UNDER-APPRECIATED ROCK BAND OF THE MONTH FOR SEPTEMBER 2012: CODE BLUE
I suppose we all have a hidden history. Most of us grow up with our parent(s) – and sometimes their significant others – for 18 or 20 years (and sometimes longer), but they had a period of youth as well before we came along; and for the most part, we have only indirect knowledge of their lives after we move out. Our own history is hidden as well to some extent; some people have memories of when they were an infant (or had them restored through therapy), but I never did really. Back around junior high school, I could really remember back only to kindergarten days. These days, I can only remember what I used to remember; one of those second-hand memories is a vague sense of a major disturbance as Hurricane Hazel went through Winston-Salem as a full-blown hurricane in 1954, when I was 3. And rock bands and rock artists too have a hidden history – for the most part, we only know about the period when they were making hit songs and/or releasing albums, and that is just a small part of the lives of the bandmembers and usually the band as well. I have previously written about the early history of the Beatles; while certainly not universally known, their fans are probably as conversant with their history as that of any rock band ever. Last month I discussed the curious case of John Mellencamp, a/k/a John Cougar Mellencamp, a/k/a John Cougar, a/k/a Johnny Cougar. The UARB of three months back, Wild Blue was a successful band called Jinx for many years in the local scene in Chicago; their history was hinted at in the title of their album, No More Jinx. Speaking of the Beatles, I mentioned Stars on 45 in passing in my last post, but they deserve more attention than that. The “Stars on 45 Medley” (Beatles medley) that this Dutch band made into a Number One hit never got any respect, so you can imagine how their other albums were received. The dismissive review in the Rolling Stone Record Guide went something like this: “In case you just arrived here from another planet, ‘Stars on 45’ is a group of songs that sound just like the Beatles. There is additional music on the other side of the record, but you won’t play it (doesn't sound like the Beatles). Ten thousand years of civilization for this?” To begin with, there are other songs in the medley besides those by the Beatles. I brought it up in the first place because the opening chords of the Shocking Blue hit “Venus” are given at or near the beginning of the song. Additionally, a short section of “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies is also near the front of the medley; they are surely the only band consisting of animated characters that reached the top of the charts. (They are not the only animated rock band, however: Many of you might remember Josie and the Pussycats, who were featured in one of the very few Saturday morning cartoon series that ever focused on a group of women; they also released an album in 1970). Amazingly, “Sugar Sugar” was the Number One song for the entire year of 1969 and, if memory serves, outsold every single Beatles 45. Then there is the extremely catchy bridge that Stars on 45 wrote and performed as themselves rather than as the Beatles. I have a confession to make though. When I first heard the Beatles medley, there were several songs that I was actually not familiar with. I don’t think that I have ever told anyone this before now; I wonder how many other Beatles fans were similarly chagrined. My own experience with the band is being caught up in the excitement in late 1963 and early 1964, but I quit buying Beatles albums sometime in 1965, though I still bought a lot of their 45’s. Naturally, I bought Sgt. Pepper right away, and it wasn’t long before I figured out how good the preceding album Revolver was. However, I didn’t buy Rubber Soul until I got the box set, The Beatles / The Collection. Basically, between “Yesterday” and Sgt. Pepper, if it wasn’t on the radio, I hadn’t heard it. Thus, for this music fan at least, Stars on 45 reawakened my interest in the Beatles, and I definitely took to heart their exhortation: “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t forget!” There are two other medleys that were released in the wake of this hit song. On what is probably his biggest hit album, In 3-D, “Weird Al” Yankovic put together a hilarious medley called “Polkas on 45” where he performed a wildly wide-ranging medley (all while frantically playing the accordion) that ranged from Deep Purple, to Devo, to the Doors, to Foreigner, to Iron Butterfly, and even to Lawrence Welk. A more critically acclaimed medley of songs by Eric Burdon and the Animals, simply called “Animals Medley” was tackled by David Johansen. While I would have to put the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds as the Top Three British Invasion bands to my way of thinking, the Animals would be right behind them, even ahead of the Kinks I think. David Johansen had been the lead singer in the cross-dressing, proto-punk band called New York Dolls and came up with an entirely different persona as Buster Poindexter, where he had numerous hits like “Hot Hot Hot” and “Zat You, Santa Claus?”. Finally, I have a recommendation to go with my confession earlier. If any of you are still signed up with Netflix, you should add the 1994 film Backbeat to your queue. It is the early history of the Beatles mostly when they were in Hamburg, Germany and primarily follows Stu Sutcliffe (played by Stephen Dorff), an old friend of John Lennon who was in an early incarnation of the band. Long before they were famous, Sutcliffe was drawn into photography and found a love; he died tragically young before his 22nd birthday. Along the way, you meet Paul McCartney (the two actors who play John and Paul are dead ringers), George Harrison, and even Ringo Starr, who was hanging around the group even though he wasn’t in the band yet. Actually the words “the Beatles” were only spoken once during the entire movie; John Lennon mostly just called them “the band”. The idea is that, in those days, the Beatles were the world’s greatest punk rock group, so the band that they lined up to play the music was drawn from the top American alternative rock bands of the day, like the Afghan Whigs, Soul Asylum, R.E.M., and Sonic Youth. The drummer was Nirvana’s Dave Grohl, who later became the front man for Foo Fighters (sadly, I believe that I read that they have gone on a hiatus). However, he still hits the skins from time to time for bands like Queens of the Stone Age. Highly recommended. When I spotted this album. Time and a Word in a used record bin decades ago, I had to really look at it before I could believe that this is the same Yes who had all those album covers with colorful fantasy paintings. As I paid for it, I asked the man at the counter whether this album was as rare as I thought it was. “It is scarce, but not rare”, was his reply; and to be sure, I have seen the album a few times since. (For at least 5% of my collection, the only copy of the album that I have ever seen is the one that I purchased). This is actually their second album (the cover for their first, Yes is plainer still) and came out in mid-1970. That was just seven months before the release of what most people probably think of as Yes’ first album, The Yes Album, which included their first hit songs, “Yours Is No Disgrace” and “I’ve Seen All Good People”. Big Brother and the Holding Company is primarily known as the band that had Janis Joplin as their lead singer, but she was not in the band when it originally formed, and she actually only sang on two of their albums. If only Janis had hung around Big Brother a little longer rather than striking out on her own, she might not have come to such a tragic end. I have never actually heard any of their other albums, and as far as I know, they never had any other hits. The album above, Be a Brother came out two years after their smash hit, Cheap Thrills. That’s what it says: The Magnificent Moodies. This record was released in 1965 and was the first album by the Moody Blues. Like many of the British Invasion bands, they started out as a crackerjack rhythm and blues band, and the U. S. release of the album has a different cover and some variation in the songs. You can certainly be forgiven if you don’t think of them as a British Invasion band. Also, like me, you probably have difficulty imagining the Moody Blues covering songs by James Brown (two of them, no less), Willie Dixon and George Gershwin; but that is exactly what they do on this album. “Time Is on My Side” is included on most of the CD reissues as a bonus track; the song is best known from the Rolling Stones version of “Time Is on My Side”, their first Top Ten hit in the US (the song was written by Norman Meade). Their next album, Days of Future Passed was completely different from The Magnificent Moodies; it is maybe the first rock album to feature a symphony orchestra (the London Festival Orchestra to be exact). The band did not tour with an orchestra though until their landmark concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in 1992 with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. For some reason, almost from the beginning the Moody Blues completely turned their back on the music from their first album. For instance, their album Seventh Sojourn is actually their eighth album. This is even more surprising considering that the Moody Blues had a worldwide hit song from that album called “Go Now”. I used to hear that song on the radio from time to time, and the first time, I was amazed to hear the name of the artist. The lead singer on that track is Denny Laine, while the distinctive piano is performed by prior Moody Mike Pinder. Laine would later become a key member of Paul McCartney’s band Wings. Some of these albums are curiosities for the most part, but that is most definitely not true of this one. To me, it is positively criminal that there are still some rock music fans out there who do not know about the debut 1968 album by Blood, Sweat and Tears, Child Is Father to the Man. Despite having zero hit songs and being recorded before lead singer David Clayton-Thomas joined the group, this album is even better than their second album, Blood, Sweat and Tears. Finally, this is also the best work by Al Kooper, who founded BST – and that is saying something. Al Kooper is a New Yorker – he was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Queens. Early on, as part of a songwriting team in New York, he wrote “This Diamond Ring”, which was a 1965 hit for Gary Lewis and the Playboys (he is Jerry Lewis’s son). He moved to Greenwich Village in 1965 and became part of the backing band for Bob Dylan, along with ace guitarist Mike Bloomfield. That’s Kooper playing the signature Hammond Organ riffs on Dylan’s monster hit “Like a Rolling Stone” (and other songs on Highway 61 Revisited); the story is that the people in the studio were trying to put his organ in the background, but that it was Dylan himself who brought it out to the front of the mix. Al Kooper later became a member of the Blues Project, one of the earliest psychedelic rock bands; and he was also the driving force behind one of the most popular and successful albums of the late 1960’s (in collaboration with Stephen Stills and Mike Bloomfield), Super Session. As if that were not enough, many years later, he produced the first several albums by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Al Kooper formed Blood, Sweat and Tears in 1967; one of his bandmates in the Blues Project, Steve Katz became an important member of the group as well. Besides being one of the first rock bands to have a full brass section (there are also frequent strings plus an Ondioline, a precursor to modern synthesizers), Child Is Father to the Man has a classically based structure, with an “Overture” and an “Underture” and songs that flow from one into another covering rock, country, pop, jazz, blues, folk . . . there is even a fugue section. The songs are mostly original – “I Can’t Quit Her”, “Meagan’s Gypsy Eyes” and “My Days Are Numbered” are real standouts – but include some real beauties among the cover songs: Randy Newman’s “Just One Smile”, Harry Nilsson’s “Without Her” and Tim Buckley’s “Morning Glory”. The Stone Poneys also recorded the latter song, though with the title “Hobo” instead; it is my favorite Poneys song (even beating “Different Drum”) and one of my very favorite Linda Ronstadt songs. Simply put, Child Is Father to the Man is a joy from beginning to end. Steve Katz remained with the group, unlike Al Kooper (who left the band or was pushed out after the release of Child Is Father to the Man due to creative differences). Katz has an excellent lead vocal on one song on Blood, Sweat and Tears, “Sometime in Winter”. I spent a good part of last month’s post extolling Shocking Blue and managed to do so without ever mentioning Mariska Veres, the lead singer on “Venus” and nearly all of their songs. Few rock bands had female lead singers in those days, though there were a few, notably Grace Slick of Jefferson Starship. Another Dutch band of the same time period, Earth and Fire also had a fine female lead singer, Jerney Kaagman. Like the rest of the band, Mariska Veres was born in the Netherlands, though her father was a Hungarian Romani (gypsy) violinist. Their debut album, Beat with Us (also named Shocking Blue in some countries) was released in 1968 before Mariska Veres joined the group. Not surprisingly, it is their rarest album; I have only ever heard the two tracks from their first single, “Love Is in the Air” b/w “What You Gonna Do”, but they are great songs. Sometimes rock musicians go into an entirely different line of work: Danny Elfman for instance has become one of the leading writers of Hollywood movie scores. He has written the music for the majority of the films by Tim Burton, beginning with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and including the 1989 Batman movie, for which he won an Academy Award (he has been nominated three other times). Elfman has also done a lot of television work, including the theme song for The Simpsons. Beginning in the early 1970’s and through the mid-1990’s, he was also the front man for the quirky band Oingo Boingo. Only a Lad, their first full-length album came out in 1981 and is the one that I have; the title song, “Only a Lad” was a minor hit. Elfman’s bombastic musical style turned out to be ideal for certain kinds of films. That cover is a real hoot; it is a heavily redecorated Norman Rockwell painting that was used as the cover shot for one edition of the Boy Scout Handbook. The original was drawn on a completely white background, so that is why the “jaunty lad” (as National Geographic magazine described the original painting) is up in the clouds in Oingo Boingo’s reimagining. Stiv Bators, the front man for one of the best punk rock bands the Dead Boys, had a tempestuous relationship with Bomp! Records’ Greg Shaw. He was trying to reinvent himself as a pop singer and released one excellent album in 1980 called Disconnected and a lot of other singles. It was never easy on Shaw to work with Bators; he would arrive at the recording studio with a gaggle of Hollywood hangers-on, and they might be partying in there all night long. He was also very particular as to which musicians he wanted to work with; in many cases, he would want to fly in some first-wave punk rocker who was available (Shaw uncharitably called them “burnouts”). In about 1985, Stiv Bators was recording a new version of a Moody Blues “B” side, “The Story in Your Eyes”; and the flip side was going to be a cover of the Richard Berry anthem “Have Love, Will Travel”. (The connection to the popular TV western of 50-some years ago, Have Gun – Will Travel is likely not well remembered these days). Richard Berry (no relation to Chuck Berry) is the author of the immortal “Louie Louie”; one time, Stiv Bators also recorded a version of that song with a whole studio full of people – the new lyrics that he supplied extolled the virtues of his new home town and gave it the name, “L.A. L.A.”. Anyway, for “Have Love, Will Travel”, Greg Shaw was hoping to bring in one of the stable of young rock bands that he had signed – but no, Stiv Bators had to have the Little Kings; Shaw described them as “an adequate but rootless Hollywood glam [rock]-damaged band with tattoos – drinking buddies of his I guess”. One of their guitar players, Gore Verbinski was in several other bands in that period and started making rock videos after a while. His debut Hollywood film was Mouse Hunt in 1997; he also directed the 2003 mega-hit Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl as well as the first two Pirates sequels. Dion DiMucci was one of the leading rock and rollers of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, and his work still sounds great to me to this day. He was the front man for Dion and the Belmonts and had several hits beginning with “I Wonder Why” in 1958. On the strength of their early success, they were brought along on the Winter Dance Tour with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. At one stop, Holly chartered a plane to get to the next date on the tour; but Dion turned down the offered ride, saying that he couldn’t afford the $36 cost. On February 3, 1959, the plane crashed in a cornfield in Iowa, killing Holly, Valens, the Big Bopper, and the pilot. (Waylon Jennings, who was in Buddy Holly’s band after the Crickets broke up, also decided against getting on the plane). Further hits followed for Dion and the Belmonts, including “A Teenager in Love” – considered by many to be one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever – and the Rodgers and Hart show tune “Where or When”. Dion became a solo artist by 1960 and had another string of wonderful hit songs, “The Wanderer”, “Runaround Sue”, “Donna the Prima Donna”, and “Ruby Baby” among them. In the wake of the horrific political assassinations of the 1960’s, Dion later had another hit song in the summer of 1968 with the simple but highly effective song, “Abraham, Martin and John”. After a period of Christian contemporary recordings, Dion was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and released a great comeback album called Yo Frankie in 1989. The sticker on the cover proclaims: “The man who invented the rock & roll attitude . . . has now perfected it”. Produced by Dave Edmunds, the album features numerous guest appearances: Paul Simon, Lou Reed, k.d. lang, Patty Smyth and Bryan Adams. Reed’s speech at the induction ceremony is also included on the sleeve. Sure, the accolades are rolling in hot and heavy now, with what would have been Johnny Cash’s 80th birthday passing earlier this year. However, like many of the genuine “classic country” artists, for years Cash couldn’t buy a spot on country radio for any of his new music. (Any number of long-time rock artists could make the same complaint). When one of the later albums, Unchained (1996) won a Grammy for Best Country Album, he and his record company ran an ad in Billboard magazine saying the following: “American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support.” The ad was accompanied by a truly fierce photograph of Cash flashing the middle finger. It was a lot more extreme than I remembered its being, so I decided not to include it in my article, though it is easy enough to find online if you are interested. The bandleader and songwriter for CODE BLUE, Dean Chamberlain is best known as one of the founders of the 1980’s new wave band the Motels, which had two #9 hits with “Only the Lonely” and “Suddenly Last Summer” in 1982 and 1983, respectively. The band was formed, however, all the way back in 1971. Originally called the Warfield Foxes, the bandmembers were Lisa Brenneis (bass), Dean Chamberlain (lead guitar), Chuck Wada (rhythm guitar), and Martha Davis (vocals, guitar). Chamberlain eventually tired of the Bay Area scene and moved to Los Angeles; as he puts it: “I came down to L.A. to see Iggy Pop at the Whisky a Go-Go and stayed.” The rest of the bandmembers joined him there by 1975. Lisa Brenneis had originally been the impetus for the formation of the band, but she dropped out shortly after the move. Richard D’Andrea replaced her on bass; the band also added drummer Robert Newman. After calling themselves Angels of Mercy for a time, they settled on the name the Motels. After struggling for a couple of years, Capitol Records offered the Motels a recording contract in 1977; instead, the band broke up, citing creative differences. From Dean Chamberlain’s standpoint, he thought that there was too much emphasis on lead singer Martha Davis. One song, “Counting” survived from this very early period in the Motels; the song was first included on a 1978 Rhino Records compilation album, Saturday Night Pogo. “Counting” later appeared as the final track on the first album, simply called Motels, which came out in 1979. I have seen the album several times in record bins; maybe it is the lack of “The” or the fact that it has a completely different look from their flashy later albums, but I never even thought of this album as being by the Motels. In any case, the only bandmember still around from the original Motels was Martha Davis. Dean Chamberlain describes the Motels that he helped found as being “a crazyass funky [Led Zeppelin] style band”. The hidden history of the Motels includes a total of eight albums; I have half of them and enjoy them all, with their second album Careful being my most recent purchase. What would have been their third studio album, Apocalypso was rejected by the suits at Capitol Records and wasn’t released in its original form until 2011. Apocalypso was reworked in 1982 and became their first hit album, All Four One. The Wikipedia article on the Motels lists a remarkable 35 current and former bandmembers. Richard D’Andrea later joined a band called the Pits that was founded by notorious rock critic John Mendelsohn, whose previous projects included underground glam rockers Christopher Milk. For about three years, D’Andrea was in The Know with one of the founding members of Blondie, Gary Valentine; they released several singles but never landed a record deal. Dean Chamberlain was born in San Francisco and grew up in the nearby city of San Mateo. After the Motels (the original band that is) broke up, he ran an ad looking for other musicians; out of this, a trio called Skin was born in 1978 that also included Michael Ostendorf (bass) and Randall Marsh (drums). They started playing gigs in the L.A. area, and scouts for Warner Bros. Records signed them the day after they heard one of their shows. Ostendorf left the band, and after Gary Tibbs replaced him on bass, they changed their name to Code Blue, hospital-ese for a patient requiring immediate resuscitation. (There are a lot of other hospital codes, but TV medical shows only ever seem to use the blue one). Code Blue recorded in Van Nuys, California and also in London; changing producers along the way, their first album, Code Blue was finally released in 1980. I only have a promotional EP for their first album as shown above (also called Code Blue), but it is such uniformly excellent music that I had to include them as a UARB. Code Blue mounted a national tour, opening for Thin Lizzy (with yet another bass player on hand, Joe Read); but it was reportedly not well-received. A second album called True Story came out in 1982 on a different label, and shortly afterward, the band broke up. The opening cut on the Motels’ breakthrough album, All Four One is called “Mission of Mercy”, and that might not be a nod to their earlier name, Angels of Mercy. However, the lyric “skin to skin” from Code Blue’s excellent song “Face to Face” could very well reference their original name Skin. After Code Blue’s demise, Dean Chamberlain played and toured for a while with the L.A. country punk band Tex & the Horseheads (though he was evidently not a bandmember) and then formed a trio called Resurrection. With three members of a latter incarnation of punk band T.S.O.L. – Joe Wood (vocals), Mitch Dean (drums) and Dave Mello (bass) – and another guitarist from heavy metal shock-rockers the Mentors, Dean Chamberlain was next in a band in the early 1990’s by the name of Orange Wedge that played what he called “southern fried acid-speed-blues”. After leaving Code Blue, Michael Ostendorf was in an all-star line-up called Toni and the Movers that was formed by singer-songwriter Toni Childs in 1979. The other bandmembers were Jack Sherman, who has had an active career in music and is best known for being an early member of Red Hot Chili Peppers and playing on their debut 1984 album, The Red Hot Chili Peppers; and Michael Steele, who was in two different all-female rock bands, the Bangles and the Runaways (she was known as Micki Steele in the latter band). Toni Childs herself played and recorded with numerous musicians in the ensuing years and released two successful solo albums beginning in 1988; her first national tour was opening for Bob Dylan. The title track “House of Hope” from her 1991 album House of Hope was featured in the film, Thelma and Louise. The man who replaced Michael Ostendorf in Code Blue, Gary Tibbs was in a host of bands at one time or another, including Adam and the Ants, Roxy Music, the Vibrators and (most recently) the Fixx, where he played on their 2003 album, Want that Life. The other original member of Skin and Code Blue, drummer Randall Marsh was in a band in 1970 with a then 17-year-old Tom Petty called Mudcrutch that was the direct forerunner to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Marsh also took part in a reunion of Mudcrutch that released an acclaimed album in 2007 called Mudcrutch. After taking about 15 years off from the music scene, Dean Chamberlain formed a new roots-rock/blues band called The Honorable DHC with fellow Code Blue member Randall Marsh on drums and Ted Russell Kamp (also with Shooter Jennings’ band) on bass. Their debut EP, Welcome to Wonder Valley came out on CD in 2011. I picked up the album for this month’s UARB at the same time as that of Wild Blue, and not surprisingly, I was confusing the two bands in my mind for quite a while before I learned my way around their albums. I thought it would be kind of fun to include two bands with such similar names in the UARB list. In the beginning, I wasn’t really sure about Code Blue, but Wild Blue was an obvious choice. While their album was released toward the end of the wave, they were totally invested in the new wave movement, from the sound to the hair to the clothes. That is not a bad thing; new wave is still one of the most interesting eras of rock music to my way of thinking. Meanwhile, the Code Blue EP was insinuating itself into the part of my cerebrum where my favorite songs are stored; after just a few plays, I was really starting to love these four songs – “Whisper/Touch”, “Face to Face”, “Hurt”, and “The Need” (all written by Dean Chamberlain). They were even starting to play inside my head, as all four of them have been doing regularly while I have been putting this post together. That is pretty rare actually: Once again, I have been reminded that I do not consciously pick the music that I love. As can be seen above, Code Blue was loaded with talent. Their well-crafted songs are literate, thoughtful and sensual. Though they deserved more success than they got, the bandmembers have been involved in a wide variety of musical projects. As far as I know, the Code Blue music has not yet made it to CD, though their first album was reissued by Rhino Records as a limited-edition LP with bonus tracks and new remixes in 2003. * * * Flashback: The Under-Appreciated Rock Band of the Month for September 2010 – The Stillroven The Stillroven were an unknown garage rock band from Minneapolis, even to most record collectors, when Sundazed Records put together a compilation CD in 1996 called Cast Thy Burden upon the Stillroven. I missed the fact that Sundazed had put out a second Stillroven CD in 2003, Too Many Spaces, though Allmusic disputes that it is actually an unreleased album. For better or worse, I have gotten better (or a lot more wordy at least) in developing the theme for my monthly posts than I was for this UARB. There is a lot more info about the Stillroven on the web now than there was in 2010; they even have a Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pages/The-Stillroven/92138252655 . Sundazed is definitely amped about this band: In the liner notes for Cast Thy Burden upon the Stillroven, they rave that the Stillroven’s version of “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” buries the Monkees’ hit recording of “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone”. Now, on their website, Sundazed insists that “their pedal-to-the-metal, frenetic version of ‘Hey Joe’ [is] still THE definitive version as far as we’re concerned”. That’s a pretty strong statement considering that “Hey Joe” was one of the most recorded songs of the 1960’s. Better-known covers include those by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Deep Purple (on their debut album, Shades of Deep Purple, they even claimed to be the songwriter!), Johnny Rivers, the Byrds, the Music Machine, and the Leaves. So, if you want to test that claim, here is the Stillroven on YouTube (audio only) performing “Hey Joe”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-0zMnkCYOE . Their take on “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” can be found at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP4m3wti890 . They also do fine original songs; check out what is basically the title song from the CD shown above, “Cast Thy Burden upon the Stone”: at www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d-TOtwTcYg . It is audio only like the rest, but there are some nice visuals (including a shot of the cartoon character on I Dream of Jeannie that you might remember from the opening credits).
When I spotted this album. Time and a Word in a used record bin decades ago, I had to really look at it before I could believe that this is the same Yes who had all those album covers with colorful fantasy paintings. As I paid for it, I asked the man at the counter whether this album was as rare as I thought it was. “It is scarce, but not rare”, was his reply; and to be sure, I have seen the album a few times since. (For at least 5% of my collection, the only copy of the album that I have ever seen is the one that I purchased). This is actually their second album (the cover for their first, Yes is plainer still) and came out in mid-1970. That was just seven months before the release of what most people probably think of as Yes’ first album, The Yes Album, which included their first hit songs, “Yours Is No Disgrace” and “I’ve Seen All Good People”.
Big Brother and the Holding Company is primarily known as the band that had Janis Joplin as their lead singer, but she was not in the band when it originally formed, and she actually only sang on two of their albums. If only Janis had hung around Big Brother a little longer rather than striking out on her own, she might not have come to such a tragic end. I have never actually heard any of their other albums, and as far as I know, they never had any other hits. The album above, Be a Brother came out two years after their smash hit, Cheap Thrills.
That’s what it says: The Magnificent Moodies. This record was released in 1965 and was the first album by the Moody Blues. Like many of the British Invasion bands, they started out as a crackerjack rhythm and blues band, and the U. S. release of the album has a different cover and some variation in the songs. You can certainly be forgiven if you don’t think of them as a British Invasion band. Also, like me, you probably have difficulty imagining the Moody Blues covering songs by James Brown (two of them, no less), Willie Dixon and George Gershwin; but that is exactly what they do on this album. “Time Is on My Side” is included on most of the CD reissues as a bonus track; the song is best known from the Rolling Stones version of “Time Is on My Side”, their first Top Ten hit in the US (the song was written by Norman Meade). Their next album, Days of Future Passed was completely different from The Magnificent Moodies; it is maybe the first rock album to feature a symphony orchestra (the London Festival Orchestra to be exact). The band did not tour with an orchestra though until their landmark concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in 1992 with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.
For some reason, almost from the beginning the Moody Blues completely turned their back on the music from their first album. For instance, their album Seventh Sojourn is actually their eighth album. This is even more surprising considering that the Moody Blues had a worldwide hit song from that album called “Go Now”. I used to hear that song on the radio from time to time, and the first time, I was amazed to hear the name of the artist. The lead singer on that track is Denny Laine, while the distinctive piano is performed by prior Moody Mike Pinder. Laine would later become a key member of Paul McCartney’s band Wings.
Some of these albums are curiosities for the most part, but that is most definitely not true of this one. To me, it is positively criminal that there are still some rock music fans out there who do not know about the debut 1968 album by Blood, Sweat and Tears, Child Is Father to the Man. Despite having zero hit songs and being recorded before lead singer David Clayton-Thomas joined the group, this album is even better than their second album, Blood, Sweat and Tears. Finally, this is also the best work by Al Kooper, who founded BST – and that is saying something.
Al Kooper is a New Yorker – he was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Queens. Early on, as part of a songwriting team in New York, he wrote “This Diamond Ring”, which was a 1965 hit for Gary Lewis and the Playboys (he is Jerry Lewis’s son). He moved to Greenwich Village in 1965 and became part of the backing band for Bob Dylan, along with ace guitarist Mike Bloomfield. That’s Kooper playing the signature Hammond Organ riffs on Dylan’s monster hit “Like a Rolling Stone” (and other songs on Highway 61 Revisited); the story is that the people in the studio were trying to put his organ in the background, but that it was Dylan himself who brought it out to the front of the mix. Al Kooper later became a member of the Blues Project, one of the earliest psychedelic rock bands; and he was also the driving force behind one of the most popular and successful albums of the late 1960’s (in collaboration with Stephen Stills and Mike Bloomfield), Super Session. As if that were not enough, many years later, he produced the first several albums by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Al Kooper formed Blood, Sweat and Tears in 1967; one of his bandmates in the Blues Project, Steve Katz became an important member of the group as well. Besides being one of the first rock bands to have a full brass section (there are also frequent strings plus an Ondioline, a precursor to modern synthesizers), Child Is Father to the Man has a classically based structure, with an “Overture” and an “Underture” and songs that flow from one into another covering rock, country, pop, jazz, blues, folk . . . there is even a fugue section. The songs are mostly original – “I Can’t Quit Her”, “Meagan’s Gypsy Eyes” and “My Days Are Numbered” are real standouts – but include some real beauties among the cover songs: Randy Newman’s “Just One Smile”, Harry Nilsson’s “Without Her” and Tim Buckley’s “Morning Glory”. The Stone Poneys also recorded the latter song, though with the title “Hobo” instead; it is my favorite Poneys song (even beating “Different Drum”) and one of my very favorite Linda Ronstadt songs. Simply put, Child Is Father to the Man is a joy from beginning to end.
Steve Katz remained with the group, unlike Al Kooper (who left the band or was pushed out after the release of Child Is Father to the Man due to creative differences). Katz has an excellent lead vocal on one song on Blood, Sweat and Tears, “Sometime in Winter”.
I spent a good part of last month’s post extolling Shocking Blue and managed to do so without ever mentioning Mariska Veres, the lead singer on “Venus” and nearly all of their songs. Few rock bands had female lead singers in those days, though there were a few, notably Grace Slick of Jefferson Starship. Another Dutch band of the same time period, Earth and Fire also had a fine female lead singer, Jerney Kaagman.
Like the rest of the band, Mariska Veres was born in the Netherlands, though her father was a Hungarian Romani (gypsy) violinist. Their debut album, Beat with Us (also named Shocking Blue in some countries) was released in 1968 before Mariska Veres joined the group. Not surprisingly, it is their rarest album; I have only ever heard the two tracks from their first single, “Love Is in the Air” b/w “What You Gonna Do”, but they are great songs.
Sometimes rock musicians go into an entirely different line of work: Danny Elfman for instance has become one of the leading writers of Hollywood movie scores. He has written the music for the majority of the films by Tim Burton, beginning with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and including the 1989 Batman movie, for which he won an Academy Award (he has been nominated three other times). Elfman has also done a lot of television work, including the theme song for The Simpsons. Beginning in the early 1970’s and through the mid-1990’s, he was also the front man for the quirky band Oingo Boingo. Only a Lad, their first full-length album came out in 1981 and is the one that I have; the title song, “Only a Lad” was a minor hit. Elfman’s bombastic musical style turned out to be ideal for certain kinds of films. That cover is a real hoot; it is a heavily redecorated Norman Rockwell painting that was used as the cover shot for one edition of the Boy Scout Handbook. The original was drawn on a completely white background, so that is why the “jaunty lad” (as National Geographic magazine described the original painting) is up in the clouds in Oingo Boingo’s reimagining.
Stiv Bators, the front man for one of the best punk rock bands the Dead Boys, had a tempestuous relationship with Bomp! Records’ Greg Shaw. He was trying to reinvent himself as a pop singer and released one excellent album in 1980 called Disconnected and a lot of other singles. It was never easy on Shaw to work with Bators; he would arrive at the recording studio with a gaggle of Hollywood hangers-on, and they might be partying in there all night long. He was also very particular as to which musicians he wanted to work with; in many cases, he would want to fly in some first-wave punk rocker who was available (Shaw uncharitably called them “burnouts”).
In about 1985, Stiv Bators was recording a new version of a Moody Blues “B” side, “The Story in Your Eyes”; and the flip side was going to be a cover of the Richard Berry anthem “Have Love, Will Travel”. (The connection to the popular TV western of 50-some years ago, Have Gun – Will Travel is likely not well remembered these days). Richard Berry (no relation to Chuck Berry) is the author of the immortal “Louie Louie”; one time, Stiv Bators also recorded a version of that song with a whole studio full of people – the new lyrics that he supplied extolled the virtues of his new home town and gave it the name, “L.A. L.A.”. Anyway, for “Have Love, Will Travel”, Greg Shaw was hoping to bring in one of the stable of young rock bands that he had signed – but no, Stiv Bators had to have the Little Kings; Shaw described them as “an adequate but rootless Hollywood glam [rock]-damaged band with tattoos – drinking buddies of his I guess”. One of their guitar players, Gore Verbinski was in several other bands in that period and started making rock videos after a while. His debut Hollywood film was Mouse Hunt in 1997; he also directed the 2003 mega-hit Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl as well as the first two Pirates sequels.
Dion DiMucci was one of the leading rock and rollers of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, and his work still sounds great to me to this day. He was the front man for Dion and the Belmonts and had several hits beginning with “I Wonder Why” in 1958. On the strength of their early success, they were brought along on the Winter Dance Tour with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. At one stop, Holly chartered a plane to get to the next date on the tour; but Dion turned down the offered ride, saying that he couldn’t afford the $36 cost. On February 3, 1959, the plane crashed in a cornfield in Iowa, killing Holly, Valens, the Big Bopper, and the pilot. (Waylon Jennings, who was in Buddy Holly’s band after the Crickets broke up, also decided against getting on the plane).
Further hits followed for Dion and the Belmonts, including “A Teenager in Love” – considered by many to be one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever – and the Rodgers and Hart show tune “Where or When”. Dion became a solo artist by 1960 and had another string of wonderful hit songs, “The Wanderer”, “Runaround Sue”, “Donna the Prima Donna”, and “Ruby Baby” among them. In the wake of the horrific political assassinations of the 1960’s, Dion later had another hit song in the summer of 1968 with the simple but highly effective song, “Abraham, Martin and John”.
After a period of Christian contemporary recordings, Dion was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and released a great comeback album called Yo Frankie in 1989. The sticker on the cover proclaims: “The man who invented the rock & roll attitude . . . has now perfected it”. Produced by Dave Edmunds, the album features numerous guest appearances: Paul Simon, Lou Reed, k.d. lang, Patty Smyth and Bryan Adams. Reed’s speech at the induction ceremony is also included on the sleeve.
Sure, the accolades are rolling in hot and heavy now, with what would have been Johnny Cash’s 80th birthday passing earlier this year. However, like many of the genuine “classic country” artists, for years Cash couldn’t buy a spot on country radio for any of his new music. (Any number of long-time rock artists could make the same complaint). When one of the later albums, Unchained (1996) won a Grammy for Best Country Album, he and his record company ran an ad in Billboard magazine saying the following: “American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support.” The ad was accompanied by a truly fierce photograph of Cash flashing the middle finger. It was a lot more extreme than I remembered its being, so I decided not to include it in my article, though it is easy enough to find online if you are interested.
The bandleader and songwriter for CODE BLUE, Dean Chamberlain is best known as one of the founders of the 1980’s new wave band the Motels, which had two #9 hits with “Only the Lonely” and “Suddenly Last Summer” in 1982 and 1983, respectively. The band was formed, however, all the way back in 1971. Originally called the Warfield Foxes, the bandmembers were Lisa Brenneis (bass), Dean Chamberlain (lead guitar), Chuck Wada (rhythm guitar), and Martha Davis (vocals, guitar). Chamberlain eventually tired of the Bay Area scene and moved to Los Angeles; as he puts it: “I came down to L.A. to see Iggy Pop at the Whisky a Go-Go and stayed.” The rest of the bandmembers joined him there by 1975. Lisa Brenneis had originally been the impetus for the formation of the band, but she dropped out shortly after the move. Richard D’Andrea replaced her on bass; the band also added drummer Robert Newman. After calling themselves Angels of Mercy for a time, they settled on the name the Motels.
After struggling for a couple of years, Capitol Records offered the Motels a recording contract in 1977; instead, the band broke up, citing creative differences. From Dean Chamberlain’s standpoint, he thought that there was too much emphasis on lead singer Martha Davis. One song, “Counting” survived from this very early period in the Motels; the song was first included on a 1978 Rhino Records compilation album, Saturday Night Pogo.
“Counting” later appeared as the final track on the first album, simply called Motels, which came out in 1979. I have seen the album several times in record bins; maybe it is the lack of “The” or the fact that it has a completely different look from their flashy later albums, but I never even thought of this album as being by the Motels. In any case, the only bandmember still around from the original Motels was Martha Davis. Dean Chamberlain describes the Motels that he helped found as being “a crazyass funky [Led Zeppelin] style band”.
The hidden history of the Motels includes a total of eight albums; I have half of them and enjoy them all, with their second album Careful being my most recent purchase. What would have been their third studio album, Apocalypso was rejected by the suits at Capitol Records and wasn’t released in its original form until 2011. Apocalypso was reworked in 1982 and became their first hit album, All Four One. The Wikipedia article on the Motels lists a remarkable 35 current and former bandmembers.
Richard D’Andrea later joined a band called the Pits that was founded by notorious rock critic John Mendelsohn, whose previous projects included underground glam rockers Christopher Milk. For about three years, D’Andrea was in The Know with one of the founding members of Blondie, Gary Valentine; they released several singles but never landed a record deal.
Dean Chamberlain was born in San Francisco and grew up in the nearby city of San Mateo. After the Motels (the original band that is) broke up, he ran an ad looking for other musicians; out of this, a trio called Skin was born in 1978 that also included Michael Ostendorf (bass) and Randall Marsh (drums). They started playing gigs in the L.A. area, and scouts for Warner Bros. Records signed them the day after they heard one of their shows. Ostendorf left the band, and after Gary Tibbs replaced him on bass, they changed their name to Code Blue, hospital-ese for a patient requiring immediate resuscitation. (There are a lot of other hospital codes, but TV medical shows only ever seem to use the blue one).
Code Blue recorded in Van Nuys, California and also in London; changing producers along the way, their first album, Code Blue was finally released in 1980. I only have a promotional EP for their first album as shown above (also called Code Blue), but it is such uniformly excellent music that I had to include them as a UARB. Code Blue mounted a national tour, opening for Thin Lizzy (with yet another bass player on hand, Joe Read); but it was reportedly not well-received. A second album called True Story came out in 1982 on a different label, and shortly afterward, the band broke up.
The opening cut on the Motels’ breakthrough album, All Four One is called “Mission of Mercy”, and that might not be a nod to their earlier name, Angels of Mercy. However, the lyric “skin to skin” from Code Blue’s excellent song “Face to Face” could very well reference their original name Skin.
After Code Blue’s demise, Dean Chamberlain played and toured for a while with the L.A. country punk band Tex & the Horseheads (though he was evidently not a bandmember) and then formed a trio called Resurrection. With three members of a latter incarnation of punk band T.S.O.L. – Joe Wood (vocals), Mitch Dean (drums) and Dave Mello (bass) – and another guitarist from heavy metal shock-rockers the Mentors, Dean Chamberlain was next in a band in the early 1990’s by the name of Orange Wedge that played what he called “southern fried acid-speed-blues”.
After leaving Code Blue, Michael Ostendorf was in an all-star line-up called Toni and the Movers that was formed by singer-songwriter Toni Childs in 1979. The other bandmembers were Jack Sherman, who has had an active career in music and is best known for being an early member of Red Hot Chili Peppers and playing on their debut 1984 album, The Red Hot Chili Peppers; and Michael Steele, who was in two different all-female rock bands, the Bangles and the Runaways (she was known as Micki Steele in the latter band). Toni Childs herself played and recorded with numerous musicians in the ensuing years and released two successful solo albums beginning in 1988; her first national tour was opening for Bob Dylan. The title track “House of Hope” from her 1991 album House of Hope was featured in the film, Thelma and Louise.
The man who replaced Michael Ostendorf in Code Blue, Gary Tibbs was in a host of bands at one time or another, including Adam and the Ants, Roxy Music, the Vibrators and (most recently) the Fixx, where he played on their 2003 album, Want that Life.
The other original member of Skin and Code Blue, drummer Randall Marsh was in a band in 1970 with a then 17-year-old Tom Petty called Mudcrutch that was the direct forerunner to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Marsh also took part in a reunion of Mudcrutch that released an acclaimed album in 2007 called Mudcrutch.
After taking about 15 years off from the music scene, Dean Chamberlain formed a new roots-rock/blues band called The Honorable DHC with fellow Code Blue member Randall Marsh on drums and Ted Russell Kamp (also with Shooter Jennings’ band) on bass. Their debut EP, Welcome to Wonder Valley came out on CD in 2011.
I picked up the album for this month’s UARB at the same time as that of Wild Blue, and not surprisingly, I was confusing the two bands in my mind for quite a while before I learned my way around their albums. I thought it would be kind of fun to include two bands with such similar names in the UARB list. In the beginning, I wasn’t really sure about Code Blue, but Wild Blue was an obvious choice. While their album was released toward the end of the wave, they were totally invested in the new wave movement, from the sound to the hair to the clothes. That is not a bad thing; new wave is still one of the most interesting eras of rock music to my way of thinking.
Meanwhile, the Code Blue EP was insinuating itself into the part of my cerebrum where my favorite songs are stored; after just a few plays, I was really starting to love these four songs – “Whisper/Touch”, “Face to Face”, “Hurt”, and “The Need” (all written by Dean Chamberlain). They were even starting to play inside my head, as all four of them have been doing regularly while I have been putting this post together. That is pretty rare actually: Once again, I have been reminded that I do not consciously pick the music that I love.
As can be seen above, Code Blue was loaded with talent. Their well-crafted songs are literate, thoughtful and sensual. Though they deserved more success than they got, the bandmembers have been involved in a wide variety of musical projects. As far as I know, the Code Blue music has not yet made it to CD, though their first album was reissued by Rhino Records as a limited-edition LP with bonus tracks and new remixes in 2003.
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Flashback: The Under-Appreciated Rock Band of the Month for September 2010 – The Stillroven
The Stillroven were an unknown garage rock band from Minneapolis, even to most record collectors, when Sundazed Records put together a compilation CD in 1996 called Cast Thy Burden upon the Stillroven. I missed the fact that Sundazed had put out a second Stillroven CD in 2003, Too Many Spaces, though Allmusic disputes that it is actually an unreleased album. For better or worse, I have gotten better (or a lot more wordy at least) in developing the theme for my monthly posts than I was for this UARB.
There is a lot more info about the Stillroven on the web now than there was in 2010; they even have a Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pages/The-Stillroven/92138252655 . Sundazed is definitely amped about this band: In the liner notes for Cast Thy Burden upon the Stillroven, they rave that the Stillroven’s version of “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” buries the Monkees’ hit recording of “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone”. Now, on their website, Sundazed insists that “their pedal-to-the-metal, frenetic version of ‘Hey Joe’ [is] still THE definitive version as far as we’re concerned”. That’s a pretty strong statement considering that “Hey Joe” was one of the most recorded songs of the 1960’s. Better-known covers include those by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Deep Purple (on their debut album, Shades of Deep Purple, they even claimed to be the songwriter!), Johnny Rivers, the Byrds, the Music Machine, and the Leaves.
So, if you want to test that claim, here is the Stillroven on YouTube (audio only) performing “Hey Joe”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-0zMnkCYOE . Their take on “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” can be found at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP4m3wti890 . They also do fine original songs; check out what is basically the title song from the CD shown above, “Cast Thy Burden upon the Stone”: at www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d-TOtwTcYg . It is audio only like the rest, but there are some nice visuals (including a shot of the cartoon character on I Dream of Jeannie that you might remember from the opening credits).
