For Our Connecticut Readers

For Our Connecticut Readers: Wood-B

One of the New Haven transformations of 2014—besides the new mayor, the new president of Yale, the new cosmetics store at the corner of York and Broadway—was the Woodland coffee shops turning into the B Natural.

I happened to be in the neighborhood when the old sign at the original Orange Street Woodland location went down and the new B sign went up.

I’ve been a Woodland regular since it first opened. I’ve written about both locations numerous times, and feared for their existence when other shops encroached on their turf. May they continue to thrive and be natural.

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Music reviews

Scribblers Music Review

The Real Kids, Shake…Outta Control

I’ve been a big Real Kids fan since 1976, when I heard them on the Live at the Rat album (aka The Record That Changed My Life). But I still feel I came late to the party and haven’t bolstered my devotion nearly enough. I’ve heard all their records, including the alternate-takes albums and the nearly-Real Kids bands like the Taxi Boys or The Lowdowns, and the John Felice solo stuff and some bootlegs and such. But I’ve barely ever seen the band live.

My lack of commitment, despite my deep love of their songs, was driven home to me when I found out The Real Kids had regrouped and released a new album six months ago and I hadn’t even known about it. It took me a review in the new issue of Ugly Things to make me wise, and minutes later I’d downloaded Shake…Outta Control in all its glory.

Maybe I should ease up on myself. I’d given up looking for new Real Kids product long ago. John Felice had gone a few different directions and it didn’t seem like the Real Kids were necessarily one of them, outside of a reunion show or two.

The new line-up has founding Real Kid Felice plus longtime compatriot Billy Cole, who was The Taxi Boys’ bassist and became The Real Kids’ guitarist in the early ‘80s. (The original bassist, “Alpo” Paulino, died in 2006. Shake…Outta Control certainly sounds like a good old Real Kids album, and it actually sounds a lot better, production-wise, than a lot of Felice’s output in the ‘80s and ‘90s. This is a record where the sound is not connected to a trendy commercial style. It’s geared to The Real Kids, made to sound like the band sounded at their best.

Felice may not have slowed down much, but he’s slowed some of The Real Kids songs down, with mixed results. Of the self-covers on Shake…Outta Control, “Who Needs You” (the rousing, riffing Live at the Rat classic track that I’ve personally heard several thousand times over the years) is presented at about the same tempo as the already balladic “Common at Noon,” which in turn is reconstructed as a Country & Western song. “No Fun No More” is given a Rolling Stones-esque refinement. As for most of the other songs, it’s hard to tell what’s vintage and not—when they were written, whether they’re directly derivative of old stuff or newly wrought in the approved style. “That Girl Ain’t Right” sounds like a basement tape from 30 years ago. “All Night Boppin’” is in the spirit of The Real Kids’ live covers of roots-rockers. “Fly Into the Mystery” sounds like The Velvet Underground and mentions Route 128, two things which remind you that John Felice was a charter member of The Modern Lovers. “Got It Made” has the steadiness of “Needles and Pins” but the characteristic Real Kids whine. The two songs with “Shake” in their title present two familiar yet distinct sides of The Real Kids. “I Can’t Shake That Girl” has simple lyrics meant to ride the song’s tricky opening riff. “Shake…Outta Control,” the album’s title tune, starts with drum beat and harmonica, and while the lyrics at first sound as basic as “I Can’t Shake That Girl”’s, it’s one of those personal proclamations of passion, independence, insecurity and angst that Felice is such a master at. He makes the need to dance sound like an affliction.

This album shakes. It’s timeless. Reunion albums come in many varieties. This is very much in the “as if they never went away category.” This is a band with the word “Real” in their very name, and they still sound real.

Archie

Riverdale Book Review

My daughters and I have been floating candidates for Most Changed Supporting Character in Archie —characters that are so seldom used or so poorly defined that the writers and artists either forget what they ever looked like (or that they previously existed), or feel obliged to reinvent the character. I thought that Hermione Lodge, Veronica’s mother, is the most shifting character. (It amuses me that the current Afterlife With Archie storyline brands Hiram Lodge—Veronica’s dad and Hermione’s hubby—as a serial adulterer. They might as well have made him a man who marries a bunch of different-looking women named Hermione.) The girls proposed Nancy, Archie Comics’ first regular female African-American, who first appeared in 1976 (seven years after Valerie, the first female African-American in the Archie universe, joined The Pussycats). Nancy was the de facto girlfriend of Chuck Clayton, son of the Assistant sports coach at Riverdale High. Nancy’s look, tastes and style continue to change. She’s sporty. She’s studious. She’s hip. She’s nerdy. She rarely carries a story by herself. Still, Nancy’s in a slightly better position that Hermione Lodge, who sometimes drops off the face of the earth, with stories that have you believing Veronica Lodge is a motherless child.

Rock Gods

Rock Gods #308: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

The Candletops burned brightly Wednesday at Hamilton’s. They have glowing hat. Yet no gimmicks can distract from the smart, clear lyrics of lead singer Tammy Tammy.

Like:

I left you now

I’ll leave you then

You’ll never get it

Never did.

Ever was

Ever was

Ever was

We don’t fully understand it either but it sounds just great with power chords and keyboards.

Some Candletops songs are little more than TTam’s poems read aloud to a bass drone:

Admire the fire

Free the sea

Do not underes

-timate me.

Tonight: The Bougies bore the Bullfinch… Brass Ring Pillars at D’ollaire’s, only why?… Nothing at Hamilton’s (that we’re allowed into anyhow) but there is a new place in town to note: Lady Augusta’s, which is the closest thing to a speakeasy we’ve encountered in this day and age. No signage. No bar counter or table, just chairs. Admission by invitation only (though if you hang around the door long enough, you get an invitation). And bands are starting to infiltrate the place, including Fightin’ Men tonight. Fightin’ Men! You know Lady Augusta’s means business.

Lists

Boxing Songs

Boxing Day isn’t about boxing. It’s about putting things in boxes—post-Christmas gifts for the household staff.

1. Tim Vine, “Box Song.” “I used to have a box and I didn’t know what to do.”

2. The Lonely Island with Justin Timberlake, “Dick in a Box.” Won the Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.

3. Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark, “Pandora’s Box.” About Louise Brooks, who played Lulu the silent film classic Pandora’s Box in 1929 and later wrote the extraordinary memoir Lulu in Hollywood. “And all the stars you kissed/Could never ease the pain/And if the face has changed/The grace remains and you’re still the same.”

4. Pete Seeger, “Little Boxes.” Suburban sprawl anthem penned by Seeger’s pal Malvina Reynolds. A ‘60s protest song now recognized as the theme from Weeds.

5. The Archies, “You Know I Love You.” It was a cardboard record which you snipped off the back of a cereal box. A “full fidelity” EP, actually, with this song, “Archie’s Party,” “Nursery Rhymes” and the #1 hit “Jingle Jangle.”

6. Peter Frampton, “Show Me the Way.” Popularized the talk box.

7. The Who, “Squeeze Box.”

8. The Monkees, “P.O. Box 9847.”

9. Genesis, “The Musical Box.” From Nursery Cryme.

10. Muhammad Ali, “Black Superman.” OK, one boxing-as-sport song. This here’s the story of Cassius Clay.

Comic strips, Music reviews

Scribblers Music Review

Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, the singing trio who epitomized that rarefied scat-jazz subgenre of “vocalese” recorded a version of “Deck Us All With Boston Charlie” back in the ‘50s. You can find it on the seasonal jazz comp Jingle Bell Swing (or here).

The song, sung to the tune of “Deck Us All With Boughs of Holly,” comes of course from Walt Kelly’s Pogo comic strip. Pogo aficionados know that the song’s lyrics bring about furious debate. Some believe it goes like this:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla Wash, an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!
Don’t we know archaic barrel?
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou.
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

While Beauregard Dog in particular thinks it goes this way:

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker ‘n’ too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope, cantaloupe, ‘lope with you!
Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly,
Gaggin’ on the wagon, Willy, folly go through!
Chollie’s collie barks at barrow,
Harum scarum five alarum bung-a-loo!

or

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!

and then there’s

Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an’ polly voo!
Chilly Filly’s name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly’s jolly chilly view halloo!

There are certainly worse Christmas arguments to have. Let this be one of yours. Happy Christmas to all our readers, and a Jolly Chilly View Halloo to you too.

(We are obliged to Bill Crouch Jr. & Selby Kelly’s Outrageously Pogo for the scholarly research on the complete “Us All” lyrics.)

Archie

Riverdale Book Review

“Do you know, Archie, I think I’ll invite you to my Christmas party. And you couldn’t refuse after knocking a girl down, could you?”

“But Archie, I found your Christmas list!”

“I can chop down any tree Archie can… and more!”

“Archie! Please! Don’t say no to me! You mustn’t! Please!”

“Arch, it’s Christmas! At this time of year all such pettiness is put aside!”

“Ol’ Arch got too involved in his gift wrapping, Ronnie! He won’t be able to help you today!”

“Come on, Archie! Join us! We’ve got extra songbooks with us!”

Rock Gods

Rock Gods #307: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

The Out-of-Tuners didn’t start out as a concept act. They were just hilariously out of tune at the Bullfinch one night, and went for it.
Now the band deliberately loosens the pegs before each performance and the whole audience plays a games of “What Song Are They Mangling Now?” Thursday was a holiday-themed special, with especially wretched renditions of the pop hits “Christmas Cowgirl” and “Honestly Hanukkah.” You can imagine what the sing-alongs were like.

Tonight: All is calm, all is bright, all clubs are closed.

The "c" word: Criticism