Love Minus Zeros.

I’m not much for love songs at the moment (I’m more into the monster songs, to use Jad Fair’s dichotomy), but as a reluctant recognition-nod to valentine’s day, here’s one I really like.

As I understand it, this is from the last set of recording that the first incarnation of The Zeros did, in 1980ish. It’s track eleven on the Bomp! compilation of their stuff, and sequenced as it is behind ten grade A punk/power-pop blasters, it’s more subtle charms may take a few (hundred, in my case) listens to sink in.

The other songs The Zeros recorded for this session (“Getting Nowhere Fast”, “They Say That Everything’s Alright”) speak in plain terms of disillusionment with the low-reward grind of life in a rock band, prefiguring their subsequent decision to pack it in. But in “Girl On The Block”, Javier Escovedo puts a more positive spin on his return to ‘normal’ life, giving us a sweet picture of bored-yet-blissful existence with the hometown girl he’d probably have been knocking around with if he’d never started a punk band and headed for Hollywood. Like a grizzled cowboy returning to his homestead after unknown adventures in the movies, Javier is abandoning the fantasies(?) of swastika-clad blondes and mascara-smeared man-eaters who inhabit his earlier songs, returning instead to where his heart truly lies.

It’s mature and sensitive and shit – you can tell from the way they’ve got an overdubbed acoustic mixed in there somewhere.

In the hands of an older, sleazier rocker, a song like this could easily take on a pretty entitled and ugly tone, but Javier as ever is right on the money – teary-eyed and full of respect-bordering-on-awe for the sense of belonging he finds at home with his gal; “she takes me but she don’t need no one at all / when I go I know that she won’t fall”.

Like all Zeros songs, “Girl On The Block” has a chugging mid-tempo swing that is just to die for, and a boilerplate sense of pop-melody that is just unfuckable-with in it’s simple, utilitarian perfection. Listen to that star-gazing chord progression as he sings “ain’t no beer left / so I guess I’m going out” – a vision of aimless, prospectless life transformed into paradise by the presence of the kind of unconditional warmth and companionship so distant from the neon-punk ideal he dropped out of school and left home to pursue a few years earlier.

Earlier Zeros songs were driven by a sort of breathless fantasy of urban decadence, but that’s all gone now – what’s left is some straight dope on how to live a good life in imperfect conditions, and it’s pretty f-ing beautiful.

Labels: punk rock, song reviews, The Zeros, Valentine's Day

SAINT MOE’S DAY

Maureen Tucker’s “Life In Exile After Abdication” (released on the 50 Skidillion Watts label in 1989) is totally, like, the greatest lost classic album that has crossed my path so far this year.

Maureen’s first solo album, 1980’s “Playin’ Possum”, was a brilliant bit of off-kilter, homemade rock n’ roll, but “Life In Exile..” is a more professionally recorded affair featuring Moe’s vocals, drums and punk-primitive guitar backed up by various big indie scenester names, and it is simply fucking brilliant.

Sadly (tho predictably) it is out of print at the moment, but go and do whatever you must in order to obtain a copy, and then you too can punch the air in joy as Moe teams up with Sonic Youth in their skronkin’ late-80s prime to blast through a bunch of totally righteous, punk songs about the frustrations of being forced to work minimum wage supermarket jobs to feed her family, and then clap and sing along as she goes it alone to knock out the finest renditions of “Goodnight Irene” and “Bo Diddley” heard in recent decades. Fantastic!

It has long been my belief that when Lou Reed announced he was leaving The Velvet Underground in 1970, Mo Tucker and Sterling Morrison made a supernatural pact of some kind, and stole Lou’s creative lifeforce, trapping it in a crystal (or something) to ensure that it's power was used for good rather than evil, leaving their erstwhile leader to stumble through his solo career in an eerie, zombie half-light, living off the pale, negative reflections of his genius that remained. (Doug Yule was pissed that they left him out of the deal, which is why he insisted on spending the next few years running the band’s name into the ground.)

Given Sterling’s decision to quit music entirely after the Velvets (perhaps to spend his remaining years simply contemplating his portion of the Lou Lifeforce Crystal, dreaming of a perfect, eternal ‘What Goes On’ rhythm guitar strum, spreading like a heartbeat across the universe), that by my calculations makes Moe the true guardian of the spirit of the VU, and on "Life In Exile.." she ably proves her worth in this capacity, no more so than when she takes on ‘Pale Blue Eyes’.

Now, whilst I would gladly hold a copy of the Velvet Underground’s third album in front of my heart to shield me from bullets, I’m afraid I’ve got to break from VU orthodoxy and state plainly that Maureen’s 1989 take on Pale Blue Eyes is so, so perfect that it makes the original version sound like a vague, unsatisfactory demo by comparison. Moe’s singing always conveys a pure honesty of soul that cannot be faked, and her delivery here instantly redeems this most beautiful of songs from the lurking shadow of Lou Reed ambiguous-gobbletigook cynicism, imbuing it instead with an unshakeable pathos and self-belief that goes to the heart of everything that was great about the Velvets, is great about Maureen Tucker, is great about music.

It’s like she took her portion of the crystal out of the little pot above the fireplace, took it with her to the studio, and just let it shine. Towards the end of this track, as the song takes on a mantra-like quality, with Moe beating down on the tom-tom drums and Thurston or somebody playing epic lead guitar as the vocal coda lingers on above, echoing endlessly... honestly, I have never heard anything so wonderful in all my life.

So there you go; take it or leave it.

Today is St. Valentine’s Day of course, and you may recall that I posted a version of ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ on Valentine’s Day last year. I was a bit down in the dumps then, and I’m not really anymore, but pure coincidence has nonetheless led me to start contemplating the same song exactly a year later, so hey, why don’t we try to make a tradition of it?

Send me your own suggestions for great variations on Pale Blue Eyes via the usual address - or record your own? - in time for next year, and the winner gets a candlelit dinner for two.

Mp3 > Maureen Tucker – Pale Blue Eyes

Labels: Maureen Tucker, The Velvet Underground, Valentine's Day