WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Even though I'm off in New Orleans for the week -- bring on the po' boys and jambalaya! -- I'm still listening to my iPod. Here's a little Shuffle to tide us all over...

1. "I Gotta Go Now" / The Kinks
From The Kinks (1964)
A slight, obscure, and absolutely delicious early Kinks track. Most of the lyrics consist of "I gotta go now" over and over, with a few "whatcha gonna do about it nows" and "hey little girls" thrown in. A strange and wonderful concoction of blues lingo, jazz syncopation, and folk harmonies, served up with effervescent pop charm.

2. "Warming Up to the Ice Age" / John Hiatt
From Warming Up to the Ice Age (1985)
And now some early Hiatt, prowling through relationship angst with stuttering tempos, lashing drums, and a barrage of pun-larded lyrics. Amazingly, this was the album whose failure killed Hiatt's contract with Geffen Records, but the seeds are here -- next he would make Bring the Family for A&M, and the rest is history. All told, I think I like grown-up happy John Hiatt better than young angry John Hiatt, but man, he was already gooooood.

3. "Boring Enormous" / Paul Westerberg
From Stereo (2002)
Post-Replacements Paul Westerberg, strumming his guitar in his basement and singing about his contented home life. I can see why Replacements fans must have been baffled by this development. I came late to the party, though; this is the Westerberg I first knew and adored. Hey, Bob Dylan was from Minnesota, too -- why shouldn't Paul Westerberg find his inner folkie?

4. "Who Can I Turn To?" / Van Morrison and Georgie Fame
From How Long Has This Been Going On? (1995)
Van Morrison in full jazz crooner mode, scatting along to the keyboard stylings of Mr. Clive Powell, a.k.a. Georgie Fame, who lends a layer of honeyed elegance to Morrison's whiskey-and-soda vocals. An entire album of songbook standards, big-band arrangements and all -- and I'd pit Van against Tony Bennett or Frank Sinatra any day.

5. "Queen of Sheba" / Nick Lowe
From Nick the Knife (1982)
The romantic philosophy of Nick Lowe -- she's not Queen of Sheba, or Mona Lisa, but he still adores her, and there's a place that they can go where that thing will grow. The bass line's springy as a rubber band, and Nick cheekily lounges his way through this generic love song with considerable aplomb. (Always wanted to use that word in a review...)

6. "Jungle Song" / Chilli Willi and the Red Peppers
From Bongos Over Balham (1974)
A congenial little soul jam, with some killer harmonica, by these talented pub rockers, erstwhile colleagues of Mr. Lowe in his plaid-shirt days. A notable incubator of New Wave talent -- bassist Paul Riley went on to play in the Rumour behind Graham Parker, and drummer Pete Thomas ended up in Elvis Costello's Attractions.

7. "Dead End Street" / The Kinks
From Face to Face (1966)
Any shuffle that has two Kinks songs is a good shuffle. And this endearing soft-shoe is one of my favorites -- a perfect song for these recessionary times, about a middle-class couple just scraping by. "What are we living for? / Two rooms apartment on the second floor / No money coming in / The rent collector's knock is trying to get in." Even better: "We both want to work so hard / And we can't get the chance." I love that dramatic French horn fanfare; even better is the boozy Dixieland trombone in the fade-out...

8. "I Must Be the Devil" / The Box Tops
From Best of the Box Tops: Soul Deep (compilation)
Throw the irony out the window -- Alex Chilton groans and moans his way through a pitch-perfect blues number, complete with slouchy guitar. "I can't stop, I can't stop, I ca-a-a-n't stop!" Who knows what he's apologizing for -- "I can't bear to see my face, / Wrongs done I can't erase, / It's all wrong, it's all wrong, it's aa-ll-ll wrong!" But I bet you anything she forgives him.

9. "Youth Culture Killed My Dog" / They Might Be Giants
From They Might Be Giants (1986)
Oops, irony's back! A bit of sublime silliness from the Johns, our leading purveyors of comic catchiness. Don't let that Peter-Gunn-like bass riff deceive you -- it's really about his dog committing suicide because of trashy modern music. Or something like that. "But the hip hop / And the white funk / Drove away my puppy's mind." Who else could deliver such goofiness with so much zest?

10. "Try Not To Cry" / Greg Trooper & the Flatliners
From Everywhere (1992)
Back to earnestness -- a passionate alt-country anthem, injected with an R&B howl, about the sorrow that lies deep down things (or lachrymae rerum, for you Latin scholars). This is what the world looks like from the other shore of heartbreak -- pair this with "Don't Think About Her When You're Trying to Drive" and we'd have the whole territory covered. Of course, you HAVE to cry when you hear this song. This guy is just so damn good...

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get back to Philly Soul Week. Later today, in fact. But I enjoy these Wednesday spins around my iTunes too much to skip it...

1. "Blackbird" / The Beatles
From the White Album (1968)
Paul McCartney, an acoustic guitar, and the tapping toe of a Spanish boot. (At least that's how I imagine that beat -- I read somewhere it was a metronome, but I don't care, I still picture Paul's boot tapping away.) That insanely beautiful melody never needed anything more. We all know it's a civil rights metaphor, possibly Paul's response to the King assassination, but somehow it rises above being a mere protest song. I always forget about the bird chirps and whistles in the middle eight; they're like a glorious surprise, nature bursting into the song, every time.

2. "Goodbye Nashville, Hello Camden Town" / Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers
From Bongos Over Balham (1974)
Lovely little pub rocker, banjos and all. Chilli Willi was one of the funnest bands playing their scruffy brand of country rock in the pubs of London -- a geographic irony not lost on this band, as this song's title suggests. They didn't last long (two years, two LPs), but then neither did pub rock. Footnote: Their manager was Jake Riviera, soon to found Stiff Records, and their drummer was Pete Thomas, who'd soon join Elvis Costello's Attractions. Small world.

3. "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" / Vampire Weekend
From Vampire Weekend (2008)
How to dance to an Afro-Pop beat while wearing Topsiders and J. Crew. (What's that line about "It feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel too"? Peter Gabriel doesn't feel THAT unnatural.) Brisk, bright, and totally irresistible.

4. "Magdalene" / Guy Clark
From Workbench Songs (2006)
That sweet spot between folk and country-western pretty much belongs to Mr. Guy Clark. A story, of course -- there's always a story in Guy Clark songs -- he's sneaking out in the dead of night with his lover, probably a married woman, skipping town before they get caught, escaping their suffocating small town. "Don't forget your passport, Magdalene," he murmurs huskily just before the fadeout. Achingly tender, with a loping gait and just enough twang -- oh, I sure do love Guy Clark.

5. "Slave Chain" / The Fortunate Sons
From The Fortunate Sons (2008)
From Scotland? You gotta be kidding me! This debut album by a youthful crew from Glasgow totally has the Delta sound down -- it's almost eerie. Don't get them mixed up with the Creedence revival band of the same name; these kids write their own stuff, and it's gooooood. This song reminds me of Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" (dig the clanks and lugubrious hums of the intro), though here it's a a metaphor for being trapped in a demanding love affair. A great tripping guitar line, some sweet fiddle, and a wailing lead singer with a killer falsetto.

6. "How Deep Is the Red" / Elvis Costello
From Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane (2009)
Elvis does the Depression-era blues.

7. "Scum of the Earth" / The Kinks
From Preservation Act 2 (1974)
The apex of Ray Davies' theatrical period...

8. "Modern Love" / David Bowie
From Let's Dance (1983)
And speaking of theatrical . . .

9. "Like A Freight Train" / John Hiatt
From The Open Road (2010)
Back to faux-vintage blues, apparently the Shuffle Theme of the Day. Here it's updated with wry humor by my fellow Hoosier John Hiatt. "I used to roll through here like a freight train / But my wheel's come off..." It's Hiatt's strategy for aging, with a sardonic chuckle and a mean riff.

10. "Spy Vs Spy" / Dr. Feelgood
From Classic (1987)
"I'm checking on you, you're checking on me / The moment we walk out the door..." Dr. Feelgood's last Stiff album, full of R&B wail and punk snarl, featured several tracks co-written by their former producer Will Birch (Kursaal Flyers, the Records). A scathing portrait of a poisoned relationship, but with a damn snappy beat.

“(I Wanna) Make Love To You” / Dr. Feelgood

28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS

There’s a fine line between love and lust – well, sometimes, at least. Our last few numbers were all about guys on the make, randy and ready for action; in this Dr. Feelgood number, the singer has a specific target for his affection. But is he seeking respect and understanding, like Ricky Nelson was? Nope. He’s got one thing on his mind, and one thing only: “I wanna make love to you.”

On all levels, this is a seduction song – but man, it works. Dr. Feelgood’s lead singer Lee Brilleaux had one of the dirtiest voices in rock and roll, no question, and despite the slicker sound of this mid-80 Stiff-era track, nothing can take off that raunchy edge. He’s set front and center against a lasciviously slow tempo, with whacking drums, a sighing organ, and whiplashes of guitar. The key is faintly minor, and touches of echo effects lend a lonesome nighttime quality. This isn’t the plea of a confident ladies’ man -- he sounds slightly hoarse with desperation, but hey, I think that makes it more seductive, not less. Naked hunger is so much more arousing than an arrogant command. After all, it’s so lovely to be wanted.

There’s not much melody to this song, really – it’s almost like a talking blues. You can hardly distinguish the verse from the bridge, except that the latter shoots off a few higher notes, like uncontrollable squirms of desire. The lyrics, what few lyrics there are, follow your basic romantic pop conventions, with stuff like “How could I explain / This feeling that's true” or “When the stars fall from the heavens / And the rivers have stopped to flow.” Apparently they’re not a couple, at least not yet, so he plays the old self-pity card in verse three: “I ain't gonna try and tell ya / How it's made me so blue / Sitting alone and wondering.” But whatever he says, it always leads back to his obsessive mantra: “I wanna make love to you.”

That’s the main hook, the soul and substance of this song in a nutshell, and they sure do get their money’s worth out of it. It starts low, with a tender raspy growl on “I wanna”, surges hopefully upward on “make,” then gradually slip-slides downward on “love to you.” I count eighteen times he sings this phrase; by the end he’s just repeating it over and over. You know he’s not gonna shut up until you give in, girl. And really, the more you’re sucked into the vortex of Brilleaux’s wheedling, sensual vocals, abstinence begins to seem absurdly overrated.

(I Wanna) Make Love To You sample

"Whole Wide World" / Wreckless Eric

I'll admit right now, this is the only song I know by Wreckless Eric, his 1978 debut single and the obvious BIG HIT that most people know. (At least, those who've heard of Wreckless Eric -- which is fewer people in this country than in the UK, I'd guess). I have no excuse except that there's so much music in the world to listen to, and only 24 hours in a day to listen to it.

Still, it's easy to see why this song has such legs. It's not your typical Stiff Records release, at least not that hushed opening (it does build to punk angst by the end) -- it's wonderfully tender, even in the loud and growly parts. I've just discovered that Nick Lowe plays not only the bass but most other instruments on this track, while Ian Dury bangs on the drums -- no surprise, since Nick was Stiff's house producer in those days and Ian one of their marquee stars.

This as an undying-love song, but with a twist -- undying love for a girl he hasn't met yet (think Macca's "I Will" from the white album, which BTW he wrote specifically for me). That accounts for the wistful undertow of loneliness; no wonder he's sounding desperate and frantic by the last verse. "When I was a young boy / My mama said to me," he begins, a classic folk-music opener -- but then it goes south: "'There's only one girl in the world for you / And she probably lives in Tahiti." Yikes! But you've gotta admire the kid's determination: "I'd go the whole wide world / I'd go the whole wide world / Just to find her." Now there's a romantic soul.

On Eric's website, he jokes that he's never checked out the geography for fear he got it wrong all those years ago. Don't worry, Eric, you're close enough. "Or maybe she's in the Bahamas / Where the Caribbean sea is blue / Weeping in a tropical moonlit night / Because nobody's told her 'bout you." There's a nice touch, the idea that the girl's lonely and longing too. Though the buzzy guitars and smackdown drums have kicked in by now, and Eric's getting a leetle paranoid, as he reiterates, "I'd go the whole wide world / Find out where they hide her."

The tune -- if you can call it that -- is just as dogged and single-minded as his quest. The rhythm's a slogging sort of march, and the verses repeat over and over the same two-note rising phrase; the chorus repeats a downward four-note scale, with that hopeful little line "Just to find her" surging hopefully at the end. But it suits Eric's mumbly wail just fine, and as the song's motor kicks into successively higher gears, he punches out those repetitions with lovestruck ferocity.

Verse three and four are particularly fun -- he pictures himself "hanging around in the rain out here / Trying to pick up a girl" compared to his Ms. Right "lying on a tropical beach somewhere / Underneath the tropical sun / Pining away in a heatwave there." He caps it off with a verse five vision of happiness, imagining himself "lying on that sun-soaked beach with her / Caressing her warm brown skin / And then in a year or maybe not quite / We'll be sharing the same next of kin." Sure, it's a conventional happy ending, but with enough wit and charm to make the cliche very satisfying. Besides, by the time he gets here, he sounds so stressed out, I'm yearning too for him to get what he wants.

I've just checked out iTunes and there are a ton of covers of this song, including ones by the Monkees, the Proclaimers, and a particularly nice revved-up version by Phon Roll (anyone heard of that band before?). All very nice, but I'm still glued to Wreckless Eric's. I swear, it's not just the Nick Lowe connection, though Nick's infallible ear as a producer often pulled out the best work from Stiff artists. (I'll admit I am prejudiced.) Clearly I've got to check out more of this guy's stuff. Any suggestions?

Whole Wide World sample

PUB ROCK WEEK

“Do Anything You Want To Do” / Eddie & the Hot Rods

I know, I know, you guys thought I’d end pub rock week with the Brinsleys – but there’s so much more to pub rock, I haven’t even scratched the surface. (What, no Ducks Deluxe? No Kilburn & the High Roads? No Fabulous Poodles?) And I really can’t check out without paying tribute to Eddie & the Hot Rods, a band I think of as the missing link between pub rock and punk.

Take a dose of Dr. Feelgood’s visceral energy and throw in the hard-hitting crunch of mid-60s American rockers like the Stooges and the MC5, and then play it at overdrive speed – that was the idea behind the Hot Rods (“Eddie” was actually their manager, Eddie Hollis, who wrote this song). They also were writing songs about adolescent hang-ups and attitudes, which spoke to the younger audiences moving into the old pub rock venues. And how could mellow country rockers play these stages after a band like Eddie & The Hot Rods (or their colleagues the 101ers, fronted by a pre-Clash Joe Strummer)?

“Do Anything You Wanna Do” is a very efficient bit of rock music, with a short intro and no down time whatsoever. We’re talking jangly power chords, fierce nonstop drumming (was Steve Nichols channeling Keith Moon or what?), and the urgent yelp of Barrie Master’s lead vocals. The lyrics are all about busting loose, too – an anti-authoritarian anthem as powerful as the Who’s “My Generation” was a decade earlier.

“Gonna break out of this city / Leave the people here behind” – anybody else reminded of the Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of this Place”? It taps into a level of pre-Thatcher-era angst as well: “Tired of doing day jobs with no thanks for what I do” and my favorite couplet: “Don't need no politician tell me things I shouldn't be / Neither no optician tell me what I ought to see.” And okay, it’s a little paranoid – “No one tells you nothing / Even though you know they know” – but it’s all part of the syndrome.

That frustration a kid feels when it seems like the System is stacked against him – the chorus nails it perfectly: “Why don't you ask them what they expect from you / Why don't you tell them what you are gonna do / You'll get so lonely, maybe it's better that way / It ain't you only, you've got something to say.” Doesn’t that just make you want to punch the sky?

Sure, it’s a classic sentiment, but every kid who goes through this feels like the only rebel in the world. And then you turn on the radio and hear a song like this and it’s like those musicians read your mind.

Pub rock had pretty much run its course by the time “Do Anything You Want To Do” hit the Top Ten in 1977. By this time, I guess Eddie & the Hot Rods had lost a little of their rawness -- like any ambitious band might when it starts to get radio play -- and with a wave of hungry punk bands coming up behind them, that lost rawness made the Hot Rods irrelevant. The Sex Pistols—who’d once been the opening act for the Hot Rods--had already released “Anarchy in the UK,” and The Clash and Elvis Costello released their debut albums in the spring. Eddie & the Hot Rods were quickly pushed aside--hey, youth culture can be cruel. But in retrospect, like so many overlooked pub rockers, they were a damn fine band.

Do Anything You Wanna Do sample

PUB ROCK WEEK

“I Love You So You’re Mine” / Dr. Feelgood

There was nothing country about Dr. Feelgood—just a super-charged R&B intensity that must have torn down the house at every performance. They qualified as pub rockers because they played the same venues, but trading in plaid shirts for mortician-like black suits and skinny ties, they definitely moved the scene into a new direction.

Feelgoods frontman Lee Brilleaux apparently had a riveting stage presence; I only wish I could have seen him (sadly, he died of lymphoma in 1994, only 41 years old). His voice had a dangerous rasp and snarl to it, and his material played into that, dwelling on the darker side of human emotions – jealousy, possessiveness, suspicion, revenge, the really juicy stuff. The main character in “I Love You So You’re Mine” is a compulsive egotist and misogynist, and Brilleaux plays him with zest.

There’s a great vein of dramatic irony running through this song: This guy is so determined to get his girl, he refuses to recognize that she may feel differently. I’d love to hear her side of things, but all we get is his bullheaded certainty. “Well honey I ain’t buying what it is you’re trying to sell,” he insists, “Cause when I look into your eyes now, I can see just how you feel / Forget about the lies now, Cause I know our love is real.”

I suspect those "lies" he's talking about may have something to do with the fact that she's interested in somebody else, damn it. Yet he chafes against having to stand in line, and he gets more and more flagrant with every verse: “One and one is two now, / There ain’t no room for any more / I don’t wanna make you blue now, / I’m about to lock your door.” This isn’t pleading or begging; it’s coercion. A threat of physical violence is right under the surface, underscored with a menacing harmonica and scolding guitar line (not to mention the smack-around drumbeat.)

And yet, round about verse three, his insistence actually begins to be a little intoxicating: “So what’s all this I’m hearing / About the way it’s gonna be? / Cause when the dust is clearing, / There’s only you, there’s only me.” There's something pulsing and immediate about that image; my defenses begin to crumble. "You better get it right now / Get your feet back on the ground/ I’m taking you tonight now, / You know I don’t mess around.” Well, all's I'm saying is, you can see how a girl might give in in the end.

Granted, this Feelgoods track comes from much later in their career, in the mid-80s. Unlike the earlier pub rock bands, Dr. Feelgood landed a major label deal and continued to tour in various incarnations until Brilleaux’s death. But while the later albums may have layered in a horn section or two, the sound stayed essentially the same – visceral, adrenaline-charged R&B with a cynical view of the war between the sexes. The sound may have been vintage but the sensibility put a whole new neurotic spin on things. Could New Wave be far behind?

I Love You So You're Mine sample

PUB ROCK WEEK

“Drinking Socially” / The Kursaal Flyers

Well, they called it pub rock, after all – it was bound to spawn a few drinking songs (and, being the 70s, a few toking songs as well). But this one is really brilliant, a boozy honky-tonk number loaded up with irony and snarky cleverness.

We all know what people say – “Oh, I only had one or two drinks” – it’s the great lie every barhound lives on. Kursaal Flyers frontman Paul Shuttleworth (who co-wrote this song with guitarist Vic Collins) plays this thirsty hypocrite to the hilt. “I’m a guy, I guess it’s true, / Who likes to take a drink or two,” he begins, soberly enough; “I’m just drinking socially.” Then, with a shrug, he adds, “And there are times I will agree / Perhaps I stretch to two or three / But I’m just drinking socially.” Oh, yes, of course. Shifting into confessional mode in the bridge, he amplifies: “Sometimes I drink a little more, / The weekends maybe three or four / Don’t you fret, I’ll survive / Long as I get four or five...”

And so it builds, until he’s sucking ‘em back desperately: “Clock on the wall says ten to eleven, / I’ve only managed six or seven” (remember, by law British pubs had to stop serving at 11pm back then). “No time for talking, I got here late,” he adds – can’t you just see him lining them up on the bar in front of him? “Might have time for seven or eight / But I’m just drinking socially.”

Somehow, the vagueness of that drink count makes it so much easier to pass off: “Don’t think about me I’m doing fine / I only drunk about eight or nine / And I ain’t counting, but then again, / I’d have to say at least nine or ten.” By the end, he’s on the floor, having drunk a dozen or more – but he’s still convinced he’s just “drinking socially.”

It’s in the second bridge where Shuttleworth really skewers the scene: “Now I’ve been drinking socially for quite a while / As I look around this barroom / I turn my head and smile.” The fact is, he’s not the only social drinker patronizing this establishment: “They say they drink specifically / For the good of their anatomy / But I know they’re social drinkers just like me.” Then he throws in a quick shout-out “Get social now!” and a delicious guitar solo ensues. I’ll drink to that.

I’m sorry I couldn't find an mp3 to post, but you can find this track on the Kursaal Flyers’ CDs Golden Mile or Hit Records. The Flyers had a good run with pub rock, scoring one Top Ten hit, “Little Does She Know” in 1976 (this was all in the UK, mind you – not a whisper of this reached us in the States); drummer Will Birch eventually wound up in the Records (remember their power pop hit “Starry Eyes”?), while guitarist Graeme Douglas went on to Eddie & the Hot Rods. Some of them still get together for Kursaals reunion gigs in London from time to time -- I assume drinks are served.

PUB ROCK WEEK

“Namali” / Bees Make Honey

Pub rock didn’t stay in that mellow, countrified groove for long—not with their audiences urging them to get wild every night. If you listen to studio recordings of Bees Make Honey, they rollick along in a rambling honky-tonk mode, but I’ve got a disc of live performances that shows them cutting loose – hoohah!

I suspect you couldn’t help but dance along to this song, no matter how crowded and sweaty the venue (or how sticky the floor). These songs were recorded in 1976 live at the Nashville Rooms, which along with the Tally Ho and the Kensington were the prime pub rock venues. This was actually a later Bees Make Honey line-up, the earlier ones having gotten discouraged and quit in 1975. The only constants were Irishmen Barry Richardson and Mick Molloy. (Rod Demick, a later addition, wrote and sings this track.) But as the liner notes to this great 2-CD collection Back on Track point out, the Bees were “too high on music, too low on image, to make it big.”

High on music indeed—that’s what I get from “Namali.” It’s basically just another song about a girl the singer digs. The lyrics aren’t much, a lot of “I’m a fool for you” and “Can’t get you out of my head” type stuff. But this band is playing impressively tight—at first the instruments bounce around in different directions, but like a whiplash they jump back together to hit those three big rhythmic chords at the end of the verse. The main thing is the chorus, which punches urgently through its chord changes up the scale—it’s like shifting gears, the motor running louder with each phrase: “Na-ma-li! / Got to find out / Gotta find out / Gotta find out / The right way of getting thro-ough to you.” I love it when men beg like this.

Then, suddenly, they click into another mode for the bridge, legato and dreamy and minor-key folky: “Playing my guitar, working out my line / At every place from here to who knows where / Maybe I was born to cast my fortune to the wind, / But I don’t want to travel down a road that never ends.” It’s like an entirely different song; maybe he is just trying out another way of getting through to her (remember Stephen Bishop playing the guitar on the stairs of Delta House during the toga party?). More and more these days, I love tempo changes; that’s how you know you’ve got human beings on deck, not a drum machine and a metronome. Was it disco that killed tempo changes?

Beneath those rockabilly riffs, the whole thing’s moving in the direction of power pop. Like a Pinter play, it’s all in the silences, those split seconds when the whole band stops abruptly right on cue. Were Bees Make Honey major artists cruelly ignored by the music industry? Maybe not, but for sure they were enjoying themselves the night they recorded this song – and I’m betting their audience was having fun too.

Namali sample

PUB ROCK WEEK

“Goodbye Nashville”/
Chilli Willi & the Red Hot Peppers

Last May I devoted an entire month to the British invasion; surely Pub Rock deserves at least a week of its own. I’ve been listening to a lot of this mid-70s British music lately; I love its stripped-down, cheeky, infectiously fun vibe. I figure any scene that gave rise to Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Graham Parker, and Joe Strummer has got to be worth listening to, right?

For several reasons (check out Will Birch’s fascinating book No Sleep Till Canvey Island for the whole history--order it here), the first pub rockers were country rock wannabes, overlaying their Cockney vowels with exaggerated Arkansas twangs and throwing in all the banjos, mandolins, and Crosby Stills and Nash-ish harmonies they could find. (Hey, if those Canadians in The Band could do it, why not a bunch of Brits?) At the same time, given the venues they were playing, they had to speed up those plodding country rock tempos, to keep things hopping at the bar.

Take this 1974 tune by Chilli Willi & the Red Hot Peppers, one of the first mainstays of the pub rock pubs: the whole point of the song is that they’re transplanting country music to North London soil. It reels off a travelogue of American cities – Boston, L.A., Memphis, San Diego (love the sliding yelp on this one), San Francisco, Birmingham, San Jose--and throws in exotic mentions of steel guitars and dobros, before mournfully announcing, "But now I'm going back again / My fortune ain't been found / It's goodbye, Nashville / Hello, Camden Town."

“People seem to think that I’m insane / They don’t know the way it goes / Playing in that game,” lead singer Phil Lithman wails, holding up Camden as a sort of desperate last alternative. Lithman, it’s true, did try out San Francisco for a while in the late 60s; I don’t know why he moved back to London, but there sure is a shadow of disappointment here. They rattle off those place names, hurtling headlong for the drawn-out harmonies of the refrain. Of course, the singalong part of the song, that’s the most important. Cheers, mate.

When I say the sound was stripped down, that doesn’t mean these guys couldn’t play their instruments; the picking on this track is incredibly deft. It isn’t slickly produced, though; it has a real front-porch freshness, clean and straightforward. That one-take vitality was a hallmark of this pre-New Wave phenomenon. The band split up after their 1974 album Bongos Over Balham, but as rock pedigrees go, Chilli Willi’s is impeccable: drummer Pete Thomas ended up as one of Elvis Costello’s Attractions, Paul “Bassman” Riley hooked up with Graham Parker’s Rumour, Paul Bailey formed Bontemps Roulez, Martin Stone was in the Pink Fairies, and Lithman moved back to San Francisco and a band called the Residents.

So here’s the thing that mystifies me: I never liked Crosby, Stills & Nash, so why do I dig this knock-off of their sound? It must be the complete unpretentiousness of Chilli Willi. CSN always looked so earnest, so impressed with the magical blending of their beautiful voices – not so these upstart Brits. They’re just glad no one’s thrown them off the stage yet, and they'll keep hollering and hooting until last call. It’s all about the spirit of the thing--and that, they’ve got down pat.

Goodbye Nashville sample

"Don't Wait Up" / Dr. Feelgood

Another band I wish I'd seen back in the day -- word has it that Lee Brilleaux's live performances were riveting. His slightly husky, supple voice has plenty of shivers and growls in it; something about it reminds me of a less laidback Huey Lewis (I always had a fangirl crush on Huey Lewis). Photos I see of Dr. Feelgood in performance -- all dressed in suits, like the Blues Brothers' British cousins -- make it look like they rocked long and hard every night. If their studio recordings have this much visceral energy, I can only imagine what the adrenaline of being on stage did to them.

"Don't Wait Up" was a 1986 single that didn't do much on the UK charts (and certainly did not do any better across the ocean). I guess Dr. Feelgood fans felt disappointed because it's not like the band's usual propulsively uptempo tracks -- but I find it haunting and irresistible. The minor key, the echoey double-tracked vocals, the prowling offbeat rhythms, all build an apprehensive mood, like a coiled snake ready to strike. Basic premise: The singer's telling his wife/girlfriend not to wait up for him -- "There's someone I gotta meet," he says with casual, but deliberate, malice. "I've got the keys to the door," he informs her, "and you've got the keys to . . . the street." Now there's a punch line that really packs a punch (more like a dagger to the ribs).

"I may be gone for quite some time / But I will return," he begins -- fair enough. But then he goes on, coolly, "Where I'm going, what I'm doing / That is my concern." Excuu-uuse me. And if she needs an explanation, he's happy to supply one: "I'm just getting even / If you've been keeping score" -- and you just KNOW she has been. In the next verse, he reminds her that she put a detective on his tail to find out "who I'm seeing / IF I'm seeing anyone at all." These people have obvious trust issues, in psychobabble terms, and now he's deliberately keeping her in suspense, knowing that that's more agonizing than anything else. But before we rake this guy over the coals for tormenting her, check out the end of the verse: "I've had my share of waiting / Staring at the wall." So she's been fooling around too, and turnabout is fair play . . . isn't it?

The hypnotic repeated organ and guitar riffs give me a feeling that these people aren't just cheating on each other -- they're still tangled up in jealousy and revenge, still focused more on each other than on whatever new partners they've found. It's a dance, and an ugly one all right. Brilleaux's vocal has enough weariness and hurt and hostility to put this all across, and more.

This song was co-written by ex-Kursaal Flyer Will Birch, the producer on their first Stiff album (who also wrote the definitive book about pub rock, No Sleep Till Canvey Island, which I've finally acquired and can't wait to read). Another song Birch co-wrote for Dr. Feelgood, "Spy Vs. Spy," is also about a relationship full of suspicion and recriminations -- you've got to wonder how autobiographical this is. Some songs just have that jolt of hard-lived experience to them. I can imagine hearing this song sung, for a change of pace, late in the set in a smoky club -- and feeling suddenly, starkly, alone. And pissed-off. And ready to DO something about it.

Don't Wait Up sample.

"Inbetweenies" / Ian Dury & the Blockheads

Did anybody ever record more glorious nonsense than Ian Dury and the Blockheads? What a combination: this scruffy pub singer with the thick Cockney accent, backed by an extended funky jazz combo -- this in the days of stripped-down punk rock -- pouring out songs that sounded incredibly dirty, if only you could figure out what he was saying. Dirty, but also wickedly funny. (Just consider some of these song titles -- "There Ain't 'alf Been Some Clever Bastards," "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick," and the iconic "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll.") When I first heard Do It Yourself in 1978, I sat on my apartment floor with my friend Susan and we just laughed over and over, putting the needle back to replay every track until we got all the words.

I never saw Ian live, but I've seen films of him: a frail-looking geezer with a horrible limp (due to childhood polio), clinging fiercely to the microphone stand and distracting everybody from his affliction with that huge kerchief he kept flinging around. And that slapdash singing style, half talking, missing as many notes as he hit -- but the band, oh the band was tight, a well-oiled machine with a rhythmic groove that never failed. Who knows why it worked . . . but it did.

I'm not laying money on this, but I imagine "Inbetweenies" as a song about two friends, both of them between affairs, having a spot of sex just to keep their hand in, so to speak. Or, as Ian puts it, with a Noel Coward-like flair, in the second verse: "As serious as things do seem / At least you've put me on the team / And friends do rule supreme." Later on in the song, he adds, "Do lift the heart of my morale / To know that we are pals." But most of the rest of it is so frankly about lovemaking, I get flushed despite myself -- lines like "Shake your booty / When your back is bent / Put your feelings /Where my mouth just went." And somehow, Ian's exuberant off-key squawk makes it all so friendly, you find yourself thinking, "Oh hell, why not?" The back-up vocalists are chanting "Inbetweenies" over and over, the piano goes rippling all over the place, the saxophone wails in and out, and that rock-solid bass-and-drums unit grooves right along. You know you're coming along for the ride -- why fight it?

By the time you get to a goofy verse like "Spread your chickens / When you think of next / What the Dickens / If they're highly-sexed?" (with electronic clucking exploding around the word "chickens" ), you've stopped worrying whether it makes sense. If it feels good, just do it, that's the credo of "In Betweenies" -- or as Ian sings right at the outset: "In the mirror, when I'm debonair / My reactions are my own affair." He's flipping the bird at middle-class propriety, but that cheeky Upminster grin makes it more than all right.