Maybe it’s due to COVID or an orange troll (or both), but I’ve been enjoying these guys lately. One of my biggest problems with them was the relentless gloom and doom. They always struck me as Iggy Pop’s The Idiot (probably one of my top 5 favorite albums) without the humor, with a bit too much Jim Morrison for my taste. But those are persnickety reasons to reject a band, and they are perfect for these times. Anyway, take away the clinical depression, and you’re pretty much just left with U2, only with (in my opinion) more interesting musicians and a technically worse but more interesting (and less pretentious) singer. Not really fair to judge them for being who they were. I still think Ian Curtis had an under-developed melodic sense, but for some reason it all works.
The Jam at the 100 Club
For whatever reason (ignorance or senility) , I don’t recall ever seeing this clip of The Jam at their ’77 peak. It’s from the German Punk in London documentary. The whole documentary is available here, but I have a feeling this Jam performance is the highlight. Although some heavyweights are interviewed, the performance segments are mostly B-listers.
Goofy TV Gigs
I completely missed this one when it aired. I don’t remember hearing about it at all. A little sad, by ’79 the Ramones should have been too big for the Sha Na Na show.
But I did happen to be watching the tube in ’68 when psychedelic proto-punks The Seeds (as The Warts) mimed their biggest hit, the classic pushy-girlfriend-fuck-off song, “Pushin’ to Hard” on a now-forgotten sitcom called The Mothers-in-Law. I bought the album soon after. Oddly enough, that album had been released two years earlier, and they’d released another since, but they were still pushin’ this song on TV. The second verse and guitar break were edited out.
Uh, wild thing, uh, I think I love you…
This novelty single actually reached #20 on the charts, according to Wikipedia. I remember hearing it on AM radio very often when it was first released, so it might have charted higher in some areas. It was taken out of rotation after his assassination.
Forgotten Proto-Punk Standard
Like “Louie Louie,” “Hey Joe,” and “Wild Thing,” this song was covered many times. As far as I know it was never a big hit, but it should have been. I’d be hard pressed to pick which of these three is best, so I posted them all. The versions by Them and The Troggs come with each band’s usual strengths. The Haunted’s version is a raw gem (I don’t know anything about them past this song). There are numerous other 60’s versions, including one by the MC5. To my ears, none are competetive with the three above. Richard Hell also covered it later, but I hear nothing special in it.
If you haven’t heard this song but it sounds familiar, that might be because Beck lifted the main riff for Devil’s Haircut.
New Passenger Video
So after 40+ years, here’s an official video for “The Passenger.” Not sure why this is happening now. Was someone clamoring for an official release? Do some people keep tabs on which great songs lack official videos? Who knows, but it’s a great song and the video’s good.
And now for some REAL dancin’
I’m not much of a Joy Division fan, as I can only take so much post-industrial Midlands desolation. But this one’s pretty good, and Ian Curtis’s stage gestures are interesting to say the least, especially when he really cuts loose at around 3:00.
You bastards might know way more about these guys, so my apologies if what follows is common knowledge. It’s pretty widely known that Ian Curtis hanged himself of the eve of what would have been their first tour of the U.S. Beyond that, I’ve picked up a few interesting facts over the years:
-They formed after seeing the Sex Pistols perform in Manchester. That same gig also inspired the formation of The Buzzcocks and The Smiths.
-Their bass player developed his style of playing in the upper register because when they started out, his amp was so shitty that it wouldn’t reproduce lower notes without sputtering.
-Ian Curtis had epilepsy and based his stage moves on his seizures, to the point that his bandmates could not tell when he was having a real one. This predictably led to some disatrous gigs.
Shit
Ennio Morricone, age 91. One new fact I learned in an obit is that Stanley Kubrick had approached him to compose music for A Clockwork Orange. EM wanted to work with him but had a prior commitment to Sergio Leone.
Whole Lotta Borrowing
Speaking of The Small Faces, here’s their take on Muddy Waters’ “You Need Love.” You’ll note that Robert Plant, who used to run errands for The Small Faces, later put this to use in “Whole Lotta Love.” Some music nerds give themselves wedgies over all this, but you’ve gotta concede that Jimmy Page improved it by adding one of the all-time greatest rock riffs. Fun Fact: when JP was forming what would become Led Zeppelin, Steve Marriott was high on his list of singers until The Small Faces’ manager threatened to break his hands.
By the way, below is the single version of “Whole Lotta Love” which cut out the free-form middle section of bongos, theremin, and Robert Plant gearing up for a sneeze that never comes. Atlantic did originally put out the whole song as a single, but radio stations would create their own versions without the middle part. Atlantic responded by re-releasing its own edited single over the objections of the band. So if you didn’t own the lp and listened to AM radio, this is what you usually heard:
Gismo!
Because everyone should hear this song at least once.