Dillo/ Buttsteak '11, part 3: Ringo plus Bee Gees plus...

Hey alls-  As winter continues to treat us northeasterners to yet another aggressive lion-lamb spiral, here's pretty much the last of the stuff that Dillo and I completed from our N.C. heatwave summer shack-up back in 2011.   In the interest of clearing the decks for the next batches of posts (the Harpswell Hootenanny, Stackpole and Roadkill-Buttsteak sessions from 2012), I figured I'd just send these off.  I do hope you're enjoying them, and do love to hear back your thoughts on things, so don't be shy!

"Photograph" was a Ringo-George co-write on the "Ringo" album from '73.  This particular version stays true both to the original version and the version by our old faves Camper van Beethoven off their late-80s chock-full-of-wonderful EP "Vampire Can Mating Oven".

"Massachusetts" goes even further back for the Brothers Gibb.  1967 to be precise.  That's a good ten years before their full swing through R&B and then disco and then all the smooth, horrible, weird stuff that they closed out with. 

There are a couple beautiful versions of "By the Time It Gets Dark" by Sandy Denny, she of Fairport Convention and "The Battle of Evermore" and a solo career and the usual substance-fueled self-destruction.  You can check the YouTubes for a nice, smooth, Bonnie Raitt-like one, or a spare solo acoustic version, both from around '77, methinks....  The one here toes a hard line to Yo la Tengo's cover version of the song that showed up on their also chock-full-of-wonderful EP "Little Honda" in '98.

jk

Photograph (Ringo Starr- George Harrison):
https://www.box.com/s/zl4zcedwai724jra15lu

Massachusetts (the Bee Gees):                
https://www.box.com/s/o2zukjg5k4decgbpwkp4

By the Time It Gets Dark (Sandy Denny):
https://www.box.com/s/222nokiqi9z10nx04ai4

Dillo/ Buttsteak '11, part 2: In which me and the Big Man head back to 1982 or so for some FM radio staples

True, Paul R. Cardillo and I go way back to the Silver Lake Day Camp/ St. Ant'ney's days, but the mind-meld really began with our time at the good ol' Iona Preparatory School.  Before we'd managed to acquire a guitar or drumset or a bass, and before we'd finagled Cunningham or Stack or Maff or anybody else into a band, we managed to squeeze in a whole lot of riding the bus to and from New Rochelle, watching TV, eating cold cuts and sitting around playing records.  To which end, this little two-fer posting could have just as well included something off of Ozzy's "Diary of a Madman" or the Stones "Tattoo You", The Who's "Face Dances", the Moody Blues "Long Distance Voyager", Blondie's "Parallel Lines", Blue Oyster Cult's "Extraterrestrial Live", the Cars' "Shake It Up", the Police's "Zenyatta Mondatta", or lord knows what.  But what you get here is one big fish in particular and one big little fish.

The Kinks' "Give the People What They Want" came out in 1981 and pretty much capped a late-career renaissance for them.  Little did we know that the real golden years for the Kinks were back through the late 60's and turn of the 70's (all the discs from "The Kinks Kontroversy" through "Muswell Hillbillies" are required for this course)---- There was too much crap to wade through, as the vinyl bins at the mall and everywhere else were choked with the band's confusing and generally cruddy Arista releases.  Lacking all those whippersnapper internets, our launch points for the Kinks were the double-live (huzzah!) "One for the Road" and their follow-up retort to the punks and new-wavers, the studio "GtPWTW" (the former of which still stands up pretty well, and the latter even better).  And, seriously, "Better Things" woulda/ shoulda been a hit record whenever it was put out.  As with the Stones' "Waiting on a Friend", it is just that good.

The Monroes, on the other hand, never really had a career from which they could manage a renaissance, nor much of a history to talk about.  It was pretty much the one hit single from 1982, and then back to obscurity in San Diego or wherever.  Oh, but what a single it is!  I'd totally forgotten about the song, which was a fairly sizeable national hit, until Dillo linked me to a YouTube vid of an appearance on the Mike Douglas Show.  It also is just that good!

jk

Better Things:     https://www.box.com/s/0wrathwnltg4pkfxa81u


What Do All the People Know?:   https://www.box.com/s/dphf67dipp68no93e0hw

Dillo/ Buttsteak '11, part 1: In which we cover the Ramones

Catching up on old business now, we're delving into a batch of songs that started back in July of '11 during a visit to the Cardillo-Canada compound down in the woodsy outskirts of Chapel Hill, NC.  As fate would have it, this ended up being in the middle of a swampy, mind-melting 105 degree stretch down there, so we weren't going much of anywhere between, say, 10A and 6P.  Paulie and I locked ourselves in their tiny spare room with a guitar and a bass and an ample supply of beer and started laying things down. 

"Danny Says" is a Ramones classic from their "End of the Century" (1980).  Seems as if they were a bit homesick for Queens, being stuck in L.A. during Christmastime, recording with a lunatic and trying (in vain) to break through to mainstream success.  As that fine record was a Phil Spector production, I couldn't resist the Hal Blaine tribute on the drums, nor the glockenspiel.

"Chinese Rock", as befits a scuzzy song about scoring heroin, was written either by that bizarre happy/ tragic trainwreck Dee Dee Ramone and/ or NYC punk pioneer Richard Hell and/ or textbook drug casualty and self-destruction icon Johnny Thunders of the Heartbreakers.  Needless to say, we tried to put the fun back into narcotic dependence and the dirty downtown NYC of the late '70s.  This is not the last you'll hear from Dillo's zany little synth drum box...

JK

Danny Says:       https://www.box.com/s/wss9qsnriag3ynkeld0a


Chinese Rock:   https://www.box.com/s/a6aem8xlwexzch9sqzdp