Blog: The Driftwood Singers Present

It's only with the benefit of hindsight that we realize that certain band names would prove virtually unsearchable on Google. Audience , a British art-rock band from the late 60s, probably added to their own obscurity by making a Spanish guitar and saxophone combo their defining characteristic. But "Indian Summer," a track included on a compilation LP produced by their record company, The Famous Charisma Label, deserves exposure. Apparently this was something of a hit in London in the early 70s, and it's clear why. After the folk-pastoral intro, the horn-powered pop chorus comes as a nice [...]

Ok. Environmental, Mormon, metal boyband complete with soul horn blasts and vision-quest-worthy ecstatic scream-emulating guitar effects. Never say that Joseph Smith, the Angel Moroni and the state of Utah never did anything for you. If it’s old hat for you, just dust it off and realize that its rumples have gained dignity. I played in a band that covered this tune, "Crazy Horses." I think KMFDM did a version. I’m sure others have, too. There's a tune on this record about "going back to Utah," which always seems like a good idea. They beat Sufjan Stevens to the [...]

SPECIAL REPORT FROM MRS. LEFTY: Thirteen years ago a fourteen year old boy onboard a green double decker bus, making his way home from a Guns‘n Roses show, lost his liquor. As the jake-braking bus had its way with the contents of his stomach, the other Dubliners onboard, all too casually familiar with rolling bus puke, lifted their feet to allow for the flow. The bus stopped outside St. Mar ’s, the Catholic school that had lost its “y� while a 75-year-old man stumbled out of a pub, fell down to his hands and knees, and began to grope the [...]

Don't be a hater. For a few years I've been waiting patiently for an indie-rock version of Hall & Oates to come along, some genius duo from Montreal who could mine the pre-"Private Eyes" years and unleash a blue-eyed soul revival. But what I'm talking about requires something very special of two apsiring fellas: a willingness to co-opt both gayness and blackness in a doo-wop fusion format. I know, right? Back in the day, H&O would basically fuse doo-wop harmonies with anything that moved: folk, prog, New Wave, the kitchen sink. It's a needle that so few were [...]

No more shampoo. No more tears. In "Riverside," the anti-call-to-arms on the debut album ( America , 1972), the "river" is clearly the Red State-Blue State divide that makes distinct the longhairs from the shorts. America, God bless'em, take a laissez faire attitude about the whole affair. You stay on your side and I'll stay on mine/You take what you want and I'll take the sunshine...I said the world don't owe me no livin'... It's the hidden libertarian in the hippie. The idea of cashing it in for a sunshine-based economy is pretty [...]

Just let it sink in for a moment. You're feeling a little bit uncomfortable right now, and that's natural. But consider some revisionist data: Eddie Rabbitt wrote the song “Kentucky Rain," which Elvis Presley took to the moon in 1969's From Elvis to Memphis . (In the Elvis version , make sure to note the Brian Wilson-inspired glockenspeil breakdown.) Also, Mr. Rabbitt is from Brooklyn. It's also worth recalling the experimental poetry that Eddie wrote on the back of Sammi Smith's 1976 album Help Me Make It [...]

This is true. When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade I had an 8-track of Bob Welch’s French Kiss . In my little world, BW and that 12-string, or whatever, the high creepy fake-tender singing, were equal with the Beatles and Elvis Costello, the other reigning lords of my musical universe. Is there a better first line than "You are here and warm," from "Sentimental Lady"? As I understand it, BW has gone on to become a producer in Nashville. As you know, BW was a member of Fleetwood Mac before Stevie and Lindsey brought the Wicca and [...]

Always a big fan of Gerry Rafferty - more for the Glaswegian reggae of "Right Down the Line" than for "Baker Street" - I was bound for Stealers Wheel. Rafferty is part of a world of music I think of as being heard over crappy speakers at "the rec park." It includes the great and gross cigar-smoker Bob Welch, a post on him is surely just around the bend. Long before Scotland became famous for Gang of Four emulators and crumpet crumblers, there was Stealers Wheel and the mighty Nazareth (don't get me started). As I got to the end [...]

It serves as something of a palate cleanser or a pate cleanser. This is Dellie Norton, of Sodom, NC. A town you all know well. Recorded by John Cohen in 1965 and heard on High Atmosphere , on Rounder. Plenty croak, yip and rasp for everyone. The aim is to not prove false hearted. It's harder than you think. It's among the most raw tracks on the record, which I rarely listen to without skipping to Lloyd Cramer's weird "A Conversation With Death." Another bit of pious throat-blasting comes from Children of [...]

There are some musical memories that can't in fact be remembered. How many AM radio songs streamed through your head when you were three years old while lodged next to a beer cooler in the back of a VW bus in 1974? You'll never know. But for some damned reason all these Glen Campbell songs sound like they were crafted in a subliminal pop heaven on a symphonically enhanced planet where VW buses will forever cruise open American byways haloed in gold and purple sunsets, where the Mr. Pibb flows from every water fountain and your parents never age, forever [...]