The Giant Panther

As I get over the demise of WBCN, I'm going to feature bands that the radio station had a hand in breaking way back when. The Jim Carroll Band was something of a red hot meteor that bounced off my twenty year old noggin' back in 1980. Their debut album Catholic Boy was one of those records that came out of nowhere for me. I didn't know much of anything about who Jim Carroll was back then and what separated truth from fiction, but "People Who Died" was a tremendous track that instantly put this album on the map. People wanted to know who these guys were. Not exactly Punk Rock, but the urgency was incredible. It seemed so tongue in cheek that it had to be more funny than vicarious right? Apparently wrong. Legend has it that Carroll was a bonafide heroin addict at 13. 13! And here I was thinking I was a bad ass stealing a Budweiser from my father's beer only refrigerator located in our garage at 14. Guess again rookie. Can you imagine Waiting For The Man at 13?

Jim Carroll was also a basketball junkie and apparently played in the National High School All-Star Game in 1966. Twelve years later he wrote The Basketball Diaries which was made into a movie in 1995. Who played Jim Carroll you ask? Try Leonardo DiCaprio. Whoa. That young man has the world by the tail no? Oh and did I leave out that Jim Carroll was allegedly a male prostitute to support his habit? The Basketball Diaries was said to be excerpts from his own diary between the ages of 12 and 16 detailing his world of drugs, sex and basketball. They say he worked for Andy Warhol and received encouragement from Patti Smith regarding his band. I would imagine that connection comes from the fact that they were both poets, but I'm only guessing. The Band came and went inside of three years essentially (though there was a late 90's comeback of sorts), but they had a lot to say.

"People Who Died" has been on numerous lists of great 80's songs and still gets a little radio airplay every now and then, but "It's Too Late" is the song I came to talk about today. The first line is a killer, no pun intended...It's too late to fall in love with Sharon Tate. You'd instantly think this was going to be a song about the beautiful actress who appeared in 1967's Valley of The Dolls, but was later murdered by The Charles Manson "Family" in 1969. It wasn't, but the lyric is ingrained in my brain forevermore. "It's Too Late" is three minutes and four seconds of hard driving frustration. I've always been a big fan of this tune. The Jim Carroll Band never again reached the heights of their debut record, but I have a feeling the Catholic Boy is getting by just fine these days. If I had to hang my hat on two songs, these two would be just fine by me if I were him. Enjoy.

Wow. 41 years. March 15, 1968. That was my eighth birthday. I don't know where to actually start so I'll do my best to keep this as brief as possible. Short version? WBCN-FM is going off the terrestrial dial for good on August 13, 2009. It was born on March 15, 1968. The Boston Concert Network is taking a powder. Its valuable real estate right of the dial is going to be assumed by sister station WMBX, better known as Mix 98.5, and it's god awful "Hot Adult Contemporary" format (what is THAT exactly? Tried and true hits distilled down to the very bone over the past four decades and repackaged as new to the clueless casual music fan masses until they change the channel?) are Movin' On Up in classic George Jefferson style. Hoo-ray for them. My periodontist listens to Mix 98.5. I can't tell you how much I miss hearing The Spiral Starecase or The Sanford Townsend Band between cleanings. The mid dial 98.5 frequency will be handed off to talk radio. Psyched! Another talk show in Boston! This is a very sad day for those of us who worked at WBCN in one capacity or another. The station had vacated its long time 1265 Boylston Street address behind Fenway Park sometime ago, but what a history. I was only there four years, but I can tell you some wild stuff went down inside those walls. It was never boring. What it was could be described as exhilarating.

I was a 22 year old line cook at TGI Friday's on Newbury Street when I got the call up to the big leagues. I had filled out paperwork to answer the vaunted Listener Line early in 1982 after graduating from Emerson College. Having wondered what happened to the fastest four years I've ever experienced, I thought it might be a good idea to work at the local rock station since I had visions of being a DJ once upon a time. What a rocket scientist huh? The position was strictly volunteer, but I felt like I was on my way. Silly rabbit. As fate would have it I was assigned a four hour shift during the Mark Parenteau show. Mark was a tall, lanky, golden voiced fun loving guy that worked the afternoon drive show. Mark had jumped ship from rival WCOZ in the late seventies to join a stellar WBCN lineup that included Charles Laquidara, Ken Shelton and Carter Alan. I got to know these people pretty well during my time there. I lived and breathed the station nearly 24 x 7. Mark invited me, after a couple of weeks of working the Listener Line to join his intern staff.

Over the next four years I worked with about five or six other interns until I was the senior guy on his staff. Trust me, that wasn't anything to write home about. He had his share of turnover, but that wasn't the issue. I was too happy to come in and work for free and watch the stars come and go. I'd work two of the five shifts and maybe more depending on the schedules of others. I had a couple of crappy paying jobs, but generally I just loved being around The Rock of Boston. I was paid to work remotes and edit comedy tape for Stitches Comedy Club, but it was peanuts. Larry "Cha-Chi" Loprete, one of the nicest men you'll ever meet (he still does Breakfast With The Beatles every Sunday morning at 8 AM which you can listen to live or stream later on via the web at www.wzlx.com), used to throw me a bone every now and then with a free ticket or poster or whatever he could. There were plenty of personalities in that building who looked down on young "college" kids like me, but Larry wasn't one of them. I didn't dwell on the ones that did. I just loved the radio. I still do even though it doesn't resemble anything remotely to what I grew up with. Even so, the news that WBCN is leaving the airwaves hits the psyche hard.

Nothing ever came of my affiliation with the station, but I don't regret working there. I had a ball. The station held off WCOZ (Kick Ass Rock & Roll) and later Classic Rock Station WZLX to hold its own in a tough market, but the peak of the station was probably 1980-1986. Nobody could touch them and all the artists surfaced there at one time or another. On any given day I would see somebody famous. I'm not much of a stargazer though it might not sound like it. I refused to mug for photos (i.e. pop into the outskirts of a group photo at the last minute) or ask for autographs. I was just happy to be there. I figured something good would come of knowing these folks eventually. It never did. It's hard to describe without airing dirty laundry, but suffice to say they don't call it the go go 80's for nothing. It was a good time. The death knell, for me, for WBCN was when they farmed out The Big Mattress morning show in favor of The Howard Stern show. WBCN used to be about the underground and free expression. It was never about strict playlists either. It was all about personalities, current events, breaking new bands, promoting comedy, controlled mayhem, attitude and (mostly) new music.

I know I shouldn't be surprised when stuff like this happens. There have been so many changes in the world since I was a kid (including this here blog to name just one), but there are institutions and then there are institutions. Nobody that I know was left at the present day WBCN (which is scheduled to soldier on in digital format only on the web...thanks alot...can I please pay for that too?) and I couldn't name a single on air personality. I stopped listening in the late eighties, which I'm well aware is part of the problem, but a listing WFNX is lucky nobody has come along to knock them off their perch as well. They seem to have more freedom, but they are also victims of tired programming. It just seems like no station has its autonomy anymore and the FM dial has been rendered all but useless. Computerized playlists and repetitive programming is what really Killed The Radio Star. We survived MTV. The decision to allow companies to own more than one radio station in a single market was a crusher too. Mega conglomerate ownership ruined the individuality of programming. DJs loathe to be told what to play as a rule, but with no latitude whatsoever? Why be a DJ at all? Classic Rock stations are what's left behind after other stations like WBCN take all the risks. Now what? Who breaks future Classic Rock in Boston? It won't be WFNX, though I have noticed they've been sneaking Classic Rock into their format without so much as an announcement lately. Their alternative/Indie bread and butter is not going to change too much. This should be very distressing to rock artists as well. WBCN was a shell of its former self at the end, but it still had the most famous call letters in Boston's long and explosive rock history. Rest in Peace.

That was REAL short huh? Oh well. I'm leaving you with the very first rock song that was ever played on WBCN as it began its 41 year run. It's from a little known power trio called Cream.

Cream - I Feel Free.mp3

Cream - I Feel Free.mp3 YSI

www.wbcn.com

My third consecutive night of live music had me face to face, for the third time overall, with a Led Zeppelin cover band called Lez Zeppelin. Aside from having arguably the best cover band name in the history of the genre, this band is damn good. The first time I saw them was at The Middle East in Cambridge about two or three years ago. I want to say early March of 2007, but don't quote me. The place was stifling hot and I was at least twenty yards from the stage. I saw very little and didn't really make the connection of just how good this band actually was at the time. I recently saw them at The Paradise maybe three months back and came away very impressed. I made a mental note that if I wasn't doing anything the next time they showed up I'd go see them again. That day was last night. Lez Zeppelin performed on a boat cruise that toured Boston Harbor for roughly three hours. The fact that my friend Adam Klein was promoting the show (www.rockandbluescruise.com) didn't hurt, but I would have gone anyway. A lot of folks balk at being trapped on a boat for three hours at functions like this with the usual bad beer and bad food, but I didn't give it a second thought. Well, that's not entirely true; if it had been 80 degrees or hotter I probably would not have gone. The weather was very manageable last night for this Irish boy. There is always a wind chill factor on the harbor and a light jacket did the trick. It was hot right in front of the band, but if you needed to cool off you had an option. It did rain the final half hour of the cruise, but nobody really cared by then.

I have seen my share of cover bands over the years for sure. The late Brad Delp (Boston) led Beatlejuice was probably my favorite. I saw this AC/DC cover band called Black Angus at Fat Boy Bill's Blues Bar in Milford, MA that I was sure I would hate, but I ended up loving. I even got to sing Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap...actually just "Done Dirt Cheap" into the microphone as the band worked the tables in the joint. If you drink enough whiskey you figure you can do a passable Brian Johnson (in your mind anyway) right? That was a blast, but I tend to shy away from cover bands. It can get a bit embarrassing and too nostalgic at times, no offense to anyone who makes a living doing that type of thing. Lez Zeppelin is a whole different ball of wax. They take great pains to preserve the integrity of the original music and it shows up in spades. If they didn't I probably wouldn't have seen them a second time. They'd be just another cover band making a buck. They aren't.

First, the crowd is highly entertaining. Diplomatically speaking, there is definitely a cross section of lesbians at each show, but that is not the big draw (at least for me). Led Zeppelin had a predominantly male audience back in the day, but I like to see what straight women show up at these things. Any woman who likes Led Zeppelin is a friend of mine. There was a lot of dancing on the high seas last night and I love to see who is moved and at what age. Led Zeppelin is such a musical brand that generations of young folks catch up to their greatness via their parents and older siblings that you end up seeing a lot of people up to 25 years younger at these types of shows. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that one of the prettiest girls on the boat within shouting distance of my 49 years got so hammered that she wore a black thong OVER her jeans by the end of the cruise. I noticed her earlier because she was using one of the steel poles holding up the second deck as a mock stripper pole. Her friends thought it was hilarious and frankly so did I. She looked like a lot of fun and was having a blast. I lost sight of her and when I caught up to her later in the cruise she was clearly One Toke Over The Line. They sell underwear at the Lez Zeppelin concession stand so I even though I was kind of hoping she had made a conscious decision to out her own thong, that thing could have come from anywhere. I'm sure she regrets, or maybe doesn't remember it all, walking around like that for over an hour, but rest assured some of us got a kick out it. She was a chocolate mess by the end of the cruise (swearing like the drunken sailor she was), but the entertainment value was very high. I hope she feels OK today, but she looked like she skipped dinner for sure. She wasn't the only one having a good time either. The whole cruise was a digital photography smorgasbord.

Back to the music; Lez Zeppelin rocks. Plain and simple. If you love Led Zeppelin you should make it a point to go see these women perform. They did a great cross section of songs last night, but my favorite was Custard Pie from Physical Graffiti. They are very tight and well rehearsed and they don't just play Black Dog and Rock & Roll (mercifully). If you are familiar with Led Zeppelin chances are you have heard the Wilson sisters (Ann & Nancy of Heart fame) cover Zeppelin as The Lovemongers. This is right in league with that....oooh, it's Sunday Morning as I type and I'm listening to Carter Alan's Sunday Morning Blues (www.wzlx.com) as I do every week. Tea For One by Led Zeppelin just came up as if on cue (thanks Carter!). The thing is, Lez Zeppelin doesn't take the easy route; they tackle No Quarter and Since I've Been Loving You as well. I was just on their web site and it looks as if the band is in a bit of transition. The last time I saw them they had a different lead singer and only lead guitarist and founder Stephanie Paynes has a bio presently. I'm pretty sure Leesa Squyres (excellent) was drumming the last time I saw them, but after that I can't be sure. The bass player, MeGan X, was also exceptional. This isn't some muddy mix (and a boat has got to be the worst place to engineer decent sound) with a passable Robert Plant imitation here at all; these are tremendous musicians and they have Led Zeppelin down pat. I highly recommend going to see them.

OK, back to back to back nights means this old codger is going to have to take a break for a few days. I'm leaving you with Lez Zeppelin's cover of The Ocean from Houses of The Holy. By the way, these studio recordings don't do any justice to their live performances. You'll have to trust this concert going veteran on this. If you like Zeppelin, you'll love these gals. They're impressive.

Well, Jet's new CD isn't due for six weeks or so, but some friends of mine left me some freebies for tonight's show at The Paradise here in Boston. My benefactor's, Mark & Melanie, are the Jet fans in my circle, but they chose the fair weather of Cape Cod versus the Friday night concert. I don't really blame them. Not because of the fair weather or because of Jet playing in town, but because The Paradise is probably my least favorite venue to see a concert. It's general admission and holds maybe 1500 (guessing) people, but the sight lines are awful and the air conditioning is non existent. The Paradise is legendary in Boston's long history of hosting concerts, but there are three massive load bearing posts in the middle of the audience that totally wipes out any hope of a view behind them. I'm talking two to three feet wide pillars that eclipse the sun. I hate them and have always hated them, but they are a fixture in this structure. To the credit of whoever owns The Paradise these days, whether it's John Lyons or somebody else (I lost track), they have done a lot of thing to make the venue palatable since I saw Robin Trower and NRBQ way back in the early 80's, but the place still bites. Either you are in one of the decent 60 side and overhead view spots or the front row of standing room (in which case you are done drinking or going to the facilites) or you are basically listening to King Biscuit Flower Hour on the radio as far as I'm concerned. Unless the place is half empty, I have never cared much for the experience that is The Paradise. It's a glorified TT The Bears in Cambridge for my money and TT's is at least a bar first and foremost. Like Johnny D's in Somerville, I kind of wish they'd burn 'em down and begin again, but I'm not holding my breath.

My affinity for all things Australia is relatively well documented by now. AC/DC, Midnight Oil, INXS, Airbourne and Jet are just scratching the surface regarding The Land Down Under. I have posted about most of them by now, but I've still got more work to do. The truth is I didn't really want to go to Jet tonight. I had attended Peter Murphy last night and I am scheduled to see Lez Zeppelin on a boat (Blues) cruise around Boston Harbor tomorrow night. I played some basketball this afternoon and I feel like I've gone 15 rounds with Smokin' Joe Frazier about now. But my friend's Mark & Melanie raved about these guys the last time they were in town so I felt obligated to check them out. I'm glad I did. They definitely operate out of the Oasis and Beatles playbook (Look What You've Done is exactly what I'm talking about), but I don't really hold that against them since I am fans of both bands. They also were a bit reminiscent of The Hives if you can believe that. I just love Walk Idiot Walk by The Hives and I swear Jet has that same choppy urgency at times. They only have two records and one to be released next month, but their new material (That Girl's a Genius to name just one) hold up exceptionally well. In fact I'm looking forward to Shaka Rock when it gets released as a result of seeing them live. I wasn't expecting much when I showed up, but color me impressed.

Jet are closer to classic rock than Indie Rock, which is The Giant Panther's favorite genre, but they had a rabid following and I enjoyed the heck out of their performance tonight. They definitely rock. I'm already on The Giant Panther's bleep list for missing his BBQ tonight, but I had a rock & roll commitment so hopefully he'll cut me some slack. I don't have any of the new material to feature here so I have to leave you with their show closing rocker Cold Hard Bitch instead. The audience was predominantly male, not surprisingly, but there were plenty of pretty young things to go around. I have always loved the young girls holding hands to knife through a particularly thick crowd ostensibly in search of the ladies room. I know my dirty old man mind works overtime when confronted with such sights, but don't hold it against me. By the way, Jet look cumulatively 25 years of age max. They remind me of another young band from Australia that I couldn't get enough of once upon a time in Silverchair. I wonder if those kids are 30 yet. I don't care how old you are if you can rock like Jet and Silverchair. If you get a chance to see these guys is a real venue take a chance. It's a ballad free zone for sure...and that's always a good thing in my book...

Just Push Eject and Give Me The Tape. Tonight I saw Peter Murphy Live. There are some serious rock baritones out there in the land of Rock & Roll; Iggy Pop, Brad Roberts (Crash Test Dummies) and the Godfather of Goth Peter Murphy are three that come to mind off the top of my head. I don't know which one is deeper, but I love them all (yes, even CTD). There is a pretty good reason why they resonate (to coin a phrase) so well. They're unique sounding. I love their sound. I hadn't seen Peter Murphy since April 10, 1990 at Citi Club here in Boston. I'm pretty sure I saw him earlier at The Orpheum Theatre in a triple bill around 1988, possibly involving The Church, but I can't find the proof to be sure for the moment. It's in here somewhere though. I know that for sure.

You know how you call radio stations seconds after an announcement promising free tickets and you get a busy signal for days? Well, today I was just fooling around dialing WFNX trying to win tickets to see the legendary Peter Murphy (Bauhaus) last night at Showcase Live on the grounds of Foxborough, MA's Gillette Stadium (home of the New England Patriots) and guess what? I won! Showcase Live is a smallish venue reminiscent of many hotel venues in Las Vegas, NV. There are several tables with multiple parties, meaning you sit with strangers, and the place is spacious, airy and a little sterile. Know what? I liked it. The service was great, the place was nicely air conditioned and during the show there were times when I was literally within ten feet of Peter Murphy. Pretty cool. The venue is maybe two years old and I had never been due to the one hour commute and the nasty Cross - Town - Traffic (I love the way Jimi Hendrix spit that out...You're Just Like...). I missed The Church last Thursday and I was determined to show up down there and check this place out. The place holds 750 when they sell standing room and a mere 500 when they just seat folks. That's my kind of place!

I've been a Peter Murphy fan since I first heard "Indigo Eyes" in the late 80's. I didn't know much about Bauhaus, but I knew "Bela Lugosi's Dead" was a hit for them. I knew they covered David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and T-Rex's Telegram Sam, but I wasn't altogether sure what made them great until years later. The tour Murphy is doing now is called "The Secret Covers Tour." I assumed he would be covering songs, but I didn't know which ones or how many. What I got was John Lennon's "Instant Karma," David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and a wonderful version of Joy Division's "Transmission" complete with Ian Curtis' signature hand gestures. The funny thing is I didn't hear any of his hits and I still had an awesome time. No "Indigo Eyes," No "Cuts You Up," No You're So Close," No "Final Solution," No "All Night Long," No nothing. I did hear great versions of "Deep Ocean, Vast Sea" and "Time Has Got Nothing To Do With It," but I clearly have work to do with his catalogue. He had several rockers I didn't recognize and that tells me I'm slipping. I did zero prep work for this show, but I had a whale of a time. The sound was great too.

I had just watched, finally, the movie "Control" which is the story of Joy Division and the death of Ian Curtis. I have seen "Sid & Nancy" and many films of this rock star death genre, but I never fail to be fascinated by the stories. Anyway, Peter Murphy, all 51 years of him (I think he turns 52 on July 11th), rocked the house. The Goth crowd was mostly in disguise at this show, but there were a few poorly aged veterans of the scene complete with the additional pounds we all seem to lug around, but this wasn't a show for the scenesters. It was a show for the diehards. Murphy put on a great show so go see it if you see an opportunity. It was cheap and he's playing smaller venues so you can literally stand right next to him while he performs. There was a strict no pictures policy in place, but I figured vanity was an issue. That or he didn't feel like wearing makeup...

One of my favorite Peter Murphy tracks is from his first CD called Love Hysteria. It's called His Circle and Hers Meet and I'm leaving you with it now. Naturally this wasn't played either, but I didn't mind. I hope you like it. Live music is the very best and every time I see a show I remember why I love it so much. Long Live Rock as my friends in The Who might say...I need it every night...

Today I am knifing through my collection to find one of the best obscure tracks I can think of. Oh, I've got about twenty written down somewhere to bring you as the days roll on, but this one is one of my favorites. I used to work at a hardware company called Cambridge Digital which had an affiliation with a software company called Unisource back around 1984. The hardware company had the geeks and the software company had the chicks. If memory serves a friend of mine named Marty got me a job in the mail room because we were both working the door at the now world famous Bull & Finch Pub, which you may know as Cheers. I was working three jobs; one at WBCN as an intern, one at the bar and the other one to make whatever pennies I needed to get by on. It was my first non restaurant job post college. I didn't take it very seriously (after all, anyone could stamp the mail and take it to the mailbox) and there were some like minded characters working there that egged me on. The reason I tell this story is because one of the guys that was working there at the same time was a bass player named Ira Nulton. I figure everyone has worked with a future rock star at some point no?

Ira was an unassuming nice guy who did whatever they did at Cambridge Digital and we used to run into each other often though he'd probably never remember me today. It was only 25 years ago, but it seems a lot less than that to me some how. Ira was in a band and, as such, was dating an extremely attractive blonde, though I could never remember her name even if tonight's Mega Millions winning numbers depended on it. I worked in the mail room so I ran into just about everyone myself. I was miraculously dating an out of my league girl from the software company myself so, aside from the fact that my career was headed nowhere at the time, life was good. Ira's band used to play around town from time to time, but it just seemed like it was never convenient for me. I didn't even own a car back then because I was living downtown. I can't say for sure if they were even called Cliffs of Dooneen when I knew Ira, but that is what they eventually became. I was out of that company by 1986 or so, but the last thing I remember about Ira is that he was in some kind of motorcycle accident so I didn't see him very much after we stopped working together. I always followed the music scene though and The Cliffs of Dooneen released a CD called The Dog Went East, and God Went West in 1991 on Critique Records out of Woburn, MA.

The band consisted of Eric Sean Murphy on lead vocals, Martin Crotty on lead guitar, Ira Nulton on bass and Lex Lianos on drums. I'm sure all of you have records or CDs that you just know are out of print and that nobody else you know has and this is one of mine. I can't say for sure, but I think I finally saw Cliffs of Dooneen at a now defunct club called The Irish Embassy in Boston's North Station area. I don't have my usual ticket stub to document this fact, but I'm pretty sure this concert would have taken place in the 1991-1992 area. This is why you save your ticket stubs kids! You just can't say you were there. I was watching a fantastic VH1 Classic Rocumentary about the James Brown concert in 1968 at Boston Garden that apparently saved the city from major damage in the wake of the murder of Dr Martin Luther King just a day or two earlier. The Mayor of Boston at the time, Kevin White, arranged to have PBS broadcast the concert in the event that it might convince some folks to stay home that night. He forgot to tell James Brown until after the fact, but as a result many of the would be patrons simply returned their tickets for a refund and watched it on TV. Brown demanded the $60K in lost revenue and threatened not to perform. In the end he went on, the mayor went back on his word and stiffed him (according to his manager) and Brown ended up doing the concert for a mere $10K. I wonder how many people will tell you today that they were there? It was voted the top concert of all time in Boston in a Boston Phoenix poll a few years ago. Anyway, save your ticket stubs...just shove 'em in the back of your jewel boxes for safe keeping...I guess now you have to tape 'em to your computer since we are going digital huh?

Anyway, all tangents aside, The Cliffs of Dooneen were a lot better than they were ever given credit for. I don't say this just because I happened to know, in passing, someone who was in the band. If you ever get a hold of The Dog Went East, and God Went West check it out. I'm posting Through An Open Window because it still sounds great to this day. Congratulations Ira and the gang, wherever you are, for a job well done. The music business swallows up many a great talent and spits it back out and just because this record didn't go platinum doesn't mean it wasn't any good. I loved it. And this single? Julie Kramer should be playing it on WFNX's Leftover Lunch once a month to this day. Too many of those so called leftovers are main courses. You have to dig deep to find chestnuts like Through An Open Window. It's a Hidden Gem at the very least Julie. This baby will probably get downloaded only 25 times out of curiosity, but I don't care...it's a great tune. Mix it up out there people! Seriously I hope you agree with me. Talk to you all soon.

Cliffs of Dooneen - Through An Open Window.mp3

Cliffs of Dooneen - Through An Open Window.mp3 YSI

X was a great act. I swear this band whistled right over the vast majority of rock fans on this continent outside of Los Angeles in the late 70's & early 80's. X was a Punk band that played a rockabilly style countrified brand of Punk Rock. Formed in Los Angeles in 1977, X only had a handful of radio friendly songs. At least, more than any radio station in the northeast chose to play. X seeped into my consciousness very late in their existence. I left the New Jersey area just as The Ramones were exploding and never really experienced the Punk scene. To this day I'm not much for body piercings (not that there's anything wrong with that as the saying goes) and it just seemed that crowd had an affinity for spitting in public and putting safety pins through their eyebrows. Slam dancing, ripped jeans and t-shirts and the general disheveled look of the allegedly disenfranchised just wasn't my style. Unfortunately, sometimes music gets pigeon-holed and aligned with a particular crowd and alienates the rest. Today I am a great fan of a lot of Punk music, but back then...

Where it all began changes as the years go on, but you can generally consider The Ramones as a top five Punk act. The Clash were punk rockers, maybe the greatest of all time, but their music really evolved as time went on. The Sex Pistols were punk personified around the globe and Never Mind The Bullocks still sounds wonderfully irreverent to this day. I guess you could say The Ramones represented New York, The Clash & Sex Pistols the UK and X Los Angeles...no offense to any giant Punk bands I foolishly left out intended...

This is kind of a tough one for me. I was never a big Michael Jackson fan, though I own The Best of The Jackson Five and a copy of Thriller. It's definitely not time to talk negatively of the deceased, but I can't think of anything past 1984, when he was absolutely the King of Pop, that I can point to that pumps me up about Michael Jackson. He was, however, right there with the titans of that mid 80's era alongside Prince, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and U2. Those were the five biggest acts of the 80's as far as I can tell. It goes well beyond record sales and concert revenues...these five acts overshadowed all comers. Jackson's 1982 album Thriller catapulted him into the stratosphere, as if he wasn't already famous and successful enough. It remains one of the best selling records of all time to this day. By the time MTV began playing his Thriller video, complete with a reading from the venerable Vincent Price, Jackson had no place on this earth to hide from his fame. His legendary moon walk is probably one of the most mimicked dance steps of our generation. A TV performance of "Billie Jean" on the 25th Anniversary of Motown special was flat jaw dropping. Michael Jackson was an incredibly talented performer. One of the greatest the world has ever seen. He apparently died of cardiac arrest today at age 50. What a shame. Even though his music is not necessarily our charter I felt like it was important that The Giant Panther should acknowledge his passing.

There were rumblings that Jackson was thinking about making a comeback and that several shows had been scheduled for London in the fall, but I wasn't much interested in that potential spectacle. His eccentric behavior and insistence on maintaining a childlike persona seemed to eventually derail any scintilla of sanity in his world. Here was a striking young African American male with the world at his feet and somewhere along the way he just seemed to come unglued. They call Joan Rivers the Queen of Plastic Surgery or some such thing, but Michael Jackson had to lead the league in completely unnecessary surgeries. As far as I was concerned, Jackson was a good looking man, but he obviously didn't see it that way. I have to believe the stress of being Michael Jackson just overwhelmed him. He sold a lot of records after Thriller and was still in the news, mostly for all the wrong reasons unfortunately, but he never did attain those heights ever again. We can't imagine what it was like to be the son of an allegedly abusive father and a pop star by eight years old or whatever it was. The Danny Bonaduce story doesn't even scratch the surface here.

I was an AM Gold guy in the late 60's and early 70's. I got on quite nicely with The Love You Save, ABC, I Want You Back, Rockin' Robin, I'll Be There and Never Can Say Goodbye. I started to lose it when he had the hit "Ben" about the friendly rat and as popular as Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough or Rock With You were I couldn't stand them. I was never much for so called "Dance Music." My ears perked up when I heard Eddie Van Halen's solo on "Beat It," but I still wasn't completely sold. "Billie Jean" was a brilliant pop song though. I remember we played it on WBCN, a rock station, and that was amazing. Like Prince, Michael Jackson's music was color blind and crossover format friendly. I even liked "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," but I was back on the outside looking in when P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) became a hit. WBCN played this record until nobody could stand it anymore. It had the same type of "Legs" as ZZ Top's Eliminator, Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual, Prince's Purple Rain and John Mellencamp's Scarecrow. Whether it was four, five or six singles radio just kept playing all of these records for over a year...almost until the artist's next record came out!

I guess what I came to say is that Michael Jackson was a true icon. Larger than life. A supreme talent. I didn't always like his music, but I was clearly in the minority. His legal troubles, the opulent Neverland Ranch, the multiple facial reconstructions, the rumors about his sexual preferences, the endless stories about his financials and mental status, the inexplicable marriages, and the bizarre footage of him hanging a child out of a hotel window? You can have all that stuff. At the end of the day the world lost a world class entertainer at a very young age and it is kind of a shame the way it all ended for him. He seemed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, but that doesn't change what he accomplished. I hope he can rest in peace now. He's earned that much. Best wishes to the surviving members of the Jackson family and all of his heartbroken fans.

Before I go I wanted to mention Farrah Fawcett's passing as well. She was 62 years old. The sex symbol of the 1970's, Farrah ended up overcoming her "handicap" of being gorgeous and went on to prove herself a serious actress when nobody thought she had it in her. Charlie's Angels and one fantastic poster might have put her on the map, but she took it from there. I'm glad she is no longer suffering and will remember her fondly until my turn comes.

Cake is an interesting act. An American "Indie" band from Sacramento, CA, Cake burst onto the national scene around 1996 with a cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive." Fashion Nugget was already their second record, but we didn't know that at the time. All we knew is that while Gloria Gaynor was famous for that song folks who listened to Cake and similar bands weren't typically fans of that type of music. It came across as more funny than anything else. The next thing I remember hearing is "The Distance," a song that thrust Cake into the spotlight. It had lyrics conducive to having the local professional sports franchises potentially adopting it as their marketing soundtrack. I know the Boston Bruins gave it a whirl at one point. As a result, Fashion Nugget is not the first record I reach for when considering a Cake CD. I can listen to "The Distance" if I have to, but it's gone the way of "Song 2" by Blur, "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba, "Rock & Roll Part 2" by Gary Glitter, "Let's Get It Started" by The Black Eyed Peas, "We Will Rock You" by Queen, "Centerfield" by John Fogerty, "All-Star" by Smashmouth, "Welcome To The Jungle" by Guns 'N Roses, "Unbelievable" by EMF, "Ready To Go" by Repulica, "Jump Around" by House of Pain and that god awful "Who Let The Dogs Out" by The Baja Men. You no longer care if you ever hear these tracks again. Ever. They're a little too easy as halftime fodder while watching the cheerleaders. You know you haven't heard the last of them so no reason to play them at home or add them to your iPod. They are overexposed for good. The Distance might be better than all of these tracks, but it has been dragged down to that level by virtue of its association with sporting events and TV commercials.

Cake, though, is a great band. They only have five records, a B-side compilation and a live disc. I'm sure it is intentional, but all of their album covers look very similar with a yellowish or white background. Nothing is very eye catching. It adds to their mystery I suppose. I last saw them at the Hatch Shell in Boston last summer at the Earth Day Festival. The played their cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs." I had never heard it before. As a Black Sabbath fan, at least until 1978 or so, I loved it. I decided to post it for fun today. Make no mistake; Cake has a fine catalogue in their own right. I own all of their studio records, but Prolonging The Magic and Comfort Eagle are great records. I'm not sure which one I like the best, but you can trust me when I tell you that they are very much worth owning. Hardly a throwaway track across the board. Cake has always had a tongue in cheek sense of humor about them which I can really appreciate. I always like a little humor in my rock & roll. It makes it fun every now an then. "War Pigs" is one of the all time anti-war protest songs of our time. When Cake sings the lyrics you can actually understand what Ozzy was mumbling way back in 1971. They could never match the epic back beat of the Black Sabbath original, but I think you'll find this to be entertaining. I gave it the thumbs up both in concert and on record. Happy Father's Day to all the Fathers out there. Hopefully this one will be a sleeper cut on your iPod now...

Power Pop is a term you hear fairly often when talking about oldies that sort of split the atom between Bubblegum (think The Ohio Express or The 1910 Fruitgum Company), Pop (think Three Dog Night, The Grassroots or The Lovin' Spoonful) and Rock (think The Doors or Cream). I was reading that Pete Townshend of The Who is generally credited with coining the phrase in 1967 when asked what type of music his band played. Referring to "I Can't Explain", "Happy Jack" and "Pictures of Lily" he replied "Power Pop." I never knew this tidbit of information. I can't describe Power Pop when I try to explain it, but I know it when I hear it. It's always been a favorite genre of mine. It lends itself to one hit wonder bands, or at least to bands that don't have a lot of catalogue exposure. One of my all time favorite Power Pop songs is "Shake Some Action" by The Flamin' Groovies. That song rocks. How about "No Matter What" or "Baby Blue" by Badfinger? Yes please. Little Girl by Syndicate of Sound? Yep. What about "Starry Eyes" by The Records? Love it. I loved Pop Rock when I was a kid. Time of The Season by The Zombies. Spirit in The Sky by Norman Greenbaum. In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry. Go All The Way by The Raspberries. Surrender by Cheap Trick. Anything by Todd Rundgren. September Gurls by Big Star. Bus Stop by The Hollies. I'm On Fire by Dwight Twilley. She's So Selfish by The Knack. Teenage Kicks by The Undertones. Switchboard Susan by Nick Lowe. Anything by Joe Jackson. Driver's Seat by Sniff 'n The Tears. Melt With You by Modern English. The Buzzcocks. The Monkees. The Beach Boys. The Kinks. Electric Light Orchestra. The Easybeats. Love. Heck, you could even call Blue Oyster Cult Power Pop if pressed. The list is blissfully endless...

Later on we had The Replacements, XTC, Blondie, The Bangles, The La's, Fountains of Wayne, The Dandy Warhols, The New Radicals, Matthew Sweet, The Lemonheads, Teenage Fanclub, The Romantics, The Plimsouls, Marshall Crenshaw, R.E.M., Squeeze, The Jam, The New Pornographers, Jimmy Eat World, Weezer, The dB's, The Smithereens, The Pursuit of Happiness, Utopia, Nada Surf, The Hoo Doo Gurus, Rhett Miller and others carrying the flag. The actual time frame of the golden age of Power Pop is up for debate. By most accounts the sweet spot was 1975 or so until maybe 1983, but we all know that Power Pop was invented by The Beatles. The Kinks, The Who, Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders, The Troggs, The Rolling Stones, Sly & The Family Stone and scores of bands had also paved the way prior to 1975, if indeed that is the imaginary line in the sand. The thing about it is, I think you have to have had roots in the AM Gold Pop era to appreciate this music to the level that I do. It was right on the fault line when AOR FM radio started to take off. The music needed to be longer than 2 minutes and 15 seconds and it had to have something to say. The late 60's and early 70's had a backdrop of heavier music making it's own history in Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Aerosmith, but there was a bridge to this music that was a hybrid of pop and rock. It took nearly a decade to come and go, but fortunately there is still a market for this product even if it is dormant at times. It's kind of cyclical I think. Some might call it antiquated, but I like it.

I don't know what it is that attracts me to this genre so much, but it's like ear candy for me. It's easy to understand the lyrics and sing to and it just rips the nostalgia from my can't remember what I had for breakfast brain. I'm posting two Power Pop tracks today. The first is without a doubt one of my favorite local Boston band tracks by a band called Private Lightning. This band never really made it out of New England, but I don't care. "Physical Speed" is a masterpiece from my point of view. I was so happy to read on another blog that they were going to re-release their 1980 self titled CD this month I ordered it before it was available. They had a second song called "Song of The Kite" that I also loved, but these tracks were very hard to find for decades if you didn't own their original album. I never did own it, but I did record the single on a cassette tape for safe keeping and held onto it tightly until now. Whenever I hear it I am instantly taken back to hazy lazy summer days on Nahant Beach back in 1980 with a kite tied to my beach chair and the cheapest beer we could find. Most of the time we had two or three bikini clad waitresses with us from work with the boom box blasting. I'm sure there was no connection to the ideology behind "Girl of My Dreams" and my love for the second song below, but it sure was nice to get lost in the day dream with that kind of company just the same. Local New Englanders already know Nahant is not exactly a five star beach, but it was close to Boston and most of the time we needed to be at work by 4:30 PM so Nahant it was. I just loved Physical Speed. Private Lightning was a rousing success if for no other reason than this contribution to the world of music. Congrats guys (and girls) wherever you are today. You rocked my world nearly 30 years ago and still do to this day. That has gotta be such a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. I'd be so proud if somebody remembered my signature tune for a decade, let alone three...that was such a long time ago...still, I remember it like it was yesterday...

The other song I'm posting is Bram Tchaikovsky's "Girl of My Dreams." Bram released Strange Man, Changed Man in 1979. It had a mediocre cover of The Monkee's I'm a Believer (written by the legendary Neil Diamond), but nothing else that riled up the radio community. Luckily they latched onto this track and played it like there was no tomorrow. Everything about this track screams Power Pop and I could never ever get enough of it. It's a brilliant track. I hope you like it too. I don't know what it says about me that Bram's "girl" Judy was a blow up doll, but the song is so beautiful I can overlook that minor detail. At least I'm not one of those clowns who brings blow up dolls to sporting events to be passed around huh? Don't you judge me...

Ahoy Hoy my friends! Did you know that "Ahoy Hoy" was the standard greeting in the early days of the existence of the telephone? Me neither. Luckily it was replaced by "hello" before too long and only the venerable C. Montgomery Burns of Simpson's fame uses that greeting in the modern day. Sorry for the prolonged absence, but it seems like I've got a lot going on these days for a guy in between jobs. It's concert going season and though my budget isn't what it used to be, but I've got a couple of outings planned shortly. I remember seeing Devo for the first time last summer (pre-blogging for this rookie) in the second row and having a rip roaring blast singing "Mongoloid" at the top of my lungs with friends. Hopefully some such slice of life awaits me in the coming months so I can report back to the masses for fun. Is there anything better than an outdoor summer concert? I ask you...

I can remember when WFNX, my local alternative rock station here in the Boston area, began to morph it's playlist to include the mash-up between hip hop, rap rock and metal in the early 90's. Suddenly bands like Rage Against The Machine, Linkin Park, Cypress Hill, and Limp Bizkit starting taking over the airwaves. We already had Faith No More and The Red Hot Chili Peppers edging into that genre a bit, but now, coming off The Manchester Sound and a ton of singer songwriter types like Matthew Sweet the melody was gone. Shout singing, rap rock and noise became the order of the day. I actually stopped listening to WFNX for a while. Aside from the DJ turnover and god awful repetitiveness of the programming, I really didn't like the direction they were headed. Local dinosaur rock station WBCN was almost playing the identical artists at the time next to their standard fare of Aerosmith and U2. Maybe the change was too sudden for me at the time, but I really felt WFNX was losing its way. I was turned off. No more obscure tasty treats like Propaganda, The Lightning Seeds, It's Immaterial and scores of other bands I can't remember off the top of my head. Today order has been restored. The maddening tiny playlist still exists, but they are back on the beam of what made them great in the first place; new artists mixed in with at least some reverence for what came before. I'm a big history guy; I love to trace musical lineage. It's all borrowed one way or another...

I've begun backing off on my Rage Against Rage statements of the mid 90's. I was pointing at Rage as the reason alternative rock had gone to hell in a hand basket. I never really was keen on Bulls On Parade, but I've come to enjoy these guys more than I ever thought I would. Truthfully, if I wasn't filling an iPod for a friend who wanted all that stuff; Disturbed, Drowning Pool, System of a Down and the like I wouldn't have given Rage a second chance. I was more of a Soundgarden and Monster Magnet guy at the time. Those bands still had some discernable melody to offer to me. Now I find myself Raging from time to time. Guerilla Radio no longer goes right through me like it once did. Sleep Now in The Fire! Have you seen that TV commercial where the three rockers with long hair are swinging their manes around with headphones on? Not only is that flat hysterical it reminds me of watching concert footage of RATM and their fans just grooving to the music. I was listening to RATM's Renegades a while back and stumbled upon their cover of Bob Dylan's Maggie's Farm. I love Bob Dylan to pieces so I thought this would be fun to post. Even if Rage is not your cup of tea, and I totally get it if they are not, the re-worked Maggie's Farm is very cool for my money. Enjoy.

Rage Against The Machine - Maggie's Farm.mp3

Rage Against The Machine - Maggie's Farm.mp3 YSI

www.ratm.com

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.