Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen

No dedicated thread for them as far as I can see, although quite a few posts within the archives. I only ever really knew their version of “Hot Rod Lincoln” but a little while back I saw the extended live version by Bill Kirchner posted here with all the interpolated covers and recently came across some intriguing stuff about Andy Stein and am interested to dig deeper.

My dad had Lost in the Ozone. I loved that record.

ILX0R Dan Peterson has made many interesting posts about them, including this one from Can we give some love to the unsung/underrated MEN of the 60s/70s?

Thing about Cody for me is that although Bill Kirchen penned a few good songs, they were essentially a really great cover band. Their mix of honky-tonk country, rockabilly, Texas swing and 50s R&B opened my ears to Buck Owens, Bob Wills, Gene Vincent, Lieber & Stoller. I have played the hell out of "Live At Armadillo World Headuaters."

― Duke Manfist: Action Hero (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 16 June 2011 17:37 (ten years ago)

Found this comp Hot to Trot and it seems really good so far.

Great, let's see if we can get more than you, me and Jimbeaux contributing to this thread! Some factoids:

I only saw the original Commander Cody band once, back in the 70s warming up for Jefferson Starship.

I also only saw the Commander solo once, not too long before the pandemic actually. He appeared to be not in the best of health, and has since passed on.

I'm not sure how many times I have seen Bill Kirchen live, >10 for sure. His shows are always a great bunch of Tele-twangin', and he's super nice guy.

My band has used "What's the Matter Now" from Lost in the Ozone as our set opener for ages.

Great, let's see if we can get more than you, me and Jimbeaux contributing to this thread!

What prompted this thread:
The guitarist Paul Meyers, who is kind of a hero of mine, posted a picture of himself and Andy Bey on social media and I mentioned that I like the version they did together of NIck Drake's "River Man."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4KOyrFSWJM

I noticed that the arrangement was pretty much the same exact thing as the Nick Drake original and Paul said Yes, he himself learned the guitar part off the record and "an incredible musician " named Andy Stein transcribed the strings, and overdubbed the violin and viola himself, while a cellist and bassist were hired to play the other parts.

What up?

Also: What's up with the spotty appearance of their Paramount/MCA catalogue of teh Spotify: only Ozone and the Armadillo set, plus a comp or two.

NSF Radio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LInn_l146co

I was wondering why I never heard of this Andy Stein so I searched for him and found his website: https://www.andysteinmusic.com/biography

*jaw drop*

Good Grief, there's a 41 TRACK-LONG Bear's Sonic Journals collection on them that dropped in 2020.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0FYPZSyBx1BQNYw2N2gnZ5?si=M7_b1qCuSK2lSMSQO9198w&utm_source=copy-link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_Cody_and_His_Lost_Planet_Airmen#The_Lost_Planet_Airmen

Geoffrey Stokes' 1976 book Star-Making Machinery featured Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen as its primary case study of music industry production and marketing. Stokes relates the difficulties the band had recording its first album for Warner Bros. Records. The label wanted a hit album along the lines of the soft country-rock of The Eagles, but the band was not inclined to change its raw-edged style.

Also, interesting to me to note that they originated in Ann Arbor, and that Iggy Pop was Bill Kirchen’s classmate, as Bill says during his long, cover-packed “Hot Rod Lincoln” medley.

Bill Kirchen interview from Ann Arbor District Library.

Like the fact that in addtion to the Hippie Honky-Tonk thing there is also an overlap with Dave Edmunds/Nick Lowe/Brinsley Schwarz Pub Rock, with songs in common like "Get It"/"Git It" and "Home in My Hand."

Andy Stein's Grammy, for Best Country Instrumental, "One O'Clock Jump."

plus nick lowe once toured with bill kirchen in his band. that was after he (lowe) earned all those bucks from placing his song in a popular film and decided to finance a tour with it. i saw that band at...the wetlands?

cody lived on long island in late career and would play in the ny clubs all the time. always a good night out.

Which Grammy I guess he won as part of Asleep at the Wheel, playing baritone sax. Maybe fiddle too, but I didn't hear it.

Oh yeah, forgot about Nick Lowe using Bill Kirchen. Wetlands makes sense, miss that place.

FIddle at the end, now I hear it.

https://www.popmatters.com/lowe-nick-020803-2496083685.html

BIll Kirchen is an Arthur Alexander enthusiast! #OneRedd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7guPxmQwS4

Original version of "Git It," apparently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azvRztMUSkw

Also done by Gene Vincent & The Blue Caps as well as Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders.

Never knew it was such a standard.

Maybe shouldn’t go there, but feel like they can give me what NRBQ couldn’t.

That would be an interesting T/S. Lots of similarities (hyperactive, possibly annoying keyboardists; hot-shit guitars; rock solid rhythm sections; arcane crate-digging covers.) Both bands better experienced live than on record (I pretty much never play NRBQ.) I think NRBQ's eclecticism is a little more nudge-wink ("look, we dig Patience and Prudence AND Sun Ra!") and Cody is more effortlessly fun. I love them both, but Cody >>> Q.

Yes, exactly. Feel like NRBQ is a little too chopsy about it, in a way I'm not getting from these guys.

One of the original Airmen became a bigshot engineering professor, is an expert in tribology and has a name like a Stanislaw Lem character. What's not to like?

Just read that Bill Kirchen interview properly. Totally delivered.

Good cover of a Merle Haggard song I never heard before by Bill Kirchen, Nick Lowe and Paul Carrack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwcpbMO2Rsk

I have nothing to add to this discussion except that in the mid-80s Nickelodeon had a comedy show called Turkey TV, and they played the video for Two Triple Cheese in an episode. That was my childhood exposure to Cody.

We were just discussing this song in the Linda Ronstandt Heart Like a Wheel thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Hot-ThQeI

Here: Best Song on Linda Ronstadt's "Heart Like a Wheel"

Also mentioned here: Post-1960 Songs of Which There Are At Least Three 5-star, All-Time, Stone-Cold Classic Recorded Versions

Some John TIchy links:
RPI faculty page
FB page
and
https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/engineering-rock-star

Meet the Elvis of engineering. The Roy Orbison of rheology. The Ernest Tubb of tribology

I did not know until today that Nicolette Larson got her start doing backing vocals for this band.

Good catch!

Never knew she was married to Russ Kunkel either.

I watched this 1977 performance yesterday. By this time they had bounced from Paramount Records to Warner to Arista. The New Commander Cody Band was adequate, but with Kirchen and Farlow gone a little of Cody's gravel-voiced schtick goes a long way, and it was obvious why he added female backing vocalists. Nicolette kinda steals the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR-33sqd_GA

Also mentioned here: Post-1960 Songs of Which There Are At Least Three 5-star, All-Time, Stone-Cold Classic Recorded Versions

― Groovy Situation Vacant (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, May 20, 2022 10:01 AM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

killer thread. thanks for sharing!

Wiki RE: Nicolette In the late 1980s, she briefly dated "Weird Al" Yankovic.[11]

Imagine the hair on the kids they might have had!

Lol, didn't think about that, but yeah, of course!

While we are on the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gRdFaQd1fY

Ha, that's amazing!

JBL posted that out in the wild.

Not to derail too much into Nicolette Larson, but I just listened to her 1978 debut album for the first time ever. Very much in the Linda Ronstadt vein of a few singer-songwriter covers, a little R&B, a little pop, and a Louvin Brothers country-gospel number, with a kitchen-sink studio band: Little Feat dudes and Doobie Brothers, James Burton, Albert Lee, even Edward Van Halen! Orchestrated by Jimmie Haskell and produced to a glossy sheen by Ted Templeman.

HI DERE

Need to check out that Nicolette Larson record, thanks for the tip.

Their kind of hippified middle ground between Western Swing, Jump Blues and Early Rock/Rockabilly seems kind of ... ahead of its time or at least it holds up well but maybe it is just the novelty to me right now of finally listening to this particular band. Go, Cat, Go! Rock, Rock, Rock!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZlF4KVk73Q

Well, they started at the beginning of of that mix becoming/making a late 60s comeback as a popular grassroots thang, emphasis now more on the "grass" part, but attracting trad country fans as well---Asleep At The Wheel, founded ca. 1970 "in a West Virginia chicken coop, " according to an early feature, were making their way to Austin,which was already something of a micro-hotbed for such sounds, like yknow Janis Joplin doing solo blues and country sets at Threadgill's gas station/venue before moving (and sometimes after) relocating to the Bay Area---speaking of which, as I commented on the main Little Feat thread, when somebody mentioned Cody's Feat covers:

They would later cover "Willin'" Yeah, but I think Ronstadt's version is better. They certainly had their moments though. They should: they spent the 60s entertaining Ann Arbor, then, having run out of financial opportunities for professional students etc., they jumped to Berkeley, became student bar faves there, and then opening act for the Dead---especially popular because they didn't jam, I've read---and maybe encourage the Dead to play more country etc. They mixed that with rockabilly, western swing, other compatibles (incl. originals, like the one about being down to seeds and stems again. Also known for attracting a mix of hippies, old trad country fans, younger suits (so also suitable for that era of Austin, Armadillo World Headquarters and so on).
I tend to prefer some of the covers, like their Greatest Hit, "Hot Rod Lincoln," also "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! That Cigarette." Liked most of the first two LPs, 1971's Lost In The Ozone and the next year's Hot Licks, Cold Steel and Trucker's Favorites, also some of the live album. Not so muchthe '75 s/t, which was supposed to be their major move, the punchline of an amazing book, Star-Making Machinery: Inside the Business of Rock and Roll, by the late great Geoffrey Stokes, from a lost world of music, money, dreams, and delusions---familiar elements, but mixing a strange brew, man.

― dow, Thursday, October 21, 2021

Don't agree atall that Cody's line-ups were better than primo NRBQ, who could or did take their highjinks in more different directions than the C-men, w/o getting lost, although yeah sometimes they did get too cuet. Cody is more basic, fine, but since yall brought it up, this starts with some more discussion originally from the Little Feat thread, then pasted to and continued on the fine NRBQ Classic or Dud:

We were talking about the Q over on the main Little Feat thread recently:

You know who else makes good companion listening to the Feet?

'70s NRBQ.

― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, October 7, 2019 8:18 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

recommend an LP?

― calstars, Monday, October 7, 2019 9:01 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Omnivore's been reissuing a bunch of theirs, also a few recent sets (Terry Adams with an all-this-century line-up, I think) The best reissue I've heard is their s/t debut, from 1969, smokin' Louisville backyards and other spaces. Don't know how many of these have been reissued by now, but I liked several of their 70s, At Yankee Stadium, Kick Me Hard, Grooves in Orbit, and Tapdancin' Bats---oh yeah, All Hopped Up has been reissued, but seemed too or wrongly gimmicky at times; they could be that way (ditto the current crew)
And if you really want to take the plunge, Omnivore's High Noon - A 50-Year Retrospective is pretty refreshing, for the most part---as it damn well better be, with 5 CDs.

― dow, Monday, October 7, 2019 9:20 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was just listening to Workshop, which is what inspired me to post. I've got it was part of a vinyl two-fer with their prior effort Scraps, which might be a good place to start (Sundazed did individual LP reissues). At Yankee Stadium has them starting to get New Wave-y in a way the Feat never lived to reach, but it's the consensus pick and very much worth your time.

I should point out that where the two bands most overlap is in their wacky sense of humor. NRBQ used the Beatles as a jumping-off point the same way the Feat used the Stones.

― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, October 7, 2019 10:11 PM (two weeks ago)

― dow, Friday, October 25, 2019 5:06 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

That box set is often amaaazing, though they could get too cutesy at times.

― dow, Friday, October 25, 2019 5:08 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm blanking on it right now, but there's a track on either Scraps or Workshop that would slot in perfectly on the first two Feats albums, down to an LG-esque slide part.

― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, October 25, 2019 5:54 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

From a consid of NRBQ box and Sun Ra singles comp (thee biggest and most recent, though still not complete):

...n 1969, co-founder and sole constant of all line-ups Terry Adams was quoted by the New York Times as declaring that NRBQ was based on “the Sun—-Sun Ra and Sun Records.” It’s a good hook, and basically true---and would be, in the sense of an adventurous, driven and canny spirit shared, whatever the stylistic differences—-=even if, as he recounts in this set’s booklet, Adams hadn’t first visited Ra at the end of the 60s, when too much was up in the air; he was given a Saturn Records 45 RPM single of “Rocket Number Nine”—hearing this, Adams realized he had to get NRBQ back together and dedicate his life to music (the reunited combo’s own version of “Rocket…” soon blasted off, sonically if not commercially).
https://www.nodepression.com/sun-ra-and-nrbq/

― dow, Saturday

(Somebody on that Q thread also refers to Adams as Jerry Lee Monk!) Agree about the pub rock connection, in terms of originals, covers, grassroots appeal, creative and commercial aspirations---which reminds me: Elizabeth McQueen, who later joined Asleep At The Wheel, did a solo alb of intriguing pub covers: I didn't get into her renditions that much, but mang still need to check out for inst some Ducks Deluxe records---

Asleep At The Wheel, founded ca. 1970 "in a West Virginia chicken coop, " according to an early feature, were making their way to Austin,which was already something of a micro-hotbed for such sounds

Before arriving (and putting down Roots) in Austin, the Wheel worked out of Berkeley on the invitation of the Cody's! Asleep At The Wheel have been known to address "Hot Rod Lincoln" live, with Ray Benson stretching things out by delivering a humourous monologue about getting pulled over by the law before launching into the final verse.

Happy Birthday to Bill Kirchen, 74 years old today!

Reunion show??!??

Bill K is streaming live on FB right now.

Couple terrific Cody performances in this newly uploaded Midnight Special from '73:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o96gG_6uMbY

"Smoke x 3" @ 14:40 & "Jailhouse Rock" (Kirchen goes off on the solo) @ 33:25

Also: Kris Kristofferson! Rita Coolidge! King Harvest! ELO!

Cool, thanks!

Forgot I started this thread.

Also wanna say I glanced at the TV last night to guess what Mrs. Redd was watching, heard some faint music and saw some familiar-looking lyrics captioned on the screen I couldn’t quite place which ended x being from yet another cover version of “Willin’.”

And now I just realized that the version of “Willin’” I usually have in my head is not Little Feat but Commander Cody.