When the theme first cropped up, one of my first thoughts was "Future Games." Must have been '73 that Fleetwood Mac first captured me with Mystery To Me. As indicated in the name, the mesmerizing effect of many of the songs fit the times (mild psychedelia) and my own frame of mind. I listened for hours to the album: side A, side B, side A again (of course, on cassette tape- de rigeur).
You check out the song titles of Fleetwood Mac songs from the era, and notice that no small number of them reference time, the future: "Woman of a 1000 Years" ... "Sands of Time" ...
I did check into the archives of SMM - seemed not possible that the song had never been posted afore, and sure enough - back in 2009, it was presented here. Both in consideration of the fact that few of you were likely to have been here then and still here now, but even worse- the fact that the link to that post has deteriorated/gone missing, it would appear to be time to bring it back to life.
Later today, my long-beleaguered Mets will be playing a decisive Game 5 in their division series. Win, and continue on to the league championship series against the even longer-beleaguered Cubs, and be one step from the World Series. Lose, and start booking tee times.
Back when baseball was the unquestioned National Pastime, its major league franchises were mostly clustered in the relatively cold cites of the northeast and Midwest. It wasn’t until the 1950s that baseball expanded to Southern California, and it took until 1966 for a major league team to play south of Washington, D.C. or St. Louis. It isn’t surprising, then, that the start of the baseball season, in the springtime, was often conflated with the return of warmer weather and rebirth. And because every team starts every spring tied with all the others and, theoretically at least with an equal chance to win the championship, the phrase “hope springs eternal,” is often used to refer to baseball. It appears that the phrase was first used by Alexander Pope, in his 1734 poem An Essay on Man. (Pope was well known for his translations of Homer, but he never got to see a homer, although he might have seen cricket or rounders. Nor would Pope have been aware that Ernest Thayer borrowed his line in the most famous baseball poem ever, Casey At The Bat).
Back in the spring, most commentators figured the Mets would be improved over the last season, but would finish behind the Washington Nationals, who were expected to run away with the pennant. In May, when I wrote about Matt Harvey, the starting and winning pitcher in Game 3 of the division series that I had the opportunity to attend (see above), things still looked positive for the Mets, before they swooned in mid-season. But strong pitching and good trades led them back to success, and the collapse of the amusingly dysfunctional Nationals, gave the Mets the National League Eastern Division crown, and at least a shot at moving on, pending tonight’s results.
The Baseball Project was a “supergroup” formed by members of R.E.M., The Young Fresh Fellows, The Dream Syndicate (among other bands) to write and perform songs about baseball. I made the mistake of referring to them as a “novelty act” on another site, which band member Mike Mills took issue with on Twitter. (As a big fan of R.E.M., it was actually pretty cool to have Mike Mills annoyed with me.) They’ve released a whole bunch of good music, covering baseball-related topics as diverse as racism, the mysterious death of Ed Delahanty in 1903, labor relations, wife-swapping, eccentrics, fans, the Hall of Fame, and keeping score.
For the 2010 season, the band recorded for espn.com a series of songs designed to be a real-time commentary on the season. One of them, “All Future and No Past,” took its title from a quote from Indians player/manager Lou Boudreau: “On opening day, the world is all future and no past.” Boudreau, who appears to have been quite a guy, was a rare player/manager (starting when he was 25), also played professional basketball, and while playing major league baseball actually obtained his bachelor’s degree in education and was an assistant basketball coach at the University of Illinois.
The song is, as expected, an optimistic look at the potential that a number of teams could have, if everything broke their way, when “everybody has a chance.” Of course, there is a melancholy undercurrent to the song, because we know that it is unlikely that every team’s future will be bright. We know baseball is a zero-sum game-- every game has a loser, few teams advance to the postseason, only two make the World Series, and one gets to be champion.
As a Mets fan, it is hard to divorce the past from the future. Historically, the Mets have been often terrible, sometimes epically so, and their periods of quality have been few and usually short-lived. To now, things have broken the Mets’ way, and if they can get by the Dodgers tonight, there’s no reason to believe that they can’t beat the Cubs. But I have to admit that the success of the team this season has been a surprise, and even if they lose, I will (eventually) recognize that it was a fun season, one that gave me way more pleasure than I expected on Opening Day.
And beyond that, with their cadre of hard throwing, talented young pitchers, the Mets have a chance at a great future. Of course, as the first Mets’ manager, Casey Stengel once said, “Never make predictions, especially about the future.”
How often have venerable space warriors Hawkwind appeared on this site, I wonder? (Answer: none). From this distance it feels that they, if not inventing the whole genre, have certainly run with the idea of "spacerock" longer than most, celebrating, this year, 46 years on the road. OK, so Pink Floyd have dabbled with this, and the Grateful Dead likewise, but I am sure no other group has dedicated themselves to such dystopian visions with such dysfunctional relish, blending early bleep and booster electronica, with swords and sorcerers sci-fi, Always seemingly on the edges of society, embracing and being embraced by any counter-culture available, moving seamlessly from free-festival hippy culture of the 60s to the rave culture traveller scene of the 90s, their history a maelstrom of departing and returning members, drugs and mental illness, underpinned by the sturdy dictatorship of Dave Brock, sole man standing since their inception in 1969. For a more detailed idea of their chaotic journey look here. It's as their possibly most famous ex-member, Lemmy, sacked, ironically for his drug-usage, put it: "It was like Star Trek, but with long hair. And drugs."
The song "Welcome to the Future" is little more than a spoken introductory piece to "Space Ritual", a multi-media cavalcade of very loud and very heavy rhythmic rock, primitive electronica, lightshows, mime and dance, released in a live format in 1973, after being paraded around the world in the years ahead of that. (Little known fact, Hawkwind were the first UK band to headline a tour in the US, rather than as a support act to homegrown product. They lost money, but it was still the first.) This was largely funded by the UK single success of "Silver Machine", a studio cleaned up "live" performance of a concert favourite, with new vocals over-dubbed by the soon to go Lemmy. I recall this with joy, it being, and the concert footage that went with it on U.K. chartshow Top of the Pops, a delight to my teenaged ears, the dirtiest, greasiest noise I had ever seen or heard.
Exposure to that wholly unholy din (and statuesque dancer, Stacia) sent me to their back catalogue, and I hoovered up, over the next few years, their earlier output.These first few recordings, even the hesitant nearer psychedelia of the first, I think stand up well, and the resonance between what passed for driving rock back then and what would later emerge as techno is striking, and the influence undeniable. Check this recent automobile advert out!
I confess that I eventually lapsed, the procession of rotating door ne'er do wells, including Arthur Brown (Fire) and, bizarrely, Ginger Baker and an over-reliance on spoken word liturgies eventually alienating me, not least as my precocious tastes fled to country and folk pastures. Also I had read some Michael Moorcock, a sci-fi writer with whom they had become involved, and didn't like the books, deciding I didn't like the band any more either. Such was my fickle nature. But that didn't stop them, and the ramshackle circus is till doing the rounds, sometimes with different variations of the name: Hawkestra, Hawwkwind Light Orchestra, and sometimes even rival versions playing much the same: xHawkwind.com, formed by sacked saxist Nik Turner with other ex-members, until sued into changing their name to, no doubt all irony intended, Space Ritual. However, I am beginning to wonder what the live experience may now be like. I did see them once, in 1975, at The Reading Festival, sadly being then as out of it as their reputations for the same might suggest, so, who knows, maybe next years annual shindig, Hawkeaster, may find me back amongst the faithful in front of high priest Dave Brock (age 74), to see who he has with him now.
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…?
It's been years since I listened to Steve Miller, but back "then", he was one of my main listens. Heading into this theme, it was my recollection that the lyrics to Fly Like an Eagle include some kind of a reference to "the future". In fact, a re-listen to the song after maybe 20 years away reveals to me that a major conceit of the lyrics is not just that line, but in general what the future might/could bring.
Time keeps on slipping / Into the future ... We can't/don't feed the poor now, but in the future .... I can't fly like an eagle now, but I would like to ....
In the various Youtube clips associated with this title, Steve Miller makes remarkably good use of the looping effect - playing on top of the just previously played notes as they loop past - just a thought: the present (if not the future) layered on top of the past.
Tangentially, I ran across an article in Open Culture in which there is an account of Miles Davis' rather dismissive take on Steve Miller. I enjoy them both and see no reason why one should over-ride the other - they're worlds apart.
Bonus: This is a pretty long live version and Joe Satriani joins in at about 5 minutes.
I live in
Roseburg, Oregon, the town now known worldwide for the mass shooting that took
place at Umpqua Community College on October 1, 2015 where nine people lost
their lives, and nine others were injured. It was in an introductory writing class that the shooting took place, and I ponder what these students and their teacher would've penned if they had been asked to compose something related to music and the future.
The victims of this tragedy included:
* Lucero
Alcaraz, 19, of Roseburg
• Quinn Glen
Cooper, 18, of Roseburg
• Kim
Saltmarsh Dietz, 59, of Roseburg
• Lucas Eibel,
18, of Roseburg
• Jason Dale
Johnson, 33, of Winston
• Lawrence
Levine, 67, of Glide. Levine was the teacher inside of the classroom.
• Sarena Dawn
Moore, 44, of Myrtle Creek
• Treven
Taylor Anspach, 20, of Sutherlin
• Rebecka Ann
Carnes, 18, of Myrtle Creek
Their futures were
cut short, and we carry their names in our heavy hearts. Our entire community is heartbroken and grieves their loss. In their memory and as
a tribute to them, I’d like to post a song I once wrote and recorded called “Somewhere
Down the Road.” It speaks to the optimism and ideals that a young person might
hold as they prepare for the future.
Unfortunately, the
future for these nine has put them “Through Heaven’s Gate,” another song
written to describe their new home – in a glory land with jasper walls, golden
bells, angel band and harps of gold.
By and large there is nothing like the future for making a monkey of the past, with the present being, usually, equally no less capable of second guessing what's next. But it seems us humans love nothing so much as to dreaming away the now by imagining about later, whether a simple reverie about what's for tea, or all the pillars of literature parading their visions of times yet to pass. Orwell's 1984 is the prime example, written 36 years earlier and, as we now know, getting it not quite right. But, having read it at school, even as late as 1983, aged 26, I was certainly worrying whether he would turn out to be right, helped even, or hindered, by the film that came out in the same year it was supposedly depicting. Handy timing or what! And 2001, book and film, both from 1968, also portraying the future in a way the past has failed to deliver. Of course there are rules in all of this: just as the past is always portrayed as utopian, anything about the future has to have in its byline the word dystopian. Talk about glass half empty pessimism, I wonder whether it is an automatic response to the often grim reality of the present. Is the only way to accept the now to be by assuming worse ahead?
Music is no stranger to such fantasy, and what better place to start than rocks elder, maybe eldest, statesman, laughing Leonard Cohen. Having had a share of fame as poet and novelist, then bedsitter singer-songwriter exemplary, in the later 70s and early 80s it was all going a bit quiet for him. Rather than hanging up his mitts, he came back in 1988, already 54 years old, with 'I'm Your Man', a re-invention with a much wider sonic spectrum than his earlier acoustic guitar and drone. 1992 saw 'The Future' appear as a belated follow-up, and was arguably his most counter-intuitive work yet, blowing his old persona into a distant (utopian?) past, synthesisers and massed girly vocals well to the fore. Having loved 'I'm Your Man', I well recall being a little shaken at the time. Taking no prisoners, it burst straight for the jugular with the eponymous opening track, mentioning both crack cocaine and anal sex (censored in the above video) in the very first few verses. No more Mr Nice Guy, and good bye to playing it to your parents generation. (Or his, by chaotic coincidence.) But, the audience was growing, whether old fans, auspiciously disappointed, or those who just liked to hear a grown man talk dirty.So long Marianne, for sure. All in an unclassifiable genre, probably its main strength, or, as his biographer put it: "Classic big budget AOR, yet with lyrics by Bukowski and Lowell, sung by an old wino from skid row who really wanted to sing like Ray Charles at the Apollo." I think that's perfect, and he even became Canadian Best Male Vocalist fo this in 1993, which tickled even him, even allowing for the partisan nature of his home crowd.
"Give me crack and anal sex Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture Give me back the Berlin wall give me Stalin and Saint Paul I've seen the future brother: It is murder."
So what's it all about? Has it come true yet? Well, I neither know, nor, actually care that much, but here's a link to one essayists thoughts that are certainly profound. I'm not sure if I buy all of it, and, anyway, what's with needing to constantly understand and interpret? It's like the infernal never ending learned resumes about Dylan versus Keats. It's pop music, fer chrissakes!
What has troubled me, though, in times more recent, is how the singer has chosen to bowdlerise himself, the anal sex of the 90s now sung as careless sex, somehow altering the impact, not to say the cadence. Has the now octogenarian become a pussy? Or is there regret that his dystopian future failed to warn him of his own journey to follow, whereby he effectively retired to his cave whilst an errant manger spent his nest-egg, necessitating a return to the greasepaint and trappings of performance, a 3rd rebirth, possibly his most successful yet. And who, in 1992, could possibly have foreseen that, with new work appearing still, in his ninth decade? So. What's next for Cohen. Slippers and commode? Don't bet on it! Studio or Live, buy it down the links!
The theme now is The Future, so, of course, I need to start by looking at my past.
I think that most music obsessives have a story about learning about music by listening to their parents’ records, or from an older sibling or a friend. I don’t really have that. My parents, who claim to have gone to some of the legendary Alan Freed shows in Brooklyn in the ‘50s, were not interested in rock music by the time I was old enough to pay attention. To my memory, they mostly listened to the Sinatra-heavy WNEW-AM, and news radio. And I’m the oldest child in my family. Instead, my first real musical education came during the summer of 1969, listening to top-40 radio station WABC-AM, in the station wagon that took me to day camp. Listening that summer was, for me, Rock Music 101, and my professors were the distinguished faculty members Harry Harrison, Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy and Cousin Brucie. It was an era in which top-40 singles could actually be great songs (although not always), and I remember soaking them up. It was like I had found something that was mine, an interest in something that was different from my parents.
In retrospect, of course, the summer of 1969 was a huge year for rock music, much of which completely passed me by at the time. Woodstock and Altamont. The Beatles’ last live performance on the roof. Dylan and Elvis returning to live performance. The sheer volume of music released in 1969 that is still considered classic today is staggering. Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II. In The Court of The Crimson King, The Gilded Palace of Sin, Kick Out The Jams, Goodbye. Dusty In Memphis, The Velvet Underground, Nashville Skyline, With A Little Help From My Friends, Chicago Transit Authority. Hair, Stand!, Clouds, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Tommy, Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Meters, At San Quentin, Trout Mask Replica, Aoxomoxoa and Live/Dead, The Soft Parade, What We Did On Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking and Liege & Lief, Green River and Willie And The Poor Boys, My Cherie Amour, The Stooges, Blind Faith, Santana, The Band. Abbey Road, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, Hot Rats, David Bowie (Space Oddity). The Allman Brothers Band, Ballad of Easy Rider, Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) and Let It Bleed, Okie From Muskogee, Volunteers. And that is far, far from everything released that year that is still remembered and played today.
But the song that really gripped my 8 year old ears—the first song that I can remember caring about, was “In The Year 2525,” by Zager and Evans. The song, about the post-apocalyptic future, seemed so serious and “heavy” and the music was so dramatic, that it was impossible not to be struck by it. It was a vision of the future gone wrong, as a result of over-reliance on technology, lack of care for the environment, and passivity struck a chord with adults, too (or at least the record buying public) because its themes were certainly much discussed during that year. “In the Year 2525” hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on July 12, and held the spot for six weeks, during the bulk of my summer camp season. Which meant that it was played over and over again on WABC, and I heard it in the car, and on the AM radio in my room (also used to listen to the Mets’ march to the World Series).
I’ll never forget how disappointed I was when the song was dislodged from its lofty perch on top of the charts by some weird song with lyrics I had trouble understanding—“Honky Tonk Women.” This inferior song only held the top spot for 4 weeks, when it was knocked off by the classic Archies’ confection, “Sugar, Sugar.”
As Wikipedia notes, “It is unusual for a recording artist to have a number one hit and then never have another chart single.” "In the Year 2525" actually gave Zager and Evans this status twice; they remain the only act to do this in both the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart.” Their attempt to follow up their big hit was a song (which I have no recollection of) called “Mr. Turnkey,” a pleasant ballad written from the standpoint of a rapist who nails his own wrist to the jail wall as punishment. And that, was, pretty much that for Zager and Evans. Zager stopped performing and started a company building “E-Z Play Custom Guitars” and Evans retired to New Mexico.
Listening to the song now, I’m kind of horrified by how much I liked it. But my love and devotion to that song was the gateway to my life-long interest in music, and you can draw a line directly from that station wagon, to my first radio experiences in sleepaway camp, to my high school years listening to WNEW-FM and pawing through records, to my WPRB years, through the mixtape era, to downloading and more recently, music blogging.
The year, 1965. It’s a magic charm of sorts. Say the year,
summon the mystical brilliance of one of the greatest years in musical history—great in the
sense that so many bands and songs that would become contributors to the canon
were born in these 12 fortuitous months. So many great entries, so many great
authors, at the forefront of this beautiful revolution that keeps turning,
keeps revolving, keeps innovating, despite the modern trends that seem so bent
on working against its progress. Rock is dead, they say? Daltrey sang it so in
1972—he wasn’t the first; he won’t be the last.
If rock survives, it should be in spite
of all those whole take such joy in declaring it flat lined while celebrating
the latest trend and innovation that take music in some new, misguided
direction. If rock survives—and seriously, stop bitching about it—it will be by
virtue of a strange alchemy of swagger, sex, rebellion and a whole host of
attitudes and behaviors. It will not depend on the older generation's disapproval and the sneering reaction of the younger one--rock will
always be frowned upon by ‘polite’ society. How many times has the press declared
rock’s heartbeat to have ceased and insisted on putting it in the ground,
ignoring the funky, beautiful rhythm of the dirt falling on the casket? Rock
dies and comes back to life in the same ragged breath. How many times? Too many. And none
of them have ever been right. Look at this year, look 5 years, 10 years, 20
years back. Rock is rebellion, rock is pure eff you attitude, rock is refusal
to be labeled, dead, alive, whatever.
Look back as far as you want--rock music thrives off being the anti. But look at the year 1965 if
you want to get a historical frame of perspective—so many songs that
would be exemplars for what was to come, and what the rest of rock ‘n roll
history would always have to live up to came out in one simple year. It’s hard to
believe. It’s a bit of magic, and with that kind of mojo working in it's favor,
you have to admit, rock ‘n roll has got all the odds beat, and while it might
go through fits and spurts and change its appearance, maybe get a little silly,
a little bitchy, and little funny at times, might even need a smack to set it
right, it will never die.
Not with this kind of pedigree…
Rather than linger any longer on this sermon I present a
small sampling of a few of the sacred verses from that blessed year, of 1965.
Imagine hearing these songs for the first time? Did those kids have any idea of
the history making moment they were listening to?
Dominus Ominous, pass the wine, hit the chords, turn it up,
Long live rock…
In 1965, The Who released I Can't Explain, from their debut, My Generation. Power chords and madman drummers. The Who is rock 'n roll. pure, simple. Rock 'n roll.
Bob Dylan abandoned his acoustic, to a
very well-documented collective howl of
betrayal from his folk-purist fans and put out Highway 61 Revisited .
the lead track? "Like a Rolling Stone What else can you say? Nothing has been the same since.
The Tracks of My Tears,
by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles has always been one of my favorites. Immortalized in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, “Tracks” is soul
at it’s best: smooth vocal harmony, bittersweet lamentation, pure groove, all all
right.
Van Morrison defined badass cool so
much better, and earlier, than anyone else with his band, Them. Baby Please Don't Go"
still sounds like the toughest tough guy you know showing just a little bit of
vulnerability in the face of losing the hottest girl you’ve ever know. Or wish
you did. Switchblades included with purchase of this 45.
("I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones. Seriously. If you don’t understand the absolute holy place this
Keith Richard’s riff holds in the very echelon of rock’s greatest, absolutely
greatest, moments, than you’ve missed the whole point. A few notes, a bit of
fuzz, and everything—EVERYTHING—changed. Amazing what a hard snare-driver beat,
a thumping base, and repeating riff can do to stir the soul of a few million
kids looking for a brand new way to give the finger to the generation before,
and the one to come.
Oh yeah, and there was also this little
group called The Beatles. They released a lot of music between 1964 and 1965. Help,
Ticket to Ride, Eight Days a Week—The Beatles. What else can you say?
Rubber Soul…Released December 3, 1965.
One of the greatest pop/rock albums ever recorded. Nice way to end one of the
greatest years rock will ever know…
1965—what would rock be without it?
Hard to believe - and I confess that I actually purchased this 1965 album - Herman's Hermits had 3 of the top 100 hits of 1965 - No, wait ... Wikipedia says 4!
I'm even more contrite about the fact that I collected this stuff after listening to the clips below, but ... that's what it was back then. Top 10.. gotta buy it. The power of the media - AM radio was the media venue we all followed and it (in retrospect) appears to have dominated not just the air waves.
Be that what it may, Herman's Hermit's were hot. Top of the Pops.
We've got Peter Noone (aka Herman) doing vocals with a bit of a put-on accent - see Mrs Brown, Derek Lekenby on lead/solo guitar - see Henry the Eighth. And- apparently typical of Mickie Most's production style - some additional musicians doing things like keyboards that aren't visible in the stage versions below.
Andy
La Ray Gun and I are neighbors. His digs are an apartment; mine a secluded
house with its own garden. And a decent charcoal grill. As the designated cook
of the household, I used to be considerably more dedicated to the grill method,
but we’ve cut down on the meat consumption. Well, red meat, that is. The grill
for us is primarily a variation for our fish, and the city where Andy and I
live is famous for its seasonal fish such as the palamut and the lufer as they swim south through the Bosphorus
starting in the fall. Fish season here starts after summer is over, so … it’s
grill season for me.
That said, as others here have noted, I
belatedly found that although I was able to research and come up with a list of
hundreds of songs that include grill or BBQ in the lyrics, there is no small
number of them that are actually about teeth grills – and most of them are not
familiar to me. Says something about our times or my musical knowledge, I
guess.
On the other hand, a little digging
produces a number of classics (classics partly by dint of their age) in which
the grill we originally meant to feature is a … er, feature … of the song. None
of the below are songs about grilling, per se. They just happen to mention that
grilling is a pleasant part of life:
Take for instance the Ray Charles tune
called “Mess Around”. Based on a boogie tune from the 30s/40s, Ahmet Ertegun is
credited with writing the song. (Atlantic Records, and a man who would have
been well versed in the art of grilling the palamut): “You can talk about the pit
barbeque, the band was jumpin’ …” just watch them jump!"
Or, you might relate to John Mayall’s “All
Those Heroes …”. You’ll have to listen closely or dig a bit to his tangential
reference to “Barbeque Bob Blind Fuller”, but you are sure to relish the man’s
ability to transition between vocals and mouth harp. At that age! I was left breathless.
One more similarly tangential reference to
grilling pops up in Peter Gabriel’s “And Through the Wire,” where he sings “
barbeque parties on blood red sands…” – your interpretation ... belongs to you.
I will admit straight off: I had to go searching for a song
to fit our theme this month. Much as I love grilling, I really couldn’t think of
any song in particular that dealt with tossing burgers, brats and steaks on
the bbq…
And, in looking around for tunes to use, and reading about grilling, I realized how much I miss my grill. I live in the middle of mega-city, all concrete and asphalt, and I can’t really grill here without 1) causing a fire on my balcony, or,
2) smoking out my neighbors. This city of mine isn’t really good for the
outdoor kind of cooking I dig. It’s much more about little hobo fires on disposable
grills over charcoal on the side of the road…that’s something I suppose, but I
dig a nice propane fueled, six burner Weber that I can drive like a tank
commander, steaks, sausage, chops and more, all guns blazing, ice cold beer in one hand, tongs in the other. Damn…maybe I need
to move to a place with a back yard…?
I googled a lot of songs about meat. I also googled “grill” and came up with a lot of pics the look like this…
…uh, yeah…that’s not what I was
looking for…
Funny, there are tons of websites
that list songs about BBQs, but those lists are all about songs that will make for a
great BBQ, aural party favors so to speak. And of course, good tunes do make
the party—but, party songs, floor filling sing-alongs, are usually not about
eating. Drinking? Yes. There are more rock songs about partying and boozing it
up than almost any other topic, but eating seems to take a secondary as a theme to
drinking in the anthology of rock n rock lyricism.
That being said, it was kind of fun
to seek out food references in music. What comes immediately to mind is Howlin’
Wolf’s brag that he can “..eat more chicken than any man ever seen…” in the
classic blues staple “Back Door Man.” That’s a hell of a claim. He talks about
“pork ‘n beans”, too. And now I’m getting hungry…
So, where else do we find food in
our tunes?
North Carolina's deep fried rockabilly throw back rockers Southern Culture on the Skids do food well a few times, particularly with "Fried Chicken and Gasoline", but if your drumsticks taste like gasoline, you are doing it wrong, amigo... (SCOTS is a hell of a band, deserving of their own post...next time, perhaps)
How about a song that chooses from the whole menu? Guy Clark’s “Texas Cooking.” I'm going down to save my soul/ Get that barbeque and chili…"
Texas is a strange strange, with its strange ethos and self-referential tendencies and seeming dislike for the rest of the country. Politically, I can’t really take the place, but
Austin has given the world a great many musical gifts, and while I’m sick of
hearing how great the state is, how above the rest of the union the place is, I
could very happily eat my way from the gulf to the top of the pan handle and go back for seconds. BBQ,
Tex-Mex…? Almost makes you forget about the whole “Don’t mess with Texas” silliness. Clark’s tribute to Texas cooking hits on all the menu options: white
gravy, big ol’ sausages, “enchiladas greasy…steaks chicken
fried”. It’s pretty much a soul saving journey, with Texas food being the
communion that will deliver: “I'm going down to Austin, Texas/
The course says
it all, summing up what all the good ‘ol cooking is going to do:
Oh my, momma ain't that Texas cookin'
something/Oh my, momma it'll stop yo' belly and backbone bumpin'/ Oh my, momma
ain't that Texas cookin' good/Oh my, momma eat it everyday if I could alright
For a guy like me who lives in a country that doesn’t believe in sausage, and has never
really heard of enchiladas, let alone nachos, Clark comes across as preaching Gospel,
stomach-rumbling truth…and when one hasn’t had a taco in far too long, Texas
cooking just might save a soul. Hallelujah,
and pass the beans. And the rice. And whatever else you got.
Guy Clark, "Texas Cookin'"Watch, live from 1975And
because I’m getting hungry for grilled fare that is distinctly American, I’m
going to throw in a bonus track from one of my old time faves, Buck Owens.
Twangy rock-a-billy finger popping tunes, Owens is credited with creating the
“Bakersfield” sound. And that sound was really just an electric, buzzed up
country which borrowed elements from early rock and roll, especially
flashy rhythm guitars and a steady go go go backbeat. Nashville,
at the time, was orchestral and overproduced, (kind of like today) and the "Bakersfield" sound, even at
an early stage, was looking back to the roots of rhythm.
Later on, Owens would
be associated with the related and refined “Honky Tonk” sound which
featured raw finger picking, twanging Telecasters and pedal steel guitars, but still
with that great backbeat and sense of what we would eventually call country
rock. Buck is also known for and associated with the TV show “Hee Haw”, but the
less said about that, the better…For
obvious reasons, I’m including Owen’s 1956 rock-a-billy strutter, “Hot Dog.”
(He went by Corky Jones at the time). Starting out with a stair stepping bass line and a roadhouse piano line, “Hot
Dog” might not be profound in its lyricism, but it’s got that sweet tangly
guitar and the thumpy backbeat that I always think must have been the greatest
sound ever heard when rock music first hit the airwaves. I know I’m not talking
about food anymore, but what must that have been like, to hear that thumping
cadence, drums simmering, guitar and bass ready to pop, leading to a blow up like a
burst of fireworks? Must have been amazingly cool to hear that sense of joyful
abandon for the first time. “Hot Dog”
the song is only called so for the fact that the protagonist’s girl, while
totally hot and one of hippest hep cats around, happens to work at a hot dog
stand.She’s a looker, she’s a dancer,
she’s an all around teenage dream. And her cumulative effect on the singer is
too leave him dumbstruck and incapable of uttering anything more than, “hot
dog!” every time he sees her…I can relate. What pretty girl didn’t leave me
stumble-dumb and tripping over my own two feet when I was that age? Buck Owens "Hot Dog"
Alright,
then…I wish you fond listening and hope your kitchen and your grill is hoppin’ tonight with good tunes, juicy treats and if you’re on a diet—which is
so not rock ‘n roll!—I hope this post doesn’t make you as hungry reading it as
it did me writing it…bon appetite!
<
I can admit that a perfectly smoked brisket is an amazing thing, burgers from the grill can be great, and smoked chicken wings are wonderful, but at the end of the day, the best meat to barbecue is pork. Pork ribs, smoked until they almost, but not quite, fall off the bone. Pork butt slow cooked until it falls apart into shreds that melt in your mouth. Pork belly cured and magically turned by time, heat and smoke into bacon. There’s nothing better. Although I suspect my kosher grandma is spinning wildly in her grave.
The picture above is from Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint in Nolensville, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville, which is famous for their whole hog ‘cue. They only do that on the weekend, which was unfortunate, because we went there on a weekday night. When we arrived, they were almost out of food—we got the last two racks of ribs, one dry, and one wet, and most of the remaining sausage, leaving pretty much nothing for the poor guy who got on line after us. The food was great, and it was interesting comparing the dry ribs with the wet. I liked them both. A lot.
I’ve cooked a fair amount of pork this summer, mostly St. Louis style ribs and pulled pork, and considering my limitations (not buying fancy meat, using commercial rub and an electric smoker), the results have been delicious, and well received.
There’s something about the blues and barbecue that go together, probably because of their common southern based traditions. There is also a long tradition of blues songs that contain double entendres, and our featured song fits into both categories. Bo Carter, who wrote and performed the song, was really named Armenter Chatmon, and was a member of a well-known Mississippi musical family. But as Bo Carter, he was best known for songs that were meant to titillate, while ostensibly not about sex. A few of his song titles will give you an idea: “Banana In Your Fruit Basket.” “Don't Mash My Digger So Deep.” “Pin in Your Cushion.” “My Pencil Won't Write Anymore.” And "Your Biscuits Are Big Enough for Me." Beyond the sexual innuendo, his singing and guitar playing are also wonderful.
So, while there is nothing in the song that directly would get it banned from a family oriented radio station, I suspect that Bo isn’t talking about pulled pork. If you know what I mean.
What's that then? Well, actually not anything until you use its alternate name of Soul Sauce, when it becomes something that would definitely liven up any ribs or burgerfest. Originally a Dizzy Gillespie tune, it was all a bit polite in his version, think paper plates and tinned hot dogs, served up at the prom, or that's how it seems all these years on. Actually a co-write with the fascinating sounding Chano Pozo who seems to have given Gillespie his post bebop Latin lilt, it wasn't until it fell into the hands of ace vibraphonist Cal Tjader that it really showed its chops. (SWIDT!)
Tjader was an interesting guy, and one I always assumed to have been Latino. He was actually of Swedish-American stock, and came from a vaudeville family, his father tap-dancing to his mother's piano accompaniment, becoming a tap-dancing prodigy himself in his teens, as well as developing proficiency in both percussion instruments and the piano. Upon demob from the army, he hooked up with Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond, becoming drummer in their first band, teaching himself vibes and introducing them into the band. Latin influences were now gradually being introduced into the palette of jazz music, and Tjader gradually became drawn more into this sphere. Becoming Downbeat magazine's 1953 best new star on this instrument gave the confidence to start his own band, the Cal Tjader Modern Mambo Quartet. The next decade saw any number of bands and collaborations, with 1964's Soul Sauce, the album and the track, being the pinnacle of his career. Altogether a messier version than the original, this was a shirt-staining, chin-dripping gumbo of a tune, becoming both a radio hit and its parent album being in the years top 50 sellers.
Later years saw some decline, as he experimented with Asian scales and motifs, before a return to a heavier Latin sound, introducing elements of fusion, as well as contributing to the soundtrack of 1972's Fritz the Cat, the animated feature based upon the Robert Crumb cartoon, notably this, Mamblues. He died, whilst out on the road, aged just 56, but his legacy has lived on, through samples, with over 80 samples seemingly identifiable as being of his work, notably by New York hip-hoppers A Tribe Called Quest in their Midnight Marauders.
I like it when a bunch of things come together to inspire a blog post. We’ve been kicking around the BBQ/Grill theme for much of the summer, but it never made the big time. Now, though, as we head into the unofficial end of the summer in the Northern Hemisphere where, I believe, all of our writers live, it was time. You’d think that there would be tons of songs about barbecuing or grilling, which are different things, and while there are a bunch, there don’t seem to be as many as I thought.
Being a stereotypical man, I enjoy cooking outside. For years, I insisted on using a charcoal grill, but a few years ago, I succumbed to the convenience of propane, and while the old charcoal grill sits next to its gas fueled cousin, I rarely have the patience to light the coals and wait for them to burn down to the appropriate ashy white. But, I do have the patience to use my smoker to slow cook ribs, pork butt and chicken (also, occasionally brisket, which is very hard to get right, leg of lamb, the rare Thanksgiving turkey, and even bacon and pastrami). Again, though, I opt for some convenience, using an electric smoker, rather than a wood, charcoal or pellet based contraption that has more street cred, but also takes more work. No one has yet complained about my food because my hickory, fruitwood, oak, mesquite or pecan chunks are burned by a big electric element. I also make a mean cole slaw and potato salad, and a much loved Memphis-style sauce, from a recipe I found years ago in the well-known barbecue bible, Newsday.
I’ve fired up the grill and the smoker a few times this summer, but starting on the Fourth of July weekend, it has been a bit crazier. That weekend, I smoked ribs and chicken wings and grilled chicken thighs for some friends. Shortly after that, we visited Tennessee and Kentucky and ate a bunch of really good ‘cue, which I didn’t have to cook. On our return, I kicked it into gear. Three weekends ago, we had a big family gathering at our house to celebrate a bunch of milestones, including our anniversary, my in-laws’ 60th anniversary, my father’s birthday and my nephew’s birthday. I did ribs and pulled pork in the smoker and chicken on the grill, although the most memorable thing about that gathering may well be the Tennessee whiskey and bourbon tasting. I didn’t even put away the smoker, because the next weekend was a party for our daughter, a combination late graduation and buen viaje celebration before she left for Barcelona on a one-way ticket. Not knowing exactly who would show up, and how much they would eat, we went overboard with ribs, wings and grilled chicken, along with a ton of sides and salads. And just today, I committed to a little Labor Day BBQ with some old friends, for which I am currently planning the menu (but pulled pork is pretty much a lock). As hard as it is to get everything just right, I enjoy it—the prep, the process, the eating, and, I admit, the praise.
But what song to write about? Nothing really grabbed me, until I remembered this sort-of hit by Wall of Voodoo, “Mexican Radio.” Like most of their songs, it is atmospheric and strange, and includes the memorable line:
Which brings me to the second thread of this post. I first heard Wall of Voodoo while I was at WPRB—I remember hearing their very odd, ominous cover of "Ring of Fire" (which I thought, erroneously, was a Johnny Cash song). Readers of my work here, and pretty much anyone who knows me, is aware that my 3 and a half semesters working in the basement of Holder Hall has had an outsized influence on me, even if I didn’t go into broadcasting or music. I know that I am far from the only one that the station has affected, and it has been around for a long time. WPRB is currently celebrating its 75th anniversary in operation, making it one of the oldest college stations in the country, and possibly the oldest commercially licensed campus radio station in the nation. In connection with the anniversary, the station’s “educational advisor” (something that the station didn’t have back in my day. And get off my lawn), and others have worked hard to put together a comprehensive history of the station. There is a great blog, wprbhistory.org, on which yours truly is well represented (thanks), and later this month, an exhibit of WPRB history will be opening in the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library on the Princeton campus, somewhere near where my thesis sits, likely unread by any scholars since its deposit there.
If those two threads weren’t enough, as I was thinking about writing this, I looked at The New York Times’ website and saw this story, about the fate of pink iguanas in the Galapagos Islands after the recent eruption of the islands’ tallest volcano. Because if one of those iguanas got too close to some lava, it might find itself like its long-ago eaten relative from “Mexican Radio.”
I've said it here before: writing a post generally involves learning something new. 1965 was the year I started listening to pop/rock, but my interest wasn't particularly academic. For the most part I couldn't name the members of a band or who played what. Hence the need to research today when I go back to 65.
My weekly allowance wasnt enough to cover the cost of an LP, so my record collection was built mostly of 45s, and by the end of 65, I had probably 25 and a couple of LPs. I can recall, for example, when and where I first heard "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Eight Days a Week". My exposure to the top hits - like most American kids of the time - was through Hullabaloo, American Bandstand, Shindig and AM radio. (FM radio listener numbers didn't surpass AM until the 1970s.) Aside from the in-dash car radio, the device of choice was a battery operated portable transistor radio, maybe with a single ear plug. It seemed to me like it was a good year for American kids. It was also a good year for pop music. A turning point. Bob Dylan goes electric, playing a Fender Stratocaster for the first time on stage. 65 is also the year that Leo Fender sold his company to CBS. 1965 was the year that Ford began installing 8-track tape players as an option - the simplicity of a cassette that could be inserted and removed with minimal distraction was a factor in its success. Justin Hayward is the name most commonly associated with the Moody Blues. In actual fact, the singer/guitarist didn't join the band until 66. Before then, the Moody Blues, under various names and combinations were mostly trying to get noticed. It happened in 65, with Go Now. Without Hayward.
There was a hell of a lot of great music released in 1965. Other writers have posted about some of it, and I hope that more posts about this music get written before the theme ends. But when I looked at a list, while I acknowledged that, yeah, there are some great songs there, nothing jumped out and said, “J. David (or whatever you real name is), you need to write about me.”
Instead, I decided to go with my first reaction to hearing the theme, which is that in 1965 my incredible sister was born. Although I was just shy of 4 years old when it happened, I do have some clear memories of the day, or at least the first time that I saw her at the hospital. And since then, I don’t think a cross word has ever passed between us.
When we were kids, we would get up early on Saturday to watch cartoons and eat cereal and Charles Chips pretzels from those big cans. And as we grew up, we always had each other’s back. My parents drilled into us from an early age that we were each other’s best friend, no matter what, and I suspect that there are still some things that went on that my parents don’t know about. Which is a good thing.
Interestingly, although we have always been close, we didn’t really share too many interests—she was not a big sports fan, we never really had the same musical taste (and music was much more important to me than it ever was to her), and history wasn’t her favorite subject—and four years (and five school years) can be a big age difference when you hit your teens. She went through some difficult times in high school while I was off in college, and in the pre-Facebook, pre-cell phone era, I wasn’t really around, and I’ve often felt bad that I wasn’t there for her, although she got through it, and turned out great.
I’ve always envied my sister because she found work that she loved and was good at, and which benefited humanity, way more than I ever did, and although her personal life hasn’t always been easy, right now she has two wonderful kids and seems happy in her personal relationship with a guy who, amusingly to me, drags her to concerts that she never would have imagined a few years ago. I’ve also envied her large group of close friends, with whom she regularly travels and socializes, although to be fair, with my borderline loner personality it isn’t surprising. Luckily for me, she lives only 15 or 20 minutes away, depending on traffic and how fast I drive, so we get to see each other fairly regularly. A few weeks ago, we were walking in town, and she and her boyfriend coincidentally stopped at the light as they drove through and were able to join us for dinner.
We’ve been able to watch her kids grow up, as she has watched mine. She babysat for my kids, and we have done the same with hers. She shops with my daughter and I’ve seen hers play soccer (and fed her dinner last night).
When I thought about writing about my sister, I thought of Dan Bern’s song, “Oh Sister.” Now, the song really doesn’t exactly fit our situation—Dan’s sister was the older one, who he credits for teaching him stuff and being there for him, and my sister is the younger one, although, to be fair, she’s taught me stuff and been there for me. And Dan’s family situation was different from ours, but the song works here for a couple of reasons. First, despite the differences, the song is about the love of a brother for a sister, and that definitely applies. And second, Dan Bern was born in……1965.
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