Day After Day #263: I Don't Know Why I Love You

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

I Don't Know Why I Love You (1990)

Sometimes success is the worst thing that can happen to a band. Take the English alt-rock act The House of Love. They formed in London in 1986, had a few hit singles in the U.K., released their debut and signed to a major label. But by the time they released their second album, the band was already beset with infighting, substance abuse and general disarray. Within a few years, they would split up.

Singer-guitarist Guy Chadwick started the band after seeing the Jesus and Mary Chain in concert. He wanted a band that sounded like the Velvet Underground and soon had recruited drummer Pete Evans, guitarist Terry Bickers, German singer-guitarist Andrea Heukamp and bassist Chris Groothuizen. The band signed to Creation Records, released a debut single and began touring with Felt and Zodiac Mindwarp. Heukamp quit the band at the end of 1987 because she didn't enjoy touring, but she appeared on the cover of a Germany-only compilation of the band's early recordings informally called The German Album.

The band's debut found them having many disagreements with producer Pat Collier, but the lead single "Christine" went to #1 on the U.K. indie chart when it was released in May 1988. The group's drug use and internal problems had begun to increase during this time. After the indie success of the first album in Europe, the group signed with Fontana Records (and Polygram in the U.S.) and began recording a follow-up. The sessions were full of problems, with the band going through four different producers and multiple studios over the course of two years. Bickers was unhappy with the new record deal and was dealing with manic depression, while Chadwick's drug and alcohol use was on the rise. The two eventually stopped talking to each other.

The album, also called The House of Love (they didn't like naming albums, apparently), came out in February 1990. The first single, "Never," was released against the band's wishes but stalled at #41 on the U.K. Singles Chart.

The second single, "I Don't Know Why I Love You," met a similar fate when it was first released in November 1989, despite BBC's Radio 1 naming it Single of the Week. The song was released in the U.S. in 1990 and caught on with alternative radio (I remember hearing it on WFNX and WBCN in the Boston area), hitting #2 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and got Buzz Bin play on MTV.

The chiming guitars of Bickers and Chadwick ring out as the latter's deadpan vocals remind one of the Church or Echo and the Bunnymen.

"I don't know why I love you, your face is a hammer in my head/I remember every word you said, I just don't know why I love you/I don't know why I care, I never even liked your hair/I feel like a seventh heir, but I don't know why I love you/Television turns me on/When the summer's hot and the spirit's long/How can I get close to you/When you got no mercy, no you got no mercy/No you got no."

Bickers' lead guitar work is really outstanding, providing little flourishes here and there but never overwhelming the song.

"I don't know why I love you, your face is a foreign food/I really don't know if I should, I just don't know why I love you/I don't know why I care, I duck and I weave and I fight/I work just to treat you right, God, I don't know why I love you."

By the time U.S. listeners were hearing the song, Bickers was already out of the band after getting fired in the midst of a 60-date U.K. tour in late '89. He was replaced by Simon Walker of My White Bedroom. The House of Love released a compilation album called A Spy in the House of Love in late 1990. But by the time the band released its next album, Babe Rainbow, in 1992, grunge was all-consuming in the U.S. and the Stone Roses were dominating in the U.K. The album failed to chart, despite getting good reviews. The band toured with Ocean Colour Scene and Catherine Wheel, but couldn't get any traction. By the end of '92, two lead guitarists had come and gone.

House of Love's next album was 1993's Audience with the Mind, but it also flopped commercially. Meanwhile, drummer Evans retired, leaving only Chadwick and Groothuizen. The group split later that year.

Chadwick and Bickers reconciled years later and reformed the House of Love in 2003, also bringing back Evans. In 2005, the band released Days Run Away and toured throughout Europe. Another album with that lineup (including bassist Matt Jury) was released in 2013, touring occasionally in the years that followed; they did a short tour in 2018 for the 30th anniversary of their debut album. 

Chadwick announced a completely new band lineup in 2020 with the intention of touring the U.S., although that was delayed a few years because of COVID. A new album was released in 2022. Also that year, original member Andrea Heukamp died at 57. 

Although they never lived up to their expectations, the House of Love left behind some memorable music and have been acknowledged as an influence by shoegaze acts like Ride and Slowdive. And songs like "I Don't Know Why I Love You" certainly capture that moment in time quite well.

Day After Day #262: Close Your Eyes (And Count to F***)

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

Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck) (2014)

Protest music isn't what it used to be. One could argue that given the state of politics, there should be more protest music than ever. But most artists don't want to risk losing fans over political statements. This has never been a concern for Run the Jewels, the hip hop duo comprised of Killer Mike and El-P. 

The group formed in 2012 after El-P (Jaime Meline) produced Killer Mike's (Michael Render) album R.A.P. Music and the two went on tour together. After the tour went well, they decided to form Run the Jewels and released their self-titled debut in 2013. 

RTJ gave the album away as a free download, but there was nothing throwaway about their music. It was a powerful combination of Killer Mike's booming anti-authoritarian flow with El-P's edgy, NYC-centric wiseass persona. The two held nothing back and played well off each other. 

They followed the same pattern for their second album, Run the Jewels 2, which came out in October 2014 as a free download, but also sold through Mass Appeal and RBC Records. The two rappers step up their game, somehow coming off more angry and sarcastic at the same time. 

The standout track is "Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)," featuring Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, who El-P had worked with previously. It's a high-energy banger about police brutality that kicks off with a sample of de la Rocha as the main hook. Mike starts it off with a call to arms.

"Fascist slave, you protestin' to get in a fuckin' look book/Everything I scribbles part of the Anarchist Cookbook/(Look good, posing in a centerfold of Crook Book)/Black on black on black with a ski mask, that is my crook look/How you like my stylin', bruh? Ain't nobody stylin', bruh/'Bout to turn this mothafucka up like Riker's Island, bruh."

El-P weighs in.

"We out of order, your honor, you're out of order/This whole court is unimportant, you fuckers are walkin' corpses/I'm a flip wig synonym, livin' within distortion/I'll bite into a cyanide molar before you whores win/I'm a New Yorkian, I fuck for the jump/I wear my Yankee hat so tilted I actually walk with a hunch/Look at Mikey, I think he likey, we are sinister sons/(Aye, we the type to beat the preacher with a grin and a gun)."

But the real difference maker is de la Rocha, who spits pure fire, dropping in references to Miles Davis and Philip K. Dick like it was nothing.

"It's de la on the cut, liftin' 6 on your stitchy crew/I'm miles ahead of you, you can sip my bitches brew/My battle status is burning mansions from Dallas to Malibu/Check my resume, your residence is residue/Call her a skin job and my honey dip'll backflip for you/You playin' God, your eye sockets, she gon' rip in two/We sick of bleedin' out a trace, spray a victim, you/Done dyin', Philip A-K Dickin' you."

No stranger to pissed-off tirades, de la Rocha closes out from the top rope.

"With clips in the bottom, we dippin' from Gotham/Yes eclipsed by the shadows, a dark dance to the coffin/I'm a fellow with melanin, a suspect in a felony/Ripped like Rakim Allah, feds is checkin' my melody/Yes aggressively tested we'll bump stretchers and penalties/Dump cases with face and the cop pleas when we seizin' a pump/With reason to dump on you global Grand Dragons/Still pilin' fast, plus Afghani toe taggin'/Now they trackin' me and we bustin' back, see/The only thing that close faster than our caskets be the factory."

The video for the song is powerful, a black and white depiction of a non-stop battle between a police officer and a black man (played by Shea Whigham and LaKeith Stanfield). Normally, I'd have an embed for you below, but it's currently blocked by YouTube because of a licensing rights battle with the performing rights organization SESAC. Definitely check it out whenever it comes back.

RTJ has released two more powerful albums in the last decade, the most recent being 2020's RTJ4, which was my favorite album of that year. Killer Mike released a solo album last year, and hopefully RTJ will return with another album soon. God knows there's plenty of material for them to write about.

Day After Day #261: Goodbye Stranger

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

Goodbye Stranger (1979)

When I was first getting into rock music in the late '70s, Supertramp was HUGE. Specifically in 1979, the English band was riding high with "The Logical Song" off their album Breakfast in America, and in Canada, where I was living, the song was everywhere. Breakfast in America was the first rock album I ever purchased, for $4.99 at Eaton's in our local mall and I played it constantly.

That album was their biggest by far, going quadruple platinum in the U.S. (and selling 20 million worldwide) and topping the Billboard 200 for six weeks. But by this point, Supertramp had been around for nearly a decade. They were formed in 1970 by keyboardist Rick Davies, bassist/vocalist Roger Hodgson, guitarist Richard Palmer and drummer Keith Baker, with financial backing provided by Dutch millionaire Stanley Miesegaes. 

Playing prog rock, the group's first two albums flopped. After the second album's failure, the entire band except for Davies and Hodgson quit and Miesegaes withdrew his support. Supertramp then added bassist Dougie Thomson, Bob Siebenberg (then going by Bob C. Benberg) on drums and John Helliwell on sax and other instruments. Meanwhile, Hodgson had switched to guitar and keyboards and Davies stepped up a second lead vocalist. 

Davies and Hodgson were originally writing together but began to do so separately; Davies was more of a blues-rock guy while Hodgson favored lighter, poppier fare. Whatever the formula, they finally figured it out on 1974's Crime of the Century. The band scored a top 40 hit with Davies' "Bloody Well Right," but also had success on rock radio with Hodgson's "Dreamer" and "School." The band found a strong balance between prog and pop elements, and the album hit #38 on the Billboard 200 but #4 in the U.K. and Canada.

The band's next two albums--Crisis? What Crisis? (1975) and Even in the Quietest Moments (1977)--were less successful, except for the latter's "Give a Little Bit," but Supertramp was still building a fanbase. For their sixth album, Davies and Hodgson were considering a concept album about the differences between the two of them, but ultimately backed off that idea and just focused on writing fun songs. 

The result was the megahit Breakfast in America. "The Logical Song" got most of the attention, but the band also had hits with the title track, "Take the Long Way Home" and "Goodbye Stranger." The latter song was written and sung by Davies about a drifter who breeze through one-night stands.

"It was an early morning yesterday/I was up before the dawn/And I really have enjoyed my stay/But I must be moving on/Like a king without a castle/Like a queen without a throne/I'm an early morning lover/And I must be moving on/Now I believe in what you say/Is the undisputed truth/But I have to have things my own way/To keep me in my youth."

The song is propelled by Davies' Wurlitzer piano, but Hodgson's guitar provides some additional oomph. Davies' vocals are supported by Hodgson's falsetto backups on the chorus.

"Like a ship without an anchor/Like a slave without a chain/Just the thought of those sweet ladies/Sends a shiver through my veins/And I will go on shining/Shining like brand new/I'll never look behind me/My troubles will be few/Goodbye stranger it's been nice/Hope you find your paradise/Tried to see you point of view/Hope your dreams will all come true/Goodbye Mary/Goodbye Jane/Will we ever meet again/Feel no sorrow, feel no shame/Come tomorrow, feel no pain."

The song ends with a bang, with Hodgson taking a shit-hot guitar solo that was uncommon for a band like Supertramp. It's pretty damn spectacular.

Even the album cover was iconic, an airplane-seat view of Manhattan with actress Kate Murtagh in costume as a waitress standing in for the Statue of Liberty, holding a glass of orange juice on a tray instead of a torch. 

The band followed up Breakfast in America with a double-live album called Paris, which went top 10 and scored a hit with a live version of "Dreamer." In 1982, the band released ...Famous Last Words..., which got to #5 on the Billboard 200 and had a hit with "It's Raining Again." But it was nowhere near as successful as its predecessor. 

In addition, Hodgson had moved to California and decided to go solo after tour ended in 1983. Davies continued to lead Supertramp, which released Brother Where You Bound in 1985; the album spawned a top 30 hit with the jazzy "Cannonball." The band toured for the album but only played Davies compositions, which angered some fans. The next album, 1987's Free as a Bird, was less successful and the band split up after that tour.

Davies reunited with Hodgson in 1993 to play "The Logical Song" and "Goodbye Stranger" at a party for A&M co-founder Jerry Moss. Afterwards, they got together and wrote two songs, but disagreements about management led them to split again. In 1996, Davies reformed Supertramp with Helliwell, Siebenberg and five other musicians and recorded Some Things Never Change, which came out in 1997 and included the two songs Davies wrote with Hodgson. It was a minor hit, reaching #74 in the U.K. Another album, Slow Motion, was released in 2002. 

Both Supertramp and Hodgson have toured periodically over the years, but never together. The last Supertramp show was in 2012; a 2015 tour was announced but later cancelled because Davies was having health issues.

The balance between prog and pop has resulted in Supertramp getting overlooked in recent decades, but the band had a good thing going for a while.

Stuck In Thee Garage #547: September 27, 2024

Rock and roll is a vicious game, kids. There's seven decades worth of rock history to sift through, and with that comes tons of references. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs that make references to other songs. It's record store nerd worthy!

This playlist is referenced in another playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Fake Fruit - Mas O Menos/Mucho Mistrust

Johnny Foreigner - Roisin Does Advice Now/How to Be Hopeful

Nada Surf - Second Skin/Moon Mirror

The The - Cognitive Dissident/Ensoulment

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Song of the Lake/Wild God

Horse Jumper of Love - Wait by the Stairs/Disaster Trick

Kal Marks - You Are Found/Wasteland Baby

The Jesus Lizard - Lord Godiva/Rack

The Bug Club - A Bit Like James Bond/On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System

Oceanator - Drift Away/Everything is Love and Death

Illuminati Hotties - Can't Be Still/Power

Oneida - Stranger/Expensive Air

Redd Kross - Too Good to Be True/Redd Kross

Dale Crover - Doug Yuletide/Glossolalia

Jack White - Tonight (Was a Long Time Ago)/No Name

Fontaines D.C. - Bug/Romance

Beeef - Something in the River/Somebody's Favorite

Hour 2: Songs that reference other songs

Drive-By Truckers - Let There Be Rock/Southern Rock Opera

The Gaslight Anthem - High Lonesome/The '59 Sound

Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union/The Monitor

The Hold Steady - Both Crosses/Stay Positive

Phoebe Bridgers - Moon Song/Punisher

Pavement - Unseen Power of the Picket Fence/No Alternative

Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor/Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Metric - Gimme Sympathy/Fantasies

Sloan - The Lines You Amend/One Chord to Another

Big Star - Thirteen/#1 Record

Destroyer - The Sublimation Hour/Streethawk: A Seduction

Protomartyr - My Children/Relatives in Descent

Jawbreaker - Pack It Up/Bivouac

Built to Spill - You Were Right/Keep It Like a Secret

Refer yourself to the rock show RIGHT HERE!

Day After Day #260: Leash

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

Leash (1993)

Pearl Jam can provoke a lot of different reactions from rock fans, depending on who you talk to. There are indie/alternative fans who never really dug them or got sick of them after they got really big. And then there are those who never wavered in their fervor for the band. I'm closer to the latter, but I wouldn't call myself a fanatic; I've always liked them, but I liked them more in the early days.

Along with Foo Fighters and Green Day, Pearl Jam managed to transcend the "'90s rock" pigeonhole and maintain their popularity after all these years, even if it's not what it once was. For all the TIME magazine covers and "savior of rock" articles that followed them in the early days, PJ never pretended to be more than just a rock band. They didn't pretend to be punk, even though they had punk-inspired songs in their repertoire, and they certainly appreciated their influences like Neil Young and the Who. They caught a lot of heat early on for not being underground or alternative enough, and maybe that's why they stopped doing press for a while.

Formed in 1990, the band was formed by guitarist Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, who had previously played in Seattle bands Green River (with Mark Arm and Steve Turner, who went on to form Mudhoney) and Mother Love Bone (with the late Andrew Wood). After Wood's death from a heroin overdose, Gossard and Ament teamed with Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron of Soundgarden and Gossard's childhood friend Mike McCready to record a tribute album to Wood. The group was called Temple of the Dog after a line from a Mother Love Bone song. 

At the same time, Gossard, Ament and McCready were starting a new band called Mookie Blaylock (after the basketball player) and had flown in a singer from San Diego named Eddie Vedder to audition. Vedder came to one of the Temple of the Dog rehearsals and contributed backing vocals to a few songs, including "Hunger Strike," which turned into a duet with Cornell. The resulting album came out in April 1991 on A&M and sold a modest 70,000 copies in the U.S., but it didn't chart.

Vedder ended up getting the gig with Mookie Blaylock, which added drummer Dave Krusen, playing their first show in Seattle in October 1990 and later opening some shows for Alice in Chains. They later renamed the band Pearl Jam and went into the studio to record their debut album Ten (which was Blaylock's uniform number). Krusen left the band after the sessions to go into rehab for alcoholism and Matt Chamberlin joined them; he only played a few shows before joining the Saturday Night Live band and was replaced by Dave Abbruzzese. 

The album was released in August 1991, around the same time as Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger, Nirvana's Nevermind and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The other three albums started off strong, but Ten was a slow grower, a classic rock-inspired collection of dark tales. But as Pearl Jam began touring heavily and got more exposure on MTV with the video for "Alive," they started to grow in popularity. Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" exploded out of the gate and led to headlines and constant coverage of what the music press started calling grunge music and the "Seattle sound"; soon, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains were swept up in the hysteria, even though the four bands didn't sound like each other at all. 

By April 1992, Pearl Jam was still playing small clubs but those dates were selling out. One of them was on April 8 at Axis in Boston, where my brother and I were in attendance. It was packed to the gills and the band put on a typically energetic and fun show. Three nights later, they played Saturday Night Live, where they played "Alive" and "Porch" and a few months later, they were in the middle of the bill on the second Lollapalooza tour and stardom ensued.

The last song of that Axis show was an unreleased track called "Leash," which would turn up on the band's 1993 album Vs. It was a furious ripper of a song that nobody really knew, but it was pretty easy to get behind the message and attitude.

"Troubled souls unite, we got ourselves tonight/I am fuel, you are friends, we got the means to make amends/I am lost, I'm no guide, but I'm by your side/I am right by your side/Young lover I stand/It was their idea, I proved to be a man/Take my fucking hand/It was their idea, I proved to be a man/Will myself to find a home, a home within myself/We will find a way, we will find our place/Drop the leash, drop the leash/Get outta my fuckin' face."

When you're in your 20s, "Drop the leash, get outta my fuckin' face" is a relatable sentiment, and the song was certainly memorable. It was 32 years ago, but I remember that tiny club vibrating as the band pummeled through that song. It almost seemed like a goodbye in some ways, that we'd never see them in a venue that small again. 

It was good to hear the song again on Vs. Reportedly the song was about the same girl who was the subject of the Ten song "Why Go," which Vedder said he wrote about a teenage girl in Chicago whose parents had her institutionalized for two years. 

"Drop the leash, we are young/Drop the leash, we are young/Get outta my fuckin' face/Drop the leash, drop the leash/Get outta my.../Delight, delight, delight in our youth/Get outta my fuckin' face..."

By the time Vs. came out in October 1993, Pearl Jam was huge. They did MTV Unplugged in '92, contributed to the soundtrack of (and appeared in) the Cameron Crowe movie Singles and won MTV Video Music Awards for their controversial video for "Jeremy." After that, the band refused to make videos for a while and consciously tried to scale back their press efforts. All that did was build up demand and Vs. sold over 950,000 copies in its first week. 

I saw them again at the Orpheum in Boston in April 1994. Not long afterward, the band started fighting against Ticketmaster's price gouging and tried to create their own tour of non-TM venues. Gossard and Ament even testified before a Congressional subcommittee investigating Ticketmaster's monopolistic practices. Pearl Jam canceled their 1994 summer tour in protest. They released Vitalogy in late '94 and continued to avoid Ticketmaster venues, which meant they barely played any U.S. dates in 1995-96. Abbruzzese was fired after Vitalogy was recorded over political differences; Jack Irons took his place. They also backed up Neil Young on his 1995 album Mirror Ball.

Pearl Jam released a quieter album, No Code, in 1996 and then a more mainstream rocker, Yield, in 1998. They also finally relented and began playing Ticketmaster venues again on the Yield tour. That year also marked the departure of Irons, who was replaced by Matt Cameron, who was free after Soundgarden broke up a year earlier. 

Since 2000, the band has released seven albums with the same lineup, including this year's Dark Matter. They're not topping the charts anymore, but no rock bands are these days. But they're still filling arenas and baseball stadiums every few years, with a pretty solid body of work for a 34-year-old band. I saw them last in 2006 at the Boston Garden, where they played "Leash" for the first time in 12 years. I had a chance to see them two weekends ago but had to go to a work conference and missed it. They're not the angry young men they once were, but they can still deliver the goods, and that definitely counts for something.

Day After Day #259: Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe

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

Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe (1974)

A lot of people try to act cool, but some people don't have to fake it. Barry White was one cool mofo.

Born in Texas in 1944, White said he was living in Los Angeles when his voice suddenly dropped in his early teens. A few years later, he was sent to jail for four months for stealing $30,000 worth of Cadillac tires. While in jail, he heard Elvis Presley's "Now or Never" on a radio and was inspired to begin a musical career when he was released. He began singing in different groups in the early '60s and then released several singles under his own name while also working for small indie labels in Los Angeles. He began working as a producer, songwriter, session musician and arranger.

In 1972, White began producing a girl group he had discovered called Love Unlimited, which also served as his backing singers. He produced their first album, which released a single, "Walkin' in the Rain with the One I Love," that reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. The group had several more hits throughout the '70s.  

White created the Love Unlimited Orchestra in 1973, a 40-piece group that was to back up Love Unlimited, but then he released "Love's Theme," an instrumental written by White and played by the orchestra. The song reached #1 on the Billboard Pop charts, and its combination of funk guitar and strings set the stage for disco, which emerged in 1974. 

At first White had no plans to become a solo act, but after making some demos, he was convinced to make an album of his own songs. His first album, 1973's I've Got So Much to Give, which featured the hit "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby"; it went to #1 on the R&B charts and #3 on the Pop chart. A second album was released in '73, Stone Gon', which hit #20 on the Billboard 200 and featured the single "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up," which hit #7 on the Hot 100. 

The prolific White followed up in 1974 with Can't Get Enough, which featured one of his signature songs, "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe." Backed by the Love Unlimited Orchestra, White starts the song with his trademark low bass rumble of speaking voice:

"I've heard people say that/Too much of anything is not good for you, baby/But I don't know about that/As many times as we've loved and/We've shared love and made love, it's/It doesn't seem to me like it's enough/It's just not enough of it/Uh, it's just not enough/Oh, oh babe/Oh babe."

Then the orchestra kicks in as White moves into loverman mode.

"My darling, I can't get enough of your love, babe/Girl, I don't know, I don't know why, can't get enough of your love, babe/Oh, some things I can't get used to, no matter how I try/It's like the more you give, the more I want and baby, that's no lie/Oh no, babe, tell me, what can I say? What am I gonna do?/How should I feel when everything is you?/What kind of love is this that you're givin' me?/Is it in your kiss or just because you're sweet?"

Reportedly, White wrote the song one night after he was unable to sleep. He decided to write a song about his new wife Glodean James, who was one of the Love Unlimited singers. The song went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts, with its pure early '70s Philly soul power. 

White went on to have many more pop and R&B hits and due to his large frame and smooooooth voice, he became synonymous with romance and love songs. Things slowed down for White in the '80s, but he bounced back in 1989 with his album The Man is Back!, which had three top 40 singles on the R&B charts. He had four more successful albums in the '90s, and also put that magnificent voice to good use in voiceovers and commercials. 

"Can't Get Enough of Your Love" was covered by pop singer Taylor Dayne in 1993, becoming a dance club hit. A few years later, the Afghan Whigs played a rocking version of the song in the movie Beautiful Girls. And White himself performed the song in a 1993 episode of The Simpsons.

White, who reportedly smoked 150 cigarettes day (according to his Wiki page) and weighed up to 375 pounds, suffered a severe stroke in 2003 and died weeks later at the age of 58. Despite that uncool exit, Barry White remains the epitome of cool.

Day After Day #258: He War

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

He War (2003)

I first heard Cat Power in the late '90s on the great Matador Records compilation What's Up Matador and was instantly impressed by the songs therein, "Nude as the News" and "Back of Your Head." Her voice was interesting and the instrumentation was raw and minimalistic but affecting.

Cat Power was the name of Chan Marshall's first band; when she went solo, she took it as her stage name. The Atlanta native moved to New York City in 1992 and started playing improvisational music in clubs. She made her first two albums at the same time in December 1994 with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, who she had met after she opened for Liz Phair the year before. The trio recorded 20 songs in one day, which she split into two albums that were released in October 1995 and March 1996. Marshall's music was a lo-fi mix of folk, blues, country and punk.

She signed with Matador and released her third album in the fall of '96, What Would the Community Think, again backed by Foljahn and Shelley, who also produced the album. "Nude as the News" was on this release, which was praised by critics. She went to Australia to record her next album, 1998's Moon Pix, with Mick Turner and Jim White of the band Dirty Three on guitar and drums. It's a strong collection, with "Cross Bones Style" a particular standout.

Marshall was getting more attention from the media. She released a covers album in 2000, one of which was a striking take on the Rolling Stones "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." She also did some modeling during this time. 

In February 2003, Marshall released her first album of original songs in five years, You Are Free, featuring some big-name guest stars including Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl and Warren Ellis. The song "He War" featured Grohl on drums and was about an old relationship that fell apart.

"I never meant to be the needle that broke your back/You were here, you were here, and you were here/Don't look back/He war he war/He will kill for you/He war he war/He will kill for you/From who you can/You know you can/Hey hey hey."

Marshall's gritty guitar drives the song, although she has complained that she didn't like the final version of the song, noting that the original version was more Stonesy. Duly noted, but I've always enjoyed this version.

"I'm not that hot new chick/And if you won't let me run with it/We're on to you same old trick/Get up and run away with it/Hey hey hey/He war he war/He will kill for you."

During her 2003-04 tour, Marshall's live performances grew erratic; sometimes she would decide not to play and others she would just ramble from the stage. She later said she had a drinking problem at this time. In 2006, she released The Greatest, a soul-influenced album that debuted at #34 on the Billboard 200 and won critical acclaim. In the years since, she has released two albums of covers and two of original material. I haven't kept up with everything she's done over the last 15 years, but I really enjoy the raw, early albums she made.

Day After Day #257: Ms. Jackson

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

Ms. Jackson (2000)

When you're talking about talented duos, Outkast has to be in the conversation. The Atlanta hip hop act has been consistently original and excellent right from the start. They've been on hiatus for a decade, but while they were together, they were at the top of their game.

Outkast was formed in 1992 by Big Boi (Antwan Patton) and Andre 3000 (Andre Benjamin), who met in high school. After three albums that were increasingly more successful, the group released their fourth album, Stankonia, in 2000. The album combined a variety of styles, including funk, rock and gospel. The first single, "B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)" grabbed my attention, with its over-the-top mix of high-speed rapping, hot guitar solos, and breakbeats. 

But it didn't quite catch on, failing to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The next single was "Ms. Jackson," which was a totally different kind of song: a mid-tempo funk groove that was reportedly based on Andre 3000's relationship with singer Erykah Badu, with whom he had a child before breaking up. The song finds Andre apologizing to his ex-partner's mother.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson, ooh, I am for real/Never meant to make your daughter cry/I apologize a trillion times/I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson, ooh, I am for real/Never meant to make your daughter cry/I apologize a trillion times."

But Big Boi brings a more antagonistic attitude towards the situation in his verse.

"She never got a chance to hear my side of the story, we was divided/She had fish fries, cookouts for my child's birthday, I wasn't invited."

Andre 3000 is more wistful about things, acknowledging that the couple had the best intentions but it just didn't work out.

"Me and your daughter got a special thang goin' on/You say it's puppy love, we say it's full grown/Hope that we feel this, feel this way forever/You can plan a pretty picnic but you can't predict the weather."

The video was a big hit, although it made no effort to dramatize the scenario in the song. Instead, it showed Big Boi and Andre 3000 working on a house while a bunch of cute animals bop along to the beat. 

"Ten times out of nine, now if I'm lyin', find/The quickest muzzle, throw it on my out and I'll decline/King meets queen, then the puppy love thing/Together dream about the crib with the Goodyear swing/On the oak tree, I hope we feel like this forever/Forever, forever ever? Forever ever?/Forever never seems that long until you're grown."

The song went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 2001, and it also hit the top spot in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The album went to #2 on the Billboard 200 and was critically acclaimed.

The group went on to its biggest success with the 2004 double album Speakerboxx/The Love Below, which was basically two solo albums combined into one Outkast album. Andre's song "Hey Ya!" was a monster hit, spending nine weeks at #1 and Big Boi's "The Way You Move" also went to #1. Outkast released a movie and album called Idlewild in 2006; the album sold well but not as well as previous releases. 

That was the last Outkast recording. In the years since, Big Boi has released three solo albums; Andre did some guest spots on other albums and acted (including playing Jimi Hendrix in a movie) until releasing a 2023 instrumental album of flute music. Because of course he did.

The duo reunited in 2014 to play a tour of festivals and other large venues, but that's the last time the two have performed together as Outkast.

 

Day After Day #256: When I Get Old

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

When I Get Old (1996)

Once you get to a certain point in life, birthdays cease to be a big deal. Sure, you still have the big milestones, but the ones in between kind of just happen. Still, they're celebrations and they're to be enjoyed, but there's also that sense of mortality that hits you right between the eyes.

There's been plenty of songs about birthdays, but one that gets to the heart of the whole "getting old" conundrum is "When I Get Old" by the Descendents. 

The Descendents were a power pop/surf punk band formed in 1977 in Manhattan Beach, California, by Frank Novetta, David Nolte and Bill Stevenson. After a few years of lineup changes, Milo Aukerman joined as lead singer in 1981. The band's 1982 debut Milo Goes to College was a punk-pop classic, with a nerdy-looking caricature of Aukerman serving as the group's mascot. But the band was eventually put on hold when indeed, Aukerman went to college and Stevenson joined Black Flag. 

The two rejoined the band in 1985 for the album I Don't Want to Grow Up and made two more albums before Aukerman left the band to pursue a career in biochemistry. Stevenson and members Karl Alvarez and Steven Egerton decided to form All, adding singer Dave Smalley. The band released seven pop-punk albums with Smalley and two other singers before Aukerman decided to get back into music. 

Stevenson kept All going with singer Chad Price while working with Aukerman in the Descendents; in 1996, the Descendents released the album Everything Sucks, a short and punchy collection of pop-punk gems. Both bands signed to Epitaph. 

On "When I Get Old," Aukerman wonders about his future (although the song was written by Stevenson and Alvarez).

"What will it be like when I get old?/Will I still hop on my bike/And ride around town?/Will I still want to be someone/And not just sit around?/I don't wanna be like the other adults/'Cause they've already died/Cool and condescending/Fossilized/Will I be rich, will I be poor?/Will I still sleep on the floor?/What will it be like when I get/What will it be like when I get/What will it be like when I get old?"

By this point, Aukerman and Stevenson were in their early 30s, so adulthood wasn't just some far-off fantasy.

"Will I sit around and talk about the old days?/Sit around and watch TV/I never want to go that way/Never burn out, not fade away/As I travel through my time/Will I like what I find?"

Aukerman went back to a career in molecular biology, returning occasionally to record and tour. In 2016, burned out by his career and laid off by DuPont, Aukerman returned to the Descendents full time, and the band released the album Hypercaffium Spazzinate. I saw them on this tour at the Royale in Boston. The band released another album in 2021 and remains active. As for the getting older part, Aukerman suffered a mild heart attack last year but had surgery and is back performing.

Milo's 61 now and I just turned 57 today. At the time "When I Get Old" came out, I was still in my 20s (barely) and the thought of getting old was the furthest thing from my mind. Now that it's actually here, I still feel pretty good, albeit a lot creakier than I was back then. Hopefully Milo and I will both be around for a long time.

Day After Day #255: The Last in Line

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

The Last in Line (1984)

While bands like Duran Duran were dominating the charts in the early '80s, there was another genre making inroads. Hard rock and metal was going through some changes. Veteran acts like Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, the Scorpions and Motorhead were doing well, but there was a new wave of bands on the rise: Motley Crue, Ratt, Def Leppard, Quiet Riot and Dokken were starting to blow up.

Meanwhile, another hard rock vet was striking out on his own. By 1982, Ronnie James Dio already been playing in bands for 25 years, starting in 1957 as a teenager. He formed the band Elf in 1967 and then joined Ritchie Blackmore's post-Deep Purple project Rainbow in 1975. 

Dio was tiny but had a powerful voice and made three albums with Rainbow before leaving to replace Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath. The Dio-led Sabbath made two successful albums, Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules, before Dio and Tony Iommi butted heads one time too many and Dio and drummer Vinny Appice left the band.

Dio and Appice teamed up with hotshot Irish guitarist Vivian Campbell and bassist Jimmy Bain to form the band Dio in 1982. The band's 1983 debut album, Holy Diver, was a hit, thanks to "Rainbow in the Dark" and the title track. Adding Claude Schnell on keyboards, the band recorded the follow-up, The Last in Line, which was released in July 1984.

The lead single was the title track and it was a ripper. It starts quietly, with a slow build as Dio sets the scene for the first 50 seconds before the song just explodes.

"We're a ship without the storm/The cold without the warm/Light inside the darkness that it needs, yeah/We're a laugh without a tear/The hope without the fear/We are coming...home."

The band kicks in as Dio holds the note on "home" for what seems like an eternity. Then the real fun begins.

"We're off to the witch/We may never never never come home/But the magic that we'll feel is worth a lifetime/We're all born upon the cross/We're the throw before the toss/You can release yourself/But the only way is down/We don't come alone/We are fire, we are stone/We're the hand that writes and quickly moves away/We'll know for the first time/If we're evil or divine/We're the last in line/Yeah, we're the last in line."

Dio typically wrote about good and evil, devils and wizards and rainbows and such shit, but goddamn, the guy could sing. And he pretty much always had a killer band behind him. The Last in Line lineup was a powerhouse.

"Two eyes from the East/It's the angel or the beast/And the answer lies between the good and bad/We search for the truth/We could die upon the tooth/But the thrill of just the chase is worth the pain."

Campbell was a flashy guitarist and his solo on this song is one of his best. The song went to #10 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and the album hit #23 on the Billboard 200. I saw Dio on this tour at the Worcester Centrum with Twisted Sister opening, and then again a few years later in Portland.

The band released the album Sacred Heart in 1985 and later that year spearheaded the Hear 'N Aid charity project, basically a metal version of We Are the World that featured about 75 guitar solos. Not long after, Campbell left the band and later joined Whitesnake right as that band got huge. 

Dio the band went through numerous lineup changes after that. In 1991, he reteamed with Black Sabbath to record the album Dehumanizer, but the reunion was short-lived. By this point, I was completely uninterested in metal and barely remember Dio getting back together with Sabbath, something that would have been a big deal to me a few years earlier. At any rate, Dio kept plugging along through that metal-deficient decade of the '90s and into the 2000s, even as the album sales and the venues shrank.

In 2006, Dio and Vinny Appice once again reunited with Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, but called the band Heaven and Hell (Iommi and Butler were still technically in Black Sabbath with Ozzy at the time). They did a world tour and released an album in 2009, but Dio was diagnosed with stomach cancer that year and died six months later at the age of 67.

Even in death, there are Dio tours. In 2016, his widow Wendy authorized a tour that consisted of a hologram version of Dio singing and backed by former Dio band members. After that got mixed reviews, the hologram was scrapped but a live band called Dio Disciples started touring behind the Dio catalog, with live singers including Tim "Ripper" Owens, the former copy shop worker who replaced Rob Halford in Judas Priest in the '90s. Whatever.

Stuck In Thee Garage #546: September 20, 2024

Just about everybody's on some sort of drug, whether it's prescribed or recreational. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about drugs in hour 2 (in addition to hot new rock jams from the Jesus Lizard, Dale Crover, Kal Marks, Johnny Foreigner, the Bug Club and more in hour 1). Don't get any crazy ideas about making your own drugs, though.

This playlist is the one that rocks:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

The Jesus Lizard - Grind/Rack

Dale Crover - I Quit (feat. Kim Thayil)/Glossolalia

Kal Marks - Insects/Wasteland Baby

Johnny Foreigner - Their Shining Path/How to Be Hopeful

The Bug Club - Quality Pints/On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System

Oceanator - First Time/Everything is Love and Death

Beeef - Nice Clean Shirt/Somebody's Favorite

MJ Lenderman - Wristmatch/Manning Fireworks

Fontaines D.C. - Favourite/Romance

M.A.G.S. - Sequence 08/Creator

Illuminati Hotties - YSL/Power

Fake Fruit - Psycho/Mucho Mistrust

Ekko Astral - Buffaloed/Pink Balloons

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Antarctica/Flight b741

Fucked Up - The One to Break It/Another Day

Swervedriver - Cool Your Boots/Doremi Faso Latido

Hour 2: Drugs

Queens of the Stone Age - Feel Good Hit of the Summer/Rated R

Gateway Drugs - Wait (Medication)/PSA

Spiral Dub - High as Fuck/Spiral Dub

Hallelujah the Hills - Too High to Say Hello/Stranded in Holyoke

The Raveonettes - D.R.U.G.S./In and Out of Control

The Dirty Nil - Done with Drugs/Fuck Art

The Flaming Lips - Drug Machine/In a Priest Driven Ambulance

Chandos - Drug Bros/Rats in Your Bed

The Mutineers - Drug for That/Threshold

Ty Segall - Drug Mugger/Mr. Face

Husker Du - Drug Party/Savage Young Du

Gordon Downie - Canada Geese/Coke Machine Glow

Wilco - Handshake Drugs/A Ghost is Born

The Pink Mountaintops - New Drug Queens/Axis of Evol

Black Mountain - Druganaut/Black Mountain

PJ Harvey - The Slow Drug/Uh Huh Her

A Giant Dog - Sex & Drugs/Pile

Osees - Drug City/SORCS 80

James Brown - Fight Against Drug Abuse PSA/Funk Power 1970: A Brand New Thang

Get hooked on the addictive jams HERE, friendo.

Day After Day #254: New Moon on Monday

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

New Moon on Monday (1983)

It's truly amazing how different the music industry was in the early '80s. Unlike today, artists were able to succeed because of radio and video, thanks to MTV's meteoric rise. One of the bands who took full advantage of the newfound popularity of music videos was Duran Duran, an English pop-rock act that happened to be extremely photogenic in addition to talented.

The group was formed in Birmingham, England in 1978 by singer Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor. There were some lineup shuffles before the group settled in 1980 on Rhodes, Taylor, singer Simon Le Bon, guitarist Andy Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor (none of the Taylors are related). The group's 1981 self-titled debut featured the single "Planet Earth," which went to #12 on the U.K. singles chart. The third single, "Girls on Film," had a video with topless women mud wrestling that stirred up plenty of controversy, as the band had hoped. A heavily edited version aired on MTV but it got the band noticed in the U.S.

Duran Duran's second album, Rio, came out in the spring of 1982 and was an immediate hit in the U.K. It took a while longer in the U.S., where the group's label was promoting them as a New Romantic band. After a shift in promotion to work the album as dance music, the videos for "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Rio" hit MTV and blew up, as did the ballad "Save a Prayer." The album hit #6 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 129 weeks.

As 1983 began, Duran Duran re-released their first album in the U.S. along with the single "Is There Something I Should Know?" and soon the band was being mobbed at in-store appearances by hysterical fans. The group's third album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, came out in November 1983 and really leaned into synth pop and expensive videos: "Union of the Snake," "New Moon on Monday" and a remix of "The Reflex." 

Duran mania was everywhere. I, for one, was firmly in my metalhead phase but still hearing Duran songs constantly on the radio and TV (we didn't have MTV yet but I watched shows like Friday Night Videos regularly). The songs were damn catchy but I couldn't be caught dead admitting I liked them to anyone. No, it was Iron Maiden and Judas Priest for me, but I could appreciate synth-pop acts like Duran, ABC and the Thompson Twins. 

I only know the singles because I've never purchased a Duran album, but I know them well. "New Moon on Monday" was always a favorite, even the band hated the video for the song. It was filmed in a French village with the band as members of an underground resistance movement called La Luna organizing a revolt against a military regime. There's a 17-minute version that has a long introduction before the song begins, a shorter one that has a spoken French intro, and then an even shorter one. 

But the song itself is pretty fun, sort of echoing latter-day Roxy Music.

"Shake up the picture/The lizard mixture/With your dance on the eventide/You got me coming up with answers/All of which I deny/I said it again/Could I please rephrase it?/Maybe I can catch a ride/I couldn't really put it much plainer/But I'll wait til you decide/Send me your warning siren/As if I could ever hide/Last time la luna/I light my torch/And wave it for the new moon on Monday/And a fire dance through the night/I stayed the cold day/With a lonely satellite."

The song got up to #10 in the U.S. and #9 in the U.K. Pretty decent, but then the remix of "The Reflex" went to #1 in both countries. The band began playing stadiums, appeared on magazine covers and won Grammys for short- and long-form videos. After 1984, the group took a break and worked on solo projects. John and Andy Taylor teamed up with Robert Palmer and Chic drummer Tony Thompson to form the Power Station, a rock-funk act that had a couple of top 10 hits in '85. Le Bon, Roger Taylor and Rhodes formed Arcadia, a synth pop act. The group got back together to record the title theme to the James Bond film A View to a Kill, which went to #1 in the U.S. Duran also played at the Philadelphia Live Aid concert in July 1985; it would be that lineup's last performance for 18 years.

In 1986, Roger Taylor left the band, citing exhaustion, and Andy Taylor signed a solo deal; he played on a few songs on the band's next album before leaving. Le Bon, Rhodes and John Taylor moved ahead, hiring former Missing Persons and Frank Zappa guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and drummer Steve Ferrone (later replaced by Sterling Campbell). They had a few hits, but as the decade ended, Duran Duran were definitely on the downswing. 

In January 1989, I saw them play the Worcester Centrum, but I actually wasn't there to see them. My friend Arthur, who was Arts editor at the UNH school newspaper where I was a reporter, scored a couple of passes to the show so he could interview Moe Berg of The Pursuit of Happiness, the Canadian alt-rock act that was opening the concert. I was a big fan of TPOH's debut album Love Junk and was excited to see them and they didn't disappoint in their opening set. It was kind of an odd pairing because TPOH combined snarky lyrics, big riffs and girl group backing vocals, a sound that was very different from Duran Duran's. DD played a decent set but the arena was half full and it was striking how just four years earlier, they were packing stadiums.

The band kept going through the '90s with mixed results and in '97, John Taylor left. But in 2001, Le Bon and Rhodes reunited with the three Taylors and played to sold-out arenas. They've continued recording new music and touring in the 20+ years since. Andy Taylor left in 2006, but the other four are still members of the band and going strong. Duran Duran have definitely had their ups and downs over the last four decades, but they always seem to bounce back.