Happy New Year, happiness and joy to all who follow this blog, which will continue to provide you with music and thoughts in its 14th year. To start with, I will continue a series that I launched in the middle of last year. Songs that have been in the charts in recent decades or that the writer simply likes will be presented as usual in a completely subjective selection and without comments for your enjoyment. Enjoy.
1966: Sonny and Cher
194: Otis Redding
1967: Cat Stevens
1968: Creedence Clearwater Revival
1976: Al Stewart
1974: Terry Jacks (the first song I had to translate when I was in school)
Another journey through releases of songs that made me fun listening again.
1970: Detroit rock and blues band Rare Earth released a cover version of Temptations hit Get Ready. Although the single is pretty good I prefer their long version.
1981: Vince Clarke prepared the sound of electronic pop music with Depeche Mode. I Just Can't Enough was the first of many upcoming melodic hymns.
1987: Prince released his best album for me with a statement of what was going on these days.
1991: REM release Losing My Religion, not their best song but the one that made them super stars.
1984: Bananarama was probably the first British girl band that brought us in the 80'sna lot of classic pop songs like this.
1980: Squeeze should be named if someone asks for a band formed in the post-punk days and later turned into pop-rock hymns.
1973: Bruce Springsteen released his debut and Blinded By The Light was one of his early highlights of the great storyteller.
1979: From the ashes of the latest pub-rock band The Motors Bram Tchaikovsky showed how great power-pop could be.
1979: It takes a lot of chutzpah to record cover versions of soul classics at a time when music was in upheaval. But the two comedians Aykroyd and Belushi did it very well.
1980: Atomic by Blondie is too good to remain unmentioned here.
In the late 70's/early 80's the heads of Blondie and Ramones fan club. Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Kid Congo Powers started their band The Gun Club. Not knowing that they made a groundbreaking album with Fire Of Love from 1981 when they combined classic blues, rockabilly and punk to a melange named psychobilly blues and a never heard before slide guitar . In the early and mid-80s, The Gun Club were probably one of the most influential bands on the Los Angeles music scene, if only because of their legendary debut album "Fire of Love". What made Pierce and his band stand out was their wild, raw fusion of punk and blues, captured in killer songs like Sex Beat and She's Like Heroin to Me, roughly comparable to what The Cramps had done with rockabilly in a similarly legendary way at almost the same time. When I bought the album and played it for the first time, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This mixture of priestly enlightenment and punk was unusual and disturbing. But this music captivated me right from the start and Miami, the follow-up album, was another highlight. For me, it is still an album that is almost perfect and should appear in SWC's series.
Today I got a day of to reduce my overtime before they were cut at the end of the month and my co-worker gets into holiday from next week on. So I will do something at my home that I deferred for longer time. Seems like a rather relaxing day for me listening to some new and old music along my duties. Today's song is from the new record by Paul Collins, a Los Angeles based musician that is active since the mid 70's. He formed The Nerves, a power-pop trio that got little success not only because they've written Blondie's Hanging On The Telephone. Later he transformed the band into Paul Collins' Beat not to be mistaken with the British ska band The Beat. From the mid 70's until now he was true to his sound - power pop and emotional songs about love.
Almost two weeks ago Robster introduced us to Say Sue Me a band from Korea that plays probably one of the best jangly sounds in Asia. I liked what I heard from them and a few days ago I read the news that they release an EP for RSD covering a lot of songs from rock history in their unique sound. I expected everything but not that they covered Blondie with Dreaming, a great song from the new wave era. It is easy to cover this song but breath new life into this song is great. It is like Debbie Harry singing with the Reid Brothers. Awesome.
That they know the history you can see it by listening to a great cover by The Velvet Underground:
There is no time today to lose a lot of words about the clips presenting here. I am sure most of you will know them well. So let's take a walk on memory lane and enjoy the memories you have to these songs of an era long gone.
Back in 1977 Blondie was the hippiest new wave band around. A lot of friends I knew that time could agree to them, anyway what musical preferences they had. It might be Debbie Harry in front of the band with her female attraction torn between to be cute and rough. The other reason might be that they wrote simple and catchy power-pop songs. Seeing them the first time live I could understand why Jeffrey Lee Pierce was the head of her fan club. I found this little gem the other days while surfing for some old stuff in the internet. This little concert shows every part of their live attraction even it was hard not to watch Debbie the whole time.
Enjoy this little trip back into the 70s and have a great weekend.
These songs shuffled up these days and I've almost forgotten what great songs are. And there should always be some time to pay some tribute to Debbie Harry.
You see right - the boys in this picture are The Knack. A quartet formed in 1978 in Los Angeles. Inspired by the early Kinks and The Byrds they played in clubs like many others. But their fortune was that they was signed by Capitol Records. Their first record was produced by Mike Chapman who helped The Sweet and Blondie to reach high positions in the charts. If you expect from me to feature their chart-breaker My Sharona I must disappoint you. This song is too simple and played often enough. My favorite is Good Girls Don't because it's this kind of (power)pop songs I listened with pleasure long time back. In addition, they have accomplished the trick to express this at few minutes what probably every boy thinks and feels which is in the same situation like hero in this song.
She's your adolescent dream, Schoolboy stuff, a sticky sweet romance. And she makes you want to scream, Wishing you could get inside her pants. So, you fantasize away. And while you're squeezing her, you thought you heard her saying...
"Good girls don't, Good girls don't, and she be telling you Good girls don't, but I do. "
So, you call her on the phone To talk about the teachers that you hate. And she says she's all alone, And her parents won't be coming home til late. There's a ringing in your brain, Cause you could've sworn you though you heard her saying...
"Good girls don't, Good girls don't, and she be telling you Good girls don't, but I do. "
And it's a teenage sadness Everyone has got to taste. An in-between age madness That you know you can't erase Til she's sitting on your face.
You're alone with her at last, And you're waiting til you think the time is right. Cause you've heard she's pretty fast. And you're hoping that she'll give you some tonight. So, you start to make your play, Cause you could've sworn you thought you heard her saying...
"Good girls don't, Good girls don't, and she be telling you Good girls don't, but I do. "
And it's a teenage sadness Everyone has got to taste. An in-between age madness That you know you can't erase Til she's sitting on your face.
Good girls don't, Good girls don't, and she be telling you Good girls don't, but I do, but I do, but I do, but I do...
In the army now. In these days you had to spent 15 month of your life in the German army even if your refusal don't using any guns was accepted or you were the third son in the family and two other brothers served in the army. First thing I remember on cold day in January when I arrived in the barrack was, that all rookies were sent to the hairdresser to get us army-style haircut. That's when I first saw the grinning faces of the noncommissioned officers I have to see the next months.
The hardest thing I had to accept was, that a lot of people could instruct me and give me orders I have to follow that never in my civil life would have a chance to talk to me. By the next months I learned to accept that any kind of rebellion would bring me any afford. The only way to stop treating me with foolish orders was to beat them with their own weapons.
After my basic military education I also had to make an additional training as an air space reconnaissance. We have to sat in a truck and we received from our comrades in a tank flight co-ordinates. and we had to explain the flight course optically on a Perspex board for our generals.
Later this year I checked out the written rules in the army and then to find an article in the unfair decisions can be revoked.I did this for two times in the time I stayed in the army and both was successful in that way that my officers stopped torture me. Therefor I had to do some things that really don't belong to a regular soldier like working in the kitchen, serving coffee, beer and wine to the generals or rebuilding sleeping rooms. But these was just the right things to do because less people give me instructions and I could nearly do what I want.
During this period we used to sit around in the local pub in the barracks spending our time on drinking in the evening. Some day we got a chance to rebuilt a bigger room in our lodging.to use it at our own club. So after a few weeks we could finish our work and we had a little club on our own with a big refrigerator for cold drinks, a good sound system and tables, chairs and sofas enough to have relaxed evenings there. And indeed - we had a lot of fantastic evenings there playing nearly every kind of music we got. So after all the year passed very fast and wasn't that bad I suggested.
What a great record - Debbie Harry was sensational
Famous all over the world with a tragedy background
The Cure made their first steps in successful business.
Back from the past (or should I say from the grave?) Marianne Faithful with a version of Shel Silversteen's song probaly known in the version by Dr. Hook and the Medeicne Show.
M - One hit wonder
Heavy Metal meets Comic
Skinheads go Ska; made me open my ears to this sound
Another new band - another new sound. A record we could agree while I was in the army.
One of the best kitchen sink songs ever.
Records that was released in 1979 and are still worth listen to:
Joe Jackson - Look sharp: First record from Mr. Jackson where he showed us that New Wave and classical songwriting and ballads could work together on one record.
Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material: The title says it all
The Fall - Live at the Witch Trials: Mark E. Smith appears to me and will not go away for years
The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys: Also a love that never died.
Nick Lowe - Labour of Lust: Former member of Brinsley Schwarz back with a record under his own name and full of pop gems
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures: Ian Curtis showed us the real suffering people
The B-52's - The B-52's: The return of the Rickenbacker with great songs with a sound between dance and surf music.
Talking Heads - Fear of Music: Another great band appears and combine funk and New Wave
XTC - Drums and Wires: Another eponymous record that showed me how arty music can be.
The Slits - Cut: Genius mixture of reggae rhythms, scratchy guitars, anger and mischief. Great record sleeve btw.
Gang of Four - Entertainment: Another great band formed in Leeds that brought us a stripped-down mix of punk rock, funk music and dub reggae added with political lyrics.
Public Image Ltd - Metal Box: John Lyndon and Jah Wobble showed us how dub reggae and post punk could be combined to a new sound.
The Clash - London Calling: A monster of a record.
Pink Floyd - The Wall: Fantastic return of the dinosaurs.
Spyro Gyra - Morning Dance: A little jazz'n' funky masterpiece with excellent horns
What came up on the movies in 1979 and stood the test of time:
Apocalypse Now: Francis Ford Coppola showed us the other side of the Vietnam war with all that weired characters (remember Robert Duval when he spoke 'I love the smell of napalm in the early morning')
Alien: Sigourney Weaver and her first fight against them
The China Syndrome: Dramatic - they showed us the dark side of atomic energy
Escape from Alcatraz: Silent movie with a great Clint Eastwood
The Warriors: Gang styled action thriller with a great soundtrack
Life of Brian: Monty Python at their best with a later hit single 'Always looking at the bright side of life'
What was interesting in the world this year:
The regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia collapse and the Khmer Rouge were bound to retreat; Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran flees Iran with his family towards Egypt; Khomeini seizes power in Iran; the premiers of Israel and Egypt Sadat and Begin signs a peace treaty; Tanzanian troops take Kampala the capital of Uganda and the killer Idi Amin flees; Margaret Thatcher gets the first female prime minister in Great Britain; Iraqi gets a new President - Saddam Hussein; Iranian hostage crisis starts; the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan; Nicaraguan dictator Somoza resigns and flees to Miami and Sandinista assume power; pope John Paul II arrives in his native Poland for nine days - the start of the Polish people rise against communism; the first Sony walkman was sold.
Hamburger SV was the champion in the German Bundesliga with their two legendary strikers Kevin Keegan and Horst Hrubesch and defenders Ivan Buljan and Manfred Kaltz.
In 1979 so many eponymous records was released that it was really hard to decide, which one I should take on my list. But after I will take the Specials with their first record because they gave me the opinion to check out what ska means in music. The Specials were one of the heads of the English 2 Tone ska revival and they combine a danceable ska and rocksteady beat with punk's energy and attitude. In their lyrics they were very political. Also their outfit was fantastic. They wore mod-style rude boy outfits like pork pie hats, tonic and mohair suits and loafers. The record was produced by Elvis Costello (another evidence of his musical distinction) and was on heavy rotation this year. I love their cover of Dandy Livingstone's 'A message to you, Rudy' as well 'Too much, too young' and it makes me feel good when one of their songs appear on shuffle on my player. The greatest gift The Specials gave to me was to show me all the good songs from Prince Buster, Toots and the Maytals and the Skatelites.
Back in 1982: One of the most intensive records in this year was the second record from The Gun Club. The band was formed by Jeffrey Lee Pierce, former head of the Blondie fan club in Los Angeles. Joining him was Brian Tristan, who was later renamed Kid Congo Powers during his stint with The Cramps, Don Snowden, who was at the time a music critic for the Los Angeles Times, and Brad Dunning, now a prominent designer and writer.
The Gun Club merged the contemporary genre of punk rock with the more traditional genres of blues, rockabilly and country music. When I heard this record for the first time I couldn't believe the sound. Young crazy Americans playing traditional Rhythm' and Blues, cover some traditional tunes as well as CCR's swamp rock 'Run through the jungle'.
In fact Debbie Harry appears as a backing singer on various tracks on the album under the pseudonym "D.H. Laurence Jr.". If I want listen to some raw, mean and true sound I pick out one of them records. Pure joy for me. I remember well to watch the Gun Club live in the early 90s. Seldom listened to a show that was that emotional (as special guest appeared an unknown band called Dinosaur jr. - which impressed me as well). The location was not too big and that time it was possible to go upstairs to the bar section to get a drink or play pool. I sat at the bar with a drink while a Japanese lady joined me. We had a small and niche conversation about useless things until Mr. Pierce arrived and talking jealous to me, what the hell I'm doing with his girlfriend. Me fool didn't checked that I was talking with his engagement and the bass player of the band.
In 1996, Pierce died from a brain hemorrhage at the age of thirty-seven. Pierce was HIV positive, while also suffering from cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis, at the time of his death.
This was the first day it wasn't that cold like the weeks before and there was no rain also. We spent the afternoon in our favorite pub to watch our local team and it was the first time we could sit outside watching the game on a big screen. The sun burned on our necks and probably we should have taken some cream to protect our skin from sunburn. It was amazing sitting in the sun, having a beer at your side and after all seeing our team winning at home for a long time. Hope this (the weather and also the fortune for our team) will last for a longer time.
