Hotels and Motels: Super 8

[purchase Southeastern]

If you have spoken to me about music over the past year or so, you probably know that my favorite album of 2013 was Jason Isbell’s Southeastern. In fact, it is probably the best album that I have heard in years. And I’m not alone in singing (actually just talking) its praises. It made a ton of year-end best lists, topping some, and has been nominated for all sorts of awards. Although for some reason, WFUV, which you would expect would be all over this disc, never really committed to it. Southeastern’s incredible songwriting, singing and playing, when coupled with Isbell’s story of talent, addiction, leaving a band, marriage and redemption scored Isbell about as much publicity as you can get playing the type of confessional Americana music that he plays. He has been on Letterman (who loves him) and Conan and has been featured on NPR and on the CBS News. But with the music business being what it is, the album has probably sold less in total than some no-talent pre-fab tween pop tart sells in a day.

For the most part, Southeastern is a pretty mellow affair, but its songs’ messages are anything but laid back. There are lots of songs that can be directly or indirectly tied to his life story, and one, “Elephant,” about a woman dying of cancer, that is literally brilliant. Almost every song has imbedded itself into my head, so that I couldn’t tell you what song is my favorite.

The album had just come out last summer, right before my family and I were going to see him perform at the Clearwater festival. I’ve mentioned that performance before, mostly in the context of how great it was that his former colleague in the Drive-By Truckers, Patterson Hood, sat in on one song, and Isbell returned the favor during Hood’s set. Especially since Hood was one of the people who was instrumental in essentially kicking Isbell out of the band when his drinking became too much of a problem. (Clearly, they have buried the hatchet—just the other day, Isbell, Hood and Trucker Mike Cooley performed an entire show together for a benefit.)

Although I had heard the album, it was still new, and hearing Isbell perform the songs, basically solo, was thrilling. Even my wife, who was never the big DBT fan that my son and I are, was blown away. Then, we found out that Isbell, with the full band, was going to be playing at Lincoln Fucking Center, as part of a series of pretty well-respected artists from across the musical spectrum—including jazz, opera and musical theater. I went with my son, his girlfriend and a musician friend of mine who was unfamiliar with Isbell (my wife had a prior commitment). It was an incredible show, in an incredible venue. The entire broadcast from PBS is here, and it is primarily songs from Southeastern, with some older songs and some Truckers classics.

The set ends with “Super 8,” the one real rocker on the album, a Stones-influenced rave about the craziness and danger of life on the road, particularly in cheap motels. In a recent piece in, yes, The Wall Street Journal, debuting the official video for the song, which is above, Isbell was quoted as saying: “This song is one story built out of moments from many different actual nights. Things that are funny now, but weren’t funny at all when they were happening. The song took a couple hours to write, but years to live through.”

 By the way, after “Super 8,” the band encored with an actual Stones song, “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” a part of which you can hear at the end of the video.

And have I mentioned how much I liked Southeastern?

Hotels/Motels: King of the Road

King of the Road
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It is standard lore that musicians on the road used to tend to excesses. It cannot be a great life: days/months on the road. Grueling hours. Consider this: you start “work” at 10PM.  Yes, back stage, they “accommodated”  groupies. Their contractual  “riders” included requirements that would make the average Joe blanche – more bottles than even a hard-drinking band could put away between 10 and 12 midnight. Moreover, when the show was over and they retired to their accommodations, the show went on. There are legends about their use/abuse of the lodgings/the hotel.

I recall – 30 or so years ago – a night in Zagreb (Yugoslavia). The hotel staff was complaining about a Middle Eastern customer who had elected to grill their dinner – en-suite. Burning a hole in the center of the room rug in the process. And the staff said this was just standard form for a family from Arabia. Certainly plausible in light of what we think we know about rock bands and hotel rooms. 

It's more than likely that today's rock star on tour  gets charged for damage to the room: that appears to not have been the case in the 70s - or maybe the damages were just billed as part of the collateral damage. Not being a hotelier, in today’s atmosphere of airport security normality, I naively assume that even hard core rockers toe the line a bit more.

There are a number of stories about my choice this time around: King of the Road.

Roger Miller sang and played the guitar back in the 50s and 60s (OK .. and beyond).

As such, he hit the road.

Legend has it that on one such trip, he saw a sign advertising “trailers for sale or rent”, and the phrase stuck with him. Apparently, more than once, while on the road, he managed with rooming that we probably wouldn’t put up with in this day and age. At a later date, he worked this phrase into the lyrics of what would eventually become King of the Road.

Specific references to hotels/motels in the song are limited: the early 60s was a different time and place. The lyrics include the lines:  “8 x 12 4-bit rooms” and “Rooms to let, fifty cents/ No phone, no pool, no pets” – much of it still recognizable to travelers 50 years later. The culture of the American roadside motel is essentially the same today.

The Internet has it that Roger Miller went on in later years to purchase and operate more than one hotel/motel himself.

HOTELS AND MOTELS : THE MOTELS

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Bit of a change here, rather than invoking the C word and it's inability to be left, or Zappas entire chain of boarding houses, I thought I'd explore those largely uncelebrated doyens of Noo Yawk noo wave, Martha Davis' exemplary Motels. And what's the first thing I learn? Dang me, but they were from L.A.........
As a boy I was always interested in the arcane and the roads less well travelled, and I think I first came across this band on The Old Grey Whistle Test, the "other" music show from british bygone days, the late late night prog and earnest mumblefest, officiated by, at it's peak, the wonderful Whispering Bob, Bob Harris, who remains the champion of american musics in the UK. I don't believe they were ever that well known over this side, but I loved the spiky and jagged angulations of the guitar, keyboard and squawked vocal interface. This was the song and even hearing it now brings me to a glow of  nostalgic glee. Even the awful grunts and groans of her no doubt burly bandmates. (Edit: Actually, somewhat less than burly, see above!!)

Originally formed in Berkely as far back as 1971, they had rather more chart success at home and in Oz than in the UK, the above mentioned song being, I'm surprised to read, their only UK chartbotherer. I'm surprised it even reached 41, which it did, apparently, not through undeserved worth, but because I thought I was the only person who actually bought the single. It seems that vocalist/guitarist Martha Davis has been the only constant, with a massive cohort of transients over the subsequent decades. Indeed, albeit now officially Martha Davis and, the current unit are either currently touring, recording or both.

As a contrast I was hoping to find something from an LP of childrens music she, Ms Davis, put out at one stage. Unfortunately no-one has seen fit to youtube anything, but here is a spotify link that may or may not divert you, in more ways than one.

A final thought, as I try to shoehorn a further Hotel/Motel reference into this piece, I wonder whether the CEO of Days Inns ever contacted the band, in search of a slogan. Days are OK would surely fit the bill, I feel, for their, um, range? Of course, I expect a fee for this idea, should such a person be reading. I feel sure they are.

Hotels and Motels:Songs About the Chelsea Hotel

Jefferson Airplane: Third Week in the Chelsea
[purchase]

I am willing to bet that there is no other hotel or motel in the world that has inspired more songs than the Chelsea, located in the lower Manhattan neighborhood of the same name. Recently purchased and closed for renovations, the hotel has long been identified as a place for artists, performers, writers and musicians to live and work, which probably explains its popularity in song.

Wikipedia lists 22 different songs referencing the hotel, and one of them, Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel #2” has been often covered. You could create a pretty credible cultural Hall of Fame consisting just of residents of the Chelsea, which for years was a residential hotel, including Bob Dylan, Charles Bukowski, Janis Joplin, William S. Burroughs, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenberg, Iggy Pop, Arthur C. Clarke, Allen Ginsburg, Diego Rivera, Mark Twain, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Stanley Kubrick, Uma Thurman, Jane Fonda, Alice Cooper, Larry Rivers, Christo, Julian Schnabel, Alejandro Escovedo, Jimi Hendrix, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mapplethorpe, Gore Vidal, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Dennis Hopper, Thomas Wolfe, Elliot Gould, Elaine Stritch, Edie Sedgwick, and many, many more. And, of course, Sid Vicious’ girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, was found dead at the hotel, as were Dylan Thomas and Charles R. Jackson, the author of The Lost Weekend.

Cohen’s song has been discussed previously on this blog, here, and a cover by Lloyd Cole is discussed here, Dylan’s “Sara” was mentioned, if briefly, here, and a post about Joni Mitchell's "Chelsea Morning" is here. But there are many, many others to talk about.

My favorite is “Third Week in the Chelsea,” the second song from Jefferson Airplane’s Bark album that I have written about (which is pretty interesting, considering that it is generally considered a pretty mediocre album). It was written by guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, and it is a beautiful song, filled with sadness and resignation about the impending demise of one of the great bands of its era. It is a classic of the “leaving the band” genre, right up there with Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill.” Although the whole thing is great, this stanza always kills me:

All my friends keep telling me that it would be a shame 
To break up such a grand success and tear apart a name 
But all I know is what I feel whenever I'm not playin' 
Emptiness ain't where it's at and neither's feeling pain 

Because, when it is time to go, it is time to go. Luckily, he had Hot Tuna to fall back on.

Leonard Cohen’s song, which we really aren’t going to discuss, was about an (oral) sexual encounter at the hotel with a woman he later acknowledged was Janis Joplin. Jeffrey Lewis, a New York singer/songwriter, wrote “The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song” which is both about and not about Leonard Cohen’s song, and has a certain shaggy dog charm of its own (and no actual oral sex):



Dan Bern, who is often compared to one time resident Bob Dylan, because they are both Jews from the Midwest who have raspy voices, play guitar and write interesting songs (making the comparison somewhat plausible), also wrote a song about having sex at the Chelsea. This version was recorded at the Turning Point in Piermont, New York, just across the Tappan Zee Bridge from my house, which gets surprisingly good acts, considering that it is about the size of a small living room. And it has a trumpet solo.



And, finally, here’s Okkervil River’s “Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed On The Roof Of The Chelsea Hotel, 1979.”



Campbell was the real name of the former Chelsea Hotel resident, singer Jobriath, who is considered to be the first openly gay rock musician signed to a major label, as well as one of the first well known musicians to die of AIDS.

The song appeared on Okkervil River’s The Stand Ins album, which is filled with songs musing about celebrity and pop culture. Jobriath, whose albums received generally good reviews (and had both Peter Frampton and John Paul Jones contribute to his glam-rock, very David Bowie-esque music), found his career derailed first by excessive hype by his management, then his disillusionment with the industry, and finally by his illness. He apparently did an interview from the roof of the Chelsea in 1979, but it was different from what Okkervil River sang about. Although not directly related to the hotel, here’s one of his songs, “Take Me I’m Yours,” about S&M, which certainly could have happened at the Chelsea Hotel.

Hotels and Motels : A Briga Do Edificio Italia Com O Hilton Hotel

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Talking Heads were not the first band to record songs about buildings. On his 1973 album, Se o Caso É Chorar , the wildly imaginative Brazilian Tropicalia artist Tom Ze sang about rival Sao Paulo buildings battling each other in "A Briga Do Edificio Italia Com O Hilton Hotel".  

Once the tallest building in South America and "the King of Ipiranga Avenue," the Edificio Italia was designed by a German Brazilian architect. Since its completion in 1965 it was a source of pride among Brazilians. The new Hilton Hotel, on the other hand, was decidedly modern, foreign-looking and foreign-owned --a symbol in Ze's eyes--of  multi national corporations trying to buy off Brazilians and turn these life-loving people into drones. 

On  "A Briga Do Edificio Italia Com O Hilton Hotel",  Tom Ze has the two buildings trading insults with each other. The Edificio Italia takes the first crack, claiming "that to get so white, the Hilton drinks rice-flour tea, only wears the latest fashion, dresses up right, and if he goes up Consolação (an avenue the two buildings share with the city's oldest cemetery)  wearing white, will cause terror even in the cemetery."

The Hilton responds "They’re already calling you Dumb Joe from the corner"... "and what’s more, (The Edificio Italia)  only thinks about money.He doesn’t know what love is, he has a body of steel, a robot’s soul."

The Edificio Italia (center left) and Hilton (center right) together 

The Edificio Italia stomps with rage and gets the last word, insinuating that the Hilton had been born round to call attention " Flaunted those curves to cause a sensation /And even seemed like a crazy girl,/ or the Tower of Pisa dressed up as a bride".

You can get so hooked on the music of Brazil's Tropicalia movement, you may never feel like you need to get the lyrics translated. But there are even more wonderful surprises waiting for you...if you do. That;s why I suggest you check out Brazilian Lyrics in English where I got more of my information for this post.

Hotels and Motels: Memory Motel

The Rolling Stones: Memory Motel
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Fool to Cry is probably my favorite from the Stones’ Black and Blue, but it doesn’t fit the theme this time around. That leaves me with my second favorite song from the album: Memory Motel.

There’s a lesson here about relying too heavily on Wikipedia for your data. Around 1975, the Stones were searching for guitar men to replace Mick Taylor. Black and Blue was in progress at about this time and Keith Richards is on record as saying that the album was about trying out different guitarists. The Wikipedia article about the song itself informs us that Richards “did not play guitar on this piece”. However, the Wikipedia article about the album says he did, while also giving credit to Harvey Mandel for “lead electric guitar”.

Some months back, SMM ran the theme “The Other Guy” and at that time, I once again chose a Stones’ song where Keith Richards did the main vocal. In the clip here, Richards is most certainly on the guitar in addition to sharing the lead vocals with some other guys. (This, of course, following my post last time around that included a Jagger vocal to RY Cooder’s guitar.