MARY MY HOPE

“It’s About Time”

(Atlanta 1989)

Anyone who says they can handicap their local rock scene is either lying or out of their mind.

In early 1988, you could ask anyone hanging out at Atlanta’s White Dot which band was Atlanta’s Next Big Thing; almost everyone would have picked Mary My Hope (with maybe a few stray votes for Rockin’ Bones).

No one in town took Mr. Crowe’s Garden seriously because no one knew much about the recordings they were making with George Drakoulias, songs that would be released the next year as Shake Your Money Maker.

Mary My Hope was the prohibitive favorite. They were the first signing to Silvertone, a new UK label started by Andrew Lauder of Radar Records fame. They traipsed off to Rockfield Studios in Wales to make a record with producer Hugh Jones, best known for Echo & the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes.

Museum was a fine album but somehow the band’s original combination of Bowie glam & Southern rock became very British and the songs lost a bit of their original groove.

That shouldn’t have stopped the album from becoming a hit. “It’s About Time” was a killer lead single and Mary My Hope embraced the glammed-up image that they thought the UK wanted.

Unfortunately, someone at Silvertone’s parent company signed a Manchester band called The Stone Roses and convinced Andrew Lauder to add them to his label’s roster. “I Wanna Be Adored” was a depth charge that changed the history of British rock and Mary My Hope quickly became a label afterthought.

Lead singer James Hall went on to a fascinating career as a solo artist and Rockstar Without Portfolio. Record companies (especially) and hardcore fans continue to rave about his live performances but I don’t think he’s ever again had material as good as the songs in Mary My Hope.

Guitarist Clint Steele (who wrote “It’s About Time) later played with the Swans and Sven Pipien ended up playing bass with the Black Crowes, the band no one in Atlanta would have picked to click.

Download: It’s About Time

(Silvertone Records ORE 3)

GIRLS AGAINST BOYS

“Bulletproof Cupid” & “My Night of Pleasure”

Live at JC Dobbs, Philadelphia 1993

When Girls Against Boys signed to DGC Records in 1995, people in the business believed it was the largest deal ever for an unproven rock band.

The legendary unpublished memoir Wasting Away: How the Major Labels Got Drunk on Punk Rock and Forgot Everything They Knew About the Record Business tells the story in grisly detail, but we’ll settle for the short version here.

GVSB waited three whole years to release Freak*On*ica on DGC in 1998. The album got lukewarm reviews and had weaker sales than their final album for Touch & Go.

Even though I was frustrated with the album (mostly because the band refused to take any A&R advice from me whatsoever), I didn’t distance myself from the band when it would have been a strong career move to let everyone forget that I spent a year following the band all over America and Europe.

Geffen/DGC got shut down, the artist contracts got transferred to Interscope and I was asked to leave the company shortly before Universal bought Girls Against Boys out of the balance of their contract.

You’d think I’d have more perspective on the foolishness after ten years, but watching this video convinces me that I’d do it all over again. This band should have saved alternative rock and spared us all the nü metal reign of terror. And they’re still the handsomest band in the history of rock.

“Bulletproof Cupid” is the best song from Venus Luxe, the album that started all the craziness. “My Night of Pleasure” has always been my favorite GVSB song. This performance was recorded just a few months before I first saw the band and it’s certainly $2 million worth of rock.

GVSB will perform Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby on July 20 in NYC at the Bowery Ballroom & July 22 in LA at the El Rey Theatre as part of All Tomorrow’s Parties “Don’t Look Back” Festival.

DON NIX

“I’ll Fly Away” & “He Never Lived a Day Without Jesus”

(Memphis/Muscle Shoals 1971)

Know this: there’s always another amazing record you don’t know about yet. No matter how much music you hear in your life, your next trip to the store might be the time when you find the greatest record you never heard of before.

I bought Don Nix’s In God We Trust last year in NYC because:

1. It was a rock record by Don Nix from the Mar-Keys and the Stax house band.
2. They made it at Muscle Shoals Sound.
3. Furry Lewis plays slide guitar on it.
4. Barry Beckett plays keyboards.
5. Eddie Hinton plays guitar.
6. David Hood (Patterson from Drive-By Truckers’ dad) plays bass.
7. Someone was helpful enough to print all those credits on the back cover.
8. The LP is on Denny Cordell & Leon Russell’s Shelter Records & has the original Shelter logo that rips off the Superman “S” right there on the front.
9. Don looks both surly and lit in the cover photo.

What I got was a genuine white-boy soul hippie Jesus record, the kind where true religious ecstasy is fueled by a fifth of Jim Beam and a little weed.

“I’ll Fly Away” features amazing electric sitar and piano parts, both so good that you can almost forgive Don for trying to pass off Alfred Brumley’s song as “Trad.” so he could take all the publishing money for his arrangement.

“He Never Lived a Day Without Jesus” sounds like a eulogy for a brother who died in Vietnam. Embracing the 60s counterculture was a lot more complicated in the South because almost everyone was rebelling against God and the military instead of against a middle-class lifestyle that few of them had anyway. I’m sure all the guys playing on this record (except maybe Furry) didn’t have college deferments from the draft and were disappointing their mothers as well.

In God We Trust is a completely sincere gospel record made by a bunch of guys who were definitely living the hedonist rock & roll life. There was likely no place for it on FM radio and, while Don went on to a success as both a producer and songwriter, he never made another record for Shelter.

My copy of this record is worn, so the transfer isn’t pristine. Then again, I’ve never seen another copy of the record and I’m grateful to have it.

• Download “I’ll Fly Away”
• Download “He Never Lived a Day Without Jesus”

(In God We Trust — Shelter Records SHE 8902)

Porter Wagoner

“The Gathering in the Sky”

1960s

DON RENO & RED SMILEY

“Using My Bible for a Roadmap”

1963

Saturday night repost of the Sacred Number from June 10th.

JASON & THE SCORCHERS

“White Lies” (Live at the Uptown Theater, Kansas City 1985)

Jason & the Scorchers and R.E.M. were the two most important Southern rock bands in the 80s.

R.E.M. got lucky; they signed to a failing, semi-independent new wave record company. Once Murmur sold 100,000 copies, they became IRS Records’ great hope for the future, got full label support and R.E.M. waited out the 80s as America’s biggest cult band.

The Scorchers had grander ambitions; they wanted reform the system from the inside. Even though the band had strong supporters at the record company, EMI America’s corporate culture forced them into compromises that tore up the band.

If R.E.M. had signed the contract offered by RCA Records, I’m certain they wouldn’t have made it either.

The Scorchers should have been recognized as the American Rolling Stones. They used punk rock as a platform to cross-breed country music and heavy metal the same way the Stones electrified the blues to create garage rock. No Scorchers, no alt-country.

This version of “White Lies” was recorded in 1985 for ABC Radio’s “In Concert” series and features Jason’s sermon about keeping rock & roll with the “sweat and blood of living people.” I’m sure the anti-Crüe sentiments didn’t go over well with the radio stations that were supposed to broadcast this show, but at this point the Scorchers had probably realized they were on a kamikaze mission.

Drummer and “White Lies” songwriter Baggs needs a new kidney. The Scorchers played an amazing benefit show on June 2nd at Nashville’s Exit/In. Perry played as many songs as his health would allow, Warner’s mom sang “Walking the Dog” and ex-Scorchers Ken Fox and Andy York joined them for a set of A&M-era songs. Jeff Johnson was missed but this was by far the best Scorchers show I’ve seen without him.

Make a donation to the Perry Baggs Medical support fund here.

• Download “White Lies (live 1984)”
• Watch (part) of “White Lies” from the Perry Baggs Benefit show here
• Watch the band try to make friends with the 80s in the “White Lies” video here

Wilburn Brothers, Del Reeves, Loretta Lynn & Harold Morrison

“Precious Memories”

1960s

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

“All My Friends”

(Later with Jools Holland 5/25/07)

The whole thing has really gone to hell.

Latest example: LCD Soundsystem sold out 3 nights at the El Rey Theatre here in LA this week.

James Murphy made the commitment: LCD is a rock band instead of the “rock” art project that played LA on the last record.

Better yet, the audience was almost 100% civilians who paid cash money for their tickets.

For almost the entire history of the modern major record company, real people buying real tickets in Los Angeles would trigger some kind of serious marketing commitment. In spite of almost zero radio & retail support (one store in LA had the album at a sale price the week of release back in March) and a desultory press campaign, this band has managed to find an audience that loves them.

Just imagine what could happen if they had the kind of support bands get from Merge or Saddle Creek.

“All My Friends” was the high point of the night. This video from “Later” can’t quite get across how hard this one rocks live but it’s a start…

BILLIE DAVIS

“Whatcha Gonna Do”

(Pop Gear - 1965)

Everything I know about Billie Davis: she was injured in a car accident alongside Jet Harris of The Shadows in 1962. He was married, she was 17 and the British press freaked out enough to ruin both their careers.

This clip from the Pop Gear film must be an attempted comeback single.

She’s fierce and we’ve been deprived. I don’t think she ever had a record released in the U.S.