Sorry, but I've been lax lately about posting entries from my music column, Terrell's Tuneup, that pertain to our GaragePunk world.
Here are three recent columns you might enjoy. One is my tribute to The Ramones following the death of tommy; then there's my review of Norton Records' latest from The A-Bones, Miriam and Daddy Long Legs, And keep scrolling down for my review of the new album from a band I met here in the Hideout, The Electric Mess (as well as my take on the latest album by Thee Oh Sees.)
All these originall were published in The Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe's daily newspaper, which employs me as a mild-mannered reporter.
Friday, July 18, 201
Remember the Ramones!
Four out of five Rolling Stones who appeared on the band’s first album are still alive. Half of The Beatles, half of The Who, and half of The Velvet Underground are still with us. All of the Sex Pistols except Sid Vicious still walk the earth.
And yet all four of the original Ramones have died. Last week Tommy Erdelyi — a native of Hungary who became the group’s first drummer after a short stint as its manager — died of bile duct cancer. Cancer took Tommy, Joey, and Johnny. Drugs got Dee Dee. Horrible, miserable demises for musicians whose work was so full of joy and crazy energy. All the Ramones who played on those first three albums — Ramones, Leave Home, and my favorite, Rocket to Russia; the four guys who gave the world songs like “Cretin Hop,” “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker,” “We’re a Happy Family,” “Beat on the Brat” — all are gone.
The Ramones are dead. Long live The Ramones!
I got to see them in person only once. That was back in July 1996 (nearly 20 years after Tommy had left the band and long after Dee Dee left as well). This was at a Lollapalooza festival, and they weren’t even the headliners.
The Ramones sounded fine, but it was not a pleasant show. Brutal is too kind a word for the 107-degree Arizona heat that day. And worst of all, The Ramones’ set was cut short by a vicious windstorm. Joey Ramone had joked onstage about the venue — a horrible, dusty desert hellhole known as Compton Terrace — being built on an ancient pet cemetery. (This of course was right before the band launched into its song “Pet Sematary,” from the horror movie adapted from the Stephen King novel.)
Soon after Joey’s little joke came the dark clouds and the blasting winds. The stage lights and sound monitors suspended above were swaying ominously. I wrote in my review of the festival, “While it might be the cool rock ’n’ roll way to die, being crushed by a giant speaker in front of a cheering mosh pit, that is not the way Joey planned to say adios, amigos.”
According to the website setlist.fm, The Ramones made it through 16 songs that day in Arizona. At most other Lollapalooza shows they did 21. So maybe we were cheated out of only five songs. At least I got to see them do “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Teenage Lobotomy,” and their cover of the Spider-Man theme song, a latter-day Ramones favorite. That would be the group’s last tour. Joey died five years later. Johnny soon followed, as did Dee Dee. And now, Tommy.
The influence of The Ramones on rock ’n’ roll in the past 40 years cannot be underestimated. Although the punk rock movement they helped spawn definitely had its own excesses, it was a much-needed corrective force for popular music in the mid- to late ’70s. In fact, whenever rock ’n’ roll gets too heavy and serious and self-important and gloomy, the musicians behind it should ask, What would The Ramones do?
In recent years, at least three songs about that very concept have popped up. In 1999 a band called The Huntingtons recorded “What Would Joey Do?” in which they asked what he’d do “about the state of rock ’n’ roll.” (They also did an album of all Ramones covers.) More recently, The Creeping Ivies recorded “What Would Joey Ramone Do?” which airs similar complaints about lousy radio and TV. And just a few years ago, a friend of a friend, a guy named Scott Orr, had a stripped-down lo-fi tune called “WWJD.” (It’s about Joey, not Jesus.) But these are only a small subgenre of songs about the Ramones.
Here are my favorite Ramones tribute songs by musicians who felt they owed something to those oddballs from Queens.
▼ “R.A.M.O.N.E.S.” by Motörhead. Lemmy Kilmister’s big blasting tribute to the brothers first appeared on Motörhead’s 1916 album in the early ’90s. The Ramones liked it so much that they recorded two versions of it themselves.
▼ “I Heard Ramona Sing” by Frank Black. This tune, on Black Francis’ first solo album, Frank Black, is a sincere tribute, even though it sounds a lot more like The Pixies, which had just broken up, than the Ramones. It tells of a young guy’s first encounter with the boys from Queens: “I had so many problems/Then I got me a Walkman ... I heard Ramona sing, and I heard everything.” By the end of the song, Black expresses the hope that The Ramones keep replenishing themselves like a certain Puerto Rican boy band of that era: “I hope if someone retires/They pull another Menudo,” he sings. If only …
▼ “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone” by Sleater-Kinney. This 1996 ode appeared on Sleater’s Call the Doctor album. Singer Carrie Brownstein wants to be your Joey — “Pictures of me on your bedroom door,” that is — but halfway through the song she also wants “to be your Thurston Moore.” What gives here?
▼ “Dancing With Joey Ramone” by Amy Rigby. Another song specifically about the singer of the band, Rigby’s is a bittersweet, rocking fantasy that was released on her Little Fugitive album a few years after Joey’s death. “I tried to say something, he said, `Girl, shut your mouth, they’re playin’ ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone’ '/Last night I was dancin’ with Joey Ramone.” The lyrics include a great playlist with such venerated oldies as “The Worst That Could Happen” by Brooklyn Bridge, “He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss,” “Glad All Over,” and “Needles and Pins.” (The Ramones themselves covered that last Jackie DeShannon classic.) I’m sure Joey would have loved to dance to any of those.
▼ “Our Ramones” and “Ramones Forever” by The 99ers. Yes, this Minnesota band has two different songs on two different albums celebrating Mama Ramone’s baby boys. I prefer the latter one, which is from the 2011 album Everybody’s Rocking.
▼ “Remember The Ramones” by The Fleshtones. Released earlier this year on The Fleshtones’ most recent album, Wheel of Talent, this rouser is a sweet tribute from a fellow New York band that started out at about the same time as The Ramones. It’s with complete sincerity that The Fleshtones sing, “You don’t know what it means/To hit the Bowery and make the scene/For a rock ’n’ roller and a kid from Queens.”
Here are some videos ...
Amy Rigby doing her song live with Wreckless Eric.
Here's Sleater-Kinney
And here's the four lads in all their 1977 glory!
Friday, July 4, 2014
New Fireworks from Norton
Since today’s the Fourth of July — or Independence Day, as the cool people call it — I thought it would be appropriate to salute Norton Records, a truly independent American record company and a firecracker of a label, which recently released three bitchen albums that will make you feel patriotic just listening to them. I know, I know. I’ll stop.
Norton is a great American story. It was founded in 1986 by Billy Miller and Miriam Linna, a Brooklyn couple that published a rock ’n’ roll magazine called Kicks. After Miller and Linna ran a story about rocking West Virginia wild man Hasil Adkins that received a huge response, they decided to start a label to reissue Adkins’ recordings (eventually recording some new material with him).
The pair named their label after Ed Norton, Ralph Cramden’s pal on The Honeymooners, and it grew, reissuing tons and tons of obscure old R & B, garage rock, soul, rockabilly, proto-punk, and general craziness — not to mention the fresh sounds of singers and bands who fit in with the general Norton aesthetic.
And then, not quite two years ago, disaster struck. Hurricane Sandy smashed into Norton’s Brooklyn warehouse, destroying a major portion of the company’s inventory. Miller and Linna, who worked countless hours trying to salvage what they could, soon found they had a lot of support. Friends and label fans showed up to help dry off vinyl records and put them in fresh sleeves before they all went to mold. Around the country, people organized benefit rock ’n’ roll shows for Norton, while hip radio programs and podcasts played special shows to draw attention to the label’s plight.
Norton survived, and it’s still the place “where the loud sound abounds.” These new albums attest to that.
▼ Ears Wide Shut by The A-Bones. This loose-knit group of rock fanatics might be considered Norton’s house band. Billy Miller is the lead singer and Miriam Linna plays drums and sings. (She was the first drummer for The Cramps, back in the ‘70s.) Longtime A-Bones bassist Marcus “The Carcass” Natale and guitarist Bruce Bennett are on this album, as are Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan, on keyboards, guitar, and vocals, and sax man Stan Zenkoff. The first thing a devoted Bones fan notices about Ears is that it’s raw and lo-fi, even by A-Bones standards. It has a real live at the amusement-park-picnic-pavilion feel. Which, to my ears, is not a bad thing.
There are some fine songs here. As usual, the majority are covers, but most are so obscure they might as well be original material. Only two were actually written by The A-Bones, “Lula Baby,” which sounds like a slower, sludgier “Tutti Frutti,” and Catahoula Stomp,” which could be passed off as a long-forgotten masterpiece by Paul Revere & The Raiders. It features some tasty — if a little psychotic — organ from Kaplan.
I’m not even sure where “Henrietta” came from, but it’s one of those songs that has bounced around at the edges of a lot of old rockers’ repertoires. Doug Sahm, John Fogerty, and The Trashmen have all recorded it. “Luci Baines,” apparently a rocking ode from Arthur Lee, of the band Love, to one of LBJ’s daughters, was initially recorded by Lee’s pre-Love band, The American Four, back in the Great Society era. There’s a surfy instrumental, “Thunder,” first recorded by Bob Taylor & The Counts on Yucca Records, an old Alamogordo label.
And they saved their best for the last. The crunchy, frantic “Sorry” was first recorded by The Easybeats, an Australian band from the mid-’60s. I’ve always preferred the version done a couple of decades later by The Plimsouls (available only on a couple of their live albums), but The A-Bones give the latter group a run for their money here.
My only serious complaint about Ears Wide Shut is that there’s only one track here sung by Linna: the perfectly lecherous “Little School Boy,” originally done by Billy Garner as “Little School Girl.” But if you’re craving more Miriam songs, read on.
▼ Nobody’s Baby by Miriam. That’s right, just one name, like Cher or Madonna. Or Winger, for that matter. This is Miriam’s first solo album, and it’s a gem.
If you’re expecting the same high-intensity, raucous ’n’ roll you find with The A-Bones, you won’t get it on Nobody’s Baby. Instead, this album reminds me of two previous records, classy efforts both, in the Norton catalog: Dangerous Game, the 2007 “comeback” album by Mary Weiss, lead singer of The Shangri-Las, and All or Nothing by La La Brooks, who used to sing with The Crystals. Like those older albums, Nobody’s Baby is a contemporary take on the classic early- to mid-’60s girl-group sound — an adult update on the teen yearning and, yes, angst of that golden period.
Linna draws from a wide variety of songwriters, including Jeff Barry (who, with partner Ellie Greenwich, wrote “Leader of the Pack,” “Chapel of Love,” hits for The Ronettes, and dozens more songs — many, you’ve probably never heard of), Tim Buckley, Bobby Darin, Gene Clark (formerly of The Byrds), Neil Young (an early, obscure tune called “There Goes My Babe”), and The Ramones (though Miriam’s version of “Questioningly” sounds more like The Chiffons than anyone who ever played CBGBs).
Besides the influence of Shangri-Las, The Crystals, The Ronettes, and The Angels, I also hear echoes of folk rock – at least Jackie DeShannon-style folk rock – here. That’s especially obvious in the opening song, “My Love Is Gone.” And there are traces of British Invasion siren Sandie Shaw on the noirish “So Lonely.”
Currently, my favorite on Nobody’s Baby is “Walking Down the Street.” It’s the closest thing to a real rocker on the album. I thought this might be an obscure Shangri-Las B-side, but it was originally done by a Pretty Things offshoot band called The Electric Banana.
▼ Blood From a Stone by Daddy Long Legs. Simply put, this Brooklyn-based trio (originally from St. Louis) is the most exciting blues/punk group, this side of Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band, on the scene today.
Led by a tall, gangly singer, who also goes by the name Daddy Long Legs, they are raw but melodic. This is the group’s second full-length album for Norton — its third, if you count The Vampire, on which they backed R & B crazy man T. Valentine (of “Lucille, Are You a Lesbian” infamy).
Highlights include the frantic “Motorcycle Madness,” the Bo Diddley-inspired “Castin’ My Spell,” a banjo-enhanced country stomp called “Chains-a-Rattlin’,” and “Flesh-Eating Cocaine Blues,” which is just as herky-jerky jittery-wild as the title suggests.
Here are some videos
The A-Bones performing Luci Baines
Here's some live Miriam
And here's Daddy Long Legs doing the title cut of Blood from a Stone
Friday, June 13, 2014
Another Fine Mess
Chances are, unless you religiously listen to my radio show, Terrell’s Sound World (which, by the way, you should), you haven’t heard of The Electric Mess. Actually, if not for the glory of the internet — and, specifically, my favorite musical community of recent years, The GaragePunk Hideout — I wouldn’t have heard of this Mess either.
But, by golly, if you like wild, frantic, high-energy rock ’n’ roll, you really need to acquaint yourself with this New York band. The group’s third album, House on Fire, is as good a place as any to start. All 13 tracks are full of fire and craziness. The sound is not drastically different from the band’s first two albums (its self-titled debut from 2009 and 2012’s Falling off the Face of the Earth). But that’s a good thing. If you like this one, you’ll want to seek out those first two.
Fronted by singer Chip Fontaine (real name Esther Crow), the group has a sound rooted in 1960s garage rock but not shackled in nostalgia. True, The Mess is a guitar-based band that features an electric organ (Oweinama Biu), but you won’t get the idea that the musicians are trying to sound like Question Mark & The Mysterians or The Standells (though, at least in their early days, they were known to cover “Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White”).
Fontaine/Crow’s voice reminds me a little of Joan Jett’s. (Here’s a fantasy: a Jett/Crow duet on The Replacements’ “Androgynous.”) House on Fire’s highlights include the opening song, a crazed little rouser called “Better to Be Lucky Than Good,” which could be a grandchild of The Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat.” (One recurring lyric: “They did it all for the white light.”) This is followed by the album’s title song, in which the speed is just as breakneck and intense.
“She Got Fangs,” which starts out with a throbbing bass line from Derek Davidson, is a hoodoo-heavy song about vampires: “Vampire woman, can’t you see/What your hunger does to me?” I’m not sure what Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone From the Sun” has to do with any of this, but it’s there, courtesy of guitarist Dan Crow (Esther’s husband), during one of the song’s instrumental breaks.
Then there’s “The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave” (the title is from a classic John Belushi Saturday Night Live skit), which is about folks who always wear out their welcomes. And even fiercer is “Leavin’ Me Hangin’,” a song in which the singer expresses displeasure at being stood up. In the middle of the song is a weird spoken-word segment: “Girl, you ain’t no Queen of Sheba, and I ain’t no piece of liver, but you never deliver. Man’s ego is like a fragile bird, but you step on that bird’s wings one too many times, and he turns into an evil hawk with red fiery eyes, on the hunt for you girl. ’Cause you’re my bird of prey, and this is what I have to say.” This is followed by a 10-second (yeah, I timed it) scream as the band goes into overdrive.
The final track, “Every Girl Deserves a Song,” starts off fast but then, after a minute or so, slows down into a wah-wah-enhanced groove. (Am I crazy, or do I hear a faint echo of The Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider” in here?) “Why don’t you bring some Percocets just to help me cool my jets,” Crow sings. No, you can’t exactly call this song mellow, but after the pace of the first dozen songs, The Electric Mess deserve to cool their jets a little.
Now go get yourself a copy of this album. And tell at least five of your friends. Next time I review an Electric Mess album, I don’t want to talk about how undeservedly obscure this band is. Find the Mess at www.theelectricmess.com.
Also recommended:
▼ Drop by Thee Oh Sees. I was just beginning to come to terms with last year’s announcement by Thee Oh Sees frontman and resident wizard John Dwyer that his prolific band was going on “indefinite hiatus.” The group’s album Floating Coffin, you might recall, was my pick for the best of 2013, and its Albuquerque show last fall was one of my favorite concerts of the year.
Now here comes a new album by Thee Oh Sees. And no, it’s not an odds ’n’ sods collection of old tapes, demos, and stuff from long-forgotten tribute albums. It’s actually a new album. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the band we came to know and love as Thee Oh Sees — vocalist and keyboardist Brigid Dawson, bassist Petey Dammit, and drummer Mike Shoun — seems to be, well, on indefinite hiatus. Dwyer moved from the group’s home base of San Francisco to Los Angeles. I think some of the other Oh Sees scattered as well.
But more good news. Even without the old lineup, Drop is a pretty decent album. Although not as overtly powerful as the magical Floating Coffin, it still has several mighty examples of Dwyer’s fuzzed-out, rubbery psychedelic excursions. He saved his best for the first three tracks: “Penetrating Eye,” “Encrypted Bounce,” and “Savage Victory,” which make up nearly half the album. These could almost pass for outtakes from Coffin, or perhaps Carrion Crawler/The Dream (2011). One could make that argument for the garagey “Camera (Queer Sound)” as well.
While this is clearly Dwyer’s show, he’s aided on Drop by Chris Woodhouse — a longtime associate of the band — on bass, drums, and Mellotron and Mikal Cronin on alto sax. Cronin is best known as a guitarist (if you saw Ty Segall at High Mayhem a few weeks ago, you saw Cronin). There’s also someone called Casafis on sax.
Unfortunately, after such an auspicious beginning, the album ends with a three-song fizzle. “King’s Nose” sounds like an attempt to channel Electric Light Orchestra. “Transparent World” is plodding and over-synthy. And the closing number, “The Lens,” is uninspired wimp rock. Come on, Dwyer, lose the damned Mellotron!
Although Drop is a welcome addition, I’m not sure what the future of Thee Oh Sees is. Dwyer recently released an electronic album called Hubba Bubba under the name of Damaged Bug. But he’s one prolific guy, so Oh Sees fans shouldn’t abandon hope. Check out www.castlefacerecords.com.
Here are some videos from these bands
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