A Song A Day: Fountains of Wayne, "Hackensack"

JUNE 10, 2017

“HACKENSACK” (WRITERS: CHRIS COLLINGWOOD–ADAM SCHLESINGER)

ARTIST: FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE

RELEASED 2003 ON WELCOME INTERSTATE MANAGERS LP

This song is from Fountains of Wayne’s third album. Since first hearing it, I’ve felt it was one of the saddest songs in the world.

Everything about “Hackensack” is in place: the tragicomic lyrics of a lost soul forgotten by time, yearning for an impossible past; the wide-ranging melody; the harmonies, sensitive drumming, tremeloed guitar, and sweet/sour dashes of electric piano…

In future generations, people may not know what a record store was. Or who Christopher Walken was. But they'll hear the dreaming, the regret, and the emptiness of this song.

Even had Fountains of Wayne never recorded another track, this would have written their name in rock’s Book of Life. If there was such a thing.

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A Song A Day: The Music Emporium, "Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo"

JUNE 9, 2017

“NAM MYO HO RENGE KYO” (WRITERS: W. CASEY COSBY–THOM WADE)

ARTIST: THE MUSIC EMPORIUM

RELEASED 1968 ON 7” 45 AND ON THE MUSIC EMPORIUM LP

Four California kids form a group in 1968 to play hard rock. Pretty typical stuff, right? Not quite.

These kids, from conservative Orange County, not far from Los Angeles, were pretty unlikely rockers. They were about as far from counter-cultural as could be: polite, upper-middle-class disciplined college students, clean as a whistle and classically trained.

The group’s leader, main singer, keyboardist, and primary composer was Bill “Casey” Cosby, a prize-winning accordionist who fell headlong in love with west coast rock in 1967. Two young ladies attending Long Beach State, drummer Dora Wahl and bassist/singer Carolyn Lee, soon signed on, and Cosby and Lee eventually became romantically involved.

Wahl and Lee had known and sung with Richard and Karen Carpenter in the LBS a capella choir, but used their talents in the heavier direction Cosby suggested. After some searching, a fourth member, guitarist Dave Padwin, came aboard, and the quartet began honing its outsider version of acid rock—i.e, with no acid.

At first, the band was called The Cage; Cosby meant the name to reference man’s need to control things, keep them tamed. Years later he spoke of the release he found in the underground rock culture of the day. The band went to see Love, Iron Butterfly, the Strawberry Alarm Clock, and many others, soaking up the genre. From there, The Cage played teen clubs all around the Los Angeles area, with songs Cosby wrote with friends and former musical collaborators.

As is the story for many bands, things changed for The Cage once they got into “the business.” Sentinel Records, a small start-up founded by a former executive at Liberty, paid for studio time to do a demo, contingent on the band changing its name to the somewhat sunnier Music Emporium.

This demo—with instruments recorded in one overnight session and the vocals in another session shortly after—became the group’s album. Cosby had objections to this; he felt that despite the foursome’s technical ability, and a solid bunch of songs, that the LP was somewhat false in that the band had no true “rock” vocalist.

Perhaps he was right. The harmonies on one song on the LP are out of tune, and neither Cosby nor Lee could belt out material like the heavier singers of the day. But perhaps that’s why people like the album so much; it’s a moment in time, a sincere attempt at doing one thing and a result that reaches something else entirely. The rockers are tight, well played, and creative; the ballads are wistful and beautifully sung. The album also sounds good, but Cosby insisted that the band was much better live than on record.

The Music Emporium was issued in late 1968 with a gorgeous die-cut cover that used up most of the album’s budget. It is said that only 300 copies were printed, and they are rare as proverbial hen’s teeth today. With little to no promotion, and only half-hearted support of the band itself, the album disappeared.

Sentinel also released a single of “Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo,” a rocking incantation (very) loosely based on a Nichiren Buddhist chant. Despite its quality, it was rarely, if ever, played on the radio.

In early 1970, Cosby—like Wahl and Lee still a full-time student—was about to be drafted, and having lost friends to the Vietnam War, decided instead to take an offer at West Point to teach and lead cadet bands and choirs. Soon he and Lee married and moved, and the band was done.

Wahl stayed out west; Lee eventually moved to Virginia. Padwin became a photographer and lives in Wisconsin. Cosby remained in music, composing symphonies and choral material and remaining involved with the West Point Glee Club.

Last summer Cosby passed away from pancreatic cancer, but the band’s creation continues to shine. Sundazed Records reissued it, in its original cover design, several years back.

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A Song A Day: Bobby Parker, "Watch Your Step"

JUNE 8, 2017

“WATCH YOUR STEP” (WRITER: BOBBY PARKER)

ARTIST: BOBBY PARKER

RELEASED 1961 ON 7”45

Bobby Parker’s rollicking, bluesy mover “Watch Your Step” was a #51 pop hit that had a much larger impact than its chart placing would indicate.

“Watch Your Step” made a clear impact on British bands of the 1960s. As one of the records in John Lennon’s traveling jukebox, and a part of the Beatles' stage set in the early 60s, it’s the missing link between Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” and “I Feel Fine.”

With its basic bluesy riff, call-and-response vocals, wailing vocal, frenetic tempo, and tough backing, “Watch Your Step” is like an amphetamine-rush take on Ray Charles’ masterpiece. Parker ramps up the drama, replacing the electric piano with a chunky electric guitar that makes clear his bluesy leanings.

The chugging Latin rhythm invokes Charles, too, as does the adventurous jazz of Dizzy Gillespie (an admitted reference), Miles Davis, and even Mongo Santamaria.

Other bands (e.g., Led Zeppelin, the Yardbirds, the Allman Brothers) appropriated took Parker’s “Watch Your Step” riff—which, to be fair, is derived both from Brother Ray and from basic blues patterns—and moved it in new directions. At least some acts covered Parker’s songs directly and paid him royalties.

There are some strange little pieces to the “Watch Your Step” story. First off, Parker was a west coast-based artist, but his 45 of “Watch Your Step” was issued by V-Tone, a label out of Philadelphia that had enjoyed moderate success in doo-wop but hardly specialized in Parker’s frenetic R&B.

Parker’s home crew came through, however; the record picked up airplay in Los Angeles and San Francisco in early May. A month later, “Watch Your Step” cracked the Billboard music chart and in five weeks reached #51 in the U.S. before quickly dropping from popularity. By this point, it had also broken out in Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, but never seems to have hit out east.

What’s strange is that despite its relatively successful stint on Billboard, “Watch Your Step” did not appear, not even once, on the industry’s other top 100 charts in Cashbox or Record World. Not even as one of their “looking ahead” records. It is really, really uncommon for a song to hit that big on one chart and not trouble the others.

Given that Cashbox and RW data mostly came from record sales, and Billboard data garnered more from radio airplay, perhaps “Watch Your Step” wasn’t distributed well enough by V-Tone to reach a lot of record stores. Perhaps something nefarious was going on. I don’t suppose anyone’s around to tell us now.

More than a decade later, John Lennon shared “Watch Your Step” with thousands of radio listeners, playing it when he was a guest DJ on Dennis Elsas’ program on WNEW-FM. It’s probable that most of the listeners had never even heard of the record.

Bobby Parker died at age 76 in 2013.

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A Song A Day: Public Image Limited, "Home Is Where the Heart Is"

JUNE 7, 2017

“HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS” (WRITERS: MARTIN ATKINS, KEITH LEVENE, JOHN LYDON, JIM WALKER)

ARTIST: PUBLIC IMAGE, LTD.

RELEASED 1981 ON 7” AND 12” 45

Public Image, Ltd. never aimed low. They chased goals that others didn’t see, vying for total musical freedom and as much career control they could muster on a major record label.

After leaving the Sex Pistols in 1978, John “Rotten” Lydon hooked up with guitarist Keith Levene, formerly of the Clash, and a succession of other players, notably bassist Jah Wobble and drummer Jim Walker. While making three contentious, scabby, but interesting albums, PiL shed and gained members. Wobble departed for solo work, Jeannette Lee joined as an imagist/videographer, Walker left to be replaced by Martin Atkins, Atkins gradually fell out with Levene, Levene gradually fell out with Lydon.

By the time of the collective’s fourth LP, the Flowers of Romance, it was down to Lydon, Levene (most of the time), Atkins (some of the time), and engineer Nick Launay banging on strange instruments and using loops, echo, and other effects. I consider it groundbreaking, a brilliant and fascinating work with no precedent and no antecedent.

Some songs were lyrically representational. “Francis Massacre” concerned Lydon’s three-month imprisonment in Ireland, awaiting trial on trumped-up charges that were immediately dismissed. The parade of people wanting to meet Lydon inspired “Banging the Door,” while the searing “Go Back” mocked the right-wing fascism gripping Britain in the early 80s.

Without a real band to work with, PiL allowed itself freedom to turn weird impulses loose. Drums were either dominating (if by Atkins) or tentative (if by Levene). There was metal without guitars, punk without bass, medieval strings and tolling bells, muezzin yelping, ticking watches, ominous synthesizers, spoken asides, grinding percussion, goofy solos…and Lydon matched the moods of the songs with appropriate deliveries of strange, disaffected lyrics.

The album’s single was “The Flowers of Romance,” which was as good a choice of any—at least it had a beat. But flip it over and you get a great song released only as a b-side.

“Home Is Where the Heart Is” reaches seven minutes with its enveloping psychedelic dub. Even now, it is not clear who plays on this recording; Levene claims to have made loops of Wobble and Atkins’ playing and created the track himself. A demo of the song from 1980, however, points to Wobble and Atkins actually playing on the record, despite the songwriting credits listing PiL’s first drummer, Jim Walker.

When I first heard it in 1981 it was like being sucked into a sonic vacuum cleaner, Levene’s aggressive guitar picking and chording swelling in and out of the mix, the hypnotic drum and bass, and Lydon’s simple melody and lyrics which seem to be contrasting banal everyday life with a deep emotional emergency.

I got the oven repaired; this was security and luxury.

Home is where the heart is; the daily paper and the carpet.

My body burns.

By geography, I’m not a stranger

My fingers burn my body burns

I’m practicing I’m separating.

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A Song A Day: The Patron Saints, "Reflections on a Warm Day"

JUNE 6, 2017

“REFLECTIONS ON A WARM DAY” (WRITER: JON TUTTLE)

ARTIST: THE PATRON SAINTS

RELEASED 1969 ON FOHHOH BOHOB LP

Three teenage boys from Westchester County, New York recorded an album’s worth of original songs in early summer 1969. The resulting album, Fohhoh Bohob, is a quirky and thoroughly entertaining spin through various pop/rock styles of the day.

Fohhoh Bohob takes inspiration from some of the top acts of the day—the Rolling Stones and the Who, Moby Grape and Love, Frank Zappa and Arlo Guthrie—and filters it through the distinct visions of songwriters Eric Bergman and Jon Tuttle.

In 1967, Tuttle, whose family had just migrated from South Africa, met Bergman through a mutual friend and formed the five-piece Patron Saints, which began playing rock covers at high school dances in New York and Connecticut. After the original band fractured in 1968, Bergman and Tuttle planned an album of original compositions.

After meticulous demo recordings and numerous rehearsals, Tuttle, Bergman, and new drummer Paul d’Alton convened in the latter’s house (while his parents were on vacation) to record 11 tunes, 9 of which made the final record. The whole process of recording, mixing, cover design, and pressing of 100 copies of the LP took a month and cost the young trio some $500.

Of course, once put out in the world, the album never “went” anywhere. Radio never picked up on it; promotion was nil. Most of the original copies of the album are lost. In the 1980s, a few sonic sleuths discovered the record and turned others on to its charms. It remains a rare and revered artifact among DIY albums of the time. Fohhoh Bohob original copies never turn up on EBay—the last documented sale was in 2004—and a copy even in “very good” condition would probably fetch at least a grand.

And the songs? They’re pop, and they rock, but they’re idiosyncratic, in part due to the album’s absolute homemade quality and in part because both songwriters were intelligent, funny, restless minds with big thoughts. The production was good for the quality of the band’s equipment and the arrangements showed imagination.

Tuttle plumbed the depth of his emotions on the album, foreshadowing the mental illness that would tragically shorten his life. Bergman’s songs, perhaps more straightforward, reflected the concomitant confusion and beauty of adolescence.

Today I’ve chosen to spotlight “Reflections on a Warm Day,” perhaps the album’s sunniest-sounding track, written by Tuttle and featuring him duetting with Bergman. The package is a sort of laid-back, sunny, slightly stoned country-folk-rock, with 12-string guitars, humming bass guitar, and double-tracked drums.

Tuttle’s lyrics are both funny and troubling.

                Send your maid to cop a quart of joy; use any means your meager world employs

                I’ll be around if you should change your head, or else get rich and pass away instead.

Is he opining that drugs are more fun than drinking? Is he warning someone of the perils of joining the establishment? Is this a love song? Is the “maid” a girl, or actually a maid? “Reflections” is absolutely individual and unaffected and doesn’t even sound like its cultural touchstones.

Eric Bergman shared with me a key memory of recording "Reflections"--the decision to fade the song out rather than end it "cold." To create the long, delicate fade-out during the mixing process, Bergman had to move very tiny volume knobs on the reel-to-reel tape recorder very slowly and carefully. Said tape deck is on the right.

Sadly, Tuttle and d’Alton have passed away, leaving Eric Bergman to keep the Patron Saints flame alive with several iterations of the group--which is still active. He has charted the band's 50-year-plus course via this incredibly informative and entertaining website.

Bergman has, in recent years, overseen legitimate re-releases of Fohhoh Bohob as well as issued unreleased gems from this and other versions of the band. He tells me that a new two-disc Patron Saints release is planned for 2018 and I can hardly wait! (And thanks, Eric, for fixing my errors.)

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