R.I.P. Smokey the Hamster: The Tears of a Clown

Smokey, our beloved family hamster, passed away last night under some mysterious, Bob Crane-like circumstances which I don't care to get into. I'm not sure how old he was or if he leaves any survivors, but my kids are devastated.

Smokey got his name for his smokey-colored mane, not for any resemblance to Motown's great singer/songwriter/producer Smokey Robinson, whose "Tears of a Clown" is one of my all-time favorite songs.

The music for "Tears of a Clown" was written in 1966 by Stevie Wonder and his partner at Motown Hank Cosby. Though they loved the instrumental track they'd created, Stevie couldn't come up with a lyric or melody that he thought was worthy of it, so he asked Smokey if he had any ideas.

Smokey said the song reminded him of the circus and immediately got to work writing a tune wherein the subject of the tune compares himself to the sad opera clown Pagliachi.

The tune was released in 1967 but didn't strike it big till 1970, when it was issued as a single and went straight to #1 in the US and UK. Amazingly, it was Smokey's only #1 hit with the Miracles.

Eleven years later the English Beat did a fine ska-tinged version of "Tears of a Clown" on their classic debut LP I Just Can't Stop It that was a big hit on the college/new wave radio party circuit.



As Smokey says in the song, There's some sad things known to man, but there ain't too much sadder than a dead hamster. I'm paraphrasing of course. R.I.P., Smokey.

Get "Tears of a Clown" on iTunes here:
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
The English Beat

Pete Townshend's "Corrina, Corrina": One of the Highlights of the New Bob Dylan/Amnesty International Benefit Record

I've been digging into the house of mirrors that is Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan, the  new 4-CD, 73-track tribute to the Zim-master that honors and benefits Amnesty International.

Pay a visit to Amnesty's website and you'll learn their mission is to "Expose and prevent human rights abuses." Hard to argue with that.

Amnesty was founded 50 years ago by English labour lawyer Peter Berenson the same year Dylan released his first LP, so a Dylan-themed project was a natural. Plus, the guy wrote the best Amnesty- ready tunes ever, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "I Shall be Released." For this project, Bob kindly offered up his peerless song catalog up for free to everyone who wanted to do a cover, and pretty much everyone asked said yes.

Participants run the gamut from My Morning Jacket to Lucinda Williams to Bryan Ferry to Adele to Miley Cyrus to a lot of interesting, international artists I've never heard of, like Ximena Sariñana. Most of the versions are good or at least interesting. If you are a Dylan fan, it's a must buy.

One of my favorite tracks thus far has been Pete Townshend's gentle take on "Corrina, Corrina," an old folk tune which Dylan recorded for on his second LP The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, and I think the only song on the tribute wasn't actually written by Dylan. You can hear Dylan's version here.

Pete's been playing it live recently, and he talks about the origins of the tune here.

Townshend and Amnesty go way back - he's probably done more than any other public figure to bring the organization's mission to the public light.

He also did one of the great unplugged performances of all time in 1979 as part of the Amnesty-benefiting Secret Policemen's Ball. Best was this performance of the Quadrophenia track featuring some career-best singing and guitar playing. Had The Who never happened, Pete would have made a fine singer-songwriter.



Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan is priced to move. You can download it on Amazon for $19.99 or a get a physical copy for a dollar less below.

Monday Monday: The #1 Song on the Day I Was Born

The latest parlour game to sweep social media is "What Was the #1 Song on the Day You Were Born?” All you do is go to Google and type in "#1 song on" followed by the date and year of your birth.

The chart-topping song on the day I was born happens to be a perfect song for a melancholy Monday: “Monday Monday,” the first hit by The Mamas and the Papas. 

Though they came and went in a flash, The Mamas and the Papas were one of the most enduring groups of the 60s. 

Mama Cass Elliot, Denny Doherty, and husband and wife Papa John and Michelle Phillips sprung from  the Greenwich Village coffeehouse circuit that also produced Bob Dylan, The Byrds and The Lovin' Spoonful to form a vocally stunning folk-rock sound that was an instant worldwide smash. Their improbable rise to fame was chronicled in their cheeky classic "Creque Alley":

Despite their offbeat visual appeal and wholesome image, The Mamas and the Papas were one of the hardest-partying bands of all time. sleeping with each other in almost every conceivable  combination. Leader Papa John Phillips' appetite for drugs was so legendary he made Keith Richards look like Mitt Romney.

In addition to a string of beautifully produced hits that also included "California Dreamin,'" The Mamas and the Papas also organized the first-ever rock festival, 1967's Monterey Pop, which turned Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin and The Who into superstars in the Summer of Love.

So great was the impact of these acts that the Mamas and Papas themselves were overshadowed. Nevertheless, they put on a great show. 


Here they are getting very groovy at Monterey on one of their best deep cuts, “Straight Shooter.”

Make your Monday Monday a little brighter - get some Mamas & Papas on iTunes here.

What was the #1 song on the day you were born? Rock Turtleneck wants to know. Please leave a comment below.

2011: A Banner Year for Critically Acclaimed Yet Unlistenable Music

2011 was perhaps the best year ever for music that was adored by critics yet unlistenable to laypeople.

The other day, the Village Voice published its annual Pazz & Jop Critics Poll, which surveys hundreds of music critics around the country to create something more or less like a consensus of the the best records of the year. Usually, an undeniable instant classic like The Clash's London Calling, Nirvana's Nevermind or Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind rises to the top.

This year the surprise #1 record of 2011 was whokill, by a shift key-challenged artiste called tUnE-yArDs (seen above). I’d heard the name but knew nothing of the music, and now I know why - it is tUnE-lEsS. 


According to the Voice poll, his/her/their/its song "Bizness" was the 12th best song of the year. To me it sounds like an unholy alliance betwen Adam and the Ants, Joan Armatrading and a crystal meth addict.

Over at the indie-snob mecca Pitchfork, the best record of the year was the self-titled sophomore album by the Minneapolis singer-songwriter and Kanye West pal Bon Iver. 


I thought tUnE-yArDs' reckless use of upper and lower case type was pretentious, until I found out that Bon Iver is supposed to be pronounced in French, ala bonjour, as opposed to the American way like Bon Jovi. Translated loosely from French, "Bon Iver" means "don't bother."


Bon Iver's record was celebrated by millennial hipsters for dredging up the sonic palette of 80s dreck like Toto and Bruce Hornsby without irony in songs like "Beth/Rest." Which begs the question, if Bon Iver's watered-down merde is an album for the ages, then why isn't Peter Cetera in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?

As they are with so many trends, Radiohead was way ahead of the curve in 2011, releasing The King of Limbs, their most unlistenable record to date. Rather than rehash the details, I'll simply refer you to Rock Turtleneck's Onion-esque April 1 post entitled "Radiohead Brilliantly Experiments with Sucking on New LP. " 


To the band's credit, that live versions of this material have been far superior, this version of "Little by Little" being a case in point. This was also the case with their albums Kid A and Amnesiac.





Radiohead are the greatest band since R.E.M., so I'm sure they'll bounce back with something fantastic in the near future. tUnE-yArDs and Bon Iver? Don't hold your breath.


Buy them on iTunes if you dare:
tUnE-yArDs, whokill
Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Radiohead, The King of Limbs

Yet More Best-of-2011 Awards from Rock Turtleneck

Following up on our previous awards post, Rock Turtleneck has a couple more awards to hand out in recognition of the excellent and otherwise in 2011.


Best reissue: The Rolling Stones, Some Girls

It felt like just about every record I've ever loved was reissued this year in various Deluxe and Uber-Deluxe incarnations - Nevermind, Achtung Baby, Lifes Rich Pageant - but the best was the Rolling Stones' gritty 1978 return to form Some Girls. The album itself is probably the best Stones record outside of their Beggar's Banquet-Exile on Main St. golden era. As Keith Richards said in his book LIfe, Some Girls was a reaction to the punk movement, but by guys who could really play their instruments.

But whereas the demos and outtakes on the Nirvana, U2 and R.E.M. reissues were by and large underwhelming, The Stones' bonus disc was a true revelation, because it was full of Some Girls-quality songs that just didn’t have quite the same rundown Summer-of-Sam flavor as the official album, such as the Dateline NBC-worthy true crime murder ballad "Claudine."

Best Record by a Septugeneraian: Paul Simon, So Beatuiful or So What

Edie Brickell’s lesser half is still delivering great music at age 70. A handful of songs on So Beautiful or So What were as good as Graceland, and that's saying something. Best of all was the closing title track, which combined time-honored wisdom with Big Easy cooking instructions in the best stanza of the year:
I’m going to make a chicken gumbo
Toss some sausage in the pot
I’m going to flavor it with okra
Cayenne pepper to make it hot
You know life is what we make of it
So beautiful or so what




Best Record of 2011 That Actually Came Out in 2010: Mumford and Sons, Sigh No More

Sigh No More was probably the record I listened to and enjoyed most all year long. If I had to place my bets on one current young band destined for R.E.M.-level greatness, it would be Mumford & Sons. 

These London lads also put in the best musical performance I saw on TV all year, their amazing trilogy with the Avett Brothers and a crazy old coot named Bob Dylan. (For some copyright reason this video is reversed so all the lefties are really righties. But you'll get the idea.)

Buy on iTunes:

Some Girls (Deluxe Edition)

So Beautiful or So What

Sigh No More

Take a Load Off, Mavis: Wilco, Nick Lowe and Mavis Staples Carry "The Weight"

A wonderful video clip has been making the rounds among the music-obsessed. It's a dressing-room run-thorugh of The Band's classic "The Weight" by Wilco, Nick Lowe and Mavis Staples, filmed before a recent Wilco show at the Civic Opera House in Chicago.

It took me a while to figure out what I liked so much about the video, besides the fact that it’s some of my favorite musicians doing one of the all-time classics of the rock & roll canon. But I think what's great about the performance is watching the players arrange the song as they play it, through nonverbal cues like head nods, and hand gestures. 


It's as good an example of music being a universal language as anything you'll see, and it brings the song's message of "carrying the load" to life. Everyone's pitching in, helping out, doing their thing and asking nothing in return.

Mavis of course did a famous version of "The Weight" with The Band (the Wilco of their day) about 35 years ago, during a beatifully filmed offstage segment in Martin Scorcese's rock-doc The Last Waltz. 


The segment was filmed because there were technical difficulties during the version played at the actual Last Waltz concert. Since inclusion of The Band's most famous song was a must, they decided to play up the tune’s soul and gospel leanings by recording it with The Staples Singers. Mr. Lowe deserves props for his spot-on Pops Staples impersonation in the newer clip.

"The Weight" was written by Robbie Robertson and appeared on The Band's debut LP Music from Big Pink. For years, it was rumored that the tune was actually written by Robertson's old boss, Bob Dylan, (it has much of the feel of the tunes Dylan was writing at the time, such as "I Shall Be Released" and "Dear Landlord") but that has never really been substantiated. 


Everyone and their mother has taken a crack at "The Weight" over the years - it's a top-shelf rock standard, right up there with "Yesterday" and "Hallelujah." One of the best is by Lady Soul, Aretha Franklin, with some killer slide guitar by Duane Allman.

Get "The Weight" here:

The Band, Music from Big Pink

The Band & Mavis Staples, The Last Waltz

Aretha Franklin, This Girl's In Love With You

More Best-of-2011 Awards from Rock Turtleneck

Following up on our Album of the Year award to R.E.M. for their swan song Collapse Into Now, here is the first in a series of additional but equally prestigious year-end awards, celebrating the brilliant, wild and thewacky in the world o' music.

Best R.E.M. Tribute/Rip-off: The Decemberists' "Calamity Song"


The King is Dead was one of the year's best records, and the whole record felt like a well-timed R.E.M. homage. "Calamity Song," however, was the R.E.M.iest, featuring Peter Buck playing a variation on his part from "Talk About the Passion." The video alludes to a fictional sport played in Infinite Jest, the magum opus by the late great author David Foster Wallace, or so I've heard; I've never read the book.

Buy on iTunes here




Best Use of Autoharp: PJ Harvey, Let England Shake


Polly Jean Harvey might be the greatest musical chameleon since David Bowie. For this record, a song cycle about the ravages of war, she changed her voice and started rocking the autoharp. Somehow she made it work, delivering her best record since 2001's incredible Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea.

Buy on iTunes here




Best Driving Song: Death Cab for Cutie, "Doors Unlocked and Open"


This deep cut from their excellent Codes and Keys has the propulsive drive of classic road tunes like "L.A. Woman," "Radar Love" and "Blue Monday." This version recorded for KCRW shows that DCC is a pretty excellent live band, too. Step on it.

Buy on iTunes here



Best Opening Track: Wilco, "Art of Almost"


I still haven't decided where The Whole Love resides in the Wilco canon, but "Art of Almost" is almost definitely their best opening track ever. From its Radiohead-esque intro to the Mahavishnu Orchestra-like guitar coda by Nels Cline, "Art of Almost" instantly takes its place in the top rung of Wilco fan favorites alongside "Jesus, Etc.," "The Late Greats," "Impossible Germany" and "California Stars."

Buy on iTunes here

R.E.M.'s "Collapse Into Now": Rock Turtleneck's 2011 Album of the Year

In 1987, Paul Newman won the Best Actor Oscar for the film The Color of Money. It was far from his best-ever performance or his best film. But Newman was getting on in years and he had never won an Oscar. So when he won, everyone knew that it was not only for The Color of Money, but for Hud and Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and The Verdict and his salad dressing and for just being Paul Newman.

Well that’s what Rock Turtleneck is doing this year by naming R.E.M.’s Collapse into Now our 2011 Album of the Year. Was it the best album of 2011? Probably not. But then again there were no other clear winners in my book. (We'll discuss some runners-up later this week.)

But to many Gen-Xers like me, R.E.M. were like The Beatles, with an incredible sense of unity and a string of albums that seemed to mirror and inform my growth as a humanoid in some sort of non-linear yet unmistakeable way. 


And R.E.M.’s announcement on September 21st that they were breaking up felt like the end of an extended adolescence that began the first time I heard their song “1,000,000” on the Garden City, NY station WLIR.

Collapse Into Now is full of typically fine songs, fierce guitar work by Peter Buck and the sweet harmonies of Mike Mills. It nods to practically every style of music they touched on in their amazing 31-year career (well 17 years or so of it was amazing). If R.E.M. was our Beatles, then this was their Abbey Road. After years of discord and barely hanging on, they dug down deep to make one last record the way they used to. 


They knew it was their last hurrah when they recorded it. In fact, Stipe has said that the picture on the cover is him waving goodbye to his fans. And he does the same thing lyrically in “All the Best”:

I'm in a part of your dreams

That you don't even understand

It's just like me to overstay my welcome man

Let's sing it and rhyme

Let's give it one more time

Let's show the kids how to do it fine, fine, fine, fine

While “All the Best” sounded like it could have been on 1986's Lifes Rich Pageant, the post-Katrina dirge "Oh My Heart" was served up Automatic for the People.

While no masterpiece on the level of Automatic or Document, Collapse Into Now was R.E.M.’s best record since the departure of drummer Bill Berry in 1997. (It's hard to believe, but R.E.M. was together without Berry almost as long as with him.) 


It’s also an impressive rebound from 2004’s Around the Sun, one of the lamest records ever made by a major artist. In fact, the band said that the atrociousness of that record inspired them to go out on a strong note with Collapse and 2008's Accelerate.



Collapse Into Now begins and ends with “Discoverer,” which  Stipe says is a reminiscence of discovering New York City when R.E.M. first started touring by van in the early 1980s. It turns out that this take at Hansa Studios in Berlin, where they recorded the record, is supposedly last performance they ever did together as a group. Maybe that's why they all clap at the end.

Congratulations, R.E.M. on this incredible career-capping award. And thanks for Murmur, Reckoning, Document, Out of Time, Automatic for the People, New Adventures in Hi-Fi and your... umm... salad dressing. Belong.

Buy R.E.M.’s Collapse Into Now on iTunes here.