After a recent Song of the day featuring an American band pretending to be The Beatles, and another one featuring an American band singing about a Japanese pet, it's time to get back to something Australian. Sort of.
Here's "Arkansas Grass," an Australian song by an Australian band about the American Civil War (yes, really) – complete with a video of the Australian members of that Australian band dressed up as 19th-century American soldiers (well, why not?):
Yesterday's Song of the day contained a Monster Guitar Riff, and that reminded me of today's song which is not only full of magnificent Monster Guitar Riffs but is also actually about a monster (everyone's favourite Japanese monster, to be exact). This song isn't Australian, and it isn't even power pop, but it is great*.
Oh, a small suggestion: before you press 'play', please turn the volume of your sound system up to, at the very least, absolute maximum...
This is a painful-for-me musical coincidence involving the hallowed Jellyfish* and a band called Walter Clevenger And The Dairy Kings. It's painful for me because it adds fuel to the argument some people have about the amount of variety in power pop. (A standard comment: "Power Pop? It all sounds the same!".) Unfortunately for people who do hear a great amount of variety in power pop – and champion the power pop cause – the following coincidence won't help them one bit.
Both songs start with strumming guitars. Here's the start of Walter's "The Day I Found You":
Today's song is "So Young" by Jo Jo Zep And The Falcons. It has a slightly ska, slightly Elvis Costello vibe* until, at precisely the one-minute mark, you're presented with a Monster Guitar Riff. For me, the best thing about this song is that Monster Guitar Riff:
"So Young" originally appeared on a 1978 mini-album of the same name. The song was re-recorded for the band's Screaming Targets album a year later. The 1979 version is much poppier but I'm not keen on it (the newer version, with its 'poppier' sounds, obscures the Monster Guitar Riff):
(*Jo Jo Zep And The Falcons weren't the only ones – plenty of other Australian bands at the end of the 1970's were sounding a lot like Señor Costello.)
"I Just Want To Touch You" appears on Deface The Music, an album that cheerfully plunders the entire Beatles catalogue. Deface The Music is my second-favourite Beatles tribute/homage/rip-off ever.
As a bonus, and to let you know how good great I think the album is, here are some more tracks from it:
Here's Australian band The Radiators with a song I tried very very hard not to like (I kept telling myself things like "I don't like it! It's too simple! It's built around one tune! And the singer's trying to sound like a snotty punk!" etc) until I finally gave in and realised that it's a horrendously catchy song whether you like it or not:
By the way, I've just discovered that there's a band from New Orleans called The Radiators, as well as an Irish band called The Radiators billed as "Philip Chevron's Irish punk group" but the link to their website didn't work. Ah, well. But then I found a link to Philip Chevron and learned that he was a member of The Pogues. I also learned that he created two bands with the phrase "The Radiators" in it: The Radiators From Space; and The Radiators (Plan 9). Boy, the Internet can be a time waster...
I have a love/hate relationship with this particular band (I love the music / hate the name), and the last time I mentioned them it was with the song "Whole World Reminds Me Of You" which contained an f-bomb for no particular reason that I could see (or hear).
I'm pleased to say that not every song from this band contains swearing. Here's one of their clean* ditties:
It's time to put on your skinny tie, because Loaded Dice are here to ask you out for the evening and...
Loaded Dice - "Come And Take Me Tonight" (1979)
Update: I've been notified by the owners of the song that they're not especially keen on "Come And Take Me Tonight" appearing here. They'd much rather it appear on your CD shelf.
"Come And Take Me Tonight" is just one of the many frisky tracks on their 1979 album, No Sweat, which was recently reissued after being remastered/rejigged/re-whatever-it-is-independent-companies-do-to-albums by Australian Power Pop 1975-1995, a blog that's performed a valuable public service here (thanks, Australian Power Pop 1975~1995!).
If you're so inclined (for example, if you're a card-carrying skinny tie wearer), you'll want to let your electronic fingers do the walking and zoom on over to Zero Hour Records and buy the little critter. You know you want to.
Today's song was originally a well-known Australian band and their rip-roaring raver "Hey Little Boy" (1988), but alas I've been told three times now that whatever was on this page was naughty – not in an "Oo la la!" way, but in a "We're gonna get the lawyers on to you" way.
So, until I can figure out just what was bothersome about this post you're going to have to be content with these words. Many apologies, folks.
I've been pestering songs from the 70's mercilessly these past few days, so for a little while at least I'll do my best to find you some songs that aren't from my favourite musical decade.
"Love Fever" was yet another song in the never-ending stream of 1970s' compositions/productions by the unstoppable force that was Harry Vanda and George Young.
Oh, speaking of Vanda and Young: I forgot to mention yesterday who wrote and produced "Can't Wait For September" (yesterday's Song of the day). Yep, you guessed it. Harry and George wrote and produced that, too.
But back to Ray. As a bonus for those of you who can't enough of Ray (you know who you are), here he is again with "Lover Boy" (1979):
(*I just noticed that the "Wednesday Night Rock 'n' Rage" poster at the top of this post unhelpfully misspelled Ray's last name.)
I was over at Popdose again, this time reading The Popdose Guide to the Steve Miller Band, Part 2. When I played one of the songs in that post I thought they'd made a mistake. It's "Something To Believe In" which I'd never heard before, and it starts thusly*:
I know that it's only the first five notes of each song, and probably very trivial, but it gives me an excuse to play you "Never My Love," one of all-time favourite sunshine pop songs.
I was trying to figure out how to describe today's song – is it rock, pop, cabaret, melodramatic balladeering, Anthony Newley/David Bowie over-emoting, or is it just pure cheese? – but then I gave up. I think it's indescribable:
Erl Dalby and Pyramid - "Can't Wait For September" (1970)
I was recently over at Popdose reading Part 90 (!) of the Bottom Feeders series which is dedicated to songs that just missed out on entering the top 40 of the Billboard Top 100. And I can understand why: I thought that quite a few of the songs in that post were simply dreadful.
Anyway, in amongst the dreadful songs was an outstandingly dreadful song called "High Energy" by Evelyn Thomas. It starts like this:
It looks like "High Energy" does nothing to dispel the notion a lot of people had about disco having no variety.
By the way, Wikipedia describes the Village People as a "concept disco group". I didn't know there was such a thing. (The phrase "concept disco group" sounds like an oxymoron to me.)
Anyway, here are the full versions. I'm sorry about this:
If you think the backing tracks for both those songs sound similar, you're right: they're actually the same. The Bee Gees recorded "Coalman" in 1966 and then, for some reason, decided not to release it. It finally appeared in 1970 on a not-entirely-official** compilation (Inception/Nostalgia) and then in 1998 on another not-entirely-official*** compilation (Brilliant From Birth).
As a bonus, here's another version of "Coalman." It's by Mr. Lee Grant, a New Zealand pop star who was born Bogdan Kominowski. (I love rock trivia.)
For today's song, I wanted to play you something recent by Even but it was a toss-up between "Sister Rock" and "The Common Law" as I was trying to decide which one was catchier. But then I thought, "Why not just play both songs you fool, and let your readers* decide for themselves?"
It's been rather hot where I live (South Australia) for the past few weeks, and so thoughts naturally lead to summery songs. When my mind wanders into what-Australian-song-about-summer-shall-I-play territory, today's song is the one I always think of first.
Unfortunately for a lot of Australians with access to a radio, as soon as the weather warms up it's this song that gets trotted out and played relentlessly. Also unfortunately – and similar to the fate that has befallen Daddy Cool's "Eagle Rock"* – this overexposure has led to far too many Australians crying out "No! Not again!" and hating the song, vowing to throttle any radio programmer who dares to play it for the 957th time.
However, if you're not from these parts – and especially if you've never heard it before – then this will be a (hopefully) highly enjoyable experience because I think this song is great power pop, and a magnificent piece of summerosity:
(*"Eagle Rock" is played all the time on Australia radio, and not just in summer, which probably makes it the most played Australian song ever. I don't know if it actually is, statistically speaking, but it sure feels like it.)
I was almost not going to play you today's song because of the swearing in it. (One rant coming up...)
I'm really not much of a fan of swearing. To me, it's an indication of a limited vocabulary – can't people think of other words to say? I tend to sigh disappointedly when an artist starts dropping f-bombs (or something similar) in a song. I usually frown and wonder if they could have used their imaginations to come up with something more creative – something other than a clumsy and ineffective attempt at "shocking" people, or being "real" with their "street talk," or something else I can't think of at the moment that requires me to use "inverted commas".
Rant over.
Now, back to today's song.
Splendid is an Australian duo currently residing in Los Angeles. It's singer Angie Hart (pictured above) partnered by her husband Jesse Tobias. Angie's been in a few bands (such as the wonderfully-named Holidays On Ice), but her most notable success was with her first band, Frenté!, who had a run of hits in the 80's with songs like "Ordinary Angels" and "Accidently Kelly Street." ("Accidently..." was Song of the day a while back.)
Today's song, "Come Clean," was Splendid's second single. It does contains swearing (hence the rant), but I have to admit that I find it justifiable in this particular song because it's actually an integral part of the lyrics (you'll know what I mean when you hear the song), as Angie sings about her admission of infidelity. And another thing: because Angie sings with an angelic and totally beguiling voice, the swearing ends up sounding utterly inoffensive.
Okay, now that I've got all that out of the way (i.e., my objections to swearing in pop songs and elsewhere but sticking up for Angie's artistic cussin'), here's Splendid with "Come Clean":
As a bonus, here's the 'DNA Remix' of "Come Clean". One unusual aspect of this version is that it doesn't have any swearing in it. I don't quite know why. I had originally thought that maybe Splendid revised the lyrics in this version to garner radio airplay, but then I thought that may not be the reason because, as far as I can tell, a lot of artists nowadays try to include swearing in their songs so that the swearing will get bleeped for the radio which would (theoretically) result in increased sales because of all those teenyboppers listening to the bleeps and saying to their friends, "Wow, I gotta buy the unedited version! It's so naughty!"
I was originally going use as many words as possible to express my utter amazement, incredulity, unbelievability etc at today's coincidence and go on and on about it, but I thought I'd just shut up, get out of the way, and let you hear for yourself:
The Fifth Estate were a US band who had a novelty hit in 1967 with "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead!" (from The Wizard of Oz). The Beatles, on the other hand, you've probably heard of. (At least I hope you've heard of The Beatles.)
I don't know what possessed The Fifth Estate to write "Kisses For Breakfast," but in a way I'm glad that they did. It answers the age-old question: what would a bubblegum version of "Drive My Car" sound like?
As a bonus, here's The Fifth Estate with their biggest hit:
You may love it, you may hate it, but that sure is one catchy song.
Many apologies if you're Australian and listening to this song for the umpteenth time. "Bop Girl" received an inordinate amount of airplay in the 80's in Australia which was probably due to Pat's proximity to hubby Ross who wrote and produced the song as well as providing the backing vocals. (Ross also responsible for a sizeable chunk of Australian rock history, being the main man for Daddy Cool in the 70's and Mondo Rock in the 80's, as well as producing a large number of successful Australian artists such as Skyhooks – but this is Pat's post, not Ross's.)
Despite its (possible) over-exposure here, I don't think "Bop Girl" was played outside of Australia. Wikipedia says it was, but I don't always believe what Wikipedia tells me.
So if you're new to the song, bop away as much as you like. But if you're an individual who's spent the last couple of decades trying to forget it ever existed, I offer a heartfelt and sincere "Oops". Maybe tomorrow I'll have a song that you haven't heard.
By the way, the Lost In The Grooves blog has a nice article about "Bop Girl" with a lot of trivia.
(*I haven't been able to find out what song kept "Bop Girl" out of the number one spot. What was it?)
Apart from its general grooviness (or should that be "Groop-iness"?), my favourite part of the song is the tom-toms. They're very well recorded, and possibly the loudest thing on the track. Listening to the song – and its rampant use of tom-toms – I wonder if the band had recently spent a lot of money on a new set of tom-toms for their drummer and were determined to have them recorded as prominently (and as often) as possible. ("Hey, engineer guy – we spent an entire year's allowance on those toms. You better make them loud and clear, pal...")
However, there is one thing about the song that concerns me: the lead singer sounds as if he has weak bones, because he keeps singing about how his woman is breaking him. (That can't be good. How is he going to perform in front of a crowd if he's broken?)
I can't for the life of me figure out why this particular song popped into my head and beckoned me to make it today's Song of the day. I hadn't heard this song since it was released in 2006, and I was listening to Mike Viola's Lurch at the time, so I'm at a complete loss as to why this totally-unrelated-to-anything ditty chose to appear. Ah, the mysteries of the human mind...
Anyway, today's song is by British band the Delays, and you'd be forgiven if you've never heard of them before. As far as I can tell, they've received minimal (if any) coverage in the press in Australia, and I'm guessing it's the same in the US. They may be better known in the UK, though. (I hope so, because that's where they're from.)
If you haven't heard anything by the Delays, then allow me to rectify this slightly dreadful state of affairs and acquaint you with...
You can keep your Radiohead, Muse, Coldplay and all those other terribly serious bands from the UK – I'd much rather listen to the Delays.
"Hideaway" appears on the Delays' 2006 album, You See Colours. As a bonus, and because I'm in the mood to listen to some more Delays, here's the album's opening track:
To my ears, the Delays have that Big Earnest Sound™ currently used by U2, Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Keane etc, but with infinitely better tunes. (Well, that's what I think anyway. Feel free to disregard any of my opinions if you're emotionally attached to any of those bands. I don't like em, but you might.)
Incidentally, a lot of people think that it was U2 who begat the Big Earnest Sound™, but I reckon it was Simple Minds who started it all. They slapped reverb (i.e., echo) on everything in their recordings, and their music ended up sounding enormous. (I was going to use the word "cavernous" but I already used that in another post. Considering that every Simple Minds song sounds as if it was recorded at the bottom of a canyon, how about "canyonesque"?).
To me, U2 pinched Simple Minds' Big Earnest Sound™ and ran with it on their way to world domination. Then Coldplay came along with a diluted version of U2's Big Earnest Sound™ on their way to world domination.
Unfortunately for me, there are now plenty of bands from all over the globe employing the Big Earnest Sound™ – even Australia, where Eskimo Joe is currently the King of the Big Earnest Sound™. (Eskimo Joe started out as a little power-poppy three-piece band but now they sound like a 726-piece band. And they've become very earnest.)
But you may completely disagree with my pompous pronouncements, and that's fair enough. For all I know, you may like your rock Very Big and Extra Earnest. As they say in the land of Americans: your mileage may vary.
Nevertheless, if I was asked to name a Big Earnest Sound™ band that I do like (and I'm full aware that no-one has – or is likely to), I'd say without hesitation that it's the Delays. Vive la tunes!
B-b-b-baby i could be your superstar And take too many drugs in a celebrity bar K-k-k-keep my skin soft and shining from afar For my high speed death in the back of a car B-b-b-baby i could be your superstar And we could boot champagne and snort caviar S-s-s-stick with me honey and you'll go far As we watch the world burning from a heated spa
Burn baby burn (x4)
Regurgitator certainly don't mind biting any hand that feeds them.
Do you remember a few days ago I featured a new band called Research Turtles in a Song of the day? (If your memory's like mine, then you won't at all.)
Well, the band just let me know that they have a shiny new official website you can have a gander at.
And...
Not content with sending themselves broke by sending me copies of their album (thanks, guys!), they've also taken it upon themselves to hand out free downloads of their album on their new website for a limited time.
So, if you're in the mood to download the Research Turtles entire discography (i.e., their debut album) completely free of charge, then shimmy on over to researchturtles.com.
(*Don't you hate liner notes that are quite happy to give you a detailed biography of the band telling you how great they were, but neglect to mention when the songs were actually recorded and/or released? Grrr.)
