The Police : Nothing Achieving

The Police used to rock. I mean, a really, really long time ago, back when Sting was wearing black and yellow football shirts, back before Andy Summers joined the band, back in 1977*. But they really did rock. Their first single "Fall Out" is a nifty little hard rock effort, though I'd say it owes more to the snarling garage rock aesthetic of the late 60's.

The flip side of the single is the tune I want to discuss today. It's a curious chunk of punk rock history with the prerequisite angry-at-your-parents lyrics and a nice little melody.  Gordon's distinctive falsetto soars and dives over the chugging guitar riffs and weaves in and out of the band's stops and starts. And while it was in no way indicative of their work to come, it's a great little number that really deserves more exposure.

You can find "Nothing Achieving" on the Police's big box set, Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings. Or, I suppose you could try and dig up the single from somewhere. That'd be kind of cool.

*: They still rocked later, just not as often. "Synchronicity II", for example, is a sizzler.

[You can listen to The Police's "Nothing Achieving" by navigating to the post "Song071" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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The Rugbys : You, I

I didn't know much about the Rugbys before I started this post, but it turns out they were a modestly successful rock act in the US, even cracking the top 40 with "You, I". I originally heard the tune from a posting last summer on the ever-amazing Iron Leg blog. Before that, I'd never heard it, which is a shame, because it's a solid song. It just goes to show you that there is a ton of music out there that may have been somewhat popular, but just never makes it into rotation for some reason.

"You, I" is a semi-psychedelic blues rocker, very much in the vein of Jimi Hendrix or Deep Purple. The guitar is hard, the rhythm section is tough and capable, and the singing is pretty basic. They do throw in a nice Cream-like vocal harmony bit right in the middle, during the guitar solo, but the song is simple. It's just meant to be catchy and rock, which it does well.

The lyrics are ... stupid, mainly consisting of rhymes for 'you', although the group didn't even put much effort into that, at one point even rhyming it with 'magic mood'. I mean, seriously: 'goo', 'zoo', 'few', 'pew', 'cashew', 'ague', 'grue'. It's not that hard, boys.

You can find "You, I" on their 1969 release, Hot Cargo, which is available for download from Amazon as an mp3 album. It's also available as an import CD and on a 2-for-1 with a band called Lazarus.

[You can listen to The Rugbys' "You, I" by navigating to the post "Song047" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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The Remains : Don't Look Back

A ton of great rock music came out in the late 60's, as everybody and their brother (and sometimes their sister) wanted to be the next Beatles. And like today's interwebs, which lets everybody and their laptop write, record and distribute their own magnum opus, there were a slew of little garage bands recording actual 45's for local labels. These labels would push the tunes out to local radio and sometimes they would become regional hits.

"Don't Look Back" is a one of these garage rockers from '66. It's got a driving beat and rocks as hard as anything Green Day's released in the past ten years. It's got a hammered three-on-two stuttering stop-start chorus with excellent harmonies and a wild freakbeat breakdown smack in the middle of the tune. And the lyrics are a curious mix of hippie/punk anarchist seize-the-day attitude. It's a fantastic tune.

In the late 70's and early 80's some collectors gathered up some of these garage and psychedelic songs and pumped out a bunch of compilations dedicated to this stuff, primarily the Nuggets and Pebbles series. This one comes from the fantastic Nuggets box set on Rhino records. If you like this stuff, you can't go wrong with it. You can also find it on the re-release of the Remains' eponymous only album.

[You can listen to The Remains' "Don't Look Back" by navigating to the post "Song035" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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