Tag: rock

563. The Dave Clark Five

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(April 2024) Episode 563 is THE DAVE CLARK FIVE. Of all the contemporaries, the Dave Clark Five looked and sounded the most similar to the Beatles. They even knocked “I Want To Hold Your Hand” off the #1 slot. Their hit “Because” would fit nicely on the Hard Days Night soundtrack. They had success in the U.S. too and were the second British band to appear on the Ed Sullivan show. And like Lennon-McCartney and unlike other peers, Clark and Smith wrote many of their best songs, like “Glad All Over,” “Bits and Pieces,” “Any Way You Want It,” “Catch Us If You Can.” They defied trends by not having a psychedelic period and folded as the 60s ended. As was the custom, they released separate US and UK albums and there’s a lot of filler on them, so choosing a favorite album is a bit hollow.

Favourite album: Glad All Over

Favourite song: Because

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: A greatest hits album is all you need and worth having.

561. Pavement

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(April 2024) Episode 561 is PAVEMENT. I’m too old to have had 90s bands be a formative part of my youth, but still close enough in age to those for whom they were. So I get that Pavement’s slacker rock fit the zeitgeist of the time. And why they gained an indie cult following. But listening to it at a remove, it doesn’t work for me. Kinda boring, gotta say. It wasn’t all bad. But too much strum-beat in here and I can’t stand strum-beat.

Favorite album: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

Favorite song: Trigger Cut / Wounded-Kite at :17

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: If this gives you an emotional jolt of nostalgia, sure. But I can’t recommend coming into this fresh other than as a pop culture historian.

560. The Nice

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(April 2024) Episode 560 is THE NICE. There are some bands only worth knowing as the launching pad for a famous artist. The Nice is one of those. This is where Keith Emerson got his start performing wizardry and violence on his Hammond organ before doing the same with Lake and Palmer. Mixing rock, classical and jazz themes, the Nice helped introduced prog rock, so there is some historical interest. Apparently they got a cult following as a wild live act, although the appeal doesn’t transfer to the recordings, which suffer from weak vocals. Fun fact: Emerson’s trick of sticking a knife between keys to sustain the notes came from roadie Lemmy (yes, him) who gave him a Hitler Youth knife for that purpose. Also, they started out as the backing band for P.P. Arnold, a former back-up singer for Ike and Tina Turner who moved to London for a solo career.

Favourite album: Nice

Favourite song: Rondo

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: For prog rock enthusiasts only.

559. Redd Kross

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(April 2024) Episode 559 is REDD KROSS. They provided a combination of hard guitars and melodic songcraft that filled the gap between 1970s power pop and the 1990s pop punk and power pop revival. LA-area brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald started out with a punk sound but added the melodies by the late 1980s. By its label I should be all over this, but I found the sum less than the parts. Generally their songs lack the hooks that I look for in power pop songs, although their two 2010s albums did do a better job at that.

Favorite album: Researching the Blues

Favorite song: The Nu Temptations

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: The two 2010s albums, but I suspect that true fans will point to their 1980 EP.

558. The Animals

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(April 2024) Episode 558 is THE ANIMALS. I started to write about them as a second-tier British Invasion band but then realized that’s an American-centric view. In the UK they developed a fiery presence on UK R&B scene. But just as I wrote about how the Searchers music proved the magic of the Beatles within Merseybeat, the Animals demonstrate how superior the Rolling Stones were among the blues-based UK bands. The original Animals played with gusto, but they lacked song-writing chops; their main four hits on U.S. radio (“House of the Rising Sun,” “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place,” “It’s My Life,” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”) were composed by others. They fell apart early, and in 1966 Eric Burdon formed another group with his name up front. To me this is the most interesting period, as the albums have a psychedelic and experimental approach, providing the minor hits “San Francisco Nights” and “Sky Pilot.” Bottom line, Burdon’s voice never appealed to me.

Favourite album: The Twain Shall Meet

Favourite song: House of the Rising Sun

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: A great hits LP is enough.

549. Dead Milkmen

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(February 2024) Episode 549 is DEAD MILKMEN. I seems like there were a thousand bands like this when I was in college, but somehow Dead Milkmen stuck in my memory, probably due to the prevalence of “Bitchin’ Camaro” on college radio. It’s easy to see why suburban kids like me in a comfy dorm room would label this punk rock; at most we can call it nerd punk. It’s more fitting to consider them as humor rock because that’s the main thrust of their lyrics and songs. But I find that it hasn’t aged well, compared to bands that exhibited more cleverness and absurdity in their approach, like They Might Be Giants, Violent Femmes and King Missile. Much of my sour impression is due to the vocal style of Joseph Genaro, who comes off as the kid who tried to write a comic series in high school that no one but him thought was funny.

Favorite album: Big Lizard in My Backyard

Favorite song: Bitchin’ Camaro

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Only if it scratches your nostalgia itch, otherwise no need to bother.

548. Siouxsie and the Banshees

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Episode 548 is SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES. There was a goth girl at my high school who was really into Siouxsie and the Banshees and, despite never having heard their music, I declared that therefore I hated the band. Many decades passed and I have gotten into many other bands that also emerged from the late-70s UK punk scene (Wire, Buzzcocks, Stranglers, etc.). So I thought Siouxsie and the Banshees deserved a try. Well, I didn’t dislike it for the reasons that I thought I would have hated it in the 1980s. But I still didn’t like it. I found their music … boring. And Siouxsie Sioux’s wailing annoying. I don’t want to write off all things labeled “goth rock” because of this, but it doesn’t help.

Favourite album: The Scream

Favourite song: Hong Kong Garden

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: Nah

542. Cat Stevens / Yusuf

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(January 2024) Episode 542 is CAT STEVENS, who has also recorded as YUSUF ISLAM and YUSUF.  I detect four phases of his career. 1967-71: He started out in folky pop before transitioning to singer-songwriter mode with gentle songs and sweet melodies. This era produced his most popular tunes and is also his best. 1972-78: Stevens broadened into pop with more orchestration, but also lost the charm of his peak period. 1995-2004: After his conversion to Islam and two decades away from the recording studio, he made some recordings of religious content. 2006-present: As Yusuf, he returned to secular music and a return to his original form with pleasant results albeit with a time-worn voice (also credit to the guru of comebacks, Rick Rubin).

Favourite album: Teaser and the Firecat

Favourite song: Wild World

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: You can make do with a greatest hits of his first period. But for an interesting diversion, try some albums from the recent decade, like Tell ‘Em I’m Gone.

539. Meat Puppets

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(December 2023) Episode 539 is MEAT PUPPETS. In a slightly alternate universe, I would have been into the Meat Puppets from the beginning. But maybe because I didn’t hang around the college radio station enough, I never experienced that entry point that many of my peers did (same goes for me with lots of SST and other bands that followed a similar career arc, like Flaming Lips and Butthole Surfers). Coming at this retroactively, I’m not sure how to approach them. Is it through their first punk offering, their odd prog-guitar/slacker-vocal thing from the late 80s, their Nirvana-aided 15 minutes of MTV fame, their later conventional rock and country rock? Don’t get me wrong, there is lots of good music in here. And I appreciate that they evolved and didn’t rely on retreads.  But I can’t figure out what makes their music special enough to make me want to return to it. Maybe my hipper peers can inform me.

Favorite album: Meat Puppets II (1984)

Favorite song: Lake of Fire

Best mid-period album: Too High To Die (1994)

Best late-period album: Lillipop (2011)

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Kinda depends on your preference, given their style evolution (see above). But I’d recommend the first two raw-sounding albums.

538. The Stranglers

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(December 2023) Episode 538 is THE STRANGLERS. I have this odd fascination with the late 1970s UK musical moment, when vocalists chose to assert rather than deemphasize their British accents; Johnny Rotten’s God Save the Queen being a prime example. The Stranglers were among the burst of groups that emerged from the punk or punk-adjacent scene featuring angular and bass-driven beats and think accents: Wire, The Jam, Buzzcocks, The Clash, Gang of Four, the Damned, etc. Lovely stuff. The Stranglers’ first three albums are classics of this style, but they also stood apart, neither political nor in-your-face. Their sound evolved over the years, not chasing fads but also not plowing new ground. They’ve stayed active until the present, and while the recordings are successively less interesting, they’re not bad. “Golden Brown” is both their most popular and most unusual song with its neo-baroque pop sound.

Favourite album: No More Heroes

Favourite song: (Get A) Grip (On Yourself)

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Listen to the first three albums.