12 February 2021 - Green Jellö/Green Jellÿ - Three Little Pigs

Shockingly, just as soon as this Buffalo punk band got a little success, Kraft sued them and forced a name change. 

No matter.  This novelty tune - amazingly about exactly what you think it is, if you've never heard it - was a Top 20 MAINSTREAM POP RADIO hit.  Radio played the hell out of this song.  When the single was first released in 1992, it was ONLY available on video - it is the first known video single. Although it did get a CD release later, the sales of the video were enough to earn the single Gold certification.

Prepare to be entertained.

The YouTube comments of this live version include the comment "this song is heavier than it has any right to be."

Not wrong.

This performance from 2019 shows that they haven't faded in the quarter century since this was a new song.  

11 February 2021 - John and Mary - Red Wooden Beads

I saw John and Mary twice at St. Bonaventure University in the early 1990's - I want to say 1991 and 1992.  When I went to that first show, 

1) I had John Lombardo sign my copy of Hope Chest by 10,000 Maniacs - the same copy that Natalie Merchant signed and yes, he signed it first.  

2) I purchased their first album, Victory Gardens, and yes, they both signed it.

They were both exceptionally nice.  And exceptional performers.

When I went to that second show, they BOTH remembered my name.  And were happy to see me.  

Now, technically, I saw them a 3rd time at St. Bonaventure, in 1995, after Natalie Merchant left 10,000 Maniacs and that band appeared essentially with John and Mary instead of Natalie - a lineup that pretty much has stuck to this day (John is only a part-time member and Mary did leave the band for awhile), so there's not a lot of John and Mary music anymore, but they don't not exist and they still make music together.

This was their debut single and the song they opened with at that first show.  

10 February 2021 - 10,000 Maniacs - What's the Matter Here?

Seeing a theme this week yet?  

Well, we've got one.  

10,000 Maniacs formed in Jamestown, NY in the 1980s and quickly made a name for themselves on the Buffalo music scene, eventually getting a major label record deal and a broader audience.  

This was the band's 4th single from their 1987 album In My Tribe, and despite the heaviness of the song, it was a minor hit for the band.  Natalie Merchant and Peter Buck wrote the song, from the point of view of someone seeing a neighbor's child being abused.  

The band still performs the song live, with Mary Ramsey on the microphone now.  It's still just as poignant.

9 February 2021 - Ani DiFranco - 32 Flavors

If you live in Western New York, you know who Ani DiFranco is.  She's one of the first artists to eschew major label flirting with her and go off in her own direction.... and still remained financially viable and visible to big names in Hollywood. While she left Buffalo many years ago, that is where she grew up and recorded much of her earlier music. 

This song was from DiFranco's 6th studio album, Not A Pretty Girl.  A clear pun on Baskin-Robbins, it's likely her best-known song not performed as part of a Julia Roberts movie soundtrack. 

8 February 2021 - Goo Goo Dolls - Name

This song is about Lisa Montgomery.  That one fact alone makes it worth a 2nd post in a day.  

8 February 2021 - Goo Goo Dolls - There You Are

A lot of times we post the first hits by bands.  This was one of the last songs by the Goo Goo Dolls that wasn't a gigantic hit - and on the first album where Johnny Rzeznik was primary lead vocalist (he had previously been an occasional vocalist and fulltime guitarist), which set up the big stardom to come.  This song is far more straight-ahead rock and less acoustic-driven than their later hits, but that doesn't make it bad.  Lyrically, it is a song of despair and anguish over a breakup. 

Primarily filmed at what was Pilot Field in downtown Buffalo, NY, the band's hometown, the band's first ever video serves as a tribute to Buffalo, showing a lot of familiar sites around the city (yes, I can mentally drive the first few seconds of the video). Bit of an "inside baseball" fact for someone who spent a fair amount of growing up in the Buffalo area - at 2:27, the video is filmed ON the border between the United States and Canada - something of a no-man's land, between the two flags on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. 

So, since they're big hit makers, I'm sure they don't play their old stuff anymore, right? 

Wrong.

5 February 2021 - The Beach Boys - God Only Knows

My mother would have been 74 years old today.   She passed away last year, in March, after a long battle with a disorder known as posterior cortical atrophy, so this is my family's first birthday of hers without her.  As something of a tribute, I felt it right to pay tribute to a band she enjoyed.

As a kid, and really, into adulthood, my mother's favorite band was The Beach Boys - she was a teen in the 1960's, after all.  Now, as a kid, I heard songs like "Surfin' USA" and "California Girls" and thought they were kind of cheesy.  As I grew older, though, I realized how difficult such harmonies could be, and I, too, gained an appreciation for them.  

And then I discovered Pet Sounds.  That is an amazing album, and if you haven't listened to the audio experimentation that's going on there, you need to go listen to it now.  It's an incredible albums - Brian Wilson's masterpiece.   That album helped me appreciate the earlier AND later works of the band as well.  

This song, co-written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher, opened Side 2 of Pet Sounds and is regarded by many as the greatest song ever written.  This version, which was a top 40 hit, featured rare vocalist Carl Wilson on lead, which was a stroke of additional genius in an already great song.  

Of course, the song became a live staple.  Here is the band performing the song in 1980, the last time the original members of the band (Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, along with Al Jardine) would appear on a UK stage together.