Hey all-- I was hoping to get back to some original tunes, but we've got some Rock Zone renovations going on up at the Compound, so it's most expeditious to post this here batch of covers. Similar to the most recent back of Hoot tunes, these are LONG overdue anyway. They hold a warm and fuzzy place in my black heart, and it's an unbelievable pleasure to get 'em up for broader consumption.
Having gotten together with my old Iona Prep buddy John Stackpole each summer the past few years to do some playing and recording, and intermittently doing the same with our old buddy Dillo, and eventually getting Dillo to overdub bass on some Stackpole-Keating cuts, it was only a matter of time before we managed to get the three of us in a room to kick around the classic rock like it was 1985. That finally happened at the beginning of August 2013, and it was basically just like picking up where we left off, except we're all better players now, and able to work things out on a tad higher level. Needless to say, I could go on...
"Fearless" is a Pink Floyd cover from 1971's "Meddle" LP. For all the press and sales of "Dark Side..." through "The Wall", the afterlife of the Waters-less Floyd and the Floyd-less Roger Waters, and the rediscovery of the band's original, Syd Barret-driven lineup, this is the Floyd era for me: The feeling of collaboration instead of auteurship; the more open production; the stretch; the electric/ acoustic contrasts; the predominance of warmer, non-synth keyboards (piano, Hammond), and all that. Plus, the song itself is a certified Gilmour-driven classic.
Released at about the same moment in time was Mott the Hoople's "Brain Capers" album, from which comes the other cover here "Darkness, Darkness" (most recently also swampily covered by Robert Plant). Mott was a funny band, and has barely persisted in American popular knowledge. They came out of Birmingham in '69 and were hard rocking kings of the road in the UK for the next few years: huge concert draws, but their albums never quite got there. They basically broke up after their 4th LP (from which this cut comes) in 1971 but subsequently got a fresh lease on life from newly famous David Bowie, who convinced them to reunite, gave them "All the Young Dudes", and jumpstarted them on a hugely successful glam-rock run from '72-'74. Good lordy Mott are all-time faves of mine, and I'll swear to this day that half of their problem was that shitty, shitty name they picked.
Here's an internets-fueled wormhole for you: The song was written by Jesse Colin Young, years before his flower-power-fueled Youngbloods fame (by which I mean "Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now" fame). Funnily, "Get Together" was itself a cover, written by Dino Valenti (under his even cooler real name, Chet Powers) who was in and out and in (ah yes!: drugs, incarceration) San Francisco's psych-rock fixtures Quicksilver Messenger Service. Quicksilver's only real hit was (another HIT of) "Fresh Air", written by "Jesse Oris Farrow" (hint: same guy as Chet/ "Dino"!), but they did also manage to turn a Bo Diddley cover into an entire LP side: "Who Do You Love", "When...?", "Where...?" and so on. "Bo Diddley" of course was a stage name, for Otha Ellas Bates (later McDaniel), and on and on....
jk
Fearless: https://app.box.com/s/iciank7gxb36f9j9nfxn
Darkness, Darkness: https://app.box.com/s/vd6no0s9m38rk20vtzvl
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