Some things come in small packages. Others come wrapped in tin foil. The leftovers are usually somebody else's other problem. But for The Pursuit of Happiness, after their fifth album, they decided to call it quits.
Best known for their first hit single "I'm An Adult Now", the band went on to release some rockin' guitar albums decked out with hookier than now female backing vocals and a lead singer in the long haired Canadian super geek called Moe Berg.
On their third album "Downward Road" they rocked out with the best of 'em with cool tracks like "Cigarette Dangles", and on their fourth album "Off The Bone", their razor sharp wit got the best of them. By the fifth album, like any decent rock band, they imploded.
At the best of times the band sounded like a cross between Cheap Trick, Utopia, Ted Nugent and the Beach Boys, and even Todd Rundgren. Melodic hooks and pop were the order of the day.
Maybe it's time for a comeback?
"She's so young, she's got the answer, she doesn't need to question the world like I do." - 'She's So Young' / TPOH
Word broke earlier this week with the news of the New York Dolls being reunited with legendary record producer and rock star Todd Rundgren.
Rundgen will produce the Dolls' new album in January 2009. This is the first time in 36 years since Rundgren originally produced the New York Dolls eponymous debut album "The New York Dolls" which included the timeless classics "Personality Crisis", "Trash", "Jet Boy" and "Private World".
Rundgren will be reunited with original Dolls founding members, David Johansen (vocals) and Sylvain Sylvain (guitar, vocals).
"We're really excited to be working with Todd again," says David Johansen. " We're hoping to recapture the same magic on the forthcoming album."
The album, which is yet untitled, will be released on the Atco label through Warner Brothers. The Atco label has been specially re-launched. The New York Dolls are one of the first signings to the label.
The Dolls will follow the release of the new album with a world tour in 2009. Meanwhile, Todd Rundgren is currently on a European tour promoting his latest solo album "Arena". Todd plays two more UK gigs later in November, including the Norwich Waterfront (Nov 22) and London Kentish Town Forum (Nov 23).
The forthcoming Dolls album will become another chapter in Rundgren's vast list of prodution credits which include albums for Hall & Oats, Cheap Trick, Meatloaf, The Pursuit of Happiness, the Psychedelic Furs, XTC, Patti Smith Group, Tom Robinson Band, Grand Funk Railroad, Badfinger, and many more.
The Zombies, Britain's legendary psychedelic rock band is set to perform the entirety of their 1968 album ‘Odessey & Oracle’ in the UK for the very last time during April 2009.
The band will play the following four UK concerts – Glasgow ABC (April 21), Bristol Colston Hall (April 23), Manchester Bridgewater Hall (April 24) and London Hammersmith Apollo (April 25).
Tickets for the go on sale from 9am on Thursday 25th September. Ticket Hotline: 08700600 100, www.ticketweb.co.uk.
After receiving rapturous critical acclaim from performing the 40th Anniversary of ‘Odessey & Oracle' over three sold out concerts at the London Shepherd's Bush Empire during March 2008, original Zombies members, Colin Blunstone (vocals), Rod Argent (keyboards, vocals), Chris White (bass, vocals) and Hugh Grundy (drums) will get back together again to perform the album that the NME recently described as "British psychedelia with a kaleidoscopic vision that rivals even The Beatles.”
When the Zombies originally performed the 40th Anniversary concert for Odessey & Oracle at Shepherd Bush Empire earlier this year, the concerts were attended by Britain’s rock elite including Paul Weller, Robert Plant, Robyn Hitchcock, Snow Patrol and Garbage.
On Friday 19th September at 22:45, Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson played Todd Rundgren's song 'Strike' (one of the new songs featured on Rundgren's forthcoming new studio album 'Arena')on his BBC Radio 6 Music Friday Night Rock Show in the UK.
You can play the show back online via BBC iPlayer from the following link - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dhljd until Thursday 25th September.
Here's the transcript of Dickinson's intro to 'Strike' -
"Speaking of The Hermit of Mink Hollow, I did say Todd Rundgren, and I meant it, too. Todd Rundgren...vetran rocker and producer who's turned 60. He must have been given a school boy's outfit. At present this next track does sound a little bit like AC/DC. On the other hand AC/DC are probably close to turning 60, and they're still wearing school boy's outfits."
"Typically we've had no AC/DC for seven years, and then Airbourne turn up, Todd Rundgren does this, and AC/DC re-emerge. Could this be a sign? Could the Routemaster be on its way back? Oh yes, I do hope so (I hate those bendy things)."
"Anyway, from his new album called 'Arena', it's a sort of homage to arena rock. It features a bunch of tracks the rock suprisingly hard."
"The Routemaster of course was a very famous red London bus. For those of you who don't know what a Routemaster bus was, you could walk on and off the back without getting caught up - and it didn't run cyclists over, which is why we like it instead of bendy buses, thank you very much (Public service announcement)."
"It's a nod to Ted Nugent, ZZ Top, Rush and AC/DC. Check it out. This is Todd Rundgren with 'Strike'."
Everything But the Girl are one of those rare bands that keep coming back to haunt us with their infectious dance club sounds. How much longer do we have to wait for a new album? It's almost been ten years since 1999's "Tempremental".
EBTG originally started off as an acoustic-based duo. When they released their 'Amplified Heart' album in 1994, Todd Terry remixed the track "Missing", and it was this song that propelled them into dance music.
When EBTG released the remix as a single, it became a huge international hit. It hit the top of nearly every chart around the world, and charted in the U.S., a feat that had previously eluded the band. The track reached number two and stayed in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for well over a year.
The success of that track, along with a collaboration Thorn did with the bands Massive Attack and Deep Dish, saw EBTG move into a more electronic sound.
Having completed contractual obligations to WEA, they were free to shop their recordings and had full ownership of their future recorded works. They signed licensing deals with Virgin Records for the United Kingdom and Europe, and Atlantic Records for the United States and Canada.
Their subsequent albums "Walking Wounded" and "Temperamental", showed the band's musical progress as well as established Ben Watt as a cutting edge dance music producer. In 2007 Tracey Thorn released her second solo album "Out Of The Woods".
It's surprising to think it will be ten years since the "Tempremental" album was first released. The opening track, "Five Fathoms" brings back the memories of partying in London's Soho at night.
"Five Fathoms" by Everything But The Girl (from the 1999 album 'Temperamental')
I walk the city late at night. Does everyone here do the same? I want to be the things I see, Give every face and place my name. I cross the street, take a right, Pick up the pace, pass a fight. Did I grow up just to stay home? I'm not immune - I love this tune.
I wanna love more. I just wanna love more.
I drag the city late at night. It's in my mouth, it's in my hair. The people fill the city because The city fills the people, oh yeah. I cross the street, avoid the freeze - A city's warmer by a couple degrees. The smell of food. The smell of rain. I'm not immune - I love this tune.
I wanna love more. There's a river in my head. I just wanna love more. There's a river in my head.
The only way out is down. The only way up is down.
The days roll by like thunder Like a storm that's never breaking, All my time and space compressed In the low pressure of the proceedings, And they beat against the sides of my life, Like fists against the sides of my life, And the roads all lead behind me, So I wrap the wheel around me and I go out.
There's a river in my head. I'll take you home and make it easy. Love more.
Here comes the most hyped song of 2008 in America; "I Kissed A Girl" by Katy Perry. Currently making it's way to Europe, there's probably no telling how many times this song will get played on radio until the general public gets sick to death of it.
The song's already topped the US singles chart for seven weeks. If you check out the comments on YouTube, people are either love or hate it. For me, Katy looks like some deranged actress from The OC or One Tree Hill. It's way too early to say that I am convinced.
Live, Katy Perry is another thing. Her live performance on US television leave a lot to be desired. Vocally, the song seems to display a lot of studio trickery to make Katy sound better than she actually is.
Hell, singing out of tune never seemed to be a problem for Madonna.
'I Kissed A Girl' could be the only song that Katy Perry will ever be remembered for, and like most one hit wonders, this could have dramatic impact on her future recordings. But something tells me there's more to Perry than this one particular killer teenage anthem.
For the moment, Katy seems to display a certai amount of fun and sexiness in her videos, and I guess us Americans have been missing out on some commerical rauch for some time now. This is like the Brady Bunch and a porn wet dream in one.
What's next, I kissed an German Shepherd?
In the 70s, Cyndi Lauper was singing "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", but now Katy Perry's singing about kissing girls. Some things never change.
Or do they?
This is pop music at it's most risque, even though the music is calculated formula supermarket pop. The perfect comeback single for Britney, but this time the brunettes are taking over - and it's about time!
Even more entertaining is Katy's video for her other song "Ur So Gay" which is a play on Todd Haynes' film about the late Karen Carpenter (the first film to tell the story of the rise and fall of Karen Carpenter re-enacted by Barbie Dolls).
The first line in "Ur So Gay" is classic deviant pop at its best. Katy sings, "I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf, jacking off while listening to Mozart."
Sometimes in this crazy world of rock and roll, certain rock stars need to rob the grave to get a hit single. Case in point is Kid Rock with his infectious song "All Summer Long", taken from his current album "Rock N Roll Jesus".
The songs also samples Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" (which has a similar chord progression).
When it comes to the original,you can't top Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London". With the line, "Better stay away from him, he'll rip your lungs out, Jim - I'd like to meet his tailor," you know Zevon was up to something way beyond the confines of conservative American music.
'Werewolves of London' was taken from Zevon's 'Excitable Boy' (1978), an album that's right up there with any early Steely Dan album. Essential.
Similar in many ways to his fellow Southern California outcast counterpart Randy Newman, during his early career Zevon achieved moderate fame, but as time progressed, instead of writing songs on par with the likes of Dan Fogelberg and Jackson Browne, he opted for tunes about getting your lungs ripped out. The general public could relate.
Obsessed with corrupt anti-heroes, Zevon penned songs with the trademark of a down and out pulp fiction writer who created stories about mutilated mercenaries ("Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"), mereciless city boys who will do anything to get ahead ("Lawyers, Guns and Money"), cowardly deviants ("Excitable Boy"), and, of course, losers with appetites for beef chow mein ("Werewolves of London").
Excitable Boy's 1976 predecessor (Warren Zevon) may be a stronger album, but this is the one that put Zevon on the map, and still holds a pop hook in the world's consciousness. Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" is a perfect exmaple.
"Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain He was looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook's Going to get himself a big dish of beef chow mein Werewolves of London
If you hear him howling around your kitchen door Better not let him in Little old lady got mutilated late last night Werewolves of London again Werewolves of London
He's the hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair Better stay away from him He'll rip your lungs out, Jim I'd like to meet his tailor Werewolves of London
Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen Doing the I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. walking with the Queen Doing the I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's His hair was perfect Werewolves of London Draw blood
(c) 1978 Warren Zevon, from the album "Excitable Boy"
