I love hearing and reading musicians in their own words discuss the aspirations for their own songs. This morning I received a note from a friend in Spain with a link to a New York Times piece by The dB’s Peter Holsapple, entitled Anatomy of a Flop. It’s a well-written examination of his dashed desires for the song “Love Is For Lovers,” the failed single from the band’s underwhelming third album, Like This. Holsapple writes of his would-be hit:
It had (and has, I believe) an undeniable hook, the kind you’d find yourself singing in the shower or pounding along to on your steering wheel while driving. The performance, produced by Chris Butler at the old Bearsville Studio in upstate New York, has all the power of the best kind of rock: slamming drums, inventive bass, a solid riff and a fantastic solo.
You can hear both the failed single and a snippet of Holsapple’s original demo, with an old girlfriend on vocals (someone here must know who this woman was), alongside his piece. As many of you know, I’m a big fan of the first two dB’s albums, but Like This never quite worked for me. The “slamming drums” never sit well with me and as much as I love Gene Holder on bass, I thought he was a detriment to the band’s sound on guitar. I highly recommend reading this piece and reviewing the song.
Holsapple’s a good egg about the situation:
Of course, as usual, the glaring problematic element of the equation is the vocals provided by yours truly. I tried, God knows, and it sounds almost all right, but if there’s a weak spot in “Love is for Lovers,” it would be the singing.
Holsapple shoulders the burden for the song’s failure, but as the snippet of his original demo suggests, I think the band’s arrangement for the album version was too fussy and too “slamming” for its own good. “Amplifier,” sly and understated, recorded with the earlier 4-piece lineup, was rightfully the more successful song from Like This.
Thanks for posting this. Holsapple’s blog post is amazing. Unlike Mr. Mod, I quite like Like This, and think it’s a damn sight more consistent than Repercussion. It’s probably one of my favorite “brass ring” albums, an attempt by a culty band to reach a bigger audience, and I find the dated aspects of the production to be mostly charming.
I think it’s pretty clear that “Love is for Lovers” never had a fair chance, thanks to the fucked-up Bearsville/Warners situation that Holsapple lays out. Yet it sounds like a lost hit to me. I saw the dB’s reunion show in Chicago in ’05, and this arguably was the song that brought the house down.
Incidentally, Holsapple’s personal blog is pretty neat too: http://halfpearblog.blogspot.com
It’s odd—people generally either think LIKE THIS is the great dB’s album or they don’t like it at all. Put me in the second camp. The songs are catchy but not really to my taste, and the great sonic variety of the first two albums was replaced by a really annoying slick mainstream sound (I especially dislike the slamming drums!), and all of the songs belnded together to me.
Also kind of annoying was the remix of “Amplifier”. I guess they had to take Stamey’s guitar off of the recording or something. It misses the slap-back echo that kind of made the original mix. At least I think it’s the same recording…
I think you’re right about that, Tvox! My mind retains the original version whenever I think of that song, and it’s the original version that I spin for pleasure.
I like Love Is For Lovers and Like This in general. We’re used to Holsapple’s voice, but I’ve got to agree with him that the vocal would have been enough to keep this song from becoming a mainstream hit, even without the label shenanigans the article describes. Just imagine Sting’s voice on top of this same backing track, and it sounds a lot more like a radio hit. (A college radio hit is not the same thing.)
I was kinda imagining Andy Partridge’s voice as I was listening to the song. I don’t know if that would have made it a hit.
I think another such song from that era would be “Whenever You’re On My Mind” by Marshall Crenshaw. A very booming production by Steve Lillywhite w/plenty o’ hooks.
LIKE THIS was my favorite dBs record back in the day although I’ve think I’ve gone back to REPERCUSSIONS in recent years. LIKE THIS is more in line with all the roots stuff I was nuts about back in the day, Rank and File, Jason & The Scorchers, Los Lobos, The Blasters, Fogerty’s CENTERFIELD and the like.
Buskirk: Did you *really* like “Centerfield?
HVB
I’m somewhere in the middle here. I like this album, but nowhere near as much as say, Oats, does. I much prefer the 1st 2 records (with Repercussion) being my favorite), but I think Like This has its moments. Its finest moment, to my ears at least, is clearly “Love is for Lovers”. It’s always been one of my favorite dB’s songs overall and yeah, it definitely should’ve been a huge hit for somebody.
Also, I never thought about it being of a piece with other mid ’80s roots rock ala Jason and the Scorchers, but it makes sense.
Yeah, the eighties has solidified in nostalgia circles as being all bright and (synth)poppy but it was all about the rootsy Americana side in my little circle of the world (South Jersey ‘tween ’83-88). This mainly centered around groups like The Replacements, X and R.E.M. to The Minutemen and the dBs.
I really got into Hank Williams, Lightning Hopkins and Merle Haggard at that time and listened to tons of less mainstream rootsy bands like Evan Johns and The H-Bombs, Barrence Whitfield & the Savages, The Tailgators and Tav Falco and Panther Burns. Lots of flannel and cowboy boots were worn.
So “White Train” was a favorite from LIKE THIS as well, you can’t imagine Stamey doing that country kind of stuff. I felt justified for siding with Holsapple after hearing Stamey’s IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE album (does that have any defenders here? I thought it was mostly unlistenable in the day).
Yeah, I liked CENTERFIELD when it came out, I’d become a big fan of CCR in high school as well, and he’d never released a record in the time that I was really aware of him. Looking back over the tracklisting now, I wouldn’t mind hearing “The Old Man Down The Road” again, but I’m not very enticed to dig my vinyl out. I don’t think he every climbed to the heights of “Almost Saturday Night” again.
I don’t have Stamey’s Wonderful Life, but I like a lot of the stuff on It’s Allright even though it suffers as much from slappy drums and icky synths as anything in the 80s. I believe From The Word Go and 27 Years In A Single Day are both better than Love Is For Lovers by a wide margin.
I think I bought a used copy of Wonderful Life a couple years ago, and found it very strange. If I remember correctly, it was jagged and disjointed in an unpleasant way, and also the production was very strange.
I couldn’t get past the production of IT’S ALRIGHT, or the dBs SOUND OF MUSIC either. The last thing from eithe of them I’ve enjoyed is that MAVERICKS album from 1991.
(Geez, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE doesn’t even get a review at AllMusic. REPERCUSSIONS’ review is only two sentences long! Maybe the dBs are more of a flop than I know…)
I think Wonderful Life was intended to be a clear break from dB’s style pop, and I really liked it at the time. I probably haven’t heard it in years.
I remember seeing him tour after the record with just a percussionist, and it was kind of experimental but funky/electro. I remember this night well, because he was opening for the Fleshtones, a band that I never liked but who had a fratboy/neanderthal following who did NOT appreciate any kind of experimental duo opening for their heroes. Stamey fans were in front enjoying the music and Fleshtoned goons were in back heckling. Because I was visibly grooving to the music, they started throwing things at *me* then acting all innocent when I turned around. Very mature. I left after Stamey’s performance and have detested the Fleshtones ever since.
I like It’s a Wonderful Life BECAUSE it’s so committed to the artsy-fartsy principles and theories that Stamey imposed on himself. It’s not the most pleasant album to listen to, but I’ll take it over ALL post-Repercussions releases I’ve heard involving Stamey and/or Holsapple beside Holsapple’s understated Out My Way. (I’m not counting the CD of early dB’s outtakes and singles, which has some worthwhile moments.)