My Little Red Book -- maybe punk, maybe not, but Seven and Seven Is is proto-hardcore, and that single made the Top 40. The Benny Goodman hearing Love story is priceless. Glad this interview exists!
I wish this interview was more informative - but it seemed to me to be just eight minutes of rambling. Of course, Bruce Botnick's credentials speak for themselves, so no disrespect towards him - perhaps Andrew could have had better questions… It's really misleading to call "My Little Red Book" "punk - ten years ahead of it's time" as if this song was some stroke-of-genius creation by Love. Of course, it's a Burt Bacharach-Hal David tune, and the only thing "punk" about the song is the crude, choppy rhythmic feel of Love's version, and there's nothing novel there either - lots of surf music from a few years earlier had a similar rhythmic feel. The story I have heard is that Burt Bacharach hated Love's treatment of his tune and made it known. It seems that Arthur Lee took that as a challenge to REALLY piss him off - taking the song title "A House Is Not a Home'" and coming up with "A House Is Not a Motel" - stream-of-conscienceness insanity. Perhaps the recording of "Live and Let Live" could have been mentioned…
Love how Bruce would pan the instruments on the Love albums. Very cool interview
My Little Red Book -- maybe punk, maybe not, but Seven and Seven Is is proto-hardcore, and that single made the Top 40. The Benny Goodman hearing Love story is priceless. Glad this interview exists!
I wish this interview was more informative - but it seemed to me to be just eight minutes of rambling. Of course, Bruce Botnick's credentials speak for themselves, so no disrespect towards him - perhaps Andrew could have had better questions… It's really misleading to call "My Little Red Book" "punk - ten years ahead of it's time" as if this song was some stroke-of-genius creation by Love. Of course, it's a Burt Bacharach-Hal David tune, and the only thing "punk" about the song is the crude, choppy rhythmic feel of Love's version, and there's nothing novel there either - lots of surf music from a few years earlier had a similar rhythmic feel. The story I have heard is that Burt Bacharach hated Love's treatment of his tune and made it known. It seems that Arthur Lee took that as a challenge to REALLY piss him off - taking the song title "A House Is Not a Home'" and coming up with "A House Is Not a Motel" - stream-of-conscienceness insanity.
Perhaps the recording of "Live and Let Live" could have been mentioned…