Whats on your turntable tonight?

@bslon: Yes! Moon Martin was (is?) fantastic! His run of four albums on Capitol Records are just great---the marriage of Rock ’n’ Roll, classic Brill Building songwriting, and Power Pop production. His first was produced by Craig Leon (Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads), with Phil Seymour of The Dwight Twilley Band playing drums.

He and his 3-pc. band were also great live; I saw them open for Rockpile in 1980. Around that time my ex-wife was running his fan club. Before he started his solo career, Moon had been in a band named Southwind (two albums on Blue Thumb Records). Southern Rock, basically.

Just a coupla days ago I was looking through the bins of newly received used LP’s at Music Millennium, and came upon a 1977 A & M Records solo album by Michele Phillips of The Mamas & Papas. I saw the album title---Victim Of Romance, and thought "Hey, that’s a Moon Martin song." I slid out the inner sleeve, and there was Moon, pictured with all the other people involved in the making of the album (Moon plays guitar and sings background vocals), including the album’s producer Jack Nitzsche (Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young, Crazy Horse, Phil Spector, The Stones, Graham Parker, Willy Deville---who covered Moon’s "Cadillac Walk" in a great version, the soundtrack to One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest). There are two other Moon songs on the album, so keep an eye out for a copy. Mine’s in NM condition, cost me five bucks.

Moon Martin / Street Fever
1980 Capitol

@bdp24 I cranked this one up last night too, forgot to post. Your ex-wife ran his fan club, pretty cool! He also wrote “Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)”, which was made famous by Robert Palmer.

i hadn't listened to moon martin for a long while, so i cranked up his greatest hits last night. reminds me a lot of steve miller--sorta generic, w/throwaway lyrics, but a knack for the big pop hook--a lot of these songs stay embedded in your cranium.

current faves:

myracle brah, can you feel the myracle brah--not a paragon of depth or vision, but the guy is a melodic savant

the church, a box of bees (their cover of the monkees' "porpoise song" is great)

neil young, psychedelic pill--i always like his noisy, jammy stuff, of which there's plenty here.

@bslon 

Other than Rolene, I’d never heard anything else. So today I’m going through some of his albums now.

Thanks for the tip.😁

@curiousjim A friend had mentioned hearing “Rolene” on the radio the other day and prompted me to play some Moon Martin…like @loomisjohnson, I hadn’t played his music in like, forever. I don’t know why, as @bdp24 said, it’s “fantastic”.