One Liners & Couplets. Partie Trois Quiz

Answer: Iggy Pop - "Lust For Life"

After being without a band for many years David Bowie decided to help his pal Iggy form a new band and start a solo career. The first album they did together was called 'The Idiot' and the band that Bowie put together for that tour included himself on keyboards. Needless to say each and every show on that tour sold out quickly. Probably the first time that had ever happened to Iggy. That was in March of 1977.

"Lust For Life" was recorded immediately after the tour ended (The entire album took a mere eight days to finish - and that includes writing the songs for it!) and issued at the very end of August of 1977. Nobody can say that Iggy did not make it as easy as possible for people to like him and buy his record this time around. From the inviting photo of him smiling at the potential buyer on the cover (a first for him) to the sometimes very positive themed tracks on the album ("Success", "Fall In Love With Me" and the stone classic title track "Lust For Life") some of us Iggy fans were certain this album would be a contender to go into the Top Ten. The ensuing tour was also much more satisfying for us Iggy fans as well simply because the halls were not filled with a sold out crown of which 3/4s had come to see Bowie (who admittedly kept as low a profile on stage during the previous tour as he possibly could) and who were doing the hardest to try and get over to the side of the stage that Bowie was playing on. On the "Lust For Life" tour you basically had a crowd of almost 100% Iggy fans. On "The Idiot" tour you had morons calling out for "Changes", "Rebel Rebel" and "Young Americans" who felt ripped off when not one single Bowie song was sung. On the "Lust For Life" tour you had a few who showed up screaming "Where's Bowie" and who felt ripped off that he was not on this tour. I am 100% convinced that nobody knows more about trying to please the stupid than Iggy does.

The song "Lust For Life" itself has become a beloved classic from its time and has been used in everything from movie soundtracks ('Trainspotting') to various TV commercials. Certainly the song has made Iggy a lot of money. And before ANYBODY dares to start making mouth noises about Iggy selling out: If anybody in Rock and Roll deserves to finally have seen their payday it is Iggy Pop. He darn near died for Rock and Roll and the way many Iggy fans see it, "Lust For Life" gave him some of the financial rewards he had deserved for decades. It is also one of the few rock songs that could almost exist if only the drum track and nothing else had been released. The drum riff (and yes: this song is BUILT around that "riff" so that the beat takes the place of the guitar etc) is one of rock music's Top Five catchiest EVER and even if you do not really know the song you KNOW the beat the moment you hear it... So how did the record do sales-wise you ask? It sold really well at first. It could well have maybe gone into the Top Ten. But then a sad thing happened: Elvis Presley died. Which caused RCA Records to ignore every single record they had just released and focus purely on Elvis Presley and being sure there was ample copies of every single one of his records for grieving fans to buy. Promotion for 'Lust For Life' stopped dead in its tracks! It never made it higher than 120 on the Billboard charts :-(

Answer: Dr John - "I Walk On Gilded Splinters"

Recorded in 1967 and released in 1968, Dr John's debut album 'Gris Gris' is as psychedelic as it gets ("as it gets" meaning his second album 'Babylon' is just about the ultimate in brain frying, drug infused voodoo. That album is off the charts strange). 'Gris Gris' is one hell of a debut record and when it first came out there was nothing in rock music that even remotely sounded like it.

The track "Walk On Gilded Splinters" became the go-to track for bands looking for a song on the album to cover.

The most well known cover would probably be Humble Pie's version on their extremely successful 'Live At The Fillmore" double LP where a 23 minute plus version was prominently featured, taking up the entirety of side two of that two LP set. The good Dr's version has a very distinct sense of evil about it that covers lack. I cannot recommend giving it a listen via You Tube strongly enough. Or better yet: go out and buy it. If you are into this sort of thing that purchase will make you very happy.

Answer: Curtis Mayfield - "Move On Up"

'Curtis'. Curtis Mayfield's debut solo album, was issued in September of 1970. Minds were blown by how utterly astounding this album was/is. Every single track was great. And in this field of glorious soul music "Move On Up" towered above the rest. The album tackled African American issues in a positive way that other artists simply have not been able to come close to doing (barring a few of the albums listed below). The album itself went to number one for five consecutive weeks on Billboard's Black Music Charts and to number nineteen on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. None of the singles released from the album charted in the USA but an edited version of "Move On Up" spent ten weeks in the British Top Fifty (proving once again how in general Europeans have better taste in our soul music than we Americans do!).

Now in closing I would just like to mention a few of the albums released in the black music scene during a thirteen month period: 'Curtis', Stevie Wonder's 'Where I'm Coming From', Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' Isaac Hayes' 'Shaft', James Brown's 'Sex Machine', Sly & The Family Stone's 'There's A Riot Going On' and Funkadelic's 'Maggot Brain'. If you are into great soul music (and shame on you if you are not) then 1970/1971 was a year that must have seemed like the heavens broke open and rained down some of the greatest black music ever recorded under the guise of Soul/Funk. If you are into great soul music (and again: shame on you if you are not) and you were alive back then, 1970/1971 must have been the greatest year of your life.

Answer: The Mothers Of Invention - "You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here"

I bought my first copy (I have bought many over the intervening decades) of 'Freak Out' pretty much right after I turned seven as a mono copy at Wallach's Music City in Canoga Park probably the first week it was issued days before leaving the USA for my yearly summer vacation in Germany (When I went to Germany again the following year one of the albums I purchased whilst over there was the single LP UK edition of "Freak Out"). Without going deeply into my mother's reaction to this (as well as a few previous albums I had bought that year) let's just say that THIS is the album where my mother finally had enough and bought me my own portable record player just so that I would no longer have to play my music in the living room on HER record player where SHE would be forced to have to endure my "crappy" music. Ok she used a somewhat stronger word than crappy, but let's just leave it at that.

"You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here" was my initial favorite track off of the album. While over the decades the album has sold well you are probably asking yourself "So how did the album do saleswise at the time of its release"? It didn't. Once again the record sold much better in Europe than it did in the USA. Shame on you USA! To this day still one of my top ten all time favorite albums ever.

Answer: The Cramps - "Under The Wires"

I love the Cramps. 'Psychedelic Jungle' was released in May of 1981. It was their second album. I do not know about the rest of the world but it did not chart in the US. At all. But the people that actually bought this record and their first one... it was the confirmation of a love affair that had started a year earlier and continues with us Cramps fans to this day.

The above track just happens to be my favorite song on the album. The Cramps were part of the original US Punk scene (even though they were considered 'psychobilly' for the most part). I myself like to categorize them simply as 'great American music'.

Answer: The Rolling Stones - "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby (Standing In The Shadow)"

My all time favorite Rolling Stones single release. Ok in all honesty it is tied with "Time Is On My Side". But still: this song has the FILTHIEST sounding bass guitar on it I had ever heard on a record when it first came out as a single in September of 1966 (It eventually made an LP appearance in late June 1967 on the amazing 'Flowers' album).

The single reached number nine on the US charts and the 'Flowers' LP reached number three. The Rolling Stones put out MANY truly great singles in the sixties.

Many a band issued some great singles in the sixties. But not one of them sounded anything remotely like this track.

Answer: Velvet Underground - "Venus In Furs"

"Andy Warhol Presents The Velvet Underground & Nico"

Throughout my life I have had many different 'favorite songs of the month, year etc'. But in the end there are two songs in particular that have been my very favorite song of all time (I have two because each one is completely mood dependent, plus I cannot pick which one of the two I like better). These two songs are The Velvet Underground's "Venus In Furs" and The Beatles' "Hello Goodbye".

Once again: an album I purchased the original version of (the version that opens with the Track "I'm Waiting For The Man", NOT "Sunday Morning") days before I turned eight years old at Wallach's Music City in Canoga Park (Thank you Wallach's Music City's house hippie for purposely recommending albums to me that you thought I would hate. You have no idea the monster you helped create). But let's be real here: what kid could possible resist an album with a peel-able banana on the cover! Believe it or not this album was actually slowly going up in the charts, eventually reaching number 171, before a lawsuit filed by Eric Emerson (whose image was originally featured as part of the back cover live shot without his permission) forced Verve to withdraw the album from sale for five months during which his image could be airbrushed out of live photo on the back (and at which point momentum for the album had died).

Answer: The Kinks - "Waterloo Sunset"

Alright. The Kinks song I REALLY wanted to use was "Sunny Afternoon". Which gets used on this site often enough. And the lyric I wanted to use is the same one everybody who chooses that song uses. And as I am not somebody who enjoys ripping off somebody else's ideas I default to "Waterloo Sunset". Arguably the most beautiful rock song ever written.

It was released both as a single and as part of the wonderful 'Something Else' LP in 1967. The song itself made it into the Top Ten in the USA and is ranked at number forty two on "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" (speaking for myself I cannot think of ten songs in rock music that are better than "Waterloo Sunset", much less forty one more).

This song is one of rock music's most perfect moments. How great is this song? On Def Leppard's surprisingly great 'Yeah!' album from 2006, this is one of the songs they covered.

It did NOT suck!

Answer: Black Randy & The Metrosquad - "Barefootin' On The Wicket Picket"

My first punk show was The Ramones at The Starwood in West Hollywood in 1976. I was instantly hooked. Black Randy (born John Morris, January 5, 1952) was a HUGELY important part of the original US punk scene if only for his and David Brown's legendary 'Dangerhouse' label, a label devoted to punk rock and for many bands the one label that would release their music. And amongst the various uniformly great records they released were three EPs by his band 'Black Randy & The Metrosquad' as well as their LP 'Pass The Dust I Think I'm Bowie' (since reissued as a two LP set vs the original single LP version), released in 1979 and one of only two full length albums released on the label (the other was a one sided picture disc compilation entitled "Yes LA'). I had the great pleasure of seeing them live one time - to this day one of the funniest shows I have ever seen in my life. Sadly Black Randy died on November 11, 1988 due to complications from AIDS.

Answer: Jimi Hendrix - "Message To Love"

Jimi's 1970 live 'Band Of Gypsys"' LP was an album he owed to Capitol records due to some lousy contracts he signed when he was starting out as a solo act. Oddly enough it turned out to be one of his finest albums! "Message To Love" is a song that over the decades has slowly become my favorite track from that album.

It has since also been released on 1975's 'Crash Landing' album, 1995's 'Voodoo Soup' release as well as its most recent issue on the 2014 'Hear My Music' release. In the USA 'Band Of Gypsys' was Jimi's best selling and highest charting albums since his debut 'Are You Experienced'.

It entered the charts at number eighteen and went all the way to number five and spent a grand total of SIXTY ONE weeks on the charts!