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The Who’s prodigious catalog of amazing music makes it easy to overlook the brilliance of their debut album, My Generation.1 When I think of The Who, my first thoughts go to Pete Townshend’s iconic guitar windmills, Keith Moon’s ferocious drumming, and Roger Daltrey’s epic vocal howls. My Generation reminds me that–before the grandeur of their 1970s stadium glory–The Who were the champions of the mod scene. Their performances of original songs and U.S. R&B classics, all captured on My Generation, were the soundtrack of many a mid-Sixties Austin Powers-esque party in the London swinger scene.

Released on December 3, 1965 and produced by Shel Talmy, My Generation shows off Pete Townshend’s songwriting, Keith Moon’s innovative drumming, John Entwistle’s melodic approach to low end, and Roger Daltrey’s vocal fire. It’s an all out tour-de-force—four creative energies creating something greater than themselves. “My Generation,” the album’s notable single, is nestled at the end of side one, surrounded by only three cover songs, two of which were penned by the enigmatic James Brown.  

For whatever reason, My Generation and its contemporaneous singles, “I Can’t Explain” and “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” found a special place in the mantle of mod culture. Mods were a special subculture of London that dressed well, listened to sophisticated music, took lots of amphetamines, and drove Vespa scooters. Their archenemies were the Rockers, who dressed in leather and drove tough motorcycles. The mods were likely drawn to Keith Moon’s flamboyant drumming and the band’s sophisticated harmonic core. 

My Generation is an album I regret not listening to sooner. It shows the heavy influence of American R&B on a rock band that would later go on to push the boundaries of the concept album and deliver quite a live show. But even on this first offering, The Who push to the outer limits of what had been done with music in 1965. Moon’s drumming is the heaviest yet seen anywhere up until that point. The closing song, “The Ox,” contains distorted guitar tones that predate and sound similar to Jimi Hendrix’s sound. 

The Who captured something remarkable with My Generation. Townshend’s songwriting and Moon’s drumming stand out as the most notable elements of the album. Yet Entwistle and Daltry deliver an elegance as well. The weakness of the album is “A Legal Matter,” which has Townshend singing lead vocals on a song bemoaning being married and the droll day to day life of raising children. The song seems out of place on an otherwise mod album. If the 1960s weren’t so single oriented, including the two singles that preceded My Generation in lieu of the album’s minor blemish would have improved the album for me.   

A-

Bonus: Live footage of “My Generation” from 1965. Note how awesome Keith Moon’s drumming is.

YearFeatured AlbumOther Notable Albums
1965My Generation by The Who Rubber Soul by The Beatles
Bringing It All Back Home by Bob Dylan
1964Kinks by The KinksA Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles
Beatles for Sale by The Beatles
1 This ongoing chart will catalog the albums that I feature in this blog. I include my personal favorite albums under “Other Notable Albums.”

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Kinks, by the Kinks, opens with a vocal that’s more distorted than the electric guitars that accompany it. The crunchiness of Ray Davies’ voice doesn’t come from it being sung through an amplifier or as a by-product of some studio trick. Rather, it’s distorted because he sings with monstrous, legendary intensity. That’s rock ‘n roll for you. Kinks gets my vote for the best album of 1964 that I’ve never heard (until now, of course).1

Released on October 2, 1964 and produced by Shel Talmy, Kinks showcases Ray Davies’ razor sharp songwriting and dazzling vocal prowess. “You Really Got Me” stands out as the obvious best track, but “So Mystifying” and “Stop Your Sobbing” show Davies’ writing potential. Like many albums of the era, most of the songs on Kinks are cover versions. “Too Much Monkey Business” and “Beautiful Delilah,” both originally performed and written by Chuck Berry, stand out as remarkable interpretations.

Kinks exemplifies the “Mersey Beat” or “Beat” sound. The Beatles popularized the Mersey sound in the prior year with their stand out albums, Please Please Me and With the Beatles. The Beat sound synthesized American rock ‘n roll, skiffle, and British pop music and features a strong back beat, (Hint: listen for the snare drum to hit on beats 2 and 4). Authentic Mersey records consist of live band performances with minimal overdubs. The personality of the players and the dynamics of the band are impossible to mask on these early rock ‘n roll recordings. 

And, therein lies the cool thing about music in 1964. The Zombies, Herman’s Hermits, the Animals, the Kinks, and the Beatles all played American rock ‘n roll covers. But each band performed the same songs so very differently. “Long Tall Sally,” a Little Richard song covered by both the Kinks and the Beatles, takes on a completely different life depending on who plays it.

Davies’ songwriting is the shining star of Kinks. His vocal performances and his brother’s approach to guitar are much more rambunctious than most other Beat bands–that’s one thing that makes Kinks such a fun album. The greatest weakness of Kinks is the lack of original songs, but that’s more a function of the times than a deficiency of the band. It wasn’t until A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles (also released in 1964) that a rock band wrote every single song on a chart topping album. Kinks is a welcome addition to my music collection.

B+

Bonus: “You Really Got Me” (Live) + some awesome folk dancing

YearFeatured AlbumOther Notable Albums
1964Kinks by the KinksA Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles
Beatles for Sale by the Beatles
1 This ongoing chart will catalog the albums that I feature in this blog. I include my personal favorite albums under “Other Notable Albums.”

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On the early afternoon of May 22, 2021, Ivy and I made our way to the venue. Even though Gibsonville is in Guilford County, Grove Winery & Vineyards is nestled at the end of several winding back roads. We arrived around 2:30 pm.

I drove right up to the stage and unloaded my gear, which consisted of four guitars, an amp, a floor board, and a keyboard set up. We didn’t start sound checking until about 4:30 pm, so Ivy and I walked around the grounds for a bit. My two favorite parts of Grove Winery were the vineyard rows and the lake behind the stage with the loud bullfrogs. The rows of grapes reminded me of some kind of rustic farming–idyllic in its own way. The bullfrogs called from the lake every now and then during the daylight hours. As night fell, they croaked constantly.

Ryan did an excellent job with the sound production. It didn’t hurt that he’s the front of house engineer for My Morning Jacket. He and James, his assistant, rung out the PA and dialed in the monitors quite well. Sound check was relatively effortless in that we were able to use the time to get used to the stage rather than mitigate flaws in the staging.

As people arrived, I spent some time reconnecting with friends and fans that I hadn’t seen in ages. What I enjoy most about Collapsis reunions is hearing how our music was a soundtrack for a particular part of a person’s life. About an hour before the Grove show, one couple told me that they listened to Dirty Wake everyday of their daughter’s first year of life. And, when they saw that we were playing within two hours of where they live, they had to make a family road trip out of it so they could share the music with their now 20 year old daughter.

Chris started off the show with some original acoustic songs. Before his set, Chris shared with me his rationale for using a Martin acoustic guitar. This particular guitar had two pickups and allowed for a nice blending in the PA. Chris’s songs would sit well in a playlist of Gram Parsons and Chris Bell songs–a very good performance.

I played some songs on the piano for the next part of the show. I performed “Gravity Affects Me,” “Semigloss Albatross,” “Oceans,” and “End.” The first song was from my 2004 EP of the same name and the third song was from my 1996 album, The Lessons of Autumn. The second and fourth songs were from my most recent album Semigloss Albatross. Performing on the piano is not as fluid for me as performing on the guitar, but the only way to get better at something is to keep trying, live, without a net.

The next part of the show featured just Scott and me–I played acoustic guitar and Scott played light drums with hot rod sticks. We did “Trouble in the Barynard,” “Crocodile,” “Believe in You,” and “Wonderland.” The first two songs were from The Lessons of Autumn and Building a Hole, respectively, while the last two were from the Collapsis album, Dirty Wake.

After a short break, the Collapsis set began. Chris made the set list and it flowed quite well. We tried to put songs in places we hadn’t usually put them. “Stumble,” for example, was almost always a transitional song in our sets. But for this show, we opened with it. “High Caliber Grease” often got relegated to our encores for one reason or another. But we played it mid-set this time.

We tried a handful of new cover songs and peppered them in the set here and there. “Eminence Front” by The Who was never a song I ever anticipated covering, but Ryan pointed out that it’s in the same key as “Dirty Wake” and would transition well out of it. “Feel” by Big Star added a chance to showcase Chris on lead vocals. “Corduroy” by Pearl Jam transitioned well out of our version of “Breathe” by Pink Floyd. Our show closer was “Life’s What You Make It” by Talk Talk. We invited James Chen to play keys with us on this song. Dillon Fence alumnus Chris Goode just happened to be sitting in the front row, so we invited him to play bass on the last song. Chris Holloway moved over to floor tom and added a polyrhythm to Scott’s groove.

As the set ended and people began to leave, I contributed to helping pack up the PA and getting the stage straight. Just before leaving, we took a band photo.

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If you haven’t heard, Collapsis is getting back together for a show on May 22, 2021 at the Grove Winery & Vineyards. It’s an outdoor show with limited, spaced seating.

The last time Collapsis performed was at the Cat’s Cradle anniversary show in the fall of 2018. That show was the first time I used the Line 6 Firehawk as my main amp. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to rehearse with the rig much more and explore its many features.

My favorite thing about the Firehawk is that it allows me to approximate vintage amp tones without the excessive volume needed to fully realize those tones. A hundred watt Marshall sounds great wide open, but that kind of volume is generally inappropriate unless you are playing a stadium. Power soaks and power breaks offer negative volume solutions, but sometimes to the detriment of one’s tone. The Firehawk allows me to select an amp, dial in the tone I desire, and then set the output.

Here’s an example of what I mean. I love playing a VOX AC-30 with Top Boost. Every time I’ve had the privilege of using one live, I’ve enjoyed the result. The Firehawk interface allows me to select the AC-30 model with the amount of drive I like. I can also select a distortion pedal, phaser pedal, and delay pedal from a variety of options. And then, I can turn the output up or down as needed. Before, when the sound engineer would ask me to turn down, it meant sacrificing the delicate balance of tone obtained by driving the amp tubes a certain way.

What’s more, this single amp setting gets saved in the Firehawk and is switchable with an ethernet floor controller. Within the amp, I can save over a hundred different amp/pedal combinations. I only have four for the Collapsis show, but that’s more than enough.

The other three amp models I’ll use at this show are a 200 Watt Marshall Plexi, a Matchless DC-30, and a Fender Vibrolux. I’ve paired the Marshall for a semi-gritty tone that works well with my Stratocaster. The Matchless is a darker complement to the AC-30. The Vibrolux gives a more robust tone, when needed.

Do you use digital amps? Are you an analog only person? Let me know on Twitter or sound off in the comments below.

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The Songs about Trains show was great fun for me. Broadcasting live on StageIt usually goes off without a hitch. However, on a long enough timeline, technical difficulties are inevitable. My apologies to anyone whose feed dropped out mid-show. For some, it did not. So my assumption is that the error was attributable to something outside of my control.

Doing a themed show invited light research about the topic. Did you know that the term “train” comes from the French verb, traine, which means “to drag”? And, back in the 1800’s, people actually thought that their bodies would melt if they traveled at over 50 miles per hour. And–one more factoid–ghost trains run in the United Kingdom because the cost of abandoning old lines is more expensive than running an empty train every now and then.

The set list was a mix of cover songs and original songs:

  1. Crime Scene Part One (originally performed by The Afghan Whigs)
  2. Gone, Gone, Gone
  3. Driver 8 (originally performed by R.E.M.)
  4. Seminole Train
  5. Manic Monday (originally performed by the Bangles and written by Prince)
  6. Slow Moon Rising
  7. Interstate Love Song (originally performed by Stone Temple Pilots)
  8. The Original Pullman Palace Car Dream
  9. Ghost Train (originally performed by Counting Crows”
  10. Where’s the A Train?
  11. Jumping Someone Else’s Train (originally performed by The Cure)
  12. Don’t Stop Believin’ (originally performed by Journey)

I’ll return to StageIt the first Saturday in June. Stay tuned for an announcement with details. This show and the preceding StageIt show will be available, in audio form, in the Community later this month.

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I hope you’ll join me for my show on StageIt on Saturday, May 1 at 9 pm EDT. I’ll be playing songs about trains and only songs about trains. It’ll be the most fun you can have at an online show that’s only about trains.

As I songwriter, I only have four songs that concern trains. As such, I’ll be doing six or seven cover songs that feature trains.

What are your favorite songs about trains? Please let me know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter. Here is a list of my favorite songs about trains.

Jumping Someone Else’s Train

Originally released as a single near the time The Cure’s debut album, Three Imaginary Boys, was released, “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” was later incorporated into the US repackaged album, Boy’s Don’t Cry. I first heard “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” on the Staring at the Sea double length cassette, which featured early singles and b-sides by The Cure. This cassette was required listening for all seventh graders . . . at least the one’s I hung out with.

Driver 8

If there’s a better song about trains, I haven’t heard it.

Interstate Love Song

Admittedly, this song features only limited train imagery, but I think it still counts.

Train Kept a Rollin’

I’m partial to the Aerosmith version of this classic, originally performed by Tiny Bradshaw and perfected by the Yardbirds.

Manic Monday

OK, so this barely counts, but Ms. Hoffs does sing about having “to catch an early train” in the second verse. Great track. True fact: Prince wrote this song. I particularly like the dark bridge lyrics–somehow they get obscured by the bright production. But that’s one of the many things that makes this song totally awesome.

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@aaron_king: What are your favorite cover songs?

A “cover song” or “cover version” is music industry lingo for performing a song originally released by another artist. The source of the word “cover,” when referring to a remake, is unclear. The term probably comes from when upcoming artists would perform a new version of a popular song in an effort to “cover up” the original wherever the song appeared in sheet music stores or in record bins. 

Personally, I like cover versions. A cover song allows a band to showoff its influences, to comment on or reinterpret a popular song, and/or to reach a wider audience. While rare, sometimes a cover song improves upon the original version to the point where even the original artist acknowledges the improvement. 

What follows is a list of my favorite cover songs.

“Enjoy the Silence” by Failure 

I saw Failure a few times on the Fantastic Planet tour. One show was at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. In the encore, Failure played a completely reimagined version of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence.” This version would go on to be featured on the For the Masses Depeche Mode tribute album. This is one of the few recordings I recall listening to well over a hundred times in a row. To me, it’s that good. There is also an “Enjoy the Silence 2020” version that sounds like, at least, a remix or possibly a re-tracking of the original recording that was released on For the Masses. Both are excellent. 

“Wild Horses” by The Sundays  

If you went to high school in the early 90s and hung out with the alternative crowd, you couldn’t avoid hearing the first album by The Sundays, a band from England that had a few hits on college radio. On the very end of their second album, The Sundays delivered one of the most original and captivating cover versions I have ever heard. Harriet Wheeler and company perform a haunting version of “Wild Horses” originally performed by the Rolling Stones. Wheeler’s voice has an earnestness that crushes me completely.

“All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix 

About a year after Bob Dylan released “All Along the Watchtower” on John Wesley Harding, Jimi Hendrix released his cover version on Electric Ladyland. The Hendrix double album is his most creative and expressive record. His interpretation of Dylan’s original is so good that even Dylan felt that Hendrix improved upon “Watchtower.”

“Radar Love” by White Lion

Growing up, White Lion was one of my favorite bands. Personally,  I think Pride is one of the best albums ever recorded. Near the end of side two of their third album, Big Game, White Lion covered Golden Earring’s “Radar Love.” The band fires on all cylinders with this true to form cover. Bonus: it also features one of Vito Bratta’s best guitar solos. D’Angelo’s drum break is pretty hot, too. 

“Rock On” by Def Leppard

Def Leppard will always be one of my favorite bands. The opening riff of “Photograph” sealed that deal along time ago. In 2006, Def Leppard released an album of covers. One song was “Rock On” by David Essex. They captured something cool and creative in their recording, so much so that I have a hard time not listening to it on repeat once I put it on. 

Gotta question? Ask Mike on Twitter at @mikegarrigan001 or leave a question in the comments below.