“If You Want Me to Stay” was Sly and the Family Stone’s last top-20 hit. It came out in 1973. Personally, I would have liked them to stay around a lot longer, although apparently at this juncture in their career the band really wasn’t much of a band anymore. As Sly sings “I got to be me” – which largely entailed lots of cocaine use, financial mismanagement and habitually bailing on live performances. While this song is generally regarded as a declaration to his lover, Sly’s probably talking to his band … and the resounding answer was “No, that’s okay. You can go away.”
Song of the Day – Mendoza Line – Idiot Heart
When The Mendoza Line’s “We’re All in this Alone” came out in 2000, they were indie darlings. Now, as SXSW christens a new hot artist every hour or so, I think of this band and the odd calculus of what makes music indelible and what makes it fade away. For me, these guys are as fresh as they were on the day I first heard them over ten years ago.
I read today that 2000 was when CD sales reached their peak. I can’t help but think that being on a disc that demanded a listen from beginning to end cemented my love for The Mendoza Line. I spent time with them. I wasn’t onto the next big thing, I was just onto them.
Click, click click. Today, more than ever, we seem to be collectively obsessed with what’s next, not what’s now. I love a catchy single, but so often I don’t even know what band I’m listening to until I look down on the screen of my ipod. So, I’m nostalgic this morning not just for the long playing album – which obviously still survives – but for the long-playing experience, which increasingly is being lost in our ADD-interrupted lives.
There’s a paradox with The Mendoza Line, they were always somewhat fatalistic, but they lasted for ten years. From their name itself (the benchmark of baseball offensive futility, batting under .200) to their album titles “We’re All in This Alone” “I Like You When You’re Not Around” and “If They Knew This Was the End,” this is a band that had a grasp on, well, our inability to have a grasp at all.
actually my career batting average is .215, thank you very much
The husband-wife team that was at this band’s core would split up in 2007. When Tim Bracy left his wife Shannon McArdle a note in their apartment saying “I’m gone,” he instantly made so many of the band’s proclamations turn into prophecies. As of 2008, when McArdle released her solo debut, she had not seen him since.
It’s a terrible thing, I suspect, to be remembered for leaving your wife a note like that. We all have such idiot hearts, skipping so stupidly through the world. Maybe Tim Bracy figured it’s better to be remembered for something awful, than to be remembered for nothing at all. Mario Mendoza, who had a great glove and is in Mexico’s baseball hall of fame, would know and, for what it’s worth, reportedly he isn’t such a fan of the benchmark that bears his name.
Song of the Day: Fresh and Onlys – Dreaming is Easy
if you had too much to dream last night, hold up your hands
The idea that dreaming is easy when you’re dead is a revolutionary and entrancing notion. For as long as I have been alive, I have been under the impression that being dead would make dreaming somewhat of a challenge. But no, that is not the case! While they probably got the idea from the Buddha, or perhaps the Great Spaghetti Monster, in my eyes The Fresh & Onlys have cracked the code of the universe.
I’ve had some great dreams lately. Flying through a city like Superman – just taking in the sites, not even fighting crime – which I did last night, has been the highlight of my day. How can “reality” possibly compete? Knowing such fun need not end when our time on this rock expires is easily the best news I’ve heard, if not this week, probably in my entire life. Thanks Fresh and Onlys, I once feared death, but now I see that’s it’s just a ticket to ride.
Buy their new album here. It’s great fun, even if this tune isn’t on it.
born to play Danny Hutton
You can say you saw it here first. Some film projects are simply inevitable and the very idea of Will Ferrell starring as Danny Hutton in the story of Three Dog Night is Hollywood catnip. Now that the notion is out there, it’s just a matter of time before it becomes a reality.
Beyond Ferrell’s uncanny resemblance to Hutton, the part is as meaty as a big fat rail of cocaine. With the right direction – PT Anderson comes to mind – Ferrell is a shoe-in for an Oscar nom. Before he became one third of Three Dog Night, Hutton began his career recording for Hanna Barbara’s music label. His hit “Roses and Rainbows” (#87) was immortalized with his animated appearance on The Flintstones (the clip is incredible). Hutton was all over the LA music scene. He was friends with Van Dyke Parks (great essay and interview here) and Brian Wilson. In fact, Wilson was producing sessions with Redwood, an earlier incarnation of Three Dog Night, in 1967. But the other Wilson brothers got jealous and put the kabbash on the project. The legendary Kim Fowley lived in Hutton’s attic. The dude was simply dialed in.
Three Dog Night would become one the most successful acts of the 1970s, spinning hit after hit of AM gold. And as any viewer of “Behind the Music” knows, that fame came with a price. As the band rose through the charts, their three titanic egos repeatedly clashed, fueled by mountains and mountains of cocaine. Hutton’s Hollywood home on Wonderland Avenue had become a mecca for drug use. The great Harry Nilsson and John Lennon routinely found solace there. Around this time, Hutton admittedly spiked Elton John’s food with cocaine to keep him performing all night long. “Play monkey play!” the guests must have demanded. Hutton was kicked out of the band in 1976, although by his own account he checked out much earlier than that.
Here’s a clip from 1975. Hutton / Will Ferrell is the third dog on the right and is simply lit.
In other obvious casting moves, Chuck Negron (left) is James Franco and Matthew McConaughey (center) is all over Cory Wells.
As an odd footnote to his career, Hutton would go on to manage the hardcore LA band Fear, who as far as I can tell are/were a much of obnoxious gay-hating, nazi-aggrandizing assholes. The Danny Hutton Hitters would have two tunes on the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, at which point the members of Fear probably tracked him down and beat him up.
I, however, prefer to remember Danny for his first hit from 1965. Check it out on YouTube. It comes complete with an epic cavalcade of go-go dancers.
For “Old Fashioned Love Song” – which Hutton just absolutely shreds from about 2:10 on (and Will Ferrell lives to emulate someday soon), click (if you dare) …..
Song of the Day: The Euphoria of the World Coming to an End
There’s something hauntingly optimistic about Euphoria’s suicide letter to the world. It must be the line “I’m off to start again with a world that is my friend.” I suppose it is fitting that the last song on this band’s only album would be about saying goodbye.
The 1969 song cycle A Gift from Euphoria more than lives up to its name. It is an absolutely fascinating album and it deserves to be listened to and embraced in its entirety. From psychedelia to country rock to bluegrass to a few (slightly over the top) orchestral arrangements, A Gift from Euphoria, leaves no stone unturned. It is a masterpiece of its era and it wears quite well today.
Like so many gifts, Euphoria’s offering was basically ignored upon its release (“world, you’ve let me down again”). They were of their time, but so far ahead of it. No wonder the melancholy of being unappreciated aches through this album’s grooves. In a parallel world, they were on the top of the charts. It’s heartbreaking to think that in their own self-sabotaging self-prophecy, the only way they thought they would get there would be via suicide. After all, 1969 offered many ways to make that cosmic leap – LSD comes to mind. When they sang, “world, I hope we meet again someday” I doubt they were thinking about scraps of critical acclaim scattered across the internet. But, for now, that’ll just have to do.
In case that’s making a razor blade and a bottle full of sleeping pills look good, cleanse your head here ….
lonesomebeehive 