Episode 11 starts off with us chatting about a couple of Fanny songs that were recently covered. Speaking of cover songs, we chat about Fanny’s cover of the Buffalo Springfield/Stephen Stills song “Special Care.” Before that though, we talk about the Nickey penned tune “Solid Gold” which is sung infamously by Alice herself, and the secrets behind her vocals to the song.
Then we the announce the winner of our second podcast contest! Join in on the conversation and leave a comment below.
Here is the list of songs from the Bass Line contest:
- Hey Bulldog
- You’re The One
- Thinking Of You
- Take A Message To The Captain
- Soul Child
- Shade Me
- Come and Hold Me
- What Kind Of Lover
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NOTE: These podcasts will be produced once every two weeks at present. A lot of work goes into these and we’re looking for feedback from the fans to drive the direction of the podcast.
Enjoyed the podcast as always. In particular, I enjoyed the discussion about “Special Care” & Fanny’s affection for Buffalo Springfield. I am partial to the Beat Club version which brought the proceedings to a rock ‘n roll climax.
A couple of bits of trivia. First, Stephen Stills & Neil Young met in Fort William, Ontario in 1965. Five years later, Fort William & Port Arthur amalgamated to become Thunder Bay – my hometown.
Second, Buffalo Springfield made a guest appearance on an episode of Mannix. Mannix gets into a fight with a young Tom Skeritt while Buffalo Springfield is playing “Mr. Soul”.
Looking forward to the election podcast in a fortnight.
Hi Aaron! Thanks for your feedback! Fascinating stuff re. Buffalo Springfield! We too are looking forward to the election podcast in a fortnight! Stay tuned. 🙂
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for commenting, and I had NO idea that Stills and Young had met in Canada. That’s a neat bit of trivia! As we discussed on the podcast, Buffalo Springfield was a HUGE favorite of the June, Jean and myself. I still love and listen to that first album.
The election/political podcast will be a challenge for us. I am hopeful that we can still have fun whilst discussing something so important for all of us and for our future!
Best,
Alice
You core three are doing a fantastic job! I think this is the best episode yet.
Alice:
You have a really distinctive and fun singing voice. I recognized you right away, after only hearing you speak here. Nobody should be expected to belt out anything without practicing a lot first, like any other instrument. That being said, if you take those unrealistic bits out, I think your performance is actually rather striking, regardless of the intention of the piece. The only thing I think Fanny could use more of is you contributing more vocals! But you’re singing through your virtuoso drumming the whole time, so no complaints. Anyways, your voice then and now sounds really similar to me. If you had any interest in doing vocals today, I think you’d be great at it.
Regarding “Special Care”:
This is one of my favorite songs on Charity Ball, and I had no idea it was a cover until tonight! When I listened to the Buffalo Springfield version, it honestly reminded me at times of Iron Butterfly. Maybe more of a 60’s vocal/organ/guitar sound going on there. I’m sorry, but I think the Fanny version is way better than the original, which makes me feel like I’m breathing incense and sitting in a bean-bag chair. I concur about the awesomeness of June’s riffs and Jean’s bass work and growling vocals. I have to add, I also really like the sound of the piano/organ in a rock ‘n’ roll band. So, hats off to Nickey for her excellent grooves (and singing) as well. If you ever talk to her, please pass along a virtual frothy beverage of her choice with my best wishes.
You guys rock, keep up the great work! ?
Mike
https://twitter.com/lawolfman
Thank you so much, Mike! As always, the three of us have a blast putting together these podcasts. It’s so great to hear that you’re enjoying them, especially this one. And I couldn’t agree more re. Alice’s vocals. So distinct and so spot on. As for “Special Care,” I also agree: Fanny’s version is the best. In terms of Nickey, we’ll definitely pass along a frothy beverage of her choice with your best wishes. We appreciate that, and we appreciate you. Cheers!
Ditto on the praise for Alice’s singing! It was just what the song needed and sounds great. Nothing at all to be ashamed of. It’s an excellent, fun, song!
Thanks Dave,
I’m getting better at letting my vocals on Solid Gold be okay, as long as I don’t have to listen to it very often!
LOL,
Alice
Hi Mike,
I will accept your compliments on my vocals ONLY if I never have to sing a lead vocal again! LOL! I do still have difficulty listening to my mid-western nasal tone. That said, I agree with my vocals being perfect for the song, but that’s about as far as I can go…..
Special Care is/was a great song for Fanny, and we did make it our own. It was fun to play, and was a part of our set list often. I’m glad you enjoyed!
And, Nickey’s keyboard chops made so much of the Fanny material better for her brilliance. I’ll ask Byron to make sure he lets Nickey know the next time he speaks with her.
Best,
Alice
I thought Alice was buzzed when I first heard Solid Gold.It’s a fun funny song!
Thanks for covering it…FYI Love the podcast too!
Thanks, Guy! Now you know the buzz behind “Solid Gold”! Glad you’re loving the podcast! I’m biased, but I am too. 😉
Hi Guy,
“Buzzed” you say? I’d have to say that I’d passed the “buzzed” stage well before I made my attempt to sing it!
Thanks,
Alice
I love Solid Gold! I listen to it on repeat some days.
I do too, Eric! And if I’m not listening to it on repeat, it’s looping in my head.
Eric,
I don’t know how you can listen on repeat some days, but I’ll let you be……… I’m just glad you love the song!
Best,
Alice
Great episode! I’ve liked Buffalo Springfield ever since I heard ‘for what it’s worth’ on the soundtrack to the movie ‘born on the 4th of July’. ‘Special care’ is a great song and I think that the vitality of all great songs can be enriched when somebody brings a fresh perspective to the message. In this case Fanny took that song, rubbed some righteous funk on it and set it loose again – people dig it, learn about the song and maybe discover where it originated from. It’s like folk songs being passed down through the generations – it lives on. As great as the original is, it’s only the Fanny version that I would turn right up on my car stereo! All the music is smokin’ and I agree with Alice – the bass is awesome. Also thanks to Alice I have a new found respect for the glockenspiel ( no idea how to spell it). This was an instrument we were forced to learn at school! I’m gonna listen out for it again at the end of Solid gold – which needs to be covered by somebody else other than Keith Moon! I agree with the person who mentioned it’s bang up to date even now.
Cheers!
Righteous funk – what a perfect description of a song so full of righteous indignation. 🙂
It’s extraordinary that such a confrontational song emerged from the aftermath of the Summer of Love, and the gender switch transforms it into something even more powerful and significant. In Fanny’s live performances a naturally beautiful woman in stylish everyday clothes stands tall, refusing to tolerate BS (not Buffalo Springfield) in the slightest. Jean puts every muscle of her face, voice and hands into a witheringly confident performance with just a hint of amused contempt. Would you cross this lady? 🙂 Nickey’s intense keyboards so reminiscent of the Grease Band, June’s swooping guitar and Alice’s ferocious war dance drumming build to a climax that thrills every time, while everyone’s vocal work is spot on. Yes, Alice, you can sing! Unlike with so many present-day singers, the microphone technique is perfect; no intake of breath is ever heard, either on record or live. By the way, I think Alice’s little rolling coda adds perfectly to the sense of collapse, lol.
If Fanny’s version wasn’t intended to be a feminist anthem, it surely deserves to be, and is as relevant today as in 1971. One thing intrigues me: did Stephen Stills intend the words “shoot me down” and “burn your house down” to be taken literally or metaphorically? It’s sadly hard to tell in the context of today’s America. Don’t burn, folks – VOTE, dammit!!!
Dave,
We three (Kristen, Byron and me) are so blessed to have such thoughtful and original comments on this episode (all, actually). It tells me we’re doing something right!
I’ve never thought of my drumming being called a “ferocious war dance,” but I LOVE IT! And, I have to thank you for giving me a different way to look at the bum, bum, tiddlyum, bum in the coda – a giggle from you to me. Priceless!
I agree. Don’t burn, folks – VOTE, damnit! We’ll see if we can fire up some voters with Episode 12!
Thanks again, Dave,
Alice
Alice,
I was thinking particularly of the boom-boom-boom-boom locomotive beat behind Nickey’s organ passage, for all the world like a Native American war dance getting ever louder, and the building climax certainly sounds like a fight breaking out before all is resolved in the Classical-sounding final part. Fanny acted as much as they sang and played!
Brian,
“For What It’s Worth” was also my introduction to Buffalo Springfield, but on radio back in the day. When I heard it, I knew I had to find more from that band, and the “rabbit hole” was well worth exploring. The spin-offs from Buffalo Springfield were an easy path to follow as well. I love your “righteous funk” comment, too, but especially “set it loose again” ala folk songs being passed down. I’m sure that new listeners who are just discovering that “Special Care” was not an original Fanny song, will enjoy exploring that “rabbit hole” as well.
Ah, the glockenspiel! MY experience with it WAY back in second grade band was an upright stand version. I’ve found out that most are actually are more like xylophones or marimbas. Either way, when I was forced to play it, I couldn’t read music. I just stood there through the entire song. After band practice, the director tore into me about missing the part. At six or seven years old, I was a puddle of tears in an instant. I remember it to this day, and am STILL in fear of the mighty glockenspiel! Ha! Listen for it in the chorus sections of the song. I don’t think it’s so much at the end, and I’m not willing to listen again so soon after being forced to listen over and over to dissect it! I think I’ll wait a bit, okay?
Thanks again for your thoughtful comment!
Alice
The Groove Report
Great podcast gang (as always)! I sat down to jot a Reply and found leftover Reply from my last Reply! Please forgive my Reply maladministration. I will rectify this situation immediately:
Notes on a Leftover Reply
Oct 2020 Virginia, USA
Dear Fanny Rocks Folks,
I appreciate the opportunity to take a break from barricading my office against the gathering political storm with stacks of Hunter S. Thompson manuscripts, to really “let go and listen” (and laugh!) as you all work your rock and roll podcast magic! Thank you!
Not for nothing, it’s Thompson’s prose that resonates, the piss and battery acid of it perfectly suited for our times, the manic upheavals of gonzo perhaps the only way possible to reach “herd mentality of our present reality” (which would be an awesome album title). It’s like someone upturned the shoebox of snapshots and scattered Reason across the carpet, the fear and loathing of these times palpable.
Okay! Thanks for letting me clear that off my To Do list! Onward to Episode XI!
Art Says Fuck Y**r Feelings
Dearest Alice,
Someday, I hope to have the “drumming” stuff I mentioned long ago finished and up on my blog but my writing process (such as it is) has morphed these days into a lumbering beast of verbosity, where I’m trying to write memoir but I keep slipping into fiction because my memory is so freaking bad and trying to remember to fill in the gaps keeps interrupting the writing so I resort to fictionalizing just so I can keep typing!
I agree with F. Scott Fitzgerald: “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” It’s no good getting stuck on the bottom of every 5 minutes because you can’t remember the exact detail of every scene! A writer’s got to breathe!
And the problem is if there’s one thing above all you must have in memoir it’s truthfulness! I’ve fought this tendency for a long time, but the gaps in the memory, and the interference they cause when the writing grinds to a halt to ponder them, make the experience like walking a high wire with one of those long balancing poles except one end of the pole weighs 50 pounds more than the other. There’s a significant tendency to veer! And it’s strong enough I am considering chucking memoir entirely and inventing a new genre that I will call lie-ography (or in my present case auto-lie-ography)! Skip the silly concern over facts! Just write whatever the hell I want! Early results indicate this approach speeds the fact checking process considerably! ? (sorry, Dr. K., amongst my many faults is my abject failure as an historian)! ?
But Enough Excuses
Alice,
Art says F*ck your feelings (but then Art always says that)! Solid Gold is out there and the fans love it! Be proud of your voice! You’re a Rock and Roll goddess! May the Groove be with you always!
Jim
PS: It occurred to me the perfect response to a critic who complains you’re not “popular enough to make fun of yourselves” is a shrugged, “Why? Seems to work for you.” (the appended “asshole” is implied)!
PPS: Here’s a link to my blog. D’oh! Forgot that last time, too: https://jimnoonanwritinglife.wordpress.com
Jim
One more thought…..”Auto-tale-ography” might make an editor happier?
A
Dear Jim,
There is too much in this comment to absorb and respond to at once. I’ve had to create a new folder entitled JIM NOONAN, so I can save this, savor it, and respond a little at a time, okay?
To say that I like your writing would be a lie. I LOVE how you put your thoughts together (as well as free-flow-streaming) and marshal them into some kind of order on the page. Between the giggles and being gobsmacked by your profundity, your comments are always a joy.
“It’s like someone upturned the shoebox of snapshots and scattered Reason across the carpet, the fear and loathing of these times palpable.” This is but one example.
Auto-lie-ography is the PERFECT solution! My reason for deeming perfection – “Seems to work for you.” – No appendage needed! Your memoir should/need be what you want it to be, and only that!
I am going to your blog as soon as I’ve finished my duties as respondent here.
Love,
Alice
Alice,
Thank you for those comments. You are too kind!
Savor and respond at your leisure (but you should know it only encourages me)! Sometimes I worry that my comments are a bit “off topic” (I do have a tendency to wander like a drunken flibbertigibbet)! But, it’s all inspired by the Fanny podcast so it’s your fault and you should have to deal with the results! Ha! I mean, I have to deal with the madness of thinking and writing this stuff so it’s only fair someone else share the burden!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my auto-tale-ography. I’m at the part where my local movie theater quit running their Saturday Horror Show when the audience turned on the kid dressed up as Wolfman for the pre-film hype, and pelted him with hard candy until they drove him off the stage! Ah, good times!
May the Groove be with you,
Jim
I love it, it’s the Fanny version of a Ringo track. At this time Ringo might have had the bigger hits, but Alice was a far more inventive drummer in the early 70’s!