The Roches

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.

Hearing the album for the first time. Hard to think of another record that goes from unendurably irritating to total classic in the space of its first two songs.

Now playing The Troubles - not sure what the hell they're trying to do there.

get some strawberry-apricot pie

Well I guess they succeeded on that front.

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

For me it's a straight split between beautifully affecting and unbelievably irritating.

dunno if you mean that as a criticism, but i think that's a nice line to walk

Revive because Real Gone Music is re-issuing Maggie and Terre's "Seductive Reasoning" and because the Roches were kick-ass. If you don't like the silly stuff then you don't deserve the serious stuff. #rockism

Kinda outta nowhere:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/opinion/sunday/music-takes-a-back-seat-to-fund-raising.html

She even writes op-eds like a Roche.

Here's a Spotify playlist I put together from this thread, including Hideous Lump's Roches Playlist for Mom (sans anything from A Dove which isn't available on Spotify):

http://open.spotify.com/user/124420673/playlist/0iXz3aEWFAupPqmPaS3xD5

the TRUE first album, seductive reasoning, is by far the best IMO (I always think of ma nuit chez maud with that title). esp. the ballads.

lots of unexpected melodic twists in here. malachy's is great, so is down the dream.

if i had to place their sensibility i'd say the closest thing would be loudon wainwright III. he's an acquired taste too.

their albums are more fully developed musically imo. how could it be otherwise w/ those harmonies?

And of course, Loudon was with Suzzy for a long time and had a daughter with her.

ok, that I did _not_ know. it makes almost too much sense.

Yeah, their daughter is a singer-songwriter too, Lucy Wainwright-Roche. She's started recording, but U haven't heard her much yet (also performs with her Mom in the Mountain Stage archives).

Gotta say the first (trio) Roches album was the only thing that got me up and going to an early morning class I dreaded: as written, "Man on a Train"'s verses were so scared (next to a beer-drinking, NY Post-reading man, and wanting, somewhat desperately sounding, "to say, 'Let's have a party,' but I can't because I'm so afraid/Of the man on the train," and shoving into the chorus, "Once you get on, you can never get off/Of the commuter train," so why should that get my ass all the way to class? Admitting the need for company, fear of bridging gaps, and those harmonies rising up, taking me, and the singers' own hopes/fears---aw, it worked, every time, even though I did as badly in the class as prophesied (what the hell, I passed).
"Quitting Time" was real good too, the sound of freeedom; balancing "Man" and the one about "can I have my old job back"--- just about the whole LP was fine ( producer Fripp occasionally used a bit of his own guitar and Larry Fast's Synergy synth, thus maybe inventing folktronica in passing).

That first trio album is one of my favorite records of all time.

when we say the first trio album, we're talking about the one from 1979, fripp-produced?
i love the roches.

Yeah, that's the one I mean.

ok! i actually haven't heard that earlier duo LP -- worth seeking out?

& yeah, comparing loudon and the roches makes a lot of sense aesthetically to me. something about the almost self-sabotaging sense of humor (like a weird joke in the middle of what seems like an utterly serious song) that makes them totally fascinating/unique. probably what makes them an acquired taste too.

Yeah, it's good, and still around, though maybe as cut-out. Maggie and Terre took Paul Simon's class on songwriting, and then they made this (dunno if he helped 'em get a deal).

"seductive reasoning" LP was produced by simon/roy halee (sp?) and there are the same nice and oddball production touches you find on the first few paul simon solo LPs. like a glass harmonica coming in on the verses of one song. but not as inventive as the fripp production of the first proper "roches" album.

"west virginia" and "malachy" are for all time. lots of songs on that record about a young woman's emerging sexuality. à la wainwright, it mixes lyricism with funny frankness. amusingly distanced description of old boyfriends, etc.

Forgot Simon co-produced it. Speaking of Wainwrights and emergence, The McGarrigle Hour, from 1999, is a family get-together, with sonically amicable Loudie and Kate, Anna, maybe the recording debut of Rufus and Martha, plus other relatives and friends, incl. Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. Pretty, sometimes luvly, wry, contemplative, taking a turn with young Martha's epic "Year of The Dragon," written to/at Dad---reminds me of Sally and Don on Mad Men (last scenes of the latest ep notwithstanding).

Hello, does anybody know of the meaning of the Hammond Song? Also was there really a Mr. Sellack?

if you go down to Hammond…

Holy shit, that's an awesome performance.

i just heard "hammond song" for the first time. what a remarkable song. the odd lyrics and those harmonies playing around with the guitar Frippery. yum

Amazing song, definitely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h84PS-CQ6ag

Basically what Michael B posted in the last revive... I like the hip camp counsellor vibe. The harmonies are weird, unexpected, super-polished in places and clashy in others. Sometimes the girls sing the same notes, sometimes two drop out quite suddenly to leave just one. Other times they scatter and make the most beautiful sound. And yeah, Fripp just turns up and does his thing and it's like the future being beamed into a 1970s American kitchen.

"Hammond Song" is just the best. A magical song.

This song cannot be invoked without me listening to it like 3 or 4 times in a row.

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