Official music video for ABBA’s “Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough).” This 1973 video is one of ABBA’s earliest music videos and a good showcase of their more playful side.
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“They say there’s a heaven for those who will wait. Some say it’s better, but I say it ain’t. I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners are much more fun. You know that only the good die young.”
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The Ramrods - “I’m a Ramrod”
Motor City’s Burnin’
Song recorded in 1978. Compilation released in 1998.
Punk RockI don’t know how many of you have seen Veep (quite possibly my favorite comedy series of all time), but there’s an iconic scene within a first-season-episode subplot where Dan, the preening, cutthroat, stereotypical ladder-climbing Beltway asshole, who’s also an aide to the vice president, is trying to cynically use the oafish and boorish West Wing aide, Jonah, by becoming buddies with him in order to get him to spill some White House beans that the vice president isn’t privy to.
So, Dan decides to hang out with Jonah and Jonah takes him to an extreme metal show, which turns out to be just like, ear-splitting, powerviolent, grindcore noise terror, and results in the following exchange:
Jonah: “THIS IS FUCKING PRIMORDIAL! You know what? You can’t find these guys on fucking iTunes! You know why?
Dan: "Because they don’t have a name?”
Jonah: “‘CUZ THEY’RE NOT FOR FUCKIN’ SALE! FUCKIN’ LISTEN TO THIS! This is, fucking, like being operated on by a chimp with a hard-on and a hacksaw! RADICAL STUFF!”
Anyway, I bring that scene up because the whole aura of this Ramrods song feels like the late 70s Detroit equivalent of that show that Dan and Jonah went to. The Ramrods obviously had a name, but in true punk fashion, they only existed for a handful of months, between mid-1978 and early 1979. And just like the band in Veep, they were very much NOT FOR FUCKIN’ SALE. The Ramrods released absolutely nothing during their fleeting time together.
And they were also RADICAL; just a pure, MC5 and Stooges-inspired, FUCKING PRIMORDIALLY raw, noisy, and energetic Motor City sound. In fact, The Ramrods drew interest from some serious players, both Danny Fields, who managed The Ramones, and Seymour Stein, who co-founded Sire Records. But in the end, the band decided to not sell themselves the fuck out!
However, they did have some tracks recorded, and over the years, a full CD and a single have surfaced. But the first time that any of The Ramrods’ material appeared commercially happened almost two whole decades after they split, in 1998, with, I guess what you could call the band’s theme song, a rough 1978 studio recording of “I’m a Ramrod,” which was included on the Total Energy label’s Motor City’s Burnin’ compilation, a stunning release that managed to capture the essence of Detroit’s overall eclectic sound, from the late 60s to the late 90s, with a bunch of rare and unreleased tracks.
“I’m a Ramrod” is tame in comparison to what the nameless band in Veep were playing, but had the series taken place in late 70s Detroit, Dan and Jonah probably would’ve gone to something like a Ramrods show, and Jonah’s observations would’ve probably been nearly identical: primordial, not for sale, like being operated on by a chimp with a hard-on and a hacksaw, radical stuff!
Whoever ultimately decided to call The Stooges’ third album Raw Power was, in effect, describing a broader Detroit and Ann Arbor punk and proto-punk sound, and The Ramrods happened to be one of those electrically ephemeral bands who managed to fit that accurately terse description to a T; a small, nearly forgotten slice of history and a pretty much perfect sonic representation of a piece of a certain time and place.
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imagine being jonesy and you’re getting squashed by robert plant?
wot a dream i never want to have
alternate version:
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- “They were awful. They were Southern rednecks and they could not believe it when they saw us four caked in make-up and dressed like women. They were outraged, confused, and a little frightened, because the four nancy boys were giving them quite a run for their money on-stage. God, Lynyrd Skynyrd! They were arseholes, frankly. When they played that song ‘Free Bird’ it seemed to go on for months. As I remember they had three lead guitarists. Hmmm, well we only seemed to need one. Absolute arseholes. Later on they had that terrible fatal plane crash, didn’t they? Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead… bollocks to that!” - Roger Taylor, on having Lynyrd Skynyrd open for Queen at a few shows in 1974.
-credits: rog.taylooor and f*ckyeahqueenquotes
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