountaintop not afforded to previous books that tackled the subject in the 1980s and 1990s.

Sterling Publishers spared no expense on this LP-cover sized book with this pages, stunning graphics and gorgeous color layouts featuring photos both well-known and hitherto unpublished. It’s laid out alphabetically from ABC No Rio to Youth of Today, with well-put-together history/overviews of bands, clubs, record labels, important cliques and maps of the major scenes. Even whole subgenres like Queercore and nonmusical topics like tattoos get their entries. (more…)

Lo-Fi Mojo: The Gypsy Trips, “Ain’t it Hard”

Gather ’round the fire, kids–at least if you’re in upstate New York, which got slammed with 20 inches of snow in places, even though the calendar alleges it’s still October–and let’s take a deep dive into the garage vault. By “deep,” we mean “Ain’t It Hard” by the Gypsy Trips, a California White Stripes-y duo that favored a dose of rockin’ blues with their guitars. This track comes from 1965, when Roger Tillison, who recently stepped out of obscurity to record new music, wrote a blueprint for good old Jack and Meg White to discover decades later. Down to the two musicians–galpal “Terrye Tillison” Newkirk took the same last name on the stage.

How obscure is this cut? It’s the B-side of the group’s only single, which was later covered by the Electric Prunes, who released it as their equally obscure first single. Still, you hear the sound, heavily influenced by the Stones–at the time still a British blues-pop outfit just learning how to show us what bad is.

Enjoy. From Pebbles, Vol. 9, for those of you keeping score.