Here’s another example of singing groups in the Squeaky Rodent Department: Shirley, Squirrely & Melvin. Their album Live has an interesting history (at least according to Wikipedia): In 1980 Excelsior Records released Chipmunk Punk, a new album featuring the Chipmunks put together by David Seville’s son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. The album turned out to be an unexpected success, so Bagdasarian recorded a follow-up, Urban Chipmunk — for RCA Records. This left Excelsior holding the bag, so they supposedly took outtakes from Urban Chipmunk and an earlier Shirley & Squirrely album and came up with Live. I don’t know if I believe that story, but it’s on Wikipedia, so it must be true!
The first song we’ll feature here is the Sam & Dave/Blues Brothers classic “Soul Man.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard a song pushed so hard when it’s sung. Apparently, Squirrely thinks “soul” translates to “Sing like you’re constipated.”
Next, SS&M reveal their country side with “The Gambler,” an odd pick since Alvin, Simon, and Theodore covered the same song on Urban Chipmunk, although they changed a few words — “soda” instead of “whiskey,” and instead of bumming a cigarette, the gambler “asked for a Twinkie, and offered me a bite.” I guess SS&M get extra points for performing the song as written. Their version also features special guest star Denny Richards. (Never heard of him. Have you?)
Well, it’s (almost) the end of Beatles Week, and by now, it’s clear that many of you were just as excited about the remasters and video game as we were — Popdose has broken its own single-day traffic records twice this week — and as sad as we are to see the celebration end, we knew we had to finish our Fab Four tribute in style. And what better way, we ask you, than with a Friday Mixtape of Beatles songs — not the originals, mind you, and not the remasters, but covers done by other artists?
What we didn’t realize when we started assembling our little treat was just how many Beatles covers there are. In the course of a single afternoon, the Popdose staff put its hard drives together and came up with an even 100, and that’s just scratching the surface — but it does make for a pretty damn cool Friday afternoon playlist, doesn’t it?
Because none of us was willing to sit in front of a screen for several hours and build 100 links, we’ve done a couple of things to ease the burden: One, we’ve bundled up the whole compilation into a giant zip file; two, we’ve laid out the whole list here, and randomly selected 18 “singles” that you can grab a la carte.
Take a look, folks. More Beatles covers than you can shake a stick at, and some rather unexpected ones to boot. Enjoy — but be forewarned: in the interest of preserving our servers’ sanity, that big ol’ zip file won’t stay up for long. Get it while you can! (more…)
The words were spoken in London, casually, almost flippantly, and were directed at an audience that was sure to treat them in the spirit they were intended. It was not until the words traveled to the United States, and were heard by an audience of narrow-minded hypocrites for whom they were decidedly not intended, that they created a ruckus that led to censorship, destruction and even death threats.
No, silly, I’m not saying that Natalie Maines is bigger than John Lennon (or Jesus, for that matter). What I am saying is that both of them – all three of them, actually – learned one very important lesson the hard way: Speaking your mind can be a very dangerous business. It can even get you killed.
Here at Popdose and throughout the Western world, this week’s (admittedly consumerist) Beatlemania revival has offered plenty of opportunities to reflect on their music, their influence … the astounding greed of their record label over a 45-year period … (Did EMI really have to sell the stereo and mono mixes separately, particularly considering that every album from Please Please Me to Revolver was short enough that they could have easily crammed both versions onto a single CD?) But as long as we’re sitting around dissecting the effects of the remastering process on “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” or tapping colored buttons in time to the scrolling visuals on the Rock Band version of “Revolution,” we may as well pause to marvel at the historical import of the Beatles’ efforts – and John’s in particular – to use their stardom to advance causes and engage in social commentary. In this, as in their music, they created a template that has been imitated and amended by generations of celebrities in their wake, for better and for worse. (more…)
Well, since we’re in a Beatles state of mind here at Popdose, I wanted to find something relevant to the topic, and here it is. Sorta. This is a group called the Fabulous Beats, whose act was strangely reminiscent of a certain Fab Four. To take it even further, the songs on this album were originally country songs. That’s right, you have country songs sung by guys who are trying their best to sing and play like the Beatles. Folks, I can’t make this stuff up!
The first song featured is called “Let Me Be the One.” My research shows that it was originally sung by Hank Locklin. I don’t know the guy or the song, but I had to include it because it follows the first rule of Beatles imitators: find a spot in a song to sing “yeah yeah yeah” and repeat as necessary.
Next we have the Patsy Cline classic “Walkin’ After Midnight,” complete with jangly guitars and two part harmonies. The crazy thing here is that, as Beatles, they don’t sound much like the originals. However they could have possibly made a career from being Everly Brothers impressionists. I guess there wasn’t as much call for that, though.
Let me say this at the outset: if you think that the release of 14 remastered Beatles albums is some sort of marketing gimmick, think again. If you can’t hear the difference in sound quality, you’ve either never heard the original versions or you should be visiting an audiologist soon. This set of stereo remasters instantly takes its place as the holy grail of Beatles music. Nothing that has come before can possibly do for the true fan anymore.
The Popdose staff split up the duties on this project, and I was lucky enough to have first choice of what I wanted to cover. I took the first Beatles album, Please Please Me (Yes, it was the first Beatles album EMI released in England. In the U.S. the album was originally released on VeeJay Records, and was the second one that we got), the last Beatles album, Abbey Road (Yes, it was recorded last despite the fact that Let It Be was released last), and one in the middle, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, that remains a landmark recording in the history of pop music.
So let’s start from the beginning. Please Please Me features three songs that are stone cold Beatle classics, the leadoff track “I Saw Her Standing There,” the closing track “Twist and Shout,” and the title track. These are early days for the band, but they’ve put the craziness of the Hamburg days behind them, and the insanity of Beatlemania looms. If anyone tells you the Beatles weren’t really a rock band, this is as good a place to point them as any. Please Please Me finds the band with a lot of their raw energy intact.
The sound of the remastered album is revelatory. The chance to hear George’s Harrison’s guitar playing in all its crystalline beauty alone is worth the price of admission. Add the crisp sound of Ringo Starr’s drums, the rugged chugging of John Lennon’s rhythm guitar, and the vocal interplay between John and Paul McCartney, and you have an album well worth hearing. The key thing about Please Please Me though is that if you want to fully assess the Beatles as a band, charting the development of their songwriting and playing, this is where you have to start. –Ken Shane(more…)
Sick to death of Beatle hype? Too bad! Today’s the one before the one before 9/09, and you’re just gonna have to shine it on a little longer.
This weekend Entertainment Weekly came out with a vaguely interesting, vaguely infuriating list of the Fabs’ “50 best songs,” selected (it seems) by a panel of 10 EW writers (including that other, probably better-paid but infinitely less worthy Jeff Giles). The magazine’s crew did such a lousy job separating the Strawberry Fields from the Norwegian Wood that I figured, I can do better than that … heck, I’ll bet we all can!
And so here we are. Several of my Popdose colleagues have contributed their own lists, but this is no Popdose 100 – we weren’t organized enough this time to compile a comprehensive survey of our Beatle tastes. Still, there are a few generalizations to be reached, particularly on the popularity of such tracks as “A Day in the Life,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Revolution,” and the Abbey Road medley. Please feel free – no, feel compelled – to offer your own best-of list in the comments, or at least to take potshots at ours. Me first, though (with each song’s EW ranking, if any, in parentheses): (more…)
It was a day of unmatched California beauty; a startling and fiery sun perched high above in a crystal blue sky and blazed down promise. It was an essential day, a meteorological marvel meant to be stored away for future reference.
“Dude,” a friend would ask the following week, “do you remember how amazing it was last Tuesday?”
And of course you do. Even if the day itself was all you’d been given, that would have been gift enough. But the weather was merely an underscoring for the occasion, a gilded and golden opportunity to spend an hour with George Harrison. You’ll forget how to breathe before you forget this. Simply saying the words out loud (actually you’re reduced to mumbling them sotto voce because you’re afraid that anything above a whisper might reduce the reality to mirage) – “I am hanging with a Beatle” – is enough to render you stupid.
Then you start considering the notion that maybe Harrison himself ordered up the perfect day as an interview-ambience backdrop. We all knew that he spoke with God all the time (and if He was going to listen to anybody, He’s going to find a minute or two for a Beatle). So, anyone who recalls a glorious Tuesday back in 1974, somewhere around May or June perhaps, the presence of just a soupcon of magic embedded in the sunrays, you can thank George and God (though not necessarily in that order). (more…)
Isn’t it funny how quite often the finest practitioners of rock and roll—that most American of art forms—are those whose passports originate from outside the U.S.? I’m not just speaking of the Beatles, Stones, or Sex Pistols—we regularly extol the virtues of artists from lands unreachable by car from the bottom of my driveway. The best straight-up rock and roll band in the world right now may very well be the Hives, or maybe The Soundtrack of Our Lives, both of whom hail from Sweden, of all places.
But Norway? We’re expected to believe that the land of Vikings, the ‘94 Winter Olympics, and Henrik-freakin’-Ibsen has provided us with anything any more rockin’ than the wood John Lennon spoke of in that Beatles song? Well, in a word, ja. Leave it to Little Steven Van Zandt, the garage rock godfather, to find, promote, and produce not just a slammin’ rock and roll band from Norway, but a slammin’ all-female rock and roll band from Norway—Oslo’s own Cocktail Slippers.
Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre gives us a kick-ass rock band donning the costumes and playing the part of an early-60s girl group, like the Crystals or the Shirelles or the Ronnettes, with really loud guitars and the echoed thwap of a heavy-armed drummer. “Sentenced to Love” roars out of the gate with snarl and a backbeat the Strokes should kill for. The band’s “I-yi-yi-yi-yi’s” come from the best syllable-stretching rock and roll tradition (think Axl Rose with lipstick; or better yet, don’t), and the ‘Slippers bring forth the mighty thunder of a band onstage, trying to break the mirror behind the bar from across the room. (more…)
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Crisco vegetable shortening, plain or butter-flavored (see Cook’s Note)
1/2 teaspoon kosher or coarse salt
3 tablespoons ice water
1. Mix flour and salt in mixing bowl. Cut shortening into the flour with a pastry cutter, until mixture resembles the texture of tiny split peas. Do not use your hands to try and mix it, the heat from you hands will melt the shortening, causing the pastry to be “heavy”, not light and flaky.
2. Once mixture is the right texture, add the ice water and combine with a fork. It may appear as if it needs more water, it does not. Quickly gather the dough into a ball and flatten into a 4-inch-wide disk. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.
3. Remove dough disk from refrigerator. If stiff and very cold, let stand until dough is cool but malleable.
4. Using a floured rolling pin, roll dough disk on a lightly floured surface from the center out in each direction, forming a 12-inch circle. To transfer dough, carefully roll it around the rolling pin, lift and unroll dough, centering it in an ungreased 9-inch regular or deep-dish pie plate. (Or you can fold dough in quarters, then place dough point in center of pie pan and unfold dough, whatever is easiest for you.)
Last week Procul Harum kept commenter David_E from falling into a deep blue depression, as “Whiter Shade of Pale” held off a challenge from the Urban Dance Squad’s “Deeper Shade of Soul” and took home 61% of the votes. Join us again next week, as we move on from to physical to the metaphysical and tackle the subject of Metaphorical Pie.
I love the new Bob Dylan album. I do. Because the older Bob Dylan gets, the more he sounds like Tom Waits. Seriously, though, Together Through Lifeis another solid, rich album. You can check out the zydeco vibe on “It’s All Good” in the mix down below. Also you’ll find some new Neil Young, some old George Harrison and a couple artists covering the Grateful Dead, including Jane’s Addiction.
Rhino has just released A Cabinet of Curiosities, the ultimate Jane’s Addiction “live, rare, and unreleased” package. A little wooden curio cabinet filled with voodoo dolls, lyrics, reproductions of old fliers, along with the discs (a regular edition in a plain ol’ cardboard slipcase will be released next month). You’ll have to supply your own eyeliner and Nag Champa incense, though.
I got into Jane’s Addiction during the heady summer of 1991 (or was it 1990?) A friend had taped Ritual de lo Habitualfor me and while at first I didn’t like “that weird LA shit,” I had to admit it was growing on me. I was having a cigarette (it may even have been a clove cigarette) and listening to side two’s centerpiece, “Three Days,” unfolding like the warm summer evening outside.
Two girls heard the music and came to my window — they crawled into my dorm room and we all sat down on my futon and got acquainted. We instantly became friends. We shared all our stories and some grass. Staying up all night talking, laughing, and playing that tape over and over endlessly. In the morning the three of us watched the sun come up and we ate waffles together. (more…)
Here’s another example of singing groups in the Squeaky Rodent Department: Shirley, Squirrely & Melvin. Their album Live has an interesting history (at least according to Wikipedia): In 1980 Excelsior Records released Chipmunk Punk, a new album featuring the Chipmunks put together by David Seville’s son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. The album turned out to be an unexpected success, so Bagdasarian recorded a follow-up, Urban Chipmunk — for RCA Records. This left Excelsior holding the bag, so they supposedly took outtakes from Urban Chipmunk and an earlier Shirley & Squirrely album and came up with Live. I don’t know if I believe that story, but it’s on Wikipedia, so it must be true!
Here at Popdose and throughout the Western world, this week’s (admittedly consumerist) Beatlemania revival has offered plenty of opportunities to reflect on their music, their influence … the astounding greed of their record label over a 45-year period … (Did EMI really have to sell the stereo and mono mixes separately, particularly considering that every album from Please Please Me to Revolver was short enough that they could have easily crammed both versions onto a single CD?) But as long as we’re sitting around dissecting the effects of the remastering process on “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” or tapping colored buttons in time to the scrolling visuals on the Rock Band version of “Revolution,” we may as well pause to marvel at the historical import of the Beatles’ efforts – and John’s in particular – to use their stardom to advance causes and engage in social commentary. In this, as in their music, they created a template that has been imitated and amended by generations of celebrities in their wake, for better and for worse. 
Well, since we’re in a Beatles state of mind here at Popdose, I wanted to find something relevant to the topic, and here it is. Sorta. This is a group called the Fabulous Beats, whose act was strangely reminiscent of a certain Fab Four. To take it even further, the songs on this album were originally country songs. That’s right, you have country songs sung by guys who are trying their best to sing and play like the Beatles. Folks, I can’t make this stuff up!
Sick to death of Beatle hype? Too bad! Today’s the one before the one before 9/09, and you’re just gonna have to shine it on a little longer.![460px-George_Harrison_1974[1]](http://popdose.com/wp-content/uploads/460px-George_Harrison_19741.jpg "460px-George_Harrison_1974[1]")
It was a day of unmatched California beauty; a startling and fiery sun perched high above in a crystal blue sky and blazed down promise. It was an essential day, a meteorological marvel meant to be stored away for future reference.
Cocktail Slippers, Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre (2009, Wicked Cool)
