Side Projects : College Radio Edition

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In those heavy touring days of the mid 80's, musical collaborations and deep friendships bloomed between members of different bands. Here are some of my favorite results.

On 1984's Rainy Day, members of LA's Paisley Underground bands like The Bangles, Rain Parade, and the Dream Syndicate get together to pay tribute to the music that inspired them. The covers of Buffalo Springfield's "Flying On The Ground is Wrong" and The Velvet Underground's "I'll Be Your Mirror" are especially nice. Susanna Hoffs still records albums of well chosen covers these days with Matthew Sweet.

In 1991 two of my favorite Australian songwriters, Grant McLennan of the Go Betweens and Steve Kilbey of The Church,  released the first of two albums they made as Jack Frost. This is the kind of  intelligent well-crafted pop that got washed away by the great grunge tsunami of that time. 

In 1985 Peter Buck of R.E.M. and Keith Streng of the Fleshtones released an EP as Full Time Men. The single "I Got Wheels" makes  my list  of the "5 All-Time Catchiest Peter Buck Guitar Riffs". Buck was also busy at the time producing bands like The Fleshtones and The Feelies as well as knocking out that distinctive riff in The Replacements's breakthrough "I Will Dare".

Here's one where the concept sounds just a bit better than the music. Snakecharmer finds P.I.L bassist Jah Wobble, U2's The Edge, Magazine's Ben Mandelson and Can's Holger Czukay combining forces to make alternative dance music.Very much of its time.

SIDE PROJECTS : Fairport Connections

Buy some early Fairport

OK, there is no such band as Fairport Connections, but, challenged by Darius' post below, I thought it pertinent to address the revolving door policy of UK folk-rock, in particular that arising out of the still going Fairport Convention, arguably the godfathers of the mafiosi still intrinsically associated with the tradition, even if not strictly still members of their former band.. Since 1967, starting off as an English Jefferson Airplane, if you will, within a year or 2 they had invented folk-rock, utilising and building on an electrified folk tradition of the british isles. Altho' this piece is not, per se, about them, here is the consummate example of their traditional stylistic progression, from Liege and Lief, the groundbreaking 1969 LP, voted "Most Influential Folk LP of all Time" at the British Folk Awards in 2006. This line up of the late Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, Simon Nicol, Ashley "Tyger" Hutchings, Dave Swarbrick and Dave Mattacks was probably their anti-nadir, with a legacy that lasts to this day, usually most prominently at their yearly Cropredy Festival, where, despite Simon Nicol being the sole custodian of the original flame, those still able usually still attend, within whatsover role they are currently occupying in the musical world, culminating in a marathon all bodies on deck finale. Never has the Hotel California spirit of "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave" been more aptly realised.

Anyhow, to task, my plan today is to introduce the 2 earliest side projects of this dynasty, together with a couple of other tasters. The early 2 are about as far from each other as you can get, being faithful evocations, if a little modernised, of rock and roll and of morris dancing, unlikely bedfellows to say the least.

"Rock On" in 1972 was attributed to "The Bunch" and was a collection of their favourite covers by Elvis, the Everleys, Buddy Holly and many more. Featuring most of Fairport, this also included the later to be Linda Thompson and other past and future alumni. Here's Sandy Denny and the aforementioned Linda together. Was it a financial success? Probably not, but it sounded a lot of fun.

And The Bunch

Almost as a riposte, Ashley Hutchings produced the 1st of a dynasty of LPs, starting with "Morris On", later in that same year, roping in, again, Mattacks and Richard Thompson. A completely different kettle of fish, this remains probably an aquired taste. Unfortunately, I have that taste, in spades .This ran to Son of, Grandson of and Greatgrandson of, as well as a live outing, based on a touring version, still performing within the last 5 years or so.

And Morris On

So what else evolved from Fairport? Arguably the 2 biggest would have been Ashley Hutchings' Albion (Country/Dance) Bands and the whole phenomenon of Richard Thompson, starting off as a duo with his then wife, Linda, and subsequently his solo and band careers. Whilst distinct entities in their own right, I feel they fulfil a place in this piece, through the virtue of many a still active Fairporter concomitantly appearing in the ranks of either, or both, bands as well, and still also in Fairport. (As an aside, the later rhythm section of Dave Mattacks on drums, Dave Pegg on bass and Simon Nicol on guitar were virtually the houseband of Island Records in the 70s, appearing on just about everything.)  Here are examples of The Albion Band and of The Richard Thompson Big Band, and rather than describing the convoluted who's who, I direct you back to the family tree in the 1st link above.

Confused? So what, just enjoy. And why the picture of cricketers at the head of the page? Well, that is because the annual festival generally completes with a sunday cricket match, involving many of the musicians involved. Richard Thompson is said to be a demon bowler, which may mean little to US readers. Now you can't quite see the Grateful Dead doing that, can you?

Side Projects: Talking Heads ‘81 Edition

David Byrne: Eyes Wide Open

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Tom Tom Club: Genius of Love

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Jerry Harrison: Slink

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What is a side project? How is it different from a solo album? In choosing a song for this week‘s theme, I have wrestled with these questions. In mind, the difference is intent. Here I present three side projects related to the Talking Heads, all from 1981. Each, as I will explain, qualifies as a side project for different reasons.

1981 was a scary year for Talking Heads fans like myself. We now know that some of the band’s best work was still in the future, but it looked at the time like the band might break up. Officially, they were on hiatus, but we have all heard that before, and many bands do not survive it. Talking Heads did, but the year also produced some great music while they were apart.

David Byrne was the most prolific. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was a collaboration with Brian Eno, and it would prove to be a study of African rhythms in preparation for the next Talking Heads album, Remain in Light. But Byrne also released a second album that year. The Catherine Wheel was a commission for the Twyla Tharp Dance Company. Byrne and Tharp were a couple for a brief time that year, and Byrne created a set of songs specifically intended for the dance. I was lucky to find a video of one of Twyla Tharp’s dances from this work.

Chris Franz and Tina Weymouth decided to use their time off from Talking Heads to have some fun. They gathered some musical family and friends and formed what was intended to be a one-shot project, the Tom Tom Club. This turned out to be the most popular of the Heads related projects of 1981. Genius of Love and Wordy Rappinghood were hits, and the Tom Tom Club’s label wanted a follow-up two years later. Franz and Weymouth would then go back to Tom Tom Club when Talking Heads finally did break up for good.

Jerry Harrison was interested in exploring what could be done in a recording studio. The Red and the Black features a large cast of musicians, many of whom would be featured in later Talking Heads albums. Harrison used layered multiple instruments and vocals to create a dense but funky soundscape. There would be two more Harrison solo albums in later years, but The Red and the Black is probably more important for laying the groundwork for the producing career that Harrison has enjoyed since the break up of Talking Heads.

SIDE PROJECTS : KLARK KENT

Buy a used copy ;-(

Spoilt for choice here, so I simply went through my singles collection, gathering dust up on the shelf. And there, resplendent in greeen vinyl was, and indeed is, this gem . I loved this and bought it ahead of buying any of his then other day job material. Klark Kent was the alter ego of Police drummer, Stewart Copeland, and always seemed a much more fascinating character than his somewhat severe and serious bassist. (Mind you, the guitar player was pretty interesting too.)

Like his bandmates, Copeland had already had quite a career ahead of the Police, much of which seems at odds with the desired youthful and, initially at least,  punky received wisdom thereof. For a start, in year zero of punk in the UK, which could be anything from 75 to 77 depending on your stance, he was already older than many of the bands around him, with a 1952 birthday. Of hybrid US/scottish stock, the son of a CIA officer, he spent a peripatetic youth in the middle east, before receiving his secondary education in the UK, at "progressive" and somewhat experimental school Millfield before returning to the US for college. Later, back in the UK he started his musical career as road manager for reformed prog-rockers Curved Air, top right in the picture, longer of locks than later, even if his clattering drum style is already in evidence in this live clip, having swiftly become their sticksman. Later he was to marry their frontwoman, Sonja Kristina, object of many a teenaged brits lust in their halcyon days. The Police he formed in 1977, but this isn't about them.

Klark Kent was born in 1978, issuing a flurry of singles and EPs in that year, and a later LP in 1980. "Don't Care", the song in the first clip from above was the most successful, rising to the heights of 48 in the british pop charts, via an appearance on my much loved Top of the Pops. Clearly realising that Sting was perhaps going to claim the stakes to the majority of the songwriting in their joint band, I think KK was as much to show that he could sing and play a bit too, and more than just drums: he plays everything on these recordings. There are one or two KK sounding songs on the first couple of Police LPs, graced by his twangy western drawl, but this grace seemed to peter out as they became huger and huger, making my green vinyl all the more to relish.

Subsequently, between spatty Police reunions, Copeland has amassed a steady volume of other projects, notably his soundtrack work, including for Rumblefish . This was followed by further soundtracks, as well as music for ballets and even operas. I have never got round to these, I confess.

Things I didn't know department: in 2007 he was appointed a Chevalier of France's Ordre des Arts et Lettres, along with Summers and Sting. Well I never!

Side Projects: Golden Smog

Golden Smog: V
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For the next couple of weeks, we will be writing about “Side Projects,” the musical projects that are created when an artist decides to moonlight away from his “regular” band. These projects happen for many different reasons—the desire to explore a different kind of music, the opportunity to play with different people, the chance for a sideman to step to the front, or even just to fill time between releases.

Golden Smog appears to have developed because a bunch of friendly, similarly inclined musicians from different bands had fun playing together. As befits their name (which was taken from the second episode of The Flintstones), the origins of Golden Smog are clouded in the mists of history. They started in the late 1980s in Minneapolis as a loose collection of musicians who joined together to play mostly covers, possibly at first in 1987 to support Kraig Johnson, of Run Westy Run, at a solo show. According to Marc Perlman of The Jayhawks, and a member of Golden Smog, that show included guitarists Dan Murphy of Soul Asylum and Gary Louris of The Jayhawks, Perlman on bass and Soul Asylum vocalist Dave Pirner on drums. Other early members included Chris Mars of The Replacements and Jim Boquist of Son Volt, and they became a regular feature of the Minneapolis bar scene. Gary Louris remembers it all somewhat differently, and if you really want more on the band’s origins, read this article from No Depression.

The band’s first release was a 1992 EP of covers, On Golden Smog. Because of contractual issues, the band members used pseudonyms derived from their middle names and the street they grew up on, and included Murphy (“David Spear”), Pirner (“Anthony James”), Louris (“Michael Macklyn”), Perlman (“Raymond Virginia”), Johnson (“Jarrett Decatur”) and Mars (“Eddie Garfield”) who also created the cover art. The relaxed nature of the collaboration was demonstrated by the fact that one song had lead vocals from Soul Asylum roadie Bill Sullivan.

Over time, the members of the band started to bring original songs to the group, and this culminated in 1996’s release, Down By the Old Mainstream, in which Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy (“Scot Summit”) replaced Pirner, and Mars was replaced with Honeydogs’ drummer Noah Levy (“Leonardson Saratoga”). The album contained mostly original songs, with two covers. At the time, Soul Asylum was already a couple of years past their breakthrough hits, The Jayhawks had released a couple of well received albums, but were reeling from the loss of singer Marc Olson, and Wilco was still gaining its footing. Tweedy, who as a Bellville West High School student had actually interviewed Murphy for a music magazine, reportedly appreciated the support he received from his fellow Smoggers following the breakup of Uncle Tupelo and the mixed reviews for Wilco’s debut.

As a fan of Wilco, Soul Asylum and The Jayhawks, I was inclined to like Golden Smog, and this album got me hooked. I especially loved the opener, “V,” featured above, a wistful remembrance of a friendly and supportive barmaid, that, nevertheless rocks. This was a disc that was played to death in our house. I know that some reviews, predictably, denigrated some of the songs as ones that were not good enough for the member’s regular bands, but I think that is too facile a critique. Not every song is a gem, but even the weaker ones are worthwhile.

It took a few years for the band members’ schedules to align to allow the recording and release of a second album, this time with Big Star drummer Jody Stephens instead of Levy. Weird Tales was released in 1998, and consisted of all originals (and all of the members got to use their own names). It has a somewhat more somber tone than the prior disc, but also has a few rockers, including my favorite track, “Until You Came Along.” One review described it as “long and sloppy and uneven and enjoyable, and thus easily pigeonholed as the kind of long, sloppy, uneven, enjoyable record that happens when a bunch of people who kind of know each other sit down with some guitars—yes, we understood, Golden Smog was a Traveling Wilburys full of people nobody really knew.”

My family enjoyed this album, and my wife and I saw the band put on a great show at Irving Plaza in New York. By that time, it was clear that Tweedy was getting most of the attention, as Wilco had released both Being There and the first Mermaid Avenue collaboration with Billy Bragg.

And that seemed to be pretty much it for Golden Smog, as the members’ regular bands and projects took precedence. I was, therefore, excited when the band announced a concert at the Bowery Ballroom in the summer of 2004, and my wife and I went. One of our favorite memories of that night was sitting in this little alcove in the balcony with our friends before the show started, and the actors Adam Goldberg and Christina Ricci, who were a couple at the time, came and sat with us. We became close friends and still hang out. Not really. They actually ignored us and we played the blasé New Yorkers and ignored them, but it was still pretty cool. It was a fun, very loose show, filled with Golden Smog songs and lots of random covers ranging from Carly Simon, to The Fugs to Neil Young to Talking Heads. No Tweedy this time, but the band included Louris, Perlman, Murphy, Johnson, Steve Wynn (of the Dream Syndicate) and his wife, drummer Linda Pitmon, David Poe, Jenni Muldaur, James Mastro (of The Bongos) and others.

The tour led to another album, Another Fine Day, mostly recorded in Spain, with additional material (including Tweedy’s contributions) added later. It is a good album, but I never really fell in love with it, nor did I love the also perfectly fine (but Tweedy-less) EP Blood on the Slacks. I can’t say that my lack of interest in these later discs is a result of their quality or just the fact that I didn’t listen to them over and over again, but it is what it is.

Golden Smog has turned out to be a pretty long-running side project, which allowed its members to have fun, try new things with different band members, but never seemed to get in the way of the members’ “day jobs.” And I think they put out a bunch of good music.

Television: Crowded House, "My Telly's Gone Bung"

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As far as I can tell, no one ever said that these had to be the "best" songs about TV, right? Okay, good. Because the song I've decided to feature is clearly not one of Crowded House's better songs by any stretch, having been written by their least-frequent songwriter, drummer Paul Hester, and released on a collection of previously unreleased odds and ends, Afterglow (released in 2000). Nonetheless, it isn't a bad song either, and it fits the current theme to a "T"(V).

Hester's lyrics about the death of his television ("bung" in this case being an Australian term for "useless") are cutely amusing, but not exactly a cutting indictment of TV culture -- just a mildly self-deprecating tease of those whose lives are probably too tele-centric. Had the song been sped up significantly and given more lyrical bite via a rewrite by Neil Finn, this could have been a song worthy of inclusion on one of their proper studio albums, but as it turned out it's a little ditty that's fun while it lasts, but eminently forgettable afterward. Much like 90% of the programming that gets shown on TV. (Pow! Now we're talkin'!)

My telly's gone bung
What am I to do about the ABC
My telly's gone bung
What am I to do about my predicament
My telly's gone bung
I plugged it it in and it turned me off again 

I've waited up for you
To come alive and bring some truth back to me yeah
'Cause I'm where I wanna be in front of my TV 

My telly's gone bung
What am I to do about Kylie & Jason now
My telly's gone bung
I don't really care for their predicament 

If it was up to me
I'd let these people see
What people do
I've been watching you too

Television: The Ballad of Jed Clampett

The Ballad of Jed Clampett
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I guess this skirts the edges of the theme, but I love the song and hope you do too.  The Ballad of Jed Clampett is an iconic TV theme song, performed by the best of the best.
 
Always a bluegrass aficianado, I have to confess that I think there are few better songs than The Ballad of Jed Clampett when it comes to TV air-time. Back when The Beverly Hillbillies first appeared on US TV in the early 60s  , Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs were in their prime. Granted, that prime continued for several more years as they picked their way to iconic stature, but this song placed them above the rest in statistical terms of total listens: the show was a hit and the theme song too.

In those days, TV was black and white. TV was THE entertainment for America: families gathered around the "set" and nationwide rating stats were serious commercial business.


Somewhere back behind the mores of the US in those days is part of what must have influenced Frank Zappa as he wrote and sang about the "slime" oozing out of your TV set.

Don't get me wrong: I loved the Beverly Hillbillies: the unscrupulous banker, Mr Drysdale; the ornery, old time Granny Moses; and the accommodating Jed Clampett. But to me, much more than the characters, it was the finger-picking goodness and hootenanny vocals of the theme song that captured my interest. This was the essence of America: raw country come to urbana.

All the same, when the ads came on every 15 minutes, FZ was lurking somehere in the background (or maybe in the future).

Anyway, Thanks, Frank. Thanks Earl. Thank you John Logie Baird, Philo Taylor Farnsworth and Vladimir Kosma Zworykin for inventing the TV.

Television: Turn Me On

The Tubes: Turn Me On
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I will never forget the glee I felt when I started training at WPRB and was told that we had free rein to come to the studios and listen to records. Even better, we were encouraged to do so. I had a good collection, but it was nothing compared to the shelves of vinyl that I now had access to. The smell of a room filled with records still brings me back to those days. And while I felt like I had a pretty broad knowledge of rock music, there were hundreds of records—maybe thousands—in there that I had never heard of. To this day, I listen to many of the musicians who I discovered pawing through the stacks in the basement of Holder Hall.

I’m pretty confident that I was unaware of The Tubes before I picked up 1979’s Remote Control in the studio. I was immediately taken by its biting satire of television, a medium that I loved, the quality of the songs and performances, and by Todd Rundgren’s production. I know I played a number of songs from the album, and started to look back to the band’s earlier albums, which consistent with their name, touched on television, particularly, the hucksterism lampooned in “What Do You Want From Life?” However, the band skewered other targets, too, including sex and drugs, with varying success.

But Remote Control, from the opener, “Turn Me On” to the closing track, “Telecide,” is a concept album that is a focused, scathing attack on the influence that television has on individuals and society. The music jumps genres, but never disappoints, and its message is consistent—TV is dangerous. Here’s an excerpt from “Turn Me On”:

Let me know what I need to know 
Make me go where I want to go 
Let me stand and wonder 
Let me feel the thunder 
See the lightning and the picture show 

After Remote Control, The Tubes experienced a brief period of increasing popularity, ironically fueled by exposure on MTV (and the participation of members of, I hesitate even to write the name, Toto), and decreasing creativity (caused, in part, by the participation of members of Toto). But then the bottom dropped out, people started to leave and the band broke up.

As much as I like this song, and this album, I can’t completely agree with their thesis. Like anything that is powerful, television can be misused and abused. While I recognize that television provides tons of misinformation, hours of trashy entertainment and unreal “reality” programming, is probably overused as a babysitter and keeps people on the couch when they should be doing something else, it also provides enormous value. If it wasn’t for television, I would never have seen the Mets win the World Series, the Giants win the Super Bowl, the Knicks win the NBA Championship (I am that old) or get to watch the World Cup. I wouldn’t have seen Nixon resign or Obama get elected. I would never have experienced “Hill Street Blues,” “All in the Family,” “Seinfeld,” “The West Wing,” “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Sports Night,” “Deadwood” or David Letterman. Or any number of other great programs or events. And while I personally can attest to the fact that much of the time you can scroll through hundreds of channels and find nothing to watch, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t times when there are too many things to see (and thanks, therefore, to our DVR and to VOD). And it doesn’t mean that television is evil.

I guess, like pretty much everything, moderation is the key. But that doesn’t make for much of a concept album.

Television: 5 Great TV Themes

A boyhood friend of Buddy Holly, Sonny Curtis is best known for writing " I Fought The Law" for the Bobby Fuller Four. When you listen to the entire song, "Love Is All Around" is hardly the Woman's Lib anthem the opening credits of The Mary Tyler Moore Show made it seem:

     All the men around adore you/ 
That sexy look will do wonders for you.

Thanks to his duets success with Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway was recruited to sing the title track to the Norman Lear comedy Maude in 1972. The songwriting team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman also gave us "Up Where We Belong" and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers".

"Everybody's Talkin" had everybody talkin about Harry Nilsson who in 1969 was commissioned to record the title sequence theme for The Courtship of Eddie's Father. He rewrote something he called "Girlfriend". Harry never bothered to record a full length version of the tune which might have been a nice single.

For the 1979 Martin Short Wall Street comedy The Associates, producer James L Brooks got B B King to record "The Wall Street Blues". The show lasted just 9 episodes.

Finally, not only did The Waitresses performed the title track for the Sarah Jessica Parker vehicle "Square Pegs", they appeared in the premiere episode, at the school dance, singing their hit "I Know What Boys Like".

Television: Bjork

 This probably belong here.

TELEVISION : TOP OF THE POPS

I loved Top of the Pops. On this side of the pond it was both the chart TV show and the only  music show for many of the population, sucking in massive audiences for it's heyday between the early sixties and late eighties, aka my childhood and young adulthood. Usually on thursdays, BBC1, for about half an hour, the format was broadly unchanged until it fizzled out in 2006. With a set designed to look like a naff nightclub, actually probably not, but that's how it was, gurning adolescents dancing badly, cheesy disc jockeys announcing each act in turn, with  a tacky dance troupe to cover no-shows, the occasional specially made film and, when they were invented, 1 or 2 videos. But the highlight was always the artist "performances", mimed or played with backing tracks, sometimes wildly dissimilar to the original, with no regard to anything other than who was in the top 30 at any one time. So novelty schlock songs would follow out and out rockers, bookended by crooners and whirling motown soulsters. Anything and everything fitted, highly appropriately, as it was truly a whole family entertainment show. I recall watching it with my sister and parents, my mother being the one to make the most caustic remarks about the shaggier representatives of my counter-culture. Who's that, she would say, and I would bite my tongue, for fear of being outed as either a fan or seeming to be. Of the wrong person. I lived in fear that she think I liked T.Rex, for instance.

Here's a good example of the style, conveniently being scottish punks the Rezillos, performing, on the programmed, their homonymous (and solitary) hit. Through the mists of time I am uncertain now whether their gaucheness was even ironic or just as they were. Hoping the former, I fear the latter.

Buy it!  (sadly the best I can offer is a 2nd hand single.........)

There were a number of other songs that referenced the show, commemorating it's place in the pantheon of british broadcasting iconography. Here's another, The Boomtown Rats, wherein "little Judy's tryin to watch Top of the Pops". And if you think Geldofs sax playing is, well, um, optimistic, later on, with the song newly number 1, he "played" the same break on a candelabra. Particularly in this era and later, there would be deliberate lampooning of the supposed "live presence", reaching it's nadir as the charts became taken over by dance music, where the musicians were, at best, faceless. Here's a good example, where the trick is even whether they were plugged in. (Answer: Not!) Ultimately this probably killed the show, a combination of anonymous dance music and the death of the singles market, ironically now on a wave back to viability. Of course there have been other shows, before and since, notably the magazine format Old Grey Whistle Test, beloved by chin stroking proggers, and Later, fronted and hosted by Jools Holland, invariably allowing him to join in at some stage, as various assorted acts play genuinely live and in the round. But TOTP, as it was acronymed, is always the one remembered with most reverie.

I wish it could come back, if only to ask my children, and theirs, what this claptrap thump thump thump is.....

STOP PRESS: So who were the Rezillos? Why, only Edinburghs most famous New Wave Beat Group. Sort of a lighter hearted Cramps. Centred around dual frontline singers, Fay Fife and Eugene Reynolds, they had an explosive sense of fun, in their all too brief first  incarnation, 1976-8, with, for me, extra delight in that the singing was all unapologetically with broad scottish accents. When Jo Callis, their dour faced guitarist left, to join the Human League, on synthesisers, clearly, going on to co-write most of their hits, including here on Top of the Pops, Fife and Reynolds re-grouped as the Revillos, on and off until the original name became revived in 2001. They still tour.

Television: I’m the Slime

Frank Zappa: I’m the Slime

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After a remarkable burst of posts regarding radio, it would seem that Television has us at a loss here at Star Maker. How can this be? Television surely occupies at least as important a place in our culture as radio does, yet I confess it took me a while to think of songs for this theme. I think it has to do with how we relate to TV, at least here in the United States. Television embarrasses us. If you want to insult an actor, tell him he is a television actor. For every John Travolta, there are ten Adam Wests. And most people forget that Travolta first became famous as the Fonz, a fact I would bet his publicist does not emphasize. We all have TV shows we love, that have influenced us greatly, but we don‘t discuss them with the same pride as a favorite movie. And so it is with songs about TV as well. You will find affectionately mocking covers of theme songs, but no one takes the originals seriously as great music when they cover TV themes. Original songs about TV have this same gently satiric tone; I hope to get to one of those later. But I know of no songs that simply embrace TV as an art form or an inspiration without apology, although the case can certainly be made

Frank Zappa, predictably, doesn‘t even try. He comes right out and spells out bluntly what makes us so uneasy about television. To him, it represents all the worst excesses of mass media, with all the big brother implications. Ironically, the video I have chosen is a television performance of I‘m the Slime. It comes from a 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live, and features an unlikely collaborator named Don Pardo.

Radio -->Television: Video Killed the Radio Star

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On a basic level, “Video Killed the Radio Star” harkens back to a time when the emergence of television supplanted radio as the primary source of information and entertainment. On a general level, it can be interpreted as a reflection on new technology replacing the old. In the cultural history of the 20th Century, because it was the first video ever played on MTV, the song has come to represent the emergence of the music video and the marginalization of radio.

I’d argue, though, that while music videos and MTV probably didn’t help radio, it wasn’t the only thing that caused the decline of the medium. Even MTV stopped playing videos years ago, I think that two different forces more powerful than video combined to render radio less vital. (Note—these opinions are about rock radio—I would not even presume to opine about the state of urban, Latin, country or other genres).

First, as I alluded to in my prior piece, I think that radio’s success commercially resulted in consolidation of ownership and a homogenization of content. Independent owners, willing to take risks and hire edgy DJs and program directors, were replaced by media behemoths that sanded off the rough edges and used market research to cater to the masses. There has always been a balance in radio programming between leading the listeners and following them—in other words, trying to determine the right mix of music that you think the audience will or should like and the music you know they already like. I think that the balance on commercial radio has shifted way toward playing the known, and avoiding risk. The spirit of adventurous radio still lives on in the occasional independent station and on college/noncommercial stations. Unfortunately, these stations tend to have small listenerships, can swing too far toward the strange and unknown, and often have difficult to listen to student DJs (which I can say, having been one).

The second force is, of course, the new technologies, mostly digital music, and the Internet and satellite “radio,” that allow listeners to create their own playlists, stream music from around the world, download music easily and find stations that narrowcast in limited genres. This allows each individual listener to decide, on a moment to moment basis, the balance between the known and unknown, and how much the listener wants to rely on their own taste, and how much to leave to someone else’s decision. And videos have become a way to circumvent the tight playlists of commercial radio and the small listenership of noncommercial/independent radio by getting the product directly to the consumer.  Videos, however, remove some of the mystery, because they create a codified, unitary version of a song's meaning.  The ability of every individual listener to imagine a personal vision is gone.  I have no memory anymore of what I thought the first time I heard Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" on the radio--now, all I can think of is claymation.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this—it is just reality. It isn’t as easy as when I was a kid, when there was a choice of a few radio stations, you pretty much knew that one station played top 40, another played album rock, and another was “free form.” Or you put on a record. And I lived in the media capital of the world, so I can only imagine that radio was even less varied elsewhere. Now, if you like popular hits, you can find a way to listen to them. If you want to only listen to obscure indie rock, you can do that. And if you want to mix things up, you can do that, too. But all of this choice requires more work than I think most people are willing to do, and can simply be overwhelming. Maybe not to most people who read obscure music blogs, but most regular people.  I wrote this earlier this week, and here's an op-ed from today's New York Times that discusses some of the same issues.

Although I would expect that most people reading this were in fact aware that the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first video on MTV, I am willing to bet that a significantly smaller percentage of you knew that it was not the first version of the song released. The song was written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley, all members of the Buggles, and it was a demo of the song that helped get the band signed. Apparently, it took the trio about an hour to write. While recording the album, Woolley left amicably, formed The Camera Club and released his somewhat less “produced” version of the song on the album English Garden. Here it is:

Shortly thereafter, the remaining Buggles released their version, which became the huge hit and a cultural icon. And to show there were no hard feelings, Woolley appears in the video. Downes and Horn started to work on another album, but instead joined Yes, in what was at the time a true head scratcher. The second Buggles album was later released, to less acclaim, and Downes joined Asia and has been part of other bands. Horn has mostly made his name as a producer. The Camera Club’s second album went unreleased, and Woolley has become better known as a songwriter, often for movies. One of the other members of that band was Thomas Dolby, who must also have recognized the interplay between TV and radio. His debut album was called The Golden Age of Wireless, and the first track was another early MTV staple, “She Blinded Me With Science.” The second track? “Radio Silence.”

Radio: Crap On the Radio

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By the time new wave rockers like Elvis Costello showed up in the late 70's, commercial radio stations were run by middle manger types beholden to distant suits at corporate headquarters. Disc jockeys were losing the power to play what they wanted so disco and "corporate rock" ruled the radio.

That meant the most exciting music getting made... wasn't getting played. 

As Elvis C. sang in "Radio, Radio": 

Radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools

Here's what a few more new wavers had to say about radio




Cos he can play crap on the radio
You can play crap on the radio
Be careful what you say
And you can play shite all day
You can play crap on the radio

 -Stiff Little Fingers "You Can't Say Crap On the Radio"




It's just the same old show on my radio
It's just the same old show on my radio
It's just the same old show on my radio
It's just the same old show on my radio

-The Selecter "On My Radio"


Who listens to the radio?
Who listens to the radio?
That's what I'd like to know
Who listens to the radio?

-The Sports


And from the one guy who did have a big radio hit, a different perspective:


Don't you know you can't get near me
You can only hope to hear me
 on your radio On your radio
You're gonna hear me on your radio.

-Joe Jackson

Radio: Midnight Radio

Dar Williams: "Midnight Radio"
[purchase]

As a middle-school youngster, I used to listen to Harry Chapin’s Greatest Stories Live like an addict—sometimes multiple times per day. The second track, “W.O.L.D.,” was never my favorite on the album, but that didn’t stop me from memorizing every word of it by heart. Regardless, fellow poster Retropath has already contributed more commentary about the song that I would have, so I’ll move on to another radio tribute.

“Midnight Radio” is a song from the rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, written by Stephen Trask. The version above was first covered by pop-folk artist Dar Williams a decade after Hedwig’s premiere as the penultimate track on her 2008 album Promised Land. It’s a moving song of reminiscence for those who have sentimental emotional memories of feeling connected with the world in a new way because of the radio (which, it would seem, applies to most people who read and write about music).

The lyrics illustrate the narrator becoming a star vicariously through the strong female voices on the radio: “Here’s to Patti / and Tina / and Yoko / Aretha / and Nona / and Nico / and me.”

RADIO : REX BOB LOWENSTEIN

Mark Germino - Rex Bob Lowenstein

Buy the record

Having read the entries so far, largely essays on the sadly diminished role of radio in any musical education, I thought it better to take a different tack. Back when radio was king, and truly the chart powerbroker, a time honoured approach to gain airplay was to reference the DJ, hopefully inducing it to be played by a presumably grateful and flattered jock. The list is endless, and I have not the space to reference them, but these guys have made a good start. Gradually, however, as the power of the usually sponsored playlist crept in, so too entered a wistfulness for the lost freedoms of those early pioneers. There were 2 songs that I always thought of a pair, the one referenced here, in 1987, and the better known one by Harry Chapin in 1974, W.O.L.D. (ee ee ee ee), and it is only as I researched this piece I realised they were a decade apart. Indeed, whilst the latter was a minor hit, the former virtually sank without trace, apart from in the U.K., where it was relentlessly played on Capital Radio, then the biggest commercial radio station in the country. Mark Germino was more a songwriter, in Nashville, than a singer, with a fairly short lived  recording career, bookended by this song, the above version and an electric version in 1991, which I find to have dated way more than the original. Neither seem available in download.

I shamelessly identify with each of these mythical  guys, Rex Bob and WOLD jockey, both true to the spirit and ethos of their cause, fighting increasingly pyrrhic victories all the way down the schedules. My childhood ambition was to be on the radio, preferably late at night, playing what ever I fancied. My choices here over these past weeks should perhaps please you I never made it. John Peel was the obvious template, but the UK has been blessed with a number of excellent and interested in music presenters over the years, if not also overburdened with facile grinning idiots . I would include Johnny Walker and Bob Harris as 2 who certainly influenced my listening, with tastes less obviously discordant to the moving ever onward from any mainstream Peel, both being unashamed afficionados of what I guess might now be labelled as americana. I have never realised my ambition and it has never gone away. Hey ho.

So what is the future for radio? Will "streamers" such as Spotify render the need for a curated selection redundant? I hope not, but would agree the conventional format has weaker and weaker legs. The only radio I ever listen to now is in the car, and is largely news and speech based, so called Talk Radio, (but at least it is the esteemed BBC Radio 4.) But there seems to be some sign of life wriggling on the sidelines, in the format of podcasting and internet radio, largely taking away any necessity to tune in at the required time, and allowing the listener to pick and choose when and what to listen to, with, rather than the randomness of pick a song any song, but through the ability and reliability of knowing and trusting a "brand" to point your listening diversions up the alleyway of your appeal. Radio is dead, long live radio??

P.S. Clearly and by the way, should any media moguls be looking for a man just like me for their major network, I can be contacted easily enough here......;-)

Radio:Wavelength

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I don’t really remember listening to the radio when I was really little. It just wasn’t a big deal to my parents. I guess I have some memories of the standards that played on their clock radio when they woke up to WNEW-AM in the mornings. It wasn’t until the summer of 1969, when I was picked up in the mornings to go to day camp, that I remember listening to the top-40 station, WABC, and for the first time really being captivated by rock music. I think my life-long obsession with music and radio truly began during the summers of 1972 and 1973 when I worked as a DJ at the radio station at Timber Lake Camp, WTLC (which appears no longer to exist). Somehow, my 11 and 12-year old self understood the mystery and power of broadcasting, even on a tiny, closed circuit station in a sleep away camp in Phoenicia, New York. I learned that radio was best for allowing imagination to fly. You didn’t know who the DJ was, you didn’t know what the studio looked like, and you could envision anything you wanted about the songs. Also, it was fun to play music that you liked (although we had very few records at camp), and talk about them.

My musical tastes moved from pop hits on tinny AM stations to the more interesting FM dial not too long after, and again, there was a progression from the more commercial outlets, like WPLJ to the then free-form “progressive” WNEW-FM. I remember during high school spinning the dial on the stereo in my room, looking for good music, on all of the rock stations in the New York area, and even discovering the wild world of college radio stations at, what the Replacements later referred to as the “Left of the Dial.”

By the time I went to college, I was hooked on music, and I’m pretty sure that my father still has nightmares about helping me carry box after box of heavy vinyl records up the four flights to my freshman year room. I considered joining the college station, WPRB, but held off until second semester, when I had gotten my feet wet academically, and my first extracurricular activity, the marching band, wound down a bit after football season. Working at WPRB was a transformative event in my life, much of which I’ve discussed in other pieces here and elsewhere. It exposed me to all sorts of music, it gave me a peer group of similarly minded people with strong opinions about music and the willingness to argue about it, it gave me ability to think on my feet, speak publicly and educate others. It exposed me to the music business, gave me the chance to interview musicians and humorists and allowed me to introduce acts from the stage. It gave me some experience with running a business, dealing with both managers and volunteer workers and taught me something about leadership. And it conditioned my brain to think of musical themes.

Each of these things has, in some way, affected my subsequent life—school, work, relationships, raising children, volunteer work and music blogging. So, yeah, radio has been important to me. Even with the options of CDs, iTunes, streaming services and satellite radio, I still listen to radio regularly (both in the car, and streaming on my computer), mostly to WFUV-FM, whose DJs clearly have a similar love of the medium (and more so, I guess, because they have been willing to take the risks inherent in making radio a career). But outside of WFUV, I find most radio around here unlistenable for long periods, either because of dullness of their playlists, or their commercials, or their lack of intelligent DJs, which is, ironically, the result of the success of the medium in making money.

Van Morrison has clearly been deeply affected by radio, although in his case, it has influenced the creation of his music. I’ve often joked that every Van Morrison song mentions radio, and while that is a bit of hyperbole, other than “Wavelength,” which I feature above, there are, at least, “Caravan,” “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Domino,” “In The Days Before Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “Call Me Up In Dreamland,” “Take Me Back,” “On Hyndford Street,” “T.B. Sheets,” “Real, Real Gone” and “The New Symphony Sid."

There is an argument to be made that I should have written about “Caravan,” which I think is a consensus pick as a better song, in general, and a better song about radio, but I decided to go with “Wavelength,” in part because of its title. But the song is cleverly about radio in two different ways. Morrison starts the song off by making it clear that, at least initially, he is talking about “wavelength” metaphorically as the connection between a couple—

This is a song about your wavelength 
And my wavelength, baby 
You turn me on 
When you get me on your wavelength 

But later, the song segues into a reminiscence listening to music on the Voice of America, particularly Ray Charles, and then Van throws in a little reference to hearing his own “Brown Eyed Girl.”

The version in the video above (I recently got a “take down notice” for posting “Come On Eileen,” and I am concerned that posting a downloadable version of another mainstream hit like “Wavelength” might lead to another) is the original, featuring the distinctive synthesizer part (played by Peter Bardens, best known, I guess, as a member of Camel), which is reminiscent of radio waves. Here’s a live version, from a 1980 performance in Montreux that downplays the synths for horns and a bit more soul.

The power of radio has stayed with me since I was a child, which has been great for me, and clearly has influenced Van Morrison to create his brilliant body of work, which is even better for the world.

Radio: Radio Boogie

Hot Rize: Radio Boogie

Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys: Martha White commercial and theme song

 [purchase]

Hot Rize is a band that rose to stardom among bluegrass circles in the 1980s. With a witty nod towards traditional bluegrass music and some seminal artists, that band took their name from the ingredient in Martha White Flour, a product of a Tennessee four firm (Martha White Mills). Cohen Williams, head of that company, had brought guitarist Lester Flatt and banjo-player Earl Scruggs and their band (The Foggy Mountain Boys) to Nashville to host Martha White’s early morning radio spot on WSM in the mid-1950s. The spot was called the "Martha White Biscuit and Cornbread Time."

Only fifteen minutes in length, that show was a great example of how important radio was to the spread of country music in those days before ipods and other high-tech devices. Much of the music broadcast over the airwaves wasn’t recorded commercially. Listeners would grab a cup of coffee and imagine performers right there in their kitchens or living rooms with them. Those were the days that radio offered live music, singing commercials, down-home humor, comedic antics, good-natured banter, sacred songs, fiddle tunes, and announcements or upcoming performances. The radio show was such a success that, by 1955, Flatt & Scruggs and their band were playing on the half-hour Martha White segment of the Grand Ole Opry. Television shows followed for Flatt & Scruggs, and a segment of one program is sampled above with a Martha White self-rising flour commercial and the product’s jingle. 
 

So it only made sense that one group of hot pickers in the next generation of bluegrass artists decided to call their band “Hot Rize.” Their sound solidified with members Tim O'Brien (mandolin, fiddle), Pete Wernick (banjo), Charles Sawtelle (guitar) and Nick Forster (electric bass). During their first decade, Hot Rize released six albums. Their second (in 1981) was called “Radio Boogie” and opened with that title track. Although they disbanded in 1990, they played several reunion dates each year from 1991-98. Guitarist Charles Sawtelle passed away in 1999, and Hot Rize added guitarist Bryan Sutton in 2002.

Hot Rize is a very entertaining group, and they often disappear backstage only to reappear as a Western Swing outfit made up of characters who hang out in the back of their bus. When Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers take the stage, we’re treated to Red Knuckles (guitar), Waldo Otto (lap steel, pedal steel), Wendell Mercantile (archtop lead guitar), and Slade (bass). These are alter-ego persona of O’Brien, Wernick, Forster and Sutton, respectively.