Archives for February 2017

Certain Songs #784: The Jimi Hendrix Experience – “Fire”

February 8, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Are You Experienced
Year: 1967

Of course, if the Jimi Hendrix Experience had just been a flash guitarist and a couple of other dudes, then they would have been, oh I dunno, Ten Years After. And had they been three ego-driven virtuosos, they would have been Cream.

Now I know that a whole bunch of y’all love Cream more than I do, and some of you might even love Ten Years After, but none of their records were even a patch on what The Jimi Hendrix Experience pulled off on Are You Experienced, which remains one of the greatest debuts in the history of music. (Did I mention that?)

Certain Songs #783: The Jimi Hendrix Experience – “Purple Haze”

February 7, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Are You Experienced
Year: 1967

How do I even deal with Jimi Hendrix?

I mean, he was a complete game-changer, an absolutely incandescent comet who redefined heavy rock ‘n’ roll guitar and then up and died before he could get old and boring. And so many words have been spilled about him that I’m sure I don’t have a whole lot new to add.

Except this confession: I’ve always felt that I never quite got Jimi Hendrix the way that everybody else did, and while I appreciate his guitar wizardry, it never spoke to me the way that some of his less-skilled contemporaries — like Pete Townshend and Jimmy Page — did.

Certain Songs #782: Jim Stafford – “Swamp Witch”

February 6, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Jim Stafford
Year: 1973

So, along with the multiple Elton John & BTO albums, as well as Band on the Run and Toys in the Attic, Jim Stafford’s 1974 self-titled debut album was one of the first albums I ever bought.

I’m not sure why, but it was probably because he’d had a string of hit singles on KYNO — “Swamp Witch,”Spiders & Snakes,” “My Girl Bill” and “Wildwood Weed” — going back to summer of 1973, and I figured I could get all of them on the same disc.

Certain Songs #781: The Jim Carroll Band – “People Who Died”

February 5, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Catholic Boy
Year: 1980

Jim Carroll’s Catholic Boy was a weird weird beast. While it had some of the power and drive of (and couldn’t have existed without) punk rock, Carroll clearly had nothing to do with punk rock or new wave.

He was more like Tonio K, a singer-songwriter who seemed to like the fact that punky energy might draw attention to the stories he wanted to tell. And since he was originally a poet, there’s also a Patti Smith comparison, of course, though you never got the sense that he was looking for transcendence in music like she was.

Certain Songs #780: The J. Geils Band – “Centerfold”

February 4, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Freeze Frame
Year: 1981

This, right here, is my platonic ideal of a pop song.

The first time I heard “Centerfold,” I thought to myself “this is a song that should hit #1 all around the world.” Of course, I’ve thought that many many times, but, thanks a lot to an incredibly clever video that was in double-plus heavy rotation on MTV (with the accompanying rumour that MTV VJ Martha Quinn was in the video), “Centerfold” was a #1 hit single here, and in other countries, as well.

Certain Songs #779: The J. Geils Band – “Love Stinks”

February 3, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Love Stinks
Year: 1980

Alternating big “Louie Louie” guitars, squealing synths and hilariously relatable lyrics, 1980’s “Love Stinks” was almost a warmup for the huge success that was just around the corner.

Never speeding up past a slow march, “Love Stinks” is delivered with the supreme confidence of old pros who know exactly what they’re doing every step of the way.

Certain Songs #778: The J. Geils Band – “Must Of Got Lost”

February 2, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Nightmares…And Other Tales From the Vinyl Jungle
Year: 1974

The evolution of The J. Geils Band from their beginning as a blues band to their end as a massive pop band is a story best told by somebody who actually knows it.

The things I truly know about the The J. Geils Band are as follows: J. Geils was the guitar player, but despite the band being named after him, he didn’t write very many of the songs, which seems weird. Once they started writing their own songs, about three albums in or so, the bulk were written by keyboardist Seth Justman and singer Peter Wolf, whom I’m guessing that a lot of people initially assumed was the “J. Geils” of the J. Geils band.

Oh, and their harmonica player was Magic Dick, which is one of the five all-time greatest names ever in popular music.

Certain Songs #777: Jethro Tull – “Thick as a Brick (Part 1)”

February 1, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Thick as a Brick
Year: 1972

It was repealed in the early 80s, so it’s lost to history, but in 1970, the U.K. Parliament passed what was colloquially known as the Prog Long Song Act.

Said Act stated that, in order to qualify for the Official U.K. Progressive Rock Artiste Registry, a “Progressive-English” artist had to release an album containing one song that either took up a whole side of an album, or was separated into “parts” or “movements” or “impressions” that when totaled together, were longer than 20 minutes.