Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic

Discoveries of a Pop Music Archaeologist

Category: 60s/70s rock +/- pop

"This Feeling"
Zeroto180

Track Recorders: Silver Spring II

NOTICE!   This is a majorly revamped version of a piece from the summer of 2016 — with enhanced content — to be followed in close succession by a suitably elaborate history of Gene Rosenthal and Adelphi Records. although sandwiched in between will be a history spotlight on Track’s Chief Engineer,

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"Maryland"
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Maryland’s New State Anthem

To:     Governor Larry Hogan & The General Assembly of Maryland Perhaps it is time to replace the Maryland state anthem — you know, the Rebel marching song from 1861 that beseeches Marylanders to “spurn the northern scum” and thereby follow Virginia’s example on the whole secession question — with something else

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"19th Nervous Breakdown"
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Rolling Stones Soundalike Recordings

In the inevitable Beatles vs. Stones (straw man) debate, I intensely resent having to pick sides, since the very idea of one without the other is laughable at best.  Nevertheless, this lifelong Beatles fan takes a certain fiendish thrill in devoting an entire blog post to those albums in which

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"Mama Was a Honky Tonk Woman"
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Mama = A Honky Tonk Woman

Just when you thought the “Honky Tonk Woman” carcass had been picked completely clean, one more interesting thing would somehow turn up — this moving and quaintly rocking tale of a British working-class family: “Mama Was a Honky Tonk Woman“ Hurricane (1973) One-time Rolling Stone percussionist, Carlo Little, would document

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"Sad Day"
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’65 Stones Tune Known by Few

Richie Unterberger confirmed my hunch in his review of Rolling Stones B-side “Sad Day” for AllMusic: “‘Sad Day’ is one of the least-known early Rolling Stones songs.   It was never even issued in their native U.K. until 1973, and it didn’t make it onto an American album until it

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"Washita Love Child"
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“Washita Love Child”: Jesse Ed & Eric Whatsisname

In The World of Indigenous America, Brian Wright-McLeod writes of the “powwow style” and its influence in popular music, as exemplified by such artists as Jim Pepper, Peter DePoe, and Jesse Ed Davis: Jesse Ed Davis (Comanche-Kiowa) began his work as a leading session guitarist in the early 1960s when

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"Not Runnin' Away"
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Ian McLagan’s Reggae Bump

This past week I had the chance to reread Keith Richards’ 2010 memoir, Life, and somehow I only just now learned that keyboardist Ian McLagan was part of The New Barbarians, a rather unlikely musical aggregation that brought together Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, Bobby Keys, and McLagan, with legendary instrumentalists,

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"Lightning Frightening"
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1970 Rare Bowie ‘Blues’ Track

“At the start of 1969, [David Bowie] wrote ‘Space Oddity,’ a song that punctured the global mission for the Apollo moon mission,” Peter Doggett observed in his Introduction to 2011’s The Man Who Sold the World:  David Bowie and the 1970s — an analysis of Bowie’s songwriting, chronologically speaking, throughout

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"Unnamed Instrumental"
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Maximum Schlock & Roll

Drummer Keith Bortz of The Max – formerly Max and the Bluegills – was instrumental (so to speak) in getting permission to stage a concert in the group’s high school auditorium on a Friday afternoon in April, 1981.  Students were gouged at the door — one-dollar admission!  Cannot recall whether

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"I Think I Love You"
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Early 80s Cincinnati Power Ballad

If it’s true that Aerosmith invented the “power ballad” in 1973 with their prom-rock classic, “Dream On,” then let history take note that Cincinnati teen rockers – Max & the Bluegills – would enter a sound studio eight years later to record their own aching power ballad about unrequited love’s

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