Cockeyed Absurdist

A Reminder from the dollar bin of some rock and roll perfection.

nobody@vox.com(jonmc) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:01:50 -0800

Recently I was reading a copy of The First Rock & Roll Confidential Report by Dave Marsh, a compilation of articles and whatnot from Marsh's subscription only newsletter for old-school rock diehards like myself (I found a copy in the bargain bin at work). In a section of short reviews, there's a piece on Joan Jett & the Blackhearts' album Glorious Results Of A Misspent Youth that I purchased as a teen and still have on cassette somewhere. The review described 'I Need Someone,' (my favorite song off the album) as 'an updated Belmonts tune.' I wasn't sure whether they meant it was an update of the Belmonts' style or an actual cover, so I went investigating.

It's a cover. It's prom the post-Dion Belmonts era, after their legendary leader left for a solo career. Bass vocalist Carlo Mastrangelo had taken the helm He penned this song, a nifty number in the Italian-American 'Greaser Soul' doo-wop style that the Belmonts epitomized. Mastrangelo's deep voice was often the Belmonts' secret weapon (check out his work on 'I Wonder Why') but without Dion's swaggering presence, the record feels more like a nice rough sketch than anything else.

Joan jett fills in that rough sketch perfectly. Her version of 'I Need Someone,' is near perfect example of a rock and roll single. It definetely contains the Belmonts' influence in the Blackhearts 'duh duh-duh duh-duh' background chant on the chorus, but there's also the Stonesy grit of the rhythm section, the Ramones-style guitars, the high, breathy Beach Boys harmony on the verses, the punk-rock growl of Joan's lead vocal, some organ that comes right out of Del Shannon's playbook and spoken word bridge where Joanie seems to be channeling James Brown. If you know what to listen for, this tune is a little history lesson/pastiche of what's good in rock and roll, and even if you don't it's a great record on it's own terms for the sweet sound and the full-bore passion with which all those ingredients are mixed. Joan Jett will probably never again scale the commercial heights she did with 'I Love Rock & Roll,' but I'm sure as hell glad she's still out their doing her thing. Here's to the ultimate rocker chick.

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Kids today, huh?

nobody@vox.com(jonmc) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 06:38:31 -0700

One argument I get into rather consistently with young music fans is over Bob Seger. While they'll grant that the man has a fine set of pipes, they're only familiar with his middle-of-the-road balladry like 'Against The Wind.' When I tell them that Seger is actually a proto-punk and was a respected colleague of the likes of the Stooges and MC5 they look at me as if I've entered premature senility. Well, class is in session kids. And it's actually quite a story, of how the '60's changed a man, musically and politically.

Bob Seger - Ballad of the Yellow Beret (1966)

Seger, the son of a bandleader turned autoworker who left the family when Bob was 10, found his earliest recording work with an Ann Arbor outift called Doug Brown & the Omens, who in 1965 wrote a parody of Barry Sadler's "Ballad Of The Green Beret,' that knocked draft dodgers. The humor is funny in a puerile way (I also think this may be the first mainstream pop/rock single to use the word 'gay' to mean 'homosexual' but I'm not sure), but the 20-year old Seger's voice is already distinctive. The song attracted some local radio interest, but Barry sadler threatened a lawsuit and the record was pulled from the market.

Bob Seger & the Last Heard - East Side Story

Bob Seger & the Last Heard - Persecution Smith

Bob_Seger_&the_Last_Heard_-_Sock_It_To_Me_Santa

After leaving the Omens, Seger gathered a backing group that he dubbed the Last Heard and began releasing singles that became big hits in his native Michigan, but went unnoticed in the rest of the country. His voice had grown raspier and he had discovered his nascent songwriting talent. "East Side Story" his first hit (selling roughly 50,000 copies in 1966, nearly all in Michigan), is garage rock of the highest order, with it's death rattle percussion, fiery, dramatic vocal, and pumping organ. The writing is also a fine early example of the type of 'street opera' that Seger (and Springsteen among others) would later specialize in. 'Persecution Smith' while still retaining the garagey rawness, shows that Seger had discovered Bob Dylan, as illustrated by by half-parodic/half-tribute sardonic lyrics. "Sock It To Me, Santa" is one of the finest 60's Christmas singles, with Seger doing a James Brown/Mitch Ryder tribute for Old Saint Nick.

Bob Seger System - Two Plus Two Equals Question Mark

Bob Segar System - Ramblin Gamblin Man

In 1968, Seger dissolved the Last Heard and formed a new unit called the Bob Seger System, and managed to snare a major label conract with Capitol Records. The music released represented a huge leap forward in a number of ways. By this point, the White Panther Party and their house band the MC5 were in Ann Arbor, and Seger definitely kept company with them. Maybe that's what's behind the angry, explicitly ant-Vietnam War lyrics of "2+2=?", but by the fire in Seger's vocals, I'm betting that the 'friend' reffered to in the lyrics is not fictional. Seger's voice has also deepend even further into a fine, gravelly roar and the sound of the band is heavily toughened up, with it's accelerated tempo and biting guitar.This is a long way from "Ballad Of The Yellow Berets" in no uncertain terms. "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" off the same album gave Seger his first national hit, reaching #17 on the Billboard charts. Seger's blue-eyed soul roots show through in his vocals and the organ (the guitar is played by future Eagle and fellow Michigander Glenn Frey, but don't hold that against it), but the thunderous drums and trebly top end were a big inspiration to the MC5, who when they cut their landmark second album Back In The USA, used the song as their sonic model. Seger's next album stiffed commercially and many wrote him off as a local hero one-hit wonder who couldn't cut it in the big time. It would be another six years before he'd prove them wrong.

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Payin' the Cost to be The Boss

nobody@vox.com(jonmc) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:19:51 -0700

When Bruce Springsteen first burst on to the national music scene in the mid-1970's, to many it seemed as if he had come out of nowhere. He actually came out of central New Jersey, which to many people is close enough (I kid). The truth was that there was close to a decade of developement behind the man and the sound that the world got to hear. All goofing aside, the fact that except for a few pivotal moments, all of this happened in Jersey, away from the major scenes of the time, kept Bruce and his friends relatively uncorrupted by the trends of the time and follwing their own muse. Today, I'll try to trace some of that evolution.

Bruce Springsteen - The Castiles - Baby I - (5-18-1966 - Acet

The Castiles - That`s What You Get - (5-18-1966 - Acetate Rec

The Castiles

Like most American musicians of his generation, Springsteen's first step into the world of rock and roll was in one of the countless garage bands formed in the wake of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Formed in 1966, they played teen dances and parties around Bruce's hometown of Freehold. They managed to scrape together enough money to get some recording time at Mr. Music in Bricktown, New Jersey, where they recorded an acetate single. The 16-year-old Bruce plays rhythm guitar and sings background (his friend George Theiss sings lead), but more importantly, Bruce and George wrote both songs (reportedly on the drive over to the studio). The recording quality is crude, but both Bruces guitar chops and precocious songwriting skills show through, as does the influence of the Stones and the Yardbirds. Only four copies of the actual vinyl are known to exist but dupes have been circulating among collectors for years. [Note: on the far left of the photo is drummer Bart Haynes who was drafted soon after and killed in action in Vietnam, providing inspiration for some of Bruce's later work.]

Child (featering Bruce Springsteen) - 01 Sister Theresa

Child

By 1968-69, Bruce, like many fans of guitar rock, had fallen under the spell of the power trio sound proffered by the likes of Cream and Blue Cheer which allowed him to hone his guitar chops and stretch out his songwriting a bit. They were also prone to loooong jams, rendering the only other recording I have of theirs, (a live 19 minute workout called 'Garden State Parkway Blues') too large a file to be uploaded here. "Sister Teresa" is an uncharacteristically quiet ballad from the band, but this track (recorded live in Richmond in late 1969) is probably Bruce's earliest lead vocal that's made it to wax. It also presages his later lyrical fascination with Catholicism, sin and temptation. This is also the point where future E Street Band Members start to come on the scene. The drums here are played by Vini 'Mad Dog' Lopez, who would later pound the skins on Springsteen's first two studio albums, before being replaced by Max Weinberg. Danny Federici, longtime E Street stalwart on the organ, also made his debut with Child. Vini Roslin rounded out the ensemble on bass.

Bruce Springsteen (Steel Mill) The Train Song (studio)

Bruce Springsteen & Steelmill - 03 - Jeannie I want to thank you

Steel Mill

After discovering that there was a band on Long Island already using the name Child, the band changed it's moniker to Steel Mill (this could be the beginnings of Bruce's fascination with industrial imagery). Their live performances gained them enough of a reputation to get an invitation from Bill Graham to play his club the Matrix in early 1970, which is where the live "Jeannie I Want To Thank You" is pulled from, showing bruce in an uncharacteristically (by later standards, anyway) jammy mood. His guitar and vocal style is starting to gel (and 'Jeannie' may be Bruce's first mystical female, followed later by 'Sandy' ('4th Of July Asbury Park'), 'Mary' ('Thunder Road') and 'Candy' ('Candy's Room')). The guys had definitely been listening to Santana judging by Bruce's guitar playing and Edgar Winter (judging by Danny Federici's astonishing organ).

Graham also gave the band some time at his Fillmore Recording Studio in February of 1970, whence comes 'The Train Song.' It was around this point that bassist Vini Roslin left, to be replaced by longtime Springsteen sidekick (and radio show host and TV consigliere) Miami Steve Van Zandt, but despite my research I've been unable to determine whether Steve plays on the track. The song itself is an interesting stab at the roots oriented sound being pioneered by The Band at the time, which points toward the future, as does the lyrical development.

Bruce Springsteen - (Dr Zoom And The Sonic Boom) - Jambalaya - (Live, 1972, The Sunshine Inn, Asbury

The Zoom Song

Dr. Zoom & the Sonic Boom

Here is where things begin to truly take the shape we know. During his spell in California playing gigs with Steel Mill, Bruce saw Van Morrison playing live with a ten piece band which inspired Bruce to expand his pallette and also re-emphasize his R&B influences. This is also where some of the major players of the E Street Band start showing up. Miami Steve Van Zandt and Vini 'Mad Dog' Lopez are present already and bassist Garry Tallent arrives on the scene, as does organist David Sancious (who would remain with Bruce until he recorded the title track of Born To Run, then he left to pursue a jazz career and was replaced by Roy Bittan) and none other than Southside Johnny (of 'and the Asbury Jukes' fame) on harmonica duties. Also around were two sax players and a plalanx of female backup singers known as the Zoomettes. On stage, the band kept a table with a Monopoly board, and musicians not playing in a particular number would join the game, presaging some of the band's latter-day onstage goofery. These tracks show them in 1972 before a hometown crowd in Asbury Park. The music is loose and funky and the distinctive Springsteen is only a few steps away, and the songwriting has become more solid than ever.

Hope you enjoyed this look into an artists history as much as I enjoyed digging it all up.

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A Little Baby Exciteable Werewolf. or Something.

nobody@vox.com(jonmc) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:00:28 -0700

Copy of [—mŠy]Lyme And Cybelle - Follow Me

Lyme & Cybelle - If You Gotta Go, Go Now

01-wanted dead or alive-wanted dead or alive-warren zevon

05-wanted dead or alive-iko-iko-warren zevon

[Note: Now that the Favorites Coountdown is done, it has been decreed by straw poll of my internet friends that the next theme here is 'Early Recordings,' or records made by prominent artists before they became famous. I've had incredible fun researching and hunting down these songs over the years, and I hope you'll have fun listening to and reading about them]

Before Warren Zevon became the most twisted singer/songwriter in L.A. , he had to travel a long and tortured journey. Hell, maybe that's a big part of what made him so twisted. A classically trained pianist bitten by the rock and roll bug, he initially joined forces with a high school freind and vocalist named Violet Santangelo (she later spent years in musical theatre and is currently a realtor in New York). They formed a Sonny & Cher-style duo and renamed themselves Lyme & Cybelle, scoring a minor hit with the sprightly flower-pop gem 'Follow Me,' Zevon's role was more in the instrumental realm and Santangelo's vocals dominate, both on 'Follow Me' and the poppy, horn-laden cover of Bob Dylan's 'If You Gotta Go, Go Now' also included here.

After the duo split, Zevon recorded a solo album entitled Wanted Dead Or Alive in 1969, produced by Kim Fowley, the self-styled svengali behind The Runaways, of all people. The sound is somewhat murky, which dosen't do the album any favors. Zevon's playing (on guitar and bass as well as his usual piano) is solid throughout, and the outlaw ballad title track points the way towards his future fascination with violence and desperate outlaws. He also does a cover of the New Orleans classic 'Iko Iko' which mixes weirdly with Warren's quirky enunciated vocal style, but that's a really difficult song to ruin, so it's still good.The album went exactly nowhere commercially and he was dropped from his label. It'd be seven more years and a lot more knocking around before we'd hear from him again, but these tracks provide a great glimpse of a warped genius' development.

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It feels Ok, Bob...

nobody@vox.com(jonmc) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:00:02 -0700

01 bob dylan - like a rolling stone

1. Bob Dylan "Like A Rolling Stone"

Volumes of ink and pixels have been expended extolling how this song broke open the field of self-espression in popular music, so I won't add anything except to say that yes, I agree, rock and roll was irreparably different after this record was released. And it still remains relevant today. because of Bob Dylan's surly way of singing his toweringly barbed lyrics, because of Mike Bloomfield's stinging guitar and Al Kooper's organ (a beat behind the rest of the band because he had never played organ before that day, but sensing that something monumnetal was about to occur, he wanted in and faked it).

Suffice it to say this, I've played this song on jukeboxes in swanky lounges, hispter habitues, and utter dives and this is the only song that will stop conversations dead to allow people to sing along, because anybody who's ever led any kind of life has asked themselves the question Bob Dylan is asking himslef in the lyric. And that's what makes this the most utterly human song ever written, and that's why it's my favorite.

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I'm alright, You're alright, everybody's alright...

nobody@vox.com(jonmc) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 18:13:02 -0700

01 Cheap Trick - Surrender

2. Cheap Trick "Surrender"

Somebody whose name escapes me once said something to the effect that the music of the sixties was an attempt to change the world, and the music of the seventies was about how to to live in that (in whatever way) changed world. That, among other things, is what makes 'Surrender' the greatest song of the 1970's.

It's also a tribute to the strengths of weird narratives. The song begins with a confused kid being scolded by his seemingly clueless parents then coming home to find them smoking pot and rocking out to his Kiss albums. As one critic said 'if that isn't your idea of surrender...'

No, this would merely be an amusing trifle wre it not backed up by Rick Neilsen's incredibly propulsive riffing and Robin Zander's great vocal. And the chorus and final refrain of "Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright...we're all alright," drives home an incredible revelation: nobody's perfect but most of us are doing the best we can, in a word they're all alright. And those words (and more importantly, the way they're sung) make this the best song of the arena rock genre and the best use of rock and roll as a life affirming force ever. I first heard this song as 9-year old and it blew my mind then and it still does now.

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picks up the shrapnel of my mind

nobody@vox.com(jonmc) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:49:23 -0700

Byrds - Eight Miles High

3. Byrds "Eight Miles High"

David Crosby claims that the idea for the intro to this song was concieved while listening to Indian raga and John Coltrane at the same time on a moving train. If so, this song is a tribute to the power of weird inspiration since that intro broke the whole idea of rock and roll wide open and nearly fitfy years later, this song (and especially it's intro) remain the most potent example of rock's power to musically blow minds ever created.

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Soul Music's Puffy White Cloud

nobody@vox.com(jonmc) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:33:38 -0700

Dobie Gray - Drift Away

4. Dobie Gray "Drift Away"

In crtical circles, 'escapism' has become something of a dirty word, as if it were some kind of character flaw to need a break from the mundane drudgeries of daily existence, and not a neccessity for maintaining ones sanity. This composition by Mentor Williams is a tribute to the joys of using music as a way to float away from the ugly details of life, at least temporarily. The sentiments therein wouldn't mean much if the record didn't deliver exactly what it describes. With it's easy swing, sweet guitar and astounding vocalizing from journeyman soul singer Dobie Gray (heretofore most famous for 'The In Crowd') this songs makes me do exactly what it's chorus says. This is, to these ears, the greatest ever use of music as a spiritual balm, and who's soul couldn't use a little of that?

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gives it to 'em, right now

nobody@vox.com(jonmc) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:16:27 -0700

The Kingsmen - Louie, Louie

5. Kingsmen "Louie, Louie"

This song is usually used as Exhibit A by those who don't like rock and roll. Self-appointed guardians of moral purity hated it because of it's licentious rhythms and because they thought it's garbled vocals hid obscene lyrics (they even got the FBI involved, no joke). Art-snobs hate it because it seemed to exemplify crass commercialism and joyous primitive crudity.

The irony was that the srt-snobs of the time were probably big fans of the ersatz 'folk' music proffered by the likes of the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul & Mary, who they assumed to represent some kind of artistic purity with their starchy renditions of shopworn traditional songs. "Louie, Louie," however is a primal example of the 'oral tradition' they claimed to hold dear. It started life as a b-side penned by R&B journeyman Richard Berry, but he admits that he stole the basic riff from the bridge of a salsa number called 'Loco Cha Cha,' by Rene Touzet. Because of the simplicity of it's riff, it became popular among young bands forming in garages across America. My own theory is that some caveman probably pounded 'duh-duh-duh duh-duh dun-dun-duh' on a rock with a stick and it's been floating around in the air ever since. At last count, it's spawned literally hundreds of cover versions ranging from reggae to thrash metal, and that's not counting all the songs that have been built on variations of it's basic riff.

But it's the Kingsmen's version that remains the seminal one, mainly because of Joe Ely's helium & testosterone cocktail vocal and the gargantuan guitar riff doubled on the organ. This is still rock's ultimate testimony to the power of big, dumb, primitive fun, bar none. Don't trust those who don't rock out to it, and above all avoid all contact with any musician who can't or won't play it.

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So put on some shades, Mick

nobody@vox.com(jonmc) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:36:51 -0700

01 - Rocks Off

6. Rolling Stones "Rocks Off"

After the end of the 1960's the Rolling Stones awoke to find themselves tax exiles in the south of France with a dope addled guitarist and a coterie of the seediest hangers-on known to man, and yet they managed to turn those surroundings into the greatest double album in rock history, Exile On Main Street, mainly by making it the best best portrayal of squalor and debauched exhaustion known to man. "Rocks Off" is it's kickoff track and it's slam-bang guitar riff and great piano set the scene while the lyrics ('I can't even feel the pain no more...I only get my rocks off when I'm sleeping) set the tone. And the way Mick sings 'the sunshine bores the daylights out of me...' stands as his (and possibly rock's) greatest vocal moment. Have a drink, sink deeper into the couch, my friend.

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Cockeyed Absurdist

A Reminder from the dollar bin of some rock and roll perfection.

Kids today, huh?

Payin' the Cost to be The Boss

A Little Baby Exciteable Werewolf. or Something.

It feels Ok, Bob...

I'm alright, You're alright, everybody's alright...

*picks up the shrapnel of my mind*

Soul Music's Puffy White Cloud

*gives it to 'em, right now*

So put on some shades, Mick

picks up the shrapnel of my mind

gives it to 'em, right now