187. UP AROUND THE BEND (John Fogerty) - Like Thin Lizzy and Hendrix, we love Creedence - it just ain't us.
188. NOWHERE MOTEL / UNTIL THE NEXT TIME (Draheim) - This semi-reggae-ish tune's been around for years. It's most successful incarnation was as the Eric Ott-era instrumental "Nowhere Motel". Now it has words and is called "Until the Next Time" and is kind of dull. Needs work.
189. YOUR WITNESS, DR. FREUD (Erangey, Draheim) - Tony wrote the music for the verses and choruses. I wrote all the words and the music for the bridge and the outro. I always thought of this as mine and Tony's "A Day in the Life" in that regard. The bridge was influenced by having just seen The Clash live. For a lot of the lyrics I nicked lines from a John Updike book I was reading at the time.
190. MR. ROCK & ROLL (McAvoy, Draheim) - Another one that started with McAvoy. Still using his chorus but all the rest is mine (I think). Current incarnation lifts and recasts lines from other songs about Rock & Roll (e.g. "City's on Flame with...", "I Love...", "Raw Power", etc.)
191. TECUMSAH VALLEY (Townes Van Zandt) - Kind of a "left field" choice for us. We wrote a nice little turnaround riff and Cathi and I sing the whole thing in harmony.
192. FOREVER YOUNG (Dylan) - A radical arrangement - we wrote extra parts, pumped it up fast and aggressive (almost punk), long guitar lead...the works!!!
193. GOING GOING GONE (Dylan) - Another radical arrangement. We hushed this one way down and let Cathi's pipes do all the work.
194. ONE MORE CUP OF COFFEE (Dylan) - This song was Bob's idea and it was a good one. We do it up heavy with lots of guitar. One of our best covers.
195. A COMMON DISASTER (M. Timmins) - Ron brought up this Cowboy Junkies song. Cathi sounds great on it but it's a hard song to pull off, at least for me.
196. CHINA BLUE (Birmingham) - This is a gorgeous song by Bob that we should play more often. Beautiful melody for Cathi and the song really takes off when we can get John Reilley to come out and play sax on it.
197. A MILLION MILES (McAvoy, Draheim) - The riff and the title are Steve's. The rest is damn near a play about my last year in New York before moving to Chicago and the tempestuous relationship I had with a stripper 12 years my senior. The long instrumental break at the end is pretty much the Velvet Underground's "What Goes On" with lead guitar.
198. NOT SO VERY LONG AGO (McAvoy) - Don't remember too much about this except...1. Steve wrote it for his then-girlfriend, Karen Porter, to sing, and 2. It started out being real Gram Parsons-ish but turned into something we don't do much - a power ballad.
199. VENUS IN FURS (Lou Reed) - A favorite of Bob's. We do it dark and ominous - like the Velvet Underground original - but with more of a rock & roll beat.
200. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (Peter Perrett) - One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, The Only Ones. (John Perry is one of the great unsung guitarists.)
201. SAME CHANGES (Sam Phillips, T-Bone Burnett) - Ron picked this one out and it was a great choice. We wrote our own bridge and outro.
202. WHY DON'T YOU DO RIGHT (Joe McCoy) - Thad Fus and/or Mark Fennessy suggested this Peggy Lee chestnut. We re-wrote & re-arranged a lot of it and it was a live favorite throughout the Eric Ott-era.
203. WILD IN THE STREETS (Garland Jeffreys) - A great song for when you're just starting a band - catchy and simple.
204. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (Garland Jeffreys) - One of my favorite ways to re-arrange a song is to try to pick it out when you only 70-80% remember it and you don't have the record with you. Everything you don't quite remember you have to make up.
205. FORTUNE TELLER (Naomi) - Rearranged this one using the above method. We ended up with something pretty raw and wild and I remember Chuck always liked to play this one even though "raw & wild" is generally not his thing.
206. TEENAGE BLOOD (Quazar, Draheim, McAvoy) - Steve's title and intro, I wrote the lyrics and outro section. All the rest - the nearly impossible to play parts - were written by Gary Quazar when I was in a band with him called The Gurls.
207. TWO-HEADED DOG (Roky Erickson) - My first Roky Erickson record was the French-issue 7" of this song on Sponge. What a great place to start! The Chicago band hardly played a show that we didn't do this song.
208. LIAR LIAR (J. Donna) - I'm proud to say that my demented arrangement of this Castaways song dates back to my days with The Gurls and - with new original lyrics - was once used in a House of Guitars commercial.