Ripoff City: Strokes Edition

One thing I love about music is stumbling upon the obvious influences of bands and artists. Take, for example, The Strokes. Before they burst onto the scene in 2001 I'm quite sure they were listening to The Buzzcocks' 1979 track "Everybody's Happy Nowadays." I hadn't played it in years but I picked up the fabulous collection Singles Going Steady on vinyl the other day and I couldn't believe the similarity. I mean, it's less an influence and more a straight steal. Listen for yourself:

Sam Smith, Tom Petty Settle Over "Musical Accident"

Take a listen to Sam Smith's Grammy-nominated hit song "Stay With Me" and you'll hear what could legitimately sound -- to some ears -- like a slowed-down replication of Tom Petty's 1989 hit "I Won't Back Down." But Petty downplayed the similarity, saying it was "a musical accident no more no less." Still, Petty and Jeff Lynne are credited as co-writers on Smith's track. And The Sun reported over the weekend that Smith settled a copyright dispute with Petty over the song. But Petty says the agreement was easy to come to, and that Smith's people "were very understanding of [Petty's] predicament." Petty adds that the word lawsuit was never used.

Smith is up for six Grammy Awards, including song of the year.

Song In My Head - Matt Pinfield Edition

Remember how MTV's 120 Minutes host Matt Pinfield would show off his command of arcane musical history by name-checking all the musical relationships and prior bands that musicians were in as he presented their videos? Well here's my best attempt at imitation:

Here's a flashback to 1987, when Howard DeVoto, late of the Buzzcocks and Magazine, teamed up with Noko to form Luxuria. DeVoto of course was on hand when the Sex Pistols played the Manchester Lesser Trade Hall on that fateful night in 1976, along with future bandmate Pete Shelley, future Joy Division and New Order band members Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner, future Factory Records chairman Tony Wilson, Mark E. Smith, who would later form The Fall and future Smiths frontman Morrissey. Anyway, Luxuria had a minor hit on college radio with "Redneck" on the critically acclaimed Beggars Banquet label.

Best of 2014

It seems like every year I approach this list with the same attitude: I won't have enough to fill a CD, let alone an album side. This year MAY be different. I have 13 legitimate nominees for the best of 2014. We'll get to them in a moment, but first...

Album of the Year

St. Vincent - St. Vincent
For an album described as party music for a funeral, this was a fitting soundtrack to the last half of my year. Sometimes an album comes along that just fits where you're at and what you're going through, and for me, this was it.

Songs of the Year

"Holding Pattern" - Dean Wareham
The Galaxie 500 and Luna frontman returns with a his first full-length solo album. It's an often melancholy collection of folk-pop, but this track is the album's most upbeat, and it showcases Wareham's dry wit as he contemplates his life in a rut. He name-checks a couple of classic rock bands -- Kansas, Boston, Toto, Journey, Foreigner and Styx -- before completing the rhyme with a football score (San Diego over Denver 17 to 6). Classic stuff.

"Red Eyes" - War on Drugs
Kurt Vile's old band made a lot of Best of 2014 lists. And rightly so. The Philadelphia sextet offers a shimmering collection of introspective songs that sound like Arcade Fire covering "Pale Shelter"-era Tears for Fears.

"Mr Tembo" - Damon Albarn
I know what you're thinking: Damon Albarn is about 20 years past his heyday and only a fool or a fanboy would include him on a Best Of list in 2014. I challenge you to find a more fun and life-affirming song than this one, about an orphaned elephant in Tanzania. It even got my kids to stop singing Frozen for a few days!

"Easy Money" - Johnny Marr
While I'm on the fanboy kick, I include this track here. It's certainly not Marr's best work -- and I feel we've heard that guitar riff before (maybe as recently as Modest Mouse's "Dashboard"!) -- but this song grew on me as the year went on. Look, he's not much of a lyricist and he's recycling his licks but this one came wrapped in such a catchy package that I was compelled to include it here.

"Regret" - St. Vincent
This was a hard choice between this song and "Digital Witness", the song that's no doubt on everybody else's list. There are plenty of reasons to choose "Regret" -- and not just to be contrarian. First, that guitar riff. Then that angelic chorus. If you're not convinced St. Vincent has made the best record of the year by this - the seventh song on the album - I can't help you.

"Seasons (Waiting on You)" - Future Islands
Baltimore's Future Islands makes thoughtful electronic music and marries it to the blue-eyed soul vocals of lead singer Samuel T. Herring. The first time I heard this track I couldn't get past Herring's voice, but ultimately this song just pulls and tugs until it wins you over.

"Goodbye (Butterfly)" - Brian Jonestown Massacre
So this is technically a BJM song, even though it's on an EP where Magic Castles gets side two. And like the best Anton Newcombe songs, there's menace lurking not far from the surface, and it swirls and builds but never quite erupts.

"Inside Out" - Spoon
Austin's Spoon returns with their eighth album, and I'll let the critics decide where this one stacks up in the band's formidable catalog. This track is at once glossy and understated, and I appreciate the trance-like effect it has on me.

"Zigzagging Toward the Light" - Conor Oberst
A positive effort from Mr. Omaha himself. This is one of those tunes I first heard on Sirius XMU and sat in my car until it was over.

"Digital Witness" - St. Vincent
Surprise! The aforementioned single from St. Vincent makes my list, too. It's too hard to choose between songs this good.

"You and Me" - Damon Albarn
Another tough choice -- this time between this and "Mr. Tembo" -- so both make the cut. This is essentially two songs in one, and it's easily a contender for the prettiest song of the year. Listen closely to the turn the song takes at the 3:34 mark. Albarn goes places he doesn't often go -- heroin addiction, for instance -- and in its sublime, minimal beauty has given us a very gentle take on a break-up song. This is one of those tracks that I just played on repeat this year. Sometimes the best music is the most minimal. And it doesn't hurt that Brian Eno was onboard for vocals and synthesizers.

"Coffee" - Sylvan Esso
More elegant minimalism. A simple rhythm track, some lovely synth notes and Amelia Meath's beautiful voice. It all culminates in a familiar 1960s refrain from Tommy James and the Shondells.

"Water Fountain" - tUnE-yArDs
Not unrelated to "Milkshake" by Kelis, Merrill Garbus gives us a track that would be at home in a schoolyard singalong. Garbus has unfairly become the poster child for cultural appropriation but her live performance at Rough Trade NYC won me over this year. She takes the stage with her bandmate and a looper, records a measure of percussion into the looper, and proceeds to play over it in real time. It's a neat thing to watch.

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".