Five Epic Tracks That Really Do Need to Be the Length That They Are

Christ, could that title be any longer?  Oh well, you get the drift.  Sometimes artists feel the need to construct really long tunes in an effort to branch out a little more.  Sometimes these longer tracks are worth the effort, and other times they're just an incredible bore (Green Day, I'm looking at you).  At any rate, it looks like we have another list on our hands here.  This time it's all about five long tracks that I like to hear all the way through whenever I hear them.  Note the non-inclusion of Chicago.  I'm sure they'll make one of these lists someday.  Let's groove, shall we?

1. Television - "Marquee Moon"

The studio cut of the tune is over ten minutes.  The classic live versions would get even more epic at times.  This band pretty much solidified its legendary status with the title cut on their debut album.  The knotty main riff mixed with the almost mechanical bass and drum parts which then gives way to a lovely flourish influenced all those crappy defunct math rock bands that failed in the earlier half of this decade.  The lyrics are awesomely weird, but it's that guitar solo that just takes the song into the epic realm.  There's not a note wasted, with each lick building on the next until it all gently tumbles down like a sparkling snowfall before getting back into its locked main groove.  It doesn't matter if the other songs on the album aren't nearly as grand.  How could they be?

2. David Bowie - "Station to Station"

Granted, almost the first two minutes of this track are nothing but the sound of a train coming down its tracks, but the remainder is nothing short of stunning.  Bowie as the Thin White Duke in all his coked-up glory scares the hell out of us with his bizarro tale of the Duke "making sure white stains" and forever throwing those ever-lovin' darts in lovers' eyes.  It's a beast of a track, lumbering along like a giant Panzer, taking out everything with an oddly delicate touch.  But then, Bowie decides to boogie for the second half, and the cocaine kicks in full throttle as the band funks the hell out of the decadence and brings the mother down.  The first time I heard this song, I was literally awestruck.  It's still exciting and phenomenal.  Some live versions, as those found on Stage and the Serious Moonlight video are not too hot, but the recent reissue of Station to Station featuring a second disc of the legendary live show at Nassau Coliseum cooks. 

3. George Benson - "On Broadway"

Benson took this old number and made it his own, which is no small feat, considering the dude had cut tons of classic sides in the '60s alone.  By the '70s, George was moving into different terrain and this live workout from Weekend in L.A. featuring Ralph MacDonald on percussion needs to be heard in its 10 minute glory.  The radio stations always play an edited version a little over five minutes, but there's no denying the satisfying groove laid out here in Benson's licks and scatting, and his band just locking in to the funk and taking it skyward.  It's a tune that's as much of its time and place as "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees or "Peg" by Steely Dan.  To my ears, it's also the best damn version of the song ever recorded.  Sorry, Blossom Dearie.

4. Frank Zappa - "Son of Mr. Green Genes"

"Mr. Green Genes" appeared on the Mothers album Uncle Meat.  When playing the track live, Frank and the band would either eschew the lyrics and do an instrumental groove, or play a more fleshed-out version with more instrumental bits.  What that whole thing morphed into was the wonderful "Son of Mr. Green Genes" on the Hot Rats LP.  It's over eight minutes long, and begins with the familiar melody from the original tune sounding all stately and such before giving way to a slew of amazing Zappa guitar solos.  Whenever people don't tend to "get" Zappa for his guitar work, and are those types who only know him for his "dirtier" stuff from the '70s, I offer them up this track.  Frank's licks and melodies were always like no one else's and here he just lets one killer solo cascade into the next.  The cool thing is that it never comes off as mere wanking, but then when Frank was on the guitar, it never really did.  Hell, he managed to even keep Steve Vai contained and listenable, so that's got to count for something.

5. The Stone Roses - "I Am the Resurrection"

I've talked about this song so many times in other places, so I'll just get to the point.  John Squire's guitar solos in this song are the stuff inspiration is made of.  How anyone could listen to this track and not be moved seems near impossible.  The whole album is a masterpiece, but it all leads up to this one tune (though the US versions always added "Fool's Gold" afterward, which is also an awesome song), this singularly brilliant shining zenith of the Madchester scene.  Had the band not been met with so much legal bunk with their labels after the debut was released, it's hard to even say if they could have even done it again while striking while the iron was still hot.  We know that the miserable Second Coming released eons later was anything but.  But when you've reinvented the wheel once, it's fine to let everyone else have a ride.

My two favorite guitar solos of ALL-TIME!!!!1111one!

Hey, time for some more end of the year crapola!  Not that this particular post has anything to do with such an idea, but hey, we can keep the wheels rolling here even if I don't have ten albums you should have heard this year that I'd probably more than likely forget by next year.  I mean, I've looked back at some of those lists I've published over the years, and I think I must have been seriously high or just lazy when seeing some of the stuff I listed as "best of the year."

Aaaaanyway, on to the topic at hand which is, of course, my two very favorite guitar solos of all-time!  I've heard a lot of music over the years, and as we all know, the guitar solo is one of those staples in rawk music that can often provide perhaps the most memorable moment of a song.  Other times, the guitar solo can just make you wish the guitarist would give it up and end the damn song already.  Grateful Dead, anyone?

OK, that was an easy shot, but it's there for whatever that's worth.  So without further babbling, let's get on to this very short list, won't you?

1. The Knack - "My Sharona"

Get The Knack is one of the greatest albums of all time, period.  Now, a lot of people get excited when they hear the opening drum beats and bass riff to this tune, either in a fit of nostalgia, or because they're part of that Gen X crew who saw Reality Bites and thought it was totally rad when it was used in the soundtrack.  But I think these folks get excited about the tune for the wrong reason.  The right reason?  Berton Averre's guitar solo, of course!

You get to the middle of that song and Averre just takes off like there's no tomorrow.  But the solo is one of those that builds and builds, each portion getting better and better than the one previous.  It's a euphoric solo, one with nothing but happiness and release behind it.  Indeed, the late, great Doug Fieger said that he wanted Bert's solo to be the musical emulation of sexual climax.  And so it does climax into a wonderful tumble of notes that is echoed by Bruce Gary's drum beats before ripping into some tasty chords and giving way to the familiar riff once again.  I get excited every time I hear this solo and I never get sick of hearing it.  It's perfect in every way.

2. The Cars - "Shake It Up"

Now this solo isn't as grand in scope as the one in "My Sharona," but it's no less exciting.  Elliot Easton fires off the notes in the opening salvo of the solo like his guitar is a monster machine gun.  There's plenty of good sliding back and forth, as well.  It's a solo in the more traditional sense of the beast in that it echoes some of the song's melody, but it's blistering all the same.  The aural equivalent of a speedball bender almost going off the rails, yet keeping everything in perfect motion.  The Cars were damned fine at making good New Wave tunes, and this entire album found them working that groove as good as ever, coming after the rather confused Panorama.

The Five Greatest Rock Double Albums of All-Time!

Hey it's the end of the year and time to start doing up those lists that everyone loves to read come every December.  I didn't get a lot of listening done to much new music in 2010, but that's OK.  Who cares about that when there's so much stuff to still write about from years gone by?  Indeed!  So now I'd like to dump my five fave double albums on you kids.  You probably have your own top five.  That's groovy and I'm sure you have a place to talk about them as well.  I can guarantee you, though, this list does not contain any albums by Chicago.  So there you have it.  And yes, these are ranked.

1. The Clash:  London Calling

My very fave double album of all-time goes to The Clash and their tail end o' the '70s blast of goodness London Calling (at least in the UK; in the US it was released in January of 1980).  Sometimes I don't want to hear this album.  Sometimes I have gotten sick of it.  But man, every time I sit down and listen to the thing all the way through, I cannot deny its greatness or its scope.  It's funny, it's moving, and it rocks.  I love every note and every tune on it.  My faves would be "The Right Profile," "Lost in the Supermarket," "Revolution Rock," "Lover's Rock," and "Koka Kola."  Hell, it's all good, nay, great!  Punk rock could've begun and ended here.  It didn't, of course, but it's almost all you need, I think.  Yeah, I never was much of a Pistols fan, and the Ramones didn't do much for me past their debut album.  And I say "almost" in this case, because we have to add the second album in this list...

2. Minutemen: Double Nickles on the Dime

Like London Calling, this album encompasses a whole lot of lyrical and musical ideas and is enjoyable through and through.  Almost more funk than punk, the Minutemen didn't really ever court the whole punk attitude that the music must be loud and abrasive and be about being pissed off.  For them, it was about a deep love for music all around and getting it out on SST via the DIY method.  Hell, they cover (depending on which version you have) Van Halen and Steely Dan here, with no tongue in cheek.  But the highlight for me has always been "#1 Hit Song" and D. Boon's hilarious reading of the lyrics "Love is leaf-like / You and me, baby / Twinkle, twinkle, blah, blah, blah / E...T...C...!"  Lots of songs, lots of info, lots of grooves.  And a shitload better than Husker Du's Zen Arcade.

3. Original Movie Soundtrack: Saturday Night Fever

When I was five and six years old in 1977 and 1978 respectively, my older brother brought home basically the albums that would turn me into the music fan I am to this day.  Billy Joel's The Stranger, Steely Dan's Aja, The Blues Brothers' Briefcase Full of Blues, and this beastie right here.  Now this is the beginning and ending of disco.  Of course, it isn't literally, and there were plenty of other fine disco tunes compiled elsewhere, but not in the way Saturday Night Fever delivered.  You had all those Bee Gees hits on there (new mixed with old, like "Jive Talkin'" and "Stayin' Alive"), plus Bee Gees tunes as covered by other artists on the same damn collection (Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't Have You" and Tavares' "More Than a Woman")!  THEN you had all the other great stuff like "Boogie Shoes," "Open Sesame," "A Fifth of Beethoven," "Disco Inferno," and instrumental goofiness written for the movie like "Night on Disco Mountain" and sill other grooves such as "Calypso Breakdown."  Whew!  Yeah, my older bro was into the disco thang heavily, and I even convinced my mom and dad to buy me a white disco outfit from a Sears catalog like the one Travolta wore in the flick.  Hell, I even had a "kid's" version of the album released on the Kid Stuff label entitled Night Fever.  All these years later and this shit still holds up amazingly well.

4. The Beatles: The Beatles

Perhaps this is one of those ringers that is to be expected in a list like this.  But it is my favorite Beatles album.  Now, the last entry was thanks to my older brother, but it was my older sister who first sat me down at around age three and spun this one for my ears.  Actually,  vividly remember her playing "Revolution 9" for me, strapping me in for the full experience by slapping the giant brown headphones on my skull that we had back then and just being amused.  Well hell, she knew I'd enjoy some crazy sound effects, and I did.  But it was also songs like "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da," "Back in the U.S.S.R.," "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill," "Rocky Raccoon," and "Piggies" that pleased my ears as a tot as well.  So when I got into middle school and started my Beatles infatuation in earnest, this was the album I was most excited about rediscovering.  I still love it.  And for those who bitch about "Number Nine," all I can tell you is I've heard far crazier and far crappier things in my life than that.

5. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica

I first heard this wonderful, weird album when I was in high school and my buddy Mark Zecchini burst into my room telling me and some other pals that we had to listen to this tape right now.  So we did.  And we laughed.  And we laughed.  And I immediately wanted a copy for myself.  So I wound up borrowing it and made a copy, and then later that year on my birthday got my brother to buy it for me on CD (along with the Modern Lovers' debut, if memory serves correct, aaaaand The Carl Stalling Project's first volume, too).  What can I say?  There is no middle ground with this album, and that's the way it will always be.  It is unto its own musical universe.  I understand when people say they hate it.  But I also understand why it is loved as it is, too.  The Cap hadn't done anything remotely like it leading up to it, and though the followup Lick My Decals Off, Baby is sometimes cited as the better and more focused album, you couldn't have had it without having this first.  And now that the dear Cap has passed away, its influence will only be felt deeper.

The best rock song ever?

So I was sitting around with my kid today (he's six).  We were watching some TV and one of the commercials that came on was for one of the shitty popular light beers and featured Mr. Steroid Livestrong himself.  No biggie, really, except the tune used for the ad was Blur's "Song 2."  I turned to my son and I said, "You know, that might just be the greatest rock song of all time.  I don't ever get sick of hearing that, do you?"

He shook his head "no."

"Song 2" has all the great hallmarks of a real rock and roll classic.  It's under three minutes (it's barely over two, if that), it has a chorus that explodes in your head the very first time you hear it, and it has really dumb lyrics that don't necessarily need to make much sense.  I know I had played my kid the song before on my iPod, but he had recently gotten into it through the LEGO Rock Band game.  He knows good rawk when he hears it.

Plasticity is what counts, kids.

Now, for a long time I've claimed that The Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" is my all-time fave rock tune, but "Song 2" has that same indelible groove behind it that other goofy rock classics like "Louie, Louie" have.  It sounds great anytime, anyplace, anywhere (especially when I've heard it cranked at various amusement parks in the past), it makes you wanna yell "Woo-hoo!" really loudly, and it also makes you want to shake your ass to it.  If it's not the best rock song ever, it's certainly well worth placing in a short list of "perfect" rock songs.

Whatever the case, I find it's one of those songs that's impossible to hate and perhaps Blur's greatest moment that they ever recorded.  The rest of the album the song is taken from is OK, but doesn't really have the nervy energy "Song 2" does.  Now, had they dared to just put out a 10-12 song album of nothing but short, sweet tunes like it, they could possibly have recorded a rock masterpiece.  But they didn't, and now we have Gorillaz.  Oh well.

Libby's own MK Ultra program of the '60s

You may have thought that only the government was into the whole sinister mind control program way back when, but think again.  Did you know that Libby's, makers of fined canned food products in the USA also decided to control the minds of hip teens back in 1966?  It's true.

They did it with canned Sloppy Joe.

That's right.  The Sloppy Joe.  First, they hit the airwaves with a black and white spot introducing a new fad dance called "The Sloppy Joe," wherein unsuspecting teens ate cans of Libby's Sloppy Joe mixture, ingesting weirdo mind control crap that turned them into corporate automatons sporting Sloppy Joe shirts in "Beef," "or Pork."

Bone chilling, is it not?

If that weren't enough, Libby's then did a 180 in full color.  This time their subversive plot came with groovy lyrics, complete with colorful images of the shit-like looking mixture simmering up in a pan.  Did they eat it?  Oh boy, did they ever!  Sock hops at home were never the same after Libby's mind control briefly took over, which happened to be right before those filthy hippies out in San Francisco took over with acid and forgetting to bathe, only to cover up the stench with patchouli.

Yuck!

But don't take my word for it.  Dig the heady vibes from the original commercials right here.  We are lucky Libby's does not make Sloppy Joe in a can anymore.  One can only imagine the horror of such a thing in today's modern society.



Sloppy Joe subversion.  Tasty!




Don't eat the brown Sloppy!

Elton John Only Had Two Hits

I don't care what the "facts" may say about Elton John's recorded output, or what they may say about the supposed number of times he had a hit single.  As far as I know, Elton John only had two hits.  How do I know this?  Because every time I listen to the classic rock station on the radio around here, the DJs always play either "Bennie and the Jets" or "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" when it comes to Elton.

Grandma?

I have no idea why.  I mean, the guy had plenty of far better tunes.  If I was in command, we'd be hearing "Susie (Dramas)" or "Amoreena."  Hell, I'd even spin "Island Girl" a dozen times if you liked.  But this isn't the case, and instead history is staking its claim on Bennie and Saturday Night.  When I was younger, those two songs were pretty damn awesome.  Now whenever I hear them, I just want to bury the radio in the back yard.

How did it come to this?  It's as if Elton only ever released Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and that was it.  Maybe it's a ploy to make us all forget how much godawful crap he has put out over the course of his career.  I mean, he's guilty enough to have his piano taken away forever just for appearing on "That's What Friends Are For."   If not that, then perhaps it's for his hair.  Whatever the reason, all I know is that all copies of that album need to be destroyed, pronto.  Besides, I never liked a girl with a handful of grease in her hair.  Blech.

Stu Cook and the Dreadful "Sail Away"

Lock the door, don't let Stu sing

Many terrible things have been written about the final, terrible Creedence Clearwater Revival album Mardi Gras.  You know, that it was "Fogerty's Revenge" because Stu Cook and Doug Clifford wanted to get their lousy songs on the albums.  So John Fogerty relented on the stipulation that the two clowns sing their own tunes as well.  Apparently, they didn't want to do that, but John gave it to them as an all or nothing proposition.  Thus, the album was created.  Oh, it still managed to chart and have some hit singles thanks to Fogerty, of course, but the other dudes in the band didn't have such an easy go at it.

"You guys can sing your crummy songs and I'll still be laughing."

So kids, I want to focus on Stu Cook's really bad song entitled "Sail Away" from this turd.  When you listen to Mardi Gras, you get the feeling that Stu and Doug were trying to emulate John Fogerty as much as they could in their singing styles.  Both of them try to do the rough-yet-smooth twang that Fogerty capitalized on.  While Clifford's attempts are just sub par, Stu Cook's mangling of the Fogerty style on "Sail Away" is enough to induce immediate laughter as soon as the guy starts singing.

It sounds like he's being strangled from the get-go:  "LAWK the DOOOOR, sun's a FAWLIN' / POKE the FAHR, don't LET the COLD IN / Gonna try to SAIL AWAY from the REST of MYYY LIIIIIFE."

The emphasis is weird, the meter is facked, the whole thing sounds like it's being sung by some drunken, gargling robot crashing into everything in its path.  When you listen to it and how generic Fogerty's guitar work is on the track, you can't help but begin to understand his plan of deep-sixing the group in one fell swoop.  Hell, who can argue with a dude who cranked out tons of great hits over the course of a nice handful of albums in just a two or three years?  Why relinquish creativity to a couple hacks with no real skills at all?

Please keep your mouth shut, Stu.

But of course Cook and Clifford are still cranking out those old chestnuts under the moniker "Creedence Clearwater Revisted."  It's bad.  You know, like any type of that once great band now doing the county fair circuit sort of situation.  At any rate, I urge you to listen to "Sail Away" and have a good, hearty laugh that will hit you right in the gut every time you hear it.  I guarantee Creedence Revisited isn't ever going to revisit this crapper.  Fogerty must have had a hard time not laughing when it was all originally going down.


The terrible culprit.




You'll dance to anything...