NWOBHM

When I was growing up my local record store sold imported British music magazines. I liked reading Melody Maker and NME. I was amused at how the writers would talk up the Next Big Thing until they became successful and then they’d write about how much they sucked. Then they’d start hyping the Next Next Big Thing. I know that all critics everywhere are prone to this phenomenon, but the Brits really elevated it to its purest form. I studied the pattern of hype-and-slag the way some people study the life cycle of fruit flies.

Anyway, Kerrang! was the British music magazine I loved the most. They had an exclamation mark in their name long before Yahoo and they were real big on the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Being a metal fan and somebody who’s always looking for new music, Kerrang! was right up my alley. And here are some of the bands they hyped before they started to suck.

Hellsongs “Run To The Hills” (Iron Maiden)
You have to admire the way Iron Maiden have built a career for themselves. It’s a tribute to relentless touring and word of mouth in the face of record label indifference. They work just as hard now as they did before they started filling sports stadiums.

Hellsongs does a fine job of making what was originally an angry song sound very sad.

Emm Gryner “Pour Some Sugar On Me” (Def Leppard)
This may not be the best Def Leppard song to post when I’m talking about the NWOBHM, but there aren’t a whole lot of interesting covers of their early stuff. Whatever you think of Def Leppard, the idea of a one-armed drummer is Totally Metal.

Albert Kuvezin and Yat-Kha “Orgasmatron” (Motorhead)
You either love Tuvan throat singing or you hate it. I find it fascinating and Albert Kuvezin is one of the best live acts I’ve ever seen. Strangely enough his vocals on this song don’t sound all that different from Lemmy.

Girlschool “Race With The Devil” (Gun)
This song features a riff that’s deeply embedded in the DNA of rock and roll. Everybody recognizes the riff but most people couldn’t tell you what song it comes from. Gun was a popular band in England that featured the Gurvitz brothers, who went on to enlist with Ginger Baker to form the Baker-Gurvitz Army.

I always thought of Girlschool as the 80s version of the Runaways. Sadly there was no Joan Jett figure to survive the inevitable implosion of the band.

Tygers Of Pan Tang “Love Potion No. 9″ (The Clovers)
Not every band in the NWOBHM could become a big star. There are laws of physics that prevent that sort of thing. And so the Tygers toiled at the fringes of the movement, eventually collapsing under pressure from their record company to record more covers like this one.

A Family Affair

Two years ago my friend Lee discovered that she had a half-sister. Julie had been adopted as a child and tracked down her biological parents, which led her to Lee. They became Facebook friends and found a great deal of common ground. Last week they met in person for the first time and I stumbled into their family reunion. They quite graciously didn’t chase me away and even though I’m a cynical old man I found their story quite heartwarming. And so of course I had to turn it into a Cover Freak post.

Spooky Tooth “Son Of Your Father” (Elton John)
This isn’t one of Elton John’s most well-known songs but it’s one of my favorites. I like the admonition to treat me as your father would treat you. Depending on what kind of person somebody’s father is, that might not be the best thing to ask of a person. Both characters die by the end of the song, it’s a cautionary tale.

Lee and Julie are daughters of the same father and Lee certainly worked hard to treat her new sister as her own despite what must have been a very weird situation for her. There was no gunplay, for which I am glad. I’m sure the fact that her sister turned out to be Julie helped tremendously. We should all be so lucky to have such a thoroughly charming sibling as Jule pop into our lives unexpectedly.

Kaci Brown “I Think I Love You” (The Partridge Family)
There has been much discussion over the years about the effects of television on society. One of the most insidious in my opinion has been the popular perception of what family is, or should be. From the days of Father Knows Best up to The Cosby Show, television has presented an idealized vision of the American family. Real families are messy things sometimes, and often don’t resemble the Cleavers. More often than not family conflicts can’t be resolved in 22 minutes, allowing for commercial breaks. While you can’t pick your relatives, your family is what you make of it. Sometimes you have to accept your relatives for who and what they are and make the best of it.

And the thing is, even those TV families often fall short of their own standards. Mr. Brady was a closeted gay man living a lie, and those child actors are all messed up. Just look at Danny Bonaduce.

Randy California “Mother And Child Reunion” (Paul Simon)
I’m sure that Julie’s reunion with her birth mother was more difficult on a whole bunch of levels than her reunion with Lee. I can’t help but admire somebody who’s willing to get naked and jump off the cliff into the unknown like that. While that part of Julie’s search for her family may have been strange, from what I can tell it was not at all mournful. Which is a testament to how good everybody involved in the situation has been.

Jason Ringenburg “Ivan Meets G.I. Joe” (The Clash)
Things did not go at all well when Ivan met G.I. Joe. They went much better when Lee met Julie.

The Busters “Friday On My Mind” (The Easybeats)
The sisters met on a Friday. Friday the 13th to be exact. I like their collective contempt for superstition. And they did have fun in the city, heading downtown to do all the standard touristy stuff since Julie had never been to Chicago. I don’t know if they spent all their bread, but nobody seemed to lose their head.

Poorboys And Pilgrims With Families

The delightful Mrs. Freak has been out of town this weekend. She was also out of town last weekend. Between trips she suggested I put together a post about spending time on the road. Since I recently did a post on that theme I’m still doing a post related to Mrs. Freak’s travels, it’s just taking a slightly different form than she was expecting.

Grizzly Bear “Graceland” (Paul Simon)
Mrs. Freak spent this weekend attending the Minnesota Garlic Festival. The festival is run by her cousin’s husband the hippie garlic farmer. This is the fifth year for the festival and it functions as a yearly gathering of her family. They all make a pilgrimage to the family farm to visit their uncle and catch up with each other, sort of like Paul Simon’s pilgrimage to Graceland.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band feat. Doc Watson “I Am A Pilgrim” (Merle Travis)
I don’t think the yearly pilgrimage to the family farm in Minnesota has the spiritual aspect that you find in this song, but I think it’s satisfying for Mrs. Freak’s soul in its own way.

Dr Dru and Jellica “Brick House” (Commodores)
The journey up to Minnesota included a secondary pilgrimage, to the Laura Ingalls Wilder tourist trap in Wisconsin. They’ve set this thing up at the site of the homestead where Little House In The Big Woods takes place. My daughter loved all of the Little House books and wanted to see it. They’ve got a replica of the titular little house. Not surprisingly it’s made of logs, not brick.

Violent Femmes “Step Right Up” (Tom Waits)
Last weekend Mrs. Freak was up in Michigan for the World’s Largest Yard Sale. This was the second time she has gone, so this may be turning into another yearly pilgrimage. I don’t know if anybody at any of those barn sales was doing the kind of hard sell you hear in this song. I especially like how Gordon Gano screams “Turn up the volume!” in his adenoidal voice.

Extra Fancy “Sell Your Love” (Iggy Pop)
There was no love for sale at the Longest Yard Sale. It is, after all, a family-oriented event. So is the Garlic Fest, but they always have a wide variety of garlic-related products available for purchase.

Lollapaloozaville

It’s the last day of Lollapalooza, the destination music event that has taken up residence in Grant Park. Local critic Jim DeRogatis does a good job of explaining why somebody might not want to attend what he calls “Walmart On The Lake.” I’ve never been to Lollapalooza. A couple of years ago a friend of mine was supposed to be working at the show and I was hoping she’d be able to get me in for free, but she wound up working on the Tim McGraw tour instead. I’ve never really thought it was worth the money that they’re charging for it.

I was looking at the Lollapalooza web site and noticed that it gave you the option of putting together your own personal festival lineup. You had to register with the site in order to do that, and I wasn’t curious enough about the feature to take the time to register. So I decided to just make my own Lallapalooza lineup right here.

Paul Anka “Black Hole Sun” (Soundgarden)
I was slightly taken aback when I heard that Soundgarden was getting back together for the show. Bands from the 90s are getting back together to play big outdoor festivals followed by lucrative tours. With everything that’s changed in the world since the last time Soundgarden walked the earth, it’s good to know that there are some things that will never change because they’re deeply ingrained in our collective DNA.

In the musical sub-genre of Lounge Covers of Black Hole Sun I much prefer the version by Steve and Eydie, but after a really lethargic introduction Mr. Anka does swing this crazy tune.

Willy Porter “Whip It” (Devo)
I’m not sure if Devo got back together just for the lucrative nostalgia touring, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that they did. I do like the idea that they were so far ahead of their time the first time around that a lot of people are just catching up to them.

Willy Porter puts a great bluesy spin on this one.

Hot Chip “Transmission” (Joy Division)
I was talking to a woman once whose boyfriend was really into Joy Division. She told me that she tried listening to it but it made her feel like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. That’s the best description I’ve ever heard of Joy Division’s music.

I love what Hot Chip does with this song. It’s got disco guitar, a section that quotes “Baby’s On Fire,” and a great sense of humor.

Drive By Truckers “People Who Died” (Jim Carroll)
This song just never did much for me. It’s not that I don’t like it, I just couldn’t understand why so many people liked it so much. The Drive By Truckers go 70s mindless boogie all over it and the results are excellent.

Jane’s Addiction “Ripple” (Grateful Dead)
If you’ve read my Manifesto you know that this is one of my favorite covers and is also one of my least favorite songs. My dorm roommate in my freshman year of college was an alcoholic who would buy a quart of the cheapest vodka he could find and drink it all at one sitting. He had blackouts two or three times a week. I asked him if it bothered him to have blackouts that frequently. He told me “it used to bother me but I got used to it.” Presumably today he’s sober, in jail, or dead. I wish nothing but the best for the guy.

Anyway, this guy fancied himself a Deadhead. He owned three Grateful Dead albums, two of which were greatest hits packages that had about half their content in common. He Played “Ripple” a lot. A really lot. So I came to associate the song with hopeless drunken dissipation.

But after years of not listening to the Dead I heard this cover by Jane’s Addiction. It’s a joyous, slaphappy song that’s completely unlike the original. They took a song that I never wanted to hear again and made me enjoy listening to it. So I’m sharing it in recognition of Perry Farrell’s appearance at this year’s festival.

Say What?

Rock and roll has introduced many cultural phenomena, not the least of which is the misheard lyric. Maybe I’m better at understanding poorly enunciated lyrics than other folks, but there aren’t a whole lot of lyrics that I’ve misunderstood over the years. The notable exception is “Last Child” by Aerosmith. I always thought that “I was the last child/just a punk in the streets” was really “I was the last child/just a bucket of sleaze,” which I still think is a much better lyric based on who’s singing it. I really regret that I couldn’t find a decent cover of that song to post.

At any rate, here are a few of the most famously misheard lyrics.

Florence and the Machine “Addicted To Love” (Robert Palmer)
I’ve seen a couple of misquotes for the line “you’re addicted to love:” “you’re a dick with a glove,” and “you’re a dickhead in love.” Either of those makes the song better, but I like the first one. It sounds like an indictment of Michael Jackson.

The Cure “Purple Haze” (Jimi Hendrix)
“‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy,” perhaps the most famous misheard line in all of rock and roll. There’s even a website at kissthisguy.com devoted to misheard lyrics. I’ve had people use that lyric to try to prove to me that Hendrix was gay.

Walter Jackson “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” (Elton John)
Originally it didn’t sound to me like “someone shaved my wife tonight,” but after I heard that interpretation that’s the way I’ve heard it ever since. That line gets even more interesting when you consider that the song is about Elton John’s suicidal thoughts over his pending marriage. His pal Long John Baldry (the “someone” in the title) convinced him not to go through with the marriage and so he didn’t have a wife for someone to shave until years after he recorded the tune. Walter Jackson squeezes soulful blues out of this song that I never suspected was lurking within.

Pinkertone “Louie Louie” (The Kingsmen)
The stunningly inarticulate singing on the original version of this song has turned it into a sort of Rorschach test of rock and roll. People have imagined that the guy was singing all sorts of perverted stuff, probably colored by each individual’s deepest secrets. Pinkertone chicken out and only sing the refrain, treating the verses as instrumental passages. And what does that tell us about them?

The Reels “Bad Moon Rising” (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
This is another one that I had no trouble understanding, but I can see why somebody might think he’s saying “there’s a bathroom on the right.”