Anyone who knows me or follows this blog (and, honestly, is there anyone who follows this blog and doesn't know me?) knows that I'm a big Dave Edmunds fan.
There's something I've been wondering about for a while...Dave's guitar.
For the longest time, Dave was associated with one specific guitar -- IIRC it was a Gibson ES335. It wasn't the only guitar he played, but it seemed to be his go to instrument, and that view is supported by numerous comments in interviews. It's what he's playing in the clip below:
But in recent years -- and I mean for more than a decade -- I don't see him plaing that guitar.
In videos, or concert footage it always seems to be something else.
Here, performing with the Refreshments, he's playing a Telecaster:
And here, in the video for "Again," it's a Stratocaster:
So, what happened? Did his taste change? Or did the Gibson get lost or stolen? Did he fly United with it?
I happened to find this little snippet of interview. Dave Edmunds is talking about the song, "Sweet Little Lisa," from his Repeat When Necessary album, and Albert Lee's guitar lead. For some reason, I can't seem to paste the video into my blog, so here'a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLwbFY_9WF0
But it reminded me of a section from the British TV special, "Born Fighters." See the first five and a half minutes or so of the following:
"Born Fighter" was a British TV special providing an inside look into the Rockpile's recording process. Rockpile was co-led by Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe. But because of contractual commitments they couldn't release records under the group name. Instead, they would record as a group, but release records under Nick's and Daves' names. "Born Fighters" caught the band recording what would be Dave's fifth solo album (Repeat When Necessary) and Nick's second (Labour of Lust). You can watch it in four parts on Youtube. But the first half (or so) of part four (above) includes footage of Albert Lee recording the guitar lead for "Sweet Little Lisa." See the expression on Dave's face -- at once orgasmic and jealous -- as he hears Lee play.
OK. Maybe not the worst. But I give it extra points because I'm such a big Dave Edmunds fan.
As far as I can tell, this was from a British show called "Disco," and it aired in 1971. Great sleuthing on my part -- that's what it says on Youtube.
Anyway, first of all, notice how the women are dancing. A good example is at around 1:22 in. These women look stoned. Or confused. In all fairness to them, it may be because this is not really a good recording to dance to. But this looks like some kind of Brady Bunch slumber party.
Second, Dave himself looks like he's on something.
And what's with the beginning. You see people milling around on the side, waiting for a cue that they can enter the dance floor. And Dave strolls through the crowd, guitar in hand while the guitar part that he is supposedly playing has already started.
But the biggest thing? What's with bowtie guy? There's a guy who's occasionally visible, wearing a yellow shirt, furry vest and a big black bowtie. At 0:29 you can see him in the background doing some exaggerated walk. At 1:17 you can clearly see him playing air tambourine with a huge grin. At about 1:50 he's in the background playing air guitar.
I think the only thing that worked right is that this shows Dave alone -- no band. That, FWIW, is appropriate since he made the recording himself -- producing, engineering, doing all vocals and playing all instruments.
At some point in the last two years, Billy Bremner and Sean Tyla got together and formed a band called "Trouble Boys" after Billy's song of the same name. They released an album, Bad Trouble, which I resisted buying for quite a while. Both Tyla and Bremner have done a lot musically that I love. Each was in one of my favorite bands -- Bremner in Rockpile and Tyla in Ducks Deluxe.
But my experience with their work outside of those bands has been somewhat mixed. Tyla did a great solo album, Sean Tyla's Just Popped Out, with a killer single, "Breakfast in Marin" (see video). But his second solo album wasn't nearly as good. I never got to hear the third album. And I never really got into his band, Tyla Gang. There was too much of a rough edge (I don't really know how to put it better). Bremner had a great single, "Meek Power," but his albums weren't great. His first one, Bash! had some catchy tunes, but I thought it lacked energy. The second, A Good Week's Work, was boring. I never bought the third and fourth albums. Of course, I see that allmusic.com gives Rock Files a good review.
So when I did buy Bad Trouble, I wasn't sure what to expect. But it was really great. Power Pop with catchy hooks. It's got a bunch of really solid pop tunes on it. It seems that Tyla's rough edges have been softened, and Bremner has been toughened up.
It kind of reminds me of Rockiple -- Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe had complementary interests and together they softened each other's excesses.
I ordered the Dave Edmunds Live at Rockpalast CD. It came today. The fourth and tenth tracks are "Loud Music in Cars" and "Trouble Boys" sung by Billy Bremner (who was touring as part of Dave's band). In my database do I indicate that Dave is the peformer on those tracks? Or Billy?
A funny thing happened on Amazon. After going to amazon.com, I typed in "Dave Edmunds" just to see if there were any new discs that I wasn't aware of. I do that sometimes -- type in the names of bands or musicians that I like -- just to make sure I'm not missing anything.
Lo, I found something -- Live at Rockaplast, a live album of a concert from 1983. It was released this year. I was interested, but the price -- over $40 seemed steep. Amazon had scanty information about this one, so I had to do a little snooping. There seem to be a couple reasons for the high price (other than that it's a new product): It's an import, and it contains both a CD and a DVD.
Well, I'm not much interested in the DVD, so for me it seemed kind of high. I balked. I came back the next day, still mulling it over in my head. Lo, the price had dropped by about $10. At $30 or so, it was still high. But low enough that I was willing to buy it.
So, the question. Was this just some weird event where prices changed? Or did Amazon's AI price it high (having determined that I'm likely to buy it at a high price) and then lower it when I balked? Am I beuing paranoid? Or are online vendors getting really good at manipulation to wring the most money out of me?
Moish wants to know.
At any rate, here's a video that I think is from the concert on the disc. Enjoy:
As mentioned, a few thoughts regarding Graham Parker. Fair warning, though: it's kind of stream-of-consciousness.
I first got interested in Graham Parker's music because his backing band, the Rumour, included Martin Belmont who had been in Ducks Deluxe. I loved the Ducks and was exploring the world of music by expanding out from act to related act. The first album I bought by Parker was Another Grey Area, which actually didn't involve the Rumour. That wasn't his best work, and I didn't really take to it. I like it better now than I did then. Even though I didn't care for the album, I still bought his earlier ones (which did include the Rumour), since I was a bit of a completist. I guess I still am, but not as obsessively so.
I liked the early albums better (and now I love some of them -- especially Heat Treatment) but he just didn't make it to the top tier in my book. That level was occupied by Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds and Wreckless Eric. Over the years I picked up tyhe albums he did with the Rumour, and some of the solo albums as well (if I found them cheap). But I never really liked his music as much as I wanted to.
But that changed in the last few years. A few things happened. For one, I have come to better accept the mellowing of his music. I think I owe that to Nick Lowe. When he started his transition to crooner, I didn't like it. At one point, seeing an article that referred to his new style as "Americana" I joked with a friend that that must be another way of saying "Adult Boring." But my brain had hooked itself on Nick's voice, so it was able to make the transition and I slowly started appreciating Nick's new incarnation. That effectively helped my brain to appreciate Parker, who had also mellowed with age. So, when there were solo albums of stripped down versions of his early angry material, I was able to get my head around them. I realize that this may sound nutty, but I believe that's a big part of how the brain reacts.
More recently, Parker recorded an album, Your Country, with a version "Crawling from the Wreckage." Crawling was a song of Paerker's that Dave Edmunds had recorded for his album, Repeat When Necessary, which many people consider to be his best. I had to buy that. And, whicle I was dissapointed in the new version of the song, there was enough good material on the album to get me to notice Parker again. His next album, Songs of No Consequence, was a spectacular tour de force. He saounded angry again, and I loved it.
But what I like even better than his newer material are live recordings from his days with the Rumour. Which gets me to my recent support for a Kickstarter project that involved putting together a six-disc set of concerts. That box set reminded me of Graham at his greatest.
My wife has been a fan of Kickstarter for a while now. For the uninitiated, Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website. We've supported a variety of projects, including a solar oven, glow in the dark roses, and a 3-D pen. But, of course, what I want to write about is the music projects.
As I've mentioned, I supported the most recent album by Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby.. It was trhough that that I got their recording of "Do You Think of Me (Now and Again)" to use as a demo.They sent mke the recording a month and a half ago, and I still have to post about the finished product.Long story short, I love it.
More recntly, I signed up to support a project in which someone is trying to put together a 6-CD box set of Graham Parker and the Rumour live performances through the year. I was of slightly mixed minds. I like a lot of Graham Parker's music. But he's not quite up there with Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds and Wreckless Eric. But he did a bunch of great albums early in his career -- Squeezing Out Sparks, Heat Treatment, Howlin Wind. Then he got kind of boring, but more recently he seems to have regained that acidic bite that I liked. Songs of No Consequence, which he recorded with The Figgs, was as good as anything from his younger days. Three Chords Good, which was a reunion album with the Rumour, wasn't quite as good, but it still had some serious high points. And a recently released live album of him with the Rumour (see image of the cover) is scorching. The video also gives a good flavor. After due consideration, I decided to go with the $125 funding level, which rewards me with the six-disc box set, two additional live CDs and an 8×10 autographed photo of the band. Oh, yeah -- I also get my name in the liner notes of the box set. Woohoo!
In other Kickstarter music project news, I noticed someone is trying to fund a three--stringed guitar. They call it the Loog Guitar for reasons I don't know. Apparentky they already did an acoustic version, and now they're working on an electric one. Their plea video follows this paragraph. When I first saw it, I was thinking that I really wanted it. It looks simple and interesting. But some thought later I've changed my mind. The sound is a bit tinny and I realize that, while you can make a major chord with only three strings, you can't make a full minor or seventh chord, since those require four notes. And let's not even get started on suspendeds and whatnot. My daughter (who just started guitar lessons) had some interest, and I was thinking that if it helps her learn then it may be worthwhile. But no one whom I skaed seemed to think it was worthwhile. Oh well.
Getting back to Graham Parker, when I did a search on Kickstarter for "Graham Parker," I found two projects that I would have supported had I known about them at the time -- a documentary about Graham Parker -- and an album by Bob Andrews. Oh well. C'est la vie.
One other thing. I think I've found another use for Kickstarter. There are lots of musicians trying to fund albums, and some of them will, for the right support level, record a cover version of your choice. The question is, are they willing to record a demo of an unknown song? I contacted Sonia Leigh about that. One of the songs I am working on writing would be good for her style. There are some other musicians who I gave a look, but I don't think any of them would be right for the songs I'm writing. But there will be others...
It's interesting how I get a thrill when a song I love comes on the radio. Nick Lowe's "Cruel to Be Kind" or Dave Edmunds' "I Hear You Knockin'" are two good examples. It doesn't matter that I have the song in my CD collection and I can pretty much listen to it whenever I want. Somehow it's a special thrill and I have to hear it all the way through. I think it's somehow about my taste being validated.
I've gotten a couple of emails over the last couple of days from a Billy Bremner yahoo group, indicating that Bremner has a new solo album coming out soon.
I honestly wish I cared more about it. Bremner was a member of Rockpile, one of my favorite bands. Though on the other hand he wasn't the driving force, creatively, of the band. That role fell on Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe. He did, I'll admit, lend killer vocals to a couple tracks on the band's album, Seconds of Pleasure. (As an aside, I'll never know for sure, but I'll bet the album title originated with someone's joke about someone else's sexual stamina.) But his solo work has been less than thrilling for me.
It started off reasonably well. The first single of his that I heard (though it was the second one released) was 1982's "Meek Power" b/w "Yes Please!" That was a great single. Pure power pop, that was easily the match of the best Rockpile had ever done. But he did other singles around that time, and none of them were up to that energy. "The Price is Right" came close. And "Laughter Turns to Tears" was a really good single, though it was much mellower than I was expecting. You can hear it here:
I'm not saying his output was bad. It just wasn't what I wanted, or what I had hoped for from a member of Rockpile. Of course, it made sense that his own style was not the same as the group's.
At any rate, I bought his first solo album, Bash!, as soon as it came out. It disappointed me. Stylistically, it was much more like his singles (and I don't mean that lorious first one I had heard) than like his former band. Fortunately, when it was rereleased decades later, they added most of the tracks from those initial singles, including both "Meek Power" and "Yes Please!"
When his second solo album, A Good Week's Work, came out 15 or so years later, I bought it right away and was even more disappointed. The music sounded OK, but was formulaic and nothing caught my interest -- it sounded like so many albums I've heard by broken-up and reunited bands that I've heard. The hooks are there, and I can't point to any specific thing wrong, except it doesn't grab me.
When the third solo album, No Ifs, Buts, Maybes, came out about five years ago, I didn't bother buying it. I've listened to those samples on Amazon, and it sounds like it's better than the second album. But something holds me back.
So now, another album is coming out soon. I just don't know. I'll probably listen to samples on Amazon and then make a decision. Or not.
At any rate, this is how I like to remember Billy:
I got an invitation to a house concert at the end of this month. Not big news in and of itself, except that the performer will be Janey Street. To most people that might not mean anything. "Janey who?" But to me...
It was my sophomore year of college, and I was the music editor for a campus newspaper. One of the review albums I received from Arista Records was Heroes, Angels and Friends, the debut album by Janey Street. I still remember the letter from the publicist -- it noted that Janey was a Queens native (which was a tie-in because I was at Queens College).
I loved that album from the first spin. There was no getting-to-know-you period, or it-has-to-grow-on-you phase. This was a consciousness-changing reaction I had. I've only reacted that way to records a handful of times at most. Dave Edmunds' D.E. 7th and the Beat Farmers' Tales of the New West are the only ones that readilly come to mind.
I haven't heard the record in quite a while, but I still can remember lyrics (forgive me if I make a mistake -- this is from memory):
From "Say Hello to Ronnie":
Say hello to Ronnie. Send my love to Sue. Give my best to Bobby. And here's a kiss for you. I'm working on the night shift. I need to survive. Living from day to day Keeping my dreams alive.
From "Jimmy (Lives in the House Down the Street)":
Jimmy lives in the house down the street He's got a smile and a hold on me (yeah) Jimmy's got a girl for each day of the week. I know he's kissing them. Why not me?
Street's songs reminded me of Springsteen, in that she sang of ordinary blue-collar folks and their lives, coaxing drama out of the humdrum. Her songs did show more optimism than Springsteen's, and her music didn;t quite have the same power as his. But I saw her as a female Springsteen. It also didn't hurt that I developed a bit of a fanboy crush on her.
There was a single, "Under the Clock," that dented the Billboard charts, and a video:
I was a little surprised at the choice, since I thought "Under the Clock" was the weakest song on the album.
Anyway, time went by and there was no followup album.
Years later, I tried to get a copy of HA&F on CD, but couldn't find it. I tried to copy my vinyl to CD, but found a skip in one of the tracks. So I really wanted to get an official CD. I found Janey on CDBaby, as she had recorded and (I assume) self-released another album. I listened to a few samples. The music was more mature. But it didn't move me the way the first album did. I didn't buy it, but I emailed Janey through CDBaby to ask if I could somehow get the first album on CD. She wrote back, but to say that the first album wasn't on CD. Oh, and I should buy the new album. She's sure I'll like it.
So that's been that for a few years. I keep toying with the idea of copying my vinyl onto CD, but the issue of that scratch keeps holding me back.
So now I got this invitation. The natural question is how? Well, I was, for one year, a member of Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI). And I still get occasional emails related to the group. Janey, at this point (in addition to performing and songwriting) does a variety of music-related jobs -- running songwriting workshops, lecturing, and working as a song evaluator for NSAI.
Well, the latest NSAI-related e-mail was a notice that she will be in New York, offering mentoring sessions for songwriters, and performing at this house concert. I don't think I'll sign up for a mentoring session, but I'll definitely go to see her perform.
Back in the 1980s, I was watching SCTV. There was a sketch called "I was a Teenage Communist." I was watching with only half an eye, since it wasn't particularly funny. Then, as part of the sketch, one of the characters was introduced to the stage as a musical performer. And I heard the opening riff and recognized that it was Dave Edmunds. The song was "From Small Things Big Things One Day Come," the first track off of what was then Edmunds' newest album, D.E. 7th.
Edmunds had recently become one of my favorite musicians, and I was just learning his canon. But D.E. 7th was the first thing I had bought of his, and "From Small Things..." (which I would later learn was written for him by Bruce Springsteen) was the first track of his I heard. I still remember first dropping the needle on that record and being instantly entranced.
So when I realized that it was Dave performing on SCTV I watched the rest, engrossed, trying to memorize every detail. But I was annoyed at myself for having no paid attention to the beginning of the sketch. Edmunds had played a role, with lines, and I wished that I had known, while I was watching, that it was him. For years, I hoped to see that sketch again. And I never did. Every so often I would search Youtube for it, but it wouldn't be there. Or at least I would be unable to find it.
For some reason, I can't seem to embed the video in this post. But go here to see it.
Seeing it all this time later, I notice a couple things: Edmunds, as Russ Riley, tries to affect an American accent (he is Welsh). But he doesn't quite succeed. This is especially true in the line, "You're gonna like 'em. You'll like 'em a lot." Also, I wonder if the name Eddie Davis, for the protagonist was done as a play in the Dave Edmunds' name.
My post a week or so ago about Whitney Houston's death elicited a comment from someone noting (favorably) the fact that I didn't call it a tragedy. I called it untimely, which I think is reasonably justifiable. A tragedy? No.
But the comment reminded me of some thoughts I have regarding how we react to musicians' deaths. To celebrity deaths in general, I guess. But this blog is ostensibly about music, so I'll try to stick to musicians. (I'll admit, I was tempted when Gary Carter died last week to post the video of "Let's Go Mets Go" so I could comment on Carter and tie it in to music.
I remember when John Lennon died. I was in high school, and many classmates were mourning. One even took a week off from school to sit shiva (the Jewish ritual of weeklong mourning over a dead relative). I never quite got this. Sure, I liked John Lennon's music -- some of it anyway. I still do. But he wasn't a messiah or a family member. He was a musician.
One may say that the problem is that I wasn't a big Lennon fan. I just admitted, afterall, in a kind of lukewarm way that I liked "some" of his music. Fair enough. I didn't mourn when Lee Brilleaux (of Dr. Feelgood) died in 1994. I felt sad about it. And there's a wistfullness as it reminds me of my own mortality and my lost youth. But I don't mourn the death of a singer and musician, however talented he may have been, whom I have never met and have never had any relationship with.
When my grandparents died, I mourned. When my parents die I will mourn. If I outlive them, I will mourn the deaths of my wife, my sister and (God forbid) my children. But musicians? My favorite musicians? Nick Lowe? Dave Edmunds? Wreckless Eric? No.
I was called heartless and uncaring for what was perceived as a lack of sufficient grief when Lennon died. However, I think we trivialize the concept of mourning and familial closeness when we confuse our interest in a musician (even if we say "love" colloquially) with what we feel for our loved ones
It started back in high school with a stray comment from a friend. Melinda was listening to my Walkman (I believe it was a tape I had made of Dave Edmunds’s album, D. E. 7th. She paused at one point and said she’d better stop dancing to music no one else can hear. That phrase, “music no one can hear” struck me as a great song title. Then, as now, my songwriting usually started with a phrase that I thought was catchy. That night I wrote a song with that title. I thought it was great. I know it was crap. I can’t remember any of the words (except the title), and I don’t want to. That was in 1982 or 1983.
Fast forward to 1988. I was a grad student at the University of Michigan, dating Anne. I spent the summer in New York. Missing her, I picked up my guitar and tried to write a song. By this time I knew that the song I had originally written was garbage, and decided to recycle the title. I had been listening to a lot of Air Supply, and wrote a verse to the tune of their song, "All Out of Love," which begins:
I'm lying alone With my head on the phone Thinking of you 'til it hurts. I know you hurt too But what else can we do, Tormented and torn apart?
For those unfamiliar, here's the video:
My verse went:
I'm lying in bed With you in my head Wondering where you are now. Tell me, can it be? Are you thinking of me Even though I'm not around?
A chorus followed. Here the melody departed from the Air Supply song. It went:
Your song is with me wherever I am Even when you're not here. And all around me there's music, Music no one else can hear.
More verses followed, but I was never as pleased with them as I was with that first verse or the chorus. I don’t remember them though I wish I did.
A few years later, a work buddy, Matthew, invited me over to his house to work on some songwriting. He and his wife were, like me, amateur songwriters with day jobs. We spent New Year’s Eve 1992 hanging out, talking music, and working on some songs. One of the things we did was revisit the song I wrote in 1988. We created a chorus by combining the first verse and chorus, with a few minor word changes (e.g., we removed the words “tell me” from the third line). We wrote a couple of verses and a bridge that together turned it into a story song about a broken marriage. We also completely reworked the melody. So I entered 1993 with a new song, and promptly did nothing with it.
About ten years later, married and with one child, I went camping with my family and a couple – Scott and Miriam -- we were friendly with. I should point out here that Scott is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist and singer, and a PhD in musicology. He and I both brought guitars on that camping trip and spent a lot of time playing songs for each other. He enjoyed “Music No One Else Can Hear,” and so we played it over and over again until he knew it inside and out, frontwards, backwards, and in Texas. Ultimately, he and his brothers wanted to record it on an album they were doing.
That was great news for me, except for the fact that I had never registered the copyright. If it was going to be out in the world on a CD, even if by three unknown brothers selling it on CDBaby, I really wanted to have the copyright registered. This was complicated by the fact that Matthew and I had fallen out of touch and he had moved. In order to register the copyright in both of our names I needed his information. I also wanted to get his blessing before registering it and letting Scott and his brothers record it. Ultimately, I found Matthew and got his information and blessing. He had an, at best, vague recollection of writing the song with me, and seemed amused by this unexpected turn of events.
So, “Music No One Else Can Hear” was the first (of three, to date) copyrights I registered. The Milner Brothers recorded it on their album, Haven’t Lost a Thing, which was enough for me to get into ASCAP. I really should get around to registering the song within ASCAP. Just in case, on some off chance, a radio station in Montana (home to Scott and his brothers) plays the song, I'll get my half a penny of royalties. Scott still plays the song during his shows sometimes. Following is a video of him performing it at a fundraiser in Missoula (be warned, the video is dark and of poor quality):
Scott is singing and playing guitar, accompanied by Edie Smith (vocals) and William Haffey (clarinet). The arrangement differs greatly from the album version which features guitars and a bass as the only instruments. The clarinet makes it sound almost klezmer, even though I think of it as a country song.
Oh, and another musician friend has expressed interest in recording his own version. I’m not holding my breath, but I am crossing my fingers.
