Here is a little nugget of power pop heaven from 1979, Dwight Twilley with Alone in My Room. I tend to wax poetic when discussing my hometown rocker. Back during his brief brush with fame in the mid-70s I would preach to the unwashed in an attempt to gain some converts. With the benefit of hindsight I can see that his heartfelt marriage of Beatles, rockabilly, and glam was just too out of step with current trends. However for me the joy continues, and I have discovered a fantastic back catalog of albums right up to the present day. I hope to be posting some of those hidden gems soon.
This track kicks off with a tasty guitar riff fighting against the counterpoint of the bass line. One of the great features of this song is the front-and-center guitar work. But the chorus just kills me. This should have been a GIANT hit!
In the pantheon of power pop band, The Records are way up there on many aficionado's list due to their classic first single Starry Eyes. And rightfully so, for that song manages to marry The Byrds with Big Star. And it has some of the finest guitar work ever committed to vinyl.
However their follow up single Teenarama is just about as good in my book. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is quintessential power pop. Jangling guitars, power chords, heavenly harmonies, and one of my favorite choruses. Ever. The Records had a decent initial run in the UK but did not make much of a dent here in the States with their singles, although their first LP The Records (aka Shades in Bed in the UK) made it to 41 on the Billboard charts. But I have to brag a little for having the original 45rpm singles with picture covers for their first two releases. As a dedicated follower of Stereo Review back in the day, I latched onto an amazing amount of great music in the 1970s.
I'm in a Blondie mood tonight after listening to I Know But I Don't Know for the first time in years. And that sent me on a YouTube spree which unearthed a real treasure that I had totally forgotten. From 1979's "Eat To The Beat", Dreaming was Blondie's most overt power pop song. They flirted with PowerPop early in their career, but for me this was where they achieved pure gold. This video is from the UK Top Of The Pops. Deborah Harry certainly had a stage presence. I had a friend from Southern California named Debbie who danced on American Bandstand back in the early 80s, and she and Ms. Harry remind me of one another. I lost track of Debbie years ago so Deborah will have to stand in.
Generally I am a studio album kinda listener. Live performances are great if I am in the audience, but on live recordings I keep listening for the studio effects that are not there. But every once in a while I come across a performance that for various reasons becomes the de facto version. In the case of today's post the performance is so hair raising that it has haunted me since discovering it.
In the early eighties I became a fan of New Order. That eventually led me to check out the band's previous incarnation as Joy Division. I bought the two cassette (remember those?) release of Still. The recording is of terrible quality and frankly I listened a few times then put it away. Later I discovered the 45 single Love Will Tear Us Apart - their most famous song - years after the fact and made a note to go back and check out their few studio releases. Well I never did. Then one day I came across a live 1979 performance of She's Lost Control. The video is not well synchronized and is herky-jerky, the sound quality is poor, and yet it is a fascinating and surreal performance. So much so that it refuses to leave my brain after viewing.
Lead singer Ian Curtis was afflicted with epilepsy, and his performance here includes a disturbring St. Vitus dance that only accentuates the lyrics and their description of a girl who suffers from the same malady. At :50 seconds in the main guitar riff rears its massive head. The bass line sometimes follows, sometimes mirrors the riff, all the while the drums keep an ominous unstoppable beat that reminds me of those early industrial revolution machines in David Lynch's The Elephant Man. This performance is both powerful and frightening.
And she turned to me and took me by the hand and said, I've lost control again. And how I'll never know just why or understand, She said I've lost control again. And she screamed out kicking on her side and said, I've lost control again. And seized up on the floor, I thought she'd die. She said I've lost control.
Holy cow, Batman! I just finished my first listen to The Kinks Low Budget since the early eighties and it hit me that this is the killer follow-up to Some Girls that the Stones should have recorded. Scattered amidst the Keith Richard's riffs and driving drums are some juicy new wave nuggets too. At this point the Kinks had cast off most of their otherness that made them so special, but in return they were playing real honest-to-goodness rock'n'roll. And doing it as well as any band out there. There is no looking back.
Ray had his ear to the track and was picking up all sorts of interesting sounds from the burgeoning new wave and punk movements. Pressure pumps it up with a driving Ramone's fury. National Health takes the Stone's Shattered and adds a veneer of ska/reggae ala the Clash. Check out Holly Hughes bang-up posting on this LP's new wave influences over at the Ray Davies Forum. And there are some juicy Ray Davies' nuggets in the lyrics throughout. Misery has a couplet that really slays me:
"Until you learn to laugh you'll never come to any parties at my house/And if you go on like this the only house you'll ever visit is the nut house"
My only complaint about this LP is that a few of the songs go on too long, wearing out their welcome after they have had their say. In 1979 I bought the 12" single of (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman which is the extended 6:01 edit on the LP. But I really wish I had bought the 7" 45rpm edit because it is a real corker. It lays out all the juicy parts and then is done in 3:26.
