web analytics

Pop Rock Nation

Tag: David Middleton

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #25: Gentlemen Prefer Blondie

    sdp45

    STEELY DAN  “Peg” b/w “I Got The News” (ABC Records #12320, September 1977)

    As much as I love lo-fi bands that can’t play their instruments, I also go totally Star Trek for impeccably-produced prog and jazz acts with serious chops and boss material.  No American duo better encompassed this phenomenon, mixing in plenty of post-’60’s LA-outsider snark while at it, than Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the core of Steely Dan.  Nevermind the details, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” was hands-down the soundtrack to the summer of 1974, as I flailed apeshit on a rented raft with a snow-cone down at Oscar’s Beach on any given sun-soaked Saturday.  I can still smell the seaweed and coconut oil.  And I can remember staying up past midnight on a school night in late ’77, just to catch a special radio broadcast of their new LP, Aja, played front-to-back with no commercials.

    sdalp

    It all seemed so “adult” then, so mature…like I was peeking into a world I wasn’t supposed to see yet.  Maybe it was the somewhat sexy subject matter.  Or maybe I was just happy to hear something other than “Hotel California” on the radio.  Either way, I completely flipped over “Peg,” Aja‘s first single, much to the dismay of nearly everyone around me.  This 30-plus-year-old track is now a LiteFM staple the world over, so I don’t need to play it for you, but behold this incredible “behind-the-scenes” clip from YouTube.  Thoroughly entertaining.

    Watch The Making Of Steely Dan\’s PEG on YouTube

    That swing-poppin’ Rick Marotta/Chuck Rainey rhythm section, Jay Graydon’s Sol Hoopii-on-shrooms guitar slides, a mountain of Michael McDonaldses…no nerds on Earth could resist.  And resist they didn’t, as Aja sold millions and “Peg” spent 11 weeks in the Top 40, peaking at #11 first week of January.   1978 turned out to be a banner year for The Dan, as they placed two other tracks from Aja, plus their classic theme from the not-so-classic movie, FM, in the Top 40 by the time school was back in session in September.  And you said you were never going back there.

    “I Got The News,” a pumping, pulsating, and very funky album track (featuring a smattering of Larry Carlton and a smidge more Mike McDonald), rounds out this single’s B-side.  Listening to Aja today, it seems very brief, with a total of 7 songs clocking in at just a hair past 40 minutes.  Today’s magnum over-70 minute CD opuses and infinite MP3 playlists dwarf it by comparison, but quality over quantity is what makes The Dan great, and Aja a timeless (and heavily sampled) classic.

    Oh, and just for fun, here’s a link to one of my all-time favorite internet time-wasters, The Steely Dan Dictionary.

    NEXT WEEK: All I want is your extra time and your…uh…something…

  • 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.

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #23: Pimp Who’s Talking

    igho45

    IAN GOMM  “Hold On” b/w “Another Year” (Stiff/Epic Records #50747, Fall 1979)

    September ’79.  School was back in session, and everyone but me had grown a foot taller.  I didn’t care.  I was the only kid in class with tickets to the Dire Straits concert, thee hottest bill in town.  I’d gladly sacrifice a foot of height to have Knopfler & Co. melt my face off from the 3rd row, hands down.  What’s that you say?  You don’t care what I was thinking or feeling or listening to back in junior high 30 years ago?  OK, well fuck you, then.  Just click this link & let the opening chords of today’s 45 RPM platter set you adrift on a sea of memory bliss.

    Play \”Hold On\” by Ian Gomm

    Warming up for the Sultans Of Swing that chilly Fall night 3 decades ago was Ian Gomm, the former Brinsley Schwarz bassist, Nick Lowe cohort, and co-writer of the everlasting power-pop classic “Cruel To Be Kind.”  Touring in support of his Summer Holiday LP (from which “Hold On” was pulled, punnily retitled Gomm With The Wind stateside), Gomm brought along an all-star pub-rock who’s-who to flesh out the material, including Andrew Bodnar on bass and Martin Belmont on guitar.  Twenty-four hour service, in-deed!

    A lush & lovely ballad celebrating out-with-the-old/in-with-the-new mentality (a market once cornered by the likes of Guy Lombardo), B-side “Another Year” would’ve sounded right at home at the tail-end of any of Squeeze’s post-East Side Story LPs, as would just about any tracks off the brilliant Summer Holiday.  “Hold On” climbed to #18 on the US singles charts, and still pops up on AM radio now & then, sounding brilliant as ever.  Still active, Gomm’s current whereabouts can easily be tracked via the ever-rhyming Ian Gomm Dot Comm.

    NEXT WEEK: The greatest garage-rock single of all time?