Hoot '12: Clash/ Brian Eno covers

Hoot '12: "Julie's in the Drug Squad" b/w "King's Lead Hat"

More goods from last year's springtime Harpswell Hoot and beer-slaughterin'!

First one's originally off the Clash's rock-solid second album, "Give 'em Enough Rope" from '78.  Second's off Eno's '77 "Before and After Science".

Dillo educated us to the fact that "King's Lead Hat" is an anagram of "Talking Heads", a band that Eno had just gotten to know at the time.  You can certainly see the (mutual) influence even in our spastic version.  It's a crazy chugging locomotive of a song, nonsensical though it may be.

I'm educating you to the fact that if it's the Clash  that somebody's spinning, well, you'd better listen up because the odds tell you that it's probably gonna be goddarned great.  Shaddup-a-you-face!

 jk

"Julie's in the Drug Squad" (The Clash):
                       https://www.box.com/s/mz9mxos0kjeu27646zwi


"King's Lead Hat" (Brian Eno):
                      https://www.box.com/s/vlp2jryl5jcxohs0e4hb

Hoot '12: NRBQ/ Billy Joel covers

Hoot '12: "Riding in My Car" b/w "Sleeping With the Television On"

Finally, finally, finally!  With Harpswell Hootenanny 2013 almost upon us, we get around to sharing the hit rekkids we laid down at Hoot '12!  Thems the hooty fellas responsible up there in the picture:  Dillo, me, Paulie Bonanos and Mr. Roadkill.  Roggie had to sit one out on account of a family addition, but the rest of us soldiered on in the face of all the drinks and fine dining.  Looks like we'll be up to full strength by the end of May '12...

But, back to this post's fare... "Riding in My Car" is from one of the great all-purpose pop-rock-roots-bar bands ever: The New Rhythm and Blues Quartet.  NRBQ to you n' me.  Always loosey-goosey, they could be spastic, wacky, cornball, hangdog or heartbroken, and they were plum loaded with shoulda-been hits from their various incarnations.  This one was a perfect little gem from 1977.  On our version, Paul B played those clean little leads, I got to layer on some percussion and have fun singing some harmonies, and Dillo and RK breezily loped along in summery fashion.

"Sleeping with the Television On" was a no-brainer for us.  It's a rocking Billy Joel deep cut off of 1980's angry, wanna-rock, wanna-punk "Glass Houses".  Roger (Long Island) and Paul B (northern NJ) got the full Billy Joel indoctrination as young 'uns; me and Dillo (Westchester) listened to it on the 8-track back in the old Keating homestead; Roadkill soaked it up from afar down Roanoke way.  Paulie did the hard work on this version, mostly by teaching us the chords (!), plus playing the Wurlitzer and over-dubbing that great organ solo.

jk

"Riding in My Car" (NRBQ):
             https://www.box.com/s/b6lz152bimnuzm66tiwk


"Sleeping with the Television On" (Billy Joel):
             https://www.box.com/s/fv9vizen9ry1ku5e04mc

Holiday Special!: "Streams of Whiskey"

Ah, St. Patrick's Day just about sneaked up on me.  It is something that one tries to avoid up here in the Boston metro area, as you might imagine.  But I do have a soft spot and came up with a last-minute scheme to record an appropriately themed split single (appropriate for reinforcing stereotypes, that is!).  Sadly, time ran out on completing the full package but I was able to squeak out this one session late Monday afternoon, trying to keep the dog collar jingles and (surprisingly loud) cat kibble crunching kept down to a dull roar.  You'll have to wait a while for "The Old Black Rum" by Newfoundland's proud sons Great Big Sea...

So, yeah, the Pogues.  I really don't play the Irish traditional music, which requires too much speed and precision for us sausage-fingered pickers, but I figured a slightly slowed-down crack at this hell-raiser would be fun.  At the same time, it's a hard song to drain the brogue out of but it's worth trying, on account of it's such a a great free-standing song.  Plus, I ain't gonna fake no accent 'cause I ain't Irish.  Dirty secret: Neither were any of the Pogues except Shane MacGowan, who only barely squeaks by if you rummage carefully through the paperwork.

Fun tip!: You might want to write your Buttsteak representatives and suggest that they take this song up.

As we say in Harpswell: "Sláinte, y'all!!"

JK

Streams of Whiskey:  https://www.box.com/s/egqfybpwqukzs41c9smn

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

The Band, covered acoustically

Hey folks--

These two covers were a long time in coming and, in all truth, they're a long way from sufficient.  As with Neil Young on the last post, what can I say about the Band and the crater-sized impression they left on me?  I've ripped SO MUCH off ALL of those guys that I barely know where to start.  I guess the only exception maybe is Garth Hudson on the organ, because he inhabits such another universe that I can barely wrap my head around how good he is.  But rarely a day passes when I'm not trying to pull off some Band harmonies, or lift something off Robbie Robertson's stinging guitar, Richard Manual's in-the-pocket piano, Rick Danko's thumping and off-kilter bass and, first and foremost, Levon Helm's drums. 

Levon.  Of them all he was/ is/ will be The Man, for his drumming, singing, occasional mandolin picking and mostly for his genuine Levon-ness. I was sad to hear about Richard's suicide back in my first year at JHU in '86 and Rick's slow-motion self-induced death over ten years ago, but learning of Levon's recurrent illness and then his death last spring was an absolute punch in the gut.  I thought it would barely make a wider ripple, but was amazed to hear the outsized response that his loss engendered from all corners of the media, mainstream and other wise.  It really renewed my faith in people, this expression of so much gratitude and respect and remembrance and sorrow and joy.  So I set my mind on quickly posting a few covers and now, nine months on, here they are.  And neither of them primarily sung by Levon.  Go figure!

I hesitated to even try recording "It Makes No Difference" on account of just what the song means to me.  It's late-era Band (1975), by which time the SoCal rock star life had splintered them and left them often musically scattershot, sterile and flabby.  But they could still bring it, both live and in the studio--- in this case  the stately progression and the broken narrator accompanied by the instantly recognizable harmonies and what are basically perfect guitar and soprano sax solos.  It might be Rick's best vocal performance.  I guess some would regard it as saccharine but it always seemed to me that there was really something at stake for the guy in the song.  Stops me in my tracks every time.  I've included both "full" and "bare bones" versions below.

"Katie's Been Gone" is lighter fare, dating (aside from maybe some overdubs) back to the 1967 Saugerties "Basement Tapes" days of Dylan and the Hawks/ the Band, with a fantastic, lovelorn vocal by Richard Manuel.  It tells a great story.  The very Band-y half-time/ minor and double-time/ major parts just about tell the tale on their own, with the fancy little bridge section adding a nice something.

jk

It Makes No Difference (full):   https://www.box.com/s/wb5afi9hd9vc3fpgy7gq


Katie's Been Gone:    https://www.box.com/s/xlsacqxr6e1m5dobny5a


It Makes No Difference (gtr- vocs):
                                            https://www.box.com/s/mowc8m99t4ejxigsqgtj