Talking Heads: Live in Rome

The big difference between us and punk groups is that we like KC and the Sunshine Band. You ask Johnny Rotten if he likes KC and the Sunshine Band and he'll blow snot in you face.

Chris Frantz, Talking Heads

Talking Heads could have been terrible. There were enough lofty artistic goals (some would say pretensions) in that band, and their extended entourage, to throw the world off its axis. But when those disparate elements; the funky jamming crossed with the nervous elocution, the world-beat experimentations hitched to the art-school theorizing gelled, as they did throughout the late seventies and early eighties, it was magnificent. This live show (may be available as a DVD here) contains each those elements (and many more) mentioned, all of which served to make them one of the most critically-esteemed bands of their time. Don't hold that against them, either.



I'd like to dedicate this post to my former colleague, Rolly, who recently passed on. Rolly would sometimes walk the halls of the school where we taught, yelling "Who's in charge here?" just like Capt. Willard and, occasionally, when the students had departed, he'd throw on "Once in a Lifetime" on the P.A. and just his eyes would dance.

Live in Rome CD

"People take us far too seriously. We're going to have start being far more stupid."

David Byrne

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Blank Generation: The New York Scene (1975-1978)

"Each of the bands at CBGB was like a little idea. It wasn't that kind of style of punk rock that happened when England took over. Here it was all like little art projects....There was no one dominant thing."

Lenny Kaye

When you stop and consider Patti Smith, Suicide, The Heartbreakers, Television, Blondie, The Ramones, Richard Hell, Mink Deville and Talking Heads, what really united them? Aside from geography, we could add a rabid individualism, a strong sense of image, a distrust of the machinery of pop stardom and a backward-lookingness combined with a fervor for new sounds. But as far as the records they cut, no party line emerged from NYC. That utter non-uniformity keeps this era ever-fascinating.




So this long out-of-print Rhino collection (sans Talking Heads) not only makes for good listening it also goes a long way towards proving Kaye's argument.

1. Blitzkrieg Bop - The Ramones
2. (I Live for) Cars and Girls - The Dictators
3. Ask the Angels - Patti Smith
4. All for the Love of Rock & Roll - Tuff Darts
5. Let Me Dream If I Want To - Mink DeVille
6. Max's Kansas City 1976 - Jayne County, Wayne County
7. X Offender - Blondie
8. Blank Generation - Richard Hell
9. See No Evil - Television
10. In the Flesh - Blondie
11. Spanish Stroll - Mink DeVille
12. Venus - Television
13. Sonic Reducer - Dead Boys
14. Chinese Rocks - The Heartbreakers
15. Sheena Is a Punk Rocker - The Ramones
16. Crocodile Tears - The Mumps
17. Love Comes in Spurts - Richard Hell & the Voidoids
18. Born to Lose - The Heartbreakers
19. Cheree - Suicide


D.I.Y. Blank Generation: The New York Scene CD (Includes full booklet)
28

Times Square OST (1980)

Quite the soundtrack here for this cult punxploitation film from 1980. It's said that the guiding hand of RSO Records chief Robert Stigwood, who wanted Times Square to be the next Saturday Night Fever, forced the inclusion of some of dreckier tunes herein. As for the rest of it, it's a great cross-section of English and American punk/new wave/proto-punk et al.





Side one
1. Suzi Quatro: "Rock Hard" (Mike Chapman, Nicky Chinn) – 3:18
2. The Pretenders: "Talk of the Town" (Chrissie Hynde) – 3:16
3. Roxy Music: "Same Old Scene" (Bryan Ferry) – 3:54
4. Gary Numan: "Down in the Park" (Gary Numan) – 4:20
5. Robin Gibb and Marcy Levy: "Help Me!" (Robin Gibb, Blue Weaver) – 3:37

Side two
1. Talking Heads: "Life During Wartime" (David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz) – 3:40
2. Joe Jackson: "Pretty Boys" (Joe Jackson) – 3:27
3. XTC: "Take This Town" (Andy Partridge) – 4:08
4. Ramones: "I Wanna Be Sedated" (Joey Ramone) – 2:29
5. Robin Johnson: "Damn Dog" (Billy Mernit, Jacob Brackman) – 2:40

Side three
1. Robin Johnson and Trini Alvarado: "Your Daughter Is One" (Mernit, Norman Ross, Brackman) – 2:10
2. The Ruts: "Babylon's Burning" (John Jennings, Dave Ruffy, Malcolm Owen, Paul Fox) – 2:34
3. D.L. Byron: "You Can't Hurry Love" (Edward Holland, Jr., Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland)– 3:04
4. Lou Reed: "Walk on the Wild Side" (Lou Reed) – 4:12
5. Desmond Child and Rouge: "The Night Was Not" (Desmond Child) – 3:08

Side four
1. Garland Jeffreys: "Innocent, Not Guilty" (Garland Jeffreys) – 2:13
2. The Cure: "Grinding Halt" (Robert Smith, Michael Dempsey, Lol Tolhurst) – 2:49
3. Patti Smith Group: "Pissing in the River" (Patti Smith, Ivan Kral) – 4:41
4. David Johansen and Robin Johnson: "Flowers of the City" (David Johansen, Ronnie Guy) – 3:58
5. Robin Johnson: "Damn Dog" (Reprise - The Cleo Club) (Mernot, Brackman) – 2:40



Leave us some words on this OST, and it's strange mix of artists.

Speaking of COMMENTS, that's where you'll find the Times Square link

*

For more Pretenders go here, for more Talking Heads go here, for more Joe Jackson go here, for more Ramones go here, for more of Ruts go here, for more Lou Reed go here for more Patti Smith go here.


Basically, everything to do with this film and it's soundtrack is so far out of print that even the damn cassette pictured above goes for $50.00 on Amazon!

Talking Heads: Memories Can't Wait (1979)

Further proof of Talking Heads power as a live band, even with a smaller entourage, can be heard on this 1979 show. Enjoy.



Memories Can't Wait CD

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MRML's Biggest Hits of 2010!

Don't forget to nominate your favourite MRML post of the year in the comment section!

We like comments...


As I have said, alongside the number of comments and the sheer total of hits per day, downloads are on the surest ways of tracking what MRML readers want to hear. I'd love to track how much music I'd encourage readers to buy but without great co-operation from Soundscan this will have to our final measure of success:

(Click on the hyperlinks links to see all MRML posts on that particular topic!)

1. The D.I.Y. series: This legendary but damningly out-of-print series hinted that this would be MRML' s best year yet - 500,000 hits now. (For those number crunchers it's NYC at 1,112 d/l's , Anarchy I at 808 and Come Out and Play at 607 with the others being in the 500's.)

2. The Graham Parker series
I embarked on this series, strictly out of love for the man's work, not knowing that GP himself (we think) would drop by, that MRML would have a hand in financing the GP documentary and that these entries would so dominate the top of our list. (For those keeping track that's 853 d/l's for Live at Marble Arch, 782 for GP & co.'s Beatles tribute, 629 for Live at the Test, 584 for Live at Rockpalast, 573 for King Biscuit Flower Hour, 503 for That's When You Know and a few others that are still climbing the charts.)

3. The Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan series #1 sits at 766, #2 at 646 and #4 at 552 and these numbers are gonna grow in the new year.

4. Devo Hardcore
#1 is at 722 and #2 is at 523

5. Social Distortion: Lost Tracks
A great series overall, this particular volume netted 650 d/l's.

6. The Powerpearls series
#1, as is often the case, tops out at 610 while the rest also did well.

7. Bruce Springsteen: How Nebraska was Born
With three posts in a row on Nebraska this one came out the most popular with 608 d/l.'s (though our own compilation Nobody Sings Dylan Like The Boss post ratcheted up a respectable 507!)

8. Talking Heads: Berkley '79
I remain surprised that this particular boot got so high (604 dl's!) but am delighted nonetheless.

9. V.A. Big Beat Beach Party
Another surprise entry here as this is a garage/surf-rock (and it's an incomplete rip to boot!) but it hit 565 d/l's.

10. Split Enz: Luton Tapes
503 d/l's for this lost joy.

As for comments, Springsteen takes first and second (How Nebraska was Born with 59 comments, Alone in Colt's Neck with 49) Powerpearls # 1 got 39 comments, Split Enz got 35, Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan #1 registered 30 comments, Springsteen took the middle with Nebraska Live and Nobody Sings Dylan Like the Boss getting 29 responses) The Police BBC Sessions (which mysteriously disappeared from Mediafire) and Billy Bragg's Mermaid Avenue Demos also garnered 29 apiece and let us not forget the 28 comments for our Chumbawamba live post.

A lot of our series generated great commentary, though perhaps more spread out, like the Fastbacks, Patti Smith, Big Country, Dr. Frank and Joe Strummer ones but of course I'm proud of all those wordy ones.

Now it's your turn, what was the best MRML post of the year by your reckoning?

The proprietor of this blog appreciates feedback, possibly due to his rampaging ego but even more so due to the fact that feedback inspires better posts! So if you wanna tell me what posts got you to appreciate something new or old I'd love to hear it, if not thanks for reading this far and have a great 2011!!

MRML'S TOP TWENTY SONGS of 2012

Year-end lists (Best Singles/E.P.'s HERE, Best Under-Appreciated Albums HERE) can be a bit ludicrous but please suspend your disbelief in the comprehensiveness of this blogger's listening and enjoy some ripping tunes. And ripping it must be, since we here at MMRL crave music that, regardless of genre, >> moves >>

Unlike the Best Under-Appreciated Albums and the Best Singles/E.P.'s lists, neither acclaim nor success are a factor here (though no one release can be on more than one list)  - this time it's strictly about the songs!

So while I considered only releases not covered on my previous lists, I still chose to rank my choices for song of the year according to their importance. However, this is not meant  to be The Most Important Songs of 2012, intriguing idea as that is, but rather my narrow, retro-biased 2012 playlist ranked in order of importance, as I saw it. So I'm not trying to  freight my choices with deep significance, only arguing that music is not just an app or an add-on but a force of history.


20.  The Haddonfields  - When She Left (listen)
Slow and steady be damned - the race goes to the swift!
If you play fast enough you can finish a song a three-minute pop song in 1:37!


19.   Dot Dash  - The Past is Another Country (watch)
Lack of recognition is no reason to quit anything!
A buncha guys who've been knocking around the musical underground for thirty years have formed a rocking alliance, which spits out both moodier pieces and fiercer ones like "The Past is Another Country".


18.  Green Day  -  Let Yourself Go (watch)
Sometimes amidst the refuse, there's something redeeming. 
Three albums in a row? For fuck's sake, grow up Green Day ("Fuck you, Tom Selleck!"). Were there enough songs as propulsive and catchy as "Let Yourself Go" to create one strong album? Probably, but even I, a devout fan, couldn't make it past Dos!


17.  Air Traffic Controller  -  Hurry, Hurry (watch)
The past is another country but the border is undefended.
Indie-pop band Air Traffic Controller get accused of ripping off They Might Be Giants and Talking Heads a lot but band leader and real-life US Navy ATC, Dave Munro has already developed his own distinct voice.


16.   Bob Dylan  -  Dusquene Whistle (watch)
As their age advances some musicians becomes more like magicians.
Okay, Tempest got more than its share of praise but in "Dusquene Whistle" Dylan has pulled out of his hat a clear, standout single something he hasn't really done since "Things Have Changed".


15.    The Big Pink  -  Oh Superman (watch) 
Sometimes the memory of a thing is better than the thing itself.

A British synth & guitar duo on 4AD (hello, mid-80's!) pays tribute to Laurie Anderson's "O Superman".


14.   Bob Mould  - The Descent (watch)
Every generation anoints an avatar of their angst.
Sure, sure we can all admire Contended Disco Bob but it's Angry Distorted Bob, on display on "The Descent", that we need.


13.  Gaslight Anthem  -  45 (watch)
Metaphors, even anachronistic ones, still hold their power in this modern age.
Hand-Written was a clear let-down - Pearl Jam worship is no basis for a sustainable new direction - but there were still a few of those timeless moments, like "45".


12.  Die Toten Hosen  -  Rock Me Amadeus (watch)
Music, like a fist in the face, is an international language.
Due to their usual commitment to sing in their native tongue Germany's Die Toten Hosen are superstar's in their homeland and unknown in most of the rest of the world (who only notice them when they do English-language covers, like "Rock Me Amadeus").


11.  Don Williams  -  Better Than Today (watch)
Old dogs are too smart to need new tricks.
We've lost some of the best country singers in this century -  Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Porter Wagoner - so appreciate country vet Don Williams' defiant and unsentimental optimism, knowing that he didn't come by it cheaply.


10. Classics Of Love  - Castles in the Sky (watch)
You can always go home again, in fact, you may have never really left.
Operation Ivy/Big Rig/Common Rider front-man Jesse Michaels' return to active duty in Classics of Love proves he still has the fire in eyes and in his belly!


9. July Talk  -  Paper Girl (watch)
There are always combinations yet untried.
This Toronto indie-blues-pop band raised a few hackles for their odd juxtaposition of styles but it sure makes for a striking sound on this single.


8. Titus Andronicus  -  My Eating Disorder (watch)
Discretion is not always a part of valour.
By dropping the grand, historical ambitions of The Monitor and focusing on the smaller and the more personal  (hence, Local Business) Titus Andronicus have done some wrenching work of which "My Eating Disorder" is the perfect example.


7.  Charlie Peacock  -  Let the Dog Back in the House (watch)
It's never too late to peak
Charlie Peacock, known more these days for producing bands like The Civil Wars then for his own extensive discography, has crafted a career peak in an album that sounds like what would have happened if T-Bone Burnett had produced Graceland. "Let the Dog Back in the House is his duet with the Ghana-born, Nashville-based singer Ruby Amanfu and it shows off how three-dimensional his production work can be!


6.  Tim Barry - 40 Miler (watch)
One man, one guitar and locomotion are eternal values.
Itinerant folk-punk Tim Barry can't stand "songs about writing songs, albums over  minutes forty long and broke-up bands on their third reunion tour" but he's happy as hell to tell you that "music should sound like escape not rent."


5. First Aid Kit  -  Emmylou (watch)
History has hooks.
What do a pair of young Scandanavian women know about country music? Listen and learn...

4. Cloud Nothings  -  Stay Useless (watch)
Great music still yearns for something, even if it's something not clearly understood.
Attack on Memory deservedly made a slew of Best-Of lists, even though to me nothing on the album was as trans-fucking-cendant as this paean to empty moments.


3. Redd Kross  -  Stay Away from Downtown (watch)
Youth will be served, at least by the time they hit middle age.
How did a band who've been recording since they were teens put out their greatest song (and surely their best album) thirty years into their career?!?


2. Joey Ramone  -  What Did I Do to Deserve You? (listen)

Better to be loved after you're dead, then never loved at all.
With three out of four of the original Ramones dead, the world had to take notice of Ya Know, a posthumous musical scrapbook, with some amazing songs like "What Did I Do to Deserve You?", curated by Joey Ramone's brother, Mickey Leigh.


1. Bruce Springsteen  -  We Take Care of Our Own (watch)
Music is a tie that binds.
When Obama finished his victory speech, "We Take Care of Our Own" came on over the loudspeakers and you knew that Springsteen, who campaigned for McGovern in '72, railed against Reagen in '80 and stumped for for both Kerry and Obama had done his most important political act by creating this fiery statement of purpose.



DON'T LET SILENCE OFFER THE FINAL WORD -
LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Please consider leaving a COMMENT: 

A)  TELL US IF WE MAYBE GOT YOU TO LISTEN TO SOMETHING NEW!
B)  TELL US WHICH GREAT SONGS YOU HEARD THIS YEAR!!

MRML's Greatest Hits

There are three figures I check obsessively here: number of comments, number of visits and number of downloads. The combination of those things is a big part of how I choose what goes up next. While in the end I cover what I love (I finished my series about American hardcore legend Vic Bondi in the face of almost complete indifference), the length of time I stay in any place and the frequency by which I return there is often decided by comments, visitors and downloads.


So, in terms of downloads and comments, here's what has generated the greatest response:

12. Joe Jackson - The Harder They Come ~ 421 D/L's (I trust RapidShare's numbers less than Mediafire's.)
A brilliant little piece of work by JJ that is just begging for re-issue in some form and which I was pleased to remind people of.
Comments: 28 (Coming on the heels of my biggest hissy-fit about not getting comments, this one generated a strong discussion about whether or not Jackson's later career was 'thorny'.)

11. The Clash - This is England 12" 448 D/L's
I fight for Strummer any time I can.
Comments: 16 (Clash fans rule!)

10 Graham Parker Live at Marble Arch 460 D/L's
My series on Graham Parker was big on all three of my metrics - plus I love writing about GP.
Comments: six (overall a great series for comments - one of which may well have been from Mr. Parker himself.)

9. Multitude of Sins - The Dylan Mass ~ 460 D/L's (but someone set up a mirror - whatever that is - without asking me so that might have kept the numbers lower.)
True, such mellow, acoustic music is a bit outside of my mission here but that said:
Comments: 4 (A bit dispiriting, as this deserved an infinitely better response.)

8. Talking Heads - Memories Can't Wait -472 D/L's
A surprise but welcome hit in the D/L department...
Comments: 4 (for those keeping score that's well-below a 1% rate of return on D/L's.)

7. D.I.Y Anarchy in the UK 512 D/L's
With a line up including every great '77 punk band (minus list-favourites The Clash) how could this comp go wrong?
Comments: 8 (Decent till you recall that Blogger counts my own responses in the final tally.)

6. Parker/Pierson/Janovitz - A Tribute to the Beatles 520 D/L's
A low-key release that probably saw a schwack of boomers here on their first and last visit.
Comments:7 (which considering the brevity of the post was okay.)

5. The Dik Van Dykes - Nobody Likes... ~543 d/l's (243 now and at least three hundred on MassMirror)
Canadian funny-punk band that I'm proud as hell to have spread around the world (re-up coming sooner or later).
Comments: 48 ( Best response ever - even beating the 41 commenters who took on my idea of Husker Du being the Great American Band - and it included a few encouraging comments from the band's front-man, Dik.)

4. Bob Dylan - Let My Poor Voice Be heard 544 D/L's
Pixel-stained wretches enjoy writing about Dylan WAY too much and our reward:
Comments: 3 (Dylan fans are the absolute best for visits but the pits for comments.).

3. The Clash - Out of Control (The Alternate Cut the Crap) 722 D/L's
It's cool that something that helps a tiny bit to rehabilitate the much-reviled Cut The Crap (and all of the Clash items in this list are CTC-related) has generated such unexpectedly huge numbers!
Comments: 12 (and many of 'em were sharp!)

2. D.I.Y Blank Generation: the New York Scene 767 D/L's
Biggest in what is probably MRML's most popular series.
Comments: 9 (tepid but not terrible.)

1. The Clash - 12" mixes 877 D/L's
Unstoppable, which is a little odd considering it is almost strictly for completists.
Comments: 7 (Well it was at the tail end of a long series of Clash posts - Clash fans are still my favourite to write for!)

Usually I ask for comments about the music itself but for this time I'm gonna ask you: What was MRML's best post?

XTC: All Along the Watchtower

(To see my list of Ten Amazing XTC Videos please visit the The Big Takeover.)

For a band who are notorious for being almost too English for their own good, XTC's early work has strong American influences. You can hear the art-funk sound of  NYC's Talking Heads, the herky-jerky rock-deconstruction of Akron's Devo plus of the very few artists XTC ever covered one would be Californian Captain Beefheart (on the B-side of "The Mayor of Simpleton" single) and of course America's most towering song-writer, Bob Dylan*.

The band's version of the oft-butchered, "All Along the Watchtower" employs some of  the electric fury of Hendrix's version and some the harmonica wail of Dylan's original acoustic one but to it all they bring an incredible nervous energy and a love of odd dynamics that makes it sound like no one else's version of the song.





For more on XTC go HERE.

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*(And yes, their cover "All Along the Watchtower" on their debut album is preceded by a paean to the "Statute of Liberty".)

V.A. Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan Volume Twenty-Four

This thirty-THREE (!) volume series features artists covering Bob Dylan songs. All of the tracks are recordings of independent origin (ROIO) and hence officially unreleased.

I'm convinced that this series grows stronger as it goes. It's probably the ever-lessening percentage of blues-jam sorta stuff - see Healey, Jeff (R.I.P.) here - and the even greater abundance of more left-field rock, country and folk material that biases me towards these later volumes. Of course, some might argue this set is dominated by so-called "Dad-Rock" what with it having Neil Young dueling with Bruce Springsteen:



Not to mention the sadly departed Warren Zevon doing an oft-neglected Dylan ballad:




But of course there's also Robyn Hitchcock doing "Lo & Behold" with an interpolation of the Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime", alongside eighties L.A. cow punks, The Textones doing the hard-to-call-it-neglected track, "Clean-Cut Kid":



01 One More Night - Elana James (May 30, 2007, Club Passim, Cambridge, MA)
02 To Be Alone with You - Steve Gibbons Band (SWF3 Festival, November 2, 1981)
03 Is Your Love in Vain - Steve Kilbey (Oct 29, 2006, Phoenix Community Reserve, East Malvern, Melbourne, Aus)
04 Lo and Behold - Robyn Hitchcock and the Nashville Crawdads (Mar 18, 2007, Belcourt Thetre, Nashville, TN)
05 Blind Willie McTell - Steve Wynn and John Wesley Harding (Feb 8 1998, Den Bosch, Netherlands)
06 Clean Cut Kid - The Textones (Nov 20, 1987, Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA)
07 Gates of Eden - Bryan Ferry (Apr 2, 2007, Tempodrom, Berlin, Ger)
08 Blowin' in the Wind - Joe Ely (Dec 31, 1990, Austin Coliseum, Austin, TX)
09 License to Kill - Roseanne Cash Apr 6, 2003, Mountain Stage, Cultural Center Auditorium, Charleston, WV)
10 Slow Train Coming - North Mississippi All Stars (May 11, 2007, WorkPlay Sound Stage, Birmingham, AL)
11 When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky - Jeff Healy Band (Apr 30, 1989, PC 69, Bielefeld, Ger)
12 All Along the Watchtower - Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (Oct 5, 2004, Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN)
13 Masters of War - Ben Harper and Tom Morello (Jun 9, 2007, Harrah's Casino, Council Bluffs, IA)
14 Dark Eyes - Warren Zevon (Mar 4, 2000, Park West, Chicago, IL)

If you'd like the series to continue - - - please don't forget to leave a comment behind!


Speaking of comments, the Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan Volume Twenty-Four link is in there.

Thanks to Jeffs98119 for compiling these and to stewART for the images.

• Thanks to Karl Erik @ Expecting Rain for tagging the songs for iTunes
  

• For V.'s 1-23 of Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan go here
  

• For slugline's impressive spreadsheet of the whole series go here