40 Years Old: Sneakin' Suspicion - Dr. Feelgood (May 1977)

  

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Sneakin' Suspicion - Dr. Feelgood

United Artists

Produced by Bert de Coteaux

Released May 1977

UK Chart #10

Side 1

Side 2

Personnel

Dr. Feelgood
    Lee Brilleaux - vocals, guitar, harmonica, slide guitar
    Wilko Johnson - guitar, backing vocals
    John B. Sparks - bass guitar, backing vocals
    The Big Figure - drums, percusison, backing vocals

Additional Musician:
    Tim Hinkley - keyboards

Single on Sneakin' Suspicion

A-Side

Sneakin' Suspicion

B-Side:

Lights Out

Sneakin' Suspicion

United Artists

Produced by Bert de Coteaux

Released 6th May 1977

UK Chart #47

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In 1976 two albums were released that came from bands hailing from Canvey Island that both had a huge impact upon me. The first was Teenage Depression by Eddie and The Hot Rods and the second, a live album called Stupidity by Dr. Feelgood. Both of these albums led the way for me to listening to Punk and New Wave. Neither of course were a Punk band but they had enough attitude between them to put the young Punks in their place!

Teenage Depression (November 1976) only made it to #43 which was not too bad I guess for a Debut Album.

Stupidity was a #1 album...okay, only for a week, but still a #1! That was 16 places better than their previous album Malpractice (#16 - October 1975) and a whole lot more places than their debut album Down By The Jetty (Did not Chart - January 1975).

Sneakin' Suspicion was the Feelgoods third Studio Album and sadly it would be the last to feature the Iconic Guitarist (yep, even back then!) Mr Wilko Johnson. After six years with the band, he left (according to the band, though Wilko himself says he was kicked out) after a disagreement about what tracks were to be included on the album (not totally sure of the truth that it was the inclusion of the Lew Lewis track Lucky Seven that caused the rift but I did hear that ages ago and cannot confirm whether it is true or not as both Lew and Wilko would later do some work together) and was replaced temporarily with Henry McCullough (who had been in Wings - though he left prior to the recording sessions for Band on The Run - and The Frankie Miller Band) before the permanant replacement by Gypie Mayo (who would serve with the band until 1981).

Half of the songs on the album were written by Wilko and Sneakin' Suspicion as well as Paradise are still regarded as two of his finest tunes (along with a truckload from the first two albums!). 

The remaining five tracks were covers: Nothin' Shakin' (But The Leaves On The Trees) was first released in 1958 by Eddie Fontaine on the Sunbeam label. 

Lights Out is another originally released in 1958 by Jerry Byrne on the Specialty label. The song has been recorded by loads of other artists (Shakin' Stevens and The Sunsets had released a version of it in 1970 on the Debut Album A Legend - Parlaphone. Pre-Motors' Nick Garvey released it as a B-Side to the Debut and only single by The Snakes). I didn't connect it until a few years ago that one of the writers, Mac Rebennack, was actually the famous New Orleans Blues, Jazz and Zydeco Musician Dr John!

Sneakin' Suspicion (Demo).

Lucky Seven was written by fellow Canvey Islander Lew Lewis (he had played with Eddie and the Hot Rods before going on to form his own bands). He would release the song himself a year later on Stiff Records - LEW1).

You'll Be Mine was written by the great Willie Dixon and was released on Chess Records in 1962 by Howlin' Wolf .

The last cover, and indeed the final track on the album is a Bo Diddley song that was released on the Checker label in 1964. The song had also been covered by Georgie Fame and The Harry South Big Band (1966), The Ugly Ducklings (1966), The Pretty Things, Rory Gallagher, The Missing Links (Aussie Garage Band from the 60's), Paul and Barry Ryan, and no doubt by many more folks also.

Wilko Johnson Playing His Songs From Sneakin' Suspicion

 Sneakin' Suspicion - Wilko Johnson & Roger Daltrey (2014).

Sneakin' Suspicion - Wilko Johnson & Roger Daltrey (Live at Shepherds Bush Emprire 2014).

Sneakin' Suspicion - Wilko Johnson Band (Live at Ripley Town Hall 2007).

Paradise - Wilko Johnson (from the 1991 album

Don't Let Your Daddy Know)

Paradise - Wilko Johnson Solid Senders (1979).

Paradise - Wilko Johnson Band (Live Barcelona 2016).

Walking On The Edge - Wilko Johnson Solid Senders (1978 Single).

At a time when voices within the Punk Scene were decrying anything from the past (though those that seemed to be shouting the loudest drew quite a few tracks from the past to beef up their live sets, mentioning no names at all...ahem...the Sex Pistols! 😏) Dr. Feelgood drew upon it to bring fresh life to what are actually some brilliant songs. It's funny because although Dr. Feelgood were not a Punk band I actually knew loads of Punks who loved them.

I have a lot to thank bands like Dr. Feelgood, The Blues Band and 9 Below Zero for, as they were partly responsible for my tracking down a lot of Blues material I might never have heard of had they not been covering it, and to this day I still love listening to the Blues.

So 40 years down the road from its release it is actually an album I still have a lot of love for and cannot even imagine how many times I have played it (or how many copies of it I have had in one format or another) down through the years. Playing it earlier today as I begun putting this together was a real delight. It still sounds great and is worth a spin or two more in the coming weeks.

Revisiting Animal Boy - Ramones (1986)

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Animal Boy - Ramones

Beggars Banquet/Sire

Produced by Jean Beauvoir

Released 19th May 1986

US Chart #143

UK Chart #38

Side A

Side B

Ramones
    Joey Ramone – Lead vocals (all but Love Kills and Eat The Rat)
    Johnny Ramone – Lead guitar
    Dee Dee Ramone – Bass guitar, backing vocals, lead vocals (Love Kills, Eat The Rat)
    Richie Ramone – Drums, backing vocals

Additional musicians
    Walter Lure - extra guitar (on some tracks)

Singles On Animal Boy

UK Releases 

(There are Lots of Links Down Below so click on them to listen to further tunes from the band)

A-Side: Bonzo Goes To Bitburg

B-Side: Go Home Ann / Daytime Dilemma (Dangers of Love)

Released June 1985

7" and 12" Vinyl

UK Chart #81

A-Side: Something To Believe In

AA-Side Somebody Put Something In My Drink

Released April 1986

7" and 12" Vinyl

UK Chart #69

On the UK and  The Netherlands Release (You) Can't Say Anything Nice (written by Richie Ramone) was the second B-Side on the 12" version. 

 A-Side: Something To Believe In

B-Side: Animal Boy

US Single

Did Not Chart

A-Side: Crummy Stuff

B-Side: Something To Believe In*/ (And) I Don't Wanna Live This Life

Released July 1986

7" and 12" Vinyl

UK Chart #98 

*The band filmed a special video for the song.

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It had been just a little over 20 years since the Ramones released their Debut Self-Titled Album and in May 1986 they unleashed their 9th Studio Album, Animal Boy.

On the previous release, 1984's Too Tough To Die, the band had made one of their finest albums in a long time returning to a much edgier Punk sound than the previous "Pop" geared albums of Pleasant Dreams and Subterranean Jungle (both most surprisingly did not chart in the UK but did so in the US). There was a certain amount of expectation about the follow-up album as to whether it could live up to what had gone before. With former member of The Plasmatics, Jean Beauvoir on board as Producer it looked hopeful!

Eleven months prior to the release of the album, in June 1985, came the single Bonzo Goes To Bitburg. Sources at the Ramones' U.S. label, Sire Records, and its parent company, Warner Bros. Records, gave differing reasons for not releasing the single in America: The Sire products manager said the decision was "both financial and political"; an anonymous Warner Bros. source claimed, "It just wasn't considered a good enough record." Clearly that person from Warner Bros didn't have a clue what he was talking about! The band had never released a single before that was so Political and it was an outright attack upon sitting President Ronald Reagan.

"Better call, call the law
When you gonna turn yourself in? Yeah
You're a politician
Don't become one of Hitler's children"

The song was written in reaction to the visit paid by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to a military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, on May 5, 1985. Reagan laid a wreath at the cemetery and then gave a public address at a nearby air base. The visit was part of a trip paying tribute to the victims of Nazism and celebrating West Germany's revival as a powerful, democratic ally of the U.S.

Reagan's plan to visit the Bitburg cemetery had been criticized in the United States, Europe, and Israel because among the approximately 2,000 German soldiers buried there were 49 members of the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, which committed many other atrocities. Among those vehemently opposed to the trip were Jewish and veterans' groups and both houses of the U.S. Congress. The phrase "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" was coined by protesters in the weeks leading up to Reagan's trip. Employed as an epithet for Reagan, Bonzo is actually the name of the chimpanzee title character in Bedtime for Bonzo, a 1951 comedy starring Reagan. The phrase also echoes the title of the film's sequel, Bonzo Goes to College (1952), though Reagan did not appear in that picture.

Before departing for Germany, Reagan ignited more controversy when he expressed his belief that the soldiers buried at Bitburg "were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." In his remarks immediately after the cemetery visit, Reagan said that "the crimes of the SS must rank among the most heinous in human history", but noted that many of those interred at Bitburg were "simply soldiers in the German army... There were thousands of such soldiers for whom Nazism meant no more than a brutal end to a short life."

Discussing the inspiration for the song, Ramones lead singer Joey Ramone, a Jew, explained that the President "sort of shit on everybody." Interviewed in 1986, he said,

"We had watched Reagan going to visit the SS cemetery on TV and were disgusted. We're all good Americans, but Reagan's thing was like forgive and forget. How can you forget six million people being gassed and roasted?"

(The above section regarding the backdrop to writing the song was "borrowed" from Wikipedia! - Doug)

The song title was changed for the album to My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg) apparently to placate Johnny Ramone, who was a staunch conservative and fervent supporter of Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush years later!).

Then in April 1986 came what I think is one of the Ramones best singles ever, and infact what I consider to be their best song - Something To To Believe In (I know, a lot of people will complain about that one!) and the other A-Side being Richie Ramone's Somebody Put Something In My Drink. The second track was also a song written by Richie and it is him singing on it. Joey Ramone supported Richie's vocal and songwriting contributions: "Richie's very talented and he's very diverse... He really strengthened the band a hundred percent because he sings backing tracks, he sings lead, and he sings with Dee Dee's stuff. In the past, it was always just me singing for the most part...I encouraged Richie to write songs. I figured it would make him feel more a part of the group, because we never let anybody else write our songs."

I remember when Sheena Is A Punk Rocker was released in the UK as a single back in May 1977 and reading the Single Review in the NME by Charles Shaar Murray who said: 

"Look, all The Ramones songs sound like hit singles and then don't sell, but this song is so flat-out delightful that not even the nasty boring dull-as-bleedin' dishwater Republic will be able to resist it. The sheer charm of and essential niceness of Dolly Ramone's four horrible sons is gonna win out." 

I so wish Charlie's words had come true because he was perfectly spot on. Whilst Sheena became their first charting single in the US and the UK there was a decade of Single releases that followed which either failed to chart or crawled into the lower basement of the Charts (the only exception being Baby, I Love You which peaked at #8 - and wasn't even a Ramones song!). Here was another single, a Double A-Sided release in Something To Believe In / Somebody Put Something In My Drink that screamed LOUDLY HIT RECORD!...but it wasn't, just barely crept into the Top 70 (squeaking in at #69)! As I said above, Something To Believe In is my favourite Ramones song EVER! I love the video they did for it when it was reissued as the B-Side of Crummy Stuff (which only charted at #98 in the UK). A co-write between Dee Dee Ramone and Jean Beauvoir it stands as one of those great "hopeful" Ramones songs (and yes there are more than a few of them!). :

"I can't be someone else
I don't feel that it's hopeless
I don't feel that I'm useless

I can't throw it all away
I need some courage to find my weakness
And with your love, I know with all my heart I can win"

The song was later recorded by The Pretenders shortly before the death of Johnny Ramone. He produced the song and it was included on the We're A Happy Family: A Tribute to Ramones album.

When the album arrived it was not quite I expected, and although it went higher in the charts than Too Tough To Die, it was nowhere near as good! It does have a few great moments besides the Singles that were included: Animal Boy penned by Dee Dee and Johnny,  She Belongs To Me - which I had first thought must have been a Joey song because it has a lot of the elements of 60's Pop that the singer seemed to love, but it was actually written by Dee Dee. Mental Hell - a Joey song that seems to have captured a lot of his own personal dysfunction!

Even after 31 years I still can't get to grips with a lot of the other songs on the album. I know it seems like some kind of "musical blasphemy" to some to be critical of a band that they like (and hey, I not only liked 'em but loved them also!) and that one is to assume that everything they released is the best thing ever since sliced bread, but you have to be realistic about things. If a song is not good what's the point in defending it to the hilt?

I never ever liked Love Kills (I know quite a few people who totally love it) as I was never enamoured by the whole Sid and Nancy scene that developed after their deaths. Apeman Hop, Crummy Stuff, Eat The Rat, Freak of Nature and Hair of the Dog will never ever turn up on my favourites list of Ramones songs. As it is my blog I feel that I can get away with saying that and when it all comes down to it what music we like or dislike comes down to personal taste so if you actually like these songs then I am fine with that (I wouldn't pretend to understand why you do though) but to me they were just filler, nothing special about them at all. Basically half the album's tracks I liked and the rest I can't be bothered with. The first two Singles offered some hope that it was going to be another cracker but sadly it didn't live up to the expectation for me! The tracks that I have mentioned that I like from the album are ones that I still do play quite a bit even all these years on.

Making it his pick for "album of the week", New York Times critic Jon Pareles wrote that the Ramones "speak up for outcasts and disturbed individuals", (even when we may not agree with everything they release! - Doug).

Learning English Lesson 2 - Die Toten Hosen (May 2017)

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Learning English Lesson 2 - Die Toten Hosen

JKP

Released 5th May 2017*

Learning English Lesson 2

Trailer

Tracklist and Guest List for
 Learning English Lesson 2

Due to a lack of tracks on You Tube for this album I was pleased to see that someone had put together a Playlist of the Original Versions of the songs featured.

Learning English Lesson 2

The Originals

*The album was released as part of the Special Edition of the brand new album Laune Der Natur.

Listen to a Live Concert 
by
 Die Toten Hosen
from the release party for the Laune Der Natur album at the Gloria Theater, Köln on the 5th May 2017.
Click Here!

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 Due to a lack of tracks on You Tube from the actual album I have put together a playlist of the Original versions of the songs featured on the album!

It's been twenty six years since Die Toten Hosen offered up Learning English Lesson 1 and so there was a lot of expectation regarding the Learning English Lesson 2 album that was released on the 5th May 2017 as part of the Deluxe Edition for their brand new album (Laune Der Natur), their first studio release since Ballast Der Republik in 2012.

Tracklist and Guest List for Learning English Lesson 1 - 1991 version

The US 1994 CD Reissue was a little bit different with No One Is Innocent (original recording by Sex Pistols featuring Ronnie Biggs),  the removal of Just Thirteen and adding New Guitar In Town featuring Honest John Plain (original recording by The Lurkers), Dairy of A Lover (original recording by Johnny Thunders) and Richmond (original recording by Pinpoint) featuring Arturo Bassick.

I have included these tracks on the Playlist above.

With such a great cast of characters on Lesson 1 (apart from Ronnie Biggs!) it was interesting to see who would be on Lesson 2. They somehow managed to keep it totally secret as even guys like Spizz, Segs (Ruts DC) and JC Carroll (The Members) did not even let the cat out of the bag until the details were officially released by Die Toten Hosen! 

So what you get is a top notch opener with Sound of the Suburbs featuring JC Carroll that still sounds so brilliant all these years on followed by Where Are They Now with Colin McFaull (Cock Sparrer); Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys) updating a little the classic California über Alles (removing Governer Jerry Brown and replacing him with Arnie Schwarzengger); and Viva La Revolution featuring Monkey and Pete (The Adicts) - which I have to confess I wasn't a huge fan of the band at all, though the song sounds quite fine!

It's like a Greatest Hits of the Punk and New Wave scene with a storming version of Nobody's Hero featuring Jake Burns (SLF); Teenage Kicks featuring Damian O'Neil (The Undertones); Flying Saucer Attack featuring Eugene and Fay (The Rezillos); Where Have All The Boot Boys Gone featuring Wayne Barret (Slaughter and The Dogs) - it's good but is spoiled a bit I think by some unnecessary bad language; Sonic Reducer with Cheetah Chrome - (Dead Boys) on guitar, he had played on the Lesson One album as well; Lookin' After No.1 with Bob Geldof (Boomtown Rats); one of my favourite singles The Jinx with Pete Bywaters (Peter and the Test Tube Babies); Your Generation with Tony James (Generation X); Darling Let's Have Another Baby featuring Johnny Moped; Where's Captain Kirk? with the mighty Spizz (Spizzenergi); Harmony In My Head with Steve Diggle (Buzzcocks) - one of his finest vocals I've heard in ages; This Perfect Day with Chris Bailey (The Saints) - he actually sounds less gruff than on the original; Wunderbar with Eddie Pole Tudor (Ten Pole Tudor); I'm An Upstart with Mensi (Angelic Upstarts); (Get A) Grip (On Yourself) with Hugh Cornwell (The Stranglers) - thought his vocal sounded quite flat I have to say; Fight To Be Yourself with Phil Thompson (Pasty Faces) - have to say I didn't know this one; and finally Staring At The Rude Boys featuring Segs Jennings (Ruts, Ruts DC).

The album as a whole is fantastic but there are a few stand outs that are worth spotlighting: Sound of the Suburbs, Nobody's Hero, Your Generation, Harmony In My Head, This Perfect Day and Staring At The Rude Boys. A special mention as well for Fight To Be Yourself - I was not aware of the original at all (and can't actually find it) and I really liked the lyrics which are clearly in the mould of songs like I Wanna Be Me (Sex Pistols) and Do Anything You Wanna Do (Eddie and The Hot Rods) so pretty good methinks.

Oh, and as for the actual Laune Der Natur album, I had a listen to it yesterday and whilst musically it sounds good, I have no idea what on earth they are singing about as it's in German!....A need for a Learning German Lesson 1 album is awaited with bated breath! 😏

Rewind: You're Gonna Get It! - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers (1978)

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You're Gonna Get It! - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

Shelter

Produced by Danny Cordell, Noah Shark and Tom Petty

Released 2nd May 1978

US Chart #23

UK Chart #34

Side A

Side B

 Personnel
    Tom Petty - electric guitar, acoustic guitar, twelve string guitar, rhythm guitar, piano, vocals
    Mike Campbell - electric guitar, acoustic guitar, twelve string guitar, lead guitar, accordion
    Benmont Tench - piano, hammond organ, keyboards, backing vocals
    Ron Blair - bass guitar, acoustic guitar, sound effects, backing vocals
    Stan Lynch - drums

Additional musicians
    Noah Shark - percussion
    Phil Seymour - backing vocals on "Magnolia"

Singles taken from You're Gonna Get It!

I Need To Know / No Second Thoughts

Shelter

Released June 1978

US Chart #41

UK- Did Not Chart

A-Side

I Need To Know

B-Side

No Second Thoughts

(She's Gonna) Listen To Her Heart (It's Gonna Tell Her What To Do) / I Just Don't Know What To Say

Released in US August 1978

Released in UK October 1978

US Chart #59

UK - Did Not Chart

A-Side

Listen To Her Heart

B-Side

I Don't Know What To Say To You

In the UK there was also a Limited Edition 12" where the A-Side played at 45 RPM and the B-Side played at 33 ⅓ RPM

A-Side

(She's Gonna) Listen To Her Heart

B-Side

I Fought The Law / Route 66*

*both recorded live in Boston July 1978.

You can listen to the Bootleg of that whole performance HERE.

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Second albums can often have a problem of living up to sheer quality of the Debut Album but there are a number of artists/bands who do manage demonstrate a sense of growth and songwriting apptitude that it bodes well for their future. You're Gonna Get It! by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers does exactly that, though it is often overlooked in favour of Damn The Torpedoes which was released the following year (October 1979).

The Debut Album released in 1976 is one of those albums I consider to be an absolute classic. Songs like American Girl, Anything That's Rock 'n' Roll, The Wild One Forever, Breakdown, and Fooled Again (I Don't Like It) showed some great signs of promise that this band were going to be around for sometime (and forty one years later they are still on the go!).

The second album did much better than the Debut in the USA but in the UK it reached ten places lower on the charts than the first album.

The two singles taken from the album were both gems (and both were getting played live in 1977) and whilst not big smash hits they are loved enough among fans of the band to keep them getting played all these years on. Honourable member of The Heartbreakers, Steve Nicks, often comes out to sing I Need To Know with the band as well as performing it herself in her own concerts. Listen To Her Heart is one that has an interesting backstory in that Petty wrote the song in response to advances made toward his wife by Ike Turner!

It was nice to dig it out again after so many years and give it a spin and remind myself of some of the good tracks on the album and whilst maybe not their best album by any means it did set them up for an absolutely cracking third album when that early promise of the Debut and even this second one really began to come to fruition.