feinmess 9/98
 Has anyone heard the new Knack album, Zoom? It's the best new album I've heard since Brian Wilson's solo debut.
In both cases I was blindsided. The Beach Boys were never important to me, though I liked their music, yet when I heard the opening song (on the demo tape supplied by Sire), "Let It Shine", I was flabbergasted. It summarized all the things  I liked about the Beach Boys. It was like an old friend reaching out and embracing me.
 Doug Fieger is a new friend (1990s) who's never embraced me that I can remember. I've liked the Knack hits and not paid much attention to other knackmusick. (Nice friend!) I was familiar with his mid-90s demo tape of new Knack stuff that I liked hit-and-miss, so when he came over to my place with the new cuts from the forthcoming Rhino CD I was prepared for more o f the same.
What I heard blasted me against the wall. "Pop Is  Dead", the leadoff cut, is the most amazing pop pastiche I've ever heard, twisting and changing at every turn. It's an homage to The Who that I like better than the Who! (Lindsay Hutton, the Scottish editor of Next Big Thing, has a parallel story; He doesn't like the Beatles, but he loves the Flaming Groovies, who sound like 'em.) The next cut, "Can I Borrow A Kiss," pummeled me too, the essence of the  Beatle-era sound rung new.
I like everything on the album. It's a monumental celebration of 60's-pop. Fieger, the singer and main songwriter, is the Dave Edmunds of another era.
***
The album's drummer is Terry Bozio, whose mastery is such that a portrait of him adorns the illustrious Guitar Center (they sell drums too) in Hollywood without a nametag.
Knack ex-drummer Bruce Gary is playing with traveling bands too. He is warmly regarded by drum-god Hal Blaine (see Another Fein Mess, June-July 1998). In an interview some years ago, Bruce said that as a kid he set out to find out who played drums on his ten favorite records, and he was shocked to find that "My ten favorite drummers were all Hal Blaine."
***
 Swamp Dogg ("real" name Jerry Williams Jr.) played at South-By-Southwest (not SXSW again!) this year to a packed hall. He is the greatest living soul singer, but hardly anybody knows it. His output since 1970 has earned him a rabid but small following. Even though he's written both pop hits ("Heartbreaker" for Gene Pitney, which Swamp produced) and country ("Don't Take Her She's All I've Got") hits, his own songs have always been way off the wall. His 1970 album, Total Destruction To Your Mind, contained many brilliant classics including "Mama's Baby Daddy's Maybe," the song to erase color lines, "I Was Born Blue," and the environmentally-early "Synthetic World." Six or seven more albums ensued, all with gems. (My fave is Have Your Heard This Story on Island.) He has hewed a Stax-Volt sound, and refuses, or is incapable, of compromising. (His own label, SDEG -- Swamp Dogg Entertainment Group -- features rap and other styles of music, by other artists.) He rarely performs in public owing to a heavy case of stage fright, but when he does - Watch out.
***
The Times Are definitely A-Changin:
 My friend who runs a restaurant in Seattle (Ballard, actually) told me he went to a huge corporate restaurant-show in Seattle run by Camel Cigarettes and other suppliers which featured musical entertainment by the Cramps!  I know Dylan sings for insurance companies, but it's more surprising to see the Cramps in a corporate setting, i.e. that the business world has gotten that savvy. Also, does anyone besides me think that Steve Martin playing the  maniacal dentist with jet-black-hair in Little Shop Of Horrors looked and acted exactly like Lux Interior? Was Interior the director's first choice for the role? Did Martin study him?
***
WHAT WAS THE GREATEST SHOW YOU EVER MISSED? is a question I ask on the tv show. For me it was 1975 when a girl I knew at Capitol Records A&R received a call from  J.D. Sumner, of the Stamps, part of Elvis's backup entourage, inviting her or anyone from Capitol to Elvis's show in Vegas. She asked if I wanted to go with her -- we were both  Elvis fans -- but I said we should call the hotel back and confirm that this was for real: after all, if it was a joke or a mistake we could each spend $30 for round-trip air fare and then get stuck with a $25 hotel bill -- for nothing. She called, and the hotel said Sumner had been inviting people, but she could not get through to him so could not confirm it. So we passed, and someone else from the A&R dept. went and had front-row seats AND spent 15 minutes after the show talking to Elvis.
***
I recently had lunch with Dale Smallens, whose name and face you don't know, but whose cackle is famous: it's him at the start of "Wipe Out." He produced that record, and "Surfer Joe," and a handful of surf classics. He also made two small films, "One Man's Challenge" and "Bal Weekend," which documented SoCal surf culture of the early 1960s. I met him and Domenic Priore, the author of Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile, at a barbecue place near the San Francisco Zoo, near where each live. Smallens, now semi-retired, is still involved with music, producing SF bands and making films for a skateboard camp in Sequoia, California. He's like Big Daddy Roth, still plugging away mid-60s California style.
***
 Joel Selvin of the San Francisco Chronicle is living in New York for year researching a book on record producer Bert Berns. If you've got any first-hand recollections, contact him through the Chron, or JoelSelvin@aol.com.
***
Recent Poker Party guests: Carolyn Hester, Jimmie Haskell, Jac Holzman. Guess I'm doin' the aiches.
-30- |
