THE SEVEN PILLARS OF THE BRITISH INVASION: THE MOVE

Although Rock and Roll is an American invention, it was the British that really took hold of the genre, made some of the most innovative, influential music and inspired much of the rest of the world to make their rock in the same vein. Without these seven pillars, rock music would be more like Neil Diamond than The Ramones or The Replacements, and Powerpop wouldn’t even exist:

The Beatles

The Rolling Stones

The Who

The Kinks

Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett version)

The Small Faces

The Move

Everyone knows the first four, and many know that Pink Floyd was a different beast altogether before Syd finally succumbed to a long bout with mental illness fueled in part by the pressures of stardom and a truckload of acid. Most everyone has heard of the Small Faces, or their Rod Stewart incarnation as The Faces, but may not be familiar with how incredible their earlier music was (we’ll save that for another lesson).

Although The Move was a very successful band in the U.K., few people on this side of the pond have ever heard of them. Some may know it as the band that ELO turned into with Jeff Lynne at the helm. Mr. Lynne certainly created some wonderful music with The Move over 2 ½ albums, but it was really the Move of Roy Wood that helped change the rock world.

The Move was formed in late 1965 in Birmingham, England when members of some of the city’s top bands formed a local band “supergroup”. The lineup consisted of Carl Wayne on lead vocals, Bev Bevan on drums, Trevor Burton and Roy Wood on guitar and Ace Kefford on bass. The band mainly played covers of Motown, R&B and West Coast rock songs. Pop promoter Tony Secunda discovered the band, moved them to London, and started turning them into rock bad boys, having them smash up TV’s and cars on stage and doing other crazy stuff like walking through downtown Manchester with a life-size model of an H-bomb. All the while they were honing their stagecraft in a very tight band, but would have forever been lost to music history without the emerging songwriting talents of Roy Wood.

A string of wonderful pop masterpieces started to flow from the fertile mind of Wood, including “Night of Fear”, “I Can Hear the Grass Grow”, “Blackberry Way”, “Fire Brigade”, and “Flowers in the Rain”.

This move towards pop perfection was very different with what some members wanted with the band, and Ace and Trevor left the band in 1968 to pursue harder rock interests. That’s probably just as well, due to the massive quantities of alcohol and acid the pair were consuming at the time.

The band recruited Rick Price as a replacement for Burton and embarked in 1969 on a brief underground tour of the U.S., culminating in a series of gigs at the Whiskey in LA and the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Without an album to promote, there was no record company support and the tour did little to improve their stature in the States, except for the lucky few who actually got to see them. Soon afterwards, they were able to release a full-length record in the States on A&M, a little-known rock masterpiece called Shazam.

I was always drawn to this record as a kid. My (much) older brothers had huge record collections and I used to love going through the stacks and looking at the album art. The cover of Shazam was a comic book-like picture of the four band members in ridiculous super hero outfits. The cover was great, so the music had to be too, right? Luckily, it was. The record was a combination of Wood originals (side 1) and some inspired reworked covers (side 2). The album managed to bridge the gap from Wood’s ultra poppy side (“Fields of People”) to some mega heavy feedback-drenched guitar stomps (“Hello Suzie”). “Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited” managed to make the bridge in one song. For whatever reason, the album never caught on and could be found in bargain bins all over America in the 1970’s.

Carl Wayne didn’t like the direction the band was going, which ironically was the harder edge that both Kefford and Burton wanted. Wayne thought the big money was in playing the cabaret lounge circuit, and left the band to do just that. Wood had been talking to Jeff Lynne for years about joining the band, as was finally able to persuade him to join in 1970.

Lynne and Wood had been talking for quite some time about a new concept for rock using classical instruments and arrangements combined with rock. Their concept’s name was Electric Light Orchestra. Lynne and Wood focused most of their efforts on the new project, and looked at releasing another Move record mainly as a way of fulfilling the terms of their record contract. Nevertheless, what followed was a pretty decent album, the somewhat transitional Looking On.

In a surprising twist, the band signed a new deal with EMI/Harvest for both ELO and The Move. The first ELO record, Electric Light Orchestra, actually came out before the final Move album, Message From The Country.

Many, including Wood, view Message as the finest Move record. It certainly had some wonderful songs, such as “Ella James” and “It Wasn’t My Idea To Dance”, but inexplicably failed to include The Move’s last big hit, “Tonight”. There were also other great one off songs, such as “Do Ya” (ELO’s hit), “Chinatown”, “California Man” (Cheap Trick’s hit), and “Down On The Bay”. These songs, along with most of Message, resurfaced in the mid 70’s on Spit Ends.

For awhile, Wood saw room for both music visions, but ironically was dismayed at ELO’s mainstream success with 10538 Overture as a single. This convinced him that he and Lynne were going in different musical directions. The Move was officially no more and Wood left ELO to form a new band, Wizzard. Lynne and Bevan, somewhat stunned at the rapid, unexpected departure of Wood, decided to keep the ELO name and move on. The rest, as they say, is whatever the heck they say.

Most Move releases have been remastered and reissued in the last few years and are readily available. By far the best way to experience The Move in all its dysfunctional glory is The Move Anthology 1966-1972, a brilliant 4 disc collection released last year on Salvo Records. Okay, you have your assignment; go out listen to some Move!

Love and kisses,

RonNasty

My Friday night at Kung Fu Necktie featuring Land Of Talk, a bottle of Old Crow and several Runaways references.

One of the many things I enjoy about my music obsession is checking out up & coming bands in a live setting.  Consequently, I also get to check out a wide variety of music venues.  This past Friday brought me to Kung Fu Necktie for the first time.  Here's how my night went.

7:35PM  I walk in to a small crowd and I was old enough to be a grandfather to each and every one of them.  ***sigh***.

7:36PM  I approach the bar and the people seated on either side of me start sliding their bar-stools away.  ***SIGH***

805AM  Tonight's opening act, The Mean, starts, stops, then restarts their first song.  If they named themselves The Mean as in "the sum of the values of a random variable divided by the number of values", then the name is appropriate.  Generic Indie Rock almost salvaged by a strong rhythm section that doesn't quite make up for the weak guitar leads.  There were some songs there, but not performed well enough.  We're talking about practice boys.

8:35PM  Glancing around, I see that a Bruce Lee movie is looping on KFN's lone television.  Fists of Fury?

8:41PM  A small hand-written sign behind the bar advertises the night's drink special.  A 16oz can of PBR and a shot of Old Crow.  Old Crow?  Homeless alcoholics, a handful of tobacco strands barely clinging to the cigarette filter dangling from their trembling, arthritic fingers, legs twisted in a pool of their own urine would whip out a box cutter and slice you up if you offered them an Old Crow.  Who drinks this crap?  What are our institutions of higher learning teaching the youth of today? 

8:42PM  My Yards Philly Pale is tasting great.  The kind of drink a skid row denizen would be happy to accept.

8:49PM  A Joan Jett-clone takes over behind the bar.  The night gets even more interesting.  If a Lita Ford-clone walks in the door, I might be too embarrassed to stand up.

9:01PM  Someone walks up and orders a tall-boy of Old Speckled Hen.  Sounds like something you catch Avian Flu from.

9:02PM  The stars of the show hit the stage.  Three bars into their first song some dude hits the guy next to him.  The PBR/Old Crow drink special strikes hard, it strikes fast and it strikes indiscriminately.

9:03PM  Now THAT's more like it.  Montreal's Land of Talk comes out and shows the opening act how it's done.  Strong, pliant lead vocals from songwriter and guitarist Elizabeth Powell, backed by a very strong rhythm section.  The bottom in the mix has my toes tingling.  This trio is the real deal.   

9:43PM  WTF.  Lita Ford-clone walks in.  An empty toy gun holster draped stylishly across her hips.  Did she pick that up from an episode of Project Runaway?

9:58PM  Somebody walks up to the bar and pays $52 for four bottles of Stone Brewing Company's Arrogant Bastard Ale.  It seems that KFN has a varied customer base running the gamut from beer snobs to rotgut aficionados.  And grandfathers.  Don't forget the grandfathers.     

10:04PM  The dude next to me orders another drink special, but first snatches the shot glass out of the bartenders hand to suck out the last 1/32 oz of Old Crow that he mistakenly left behind.

10:05PM  After slamming down his next shot, the dude's friends walk up and order four shots of Tullamore Dew.  Dude says "make that five".  I effin LOVE this place.

10:18PM  LOT wraps up an ass kicking set.  The crowd files out as another crowd has formed at the front door waiting to get in for the regular Robotique dance party.  I head for the merch table to buy a CD, but no one is manning the store.  Too bad, because at least a dozen folks stopped by while I waited.  Oh well.  That's why The Good Lord, in his infinite wisdom, created iTunes.

All in all a great night.  Hell, it was even over early enough so that an old guy like me didn't miss his bedtime by too much.  Give a listen to Show Me The Bones, one of the highlights of the show, and let me know what you think!



Here is another LOT video that comes along with some incredible visuals. Enjoy!



    

RONNASTY’S VERY FIRST BLOG- DOM MARIANI

Welcome to my first post as co-blogmeister with DeepKarma. Deep thought I could add some new perspective to the music we both like, after I supposedly ruined his life by introducing him to music blogs over a year ago. So I guess I’m to blame for him getting so into blogs so much he decided to start one himself, ergo Deep Karma Canyon. HEY DEEP! How about taking some personal responsibility?

Deep has been a very busy boy. I looked at all the posts he’s made and, seriously, is there a decent band out there he hasn’t written about? Okay, maybe there’s a few out there he hasn’t covered yet. But, who to start with? Tough decision.

The subject of RonNasty’s VERY FIRST BLOG EVER: the Powerpop God of Down Under, Mr. DOM MARIANI. (Deep covered one of Dom’s bands, The Someloves, but Dom himself is still fair game).

Dom has been diligently churning out some of the world’s most perfect pop for the last couple of decades with various bands and projects such as The Stems, Someloves, Summer Suns, DM3, Stoneage Hearts and Dom Mariani and the Majestic Kelp. Unfortunately, none of his bands have ever been able to make much headway in the States and not much if any of his music has ever been released this side of the Pacific. That hasn’t stopped him from making some incredible music and sharing it with more enlightened parts of the world, such as Spain (what is it with Spain and Powerpop, anyway?)

Citadel Records Australia released an incredible 2 disc retrospective of his work a couple of years ago called Popsided Guitar, Anthology 1984-2004, but it’s not very easy to find.

Nor are discs plentiful from his many projects, although Not Lame has a few in stock and Amazon is a pretty good place to find the best deals on discs that are still available, and every once in awhile a blogsite will offer up some of his stuff for download. In a perfect world, some local label with an altruistic bent will discover what a wonder Dom really is and release some of his music over here ( Not Lame or Wicked Cool Records, are you listening?)

In the meantime, checkout these great video clips from YouTube to get a taste of what you’ve been missing all these years.

Dom’s website appears to be down, but he does have a myspace music page going. Also, The Stems reformed last year and have an active website with a store where you can order CD’s and stuff.

Dom came to my attention via my brother John, who is also responsible for my discovering music blogs. So, if John turned me on to blogs, and I turned Deep onto blogs, John is ultimately responsible for Deep Karma Canyon. If you have any complaints about the site, I will happily pass them on to him.

Love and kisses,

RonNasty

Yep, that's about right...

...via the incredible Tom Toles.

Now THIS is funny...

...via TBogg

An Early Power Poppin' Christmas Present

All the way from Sweden, The Genuine Fakes have dropped a nice little slice of holiday pop recorded after hearing Mariah Carey butcher her cover of this classic. Give it a listen below and feel free to download it. Trust me. They won't mind at all.



In case you're not quite in the Holiday mood yet, here is Something New.

Ronald Reagan, the once and future savior of the GOP!

From America's Finest News Source...


Zombie Reagan Raised From Grave To Lead GOP