According to All Music Guide, this original version of Silence Is Golden from the 4 Seasons album Born To Wander was a hit, saying "these [pop-rock tunes] actually are the best songs on the record: the hit "Silence Is Golden," for instance, and "No Surfin' Today," which owes more to the Beach Boys' ballads than it does to the Weavers". But, according the place where the hits go to live (and die) - Billboard magazine - it wasn't a hit until the Tremeloes did a better version in [...]
From their near legendary If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears - the one that showed the ultra-sexy, bathtub bound Michelle Phillips draped across her band mates - this tune is a pretty refreshing bit of pop music yumminess. Thanks to every adult contemporary station from here to Tupelo and back, we've heard Monday, Monday and California Dreamin' a hundred too many times. This one, the flipside to the later, has that swirling, "we're gonna be on Laugh-In " groove that I'm surprised hasn't been covered by at least one band since [...]
"I have no idea who they are," shrugged the blue-haired little old lady as I rummaged through the box of records she'd set out at the mobile home rec room rummage sale. Mantovani , Andre Kostelanetz , Percy Faith and... Strawb s? She professed to know of John Hartford , whose first album she also owned. Having listened to it, I find that somewhat more bizarre than her possession of a Strawbs record. I know Strawbs by chance. I inherited a handful of their records from a radio station that changed [...]
There are plenty of people who can take credit for the import of reggae into the United States: Millie Small, Desmond Dekker, Bob Marley , Chris Blackwell, your weird Uncle Frank who always had pieces of straw in his hair. But, Uncle Frank notwithstanding, Johnny Nash was probably the single most influential artist ever when it came to bringing reggae to the mainstream. Born in Houston, educated about reggae in Jamaica, Nash was also an actor in his early years. He did Hold Me Tight , I [...]
Bobbie Gentry was one of the first women singers in Nashville in the 19602s to write her own music and lyrics. Though the "countrypolitan" sound was boss around Music Row in those days, Gentry favored a smokier sound, rooted in gospel and blues and infused with a touch of Southern Gothic. Her most well-known song, Ode To Billie Joe , the story of Billie Joe McAllister, was a perfect example of the blues-based narrative style that made her popular (and the song actually spent a number of weeks on the black music charts). On the [...]
I don't know why Cake makes me think of They Might Be Giants . Do you? They also make me think me think of young girls with long, straight brown hair, boots with four inch heals (which are gratefully back in style) and bitter green tea . But then, I think of those things a lot, anyway. Oh, and Calvin Klein's Obsession perfume. Wait, I'm flashing back to 1982... The three best Cake songs are: Short Skirt, Long [...]
The Smell of Fresh Vinyl In The Morning Here on the west coast of Americana, we have a chain of stores called Fred Meyer. They're something akin to Target but with an even broader range of stuff (groceries, jewelry, power tools). Apparently a Freddie's buyer made a mistake recently, buying the latest REM album on vinyl rather than CD. Some adventurous store managers decided to rack it just the same and, lo and behold, people bought them! So, now Freddie's will be selling vinyl in some of their stores. According to an [...]
Fixing up a few things under the hood...new stuff on the way soon. This should tide you over.
From redheaded golden boy of the early 80s to impetuous model-escorting boyfriend of the 90s to social change advocate of the 00s to lead singer of the Faces in the 10s, Mick Hucknall has pretty well lived the gamut of what rock stars are all about. And, without doubt he is all that is Simply Red , in face, in name and probably in court, if it ever comes to that. Holding Back The Years deserves to be on the [...]
The man who is forever identified with Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid via Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head could rock out a little, too. This out of print tune, which sounds remarkably like Everybody Needs Somebody To Love was written by Mark Charron who sold a few more tunes to Thomas as well as Chuck Jackson , the Partridge [...]
The Salesman's Theme Song I have a couple of minutes between sales calls to lay this bad boy on you. This is one many salespeople are singing along to these days. J.J. Jackson - Ain't Too Proud To Beg
I love this new video from Bernard Sumner (with Hot Chip and Hot City) . I particularly like the drumming cavemen in the woods, something no music video should be without. It sounds more like Electronic than it does Joy Division . This, too, pleases me.
I wish the PR people of the world who seek ink - or, in this case, digits - about their artists would stop comparing them to Fleet Foxes . My greatest hope for Fleet Foxes is that their popularity will parallel their name, that their status as music industry darlings will itself be fleeting. I wish that upon all artists who I qualify to be both boring and overrated. Having dispensed with Fleet Foxes quite handily, what of James Vincent McMorrow , the titular focus of this article? [...]
From my friends at Very Short List I learn about a 19-string guitar and an instrument called the hyckelharpa , a Swedish string instrument that actually has it's own society (until moments ago a very secret society). Apparently that is the pairing of instruments played by the partnership of James Kline and Kornel Mariusz Radwanski, otherwise known as Bardou . As the VSL peeps pointed out, there's a video on YouTube wherein "they're playing an especially intricate arrangement of "Greensleeves"—a song so [...]
A few days before my last post we pulled up stakes and moved. It was only about 120 blocks south of where we lived but it's true what they say: 120 blocks could be 120 thousand miles; you still have to pack. A few days after we moved, my Mom came to visit. Therein lies the reason why there's been so little activity here at F45 for the past few weeks. Been a lot of musical activity, though. The new place warranted a new (and smaller) piano, so my boy is now playing a Charles Walters upright instead [...]
Being a proud Daddy myself - have I told you about my son, the actor? - I can't blame Michael McDonald for using his email newsletter to pimp the new record by his son, Dylan. Noting he's making an exception to his rule about hyping other musicians, the elder McDonald said he wanted to tell everyone about a "new musical project by a group called the Avians featuring lead singer and chief composer Dylan McDonald . In spite of a long history not appreciating his father's musical advice very much, (those conversations almost [...]
Tommy from the band Day Behavior dropped me an email to announce the band's new video, It's A Game . He says this is a single from their third album, which will be releasing this winter. A quick needle drop says that their music isn't exactly in my wheelhouse genre-wise but they're definitely putting out quality product: the song is well-produced and the video is nicely done. Take a look and shoot me a comment with your critique. You can learn more about Tommy and his crew here once [...]
This tune, written by Turtles leader Howard Kaylan, originally appeared on the back of their first Top 10 hit, their cover of Bobby Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe . It later appeared on their second album, 19662s You Baby/Let Me Be . Hardly anything earth-shattering, it sounds like something the Kinks or the Standells might've done. Great for your garage-band of 45-year old doctors: sounds original, easy to play. The Turtles - Almost There Buy The Turtles on [...]
[Back in June of 2008, I wrote this post about a new film created by Danny Tedesco called The Wrecking Crew . It's a (now) award-winning documentary about the squad of amazing studio musicians who played on just about every major song recorded in LA in the 1960s (and elsewhere, too, well into the 1970s). Name a "band" and there was likely some or all the members of the Crew in participation: the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, Herb Alpert, the Fifth Dimenson. The list goes [...]
The "Stand Up and Shout" Cancer Fund, a favorite of the late Ronnie James Dio , was the recipient of a $10,000 donation recently thanks to this month's Dimebash 2010 at the Key West Club in West Hollywood. It was also a chance for Dio's widow, Wendy, to comment on the release of dio's unfinished autobiography. She told BlairingOut.com "the book is three-quarters written. I'm gonna finish it. I have a book deal already. I have to finish it by June, and it will come out in early 2012." Tribute concerts and [...]
Fusion 45
Bison - Quill
Neutral Milk Hotel- Aeroplane Over the Sea
Shinichi Osawa – Big Beach Mix 2012
