40 Year Itch: Rock's Greatest F-U

Still from Criminally Insane ( 1975)



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"As a statement it's great, as a giant FUCK YOU it shows integrity—a sick, twisted, dunced-out, malevolent, perverted, psychopathic integrity, but integrity nevertheless." 

                                   ~Lester Bangs

 Released in July of 1975, Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music consists of four sides of ear-splitting guitar feedback. Was it a joke? A fuck you to everyone? The result of some kind of record company dispute? Or Lou Reed's response to getting caught up in the "star maker machinery behind the popular song"?

I think we'll go with the "fuck you". 

Reed himself said: 

It was a giant fuck you. I put out Metal Machine Music out to clear the air and get rid of all the fucking assholes who show up at the gigs and yell for "Vicious" and "Walk on the Wild Side". 

Despite all the intellectual suggestions that the album anticipated industrial music, noise rock,  and the punk attitude ( Creem Magazine readers voted Lou "Punk of theYear" in 1975) MMM is unlistenable. Still, thanks probably to its awesome cover and curiosity, it sold 100,000 copies. Reed was unapologetic.

I don't care of they paid $59.98 or $75 for it, they should be grateful I put the fucking thing out and, if they don't like it, they should go eat rat-shit.

The album nearly ended Lou Reed's career. But a year later, Coney Island Baby was climbing the charts and Metal Machine Music was becoming a collector's item. A quadrophonic copy of the album is currently on EBay priced at $129.98.

In a 1976 interview with Rolling Stone, Reed said

I shouldn't be here, man, not after Metal Machine Music. Nobody is supposed to be able to do a thing like that and survive. 

40 Year Itch : Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh

Still from Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin ( 1975)

KC and the Sunshine Band : That's the Way I Like It ( album version)

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    Released on July 6, 1975, side one of the self titled, triple-platinum KC and the Sunshine Band album is a juggernaut, containing "Get Down Tonight" and "That's the Way ( I Like It)", two songs that, in succession,  topped both the Pop and R and B charts. This is the only time, post Elvis, that any white led band has accomplished that feat. A deep cut, "Boogie Shoes", also on Side One, went to #35 in 1977 when it appeared on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, which sold more than 15 million copies .

   

   

   Harry Wayne "KC"  Casey and Richard Finch worked in the TK Records warehouse so they could have access to the studio. Neither could read or write music.  But KC grew up singing in church and Finch was a self taught drummer and recording engineer. Together they would produce infectious, some say "bubble headed" pop for themselves and others, including "Rock Your Baby",  a 1974 #1 hit for George McRae. Until The Bee Gees swiped the title, KC and the Sunshine Band would be the undisputed kings of disco. No, their lyrics didn't say a lot but their enthusiasm was infectious.

Nick Heyward : My All Time Top 10

   In December of 1981, Haircut One Hundred frontman Nick Heyward gave Smash Hits a fairly poppy list of his Top 10 fave songs ( which included the entire Talking Heads debut album). What's striking is that the UK#3/US Top 40 hit"Love Plus One" combines the ear worm catchiness of The Sixties best pop, with the quirkiness of early Talking Heads and the addition of vibes a la Gary Burton. ( Although, come to think of it, the Heads used vibes on "First Week/Last Week...Carefree") .  This list comes via Brian at Like Punk Never Happened. His hair is immaculate.

40 Year Itch : Happy 4th Of July!

 The Texas Senate declared July 4, 1975 "Willie Nelson Day", which was celebrated by 70,000 fans at Nelson's Third Annual picnic, now held for the first time at Liberty Hill in Williamson County. Kris Kristofferson and his wife Rita Coolidge, the Charlie Daniels Band, Delbert McClinton, "Sir Douglas" Sahm and The Pointer Sisters all performed, but it was Willie, the Red Headed Stranger, they all came to see ( as well as the topless women. Always the topless women). "Remember Me" is a cover tune from the much acclaimed album while "I'm Not That Kat Anymore" is a B side from a 1975 single that was later covered by Sahm's Texas Tornados.

40 Year Itch : Her Fancy Coat Was Real Raccoon

Roy Wood : Oh, What a Shame

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In which Roy Wood lives out all, and I mean, ALL of his Beach Boys fantasies in fewer than four minutes. Peaked at #13 on the UK charts. His last major hit.

40 Year Itch : Pay the Price

Ronnie Wood : I Got Lost When I Found You 

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   From Now Look, released on July 2, 1975, this soulful rocker Woody penned with Bobby Womack wouldn't sound out of place on Keith Richards's 1988 solo debut Talk is Cheap . And I love Talk Is Cheap. Creem Magazine readers voted the new Rolling Stone "Most Valuable Player" in 1975,

Bonus: 

40 Year Itch : That Rich White Punk Itch

The Tubes : White Punks on Dope

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   You had to see The Tubes perform to get the joke. The San Francisco band weren't really white punks but more of a glam rock/ prog rock/comedy act fronted by a great showman, Fee Waybill (often in eighteen-inch platform shoes and a fright wig), and backed by one of rock's most under-rated drummers, Prairie Prince. Concerts were circuses with as many as twenty extras mingling onstage. Not of all the campy theatrics worked on record of course . Voted "Best New Band" in Creem Magazine's 1975 readers poll, The Tubes topped Bruce Springsteen, The Outlaws and Patti Smith. "White Punks on Dope" is everything you've heard it is.