“Hey hey I’m a Monkee.”
 
While Dangerous Minds’ co-founder Richard Metzger is in the thrall of Monkeemania, I’d thought I’d share something with you and him that I found quite charming. This is Patti Smith (who I am always in the thrall of) doing an acoustic version of “Daydream Believer” last week in Paris. Lenny Kaye on guitar. Enjoy.
 

 
Let me say right upfront that I am a huge fan of The Stranglers and their former lead singer, songwriter and guitar player Hugh Cornwell. I vividly remember the day in 1977 that I bought Rattus Norvegicus at a shop in Greenwich Village (Robert Quine was also buying a copy) and the subsequent thrill of listening to it over and over again that night and for months to follow. A big influence on the punk scene in England, The Stranglers’ guttural, malevolent and beautiful rock and roll was primitive and yet sophisticated, savage and sublime. Seeing them live a few months later at the Second Avenue Theater was among the most exciting rock shows I’ve ever experienced.

In 1990 Cornwell left the band and as far as I’m concerned that was the end of what was arguably one of the best and most underappreciated bands of the past four decades. Although The Stranglers have recorded and toured with various different lead singers, the magic has long been gone. I saw the reconstituted Stranglers with some nondescript lead vocalist in the mid-90s at The Cat Club and it was like seeing the Doors without Jim Morrison or The Sex Pistols fronted by the guy from Creed. Nothing worse than a pioneering punk band reduced to an oldies act.

It pains me that there is so much much bad blood between Hugh Cornwell and the rest of the group that they’ve never buried whatever hatchet exists between them and gone back into the studio to make more of the sound I’ll always love.

Cornwell seems to be on an eternal solo world tour. He must need the money. I can’t imagine he’s thrilled playing Stranglers’ classics with pick-up bands or by himself on electric guitar. Which brings me to this recent performance on Brazilian TV. Why, Hugh, why? It’s the money, right? From the rollergirls in bathing suits waving flags to the drummer who looks like an extra from The Young Ones, this has to be one of the lamest things I’ve seen a rock legend subject himself to in the name of keeping his career alive. I know I’m probably overreacting, but don’t we all feel a twinge of sadness when one of our heroes suddenly seems ordinary, smaller than life rather than bigger?

Hugh, if you’re reading this, give Jean-Jacque, Jet Black and Dave a call. Tell them all is forgiven. The Stranglers aren’t The Stranglers without you and you’re not the artist you were without them. It’s never too late.
 

 
Some choice videos of The Stranglers after the jump…

Four On The Floor in the studio.
 
In 2006 Jayne County, Ginger Coyote, Cherry Vanilla and Holly Woodlawn, under the name of Four On The Floor, gave The Shirelles 1960 record “Boys” the Superstar treatment. Trashy good fun from pop culture immortals.

The notorious Ginger Coyote of Punk Globe Magazine and The White Trash Debutantes  was nice enough to share with me a bit of info about the recording session that spawned “Boys.”

Jayne and I wanted to do a joint recording project so when Jayne came to Los Angeles we went into rehearsals with the band Jasten King on Guitar, Brian Hill on drums and the late Willy Graves on bass. The White Trash Debutantes had written and recorded a song called Punk Rak RepubliKKKan. I played it for Jayne and she liked it but felt punk rock was to limiting so she re-wrote the lyrics and we decided that Rock n Roll RepubliKKKan would work.. She also had another song she really wanted to record and that was “Transgeneration” about how Transgender people have been put in very high regard in many cultures in history. Sadly, they have not gotten the fair shake from Christianity.. It is a call to let people know that Transgender people will not take the Bullshit anymore… The third song we recorded we enlisted the fabulous Cherry Vanilla and Holly Woodlawn to record a cover of “Boys”.. It become such a fun song to record we added Constance Cooper and Don Bolles (Germs) on the recording… Making an extended version of the song…. There was a Video made of the last days recording….. It was a great recording session and we got alot done in just a few days…”

Here’s Four On The Floor’s “Boys” with lots of boys.
 

 
An inspired bit of photoshopping by the folks at Cherrybombed. The picture was used in tandem with an article about The Stooges and Grinderman sharing the bill at Australia’s massivie music fest Big Day Out.

 
In the first video, The Cramps tear it up in Germany 1998. This was broadcast on German TV network Viva II. The audio sounds like a half dozen feral cats thrown in a blender. But watching Lux and Ivy in super fine form makes up for the deficiencies in sound quality. It’s amazing footage. Lux destroys the stage like a one man horde of Mongols. And Ivy and her man’s mating dance is bootlicious.

Harry Drumdini on drums and Slim Chance on bass in both videos.
 

 
This second video is The Cramps on Croatian TV also in ‘98.

Imagine being a kid somewhere in Croatia and seeing this on TV. Nothing’s goin’ on in your shitty life, you live in a country the size of West Virginia and just as polluted, heroin is everywhere, jobs are hard to find. So you turn on the TV to escape and bang there’s this band tearin’ things up and going wild and it feels real good and the two members of the band start talking about rock and they make it sound so liberating and beautiful and exciting and you decide maybe to get a guitar and you do end up getting one and you learn to play 3 chords but that’s all you need and suddenly you’re feeling free and you’re not as angry and you’re starting to dig life a little bit more yeah it’s not so bad and you start thinkin’ maybe I could do what The Cramps are doing going on the road traveling making music believing in something doing something real not just talk not just politics not just shooting the shit with your friends who are too fucking afraid to be real because they haven’t received the message from on high the gospel the teachings and that’s when it it hits you that’s when you realize that yes Lux and Ivy were talking to you and everything they said they were saying to you and that just makes you more determined more fucking driven to be a rock and roller, a punk whatever, a revolutionary for love and music and energy because fuck man you’ve been chosen rock and roll has chosen you!

“Rock and roll chose us.” Ivy Rorschach.
 

 
Uploaded to Youtube by 60sgaragebands.com, this is truly rare 8mm footage of Illinois garage rockers The Shadows Of Knight performing at the 1966 Teen World Fair in Chicago.

There is almost zero live footage of The Shadows Of Knight on the Internet. WTF? These are the guys that turned “Gloria” into a smash hit! So this is a nice piece of rock history.

Update: The Shadows Of Knight vocalist and guitarist Jerry McGeorge provides some insight on the Teen World Fair footage:

 
60sgaragebands.com is compiling home movie footage of 1960’s garage/rock bands “in order to preserve the footage and offer it to collectors of garage rock from the 1960’s.”

Here’s a sample of some of the footage they’ve compiled so far. I love this stuff and can’t wait to see more. This was an era in which garages in suburbs across America were the breeding ground for the devil’s music and there was a rock band on every block. Silvertones ruled.
 

 
Ain’t sure how long this will last on Youtube so I had to share it right now. I’ve haven’t seen this promo video of The Ramones’ 1978 release “I Wanna Be Sedated” looking and sounding this fucking good anywhere on the airwaves/Internet since it was last in heavy rotation on MTV back in 1988.

Remastered? Definitely. Must be on a DVD compilation, but I can’t find it.
 

Lure, Thunders and Hell.
 
The Heartbreakers in their original incarnation - Johnny Thunders, Richard Hell, Jerry Nolan and Walter Lure - performing “Chinese Rocks” and “Pirate Love” at CBGB in 1975. The absolute essence of snarling New York gutter punk.

Hell left the group in 1976 before The Heartbreakers recorded their first and only album, L.A.M.F.. So, for those folks who are only with familiar with that album, it’s a bit strange hearing Hell singing lead on “Chinese Rocks.” But Hell’s distinct wail in tandem with Thunders’ is as urgent as rock and roll gets. The Unrighteous Brothers. Seeing this band on the Bowery in the mid-70s was a shock to the system.
 

 
Richard Hell explains it all after the jump…

 
Post modern bubble gum. Blondie on Japanese teen show Popteens in January 1978.

Way before they scored a hit in the States, Blondie were huge in Japan. They were the rock and roll version of Andy Warhol’s Campbell soup can, a distillation in one indelible image of something so American yet so universal. Pop!
 

 
Five foot one and 240 lbs.

Shocking video of a grossly overweight Iggy Pop performing “Lust For Life.”
 

 
Actually, this is Dutch actor Frank Lammers doing a spot on imitation of what Iggy would look like if he morphed into late period Elvis.