This Week’s Spotify Playlist – Jake Thackray, Sparks, Bob Lind, Wild Man Fischer
For those of you who are uninterested in my increasingly recondite ramblings on comics, continuity, canon, quantum physics and Doctor Who, here’s some music…
Incidentally, I lose track of what I have and haven’t included in these, but I hope there’s always enough new stuff to keep people interested…
Come To The Sunshine by Harper’s Bizarre is one of Van Dyke Parks’ early songwriting/production works, and a little soft-pop classic.
Soulful Dress by Sugar Pie Desanto is a Chess R&B track from the early 60s, about dressing up before going out.
Vox Wah Wah Ad by The Electric Prunes is just what it says it is – the Electric Prunes demonstrating the proper use of the wah-wah pedal.
It’s A Hard Business by Wild Man Fischer and Rosemary Clooney is… wait a second… let me say that again… by Wild Man Fischer and Rosemary Clooney. Yes, that Wild Man Fischer and that Rosemary Clooney. The homeless schizophrenic outsider musician and the jazz singer who starred in White Christmas and was George Clooney’s aunt. What will I find on Spotify next – Perry Como Sings Jandek?
Mrs Toad’s Cookies by Klaatu is from the last album by the Canadian band, who were most famous for writing Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft and for many people thinking they were the Beatles in disguise. I can *sort of* see the Beatles similarity here – especially McCartney – but to be honest it sounds like a collaboration between Jeff Lynne and Mike Batt. Which is no bad thing…
Wild Man Fischer and Rosemary Clooney?!
Ahem… Lighten Up, Morrissey by Sparks is a message I think we can all agree with…
Wagons West by The National Pep is another one by my own band, but again I do actually think it’s a good song. I wrote the music, my friend Tilt wrote the words. Tilt sings and plays drums, I play all the other instruments and Laura Denison also sings.
The Father, The Son And The Friendly Ghost by The Native Shrubs Of The Santa Monica Mountains is a soft-pop/bluegrass song about Casper The Friendly Ghost, Abraham Lincoln and Trotsky, a Beach Boys-esque waltz-time middle eight (with a tiny hint of Zappa in the changes in the end) contrasting with a common-time banjo-plucking verse.
Living In Sin by Janet Klein is another of her naughty covers of songs from the early part of the last century.
Wild Man Fischer and Rosemary Clooney?
Eleanor by Bob Lind is a great little track from someone who’s mostly only known for the one song Elusive Butterfly. This one’s very, very Lee Hazelwood.
Havana Moon by Chuck Berry is one of the earliest knock-offs of Louie Louie, performed solo by Berry on guitar and vocals.
Misty Roses by Colin Blunstone is one I’m sure I’ve included in a playlist before, but it’s also absolutely gorgeous. A Tim Hardin cover, with a fantastic string arrangement, this is one of those tracks that everyone should own.
Don’t Fear The Reaper by The Beautiful South is a cover version of the Blue Oyster Cult song. I used to live round the corner from Paul Heaton, and he used to go to our local pub on quiz nights, but after my sisters started coming and blatantly gawping at him he stopped going (unsure if it was coincidence…)
On Again! On Again! by Jake Thackray has the greatest opening line of any song – “I love a good bum on a woman, it makes my day/To me it is palpable proof of God’s existence a posteriori“. Anyone who can make bilingual puns in Latin while doing Carry On style humour is all right with me. This song got Thackray pegged as a misogynist by many, who couldn’t see that it was just possibly tongue in cheek (lines like “Please understand that I love and admire the frailer sex/and I honour them every bit as much as the next/misogynist” were probably not meant to be taken entirely seriously…)
And Go Back by Crabby Appleton is a great glammed-up powerpop track, produced I think by Curt Boettcher (it certainly sounds like his work – it sounds like his songwriting as well, actually)
WILD MAN FISCHER AND ROSEMARY CLOONEY?!
New Spotify Playlist – All This Is That
This week’s playlist (a day or two early) started out as a ‘what I’ve listened to this week’ one, then mutated slightly. Now it’s *mostly* soft-psychedelia, with a little raw bluesy stuff thrown in. I think it works…
All This Is That by The Beach Boys is from the criminally underrated Carl & The Passions: So Tough, an album I’d put in their top five. This one’s written by Mike Love, Al Jardine and Carl Wilson, and lyrically is gibberish about Transcendental Meditation, but works just for Love and Wilson’s wonderful vocals (especially Wilson’s soaring ‘jai guru dev’ falsetto at the end). The current touring ‘Beach Boys’ often perform this live, and it’s usually the best thing in the show.
Cross-Hatched World by Chewy Marble is a great piece of 60s-esque pop from Modulations, one of my favourite albums of last year. For those who don’t know, Chewy Marble are led by Brian Kassan, the former bass player for the Wondermints, and are very much the same kind of band.
When The World Is At Rest by Janet Klein And Her Parlor Boys is in here for the delightful tuned percussion. Janet Klein, for those who don’t know, does “Lovely, Naughty and Obscure Music of the 1910′s, 20s and 30′s”, and very well, with a wonderful sense of humour but a respect and love for the material.
Wavestrumental by Tripsitter is from California Son – a very strong album let down somewhat by attempts to sound too much like the Beach Boys (down to quoting Friends and When I Grow Up for no real reason). This track, on the other hand, sounds just like the High Llamas, albeit the High Llamas at their most Beach Boysy, and is all the better for it. A gorgeous little mostly-instrumental, with a lovely vibraphone part.
Where Have You Been All My Life by The Stool Pigeons is a cover of the Mann/Weill song best known as a Gerry And The Pacemakers track. The Stool Pigeons are a band led by Lisa Jenio (also of Candypants and The Negro Problem) who do covers of Merseybeat songs with a punk aesthetic. This one’s one of their few ballads, done as a torch song with loud guitars. Great stuff.
Come And Get It by The Knickerbockers is not, as one might expect from a band best known as Beatles soundalikes, a cover of the Paul McCartney song that was a hit for Badfinger. Rather, it’s a remarkably good bit of blue-eyed soul, sounding very like the Spencer Davis Group or the Small Faces at their most bluesy. This really deserved to be a hit.
The Bride Stripped Bare by Don Preston is not the similarly-named Bonzo Dog Band song, but a really gorgeous Stravinsky-esque piece by the former Mother Of Invention turned jazzman (and, latterly, nostaligia circuit performer). It’s a shame Preston’s so overshadowed by his ex-boss, as he’s very, very talented himself.
No More Hot Dogs by Hasil Adkins is the greatest track by the mad rockabilly one-man band, one of many revolving around his favourite themes of murder and meat. This one’s an invitation to (presumably) his girlfriend to have her head cut off and hung on his wall, so she ‘won’t eat no more hot dogs’.
Electricity by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band is from what I still consider one of Beefheart’s best albums, his first, when there seemed a slight possibility that by compromising just *slightly* he could have commercial success. My friend Tilt once said that another song on this album sounded just like the Monkees, and indeed the ‘sung’ vocals here sound very Mike Nesmith. That said, the spoken vocals and theremin part leave no doubt who this is – Beefheart was trying to put his ideas in commercial form, but still using *his* ideas, rather than the pandering of Unconditionally Guaranteed.
Bubblegum by Kim Fowley is one of several attempts that Fowley, whose metier was novelty records, made to be psychedelic. One imagines it might not be wholly serious.
Kyrie Eleison by The Electric Prunes was, until my friend Blake Jones used it as the theme for one of his albums, the best pop-music Kyrie ever. This is from a time when the Electric Prunes had actually split, and David Axelrod was putting out albums of religious-based psychedelic music under their name, involving one or two original members. The band disown the albums now, but I think they’re rather good.
Cherry Picker by Candypants is a typically funny, observant lyric from Lisa Jenio, but what really makes this for me is the bass part, and the chord progression in the bridge, which sounds very Roger Nichols to me.
And Checkin’ In, Checkin’ Out by The High Llamas is unfortunately one of only three of their songs on Spotify, and not at all typical of them. However, it is a great little pop song, in a sort of middle-of-the-road acousticy way.
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