I had intended to follow up a prior installment with some Friday night videoblogging. But there was no Friday night at PW and—with any luck—we guests will be kicked out of the captain’s chair by next Friday. So here are some more video moments I’ve come across in the course of my regular web gig at Claude Pate.
The Fab Four: There’s plenty that has been yanked from YouTube, but I think this rehearsal of “Hey Jude” is still up. Indeed, you can find rushes from the “Get Back” project there as well. And for an odd cover, here is Todd Rundgren and Joe Jackson playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Husker Du: Having posted The Replacements last time, I should balance it with the power trio’s appearance on The Joan Rivers Show, which features a clueless Joan trying to interview the lads between “Could You Be The One” and “She’s A Woman (And Now He Is A Man).”
The Who: Again, plenty of great stuff has been yanked, but this live take on “So Sad About Us” at the Marquee Club on March 2, 1967, is pretty boss.
Guided by Voices: If you like the Who, early Bowie, etc., and the drunken abandon of the Replacements, you might well dig this now-defunct lo-fi combo from Dayton, OH. Regular videos like “Teenage FBI” and “Bulldog Skin” have the best audio quality but the in-store take on “Game of Pricks” and the bootleg of “Glad Girls” showcase frontman Robert Pollard at his high-kicking, mic-swinging best.
Moby Grape: A lesser known band from the 60s San Francisco scene, started by Skip Spence (ex-Jeff Plane). Here, the band plays its best-known song, “Omaha” on the Mike Douglas Show.
Robyn Hitchcock has been around since the heyday of Punk, but has always sounded much more like Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, both with the Soft Boys and in his solo career. “Lost Madonna of the Wasps” is one of his poppier tunes, but is not nearly as odd or funny as “Uncorrected Personality Traits” or “Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl.” And if you think I’m kidding about the Syd Barrett reference, when the Soft Boys did a reunion tour, David Gilmour showed up to play on “Astronomy Domine.” Bonus trivia: Hitchcock’s fellow Soft Boy, Kimberley Rew, went on to form Katrina and the Waves and write “Walking on Sunshine.”
Elvis Presley: Having done Costello in my prior post, I’ll point you to the career-spanning collection of links I compiled at Claude Pate in May.
The Pipettes do not have their album out in the US yet, but they are reinventing the girl-group sound on songs like “Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me,” and Forrest Gumping themselves into Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in the video for “Pull Shapes.”
The MC5: Having covered The Stooges last time, here’s Detroit’s other godfathers of punk, one step removed from the White Panther Party. Again, some great stuff has been yanked, but you can see their signature song, “Kick Out The Jams” in color (as edited by John Sinclair) or a B&W version live on Detroit public access TV.
Richard Thompson: If Eric Clapton had been into British folk instead of American blues—and reacted to tragedy with black humor—he would have been Richard Thompson. You can hear just how good he is with a guitar and some lyrics on the rocker “Valerie” and rehearsing the biker ballad “1952 Vincent Black Lightning.” He is foreboding in a trio on “Mingus Eyes.” You can get a sense of his guitar soloing prowess with “Jerusalem on the Jukebox,” where he is backed by a band including Bruce Hornsby.
The Hold Steady: If you like the sound of old Thin Lizzy and early Springsteen albums, this band from the Twin Cities and Brooklyn may be for you. They have a new album out today, but the single from their last album, “My Little Hoodrat Friend,” is pretty representative.
Michael Landon sings the We Five’s “You Were On My Mind” to Jackie “Needles and Pins” DeShannon, as The Byrds linger in the back of the room, wondering who dosed the watercooler at Hullaballoo.
EC would have needed a rather large dose of originality to truly compete with Thompson.
hmmm…u guys are brilliant!
a new and sinister way for me to torture robert schwartz and gary!
i can indulge my passion for third world hiphop, industrial electronica and swedish noise.
Well, I wouldn’t want to alienate EC fans from checking him out.
BTW, RT was a really nice guy in person. I’ve never met EC, though.
Wow, great list of introductions! Some that also will leave me wondering.
Well, I did try to spread things around.
I saw Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians in Orlando in 1992-ish. They’re one of the best-sounding live bands I’ve ever seen.
Plus, downright psychotic liner notes:
Man, I hadn’t thought about, never mind listened to, Richard Thompson in many years. Thanks for that, Karl, he is terrific.
The Joe Jackson/Todd Rundgren piece is just bizarre. There is no weeping guitar and all the string players look like they are having grand mal seizures.
From a few people I know who have met him: Eric Clapton; egomanaical numnut in his younger days, real English gentleman today. Biggest jerkoff musician I ever met, Richie Blackmore in a landslide. What an arrogant prick!
Now, Karl, I must go home and pierce my ears with with cinnamon sticks and flush my eyes with Prestone to remove the horror of Michael Landon (you bastard!)
More good stuff, Karl. I’ll have to check out Claude Pate regularly.
I remember wearing out my tape of Robyn Hitchcock’s Fegmania when it came out. I was like 13 or 14 and it made my brain hurt in wonderful ways. Robyn is a very underrated guitarist—just try to play along with his records sometime! I haven’t heard My Wife and My Dead Wife in ages. I should find a way to rectify that.
The Pipettes are my 5-year-old daughter’s favorite band right now—edging out something called the Cheetah Girls. No clue.