The 101ers (live), “Lonely Mother’s Son”…ring a bell?
In the recent Last Man Standing: Suitcase Songs thread, I made mention of Joe Strummer having salvaged a song by his old band, The 101ers, for use in The Clash’s “Jail Guitar Doors”. Then, after 2000 Man called me on it, I started to doubt myself. Surely I’ve been wrong at least once before…but not this time. Here’s “Lonely Mother’s Son”, which features the entire chorus that would be used in “Jail Guitar Doors”. The verses ring a bell too, like something that might have been used on a song I usually skip on Sandinista. Let me know if you figure it out so I can save myself the effort of dropping the needle on one of those stinkers. Thanks.
Finally, some of you may know how much I dig The 101ers’ Elgin Avenue Breakdown album, which was a holy grail of sorts for me and my bandmates in our much younger days. “Lonely Mother’s Son” really sucks; there’s good reason it didn’t appear on the original vinyl release of this album. Rather than leave you possibly thinking “Is that all there is?” here are some of the tracks that give this album its pitcher-full of pub rock value. The last two tracks, covers that will ring a bell, were recorded live on a crappy cassette recorder. I love the sound of them, and through Strummer’s final 15 years of wandering, I wished he would have recorded a batch of kick-ass, low-fi pub rock recordings rather than waste his time name checking Ethiopian DJs on those ponderous Mescaleros albums.
I haven’t been up here in ages, but recent developments force my reappearance. During the last week, I did nothing but scrape and paint the baseboards in my house. It was pleasing work because it was the first time I really listened to music for quite some time. For the most part, I listened to nothing but a tape I made in high school that paired Squeeze‘s East Side Story with Costello‘s Trust. Talk about a one-two punch! I forgot how great both of those slabs of wax were! I definitely see the two records as companion pieces. Costello’s production gives Squeeze more of an edge, and Squeeze’s influence, I’d like to believe, put a bit of a fire under Costello’s hiney. Both LPs are loaded with winners. On the Squeeze LP, I find no stinkers, and the Costello LP only has one: “Shot with His Own Gun”.
Don’t know about you, but I’d take Trust over Imperial Bedroom any day of the week. How about you? And pushing that further, which record, in your estimation, is better, Trust or East Side Story?
(Maybe you were lucky enough to catch Costello and Squeeze on their double-header tour when both were promoting the above records. If so, I envy you. I had to settle for a Squeeze performance at Gettysburg College. Costello couldn’t make the show. Flock of Seagulls took his place. Whatever. I was in high school, it was my first concert, and the whole thing was entertaining as hell. Squeeze was dynamite. They played nearly every song from East Side Story, and all of it sounded exactly like the record! I prefer that take over doing a “Jazz Odyssey” workout on well-known numbers. Those who appreciated what Costello did to his gems during his “Goodbye Cruel World” tour definitely have more adventurous appetities than myself.)
After I finished the baseboards, I scrambled over to my brother-in-law’s house to borrow some more Squeeze LPs: Argybargy and Sweets from a Stranger. Both had a gem or two, but for the most part, they were pretty bad. Too much nonsense about tea, biscuits, and the bath swaddled in rhythms and melodies that went nowhere. What happened? No Costello! No wonderboy who also produced the first Specials LP. No whizz kid who had that “everything I touch turns to gold Beatles Magic” that lasted until he started working on Imperial Bedroom.
Having a producer who’s brave enough to kick ass when egos get out of control is vitally important. There’s an endless list of artists who began to suck immediately when their egos decided their producer wasn’t necessary anymore. Why Squeeze ditched Costello and Costello ditched Nick Lowe will continue to be two of the greatest mysteries of life.
Anyway, get back to me ASAP with your thoughts on all this nonsense. And by the way, thanks for that Three O’Clock download.
Sincerely.
E. Pluribus Gergeley
PS. If you have MP3s of “Real World” by the Buzzcocks and “Tell Me When My Light Turns Green” by Dexy’s send ’em my way. I’m dying to hear those tracks again!
As all but the most tolerant, patient, and dedicated fans of Nick Lowe probably agree, shortly after Nick’s first two albums, the lone Rockpile album, and the breakup of the entire Rockpile working arrangement, the guy’s career hit a long stretch of mostly unsatisfying releases. Surely one of us is a greater fan of Nick the Knife or Party of One than the rest of us, and there’s probably even a Nick Lowe fan who regrets his breaking up His Cowboy Outfit, but let’s be honest, the guy lost his spark when he lost that Rockpile crew and from all accounts began changing as a person.
Lowe’s reemergence as an unabashedly adult artist following the release of 1994’s The Impossible Bird or 1998’s Dig My Mood, depending on when you began paying him any attention again, was a welcome and inspiring reemergence. I loved hearing this guy who’d always had a facility for classic pop traditions bear down and confront them head on. How many more mediocre to bad releases would it have taken to convince me that the guy could no longer turn pop conventions on their ear? The guy could have released 100 more albums in a “rocking” vein and never come up with another “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass” or the exquisite “Cruel to Be Kind”. That’s cool, and what’s cooler is that he had the great sense to get out of the Jesus of Cool business and embrace the pop conventions that have always been at the core of his work.
Jesus Has Left the Building
In an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air around the time of one of these mature albums, Terry asked Nick if there was a song that he loved that might suprise his fans. (This is a great question that Gross has asked musical guests over the years, and it could be a good thread for us here at Rock Town Hall someday, so keep it in mind.) Lowe’s song was Tommy Edwards’ ballad “It’s All in the Game”. He picked up his acoustic guitar and played a few measures of the song. It made so much sense, especially with his new direction. Dig My Mood and the follow up, The Convincer, each contained a few songs in that style (along with strong hints of Nat King Cole and The Platters). When he wasn’t crooning on those fine albums he was doing the sort of country-soul identified with the songwriting and production of Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn. His whole “changed man”/”man who’s finally found love” lyrical stance comes through loud and clear on these recordings, and I find them moving despite the “coffee table rock” aspects of The Convincer, in particular.
That brings us to his new release, At My Age. The whole adult rock/changed man thing continues to be at the foundation of his work and his publicity campaign, and that’s all cool. The songs on this album are highly reminiscent of songs from his previous “mature” works, and as far as dedication to craft goes, this is somewhat cool. The arrangements and recordings are still display tremendous taste and understatement, which is very cool, but I’m not sure that I’m cool with the same batch of songs, the same lyrics, the same stance. If Lowe has dedicated golden years of his career to recrafting classic pre-Beatles pop, is he hitting the wall that halted the great works of Lieber and Stoller and associated artists, like The Drifters? Is there a reason that great stuff went by the wayside that has nothing to do with racial ceilings and moptops?
I know some of you would like me to shut up with the backstory and talk about some of the album’s finest tracks, like “Long Limbed Girl”, “Hope for Us All”, and “I Trained Her to Love Me”. That’s cool. You’re excited to hear a report on his breezy collaboration with former student and flame, Chrissie Hynde, on the breezy, insignificant “People Change”. That’s cool too. I’ll tell you what, how about listening to the songs sampled here and digging them for yourself, discussing them as you see fit? Just click on the song titles with the mp3 links.
If there’s any problem with this album it’s that Nick and I are aging at different rates. As much as I appreciate him setting a dignified pace for rockers in their 50s – and believe me, this is a solid, enjoyable album and heads and shoulders above cynical “golden years” crap like that series of Rod Stewart Trashes the American Masters releases – I’m not ready to slow down that much yet. I want to hear Nick lash out at just one classic pop convention now and then. I know he’s a changed man. I know he’s finally found love, but he finally found that love 10 years ago. It’s time I hear about something slightly new, pitched somewhere slightly new. We can work through this together, I’m sure, Nick. If all works out, I’ll be your age one day too, and I’d rather feel what you’re feeling than whatever it is crotchety old Bob Dylan‘s feeling on his recent releases. Maybe Bob is still putting up a fight, but I wish he’d include a tune along the way, just as I’d like to hear Nick kick back the slightest bit. That’s cool, isn’t it?
When the desultory video performance of “Girls Talk” was running on this site last week, some people mentioned that they were unfamiliar with Dave Edmunds’ work and would appreciate a selection of Edmunds tracks. I offered my services, since I have all of the Rockpile-era Edmunds albums in versions transferred from my old LPs and Mr. Mod was busy with moderating.
Right before this era, Edmunds was focusing on letter-perfect recreations of earlier styles — Phil Spector, Sun Sessions, Chuck Berry, etc. – on the album Subtle As A Flying Mallet. But Edmunds had produced the last Brinsley Schwarz album, and he started working with Nick Lowe again on his next album Get It. The first 8 tracks on this selection are from that album.
The opening tack is the Bob Seger nugget “Get Out Of Denver”, and the album is a mix of old and new songs. Nick Lowe fans will recognize “I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock ‘n Roll”, but the record also features two fine Lowe-Edmunds originals – “Here Comes the Weekend” and the lovely “Little Darlin’”. Edmunds was always more of a traditionalist than Lowe (Graham Parker’s “Back To Schooldays” gets a nice rockabilly treatment here), but “Little Darlin’” shows the “pure pop” side of the Edmunds-Lowe collaboration.
