It’s new, it’s now!, it’s… odd. THE BEATLES have returned to the charts with what is being touted as their last single and the press is all over it. The YouTube video brigade has weighed in heavily, too, but there’s not much opinion about the music – it’s all “the cover is horrible,” “this one’s on clear-with-blue-streaks vinyl,” “the packaging on the CD single’s cheap and thin,” etc. “Now and Then” is certainly a pretty good song but as can be the case so often these days, the marketing of the single and the timing of its release has taken the spotlight. (I’ve already mentioned some of it here before talking about the song itself!) Well, Fab Four Fans, I’ll give you my opinion and it’s worth every cent you paid for it.
“Now and Then” is a sweet, melancholy song. It started out as a late ’70s cassette recording of just John Lennon singing at the piano. Yoko sat on it (literally, I don’t know) for decades and in the mid ’90s Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr attempted to do something with it the way they had with similar Lennon home recordings (“Real Love” and “Free As a Bird,” which were tarted up by the remaining Beatles and released as singles and on the first two Anthology collections). They shelved it at the time and 25 years later took another crack at it (without George, since he died in 2002). AND WHAT WE HAVE NOW, THEN, is a nice tune augmented by every trick in the Beatles’ book. Paul and Ringo (okay, it’s mostly Paul) have heaped so much on top of John’s humble recording that it practically buckles under the weight. 
(Hey Paul, you mean you didn’t add any theremin? What’s wrong with you?!) Seriously. Somewhere under multiple guitars, orchestra and more is a nice little song trying to get some air. I also find that what has been added sounds off-time from John – like everything else is just… off… center. (Houston, we have a latency problem.) And finally, Paul and Ringo’s backing vocals add a very weird flavor: you’ve got these two old men, over 80 years old, singing along with 37 year old Lennon and it’s kind of eerie. When Paul, George and Ringo added vocals to those mid ’90s Anthology centerpieces, their voices hadn’t changed so notably so it sounded like everything could have been recorded around the same time. Now there’s a noticeable difference. (Your mileage may vary…)
“Now and Then” is still a beautiful song, and it has brought a wee lil’ tear to each of my eyes nearly every time I’ve played it (I bought the clear vinyl, for those of you keeping score at home). Who knows where it will land in The Beatles canon? It could end up sitting right next to their greatest, or it could end up at the kids’ table. But it’s The Beatles! Yeah. Yeah? Yeah! – Marsh Gooch
3/5 (Apple/Parlophone Records 0602448145864/45-R 4814586, 2023)
[Review originally posted 3/16/2010 on my old blog, Skratchdisc.]
[This review was first published 6/8/2010 on Skratchdisc]
Here’s a memo to the bigwigs at EMI: Next year’s Record Store Day is on April 15, 2011 (so I’m told). Start preparing now.
This is getting to be a regular and welcome occurrence. ROBYN HITCHCOCK writes a couple of great songs, puts together an excellent band and records them, then treats us to a killer new 7″ single. In this case, Hitchcock recruited The Nashville Fabs, the very same group he took out on the road last fall, to accompany him. I saw them in Seattle at the Neptune Theater and it was a pretty good show, though the band was a little rough around the edges as it was the beginning of the tour. The Fabs apparently found their groove on “Sunday Never Comes” and its B-side because this slab o’ wax is definitely polished and ready for presentation.
What’s decidedly different is that Hitchcock has mostly moved on from writing about animals, insects and frogs (though they weren’t so much the subject matter as the vessels for transport), and his arrangements lack a lot of the superfluous gloss. The A-side was written for the film Juliet Naked and had only been available as a demo for download (see the video below for what that sounds like; it’s quite nice played solo!), while “Take Off Your Bandages” is “a psychedelic manifesto for the current era, inspired by the activism of the students at [Marjorie] Stoneman Douglas High School.” Indeed, both songs have a psychy edge to them, as if The Egyptians were imported from their sarcophagi, sans the trappings of late Eighties record production. Quite fabulous, I must say.
Hey kids, hop in the car! It’s time for another quality collaboration between NICK LOWE and LOS STRAITJACKETS, and this time we’re off on a whirlwind trip to Tokyo Bay. In the front seat are A-sides “Tokyo Bay” and “Cryin’ Inside,” while our companions “Travelin’ Light” and “Heartbreaker” occupy the backseat.
Tokyo Bay is a return of sorts to Lowe’s early ’80s solo career, in which he played a hybrid of new wave, rockabilly and power pop that really suited both his songwriting and his voice. Typically backed by a crack team of musicians (including Paul Carrack, Martin Belmont and Dave Edmunds), Nick turned out some compelling records. As has always been his wont, he wrote some great originals and placed them among some swell cover tunes (“7 Nights to Rock” and “Born a Woman” come immediately to mind). Here we get originals “Tokyo Bay” and “Cryin’ Inside”, both kinda popabilly country tunes, and covers “Travelin’ Light” (recorded by the likes of Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday and Van Morrison) and “Heartbreaker,” written by the Bee Gees. Don’t worry, you’d never know it was a Brothers Gibb creation if you didn’t see the credits – Lowe makes it his own, like he always does with the songs he loves. This release again shows that Lowe also knows how to pick a band that can do justice to the material; Los Straitjackets have always been perfect sidemen (I’ve seen them back both Lowe and El Vez [at separate events!], and last summer they played with Marshall Crenshaw).
ROBYN HITCHCOCK, never content these days to play with any one group of musicians for too long, lest his muse abandon him, conjured up His L.A. Squires last year and was wise enough to capture a gig for posterity. Three songs from their gig at The Troubadour in Los Angeles last May make up this 7″, another winner from YepRoc Records and a Record Store Day “first release.”
Weird timing for this one. ELVIS COSTELLO (with Roger Bechirian) produced Squeeze’s 1980 album East Side Story. The record was lauded then as a “new wave masterpiece” and it still holds up extremely well, even without the new wave tag. “Someone Else’s Heart” is one of the songs on that record, and it must’ve made quite the impression on EC that he would do his own version 34 years later. Just released for Record Store Day, the 7″ on YepRoc features that on the A-side and an instrumental mix on the B. It’s a more chilling arrangement than Squeeze’s, which relied more on the quirky, Farfisa organ style they’d used on their previous album, Argybargy. Costello recorded this with ?uestlove of The Roots, the “hip hop” band he worked with on the 2013 Wise Up Ghost project, and a few other heavy hitters. What they serve up here has a loping heavy bass line courtesy of Owen Biddle, some gritty guitar from Kirk Douglas and ?’s trademark drumming and loops, and it’s a fine version of the song. Leave it to Elvis to not cover the obvious songs (though “Tempted” would have been pretty interesting, I’ll bet). The instrumental version on the B-side is great for hearing the individual bits the band is playing (especially the clavvy keyboard part from Ray Angry), since EC sings both lead and layered backing vocals on the regular mix that cover some of the nuances of the arrangement.
NuDisc 