Farming: Woodstock and the Jewish Catskills

[purchase the Woodstock box set]

I was only 8 when the original Woodstock festival took place about 75 miles from my home, and I have no recollection of it at the time. Of course, a few years later, I had seen the movie and listened to the album over and over again, and I had a sense of the importance of the event to the culture. And despite all of the great music, one of the most memorable things from the soundtrack was the little speech that Max Yasgur, who owned the land where the concert was held, gave to the assembled masses (see the video above). Yasgur started off with the phrase, “I’m a farmer.”

At the time, Yasgur, the New York City born son of Russian Jewish immigrants, owned one of the largest dairy farms in the area (and had studied real estate law at NYU). After other sites for the proposed concert fell through, Yasgur agreed to lease his farm in Bethel to the promoters for $10,000 (which he hoped would cover the cost of hay he needed to buy to replace what had been damaged by the summer rain). Interestingly, Yasgur was a registered Republican who supported the Vietnam War, but was also a believer in free speech and tolerance. He not only took an enormous amount of heat from his neighbors for allowing his farm to be used for the concert, he ended up providing as much free food and water as he could to the concertgoers. Although the family sold the land in 1971, and part of the property was later turned into the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Yagur’s son Sam still lives nearby and is currently the Sullivan County Attorney. Max Yasgur died in Florida at the age of 53 of a heart attack.

The stereotype of the Jewish immigrant to New York is the Lower East Side tenement dweller, packed into tiny apartments on densely populated, pushcart lined streets. Of course, many of the immigrants did come from cities in Europe and were happy to be city dwellers in America. But many of the Jews came from farming backgrounds—think Tevye—and a number of them bought land to farm, often in upstate New York (or, like the ancestors of Woodstock performer Jorma Kaukonen, in Connecticut). By 1910, somewhere between 500-1500 Jewish farmers were in the Catskills’ Sullivan County, constituting 30% of all American Jewish farmers, mostly in the eastern part of the county. Yasgur moved his family’s operations in the 1950s to the western part of Sullivan County, where he encountered anti-Semitism.

Back in eastern Sullivan County, Jewish families like the Kutshers, Grossingers and Winarick/Parkers began renting rooms on their farms before creating the famous Borscht Belt resorts that catered, initially, to their vacationing co-religionists. By the time of Woodstock, though, the heyday of the Borscht Belt was already over, as the rising affluence of the local Jewish population, the increase in low cost airfare and the end of restricted resorts opened up more travel options. The era of Dirty Dancing, reportedly based on Kutsher’s, was on its way out.

When my father arranged for me to get a job working as a busboy at Kutsher’s during the summer of 1979, I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew I’d work hard and I knew that I’d make money, but other than that, I was in the dark. My parents drove me up, and the hotel, although no longer shiny and new, was large, and looked relatively prosperous and comfortable. My living quarters, though, were not—I had a room, in a building that was maybe—maybe—a half step above a sharecropper shack. I had a single bed with an old, crappy mattress, a dresser and a moldy bathroom. I’ve later been told that my mother left in tears, my siblings were horrified, and my father kept driving away and returning, before deciding to let me deal with the situation on my own.

It was quite the learning experience. I learned such important skills as lying, cheating and stealing. There were never enough bagels, or coffee cups or forks to go around, so you had to do what was necessary to serve your customers, and to hell with everyone else, because you needed the tips to make it worthwhile. I learned to deal with difficult people—my waiter, the veteran Dick White, who was demanding and had little sympathy for the college boy he was stuck with for the summer, the insane kitchen staff and most of all, the entitled diners, many of whom took the concept of “all-inclusive” to mean trying a taste of everything on the menu. I learned that the crazy amount of food being ordered meant that I could ask Dick White to order an extra steak or roast beef, and stash it away to eat after the meal, since the staff food was not so great. I learned that if I casually dropped the fact that I went to Princeton to the guests, I got treated better. I learned that it is possible, and maybe even preferable, to serve people when you are stoned, and that there were other people who did so, with varying degrees of success, on harder drugs. I learned that adults played Simon Says. I learned that if you steal a goblet or wine glass every few days, you can have nice things to drink from in your dorm room when you returned to college. I learned that if you don’t chain things to your bed, they will get stolen. I learned that I could survive this Lord of the Flies environment, and even that I could return for the Christmas to New Year’s period, freeze my ass off, get little sleep, and walk away with a big chunk of money.

I also learned that the Catskills were no longer what they had been. Back in the day, when the resorts were basically seasonal, most of the staff came up for the summer, and a large number of them were college kids. But when I was there, the hotel was a year-round operation, with full-time staff, many of them Latino immigrants, who cared little for the Anglo summer staff that augmented their numbers during the busy period. I learned that the social aspect of the summer consisted mostly of going to bars, getting drunk and smoking weed, and competing for the few women (unsuccessfully, on my part) before passing out for a few hours so that you could get to the dining room early enough to get a full allotment of bagels. Or sneaking into the Starlight Ballroom’s projection room, getting high and watching the actually pretty decent comedians and middle of the road singers that still performed at the hotel. I also read War and Peace that summer in attempt to keep my mind sharp. All I remember about the book, though, is what former Kutsher’s performer Woody Allen once said: “It involves Russia.”

When the time came to decide whether to return for another summer, I decided to find other opportunities. Although I have no regrets about my experience there.

The big Catskill resorts desperately tried to hold on long enough to see casino gambling be legalized in the area, and continued spiraling down through the 1980s into the 2000s, relying on their golf courses and other gimmicks, such as Kutsher’s hosting the All Tomorrow’s Parties rock festival. Kutsher’s is considered to be the last of the big resorts to throw in the towel, and it is the subject of a documentary. Here’s a little video about the hotel, and here are some pictures of its post-closing decrepitude. The hotel is being demolished as I write this, and the new owner, Veria Lifestyle, is planning to construct a health and wellness destination. Where, I suspect, you won’t be able to get stuffed on pickled herring, matzo ball soup, kasha varnishkes or pastrami.

FARMING: Farmer's Daughters......

Quick submission loosely lauding the legend of farmer's daughters, usually involving buxom beauties, forever enticing the sort of man, well, any man really, of which their father, inevitably a brick shithouse of humanity, would disapprove, and the shenanigans thus ensuing. Here's 3 of my favourites:

"Anyone's Daughter," which also includes another staple of songsmithery, the judge's daughter, is from Deep Purple's 1971 LP, Fireball, and it really caught my teenage ears as it was so unlike anything else in their oeuvre, thus, as ever the awkward, I had to profess it  to be my favourite. (I was never really, or for long, a fan of the hard rock school of the Deeps, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and all that malarkey.) Listening again, as the decades disappear, it isn't even much good. Hey ho.........

Onto something perhaps a bit more authentic, "Wolverton Mountain," this being the version by Doug Sahm, from his evocatively titled Texas Rock for Country Rollers, in 1976, cementing my peculiarity amongst my peers. Actually written much much earlier and covered first by a number of different acts, it was seemingly based on a real character. Nowhere does it actually say the daddy was a farmer, but I somehow have always assumed he was at least a farmsteader. And I'm writing this piece.

Finally, here is a more innocent offering, the Beach Boys with their, at least accurately, entitled, "Farmer's Daughter." Little happens, beyond yearning, and it is short. Great vocal, though, reminding you of quite why Brian Wilson was (and is) so revered. Such a pity his voice is so shot now. But, as an excuse to shoehorn in yet another vid, until today, I had no idea that this song by Fleetwood Mac was one and the same

Purchase the Purple
Dig Sir Doug
Buy the Boys
Mine the Mac

Farming:Traditional Farming

 

Purchase [Dylan Do Re Mi]

Purchase [Bob Campbell Starvation ....]

Purchase [Woody Guthrie Dust Bowl Ballads]

Purchase [The "Boss" - Highway 29]

 

I  have a farm - small, and of sorts. At least, farming is in my  heart and soul. I grow corn, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. I also have wild apples and am attempting various other fruit ... but my current lifestyle is that of a city man: traffic hassles, security checks, door mats ...

Recently, I have devoured (to the expense of advancement in my paying job) more than 500 free "Western" e-books - the subject of which is at least indirectly "farming" -  living off the land. That doesn't make me an expert in and of its own, but I am also putting some of my learning into practice with my corn and eggplants. Farming - in its most liberal definition would appear to mean "making a living off the land" - and I guess that includes "beeves" and sheep... making your own ... soap, candles, "preservatives ..."

This all relates to our current theme in that the best farmer does it all. In that, the "Westerns" I have consumed promote the ideology that the best of men is he who provides for himself: comfortable in the wild/on the plains, resourceful enough to provide for himself from nature, defiant in the face of natural disaster.
There came, however, in the MidWest USA a natural disaster (arguably of man's making) in the 1930s that defied expectations, hopes and prayers and was the ruin of large numbers of middle class aspirational families. They mis-managed their land/farming tech and then aspired for better by moving on/moving West.

Woody Guthrie was among those that documented this history in music: the Oakies' trek to California in search of a better life.

I bring to you relics of a previous farm life- one before the GPS guided tractor, before the ethanol fueled corn-field, before the Monsato enhanced "output per bushel".

First, Ry Cooder and friends(!) with a really great rendition of Woody Guthrie's "Do Re Mi" (an excellent version of which you'll also find on Ry's "Into The Purple Valley"). Ry's Purple Valley packs emotion, but this one chokes me up just listening to it.

Next up, two "30's" farmer tunes that highlight the socio-economic plight of the dust bowl era: Bob Campbell playing Starvation Farm  Blues

and then Woody Guthrie himself with Dust Bowl Refugee:

And finally, lest we be left too much in the past, a nod in the direction of Bruce Springsteen, who manages to find a subtle way to merge history (such as the Dust Bowl) with the state of affairs today: the farmer's position/role hasn't changed much despite the hard years, the laws enacted to make his life easier, the world-wide lack of food .... he still "feeds us all" - and there's still the girl you long for and dream of.

Farming: Now I'm a Farmer

       From the 1974 compilation, Odds and Sods, comes "Now I'm a Farmer", a song Pete Townshend was originally hoping to include in the Tommy rock opera. Obviously it didn't make the cut. The version below was recorded in late May of 1970.

One of the charms of Odds and Sods are the liner notes. Of "Now I'm a Farmer", which he still maintains is one of the best songs he's ever written, Townshend claimed it was a song about growing marijuana:

     "'Now I'm A Farmer is from the same bale of hay, recorded at home for the EP. It's a drug song, all about the good life out in the fields growing those fantastic phallic ornamental gourds that you can use to...... to ...... to make gorgeous fruit bowl arrangements. See if you catch the immensely subtle reference to the 'Air' in this song. This track is from the period when The Who went slightly mad, we put out several records called 'DOGS', and at least one about finding 'one's inner self'. Gourds mate, that's the secret of life......GOURDS."

FARMING: CARTWHEELS/ANTHONY THISTLETHWAITE

                                                               

Unusually, at least for me, this post is prompting you toward an entire LP, arguably also maybe the entire solo output, of journeysmith muso Anto Thistlethwaite, one of those awkward northern English names that never look as if they are spelt right. Or ever could be. A name such as Thistlesthwaite smacks of the soil to me, and it is thus no surprise that his oeuvre is chock-full of earthy and organic delights.

His name is probably best known to 2 groups of fans, those of the Waterboys and those of the Saw Doctors, 2 different reflections of an Irish heritage, the sublime and the ridiculous, the romantic and the rowdy. (OK, chief Waterboy, Mike Scott is a Scot, but it is arguably his band and its foray into County Clare that is best known these days.) Between the formation of the Waterboys in the early 80s, through their "Big Music" phase, and their first disintegration, in 1991, by then an almost entirely Celtic inspired quasi-folk (rock) band, Anto was first on sax and later also on mandolin, harmonica and keyboards. For a recent 25th anniversary tour, reprising the various editions and volumes of Fisherman's Blues, he rejoined the ranks (and I was lucky enough to see the band when they touched down in Birmingham, U.K.) After the Waterboys, and a tour or so guesting, he became an official member of the Saw Doctors. He has also notched up a hefty range of sessional work with artists as diverse as Donovan and the Vibrators, Bob Dylan and the Psychedelic Furs, to mention a handful, as well as 5 solo albums. It is to the 2nd of these, from 1994, that I refer.

A&M were the record company of the Waterboys for some time, who were no doubt counting no few chickens as the band first began shedding members, as each departee seemed to establish further success, Karl Wallinger being the first such example, his World Party also signing to the same label. As Anto jumped ship they were likely waiting for him, an unsurprisingly similar aura hanging over each of the various alumni, raggedly sturdy vocals fronting a jangly, melody driven school of songwriting. So, getting finally on theme, Cartwheels. Throughout this record is a a rural ambience, redolent of ploughed fields and evocative of hedgerows. With input from the likes of Kirsty MacColl, Eddi Reader and Sharon Shannon, the idea of there being an earth mother is never far away, with perhaps Ralph McTell there to be the wise scarecrow, seering and sageing the ages. But other cameos include Mick Taylor, yes, that one. and Sonny Landreth, so the hint of guitar pyrotechnic, albeit with a lazy vibe, is never too far away. Here's 3 songs to prove it, the lyrics tending towards an explanation of my choice.

This last must be the only song that, I think (and it's hard to be sure) that has a spoken dedication to a tractor, at 3.46!

This is agro-rock by any exemplar. I hope you have been uplifted enough to seek it further, so here's the link!

Farming: Turn! Turn! Turn!

The Byrds: Turn! Turn! Turn!
[purchase]

They say that writers should stick to what they know, but I’m going to chuck that advice away and write about two things that I know and care little about—farming and the Bible.

We start with farming, the autumn harvest inspired theme for the next two weeks. I was born in Queens, New York, the son of two apartment dwellers from Brooklyn. And although I grew up in the New York suburbs, I had very little connection to the land. My father kept the windows closed, to keep the heat in during the winter and the air conditioning in during the summer. We lived on a steep hill, and as long as I could remember, my parents paid for people to come and mow our lawn, rather than have to deal with the risk of having a lawnmower fall on my father, or presumably me, as eldest child, when that responsibility would have become mine. We had some shrubs and trees on our half acre, but again, the garden guys pretty much dealt with them.

For some reason, the first time I met my future in-laws, who live on a large property in north central Connecticut, these generally considerate people (who loved and maintained their land despite the fact that in real life they were an architect and architecture professor and a children’s librarian, not farmers) thought it would be amusing to give me a scythe and send me out into a pasture. I sucked it up, cut the long grass, nursed the calluses on my hands and have a story that I still tell decades later. And, I think, got their respect.

I’m such a “city boy” that my first night in Westchester after living in Manhattan, and sleeping through car alarms, ambulances and all sorts of street noise, I woke up at first light, angry that my sleep was disturbed by unfamiliar sounds, only to be informed by my amused wife that the offending sound was “birds.” She, the daughter of the scythe owners, wanted to garden on our tenth of an acre lot, so, with my less than rudimentary carpentry skills, I built my first raised bed. Then a second, and last summer, a third. My wife enjoys gardening. She enjoys planting. She enjoys pruning, and she even tolerates weeding. I enjoy eating the herbs and vegetables that we grow, and when I “garden” it usually means picking tomatoes or peppers, and occasionally staking something up that has fallen, so that I can pick more veggies. Also, I will, on occasion, carry out specific tasks directed by my wife, like schlepping wheelbarrows of soil or mulch to places of her choosing.

"Turn! Turn! Turn!," which includes the line “A time to plant, a time to reap” was written by Pete Seeger, who based the lyrics on a passage from the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes. As an atheist, I have to admit that I’m not as up on the Bible as some of my more religious friends, but like the rest of the Bible, there are disputes about Ecclesiastes’ writing, author and meaning. But it is pretty clear that its message of wisdom and enjoyment of the simple pleasures of life has been influential, and certainly would resonate with Seeger, who added the era-appropriate last line, calling for peace.

The song was first released, as "To Everything There Is a Season" by The Limeliters, a folk trio, in 1962, a few months before Seeger’s version was released. In 1963, Marlene Dietrich released a German version backed by Burt Bacharach conducting a full studio orchestra, which sounds exactly like you would think. One of the backing singers on The Limeliters’ version was a young musician named Jim McGuinn, who subsequently rearranged the song for release, as "Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season),” by Judy Collins, also in 1963. McGuinn, who changed his name to Roger on the advice of Bapak, the founder of the Subud spiritual association that McGuinn was exploring, and his band, The Byrds, released the version that became a huge hit in 1965. Its message of simple pleasures, and peace, and the jangling folk-rock and great harmonies, struck a chord, and The Byrds’ version hit number 1 on the Billboard charts.

Monsters: Not Your Average Spooks...

Every year, ‘round All Hallow’s Eve, I make a point of watching some of my favorite horror films, to revive the haunting spirit. John Carpenter’s The Thing, any of Romero’s Dead films—there’s really no bottom to the treasure chest of scary flicks to pick from. Same with books—I like to go back and read some choice shorts that never fail to disturb. Stephen King, of course; Richard Matheson—those are the never-fails, guaranteed to creep you out, just like Saturday Night Fever is a sure bet to get people to do vaguely lascivious Travolta impressions.

There’s a strange comfort in scaring yourself, especially when you revisit the chills that put the real,original spook into you. It’s easy with books and movies, but when it comes to music, I always feel like the scary is always more camp than creepy. Unless you’re digging on that Scandinavian Death metal stuff, most of what classifies for horror in music is silly: Ozzy, Kiss—they freaked me out when I was little, but, really, beyond the album covers, it was all stage dressing. The Misfits, the Cramps, Bauhaus—in high school, the girls I knew who listened to those bands were way scarier than the actual music. And it seemed like a lot of the scary stuff was more image than substance—but, that’s what music is often about, sadly.

So, where do you get your scary from in music? I suppose like the more traditional medium of books and movies, the closer to life the chills, the scarier it all feels. So, I started combing the ipod, looking for ‘monster’ tunes—I kept coming up with stuff that wasn’t traditionally of the horror variety, but scary nonetheless, mostly because, well, as listeners, we can relate. What’s scarier than your girl dumping you? Or not knowing where the next paychecks coming from? Or…well, I don’t want to start down a Springsteen-esque tale of the common man’s struggle in the face of hardships life puts on him, but the best monster songs I know are the ones that remind me of what I’ve worried about, too. Empathy, the writer’s great friend, makes for some very compelling music.

 So, a few of my favorite songs about monsters—with a lot of latitude involved when it comes to that label:


 The Police; King of Pain—Synchronicity was an incredible album, genre bending like all Police records, covering a lot of musical territory, but King of Pain always stuck out for me, due to effective use of the end-of-the-world imagery as a means of equating the singer’s soul-level angst. A ‘butter fly caught in a spider’s web’, a ‘skeleton choking on a crust of bread’ or a ‘king on a throne with his eyes torn out’? The song is a catalog of nightmare images, a Lovercraftian landscape where a lonely soul walks the physic landscape of his sadness in search of any sign of happiness in a place where none exists. The repeated refrain of ‘that’s my soul up there’ perfectly nails home the crucifixion of the spirit of a man, one who is so beaten by life that he’s dubbed himself the king of pain. The song works in a strangely incongruous way: such sadness set to atmospheric, minor-key rolling groove, but then that down beat starts to work its way upwards and ends in an almost joyful crescendo. The lyrics never give way to anything brighter— our lost soul is still pinned to the sun, he’s still so lost as to have cornered the market of sadness and become the king of all the pain in the world, but, at least he’s walking you out of the darkness on an upbeat. A great song for all its radio-friendly sensibility, but a pop song this is not!
The Police, King of Pain
Purchase: King of pain

 My next entry—a twofer by Ryan Adams—again explores monsters of the metaphorical kind, that might be more comfortable being referred to as ‘personal demons’ rather than monsters. Have a little respect when your talking about feelings, man! Adams’ battles with substance abuse are no secret and he might be as well known for being a fuck up as he is for being a songwriter. His  herculean prodigiousness when it comes to turning out albums is both praised and derided, sometimes  even by his biggest fans. He’s slowed down a but, which is good, because being a fan of the man’s work became an exercise in differentiating between that old classic: quantity vs quality. And keeping track of all the work he’s done, not to mention trying to ingest it all, was a bit of its own kind of nightmare itself, to keep the motif going. But, when Adams is on, when he’s good, he’s incredible, a forerunner in the Alt-country, singer-songwriter genre. I admit to admiring his ability to indulge, to follow musical passions just put it all out there—Adams is that music geek you grew up with, who knew everything—obscure and even less well known—about music, only with the talent to back it all up. And, some of songs are staples in my personal, wouldn’t-be-the-same-without-it-playlist.

So, I offer two from his expansive catalog, one song from the brilliantly understated pair of EPs, Love is Hell, which was Adams at his raw and honest best, and one from Easy Tiger, a more rock-oriented entry.

From Love is Hell, I offer the subtle, wistful acoustic lament, I See Monsters. Written during Adams’ period of drug abuse before he got clean, the song’s actual meaning is up for some debate. The lyrics focus around the central image of a man lying in bed, next to the woman he loves, while fixating on the dark dream of an exploding Ferris wheel, 'people falling, people screaming', while he simply waits for her to wake, knowing that ‘when she calls’, he will answer. It might be about a woman he loves, it might be about waiting for his next fix, but the repeated refrain of ‘Still I see monsters’ leaves no doubt that eventually, the dream and the reality are going to merge, and our protagonist is going to wake to a very real, very scary world. He knows he can’t sleep forever and that eventually, that nightmare he keeps having is going to come true.
Ryan Adams, I See Monsters
Purchase I see Monsters

Moving on to…well, the same dark territory for Adams. “Halloween Head” is once again open to interpretation, but it’s a little less subtle in terms of pointing blame at a problem and perpetrator for life’s personal demons. “Halloween Head” finds Adams employing traditional Halloween imagery of ‘candy bags costume shops and punks in drag’ to show how his world of drug abuse has turned his reality into a dark place, one that looks more like a horror movie set than a real life. He laments the fact that he’s involved in a world he knows is wrong for him, perhaps like a repetitive nightmare, and he looks on the life he’s created for himself and calls it for what it is, angry that it ‘leads me through the streets at night…It's all the same old shit again’. The refrain of “I got a Halloween Head’ becomes, over a nice crunchy guitar groove, Adams’ lament at what he’s done to himself, and at one point, he does his best lonely werewolf howl, when he asks: ‘what the fuck’s wrong with me?’ It’s powerful because of the honest look he takes at himself, confronting the monster in the mirror, but more so for the oddly redemptive quality. There’s a bit of hope for the character, and when he joyously calls out for a guitar solo, you get the idea the good music can sometimes work to banish away the ‘bad ideas’.
Ryan Adams, Halloween Head
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Finally, let’s get away from angst, and the encouragement sad songs give us to lock ourselves in our dark bedrooms and feel perfectly fine feeling all alone, because the singer wrote whatever song your are fixating on just for you—and turn up the heat a little. Sometimes, our monsters are our own damn fault, and this brings us to the ever-crunching groove-stomp of Queens of the Stone Age. A lot of what Josh Hommes and crew do could fit into the ‘monster’ category, but one track that stands out is “Monsters in the Parasol”. A slick, walking groove, gives over to a readily identifiable QOTSA dissonant breakdown, only to slide back into a tight-bang strut. As always, Hommes is crooning on about some kind of nonsense that you just know came from otherworldly influences-- QOTSA have a corner on the market of the best of crunch and funk. And the strangest lyrics. Monsters in the Parasol is a classic mover where the music takes a directly opposing route to the content of the lyrics and makes us forget to stop and listen. Which might be a good thing, because with lines like ‘the walls are closing in again, oh well’, and ‘Paul’s sister is an alien’ and something something something is ‘covered in hair’, we are dancing our way through nightmare territory here. What does it all mean? The interpretations might not be appropriate for a family-friendly blog, but the ramble of the music is enough to get you moving, perhaps double time, away from whatever kind of creeping thing—paranoia, that very scary man in drag in the video—might be catching up to you. Queens of the Stone Age: Monsters in the Parasol
Purchase

What I love about music, just like books, like any art form that tries to communicate a translation of the language of the heart, is that, yeah, it really does sometimes seem to be written just about you. You know that feeling of listening to the radio and every single song that comes on is perfectly apt description of exactly how you feel at that very moment? It’s odd, but it points to the power of song, and a great song taps into the darkest and lightest stuff we have inside. Sometimes we need help looking the monster in the eyes, sometimes we need to forget all about the monsters and just cut loose, dance it up, smash a guitar. And music—good music—always helps.

Monsters: MJ's Monsters

 

[purchase Thriller]
[purchase Monster]


You would think that for all the mind enhancement of the 60s and 70s, that someone would have come up with songs referencing something a little more out of this world than Frankenstein and Godzilla (songs of which there are many). Granted, it's not quite all that bleak, but considering the vision-altering powers of some of those enhancements, I would have expected some rather wild monsters. That said, I'll have to note that there were many other-worldly album cover graphics that verge on the monstrous and were surely "induced".

Future's <Monster> single cover for example

My favorite go-to online dictionary provides the guidance that monsters do not necessarily have to be scary: defined as large, strange, horrible, uncontrollable. Large and strange - easy enough to envision. Horrible? Well, the dictionary says horrible is: very bad; causing fear, dread or shock... (Oh dear, now I need perspective on "dread", but I guess I have the picture...)

I waited until the last minute to post something partly because I thought someone else would bring up the classic "Thriller" monster (both as visual and commercial monsters)

 

And then I ran across my first sighting of MJ's posthumous Monster track. Or are you one of them that has actually seen this before? I confess I was not - and am now enlightened (for what it's worth), thanks to Star Maker.

 

Monsters: Photos of Ghosts

PFM: Per un amico  
PFM: Photos of Ghosts
[purchase Per un amico]
[purchase Photos of Ghosts]

If I had thought of this sooner, and gotten my act together, this would have been a great transition post between “Same Artist, Different Version” and “Monsters.” I didn’t, but I’m going to write about it anyway.

If you have ever heard of an Italian prog-rock band, and you probably haven’t, the band you probably know is Premiata Forneria Marconi, which means Award Winning Marconi Bakery, and is somewhat better known as PFM. (If you have heard of 2 Italian prog-rock bands, you are probably familiar with Acqua Fragile, whose lead singer, Bernardo Lanzetti, a Peter Gabriel sound-alike, spent a couple of years in PFM).

Growing up in the Seventies in suburban New York, my prog-rock pantheon included Genesis, Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd, Renaissance, King Crimson, Jethro Tull and, yes, Kansas. It wasn’t until I got to college and prowled through the WPRB stacks that I found other prog-rockers from around the world. Including PFM. Their early albums, released in Italy and sung in Italian, were on par with the best work from the bands I knew, and had the extra charm of being sung in a language I didn’t understand. (Of course, I had no idea what Jon Anderson was singing about, but at least I could recognize the words).

All of a sudden, though, PFM started singing in English. The band came to the attention of ELP while on tour in Italy, and their common acronymic identity and the quality of the music, led to the Italians being signed to ELP’s Manticore Records. Now, PFM’s first allbum, Storia di un minuto had topped the Italian charts, and their second, Per un amico, was considered a classic of the genre and received exposure all over Europe. But the big bucks could only be made if you sang in English, so the folks at Manticore brought on Peter Sinfeld, whose complex, impressionistic lyrics for King Crimson are either brilliant or insane (or both?), to write new—not translated—English lyrics for the Per un amico songs, which, along with one new song, became the album Photos of Ghosts. It was released in Europe, North America and Japan, and achieved success in its own right. The band released another pair of similar albums L'isola di niente/The World Became the World featuring Sinfeld’s lyrics before jettisoning him and adding Lanzetti on vocals because he spoke fluent English, had a stronger voice, and yeah, sounded like Peter Gabriel. They stopped releasing two versions of albums, shot for more mainstream appeal with Chocolate Kings, failed, and moved into a more fusion sound before fading away in 1987. A decade later, they reformed and continue to record and perform, but have attracted little notice outside of Italy.

You can compare the “Same Artist, Different Versions” of the songs by listening to the two songs provided above. Musically, they are the same, but you get to choose whether you prefer the Italian lyrics (either because you find the sound of the language pleasant, or because you know that they are relatively straightforward lyrics about old friends---at least according to Google Translate), or the typically Sinfieldian English lyrics (Beside a dried up fountain/Lie five dusty tomes/With faded pasted pictures/Of love's reverie.) It is rare that you get such a choice, and you are allowed to like them both—I do. As Yogi Berra probably never said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

MONSTERS: VAMPIRES (Bela Lugosi's Dead/Bauhaus)

Bit of a no-brainer*, really, and all the more surprising that the whole essence of goth has yet to be invoked this fortnight. In truth, infected (geddit!*) by the new series of The Walking Dead, I was hoping to find something more in keeping with that, but the Cranberries seem to have the monopoly, so, sourcing my inspiration from the BBC, I re-watched  some of the shows, delighting in the way that the victorians could ultimately have been responsible for Siouxsie and the Banshees. Puts a different spin on new wave, I guess, if the pedants will forgive my play on genres. Anyhow, this lot were included, with a near classic of the Goth genre, lugubrious vocals, foreboding in the bassline and a thoroughly aposite narrative, lauding the screens best Dracula, Mr Lugosi. Best, you say? Better than Christopher Lee, better than Bowie? No contest!!

At the time, 80s, I guess, I thought that goth all a bit of a joke, all the bleak blackness of hair, nails and lips, accentuated by the shocking white visages, all taken so, literally, deadly seriously by it's proponents, who hang on, like the undead, forever chilled, but not in that sense. (Before I go on to say how much the style has grown on me, like horns and a tail, in the intervening years, I can't resist but link into James Mollisons excellent photos of the tribes in music fandom, The Disciples. Here's the audience for the Cure, loving especially the 2 on the far right.

Anyway, I have, and can often be found crooning along in the car with Andrew Eldritch, possibly not his real name, or the Fields of the Nephilim. (In fact, is it not the joy of their noms de gloom that is half the pleasure?)

Do you want some further stuff about vampires? I don't know if this lot could in anyway be construed as goths, but, hellfire and damnation, the song is, even if the singer is technically singing at the wrong speed for the genre. Good, innit? Concrete Blonde.

Buy Bauhaus (and it's a different mix: the Tombraider mix, totally appropriately!)
Buy the Blonde
Buy the book

Monsters: Scary Monsters

David Bowie: Scary Monsters
[purchase]

I currently live in Tarrytown, New York, which is right next to Sleepy Hollow, and our two villages share many things—a school district, a library, sports programs and a love of Halloween. Over the past few weeks, the streets have been filled with tourists, the villages are decorated with all manner of Jack O’Lanterns, scarecrows and other ghouls. We have parades, hayrides, haunted houses, bonfires and the like. I’m glad that our local merchants are able to cash in on the craze, and people seem to enjoy it, but I think that Halloween, like so many holidays, has gotten out of control. Little kids dressed up like superheroes or princesses are cute. Drunk adults dressed up like vampires or slutty nurses, not so much. I guess it is part of our culture now to try to hang on to our youth longer and longer, and while I’m in no way advocating a return to men wearing suits and hats all the time, or women having to wear dresses and stockings, I do think that there comes a time when putting on a costume in public is just silly. Except, of course, at my college reunion. And get off my lawn, you damn kids!

Speaking of college, when I worked at WPRB, David Bowie released Scary Monsters, which turned out to be another career resuscitator for him. It had a bunch of good and interesting songs, top notch musicians, including Robert Fripp, Roy Bittan and Carlos Alomar, and it hit a sweet spot between commercial and experimental, with rock, disco and electronic influences. It was both a commercial and artistic success, and is commonly considered to be Bowie’s last great album.

Princeton is only a few miles from Grover’s Mill, the site of the alien invasion from Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio show, which was a Halloween trick and treat of its own back in 1938. Common wisdom was that the broadcast caused wild panic, but more recent studies indicate that the craziness was overstated. I got the idea of getting a bunch of extra copies of the album from the record company and sending some WPRB staffers out to Grover’s Mill on Halloween to hand out the albums to people. What I don’t remember is what we required before we would give out the precious vinyl, who went, and how, in the pre-cell phone era, we reported this on the air. I know that we had some sort of a remote board, but maybe one of my reader/friends will have a better memory.

I do remember thinking it was a pretty funny idea. And it wouldn’t surprise me if my copy of the album, sitting in a box in my basement, was from that same package of freebies.

MONSTERS: WEREWOLVES OF LONDON

1978 was generally a pretty good year for lycanthropy. Warren Zevon had been one of the few Americans to crack through my then very Anglocentric and punky taste in music, with his shaggy west coast looks beguilingly betraying his in your face attitudes. "Werewolves of London" is arguably a pretty slight song, essentially repetitive and without a middle eight, relying almost totally on it's pounding piano motif, quirky lyric and howl-a-long chorus. Rely away, it worked and it still works for me. OK, it helped that I was a devotee of the Lon Chaneys, junior and senior, namechecked in the song, and who each played myriad mosnters in the black and whites. I had also been to Lee Ho Fook, the Chinese restaurant then a staple of the Sino-British food connection, with drying and seemingly decaying ducks hanging forlorn in the window, and more fried rice than you could ever eat. (Quick interweb check reveals it's still here, alarmingly, or reassuringly, as I swiftly add seemingly to the sentence ahead of this.) Some of the rest of the lyric was beyond me, but folklore has it that the perfect hair of the unknown be-tailored individual was some sly reference to James Taylor. (No, me neither.) What I didn't know, however was that the rhythm section on the song was Messrs Fleetwood and Mac(Vie). Here it is, anyway:

I was a convert, and bought up his live LP, Caught in the Fire, baffling and bemusing my friends with the other strange lyrical deviations of this innocent looking madman. Looks, I gather, perhaps enabled him to get away with much excitable behaviour in his real life, too, to all intents maybe a man not too nice to know, as drink consumed him, rather than the other way round. I have his biography on my shelf, waiting to be read, and it is said to be an uncomfortable read. Ironically it wasn't alcohol but tobacco, his other vice, that killed him, via lung cancer, in 2003, leaving a later legacy of songs a little more reflectful. But only a little.

My loyal reader, hi, Kenny, knows I am a lover of the cover, with a bad habit, expensive anyway, of hoovering up other versions of songs I like, so here is a scattering of those who have covered this paean to panmorphism. I offer you David Lindley , The Flamin' Groovies and even The Grateful Dead. Aficionados will note the date of the last performance. I guess you had to be there........

Retail therapy

Same artist, Different Version: In a Gadda Da Vida

[purchase]

I wrote not too long back (perhaps somewhat misguidedly) about how AM radio play lists were dictated by guidelines set by the record company moguls, but I’ll stick by my comment that the length of a pop song in the 60s was limited to  what was perceived as commercially viable: anything over 3 minutes was pushing the limits. And then, towards the end of the 60s, there came various musical innovations that pushed these limits.

One of the first that comes to mind is the extended drum solo perpetrated by Ginger Baker on “Fresh Cream” – “Toad”.  It didn’t achieve commercial success. At about the same time, however, Iron Butterfly managed commercial success with a similarly lengthy song entitled “In a Gadda Da Vida”, pushing the limits of endurance at 17 minutes: way over the AM playlist time slots. However, this song was a commercial success, and so some formula had to be found to accommodate public clamor. The result was a short alternative version that could fit the AM radio format: my alternative version post.

The song is legacy enough that various other bands have revisited it with success, and I am including some of their alternative versions below in addition to the originals.

 

short play version

 

long play version

Blind Guardian version

Slayer version

 

Same Artist, Different Version: Voice of Harold

R.E.M.: Voice of Harold
[purchase]

The first time I heard “Voice of Harold,” which is a version of “7 Chinese Bros.” from R.E.M.’s second album, Reckoning with completely different lyrics, I assumed that it was simply a joke by the band. But it turns out that the story is a bit more interesting.

I’ve always had a sense that, like many great artists, Michael Stipe was a bit high maintenance. (It turns out that Mike Mills, is, too—he took exception on Twitter to something that I wrote on another blog about The Baseball Project). Apparently, when the band was working on Reckoning, which was recorded after a long, exhausting tour, Stipe was having a bad day, and his attempts at laying down vocal tracks for “7 Chinese Bros.” were inaudible. Don Dixon, one of the producers (and a fine songwriter in his own right), was killing time, poking around the studio, and was on a ladder when he found a pile of albums that had been tossed away. He pulled one off the top and threw it down to Stipe, hoping that it would inspire him.

That album, The Joy of Knowing Jesus, by the gospel group The Revelaires, would have been totally forgotten, had Stipe not started singing the liner notes on the back of the cover over the music for "7 Chinese Bros.” Done in one take, Stipe essentially sings, word for word, the laudatory notes written by the wonderfully named J. Elmo Fagg, described as the “Founder and Leader of the Blue Ridge Quartet for 23 years.” A few times, Stipe starts singing on one line, then jumps to the next line, and back again, because he was cold reading the small print and probably lost his place. He even sings the production and art direction credits and the catalog number (“LST 390”).

For some reason, it is charming. Like many of the band’s lyrics at the time, the fact that they sometimes made no sense is immaterial to the reality of the mood they created.

I’ve been a fan of this band for many years, almost as long as it was possible to hear their music in New York, and although I knew that they were from Georgia, I initially never really thought of them as a “Southern” band, in the way that bands like the Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd flaunted their Southern roots and used stereotypical Southern symbols and imagery. But as time went on, it became more obvious that R.E.M. came from a different Southern tradition, one of mystery and kudzu and fog, of outsider art and eccentricity. Much of which can be seen in their early album covers.

And maybe that is why “Voice of Harold” resonates. It connected the band to the gospel tradition, and the liner notes that Stipe somehow shoehorned into the music are oddly religious, evocative and proud—for example—

Chill bumps appear and I am frozen in the web 
They weave as they reveal their innermost selves 
With the outpouring of their hearts 

According to Dixon, after doing this take, Stipe was able to successfully record the vocals for “7 Chinese Bros.” I don’t know if The Joy of Knowing Jesus is, as the esteemed Mr. Fagg asserts (and Mr. Stipe repeats), “a must.” But to fans of R.E.M., “Voice of Harold” sure is.

Same Artist, Different Version: I'm Looking Through You

   Written after an argument with then girlfriend Jane Asher, Paul McCartney's bitter "piss off" tirade was recorded multiple times by The Beatles. First, in October of 1965, they spent nine hours knocking out a slower, groovier version that makes me think of The Who's "Magic Bus".  There was no "Why Tell Me Why..." middle-eight. Instead you get a blistering, very 60's raga style guitar solo from George Harrison.  This version is on the Anthology Volume II release.

   Three weeks later The Beatles revisited "I'm Looking Through You". Americans get two false guitar starts before the band launches into the Rubber Soul version everyone knows. McCartney double tracks his vocals while Ringo can be heard tapping his fingers on a matchbox and slapping his lap for percussion. If you're going to slap your lap, may I recommend you lock the door so Mom doesn't walk in on you?

SAME ARTIST, DIFFERENT VERSION : PLAYING BOGART

Ooo, this is a good one! Getting straight to the point, here's the opportunity to rave about one of my true faves, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Clive Gregson, or, within this context his once and occasional band, Any Trouble. It's fair to say he has had a variable career, poised frequently on the precipice of greatness, before either stepping back, or being elbowed out the way by some other gone in 30 seconds whippersnapper. For that we should maybe be grateful, not least as, at various times in his career he has returned and revisited earlier songs, radically redefining them. Between Any Trouble mark 1, Any Trouble mark 2, exemplary duo with Christine Collister (and simultaneously Richard Thompson sideman), solo years, a spell in Plainsong with Iain Matthews, solo years, Any Trouble mark 3 and further solo years, there has been ample opportunity to remake and remodel his songs, juggling with both electricity and acousticity. And somehow remain a thoroughly decent cove.

Spoilt not for choice but more for demonstrable evidence, this isn't even one of his own songs, but it is so good it could be. (I exhort you to search out more for proof of his songwriting. And not half bad guitar.) Anyhow, roll back to the late 70s and a folkie 3 piece are playing the pubs and clubs of Manchester, adding drums and dynamism to address the outbursting of punk. 1980 saw them signed to maverick indie label, Stiff, and attempts to market Gregson as the next Costello. This song was on their first recording, and, in some reflection of then (relative) youth, is a straightforward thrash of a version, displaying the eagerness of a young man out on the friday lash.

Flash forward a few years, Stiff have dropped them, and the band are lost in America, briefly signed to EMI America until, again, finding themselves without a contract, halfway through an abortive tour. Somehow these experiences must have offered a more sanguine view on life, and the version the band produced at that time is a way more reflective piece, a yearning plea for acceptance. I prefer it.

Sadly that was that for the erstwhile band for many a long year, and I hope later to be given a theme that allows me to access Gregsons latter years, but until then, here's a taste of how the song might have originally sounded, as dreamt up by it's author, fellow struggling mancunian musician of the 70s, Nick Simpson. This is the 2013 reunion of Any Trouble, with the author guesting. It seems to be the faster version.......

Where and what to buy? I'd go for the top 2 as most representative. (It says there is only 1 of each left, so I will know if anyone reads this drivel!!)

Musical Chameleons: Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

purchase [Purple Haze]
purchase [Drifting]

I guess in all my days of listening to rock/pop, nothing has affected me quite the way that “Are You Experienced” did. I had been listening to Smokey Robinson, the Box Tops ..whatever came over the AM band airwaves back in the late 60s - from BBC's Top of the Pops or Radio Luxembourg. And then one day, a friend of my younger brother’s showed up with a copy of “Experienced”.

Similar to how a chameleon plays a trick by changing colours to fool his predator, Hendrix messed with my senses. Like nothing ever before. The sounds coming from the speakers were so jarring to my ears and brain that I might as well have changed colours. Now, for today's generation, this may be hard to fathom: we are so used to all sorts of musical styles, variations, genres and such, that I may not be able to get you to understand how transformational and out-of-this-world was the sound of Hendrix’s music.

"Are You Experienced" was cutting/crude and rough. Go back and listen to the guitar strokes of Purple Haze. Then compare them with the harmonies of anything else on the late 60s radio airwaves. This sound/noise re-defined music: cacophony that was harmony. This was melodic aural abuse.

Even the cover artwork of "Axis" continued the chameleon effect: this was cover artwork unlike anything that came before. The recordings included sounds that no one else was capable of making: stereo crossover, feedback that sounded good, wah-wah no one else could produce. This was truly music from another planet. It certainly blew my mind. Imagine: on one hand you’ve got the Beach Boys' good vibrations … on the other, there’s Jimi.

I’ll claim that – chameleon theme – Hendrix's progression was relatively smooth. I guess the chameleon doesn’t change his colours in a flash – there must be a progression of sorts – and so it appears with Jimi. A rather raw “Experienced” progresses/morphs into the sounds of “Axis”, then matures to the sounds of “Electric Ladyland” and then to “Cry of Love”.

See if you agree with my definition of chameleon:

Early Hendrix (Purple Haze):

 

Late Hendrix (Drifting):

 

Of course, any musician worth his “salt” is going to evolve: just look at (among so many others) the Beatles (masters of chameleon-ship)