As I was scrolling through music videos online I came across this video of Cheap Trick doing a live set on ‘Don Kirshners Rock Concert’ from 1977. Cheap Trick has always been a band I loved, especially centering on their first two albums. I consider their second album, ‘In Color’ one of the best rock albums ever recorded. You can play the album straight through and there’s not a musical drop off from start to finish. When that album came out I used to plug in my guitar, drop the needle and play along with the entire album (ah – back in the days when you had to stop halfway through and turn the record over). Both of their first two albums came out in 1977. I had the fortune of seeing them in that era. At that time they were still playing smaller venues – the first time I saw the band they were playing a theatre that held about 300 people. Nothing quite like seeing a band at a place that size – to me it’s so much more exciting than an arena or stadium. This video is a short sample of the show they were doing then. They would start their set with ‘Hello There’ – full throttle from the beginning. They ended the show with the companion piece ‘Goodnight Now’. This set also includes other favorites of mine like ‘Downed’ and ‘Clock Strikes Ten’.
Many of the bigger shows you can go to now contain a lot of stage craft – videos, huge light shows, backing tracks, an engineer working the performer’s sound changes. At that level you really have to choreograph the entire show. And that can make for great theatre and lot of fun. But there’s something to be said for a band just screaming through their songs, a show carried by energy and the performer’s personality. Each member of Cheap Trick played their character to the hilt – the nerds vs rockers look, the sound fill provided by Tom Petersson’s twelve string bass, Bun E. Carlos’s giant drumsticks at the end, Rick Nielson constantly flicking pics in to the audience (yes, I do have one of those pics), Robin Zander’s powerful vocals. There’s no standing in place shoegazing at a Cheap Trick show. I thought this video would be a great watch for a Friday night (or any night). So if you get a chance, go see a band at a small venue. Get up close to the stage and feel the energy wash over you. The real power of live music.
Welcome back to Messin’ With The Music. For this episode we’re covering The Hives ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’. It was originally released as a single in 2000 and is from their album Veni Vidi Vicious. It’s a straight ahead garage rock style song although it has cleaner studio production than you would expect in a lot of songs that fall in to the garage rock category. As with a lot of garage rock songs it’s built on a straight forward beat. There’s a single chord pattern that is used throughout the song with another chord added during the chorus. When you keep a simple chord pattern like that, changes in dynamics are used to make the song more interesting. In this song the dynamic changes are accomplished by adding multiple layers of guitar with different effects such as crunchier distortion. Other areas will drop out the guitar totally to change the dynamics. The vocals also add to the dynamics by being very rhythmic. It’s a fun song to crank up the electric guitar and play along with.
The challenge with doing an acoustic version of this type of song is how to keep a strong rhythm going without the use of a drum kit. In this case we decided not to put any percussion instruments in the song except for a small break in the beginning. A lot of the rhythm during the song is created by playing arpeggios on the mandolin part. There are two acoustic guitars playing the basic rhythm and are panned hard left and right to create the foundation tracks. There is a twelve string guitar that sometimes single strums the chords and sometimes follows the pattern of the other guitars. This was used to change the dynamics throughout the song. Bass is added to give more bottom end. A banjo part is added in a couple of different places for more dynamic change. For those new to this series we followed our basic principles: Play the tracks straight through and use the same single mic for all the tracking.
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Electrostatic Rhythm Pigs play ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’:
Welcome to our first Grapevine of the new year. It’s been a while since I’ve been really excited about the beginning of a new year. First there’s the continuing nonsense and horror that’s been going on for a few years now. At this point it’s not even worth discussing. We can only continue to hope and work for change, but it’s definitely become a full time and long term job. Second, I live in the northeast. This time of year is overcast, cold, rain, snow, slush. Lack of sunshine is not a good prescription for ambition and happiness. So creativity can also become a somewhat difficult job too. But, as with every new year, we will persevere. Some of our monthly Grapevines follow a musical style or theme. I thought January would be a good month for a theme. So for this month musically, we’re going to simplify. Sometimes I just want to hear a good, simple sampling of garage rock. Straight forward, to the point. The kind you listen to and go, “I could learn to play that”. Start the year simple and build to complex. So for 2022, let’s hit the ground running…..
First Up: The Shadracks – ‘No Time’
Guitar, bass, drums, vocals. And there you are. I’d refer to it as garage rock. Some people might say punk rock, but I think in this day and age the word ‘punk’ has been twisted, bent, flattened and beat up so much that it’s almost devoid of meaning. Originally the word was more about attitude than sound. This song gives me attitude from that first chord strike. It actually sounds more like someone dropping their guitar on the floor. That’ll catch your attention. The band starts rolling in to the song. Four chords is all it takes. It’s like going downhill and slowly picking up speed. There’s a good amount of fuzz and dirt on both the guitar and bass. Then at the :50 second mark it seems like we’re going to step on the gas. But that only lasts about ten seconds. Then they slow down and start the tempo build up again. But it’s another false start and we’re back to the beginning verse style. These great tempo changes continue through the entire song. Even the vocals don’t really have a consistent pattern. If I was recording this I’d be saying “I get it, no click track on this song”. The recording is very crisp throughout. Not a lot of bottom end on any of the instruments. That works perfectly for this style. Brilliant way to keep your listeners off balance.
Next Up: Wavves – ‘Hideaway’
Let’s keep rolling on this month’s theme. Wavves “Hideaway’ gives us the straight forward guitar rock we’re looking for. There’s a bit more separation for the bass guitar as compared to the previous song. I like the double tap on the snare as that gives the beat a bit different feeling. When a song has a relatively simple structure, and that’s what we’re looking at this month, a simple change like the beat on the snare can have a larger influence on the feel of the song. The vocals are placed at a nice level in the mix. You can hear the lyrics, but they don’t overpower the musical end of the tune. The guitar playing has the same feel in the verses and the choruses, with the difference being a subtle change in the chords and some snare rolls added to the drums. Even though the production is simple, there’s some cool subtle effects and background in the production. The guitar sounds as if there is a second ‘ghost guitar’ in back of it. I like the sonics of the vocals. When all the other instruments are playing full out you don’t hear it as much. Listen when the second verse starts at 1:30. The vocal sounds like it is doubled (with some nice effects on it). However they create the vocal effect, it is perfect for this song. At the beginning of the second verse the instruments are pulled back to put the lyrics out front. “The field looks so pretty but it’s covered in land mines” is a great line. Listen closely to the lyrics as this is the theme throughout the song. ‘Hideaway’ does a good job of combining lyrics and music to create emotions in the listener.
Finally: Colleen Green – ‘I Wanna Be A Dog”
Let’s close up our newer selections with a song that has a bit more of an upbeat pop feel to it. This song is another example of how simple a good song can be. The guitar part is straightforward bar chords. There are both clean and distorted guitar sounds in the mix. The second guitar is either a clean electric or possibly an acoustic. And I would guess they they tracked the guitar several times. But the simple idea of multiplying the guitar part makes the song sound so much fuller. If you listen on headphones or stereo speakers you can really hear how they take the guitar parts and pan them left and right in he stereo field It sounds like there is a bass guitar holding down the bottom end, but it is just matching the root note of the chords being played. We also get a nice simple little ‘lead’ guitar riff in the middle of the song. They definitely want to highlight the vocals in this song. It’s a great melody and her singing is more pop sounding than garage shouting. The other thing that drew me to this song was the chorus. Such a great reference to Iggy Pop’s ‘Now I Wanna Be Your Dog’. I don’t believe that is an accident as not just the lyrics but the melody reference The Stooges’ song. Finally, I love any video filled with dogs running around. So Happy!
Retro: The Breeders – ‘Cannonball’
I thought I’d throw in one of the touchstone songs when you talk about combinations of garage, pop and indie rock. The Breeders were a band that were started when Kim Deal left Pixies. If you listen to bands, especially from the ‘grunge’ era, Pixies are usually named as one of the biggest influences. They were one of the best known bands for the ‘quiet verse, loud chorus’ style of song. Kim Deal certainly brought that style to this song by The Breeders. I don’t think they really thought this would cross over to a general rock audience as much as it did. I think the biggest factor in that happening was the vocals being more pop/rock sounding than the songs Pixies created. This song is fun from beginning to end. The quirky ‘vocal check’ to lone bass/spare drums intro is great. It has simple well sung verses with the Deal sisters combined vocals. And then the chorus kicks in……… and the rest is history.
Welcome to 2022! Another year has flown by. At this point I can’t say whether that is good or bad. Some things I wished would last forever (think vacation hiking, making music, friends and photography). The rest of the year? Meh. I was hoping the general tone of our world would improve and it sort of did, but just a smidge. We should certainly be able to do better. So we’re going to start 2022 on the blog by looking back. As we were searching through our files at the end of the year, we came across music that has never really seen the light of day. We decided to start releasing some of it online and began the ‘From The Vault’ series towards the end of last year.
For this edition of From The Vault we have a song recorded at the crossroads of Conduit changing in to Electrostatic Rhythm Pigs. We had a number of songs we were working on and decided the best idea would be to record live versions of them and work on production versions of them later. But for anyone who writes songs, you’ll recognize how you’re constantly coming up with new ideas and sometimes the older ones end up disappearing under the layers of dust. So ‘From The Vault’ is blowing the dust off and tossing the songs in to the light. This song is titled ‘No Class Lines’. When we recorded this live version the band was a three piece. The bass part was overdubbed later. Another thing I find happens when you’re recording live is your beats per minute starts to have the zoomies. The production versions often slow down a bit because you’re working with a click track. But not always. So this could have ended up slower, but……it could have been faster. We’ll see if we ever decide to do a production version. For now, I hope you enjoy the tune.
I thought for the holiday I’d send out a little Christmas cheer. This is a comedy bit by Eddie Lawrence called ‘What Do You Want For Christmas’ (can also find by searching ‘I Want a Jagwa’). When I was working I used to hear it played on WMMR in Philadelphia every Christmas season. Eddie Lawrence recorded most of his comedy albums in the late 1950’s through the 1970’s. It’s a short bit but I always find it amusing. It wouldn’t feel like Christmas if I didn’t get to hear it. Have a great holiday and I hope you get a good laugh from the bit.
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