The Cars - C or D/S&D

And here is a stupid bandname I might post on another thread:

The Rick Okaysections

They were kind of powerpop meets Television meets Gary Numan, which was a cool mixture.

I have the sentimental favourite thing going on for Shake It Up. It was the first one I realy listened to. Growing up in a small town, didn't get to hear much of the first three albums at all on the radio, because it was fairly conservative. Anyhow, thay played the title track, and then I got the album and discovered that a lot of the rest of the album was kinda dark. But really, in retrospect, the first two are untouchable.

Hmmm...I don't think it's "Drive My Car" :) "Twist & Shout?" (Altho that's more accurately an Isley Brothers song.)

Personally, I like The Cars' first 3 LPs ('specially the overlooked Panorama) and very little after that. And my favourite tracks are the weird ones that rarely get airplay, like "Down Boys" and "I'm In Touch With Your World".

This thread shouldn't even exist.

Anywho, my favorite Cars track has always been "Since You're Gone." All in all, though, classic.

Shit, I never realized that! And you can bet that the "I Will" one was lifted from some Carl Perkins record, too!

Ric Ocasek is managed by Elliot Roberts, but his office would confirm only that Ocasek will release another solo album in September and that he would not be part of any Cars tour if it happened. Further inquiries were referred to Kovac.

Now, this is where the story gets really interesting. Since Ocasek won't do the tour, Easton and Hawkes have apparently recruited an old friend to step into his shoes.

Todd Rundgren is reportedly set to sing most of the lead vocals previously handled by Ocasek and Orr. Anyone familiar with Rundgren's talents as a musical chameleon would easily understand how the Runt could make it work.

Though I'd rather have The Cars be Rundgren's backing band.

http://dreamvalley-mlp.com/cars/graphics/davidrum.jpg

http://www.creemmagazine.com/ProfilesImages/Cars_1979_02.jpg

the cars=the bluieprint for just about any 'retro 80's band' today
see also- the killers, et all.

SHAME SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the sake of argument:

Gimme Some Slack / Don't Go to Pieces (Elektra 47101; January 5, 1981)

But Ric Ocasek was releasing better solo singles at the time.

Actually though - I did have Heartbeat City a long time ago. I forgot about that.

Me too. And there aren't many vocalists who could have delivered such perfectly-judged performances to a pair of songs as stylistically diverse as Just What I Needed and Drive. Props to Ocasek too, for having humility enough to hand over his two finest compositions to another guy to sing.

That Milkwood album is so weird. I keep listening to it and wondering how it's possible that you can't hear one single atom of similarity between it and anything the Cars ever did.

DRIVE = fucking amazing. anyone who thinks otherwise is flat out insane.

What is that song about, anyway?

Yeah I think "Drive" is my favorite song of theirs (fwiw I only know the singles).

I think it might be even better if it was in Japanese and sung in that really overwrought style like the guy from Hyde sings in.

I love synth gunk but "Drive" is too gunky.

buddy of mine once told me about a Cars non-album b-side, maybe from heartbeat city, that was awesome. i've googled around and got nothin'...by any chance does anybody know the title of what i'm talkin' about?

meant "heartbeat city era", sorry

xxxpost it's about who's going to drive you home. tonight.

because it won't be the dude singing the song, and he's sad about that, but maybe dodged a bullet too, because baby's a handful. or at least he's trying to convince himself of that. maybe she's headed for a crash, or maybe he just hopes she is. depends on who left whom, and that's unresolved in the lyric.

/songmeanings

Loved it when we saw the photos of dead Ethiopian babies accompanying this track at Live Aid.

buddy of mine once told me about a Cars non-album b-side, maybe from heartbeat city, that was awesome. i've googled around and got nothin'...by any chance does anybody know the title of what i'm talkin' about?

― KC & the sunshine banned (outdoor_miner), Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:18 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

Discogs lists a bunch of singles, there is a remix version and a dub version of "Hello Again" and one track I don't know (not on LP, but there are other B-sides w/older material) called "Breakaway" on the B-side of "Why Can't I Have You"

http://www.discogs.com/Cars-Why-Cant-I-Have-You/master/69679

They just posted a clip of a new song "Blue Tip" on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=445115559565&comments&ref=mf

It's not bad, methinks.

I'm enjoying the new one, as well. Not surprising--I really liked "Nexterday," and that was only five years ago.

That's Rundgren singing, right?

No, that's Ocasek.

Hunh! Hi voice doesn't sound the same, even if the melody and delivery recognizably him. It is good.

...His voice...

i don't know much about The Cars, was Ric Ocasek the usual singer? or was it the Drive guy? i wonder what Ric O made of 'the other guy' singing the big radio smash?

Candy-O isn't as good as the debut (very few albums are), but "Let's Go" might be my favorite Cars song.

Some of the backing vocals on the debut get too emphatic for me.

i loved hearing that the reason for those harmonies on the debut was they chose queen’s producer. i never would have guessed the influence but it’s obvious after you hear that. candy-o and panorama are an interesting pair. apart from let’s go, no power pop classics but very solid and a bit darker and snakier than the debut. candy is the cats album i reach for, it’s not just not overplayed but it’s power pop with restless wandering lyrics that don’t resolve into much but feel impressionistic almost like vampire weekend.

I'd say "Candy-O" and "Dangerous Type" and "Let's Go" are power pop classics insofar as the term means a thing.

I would recommend "Gimme some Slack" off of Panorama as a shockingly potent, indisputable high point for the band for them familiar only with the hits and the debut…

One detail from the book that comes up repeatedly is Easton's disdain for Devo, Kraftwerk, and other new wave and new wave-ish acts that very clearly are severed from blues/rock traditions. He doesn't like that stuff, doesn't like the cars being associated as such, and has a boomer dullard's insistence on the primacy of blues/roots, almost Marsh-esque in his insistence. Whereas Hawkes, who could have passed for a member of Devo but for his bowl haircut, loves Devo and Kraftwerk… in some video related to their RRHoF induction which I can't find, he mentions that he saw the band's peers/competitors as Devo, the Police, talking Heads and the Pretenders.

that's interesting wrt Devo because they started out as a kind of blues-rock band, and there are early versions of a lot of their synthy/new-wave songs that are basically blues rock - I think of Devo as less severed from the 'blues/rock tradition' than the Cars tbh (maybe severed then surgically reattached? prosthetic blues?)

Easton surely would have preferred that The Cars be Cap'n Swing 2.0.

I've a friend who adores Panorama, claims it's their best.

Excellent Janovitz interview. Didn't know this:

Ben had everything he could have needed to be a big solo star. Why do you think that didn’t happen?

There’s a couple of prongs here. He was starting to go through his personal struggles with substances and emotional issues, which were obviously tied together. There was his satisfaction with being in the Cars and his role there, but he did want to start writing more. Ric was never going to let that happen, as Ric himself said. And he was certainly not going to let Ben write lyrics.

I talked to a publicist who was working with the Cars, and then specifically on Ben’s record for Elektra. And he was like, “They pulled the plug on it at some point.” And more than a few people think that Elektra pulled the plug from pressure from Ric and Elliot Roberts. I think it was like, “We got to bring this guy down a peg. Otherwise he might get too big.”

I don’t want to get too conspiratorial because I don’t have evidence of that, but I do have evidence that they said, “We don’t like this video, this last video. Record’s over.”

Janovitz quotes various sources opining that Orr was like Elvis, a natural talent who often needed only one take, a guy who could get laid without any effort whatsoever, but dumb and particularly indulgent. He wrote "Stay the Night" and the other songs from The LAce (uggh, you gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me) with his wife at the time, and in that case, I don't think Ocasek was wrong to say that no way were they gonna write for the Cars.

I read a Rob Tannenbaum interview with Orr in a Musician from early '87 and he came across as charming but dim.

I hear "Stay the Night" at least once a week in Publix or CVS.

I've a friend who adores Panorama, claims it's their best.

I'm another one who's on the record here for preferring Panorama. It was recorded right after Ocasek produced the second Suicide album and that sound reflected back on The Cars in a way I really like.

ne detail from the book that comes up repeatedly is Easton's disdain for Devo, Kraftwerk, and other new wave and new wave-ish acts that very clearly are severed from blues/rock traditions. He doesn't like that stuff, doesn't like the cars being associated as such, and has a boomer dullard's insistence on the primacy of blues/roots, almost Marsh-esque in his insistence

Unsurprisingly, Easton was the guitarist for the Cook/Clifford Creedence Clearwater Revisited band for many years

I hadn't heard about the Janovitz book until I saw mention of it here, but I hastened to purchase it immediately. It's really compelling! There's a grim fascination in following the tale of how Ric Ocasek assembled a quartet of brilliant musicians who could bring his modest demos to vivid life, and then proceeded to systematically belittle and ostracize them for years, to the point that they were all relieved when he called time on the band.

David Robinson's anecdote about Ric telling Ben - his oldest friend - that his solo album "stunk", is like reading about someone kicking a puppy. None of this detracts from Ocasek's immense talent as a songwriter, but it's hard to disagree with Elaine Hawkes' verdict: "What an asshole."

yeah it's really sad, they could have been even better than they were

btw the Greg Hawkes solo album is totally great, if anyone itt has not heard it