Revisited: Rickie Lee Jones’ Pirates

Rickie Lee Jones, Pirates (1981).

I couldn’t believe I no longer had this record.

I had a sudden hankering this past week to hear “We Belong Together”, the album’s opener, but was mortified to find Pirates missing from my collection – I must’ve got rid of it when I sold a whole whack of vinyl a couple of years ago before moving. Strange, since the record was such a huge part of my adolescence.

Growing up, I loved this album; listening to it today, I find it just as beautiful, wise and mysterious as I did as a teenager. Jones released it in 1981, two years after her debut; I think I might have bought Pirates because Rolling Stone gave it five stars (I was an inveterate Rolling Stone reader in those days). For a 16-year-old who was into the Clash and Elvis Costello, Jones’ sophomore record was pretty heady stuff. Then again I loved Steely Dan (couldn’t get enough of Greatest Hits) as well, and they’re a big influence on the record (Donald Fageneven plays synth), particularly in the penultimate track, the eight-minute jazz odyssey “Traces of the Western Slopes”.

I think I had this!

But it’s the album’s street poetry that I responded to most – Jones’ visions of bohemia on songs like the title track, “We Belong Together”, and “Living It Up”. So many lines from this 30-year-old record have become part of my pop-culture hard-drive: “How could a Natalie Wood not get sucked/Into a scene so custom-tucked/Now look who shows up/” (“We Belong Together”); “Cleveland forgot/Memphis forgot/Where they were coming from” (“Woody and Dutch on a Slow Train”); “Oh my sad-eyed Sinatras” (“Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)”).

There are other things I love about this record. “We Belong Together” starts out like a forlorn, night-time New York piano ballad – but then, suddenly, midway through, it starts to swing! – but only briefly; but then, it swings again at the end. I love the moods of this record, how varied it is, from the street-poetry one-two punch of “We Belong Together” and “Living It Up”, which is followed by the brief, tragic “Skeletons” and the finger-snapping street-party mood of “Woody and Dutch On a Slow Train to Peking”. Jones opens Side 2 with “Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)”, which sounds to me now like her version of Bruce Springsteen‘s “10th Avenue Freeze-Out”, and ends with a perfect whisp of a song, “The Returns”.

So cool… Rickie Lee Jones circa 1980… I think.

Also on Side 2, “A Lucky Guy”, is probably the clearest thing the album has to a pop song; it reached #64 on the Billboard charts (“Chuck E.’s in Love”, from Jones’ debut, went to #4). I would imagine Pirates must have surprised people hoping for a repeat of her debut’s more traditional pop song approach. The album has never quite got its proper due, but I’m not the only one who thinks it’s one of the best records he’s ever heard.

Jones has released quite a few albums since, and many are notable, including the follow-up EP Girl At Her Volcano (which, I have to admit, I did not get at the time at all); The Magazine (which features one of my all-time favourite Jones songs, “It Must Be Love”); Flying Cowboys (which features another of my all-time favourite RLJ tracks, “Rodeo Girl”); GhOsTYhead (I think it’s the title track where she sings about doing Ecstasy); The Evening of My Best Day (“It Takes You There”); and 2007′s The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard.

I recall liking that last record, though I can’t remember a song; I listened to it while preparing for an interview with Miss Jones for one of the papers I was writing for at the time. I think I asked her about Olympia, Washington, where she spent some of her teens, and of course the record she was promoting. But I don’t think I asked anything about Pirates, which is a shame; today I would probably grill her about it. Then again, everything you need to know is there in the grooves.

Revisited: The Payola$

The Payola$’ No Stranger to Danger (1982).

I had this album in the mid-eighties; I think I might’ve been late to The Payola$, and that maybe the band’s “Eyes of a Stranger” – ubiquitous thanks to the video, and MuchMusic’s need for Canadian content in its early days – had already been a hit.

Anyway, that wasn’t the song I liked on No Stranger to Danger, which was the Vancouver group’s second full-length. The opening track “Romance” is a killer, and “Some Old Song” and “Youth” still get my blood flowing, if just a little.

Video – The Payola$, “Romance”:

Growing up, I was a sucker for singer/lyricist Paul Hyde‘s jaded romanticism on songs like “Rose” (about a junkie) and “Hastings Street” (about a junkie). I have to laugh now, looking back on the 18 or 19-year-old me, listening to “Hastings Street” and not knowing a thing about the street outside of the song. Now, of course, having lived in Vancouver for decades, Hastings Street is part of the landscape, like the mountains and Telus Science World.

Getting back to The Payola$: one of their shows in Winnipeg – at the Centennial Concert Theatre, if memory serves – was one of the first times I got backstage, I think because I’d written a story on the band for my community college rag. I remember for some reason asking Hyde about the future of the band, and him saying something about the group having to make some money soon or they would go “tits-up.” It was the first time I’d ever heard the term (Hyde would’ve been 10 years old than me, probably 29 or 30).

There were a lot of interesting things about The Payola$; they weren’t punk and they weren’t quite new wave, either. No Stranger to Danger has ’80s production but the songs hold up. The Clash was obviously a huge influence – The Payola$ too dabbled with reggae and ska. The band’s creative engine was comprised of schoolboy chums Hyde, a British emigré, and Bob Rock, originally from Winnipeg. In the ’90s and beyond, Rock would become a sought-after producer  (Bon Jovi, Metallica, Aerosmith), but No Stranger to Danger was produced by Mick Ronson.

Ronson is a whole other story – he was David Bowie‘s guitarist for awhile and formed Mott the Hoople with Ian Hunter. Ronson continued to play with Hunter during the latter’s solo career, although probably around the time of No Stranger to Danger, The Clash’s Joe Strummer and Mick Jones were producing Hunter’s Short Back n’ Sides album. Full circle.

The Payola$ recorded a third record, 1983′s Hammer on a Drum, which featured the hit “Never Said I Loved You”, a duet with Rough Trade’s Carol Pope (and now we’re really heading down the rabbit hole of ’80s Canadiana). I think “Where is This Love” might also have been a hit on Canadian radio and MuchMusic. My favourite songs on the album were both on the second side, however; “Christmas is Coming” is another Hyde-ian junkie’s lament and an unjustly forgotten Christmas anthem, and record-closer “People Who Have Great Lives” is a joyous, life-loving rocker.

Eventually the band devolved into Paul Hyde and The Payola$ and then just Rock and Hyde for the 1987 album Under the Volcano. That record too had some memorable songs, though, including “Dirty Water”, “The Blind the Deaf and the Lame” and another of my favourite Hyde/Rock rockers, “Middle of the Night”.

Since then, the duo have only released one seven-song EP, 2007′s Langford Part One (named after the Vancouver Island community where Hyde and Rock grew up). Alas rock ‘n’ roll can be cruel and I guess there wasn’t enough of a demand for a Part Two. Rock ‘n’ roll also never forgets, though, and I hope this little tribute will encourage some people to check out The Payola$. And for those who remember, please share any Payola$ tidbits you might have in the comments section.

Revisited: Carolyne Mas

Carolyne Mas’ 1979 debut album. I had this on cassette when I was 14!

I thought about this album the other day. I had it on cassette – it came out in 1979 so I would’ve been 14 (Mas would have been 24). I might have bought it because it was advertised in Creem Magazine. I do recall a review, or at least a blurb, saying something along the lines of “We’ve been waiting for a female Springsteen and here she is”, or something.

Anyway, I recall playing the hell out of the tape… at least, a few of the songs, including “Stillsane”, “Quote Goodbye Quote” and “Sadie Says” all were instantly familiar when I heard them again recently on Mas’ website.)

I thought of this album (released on Mercury in the U.S. and Polydor on Canada) because of the song “Sadie Says”. In particular, there’s a line where Mas spits, “I like to piss away my pay,” and that’s exactly how I felt the other day, after I got my first paycheck for a new part-time job and I was sitting out on my balcony drinking an expensive craft beer. Not sure if that’s exactly the scenario Mas has in mind when she wrote the song, but there you go.

YouTube video – Carolyne Mas, “Sadie Says”:

There were some great songs on her second album, Hold On, as well. The title track (an “Everlasting Love” rip), “Stay True”, “Running From the High Life”, “You Can Not Win If You Do Not Play” (a Steve Forbert song) are all still fine rock songs; “Amsterdam” is a lovely, stripped-down ballad (Mas got a lot of attention for another ballad, “Snow”, off her debut).

A third record, Modern Dreams, featured Mas looking like an airbrushed Barbra Streisand on the cover. The music inside was slicker than on the first two albums; looking at the tracklisting, I can’t recall what one song sounds like, even though I had the record.

Then this happened – something I had no idea about. According to the bio page on her website:

JANUARY 1986: Carolyne shares the stage with Springsteen and others at THE STONE PONY in Asbury Park, NJ, in a benefit to help the workers affected by the closing of a 3M plant in Freehold, NJ. She performs at the STONE PONY again on the 22, with J.A.M. (more about them later), and just as things are finally looking up, in the early hours of January 26, she is rushed to a Jersey Shore hospital, fighting this time for her life.

Just who broke into Carolye Mas’s apartment, stabbing her 9 times, slitting her throat, then taking her prize Telecaster and her trademark hat, remains a mystery to this day. No cash was taken, though plenty was around. A half-eatten ham-and-cheese sandwich, a can of Campbell’s Chunky Soup along with a can of tuna fish in a brown paper bag, and most disturbing, a copy of a Conan the Barbarian comic book, are all found at a picnic tabel outside her window. The door is forced open with a knife. She is stabbed in her sleep. She crawls to the door to open it for a neighbor who awoke for no explainable reason to check on her, and he calls the police.

Jesus Christ.

Mas survived. She made a fourth record, 1989′s Action Pact, which was released in Germany. And then…

Well, there’s more to her story; it’s all there on the bio page of her website.

Anyway, today Mas sounds to me like a missing link between Pat Benatar and Bruce Springsteen. Some of these songs are worth hearing, so check out her website for more if you like what I’ve included here.

Video – Carolyne Mas, “Stillsane” (recored live at the Empire Theatre, Paris, Dec 1979):

Next: Holly and the Italians.

I wrote this: ‘Mark Haney’s Hidden Structures’

I hadn’t heard of Mark Haney before Tyee music editor Adrian Mack asked if I wanted to do a story on the Vancouver musician and sent me a link to his own (much better) piece on Haney from a couple of years back. Then, the double-bass player had completed a composition (or compositions) based on the life of Canadian daredevil Ken Carter. Mack’s piece plus the promise of a whopping $50 for five hours of work convinced me. (Baristas, take heart; you make a better hourly wage than this professional freelance writer.) Also the fact that Haney will be working on a project with cartoonist Seth, which I can follow up on over at The Snipe.

Haney’s latest work is based around the life of Terry Fox. 

For Mark Haney, it’s all about the numbers.

But don’t let that scare the math-challenged out there. Knowledge of trigonometry, algebra or even the ability to calculate HST is not necessary to access the Vancouver musician’s work.

A double-bass player who’s played with the VSO as well as local indie-rock outfits like The Beige, Haney, in fact, makes it easy. His 2010 project Aim for the Roses had a quirky point-of-entry — it told the story of Canadian daredevil Ken Carter. In Haney’s upcoming project 3339, which he performs as part of the Redshift Music Society Concert at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre next Friday (May 11), his subject is Terry Fox.

Read more here.

Interviewing Lindi

Last week I interviewed Lindi Ortega over the phone. She’s a formerly Toronto-based singer/songwriter now living in Nashville. The interview was okay – not one of my better ones, I must say; I’m always a little more stressed when I’m not recording the interview (my girlfriend had borrowed my mini-recorder). And, after doing hundreds if not thousands of interviews with musicians, it seems I have fewer and fewer questions for them unless we’re talking about something unrelated to music – for instance, I really enjoyed my interview with YACHT‘s Claire L. Evans because we talked mostly about science fiction. Although talking to Wes Marskell of Toronto band The Darcys was fun too because we could talk about Steely Dan‘s Aja, one of my favourite albums (The Darcys recorded their own version of the record).

Still, I like Ortega’s album from last year Little Red Boots, and thought it might be interesting to talk to her since she’s opening for Social Distortion, who are pretty popular in these parts (their first Vancouver show, on April 16 at the Commodore Ballroom, is sold-out, and a second show, on April 17, has been added). I was also hoping to get Ortega, who was nominated for two Juno awards herself, to say something about the fact that the winner of Album of the Year at the Canadian music industry’s annual circle-jerk went to crooner Michael Bublé for a Christmas record…

Here’s my Lindi Ortega interview in full.

Online music services and radio – which do you use, and why?

Received an email the other day promoting a new online radio service, Slacker. This got me thinking: how different is Slacker from Rdio from Sirius? Who uses these stations, and why? What are the differences between Spotify, Blip.FM and Last.FM? I put this question to my cousin and he said, “Well some are streaming… there’s one, where it will list all the songs by that artist and play them all… there are others where it says ‘if you like this you’ll like that’… I don’t like that.”

That wasn’t a huge help but it’s a start. If you use an online music service or online radio let me know, I’m planning an in-depth article and guide on the various available options.

Shoe star of the week

Tasseomancy, currently on tour with Austra, is made up of the twins Sari and Romy Lightman. Here they are opening for Austra at Electric Owl in Vancouver Nov 16 2011. Ashley Tanasiychuk took the pics.

We’re pretty sure the cook kicks belong to Sari.

Tasseomancy at Electric Owl, Vancouver, Nov 16 2011. Ashley Tanasiychuk photo.

Shoe star of the week – St. Vincent’s Annie Clark

Virtuoso indie-rock guitarist/songwriter Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, played the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver Oct 12 2011. She’s our Shoe Star of the Week! Thanks to Anja Weber for the great photos (for the full gallery, go here).

St. Vincent at the Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, Oct 12 2011. Anja Weber photo

 

Shoe star of the week: Jessica Lea Mayfield

Jessica Lea Mayfield performing at Bumbershoot in Seattle, Sept 5 2011. Robyn Hanson photo

 

Roots-pop singer/songwriter Jessica Lea Mayfield rocked the stripper shoes at this year’s Bumbershoot in Seattle. The 22-year-old Ohioan played the Starbucks stage on Sunday afternoon, Sept 4 2011. Robyn Hanson took the photos and Jessica Lea Mayfield is The Snipe’s Shoe Star of the Week! Yay Jessica!

Shoe star: Sia

Leave it to quirky Aussie bird Sia to flaunt her plumage – and her footwear. Here’s the singer in Vancouver at the Commodore Ballroom Aug 19, photos by Anja Weber (click on pic to see more).

Sia at the Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, Aug 19 2011. Anja Weber photo