Song of the Week – Weather With You, Crowded House

IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Some time ago one of you responded to one of my weekly missives to say that week’s song was also on the All Music Guide critic Stephen Thomas “Tom” Erlewine’s Desert Island Singles list. On his allmusic.com bio page he provides a couple of other “lists” — The Usual Suspects — Boring Desert Island Discs I Still Love and The Real Desert Island List — Albums I Listen to More Than the Previous List.

I really relate to his taste in music. I especially respect his singles list. He fearlessly includes such “unhip” selections as Al Stewart’s “Time Passages” and Spandau Ballet’s “True” (a song I often closed with when I was a club DJ in the mid 80s).

At the end of his “lists” he creates up a bunch of “categories” and selects his own “winner.” Here are a few examples with my answers added in parentheses:

Favorite Music Books:
Shakey; The Last Party; No Sleep Til Hammersmith (Peter Guralnick’s Sweet Soul Music)
Favorite Songwriters:
Chuck Berry; Nick Lowe; Ray Davies; Lowell George (Lennon/McCartney, Dylan, Ray Davies)
Singers Who Make Your Skin Crawl:
Patti Smith; Linda Perry (Stevie Nicks)
Artist You Will Always Defend:
The Rolling Stones (The Beatles)
Albums That You Will Always Defend:
Urge Overkill — Exit the Dragon; Menswear — Nuisance (Crowded House – Woodface)

Here’s the link if you want to check out the whole thing: Tom Erlewine’s AMG Bio

Australia’s Crowded House began as a trio (Neil Finn, Paul Hester and Nick Seymour) and recorded their first two albums in that configuration. For Woodface, Neil recruited his brother Tim Finn (formerly of Split Enz who had a hit with “I Got You” in 1980) who brought along a batch of songs and another terrific harmony voice. Add production help from Mitchell Froom and mixing expertise from Bob Clearmountain and there’s a decent chance the album will be pretty good.

The lyrics tell an interesting story but are vague enough to leave room for any number of interpretations.

Walking ’round the room singing Stormy Weather
At Fifty Seven Mount Pleasant Street
Well it’s the same room, but everything’s different
You can fight the sleep, but not the dream

Things ain’t cookin’ in my kitchen
Strange affliction wash over me
Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire
Couldn’t conquer the blue sky

Well, there’s a small boat made of china
It’s going nowhere on the mantelpiece
Well, do I lie like a lounge room lizard
Or do I sing like a bird released?

Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you

I’ve always thought of this as another in the long line of break up songs. “The same room, but everything’s different” is the feeling we all experience when someone we love is no longer present. And who among us hasn’t lost sleep after losing a lover? Then again I could be totally off base!

I’m also intrigued by the song’s form/structure. It opens with vaguely Eastern sounding chords and rolls into the first verse with Beatle like harmonies. Next it moves into a second verse with a totally different melody. (Some might call it a bridge, but I wouldn’t.) The third verse is just like the first but it’s a little more complicated. In the final “movement” the song title is repeated numerous times. It could be tedious, but not in the hands of this band. They arrange it in such a way that you hardly notice.

I again refer you to Spotify to check out the rest of the album, especially “Chocolate Cake,” “It’s Only Natural,” “Fall At Your Feet,” and “Four Seasons In One Day.”

Enjoy… until next week.

Night Music: Donovan, “Young Girl Blues”

This gets complicated fast. I didn’t know this song except I’ve been reading Rachel Kushner’s “Novel of the Year,” The Flamethrowers.

And in it there is reference to this Donovan song, which describes the interstices between the fashion and the art world just the way the novel does.

But this isn’t a great song, and when Dylan mocks him in that movie (D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back) it’s because Donovan at that point was a bigger star with fewer chops, and I suppose both knew it. But only Dylan was the asshole. Dylan was also the Flamethrower.

If you read the Flamethrowers, which has lots of historical tourism in 1975-1977 artworld Soho and Little Italy NYC, you are likely to be massaged and blown away by Rachel Kushner’s writing. She brings both sensual immediacy and historical fluidity.

I’m less sure of her emotional center, but that’s not a talk for now or this song by Donovan, which is not surprisingly deep. But sounds nice.

Lunch Break: Richard Thompson, “Feel So Good (I’m Gonna Break Somebody’s Heart)”

When we were discussing Wreckless Eric and the Stiffs Live a few weeks back, I thought of Richard Thompson with a smile.

He is indeed my very favorite guitar player (though watch it Richard, Mick Ronson and Bill Frisell are gaining on you), singer/songwriter, and live performer.

Since Peter brought Richard and Linda and Shoot Out the Lights to the forefront, such is my opening.

Just about everything Peter culled about Richard’s career is correct, although Thompson did take a break from performing in the 80’s at some point.

I am not sure exactly when, though I suspect it was the early 80’s, or perhaps even the late 70’s.

I know this because I caught the Austin City Limits with him many years back, and during an interview the guitarist noted that he had turned to selling antiques for a while, a gig for which he admitted he was not very good at.

But, he returned to music, and the interviewer asked what brought him back, and Thompson noted, “The Sex Pistols.”

When asked to elaborate, Thompson said, “I realized I didn’t have to turn into Elton John.”

Sometime after Amnesia ( which features the terrific Valerie) was released, then the closest thing to a breakout for Thompson with Rumor and Sigh.

It was then that I truly fell in love with Richard, for though I saw Fairport Convention in the early 70’s, the first time I saw him solo was opening for Crowded House around 1988, touring solo acoustic behind that album.

Rumor and Sigh featured the great Vincent Black Lightning 1952, Read About Love, and the song below, Feel So Good. The You Tube version is culled from Letterman, and his band is the Letterman band, meaning Paul Schafer is on keys.

Just a great great song.

 

Lunch Break: The War on Drugs, “Red Eyes”

They played in the city last week and I saw some video of their shows in Philly, which the writer at Gothamist raved about. I didn’t get real excited by the tunes, but for modern jangly indie rock they sounded pretty good. I thought I’d keep my eye out, in part because they have a good name.

They also have a new album coming out. I haven’t heard it, but I have heard this:

I like the propulsion, the simple drumming, the guitar and layers of shimmery sounds, and I like the way it breaks a couple of times (you’ll see what I mean if you listen). I’m not keen on the reverby buried slurred vocals. I’m not predicting this is going into my rotation, though it might, but it is new rock of some interest, which is rare.

Breakfast Blend: Sic Fucks

This band, if I recall right, was kind of a misanthropic joke at the time. But I was looking for clips of the old days and they all seem to have been deleted for copyright reasons from YouTube. But I did find this 2011 reincarnation, which does a pretty good impersonation of the Tubes.

But the original young Fucks were similarly theatrical. I think this is the original recording. Time is a bitch.

Night Music: Richard and Linda Thompson, “Walking On A Wire”

Richard and Linda Thompson were members of the great English folk group, Fairport Convention. They left and made an amazing sequence of great albums of folk/rock music, which culminated with their breakup album, Shoot Out the Lights, which rocked as hard as their hearts undoubtedly hurt.

It is a harrowing collaboration telling the story of their estrangement, its vortices and its troughs. Afterwards, Linda of the lovely voice lost her ability to sing for a while, but managed to win an Oscar for best song anyway. But Richard never stopped playing the songs, no matter how darkly he was implicated. Making such solos seems to be why he is here.

Lunch Break: Frank Zappa, “Eddie Are You Kidding?”

As a result of some odd Tout Wars drafting machinations last weekend, I was prompted to write about that, and in the process, brought up Frank Zappa and his band The Mothers of Invention.

After which it occurred to me that we have never given the brilliant, funny, and iconoclastic–not to mention great guitar player–much due on this site.

So, I will try to rectify that.

My appreciation of the man dates back to 1968, when as a long haired kid I attended a John Birch Society meeting wherein the backwards rednecks presented a program on how rock music corrupts our youth, making them become long haired degenerate dope smokers (just like me?).

I went with a handful of friends, and it was very scary as these guys were–and still are–neo-Nazis, but now I can look back on the whole affair with some kind of romantic eye.

A few years later my oldest and closest friend, Stephen Clayton and I saw the Mothers, on one of the weirdest bills ever. Opening was the band founded by then ex-Quicksilver guitar player, John Cippolina, Copperhead. Next was the jazz fusion band, Weather Report (who I have since seen three more times), and then Zappa and his mates hit the stage, playing Chunga’s Revenge that I can remember.

Zappa has also been sort of an American version of John Mayall, with the likes Lowell George, George Duke, Terry Bozio, Ansley Dunbar, and eventually Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (AKA Flo and Eddie, ex-patriots of the Turtles), among other luminaries, in his band.

The tune I picked for today’s edification is the eternally funny Eddie Are You Kidding from the album Just Another Band From L.A. (note too that Zappa’s influence moved, as year’s later the great Los Lobos paid homage by naming their compilation album, Just Another Band from East L.A.).

Just for fun, I also added this terrific clip of Zappa appearing before Congress in 1985, testifying before Tipper Gore’s stupid committee who were monitoring music and lyrics at the time for appropriateness. Note that Zappa, John Denver, and Dee Snyder–three artists who could not be more different–all testified, and all three dissed the whole process as a bunch of shit.

Rightfully so! Anyway, Zappa was smart, funny, and eloquent as you will see if you hit the clip below.

 

 

 

Breakfast Blend: One Track In Spurts

I may have had this thought before, but this song from the Heartbreaker’s LAMF is basically the same song as Richard Hell and the Voidoid’s Love Comes in Spurts.

Hell was in the Heartbreakers, but left. One Track Mind is credited to Walter Lure (who sings) and Jerry Nolan. Love Comes In Spurts is credited to Richard Hell.

Here’s a live version of the Heartbreakers with Hell playing Love Comes in Spurts. Interesting how similar the arrangement is to the album version recorded with Richard Gottehrer later.

 

Night Music: John Lennon, “Oh Yoko”

I was in a bar tonight, the Gate, with my buddy Jon.

For my beery friends I had a Bell’s Java Porter, a Captain Lawrence IPA x 2, and a Boat Beer from a brewery in New Jersey.

The Bell’s is fantastically rich and wonderful, desert, dinner and an aperitif all at once. The Captain Lawrence is super hoppy, while the Boat Beer, a session lager, was a little citrusy, but also reminded that the New Jersey water isn’t perfect. Not bad at all, but not delightful.

As for the jukebox, it was prime. But the tune that stood out was this one, which seems to have a pretty nice slide show to go with it. Unless you have a unnatural hatred for Yoko. I don’t. I loved her movie with the camera tilts up legs.

 

 

Night Music: Canned Heat, “Rollin’ and Tumblin'”

This is a Muddy Waters tune, and Canned Heat does a great job. Enjoy.

At the same time, it should be noted that these are the least authentic looking but good sounding Blues guys you can imagine. I mean, the band was never in danger of being sharecroppers.

So, big surprise, nerdy Blues aficionados rocking the blues. It happens in every college town. And has forever.

But Bob Hite is a charismatic guy with an original bluesy voice.

The filmmaker seems mostly interested in the gals.