This may be the most iconic Stones song. But in a recent concert in Newark they invited Lady Gaga to join in.
I like Lady Gaga as an artist. Her songs and performances are often powerful.
And I think she sings great in this clip. But she isn’t Merry Clayton and these Stones aren’t those Stones. All things considered, Lady Gaga is a plus. And so was Taylor Swift.
Crazy.
(Morning Music: Reading this in the light of day, I realize I didn’t make my point. What I said I meant, but what I didn’t say (except by using the Bad Music category) I also meant. This is terrible.)
I went to the recording of the radio show, Soundcheck, tonight, at the NY Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Dubbed Soundcheck Smackdown, the program was something of a debate about who was/is better, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.
Hosted and refereed by Soundcheck host John Schaefer, who wore the zebra stripes and had a yellow penalty flag that he threw once, and a whistle that went unemployed, maybe because he swallowed it when Ophira Eisenberg popped the f-word into her argument for the Stones, as in the Beatles asked to hold your hand, but who didn’t imagine fucking all of the Stones. Round to Stones.
Eisenberg’s partner on the Stones team was Bill Janovitz, who wrote a highly-praised essay about Exile on Main Street in the 33 1/3 book series and another book about the 50 most meaningful Stones songs.
Team Beatles was Paul Myers, who is an author and musician and the older brother of his partner, Mike Myers, who is known as the keen wit and lover of language who created Wayne’s World and Austin Powers. Notably the Myers brother have very similar body types, wore matching black t-shirts with the words “John&Paul&Ringo&George” on them, but had dramatically different hair colors (Paul pure white, Mike pure brown).
Before the show we were all handed index cards and pencils and asked to write in 20 words or less why we liked the Beatles or the Stones. I think the Beatles are more important culturally, but after thinking about this more than I had earlier in the week, I came up with this:
“The Beatles were the soundtrack of my life in middle school. The Stones were the soundtrack of my life in high school. I have to go with the Stones.” (What I actually wrote on the card was only 19 words, and probably better).
I think you might enjoy the show, so I’m not going to go into much detail here. But SPOILER ALERT, there was one thing to talk about that gives away who won. Sort of.
Before the show John Schaefer asked how many people favored the Stones. My sense was that all of us who went Stones knew that the Beatles were really better/more important, and our applause was half-hearted, lacking confidence.
The debate had many jabs and ripostes and good theater, but it was clear as it went along that the Ophira and Bill’s argument that the Stones were all rock ‘n’ roll-y, good for sex and burning stuff down, was a better argument than the Myers’s argument that the Beatles changed all of culture riff (even though that is almost certainly true, in a way).
At the end of the show, John Schaefer polled the crowd again about their favorites. This time, the Stones fans, buoyed by Team Stones excellent performance, cheered robustly and with confidence. But the Beatles fans were still louder. No minds were changed, but a rollicking good time was had by all.
The following two songs are the one’s each team chose as their band’s most emblematic:
Each team was also asked to name the other band’s worst song. Team Stones did quite well, though the song they cite is terribly catchy, while Team Beatles latched onto some obvious flaws in a Stones’ tune that time has embiggened. Or, at least, revealed virtues that overcome some of the disco silliness.
This song and the album it was on came out in the height of the punk fervor, and TRB made their name and street cred by being vocal advocates in the Rock Against Racism concerts in the UK in 1977 and 78. I played it a lot, loved the beats and the politics, but their tendency to agitprop gave their anthems extra power, especially the theatrical (Sing If You’re) Glad to Be Gay, and also wreathed them in the wafting odor of political rectitude. But not their first single, which is a car song.
I loved the idea of Led Zeppelin before the first album came out. When it did, I collected my lawn mowing and car washing money and got my mother to drive me to the music store (I was 12, and enthusiastic) and on our way through the shopping center somebody, another person, said hello to me.
But I really didn’t care, because I had the brass in pocket to buy the new Led Zeppelin album that I’d never heard, but I knew was great.
Now, other leaps of faith in ensuing years did not fair so well, but that first Led Zeppelin album is, to my mind, one of the greats of all time. File it under first album apotheosis, this is the record that wooed me and won me.
The second album is equally great, by the way.
So, you know. For tonight’s music, let’s look at the way the Zep handles Communication Breakdown on their Physical Graffiti tour. Not really there, if you’re listening. They’re preening more than playing, right?
This list was a lot more difficult than the seven minutes or more. In fact, I probably could do a best of one minute or less, but I ruined it now.
I’m off to LABR tomorrow, so I probably won’t post again until next week. Peter should’ve saved his 10 posts from today and spread them out to cover for me.
Again, no ranking here. Too great, too challenging.
Disclaimer – These aren’t about Beatles vs. Bob Dylan vs. Rolling Stones. These aren’t necessarily the “correct” choices that you can find on every other internet or magazine list. These aren’t about who was the first to do this or that. Steveslist doesn’t care. These are about what I reach for and what turns my crank and what makes me smile.
Not sure I knew there was music this crazy before this. Loved loved loved the Misfits back in the late ’70s and even dragged my college buddies out to see them one night at the 4th Street Saloon in Bethlehem, the Lehigh Valley’s place for punk. (Now they probably tell their grandkids, “Grandpa saw that band a long, long time ago” whenever they pass some knucklehead kid in the mall with a Misfits shirt.)
This version jumps a little at the beginning, but every other youtube version didn’t sound right to me.
The Dickies were quick, short (common dickie traits) and full of covers. This is an early original. It was on 10″ white vinyl and fairly hard to find at the time.
You couldn’t beat Lee Ving for mean-spirited. Fear’s appearance in “The Decline Of Western Civilization” is arguably the highlight of the film.
When he appeared in the original “Flashdance” I had mixed feelings.
“Back From Samoa” was on my all-time top 50 list, I forget where.
Dylan, Springsteen and Costello working together couldn’t touch these lyrics.
The Supershit 666 EP is my all-time favorite piece of recorded music. Last year when I was working a shit third-shift data entry job while enduring a non-compete I would play it every night to begin my shift, drowning out the awfulness of Pitbull and Mumford and Sons on the radio.
Everyone on earth needs this EP. Seriously. The youtube fidelity sucks and I apologize for that. It’s not Supershit’s fault.
We like to have fun with Kiss, who have had a long and storied career.
But now they’ve done it. Somehow these guys have turned a fast start and then years of grinding mediocrity ever afterward into something even Barry Bonds can’t claim: Membership in a Hall of Fame.
On this day in 1975, Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti was released. The website Gothamist included it in their series NYC Album Art, which includes the album cover, a story about the album and other stuff that readers here might enjoy, including a YouTube playlist.
The Physical Graffiti entry in the series includes NY Times critic John Rockwell’s Top 10 list for 1975. He lists Zep’s big album as an honorable mention and points out in the intro that he likes new music, which is why his list is topped by a couple of youngsters, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith.
