including re This Is Lone Justics, hot live studio tape finally legitimized in '14.
― dow, Saturday, 10 January 2015 00:00 (nine years ago) link
Justice, even.
Damn, listening to the new Miranda Lambert has driven me back to Peddlin' Dreams (owing to a vague vibe simpatico) and I'm always astonished at how powerful this album secretly is.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 7 December 2016 12:28 (seven years ago) link
always thankful that you introduced me to life is sweet tim
― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Wednesday, 7 December 2016 16:19 (seven years ago) link
How good is it??
I myself bought it without hearing it based on this review by Glenn McDonald back in the day:
http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=twas0066
― Tim F, Thursday, 8 December 2016 05:39 (seven years ago) link
lol if i had a dollar for things i listened to just bc glenn talked about them
― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Thursday, 8 December 2016 06:10 (seven years ago) link
And now you must do the same, because this album is brilliant, and if you don't buy it now, you'll find out twenty years from now that I was right, and then you'll feel silly and it might be out of print or something, and that would be very bad.
damn glenn
― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Thursday, 8 December 2016 06:11 (seven years ago) link
I wore out my 7" of "Shelter" and this performance on SNL in '86 was amazing:http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv2kjt_lone-justice-shelter-i-found-love-saturday-night-live-12-20-86_music
― Spencer Chow, Friday, 9 December 2016 00:35 (seven years ago) link
That was also the Shatner 'Trekkie Convention' episode, so amazing all around.
― Spencer Chow, Friday, 9 December 2016 00:37 (seven years ago) link
Yep, that's where I first saw/heard Lone Justice. She was thrashing all over the stage and I was like "WHAT. IS. THIS??????"
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Friday, 9 December 2016 00:38 (seven years ago) link
Only got to see Lone Justice once - opening for U2 at the LA Sports Arena in '84 - and am still kicking myself that I never made the effort to see them in a club.
Thread revive got me listening to High Dive again. May just be my favorite.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 9 December 2016 00:55 (seven years ago) link
Thread revive eventually reminded me that the Voice changed their tracking system at least once, so the xpost "Alias In Wonderland" link prob leads nowhere---anyway, here's the part re Maria:
The first time I laid eyes on another Hellywood Kid, Maria McKee, frontingher "cowpunk" band Lone Justice (a name that makes the same kind of sense asBlazing Saddles), I saw her as an ancestor/descendant of Bette Midler and StevieNicks: a Gold Dust Woman, (re-)born to raise the stakes and stage in SilverCity (prospectors shooting down chandeliers in appreciation). (Bette Midler?Western as Hawaii, as in "Who you think brought-um steel guitars, Paleface?" Also Midler'sJewish like Annie Oakley a/k/a Phoebe Moses.)Maria's new Ultimate Collection (Hip-O) spins a great yarn, but leaves outher self-written, unreleased "To Deserve You" (credibly covered by Midler, onBette of Roses). Here, a young girl avidly peers out the window at women whoseotherworldly beauty and grace come from their virtue. She wants to "shine inyour eye like a jewel," to be as good as, well, gold. This song clarifiesMaria's sometimes distractingly refracted raised-religious-in-Tinseltownsensibility. She was onstage at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go with her big brother Bryan McLean,ex-member of punk-psych pioneers Love (also a Christian-speculative songpoet),when she was only three. And "Soup, Soap, and Salvation" depicts the wee McKeeas pounding a tambourine (and even the Sunset Strip?!), with her reportedlyex-beatnik/born-again parents, belting Gospel to the glitz-blitzed.But Bryan also turned her on to Broadway, and her teen dreams includedstudying with Sondheim at Juilliard. Widely regarded in her hometown as aproto-alt-country sellout, then as a Corporate Rock wash-out, she wrote (and released)"Panic Beach" (included on Collection): She finds herself spending another dayby the bee-yootiful sea, taking her place in the sideshow of invisiblefriends, eternal Hollywood Hopefuls, utterly ignored. It's like being trapped insidethe ever growing mural of "The Burning of Los Angeles" in Nathanael West's TheDay of the Locust. But all in her mind—which is finally obliginglynoticed—and then swallowed, by the depths of the now alarmingly reverberating stereosky.However, once in said sky, she learns to ride the whirlwind she hath reaped,playing guitar like Mick Ronson and swinging by the star once called Ziggy,into her personal-space odysseys (freshly cherry-picked from her 1996breakthroughLife Is Sweet). She even whistles like in "Golden Years," but spookier, acoded refrain, on "If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)"—from the PulpFiction soundtrack, appropriately enough. She's one of those Western Women, likeBelle Starr and Calamity Jane, Billy Tipton and Brandon Teena, forever having tomigrate through dime novels and disappearances, trespasses and transports.
― dow, Friday, 9 December 2016 01:13 (seven years ago) link
That's the story as of 2001, anyway.
― dow, Friday, 9 December 2016 01:16 (seven years ago) link
My Queerness makes @YahooEnt and btw, I would never “self describe” my self as a cult artist, unless I had always been described as a cult artist. Also recent photo of me is by Queer London photog Anna Sampson. https://t.co/ksQQsthZBX— Maria Mckee (@realmariamckee) October 12, 2019
― ... (Eazy), Sunday, 13 October 2019 00:00 (four years ago) link
Thanks Eazy! Had forgotten about this thread. More LJ/Maria here:TS: Lone Justice or Cruzados or Drivin' & Cryin' or Green On Red or Del Fuegos or Jason & The Scorchers or Long Ryders or Bodeans?
Omnivore's kept the prev. unreleased (except for boots maybe) early LJ coming the past few years: this past March, it was Live at the Palomino. Your revive also reminds me I gotta check that, so thanks again.
― dow, Sunday, 13 October 2019 03:25 (four years ago) link
Never followed in any detail this artist, but am finding this 2020 album extraordinary; dense in imagery, verbiage and arrangement, where it continuously changes which of those I love and which I do not love so much.
― anatol_merklich, Sunday, 8 November 2020 01:17 (three years ago) link
all intriguing, I should have said
― anatol_merklich, Sunday, 8 November 2020 01:24 (three years ago) link
I didn't realize there was a new one. Listening now. It's quite nice, but her voice is way different! This is like a Madonna pre/post Evita difference.
― Johnny Fever, Sunday, 8 November 2020 03:44 (three years ago) link
Great album. I don't really hear a massive shift in her voice from the last few albums though? From the 90s, certainly.
Tempted to say the songwriting here isn't as strong as Peddlin' Dreams, but I think it's perhaps more correct to say that she leans a lot harder into her own idiosyncrasies here and forces the songwriting to bend: hence lines like "What kinetic architecture is evolving like a science before my eyes? And this geometry which haunts and so perplexes me, and that lack of stillness which I find so mesmerising..."
I mean these songs are pretty much cover-proof, right?
― Tim F, Monday, 9 November 2020 06:55 (three years ago) link
Like, the lyrics to "Courage" are both amazing and hilarious:
Sweet Beatrice is rooted to the earth in such an arresting wayA magnetic pulse grounds her with singular authorityAnd her charge is surging upwards and outThen cascading down so at odds with her fragilityIt is a disarming gift held in someone so youngAnd so winsomely arrangedAnd I search her motionsIn an attempt to find the primerTo read all that she disclosesJust short of calculating her mysteryI hope to never uncover from afar with a viewUntil the distance rocks my body with gloomAnd I drift hollow through my daysBlind to the world and all of itsTreasures and betrayalsAnd I know that she may be the only oneTo rescue me out of thisIf she were to somehow knowAnd to find my affection for her ridiculousOh but that would kill meBut I will never find the courage to tell herI will never find the courage to tell herAnd she walks by and I must love sufferingAnd she walks by and she walks by and I must love sufferingI have decided I will not confessTo these words fraught with urgency and longingI will hedge and I will deflectAnd talk of metaphor and broad strokingBefore I give myself awayBefore I implicate my undoingIt is nobody's businessIf I should hoard this sacred thing among my ruinsAnd I cannot help but drink in all of her beautyAs it is now peakingAnd so much about herSo informs the graceful story I've been seekingAnd I, I thought I'd seen everythingBut I will never find the courage to tell herI will never find the courage to tell herAnd she walks by and I must love sufferingAnd she walks by and she walks by and I must love sufferingIn the Witching Hour, in the nightWhen the words descend like Manna from the throneAnd the pumping at the pedalAnd the lingering echo of my left hand droneI will go down into the pitAnd to the edge of any lengthWhere lies the magic and the witAnd the power to inventAnd I'm so grateful that she fell into my visionJust as she is, so winsomely arrangedAnd I am working at a fevered pace nowJust to transcend herAnd elevate her ways to a context of high artThat will defend herAnd I, I pray that I am worthy of thisBut I will never find the courage to tell herI will never find the courage to tell herAnd she walks by and I must love sufferingAnd she walks by and she walks by and I must love sufferingSweet Beatrice is rooted to the earth in such an arresting wayA magnetic pulse grounds her with singular authorityAnd her charge is surging upwards and outThen cascading down so at odds with her fragilityIt is a disarming gift held in someone so youngAnd so winsomely arranged
― Tim F, Monday, 9 November 2020 07:20 (three years ago) link
Yeah, leaning into idiosyncracies sounds right, and I find it really striking, in a good way (and those exact lines maybe the most so on first couple of listens).
― anatol_merklich, Monday, 9 November 2020 09:17 (three years ago) link
2021 is a trip. I learned that the LJ/MM's long time drummer passed away via Van Dyke Parks' twitter:
R.I.P. blessed Percussionist Don Heffington (12/20/‘50-3/24/‘21).R.I.P. old Saddle Buddy. pic.twitter.com/JF0cO6ehWt— Van Dyke Parks (@thevandykeparks) March 24, 2021
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Thursday, 25 March 2021 00:39 (three years ago) link
Oh man! The impression that I got from booklets w LJ reissues and prev. unreleased on Omnivore was that he was pretty involved in working up a lot of arrangements, when the suits didn't get in the way; also, as wiki sez: Don Heffington was an American drummer, percussionist, and songwriter. He is known for his solo albums, his work with Lone Justice, and his extensive touring and session work with artists such as Lowell George, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, Barry Goldberg, Big Kettle Drum, and Victoria Williams. Much more here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Heffington
As for the album, great pick, pretty much the theme song---here are mycomments from last year's Nashville Scene ballot (re hacked-in Imaginary Categories):In the middle of this our life, Maria McKee comes to a clearing and plunges fearlessly into thickets of imagery, following her Beatrice not into Afterworlds, so much as La Vita Nuova ---she to whom the term “Pre-Raphaelite” has long been among the many applied, so you can also call some of these blossoms Pre-R glam or art folk rock, though sometimes it’s just her tirelessly faithful piano, maybe with upright bass, or poised orchestral sojourns---and her voice is in great shape for answering all calls and seeking more. Almost as exhausting as it is astonishing to listen to all the way through with no bathroom breaks, nevertheless it always pulls me right around the rim ov void, along the path of Passion. While she sings and plays and conducts it, I’m a believer, pert near--no time or space to think otherwise, in my case.as re-posted previously over onTS: Lone Justice or Cruzados or Drivin' & Cryin' or Green On Red or Del Fuegos or Jason & The Scorchers or Long Ryders or Bodeans?
― dow, Thursday, 25 March 2021 01:08 (three years ago) link
Aw, just heard this news. He played on sooooooo many good albums.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 25 March 2021 04:23 (three years ago) link
Apologies, I didn't see this thread and posted this news in the other thread.
Dave Alvin of the Blasters broke the news too.
Dylan fans may know Heffington from "New Danville Girl"/"Brownsville Girl," and Dylan liked them enough to donate a song and sit in on harmonica:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNdJviGnDpY
I actually prefer Lone Justice's earlier recordings - they were a great band, and it's too bad the majors were initially reluctant to sign them for being too "country." When they finally signed with Geffen, they managed at least one respectable album with their debut, but it also sounded more conventional and less distinguished, like meat-and-potatoes rock. To be fair, I don't think the band had any interest in being a "prestige" signing. They wanted to be big like Petty and Springsteen, and it's not like Jason & the Scorchers or the Blasters were lighting up the charts. Pains me to say that because I love those bands too.
― birdistheword, Thursday, 25 March 2021 09:34 (three years ago) link
From what I've heard/read, they built a buzz around LA for a decidedly more country-sounding approach than was heard on their debut. Jimmy Iovine essentially said, "enough with the hick stuff, you need to be Maria McKee and the Heartbreakers!" So it was yet another instance of "You've got a following! We'll sign you! Now stop doing the thing that built that following."
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 25 March 2021 14:13 (three years ago) link
Great post by Dave Alvin, thanks for the link---hope he'll write a memoir someday, if he ever has time.Those live and demo Lone Justice round-ups that Omnivore's put out in the past decade (and maybe before?) are pretty refrshing, and Hip-O's McKee Ultimate Collection incl. some LJ with the Big 80s blare toned down--but I've always suspected that those who wanted her to be cowpunk *or* Pettysteen misunderstood her own driven theatricality etc., like I said in this ancient Voice piece about several female artists, "Alias In Wonderland":
The first time I laid eyes on another Hellywood Kid, Maria McKee, frontingher "cowpunk" band Lone Justice (a name that makes the same kind of sense asBlazing Saddles), I saw her as an ancestor/descendant of Bette Midler and StevieNicks: a Gold Dust Woman, (re-)born to raise the stakes and stage in SilverCity (prospectors shooting down chandeliers in appreciation). (Bette Midler?Western as Hawaii, as in "Who you think brought-um steel guitars, Paleface?" And speaking of Midler, she's Jewish, as possibly was Annie Oakley a/k/a Phoebe Moses---O rabbithole, spare me over for another point.)McKee's new Ultimate Collection (Hip-O) , while discreetly tweaking Big 80s blare, nevertheless unleashes a careening career saga, yet leaves out her self-written, unreleased "To Deserve You" (credibly covered by Midler, on Bette of Roses). Here, a young girl avidly peers out the window at women whose otherworldly beauty and grace come from their virtue. She wants to "shine inyour eye like a jewel," to be as good as, well, gold. This song clarifies (or at least uncovers an especially striking facet of) MM's sometimes distracting, refracted raised-religious-in-Tinseltownsensibility. She was onstage at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go with her big brother Bryan McLean,ex-member of punk-psych pioneers Love (also a Christian-speculative songpoet),when she was only three. And "Soup, Soap, and Salvation" depicts the wee McKeeas pounding a tambourine (and even the Sunset Strip?!), with her allegedly ex-beatnik/born-again parents, belting Gospel to the glitz-blitzed.But Bryan also turned her on to Broadway, and Maria's teen dreams includedstudying with Sondheim at Juilliard. Regarded by some in her hometown as aproto-alt-country vanguard artist turned Corporate Rock wash-out, she wrote (and released)"Panic Beach" (included on Ultimate...): She finds herself spending another dayby the bee-yootiful sea, taking her place in the sideshow of invisiblefriends, eternal Hollywood Hopefuls, utterly ignored. It's like being trapped insidethe ever growing mural of "The Burning of Los Angeles" in Nathanael West's TheDay of the Locust. But all in her mind—-which is finally obliginglynoticed—and then swallowed, by the depths of the now alarmingly reverberating stereosky.However, once in said sky, she learns to ride the whirlwind she hath reaped,playing guitar like Mick Ronson and swinging by the star once called Ziggy,into her personal-space odysseys (freshly cherry-picked for UC, from her 1996breakthrough, Life Is Sweet). She even whistles like Bowie did in "Golden Years," but spookier, acoded refrain, on "If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)"—-from the Pulp Fictionsoundtrack, appropriately enough. She's one of those Western Women, likeBelle Starr and Calamity Jane, Billy Tipton and Brandon Teena, forever having tomigrate through dime novels and disappearances, trespasses and transports.Straying is the tradition—that Satellite o' Love always needs more lasso. (In mentioning the trans-living Billy Tipton and Brandon Teena and Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love" and Bowie and Midler etc. I didn't mean to imply that McKee was Queer, as she says now; didn't know about that, it just went with the dime novel, reinventive, shape-shifting aspect of the Wild West and so on. Oscar Wilde visited, as well he might.)
― dow, Thursday, 25 March 2021 18:05 (three years ago) link
Oh yeah, and the Natalie Maines cover of "Panic Beach," on a tape her Dad Lloyd played for Marti and Emily of the Dixie Chicks, was what got her a meeting with them! Hasn't been on any of their albums, alas, but would think those DC/C royalties for "Am I the Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way?)" have come in quite handy since the days of '98.
― dow, Thursday, 25 March 2021 18:16 (three years ago) link
Surprisingly there's many more demos from those sessions, but I can see why they pared it down to something resembling an album rather than tapes just rolling at a demo session. (There's a great birthday performance that incorporates a caterwauling birthday song, followed by two takes of "Sweet Jane" since they don't make it all the way through the first one.)
― birdistheword, Thursday, 25 March 2021 18:59 (three years ago) link
Where did you hear all that?! Please point me in the right direction. Maybe Omnivore will put it all out there someday, like they did Big Star's Complete Third.(Sorry for posting that Voice thing again, totally forgot I'd put it on here in 2016.)
― dow, Saturday, 27 March 2021 02:28 (three years ago) link
I wish I knew. Sometime in the '00s, I must have downloaded, torrented or did a blanks-and-postage trade for that boot, and I forgot about it until I found it again and listened to it to compare to the officially released cuts. Not surprisingly, the official releases sounded like they were done from the original masters while the boot (which I labeled and misidentified as "The Complete Geffen Demos" or something close to that) sounded like a heavily noise-filtered transfer of a cassette dub.
I don't know where I put it, but it's got to be online somewhere. It was two discs total with no omissions (and had space leftover on both discs).
― birdistheword, Saturday, 27 March 2021 17:46 (three years ago) link
I did a cursory YouTube search and found what may be take 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uFeftHhqss
― birdistheword, Saturday, 27 March 2021 17:55 (three years ago) link
(Note the Merry Christmas ad-lib at the end - I'm wondering if I misremembered the happy birthday when it was a Merry Christmas message?)
― birdistheword, Saturday, 27 March 2021 17:57 (three years ago) link
Have always really liked the MK (of Nightcrawlers and "Burning" fame) remix of "To Deserve You" and had no idea McKee wrote it.
― Spencer Chow, Saturday, 27 March 2021 18:44 (three years ago) link
I had no idea video of their Palomino shows existed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX715b2PgcM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUu-DYEaZlU
― birdistheword, Saturday, 9 April 2022 15:08 (two years ago) link
O man, thanks! Yeah, as I prob mentioned upthread,and on xpost TS: Lone Justice or Cruzados or Drivin' & Cryin' or Green On Red or Del Fuegos or Jason & The Scorchers or Long Ryders or Bodeans?, Omnivore's released Live at the Palomino, The Western Tapes 1983: earliest known demos, and The Vaught Tapes: also 1983, their club setlist of primo material, live in the studio with no overdubs, (also a Martin E. solo album): https://omnivorerecordings.com/product-tag/lone-justice/
― dow, Saturday, 9 April 2022 16:34 (two years ago) link
Excellent suggestions! I was caught me off guard by the different line-up on the Palomino and Western Tapes releases (which is pretty remarkable considering all three Omnivore releases were recorded in 1983). Different rhythm section on the Western Tapes, but by the time they play that Palomino show, Etzioni takes over on bass. Then the Vaught tapes ends the year with Heffington taking over on drums from Don Willens.
Had to do some digging to see what happened with Willens, especially given Etzioni and Hedgecock's very generous thanks in their liner notes for the Palomino CD. There's not much that's out there, but unfortunately what did turn up was incredibly sad - a book interview mentioning addiction problems and an obituary that suggests donations to the American Liver Foundation. (Willens was only 44 when he passed away.)
― birdistheword, Saturday, 9 April 2022 21:42 (two years ago) link
According to social media posts, Marvin Etzioni, Ryan Hedgecock and Maria McKee are working on a new Lone Justice album. Apparently Marvin showed Maria some old demos and they decided to contact Ryan about making some new recordings. As mentioned, drummers Don Willens and Don Heffington both passed away years ago, so this basically reunites the surviving core members.
Hello Lone Justice Heads!In the studio with Ryan Hedgecock working on the forthcoming LJ album.He's playing his 1982 Telecaster reissue. pic.twitter.com/PGFKTSeKcW— marvin etzioni (@marvinetzioni) July 2, 2022
McKee also mentions working on the album in an earlier Instagram post.
― birdistheword, Monday, 4 July 2022 15:59 (one year ago) link
oh wow
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Monday, 4 July 2022 16:05 (one year ago) link
Honestly surprised she would be up for this, given how far afield she’s shifted
― deep luminous trombone (Eazy), Monday, 4 July 2022 16:17 (one year ago) link
For those without Instagram, this is from Maria McKee's account, the text under a photo cropped from the cover of The Vaught Tapes 1983 from Omnivore Recordings:
(April 20) It's hard to believe it's been over a year since Don died. Marvin and I meet every few weeks at Factor's deli for latkes and do a stroll through the neighborhood, stop for rugelach and coffee. We talk about old times but not just old times. New life too. He recently spruced up some demos we made during the recording of Sin To Get Saved. "How do you want to release them, as MM? Or LJ?" "As LJ," I said. But we can't release it as LJ without Ryan. You will have to overdub some Ryan!" So that's what they are doing today.
And in the comments, there's a nice one from Benmont Tench saying he can't wait to hear these.
― birdistheword, Monday, 4 July 2022 17:04 (one year ago) link
jesus what a voice
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 31 January 2024 13:49 (four months ago) link
“If Love Is A Red Dress” just shook me to my core
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 31 January 2024 13:50 (four months ago) link
yep
― Indexed, Wednesday, 31 January 2024 15:13 (four months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajhYfBoQSXE
― birdistheword, Thursday, 30 May 2024 03:25 (one week ago) link
Holy Moly, is that from or on your xpost Complete Geffen Demos, bird?? Great stuff, thanks! Hope they did more like that.
― dow, Friday, 31 May 2024 20:53 (one week ago) link
You're welcome! This is an official upload and apparently available on a 45 - the credits on the page list the lineup that did the first LP, including the late great Don Heffington.
Taken from their forthcoming album, ‘Teenage Kicks’ is a rambunctious slice of punk angst that was recorded in one take. It’s a timeless anthem with a joyous riff that explodes into a hail of feedback.
― birdistheword, Friday, 31 May 2024 21:05 (one week ago) link
(Also, I don't think this is on the Geffen demos bootleg - I need to find my copy and check, though)
― birdistheword, Friday, 31 May 2024 21:07 (one week ago) link