February 2007 Archives

Way back in the 1970s, when I was knee high to a grasshopper, one of my favorite songs was Harry Nilsson's "Coconut." It was pretty much the best kid's song ever, even though the filthy, adult hippies loved it too and probably for different reasons.

I also perked up when dark Nilsson ballads like "One" or "Everybody's Talkin'" came on the radio. But truth to tell, I doubt that I had any idea that the same person sang all of these songs or even that someone named Harry Nilsson sang any of them. As a matter of fact, I think I believed that Nilsson's birth-of-the-power ballad "Without You" was sung by the exact same guy who belted out "All By Myself."

As an adult, I now know which songs Harry Nilsson sang and I listen to them fairly often. I always heard that he was a friend of the Beatles and that he was somehow tied into John Lennon's "long weekend" in L.A, during the 1970s and that his career ended tragically... but that was about it. Recently, I read Jaan's Nilsson bio on Rhapsody and discovered a little more.

Tonight, I have to opportunity to find out much more about the man (and better yet, see old footage of him performing), because the Noise Pop festival is screening a documentary called Who is Harry Nilsson (and why is everybody talking about him?).

The movie has won rave reviews from Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, Leonard Maltin and something called Ain't it Cool News.

The trailer looks great. For those living in San Francisco, the movie plays tonight at 7pm at the Roxie. For those living elsewhere keep an eye out for it or for the upcoming dvd. The star-studded trailer alone has already taught me that his name is pronounced "Nealson" and not "Nill-Son." Maybe I need to get one of those Nilsson Facts 365 day calendars they sell down at Target.

Song: Tras
Album: Tras
Artist: Battles  
Selected by: Garrett Kamps
Date: February 28, 2007

Battles are the raddest band doing it right now. They're a cadre of all-star jammers capable of ripping great gashes through the fabric of space & time with viciously tight drumming, interlocking, overlapping guitar lines, and more bells and whistles than the NYC fire department – and they do it all live, sans the super-computers you'd <i>think</i> a band would need to make music like this. Listen and understand.

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Song: Alfie
Album: Here Where the Love Is
Artist: Dionne Warwick
Selected by: Rachel Devitt
Date: February 27, 2007

Her delivery is understated, her voice soft and thin, rarely rising above a gentle purr. She rarely grandstands. But Dionne Warwick is a diva, nonetheless. Case in point? Her quietly commanding performance of "Alfie," which always makes me believe in love.

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Song: Beelines to Heaven
Album: Last Exit to Garageland
Artist: Garageland
Selected by: Tim Quirk
Date: February 26, 2007

These criminally unheralded pop geniuses from New Zealand don’t know how to write a bad tune. This one's every bit as sweet and heavenly as the title suggests.

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Song: Debaser
Album: Doolittle
Artist: The Pixies
Selected by: Linda Ryan 
Date: February 23, 2007

The Pixies couldn't have written a more fitting song to open their classic album Doolittle. Frank Black's frantic "ah ha ha ho's" are downright demented, and the reference to the surreal Salvador Dali movie, "Un Chien Andalou," is the frosting on a very twisted cake.   

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I was a teenage mod.

It's true. I wasn't always the respectably dressed professional that I am today. In the '80s, Berkeley had a thriving mod scene that was pretty different from that of every other city (except maybe San Diego). There weren't too many of those nerdy three-button suited, pork-pie hatted, skinny tied, bowling shoed, parka clad geeks. No, most of us were both geeky and freaky. Boys wore their hair longer and rocked bright colors and big collars. The girls dressed in vintage Biba and looked more like Anita Pallenberg than the frumpy, bobbed, bomber betties you'd see at San Francisco scooter shows. Here's an example of just how ridiculously we rocked our steez 20 years ago back in 1987

CLICK HERE TO VIEW CLIP

(I'm the gum chewing, 17 year-old kook with the bowl-cut, wraparound shades and Union Jack shirt, but see if you can spot Bart Davenport from Honeycut or Xan McCurdy from Cake)

We weren't into power pop. Thinking about this now, we certainly missed out on a lot of rad '80s shit, but back then, our closed-minded subcultural credo held that if it wasn't '60s, it wasn't mod.

Anyway, the reason why I'm reminiscing and writing all this is because I just discovered that Rhapsody has a lot of what we did listen to back then. We were really into Freakbeat.

What is Freakbeat? It is the life-after-mod but pre-psychedelic music from Great Britain that came out in the mid- to late- '60s. In its heyday, freakbeat was a little too trippy for the uptight, well-dressed mods and it was a bit too modernist and baroque for the paint-your-face-in-the-park lifestyle of the freewheelin' hippies. Its look was very pop art with bold patterns and retina crushing op-art swirls, and the sound was some of the first to experiment with guitar feedback.

To give you a better idea, dig this Freakbeat Playlist I made.

Here are some pix of the bands in my mix:

Les Fleur-De-Lys

The Action

John's Children

Pretty Things

The Birds (dig that pic of a young, pre-Faces, pre-Stones Ron Wood second from left)

The Yardbirds

The Sorrows

The Smoke

The Attack

The Easybeats

The Marmalade

The Tremeloes

Song: Bam Bam
Album: Stalag 2000
Artist: Sister Nancy 
Selected by: Sam Chennault
Date: February 22, 2007

1980s Jamaican toaster Sister Nancy slunk back into obscurity a second after releasing this proto-dancehall classic, but her echoing patois over Winston Riley's legendary Stalag riddim is a beautiful thing.

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Song: Concierto de Aranjuez
Album: Jazz Moods: Cool
Artist: Chet Baker 
Selected by: Nick Dedina
Date: February 21, 2007

Miles Davis and Gil Evans popularized this ode to open spaces as a jazz piece on their immortal Sketches of Spain LP. But if you really need to get away from it all for 20 minutes listen to this exquisite version by guitarist Jim Hall and an all-star band featuring Chet Baker, Paul Desmond and Ron Carter.

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Song: I Want You To Want Me
Album State of Grace
Artist: The Holmes Brothers 
Selected by: Michele K-Tel
Date: February 20, 2007

Hey, wait a second…isn't this a Cheap Trick song? There hasn't been such a glorious spit-take reaction to a cover tune since Johnny Cash pistol-whipped Soundgarden into submission. The Holmes Brothers transform this adolescent pop metal plea into a soulful question posed to a higher power.

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Song: Bananas and Blow
Album: White Pepper
Artist: Ween 
Selected by: Stephanie Benson
Date: February 16, 2007

A diet of bananas and blow is not something we recommend, but this spoof of Jimmy Buffet-style ditties will make even your grandma want to shake her hips. Just don't fill her in on the meaning behind Ween's absurdly amusing lyrics.

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Song: Illegal Smile
Album: John Prine
Artist: John Prine
Selected by: Mike McGuirk
Date: February 15, 2007

Choosing just one John Prine song is no easy task. At least this one's about drugs. He also says "A bowl of oatmeal tried to stare me down...and won." The first cut on Prine's faultless debut album, released in 1972. 

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Song: The Book of Love
Album: 69 Love Songs Volume 1
Artist: Magnetic Fields 
Selected by: Tim Quirk
Date: February 14, 2007

How do you choose just one song on Valentine’s Day? Easy – you pick a Stephin Merritt masterpiece that fits every great love song ever into two minutes and 42 seconds.

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Some of my co-workers were walking around the luxurious Rhapsody compound complaining about the Oscars again. Now, it's too much to ask that your favorite movie wins Best Picture evey year. But, at the very least, a decent movie wins takes the top prize. Sometimes this movie has been made by Clint Eastwood and you can turn off the TV in a good mood.

But the Grammies?

Now, many superior songs/albums were nominated this year and some of them even won an award or two (like Dylan's "Someday Baby" and Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy") but the real winner of the Grammies Awards this year wasn't the Dixie Chicks or the Red Hot House Painters. It was Justin Timberlake -- who dominated every part of the show.

A great entertainer, JT is the new (non-insane, non-creepy) Michael Jackson. He can sing, he can dance and he can act like he's having a great time doing it. He appeals to all races and age groups even as he dirty dances and collaborates with "edgy" hip-hop artists. Oh yeah, and like post Thriller Michael Jackson, if Timberlake just has one or two halfway decent songs on an album the public is satisfied.

While the Grammies helped prove that the Dixie Chicks don't need Clear Channel controlled radio stations or Southern concerts tours to succeed, the real Song of the Year was Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," Grammies be damned.

The duo also (easily) scored one of the best live moments on the telecast by performing the song dressed as airline pilots. I think this would've been an even better moment if the director of the Grammies had shown that the heavenly choir in the distance was dressed up like 1970s stewardesses. To make up for that slight against our swinging matrons in the sky, here is an old advert from the era when airlines actively sold "their girls" as part of the flying experience.

"Crazy" is so good that its already been covered by the Raconteurs, Shawn Colvin and Nelly Furtado, who almost makes up for her conversion from a free-thinking hippie type to a fake slut-R&B star with her acoustic cover of the Gnarls smash.

The other real winner this year (and she walked away empty-handed at the Grammies!) was Corinne Bailey Rae, a soulful singer-songwriter who came up with an entire good album of songs -- try it sometime, Justin. Her ace single "Put Your Records On" almost sounds as if its built on top of Nelly Furtado's old hit "I'm Like a Bird", only its way better.

Charisma also pours out of Corinne, even when she just stands there and sings. Beyonce, on the other hand, has no stage presence at all even though she really can really sing, she can act and she's amazingly beautiful. But it's weird, both on the Grammies and in the movie Dreamgirls, the ever professional Beyonce does everything right without ever making much of an impact (except with her bank deposits). Beyonce has everything but that star quality that Justin Timberlake has -- he shows that having charisma is a talent in itself.

Song: I Feel Space
Album: It's a Feedelity Affair
Artist: Lindstrom 
Selected by: Nicholas Baker
Date: February 13, 2007

You know that scene in films where the impossibly cool chap speeds through the city's neon night in a ridiculously gorgeous car en route to meet an unbelievably stunning girl? Well, this is the song they use as a soundtrack. Slick, chic, sexy and cool -- just the thing for tapping out a beat on the Connolly leather steering wheel.

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by Sam Chennault

Fans of the singer should check out David Lynch’s new one, Inland Empire. The film feels like a very long and disorienting nightmare, but after three hours of puzzling identity morphs, Eastern European demons, bloody bile, and eerie noises, the end credits unfold and we’re treated to a full and completely celebratory lip-synch freak-out of Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman.” If you can stomach the three hours of revulsion and confusion that preceed the "performance," then it’s pretty incredible. Also, there’s a scene with a dozen Polish prostitutes lip-synching “Loca-Motion.”

Song: Feel Like Myself
Album: The Alternative To Love
Artist: Brendan Benson
Selected by: Jon Maples
Date: February 12, 2007

Before joining his good pal Jack White in the Raconteurs, Brendan Benson released a few records chock full of deadly power pop ditties. "Feel Like Myself" from 2005's The Alternative To Love combines Benson's them of lyrics about a discontent with a synth-based bouncy groove. Rare is it that depression can make you feel so upbeat.

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Song: Bad Babysitter
Album: Bad Babysitter
Artist: Princess Superstar 
Selected by: Rachel Devitt
Date: February 9, 2007

Don't you dare listen to this. I'm warning you. If you do … aw, geez, you're already listening to it, aren't you? Well, you're sunk now. It'll now be stuck in your head for the next three years. But take heart. One day you, too, may know what it's like to be getting paid while you're getting laid.

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Song: History Lesson Pt. 2
Album: Double Nickels on the Dime
Artist: The Minutemen
Selected by: Sarah Bardeen
Date: February 8, 2007

"History Lesson Pt. 2" contains one of the best punk genealogies in a song ever: Richard Hell, Joe Strummer and John Doe all get shout-outs in the space of 15 seconds. Even better, it's a great introduction to an '80s band that still doesn't sound dated.

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Song: It Returns
Album: Sewed Soles 
Artist: The Greenhornes
Selected by: Nate Cavalieri
Date: February 7, 2007

Though drummer Patrick Keeler and bassist Jack Lawrence are the current rhythm section in Jack White's Raconteurs, this, from their previous gig with Cincinnati's Greenhornes, stands up as the best garage revivalism in recent memory.

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Song: Sinister, In a State of Hope
Album: Loney, Noir
Artist: Loney, Dear 
Selected by: Garrett Kamps
Date: February 6, 2007

Normally we wouldn't go this ga-ga for vocals this fey and wimpy, but listen to this guy earn 'em! This tune is an onion of cute – layer upon layer of organ, guitar, bass, strings, drums and pure, stupid prettiness. "All I want is as state of hope!" Me too!

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Did you see the Prince concert on TV yesterday?

Holy smokes!

It was right in the middle of some football game that the Baltimore Crabs won. The game doesn't really matter. What matters is that Prince gave the first halftime performance I've seen that didn't a) completely suck so bad that it ended up representing the end of the world or b) make me uncomfortable and embarrassed for a band that I really like.

A bunch of old Prince albums recently went live on Rhapsody, included an odds'n'sods collection that his label just blindly threw together. The thing about Prince though, close your eyes and grab a bunch of his songs and you're gonna get a couple of gems. One song on it, "Old Friends 4 Sale," is completely amazing... one of my all-time Prince favorites.

It's a twisted soul ballad that matches the feel of old R&B and jazz records with an orchestral score straight out of a classic flick like On the Waterfront. Prince matches the overwrought music with half-surreal lyrics about fame, trust and betrayal, filling it with the kind of wounded emotion and mounting paranoia that experience has planted in the hearts of the lasting musical icons.

Sam just found this Prince performance where he's promoting his Superbowl show with a completely different set. His voice isn't even micced correctly and it doesn't even matter! Eric sent out the Superbowl performance link. Damn, that's talent!  

Song: I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
Album: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Artist: Wilco
Selected by: Jaan Uhelszki
Date: February 5, 2007

Fractured love has never sounded so good as when Jeff Tweedy asserted, "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," capturing the contradictions, the pain and the mind games involved in trying to keep something together that is doomed to fall apart. Wilco draw out the narrative like an all night argument for a full seven minutes, plunging from pristine piano chords into pure dissonance, the music mimicking the mood of the song in unsuspected ways.

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Song: Abracadabra
Album: Around Again 1972-1979
Artist: Blue Ash
Selected By: Eric Shea
Date: February 2, 2007

Here's an awesome power pop band from the '70s that should have been huge (or at least as big as Big Star are now). Blue Ash sound like dirty mods that puffed the peace pipe, dodged the barber and stole the Byrds' quiver of Rickenbacker 12-string axes.

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by Stephanie Benson

Ok. Enough of the "!" in band names. Panic! At the Disco, !!!, Oh No! Oh My!, and the worst offender yet: You Say Party! We Say Die!. There's a time and a place for exclamation points and I don't believe they belong in a band name. All this overjoyed usage of punctuation reminds me of one of my favorite Seinfeld moments:

Elaine: Well, I mean if one of your close friends had a baby and I left you a message about it, I would use an exclamation point.

Jake (Elaine's boyfriend): Well, maybe I don't use my exclamation points as haphazardly as you do.

Elaine: You don't think that someone having a baby warrants an exclamation point?

Jake: Hey, I just chalked down the message. I didn't know I was required to capture the mood of each caller.

Elaine: I just thought you would be a little more excited about a friend of mine having a baby.

Jake: Ok, I'm excited. I just don't happen to like exclamation points.

Elaine: Well, you know Jake, you should learn to use them. Like the way I'm talking right now, I would put an exclamation point at the end of all these sentences! On this one! And on that one!

Jake: Well, you can put one on this one: I'm leaving!

And back to the music…These guys are actually pretty fun and funky - much better than their un-google-able name: !!! - Hello? Is This Thing On?

Song: Sorry, She's Mine
Album: Small Faces
Artist: Small Faces
Selected by: Linda Ryan
Date: February 1, 2007

The Small Faces grooved harder in the pocket than their tightly-coiffured Mod image might have lead you to believe, and "Sorry She's Mine" is proof. Feel the tingle as the keyboard intro signals the start of the tightest slice of anthemic, white boy soul to date!

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