In Memoriam: Three Vaguely Prog Musicians

Jon Hassell/Brian Eno: Chemistry
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Kansas: Cheyenne Anthem
[purchase]

Brand X: Nuclear Burn
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Part of it, I guess, comes from the fact that prog rock era musicians are getting to that age, but it seems like almost every year at about this time, I’m writing about some of them. This year, I’m taking a broad view of the genre, with one musician probably best known for ambient music, one for a distinctly American take on prog, and one who is more from the fusion world, but I like to do group In Memoriam pieces, and this is the best excuse I could come up with to write about these three artists together. And for no real reason, I’ll discuss them in the order that they passed. 

For some reason, I assumed that trumpeter Jon Hassell was European, but he isn’t. He was born in Tennessee in 1937, but did study serial music in Germany, where he befriended the future founders of Can, before returning to the US, where he performed on Terry Riley’s first recording of In C. He also was part of LaMonte Young’s Theater of Eternal Music (which also spawned John Cale) and also studied Indian music. 

I first became aware of Hassell when he collaborated with Brian Eno in 1980 on an album called Fourth World Vol.1: Possible Musics (and he also played on Eno’s 1982 album Ambient 4: On Land). Hassell used the term “Fourth World” to describe his work as “a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques.” Hassell used lots of electronic processing and effects on his trumpet, leading to strange, otherworldly sounds. He also appeared on the track “Houses In Motion” on Talking Heads’ Remain In Light, on Peter Gabriel’s Birdy and Passion soundtracks, along with a bunch of solo and group recordings, and guest spots with artists as diverse as David Sylvain, Jackson Browne, Ani DiFranco, Ry Cooder, Tears For Fears, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, and k.d. lang. 

Hassell had been in bad health for about a year before dying on June 26, 2021 of natural causes. 

I’d argue that Kansas was, during their strongest period, the best American prog rock band (I also love Happy The Man, but most people have never heard of them). Kansas fused the mostly European prog sound with American music, fitting for their origin in the country’s heartland. Most reviews of the band refer to them mixing prog with “boogie,” and I’m not sure I can really describe what that is, but you know it when you hear it. Their albums Leftoverture and Point of Know Return were staples of FM radio during my high school years and one key to the band’s sound was violinist/vocalist Robby Steinhardt. 

Steinhardt was born in Chicago in 1950, but grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, where he started violin lessons at age 8, and was classically trained both in the US and Europe. In 1972, he joined a band in Topeka, White Clover, which eventually became Kansas. Steinhardt was mostly known for his violin work, but sang harmony on most of the band’s songs, and lead on more than a few. He also acted as the “MC” during live performances. 

I started losing interest in Kansas after 1979’s Monolith, after which the band turned toward a strong Christian influence and began to splinter. Steinhardt left the band in 1982 for “personal reasons,” although one article I read referred to his substance abuse during this time. He was part of a band, Steinhardt-Moon, and performed with other acts until rejoining Kansas in 1997, but tired of the pace of touring, and left for good in 2006. In 2013, Steinhardt suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery but began making guest appearances with Stormbringer (which had formed from Steinhardt-Moon). 

In 2020, Steinhardt began work on a symphonic prog-rock project that included contributions from, among others, Ian Anderson, Steve Morse, Billy Cobham, Patrick Moraz, Chuck Leavell, Liberty Devitto, Pat Travers, and Lisa Fischer. Unfortunately, the album, Not In Kansas Anymore, was not released until October, 2021, a few months after Steinhardt died on July 17, from complications of acute pancreatitis. 

Back in 2014, I wrote a short piece about Brand X for our “Side Projects” theme, because it was, for Phil Collins, a side project from Genesis. But one of the few consistent members of that band, and one of its founding members, was guitarist John Goodsall. Goodsall was born in 1953 in England and picked up the guitar at age 7. He went pro at age 15, touring with a few bands, including Atomic Rooster (which also included drummer Ric Parnell, who later played Mick Shrimpton in This Is Spinal Tap, the drummer who spontaneously combusted, and then toured with the Tap as Mick’s twin brother Rick). Brand X performed and recorded from 1975-1982, and to my ear produced a great deal of interesting music. 

Starting in 1979. Goodsall moved to Los Angeles, and also worked as a session musician, appearing on albums with Peter Gabriel, Bill Bruford, Bryan Adams, and yes, even on Toni Basil’s hit “Mickey.” He was a member of Zoo Drive in the mid-1980s, and after that, the Fire Merchants, before reforming Brand X in 1992. Later, he appeared with various combinations of musicians and recorded music as a leader and session musician. According to Wikipedia, Goodsall appeared on a few soundtracks, ranging from mainstream films such as No Small Affair, Can’t Buy Me Love, and Point Break, and the somewhat less mainstream Anal Intruder 9. 

Goodsall died on November 11, 2021, possibly of complications from pneumonia.

Sinking & Falling: Free Fall

Dixie Dregs: Free Fall
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One of my minor pleasures is when I get to write about a band that I like, but which has never been featured here. The Dixie Dregs fit that bill. And speaking of Bill, the only time I saw the Dregs was, inexplicably, in a dive bar in Kingston, New Jersey in August, 1981, with some fellow WPRB staffers, including my friend Bill Rosenblatt. (Inexplicably, because setlist.fm shows that a couple of months before that show, they played Pier 84 in New York, a fairly large venue, the night after playing the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia, another large venue, and a couple of weeks later, they played the Lakeland, Florida, Civic Center, which holds 8,000 people.)

My memory of that show is basically limited to the fact that they were incredible, especially in a place the size of a large living room, and that I was able to talk with them, go “backstage” (the kitchen, if I remember) and drink their beer. Bill’s more detailed memories of the evening can be found here. We did promote some other shows at the Tin Lizzie, but this was the only “big name” that I remember being there (although the Internet has evidence that Jorma Kaukonen played there about a year later, after I graduated).

It is also fun to be able to follow my first post in this theme, about a ska-punk song, with a sunny, fusion song. The Dixie Dregs were one of the best fusion bands of the 70s and early 80s, and as is my habit when someone else has written something better than I could, I’ll quote Rosenblatt:

The Dixie Dregs were a band from Georgia that played jazzy instrumental rock in a style that sounded sort of like Kansas without the vocals, or Lynyrd Skynyrd meets Mahavishnu Orchestra.. . .Their leader was guitar virtuoso Steve Morse, who would later join Kansas and Deep Purple when those bands reached their “playing the zoo” stages. 

Although they were mostly from Georgia, they really came together as a band at the University of Miami, at a time when musicians such as Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny (and future members of his band, Dan Gottlieb and Mark Egan) and Bruce Hornsby were studying and/or teaching there. After self-releasing an album of demos, they were signed by Capricorn Records, the Allman Brothers’ label, and released their first official album, Free Fall. The title track, which leads off the album, is a good example of their music—generally upbeat, complex but not annoyingly complicated, impeccably played, and with a southern twang. And no vocals (until an early 1980s bad experiment with guest vocalists…..). I found a review of the album that refers to the song as "a jazz-country-funk breakdown with a digital synth alien laser beam effect solo, whilst a footstompingly good delay-drenched electric violin follows up with a pentatonic jam." 

The Dixie Dregs (briefly officially shortened to The Dregs late in the game) continued to release a string of similarly excellent albums, despite some turnover in personnel, until 1982, without much commercial success despite critical acclaim and a few Grammy nominations. Because instrumentals are a hard sell anyway, and certainly during the 80s. There were a few reunions in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but basically, the band has been quiet. Until now—a tour of the Free Fall lineup has been scheduled, and it doesn’t look like they are playing any place like the Tin Lizzie.

Pour: Sugar, Sugar

The Archies: Sugar, Sugar
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A couple of years ago, I wrote about how my love of music began in the summer of 1969. That summer saw the release of “Sugar, Sugar,” a classic “bubblegum” rock song credited to The Archies, a fictional band of cartoon characters from the comics, and specifically, from The Archie Show, a cartoon series that began airing in 1968 on CBS. As a 7 year old, I was directly in the target demographic, and remember watching the show, and its various later incarnations and spin offs. The Archies, of course, were an attempt to piggyback on the success of The Monkees, a fictional group of actual humans which remarkably turned into a real band, themselves created to piggyback on the success of The Beatles, an actual band of legendary humans.

“Sugar, Sugar” was written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim, and features the lyrics ‘Oh, sugar, pour a little sugar on it honey/Pour a little sugar on it baby,” making it theme-appropriate. Because Archie, Betty, Veronica and the gang were fictional, the song featured a crew of studio musicians managed by Don Kirshner (who had originally supervised The Monkees’ music), including Chuck Rainey, who played with Quincy Jones and Steely Dan, on bass, and drummer Gary Chester, who appeared on tons of hit records. Lead vocals were performed by Ron Dante, accompanied by Toni Wine, who multitracked their voices to create the full Archies sound.

Ultimately, “Sugar, Sugar” was the number one song of 1969, and its influence cannot be underestimated. You find its DNA in the power pop that arose in the 70s and 80s, and even in punk bands like The Ramones. Not to mention Def Leppard. Since I love that music (other than Def Leppard), I have to believe that constant repetition of “Sugar, Sugar” during the summer of 1969 somehow imprinted in my brain a susceptibility to poppy, hooky music. Remarkably, the song became a hit again the next year in a cover by Wilson Pickett, a very different artist. It has been covered often, by artists as diverse as Alex Chilton, Bob Marley, The Germs, and Homer Simpson. There are also German, two Czech, and Spanish covers. Recently, it was featured on Riverdale, a noir live action version of the Archie comics, played not by some modern version of The Archies, but by Josie and the Pussycats. (All of a sudden, this is turning into a Cover Me "Five Good Covers" piece....)

Flash forward from the summer of 1969 to the summer of 1978. That was the summer that I graduated from high school, and as a graduation present, my parents sent me to Europe on a multi-week teen tour. It was an incredible experience. We flew to London, took a ferry to Holland, and then bussed south to Italy—I’ll never forget waking up in the middle of the Alps for the first time—then north to Paris before I somehow was trusted to lead a small group of my fellow teens back to New York while the rest of the group continued on without us. We had a good group of kids, mostly from the New York area, and I very quickly became closest with two other guys, Larry and Keith. We spent an enormous amount of time together that summer, riding buses, touring and just hanging out.

It turned out that Larry’s father was Don Kirshner’s partner, and he joked that The Monkees and Archies were going to put him through college. At the time, though, their big act was Kansas, and after we returned from the trip, we all saw the band play Madison Square Garden together. As things happened, we grew apart as our lives turned to college, careers and families.

Flash forward to 2011, about a year after I joined Facebook. I had reconnected with Keith and Larry, and another woman, Nancy, who had been on the trip. We met for dinner in New York, and had a great time, but although we promised to do it again, we haven’t. I’ve been in touch, on and off with Larry, on Facebook and off, have had a little contact with Keith on Facebook, and it appears that Nancy has unfriended me. That’s sort of the way life is, I guess. It is difficult to keep in contact with people when your social circles really don’t overlap, your relationship is based on a short, intense period decades in the past, with a long eventful gap and considering the amount of effort that it takes to rekindle a friendship.

The other day, I was lucky to attend a speech at Princeton Alumni Day by Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Alphabet (the holding company for Google). He talked about how his belief was that technological innovation would solve the world’s problems. In response to a question about the effect of social media on human interaction, he observed, essentially, that we may have more relationships, but that those relationships are not as deep. And that does seem to be the case in the Facebook era.

Personally, I’m not complaining. I’ve always been somewhat introverted with a small number of close friends at any given time. Through Facebook, I’ve been able to create a larger circle of friends, some who I haven’t spoken to in years and some of whom I’ve never even spoken to in person, and enjoy interacting with them comfortably in the ether.

SMALL TOWN: TRUCK STOP LOVE



purchase Truck Stop Love

For a young college student, the transition from late spring final exams to full-time employment in summer is liberating. It’s also strange. You transition from hours upon hours of intense intellectual work to hours upon hours of menial, brainless labor: laying cement, cleaning toilets and in my case waiting tables.

Truck Stop Love, which has about 300 hits for most of its songs on YouTube, made poignant, alt country rock music that reflected beautifully on its time and place: the early 90s Midwest. Live, the Manhattan, KS band was unbridled and loud as hell. They were my soundtrack in the summer of 94’ and a band that deserved major attention.

The song “Townie” (75 hits as I write) is an anthem for the ones in ripped jeans and dirty t-shirts who roll around like tumbleweeds in the empty summer sun from one coffee shop or bar to the next--budget of a couple bucks. The opening of “Townie” floats--like much of the song--one guitar jangles and the other is fuzzed up. The scene is set:

“Bob’s at home lookin at her locket…You’re 22--hands in your pocket--looking for a friend to get you high. Should I get a haircut? Do I look like a Jimmy Page? You’re 22, got no money in your pocket. Looking for a girl to take you home.”

It’s one of a few Truck Stop Love songs, including the sweet and crunchy “Other Stars” that reflects on hair and haircuts. And hair was very important at this time.  Long hair was coming back and was the preferred style of grunge bands. You don’t forget Chris Cornell and Kurt Cobain’s hair whipped over their shoulders or Kim Thayil playing his evil licks behind a gate of dark curls. As a college kid, you wished you had just come into school with long hair. Growing it out took time and made you come across as a wannabe. Once it got to the shoulders and you settled in with it for a couple months, you were cool. I cut mine just a couple weeks into a potential pony tail stage. It was skunky looking, and I never thought it was me.

“Small town boy, got a tattoo on your side….Small town boy, got a chain hanging from your pocket”. You’re 22, playin’ pinball in your pocket. Waiting on a lost cause to get you by.”

I stayed in my university town an extra year after graduation and was on the verge of becoming a “Townie”. The town began to shrink, however. Hitting bars started giving me a creepy embarrassment and the occasional flash fear of being a lifetime waiter. The thought of becoming that philosophy major who stuck around for twenty years to continue working in his favorite bar and hit on college girls sparked me to get the hell out of there. I ended up teaching in a tiny town in Japan.

"Hey Joe, you got some smoke? Well I got some fire. I’ll pay you back anytime. ('yeah right')."

I saw Truck Stop Love Twice. The first time was when I booked them for 250 bucks to play at our university as part of a punk show. The young kids who typically came to shows usually wanted fast and loud, so I was nervous that TSL might underwhelm when playing next to Compound Red and Alligator Gun, two great live bands from Milwaukee. Making matters more difficult was that one of the two singers, the one who sang on “Townie” and “Stagnation” (“I’ve been down to your bar/It looks the same or did you remodel?”), had a sore throat and wouldn’t sing. But when the audience of 40 started chanting “Townie! Townie!” the other band mates badgered him into it. The band had to be surprised a university audience knew and liked a song enough to call it out. Actually, as Music Director, I had kept their debut e.p. on our college station’s CMJ charts for about 6 months.

TSL stayed at my house that night. I remember the singer getting sick of the Possum Dixon cd I was playing and going up and changing it himself to Pavement. A German teacher, who was an old punk, sat down and gave the band a lecture on how to bring more attitude to their music, which was endured by the band as long as the Leinenkugels kept coming.

When I woke up the next morning and made my way downstairs, they had already left, a pizza box was against the wall and it said, “Thanks, Jake. We’ll see you again. Truck Stop Love.”

A year later after I had graduated I saw TSL in my university town again. They were without the above guitarist/vocalist and most of them had cut their hair. The sound wasn’t nearly as thick and gutsy as I had remembered. They basically seemed like a decent bar band at that point. Their album “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”, which was put out on Scotti Brothers, which had also released their brilliant e.p., did very little on college radio. They looked ready to fold. But for a year, their music described my life like poetry.

Fifty States: Kansas

Damnations: Kansas [purchase]

So, I go from posting about The Jayhawks to posting about the Jayhawk State. The Damnations, however, were not from Kansas. In fact, they were a group of Austinites, led by a pair of gorgeous, folk-singing sisters originally from upstate New York. Bassist Amy Boone sings lead on this tale of "Bleeding Kansas," with acoustic rhythm guitar and harmonies provided by her sister, Deborah Kelly. Meanwhile, Rob Bernard (also of Prescott Curlywolf) takes a break from his Eddie Van Halen meets D. Boon guitar badassery to hunker down on banjo and mandolin, while fellow Prescott moonlighter, Keith Langford, holds down the drum kit. (Soon after this recording, Langford would leave both The Damnations and Prescott Curlywolf to join The Gourds full-time, where he remains to this day). Finally, a subtle fiddle part is added by Eamon McLoughlin, now of The Greencards.

Sadly, this 1999 recording captures The Damnations at their short-lived peak. As the new millennium dawned, it seemed like the band was poised to break out. They had the sirens up front, songs that ranged from hoe-down country to melodic pop to cowpunk, and were gradually building up a devoted following. Unfortunately, within a year of releasing their debut album, Half Mad Moon (linked above), their label, Sire Records, merged with London and the band got lost in the promotional shuffle. Not only that, they recorded their second album just as the Sire-London partnership ended, leaving the band with no options as they were legally bound to the label that was itself in financial and legal limbo and had no interest in promoting them. By the time they released Where It Lands, their sophomore follow-up, the band existed in name only. RIP The Damnations.