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Desert Island Doctors

Which will you spin on your desert island?

1) "Little Miss Can't-Be-Wrong"	3 votes
2) "Two Princes"	5 votes
3) "Jimmy Olsen's Blues"	2 votes
4) "How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me?)"	1 votes
5) "What Time Is It?"	1 votes
6) "Cleopatra's Cat"	1 votes
7) "You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast"	0 votes

AG/DC Jul 16 2008 10:07 PM

When I was just out of college, the concert venue I frequented most frequently was Wetlands. It seemed the Spin Doctors and Blues Traveller played there every week, sometimes a few nights. I heard their early music on tapes passed around (these were my SPIN days), but didn't buy in though. I didn't hate on the hippy blues stuff, it just wasn't what I was looking for. It's only recently I learned that SD and BT had their roots in the same Princeton, NJ band. Anyhow, flash ahead a year later, I've quit that SPIN thing and am working a record warehouse. But we listen to the radio all day every day and we realize that the Spin Doctors are being pushed really hard by their label, harder than any band in years. Howard Stern has a fight on the air with a managerment guy, because he pulled a guest he represented off of Howard's show to appear elsewhere. Howard calls him to bitch and he answers that Howard's isn't a music show. "What do you mean? I had Sting on last week, and his album shot to number one." "Yeah, but it's Sting. You don't play records. You don't help break young bands." "But young bands suck. People can get that elsewhere. In case you haven't seen my ratings, people would rather hear me." "But you don't appreciate the influence you have. If you played one young band. One young band that doesn't suck, you could make a difference." "Really? I could make a difference? Which young band should I play." "The Spin Doctors." Howard proceeded to spend the morning playing clips from the Spin Doctors debut album, stopping the CD player every 17 seconds to crack up at how awful and derivative it was, demanding Boy Gary check and see if this wasn't actually a Steve Miller Band disc stuck in somebody else's CD case. Yuks abounded, and I really felt sorry for the band. But it turned out that the label was dead right, and Howard wrong. It took a heckuva guitarist to play like Steve Miller, and the album was packed with a hatful of hits. "I like this," thought the public, then bam!, another single came out and the public thought "I like this better!" But their star burned too brightly too soon, and over-exposure quickly led to public fatigue with the band and their hair-effected vocalist. Their follow-up was rushed into production; the lead single from it featured said vocalist being much hairier and overinduging himself with scat singing. It peaked at 84 and they were only scarcely ever heard from again. I felt bad again. Anyhow, your mix tape has to have a song by the Spin Doctors --- a band I apparently pitied more than loved. Which song will it be? (Their career rebound is never going to happen if they don't let me embed any Youtube clips.) 1) "Little Miss Can't-Be-Wrong" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=givZsEAW80k 2) "Two Princes" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p3mFM1Vyb0 3) "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVPhkz6UOCs 4) "How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me?)" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Cp2UVYf0M 5) "What Time Is It?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFlJpd0eyQU 6) "Cleopatra's Cat" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Jd0I1U4Hc 7) "You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhF5Wp7HnZg

TransMonk Jul 17 2008 10:57 AM

I can remember waking up one Saturday morning when I was in high school to a phone call from a friend asking if I wanted to drive 2 hours to see Lollapaloozer II that afternoon. I agreed and we set out on the road trip. He had just bought the Spin Doctors live album. I don't recall what it was called, but I believe it was released either before or at the same time as their hit album, either way I had never heard of them at the time. We listened to it all the way to the show and then all of the way back. I bought it the next week and liked them for about six weeks. They were a fun band and although they had the hippie-jammy thing going on, they still rocked more than some of the other bands playing the same stuff. They were also funny in a tongue in cheek kind of way which always makes a band more likeable to me. They kinda blew their wad with that first studio album that was overplayed on the radio. There weren't too many other levels they could take their music. I believe they were one of the Sony/Epic casualties that got a lot of promotional money taken away when Michael Jackson's Dangerous album tanked and Epic cut most of their roster save Pearl Jam. I still see that they're playing shows from time to time on their own which is cool.

metirish Jul 17 2008 11:05 AM

I'll get killed for this but I remember liking their cover of "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" , can I vote for that? If not then I will vote for "Jimmy Olsen's Blues"

AG/DC Jul 17 2008 11:06 AM

'Monk, you went for "What Time Is It?"?

TransMonk Jul 17 2008 11:20 AM

I did. Their other hits got under my skin after a while, although I wouldn't turn them off if they came on the radio now. What Time Is It? is a pretty good example of their quirkiness IMO.

RealityChuck Jul 17 2008 11:21 AM

The local progressive rock radio station helped break the Spin Doctors, at least six months before anyone else heard of them. By the time they had a radio hit, it was an oldie for me.

soupcan Jul 17 2008 11:26 AM

'Two Princes'. I always liked 'Jimmy Olsen's Blues' because its a good tune and I admired the originality of the concept of writing a song from Olsen's point of view. 'Two Princes' rocks better though.

AG/DC Jul 18 2008 01:43 PM

Hey, Chuck, somebody heard of 'em. More Spin Doctor voting NOW!!!

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 18 2008 02:35 PM

Yeah. I also associate the Spin Doctors with Howard Stern, sorta: He'd destroyed John DeBella, the whacky morning guy and former No.1 personality in Philly radio, after a long and bloody battle that included a funeral procession, and having DeBella's x-wife on the air to talk shit about him and go on dates with the Whack Pack. She later committed suicide. Really brutal stuff. DeBella was destroyed along with his station which was frightened into that idiotic "sports-rock" format than NEW did, then lost courage in that and finally had him on in the afternoons hosting a 90s-focused, humorless "alternative" rock format, which for a comedian with a handlebar mustache was just completely wrong: You could hear it in his voice. Anyway, I recall listening one afternoon when he tried to act all excited about these new bands -- the Soup Dragons! The Spin Doctors! and it coming off so forced and phony it literally hurt to listen. It was like watching the world's worst actor on stage. And it really drew a line for me between old shit and new shit and old people and young people, at the time, which I guess was the early 90s.

AG/DC Jul 18 2008 02:58 PM

Wow. DeBella was one of the very early WLIR innovators. So he actually had Nu Musik cred. Though I imagine by the early nineties that was a distant memory.

G-Fafif Jul 18 2008 03:54 PM

My wife and I had been two Princes for a little over a year when we first heard "Two Princes". It became the unofficial anthem of our marriage. It's also No. 80 on the good ol' [url=http://faithandfear.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/12/31/2608790.html]Top 500[/url] mostly for that reason. Soft spot for "Cleopatra's Cat," released when I was really soaking up the novelty of having become a cat person (a cat person like I'm a Mets fan) during the Spin Doctors' rise to prominence. Our most recent year-end family newsletter had been entitled "Two Princes (and [url=http://faithandfear.blogharbor.com/blog/Photos/_archives/2007/8/3/3137875.html]Two Kitties[/url]) -- 1993: Year of the Cats". The cats have [url=http://faithandfear.blogharbor.com/blog/Photos/_archives/2007/8/18/3166966.html]changed[/url], but the theme remains operative.

Vince Coleman Firecracker Jul 18 2008 04:25 PM

The Spin Doctors were the rich man's Toad the Wet Sprocket.

G-Fafif Jul 18 2008 04:27 PM

Though I'm thinking they both belonged to the same lodge as Better Than Ezra.

seawolf17 Jul 18 2008 05:20 PM

BTE could wipe the floor with the Spin Doctors any day of the week and twice on Sunday. The Spin Doctors are still the only concert I've ever left early... 1992ish at Jones Beach, when they brought Cracker and another band I don't remember, both of whom blew them off the stage. That said, I voted.

TransMonk Jul 18 2008 05:43 PM

I don't associate the Spin Doctors with Toad the Wet Sprocket at all...unless we're talking about bands that had a thimble full of success 15 years ago. And they're both Better than Ezra. I'll take Cracker over all of them. Lowry's a dude...although I have a friend who saw them last week and they were less than impressive.

AG/DC Jul 18 2008 05:55 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jul 18 2008 07:59 PM

The subgenre was early-nineties blues/soul-rock-noodledancing crossover acts that peaked early. The unholy trinity was... Band Vocalist Visually Distinguished By Primary Old-Skool Influence Spin Doctors Hairy Hippy Hermit Look The Steve Miller Band Blues Traveller Girth Canned Heat Counting Crows Dreads Van Morrison The Spin Doctors had the deepest catalog. BT had the best band. Counting Crows, well, they weren't much good at all, and their vocalist brought nothing to the table, but dated well. Hootie took over the genre and blew them all out of the water.

Kong76 Jul 18 2008 06:01 PM

I sing Lil' Miss Can't Wrong in my head a couple of times a month. I have the honor of interacting with about a half-dozen Lil' Miss Can't Be Wrongs so I it gets my vote.

seawolf17 Jul 18 2008 06:05 PM

Deepest catalog!?! They had one hit record, one semi-hit second record, and then fell off the map. Blues Traveler had the deepest catalog by far, and Counting Crows far and away the most staying power.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 18 2008 06:17 PM

I forgot to vote. I'll go with "Lil Miss Can't be Wrong." I associate the Spin Doctors with the Soup Dragons. Oh, and the CPF's own Frayed Knot invented that hippy look years before the Drs were on call.

TransMonk Jul 18 2008 06:19 PM

I would bet that Counting Crows had more "hits" than the other two put together...and one of Blues Travellers hits was a hit 300 years earlier by Pachelbel. But the mountains do win again.

Rockin' Doc Jul 18 2008 06:55 PM

The Spin Doctors debut album, Poket Full of Kryptonite, was pretty good and contained their three best songs. None of their other albums appealed to me much. I still enjoy Jimmy Olsen's Blues, Two Princes, and Little Miss Can't Be Wrong. Beyond that, I don't have much interest in any of their music. I voted for Two Princes because as Soup pointed out, it rocks out more the Jimmy Olsen's Blues.

themetfairy Jul 18 2008 08:44 PM

TransMonk wrote: and one of Blues Travellers hits was a hit 300 years earlier by Pachelbel. You mean this?