What music do you want to play really loud?

Patti Smith "Pumping (My Heart)"
Paul Westerberg "My Problem"
Lou Reed "Sweet Jane" from RnR Animal

Minimalist riff rock - treadmill only - must be loud enough to ensure that I forget where I am.

Marty

Lately it's been "Kid Creole - Live" on the way to work. Loud enough to keep me awake on the commute. Loud enough so that - if I don't turn it down when I lower the window to swipe the card key reader for garage access, the attendants look at me kind of funny. Like: Who's the guy with the blaring Latin Jazz/Disco/Funk thing going on?

Shadorne,

That is the title. Pickwick records CD#706052.

I don't know if you know this band, but there's a fair chance that they are right up your alley. They are probably my alltime favorite live act, mixing disco danceability, ferocious funk energy, screaming horns, latin dance rythms, perfect pop song constructions, extremely clever (if somewhat juvenile) humor from August Darnell and some of the funniest staging you'll ever see. That combo is right up my alley, anyway, but that may say more about my juvenile sense of humor than anything else!

This particular set is really, really good (most of his best originals and covers of Sly Stone, Harry Belafonte, The 4 Seasons, and The Holmes Brothers) - although the recording is hardly SOTA. By the way, the band played at my 50th birthday party and tore the roof off the sucka (so to speak).

Pretty confident that you'll dig it.

Marty

Palasr,

The band's appearance at my party was actually my party's appearance at their show, and it was my present to myself.

The story is:

I was talking to their management and negotiating for their appearance at my party, when the band coincidentally scheduled its first LA show (Key Club) in 15 years, just 2 weeks before I was going to hire them. Instead, I booked the private room at the Key Club and bussed my party to the show, which was - as always - enormously entertaining. (This plan ended up cutting costs by roughly 80%.) Even my father in law, who detests anything smacking of rock'n'roll, really loved it.

As it turned out, my party guests were, outside of press, friends of the house, and friends of the band, the ONLY people at the show. Zero! ticket sales to the public - amplifying your point about the band's lack of recognition (stateside, anyway. I understand that they're more popular in Europe). The lack of a following is a mystery, and, sadly, I suspect that they will never return to LA after failing to sell a single ticket beyond my group purchase.

Marty

Three more thoughts:

1) I worked on (or around) Wall Street for 2 decades and the band has a real following among (mainly) lawyers and (to a bit lesser extent) bankers there. No idea why, but their LA show was scheduled (according to their manager) to "piggy back" on a private party they were playing that week for Deutsche Bank in LA.

2) In a final bit of weirdness, the LA Times reviewed the performance at my party. They noted the band's significance as a cultural touchstone for the "NYC alt-disco" circuit in the early '80s and commented that it was sad to see the band return after 50 years and find only a handful of hardcore fans (i.e. my party) there to greet them.

3) Finally, to anyone who buys the live record, note that the real party starts on track 3. The first 2 songs are disco covers, good fun in their own right (particularly the Kid's lecherous version of "Oh, What a Night", Franky Valli's nostalgic ode to losing his cherry), but not the main point of the proceedings).

Love the first line he speaks on the live record:

"Hey, Franky, I had a night like that, too. Let me tell you about it."

Make that "return after 15 years" for the LA Times report.

"Drive" by Todd Rundgren....couldn't resist.

We need a new thread:

"What's your favorite song called "Drive".