The Cars - C or D/S&D

Hence his production work on their second album?

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.

Actually though - I did have Heartbeat City a long time ago. I forgot about that.

Me too. And there aren't many vocalists who could have delivered such perfectly-judged performances to a pair of songs as stylistically diverse as Just What I Needed and Drive. Props to Ocasek too, for having humility enough to hand over his two finest compositions to another guy to sing.

That Milkwood album is so weird. I keep listening to it and wondering how it's possible that you can't hear one single atom of similarity between it and anything the Cars ever did.

DRIVE = fucking amazing. anyone who thinks otherwise is flat out insane.

What is that song about, anyway?

Yeah I think "Drive" is my favorite song of theirs (fwiw I only know the singles).

I think it might be even better if it was in Japanese and sung in that really overwrought style like the guy from Hyde sings in.

I love synth gunk but "Drive" is too gunky.

buddy of mine once told me about a Cars non-album b-side, maybe from heartbeat city, that was awesome. i've googled around and got nothin'...by any chance does anybody know the title of what i'm talkin' about?

meant "heartbeat city era", sorry

xxxpost it's about who's going to drive you home. tonight.

because it won't be the dude singing the song, and he's sad about that, but maybe dodged a bullet too, because baby's a handful. or at least he's trying to convince himself of that. maybe she's headed for a crash, or maybe he just hopes she is. depends on who left whom, and that's unresolved in the lyric.

/songmeanings

Loved it when we saw the photos of dead Ethiopian babies accompanying this track at Live Aid.

buddy of mine once told me about a Cars non-album b-side, maybe from heartbeat city, that was awesome. i've googled around and got nothin'...by any chance does anybody know the title of what i'm talkin' about?

― KC & the sunshine banned (outdoor_miner), Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:18 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

Discogs lists a bunch of singles, there is a remix version and a dub version of "Hello Again" and one track I don't know (not on LP, but there are other B-sides w/older material) called "Breakaway" on the B-side of "Why Can't I Have You"

http://www.discogs.com/Cars-Why-Cant-I-Have-You/master/69679

They just posted a clip of a new song "Blue Tip" on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=445115559565&comments&ref=mf

It's not bad, methinks.

I'm enjoying the new one, as well. Not surprising--I really liked "Nexterday," and that was only five years ago.

That's Rundgren singing, right?

No, that's Ocasek.

Hunh! Hi voice doesn't sound the same, even if the melody and delivery recognizably him. It is good.

...His voice...

i don't know much about The Cars, was Ric Ocasek the usual singer? or was it the Drive guy? i wonder what Ric O made of 'the other guy' singing the big radio smash?

Ocasek and Orr traded off pretty regularly, and each had a number of hits under their belts (Orr sang "Just What I Needed" as well, fwiw). I don't think the lack of variety will really weigh down this reunion too much, because there were many times when you couldn't tell for sure who actually was singing a particular song.

this is pretty dope

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

Synth-pop pioneers or a dollar store Talking Heads? YOU make the call!

are they one thing they aren't or another thing they aren't? you make the call!

How amazing that Rik Ocasek got married to the girl in the DRIVE video.

Other brilliant thing about The Cars: at Nirvana's last ever gig, they started with this:

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

:'(

Just posted another clip of a new one, "Sad Song": http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=473649429565&oid=189146859928&comments

They're 2-for-2 now, and I'm actually looking forward to this album.

wow, that's a cool Nirvana video. Totally unexpected, and damn, I miss Kurt Cobain's voice.

Another new clip of a song named "Free": http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=489559699565&oid=189146859928&comments

That's 3-for-3.

Also, here's the album cover I guess?

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/180546_10150109654249929_189146859928_6032173_2167932_n.jpg

so old

It's out May 10th, apparently.

Man, why did they have to wait after that New Cars nonsense to do this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpJQWGA1O8s

Reminds me of
http://cdn.sheknows.com/articles/crave/electric-company-silhouette.jpg

hm.

it's . . . flat.

Flat, really? I think it sounds pretty good for a band who last recorded together in 1987. I mean, it's at least as good as last year's Devo record.

i thought that one devo song had a lot more pep-in-its-step.

i mean, i agree this new cars' song is "pretty good for a band who last recorded together in 1987." it's okay; just kind of flat-sounding.

Sounding flat is nothing I would hold against The Cars. The bridge here isn't quite flat enough. I like this more than Heartbeat City stuff.

I do like the idea of the Cars sound being the Cars sound, and not just the sound of the band beholden to '80s tech. Like, this is the way they were made to sound, no matter the decade. It just so happened that lots of other new wave bands in the late '70s and '80s sounded this way, too.

Another new video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxqxNzlEFM4

Definitely looking forward to this album - these tracks are sounding good enough to have a small level of excitement over, at least.

What's up with them not actually showing face in any of these new videos though? They seem to be going out of their way to not appear in the videos even when they're actually appearing in the videos.

It is kind of weird, but maybe they're just vain and want people to remember them young (not that any of them besides Orr were ever attractive in the first place).

Yeah, I wondered about that - maybe they're trying to appeal to a younger demographic that knows all the modern bands that are ripping off the Cars but don't actually know the Cars themselves and that they're old men now? Originally I was wondering if it was some shady "hey it's not really the band you remember but Elliot Easton and some sidemen of varying levels of fame" type of New Cars bullshit.

I like the new song! Sounds like Arcade Fire covering the Cars (though I like Arcade Fire a lot more than most people here, I think.)

in that 'in touch with your world' live video, what's that can opener type instrument the mega nerd guy with glasses is playing?

stupendously shit editing in that video btw

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-listen-the-cars-first-album-in-24-years-20110503

After one listen, I'd give the album a "B". As far as unexpected reunion albums go, though, I'd give it an "A+".

I'm gonna declare "Drag on Forever" an all-time Cars track. Sketching out the perils of longterm cohabitation with Porizkova provides Cohenesque levels of zen dissatisfaction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nE4p5yeAHA

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/LDXKZxaqxgQ/hqdefault.jpg

Holy Shit!

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/LDXKZxaqxgQ/hqdefault.jpg

https://pitchfork.com/news/the-cars-ric-ocasek-dead-at-75/amp/

:-(

This guy was immense, and I hope our obits do him justice. The Cars defined New Wave in the best sense: chords and harmonies recognizable to Foreigner fans, but with music indebted to Roxy Music and Wire.

Master of hooks, architect of one of the best guitar sounds in existence. RIP

gutted by this. such a genius. ugh.

Ah shit. Truly one of the great ones.

“Magic” isn’t supposed to make me cry goddammit

The way the drums hit on “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight” >>>

Worth remembering that when they showed the clip of ‘Drive’ cut to footage of children affected by famine during the British Live Aid gig, more telephone donations came in at that point than at any other time during the show. Having seen it a few days earlier via his manager, Bowie was so shocked and touched by the clip he supposedly insisted on dropping one of his planned songs (‘Five Years’) just so they could fit it in the running order. An extraordinary thing to have played a part in.

I've got to admit, not someone I ever thought about dying before. He seemed perpetually in his 30s. Hitting pretty hard.

he was 75! Amazing.

The Cars will be forever linked in my mind with the summer of 1978. I got fired from my radio job in part because I kept deviating from the playlist to include “Just What I Needed.” It sounded like the future of pop music to me.

I've been going through a lot of my vinyl in the last few months which included listening to the first four Cars albums. It was such a joy to hear them all again. I'm always blown away by how many hooks and ideas they crammed into every song. Incredible playing too. Some days I think Touch & Go is the best song ever made.

RIP Ric

I karaoke'd "Just What I Needed" to my wife on one of our first dates (and yes I know Ben sang it but Ric wrote it).

Cars had a pretty obviously great sound and hooks but Ric is an underrated vocalist. Distinctive and perfect for what they were trying to do. RIP

Was just checking wiki, and kind of surprised how many Ben vox I thought were Ric.

RIP good sir.

This RS piece is so goddamn good

Jon Pareles' definitive Cars profile from Rolling Stone in 1979, which Kevin Dettmar and Jonathan Lethem were smart to include in their recent American rock-writing anthology. R.I.P., Ric, whose unassailable cool was also unassailably inclusive. https://t.co/YO3qRobfjg

— Michaelangelo Matos (@matoswk75) September 16, 2019

I got fired from my radio job in part because I kept deviating from the playlist to include “Just What I Needed.”

On the contrary, it was the playlist that was deviating from playing "Just What I Needed" over and over again

:( . That first album is perfection.

(I didn't realize he was that old btw. Born four years before Robert Plant.)

oh for fuck's sake

Candy-O was the 2nd record I ever bought

RIP

https://theweek.com/articles/861750/coming-death-just-about-every-rock-legend

divesting news, for me it was Hreatbeat City as it was one of the very first albums i ever owned.

RIP

Always been a fan but somehow had no idea he produced the 2nd Suicide album (and a lot of their other group and solo albums)

Ocasek was really in the tank for Suicide. He demanded they appear on the ep of The Midnight Special The Cars hosted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=corytlfEB9c

Rest in peace. I remember seeing Suicide play in NYC sometime in the early '90s, Ocasek trying to be inconspicuous playing ( if I recall ) bass in the background. Hecklers called out for Cars songs.

I interviewed him in 1997 when he was promoting the record for which he was working with Billy Corgan, Melissa auf der Maur, Ira Elliott: "you have to choose: reform the Cars or have hot diarrhea for a week" with no hesitation whatsoever, he chose the latter.

And yet he did eventually reform the the Cars, so clearly hot diarrhea for a week made a negative impression.

Even that RS piece got who sand "Just What I Needed" wrong. When I saw that reunion tour, I was surprised/impressed to see Hawkes playing bass on "Touch & Go."

I enjoyed his work on the jonathan Richman Album "I'm So COnfused"

Ocasek trying to be inconspicuous

lol

RIP.

The combo of incredibly catchy songs and me being 7-8 years old means I have lots of misheard Cars lyrics in my head:

She's got nuclear food

And a risky mouth

She doesn't like the Jews

on that note, one of my small favorite things about living in NYC in the 90s was just how often I would bump into Ric Okasek and his wife* walking around lower Park Ave. It happened a lot more often than you’d think! They seemed nice and, like Ric, she was also very tall and they seemed like a good couple.

*Polish supermodel Paulina Porizkova, for whom it turns out just walking next to Ric Okasek was an effective public disguise, like wearing a nose and glasses or something.

uh, “that note” being ric Okasek trying to be inconspicuous. not whatever just happened in that xpost lol

I bought the second Suicide album when it was new w/o hearing it, didn't like it, and sold it back almost immediately. Today the production sheen Ric gave it, along with a dose of Ze Records disco, is sounding so good to me.

man, Candy-O is so tight.

Prince agreed!

https://youtu.be/gEjtGkDekv0

as a producer (on cars albums and others), he was great at finding punchy guitar and synth sounds, but his real superlative skill was arrangement. Each song had a full sound, and each instrument had room to operate. the most obvious example imo is in the guitar/synth interplay on 'bye bye love', but on pretty much every early cars song, every instrument is doing something interesting. and in the moments there isn't a vocal hook, there's a musical hook to bring you right back in.

Not to downgrade his prowess, but Roy Thomas Baker and Mutt Lange are two of the most hands-on producers of all time, so he should probably share credit with them. That said, no less than Jack Nietzsche cited "Drive" as an example of a perfectly arranged song.

xpost Wow, listening to that Prince cover, it really does sound like it could have been a Prince song, doesn't it? Shades of "Raspberry Beret," "Manic Monday," "Take Me With You" ...

yeah I was thinking that too. You can really hear shades of the Cars and Gary Numan in that early-80s Prince stuff.

Funny cameo here:

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/33tv9j/the-colbert-report-paulina-porizkova

I wish they'd ended with what I consider the apotheosis of their late sound. I suppose no one blames them for Door to Door, which just doesn't exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlfH1SR0mnc

That song is so good, and (as we've discussed) one of the rare tracks added to a best-of collection that truly deserves to be there.

lol what a great video

that Easton solo is a corker!

For a famously uncharismatic live performer and an awkward, gawky, gangly-looking dude, Ric sure seemed to be having fun in a lot of their videos.

that Easton solo is a corker!

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, September 16, 2019

he's up there master of getting in, getting the job done, and getting out. a much chopsier mike campbell and i mean that as high praise. his solo on "it's all i can do" is monstrous.

If I didn't already have an SG (and if I liked the one I have, lol) I would totally get the Elliot Easton signature model. It's a beaut:

https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s--39PXY8t4--/a_exif,c_limit,e_unsharp_mask:80,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_south,h_620,q_90,w_620/v1404760354/vdawsgcibe69vwrfdwzp.jpg

BTW, I think I mentioned it before, but years ago I joined twitter just to ask Elliot Easton why "Best Friend's Girl" (talk about a guitar solo!) was in F on the recorded version but often (or always?) played in E live, and he wrote back and told me it was recorded in E but Roy Thomas Baker just varispeeded the whole thing up!

Huh, I had no idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikkhmkAH72U

Final show.

lol wtf @ that solo Kurt plays there

For a famously uncharismatic live performer and an awkward, gawky, gangly-looking dude, Ric sure seemed to be having fun in a lot of their videos.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, September 16, 2019 10:45 AM (two minutes ago)

the thing is that Ric was a classically good looking guy who, over time, cultivated his look as a form of expression.

1963: https://i.imgur.com/bGQq0PY.png

1976: https://vanyaland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/TheCars_CreditJeffAlbertsonviaRockHall.jpg

and then came the teased out helmet hair, the mirrored aviators & turquoise suits, etc.

I remember seeing Elliot Easton's solo LP in record stores, but never heard it.

https://i.ibb.co/ZLtTh85/MI0001495989.jpg

he looked a bit like Nick Cave at times, especially in the late 70’s

Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl)
Posted: September 15, 2019 at 9:25:14 PM
“Magic” isn’t supposed to make me cry goddammit

Oh yes it is ;_;

Instagram post from Paulina
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2e8mMWB2Ft

Peacefully while asleep at home with family around seems pretty ideal, really.

I have been humming Car songs all day to myself despite not hearing those songs for years. Anyway, I wear to Target today and they played "You Might Think" and wondered to myself, how many people in this store knows why they are playing this today?

don't have a lot to add of substance other than he seemed to be a force for good in music, both in his own creativity and craftsmanship and that he seemed to have an ear for others work and tried to help them realize it

Damn that sucks that it was post surgical and unanticipated. Also that final doodle posted by his kid <3

"but Roy Thomas Baker and Mutt Lange are two of the most hands-on producers of all time,"

he and I discussed the differences between his process and theirs in 1997. He said something like "Mutt Lange will spend weeks and tons of $$$ trying to mic one single drum this way and that to find the sound he wants, and there's no reason to do that," or maybe it was "I don't want to do that, because its still going to sound the same." additionally, he told me that the backing vox heard on "Drive" "Magic" "You might Think" and the rest of Heartbeat City are all Mutt, which I had previously inferred, but he pointed out that those creamy. plush vox Mutt liked to do wouldn't have sounded right on Back in Black… the backing vox on Pyromania are the Def Lep guys, whereas he couldn't get the Cars guys to sound like that…on the other hand RTB did get the Cars guys to do those great gang vox all over the first Cars record…

Is there a link or pdf anywhere to your piece vm

no, it was Time out NY, no archive as such. I do have it some place in my basement tho! memory serves, the production shit didn't make it into the piece…

I did read something similar in a TapeOp interview with Roy Thomas Baker. They asked him about working with a relatively stripped down band like the Cars after working with an ott act like Queen for so long, and he brought up the backing vocals as a similarity. He noted that yeah, the music itself is pretty spare compared to Queen, but the vocals are typically stacked the same way.

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!

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.

Surely somebody here besides me done read the Janovitz book!

Ocasek was so so bad to Easton, Robinson, his two children with his first wife…goddamn, he was real bad to everyone! Very selfish with songwriting credit, one of 'em who thinks that coming up with a four chord progression indistinguishable from other four chord progressions, but with very vague, imagistic lyrics, makes him "the writer," and the guys that add hooks and textures ain't shit.

I also guess that in the 80s, a multi platinum band like the Cars could get away with flying commercial from city to city on tour? it seems insanely expensive; does anyone know if anyone below the Beyonce/taylor tier does this now?

Yeah, I read most of the book but bailed before the end. Ocasek was a real bastard, a Kim Fowley-level grasper and hustler. (Also, only a year younger than Mick Jagger!)

The Cars flew from gig to gig? Of all the bands to do that!

haha

I mean, Lynyrd Skynrd flew also? tons of bands did.

ya know what's fucking great? the Greg Hawkes solo LP. I wish I liked the Orr one, but I don't. never heard the Ocasek solo recs.

the first two Ocasek solo records sound quite a lot like the Greg Hawkes album imo, just with Ocasek's vocals on top. Hawkes played on both of them and is credited as co-writer of a single track on each.

Elliot Easton's solo album is really good, kind of sounds like if the Cars had been a full-on power pop group.

good to know, thx!

Skynnyrd were not flying commercial on that fateful trip… I spose by multi-platinum major label 80s standards, flying commercial isn't that stupidly lavish, but the standard then and now would have been the bus… touring via private aircraft was then and is now only for the ultra elite…

now, sure. then, idk. I mean, Buddy Holly?

Bar-Kays?

Haven't read it yet but everything I've heard about Ocasek's general bastardry is making me go "Hm...of course he would be the guy who boosted Weezer."

the first two Ocasek solo records sound quite a lot like the Greg Hawkes album imo, just with Ocasek's vocals on top. Hawkes played on both of them and is credited as co-writer of a single track on each.

Elliot Easton's solo album is really good, kind of sounds like if the Cars had been a full-on power pop group.

The first Ocasek album sports "Jimmy Jimmy," one of the best songs he's ever written. The second (the one with "Emotion in Motion," his only hit) sounds like a Cars album circa 1986; it's eerie how he got sessioneers to ape the band's sound without a hitch.

"Jimmy Jimmy,"

second best "jimmy jimmy" song of the '80s!

Elliot Easton's solo album is really good

disagree strongly, it sounds like what i imagine Joe Bonamassa's music sounds like, just very white BLOOZE like a whole album on the "money for nothing" Dire Straits vibe lol but "Shayla" is good

but even that song is lacking a really good chorus, or verse depending on how you hear the song. idk, the more i explore the solo albums the more it feels like they all needed each other to achieve great heights consistently

I have a weakness for CVS favorite Benjamin Orr's "Stay the Night."

not to pardon ocasek of assholery, but

'do the collapse' is good not bad

otm

_"Jimmy Jimmy,"_

second best "jimmy jimmy" song of the '80s!

my ben orr solo pick is "skyline"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjdoxRxnwSg

i listened to the second record today. for me it's such a precipitous drop from the first one (although to be fair the first Cars record is basically a perfect record). but idk, there just isn't much there for me. "Since I Held You" is an interesting window into a Big Arpeggio/Byrds-y power pop direction they might've gone, but even there the chorus fails to deliver. i'm in the mood to be spending more time with this band and the solo records but between this and the Easton solo album it's not an auspicious start

idk I hear no drop-off at all b/w the debut and Candy-O. "Double Life"? "Dangerous Type"? "Let's Go"? "Lust For Kicks"?

Not to mention "It's All I Can Do", which is every bit as masterful as any single from the first LP.

I definitely prefer the debut, it will always be the great Cars LP for me, but Candy-O is no disappointment either - plenty of top shelf stuff on there, and on par with Heartbeat City as potentially their next best album.

Candy-O isn't as good as the debut (very few albums are), but "Let's Go" might be my favorite Cars song.

Some of the backing vocals on the debut get too emphatic for me.

i loved hearing that the reason for those harmonies on the debut was they chose queen’s producer. i never would have guessed the influence but it’s obvious after you hear that. candy-o and panorama are an interesting pair. apart from let’s go, no power pop classics but very solid and a bit darker and snakier than the debut. candy is the cats album i reach for, it’s not just not overplayed but it’s power pop with restless wandering lyrics that don’t resolve into much but feel impressionistic almost like vampire weekend.

I'd say "Candy-O" and "Dangerous Type" and "Let's Go" are power pop classics insofar as the term means a thing.

I would recommend "Gimme some Slack" off of Panorama as a shockingly potent, indisputable high point for the band for them familiar only with the hits and the debut…

One detail from the book that comes up repeatedly is Easton's disdain for Devo, Kraftwerk, and other new wave and new wave-ish acts that very clearly are severed from blues/rock traditions. He doesn't like that stuff, doesn't like the cars being associated as such, and has a boomer dullard's insistence on the primacy of blues/roots, almost Marsh-esque in his insistence. Whereas Hawkes, who could have passed for a member of Devo but for his bowl haircut, loves Devo and Kraftwerk… in some video related to their RRHoF induction which I can't find, he mentions that he saw the band's peers/competitors as Devo, the Police, talking Heads and the Pretenders.

that's interesting wrt Devo because they started out as a kind of blues-rock band, and there are early versions of a lot of their synthy/new-wave songs that are basically blues rock - I think of Devo as less severed from the 'blues/rock tradition' than the Cars tbh (maybe severed then surgically reattached? prosthetic blues?)

Easton surely would have preferred that The Cars be Cap'n Swing 2.0.

I've a friend who adores Panorama, claims it's their best.

Excellent Janovitz interview. Didn't know this:

Ben had everything he could have needed to be a big solo star. Why do you think that didn’t happen?

There’s a couple of prongs here. He was starting to go through his personal struggles with substances and emotional issues, which were obviously tied together. There was his satisfaction with being in the Cars and his role there, but he did want to start writing more. Ric was never going to let that happen, as Ric himself said. And he was certainly not going to let Ben write lyrics.

I talked to a publicist who was working with the Cars, and then specifically on Ben’s record for Elektra. And he was like, “They pulled the plug on it at some point.” And more than a few people think that Elektra pulled the plug from pressure from Ric and Elliot Roberts. I think it was like, “We got to bring this guy down a peg. Otherwise he might get too big.”

I don’t want to get too conspiratorial because I don’t have evidence of that, but I do have evidence that they said, “We don’t like this video, this last video. Record’s over.”

Janovitz quotes various sources opining that Orr was like Elvis, a natural talent who often needed only one take, a guy who could get laid without any effort whatsoever, but dumb and particularly indulgent. He wrote "Stay the Night" and the other songs from The LAce (uggh, you gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me) with his wife at the time, and in that case, I don't think Ocasek was wrong to say that no way were they gonna write for the Cars.

I read a Rob Tannenbaum interview with Orr in a Musician from early '87 and he came across as charming but dim.

I hear "Stay the Night" at least once a week in Publix or CVS.

I've a friend who adores Panorama, claims it's their best.

I'm another one who's on the record here for preferring Panorama. It was recorded right after Ocasek produced the second Suicide album and that sound reflected back on The Cars in a way I really like.

ne detail from the book that comes up repeatedly is Easton's disdain for Devo, Kraftwerk, and other new wave and new wave-ish acts that very clearly are severed from blues/rock traditions. He doesn't like that stuff, doesn't like the cars being associated as such, and has a boomer dullard's insistence on the primacy of blues/roots, almost Marsh-esque in his insistence

Unsurprisingly, Easton was the guitarist for the Cook/Clifford Creedence Clearwater Revisited band for many years

I hadn't heard about the Janovitz book until I saw mention of it here, but I hastened to purchase it immediately. It's really compelling! There's a grim fascination in following the tale of how Ric Ocasek assembled a quartet of brilliant musicians who could bring his modest demos to vivid life, and then proceeded to systematically belittle and ostracize them for years, to the point that they were all relieved when he called time on the band.

David Robinson's anecdote about Ric telling Ben - his oldest friend - that his solo album "stunk", is like reading about someone kicking a puppy. None of this detracts from Ocasek's immense talent as a songwriter, but it's hard to disagree with Elaine Hawkes' verdict: "What an asshole."

yeah it's really sad, they could have been even better than they were

btw the Greg Hawkes solo album is totally great, if anyone itt has not heard it