This Is Your Song For....September 24th, 2013: Set Me Free by The Kinks

Picture of a dysfunctional band in younger days.

This time on This Is Your Song--it’s back to Ray Davies!

And if you recall, the last time I endeavored to talk about Mr. Davies--a man I have both the utmost admiration for and a large amount of frustration with--I was met with the anger of a number of his fans, who thought I was committing sacrilege by implying that he could be a lazy songwriter.

And to be honest, the song we’re discussing right now could be accused of being lazy. It’s from one of The Kinks’ earliest albums, and it’s fairly simplistic. You would think I would go off on it.

But I’m not going to...because, especially in this world of pop music being overdubbed and autotuned and multilayered to death, there’s something refreshing in a song that’s under three minutes that presents its idea, takes its bow and leaves. This is what pop music is supposed to be--a great hook (and if they knew nothing else--and believe me, they knew lots more--the Davies Brothers knew a thing or two about writing hooks), a great melody and some lyrics that are easy to sing along to. Unlike when Ray gets older and he tries to be meaningful, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, he’s tapping into one of the Primal Themes Of Teenage Angst and hits a bullseye.

Now don’t get me wrong; if the Kinks had not evolved beyond this stage, I’d be sneering at them the way I sneer at The Rolling Stones after Tattoo You. And I’ll be the first to admit that Ray had to get the manipulative, playing-to-the-lowest-common-denominator sludge of ‘Celluloid Heroes’ and ‘Superman’ before he could get to the sublime wonder of State of Confusion and Word of Mouth. But there’s a reason these earliest songs of his work--they’re near perfect little nuggets of guitar-oriented pop rock, the embryo from which one of my favorite musical genres spring from. They deserve their calcification into the playlists of every single classic rock station in the world.

Here’s a video.

This Is Your Song For...February 24th, 2013: Olivia by The Mainliners

They're looking Mick Jagger, but feeling Ray Davies...

This week...Swedish Garage Pop!

Yes, there is Garage Pop, and it is in Stockholm, Sweden.  The Mainliners wear their influences on their sleeves--there's some MC5 in here, some Kinks, some Rolling Stones--and it's not hard to envision them side by side with fellow countrymen The Hives as a double bill.  Of course, The Hives, as fun as they are, never had amazingly sweet piano breaks in their songs like this one had, nor did they layer in what seems to be a radio call in their song like they did with this one.

But here's the thing about this song, from their 2007 self-titled album...even though the garage rock sensibilities are very evident, they can't help but be popsters.  Even with the Mick Jaggerism that lead singer Robert Billing forces onto this song about love-through-hardship, even with the hardcore guitar riffs and the martial drum beat, The Mainliners can't help but generate a decidedly melodic piece of rock that, quite frankly, would not seem out of place in an arena rock band's set--and that's not meant as a slam in any way.  And they do it without losing the energy that makes The Hives so much fun; it's just that the energy becomes transformed, being just as propulsive but more nuanced.  The Mainliners' music is just as fun, but more contemplative and majestic.

I have to assume that The Mainliners have broken up, as their last album was in 2009.  If that's not the case, I hope someone corrects me, because I want to hear more.

Here's the song....

36 Songs, 36 Days (2012 Edition), Day Twenty Seven: Dangerous Boys by Paul Westerberg

He's looking at you, kid...

I find it really odd that I've been doing this for four years, and never once has one of my favorite bands ever come up...namely, the greatness that is The Replacements. And it still hasn't come up, although its leader just has.

There is something so primaly wonderful about The Replacements, a band where the fun was just as equally wondering if the night you went to see them was the night they'd finally implode, or the night they'd be too drunk to play, or if they'd just be a cover band for shits and giggles. I loved how they moved from straight on punks to power poppers in the mode of Paul's hero Alex Chilton to actual Top 40 troubadours before finally falling apart...and yet the chameleon-esque transformations continued, as Paul went through his 'ZuZu's Petals' phase of writing AOR sludge with now-wife Laurie Lindeen, then became a little bit of a Nu-Folkie before his most recent period of being a sort of rock-n-roll recluse, going about his life in quiet obscurity only to surprise us every once in a while with an EP of new songs at a ridiculously low price or a brief reunion with his Replacement bandmates for a pair of new tracks on Rhino's anthology of the band.

 

This song comes from one of those EPs, PW and The Ghost Glove Cat Wing Joy Boys, and I have to say that I like this weird period of his life. These later songs have taken on a strange sort of 'happy accident' quality to them, primarily because of the space between these missives from Paul (Something I discussed with Maurice Bursztynski in relation to Fiona Apple). And I'm fascinated by how his career has almost come full circle. This is recognizably the same guy who played on Tim and Pleased To Meet Me (even though I was aware of The Replacements because of my love of the greatest anthem of my college years, 'Bastards of The Young,' Pleased was my favorite 'Mats album because of the one-two punch of 'Alex Chilton' and 'IOU', the later with its seemingly endless break in the middle, as if the entire band was holding its breath underwater)--that guitar riff is unmistakably--but it's a strangely different kind of song.

 

I'm not sure if this song should be taken at the surface level, as a song about a woman who likes to bring 'dangerous boys' to her bed because she gains some power over them until she meet the one boy who 'breaks like a wave/waif.' Or, and I suspect this might be the true interpretation, it might be an elaborate metaphorical song about his relationship with his wife. After all, if we assume the 'boy who breaks like a wave/waif' (there's an argument for both interpretations on the Westerberg message boards) is Paul himself, then the fact that the boy is not put back together like all the others before him who shared this woman's bed can be looked at as representing Paul's musical transformation into something different from what he was with The Replacements. This song may very well be, in some weird and twisted, Westerbergian way, a love letter to his wife attributing his growth as an artist to her.

 

Regardless, it's a great lil' track, and I am probably not alone in waiting for the day when Paul comes out of his home to release another bunch of tracks....which might not be so far off, as there are reports on his official website that he and Tommy Stinson are collaborating on a song for a series of limited edition seven inch singles to benefit Slim Dunlap, a project that will reach fruition this fall.

 

Since there's no video for this song, here's one for the single off his last album, Suicide Gratification, which was directed by one of my faves, and notorious geek culture whipping boy Zack Snyder...

 

 

30 Songs, 30 Days (2012 Edition), Day Twenty Three: Completely Conspicuous by The Pursuit of Happiness

It's a Coulda-Shoulda-Been Bigger Band circa
the recording of the song discussed...

The Pursuit of Happiness remains one of my favorite bands, and it's a fine example of The Band That Is Killed By Its Early Success.

Pursuit--or TPOH as it was colloquially known by its fans--was an Edmundton-by-way-of-Toronto powerpop unit devised primarily as a vehicle for the idiot-savant-like genius of Moe Berg. While it's inherent Canadianness gave TPOH a little bit of a higher profile in its native country, we here in the States first became exposed to them through 'I'm An Adult Now,' a snarky, partially spoken word ode to struggling with growing old. It became something of a hit, wandering around the lower parts of the Top 40 in 1986....and then the follow-up single, "She's So Young," was launched, and most people realized that this wasn't a Funny Band Whose Lead Singer Made Jokes About Impotence, but a legitimate band with a real insight and a good trade in male/female harmonies. Berg and Co. struggled with their label, Chrysalis, and were dropped after the disappointing sales of their (admittedly artistically disappointing) second album, Two Sided Story. This led to their signing with Mercury, scoring another very minor hit with 'Cigarette Dangles, and then a spiraling out of control with two albums on Iron Music, a never-really-official break-up, Berg going off to write a rock opera, and the band kinda, sorta re-emerging in the last few years to record covers of Prince and do scattered shows in their native Canada. They never quite got over the disappointment most Americans had that they weren't the band 'I'm An Adult Now' promised, and is now a footnote in books about power pop and bad movies, as they were the featured legitimate band in the ill-advised sequel to Rock N' Roll High School, Rock N' Roll High School Forever.

Unlike the rest of Americans, I liked TPOH as a whole and sought out and eventually acquired all their albums. This song is from Where's The Bone, the first of the two Canadian-only albums they recorded for Iron. I actually feel that Bone is their best album (unlike everyone--including Razor And Tie--who toe the party line and claim that first album, Love Junk, is the only one worthwhile), containing a selection of songs that I get the impression are very personal without getting too personal like their final one, the embarrassingly confessional The Wonderful World of Pursuit of Happiness.

One of the reasons I liked Moe Berg's songwriting is the persona he adopts in most of his songs of the horndog who doesn't have the degree of control over his life he thinks he has, and 'Completely Conspicuous' is typical of that persona. This song takes the structure of Berg trying to defend himself to his significant other when he is caught talking to another woman. Berg's trademark whine jumps from protest to protest, coming up with justifications seemingly out of thin air (this is the 'modern world' of equality), then throws the situation back in his girl's face with his accusation of inequality when it comes to their social guidelines and the way she denigrates the woman he's speaking to, points out that this is why their relationship is in crisis...and yet, there are hints that the woman he's defending himself to has justification. This is demonstrated not only in the lyrics, but in the way we get female counterpoints whenever he stumbles back to the choral justification of 'she's just a friend'--followed by his admission that yes, he wishes she could be more.

I've always said that the female/male harmonies are something that makes TPOH stands out. Most line-ups--Berg has never seemingly been able to keep a female vocalist for long (I suspect Kris Abbot, who joined in 1988 is the only one who's last more than one album)--contain not one, but two female musicians who help him with this. And in the case of this song, the harmonies serve another purpose, namely to be the whisper in Moe's ear that reminds him that yes, he does have some nefarious purpose in talking to this woman. It's the typical Berg persona getting him in trouble again, and trying to scamble to recover when it all goes wrong.

I'm pretty sure everything TPOH is out of print, although the albums are available at some sites, including iTunes, digitally.  And if you're curious about the band, you can visit Incompletely Conspicuous, the official fan site, that contains a wealth of information including a massive amount of rare and live mp3s....

No video for this one...but here's one from the single for this album, the nasty 'Young And In Love'....

36 Songs, 36 Days (2012 Edition), Day Ten: Braindead by Zombina and The Skeletons

Well, that bustier sure is...explosive....

Last time we looked back on St. Patrick's Day. This time we're looking ahead--a long way ahead--to Halloween.

There's always been a connection between horror and rock and roll. Yeah, that connection may have started with novelty numbers, but for every 'Monster Mash,' you have Screaming Jay Hawkins putting a spell on you. And once rock began to explore a harsher edge with garage, psychedelia and metal, that connection grew stronger. It's easy to cite a slew of horror-based bands that embrace those darker forms--Alice Cooper, The Cramps, The Misfits, Marilyn Manson...even Kiss on some level take pride in the darkness of their theatricality.

And yet there has also been a parallel stream that embraces its roots in novelty number silliness...which brings us to this Liverpool outfit. Yes, Zombina, Doc Horror and the other members of this combo follow all the tropes of a horror rock band. They dress up in monster make-up and frequently cite science fiction and horror in their lyrics--this song begins with a quote from Night of The Living Dead (I think; don't quote me on that)--and yet this is a very well crafted little bit of power pop. Hell, Zombina herself sounds like Tracy Tracy from The Primitives if Tracy Tracy had been axe murdered, buried, and made to dig her way out of her own grave. And let's be honest, save for that aforementioned quote at the start of the song, what we've got is a song about how love can make you so stupid you can't think straight...this is pure rock syrup, and rock syrup at its best.

And, just like with Adam WarRock, who I discussed a couple of times previously, I have great respect for this band because they don't allow their affiliation with a certain style rule the kind of music they make. I appreciate Zombina and the Skeletons all the more because they're willing to write a simple, fun and classy little love song without worrying about namechecking horror stuff---because if they had, they'd be making the gimmick the only part of the show that mattered.

No official video--but here's the song in You Tube Static Image format...

30 Songs, 30 Days, Day Twelve: Places by Fountains of Wayne

Ahhhh....another song by a band I really like. One of my all-time favorite bands, in fact.

This is a very short one by a band that is perhaps best known for its uncanny Cars tribute, "Stacy's Mom." The thing many people don't realize is how lead singer/songwriter Adam Schlessinger has this amazing talent for writing sweet, tiny little songs that are gentle little landscapes...and this is one of them, a paen to watching the world go by in Camden, New Jersey during the fall and realizing how transitory your life is...

And only someone of Adam's talents could turn the lyrical orientation of this song from 'isn't this a nice place to be?' to 'wow, maybe what we're joking about now will become immortalized on our tombstones' without once breaking the wistful, atmospheric melody. This is the sort of tension that I just adore--a tension between the way the music feels and what it's actually saying that very few bands can get right. The Jam got it right, The Connells got it right in spades...and so do FOW when they want to. This, "Fire In The Canyon," "Mountain Valley Song," "Barbara H.," "Fire Island"....all exhibit that sort of sounding good/being bad structure.

Here's the song playing over a static picture of the flag (its the only video of the song I can find)....

30 Songs, 30 Days (2010 Edition), Day Six: Strange Town by The Jam

And here we have another one of those bands that helped build my love of power (and other guitar-based) pop.

The song is fairly straightforward, with its lyrics about being the new kid in town, still being thoroughly clueless about your surroundings even after being 'here for three weeks now.' But what makes this is the signature Jam upbeat, uplifting melody acting as a place setting for the singer admitting to his feelings of isolation, confusion and awkwardness. And not just physically--there's a sense that the POV character is awkward socially as well, judging by the way he has to struggle to fit in, even if the music's too loud in the clubs and he can't find the kind of music he likes in the music shop. That tension between simple upbeat melodies and complex lyrics aren't as sublime as my own personal favorite Jam song, "A Town Called Malice," but it is effective.

The Jam sort of dissipated because Paul Weller wanted to get deep in touch with his inner white soul singer, but I think this band's music hold up today...

And here's the video....