[Man, I love that crappy graphic.]
Well, Tugggets was originally meant to be a weekly thing, but I've had a bunch of other shit on my plate lately, thank you very fucking much. Plus my post-Cheeseburger partying Sat night/Sunday morning/Sunday afternoon kinda put me out of commission there for a couple days. Whatever. I'll try to keep the Tugggets featurette going as long as I can, plumbing the depths of Tha Muddd (yuck!) in order to bring you only the finest in rare obscurities that only nerds like myself give a holy horsefuck about. Enjoy!
[If you care, the first Tugggets installment can be found here. And, again, any requests can posted in the Comments section below.]
11.) Television - Venus [1974 Rehearsal]
Considering the streamlined, uber-efficient, tidy riffin' machine that Television eventually became, it's pretty rad to hear them at an earlier, more ramshackle stage of their existence (yes, Richard Hell was actually still in the band at this point, and I'm pretty sure that's Hell's self-deprecating banter that follows the mercifully aborted attempt at Venus that starts the track). Maybe next time I'll put up a more technically proficient version of this song for the sake of comparision. Or maybe not.
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12.) Guided by Voices - My Valuable Hunting Knife [live]
"THIS IS CALLED 'MY PSYCHEDELIC BUTTER KNIFE'"
--Robert Pollard
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13.) Van Halen - Walk Away [live Hollywood 1976]
In David Lee Roth's Crazy From the Heat autobiography, ghost writer Henry Rollins (!) notes that Diamond Dave's ability to improvise lyrics was/is legendary. Of course, this was the same characteristic that was lampooned by Chris Kattan in his SNL impersonation of Diamond Dave (ZIBBITY BOP!).
People's exhibit A. Here, I'm giving you Diamond Daves' version of the lyrics from the verses compared with the real ones as sung by the James Gang on the original version. Mind you, he's pretty damn close on the first verse and nails the choruses before just losing his shit and inexplicably repeating the second verse -- or, rather, his version of the second verse -- twice. Brilliant. Brilliant, I said.
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first verse: (again, he's pretty damn close early on)
Takin' my time [well done]
Choosin' my line [again, well done]
Tryin' to decide what to do [can he keep it up!?]
Looks like my stop [4 for 4! Holy crap Dave!]
Don't want to... rock [ok, it's actually "don't want to get off" but "don't want to rock" is pretty hilarious]
Try to do best here without you. ["Got myself hung up on you"]
Chorus [nails it]
second verse:
"Places I've gone [it's "places I've known"]
Think that I'm goin' [it's actually "things that I'm growin'", but 'A' for effort]
Once again some day-yeah ["Don't taste the same without you"]
People I've seen, yessah ["Got myself in"]
See them goin' ["Worst mess I've been"]
Each and every way" ["And I find myself starving without you"]
Chorus - [nails it]
/guitar solo/
third verse:
Places I've gone [I've got to cool myself down]
Think that I'm goin' [Stompin' around]
Once again some day [Thinkin' some words I can't name ya]
People I've seen, yessah [Meet you halfway]
See that I'm goin' [Got nothin' to say]
Ohhh... every way [Still I don't s'pose I can't blame ya]
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**sigh**
BRILLIANT.
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14.) Dead Boys - Sonic Reducer [live San Francisco 1977]
Best live version of this great song I've ever heard.
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15.) Lou Reed - Street Hassle [live Cleveland 1977]
While we're in 1977 courtesty the Dead Boys, here's an excellent live version of Lou Reed's epic (13 minutes!) tale of sex, drugs and death. (Oh, wait, all of his songs are about that. Fine, I'll give you that. But none of his other songs have as incredible a bassline as you get about 6:45 into this song.)
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16.) Beck - Goin' Nowhere Fast
This is from one of the many pre-Mellow Gold demos Beck recorded, and which you can find in certain musty corners of the interwebz, if you know where to look.
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This is pretty much my favorite thing ever. If anybody has any idea what "MUSTARD!" means in Dutch, hook me up. Once again, this comes from Distortions Records splendiforous archive of '60s garage-psych goodies n' rarities.
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VS.
18.) Lindsey Buckingham - Holiday Road [from National Lampoon's Vacation]
Or, if you'd rather, watch the video here if you're interested to see which phase of Lindsey Buckingham's ever-evolving Coke Monster sang this particular song. [Spoiler alert: it's the mid-80's American Psycho one.]
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19.) Deerhunter - Calvary Scars [live 2007]
Microcastle version is too short. Weird Era version is too long. This one is just right. (Yes, I'm aware that there's a little crackling at the beginning of the track. Deal with it.)
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20.) Roger McGuinn - Take A Whiff [live 1976 Long Island]
"Cocaine's for horses, not for men.
The doctor says 'it kills ya' but he won't say when"
--Roger McGuinn
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