More Shelf Life
"I'm Waiting for the Man" by the Velvet Underground
A favorite record, period. Lou Reed's novelistic narrative (junkie trains it Uptown, shivers in the wind, cops) sounds convincingly real, but the musical rush is the thing: elemental, just like Buddy Holly, and John Cale's piano pounding is crucial.
"Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass?" by Buck Owens
Of course it's not about marijuana. Or is it? Unlike Hag, the Bakersfield street-stroller never admitted inhaling, but he was always a market-savvy cat, making tropes of all sorts of topical subjects. This groovy folk-rock waltz went as high as you can go on the country charts in 1969.
"Co'dine" by the Charlatans
Buffy St. Marie's original is more harrowing, Quicksilver Messenger Service's more dramatic, but this first single by San Francisco's original psychers just jangles and beguiles in all the right places--namely Mike Wilhelm's weary baritone vocal and lead solo.
"Bop Pills" by the Cramps
The Sun original isn't half as demented as Lux & company's. Rockabilly is the Rx, and the picture painted of beat-addicted hepcats queuing up outside the mad doctor's shack, scoring, then bopping out the back is priceless. No one who cherishes Coldplay or Radiohead would understand.
"Yellow Pills" by 20/20
More tiny-tablet stuff (speed division), this time from L.A.'s premier power-pop quartet (there were so many of them in 1979, most rather good; see also the Eyes' "Take a Quaalude Now"). A just-about-perfect modern-rock record.
"I Couldn't Get High" by the Fugs
In the long dope-song twilight between Cole Porter double-entendre and Cypress Hill obviousness, the NYC anarcho-rockers sang about what happens when waiting for the man yields zero results. The band's zero tolerance for professionalism is a groove, anticipating punk amateurism by more than a decade.
"Marijuana Hell" by Ron Nagle
On the surface, just another '70s send-up of a camp '30s movie. Under the skin, a riotous Bad Rice track with rowdy Cooder guitarring and lyrics that only Nagle could pen: "Matilda loved to paint, she'd done the patron saints on a mural ‘cross her bedroom wall/ She'd sold a bust of Christ for a premium price, but now she don't paint at all."
"Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?" by Harry 'The Hipster' Gibson
Like Lord Buckley, Babs Gonzales and the rest of the '40s bopsters, Gibson was probably first and foremost a pothead. But that didn't stop him from delivering this timeless saga about a dame who got more of a boost than she bargained for.
"Sulphate" by the Vibrators
Best known for elder-punk like "London Girls" and "Judy Says (Knock You in the Head)," the U.K. outfit here (1978) invents a kind off bouncy blitzkrieging that's post-Ramones, pre-Dickies and infectious as hell.
"Amphetamine Gazelle" by Mad River
I wouldn't know, but I suspect this is one of the better evocations of the speed experience, right up there with Dave Dudley's "Six Days on the Road." Jittery and discombobulated, it's so fast it's almost over with before it starts.
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