Today’s song is taken from one of England’s greatest rock band, The Who, and if you want my opinion England’s best ever band. Take it easy fans of Beatles, Led Zeppelin etc. - its only my opinion. The song itself is taken from the band’s ninth studio album Face Dances so doesn’t feature the madman Keith Moon as he had sadly passed away.

Never released as a single and unusually featuring the bassist John Entwhistle on vocals, the song is up there with the best songs that the band has ever created and his voice is remarkably good. I had never heard him sing before so it was a nice song.

As John himself is probably the lesser known band member during their heyday anyway I think the song is self explanatory in that he is singing about himself as he also wrote the song. Just because he never sought attention as much as other members of the band, it doesn’t mean that he’s quiet or introverted. I especially love the lyrics in the third verse which goes something like

“Everybody calls me the quiet one
But you just don’t understand
You can’t listen you won’t hear me
With your head stuck in the sand
I ain’t never had time for words that don’t rhyme
My head is in a cloud
I ain’t quiet - everybody else is too loud”

Actually he uses a few English idioms to blatantly point this out throughout - “Still waters run deep”, “Sticks and stones may break your bones”, etc . Delivered with The Who’s usual brash aplomb. You can check out the song here.

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Richard Hawley belongs to a long tradition of crooners, dating back to Sinatra (In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning) and on through Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop, Ian Curtis and Ian McCullough to Hawley’s former bandmate, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp. The Coles Corner (no apostrophe) album is a very nice listen, and the title track is a definite highlight.

The song builds like a slightly more hopeful version of the song ‘In The Wee Small Hours…‘ (that’s three mentions now for the Sinatra classic), with syrupy strings and a very Christmas feel to it. You almost expect the first words to be “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”. Then the song picks up a jazzy feel, with brush drums, lugubrious piano and Hawley’s deep, thoughtful voice:

“Cold city lights glowing,
The traffic of life is flowing,
Out over the rivers and on into dark.”

The lazy beat is reminiscent of Costello’s ‘Kid About It’, and is a melody that will stay for you a long time. It’s a melody to be sung at the end of the night, with the last glass of single-malt whiskey in your hand, as you empathise with the song’s narrative of a trip into town to find serendipitous love.

Here’s the video on YouTube. Another Hawley favourite of mine is ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’, also on Cole’s Corner. Get this album if you can, it’s a very soothing listen, and repeated listens will reward.

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This song was originally written by Willie Dixon , who along with Howlin Wolf was another powerhouse of the Chicago Blues scene 40 odd years ago. If you check out this wikipedia article on Willie Dixon you’ll see that he was responsible for a lot of the classical blues songs of that era including ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ and ‘Little Red Rooster’ among many other iconic blues songs of that time.

I first heard of the song from listening to The Doors as it is covered in first album aptly called, you guessed it, The Doors as I was listening to Mr. Morrison for some time before venturing off into the wild land they call the blues. As with most covers (not all mind you) the original is by far the best but in fairness to Jim and co its a blues song not a rock song and Howlin sung the blues.

The title ‘Backdoor man’ was a term used to descibe men in times gone by having illicit affairs with married ladies, young ladies and ladies in general (different meanings for different people these days) so they had to be careful not to get caught hence the term as the first verse suggests

‘When everybody’s tryin’ to sleep
I’m somewhere making my, midnight creep
Yes in the morning, when the rooster crow
Something tell me, I got to go’

The second and third verses deal with the consequences of getting caught and the resonse of the backdoor man. Actually this song is the source of two of my favourite lines which are

‘When you come home you can eat, pork and beans
I eats mo’ chicken, any man seen‘

and these lines are actually where I prefer Morrison singing them and not the nasally, raspy voice of Howlin Wolf but that’s just me. The song is here .

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Or ‘White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)’ by Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel, to give it its full title. But by all accounts, the Flashmaster had nada to do with this classic early hip-hop cut. In the early ’80s, Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel tried to bring a What’s Goin’ On-type social consciousness to the rap party, which until then was about girls, parties and generally getting down. Lyrics dealing with inner-city violence, crime, unemployment, Reaganomics and the scourge of cocaine (the subject matter of this song) suddenly became de rigeur in rap and hip-hop. Until the Beasties came along, that is.

‘White Lines’ kicks in with one of the funkiest bass lines ever. There is only two notes in it, but it’s driving, insistent force tells you that a message is on the way. The ironic danciness of an anti-cocaine song (”Rang dang diggedy dang di-dang”) makes the message hit home that bit harder. Melle Mel spins lines that show his disgust for the drug, with the payoff: “White lines blow away”.

Once the poppy part of the song is out of the way, it’s time to get down to some serious talk:

“Little Jack Horner sitting on the corner
With no shoes and clothes
This ain’t funny, but he took his money
And sniffed it up his nose”

This was a time before crack cocaine decimated entire neighbourhoods in urban America, and Melle Mel’s lyrics are very prescient. Here’s the video on YouTube - directed by a young Spike Lee and starring a young Larry Fishburne. If you like this also check out the Grandmaster Flash cut ‘The Message’ - pure gold.

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Like some of his contempories Ben Harper seems to have much more success in the US than Europe, I’m thinking of Dave Matthews here. I’m not sure why that is except that it may simply be the fact that musical tastes differ somewhat when it comes to jam bands. The Grateful dead could also be included here.

I like Ben Harper, especially his acoustic, laid back stuff as his voice really complements that musical genre, I’m thinking of his live album Live From Mars here. When he gets into the Guitar driven songs, his musical style can be very varied, I think his voice is a bit weak to successfully pull it off. A more baritone voice is needed but then that’s just my musically taste. I would definitely go see him concert.

Generally his music references religion to some degree which reminds of another American band called Iron and Wine but the similarities end there. The song is taken from Ben Harper’s third album Fight the Power - the album title informs you of much of the lyrical content of that album. I’m going to avoid the obvious suggestions of drug use in the song and instead take it in a general context kinda way which he is basically saying be who you want and if you cause no one harm then “your alright with me” which is fair enough with me too. I especially like the lyrics in the second verse

‘My choice is what i chose to do
and if I’m causin no harm,
it shouldn’t bother you.
Your choice is who you chose to be,
and if your causin no harm,
then your alright with me.’

Acompanied by some bongo’s or similar percussion instrument and an acoustic guitar, it is this genre of style that really lends itself to Harper’s voice but I commend his creativity and bravery in attempting various other musical styles. Have a listen for yourself and let me know what you think.

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The first single from 1988’s Daydream Nation, ‘Teen Age Riot’ is also the song that got me into Sonic Youth. Now their album-long ‘Sister Ray’-alikes don’t always do it for me, and some of their stuff is just plain turgid, but when they hit the high notes they succeed spectacularly. Given that this was the late ’80s, when synthesiser ties, Rick Astley and stock exchange crashes were all the rage, ‘Teen Age Riot’ is seriously out of step with the times.

Starting off with some low-key, ghostly guitar and Kim Gordon reciting some childlike phrases (”Say it, don’t spray it”) and generation-specific predictions (”We will fall”), the song seems to be drifting before it’s even begun.

And then Thurston Moore’s distorted guitar kicks in, and you realise why the song’s axe work (did I just say that?) is so highly rated. You’ll certainly have heard this riff before - it’s influenced Pixies, Nirvana, and God knows how many other grunge bands over the years. But here it sounds fresh, energized, and in a huge hurry. Perfect for air guitar, if you live in a trailer and own a dog named Skeeter.

The lyrics are almost a DIY lesson in how to get ‘the kids’ on your side, if you’re a band wanting to make it big. Hero adulation, “Marshall stacks”, platform shoes, “teenage leather and booze”…it’s effectively a song about how to be ‘the next big thing’. As unfashionable as this was at the time - a time when, in the US, teenage girls with big hair tearing up shopping malls with karaoke pop - it’s had a tremendous influence on all of the bands that followed from the US.

The Daydream Nation album is a good listen, and I’ve been told that Sister and Evol are worthy albums too. While a lot of Sonic Youth’s affected Velvets/13th Floor Elevators/Stooges schtick can leave me feeling cold, ‘Teen Age Riot’ is a song that will always bring a smile. Here’s the official video which, again for the ’80s, is extremely cool. Notice Mark E Smith in the middle?

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The Felice Brothers fell under my radar towards the end of last year when I heard the song Roll on Arte taken from the album Tonight in Arizona from which today’s song is also taken. What struck me about the band was to old country-folk sound that they produce that takes your imagination into an old bar room complete with sawdust on floor and swigging whiskey from the bottle, you get the picture. The lead singers voice in uncannily like that of Bob Dylan’s in the 60’s. Actually it sounds like Dylan did on the Basement tapes. I think that its never a bad thing to be compared to good musicians , sometimes being original doesn’t mean being good.

To get the background on the song title and the content of the song I’ll say a few words about Rockefeller who was the governor of the state of New York in the early seventies and during that time introduced some tough new sentences for possession of narcotics including cannabis and marijuana which depending on quantity, and we’re not talking about tons here or even close to it, had mandatory sentences equivalent to second degree murder.

The song itself is sung at a very down tempo rhythm with only a drum set, acoustic guitar and fiddle to back the excellent lyrics of the song in which basically in the first verse is a guy being arrested for possession while the second verse tries to explain why stating that he (could be a she also) and his mom needed the cash while third and fourth deal with his brother being shot with him promising to give his children a better live and then describing the scene in prison and he starts his jail time. The chorus is kind a protest about the length of the sentences in comparision to the quantity.

‘Fifteen grams of heroin
An ounce of speed
Fifteen years to life
Rockefeller, that’s a long old time’

Once you know the background of the song , the kinda sound the band has , if I didn’t screw that up then you should get a good appreciation of the song. I’ll admit that it may take a couple of turns to like the song but do yourself a favour and do it, you wont be disappointed. A live version of the song can be seen here which was taken at a performance in the bowery room.

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I haven’t listened to the Screamadelica album in a long time, probably because it always brings back a time and place that I’ve really gotten too old for. Primal Scream’s third album is a concept album of sorts, charting a night from dance-music-fuelled start to weepy-Stones-ballad comedown finish, with a bit of redemption in the end, like all the best concept albums. Personally, I think 1997’s Vanishing Point is the better album.

It’s dated in parts (’Come Together’ for example) but it really was a step forward for British indie music when it came out, and is still highly regarded in the UK. If you haven’t heard it, you’ve surely heard ‘Loaded’, with it’s “Just what is it that you want to do” snippet from some movie or other.

‘Higher Than The Sun’, the fourth single from Screamadelica, is probably the best song on the album. The soundscape created behind Bobby Gillespie’s vocals is intriguing. It’s a mixture of yawning groans, “the angels sang” keyboard flourishes, theremin-like sounds, and what to my ear is a respirator. It’s very strange indeed - almost dub-like, and the first 45 seconds have no apparent musical structure to them at all. Probably the Scream’s finest musical moment, and one they re-visit to darker effect on Vanishing Point.

Over this churning groove, Gillespie gives his take on life:

“I’m beautiful, I wasn’t born to follow,
I live just for today, I don’t care about tomorrow,
What I got in my head you can’t buy, steal or borrow,
I believe in live, and let live,
I believe you get what you give”

The lyrics, a mesh-up of Gill Scott-Heron, Joe Strummer and Jim Morrison, are vintage Gillespie. But I don’t think he ever crystallised his world vision as effectively as in the above verse. Here’s a YouTube video with high-quality audio of ‘Higher Than The Sun’. And notice how I didn’t mention drugs once in this article? Damn. Well, I mentioned it just that once. Listen and enjoy.

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Seeing that the electric picnic festival has just finished up I thought I would mention this song today as it has some related significance to my last adventure at the picnic. As I struggled to maintain the last shreds of human decency late on friday evening this time last year at the picnic I managed to catch these guys playing, i can’t remember the stage but it wasn’t the main one. It was a struggle to get up to the front due the the large audience but I managed it just when they were starting to play this song ( it was probably the end of their set but thats how it took me to get up there). The reason I wanted to get up there badly was to hear this song as it is a kind of an anthem for my mates and I this past year or so and its also the song we played repeatedly on the journey down to the picnic.

The song itself is taken from the album Good news for people who hate bad news which is their fourth studio album. Overall I’m not too sure what to make of Modest Mouse, I guess I could take or leave the band as a whole. Having said that I’ve only have copies of their last three albums so maybe I should get the rest before giving a big thumbs up or down to them.

It’s a really uplifting song lyrically that for me just tells you whatever is going on don’t worry about it and everything will be ok. A song of optimism for those dark days . Its like when a mate pats you on the back and says it alright. Coupled with some a guitar riff and some complementary harmonies it is definitely a song you should have on your playlist to get thru those crappy days. Check out a performance of the song here. We’ll all float on ok…

By the way if anyone is interested, Mark Kozelek a while back issued an album called Tiny Cities which is an album entirely composed of Modest Mouse cover songs. I’ll be posting about Mark in the near future.

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