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  • Infatueighties #51: Need You Tonight

    inxsSex. That’s all you need to know. This song oozes sex. There’s that bluesy guitar riff that repeats throughout the song. Then there’s the skeletal groove-a little funky, a lot sleazy. Finally, there’s Michael Hutchence’s vocal delivery. Half whispered, half screamed, all sexual longing and tension. This was the song that established Hutchence as a Grade “A” frontman and gave his band INXS their first and only #1 American single.

    That paragraph was 69 words. Somehow, that seems appropriate.

    INXS were a killer singles band: “What You Need” and “New Sensation” were among the Eighties’ best songs-thanks to the tight musicianship of the band and Hutchence, who played the sexy angle but had genuine soulful grit in his voice. Although the hits dried up long before Hutchence’s tragic death in the late Nineties, the good music didn’t-“Not Enough Time” and “Disappear” are top-notch singles. Hell, Hutchence even held his own against Ray Charles for one single. Check this video out and tell me these guys don’t deserve more props.

    <center><object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/KL7FY7rwVtQ&hl=en&fs=1″></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/KL7FY7rwVtQ&hl=en&fs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object></center>

  • First Look: Taylor Hicks’ What’s Right is Right

    taytayRevisionist history has cast Taylor Hicks’ win in Season 5 of “American Idol” as a mistake or a joke, but I think it’s one of the only times that America actually made the right decision. Unlike most of the winners, Hicks seemed less preoccupied with being a star than with actually being a successful musician. “Idol” just gave him a platform to bring his sound to a larger audience, but without the show, something tells me that Tay-Tay would still be touring the country in a van, singing his grey-haired little lungs out.

    After dissolving his deal with RCA Records, Taylor has resumed the life of an independent musician (albeit a really famous independent musician) and has just released the first video from his upcoming album called “What’s Right is Right”. As expected, it’s by no means contemporary, but that has no bearing on whether it’s good or not. It’s a cool, late-night midtempo offering that has a vaguely Eighties quality to it. If “Idol” had existed a quarter-century earlier, Hicks would have been topping the charts along with Daryl Hall, Michael McDonald and a host of other blue-eyed soul vocalists. Count Taylor Hicks as one of the few “Idol” alumni that I’m actually looking forward to purchasing a second album by.

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #24: Grapes & Wheat Clock

    ? & The Mysterians' 96 Tears 45

    ? & THE MYSTERIANS  “96 Tears” b/w “I Can’t Get Enough Of You, Baby” (Abkco Records #4020, original realease 1966-67, reissue circa early-’80’s)

    This is not the extremely valuable, highly sought-after original Pa-Go-Go pressing from early ’66.  Nor is it the not-quite-as-valuable-but-still-quite-desirable Cameo/Parkway version that soared to #1 that September.  This is an Abkco double-A-side oldies-bin cash-in repress from the very early 1980’s, when AM counterparts across the country still spun 45s of “Louie Louie” and “Wolly Bully” for the over-40 crowd.

    Needless to say, I latched onto oldies stations like black on a widow;  not only did that hard-driving 2-chord garage rock sound great blasting from the dashboard of a ’65 Dart at 2 A.M., it provided a much-needed antidote to the diabetes-inducing Olivia Newton-John and Air Supply in heavy rotation on pop radio, and the dour, suicide-hotline-on-speed-dial ploddings of all the Pink Floyd and Foreigner clogging up FM AOR at the time.  ’80’s be damned, I was gonna head-bang to ’60’s tracks and keep scarfing up these sexy 45 RPM reissues, my favorite by far being this eternal classic, ? & The Mysterians’ “96 Tears.”

    I’m not going to waste your time with band biographies, speculations on ?’s real identity, the possibility of life on Mars, strange voices emanating from Aztec temples, or even those ever-present, cooler-than-cool wrap-around shades.  You can scour the internet for that crap.  We are gathered here today, my friends, to honor THEE greatest garage-rock single of all time;  to relive the thrill of the sexiest, grungiest, most Vox-organ-driven paean to lost love that could only be conjured by these dynamic young Detroit-based Tex-Mex rock ‘n’ rollers.  Behold this sweet clip before Dick Clark unceremoniously yanks it.  Dig, Lazarus, Dig!

    See ? & The Mysterians performing 96 Tears on YouTube

    The B-side of this disc is actually an A-side from ’67;  our boys give the “96 Tears” treatment to the Brill Building pop classic, “I Can’t Get Enough Of You, Baby.”

    Originally a non-hit for both The Toys and The Four Seasons before them, The Mysterians managed to bring it into the Top 100, but not far enough to make a significant splash.  Steve Harwell and Smash Mouth rehydrated The Mysterians’ arrangement with several gallons of fat-guy sweat and pushed it into the Top 30 in the summer of ’98.  But fuck all that.

    Seen by contemporaries as godfathers of punk, garage rock, and Latino rock, ? & The Myterians are held in high esteem by music lovers of all ages, and “96 Tears” continues to be a staple of oldies radio and beyond.  Despite numerous break-ups and set-backs, The Mysterians (with and without ?) remain active.  You can keep abreast of their happenings at the clunky-but-fun 96Tears.net.

    NEXT WEEK: Drink your big black cow & get outta here.