Rock Gods #299: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

The Slipperz never forget their first show. It’s the only one they’ve played so far. They had just found a lead singer, Ben Monck. The debut gig went OK. Then Monck had a climbing accident the following week, went into a coma, and remains at Southwest Central General today, four months later.

The other Slipperz, who admit that they were just getting to know Ben, and had all turned down invites to join him on the mountaintop that fateful Friday, feel dutybound to honor their fallen comrade. They’ve played several shows without a vocalist, as the Lipless, NoBen and Monck-Ridden.

“There’s a resolve,” says Jen Essanay, who grew the band out of her knitting circle. “You hear bands say ‘This is bigger than any of us.’ More than the sum of its parts, like that. Well, this is about Ben, and Ben’s not here, and we’re only here doing this because of Ben. Make of that what you want.”

Ironies linger. Ben’s fall was due to slipping on a wet rock. This observations drives his bandmates nuts. “We were named after shoes. We were padding around a dorm room watching The Shocknuts on TV and saying ‘Hey, we should start a band. If we’d wanted it to be about climbing, we’d be The Cleatz.”

Monck-Ridden plays The Bullfinch on Thursday, a benefit to pay some of Ben’s bills.

Tonight: Ha Hoo Whooeee! at the Bullfinch; they’ve finally written a theme song that uses their band name as background sounds. … The Silent Years at Hamilton’s, doing pre-fuzz trance covers … Mr. Inferno hosts a goth nostalgia night at D’Ollaire’s, featuring underworld one-hit wonders Unkindest Cut, Extreme Decorating and Surprise Presents. …

The Top 50

To accommodate iOs 8.0 a couple of months ago, I had to clean out my phone—a virtual extension of all the moving and unpacking I’ve been doing in the physical realm lately. A rewarding exercise.

Lately, I’ve been using the “Music” area of my phone for whole albums from FIDLAR, The Orwells, The Dirtbombs and the two Early Songs of Randy Newman compilations on Ace Records. Those previous binges are the only reason those bands aren’t on my phone right now. Other major favorites that have lived on my phone for ages and are not currently represented are ? and the Mysterians’ “96 Tears,” Moes Haven’s “Peter Bogdonavich Can’t Stop Talking About Orson Welles,” Frankie Trumbauer & Bix Beiderbecke’s “Borneo,” Danny Kaye & The Andrews Sisters’ “Bongo Bongo Bongo,” John Alden Carpenter’s “Krazy Kat” ballet score, and many different tunes by Mark Mulcahy, The Archies and the great Bert Williams.

Here’s the current line-up, judiciously selected from my iMac library. I wasn’t trying to select exactly 50. That just happened.

“American Beat ’84,” The Fleshtones

“Apathy,” Mikal Cronin

“Are You Ready for the Fallout?,” Fastball

“The Ballad of the Sad Young Men,” Tani Seitz (The Nervous Set original cast soundtrack)

“Bang Shang a Lang,” The Archies (this song is also my ringtone)

“Beatnik Love Affair,” Noel Coward

“Book of Revelation,” Mr. T Experience

“Can’t Stop Singing,” Teen Beach Movie soundtrack

“Dishonest John,” The Jim Jones Revue

“Doin’ the New Lowdown,” Don Redman Orchestra

“Don’t Sugar Me,” Walt Kelly & Norman Monath (I Go Pogo)

“Every 1’s a Winner,” Hot Chocolate

“Everyone Says I Love You” (Zeppo Marx, Horsefeathers soundtrack)

“Everyone Says I Love You” (Chico Marx, Horsefeathers soundtrack)

“Everyone Says I Love You” (Harpo Marx, Horsefeathers soundtrack)

“Everyone Says I Love You” (Groucho Marx, Horsefeathers soundtrack)

“The Fatalist,” Lyonnais

“Faust,” Secret Colours

“The Girl from Ipanema,” Frank Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim

“Goin’ Down,” The Monkees

“Gotta Find You,” Joe Jonas (Camp Rock soundtrack)

“Hello Dolly,” The Shadows of Knight

“Hit Me,” Faust

“Hymn to Fredonia,” Marx Brothers Duck Soup soundtrack

“I Know a Place,” Petula Clark

“I Like Bananas,” Henry Hall & His BBC Dance Orchestra

“I’ve Been to a Marvelous Party,” The Divine Comedy

“Let the Fireflies Fly Away,” Mark Mulcahy

“Lies,” Nancy Sinatra

“Living is So Easy,” British Sea Power

“The Monkey Song,” Hoagy Carmichael

“My Hat’s on the Side of My Head,” Al Bowly

“No Future Part II: The Airing of Grievances,” Titus Andronicus

“No Future Part III: Escape from No Future,” Titus Andronicus

“Not Lately,” Bert Williams

“Oh, Is She Dumb!,” Eddie Cantor

“Olly Olly Oxen Free,” Amanda Palmer & the Grand Theft Orchestra

“The Perfect Nanny,” Louis Prima & Gia Maione

“Randy Scouse Git,” The Monkees

“Sodane,” Pastels & Tenniscoats

“Sugar Sugar,” The Archies

“Tapioca Tundra,” The Monkees

“This Time Josephine,” The Fleshtones

“Two Lovely Black Eyes,” Charles Coburn

“The Underture,” Alice Cooper (Welcome 2 My Nightmare)

“Village Green” Ray Davies and the Crouch End Festival Chorus, from The Kinks Choral Collection

“Watching the Knife and Fork Spoon,” Don Redman Orchestra

“We’ve Got the Look,” The Tyler Trudeau Attempt

“Where the Wind Blows,” Coco O. (The Great Gatsby soundtrack)

“Suds!,” w.h. Walker

“1, 2, 3, Partyy!,” Mission of Burma

The Riverdale Book Review

Most disappointing Archie Christmas special: The Archie Comics Super Special, which is oversized in format and which promises “over 100 pages of Archie fun,” but which is padded with several non-Christmas stories. Sure, there’s the first Jingles the Elf story, but there’s also, at great length, Part One of the “Bollywood Love” serial and, at even greater length, the entire first 24 pages of the new chapter book Betty: Diary of a Girl Next Door. Of course I own that whole book already, but it’s also a waste of a large-format magazine to blow up those black-and-white book illustrations at the expense of, say, more pin-up pages. Archie Comics Super Special also features the silent-film tribute “Quiet on the Set,” written by Frank Doyle and drawn by Harry Lucey. This is an all-time Archie classic, which first appeared in the 1975 Archie Annual, but it’s here as part of a three-story sampler of stories anthologized in the currently available The Best of Archie Comics Book Four. Again, got it already. Shilling for its other publications is a grand Archie tradition. Rerunning dozens of pages from them in a whole other comic, without warning, is Christmas regifting of the cheapest kind.

Rock Gods #298: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

The Minor Improvements and The Bug Fixes are apparently both better bands now, but we don’t know quite how. Both have been enhanced with a new rhythm guitarist, the alleged Oswald Xavier the Tenth. But he barely plays, he’s the antithesis of a natural showman, and even the comedy potential of his name seems as yet unrealized.

Where Mr. Xavier really matters is behind the scenes. He’s arguably the best street-flier designer in town right now, and more importantly he’s a street-flier designer who actually makes the effort to get his work seen. We’ve run into Ozzie X (real name as yet unknown) dozens of times in the last few weeks, on the street, hanging his art. His role onstage is strangely muted—both times he played Thursday, with both those bands, his guitar was buried in the mix and he seemed to actively evade opportunities to use the mic.

Why is he even onstage? “He’s a musician first,” the MI’s Flip Casuary counsels. “We respect that. He’s finding himself. You know, he’s never been in a band. He grew up in the sticks, dreaming of being in a band. Now he’s in two.”
“He’s actually pretty amazing,” adds the BF’s Joe Smith. “He writes bridges. Like three of our songs, they had no, you know, bridge, and he came up with those, well, bridges. He hears our music and makes it better.”

Casuary noted that Ozzie X was doing more that it seemed, including working the pedals and feedback for other members of the band.

So what we have here, music fans, is part anomaly, part godsend: The quiet, selfless scenester. We could use more of a show from him, sure, but he’s a character to watch.

The Pixelmaters and The Prizmos at the Bullfinch… The Calcbots (retro New Wave electronica covers) and World Clock turn back time at Hamilton’s, for a college-on-the-hill reunion-party thing that happens to be open to the general public… Neo-prog-fusionists Collage It are at D’ollaire’s. It’s the full show, with lights and projections, not the “Evening With…” rip-off they brought last time. XScope opens…

TEN BESTs LISTS

Jotted down ages ago and forgotten. I could revise, but am reluctant.

SINGLES

Willie Alexander, “Kerouac”

Herb Alpert, “This Guy’s in Love With You”

The Archies, “Sugar Sugar”

Blur, “Tender”

Hot Chocolate, “Everyone’s a Winner”

L.L. Cool J, “Go Cut Creator Go”

The Monkees, “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone”

Lou Reed, “Walk on the Wild Side”

? and the Mysterians, “96 Tears”

Sex Pistols, “God Save the Queen”

ALBUMS

Robert Ashley, Private Parts

The Beatles, Meet the Beatles

Hoagy Carmichael, Hoagy Sings Carmichael

Cheap Trick, In Color

Faust, Faust So Far

Fleshtones, Up-Front

Pastels, Sittin’ Pretty

Various Artists, Live at the Rat

The Waitresses, Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?

LIVE SHOWS

Bow Wow Wow, Bradford Hotel Ballroom, Boston.

Cheap Trick, Paradise, Boston 1978

The Clash, first American tour, Harvard Square Movie Theater, 1979 (with Bo Diddley and The Rentals).

Ray Davies, Toad’s Place, Oct. 22, 1995.

Deadguy, The Tune Inn, New Year’s Eve 1996?

Devo, Duty Now for the Future tour, Orpheum, Boston, 1980

Fleshtones, Orpheum Theatre Boston 1980 (opening for the Police)

Mark Mulcahy, any of a series of shows he did in 1997 during which he recovered from the break-up of Miracle Legion, learned to play guitar, and wrote and rewrote the songs which appeared on his debut solo album Fathering. Venues included Rudy’s, BAR and Koffee? in New Haven.

Pastels, CMJ Festival (on the same bill as Elliot Smith) 1995

Ramones, Orpheum Theatre Boston 1979 (with David Johansen and Willie Alexander with The Neighborhoods).

Riverdale Book Review

Here’s how to tell the difference between Archie Giant Comics Festival, Archie 1000 Page Comics Explosion and Archie’s Favorite Christmas Comics:

• AFCC is slightly taller.

  • A1KPCE is thickest.
  • AGCF is midsized, with 400 pages to AFCC’s 480 and A1KPCE’s 1000.
  • The “Favorite Comics” series (previously The Best of Archie Comics) is the most intensely curated of the lot, with text intros to the stories and info about which exact issues the stories came from. It also draws from every era of Archie, back to the early 1940s, while the “Giant” and “1000” page series tend to go back only as far as the late ‘50s.
  • The 1000 Page books tend to have such generic Archie/Betty/Veronica cover art that I often can’t tell if I already have the latest one.
  • Besides being an “Explosion,” Archie 1000 Page Comics has been a “Jamboree,” a “Bonanza,” a “Celebration” and a “Comics-Palooza.”

There. It’s only slightly easier than telling Betty from Veronica.

Rock Gods #297: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

The DeLuvians braved a downpour—75 miles of it—to make their opening set Thursday night at the Bullfinch. “We’ve never missed a show,” they bragged, while admitting that most of the shows they’ve played are within a couple of miles of their shared domicile along the shoreline. They play a lot of lobster shacks and roadhouses along the tourist strip.

So who did miss the show? Everyone else, including us. We slid in, sodden, soon as we could, for headliners Ptune, who mocked the turn-out as “torrential” and made swimming gestures whilst he sang.

The DeLuvians stuck around town rather than drive home, and got an open-air road race gig tomorrow in the center of town. There is no rain date.

Tonight: Facebaby at the Bullfinch, making up songs from ideas sent via phone from friends. … King King and the Double Dukes at Hamilton’s, swinging the soul covers with that insane sax section… An Evening with Ham & Mac (formerly of Cheeses Crust) at D’Ollaire’s. Acoustic novelty songs. What is the world coming to—no, wait, sounds cool, we’re in. …

Songs About Lines

…and less than half of them are about telephones!

1. “The Party Line,” Belle & Sebastian. Brand new. First single from the Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance album, due in January.

“Teen Line,”The Shivvers. Overlooked power pop classic from late-1970s Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in recent years known only to those who’d heard it on the Hyped2Death compilation named after it. The song, and a lost album’s worth of other Shivvers tunes, were recently remixed and rereleased on vinyl by Sing Sing Records. Some local Milwaukee press coverage of the band’s comeback is here.

2. “88 lines for 44 Women,” The Nails. For those of us who didn’t think of punk as just a snarl-and-violence thing, this was a fast and loose memoir that took full advantage of the new form:

Sarah was a modern dancer
lean pristine transparency
Janet wrote bad poetry
in a crazy kind of urgency
Tanya Turkish liked to fuck
while wearing leather biker boots
Brenda’s strange obsession
was for certain vegetables and fruit

3. “Telephone Line,” Electric Light Orchestra. “OK, so no one’s answering…”

4. “Blurred Lines,” Robin Thicke. The infectious beat is Marvin Gaye’s and the lyrics have been dubbed “rapey” by Huffington Post, jezebel.com, The Daily Beast, The Wall Street Journal and others. But this execrable hit did inspire Weird Al Yankovic’s good-grammar anthem “Word Crimes.”

5. “Laughter Lines,” Bastille. This boy band only formed four years ago, but they make elaborate videos like they’re Duran Duran in the ‘80s.

“I’ll see you in the future when we’re older

and we are full of stories to be told. 

Cross my heart and hope to die,

I’ll see you with your laughter lines.” 

6. “White Lines,” Grandmaster Flash.

7. “Between the Lines,” Janis Ian.

8. “Days of Lines and Noses,” proposed Joe Walsh album title.

10. “An Apology For Five Songs About Power Lines,” The World Without Parking Lots.