The Go-Go's At Theatre at Westbury, Westbury, NY 6/7/11

So I've been what you could call a "minor fan" of The Go-Go's for about twenty or so years. I liked selected songs by them as a small child (namely "Surfing And Spying" and "We Got The Beat"). And as an adult I purchased all of their cd's, vinyl singles and albums. In the past they have toured with several favorite bands of mine (namely Redd Kross and Too Much Joy). But I had never seen them play live until this past week at the Theatre at Westbury, in Westbury, Long Island, NY. The formerly-known-as-The Westbury Music Fair is a wonderful venue with wonderful acoustics. The stage also rotates, although the venue was not set-up as such for this particular concert.

The opening band was the LA-based The Dollyrots. They are refreshingly unpretentious and down to earth while simultaneously armed with your standard rock poses. They are a pop/punk trio and are fronted by the gorgeous bassist/vocalist Kelly Ogden. Highlights of their set included their single "California Beach Boy" as well as covers of Melanie's 70's chestnut "Brand New Key", an accapella rendition of "As Long As We've Got Each Other" (aka The Growing Pains theme song) and Joan Jett & The Blackheart's "Bad Reputation". The band is currently signed to Joan Jett's Blackheart Records. The band is rounded out by Luis Cabezas on guitar (whose rhythm guitar parts were somewhat reminiscent of Joan Jett) and the exceptionally tasteful drumming of Chris Black. A fine opening band, overall.



The Go-Go's 'Ladies Gone Wild Tour' is ostensibly to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their debut album, Beauty And The Beat. It was recently reissued as 2CD & 2LP sets with previously unreleased concert recordings and a remastered original album on pink vinyl. It was also touted to be their farewell tour, but Belinda Carlisle has since said that they will, indeed continue to perform after this tour ends.

The band were wonderful and were in better form than I aticipated. Drummer Gina Schock is a workhorse and bassist Kathy Valentine - who looked fantastic - was obviously enjoying playing the songs, again. Pixie-like rhythm guitarist Jane Wiedlin danced laps around the stage while lead guitarist/sometime keytboardist Charlotte Caffey, the grounding force, was excellent as always. Onetime-punkrock cheerleader Belinda Carlisle was also in fine form, leisurely hitting her notes as always.



The band was obviously well-rehearsed and sounded fantastic. They performed everything you'd expect to hear (except maybe the mid 80's hit "Turn To You") and perhaps didn't expect to hear (the Sparks/Jane Wiedlin single "Cool Places" and Belinda's Go-Goesque solo single "Mad About You"). The only songs from Beauty And The Beat they didn't perform were "You Can't Walk in Your Sleep (If You Can't Sleep)" and the fine album closer "Can't Stop the World". Nor did they delve into anything non-singles from the truly underrated Vacation album, nor anything from the long out of print Talk Show album.

The set list was:

Vacation
Tonight
How Much More
Get Up And Go
Mad About You (Belinda Carlisle)
Lust To Love
Mother's Little Helper (The Rolling Stones)
Automatic
Fading Fast
Cool Places (Sparks/Jane Wiedlin)
This Town
Unforgiven
The Whole World Lost It's Head
Our Lips Are Sealed
Skidmarks On My Heart
We Got The Beat

First Encore:
Surfing And Spying/Beatnik Beach
Head Over Heals

Second Encore:
Fun With Ropes.

They were selling the vinyl reissue (which I personally passed up as would've been my fourth copy) and ton of cool gear including a blue shirt with the Beauty And The Beat album cover and dates on back. I'm really glad I saw the band as they were unexpectedly very good.

Big Special Thank You to Michael McIsaac.

Random Best Of Year List: 1992!

The Best Of 1992:

Albums:

1) XTC: Nonsuch



2) Morrissey: Your Arsenal



3) They Might Be Giants: Apollo 18



4) Big Star: Third/Sister Lovers



5) Eggstone: Eggstone In San Diego



6) The Cure: Wish




7) John Wesley Harding: Why We Fight



8) Too Much Joy: Mutiny



9) Chris Bell: I Am The Cosmos



10) Sugar: Copper Blue



11) Television: Television



12) Beastie Boys: Check Your Head




13) Prince: The Love Sign Album



14) Barenaked Ladies: Gordon



15) Singles (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)



16) The Fleshtones: Powerstance



17) Social Distortion: Somewhere Between Heaven & Hell



18) Juliana Hatfield: Hey Babe



19) Ride: Going Blank Again



20) Pavement: Slanted & Enchanted



Singles:

1) XTC: "The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead"



2) Redd Kross: "Trance"



3) Matthew Sweet: "I've Been Waiting"



4) Teenage Fanclub: "What You Do To Me"




5) Morrissey: "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful"



6) Ride: "Twisterella"



7) The Cure: "High"



8) Tom Cochrane: "Life Is A Highway"



9) Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians: "Oceanside"



10) Toad The Wet Sprocket: "All I Want"



11) Too Much Joy: "Donna Everywhere"



12) Suede: "Metal Mickey"



13) Right Said Fred: "Don't Talk Just Kiss"



14) John Wesley Harding: "Kill The Messenger"



15) Paul Westerberg: "Dyslexic Heart"



16) They Might Be Giants: "The Statue Got Me High"



17) Blur: "Popscene"




18) Pulp: "My Legendary Girlfriend"




19) Red Hot Chili Peppers: "Breaking The Girl"



20) The Soup Dragons: "Pleasure"

Desperate Teenage Lovedolls Soundtrack

Misguided soundbites mar overall impact of music...

Desperate Teenage Lovedolls is perhaps one of my all-time favorite films. I remember picking this up at Tower Records in the Summer of 1997 (a pleasant surprise indeed as I had no idea this had been released on CD). Good liner-notes and photos but the cover art is altered for some misguided reason as the original was pretty ace. I have to say this soundtrack is nearly an aural photograph of the last gasp of the early 80's LA punk scene. It's perhaps even more effective than many purposeful compilations could be as it's seemingly unaware of what it is capturing. Half of this soundtrack are purely Redd Kross tracks. Some of which have only seen release here ("Out Of Focus", "Legend" and the original version of "Ballad Of A Lovedoll"). Lone tracks by Black Flag, DTLD director Dave Markey's band Sin 34, and a wonderful acoustic track by Bad Religion frontman Greg Graffin and ex-Redd Kross guitarist Greg Hetson (billed on the original LP as Greg/Greg) called "Running Fast".

Here's the rub (someone had to screw this up I suppose), every single track is prefaced with dialog from the film (or faux applause)...on the actual track itself!! The ending of "Ballad" also overlaps entirely onto "Legend" (but not without an asinine soundbite from the film - lest we forget about the film for two minutes). Talk about a shortsighted idea. This is the sort of thing that may have been funny, once, to the people involved (and rightfully so - some of the dialog is classic). But any sort of momentum or cohesiveness is virtually ruined for anyone who wants to listen to this soundtrack more than once. Which is a real shame because the songs work so well together and probably flow better than they have any business to. Other mid 90's soundtracks did this too (Mallrats, The Brady Bunch Movie, Friends, etc). The popularity of this heinously obnoxious act was thankfully short-lived.

One wonders what the compiler of this soundtrack was even trying to achieve with such a seemingly crass, if not self-indulgent, act. Their only real intention was that of selling the film to the purchaser of the soundtrack - if that person didn't already own the home video (doubtful) or know anything about the film (again, doubtful). Sell, sell, sell I guess.

Lovedolls Superstar Motion Picture Soundtrack

Great showcase for Redd Kross, Annette Zilinskas and Painted Wille...

The sequel to Desperate Teenage Lovedolls is perhaps superior to the original. The music too is almost superior. Unlike the soundtrack to that film these don't contain any ridiculous soundbites from the film. The songs themselves come from the mid-80's Southern California scene.

The Redd Kross songs are easily the best things on the soundtrack. They supply the wonderful title track to the film. They also contribute 'The Lovedolls' tracks: the wonderfully trashy "Rex Smith 9 (I Wanna Be a Cholo Chick)", the groovy rocker "Beer & Ludes" (with Cheap Trick's "Hello There" in the bridge) and the Brady Bunch cover "Sunshine Day". Lead vocals on these three songs are regrettably shared with the way-too nasally and off-key Jennifer Schwartz (who plays Kitty Carryall in both films). Their cover of "Purple Haze" is also included here as well (although that song was featured in DTLD not LDS).

There's also some truly great material supplied by others. Ex-Bangle Annette Zilinskas' beautiful Sonny & Cher cover "Baby Don't Go", Painted Willie cover Prince & The Revolution's Nikki ("Darling Shelah") and back Jennifer Schwartz on "Now That I've Tasted Blood". There are also unremarkable tracks by Dead Kennedys, Meat Puppets and Sonic Youth included as well.

Black Flag contribute the lifeless "Kickin' and Stickin'" and also back Schwartz on "The Love Machine". The wholly unimaginative score was done by Flag guitarist Greg Ginn's side project Gone. Ginn would later inexplicably deny the use of this material on the 2006 DVD release/soundtrack those eight these tracks are only available here on the original SST soundtrack.

Aside from the fantastic Redd Kross tracks, Painted Willie and the Annette Zilinskas stunner, these songs tend to work better within the context of the film than they do on their own on the soundtrack. The soundtrack is also an unwitting document of a fine time in the history of alternative music.

The Seeds' Sky "Sunlight" Saxon RIP

Sky Saxon of the Los Angeles band The Seeds passed away yesterday at age 63. The Seeds were late 60's Garage Rockers who really liked Marijuana, that is they professed as much perhaps more than other bands actively did (by having a song called "Rollin Machine" and naming themselves The Seeds for a start). They had hits with "Pushin' Too Hard" (which made an appearance in the film Desperate Teenage Lovedolls), "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" (which was covered by everyone from The Ramones to Alex Chilton) and "Mr. Farmer" (which was in the film Almost Famous). Their first two albums - The Seeds and A Web of Sound (both 1966) are absolute classics. If you've not heard The Seeds by all means check them out. They were a direct influence in Iggy Pop & The Stooges, New York Dolls and several others.

When The Seeds broke up in the late 60's Sky kind of lost touch with reality. He had an erratic, if creatively unsuccessful, solo career. He appeared in the flim Lovedolls Superstar (the sequel to Desperate Teenage Lovedolls). He formed the brief, wonderfully-named band Purple Electricity with Jeff & Steve McDonald of Redd Kross. In 1986 they released the improvised (i.e. unrehearsed) live album Private Party. Sky most recently recorded with Smashing Pumpkins. The cause of death is yet to be determined. He was 63 years old.