The Roches

http://64.95.118.51/images/opti/1f/80/138716-music-resized200.JPG

oh man, "Hammond Song" is incredible, like, maybe the best song ever. Funny, I've had that album for a few years now, and kind of hated it for a while, but it sure hit me (especially that song) this year. I thought they sounded like a satanic a capella group, which I thought was lame. And then I realized that I REALLY LIKE satanic a capella groups. And dare I say Robert Fripp's finest moment? DARE I?
Incidentally, there's a longish essay on "Hammond Song" in the Oxford American music issue this year.

hmmm maybe i'll pull this record out today and give it another try.

yeah, do it! again, i really did not like it the first few times I heard it. A friend gave it to me randomly and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. But it kept popping up on my itunes whenever I had it on shuffle and it won me over big time. Fun fact that I learned from that Oxford America essay -- Paul Simon discovered them! They sang on Rhymin' Simon. Weird.

i do like the singing, but right after hammond is another cornball song about waitressing or whatever

"The Train" is fucking awesome. "Hammond Song" got a nice write-up in the new Music Issue of The Oxford American (by John Jeremiah Sullivan), and appears at the end of the issue's free CD.

(sorry, xpost about the OA. should've read more carefully)

i love "the boat family"

Hammond Song is indeed ridiculously amazing. "Losing True" comes close

Hammond Song is an incredible song, one of my favorites, but it's an anomaly for me. The rest of their stuff is OK to pretty awful.

Hammond Song is indeed ridiculously amazing. "Losing True" comes close

-- jaxon

otm

"Hammond Song" pwns, but "Pretty and High" is almost as good.

Cover of "Married Men" is great!

it's actually their tune (maggie wrote it?)but i guess phoebe snow recorded it first

I thought it was Janis Ian?

amg & wiki confirm maggie roche as the writer - maybe janis ian did a cover as well (married women for her amirite?)

Hm! Well, way to go Roches! It's a good song.

i love "the boat family"

Me too.

I played my friend Hammond Song and he liked it so much he used in the trailer for his movie: http://www.vimeo.com/1524737

Ha, neat, you inadvertently got me into the Roches! I found that trailer on youtube when I was going through a bit of a Rebecca Pidgeon phase a while back, and I was so taken with the song that I googled the lyrics to find out who it was. Insta-fan! I love that whole first album.

is Speak worth buying? The reviews suggest it is.

xp, haha! glad to have played a part.

speak! i haven't listened to that in 15 yrs probably. my impressions at the time - not bad. suffers from a sort of bland "updating" of their sound (which is of course oh so dated now). not dissimilar to the mcgarrigle's "heartbeats accelerating" in that sense.

"He's miserable
And I am miserable
Weeee are miserable
Can't we have a party
Would he rather have a party?
After all we have to sit here
And he's even drinking a beer
I want to ask him what's his name
But I can't 'cause I'm so afraid of the man on the train"

"I am trying not to have a bad day" all time great line

i haven't pulled out these LPs in years. remember really liking 1975's "seductive reasoning" the best. "west virginia" and "telephone bill" were good IIRC. produced by paul simon, and sounds like his first solo LP at times (that is a GOOD thing).

so odd that the s/t album was produced by robert fripp! how did that happen? anyway aside from "hammond song" i can't remember much of anything from that or any subsequent LPs.

their 80s and 90s albums were staples of bargain used CD bins for years. probably still are.

sounds like his first solo LP at times (that is a GOOD thing)

it's as good a thing in that realm as there is

yeah,

btw "seductive reasoning": http://rapidshare.com/files/197231698/RSDuo75.rar

[since it is out of print]

Do I wanna be a dog?
any diddlin' male would do
if I was a damned old dog
I wouldn't be fussy for you

Do I wanna be a housebroken dog
eat better than an Indian
I don't wanna be a damned old dog
I just wanna lick your chin again

I thought that I could convince you
I thought that I could get through
chew out a hole in the fence you
barked up between me and you

Limpin' around in the moonlight
coverin' up what I did
words decompose all around me
nuisances I committed

Do I wanna be a dog
cut the heat out of me
if I was a damned old dog
I wouldn't have to goddamn human be

I used to sing these songs with my older sister to practice harmonies, even though I am not entirely crazy about them. Roxy and I cover the song Married Men when we do our sister folk music project, Easy Company, which rarely gets any of our attention.

I always liked their song Mr. Sellack, which begs a boss to give them their old job back:

Oh Mr Sellack
Can I have my job back?
I've run out of money again
Last time I saw you
I was singing Hallelujah!
I'm so glad to be leavin' this restaurant

Now, the only thing I want
Is to have my old job back again
I'll clean the tables
I'll do the creams
I'll get down on my knees
and scrub behind the steam table

...

Now the only thing I want
Is to have my old job back again
I won't be nasty to customers no more
When they send their burger back I'll tell them that
I'm sorry

Waiting tables ain't that bad
Since I've seen you last, I've waited
For some things that you would not believe
To come true

Mr Sellack is so cute imo.

if u go down to Hammond you'll never come back iirc
imo yr on the rong track

"Jill of All Trades" is one of my favorite songs ever...I first heard it through the gorgeous cover by Liquorice, and then after hearing the original, I realized that Liquorice got some of the key lyrics wrong. For example, Jenny sings, "Running into love, south of the border. Why you wanna get stuck with a needle and a kiss?" But the original goes, "Running into *luck*, south of the border. Why you wanna get stuck with a needle and a *kid*?"...which is a completely brilliant line, obliquely referring to an abortion performed in Mexico (presumably pre-Roe v. Wade), using mid-sentence rhymes ("luck" with "stuck"), and using two meanings of "stuck" (pricked with a sewing needle, and left with a kid). You don't find songwriting this good very often, folks!

I think the Fiery Furnaces listen to the Roches. Roches + Sparks = Fiery Furnaces. Makes me like the Fiery Furnaces more, considering that, actually.

lol largest elizabeth gis
http://www.history.com/images/media/slideshow/new-jersey/new-jersey-elizabeth.jpg

Roches mix I made for my Mom:

We (The Roches, 1979)
Everyone Is Good (Speak, 1989)
The Death of Suzzy Roche (Nurds, 1980)
Bobby's Song (Nurds, 1980)
Easy (Speak, 1989)
The Married Man (The Roches, 1979)
Troubled Love (A Dove, 1992)
Ing (A Dove, 1992)
The Largest Elizabeth in the World (Keep on Doing, 1982)
Losing True (Keep on Doing, 1982)
My Sick Mind (Nurds, 1980)
Somebody's Gonna Have to Be Me (A Dove, 1992)
West Virginia (Seductive Reasoning - Maggie & Terre Roche, 1975)
The Boat Family (Nurds, 1980)
Big Nuthin' (Speak, 1989)
I Love My Mom (Speak, 1989)
Want Not Want Not (Keep on Doing, 1982)
You're the Two (A Dove, 1992)
Love Radiates Around (Another World, 1985)
Hammond Song (The Roches, 1979)

I don't know what possessed me to leave off "The Train" or "The Troubles" from The Roches.

And to answer Alfred's post from 2008, Speak is excellent. (And A Dove is pretty good too.)

i'm a big fan of their early stuff but never listened to NURDS

Took me a while to give Nurds a full listen because the title track is annoying, but it turns out most everything after that is great, esp. "My Sick Mind."

I don't really hear the Fiery Furnaces connection. Actually always thought the Roches were more a precursor to someone like Kimya Dawson, though that does them a pretty big disservice. (Hope it doesn't make you like the Roches any less!)

More and more I think "Steady with the Maestro" is one of my favorite songs ever.

Would shave my legs with a rusty razor if they'd do one more album with Fripp.

eww

woah the movie trailer that caek posted upthread features the twilight dude!!!!!!!!

the movie itself, too! a lot of youtube comments on versions of "hammond song" come from smitten little ladies named PATTINSONFAN#1 etc

crazy has your friend moved a ton of DVDs to goth chicks?

the movie trailer caek posted upthread features caek!

I really must get Speak.

I got Speak! What a marvelous domestic record -- it evokes what's best about families, the hearth without the sentimentality; Casios instead of acoustic guitars around the fire. "Easy" and "In The World" are as good as anything on the s/t.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_B9QKoFL4c

"My Sick Mind" and "The Hallelujah Chorus" from 1981.

This has eight of the ten songs from _Seductive Reasoning_, which I think may be better than any of their first three records as the Roches. They're not relying as much as they would later on cleverness and whimsy, and there's a ghostly quality to a song like "West Virginia" that they didn't quite recapture later. Maybe the harmonic variety of writing and performing on piano as well as guitar gives it a greater range, too.

Everything about that record is A++++, even the jokey songs.

I second this, though my 8yo absolutely hates this record

Another World is puzzling, it's hard to tell what they were trying to do with the production or whether they just acquiesced to it. It's simultaneously slick and cheap, which is a particularly bad combination in terms of 1985 sonics. There isn't even a lot of the goofy stuff that sometimes weighed down the previous records, but it's not generic enough to actual imagine it breaking through on the radio of the era.
This came out the same year as Suzanne Vega's debut, which I've heard discussed as a spearhead of a folk revival; I wonder if that would have been a better sound for them.

unexpected youtube comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6zXhDUrZU8

@suzzyrocheandlucywainwrigh3600
5 months ago

Love this! xox -suzzy roche

(NB: not the best cover imho, but points for Hammond organ solo + drummer using the "Ashley's Roachclip" pattern)

Lol

I first heard Hammond Song through the Colourfield's version, which isn't very good, but it's funny to think of miserable post-punker Terry Hall digging the Roches in the early 80s. Perhaps Jane Wiedlin introduced him to them.

one more:

@moonsweptvilla5842
2 years ago

Wow, what a beautiful job you ladies have done. And a real honor for me to hear. I am Terre Roche. Your version of Hammond Song gave me goosebumps. Good luck with everything...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_vw58ooxCM

much better cover imho

(I think... maybe frogbs can confirm, but that might be Yumiko from Buffalo Daughter/Havana Exotica on Moog)

(I think... maybe frogbs can confirm, but that might be Yumiko from Buffalo Daughter/Havana Exotica on Moog)

― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Monday, March 11, 2024 11:07 AM (eleven hours ago)

confirming this is indeed Yumiko, but what amazing tones... massive props for doing the Frippertronics on a hand-modeled Moog with bass pedals.

ok, last one I promise:

@RobertFrippVEVO
3 years ago

Thank you Goblin Cock for your amazing rendition which brought me to my knees... I can't imagine a better cover exists than this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tM65kpHzz0

lol

i love that one (and the I Love Your Smile cover on the same album). i do wish the DFH drums were a little less stationary though...

still weird to how people seem to connect with Hammond Song and not get The Roches otherwise though

I love Keep on Doing (their third album, second colab with Fripp + bonus Tony Levin and Bill Bruford). I think it's better than the debut, especially the song Losing True that has a killer Fripp spolo. They got better at singing somehow. But it ain't got a Hammond Song on it.

Also I love this video for Big Nuthin' one of my fav videos of all time - apparently written after a Johnny Carson appearance (he was a big fan!) When you're on Carson your whole life is supposed to change, but it was a big nuthin! We've all been there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbb5mSomdV8

Keep on Doing was my first one and probably my overall favourite too. i can understand when people recoil from the "really annoying hip camp counselor vibe" on things like Want Not Want Not (though I love that one) but there's I Fell in Love, Keep on Doing / Jerks on the Loose, Losing True with all those same long keening harmonising lines that make you feel funny.

my controp might wishing there was no Robert Fripp guitar on these albums...

people disappointed by Another World should check out the Speak album. there's some great (chintzy) stuff on that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0gvW-OyFrQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msWtFyBGGHU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivZsQDWRKvI

Love their Christmas album, We Three Kings. “Star of Wonder” has such an indelible melody that I always assumed it was a cover of an old hymn or something! But Terre wrote it - it’s such a gem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNbEXZuVmKs

YESSSS! I love their version of Walking In A Winter Wonderland too

they played actual roches on tiny toons!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_dA_wEFfzw

the Roches hate that kicks off this thread is wild. they are wonderful

xp AH that's so awesome!!!

It had a really annoying hip camp counselor vibe.

I mean, "hip camp counselor vibe" is sort of OTM but not 'annoying'

Warner Bros really should have done a full out "Warner Years" box/reissue series with all the outtakes/extras when that was still a thing, maybe Light in the Attic could but i don't know how rights work for this kind of thing and i feel outside of The Hammond Song mini-cult they don't have much of a profile these days. At least can someone upload a clean rip of this to youtube, I'm not asking much?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMD1O8W9ujU

I think there have been discussions about this elsewhere, but I think you need a boutique to license this material. (Rhino Handmade would be ideal if they were still around.) The fact that even the CD for their debut album was allowed to go out-of-print before the market really tanked was a bad sign of how little WB was invested in them by the time the '00s rolled around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aBF_v0gvpQ

hammond song heavily featured here

Some additional stuff (marimba, piano, strings, brass?) added in post.

I will say that when I listen I remember that the highs are so high they make you forget some pretty duff material

re Terre news upthread,just now saw this Spring '24 release, haven't listened yet:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3574504832_10.jpg

https://terreroche.bandcamp.com/album/inner-adult-album

I was checking out a couple of "Hammond Song" covers on YouTube recently and found that Terre had posted comments on a couple of them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_vw58ooxCM

moonsweptvilla5842 3 years ago
Wow, what a beautiful job you ladies have done. And a real honor for me to hear. I am Terre Roche. Your version of Hammond Song gave me goosebumps. Good luck with everything...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6zXhDUrZU8

Hideous Lump, pls scroll up to march 11 2024 posts ^^^

Late to the Roches party but I'm currently obsessed.

they're just the best

"Losing True" is my "Hammond Song" wait what

Keep On Doing is my Hammond Song

Speaking of "Hammond Song", I always think that it's remarkable that Fripp's solo works so well, while seeming to have been beamed in from another musical world entirely. On paper, his note choices, even the very sound of his guitar, ought to be quite at odds with the folky backdrop, and yet the two blend beautifully.

I did a feature in MOJO on the Roches last year and spoke to Terre and Robert about that solo.

TR: Robert didn’t want to play on the album, but we talked him into it.

RF: It wasn’t even the ‘first take’, it was a ‘mic check’; the engineer, Ed Sprigg, knew to keep the tape rolling at all times. My guitar slides into a D below Terre’s E flat vocal, and then slides away again, which conventionally should be *excruciating, but that particular juxtaposition just tweaks the heart.

Xp "beamed in" is absolutely rhe right descriptor there. Like a cosmic ray shining into a kitchen window

I did a feature in MOJO on the Roches

Damn, I always grab MOJO when I see it for sale somewhere, but I missed that. I'd love to read it. All I know about them is what I've gleaned from the Wikipedia page.

RF: It wasn’t even the ‘first take’, it was a ‘mic check’; the engineer, Ed Sprigg, knew to keep the tape rolling at all times. My guitar slides into a D below Terre’s E flat vocal, and then slides away again, which conventionally should be *excruciating, but that particular juxtaposition just tweaks the heart.

...which is exactly why the "perfect" (I-IV) modulation that occurs shortly afterward works so well, because Fripp telegraphs it.

Damn, I always grab MOJO when I see it for sale somewhere, but I missed that.

I keep hoping they'll throw it up on the website - they've done that to some of my other features. If they do I'll absolutely share it here.

has anyone seen terre solo? i was at an event at the intimate little 503 Social Club in hoboken and noticed her on the coming attractions list.

Fripp or somebody also got Larry Fast, then of Synergy albums, to play a bit of synth sometimes (one time? Just enough, like the RF guitar).

yes go see Terre shes a hoot