Somewhere Angels in Heaven are Crying

RAIN ON ME - The Clams

The Village Voice's influential Pazz & Jop was an annual poll of music critics compiled by Robert Christgau.  In the 1984 edition, three acts from the Twin Cities appeared in the top ten:

Minneapolis music was at its commercial and critical peak. 1985 saw the debut of The Clams, a hard rocking band inspired by the likes of the Rolling Stones and the New York Dolls. Singer/guitarist Cindy Lawson's ad in a couple of alt-weeklies looking for women who wanted to play bluesy rock caught the attention of lead guitarist Roxie Terry, bass player Patsy Joe, and drummer Karen Gratz.  Soon, they were playing at the Uptown Bar, 7th St Entry, and other popular local venues.

While The Clams didn't go on to major commercial success, they were a popular live act. They released an LP in 1988, "Exile on Lake Street" - five years before Liz Phair's seminal "Exile in Guyville" album and 16 years before the band Lake Street Dive named itself after the same Minneapolis street.

       

Their most memorable live show took place not in a dive bar or rock club, but in prison.  Located 25 miles east of Minneapolis, the state correctional facility in Stillwater opened in 1914 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  In 1987, The Clams put on a concert there for the inmates. 

Before you read the interview with Cindy Lawson below, head on over to Vimeo (Rain on Me - The Clams) where you can see the band perform a number of songs at the prison.

The Clams at Stillwater Prison

1 - How did The Clams end up playing a gig at Stillwater prison and - since we don't get to see the audience in the video - what was the atmosphere like?

Cindy Lawson - I don't know if they still do this, but back then the inmates would do a 'carnival' annually in the summer to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy. Bands played inside an auditorium, then in the courtyard they had a dunk tank (which of course we went in!) and food trucks. 

I believe we learned about this gig from a band we knew, Big Mambo, whose drummer was Tom Cook. We went in a week or two before to do a video interview with the two gents who were in charge of the bands. I think I have a copy of that somewhere-we were unbelievably silly (as we always were) so I look back and appreciate their patience with us!

The audience (the inmates) were extremely well behaved. There wasn't any shouting or dancing-so unlike a bar gig! They were very appreciative and applauded like crazy after each song and then quieted down. I'm sure there was a mandate set forth that in order for them to have fun privileges like bands and carnivals they needed to be on their best behavior. We never felt scared or worried about any of it. None of them really came up afterwards to talk to us-the only ones we communicated with (besides the prison personnel) were the two inmates I mentioned before.

Inside Stillwater Prison

2 - Did your mom really tell you, "When skies are cloudy, somewhere angels in heaven are crying?" 

CL - Yes, I think that was one of hers. Along with "Don't eat raisins in the dark." 😁 But she never said "Powder your nose and kick some ass" that I attributed to her on our EP. That one's mine. 🤓

3 - Your intro quotes the Blues Brothers line, "We like both kinds of music, country and western."  You also performed Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues" (appropriately) at this show.  Did you listen to much country music at the time or was this simply a Stones inspired bluesy song?

CL - We listened to real country-Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash. That music is universal. 

4 - Do you still have that guitar?  Or the Rickenbacker (which I like a lot) that you also played at this concert? 

CL - I don't have the Squier anymore. My first boyfriend (and all-time best friend, Nic Santiago) gave it to me as a birthday present. The Rickenbacker sadly disappeared at some point during the '90s. I tried to find it but never could. I have a hunch who the thief was, but could never prove it, and if he really wanted a guitar that bad, so be it. I only hope he played it and didn't sell it for drugs.

5 - Have you ever run into an ex-con who said," I remember you from that show when I was in the Big House," so to speak?

CL - I haven't, but I remember one of the two inmates who were in contact with us contacted Roxie when he got out just to say hello. And someone from the prison sent her a special leather belt they had made. She had a lot of fans! 

Minnesota Correctional Facility - Stillwater

6 - You say in the clip that you and Roxie just wrote "Rain on Me."  Was one of you more the lyricist and the other more the music, or was it 50/50 in all respects?

CL - She definitely wrote the music and I wrote the words. I didn't start writing melodies on guitar until later. 

7 - Any other thoughts or feelings that seeing this clip now evokes?

CL - Well, thank you so much! This is delightful! I miss those ladies and I certainly miss that time in my life. I still see Karen and Patty (who lives in Lake Tahoe) often. We were so young and had so much fun. It's sad that one never appreciates the time they are in until it's long gone. And we certainly didn't archive things very well. I have no idea how some of our videos end up on the web and then are mysteriously taken down.  

Wanna Buy Five Copies For My Mother

THE COVER OF THE ROLLING STONE 

Dennis Locorriere of Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show

Dennis Locorriere, a founding member of Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, a guitarist, songwriter and vocalist, took time recently to answer my seven questions about one of the funnest songs ever to grace the Top Ten, "The Cover of the Rolling Stone." He is currently touring worldwide, fronting "DR HOOK starring Dennis Locorriere." 



Dr. Hook (the "& the Medicine Show" was jettisoned in 1975) is one of the most underrated bands of the '70s and early '80s. They're the kind of act that, when you hear one of their songs, you start thinking about their other hits and before you know it you have a longer list than you expected.

They broke through with 1972's "Sylvia's Mother" (which peaked at #5) before scoring a #6 hit with "The Cover of the Rolling Stone." 

It took three years before their next hit, a cover of Sam Cooke's "Only 16," a #6 hit, followed shortly thereafter by "A Little Bit More" at #11.

1978 brought "Sharing the Night Together" (#6); 1979 delivered "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman" (#6 - they must have the record for most #6 singles) and "Better Love Next Time" (#12); and in 1980 they scored another #5 in with "Sexy Eyes."  

Ten Top 40 hits from 1972-1982 -- six of which reached #5 or #6 -- is an impressive run.  Maybe too successful as a pop act, because despite being comprised of very talented singers and musicians who put on highly entertaining live shows, Dr. Hook doesn't get as much credit as some of its peers.  

I get it.  They had hit singles but their albums never broke through, they sang a lot of what McCartney called "Silly Love Songs," and they always looked like they were having way too much fun to be "artistes." 

That said, I've never met anyone who doesn't like "The Cover of the Rolling Stone," Dr. Hook's only hit that wasn't a love song, one with more of a country rock feel and which showcases the band's innate and solid sense of humor.

TCotRS was written by renaissance man Shel Silverstein, who also wrote Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue," but is probably best remembered today for children's books like "A Light in the Attic" and "Where the Sidewalk Ends."

To find out what Dennis Locorriere has to say about Silverstein, "Rolling Stone," and Dr. Hook, read on...

1 - You sang lead on virtually every Dr. Hook hit record, with the exception of "The Cover of the Rolling Stone." Was it because your voice was, essentially, too good, given the loose feel of this song?  Or were you needed to do the harmonies and backing vocals?

Dennis Locorriere: I've always seen The Cover of Rolling Stone as an ensemble piece. It was appropriate. After all, it was the whole band who was begging to be on the cover.

The first voice you hear is mine, saying "Hey, sugar! Tell 'em who we are." Then Ray kicks it off perfectly in the first verse, making the band's case for immortality.

Second verse is sung by George in his low, ominous tones, extolling the virtues of someone named Cocaine Katy. 

From there the song is sung pretty much in harmony and ends with me talking again. "I can see it now, man...awwww, beautiful!"

2 - How did you come up with the hilarious guitar solo (I've read that you played it on the record, though not in concert)?

DL: I literally closed my eyes and dove in, not considering the notes I was playing at all. What came out was what we used. I couldn't have played it again if I'd wanted to. I felt sorry for the poor guitar players out there who may have tried to duplicate it!

3 - Shel Silverstein called the band at a hotel and asked if you wanted to get on the cover of Rolling Stone.  When you first heard him play the song, did you think his plan would work?

DL: You never know what's gonna 'work' in this business. What we did know was that it was a brilliantly funny, cleverly written song and we wanted it in our repertoire.

4 - Why didn't Shel record the song himself?  

DL: Shel always said he didn't need or want the attention and passed a lot of songs, TV appearances and the like on to us. The band had just gotten some attention with our first big record, Sylvia's Mother (also written by Shel!) and I suppose he thought this song could only help. He was right!

5 - You and the rest of the band look like you're having a great time on every live performance of CotRS I've seen. Was your humorous patter leading into the live versions off the cuff, or did you have a couple of standard lines you liked to work with, given how many times you must have performed that song?

DL: The things I said on the record were off the cuff. I just rambled until we found something we thought might work. Didn't take all that long as I recall.

In concert, we just played the song without any commentary. The lyrics spoke for themselves.

6 - The image of Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show in CotRS, on the first few albums and on stage was, "this band knows how to party!"  However, you look and sound great now, tour the world performing with your band, and seem younger than your years.  Good genes, or was that image more an act than a reality?

DL: When you first go on the road you think you should have a party every night because you're sure the good times can't possibly last very long. Once it becomes evident that this is your job, and not a hobby, you have some choices to make. I was never one to seriously over indulge, believe it or not. We had a shambolic stage persona that worked for us for awhile, but, truthfully, we weren't 'always stoned' any more than Bowie was really 'from Mars.'

As far as seeming younger than my years these days, I thank you for the compliment. I feel terrific. Guess we'll see how long that goes on.

7 - When the song was released, Rolling Stone sent 16-year old Cameron Crowe to profile the band.  When you watched his film, "Almost Famous," which is based on Crowe's experiences back then, did that bring back any memories?

DL: Tho I haven't seen him since those very early days I have fond memories of Cameron. He was a sharp kid and you were left with the feeling he was gonna go on to bigger things.

The last time I had contact with him was by post, after Almost Famous was released. He told me he had tried to reach me and wanted me to be a consultant on the film. I was sad we hadn't connected because the film is great - very accurate as far as the behind the scenes stuff goes. I also would have loved to work with Cameron, the man. But I was still very flattered that he'd even considered me after so many years. 

Judging by his tweets, Dennis is one of the hardest working men in show business, touring with his band and making the media rounds.  I'll leave you with this entertaining interview Dennis did a couple of years ago on Australian TV:

Where No Doctor Can Relieve Me

"If I Should Fall From Grace With God" - The Pogues' James Fearnley

While on a long drive recently, I stumbled across a compelling interview on NPR.  The fascinating fellow telling tales of rock and roll turned out to be James Fearnley, accordion player for and founding member of The Pogues.  It turns out that earlier this year his book "Here Comes Everybody: The Story of the Pogues" was published.  Believe me, if you heard the interview, you wanted to get the book as soon as possible.

I don't recall the first time I heard the Pogues, but very few people I knew were aware of the band. They were much bigger in the UK than they were in America.  But I was drawn to their unique blend of rock, celtic, punk and world music.  Their recordings from the late 1980s and early '90s have held up very well as a result of following their own muse and incorporating traditional elements, rather than chasing whatever sound was au courant.

I reached out to James and he kindly agreed to answer my questions.  The hard part was picking which song would be the subject.  "Fairytale of NY" gradually became a favorite of the musically hip here in the US; it's a Christmas song and this is the holiday season; and I find the song completely amazing even after many hundreds of listens.  But it felt like well-trod ground.

So I chose "If I Should Fall From Grace With God," the single that followed "Fairytale," for its mix of infectuous music and dark lyrics.  Take a listen; the Q+A follows.

IF I SHOULD FALL FROM GRACE WITH GOD - THE POGUES

1 - Do you recall your impression of "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" in whatever state it was in when Shane (McGowan) first played it for you?

James Fearnley:  It was during rehearsals in January 1987 that I first heard ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’, along with ‘Rake at the Gates of Hell’, both of which he would probably have written anyway, but each earmarked for inclusion in the soundtrack for Alex Cox’s film, ‘Straight To Hell’, which had been shot, in Spain, the previous summer. 

Both songs, musically speaking - the way we went about them anyway - relied on a kind of propulsive, swampy (aptly enough for the choruses of ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’, with their images of rivers and mud), Mississipi Delta shuffle, with elements of Cajun music, even though the band hadn’t actually visited the South at that time. 

Both songs seemed fairly complete by the time Shane introduced them to us, structurally. I had always enjoyed the powerful statement of a melody which could basically stand alone, reiterated in the middle, and as a finale to the song, following the sort of template the Pogues, in conjunction with Shane’s songwriting, had developed in the course of the previous couple of years, and as early as ‘Streams of Whiskey’ and ‘The Dark Streets of London’. 

I’ve written about the opening melody of ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’ in ‘Here Comes Everybody’, and how it bore similarities, for me, to ‘The Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond’. I remember adoring the melody - it’s pentatonic scale expansive and ancient, and carrying with it the theme, as in ’The Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond’, of the proximity of death. I wouldn’t have acknowledged, at the time, the narrator’s beseeching ‘Let me go, let me go’, to have been particularly significant, as such appeals became more urgent a couple of years later.

2 - You played a variety of instruments on the IISFFGWG album - grand piano on "Fairytale of New York," a mandolin, a dulcimer which you hammered with teaspoons, etc.  Did you play anything in addition to accordion on the title track? 

JF:  Recording studios have always been a toy box for me, particularly during the recording of 'If I Should Fall From Grace With God’, with Steve Lillywhite in May 1987, and particularly on ‘Fiesta’, when it came to replicating gunshots by means of my mouth, among other things. A few years before, I’d spent quite a long period listening to Spike Jones and His City Slickers. I used to know the drummer from a band called the Vibrators. We’d get the saucepans and lids out from my kitchen, and a couple of spoons each, and 'play' along with dance bands from the 1930s - Ray Noble and Al Bowlly were favourites. 

When it came time to record the demos for a large part of what turned out to be the album 'If I Should Fall From Grace With God’ (’The Terry Woods Solo Album’, which, for ‘contractual reasons’ had to be kept secret), for ‘Fiesta’ there were metal ashtrays and other similar percussion instruments around the penthouse studio at Abbey Road. Otherwise, I remember sawing away at a cello on ‘Turkish Song of the Damned’, and being summoned to the studio by Lillywhite to add a bit of ‘sizzle’ to ‘Bottle of Smoke’, by means of a cymbal laid flat on the floor and beating out triplets on it with sticks. 

I think the hammered dulcimer came later, once I’d realised there was an instrument that sounded better than laying a mandolin on my lap, damping off the strings I didn’t want by means of cardboard stuck between them, and laying into it with teaspoons. The break in ‘Haunted’ (to Philip Chevron’s chagrin, because I rather think he would have liked the opportunity to play a guitar solo), which we recorded a year earlier, is done that way.

3 - Why did the band choose to name the album after this track?

JF:  Frank Murray, our manager, was vexed that we hadn’t come up with an album title. ‘Red Roses For Me’ had come so immediately and simply. I wonder if Shane knew all along what he wanted the title of our first album to be. ‘Rum Sodomy and the Lash’ became obvious, from Andrew Ranken’s navy stories - though I’m glad the album wasn’t called ‘Dance of the Flaming Arseholes’, which was one of Andrew’s most memorable stories. ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’ proved to be not so easy. Nothing ever spontaneously raised its head. Murray, with his back against some sort of wall, burst into our rehearsal, wanting an album title. Shane just shouted back "‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’!”  to make him go away.

4 - IISFFGWG was used in a 2010 Subaru commercial about hockey moms.  Could you ever have envisioned this back in 1988?

JF:  No. Neither could Iggy Pop have envisioned ‘Lust for Life’ in a commercial for Royal Caribbean cruises.

5 - An earlier, slower version of IISFFGWG was released on the soundtrack for "Straight to Hell" in 1987.  Why did the band decide to revisit/redo the song?

JF:  There’s no gripping story to this. The song, with ‘Rake at the Gates of Hell’, was recorded for the ‘Straight to Hell’ soundtrack. There was some foot-dragging on our part, vis à vis our relationship with Stiff Records, and we were eager to record. After our summer holidays in the Tabernas Desert outside Almerìa there was a lot of energy in the band, musically. ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’ and ‘Rake at the Gates of Hell’ were part of that energy. ‘Rake at the Gates of Hell’ should have been a contender for the record had it not been for the malevolence of the lyrics. Shame.

6 - How disappointed were you, or not, when IISFFGWG peaked at #58 in the UK after the previous single, "Fairytale of NY," was a #2 hit? 

JF:  ‘Fairytale of New York’ hit a nerve that was always going to remain hidden from ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’, I suppose. Christmas in the United Kingdom (in perpetuity, it seems) was ready for ‘Fairytale of New York’. Easter not so much for ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’. (I think I’m right in saying that the single of ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’ was released around Easter 1988.)

7 - What is your most memorable live performance of IISFFGWG?

JF:  All performances of ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’ have tended to run into one collective one. It has been a favourite of mine to play, since we first started playing it. It provides me one of the first opportunities in the set to throw the bass end of the accordion skyward and drag the keyboard end down towards me for the last chord. If there’s any performance or series of performances I particularly remember, they were for the video we recorded at the Town and Country in Kentish Town during the week of St Patrick’s Day 1988. Philip Chevron was masterful in front of the cameras. I had no idea what to do and learned a lot from him. Not much of a memory, it’s true, since it forms part of that residency we had, and in our stamping ground, in our home town, at the end of a tour of the UK, not long after coming back from the other side of the world after our first tour of Australia. It was good to be back at home.

For other interviews James has done, see the links at this page on his website.