If you don’t know the drill by now, you must be new to the Halls of Rock. Welcome! This is likely our final Dugout Chatter of 2008, in which I pose a handful of puzzling rock queries in search of your gut responses. Those who think too hard risk crashing their computer. Those who don’t think at all risk not receiving an invitation to 2009’s Rock ‘n Roll Foyer of Fame’s Annual Partial Lifetime Achievement Award and Chili Cookoff. A baker’s dozen of Dugout Chatter questions follow; feel free to revisit these through the final week of 2008 and answer in small chunks. You may proceed to the next page and let loose with your true feelings! Continue reading »
On Keith’s birthday I decided to start a little feature where I’ll find a video, or just post a song of Keith correctly interpreting a song that the original artist probably just got all wrong anyway. Today, we have Worried Life Blues. Now you know how it’s really supposed to be!
Songs from this album are not eligible for nomination.
Sometimes you learn more about people’s taste from what they don’t like than from what they do like.
Keeping that in mind, I’m asking people to post their choices for worst song by each of five key ’60s/’70s artists. The only caveat is that the songs should be from the prime parts of their career (ie, nothing from Empire Burlesque from Dylan, no ’90s Stones songs, no solo McCartney, and no live or otherwise alternate versions of songs.) I’m more interested in the “why” than I am which song people choose, so please back up your choices!
East Coast fans of The Flamin’ Groovies take note: Magic Christian, a band featuring the Groovies’ Cyril Jordan along with Blondie drummer extraordinaire Clem Burke and Plimsouls’ lead guitarist (on bass!) Eddie Munoz, may be coming to a small club your way (click here for tour dates). The secret weapon in this super-duper rock-action combo is stealth vocalist Paul Kopf. Outside the San Francisco area, where Paul has long been a dedicated scene-maker, readers may be going, Huh? But this guy’s the real deal, complete with a rocking voice, great hair, cool slacks, and percussion-shaking chops. Most importantly, the guy’s got balls, which is key to fronting the band’s energetic, riff-heavy, mid-’60s mix of tunes, which are just what you’d hope to hear from a band of this pedigree.
Paul recently answered some questions for Rock Town Hall before the band launches its East Coast tour on Friday, September 5, at Johnny Brenda’s (Girard and Frankford), with The Donuts, Beretta76, and Parallax Project. The Donuts feature Townsman cdm, who’s asking local Townspeople to come out early and catch his band’s set, at 9:00 pm. Judging by the enthusiasm of Paul in our chat and what I know about the spirited set of local openers, this should be a show worth catching from bottom to top of the bill.
Rock Town Hall, Paul Kopf. Paul Kopf, Rock Town Hall.
RTH: Can you tell our readers a little about your background, Paul? You’ve got a history organizing San Francisco music festivals and the like, right? Have you played in other bands, I’m sure. Are you from the Bay area?
Paul Kopf: Was in a couple of band’s growing up in SF, none of particular note, though one band, The Heebee Jeebeez, seem to have made some sort of impression on a few people. A few times on the road this year I’ve been approached by people who say they liked that band. Why? I can’t figure out… Left that band when one of the guys went nuts and wouldn’t show up for a showcase in LA for some labels, who we were interested in us, and decided, after a few SF scenesters recommended I do so, to get into putting on shows with bands that I like and who I felt didn’t have a forum anymore to play their music. Also this was in the late 1990s, when ALL festivals seemed to be geared to alternative music audiences. I felt like there were no festivals left, at least in the SF Bay Area, that appealed to Power Pop-, Beatles-, Stones-based music fans. So I did the Baypop Festival for a few years and got a chance to meet some of my musical idols, including my good buddy and partner in crime, Cyril Jordan. I was right in that Baypop was somewhat successful and had some AMAZING shows, but in the end I lost a lot of money and I really missed performing. But Magic Christian did come out of it as I met Alec Palao, MC’s original bass player, and I as said earlier, Cyril.
RTH: How did Magic Christian came about? Some of the original participants turned over, but their replacements are even cooler.
Paul Kopf: As I said band came out of Baypop Fest. What happened was, I hired Cyril and Alec to put together a band and back the original Beau Brummels for a Baypop show I did. After that Baypop was over I decided I missed singing and performing and wanted to do my own CD. So I hired Cyril to produce it, Got Alec and Prairie Prince, who’s good friend’s with my buddy, Roger, to play on it. We found out that recording together was such a blast and we sounded so good together that it just turned from my record to Magic Christian, which Cyril christened us. As time went by and after we played a few times live and we were getting a lot of offers to tour and play, Alec and Prairie couldn’t commit to the opportunities coming our way. You see Prairie plays with Todd Rundgren, The Starship, The New Cars, and of course The Tubes, among others, and Alec is always busy with putting out all those wonderful reissues he does for Rhino and Big Beat and such. So we had to make the hard decision of replacing them or else we could never play live and tour, which is what Cyril and I really dig doing. Frankly we like to ROCK OUT LIVE, and it’s a big part of why the two of us are musicians in the first place. So we had to get some new guys like us. Luckily I called up my good friend, Eddie Munoz of The Plimsouls, who we did a few gigs with in the past and asked him if he could recommend anybody to play bass for us, and he said “Yeah..Me!!!” which just blew our heads!! I mean Eddie’s a GREAT guitar player, man. The Plimsouls ROCK!! Cyril and I never thought of him being a bass guy!! But he did, as it turns, have an extensive background playing bass for Adam Ant and Dave Vanian‘s (The Damned) solo tours. So we got together and it worked. We then were lucky enough to have this old friend of Cyril’s offer us a gig to play his 50th birhday party. We told him we’d love to but no skins, man. He said he has this friend named Clem who might do it with us if he liked he tunes. We sent him a CD. He liked it. Him and Eddie were, as it turns out good friends, and in fact were in The Plimsouls together. It just fell right into place and we haven’t looked back.
The Stones had an easy time of things against Rod Stewart, if you ask me. I think I would very grudgingly concede Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out as a tie, but probably not if you really pushed me. One thing I learned is that Rod and the Faces are great once in awhile, but every day gets boring pretty quickly. I wasn’t expecting that. I thought I liked them more. Maybe that’s why I have such a low tolerance for bands like The Black Crowes.
Anyway, I think while mopping up after the fight, I’ve found some things worth keeping from the winners. Sure, they’re just sweaty towels and discarded paper cups, but I think they’re worth checking out. Cleaning up in an early round, I found a towel outside the ring, and when I wrung it out I found a song called “Criss Cross” that could replace any of the slow songs on Goat’s Head Soup and make things better.
I also found a paper cup with “Waiting on My Friend”, which would one day bring Mick Taylor an unexpected royalty check. He had to sue the band for the lifetime supply of Twinkies.
I also found an unused roll of tape called “Living in the Heart of Love”. I really like this one. I like how Keith’s vocals are different from whatever Mick is singing. It’s jarring, but it’s cool.
I know that everyone says that Vinyl Rules, man! But here’s an example of one of the limitations of the medium. This round had to be cut short because lp’s generally lose it sonically over that 45 minute mark. That and people weren’t sure that the Stones’ generally white audience would like a slow funk song like “Fingerprint File” was originally recorded. So they sped it up, and we get a slightly Chipmunky Mick Jagger.
The second version is supposedly from the original acetate. Pretty cool, huh?
And to shed a little light on BigSteve’s comments about “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll” and its video, supposedly Mick and Ronnie were at Ronnie’s house and Mick had the idea for the song. They worked on it, together with David Bowie. Kenny Jones was called in later and did drums to make it better (he lived closer than Charlie). It was given to Keith to check out, and Keith wiped every electric guitar Ronnie put on the tape. Rumor has it that the video is Ronnie’s original demo. I think it’s one of the best records the Stones have ever made. They’ve botched it live every time, but the record itself is just perfect.
