Songs I Wish We'd Covered. Oh Wait a Minute --- We Actually Did.

From 1968, and (some say, although I don't) their magnum opus album The Notorious Byrd Brothers, here are the aforementioned Byrds and their glorious version of Carole King and Gerry Goffin's "I Wasn't Born to Follow."




I have to admit, until I saw that picture sleeve I had no idea that this had actually been issued as a single.

In any case, I have loved -- nay lurved -- this one since the very first moment I heard it (through a cannabis haze, doubtless) in my college dorm room, and if memory serves it was one of the first covers I suggested that the Flo Mos work up back in the day. My favorite performances of it took place at one of those Other End gigs I've documented earlier; my long time pal and bandmate Tony Forte used to drop by occasionally to play it with us, thus giving us two Rickenbacker 12-string guitars on one cramped stage. Alas, no tape of one of those renditions has surfaced, but trust me -- it was one of the most glorious noises imaginable.

Incidentally, I talked to Tony about this the other day, and he reminded me that Andy's first axe when the Floor Models got together -- a solid-body El Cheapo that we used to jokingly refer to as "that pig of a Hagstrom" -- was actually the only non-Rickenbacker 12-string he ever played and liked.

In Everyone's Life, There's a Summer of '42...

[I originally posted this over at PowerPop back in September of 2010, but it seems to me it should be archived here, since it's the early history of the band, essentially. Enjoy, in particular if you missed it the first time around. -- S.S.]

...or so said the tag line in the ads for the movie of the same name. But in my case (self-indulgence alert!) such a summer lasted for almost two years, circa 1982-83 (metaphorically, of course). When The Floor Models, the 12-string pop band I played bass for, had a more or less uninterrupted weekend residency at the Other End Cafe on Bleecker Street in fabled Greenwich Village.

The short version is that pretty much every Friday and Saturday night during that period we would arrive at said hole-in-the-wall venue and bash out three hour-long sets (shows at 10pm, midnight and 2am). Essentially, it was our equivalent of The Cavern, and though the schedule was grueling, it never once felt like work, this due to the fact that a) the four of us enjoyed each other's company almost as much as the music we were playing; b) we were rather handsomely paid, if you can believe it; and c) thanks to the weekend traffic on Bleecker Street we almost always wound up performing for an elbow-jostling and appreciative crowd (around 200 well lubricated NYU kids and tourists crammed wall to wall on an average lively night) even when our friends were otherwise engaged. It was a ridiculously ideal environment for a young band getting its stuff together, and as I said, it never felt like work; I look back on the whole experience these days as pretty much the most fun I've ever had with my clothes on.

I should probably also mention that I lived across the street from the club, which meant that moving equipment was a breeze. And that between-set, uh, refreshments and after-hours carousing were rather ridiculously hassle-free as a result.

In any case, here's what we looked like on one of those weekends; as you can see, calling the stage cramped would be seriously gilding the lily. The sound system wasn't exactly state of the art, either.



As I noted earlier, we used to do three hour-long sets an evening, which meant we necessarily had to do a fair number of covers; given that our idea had always been to do the songs that had inspired to us play in the first place (especially ones we'd never had a chance to essay in other bands) this was hardly an odious task, and so we'd bang out everything from The Monkees to Television. (Doing The Hollies "Bus Stop" -- and well, I think -- was something of a dream come true for me.) We also had a lot of musician friends from the neighborhood who'd help us out by dropping in for the late sets; we'd work up little guest spots for them and some of those occasioned among my absolute favorite moments during our run.

Here's one of them: the lovely and talented Jan Melchior (then otherwise mostly toiling in The Roommates, a sort of folkie girl group a la The Roches) as heard with us on Saturday October 9, 1982, sometime (I think) in the third set, in a jangly version of Lulu's "To Sir With Love." The sound is a tad primitive -- like I said, the PA sucked, and this was taped on a cheap cassette player -- but I think the atmosphere and Jan's remarkably authentic vocal come through loud and clear.



I suspect you'll believe me when I say this performance engendered a lot of serious dropped jaws; you really didn't hear a lot of Lulu covers in 1982.

The Mona Lisa's Mustache

Apparently Andy "Folk Rock" Pasternack -- who crafted the mockup below -- has some mad Photoshop skills along with his musical talents.



And no, this won't be the front cover of the forthcoming Floor Models CD, although it certainly could have been in the running.

And while I've got your attention, please enjoy a poorly recorded live track which won't make it onto the aforementioned CD, for obvious reasons, but which is pretty cool anyway -- our version of "It's Too Late," the classic power pop single from our heroes The Searchers' 1979 comeback album.



God, what a great song. So great, in fact, that Gerry later shamelessly rewrote it as "If I Ever Get Another Chance," in which form it mysteriously appeared on our 1995 indie album. Heh.

BTW, the mp3 links at that post have long since expired -- if you want to hear the Searchers original or our, er, adaptation, just e-mail me and I'll be happy to send them to you.

Outtakes of the Gods: Kowabunga!!!

Okay, here's a tune that started life as a Flo Mos rehearsal jam version of The Byrds' "Eight Miles High," i.e. a self-consciously tongue in cheek take on the whole raga-rock thing, until one day we realized it was actually...a surf instrumental.

We ultimately called it "Barb Wire Beach."




The version in the clip above was recorded by a later incarnation of the band, after Andy (who co-wrote it with Gerry, if memory serves) had departed, around the same time and under the same circumstances as "Spin Cycle" (see the previous Outtakes of the Gods for more info). We used to play it live from time to time, on those rare occasions we were entreated to do an encore.

It's pretty cool, I think, in a Raybeats kind of way, although if you were wondering why my deliberately chintzy fake Farfisa organ work sounds a little, uh, atonal or Chinese, it's because whatever keyboard preset I was using on the primitive synth we employed for the session had some kind of weird harmonic overtone that nobody noticed until long after the whole thing was in the can. All these years later I still haven't decided whether it sounds kind of interesting or really annoying,

Songs I Wish We'd Covered (An Occasional Series)

Buffalo Springfield. "Baby Don't Scold Me." In stereo, as nature intended.




This was on the original pressing of the Springfield's 1966 debut LP; when "For What It's Worth" went Top 10, ATCO hurriedly re-pressed the album with the hit in its place. The mp3 is from a vinyl transfer; the stereo mix, alas, has never been on CD (the version that finally surfaced on the Springfield box set a few years ago is the mono). I think the stereo is a lot more vivid, but on the other hand, having it in two-channel means you can really hear how sloppy the production is.

I'd loved the song (one of Stephen Stills' best, and kind of proto-power pop, I think) since forever, and I actually tried to interest the guys in working it up fairly early on. Unfortunately, the only copy I had of it was a wobbly old cassette a friend had taped for me in the early 70s, the woeful sound quality of which may have been why I was ultimately unsuccessful in pitching the tune. In any case, we wound up covering "Go and Say Goodbye" instead, which was okay by me, obviously.

Je Dois Etre Dans L'Amour

Things have been slow around here due to my dealing with an ailing mom, but the Flo Mos CD project is continuing apace. Basically, the track listing is all but complete and I await only the recovery of one rare tape before finalizing it.

In the meantime, Andy mocked up this fabulous cover for the live album we never made and I thought I'd share. I love the import logo.




The mp3 is us at the Other End in October of '82; the sound is just okay, but how many bands can you think of that were doing Rutles covers back then?

Outtakes of The Gods

Ah, here's one that got away. It's "Spin Cycle" -- on balance, pretty much my favorite song of Gerry's ever.





We did this in the Floor Models for the longest time, but for some reason we never demoed it and if there's a live tape of it, it hasn't surfaced. In any case, it has a sort of Buddy Holly by way of Nick Lowe or John Hiatt feel that I find irresistible.

The version above, however, was done by a later incarnation of the band, after Andy's departure; the basic instrumental was done 8-track at some rehearsal studio we were using in the late 80s, and the final overdubs and mixing were done on 16-track at Target Studios in Delaware, with our pal Marc Moss engineering, in what became the sessions for our 1995 indie album as Gerry Devine and the Hi-Beams. I'm including it here because 3/4 of the Floor Models are actually playing on it, Gerry's doing a very nice approximation of Andy's 12-string stuff from the old days and, as I said, I just dig the song the most.

That's me doing the hopefully effective organ stuff; I was trying my best to sound like Bob Andrews of Brinsley Schwarz.

I should add that the track got left off the aforementioned indie album because Gerry, for reasons inexplicable to me to this day, felt it was somehow too lyrically...I dunno, diffuse or something, for the concept of the record. I disagreed vehemently, as you might imagine, but in the interests of intra-group harmony I conceded the point. I still think it should have been on the record, in case you're wondering.

I should also add that I was even more irked about the omission when I heard Replacements' guitarist Slim Dunlap's 1996 album Times Like This, specifically the song "Girlfriend."



Which sounds to me like a punkier and slightly shorter version of "Spin Cycle." But I'm over it now.