The Cars - C or D/S&D

Years ago I wondered if Ocasek was gonna be one of those music upon whose death we'll learn that he had $100 million in the bank.

I mean, wouldn't be surprised! All those Bad Brains points.

Quick little google estimated that he was maybe worth $80 million. (Same site said he and Porizkova were separated ... )

yes last year she said that they had been separated for a year up to that point…their home is in Gramercy park, and the park part of Gramercy park is only accessible to residents as such, which he and I also discussed. For years after my interview, I would see him all the time in the radius of 23rd st to Houston. I saw him and one of his strikingly handsome sons purchasing a college prep text; I saw him all the time at the Virgin Megastore on 14th st, and I often saw him going to Electric Lady Studios, which was next to the video rental spot that had the best porn collection in town…

what a peculiar tune…

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

Esp. the cowboy music stuff!

and I never heard these two songs until preparing for my interview and the second has since remained my fave…I think Alfred and Rob Tannenbuam were remiss to not include it in their thangs…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzDmo1LVLsc

Hey, I wrote about the solo years.

the publishing for the Cars music, which is played all the goddamn time on classic rock, 80s-era oldies, has to be substantial, probly not staggering. His music has never gone away, he did not appear to have invested unwisely, lived in a fancy neighborhood in NYC but did not appear to have expensive lifestyle and habits…he did smoke…he and I did throughout our talk…

There's a great anecdote re:Lange in the notes to the Rhino anthology about one day wherein he just called Orr in early one morning to track bass parts. The rest of the stayed in, watching TV, reading, playing games etc. until their call, which never came. Orr finally came back late that night. When asked what he and Lange had got done, he replied, "Well, we started to get a good sound..."

From JL's final interview a couple hours before he was killed:

YOKO: “But, music-wise, even… music is just a format, and we’re adding many different formats and that’s interesting. But New Wave is gonna be old one day, too… ”
JOHN: “Old hat, any minute… ”
YOKO: “The minute it’s out there and its number one, that means that it’s old hat, you know? And I think it’s nice to discover all different forms of music and that’s nice. But, at the same time, that doesn’t meant that the old form doesn’t mean anything. In fact, if a young-generation person picked up a very old form – like Elvis, or something – and did it, you wouldn’t call it ‘he’s mellowing’… ”
JOHN: “I’ll give you a for-instance: Bruce Springsteen’s Hungry Heart – which I think is a great record – is, to me… it’s the same kind of period-sound as Starting Over. I think The Cars’ Touch and Go is right out of the fifties ‘Oh, oh… ‘ A lot of it is fifties stuff. But with eighties styling, but, but… and that’s what I think Starting Over is; it’s a fifties song made with an eighties approach.”

yeah in the audio he mimics the "Oh, oh oh" quite well.

Except the verses are 100% '80s. What did John think of Roxy Music, probably the standard (and for sure key template for the Cars) for subverting the sounds of the '50s as kitsch by way of the future?

Let's ask him.

http://www.megancrewe.com/blogpics/ouija.jpg

lol

“John? Go ahead, you’re on the line...”

When I say I nearly passed out from laughing... pic.twitter.com/TJgpLocqrL

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) September 16, 2019

lol For some reason reminds me of that classic Police Squad line (one of the funniest gags of all time), where they show up to the grieving widow and apologetically tell her "We would have come sooner, ma'am, but your husband wasn't dead yet."

Speaking of the Cars and Roxy, I've got to assume Roxy had the Cars in mind when they did this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm84LZF66_w

for sure

I asked him if Roxy was important to him, and he said no, he didn't even listen to 'em. I have to think he liked them a whole bunch, that the band was modeled on Roxy, but he had to have been sensitive about how clearly this was so, didn't like frequent questions as such and so denied it.

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/09/how-ric-ocasek-met-paulina-porizkova-and-the-80s-videos?fbclid=IwAR1SuwhYak9lykkyPm-U-DOjcFVb0lVC_4tsQ_yM_NvJEAC9pidHtwk69Uk

re: two assertions in the above: 1.) I know that the other guy who wore a hair piece in the Cars was Easton 2.) It sez that Ocasek and Orr fell out. I don't know why, but I wonder if it was "look man, I'm the one who sings the romantic songs, I look good in the videos sucking my cheeks in, I'm a star, we need to do my songs, like 'Stay the Night"" (which suck ass) "and I need more say." And then maybe Ocasek said "fuck this, I don't need this."

wasn't Orr kind of a wreck?

Was he? Drunks and drink?

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/the-cars-door-to-door-album/ gets into it.

I have to think he liked them a whole bunch, that the band was modeled on Roxy

huh this has never occurred to me. I don't really hear it tbh.

there's some obvious parallels (synths + art school rock + hot shit guitarist) but idk Roxy seems so quintessentially British and abstract, whereas The Cars were *funny*

I hear the Velvets more than I hear Roxy

Yeah the connection is more widely aesthetic than specifically musical. They drew on many similar points of reference, but recombined them very differently.

T. Rex and Berlin--era Iggy too.

there are clear vocal similarities between ferry and ocasek, but it's definitely plausible that ric arrived at his vocal style by way of buddy holly and bypassed ferry. he was older than ferry after all.

I only hear the VU more or less the way I hear them in a hundred bands of the time (or before, incl. in Roxy). But Roxy, that's a more rarified influence, esp. before the British new wave got to them. I brought them up because of that John Lennon quote re: the Cars as '50s rockers, but really they reflect what Roxy did, too: take kind of "corny" old rock and roll influences and futurize/contemporize them (in a way that, say, Springsteen - also praised by Lennon back there - didn't). But beyond the po-mo music there are a lot of circumstantial comparisons, too, from the emphasis on stage look/fashion (as dictated by David Robinson), or the pinups on the covers. And a tall, striking aloof leader ... though Ferry was a mere 6'1" to Ocasek's 6'4"!

xpost Ferry is 73, that's only a hair younger than Ocasek.

Of course Ric's fave Suicide was into (literally) synthesizing the 50's, too. But "Candy-o" is a pretty undeniably Roxy like song.

We shouldn't take the Lennon quote seriously beyond what he was trying to say, "Hey, '(Just Like) Starting Over' is cool! There's contemporary stuff that sounds like it!"

it's definitely plausible that ric arrived at his vocal style by way of buddy holly and bypassed ferry. he was older than ferry after all.

I mean yeah this seems like a given? I can’t imagine why or how an American rocker who grew up in the 50s would be more indebted to Bryan Ferry than Buddy Holly

Possibly because he was posing? I mean, there were plenty of late 70s contemporaries of his that sounded like Buddy Holly!

VM, as far as odd production moments, did you and Ric talk about:

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

Well, I guess I hear Roxy more clearly than you guys…to me, it is more than plausible that he was paying attention to shit that was going on in the UK in the 70s…and after trying a few projects with Orr that failed to take off, Roxy would be a band that he would see and think "I can do an american version of that," rather than being inspired by ZZ Top or Jackson Browne (has anyone heard Milkwood?). But I see what you guys are saying, and he certainly said to me that they weren't important to him and instead talked about how much he was into post Stooges Iggy and VU.

idk if Ferry ever tried to be funny, but there are so many sly and/or goofy moments in the Cars' canonical material from the just-posted throat click to the "but she used to be mine!" kicker in "Best Friend's Girl" to all the silly videos

no we did not discuss that…I don't think I ever noticed that bit much…

"and wasting all my time time" from "Just What I Needed" echoes that odd usage in lines from "Sister Ray" (& "Cool It Now").

I could have sworn some I read critic at the time taking issue with the "time time" thing, for some reason. I assumed it was Christgau, so looked up his reviews ... which mentions Roxy Music a couple of times. "That accentuated detachment may feel like a Roxy Music move in the first flush of studio infatuation, but schlock it up a little and this band really could turn into an American Queen," in the review of the first album. "They've always basked in the shadow of Roxy Music, too," in the review of "Shake It Up."

(Heh, look at that jumble. Should have been "I could have sworn I read some critic at the time ...")

before youtube, I had not seen a lot of footage of the band, so I got this Rhino DVD of them playing the first record in I guess 78 or 79, maybe it was Rockpalast? 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. Although maybe he absolutely wanted to take part in this deeply uncomfortable interview situation, and maybe those guys would have been awkward around each other anyway…

love this performance. greg going ham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmGkuiC9hM4

ocasek on his fallout with orr:

Ben and I had a real cold war going that lasted about 23 years. I could never really figure out exactly why, but I think there was a lot of jealousy because I wrote the songs and I got a lot of attention. And there was all kinds of weird stuff, like he said, “My girlfriend writes songs, let’s use one of those or two of those.” I said, “No, that’s not the Cars.”

[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!