ABC Wednesday Archives - Page 50 of 91

Fans of Andy Warhol: ABC Wednesday, Round 15 is a comin’

This coming round, I will be writing something new for each week only half the time.

Seven years ago, Denise Nesbitt from England created ABC Wednesday. It was brilliant in its simplicity. People, literally from around the world, post an item – pictures, poems, essays – that in some way describe each letter of the alphabet, in turn. I’ve been participating since the letter K in Round 5, my Keating Five post.

Denise recruited a team of her followers to do some of the intro writing and visiting, which eventually included me, because doing it all was too exhausting. Two years ago – that long, already?- she was getting a little burned out. So I became the administrator, assigning who reads which posts, making sure somebody is writing the introductions (and writing them myself, when necessary), and inserting the link that allows everyone to participate. The team is pretty good at noting when someone grossly violates the simple rules.

Read about the significance of this round’s logo by Troy. He’s designed the logos for the last ten rounds, I do believe.

The Netiquette for the site is this:

1. Post something on your non-commercial blog/webpage having something to do with the letter of the week. Use your imagination. Put a link to ABC Wednesday in your post and/or put up the logo.

2. Come to the ABC Wednesday site and link the SPECIFIC link to the Linky thing. It’ll be available around 4 p.m., Greenwich Mean Time each Tuesday, which is 11 a.m. or noon in the Eastern part of the United States.

3. Try and visit at least 5 other participants… and comment on their posts. The more sites you do visit, the more comments you will probably get.

I’m happy to note that SamuraiFrog has been participating in the current round, and Arthur@AmeriNZ has done so in the past.

I am looking for a few good people, not only to participate, but to visit other people each week, and/or to write the occasional intro. Here’s a recent example of an intro by me.

This coming round, I will be writing something new for each week only half the time. For the other half, I’ll be linking to something I already posted in 2014 instead, mostly 70th birthdays. I got the idea from Lisa of Peripheral Perceptions, who saw my Supremes post (I think) and thought it was so detailed that I should have used it for ABCW. So in Round 15, I WILL.

Bloggers, consider giving ABC Wednesday a try, if this sounds interesting. We’ll be starting with A again in a couple weeks. Write to me a rogerogreen (AT) gmail (DOT) com.

X is for X; yes, that’s the name of the band

“In 2003, X’s first two studio albums, Los Angeles and Wild Gift, were ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as being among the 500 greatest albums of all time.”

Hello there, ABC Wednesday people.

Sometimes I’ve introduced you to bands I’m surprised you don’t know (The Kinks, Fleetwood Mac). Sometimes, it is groups I doubt you know (the Roches). Today, I’m sharing a band I very much doubt you know. And when better to do so than on the most difficult letter of the round. The name of the band is X. Just the letter X. And yes, I have those first four albums, on vinyl, all of which were produced by The Doors’ keyboard player, Ray Manzarek.

From Wikipedia: “X is an American punk rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1977. Established among the first wave of American punk, the original members are vocalist Exene Cervenka, vocalist/bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom, and drummer DJ Bonebrake.” The family band connection: Exene and John were married from 1980 to 1985.

“The band released seven studio albums from 1980 to 1993. After a period of inactivity during the mid to late 1990s, X reunited in the early 2000s, and currently tours.”

“X achieved limited mainstream success but influenced various genres of music, including punk rock and folk-rock. In 2003, X’s first two studio albums, Los Angeles and Wild Gift, were ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as being among the 500 greatest albums of all time.”
Here is Los Angeles.

“1981’s Wild Gift, broadened the band’s profile when it was named “Record of the Year” by Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and Village Voice.
Here is Wild Gift.

My long-time friend Karen, who’s in the music business, once told me that John Doe was “like us.” By this, I believe she meant that he was not a pretentious jerk as some of the people she has worked with.

“X then signed to Elektra in 1982 to release Under the Big Black Sun, which marked a slight departure from their trademark sound. While still fast and loud, the album’s country leanings were evolving, and its raw punk sound was channeling raw guitar power chords. The album was heavily influenced by the death of Exene Cervenka’s elder sister Mirielle (Mary) in an automobile accident in 1980.”
Here is Under the Big Black Sun, which is Exene’s favorite album.

“1983 saw the release of the More Fun in the New World album. X slightly redefined their sound with this release, making it somewhat more polished, eclectic and radio-ready than in previous albums. With the sound moving away from punk rock, the band’s rockabilly influence became even more noticeable.”
Here is More Fun in the New World.

“A side project of some of the band members was Poor Little Critter on the Road in 1985, under the name The Knitters: X minus Zoom, plus Dave Alvin (of The Blasters) on guitar and Johnny Ray Bartel (of The Red Devils) on double bass.” Dave Alvin taught Exene how to play guitar, and was briefly in X.
LISTEN to Someone Like You – the Knitters.
Walkin’ Cane – the Knitters
And for good measure: LISTEN to I’m Shakin’ – The Blasters from their eponymous album I also own; in fact, I probably bought the LP for this song.

My collection of X ends here save for Shoot Out the Lights (LISTEN), a cut on a collection of Richard Thompson covers. Though I DO have one John Doe and two Exene solo CDs.

A couple more LISTENS:
Burning House of Love – X
Burning House of Love- Knitters (2005)

I’m going to guess that, of the four albums, most of you may find the last album more accessible, and the first less so. Or not.
***
Exene sells some of her memorabilia.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

W is for the Wilson Brothers of the Beach Boys

In 1974, Capitol Records issued Endless Summer, the Beach Boys’ first major pre-Pet Sounds greatest hits package. The record sleeve’s sunny, colorful graphics caught the mood of the nation and surged to the top of the Billboard album charts.

Murry Wilson was an entrepreneur, but he also had an interest in music, which he passed along to his sons, Brian, Dennis, and Carl, sharing his love of the tight harmonies of groups such as the Four Freshmen. He became their business manager, finagling for their group, which also included his nephew, Mike Love, and the brothers’ friend, Al Jardine (replaced briefly by David Marks), a recording contract with Capitol Records. He was a great motivator, though considered abusive.

But it was not the group, or Murry, who dubbed the group the Beach Boys. That was done by some record company employee, to capitalize on the band’s surf sound that was so popular. Ironic, since only Dennis knew how to surf.

Links to all songs; chart action is for US (Billboard).

Surfin’, #75 in 1962
Surfin’ Safari, #14 in 1962
Surfin’ USA, #3 in #1963
Surfer Girl, #7 in 1963

They gained some big success, even after the British Invasion.

Dance, Dance, Dance, #9 in 1964

But Brian, arguably the creative force behind the band, tired of the road, preferring the safety of the studio. It was in this period the group put out the legendary Pet Sounds album:

Caroline, No, #32 in 1966 (billed as by Brian Wilson)
Sloop John B, #3 in 1966
Here’s the whole album.

Brian was replaced on the road, briefly by Glen Campbell, but more permanently by Bruce Johnston, who participated in the studio as well. Despite some decent albums, the group went into commercial decline by the end of the decade, with Brian’s participation spotty in the early 1970s, with his brothers and the others picking up the slack.

Long Promised Road, #89 in 1971

A funny thing happened in 1974: “Capitol Records issued Endless Summer, the band’s first major pre-Pet Sounds greatest hits package. The record sleeve’s sunny, colorful graphics caught the mood of the nation and surged to the top of the Billboard album charts. It was the group’s first multi-million selling record since ‘Good Vibrations’, and remained on the album chart for three years. The following year, Capitol released a second compilation, Spirit of America, which also sold well.” The new success of the old music brought Brian back to the fore and released some new music.

Rock and Roll Music, #5 in 1976

One of my favorite Beach Boys stories:

From 1980 through 1982, The Beach Boys and The Grass Roots separately performed at Independence Day concerts at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., attracting large crowds. In April 1983, [James Watt, Secretary of the Interior] banned the concerts, on the ground that the “rock bands”… had encouraged drug use and alcoholism, and had attracted “the wrong element”… Watt then announced that Las Vegas singer Wayne Newton, a friend and an endorser of President Reagan and a contributor to the Republican Party, would perform at the Independence Day celebration at the mall in 1983…. Vice President George H. W. Bush said of The Beach Boys, “They’re my friends, and I like their music”. Watt apologized to The Beach Boys after learning that President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were fans of the band. Nancy Reagan apologized for Watt. The White House staff gave Watt a plaster foot with a hole for his “having shot himself in the foot”.

Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983. Carl Wilson died in 1998; I was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in May 1998 when it had a nice tribute to the Carls Perkins and Wilson; the band was inducted into the Rock Hall back in 1988.

The subsequent relationships within the group became more complicated than I need to explain here, but involving multiple bands. There was, though, a new album, featuring Love, Jardine, Marks, Johnston, and Brian Wilson in 2012, and a short-lived tour, the length of which Mike Love may (or may not) have been unfairly vilified.

I linked to a bunch of my favorite Beach Boys songs a couple of years ago, for Brian’s 70th birthday.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

V is for Van Halen

In that great musical debate about the preferred lead singer of Van Halen, I suppose I’m in the David Lee Roth camp, rather than the Sammy Hagar camp. It is only because my one and only VH album, 1982’s Diver Down, features Roth. “From 1974 until 1985 the band comprised guitarist Eddie Van Halen, vocalist David Lee Roth, drummer Alex Van Halen [Eddie’s brother] and bassist Michael Anthony.” That’s the group I remember watching in the early days of MTV.

Eddie played the blistering guitar solo on Michael Jackson’s hit single Beat It [LISTEN], #1 for three weeks in 1983.

LISTEN to: all charting info from the Billboard (US) charts.

From Van Halen II:
Dance The Night Away, #15 in 1979

From Diver Down:
Oh, Pretty Woman, #12 in 1982. This is one of five covers on the album, this one originally recorded and co-written by Roy Orbison.
Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now (Is Sweet William Now), which was written and first recorded in 1924. Jan Van Halen, Alex and Eddie’s father, plays the clarinet.
Happy Trails. The theme song of that singing cowboy of movies and television, Roy Rogers, written by his wife, Dale Evans.

From 1984:
Jump, #1 for five weeks in 1984.

When Michael Anthony left/was booted out of the band in 2006, coinciding with Roth’s second return, the new bassist was Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie’s son with his former wife, actress Valerie Bertinelli (One Day at a Time, Hot in Cleveland).

Van Halen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. But at the time of the induction ceremony, Eddie Van Halen was heading for rehab. As it turned out, only Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, both ex-members of the band, showed up.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

U is for Unique: Sly & the Family Stone

(The second, and final, letter for which I couldn’t find a musical family group.)

Sylvester Stewart was a record producer and DJ in the San Francisco Bay Area; I have a very early Billy Preston produced by him. He changed his name to Sly Stone, and started a band, as did his brother Freddie. The groups merged in 1967 to become Sly & the Family Stone, with sister Vaetta as one of the background singers. The band was unique, in part, because it was racially mixed at a point when that just wasn’t done. Their songs, especially by their third album, Life, was infused with themes about unity and integration.

Sly’s music was so good that it would be sampled years later. At about 40 seconds into that great Fatboy Slim video featuring Christopher Walken, I hear echoes of Sly’s Into My Own Thing [LISTEN to both]. It was clear that the psychedelic soul of Motown, especially by the Temptations producer Norman Whitfield, came from the group’s sound, notably Larry Graham’s bass playing, and the shared lead vocals; George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic and many others would also be influenced.

Yet, except for the title song from the second album, Dance to the Music [LISTEN] (#8 US in 1968), the band was not having much commercial success, despite the addition of sister Rose on that second album.

Things changed with the fourth album, Stand!, which made my list of Top 25 favorite albums of the decade 1961-1970 [LISTEN TO ALL]:
I Want To Take You Higher, #60 US in 1969, #38 in 1970 when it was re-released after their legendary Woodstock appearance that I loved watching on the film
Sing A Simple Song, a B-side that got to #89 on the US charts on its own
Everyday People, #1 US for four weeks in 1969
You Can Make It If You Try
and the title track, #22 US in 1969

But the album I would have rather have put on the list, had it been permitted, was their greatest hits album, which featured these songs not found on other albums:
Hot Fun In The Summertime, #2 US in 1969 (“ooo, Lawd”)
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), #1 US in 1970 [this is a remake]
Everybody is a Star, its B-side

Unfortunately, members of the band, and especially Sly, got caught up in heavy drug use.

The last Sly album I bought, until considerably later, was the druggy There’s A Riot Going On, with two Top 40 singles in the US, Family Affair, #1 for three weeks in 1971, and Runnin’ Away, #23 US in 1972.

The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, with George Clinton as the presenter.

The Family Stone is still playing together in 2014, alas without Sly.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31