Nightly Song
Musings on Songs that Strike a Chord Tonight

Posts Tagged ‘Paisley Underground’

Looking for Lewis and Clark – The Long Ryders

October 5, 2010

Written by Sid Griffin and performed by The Long Ryders.

“Looking for Lewis and Clark” cracks opens like a thunderbolt of rage and righteousness fueled by crashing drums, slashing guitars and a howl of anger. It’s a cry over what should be and what we wind up with. The anger wells up from a faith betrayed, from a belief in a United States that’s possible – think Whitman’s America – and the one delivered by tawdry politicians. It’s a cry over a music world that grinds up the likes of Gram Parsons and Tim Buckley while the moneymen get rich and fat. It’s that Biblical moment when the Jesus takes to the traders befouling the temple.

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Keep on Movin’ – Green on Red

July 21, 2010

Keep on Movin’

Written and recorded by Green on Red.

Here’s a road song that captures rhythm, joy, despair and rootlessness of roaming the interstates. From the opening strums of the guitar, this music keeps pushing the pedal, drums, piano, and propulsive guitar flying down the highway all lashed together by lead singer Dan Stuarts careening vocals. The pulse builds throughout the song until it explodes in a frenzy of ringing guitars, clashing cymbals and pounding piano. Call it cowboy rock without all the cowboy clichés: a man on the road compulsively moving. The song has a wiry and rugged sound as if putting music to the Arizona desert from where the band hailed, think rattlesnakes and endless stretches of blacktop.

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Song for the Dreamers – Danny and Dusty

June 25, 2010

Song for the Dreams
Performed by Danny and Dusty. Written by Dan Stuart and Steve Wynn.

It’s 1985 and there’s a music scene cooking in Los Angles dubbed the Paisley Underground, their sound ranging from pop to roots rock to psychedelia. The leading bands included the Bangles, Game Theory, The Long Ryders, The Dream Syndicate and Green on Red. On one particular weekend, Dan Stuart (lead sing form Green on Red and Steve Wynne (lead singer from the Dream Syndicate) pulled some band mates and some friends from the Long Ryders into a studio for a weekend. Over the next 36 hours, they consumed combustibles by the bucket load and recorded a complete album put out under the moniker Danny and Dusty with the title, The Lost Weekend.

Thankfully, the recordings were not lost. In many ways, what they laid down in that studio exceeded what any of the bands did on their own. That album features some great songs, including “The Word is Out” and “Miracle Mile,” but nothing beats “Song for the Dreamers.” A rollicking tribute to losers, hustlers, schemers an dreamers, Wynn and Stuart trade vocals as if they’ve been barnstorming roadhouses for twenty years while the band unleash a frenzy behind them that makes like a Thunderbird convertible flying down the highway.

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