Tag: American rock

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1991: #16 Violent Femmes “American music”

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“Can I… Can I put on something like: This is American music. Take one. One, two, three, four…”

Whenever I hear or think about the band Violent Femmes, I think of my friend Jeff from high school, even though I haven’t seen him in a couple of decades (not counting the odd word on Facebook). This is because I lent him my recorded copy of Violent Femmes’ debut self-titled album on cassette at the beginning of our final year (OAC, for those in the know) and no word of a lie, I didn’t get it back until the end of that school year. I started out asking for it daily and he would always make excuses and promise it back the next day. I stopped asking so often after a while and had almost given up hope, only keeping up the charade as an ongoing joke, but then, on the final day of classes, he returned it to me.

Of course, “American music” does not appear on the debut. It’s from the band’s fifth album, “Why do birds sing?”. Really, the only other album besides the debut that I know. Its release came shortly after the band reformed from a brief split and coincided with a tour, whose Toronto stop a bunch of my friends went to see but which I sadly missed. “American music” was another favourite of my friend Jeff’s. He’d often break into a sad impression of frontman Gordon Gano’s nasally vocals when we were hanging out during afternoon spare period and sing: “Do you like American music? I like American music. Don’t you like American music baby!”

Save for the trio’s aforementioned debut, the Femmes have always operated on the periphery of the music industry, sitting precariously on the edge of alternative and mainstream culture. They have a number of songs, though, thanks to usage in films and appearances in TV commercials, that have become part of our collective consciousness. I’d say “American music” is one of these. Though only achieving modest success and moderate airplay, it has become a favourite at the shows the band still performs today.

It is a typically upbeat and off-kilter number for the group, hinting at a love for the red, white, and blue and the Norman Rockwell lifestyle. Gano whines and yelps, Ritchie’s bass lines boom, and Victor DeLorenzo gets us all up dancing at the prom with his get up and go drum beats, whether we have a date to dance with or not.

Yeah. I like American music too… baby.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1991 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2001: #10 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club “Love burns”

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At some point during my second or third year in Ottawa, my youngest brother Michael came up to visit for a weekend. I’m pretty sure it was at the suggestion and financing of my mother, who had already been moved up to the NWT for a few years. Him and I were ten years apart in age, which meant by the time he was just reaching his teen years, I had already moved away from home to go to university. I didn’t really know him, though it never occurred to me at the time.

Michael came up by Greyhound bus. If I remember correctly, he caught the bus in Oshawa, a milk run route that wends its way through Peterborough and a host of other towns on the 7, a longer, more arduous trip than the express run between Ottawa and Toronto, one that Victoria and I were already sick of taking. He slept on the couch during his stay with us in that one bedroom basement apartment in Vanier but on the plus side was able to sample some of Victoria’s already fine cooking. I took him to see all the pertinent sights of our fair capital (at least, as I knew them at the time): parliament hill, the Byward market, the Rideau canal, Sparks street, the original D’arcy McGee’s pub, and of course, the Elgin Street Diner for poutine.

One of things I always remember about that visit is that his backpack was packed with more CDs than clothing and I remember thinking on that if we lived closer, we’d probably get along just fine. During the final night of his stay, we played each other selections from our CD collections, taking turns swapping them in and out of my five disc carousel. I don’t remember everything he played for me that night but a few have stuck with me: Oasis’s “Stop crying your eyes out” single, OK Go’s self-titled debut and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s debut “B.R.M.C.” (You knew I’d get here eventually, right?)

Not exactly the minute he put on the opening track, “Love burns”, but the moment the miasmic intro faded and the raunchy strumming started, the drum flourish, and ultra cool vocals, I said to my brother: “This sounds like The Jesus and Mary Chain.” Yes, indeed. Give it a listen and I’m sure you won’t disagree. It’s noisy and aggressive, it’s leather jackets and sunglasses, it’s edgy and raw. And it’s this last that fit it right in with the garage rock movement that was taking off at the time. I loved it and went out shortly afterwards to get myself a copy of the album. Check it out.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2001 list, click here.

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Albums

Best albums of 1987: The honourable mentions (aka #10 through #6)

Happy Thursday! And welcome to the third installment of my Throwback Thursday (#tbt) best albums of the year series. This time, we are on a voyage all the way back to 1987. Just over thirty years ago. The world was a different place, especially for me. Because I was but a child.

1987 marked the year I left grade school and entered high school. A big step for some but since my school was in the process of spawning a secondary school, it just meant changing classrooms. I don’t remember much else special about those early days of grade nine, at least nothing else I want to share today. It was… a very, very long time ago.

Nonetheless, I can assure you that, at the time, I didn’t know anything about music. I definitely wasn’t listening to the albums that will make up this top ten list. In fact, I can’t even remember for certain the songs and artists to which I might have been listening. It was likely the pop and top 40 that I was able to pick up on my AM radio, music from singers like Bruce Springsteen and Corey Hart and Madonna. I would only start discovering the world of alternative music a few years later and some of the following albums would figure in, while others I wouldn’t discover until much later.

It will go without saying that a good portion of the albums I will cover today and in the coming weeks are now considered classics and very much in the mainstream but back in the day, they were on the cutting edge and pushing the boundaries of what pop and rock music should be. So before I start ruining surprises, I am going to kick things off with the first five albums of my top ten below. And if you don’t know the trick by now, I will be featuring the top five, an album each Thursday, over the next five weeks. I hope you enjoy this trip back 30 odd years with me.

#10 Dead Can Dance “Within the realm of the dying sun”

“Within the realm of the dying sun” is the third album by these Australian exports to England, mainly the duo of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard by 1987. It marks a departure from their earlier post-punk and gothic rock sound, dispensing almost completely with guitars and utilizing a vast range of unorthodox instruments, some of which you may have never heard of or seen before. The album’s sides are split between the two primary vocalists and songwriters but it is cohesive in its big and dark and worldly sound. This is the Dead Can Dance we know and love.

Gateway tune: “Xavier”

#9 Spaceman 3 “The Perfect prescription”

With this, their second album, Jason Pierce’s pre-Spiritualized band with Pete “Sonic Boom” Kember, Spacemen 3 were arguably at their recorded output apex. They were given pretty much free reign of a recording studio for eight months, where they were able to experiment and hone their songs together to perfection. Compare that with the debut that was recorded in a week with an unsympathetic producer and to their third and fourth records, where the relationship, both personal and working, between the primary songwriters, Pierce and Kember, were by times, deteriorating and completely non-existent. This “rollercoaster” concept album of a trip (see what I did there?) is raw and soulful and psychedelic and woefully underrated.

Gateway tune: “Walkin’ with Jesus”

#8 The Jesus And Mary Chain “Darklands”

For their second album, the Reid brothers replaced Bobby Gillespie (who left to focus on Primal Scream) with a drum machine and really, did much of the instrument work on “Darklands” themselves. They stripped back a lot of the feedback and fuzz and noise but still managed to infuse the follow up to “Psychocandy” with just as much darkness and pure cool. Like the other two albums I’ve already listed, I got into this album years after its release and for me, it’s not an album of singles (although “Happy when it rains” is pretty phenomenal) but one of mood and feel. All black leather and sunglasses cool.

Gateway tune: “Happy when it rains”

#7 Jane’s Addiction “Jane’s Addiction”

In doing these best albums lists, I’ve been trying to limit my selections strictly to studio albums, which is why you won’t find New Order’s iconic compilation album, “Substance”, in this list for 1987. However, Jane’s Addiction’s self-titled debut album is a special case. Yes, it is a live album but it was heavily mixed and dubbed in the studio afterwards. I also think that Perry Farrell and company went this route to avoid having their debut release come out on a major label, given that they were being heavily courted by Warner at the time. And finally, it’s an album that defies ignoring. It captures the band’s raw live energy and includes rough first recordings of songs like “Pigs in zen” and “Jane says” that would later get a makeover and become classics. And oh yeah, there’s a couple of great covers… like the one below.

Gateway tune: “Sympathy”

#6 The Sisters Of Mercy “Floodland”

My friend Tim got me into The Sisters of Mercy back in the latter days of high school. He recorded me a copy of 1990’s “Vision thing”, which I loved, and later, when I caught and recorded the video for “This corrosion” on Much, the deal was sealed. The Sisters released three albums and each were recorded by three very different looking bands, the only constants were frontman Andrew Eldritch and his drum machine, Doktor Avalanche. On this, their second album, the goth rock outfit also included Patricia Morrison, who didn’t do very much on the album musically but definitely added to its image and tone. Epic rock producer Jim Steinman (who worked a lot with Meatloaf) also added his touches, especially on the aforementioned “This corrosion” and “Dominion/Mother Russia”. It’s big and it’s dark and it’s awesome.

Gateway tune: “This corrosion”

Check back next Thursday for album #5 on this list. In the meantime, you can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

*Note: The photo under the title is not my own but I was unable to find the original source. Apologies and kudos to its creator.