The Monkees - "Words" (forgotten song)

I read that Peter Tork, bassist for The Monkees, died today.  I have fond memories of coming home from primary school (maybe even middle school) and watching The Monkees TV show in syndication.  I was too young to understand that they weren't a quite a "real" band -- the music was catchy, the TV show was funny and did crazy things like break the fourth wall, which I realized was unusual even if I did not have the words to describe it.  This was pre-MTV, so seeing music on television was amazing.

Later I learned that they were the proto-boyband, assembled to mimic The Beatles and films like "Hard Days Night".  The Monkees were no longer cool.

Sometime after that, I learned that The Monkees eventually evolved into a real band, or at least pretty much a real band, songs like "Pleasant Valley Sunday" were back in rotation on the radio, Tone Deaf  covered The Sex Pistols covering "Steppin' Stone", and Michael Nesmith helped give us classics like "Repo Man" -- The Monkees were cool again.

I failed to blog about the death of Davy Jones in 2012, but I can't let Peter Tork's death go by without note.  It just so happens that my favorite song by them was 1967's "Words", the B-Side to their more famous "Pleasant Valley Sunday" (from their fourth LP "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd."), although it did have a video from their TV show.  I'm not sure I've ever heard it on the radio, but it made an impression on me as a very young viewer: the chimes, Peter Tork's echoing co-lead vocal (he was the featured vocalist on only a few of their songs), the soft-loud-soft structure -- all of that was a lot for my uninitiated brain to process.

Yes, it's tempting to dismiss The Monkees as just a pale imitation of The Beatles, but is their sound any less modish than other contemporary "serious" bands, like Jefferson Airplane?  Songs like "Words" take me back to the 5th grade or so, coming home after school, and having a portal to the craziest, most irreverent sounds and images imaginable to me at the time.   Not long afterwards I would see and hear things like "Eleanor Rigby", and nothing looks or sounds the same after that, but The Monkees, because they were regularly on TV, was as good as it got in the days before MTV.

The Monkees - "Words"

Goodie Mob - "Dirty South" (forgotten song)

Super Bowl LIII concluded yesterday, and while many might say it was a "boring" game because it was the lowest-scoring Super Bowl in history, as a Va Tech fan I've learned to appreciate defensive struggles.  The halftime show, on the other hand, well... that was pretty boring.  Not necessarily bad, but stiff and uninspired. 

It certainly had all the individual pieces: a bland, popular, corporate rock band ("we want someone like Coldplay, but not quite as edgy...") with two guest appearances by rappers with regional ties as well as underground cred, a SpongeBob interlude, a drumline, a choir, a 70s Cadillac convertible, lasers and fireworks, and lots of Adam Levine beefcake.  It's like a machine learning algorithm had processed all the previous halftime shows and then synthesized the best elements into a whole that filled the requisite 14 minutes, but lacked a unifying vision or theme.  In trying to appeal to all and offend none, the result was a sterile simulacrum of a halftime show.

The NFL had trouble lining up performers, given the ongoing situation with Colin Kaepernick.  Maroon 5 was a safe choice, and the choice of Big Boi and Travis Scott for guest spots (neither of which was particularly well-integrated with the Maroon 5 set) was the smallest possible nod to Atlanta's burgeoning music scene.

With that, I choose Goodie Mob's song "Dirty South" as this year's Super Bowl song.  "Dirty South" is from their 1995 debut LP "Soul Food", and is the first known use of the phrase "Dirty South", a sub-genre of hip hop, with Atlanta at its epicenter, that emerged in the early- to mid-90s as separate and distinct from NYC-based and LA-based hip hop.  Big Boi, then a member of Atlanta-based Outkast, guested on both "Dirty South" and last night's appearance, thereby provided the tie in to something more substantive than Maroon 5.  Goodie Mob is still active, with four members also involved in other projects, of whom Cee-Lo is the most recognizable to general audiences. 

Let's be honest: a Goodie Mob / Outkast halftime show, opening with "Dirty South", including radio hits like "Hey Ya!" and "Forget You"), with Maroon 5 as the guest artist, say with a reinterpreted, rap-crossover version of "Harder to Breathe" plus a duet with Cee-Lo on "Crazy" would have been edgy... and great.

Goodie Mob - "Dirty South"

Maroon 5,  Travis Scott, Big Boi - "Full halftime show"

Sidney Gish - Live WGBH 2017-10-19

This tip comes from friend and colleague Alexandra, whose SO manages Sidney Gish.  She's generated a good bit of buzz recently (Billboard, Fader, Pitchfork) and the best way I can think of to describe her is occupying the charming, quirky, lo-fi triangulation of Courtney Bartnett, Lisa Loeb, and Times New Viking (with an honorable mention to the fictional Corey Flood).

I need to explore her catalog further, but in the meantime this live, four song set at WGBH is a great place to start, with "Hexagons and Other Fun Materials" and "Presumably Dead Arm" the stand out songs.  Her first LP is "Ed Buys Houses", her second and most recent LP is "No Dogs Allowed", and it would not surprise me to learn that she has an unreleased demo tape called "65 songs about Joe".

Queen - "Get Down, Make Love" (the song remains the same)

I'm still not the biggest Queen fan, yet I saw "Bohemian Rhapsody" again this weekend.  This time it was the "sing along" version at the Naro.  The previous time I took the opportunity to introduce you to Laibach, and this time I'll introduce the freaky side of Freddie Mercury that the movie hinted at but did not dwell on.

Everyone has heard of Nine Inch Nails (NiN) now, but when "Pretty Hate Machine" came out in 1990, it was revolutionary -- the first of industrial music that went mainstream and was accessible while still being menacing.  It sounds dated now, overtaken by the genre it helped create but in 1990 it was amazing.  Being a super collector, I got the "Sin" CD single  not long after the LP came out.  Aside from the three different version of "Sin" was the B-side of Queen's "Get Down, Make Love", from their 1977 LP "News of the World".  Not being a fan I never had this LP, and thus had never heard the song -- you certainly won't hear it on classic rock radio.

I was immediately struck by the NiN version and it was in high-rotation during many a 1990s party.  While it clearly sounded like NiN, it had an extra dimension that many of their songs did not.  Turns out, that's the Queen contribution (and Al Jourgensen/Ministry too!).

And as crazy, raw, dungeon-esque as the NiN version is... it's all there in the Queen version too, albeit with a sparser, non-synth instrumentation.  It's still pounding, steamy, and intimidating.  It's also the type of song that few performers could can pull off without sounding like a hollow parody of a rawk song.  Led Zeppelin (there are obvious similarities to "Whole Lotta Love"), Prince, maybe a few others... and Trent Reznor.

If you want to take a detour from the uplifting, Live Aid elements of the film and focus on BDSM elements they hinted at, then listen to both versions of "Get Down, Make Love". 

Queen - "Get Down, Make Love"
NiN - "Get Down, Make Love"


If we see the film again I'll have to blog about "Stone Cold Crazy", and although it's cool that Metallica covered it I'm sad to say I don't love it.  If we see it a fourth time, then I've got nothing.

Bonus link (just in case the BDSM link was not clear): 

NiN - "Sin"

(somehow this video snuck through the Youtube censors)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Maps" (forgotten song)

Early this morning I was driving and head a song on 96X I had not heard before.  I Shazam'd it and discovered it was "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  I half-recognized the band name, but then I was out of pocket all day and didn't get a chance to investigate until now. 

I now find out this song came out in 2003!  How did I not know about this song / band until some 15+ years later?!

The best way I can describe it is if The Cribs had a female lead singer.  But checking the date, the first LP by The Cribs came out in 2004, so I suppose they sound like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  A quick google search reveals articles with titles like "How The Yeah Yeahs' 'Maps' Helped Change the Way We View the Relationship Between Pop and Indie", "The MTV Movie Awards' Best Musical Moments", and "Karen O – ‘Maps’ video tears were real".   I've got to work my way through their discography now to discover if all their songs rawk like this one does... right after I stop listening to "Maps" on repeat.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Maps" (official video, 2004 MTV Movie Awards).

Japanese Breakfast - Live ACL 2018-10-06

Today's entry is Japanese Breakfast (aka Michelle Zauner) which comes via a recent recommendation from Terry, which he described as a "sort of a cross of Bjork and 10,000 Maniacs".  She/they are coming to the Norva May 2, 2019; unfortunately I'll probably be out of town that day otherwise I'd make a point of catching this show. 

Terry's description is pretty accurate, with a strong, bright guitar sound that also reminds me a bit of "Damon and Naomi with Ghost".  The concert video he shared with me is from the Austin City Limits Festival, Oct. 6, 2018.

Lisa Loeb - "I Do" (forgotten song)

Danette and I saw Lisa Loeb at the Attucks Theatre on Friday.  Although we like her well enough, neither of us are huge fans, so we went to the show on a whim, not really knowing what to expect. She was solo, with only her acoustic guitar, and gave a very good show.

We learned a few things in the course of the evening.  First, Lisa is a good story teller, and especially entertaining was the backstory about how her song "Truthfully" was constructed for the soundtrack of "One Fine Day", only to be bounced out in favor of Shawn Colvin's cover of "Someone Like You".   Second, we had no idea that Loeb has had a prolific career writing children's music, including winning a 2018 Grammy in "Best Children's Album" for "Feel What U Feel".  She performed just a couple of children's songs for us, the most memorable of which was "Disappointing Pancake".

Of course she performed "Stay (I Missed You)", the song for which she's most well known.  But she closed her set with another hit single, "I Do", from 1997's LP "Firecracker".  We both remembered the song, but neither of us could remember the last time we heard it.

Lisa Loeb - "I Do"