THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT! The History Of Power Pop, Part 2

Here's Part 2 of my history of power pop, as written for John M. Borack's 2005 book Shake Some Action. You can read Part 1 here:  http://carlcafarelli.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-kids-are-alright-history-of-power_11.html

 

Come And Get It

           

In the early- to mid-‘70s, there were several acts that seemed willing to mine the motherlode of Beatley pop that many had forsaken.  Some were British glam/glitter acts like The Sweet and Slade, whose captivatingly simple style (on singles like “Little Willy” and “Mama Weer All Crazee Now,” respectively) melded bubblegum with hard rock to create an authentic (if prefabricated) power pop sound.  Some were ‘60s holdovers, both hitmakers who refused to be moved much by the passage of time or trends—let’s hear it for The Hollies here!--and marginally-recognized names that simply continued to make music in their own chosen pop style.

That last sub-category included ex-Nazzman Todd Rundgren, by now a successful solo star, record producer and sporadic pop icon; Rundgren’s 1972 album Something/Anything? offered impressive pop, especially in the nonpareil track “Couldn’t I Just Tell You,” while most of Rundgren’s work with the band Utopia was emphatically not cut from the same cloth.  There was also Emitt Rhodes, former leader of The Merry-Go-Round, a mid-‘60s light pop band from L.A. who’d enjoyed a regional hit with “Live,” a song much later covered by The Bangles.  Rhodes released several fine pop albums in the ‘70s, and even scored a minor (# 54) hit with his McCartneyesque “Fresh As A Daisy.”

One of the biggest groups in this sub-category of ‘60s survivors was Badfinger.  Beatles protoges and Apple recording artists, Badfinger began in the late ‘60s as The Iveys, and debuted as Badfinger on the soundtrack to the 1970 Peter Sellers-Ringo Starr film The Magic Christian.

The Magic Christian’s signature song was “Come And Get It,” a Paul McCartney composition that gave Badfinger a # 7 hit.  Badfinger seemed like a Godsend to pop fans:  a great band, playing in a classic tradition without resorting to cheap revivalism, even brightening up the airwaves with honest-to-God hit records.  From 1970-72, Badfinger enjoyed actual chart success with “No Matter What,” the exquisite ballad “Day After Day” and the unbelievable “Baby Blue,” each written by singer/guitarist Pete Ham.

But the Beatles connection was a double-edged sword, and many slagged Badfinger mercilessly as Beatles imitators.  Some even viewed Badfinger as mere Beatles puppets, oblivious to the fact that McCartney had only given the group one friggin’ song, for crying out loud.

When Badfinger left Apple and moved to Warner Brothers, the group’s career was essentially put to sleep.  1974’s Wish You Were Here, which many fans consider to be Badfinger’s best album, fell victim to what appeared to be Warner’s sudden disinterest in the group.  Frustrated with music-biz woes, Pete Ham hanged himself in 1975.  (Bassist Tom Evans also took his own life, the same way, in 1983, making the Badfinger story one of the most tragic tales in pop history.)

In the evolution of power pop in the ‘70s, though, two acts stand above all others.  Both acts included veterans of ‘60s groups.  One act, formed from the remnants of two ‘60s Cleveland bands that never quite made it nationally, went on to have four Top 40 hits in the ‘70s.  The other act, which included the lead singer from a Memphis group that had several ‘60s hits, never enjoyed any chart success at all during its lifetime, but is now considered one of the single most influential bands of the ‘70s.  In the story of power pop in the 1970s, no two names are more important than The Raspberries and Big Star.


 

I Just Want A Hit Record, Wanna Hear It On The Radio

The Raspberries formed in Cleveland in 1970, with singer/guitarist Eric Carmen, lead guitarist Wally Bryson, drummer Jim Bonfanti and original bassist John Aleksic.  When Aleksic left the group circa 1971, Carmen switched to bass and new guitarist Dave Smalley completed the line-up.

Bryson, Bonfanti and Smalley had all been members of The Choir (remember them?), who'd scored a regional hit in 1967 with the proto-pop classic “It’s Cold Outside.”  Carmen had been in a group called Cyrus Eyrie, with whom Bryson had also played after leaving The Choir in 1968; Carmen is also said to have made an unsuccessful attempt to join The Choir himself at one point.  All four shared a fondness for the mid-‘60s British Invasion rockin’ pop sound that had fallen out of fashion among their peers.

The crucial role of The Raspberries in the power pop story cannot be overstated.  Where several other acts played in a pop style, The Raspberries consciously set out to recreate the frenzied rock ‘n’ roll excitement of Beatlemania.  They didn’t want to be a revival act; they wanted to bring the pop of the ‘60s up-to-date with the power of the ‘70s.

The Raspberries made incredible records, often combining the leering salaciousness of The Rolling Stones with a facade of choirboy (or Beach Boys) innocence that enabled them to get away with blunt sexual solicitations like “Go All The Way,” a # 5 hit in 1972.  “Go All The Way” was followed later that year by the similarly-themed “I Wanna Be With You,” perhaps the definitive power pop single.

Dave Wolin, co-owner of the Big Deal record label in the 1990s, recalled the appeal of The Raspberries’ unique dichotomy:  “The Raspberries may have dressed up their songs with beautiful melodies, but the underlying themes were basically smoke pot and have sex with minors.  It represented the ultimate Rabelaisian, hedonistic world view, but in a package that could be sold to the masses.  That is the essence of rock ‘n’ roll.  There is something really sublime about taking your parents’ worst nightmares, sugarcoating them a little and getting them to dance unwittingly to it at a Bar Mitzvah.”

Alas, the party would soon be over.  From the beginning, The Raspberries were dogged by meatheaded criticism that they were light-weight, teenybop, even bubblegum.  And, like Badfinger before them, The Raspberries were also consistently derided as Beatle clones, a specious charge that ignored the group’s equally-evident roots in dynamic acts like The Who, The Small Faces, The Dave Clark Five, The Hollies and The Beach Boys.  It also ignored The Raspberries’ own contribution in remaking those influences into a thoroughly contemporary sound, and in making that sound their own.

When the wonderful Side 3 LP only managed a pathetic # 128 berth on the album chart, and the great “Tonight” single stalled at # 69, The Raspberries’ days were numbered.  The group actually broke up, acrimoniously, after Side 3.  As Smalley and Bonfanti split, Carmen and Bryson decided to hang together for the time being.  Scott McCarl and Michael McBride joined The Raspberries for the group’s final album, Starting Over.

Starting Over was, miracle of miracles, a critical hit, but it fared even worse than Side 3 on the charts.  It did yield one final hit single in “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record),” a self-fulfilling prophecy about just wanting to get a hit record played on the radio.

And then The Raspberries were no more.  Eric Carmen went on to a successful solo career, though his interests often led him into musical styles somewhat removed from the power pop of The Raspberries.  Wally Bryson was in the bands Fotomaker and Tattoo in the late ‘70s, and he served as “musical director” on Whatever Happened To Fun...., the 1985 debut album by latter-day power pop group Candy.  In 1997, Scott McCarl emerged with a stunning solo album called Play On..., named after a terrific McCarl song that had appeared on Starting Over. 

The Raspberries may have left the scene prematurely, but their legacy continues to thrive.  Rock history may remember them as mere footnotes, but the pop faithful know better:  no group ever embodied the power pop ideal more fully than did The Raspberries.

An abortive attempt to reunite The Raspberries for a summer tour circa 1999 left bad feelings all around (though Bryson, Smalley and McCarl did briefly bill themselves as The Raspberries for a few live shows and a six-song CD, Refreshed, in 2000).  One would have thought that to be that, but in November of 2004 the debut-album line-up of The Raspberries--Carmen, Bryson, Smalley and Bonfanti--did a reunion concert at the House of Blues in Cleveland.

Eyewitness accounts of this show were nothing short of ecstatic, as the reborn ‘Berries reportedly surpassed the highest of expectations.  The show included virtually every highlight from the group’s four albums, including selections from Starting Over (and an appropriate nod to Scott McCarl, who wasn’t invited to participate in the reunion, but was given on-stage props as Carmen sang a version of McCarl’s “Play On”).  They even did two Choir songs, and a few Beatles and Who covers.  The reunion gig was to be taped for a DVD release, and then...well, who knows?  



 

I Loved You; Well...Never Mind

Big Star’s Alex Chilton also appreciated The Raspberries’ efforts.  In a 1992 interview for Goldmine magazine, Chilton recalled the similarities between what the two groups hoped to accomplish:  “What really got me interested in rock ‘n’ roll was that period of time from 1964 to 1966 when The Beatles were really happening.  For me, around ‘67, things started going to hell, no more two-and-a-half minute pop tunes, now it was nine minutes of grunge and that was never my thing....

“So what we were doing in Big Star was like harkening back to the mid-‘60s.  We didn’t want to be a heavy metal band, we didn’t want to be a psychedelic group, we wanted to be a rock ‘n’ roll band like The Beatles, The Byrds, The Hollies.  When I heard The Raspberries was around the time of the second Big Star album.  I heard “Go All The Way” and thought, ‘This is really good.  This is the vein of music I wanted to make.’”

Chilton had first achieved prominence in the ‘60s as the lead singer of The Box Tops, who hit big with “The Letter,” “Cry Like A Baby” and “Soul Deep,” among others.  Following The Box Tops’ demise, Chilton knocked around New York City for a bit before finally returning home to Memphis.  In Memphis, he eventually hooked up with Chris Bell.

Bell and Chilton had known each other since well before The Box Tops, and Bell now invited Chilton to join his new group, Ice Water.  Ice Water, which consisted of guitarist Bell, drummer Jody Stephens and bassist Andy Hummel, were avowed disciples of British Invasion rock ‘n’ roll, and Chilton made an appropriate addition to the group.

Ice Water soon changed its name to Big Star, a name inspired by casual notice of a sign for a local supermarket.  Big Starís debut LP, # 1 Record, was released in 1972.  It was a brilliant record, loaded with unforgettable Bell-Chilton gems like “In The Street,” “Thirteen,” “Don’t Lie To Me,” “When My Baby’s Beside Me” and the chillingly uplifting “Ballad Of El Goodo.”  Fortune seemed sure to smile on the group; even the critics liked Big Star.

But the group’s hopes were quickly crushed.  Big Star’s label, Ardent, was distributed by Stax Records, the legendary Memphis soul label.  The once-mighty Stax was in a serious state of decline by this point, and Big Star’s record was poorly distributed.  With few people able to hear or buy the records, both the album itself and the attendant singles (“When My Baby’s Beside Me” and “Don’t Lie To Me”) failed to chart.

By now, Bell and Chilton were no longer getting along.  Bell, nearly shattered by the commercial failure of  # 1 Record, is said to have attempted suicide; this would not be his last such attempt.  Meanwhile, he and Chilton were at loggerheads over the group’s direction.  Big Star just wasn’t big enough for the both of them; Bell split at the end of 1972.

Chilton, Stephens and Hummel tried to keep Big Star going as a three-piece for a while, but even this aggregation soon imploded.  Chilton resumed his thus-far abortive pursuit of a solo career, and that probably would have been the end of the Big Star story.

It took just one gig to change all that.

John King is an unsung hero in the saga of Big Star.  A promo man for Ardent, King prevailed upon Chilton, Stephens and Hummel to reunite for a convention of rock writers that was to be held in Memphis.  The group agreed, and proceeded to just plain knock ‘em dead at the convention.  They even did a version of The Box Tops’ biggest hit, “The Letter,” as an encore.  By all accounts of the show, Big Star was a smash.

The enthusiastic response at the convention was sufficient to convince Big Star to give it one more try.  The band adjourned to Ardent to begin work on another album.  Chris Bell even returned briefly, but whatever work he may have contributed to the record will remain a matter of speculation (in the liner notes Chris Bell’s posthumous album I Am The Cosmos, his brother wrote that Bell worked on the songs “O My Soul,” “Way Out West” and “Back Of A Car” for Big Star’s second album; we’ll never know for sure).  Bell was gone again in the blink of an eye, and he would not allow his name to appear on the new Big Star album, Radio City.

With or without Bell, though, Radio City was a masterpiece, even better than # 1 Record.  From the opening bounce of “O My Soul” to the casual, understated “I’m In Love With A Girl” at its close, Radio City offered a beguiling barrage of instant classics.  And, even along such stellar tracks as “Way Out West,” “Mod Lang,” “Back Of A Car,” “You Get What You Deserve” and “Daisy Glaze,” one song stood out as Big Star’s defining moment:  “September Gurls.”

“September Gurls” was and is the sine qua non of power pop, a glorious, glittering jewel with every facet cut and shined to absolute perfection.  While The Raspberries’ “Go All The Way” provides a definitive encapsulation of what power pop is, “September Gurls” goes even further, not so much as the embodiment of a genre, but as a peerless, aching distillation of love and longing.  “September Gurls” may not actually be the greatest song ever recorded, but for the duration of its 2:47 running time, you can be forgiven for believing it is.

Yet, for all its brilliance, and for all its critical praise, Radio City failed to even dent the charts, and it sank without a trace.  Distribution woes were again the culprit, and Big Star’s hopes for popular success were forever dashed.

Andy Hummel left Big Star after Radio City, forsaking the music business entirely in favor of a career in engineering.  Chilton and Stephens recorded another album, Sister Lovers, with producer Jim Dickinson involved as a de facto addition to the group.  But Sister Lovers was not released, and Big Star quietly ceased to exist.

Chilton went on to his own erratic solo career, characterized early on by a debauched, sloppy haze.  He also played with Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, and became a fixture on the burgeoning indie scene in the late ‘70s.  Stephens ultimately became a staff member at Ardent Studios.

Meanwhile, Chris Bell had also attempted a solo career, and released one wonderful single, “I Am The Cosmos”/”You And Your Sister,” with the latter track even including a background vocal by Chilton.  Bell had recorded an album’s worth of tracks prior to his death in a car accident in 1978.  These tracks were eventually released by Rykodisc in 1992 as the I Am The Cosmos CD, an essential purchase for Big Star fans.

But the Big Star story did not end with the band’s demise.  Interest in the band grew posthumously, inspired by fans and writers who continued to speak fondly of the group, and by a new wave of bands consciously influenced by Big Star’s records.  In 1978, the independent PVC label exhumed the sessions of that unreleased Chilton-Stephens-Dickinson Big Star album, and issued part of those sessions as a Big Star album entitled Third.  Third was far darker than the previous two Big Star albums, but no less compelling.  Its mix of bitterness with sporadic flashes of pop delicacy added to the Big Star mystique.  (The complete album, plus bonus tracks, was eventually released by Rykodisc in 1992 as Third/Sister Lovers.)

Big Star’s influence has grown, and the list of artists who’ve acknowledged the group as a primary reference point is seemingly endless.  Critics’ darlings The Replacements recorded a fitting tribute song, “Alex Chilton,” which furthered Big Star’s cool cachet, and inspired Rolling Stone to name Big Star the missing link between The Beatles and The Replacements.  Some have gone so far as to name Big Star as one of the most influential bands ever, second only to The Beatles.  While that claim is a bit far-fetched, it illustrates how large the legend of Big Star has become.

Which made it all the more amazing when Big Star decided to come back.  If someone had just made this part of the story up, you’d swear he’d been watching too many feel-good Hollywood movies.

In early 1993, some students working at the college radio station in Columbia, Missouri were trying to think of an act to book for the University of Missouri’s upcoming Springfest.  Aware of the growing status of Big Star as an unassailably cool cult act, someone suggested attempting to book a Big Star reunion.

To the surprise of virtually everyone, both Chilton and Stephens agreed to be Big Star again for a day; Hummel could not be reached.  For the gig, Chilton and Stephens were augmented by Big Star acolytes Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer, the nucleus of the pop band The Posies.  The show itself (preserved for home consumption on the Columbia  CD) made headlines in the music press, fanning the flames of resurgent Big Star fever.  The ad hoc group stayed together for some tour dates, culminating in a 1994 appearance on TV’s The Tonight Show (playing “In The Street”).  Further confounding the expectations of every pundit you can imagine, the quartet has continued to make occasional live appearances as Big Star, and a new Big Star album is apparently nearing release as this is written.

Although Chilton himself has frequently appeared bemused and uncomfortable in reaction to all the attention lavished on his old group, the fairy tale resurrection of Big Star nonetheless opens a fascinating new chapter in this story.  There is comfort to be had just in knowing that an ever-growing base of new fans never travels far without a little Big Star.
  

Shake Some Action

While The Raspberries and Big Star were each seeking their own separate fortunes, a number of other lower-profile groups were also pursuing pure pop and power pop goals.  The Flamin’ Groovies, a San Francisco band who’d started in the mid-‘60s and later issued a few manic, Stones-influenced LPs (best exemplified by 1971’s Teenage Head), had transformed by 1976 into a group with an overt ‘60s Mod approach.  By this time, the Groovies seemed intent on creating their own style of pop, based on a mythic vision of The Beatles, Stones, Byrds and Beach Boys heading into the studio for a session with Phil Spector.

That approach came to fruition on The Flamin’ Groovies’ 1976 album Shake Some Action.  The title track was an incomparable blast of booming bass and apocalyptic atmosphere, all polished up pretty like an announcement of pop-rock Armageddon.  “You Tore Me Down” would have been worthy of The Searchers at their best, and “I Can't Hide” provided an exuberant close to a peerless album.

The Groovies’ pop moves were emblematic of larger forces at work.  As Big Deal’s Dave Wolin recalled, “I came out of record retail.  My boss kinda divided the world into two types of people, that you were either a Stones guy or a Beatles guy.  But then, you know, The Flamin’ Groovies went and crossed camps, [they] went from being kind of a Stones band to a Beatles band.  You know, the world’s never been the same.”

In a 1992 interview with Goldmine magazine, the Groovies’ Cyril Jordan noted that, “We’ve had fans that love Teenage Head and hate Shake Some Action.  And I’ve never understood that.  See, we have two levels of our music.  We have kind of Beatlesque levels, where there are lots of harmonies and the tunes are very melodic, and then occasionally we just kind of rock out, like on ‘Slow Death.’  That side of us is still there.”

Jordan also had no problem with “power pop” as a description of the Groovies’ music.  “I kind of dug that phrase,” he said.  “I thought it was appropriate because it was a little bit more oomphy than regular pop records.  I wanted to bring the balls back into pop, but I didnít want to kick out the melody.”

But, although Shake Some Action did manage a # 142 showing on the Billboard album charts, The Flamin’ Groovies never became more than a cult act.  Some critics dismissed them as mere revivalists, a notion Jordan was quick to dispute:  “You know, it’s amazing to me that any of this is looked upon as nostalgia or a revival.  The type of music that those guys made, whether it was the DC5 or The Beatles in the ‘60s, is the greatest stuff that’s ever come down the pike.  And it wasn’t just a contemporary period of music.  For me and George [Alexander, the Groovies’ bassist], this is timeless music.”

The Flamin’ Groovies cut two more fine albums in the ‘70s before returning to obscurity.  A version of the group resurfaced in 1992 for the Rock Juice album, but the Groovies have since disappeared yet again.  Cyril Jordan is now with a new band called Magic Christian, with an album completed in 2004.

 

           

Looking For The Magic

            Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Dwight Twilley Band did find commercial success with “I’m On Fire,” a terrific single that became a # 16 hit in 1975.  The Dwight Twilley Band was actually a duo, comprised of Twilley and partner Phil Seymour, usually accompanied by ace guitarist Bill Pitcock IV.  Fittingly, Twilley and Seymour first met while waiting on line at a local theater to see a revival screening of A Hard Day’s Night.  The group’s follow-up single, “You Were So Warm,” was perhaps even better than “Iím On Fire,” but it was a commercial stiff, and an equally-strong, shoulda-been-a-goddamn-hit track called “Shark” went paradoxically unreleased at the time.  By the time the group’s first album, Sincerely, was released in 1976, The Dwight Twilley Band had lost the momentum of “I’m On Fire.”

Seymour split from Twilley after 1977’s Twilley Don't Mind album.  Twilley went on to record several fine pop albums in the ‘80s, and returned in 1999 with a splendid record called Tulsa.  Seymour cut some demos with 20/20 (more about whom later) before embarking on a promising but brief solo career.  Seymour passed away from lymphoma in 1993.

(Twilley, eulogizing his former partner in the pages of Yellow Pills fanzine, simultaneously summed up some of the timeless appeal of the pop experience itself:  “I’ll never forget the cold November night at the Church Studios in Tulsa.  Phil and I had just signed our first recording contract.  We had been instructed by the record company to get acquainted with working in a ‘real’ 16-track studio and not attempt to record a ‘real’ record.  In the confusion of a pivotal moment, it was Phil who pulled me into a secluded hallway and said, ‘Dwight, let’s make a hit record right now.’  That night we recorded ‘I’m On Fire.’

“For me, the true magic was when we sang together.  It felt like it was, somehow, more than just two voices.  It was the kind of luxury I know I’ll never recapture.”)


 

Bubbling Under

While The Dwight Twilley Band had a Top 40 single and two charting albums, and The Flamin’ Groovies at least managed a showing on the album chart, many other fine pop acts couldn’t even claim that much on their resume.  For example take Fairfax, Virginia’s phenomenal pop combo Artful Dodger, whose members were rock ‘n’ roll heroes in Cleveland, and virtually unknown everywhere else.  But Artful Dodger was a terrific group, blessed with an irresistible sound that seemed like a cross between Badfinger and The Faces.  Artful Dodger’s eponymous 1975 debut LP is an undiscovered classic, loaded with superb tracks; the second album, 1976’s Honor Among Thieves, was just as good, and just as unsuccessful at retail.  There were but two more albums--the less interesting Babes On Broadway in 1977, and the return-to-form Rave On in 1980--and then Artful Dodger was history.

Youngstown, Ohio’s Blue Ash released a promising debut LP, No More, No Less, in 1973 (highlighted by the wonderful “Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)”), but followed that with 1977’s disappointing Front Page News.  Some of the group’s terrific demo tracks were collected and released in 2004 on a 2-CD set called Around...Again, courtesy of Not Lame Recordings.  Blue Ash guitarist Frank Secich would later re-cut an unreleased Blue Ash song called “A Million Miles Away” (not the Plimsouls tune) with former Dead Boys singer Stiv Bators.  Still later, Secich was in a pop group called Club Wow, a group that included Jimmy Zero from The Dead Boys and  Billy Sullivan, a singer-guitarist who also joined The Raspberries as an auxiliary member for that group’s 2004 reunion—man, this pop scene is incestuous!  Club Wow cut some very interesting demos--a Who-influenced tune called “Norman Green” was particularly compelling--but the group was unable to land a record deal.

Chicago’s Pezband denied comparisons to The Raspberries, but the similarities were always too obvious to ignore.  Not that Pezband was quite in The Raspberries’ league, but the group did release three albums of pleasantly Beatlesque pop, commencing with 1977’s Pezband.  While the debut album is a bit lightweight, things improved noticeably by the time of 1978’s Laughing In The Dark, which included the memorable tracks “Stop!  Wait A Minute” and “Love Goes Underground.”  And Pezband wasn’t ashamed of a pop label either, as a print ad for one of their albums promised “sparkling power pop,” and their first album carried a proud advisory to “File Under:  Pop Vocal.”

And there were still others:  Los Angeles’ The Quick (originally The Young Republicans), conceived by would-be Svengali Kim Fowley—it’s impossible to write a history of rock or pop music without eventually getting around to Kim Fowley--as a male counterpart to Fowley’s jailbait rockers The Runaways; The Quick had potential and some good songs, but the power of their pop was compromised by Danny Wilde's off-puttingly precious, Sparks-influenced lead vocals (though Wilde went on to better things later, as a solo artist and as a member of Great Buildings and The Rembrandts).  The Poppees, from New York City, were diverting but too slavish in their attempt to recreate 1965 Merseybeat; they released only a couple of singles.

(Though hardly a “bubbling under” artist, at least some passing mention should be made of Cheap Trick.  The Cheap Trick story is too large and sprawling to be fully contained within the confines of power pop, but certainly here was--and is--a group well capable of both melodic hooks and paint-peeling volume.  “Surrender” is an absolutely perfect power pop record, and power pop enthusiasts generally adore Cheap Trick’s first four albums, Cheap Trick (1977), In Color (1977), Heaven Tonight (1978) and Dream Police (1979), plus the breakout live album Cheap Trick At Budokan; some will also speak out on behalf of some of Cheap Trick’s ‘80s work, and I’ll happily chime in for the 1997 Cheap Trick album, a record far better than its current budget-bin ubiquity would indicate.  The group’s big-ballad success in the ‘80s with “The Flame” doesn’t obscure the fact that, at one time, Cheap Trick was simply one of the coolest bands on the planet.  On a good day, they still are.

The Greg Kihn Band also rates a mention here, as Kihn and company recorded several agreeable pop albums in the ‘70s for the independent Beserkley label (“Home Of The Hits!”).  Kihn scored a deserved airplay hit with a cover of Springsteen’s “For You,” but didn’t really hit big until the early '80s.)


 

           

Boy-Scout Pinups

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the above pop acts toiling away in relative obscurity, there were also some ‘70s teen idols making records that occasionally fit into this broad category of pure pop and power pop.  The Hudson Brothers, while perhaps not teen idols per se, did host a Saturday morning kiddie TV show while simultaneously cutting some nifty pop rock records.  1980s recording and TV star Rick Springfield also got his start in the ‘70s, both as a TV cartoon character (on the Saturday morning series Mission:  Magic) and as a recording artist.

But for our purposes, the big names in ‘70s teenybop pop were The Bay City Rollers and Shaun Cassidy.  Cassidy, star of TV’s The Hardy Boys and half-brother to The Partridge Family’s David Cassidy, deserves a mention here because of his hit covers of two Eric Carmen songs, “That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “Hey Deanie.”  At a time when Carmen himself seemed less interested in the raucous style he’d pioneered with The Raspberries, Cassidy’s vibrant versions of these songs served as a potent reminder of the pop mania Carmen had once embraced.  Cassidy even went so far as to declare to Newsweek magazine that “I’m not teenybop, I’m power pop...melodic!”

(Cassidy also served as the direct inspiration for one other teen-pop-meets-power-pop footnote, as Syracuse, NY’s own power pop powerhouse The Flashcubes later wrote a song called “Boy Scout Pinup,” telling the tale of a young girl fantasizing about her Shaun Cassidy poster coming to life...and she didn’t want him to be a boy scout, baby.)

The Bay City Rollers were genuine teen idols, Tartan-clad poster boys adored by adolescent girls everywhere.  They never made a great album, made only one unreservedly good album (1979’s Elevator, made with a different lead singer and a name shortened to just “The Rollers,” after the teen mania had passed; 1981’s Ricochet album had its moments, as well).  And they cut an awful lot of typical teen idol pap.  (To be fair, I have never heard the Voxx or Breakout albums from the ‘80s, so it’s impossible to comment on them here.)

For all that, The Bay City Rollers cut a surprising number of dynamic tracks, making a convincing case for the Rollers as pop savants.  Among the group’s U.S. hits, “Money Honey,” a cool cover of Dusty Springfield’s “I Only Want To Be With You,” the great Vanda-Young “Yesterday’s Hero” and the freakin’ incredible “Rock And Roll Love Letter” all offered pure, engaging pop with undeniable power; a smattering of key album tracks and B-sides—“Too Young To Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “Mama Li,” a simply awesome group original called “Wouldn’t You Like It”--offered further evidence that there was more to The Bay City Rollers than S! A! T-U-R!  D-A-Y! NIGHT!  And even “Saturday Night,” reviled by the hipper-than-thou, was a catchy distillation of the British glitterpop environment in which The Bay City Rollers emerged.  If “Rock And Roll Love Letter” and “Wouldn’t You Like It” can't be called power pop, then there ain’t no such thing as power pop.

In the teen idol category, one group that really should have been huge was The Rubinoos.  The Rubinoos truly had it all:  built-in teen appeal, unbridled pop aspirations and a big ol’ pile of great pop tunes.  Their two Beserkley LPs were loaded with potential chart fodder, most notably “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” an infectious blast of radio-ready teen romance worthy of The Raspberries.  Alas, The Rubinoos only managed one near-hit, a cover of Tommy James & The Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now” that hit # 45 in 1977.  Neither album charted at all.  Instead of being the teen idols they seemed predestined to become, The Rubinoos wound up beloved only by the power pop faithful.  They deserved better.  (The silver lining in this cloud is that The Rubinoos are still with us, and they’re still great.)

NEXT:  Punk Goes POP!

My Two Batmen, Part 3

Read about my first Batman here: http://carlcafarelli.blogspot.com/2016/02/my-two-batmen-part-1.html

 Read about my second Batman here:  http://carlcafarelli.blogspot.com/2016/02/my-two-batmen-part-2.html


When did Batman become such a dick?

My first Batman, the campy TV Batman of the 1960s, was played as a joke.  To counteract that image, my second Batman looked back to the character's pulp noir roots in the '30s and '40s, and became once again The Batman, a darker and grittier hero for the 1970s.  And this was fine by me.

I barely noticed as my hero grew even darker.  When I started buying comics again after graduating from college in 1980, I may have noticed that Batman had grown a bit...well, gruffer, for lack of a better description.  He was certainly more rude than he'd been previously; even as O'Neil and Adams, and Englehart and Rogers, had made the hero less square--and way more intimidating--he was still a hero.  Neither of my Batmen would have ever spoken unkindly to Robin, or Alfred, or Commissioner Gordon, or Superman.  They may have disagreed, even argued a point or two, but c'mon--Gordon was a friend, Superman was a best friend, and Robin and Alfred were family, for God's sake.

But times changed.  Darker!  Grittier!  Over the ensuing decades, I grew to detest that mantra in superhero comics.  I liked--loved--a lot of it at the time.  Frank Miller's Daredevil.  Alan Moore's Saga Of The Swamp Thing.  And later, Moore's Watchmen and Marvelman, and Miller's grim takes on The Batman, Batman:  Year One and The Dark Knight Returns.  Batman was taken seriously!  Rolling Stone magazine noticed.  By the time director Tim Burton's Batman triumphed at the box office in 1989, the whole country knew Batman wasn't camp anymore.

But still:  did he have to become such a dick?

When the Batman film franchise was revitalized with the release of Batman Begins in 2005, a critic for our local newspaper complained that director Christopher Nolan had forgotten that Batman was "supposed to have a sense of humor."  I loved the film, and thought the critic was just revealing her own gross misunderstanding of the character.  But I'm starting to see her point.

I didn't want Batman to be camp again; I still don't want that.  But I wish he could go back to being a good guy.  I wish writers and artists who buy into the stupid notion that Batman is as crazy as his foes could be physically restrained from ever again creating a Batman story.  Creators who think Batman's war on crime is so single-minded that he can't be bothered to treat his partners with a modicum of respect do not understand the Batman created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, the Batman chronicled by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers, or (initially) by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams.  (I say initially because, from the '80s on, O'Neil seemed to lose sight of the character's virtues as badly as anyone.)  These creators do not tell stories about my Batman.

And that's why I gave up on Batman comics.  Aside from my brief sabbatical from comics while in college, 2015 marked the first time since 1966 that I was no longer buying any Batman comics.  I still buy comics; I buy new superhero comics every week.  But they're mostly Marvels now, plus titles from some other publishers, and not many from DC Comics.  The Marvel Comics are more fun.

(Well, to be honest, I'm still buying one Batman-related series:  Batman '66, a new series set in the campy continuity of the old TV show.  As I write this, Batman '66's current incarnation is a crossover miniseries with Napolean Solo and Illya Kuryakin from The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and it's been a joy so far.)

As I've aged, I've come to recognize some of the great things about my campy first Batman.  First, even though the TV show's producers absolutely felt they were above their low-brow source material, their attention to detail was precise; the TV show exaggerated the silliness, but the silliness was indeed already there in those great, classic Batman comics stories of the'40s, '50s, and '60s.  And the main actors were invested in their roles--you'll never hear me say a bad thing about Adam West, ever.  I rejected Batman '66 as an adolescent; now, I embrace at least parts of it.

I haven't given up on my ideal Batman returning.  I loved Christian Bale's Batman movies, because there was still a human heart within the darkness and grittiness; I will see the forthcoming Batman v Superman film with an open mind, even though it's apparently beholden to the Frank Miller Batman that I once loved and now loathe.  (And Ben Affleck's gonna be terrific as Batman.)  I still watch the Gotham TV show, though it's gratuitously violent and manages to piss me off about as often as it engages me.

I'm 56.  I'm surely old enough to have given up belief in heroes by now.  Except that I don't ever intend to grow that old, to shed the sense of wonder of a six-year-old boy using a blanket as his cape, yelling "POW!" and "BIFF!" while crusading in my living room.  I'm not going to give up on the thrill of a Dark Knight protecting a defenseless city from superstitious, cowardly criminals that prey on unsuspecting citizens, a strange figure who seeks justice--not as an act of vengeance, nor as a manifestation of his own insanity, but as the noble fulfillment of a promise he made years ago before the graves of his murdered parents:  that no innocent should be made to suffer again.  I still believe in Batman.  I still believe in my Batman.

And my Batman's not a dick.

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT! The History Of Power Pop, Part 1

   

From the archives:  hey, it's one of my greatest hits!  The first version of my history of power pop was published in the January 5th, 1996 issue of Goldmine.  I re-used a bit of it in my liner notes to the Rhino Records CD compilation Poptopia!  Power Pop Classics Of The '90s.  And in 2005, I went back and re-worked the whole thing for John M. Borack's book Shake Some Action.  Although time has, I guess, not stood still since then, I've resisted any attempt to update the information.  Here's my complete original manuscript of the 2005 version.  

If you read a lot of rock writing, then you’ve no doubt run across the term power pop on several occasions.  The term may seem self-explanatory, but when it’s applied with blissful indifference to acts as diverse as The Knack, The Ramones, R.E.M., Def Leppard, Green Day, The Bay City Rollers and (Lord help us) Britney Spears, one can be forgiven for wondering what power pop really means.

If only the answer were that simple.

Like rock ‘n’ roll itself, power pop has come to mean many different things to different people.  Just as rock ‘n’ roll (or rock, if you must) is commonly used in reference to Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, KISS and Duran Duran, with little consensus among fans of the individual, contradicting styles, so too has the meaning of power pop been diluted over time.

 In strictest terms, power pop is literally pop music with power, catchy tunes with an attitude.  It refers to an energetic interpretation of pop rock, based in equal parts on melodic hooks and killer instinct.  It takes obvious inspiration from mid-1960s rock ‘n’ roll, especially from groups like The Beatles, The Kinks and the early Who.  From about 1977 onward, it has frequently absorbed a recognizable influence from the ragin’ rhythms of punk.

Power pop also incorporates an inherent innocence, its physical presence sometimes derived simply from the power of pure pop itself.  At the end of the day, power pop is best summed up in the words Phonograph Record Magazine once used to describe Big Star’s sublime “September Gurls”:  “Innocent, but deadly.”

Although it would be a mistake to get carried away with labels, power pop, pure pop and just plain pop are all very convenient catch-phrases for fans of melodic rock ‘n’ roll, and the cognoscenti know what it all means.  As contemporary, self-avowed pop artist Chris von Sneidern once put it, “When you look in Billboard and they talk about pop singles, they’re not talking about Raspberries or Chris von Sneidern, they’re talking about Whitney Houston or Atlantic Starr.  But actually what we’re talking about is pop music which started with the British Invasion and worked its way out.”

Who cares about power pop, anyway?  Well, while pure pop and power pop have rarely seemed poised to really capture the hearts and minds of the great unwashed, an informal but vocal pop underground has existed since at least the early ‘70s.  Ill-served by the vapid fare of AM Top 40 and the self-consciously hip drone of progressive FM, those disaffected by the heavy vibe of capital-R Rock as capital-A Art longed for a return to the engagingly simple charm of mid-‘60s pop.

This may have begun as mere nostalgia, but then someone got the bright idea of combining those halcyon pop hooks with contemporary power.  The resulting power pop sound garnered some hits and lots of worthy stiffs and near-misses.  Whether a hit or a miss with the mass audience, the sound and approach attracted its own rabid devotees.

This essay will examine the joint histories of both power pop and its more precious twin, pure pop (or pop-rock).  The two terms are often used interchangeably; if one wishes to be a stickler, pure pop generally refers to anything that draws on the tradition of the early Beatles or Hollies, and/or such jangly folk-rockers as The Byrds and The Beau Brummels; power pop, on the other hand, tends to be more aggressive, its parameters defined by the early work of The Kinks, The Who, The Easybeats and The Creation.  The distinctions blur easily.

Don’t worry too much about the labels, though; just imagine it’s 1965, or 1977, or even 2005, and the car radio is playing some new song that’s just got to be the greatest thing you’ve ever heard.  Feel free to get excited, and feel free to sing along and pound your fist on the steering wheel in whatever rhythmic fashion you can muster.  If it’s a tale of heartbreak, don’t be afraid to cry.  And if it’s a power pop celebration, then let the thrills go unabridged.  Either way, my friends, you gotta have pop.

Roots:  The Toppermost Of The Poppermost

Although the power pop story has its proper start in the early '70s, the story really begins circa 1964, with the commercial ascension of The Beatles in America.  The roots stretch back farther, of course--it would be ludicrous to claim that Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran, Little Richard, The Everly Brothers, The Beach Boys, Del Shannon and Phil Spector weren’t enormous influences on the development of power pop, as were early Motown, doo-wop, rockabilly and the power chords of Link Wray--but it’s plain to see that pop mania begins in frenzied earnest with John, Paul, George and Ringo.

The ripple effect, on both music and pop culture in general, of The Beatles’ appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and subsequent film debut in A Hard Day’s Night is beyond measurement.  Seemingly overnight, hair got longer, folkies went electric, and pop music became fab
.

When The Barracudas sang “I wish it could be 1965 again!” in the early ‘80s, they weren’t kidding.  For right or wrong, the mid-‘60s are still regarded by many as pop’s golden era, when unforgettable single sides by the likes of The Yardbirds, The Beau Brummels, The Four Tops, The Kinks, The Searchers, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, The Supremes and scads of other worthies crowded the Top 40 listings, co-existing happily within a single radio format (something unimaginable today, except on oldies stations playing those same songs).

Contrary to what that Rolling Stones song said, it was a case of the song, not the singer.  Pop radio was ruled by the hit single, defined in increments of two to three minutes.  An act was only as good as its latest record, so each record, each song, had to be perfect.

While The Beatles embodied the ideal of what a pop band could be, it was The Who that provided the working prototype for power pop, combining undeniably pop moves with a genuinely violent musical approach.  As writer Greg Shaw recalled in the pages of Bomp! magazine in 1977, “Any way you look at it, power pop began with The Who (The Easybeats started around the same time, but unfortunately we didn’t hear them until two years later...).  Their approach to songwriting was solidly pop--every song was short, catchy, hook-filled, built on bright, uplifting major chords, and they never shied away from those all-important ‘la la la’s.’  And behind it all, that explosive , violent, rebellious sound.  The Who in 1965 sounded a lot more dangerous than 90 percent of the  punk bands in 1977!”

(Though frequently slighted in rock history, the role of The Kinks in the creation of power pop should also be noted.  After all, The Who’s debut single “I Can’t Explain” was an obvious, though triumphant, attempt to ape The Kinks’ sound.  And The Kinks’ early singles—“You Really Got Me,” “All Day And All Of The Night,” “I Need You,” “Tired Of Waiting For You,” “Till The End Of The Day”--were short on neither pop nor power.  The Kinks soon went on to a different (though no less compelling) sound altogether, but they deserve some credit as innovators of the original power pop sound.

Another often-neglected early influence was--wait for it!--The Dave Clark Five.  Yeah, yeah, nobody takes this one seriously, but hear me out here.  The Tottenham sound of the DC5 was dismissed, then and now, as crassly commercial, gimmicky and artless, but the group’s best singles—“Glad All Over,” “Bits And Pieces,” “Do You Love Me,” “Any Way You Want It,” “Catch Us If You Can,” et al.--were loaded with meaty hooks and AM radio savvy, and they rocked like hell.  Sounds like a legitimate power pop prototype to me, mate.)

As the ‘60s wore on, however, the sun began to set on pop’s golden era.  Following the release of the Sgt. Pepper album in 1967, The Beatles went from being the Fab Four to being the spiritual statesmen of an emerging counterculture.  Set against the unsettling backdrop of racial strife, student unrest and an increasingly unpopular war in Southeast Asia, pure pop seemed to have become passe.  The audiences fragmented.  A schism developed between “serious” artists who came to eschew pop, and crassly commercial acts that embraced the ephemeral appeal of teenybop pop.

(An aside:  this risks over-simplifying the ‘60s, a decade that continues to resist all facile efforts to tidy its legacy.  But the palpable “Us vs. Them” vibe of this era  certainly did spill over into the realm of popular music; for example, even though the two acts briefly toured together in 1968, relatively few fans of the psychedelic guitar transcendence of The Jimi Hendrix Experience had any use for the prepackaged commercial product of The Monkees, while fans of The Monkees’ brilliant, beguiling pop craft literally booed Hendrix off the stage.  While one can now comfortably claim devotion to both Hendrix and The Monkees, The MC5 and The Archies, The Grateful Dead and The Jackson Five, that divide could not be bridged at the time.)

With the popular music landscape shifting, British Invasion-style pop went semi-underground.  That is, it surrendered its claim to the top of the pops, but continued to survive and thrive in the hearts and garages of young America.  Bands like Cleveland’s The Choir (mark that name for future reference; we’ll be coming back to them shortly) and Philadelphia’s The Nazz (featuring future wunderkind Todd Rundgren) kept the faith, albeit to little financial reward.

Which brings us to the 1970s.  The Beatles had broken up.  Although the group had certainly evolved far beyond the pop mania of “Please Please Me” and “She Loves You,” The Beatles had remained the sine qua non of pure pop music’s highest aspirations--artistic, commercial, what have you--and their demise was inevitably taken as symbolic of the void many fans found in the rock of the ‘70s.  For some, the music scene as a whole was becoming bloated and sterile, bereft of life or feeling.

As singer-songwriter Shane Faubert (of the 1980s garage-pop band The Cheepskates) recalled, “I grew up listening to singles.  Whether it was The Beatles, Turtles or Buck Owens, artists said what they needed to in two-and-a-half wonderful minutes, and then released you to the next song.  I never ‘progressed’ to the point where I could listen to one 15-minute song instead of listening to five or six mini-masterpieces by all sorts of people.”

Relief was on the way.

NEXT:  Relief! 

 

Ramones reviews

I  have no idea how many reviews I wrote when I was freelancing for Goldmine from 1986-2006.  But trust me:  I wrote a lot of them.  I still have the clippings in a very, very tall stack, but I didn't save digital copies.  So I was kinda surprised to come across this one on the ol' hard drive, reviewing Rhino's CD reissues of the first four Ramones albums:
 

THE RAMONES

Ramones

Rhino (R2 74306)

Leave Home

Rhino (R2 74307)

Rocket To Russia

Rhino (R2 74309)

Road To Ruin

Rhino (R2 74308)

One of the most important and invigorating bodies of work in '70s rock 'n' roll music finally gets its just due with these deluxe 'n' expanded reissues of the first four albums by New York's phenomenal pop-punk combo, The Ramones.  Previously reissued by Sire in the early '90s as a pair of two-on-one discs under the collective title All the Stuff (And More), the Rhino discs return the original, individual titles (with the original, distinctive artwork) to retail shelves, bolstered by a generous helping of bonus tracks, and with improved sound quality that provides the sheer sonic force a proper Blitzkrieg Bop requires.  Hey ho, let's go!

The Ramones' legacy was largely (some say entirely) built upon the foundation of these first four albums.  The 1976 debut remains a stunning, piledriving pop experience, presaged to some degree by The Stooges, The New York Dolls, and The Dictators, but utterly new and unexpected in its street-savvy amalgamation of hard rock and AM radio-bred bubblegum.  Listening to it the first time felt as if you'd just been mugged by The Banana Splits.  Punk rock begins with the release of Ramones, regardless of whatever other primordial events were simultaneously occurring to shape punk's development; ultimately, it all starts here.

And it's still a terrific record, an exuberant exercise in loud-fast rock 'n' roll music, The Beach Boys on speed.  The Ramones' '60s pop roots are immediately evident in the album's lone cover, of the Chris Montez hit "Let's Dance," but the group's innate pop sensibilities are, perhaps incongruously, equally evident in the grooves of such twisted originals as "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" and "Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World."  Weird lyrics about Texas chainsaw massacrees and beating on the brat with a baseball bat could never hide the fact The Ramones were always proudly, defiantly, a pop band.  Dee Dee Ramone has claimed that The Bay City Rollers wanted to cover "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend;" while the claim itself is suspect, it's not all that preposterous a match to consider.  And "Blitzkrieg Bop," perhaps The Ramones' signature tune, was itself inspired by The Bay City Rollers, its "Hey Ho, Let's Go!" chant derived from The Rollers' own "S!  A!  T-U-R!  D-A-Y!  Night!"

Bonus tracks on Ramones include the Marty Thau-produced demos of "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" and "Judy Is A Punk" (previously released as an archival single by Norton Records), previously-unissued demos of "I Don't Care," "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," and "You Should Never Have Opened That Door," demos of "I Can't Be" and "I Don't Wanna Be Learned/I Don't Wanna Be Tamed" (previously available on All The Stuff (And More), Vol. One) and the single version of "Blitzkrieg Bop."  Bonus tracks and all, the CD offers 22 tracks, totaling just over 45 minutes.  Does that seem short?  It's a freaking bargain, friends, and one of the most exciting debut albums in rock 'n' roll history.

1977's Leave Home refines The Ramones' approach without diluting it.  It includes the group's first out-and-out bubblegum pop song ("Oh Oh I Love Her So"), another definitive cover of a '60s AM radio staple (of The Rivieras' "California Sun"), at least one classic, forgotten shoulda-been-a-hit-single ("Swallow My Pride"), and a bunch of punky misfit tales of woe and/or glee, including "Glad To See You Go," "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment," and "Pinhead," the latter providing The Ramones with their concert-closing "Gabba Gabba Hey!" catchphrase. 

The reissue returns the wonderful Carbona Not Glue" to its rightful place on Leave Home.  The song was included on the earliest pressings of the album, but soon removed in response to threats of legal action from the manufacturers of Carbona Spot Remover--good to have it back where it belongs!  Rhino has also included the sublime "Babysitter," one of The Ramones' best-ever power pop tunes, originally issued on the U.K. version of Leave Home, and subsequently used as the non-LP B-side of the U.S. "Do You Wanna Dance" single in '78.

You want bonus tracks?  Hey, howzabout a whole Ramones concert?  Specifically, the reissue of Leave Home bolsters its original 14 tracks (15 with "Babysitter") with a complete, previously-unreleased Ramones live show from 1976, at the Roxy in Hollywood.  Although there has certainly been no shortage of live Ramones material on the market, this 16-song set dates from when the group was at the peak of its live rock 'n' roll prowess, and it rivals the incredible It's Alive! album as an invigorating document of a time when The Ramones were simply the most thrilling live band on the planet.

(Side-question:  wonder if we'll ever get a DVD release of The Ramones' live appearances on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and Musikladen, two simply nonpareil rock-on-TV experiences just dyin' to be preserved for da fans?)

Also released in 1977, Rocket To Russia is the apotheosis of Ramonedom, and one of the greatest rock 'n' roll records ever made by anybody at any time.  Here, The Ramones' pop-punk aspirations come to their fullest possible fruition, creating an irresistible, full-tilt thrill ride.  From the opening chords of "Cretin Hop" through the fatalist bubblegum of "Why Is It Always This Way," Rocket To Russia never offers anything that is less than sublime rockin' pop perfection.  The singles--"Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," "Rockaway Beach," and a friggin' incredible cover of the Bobby Freeman/Beach Boys(/Bette Midler) hit "Do You Wanna Dance"--distill all of The Ramones' AM radio influences into compact jolts of everything you've ever loved about pure, visceral rock 'n' roll, meant to be played far too loud in a car that's going way too fast
. 

With the hit singles as linchpins (and they were hit singles, by divine right, their relative lack of sales success and radio airplay notwithstanding), the album delivers track after track of confident, accomplished music.  The frequently-downbeat lyrics are delivered with keen wit, deadpan humor and, most importantly, the palpable sense that the music itself is of sufficient power to render all objections irrelevant, to make all opposing forces obsolete.  "My future's bleak," Joey Ramone sings.  "Ain't it neat?"

Bonus tracks here include a genuine treat:  a previously-unreleased version of The Searchers' "Needles & Pins," a song which the group re-cut for their next album, Road To Ruin.  This earlier version, cut with original drummer Tommy Ramone, is a revelation, a folk-punk delight that is far more sprightly and compelling than the comparatively leaden version on Road To Ruin.  Other bonus tracks include "Slug" (a demo previously released on All The Stuff (And More), Volume Two) and single versions of "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," "I Don't Care," and "It's A Long Way Back To Germany."  The latter was originally a U.K. B-side, and makes its U.S. debut here.

Inevitably, 1978's Road To Ruin is something of a let-down.  Not that it's a bad album--it is, in fact, quite a good album--but it's certainly not as confident or as consistent a triumph as Rocket To Russia.  The between-albums departure of Tommy Ramone is a factor; while his replacement, Marky Ramone (nee Marc Bell, formerly of Dust and Richard Hell & The VoidOids), is a better drummer and would soon become an integral part of The Ramones, Tommy's lighter, minimalist touch contrasts sharply with the overall heaviness of Marky's percussive assault.  That by itself gives Road To A Ruin a sound that is dramatically different from the bubblepunk of the first three albums.

Still, Road To Ruin is not lacking its great moments, commencing from the get-go with the swaggering "I Just Want To Have Something To Do" and including "I Wanna Be Sedated," the way-fab interpolation of an exhausted Ohio Express re-writing Alice Cooper's "Elected" as a brain-fried tour itinerary.  Even the much-maligned "country" tunes, "Don't Come Close and "Questioningly," succeed as pure pop tunes, the latter a downbeat ballad and the former as bubblegummy as anything in the Joey Levine canon (and neither, incidentally, even remotely a true country song).  Much of the rest of the album succumbs to a banal sameness, an unfortunate case of sacrificing pop-punk smarts for mere force, empty heaviness.  A lot of subsequent Ramones albums would suffer the same fate. 

Bonus tracks on Road To Ruin are mostly familiar:  the Ed Stasium mixes of "Rock 'n Roll High School" and "I Want You Around" (from the Hey Ho, Let's Go!), the live medley from Rock 'n' Roll High School, and the "Yea, Yea" demo from All The Stuff (And More), Volume Two.  A demo of a song called "Come Back, She Cried [aka I Walk Out]" is previously unreleased.

2016 POSTSCRIPT:  I like Road To Ruin a lot more now than I did then.

THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO # 812

Hello again from Dana & Carl, your kindly yet irascible hosts at THIS IS ROCK ‘N’ ROLL RADIO. Sweet, but sassy. While much of the country was getting its kicks with the Panthers and the Broncos, we’re started off by getting our kicks with the Raiders--PAUL REVERE & THE RAIDERS--and the commenced another tutorial in how to slap together The Best Three Hours Of Radio On The Whole Friggin’ Planet! Listen, our third-down conversion rate is PHENOMENAL. This is what rock ‘n’ roll radio sounded like on a super Sunday in Syracuse this week.

THIS IS ROCK ‘N’ ROLL RADIO with Dana & Carl streams live every Sunday night from 9 to Midnight, exclusively at www.westcottradio.org

Hey, Carl’s got a blog! And I crave attention, so visit awready: carlcafarelli.blogspot.com

TIRnRR # 812: 2/7/16

THE RAMONES: Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio? (Rhino, End Of The Century)

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PAUL REVERE & THE RAIDERS: Kicks (Sundazed, Midnight Ride)

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Girls In Their Summer Clothes (Columbia, Magic)

THE EVERLY BROTHERS: Gone, Gone, Gone (Warner Brothers, Walk Right Back)

THE BEATLES: All My Loving (Apple, Anthology 1)

EARTH, WIND & FIRE: That’s The Way Of The World (Columbia, The Eternal Dance)

JAMES BROWN: Cold Sweat [false start] (Oxford American, VA: Southern Music Issue No. 17)

SANDY GAYE: Watch The Dog Bring That Bone (Oxford American, VA: Southern Music Issue No. 17)

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SUZI QUATRO: Tear Me Apart (EMI, The Essential Suzi Quatro)

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: I Only Want To Be With You (Mercury, The Very Best Of Dusty Springfield)

JELLYFISH: Joining A Fan Club (Charisma, Spilt Music)

THE BEATLES: Till There Was You (Apple, Anthology 1)

THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: I Only Want To Be With You (Arista, The Definitive Collection)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: Volunteers (RCA, The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane)

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HELIUM ANGEL: Georgie (Pilot Error, Early Clue To The New Direction)

BIG STAR: September Gurls (Big Beat, VA: Thank You, Friends)

SCOTT McCARL: In Love Without A Girl (Titan!, Play On...)

THE BEATLES: She Loves You (Apple, Anthology 1)

THE SPONGETONES: Are You Gonna, Do You Need To (Love Me) (Black Vinyl, Oh Yeah!)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: Come Up The Years (RCA, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off)

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TERRY DRAPER: Younger Girl Flower Girl (Magentalane, Searching)

THE BEACH BOYS: I Should Have Known Better (Capitol, Beach Boys Party! Uncovered And Unplugged)

BADFINGER: I’ll Be The One (Apple, No Dice)

THE BEATLES: I Saw Her Standing There (Apple, Anthology 1)

TAMMY & THE LORDS OF MISRULE: Angelina (Her Highness Porcupinus, King Maker)

THE SHOCKING BLUE: Send Me A Postcard (Repertoire, 20 Greatest Hits)

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THE MONKEES: Sometime In The Morning (Rhino, More Of The Monkees)

DAVID BOWIE: Life On Mars? [2003 Ken Scott mix] (Columbia, Nothing Has Changed)

MARY LOU LORD: Aim Low (Kill Rock Stars, Mary Lou Lord/Sean Na Na)

THE BEATLES: I Want To Hold Your Hand (Apple, Anthology 1)

CHARLIE RICH WITH THE GENE LOWERY CHORUS: Lonely Weekends (Rhino, VA: The Sun Story)

CHUCK BERRY: Liverpool Drive (MCA, St. Louis To Liverpool)

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DAVE DEE, DOZY, BEAKY, MICK & TICH: Hold Tight (Repertoire, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)

MAMA ROSIN (FEATURING MICK COLLINS & MATT VERTA-RAY): Please Mr. Postman (MOJO, VA: We’re With The Beatles)

ABBA: So Long (Polydor, More Greatest Hits)

THE VIEW: Roll Over Beethoven (MOJO, VA: We’re With The Beatles)

EARTH, WIND & FIRE: September (Columbia, The Eternal Dance)

SARA LOWES: Hold Me Tight (MOJO, VA: We’re With The Beatles)

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THE FLASHCUBES: Baby Blue (Air Mail, A Cellarful Of Boys)

THE KINKS: Better Days (Velvel, Give The People What They Want)

THE GO-GO’S: La La Land (Beyond, God Bless The Go-Go’s)

NOUVELLE VAGUE [FEATURING JULIE DELPY]: LaLaLa (Dynamo, VA: 2 Days In Paris OST)

THE DAVE CLARK FIVE: Glad All Over (Hollywood, The History Of The Dave Clark Five)

PINK FLOYD: Arnold Layne (Capitol, Echoes)

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COCKTAIL SLIPPERS: St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (Wicked Cool, Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre)

THE PRETENDERS: Cuban Slide (Sire, Pretenders)

ONE LIKE SON: The Day You Walk Away (https://onelikeson.bandcamp.com/, Ugly)

JEFFERSON STARSHIP: Miracles [single version] (RCA, Red Octopus)

THE DONNAS: Living After Midnight (Lookout!, Turn 21)

THE 101’ERS: Keys To Your Heart (MOJO, VA: Pretty Vacant)

THE BOOMTOWN RATS: Looking After No. 1 (Universal, Best Of The Boomtown Rats)

PINK FAIRIES: Do It (MOJO, VA: Pretty Vacant)

THE IDES OF MARCH: Roller Coaster (Sundazed, Ideology)

THE WHO: La-La-La Lies (MCA, My Generation)

THE RAMONES: Sheena Is A Punk Rocker (Rhino, Rocket To Russia)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: Wild Tyme [H] (RCA, After Bathing At Baxter’s)

THE CROSSFIRES: Fiberglass Jungle (Ace, VA; The Birth Of Surf)

Tonight on THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO

Tonight on This Is THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO: okay, I know we've got some pretty serious competition on TV tonight. But if you're looking for a rock 'n' roll alternative to the big game, we're your go-to pop geeks. I have very little idea of what we'll be playing, but I can already tell it's gonna be incredible, especially at high volume. Is our pass too forward? Touch down with US! Sunday night, 9 to Midnight Eastern, www.westcottradio.org

My Two Batmen, Part 2

 

Read about my first Batman here:  http://carlcafarelli.blogspot.com/2016/02/my-two-batmen-part-1.html

After the campy Batman TV series was cancelled in 1968, sales of DC Comics' Batman titles plummeted.  To save Batman, to redeem the character from the joke of his cathrode-ray caricature, he would need to return to his pulp roots.  He had to become, once again, a dark and terrible creature of the night, striking fear into the hearts of superstitious and cowardly criminals.

 He had to become a bat.  Or rather, he had to become The Batman!

In the aftermath of mid-'60s Batmania, there was little or no grand plan at National Periodical Publications (aka DC Comics) to make Batman exciting again.  Even at the height of the TV show's popularity, the comic books rarely succumbed to the sillier aspects of the show; even before camp receded, editor Julie Schwartz had already eased up a bit on some of the flashier elements that had migrated from the tube to the comics pages, nixing Robin's "Holy Tombstone!" exclamations, and scaling back the colorful sound effects graphics.  But the damage was done.  Attempts to return to a pre-1966 status quo were done in by the sheer efficiency with which the TV show had highlighted the absurdities of Batman and his milieu.  Even when Batman wasn't trying to be camp, Batman stories now seemed unintentionally corny, square, old hat.  Worse:  Batman was boring.

Man, was that about to change!

An artist named Neal Adams had come to DC with a background in advertising and newspaper comic strips.  There isn't space here to detail Adams' accomplishments as a comic book artist; suffice it to say that it is not even the slightest exaggeration to say that Neal Adams revolutionized the look of superhero comic books from the late '60s on.  Adams' realistic style was vibrant, exciting, irresistible.  And Neal Adams wanted to draw Batman.

Editor Julie Schwartz told Adams to go away and stop bothering him.  

But Adams, then and now, was not shy about getting his way.  If Schwartz wouldn't allow Adams to work on the main Batman titles (Batman and Detective Comics), then Adams would go to another DC editor, Murray Boltinoff, who was in charge of the Batman team-up comic book The Brave And The Bold.  In the pages of The Brave And The Bold, veteran writer Bob Haney was plugging along in his own world, teaming Batman with a wide array of other DC characters, blithely unconcerned with what was going on in any other Batman book.  Haney's scripts and dialogue could often be sillier than anything found in other Bat-stories, but Haney always seemed committed to whatever outlandish tale he told.  Neal Adams began illustrating Haney's B & B stories, beginning with The Brave And The Bold # 79, cover-dated August-September 1968, the first meeting between Batman and Deadman, a character that Adams had been drawing in the pages of DC's Strange Adventures.

It was freaking awesome.

In those days at DC Comics, writers and artists rarely had any contact, and shared no real collaboration on their stories.  The writer turned in a script to the editor, and moved on to his next assignment.  The editor gave that script to a penciller, who would follow the script and turn it into comic book pages, usually to be inked by another artist.  So one presumes that Haney wasn't suddenly so jazzed at working with Adams that he pulled out all of the stops to make his script a classic.  It's hard to tell objectively if it really was intrinsically better than the Haney scripts that preceded it (though it was a great improvement over the previous issue, where Wonder Woman and Batgirl fell in love with the Caped Crusader and...I don't even want to talk about it...!).  

But Neal Adams' depiction of Batman in that issue?  It was as different from recent depictions of the characters as day and night.  Literally!  Because the familiar costumed crimefighter, good ol' Batman, was now being shown only in night scenes, draped in shadows, blanketed in dark, moody tones. Everything seemed more alive, more real...but Batman, in particular, suddenly seemed like a creature of twilight, a midnight avenger, a scourge of crime sent to Gotham from Hell itself.

Cool.

As Neal Adams continued to illustrate Batman and his various guest-stars in The Brave And The Bold, Julie Schwartz took note of letters coming into the DC offices, clamoring for more of the "real" Batman they'd seen in The Brave And The Bold.  Schwartz was no dummy.  Adams would be working for him from then on.

From this unlikely starting point, Batman was revitalized.  Schwartz turned to writer Dennis O'Neil to become his main Batman scribe, while still retaining the services of writer Frank Robbins, as well.  O'Neil and Adams concentrated on returning Batman to his original image as a dark knight, symbolized in part by referring to the character as The Batman, returning the original billing unused since the early 1940s.  An earlier story by Frank Robbins had already split up the Dynamic Duo, as Dick (Robin) Grayson left stately Wayne Manor to attend college.  Flamboyant criminals, which had been a hallmark of Batman since the beginning, were now eschewed as being too reminiscent of the super criminals with whom Adam West and Burt Ward had wrestled on TV.  (The only exception was Two-Face, a classic Batman villain who had not appeared anywhere since the '50s, until he was revived in stirring fashion by Adams and O'Neil.)   O'Neil created Ra's al Ghul, a new adversary that has become as integral a part of the Batman mythos as any villain this side of The Joker; Ra's al Ghul's daughter Talia, a morally ambiguous femme fatale in love with The Batman, added spice to the storyline (and was incomparably sexy as drawn by Adams).  O'Neil and Adams, along with inker Dick Giordano (and also with artist Irv Novick, who pencilled the stories the meticulous Adams didn't have time to do), had taken Batman from the banal shenanigans of the '60s to becoming one of the most compelling superhero comics of the early '70s.  When O'Neil and Adams brought back The Joker in Batman # 251 (September 1973), the formerly buffoonish Clown Prince Of Crime was once again the vicious, cold-hearted killer he'd been when first introduced in 1940's Batman # 1.

To all intents and purposes, Neal Adams left Batman in the mid-'70s, but his mission was accomplished:  he'd wanted to re-establish The Batman, The Dark Knight, and he and Denny O'Neil had certainly done that.  O'Neil did quite a bit more Batman work over the ensuing years, and eventually became editor.  A writer named Steve Englehart, who'd been successful at Marvel Comics, decided to leave the comics business, but wanted to write one year of Batman stories (in Detective Comics # 469-476, May 1977 through March-April 1978) before retiring from the industry.  Englehart's Batman stories became my all-time favorite run on the character, mixing in everything that had ever made Batman great, from the '30s through O'Neil and Adams, and spinning a tale that actually made me quit comics for a while; seriously, after Englehart's Batman stories, everything else I read seemed an empty disappointment to me.  After two stories pencilled by Walt Simonson, the remainder of Englehart's run was pencilled by Marshall Rogers, who combined a hint of Adams' realism with a stylized approach that also drew inspiration from Batman artists of the '40s and early '50s (from the great Dick Sprang, in particular), all inked by Terry Austin.  Rogers, in fact, remains my all-time favorite Batman artist; believe me, dethroning Neal Adams wasn't easy!

  Adams.  O'Neil.  Giordano.  Novick.  Englehart.  Rogers.  Austin.  There were others (like Jim Aparo, who wound up becoming the definitive Brave & Bold artist), many others, who contributed to this long, successful effort to rehabilitate Batman's image.  In the mid-'80s, writer/artist Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns grabbed mainstream headlines for its gritty depiction of an aging Batman coming out of retirement to save Gotham one more time.  1989's Batman movie, starring Michael Keaton, washed away the camp image of Batman '66, and brought the Dark Knight to the consciousness of the mass market.  Much later, director Christopher Nolan's own Dark Knight film trilogy would further cement this more serious image of Batman within the public consciousness.

But.

Have we gone too far?

Stay tuned for the third and concluding installment of My Two Batmen.