“Rock ‘n Roll Dreams’ll Come True” – Ted Leo
(Words: Tom Sharpling and Jon Wurster, Music: Ted Leo, recorded on WFMU 3/13/2007)
New Jersey free form station WFMU is in its annual fundraiser this week, and tonight is the marathon’s flagship event when Tom Sharpling’s The Best Show on WFMU takes to the airwaves to solicit funds to fuel the station. I’m out of range (by a couple states) to listen to WFMU in the car, but I’ll occasionally check out the live stream on their website to enjoy their eclectic mix of shows, but generally it’s to hear The Best Show. Sharpling, a funny man in his own right, brings in hilarious guests on a regular basis (John Hodgman and Patton Oswalt are among regulars), and when the show isn’t deep in inside jokes (or if I follow the joke, at least), it’s an entertaining bit of live radio.
Ted Leo, a friend of Sharpling (Sharpling wrote the liner notes to Leo’s new album The Brutalist Bricks), has appeared on his show several times, including playing odd requests and covers in exchange for donations to WFMU’s operating fund. His covers range from stellar (“Brass in Pocket” and a WFMU-modified “That’s Entertainment” in 2007, Blondie’s “Union City Blue” in 2008, among others) to ridiculous (Sharpling and Leo performed Streisand & Neil Diamond’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” as a duet, for instance), including “Rock ‘n Roll Dreams’ll Come True,” a Best Show inside joke. The song comes from a bit between Sharpling and his comedy partner (and Superchunk drummer) Jon Wurster where Wurster called in as an aged rock star with very specific requirements for casting his surefire hit band The Gas Station Dogs. During this call (which appears on the Sharpling-Wurster disc New Hope for the Ape-Eared and is worth the listen, if only for Wurster’s obsession with details), Wurster’s character Barry Dworkin performs this song, one that only has lyrics and a melody and took nearly two decades to compose. The Sharpling-Wurster bit explains why these lyrics are inane and, well, awful, but Leo manages to make it into a catchy little tune (and even turns it into a riotous stomp on a Chunklet 7” single he split with Zach Galifinakis). It’s catchy enough on its own, but even more ridiculous knowing why Leo committed all of these absurd words to memory.
The Best Show airs tonight between 8-11 PM, so if you’re hanging around with nothing to do, give a listen and see what sort of odd mayhem Sharpling, Wurster, and Ted Leo have in store to try to earn operating capitol for a terrific independent station.More on Ted Leo: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm
emusic day
Purchased today (49 credits):
- Various - Nigeria Rock Special: Psychedelic Afro-rock & Fuzz Funk In 1970’s Nigeria
- Asobi Seksu - Hush
- Young Fresh Fellows - This One’s For The Ladies
- Hüsker Dü - Metal Circus
- Washed Out - Life of Leisure
HEALTH - Triceratops (Acid Girls Rmx A)
I picked up the Health remix album HEALTH//DISCO on the strength of this track which I heard at a party last week. I’ve never heard any proper non-remix Health music, but I’m really digging DISCO. As a follow-up to the band’s debut LP, there’s obviously not much original source material and indeed we have three remixes of “Triceratops” and two of “Heaven” and “Lost Time”. But this works to the album’s benefit as the multiply remixed tracks serve as points of reference and return as the album develops. Thus, the whole thing plays more like an smartly curated DJ setlist. I’m a sucker for abrasive dance music—see LCD Soundsystem’s “Yeah”, Daft Punk’s “Rock and Roll”, the Justice and Crystal Castles albums—so your mileage may vary.
New Order - Every Little Counts
Low Motion Disco - Things Are Gonna Get Easier
An unlikely favorite from this week. “Low Motion Disco” is a fitting band name, since it’s too slow for dancing but you still want to luxuriate in the groove. The song samples The Five Stairsteps’ “Ooh Child”. The disparity between the two is striking. The original tells me “don’t worry, things are gonna get easier!” while this song suggests a better future but leaves the details to my imagination.
Richie Havens - “Going Back to My Roots”
After conducting a little research, what is most surprising about this classic 80s club track is the fact that Richie Havens is better known as a folk musician. In fact, he opened Woodstock
One of the noticeable, and perhaps embarrassing, trends of the late 70s and early 80s was the influx of rock musicians crossing over to the disco realm. The popularity of the genre seemed ubiquitous and neverending, and so it came as no surprise that many musicians attempted to transform at least one of their songs into something that would translate to the dancefloor.
What makes “Going Back to My Roots” (from Havens’ 1980 LP Connections) so fun and classic is the instrumentation and Havens’ voice. That repetitive piano chord that serves as the foundation of the song is fundamental to many contemporary house and post-punk musicians’ aesthetic. Immediately, tracks by LCD Soundsystem and The Juan MacLean, especially, have roots instead of just an overarching idea of “re-appropriation.” And Havens’ voice, surprisingly lush and warm, makes the track powerful and uplifting.
Hot stuff.
Talking Heads - A Clean Break (Let’s Work) (Live)
A stellar performance.
Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights
On repeat today. I found this Wikipedia tidbit interesting:
The guitar solo at the end of the song is played by Ian Bairnson, best known for his work with Alan Parsons. It is often mistakenly said that David Gilmour played the solo. It is placed rather unobtrusively in the mix, something engineer Jon Kelly now regrets.
Unobtrusively? Try perfect.
Funkadelic - Hit It and Quit It
As is my habit, I will briefly drape some quasi-intellectual dross over this post before letting it stand on its own bitchin’ merits (which are ample). “Hit It and Quit It” presumably refers to an amorous liaison of the most superficial sort -though who am I to disparage pleasure, which can be profound- but it also reminds me of how a hero of mine toyed with addiction.
William Vollmann, about whom I’ve posted before, is one of my favorite writers. In addition to the essentially flawless Europe Central, he’s written extensively about life among prostitutes and the poor, and in researching and experiencing their lives he decided to use crack cocaine. He’s asked about it often since, as Mr. Show so memorably demonstrated, people who haven’t used crack can’t believe anyone who has isn’t a crackhead:
Interviewer: I gather you often used drugs with people in the Tenderloin to get a better sense of the life there. Did you ever worry you’d get addicted?Vollman: I don’t know, not really. I probably used crack over 100 times in my life, but I never found myself craving it. But there’s a really nice coffee shop down the street from my house, and I go there sometimes to get a coffee and a cookie. And sometimes I find myself waking up really wanting that cookie. That never happened with crack.So take it from National Book Award-winning genius William Vollmann: good cookies are more addictive than crack, which you can pretty much hit and quit at will.
This post has caused me to use the phrase “hit it and quit it” far too frequently in recent conversations.
