Month: September 2006

Brimming with Bremner or Let’s Hop on the Honeybus

While listening to my Honeybus greatest hits collection and battling writer’s block for the umpteenth time my memory sparked on something interesting: the little-known and heretofore ignored connection between Rockpile and the should-have-been legendary Honeybus.

Being the music freaks I know you are I have no doubt you know about Rockpile and it’s members Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner and Terry Williams and are fans of both the band and the individual careers of the members. Now, if you need refreshing on all that, just peruse earlier editions of this blog and you will find a few tidbits of info included therein.

The Honeybus, on the other hand, I have never written about before even though I have become a big fan since picking up an obscure comp a few years ago.

The ‘Bus never really got the fame they deserved, having only one hit in England in 1968 called ‘I Can’t Let Maggie Go’ (which was a brilliant albeit radical slice of Brit-pop) and then breaking up soon afterward. Both the group and its’ fans knew the band was ahead of its’ time and the main cogs of the band, vocalist Colin Hare and guitarist Pete Dello, toyed with the idea of starting it up again a few years after the band split. Their solo careers not really taking off probably played a huge part. Dello actually had left music to become a music teacher not long after their hit petered out. Groups had quick life spans in those days. One hit and out? Jeezus.

After securing money from an interested party the two creative iconoclasts decided to create two solo albums instead of a Honeybus group album. Both Hare and Dello played on each other’s albums with various members of the defunct Honeybus helping out including a guitarist who had filled in for a missing guitar player on a couple of Honeybus last few gigs: Billy Bremner, who plays on Hare’s album.
While I am going to devote seperate blogs to each of these albums because they are each brilliant in their own way and deserve to be analyzed and appreciated, in brief I would describe Hare’s album as a rootsy Band-like gem with flashes of power pop brilliance (no doubt somewhat inspired by Bremner’s economical but tasty guitar licks) and Dello’s album to be a wacky psychedelic masterpiece with titles like Harry The Earwig and Uptight Basil (to give you an idea of how “out there” it is). Though okay as a vocalist, Dello’s tenuous vocal style adds just a little more weirdness to the proceedings as you are never quite sure if he will be able to hold on to the melody or not.

Both of these albums have recently been reissued on CD by Hanky Panky Records (www.hankypankyrecords.com) with a whack of bonus tracks added to each. While I am partial to Hare’s because of Hare’s excellent vocals and Bremner’s excitingly brilliant guitar playing, Dello’s is quite a treat as well and both are worth picking up if you are into a fanciful look at 60’s psychedelic pop and country. Or, if you are interested in checking out a member of Rockpile long before he started playing for the best roots rock/pub rock band ever.

Your choice. I’ve made mine. Got them both and you should too.

Who’s Harry the Earwig?

The Music Nerd Knows……..

Emitt Rhodes photo bonanza

E- is for Emerals, his first band

M- is for melody, and ain’t his sweet

I- is for Id (see his interview in Scram #18)

T- is for tempo, which the multi-instrumentalist kept

T- is for tape, which when rolling can capture gems

 

R- is for "Really Wanted You," which is pretty near perfect

H- is for Hawthorne, his hometown

O- is for "Only Lovers Decide," little heard but loverly

D- is for daisy, daisy fresh to be precise

E- is for easy, because he makes it look that way

S- is for sixties and seventies, when he recorded mainly emitt rhodes on phone.jpg

Put em all together and they spell EMITT RHODES, a good friend of the Scram gang, and subject of one of our more jaw-droppingly frank interviews. In honor of Emitt, we’ve created a gallery of rare photos from his personal archives up on flickr, which you may peruse at leisure. Many of these only appeared in Scram #18, and others have never been publically seen at all–including a few from a roll of unprinted slide film circa 1968. Thanks, Emitt, for all the great pix! And if you like deliriously catchy melodic pop, you owe it to your ears to pick up his disks, in thrift stores or import CDs.

Frank Words From Hell


    To all intents and counter-purposes as those Sixties suddenly became Seventies, the hitherto diabolical music of Frank Zappa somehow entered the denimed underground mainstream via that bitchy little largely instrumental brew known, to this day, as Hot Rats.

Now, maybe it was its utterly polarizing – not to mention polarized – cover art, its hotcha buncha proto-fusion guitar solos, or maybe even (as I’d like to think) the fact that none other than Captain Beefheart scored a Billboard album chart placing courtesy of his magnificent Rats showcase “Willie The Pimp.”  Yet whatever the cases may be, this album’s opening three and a half minutes, “Peaches En Regalia,” quickly became a hep FM staple throughout those glorious Nixon years (before becoming totally co-opted as late night chat show breaks thanks to Paul Shaffer and his ilk), and before he could say “hmmmm,” FZ found himself on the road to eventual artistic Stadium Rock ruin and, as a direct result, the disintegration of his first, classic, and BEST-ever batch of manic musical Mothers.  Pity…

Still, despite its current digital sheen (wherein such essential elements as Ian Underwood’s mightily majestic “organus maximus,” not to mention “Peaches’” concluding Hare Krishna finger-cymbals, seem to have been all but obliterated during remix by FRANK’S LEAD GUITAR), Hot Rats still recalls to what’s left of my mind glad-happy High School daze spent with partner-in-teen-mischief Richard, crashing the local stoners’ TV parties and serving them up mayo-on-catfood sandwiches …all to the hot-rockin’ accompaniment of “The Gumbo Variations,” y’know.

“Memories”…..      

Sono Oto – “The Apple” EP

Mark Phillips, aka Sono Oto, made it easy on lazy rock crits when he packed his EP of six songs about apples with so many related qualities. I could just riff on the crisp melodies, juicy hooks and all-American charms of this set, but tunes this strong deserve more thoughtful feedback. From the bittersweet pop shimmers of "Granny Smith" (where the titular fruit is sweet but irradiated, with swift decay a worrying possibility) to the childlike nostalgia of "Malus Domestica," which recalls Epic Soundtracks’ solo piano turns, to the sprightly, paranoiac "Northern Spy," Sono Oto’s applesongs reflect a smart and seductive pop craftsmanship that’d be a hit in the veggie aisle or anywhere.

Hear free tunes and learn more at myspace.com/sonooto

David and Jonathan – “David and Jonathan” CD (RPM)

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The early success of the Beatles spawned a slew of nice boy popsters on the foggy side of the pond, and “David and Jonathan” (actually Rogers Cook and Greenaway, writing their own songs but performing pseudonymously from 1965-68) were so especially nice that George Martin himself produced their sides and let them have a crack at “Michelle,” a top 20 hit in the US. In time, the duo would reclaim their names and become important producer-songwriters (“You’ve Got Your Troubles,” “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing”), but first they dropped themselves into the gumball machine, with this turn offering idealistic folkster crooning over harpsichord (“Lovers of the World Unite”), the next nonsense big band bubblepop silliness (“Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzennellenbogen By The Sea”), and then anxious Beatle-penned melodrama (“She’s Leaving Home”). Dig lush production, Chad, Jeremy, Peter, Gordon and the Freddie? Then this, luv, is for you.

S.Y.P.H. – Am Rhein

cult of the week makes a tentative return this week…watch these spaces!

artist: S.Y.P.H.

title: Am Rhein

year: 1987

label: Atatak Records

personnel: Uwe Jahnke (guitars), Harry Rag (vocals), Jojo Wolter (bass), Ralf Bauerfeind (druns)

tracklisting: 11. frau im harem, die matchbox-generation, mein esel ist kaputt, oliver, but the girls, schwesterlein, platz da, julischka, pop horror, geteert un gefedert, sturm auf dich, taris

further info: https://www.syph.de

cotw say

Don Waller on Radio Birdman

Last Wednesday, I cornered rock crit and bon vivant Don Waller in the lobby of the Wiltern Theater between the BellRays and Radio Birdman sets to get his thoughts on this historic event. Before I started the tape recorder, he told me I was wasting my time, since he had nothing much to say. I know Don well enough to know how absurd that statement was. Here’s the "Back Door Man" zine founder on the state of rock when Radio Birdman first came ’round, the underappreciated glories of the Australian scene, and his expectations for the evening…

Lost in the Grooves: Do you remember Radio Birdman from 1976, when the record came out in the US?

Don Waller: Yes.

LITG: And what was the scuttlebutt on the street?

DW: Well, the record came out, and it was like anything else on Sire—there was so little that was new at the time, that of course everybody was interested in it. I remember hearing it and not thinking all that much of it. "Oh yeah, it’s okay." It was just kinda dwarfed by, y’know, the Clash and the Pistols, the Talking Heads, the Pretenders, all the other stuff that came out. In retrospect, the record has aged well. The fact that they didn’t play here didn’t help ’em. They broke up before anybody really got a chance to know who they fucking were! So I’m looking forward to seeing them tonight. And I like the fact that they put out a new record along with the tour, because we’ve seen enough people get back together with no new product. And this is just as good as the other record, actually, it’s not that much different. And they have an idiosyncratic sound. The keyboard thing is a weird touch; I’m a big fan of double lead guitar bands or triple lead guitar bands. I like guitars! And the fact that they got 4/6 or 2/3 of the original band back to do this is fine. I’ve heard the New Race record that these guys did with Asheton and Thompson—it’s pretty decent. Again, it’s an artifact that’s aged well. All that shit on Dave Laing’s "Do the Pop" compilation is really good. Not all that much of it got heard here. Some of it’s on that "Nuggets 3" record, that "Children of Nuggets" record that came out a couple years ago.

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LITG: So you hadn’t heard any of that stuff before it got comped?

DW: No, I didn’t hear the Celibate Rifles or the Lime Spiders or the Eastern Dark’s "Johnny and Dee Dee"—an amazing song! "Slave Girl" is pretty great. All that stuff. But we never heard the Master’s Apprentices or the Black Diamonds or that sixties Australian/New Zealand shit, and that’s all really good too. It’s on the "Nuggets 2" box, and that stuff’s as good as anything that was cut anywhere. In Australia, it’s really hard to get to the other side of the world to here or to England. I mean, to be as good as the Easybeats or as good as AC/DC, or even the fucking Bee Gees if you wanna go that direction. I mean Jimmy Barnes is a real good singer, should have been bigger.

LITG: Who’s that?

DW: Jimmy Barnes, was in Cold Chisel and all that. He’s got kind of a Paul Rogers kind of voice, almost like a Frankie Miller kind of thing, but in that quality. He’s a draw in Australia. It’s just tough for them. But the good stuff is really good. And the thing about this is that it proves if you do something good and you really mean it, y’know, it’s like Zen parable of throwing a pebble into a pond, you don’t know where the ripples are gonna go. The good stuff gets discovered, t he good stuff gets word of mouth, the good stuff gets passed on down. Especially when things are bad, then people start rummaging through the bargain bins or the cut outs and the thrift stores and all that stuff—because that’s all bohos can afford anyway! Basically, in a fuckin’ Paris Hilton world…

LITG: End that statement, Don.

DW: Well, ellipses. It’s really nice to see Radio Birdman playing their first date in L.A.!

LITG: That was Don Waller, who told me he had nothing to say. Thank you, Don Waller. (laughter) What are your expectations for the show?

DW: I’m looking forward to it. I think they’ll be good. Based on the new record, I think they’ll be very powerful, very Detroit. That’s the thing, Deniz Tek, there’s something in the fucking water in Detroit. They still produce good bands, the Dirtbombs, the White Stripes, the Detroit Cobras, all that shit, they still keep turning out good bands. God bless ’em!

Radio Birdman at the Wiltern

above, Radio Birdman live at the Wiltern, pic: Kim Cooper 

Jeffrey Luck Lucas “What We Whisper” CD (Antebellum)

If you’re expecting a Farfisa frenzy from this solo turn by the one-time Morlock, you’ll be left scratching your skull. Lucas, a classical cellist as well as a piano man, turns in a dark and brooding set of Waitsy noir meditations on matters dark, romantic and more or less doomed. The result is an understated and sometimes agonizingly slow set that’s short on hooks, but long on atmosphere, and very much one man’s vision.