Original Facebook Posts / Mar 2017 / The Lazy Cowgirls

 
 
 

UNDER APPRECIATED ROCK BAND OF THE MONTH FOR MARCH 2017 – THE LAZY COWGIRLS
 
 
 
Not long after I put up my last post on (among others) punk icon Iggy Pop and his first band the Iguanas as the Under Appreciated Rock Band that month, CBS Sunday Morning had a profile of Iggy Pop in early January 2017, mentioning the Stooges and other career highlights.  I was surprised enough when the show had a piece on the Black Keys, but this really blew me away.  At one point, he was asked about how the Stooges became so popular decades after their music was recorded, and Iggy said with a big grin that he thinks the world finally caught up with him after all that time. 
 
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Even more than the delightful portrayal of a rock groupie by a young Kate Hudson (she won a Golden Globe), the best part of the 2000 film Almost Famous – about the early exploits of Cameron Crowe as a rock journalist for Rolling Stone magazine – is the gonzo performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman as legendary rockcrit Lester Bangsthe editor of Creem magazine.  As he and the Cameron Crowe stand-in William Miller (played by Patrick Fugit) are beginning to bond, Bangs starts raving during an interview with a hapless radio station DJ:  “What is this hippie station?!  Where’s Iggy Pop?  Don’t you have a copy of Raw Power?!”  He paws through some albums, calling out after awhile, “Found it!”, and then starts playing Search and Destroy as the DJ mumbles:  “Lester, isn’t it a little early for this?” 
 
In his September 2000 appreciation for the Chicago Sun-Times of this film and the rest of the Cameron Crowe oeuvre – Fast Times at Ridgemont HighJerry Maguire, and Say Anything – Jim DeRogatis allows that his favorite “music-movie pairing” in Almost Famous is:  “Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs doing the chicken dance to ‘Search and Destroy’ by the Stooges.”  While not taking away anything from the excellent music choices made during the film Almost Famous, the contrast could hardly be more stark between this thunderous song and the genteel sounds by the more popular 1970’s bands.  This was true not just in the film but in the time period when Raw Power was released in 1973.  Jim DeRogatis also wrote a biography in 2000 called Let it Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America’s Greatest Rock Critic
 
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After the Stooges broke up in early 1974, and before his first post-Stooges tracks were finally released by Bomp! Records as Kill City under the name Iggy Pop and James WilliamsonIggy Pop continued the collaboration with David Bowie that he had begun on Raw Power with his first two solo albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life.  Both are ranked 5 stars by Allmusic; the latter album includes what is probably Iggy Pop’s best known song, Lust for Life (it is sometimes mistaken for a Stooges song).  He was working fast, with all three of these albums released in 1977; all told, Allmusic lists a remarkable 26 solo albums in the Iggy Pop name, not counting the Stooges albums or Kill City
 
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In his Allmusic review of Lust for Life – featuring a smiling Iggy Pop on the front cover (unlike the fierce persona he presented on the Stooges album covers) – Mark Deming writes:  “On The IdiotIggy Pop looked deep inside himself, trying to figure out how his life and his art had gone wrong in the past.  But on Lust for Life, released less than a year later, Iggy decided it was time to kick up his heels, as he traded in the midtempo introspection of his first album and began rocking hard again.  Musically, Lust for Life is a more aggressive set than The Idiot, largely thanks to drummer Hunt Sales and his bassist brother Tony Sales.  The Sales [brothers] proved they were a world-class rhythm section, laying out power and spirit on the rollicking title cut [‘Lust for Life], the tough groove of ‘Tonight’, and the lean neo-punk assault of ‘Neighborhood Threat’; and with guitarists Ricky Gardiner and Carlos Alomar at their side, they made for a tough, wiry rock & roll band – a far cry from the primal stomp of the Stooges, but capable of kicking Iggy back into high gear. . . .  On Lust for LifeIggy Pop managed to channel the aggressive power of his work with the Stooges with the intelligence and perception of The Idiot, and the result was the best of both worlds; smart, funny, edgy, and hard-rocking, Lust for Life is the best album of Iggy Pop’s solo career.” 
 
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Repo Man (1984) – not at all the same movie as the rather odious Repo Men – would be my current candidate for the “greatest movie ever made” (as I have been telling Peggy for the past year) that I never get tired of watching.  The story is a wicked mixture of science fiction, action movie, and sight gags, with a wild array of mostly unknown character actors, and Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez as the stars. 
 
The soundtrack album, Repo Man: Music from the Original Motion Picture collects a variety of punk rock classics plus others made especially for the film.  The opening theme music, “Repo Man Theme” (a gut-busting, guitar-driven instrumental that is the best music of all, though it is not on the album) and the title song, “Repo Man” (performed over the ending credits, which crawl downward rather than upward) are by Iggy Pop, while the score is performed by L.A. punk stalwarts the Plugz.  I have watched Repo Man a few times with subtitles; that has helped me follow the stream-of-consciousness lyrics in the Iggy Pop song and pick up on some of the other fine points of the movie.  For instance, Dr. J. Frank Parnell is mumbling “Oh My Darling, Clementine” to himself in the opening scene, where he warns the doomed motorcycle cop when he asked about the trunk:  “Oh . . . you don’t want to look in there”. 
 
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Iggy Pop’s solo career is uneven by all accounts (even his own).  I remember the Village Voice review of my personal favorite among his solo albums, Brick by Brick (1990) stating that this was “Iggy Pop’s best album since . . . well, since the last time you cared”.  The album features a stellar duet with Kate Pierson of the B-52’s, “Candy” – as Iggy Pop’s only song to hit the Top 40Candy remained on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks charts for 17 weeks, reaching the Top 5.  Both singers have spoken parts during the song, and Pierson’s Georgia twang is a true delight. 
 
The B-52’s hail from the fertile music center of Athens, Georgia whence came R.E.M., Pylon, and other fine bands.  Wikipedia notes that “Athens was home to the first and most famous college music scene in the country, beginning in the 1970’s”.  I had an appraisal job there in the early 1980’s and remember well the wealth of record stores and the local radio station that had a “psychedelic lunch” program around the noon hour. 
 
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Iggy Pop’s album Brick by Brick has several vulgar songs where (for a change) the crude language actually enhances their enjoyment.  They include “Butt Town”, “Pussy Power”, and “I Won’t Crap Out”.  “Starry Night” has verse after verse of putdowns of the Hollywood scenesters and hangers-on that always make me smile when I hear them:  “I don’t care about your city / Or your fat income / I don’t care about your Vanity Fair / Or your f--king sitcom”; “Take your building and your income / And shove it up your ass / Take your building and your income / And stuff it with your cash”; and “Which country is the strongest? / Who plays the best guitar? / Who f--king cares / Under the stars”. 
 
Neon Forest” comes off like a rocking Neil Young number – in fact, that’s who I thought it was for years when the song would come to mind.  The song features the great verse:  “You can get a weird prize for being adored / You can join the in crowd for being a whore / Although you are lonely you wish for a fence / America takes drugs in psychic defense”.  And then there is the defiant “The Undefeated” that has an “uh oh” undercurrent to the chorus:  “We’re the undefeated / We got what they want / We’re so f--king spoiled / Life is just a bag of pot / We’re the undefeated / TV in the shade / Girls at all our parties / We have really got it made”. 
 
Writing for AllmusicMark Deming notes:  “Brick by Brick refined Iggy [Pop]’s gifts without watering them down, adding a polish that focused his talents rather than blurring them.  Working with a mixture of L.A. session heavyweights (Waddy WachtelDavid Lindley) and rock stars paying their respects (Slash and Duff McKagan from Guns N’ RosesKate Pierson from the B-52’s)Brick by Brick leans to tough, guitar-based hard rock, leavened with a few more pop-oriented tunes that still speak of a hard-nosed lyrical approach.  But the triumph here is Iggy’s; he’s rarely sung better on record, finding a middle ground between precision and abandon that honors both and surrenders to neither, and as a lyricist he reached a new level of maturity that proved he could expand his boundaries without losing touch with his roots. . . .  Smart, tough, and impressive on all counts, Brick by Brick was Iggy Pop’s strongest work since Lust for Life, and marked a new high point in his career as a songwriter.” 
 
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Iggy Pop began working with the Stooges again on his 2003 album, Skull Ring that also featured several younger artists:  Green Daythe TrollsSum 41, and Peaches.  The Stooges toured extensively between 2003 and 2008 with founding members Iggy Pop (vocals), Ron Asheton (guitar), and Scott Asheton (drums), along with (at Ron Asheton’s suggestion) new bandmember Mike Watt (bass guitar), formerly of Minutemen and fIREHOSE, and guest musician Steve Mackay (saxophone), who had performed on the Fun House album.  During these tours, the Stooges released an album of all new material, The Weirdness (2007).  Also, Elektra Records reissued the band’s first two albums, The Stooges and Fun House in deluxe 2-CD packages in 2005
 
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After Ron Asheton was found dead in January 2009 of an apparent heart attack, James Williamson was brought back into the line-up, and the Stooges continued to perform concerts around the world until June 2016, when James Williamson announced:  “The Stooges is over.  Basically, everybody’s dead except Iggy [Pop] and I.  So it would be sort-of ludicrous to try and tour as Iggy and the Stooges when there’s only one Stooge in the band and then you have side guys.  That doesn’t make any sense to me.”  One last album was released by the Stooges in 2013Ready to Die that was better received by the critics than The Weirdness
 
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Against the odds, Iggy Pop turns 70 next month, and his music is as vital as ever.  His most recent album, Post Pop Depression (2016), ranks 4 stars from AllmusicMark Deming writes:  “When it was announced that Iggy Pop would be collaborating with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, the music press buzzed with anticipation about the project.  What would the proto-punk icon and the snarky hard rock smart guy come up with?  The surprise answer is 2016’s Post Pop Depressionin many respects an unwitting but loving tribute to Pop’s friend and collaborator David Bowie.  Post Pop Depression arrived two months after Bowie’s death, and was completed before his health problems became common knowledge.  More than anything, though, this music evokes the sound and feel of Pop’s first two solo albums.  1977’s The Idiot and Lust for Life were cut with Bowie in Germany as Pop struggled to make sense of his life and career after the Stooges collapsed.  With the reunited Stooges gone following the deaths of Ron [Asheton] and Scott AshetonPost Pop Depression finds Pop returning to the work he made in 1977, in ways that count the most.  Post Pop Depression is smart and thoughtful, intelligent without being pretentious, and full of bold but introspective thinking.” 
 
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I have written already of several of the first-wave punk rock bands that were formed in the wake of the proto-punk bands that I wrote about in my last post:  the Stoogesthe Velvet UndergroundNew York Dollsthe Modern LoversMC5, and others.  In fact, one of my early UARB’s was the Eyes; they were one of the first punk bands in Los Angeles and included in their line-up future stars Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go’s and DJ Bonebrake of X
 
First-wave punk rock bands were probably the last group of rock bands that were started by people who likely didn’t expect them to last.  This was true of most 1960’s bands also, as immortalized in the Bryan Adams song “Summer of ’69”:  “Me and some guys from school / Had a band and we tried real hard / Jimmy quit, Jody got married / Shoulda known, we’d never get far”.  After shaking their collective fist at the world and putting up with the chaotic atmosphere inside most young punk bands, it is not surprising that most never got past the release of two or three singles.  Even 40 years later though, these early punkers put out staggeringly good music on these modest discs. 
 
One of the hallmarks of the bandmembers in early punk rock bands is picking new names for themselves.  Not everyone did that, and most musicians perform under their own names.  For the record, as best I can tell, Frank ZappaFats DominoMajor LanceKris Kristofferson, and Stonewall Jackson are using their real names (with Fats being a nickname, though Major and Stonewall are not).  Grace Slick is her married name; she was born Grace Wing.  Most though not all of the one-name performers are also using one of their real names, with slight spelling changes and anglicizing here and there:  MadonnaPrinceJewel, CherBjörkEnyaBeckDonovanMorrissey,  LiberaceSadeSealShakiraRihannaAdeleDidoMelanie, Beyoncé, etc. 
 
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The Avengers formed in early 1977 and features lead vocalist Penelope Houston, with others in the classic line-up being drummer Danny Furious (later in Joan Jett and the Blackhearts)guitarist Greg Ingraham, and bassist Jimmy Wilsey (who later joined the backing band for Chris Isaak).  Having a somewhat grammatically challenged title, “We Are the One” is one of my favorite songs of all time, not just one of my favorite punk rock songs.  Behind a driving beat that is simply untoppable, and with verses about changing the world, the chorus goes:  “We are not Jesus (Christ) / We are not Fascists (Pigs) / We are not Capitalists (Industrialists) / We are not Communists / We are the One”. 
 
Penelope Houston, a native of Seattle met Danny Furious and Greg Ingraham at the San Francisco Art Institute, where they were students.  After James (Jimmy) Wilsey joined up in August 1977the Avengers became one of California’s most popular punk rock bands.  A three-song EP by the band came out in 1977 on Dangerhouse Records, featuring We Are the One, “Car Crash” and “I Believe in Me”; another the following year on White Noise Records had four other monsters:  “The American in Me”, “Uh Oh, “Corpus Christi”, and “White N----r”. 
 
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The Avengers’ records have a confrontational arrogance that is second to none.  The American in Me starts off:  “It’s the American in me that makes me watch the blood / Running out of the bullethole in his head / It’s the American in me that makes me watch TV / See on the news, listen what the man said / He said, ‘Ask not what you can do for your country / What’s your country been doing to you / Ask not what you can do for your country / What’s your country been doing to your mind?’” 
 
Writing for AllmusicMark Deming says of the band:  “One of the first and finest bands to emerge from San Francisco’s punk scene, the Avengers were originally together for only two years, and they didn’t release an album during that period.  But their passionate music and uncompromising viewpoints proved to be a major inspiration in a scene that would grow and flourish long after they broke up, and the handful of singles they left behind documented a band of uncommon power and force.  Just as importantly, lead singer Penelope Houston was one of the pioneering women of American punk, proving there was a place for female artists in the new music.” 
 
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Tensions in the band led to their break-up by mid-1979, before they were able to release a proper album.  Avengers, released in 1983 is a tough find these days; but Penelope Houston has it available as a CD-R on her website, and I managed to find a copy in an Atlanta-area record store this year.  John Dougan writes in the Allmusic review:  “Although it was released in 1983, this collection represents just about everything San Francisco’s late, great Avengers recorded from 1977-1978.  By contemporary standards, it’s by-the-book punk thrash:  Greg Ingraham’s guitar spews up hairball after hairball of distortion, while Penelope Houston snarls in her best impression of Johnny Rotten.  However, contemporary standards diminish what great music this was and what a great band they were.  Dozens of bands came in their wake, but few could recapture the excitement and ferocity of their sound.  Houston, who re-emerged years later as a folk-rocker, is in full fury on these 14 tracks, especially the youth culture solidarity anthem ‘We Are the One’ and the tale of desperation ‘Thin White Line’.  A few spins of this and you’ll hear how the Avengers influenced everyone from Black Flag to X.  Yes, they were that good.  A forgotten classic.” 
 
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The Avengers album that I have, The American in Me features four tracks that were produced by Steve Jones of Sex Pistols in late 1978.  The remainder of the CD is a June 1979 concert at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco, within days of the final break-up of the band.  Greg Ingraham had left the band when this music was made; he was replaced by Brad Kent (also known as Brad C--t, and formerly in Victorian Pork, D.O.A. and other important Canadian punk rock bands). 
 
Greil Marcus wrote the glowing and lyrical liner notes for the album; they start off:  “In 1977, ‘The American in Me’ was the torn flag flown by the Avengers.  Singer and writer Penelope Houston, guitarist Greg Ingraham, bassist James Wilsey, and drummer Danny Furious made up the best punk band in San Francisco, at moments the best in the country – and what they were claiming in ‘The American in Me’ was the country itself:  the country that the Avengers’ songs said didn’t want them, didn’t recognize them, didn’t hear them, wouldn’t listen.  They left themselves no room for irony. 
 
“‘We Are the One’, they announced; ‘What is “the One”?’ the song makes you ask.  ‘I am the one who brings you the future,’ [Penelope] Houston chants to end it.  ‘I am the one who buries the past’.  Everything about the thing sounds ridiculous, especially the glee you can hear in the band’s voices, the Oh-my-God-we-are-actually-pulling-this-off thrill of saying what you want to say right out loud, where everyone can hear you, free speech like the Batman signal in the sky, or a rock through the window that separates the true from the false.  Everything sounds ridiculous – except what the song actually sounds like, and the frightening conviction backing up every word.  No matter how sarcastic Houston was on stage, taunting the crowd between numbers, the songs said the Avengers meant exactly what they said or they meant nothing.  The American in Me could not be a joke.” 
 
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After I ordered one of Penelope Houston’s albums, The Pale Green Girl, I was struck by how strong the music was, how of a piece it was with the Avengers material.  Even though the guitars are muted, calling her solo albums “folk music”, as many rock critics do, does her a disservice if you ask me; she is more PJ Harvey than Judy Collins.  I wrote her a note and told her so, I think when I ordered The American in Me.  She thanked me in a short note and then wrote:  “I guess you can take the girl out of the punk band, but you can’t take the punk band out of the girl.”  She signed it “P”, and put a star at the top.  That handwritten note from Penelope Houston made with a Sharpie is one of the items that I miss most from what we lost in Hurricane Katrina
 
But as we were leaving the house to ride out the storm in Mobile, I saw several of my CD’s lying there and remembered how hard it was to find so many of them.  I grabbed a supermarket bag and a couple handfuls of those CD’s, including the Avengers and the Penelope Houston albums.  And am I glad I did! 
 
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I recently picked up a 2007 retrospective album called Destroy All Music by the Weirdos, one of the earliest Southern California punk bands, having formed in late 1975.  Cliff Roman (guitar and bass) recalls:  “I saw the [New York] Dolls at the Whisky and got their autographs.  I saw the Stooges at the Whisky, and Iggy [Pop] got on my shoulders.  When he was lying on the floor, I drew a red ‘X’ on his chest, and we watched his sweat melt it as the band finished their set.  Walking out of the show, I told my friend David Trout (guitar) that we should start our own band.” 
 
Along with John Denney (lead vocals) and his brother Dix Denney (guitar), the Weirdos began working on some early songs like “Teenage”, “I’m Not Like You”, “Bad Bad”, “Go Kid Hugo”, “Scream Baby Scream”, and “I Want What I Want”.  Even though they had no drummer initially, encouraged them to do a concert anyway, so they played at the Punk Palace without one.  Local DJ and fanzine writer Phast Phreddie – not to be confused with early rapper Fab 5 Freddy – began talking up the Weirdos and also introduced them to drummer Nicky Beat, who had recently left the Kim Fowley assemblage Venus and the Razorblades
 
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Mick Farren starts his liner notes for Destroy All Music by noting:  “On August 16th, 1977, at least two events occurred of major rock & roll significance.  Elvis Presley died on his Graceland toilet, and the Weirdos cut three songs for Bomp! Records, ‘Destroy All Music’, ‘A Life of Crime’ and ‘Why Do You Exist?’. The session – in a home studio in Tujunga – was produced by Craig Leonwho had overseen the Ramones’ first album.  It was a hot damp night in Los Angeles, and, by all accounts, the weather was much the same in Memphis
 
“Even the Weirdos copped to the fact that the death of Elvis was fractionally more important than their first record.  ‘The King Is Dead’ was scratched into the metal stamper of the Bomp release Destroy All Music that became a classic of late 1970’s L.A. punk, and prompted critic Mark Deming to call the band ‘one of the best and brightest American bands of punk’s first wave.’” 
 
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Destroy All Music” and “A Life of Crime” were instant favorites the second I heard them the first time, and the other music by the Weirdos has the same high quality wrapped in barely contained coiled chaos.  Sadly though, the quantity is not there, as these first-wave punk bands tended to burn out and break up quickly, due largely to indifference from the buying public.  The three songs from the 1977 Bomp session mentioned above are on the album, along with four demos that include those songs again plus Teenage
 
In 1979, backed by a studio rhythm section – Billy Persons on bass and Danny Benair on drums – the Weirdos enlisted top L.A. producer Earle Mankey (formerly a guitarist in Sparks) to engineer six songs for a mini-album called Who? What? When? Where? Why?; these tracks close the Bomp album, though the masters were difficult to locate after so many years.  But as Mick Farren put it:  “Finally, though, the 30th Anniversary collection of the Weirdos was assembled, proving beyond any shadow of doubt that, among seminal punk bands, the Weirdos were one of LA’s finest.” 
 
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Allmusic reports that the Weirdos reformed in 1988 with original members the Denney brothers (John Denney and Dix Denney)Nicky Beat, and Cliff Roman, plus Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers; they released a new album in 1990 called Condor.  I haven’t heard that record, but I couldn’t resist sharing the above cartoon that was on the back cover of Destroy All Music.  Greg Shaw used to put this kind of thing in his Bomp! Records releases and publications like Bomp! Magazine all the time. 
 
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No one is really doing first-wave punk rock anymore, but the scene survives in the background with the energy and vitality that punk brought back to rock and roll which has never really gone away.  And a few of the early punk bands are still making music.  I recently picked up an album by the Dickies called Dogs from the Hare that Bit Us (1998) having a wonderfully wacky cover.  The line-up features two of the original bandmembers from their 1977 formation, Stan Lee (guitar) and Leonard Graves Phillips (lead vocals). 
 
Allmusic says about this bunch (courtesy of Steve Huey):  “The Dickies were the clown princes of punk, not to mention surprisingly longstanding veterans of the L.A. scene.  In fact, by the new millennium, they’d become the oldest surviving punk band still recording new material.  In contrast to the snotty, intentionally offensive humor of many comedically inclined punk bands, the Dickies were winningly goofy, inspired mostly by trashy movies and other pop culture camp.  Their covers were just as ridiculous as their originals, transforming arena rock anthems and bubblegum pop chestnuts alike into the loud, speed-blur punk-pop – basically the Ramones crossed with L.A. hardcore – that was their musical stock in trade.  As the band got older, their music slowed down little by little; but their sound and their sense of humor stayed largely the same, and they were an avowed influence on new-school punkers like Green Day and the Offspring.” 
 
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Of their own origins, the Dickies (Leonard Graves Phillips specifically) talk about that in the liner notes to Dogs from the Hare that Bit Us:  “Back in the summer of 1977Stan Lee took me to see what was then L.A.’s premier punk rock band, the Weirdos. . . .  The Weirdos had a wonderfully inane sense of disposable fashion that was undeniably West Coast; on the other hand, their musically minimalistic sense of implied velocity, which was to become the hallmark of late ’70’s – Hey, I’m starting to sound like a freakin’ music critic – suffice it to say, I was impressed; so when doing this record, it was only natural to tip our hats to punk rock, hence the Weirdos, and in particular John Denney, the Don Van Vliet [Captain Beefheart] of Punk.” 
 
Dogs from the Hare that Bit Us opens with a cover of a song by the Weirdos called “Solitary Confinement”, and follows that with inimitable covers by the Dickies of a variety of other numbers:  “Easy Livin’” (Uriah Heep), “There’s a Place” (the Beatles), “Nobody but Me” (the Human Beinz), “Can’t Let Go” (the Hollies, and also Linda Ronstadt), “Epistle to Dippy” (Donovan), and others. 
 
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Some musical terms give me a thrill just reading them; “rockabilly” is one, and another is “outlaw rock”, the term often applied to the music of this month’s Under Appreciated Rock BandTHE LAZY COWGIRLS.  I mentioned them in a post not too long ago, and I had to look a half dozen times before I really became convinced that they were not in Wikipedia yet.  Could I actually live in a universe where no one among what should be millions of fans (certainly thousands) has taken the time to write a paean to these dragon-slaying head-knockers?  Anyway . . .  
 
I cannot remember a band since the 1960’s that sounds as self-assured as the Lazy Cowgirls – clearly, they have been doing it the way they want to do it from the beginning.  They have an admirable, even voluminous discography – Allmusic lists 11 albums by the Lazy Cowgirls over a 20-year period.  Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips calls them “an American institution”. 
 
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Mark Deming says of the band for Allmusic:  “If the Ramones had been a road-tested biker gang instead of pop-obsessed cartoon speed merchants, they might have sounded something like the Lazy Cowgirls.  Merging the buzzsaw roar of first-wave punk, the sneering attitude of ’60’s garage rock, the heart-on-your-sleeve honesty of honky-tonk, and the self-assured swagger of the Rolling Stonesthe Lazy Cowgirls play raw, sweaty outlaw rock and roll at its most furiously passionate and physically intense; like a Harley gunned up to 95 mph, the Lazy Cowgirls may not sound safe, but they sure are fun.” 
 
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Hailing from Vincennes, IndianaPat Todd (vocalist), D. D. Weekday (guitar), and Keith Telligman (bass) headed for California to put a band together.  They found another Indiana expat there, Allen Clark (drums) and began hitting the L.A. clubs as the Lazy Cowgirls.  Of this early period, Todd says that they were playing countless shows for “no one, and people from work”.  Chris Desjardins (former frontman of an art-punk band called the Flesh Eaters) lined them up a record deal with Restless Records, resulting in their self-titled 1984 debut Lazy Cowgirls.  Fred Beldin gives the album a tepid review for Allmusic but closes with:  “Despite an inauspicious start, the Lazy Cowgirls never made a bad record again, and those with a taste for intelligent but visceral rock & roll are urged to examine their catalog.” 
 
*       *       *

 
 
A few years later, Greg Shaw gave the Lazy Cowgirls a proper album (and one of their best), Tapping the Source (1987).  Shaw even relaunched Bomp! Records to release it, since it didn’t really fit on his active Voxx Records label.  He included one of their classic songs, “Can’t You Do Anything Right?” on the two-CD retrospective set called Destination: Bomp!, whose songs and liner notes also provide a concise history of the legendary Bomp! Records label that styles itself “the last of the independent record labels”. 
 
*       *       *

 
 
In the liner notes for Destination: Bomp!, Greg Shaw writes:  “The [Lazy] Cowgirls had made one badly misproduced album before Tapping the Source, the Bomp LP that captured for the first time their real strengths, the nonstop buzzsaw guitar attack and Pat Todd’s vein-bursting passion as a vocalist.” 
 
*       *       *

 
 
The next outing by the Lazy Cowgirls was a live album; as fine as their studio recordings are, where the band really excelled was on stage (they tell me).  The first album released by the esteemed record label called Sympathy for the Record Industry was Radio Cowgirl (1989), recorded live at a local radio station, KCSB-FM.  Mark Deming writes of this album for Allmusic:  “A promo spot advertising the broadcast that kicks off this album proclaims that the Lazy Cowgirls will play ‘loud, fast, hard rock & roll music’, and it’s hard to disagree.  There are a few sloppy moments here and there (be warned:  This is real rock & roll, where not everything is supposed to be perfect), and the sound is a bit thin (like the un-retouched two-track recording it is); but all four Cowgirls are clearly audible and pouring their heart and soul into every moment of the show (even on the joke cover of the theme from Green Acres).  Besides, how many bands can cover the Ramones and the Saints alongside Larry Williams and Jim Reeves and actually do justice to all of ’em?” 
 
*       *       *
 
 
 
My own introduction to the Lazy Cowgirls was Rank Outsider (1999).  By this point, years of nonstop touring and lackluster record sales were taking their toll; D. D. Weekday and Keith Telligman left the band by 1991, and further shakeups ensued through the rest of the decade.  But Weekday’s replacement on guitar, Michael Leigh returned to the line-up in time for Rank Outsider and another record that came out just six months later, Somewhere Down the Line.  Mark Deming for Allmusic says of Rank Outsider:  “Singer Pat Todd is in superb, revved-up form here – if anything, the guy’s vocals just get better and more confident with the passage of time – and while the presence of a few acoustic-based cuts is something new for this band, their loose, bluesy feel harkens back to Exile On Main Street-era Rolling Stones more than anyone in the MTV Unplugged crowd.  Another great record from a band that knows how.” 
 
*       *       *
 
 
 
After the Lazy Cowgirls packed it in, Pat Todd formed another band, taking its name from one of their classic albums, Pat Todd and the Rankoutsiders.  Their first release is a 2-CD album on their own label (Rankoutsider Records) called The Outskirts of Your Heart (2007).  Mark Deming again, for Allmusic:  “In 2004the Lazy Cowgirls, long one of the best-kept secrets in American rock & roll, finally called it quits after nearly 25 years of inspiring music, but lead singer and principal songwriter Pat Todd clearly isn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.  Todd has formed a new band, the Rankoutsiders, who follow a similar path to the latter-era Cowgirls – fast and loud old-school punk on one hand, and hard but heartfelt honky tonk on the other.  However, unlike the Lazy Cowgirlsthe Rankoutsiders can handle the quieter country material with the same sure hand as the louder, frantic rock stuff; and Todd’s first album with the band, The Outskirts of Your Heart, is his most impressive melding to date of his two great (musical) loves.” 
 
*       *       *

 
 
The band’s website, www.pattodd.net/ notes that Hound Gawd! Records reissued The Outskirts of Your Heart in January 2017.  Pat Todd and the Rankoutsiders has released three more albums since this one.  Other than the two live albums and their debut, Allmusic rankings are four stars or higher on all of the Lazy Cowgirls and Rankoutsiders albums. 
 
*       *       *
 
STORY OF THE MONTH:  Ringo Starr’s Pre-Beatles Career (from September 2014)
 
 
 
Ringo Starr is without a doubt the most under-appreciated member of the Beatlesso it is not surprising that, when us four Winfree kids divvied up the Fab Four among ourselves, I wound up with Ringo as my favorite Beatle
Ringo Starr (real name:  Richard Starkey, Jr.) was the final addition to the classic line-up when he was brought in as the band’s drummer, replacing Pete Best.  He is the oldest of the Beatles (all of 23 when they hit the big time), having been born three months before John Lennon. 
 
As a young teenager, he contracted tuberculosis in 1953 and was in a sanatorium for two years.  To encourage physical activity, a makeshift drum set was set up next to his bed, and he later joined the band at the hospital.  Ringo Starr recalls:  “I was in the hospital band. . . .  That’s where I really started playing.  I never wanted anything else from there on. . . .  My grandparents gave me a mandolin and a banjo, but I didn’t want them.  My grandfather gave me a harmonica . . . we had a piano – nothing.  Only the drums.” 
 
While working as a machinist in a local factory, Richard Starkey befriended Roy Trafford, who introduced him to skiffle music.  The two began practicing together and were joined by another co-worker Eddie Milesforming the Eddie Miles Band that was later renamed Eddie Clayton and the Clayton Squares.  (Interestingly, Eric Clapton took the pseudonym Eddie Clayton in his credits for the George Harrison album Wonderwall Musicperhaps from this connection). 
 
As skiffle became displaced by American rock and roll, and billed as Ritchie Starkeyhe joined a band called Texans in November 1959 that was led by Al Caldwell.  They were a well known skiffle band that was trying to reinvent themselves as a rock band.  The band went through several names – the Raging Texans, then Jet Storm and the Raging Texans – before settling on Rory Storm and the Hurricanes Richard Starkey developed the Ringo Starr persona at that time, due to his propensity for wearing numerous rings.  They became one of the top bands in Liverpool in 1960 and eventually made their way to Hamburg, where they crossed paths with the Beatles; initially, however, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were billed above the Fab Four and were also paid more. 
 
* * *
 
The Honor Roll of the Under Appreciated Rock Bands and Artists follows, in date order, including a link to the original Facebook posts and the theme of the article.
 
Dec 2009BEAST; Lot to Learn
Jan 2010WENDY WALDMAN; Los Angeles Singer-Songwriters
Feb 2010 CYRUS ERIE; Cleveland
Mar 2010BANG; Record Collecting I
Apr 2010THE BREAKAWAYS; Power Pop
May 2010THE NOT QUITE; Katrina Clean-Up
Jun 2010WATERLILLIES; Electronica
Jul 2010THE EYES; Los Angeles Punk Rock
Aug 2010QUEEN ANNE’S LACE; Psychedelic Pop
Sep 2010THE STILLROVEN; Minnesota
Oct 2010THE PILTDOWN MEN; Record Collecting II
Nov 2010SLOVENLY; Slovenly Peter
Dec 2010THE POPPEES; New York Punk/New Wave
Jan 2011HACIENDA; Latinos in Rock
Feb 2011THE WANDERERS; Punk Rock (1970’s/1980’s)
Mar 2011INDEX; Psychedelic Rock (1960’s)
Apr 2011BOHEMIAN VENDETTA; Punk Rock (1960’s)
May 2011THE LONESOME DRIFTER; Rockabilly
Jun 2011THE UNKNOWNS; Disabled Musicians
Jul 2011THE RIP CHORDS; Surf Rock I
Aug 2011ANDY COLQUHOUN; Side Men
Sep 2011ULTRA; Texas
Oct 2011JIM SULLIVAN; Mystery
Nov 2011THE UGLY; Punk Rock (1970’s)
Dec 2011THE MAGICIANS; Garage Rock (1960’s)
Jan 2012RON FRANKLIN; Why Celebrate Under Appreciated?
Feb 2012JA JA JA; German New Wave
Mar 2012STRATAVARIOUS; Disco Music
Apr 2012LINDA PIERRE KING; Record Collecting III
May 2012TINA AND THE TOTAL BABES; One Hit Wonders
Jun 2012WILD BLUE; Band Names I
Jul 2012DEAD HIPPIE; Band Names II
Aug 2012PHIL AND THE FRANTICS; Wikipedia I
Sep 2012CODE BLUE; Hidden History
Oct 2012TRILLION; Wikipedia II
Nov 2012THOMAS ANDERSON; Martin Winfree’s Record Buying Guide
Dec 2012THE INVISIBLE EYES; Record Collecting IV
Jan 2013THE SKYWALKERS; Garage Rock Revival
Feb 2013LINK PROTRUDI AND THE JAYMEN; Link Wray
Mar 2013THE GILES BROTHERS; Novelty Songs
Apr 2013LES SINNERS; Universal Language
May 2013HOLLIS BROWN; Greg Shaw / Bob Dylan
Jun 2013 (I) – FUR (Part One); What Might Have Been I
Jun 2013 (II) – FUR (Part Two); What Might Have Been II
Jul 2013THE KLUBS; Record Collecting V
Aug 2013SILVERBIRD; Native Americans in Rock
Sep 2013BLAIR 1523; Wikipedia III
Oct 2013MUSIC EMPORIUM; Women in Rock I
Nov 2013CHIMERA; Women in Rock II
Dec 2013LES HELL ON HEELS; Women in Rock III
Jan 2014BOYSKOUT; (Lesbian) Women in Rock IV
Feb 2014LIQUID FAERIES; Women in Rock V
Mar 2014 (I) – THE SONS OF FRED (Part 1); Tribute to Mick Farren
Mar 2014 (II) – THE SONS OF FRED (Part 2); Tribute to Mick Farren
Apr 2014HOMER; Creating New Bands out of Old Ones
May 2014THE SOUL AGENTS; The Cream Family Tree
Jun 2014THE RICHMOND SLUTS and BIG MIDNIGHT; Band Names (Changes) III
Jul 2014MIKKI; Rock and Religion I (Early CCM Music)
Aug 2014THE HOLY GHOST RECEPTION COMMITTEE #9; Rock and Religion II (Bob Dylan)
Sep 2014NICK FREUND; Rock and Religion III (The Beatles)
Oct 2014MOTOCHRIST; Rock and Religion IV
Nov 2014WENDY BAGWELL AND THE SUNLITERS; Rock and Religion V
Dec 2014THE SILENCERS; Surf Rock II
Jan 2015 (I) – THE CRAWDADDYS (Part 1); Tribute to Kim Fowley
Jan 2015 (II) – THE CRAWDADDYS (Part 2); Tribute to Kim Fowley
Feb 2015BRIAN OLIVE; Songwriting I (Country Music)
Mar 2015PHIL GAMMAGE; Songwriting II (Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan)
Apr 2015 (I) – BLACK RUSSIAN (Part 1); Songwriting III (Partnerships)
Apr 2015 (II) – BLACK RUSSIAN (Part 2); Songwriting III (Partnerships)
May 2015MAL RYDER and THE PRIMITIVES; Songwriting IV (Rolling Stones)
Jun 2015HAYMARKET SQUARE; Songwriting V (Beatles)
Jul 2015THE HUMAN ZOO; Songwriting VI (Psychedelic Rock)
Aug 2015CRYSTAL MANSIONMartin Winfree’s Record Cleaning Guide
Dec 2015AMANDA JONES; So Many Rock Bands
Mar 2016THE LOVEMASTERS; Fun Rock Music
Jun 2016THE GYNECOLOGISTS; Offensive Rock Music Lyrics
Sep 2016LIGHTNING STRIKE; Rap and Hip Hop
Dec 2016THE IGUANAS; Iggy and the Stooges; Proto-Punk Rock
Mar 2017THE LAZY COWGIRLS; Iggy and the Stooges; First Wave Punk Rock
Jun 2017THE LOONS; Punk Revival and Other New Bands
Sep 2017THE TELL-TALE HEARTS; Bootleg Albums
Dec 2017SS-20; The Iguana Chronicles
(Year 10 Review)
Last edited: April 8, 2021