Showing posts with label The Coasters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Coasters. Show all posts

Saturday 9 February 2019

Smokey Joe's


I was in town and passed Smokey Joe's and thought of the Coasters' (also known as The Robins) "Smokey Joe's Cafe" and when I was looking for the song on youtube found there was a musical of the same name celebrating the songs of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller which I have shared below. Not all the songs are to my taste but it does illustrate their impressive song repertoire. It is just song after song with dance routines and is very slick and impressive.

I really just wanted to include The Coaster's take on "Smokey Joe's Cafe" which was also covered by Buddy Holly for some reason, but that's what happen's with good songs, and Holly also did the definitive version of Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man". Oh and Paolo Nutini does a fairly decent take on it.

See how mind works, it starts with a single idea then I start of picking up other tangents, though getting from The Coasters to Chuck Berry via Buddy Holly is not necessarily that far of a detour and it is definitely a pleasant one.

The video below is playing and I am mightily impressed with the song "Keep On Rollin'" which I have never heard before., then it segue's into "Searchin'" absolute genius.

So I was only going to mention Smokey Joes , but watch the musical, it is mightily impressive.

Monday 3 October 2016

Three Choices For Three - #ALifeInNumbers #3


I thought I had this nailed. I was going to go for "3 Is A Magic Number" by Bob Dorough, then thought maybe that's a bit obvious so thought I'd pitch for "Three Cool Cats" by The Coasters, a totally great song , but then thought what about "Harry Lime Theme" the theme from The Third Man by Anton Karas which is something you have heard and know totally but maybe wouldn't have expected me to come out with it.

It's unusual that it's played on the zither, and instrument I don't think I've ever seen let alone tried to play. This is one song I've not used before although Orson Welles who starred in The Third Man directed by Carol Reed has appeared before.So that's todays choice.

This morning I drove back from Whitby, dropped off the car before dropping into work. I also got some more lovely birthday presents and tonight intend to relax and have an easy night.

I don't think every number is going to present me with these choices, what will I do for 37 or 43 for instance. I will find a way , sometimes it's just a was of looking at things and applying a little lateral thinking.

Anyway that's enough words for me, if i average 250 words a post (which I often do) then that's going to be close on fifteen thousand words on this trail of songs. I don't know if that's overkill , but of course it will be interspersed with the joys and mundanities of everyday life and well as observations on other things that catch my interest and may interest you too.

Anyway enjoy your Monday evening, I am going to try and relax

Saturday 3 October 2015

In Whitby - 1959 #3 Charlie Brown



Well day three of my challenge and I am up to 1959 the third year of my life. Actually the charts had lots of great music , but I always loved the Coasters with their atmospheric mostly Lieber / Stoller penned songs which still stand strong today cobined with a wickedly knowing sense of humour delivered with street born panache.

Whitby Abbey - Foggy Morning
Just sitting in Stoker  not yet dressed in La Rosa with a view of the abbey through early morning fog in the armchair by the balcony. Feel free to join me . I do love this place so relaxing , no phones , radio or television, just a laptop free wifi so I can let you know what I am up to . Aren't I so not with the program. But I will soon be going out to get papers before having my breakfast delivered in a wicker basket. This place is CAF. (see Inspiral Carpets if you don't know what that means.

Have a brilliant day everyone


Sunday 19 July 2015

The Genius of Simple


When I was at primary school my headmistress Mrs Walsh told us that a genius who could see and explain things very simply. She gave the example of a guy who went to a match company and said he could save them a great deal of money for actually stopping doing something.

In those days match boxes were sandpapered on two sides. He posited that people always checked for where they were goig to strike the match , so the boxes only needed one strip of sand
paper instead of two. At a stroke halving the company's sandpaper bill. It does sound obvious, but until he came along no one had thought about.

Genius at Work
I am currently reading Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History Of Time" , and there is no down in my mind that the guy is probably in the genius category. The book is less than two hundred pages, but is packed with content and not a word is wasted , which means it is slow going , but his style of writing comes across with a "Go On, You CAN Get This!"  message.

That's a long probably unconnected intro to what this post is actually about . I may have blogged about this or touched on this before but it is really about musical genius. If someone were to ask for an example , Jimi Hendrix , Brian Wilson , Lennon and McCartney are probably goig to come over in responses and there's no doubt that these  were musical Genii . I would add Joni Mitchell , PJ Harvey , Kate Bush and Sandy Denny to that list as well , but it's annoying that music is seen as a boy thing. Girls are good too.

The problem is that most of the music that these artists produced was complex, and taken to extremes by bands like King Crimson , Emerson Lake & Palmer and Yes. One of the main ironies was that of Yes's initially simplest constructs "And You And I" is a lovely melody set to basically three acoustic chords , but by the time it's finihed it hits ten minutes with lots of additional bombast. I still love it though , and it was released , uncut as a seven inch single.


Ok we're here , real genius is to do something musically so simple that anyone can do it. Songs with three chords or less. The Velvet Underground's first album didn't initially sell many copies but everyone who bought it formed a band. The descening G riff from "I'm Waiting For The Man" can be heard in "White Riot " by the clash, "In The City" by The Jam and "Holidays In The Sun" by The Sex Pistols. The inspired Jonathan Richman , who's "Roadrunner" is only two chords  "D" and "A" which any one can learn on a guitar in minutes. Van Morrison's Gloria and The Who's "I Can't Explain" are more examples of easy to play songs , along with The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" a staple of any garage band's repertoire , and The Kinks "You Really Got Me" and  "All Day, and All Of The Night" also fall into this area.

Another example of genius is the one note guitar solo. If you can make one note sound good you are a true genius. To this day I am only aware of two examples of this "I'm A Hog For You Baby" by The Coasters and "Tommy Gun" by The Clash. To do that , is inspired genius.

So I've bookended this post with those two songs , sitting an Amazon MP3 selection in the middle for you to sample. Love to hear your thoughts on this , and sorry this one has gone on a bit


Sunday 28 September 2014

Busy Doing Nothing - What Goes On In Your Mind?



The intention was to really not do much this weekend , but I've ended up to doing work , shopping, making beds , and am going to write another two posts on my music blog here due to the fact that I've been to two excellent gigs this week, one for the opening of The Old Fox in Felling with Rigid Digits and the other for a Nick Cave tribute gig and the Tyneside Bar and cafe featuring my friends Jon Lee, Sheena Revolta and Bethany Elen Coyle, though obviously I don't need to say anything about them here otherwise I'd be repeating myself, although repeating yourself is a good way of filling up the page , that's if you you feel you have to fill up the page, which I don't as I'm not being paid for this, just doing it ofr myself and maybe for. your entertainment.



VU
It's funny how when you maybe don't want to do much, you sometimes find lots of things to do, like I set up a Facebook  Your One Song page to see what peoples' favourite song will be if they only had a choice of one! I would hate to only be able to listen to a single song but, the thought of minimalising the Desert Island Discs concept appealed to me. It's like while I have the utmost respect for guitarists who can play complex tunes in complex times with complex solos, I have have a great deal of respect for the one note guitar solos and single (ok maybe two or three) chord songs because that enables ANYBODY to get up and play a song.



Examples are "I'm A Hog For You Baby" by The Coasters, "Tommy Gun" and "White Riot" by The Clash , "Roadrunner" by Jonathan Richman and "Gloria" by Them - there's an instant set list for any band.

Anyway the music I've choset for this post post is "What Goes On" by The Velvet Underground, which The Bok covered for their first gig in the seventies, the band formed on Wednesday, first gig on the Saturday and we'd written half a dozen songs by then!

Anyway I've got a lot of stuff done so far, two more blog posts to go and then I may sit down and watch some catch up TV. Hope you are having a brilliant weekend .