Tune Tag #38 with Britta Pejic, Pt. 2: Small Faces, Stereophonics, Darlene Love, The Crystals, and Britta's Original Songs!
A Tune Tag first! Singer/songwriter, Britta, will only be sending me songs she wrote and performed! I have all of recorded history from which to cull songs I send her! Enjoy Britta's new EP here, too!
Hi, Britta! Wag, You’re It!
Tune Tag proudly welcomes back singer/songwriter,of BrittaRiffindots!
Last week,
of AnEarful Tune Tagged with us! Find that here.Next week,
of Penny Kiley’s music writing takes her Tune Tag turn!👉Tune into Britta’s first Tune Tag foray from back in September:
FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE is also proud to celebrate the release of Britta’s brand new EP, She Ate My Red Glasses (linked elsewhere in this Tune Tag)!
🎉TODAY’S TUNE TAG BONUS: We shuffled the deck of Tune Tag cards, had each participant pick one, and Brad drew the Tune Tag Wild Card!
Britta will only be responding with songs she wrote, performed, and sang, exclusively!
Britta: Before getting started, let me tell you a little about how these tracks came to be. Gather ‘round, one and all! Some tracks came out upon the release of my album Latitude Bera (2020), which is Basque for “same latitude.”
When I moved to France in 2016, I happened to settle in the town of Hendaye in the Basque Region, which had the same latitude as Portland, Maine, the town where I was living and the town where I grew up. I slid East at 43°! [Brad: Wow, that sounds chilly! Hope you took a good coat!]
All of the songs from this album were written at my home in Hendaye using GarageBand. Feeling woeful that I’d never find someone to help clean up these piles of files, I met Lole! We crossed paths at a local Hendaye hangout and he told me he was a sound engineer! I cornered the poor fella and told him ALLLL about my project. He must’ve thought “who is this crazy American?!??”
He gave me his business card. His address on the card was almost the same address as mine! Lole lived right across the street! We were neighbors? Not only that, we were born the same week!!! Thus, a musical partnership was forged! We’ve been working together since 2019, even from thousands of miles away!
Britta, on her new She Ate My Red Glasses EP:
Another batch of songs have been stockpiled since Latitude Bera was released. They were made in the same “kitchen,” as it were, with Lole in his studio. Other musicians from both sides of the Atlantic have joined as well including Jon Eviti from the East, and Jason Phelps, Joe Beninati from the west, plus lots of other friends on backing vocals and clappage!
These newer songs are slowly being released throughout this year under the project name Urte Naturala, which in Basque means “calendar year,” and, just so you know, the newer songs are all being released under the name Riffindots-my nom de plum.
I’m moving away from my first and last name to protect the innocent, or rather so that my kids can go about their business. What does Riffindots mean? It’s a song. And I chose that name because it’s the first thing that came to mind when I had to “save as.”
Sure it rhymes with Dippin’ Dots (those space-aged ball bearing-sized ice cream pellets that give your tongue freezer burn. Delicious!), but it also rhymes with the Basque name of my kid’s middle school in Hendaye which was called “Irandatz,” which I nicknamed Dippin’ Dots, so I guess, inadvertently, I came up with Riffindots because of Dippin’ Dots. It also rhymes with Gryffindor, but that’s a whole other unrelated can of ballgames!!
Britta’s song #1 sent to Brad: “Everytime/Forced Perspective”
Britta’s rationale: I cast a wide net here: This song covers lots of ground. Plenty to work with. Lots of supplies. Reams of fabric. Skeins of yarn. Plenty of lumber. Fresh pots of paint. There are classic rock motifs all throughout. If you’re a Who fan, you know (IYAWFYK).
If you’re a fan of Arthur Lee, you know even better (IYAFOALYKEB). Anyway, moving along-screeching backing vocals. The crazy woman on the roller coaster in the background-Edith Bunker I call that voice-that’s me. I think I remember scaring my kid and friends when I recorded that. Lots of lava soaked guitars and thrumming bass. It’s gotta conjure something for you, Brad. But just what could it be?
Plus it’s a double helix of a song. It’s a Two-fer. Also a hackneyed classic rock radio motif as in Two-fer Tuesday! It goes from volcanic and Psychedelic and settles into an Americana-ish song. Just what will catch Brad’s ear?
Brad’s song #1 sent to Britta: Stereophonics, “Local Boy in the Photograph,” 1997
Britta’s response: Shit, that’s a sad song!! This track was never on my radar until today. I missed the train on this one. And sadly, the song recounts the tragic death of a local boy hit by a train. He would be the boy in the photograph, right? Very descriptive. Friends gather after the death of the boy. Seasons change and come back around, and so do their wafts and familiar smells-the ones that remind of someone’s passing. Beautiful lyrical touch.
Brad chose the photo-TRoPE as the departure point. “Everytime/Forced” perspectives IS about photography. Kind of about someone in a photo being dead (see below). But I long to exist in that liminal haze of old film stock. This song has “anemoia”.
For a while, I was fascinated by 19th and 20th century photography. Perhaps because I once had a mad crush on an art history professor, and I hung on his every word of every lecture, many of which included references to early photography. So, there is reference to British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) and her ethereal images of children portrayed as angels.
There is also a nod to Walter Benjamin and his essay, “The work of art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Oh, and of course Man Ray, and the myth that the solarization effect in photography was discovered when a mouse entered a darkroom while a photo was being developed. The lights were turned on abruptly and voila! That over-saturated silvery effect was born. Also, I am fascinated by how, in most old pictures, particularly Daguerreotypes, the people in the photos are long dead:
A Memento mori that one day, everyone pictured in our iPhone photo libraries will have vanished and a new media will have taken over.
Brad’s rationale: A fascinating first song from Britta! A medley of sorts, two songs with different feels, and I caught a mention of “There’s no one alive who sends pictures like that” and “with old photographs you can only surmise.”
I purposely did not ask Britta for printed lyrics. I wanted to go with what I heard (or thought I heard), along with how she presented the lyrics in her music. With these notions of photographs, I found a band and song I’d never heard or heard of before, the Welsh band, Stereophonics, and their “Local Boy in the Photograph,” whose video seems to lean on the photo elements of not only various stills, but screen shots, with some seeming to be distorted a bit almost to the point of forced perspective.
Turns out Britta’s not the only single artist with new music being released! Stereophonics lead singer/guitarist, Kelly Jones, has his spankin’ new album, Inevitable Incredible (shown above) dropping May 3, ‘24!
Britta’s song #2: “Sebago Lumbago,” 2020
Brad’s response: I looked it up, and Sebago is both (and corporately separate) a shoe company and a brewery! The vast internet claims that “lumbago is an outdated medical term that describes pain in the lower back region. This region centers around the lumbar area of the spine,” the internet proceeds to assert, “which reaches from the lowest rib down to the buttocks. Today, most medical professionals (including mine) will use the term, ‘lower back pain,’” at which point I’m inclined to whine, “Hey, Doc, slow down with those technical terms, will ya?!”
So, if I can zero in on Britta’s vibe on this one, the song’s protagonist is suffering from lumbago lower back pain, and cares a lot less because he’s blitzed on beer, and he’s wearing comfortable, high-end footwear. Am I close, Britta?
The music is stunning: both sophisticated and catchy, but doesn’t sidestep what younger audiences are craving. And, to begin the song with such a strong, mid-tempo drum passage, and fill her final 12 seconds with the delicacy of what sounds like chimes, acoustic guitar, and electric piano (with vibrato) is really creative (and effective)!
Britta’s rationale: This song is about ghosts! I’m thinking about the boy in the photograph. His presence along the same place where he died on the train tracks. There is also a presence in “Sebago Lumbago”: A family member passed away in a summer cabin up at Sebago Lake in Maine. It has been in my family since the 1950’s.
I’ve always been a little scared of staying overnight there, even though the incident happened before I was born. But there is also something else creepy-adjacent for me about this lake. I had a bizarre dream about trying to avoid a certain corner of the lake, as I knew at the bottom of it was the glowing head of Abraham Lincoln!!
Here is a very rudimentary video I made of “Sebago Lumbago” which is chock full of images of the Basque coast:
You may catch a glimpse of me picking my teeth with a Makila, a Basque walking stick with a dangerous spike concealed in its handle. This object is not recommended for air travel!
Brad’s song #2: Small Faces, “Lazy Sunday,” 1968
Britta’s response: Hmm…I’m stumped. But, anyone who knows me knows that I am a big, huge Small Faces fan. The only thing I could come up with is that I have spent many a lazy afternoon, not necessarily a Sunday, on Sebago Lake. However you’d kind of have to be from Maine to know that’s a place where Mainer’s relax in the summer-unless, of course, you’re terrified of glowing dead presidents’ heads staring up at you from the bottom of this lake!
It’s also a place where people get drunk on pontoon boats—far enough from neighbors around the lake. But party noises do reverberate around the lake.
But let’s get creative. Let’s get Procrustean. Let’s reach really far. Is it because I think I sound exactly like Steve Marriott when I sing some of those high notes towards the end of the song? Probably! Because I think I sound exactly like Steve Marriott!!
Brad’s rationale: I came for Bert’s lumbago lower back pain in verse 2, but stayed for the electric piano, and the apparent influence this song had on one Johnny Rotten, vocally speaking (i.e. 🎵“Lazy Sunday afternoon-NUH”🎵)!
Britta’s song #3: “Dangerous Boy,” 2020
Brad’s response: I’m gonna go out on a lyrical limb here, and wonder if Britta dug up the Rotten connection with Steve Marriott being a major influence! That would explain “Dangerous Boy,” sounding as ominous as you’d want a song’s “Dangerous Boy” to sound!
And, Johnny, however “rotten” he may or may not have been, “dangerous” was an adjective occasionally hurled in his general direction, especially by England club owners, circa 1977. I must say, though, he (and his pal, Sid) were certainly nice to me:
Britta’s rationale: I’m staying with the theme of boys. The young and boisterous, irresponsible, yet irresistible Small Faces. Starting with the Darlings of Wapping Wharf with “Lazy Sunday” (sounds like they lived in a real crazy apartment, but that’s another song)?
“Dangerous Boy” is about living with an adolescent who can be dangerous at times. Lots of sudden movements. And I swear to God, one time I was walking NEXT to him at night in an old village in The Czech Republic. I looked up towards the sky and a shoe was falling towards my face. It was HIS! How the HELL did he pull that one off?!?! He must have kicked it off (and upwards!!).
Brad’s song #3: Credited to The Crystals, “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” 1962 (recorded by The Blossoms, Darlene Love, lead singer)
In a live 1982 performance, Darlene Love (who sang on the record) recounts how she discovered that Phil Spector slapped “The Crystals” on the Philles Records label, instead of just her name:
Britta’s response: Lo! This is a Phil Spector production! Of all people in the music business, barring maybe G.G. Allin, he was probably one of the most dangerous boys!! I read the late Ronnie Spector’s autobio rather recently, and he pretty much kept her hostage. One day she managed to escape his lair without shoes on.
My collage of Phil Spector—The piano chords spell out the word “Bad Egg”:
Brad’s rationale: Piggy-backing on the sometimes-accepted notion that the ladies dig “the bad boy,” The Crystals (really, a Darlene Love record…..’cause, well….Phil), when they see him walkin’ down the street, and lookin’ so neat, and they bet he’s sweet, they just have to fall bouffant-over-high-heels in love with the “Dangerous Boy.” That would be so 1962! Mann and Weil thought so, too!
In 1962, The Blossoms recorded Gene Pitney’s “He’s a Rebel” with Phil Spector producing. “Instead of crediting the song to The Blossoms,” according to Gillian G. Gaar in 2002’s She’s a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock’n’Roll, “Spector released the song [crediting] ‘The Crystals’ without informing the group while they were on tour.”
“After ‘He’s A Rebel’ became a hit, Spector brought The Blossoms’ Darlene Love back to record Barry Mann’s and Cynthia Weil’s ‘He’s Sure the Boy I Love’,” according to John Clemente in his 2013 Girl Groups: Fabulous Females Who Rocked the World.
“After being discredited from ‘He’s A Rebel,’ Love urged Spector to give her a royalty contract with a rate of three cents per record,” according to Lucy O’Brien in her 2002 She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul.
“He’s Sure the Boy I Love” was recorded at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles in November 1962. The Wrecking Crew played a Jack Nitzsche arrangement, with Larry Levine engineering.
Britta: “Ok! Voici le dernier” (French for “Here’s the last one”)!!
Britta’s song #4: “She’s Wrong,” 2024/Riffindots
Brad’s response: “She’s Wrong”? Well, of course she is! And, all her girlfriends are gonna huddle with her over sodas at the malt shop to tell her so! “Girrrrrrrl!”--Britta’s “She’s Wrong” is so right….as a response to Darlene’s “He’s Sure the Boy I Love”!
Britta’s rationale: I guess the departure point would be Girl Groups. All the harmonies. The Crystals. The Ronettes. “She’s Wrong” features a three-part harmony. But it’s all MEEE!! I remember hearing that when Harry Nilsson recorded his albums, people remarked that he didn’t credit the backing vocalists. He didn’t because it was all him! Anyway, you can have a lot of fun with a DAW (digital audio workstation). But then if you want to sing this live, you can’t by yourself. You need friends!
Brad’s song #4: The Bangles, “If She Knew What She Wants,” 1986
Britta’s response: Yes, I have been compared to the Bangles. Female. Neo-80’s Psych. Rickenbackers. Yup! You’re not the first to tell me this, Monsieur Kyle!! [Brad: Me?! What’d I say? “My Lips Are Sealed”!] But I’ll take the Bangles. They were pioneers in their own right. I liked what they were doing in that quasi-20th anniversary of the summer of love.
I think it was the first time I understood what a Mellotron was, as they used one in the song, “In Your Room.” I also once made an attempt at the teased up hair look that bassist Michael Steele had with my own magenta-cellophaned mane, but then I think I went and did something else like I went and dug a hole in the backyard!
They had that “Less than zero moment” (lots of TV monitors!!) with their cover of “Hazy Shade of Winter” which played non-stop on MTV. But still, I think I sound exactly like Steve Marriott, though!!
Brad’s rationale: Leave it to The Bangles (with a brilliant Jules Shear song; his 1985 original just below The Bangles’ cover, above) to lay it all on the line: “Girrl, you know he’d be good to you if you’d just tell him what you want! Tell ya what you do, girl”:
Their 1964 studio version written and produced by Shadow Morton (Red Bird Records):
In 1978, former New York Dolls guitarist, Johnny Thunders, described his recorded desire to walk right up to her, and give her a “Great Big Kiss,” with the following joining Johnny’s Heartbreakers guitarist, Walter Lure on the song’s sessions: Sex Pistols guitarist, Steve Jones, Pistols drummer, Paul Cook, and co-producer, Steve Lillywhite, playing piano! Steve Marriott, of all people, was on a song for those Thunders sessions…just not this song!
As always, Brad, thanks for inviting me to play! And thank you two-fold for letting me respond with my songs!!
I need more of the right people to hear and appreciate them. And you, my friend are one of the right people!!
Thank you, Britta! As for “right people”-I think we’re surrounded!
Well, that was different! And now I have a new artist to discover...
Love Sebago Lumbago, both the song and the video, the story behind it and especially the story of creepiness overlaying a beautiful location in Maine. There was a lake cottage in our family and it had a creepy vibe too. Brought up that sixth sense of 'I wouldn't want to be here alone' and running to the bathroom and back (and jumping under the covers as fast as possible) in the middle of the night and all that. And yet on the surface it looks safe and serene. A lot under the surface in that song.
But it was very funny that Brad thought it was about lower back pain. Made me laugh as I read it.
Very fun tune tag. Enjoyed the Bangles reference too.