Category: Cake

Cake, Dial-Ups

HOLIDAY POSTCARD #1

I did promise that I’d regale you with tales from the recent trip to Los Angeles…..and for those of you who keep in touch via my occasional nonsense on Facebook, I apologise that these postcards will mirror what was posted there as ‘live’.

This was the third attempt at getting across to stay with Jonny and Goldie in their Santa Monica home.  #1 was postponed in 2020 as a result of travel restrictions around COVID and #2 was called-off at the 11th and a half-hour when I ended up unexpectedly in hospital in June 2024.  This time around, it was timed to coincide with The Wedding Present gig taking place in L.A. on Saturday 7 June 2025….but there’s a lot to get through before that particular postcard.

Jonny is an accomplished bass player and a member of two bands.  One of these is The Dial-Ups, a much in-demand five-piece new wave/power-pop covers band whose members are Bess (vocals), Lucas (guitar/vocals) Dave (guitar), Randy (drums) as well as Jonny.  Despite Bess being on holiday in Ireland while myself and Rachel were in Santa Monica, the band wanted to play a gig in our honour, and arrangements were made to do so on Saturday 31 May, just 24 hours after we had landed. This was how they announced the event:-

“This Saturday’s show at the Trip Santa Monica is a rally in recognition of the arrival of one Vinyl Villain, a historically significant blog-hoster whose participating writers include one Jonny Balfus (aka Jonny the Friendly Lawyer aka JTFL). This weekend marks the landing of said Villain on the shores of Santa Monica, hence a grand welcome show in honor.

While Bess travels to explore the hubbub of Dublin for a bit (just a British Isles coincidence), this outcome creates a Dial-Ups boys night out, where we revisit the old line up, one before Lucas struggled to ride a bike correctly and Bess saved our asses.

For this special one-night only event, you will experience your favorite Santa Monica-based “Hey I love that song” band playing things that Jonny expects will appeal to the musically well-versed Scots, featuring special guests trying to distract us all from Bess’ absence. We will be pounding our chests and thumping our instruments and likely joining y’all in a beer or two, while we enjoy the miraculously entertaining book end sets from our friends Scorpion Wolf Shark (7:00), and Vibrafonics (9:30). The Dial-Ups set will start around 8:00 and go until we say so.

Please feel free to join us on Saturday May 31 @ Tr!p Santa Monica, 2101 Lincoln Blvd. No cover because we love you and need you.

Leis gach deagh dhùrachd,

The Dial-Ups

The Tr!p is one of Santa Monica’s most popular locations for live music, specialising in putting on free shows with the take for the bands and the venue coming from the bar takings, and given there are sixteen beers on tap, as well as another sixty available in cans or bottles, it proves to be a great arrangement.  It might not be the most luxurious of venues, but the atmosphere, certainly when it is close to capacity as it was at the Dial-Ups gig, is electric, and the band certainly did not disappoint.

I’m not always a fan of cover bands, but when the set list is as varied as this, and the musicians are full of talent and energy, and know exactly how to get a crowd going, then I’d be happy to go along seven nights a week, albeit my body couldn’t take it!!

Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)
Rock This Town (The Stray Cats)
Driven To Tears (The Police)
Uncontrollable Urge (Devo)
867-5309 (Tommy Tutone)
Radio Free Europe (R.E.M.)
Blister In The Sun (The Violent Femmes)
Vasoline (Stone Temple Pilots)
The Pretender (Foo Fighters)
Rock The Casbah (The Clash)
American Girl (Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers)
Hot For Teacher (Van Halen)
Pump It Up (Elvis Costello & The Attractions)
Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)

And then it was time for the encore.  The four members of the band, during the set, been supplemented by different backing vocalists. Two of those backing vocalists were joined by the three members of the opening band Scorpion Wolf Shark, two of whom were going to take shared lead vocals on the encore song, while the other joined in on banjo.  It was already a very crowded stage, but there was still room for your humble scribe, proudly wearing a Raith Rovers replica jersey, to make my L.A. stage debut, on cowbell, and occasional yelp through an absolutely manic performance of a minor hit from 2001:-

mp3: Cake – Short Skirt/Long Jacket

What a fun and utterly memorable way to get the holiday going…and I cannot give enough thanks to everyone for asking me to be part of this newly formed L.A. supergroup….oh, and at the point in time when the photo was taken, two of our members were down among what was very much a dancing and entertained audience, while Randy, our drummer, as so sadly is often the case when cameras are pointed in the direction of a stage, finds himself hidden behind the backing singers!

JC

PS : Just so that you can get an idea of just how tight and solid they are as a band, I got Jonny to send me over a video clip of The Dial Ups in full flow with Bess taking lead vocal on their take of Next To You by The Police.

Enjoy!!!!!!!

 

 

Cake

FROM THE ARCHIVES (2)

cakedistance

It’s time to partially close down the blog for the period over Christmas and New Year.  This time around I’m going to put up a re-posting from times gone by, and I’ll try my best to have all of them feature musicians whose appearances have been infrequent.

Here’s one from October 2017, but which has been modified to reflect the current make-up of the band.

RELUCTANTLY CROUCHED AT THE STARTING LINE

I just love that opening line to this #22 hit single from the autumn of 1996.

My first exposure to it was on Channel 4 which, at the time, occasionally aired music videos inbetween programmes. I’m almost certain this was shown immediately in advance of the main news show which has always been broadcast at 7pm.

Cake, as wiki informs us, are an alternative rock band from Sacramento, California. Consisting of singer John McCrea, trumpeter Vince DiFiore, guitarist Xan McCurdy, bassist Daniel McCallum and drummer Todd Roper, the band has been noted for McCrea’s sarcastic lyrics and monotone vocals, DiFiore’s trumpet parts, and their wide-ranging musical influences, including country music, Mariachi, rock, funk, Iranian folk music and hip hop.

They have enjoyed sporadic success in their home nation, including a #1 album as recently as 2011, but over here in the UK they have been very much an underground act and The Distance remains their highest charting 45 while the LP it was lifted from, Fashion Nugget, is the only one that has made it inside the Top 75.

I do like this single – the deadpan vocals and the trumpet solo help lift it above the norm.

mp3 : Cake – The Distance

The CD single had three other tracks on offer:-

mp3 : Cake – Multiply The Heartaches
mp3 : Cake – Jolene (live)
mp3 : Cake – It’s Coming Down

The first is very influenced by country music; bits of it remind me of Squeeze tacking the genre on Labelled With Love. There’s also a feeling of sounding, vocally, like Mark E Everett.

The second is NOT a cover of the song made famous by Dolly Parton and later recorded by Glasgow’s very own Strawberry Switchblade. It’s one of their own compositions and could be something out of the canon of Violent Femmes with added trumpet. Warning. It goes on for over 8 minutes and involves audience participation. I’m guessing it’s lifted from a radio show as the occasional swear word is bleeped out.

The final track is very much a b-side effort; it’s a bit laboured and repetitive. Not one that I’ll listen to again willingly – one for the ‘next’ button function on your listening device.

JC

Cake

RELUCTANTLY CROUCHED AT THE STARTING LINE

I just love that opening line to this #22 hit single from the autumn of 1996.

My first exposure to it was on Channel 4 which, at the time, occasionally aired music videos inbetween programmes. I’m almost certain this was shown immediately in advance of the main news show which has always been broadcast at 7pm.

Cake, as wiki informs us, are an alternative rock band from Sacramento, California. Consisting of singer John McCrea, trumpeter Vince DiFiore, guitarist Xan McCurdy, bassist Gabe Nelson and drummer Paulo Baldi, the band has been noted for McCrea’s sarcastic lyrics and monotone vocals, DiFiore’s trumpet parts, and their wide-ranging musical influences, including country music, Mariachi, rock, funk, Iranian folk music and hip hop.

They have enjoyed sporadic success in their home nation, including a #1 album as recently as 2011 but over here in the UK they have been very much an underground act and The Distance remains their highest charting 45 while the LP it was lifted from, Fashion Nugget, is the only one that has made it inside the Top 75.

I do like this single – the deadpan vocals and the trumpet solo help lift it above the norm.

mp3 : Cake – The Distance

The CD single had three other tracks on offer:-

mp3 : Cake – Multiply The Heartaches
mp3 : Cake – Jolene (live)
mp3 : Cake – It’s Coming Down

The first is very influenced by country music; bits of it remind me of Squeeze tacking the genre on Labelled With Love. There’s also a feeling of sounding, vocally, like Mark E Everett.

The second is NOT a cover of the song made famous by Dolly Parton and later recorded by Glasgow’s very own Strawberry Switchblade. It’s one of their own compositions and could be something out of the canon of Violent Femmes with added trumpet. Warning. It goes on for over 8 minutes and involves audience participation. I’m guessing it’s lifted from a radio show as the occasional swear word is bleeped out.

The final track is very much a b-side effort; it’s a bit laboured and repetitive. Not one that I’ll listen to again willingly – one for the ‘next’ button function on your listening device.

JC

Black Box Recorder, Cake, Martin Gore

KARAOKE KLASSICS

plxtm955

I’ve never hidden my love for cover versions having featured many hundreds of them over the years at this and the old blog. Here’s three of the more unusual examples of the genre that I’m fond of:-

mp3 : Black Box Recorder – Uptown Top Ranking

Yup, it is a cover of the #1 single by Althea & Donna back in February 1978…..one that takes what was a perfect pop/reggae single and turns it something quite disturbing and haunting. Not sure how many of you will actually like it, but there’s something quite erotic about the vocal delivery by Sarah Nixey – ‘see me in my halter back, see me give you heart attack, give me little bass, let me wind up my waist…’

mp3 : Martin Gore – Loverman

Yup, it’s the fella out of a band that I was never that keen on after Vince Clarke left them….this takes something that was quite disturbing and haunting and turns into something quite poppy and disposable. Not sure how many of you will actually like it….I mean where Nick Cave sounded menacing and a danger to society, this could almost pass as a version you’d hear on Pop Idol or X-Factor.

mp3 : Cake – I Will Survive

The best cover versions are by those bands and singers that take something incredibly well-known and turn into something that something that sounds like one of their own originals (see The Wedding Present on just about every occasion). If you like the sort of stuff churned-out over the years by Californian alt-rock act Cake, then you’ll adore this. If you consider the disco-classic to be sacred, you’ll hate it. For the record, I adore the original, but I want to be counted in, if not quite a loverman of the cover, then an admirer.

Enjoy.