Tune Tag #71 with Tad Callin of "All Kinds Musick": REM, Neko Case, Scritti Politti, Afro Celt Sound System, Elaine Stritch, She & Him, Jean-Michel Jarre

In our first "Tune Tad," we feature a recording artist who's also a fellow Substack-er, and we check in on one of our favorite people, Matthew Sweet, and get caught up on his recovery & prognosis!

“Your move, Tad.” I said, “It’s YOUR MOVE, TAD!”

Tune Tag welcomes Tad Callin of

All Kinds Musick

for our very first Tune Tad!

Tad, near my Austin home, at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, TX, Sept. 2024

Tad Callin is currently the Editor of All Kinds Musick, and an Associate Editor at Pseudopod.org. He has had many adventures over the years, serving as a linguist in the U.S. Air Force, failing at truck driving, and successfully raising four kids. He published most of those stories in his 2016 memoir/novel Tad’s Happy Funtime. He also writes about genealogy and family history at Mightier Acorns!

Last week, we welcomed

Ryan Mac

of Ryan’s Reviews to the Tune Tag arena:

Tune Tag #70 with Ryan Mac of "Ryan's Reviews": Kiss, Pearl Jam, New York Dolls, XTC, Led Zeppelin, Stone Temple Pilots

Next week, you’ll want to set your alarm for

David Burton

and his If You Get Confused, for his debut Tune Tag turn!

Tad’s song #1 sent to Brad: Jean-Michel Jarre, “Zoolookologie,” 1984

Tad’s rationale: I started with something that is not quite as obscure as many people might want it to be.

Jean-Michel Jarre brought Laurie Anderson on board for the track “Diva,” but I’m pretty sure he sampled her voice for “Zoolookologie” (on his 7th album, Zoolook, on Polydor Records for EU, but no U.S. release; composed and produced by Jarre). Adrian Belew is credited with guitars and “effects,” and the bass is credited to a young jazz player named Marcus Miller.

I’ve been enjoying Miller’s solo work since I ran across the SMV project he did with Victor Wooten and Stanley Clarke (briefly, in 2008), and I only recently noticed that he had played with Jarre (of all people!). I loved Zoolook when my friend and college roommate introduced me to it in 1991.

Brad, I expect your response will probably go through Belew - but who knows? [Brad: I almost went with Linda Ronstadt’s “Belew Bayou.”😁]

Brad’s song #1 sent to Tad: Scritti Politti, “World Come Back to Life,” 1988

• A song recorded during the Provision sessions (according to Wiki), “World Come Back to Life,” was released as the B-side of the “First Boy In This Town (Lovesick)” single, but was never included on any edition of the Provision album.

Brad’s rationale: It started like this and ended something like that: Knowing that Jarre is French, and he recorded Tad’s first song in Paris, my first thought was a song with nonsense lyrics (like “Zoolookologie”), then moving quickly to a song off the self-titled sophomore Paris album (1976, Capitol Records/U.S.): A fascinating “super trio,” they were former Fleetwood Mac guitarist, Bob Welch, former Jethro Tull bassist, Glenn Cornick, and former Nazz (with Todd Rundgren) drummer, Thom Mooney!

I then checked to see if one of my favorite ‘80s groups, Scritti Politti, had something French to add. I know their lead-everything, Green Gartside, has done something in Paris…if not working, then visiting. Alas, no immediate songs seemed to have French (or nonsense) lyrics, to speak of, but I found this new gem, “World Come Back to Life,” recorded with the songs on their 1988 Provision album, but didn’t make the cut for album track-listing.

And, Marcus Miller played bass on the album, four years after guesting on the Jarre!

Tad’s song #2: Afro Celt Sound System (feat. Sinéad O’Connor), “Release,” 2000

Brad’s response: Irish connection? Is Green Irish? (No…Welsh)…Sinead?

Tad’s rationale: Ah! I have now learned of another Marcus Miller connection! Excellent! I haven’t thought about Scritti Politti in years - and I am pretty sure I had a copy of Provision at some point - but they never made a deep impact on me, so making this next connection is a little bit tougher.

After some digging, I recognized Simon Emmerson’s (March 12, 1956–March 13, 2023) name, so I will respond with a beloved Afro Celt Sound System track, from 2000: “Release” featuring Sinéad O’Connor.

Brad’s song #2: The Look, “Tonight,” 1981

Tad’s response: Hoooo-leee... I have no idea how you got to this track from Afro Celts & Sinead! I bow to your superior grasp of the esoteric musical back channels.

That said, where do I go from here? After several days of digging through archives of trivia, I kept coming back to my first reaction to seeing a new wave Bernstein cover!

Brad’s rationale: Martin Russell (above) was the engineer on this 1981 album by British band, The Look (MCA/U.S.). It took Russell 19 years to be all over the 2000 Afro Celt Sound System’s “Release”: He played keyboards, co-wrote the song (with Simon Emmerson, James McNally, Sinead O’Connor, and Iarla Ó Lionáird), co-produced, programmed, and (going back to his The Look/‘80s moment), engineered.

“Tonight” music composed by Leonard Bernstein, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, from West Side Story (1956 first published).

Tad’s song #3: REM, “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” 1987

Brad’s response: I’m wondering if Tad chose this as a commentary on where having a pop band doing a Bernstein/Sondheim song might lead us!

But, then I remembered (and looked up to verify) that Michael Stipe mentions Bernstein in the song! Cagey tag….me likey!

“The track is known for its quick-flying, seemingly stream of consciousness rant with many diverse references, such as a quartet of individuals with the initials ‘L.B.’: Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce, and Lester Bangs,” according to Michael Ventre for Today.com.

In a 1990s interview with Musician magazine, (according to Songfacts), “R.E.M.’s lead singer Michael Stipe claimed that the ‘L.B.’ references came from a dream he had in which he found himself at a party surrounded by famous people who all shared those initials. ‘The words come from everywhere,’ Stipe explained to Q in 1992.

“I’m extremely aware of everything around me, whether I am in a sleeping state, awake, dream-state or just in day-to-day life, so that ended up in the song along with a lot of stuff I’d seen when I was flipping TV channels. It’s a collection of streams of consciousness.”

I wanted, right off the bat, to match the parenthetical “I Feel Fine” from REM to The Beatles’ mid-’60s song of the same title, which I loved at the time. But, I also couldn’t resist the perceived curveball of the Sondheim song, as it matches the Bernstein mention in the REM song, going back to “Tonight.” So, Elaine Stritch, it is, from 1970, and her Broadway triumph from Company (comin’ up!).

Brad’s song #3: Elaine Stritch, “The Ladies Who Lunch,” from Company

Elaine Stritch (February 2, 1925 – July 17, 2014)

Tad’s response: You might expect someone with my background to be more familiar with Sondheim’s catalog, but I had not heard this song before - and Stritch delivers a performance that runs the gamut from wickedly sardonic to weary.

I wanted to respond with another show tune, but I struggled to find a video to go with the songs I was considering. Mandy Patinkin put out several collections showcasing his voice, but the best quality video I could find was of him performing, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which is too sweet to be a good response to “Ladies Who Lunch.” I came up empty looking for the duet Tom Waits and Bette Midler released.

So I went with an overt attack on toxic patriarchy (and, that’s next).

Brad’s rationale: Linking back to the Bernstein mention in REM’s song, this Stephen Sondheim chestnut from Broadway’s Company in 1970. I’ll be interested to see where Tad is on Broadway numbers, and Great White Way composers! I suppose he could take Elaine’s cynical tone about elite ladies, and link it to REM’s world-ending resignation.

These ladies and their hats, sighing, “That’s fine,” as the world burns around them.

I love this song, too, for the fact that my mom used to love Vodka Stingers, and would frequently order a “stinger on the rocks” when we’d go out! So taken with Stritch’s unusual delivery (and non-traditional non-Streisand/non-Merman/non-Lapone voice), I actually sang this song at karaoke a decade ago, dropping the pitch an octave as I did! Fun song to sing, putting all the emotion you’d like into it (and, of course, no one had a clue to what in the world I’m singing, as wrapped up in “Royals” as they were)!

Tad’s song #4:

Neko Case

, “Man,” 2013

“Man” appeared on Case’s 2013 album, The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You, produced and mixed by Case and Tucker Martine, on Anti- Records.

I’m a man’s man, I’ve always been.
But make no mistake what I’ve invested in.
The woman’s heart is the watermark by which I measure everything.—Neko Case

According to Songfacts, Case told The Guardian: “I think I just want balance. I want to be equal parts man and woman; no matter what, I am at the gynecologist.”

The song grew out of Case’s observations about the inflexible way people often respond when she refers to herself as a guy – as in, “I’m the kind of guy who...”

And, she told Rolling Stone: “Everybody wants to remind you that you’re a girl. And I’m like, not if I don’t want to be. I grew up in America, man.” Case added that the song is also an attack on modern politically correct attitudes: “The Seventies went out of its way to show little girls as firemen and stuff,” she said. “Let’s not hash it out and make it firewoman or fireperson.” From 2013, Neko, live, on Austin City Limits:

In a 2013 NPR interview, Case discussed her single “Man”: She described herself as having complicated feelings of gender and femininity: “I don’t really think of myself specifically as a woman, you know? I’m kind of a critter” and “I’m probably a little imbalanced in that if you were to look at a human creature as kind of a vase or something, my glass is a little bit more full of the man stuff than the woman stuff.”

Neko’s Substack, Entering The Lung, can be accessed and subscribed to by clicking here!

Brad’s song #4: She & Him, “Do It Again” (with Brian Wilson), 2022

Tad’s response: I love it - I was aware of this duo, but their first record came out around the same time (Volume 1, 2008) as another she/him duo - Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs (Under the Covers, Vol. 1, 2006), and I never got around to actually listening to them! I will correct that mistake now, thank you.

At the board (l-r): M. Ward (who produced and arranged the Melt Away tribute album), Zooey, and Mr. Wilson (credit list here).

Brad’s rationale: M. Ward played guitar on the Neko Case track, and as the “Him” in She & Him, he played and sang (with Zooey Deschanel) on The Beach Boys song, “Do It Again,” with Brian Wilson guesting on vocals. This, from She & Him’s 2022 album, Melt Away: A Tribute to Brian Wilson.

BONUS: Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, “And Your Bird Can Sing,” 2006

Tad’s Bonus Song! And, why not round out this Tune Tag with Matthew and Susanna’s cover of one of my favorite tracks by an underground Liverpool band that got famous playing in Germany:

Tad wanted to bring you an update on Matthew’s recovery from his recent stroke, and I’m certainly happy to have him do so:

Tad: “I hope you don’t mind me taking this opportunity to remind folks about Matthew Sweet’s recent stroke while on tour. He’s in recovery, but since America is a nightmarish hellscape for people who can’t afford insurance, he needs our help to pay the medical bills. To donate to Matthew’s GoFundMe recovery fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-matthew-sweets-stroke-recovery

Here’s a link to the most recent update on Matthew’s health, from StereoGum.com (click here). It includes a personal message from Matthew with his prognosis.

Thanks for inviting me to your party, Brad! This was a lot of fun!

—Tad Callin, Editor, allkindsmusick.substack.com/