Day After Day #166: (Wearing Down) Like a Wheel

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

(Wearing Down) Like a Wheel (1985)

Every rock band has its unsung members, the ones who are essential to the group's sound but don't get much of the limelight. In the case of the Cars, Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr got most of the attention because they sang the songs, but a guy who was a huge part of that band was guitarist Elliot Easton, who played perfectly concise and ripping solos. 

The Cars had just come off their biggest album, 1984's Heartbeat City; in fact, singles were still being released from it in 1985 when Easton's first solo album Change No Change came out on Elektra. I can't find the exact release date, but I remember seeing the video for "(Wearing Down) Like a Wheel" on V66, the Boston music video channel, and hearing it on local radio during my senior year of high school in the first half of 1985. 

Easton wasn't the first Car to go solo. Ocasek and keyboardist Greg Hawkes both released solo albums earlier in the '80s and Orr and Ocasek both released albums in 1986 that Easton played on. Easton provided lead guitar and backing vocals on every Cars album, but he had zero writing credits with the group. For Change No Change, he worked with songwriter Jules Shear and co-wrote all 10 songs. The album starts out strong with quality power pop, but has a few missteps, including "I Want You," which features Easton half-rapping over a funky beat. No bueno. 

But the lead single, "(Wearing Down) Like a Wheel" is the real prize here. The song chugs out of the gate with a pissed-off Easton singing about a relationship going bad.

"Oh what can be done about you?/You look so at home in blue/It's easy to see what we're coming through/Now you say you want to be alone/And you talk in a funny tone/But the humor escapes/Oh I see us wearing down like a wheel/Do you think it's time to stop?/And I can promise your friends don't know how this feels/I don't care the way they talk."

I didn't realize it at the time, but the song reuses a riff from the deep cut "Getting Through" off the Cars' Panorama album. Hey, if you're gonna steal something, might as well as steal from yourself. And it's much fully realized on the solo Easton song.

Easton's vocals were surprisingly decent, especially on the more rocking songs.

"So believe the life that you hated/With your wheel alleviated/Resigned that your life was so faded/How could you hold back from me?/And how could you act to me?/And how many times/Oh I see us wearing down like a wheel/Do you think it's time to stop?/And I can promise your friends don't know how this feels/I don't care, the way they talk." 

As you would expect, Easton delivers a brilliant guitar solo that fits the psychedelic power pop feel of the song. It's a punchy slice of excellence. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to maintain that level throughout the album, but I think it still has some gems, including "Tools of Your Labor," "Change" and "Shayla." 

The album didn't chart, but it did get some love in New England, where the Cars hailed from. Easton played a short tour for the album and then returned to the Cars, who released their sixth album Door to Door in 1987. Surprisingly, the album was a dud and the group split up in 1988. Easton produced and played on the first two albums by Amy Rigby in the mid-'90s. In 1995, Easton teamed up with bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford of Creedence Clearwater Revival to form the CCR covers band Creedence Clearwater Revisited. They played nearly 200 shows in their first year before CCR frontman John Fogerty sued them, claiming the name was confusing to fans who might think Fogerty was involved. A court agreed and issued an injunction preventing the use of the Creedence Clearwater Revisited name, so the band changed their name to Cosmo's Factory. But after an appeal, the U.S. Ninth Court of Appeals overturned the injunction and the band immediately changed its name back to Creedence Clearwater Revisited. Easton played with the group until 2004.

In 2005, Easton and Hawkes formed the New Cars along with Todd Rundgren, bassist Kasim Sulton and drummer Prairie Prince. By this point, Ben Orr had passed away in 2000 after a battle with cancer and Cars drummer David Robinson declined to participate; Ocasek gave his blessing to the endeavor. The group played Cars songs and selections from Rundgren's career and released a new single along with a live album in 2006. In 2010, the four surviving original Cars reunited for a new album and tour. 

Since then, Easton released an album as Elliot Easton's Tiki Gods in 2013 and has played with the Empty Hearts since that year, releasing two albums. The group includes Clem Burke of Blondie, Wally Palmar of the Romantics and Ian McLagan of the Faces (until his death in 2014). 

The Cars were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, playing a short set with Weezer's Scott Shriner on bass. Ocasek died in September 2019. 

Day After Day #165: Papa Was a Rolling Stone

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

Papa Was a Rolling Stone (1972)

It's Father's Day and you're probably hearing a lot of nice platitudes about how great dads are, etc. But of course, not everyone's experience with their dad was heartwarming. Dads, after all, are human and some of them are definitely better than others. There are a lot of sappy songs about dads, but my favorite is a stone-cold classic about a terrible dad.

The Temptations had been around since 1960 in various formations, churning out classic Motown hits like "My Girl," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" and "Ball of Confusion." The group featured great vocalists like David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks, but by 1972, it was Dennis Edwards, Damon Harris, Richard Street, Melvin Franklin and Otis Williams. Producer Norman Whitfield, who had started working with the Temptations in 1968, had helped the group develop its psychedelic soul sound. He wrote "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" with Barrett Strong for a group called the Undisputed Truth, which had a minor hit with it in early 1972. 

But when Whitfield brought the song to the Temptations, he turned it into an epic 12-minute psychedelic jam featuring a fair amount of instrumental sections performed by the Funk Brothers, including the first four minutes of the song. When the vocals finally kick in, the group's singers are portraying siblings asking their mother about their dead father, who disappeared when they were young.

"It was the third of September/That day I'll always remember, yes I will/'Cause that was the day that my daddy died/I never got a chance to see him/Never heard nothing but bad things about him/Momma, I'm depending on you to tell me the truth/Momma just hung her head and said, 'Son'/Papa was a rolling stone/Wherever he laid his hat was his home/And when he died, all he left us was alone/Papa was a rolling stone/Wherever he laid his hat was his home/And when he died, all he left us was alone."

Even the single edit of the song was epic, clocking in at 7 minutes. There was a lot of tension at the recording session, with Whitfield forcing Edwards to re-record his parts dozens of times before Whitfield was satisfied.

"Hey Momma/I heard Papa called himself a jack-of-all-trades/Tell me, is that what sent Papa to an early grave?/Folks say Papa would beg, borrow, steal/To pay his bills/Hey Momma/Folks say Papa was never much on thinking/Spent most of his time chasing women and drinking/Momma, I'm depending on you to tell the truth/Momma looked up with a tear in her eye and said, 'Son'/Papa was a rolling stone/Wherever he laid his hat was home/And when he died, all he left us was alone."

The Temptations weren't thrilled by Whitfield's creative vision, and eventually would stop working with him. But not before "Papa" went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won three Grammy awards (Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group, Best R&B Instrumental for the B-side and Best R&B Song to composers Whitfield and Strong). The 12-minute version was the anchor of the group's album All Directions, which went to #2 on the Billboard 200.

The Temptations made one more album with Whitfield before parting ways but have continued to record with varying lineups over the years, with their most recent album coming out in 2022.

The song was covered several times, including by Was (Not Was) in 1990, George Michael in 1993 and Slash (with Demi Lovato on vocals) last month.

"Papa Was a Rolling Stone" resonated with so many families that had dealt with dads who skipped out on them. This song gave a voice to some of those who haven't had great experiences with their dads.

 

Day After Day #164: Take It or Leave It

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

Take It or Leave It (2001)

It's not easy to be The Next Big Thing. Some artists can handle it, but others end up never living up to the hype. 

In 2001, the Strokes were hailed by some as the saviors of rock music. In the years following the grunge/alt-rock explosion of the early '90s, popular music was dominated by pop from the likes of Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys and hip hop, although nu-metal from Korn and Limp Bizkit was hitting with a certain segment of JNCO-wearing high school kids. But the Strokes made it cool to listen to guitar music again.

The NYC-based group released a debut EP, The Modern Age, in early 2001 and after a bidding war, signed with RCA Records. Their debut album, This Is It, came out in July '01 and critics were falling all over themselves to praise the group. The band, led by singer Julian Casablancas and guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., deliberately emulated New York bands like the Velvet Underground, Television and the Feelies and had that gritty late '70s CBGB sound down pat. It was a winning formula, and the band is credited with leading the garage rock revival of the early '00s along with bands like the White Stripes and the Hives. 

It's also the sound of a band fully locked in together and delivering the goods. The timing was perfect for the Strokes because clearly the market was looking for guitar music to get behind. Of course, this was still a time when commercial radio, MTV and music magazines could still break bands, and all of them were hailing the greatness of the Strokes. They didn't bowl me over at first, but once I started listening more, I was sold. Same thing happened with Nirvana, tbh. 

There are many great songs on Is This It, but "Take It or Leave It" is the real grabber for me. It's the last track on the album and Casablancas, who typically has a laid-back vocal style, really goes for it here, pushing his raspy voice to the limit.

"Leave me alone/I'm in control/I'm in control/And girls lie too much/And boys act too tough/Enough is enough/Well, on the minds of other men/I know she was/I said just take it or leave it."

The upbeat riff chugs along as Casablancas warns about bad intentions.

"I say, oh he's gonna let you down/He's gonna let you down/He's gonna let you down/And gonna break your back for a chance/And gonna steal your friends if he can/He's gonna win someday/I fell off the track/Now I can't go back/I'm not like that/Boys lie too much/Girls act too tough/Enough is enough/Well, on the minds of other girls/I know he was/I said just take it or leave it."

It's the sound of a confident bunch of good musicians, those guys in skinny jeans with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, ending their debut album with a slice of excellence that leaves you excited for more. 

Of course, with that much hype (some outlets were calling them the new Rolling Stones and the new Velvet Underground), things were bound to disappoint eventually. Check out the great book Meet Me in the Bathroom for a look at the NYC rock scene at the time and how much the Strokes were swallowed up by that hype. They were on magazine covers (remember magazines?), with SPIN featuring an that had five different covers, one for each member of the Strokes. Drummer Fabio Moretti was dating Drew Barrymore. There were lots of drugs consumed. 

And they made more albums that sounded like the Strokes and sold OK but were somehow just uninspiring. There were releases in 2003 and 2006 followed by a five-year break, and then albums in 2011 and 2013. Their last album was in 2020, although reportedly they're working on a new release with Rick Rubin. Casablancas has released solo albums, as has Hammond (I really enjoyed his 2018 album Francis Trouble more than anything I've heard from the Strokes in the last 20 years). I will admit I haven't dug deep into the post-Is This It Strokes catalog, but I have heard most of the singles and they just didn't do it for me. 

Hey, sometimes a band's first album is their best. There's no shame in it. Is this it? Yeah.

Day After Day #163: Would That Not Be Nice

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

Would That Not Be Nice (2012) 

Side projects aren't always a lock to be good. A lot of artists branch out with side projects and solo albums, but some can be duds. Fortunately, when Spoon's Britt Daniel teamed up with Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs), Sam Brown (New Bomb Turks) and keyboardist Alex Fischel, it was a winner. 

Daniel and Boeckner started the group in late 2011 and they released their only album, A Thing Called Divine Fits, in August 2012 on Merge Records. It makes sense that it was a great album with the pedigrees of the band members: Spoon is one of the most consistently excellent indie rock bands of the last 25 years, while Boeckner is Canadian indie rock royalty and Brown was the drummer for one of the best garage rock bands going in New Bomb Turks. 

They managed to create something that sounded different from their other bands, fresh and vital but also reminiscent of their roots, combining guitar-driven indie rock with synth pop. The album has several standout tracks, but my favorite is "Would That Not Be Nice." Daniel sings lead on this one with his familiar rasp as he plays jagged chords.

"At night I wonder, how do I swing this?/I'm gonna be up for a long while/Cause I gotta know it/Know it tonight/Cause if I did, would that not be nice?/I wish that I was/In Minneapolis/Like Barbarita and Cleopatra/Up on her throne/Come Cleopatra/Come come back home/I'll be waiting here with basmati rice/And can you tell me now, would that not be nice?"

Boeckner's bass line propels the song along in a steady shuffle as Daniel wishes he was elsewhere.

"You're so destructive/Alien and deranged/Sometimes I wish that you were just strange/I must admit, that sounds alright/And if you were, would that not be nice?/You got a gothic candelabra/From California/And if you lit it/You set the room up with flickering light/And if you did, would that not be nice?"

The album performed fairly well, hitting #54 on the Billboard 200 and top 15 on three other Billboard album charts. Divine Fits toured through 2012 and into 2013. Afterwards, Daniel went back to Spoon and Fischel joined as an official member, while Boeckner returned to Wolf Parade and also formed the band Operators with Brown.

A decade later, there has been no more Divine Fits music, although earlier this week, Daniel and Brown joined Boeckner at the latter's solo show in Williamsburg to play three Divine Fits songs (including "Would That Not Be Nice"). And yeah, it was pretty nice.

Stuck In Thee Garage #532: June 14, 2024

There's something great about getting in your car and driving down the highway. Sure, sitting in traffic can be pretty brutal. But stepping on the gas and letting it rip can be amazing. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about driving in hour 2. 

 

This playlist has the ultimate set of tools:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

The Jesus Lizard - Hide and Seek/Rack

Shellac - Days Are Dogs/To All Trains

Les Savy Fav - What We Don't Want/OUI, LSF

Pedro the Lion - Santa Cruz/Santa Cruz

SWIFTUMZ - Demoralized/Simply the Best

Clone - Room of Tears/CL.1

Ghost Party - After Hours/Ghost Moves

Neutrals - Wish You Were Here/New Town Dream

DIIV - Reflected/Frog in Boiling Water

The Marias - Paranoia/Submarine

Buffalo Tom - Pine for You/Jump Rope

Plus/Minus - Borrowed Time/Further Afield

Sharp Pins - Circle All the Dots/Radio DDR

Pearl Jam - Running/Dark Matter

Mdou Moctar - Oh France/Funeral for Justice

Bodega - Set the Controls for the Heart of the Drum/Our Brand Could Be Yr Life

E - Ash/Living Waters

Gouge Away - Maybe Blue/Deep Sage

Hour 2: Driving

The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner/The Modern Lovers

The Feelies - The High Road/The Good Earth

XTC - Roads Girdle the Globe/Drums and Wires

Swervedriver - Son of Mustang Driver/Raise

Drive-By Truckers - Road Cases/Southern Rock Opera

Marnie Stern - Roads? Where We're Going We Don't Need Roads/This is It and I am It and You are It and So is That and He is It and She is It and It is It and That is That

Van Halen - Panama/1984

David Lee Roth - Tobacco Road/Eat 'Em and Smile

Fu Manchu - Burning Road/The Action is Go!

Mastodon - High Road/Once More 'Round the Sun

Cornershop - Good to Be on the Road Back Home/When I Was Born for the 7th Time

Smokescreens - Fork in the Road/A Strange Dream

Sloan - On the Road Again/Transona Five / Recorded Live at a Sloan Party

Ex Hex - Diamond Drive/It's Real

Get your motor running HERE, homeslice!

Day After Day #162: Band on the Run

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

Band on the Run (1973)

It must be tough to be an ex-Beatle. Everything you've done since 1970 has been compared to the greatness that came before. By 1973, Paul McCartney had already released four albums either solo or with Wings, but his most recent albums, Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, hadn't performed well. 

Wings had just finished a U.K. tour in July '73 and McCartney decided he wanted to record somewhere overseas. He made the questionable choice of Lagos, Nigeria, where EMI had a studio, thinking it would be an exotic locale where the band could play during the day and record at night. Right before the band was to leave, after rehearsing in Scotland, guitarist Henry McCullough and drummer Denny Seiwell both quit the band. That left McCartney, his wife Linda and guitarist Denny Laine to record as a trio.

Unfortunately, when they got to Lagos, they realized it was under military rule and in pretty rough shape. The studio was a mess, with only one tape machine. One night, Paul and Linda were out walking and were robbed at knifepoint; among other possessions, the thieves made off with a bag containing lyrics and cassettes with demos. McCartney played bass, drums and lead guitar, with Laine playing rhythm guitar and Linda on keyboards.

Some of the songs on the album Band on the Run were about freedom and escape, including the title track, which was inspired by a comment George Harrison made during one of the Beatles' many business meetings because of problems with their Apple Records label. Harrison said the band were prisoners, so McCartney's song has a band escaping from prison and living on the run. McCartney has also said the song was a commentary on getting in trouble for pot possession.

The song, at 5 minutes one of McCartney's longer singles, has three distinct sections, starting with a slow lament.

"Stuck inside these four walls/Sent inside forever/Never seeing no one nice again/Like you/Mama, you/Mama, you." 

Then it kicks into gear.

"If I ever get out of here/Thought of giving it all away/To a registered charity/All I need is a pint a day/If I ever get out of here/If we ever get out of here."

The third part introduces the chorus.

"Well, the rain exploded with a mighty crash/As we fell into the sun/And the first one said to the second one there/"I hope you're having fun."/Band on the run/Band on the run/And the jailer man and Sailor Sam/Were searching everyone/For the band on the run/Band on the run."

The song was released as a single in April 1974 and in the U.K. in June. It topped the U.S. charts and sold over 1 million copies, while it hit #3 on the U.K. Singles chart. The album was also a big hit, going to #1 in the U.S. and U.K.

It was some validation for McCartney, but of course his career would go through its ups and downs over the next 50 years (!). He's continued to tour and put on amazing shows; I finally saw him two years and it was awesome. 

Day After Day #161: A Million Miles Away

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

A Million Miles Away (1982)

Certain songs become inextricably linked to a certain time or place. In the case of the Plimsouls, their song "A Million Miles Away" will forever be remembered as representative of the early '80s, but it's so much more than that.

Formed in Paramount, California, in 1978 by singer-guitarist Peter Case (formerly of the Nerves), the Plimsouls started as a trio with Case, bassist Dave Pahoa and drummer Lou Ramirez. The Plimsouls played the kind of power pop that was all the rage in the late '70s/early '80s thanks to the success of the Knack. 

The band released a 5-song EP called Zero Hour in 1980, after which they were joined by guitarist Eddie Munoz. The title track was a radio hit in Los Angeles and the band signed to Planet Records and released their self-titled debut album in 1981. After the debut didn't sell well, the band left Planet and self-released "A Million Miles Away" as a single in 1982. It reached #11 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and was featured in the 1983 movie Valley Girl, which also featured the band playing the song and parts of two other. 

The Plimsouls signed a deal with major label Geffen Records and included "A Million Miles Away" on their major-label debut Everywhere at Once, which came out in May 1983.

Immediately, the song has that classic Rickenbacker guitar sound that harks back to the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and the Who's "I Can See for Miles." The intro leads into Case belting out the first verse.

"Friday night, I'd just got back/I had my eyes shut and dreaming about the past/I thought about you while the radio played/I should have got loaded, some reason I stayed/I started drifting to a different place/I realized I was falling off the face of the world/And there was nothing left to bring me back/I'm a million miles away/A million miles away/I'm just a million miles away/And there's nothing left to bring me back today."

In a post on his blog, Case writes about working on the song with his friends Joey Alkes and Chris Fradkin, who helped him write a bunch of songs that were on the Plimsouls' first album. Case Fradkin were sitting in a bar after seeing the Germs play and Case started writing some lyrics.

"We talked about the words, and each kicked in some lines. I was remembering something from a long time back and the feeling was pouring into the song. I'd been having an affair with a girl I really thought a lot of, and that had just broken off. Something of my childhood was in it, too. A lyric was taking shape based on all of this."

They went over to Alkes' place and he came up with the chorus. They taped it on a cassette and forgot about it until it later became a stone cold classic.

The song has so much angst about lost love, but it rocks furiously.

"Took a ride, I went downtown/The streets were empty, there was no one around/To a place that we used to know/Been to all the places that we used to go/I'm at the wrong end of your looking glass/Just trying to hold onto the hands of the past and you/And there was nothing left to bring me back/I was a million miles away."

The song's placement in Valley Girl was huge, with the film becoming a hit. It focused on a Romeo and Juliet-esque romance between a valley girl (the term was popularized by Frank and Moon Unit Zappa's song of the same name) and a punk played by a young Nicolas Cage. In addition to the Plimsouls, the soundtrack was full of new wave hits include Josie Cotton's "Johnny Are You Queer?", the Payolas' "Eyes of a Stranger," Modern English's "I Melt With You" and Men at Work's classic "Who Can It Be Now?"

"A Million Miles Away" was re-released as a single in 1983 and got up to #82 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album reached #186 on the Billboard 200 chart, which was 33 spots lower than the debut album. The band broke up in 1984, with Case pursuing a solo career. A young band called the Goo Goo Dolls covered "A Million Miles Away" on their 1990 album Hold Me Up and a re-recorded version ended up on the soundtrack to the movie Speed.

The Plimsouls reunited in 1986 without Ramirez and recorded an album called Kool Trash, with Blondie's Clem Burke on drums. It got decent reviews but didn't sell well. The band has reunited a few times to play shows since then. In 2016, Munoz registered a trademark for the band's name and toured as the Plimsouls without the other three members, who filed for trademark infringement against Munoz. Pahoa died last fall, but his family continued the case. Last month, a three-judge panel held that the Plimsouls partnership owned the band's name and Munoz didn't have an individual right to the trademark. 

Day After Day #160: West End Girls

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

West End Girls (1985)

Critics tend to catch heat for criticizing something that they can't themselves do. When it comes to music critics, there aren't many that actually make music, but there are a few. One of the most successful critics-turned-musicians is Neil Tennant, who was an editor at the U.K. publication Smash Hits before he started the synth-pop act Pet Shop Boys. He may be the only critic to ever land a #1 hit.

In 1981, Tennant and keyboardist Chris Lowe met in a London music store and bonded over a love of disco and electronic music. They listened to groups like Soft Cell, OMD and Kraftwerk and soon started working on music together, calling their band the Pet Shop Boys. Tennant met with producer Bobby Orlando in 1983 and gave him a demo tape, and over the course of the next year, Orlando recorded 11 songs with the duo, including "West End Girls," "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" and "It's a Sin." 

The 1984 version of "West End Girls" was released as a single and became a club hit in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and it was a minor hit in France and Belgium. The group eventually split with Orlando and after a legal battle, re-recorded the songs with producer Stephen Hague, who had worked with New Order and Erasure. The new recordings turned into the album Please, which was released in 1986.

The Hague version of "West End Girls" is the one that became popular, released in late 1985. It's cinematic sounding, with distant horns and backing vocals from Helena Springs as Tennant provides a deadpan narration about a clash of cultures in London.

"Sometimes you're better off dead/There's a gun in your hand it's pointing at your head/You think you're mad, too unstable/Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables/In a restaurant in a West End town/Call the police, there's a mad man around/Running down underground/To a dive bar in a West End town. In a West End town, a dead end world/the East End boys and West End girls/In a West End town, a dead end world/The East End boys and West End girls/West End girls."

Inspired by the hip hop classic "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Tennant acts as a detached observer of city scenes.

"Too many shadows, whispering voices/Faces on posters, too many choices/If, when, why, what? How much have you got?/Have you got it, do you get it/If so, how often?/Which do you choose/A hard or soft option?/How much do you need?"

The iconic video quickly became a hit on MTV, with the duo shown in various London locales, with Tennant speak-singing while Lowe stares off disinterestedly. This became Lowe's image in the band, the silent Teller to Tennant's Penn. The video came out right around the time we finally got MTV in my town, when I came home from my first semester at college, and it was getting played all the time. 

The song hit #1 in the U.S. in May 1986, and also hit the top spot in Canada, the U.K., New Zealand and Norway; it was top 10 in several other countries. Buoyed by "West End Girls," "Love Comes Quickly" and "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)," the album Please went to #7 on the Billboard 200 and #3 in the U.K.

The Pet Shop Boys went on to have a hugely successful career, releasing 14 more albums (including this year's Nonetheless) and scoring 42 top 30 singles in the U.K. Their songs are catchy and cool, and they've managed to remain relevant for nearly 40 years. 

Completely Conspicuous 637: Let's Get Out of Here

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about the music of 2010. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as"). 

Show notes:

• In 2010, Phil became a dad for the second time
• A little running talk
• Kesha had the #1 song in 2010 with "Tik Tok"
• Phil asking philosophical questions
• Phil's non-top 5s: Darker My Love, Best Coast, LCD Soundsystem, Foals, Ty Segall, Spoon, Wolf People, Vampire Weekend, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
• Jay's non-top 5s: Neil Young, Los Campesinos!, Arcade Fire, Black Mountain, Les Savy Fav
• When artists stop making good albums
• To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Day After Day #159: You've Got Another Thing Comin'

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

You've Got Another Thing Comin' (1982)

When you get as old as I am, you realize that there's no such thing as guilty pleasures. Either you like something or you don't. In my teen years, I was a huge metalhead, but once I got into my 20s, I turned my back on it. A lot of us did in the early '90s, when Nirvana and alt-rock effectively banished heavy metal to the hinterlands. It was dumb and uncool and I just stopped listening to it. 

But around 2006, a co-worker got me back into Iron Maiden and I realized I really liked this stuff. I didn't grow a mullet and start wearing jean jackets with patches or anything, but I started revisiting some of the old metal bands I used to dig as a kid. One of them was Judas Priest. 

Around 1982, I had already been into metal for a few years but didn't know much about Priest until I saw the video for "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" on Night Flight. By this point, we were living in Richland, Washington, where the FM radio situation was dire (only one "rock" station that played stuff like Steve Miller's "Abracadabra" on a goddamn loop) and our cable system didn't have MTV on it. But when I saw this video, I was bowled over.

Judas Priest formed in Birmingham, England, in 1969 by singer Al Atkins and bassist Brian Stapenhill, who were joined by John Perry on guitar and John Partridge on drums. The name came from the Bob Dylan song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest." The band recorded a demo and got a contract with the label Immediate, but the label went defunct before an album could be made and the band split up in 1970. Atkins had teamed up with a hard rock band called Freight that featured guitarist K.K. Downing and bassist Ian Hill, but quit the band in December 1972. Vocalist Rob Halford joined soon afterward and a year later, Priest added guitarist Glenn Tipton. Halford's voice transformed the band as he was able to range between a deep growl and a glass-shattering falsetto.

The band's debut, Rocka Rolla, came out in 1974 on Gull Records, featuring a straightahead hard rock sound. Priest released Sad Wings of Destiny two years later, and it features the beginning of the band's heavy metal style. Displeased with their label support, Priest broke their contract and signed with CBS. Over the next few years, the band started to build their audience internationally and their albums started to sell well. They also started to record shorter, more commercial songs like "Breaking the Law," "Living After Midnight" and "Heading Out to the Highway" and became an arena rock draw, known for their leather-and-studs look. 

But it wasn't until 1982's Screaming for Vengeance album that Priest really broke through commercially. The album was heavier than their previous release, Point of Entry, which some fans had derided as too commercial. "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" was a last-minute addition to the album and became the band's signature song. The video, directed by Julien Temple, also brought a lot of attention to the song.

It's a classic driving song, with a powerful riff chugging along as Halford sings about fighting through adversity.

"One life, I'm gonna live it up/I'm takin' flight, I said I'll never give it up/Stand tall, I'm the kind of proud/I'm on top as long as the music's loud/If you think I'll sit around as the world goes by/You're thinkin' like a fool, 'cause it's a case of do or die/Out there is a fortune waitin' to be had/If you think I'll let it go, you're mad/You've got another thing comin'."

The song is a big middle-finger to critics who thought the band was toast after Point of Entry, as well as to the ones who thought they sucked to begin with.

"That's right, here's where the talkin' is/Well, listen, this night there'll be some action spent/Drive hard, I'm callin' all the shots/I've got an ace card comin' down on the rocks/If you think I'll sit around while you chip away my brain/Listen, I ain't foolin' and you'd better think again/Out there is a fortune waitin' to be had/If you think I'll let it go, you're mad/You've got another thing comin'."

The song went to #67 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart, but more importantly, it drove the album to go double platinum (and hit #17 on the Billboard 200 album chart) and made Priest one of the hottest metal bands going. They toured the U.S. with Iron Maiden, another band that was breaking through in '82. Priest also made a big splash on the Heavy Metal Day of the US Festival in 1983. 

Priest was huge in the '80s; the fanaticism of their fans was displayed in hilarious glory in the amazing documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot, which documents fans in the parking lot of a Priest show in Landover, Maryland in 1986. The band was named in a civil suit in 1990, alleging that they were responsible for two fans shooting themselves after listening to the Priest album Stained Class; one died immediately and one disfigured himself but died three years later of a suspected drug overdose. Their families sued, claiming that subliminal messages in the band's cover of Spooky Tooth's "Better by You, Better Than Me" caused the men to kill themselves. A judge eventually dismissed the lawsuit.

In 1991, Halford formed a thrash metal band called Fight as a side project; he left Priest in May 1992. Priest famously hired Tim "Ripper" Owens, who had previously sung in a Priest cover band, as Halford's replacement in 1996. The band released two albums with Owens. Meanwhile, Halford formed an industrial band called 2wo and then a metal band called Halford, which released four albums. 

In a 1998 interview with MTV, Halford came out as gay. It was shocking at the time, but not so shocking when you thought about the biker getups he used to wear. He was worried about negative backlash, but was surprised at the support he received after the announcement. Halford returned to Priest in 2003 and the group has released five studio albums, including one this year. The lineup has changed over the years, with Halford and Hill remaining as full-time members. Tipton is still a member of the band but is not touring because he has Parkinson's disease. Downing left the band in 2011 and was replaced by Richie Faulkner; in 2019, Downing formed KK's Priest with Ripper Owens on lead vocals.

I saw the band in '88 at the Worcester Centrum and then again 30 years later in Worcester. The band still puts on a great show, and Halford can still belt out the classics. Clearly, I don't listen to metal all the time, but I still like to crank up some every now and then. 

Day After Day #158: Fools Gold

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

Fools Gold (1989)

There's always a sense of excitement as you move into a new decade, even though it's just one year going into another. But somehow there's a sense of anticipation about what's to come, as well as some dread, I suppose. In 1989, a lot was happening in the world: the Tiananmen Square protests, the Berlin Wall was coming down. As for me, I graduated from college and joined the working world. And musically, there was a lot of cool stuff happening.

So-called alternative rock was flourishing and we were a few years away from the big tipping point, but there was some interesting stuff happening across the pond. One was the debut of a band called the Stone Roses, which essentially launched the Madchester scene (combining alternative rock, psychedelic rock and electronic dance music) and provided the impetus for Britpop.  

By the late '80s, many bands were looking back to the '60s and '70s for inspiration and the Stone Roses were no exception. There were a lot of nods to bands like the Beatles and the Byrds, but "Fools Gold" leaned into '70s funk, from John Squire's wah wah-drenched guitar parts to a drum loop swiped from James Brown's classic "Hot Pants." Meanwhile, singer Ian Brown tells a story that he said was inspired by the old movie "The Treasure of the Sierre Madre," in which three broke men put their money together to go looking for gold, but then they end up betraying each other.

"The gold road's sure a long road/Winds on through the hills for 15 days/The pack on my back is aching/The straps seem to cut me like a knife/I'm no clown, I won't back down/I don't need you to tell me what's going down."

The song was released as a double A-side single with "What the World is Waiting For" in November 1989, but immediately became popular in the U.K., entering the charts in the top 10. Eventually it was added to the U.S. release of the band's self-titled debut.

"I'm standing alone/I'm watching you all/I'm seeing you sinking/I'm standing alone/You're weighing the gold/I'm watching you sinking/Fool's gold."

The album version is almost 10 minutes long, while the single was pared down to 4:17. The single made it to #8 on the U.K. singles chart, #5 on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart and #27 on the Dance Club Songs chart.

The Stone Roses debut album was a huge success for the band in the U.K., also scoring hits with "I Wanna Be Adored" and "She Bangs the Drums." It was credited with launching the rave scene in Manchester. The band was riding high, but it ran into legal trouble when it tried to terminate its contract with its label Silvertone, displeased with how it was being paid. In 1991, the court released the band from its contract and the Stone Roses signed with Geffen, but Silvertone appealed the ruling and the album was delayed for another year. The band's follow-up Second Coming wasn't released until December 1994; it got mixed reviews. Drummer Alan "Reni" Wren left the band just before a tour was to start in March 1995. Squire left the band in April 1996 and eventually the band split up in October of that year. 

Squire and Brown both released solo albums and bassist Gary "Mani" Mounfield joined Primal Scream. The band reunited in 2012 and played festival gigs over the next few years. Two new singles were released in 2016. The Stone Roses played their last show in 2017. It was strange and sad to see the bad squander the momentum they built with their debut, but these things happen.