Category: California AF

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“Here Comes the Night … Oh! Oh!”

I consider myself a hopeless sucker for vocal pop.  But even I have my limits.  This was produced by the once-great master of sunshine pop, Curt Boettcher.  For more on him, listen to Andrew Hickey’s excellent episode on “My World Fell Down” by Sagittarius.

Disco was an odd phenomenon.  For a year or two people couldn’t get enough, then a massive “disco sucks” reaction set in.  I struggle to think of another popular genre that lost so many of its fans so quickly and vehemently.  I also struggle to think of a genre where so many artists from other genres so spectacularly made asses of themselves trying to cash in.

There’s also an extended club mix of “Here Comes the Night” posted on YouTube, if you really must.

Fun fact (just learned from Hickey): that’s Glen Campbell singing the lead on the verses of “My World Fell Down.”

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So This Is Cool

Learned this past weekend on a trip visiting my 81-year-old aunt that my grandmother’s cousin (my first cousin, twice removed) was a songwriter in California. And that I’m named for him, by way of my dad. (Fucked up spelling and all.) Here’s one of his tunes that Bing Crosby recorded.

And here’s another that could be fun to work up as a rocker.

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The Internet’s Inevitable Enshittification

How platforms decay, as explained by Cory Doctorow to NPR. Finally a name for what we may not consciously recognize but deep down know is going on.

… I think Facebook’s a good example. Facebook went through the whole lifecycle of platform decay. They started off by offering a really good deal to their end users. They said, “Hey, leave MySpace, come to Facebook. It’s just like MySpace, except we only show you the things that you asked to see, and we’ll never spy on you.”

And then once those users were locked in — because once you’re in a place with all of your friends, it’s really hard to leave — they started to take away some of that good stuff they gave them, and they handed it to advertisers and publishers.

To the advertisers, they said, “We were lying when we said we weren’t going to spy on these guys. We’re totally spying on them. Here’s all the data you need to target them for ads that we’re not going to charge you much money for.”

And to the publishers, they said, “We are also lying when we said we’d only show them the stuff they asked to see.”

And then once the publishers and the advertisers were locked in, well, they took away those surpluses. The ads got more expensive. Publishers had to put more and more of their content — not just to get recommended, but even to be shown to the people who subscribed them. And that’s the final stage, the stage where there’s just only the residual value left on the platform that the platform owner thinks will keep the users and the business customers they bring in stuck to the platform. And that’s when we’re at the beginning of the end.

Further reading.

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And Now For a Bassist Who Sucks

Who’s the opposite of Jamerson or McCartney?  Phil Lesh, of course.  I could not listen to all of this, I just sampled here and there.  What I did hear sounded like the noodlings of a tin-eared fifteen-year-old who recently took up bass.  There is nothing remotely interesting going on musically or technically.  What he needs is a nun to slap his hand with a ruler.

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I’m Working Too Hard

Both proof that one needn’t be especially proficient as a musician to write killer songs AND an explanation for my recent blargh absence.

The Nerves weren’t around too long but are regarded by some as ground zero for the LA punk and power pop scene. Drummer Paul Collins went on to form The Beat (“Rock N Roll Girl,” “I Don’t Fit In”), bassist Peter Case formed The Plimsouls (“A Million Miles Away”), and guitarist Jack Lee’s song “Hanging on the Telephone” became a massive hit for Blondie when they covered it on Parallel Lines in 1978.

And here’s Collins a few years later with The Beat …

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Mike Love Raps…


…with predictable results. Even the girls can’t save this sad abomination; I couldn’t make it past one minute. According to this guy, the song was conceived as a duo with Bart Simpson for an upcoming Simpsons movie, but the producers declined, feeling that “Bart, after all, has some standards to uphold.” Indeed. Instead, it landed on Baywatch. I might have saved this one for Loathsome Thursday, but this stands in its own category of awfulness. I hesitated to post it at all.

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All Things Must Pass

I’m only about a third of the way through but I’m digging it so far. Man, I miss record stores …

Everyone thinks they know what killed Tower Records: The Internet. But that’s not the story. “All Things Must Pass” examines this iconic company’s explosive trajectory, tragic demise, and legacy forged by its rebellious founder Russ Solomon.