Flashback Friday

Today's category: Songs about listening to music on the radio

Flashback Friday -- Penelope Houston

Penelope Houston first came to prominence as the lead singer of San Franciscos's Avengers.




This is the part where I'm tempted to pretend I was cool enough to have known of the Avengers at the time, but sadly. . .

Anyway, I first stumbled into her when I saw her opening for American Music Club at a little dive called the Full Moon Saloon (I think) on Haight Street, and I was smitten. Both musically, and yes, I admit to having had a bit of a crush on Ms Houston. So sue me. I saw her several times with her folk music group Birdboys after that in various venues around the city. I once ran into Steven Strauss, her bass player in the men's room of the Great American Music Hall and I'm proud to say that I played it totally cool, giving him the little up-nod as if to say "howzit goin'?" instead of geeking out all over. Anyway, please enjoy, on this last Flashback Friday of Women's History Month, the great Penelope Houston.

Flashback Friday -- It's Still Women's History Month

Flashback Friday -- International Women's Day Edition

Flashback Friday -- Uncle Tupelo

Do you know how good Uncle Tupelo was? Uncle Tupelo was so good that when they broke up, they split into Son Volt and Wilco! Which is especially impressive when you consider that when the Beatles broke up, they split into Wings and the Plastic Ono Band.


Chicago's Uncle Tupelo, along with Nashville's BR-549 and San Francisco's Dieselhed were the vanguard of the late 80's-early 90's "alt-country" or "no depression" movement. I don't know for sure, but I think the name "no depression" came from Uncle Tupelo's cover of the Carter Family classic.

I mena, I know the music "scene's" name came from a fan magazine entitled "No Depression," but I always assumed that the magazine title came from the Uncle Tupelo record.





Anyway, please enjoy a few selections from Uncle Tupelo.

Flashback Friday -- Jonathan Richman

It's getting too hard to make dumbass jokes about current events anyomre these days. But we can still appreciate good music.

So this Flashback Friday we present the great Jonathan Richman,

It's hard to explain the brilliance of Jonathon Richman. His lyrics don't feel like song lyrics, they have a sort of prosaic, conversational feel to them, but with a sneaky wittiness, if that makes sense. Sometimes they feel like they're meandering off the rails and then, out of nowhere comes a clever rhyme and things are back on track.

Some of his songs might make you laugh.




Some might bring a tear to your eye.




Sure, he writes regular love songs.




But he can also write a great song about everyday, ordinary things. Like missing his favorite corner store.




Or his admiration for Harpo Marx's musical ability



Or his love of hot nights.



Or his favorite painters







Or dancing






Or anything, really.















I don't have any stories about Jonathon Richman. I saw him once in an old union hall in Eugene, OR and I think in San Francisco at the Paradise Lounge. Great shows. I hear he's going to tour again. Catch him if you can!

Flashback Friday -- Appropriate Songs for This Week

Flashback Friday -- The Jesus and Mary Chain

The story that I heard about the Jesus and Mary Chain's debut album Psychocandy was that they went into a regular 24-track recording studio, recorded their fairly simple songs, then realized that after recording guitar, bass, drums and vocals there were a lot of tracks left over. So they filled all the unused tracks with guitar feedback. I don't know if this story is true or not, but I do know that if you listen to Psychocandy at a high volume, it will melt your eardrums. At regular volume, they have a sort of Phil Spector Wall-of-Sound feel. They toned the whjole aural assault thing down quite a bit after that first album, but the songs are still quite good. Anyway, please enjoy the Jesus and Mary Chain.

Flashback Friday -- Cowboy Junkies

I don't know if it's true, but I always suspected that the name "Cowboy Junkies" came from a pseudonym used by Nick Cave on the "Honeymoon in Red" album. O ne track, he is listed as "a drunk cowboy junkie." This record came out in 1987, by which time Cowboy Junkies must have already been formed, but maybe he used it earlier? I don't know and I guess it doesn't matter. Anyway, enjoy a few selections from CJ's first two regular albums "The Trinity Session" and "The Caution Horses" as well as a collection of demos that was released under the awkward title "Whites Off Eartn Now."























And, of course, the song that really got them famous, their cover of the Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane. When Lou Reed heard their version, he is supposed to have remarked that this was the way he had always intended the song to sound. I don't know if that story is true, because VU's version doesn't sound at all like they're trying to sound the way this sounds. But either way, it's a darn fine version.

Flashback Friday -- The Legendary Stardust Cowboy

 

                                     

 

One of the best shows I ever attended was a twin-bill at Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco in the mid-Nineties.It was the Billy Nayer Show and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. I didn't know a lot about "the Ledge" before that show. I'd heard Paralyzed on the radio, but that was about it. After that show, I was a fan for life.
















Also, check out this article about the Ledge:

The Real-Life Legendary Stardust Cowboy Who Inspired David Bowie

Jeff Gage

May 25 2017, 11:03pm

Nearly 50 years ago, Bowie's Ziggy Stardust was inspired by a wonderful musician in Texas who sometimes (still) gets naked on stage.

Flashback Friday - Buzzcocks

Flashback Friday -- The Pogues

I remember the first time I heard the Pogues. Watching MTV on an illegal cable hookup, it was either 120 Minutes or  The Cutting Edge




Anyway, it was 1984 or 85 and the host of the show said they were some new band from Ireland and played a few of their songs "Dirty Old Town," "The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn," I think. Anyway, I was blown away. I'd never heard anything like them before. They were the band that posed the musical question "what would Rock & Roll sound like if it had evolved in Ireland instead of America?" And the answer was "pretty damn good!"

I saw the Pogues live once at Berkeley's Greek Theater, opening for Bob Dylan. I was surprised how much better Shane MacGowan's voice sounded live than on their records. Then I found out that Shane was in rehab and Spider Stacy was handling the lead vocals. Oh, well. Still a great show.

A little off-topic, but I have to say that I'm glad I got to see Bob Dylan live, I'm a big Bob Dylan fan, but I wouldn't do it again. He has some weird compulsion to make the live versions of his songs sound different than the versions you've heard on his records which seems like a good idea, but was actually kind of annoying. If anyone else played his songs the way Dylan played them that day, I would've said "you're butchering Bob Dylan!"

Anyway, enjoy the Pogues:


















Also, they played the trouble-making MacMahone Family in Alex Cox's "Straight to Hell." I don't know if that movie will hold up, but you can watch it here:

Flashback Friday -- Shonen Knife

Three perfectly harmless-looking young ladies from Japan, Shonen Knife has been churning out perfect garage-punk/power-pop records since the early 1980's.
We saw them at Slim's in San Francisco in the mid-90's. The main thing I remember was a man in the audience yelling out "I want to have your baby," and one of the Shonens replying, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say, "Oh, thank you very much," and launching into the next song without missing a beat.
Anyway, here they are, enjoy!

Flashback Friday -- Billy Bragg

I still remember the first time I heard Billy Bragg. My friend had a vinyl copy of "Back to Basics" and I made a cassette recording of it and just wore it out. I hadn't ever heard anyone like him, a folk singer with an electric guitar and a Cockney snarl. He's probably best known for his political songs, but he's also written and sang some really beautiful love and heartbreak songs. There are so many great ones, I'll try to post a few highlights.













Funny thing, when I first heard this next song, it reminded me of the Smiths. Not that Billy sounds anything like Morrisey or anything, and it doesn't have that Smiths jangle or whatever, but there's something about the structure or the chord progression, or something - I don't know, I'm not a musician - Anyway, I looked at the liner notes and saw Johnny Marr and I felt oddly validated.



When I first heard about the Mermaid Avenue project, I thought "sure, Billy Bragg, that's a perfect fit, but Wilco? That's a bit odd." But damn if it didn't work perfectly!



And Billy really brings the old labor songs to life.

Flashback Friday - Blancmange

For a couple years, Blancmange was all over "new wave" radio stations like LA's KROQ and San Francisco's Quake.
                              
I was surprised to learn at some point that, not only were they not French, but the name Blancmange comes from Britain's version of Jell-o.

  

(I think I may have figured that out from this Monty Python sketch)

At any rate, let us return now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when it was perfectly legitimate for a band to consist of two guys, only one of whom plays an instrument:

Flashback Friday - Sister Double Happiness and the Dicks from Texas

I don't remember how I stumbled on to Sister Double Happiness in the early '90's. I did see them once in one of San Francisco's smaller clubs, but that was after i already had the cd.
Anyway, I hadn't thought much about them until I read an article on Nightflight.com about a band called The Dicks from Texas. They talked about the lead singer - this guy:

and said his name was Gary Floyd. And I thought that couldn't possibly be the same Gary Floyd from Sister Double Happiness, could it? Then I read a bit further and sure enough:

Singer Gary Floyd left Austin for San Francisco with a new Dicks lineup including Tim Carroll, Sebastian Fuchs, and current Imperial Teen drummer. Lynn Perko. 

Well, Lynn Perko was deefinitely the drummer for SDH, so that's got to be the same Gary Floyd. 

So, please to enjoy a few selections from Sister Double Happiness and the Dicks

Flashback Friday -- Ass Ponys

I don't remember how I stumbled on to these guys, I don't have any interesting back-story, I don't really know anything about them other than their music which is sort of like if R.E.M. replaced Micheal Stipe with a crazy person. The first album I bought was on cassette (ask your grandparents) and it got stolen from my car. It must have been some kind of compilation, because I can't find it in their discography, but it had the songs "little Bastard" and "Ford Madox Ford" which show up on two different albums. Anyway, what follows is a rather meager sampling as I couldn't find some of their best songs on-line. I'll put a link to the complete "Known Universe" album at the bottom. I think it's their best album and a good place to start if you're interested in this sort of band. Anyway, please enjoy the unfortunately named Ass Ponys:











https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K05ezjMTBWY

Flashback Friday - Gang of Four

Gang of Four were probably the greatest band to emerge from England's late-seventies "post-punk" scene. They made music with a mix of funky beats and angular jarring guitar lines that influenced a ton of bands that could never duplicate their sound. In the early 1980's, they became more dance-oriented and accessible with fairly big hit songs "Is It Love?" and "I Love A Man In A Uniform," the latter of which was banned by the BBC for its anti-war sentiment.

Their debut album "Entertainment" is one of my favorite records of all time, and the entire LP is worth a listen, but I've included a few highlights here, along with a couple other later songs.

Enjoy!

Flashback Friday -- J Church

J Church was a Sna Francisco band started in the early 1990's. The name comes from the J-line streetcar that runs down Church street, right past the house we lived in when we lived in SF. Oddly, despite seeing their name in the "alternative weekly" papers a lot, I never actually heard them until I stumbled on to their "Nostalgic for Nothing / Singles Going Shitty" cd in a record shop in Seattle. Anyway, J Church did some of the best garage/indie rock songs of the 1990's and somehow never got on the radio or had any commercial success, even during the flood of post-Nirvava soft/loud/soft bands, most of whom could only dream of frontman Lance Hahn's songwriting chops.

Tragically, Lance Hahn died in 2007 at the age of 40 from kidney failure. This world didn't deserve him.

Flashback Friday - Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper

Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper burst out of the Southern California Rockabilly/Cowpunk scene in the early 1980's with a string of albums featuring Mojo on vocals and guitar and percussionist Skid Roper on everything from washboard to washtub bass. Mojo was the spiritual descendant of Hasil Adkins with bits of John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf for good measure but his sound and lyrical worldview were uniquely his.

I never did get to see Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper perform, but I did see Mojo Nixon and the Toadliquors at Slim's in San Francisco, and I saw Mojo perform as part of the Pleasure Barons somewhere in San Jose. He was a consumate showman and hopefully still is.