Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Aneurysm (1991)
They weren't around for very long for obvious reasons, but Nirvana got a lot done. Kurt Cobain and company didn't do anything that hadn't been done before, but they did it well and did it at the right time to make the most impact. Unless you were paying close attention to the Seattle music scene in 1988-1990, you probably didn't know much about Nirvana.
But after their second album Nevermind came out in September 1991, everybody knew who Nirvana was. The first single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and its iconic video hit home for an entire generation of Gen X kids who had grown tired of the classic rock and hair metal that was all over radio and MTV. The album blew up, putting Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl on the cover of every music magazine.
One of the B-sides for the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" single was "Aneurysm," which was recorded at the band's first session with Grohl on New Year's Day 1991. The song was written by Cobain after he split with his girlfriend Tobi Vail; biographer Charles Cross wrote that the song was an attempt to win Vail back.
"Come on over and do the twist/Overdo it and have a fit/Love you so much, it makes me sick/Come on over and do the twist/Beat me out of me/Beat me out of me/Beat me out of me/Beat me out of me."
"Aneurysm" follows the loud/quiet/loud pattern that the band loved, alternating between heavy riffing and quieter sections.
Lyrically, the song isn't very complex, but there's a lot going on musically. Cobain's delivery of the line "Love you so much, it makes me sick" makes it sound like he's in physical pain as he squeezes out the syllables. The end of that relationship has him singing in the refrain as the song careens to its conclusion: "She keeps it pumping straight to my heart."
The song didn't get a lot of attention when it first came out, but it was included on the B-sides collection Incesticide in 1992, when the band was everywhere and DJs and fans were looking for more Nirvana content. This was when I discovered the song, which instantly became one of my favorites by the band.
A live version of "Aneurysm" was released as a single when the live album From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah came out in October 1996.
Of course, by this time, Cobain had been dead for 18 months and the band was no longer a functioning entity (but very much was still releasing content).
In the 30 years since Cobain's passing, Nirvana has become a classic rock act and its songs are played repeatedly on rock radio stations. There are several songs that I never need to hear again, including "Teen Spirit." But I never get sick of hearing "Aneurysm," which is one of the greatest songs to emerge from the grunge era.
Extreme weather is becoming a common occurrence these days. Whether it's scary storms, major floods or titanic twisters, it seems every time you turn around, an area is getting devastated by the weather. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about extreme weather in hour 2. It'll make you forget (for a little while, anyway) the consequences of such crazy fluctuations.
Even flying cows like this playlist:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
DIIV - Reflected/Frog in Boiling Water
Sharp Pins - If I Ever Was Lonely/Radio DDR
Shellac - Tattoos/To All Trains
Dehd - Shake/Poetry
Los Campesinos! - Feast of Tongues/All Hell
Beth Gibbons - Rewind/Lives Outgrown
Les Savy Fav - Barbs/OUI, LSF
E - Clarion/Living Waters
Restorations - 800/Restorations
Lightheaded - You and Your Mother/Combustible Gems
Lunchbox - Love for Free/Pop and Circumstance
Gustaf - Statue/Package, Pt. 2
Chastity Belt - Hollow/Live Laugh Love
Daniel Romano's Outfit - Chatter/Too Hot to Sleep
Mannequin Pussy - Split Me Open/I Got Heaven
Charles Moothart - Little Egg/Black Holes Don't Choke
The Bevis Frond - Maybe We Got It Wrong/Focus on Nature
Hour 2: Extreme weather
Rocket from the Crypt - Ball Lightning/Scream, Dracula, Scream!
The Horrors - Thunderclaps/Strange House
The Apes - Lightning/The Fugue in the Fog
Arctic Monkeys - Crying Lightning/Humbug
The Von Bondies - Earthquake/Love, Hate and Then There's You
The Dirtbombs - Earthquake Heart/Dangerous Magical Noise
The Go Team - T.O.R.N.A.D.O./Rolling Blackouts
Stove - Bubblegum Lightning/Is the Meat That Fell Out
Sebadoh - Flood/Bubble and Scrape
Chubby and the Gang - Lightning Don't Strike Twice/The Mutt's Nuts
Peter Gabriel - Here Comes the Flood/Peter Gabriel (1977)
Shudder to Think - Earthquakes Come Home/Pony Express Record
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
The Passenger (1977)
After the Stooges imploded for the second time in 1974, Iggy Pop was at a crossroads. He was struggling with a drug problem and was unable to get his career back on track. He recorded an album with James Williamson (Kill City), but it wouldn't come out for a few years.
Iggy checked himself into a mental institution to help him get off drugs. His friend David Bowie, who produced the Stooges' epic Raw Power album, visited him in rehab and eventually took him out on tour as a guest for Bowie's Station to Station tour in 1976. Bowie and Pop relocated to West Berlin to wean themselves off their drug addictions and then began working on new Iggy Pop music.
The first album released was The Idiot, which was recorded in the summer of 1976. It marked a shift in sound for Iggy from Stooges proto-punk to electronic art rock influenced by acts like Kraftwerk. Bowie produced and composed most of the music, which included classics like "Sister Midnight," "Nightclubbing" and "China Girl," which was famously covered by Bowie several years later.
The Idiot received critical acclaim, although some of Pop's fans felt it was more of a Bowie album. As it turned out, they recorded The Idiot first and then Bowie recorded Low right afterward in a similar style; Low came out in January 1977 and then Bowie convinced RCA to release The Idiot, which went top 40 in both the U.S. and U.K. Bowie chose not to tour behind Low, but instead support Pop on a tour, playing keyboards and staying in the background on stage.
After the tour ended, Pop and Bowie returned to Berlin to work on a new album. The tour band worked on the album: guitarist Ricky Gardiner, brothers Tony and Hunt Sales on bass and drums and Bowie on keyboards. Pop wanted to assert himself more in the production and Bowie took a step back, and the resulting album reflected more of Iggy's garage rock background.
The title track is probably Iggy's biggest song, but "The Passenger" is a total classic. Written by Pop and Gardiner, the lyrics were inspired by a Jim Morrison poem that saw modern life as a journey by car. Pop had been riding around North America and Europe with Bowie on tour.
"I am a passenger/And I ride, and I ride/I ride through the city's backsides/I see the stars come out of the sky/Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky/You know it looks so good tonight/I am the passenger/I stay under glass/I look through my window so bright/I see the stars come out tonight/I see the bright and hollow sky/Over the city's ripped back sky/And everything looks good tonight."
The song has a laid-back groove that's accentuated by Pop's refrain: "Singin' la la la la la la la la."
Pop had hoped to release the song as a single but RCA made it the B-side to the song "Success." It didn't chart, but it has grown in stature over the years. After it was used in a car commercial in 1998, Virgin Records released "The Passenger" as an A-side and it went to #22 on the U.K. Singles chart. Lust for Life wasn't a huge hit when it came out, but it's considered a major achievement in retrospect.
"Oh, the passenger/How, how he rides/Oh, the passenger/He rides and he rides/He looks through his window/What does he see?/He sees the silent hollow sky/He sees the stars come out tonight/He sees the city's ripped backside/He sees the winding ocean drive/And everything was made for you and me/All of it was made for you and me/'Cause it just belongs to you and me/So let's take a ride and see what's mine."
The song has been licensed to countless movies, TV shows and commercials over the years. Siouxsie and the Banshees covered it in 1987 and it went to #41 on the U.K. Singles chart.
Pop had a rollercoaster career that waxed and waned over the years, but he's continued to make music. I saw him twice, both at the Orpheum in Boston: once in 1991 at the WFNX Best Music Poll Awards and then again in 2016 on the tour for his great album Post Pop Depression. Both were electrifying performances at different times in his life; even the last show, which took place when he was 69, Pop was limping around on a bad hip and he still jumped into the crowd. The man is a rock god.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
I Got You (1980)
Sometimes songs just stick with you. Especially when you're in your formative years. I was 12 when I was watching a Toronto show called The New Music that would play music videos and do interviews with artists. A video for "I Got You" by a band I'd never heard of called Split Enz came on and I was mesmerized.
As it turns out, Split Enz had been around since the early '70s, when the band was formed in New Zealand by Tim Finn and Phil Judd. The band had more of an art-rock sound in those early days and released a few albums before Judd left and was replaced by Tim's younger brother Neil, who became the band's co-lead singer along with his brother. The sound shifted towards power pop and two more albums followed in the late '70s.
But Split Enz didn't have any hit records until 1980's True Colors, which featured "I Got You," a song sung by Neil Finn. It was a pop song about obsession a full three years before the Police released "Every Breath You Take." And it's no less creepy.
"I got you, that's all I want/I won't forget, that's a whole lot/I don't go out, now that you're in/Sometimes we shout, but that's no problem/I don't know why sometimes I get frightened/You can see my eyes, you can tell that I'm not lying."
The song leans into the creep factor with eerie organ and reverb effects on the vocals, while at the same time remaining ridiculously catchy.
"There's no doubt, not when I'm with you/When I'm without, I stay in my room/Where do you go, I get no answer/You're always out, it gets on my nerves."
The song was an instant hit for the band, going to #1 in Australia and New Zealand, but it also broke the band overseas. In Canada, where I was living, it was a huge radio favorite and went to #13 on the singles chart, while it went to #12 in the U.K. It was less successful in the U.S., but it still got to #53 on the Billboard Hot 100. True Colors did hit #40 on the Billboard 200, though.
Split Enz had success with their next few albums, Waiata and Time and Tide, but Tim Finn left to pursue a solo career in 1983 and the band released one more album before splitting in '84. Neil Finn and drummer Paul Hester ended up forming Crowded House a few years later and went on to greater success than Split Enz over the next several years.
I never bought a Split Enz album or saw them in concert, but I've always loved "I Got You." That's the power of great songwriting right there.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Give Blood (1985)
Solo careers can be a tricky thing, especially when the band you were in is one of the biggest ever. On one hand, fans look at artists going solo as more material from the artists they love. On the other, they resent the solo artist for ditching the band and don't expect much.
In Pete Townshend's case, he had made solo albums in the '70s and early '80s during breaks from The Who so there wasn't much controversy when he released his fourth in 1985, White City: A Novel. Plus, the band had famously embarked on their "farewell tour" in 1982, which was hilariously dubbed "Schlitz Rocks America" (I don't know how they talked the Clash into opening for them but it still cracks me up). The Who actually reunited earlier in '85 to play at Live Aid (as did Led Zeppelin and the original lineup of Black Sabbath) and would tour in 1989 for the 25th anniversary of The Kids Are Alright (and many more times over the subsequent years).
Townshend's '80s solo work was his most successful. Empty Glass (1980) included his biggest solo hit, "Let My Love Open the Door," which he would license endlessly for use in ads, movies and TV shows (as he would with many Who hits). The next album, 1982's All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, didn't sell as well but was excellent, with "Slit Skirts" among the standout tracks.
White City: A Novel was actually an album and a longform video, but it wasn't a novel. But the album and film are based on a story about the low-income housing estate in the West London district of White City, near where Townshend grew up. The story, which is printed on the back cover of the album, details racial tension, economic struggles and the hopes of the kids who grew up in White City. It was a pretty lofty concept for a rock album, but then again, this was the guy who brought us Tommy and Quadrophenia. While White City doesn't quite reach those heights, it's still a pretty great record.
The first single, "Face the Face," was a big hit for Townshend, going to #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on the Mainstream Rock chart. It was a different sound for Pete, a horn-driven big band-style banger. The next single, "Give Blood," didn't chart in the U.S. or U.K., but it's a rock radio classic (and hit #5 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart). Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour plays on the track, along with bassist Pino Palladino (who years later would join the Who's touring band after John Entwistle died) and drummer Simon Phillips; Townshend said he never actually played on the song other than to provide the vocals after the three musicians recorded a jam.
The song starts slowly before Gilmour's iconic guitar riffing begins, with Townshend singing about how shedding your blood in a heroic fashion like going to war for your country can be a thankless pursuit.
"Give blood/But you may find that blood is not enough/Give blood/And there are some who'll say it's not enough/Give blood/But don't expect to ever see reward/Give blood/You can give it all but still you're asked for more."
Townshend said in an interview that postwar England was convinced that success is tied with the pursuit of heroism, whether as a soldier or in his case, the pursuit of stardom. But he wondered about those who stayed behind and just lived their lives, instead of giving their lives for a society that didn't care about their best interests.
"Give blood/But it could cost more than your dignity/Give blood/Parade your pallor in iniquity/Give blood/They will cry and say they're in our debt/Give blood/But then they'll sign and they will soon forget."
The song has an epic feel, appropriate for the subject at hand.
"So give love and keep blood between brothers/Give love and keep blood between brothers/Give love and keep blood between brothers/Give love and keep blood between brothers."
This album came out during my first semester at college and I played it a lot. It remains my favorite solo Townshend release. He would only make two more solo albums, spending most of the next 40 years doing Who tours. I suppose you can't blame him, but I would have liked to hear more music along the lines of White City.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
To Hell With Poverty! (1981)
It's not easy to make sharp political music that you can dance to, but Gang of Four made it work. Formed in 1976 in Leeds, England, the group's original lineup was singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bassist Dave Allen (who replaced Dave Wolfson after the band's first few shows) and drummer Hugo Burnham. The band combined post-punk guitar with funk rhythms and a ferocious live show, and once the debut single "Damaged Goods" was released in December 1978, Gang of Four were signed by EMI and began drawing attention in Europe and North America.
The first Gang of Four album was 1979's Entertainment, a post-punk classic that lyrically lashes out at commercialism, politicians and traditional notions of love and sex. "At Home He's a Tourist" made it to #58 on the U.K. Singles chart, although when the band was asked to play the song on Top of the Pops, the show producers asked them to change the word "rubbers" to "rubbish." Gang of Four refused and the appearance was canceled. The single was then banned by BBC radio and TV. The album still made it to #45 on the U.K. Albums chart.
In 1981, the band released their second album Solid Gold, featuring "Cheeseburger," "Paralysed" and "A Hole in the Wallet." It was a strong effort, even if it's considered not as good as the band's first album. A non-album single released later in 1981 was the anti-capitalist anthem "To Hell With Poverty!" The song starts with Gill's feedback-driven guitar serving as an air-raid siren before the rest of the band kicks into a funky stomp for a minute before King jumps in with a howl.
"In my arms/We shall begin/With none of the rocks/Well, there's no charge/In this land right now/Some are insane, and they're in charge/To hell with poverty/We'll get drunk on cheap wine."
You can hear the inspiration for bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers (musically, anyway; Kiedis isn't bringing anything weighty lyrically to that band), Rage Against the Machine, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and even Nirvana. Gill produced the first RHCP album.
"To hell with poverty/The check will arrive/It's in the post again/To hell with poverty/The check will arrive/It's in the post again."
The song was included on Another Day/Another Dollar, an EP released in 1982 in the U.S. by Warner Bros. that compiled material that hadn't been previously released Stateside. It barely cracked the Billboard 200 (#192), but "To Hell With Poverty!" hit #38 on the Billboard Club Play Singles chart, as well as #100 on the U.K. Singles chart. The 1995 reissue of Solid Gold included the songs from Another Day/Another Dollar.
After Solid Gold came out, Allen left the band; he was replaced by Busta Jones, who finished the band's North American tour and then left (he went on to play with Talking Heads, among others). Sara Lee joined the band on bass for their next album, 1982's Songs of the Free, which included the hit "I Love a Man in Uniform" (although it was banned in the U.K. after Britain went to war in the Falkland Islands). Burnham left the band after Songs of the Free came out. King, Gill and Lee continued on and released 1983's Hard, which had a softer pop sound that was poorly reviewed.
Gang of Four then split up for several years. King and Gill reunited and released 1991's Mall, which came and went quietly. Another album came in 1995, Shrinkwrapped, and met a similar fate.
Meanwhile, after he left Gang of Four, Burnham joined Illustrated Man and then did session work with Stan Ridgway, ABC, Public Image Ltd., Nikki Sudden and Samantha Fox. He managed Shriekback (which had been formed by Dave Allen after he left Gang of Four), and then formed a management company. He got into A&R as well. Burnham moved to Gloucester, Mass. (right up the highway from me) in 1998 and continued managing bands. He's currently teaching at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass.
In addition to Shriekback, Allen played in The Elastic Purejoy and Low Pop Suicide. Later in the '90s, he was an early advocate of digital music, working as general manager of Emusic.com and then moving to Portland, Oregon, to become business director of Intel's Consumer Digital Audio Services Operation. He also worked at Overland Entertainment and Nemo Design and worked in digital brand strategy for a few agencies before joining Beats Music in 2014, which was acquired by Apple a few months later. When I was at Webnoize, we interviewed Allen a few times on digital music issues.
Gang of Four's OG lineup reunited in 2004 and toured for a few years (and also released Return the Gift in 2005, featuring re-recordings of classic Gang of Four songs) before Burnham and Allen left again to pursue other interests. The band, with new members on bass and drums, released a new album, Content, in 2011, which got good reviews. King and Gill, however, stopped working together after touring for Content. Gill continued to record and tour under the Gang of Four name, releasing three albums through 2019. Sadly, Gill died in 2020.
In 2022, King, Burnham, Sara Lee and David Pajo of Slint teamed up to tour as Gang of Four in support of a new box set. I saw them play in Somerville, Mass., and it was an inspired show. Lee has since left the band and been replaced by Linda Pardee, who has played with Orbit and the Chelsea Curve.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
How Soon is Now? (1984)
A lot was going on musically in the early '80s. New wave, metal, hip hop, hardcore, you name it. One of the more interesting bands to emerge during that time was the Smiths.
Formed in Manchester, England, in 1982 by singer Steven Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr, the band filled out its roster with Mike Joyce on drums and Andy Rourke on bass. After releasing a few singles, the Smiths released their self-titled debut in February 1984, which featured Morrissey's mopey baritone and Marr's distinctive guitar chime. The album went to #2 on the U.K. albums chart and #150 on the Billboard 200.
The band released a few non-album singles that fall, including "William, It Was Really Nothing." One of the B-sides of that single became one of the biggest songs of the Smiths' career. "How Soon Is Now?" started with an instantly recognizable tremelo guitar effect, while Morrissey's protagonist sings about being painfully shy and alone.
"I am the son/And the heir/Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar/I am the son and heir/Of nothing in particular/You shut your mouth/How can you say?/I go about things the wrong way?/I am human and I need to be loved/Just like everybody else does."
I was listening to a lot of metal and hard rock and AOR stuff at the time, so when I saw the video on V66, a Boston-area music video channel, it immediately jumped out at me. The song didn't sound like anything else I was hearing.
"There's a club if you'd like to go/You could meet somebody who really loves you/So you go and you stand on your own/And you leave on your own/And you go home and your cry/And you want to die/When you say it's gonna happen now/What exactly do you mean?/See I've already waited too long/And all my hope is gone."
The band thought they had a hit on their hands, but their label Rough Trade felt it was too different from their regular sound and made it a B-side. British radio stations began playing the song anyway and it was soon included on a compilation album Hatful of Hollow in November 1984. It was released in the U.S. as a single the same month and re-released in the U.K. two months later. It didn't chart in the U.S., but made it to #24 in the U.K.
The Smiths were upset that the song had been mishandled, but it has since become a fan favorite.
The band released three more albums over the next three years before splitting up. Morrissey went on to a fairly successful solo career, while Marr has released solo work and collaborated with Electronic, Modest Mouse and Oasis. Joyce and Rourke both toured with Sinead O'Connor and have worked many artists over the years. Morrissey and Marr have steadfastly refused many big-money offers to reunite the Smiths. Rourke passed away last year after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Personality Crisis (1973)
Sometimes it's possible to be a too ahead of your time. The New York Dolls definitely fell into that category. Formed in New York City in the early '70s, the initial era of the band was fleeting and commercially disappointing, but it inspired a wide range of musicians and genres in the decades to come.
Guitarist Sylvain Sylvain and drummer Billy Murcia began playing in bands together in high school and in 1970 they formed the Dolls. Eventually they added Johnny Thunders on guitar before splitting up. Thunders joined a band called Actress with bassist Arthur Kane and guitarist Rick Rivets, adding Murcia on drums; Thunders sang and played lead guitar, but when he didn't want to be the frontman anymore, David Johansen was brought in to sing. The band name was changed to the New York Dolls and they played their first gig on Christmas Eve 1971 at a homeless shelter.
Rod Stewart invited them to open for the Faces in London in 1972, but while on tour in England, Murcia died of an overdose. Jerry Nolan replaced him on drums. They developed some buzz playing shows around New York and eventually signed a deal with Mercury Records. The band became known for cross-dressing and wearing makeup on stage as much as for their raucous hard rock sound.
Musician Todd Rundgren produced the band's self-titled debut and despite reports of clashes between the precise Rundgren and the rough and tumble Dolls, the album is a classic. In addition to having a shocking (for the time) album cover that had the band dressed in wigs, high heels, makeup and garters, the record was vital, raw and chaotic. It's considered one of the major influences on the punk rock scene that emerged a few years later, but it also .
"Personality Crisis" was the lead track on the album and part of a double A-side single with "Trash" and right out of the gate, the band makes it clear it won't be ignored.
"Well, we can't take it this week/And her friends don't want another speech/Hoping for a better day to hear what she's got to say/All about that personality crisis, you got it while it was hot/But now frustration and heartache is what you got/That's why they talk about personality."
The song is a shambolic rager, driven by Thunders' guitar work and Sylvain's rollicking piano as Johansen wastes no time delivering the goods with his Noo Yawk attitude.
"And you're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon/Change on into the wolfman howlin' at the moon/Got a personality crisis, you got it while it was hot/It's always hard to when frustration and heartache what you got/Now with all the crossin' fingers Mother Nature sends/Your mirror's gettin' jammed up with all your friends/That personality, everything is starting to blend/Personality, when your mind starts to blend/Got so much personality, impression of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend/Personality, wonderin' how celebrities ever mend."
Audiences and critics weren't sure what to make of the Dolls; some loved them, some hated them. A Creem magazine poll voted the band both best and worst new group of 1973. The album didn't sell well, hitting #116 on the Billboard 200. A follow-up album, 1974's Too Much Too Soon, performed even worse (#167). By 1975, the band was playing smaller venues and drugs and alcohol were taking their toll. Malcolm McLaren became their informal manager that year. Kane was replaced for a bunch of shows when he was too messed up to play; during a Southern tour, Thunders and Nolan left after an argument and Blackie Lawless (later of glam metal act W.A.S.P.) replaced Thunders for the rest of the tour. The band split up and then reformed for a tour in Japan with a different lineup. The Dolls toured throughout '76 before playing their last show on December 30 with Blondie.
In addition to inspiring bands like KISS and Aerosmith, who in turn inspired a whole generation of hard rock and metal acts, the Dolls helped kick off the New York punk scene, which featured bands like the Ramones, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Patti Smith, Talking Heads and Television. They were also cited as influences for early British punk acts like the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Damned. One of their biggest British fans was a young Morrissey, who went on to front the Smiths. And of course, the Dolls were clearly the template for the androgynous glam metal bands that sprung up in the '80s like Motley Crue and Poison and their many imitators.
After they left the Dolls, Thunders and Nolan formed the Heartbreakers with Richard Hell, who had left Television. Thunders later went solo and eventually died in 1991 of a drug overdose. Nolan died in 1992 after a stroke. Kane and Lawless formed the Killer Kane Band in 1976. Sylvain formed the Criminals and recorded solo albums. And Johansen began a solo career and later took on the lounge lizard persona Buster Poindexter; he also became an actor and appeared in movies including Scrooged and Freejack (where he starred with Mick Jagger, who he was often compared to in the early '70s).
In 2004, Morrissey arranged a reunion of the three surviving Dolls (Johansen, Sylvain and Kane) at the Meltdown Festival in London, just before Kane died. The following year, Johansen and Sylvain announced a tour and new album, which was released in 2006. They released two more albums in 2009 and 2011 before splitting a few years later. Sylvain died in 2021, leaving Johansen as the last surviving original Doll.
A lot can change in 40 years. For example, our most beloved celebrity circa 1984 was arguably Bill Cosby. Yeah. Anyway, there was a lot of stuff going on in '84 that holds up a lot better than America's Dad. I played a bunch of that stuff this week in hour 2 of Stuck In Thee Garage. It's more fun than a misfit cop from Detroit solving crimes in Beverly Hills.
This playlist isn't going to fall for a banana in the tailpipe:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Shellac - Girl From Outside/To All Trains
Les Savy Fav - Oi! Division/OUI, LSF
E - Jumprope/Living Waters
Beth Gibbons - Reaching Out/Lives Outgrown
Lightheaded - Bright Happy Girls/Combustible Gems
Los Campesinos! - A Psychic Wound/All Hell
Dehd - Knife/Poetry
Emerald Comets - Necklace/Single
Gouge Away - The Sharpening/Deep Sage
Alejandro Escovedo - Too Many Tears/Echo Dancing
Pearl Jam - Dark Matter/Dark Matter
Meatbodies - Hole/Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom
Bodega - G.N.D. Deity/Our Brand Could Be Yr Life
Boeckner - Don't Worry Baby/Boeckner!
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Second of June/Glasgow Eyes
Hour 2: 1984
The Replacements - Answering Machine/Let It Be
R.E.M. - Harborcoat/Reckoning
Meat Puppets - Oh, Me/II
Minutemen - Maybe Partying Will Help/Double Nickels on the Dime
Prince - Take Me With U/Purple Rain
INXS - Dancing on the Jetty/The Swing
Talking Heads - Girlfriend is Better/Stop Making Sense
Husker Du - What's Going On/Zen Arcade
Green River - P.C.C./Live at the Tropicana 1984
Iggy Pop - Repo Man/Repo Man soundtrack
Iron Maiden - Aces High/Powerslave
Judas Priest - Some Heads Are Gonna Roll/Defenders of the Faith
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Jungle Love (1984)
When one thinks of hotbeds of funk, one doesn't necessarily think of Minneapolis, but one probably should. For a while there in the early '80s, shit was going down out there in the frozen Midwest and it was mostly due to the brilliance of one Prince Rogers Nelson.
As he was working toward superstardom, Prince was also working behind the scenes with other musicians. He had a clause in his contract with Warner Bros. that allowed him to find and produce other artists for the label. Prince came up with a band called The Time, which consisted of musicians from an existing Minneapolis funk act called Flyte Tyme: Jellybean Johnson on drums, Jimmy Jam and Monte Moir on keyboards and Terry Lewis on bass. The Purple One then added guitarist Jesse Johnson, singer Morris Day and backup singer/dancer Jerome Benton, who was Lewis' brother and served as Day's sidekick onstage.
Prince wrote all the material for the band, focusing on the funk pop he had done on his earlier albums while exploring different sounds for his own music. And indeed, Prince kept a tight rein on the proceedings, playing most of the instruments on the first three Time albums with the exception of Day's vocals; the band members were given credits on the album. Day played drums on the second and third albums and other members made some contributions. The band played the songs live on tour opening for Prince; they would also back up Vanity 6 behind a curtain.
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were fired after missing a show, and Moir left as well; Jam and Lewis were beginning to get into the producing game and went on to major success, most notably working with Janet Jackson. They were replaced and the Time marched on. The band had some minor hits on the R&B chart, but things didn't blow up until Purple Rain came out.
The Time's third album, Ice Cream Castle, included "Jungle Love" and "The Bird," both of which were performed in Purple Rain as the band was featured as a rival to Prince's The Kid. Day was a charismatic villain in the movie and those scenes along with the band performances helped the album go platinum.
"Jungle Love" is a premier funk jam and the video of the Time's performance of it in the movie was a hit on MTV, chock full of bass, synths and the band's synchronized dance moves.
"I, I've been watching you/I think I wanna know ya/I said, I, I'm a little dangerous/Girl, I'd love to show ya/My jungle love, yeah (oh we oh we oh)/I think I wanna know ya/Jungle love (oh we oh we oh)/Girl I need to show ya."
The mid-section of the video features Jerome bringing a mirror out so Morris can check himself out and then the band dances those iconic moves. The single version doesn't include Johnson's hot guitar solo.
"You, you've got a pretty car/I think I wanna drive it/I drive a little dangerous/Take you to my crib and rip you off/Look out, oh!/I think I wanna know ya/Oh, jungle love yeah/Girl I need to show ya/Come on baby, where's your guts?/You wanna make love or what?"
Thanks to the movie's popularity, "Jungle Love" went to #20 on the Billboard Hot 100, #6 on the Hot Black Singles chart and #9 on the Dance/Disco chart. The album hit #24 on the Billboard 200.
The band didn't get to bask in their success because Day and Johnson both left to pursue solo careers. The remaining members formed a short-lived band called The Family. In 1990, the original seven members of The Time reunited for Prince's Graffiti Bridge movie and a new album called Pandemonium, which featured the band's highest-charting hit "Jerk Out" as well as a song called "Donald Trump (Black Version)." The group split up not long afterward. A reformed Time (now called Morris Day and the Time) with some new members (basically everybody but Morris and Jerome) appeared in the movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and toured.
The original lineup reunited again in 2008 for some shows in Las Vegas. In 2011, the band changed their name to The Original 7ven and released a new album called Condensate. After Prince's death in 2016, Morris Day & the Time played a tribute show in London. The original lineup played two songs at the 2017 Grammy Awards as part of a tribute to Prince. In 2022, the Prince Estate informed Day he couldn't use the name "Morris Day and the Time" without paying for it; the two sides ended the dispute last year.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
The Concept (1991)
Ah, 1991. It was the Year Punk Broke. It was a big year for high-profile news stories: The Gulf War escalated into a ground war, the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, the William Kennedy Smith rape trial. Alternative rock became a big deal by the end of '91 after albums released by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and the Red Hot Chili Peppers blew up in a large way.
But another thing that always pops into my head when I think about that year is Spin magazine naming Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque the album of the year for 1991. I honestly think they did it just to fuck with everybody going gaga over Nevermind, but it was an inspired choice. Hell, even Kurt Cobain called Teenage Fanclub "the best band in the world" and had TF support Nirvana on tour in 1992. They even played Saturday Night Live in February 1992 (Jason Priestley was the host).
I was reading Spin and watching a lot of MTV's 120 Minutes then, so I was well aware of and greatly digging Teenage Fanclub at the time (ask me sometime to do my imitation of 120 Minutes host Dave Kendall saying "Bandwagonesque"). They combined a lot of stuff I loved (and love): shiny Big Star-style power pop, Sonic Youth-esque feedback and Crazy Horse riffage. I don't think it was the best album of that year, but it was pretty damn close (my most recent ranking of 1991's best has them at #4).
The band was formed in 1989 in Glasgow by Norman Blake (vocals, guitar), Raymond McGinley (vocals, lead guitar) and Gerard Love (vocals, bass), who all shared lead vocals and wrote songs for the band. Francis MacDonald was the band's original drummer and was on their 1990 debut A Catholic Education before going back to college. Some of the songs were re-recorded with his replacement Brendan O'Hare. The album is a lot heavier and louder than their subsequent releases.
Released in November 1991, Bandwagonesque is technically the third Teenage Fanclub album. The second one, The King, was deleted on the day it came out (August 27, 1991). The band had completed recording Bandwagonesque early and then got drunk and recorded The King in one night, with some improvised songs and covers of "Like a Virgin" and "Interstellar Overdrive" by Pink Floyd. It's believed it was to fulfill a contractual obligation to Matador Records so they could sign with Geffen without a penalty, although the band has denied this. It was re-released for Record Store Day in 2019.
"The Concept" was the lead track on Bandwagonesque and the second single, written and sung by Blake. In a 2015 interview, he said the lyrics came together 20 minutes before the song was recorded, something they did with much of the album. The song focuses on a woman who's very into the narrator and his band.
"She wears denim wherever she goes/Says she's gonna get some records by the Status Quo/Oh yeah Oh yeah/Still she won't be forced against her will/Says she don't do drugs but she does the pill/Oh yeah Oh yeah/I didn't want to hurt you oh yeah/I didn't want to hurt you oh yeah."
The power poppy song starts off with some feedback and then shambles along with fuzzy guitars, but it really highlights the band's harmonies; Blake, McGinley and Love are all terrific singers. Blake sings about how the girl in question digs his hair and his band, but he doesn't seem too attached to her until it's too late.
"Says she likes my hair 'cause it's down my back/Says she likes the group 'cause we pull in the slack/Oh yeah Oh yeah/When she's at the gig she takes her car/And she drives us home if it is in a bar/Oh yeah Oh yeah."
On the album version of the song, the last few minutes is just an awesome guitar-driven outro. "The Concept" hit #12 on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart and #51 on the U.K. Singles chart, while the album peaked at #137 on the Billboard 200 chart. The album cover was a painting of a money bag with a dollar sign on it; apparently Gene Simmons had trademarked that design and after sending a letter to Geffen, was given a check. That's a claim he makes in his book Sex Money Kiss, so take that for what it's worth, but it does sound like something he'd do.
"The Concept" found some new fans in 2011 when the Charlize Theron movie Young Adult began with her character listening to the song on a mixtape her old boyfriend gave her in high school. I never saw the movie so had no idea about the TF connection until just now; it was one of those movies I always meant to watch but never did.
Sadly, I didn't keep up with Teenage Fanclub throughout the next decade-plus. Their albums did well in the U.K. but they got very little attention in the U.S. It wasn't until I started subscribing to Emusic, a digital music subscription service, that I began listening to TF again. I picked up their 2003 greatest hits comp Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-Six Seconds - A Short Cut to Teenage Fanclub. I saw them a few times over the last several years; they still sound great, but they're a lot mellower than they were in the early '90s and they've long since cut their hair. Love left the band in 2018 but Blake and McGinley are still leading the way, churning out great jangle-pop gems.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
A More Perfect Union (2010)
As someone who has put together a weekly radio show for nearly 11 years now, I can assure you that there is still plenty of good new rock music being made. Although I have not featured much of it in this space, but I've still got 225 days to do so. Today I'm featuring a song from one of the best bands of the last 15 years, Titus Andronicus. Are they selling out arenas and topping the charts? No, but they should be, goddammit. Actually, I'm selfishly glad I can go see them kick absolute ass in small clubs.
The band was formed in 2005 by singer-guitarist Patrick Stickles in Glen Rock, New Jersey. Right from the start, Stickles and co. were combining serious literary references with sweaty punk rock. Their first album, The Airing of Grievances, came out in 2008 on Troubleman Unlimited and was re-released in January 2009 on XL Recordings. I caught them at the Middle East downstairs opening for Ted Leo and was suitably impressed.
TA's second album, The Monitor, was released in 2010 and it was ambitious for an indie band's sophomore effort. A sprawling concept album based on the American Civil War isn't the usual fare you get from young punk bands, but damn if they didn't pull it off. Most of the songs on the album are over 5 minutes, with four of them over 7 minutes, including the closing track "The Battle of Hampton Roads" clocking in at 14:02. This might sound like the most pretentious thing you can imagine, but The Monitor wasn't full of prog-rock noodling or endless guitar solos. Stickles wears his Jersey roots proudly, referencing Bruce Springsteen in the first and last songs, with the Civil War acting as an allegory for growing up in Jersey during tough times (with some Boston references thrown in from his time living around here).
"There'll be no more counting the cars on the Garden State Parkway/Nor waiting for the Fung Wah bus to carry me to who-knows-where/And when I stand tonight, 'neath the lights of the Fenway/Will I not yell like hell for the glory of the Newark Bears?/Because where I'm going to now, no one can ever hurt me/Where the well of human hatred is shallow and dry/No, I never wanted to change the world, but I'm looking for a new New Jersey/Because tramps like us, baby, we were born to die."
The song and the album reflect the band's influences, which include the Replacements, Thin Lizzy, the Pogues and the Clash, which is about as awesome a collection of inspirations as you're gonna get.
"I'm doing 70 on 17, I'm doing 80 over 84/And I never let the Merritt Parkway magnetize me no more/Give me a brutal Somerville summer/Give me a cruel New England winter/Give me the great Pine Barrens/So I can see them turned into splinters/'Cause if I come in on a donkey, let me go out on a gurney/I want to realize too late I never should have left New Jersey."
This album came out so long ago that the band premiered the video for this song (the first half of its 7 minutes anyway) on its freakin' Myspace page. The second half of the song rocks furiously, tying in the Civil War allegory.
"I sense the enemy, they're rustling around in the trees/I thought I had gotten away but they followed me to 02143/Woe, oh woe is me, no one knows the trouble I see/When they hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree/I'll sit beneath the leaves and weep/None of us shall be saved, every man will be a slave/For John Brown's body lies a'mouldering in the grave and there's rumblings down in the caves/So if it's time for choosing sides, and to show this dirty city how we do the Jersey Slide/And if they deserve a better class of criminal, then I'm'a give it to them tonight/So we'll rally round the flag, rally round the flag."
There were plenty of guests helping out, including members of Hallelujah the Hills, the Felice Brothers, the Hold Steady, Spider Bags and Vivian Girls. It's anthemic, raucous and epic. It debuted at #7 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and got plenty of critical praise.
Titus has released five albums since then, some more stripped down than others, but all excellent; the most recent one was 2022's The Will to Live. The band has had many members come through, with Stickles the one constant, but it has featured the same lineup since 2016, including powerhouse drummer Chris Wilson, who also plays in Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. I've seen them a bunch of times and for my money, they're one of the best live acts going.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Never Say Never (1981)
The other day I wrote about the Fixx and how MTV in the early days helped a lot of unknown bands succeed. The downside of essentially turning radio into a visual medium is it can put too much emphasis on the superficial. There are countless examples of artists who were pressured to dress a certain way or lose weight or just stay hidden while someone else pretends to be the singer (see Milli Vanilli, Technotronic, etc.).
San Francisco-based new wave act Romeo Void dealt with that fleeting MTV fame, which was gone as quickly as it arrived. Led by singer Debora Iyall, the group released its debut album It's a Condition in 1981 to enthusiastic reviews for their post-punk sound, which was augmented by the creative sax work of Benjamin Bossi. The band ended up doing several national tours and ended up at Synchro Sound studio in Boston with Ric Ocasek, who produced the Never Say Never EP released in December 1981.
The title track quickly became a hit thanks to steady airplay on MTV of its video, which was a black-and-white takeoff on Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. The song starts off with jagged Gang of Four-style guitar and Bossi's sax and a pulsating bass line, but the real key is Iyall, whose IDGAF delivery and sexual frankness was eye-opening for 1982.
"If time itself was his demeanor/There'd be no sunlight or a glimmer/Of sunlight landin' on the street/Sunsuit girls must be discreet/Sunsuit girls must be discreet/Nursing their fathers locked inside/They masqueraded as his bride/I might like you better if we slept together/I might like you better if we slept together/I might like you better if we slept together/But there's something in your eyes that says maybe/ That's never/Never say never."
A shorter version of the song appears on Romeo Void's major label debut Benefactor, cutting out a lot of the skronky sax bits and taking out the swear words.
"They slump by the courthouse with windburned skin/That man could give a fuck about the grin on your face/As you walk by, randy as a goat he's sleepin' on papers/But he'd be warm in your coat."
The song wasn't a huge hit, going to #17 on the Billboard Dance/Disco chart, but it definitely made an impression as one of the more unique songs of the new wave era. It was featured in the 1984 movie Reckless and has shown up in Dodgeball, The Wolf of Wall Street and in the game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It was also covered by Queens of the Stone Age for a B-side in 2000, and that version was in the 2004 movie The Punisher.
Romeo Void followed up Benefactor (which charted as high as #119 on the Billboard 200 chart) with 1984's Instincts, which featured a top 40 single in "A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)." The album got good reviews and made it to #68 on the Billboard 200.
But despite that success, Columbia pulled the band's promo support in the middle of Romeo Void's nationwide tour. The band returned to San Francisco and broke up; at first, the band said it was the constant touring that caused the split. But years later on VH-1's Bands Reunited show, Iyall said the label dropped the band because of her weight. She released a solo album in 1986 but later became an art teacher.
The band got back together for a live performance in 1993, and then did the VH-1 show in 2004, but Bossi was unable to perform because of hearing damage. Drummer Larry Carter died in 2021 and Bossi died the following year.
Romeo Void's career was short-lived, but the sexual openness of "Never Say Never" was ahead of its time, predating artists like PJ Harvey, Liz Phair and Elastica a decade later.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Start Choppin' (1993)
When I first started getting into the rock music in the late '70s, guitar hero was a lofty title only granted to luminaries like Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen and the like. Then in the '80s, it became a free-for-all with Yngwie Malmsteen and George Lynch and many of their poodle-haired compatriots competing for who could shred the fastest.
I was into it for a while until I heard the Vinnie Vincent Invasion, which was possibly the dumbest music I'd ever listened to; Vincent briefly played with KISS in the early '80s but when he started his own glam metal band, he felt the need to prove he was the fastest guitarist around. He packed so many notes into every solo, while out-Spinal Tapping Spinal Tap with songs like "Boyz Are Gonna Rock." I was embarrassed to have even heard it and started turning my back on the flash metal guitar boyz. (Meanwhile, Vincent's own backing band got sick of him and ditched him after two albums to start the band Slaughter, which was somewhat less dumb.)
I was already listening to a lot of so-called alternative rock, artists like U2, R.E.M. and Peter Gabriel, so it wasn't much of an effort to leave metal behind. Then in the early '90s after Nirvana hit it big, the metal bands all kinda faded from view. I watched a lot of MTV's 120 Minutes and one night in early '93, I saw a video for Dinosaur Jr.'s "Start Choppin'." I knew of the band but wasn't familiar with any of their previously released music, but I really dug the guitar sound that J Mascis got on the new song. Plus his vocals sort of reminded me of Neil Young, who was a favorite of mine.
The band was formed as Dinosaur in Amherst, Mass., in 1984 by Mascis (guitar, vocals), Lou Barlow (bass, vocals) and Murph (drums). Mascis and Barlow had played in the hardcore punk band Deep Wound in high school. They caught the attention of Homestead Records and released their first album in 1985 and then You're Living All Over Me in 1987 on SST. The band's sound combined Mascis' nasally but melodic vocals and heavily distorted guitars.
The band changed its name to Dinosaur Jr. after a group called Dinosaurs (featuring former members of the Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane) sued over the name, paving the way for plenty of terrific Dinosaurs albums (well, one album in 1988 before breaking up the next year).
Meanwhile, Dino Jr. was developing a following among college students and underground rock fans. Their third album, Bug, came out in 1988 and was a hit in the U.K., with the lead single "Freak Scene" going to #4 on the U.K. independent chart and the album reaching #1 on the independent albums chart. A cover of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" also hit the U.K. Singles chart. But the band was falling apart, as Mascis and Barlow clashed over Mascis' control over the Dino Jr. sound. After the Bug tour ended in 1989, Barlow was kicked out of the band; he turned his attention to his project Sebadoh.
Dino Jr. signed with Sire Records in 1990 and released their major label debut Green Mind in 1991. Mascis played most of the instruments on the album, with Murph only drumming on a few songs. The album is a strong one, featuring "The Wagon" and "Puke + Cry" and getting the band some notice on MTV. Bassist Mike Johnson joined the band for the tour and the next album, 1993's Where You Been.
By this time, alternative rock was peaking thanks to Nirvana's breakthrough. Guitar-driven albums by longhaired dudes was in vogue and Mascis delivered a masterpiece. Where You Been had plenty of guitar heroics, but also featured Mascis writing more personal lyrics and catchy riffs. There are a number of standout tracks, but "Start Choppin'" leads the way.
"There's no going back to that/I'm so numb, can't even react/Didn't say it's not okay/But we aren't dealing the same way/I ain't tellin' you a secret/I ain't tellin' you goodbye."
Mascis said he came up with the title as he was cutting tape to put different versions together and said "Start chopping," which fits well with the song's starts and stops.
"When you call it's just not fair/It's the last thing you should share/I can't deal, I'll let you know/Still I wish you'd let it go/I ain't tellin' you a secret/I ain't tellin' you goodbye/I'm telling you for one last time/It's not just you, the problem's mine to hide/I waited as long as I could/If you need it, sure I would, that's fine."
The solo is epic and really whets your appetite for the rest of the album, which features similarly awesome lead work and riffage.
"Start Choppin'" hit #3 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart and #20 on the U.K. Singles chart, while the album made it to #50 on the Billboard 200.
Murph left the band after the Where You Been tour. Mascis and Johnson recorded 1994's Without a Sound, which had another rock radio and MTV hit with "Feel the Pain." There was one last Dino Jr. album in 1997, Hand It Over, before Mascis retired the band name; the band's last live appearance was on the Jenny Jones Show.
Mascis released a few solo albums under the name J Mascis and the Fog in the early 2000s. Mascis and Barlow eventually reconciled and in 2005, the original three Dino Jr. albums were reissued on Merge. Mascis, Barlow and Murph played on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson in April 2005 and then toured Europe that summer. The reunited Dino Jr. released Beyond in 2007 and put out four more studio albums since then, with extensive touring in between other projects (Mascis has released a few solo albums and Barlow has released Sebadoh and Folk Implosion albums). I saw Dino on the Where You Been tour and have seen the reunited original lineup several times over the last 15 years. They still rip. Meanwhile, Vinnie Vincent is nowhere to be found and I'm OK with that.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Godzilla (1977)
One of my favorite things to do as a kid was watch monster movies on a lazy weekend afternoon. One of the Buffalo UHF stations we got on our cable system ran a regular monster movie double feature and I loved all of it. But without a doubt, the best monster was Godzilla, the prehistoric reptilian beast who is awakened by nuclear radiation and wreaks havoc on Tokyo. He was the coolest looking and the strongest monster; according to the Wiggitypedia, Godzilla has been in 38 movies over the last 70 years.
So you can imagine how cool it was for young Kumar when I discovered there was a rock song about Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult. The band got its start in 1967 as Soft White Underbelly at Stony Brook University in Long Island. After some lineup and band name changes, the group finally settled on Blue Oyster Cult in 1971, releasing their self-titled debut on Columbia Records in 1972. They were a hard rock/psych band with a literary bent toward occult and sci-fi topics, but at the same time, also had a sense of humor.
BOC toured early and often in the '70s and built a faithful following behind songs like "Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll," "The Red and the Black," "Hot Rails to Hell" and "Career of Evil," but their first big hit was in 1976 with "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." The following year, the band released their fifth album Spectres, which featured a gargantuan lead single, "Godzilla."
The song featured lead vocals by guitarist Buck Dharma and singer Eric Bloom and opens with an appropriately monstrous and ominous riff.
"With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound/He pulls the spitting high tension s down/Helpless people on a subway train/Scream bug-eyed as he looks in on them/He picks up a bus and he throws it back down/As he wades through the buildings toward the center of town/Oh no, they say he's got to go/Go go Godzilla, yeah/Oh no, there goes Tokyo/Go go Godzilla, yeah."
Dharma, a terrific guitarist, plays smoking hot leads throughout the song, which ends with a frightening and profound refrain.
"History shows again and again/How nature points out the folly of men/Godzilla!"
I mean, pretty goddamn accurate, no?
For some ungodly reason, the song didn't chart, but it got plenty of play on rock stations and remains a classic rock staple and one of BOC's best known songs. The song has been covered by many artists, including Fu Manchu and Smashing Pumpkins. Most recently, a cover of "Godzilla" was featured in the 2019 movie Godzilla: King of the Monsters with Serj Tankian of System of a Down on lead vocals.
As for BOC, they remained a strong touring act into the '80s and had a few more radio hits ("Burnin' for You," "Shooting Shark," "Take Me Away"), but they were on the decline when I saw them in my then-hometown of Kingston, NH, in June 1986 along with Foghat, Molly Hatchet, the Outlaws, Jon Butcher Axis and Blackfoot. They put on a great show and, of course, played "Godzilla."
BOC has remained active in the 38 years since then, only releasing five albums but touring fairly regularly, with Dharma and Bloom as the only remaining original members. Godzilla also remains active, winning an Oscar earlier this year for 2023's Godzilla Minus One.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Pushin' Too Hard (1965)
I was born in the '60s, but late enough in the decade that I had no clue of what was going on until much later. It's been fun to go back and dig into the sheer volume of music that was being made in the mid-'60s by North American kids inspired by the British Invasion as well as the surf rock craze. The music was called garage rock because a lot of these bands were practicing in garages (duh), but it more speaks to the DIY nature of it all: it was mostly kids plugging electric guitars into amps and playing raw and basic three-chord rock songs in the hopes of becoming the next big thing. Eventually, the bands started to get more psychedelic.
A lot of these bands came and went, even if they were lucky enough to have hits. Some had regional hits, some were bigger than that. In 1972, a writer and record store clerk named Lenny Kaye convinced Elektra Records to release a garage rock singles compilation and Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 was born. Kaye's liner notes include one of the first references to "punk rock." The comp was reissued in 1976 and then in the '80s, Rhino Records issued a series of Nuggets comps.
Nuggets proved extremely influential, not just on future punk bands but also on other compilations. It contains many well-known songs including "Dirty Water" by the Standells, "Psychotic Reaction" by the Count Five, "Night Time" by the Strangeloves, "The Witch" by the Sonics and "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen.
Another classic Nuggets track is "Pushin' Too Hard" by the Seeds, a band out of LA led by Sky Saxon on vocals. Saxon wrote the song while sitting in a car waiting for his girlfriend to finish shopping at a supermarket; it doubles as the protagonist speaking out against his girlfriend's controlling ways or in a wider sense, pushing back against society.
"You're pushin' too hard, pushin' on me/You're pushin' too hard, what you want me to be/You're pushin' too hard about the things you say/You're pushin' too hard every night and day/You're pushin' too hard/Pushin' too hard on me/Well all I want is to just be free/Live my life the way I wanna be/All I want is to just have fun/Live my life like it's just begun/But you're pushin' too hard/Pushin' too hard on me."
The Seeds initially released the song as "You're Pushing Too Hard" in November 1965 and it didn't chart. But after the band's self-titled debut album came out in April 1966, a Los Angeles DJ started playing the song a lot. The band re-released it with the new title "Pushin' Too Hard" in July 1966 and it eventually made the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December, peaking at #36 in February.
The song was banned by some radio stations because they thought it was about a drug pusher. But it became the Seeds' signature song and they based their style around it, so much so that you can hear elements of "Pushin' Too Hard" in many of their later songs.
"Pushin' Too Hard" is credited as a major influence on punk bands that followed and included on several best-of lists of garage rock songs. It was covered by Pere Ubu, the Bangles, the Rubinoos and the Makers, and parodied by Frank Zappa and the Residents. It's been featured in movies including Easy Rider. Saxon even re-recorded it for his 2008 album The King of Garage Rock.
As for the Seeds, they changed their name to Sky Saxon and the Seeds in 1968, with guitarist Jan Savage and drummer Rick Andridge leaving the band. They released a few more singles, "Mr. Farmer," "Can't Seem to Make You Mine" and "A Thousand Shadows." After splitting up the Seeds in 1972, Saxon joined the Source Family, a Hollywood Hills-based cult led by Father Yod (aka former health food restaurateur James Edward Baker); Father Yod fronted a psychedelic rock band called Ya Ho Wha 13, which released nine albums, but Saxon did not participate (although he later appeared on a few offshoot albums and put together a box set of the group's music). Saxon continued to make music under various band names over the years, and reformed the Seeds in 2003 and then several times after that. He also collaborated with Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins on some songs in 2008. Saxon died in 2009 on the same day as Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.
Lenny Kaye ended up playing guitar in Patti Smith's band throughout the '70s and rejoined her in the '90s. More recently, he's been leading a tour celebrating Nuggets' 50th (plus a few years) anniversary. It came to The Cut in Gloucester last night for the last night of the tour (I think) and featured an all-star collection of musicians including Peter Buck, Ted Leo, Bill Janovitz, Jon Wurster, Hugo Burnham, Barrence Whitfield, Dave Minehan, Clint Conley, Willie "Loco" Alexander and more. They played "Pushin' Too Hard" and a bunch of other Nuggets tunes, as well as garage-adjacent classics like "I Wanna Be Your Dog," "Kick Out the Jams" and "Road Runner" (all of which have been featured in this space). It was a terrific night all around.
There are rock legends, and then there is Steve Albini. In addition to his work in bands like Big Black and Shellac, he worked as a producer and engineer on literally thousands of albums over the last 40 years. Albini died last week of a heart attack at the age of 61. This week, I've got songs produced by Albini in hour 2. They rock hard enough to get you into a fistfight in the parking lot.
This playlist's still got it:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Beeef - Bedhead Boy/Single
Ducks Ltd. - When You're Outside/Single
Les Savy Fav - Limo Scene/OUI, LSF
Lightheaded - Always Sideways/Combustible Gems
The Lemon Twigs - If You and I Are Not Wise/A Dream is All We Know
Savak - The Body, It Falls Apart/ Savak/Contractions Split EP
Contractions - Le Feu Au Bout Des Doigts/ Savak/Contractions Split EP
St. Vincent - Violent Times/All Born Screaming
Kim Gordon - It's Dark Inside/The Collective
E - Postperfect Conditional/Living Waters
Mdou Moctar - Tchinta/Funeral for Justice
Hallelujah the Hills - Confessions of an Ex-Ghost/Bootleg: Live 12/15/23 at the Sinclair
Cloud Nothings - Thank Me for Playing/Final Summer
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Walking to Do (demo)/Shake the Sheets: The Demos 2003-2004
Jerry Cantrell - Atone/Brighten
Sonny Vincent and Rocket from the Crypt - Pick Up the Slack/Vintage Piss
Masters of Reality - High Noon Amsterdam/Deep in the Hole
Hour 2: Albini
PJ Harvey - Man-Size/Rid of Me
Nirvana - Radio Friendly Unit Shifter/In Utero
Pixies - Vamos/Surfer Rosa
The Breeders - Hellbound/Pod
Mclusky - Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues/Mclusky Do Dallas
Helmet - Turned Out/Meantime
The Jesus Lizard - Seasick/Goat
METZ - Common Trash/Strange Peace
Cheap Trick - Downed/In Color - The Unreleased Steve Albini Sessions
Silkworm - Into the Woods/In the West
Fred Schneider - Lick/Just Fred
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Bernie/Acme
Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications/Further Complications
Ty Segall - Break a Guitar/Ty Segall
Brainiac - This Little Piggy/Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Mikey Erg - Sick as Your Secrets/Love at Leeds
Jawbreaker - The Boat Dreams From the Hill/24-Hour Revenge Therapy
