If There Is Something More Than This - Roxy Music

Roxy Music

Seeing Bryan Ferry perform at the Palace Theater in Columbus last night got me reminiscing about my history with Roxy Music.

Becoming an alternative music fan in the early 90s I always heard that I was supposed to like Roxy Music. And I guess I did a little. Every now and then the local alt-rock station would give me "Avalon" or "More Than This" and I thought "Gosh, that's nice sounding music." I even remember being in a college friends' dorm room when she said "Just put on one of my records" and I grabbed her copy of "Avalon."  "Ooh, stylish," she said.  And yeah, that was my impression of Roxy Music. Stylish. Smooth. Nice.  But nothing exciting. I mean, if there's nothing more than this, I'm not going to find myself lining up to see this singer perform 24 years later. But then again, if there IS something....

There is. There is something that I might find. Turns out maybe I had too much cheesecake too soon. A few years after my college days my friend Rich told me I was crazy to not love Roxy Music. We all had (or should have had) a friend like Rich in those days. He was about 25 years older than me, and had been through those years with the same rock sensibilities I was developing. (Rich was also the one who got me hooked on Julian Cope, by the way.) So as happened in those days, Rich gave me a cassette. And the first song on that cassette was "If There Is Something." Oh I know this song. It's all right, I've heard the Tin Machine version.

Well, turns out this is one rare occasion where David Bowie doesn't make a song better.(in case anyone doesn't know, Tin Machine was Bowie's hard rock side project in the early 90s. Good stuff, but not so much on this one cover.) I mean Damn!!! This isn't the same song at all! And this is definitely not the Roxy Music that I know. Well I eventually learned that I had just started with the wrong Roxy Music. And since I was running 40-50 miles a week and pretty much only knew how to cook frozen pizzas and fried potatoes I was blown away that a rock song would contain the line "growing potatoes by the score."

Of course in the ensuing 21 years I've had the pleasure of discovering the rest of the Roxy Music catalogue.  It's not just beautiful models on album covers. If you want the pretty, stylish, soft and sexy sound check out Bryan Ferry's solo career. You want some incredible, never-duplicated glam/prog rock with weird Brian Eno noises thrown in all over the place...here you go!

I'm including  versions of the three songs I most hoped I would see played last night. (I got two of them)

Editions of You from John Peel Session

If There Is Something from John Peel Session

Casanova

Buy Roxy Music On Amazon
(and if you want my advice, stick to "Roxy Music" "For Your Pleasure" "Country Life" and "Stranded"

The Road Gets Darker From Here - Gallon Drunk

Gallon Drunk

My love of the band Gallon Drunk has been an exercise in patience and persistence.  While I was definitely predisposed to like them, it took me several years to truly catch on.
I first heard of the band the same way I heard about everything those days, due to Nick Cave. Gallon Drunk frontman James Johnston was a guest musician when Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds toured as part of Lollapalooza in 1994. This was when I was starting to realize that anyone associated with Nick Cave probably had another band I wanted to hear (Einsturzende Neubaten, Crim and The City Solution, Magazine. I wasn't yet onto the Triffids).  So this Johnston guy, eh? What's his band? Gallon Drunk huh? All right I'll file that away for later.

"Later" turned out to be 1996 I found myself in a record store in Denver. I can't recall, but I was probably looking for one of two things. Either a bootleg of Nick Cave singing happy birthday to his grandmother when he was 4 years old, or some pretty music I could listen to with the Irish girl. But I found three inexpensive Gallon Drunk CDs instead. And Gallon Drunk was not "pretty" music.

At first, I didn't think Gallon Drunk was that impressive music either. Seemed to have an okay formula. Get a heavy driving bassline, add a bunch of hoots and hollers and some growled lyrics and you had a pretty good song. But to my ears at the time, they all pretty much sounded like the same song. Like I said, it's good stuff. It just didn't completely grab me yet.

Then came 1996's "In The Long Still Night".  That bassline is still kicking ass, but now there's more tunefulness. And love those keyboards! (Full disclosure, when I go back and hear those first few albums, the keyboards melodies are there. I just didn't realize it yet.) They found a way to highlight what had been minor elements in their music before and yet not lose any of what made them Gallon Drunk to begin with.

I'd love to say that I became a Gallon Drunk devotee for life. But I lost touch when the band took a long hiatus after their great 2007 album "The Rotten Mile." Not my fault. right? The band stopped, Sure but when they came back around in 2012 where was I? Honestly? I was wasting too many brain cells on how many pairs of f#@kin' socks people were buying at my store. So it took me until 2016 to get back into the "New" Gallon Drunk and James Johnston, but thank goodness that I have. They've released two great albums since returning and James has just released his first solo record. Oh, and he's been touring as part of both PJ Harvey's band, and Mick Harvey's (no relation) "Serge Gainsbourg" tour. James Johnston. It's time to pay attention to this guy.

Take This Poison from 1996

A Thousand Years from 2012

James Johnston Solo "I'd Give You Anything" 2016

Buy Gallon Drunk music on Amazon

I'm Too Scared To Even Walk On Past - Nick Cave

Nick Cave

I had to do it eventually. I've mentioned Nick Cave in so many posts already that it was only a matter of time before the man gets his own page. I've put this one off as long as I could, but no more.
So it's early 1994. I'm drugged up a bit on pain medication (hernia surgery) and whiny melancholy. The two roommate girls I liked (I wasn't greedy, I'd have been happy with either of them) are both at a dance event with friends of mine. And I'm lying in bed. All right. I'll put on that tape some dude sent me in exchange for some Lou Reed albums and then I'll just drift off to sleep. The tape was Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' "From Her To Eternity" on one side and "The Firstborn is Dead" on the other. And I was high-tech, man. I had a tape player that would automatically play the other side when the first was done.
If you know those albums, you know they aren't the kind of stuff you go to sleep to. At least not comfortably. So I drifted off to terrifying dreams about falling down wells, being chained to rocks, and a giant fly pulling my limbs off like a demented child. But I woke up to an "extra" song.  Seems the guy who made me the tape had some extra room so he threw on a song from Nick's then current album "Henry's Dream".  The song was "John Finn's Wife" and I was spellbound. The painkillers and the whiny teen female rejection angst probably had something to do with it too! Now I don't understand how great music is made (proof here) but that two note string melody that essentially makes up an instrumental chorus to the song was suddenly the only sound I ever wanted to hear!

Previously I had heard Nick and thought of him as something of a novelty from this song (which I heard from a Soundtrack a friend and I won by placing 3rd in a three-legged race.) And then there were the old newsgroups. Anyone remember those newsgroups? alt.music.alternative or alt.music.leonard-cohen etc.  Damn I wish those old posts were archived somewhere. Well anyway I met a guy named Maurice Maes (anyone know how to get in touch with Maurice these days?) on the Leonard Cohen newsgroup. He kept telling me I gotta try this guy Nick Cave. I posted some diatribe about how the Holy Trinity of Rock was Lou Reed, Neil Young and Bob Dylan and he said "You gotta check out Nick Cave."  I posted "My knees hurt," and he said "You gotta check out Nick Cave."  I posted "Oh God, imagine if this D. Trump asshole ever had any sort of political power," and he said "You gotta check out Nick Cave."

I checked out Nick Cave. It worked. Nick also opened the Australian music floodgates for me. If you want an index of great Australian bands, here's what you do. Get out all your Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds albums, and then research everyone you see named in the credits either as a band member or guest and next thing you know you're in the Aussie rabbit hole and you're begging some dude on the internet to send you taped copies of Tex Deadly And The Dum Dums gigs.

And with this, I now have a post up for each of my current Big 4. The Fall, Luke Haines, Julian Cope and Nick Cave. And yeah, I'm seeing Nick in Detroit in July of this year! Can't wait.

Proof that Nick's as good as ever

Buy Nick's Music on Amazon

Nick Cave fans might like these pages:

Beasts Of Bourbon

Stuart Staples of Tindersticks

The Fall

The Moodists

The Scientists

PJ Harvey

Don't Ya Don't Ya Wish Ya Met Her Sooner - PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

I never got rid of her. So it's 1994, I'm at Lollapalooza in Columbus, Ohio. There's only one artist I'm there to see. The friends I'm with are ridiculing me "Huh huh. You just wanna see 'Nick the Cave'. He sounds dumb. We're waiting for the good music, Green Day and Smashing Pumpkins."  To be fair, there's a good chance I was being a smug little prick about it myself though (Yeah, I only weighed about 150 then, I was definitely little.) When Nick did play, me and like three other people near me seemed interested. So eventually I ended up talking to some dude. I don't remember who he was. But he told me to check out PJ Harvey. It was 1994, and I was 20. I was practically begging to find more great music so I followed this guy's suggestion.

I went to a store soon after and bought a CD. Damn!!! She rocks pretty hard for a woman!

Wait a minute!  (Come on, click it. Please? It's only 4 seconds)

"Rocks pretty hard for a woman!" What does this mean? Well, you see, woman normally make softer, prettier music cuz women are softer and prettier than men. Wait really? Do we men play guitars with our cocks? No, but see women are supposed to make gentle music. They're just not naturally as good at hard-rocking masculine music. Really? But this PJ Harvey kicks us just like plenty male artists.  Yeah, she's a rarity, a woman who can rock like a man.

This isn't Greg vs. The Patriarchy here. This is Greg talking with Greg. So Greg tried to learn and grow a little bit. I mean, if I ignore women singers there's a chance I'm missing out on a ton of great music. But still, when I look through my collection I don't find that many women artists. Why is that Greg? Oh well you see, I'm more open to female artists now. But I just don't identify with them as much. You know, cuz I'm a man. So when I listen all alone at home and shout along with the music I can't pretend I'm the singer like I can with Nick Cave or David Bowie. Oh I see. So when you sing along with Nick Cave you identify with him better than PJ Harvey or Chrissie Hynde. But Nick Cave is 6'3" and really skinny and we're 5'10" and chubby. Come on Greg, stop insulting us. Okay but the point is we aren't like Nick Cave either. We've arbitrarily chosen the possession of an attached weiner to determine whether we can identify with an artist.  Oh. I get it. Well maybe we can sing along with PJ Harvey too! "I've lain with the devil, cursed god above. Forsaken heaven, TO BRING YOU MY LOVE!!!" Yeah! That feels pretty good! 

And now it's 2017 and I'm considering NOT going out of town to see PJ Harvey play. Two of my favorites, Mick Harvey (Bad Seeds, awesome solo career) and James Johnston (Gallon Drunk) are in her band. And I'm all worried about spending the money. And yet I spent $40 on some damn film festival....don't get started. The upshot is, I really need to figure out how to get myself to one of those shows. 

Oh, and one little note. If you go to the local record store to buy PJ Harvey records, you might have to look two places. Originally the band was called PJ Harvey so technically should be listed in the "P" section. But since the singer is Polly Jean Harvey I think you'll still usually find them in the "H" sections. Perhaps a little unintentional nod to Alice Cooper there.

If you feel like it, tell me in the comments how dumb I am for considering  not going. And be like the guy I met at that show in 1994, tell me about the other women I should be listening to now.

Rid Of Me live on youtube

Buy PJ Harvey music on Amazon

We're All Looking For That Something - The Scientists

The Scientists

Back to Australia for a bit here. Now here's a band that took some work for me to track down.

It's 1997. I've officially gone nuts for the Aussies. And I keep hearing about this dude named Kim Salmon and his band the Scientists. There are echoes of their existence on other albums I owned, such as "Kim's Dirt" from the first Dirty Three album (which Salmon wrote.) And there was a huge enticing entry on Kim Salmon in the true bible of all things Rock and Roll at least up until 1991.  All right cool. Sounds great, let me check out this band The Scientists.

Not so fast. The Scientists turned out to be the most difficult Australian band for me to acquire. I found a few albums by Kim Salmon and the Surrealists (Kim's later project), but this supposedly legendary, influential rock'n'roll behemoth remained unattainable. I was pissed on this planet that I couldn't find copies of Scientists albums like "Pissed on Another Planet."  My Australian hook-up couldn't help me. Goldmine magazine couldn't help me. The legendary rock band from Columbus that I was talking to at a party (New Bomb Turks, by the way) couldn't help me (though they told me it would be worth the search.) So while my frustration grew so did the legend of how f--in' great the Scientists would be.

So sometimes you just gotta keep talking to people cuz you never know when you'll say the right thing to the right person. (As an aside, I should probably apply that concept to my current job search.) So one day I'm in a theatre "rehearsal."  Okay, really I'm sitting around while the fearless leader tries to re-animate a corpse or affix a dildo to Tiresias or something. And I noticed the scary goth opera girl I had a little crush on was carrying around a Nick Cave LP. So I started talking rock'n'roll. Now maybe another dude would have thought "Cool, the gorgeous girl has something in common with me, maybe I can work this into a date." Well I was thinking "Cool, the gorgeous girl has something in common with me, maybe she can make me a tape. If she doesn't decapitate me."

Well wouldn't you know, the scary goth opera girl DID have some Scientists music. "Yeah, I'd be happy to put that on tape for you. But why are you hiding in the corner?"

So I finally had my Scientists!!! And maybe the music wasn't the earth-shaking revelation I had built it up to be but it was still damn good. Eventually I was able to round out the collection with some original vinyl.
Kim Salmon has continued to put out some really diverse albums with the Surrealists, The Business and several other groups. According to Wikipedia, he also teaches music as a "day job."  What kind of world do we live in where Kim Salmon has to have a day job.

Oh, a few months ago I ran into the scary goth opera girl again. And she's not so scary (she's got all of my records.)  Turns out she's incredibly nice and in an awesome new band with her husband. Check them out.  And check out the Scientists.

Set it on fire by the Scientists

Nowadays you can buy music by The Scientists on Amazon

Here's Your Chance To Make Me Feel Awkward - Jonathan Richman

Jonathan Richman

This blogpost today concerns, rocker Johnny!!! He never sucks, he's always great!

So you like the Velvet Underground they say. Well you should listen to Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers then. Jonathan himself was a big fan and he even used to sleep on Lou Reed's couch. Plus, John Cale of the VU produced their first album.  All right yeah! I'm in. Let's find some records.

That's how it started for me, and the first Modern Lovers album fits the bill. Okay, these guys are a little wacky, but there's some damn good rock riffs going on there ("Astral Plane" "She Cracked" etc.) Definitely something a Velvet Underground fan can appreciate.

 Okay, Let's try some more. Uh oh. What's this shit? "Hey There Little Insect," "I'm A Little Dinosaur", A non-ironic "cover" of "The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round."  What the hell is going on here? The edgy Boston rocker with a slight naive streak seems to have suddenly transformed into a guy you would hire for a kids' 6th birthday party.

 I won't pretend to really know what changed with Jonathan so early in his career. I've heard two theories. One was that once a musician finds himself a bit more popular with the ladies, the edge and anger are gone. The other theory is more fun, comes from Jonathan himself and can be heard here.  (explanation begins at about 1:20)

So it took me some time to get onto the Jojo happy wavelength. To be honest, I think the more my friends complained about hearing "-a-neat, a-neat, a-neat" the more entrenched I became. And it sure didn't hurt that his songs made the Irish girl smile, which at that time in my life was the most beautiful sight in the world for me. And that's enough 1996 reminiscing for right now.


And being that I think of myself as possessing a completely unique (and therefore often unappreciated) style of humor, no song could be more pertinent than this one.

She Doesn't Laugh At My Jokes - Jonathan Richman

And here's some of that earlier work

Buy Jonathan's music on Amazon

P.S.  Yes, this is the guy you saw on "Something About Mary"

What About Greg? He's Dead, Well He's Aliiiiiive! - The Moodists

The Moodists

There are no girls that I was smitten with in this post. Nonetheless this is a story of lost love.

It's unfair to the Moodists that they share in this sad story of a waning of passion. It has nothing to do with their music. To quote Bob Dylan somewhat incorrectly, "they just happened to be there, that's all."

But first let's give the Moodists their due. Another Australian band that could (and still can as evidenced from some 2015 videos of them reuniting in what looks like some guys' living room!) rock circles around the majority of career rock n' rollers out there. I learned about them when asking for a recommendation from the original Greg's Music World (Australian Mail Order CD house I used to build my collection in the late 90s). "You'll probably like Dave Graney."  So they send me this CD that's mostly soft (well, and sexy as the title said) lounge singer material. Gregs know Gregs though, and I caught on and loved it pretty quickly.
Anyone remember the Trouser Press Alternative Music Guide? A book (physical thing that used to contain pages and words before the internet) containing all (well at the time I thought it was all) the music I would ever want to know about. Holy shit, the entries are all online now!!! (No duh Greg, you just never thought to look until now!) Well anyway, the entry on Dave's old band The Moodists was incredibly intriguing to me, "graduates of the thump n' grind school of gothic punk."  Yeah, man let's check that out!!!
Alas, Greg's Music World informed me none of the Moodists material was still available. And thus began the great search. The Moodists' records became the holy grail of rock n' roll acquisition for me. I searched the record shows, the pages of Goldmine, sent e-mails to other record stores in Australia. And somehow I found some Vinyl singles and the awesome album "Thirsty's Calling."  But the ultimate jewel, the Double Life EP constantly eluded me.

And then one day I discovered I could put this internet thing INSIDE MY OWN HOUSE!!!! And from there, I could find anything!!! From downloads, orders, youtube there's nary a sound I can't find. This is the best thing ever!!!!!

But it's not the best thing ever. Yeah I acquired those songs from Double Life. And yeah, they were the best music they had ever done. It was worth the wait. So why isn't this the best thing ever?

The feeling wouldn't come back again. The Moodists were my last great Holy Grail of rock. There were things I just never realized about myself before. To quote Deep Purple as they used a cliche in a 1984 song that I never realized was about anal sex until I was much older, "It's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase."  And as time passed and I acquired every song I ever wanted to hear....the passion waned severely. And the poor Moodists will always be associated in my mind as the band that brought on the change.

Well times change and people change. Writing this little music blog is helping me re-charge my passion, and the Moodists are now poised to be apart of the revival. So listen to "Double Life" below and never forget to love rock n' roll.

Double Life Live

Buy most of the Moodists music on this awesome compilation