Yep, practice, that's all you've gotta do. Start by singing small parts of the songs or humming along as you play. And, funny thing, probably the first song that I learned to play and sing simultaneously was Nirvana's version of the Vaselines' song Molly's Lips from the Incesticide album.

this is probably not what you want to hear, but there is no secret.  it just takes practice, like anything else.  start simple, get comfortable with the guitar part you want to play, and then add the vocals.  you should be able to play the guitar part without thinking about it too much.  If you keep at it, it will click.  It took me a while to get the hang of it.  I think the first song I could play and sing simultaneously was About a Girl by Nirvana.  it's only two chords so it was a good one to start with.  if you set your goals to high to begin with it's easy to be discouraged.  hang in there.  you'll get it.  

i'm just learning how to play guitar. i'm using the open e tuning ala early Gun Club.
i wanted to ask you experienced folks how i can go about singing & playing at the same time. any tips?

@John - Have you seen the new Fuzztones tour poster? It's bizarre! A graphic of Rudi as a Medusa with every member of the Fuzztones throughout the years in his snake-like hair! Check it out:

My band outfit... THE APES PARTY! Our cest hair are natural ;) we're gifted :)

I was at that taping with Hunx and His Punx. I might have been sitting in the audience when they went on. It's very tiring getting to the studio on the CTA , sometimes....

 The Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame won't take Paul Revere and The Raiders seriously , just because of their stage wear. GOD , WHO CARES ?! If WE are to take the Hall seriously , then The Raiders should have been in it before the 90's reared their ugly head.

The Outsiders , Hell , yeah. They had a Garage band in the TV show (Fox , early 90's , me and 3 or 4 people in Utah and Rhode Island watched it.) based on the movie and book. They kicked the Soc's ass , again . This time , by playing "Devil With a Blue Dress On". Stay Gold. We're doin' this one for Johny.
 
Alison said:

Cool: motorcycle jackets, jean jackets (bonus: sleeves cut off), studs, buttons, burger t-shirts, garbage bags as clothing, animal masks, hair bows, raccoon hats, pizza, bandannas, aprons, German motorcycle helmets, 1970s Joan Jett hair, stripes, knives, bow ties, Mad magazine, Ramones, spandex, tennis shoes, fat girls, Flying V, greaser.

Uncool: paisley, ruffled shirts, bell bottoms, wallet chains, neckerchiefs, mailman, velvet, guns, matching suits, hippie, tambourines, brown hair, rockabilly, turtle necks, goatees, space suits, brown vests, wrestling masks, CBGB t-shirts, polka dots, cocktails, Beatle boots, Beatle hair, scarfs, spy theme, fat guys, Vox guitars, 1980s version of the 1960s

Coincidentally, if anyone here is into the Oi thing, my pal Sara and I who I did a glam special with last year are teaming up this week for some Oi and bootboy stompers (Gonads definitely on deck).  Archives are up for 2 weeks, should be fun.

http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/qq256/joanie881/radio/12.jpg

Chris Henniker said:

A lot of the Oi bands were influenced by glam and music hall too, like The Gonads (being from South London, I'm stating the obvious local example). You've reiterated what I said about musical divisions, with kids being into one thing or the other. Football fans dressing up as Alice Cooper or Bowie being indicative of this. As a teenager,  I was an indie kid and my sis liked dance music and early jungle. Perhaps it shows there's no such thing as a typical teenage music.

A lot of indie has an English approach, especially the mod influenced and cutie stuff. No wonder why Go Sailor or anything on Thee SPC doesn't fly in the US.

matthew rosedon said:

Thanks for the responses to my Why glam meant next to nothing in the US query.

Some further thoughts:

The UK has a tradition of camp theatricality from the music hall and the pantomime.  It's often said that the average Englishman can't wait to drag up.  This is reflected in The Kinks, Madness, the Smiths and many others who are quintessentially English in their approach (I know the Kinks enjoyed American success but not in their 'English' period of 1965-71 approx.)  Perhaps this doesn't translate across the Atlantic beyond cult status.  When I think of mainstream US rock of the early 70s names like Lynryd Sknyrnd and the Doobie Brothers spring to mind - music (I use the term loosely) and image as far away from The Sweet and Roxy Music as it's possible to get.  Perhaps good old fashioned prejudice played a part whereby glam was seen as limey faggot music and not rawk.

Like punk a few years after, glam was reaction music - reaction against the grey and dreary 70s that was life in England, and also a reaction against the grey and dreary music of Pink Floyd, Yes etc.  A generation gap was opening up in popular music in the UK where your big brother listened to prog rock and wore an ex-army greatcoat while your kid sister had pictures of Bolan on her bedroom wall and wore glittery make-up.

To ask another question:  Glam rock was teenage music.  If glam meant next to nothing in the US what was a 13 year old listening to in Montana or Massachusetts in 1973?  Did a specific teenage music still exist?

All those are great! Wild records is the shit, the Montesas stuff they put out is rad too - Also Check Ali Gator & His Real Hot Reptile Rockers for some great raw Rock-AH!-Billy!

Joe said:

Here's some Hideout artists I've been listening to lately (highly recommended!):

JJ & The Real Jerks

Wyldlife

Jukebox Zeros

The Love Me Nots

As for good rockabilly, Wild! Records houses all of the best artists in the U.S., particularly Luis and the Wildfires.

Our weekly show plays an eclectic mix with plenty of new and old, download it free here http://www.divshare.com/download/17048903-30e and follow us on Facebook here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Polyvinyl-Craftsmen/191825397506342 for updates. Cheers, Coop

Here's some Hideout artists I've been listening to lately (highly recommended!):

JJ & The Real Jerks

Wyldlife

Jukebox Zeros

The Love Me Nots

As for good rockabilly, Wild! Records houses all of the best artists in the U.S., particularly Luis and the Wildfires.

Recently played a friends Epiphone SG with P90s and it was pretty goddam sweet! Still quite twangy and open at lower volume/distortion compared to a humbucker. Another 'P90 in a humbucker casing' to consider is the Tonerider Rebel 90:

http://www.tonerider.com/pickups/r90spickups.html

Haven't tried it myself, but it's on my shopping list.

As I've been told, Noise Annoys is on hold because of all the work that goes into the Hideout compilations. And there are at least 3 volumes to come out in the future. So it might take a while still. "One man can only do so much good!" ;)

I can only guess that Lord Muck of the Nasty Grind is busy, busy with his business, based on what he said when I spoke to him a while back.

I *loved* Noise Annoys. Would be great to see that one make a comeback!

On a similar note, whatever happened to Nasty Grind and Noise Annoys?  I don't get on here as often as I should, so I may have missed something here, but they were two of my favourites.

Stay Sick by The Cramps

And I'm glad James mentioned Their Second Album by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs. That was kind of a concept album with songs about magic and voodoo featuring great covers of songs like "I Got My Mojo Working," "Hoochie Koochie Man,"  "Magic Touch," "The Gypsy" and their hit "Juju Hand." Wish I still had that!

I Know You Fine But How You Doin' - the Gories
Songs the Lord Taught Us - the Cramps
Gruesomania - the Gruesomes
The Kids Are All Square - Thee Headcoats
Dinosaurs - the Sting-Rays

:)

Little Bit O'Soul - Music Explosion
On Tour - Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs
Their Second Album - Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs

 It'd take all day to disclose my motivations for the sordid sensations of the big beat that makes you wanna jump in the back seat.....In the early to mid 70'S , The Rock'n'Roll Revival peaked in The U.S. , though Western Europe had been reveling in it , years earlier. As a kid , then ,  I heard something in 50's R'n'R that I was'nt hearing in the newer stuff...Though we're talking about a difference of less than 20 years. I did'nt stop liking the new music , though I was too young to realize much of it was'nt new. The 50's Rock 'n' Roll seemed to be more about having fun than much of what I was hearing. Of course , a lot of it left on a petri dish with a Black Plague cell called Nostalgia. To the world's chagrin , the baccili was released , and , the motivation behind the music was deemed irrelevant. But , not forever. WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND .  I found myself taking an interest in 60's R'n'R , 60's and 70's Punk , Rockabilly , Instrumental Rock , Glam , Psych ,  Raw R'N'B and the like ,  because it's FUN, and it's bound by a common energy. Even if you don't like all of it , personally. I LEARNED , EARLY ON , IT WAS UP TO US , INDIVIDUALLY , TO DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT IF THIS MUSIC WOULD STILL MEAN ANYTHING  , EVEN AFTER IT FELL OUT OF FAVOR FOR A SECOND OR THIRD TIME.....   Anyone remember The U.S. Rockabilly Revival OF THE EARLY 80's ? A thousand 'Billy bands formed in The Stray Cats' wake , but , of course , none of them offered any serious competition.  Robert Gordon had made his last Neo - Rockabilly recordings of note , years before The Stray Cats came back home to , briefly , become stars.....But , a lot of Rockabilly fans and bands stayed at it , even though so much of it still reflects The Stray Cats ' sound and feel in it's utter lack of wildness and sheer raw power that this music was built on. As Tim Warren put it , so many of them did'nt go through Punk Rock , and that accounts for a lot.

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Feb. 17, 2012


Two years after their last live album, the mighty Plimsouls are back with an even more powerful concert CD. Not bad for a group that broke up almost 30 years ago.

Even if you didn’t know anything about The Plimsouls, you would have a hard time believing that Beach Town Confidential was recorded just a couple of months ago, not in 1983.

Now what should you know about The Plimsouls?

They rose from the fires of the frenzied L.A. punk/New Wave scene of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Led by Peter Case, who had been in a punk group called The Nerves, and fortified by Eddie Muñoz on guitar, Dave Pahoa on bass, and drummer Louie Ramirez, they forged a sound that featured the guitar frenzy of their punk peers but sweetened it with irresistible melodic hooks. You could hear echoes of rock’s founding fathers, mid-’60s folk-rock, and sweaty soul.

The Plimsouls only released a couple of studio albums in their heyday, including their major-label debut, the over-produced but — hey, it was the ’80s — still worthy Everywhere at Once, which yielded the closest thing the band had to a hit, “A Million Miles Away.” They broke up in the mid-’80s when Case decided to pursue a solo career as an acoustic troubadour, which was a return to his roots as a street busker in San Francisco’s North Beach area.

But about every 10 years or so he reunites with the other Plimsouls for a few shows, most recently in 2006. (In 1996, they actually did a fresh studio album, the undeservedly out-of-print Kool Trash, which every true Plimsouls fan should demand to have re-released.)

There are a lot of similarities between Beach Town Confidential and Live! Beg, Borrow, Steal, the Plimsouls’ live record recorded in 1981 and released in 2010. Many of the songs are the same — “Zero Hour,” “Shaky City,” and, of course, “A Million Miles Away.”

Both have covers of Thee Midnighters’ “Jump, Jive, and Harmonize,” and both have desperately horny versions of their own classic “Now” (“Right now! I need your love tonight! I can’t wait any longer!”). Both contain a Bo Diddley song (a splendid “You Can’t Judge a Book” on Beach Town). And both have guest appearances by The Fleshtones’ Keith Streng. (On Beg, Borrow, Steal, all the Fleshtones joined The Plimsouls for a couple of songs. On Beach Town, Streng plays guitar on “Jumpin’ in the Night,” a Flamin’ Groovies tune.)

But the more recent album includes a lot of songs we haven’t heard before on live Plimsoul albums.

“Jumpin’” is just one of the rarities here. Another is “Who’s Gonna Break the Ice,” which — like the best Plimsouls songs — is as catchy as it is urgent. There is even a little-known Everly Brothers song called “The Price of Love.” Like the Everly Brothers, the Plimsouls play this as a bluesy stomp with prominent harmonica. Case pals Andrew and David Williams sing lead on this one, their brotherly harmonies evoking the Everlys.

Beach Town Confidential has the only live recordings of Plimsouls tunes “Magic Touch” and “Oldest Story in The World” — hearty rockers both — and “Hobo,” an instrumental Case dedicates to “all the surfers in the house.” (The show was at Huntington Beach. There probably were quite a few there.)

I think my favorite Plimsouls surprise here, though, is a punchy version of a Moby Grape song, “Fall on You.” All I can say is “Grape job!”

Case is about to embark on a tour with former Nerves bandmate Paul Collins. (They’re playing in Arizona and Texas, but seem to have forgotten about that state in the middle.) I’m hoping the response to Beach Town Confidential will be so great that he will do another Plimsouls reunion — and record a new Plimsouls album — in the near future.

Also recommended:

*  Everybody’s Rocking by The 99ers. This record has been out since early last year, but I just recently sunk my teeth into it. It’s the third record by a group that bills itself as a Minnesota punk/rockabilly/surf band.

Minnesota? Why not? One of their songs here, “Minnesota Sun,” is a rewrite of The Rivieras’ “California Sun.” (Come to think of it, last year, the title song of the collaboration between Mama Rosin and Hipbone Slim was “Louisiana Sun,” a Cajunized “California Sun.”

Since this album was released, the term “99ers” has taken on new political connotations. But don’t worry. You won’t hear any weird “human mike” chants or political polemics here. The band named itself after its favorite ice-cream dessert.

This album, on the Spinout label owned by Los Straitjackets’ Eddie Angel, is nothing but good, basic, happy rock ’n’ roll, grounded in Chuck Berry, colored by The Beach Boys, and pumped up by The Ramones. (One song here is called “Ramones Forever.” It’s a cover of a Shonen Knife tune immortalizing our beloved cretins from Queens.)

My two favorites are sung by Molly Holley — the frantic “Six Steps to Your Heart” (I can almost imagine The Plimsouls playing this one) and a sultry cover of a Brenda Lee rockabilly-tinged “Sweet Nothin’s.”

There’s a song here called “Albuquerque Annie,” about a woman who sings in a rockabilly band. It mentions Central Boulevard as well as the Tramway. But it’s not the first time The 99ers set a song in the Land of Enchantment. Their 2008 album, Stand Up and Surf, has a song called (I’m not kidding) “The Surf at Santa Fe.” (“So to my compadres in Minneapolis/Get yourself to N.M. if you’re in need of bliss,” British Steve Shannon sings.)  According to one source close to the band, Shannon is a frequent visitor to this state.


BLOG BONUS:

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A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Feb. 24 2012



The last time I wrote about Andre Williams, I reported that he seemed to be slowing down. That’s an understandable thing for a guy who is 75 years old.

That assessment came from the fact that his latest album at the time, That’s All I Need, didn’t seem to have the fire of his previous efforts. But I think I probably spoke too soon.

Williams is releasing an impressive new album this week, Hoods and Shades. And that’s only a few weeks after a jumping little five-song EP, Nightclub, with a Chicago band called The Goldstars, came out.

Although he’s been in the music biz since the 1950s and wrote an actual hit — “Shake a Tail Feather,” covered by Ike & Tina Turner and James & Bobby Purify — Williams has never been a household name.

His is one of those terrible R & B years-in-the-darkness stories — obscurity, drugs, homelessness — that’s way too common. (Rest in peace, Howard Tate.) In the late ’90s Williams began his current incarnation as an underground indie rock elder statesman. He recorded for some of my favorite labels including Bloodshot, Norton, In the Red, and Pravda.

Williams’ albums are always fun, and Hoods and Shades is no exception. What’s exceptional about it is that it’s interesting on so many levels. The first thing you notice about Hoods is its cover, which resembles some blaxploitation movie poster. Williams is there, with his arms around a couple of gun-wielding babes against a backdrop of fiery explosions, skyscrapers, a police helicopter, hooded thugs, and some mean-looking guy in a fedora playing what appears to be a combination guitar/machine gun.

I’m not certain, but I’m thinking the latter is supposed to be guitarslinger Dennis Coffey. Coffey is best known as one of the Funk Brothers, that Detroit collective of studio cats who gave us the Motown sound.

He played on such Motown hits as “Runaway Child,” “Just My Imagination,” and “Cloud Nine” for The Temptations; “War” by Edwin Starr; and “What Does It Take to Win Your Love” by Junior Walker & The All Stars. He also played on non-Motown records including Funkadelic’s first album, Freda Payne’s song “Band of Gold,” and — best of all, in my book — “Who’s Making Love” by Johnny Taylor. In other words, he is one serious picker.

Indeed, it’s Coffey who most contributes to the unique sound of Hoods and Shades. But the rest of the musicians here aren’t exactly lightweights. Among them are Detroit producer and former Dirtbombs member Jim Diamond playing electric bass and Don Was on upright bass.

According to the publicity material for this project, Williams has referred to Hoods and Shades as his “folk album.” That’s probably because Coffey’s acoustic guitar-playing is prominent on many cuts. But the term folk is pretty misleading. This isn’t “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.”

Coffey and crew create a swampy sound to complement Williams’ vocals. This musical backdrop is a perfect fit for this collection of songs.

The opening song, an upbeat blues number called “Dirt,” is a new take on the basic dust-to-dust theme of Memphis Slim’s “Mother Earth.” Williams, taking the voice of a streetwise sage, chuckles before he starts singing, “It don’t matter how high we go/It don’t matter if it’s high or low/It don’t matter if we help or hurt/When it all boils down, we just dirt.”

There are a couple of lengthy story songs here that I suspect will be the main things most fans will remember about this album. There’s the atmospheric title song, in which Williams relates a number of terrifying descriptions of violence and poverty in a landscape haunted by young thugs hiding hardened faces behind hoods and sunglasses. The background music is a low-key acoustic blues shuffle with Coffey’s electric guitar providing a distant, desperate sounding response.

Then there’s a funny shaggy “Dogg” story called “Swamp Dogg’s Hot Spot.” Yes, the hero of this tale is none other than soul singer Jerry Williams, aka Swamp Dogg. Somehow I don’t think this story is really true. I’m not sure whether Swamp and Williams really met in “the county jail” like the song says, but I’m pretty sure that Andre Williams never got popped for “selling bootleg CDs.” (In real life, Swamp produced a 1990 Williams album, Directly From the Streets.)

My personal favorite on Hoods is a dandy new version of an old song Williams co-wrote, “Mojo Hannah.” This has been recorded by Esther Phillips, Aaron Neville, Marvin Gaye, and an underrated New Orleans singer named Tami Lynn. Williams doesn’t have the voice of any of those, but his knowing rasp does the song justice.

Nightclub is more typical of what Williams fans have come to expect in recent years. The Goldstars is a fine band playing at the intersection of garage rock and soul music. The group even did a high-energy cover of Williams’ song “Agile, Mobile, and Hostile” a few years ago. And recently The Goldstars has been Williams’ touring band.

Williams has been paired with many bands on recordings in recent years. But with The Goldstars, there’s a real chemistry that’s not always apparent with other backup bands.

My favorites here are “Hot Coffee,” a tight rocker in which Williams sounds like an unholy combination of sex maniac and caffeine fiend, and “Babblin’ Brook,” about a female companion who won’t shut up.

My only complaint about the E.P. is that it’s an E.P. and not a full-length album. I hope that’s something on Williams’ to-do list.

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
March 9 2012



Two of the most overused misused words in music journalism are “legend” and its adjectival brother “legendary.”

Read almost any rock rag, and you can find those words used in reference to any singer, picker, or band that existed more than 10 or 15 years ago. Eddie Money is a legend! The legendary Stone Temple Pilots! The living legend, Little Peggy March!

I’ve railed about this in the past and cautioned several younger writers to avoid it. If you want to write about legends, do a book about Paul Bunyan, Robin Hood, or Johnny Appleseed. So here I am now about to explain to you that a certain Cleveland band from the ’70s is kind of a (gulp) legend — or at least was for several decades.

Rocket from the Tombs Early days

I’m talking about Rocket From the Tombs, a highly influential proto-punk band that included singer David “Crocus Behemoth” Thomas, later of Pere Ubu; guitarist Gene O’Connor, better known as Cheetah Chrome, who would join The Dead Boys; and the late punk-rock forefather Peter Laughner, also an early member of Pere Ubu.

Not only did Rocket hive off into two great bands, the group inspired an unrelated but very cool band across the country, San Diego’s Rocket From the Crypt, to take its name — kind of.

The reason I’ll break my own rule and use the “L” word here is because for 30 years or so after the band broke up — after being together about eight months — all anyone ever knew about Rocket From the Tombs was through word of mouth. There were scattered bootlegs, but the band never recorded a proper album during its brief existence in the mid-’70s. Those who never saw the group live and couldn’t find the boots just had to imagine how the band sounded. You had to create the Ubu/Dead Boys convergence music in your mind. And tell your friends about it. Thus, a legend was born.

A couple of Rocket From the Tombs’ songs, “Amphetamine” and a seven-minute recording of “30 Seconds Over Tokyo,” surfaced in a 1990s Pere Ubu box set, Datapanik in the Year Zero. But it wasn’t until 2002 that an actual legal album emerged. That was The Day the Earth Met the ... Rocket From the Tombs, a compilation of lo-fi live recordings and demos released by Smog Veil, Ubu’s record label. It included some tunes later to become known as Pere Ubu and Dead Boys standards as well as a couple of Stooges covers — “Search and Destroy” and “Raw Power” — and a crazed version of a Velvet Underground song, “Foggy Notion.”

It might sound harsh, but I’d argue it was at this point that Rocket ceased to be a legend. Though the group had been defunct for decades and though the release was barely publicized and basically ignored by the mainstream media, Rocket’s music was now accessible to anyone who knew how to search for it. Rocket no longer existed only in the mists of legend.

Apparently that album sparked something. Original members Thomas, O’Connor, and bassist Craig Bell got together with Richard Lloyd (from the band Television, which was lege ... oh, never mind) filling in for Laughner and drummer Steve Mehlman for a Rocket reunion tour in 2004. That tour resulted in an album called Rocket Redux, consisting of ancient RFTT classics recorded in the studio.

Finally, late last year, the 21st-century version of Rocket From the Tombs brought the world Barfly, a studio album with a bunch of new songs. And it’s a decent effort.

The album starts out strong with a song called “I Sell Soul.” Mehlman is storming on the drums while Thomas croons in his trademark warble, and O’Connor and Lloyd play showdown riffs. The band slows down a bit with “Birth Day,” which, without Thomas’ vocals, would actually sound more like a Television song. “Six and Two” is another one in which Lloyd’s Television influence really comes out.

My favorite tracks on Barfly are the crazy rockers. “Anna” falls into this category. So does the minor-key “Maelstrom,” which starts out with a guitar hook that has echoes of original Rocket killer “30 Seconds Over Tokyo.” You can hear a nod to The Velvet Underground in “Good Times Never Roll.” Like the song that precedes it, “Butcherhouse 4,” there’s a pervading blues-rock vibe.

One of my favorite songs is one that’s so good that Rocket included two versions. “Sister Love Train” (and the nearly identical “Love Train Express”) is a soul-infused tune. The main version is fortified by a horn section, while “Express” is a rawer, fast and furious guitar-dominated take.

Even the original Rocket didn’t play at breakneck speed all the time. The current band slows it down with “Romeo & Juliet” and “Pretty,” which starts off with a guitar lick that reminds me of (I’m not kidding) The Band. “Romeo & Juliet” seems plodding at first, but eventually some intense guitar solos emerge.

Rocket from the Tombs These days

As you might have gathered, I like this album. It’s good rock ’n’ roll with some catchy tunes. If you like the music of Pere Ubu, The Dead Boys and/or the original Rocket From the Tombs, definitely buy it.

But it would be a stretch to call Barfly innovative and an even bigger stretch to call it anything close to dangerous — or even adventurous. The original Rocket was all those things. I guess it’s nearly impossible to live up to a legend.

For $10 you also can download a 1974 Rocket From the Tombs concert (Extermination Night) .



Enjoy some videos

The Trip March 25 show!  Listen here: http://cjamlog1.cjam.ca/mp3dirnew/381-The_Trip-20120325-0030-t1332631800.mp3

The setlist: