Friday, November 4, 2011

Battle of the bands

The '60s reunion shootout of all time -- The (Young) Rascals vs. Buffalo Springfield.



Monday, October 24, 2011

42 Years Ago Today

Last year, actually. On October 23, 2010, the three front men of Buffalo Springfield - Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Neil Young - reunited for the first time since 1968. I can think of few 1960s reunions more historic unless John and Paul could magically walk on stage one more time.

OK, we're talking three men in their late 60s singing songs loaded with harmonies. But how sweet it is. Go listen for yourself. It'll take a few years off your soul.


Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Wanted: New Drummer for the Beatles

It's not often these days that a new piece of Beatles history emerges. But according to a BBC news report, an August 12, 1960 letter handwritten by Paul McCartney offering an audition to an unknown drummer has now turned up. The letter was "discovered inside a book by an anonymous collector at a car boot sale in Bootle, Liverpool."

Pete Best was the band's drummer at the time, and he wasn't officially sacked and replaced by Ringo Starr until two years later. History records that Best was fired at the demand of George Martin, the Parlophone producer who proved to be the Beatles' entry into the
bigtime. This is the first indication that the band was looking to replace Best much earlier. The drummer in question has not been identified. The letter has been authenticated, and Christie's expects it to sell for as much as $14,000 in an auction next month.

Friday, October 14, 2011

The Kinks' Missing Chapter

Most Kinks fans consider the period from "Face to Face" through "Something Else," "The Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire" (1966-'69) as the band's peak creative moment. Yet, coincidentally, because of a spat with the American Federation of Musicians, the Kinks were effectively banned from playing live in the United States during that same period. So unlike the Beatles - and XTC further down the road - who pulled themselves off the road at their creative peak, the Kinks were forced off the road by a union dispute in the United States.

In October/November 1969, they returned to these shores with a vengeance, playing a four-city tour of the Fillmore East in New York City, the Kinetic Playground in Chicago, the Whiskey-a-Go-Go in LA and the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Thanks to the first-rate music blogsite BB Chronicles, I was recently able to

These guys were ready to challenge the Rolling Stones and the Who on their own turf. I have never heard Dave Davies play such incendiary guitar. "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" and "Love Me Till The Sun Shines" are guitar tours-de-force. How about quick dirty versions of "Mr. Churchill Says" and "Big Sky"? Or the medleys - "Milk Cow Blues/See My Friends/Tired of Waiting for You/Brainwashed" and "A Well-Respected Man/Death of a Clown/Dandy"? The hits, too, of course. But "Louie, Louie"?

Ray is totally in control and sounds so young. Most importantly, this recording illustrates that the Kinks in 1969 really weren't just Ray's band; they were the Davies brothers' band.

The group that was toning it down and turning up the IQ level in the studio was still a down-and-dirty Muswell Hill pub band at heart. Hearing this performance brought me a lot closer to the point where "You Really Got Me" became "Sunny Afternoon." God save the Kinks.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

The Party of No

Remember, in the last Congress, when Republicans were demonized by the White House, congressional Democrats and friendly media as the Party of No for rejecting the stimulus, the bailouts and nationalized health care. Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama warn that the House Republicans' debt ceiling plan - heavy on spending cuts and driven by the dreaded Tea Party - is dead on arrival. Who's saying "no" now?

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

When Are the Beach Boys Not the Beach Boys?

I've started reading Domenic Priore's book, "Smile, The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece," and have already come across two surprising (to me) claims that really downplay the contributions of the other guys in the band.

First, Priore, a recognized authority on the group, notes that the
"Surfer Girl" album was the first one where Brian resorted to the services of studio musicians, but then he adds this gem: "One of the hidden tricks of this hit-laden disc is the presence of The Survivors on many of the vocal parts that would have been sung by the Beach Boys, had they not been on the road." That was news to me: The Beach Boys didn't actually sing "many of the vocal parts" on the "Surfer Girl" album? They were sung instead by the Survivors, a Brian side group that included himself, his buddy Bob Norberg and two other guys named Rich Arlarian and Dave Nowlen.

Second, and more compelling, was his explanation of why "Pet Sounds" really is a Brian Wilson solo album. Other than the group performance on "Sloop John B," which was actually recorded during the "Summer Days (and Summer Nights)" sessions and is viewed by many as the odd song out on "Pet Sounds," Priore says only eight individual vocal parts by Carl, Mike, Al and Bruce appear on the Beach Boys' most famous release. Dennis, he adds, "is inaudible, if there at all."

Those individual contributions? "Carl sings lead on "God Only Knows" while Bruce sings a backing part; Al and Mike each take a line on "I Know There's An Answer," and although Brian lays down the strong guide vocal that carries each tune, he overdubbed a lead part by Mike over his own voice on both "Here Today" and "That's Not Me." ... Love also contributes the middle-eight bars of "Wouldn't It Be Nice," with Carl a backing voice, and that adds up to eight vocal bits that weren't sung by Brian."

Admittedly, that's three lead vocals not done by Brian, but still one has to wonder: When is a Beach Boys album not really a Beach Boys album? When it's "Pet Sounds" apparently.





Wednesday, May 18, 2011

In Praise of an Older Technology

Shaving Patsy Cline's 45 single "Cry" down to a thread to put on a spool. A turntable activated to start as you approach it with a full-sized bird putting its beak down to play the spinning vinyl. A series of album covers done over a 25-year period by an African-American amateur artist who never recorded a second of actual music.

If any or all of this sounds totally off-the-wall - and bizarrely intriguing, welcome to a new exhibit called "The Record - Contemporary Art and Vinyl" at Boston's waterside Institute of Contemporary Arts. A dazzling exhibit and a beautiful exhibit space, don't miss either of them.

As a sideshow, the museum had five turntables set up, with headphones. Next to each was a collection of 20 or so albums chosen by the artists on display in the exhibit. A very nice mix of sounds. I listened to the first couple songs on the Beach Boys' original mono Little Deuce Couple album, looking out on a gray sea. When I asked the young museum guide in the room if the turntables were playable, he said, "Absolutely. We have them here because a lot of the young people who come here have never seen an actual record, much less played one."

This exhibit is traveling nationally, so catch it if you can.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The Name's Barry ... John Barry

They're laying a giant to rest. British composer John Barry died on January 30. He was 77. Known primarily for creating the James Bond musical sound ("Goldfinger," anyone?), he went on to write the steamy soundtrack for "Body Heat" and beautiful, elegiac (and Oscar-winning) scores for "Out of Africa" and "Dances With Wolves." Along the way, he wrote three musicals, including one with the immortal Alan Jay Lerner based on Nabokov's "Lolita."

A U.K. contemporary of Burt Bacharach's, Barry exploited the possibilties of the studio from the day he walked in one. The trumpet-playing leader of his own jazz-pop-rock combo The John Barry Seven from 1957 on, he was writing and recording regularly, and the cinematic bent of his work was evident early on. His 1961 LP, "Stringbeat," is highly recommended. Barry also teamed up with teen idol Adam Faith and others like him for a series of British Top 40 hits in the years just before the Beatles changed the landscape. Barry's trademark sound was pizzicato strings (that's what they sound like) and the twangy guitar of Vic Flick, Britain's answer to Duane Eddy. It was Flick who drove Barry's arrangement of the James Bond Theme into music history.

Barry had suffered health problems in recent years and hadn't written a film score since "Enigma" in 2001. He worked sporadically on a musical version of Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock." There's no doubt that his work evolved from the electic fare of the '60s - the Bond films, "The Knack," "The Ipcress File" and "The Wrong Box" - to majestic and much simpler scores from the '80s on. But then this is the man who won Oscars in a three-year period for scores as different as "Born Free" and "The Lion in Winter." And then did "Midnight Cowboy" next.

If you're interested, dip into this list: "Beat Girl" (1959), "From Russia With Love" (1963), "The Knack" (1965), "The Wrong Box" (1966), "You Only Live Twice" (1967), "Robin and Marian" (1976), "Body Heat" (1981), "Hammett" (1982), "Out of Africa" (1985) and "Playing by Heart" (1998).