Portlandia Returns

IFC announced that Portlandia will return January 8th. Hard to believe the series is into its fifth season. And while there have been so many good moments over the years, I give you this musically-inspired skit with Fred and Carrie going off about the records in their child's nursery school.

Johnny Marr at the Stone Pony

Johnny Marr's latest effort Playland is a disappointment. There's no use in sugarcoating it. Marr, of course, is a legend -- an icon -- and nothing he does can damage his iconic status in the pantheon of musical greatness. His songwriting partnership with Morrissey yielded a bumper crop of timeless material. But his output as a solo artist is far more inconsistent -- many of his guitar licks feel less than innovative and his songwriting and lyrics just don't measure up. And nowhere has that been more evident than Friday night at the -- similarly iconic -- Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

I'll get back to Marr in a minute but first, about the Stone Pony. I had never seen a show there. It's not a large room and the stage is just a platform on one side. It's so unassuming that there are signs warning patrons not to put personal belongings on the stage, and that includes their drinks. There's also no backstage. There's a stage door that leads to the sidewalk outside and that's where the performers come in before going on stage. Also, the roadies and techs are all right there in a penned off area between that stage door and the stage itself.

We staked out a good location on the side along that pen. We had a clear shot of the stage door, and a very good view of the stage. So around 10pm, in came Marr's band followed by Marr himself. They started with the rather forgettable title track from the new record before launching into "Panic", the first of six Smiths songs. Again, I felt that watching Marr do Smiths songs was totally natural. Sure, he didn't sing on the originals or write the lyrics, but it's his music and seeing Marr do them is as close as we'll come to seeing the Smiths reunite. (It just won't happen.)

After "Panic" was "The Right Thing Right" from the last record -- which is one of Marr's better solo tracks, and the catchy albeit uninspired new single "Easy Money". The new stuff just felt soulless in comparison to the Smiths material, which still crackled after 30 years.

There were a couple of nice touches: He paired two songs about schooling "New Town Velocity" and "The Headmaster Ritual" and he again played Electronic's "Getting Away With It" -- calling it a song about his hometown of Manchester. He paid tribute to the Stone Pony itself by talking about how, growing up in England in the mid-'70s he would hear about it as Bruce Springsteen was coming up and said it was an honor to play on the same stage. And -- of course -- he finished his 15-song first set with "How Soon is Now?" which still sounds better than most anything else out there.

After a quick break, Marr and the band came back out for "Still Ill" - a Smiths song I hadn't previously heard him do - as well as "I Fought the Law" and the show closer "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" which he dedicated to Bruce Springsteen (and everyone in the crowd.)

Overall, it was an enjoyable show. But I came away with the distinct feeling that the Smiths were such a good band that nothing Marr does now can come close to his former greatness. And I was left with a tinge of wistfulness for the Smiths reunion that will never happen.

Best Singing Drummers

A co-worker and I got in a discussion over the best singing drummers. These aren't drummers that became singers, like Dave Grohl, but rather singers who sang and played drums simultaneously. Some are obvious -- some not so much. I'll try and recreate the conversation in this space with a few of the contenders:

Phil Collins
The Genesis drummer was one of the best of all time back in the band's mid-70s heyday. After Peter Gabriel left, Collins became the band's singer, and took the proggiest of prog rock bands to commercial stardom. Here's a collection of some of his best drumming parts with Genesis in the 70s.

And here he is in 1982 drumming and singing his solo hit "In the Air Tonight".

Ringo Starr

Another obvious choice -- but he wasn't the Beatles primary singer, so I'm not sure he should count.

Levon Helm

The late Band drummer/singer certainly deserves merit on this list. He even talks about drumming and singing here. Here he is singing and drumming on the classic "The Weight".

Dave Clark

The leader of the British Invasion band the Dave Clark Five, Clark drummed and sang. And somehow, he made it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Notice there's no microphone at Clark's kit in this 1964 Top of the Pops appearance -- they didn't even try to pretend they weren't lip syncing.

That guy from the Romantics

His name was Jimmy Marinos, and he was an original member of the Detroit power pop quartet. He sung lead and drummed on their first big hit, 1980's "What I Like About You", but he didn't sing on 1983's "Talking in Your Sleep".

 

Grant Hart

This is my personal choice. Hart was the other half of the songwriting team of punk-indie trailblazers Husker Du, opposite Bob Mould. He was a fantastic songwriter, writing and singing many of the bands classics. And the creative competition between Hart and Mould led the pair to continually out-do each other, as writer Michael Azerrad puts it, and with spectacular results. Husker Du's run from 1984's classic Zen Arcade, 1985's New Day Rising and Flip your Wig, and 1986's Candy Apple Gray would be difficult for any band to repeat. Here's the Hart-penned, -sung and -drummed "Don't Want to Know if You are Lonely".