Soul-singer Charles Bradley made a big splash a few years ago with his album NO TIME FOR DREAMING. You might recall that album got a lot of attention due in part to two really interesting covers. One was a version of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” and the other was a fantastic rendition of Nirvana’s “Stay Away.”
Well Bradley is back and so are his oddball covers! This time he chose Black Sabbath’s “Changes.” I’d love this guy for nothing else but his song choices were it not for the fact that every single time he does one of these covers he knocks it right out of the park. His version of “Changes” is amazing. I’m not even sure it’s fair to call his version a cover because he damn near makes the song his. Charles Bradley’s latest album VICTIM OF LOVE came out and I sorely need hear it, even though this song isn’t on it. Apparently his version of “Changes” was a Record Store Day exclusive single. Either way, more attention needs to be given to this guy, he’s great.
This week one of the biggest bands in rock history was added to Spotify. Yes, friends Led Zeppelin is available to stream! I worry that I talk about Spotify a bit too much, but it’s been a godsend for me. The ability to stream a wide swath of popular music has allowed me to dig deeper than I would if I had to go out and buy CD’s. I never was a fan of illegally downloading music, though I did dabble with that in the past.
Led Zeppelin being on Spotify makes me happy for two reasons. Firstly, I just moved and all my CD’s are packed away in boxes. Meaning I’ve been living a horrible Zep-free life. Now I can hop on my computer, or smartphone, and instantly be in Led Zeppelin nirvana. Secondly, having the band’s entire catalogue available at my fingertips will finally allow me to explore the band’s last two albums. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve never heard 1976’s PRESENCE or 1979’s swan song (pun intended) IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR. Sure, I’ve heard a few cuts of each album on the radio, but I’ve never heard them all the way through. It’s basically like I’ve got new Led Zeppelin to listen to!
A few years back, my local Best Buy had a mega-sale on Led Zeppelin albums and I snapped up everything up to PHYSICAL GRAFFITI. Why did I stop there? Well, even though the CD’s were dirt cheap, Mrs. Defending Axl Rose isn’t the biggest fan of my expansive CD collection…so I stopped where everyone said the band stopped being good. But as I sit here, typing this listening to IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR, I can assuredly tell you that Led Zeppelin were good all the way to the bitter end. Would I have had this epiphany without a streaming music service in my life? Probably, though it would have taken me years to work my way back to Zeppelin. If you’ve never fully explored the Led Zeppelin catalogue or if you’re an old-fan like me who haven’t listened to them in years, take some time and explore the band on Spotify.
My Top 10 Led Zeppelin Tracks (1969-1975)
1. “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp” off LED ZEPPELIN III. This is my all-time favorite Zeppelin song. I love the homespun feel of this song, it’s like a campfire song…Led Zeppelin-style.
2. “Living Loving Maid [She’s Just A Woman]” off LED ZEPPELIN II. Repeat after me: love the riff. Killer, killer riff.
3. “The Ocean” off HOUSES OF THE HOLY. Have Robert Plant’s super-high vocals ever been higher? Every time I go to a concert and look back on the swell of faces I think of Plant singing to his “ocean.”
4. “Going To California” off LED ZEPPELIN IV. The entire fourth LED ZEPPELIN album is amazing (everyone knows that) but if I had to pick one song that I love the most from that record it would be “Going to California.” While the rest of the album rages, this song is the quite eye of the hurricane. The song gets bonus points for being about Joni Mitchell.
5. “Kashmir” off PHYSICAL GRAFFITI. A wonderfully weird, and powerfully heavy track. It’s a shame that most kids know it as “that Puff Daddy song.” *Shudder*
6. “Communication Breakdown” off LED ZEPPELIN. The first Led Zeppelin album is more blues-oriented than most people discovering the band after that fact might expect. But while Zeppelin might have pioneered hard rock/heavy metal, they really were just bluesmen. “Communication Breakdown” is a wonderful fusion of blues and hard rock the band would later use to dominate the world.
7. “Immigrant Song” off LED ZEPPELIN III. Elves and hobbits are nice, but it’s when Zeppelin sing about Vikings that my heart soars. Truly this song is the hammer of the gods.
8. “Hey Hey What Can I Do” B-Side to “Immigrant Song.” This is probably the least-known song on this list (and not currently available on Spotify) but man, do I love it.
9. “D’yer Mak’er” off HOUSES OF THE HOLY. Funky. This song is funky. It also features a great vocal performance from Page. Took me many years to learn that this song pokes fun of the way British people say “Jamaica.” Which of course explains the reggae-ish vibe the song has.
10. “Moby Dick” off LED ZEPPELIN II. Come to Led Zeppelin for the killer Jimmy Page riffs and the stellar Robert Plant vocals…stay for John Bonham’s drumming. Why on Earth don’t more drummers try to sound like Bonham? He’s the greatest rock drummer of all time. Period. The song starts with some fun guitar licks and then devolves into an extended drum solo. The genesis of the tune is that it began as something used during the live shows to give the rest of the band a break. “Moby Dick” on record is over 4 minutes long, but Bonham would sometimes play a ten minute version live.
Brit-rockers The Kaiser Chiefs have released a brand new song off their upcoming album EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION & WAR. The album, which will be the bands fifth, marks the first since drummer/lead-songwriter Nick Hodgson quit the band in 2012. The new song, titled “Misery Company,” is pretty good and raises hopes that the band will pull themselves out of their death-spiral-of-mediocrity.
I loved the first two Kaiser Chief albums and had high hopes for the boys from Leeds. The band combined the best parts of 90’s Brit-pop with punk and a danceable beat. But public and critical reaction to the band’s second album YOURS TRULY, ANGRY MOB was the beginning of a decline for the band. Their third album, OFF WITH THEIR HEADS was the last one I sought out and listened to. I haven’t been able to get the courage up to listen to their fourth album, THE FUTURE IS MEDIEVAL. The law of diminishing returns now haunts the band.
“Misery Company” is pretty good. It has the hallmarks of classic Kaiser Chiefs with it’s chugging beat and droning guitars. The keyboards and maniacal laughing are nice touches, too. I do wish the song had more memorable/catchy lyrics and was a little more aggressive. The song’s good, but feels more like a second or third string single. Had the band been on a tremendous roll, I’d say they were just holding back the good stuff–but at this point I think “Misery Company” probably is the good stuff.
St. Vincent’s new single is out, and boy is it great. It fills me with optimism regarding the singer/songwriter/weirdo’s forthcoming album ST. VINCENT. Even though this will be the singer’s fourth album, much fuss was made in the media regarding the fact that ST. VINCENT will be her first major label album. Why is this a big deal? I personally don’t care what sort of label is releasing her album, but after I read a few news articles online I noticed that all of them went out of their way to mention that this new record would be her first on a major label.
None of these articles came out and said so, but what I inferred was that this new record is going to be St. Vincent’s first real album. Like somehow being on a Universal imprint label (that’s right, folks, the album is going to be put out on a smaller record label owned by a conglomerate) legitimizes her as an artist. Though can that really be the case? Maybe I’m reading into this incorrectly…the only other thing I could think is that perhaps people view this as St. Vincent selling out. Ugh, I hate the business side of the music business.
I don’t think that the freaky-lady who recorded one of the best albums of 2012 with David Byrne is only now a legitimate force in the music world because Universal is going to foot the bill to put out her next record. I also don’t think anyone capable of releasing such a bizarre, interesting record with David Byrne is capable of selling out.
Anyway, St. Vincent’s new single “Birth in Reverse” is as funky and weird as one would hope from the lanky songstress. That said, one definitely gets the sense that she’s learned a thing or two from hanging out with pop-freak Byrne. “Birth in Reverse” maybe strange, but it’s also catchy and has a rad fuzzy-guitar riff. Say what you will about The Talking Heads, but the band always put out catchy but off-kilter songs. So, if Ms. Clark is going to take musical cues from David Byrne, I’ll forgive her for going to Christina Aguilera hairstylist.
One of the true joys of being obsessed with music is the endless hunt for one’s next favorite song. This chase for new bands and songs is what keeps me going. People think I actively seek out obscure bands and songs because I’m a snob—but really I just ran out of mainstream stuff. It’s rare that I’ll hear something on the radio and not know what I’m hearing. When it happens, I get really excited and I feel like a desert wanderer who has just spotted an oasis.
I was driving to work when I heard a song on the radio that I’d never heard before. It sounded like a live Bob Marley & The Wailers track. This was at 7:09am on the morning of September 27, 2013. I know this because I did what I always do when I hear something unknown: I took out my phone and used the Shazam app. Shazam is probably my all-time favorite app, it’s great because it saves nerds like me from falling in love with a song and then never getting to hear it again.
I used the app and Shazam tells me that the song is called “Hooligan” and is taken from an album titled ONE LOVE AT STUDIO ONE. This album contains some of the earliest Bob Marley material available, which explains why I vaguely recognized Marley’s vocals but not the song. I liked “Hooligan” so I went on Spotify to see if the track was available. The ONE LOVE AT STUDIO ONE album was not on Spotify, but “Hooligan” was available on a reggae compilation titled ORIGINAL SKA. By the time I’d done this, I was sitting in the parking lot of my office building, so I bookmarked the album and went inside.
Later that day on the way home I fired up Spotify and gave “Hooligan” a listen. The track didn’t really move me the way it did earlier in the day. It was probably a different version than what I heard on the radio. Regardless, I let the compilation play and discovered it contained a pretty good cover of “Son of a Preacher Man” by a band called The Gaylettes. The sound quality was terrible, but the vibe on the track blew me away. I got home and eyed the list of songs on ORIGINAL SKA. One track stood out among all the others: “Banana.” A reggae song called “Banana,” how cool was that? My mind reeled with the possibilities. Life is full of letdowns, and I’ve learned that very little ever lives up to our expectations. Still, I had to hear this song because it had such an interesting title. I figured the song would give me a chuckle and I’d move on with my life. Instead, I stumbled onto an incredibly awesome song with a murky, mysterious past.
Rather than being the depressing banana-picking song I had expected, “Banana” is a joyous ode to everyone’s favorite elongated, yellow fruit. It’s lighthearted, fun, and has a tremendous amount of charm. I played the song over and over for a few minutes, grinning from ear to ear like a moron. “Banana” is an awesome song that I truly love. I know I love it because I can’t rationally explain my affection for it.
I played the song for my wife and the members of my family, everyone who heard it liked it. “Banana” and it’s goofy lyrics even became a kind of shorthand between my and one of my sisters. I began texting them pictures of myself eating a banana with the caption “Everybody like it!” a lyric from the song. For most people, the story would end there: I found a really cool, obscure reggae song that cheers everybody up…The End. But being the songhound that I am, I couldn’t just stop there. I had to know was there more where this came from? Did the genius that cooked up “Banana” have a really great song about blintzes? I started by looking at ORIGINAL SKA which attributes “Banana” to an artist named E.K. Bunch. I did the logical thing, I clicked over to see what other songs E.K. Bunch had available on Spotify. But this proved to be a dead-end; there was only “Banana.”
I was confident that Google would provide more clues, so I searched E.K. Bunch “Banana” song. I was directed to a couple of videos where the people had recorded the song off their old 45 copies, but there was little else. Interestingly, I noticed that the song was often attributed to E.K. Bunch/The Pyramids. This was my first clue to the origin of “Banana.” But information proved to be scare on The Pyramids, so I kept listening to “Banana” and put the search for its source on hold. I didn’t give up per say, life just got in the way: I moved 800 miles away from my home in St. Louis and Thanksgiving happened. This week, however, I found myself in a strange city with no job but with lots of time on my hands. So I decided to get to the bottom of the E.K. Bunch mystery.
A visit to the Trojan Records website explained why tracking down “Banana” was so difficult: it turns out the band behind the song went by a bunch of names (pun intended). They were The Bees, Seven Letters, The Pyramids, E.K. Bunch, Zubaba, and Symarip. That last name, Symarip, was the key to blowing the lid off the entire “Banana” mystery. Having gained a majority of their fame as Symarip, this band name is the catch-all for the others. The band started out as The Bees and was formed in the 1960s by Michael Thomas and Frank Pitter who were of West Indian descent and lived in the United Kingdom. Eventually, The Bees added members and moved to Germany.
The band became Zubaba then The Pyramids and then ended up switching labels due to a dispute and wound up unable to use their name. Someone in the band decided to change their name to Pyramid spelled backwards…minus the letter ‘d.’ Somehow this name, probably with the help of a mystical herb, morphed into Symarip. This became the name they released and re-issued their songs under. Once I had all this figured out, I went back on Spotify and found a really cool live version of “Banana” on an album titled MOONSTOMPIN’ AT CLUB SKA.
While browsing the band’s Spotify page, I noticed that Symarip had a ton of songs about skinheads. I even realized, upon re-listening to “Banana,” that skinheads are mentioned in the song! How had I missed this earlier? I was shocked and worried. I was shocked because in the United States, and unfortunately most of the world today, the term skinhead has a very negative connotation. I was worried because it appeared on the surface that my new favorite song was racists!
Apparently the term skinhead has changed meaning over the years thanks in large part to a few bad apples. The skinhead movement began in the 1950s in the UK. At that time, a skinhead was basically a kid that wore work boots and jeans and liked American R&B music. These kids got together in dance halls and listened to ska and reggae music—which is why Symarip has a ton of songs devoted to skinheads. Eventually some of the skinheads became violent in the late 1960s and the term became associated with the White Power Movement in Europe.
It’s amazing to me that a chance encounter with a really old Bob Marley song led me down a path ending with the White Power Movement. This is the amazing part of being a music geek, the discovery not only of old music…but of the past itself. Maybe I get a bigger kick out of this sort of thing because I was briefly a history major in college, I don’t know. What I do know is that I love falling down the rabbit hole into obscure music and learning all these strange tidbits of trivia.
CASE CLOSED: “Banana” is an awesome song, dashed off by an obscure reggae band that changed its name multiple times. The first thing that you should do is go and listen to the song. Then listen to it again and again, dance if necessary. Then visit Trojan records website and read the entire history of The Pyramids.
It’s not often, but sometimes a song hits you at the exact right moment in your life. As a fat, midwestern schlub writing music reviews on his Axl Rose-themed blog, Resistor’s “Vincent Van Gough” struck a nerve. I guess what I’m trying to say is: please take this review with a grain of (rock) salt, because this song got my number in a big, big way.
“Fame: Is it any wonder I reject you first?”
Resistor is synthpop band languishing in obscurity that is poised to release their first album…soon-ish. The album’s single/central thesis is “Vincent Van Gough.” The song is a tongue-in-cheek look at fame starvation in the Internet age. The song is an anthem for all those lonely Brony’s trying, and failing, to achieve fame online: like I said, it hit close to home for me.
Synthesizers have always fascinated me, so Resistor’s synth-chic rubbed me the right way. Lyrically the song has a very Ray Davies cheery-but-dark sensibility that plays well against the bouncy, upbeat synth accompaniment. The song gleefully name-checks a bunch of really talent people who didn’t achieve fame until after their death (hence the song’s title). I particularly loved the chorus, “I always heard, if you build it they’ll come, but if that doesn’t work, you can always try dying young.” Every time I hear those lines I smile but also involuntarily wince. Fame’s a bitch.
British crooner, and former Smiths singer, Morrissey released a live cover of Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love” today. The song was apparently recorded two years ago in Las Vegas, but is just now being released to no doubt honor the recently deceased Velvet Underground member. That, and the Moz also has an audio book coming out this week, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. Even if it is a bit of a gimmicky-marketing release, the cover is really good.
I’m probably gonna catch a lot of hell for this but: I’m not a big Lou Reed fan. He has a couple of really good songs, but overall I think he’s a bit overrated. That said, I think that Reed’s songs work best when he’s being covered (I call this the Bob Dylan-effect). Morrissey brings his usual charm and almost embarrassingly earnestness to the song, which increases my appreciation of “Satellite of Love.” In fact, if I hadn’t just re-listened to Reed’s TRANSFORMER I’d have sweared this was an original song.
Sometimes all it takes is one song to make me a fan. Adam Green, formerly of the Mold Peaches, managed to earn my undying affection on his 2006 solo record Jacket Full of Danger with the song “Novotel.” A quirky word-salad sung in the style of a demented (drugged out?) lounge act, “Novotel” has it all: Toothy Mennonites, Teddyboys, women in the factory. Clocking in at one minute and forty seconds, “Novotel” is wall-to-wall crazy. And I love every second of it.
But the best part is when Green proclaims he’s smoking crack…like Isaac Asimov. It’s such a wacky, out-there thing to sing. The lyric is delightfully whimsical, yet wonderfully vulgar. I thought I’d shuffle off this mortal coil without hearing someone compare their crack consumption to Isaac Asimov’s. Adam Green proved I was wrong.
“Novotel” is a fantastic evergreen of a song: I fell in love with “Novotel” the first time I heard it six years ago, and it still gets me gets me today. I’ve tired sharing this song with various friends/acquaintances over the years, and nobody ever likes it. Green’s talky-singing style and his “is this guy for real?” delivery of ludicrous lyrics makes Jacket Full of Danger not everyone’s cup of tea*. But for me the album, and “Novotel” in particular, an absolute delight.
Oh, he’s not serious…is he?
*On the song “Hey Dude” Green proclaims that, “Bob Dylan was a vegetable’s wife!”
A few weeks back I heard a really great interview of Electric Light Orchestra frontman/genius Jeff Lynne on Adam Carolla’s daily podcast. It’s really rare that anyone hears from Lynne these days, so if you’re an ELO fan you owe it to yourself to give it a listen. I’d never heard Lynne speak before, so hearing the man’s speaking voice was a bit of a treat.
Lynne talked a lot about his songwriting and recording process. Lynne also talked about his love of digital recording technology and his album of re-recorded hits MR. BLUE SKY-THE VERY BEST OF ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA, which takes a page out of filmmaker George Lucas’ playbook by redoing his work from the 1970’s using computers.
I’m not sure how I feel about MR. BLUE SKY. On one hand I understand why Lynne felt compelled to go back and re-record his greatest hits. These new versions sound infinitely clearer than they did back when Lynne recorded them, limited as he was by analog tape. There were only so many layers Lynne could use back then, and a lot of ELO’s past albums do sound very washed out. But despite all the care that Lynne took to remake his songs exactly like they sounded…they don’t sound like the original versions. We’ve all heard those lame re-recorded Greatest Hits cash-ins that so many older bands do (always for monetary/contractual reasons) and MR. BLUE SKY isn’t one of those at all. But the newer sound effects and backing vocals sound a slightly off from the 1970’s originals. Anyone with a passing familiarity of these songs might not notice, but I did and I found it a bit distracting.
While I was on my ELO-kick, I discovered a really great lost ELO track: “Surrender.” Recorded during the A NEW WORLD RECORD sessions back in 1976, “Surrender” was supposed to be used in film that got cancelled and the song was forgotten until 2006 when it was released as a bonus track on A NEW WORLD RECORD. Interestingly, the song was also the first ELO song put on iTunes.
“Surrender” is a great, stripped-down (for ELO) song. It features a really great jangly-guitar and reverb-drenched lead vocals. It actually reminds me of a Roy Orbison song, it has that old school rock feel to it. This is probably intentional as Lynne is a huge Orbison fan. Lyrically and thematically it would have worked well with “Telephone Line.” Whereas “Telephone Line” was about the desperation of trying to get through to someone, “Surrender” is more jaded. I think “Surrender” would have balanced A NEW WORLD RECORD out a little better in that it is a bit darker than the rest of the album and as mentioned less busy. Although it might seem stripped down because as a neglected song, it wasn’t give the full studio treatment. That said, “Surrender” is pretty polished and sounds perfectly complete, so who knows.
When I first heard it I was instantly blown away, my first thought was, “Why in the hell was this left off the album?” This song could have been, should have been a massive hit for the band back in the mid-1970’s. Give it a quick spin, or two:
Good news, Californian stoner-punks Wavves released an arty video for their new song “Sail to the Sun” a few days ago. By arty I mean the band doesn’t appear in the video and it’s horribly depressing. The song is pretty good and equally depressing. This is the first new Wavves music since last year’s LIFE SUX Ep, which was really good. The band also guest-stars on rapper Big Boi’s latest album, VICIOUS LIES AND DANGEROUS RUMORS. On that album they appear on the song “Shoes for Running” which is 1000% less depressing than “Sail to the Sun.”
Where have Wavves been? Why has it taken them so long to get their act together and put out a new record? Hopefully 2013 will see a new Wavves album and cross-country tour, it’s been entirely too long since I’ve seen them.
In the mean time, pop an anti-depressant and watch the video for “Sail to the Sun.”
Defending Axl Rose 