For the past few weeks — and because of my job managing a promotions department at a radio station — I’ve been inundated with Woodstock. The film Taking Woodstock, the director’s cut of Woodstock, TV specials, and special radio programming dedicated to Woodstock have all, in one way or another, crossed my desk this month. From the way Woodstock is marketed, it’s as if 1969 was the beginning and end of live music festivals. But we all know better. Where I live (the San Francisco Bay Area), the Outside Lands Music and Arts festival just wrapped up. It was a lower key event this year — owing in no small part to The Great Recession– but still, a crush of people descended on Golden Gate Park to enjoy band after band, substance after substance, and being with friends who love live music. Now we all know (or at least I hope most of those who read the music section of Popdose know) that some bands are just sublime live. Other bands, alas, suffer from ProTools-itis. That is to say, their limited musical abilities are masked by the plug-ins and other bells and whistles that come with digital multi-track recording. I’m happy to report that the bands and performers featured here have probably all used Pro Tools, but not for the reasons stated above. One disclaimer: before you get started sampling this mix, the song by Westbound Train is not a live recording, but I have seen crappy You Tube videos of them, and they are a tight, talented group.
Read that headline and weep, folks. In just two more weeks, the summer of ‘09 will be finito. Yeah, I know technically summer has a few more weeks of life but, who are we kidding? Once the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon goes off the air, the season’s deader than Freddie (That’s what I said.)
We have no time for heavy sentiment. Leave that to back-to-school shopping, pool closings and those Summer credit card bills coming back to bite you on the Coppertoned ass. We have two weeks left of fun, fun, fun. Break out the beach towels and crank up the pop music.
You’ll notice an inordinate amount of songs from the International Pop Overthrow collections, and for good reason. In the short time I’ve discovered this ongoing series of releases, I’ve become irrevocably hooked. You might as well, and can find these releases at the site that released them, Not Lame Recordings.
1989 found Elvis Costello in the throes of a full-on identity crisis. He had always been more than what the general perception gave him credit for; some of his earliest recordings were actually of a country-western variety, he had recorded an album of neo-soul (Get Happy!!,) cut a pop tune with Daryl Hall (”The Only Flame in Town”) and also a jazz track that could have put those who made their bones in the genre to shame (”Shipbuilding”) but still, the fans shouted for “Pump It Up” and “Radio Radio.” Perhaps his most obvious pitch for freedom from his alter ego’s tyranny came on the King of America album, credited to The Costello Show, with writing credits going to his birth name, Declan MacManus. The album featured almost all his signature styles in some form or fashion, but in 1986, the audience wasn’t having this de-invention. It would be his last album for Columbia.
Three years later, in what could only be considered a case of having your cake and eating it too, MacManus returned on a new label, Warner Bros., with a look vaguely similar to his feral Buddy Holly, only this time he was painted like a ghastly harlequin, beheaded, and mounted on a royal blue WB logo frame, a placard beneath the bizarre tableau reading “The Beloved Entertainer.” Here lies the genius of Elvis Costello, giving the public what they wanted AND the middle finger at the same time, for the album Spike is as much a departure as it is a symbol of everything the fans loved about him.
Reteaming with King Of America producer T-Bone Burnett, Costello and Kevin Killen brought a tight and focused sound to the proceedings, starting with the acerbic “…This Town…” where the musical machinations are paired with veddy-British misfit characters, all doomed beneath the chorus’ motto: “You’re nobody t’il everybody in this town thinks you’re a bastard.” EC was back — but ah-ah-ah, not so fast. The second song, a shuffling crime drama based on an infamous incident when Derek Bentley told Chris Craig, in reference to Sidney Miles, to ‘let him have it,’ was a sudden shock to the ear. “Let Him Dangle” recounts the event, the public reaction, and the underlying question: did Bentley mean “shoot him” or “hand over the gun” when he said, ‘let him have it’? This was as far from “Watching the Detectives” as one could get. (more…)
For much of his solo career, it was Paul McCartney’s peculiar fate to seem perpetually in need of a creative comeback. Chafing against the impossibly high standard he set for himself with his Beatles work, Macca required three years of wilderness-wandering and band-building to make his first Important Album, 1973’s Band on the Run. After that, he forced fans to suffer through nine years of steadily diminishing qualitative returns before finally (if only briefly) winning a Tug of Warwith mediocrity in 1982.
And so on, and so on …
By 1989 McCartney faced a new and unexpected challenge: restoring his commercial viability. Even such moribund albums as Wild Life and London Townhad Top-Tenned during the 1970s despite critical drubbings, but the disastrous film and soundtrack Give My Regards to Broad Streetin 1984 seemed to mark a tipping point in the public’s willingness to consume products of patchy quality just because they had the Macca seal of approval. In 1986 McCartney released the Hugh Padgham-produced, thoroughly modern (and not-half-bad) album Press to Play, only to watch it stall at Number 30 on the Billboard album chart and become his first long-player to fall short of gold-record status.
To his credit, McCartney responded with a retrenchment, getting back to his roots and recording the Choba B CCCPalbum of rock ‘n’ roll standards for release only in the Soviet Union in 1988. Even as that record (initially released only on vinyl) became a sought-after item in the West as an import, word began circulating that McCartney was in the studio with Elvis Costello, and the prospect of their collaboration goosed interest in both men’s forthcoming albums.
The first fruits of their combined labor appeared on Costello’s Spikealbum in early 1989, which featured the most delightful Top-20 single ever written about Alzheimer’s, “Veronica,” as well as the rockabilly throwaway “Pads, Paws and Claws.” Meanwhile, McCartney announced that he would embark in the fall on the biggest tour of his solo career – and his first since his 1979 arrest at the Tokyo airport, on marijuana-possession charges, led to the final breakup of Wings. (more…)
To fans of her four albums of marvelous acoustic pop in the mid-to-late ’80s, Marti Jones seemed on the cusp of becoming the next (albeit far hipper) Linda Ronstadt. Jones had inherited La Ronstadt’s knack for putting a mainstream sheen on the songs of neglected rock tunesmiths; meanwhile, her partnership (professional and otherwise) with producer Don Dixon brought her music a modernist edge even as the couple matched terrific melodies with her bright, if slightly world-weary, alto voice.
Their creative alchemy reached its zenith on 1988’s Used Guitars, one of the decade’s finest recordings, and a celebratory four-night run at the Bottom Line in New York that brought together all the album’s songwriters. Those shows (and a subsequent appearance on Late Night with David Letterman) were a highlight of Jones and Dixon’s never-ending tours of those years, which we discussed last week here at Popdose. But a funny thing happened along Jones’ ascent as the pre-eminent interpreter of modern pop: Used Guitars, like her previous albums, didn’t sell, and neither did its highly touted follow-up, Any Kind of Lie. Within a couple years she had parted ways with two different major labels and found herself effectively out of the industry.
Since then Jones has released precisely two studio albums in two decades, focusing instead on her budding career as a painter; these days you’re far more likely to find the fruits of her creative labor on a gallery wall than in a concert hall. Her paintings reveal the same idiosyncratic spirit that always characterized her musical performances – sometimes serious, sometimes whimsical, always authentic. Popdose posted an exclusive “official bootleg” of a Don-and-Marti show last week; next week, Jones will discuss her recent endeavors, as well as the highlights of her musical career, in an exhaustive Popdose interview. Until then, you may view some of her artwork at www.martijonesdixon.com, and join us now as we explore her back (and, in far too many cases, out-of-print) catalog.
Jones, a product of the surprising musical hotbed that was northeastern Ohio in the 1970s, began her career playing the club circuit in the Akron-Canton area. Friend and fellow Ohioan Liam Sternberg, who was already an established producer and songwriter by 1980, gave Jones her first studio experience singing demos – including one for a Sternberg ditty that eventually became one of the decade’s biggest and most polarizing hits (more about that next week). It was Sternberg who suggested she join up with the three members of Color Me Gone, an established Akron act in need of a lead singer. He then arranged a deal for the band with A&M Records, resulting in this six-song EP of promising, if slight, jangle-pop.
The tuneful lead track “Lose Control” set the tone; songwriter/guitarist George Cabaniss (formerly, if briefly, one of the Stiv Bators-led Dead Boys) kept things tuneful and gave Jones plenty of dramatic high notes, qualities also employed to good effect on “Almost Heaven” and “July/December.” The production (by the high-profile trio of Sternberg, David Anderle and Barry Mraz) and the musicianship are workmanlike, the harmonies somewhat less so. What really leaps off the grooves, of course, is Jones’ voice – which explains why, when Jones bailed out on the band following a dust-up with Cabaniss, A&M gave her a solo deal and relegated the rest of the band to obscurity. (more…)
How can you tell the difference between a good music critic and a bad music critic with a single question? Well, your mileage may vary on this, but for my money, you need only ask them to tell you their guilty pleasures. If they offer no hesitation whatsoever before launching into their list, then you should consider their opinions to be suspect. On the other hand, if they hem and haw for a moment before offering up a response that’s half an answer and half a clarification that “if you like something, then you shouldn’t feel guilty about it,” then it’s probably worth adding their RSS feed.
If you’re wondering, I don’t have the ego to suggest that I’m a must-add, mostly because I’m prone to answer the question by saying, “I know I shouldn’t feel guilty about liking them, but…” And as you’ve probably guessed, I have on more than one occasion ended that particular sentence by citing The Click Five.
In 2005, the Click Five released their bouncy debut album, Greetings from Imrie House, and picked up two distinct audiences the moment they left the gate: the power pop fans, most of whom discovered the album because Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne) had a hand in writing two songs on the record, and the teenaged girls, who just thought the band was cute. It’s sad but true that the former audience is pretty well negligible when it comes to sales figures, but the latter helped Imrie House sprint to #15 on the Billboard album chart, thanks to the powerhouse first single, “Just the Girl.” If you scour the song titles and the credits, you’ll see that one of the two Schlesinger songs is “I’ll Take My Chances,” which was originally recorded by Swirl 360, who’ll score their own “Hooks ‘N’ You” column one of these days. You’ll also discover that Paul Stanley…yes, the one from KISS…co-wrote “Angel To You (Devil To Me),” and that Elliot Easton – late of The Cars – contributes guitar to that song and well as “I’ll Take My Chances.” In other words, it’s not hard to argue that there’s more street cred here than on your average bubblegum pop-rock album.
So how did they decide to follow it up? Why, by replacing their lead singer, of course!
Zack: The only way this song to could get worse would be to have some pigtailed, bubble-gum chewing pop star perform a cover of it. Oh, wait. The rhythm guitar part is so incredibly simple it could have been played by an elementary school band, the guitar solo is laughable, and given the opportunity to choose between listening to Joan Jett’s screech or the sound my own screaming as a fingernail was pulled out, I’d ask if anybody had some bandages and maybe some Aleve for when the throbbing set in.
Ken: Not a favorite, really. Oh sure, if I’ve had enough to drink, and this comes on the jukebox very loud, I might get up, but on any other occasion, it just bores me to tears. It’s one of those songs that people use to define rock ‘n roll, and it just isn’t defining. It’s just mainstream crap really.
Dunphy: Complaining about this song is like complaining about pork rinds. It’s not good for you, and the taste of them kind of turns your stomach, but every so often you can handle it. This is the perfect illustration of lunkhead rock, but it’s not so awful that you’d do something drastic, like change channels or anything.
Jon: Top 40 radio playlist for a typical hour, spring 1982: “I Love Rock & Roll,” “Centerfold,” “Ebony and Ivory,” commercial break, “I Love Rock & Roll,” “Centerfold”… That year had the tightest Top 40 playlists of any in the pre-Soundscan era. Only 15 songs reached Number One all year, mostly because those three songs combined for 20 weeks. Those playlists also were practically lily-white; there’s a reason Columbia had to threaten MTV over Michael Jackson in early ‘83.
I still haven’t commented on the song. That’s because I’m ambivalent about it, and always have been. (more…)
A funny thing happened in the middle of the 1990s: Record labels looked into their vaults and found that most of their best selling titles had been in circulation for awhile on CD and, as one would expect, weren’t as exciting to the buying public anymore. Remember that in the initial run of the compact disc labels were suddenly flush with cash, old assets were getting new sales life and all was right with the world. Once they had reached the tipping point where most consumers had CDs of Rumours, Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Pepper’s, etc., they had a crucial decision to make. Shall we now go out into the great, wide world of new music acts and fill our rosters with exciting, up and coming talent?
Nah, too much work. Let’s reissue those old CDs again, only this time, we’ll stuff the back nine with B-sides, unreleased tracks and live cuts. It sounds crass, but don’t knock it. It works. The labels did get a kick-up of interest through this process of “double-dipping,” and sometimes it was for the best. Labels like Rykodisc and Rhino took a lot of care in representing classic albums, often bringing them back with better, remastered sound to make the package more palatable to those who had tinny, digitally fraught originals. Other labels took notice and, as you’d expect, the business of the deluxe reissue started booming. CDs wound up with extra tracks best left on the cutting room floor, songs pared with awful guide vocals, blooper reels, inclusions of little to no interest to the average music fan. The Elvis Costello fan has felt the impact the hardest, as Mr. MacManus’ output has rotated from the original Sony Music auspices to the Ryko reissues, then to the Rhino reissues, then to his current home at Universal Music. You could own four separate versions of My Aim Is True, each with its own plusses and minuses, none rising above the rest to definitive status.
Look, I’m a fan and a collector. I’ve been skunked more than once by the “special edition” label. I know what it’s like to buy something only to have it supplanted only a year later by the bigger, better, badder version. To prove my point, I have dedicated this week’s post to some of my favorite special edition extras. These are things the labels would rather we left alone. After all, some of these tracks are the only reason why you ought to repurchase these things, and I’m going all renegade by just plopping them here for your perusal. I’m a rebel and I’ll never, ever be any good. Ready to receive your bonuses? Oh la Saleema! (more…)
(2001)
(1997)
(1980)
(1979)
Vol. 1 (1998)
(1987)
(2007)
(1982)
(2002)
(2009)
(1979)
(2005)
(2008)
(1993)
(2009)
(2009)
(2007)
(1986)
(1990)
(1994)
(1982)
(2000)
(1989)
(1994)
(1998)
(1999)
Three years later, in what could only be considered a case of having your cake and eating it too, MacManus returned on a new label, Warner Bros., with a look vaguely similar to his feral Buddy Holly, only this time he was painted like a ghastly harlequin, beheaded, and mounted on a royal blue WB logo frame, a placard beneath the bizarre tableau reading “The Beloved Entertainer.” Here lies the genius of Elvis Costello, giving the public what they wanted AND the middle finger at the same time, for the album 
By 1989 McCartney faced a new and unexpected challenge: restoring his commercial viability. Even such moribund albums as Wild Life and 
To fans of her four albums of marvelous acoustic pop in the mid-to-late ’80s, Marti Jones seemed on the cusp of becoming the next (albeit far hipper) Linda Ronstadt. Jones had inherited La Ronstadt’s knack for putting a mainstream sheen on the songs of neglected rock tunesmiths; meanwhile, her partnership (professional and otherwise) with 
Color Me Gone (1984)
A funny thing happened in the middle of the 1990s: Record labels looked into their vaults and found that most of their best selling titles had been in circulation for awhile on CD and, as one would expect, weren’t as exciting to the buying public anymore. Remember that in the initial run of the compact disc labels were suddenly flush with cash, old assets were getting new sales life and all was right with the world. Once they had reached the tipping point where most consumers had CDs of Rumours, Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Pepper’s, etc., they had a crucial decision to make. Shall we now go out into the great, wide world of new music acts and fill our rosters with exciting, up and coming talent?