“I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass” / Nick Lowe

I know I've been MIA for a week or so, but that's what happens when a fangirl sneaks off into the Rock 'n' Roll Zone.  Graham was there with his old band, and Nick kept showing up with his new band (love that Geraint!);  I'm told Greg T. was over by the bar, and Tim and Landon and the Scotts and Jahn wandered in and out, washed on a river of the house pinot noir.  Where were you, Mike?  We were breaking glass, and going west, and shakin' on the hill and living on a battlefield night after night, with the lady doctor and the village idiot and the bride who used to rock and roll in a black Lincoln Continental. Sorry, officer!  And y'know, even if you only know one person from Canada, your new friend from the great north is bound to know him too.

But I digress. Nursing a somewhat delicate head this morning, the best I can offer in the way of explanation is a rerun of this earlier post. . . .
























Nick Lowe is often called the Godfather of Punk, most likely because when Stiff Records blazed onto the scene, he was (largely by default) their house producer. But Nick himself didn’t record much that I’d call punk music. Even this 1978 track (you'll find it on the recently re-issued Jesus of Cool) --  it may have punk attitude up the wazoo, but it's still a giddy syncopated pop track, sung lightly and tongue-in-cheek.


In the four years since he’d left Brinsley Schwarz, Nick had released a couple Stiff singles, produced other artists (Elvis Costello, the Damned), and gone on the road with the legendary Stiff Tour, but didn’t record an album of his own until Jake Riviera left Stiff to form Radar Records. By then Nick was playing with the core of musicians who would eventually tour as Rockpile – Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner, Terry Williams – though for contractual reasons they had to release their LPs as solo acts. This track, however, finds Nick working with former Brinsley keyboardist Bob Andrews, along with bassist Andrew Bodnar, drummer Steve Goulding, and -- in this video at least -- guitarist Martin Belmont. Which, as all you good little rock historians know, means it's the Rumour, that great ensemble that also backed up Graham Parker on his earliest LPs.

This song (which Nick wrote with Bodnar and Goulding) is a perfect expression of teenage nihilism – “I love the sound of breaking glass / Specially when I’m lonely / I need the noises of destruction / When there's nothing new.” MY NICK LOWE THEORY #2: The “I” in Nick Lowe songs is usually a character, but Nick’s such a chameleon, he can get into another person’s mind with total conviction. When this track came out, I’ll bet plenty of people thought Nick was advocating vandalism (just like people thought he was a hippie when he wrote “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace Love and Understanding,” though in interviews Nick says he thinks he was poking fun at flower children – he just can’t remember why).

After all, with the Clash and the Sex Pistols and the Stranglers around, anarchy was the order of the day; Nick had to deliver something in that vein. In a way, I suppose being at Stiff was Nick’s turn to be a juvenile delinquent. What can we get away with? This’ll piss off the old guard, won’t it? Wot larks.

But I feel no threat here, just a reckless sort of joy. The weird disconnect going on is textbook adolescence – the kid’s smashing windows in the deep of night just for the aural sensation, not out of any social rage or personal malice. He just likes the feeling it gives him to hear that sound. And the chorus’s call and response works perfectly – various phrases (“nothing new,” “all around,” “safe at last,” "change of mind” ) are invariably answered with “sound of breaking glass,” which Nick sings with a shrug, almost like a kid idly riffing through things to do. Whatever’s going on, hey, breaking glass is as good as anything. SMASH.

Granted, the song is too syncopated, and, at 3:05 minutes, too long to be standard punk issue; the arrangement isn't stripped-down enough, either. But thank god, because if it were stripped down we might not have Bob Andrews' fantastic electric piano, all these shattering glissandos, playing off the reverb chords on the guitar and the offbeat smash of a tambourine.  It’s like you can hear the rocks being pitched in the dead of night, echoing off the surrounding walls. And Nick’s voice floats carelessly over it all, the bass line lounging negligently beneath. I imagine him chewing gum as he sings, sticking out his tongue at his mates. Anarchy, yes, but the fun kind. You don’t have to throw rocks, you know, but with that hooky syncopation, you really DO have to dance.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE 
OMG, is it Wednesday again ALREADY?

1. "Veronica" / Elvis Costello
From Spike (1989)
As I recall, this was the album that made me "go off" Elvis -- despite this perky pop single co-written with Paul McCartney (that's him on the old Hofner bass, though I think EC dubbed his own backing vocals). It ticks along too briskly, the lyrics nearly unintelligible, as if Elvis was trying to disguise the fact that this is no love song, but a fretful rehash of "Eleanor Rigby."  That soaring, swinging melody though -- it's hard to resist.

2. "Eros' Entropic Tundra" / Of Montreal
From Satanic Panic in the Attic (2004)
Absurd song title aside (all Of Montreal's titles are overwrought like this), it's a winsome bit of indie pop, with a definitely Kinky flavor.  As Kevin Barnes miserably moans, "All I ever get / Is sa-a-ad love . . ."

3. "A Question of Temperature" / Balloon Farm
1967
Hazy, hectic, with an insistent beat -- this psychedelic classic, with a definite garage-y vibe, emanated from a New Jersey band that barely outlasted this one single's blip of underground success.  Thanks to my pal Blamo for introducing me to it on his famous Blast-o-palooza mix-tape CD; you can also find it on the first Nuggets set.

4. "You Want It" / The Village Green
From When the Creepers Creep In (EP, 2006)
Another rarity -- an impulse download from a quirky Seattle band with an uncanny predilection for neo-British Beat pop.  Most of this EP ended up on their later album, but "You Want It" mysteriously fell by the wayside. Too bad -- it glowers and lurks very nicely.

5. "Gospel Night" / Dave Alvin
From Blue Blvd (1991)
I love how Dave Alvin's slightly gruff voice narrates the unglamorous lives and loves of ordinary  people, the stuff of California trailer parks and roadside diners, served up with a whomping beat, honkytonk piano, and spanking guitar licks.

6. "League of Failures" / Jill Sobule
From California Years (2009)
Loveable losers -- does anybody get them better than Jill Sobule?

7. "Take Me With U" / Marshall Crenshaw
From What's in the Bag? (2003)
Marshall covering a Prince song?  Well, why not -- that foxy syncopation, those sneaky guitar riffs -- a perfect MC vehicle, it turns out.

8. "Love Like a Glove" / Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit
From Nick Lowe And His Cowboy Outfit (1984)
Another cover -- as it happens, Nick singing his then-wife Carlene Carter's song.  Rather an undistinguished cut, I have to say.  And I'm not jealous of Carlene Carter at all.

9. "Say It Isn't True" / Alan Price
From Liberty (1989)
And yet another cover, this one of a Jackson Browne track from Lawyers in Love.  Alan must have loved this bittersweet song, because after making it the last cut on this rather obscure 1989 album, he threw an even longer version onto 1995's A Gigster's Life for Me. Alan's take is much more dramatic than Jackson's -- if only it didn't drift into bombastic overkill.

10. "One Irish Rover" / Van Morrison
From No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986)
Gotta love this Van classic, a tenderly lurching waltz with just a whiff of lonely self-pity.  Self-mythologizing, yes, but Van wears that soulful troubadour mask so convincingly.  A lovely song to [yawn] go to sleep on . . . .

"None Of Us Are Free" / Solomon Burke

Somewhere up in heaven, there's a gospel choir with a new voice -- the late great soul singer Solomon Burke, who never forgot that essential connection between soul and gospel music.  

This particular track found its way onto my iTunes thanks to a superb compilation album from the Blind Boys of Alabama -- an amazing record, featuring partners that range from Randy Travis to Lou Reed.  (Yes, you read that right.) The Blind Boys won't sing with you unless you're singing about the Lord -- they do have their standards -- and I have to say, not every track rings with the same conviction.  I'm also enamored of the duet with Asleep at the Wheel, "The Devil Ain't Lazy" (that's just a total hoot) but the finest track on this very fine album is the one with Solomon Burke, taken from his 2002 album Don't Give Up On Me.



I wasn't surprised to find out that Ray Charles was the first artist to record this song, but I was surprised to find out that his original was fairly recent -- 1993.  This song struck me from the very first listen like something you might have heard civil rights marchers singing to back in the early Sixties.  Sure, it's got a deeply funky undertow, but the main course of the song has that same dogged weariness as Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang," or Lee Dorsey's "Working in the Coal Mine."  Even odder, this song was written by those old pros Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, along with Brenda Russell -- yes, the same team who wrote "Blame It On the Bossa Nova" and "Sometimes When We Touch." It hardly seems like a your usual slickly expert Weil-Mann number, but there you go.

Once Ray Charles unleashed this on the world, it was snapped up by other artists -- Lynyrd Skynyrd, for one (a tasty 1997 cover) and, to complete the trifecta, Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave), who recorded it with guest stars Sting and Sheila E.  (I kid you not.)  They're all wonderful renditions, but really, who could compete with Solomon Burke's powerful, rich voice?  His round tones are oh, so steeped in woe, and the hair-breadth lags of his phrasing just quiver with regret.  Listening to this recording, you cannot doubt that life is a vale of tears.

And yet there are the Blind Boys, shaking their heads and echoing everything he says, and suddenly it's all about brotherhood, too. We're all in the same boat; nobody gets a free ride. It's a sad song, and yet incredibly uplifting too -- that's the magic of it.

"Cut the Cake" / Average White Band

Tomorrow is my birthday (though you'll probably be reading this on Friday, in which case it's today).  Oh, believe me, I've had enough of them that it's no big deal, and as per usual, absolutely nobody in my family has made any plans to celebrate the occasion.  But to be honest, my nose is a teensy bit out of joint.

So I'm going to throw myself a little party here. In years past, my birthday song of choice has been the traditional "Yer Birthday" by the Beatles.  This year, however, I thought I'd put a little F-U-N-K into the proceedings.



Hunh???  What are those white boys doing on Soul Train?

I have to confess, until about a month ago I didn't know this song's name.  I generally confused it with the Average White Band's other big number, "Pick Up the Pieces," and I couldn't have told you who performed either one.  If pressed to guess, I might have said Funkadelic or Parliament -- but Average White Band?  I had heard the name, but I assumed it was a Southern rock outfit.

Who cared?  It wasn't my kind of music, I firmly believed.  Forget the fact that anytime one of these songs would pop up in the background, I'd soon be chair-dancing and humming along.

I can't even recall why I started to listen to this song last week -- but for the first time, I actually paid attention and acknowledged how brilliant it is.  Out of curiosity, I started to Google around and learned that the Average White Band was, in fact, not only white as promised, but Scottish. With guys named Hamish and Malcolm and Robbie in the band, even (at least, in that first incarnation of the band, the one that originated the hits).  But in the era when they hit the charts -- 1975 to 1980 -- the last thing I wanted to know about was funk and disco.  I was living in the UK, just when they were making it big in the States, and came back to New York only to become obsessed with New Wave music.  These guys were SO off my radar.

Well, better late than never.  In lieu of having a real birthday cake, I'll just sing along with these guys. (And yes, I do know there's a subtext to all that "cake" and "piece" and "lick up the cream" -- it IS a funk song, after all.)  This track is like having a party in a box -- just open it up and the good times WILL begin.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Back on schedule! 

1.  "William It Was Really Nothing" / The Smiths
From Louder Than Bombs (1987)
Anybody here see 500 Days of Summer?  Remember that scene in the elevator where Joseph Gordon-Levitt finally strikes up a conversation with Zooey Deschanel?  It happens when he recognizes that she's listening to the Smiths on her iPod -- the sign of a kindred spirit. Actually she was listening to "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" -- the flip side to this 1984 single -- but let's not split hairs. Their sound is so distinctive, it's like walking into a room and being transported to the Planet of Morrissey. 

2. "The Lovecats" / The Cure
From Japanese Whispers (1983)
Still in British New Wave territory, with this spiky but highly danceable little track by the Cure, a.k.a. Robert Smith and whoever he's playing with now. When I first bought Boys Don't Cry, I never thought this was a band that would still be around 25 years later. Shows how much I know!  I love the alley cat meows tossed in, and that bang-on-a-can percussion.

3. "This Is Where I Belong" / Bill Lloyd
From The Modern Genius Of Ray Davies (Mojo magazine giveaway, 2006)
One of the better Kinks tribute albums (amazing how many of those are around when you start digging). Lloyd throws a little extra good ol' boy twang into this iconic Kinks track, an interesting idea.  Personally I prefer Ron Sexsmith's version (on -- he captures the oddball neurotic edge of Ray Davies's original. (Borderline agoraphobic, more like.) But this track lured me into exploring Lloyd's other music, which I like a good deal. Note to musicians: Those tribute album tracks DO snare new listeners. 

4. "Alex Chilton" / The Replacements
From Pleased To Meet Me (1987)
Still in the 1980s, but now in American post-punk garage rock territory (actually, more like basement rock.) No wonder Paul Westerburg developed a man-crush on ex-Big Star leader Alex Chilton -- the album was recorded in Chilton's hometown Memphis, with Jim Dickinson producing, and Chilton joined them on guitar for "Can't Hardly Wait."  Of course, after Chilton heard this track, I don't think he ever spoke to Westerburg again. So it goes.  

5. "A Heartbeat" / Roman Candle
From Oh Tall Tree in the Ear (2009)
At last, a newer song, but frankly this irrepressibly cheery gem has such a classic pop sound, it could have been written anytime between 1962 and 2010. I love this little North Carolina band -- check out my previous post.  

6. "Something Better Beginning" / The Kinks
From Kinda Kinks (1965)
One of my favorite British Invasion tracks EVER.

7. "Cold River" / John Hiatt
From Master of Disaster (2005)
Love this album -- it came out the season when I first discovered Hiatt's music, and I gorged on it.  I just noticed a line that never struck me before -- about a woman slipping on her stockings, "and it made the sweetest sound." (Remember when he tells his girl in "Drive South," "don't bother to pack your nylons"?) John knows that equation:  Lingerie = intimacy.

8. "Art Lover" / Holly Ramos
From Racehorse (2006)
What is it, Kinks covers night?  Interesting twist, to have a woman singing this song, with its creepy hints of pedophilia. (Borderline twisted stuff comes so naturally to Ray Davies.)  I interviewed Holly back in 2006 when this album came out; she has just the right waifish punk charm to pull it off.

9. "Cushie Butterfield" / Alan Price
From Geordie Roots and Branches
No links, sorry.  This album is an obscurity indeed -- a charity effort by some Newcastle bank, which ex-Animals bassist Chas Chandler produced; he roped in his old bandmate Alan Price to sing a bunch of traditional English folk songs. I know this song well, not from pub singalongs but from a kids' music album my toddlers listened to incessantly -- "Cushie Butterfield" was Sting's contribution.  (Those guttural Northern vowels -- priceless!) A great little ditty with a sea shanty lilt.

10. "Lady Scarface" / Lydia Lunch
From Queen of Siam (1991)
One of the joys of internet fan forums is that from time to time folks do CD mixes for each other, which is how this offbeat Lydia Lunch track ended up in my iTunes.  It's a deliciously kinky little spoken word number, kinda Gothic cabaret in mood, with Lydia's kittenish pout tilting toward the psychotic. (She's all whips and handcuffs to the dirty raincoat of Holly Ramos' "Art Lover".) Is there an arc here, from the Smiths through the Replacements to Lydia Lunch?  Maybe, but who can tell at this time of night?

Sunday Shuffle

Hunh?  Well, I was on the phone all day Wednesday with my new Norton friends, plucking out a virus from the bowels of my computer.  Best laid plans and all that. But who's to say we can't take the Shuffle out for a Sunday drive?

1. "My Love" / Paul McCartney and Wings
From Red Rose Speedway (1993)
Now, you know I love Paul McCartney.  But this song may be too schmaltzy even for me. Gorgeous melody, hideously overblown production, embarrassingly adolescent lyrics. What exactly is IT that his love does so well (or, excuse me, so "good")?  As if we couldn't guess.

2. "Secondary Modern" / Elvis Costello and the Attractions
From Get Happy! (1980)
And now the antithesis of schmaltz -- Get Happy!, my favorite EC album. This song always makes me think of a creepy janitor ("down in the basement") molesting high school girls. Just listen to Elvis' heavy-breathing vocal, and that stalker bass line.  How this manages to be such a fun track is beyond me.

3. "Personality Crisis" / The New York Dolls
From New York Dolls (1972)
More snarky fun. I completely missed the Dolls, but it doesn't really matter when you got on the David Johansen train -- once you're aboard, it's time for fun. Arch those eyebrows, honey. Who knew drag queens could rock out like this?

4. "Let's Pretend" / Greg Trooper
From The Williamsburg Affair(2010)
Time to dial down the irony now.  "Let's go down where the rivers meet / And pretend we never moved to Lonely Street" -- behind this gently rollicking roots rocker lies a ton of wistful wishful thinking. Like "Dead End Street" with less satire, a tale of two losers still trying to live on love. 

5. "Get Back" / The Beatles
From Let It Be (1970)
Proof that Paul McCartney doesn't need to wallow in schmaltz.  A part of me will always be on that Mayfair rooftop, with John Lennon in his fur coat and Paul in full black beard, treating London to the greatest free concert ever.  Get back, Loretta!

6. "D Is for Dangerous" / The Arctic Monkeys
From Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007)
When the first Arctic Monkeys album came out, British critics were raving that they were the best band ever.  Well, here's the acid test -- just listen to the Arctic Monkeys right after the Beatles.  It's no contest.  A nice hectic bit of BritPop, though, and I do love those thick guttural accents.  

7. "Pink Bedroom" / John Hiatt
From Two Bit Monsters (1979)
Didn't we have this on the last Shuffle?  The iPod must really like early Hiatt. Well, her bedroom's still pink -- and so is the Barbie Ferrari.

8. "Think Sometimes About Me" / Sandie Shaw
From The Collection (compilation)
Now here's schmaltz done right.  Those 60s girl singers were never afraid of drama -- listen to the lovely Sandie fling her heart into the ring, making that ex-boyfriend wonder why he left her.

9. "Indoor Fireworks" / Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello
From Live At Slims (1994)
Not fair, really -- a bootleg of a concert where Elvis came on as a special guest.  "This is a song Elvis wrote, and I stole off him," Nick introduces it.  Well, for the record, here is Elvis's version; Nick's is on Rose of England. I happen to know that Nick and Elvis did a whole show together in San Francisco last Friday night, singing each other's songs -- I'll bet this one was on the set list. It KILLS me that I missed that show.

10. "Gai-Gin Man" / Nick Lowe
From Party of One (1995)
Oh, come on, Shuffle, twist the knife!! I know he's still out on the West Coast, singing to other people than myself. From the greatly underrated Party of One  -- Dave Edmunds, producer! -- a spanking little rockabilly number about a tall blue-eyed man touring Japan. (Remember what a big hit "Bay City Rollers We Love You" was in Japan?)  A bit of a novelty number, maybe, but trust me, it's more fun than a barrel of Arctic Monkeys.

"Good As Ever" / 
Works Progress Administration

What's in a name?   Well, here's a case study.  Of course I knew there was a band out there in the 90s called Toad the Wet Sprocket, but something about that name made me assume it was a punk metal thrash band.  They were young, they were from California, they were totally outside my frames of reference, back in those days between MTV and Sirius when I didn't have any decent channel for finding new music.  Even though I'm sure I heard some of their big songs -- like All I Want or Fall Down -- I never connected song to band, and remained blissfully ignorant that this was actually a band I would have liked, and liked a lot.

Same thing with Nickel Creek.  Nickel Creek, Nickleback -- who knew which was which?  And because every Nickleback song I ever heard was obnoxiously loud and boring, I would never have paid attention to Nickel Creek, until a friend's daughter started dating mandolinist Chris Thile.  I finally hauled myself to one of their shows and fell in love with their indie bluegrass sound.  Unfortunately, that was on their "farewell for now" tour, so goodbye Nickel Creek. (Okay, okay, they're just on a break. Or so they say.)

I'd have missed Works Progress Administration, too, if they hadn't included a cover of the Kinks' "I Go To Sleep". Thankfully the Kinks network does not allow any covers to go unnoticed, and so I hunted down this track.  I discovered to my delight that Works Progress Administration is a bizarre sort of supergroup, combining (get this line-up) fiddler Sara Watkins and her brother, guitarist Sean Watkins, from Nickel Creek; Lyle Lovett's fiddler Luke Bulla; Tom Petty's keyboardist Benmont Tench; Elvis Costello's drummer Pete Thomas; Elvis's AND Hohn Hiatt's bassist Davey Faragher; and the incredible Greg Leisz, who's played various stringed instruments for everybody from Smashing Pumpkins to Sheryl Crow. And the presiding spirit of all this seems to be Toad the Wet Sprocket's leader, Glen Phillips. Who knew?

It's just an insanely good album, by the way, with track after track featuring each of these amazing artists. It really does feel like a community effort, a collaboration among music-loving musicians who dig each other's work and are happy to share the spotlight.  (How refreshing!)  Nevertheless, my big question after listening to this album was:  Who is this Glen Phillips?



This particular WPA track has been teasing my brain for weeks now.  I've got it on a couple of workout mixes on my iPod, and this stupid tiny iPod Shuffle that I've got doesn't display artist info -- so when that wheeze of fiddles starts up, I'm momentarily thrown.  Is this a country artist?  Alt.country?   Everybody in this project is clearly getting their twang on, though you could hardly help it, with all those fiddles around.

But then as soon as Glen Phillips starts singing those unrhymed, meandering verses, I'm thrown back into indie mode. (Maybe it's the juxtaposition of words like "fontanelle" and "bassinet" and "razor blades" that does it.)  "I feel too much and I'm sick of feeling" -- yup, that's perfect 21st-century sentiment. Yet that gently ticking tempo, the good-humored fiddles, and Phillips' ironic phrasing keeps the whole thing from going all dark and emo-punk.  By the time he gets to that last verse -- "Maybe it's a kind of genius / Finding fault in everything / If I had a palace in utopia / I'd obsess on the cracks beneath the sink" -- we're clued into his comic persona, the hapless mopey loser.

For something this laidback and unassuming, it actually turns out to be a major earworm.  I still can't figure out where the hooks are, though -- those ever so slightly discordant fiddle riffs? The moody key change at the end of the chorus? Maybe it's just the way Phillips pronounces "fontanelle." He knows the audience is going to giggle there.

I guess it's no surprise that a song by the Kinks would show up on this album -- the smart cool kids gets the Kinks, even the ones in sunny California. (Especially the ones in sunny California, maybe -- there's a reason why The 88 are Ray Davies' new pet band.)  These guys get character, they get irony, and they've got the musical chops to back it up, enough chops to attract veterans like Benmont Tench and Greg Leisz. They deserve a better name than Works Progress Administration, for all its sincere Depression-era resonance.  But hey, knowing how fluid the indie scene is these days, they'll probably change it next month anyway.  I just hope I'll find it in time!