Just about everybody's on some sort of drug, whether it's prescribed or recreational. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about drugs in hour 2 (in addition to hot new rock jams from the Jesus Lizard, Dale Crover, Kal Marks, Johnny Foreigner, the Bug Club and more in hour 1). Don't get any crazy ideas about making your own drugs, though.
This playlist is the one that rocks:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
The Jesus Lizard - Grind/Rack
Dale Crover - I Quit (feat. Kim Thayil)/Glossolalia
Kal Marks - Insects/Wasteland Baby
Johnny Foreigner - Their Shining Path/How to Be Hopeful
The Bug Club - Quality Pints/On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System
Oceanator - First Time/Everything is Love and Death
Beeef - Nice Clean Shirt/Somebody's Favorite
MJ Lenderman - Wristmatch/Manning Fireworks
Fontaines D.C. - Favourite/Romance
M.A.G.S. - Sequence 08/Creator
Illuminati Hotties - YSL/Power
Fake Fruit - Psycho/Mucho Mistrust
Ekko Astral - Buffaloed/Pink Balloons
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Antarctica/Flight b741
Fucked Up - The One to Break It/Another Day
Swervedriver - Cool Your Boots/Doremi Faso Latido
Hour 2: Drugs
Queens of the Stone Age - Feel Good Hit of the Summer/Rated R
Gateway Drugs - Wait (Medication)/PSA
Spiral Dub - High as Fuck/Spiral Dub
Hallelujah the Hills - Too High to Say Hello/Stranded in Holyoke
The Raveonettes - D.R.U.G.S./In and Out of Control
The Dirty Nil - Done with Drugs/Fuck Art
The Flaming Lips - Drug Machine/In a Priest Driven Ambulance
Chandos - Drug Bros/Rats in Your Bed
The Mutineers - Drug for That/Threshold
Ty Segall - Drug Mugger/Mr. Face
Husker Du - Drug Party/Savage Young Du
Gordon Downie - Canada Geese/Coke Machine Glow
Wilco - Handshake Drugs/A Ghost is Born
The Pink Mountaintops - New Drug Queens/Axis of Evol
Black Mountain - Druganaut/Black Mountain
PJ Harvey - The Slow Drug/Uh Huh Her
A Giant Dog - Sex & Drugs/Pile
Osees - Drug City/SORCS 80
James Brown - Fight Against Drug Abuse PSA/Funk Power 1970: A Brand New Thang
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
New Moon on Monday (1983)
It's truly amazing how different the music industry was in the early '80s. Unlike today, artists were able to succeed because of radio and video, thanks to MTV's meteoric rise. One of the bands who took full advantage of the newfound popularity of music videos was Duran Duran, an English pop-rock act that happened to be extremely photogenic in addition to talented.
The group was formed in Birmingham, England in 1978 by singer Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor. There were some lineup shuffles before the group settled in 1980 on Rhodes, Taylor, singer Simon Le Bon, guitarist Andy Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor (none of the Taylors are related). The group's 1981 self-titled debut featured the single "Planet Earth," which went to #12 on the U.K. singles chart. The third single, "Girls on Film," had a video with topless women mud wrestling that stirred up plenty of controversy, as the band had hoped. A heavily edited version aired on MTV but it got the band noticed in the U.S.
Duran Duran's second album, Rio, came out in the spring of 1982 and was an immediate hit in the U.K. It took a while longer in the U.S., where the group's label was promoting them as a New Romantic band. After a shift in promotion to work the album as dance music, the videos for "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Rio" hit MTV and blew up, as did the ballad "Save a Prayer." The album hit #6 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 129 weeks.
As 1983 began, Duran Duran re-released their first album in the U.S. along with the single "Is There Something I Should Know?" and soon the band was being mobbed at in-store appearances by hysterical fans. The group's third album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, came out in November 1983 and really leaned into synth pop and expensive videos: "Union of the Snake," "New Moon on Monday" and a remix of "The Reflex."
Duran mania was everywhere. I, for one, was firmly in my metalhead phase but still hearing Duran songs constantly on the radio and TV (we didn't have MTV yet but I watched shows like Friday Night Videos regularly). The songs were damn catchy but I couldn't be caught dead admitting I liked them to anyone. No, it was Iron Maiden and Judas Priest for me, but I could appreciate synth-pop acts like Duran, ABC and the Thompson Twins.
I only know the singles because I've never purchased a Duran album, but I know them well. "New Moon on Monday" was always a favorite, even the band hated the video for the song. It was filmed in a French village with the band as members of an underground resistance movement called La Luna organizing a revolt against a military regime. There's a 17-minute version that has a long introduction before the song begins, a shorter one that has a spoken French intro, and then an even shorter one.
But the song itself is pretty fun, sort of echoing latter-day Roxy Music.
"Shake up the picture/The lizard mixture/With your dance on the eventide/You got me coming up with answers/All of which I deny/I said it again/Could I please rephrase it?/Maybe I can catch a ride/I couldn't really put it much plainer/But I'll wait til you decide/Send me your warning siren/As if I could ever hide/Last time la luna/I light my torch/And wave it for the new moon on Monday/And a fire dance through the night/I stayed the cold day/With a lonely satellite."
The song got up to #10 in the U.S. and #9 in the U.K. Pretty decent, but then the remix of "The Reflex" went to #1 in both countries. The band began playing stadiums, appeared on magazine covers and won Grammys for short- and long-form videos. After 1984, the group took a break and worked on solo projects. John and Andy Taylor teamed up with Robert Palmer and Chic drummer Tony Thompson to form the Power Station, a rock-funk act that had a couple of top 10 hits in '85. Le Bon, Roger Taylor and Rhodes formed Arcadia, a synth pop act. The group got back together to record the title theme to the James Bond film A View to a Kill, which went to #1 in the U.S. Duran also played at the Philadelphia Live Aid concert in July 1985; it would be that lineup's last performance for 18 years.
In 1986, Roger Taylor left the band, citing exhaustion, and Andy Taylor signed a solo deal; he played on a few songs on the band's next album before leaving. Le Bon, Rhodes and John Taylor moved ahead, hiring former Missing Persons and Frank Zappa guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and drummer Steve Ferrone (later replaced by Sterling Campbell). They had a few hits, but as the decade ended, Duran Duran were definitely on the downswing.
In January 1989, I saw them play the Worcester Centrum, but I actually wasn't there to see them. My friend Arthur, who was Arts editor at the UNH school newspaper where I was a reporter, scored a couple of passes to the show so he could interview Moe Berg of The Pursuit of Happiness, the Canadian alt-rock act that was opening the concert. I was a big fan of TPOH's debut album Love Junk and was excited to see them and they didn't disappoint in their opening set. It was kind of an odd pairing because TPOH combined snarky lyrics, big riffs and girl group backing vocals, a sound that was very different from Duran Duran's. DD played a decent set but the arena was half full and it was striking how just four years earlier, they were packing stadiums.
The band kept going through the '90s with mixed results and in '97, John Taylor left. But in 2001, Le Bon and Rhodes reunited with the three Taylors and played to sold-out arenas. They've continued recording new music and touring in the 20+ years since. Andy Taylor left in 2006, but the other four are still members of the band and going strong. Duran Duran have definitely had their ups and downs over the last four decades, but they always seem to bounce back.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Front Street (2008)
When two great artists work together, there's no guarantee they'll come up with something great. Remember when Bowie and Jagger did that cover of "Dancing in the Street"? The less said about that, the better.
In the '90s, Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan fronted two of the best alt-rock bands going, the Afghan Whigs and Screaming Trees, respectively. Both were charismatic with unique voices and presences and after their bands split up in the late '90s, the two collaborated on Dulli's next project, the Twilight Singers.
By the end of '03, the two decided to work on a project together, which they dubbed the Gutter Twins (a takeoff on the Glimmer Twins, the name that Jagger and Keith Richards used when they produced Stones albums). But they had other things going on (Dulli with the Twilight Singers and solo, Lanegan with Queens of the Stone Age, solo and many collaborations with other artists), so a Gutter Twins album wasn't completed and released until 2008.
The album, Saturnalia, was released on Sub Pop in March 2008 and featured many contributors who had worked with Dulli and Lanegan in the past: Dave Rosser, Scott Ford, Jeff Klein, Matthias Schneeberger and Cully Symington (Twilight Singers); Dave Catching, Mario Lalli, Troy Van Leeuwen and Natasha Schneider (QOTSA); and Martina Topley-Bird, Joseph Arthur, Petra Haden and more.
Dulli referred to the Gutter Twins as the "Satanic Everly Brothers," a brooding combination of the lecherous yet soulful Dulli and the world-weary smoke-drenched Lanegan singing songs of sin and redemption. The combo got some attention with the dark rocker "Idle Hands," playing on Letterman and touring the U.S. and Europe throughout 2008.
The closing song on the album was "Front Street," which starts innocuously enough with the sounds of birds chirping. But it's a lament of a lothario looking back at the wreckage of his life, with Dulli taking the lead and Lanegan backing him up with just an acoustic guitar behind them at first.
"Front Street ain't no place for a boy/Who likes to talk the way that boys do/Unstrung, young, dumb/Comfortably numb/I'm as old as the star who bears you/Black as the bitch who wears you/Tears you, rips you apart/And then it turns around/Come on feel me/I ain't the only one/When it comes apart/We're gonna have some fun, son/Give me five minutes/With your sweetest sweet tea/If she's as fine as your missus/Then she's fine enough for me."
The song slowly builds as the protagonist sings of his past.
"A rod out the window/A suburban street/And I ain't slept since Monday/Jump in and ride we got deadlines to meet/People to use, lovers to break/Handful of pills, no life to take/River too cold, oven too hot/Bridge a one hundred and fifty foot drop/But there was a day I could say that I loved you/Early one evening I cut through Longview/Lifted you up and you turned it around/Here on Front Street/All the good girls and their boys know/Down in the mine there are diamonds/Down on the street walk the lifeless/And now I know that you're through with me/Can I tell you my love, dead honestly?/Life is shame and your hands are stained/Walk in chains and change your name."
Both Dulli and Lanegan had seen some serious shit by this point, whether it was drug addiction, near-death experiences or just life on the road.
"Go where you go but forget me not/Take a memory too, if it's all you got/Chase your pain with a shot of rain/Dig with a spade or a razor blade/Come on feel me now/I ain't the only one/When it comes apart/We're gonna have some fun, son."
The Gutter Twins only played one tour, although they came through Boston twice and I saw them both times. They played most of the album, as well as some Twilight Singers and solo Lanegan songs and a few covers of songs by Massive Attack and Jose Gonzalez (the band released an EP of covers called Adorata later in '08). The two eventually went back to other projects, with Dulli reviving the Afghan Whigs in 2012 and Lanegan continuing his solo career. They had talked of doing another Gutter Twins album, but Lanegan died in 2022 before it could happen. Still, the short-lived project was a great document of a great idea.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
The Humpty Dance (1990)
In 1990, the world was changing. The Cold War was ending, new wars in the Middle East were beginning and some nerds were making progress on something called the World Wide Web. It was also a creative time for hip hop. Public Enemy was reinventing the genre with a crucial vitality, the Beastie Boys and De La Soul were forging new ground with literally hundreds of samples, and there were powerful statements being made by Eric B. and Rakim, A Tribe Called Quest and Ice Cube. Meanwhile, Digital Underground was bringing the fun and inventiveness of Parliament Funkadelic to hip hop.
Formed in 1987 in Oakland by Gregory "Shock G" Jacobs, the group took a decidedly nonserious view of things. The group's debut was 1990's Sex Packets, a concept album about "GSRA" (aka Genetic Suppression Relief Antidotes), a government-designed drug that comes in a condom-shaped packet that provides the user with a satisfying sexual experience. The second single was "The Humpty Dance," which featured Shock G as his alter ego Humpty Hump, rapping about his sexual prowess. Humpty's back story was he was a singer who burned his nose in an accident with a deep fryer, which led him to wear a fake Groucho Marx nose and a raccoon hat.
"All right, stop whatcha doin' 'cause I'm about to ruin/The image and the style that ya used to/I look funny, but yo, I'm makin' money, see/So yo, world I hope you're ready for me/Now gather round, I'm the new fool in town/And my sound's laid down by the Underground/I drink up all the Henessesey that ya go on ya shelf/So let me just introduce myself/My name is Humpty, pronounced with an Umpty/Yo ladies, oh, how I like to funk thee/And all the rappers in the top 10/Please allow me to bump thee/I'm steppin' tall, y'all and just like Humpty Dumpty/You're gonna fall when the stereos pump me."
Digital Underground leaned on the lascivious influence of George Clinton and P-Funk, not just through samples but in attitude. The song's swirling beat was created through a combination of samples of P-Funk and Sly and the Family Stone, while the vocal sample in the chorus ("Do me baby") was taken from the Parliament song "Let's Play House" (see below).
"I like to rhyme, I like my beats funky/I'm spunky, I like my oatmeal lumpy/I'm sick with dis, straight gangsta mack/But sometimes I get ridiculous/I'll eat up all your crackers and your licorice/Uh, yo fat girl, come here, are ya ticklish?/Yeah I called ya fat, look at me, I'm skinny/It never stopped me from getting busy/I'm a freak, I like the girls with the boom/I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom, I'm crazy/Allow me to amaze thee/They say I'm ugly but it just don't faze me/I'm still gettin' in the girls pants/And I even got my own dance/The Humpty Dance is your chance to do the hump."
The song went to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Rap Singles chart and #7 on the R&B chart. The video was an immediate hit as well, with the charismatic Humpty Hump delivering the goods (and featuring a young Tupac Shakur as one of the group's hype crew). In an interview with Vibe, Shock G said the song was based on his uncle Tony Red, more for his confident attitude with the ladies than anything else.
Digital Underground released five more albums, the most recent one in 2008, but nothing nearly as prominent as Sex Packets. I picked it up on cassette not long after it came out, inspired by the funk groove. DU had many members come and go, but Shock G and Money-B were on every album. Sadly, Shock G died in 2021 of an accidental drug overdose at age 57. Apparently, the group continues to tour without him, which makes zero sense to me.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Mind Eraser, No Chaser (2009)
The supergroup is an interesting concept. Even though you can have musicians from great bands, there's no guarantee that they're going to make good music. A band may sound good in theory, but there are so many examples of supergroups that just didn't work.
But occasionally, these cobbled-together combos can work out. In this particular instance, Dave Grohl (who apparently didn't have enough to do), decided to put together a band with previous collaborator Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and rock legend John Paul Jones, who played bass and many other instruments with Led Zeppelin. Grohl, who was leading Foo Fighters and played on and toured for QOTSA's best album Songs for the Deaf, has famously been ubiquitous over the last 30 years since Nirvana abruptly ended. The first inklings of the group came in 2005 when Grohl mentioned in a Mojo interview that he wanted to work with Homme and Jones.
Fast forward a few years and the trio was touring behind an album that hadn't come out yet. Knowing the talents of the three band members, I was lucky enough to get a ticket to see Them Crooked Vultures, the supergroup consisting of Grohl, Jones and Homme. It was October 2009 at House of Blues in Boston and I went with my buddy Bob, with whom I had gone to see the first Foo Fighters appearances in 1995. It was a blistering performance and even though we had never heard any of the songs before, it was an incredible experience. Joined by Alain Johannes, the trio ripped through an 80-minute set of heavy rock jams that evoked Cream, Led Zeppelin and other power trios of the past.
The band's self-titled album came out in November 2009 and was an immediate hit. The real secret weapon of the group was Jones, who not only played bass but also provided clavinet, piano and slide guitar. "New Fang" was the first single, but I was a big fan of "Mind Eraser, No Chaser," a total crusher that includes a vicious riff and catching backing vocals from Grohl.
"Run along, face lift/If it kills, I got news, it ain't a side effect/Call it a reject or/A fuel injected, type corrected, teenage obstacle/All I wanna do is have my mind erased/I'm begging you, pleading you, stop coma-teasing us all/Drug company, where's a pill for me?/I call it mind eraser, no chaser at all/On permanent leave of everything/Law abiding dick riding fun police, leave us alone/Dulling the edge of a razor blade/What does it mean when the knife and the hand are your own?"
Some critics wrote that the band just sounded like Queens of the Stone Again, but that was a lazy argument because the singer was the same. In reality, JPJ provided a different element that set the band apart.
"Give me the reason why the mind's a terrible thing to waste?/Understanding is cruel the monkey said as it launched to space/I know that I'm gonna be your dangerous side effect/Ignorance is bliss, until they take your bliss away."
Unlike QOTSA, which would dig into a riff until it reached its inevitable rocking conclusion, TCV was more about the immense power of the rhythm section: Grohl and Jones provided a thunderous backbone that pushed the music forward.
The album hit #12 on the Billboard 200 and the band played a bunch of festival shows before Grohl and Homme went back to their day gigs. There was talk of a second album, but as of 15 years later, there's been no indication that another TCV album is coming. The band did reunite in 2022 for two performances in London and Los Angeles as part of the tributes for late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, but it doesn't appear that more TCV music is in the offing anytime soon. But I suppose you never know, although Jones is 78 now and I can't image he has a whole lot of heavy rocking left in him. Still, the TCV album is an example of a supergroup that delivered the goods.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Plenty for All (2004)
Some artists are just reliably excellent. You can play just about any song of theirs and you know it's going to kick ass. The many bands/projects of John "Speedo" Reis and Rick Froberg fall into that category for me. Rocket from the Crypt, Obits, Drive Like Jehu, Night Marchers, Pitchfork. Some of those are better than others, but all are really good. There's one more to mention: Hot Snakes, a blistering post-hardcore combo that destroyed everything in its path.
Hot Snakes were formed in 1999 by Reis and Froberg in San Diego. The two had played together in Pitchfork from 1986 to 1990 when they were in their late teens/early 20s. They then formed Drive Like Jehu, a juggernaut of a band that somehow was signed to a major and released one of the great unsung '90s albums in 1994's Yank Crime. But the band split up when Reis started focusing more on his other band, Rocket from the Crypt, which had also signed to Interscope and was blowing up (in an indie way) with its slightly more commercial punk/rockabilly sound.
Hot Snakes began as a side project when Reis was taking a break from RFTC. Reis recorded a bunch of songs with Delta 72 drummer Jason Kourkounis and then asked Froberg, who was living in New York working as a visual artist and illustrator, to provide vocals. The recordings made up the first Hot Snakes album, 2000's Automatic Midnight.
The band's members were spread across the country, with Reis in San Diego, Froberg in NYC and Kourkounis in Philadelphia, so recording and touring (with Gar Wood on bass) happened in fits and starts. Reis went back to RFTC full time, but in 2002, the band recorded the album Suicide Invoice and toured again. Kourkounis left to join the Burning Brides and when Hot Snakes got back together in 2004 to make another album, Reis brought RFTC drummer Mario Rubalcaba on board to play drums.
The resulting album, Audit in Progress, found the Snakes ratcheting up the aggressive punk fury, just end-to-end pummeling of the ear drums. The whole album crushes, but the closing song, "Plenty for All," is an all-timer and is actually kind of catchy, which is not a descriptor often used for Hot Snakes.
"Give notice, give away/Your personal property/Your illusions killing you dead/You deserve peace of mind for yourself/Southern California/Let's go!/There's room for us all."
Froberg's patented yelp is in full throttle as the band chugs away behind him.
"There ain't nothing for it/What else can you do/Nothing to work with/Nothing to lose/It is what it is/It ain't gonna improve/Nothing to work with/Nothing to lose/Take it or leave it/Do both if you choose."
The engine of the band is the slashing guitar interplay of Reis and Froberg, whose tightly wound guitar lines and riffage create an unrelentingly heavy barrage of awesomeness. Notch Brewing in Salem, Mass., released a "Plenty for All" pale ale about a decade later.
"Your patrons, your guests/Manufactured phonies/Hung up on themselves/Bring 'em all with you/It's all for the best/'Cause we got space out here in the West/Southern California/Let's go!/There's room for us all."
The Snakes toured the U.S., Europe and Australia for this album, recording a live in-studio performance for Australian radio station triple j, which became the live album Thunder Down Under. When the band returned to the U.S., Reis announced Hot Snakes were splitting up, and not long after, that RFTC was done as well. He devoted his time to running his Swami Records label. In 2008, Froberg formed Obits while Reis, Wood and Kourkournis started the band the Night Marchers. Both bands played together in San Diego in 2010 and for the encore, Reis, Froberg, Wood and Kourkournis played three Hot Snakes. They reformed the band in 2012 and played a bunch of festival and tour dates.
In 2017, Hot Snakes announced a fall tour and plans to release a new album in 2018 on Sub Pop. Having missed the boat on them the first time around, I was psyched to see them play an amazing show at the Middle East on that tour. They released Jericho Sirens the following spring. The band was close to finishing a new album in 2023 when Froberg died of natural causes at age 55. Hopefully, that album will be released someday.
Who's afraid of Friday the 13th? Some people are, I suppose, especially the folks at Camp Crystal Lake. But this week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I provided hot rock radio for the masses, especially in hour 2 when I played songs that ask questions. As a trained journalist, I used my vast expertise to choose just the right question songs to play. I'm Perd Hapley, and I just realized I'm not holding my microphone.
There you have it, where "it" is the playlist of songs from this episode:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
MJ Lenderman - On My Knees/Manning Fireworks
Beeef - Street Signs/Somebody's Favorite
Oceanator - Get Out/Everything is Love and Death
Kal Marks - A Functional Earth/Wasteland Baby
M.A.G.S. - Sequence 03/Creator
Fontaines D.C. - Sundowner/Romance
Fake Fruit - See It That Way/Mucho Mistrust
Illuminati Hotties - What's the Fuzz/Power
Horse Jumper of Love - Heavy Metal/Disaster Trick
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Frogs/Wild God
Peel Dream Magazine - R.I.P. (Running in Peace)/Rose Main Reading Room
Chime School - Points of Light/The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Hog Calling Contest/Flight b741
Osees - Termination Officer/SORCS 80
Jack White - Number One with a Bullet/No Name
Oneida - La Plage/Expensive Air
Islands - The End/What Occurs
Hour 2: Questions?
Public Enemy - Caught, Can We Get a Witness?/It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Do You Wanna Get Heavy?/Acme
Butthole Surfers - Who Was in My Room Last Night?/Independent Worm Saloon
The Night Marchers - Whose Lady R U?/See You in Magic
Helium - What Institution Are You From?/Ends with And
Ex Hex - What Kind of Monster Are You?/It's Real
Pardoner - Are You Free Tonight?/Peace Loving People
Joe Jackson - Is She Really Going Out with Him?/Look Sharp!
Morphine - Mary Won't You Call My Name/Cure for Pain
The Pink Mountaintops - Can You Do That Dance?/The Pink Mountaintops
R.E.M. - What's the Frequency, Kenneth?/Monster
Bob Mould - Who Was Around?/The Last Dog and Pony Show
Frank Black - Whatever Happened to Pong?/Teenager of the Year
Matthew Sweet - Does She Talk?/Girlfriend
Minutemen - Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Truth?/Double Nickels on the Dime
Telekinesis - How Do I Get Rid of Sunlight?/Effluxion
Superchunk - Why Do You Have to Put a Date on Everything?/Foolish
You can listen to the songs I just typed out by clicking on this link, which will let you listen to the songs I just typed out.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Bittersweet (1985)
Some bands are sneaky good. Sometimes you notice them, sometimes you don't and before you know it, they've amassed a catalog full of great songs. The Hoodoo Gurus are one of those bands.
Formed in Australia in 1981, the band was originally known as Le Hoodoo Gurus and had a lineup with three guitarists (Dave Faulkner, Roddy Radalj and Kimble Rendall) and a drummer (James Baker), playing punk-edged pop. They released their first single, "Leilani," in October 1982 and soon dropped the "Le" from their name. Rendall and Radalj soon left the group and were replaced by bassist Clyde Bramley and guitarist Brad Shepherd.
The Gurus released their debut album, Stoneage Romeos, in 1984. It's a strong collection of catchy garage rock. In addition to hitting #29 on the Australian album chart, the band had some success in the U.S. on college radio, especially the song "I Want You Back." Baker was let go in the summer of '84 and replaced by Mark Kingsmill, who joined the band on their first U.S. tour.
The second Hoodoo Gurus album was 1985's Mars Needs Guitars!, a takeoff on the 1967 sci-fi movie Mars Needs Women. Faulkner, who wrote and sang most of the band's songs, was front and center on the album's masterful first single, "Bittersweet."
Years later on the band's website, Faulkner wrote that as they were working on the second album, "I vowed to myself that I would write less comic narratives and try to express my sentiments in a more forthright way. I feel I succeeded with BITTERSWEET though at the time I didn't think that a) the band would want to play it and b) our audience would want to hear it. I was happily wrong on both counts."
The song starts slowly before the full band kicks in.
"You are my sword/Your love is its own reward/My heart, I have found/Gets carved surely by the pound/God knows I tried/Tried to hold you with all my might/But time has won/And I could never be that strong/I couldn't be that strong/(Don't cry) that used to be my favorite song/(Don't cry) Tears so bittersweet/(Don't cry) fill my eyes whenever we meet/It's always bittersweet."
For a group whose first album was named after a Three Stooges short and whose first video featured the band backed up by stop-motion plastic dinosaurs, this was a definite tonal shift. At least for a song, anyway. After all, this is on an album called Mars Needs Guitars and the next single was "Like Wow - Wipeout." But while the lyrics have the protagonist pining over a lost love, the music is uplifting, pushing the lovelorn sap to move on.
"We've grown and times change/When we meet now it feels so strange/Well, I hold you like a sword/And you won't cut me, cut me like you did before/It's always bittersweet."
It's 3-and-a-half minutes of power pop perfection. Although it didn't chart here, the song went to #16 on the Australian singles chart and the album hit #5 (it broke onto the Billboard 200 chart in the U.S., topping out at #140). The Gurus were getting known around the world and opened for the Bangles on a two-month tour. Subsequent albums performed slightly better in the U.S. as the band got play on MTV's 120 Minutes for songs like "What's My Scene," "Come Anytime" and "Miss Freelove '69."
But as the '90s wore on, the Gurus found less success in the U.S. After 1991's Kinky, which hit #170 on the Billboard 200, the band's next three albums didn't chart here at all. The band split up in 1998 and reunited in 2003, releasing three albums since, the most recent being 2022's Chariot of the Gods.
In the fall of 2020, the Gurus were set to do their first tour of the U.S. in 10 years, but it was postponed because of some minor outbreak that happened that year. I had a ticket to see them in Boston, but it was pushed back to the fall of '21, and then that got pushed to 2022 because the Australian government had banned international travel for Australian residents for the rest of 2021. I never did see them in 2022, but a buddy of mine had an extra ticket for their show in Boston tomorrow night and I am finally going. They're playing Stoneage Romeos in its entirety and then a second set of their hits, likely including "Bittersweet." So that should be great fun indeed.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Refugee (1979)
From one set of Heartbreakers to another: While Johnny Thunders and his ragged crew of junkies and reprobates were ripping it up in NYC, Tom Petty was working with his own band of the same name.
A native of Gainesville, Florida, Petty had formed the band Mudcrutch in 1970 with guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench joining a few years later. The band enjoyed local success for a few years, but in 1974 moved to Los Angeles to try and get a major label deal. Leon Russell signed them to his Shelter Records label, but after their first single "Depot Street" didn't chart, the band split up.
Petty stayed on the Shelter payroll as a songwriter and solo artist and in 1976, re-teamed with Campbell and Tench to form Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with Stan Lynch on drums and Ron Blair on bass. The band's self-titled debut combined Southern rock with a harder-edged snarl, but it didn't do much initially in the U.S. A short tour of the U.K. was successful and gave the group a boost. After news of their popularity in Britain, the label re-released "Breakdown" in the U.S. in 1978 and the song became a top 40 hit. "American Girl" also became a classic rock staple in later years after the band got big.
Petty's second album on Shelter was 1978's You're Gonna Get It! hit #23 on the Billboard album chart and featured the punchy single "I Need to Know," which hit #41 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and "Listen to Her Heart," which got to #59.
In 1979, Petty and Heartbreakers weren't thrilled when ABC Records, Shelter's distributor, was sold to MCA. Petty refused to be transferred to another label and filed for bankruptcy as a tactic against MCA. After the dispute was eventually settled, the group released Damn the Torpedoes on MCA's Backstreet label and it was a breakthrough hit. On the strength of lead single "Don't Do Me Like That," which hit #10 on the Hot 100, the album sat at #2 on the Billboard albums chart for seven weeks; the album blocking them from the top spot was Pink Floyd's The Wall.
The second single, "Refugee," took a while to put together. Campbell brought in the music and Petty quickly wrote the lyrics, but producer Jimmy Iovine could not find a drum sound he liked. The band recorded 70 takes of the drums, which led to Lynch being fired during the sessions. After the band tried using B.J. Wilson of Procol Harum and Phil Seymour of the Dwight Twilley Band, they brought Lynch back. Campbell even walked out for a few days out of frustration.
But it finally came together and it's a pissed-off classic, thanks to Petty's sneering vocals and Campbell's angry guitar.
"We did somethin' we both know it/We don't talk too much about it/Ain't no real big secret all the same/Somehow we get around it/Listen it don't really matter to me, baby/You believe what you want to believe/You see, you don't have to live like a refugee."
Petty later said the song was his reaction to the pressures of the music business and especially the legal battle with MCA. Even after it was resolved, he was still so angry it colored a lot of the songs on Damn the Torpedoes.
"Somewhere, somehow somebody/Must have kicked you around some/Tell me why you want to lay there/Revel in your abandon/Honey, it don't make no difference to me, baby/Everybody's had to fight to be free/See, you don't have to live like a refugee/Now baby, you don't have to live like a refugee/Baby, we ain't the first/I'm sure a lot of other lovers have been burned/Right this seems real to you/But it's one of those things/You gotta feel to be true."
The song resonated with listeners, going to #15 on the Hot 100 and #2 in Canada, where I was living at the time. Both "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Refugee" were huge radio hits in Toronto. Back in those early days, Petty and the Heartbreakers were often getting paired with punk acts like the Ramones, and songs like "Refugee" make you understand why.
Damn the Torpedoes is considered one of Petty's best albums, with other hits like "Here Comes My Girl" and "Even the Losers." Unfortunately for Petty, he had more label problems with the release of the band's next album, 1981's Hard Promises. MCA wanted to charge an additional dollar over list price (which was $8.98 at the time) and Petty was vocal about his opposition, even doing a cover interview with Rolling Stone and threatening not to release the album. MCA eventually gave in and the album stayed at $8.98 and became a top 10 hit, with "The Waiting" getting up to #19 on the singles chart. The band also teamed up with Stevie Nicks for the song "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" from her debut solo album; the song was a big hit, going to #3 on the Hot 100.
Petty and the Heartbreakers released three more successful albums in the '80s. Blair left the band in 1982 and was replaced by Howie Epstein. Petty also joined the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys in the late '80s with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne, and then Petty made his first solo album in 1989, Full Moon Fever. The band wasn't thrilled by his solo move, even though most of them played on the album. Produced by Jeff Lynne, Full Moon Fever was a huge hit, going to #3 on the Billboard 200 and spawning three hit singles.
The Heartbreakers released Into the Great Wide Open in 1991, but that was the last new music (except for "Mary Jane's Last Dance" off their '93 Greatest Hits album) until 1996, when they did the soundtrack for the movie She's the One. Lynch left in 1994 and Dave Grohl played with the band on Saturday Night Live and several live shows; Petty offered him the job but Grohl chose to focus on his solo project, which eventually turned into Foo Fighters. Petty released another solo album, Wildflowers, that year (and one more in 2006). Drummer Steve Ferrone and multinstrumentalist Scott Thurston joined the group officially after the 1999 release of the Petty/Heartbreakers album Echo.
Petty had even reunited with his first band Mudcrutch, releasing albums in 2008 and 2016. Petty and the Heartbreakers would release three more albums, the last being 2014's Hypnotic Eye, before Petty's death in 2017 of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 66.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Born to Lose (1977)
The history of rock and roll is full of tragic figures who died young. While a lot of attention was paid to the "27 Club" of major artists who died at that age, there are plenty of talented but less heralded musicians who went before their time. One of those is Johnny Thunders (born John Genzale), who rose to fame in the early '70s as a member of the New York Dolls before forging a solo career.
The Dolls were a huge influence on punk rock, both in sound and attitude, even as they pushed the envelope by cross dressing and wearing makeup. Thunders, originally recruited as a bassist, switched to guitar and played on the band's first two albums before leaving the group in 1975. Thunders then formed The Heartbreakers with Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan and former Television bassist Richard Hell; guitarist Walter Lure joined them soon afterward. Thunders and Hell clashed and Hell left to form Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and was replaced by Billy Rath.
The Heartbreakers (not to be confused with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, who began playing in 1976) became popular in New York City, headlining shows at now-iconic venues like CBGB and Max's Kansas City. The band played '50s-inspired punk rock and moved away from the glam look of the Dolls by getting their hair cut short and wearing '50s-style suits. The band also had a heroin problem, with Thunders, Nolan and Lure all becoming addicts.
The Heartbreakers were on the ground for the U.K.'s early punk scene, opening for the Sex Pistols. They built a following in London even though most of the shows on tour got canceled. While in London, they recorded their first album, L.A.M.F. Thunders said the title came from New York gang graffiti; gangs would add "L.A.M.F.," or "like a mother fucker" after writing their gang name. Although the album was criticized for having a muddy mix, the Heartbreakers played with a ragged fury. They were proud scumbags, singing about drugs, sex and living in the gutter.
In addition to a searing cover of Dee Dee Ramone's ode to heroin, "Chinese Rocks," the album featured a mission statement of sorts in "Born to Lose."
"That's the way it goes/This city is so cold/And I'm, I'm so slow/That's why I know/I said hit it!/Born to lose/Born to lose/Born to lose/Baby, I'm born to lose/Nothing to do/Nothing to say/Only one thing that I want/It's the only way."
The band was unhappy with the mixing on the album, so much so that Nolan quit over it. A cleaned-up version was released in 1994, highlighting the fuzz and crunch of Thunders' and Lure's guitars.
"Living in the jungle/It ain't so hard/But living in the city/It will eat out, eat out your heart/I said hit it!/Born to lose, I said hit it!/Born to lose, I said hit it!/Born to lose, oh/Baby, I'm born to lose."
After Nolan left, the band recruited Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols to play drums on a tour of the U.K., but later asked Nolan to return. He finished the tour and then left again to start a new band. They did another tour with Terry Chimes (the Clash) on drums. But then their label, Track Records, went bankrupt. Without a recording contract, Thunders went solo and the band split up in early 1978.
The band played some farewell shows in New York and recorded a live album, Live at Max's Kansas City '79. Nolan returned to the band in March 1979 and they played in New York throughout '79 and '80. The Heartbreakers played a reunion tour of Europe in 1984; Rath left after the tour and was replaced by Tony Coiro. Thunders and Nolan continued their solo careers, and Lure formed his own band, the Waldos. The last Heartbreakers show was in November 1990 in New York City, with both Thunders and Nolan in poor health.
Thunders died in April 1991 at age 38, his body found in a New Orleans hotel room. Nolan died in 1992 after suffering a stroke while in the hospital, where he was being treated for meningitis and pneumonia. He had been diagnosed with HIV several years earlier. Lure worked as a stockbroker on Wall Street while also playing with the Waldos. He died from complications related to liver and lung cancer in 2020 at the age of 71. Rath left the music scene after quitting the Heartbreakers and eventually became a substance use disorder counselor. He died in 2014 at the age of 66.
Even though they only released on studio album, the Heartbreakers are one of the most influential early punk bands. They were born to lose, but they left behind a small but killer set of songs.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Paper Planes (2007)
Sampling has been a big part of popular music for more than 40 years, but you need more than a great sample to make a great song. On "Paper Planes," British-Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. had both, using the intro to the Clash's "Straight to Hell" as her intro as well, providing a great fakeout (for Clash fans, anyway; now, people hear it and think of "Paper Planes"). But M.I.A.'s song stands on its own both as a political statement and a catchy-as-hell iconic jam.
Born in London, Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam moved to Sri Lanka with her family when she was six months old. The family returned to London when she was 11 as refugees after the Sri Lankan Civil War broke out. She began working as a visual artist, filmmaker and designer in 2000.
After meeting Justine Frischmann of Elastica, Arulpragasam was hired to create the cover art for Elastica's 2000 album The Menace. She went on the road with the band to document their tour and was encouraged by opening act Peaches to start making music. She took the name M.I.A. (for Missing in Acton) and put together a demo tape that featured dancehall, electro, jungle and world music sounds. After uploading her music to MySpace in June 2004, the major labels started chasing her and she signed with XL Recordings. While she was working on her debut album Arular, she released a mashup mixtape called Piracy Funds Terrorism, which was produced by U.S. DJ Diplo; it mashed up vocal tracks from Arular with samples of other recordings like the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian," Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin'" and Salt-n-Pepa's "Push It."
The MP3 blog era of the early 2000s brought her to my attention in 2004, when her songs "Sunflowers" and "Galang" were featured heavily, and then the mixtape made the rounds. Arular came out in March 2005 and was a critical success; it only hit #198 on the Billboard 200 but it got up to #3 on the Top Dance/Electronic Albums. And in the post-Napster world, albums weren't what they once were, anyways.
M.I.A. played a bunch of festival and club dates, toured with LCD Soundsystem and Gwen Stefani and built up a ton of buzz for her next album, 2007's Kala. She continued mixing in different styles of music, from Bollywood and Tamil film music to Brazilian funk to African folk and it all worked. She had planned to work with producer Timbaland for most of the album, but couldn't get a long-term work visa to enter the U.S. The holdup was likely due to government concern over her support for the pro-secession Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka (which her father had been involved with), which led some to label her a terrorist.
She recorded "Paper Planes" in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, which gave her the inspiration for the lyrics. "I was thinking about living there, waking up every morning--it's such an African neighborhood," she told The Fader in 2007. "I was going to get patties at my local and just thinking that really the worst thing that anyone can say [to someone these days] is some shit like 'What I wanna do is come and get your money.' People don't really feel like immigrants or refugees contribute to culture in any way. That they're just leeches that suck from whatever. So in the song, I say 'All I wanna do is [sound of gun shooting and reloading, cash register opening] and take your money.' I did it in sound effects. It's up to you how you want to interpret. America is so obsessed with money, I'm sure they'll get it."
Instead of paying tribute to making money like a gangster, the song pokes fun at the post-9/11 paranoia in the U.S. at the time that had people here believing immigrants were here to destroy us all. (And as I write this 17 years later, things haven't gotten any better, if the idiotic claims about immigrants eating pets are any indication.) The "paper planes" of the title refer to counterfeit visa documents, which the song's protagonist can hook you up with.
"I fly like paper, get high like planes/If you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name/If you come around here, I make 'em all day/I get one done in a second if you wait/Sometimes I think sittin' on trains/Every stop I get to, I'm clocking that game/Everyone's a winner, we're making our fame/Bona fide hustler making my name."
The chorus sounds like a call back from the 1992 Wreckx-N-Effect jam "Rump Shaker": "All I wanna do is [gun noises]/And a- [cash register noise]/And take your money/All I wanna do is- [gun noises]/And a- [cash register]/And take your money."
The song wasn't an immediate hit, but once it was used in the trailer of the movie Pineapple Express and then featured in the Oscar darling Slumdog Millionaire, "Paper Planes" totally blew up, going to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. The video featured M.I.A. working on a food truck and dancing through the streets of Bed-Stuy, but MTV censored the song's cannabis reference and the gunshot sound effects.
"Pirate skull and bones/Sticks and stones and weed and bongs/Running when we hit 'em/Lethal poison for the system/No one on the corner has swagger like us/Hit me on my burner prepaid wireless/We pack and deliver like UPS trucks/Already going to hell, just pumping that gas."
The song was remixed by 50 Cent, covered in concert by Rihanna and Dizzee Rascal and the line "No one on the corner has swagger like us" was turned into a new song by Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lil Wayne and T.I. At the 2009 Grammys, an extremely pregnant M.I.A. joined the group to perform "Swagga Like Us/Paper Planes." She also worked with A.R. Rahman on the song "O...Saya" for Slumdog Millionaire, which was nominated for an Academy Award. She became the first person of Asian descent to be nominated for an Oscar and a Grammy in the same year.
Since then, she's had an interesting 15 years or so, releasing four studio albums but also stirring up plenty of controversy with her political views. She was a supporter of Julian Assange and Wikileaks, has come out against the COVID-19 vaccine and 5G and most recently, endorsed Donald Trump after RFK Jr. dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. Oh, and this year she launched her own fashion line, which includes a "tin foil hat" that supposedly blocks 99.99% of WiFi, 4G and 5G from the brain.
So there's that. But all that wackadoo shit doesn't change the fact that M.I.A. released some truly brilliant music over the years. Right? Right.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Pat's Trick (1995)
When it comes to underrated guitar gods, Mary Timony has to be on the list. She definitely doesn't get enough respect, despite putting together a near 30-year career. Granted, she's never been a mainstream artist, but give the woman her props. Timony can shred. Not in an Yngwie Malmsteen or Eddie Van Halen way, but in a confident and cool indie rock way.
Timony grew up in Washington, D.C. and started playing in the band Autoclave in 1990 before she went to Boston University. Timony replaced Mary Lou Lord on vocals and guitar in the band Chupa because Lord didn't want to use electric instruments. After releasing a cassette, guitarist Jason Hatfield (Juliana's brother) left the band and the group changed its name to Helium, with Timony, bassist Brian Dunton and drummer Shawn King Devlin. The group released an EP called Pirate Prude in 1994, after which Dunton left and was replaced by Polvo guitarist Ash Bowie on bass.
The new lineup released its full-length debut, The Dirt of Luck, in April 1995 on Matador. Timony's vocal delivery was monotone and '90s-cool, but it was her noisy guitar playing that really made the band stand out. It was a good time for rock bands with strong female vocalists: PJ Harvey, Bjork, Courtney Love, Alanis Morissette, Shirley Manson, et al. Timony had a quieter vocal presence, but it was offset by her guitar prowess.
The opening track on The Dirt of Luck was "Pat's Trick," which got some buzz courtesy of its video being featured on Beavis and Butt-head. That's where I first saw it, but later it was included on the What's Up, Matador? compilation, which I picked up in the late '90s and really enjoyed.
"Creepy and sullen and running out of room/In my little tomb, my little tomb/I'll plant a seed there to remember you/At the may fair with your long-ass curly hair/We had a pirate band, a tear for every grain of sand/And I was fighting with my hands/This one is wilted and looks like you/'Cause it never grew, it never grew/This one is scrawny, it looks like me/'Cause it's dirty and I'm so dirty too."
The song chugs along with a fuzzy guitar/bass riff that just grabs your attention.
"We had a pirate band, a tear for every grain of sand/And I was fighting with my hands...over you/Beautiful thing, you are the most beautiful thing/Flower of life, bird of spring, you are the most beautiful thing/Locus flower, locus flower, out of bounds, out of bounds/Locus flower, locus flower, out of ground, out of ground."
Timony's laconic delivery and guitar-driven gave Helium a sound that ventured into Sonic Youth and Pavement territory, which was right in the sweet spot of what I was digging in 1995 (and now, really). I saw Helium open for Hole in 1995 at the Orpheum in Boston.
"Some say it's like a beautiful flower/Some say it's a terrible power/I'll meet you at the ending hour/I want to use, I want to use that power/Feed me, feed me, feed me/You are the most beautiful thing/You are the most beautiful thing/Flower of life, bird of spring/You are the most beautiful thing."
For Helium's second album, 1997's The Magic City, the band leaned on an electronic sound with synths and drum machines, a 180 from their previous album. Helium split up after a 1998 tour. Timony moved back to D.C. and began a solo career, releasing four solo albums over the next decade. In 2009, she formed a band called Pow Wow, which later changed its name to Soft Power.
Then in 2010, she teamed up with Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney (which was on hiatus at the time) and Rebecca Cole of the Minders to form Wild Flag. The group released a kickass self-titled album on Merge in 2011 and toured shortly afterward. I saw them at the Paradise and the show was great. After that group split up, Timony formed Ex Hex with Betsy Wright and Laura Harris and released Rips, a 2014 album that was full of power pop rippers that recalled late '70s garage rock. I saw them open for Rocket from the Crypt in 2014 and then later as a headliner. A second album, It's Real, followed in 2019. That group has been on hold lately as Wright has been touring with Superchunk and Timony has played bass with D.C. post-punk act Hammered Hulls and released an excellent solo album, Untame the Tiger, earlier this year.
Timony continues to make great music and has inspired a new generation of excellent female guitarists including Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz and Lindsay Jordan of Snail Mail.
