The Cars - C or D/S&D

How do you reckon you can tell that Ric Ocasek liked Suicide from his music? The Suicide album he produced wasn't really particularly great, was it? I'm sure that wasn't his fault, though. Suicide to me seems to be more like 'about music' whereas the Cars are 'about things.'

but it was the synth sound that differentiated them and maybe they were the only people game to try synth stuff in america what with it being so uncool and so non-rock -- so it had to be spiffed up with rock'n'roll imagery right out of sha-na-na hence corny "cars" angle as american drive-in '50s rock institution

they seemed to then get more and more lightweight and i feel panorama captures the lite-synth model cars working properly, although they could have taken the synths in any direction they wanted i suppose given the complete lack of competition for those sounds

ok they needed money, so after the public ignored the more intricate panorama they came back with stuff like the ultimate anti-drink-drive anthem and other easy listening stuff -- i think ocasek had to balance decent songwriting and public taste to pay bills

look at the band -- they're all hired musos except ocasek, who looks completely deviant and trying to hide it in mock juevenile get-up, so isn't this literally just another producer vehicle band ?

I like this band. I haven't listened to the proper albums except the debut and Heartbeat City. The first is very samey-sounding and somewhat pretty overplayed, but for the time and background it was in, very classic indeed. Damn those synths sound great. Heartbeat City was verging on tacky- I can only take it in small doses- but a listen once in a while is great! It has one of my very favorite 80's songs of all, You Might Think. I love this osng it is good enough to blast over and over in the car for at least 7 or 8 times. Can't believe nobody has mentioned it! It rocks so much and the video is unbelievably cool with Ric O. as the human fly scaring the giant nubile woman. OK, but anyway, from this anthology I just put on, I can tell these guys had more depth to them than the overplayed singles might tell you. Well there's the neurotic kind of scary lyrics that work very nicely with the bright pop music- and the Suicide connection is awesome. I love Suicide so much. Their 2nd (Ocasek produced) album is my favorite of theirs! You can hear that stuff in the song Panorama. Robot classic rock = Classic.

***DJ Set - AIR***
Suicide - 'Ghost Rider' (Blast First)
John Carpenter - 'Assault On Precinct 13' (Record Makers)
Air - 'Another Day' (Virgin)
Missy Elliot - 'She's A Bitch' (East West)
The Cars - 'Heartbreak City' (Elektra)
Pheonix - 'Everything Is Everywhere' (Virgin)
Johnny Cash - 'Desperado' (American)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/dance/breezeblock/tracklistings.shtml

Ric Ocasek produced Weezer's Blue and Green albums, and maybe Maladroit, I'm not sure. They did Pinkerton themselves (so Rivers then), and you can tell.

-- Nate Patrin (natepatrin550...), May 19th, 2002 9:00 PM. (link)

I clicked on this thread just now because I thought it read "The Czars" because I've been listening to the off and on today. Needless to say, I was quite confused by Nate's synopsis.

D'oh!

C all the way.

I once read an interview where it was revealed that the guitar hook in "My Best Friend's Girl" was borrowed from a Beatles song. Guess which.

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.

[The Cars] was the first album I really bonded with, so as my music smugness expanded, I'm sure I had an ah-ha moment when i got to Roxy Music, and looking at the dates on the jackets, declared Ocasek modeled his sound on Roxy. For some number of decades, I've heard The Cars as an American Roxy.

Knowing his age now, it does seem possible that he was synthesizing the same approaches as the Cars took shape. He may even have heard stuff like "Street Life" and pushed it away for being just off from his vision.

Both frontmen projected such horny ennui, there had to be cross-pollination though.

I wonder if Ric and Alan Vega had convos about hiding birthdays and how to hang with the next gen.

I wonder if rock stars have a favored brand of black hair dye?

Ric being nearly 5 years older than my dad is wild as hell. they seem like they are from two very different generations. obv both “boomers” but you know

Ocasek was born before the baby boom!

ha you’re right! it’s just wild that my parents were well past their paying attn to pop culture phase well before the Cars were a radio staple

I think The Cars was Ric's 7th band?

V much good listening for tonight, from Evan Davies at WFMU:

https://www.facebook.com/efdonFMU/photos/a.251102038244747/2724365904251669/?type=3&theater

Here's more info on the big Ric Ocasek tribute show I'm doing on WFMU tonight (9pm-midnight Eastern Time)! I'll be joined via telephone by some special guests. First up will be journalist/editor/author Annie Zaleski, who has written extensively about The Cars (see links in comments).
We'll also hear from three musicians who were in bands produced by Ric Ocasek: Paul Zone from The Fast (past guest of the show!), Debora Iyall of Romeo Void, and Danny Sage of D Generation. In between I'll be panicking about not having enough time to play all the music I want to play (spoiler: I won't have enough time). Tune in tonight at 9 Eastern/6 Pacific!

"But you kep it goin
Til the sun fell down
You kep it
[bizarre throat click]
Goin."

YES

They included an interview with all five from 1999-2000, and Orr was absolutely near death but was there, answering in croaking monosyllables and ravaged by cancer, and it seemed to me to be a terrible idea to have him sit there with the other guys utterly discomfited, having to pretend that he's not about to die.

They all look pretty old in that interview!

WFMU show kicking in with "Double Life."

Ha that’s the tune that’s been in my head all fucking day!

"Touch and Go" is an interesting one for making a case about the Cars being '50s-oriented. Not sure hear it in them too much overall.

have you heard perhaps an obscure little track titled "my best friend's girl"?

man i love efd as a person and dj and baseball fan but less so as a radio voice/interviewer

Haha, but I'm not sure which '50s artists "My Best Friend's Girl" is supposed to sound like. Kind of hear female singing group style in the background vocals; that's about the best I can come up with (and yeah that's a '50s style lead guitar lick, but that doesn't mean that the song sounds like Carl Perkins).

Really cool that Evan and Annie got to talking about the Stratford 4 and how Ric helped them get the rights to the album back -- here's the Bandcamp page for the album:

https://thestratford4.bandcamp.com/album/keep-your-crazy-head-on-straight

And Annie in her piece linked to/quoted from my piece that I did with them back in 2015 where they talk about Ric's help some more:

http://www.sfweekly.com/music/the-stratford-4-reunite-at-rickshaw-stop-tonight/

“My Best Friends Girl” reminds me of “Peggy Sue” played at 0.75 speed.

They generally take those 50s melodies and slow them to a strut- the hiccups and yelps become gulps and coos.

Early Cars feels so 50s in the literal words and subjects (CARS, rock and roll, my girl or someone else's girl or some girl who just showed up). Compare them to, say, Devo or Journey on either end of the classic-rock spectrum and they're more retro in the lyrics and chords, but then made new.

Haha, but I'm not sure which '50s artists "My Best Friend's Girl" is supposed to sound like. Kind of hear female singing group style in the background vocals; that's about the best I can come up with (and yeah that's a '50s style lead guitar lick, but that doesn't mean that the song sounds like Carl Perkins).

(Hint: it was played by a well known Carl Perkins disciple)

I mean to say, James Redd, that the song doesn't really sound like a Carl Perkins song. (In fact...that is what I did say!)

Was it played by Carl Ramone?

name rings a bel... didn’t he play on “let the good times roll” (1956)?

Sorry to doubt you, Tim, you are correct.

They generally take those 50s melodies and slow them to a strut- the hiccups and yelps become gulps and coos.

This is so key to cars magic! That delicious andante tempo with the leathery palm muted rhythm guitars like walking shoes

I did a deep dive into Foghat albums earlier this year, and came away really loving Zig Zag Walk, their "new wave sellout" and final release before breaking up. I hear quite a bit of Cars in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O38S85pKmtM&list=OLAK5uy_lfXu8zvdq2o8QbdYRcy8mNUw1EOqKwksw&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1o1wgxOKdw

Reading the Ric Ocasek wiki page today has led me to the point where I'm now streaming the 1973 album by Milkwood.

I'm not quite sure which songs are sung by Ocasek and which are sung by Benjamin Orr, but my brain is completely unable to reconcile that either of these guys were ever in the Cars. It's roughly akin to Spinal Tap having an early single called "Listen to the Flower People".

Here's the first verse from Lincoln Park:

Old men playing cards
Smiling, they speak in foreign words
And every day at three
They sit and play like children after school
Oh ain’t that cool
And they lived here all their lives in Lincoln Park

that's Ben on that tune…

man it's truly weird to hear Ocasek sing Seals and Croft shit…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr1tiAmOJqo

Mustache is even weirder.

Paulina remembers and reflects:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/paulina-porizkova-ric-ocasek-894349/

It's somewhat improbable, but I was aware of the Dead Kennedys before The Cars and when I first saw Ocasek I thought he looked a lot like East Bay Ray.

Ray himself posted a fun note on his Instagram: "RIP Ric Ocasek. Back in the day, I walked into E.U. Wurlitzer Music in Boston and low and behold there he was. We both did a double take, we look like like brothers, and we had a lovely chat"

Thanks, that’s a good story. That Paulina peace is incredible from beginning to end. This part is charming:
Our oldest, Jonathan, was in preschool, and his teacher came up to me after school and said, “We had a meeting in the morning, and we were all talking about what everyone’s parents did. They said, ‘My father’s a doctor’ and things like that.” Jonathan’s answer was, “My dad goes into the basement and my mom sits in the trailer.”

Yeah great piece. Would love to hear the recent Ocasek tracks that she was so excited about

Paulina's out.

Bye bye, love.

Late Cars’ singer Ric Ocasek cut his estranged, supermodel wife out of his will, claiming that she “abandoned” him, the now-public document reveals.

“I have made no provision for my wife Paulina Porizkova (“Paulina”) as we are in the process of divorcing,” the new-wave icon wrote in his last wishes.

“Even if I should die before our divorce is final … Paulina is not entitled to any elective share … because she has abandoned me.”

Porizkova was the one who found her estranged rocker husband’s body in September, while bringing him coffee as he recovered from a recent surgery in his Gramercy Park townhouse.

The money, as usual, fascinates me:

A filing listed with Ocasek’s will show that his assets include $5 million in “copyrights” — but just $100,000 in “tangible personal property” and $15,000 in cash.

The document doesn’t break down what constitutes the “copyrights” assets.

While $5.115 million may seem on the low-end for a rock-legend such as Ocasek, a Trusts and Estates lawyer who examined the document told The Post the Cars’ frontman likely had money stashed away in other trusts.

Like many high-profile deceased stars, Ocasek could have stored away “many millions of dollars worth of assets.”

“That’s the reason people use trusts: to protect their privacy,” the lawyer noted.

I've long speculated this guy was worth, like, $20 million on royalties and sales alone. It's not like he blew it on big houses, drugs, or sports cars.

Weren't they selling his Gramercy home for like $13 million?

To echo the guy quoted in the article, the couple probably would have had their jointly owned property in a Trust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQq91RgZJyw

Yeah, the probate inventory shows the probate estate. Anything he put in trust during his life would not appear on that inventory.

And by the way, stone fuckin' classic, at least through Shake it Up.