Day After Day #111: Talk About Love

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Talk About Love (1987)

When you're a rock fan, it's important to support your local music scene. If you're lucky enough to live in or near a decent-sized city, there's likely a bunch of local acts that are worth your time. When I started going to concerts in the '80s, I only knew about big arena shows, and those were the days when bands could routinely fill hockey rinks in major metropolitan areas. 

But once I started seeing bands in clubs, that's when my eyes really opened to the wide range of shows you could attend. And it was way more fun to be right up in front of the stage instead of way back in the rafters a mile away. 

Boston's music scene was especially healthy in the '70s and '80s with plenty of great bands playing interesting venues in the city and in the suburbs. In the '70s, there were bands like Aerosmith, the J. Geils Band, the Cars and more unique acts like Mission of Burma and the Neighborhoods. In the '80s, there was Til Tuesday, the Del Fuegos, Scruffy the Cat and later, the Pixies and Throwing Muses. 

Another Boston-area band that emerged in the '80s but got less fanfare was O Positive. Led by singer Dave Herlihy, the band formed in 1983 and soon became known locally for its earnest indie rock and its great live shows. O Positive's jangly sound and Herlihy's vocals were reminiscent of R.E.M. and the band could deliver the goods live. They released a few EPs Only Breathing and Cloud Factory, that got a lot of play on college radio and on bigger Boston stations like WBCN and WFNX. The band made videos that were played on the Boston-based music video channel V66.

"Talk About Love" is the lead track on 1987's Cloud Factory that starts with a stirring riff and finds Herlihy singing about lost love.

"I've got a flavor for the outside/Well I couldn't look away/Thinking about the book/That I read or that I wrote/And it feels like I've been read to/Talk about love."

In an interview, Herlihy says the popularity of "Talk About Love" caused Only Breathing to sell more copies at the Newbury Comics store in Harvard Square in December 1987 than any other record, even R.E.M. and U2, who were huge at the time. 

"I saw your face in the paper/You look so happy/You look right at me/I sing at your star/And I'm dying to smile but/I just couldn't be myself I had to/Think of someone else and never/Celebration day is broken/Talking about the words we should have spoken/Talk about love."

The band signed with Epic Records in 1989 and released its major label debut, Toyboat Toyboat Toyboat, in 1990. It's a great record, but the music industry was still focused on hair metal at that point so O Positive was lost in the shuffle. College radio still played them, but the label didn't pay for any videos, which at the time were hugely important for new bands. 

The band eventually left Epic and did one more album, Home Sweet Head, before splitting up in 1995. Herlihy had graduated law school before forming O Positive and became an entertainment lawyer; he's also a professor at Northeastern University. O Positive has played some reunion shows over the years (including one at the Paradise in January; see below) and Herlihy released a solo EP last year. 

I caught the band a few times at an old rock club called Grover's in Beverly, where I live. When I first moved down to this area in 1989, I went there often and saw great local acts like O Positive, Tribe, Heretix, Barrence Whitfield and the Savages, and Bim Skala Bim. But then one day, the club was closed because of failure to pay back taxes and it eventually became a restaurant. A lot of the old suburban clubs have come and gone, but there are some newer non-Boston venues for cool indie bands like Deep Cuts in Medford, Faces Brewing in Malden and Notch Brewing in Brighton and Salem (occasionally). There's still good local music out there, but you've got to look for it.

Day By Day #110: Loveless Love

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Loveless Love (1980)

When it comes to rock music, sometimes it doesn't pay to be influential. You can influence a ton of other artists and be revered as such, but the gold and the glory don't necessarily follow. Such is the lot of the Feelies, a Haledon, NJ, band that formed in 1976 and did their own jangle rock thing, serving as an inspiration for R.E.M., Yo La Tengo and countless other indie bands of the '80s. People in the know love them, but the general public has no clue who they are.

The band started as the Outkids, formed by Glenn Mercer, Bill Million, Dave Weckerman and singer Richard Reilly. They added Vinny DeNunzio on drums and Keith DeNunzio on bass and changed their name to the Feelies, a reference from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. After a few years, the lineup shifted, with Anton Fier taking over on drums, and the Feelies released their first single, "Fa Ce-La" on Rough Trade Records in 1979. Their debut album Crazy Rhythms coming out on Stiff Records in February 1980.

Speaking of influences, the Feelies were heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, as well as Jonathan Richman, Television and classic rock staples like the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Mercer and Million developed a clean guitar sound that was powerful and precise, going from quiet jangle to loud raveups. Mercer's vocal style was calm and cool over the roiling din, and the band used a lot of different types of percussion to augment the sound. 

"Loveless Love" begins with a slow-build rave up, picking up steam as it moves along, and Mercer doesn't start singing until halfway through the 5-minute song. Mercer and Million play intertwined leads in advance of the vocal.

"You made your offer/A little too soon/It's not the first time it's happened/In a moment you said/You don't want to know me/It seems as though that's never done/What I'm seeing as hopeless/You're seeing as won."

The protagonist is looking for something more than a one-night stand.

"The story asking/Could we be together tonight/I was raised by a different standard/And it wouldn't seem right/It doesn't seem important/I'd like to know what matters then/As it happened, they already did/I don't remember it/Loveless love/Is not my plan/Loveless love/Said it isn't romance."

Crazy Rhythms didn't sell well, but it was many best-of lists for 1980. Fier left the band after the album came out, joining the Lounge Lizards (and later forming the Golden Palominos). The band went on hiatus as the members played in various other bands around New York and New Jersey including the Trype, Yung Wu and the Willies. Mercer and Million reformed the band and recorded The Good Earth in 1985 with Peter Buck of R.E.M. producing. The album came out in '86 and the Feelies opened for Lou Reed and R.E.M. In 1988, the band signed to A&M and released Only Life, which was again a critical favorite, and then Time for a Witness in 1991. They also memorably played a band at a high school reunion in Jonathan Demme's great 1986 movie Something Wild.

The Feelies split up after that album. Mercer and Weckerman started the band Wake Ooloo in 1994 but there was no Feelies activity for nearly 20 years until Sonic Youth convinced them to reform and play some shows in 2008. I saw them for the first that fall at the Wilbur, which is a strange venue to see rock music because of all the weird nooks and crannies that wreak havoc on the acoustics. Fortunately there was a pit area, which was filled with a ton of fans way older than me who saw the band back in the early days. The show was terrific and I became a big fan.

The band released its first album in 20 years on Bar/None in 2011 and have continued to tour and occasionally release music (a studio album in 2017 and a live show of Velvet Underground covers last year). I saw them again in 2010 at the Middle East downstairs, a late show that went on seemingly forever. It was awesome but I was exhausted by the end. 

The Feelies are still playing gigs and thank jeebus for that.

Day By Day #109: We're Desperate

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

We're Desperate (1981)

The Los Angeles punk scene in the late 1970s was a wild mix of out-there bands. It got less publicity than the scenes in New York and London, but it was no less influential. Bands like Black Flag, Fear, the Circle Jerks, the Germs, the Runaways, the Dils and the Flesh Eaters were all part of that initial wave, but one of the most impactful bands to come out of that early LA scene was X. 

Comprised of vocalist-bassist John Doe, vocalist Exene Cervenka, guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer DJ Bonebrake, the band formed in 1977 and immediately made an impression, releasing their first single "Adult Books" on Dangerhouse Records in 1978. They signed to Slash Records and recorded their 1980 debut, Los Angeles, which was produced by Ray Manzarek (aka the keyboardist of the Doors) of all people. It's a raging tour de force that captures the band's punk fury, but also distinguishes them from their contemporaries with Doe's and Cervenka's off-kilter harmonies and rockabilly influences. 

X's second album, 1981's Wild Gift, was also produced by Manzarek and provides more of the same: short, punky blasts that incorporate the band's many influences (including roots rock, blues, country and R&B) with the sharp guitar work of Zoom and the poetic lyrics of Doe and Cervenka. 

The second song on side 1 is "We're Desperate," a re-recorded version of the flip side of their first single "Adult Books," which is also re-recorded here. In the liner notes, Doe said the song is about living in poverty, crappy apartments and dealing with jerk landlords. Bonebrake added that he wanted the song to have a tempo that combined the Ramones and Captain Beefheart.

"I play too hard when I ought to go to sleep/They pick on me 'cause I really got the beat/Some people give me the creeps/Every other week, I need a new address/Landlord, landlord, landlord, clean up the mess/Our whole fucking life is a wreck/We're desperate, get used to it."

"We're Desperate" is a two-minute ripper that typifies the band's lifestyle in those early days, when meals and decent housing were hard to come by.

"Coca-Cola and a Motorola kitchen/Naugahyde and a tie-dye t-shirt/Last night, everything broke/We're desperate, get used to it/We're desperate, get used to it/We're desperate, get used to it/We're desperate, get used to it, it's kiss or kill."

A few months after Wild Gift came out, the band was featured in The Decline of Western Civilization, a great documentary about the LA punk scene directed by Penelope Spheeris (who later went on to direct Wayne's World). Filmed in 1979-80, the film included footage of X, the Germs, the Alice Bag Band, the Circle Jerks, Fear and Black Flag. X are featured extensively, performing five songs including "We're Desperate."

X signed with major label Elektra in 1982 and released Under the Big Black Sun, which featured more of a country influence. They released three more relatively successful albums in the '80s. Zoom left the band in 1986 and was replaced by Dave Alvin, who had left the Blasters; Tony Gilkyson of Lone Justice also joined on guitar. After X released See How We Are in 1987, Alvin left the band; following the tour for that album, X went on hiatus. They reunited in 1993 and released the album hey Zeus! After a few years, the band took another break. In 2006, the original lineup of the band reunited to tour North America with the Rollins Band and the Riverboat Gamblers; I saw that tour when it came to Boston and it was excellent. 

They've continued to tour periodically in the subsequent years. I saw them play at Brighton Music Hall in 2016, a year after Zoom had to undergo treatment for bladder cancer. He played this show seated on a stool, but still sounded great and had his trademark cheshire cat grin going the whole time. The band released Alphabetland in 2020 and it was solid. And they're still going, playing as recently as last month. They're not as desperate as they were in the '70s, but X is still bringing it.

Day After Day #108: Saving My Ticket

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Saving My Ticket (1994)

As indie rock boomed in the early '90s, there were many local scenes that were making noise. It wasn't just Seattle, but also Austin, San Diego, Minneapolis, Boston, Halifax and yes, Chapel Hill. The latter had bands like Polvo, Archers of Loaf and Superchunk. 

Formed in 1989, Superchunk was originally known as Chunk, which was the nickname of drummer Chuck Garrison. He was joined by singer-guitarist Mac McCaughan, bassist Laura Ballance and guitarist Jack McCook. After the band's debut album was released, McCook left and was replaced by Jim Wilbur. Jon Wurster replaced Garrison after the second album came out and the band's core lineup was in place.

Their third album, On the Mouth, was their last on Matador. After Matador signed a distribution deal with Atlantic, Superchunk decided to release their next album on Merge, the label started by McCaughan and Ballance that released the first Superchunk single, "Slack Motherfucker." 

The band's fourth album, Foolish, came out in April 1994. McCaughan and Ballance had recently broken up and a lot of the songs reflected that, with McCaughan's lyrics focusing on the breakup. Ballance later noted that the tour was difficult because she had to listen to those lyrics every night.

"Saving My Ticket" is a rip-roaring rocker that finds McCaughan singing about uncertainty, which one can imagine stems from what happens after a breakup.

"Always expecting the worst/My mouth cracked open spit a curse/Well timed and well rehearsed/And that's no surprise/And that's no surprise/Plan to fill it in/Empty my spirit over anyway/All the bets are in/Saving my ticket for then."

McCaughan and Wilbur lay down a bed of guitar noise as Wurster's powerhouse drumming leads the way. McCaughan's keening vocals soar over the din.

"They rock back and forth on their heels/He cuts, she deals/They're not comfortable with how this feels/No matter now."

This album was my introduction to Superchunk. I first heard them in the video for "Driveway to Driveway" getting played on 120 Minutes and decided to pick up the CD. I've been a fan ever since. They made four more albums before taking a break, with periodic shows and singles being released from 2002 to 2009. Their next album was 2010's Majesty Shredding. After 2013's I Hate Music, Ballance announced she would no longer be touring with the band because of hearing problems; she was replaced on tour by Jason Narducy, who also had been working with Wurster in Bob Mould's band. And last year, Wurster announced he was leaving Superchunk; he continues to play with the Mountain Goats.

I was lucky enough to see them several times since that 2010 tour and they're a ferocious and exuberant live act. Their 2018 show supporting their What a Time to Be Alive was especially powerful, filled with anger and catharsis as they voiced their frustrations of living under a Trump presidency. 

Thirty-five years into their career, Superchunk continues to be one of our finest indie bands. Even their B-sides and covers compilation Misfits & Mistakes, released last year, is excellent. 

Stuck In Thee Garage #524: April 19, 2024

A wise man once said, "You might as well jump" and by gum, we believed him. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about jumping in hour 2. They're pretty jumpy, which is a good thing. But they don't jump the shark.

 

This playlist will take a bite out of you:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

METZ - Glass Eye/Up on Gravity Hill

Kim Gordon - Bye Bye/The Collective

Lunchbox - Dinner for Two/Pop and Circumstance

The Hold Steady - The Death of the Punchline/The Death of the Punchline

Cindy Lee - Lockstepp/Diamond Jubilee

Dope Yeti - Lightning Bug/Dope Yeti

Mdou Moctar - Imouhar/Funeral for Justice

Waxahatchee - Ice Cold/Tigers Blood

Gustaf - What Does It Mean/Package, Pt. 2

Chastity Belt - Funny/Live Laugh Love

The Reds, Pinks and Purples - Dead Stars in Your Eyes/Unwishing Well

Ride - Last Frontier/Interplay

Boeckner - Euphoria/Boeckner!

Restorations - Big, Dumb/Restorations

The Jesus and Mary Chain - American Born/Glasgow Eyes

Hour 2: Jump

Aztec Camera - Jump/Knife

The Beths - Jump Rope Gazers/Jump Rope Gazers

Richard and Linda Thompson - Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?/Shoot Out the Lights

Sinead O'Connor - Jump in the River/I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Reptaliens - Jump/Multiverse

The Night Marchers - Jump in the Fire/See You in Magic

Savak - Jump Into the Night/Flavors of Paradise

Ty Segall - Jump Into the Fire/Segall Smeagol

Courting - Jumper/Guitar Music

Dead Meadow - Let's Jump In/Feathers

Pilot to Gunner - Ship Jumpers/Hail Hallucinator

Radiohead - High & Dry/The Bends

Sleater-Kinney - Jumpers/The Woods

Nirvana - Dive/Incesticide

Jump into the jams HERE!

Day After Day #107: Stutter

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Stutter (1993)

Music history is littered with bands that burned brightly on their first album and then were never able to replicate it. Case in point: Elastica.  

The London band was formed in 1992 by former Suede members Justine Frischmann (vocals/guitar) and Justin Welch (drums), who were later joined by bassist Annie Holland and guitarist Donna Matthews. Their first single, "Stutter," came out in November 1993 in the U.K. but wasn't released in the U.S. until September 1994; it was included on the band's self-titled album in 1995.

"Stutter" revs up with jagged guitars and roars for just over two minutes, with Frischmann eviscerating a male lover for his lack of "get up and go."

"No need to while, boy/Like a wind-up toy, you stutter at my feet/And it's never the time, boy/You've had too much wine to stumble up my street/Well, it isn't a problem/Nothing we can't keep between the sheets/Tell me you're mine, love/And I will not wait for other bedtime treats."

Frischmann pulls no punches in the chorus.

"Is there something you lack/When I'm flat on my back?/Is there something that I can do for you?/It's always something you hate/Or it's something you ate/Tell me, is it the way that I touch you?/Have you found a new mate/And is she really great? Is it just that I'm much too much for you?"

The song was an immediate hit when it came out in the U.K. and Elastica was voted Best New Band in the Melody Maker Readers Poll based on it. It wasn't presented to North American radio until 1995 to avoid overexposure. It peaked at #80 in 1993 in the U.K., and went to #67 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1995. It also went to #10 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart and #4 on the Canadian Alternative chart.

In 1994, the band released "Line Up" and "Connection" as singles and they both went top 20 in the U.K. before the album came out in March 1995 and became the fastest-selling U.K. debut album since Oasis' Definitely Maybe. Frischmann was also dating Blur's Damon Albarn at the time and was all over the Brit tabloids.

The album was excellent, full of short and speedy post-punk rippers and plenty of attitude. It did well in the U.S., getting to #66 on the Billboard 200. But the band ran into some trouble when it was sued by music publishers claiming some of their songs plagiarized the bands Wire and the Stranglers; specifically, the intro to "Connection" is almost identical to Wire's "Three Girl Rhumba" and "Waking Up" was very similar to the Stranglers' "No More Heroes." Elastica ended up settling the claims out of court.

Elastica toured relentlessly, coming to North America four times in a year, including the Lollapalooza tour. Holland left the band, citing exhaustion, and then Matthews left in 1998 after battling a heroin addiction. The band had multiple recording sessions that didn't prove fruitful, eventually releasing a six-song EP in 1999. 

Finally, Elastica released its second album The Menace in April 2000. It featured a new band lineup and contribution from Albarn and Mark E. Smith of the Fall, and it had a cover photograph taken by Maya Arulpragasam, who would become famous a few years later as M.I.A. It reached #24 on the U.K. Album Chart but it was a virtual non-entity in the U.S. I remember downloading a few songs from it from Napster, but I have zero memory of what they sounded like. The album included a cover of Trio's "Da Da Da" and a song called "Your Arse My Place," but it came and went. The band was dropped by Atlantic Records because of poor sales. Sessions for a third album didn't pan out and the band split up in October 2001. 

Eventually, Frischmann moved to Colorado and studied art at Naropa University; she began working as an artist in 2008 and later moved to San Francisco. Matthews started a band called Klang before finding religion and becoming a pastor. Welch played drums for Lush's reunion tour in 2015-16 and now plays in Piroshka. Life goes on, but we'll always have that first Elastica album to remind us of how great they once were.

Day After Day #106: Doo Wop (That Thing)

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Doo Wop (That Thing) (1998)

A lot of times when artists in successful bands go solo, the results tend to be underwhelming. This was not the case with Lauryn Hill after she left the Fugees in 1997. That group was riding high after topping the charts a year earlier, but band tensions led to a split. 

Already a hot commodity thanks to Fugees hits like "Killing Me Softly" and "Ready or Not," Hill took that freedom and ran with it, releasing The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998. Inspired by her recent marriage to Rohan Marley (a college football player and son of reggae legend Bob) and pregnancy, she worked with a group of musicians called New Ark to create the album, although the songs were solely credited to Hill (New Ark later sued for writing credit and compensation; the suit was settled for $5 million). 

The lead single was "Doo Wop (That Thing)" and it blew up immediately, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first song to debut at #1 that was written, produced and recorded by a sole woman since Debbie Gibson's "Lost in Your Eyes" in 1989. It was also the first hip-hop song by a solo artist to go #1, the first single to debut at #1 and the first song by a female rapper to go to the top of the chart.

"Doo Wop" addresses attitudes of both black men and women in the war of the sexes, with Hill rapping the first few verses while also providing the doo wop-style backing vocals. First she addresses the ladies.

"It's been three weeks since you were looking for your friend/The one you let hit it and never called you again/Remember when he told you he was about the Benjamins?/You act like you ain't hear him, then give him a little trim/To begin, how you think you really gon' pretend/Like you wasn't down and you called him again?"

The guys then get called out.

"The second verse is dedicated to the men/More concerned with his rims and his Timbs than his women/Him and his men come in the club like hooligans/Don't care who they offend, poppin' yang (like you got yen)/Let's stop pretend, the ones that pack pistols by they waist men/Cristal by the case men, still in their mother's basement/The pretty face men claiming they be the big men/Need to take care of their three or four kids."

Yeah, it's a bit preachy but it's so damn catchy. "Girls, you know you'd better watch out/Some guys, some guys are only about/That thing, that thing, that thing/That thing, that thing, that thing/Guys, you know you'd better watch out/Cause girls, some girls are only about/That thing, that thing, that thing/That thing, that thing, that thing."

The late '90s were also a time when videos could have a big impact on the success of songs, and Hill's video for "Doo Wop" was huge. It uses a split screen, with a retro Hill from 1967 singing side-by-side with her 1998 self at a block party in Washington Heights. It's classic R&B and soul on one side and hip hop on the other, perfectly melding the styles Hill uses in the song. 

The album was a monster hit as well, selling over 20 million copies worldwide and won five Grammy awards the following year. Hill was a superstar in her early 20s and set to have a long career, but then something unexpected happened. As of this writing, she still hasn't released a follow-up album. 

There were some reasons for this. An actress before she got into music (she stole the show as a singing nun in Sister Act 2 when she was still a teenager), Hill started working on a screenplay about Bob Marley's life and also reportedly turned down a bunch of acting roles (in movies like Charlie's Angels, A Star is Born, The Bourne Identity and the Matrix sequels). And she ended up having six kids, so there's that.

The pressures of stardom caused her to withdraw from the public eye; she also got into religion, courtesy of her "spiritual advisor" Brother Anthony, who some likened to a cult leader. And she spent three months in jail in 2013 after being found guilty of tax evasion charges.

Hill did release an MTV Unplugged album in 2002 and a few singles over the years, but no albums. She reportedly has recorded plenty of unreleased material. There have been occasional tours, although Hill developed a pattern of showing up hours late for shows. Most recently, she just played at Coachella. She's still a star, but back in the late '90s, Lauryn Hill was dominant.

Day After Day #105: No One Knows

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

No One Knows (2002)

Many bands go their entire careers without finding that one song that defines them. In the case of Queens of the Stone Age, a band that has had a long and excellent career, that one song came together on their third album when all the conditions were just right. 

Josh Homme formed QOTSA in 1996 after his previous band Kyuss broke up. Originally called Gamma Ray, the band changed its name after a German power metal band called Gamma Ray threatened legal action. The first two QOTSA albums were recorded with a changing cast of musicians in addition to Homme, receiving good notices from critics and fans. 

For the third Queens album, the core of the band was Homme on vocals and guitar, Mark Lanegan (who Homme briefly toured with as a second guitarist in Screaming Trees), Nick Oliveri on bass and some guy named Dave Grohl on drums (taking a break from his Foo Fighters frontman duties). The conceit of the album was driving from LA to Joshua Tree and hearing different songs on the radio, complete with DJ interludes provided by the likes of Blag Dahlia, Alain Johannes, Natasha Schneider and Jesse Hughes. 

The first single from the album was "No One Knows," and from the first listen it was apparent that this song had something magical about it. Opening with a punchy riff, the song finds Homme singing about a tricky relationship, although he has refused to really explain it.

"We get some rules to follow/That and this, these and those/No one knows/We get these pills to swallow/How they stick in your throat/Tastes like gold/Oh, what you do to me/No one knows."

The song is lean and mean, packing in some furious riffage, Oliveri's driving bass and Grohl's pounding drums as it lurches forward. It's 4 minutes of hot rock groove that hasn't lost any of its power all these years later.

"I journey through the desert/Of the mind with no hope/I follow/I drift along the ocean/Dead lifeboats in the sun/And come undone/Pleasantly caving in/I come undone/And I realize you're mine/Indeed a fool am I."

QOTSA came out of the Palm Desert music scene, but it quickly set itself apart from the stoner rock bands that Kyuss once inspired. Homme fused Krautrock, blues, metal and alternative sounds into a different take on hard rock.

Bolstered by a great video that was co-directed by Michel Gondry, "No One Knows" took MTV and rock radio by storm back when those were still things that had influence over music popularity. The song reached #51 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, #1 on the Alternative Airplay chart and #15 on the U.K. Singles Chart. It's routinely included in the lists of top rock songs of the '00s and top guitar songs of all time. 

Songs for the Deaf was a huge album for the band, breaking QOTSA through to the mainstream and establishing it as a force to be reckoned. Grohl toured with the band on the first leg of its 2002 tour for the album, playing small clubs like the Paradise in Boston that June. I missed that show because I had just become a dad; but I would see them a few more times in the coming years (but not with Grohl, unfortunately). Grohl went back to the Foo Fighters, but honestly, I prefer him playing drums from bands like QOTSA and Them Crooked Vultures (and that other band he was in) than as a frontman.

Queens continued on with different members and lineups for the next few albums, but has featured pretty much the same lineup for the last decade. The band is currently touring in Canada behind last year's In Times New Roman album.

It's no dig on the Homme and the band that their best song came out 22 years and was originally written a few years before that. It's a great goddamn song, pure and simple.

Day After Day #104: Sour Times

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Sour Times (1994)

When it comes to audacious debuts, it's pretty tough to beat Portishead's 1994 entry on the music scene. Hailing from Bristol in the U.K., the group featured singer Beth Gibbons and multi-instrumentalist Geoff Barrow, who teamed up with guitarist Adrian Utley. The sound they created was unlike anything else out at the time, especially given the popularity of grunge in North America and BritPop in the U.K.

Portishead's music sounded like a theme for a Bond film that hadn't been released, combining Gibbons' detached and melancholy vocals with the cinematic sounds of a spaghetti western, mixing in Utley's guitar, theremin and hip-hop flourishes like scratching and sampling. They were quickly lumped into the trip-hop genre with groups like Massive Attack, but Portishead had a sound of its own.

Second single "Sour Times" was what really kicked things off for the band, aided by a sample of Lalo Schifrin's "Danube Incident" from 1967's More Mission: Impossible. It was dark, slinky and sinister as Gibbons croons about infidelity.

"To pretend no one can find/The fallacies of morning rose/Forbidden fruit, hidden eyes/Courtesies that I despise in me/Take a ride, take a shot now/'Cause nobody loves me, it's true/Not like you do."

Lounge music was making a comeback in the mid-'90s but this wasn't some Esquivel space age, Art Deco shizz. Portishead was mixing retro and futuristic and the results were incredible.

"Who am I, what and why/'Cause all I have left is my memories of yesterday/Oh these sour times/'Cause nobody loves me, it's true/Not like you do."

I remember it getting played on WFNX here and being wowed by it immediately, but "Sour Times" took a little longer to hit in the U.K. It reached #57 on the U.K. Singles Chart upon initial release, but after the next single "Glory Box" became a hit in 1995, "Sour Times" was re-released and went up to #13. In the U.S., it went to #53 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The group was critically acclaimed and its debut album Dummy won the Mercury Music in 1995. Portishead took a break until releasing its second, self-titled album in 1997. They moved away from sampling as much on that album, using more live instrumentation. But since then, Portishead has only released one more album, 2008's Third. They toured periodically since then, last playing in 2022 at a benefit concert. Gibbons recently released a single from a forthcoming solo album.

Ultimately, Portishead remained as mysterious as their music. They're not officially broken up, so there might be more music on the way, but there might not. Whatever happens, they've left behind three interesting and excellent albums.

Day After Day #103: Taxman

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Taxman (1966)

When you're doing one of these kinds of features and trying to figure out which Beatle song to do, it's no easy task because there are so many great ones. But given that it's April 15, "Taxman" was kind of a no-brainer. And it's a classic that's not quite as ubiquitous as many other Fab Four tracks.

By the time the Beatles recorded their seventh album Revolver, they had already begun evolving their sound. On the previous album, 1965's Rubber Soul, they moved away from the upbeat pop of their early albums and started exploring different instrumentation and more mature lyrics. They also started doing more drugs; John Lennon called Rubber Soul "the pot album," whereas Revolver was influenced by Lennon and George Harrison's extensive use of LSD.

The lead song on Revolver, however, was an angry rant written by Harrison about the progressive tax imposed in the U.K. by the Labour government of Harold Wilson, which had the Beatles forking over more than 90% of their earnings. He was also upset that their taxes were going to help fund the making of military weapons. Harrison got some lyrical help from Lennon, who added some one-liners to the song, while Paul McCartney ended up playing the Indian-inspired guitar solo.

"Let me tell you how it will be/There's one for you, nineteen for me/'Cause I'm the taxman/Yeah, I'm the taxman/Should five percent appear too small/Be thankful I don't take it all/'Cause I'm the taxman/Yeah, I'm the taxman."

The song is considered to be the Beatles' first political statement after making their name with poppy love songs. Harrison even namechecks Wilson and Edward Heath, leader of the Conservative Party. Harrison's guitar riff was inspired by R&B but McCartney's solo echoed the likes of Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix, who were known for playing speedy, spacey solos. 

"If you drive a car, I'll tax the street/If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat/If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat/If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet."

Revolver marked Harrison's emergency as a songwriting force in the band, which had been dominated by Lennon-McCartney compositions and covers to that point. In addition to "Taxman," he wrote "Love You To" and "I Want to Tell You."

"Taxman" ends with a brutal verse: "Now my advice for those who die/Declare the pennies on your eyes/Cause I'm the taxman/Yeah, I'm the taxman/And you're working for no one but me." McCartney's solo was then spliced onto the end of the song before the fadeout.

The song was not released as a single, but the album went #1 pretty much everywhere because it was 1966 and they were the Beatles. 

The group would lean into the acid and psychedelia with their next album, a little-heard concept album called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

"Taxman' was ahead of its time in many ways, with some referring to it as a precursor to punk and heavy metal. But it also was a preview of musicians as "tax exiles,": a few years later, the U.K. saw the Rolling Stones moving to France, David Bowie and Marc Bolan to Switzerland, Cat Stevens to Brazil and Bad Company and Rod Stewart to California--all to escape the taxman. Nowadays, musicians set up bands as corporations in tax havens like the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin islands.

Day After Day #102: Song for the Dumped

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Song for the Dumped (1997)

I've always leaned towards guitar-driven music, but it's not the be-all, end-all for me. Give me a good song and the rest falls into place. It was that way with the Ben Folds Five, who burst onto the rock scene in the late '90s with a guitar-free, piano-led album of rollicking, quirky songs that perfectly fit that time and space.

"Song for the Dumped" was the song I first heard by the BFF, getting lots of airplay on WFNX and creating some buzz. Weirdly enough, it wasn't the first single released from the band's 1997 album Whatever and Ever Amen; that was "Battle of Who Could Care Less." But "Song for the Dumped" was an uptempo power pop banger with the refrain "Give me back my money, bitch," so I'm guessing that caught the ear of radio programmers.   

It's a pissed-off breakup song, but it's also cathartic and a lot of fun.

"So you wanted/To take a break/Slow it down some and/Have some space/Well, fuck you too/Give me my money back/Give me my money back/You bitch/I want my money back/And don't forget to give me back my black t-shirt."

Folds' piano is the lead instrument here, but I can't say enough about Robert Sledge on fuzz bass who really kicks ass and drummer Darren Jessee; both men provide excellent backing vocals as well. 

The song is obviously relatable for anyone who's been dumped. I think if it had come out a year earlier, it would have hit home even harder for me because I was still stinging from a breakup. In early '97, I was actually in a good place, but man, is this song entertaining as hell.

"I wish I hadn't bought you/Dinner/Right before you dumped me/On your front porch."

The song was released as the fifth single from the album in 1998, but the big hit was the fourth single, "Brick," a slow song Folds wrote about his high school girlfriend getting an abortion. It's a great song and got a ton of radio airplay; it's probably the band's biggest song and a huge departure from the rest of the album.

As for "Song for the Dumped," I just discovered in researching the song that an early version of it appeared on the soundtrack of the terrible Ellen DeGeneres movie "Mr. Wrong," which came out in 1996...a year before DeGeneres famously came out as a lesbian on the Oprah Winfrey Show. The movie was about a single woman looking for a husband and by all accounts was bad, but somehow "Song for the Dumped" found its way onto the soundtrack despite never actually getting played in the movie.

Ben Folds Five released one more album, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, in 1999 before splitting up a year later. Folds went on to a solo career, produced and arranged William Shatner's album Has Been, contributed to soundtracks and played in The Bens with Ben Lee and Ben Kweller. Sledge played in the bands International Orange and Surrender Human, while Jessee formed the band Hotel Lights. The BFF reunited a few times before releasing The Sound of the Life of the Mind in 2012 and touring, but they appear to be done for now.