Wikipedia details that send me to YouTube: “The video for ‘Going Down to Liverpool ‘features Leonard Nimoy, who plays the part of the band’s chauffeur.” It’s pretty funny/weirdly unsettling.

UPDATE: I originally wrote that Nimoy directed the video. In fact it was directed by Tamar Simon Hoffs, Susanna Hoffs’ mom.

What I’m listening to today: The Undertones, The Undertones (1979)

X performs “Breathless” on Late Night With David Letterman in 1983

Apropos of the next Secret Cinema column, here’s X performing their version of the Jerry Lee Lewis song used in the 1983 film Breathless, which takes its title from the Jean-Luc Godard movie it remakes but uses the Jerry Lee song throughout. (Confusing, innit? And X’s cover, which plays over the end credits, is kind of like the film that precedes it in miniature, updating the inspiration, speeding it up, giving it an underside of Hollywood attitude, but keeping the essence.) The performance is great, but the awkward pre-song interview is entertaining too, from Letterman asking Exene Cervenka about her friendship with Pee-wee Herman to some jokes about Richard Gere’s frequent nudity, referenced as if it were something of a late-night talk show go-to staple at the time.

Richard & Linda Thompson, “Dimming Of The Day” (Live 1981)

Spent much of the day thinking about a friend’s account of going to a dark place. Eventually landed on this song, a favorite. I think the “you” here could mean a lot of things, and that’s part of what makes the song so powerful.

A SONG I LIKE: Any Trouble, “Playing Bogart”

Any Trouble’s 1979 debut Where Are All The Nice Girls? stands up well next to the slew of other angry-young-man-sounding albums from the era. This is one of its best songs: a tale of frustrated affection whose protagonist comes to realize that growing up hasn’t made his love life any easier and starts to wonder “why does this teenage romance beat the jaded singles game?” At least he’s got a decent role model in Bogie, who made being disappointed and alone look cooler than happiness anyway.

The Vulgar Boatmen, “You Don’t Love Me Yet” (live 1992)

I don’t know that many Vulgar Boatmen fans, but I also don’t know any casual Vulgar Boatmen fans. So I expect tonight’s show at Schubas should find a warm reception. The Boatmen are one of countless acts that almost but never hit the big time, but the group’s enjoyed a longer afterlife than most, largely, I think because anyone who discovers their albums know they’ve found something special.

I was a late convert, thanks to Scott Tobias—who’s going to the show with me tonight and who calls the track above, which lent its name to a Jonathan Lethem novel, his favorite song ever. The group’s homespun jangle draws from the same Velvet Underground and Byrds sources as R.E.M. and The Feelies but adds its own, distinctive back porch intimacy. The band’s history is complicated, involving two branches—one in Florida and one in Indiana—and its future questionable. The recordings stopped years ago, but the Vulgar Boatmen’s three albums—You And Your Sister (1989), Please Panic (1992), and the never-domestically released Opposite Sex (1995)—are excellent. (The first two are available for download. Good luck finding the third.) 

Tonight’s show is preceded by the documentary Drive Somewhere which purports to show the group preparing for its final concert a few years ago. I hope it’s not the true last waltz we’re seeing tonight. The group deserved a bigger audience but that line about deserves got nothin’ to do with it applies to so much. And yet, we got what we got and I’m happy for that and happy to get a chance to see them live.

Beverley - “Happy New Year” (1966)

Seasonally appropriate single from English folk singer/would-be pop star Beverley, later to marry John Martyn and become Beverley Martyn. Randy Newman wrote it, which is evident if you pay attention to the lyric. I did not create this video, so don’t blame me for the corny and/or sexist imagery.