R.I.P. Gerry Goffin

A small sampling of his compositions.

Song of the Week: The Rebounds - (I'm Not Your Stepping Stone)

Hailing from the State Capitol of Columbus, The Rebounds were a quintet of pimply faced High School cats from Brookhaven High School in Ohio. Early in '66 the snot nosed punks recorded (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone for Tower Records after winning a local Battle of the Bands competition. The song had already been recorded by Paul Revere and the Raiders but by the time Tower released The Rebounds' version in November, The Monkees put their mark on So-Ci-E-Tee by releasing The Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart composition as the Flip-Side of I'm A Believer the very same week as The Rebounds. The Rebounds, which were, according to the website, Buckeye Beat, Bob Bishop, Tom Williams, Will Finch, Brady Wanger, and Dave Manley, failed to rebound from the simian beat down they received from the Pre-Fab Four. The Rebounds never released another single. Too bad for us.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

A&M Records Spotlight: Boyce and Hart - Out and About

Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were a songwriting duo best known for writing many of the songs that shot The Monkees to stardom. The Monkees Theme, Last Train To Clarksville, Words and the timeless, Stepping Stone. But they also recorded a number of records under their own name. They also wrote the theme song for soap operas and for commercial jingles such as Things Go Better With Coke. Their work has been covered by groups ranging from Paul Revere and The Raiders to The Leaves to punk bands like The Sex Pistols and hardcore purveyors, Minor Threat.

Out and About was Boyce and Hart's first release under their own name. The song hails from June of 1967 and is a perfect piece of pop music. Boyce and Hart lip-synced this song on I Dream Of Jeannie with Jeannie playing drums and Cello on the song as they audition for Phil Spector. Yep, they met Barbara Eden. That makes this song cool regardless of anythg else. They also had their song, Blow You A Kiss In The Wind (covered by punk band, Red Kross) performed on Bewitched! Yep, they met Elizabeth Montgomery. That makes this song cool regardless of anything else.

We'll see you next time On The Flip-Side.

Song of the Week: Minor Threat - Betray

Damn! Did you blink? I mean back in '83. Back then, did you blink? Then you may have missed what happened back then. Washington, DC's Minor Threat put out their one and only album. And it was a real gem. Sure, they had an EP that preceded it and one brilliant single that followed, but that was it. They disbanded. Gone. Where the Fugazi they went, I don't know. 

I was working at a record store called Barney's Records in Davis, California. Just a wee teen, a sophomore in High School, I was. Each employee was asked by management (read: Dave Webb) to create a top 5 albums of the year list. Minor Threat's lone output, Out Of Step, topped my list of Best Albums that year. It bested REM's Murmur and even the Violent Femmes' self titled debut. I'm not sure I would rank them like I did back then, but, you know, hindsight and all. Back to Out Of Step. The rawness, the power, the ability to go 1000 miles an hour and still retain a melody, the sincerity and earnestness of the lyrics and the musical performances hit me hard. It still does. And it scares the heck out of my kids as we drive down the streets blaring this album at ungodly volumes. 

The opening salvo on that album is today's SoTW. The song is Betray and it tells the story of a friendship gone wrong. Two close friends who went their separate ways. The gossip of the day was that the song was aimed at Henry Rollins who left Washington, DC, left his job at an ice cream store (at which he worked with Minor Threat frontman, Ian Mackaye) and headed off to be frontman of California's Black Flag. (By the way, I believe that is Mr. Henry Rollins skanking with the band in the picture below.) I don't really know if Betray was aimed at Rollins or not. Regardless of who the muse was, Betray beautifully demonstrates Minor Threat's musical ability. A punk song with a real chorus and even a time/tempo change at 2:01. Sit back and enjoy the run. 

For you 60's garage fans, seek out Minor Threat's covers of The Standells' Sometime Good Guys Don't Wear White and their excellent, excellent, excellent version of The Monkees' Stepping Stone. 

Thee End!

(Not, Alas) a Monkee’s Nephew

Sometime last year I think it was, I had a dream that Michael Nesmith was my uncle. I don’t remember much about the specifics, or even if I managed to ask him the burning question, “How could you work with Davy Jones for three years without beating the crap out of him?” But I do remember that I was pretty sad to wake up and find that Uncle Nes wouldn’t be at Thanksgiving after all.

I’ve always liked the Monkees, and I firmly believe Micky Dolenz has one of the great rock and roll voices. But Nesmith was the one who made them feel substantial and not just a made for t.v. cartoon.  He was already an experienced songwriter before he was cast as a Monkee.  His song Mary, Mary appeared (somewhat uncomfortably) on the Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s second album East-West even before the “Monkees” series debuted in September 1966, and in 1967 the Stone Poneys hit big with Different Drum another pre-Monkee Nesmith composition.  By picking an actual quirky tunesmith who was not a central casting teen idol type, the Monkees producers sowed the seeds for the group’s eventual rebellion against the use of outside songwriting and studio musicians. 

While existing in the heart of the Monkees teen-pop bubble, Nesmith was increasingly drawn to country styles.  In May 1968, as the Monkees show was winding down, he recorded a session in Nashville.  Most of these songs were not used on Monkees records, and some would be redone on his own albums in the early 70s.  I like these early versions, which exhibit some of the same generational tension between song and backing that Bob Dylan’s Nashville-era recordings do.  In contrast to his wry and laconic Monkee persona, a lot of Nesmith’s songs are wordy and conversational.  Check out Some of Shelly’s Blues and The Crippled Lion.  While the backings are pure 60s Nashville country (with the addition of harmonica on Shelly’s Blues) the songs themselves are, in typical Nesmith fashion, crammed full of words and chord changes.  In Shelly’s Blues Nesmith dishes out his brand of clear-eyed but syntactically jumbled advice, while The Crippled Lion is a humble and self-aware inwardly directed pep-talk.  The guy would really make a fine uncle.