In his autobiography, for instance, he calls Lou Reed and New Wave electro-rocker Alan Vega “fellow Brooklyn Jews.”
“He knows all the lyrics to every song you’ve ever heard,” said Chrissie Hynde, the famed leader of The Pretenders.Īlong the way, Stein wrote and mentioned in interviews how he found camaraderie with other Jewish executives and stars, after having grown up in an era when Jews were implicitly banned from some professions in the United States, and found a haven in the entertainment industry. In 1966, Stein - who shortened his last name from Steinbigle on advice from an early mentor, the Jewish executive Syd Nathan - co-founded Sire Records, which would go on to sign and promote artists from a range of burgeoning genres in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s: British indie rockers like The Smiths and The Cure, electronic innovator Aphex Twin, the rapper Ice-T. ach Jewish community was distinct, often with its own native food and language,” he wrote. We had lost tribes you didn’t even know existed - Syrian, Iraqi, Persian, Yemeni, Ethiopian, and even some Sephardic Jews whose family trees had curled through Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, and South America…. “We had every flavor of Ashkenazim - Russian, Polish, Baltic, Romanian, Austrian, Hungarian, German, and Czech Jews, including about 50,000 survivors from the concentration camps. That’s all.He described the Jews of 1940s Brooklyn in detail in “Siren Song: My Life in Music.” One last thing though the bit where Hynde sings “I’m special” and the band respond “Special” whilst pointing to the menu header of ‘SPECIAL’ gained a mild chuckle out of me. One day I hope that ‘Brass in Pocket’ becomes the centre of the latest TikTok craze in order to leave behind the unpleasantness and lack of character present within the official video. Sundara Karma? St Vincent? The bloody Smiths? All devotees to the church of Hynde. When you go and re-listen to your music, you’ll find that the rest of the indie world owes them an unpayable debt. The themes of the song and the video clash in such a way that it leaves somewhat of an unfortunate taste in your mouth, which is disheartening for a band like The Pretenders. And in agreement with this statement is Hynde herself in a 2016 interview with Louder Sound, she said of the video “the closing shot shows the band driving off and me looking out of the window, weeping. For a song with such unshakeable charisma and confidence as ‘Brass in Pocket’, it’s disheartening to see the band’s iconic leader - the effortlessly cool Hynde - reduced to such a passive figure in the video, even for the time the video was made. If this was some kind of subversive statement, it’s all too implicit.
All the while, they are watched by the waitress, played by Hynde, who simpers and longs for their affection. Martin Chambers, Pete Farndon and James Honeyman-Scott swagger into a café, copping off with miscellaneous girls at the table, and run off into the sunset with them. A kitchen sink budget, limited location space and a pallid colourscape leave little to the imagination, but the band are undeniably having fun. Whilst the song has left an undeniable impact on the indie rock genre as we know it, the video is so, SO 80s.
With that said though, taking a look at the video for their sharp and sassy numsingle ‘Brass in Pocket’ makes you wonder if the same rules of timelessness apply. The Pretenders Announce New Album Details
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