Posts Tagged ‘Squeeze’

The Friday Mixtape: 8/14/09

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.

Beagle – Well, It’s Only Pain from International Pop Overthrow, Vol. 4 (2001)

Cheap Trick – Hard To Tell from Cheap Trick (1997)

Elvis Costello and The Attractions – High Fidelity from Get Happy!! (1980)

Joe Jackson – Friday from I’m the Man (1979)

Nerk Twins – Against The Grain from International Pop Overthrow Vol. 1 (1998)

Oingo Boingo – My Life from Boi-ngo (1987)

Paul Steel – Cry Away from Moon Rock (2007)

Squeeze – Is That Love from Singles 45’s and Under (1982)

Starclock – Yo Pussycat from International Pop Overthrow, Vol. 5 (2002)

The Duckworth Lewis Method – Gentlemen And Players from Duckworth Lewis Method (2009)

The Knack – Lucinda from Get the Knack (1979)

The New Pornographers – Star Bodies from Twin Cinema (2005)

The Ravines – Dark Clouds from International Pop Overthrow Vol. 11 (3CD) (2008)

Urge Overkill – Sister Havana from Saturation (1993)

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.

Beyond Ubiquitous: The Popdose Guide to Syd Straw

For someone who can talk your ear off, Syd Straw certainly has built an enigmatic career. After establishing her bona fides as an arty modern-rock diva during the mid-’80s, as part of the Golden Palominos collective, Straw released her solo debut Surprise in 1989 – then didn’t make another album for seven years. Her next break, following 1996’s War and Peace, was even longer: a dozen years, ending with the appearance last year of Pink Velour.

Not that Straw wasn’t working through the intervening years. Her husky, distinctive voice has made her a favorite among discerning artists and producers looking for a duet partner or backing vocalist; her list of guest credits is as long as her own discography is short. She also found work as an actress during the 1990s, and a generation of Nickelodeon-bred dorks (you know who you are) remember her as the number-fetishizing Miss Fingerwood on The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

Most of all, she has remained a beloved, influential (and eccentric) presence among fellow musicians, indie-rock scenesters, artists and literary types – always quick with a bon mot (or 10), always with her beloved dog Henry in tow, and always generous with her time and talents. (The title of this Popdose Guide was Straw’s idea, something to do with a well-connected artist who’s released just three albums in 20 years circling all the way back around from obscurity to a position just the other side of ubiquity.)

The Golden Palominos, Visions of Excess (1985) and Blast of Silence (1986)
Straw got her first exposure to the musical big time singing background vocals for Pat Benatar, but she rose to prominence with her contributions to these albums, which (like all the Palominos’ discs) featured collectives of high-profile alt- and art-rock musicians gathered together by former Feelies and Pere Ubu drummer Anton Fier. Visions of Excess was the group’s second album and its most popular, thanks to Michael Stipe’s vocals on “Boy (Go)” and “Omaha” as well as John Lydon’s on “The Animal Speaks.” It was Straw, however, who proved the real discovery on Visions; her riveting vocals came as a revelation toward the end of the set, on the tracks “(Kind of) True” and “Buenos Aires.”

Blast of Silence followed a year later and featured an utterly different sound from its predecessor; two decades on, it’s remembered as one of the albums that gave birth to the alt-country genre. Fier’s assemblage this time featured Matthew Sweet, Jack Bruce, T-Bone Burnett, Don Dixon, Chris Stamey and many others. Again, however, it was Straw who provided the most resonant contributions, including “Angels” (which she co-wrote with Fier and Peter Blegvad) and a terrific cover of Lowell George’s “I’ve Been the One.” Straw toured extensively with the Palominos during this period, enhancing her reputation as both a lead vocalist and band member, and endearing her to a vast array of alt-rock insiders who would provide her with work and comradeship for decades to come. (more…)

Dw. Dunphy On… Fakes!

So I had a great idea. An entire post about fake rock bands — groups made up for your cinematic pleasure that, in spite of not actually being real bands, managed to put out a couple decent tunes for the soundtrack. The definitions of real and fake in this super-sub-category are wishy-washy. Some of these actors actually play their music, others don’t and are lip-synching to studio performers. Some of the groups represented are meant as serious depictions, while others are strictly satirical. Some aren’t getting represented at all here (inferring that if the key member of the band is named something like Mark or Marky, your crappy movie didn’t make the cut.) Yes, a great idea, and an original idea! No one on the Internet has dared to do anything like this, not even my colleague Jon Cummings on this very site!

Nuts. Ah, ta’ hell with it — let’s keep going.

If we’re starting with the obvious, then we’re obviously starting with Spinal Tap, the metal band consisting of David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean,) Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer.) In the now ubiquitous mockumentary, the actors actually recorded their own tunes, which is a rarity. Then again, the songs weren’t meant to be taken all that seriously, but to be the foil for generational musical satire. Ranging from hippy-dippy psyche-folk with “Listen to the Flower People,” to Yardbirdsian skiffle rock with “Gimme Some Money” all the way to the heavy-handed metal misogyny of “Big Bottom,” the point was part comedy, part tribute, and all listenable.  Still, This Is Spinal Tap was meant to be a joke. (A point of irony — “Gimme Some Money” was actually used in an American Express commercial, before the credit market was revealed to be as bogus as some of these bands…)

That was until, in the 1990s, the band returned with a ‘for real’ album in Break Like the Wind. Sure, there was plenty of help from special guest musicians like Dweezil Zappa, Joe Satriani and Slash, but it was still Tap at its core, and still satirical. It would be hard to hear “The Sun Never Sweats” in any other context. Now, in good old 2009, news of a proposed third Tap CD is making the rounds. Harry Shearer told BBC News it is a probability, naming a proposed track: “Gimme Some More Money.” I can’t wait. (more…)

Mope Like Me: One Final Mix Tape

This will be the last Mope Like Me column.

In truth, I didn’t think I would be saying this, at least not this soon after launching it. I’m a sucker for sad songs, and God knows there are plenty of them. What I didn’t anticipate, though, is how exhausting it would be to go to that dark place, even if it was only every other week. I guess I’m just too happy now to revisit the more unpleasant times in my life.

And so, rather than draw out the misery for months on end, I’m making a final mix tape of every song I ever thought about writing up for this column. White Label Wednesday will continue to run every other week, and in the place of Mope Like Me will be another song column, but one that is decidedly more upbeat. Ta.

Air – Run
Elliott Smith – Everything Means Nothing to Me
Semisonic – She’s Got My Number
World Party – And I Fell Back Alone
Rialto – Love Like Semtex
E – The Day I Wrote You Off
The Jayhawks – A Break in the Clouds
Joe Jackson – The Other Me
Kerli – Fragile
Squeeze – There Is A Voice
Gus – Tell Me What You Can’t Say
R.E.M. – Endgame
Elbow – Powder Blue
XTC – I Can’t Own Her
October Project – Take Me as I Am
Everything but the Girl – Shadow on a Harvest Moon

Hooks ‘N’ You: “Still Crazy”

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If you’ve been dreading the return of this column ever since Popdose ended its holiday hiatus, then allow me to tell you who you have to blame for my decision to come out of hiding: the one and only Dw. Dunphy. There had been precious little in the way of concern about the absence of “Hooks ‘N’ You” from the Popdose landscape, and fair enough to that, given how much fantastic stuff is already filling the site on a daily basis, but Mr. Dunphy called me out on Facebook for the column’s absence, and I felt obliged to rise to the challenge and prove that, yes, I’m still around. And what better way to prove this than by spotlighting the soundtrack to a film with a title that handily describes my ongoing level of sanity?

There are plenty of great rock-themed flicks out there, and, indeed, many of them have some phenomenal soundtracks to accompany them. I have found, however, that not nearly enough fans of this genre are aware of “Still Crazy.” The film chronicles a ’70s stadium rock band called Strange Fruit, which ended its existence rather badly after first suffering through the unexpected death of their original lead singer and then replacing him, only to have their stage set-up struck by lightning during the 1977 Wisbech Rock Festival, an event which led to the break-up of the group. In 1998, the Fruits – as they are prone to call themselves – attempt to perform a resurrection of sorts and not only bring the band back together but rewrite history and be remembered for their music rather than their misfortunes.

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It’s a blending of bits and pieces from several real-life tales, but “Still Crazy” is also a film that achieves a remarkable degree of realism in the way it portrays the majority of the former band members not as a bunch of guys living posh off their royalties but, rather, real people who have spent the interim years since their original success having to struggle to make ends meet. Plus, it has a great cast, including Bill Nighy, Billy Connolly, Timothy Spall, Hans Matheson, Stephen Rea, and Juliet Aubrey, currently best known as the villainous Helen Cutter on BBC America’s “Primeval.” Most importantly, though, it’s full of more musical references than you can shake a stick at. My personal favorite has always been when Connolly’s character, Strange Fruit’s longtime roadie, drives up in the band’s new tour bus and boasts that it offers “tinted windows, air conditioning, and twin portaloos, not to mention an extensive library of pornography, courtesy of the Psychedelic Furs!”

Given this information, it will likely not surprise you that is a film very much beloved by quite a few musicians, including the members of the Fratellis, who not only named their first album after Stephen Rea’s character, Tony Costello, but, indeed, made time during the acceptance of their award for British Breakthrough Act at the 2007 BRIT Awards to thank the members of Strange Fruit. Furthermore, those who have seen and fallen in love with “Still Crazy” are almost certain to run out and purchase its soundtrack…and this is where we transition from talking about an unheralded film to discussing an unheralded album.

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Hooks ‘N’ You: Don Dixon, “(If) I’m a Ham, Well You’re a Sausage: The Don Dixon Collection”

When you hear the name “Don Dixon,” you’re probably more likely to think of him in terms of his production career than for his accomplishments as a singer and songwriter … and for those who have thrilled to each and every album in his oeuvre, it’s starting to get really annoying. Not that there isn’t a ton of work amongst his past efforts as a professional knob-twiddler to make him legitimately legendary in his field, but there’s just so much more to the man than that. Next week, Jon Cummings and myself will be providing ample proof of that, when we perform our first collaboration and offer up The Popdose Guide to Don Dixon, but for now, I thought I’d ease you into his work by discussing the best … okay, only … single-disc anthology of Dixon’s work: the obscurely-named (If) I’m a Ham, Well You’re a Sausage: The Don Dixon Collection.

(Actually, the title makes sense … more or less … within the first 30 seconds of the album, but until then, you’re allowed to go, “What in the hell does that mean?”)

Devlins Drift

If you know Dixon’s solo work at all, then you’re probably familiar his lone semi-hit: “Praying Mantis.” (There’s a video for it somewhere, because I definitely remember seeing it on “120 Minutes” at some point or other, but apparently it’s become so obscure that it’s not even on YouTube.) The track was definitely a highlight of his Enigma-Records-era releases, but as this collection quickly demonstrates, catchy pop tunes were plentiful within the grooves of everything he released during that time period. It’s no wonder that bands like R.E.M., the Smithereens, Guadalcanal Diary, and The Connells were drawn to his production methods; Dixon himself could jingle and jangle with the best of them, having been playing along with the guys in Arrogance throughout the ’70s and early ’80s before going it solo. Indeed, a couple of the tracks which ended up on his solo records were actually Arrogance tracks … including “Praying Mantis”!

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