'Charlatans UK', that is, one of those raggle taggle of bands having to append their country of origin to their name, at least in the states, to differentiate themselves from some earlier same-name who could sue. Thus we also have the 'UK Squeeze', at least initially, 'The Mission UK', 'The English Beat' and 'London Suede'. Strangely not ever in reverse, with no Skid Row USA or Outlaws USA, to differentiate from their british forbears, let alone the nonsense of prime 60s psychedelicists 'Nirvana' having to add UK when some Seattle upstarts, previously named 'Fecal Matter', stole their name decades later.....
Weirdo/Between 10th and 11th; 1992
Hey ho, rant over, and as good a way to start this piece as any, by commenting on that strangeness. But, you know these guys anyway, they got to a Billboard number 1 with this very song. OK, it was one of the Billboard subsets, Best Modern Rock, lasting in that spot for a full week in 1992. Modern rock doesn't seem such a bad title, as more accurate definitions struggled. Lumped in with Madchester, or Baggy even, in the UK, they were neither from Manchester nor particularly comparable with those that were, the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays, not least in the emphasis on a driving hammond organ led sound and a distinct northern soul and mod influence. I think it this, for then, retro sound that caught my ears, largely unenamoured by the rest of the pack. From their second album, Between 10th and 11th, itself named after the the venue they played their first US gig, perhaps suggesting this was where they were setting their sights. (The venue? New York's Marquee, or as we call it in this country, the Marquee US.) Sadly the momentum was lost somewhat when the keyboard player, Rob Collins, was arrested and imprisoned for his involvement in an armed robbery, arguably a foolish move when on the cusp of breaking america. Stories vary.
One to Another/Tellin' Stories; 1996
However, he was still there for their next three records, for even if US sales were next to no more, they were gradually building up ever a bigger name at home. The fifth record, Tellin' Stories, went platinum, arguably bolstered by the injection of some dance/electronica tropes courtesy Tom Rowlands (Chemical Brothers) and Martin Duffy (Primal Scream). The latter had became involved as Collins had only managed half the album, ahead of driving off the road at speed, without his belt belt and with excess alcohol. He died.
A Man Needs To Be Told/Wonderland; 2001
I felt the band were never quite the same again, never as cohesive, becoming more under the influence of the undoubtedly charismatic singer, Tim Burgess, even if, keyboards aside, the guitarist and rhythm section remained largely constants. Album number seven, Wonderland, even tried a change in focus, as Burgess steered a country influence, triggered perhaps by his longstanding Dylan fixations. Guitarist Mark (no relation) Collins even added pedal steel to his repertoire, even if it is Daniel Lanois on the record. Next came a backflip toward dance again, with the appearance of more of Burgess's previously guarded falsetto. Whilst the critics poured admiration on these releases, I personally felt a sense of desperation creeping in, and although their popularity as a live draw remained, sales were receding. Simpatico, number nine,wasn't even given the opportunity of a US release. It actually took a web giveaway to kick things back into gear, although You Cross My Path did get a more formal hard copy release later in the same year, 2008. Much more like it, this was a blunt reminder of who they were and what they were capable of, blending their original sound with a host of bolder ideas, but with a swagger and confidence missing over much interim output.
Oh Vanity/You Cross My Path; 2008
Bad luck returned to their ranks a few years later, their drummer, Jon Brookes, collapsing on stage during 2010, later receiving chemotherapy and surgery for the subsequently diagnosed brain tumour, only playing with the band again briefly ahead of succumbing three years later. Two albums, in 2015 and 2017, have followed, the band playing on, a soulful older statesmanlike hue beginning to appear, if the second of these trades arguably too heavily on the presence of guests, Paul Weller and Johnny Marr. So, what now and what next? Their website shows only they are still sporadically on the road, with no signs yet of any new material, give or take this year's record store day release of old and variations.
Talking In Tones/Modern Nature; 2015
Plastic Machinery/Different Days; 2017
Postscript: I toyed with putting up the lyrics of the featured song, as much as anything to see if I could make it fit my own view that it was the song that provoked one Thom Yorke and his band, Radiohead, to respond with this. Sadly the lyrics couldn't give me that indulgence, I finding it impossible to guage quite what or who the weirdo in question might be, possibly even Burgess himself. But, and without checking to see if the chronology makes it even possible, nice idea, innit!
Iron, actually, iron pyrites, but, given its name, not to say the myriad songs so entitled, hopefully quite worthy of a mention here. And clearly a theme of some inspiration, the age old tale of being taken in by all that glitters. Akin to buying a record unheard on the strength of a review. Or a cover.
The Stone Roses were huge for a moment at the rump of the '80s, their debut single blazing a trail that could never quite be replicated, a blend of dance and guitars, heralding the era of 'Mad'chester. For a while (that still lingers) all drums sounded like this, leading rather than riding. I found it exhilarating and still do, but the combination of management and internal rancour effectively leaves it a much better epitaph than the much delayed later product and ill-advised ongoing reformation. Lyrically this is an odd concoction, seemingly both a warning and expectation, about the discovery/dessert of riches the final lines almost apocryphal:
'Gold's just around the corner Breakdown's coming up round the bend'
Graham Parker and the Rumour are/were, in my opinion, the closest thing to Bruce Springsteen produced in the UK, Parker's gritty songs and presentation pre-dating the passion of punk by a year or two too soon, arguably then diminished by its onslaught. The Rumour were the epitome of classic bar band, grizzled pros even then, most still playing, not least when quirk and circumstance put the original line-up back on the road a few years back. Parker was the angriest man in music, spitting his words out with a venom barely believable from his slight frame. On his last tour of Britain, last year, in duo form with the exemplary Brinsley Schwarz on guitar, he seems finally to have found some mellow. The lyrics here seem to suggest a knowingness, suggesting not only is the music biz paved with fool's gold, but the searching of it is a fool's errand. Or it could be about girls:
'I'm a fool so I'm told I get left in the cold 'Cause I will search the world for that fool's gold, fool's gold'
Ryan Adams is almost frustratingly prolific and terrifyingly inconsistent, at least in live performance, previous shows often marred by his various demons. The story around Fools' Gold is almost typical of his battles. Gold was the name of his 2nd long player, to my mind his best, but not what he wanted or had intended, the idea being of a double set, thwarted by his record company. Some songs came in a limited edition extra disc, others sneaked out, like this, as a b-side for a single, the rest sneaking out as a bootlegged recording. As is so often the way with Adams, his best work is sometimes the hardest to source. The words perhaps display a well-learnt cynicism:
'Fool's gold can buy you anything you want Fool's gold, fool's gold'
What hasn't ever been said about Amy Winehouse that I could add here, the backline almost lifted from any of the recent posts about Songs From Movies About Musicians, riches and recognition to ruin. Whilst only putting out 2 records, she was prolific enough to have a swell of other material, b-sides, outtakes and more, and this is one, appearing on a later de-luxe edition of Frank. Of all the 4 songs I feature, it is lyrically the most poignantly apposite, a warning as to the falsehoods that can arise from the entrapment of a band of gold on your finger: 'For me it ain't real, it's fools gold There too many fools sold, not an excuse, oh For me it ain't real, it's fools gold I don't hear everything I'm told'
There are other songs by other artists about this shiny deceitful stone, from Thin Lizzy to One Direction, citing it both a subject and a metaphor for the desperation of hope versus the disappointment of discovery. How apt for popular music, this most fickle of industries.
So, what Fool's Gold old are you going to buy? Fill yer boots!
Springsteen made me want to become a guitar player--the opening chime of The Ties That Bind's riff was one of the greatest sound my 7th grade brain had ever heard. I knew then and there I wanted to play guitar. I distinctly remember going to my New York Yankees tin 'piggy' bank, pulling out about one hundred dollars in assorted bills--my haul from various birthdays, Easter Sundays and gifts slipped to my from my Grandfather--and handing it to my mom. I said: "I want to buy a guitar." Why did I give it to my mom to keep? I don't know--maybe I was worried, now that I had decided what to do with my loot, I might lose it? Who knows. I was buzzing, full of that strange, ritualistic kind of magic a great song casts over you, especially when you've just heard it for the first time.
I bought that guitar--still have it actually. And while Springsteen (who've I've written about many times here, and undoubtedly will again) may have influenced my to start playing the guitar, it was John Squire, guitarist for the Stone Roses, who, a few years later would influence me in how I wanted to play, how I wanted to sound. There's a profound difference, one that speaks to the development of nuance, of how influence works within and directs artistic vision. Vision is followed by execution and the direction one tries to follow. mistakes in that journey, missteps, can be brilliant errors and lead the player (writer, painter, sculptor, et al) in unseen directions and yield unintended results. And in art, especially music, the accidental discovery is the greatest place to find one's self.
The Stone Roses, like many of the artists I choose to write about, have had years of press, miles of copy, to proclaim their greatness. The combined shimmering, chiming 60s influenced guitar rock, mixed in magical harmonies and set it to a hybrid Rolling Stones/ dance hall groove that resulted in one of the most unique, influential and flat out brilliant sounds of the 1990s, or any era. Squire was a true ax-smith and his tendency to lay down long, multi-layered grooves that alternated between funk, pure pope, power chord aggression and biting, fired up solos is a sound unmatched in alternative rock.
When I play guitar, I tend to emulate Squire's verbosity, his need to roll and roll and roll, stabbing at the guitar at times, letting it know when to ring out and chime like church bells on a Sunday. Squire taught me what a glorious, multi-toned and many voiced instrument a guitar could be. He is one of many who have given the guitar, as a concept, a new voice. Guitarists will forever argue over the merits of their heroes, comparing skills, dexterity, prowess, super powers...For me, John Squire delivers brilliantly on such a sonic level, from tone to soundscape, that he is forever at the top of innovative guitarists.
Oh yeah...I picked this song because it uses the Biblical concept of "I am the Resurrection", which comes from John 11:25, "I am the resurrection and the life." The Roses use the phrase here, but I'm not sure to what metaphorical or symbolic effect. The song is bitter, and after multiple verses of describing an intensely adversarial relationship (record company?), the repeated refrain "I am the resurrection and I am the life/ I couldn't ever bring myself/ To hate you as I'd/ Like" comes across as both bitter and triumphant. Some fans like to make a big deal of the fact that the long, extended instrumental groove at the end of "Resurrection" ends their 1989 eponymous debut and wasn't followed up with new music until the opening track of 1994's Second Coming, Breaking Into Heaven. It makes for a nice bit of profluence to their story, a symbolic connection, but I don't know if I really believe it. For all the turmoil that has surrounded the Roses, and as little music as they've made compared to their stunning, stratospheric potential, I suppose stories are invented to fill in the gaps. Either way, Squire and co are one of the great groove guitars bands and remain influential in the pantheon of guitar gods. Rumors continue to swirl of a new album. We'll see...
In my research, I found one of those annoying, "10 Things You Didn't Know..." articles about the Stone Roses, and while I think this type of scholarship on the web, at least, is far too common, I did find it interesting that Chris Squire said this about being influenced by a sound and a song, speaking about the Sex Pistol's "Anarchy in the UK" : “I was fourteen when I heard that and realised how electric guitars could be made to sound. I got a paper round, and finally got the cash together by the following Christmas.” Influences come in all sizes, and sounds...
Ah, the future—flying cars, fully-automated homes, robot
girlfriends…What a time to be alive.
When the information age really started taking off, which I
calculate to be when I got my fist cell phone, I used to like to talk about how we
really were living in age of The Jetsons. All those cartoon-fantastic, whiz
bang inventions that made everyday life something much faster, more convenient
and brought us more in tune with the wider world seemed to be coming true.
Within reason, of course—I still had to sit in traffic, rather than fly over it
on my way to not a pneumatic hive of prodigious industry and lightning fast
tech innovations, but rather a crumbling building without air-conditioning.
But, no worry—I had a cell phone; I could talk to people
while I sat in traffic. I had satellite radio, which meant I never lost the
signal, unless it rained. And, as a teacher, I had this resource called the
internet, so I didn’t really need to do much planning for my lectures—it was
all right there for me, no trip to the library needed…
Strange how the Future ended up. I find myself often wishing
for the days before I had high speed internet service and could stream and
Google and text and Tweet and Snapchat and Instagram—and a whole host of other
common elements of my life. Life seems to have taken not only a semantic shift of meaning, but
undergone a radical revision in action and lifestyle as well. This is the
information age, yes, but things change so rapidly as we trip merrily along to
the future, we might as well dub it the age of Neologism, as well. We're constantly reinventing, in order to achieve this almost undefinable 'better', but we don't stay in one place long enough to think of what the better might entail...
But, let’s go back to get forward, shall we?
When I think of the theme “the Future”, a lot of songs come
immediately to mind, one because of their subject matter, but more for the
sense that, when it comes to music, the future is all well and good, and I’m
sure some great things are coming—but, it’s the past, the pedigree, the
primordial beginnings, that make the future what it is. Rock comes from a
specific well spring, a beautiful, ever-thriving gene pool that keeps
replicating its DNA into new creatures, that look a little different but all
come from the same family. Its like Jurassic Park—the old stuff makes the
new...We never have to go travel too far into the past to find the specific root of not only the modern sense of music, but also to predict where it is headed. Rock 'n roll is very simple--it's a product of its upbringing, and damn, did it have good parents...
My song this month is The Rolling Stone’s “2000 Man”, from
Their Satanic Majesties Request, their 1967 concession to psychedelia, and
psychedelics (that means “drugs,” kids). It’s not a great album—even the band
admits to thinking it was mess—court appearances, drug indulgences, no one to
pull the strings—and it adds up to a collection of silly, flower child ditties,
but overall, the album carries with the same sense of messiness that comes from
over indulgence and the sense of boredom that inevitably follows said abusive
behavior.
They say too much of anything that raises the senses will
eventually dull them. And Request is
just that: dull. And a bit silly.Have
you looked at the cover? It’s like a low-rent version of Sgt. Peppers, without the interesting subtext and treasure chest of
oddities.
Even the band looks a little uncomfortable about what they
are doing.One might guess they are
about 30 years early for one of those midnight Harry Potter Sales…
There are a few exceptions, such as the perfectly-pop She’s a Rainbow, and 2000 Light Years From Home, both of
which listen now as not only what was good about psychedelic rock, but as a
blue print for the sonic architecture of Brit Pop, and bands like Blur, The Stone Roses at their jammy best, and Oasis.
My favorite track on the album—the only other one I like,
aside from the aforementioned two above is 2000
Man. Let’s be honest: it’s the standout track on the album. It starts with
a country twinged guitar stutter and the chorus descends into a drum smashing,
organ grind shout out, something that wouldn’t be out of place in the Three
Penny Opera. The breakdown is pure static, and the song reads like a mash up of
a few genres, steps lively, and relies on those gorgeous twin guitar ripples
that Keith and Brian Jones did so well during their brief tenure as the melody
makers in the Stones.
It’s reminiscent of The Who’s A Quick One While He’s Away or
Medley, fromThe Beatles’ later Abbey Road
in that it is more than one song rolled into a single vinyl track. And while
both of those songs are much longer in scope and more masterful in
instrumentation and riskier in trying to accomplish something grandiloquent and
operatic, 2000 Man makes it mark as a gesture towards taking rock music in a grandly nuanced direction.
Lyrically, which is what brought me to the song for our
theme, 2000 Man is as interesting as it is nonsensical. It’s a confessional
poem of sorts, delivered by a man who identifies himself as the 2000 Man and who
proceeds to confess his misdeeds, his infidelity to his wife, his disconnect
from his children and in a strange nod to horticulture, the strange flowers
he’s growing on his window sill.
In a way, the song talks to the future in the sense that the
narrator just doesn’t fit—perhaps he’s outdated, but when he says don’t you I’m
a 2000 man, he seems to be saying, you don’t get me because I’m well beyond
you. I am the future. When the song switches narrative perspectives and the
speaker’s kids start responding to the conceited claims of their father, they
simply chant:
“Oh daddy, proud of your planet/ Oh
mummy, proud of your sun.”
It’s not necessarily done with the
clearest of intentions, but it does read like a back and forth between two
parties, both insisting they are hipper, more knowledgeable, more
at home in the new paradigm. The insistence at being a 2000 man comes across as
a desperate claim of relevance, which is what happens to those of us who stick
around long enough to see the world change, without our help, perhaps before
we’re ready.
The world morphs at a rapidly accelerating pace and it’s
hard to hold steady sometimes, especially for those of us who work and have to
interact cross-generationally. Nostalgia—looking back fondly, or fiercely or
with bitterness—is simply a self-defense mechanism that helps us to feel
relevant in a place where the only true relevancy is measured by the newness of
the idea or innovation.
The future was not kind to him...
I think, though, to disparage a younger generation is somewhat
pointless. Being grumpy about being 'out if it' won't get us anywhere. And, really, the more things change, the more
they stay the same…No, that’s bullshit. The more things change, the better
things will alwys have been ‘back in the day’. It will just depend on whose day it was. Bands
like The Rolling Stones? It will always have been their day, their party; we
were just lucky enough to get the invite.
At some point—sooner, not later—those that think we’re dinosaurs
will experience the same shame of irrelevance. Such is the pace at which we are
growing. Hold on to the classics—they will be everyone’s classics at some
point. Because, no matter how far we grow and move on, the beginning, the fount
and wellspring of greatness, the firsts—will always be the best. Elvis, The
Beatles, The Stones…all that amazing rock n roll, that was the future at one
point—the future with a capital F and italicized, the ideal. And, because it
was first, it will always be first and won’t fade away.
And if we go back to our stubborn speaker in 2000 Man, who insists he’s not lost his
hipness yet, it’s interesting to compare him to Jagger and the Stones—is there
any other outfit in rock ‘n roll who has the privilege of not having to insist
at all on having stayed relevant, no longer taste makers, but the creators of
the taste and pretty much the judge and jury of rock ‘n roll cool and the ones
who created the measure that everyone else will always have to live up to…?
The Stone Roses had been around for five years by the time they released their 1989 self-titled debut album, but in the years since their first one-shot single, their sound had moved from post-goth/punk to something which would come to typify the Madchester sound: a smooth alternative dance style which fit squarely within the growing alt movement, and tended towards a smart politicized britpop, making this particular radio hit an atypically self-reflective commentary on fame.
Their initial timing was good, and their recognition factor was only helped by mad outbursts against the labels who had helped them find fame, including a notorious and well-covered set of antics involving throwing paint on an ex-label president who had released what they felt was a bastardized "third-rate" video of that first, punkier single in an attempt to capitalize on their later success. In the end, however, though their influence would live on in modern Britpop sound of Oasis, Blur, Coldplay, and The Verve, their desire for greatness at all costs led to both a diffused sort of fame -- this song notably was not released as a single until 1991 -- and more press than product, as evidenced by their final and highly unusual career tally of two albums and five compilations.
The Stone Roses broke up in 1994; today, the members work as respected artists of various sorts. Lead singer Ian Brown, for example, managed to parlay his early success into a solo career; bass-player Mani plays in Primal Scream, while lead guitar John Squire, despite community respect for his definitive guitar-work, has moved on to full-time painting.
Bonus points for this sweet, twangy, mandolin-laden alt-countryfolk cover from Axton Kincaid's 2007 debut Songs from the Pine Room, which emerged the usual half-generation later.
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