Tune Tag #23 with Matt Madurski of "Chart Chat": Wings, Moody Blues, Lambrettas, Save Ferris, Mott the Hoople, The Vogues

👂Ear apparent: Spanning the globe, as well as several decades, Matt and I stretch Tune Tag to its aural limits...and, frankly, we couldn't be more proud!

Hey, Matt!

Tune Tag welcomes Matt Madurski of Substack’s Chart Chat

“I started Chart Chat in early 2023 following years of writing brief music posts and observations on my personal social media accounts. In real life, I’m in a second career as a pharmacist after spending more than 20 years working in newspapers and public relations.”

Matt continues: “Writing is my passion. I’ve loved music for even longer, influenced by friends, co-workers, and family, but most of all, my dad, who listened to the radio every morning in my house for years while I learned about his generation’s music by osmosis.

“I love writing about music and sharing my observations, and through Substack, I’ve been lucky enough to connect with so many people who share the same passions! Post-pandemic, I’m trying to live life to the fullest and enjoy every experience.

Matt’s personal mantras: “I hope I’m never too old to dive into a mosh pit,” and “If you’re not sweating when you’re having fun, you’re not having enough fun.”

Wow, Matt…..Brad’s personal mantras are remarkably similar: “I hope Matt’s never too old to dive into a mosh pit,” and “If you’re not sweating when you’re having fun, you’re likely enjoying Mitchum as your choice of underarm protection.”

Matt’s Song #1 sent to Brad: Save Ferris, “The World Is New,” 1997

Matt’s rationale: I initially considered starting with Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” from 1996 (featuring Dr. Dre), because it’s probably my all-time favorite track from the ‘90s, but I felt like rock/punk/ska/alternative was more in my wheelhouse, and what the handful of folks who follow my Chart Chat Substack would be most familiar with me writing about.

When Brad extended his invitation to Tune Tag, I was thinking about R.E.M. and my college-radio days, and Save Ferris immediately came to mind. They hit their peak during the busiest and most fun times in my collegiate life, and it just felt like the right jumping-off point. Plus, I might still have a slight crush on Monique Powell, who looked just as amazing when I saw her at Riot Fest in 2019 as she did back in the late ‘90s:

Brad’s Song #1 sent to Matt: The Lambrettas, “Da-a-a-nce,” 1980

Matt’s response: I told you at the outset that Brad’s operating on a doctoral level with his Substack, and so many of your Tune Tag contestants are also in that rarified air. I’m just a guy who likes what he hears on the radio and geeks out on Billboard charts who’s finally discovering songs that I know next to nothing about.

In other words, I’m doing basic math and you’re throwing applied calculus at me! So, when you sent me this curveball right off the bat, I wasn’t surprised, but also got very nervous. I didn’t want to fall flat on my face right at the start and concede defeat, so I scoured the internet for any connection I could make.

Did late Lambrettas vocalist Jez Bird (1957-2008) guest on a Save Ferris album? No. Did “The World Is New” make the track list on the out-of-print Dr. Martens Records’ Generation to Generation compilation 1997 album? No. Did he pick this band because their biggest hit, “Poison Ivy,” was a cover of an older popular song, in much the same way Save Ferris’s most popular song, Dexys Midnight Runners’ “Come On Eileen,” was a cover of an older popular song? No.

I’m sweatin’ bullets at this point, and found myself diving deep into weird ska mixes that overlapped with mod revival bands. I found some fun oddities, but nothing that made sense. And then I found it: Peter Collins not only produced the Save Ferris album, It Means Everything, which features “The World Is New,” but he also produced the first two Lambrettas albums, including Beat Boys in the Jet Age, with lead single, “D-a-a-ance.”

Brad’s rationale: Brit, Peter Collins, who indeed produced both albums, has a full resume, having produced records by Gary Moore, Bon Jovi, Billy Squier, Rush, Alice Cooper, Queensrÿche, Indigo Girls, Nanci Griffith, and Tracey Ullman, among others.

Matt’s song #2: Mood Six, "What Have You Ever Done?" 1986

Brad’s response: Both Mood Six and Lambrettas are from London?

Matt’s rationale: I wanted to do something that didn’t follow along the lines of a producer or guest artists to tag with my next song, so I started thinking a little outside the box and wanted to see if there were music videos that featured Lambrettas.

Not THE Lambrettas, but the Italian moped vehicles that bear the same name. There are a good number of videos that feature them and I really wanted to throw out New Radicals - “You Get What You Give,” but I felt like the connection there would have been too easy.

Instead, I kind of did a two-step thread: I saw that Lambrettas were featured in the Moody Blues video, “Your Wildest Dreams,” but discovered in researching the video that another band played the younger version of Moody Blues in the video. That band: Mood Six.

The “chef’s kiss” on this pick is Mood Six is linked to the same mod revival movement as The Lambrettas, so there were multiple threads to connect the two.

Brad’s song #2: The Moody Blues, “Your Wildest Dreams,” 1986

Matt’s response: I had a feeling this one was coming, and I was curious what angle you were going to take with the Mood Six choice, since I approached that selection from a couple of angles. I was pleased to see you went with that band’s “cameo” as the young Moody Blues in the video for “Your Wildest Dreams.”

I was trying to make a connection to the Lambretta, a brand of Italian motor scooter, and thought a fun angle would be to highlight a band’s song whose music video featured the Lambretta scooters. Having passed on “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals or “Good Thing” by Fine Young Cannibals or, best yet, the Moody Blues’ “Your Wildest Dreams,” I thought I’d toss in a curve ball and pick the band who played a younger version of them in the video: Mood Six. Excellent move, taking that tangential connection and turning it back on me!

Brad’s rationale: Mood Six actually play a young Moody Blues in this video.

Matt’s song #3: Paul McCartney and Wings, “Band on the Run,” 1974

Brad’s response: 13 years apart, another appearance by Tony Visconti, who produced the Moody Blues track. He also orchestrated the Wings track, with Paul producing.

Matt’s rationale: I don’t think I could go through an exercise like this and not consider including Paul McCartney, one of my all-time favorite artists. As I mentioned in my bio, my dad was also a big influence on my musical tastes, and he would always associate this song as one that I truly loved, so I’m glad to include it here for that reason.

But, I didn’t search out McCartney and Wings just because; it just happened to work out! I was initially going to link “Your Wildest Dreams” via the video’s director, Brian Grant, who directed so many great music videos over the years. (In an alternate timeline, I would have tagged you with XTC’s “Senses Working Overtime” and had a much different ending)!

Instead, I went with Tony Visconti, the producer of “Your Wildest Dreams.” But my curveball on this one was to highlight a track that Visconti worked on, but not necessarily as a producer. And in this case, Visconti worked on the orchestral score for the album "Band on the Run," including the flourishing, powerful orchestral number that accompanied the title track.

Brad’s song #3: Mott the Hoople, “Roll Away the Stone,” 1974

You don’t see this everyday: Live double-tracking! Forced to lip-synch by the Top of the Pops producers, not only do you see drummer, Buffin, wielding canoe paddles to paradiddle, you actually hear lead singer Ian Hunter singing over his own recorded voice into his open mic! Hey, if you can’t beat the staid system, play with it like a cat with a ball of yarn!

Matt’s response: I’m not sure this person played specifically on the individual tracks “Band on the Run” and “Roll Away the Stone,” but the link between the two albums containing these songs appears to be Howie Casey, who had one of the coolest jobs in all of music by being a “rock saxophonist.”

I’m a big believer in horn play in rock and roll, which is likely why so many of my favorite alt-rock songs and bands have some kind of horn component to them. I have heard of Mott the Hoople, but admit I’m a little bit behind the times on the band’s successes, but thought this was a great link with “Band on the Run” and led me to a really fun final pick.

Matt’s song #4: The Vogues, “Magic Town,” 1966

Brad’s response: I’m struggling to find a connection for the Mott song and this great Vogues song, written (and co-produced) by Barry Mann and the late Cynthia Weil. However, there is a Barry Mann connection to exclusive FR&B content provider, singer/songwriter/recording artist, Stephen Michael Schwartz, and songwriter/friend of FR&B and subscriber, Jay Asher, as can be discovered here:

Matt’s rationale: My dad passed away in 2021 due to complications from a lifetime of smoking, and on the day after his passing I posted “Magic Town” on my personal social medias, and commented on the beauty of the song while acknowledging it was one of Dad’s favorite songs.

Even now, listening to it makes me a little bit misty-eyed. But again, my goal wasn’t to pick a song and then find the link from your song to that choice. As it turned out, though, research led me down a very wonderful rabbit hole…So here we go: Mott the Hoople’s lead singer, Ian Hunter, wrote a track as a solo artist called “England Rocks”:

That song would later be turned into “Cleveland Rocks,” which Hunter said was always about Cleveland: “I originally wrote ‘Cleveland Rocks’ for Cleveland. I changed it later to ‘England Rocks’ because I thought it should be a single somewhere, and Columbia/CBS Records wouldn’t release it as a single in the U.S. (too regional).

“‘Cleveland Rocks’ is Cleveland’s song and that’s the truth.” From there, I followed “Cleveland Rocks” to Cleveland Rocks! Music from The Drew Carey Show, a soundtrack that featured a previous Drew Carey Show theme song: “Five O’Clock World” by The Vogues, from their 1966 album of the same name.

The last track of that album, “Humpty Dumpty,” was the B-side to the “Magic Town” single. “Magic Town” peaked at #21 on the Hot 100 the week ending April 9, 1966, but will always be a #1 hit in my mind because of my dad.

Brad: That, my friend, was a Herculean stretch to connect Mott to The Vogues! But, it was organic, well-conceived, thorough, and most importantly, Tune-Tag-legal! Oh, and last, but far from least…..it had heart. Thank you, Matt.

Brad’s song #4: Mama Cass, “It’s Getting Better,” 1969

Live vocal, synching to track (The Mike Douglas Show, Philadelphia, circa 1970):

Matt’s response: I love your Tune Tags because they teach me so much. I sometimes forget that music goes through many stylistic iterations, but a sizable chunk of it is taking an original idea and interpolating it in different ways. The ‘60s as a musical era was big on this, with so many original songs getting covered and re-covered to the point where you didn’t realize the most popular version of a song is not necessarily the first version of that song. So I was both surprised and not surprised to see that “Magic Town” was originally performed by Jody Miller, who did a good job with it!

Upon discovering this, I also noted another truism of music, both in the ‘60s and for all time: Artists often don’t write their own music, which is what led me to discover the original team who wrote “Magic Town,” Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.

And while you could have tagged out with a bunch of really great tracks from that writing pair, you decided to go full circle with The Vogues and highlight “It’s Getting Better,” a deep-cut album track for them in 1968 (from their Turn Around, Look at Me album on Reprise/Warner Bros.) that became a #30 Hot 100 hit for Mama Cass in 1969. (Fun aside: If there was a fifth round of this game, I would have followed with her cover of Mann & Weil’s “Make Your Own Kind of Music” just to point to the connection between the two tracks in the TV show Lost from the 2000s.)

Thanks again for the invite and the fun time, Brad! If the opportunity presents itself again, I would love to do this again sometime!