V01-T06 Motorcycle Mama

.....After the 1987 release of the various artists' album "Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father", on which British post-punk and neo-psychedelic groups cover the entire Beatles' album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" track by track for its 20th anniversary, tribute albums briefly became popular among independent labels and their college music audiences. Eventually the majors noticed and soon anyone trying to find a copy of the Hendrix tribute "If 6 Was 9" would be sold "Stone Free", probably by a vacant-eyed teenage employee who would tell them, "That's THE Hendrix tribute. It has to be, it's the only one in our system." Even Leonard Cohen's tribute "I'm Your Fan" (already on Atlantic/WEA) was blotted out by the embarrassingly inferior "Tower Of Power"(on Polygram). In the middle of this, major affiliate Elektra (also part of WEA) celebrated its 40th anniversary by releasing a massive tribute anthology, not to an artist, but to a small independent label... Elektra.

Volume 1: THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 6

• 03:44 "MOTORCYCLE MAMA" (John Wyker)
• performed by The Sugarcubes
• original source: VA 2CD RUBAIYAT Elektra/WEA 9 60940-2 (US) 1990
• and my source: the same

.....The original version of the song was by an ad hoc southern rock band named Sailcat, essentially Wyker and a friend plus whoever was available. They were among the last acts to be signed to Elektra during Jac Holzman's time as president although neither Wyker nor the band make the index of Holzman's book, "Follow The Music". Their only album, named for the single, was released in 1972, the year before Elektra released the 2LP "Nuggets" collection of old singles, compiled and curated by Lenny Kaye. Kaye would later produce the "Rubaiyat" anthology in 1990.

.....(Technical Note: I remember this vaguely as a 3LP set on vinyl, but after twenty years the configurations of an album I've only owned in CD form are admittedly fuzzy. A quick scan of the commercial sites doesn't show anyone selling a vinyl copy at the moment but lindaronstadt.com seems certain it was 4 LP's. Sounds good to me.)

.....The premise of the compilation was for artists currently signed to the label to cover artists from the label's impressive back catalog. More often than not it works very well. In fact, if Michael Feinstein's hellacious cover of "Both Sides Now" had been near the middle rather than the end, it would have made a convenient bathroom break to an otherwise pleasant two-and-a-half hours of continuous play. One gets the sneaking suspicion that perhaps the intention was to have 40 songs for 40 years (there are 39 if you count both of the Cure's arrangements of the Doors' "Hello, I Love You", the faithful version and the deconstructed punkier version). There are some creative song choices, so the artists presumably are invested in their respective sessions. Some come from the label's first twenty years as a folk-heavy independent and some from the next twenty as a charter member of the Warner Group. Until WEA acquired Sire in the late 70's, Elektra was their home for punk, jazz inflected R&B and more experimental artists. Sort of the Simon to Atlantic's Theodore and Warner's Alvin. So it's not surprising that while some artists play to their strengths (Anita Baker's gorgeous cover of "You Belong To Me") others play with their own image and that of the material (Faster Pussycat's "You're So Vain").

.....A favorite urban legend surrounding this anthology involves They Might Be Giants and that idea of playing with image and expectations. Supposedly they agreed soon after being approached to contribute and had recorded a cover of a Queen song (I first heard it as being "Bohemian Rhapsody", but others claim it was "We Will Rock You" or "We Are The Champions"). Only after they'd finished their session did Kaye get confirmation to participate from Metallica... conditional on being able to do a Queen song (preferably "Tie Your Mother Down"). Having just turned in their first top ten album and top forty single the year before, the label executives wanted their participation. As the story goes, Kaye appealed to TMBG's penchant for drawing on multiple sources for their original material; surely they could apply some of that creativity to selecting another cover? TMBG submitted a Phil Ochs song for the final set and Metallica went with "Stone Cold Crazy", which the following year earned (?) them a Grammy and was revived as the B-side of "Enter Sandman", their highest charting single to that point and for the next five years.

.....The Sugarcubes, of course, are the Icelandic band that introduced Bjork to American audiences. For a group with two vocalists to choose to rework this song, of everything in a forty-year catalog, into a male-female duet was a stroke of inspired genius. It comes across like a demented version of Nancy Sinatra's "Jackson". It also makes for the third consecutive song on the compilation to (a) deal with pavement in some way and (b) come from the then-current decade. Readers may notice that in upcoming volumes I dig pretty deep into the past and I sometimes make a conscious effort to avoid getting stuck there. For most of the rest of this volume I hover about in the previous decade, the 80's, starting with the next track, which takes us from Iceland to Amsterdam. Kind of.