Day After Day #320: Annie's Gone

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

Annie's Gone (1990)

Punk rock can take you in some interesting directions. Jeff (lead vocals, guitar) and Steven (bass, vocals) McDonald were punk pioneers as kids, forming the Tourists in 1978 in Hawthorne, California, when Steven was still in middle school. Timing is everything, since their first gig was opening for Black Flag. The early lineup of the band included Greg Hetson, who would later play with Circle Jerks and Bad Religion, and Ron Reyes, who left to join Black Flag.

The group changed its name to Red Cross, releasing a six-song debut EP in 1980 and their first full-length album, Born Innocent, in 1982. The album was full of pop culture references to Linda Blair, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and Lita Ford, and covers of a song from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and a Charles Manson song. After the International Red Cross threatened to sue, the band changed the spelling of their name to Redd Kross. 

Two years later, Redd Kross recorded Teen Babes from Monsanto, a sped-up power pop EP of covers of songs by the Stooges, Kiss, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie. Lead guitarist Robert Hecker joined the band as they went on tour. They released a full-length album called Neurotica in 1987, combining punk with garage and power pop sounds.

By the time the band's third album, Third Eye, came out in 1990, the McDonald brothers were in their mid-20s and were music veterans. Their sound had evolved into pure power pop, very different from the early days of the band. The lead single, "Annie's Gone," is ridiculously catchy.

"I heard the other day/That she went and gone away/She was always sort of out of step/She couldn't ever be/Something that you couldn't see/She was always there right in your face/Annie's gone/Annie's gone/Annie's gone/It's so dark/It's so dark around here now/Can't believe she's gone away/Can't believe she's gone to stay/But it's true/Annie's gone."

The song got some airplay on college and alternative radio, hitting #16 on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart.

"I guess she couldn't play/By the rules she had no say/And she did her in this way today/I know I feel like this sometimes/Feel like giving up my mind/But it's all I have and it is mine/Annie's gone/Annie's gone/Annie's gone/It's so dark/It's so dark around here now/Can't believe she's gone away/Can't believe she's gone to stay/But it's true/Annie's gone."

The video features the band playing with Jack Irons (Red Hot Chili Peppers) on drums and also includes actress Ann Magnuson. 

Also in 1990, the McDonalds appeared in the movie The Spirit of '76, a comedy spoofing '70s culture that was directed by Lucas Reiner (son of Carl, brother of Rob) and starring David Cassidy, Leif Garrett and Olivia d'Abo. Roman Coppola co-wrote the script and Sofia Coppola designed the costumes (she also appears on the Third Eye album cover nude, wearing a mask). The McDonalds played teen stoners in 1976 who help time travelers from 2176 get back to their time. There are a lot of familiar faces in the movie, including Tommy Chong, Carl Reiner and Moon Zappa; it only had a limited release and grossed a total of $52,310 at the box office.

By the time 1993's Phaseshifter came out, Redd Kross' combination of hard rock riffs and bubblegum pop smarts was tailor made for the guitar-crazy grunge era. Videos for "Jimmy's Fantasy" and "Lady in the Front Row" got play on MTV's 120 Minutes. The band had added new members in Eddie Kurdziel, Gere Ferrelly and Brian Retzell and toured heavily for a year; I saw them play a kickass show at the Paradise in Boston on that tour.

Redd Kross didn't release their next album until 1997's Show World, which got good reviews but didn't sell as well as the previous release. The band went on hiatus after the tour; in 1999, Kurdziel died of a drug overdose at the age of 38. Steven McDonald stayed busy, producing and playing on albums by The Format and fun., and playing in the band on the first Tenacious D album. He joined Sparks in 2006 for a tour and album, and later joined the Melvins in 2015.

Redd Kross resurfaced in 2012 on Merge Records with the excellent album Researching the Blues and then released Beyond the Door in 2019. Earlier this year, the band issued another strong album called Redd Kross. It's been a long, strange trip for the McDonald brothers, but they're clearly having a good time doing what they want.

Day After Day #319: 3 Strange Days

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

3 Strange Days (1991)

The phenomenon of the one-hit wonder still happens, but not the way it once did. Back when people listened to the radio or watched videos on MTV, a song could come out of nowhere and capture the imagination of fans for a short period of time. 

During the spring of 1991, hair metal bands were still popular and older bands were still getting a lot of play, but there was an undercurrent of so-called alternative rock that was gaining favor. Bands like U2, R.E.M. and INXS were blowing up, and artists like Jane's Addiction and Lenny Kravitz were getting noticed. I was listening to WFNX, the alt-rock station out of nearby Lynn, Mass., that was reliably playing interesting music for the Boston area and I got hooked on this new song, "3 Strange Days," from a band called School of Fish that had a cool, crunchy riff and a psychedelic sound.

The band was formed in Los Angeles in 1989 by singer-guitarist Josh Clayton-Felt and guitarist Michael Ward, who would play club shows as a duo around town using programmed drum and bass. After adding drummer Michael Petrak and bassist David Lipson, the band signed with Capitol Records and released a single in 1990. Dominic Nardini stepped in on bass and the band recorded their self-titled debut on Capitol Records and released it in the spring of 1991.

"3 Strange Days" was the first single and it caught fire on radio, with the video getting played on MTV's 120 Minutes. Clayton-Felt sings about what might be a weekend bender.

"For three strange days/I had no obligations/My mind was a blur/I did not know what to do/I think I lost myself/When I lost my motivation/Now I'm walking 'round the city/Just waiting to come to/For three strange.../For three strange days/I couldn't put a smile on my face/So they dressed me up in all of their clothes/And took me somewhere else/Johnny Clueless was there/With his simulated wood grain/So I pulled up a chair/And started drinking by myself/For three strange..."

Some have interpreted the song as a religious journey, with Johnny Clueless having the same initials as Jesus Christ and the three days being similar to the resurrection of Christ after his crucifixion. Or it could just be about a guy who ingested too much and was out of it for a weekend.

"I've got to make it through/No matter what it takes/Oh I've got to make it through/Three strange days/I lay down for a while/And I woke up on the ocean/Floating on my back/And staring at the gray/It was completely still/Except the pounding of my heart/Bringing me back to life/From three strange days."

Whatever it was about, "3 Strange Days" hit #12 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, with the album only reaching #142 on the Billboard 200.

I bought the CD used at a local store, like I did for a lot of new things that I wasn't sure about. I remember enjoying it, but "3 Strange Days" ended up on a mixtape and I haven't revisited the CD in the decades since. School of Fish wasn't able to follow up on the song, but for the summer of '91, I heard it constantly. And then in the fall, Nirvana happened and nobody thought about School of Fish anymore.

The band released Human Cannonball in 1993, but it didn't make a dent and the group split up. Clayton-Felt began a solo career, releasing two studio albums and a live album before he died in 2000 from testicular cancer at the young age of 32. Ward went on to have a solid career, playing with John Hiatt and then becoming a member of the Wallflowers and Ben Harper's band. He died earlier this year at age 57 due to complication from diabetes.

Chad Fischer, who joined the band as a touring drummer in 1991, formed the band Lazlo Bane, which recorded the theme for the TV show Scrubs.

It has been 33 years since "3 Strange Days" dominated the airwaves for a summer and it still sounds good. It just goes to show how hard it can be to sustain a career in music.

Day After Day #318: Underwhelmed

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

Underwhelmed (1992)

Discovering new music has changed a lot over the years. In the '70s when I first started listening to music, it was the radio. By the early '80s, it was all about video. MTV was such a game changer, even if it wasn't perfect. It took way too long to start playing videos by black artists other than Michael Jackson and it would play certain videos endlessly until people were sick of them. But MTV was able to give bands exposure that normally wouldn't get any.

By the late '80s and into the early '90s, my favorite show on MTV was 120 Minutes, which would air on Sunday nights and feature bands you wouldn't normally see during the rest of the week. Although some of those bands, like R.E.M. and Midnight Oil, would end up getting more mainstream airtime. 

One such Sunday night in early 1993, I saw the video for "Underwhelmed" by the band Sloan out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was an instant grabber, starting with a guitar drone before bassist Chris Murphy starts singing about a woman he's interested in.

"She was underwhelmed, if that's a word/I know it's not, 'cause I looked it up/That's one of those skills I learned in my school/I was overwhelmed, and I'm sure of that one/'Cause I learned it back in grade school/When I was young."

The band kicks in, featuring Patrick Pentland and Jay Ferguson on guitars and Andrew Scott on drums, and Murphy's smartass character continues.

"She said, 'You is funny'/I said, 'You are funny'/She said, 'Thank you'/And I said, 'Nevermind'/She rolled her eyes/Her beautiful eyes/The point is not the grammar/It's the feeling/That is certainly in my heart/But not in hers."

By this point, Sloan had been signed to DGC, which was clearly hoping for another Nirvana. Sloan was lumped into the emerging grunge scene, but they were more influenced by acts like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. But hey, why mess with a good gimmick?

"We were talkin' about people that eat meat/I felt like an ass 'cause I was one/She said it's okay, but I felt like/I just ate my young/She is obviously a person with a cause/I told her that I don't smoke or drink/She told me to loosen up on her way to the L.C./She skips her classes and gets good grades/I go to my classes rain or shine/She's passing her classes while I attend mine."

Murphy has said the song's lyrical approach was influenced by the Minutemen's "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing." A different version of the song had been released on the band's EP Peppermint, which was released in 1992 on Sloan's self-run label Murderecords. They re-recorded the song for their DGC debut Smeared, which came out in October '92 in Canada and in January 1993 in the U.S. 

"She told me a story about her life/I think it included something about me/I'm not sure of that, but I'm sure of one thing/Her spelling's atrocious/She told me to read between the lines/And tell her exactly what I got out of it/I told her affection had two Fs/Especially when you're dealing with me/I usually notice all the little things/One time I was proud of it, she said it's annoying/She cursed me up and down and rolled her Rs, her beautiful Rs."

"Underwhelmed" hit #25 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. For its follow-up album, 1994's Twice Removed, Sloan decided to buck the grunge trend and went with a quieter, Beatles-influenced power pop sound. The album was a masterpiece, but it pissed off the label; after the band refused to re-record the album, the label pulled promotional support. Sloan split up briefly in 1995 before reforming and asking to be let out of their DGC deal. They then began a run of excellent albums that has continued to this day, with 13 studio albums under their belt.

Sloan is decently successful in Canada, but never could get beyond cult success in the U.S. They've managed to forge a comfortable existence, playing clubs in the U.S. and theaters in Canada. The band has released four limited-edition box sets of their first four albums, the latest being for Smeared. For the first three box sets, the band has done full tours, but for Smeared, they just played two sold-out shows in Toronto this weekend. I was lucky enough to go to the second one last night; my daughter Lily already had a ticket and got me one when we decided to visit her. I've seen most of their Boston-area appearances over the last 28 years, but this was the first time I've seen them (or anyone) in Toronto. It was pretty goddamn great; they played Smeared front to back and then a bunch of B-sides and rarities from that era; the songs were louder and more raucous than their later albums, and they recreated it pretty flawlessly, albeit without the long hair and the slamming around the stage like 20somethings. Sloan hadn't played many of those songs in decades, so it was great to see them rip through them while also seeing my daughter get into them as well.