Monday's Long Song

 

In recent weeks, the number of noteworthy new releases on the record market has decreased significantly, which is probably due to the fact that artists have agreed to release their new material in the autumn. So it stands to reason that I have focused more on “old” releases that have been on my hard drive for a long time and haven't been listened to in ages.

I recently came across an album that has been overlooked for a long time and has not been given enough recognition on these pages. Grin by the English band TRAAMS from 2013 is one such album. I came across this band on the recommendation of a friend who has since passed away. TRAAMS are a three-piece band who consistently play a mixture of punk rock and Krautrock, but were also heavily influenced by Television.

A House On Fire was released 2016 as a single and shows the greatness of the band. A high-strung beat and a pounding bass-line are the basis until fury vocals and a crashing guitar joins them. A nearly nine minute tour-de-force of a great song. 

TRAAMS - A House On Fire

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 

Another round of charting singles from the last decades, that are worth hearing again. Let's go.

1998: Air

1977: Television

1965: The Yardbirds

1974: Focus

1984: Huey Lewis and the News

1983: The Human League

1966: James Brown

1976: Patti Smith Group

1978: The Police

Monday's Long Song

 

For no great reason I stumbled across Felt, a forgotten band from the Birmingham area, at the weekend. Felt were active in the mid-eighties and released several albums and singles that unfortunately never had much commercial success. 

Maybe it's because they couldn't write catchy songs and their jangly guitar sound didn't really fit into the era of post-punk and emerging electronic music. Their often long songs with sparkling guitar passages were clearly modelled on Tom Verlaine and Television, without adding their own touch to the sound. Or is it really because, as Lawrence, the band's leader, once said, John Peel didn't like the band? Be that as it may, they made their musical mark with their first two albums in those years.

Felt - The Optimist And The Poet

Monday's Long Song

 

Our house has been covered in scaffolding for a few weeks now, as the façade and the wooden window frames need to be replaced. I admire the guys who have to do this hard physical labour in temperatures of well over 30 degrees Celsius. To make it easier for them, they listen to music from a portable player while they work. I would have expected to have to listen to a lot of mainstream music and was surprised to hear harder sounds from the scaffolding. As well as Pavement, they also played a song by TRAAMS, an indie rock band from West Sussex, active since more than ten years. Their musical influences reach from early Television to the motorik beats of Kraftwerk. A House On Fire is a nearly nine minutes tour de force of highstrung beat, pounding bass and simple guitar riffs that takes a leading guitar to excursions and feedbacks.

TRAAMS - A House On Fire

Cabretta

 

The first time I heard about a CBGB, a club in New York was in autumn 1976 in some music newspapers. I couldn't imagine what this club was and only Patti Smith was a household name to me. Bands like Talking Heads, The Ramones or Television were no names to me because I couldn't get any records of them and there were no radio station around playing them. Everything changed a year later when the first punk movement swept over the Atlantic ocean. One of the first so called punk albums I owned was Cabretta by Mink DeVille. It was one of the initial sparks for my future taste in music. Of course Mink DeVille was everything but not punk. But the were the link of classic rock, combined with some latin ingredients and the new music. Venus Of Avenue D was a song Bruce Springsteen would be proud to have written, Cadillac Walk was classic rock with much verve and Mixed Up Shook Up Girl is a song that could be appeared on every early album by Van Morrison. Cabretta was one of those albums I played to death when I first got it and still doesn't lose it's attraction almost 50 years later.

Mink DeVille - Venus On Avenue D

Mink DeVille - Cadillac Walk

Mink DeVille - Mixed Up Shook Up Girl

Babble

 

After the fabulous The Undertones separated the Derry's O'Neill brothers formed with lead vocalist Steve Mack That Patrol Emotion. Following their post-punk hymns they created a new style in indie-rock and included elements of Television and CCR to their sound. When their debut was a very good one, Babble their second one from 1987 was one of the albums that was played at my place often decades ago. Sharp guitars and great hooks were a trademark of TPE and there were so many classic tunes on this album. Not to forget that many of their songs had political statements in their lyrics. For me another underrated album of this era.

Tom Verlaine 1949 - 2023

 

During the last months many artist died away that meant a lot to me. Now I read the sad news that Tom Verlaine passed away last Saturday at the age of 73. I think I don't have to tell much about his musical history with Television and what his music meant for punk rock in New York in the late 70's. For me was Marquee Moon the synonym of how a guitar should be played in the next decades. It was fascinating how he built a new and unique sound from the heritage of the Velvets. This song is from his third album with the same title.

RIP Tom

Tom Verlaine - Words From The Front

Monday's Long Song

At the height of early 70's punk scene in NYC Television released their first and monumental album Marquee Moon. It was different from punk but they made their jazz and Velvet Underground inspired music close to the upcoming music. It was Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell on guitars that made the sound combining the best of the past with the new movement in music. It is still a record I always come back to and this track is still a monolith in new music.

Television - Marquee Moon

Rips ...

... is another band from Brooklyn showing us the real values of guitar based power rock. Raised in the tradition of Television,The Feelies and Sonic Youth they deserve a great homage to these bands mixed with the best of power pop. Heavy dual guitars, insistend hooks and their energy makes them more than the average right now. I didn't listen to an any equal album celebrating great guitar based songs this year so far. Give them a chance and listen without prejudice.

The Foreign Correspondent Returns - Stories About German Rock Music # 40

Maxim Rad is a German singer born in Hamburg, guitarist and composer. He published in 1980 his first solo album Times Ain't That bad, a mixture of New York New Wave and in British dyed pop. His main influences for this record were the early Talking Heads records and especially Television. He once said about this record: the forming member of this group, Tom Verlaine, belongs to few genius which the rock music has produced during the last years – not least because he proved ten years after the avant-garde rock the Velvet Underground recently that craft "dilettantism" could be more creative and produce a more interesting, because opener form of rock music, than the more virtuoso ex-servicemen in her artistic running dry. A rock form open in all directions is my image of ideal pop music. He divides the destiny of many other musicians that got a lot of positiv critical acclaim - he was less successful. I think, only a few people in Germany will remember his name but it's worth to listen to his songs again.

Enjoy and have a good weekend.

Maxim Rad - Times ain't that bad
Maxim Rad - Upset your doubts
Maxim Rad - What are you killing tonight
Maxim Rad - White action - African lemons