Storms: Rock You Like a Hurricane

Purchase: Rock You Like A Hurricane 

If someone doesn’t write about The Scorpions' Rock You Like a Hurricane for this month’s theme, then we aren’t a music blog. An original staple of MTV’s rotation, Rock You Like A Hurricane was the first brush with fist-pumping, head banging glory for every single kid on earth, of a certain age. It came out in 1984. That made me 13 years old when this track blew up. It has since gone on to hold a prominent niche in popular culture. From sporting events to 80s nights at the bar to soundtracks to…well, you know. You’ve heard it. Everywhere.

It’s an interesting track: a cross-over heavy metal hit, it speaks to many of the motifs we’ve come to associate with a certain era: big hair, flashy, sexed-up videos, rapid fire guitar solos, strange looking little fellows becoming rock gods…the ‘80s, may they never return. Standouts in my memory? The video, featuring a strange twist on the ‘caged beast’ theme: the band is jamming out in a very rickety cage, surrounded by a pack of scantily clad, snarling animal-women, afraid of what might happen should this pack of overly-estrogened maniacs get inside. I think Motley Crue used the same theme. Roger Corman made a career out of the same theme…but that’s another era.  

Rock You Like A Hurricane is a strange, buzzed out, psycho-sexual fantasy, to be sure. But for the 13 year old boy I was, it set the standard for ‘hot rock chick’ and colored more than a few strange and hard to understand, even harder to shake, fantasies.

Then there’s the song: pure power chord madness, riff rock at its very best. The dual guitar attack has a distinctly a phased-out sound, lending just a slight trippy edge to the song. It's not the greatest song ever written, but it does have an immediate hook that makes it perfect for radio. Long after a lot of good music has been forgotten, Rock You Like a Hurricane will still be getting played. It inspired me to a mean air guitar. Eddie Van Halen inspired me to a real guitar, but that’s for another post.

What’s odd is, for all its ubiquity in popular culture, Rock You Like a Hurricane never made it past 25 on Billboard’s Hot 100. Not that this is the only way to determine a song's status as a hit, but it seems for all the times you’ve heard it, bobbed along to it, cheered on your favorite team it, or echoed Klaus Meine’s “Here I ammmmmmm….!” it should have been a number 1.

Storms: Riders on the Storm

purchase [ Riders on the Storm] - only $1.29 from Amazon mp3 downloads

L.A. Woman (1971) was the last album that Jim Morrison was actively involved in - sadly he passed 3 months after it came out. What do you think he would have evolved into had he remained with us?

6th in the Doors' series, following The Doors (1967), Strange Days (1967), Waiting for the Sun (1968), The Soft Parade (1969) and Morrison Hotel (1970), the L.A.Woman album reached 9th place on the Billboard charts. It was fairly obvious that Morrison was having troubles by the time L.A.Woman came out. He barely (not) made it through a December 1970 tour - cut short - filled with sloppy performances and ending with a show in New Orleans that was his last. 7 months later, he was dead - in Paris, France, age 27, circumstances somewhat cloudy.

Booked for indecent exposure (among other crimes), flamboyant beyond acceptable standards even for a stage star - Morrison's career was stormy -likely more legendary than proven in fact. There is, however, little debate about the stormy aspects, much of it documented following the Doors' rise to fame (and Morrison's scrambling descent).

As is too often the case, bad manners/behaviour doesn't detract much from the genious behind the show. Known also as a "poet", Morrison's positives shines through his foibles: I said above "legendary", and in proof I would submit

1 Light My Fire - took the (listening) world by storm (sic)
2 Hello I Love You - it was just so different from all else at that time
3 Touch Me - the vocals! Wow!
4 Break On Through
and, of course, Riders on the Storm belongs in the list

Now, the Doors were great partly because their "basic"/minimal style provided all that was needed to keep the beat going - PLUS - they had Morrison's stage/vocal extremes. Riders on the Storm added the external storm & thunder sound to great effect - a relatively new concept in the early 70s - whether by keyboard effect (still new) or by dubbed external file - these are days 30 years before mp3s that you could insert as an additional Audacity track.
(I know it's not the Doors! but the effect of the story above works well here - and the video is decent and the sound is fairly true)

 

 

Blood → Storms: Red Rain

[purchase]
We transition from Blood to Storms with this great track from Peter Gabriel.

Two of the best concerts I ever saw were Peter Gabriel shows. He was a riveting performer—some people just know how to command a stage—and the music that he made was complex, interesting and intense. Gabriel’s reputation as a live performer began with Genesis, when he would appear on stage in a variety of bizarre costumes, masks, headgear and makeup, but in the two solos shows that I have seen, he was mesmerizing, even without a single fox head.

The two shows were also very different. The first one was in 1980, at the Asbury Park Convention Center. I’ve written about the opening act, Random Hold, and how it was fun being sort of recognized in our brand new WPRB T-shirts. At the time, Gabriel was still kind of a big name, but not what I would call a superstar as a solo act. His first album was all over the place, although it did have “Solsbury Hill” on it—still one of my favorite songs. I happened to enjoy his second album a great deal, although opinions were and are mixed (Gabriel refused to include any of the songs from it on his first “Greatest Hits” collection). But his third album (titled like the first two Peter Gabriel, and generally referred to as Melt) was where he seemed to put it all together. It is a dark, foreboding album, filled with menace and many songs about borders and frontiers, both internal and external. Unlike his first two discs, it was consistent throughout, and without any really weak tracks.

This was the material that Gabriel drew from for the bulk his Asbury Park show, starting with the album and show opener “Intruder,” which popularized the “gated drum” sound that later became an 80s cliché. Although it was not a small space, the Convention Center stage was not huge, and the show was not lavish, but it was effective. I will never forget how blown away I was after leaving the concert.

After Melt, Gabriel released the similar, maybe even more atmospheric, Security, which featured the song “Shock the Monkey,” then put out an excellent live set and did the soundtrack to the movie Birdy.

One morning in mid-1986, I had just gotten up and turned on the radio in bed. The DJ announced a brand new song from Peter Gabriel, which immediately piqued my interest. It was “Sledgehammer,” a song that was so unlike anything I expected from Gabriel, with its funk beat, horns and playfulness. Based on the remarkable quality of the music, the great videos and, later, the movie, Say Anything, the album So catapulted Gabriel back to superstardom. “Red Rain,” though, is not from the playful end of the spectrum—it is, instead, a solemn song about serious issues such as AIDS and nuclear fallout. The exact meaning of the red rain symbolism is unclear, or at least it derives from a number of different dreams that Gabriel had, some of which include blood falling like rain. The hi-hat that is prominent was played by Police drummer Stewart Copeland, which represents the rain.

I saw Gabriel for the second and last time on the tour for So, at Madison Square Garden in December, 1986 with my future wife. I remember that show because, not only was the music great, the show was big—lots of lights and lots of musicians on stage (many of them from Super Etoile de Dakar, the band of Youssou N’Dour, who opened the show and also sang with Gabriel, most memorably on "In Your Eyes").

The video above is a crappy video of “Red Rain” from a later show on the tour, which gives some sense of the power of the song live. The last time I posted an mp3 of a Gabriel song, I was cited for a copyright violation, and will not risk that again. I have to say that after So, I found Gabriel’s music less interesting. It almost seemed like he was trying too hard, and his music became difficult and unenjoyable. And then, for a few years, he focused on cover projects and orchestral versions of his songs, and they were not to my liking either. He’s working on a new album now, and will be touring with Sting, so we will see in what direction this always interesting artist will be heading.

Blood: Blood on the Tracks

buy Tangled up in Blue

Bob Dylan. Blood on the Tracks. 1975. This post isn't exactly a "blood"-titled song, but the album is titled...Blood ... so it mostly fits the theme.

Now ... I appreciate a lot of Dylan's oeuvre - the man has contributed more than his fair share - much more, but - I confess - much of it doesn't set me on fire. Blonde on Blonde: much to appreciate, much to admire. Great album. New Morning: almost all of the songs are all select. Blood on the Tracks: much that is good: if you select.

Apropos the theme: what means Blood on the Tracks?T o me, it's the obvious tracks of the railroad and the many miles that encompasses. In railroads, I see: Big train run you down and leave a mess. I see shades of future - maybe even a Slow Train Coming (at least it fits my "train" theory? )

I further find it a sign of the times that a Google search for Blood on the Tracks is virtually limited to only Dylan references - I would have expected at least a few reference links to some trains. More to the point: my memory says that there was/must have been such a phrase before Dylan and the Internet appropriated it. The phrase: "Blood on the Tracks" belongs to Dylan?

When it comes to choosing a favorite from Blood on the Tracks? Probably "Tangled Up in Blue". But - are there any further references to blood? In the lyrics?

The video is not great but - unlike many of the other YouTube clips we've got  -the man on the guitar and the sound isn't bad. Actually - very Dylan-esque - the video quality seems to enhance  the message

Last but not least - lest it steal from our upcoming thunder: whatsabout "Shelter from the Storm"? Again ... anything to do with blood here? (I hadn't previously  noticed the lack of Dylan live YouTube videos). I would have wished for another live version with the man playing the guitar for this song ... but couldn't locate one @ YouTube. Here ... he sings.

　

　

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Blood: Too Much Blood

Purchase: Too Much Blood, from Undercover

I love deep cuts from bands that the serious music enthusiast might generally feel well-informed about. The Rolling Stones have vaults of under-heard music: b-sides, live material, unreleased, unearthed, under appreciated. I could go on. The Stones have a made a lot of great music.

They have under-heard albums, too. I know the argument that they haven’t produced anything of real value since Tattoo You, but, if you feel that way, I think you’re missing the point. The Stones are kings of the mountain in terms of rock ‘n roll greatness. They put out a lot of lead-weighted stuff, but in context to their entire career and the span of the history of rock music, anything they put out is always worthy of a deep listen and tends to grow in terms of quality, the more time you give it. Certain snapshots of the Stones might not sound all that great in context to what they were doing at the time, but going back, almost everything they put out is pretty good. The joy of listening to the Stones is there is so much music they are like a continually undiscovered country. Listening to the Stones should be undertaken as a survey course, rather than a micro-history. There’s a lot of sound and a lot of story and all of it relates to the era it came from.

Take for example Too Much Blood, off 1983’s Undercover, a decidedly uncritical, disliked entry in their discography. I like Undercover, as an album and a song—the title track is funky, razor-blade sharp dance rock, with a serious Latin-tinged, tin can rhythm. It reminds me of the go-go drummers who used to set up shop on the streets of my hometown, Washington, DC, laying down bottomed-out, tribal beats on an array of over-turned plastic buckets. Have you ever heard that sound? It is unrivaled in terms of lo-fi funk, and the sound is unique to the streets of DC. But, both Undercover and the go-go sound certainly pay back to their antecedent Latin-Carib grooves.

Undercover has that same walloped, whip snap sound. It’s a fantastic album opener. And then, four tracks later, we have the messed-up, drugged-up, half-spoken murder ditty Too Much Blood. And, Too Much Blood is pretty much a wtf moment. The song is a funked-up run through the jungle with Jagger doing what might be some of the first crossover rapping in rock music. Starting with a distinctly ‘80s horn line, and then throwing in some pinging guitars, Too Much Blood grooves along at a dithery slip, until the break, where Jagger starts to tell the true tale of Japanese cannibal killer, Issei Sagawa, who murdered and ate a French woman in 1981. Sagawa went on to earn a strange celebrity in Japan, but that was much later. But in 1981, he was treated in the media as a sensation rather than the monster he was. A “movie of the week” excitement surrounded him, and Jagger uses Too Much Blood as a half-hearted commentary on media and the pervasiveness of violence and lurid sensationalism. It rings as true back then as it does now. Jagger goes on to talk about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and how people mistake it for reality. The highlight of the song is Jagger, in his very best London swagger saying, “Oh no. Don't saw off me leg, don't saw off me arm…” Of all the famous British accents, Mick’s has got to be my favorite…

By modern standards, it is nothing special, yet Too Much Blood sounds like a document of a certain era, a crossing of the streams of disco, funk, and rock giving way to something more modern. While it was in reality a one-off track (the full band doesn’t even play on it) born from mucking about in the studio, it sounds somewhat ahead of its time, looking toward the crossover and hybridization that is now so celebrated over multiple genres. It's not so 80s to be too 80s; yet it's a strange, groovy little departure from the band that can pretty much depart in any direction they want and still sound like themselves.

One more thing: the video is linked below. I don't really know what to say about it. Best just to watch...

Blood: Blood and Roses

The Smithereens: Blood and Roses [purchase]
[Or go for the 30th Anniversary edition]

From 1986, when I first heard the great “Blood and Roses,” from their debut album Especially For You, until 2011, when someone asked me about “The Smithereens,” I thought of the excellent band from New Jersey, whose British Invasion-influenced alternative sound helped to define the music I listened to during that period. After 2011, though, when I heard those words, I thought instead about the Smith College a capella group that gave my daughter so much pleasure during her college years. To be fair, I’ve only seen the rockers once, opening for Los Lobos at the legendary Pier in New York back in the 80s, while I’ve seen one of the oldest all-female a capella groups (formed at least a decade before the Jersey boys were even born) many times. And unlike my friend Lee, I’m not on a first name basis with any of the band, while members of the older group have slept in my house.

That all being said, I’ve made no bones about the fact that I’ve never been a big fan of a capella music, although I certainly enjoyed seeing my daughter and her friends perform. While they were very good, it is way, way more likely that I’d take affirmative steps to listen to the performers of our feature song than to listen to a performance of “Softly.” (But I still check out “Chicago” occasionally....)

“Blood and Roses” is a typical Smithereens song—catchy, but with depth, an intelligent, brooding reflection on love gone bad, and it was successful—included in the soundtrack of a forgotten film, and then a top 20 hit on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and a popular video on MTV (you know, back when.....), it introduced the band to a wide audience. Produced by Don Dixon, whose relationship with R.E.M. probably helped get the band airplay, Especially For You is a fine album from top to bottom and is widely reported to have been a favorite of Kurt Cobain’s, so if you want to draw a line from The Smithereens to Nirvana, go right ahead.

The Smithereens released a number of excellent albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but by the middle of the decade, the world of alternative rock had changed, mostly due to the ascendancy of grunge (spearheaded, ironically, by Nirvana), and the band withdrew from recording, although they continued to tour for a while before taking time off. Lead singer Pat DiNizio made a run for Senate from New Jersey on the Reform Party ticket and, not surprisingly, did not win. On their return to the studio and the road (they opened for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers a couple of years ago and are on the road right now), they have released a couple of albums of new material, a Christmas album, and a few cover collections to some critical, but little commercial, success.

That’s really too bad. Because these guys were, and are, good, and deserve to be better remembered. They had a sound that, while filled with recognizable influences, was distinctive, and their songwriting was strong. And, maybe best of all, and certainly compared to the older, all-female group, they play instruments when they sing.

BLOOD: Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

A title as above will either send you screaming for the hills or you will know of it already. Of course, I maybe underestimate the number of actively fundamentalist Christians possibly reading, none of whom I would wish to offend. Be that as it may, if intrigued by such a heading, and I dare say it is true, within these largely secular scribblings, please read on.

Gavin Bryars is an English composer, best known for his pieces within the oxymoron of contemporary classical music. Always a champion of the accident of creative expression, he was a founder member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an extraordinary ensemble whose membership demanded little or no pre-existing competence in the playing of any instrument. Whilst some, like Bryars, had skills and experience, many did not, resulting in sometimes the triumph of enthusiasm over accuracy. And sometimes not. Another member was erstwhile Roxy Musicman, latterday U2 (and others) producer and composer, Brian Eno, under whose patronage Bryars later developed a more orthodox career, albeit one that owed a fair bit to John Cage and his uneasy compositional style. Prior to that he had been a jazz bassist alongside another free spirit, Derek Bailey, so you could argue his chosen oeuvre became the meeting of improvised free jazz with orchestrated found sound.

The piece celebrated here has a glorious evolution, almost apocryphal, and is best described in Bryar's own words here. I remember hearing this for the first time and being astonished, as the repetition and ritualistic build of tension worked a spell I would encourage you to become entranced by. Don't rush. Leave yourself plenty of time. Turn off outside distractions.

This was the original recording, from 1971, with a later revised version appearing 20 years later, with the added delight, if he is your bag, of vagrant faux Tom Waits joining in toward the end. (An unnecessary addition in my ear, but I am not a fan. And apologies to those who, on sight of the picture at the top were expecting something overall Jethro Tullier, but the image seemed apt.)

Buy the original here. (The lesser Waits "enhanced" version is also available, at considerably less a price, but, hey, that's commercialism for you!?)

Blood: Bloodbuzz, Ohio

Purchase: The National, High Violet

This month, I was going to write about Pearl Jam’s Blood, but then I had to remind myself: this isn’t a blog about my personal favorites. Modern music is a galaxy without limits, and studying it is like attending an endless history class (and a scientific and sociological and anthropological class, too.) One of the great things about researching for these entries are the discoveries I make looking for appropriate tunes to fit our theme. Some tunes I know, but I get the chance to discover a little more. Like, did you know Bon Scott was a bagpipe player (AC/DC’s  If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)? Or that Ryan Adams' Bad Blood is way better than Taylor Swift’s? Well, that’s probably not something I needed to research to know…

One of the most interesting thing that I’ve come across is a write up about a song I knew well, yet obviously hadn’t listened to as closely as I should. Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield makes the case that The National’s Bloodbuzz, Ohio, from 2010’s High Violet, is a literal and exact copy of INXS’ brilliant and timeless Don’t Change. Listen to Bloodbuzz right now—you won’t be able to unhear it…But, you can’t really blame The National, or take points off their paper for plagiarism. Sheffield quotes the dearly departed Michael Hutchence as saying: “ ‘...You couldn't make a bad record copying ‘Don't Change.’”

So, we can forgive The National for working within that nebulous world of inspired by, or in tribute to. When it comes to rock songs sounding too similar to a predecessor, it’s hard to assign blame. I think loving imitations make some of the best work we encounter.  The National do little wrong in their music—moody and smoldering yet driven with an intensity of sulk and smoky atmospherics that is hard to define, even harder to imitate. Accusing them of plagiarism comes across as jealousy more than anything else. But, wait: their lead single of 2013’s Trouble Will Find Me was titled Sea Of Love. To the Principal’s office!  The parentage of a rock song is a nebulous thing. Pete Townshend, one of our founding fathers, once said he’d never really written anything original. Rather, he just took songs he liked, reworked them until he had something new, and that was that. I think there’s a lot of wisdom there. The paternal song in this equation—INXS’—is as pop-perfect as it gets, with the driving guitar line and the warp-speed keys. When you listen to The National’s Bloodbuzz, those same ethereal elements are there—just as they are in song after song we end up loving.  The pedigree of a rock song is always going to spring from opaque origins. The similarities shouldn’t surprise us: the originality of turning an old phrase into a new one should, and usually does. Which is why, if you are a proper student of rock and roll, you’ve got more favorite songs and albums than makes sense.

Professor of rockology Tom Petty has the final say on plagiarism in rock, in response to the accusation that The Red Hot Chili Peppers ripped off Mary Jane’s Last Dance when they recorded Dani California : “I seriously doubt that there is any negative intent there. And a lot of rock ‘n’ roll songs sound alike. Ask Chuck Berry. The Strokes took ‘American Girl’ [for their song ‘Last Nite’], and I saw an interview with them where they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud. I was like, ‘OK, good for you’ … If someone took my song note for note and stole it maliciously, then maybe [I’d sue]. But I don’t believe in lawsuits much. I think there are enough frivolous law suits in this country without people fighting over pop songs.”

Blood: Love lies Bleeding

purchase [Love Lies Bleeding]

Back in the early 70s, I just about wore out the grooves listening to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. ("Wore out the grooves" harks back to the time when people spun a vinyl disk on a motor-driven turntable, scratching the ridged surface of the plastic with a diamond stylus: the more you played/re-played the music, the more likelihood of your permanently wearing down the ridges/grooves.)

The first song off the album, "Funeral for a Friend" segues directly into "Love Lies Bleeding" and the two are considered and generally performed as a single piece, although Elton has commented that they were separate pieces that just fit back to back because one ends in the key of A and the other begins in A. Together, they make up a powerful start to a powerful album. His best.

As for the lyrics (Bernie Taupin) - if you go beyond the driving piano/guitar/drums (there are no lyrics to Funeral), it's not the happiest Valentines Day message:

The roses in the window box

Have tilted to one side

Everything about this house

Was born to grow and die

As I revisit Yellow Brick Road on account of the theme relevance, I recall that there are several of my favorite (and I am not an overboard Elton John fan)/several of his best pieces all on this one the album: "Candle in the Wind," "Saturday Night's Alright," "Bennie and the Jets," "Your Sister Can't Twist," and of course, "Yellow Brick Road "...

Starting a little before Yellow Brick Road, but almost inseparable ever since, Elton John's go-to guitar player is Davey Johnstone. Similarly, beating the drums on this version  is the inseparable Nigel Olsson (see his name prominently displayed on the front-facing bass drum). Both of them adding vocal embellishments here.

 

(Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)

Blood: Beauty Way

Eliza Gilkyson: Beauty Way
[purchase]

For the next two weeks, our theme is Blood, vaguely derived from the classic heart symbolism for Valentine’s Day which falls during this period, but also because we thought it was a good idea.

Sometimes, when a theme is announced, I need to search my iTunes library for a song, and other times something just jumps into my head. And for some reason, that is what happened here, despite the fact that there are many more obvious choices.

The amount of music out there is staggering. I’m sure that there are many people whose musical taste and collection (tangible or virtual) has basically stagnated. But for me, and other music fanatics, it is impossible to keep up. I have a pretty significant collection of music, and a pretty broad range of musical likes, but I simply can’t know everything, or keep up with all of the new good things. I hear all of the time about music I should like or should check out, and often when I do, I realize, yeah, that’s pretty good. And maybe I’ll download a few songs and check them out more.

Which is a long way of getting to my point—there are people making great music out there—music you might really like, if you heard it, but you just haven’t had the chance. Eliza Gilkyson is one of those musicians who has had a long career in the industry, great reviews, but not a huge amount of name recognition outside of the Austin area. Although, to be fair, she has been pretty popular in these pages, having been tagged in 6 prior pieces, more than Aimee Mann, Alejandro Escovedo, Pete Townshend and Harry Chapin, to randomly choose a few people with bigger profiles.

Gilkyson comes from a musical family. Her father Terry was a folksinger in the 50s and 60s, and then became a songwriter for Disney movies—his songs include “The Bare Necessities” from The Jungle Book. Her brother Tony was the guitarist in Lone Justice, and for a period, X, and also produces. Her sister Nancy is a singer and an executive at Warner Bros. Records. Eliza began her career singing on her father’s demos and soundtracks, including a couple of Disney TV shows. She moved from Hollywood to Santa Fe, New Mexico in her late teens, started a family and began releasing records. Her musical and personal journey took her to Austin, then back to Los Angeles, then to Taos and to Europe, before returning to Austin. Her son Ryder has produced some of her albums, and her daughter Delia has sung on some of them. Her songs have been covered by Joan Baez, Lucy Kaplansky, Bob Geldof, Roseanne Cash and others. She even has a couple of Grammy nominations, and was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame.

Our featured song, “Beauty Way,” from Gilkyson’s 2000 release, Hard Times In Babylon, is a semi-autobiographical tale about the hard life of a musician who comes close to, but just misses, hitting it big. What always struck me about the songs were her lyrics, which make it almost seem like her desire to play music was irresistible, and that she simply had to keep going, no matter what the result:

I worked the clubs along the Sangre de Cristos 
Polished the diamond in the rough 
By the time I hit L.A. I was hotter than a pistol 
But you're never hot enough little darling 
You never really hot enough 

I felt the lights on the big, big stages 
The fire burning in my soul 
I've had those nights when my guitar rages 
But it's not something you control little darling 
It's not something you control 

And there’s the blood reference—the Sangre de Cristo mountains, which run from Colorado to just north of Santa Fe. But I also think of the metaphorical blood that Gilkyson spent trying to make it in the music business.

A little side note--back in the days before iPods and CD burning, I was one of those people who made mixtapes, which I listened to on a tape player or in the car. In 2001, I included a version of “Beauty Way” on a tape, followed by a Los Lobos song, “Down on the Riverbed.” At some point, I was listening to the tape, and realized that the two songs mentioned red-tailed hawks, making it a great subconscious segue. Which is something that only ex-college radio DJs think about.

The Accordion: 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)

Purchase: The Wild, The Innocent, The E Street Shuffle

" 4^th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)", better known as "Sandy," is early Springsteen and the E Street Band at their poetic best, a beautiful image-laden tone poem about Asbury Park, New Jersey, where Springsteen cut his teeth as a young musician, the place that made him, in many ways. Or perhaps his legend—it’s hard to separate the two.  "Sandy" is a wistful, fairy-tale ode to ‘home’, or at least a place that is home in the heart, much like The Clash's tribute to London in London Calling and Van Morrison's Belfast in Cyprus Avenue, evoke more than just a sense of a place.

"Sandy," from Springsteen’s second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, is a beautiful little ballad that shuffles and skips along, mostly due to dearly departed accordionist Danny Federici's lilting and elegant accordion line. Federici, a founding member of the E Street Band, passed away in 2008. The song is a love song, for a girl, for a lifestyle, for a certain place in a certain time, destined to never really come back again, thanks to the way youth speeds away from us and leaves us with just memories. Hopefully, good ones—and the best part of good memories is how much better they get with time.

Robert Santelli, in Greetings From E Street:The Story of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, describes the song as “the perfect musical study of the Jersey Shore boardwalk culture.” The song is populated with the eccentric, vibrant characters that populated many of Springsteen’s youthful, Dylan-inspired street epics: switch blade kids, tramps, factory girls…all those faces that made Springsteen’s street-scene operas such wonderful pieces of not only music, but poetry as well.

His greatest work in regards to the neon, asphalt and brick fables is Jungleland, but it is "Sandy" that invokes a sense of nostalgia, even for places an times that the listener might have no claim on at all. Springsteen is that kind of writer: universal in the experiences he relates.  But, here it is Federici’s accordion that makes "Sandy" such a beautiful song, that as the major aural element works to emphasize the sadness that sits underneath the bright sun and the brash joking of the narrator, trying to get right, but just not making it. The accordion here sounds like youthfulness, it sounds like the carnival. It sounds, truly, like a a whole soundtrack to memory.

The E Street Band still brings this tune out, as a tribute to Federici, much as 10 Avenue Freeze-out is done now as tribute to the Big Man, Clarence Clemons. That’s a hell of a thing: a song that comes to serve as a monument to one who made it sound so distinctive.  "Sandy" has always a special place for E Street Band fans, and will now stand not only as memory of Danny Federici, but as a hat tip and a wink to youthful days, long gone by…

The Accordion: Come Unto Me

[purchase]

As a devoted listener to WFUV, I was certainly aware of The Mavericks, but they were really just on the edge of my musical consciousness. I recognized and liked a few songs, and that was about that. My friend Tom, a fine singer and guitarist in his own right, whose bands often cover The Mavericks, kept telling me how great they were live. As usual in matters musical (not to mention food, TV and soccer, despite his support of Manchester United), Tom did not steer me wrong.

My first exposure to the band’s live show was at the 2014 Clearwater Festival. My wife and I had spent an incredible first day, seeing, among others, an all-star tribute to Pete and Toshi Seeger, Dar Williams, Guy Davis, Dan Bern and Richard Thompson (and you wonder why we were upset when they cancelled this year’s festival). My wife had enough, and decided to leave, but I wasn’t going to miss The Mavericks’ closing set. And it was worth every second. They truly kicked some ass, and had me dancing. And if you know me, you know that’s a big deal, especially because I wasn’t even close to drunk.

What makes them such a good live band? Start with the music—a mix of country, rock, Western swing, and more varieties of Latin music than I know how to name. Singer Raul Malo, whose deep, expressive voice is one of those that you never forget when you hear it, is of Cuban descent from Miami, and there is definitely some of that in there, along with all sorts of Tex-Mex sounds. Then, add the fact that it is just played well, and with incredible enthusiasm. Plus, as we know, horns make everything better. Stir in Malo’s charisma and stage presence, the goofy charm of keyboard player Jerry Dale McFadden and the menacing intensity of guitarist Eddie Perez, and you have something that is not only unique, but incredibly infectious and fun.

For some time, the band has made regular appearances at the Tarrytown Music Hall, in my town, and when they announced their 2014 dates, there was no question that I was going to go. My wife, Tom and I caught the show from the front row of the balcony, and the full set was even better than the shorter festival performance. The crowd was on its feet from the first note, and the show was a nonstop party. The video above was shot by someone on the floor, sort of below where we were sitting. The sound isn’t great, but it gives you a sense of what was going on. Another friend, Bob, who is a volunteer usher at the Music Hall, and thus sees many, many shows, swears that The Mavericks are, by far, the best live band that plays there.

I picked that song, “Come Unto Me,” because it features the button accordion, a common instrument in Mexican folk and popular music. Michael Guerra, who is not a full member of the band, but tours and records with them, does a great job lending a Mexican flavor to the song, not to mention has a long solo. Also, at the end, Malo points at me. Sort of.

At last year’s Clearwater Festival, The Mavericks again closed the show. And again, my wife left early (it really was raining hard when she left, but I really wanted to see The Mavericks again). Unfortunately, due to the rainstorm, which had stopped, but led to delays and equipment issues, they took the stage late and their set was truncated. But what they played was, again, great. We skipped last year’s Tarrytown residency, but I do hope to go back the next time they play there, with or without my wife.

Speaking of my wife, as I may have mentioned, she, and my daughter, are proud alumnae of Smith College, as is this feminist maverick:

Say hi to the legendary accordion player, Gloria Steinem.

The Accordion: Flaco Jimenez

 

 

Buy "The Best of Flaco Jimenez"

 

Ry Cooder is the kind of eclectic musician that would include an accordion from time to time. He also would include a tuba, and you can hear them both in on his 1976 Chicken Skin Music album. Among other unusual instruments that he has included are the cimbalom, the tiple, the bajo sexto, the laud, the mandola - many of which he himself plays.

Since way back in the Chicken Skin Music days, his go to man for the accordion has been Flaco Jimenez. Jimenez also plays on the 1994 Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Jimenez has played with David Lindley - kind of from the Ry Cooder camp. Or with Los Lobos because, of course, the accordion features heavily in Mexican music.

The paring of Mexican & accordion has a curious and circuitous history. A PBS show called Accordion Dreams relates how the ostensibly German accordion made its way into Mexican music via German settlers moving to Texas in the mid 18 hundreds. The Tejano music which resulted is a mix of polka inspirations and Mexican band. That's a simplification, of course. Mexican music includes all sorts of styles, but the accordion does seem to have been brought that far by Texas Germans. It's also a simplification to call it accordion music: there are several different types of accordion.

 

If all you came here for is the accordion, you can cut to Jimenez's solo at about the 7 minute mark.

 

The Accordion: John Kirkpatrick

Who? Shame on you, Kirkpatrick is the king of the English squeezebox, I would say single-handedly bringing back this instrument, or instruments, into the modern folk (rock) pantheon. You don't maybe know the name, but please accept you have heard him. Let me take you back, hell, over 40 years. Witness the boy (me!), awkward and lumpen, picking slowly up on the UK folk tradition, by way of Fairport Convention and this song. It's back to my beloved Top of the Pops, and a sadly currentlyunavailableonyoutube footage of this seminal band, performing a Dylan song a la Francais. Amidst all the striped jumpers and onions was one John Kirkpatrick, squeezing away for his very life.

Move forward a year or 2 and it was 'Morris On' that captured me, folk-rock interpretations of Morris tunes, leading me to years of dancing with hankies, eventually spending 10 years as a fully fledged, if flat footed, member of a side, spending my weekends dancing the dance and, it's true, drinking the drink. In the album sleeve above, Kirkpatrick is the chimney sweep, singing and playing this song. Incidentally, should the anathema of electric Morris prove too alarming, he was the prime culprit in an eminently recommendable album, 'Plain Capers', all acoustic and straight from the village green.

But he wasn't entirely tied to tradition, something Richard Thompson, erstwhile Fairport alumnus, and the green woodsman in the album cover above, was able to exploit in his initial run of duet records, with then wife Linda, and later solo records, someone much missed from his current output IMHO. Here is an astonishing live song, with quintessential Kirkpatrick holding it all together.

For reasons never acknowledged or admitted, despite an ongoing willingness expressed from Kirkpatrick, Thompson seemed to drop him after a while, with Kirkpatrick retreating back to the folk clubs from whence he had sprung, give or take a short caretaker role in Fairport "rivals" Steeleye Span and with his own band. Before, after and during this, he has continued, solely or, in earlier days, with ex-wife Sue Harris, to play alone or as a duo. Here is his tour de force, apologies if it is too raw for your refined ears.

Of course he is intricately linked in with the incestuous family tree of UK folk, plus or minus rock, via the various Albion Bands, Country and or Dance versions, and brass-folk pioneers Brass Monkey. Perhaps to and in my mind and ear, his seminal piece of work, in cahoots with another ex-Fairporter, Ashley Hutchings, the 'Godfather of Folk-Rock', is 'The Compleat Dancing Master'. Sorry, no clips....

Without this man I honestly believe there would be lesser an english folk tradition, vibrant and alive, with very much less a likelihood of an ongoing squeezebox legacy, through John Jones/Oyster Band,  Simon Care/Edward II or Gareth Morris/Little Johnny England.

Buy at his page, astonishingly he has one, albeit entangled with others, but 'Morris On', 'Plain Capers' and a lot more are there......

THE ACCORDION

I love a squeezebox, me, and have for as long as I recall, and certainly as long as I have been addicted to music. I don't care whether a concertina, a melodeon, an accordion, piano- or otherwise, a bandoneon or whatever, and it can be from within folk, tex-mex/conjunto, zydeco/cajun, country or even just slipped into good old rock and roll. But I fear I may be an odd boy in this perversion, the majority of my chums placing these pre-cursors to the synthesiser* low in their pecking orders, arguably down near the bagpipe and the banjo, both of which I also adore. So where do I begin?

Lets's set the scene: I think my favourite ever use of these delightful instruments is within this stonking cajun version of Chuck Berry's 'Promised Land':

This belter of a song rattles along quite tidily under its conventional rockabilly steam until lifted twice, a middle eight and at the end, by the glorious surge of louisiana provided by Belton Richard, a lesser known name than that of Johnny Allan, the singer, but a man who has put out a fair bit of swamp-pop in his own name, before and subsequently.(In fact, so good a solo is it that it reappears, note for note, in this, by Los Lobos, their David Hidalgo being no slouch on the instrument either.)

But what was that I said about *pre-cursors to the synthesiser? What tosh, you say, how can you compare primitive bellows with the majesty of, um, say, Gary Numan's chosen? Let me explain, with reference to economies of scale and a journey into the mysteries of the Morris dance. These folk dances of old england were traditionally led by pipe and tabor, the simultaneous one hand on a whistle, another on a drum, with fiddle later being employed as well or instead. The melodeon, a button accordion, could provide a much greater swell of noise and range, thus being able to replace a larger team of musicians on lesser instrumentation. Maybe mellotron is a better example than synth, but it's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.

I could and I won't pontificate for hours as to the joy of squeeze, but that may not bring any converts, so how about a few more practitioners of merit wider than their genre might suggest.

Gotan Project are a Paris based collective of French and South American musicians dedicated to, largely, the tango. By imaginative use of electronic breaks and beats they endeavour to bring this dance and it's attendant culture into a 21st century setting. I think it works.

Still in France, there is of course a longstanding Parisian cafe culture built around cheesy chansons. This guy, Yann Tiersen, somehow explodes that. Oft dismissed as a mere soundtrack auteur, his repertoire is much wider. Accomplished on many instruments, I hope you will agree he gives the bellows a hell of a kicking in this burst above.

If they are still going, the Felice Brothers offer a delightfully ragged take on a ramshackle Americana that smacks of the subway busking sessions they began by playing. Based originally around the 3 Felices, now but 2 are still playing together, including James, who plays the accordion on this track, to brother Ian's singing.

As a final thought, I scribble recreationally on message board, the Afterword, a lifeboat for the aficionados of late lost music mag, (the) 'Word', and I am pleased there are other odd boys there; even the occasional odd woman. Here was a string about accordions you may enjoy.

The Accordion: Cabbage Rolls And Coffee

[purchase The Last Polka on VHS]

I’m old enough to remember seeing The Lawrence Welk Show on TV, featuring polka music which, of course, highlighted the accordion. Not that I ever watched it—but in those days, to change the channel, you had to turn a dial and pass through each channel, so sometimes I would see a snippet of the show which looked like it was from another time. It just seemed so incongruous that during the rock era, there was a show featuring polka music, on television, and that there were people who actually watched it. The concept just was, to my mind, farcical.

So, when Eugene Levy and John Candy at SCTV created the Shmenge Brothers, a pair of “Leutonian” musicians, one of whom (Stan) played the accordion, I got the joke.

I’m also old enough to remember when Saturday Night Live was a subversive, counterculture program that quickly became mainstream entertainment. And then discovering the lower budget, more anarchic SCTV, although it never seemed to be on at any regular time. I think that, at least initially, the fact that SCTV flew under the radar allowed it the freedom to display a more subtle and weird comedic sensibility than SNL. The premise of the show—that it all related to a fictional TV station/network, also gave the show a narrow focus, yet allowed it the freedom to do wide ranging parodies. And it is hard to argue that the SCTV cast members haven’t had incredible influence on comedy—we’re talking John Candy, Rick Moranis, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Andrea Martin, Harold Ramis, Dave Thomas, Robin Duke, Joe Flaherty, and, of course, Martin Short, among others.

The Shmenge Brothers were just one of these parodies, and like so many of their skits, the humor was subtle and character based. Candy apparently based the characters on Gaby Haas, a Czechoslovakian native who had a polka-based show based in Edmonton—meaning that there was actually more than one polka-based TV show on the air. The brothers appeared on a few episodes of SCTV, starting in 1982 and ending in 1983, with an ill-fated attempt to cash in on the “New Wave” and music videos. Their retirement was chronicled in an hour-long mockumentary called The Last Polka, based, of course, on The Last Waltz. The clip above, of the Shmenges and the Happy Wanderers playing their “classic” “Cabbage Rolls And Coffee,” comes from the film. They also performed this song on Late Night With David Letterman and at Comic Relief.

Part of the humor of the sketch is the fact that polka music, and the accordion, was at that time considered a joke in itself. Of course, the accordion, and its related instruments, has a respected place in the music of many countries and cultures.  And as the roots music movement spread, more and more musicians proudly feature a squeezebox, so that when, say, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, picks up his accordion, no one laughs.

One last admission—for a brief time in my childhood, I tried to learn to play the accordion. It didn’t take.

BEGINNINGS: IKE TURNER

If, as is widely surmised, 'Rocket 88' was the first evidenced relic of ye olde rocke and roll, by definition, Ike Turner, tho' neither the writer nor the singer was the first rocker. Sung, written and credited to one Jackie Brenston (and his Delta Cats), the band was actually Ike's Kings of Rhythm, for whom Brenston played sax. Dating from an astonishing 1951, when Ike was 19, a cocktail of western swing, jump blues and the accidentally 'fuzzed' guitar produced by a damaged amplifier. Raw and raggedy around the edges, to my ears it holds up a lot more successfully than other and later contenders for title as first.

Which made me think a bit about Ike, more famous now for his alleged misogyny and mistreatment of Tina, than for this or any other part of his wide-ranging legacy. Now this is not the place to assess his character and I won't. If we are to only glory those spotless in reputation, then the canon of modern music, like literature and art, will shrink to nought. OK, neither should we necessarily celebrate the blemishes and behaviours, even though we often do. Especially as it is difficult to tiptoe through the morals of one era in the shoes of another. So what about Izear Luster 'Ike' Turner, junior, 1931 - 2007?

Born the son of a minister, a recurring theme in rock music, he immersed himself in the musics of the juke joints from an early age, boogie boogie, blues, jazz, setting up and setting out on the road with his Kings of Rhythm, gaining experience by backing anyone from Sonny Boy Williamson to Muddy Waters. The success of 'Rocket 88' led to a temporary suspension of the band, as Turner became a session man and record producer, until, with 3rd wife Tina, or Annie-Mae Bullock as she was christened, a reformed Kings of Rhythm hit the road in 1956, becoming the Ike and Tina Turner Revue 4 years later. No more the rock'n'roll frontman, Ike was now the understated conductor of the band, Tina and her Ikettes taking the full focus of what was and to become a full blown R'n'b extravaganza, second only to James Brown. Arguably their best remembered early song would be the Phil Spector production, 'River Deep, Mountain High', the deal for the song being that Ike had little to do with it. And Ike, maybe uncharacteristically, always shrewdly, went along with it. Not initially a hit in the U.S., it was huge in Europe and beyond, leading to tours with the Rolling Stones.

Roll forward into another decade, popular on both sides of the atlantic by now, a staple in the charts, with covers, 'I Can Take You Higher' and 'Proud Mary', there was one further classic in store, with even now there being barely a wedding disco, or similar, that doesn't include 'Nutbush City Limits.' Both of mine did!

After that it was all about Tina, her revelations about life with Ike piling on the wretchedness already there courtesy old showbiz faves, drink, drugs and paranoia. I can't help but note some irony in that, aged 30, he was teetotal and drugs eschewing, and yet to introduce Miss Bullock into his band and his life, but that's conjecture. He did, however, manage to survive the storms, reputationally and personally, reviving again the Kings of Rhythm in 2001 and achieving his 2nd Grammy in 2006, for solo album, 'Risin' with the Blues.' He died the following year.

So let's get a bit of his finishings, remembering him for his music, not just his onetime amanuensis. (Sadly YouTube didn't have an available version of '18 Long Years', his re-write of earlier Ike and Tina song '5 Long Years'. They, inevitably, were married for 18.)

Beginnings: Brand New Day

Purchase: Brand New Day

While certainly not his finest hour as a lyricist, Van Morrison’s Brand New Day, from Moondance (the album every one you know has in their collection), fits the bill for our theme this month. It’s a simple song, both hopeful and soulful. The mellow groove is pure Van Morrison blue eyed soul, with his lush and plaintive vocal styles, wavering piano and guitar lines and gospel chorus. Van Morrison crosses genres with grace—balladeer, soulster, mystic poet, party hound. Brand New Day is a small blip in the catalog he’s created, but it’s a beautiful song, in its own sense. The man himself explains the origins of Brand New Day as:

"Brand New Day" expressed a lot of hope. I was in Boston and having a hard job getting myself up spiritually...Then one day this song came on the FM station and it had this particular feeling and this particular groove and it was totally fresh. It seemed to me like things were making sense....I didn't know who the hell the artist was. It turned out to be The Band. I looked up at the sky and the sun started to shine and all of a sudden the song just came through my head. I started to write it down, right from "When all the dark clouds roll away…” (Wikipedia)

What song do you think it was? Have to be The Weight? Perhaps I Shall be Released?

For good measure, we should also mention Morrison’s Into the Mystic, itself a soulful meditation on a new beginning of sorts, magical and supernatural, and of heading into new and unknown places, concerning love and other delights…

Happy New Year to all our readers—I hope history proves 2016 to be a far better year than all the doomsayers are predicting. Starting out a year with forecasts of our guaranteed destruction before the next one begins gives me all the more reason to listen to good music and try to see the brighter side of sun. Harmony!

Beginning: Windows 95 Sound

[purchase Windows 95 For Dummies, because, why not?]

Remember Windows 95? Probably not, but when it was released, appropriately in 1995, it was a pretty big deal. For the first time, Microsoft merged its Windows and MS-DOS (remember MS-DOS?) products, and made a bunch of technical improvements that I don’t really understand (although being able to use long file names was convenient). But what was great was that, for the most part, I didn’t need to understand them because they were buried behind an improved graphical user interface, which included a taskbar and a better file navigation system.

However, what is most important for our theme, is that Windows 95 marked the introduction of the “Start” button, which allowed a (relatively) quick way to start stuff. The Start button was part of all subsequent Windows releases, in some form, until the powers that be decided to leave it out of the crapfest that was Windows 8. The outcry was such that it was immediately put back, in the slightly improved Windows 8.1, and was included in the much superior Windows 10.

Now, the personal computer world is mostly divided into two camps, Windows and Mac, with a fringe of Linux and other operating system users. But back in 1995, there were other players in the market, particularly IBM’s OS/2, and the success of Windows 95 essentially drove them out of business. Part of that was based on the technology, but most of it was marketing.

Part of the strategy was to create an iconic “Microsoft Sound” to play when the system was booting up. Microsoft execs approached the master of ambient sounds, Brian Eno, to create the startup music. As he said:

The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, "Here's a specific problem – solve it." 

The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional," this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said "and it must be 3-1/4 seconds long." 

I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel. 

In fact, I made eighty-four pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time. 

The final version of the sound, as heard in the video above, was actually 6 seconds, and it successfully became ingrained into the psyches of Windows users. Amusingly, Eno wrote the music on a Mac. I admit that hearing it again for the first time brought me back 20 years to an age of smaller, but bulkier, monitors, slower processors, tiny hard drives and floppy discs. But others have used Eno’s snippet as inspiration. Here’s a piano cover version:


And here’s a version slowed down 23 times, so it sounds like something from Music For Airports:


And here is just one of many remixes of the sound:


In addition to commissioning Eno’s genius to create a 6 second sound, the Windows 95 marketing blitz included a 30 minute cheesy faux-sitcom operating guide starring Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry of Friends, and a memorable commercial, highlighting the Start button, in which they licensed the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up.” At the time, it was reported that the cost to license the song was in excess of $10 million, but that was apparently not true, and was an attempt by the Stones to inflate the licensing value of their catalog.

Beginning: Velvet Underground

 

[purchase it]

The summer of 69, my rather small LP collection would be enhanced with a copy of Blind Faith (there's really only one LP), because I had seen them live in July 69. And some Doors (by then,both the first and second albums, both of which I memorized the entire lyrics to).

I wish I could recall just from where the Velvet Underground came into my peripheral vision. I was starting to become somewhat eclectic at the end of the 60s - moving on from Top of the Pops and into music that various folks were introducing me to.

There was this guy (we are talking 13 years old) who was a friend of my younger brother's who was pretty well musically informed. He's the one who brought Are You Experienced our way and likely changed my musical perspective forever.

I guess it must have been his infuence that led to our purchase of the Velvet Underground and Janis Ian - a long cry from the Motown that made up a majority of my LP collection.

I confess: I was never really wild about VU: Yes, I recognize the "genius". Yes, I listened again and again ... but it always hit me as a little too hypnotic, too mesmerizing for true enjoyment. Maybe not enough joy. Kind of like what I imagine heroin might be like, and that's a path I never wanted to trod. David Bowie ... maybe ... Velvet Underground ...at arm's length.

That said, 40 years down the road, I guess that is part of what drew me to Talking Heads. There is a lot of similarity in the repetitive style. And I still - at a distance - appreciate the Velvet Underground (and Bowie and John Cale and Lou Reed). Within limits.

The live version above slightly more up tempo than the original on the eponymous album from '69, below.