Spring is in the air, which reminded me of this old post. It’s a time for spring cleaning as well as a time for getting on your hands and knees in the garden, pulling out weeds and getting real dirty.
This post initially appeared 3/20/08.
Here’s a real simple set of questions:
1. Name a band/artist you’re pretty sure you’d like better if they had a bath – that is, if they took a little better care of their presentation, be it more thoughtful arrangements, better sound, more focused Look, etc.
Meat Puppets‘ first two albums were interesting enough for me, but it wasn’t until they “took a bath” for the making of Up On the Sun that they really clicked for me. (Shortly thereafter they’d scrubbed themselves up too much, but that’s another matter…)
2. Name a band/artist you’re pretty sure you’d like if they loosened up a bit, if you and your friends could scuff up their brand-spankin’-new white sneaks a bit.
Crowded House was in this category for me for a number of years until someone finally scuffed up their sneaks over the course of their third and fourth albums. There were outright holes in their canvas Docksiders by the time of the excellent Together Alone.
1. I’d probably like Husker Du a little more if at least one member had owned a clean shirt.
2. Marshall Crenshaw is a perfect one! I’m having a little more trouble with this one, since I’m probably more tolerant of control-freak nancy boys. I’m going to say Air.
Fripp seems an obvious choice for the concept behind the second category, though his image definitely does not include sneakers of any kind.
For category one, it would take a lot more than a trip to the cleaners to make me stomach Jim Morrison’s schaman schtick, but he supposedly wore the same pair of leather pants for months on end, making even his girlfriend wish he would break on through to the other side of rock godliness (i.e., to rock cleanliness).
Band that needs a bath: Blue Cheer
Band that needs a bit more dirt: KISS
Air makes me think of Kraftwerk, but, like Fripp, getting them to wear sneakers of any kind, even clean white ones, might be an improvement.
Band that needs a bath:
‘Mutineer’ cover Zevon. Quite a departure from the buoyantly cynical fresh-faced fellow circa ‘Excitable Boy’. Many a dark secret hiding behind those shades for that ‘old man on the side of the road’ & more haggard than Haggard’s haggard.
Band that needs a bit more dirt:
Well the one guy you really just wanted to moosh in the face for setting a bad example for the kiddies was Joe ‘Look Sharp’ Jackson. Fortunately just a phase and even more fortunater was that the music kicked ass even if you had to take off them snazzy $180 dollar eye-talian shoes to do it!
(At least that’s what my ex-wife paid for ’em…)
i never usually want to give bands baths, bt i like the suggestions thus far. i suppose i thought the minutemen around the time of “why do men…” could have used a bath. then they cleaned up just enough for me.
but there are all kinds of bands whose sneakers i’d like to see scuffed up!!! mostly british.
scuff the cure’s sneakers up a bit, and more of their records would’ve made it into my collection.
same with spiritualized and spectrum.
along these lines, cornershop should’ve never taken a bath….
In need of bath:
Rat At Rat R
The Fugs
The Grateful Dead
In need of scruffing up:
The Searchers
The Hollies
Raspberries
Franz Ferdinand
New Order
I say that Teardrop Explodes needed a tad more dirt and Julian Cope now needs a bath.
Nice work, Petesecrutz!
I wish the Stones had stayed in the ‘need a bath’ category.
Cat Power really needs to dirty up a little at this point. She’s starting to sound like bad later-period
Pretenders.
petesecrutz, The Raspberries were my first thought. I like them a lot, but if they sounded a litle rougher they’d be one of my favorite bands.
I always wanted to scuff up The Allman Bros. shoes. They sound way too clean for me.
Led Zeppelin needs a bath.
I disagree, db. Cat Power needs to stay clean. With a little more work, she could be the new Linda Rondstadt.
I’ve been seeing a lot of Black Crowes on tv lately. I just saw them again. Although they would seem to be in need of a bath, I think they actually need their sneaks scuffed up. That whole dirtbag/Faces/Stones thing might be better if they could get scuffed up – for real – a bit.
What on earth are you watching that you see the Black Crowes on? An endless loop of “I Love The 90s”?
Remember, this piece (and my comment) initially ran in 2008. That was a big year for the Crowes…wasn’t it?
I’ve always felt that the Pixies needed a bath as well as wearing clothes that didn’t look like Mom bought them years ago.
Steely Dan needs a big scuffing up. Can’t think of an opposing entry, but surely I will soon…
BIG TIME!
Good call on their bad clothes!
Showers: “Vassar Folk” dudes like Iron & Wine, Will Oldham, Banhart, etc.
Scuffs: Cheap Trick, Peter Gabriel
I wouldn’t change a thing on Peter Gabriel’s “Melt” or “Security.” Same for Kraftwerk. Precision and cleanliness works for some people. I don’t think scuffing up those artists would improve them, whereas I think adding a bit of dirt to the Hollies is a very good call.
Crenshaw made one somewhat scuffed up album, “Life’s Too Good,” which is probably my favorite after his 1st two. Actually, Field Day is a somewhat scuffed up album isn’t it? Steve Lillywhite thinks of it as one of his big mistakes, trying to put a big drum sound on what he called a “singer songwriter” album. But Crenshaw defends it.
It was? I’ll take your word for it, having not heard a thing about the Black Crowes since they decided it was a good idea to cover Otis Redding.