Tuesday brings three Johnny songs, none of which I own in any format and all suggested by friends in the comments boxes. Simon went for Lucille #1 by Prefab Sprout and Echorich concurred. It's from that moment in the mid 80s when some of the indie heroes went all sophisticated and adult. This performance is from the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1985.
Very nice. I had the Steve McQueen album on cassette but never replaced it after the tape died out.
Johnny #2 is from Drew and his almost annual pilgrimage to see Stiff Little Fingers at this time of year. Simon loves this one too. SLF do a rip-roaring cover of Bob Marley's Johnny Was. This version from a 1999 tour is seven minutes long and causes punk pandemonium.
Thirdly, Ctel, chronicler of all things dance music related at Acid Ted, requested Motorhead or Hawkwind doing Lost Johnny. The internet is sharply divided into those who favour Motorhead's fast and angry version and those who go for the earlier, trippier and heavier Hawkwind one. Out of the two I prefer Hawkwind's stoner rock, distorted bass and reverb-laden vocals. Lemmy it should be noted played bass and sang on both.
It seems that great minds think alike.
ReplyDeletebtw I prefer the Motorhead version of Lost Johnny from the On Parole album
ReplyDeleteHaha, Johnnies everywhere.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, this is like I'm blogging again. Apart from Motorhead.
A sort of Johnny song popped up on the pod this morning, Razorlight's In The City, which is good, if a little tonight Matthew I'm going to be Patti Smith, including the use of a Johnny. Although it's forgiven when that's the singer's name too.
Another Johnny song, was a single by the least successful 80s band with an ex member of Generation X, Twenty Flight Rockers, Johnny Seven.
And here it is:
https://youtu.be/NfsQdfQwtCY
I loved Twenty Flight Rockers. Great live band. Here's one of their other singles, Tower Block Rock.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/joEYK_gp_To
Great theme! If you're after requests, first to my mind was "Ask Johnny Dee" by The Chesterfields and the even better cover version by The Rosehips...
ReplyDeleteThat SLF track sounds like it could have been made by the Gang of Four. The similarities have never occurred to me before.................duh
ReplyDeleteA Johnny Tryptic!! Well done!!
ReplyDelete