Saturday, February 1, 2014

These are a few of my favorite riffs

All hail to The Plugged-in Perpetual Motion Machine.


Berlin, West Germany's Boots Yardbirds-up this cool raver from 1965, originally done by the UK's Cops and Robbers. (I first heard this tune in the mid-80s via a very cool version by Lyres, whose Jeff Conolly probably owned the Cops and Robbers', Boots', Pretty Things', and a half dozen other versions of the song that few knew existed.)

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Not much needs to be said about this stomping b-side, also from '65. I nearly wore out the rocking chair in the rec room while spinning this one ad infinitum on the family stereo.

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An album or two before stardom and the unfortunate death of Bon Scott, who takes a back seat to this monster riff from 1977. Bon made a career out of convincing us that hell's got a better house band than heaven, but the lyrics are superfluous. Don't Angus and his brother Malcolm do all the convincing with their hands?

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Produced by Ritchie Cordell and Glen Kolotkin in 1983, Subterranean Jungle has a terrific, loud, and rousing guitar sound (maximized in places by uncredited guest Walter Lure, late of the Heartbreakers). Written by Johnny and Dee Dee, "Psycho Therapy" may be the last classic Ramones song, an elevation of petty violence and borough mental illness via eighth notes and sirens.

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