The Notorious Good Brothers

L-R: Martin, Gretsch Tennessean, Dallas Good, Tele, invisble B-Bender, Travis Good, levitating Gretsch Tennessean, Gretsch Tennessean, and old-ass fiddle

One of my favorite moments of 2010 was seeing John Doe and The Sadies play Cal State Northridge on November 20, and totally by chance. I stumbled upon the LA Weekly listing the day of the show, called a friend, and was at the venue before realizing the enormity of what I was about to witness. John Doe has been the punk rock Jesus of LA for 30 years and The Sadies combine the versatility and roots of The Band with the demented urgency and roots of The Cramps.

I originally wrote about their collaboration in April 2009, using their album, Country Club, as a jumping off point to talk about Roger Miller, The Knitters, and the Bakersfield Sound. Country Club is good, but suffers from too many ballads and not enough Sadies. I figured if a musical connection would come alive, it would be on stage (as pictured above). That assumption proved to be true.

Historical trivia: 41 years and 5 months earlier, maybe a 15 minute walk from where The Sadies were playing with John Doe, The Byrds played the Newport '69 Festival. The location then was the old Devonshire Downs racetrack. That property is now the north campus of Cal State Northridge. At the time, Clarence White and his new-fangled Stringbender guitar were members of The Byrds for not quite one year.

Doe was in great voice and his usual suave, badass self. Seriously, is there anyone cooler than John Doe??? I think not. Meanwhile, The Sadies whipped up their usual menu of surf, rockabilly, psychedelia, bluegrass, and punk. Travis and Dallas sang lead on 1-2 songs each and the collective tore through a pair of righteous X covers ("The New World" and "The Have Nots") for the win.

I finally witnessed Dallas rock the Bender. Last time I saw The Sadies was when they opened for Neko Case, also serving as her backing band. This was 2004-05. To my knowledge, he was not yet a member of the Church of Bend. I briefly discussed it with him after the gig, commenting on his banjo tuning pegs (the Keith tuners) and noting that his playing reminds me of Clarence White, only my favorite guitar player. What did he say? "Mine too." At which point, my homeboy, Fred Rockwood, took the picture to the left. Put that in your gravity bong and smoke it.

Fred also got this picture with Travis (sporting an "Adios Lounge Top 5 Album of All-Time" T-shirt) and this pic with the great John Doe. I'm forever indebted to your quickdraw photo skills, Mr. Rockwood.

Sadies - Postcards [buy]

"Postcards" is from the band's excellent 2010 release, Darker Circles, and it sounds like it was written with The Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday in mind -- "Time Between" and "The Girl With No Name," in particular. The Sean Dean (upright bass)-Mike Belitsky (drums) rhythm section locks into a tight pocket while Travis and Dallas layer sweet guitar parts over the top. It sounds like 1-2 acoustics, Travis on rhythm, and separate B-Bender leads in each channel, creating a cool, shimmering effect.


Darker Circles CD release show
Call The Office, London, Ontario
May 21, 2010

"We are definitely going more in a direction of the music that we love. There's a hybrid between country and western, the instrumental music of the '60s, '60s rock 'n' roll, and punk rock. That's why we play guitar. That's why we write songs."
--Dallas Good, interviewed by Gord Downie, 2010

This song is one of my favorites on Darker Circles because it synthesizes two different elements of the Sadies songbook. And in so doing, it hits on two of the main touchstones in the band's development. One we've discussed regularly. The other, less so. But they do connect.

Sadies - Another Year Again, Pt 1 [opening 2:08] [buy]

This song is a hybrid of psychedelic engineering and country-rock know-how. In that sense, it mirrors "Change Is Now," The Byrds' bipolar antecedent from The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968), which just happens to feature the session stylings of one C. White on super guitar. The opening salvo of "Another Year Again" features great vocal/guitar interplay between Dallas and Travis and bursts of reverby psych of a piece with earlier tunes like "The First Inquisition, Pt. 4" (New Seasons, 2007) and "Song Of The Chief Musician, Pt. 2" (Favourite Colours, 2004).

Sadies - Another Year Again, Pt 2 [:23 excerpt] [buy]

"ATA, Pt 2" is the :23 bridge between the first and second half of the song, kicked off by Travis' modified Bo Diddley Beat. And with that, The Sadies join exalted company.

Stooges - 1969 [:49 excerpt] [buy]

The Sonics came to punk first, as did the Velvet Underground. However, if you wanna discuss the origins of the genre with any degree of authority, you start with The Stooges. You can work backwards and forwards from there, but they're Ground Zero and this isn't really debatable. "1969" is the first track on their first album and it brought the Bo Diddley Beat into an entirely new era, one that bled profusely from self-inflicted lacerations. Good ol' Iggy.

Gord Downie and The Sadies - Search And Destroy
Recorded December 6, 2007

Oh, and if you thought I might be stretching the connection between the Brothers Stooge and the Brothers Good, allow me to remove that doubt. This cover of "Search And Destroy," probably one of the 10-15 greatest songs ever, is top shelf because The Sadies bring the wreckin' ball. Any band that can make the lead singer of The Tragically Hip sound like a streetwalkin' cheetah might know a thing or two about using technology.

Byrds - Tribal Gathering [final :41] [buy]

As noted, The Stooges were preceded by the Sonics and Velvets, not to mention the Stones and Dylan. However, they were also preceded by The Byrds. People forget (or don't know) that Roger McGuinn was capable of some of the gnarliest, sludgiest guitar tone this side of Iggy's late '60s Detroit and early '90s Seattle.

"Tribal Gathering" is a very strange song. Half of it features lightweight, Four Freshman-esque west coast vocal jazz, the kind of sound that gave Brian Wilson genius boners. But, the other half is straight-up proto-grunge. A more bipolar song you will not find and it makes me wonder ... as I'm wont to do ... why more of that McGuinn didn't show up on later releases, especially with a guy like Clarence White in the band.

Sadies - Another Year Again, Pt 3 [final 1:07] [buy]

Speaking of early '90s Seattle, this sounds like Mudhoney circa Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. Rock 'n' roll, bitches. Get you some.

"We spread ourselves out pretty wide with all the people we've been playing with. And the list of people we want to play with is always getting bigger."
--Travis Good, as interviewed by Frank Goodman, 2007

Neil Young & The Sadies - This Wheel's On Fire [buy]

Recorded for Garth Hudson's Canadian Celebration of The Band, this was a 2010 release that I liked, but wanted to love. The idea of Neil Young and the Sadies collaborating on a Dylan/Band song is as pure on paper gold as John Doe and the Sadies collaborating on classic country. In reality, both were lost opportunities for the same reason. Both projects underestimated the artistic reserves of The Sadies. "Wheel" should be a 7-8 minute epic with Neil, Dallas, and Travis trading guitar solos and Garth's mad scientist organ seamlessly filling the gaps. Neil takes a compact solo from 2:04-2:20, but it feels like a setup for a guitarpalooza that never comes.

Byrds - This Wheel's On Fire [buy]
Fillmore West, San Francisco
February 7-8, 1969

This is how you do it. I like what David Fricke says about Clarence's playing in the Live At The Fillmore liner notes. He praises, "The low, tart whirl of White's intro lick in 'This Wheel's On Fire,' and the evocation of burning, unstoppable apocalypse in his full-force solo." Exactly. "Wheel" is meant to be covered like it owes you money. What makes the solo special (2:24-3:00) is that Clarence conveys menace, not by flurries of notes, but through filthy tone and a restrained fury that pulls against Gene Parsons' forward-moving beat.

It was an inspired musical tension that briefly brought out the best in McGuinn and made this era of The Byrds the band's high water mark. I know the pre-Sweetheart Gene Clark/David Crosby Byrds are the moneymaker. But, that era can't compete with the space-twang demolition machine that rocked the Fillmore West 40+ years ago.

COMING SOON

Yeah, I know I've been slacking on the final Clarence White post, mainly because I'm not exactly thrilled about addressing July 14-15, 1973. But, it's gotta be done, so I've been laying the groundwork for a post to come sometime in January. There, I said it.

RIP Sam: What I Wanna Know Is?!?!

50 years ago today: December 11, 1960

"When (Sam Cooke) first heard 'Blowin' In The Wind' on the new Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album J.W. (Alexander) had just given him, he was so carried away with the message, and the fact that a white boy had written it, that he was almost ashamed not to have written something like that himself. It wasn't the way Dylan sang, he told Bobby Womack. It was what he had to say. 'I'm going to write something,' Sam told J.W. But he didn't know what it was."
--Peter Guralnick, Dream Boogie: The Triumph Of Sam Cooke, pp. 512-13



That "something" turned out to be Sam Cooke's finest moment as a songwriter and one of the artistic high points of the 1960s, "A Change Is Gonna Come." But, before writing "Change," Sam took Dylan's civil rights anthem uptown, covering it during his July 1964 gigs at the Copacabana (aka The Copa) in New York City. This video was filmed a few months later for the premiere episode of Shindig (September 16, 1964). Sam takes Dylan to church, despite the overbearing whiteness in the room. An amazing performance, really. Also, keep in mind that this was probably one of the first televised instances of a black man being surrounded by white kids, some of whom were females dancing.

RIP Sam Cooke, January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964

Published originally on Star Maker Machine, 10/5/08

RIP Otis

"With Otis, it was all about feeling and expression. Most of his songs had just two or three chord changes, so there wasn't a lot of music there. The dynamics, the energy, the way we attacked it, that's hard to teach. So many things now are computer-generated. They start at one level and they stop at the same level, so there isn't much dynamic, even if there are a lot of different sounds.

I miss Otis. I miss him as much now as I did after we lost him. I've been to the lake in Madison, Wisconsin, where they have the plaque. The best explanation I've read is that his plane missed the runway on the first approach and it circled around over the lake when the wings iced up. That was December 10, 1967. It's been difficult for me to listen to Otis since then. It brings back too many memories, all great except for the end."

--Steve Cropper, guitarist, bandleader, songwriter, and consummate sideman, on Otis Redding

LAMF: A Study in Rock 'n' Roll DNA

Johnny Thunders feeds on lightning

"The Heartbreakers blew everyone away, for no more reason than that they were just more experienced -- they had their roots in R&B and rock 'n' roll. They were able to go onstage and draw on all that, whereas these kids (The Damned, Clash, and Sex Pistols) couldn't draw on anything yet. Real rock 'n' roll would start to happen and there's no fighting that, no getting around that. No matter how anarchic an audience thinks it is, if the bass player can actually play bass, and the drummer is Jerry Nolan, then suddenly they're going, 'THIS IS GREAT!'"
--Leee Childers, Heartbreakers manager on the 1977 Anarchy tour of England, quoted in Please Kill Me, p. 323

1. Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - Baby Talk [CD] [MP3]
L.A.M.F.: The Lost Mixes, 1977/1994

Jerry Nolan is the MF in this LAMF classic. His machine gun drum attack was the secret weapon in both the New York Dolls and The Heartbreakers and he's the boot in the ass of "Baby Talk." He hurtles the song forward, challenging the HBs to keep up, which they do. Meanwhile, Thunders and Walter Lure trade riffs, with Johnny unleashing a tight, economical solo from 1:35-1:47.

Former bandmate, Richard Hell (pictured right on bass and vocals), on the distinctive elements of the Thunders guitar style:

• The way it sounds sarcastic, the drawn-out bent-off notes

• Piercing tone

• The sneering throwaway monster-chord fuck-you noises he tended to end songs with

Most write-ups on Johnny Thunders go something like, "Junkie, drugs, Dolls, smack, Heartbreakers, OD, dead." Not that any of that is untrue, mind you, but the guy was a ferocious guitar player, a pretty solid songwriter when he wanted to be, and at his 1972-78 peak, the critical link between Chuck Berry and Keith Richards on one side and Billy Zoom and Bob Stinson on the other.

Replacements - Customer [CD] [MP3]
Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, 1981

I could've taken the easy way out and lobbed up "Johnny's Gonna Die," but "Customer" is the early Mats at their Heartbreaking best. This is largely due to Smokin' (and Drinkin) Bob Stinson's incandescent guitar squall. Much is made of Bob's debt to Steve Howe ... both the Yes guitarist and the drug-addled Dodger/Yankee relief pitcher whose career began with such promise in 1980-81 ... but here he sounds more like a punk rock Danny Gatton.

"Bob's lead is hotter than a urinary tract infection."
--Sorry Ma liner notes, 1981

Paul Westerberg's vocal is as good as he ever got and how locked in was the rhythm section of 20 year old drummer, Chris Mars, and 9 year old (or thereabouts) bassist and child labor counter-revolutionary, Tommy Stinson? None more locked. Here's the band in what some might consider their artistic peak.



"I was on YouTube a few months back [in 2007] and stumbled upon some early '80s, punk-phase 'Mats footage from the Entry. It was so unexpected that for the first time it was as if I could objectively see what our appeal was from an audience standpoint. There this band was as if I were watching ghosts through some hazed and distant memory. With this newly acquired objectivity, though decades of distance, what struck me most was Paul's distinct voice and delivery, along with Bob's insane guitar style and stage presence. Whoever those other two guys were, they glued it all together well enough. It occurred to me that our strength was a damned good little punk band. In my mind, that could quite possibly have been our peak."
--Chris Mars, quoted in Jim Walsh's All Over But The Shouting, p. 259

3. Humpers - Apocalypse Girl [CD] [MP3]
Live Forever Or Die Trying, 1996

4. Neckbones - Cardiac Suture [CD/Vinyl/MP3]
The Lights Are Getting Dim, 1999

Two of my favorite bands from the mid-to-late '90s, up to their respective elbows in Thunders. "Apocalypse Girl" is a fist-pumping, beer-spilling anthem and I'm not just saying that because I used to pump said fist and spill said beer while watching The Humpers deliver the goods at Spaceland and The Foothill Club.

As for my beloved Neckbones, "Cardiac Suture" is a full-on, scuzz-rock riffgasm that's two parts Ramones (verses) and one part Rocket From The Crypt (chorus). As bassist, Robbie Alexander, and drummer, Forrest Hewes, hold down the big bottom, Tyler Keith and Dave Boyer double the main riff on guitar. Meanwhile, special guest, Jack Oblivian (née Yarber), triples that riff on sax and all three men cut loose during the chorus, "It's the way you cut/It's the way you stitch/I've got a new future/Since my cardiac suture." Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

5. Germs - Richie Dagger's Crime [CD]
(GI), 1979

"Richie Dagger" sounds like a spastic blend of the Heartbreakers ("One Track Mind") and X ("Sex And Dying In High Society"), with Pat Smear (guitar), Lorna Doom (bass), and Don Bolles (drums) going in three different directions to the same flophouse. But hey, it works. Smear, in particular, is a revelation with his classic intro, jagged playing in the verses, and from 1:12-1:30 ("He could set your mind ablaze/With sparkling eyes and visionary case") seemingly channeling John Fogerty's spacey guitar sound from Creedence's debut. However, which guitarist does Pat credit as his biggest influence on this song? According to this interview, that would be Charlotte Caffey of The Go-Go's.

Says Smear: "She is a great rhythm guitarist and I think she's also responsible for making punk rock melodic ... through the guitar playing. In fact, I copied her rhythm style on 'Richie Dagger's Crime.' She uses all downstrokes. I'm always working on my downstroke. It really makes a difference. At the beginning of a tour, I can't play that way all the time because I'm so out of shape. But by the end of the tour, it's all downstrokes."

6. X - Under The Big Black Sun [CD] [Vinyl]
Under The Big Black Sun, 1982

As far as I'm concerned, X is the greatest pure rock 'n' roll band to ever come out of Los Angeles and I'm not sure it's all that close. They were/are the perfect combination of pure balls, poetry, showmanship, and artistic discipline, taking all that was good about '50s and '60s music and marrying it to the energy and economy of punk. This is what it sounds like when a band is talented enough to marry Chuck Berry (thanks to perennially cool badass, Billy Zoom), Plastic Ono Band, and The Ramones.



7. New York Dolls - Personality Crisis [CD] [Vinyl] [MP3]
New York Dolls, 1972

"The Dolls were for New York groups sort of what the Sex Pistols were for British groups. They excited everybody by being flawless: in it for fun, never pretentious or pretending to be anything they weren't; they were ballsy, noisy, tough, funny, sharp, young, and real. Stupid and ill. They mocked the media, threw up on grownups, and kidded with the kids in a language of drugs and sex."
--Richard Hell, "Johnny Thunders and the Endless Party" [postmortem essay]

What did Hell leave out? How about ...

• David Johansen's epic "howlin' at the moon" vocalics (both lead and background)
• Johnny Thunders (panned right) and Sylvain Sylvain trading sweet guitar riffs
• Thunders' harmony vocal all pinched, Keefy, and fucking perfect
• Sylvain's underrated boogie-woogie piano (mostly panned left)
• "And you're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon!"
• Arthur Kane and especially Jerry Nolan as the lockdown rhythm section

8. Rolling Stones - Rip This Joint [CD] [Vinyl] [MP3]
Exile On Main Street, 1972

"Wham, bam, Birmingham,
Alabam don't give a damn,
Little Rock and I'm fit to top,
Ahhhh!!!! Let it rock!!!"

This song is dedicated to the denizen's of Little Rock's Whitewater Tavern and the This is American Music wrecking crew ... somewhat ironic considering this is my lone non-American entry. Regardless, "Joint" features one of Mick Jagger's greatest vocal performances, perfect Keith harmony, stinging Richards/Mick Taylor guitar (I know, shocking), Nicky Hopkins paying homage to Johnnie Johnson, some guy named Bill Plummer on standup bass, Jim Price on trumpet and trombone, and a furious Bobby Keys sax solo that would've fit in perfectly on many a Specialty session from the late '50s. Pure gold.

9. Chuck Berry - Roll Over Beethoven intro [CD]

10. Chuck Berry - Roll Over Beethoven solo (1:19-1:33) [CD]
1956 single

Chuck Berry, of course, is rock 'n' roll ground zero. The DNA begins here. Sure, T-Bone Walker was a gigantic influence and Carl Hogan's intro to Louis Jordan's 1946 hit "Ain't That Just Like A Woman" clearly presages the CB sauce. But, Chuck brought those guitar figures into a new era and of this there is little debate. If we isolate the intro and solo to "Roll Over Beethoven," what we hear is pretty much lead guitar compulsories for the next 30 years (roughly 1955-85). It was fully absorbed and mutated not just by the people on this playlist, but Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, The Beatles, Who, Kinks, MC5, AC/DC, Sex Pistols, Dead Boys, Eddie Van Halen, Dave Alvin, Dave Hidalgo, everybody, and their mother. Yeah, not a bad resume.

11. Don and Dewey - Jungle Hop [CD] [MP3]
1957 single

I could've gone with Little Richard here and did so originally. But, being a fan of the deep cut, I opted for this obscure Los Angeles duo. A huge inspiration to The Blasters, this is down-home, funky-ass R&B at its best. I can't describe them any better than Jonny Whiteside, so here's what he wrote in the LA Weekly about a decade ago:

"The Don & Dewey mix of heat, jive and unadulterated talent was a shock in its day. Not yet 21 when they started on Specialty, these cats were upstarts, hardcore; they not only wrote, played and produced all their songs, they both flat-out Screamed Into The Microphone. When they weren't hollering, they spoke in wildly poetic, almost indecipherable tongues (langga langga oli-oki changa-chang). They did the jungle hop with the beeb-a-lee bop, mammer-jammered at the hootenanner and got clean for their mama's papa's sister's brother's uncle's crazy child -- the one with the champagne eyes. They did it all, leaping from slam to simmer on perfectly vocalized close-harmony ballads that anticipated the glories of mid-'60s soul with blueprint accuracy."
Truth.
12. Creedence - Travelin' Band [CD] [MP3]
Cosmo's Factory, 1970
America's greatest rock 'n' roll band celebrates life on the road with some Little Richard-inspired badassery. Fogerty delivers his usual banshee howl, offers up searing guitar work (listen close and Thunders ain't far away), and even contributes the sax part. I guess the glockenspiel and Turkish gong were in the shop.

13. Sonics - Psycho [CD] [Vinyl]
Here Are The Sonics, 1965

The Sonics have been called the first punk rock band and I'm not sure we should dispute this claim. Sure, The Velvet Underground, Stooges, and MC5 were more temperamentally simpatico with what became punk in the mid-'70s, but if you don't think Gerry Roslie can trade punches with those mofos, you're crazy. Keep in mind, this is 19-goddamn-65! Roslie's scream is on par with Fogerty, Larry Parypa's lead guitar is downright nasty, and how can you not love Bob Bennett's drum fills? Do they even make punk rock bands like this anymore? If so, how about giving me a heads up?
14. Black Keys - Have Love Will Travel [CD]
The Moan EP, 2004

Will the circle be unbroken? I think not. The Black Keys (Dan Auerbach pictured right) cover The Sonics and in doing so, establish one of the more recent links in the true rock 'n' roll DNA lineage. The BKs have since added a smoove Curtis Mayfield/Prince/hip-hop sensibility, but this is pretty much the blues-based rock 'n' roll with which they began their career.

For those of you with iPods, iBlackberries, and iWalkmen, you can download this 14-track set as a complete unit.

• The Adios Lounge Presents: LAMF (50 MB)