Its that time again students! Polish an apple and bring it to Silvie's along with your Uke and a ditty or two this Saturday for Back to School at The Chicago Ukulele Cabaret. Huge bonus- The Duke of Uke and his Novelty Orchestra will be joining us all the way from downstate for a full set to close out the show!





ABC-Jackson 5

Which Doobie May Yoube?

This Labor Day weekend, H & I stumbled upon a 24 hour 90210 Marathon just at it was starting with episode 1. Needless to say, we were captured for the better part of the day yesterday. It got me to thinking about the history of guest spots by popular bands on television shows throughout the years.

The earliest one I can remember was the Doobie Brothers on Whats Happening back in 1978. Rerun gets busted for illegally taping the Doobie's live show, but when the cops try and take him down with the evidence, the audio tape is just crunching sound because he was snacking so much. The cops eventually let him go because there's no audio evidence of bootlegging, just sounds of Rerun crunching on chips.



During the Indie Rock Era, it was The Flaming Lips on 90210




And Post Millenium, the torch was carried by Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, and many others on Gilmore Girls



Do you know of others? Post them in the comments!


DOWNLOAD SHE DON'T USE JELLY

Over drinks last night I asked David Singer what song I should post for Labor Day. He immediately responded- Billy Bragg- There is Power in a Union. So here it is-Happy Labor
Day-meet me here again Tuesday morning.

THERE IS POWER IN A UNION

Music to Sell Your House By

David Berthy Posts:

I am attempting to sell my house in anticipation of my upcoming move to San Francisco. Marketing your home is much more complicated than it was a few years ago, and it is now a requisite to create an online virtual tour for potential buyers. I watched a few of these tours to get the idea. They're pretty much what you expect: successive shots of mirthlessly clean rooms suspiciously free of clutter. What stands out as odd is the music that accompanies them. I was trying to describe it to Mike over drinks the other night, who immediately asked if it was like something on Windam Hill, the new-age superlabel that, from 1980 to 1987 or so, made George Winston's piano the soundtrack of choice for leaf-peeping excursions in Swedish automobiles. The music accompanying the virtual tours isn't quite like that. It's got more of a Vangelis feel, like the soundtrack to a sex scene in a seventies science fiction movie.

You can listen to the yourself here:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/homes-for-sale-chicago-il-janet-crabb/273800085.

The discussion naturally moved to what type of music would be appropriate accompaniment. My choice would be John Fahey's, "Requiem for John Hurt," the first track from his 1967 album Requia. It kind of sounds like something on Windam Hill.


REQUIEM FOR JOHN HURT

In 2005, Petra Haden released an all acapella home recorded version of The Who Sell Out (My favorite Who album by miles and miles). Haden is the daughter of Jazz bassist Charlie Haden, and singer violinist for The Decemberists, and member of The Rentals. Its a truly impressive feat, as in addition to the instruments and vocals, she renders all of the album's fake commercials, jingles, and tape loop effects with just her voice and a multitrack cassette recorder.

ARMENIA CITY IN THE SKY:

Petra's Version


The Who's Version (original)

The Finest Parody

Excerpted from Salon.com:

April 13, 2007 | Kevin Ryan doesn't want to talk about his recent fling with Web stardom. He's a bit rueful and more than a little nervous about it, in fact, and wishes the whole thing would just go away.

If you missed his star turn, here's what happened: Ryan, a 33-year-old Houston music producer and author, went into his home studio and engineered a sort of retro mash-up of two of his favorite artists, Bob Dylan and Dr. Seuss.

Ryan took the text from seven Seuss classics, including "The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham," and set them to original tunes that sounded like they were right off Dylan's mid-'60s releases. He played all the instruments and sang all the songs in Dylan's breathy, nasal twang. He registered a domain name, dylanhearsawho.com, and in February posted his seven tracks online, accompanied by suitably Photoshopped album artwork, under the title "Dylan Hears a Who."

"Green Eggs and Ham" was set to a tune and arrangement somewhere between "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues," complete with Dylan's rushed, occasionally sneering phrasing.

All this accompanied by an up-tempo electric band, complete with the jaunty skirling of a Hammond organ.

It was clever and delightful. Ryan had immersed himself so fully in Seuss' words and Dylan's style that he managed to merge two quite different creative intelligences. Many who have heard the tracks come away convinced they're really listening to Bob Dylan.

Reached in Houston, Ryan confirmed the work was his but declined to speak about it on the record except to say he never expected it to attract any attention. Instead, "Dylan Hears a Who" was quickly picked up by bloggers and the popular Web site BoingBoing and went viral, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Then Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the La Jolla, Calif., firm that publishes the works of the late Theodor Geisel, heard "Dylan Hears a Who." Only two weeks after word of the site began spreading, Ryan got a cease-and-desist demand from the Seuss lawyers, who said the site and songs infringed the company's copyrights and trademarks. Ryan complied quickly and quietly. Instead of the Dylan/Seuss tracks, visitors to dylanhearsawho.com find a brief message saying the site has been "retired" at the request of Dr. Seuss Enterprises.

If you were caught up in the momentary wonder of how someone could execute such an ingeniously perfect blending of period musical style, '60s attitude and loopy storytelling, it was tempting to see all of this as just another case of a heavy-handed corporate copyright holder -- a master of copyright war, to call on the old Dylan oeuvre -- sticking it to the little guy.

Ryan -- best known as the coauthor of "Recording the Beatles," a meticulous investigation of every track, take and song the group committed to vinyl -- was face-to-face with a company that zealously guards its intellectual property. Losing a copyright-infringement case can be extremely expensive. In addition to the federal law's $150,000 maximum in statutory damages, defendants can find themselves on the hook for the plaintiff's legal fees. (Dr. Seuss Enterprises declined comment on "Dylan Hears a Who," questioning why it was even a subject of interest. Dylan's attorney did not return a call for comment on Ryan's work.)

DOWNLOAD GREEN EGGS AND HAM

Desert Rock

Thanks to Vince for Today's Post

Stoner Rock emerged from California's Deserts in the mid-nineties with bands like Kyuss and Sleep. The genre is marked by bass heavy, slow to mid-temp rockers that combine elements of Heavy psychedelic rock bands like Cream, Blue Cheer and Hawkwind with early 90's Grunge and doom metal influences. The band Kyuss gradually built a local following in Palm Desert, California and frequently performed at parties in and around the isolated towns of Southern California's desert areas. These impromptu shows, referred to as "generator parties", consisted of small crowds of people, beer drinking, and the use of gasoline-powered generators to provide electricity for the equipment. Homme commented that playing in the desert "was the shaping factor for the band" noting that "there's no clubs here, so you can only play for free. If people don't like you, they'll tell you. You can't suck.

Since then, members of Kyuss went on to form or feature in several notable bands including Queens of the Stone Age, Fu Manchu, Unida, Brant Bjork, Mondo Generator, Hermano and Slo Burn.

Todays Track is from the band CHE, founded by Kyuss drummer Brant Bjork.


The Knife

Chicago's Own-Red Red Meat

Happy Birthday to Seattle's Sub Pop Records who turn 20 this year. One Chicago band on the label is Red Red Meat, whose 1994 record Jimmywine Majestic was all the indie hipster rage right when I moved to Chicago. To my ears, The band was finding its direction on this album, still torn between skronked out Stones rockers and the sort of low key damaged blues that RRM singer and songwriter Tim Rutilli would perfect on in years to come as Califone. Today's track is of the latter variety, and my favorite Red Red Meat song.

BRAINDEAD

David Berthy Posts

"Soul Sister" was a group favorite on my recent vacation, and it's easy to see why. The song is from the 1972 album Life, Love, and Faith, but it harkens back to the sixties New Orleans R&B sound that the legendary Toussaint largely created in his roles as A&R man, producer, and composer. There's plenty to love here--the backup vocals, the lyrics, the sheer infectiousness--but ultimately, for me, it's the song's unabashed confidence in its own celebration that wins out. We did a lot of driving on the trip, and every time this song would come on, everyone got noticeably happier.

Allen Toussaint, "Soul Sister"

I just got back from vacation with my brother and his family on Martha's Vineyard, one of my favorite places on this green earth. All weekend long we had the dial set to 92.7 WMVY, a distinctive radio station playing a strange mix of adult contemporary with an islander vibe. They may play artists you know but they rarely go with the obvious song selections, opting instead for recent releases or album cuts rather than singles. Its here you can check out late career cuts from the likes of Ry Cooder, Dr. John, Rickie Lee Jones, Van Morrison, Suzanne Vega etc.

One of the tracks we heard was this curiosity from Robbie Robertson's (The Band)1986 debut solo album. When asked about the inspiration for "Somewhere Down the Crazy River", producer Daniel Lanois commented: "Robbie Robertson was describing what it was like to hang out in Arkansas with Levon Helm in his old neighbourhood. He was telling me about the hot nights and fishing with dynamite, and was asking someone for directions for someplace somewhere down the crazy river. ... I had presented him with this toy instrument that Eno introduced me to called the Suzuki Omnichord, like an electric autoharp. He found a little chord sequence with it that was sweet and wonderful. As he was developing his chord sequence I recorded him and superimposed his storytelling, which I was secretly recording, on top. That was the birth of 'Somewhere Down The Crazy River.

SOMEWHERE DOWN THE CRAZY RIVER

FI will return on Wednesday, August 20

David Berthy Posts

Formed in 1978 in Dunedin, New Zealand, the Clean perfected a post-punk mixture of Velvet Underground drone and low-fi distortion that sounds as fresh today as it did thirty years ago. In 2003, Merge released Anthology, a two-disk set filled with b-sides and rarities in addition to a comprehensive collection of singles. Among them is Slug Song, which has always stood out as one of my favorites. The entire collection, solid from end to end, is well worth purchasing.

SLUG SONG

David Singer Posts

The Walkmen are a terrific five-piece band from Brooklyn, New York. Their music is sometimes loud and cathartic ("The Rat", from the sublime Bows & Arrows LP), and sometimes it's spacey and ethereal ("We've Been Had", from Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone and a ubiquitous car commercial), but I like them best when they sound like a ramshackle wedding band floating down the Mississippi on a barge at midnight ("Louisiana" from last year's A Hundred Miles Off). Singer Hamilton Leithauser (dig that crazy richboy name!) has one of my favorite voices in indie rock. Get this: they even covered Harry Nilsson's weirdo Pussy Cats LP in its entirety. And released it. Is that cool or what?

They have a new record coming out in September, but you can get it now for only FIVE BUCKS from AmieStreet.com, and the band will donate all proceeds to charity. Furthermore, the album is magnificent; rickety pianos chiming through deep fields of dark reverb, guitars that sound like strummed spider webs, distant horns cribbed from a gypsy funeral. The songs are absolutely beautiful, but I would recommend this record for the sound of the tambourine alone. Go get it.

Canadian Girl

The Rat

We've Been Had

Louisiana

Links:

The Walkmen - "You & Me" LP for five bucks:

New music today from Conor Oberst the force behind Bright Eyes. Why its not billed as Bright Eyes is beyond me, as it sounds pretty much exactly like a Bright Eyes record. Like the last one of those, this one is hit or miss. I do like the first track, Cape Canaveral. The album was recorded in Tepoztlán, Morales, Mexico in a temporary studio in a mountain villa for a one-month period this past winter.

Cape Canaveral

The Worst Song of All Time

I've given it a lot of thought over the years, and I've come to a decision about my vote for the worst song of all time. For several years the honor went to LA Woman by the Doors, for that "Mister Mojo Risin" nonsense. Alvy's always voted for the live version of Katmandoo by Bob Seger. Abracadabra by the Steve Miller Band was a strong contender.

In my book, though, the honor goes to "Go For It" by Joe Jackson, off his 1986 album Body and Soul. This cutesy upbeat ode to positive thinking misses the mark in every way. Just consider the lyrics:

When you think of Ray Charles
You think of sunglasses at night
but if he can play piano so can you
and you can tell black from white
are you telling me I'm not right?

yes Joe....so very very not right

Any of you FI folks have a nomination for worst song of all time? Post it in the comments


GO FOR IT

Here's a smoking cut from Les McCann & Eddie Harris' classic 1969 album Swiss Movement. Recorded live at The Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland the band played at a the top of their game, despite being unrehearsed for the gig. "I didn't know any of the tunes, and there was no rehearsal. They had to call out the changes for me." said Benny Bailey. Eddie Harris was also unprepared and said this: "I told Les just to play his normal stuff with the Trio, and I would look over his shoulder to check the chords- because I used to be a piano player." This track, "Compared to What" spoke out against the Vietnam War, and became an anthem of sorts among young black college students.


COMPARED TO WHAT

David Berthy Posts

Hortense Ellis was just out of her teens when “Cry Together” was recorded. The song, composed by Hortense’s legendary brother Alton and the producer Coxsone Dodd, pairs Hortense’s young voice with a gospel organ and a choral backup to produce a scorching, deep soul effect with a Jamaican twist. The song reminds me of another Jamaican classic, the 1966 song “It Hurts to Be Alone,” which was penned by a young Bob Marley. Junior Braithwaite sung lead on this track, his last recording session with the group then known as the Wailing Wailers, with Bob Marley, Beverly Kelso, and Peter Tosh providing backup vocals. As far as I can tell, Braithwaite was in his early-to-mid teens at the time. Both these songs slay me. I think it’s because, while there are a lot of songs that deal with shattered innocence, there aren’t too many that make you re-live it.


Cry Together

It Hurts to be Alone

New music today from one of my favorite live bands-The Hold Steady-from their latest album Stay Positive. Though they're pretty much a one trick pony, I dig that one trick. Its their obvious joy in what they do that keeps me listening. I've given the new record a fair number of spins and Magazines is my favorite track.

Magazines

Back in 1973, my folks went to see Jim Croce in Concert. A young comedian was the opening act. He looked terribly disheveled- Dressed in an untucked and wrinkled button down shirt and tripping over his microphone cord. His name was Woody Allen and he kept them breathlesslessly laughing from the moment he started stammering. One week after the show, Jim Croce died in a plane crash. We had his best-of on 8-track and I loved it as a little kid, especially Bad, Bad Leroy Brown and this song, with its references to the Lone Ranger and Superman

YOU DON"T MESS AROUND WITH JIM

Great Debuts-XTC

Solucien put this track on at Jimmy's Birthday Party this weekend, and I was reminded of what a terrific band XTC was from the word go. Here's Statue of Liberty from their 1977 debut album White Noise.

STATUE OF LIBERTY

Solucien mentioned this live clip from the Old Grey Whistle Test, remarking how incredibly tight and confident the band was for their age. Just a couple of years down the road, though, Andy Partridge was struck with stage fright and the band stopped playing live. They have not returned to the stage since.

Quickdraw's been studying up for the GRE, so I came up with a musical analogy:


Peter Gabriel era Genesis is to Art Rock as

_______ is to Jam Band Hippie Rock

The answer, of course, is Traffic, one of my favorite bands in college and a high ranked guilty pleasure today. One of those bands where a real hodgepodge of styles (jazz, rock, folk) creates a totally distinctive sound. Traffic's secret weapon is the voice of Steve Winwood, one of the greatest in music. When you think about, Steve Winwood has had quite a career:The Spencer Davis Group, Blind Faith, Traffic, and massive success as a solo artist. Here's one of my favorites from the 1970 album John Barleycorn Must Die.





EMPTY PAGES

DAVID BERTHY POSTS

The Tom Robinson Band had a huge hit with his EMI single “2-4-6-8 Motorway” in 1978, a jumpy, irresistible radio confection that conquered the charts despite the fact that the openly gay, politically outspoken Robinson made for an unlikely pop star. When successive sales dwindled, Robinson was dropped by EMI. In 1982, he signed with IRS as a solo act and released the album North By Northwest. My favorite song from the record is the first song on the B-side, “Those Days.” The song pairs apocalyptic imagery and a palpable sense of foreboding with an eminently danceable disco-sleaze groove. The result, as with Gang of Four’s “I Love a Man in Uniform” and Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug,” is smart, bizarro disco of the best sort.

THOSE DAYS

My Alma Mater

Rufus Wainwright and I went to the same High School (different times)-Millbrook in upstate New York. He wrote a song about the place, which appears on his first album. Our man Jon Brion produced the record, and handled the incredibly strange and elaborate string arrangements. The song is a personal gem to me...capturing as it does some intimate aspects of the place...the feel of the train ride up from New York City, the steeple rising above the pine forests... and my favorite:

And all the evening breakdowns
will soon be washed from their hands
the next very day
as they make way
eating the apple to the chapel

which describes perfectly the feel of walking to assembly each morning in the chapel,
gossiping with classmates about nightime travails and adventures, which of course run rampant at boarding school.

MILLBROOK

Another song that makes good use of the vocoder, the title track from Houston rapper Devin The Dude's 2005 album To Tha Extreme has become my 2008 Summer anthem.

TO THA EXTREME

Billing themselves as the world's only successful Arab/Jew partnership since the beginning of time, Electro Funk duo Chromeo are back with a newish album, Fancy Footwork. To be honest, though, despite collaboration with Hall & Oates, nothing on it can touch the club hit "Needy Girl" from their 2004 debut album She's in Control.

Do yourself a favor and take the time to download it and start your weekend right with a hilarious gem of a song, featuring early 80's electronic drums, vocoder, squiggly synth, stutter vocals, scratching, and more!

NEEDY GIRL

David Berthy Posts:

I never gave Smokey Robinson his proper due until recently, something that likely stems from overexposure to The Big Chill soundtrack as a child. Despite an inordinate fondness for traveling by car, my parents owned exactly three cassette tapes in the 1980’s. Since the other two were Silk Road Volumes 1 & 2 by Kitaro and Abba’s Greatest Hits, I didn’t have much room to maneuver on the request front, and The Big Chill soundtrack won out again and again. In recent years, I’ve recovered enough to appreciate what an amazing singer Smokey is. My favorite track of his comes from his 1973 self-titled solo effort, Smokey’s first without the Miracles. “Just My Soul Responding” is notable for possessing a harmonious mix of seemingly disparate elements. Native-American chanting, a shifting narrative device, violins, saxophone, and socially conscious lyrics are all pulled together by Smokey’s truly singular vocal performance. After repeated listens, I can go back to “Tracks of My Tears” and “I Second That Emotion” with fresh ears, provided “Joy to the World” and an interminable journey to a distant national park aren’t a part of the experience


JUST MY SOUL RESPONDING

Skate Anthems

Back in 1981 I spent most evenings hanging out in our rec room basement listening to Magic 108 on the radio and talking with Margot D. on the phone. I had a huge crsuh on Margot, who I knew from Hebrew School, and since we went to different schools, my only chance to see her and the rest of the Shaere Emeth crew outside of class was Friday nights at Saints Roller Skating rink, where we would skate to the soul jams we knew from Magic.

Todays post is one of those jams. Commonly misattributed to The Gap Band, Double Dutch Bus was actually a one-hit wonder from Frankie Smith. It was made famous for its extensive use of the "izz" form of slang, and was used by Missy Elliot and Snoop Dog in later hits. According to the wiki "The song title represents a portmanteau of two institutions in Smith's Philadelphia, Pennsylvania neighborhood: the double dutch game of jump rope played by neighborhood kids, and the SEPTA bus system that was a backbone of the local transportation network (and for which Smith had unsuccessfully applied for a bus driving position. The song spent 8 weeks at #1.

DOUBLE DUTCH BUS

Great Debuts-Chicago's Own John Prine

Here's a melancholy ditty from John Prine's self-titled 1971 debut album. A bonus track here is Prine's "Lets Talk Dirty in Hawaiian", which Pinapple Jack performed at the first Ukulele Cabaret.

Hello In There

Lets Talk Dirty in Hawaiian

Transformer Man

In 1984, two years after signing Neil Young, Geffen records sued Young for intentionally not sounding like himself by making "uncharacteristic and uncommercial music". During his five brutal years at Geffen, Young made back to back forays into different genres including rockabilly on Everybody's Rockin' and electronic music on Trans. Young responded to Geffen's 3 Mil suit with his own 21 mil countersuit and both were eventually dropped. He returned to Reprise and his senses as the decade drew to a close.

"Trans was about all these robot-humanoid people working in this hospital and the one thing they were trying to do was teach this little baby to push a button. That's what the record's about. Read the lyrics, listen to all the mechanical voices, disregard everything but that computerized thing, and it's clear Trans is the beginning of my search for communication with a severely handicapped nonoral person. 'Transformer man' is a song for my kid. If you read the words to that song - and look at my child with his little button and his train set and his transformer - the whole thing is for Ben."-Neil Young


TRANSFORMER MAN

Before Midnight Scholar

db posts a day early so's I can get on up to Door County for my vaca. Two tracks to carry you through til we meet again on Monday


My friend Japeth gave me the record Before Midnight Scholar a few weeks ago, which comes courtesy of his roommate's band and sometime solo project Judson Claiborne. Before Midnight Scholar has been on heavy rotation since I got it, and when the band played at Empty Bottle last Monday I headed out to see them. When "Bloody Holiday" came on, Japeth told me the song is based on a true story about his roommate's grandparents. I never paid attention to the title, and I'd been so lulled by the song's lilting charms that I didn't realize how violent a tale it tells, but it makes me like the song all the more to realize it's about a fantasy of escape gone terribly wrong. Especially compelling is how "Bloody Holiday" is followed on the album by the fall-from-grace song "In the Sun." The latter feels bright and fragile, the natural result of the events suggested in the former. I don't know if "In the Sun" is also based on a true story, but tonally, I love the way these songs are paired. If you like the music, there's a link on the myspace page where you can buy a special vinyl edition of Before Midnight Scholar that comes with a cd in addition to the record.

http://www.myspace.com/judsonclaiborne

BLOODY HOLIDAY


IN THE SUN

Unlikely Number Ones

Who says you need a beat, hooks, and a catchy chorus to have a number one single? In 1975, 10CC released "I'm Not In love", an ethereal ode to denial which includes an extended section between verses that breaks down to nothing but synth washes and whispering. The song went to #1 in the UK and #2 in the US, where it was kept from the top spot by three different songs in consecutive weeks-"The Hustle", "One Of These Nights", and "Jive Talkin".

The production on the song was incredibly innovative for its time, with the group laboriously building up multiple overdubs of their voices singing a single note in unison. The multi-track was then mixed down and dubbed down onto 16-track tape. This process was repeated across all sixteen tracks to create a lush 256-voice "virtual" choir that could "sing" chromatic chords. A number of these prepared multi-tracks were then cut into several endless loops, each of which contained the basic notes of the main chords used in the song. The chorus loops could then be played by using the mixing desk rather like a keyboard -- each chord could be sounded by bringing up the fader for that loop. The instrumental break featured the whispered words: "Be quiet, big boys don't cry...", which was spoken by Kathy Warren, the receptionist of the Strawberry Studios where the band recorded the track.

I'M NOT IN LOVE

In the same way that I hear a little West Side Story latino protagonist in Tom Petty,
I hear an obsession with The Wizard of Oz all over ELO's music. Listen to Mr. Blue Sky and its all there- The swelling munchkinland choral sounds, quickly descending tornado string flourishes, and sacharine orchestral arrangements. Jeff Lynne & Co. acknowledge the influence with the Eldorado album cover shown here. Can't Get it Out of My Head, from that album, features some major Land of Oz backing vocals during the bridge and last verse/chorus.

CAN'T GET IT OUT MY HEAD

Chicago's Own

David Singer Joins us today:

Chamber Strings is the brainchild of one Kevin Junior, whose sartorial splendor and Anglophile musical taste belie the fact that he is, in fact, a Chicagoan. Their music is an impossibly beautiful hybrid of English pub rock and American soul - the same genealogy that gave us the Kinks, The Faces, and, truth be told, the Beatles. They released two albums, 1999's Gospel Morning and 2001's A Month Of Sundays before disappearing into a stylistically appropriate but still depressing haze of drug abuse. Last year, after cleaning up, Kevin got the band back together and they sound as if they haven't missed a beat - and word is that a new record may be in the works. This is my favorite of their songs, and synthesizes everything that makes them tick: beautiful songcraft, chiming guitars, lovely harmonies. As it happens, they're playing tonight at the Bottom Lounge after some band I never heard of.

DOWNLOAD TELEGRAM

Admin Note- Chamber Strings play with David Singer tonight at the Bottom Lounge

David Berthy Posts:

This, to my knowledge, is the nastiest piece of bubblegum pop ever written. Close competition can be found in Bread’s “The Last Time,” but I’m going to go with “Pie in the Sky.” This song was the second single from Skyband’s self-titled 1974 debut. Maybe because of the ill-advised choice to photograph themselves in astro-tribal headgear for the album's cover, or perhaps because their sound was too poppy for rockers and too rock for the teenagers who ensured the members of Bread a lifetime of yachts and redwoods; Skyband never released a second album. After the first record flopped, they tried to rename themselves Zed and change their sound, but disbanded when a deal failed to materialize. It’s a shame, because the world could have used more songs like “Pie in the Sky.” I would like to see Muppets sing it in a yet-to-be-made Muppet movie about 1970’s Malibu, with the object of the song’s derision passed out on the couch next to a blender full of daiquiris and a small mountain of Quaaludes, but maybe that’s just me. If you know any other acerbic pop songs, please post them in the comments section.



PIE IN THE SKY

BONUS TRACK! The Last Time by Bread

Its Uke time again! Join us this Saturday, July 12th at Silvies for Uke Mondo, The Chicago Ukulele Cabaret's musical journey around the world. Grab your uke or just come to watch and listen at the most eclectic open mic in the city, heck, in the world!

To commemorate the occcasion, we offer up the lead and title track from Prince's follow-up to Purple Rain, his own Sgt. Peppers style opus, 1985's Around the World in a Day. Its one of my favorite albums to re-arrange furniture to. Others are Rain Dogs by Tom Waits, Never Mind The Bullocks by The Sex Pistols, and Earthling by David Bowie.



AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY

Acony Bell

Here's a pretty tune that Lozier brought in to Hayward rehearsal last night


Acony Bell

The Dukes of Stratosphere

With the market on psychedelic beatlesque already cornered, XTC took it further in 1985 when they became The Dukes of Stratosphear for two records. The DOS were thanked in the liner notes of XTC's 1986 album Skylarking, for the loaning of their guitars.

Twenty-Five O'Clock

Halfcaste

David Berthy Posts Weekly On Thursdays:



Thin Lizzy, "Halfcaste" This 1975 b-side to the "Rosalie" single deals with Phillip Lynott's mixed-race upbringing in Ireland. For me, the most interesting thing here is how wistful the tone of the song is. The reggae beat works to reinforce this, and the result is a song with a slow-tempo and laid-back defiance. The final result, I think, is that the narrator takes ownership of the epithet that's been hurled at him.

HALFCASTE

TB's comment yesterday about the world's worst album covers got me searching for some.

I found this one :



and this one:



and then I came upon this:



I decided I just had to hear it, and now, unfortunate listener, so will you.

Yes, thats right! In 1979 Ethel went disco on this camp classic which, apparently is highly sought after by vinyl collectors. According to the wiki, all the songs were recorded in just one take each. Gee, ya think?

THERES NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS

As a major Neil Young Fan, its hard to understand how I missed Zuma all these years.
Up at a friend's cabin this past weekend, someone put the record on and I was struck by the raw organic feel of the record, akin to Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, one of my favorite Young albums and the debut of Crazy Horse.

Zuma was released in 1975, just after his so called "Doom Trilogy", a dark and depressing trio of albums put out on the heels of the mass success of Harvest.
Time Fades Away, On the Beach, and Tonight's The Night, embodied Young's reaction to sudden success coupled with the loss of his compadre Danny Whitten to Heroin addiction. To my taste, Young's music is at its best on the dark side, and On The Beach, which Young claims not to have listened to once since its release, is one of the greatest "music to slit your wrists by" albums of all time. I go back to it again and again.

In contrast, Zuma is more upbeat, just a bit though. Here's my favorite track, Barstool Blues, pretty much a treasure map songwriting blue print for Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy to dig up twenty years later.

Barstool Blues

Heres a track from Athens GA's Olivia Tremor Control, one of the three original bands in the psychedelic pop collective Elephant Six, along with Apples in Stereo and Neutral Milk Hotel. NYC-25 is from their first album, Music from an Unrealized Script-Dusk at Cubist Castle, released in 1996.

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Speed Folk

Back in the mid-eighties, Velvet Underground disciples The Feelies and Yo La Tengo rose up out of the same scene at Maxwell's in Hoboken. In 1986, The Feelies releases their second LP, The Good Earth, with REM (another VU influenced band) guitarist Peter Buck producing. After another two albums, they disbanded, but have re-united in 2008 for some shows in New York with Sonic Youth. I had a chance to see them open for Lou Reed on the New York tour and dug'em. Thir version of The Beatles' Everybody's got something except for Me and my Monkey brought the house down. It was the first show of the tour, in Boston, and I remember that Lou couldn't memorize his own lyrics and had them taped down all over the stage.

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David Berthy Posts

Alzo & Udine used to play in a band called the Insanities, but when the band split up, they formed a duo (what happened to duos?) and took the name Alzo & Udine. They made one record for Mercury in 1968, opened for The Association, and then called it quits. Alzo was rediscovered in the Ampex Tape mail room in 1970, and went on to record a solo album that also got lost in the record bin when the label folded. Both albums have since been rediscovered by collectors. I just got the Alzo & Udine record at Dusty Groove and it has been my favorite of the summer so far. It reminds me of a cross between seventies soft rock giants like Bread and America with some of the jazzier things happening on records like Love’s “Forever Changes.” But really, the most salient point is that it’s impossible not to get happy when you hear these songs, and that’s what summer records are all about.


C'Mon and Join Us


Hey,Hey,Hey, She's OK

In contemplation of this coming Friday's violence fraught run-off sham elections in Zimbabwe, FI harkens back to Bob Marleys 1979 album Survival-a musical plea for African unity. He performed this song at Zimbabwe's independence celebration on April 17, 1980.

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West Side Story

With 1979's Damn The Torpedoes, Tom Petty surfed the edge between new wave and classic rock into the mainstream. He also developed a persona and vocal style which I subconsciously associated with a West Side Story type Puerto Rican Protagonist. I swear to this day that he is singing gems like Here Comes My Girl, Refugee, and Don't Do Me Like That with a vaguely hispanic accent. There are those that have assured me that I'm delusional and others who laugh and say they know exactly what I mean. In any case, I hear it every time one of these songs comes on the radio.

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Sparks!

Brothers Ron (keyboards) and Russell Mael (vocals) formed Sparks in Los Angeles in 1970. Since that time they've put out 20 studio albums, hopping from genre to genre as they went..glam pop, power pop, electronic dance music and mainstream pop. Though they never made it big here in the states, they were huge in Europe, and have been cited as a major influence by peers such as Depeche Mode, New Order, Pet Shop Boys and They Might Be Giants.

In 1978, after 7 albums of avante-pop, they released this album of electronic dance music, teaming with production team Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey, who had just crafted Donna Summers Disco anthem I Feel Love.

In May and June of this year, they played all of their albums in their entirety during a 21 night stand in London.

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David Berthy Guest Posts Today

Summer is a great time for French pop music from the sixties. Once, I greatly impressed two tight-suited Frenchmen at a wedding when I knew who Jacques Dutronc was. As it was late, they both started singing “Les Cactus” accompanied by irony-free fist pumping. “Les Cactus” is a great song, but the fantastically titled “Hippie Hippie Hourrah” is still my favorite. I love the dramatic stops and starts, the inexplicable kissy sounds, and the melodrama of the tolling bells at the end. I don’t know French and therefore have no idea what the lyrics are about, but I assume they make as much sense as the average Monkee’s episode, and would be disappointed if a translation proved otherwise. As a bonus, Cactus is included as well


HIPPIE HIPPIE HOURRAH

CACTUS

My #1 One Hit Wonder

Top on my list is this gem from Irish born Singer Gilbert O'Sullivan from 1972. Its one of the few songs that I've become obsessed with repeatedly at different times in life, from 5 years old to present day. I simply never tire of hearing it. Such a sad song, it opens with the narrator explaining his plan for suicide and then recounts the death of his parents. Still, somehow, I find the melody uplifting in a melancholy sort of way.

ALONE AGAIN (NATURALLY)

Cars, Bars, Guitars and the Man from Mars

I won this 45 at the Shaare Emeth Purim carnival in 1981 and listened to it until the grooves were worn through. Combining new wave with rap, it was not only the first crossover hit featuring rap to go to #1, it was the first rap hit of ANY type to top the charts. Earlier Tracks by Grandmaster Flash and Fab Five Freddy (both name checked in this song) as well as Kurtis Blow and The Sugarhill Gang did not make it into the top ten, though The Devil Went Down to Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band made it to #3 two years earlier.

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