(Nearly) WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Back again by popular demand -- for this week at least!

1. Flying / The Beatles
From Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
Okay, so it's mostly an instrumental, and a woozy, loungy romp at that, full of organ and bass. But I love it when the Beatles break in with those lusty "La la la las," dissolving into that space-age scrum of random noise--psychedelic, man!

2. Senior Service / Elvis Costello
From Armed Forces (1978)
Vicious jerky rhythms on the verses, insinuating legato choruses, and a riff that roars up the scale like a fighter jet taking off--wowza!  Tons of Angry Young Man aggro here: "I want to chop off your head and watch it roll into the basket . . . ." Nasty as hell, but this song is SO much fun to dance to.

3. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go / Madeleine Peyroux
From Careless Love (2004)
Sometimes I don't even want to hear Bob Dylan's original versions of certain songs. I am quite happy to leave this one with Peyroux's exquisite finger-snapping cover--it's like skipping through Paris with Django Reinhardt in my head.   

4. Gasoline Baby / Marshall Crenshaw
From Jaggedland (2009)
Very few instrumental tracks make the cut onto my iPod, but somehow Marshall's always do. I like to imagine he dreamed this song up while he was at the self-service pump one day -- okay, there's  singing, but it's just variations on "Gasoline baby, gasoline girl, gasoline baby, suck it on down" over and over, with rat-tat drums and a wash of brilliant guitar riffs. Any excuse to listen to Marshall play guitar!

5. I Knew It All The Time / The Dave Clark Five
(1963 single)
Hard to believe this song was just four years before "Flying." One of my fave DC5 numbers, though, with those pounding heartbeat drums (Clark always kept himself high in the mix) playing against a lonesome harmonica. I even love those growly vocals, though it's hard to believe that's Mike Smith. Could it be Dave took over lead vocals on this one?  Anybody?  

6. Love Attack / James Carr
From You've Got My Mind Messed Up (1966)
Same era, but oh, what a different sound! Memphis soul, a slow-dancing seducement that was James Carr's second hit single, peaking at #21 on the R&B charts.  Think Otis Redding with a little extra honey...

7. 36 Inches High / Nick Lowe
From Jesus of Cool (1978)
Oh yeah, and while he was producing Armed Forces for Elvis, Nick Lowe also tossed off his own brilliant LP, lighter on the anger but just as witty. Nick always tucks in a few covers--just to keep himself humble--in this case a Jim Ford gem delivered in lazy, smoky style. It's like he's sitting in a rocking chair, spinning tales of his past as a soldier, a tax man, a king, and why he's only 12 inches high I don't know, but I believe the operative word is "high."

8. Planet of Weed / Fountains of Wayne
From Traffic and Weather (2007)
And speaking of high...how much fun is this track? That fuzztone guitar, the clink of glasses, voices murmuring in the background: It's a ready-made party, in two minutes and 46 seconds. "We've got magazines to read / We've got Doritos to eat / So lay back on the couch / And kick up your feet" -- why, yes, I think I will.

9. Hangin' Your Life on the Wall / Guy Clark
From Dublin Blues (1995)
One of the great storytellers, and totally underrated.  Here Guy duets with Ramblin' Jack Elliott on a wry-but-wise Verlon Thompson song. Like two cracker-barrel philosophers, they recall foolhardy past glories -- as lover, bullrider, baseball player -- chuckling as they push back their Stetsons and put their boots up. "I used to be forever chasing firetrucks / I sure could raise me some hell" -- emphasis on the past tense.

10. Kansas City / Sir Douglas Quintet
From Soul Jam (compilation)
Must be my day for sorta-instrumentals. For years, all I knew was the Beatles' cover of this Leiber/Stoller standard, but now that I've heard Doug Sahm's swinging version--dig that horn section!--I'll never go back. Only problem is, there's just not enough of Doug's soul-shivering singing on this track.  I always want more Doug.

"Because" / The Dave Clark Five

In memory of Mike Smith, 1943-2008

Sure, they weren't the Beatles, but in those first few months after the British Invasion hit America, we seriously thought of the Dave Clark Five as the Beatles' main competition. They were turning out catchy, melodic hit singles with nice vocal harmonies and punchy drumming (Dave Clark himself was the drummer), and until it became clear that they hadn't the Beatles' range, we were ready to buy them. Speaking strictly as a pre-teen fan, the Dave Clark Five met my chief requirement: they had a cute lead singer with a powerful, gritty voice. (I'm just realizing that my Patrick McGoohan crush was based on how much he looked like Mike Smith.) If I had abandoned the Beatles, it would have been because of Mike Smith.

Mike Smith died of pneumonia last Thursday, the last of many complications from a spinal cord injury he sustained in 2003. Heartbreakingly, that injury occurred only a few months after he'd returned to performing, and then lost his only son in a scuba diving accident. Yeesh. I contributed to the worldwide Mike Smith relief effort by attending a benefit concert here in New York in summer 2005 (Peter & Gordon, the Zombies, Denny Laine, the Fab Faux -- a truly fantastic concert). Every band on the bill performed a different DC5 hit, which really brought home to me how many there had been -- four Top Ten singles in 1964 alone. "Because" was the fourth, and the first to try a softer, more ballad-like approach. I guess when your band leader is a drummer (Clark even set up his drum kit at the front of the stage, ahead of Smith's keyboards), you emphasize the drum-heavy dance numbers.

"Because" is a lovely change of pace; maybe they should have done more of this sort of stuff. The sentiment is simple, unclouded, and straightforward, in a way that Lennon-McCartney love songs rarely were (compare this to "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You"): "It's right that I should care about you / And try to make you happy when you’re blue / It’s right, it’s right / To feel the way I do/ Because, because / I love you." There's a hint of friction in the bridge, but in the second verse, his devotion is back on track: "Give me one kiss and I’ll be happy / Just, just to be with you / Give me, give me, / A chance to be near you / Because, because / I love you." Mike even got to do an organ solo in the middle.

I love the shifting chord progressions of the vocal harmonies on those repeated phrases, the "it's right's" and "give me's" and, of course, the repeated "because's." It's not like Roger Daltry's stutter in "My Generation," more as if by saying it twice, the guy can convince her how sincere he is. But the thing that really sells this song is Smith's slightly husky voice, the urgency underlying every crescendo. As a love song, it just works.

I'm surprised this track isn't featured on more British Beat compilations; I had a hard time finding a source for you to listen to it, though the source I finally found -- Dave Clark's website -- has a cool jukebox that'll let you listen to lots more DC5 material. Clark was always a sharp businessman, and possibly he's controlling the rights to these tracks so tightly, he may have cheated this band out of their rightful place in the 60s pantheon. The Dave Clark Five is finally due to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 10; Mike came so close to getting there at last. It makes me sad all over.

"Because" on the Dave Clark jukebox

“Glad All Over” / The Dave Clark Five

MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!

In 1964, every music pundit was dying to anoint some new band as the “Next Beatles.” When I first heard of the Dave Clark Five, that was the buzz – “These guys are going to be bigger than the Beatles.” For one thing, they had FIVE band members, not just four, and they had an organist. They were clean-cut and cute – what more could music fans want? When “Glad All Over” dethroned the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in January 1964, doomsayers predicted that the Fab Four were history.

Yeah. Right.

I tried to like the Dave Clark Five, honestly I did, and yet . . . . Maybe even as a kid I could tell they weren’t quite the real thing, even though they wrote their own songs (whether Clark deserved co-writing credit is another question; it’s also rumored that the actual recordings were done with session musicians). I was baffled by the name, since Dave Clark didn’t sing lead vocals -- keyboardist Mike Smith did, which was fine with me because he was much cuter. Though I was too young to judge, Clark wasn’t even much of a drummer – hence the group’s tendency to record very basic pop songs like “Do You Love Me,” “I Like It Like That,” “I Knew It All the Time,” and “Over and Over.” The only really rhythmically interesting record they ever made was “Catch Us If You Can,” which featured finger-snaps for most of the percussion. (The Monkees would later rip this sound off for their theme song -- "Here we come, walking down the street . . . .")

But what was worst, somehow they just didn’t sound British, whatever that meant to my pre-teen ears. Tell the truth – if any of those songs came on the radio with no introduction, would you think “British Beat” right away? And -- no surprise -- from the spring of 1964 on, their records always did better in the States than they did back home.

Still, “Glad All Over” is a perfectly fine track. It has all those nice tight harmonies I had learned to love from my Beatles records, with a cheery call-and-response echo, and the sentiments were straightforward teen pop – “You say that you love me [say you love me] / All of the time [all of the time] / You say that you need me [say you need me] / You’ll always be mine [always be mine].” In the infinitely more complicated emotional territory of the Beatles, such absolute devotion could spell trouble, but for the Dave Clark Five, it inspires only one thing – it makes him feel “glad all over,” as he tells us three times in the chorus, setting off each repetition with two big whomping drumbeats. (Two honks on the sax, too – that rudimentary horn section was ahead of its time.)

Verse two declares his side of the issue – he’s gonna make her happy, always be true, et cetera – and verse three happily predicts that their love will last until the end of time, and all those other pimply hyperboles. In the bridge, there’s the briefest shadow of a problem – “Other girls may try to take me away [take me away]” – but it’s quickly resolved, with the loyal declaration “But you know, it’s by your side I will stay,” in the great tradition of grammar bent out of shape just to land a rhyme.

Simple. Loud. Fast. That’s what the Dave Clark Five could deliver, all packaged with neat-but-casual sweaters and Mike Smith’s adorable smile. So what if they couldn’t live up to the “Next Beatles” hype? In 1964 we were hungry for British bands, and these guys were first out of the gate. There would be more to come.