It's the End of the 70s....

Apparently, Los Angeles can convict celebrities of murder.

But only if it's been more than 30 years since they were famous (which explains O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake).

Spector, who dubbed himself the "first teenage millionaire" and invented the "Wall of Sound" with dozens of instruments dubbed down to mono tracks, produced amazing hits for the Ronnettes, Ike and Tina Turner, and others. In a Freudian slip that speaks volumes, he also famously claimed that the title "To Know Him is to Love Him" came from his own tombstone (realizing what he'd said, he said he meant his father's tombstone).

Spector is also the producer brought in by John Lennon to salvage the Let it Be project, which he did by overdubbing strings and pissing off Paul McCartney.

After a bunch of high-profile production work for Lennon and George Harrison in the 1970s, Spector was brought in to produce End of the Century for the Ramones -- an idea that was just crazy enough to work (although, in the end, it didn't).

Over the past 30 years, there have been widespread reports of incidents involving Spector pulling guns on various musicians. So when he was accused of shooting a woman in 2003, many people wondered why it had taken so long for someone to die because of one of Spector's guns. And sadly, he's better known in the past 20 years for his bizarre hairpieces than for anything musical.

It's the end, the end of the 70s
It's the end, the end of the century...

(Link for Gmail subscribers)

No Place Like Utopia

I was a big fan of Utopia.

Not the three-keyboardist prog period. And not the heavy metal period. But the brief New Wave/Power Pop period (which lasted from about 1980 to 1982).

A couple days ago, I heard "Set Me Free" by Utopia on XM Radio. It was like running into an old lover years after the passion had cooled. You can see things more objectively (the good and the bad) and hopefully you leave the encounter with some good feelings (and not still be crazy after all these years).

Adventures in Utopia was all over hipper radio stations in 1980, with its mixture of anthemic space ditties and straightforward pop-rock. Flush with cash from some afterschool job I can't remember, I bought the album new instead of hunting down a used copy.

The band was always seen as a Todd Rundgren side project (and most of its fans were Todd-heads), but it's secret weapon was always Kasim Sulton, who sang the band's one real hit "Set Me Free" (which barely crept into the Top 40 in 1980).


Utopia's next album Deface the Music was a collection of Beatle soundalike songs that sounded exactly like what might have happened if Todd Rundgren had joined the Rutles. In a masterstroke of shitty timing, the album came out just before John Lennon was killed. And suddenly the idea of clever fake Beatle songs seemed much less appealing (especially when compared to real Beatle songs people already knew and loved). I saw them at a club in Hartford touring behind this album; the show was half-full, but the concert was amazing. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


For the next few years, Rundgren alternated solo albums and Utopia albums with Utopia never quite breaking through and usually playing second fiddle to whatever directions or passions were important to Rundgren. Ironically, Todd's solo albums proved much more popular than Utopia records just as Utopia was finally developing a signature sound and group identity that wasn't based on Rundgren. But Utopia never regained the momentum they had in 1980 and each successive album was less successful (artistically and commercially).

Swing to the Right, a concept album that grew out of Reagan's election, failed to catch fire with audiences. Utopia was more notable for being a three-sided album than for the music itself (it came on two vinyl records, but the second record had side 3 on each side). The ironically named Oblivion sunk like a stone (perhaps because it traded the Utopia sound for a generic arena-rock sound that sounded like Asia on a bad day). I bought all these records; like a gambler on a losing streak, I figured my luck had to change (and the few good songs on each album kept my hope alive like an occasional winning hand). By 1986, they'd faded away which ultimately may have been a good thing (but it left me feeling like I was at a casino that closed just when I'd deluded myself into thinking my luck had changed).

Ironically enough, after college, I lived down the block from a club called Johnny D's; I always wondered about the place but never went inside. And then tonight, I found this video of Kasim Sulton singing "Libertine" at Johnny D's in 2008 and it sounds as good as it did back in the day.

Smells Like Teen Ukulele Spirit

I never really understood why people worshipped Nirvana.

Maybe eight ukuleles and tuxedos would help.


Or a swing arrangement by the "Havin' My Baby" guy (link for Gmail subscribers):


Or a banjo version from Patti Smith and Sam Shepherd:

Just Like Moses Malone

Squint your eyes, tilt your head, and she's a superstar.

In an alternate universe, Karla DeVito is a superstar.

You may remember her from the video of Meat Loaf's "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" (although it was Ellen Foley who actually sang on the song). Or from her song "We Are Not Alone" from The Breakfast Club.

But whenever I think of Karla DeVito, I think of her goofy and amazing debut album Is This a Cool World... Or What?, which came with a poster that had doodles, photos from her childhood, and handwritten lyrics. And the music was pretty great, Cyndi Lauder-esque goofiness, great pop musicianship from players like Anton Fig, Paul Shafer, and G.E. Smith, and powerful vocals that sounded like the love child of Kate Bush and Linda Ronstadt delivering a message from God. The album had a goofy song about a female pirate (perhaps explaining Broadway appearances to come) and some great covers (CCR's "Almost Saturday Night," the Grass Roots' "Midnight Confessions").

And then there's the title song. Which celebrates the coolness of modernity (circa 1981): French sunglasses, call-waiting, and a "house for my mother, just like Moses Malone." And she even dresses like a hippy chick, a Bobby Soxer, Alice in Wonderland, and a sad clown in the video. I dare you not to like it. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Karla DeVito might easily have become the Queen of MTV, but instead she followed Linda Ronstadt onto Broadway for a revival of The Pirates of Penzance. To capitalize, Budweiser made a commercial with DeVito singing a version of "Cool World" mashed up with the then-current Bud jingle (link for Gmail subscribers):


A year later, DeVito married Robbie Benson (her Pirates co-star) and had two kids. She recorded a second album in 1986, but the songs weren't quite as sharp and Bob Ezrin's slick, synth-heavy production bludgeoned all the humor out of the record (which never made it to CD).

The other day, I dragged my vinyl copy of Cool World out of storage. The poster is frayed, the cover is worn, the price tag is partially shredded (but hanging in there). But the music is still amazing -- a goofy, fun artifact from the alternate universe and coolest of all possible worlds, just before Karla DeVito became the Queen of MTV.

Just like Moses Malone.

Si, Si, You're A Rock Star... Now Shut Up

Back in the day, dinosaurs walked the earth with humans, made crappy solo albums, and lived in mansions.

It's hard to remember now, more than 35 years past their last great album (and more than 40 years past their prime), that the Rolling Stones once were important -- even if that importance has been eclipsed by Altamont, the death of Brian Jones, Keith's drug arrest and blood transfusions, and Mick's sexual escapades.

Long before the drunken excesses of the Studio 54 period (captured in a rare moment of honesty that resulted in a lesser-hits anthology called Sucking in the 70s), the Stones made gritty, visceral music. They were punks long before the Ramones and the Sex Pistols recast them as the lumbering dinosaurs that needed to be vanquished before rock could rise again.

When they were young and hungry, the Stones were lean and mean. Years of success and sub-par shows made them heavier, slower, and a lot less interesting. Years of living in wild excess in France and pasting records together with individual players in studios on different continents snuffed out the spark in their music. And the need to trot out bigger and more bloated tours every few years just made things worse. When Bill Wyman walked away from the Stones in the early 90s, he said the music had become stale and boring; perhaps it just took him 15 years to notice.

Meanwhile, for more than 20 years, I'd read and heard about a 1981 Bill Wyman single (that became a fluke hit in a bunch of European countries) called "Si, Si, Je Suis Un Rock Star." But I never saw the record and never heard it on the radio. Based on what I'd read (and the fact that Bill Wyman was in the Rolling Fucking Stones and played bass on a handful of the greatest songs in history not to mention being namechecked on a great song by the Smithereens), my expectations were pretty high (although clearly not high enough to actively seek out the record).

So now today I read a column by Paul Resnikoff of the Digital Music News about the Death of the Rock Star, which notes that a fragmented media landscape make it impossible to create any more of the "mega-bands of old, on the order of Guns N' Roses, Kiss, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, or Black Sabbath." Maybe it's just me, but I assume this post has a typo and mentally substitute "the Rolling Stones" for "Guns N' Roses."

Which got me wondering about Bill Wyman again. So I went and found his song on YouTube and -- literally 10 minutes ago -- listened to it for the first time.

Holy shit.

No one's faulting Bill Wyman for not being a great singer, but you'd think that he at least would have access to better songs, arrangements, and players. At the very least, you'd expect it to be better than any random song you could hear from an amateur band on MySpace. But it's so much worse than that. To call this song bad is an insult to the very idea of badness (and not in a good way). (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


If this is what it means to be a rock star, maybe we're better off without them. Maybe the world doesn't need anymore mediocre songs and crappy videos that brag in bad French accents about scoring with Brazilian models.

So, even if his tongue was firmly in cheek: Yeah, Bill, you're a rock star. Now please shut up.

Todd, Tums, and TV

It's important to meeeeeee.... that you know it gives you quick-acting, long-lasting relief.

I'm not opposed to pop songs in commercials. Sometimes they work well. The Fiest song from the iPod nano commercials a few years back was great. Using "Revolution" in that Nike ad was surprising (but at least the ad was for Nikes and not Odor Eaters). And the Volkswagon ad with Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" was moody and atmospheric -- like the song.

On one level, those ads all represent a certain selling out of the Baby Boomer ideals and memories of music. But at least, it's a selling out to something that's cool.

And then there's Todd Rundgren, whose "Todd is Godd" days are clearly way behind him. Because every time I see the new ad for Tums, I wonder what the hell happened. Having him sub for Ric Ocasek in the New Cars (reportedly for the money) was harmless enough, but does he really need to sell his best-known song as comic relief for an over-the-counter heartburn medicine? And couldn't he have gotten more money if he'd held out for the Herpes drugs (which at least reflect rock-'n'-roll behavior as opposed to a guy staring longingly at a plate of meatballs)?


Sure, Pete Townsend's probably given up on hoping he dies before he gets old, but at least when he sells out, the ads are cool.


Or is this just the first shot in the war on aging baby boomers that won't stop until Grateful Dead songs advertise Viagra and Jimi Hendrix songs shill for Depends?

Every Poster in the Window Means No

For years, it was right by the freeway exit.

Next to a travel supply store. And a pharmacy that looked like it still had stock on hand from the late 50s.

And every time I passed it, I was struck by a small poster in the corner of the front window for a mid-80s album by Let's Active. I went into the store once, expecting a treasure trove of jangle pop, but finding a random and unexceptional random selection of vinyl records and CDs arranged with little rhyme or reason. The clerk had no idea why they had a 20-year-old Let's Active poster in the window (and also had no idea who Let's Active or Mitch Easter was). "I guess it's there because it's always been there."

Let's Active was a real band at first, then an every-changing cast of backing musicians hired on to realize the infectious pop music of Mitch Easter. Easter played in Sneakers with future dB Chris Stamey, then opened Drive-In Studios in 1981, where nearly every seminal jangle-pop record was recorded. Easter co-produced (with Don Dixon) the first two REM albums (which, for any music fan, would be enough to guarantee his place in the pantheon). Soon after, Easter's band Let's Active was signed by IRS Records. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


The band -- Easter, Faye Hunter, and Sara Romweber -- released the Afoot EP in 1983 and the Cyprus album in 1984 (released together on a single CD in 1989). After Cyprus, the band imploded and 1986's Big Plans for Everybody was largely an Easter solo record. A real band was recruited in time for 1988's Every Dog Has His Day, which sounded more coherent and also sounded a lot edgier and less poppy (although it's hard to imagine any Mitch Easter song not being poppier than 90% of the music out there). When Let's Active failed to break out from college-radio cult status, it faded away in the 1990s. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


In 2007, Mitch Easter released Dynamico, which simultaneously seemed classic and innovative (in the same way the Let's Active albums did in the 80s). In an alternate universe, this album would have sold a million copies the first week (and then usher in the resurgence of the music industry). At the very least, a poster from the album should have appeared in the window of that little record store near the freeway off-ramp.

Instead, the record store put up signs last year that it was closing soon. Part of me wondered if it was because the clerks had no idea who Let's Active was. Another part of me thought the store would always be there just because it had always been there. I meant to make it in for their going-out-of-business sale, but never made it (again, maybe if the clerks had known...). When I finally made it back to the store, the doors were closed and locked. Peeking inside, I saw that the record racks were gone -- but the Let's Active poster (now more than 20 years old) was still in the window. A month later the poster was gone -- replaced by a "This Space for Lease" sign.