Hotlegs

When I was six, our family was host to a young Native American boy and girl, siblings, for a summer. The boy, Hiram, bought a 45 of a song called Neanderthal Man by a band called Hotlegs. I did not like it. The drums were too loud, the vocals were too soft, and the motif was too simple. When that summer ended, Hiram didn't take the 45 with him. It ended up in my care. Over the years I listened to it occasionally to see if I still hated it, and I always did. I kept it despite this, and still have it. When/If you listen to Neanderthal Man (video #1 below), it's worth noting that it went to #2 in Britain and #22 here, and sold 2,000,000 copies. I wonder how many remain.

When I was twelve, I joined the Columbia House Record Club and got 10cc's The Original Soundtrack with my initial shipment. I wore out the grooves on that album. But over the years I didn't dig into anything else from their catalog beyond The Original Soundtrack, Deceptive Bends and Bloody Tourists.

Starting about sixteen years ago, the internet enabled me to indulge my idle curiosities. I discovered, and found terrifically interesting, that Hotlegs actually was 10cc. Three quarters of 10cc anyway. They were later joined by Graham Gouldman, the author of For Your Love, Bus Stop and other hits from the mid-60s. They soon changed their name, etc. etc. Naturally I read everything I could get my hands on about the band and its members, most of which I've long forgotten. But it's an interesting history, and too much for me to rehash here. If you're curious, here are links to other sources.

BTW - The author of this video has mislabeled it as "10cc".

It's a far cry from that....to this: (caution, video #2 is much louder than #1)

Spanky and Our Gang

Like to Get to Know You is an amazing slice of pop, but what happens starting at 2:13 takes it to a level seldom equaled. It goes from amazing to uniquely transcendent, a high water mark in modern popular music.

Dream of You

In December 1986 I got a job in a restaurant called the Ediner, washing dishes. Typical starving artist job. It was a retro diner, and part of the vibe was the music they piped in - hits from the 40s and 50s. It was my first exposure to the Mills Brothers, and it was love at first listen. There were only two Mills Brothers songs on the tapes they played, Paper Doll and Dream of You. There are many recordings of Paper Doll, which was one of the biggest hit singles of the 1940s. Dream of You, however, proved to be difficult to find. Find it I did, though, and here it is.

Saturday Starts

With "Always Returns" from Brian Eno's "Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks" album, then moves to "Simplesmente" from Bebel Gilberto, the Tom Middleton Balearic Remix, from the compilation album "Ziriguiboom: The Now Sound of Brazil, Vol. 2".

Working to Music

There's a balancing act involved in selecting music for certain activities, like working. It ought to stimulate and percolate but never distract. I prefer instrumental music, like Ulrich Schnauss. But my favorite "working" music is Zero Tolerance for Silence by Pat Metheny. I once brought this piece, #3, to music club, and the other guys agreed that it was the probably the worst selection in club history. The entire album sounds much like this track. There are only a handful of albums I'm aware of that step out on this limb - Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music is one, Neil Young's Arc is another. Unsurprisingly, Thurston Moore is on record as loving both Arc and ZTFS. Most critics and fans seem to hate these excursions, but I love them. Because a lot of the time, this is what it sounds like in my head.

St. Vincent

One of the best albums of 2009. For more than a month that year, this was my #1. Stellar, front to back. It's a shame "Actor Out of Work" got so much airplay. Other songs on the record are more deserving, IMO. "Save Me from What I Want", for example.

Music

There are times I'm convinced it's only about imbuing meaning in ephemeral things that have none. An indulgent pretense.

Friday Morning Ear Worm

Weather Report - A Remark You Made. A live version from 1978.

I'm Easily Amused

I'm a musician, always have been. I won't tell that story, except in bits and pieces. Here's a bit. Or a piece.

In 1990 I was in a band in Minneapolis. Mostly a cover band, but we played a couple of originals. There was enough musicianship to win other musicians over, and the non-musical just liked our set list. We had a gig (one of many) at a large club, since defunct, in town.

One night I had an idea, and I was so enthusiastic about how cool it was, the other guys agreed to do it.....

.....we would go on stage, be introduced - "Ladies and gentlemen, (band name)!" , our drummer would click off "One Two Three Four" and we would immediately go into what's called a "train wreck". A train wreck is the stereotypical ending of a live rock song - the drummer plays a bunch of BS, and the rest of the musicians play either one note or one chord, it lasts a few seconds, then BAM! At which point every member of the band would stop playing and exit the stage. That night I suggested we treat our intro as if it were the end of the last song of the night - do the train wreck, say goodnight, then walk off stage. And we did. It went like this:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome (band name)"
one two three four
TRAIN WRECK
one two three four
BLAM
"Thank you! Good Night!"
We exit the stage.

We took off our guitars and ran back to the dressing room, hysterical. After a minute a couple of the other guys suggested we go back out - the joke's over and we needed to play our first set. I kept begging them to stay put - to see what the audience would do. But the audience did nothing. Silence. I finally acquiesced. It wasn't going anywhere. We went out and re-introduced ourselves. Our singer may even have apologized.

A thin conceit, but a funny one. One of many.

Beach House - Walk in the Park

I had a mishap recently, and I've been in a considerable amount of pain since. Pain affects how you see, hear, taste, touch, feel. Pain dictates what I can listen to. Many sounds are unacceptable - very few offer comfort. Maybe we are less likely to take risks, go out on a limb, let something woo us, when something's wrong inside. So we gravitate to the things that are sure.

Beach House's Walk in the Park

Thursday Morning Ear Worm

XTC's cover of Ella Guru by Captain Beefheart.

The Elliott Smith Wall

The other highlight of seeing LA was seeing the Elliott Smith Figure Eight wall. After visiting the Walk of Fame and the Hollywood sign, we drove to the wall.

It had been defaced with a bunch of pedestrian ugliness that had nothing to do with Elliott. I had recently read that Roger Waters was taking some heat because posters advertising an upcoming appearance by him in LA were plastered on it. He ordered them taken down.

The wall is not in a glamorous part of town - it's in a seedy area of Sunset Strip, across the street from a strip mall. It was a little hard to feel comforted there. Such a public place, and the Elliott connection is so personal, visceral and private.

My wife suggested signing it. Great idea! No pen. No marker. I went into a nearby Mexican restaurant and asked if they either had a marker or knew where to get one. No luck. Where else to go? How much time should I allow for this? I decided it wasn't worth the effort, and walked back outside to look at the wall again.

Now a woman, about my age, possibly five years younger, was in front of the wall. She wasn't really looking at it though, she was standing on the curb by her car, looking at one of her sons, of which she had two - one about 14, one maybe 16. I turned to her and said "It's a shame what they've done to this, isn't it?". She didn't acknowledge me. At all. Maybe an LA thing, I thought. Maybe here you don't acknowledge strangers. But that's odd, not what you would expect from a fellow Elliott fan. I turned to look at her sons. The oldest was looking around aimlessly. The youngest was right up near the wall, staring at it. It was then I realized it was her SON who had wanted to stop and look at the wall, not her.

I stole another look at her face, and saw impatience. Unacceptance. The woman and her sons got back into their car and drove away. I posed for the obligatory "I was there" snapshots, none of which turned out. I looked horrible. Something had changed. I felt fulfilled, ashamed, immature and old at the same time. My brain was telling my heart to grow up.....and my heart was telling my brain to fuck off.

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Nature Abhors a Vacuum...

...in my all-too-often vacuous skull.

No Music

All music is abrasive right now.

Wednesday Morning Ear Worm

Weather Report, Harlequin. Off the Heavy Weather album. Particularly the bass stuff starting at 2:36.

Tuesday Morning Ear Worm

The Mills Brothers

A highlight of my visit to LA last summer was seeing the Mills Brothers' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I have a child-like fascination with simple things.

Pitchfork on Beefheart

Appreciation: Captain Beefheart

Monday Morning Ear Worm

The song I woke up to this morning is...........

Farewell, Cap'n

His death occurred just before I started this blog. The open sore left by his passing still burns. This was a guy after all, who came to me in a long line of artists, starting with the B-52s and The Sinceros a couple years prior, and shaped my view of the world. It wasn't so much that Captain Beefheart's music opened my eyes, it was more that he was able to define and describe a part of me that nothing else could previously. Ice Cream For Crow was on the short list albums that meant the most to me at age 18. It's still on the short list today.

This song is called "Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian". It is an instrumental off Ice Cream For Crow. It is not only in my Top 10 favorite songs of all time, I believe I want it played at my funeral.

Been Reading

Santa put Keith Richards' book "Life" in my stocking this year. I've only started reading it, but I'm impressed his memories are so lucid, so intact. Especially since my own are so hazy and I have nothing to blame my haze on. Tonight I also picked up "Street Player: My Chicago Story" by Danny Seraphine. I didn't even know it existed - I read a couple pages at the store, and was sucked in. I grew up with Chicago, and they'll always be near and dear. I was never a fan of Seraphine's drumming, however. To me it always seemed he must have come from the Cream-era school of musical interaction, because his playing often not only didn't complement the music, it was a distraction. The same could be said of Peter Cetera's bass playing, but that's a topic for another day, but more probably never.

...and then it Started Again

You Fantastic. Friendless. A random pick that obviously feeds off the Philip Glass vibration.

This Sunday, like any other Sunday

Began at Bill Evans, moved a square to Philip Glass, then simply stopped.

What Comes First

I said to a friend last night: "I can forgive a mediocre lyric as long as the music moves me." For him, the inverse was true. I can respect that, but it's terribly difficult to for me to comprehend.

Daryl Hall

I am a Daryl Hall fanboy. Have been, unapologetically, since 1976. His first solo album, Sacred Songs, (fascinating back story, worth your time to read about), included "The Farther Away I Am".