1. “Honey” Bobby Goldsboro

I HATE this song! So wimpy, I had to endure it endlessly in the pre-FM car radio days.

And when FM finally hit cars, it was really spotty. Sometimes we had to tune in the AM band just to get reception. Now in ’68, I was fully an album guy, my single purchasing days were far behind me. But because of this auto situation, I knew the radio hits. I can sing every lick of this song, it’s an insidious number that gets in your head that you can’t get out.

But all these years later, every time I hear it, I smile.

Explain that to me! How songs you hate you end up liking decades later.

Note – liking, not loving…

2. “Tighten Up” Archie Bell & The Drells

Drells?

I reference this song every time I go skiing. When I get off the lift, I tell my compatriots I’ve got to do the TIGHTEN UP! Yup, buckle my boots tight for my next run.

My older sister bought this single. Girls seem to get soul first, they’ve got the rhythm in them, isn’t it interesting so many play bass…

That’s just to say I didn’t really get “Tighten Up” at first, but hearing it in my house I came to enjoy it. And just like with “Honey” above, I smile every time I hear it…

3. “Young Girl” The Union Gap Featuring Gary Puckett

I don’t know if they could have released this song today, what with the politically correct army and the religious zealots…

Then again, this is an undeniable smash, and when we were young the lyrics oftentimes went over our head, we were enraptured by the sound and the feel, and from beginning to end, “Young Girl” works. It’s the apotheosis of the Union Gap. Which may not sound like much, but they had a run…this song was ubiquitous on the radio, I never changed the channel when it came on initially and continued to listen to it as time went by, some classics you can never burn out on. I won’t say it still sounds fresh today, but its magic is intact. It’s a mini Phil Spector production, there are horns, a whole bunch of stuff, the wall of sound is porous, but we can’t help but immerse ourselves in it.

4. “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly”  Hugo Montenegro, His Orchestra And Chorus

I never saw the movie. Oh, I had buddies who waxed rhapsodic about the charms of Clint Eastwood, but I didn’t get hooked until he went American, and then I saw everything he did…both the dramas and the comedies, from “Dirty Harry” to “Bronco Billy,” he was truly talented.

Every baby boomer knows this track. They can name it within one second of hearing the riff, the hook, the cry from the desert, the western of your mind.

5. “Cry Like A Baby” The Box Tops

Nothing can top their initial single, “The Letter,” but I loved this too, primarily because of Alex Chilton’s vocal, he had the same name in Big Star, but never sounded the same. And although the production sounds a bit cheesy, you can still hear the drama, and that solo is akin to a George Harrison masterpiece, simple yet so right. The track is only two and a half minutes long, but there’s so much in it, from the aforementioned guitar solo to the brass to the backup vocals, it’s exquisite work.

6. “A Beautiful Morning” The Rascals

It looks like they’re finally getting their victory lap.

The Rascals were the biggest thing on the east coast. They held their own against all the British groups. To hear this in the morning was to start your day with a bounce in your step.

7. “Cowboys To Girls” The Intruders

I remember when I used to play shoot ’em up

This is another track where the lyrics didn’t truly resonate until I got older, when it was a hit I was done with guns, but I wasn’t fully grown up. Then again, it was a girl in Old Greenwich who turned me on to it. I met her skiing at Stratton and we used to correspond, it’d make my heart pitter-patter when I arrived home and a letter was on my blotter, where my father put my mail. Wish I still had those missives, but I threw them out in a fit of pique, angry she’d moved on. Once again, I was relatively immune to so many soul classics, but this girl turned me on to this one. Every time I hear it I think back to her and those days…

And once again, could this lyric make the hit parade today?

I remember when I chased the girls and beat ’em up

We know what he’s talking about, but there are certain things you don’t say today, for fear of the backlash. Then again, that’s what you do with girls, disdain them until you do a 180…I know, I saw it on the “Rugrats,” where physicality turned to affection on the playground!

8. “The Unicorn” The Irish Rovers

I haven’t heard this since. I couldn’t even place the title. But as soon as it started to play…instant recognition, that’s what endless airplay did back then, burn these songs into our subconscious.

“The Unicorn” is kind of like Donovan’s “Atlantis,” you laugh at it, but you still like it!

9. “Mrs. Robinson” Simon & Garfunkel

“The Graduate” dominated discussion…it was controversial and poignant. But in an era where everybody wanted to be hip, wanted to not only acknowledge the new reality but partake, backlash was close to nonexistent. Today the same baby boomers who embraced the movie decry the loss of everything they know, like CDs, while lamenting the fast pace of the future.

Then again, I don’t think today’s graduates would understand the movie, which was all about finding yourself after college graduation. Nobody has time to lose, nobody can trust their instincts and emotions these days, everybody’s chasing the big bucks…or being left behind.

As for the power of song… “Mrs. Robinson” single-handedly brought Joe DiMaggio back into the public consciousness. He was not happy about it, but there would have been no Mr. Coffee ads on TV, no latter-day bucks, without this song. The younger generation knew Joe, but we’d never seen him play, he’d retired when our hero, Mickey Mantle, took the field in 1951, but suddenly, in this pre-Internet era, his visage was everywhere, tied up with Marilyn Monroe and dignity and…

Then again, this was when artists were kings, when the personal statement was key, before money trumped everything.

10. “Lady Madonna” The Beatles

Of course this is not on Spotify, the Beatles led fifty years ago, today they come last. But once upon a time, even four years after their American debut, a Beatles song would blast out of the speaker outshining everything.

McCartney says Fats Domino was an inspiration. I’m gonna attach his cover to this playlist, but he’s not the only one who did it, so did the dearly-departed Richie Havens and Booker T. And The MG’s and…THE UNION GAP, on their YOUNG GIRL album!

P.S. This is the “Billboard” Top Ten, your mileage may vary, because at this point in time radio was still local, and some stations ran songs up the chart and kicked them to the curb quicker than others.

Rhinofy-Top Ten-May 11, 1968

Previous Rhinofy playlists

It’s still light out!

I don’t know what time it is there, but it’s ten after nine here, eleven now, and the sun still hasn’t set… I don’t know if it’ll ever set, when I slept at Richard’s house three years back during the summer solstice it was like that Al Pacino movie set in Alaska, “Insomnia,” you’re waiting for complete darkness and it never comes!

So what have I observed about Londoners…THEY SMOKE!

Once upon a time smoking was cool, now everybody knows it causes cancer. I can understand doing it for a bit when you’re a teenager, that rebellion thingy, but once you grow up…do you not want to grow old? I know quitting sucks, but so does dying. You realize that when the end is near, like so many other truths your parents told you.

And I realized everybody was smoking because I saw them out last night in Piccadilly Circus. I’m used to L.A., where there is no nightlife, where everything interesting is happening at home, and you’re not invited. But there’s definitely a scene in London, and it’s not only there.

But back to smoking… I did see a woman outside a hospital, in a wheelchair, with the drip bag attached, puffing on a cigarette. And no, it wasn’t a “MAD” magazine photo shoot.

Today we started off with a jaunt around Hyde Park. We saw Kensington Palace. The newlyweds with the soon to be newborn are going to live there, I wouldn’t, maybe because the point was made again and again in the play last night, that it’s actually not good to be the queen. Everybody’s got problems, and we want our privacy to work them through.

And then we strolled down to the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) for the David Bowie exhibition.

I learned plenty.

Just not what they intended.

The exhibit is schizophrenic, it’s needed to be laid out linearly, from yesterday to today. But you keep wondering why they skipped “Ziggy Stardust” when they’re talking about “The Earthling,” and then you go into a further room and there it is. Huh?

And if you’re a big fan, and I was, you know so much.

But not everything.

First and foremost, BOWIE WAS DYING TO MAKE IT!

Yup, it didn’t happen by accident. His father gave him an acrylic saxophone, he played a twelve string because it looked good. He was in numerous bands before going solo and striking it rich. And in each and every one of them, he was focused not only on the music, but the look, both the fashions and the staging.

And he came from a musical family. Not only was his mother a singer, so was his father’s first wife. Yup, Bowie’s dad John blew $400,000 to $600,000 in today’s money, his inheritance, trying to make his first wife famous.

That’s what they don’t tell you about performers, it’s in their blood.

And I didn’t know that Paul Buckmaster did the strings on “Space Oddity” and Rick Wakeman played keyboard.

But what struck me most about the exhibit was…

1. Influences.

You’ve got to soak it up, you’ve got to read, watch and observe. Nobody exists in a vacuum. You need to be inspired, you need to twist and meld these influences into something new.

2. Bowie was a product of his era, when pop stars were king, when television was the best exposure. We don’t live in that era anymore. What I don’t understand is why today’s stars don’t utilize today’s medium, i.e. the Internet. No one wants an album every few years when they’re surfing the Net every minute for new info. Furthermore, when it comes to imaging, everybody’s looking at a mobile handset! Bowie blew it with his new album. He could have taken over the Internet, he could have matched his music to the era, but he didn’t.

You’ve got to:

A. Create and distribute constantly. Perfection is irrelevant. Don’t polish, release. Used to be we had very little music, we saved for albums and played them incessantly, because it’s all we had. Now, we’ve got the history of recorded music at our fingertips, we’re grazers, graze along with us!

B. Mystery is history. We pondered who Bowie truly was, it was part of his magic, now there’s a camera on every corner and everybody’s known. Use this to your advantage! The old pop star is dead, create the new one!

C. Communicate the way your fans do. Tweeting and Instagraming is not marketing or promotion, it’s your art, the same way Bowie’s outfits were.

3. Pop careers are brief. Primarily because radio abandons you. Give Bowie credit, he kept innovating, but radio became static. And without radio, he couldn’t penetrate anybody but his fan base. It’s a harsh reality. Although with the decline of radio, a new reality is being born.

4. They make the point that pop stars used to try and become movie stars, because musical careers were brief and movie stars were kings. But by the late sixties, rock stars were kings. Bowie tried to make the movie/acting thing work for him, it never works for any pop star, not even Justin Timberlake, but it does keep you in the public eye.

I guess what I’m saying is David Bowie was a product of his era.

And his era passed.

So why do you keep playing by his rules? It’d be like trying to dial a push button phone, push the keys hard on a computer, as if it were a manual typewriter…you’ve got to adjust to the new game.

Everything used to be so small, so quaint. You could do a show and build word of mouth slowly. Now, if you’re any good, the highlights of your performance are all over YouTube in minutes. And if you’re not a star, no one cares what you do. Everything’s topsy-turvy, but the business runs like it’s still the same.

And video… Today you make your own. You don’t have to worry about acting. They’re truly advertisements for the rest of your work. And they’re cheap. You can make them for free!

Not that you can’t spend.

But how are you going to spend?

Yes, the biggest disappointment of the Bowie show was it was made for non-fans. You know a fan, he wants to dig deep, he laps up the obscure, he lives for factoids. But there were very few in this exhibit. It was a victory lap for the uninitiated.

Not that that’s Bowie’s fault.

And good for him that he can draw so many people, it was packed.

But we own the music, not the curators or the mainstream reviewers. Music is for fans.

And I can tell you that Ron Davies wrote “It Ain’t Easy” on the “Ziggy Stardust” album, but there was no depth about that production whatsoever. Although I did see some handwritten lyrics, which was so cool.

Remember dropping the needle on “Five Years”?

That’s a feeling not contained in this exhibition.

Then again, that’s music, something you hear, not see.

It all comes down to the music. The imaging is subservient to that.

I would have wanted to hear more from Tony Visconti, more from Ken Scott, more studio pictures, more context of what was and was not successful at the time.

But instead we get costumes from SNL.

Oh, I don’t want to bitch, I just want to give you some perspective.

Let go! Be inspired! Create! Blow our minds!

Human nature has not changed. We want to be intrigued, we want to be titillated, and now, like never before, you can go straight to your audience, there are no restrictions. So I just can’t understand why you’re doing it the same old way.

That’s why music is unhealthy. Because there are no David Bowies.

Mr. Jones had one helluva long ride. You wanna know why? Because he kept adjusting. He kept looking at the landscape and cogitating his place in it. And when he got on top, he went into hyperdrive, he was anything but safe, that’s when he accelerated change, that’s when he truly began to lead.

See anybody doing that today?

The challenge is set. The gauntlet is thrown down.

Your move.

David Bowie is

Test limits. They do the unexpected. They make our jaws drop.

Have you seen “Book Of Mormon”? There’s a tribal chief with a name so OUT THERE, so OFFENSIVE, so SWEAR WORD, that I cannot use it in this e-mail, or you won’t get it.

Yup, I love to use the F-word. But I can’t. Because too many of you work for uptight corporations with spam filters that won’t let that word through. Yup, you think you’re so hip, that you’re not like your parents, that you’re open-minded and accepting. But the truth is so many are still on the treadmill of life, working for the man, and we depend upon artists to show us the light, to question convention, to stretch our minds, to show us the POSSIBILITIES!

In other words, there’s a market for imitation, but what we’re truly interested in, what truly lasts, is ORIGINALITY!

Where is it in music, come on, all you tattooed and pierced knee-jerkers, point out all those acts doing the unexpected, wowing us.

No, we’ve got a veritable plethora of me-toos.

And for those who are different, they’re too often not good. The trick is to be different and mainstream, whether it be the Beatles, with “Sgt. Pepper,” or the “South Park” boys, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, with “Book Of Mormon.”

A Broadway play? It doesn’t SCALE!

That’s the first thing a wannabe rock star tells you, he’s going for world domination, he’s the next Madonna. Well I hate to tell you, but the reason you know Madonna’s name is because there’s only one. Forget the lost, dieted-down-to-nothing woman parading on stages today, once upon a time Madonna was a head-twisting paragon of the new, whose flock was developed by not only excellent music, but a belt that said “Boy Toy” and a song about being a virgin. If you don’t think that shook up the establishment, you never saw the video for “Like A Prayer.” This wasn’t manufactured controversy, it was the real thing!

And where do we see it today?

Maybe with Amy Winehouse. She tragically died, too many of the greats just weren’t made for this world, but her music didn’t sound quite like anything that came before, never mind since. Sure, she had influences, but she took them and concocted something new.

Bruno Mars?

Where’s the originality?

And I’m saying that because he’s talented, he’s vaunted, he’s one of the good ones!

As for rock acts, it seems they’re all stuck in the seventies or eighties, whether they be metal acts imitating Zeppelin and Metallica, or rock bands in jeans and hats who seem to be nothing but Ronnie Van Zant’s children.

And rock stars are always resisted at first. I didn’t watch “South Park,” it was a cartoon! A herky-jerky concoction with high-pitched voices. But word of mouth became deafening, over years! And they never backed down, they’d skewer someone, never the safe target, and never apologize.

And they did a successful movie.

So did they repeat the formula?

NO!

They moved on, to Broadway.

Want to be inspired? Want to see the real deal? Want to see what it’s all about?

Go see “Book Of Mormon.”

Sitting in the audience for that play is like watching “Springtime For Hitler” in “The Producers.” You’re shocked, you just sit there with your mouth agape.

It’s a long hard path to stardom. But it’s on the road not taken. And the reason we’ve got such a mediocre music scene is because nobody wants to do something different, they just want to go on a TV show or imitate someone who’s already made it, thinking if they do a good job singing someone else’s hit on YouTube, they’re entitled to worldwide notoriety.

NO!

Write your own damn song. Make it completely different.

There was no Talking Heads before the band emerged. And there’s been none since.

And in the classic rock era, the greats all sounded different.

And that’s why it was classic. It was a hotbed of innovation. Everybody inspired each other to innovate.

Today artists just inspire each other to sell out. Have a clothing line. A perfume with their name on it.

And if you don’t think I’m speaking the truth, you can’t handle the truth!

Peace out.

Did you catch the Beatles reference? It was intentional! Hang on and I’ll get to it, I’ll make the circle complete.

1. Everybody parks their expensive cars on the street. Maseratis, Ferraris, Bentleys…all of their paint jobs fading in the acid rain. In L.A. the most important thing is what kind of car you drive, people never leave them outside and are regulars at the car wash. It would blow their mind to see these vehicles deteriorating in the elements. Then again, its only a CAR!

2. So we’re riding the tube, and Lisa elbows me, drawing my attention to the Pearly King & Queen.

Pearl King and Queen

Now you know the Traffic song… Is there a connection?

3. Fancy Dress. No, not tuxedos and gowns, but funny outfits, like the ones we saw the college age students wearing, they were playing street Monopoly, don’t ask me to explain, I didn’t understand!

4. I had duck confit for lunch. There was an outdoor market near Sloane Square and the choices represented nationalities from Spain to Peru. The electric burners went on the fritz, but I eventually got my sandwich. Was it the best ever? No, don’t think so, but I’ve never gotten duck from a roadside stand before.

5. Which brings us to the British Library… We went there to see an exhibit on Propaganda, which “Time Out” said was one of the Top Ten things to do in London this week.

Only we didn’t get in…

To the exhibit that is, we made it into the library.

And as a result, I’m a bit down right now. Because I was counting on it. No matter how old you grow, disappointment always sucks.

So the bottom line is we could have gotten in, if we’d bought tickets when we arrived, but on my journey to the loo I got waylaid by the gems of the British Library, its greatest hits, I implored Lisa to go there first.

And what I saw…

Leonardo’s notebooks. Wherein he wrote in mirror script, with his left hand, from right to left.

But even more impressive was Jane Austen’s writing desk. And Mozart’s marriage contract.

Yes, they had the cases broken down by type, and there was a whole one for music. Handel’s original “Messiah.” And…

The Beatles.

It was positively jaw-dropping. They had John Lennon’s original lyrics for “A Hard Day’s Night,” written on the back of Julian’s first birthday card. If it weren’t a museum, I would have thought it was a set-up.

And there was more. McCartney’s “Michelle” lyrics. Unused Harrison lyrics. And I lived through it all, but it was half a century ago, it’s truly history now.

P.S. I saw the Magna Carta and a Gutenberg Bible.

P.P.S. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m getting older, but suddenly I can see these were real people. Although Michelangelo was famous, he was the first person to have his biography written while he was still alive, I’m sure a lot of the other people didn’t realize we’d still be talking about them hundreds of years later. Hell, those who were popular then aren’t necessarily popular now. Ben Jonson was bigger than Shakespeare, but it’s the latter everybody knows today (and both their works were in this exhibit at the British Library.)

P.P.P.S. Being closed out of the Propaganda exhibit, Lisa took me next door to the St. Pancras Hotel, behind which was Eurostar station. From London to Paris…sounds like a Kraftwerk song!

P.P.P.P.S. Frustrated, with time on our hands, we went to the Wellcome Collection. That’s an American, Henry Wellcome, he brought pharmaceuticals in pill form to the U.K., his foundation is the second biggest in the world, just behind Bill Gates’s, according to the guy at the information desk. But not everybody who’s rich collects stuff worth seeing. Most of it was medical, but there was a chastity belt and anti-masturbation rings and glass eyeballs and other artifacts that will haunt me in the middle of the night.

P.P.P.P.P.S. The sun came out! Very briefly. I grew up in New England, I know from gray, but I’m not sure I could handle it anymore, not after living in L.A.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. We started off at the farmer’s market. Remember when England had a reputation for bad food? From vegetables to bread, the attractions were mouth-watering. A bread that looked like it’d been kicked around like a ball evidenced the crust my father endeared me to. Lisa bought a fish with orange spots for dinner tomorrow night.  Here’s pics!

Bread

Fish

We’re off to see Helen Mirren in “The Audience,” gotta go!

The Audience

Note: I love the Internet, here’s the backstory on Pearly Kings and Queens, who knew?

Pearly Kings and Queens

Second note: This is a bad pic, but the only one I could find online of the original lyrics of “A Hard Day’s Night.” It’s the fact that they’re written on the back of this children’s birthday card that makes them so great!

original lyrics of “A Hard Day’s Night”