Leather In Rock

Well after Dave Graney's triumphant quintuple leather outfit in that previous post I was wondering if anyone else had been so audacious in their lifetimes to attempt such fashion highs?

Marlon Brando. Wild One leather.

Jimmy Dean's iconic leather, fag, hair, t-shirt, cheekbones......

Who are these guys? That's a lot of leather.

Jim Morrison owner of the world's most famous leather pants although apparently v stanky.

Jim in contemplating leather.

Lou Reed. 70s Heroin Chic leather.

Older clean Lou rides bike in leather. RIP in leather.

The Stooges. Not as leathery as one would have thought.

Elvis Presley. 68 Comeback leather. Was this leather's finest moment? He was hot ie. sweating it out for fashion. That's leather dedication!

Elvis in 70s King leather. 

Keef in leather/hair combo.

Suzi Quatro. The ultimate 70s woman in Glam leather.

Suzi lying down in leather jumpsuit. Nice.

The Ramones. 1976 New York Punk leather. Great leather/denim combo uniform. Very contrived, military-esque, I like.

Johnny Rotten. Can't really tell if this is leather. He was more fond of a sports coat albeit usually a mangled one, like his dog ate it.

Sid Vicious. Sex Pistol on his way to the grave in leather.

Michael Jackson. Billie Jean leather. Dancing in leather pants i would imagine is hard. Doing Michael Jackson dancing even harder. This could be quadruple leather? What if there's a glove on the hand in the pocket though?

Couple of faces later leather. You like my shoulder leather.

Melle Mel. Street corner hood leather. The last great icon of leather?

Blixa Bargeld. Strange German leather. Lederhosen-esque leather.

Dave Graney. Quintuple leather. Still the leatheriest I do believe. You are a champion of leather! I think MJ was Dave's only possible real competition and well he's dead now so game over.

*Later on twitter Dave replied:
honoured to be in the golden age of leather

Nick Cave Tribute Concert

One of the weirdest things is happening on my telly(ABC2) right now as I write. It's some kind of tribute concert to Nick Cave by indie and ...ugh!.. roots artists from like over a year ago. Its like the kids get to dress up and play Nick Cave for a night. It's truly horrible. Some of these artists should know better ie. Kram from Spiderbait who's holding down the drum spot and a bit of singing. I can't see the point at all. Nick Cave usually tours Australia once a year so you get to see him do his stuff regularly. The thing is none of these people are makin it their own, you know like what a worthwhile cover version is all about. Funnily enough Nick Cave is very good at doing this as heard on his excellent LP of covers from 1986 Kicking Against The Pricks. Some jock just did a Chuck Berry style version of Deanna. I guess Lisa Mitchell the former Australian Idol contestant turned The Ship Song into a Lisa Mitchell song, make of that what you will. Also guess what kids? Nick Cave's not dead! Hang on Paul Kelly's shown up and whatever he sings can only ever be a Paul Kelly song. He's turned Nobodies Baby Now into a song you would believe he wrote. Not only that it sounds like one of his best songs ever and it coulda been on his classic LP Comedy. Now that's how you do a cover! Is the singer from Magic Dirt tone deaf? She's turned Straight To You into something truly horrid. Very bad indeed. I want to go home now. Oh but I am at home. Hang on, you thought it couldn't get any worse but now some dude's doing a reggae version of The Weeping Song. Wow! This is comedy gold! You know what else is strange? There's bloody thousands of people at this concert. What are they doing? There's way better things to spend your time and money on. For instance chocolate, drugs, helping the needy or I don't know watching DVDs of Melrose Place. Wait more comedy! Some Aussie hip hop guy has taken the stage and is doing Stagger Lee, not really a Nick Cave song but whatever. They've turned into some lame rock opera of truly cheap proportions. Hey that's entertaining but that doesn't mean it's good. Now some bird in terrible red pants, no hang on, the worst pants ever worn is covering The Mercy Seat. This is so awful it's almost good. Abbie May plays guitar on Jack The Ripper and there is no doubting her talents on the axe. She's fucking incredible. Blixa wouldn't hate what she's up to. Then the footy player in the C & W shirt is back singing Get Ready For Love making me feel sick. Now Blixa would hate this as would Nick I reckon and as do I. Some time in the mid 90s I was drunk in the front bar of The Punters Club and Up Jumped The Devil came over the stereo. I proceeded to do a legendary performance and so memorable it was that many weeks later someone in attendance presented me with a Bad Seeds T-shirt (which I still have to this day). What I'm sayin is you shoulda been there for that and not at this absurd display.

Good cover.

Scott Walker: Prevaricator.

Enigmatic? You think?

In a recent interview by Mike Barnes with Scott Walker I read today Scott admitted being prone to prevarication. I thought I've never heard that word ever in my entire life and I've read some lofty shit and communicated with many users of unnecessary words just because they can. What was once called a showoff, you know before building ones self-esteem was invented. Now it'd be oh aren't you a clever little thing using such big words.  Anyway I looked it up and it means 'One who walks crookedly.' & 'One who departs from duty.' Now this could be taken as an oblique way of saying he's still quite hedonistic (although somewhere else in the article he said he doesn't drink as much as he used to) or just lazy when it comes to work. Or Both. I know that he is quite a keen traveller. He doesn't give much away and nor should he. Who cares what he does in his private life. Or is it part of some sort of mystique building?  I doubt it as he comes across as an affable and private gentleman. He's quite funny too as you would imagine because some of his songs are hilarious.

The above video was mentioned in that article. Wow it's dated badly or has it? Listen to it a couple of times. This could have been a subversive hit. In another dimension this is being played on Classic Trax FM. I love it. How about that quintessential 80s lead break! Now that's funny. In career overviews they always leave out a track he sang on the soundtrack of the Film To Have & To Hold directed by John Hillcoat.  Ironically it was written by Bob Dylan.

The Arrangement was done by Barry Adamson and produced by Bargeld, Jones, Harvey & Cave. I remember it being better. It must have been a thrill for those guys to work with Scott as I'm sure they are huge fans. Strange that this was recorded around the same time as Tilt. He is a massive film buff so I'm sure that's why why he did it. Not that it's bad but his head was in a totally different space for Tilt. Maybe this was the aforementioned producers projecting their version of Scott onto Scott & somehow they convinced him/got away with it.

Couldn't resist this great picture of the original
existential hipster heartthrob.