The performing talent that floats around cyberspace constantly amazes.
RIP Charlie Robison
Charlie Robison, 1964-2023
A talented Texas singer-songwriter, Robison waxed a string of sometimes-thoughtful, sometimes-rowdy albums, starting with 1996’s Bandera. He lost his singing voice to surgery in 2018, but apparently regained the ability to sing just last year. Previously married to Dixie Chick Emily Erwin, he recorded a duet of “The Wedding Song” with Natalie Maines, and taped a stellar live version (below) with his sister-in-law Kelly Willis.
Captain Beefheart on American Bandstand in 1966
17-year-old Kathy Fletcher interviews Captain Beefheart, and discusses the origin of his and his band’s name, the group’s membership, and why their music is getting so popular. DIck Clark spins the Magic Band’s version of “Diddy Wah Diddy.”
RIP Bob Feldman
Bob Feldman, 1940-2023
Together with fellow New Yorkers Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer, Bob Feldman wrote the Angels’ “My Boyfriend’s Back” in 1964 and the McCoys’ (and later the Merseys’ and David Bowie’s) “Sorrow” in 1965. The trio of Brooklyn Jews also formed the faux-Australian beat group, The Strangeloves, who wrote and recorded “I Want Candy,” “Night Time” and “Cara-Lin.” The trio also produced (but didn’t write) the McCoys’ “Hang On Sloopy.” Feldman went on to work with other acts (including producing Link Wray’s 1971 self-titled LP), and among his three children is actor Corey Feldman!
8-Year-Old Drummer Destroys Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times”
Yoyoka destroyed Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times” at the age of 8, and then came back to show even more power and finesse at the age of 11.
RIP Ahmad Jamal
Legendary jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal, who was still performing into his nineties, has passed away at the age of 92.
The Nightcrawlers: The Little Black Egg
This started out to be a post about how the Nightcrawlers’ “Little Black Egg” was covered by the Music Explosion, who then re-recorded it with new lyrics as “One Potato, Two Potato,” while One Way Streets re-recorded it with their own lyrics as “We All Love Peanut Butter.” But then this delightful homemade ode to “papa’s favorite song” presented itself.
The Rubinoos: The CBS Tapes
Previously unreleased cache of early Rubinoos studio tracks!
In the years after their initial retirement, the Rubinoos have been generous with their vault recordings. The Basement Tapes (and the expanded Basement Tapes Plus) offered up demos from a third album that never came to be. Garage Sale, Hodge Podge and One, Two, That’s It provided demos, unreleased session tracks, alternate takes and compilation contributions. The UK box set Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Rubinoos But Were Afraid To Ask included more rarities, including a 1978 live date in London that was later released separately as Live at the Hammersmith Odeon. So it’s quite the surprise to discover there were still more riches to be had, and they were very early, very good, and very unusual.
These November 1976 tracks were recorded during the sessions for the band’s 1977 debut album, and served as a studio soundcheck for engineer Glen Kolotkin. With tape rolling, the band ran through eleven songs, live and without second takes or overdubs. The on-the-fly mixes aren’t perfect (though quite good!), but the sound quality is excellent, and the spontaneity, energy and attitude they capture show off a more raw and edgy (and at times wonderfully adolescent) side of the band than did the debut LP.
The song list includes early Rubinoos originals and covers drawn from the band’s varied influences. Jon Rubin’s voice is sweet and the signature group harmonies are tight, but there’s a level of aggression that’s more reflective of the band’s live set than their studio recordings. Hearing the group rage through the Psycotic Pineapple’s “I Want Her So Bad†(written by the Rubinoos’ Tommy Dunbar) shows off the bands’ shared roots, and the inclusion of the national anthem of bubblegum music, “Sugar, Sugar,†as well as a mash-up of “Pepsi Generation†with King Curtis’ “Memphis Soul Stew†displays the sort of provocative choices with which they bewildered live audiences.
The band covered the Beatles’ “She Loves You†and “I Want to Hold Your Hand†with talent and joy, and added to their catalog of DeFranco Family covers (which began with their first Beserkley single, “Gorillaâ€) with a raunchy take on “Heartbeat, It’s a Lovebeat.†Rubin’s soaring vocal on the bubblegum-soul “Nooshna Kavolta†is nearly overrun by the charging guitar, bass and drums, and the Ventures’“Walk Don’t Run†provided a young Tommy Dunbar the opportunity to show off his formidable guitar-playing chops. Closing the album is a cover of Jonathan Richman’s “Government Center,†complementing the earlier Beserkley Charbusters version on which the Rubinoos backed Richman.
This is a terrific, exuberant artifact of the band’s early years. It shows off the wide range of influences – pop, rock ‘n’ roll, funky soul, garage punk, bubblegum – that fueled their musical imaginations, and the talent they’d developed as a live unit. Standing in front of the studio mics, they effortlessly roll out a solid, impromptu eleven song set that’s been in the vaults for way too long. Rubes fans will truly enjoy what is essentially a well-recorded (if not perfectly mixed) in-studio live set of the band at the start of their recording career. Resurrected from a surviving stereo cassette mix with mastering by John Cuniberti, the band’s humor, self-assuredness, and instrumental and vocal talent shine through on every track. [©2021 Hyperbolium] 
The Readymades: More Live Than Not – San Francisco 1978
Live and studio recordings of a San Francisco pop-punk legend
At the dawn of punk rock and the new wave, San Francisco’s Readymades sparked both fanship and controversy. Fanship for what New York Rocker described as a blend that leaned “towards the power and simplicity of punk and the accessibility of pop.†Controversy for much the same thing. Readymades lead singer Jonathan Postal had been the short-lived founding bassist of the Avengers, but after realizing his original songs weren’t going to get air time (and seemingly getting ghosted out of rehearsals), he formed a new band with more like-minded mates. As heard here, the Readymades certainly retained the energy of punk rock, but with melody, harmony and often a theatricality that was more rock ‘n’ roll than punk.
The band quickly shot to local fame, gaining a contract for a 3-song EP on Automatic Records after their first show at the Mabuhay Gardens, and quickly lining up opening slots for touring acts that included Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie, Roxy Music, and the Police. They toured the west coast, playing dates as far north as Bellingham and Vancouver, and bringing the San Francisco scene to University of California campuses in Santa Cruz and Davis. They turned down an invitation to record for John Cale on his Spy label, and recorded demos with major label macher Sandy Pearlman. They garnered praise in local, national and international publications, and yet, in the end, failed to release anything on vinyl beyond two EPs and a few compilation tracks.
Why the band failed to gain a major label contract isn’t well documented, though it seems that internal artistic tensions split the group apart after only two years. Postal, who has a BFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute, built a career as both a commercial and fine arts photographer, and more recently as a guitar luthier. The band’s co-songwriter, keyboardist, saxophonist and musical director, Morey Goldstein, continued to make music with bands (including Big Bang Beat and the Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra), on-stage and for video games, before passing away in 2008. Guitarist Ricky Sludge (nee Eric Lenchner) continued to make music with the Dinos and Ultras, and teaches music through his Professor Sludge Academy.
In 2009 the Rave Up label gathered together many of the band’s recordings for the vinyl LP San Francisco – Mostly Alive, and Liberation Hall (which is reissuing several early titles from the 415 Records catalog) offers a playlist that adds three live cover songs. The collection opens with “415 Music†from the like-titled 1980 label compilation. Surprisingly, the song and the label took “415†from the California penal code for disturbing the peace, rather than the local San Francisco area code. The song’s amped-up atmosphere disguises a cynical take on punk rock’s “white boys making white noise,†and highlights the in-betweenness of the Readymades highly-charged, but musically fluent music. Similarly, “Heretics†melds punk rock energy and harmony vocals in its tribute to 415 founders Howie Klein and Chris Knab’s late-70s radio show.
At the time, Postal characterized the band’s lyrics as being “things we think about… day to day stuff.†This included wondering about Supergirl’s indestructible hymen (perhaps a tip of the hat to Larry Niven’s science fiction story “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenexâ€), the impact that technology has on children in the pure pop “Electric Toys,†the pacified escapism of the New York Dolls-styled “Edge City,†and the sterile post-disaster society of “After the Earthquake.†The kiss-off “Hurry Up and Go†trods more familiar lyrical ground, but includes the novel refrain “I’ll remember the good times when you’re gone,†and “Trying to Grow Up†finds itself between childhood and adulthood with the sentiment “I still act like a child, but I look like a man.†There’s Bond-meets-the-Stones reverb and sax in “Spy,†and the influence of Bowie and the Velvet Underground on “Terry is a Space Cadet.â€
The three live covers (which, along with the other live tracks were recorded at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California) added to this collection include Del Shannon’s “Runaway†(which briefly gives way to the Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Runâ€), a committed run through the Animals’ “It’s My Life,†complete with the original’s call-and-response chorus vocals, and a boisterous take on the Rascals’ “Good Lovin’†to close the set. Missing in action are the four tracks from the band’s 1980 post-Postal EP, as well as the studio demo version of “Supergirl†featured on Rave Up’s LP. There are a few tape issues here and there, but everything’s quite listenable and demonstrates just how talented this band was live and in the studio. [©2021 Hyperbolium]
The Readymades’ Facebook Page
Jonathan Postal’s Home Page
Jonathan Postal Guitars’ Home Page
Richard Hell and the Voidoids: Destiny Street Complete
Forty years in the life of an album
After being in the thick of New York’s underground scene with the Neon Boys, Television and the Heartbreakers, Richard Hell founded the Voidoids with guitarists Robert Quine and Ivan Julian, and future Ramones drummer Marc Bell. The quartet’s 1977 debut was headlined by Hell’s anthem “Blank Generation,†and became a touchstone for the nihilistic themes, cynical attitudes and rejection of societal norms that would come to define the scene’s musical, intellectual and sartorial aesthetics. Hell’s disenchantment with touring, the music business, and a deepening drug addiction led to a four year gap before he and the reformed Voidoids (then consisting of guitarists Quine and Juan “Naux†Maciel, and drummer Fred Maher) recorded this second and final album.
By the time of the album’s 1982 release, Richard Hell was thirty-two, punk rock had been supplanted in public spaces by the more commercially digestible new wave, and the underground had morphed into indie and hardcore scenes. The reactionary societal repudiations of the debut had given way to more ruminative views, but Hell had become impaired by addiction, and his sporadic involvement in the sessions led to disappointment in arrangements and production that didn’t match his conception of the songs. Upon regaining rights to the album some years later, Hell removed it from print, with a wish to remix it more to his liking. But with the original multitracks having been lost, his wish was put on hold until he discovered a cassette of the album’s rhythm tracks. This opened the door to re-record the album with new vocals, and new guitar leads by Bill Frissell, Marc Ribot, and original Voidoid Ivan Julian.
The results of these sessions were released in 2009 as Destiny Street Repaired. “Repaired†is a figurative description, since the album’s breakage was in Hell’s artistic soul, and the repair was more of a reimagining. Think of Brian Wilson finishing the Beach Boys’ Smile, rather than Paul McCartney stripping Phil Spector from the Beatles’ Let It Be. The urge to revise strikes artists of many media, and the twenty-seven year gap between the original album and the remake created interesting artistic resonances. The almost-sixty-year-old Hell revisited works from his thirties with new compadres and a guitarist who’d accompanied him in his twenties. Further twisting the timeline, the title track features a narrator visiting himself ten years earlier, a song that Hell himself was revisiting many years later.
A decade after repairing the album, three of the four original 24-track master reels were found, and together with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, Hell indulged his original desire to remix the original performances. With only three-fourths of the masters available, tracks from Repaired were used to fill in the holes. This Remixed version provides a halfway house between the Remastered original and Repaired revision. Fans of the original album get (mostly) the original performances they grew to love, while Hell gets closer to the sonics he’d originally envisioned. And if three different versions of the album isn’t enough, this set adds demos, the original Nick Lowe-produced single versions of “The Kid With the Replaceable Head†and “I’m Your Man,†the 1980 single of “Time†b/w “Don’t Die,†and a live recorsing of “Time.†When they say “complete,†then mean “complete.â€
So how do they compare? The original album still stands strong, Hell’s dissatisfaction notwithstanding. Quine and Naux took Hell’s absence as an opportunity to cut loose, and despite the songwriter’s reservations, his writing was strong enough to withstand the guitar and sonic assaults. If Hell was impaired by despair and drugs at the time, it seems to have fueled passion in his vocals, both on the original songs and covers of the Kinks’ “I Gotta Move,†Dylan’s “Going Going Gone,†and Them’s (by way of the Little Boy Blues’) “I Can Only Give You Everything.†The Remixed edition widens the original’s near-mono soundstage, and unlike stereo renderings of powerhouse 1960s singles, the expansion offers more instrumental detail without dissipating the punch of the performances.
The Repaired edition offers the biggest changes, with guitar parts that are informed by the originals, timeboxed by the vintage rhythm tracks, and exciting in original ways. Hell’s vocals are born from the original writing and cover selection, but with decades more experience, and vocal chords that weren’t worn out by a lengthy music career. Hell’s singing is strong throughout, and while the original vocals often feel reflexive and instinctual, the new recordings seem to be informed by additional decades of perspective. More ego, less id, and in some ways like alternate takes made after a twenty-seven year smoke break. Perhaps the best test of the Repaired versions is how seamlessly these versions fill the holes in the Remixed edition – sonically, they’re a close match, and attitudinally they still seem to capture the earlier zeitgeist.
Hell’s most covered song, “Time,†provides the album’s most poignant moment, as the then thirty-something songwriter opined, “Only time can write a song that’s really really real / The most a man can do is say the way its playing feels / And know he only knows as much as time to him reveals.†Listening to him sing the lyrics nearly three decades later on Repaired is to hear a writer taking a note from his younger self, a reminder that every age is a way-station, informed by life to that point, but never fully realized. It’s a fascinating example of prophecy colliding head-on with memory.
The bonus tracks include the Nick Lowe-produced B-side “I’m Your Man,†the 1980 single version of “Time†and its flip “Don’t Die,†an unreleased album version of “Don’t Die,†demos of album tracks (“Going Going Gone†and “Ignore That Doorâ€) and songs that didn’t make the album (including a cover of Fats Domino’s “I Lived My Lifeâ€), and a teary live take of “Time†performed by Hell and guitarist Ivan Julian at Robert Quine’s 2004 memorial. Altogether, this is a well-deserved accounting of an album that was well reviewed upon release, but overshadowed in public memory by its predecessor. The original retains its primal charm, Remixed refines the sound, Repaired layers the artist’s memories of his vision upon the foundation, the bonus tracks add color, and Hell’s liner notes tie it all together. This a must-have for Richard Hell fans, as well as those just discovering the original gem. [©2021 Hyperbolium]