Boneyard Media

posted by Stanislav

I hope nobody minds seeing a Sunday service post by Rev. Religious Dodo, ie, myself. Never been to church (except as a tourist), never prayed, not even as a child, not too familiar with the concept of god or God, simply never really cared… but some weird energy creeps through when I listen to the Mercy Seat, an 80s album by Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes and his super hot girlfriend Zena Von Heppinstall. The whole album is filled with religious topics. Some songs are pensive and reflective but most are fanatical baptist-style gospel stomps. I can totally see myself in a religious trance in some Southern church without air-conditioning, my sweat pouring in heavy drops as the church rolls on and on. If the Mercy Seat is the ticket then Lord let me ride!

The Mercy Seat - “Let The Church Roll On / I Won’t Be Back”

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Dick Cheney visited my home state today, where he gave a commencement speech at Brigham Young University, met with leaders of the “politically neutral” LDS church, received an honorary doctorate, and, I assume, a gold crown decorated with rubys and a royal bubblebath. So hey, I think I’ll join the party on this special day and pay tribute to one of my favorite Dicks, Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators.

The Dictators - “(I Live for) Cars and Girls”

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And while we’re in the mood, let’s hear an encore from the Winkies from that same year.

The Winkies - “Trust in Dick”

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Thanks to BYM visitor Rex for sending me an image of the scarce UK Golden Harmonies compilation I talked about here. I recognize the pic as an outtake not from an 80’s photo session, but a late 60’s one I’ve seen other stuff from (Dennis’s orange terrycloth pants are the giveaway). The funny image I had in my head, though, based on Golden’s description, isn’t too far removed from what’s here.

Music journalist John Milward’s The Beach Boys: Silver Anniversary is a coffee table book full of glossy photos which outnumber the pages of large-font text. Notwithstanding this, or the fact that he offers up no new raw material, it’s in the upper echelon of Beach Boys books because he’s managed to string together all the familiar quotes and anecdotes from previous publications with artful, personally invested prose. The mid-80s were a significant checkpoint for the Beach Boys: they turned 25; they had a hit single (“Getcha Back”); they bounced back from Secretary of the Interior James Watts’s 1983 refusal to allow them to play a concert on the Washington DC Mall by returning triumphantly the following year with full support of both the public and the president (Watts ended up losing his job); and a couple of crucial books about the group saw publication - David Leaf’s heartfelt 1985 revision of his Beach Boys and the California Myth and Steven Gaines’s leering tell-all, Heroes and Villains. Milward’s book appropriately walks the middle ground between the two and the result is a highly accessible relic from this era, not only in terms of readability but also availability on library shelves.

This isn’t to say that Milward doesn’t let his own discomfort with elements of the Beach Boys’ then-current state of affairs show. This is evident in the book’s appendices, in which he insists on mapping out his discographical essays according to the jumbled availability of the group’s recordings circa 1985. Even less happily, Milward reveals himself as a Brian cultist who’s more or less given up hope. “The Beach Boys devotee is innocent by nature,” he writes, “and is glad to grab at straws while imagining the band’s return to full glory.” He passes my own personal Friends and Love You tests with flying colors simply because he gives them their due, but he does so in an unmistakably bummed out, straw-grabbing manner. Friends: “A wholly likable record that has aged remarkably well; the seed of its amiability, however, is that it had nothing to do with ambition.” Love You: “Fans of Brian heard their old friend, and if he wasn’t the aural sophisticate he once was, there was a chilling charm to these simple songs.” (Dare you to try playing any of these “simple songs” at the campfire, Mr. Milward.) And I do have to take issue with his understandably Brian-cultist decision to dismiss the Carl and the Passions and Holland albums altogether as “abysmal.” Perhaps most revealing of his discouraged outlook, though, is the picture he paints in the book’s final paragraph, an almost macabre fantasy scenario in which a creatively spent Brian reunites with dead father Murry among monuments to glorious musical achievements of his which, although never to be forgotten, have long since passed. Recommended all the same.

posted by Kim Simpson

We could probably do our Sunday Services here at BYM with “Spirit in the Sky”-era revival tunes for the rest of our days if we wanted. Like this one by Pacific Gas and Electric, a 9-piece outfit from LA featuring horns, organ, the works. “Are You Ready” was their biggest hit, reaching #14 in 1970 (their only two charting follow-ups barely squeaked into the Hot 100). Equally memorable about PG&E’s moment in the sun was their label’s embarrassing efforts (Columbia) to make sure that their album cover wouldn’t pigeon-hole them as a Jesus group.

Pacific Gas and Electric - “Are You Ready”

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posted by Stanislav

When Kim started a series of posts about medleys, I immediately thought of one that was a moderate hit in Yugoslavia, but I had trouble finding it until now. Poslednja igra leptira (“last dance of the butterfly”) was one of the groups that appeared on the tail end of the punk and new wave period of Yugo rock. They were basically a parody band, but I’m not so sure if their humor still holds water. They were often played on a popular radio show “Zeleni megahertz” which was aired every Saturday morning. In true Yugoslav spirit, the show was produced in simulcasts from two studios - one in Belgrade and other in Zagreb. Lacking a good hit for their second album, PIL’s “Kiksmix” gave them an opportunity to reiterate their huge first hit “Natasa” along with several other folk and rock hits in a typical “Stars on 45″ fashion.

Poslednja igra leptira - “Kiksmix”

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I always assumed the Whisky a Go Go live albums Johnny Rivers released were, in truth, of the Beach Boys Party variety, where a “live” setting was re-created in the studio. It’s a non-issue, but I still sometimes wonder. (”Memphis” was Johnny’s Chuck Berry-via-Lonnie Mack breakthrough hit.)

I’ve also always thought that Rivers’ voice sounded identical to the Yardbirds’ Keith Relf.

Johnny Rivers - “Memphis”

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The Yardbirds - “Evil Hearted You”

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A few more sentimental/ potentially fetishistic words on the virtues of scratchy records (and other dead media). Until recently, I’d always heard this record three important ways:

1 - As a cassette from the strip mall library close to where I grew up. The tape was horribly muddy-sounding, and it came packaged in a hard shell that the librarian would toss in one of those big brown folders with the string that wrapped around a brad under the flap. A photocopy of the freaky cover had been glued onto the shell but it was all bubbly and on the verge of peeling off. The album sounded mysterious indeed as I listened on my shoebox tape recorder with the Graeme Edge recitations and all and I checked it out many, many times.

2 - As an 8-track in 1981, when I was somehow roped into a ride to the dump with my friend and his ancient brother in their parents’ Oldsmobile Toronado. Sitting in back, I found the tape under the passenger seat, and it looked much like that library cassette, with the cover picture starting to peel off. I showed it to my friend who stuck it in the 8-track player. It played uninterrupted and had our undivided attention. So there we were, wind blowing through our hair, garbage-scavenging seagulls frolicking above us in the sun, and “Voices in the Sky.”

3 - As a vinyl LP in terrible condition which I bought at the Deseret Industries shortly after the spectacular ride to the dump. The DI was a thrift store near our house in which it was, in the early eighties, always 1968. I always got very contemplative and even a bit reverent whenever I went to this particular location. (It always smelled vaguely of mothballs and vegetable soup, which is certainly how 1968 must have smelled.) I bought it for a quarter. The group’s name has been traced with pen on the front. In the gatefold it says “from John to Franklin on a Saturday night!!” and “wild dreams with Chuck.” It’s also got a crude drawing of an eagle with the words “some bird” next to it, and someone started to treat the Hindu Om design as a color-by-numbers project. I just recently bought a fancy remastered CD version of this, and it’s great, but it’s a completely different album. Needless to say, I’ve gotten accustomed to hearing my mellotrons under a layer of crackling murk, so I prefer my DI version.

The Moody Blues - “Voices in the Sky” (DI vinyl version)

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