The Giant Panther

One of New England's finest exports in the 1980's was a band called The Pixies. I'm quite sure you have heard of them if you liked the Modern or Alternative Rock genre. With a few minor exceptions, The Pixies were mostly comprised of Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago and David Lovering. You may have noticed their much ballyhooed one off reunions over the past couple of years at strategic festivals. Their story has been told more than once. You also may have heard of how one time University of Massachusetts-Amherst college roommates Black Francis and Joey Santiago formed a band in 1986 and began recruiting band members. They found bassist Kim Deal allegedly by placing an ad requesting a female bass player that liked both folkies Peter, Paul & Mary and Husker Du. I really have no way of knowing what is true and what isn't, but legend has it Deal was the only one who responded to the ad and showed up for the audition without a bass guitar claiming she had no money to retrieve it from her native Ohio. On top of that she had never played the instrument if you believe the rumor. Apparently drummer David Lovering was discovered at Kim's own wedding reception. Different, but with the pieces now in place they began to build the legend...

I began thinking about The Pixies again this morning because my local alterna-rock station, WFNX, runs a feature every Thursday morning called "My Song is Better Than Your Song." I kind of like the bit, but they frequently fail to mention the song titles after the first time and they don't document the history of the game on their web site. It's kind of maddening because it takes place in a span of 15 minutes to half an hour and then they crown a champion. Voters are encouraged to continue the debate on their home page, but it basically ends right there. It would be a lot more fun if you could go to their web site and look at the history of what song beat what song. It's a futile pursuit of course, but if I miss a week or some guy is champion for weeks on end I want to follow his song titles. They might have made some improvements to their web site, I haven't checked in a while, but it was severely lacking when I last checked to try and track some of the history of the game. It is an interesting concept for someone with a little historical perspective on the station. I think I was listening to it before the morning crew were born, but that's on me I suppose. They rag on old time alternative legends like Roxy Music, which drives me up a wall (I can't communicate how much I love everything about Roxy Music including the name of the band), but they are just kids. I get that. But I love it when they get all bent out of shape when Mission of Burma's That's When I Reach For My Revolver tops Pearl Jam's Jeremy or Steppenwolf's The Pusher takes out Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart (don't quote me on that last match up...I'd reference it if I could). They frequently have older guests like Big Jim's Dad (Big Jim is the afternoon drive guy who also hates several bands I love) who won several weeks in a row with older tunes they would never actually play on WFNX. It's kind of fun to see how much perspective the actual listeners have and how many of them are in my age bracket. You can sort of tell by the votes and it's a fun curiosity for me.

The reason I tell the story is because this morning one of their sales guys brought Van Halen's Ice Cream Man to the My Song party. I love David Lee Roth led Van Halen, but Ice Cream Man has never been a favorite of mine. I know it's an old blues standard redone, but I would have picked a gazillion other Van Halen tunes to ostensibly go up against what will likely be a song they play on the station. The champion picked The Pixies' Dig For Fire from 1990's Bossanova. Predictably, Van Halen went down by a 4-1 margin even though this Pixies number is probably not in their top ten songs lifetime in my opinion. For those of you who don't know who The Pixies were, they had a brilliant seven year run from 1986 to 1993 or so. They had four studio albums and an EP. It doesn't sound like much, but what an impact. Nirvana and other bands have tipped their collective hat to this outfit from Boston. Combining surf music, punk rock and Black Francis' infatuation with all things UFO, this band's sound was characterized by soft and melodic excerpts frequently followed by harsh explosions of sonic noise. It was referred to as LoudQUIETLoud in their 2006 Rockumentary. You couldn't really put a handle on it, but you knew it was something totally different. It had some Sonic Youth and Husker Du attached to it, but it was definitely off the beaten path.

The Pixies had to wait until their third record for real "national" recognition. I say "national" because it's debatable whether they were ever really that big in the United States. Once they had established a bit of a foothold in Europe and Surfer Rosa gained some notoriety, they were able to sign a deal here in the States and get going. The first song I ever heard by The Pixies was "Gigantic." Whoa. 'Nuff said I thought to myself. Count me in. Many of their songs were short bursts of intensity and Gigantic was just perfect as far as I was concerned. Then I heard "Where is My Mind?" and I was an even more ardent Pixies fan. Everything sort of changed when they released Doolittle in 1989. Now they were stars. I will never get tired of listening to "Monkey Gone To Heaven" as long as I live. Songs like "Debaser" and "Wave of Mutilation" just put Pixies fever in overdrive 20 years ago. I know very well I will receive some criticism for what I'm about to type, but I liked Bossanova the best out of all of their records. It contained all kinds of "B" cuts. Aside from the radio friendly Dig For Fire you might have heard personal favorite "Is She Weird?" on the radio, but never today. It's a crying shame too. The Pixies were much greater than people even realize today. It just goes to show you what you hear on the radio or see on the charts is not necessarily indicative of greatness. They cobbled together one more record called Trompe Le Monde in 1991 before calling it a day. It's amazing that they could put together two more good records after it became public knowledge that Francis and Deal were having a power struggle. Thank god they squeezed out the song "U-Mass" before they expired. That song positively rocks! Black Francis famously notified band members Deal & Lovering of his cessation from their union via fax (remember those?) in January of 1993 officially ending their intial run as Monsters of Alternative Rock.

OK, I've got to shut myself off because I could go on all day about these guys and this post is already too long. The Pixies imploded due mostly to the egos of Black Francis and Kim Deal, but one of the greatest shows I have ever seen took place November 27, 1991 (the night before Thanksgiving that year) at The Orpheum Theatre in Boston. For my $20.50 I saw an unbelievable combination of intensity, musicianship and crowd worship. I walked out of their completely spent and talking to myself. How could this band be on the verge of breaking up? They clearly were ignoring each other to a degree, but WOW!...what a concert! After the breakup Kim Deal formed The Breeders with her sister Kelley and dominated the free world with the song "Cannonball" in 1993. Black Francis became Frank Black and also released a tremendous, but little known, self titled solo album in 1993 (go buy that one if you like The Pixies...trust me) before his career tailed off big time. The song I leave you with today is from Bossanova called "The Happening." If you don't own Bossanova you have never heard it, but it is very representative of The Pixies. Death To The Pixies? I think not!...

Today I thought we would celebrate the music of The UK's Siouxsie & The Banshees. When I came to school in the fall of 1978 I had no idea of who Siouxsie & The Banshees were. I always felt like I was musically adventurous, but it really wasn't the truth until the onset of the 1980's. Around that time I was still listening to Heart, Supertramp, Electric Light Orchestra, Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd along with my Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Doors, Floyd, Bowie, CCR, Who, Petty, Yes, Aerosmith, Sabbath, ELP, Crimson, Tull, Zeppelin, Moody Blue childhood core. It's enough to make The Giant Panther wretch, but there's nothing I can do about that. It's still my musical DNA. It's the baseline to what comes after. I can remember rummaging through my best friend's older sibling's record collections like a heat seeking missile thirsting for an unknown target. Joni Mitchell, It's a Beautiful Day, Love, The Byrds, Cream, John Mayall, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Buffalo Springfield, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, The Mama's & The Papa's...icons of the late 1960's...the list is endless. I was hooked unlike anyone else in my town including my friend Jim. We'd play rummy 500 or Strat-0-Matic (a baseball dice game for those of you not in the know) and go through six or seven albums at a sitting. We'd argue over the merits of Foghat or Alice Cooper and by 1974 or so I felt like had the best album collection in my town for a kid.

Coming to Boston after high school was an eye opener. There were so many local bands; The Neighborhoods, Mission of Burma, Berlin Airlift, The Dogmatics, The Cars, The Lyres, Robin Lane & The Chartbusters, Private Lightning, Willie Loco Alexander & The Boom Boom Band, Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, The J. Geils Band, Aerosmith, The Atlantics, The Real Kids, Human Sexual Response, The Nervous Eaters, The Outlets, The Del Fuegos, Classic Ruins, Unnatural Axe, The Real Kids, La Peste and countless others. They were being played on the radio, mostly WBCN and WCOZ in those days, right next to the big boys. It was hard to distinguish them from the national acts because I was hearing so many new sounds. I wasn't very familiar with the local club scene and it wasn't until I interned at WBCN for several years that I was able to make the distinction. WBCN wasn't perfect, but it did a tremendous job of promoting local music and local comedians.

Regarding Siouxsie & The Banshees; I first heard the song "Christine" from Kaleidoscope around 1980 and it stopped me in my tracks. I used to get it confused with another song from that era I just loved called "Echo Beach" by a Canadian act called Martha & The Muffins. I have always loved female singers fronting rock bands. You can laugh at Heart all you want, but before they went soft in 1987 with that awful mega selling What About Love single I really loved them. Ann & Nancy Wilson were great as far as I was concerned. And before you ask, yes I loved Joan Jett and any other woman who really rocked. Let the derision commence. Today I just love Karen O and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The new record is a bit soft, but Maps put 'em on the map so I shouldn't complain. They are going to have a hard time topping that debut in my opinion. Santogold are very good too and I just learned that their song "My Superman" was based in part on Siouxsie's "Red Light" from Kaleidoscope (thanks Wikipedia...I think). Pretty cool admission if you ask me (but no one ever does). The Banshees were very influential. Heck, even The Cure's Robert Smith played with them for a short while.

Siouxsie & The Banshees have an impressive catalogue of great tunes. In addition to Christine, they can list Hong Kong Garden, Happy House, Dazzle, Cities in Dust, Kiss Them For Me, Peek-a-Boo, Shawdowtime, Spellbound, their covers of The Beatle's Dear Prudence and Iggy Pop's The Passenger and the song I'm leaving you with today; The Killing Jar. Their 1988 release Peep Show was a big college radio hit and I was all over it. The band had been together for about 12 years by then and had plenty of success, but real commercial recognition had eluded them until then. Cities in Dust from 1986's Tinderbox was a pretty big single, but I would say their popularity peaked with 1991's Superstition and the single "Kiss Them For Me." It was a top ten alternative rock song for that year without a doubt. By 1995 the band had had enough. The party was over. I still enjoy the heck out of their catalogue though and the song "The Killing Jar" was always a favorite of mine. Enjoy.

I don't know why I'm filing this one under Guilty Pleasures because I don't feel guilty. Most people know Magic Carpet Ride or Born To Be Wild and that is the extent of their Steppenwolf education. Too bad for them. I had these 45's when I was a kid, make no mistake, but Steppenwolf was a great band and one of Canada's finest rock exports. Formed in 1967, this band sold over 25 million records. Sounds like nothing next to sales of say, U2, but in those days people didn't buy records, they bought singles. The Beatles and The Stones might have sold actual albums, but after that not too many bands were selling a lot of albums. Album Oriented Rock (AOR) radio was just getting started. Before that all you got was the 45 rpm single with an "A" side and "B" side.

One of my very first singles was The Box Tops version of Wayne Carson Thompson's The Letter. The "B" side, Happy Times, I couldn't tell you a thing about. Sometimes the "B" song was terrible. Another early single in my collection was The Rolling Stones' Honky Tonk Woman. The "B" side was "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Wow. Now there's a double whammy for your 99 cents or whatever I paid in 1969. Still other singles, like The Shocking Blue's "Venus" has an obscure "B" side like "Hot Sand." Hot Sand was a great track I still love to this day, but nobody I know has ever heard of it. As much as I loved Venus, I never came anywhere close to buying the whole album. It just wasn't done in those days. Today you have iPod Nation focusing on singles and mixed track play lists. It's really the same thing except we had crappy portable Close and Play turntables for our 45's. I may have mentioned in this space in the past that I held a yard sale and dumped all my Beatles 45's for pennies so I could buy bubblegum and baseball cards. Fool. Anyway...

Steppenwolf had several radio friendly hits besides the two mentioned above like Rock Me, but they were a blues band first and foremost in my opinion. Anybody who has heard their cover of Hoyt Axton's "The Pusher" from their first album and made famous by its inclusion on The Easy Rider Soundtrack knows what I'm talking about. What's ironic about this band is that they basically were given credit for coining the phrase "Heavy Metal" as it was used in the song "Born To Be Wild" to describe a Motorcycle's noise quotient. They were too heavy for the AM radio dial where they first made their bones, but they were not heavy metal. I could go on and on about why I loved this band or which songs were my favorites, but from 1968-1976 Steppenwolf was one of the biggest names in rock. Motorcycle clubs still gravitate to their music to this day. The record I'm taking the song I'm posting from is called Steppenwolf The Second. People will probably laugh and The Giant Panther will have yet another chuckle at my old wrinkly expense, but there isn't a bad cut on this record (nor the first record for that matter). I'm leaving you with one of my all time favorite Steppenwolf tracks called Don't Step On The Grass Sam. It's essentially a call for the legalization of marijuana, but it's more about telling the government to find more important things to worry about. It's got some great imagery and sound effects and it's bluesy as all get out. Truly a guilty pleasure as defined by me. Happy Memorial Day to everyone. This one's for the Veterans of the 60's. THANK YOU!

Goth Rock. Atmosphere. Depression. Self loathing. The color black. Hypnotic beats. Tribal sounds. Dirge like music. Dark lipstick. Heavy eye makeup. Pasty skin color. Dyed jet black hair. Far away eyes. Skeletal physiques. Body art. A particular fashion trend. Drum machines. The Cure. Sisters of Mercy. Siouxsie & The Banshees. Bauhaus. The Cult. Gene Loves Jezebel. Dead Can Dance. Killing Joke. The Fall. Fields of The Nephilim. The Mission UK. Mistle Thrush. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. Joy Division. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. This Mortal Coil. Tones On Tail. Love Like Blood. The Goth scene has always fascinated me. The culture of Goth is kind of interesting, but it's the music I've always loved. I don't know Peter Murphy or Robert Smith, like most people, but they represent the face of Goth to me. I'm very big fans of both. Today The Dresden Dolls and several others try to carry the flag, but to me it seems like Goth's time has come and gone (musically anyway). I don't mean that in any kind of derogatory way because I'm still a big fan of the genre some 30 years later, but I was never involved in the Goth culture. I might have felt disenfranchised at some point, but I never marched to the Everyday is Halloween mantra. That doesn't make me right or them wrong; it's just what my experience was. I never ran into it much until the early eighties. By the 1990's into this decade they were making movies like Blade, The Craft, The Crow and The Labyrinth that celebrated the Gothic way of life. Loved the movies, loved the music. Pretty cool when you think about it...

Regarding the music one of the many bands I loved from that era was Love and Rockets. Bauhaus is probably the mother of all Goth Rock bands. When lead vocalist Peter Murphy left the band in 1983 some of the remaining members, Daniel Ash, David J and Kevin Haskins formed Love and Rockets in 1985 after Ash and Haskins had spent a couple of years in Tones On Tail. Love and Rockets was not really a Goth band per se, but their music demanded your attention. I can still recall their cover of The Temptations' Ball of Confusion being played on TV's Miami Vice. Crockett and Tubbs doing their thing to Love and Rockets. The nation got a taste of Goth as millions watched. How cool was that?

Their first release, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven in 1985 didn't set the world on fire, but I thought it was great. Haunted When The Minutes Drag was an interesting track. Their followup to that was Express in 1986. I just loved this record. In addition to Ball of Confusion (US release) it had All in My Mind, It Could Be Sunshine and a tremendous track called Kundilini Express. Then they released Earth Sun Moon in 1987. I was all over this record when it came out. It had hits, sleepers, and even a folk song or two, but No New Tale To Tell rocked me hard. I still love this song. Two years later they released the self titled Love and Rockets with the single "So Alive" on it. The cumulative effect of the past three records pushed this one as high as #14 on the U.S. charts if you can believe what you read on Wikipedia. That's about as high a chart position as you'll ever see an alternative rock band rise. They never again reached these heights, but I'll always look fondly on my four Love and Rockets CDs even if my local alternative rock station, WFNX, seems to have forgotten they ever existed. It seems so much more important to them to play Rancid's "Time Bomb" over and over again. I don't know, maybe I don't see how dated this band (maybe it's me who is dated) is. I'm willing to leave room for that possibility, but I really enjoyed this band's music. Hopefully you did too.

It's mid May and the weather is ever so slowly starting to break in Boston. Please Come To Boston for the springtime as Dave Loggins once crooned. I live in the Northeast because I enjoy humidity free weather. It's my exact favorite weather here, all things considered, between late April and June 1st and from mid September until November 1st. Those are my twelve weeks. After that it's central air or bust. Certain bands represent the summer for me and The B-52's are one of those bands. They played The House of Blues next to Fenway Park last night and I had no designs on attending. I spent the afternoon trying to help a friend of mine's son with his Little League game. As a result I was invited over for dinner. During that stay I got a call offering me free tickets to the show. I'm really glad I accepted. Six or seven friends of mine and I enjoyed a great show.

It's kind of an eye opener, not that I need an eye opener when it comes to this, when you see these performers carrying on into their sixties still performing. I go to see new bands and old bands alike, but you see some folks at these shows, the way they behave as if they haven't been out in years, and you realize you are getting up there. I don't feel particularly old, but my peer group would seem to indicate otherwise. If you were in college between 1978 and 1982 chances are you loved The B-52's. There has never been anyone like them. Some folks consider them a novelty act. I know The Giant Panther isn't very high on them, but I've always been a big fan. I think I've seen them roughly half a dozen times without doing any fact checking. It's more of a social thing for me. Women love them and men love women (most of the time I guess I should add in the name of Fred Schneider). They're kitchy, funny and danceable. If I had never heard a note of Cosmic Thing I would still be a big fan. I love Lava, Dance This Mess Around, 52 Girls, Planet Claire, Dirty Back Road, 53 Miles West of Venus, Give Me Back My Man, Strobe Light, Quiche Lorraine, Devil in My Car, Mesopotamia, Whammy Kiss, Private Idaho...heck even Rock Lobster even though I've heard it a nauseating number of times. Make no mistake, they have some shaky material on the market. They've had their down time, but this band has always had my respect. I wasn't expecting much last night to be honest, but they were a blast as always. Everyone was friendly and dancing and the vibe was a lot of fun. If you know jaded Boston you know that is not always the case. Everyone at the show feels like they're in on the joke and they think it's funny. There are worse ways to spend $36 (face value ticket price) even if you could care less if you EVER hear Love Shack again. Good luck with that...

This Athens, Georgia band was mixed in the New Wave genre, but they were their own sound. Fred Schneider is sometimes closer to a tongue in cheek comedian that a true lead singer. Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson take turns with Fred manning the microphone and their voices have always blended tremendously. The crowd ate it up last night. Capacity for this venue is in the 2500 range and it was fairly full. They ran through all their hits including most of their smash Cosmic Thing plus a handful of new tracks from the underrated Funplex. It's pretty amazing they could take a 16 year hiatus and their first song back (Funplex) is right where they left off. I never looked at these entertainers as favorites or even take them very seriously, but that doesn't mean they aren't damn good at what they do. I've supported them for years and I'm glad they seem to still be having fun because I know the crowd is. I didn't need to see them again, but I'm happy I went because it was good clean fun and I had a good time. That's what The B-52's are; a good time. If you've never seen them you should. If you have seen them before don't be afraid to see them again on this tour this summer for fun. They still sound letter perfect and deliver their own particular brand of the goods. I ain't no student, of ancient culture, before I talk, I should read a book, but there's one thing I do know, there's a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia...

Another band that rocked my world many moons to the south is Gang of Four. I was a freshman in college when their debut album, Entertainment!, burst into my consciousness. The Gang were a post punk minimalist band that surfaced in 1979. Nobody sounded like them in my opinion, though they might have taken their cues from bands like Wire and Television (if you don't have a copy of Marquee Moon by now just take yourself out back and shoot yourself...you completely missed the boat). The first song I ever heard by them was Damaged Goods and it was like I broke down another musical wall in my tiny world. As has been discussed on this site in the past, I was a classic rocker when I came north to Boston. I was too young to be weened on CBGB's, The Bottom Line and Max's Kansas City. It is with great regret that I tell you I never step foot in any of these legendary clubs. I lived about an hour west of NYC in rural NJ and it was like night and day with metropolitan cities. I had no real desire to return once I got a taste of city life. Today I live about eight miles outside of Boston and sometimes it feels like much further when I feel like knocking back a few. The difference between $20 and $30 cab rides adds up over time. The reason I tell you this is because I only saw my heroes from the New York scene a paltry number of times. I saw Patti Smith maybe twice. Never saw Television. Never saw Blondie. Saw Lou Reed once. Saw The Ramones once. Saw Talking Heads once. Pretty sad for a guy with somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 concerts under this belt.

Regarding Gang of Four, I've never seen them either and that's a real shame. I can imagine their concerts being electric. I'm not much of a dancer, but I can see myself Shakin' All Over to Gang of Four. I have a lot of trouble differentiating between Damaged Goods, I Found That Essence Rare, What We All Want, At Home He's a Tourist, Return The Gift, Anthrax, I Love a Man in a Uniform and a couple of other Gang of Four tracks. They all rock...hard. This band was tremendously influential and rightfully so. I love reaching back and playing these cuts at eleven when the mood strikes. Originally from Leeds in the UK, Gang of Four took a quasi political stance by naming themselves after a leftist faction of four members of the Chinese Communist Party who were eventually charged with treasonous acts in the 1970's. Allegedly someone in the band The Mekons suggested the name when driving around with eventual Gang of Four members Andy Gill and Jon King. Their song "I Love a Man in a Uniform" was banned in the UK during the Falklands conflict. Regardless of all these fun facts Gang of Four came and went very quickly. They had a couple of later year releases that didn't sell very well, but their sweet spot was between 1979 and 1983. I'm leaving you with "I Found That Essence Rare" today. I've always been a massive fan of this song and hopefully you'll dump it onto your iPod and think of The Giant Panther fondly. Don't forget to leave me some comments!

I have to admit, I have always had a thing for Australia's The Church. There are a handful of CDs, say 75, from 1988-1993 that exemplified what was then called Alternative Rock and Starfish was one of them. Most of you will recall the single "Under The Milky Way," but this record had some other great music on it as well. They say Starfish was recorded in Los Angeles and that this was the first time The Church had recorded outside Australia. They had a great single called "The Unguarded Moment" way back in 1981, but it was not smooth sailing for these guys. They struggled to get noticed and were dropped by their label over the ensuing seven years or so. They recorded a record called Heyday in 1986 that received some praise, but it was a relative commercial flop. Reading fan reviews these days many of their loyal following like it better than Starfish. High praise indeed as the saying goes.

Pressed for my favorite Church song I could probably narrow the list to three. One would absolutely be Metropolis from Gold Afternoon Fix. I never ever seem to get tired of hearing that song. It just feels like ear candy to me. Two might be Ripple from Priest = Aura. And three has got to be North, South, East & West from Starfish. Every time this one pops onto my Sony iPod like device (about every 800 songs or once every three months in gym time) I get psyched. Nobody listens to The Church anymore; at least nobody I know, but getting down to this particular cut on Starfish? Anytime anywhere? Forget it. Not even at my favorite local watering holes. I wonder if they even play it in Australia somewhere once a year. So apparently it actually exists only in my steel trap mind forevermore. I don't care. So what if all of my long time concert going buddies have long given up that kind of life style? I still enjoy the heck out of seeing live music even if I have to go by myself.

Speaking of which, I saw The Church perform only one single time on September 9, 1988 at The Orpheum Theatre in Boston about eight months after Starfish was released. My memory is a bit hazy, but I could swear this was a great triple bill involving The Cult and possibly Lenny Kravitz. Don't quote me on the warm up acts, but the date is accurate as I'm staring at the ticket stub as I type. I used to work in a ticket broker's office and we had these great seats in the 14th row on the aisle for nearly every Orpheum event. I indulged in my share for certain. The 14th row might seem like nothing to some of you professional concert goers, but these seats were dead center and The Orpheum is tiny. You were about 20 yards from the stage inside what today is euphemistically referred to as the "Golden Circle." You know, the phrase that allows tiered pricing in concert halls these days? The face on The Church tickets was $18. $18! Today those seats would run you more like $118 in this overinflated economy. Has your income increased as much exponentially? Mine either...

Anyway, the homesick Church knocked this CD out inside of two months and then hightailed it out of glitzy schmaltzy L.A. It's been said that Steve Kilbey, lead vocalist for The Church, was forced to take voice lessons prior to recording this record with then famous producers Waddy Wachtel & Greg Ladanyi at the controls. There was a lot of misery and friction during the recording of Starfish, but the result was worth the hassle. Whatever the strife The Church went on to knock out three great records in a row and were college radio mainstays for a good long stretch. Their star faded pretty quickly after that, but I loved them. Today, unfortunately, their whole career is boiled down to one song about a hash bar in Amsterdam. I could get discouraged, but my fandom burns on and I still listen to them from time to time with admiration and a smile. I hope you feel the same way.

The Manchester (UK) scene was a favorite of mine in the early 90's. For those who weren't completely cognizant of that drug addled period of time it was a quick hitter roughly spanning the years of 1989 to 1993 or so. Fueled by the drug ecstasy, it was all about danceable beats and the Hammond B3 organ. I just loved it. I soaked up every act that came out of that movement. Manchester had a ton of history prior to this small blip on the radar, but this particular slice of history seemed to spawn a lot of same sounding acts that I just couldn't get enough of at the time.

I bought a new house (read old house) and have been swamped with so many not cool tasks like skim coating and ceiling painting, and have severely neglected blogging. Luckily John is Music Encyclopedia Jones, and has been able to share some great tunes to save TGP from being a barren wasteland. Finally he posts on my favorite band of all time, though my favorite album is Speaking in Tongues, with More Songs a very close second place.

I don't have time for a full write up on each of these artists/albums, but I wanted to quickly share some of the tunes I've been into lately. Some are brand new, some are brand old, much like the current state of appliances and luxuries such as a functioning roof a new/old house like mine can/can't provide.

I've been washed over with an overwhelming amount of new music discoveries lately, which is a great feeling. Here are a few of them:


MP3 Jeremy Jay - In This Lonely Town Alt Link
Buy Slow Dance
Jeremy Jay myspace

I had never heard of Jeremy Jay, but I heard this song a few months back on Sirius XMU. My radio display is broken and I couldn't figure out who it was. I tried and tried with google to identify it with the song lyrics with no luck. Then I realized my girlfriend has an app on her Verizon phone where you can play any song into the phone and within ten seconds it will tell you what the name of the song and artist is. Pretty much the coolest feature I've ever seen on a cell phone, I wish they made it for other carriers/blackberries.

The song came back on the radio the other day and I was able to record it to my voicemail and on a longshot played it back on speakerphone and the app figured it out!

This tune has a 90s indie feel to it, something you would expect to hear from Pavement or Built To Spill. Rest of the album is pretty decent too, though more synth than the 90s indie this song lets on.



Bat For Lashes - Daniel Alt Link
Buy Two Suns
Bat For Lashes Myspace

What can I say about Bat For Lashes that you haven't already heard? This girl is good, and no doubt my current obsession. I didn't really get into her first album, it was a little more midevil fair, where Two Suns is more Kate Bush 80s goodness. I love the video too, nice cameo by a Daneil Larusso type figure. Where is the love for Johnny the blonde haired bad guy though? I think her follow up album should feature Johnny in his Halloween skeleton face paint, after being soaked by a hose while trying to smoke a bone, and possibly with a bloody nose. Get this album if you haven't caught the hype already.




School of Seven Bells - Connjur Alt Link
Buy Aplinisms
School of Seven Bells Myspace

How am I not sick of this song by now? Without fail I've listened to this song at least three times a day for the past three weeks. I can't get enough of it, it's like Gator Gum. Do they still make that stuff? Used to get a few pieces before every little league baseball game. The bridge/breakdown of this song kills me every time. Amazing sound, great for headphones or a lonely car ride.


Swans - Blind Alt Link
Buy Various Failures

While I'm busy asking questions, how did I never come across Swans before? Dark wave/goth rock fill in your favorite label here, with beautiful lyrics and soundscapes. Often very dark subject matter, and vocals in a deep Joy Division/Leonard Cohen type of delivery. Excellent stuff from the late 80s/early 90s. This track, Blind, a lost Michael Gira gem is a five star in my humble library.

MP3: She Wants Revenge - Tear You Apart Alt Link
MP3: Bauhaus - Bela Legosi's Dead Alt Link

One of my guilty pleasures is the show Fringe on Fox. 99% of shows on network TV I end up despising, but Lost and Fringe have managed to keep my attention. On the last episode there was a club scene, and I swear I thought they were playing Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead". We were saying how cool it would be if there was a club in Boston that would play that type of music instead of the typical club music horseshit, maybe there is and I'm just not goth enough to know where it is. Then I started to doubt my ears so we pulled out the phone for the song ID thing again (nice literary recall), and lo and behold it said it was "Tear You Apart" by She Wants Revenge! I seemed to remember She Wants Revenge, though I don't think I ever gave the full album a chance. Then I listened to both songs and realized how similar they are in sound, but wasn't satisfied with that explanation. I did some digging, and sure enough that episode actually featured both songs back to back in that club scene, so my ears weren't wrong after all. Long story long, here are both tunes for your listening pleasure.

I'll be playing all of these songs along with some other good stuff at 21 Nickels in Watertown, MA this Saturday if you are like me and want to try something other than horseshit club music.

The Giant Panther and I have many bands in common even though I sometimes appears that we don't. One of the bands we both love is Talking Heads. The GP goes above and beyond even following David Byrne's (at times) lackluster solo career. He's an eclectic artist no doubt (David Byrne, not The Giant Panther), but once he left Talking Heads I struggled with his world beat rhythms and, dare I say it, his relative lack of commercial viability. I usually don't make those kinds of pronouncements, but Byrne seems out there to me. I was eating at my friend's brick oven pizza restaurant in the Fenway (Woody's Grill at 58 Hemenway Street in Boston...no web site unfortunately) about five years ago when the bartender broke out David Byrne's Daddy Go Down from his Feelings record. I'll probably catch flak for this from the GP on down, but I hadn't heard a David Byrne song I could get excited about since Talking Heads broke up. I'm sure that's blasphemy in some circles, but it's how I felt. But I rekindled my Byrne's jones with Daddy Go Down. He probably considers it a throwaway track, but I loved it. If you get a chance to snag that one somewhere I highly recommend it, but that's not what I came to talk about (as usual)...

I bought More Songs About Buildings and Food in late 1978 at a Midnight Madness Sale at Strawberries Records here in Boston. I think that franchise went under, but if it hasn't it is surely no longer relevant. I was at a record show in Dedham, MA last week and was pleasantly surprised at all the audiophiles still pouring over albums and equipment. I bought a marbled colored Dave Mason (Alone Together) record from 1970 and an album frame for it. I took it home and without so much as playing it to see if it skipped, I poured it into the frame and hung it up on my wall. Old timers may remember the cover of the record as Dave Mason (ex of Traffic fame by then) in a top hat standing in front of a large rock formation with "Alone Together" written in chalk or neatly spray painted on a rock in the background. Not only is that a great record, but at the time it came in a multi colored vinyl that is no longer produced. It was a mini collector's item and I always had a standard black copy. It was worth the trip out there just to bring home a piece of rock history. I know that sounds ridiculous, but for $7.50 (1/2 price!) it was a no brainer.

I guess my point is record albums were such an amazing concept. You just had true ownership with the artwork and in some cases the lyrics. You cared for the physical property or you wouldn't get to listen to it anymore. Today, I can download the new Kings of Leon, listen to it a couple of times and barely glance at the microscopic artwork attached to the file. No producer information, no studio location, no guest artist information...heck no artist information. I could listen to it twice or three times if I'm lucky and patient and off I go to another artist. I have over 55 thousand songs on my hard drive now and I've barely scratched the surface of what could be there. It wasn't like that with vinyl and I'm not one of those people who pine over the old days at all. I do pine for the days when artists got the full undivided attention of their audience at 20-25 minutes a side. Even if I play one album a year I'm so glad I didn't sell them back in the 80's. It's old school (insert joke here)!

More Songs About Building and Food was Talking Heads second album. I honestly think this is my favorite Heads record. They began to pick up the pace and do a little bit more rocking. It was still wicked art school eclectic, but it was a bit more accessible. They did a cover of Al Green's Take Me To The River and that is the song that the masses would know this record for, but not me. I loved songs like Found a Job and Warning Sign, but the song I always come back to, and frankly might be my very favorite Talking Heads song ever, is The Big Country. It's always on my iPod like device and I never ever get sick of hearing it. I remember it getting cursory airplay on WBCN and WCOZ in here in Boston at the time, but by the time the next record, Fear of Music, was released in 1979 it was all over for The Big Country. I don't think I've heard it on commercial radio in decades. Let's face it; the Talking Heads legacy is monstrous. They owned AOR radio from 1978 to 1984. No need to name the flat awesome individual tracks, but I will say that their "B" cuts are the ones to hone in on. The first three records are loaded with them. They are what makes Talking Heads such a great band. You can only hear the hits so often. Love live the music of Talking Heads!

Today's walk down memory lane takes us back to 1990. This won't take long either. An Irish band called Something Happens flashed across our collective rock radar screen as the century began its last decade. I didn't mention them in my earlier post about Irish rock because they came and went so fast I had forgotten about them. They toured fairly heavily, so I've heard, and got their big break warming up for a 1988 Simple Minds tour when that band still had it going on. They had signed with Virgin Records, but the marriage didn't last and they were dropped when they were unable to replicate the success of Stuck Together With God's Glue.

The song I'm posting today is called Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello (Petrol). The title is very irritating, but the song has always been a favorite of mine. There's a line near the end when the lead singer relays a comment a woman made to him about the beer goggle life. She says "I know I've had some when you start to look handsome." You have to laugh at that all around, but rhyming had some with handsome strikes me as pretty funny. Another fun fact I didn't know is that the parenthetic Petrol in the song title is an apparent homage to the band That Petrol Emotion. If the legend is true they stole the guitar riff from that act. I've always kind of liked TPE so that sort of makes sense. You don't often see bands fessing up in print like that. Another great early 90's one hit wonder type song was The Beloved's Hello. They could've added a few hellos to that song title as well since they speak sing the word hello more than Something Happens does. Ironically The Beloved Song came out roughly two months earlier than this one. Maybe I'll post the other song sometime soon, but if you have a chance to grab that one you should. Kind of a comical coincidence, but I would have gone with one Hello and then (Petrol) as my song title if I were a member of Something Happens.

To finish the thought on this Flash and The Pan (I kill myself...why do you suppose they didn't call themselves Flash IN The Pan?...no need to answer that one...I'll have to do some research on those guys, but they were like a four very good hit wonder band), Something Happens had some other claims to fame. I didn't see the film, but apparently they had a song called Burn Clear appear on the soundtrack of an Irish movie called The Courier. Hello was included in the top 50 singles of 1990 by the UK rock magazine New Musical Express (NME). They had a much later song called Forget Georgia that was covered by a Canadian Singer named Emm Gryner in 2005. And lastly a song from Stuck Together With God's Glue called Parachute was a minor hit along with Hello. I would venture to say this song is a rocker, but it definitely stood out as a single. It caught a lot of radio airplay back in the day so of course I had to buy the CD. I've had it on my mixed cut iPod like device for about a year (it can only come up about once every six weeks at best in case you are wondering...at an hour a day seven days a week that is). It's a real project changing the music so I don't do it that often. I'll probably wind up blogging about every song on there until I take the time to rotate them out. Even though it's a labor of love, I can never seem to get psyched up to do it. Every day at the gym I hear another song that I'm happy to hear, but is scheduled to be replaced. It seems to push off the project another month each time. It's crazy. Anyway...Hope you like Hello x 5 (Petrol)!

I was a huge fan of The Temptations as a kid. I STILL have a scratched up copy of the Ball of Confusion (That's What The World is Today) 45 RPM record on Gordy Records (a division of Motown) circa 1970. I don't know how many times I played the flip side, It's Summer, but I can tell you it wasn't many. The Tempations were and are legendary. Not so much for My Girl, Ain't Too Proud To Beg, Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me) or The Way You Do The Things You Do, but for songs like (I Know) I'm Losing You, Can't Get Next To You, Psychedelic Shack, Cloud Nine, Ball of Confusion and I Wish It Would Rain. They did it all; they danced, they sang, they harmonized, they broke down racial barriers and they rocked. They so belong in The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But the biggest baddest granddaddy tune of their whole catalogue, the one that put a stake in the ground for all time, the one that pre-dated songs like Rambling Man and all the others was Papa Was a Rolling Stone. What a masterpiece! Even chopped to bits in 1972 for AM radio, Papa still clocked in around seven minutes. And they still played it! Boy, did they play it. All the way to a 1973 Grammy. Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong had originally written it for a long forgotten Motown act called The Undisputed Truth. You may remember those guys as the band behind the great one hit wonder song Smiling Faces Sometimes. They also recorded Papa later, but it went nowhere. The Temptations grabbed it and ran with it to the tune of nearly 12 minutes on their album.

So much goes on in this song it's just ridiculous. It's a sad story, but man what a story. Papa took off and left some confused children behind and they wanted answers from their mother about why their father wasn't around. Mama just shook her head and said...well you know the rest. I will never get tired of hearing it I have to tell you. Rolling Stone voted it the 168th greatest song of all time recently. As arbitrary as those lists are I devour them every time like the sap that I am. Outraged over this song, scoffing at that one...it's laughable really, but loads of fun. Papa Was a Rolling Stone deserved all of the accolades it received. I thought it was flat brilliant.

Papa Was a Rolling Stone has been covered more than a couple of times. Los Lobos did a pretty fair job a couple of years back. George Michael took a half hearted stab at it too. You have to brave to cover this song. This isn't a song you mess with easily. It has The Temptations so embedded in its DNA it's near impossible to strip them out. I don't know how I stumbled on this cover of Papa Was a Rolling Stone by Was (Not Was), but I'm glad I did. This is a great cover. Oh, check that, I do remember now. Local Boston radio station WFNX-FM, back when they were a little more adventurous, was playing a great song called I Feel Better Than James Brown for a short time back in 1990 from the CD Are You Okay? by Was (Not Was). It was kind of a novelty song, but very good (download it now). Of course, since I was buying everything in sight in those days, I went right out and bought the CD. Much to my surprise and delight a cover of The Temptations song was even better than the song about James Brown. This one is an instant classic cover for me and should be on your iPod for the next month during your workouts. You can thank me later. I have successfully turned on several of my friends to this cover song over the years. I hope you like it too. Enjoy.

Was (Not Was) - Papa Was a Rolling Stone.mp3

Was (Not Was) - Papa Was a Rolling Stone.mp3 YSI

I was shuffling along at the gym the other day when Hot Chocolate found it's way into my ears. You may remember Hot Chocolate as a British R&B 70's act that had some modest chart success with songs like You Sexy Thing, Emma and Every 1's a Winner. They were nearly completely forgotten until a run of shows like Ally McBeal and TV commercials sponsored by Burger King kind of resurrected their music. Some would confuse them with the disco era since they were popular about that time, but Hot Chocolate's three big hits as noted above are as good as any R&B group from that era. You Sexy Thing was featured in major motion pictures such as The Full Monty, Boogie Nights, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Rat Race and Bicentennial Man. It's Crafty; it gets around...

I wouldn't normally divulge my list of songs I like, but am afraid to admit it list. The truth is, I just did a Facebook list recently that kind of got me to thinking about this king of thing. I'm going to run a feature called Guilty Pleasures now as well. I'm going to out myself regularly and admit to liking music that might draw disdain from whatever audience we have generated here at The Giant Panther. These are going to be short posts. I promise (as you roll your eyes knowingly)! UK charts and American charts differ wildly. Hot Chocolate was infinitely more popular in the UK for obvious reasons, but I always get a charge out of hearing Hot Chocolate on my iPod like device. I'm leaving you with Every 1's a Winner. It a fun song with a little bit of a different sound. It's catchy. Hope you like it. It seems to have a little Billy Preston, The O'Jays and others from that decade, but it's unique.

Happy Easter everyone. I'm not a religious man, but I can recall my Aunt Irene's famous Easter Egg hunts (actually plastic eggs with quarters in them) when we would come over for Easter dinner back in the 70's. Today I wouldn't know it was Easter if one of the announcers in the baseball game(s) I was watching hadn't mentioned it. I don't know what that says about me, but 2009 is rushing by just like every other year when I stop to give it some thought. Cross Easter off the list of 2009 holidays.

Wire is a long forgotten band that I really loved. A product of the late 70's out of the UK, Wire had several musically interesting records that were off the beaten path. Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154 were albums that featured short bursts of post punk energy. The were released between 1977 and 1979. I had never heard of them until I started managing a CD store in the late 80's and we started ordering imports. A friend of mine kept playing them at our store and I started to get the hang of them. I can't help but think Gang of Four was a fan of theirs back in the day. Wire took an unheard of break between 1979 and 1987 as far as the releasing of original studio material is concerned, but when they resurfaced I was right there to buy their records. The Ideal Copy (1987), A Bell is a Cup...Until It's Struck (1988) and It's Beginning To and Back Again (IBTABA) (1989) all featured at least one killer track. At least I thought so at the time...

From early Wire I used to love the Three Girl Rhumba (all 1:23 of it). It was typical of their two minute drill style of releasing music. It was also gold for filling in the end of your ill conceived mixed cassette tapes in those days. Less than two minutes left? Reach for Wire. It'll sound like you planned it all along. Later on though Wire began stretching out their concepts. Two songs that stick with me from their late 80's output were Kidney Bingos and Eardrum Buzz. I know they were quasi college radio hits, but they had this cool sound to them. I wish I could put it into words, but there was something different about their "new" sound I felt was very pleasing. I'm not going to go on long about Wire here. Frankly, there isn't much to tell as far as I can see. They had a drummer named Robert Gotobed who actually fired himself when he decided a drum machine could do the work live with little differential. They tried to go on as "Wir" (pronounced the same) for a time in deference to his departure, but the band never again captured the public's imagination the way it once had. The band is still working according to their web site, but I have to admit to losing track of them.

The song I leave you with, Kidney Bingos, is such a cool tune. Don't ask me what the lyrics mean and I won't tell you no lies, but the melody is great. I hope you like...

I can't recall the exact year, but I'm guessing around 1987 or so, I came across a CD by a band called The Godfathers in a used record store and I bought it. I'm a cover freak, (by the way thank you so much for the non verbal support of my Foo Fighters posting below! That's a lot of traffic for a couple of days. I'm glad you apparently liked it.) so when I noticed The Godfathers made an attempt at John Lennon's Cold Turkey I figured it was worth the $6 or whatever I paid for it. Nobody, let alone me, had heard of The Godfathers in those days. Nice grab! A few of you, and I'm guessing not many, will remember a song called This Damn Nation that kind of put them on the map, if they ever really were on any imaginary map. It had a funky slide to it and it was catchy, but that is not why The Godfathers were eventually relatively popular; they had this great snarl to them. Kind of like Billy Idol, but different. They stomped their way through most of their numbers and I was drawn to them immediately. The truth is though, I didn't expect much from this alternative rock band from London. Lord knows I have 50 CDs just like this buried amongst my stellar collection that I loved but that never got off the ground. I figured I just made a nice find no one else in my circle would ever hear. Wrong. Less than two years later they were all over college radio and touring the states.

The next year, in 1988, The Godfathers surfaced with an all time alternative foot stomping classic called Birth, School, Work, Death. I'm a card carrying pessimist most of the time so this tongue in cheek kind of hopelessness appealed to me. That and the crunching beat. I love it. It was a pretty big hit all around. Wikipedia tells us that this single reached #38 on the U.S. charts. For an alternative song that is ridiculous. Just me and 50,000 college kids were actually listening to that genre in those days. I'm kidding of course, but selling The Godfathers to my Van Halen loving buddies was near impossible. I went to see them play at The Paradise in Boston and they rocked my world. Not Goth rock exactly, but it had enough WTF is the use backbone to appeal to that crowd. It was more rock & roll, but it was clearly alternative. I hate trying to label good music anyway; it's more fun trying to label the folks who show up at the gigs I always felt. What you need to know about the CD Birth, School, Work, Death is that it was a great record. If I Only Had Time (I'd think of the perfect crime) and 'Cause I Said So were hard rocking supplements to the title track. When Am I Coming Down was also a plus on this CD. No self respecting alternative rock junkie from the 80's should be without it as far as I'm concerned. B,S,W,D was an angst ridden sing along anthem the second I heard it and it enjoyed a long run on the local alternative rock station WFNX.

1988 had it's share of great records; The Church - Starfish, The Cocteau Twins - Blue Bell Knoll, Julian Cope - My Nation Underground, Big Audio Dynamite - Tighten Up Volume '88, The Feelies - Only Life, The Fine Young Cannibals - The Raw & The Cooked, Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking, Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers - Conscious Party, Midnight Oil - Diesel & Dust, Morrissey - Viva Hate, Peter Murphy - Love Hysteria, Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine, NWA - Straight Outta Compton, Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back, Grahm Parker - The Mona Lisa's Sister, Iggy Pop - Instinct, Prince - Lovesexy, Lou Reed - New York, R.E.M. - Green, Shriekback - Go Bang!, Siouxsie & The Banshees - Peepshow, Patti Smith - Dream of Life, The Smithereens - Green Thoughts, Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation, The Sugarcubes - Life's Too Good, The Talking Heads - Naked, They Might Be Giants - Lincoln, Treat Her Right - Treat Her Right, U2 - Rattle & Hum, UB40 - UB40, Camper Van Beethoven - Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, The Violent Femmes - 3, The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues, Wire - A Bell is a Cup Until It's Struck....are you kidding me? Did 2008, twenty years hence, produce that kind of quality? Call me old & crazy, but I don't think so.

My point in naming those records is to let you know that Birth, School, Work, Death not only held its own among these giant records, it still sounds great and fresh to this day. Of the four stages, I used to be on stage three (Work) until I lost my job, but I'm not giving up just yet. Stage four is kind of final if you know what I mean and where else would you go to track down all these quality tracks if I suddenly expired? OK, don't answer that. Hope all is well out there and please turn one of your friends onto the long forgotten Godfathers if you can. This tune is in your face nasty and I love it! According to their web site they have reunited so maybe we might see some more from them soon.

Want to know a great cover band? You may know them as The Foo Fighters, but they are one of the best cover bands around. I have copies of them doing Requiem by Killing Joke, Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty, I'm in Love With a German Film Star by The Passions, Born On The Bayou by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Have a Cigar by Pink Floyd. First of all, Dave Grohl and I could easily hang because he's got impeccable taste, but I love it when a perfectly fine successful rock & roll band has the nads to cover their heroes and pull it off. I love all of these original songs and I love The Foo Fighter covers. I'm going to try and do features on covers, a secret passion of mine, from now on as well. I'm loaded with those too. I am in constant search for these reworked nuggets.

I know I haven't been posting much lately and for that I am sorry. You see I'm one of those four million folks looking for work these days. I'm a high tech salesman by trade, but I might be flipping burgers soon if this keeps up. Plus, as every rotisserie baseball fan in the country knows, it is crunch time as we collectively prepare for the draft (or auction) this weekend. Come Monday it's play ball! The Final Four NCAA Championships are here and that means seamheads everywhere are back in business. Hope springs eternal or something. This is definitely the year right? Who knows? I won the whole 11 team league twice in going on 22 years now. Oh, I've got my five second place finishes, two third place finishes and four fourths (final money spot), but I've finished out of the money eight times now! 1996 and 2006 were my magical years, but I want my title back. I know you're bored to tears here, but wish me luck. If something else isn't going right maybe baseball can bring it back.

Regarding The Foo I've been stumbling on their covers, almost by the year, because who can afford CD singles in this market? That is where you will find most, if not all, of the aforementioned covers in question. This Pink Floyd cover I'm leaving you with is wicked. I love the Floyd to death and I love that Dave does too. This cover is completely respectful with a natural Foo Fighters overhaul. I love it. I hope you do too. You can find this on the 1999 Learn To Fly CD (Part I) Single. It really Kicks Out The Jams to coin a phrase. It Blows The Roof Off Tha Sucka. Blows Doors. Whatever. Talk soon!