Steely Dan, at their commercial and artistic peak, were a trio of Donald Fagen, Walter Becker, and producer Gary Katz, ably supported by a large cast of top notch studio musicians. They were a studio-only band, focused on the painstaking creation of recordings that were rich in musical and lyrical detail. But Steely Dan began as an actual band that split its time between recording and playing live. Do It Again is one of the standout tracks from this early period. This band recorded two albums, Countdown to Ecstacy and Can’t Buy a Thrill. Becker and Fagen were writing complex harmonies and long songs from the beginning, but these early albums have a stripped down feel compared to what would come later. There is also an immediacy in these early albums that would be replaced in the later work by a glittering sheen of artifice that gave albums like Aja its perfect pop sound. I love both periods of Steely Dan, but I can hear a random track and tell you which period it belongs to.
Do It Again is one of Steely Dan’s most direct lyrics. In one word, this is a song about recidivism. The song could be about one person, but I hear it as being addressed to people in general. It says that we cannot overcome the worst aspects of our natures. It identifies crime or violence, love, and gambling as bad habits that we are destined to return to once we have tried them. The song can be taken as a warning or an excuse, but it also serves as a template for the characters who inhabit most of Steely Dan’s songs. You may not ever want to meet such people in person, but you will keep coming back to Steely Dan’s music to learn more about them. For the rest of the 1970s and into the 80s, that is just what music fans did.
Springsteen made me want to become a guitar player--the opening chime of The Ties That Bind's riff was one of the greatest sound my 7th grade brain had ever heard. I knew then and there I wanted to play guitar. I distinctly remember going to my New York Yankees tin 'piggy' bank, pulling out about one hundred dollars in assorted bills--my haul from various birthdays, Easter Sundays and gifts slipped to my from my Grandfather--and handing it to my mom. I said: "I want to buy a guitar." Why did I give it to my mom to keep? I don't know--maybe I was worried, now that I had decided what to do with my loot, I might lose it? Who knows. I was buzzing, full of that strange, ritualistic kind of magic a great song casts over you, especially when you've just heard it for the first time.
I bought that guitar--still have it actually. And while Springsteen (who've I've written about many times here, and undoubtedly will again) may have influenced my to start playing the guitar, it was John Squire, guitarist for the Stone Roses, who, a few years later would influence me in how I wanted to play, how I wanted to sound. There's a profound difference, one that speaks to the development of nuance, of how influence works within and directs artistic vision. Vision is followed by execution and the direction one tries to follow. mistakes in that journey, missteps, can be brilliant errors and lead the player (writer, painter, sculptor, et al) in unseen directions and yield unintended results. And in art, especially music, the accidental discovery is the greatest place to find one's self.
The Stone Roses, like many of the artists I choose to write about, have had years of press, miles of copy, to proclaim their greatness. The combined shimmering, chiming 60s influenced guitar rock, mixed in magical harmonies and set it to a hybrid Rolling Stones/ dance hall groove that resulted in one of the most unique, influential and flat out brilliant sounds of the 1990s, or any era. Squire was a true ax-smith and his tendency to lay down long, multi-layered grooves that alternated between funk, pure pope, power chord aggression and biting, fired up solos is a sound unmatched in alternative rock.
When I play guitar, I tend to emulate Squire's verbosity, his need to roll and roll and roll, stabbing at the guitar at times, letting it know when to ring out and chime like church bells on a Sunday. Squire taught me what a glorious, multi-toned and many voiced instrument a guitar could be. He is one of many who have given the guitar, as a concept, a new voice. Guitarists will forever argue over the merits of their heroes, comparing skills, dexterity, prowess, super powers...For me, John Squire delivers brilliantly on such a sonic level, from tone to soundscape, that he is forever at the top of innovative guitarists.
Oh yeah...I picked this song because it uses the Biblical concept of "I am the Resurrection", which comes from John 11:25, "I am the resurrection and the life." The Roses use the phrase here, but I'm not sure to what metaphorical or symbolic effect. The song is bitter, and after multiple verses of describing an intensely adversarial relationship (record company?), the repeated refrain "I am the resurrection and I am the life/ I couldn't ever bring myself/ To hate you as I'd/ Like" comes across as both bitter and triumphant. Some fans like to make a big deal of the fact that the long, extended instrumental groove at the end of "Resurrection" ends their 1989 eponymous debut and wasn't followed up with new music until the opening track of 1994's Second Coming, Breaking Into Heaven. It makes for a nice bit of profluence to their story, a symbolic connection, but I don't know if I really believe it. For all the turmoil that has surrounded the Roses, and as little music as they've made compared to their stunning, stratospheric potential, I suppose stories are invented to fill in the gaps. Either way, Squire and co are one of the great groove guitars bands and remain influential in the pantheon of guitar gods. Rumors continue to swirl of a new album. We'll see...
In my research, I found one of those annoying, "10 Things You Didn't Know..." articles about the Stone Roses, and while I think this type of scholarship on the web, at least, is far too common, I did find it interesting that Chris Squire said this about being influenced by a sound and a song, speaking about the Sex Pistol's "Anarchy in the UK" : “I was fourteen when I heard that and realised how electric guitars could be made to sound. I got a paper round, and finally got the cash together by the following Christmas.” Influences come in all sizes, and sounds...
Yeah, me again. But unsure why I'm no longer Retropath, this being a cunning ploy by our friends on Google Plus to change my name or to out me. Unintentional. Unsuccessful. Not a ploy to spoof you all (!) into thinking another new scribe. And if you think it's time for a new scribe, read the top right hand corner and get writing!!
Hey ho, at least I have the theme right this time, but what's an 'n' between friends? Martial/martian, I mean aren't they the same? (Editor now declares martian law on my future posts.) I confess this one too took me on the hop for a second, and I nearly filed a post of the chimp loving one time governor of California/President of the USA, sending me scuttling for the Woodstock soundtrack, but I digress.
Stev(i)e Winwood has always been one of my heroes. Old enough to remember the Spencer Davis Group on Top of the Pops, he was the impossibly young singer and, usually, hammond player who has notched up an incredible 54 years of musicianship since he joined that group. Still at school initially, aged 14, it took 3 years for his distinctive vocals to be number 1 on the UK singles chart with 'Keep on Running'. Playing guitar on that song, the success allowed him to buy his first Hammond B3 organ. Staying with the band a further 2 years, he co-wrote a number of their further hits, 'I'm a Man' and 'Gimme Some Lovin.' During this time, in 1966, he made his first collaborative contact with another musician to feature frequently in his musical life. This was a one-off project called the Powerhouse, who had 3 tracks on an Elektra compilation album about the emergent white boy electric blues scene. With 3 tracks featured, here is one of them, the collaborator being Eric Clapton.
Traffic were the band perhaps most widely associated with Winwood, coming together in 1967 following a chance jam in a Birmingham (UK) pub. Setting the archetype for 'getting together in the country', the original line-up shared a cottage in the sticks, coming up with the psychedelic whimsy of 'Hole in my Shoe', written, like most of their earlier hits, by Dave Mason. Personally, at least on these shores, this seemed somewhat of a shibboleth, detracting from their serious credibility, and Winwood's desire to pursue a more folk-blues direction, possibly contributing to the first fracture of the group. This had been accelerated by the return of Eric Clapton, who, following the break up of his own band, Cream, teamed up with Winwood in short-lived supergroup Blind Faith. Cream had not been to my then taste, so I didn't then take much to this, only later appreciating the simple beauty of the sole record released.
Blind Faith's (mis)fortune was ultimately the making of Traffic, who promptly re-formed, minus Mason, as the core line up of Chris Wood, Jim Capaldi and Winwood. The time was right for their folk-blues amalgam, their version of traditional folk song 'John Barleycorn Must Die' making this teenage folkie delight. Over several albums they expanded their line up and widened their repertoire, always innovative and always interesting, Winwood's expertise on guitar now getting as much acclaim as his keyboards. Sadly, with physical health issues playing havoc with his stamina, Winwood walked off-stage in 1974, the band then calling it a day.
A solo career was always going to beckon, but it was a few years before he produced his 1st solo album, 'Arc of a Diver', with this and its follow-up each featuring Winwood on all vocals and all-instrumentation. My favourite period of his career, the songs 'While You See a Chance' and 'Valerie', remaining firm favourites. It is thus strange that the song that this piece name-checks is only now one I enjoy, with Winwood having been roped into producing a top-notch session-men New York record. I recall being distinctly upset by this polished and commercial product, the follow-up single, 'Higher Love', with Winwood gamefully mugging his way through an awkward video, seeming bereft without the prop of an instrument other than his voice. It was certainly the High Life of his career though, the videos still a staple on oldies music channels.
After this peak he has continued to produce intermittent albums, even reviving the Traffic name once more for the now duo of himself and Capaldi, but keeping a generally lower profile. I was lucky enough to see him play live, maybe a decade ago, in Birmingham, on home turf. Playing mainly hammond and occasional guitar, a tight band modelled on the Traffic template of himself on keyboard, percussion heavy backing plus reeds, he played songs from all stages of his career. He did not play 'Hole in my Shoe', perhaps a blessing, but all the others were there. And he still looked impossibly young.
Since then intermittent output, but, inevitably, yes, a further and possibly final collaboration with Eric Clapton, recorded for posterity with a sort of joint greatest hits. It has to be a Traffic song I include.
So, apart from the title, what's this got to do with 'again'? Probably only this, one of the several covers of the song out there, this being Warren Zevon, slowing the song and maximising any irony available, his 'High Life" being the terminal cancer he was facing. And duly succumbed to. I think that trumps any irony Steve Winwood may have felt about the song as he sang it.
Last post I referenced my age. There's a lot good in age: I more or less remember the birth of mainstream rock: we used to watch American Bandstand and its ilk -the precursors to American Idol? Is the "intro" the pre-cursor to Rap? Classic/elemental in my mind to the definition of rock music is Chubby Checker's "The Twist". You would probably agree. While there is no "Re/Again" in the title, the timeless lyrics most certainly include " ... let's twist again... like we did last summer". Actually, I must admit that I came across this song as a Re/Again selection via a website that shares/discusses song facts - including re-issues (songfacts.com). And there, the point is made that Chubby Checker's "classic" is actually a re-issue of a Hank Ballard and the Midnighters' 1959 song - which caught on in the Baltimore area, but had to wait for Chubby Checker's release to hit the bigtime. It gets stranger yet: Lawson Smith (aka Abdul Bin-Asad) lays down a bunch of claims about the origins of the song and that Hank Ballard usurped some of the credits. Whatever. Yet, what does seem clear to me is that a bunch of (white) businessmen took advantage of some rather naïve African-American musicians to produce/commercialize rock music as we know it. Usurped or not, the song we all know as "The Twist" was re-worked several times, certainly between the time Chubby Checker made it a hit and apparently even before the time the Midnighters released their version a few years before.
What is indisputable is that they all helped shape what we call rock and roll: the 4/4 beat and the I-IV-V progression.
Never Going Back Again is a Fleetwood Mac song, technically. But, really, it’s a Lindsey Buckingham song—and in my opinion has always stood as prime evidence of his masterful, poetically great skills as a guitarist. To proclaim Buckingham’s greatness as a guitarist is stating the well known to a room full of those who know it well. But, this song—Buckingham alone, laying down just two tracks—is such an exquisite piece of work, it always deserves another mention, and asks for another listen.
Never Going Back Again comes from the mega popular Rumors, the 1977 album that launched Fleetwood Mac into the stratosphere and has achieved legendary status—not just in terms of sales, but in ubiquity, as an omnipresent staple of classic rock radio. It deserves it’s status: the sheer number of songs on this album that are on so many “personal playlists” (a concept I’ve used before to talk about those songs, be they well known, or obscure, that are ones that you love, and return to over and over, without shame that the songs probably appear on everyone else’s fave’s list, too…) is kind of mind boggling, and Rumors is truly a historical artifact, a primary document of what a rock band, at their absolute apex, is capable of doing. Rumors is a greatest hits collection long before the band was at the point in their career where they would need to package a Greatest Hits Collection.
Rumors doesn’t need me to celebrate it in writing—it’s been celebrated for years, and will continue to be. There is a certain joy in going back to an album with so many great songs, and being able to listen, not critically, but just as a fan of good songs. And for me, the peak point of Rumors is Never Going Back Again.
Punchy, complex and sweetly harmonized, the song sinks in and stays there. It’s a summer day made musical in a few glorious bars and a repeating riff; it’s a pure example of a how a song feeds into the pleasure zones in our heads and makes us feel…great. Books have been written about the science of what a great song does to us at a neurological level. I don’t know how to say much on that. I do know when I listen to Never Going Back, a wonderfully quickening feeling comes over me, one that centers somewhere I imagine the soul resides, and for 2 minutes and 15 seconds, things are great. That’s what good music does.
purchase [Wont Get Fooled Again] I'm an old fogey, and there are 2 rock bands from my rocking days still more or less rating near the top: the Stones and the Who. (Got another? Then comment.) The first LP I actually bought after I purchased my own "stereo" - in those days you couldn't download no music - was Who's Next. Must have been about the fall of '71. I said "still more or less rating". Even as late as SuperBowl XLIV (that's 44, but looks like X-LIVE), Daltry and Townshend appear to have it together enough to come across as competent rockers- they put on a good show -but it does appear to me that it takes SuperBowl money to pull it off. Draw your own conclusions, but they seem to need a fair amount of backup/support and there are numerous missed/fudged cues that the supporting band covers well. However, Townshend seems to be surviving the years better than Daltry. He's certainly more energetic and seems to miss fewer beats/cues. This is not just true at the SuperBowl, but beyond.
I guess one of the things that has always bound me to Rock 'n Roll is the in-your-face/I'll do it my way (- thanks, Frank) attitude, which the Who (and Stones) embody: smash your guitar or .. whatever... Townshend's iconic round-wheeling "strum" of the guitar is yet another: slash .. bang ... reckless ... here's how we do it. That - to me - is a large part of what is embodied in the ethos of Rock: we don't subscribe to the standards of previous generations and we don't intend to get fooled again. In the end, I guess the part of "Wont Get Fooled Again" that most voices my perspective on life is (appropriately) the end:
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
Again and again. Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose.
It is unlikely that Yogi Berra actually said "It's like déjà vu all over again," but who really cares. It's still a great line.
Darius' piece, though, made me want to post this video, of the Monty Python sketch, It's The Mind, which twists itself into an infinite Möbius strip that, not surprisingly, terrifies its protagonist.
Continuing this theme, I point out that I have previously written about Monty Python, most notably here, and to a lesser degree, here. So, if you want your own déjà vu experience, go back and read them again. Or read them for the first time, I guess.
Our instructions for this theme indicate that they are intentionally vague, so I thought I would make them vaguer. Yes, one can post songs with the word “again” in the title, but here are two more approaches. My hope is that this will encourage everyone to post to this theme. And then do it again. And then do it again. I will try to do the same.
Déjà vu fits our theme, because it is the unsettling sense that you are again somewhere, or in some situation, that you have experienced before. Crosby Stills Nash & Young powerfully evoked the unsettling part of that feeling with their use of time signatures in the song Déjà Vu. The song begins in 12/8, and then switches to 4/4. The 4/4 seems oddly familiar because 12/8 is just 4/4 with triplets, but the transition is just as jarring as it should be. The lyrics are simple enough, serving simply to define the term for those who might not know it. The point of the song is the playing and singing, and that works perfectly.
Another way to work with our theme is to explore what happens when an artist or band revisits, and drastically remakes, one of their own songs. I’m not talking about a cover, because this is an artist reexamining their own work. A cover is when one artists explores the work of another, and that seems to me to be too broad for this theme. The album Déjà Vu, from which the first version of the song comes, is rightly regarded as a folk-rock classic. But David Crosby and Graham Nash brought more to the band than the folk rock label covers. The song shows great potential for a jam band treatment, and that is indeed how CSNY approached it live. But Crosby and Nash on their own took it further. The jam band element is certainly their, but so is a keen ear for the fusion jazz that was just emerging in 1976 when this live version was recorded. Their band included many California folk-rock stalwarts, who must either have relished this opportunity to show another side of their playing, or been stretched to the limits of their musical abilities. Either way, this expansion of the original song really works.
I’m taking a bit of creative liberty on our theme - martial - to talk about two songs concerning the military experience.
One song strikes me as poetic than musical, in the way it deals in stark imagery to show the aftermath of war and the kinds of wounds that don’t heal.
The other is a bit of old-style country balladeering that unfortunately plays on cringe-inducing cliché and motif in a way that only country music can.
A little on that idea before we get started. Sometimes, country music can be lazy—silly tropes repeated to the point that the simple use of an easily recognizable image stands blatantly for a resounding and universal symbol. Think about all the times you’ve heard the mention of American flags, mom, apple pie, Jesus and fast cars. I mean used seriously, without the requisite irony. A lot of country artists get away with lyrical murder, mining the same worn out themes and images – yet people fall for it, think formula makes for value. But, I guess people make John Grisham a bestseller, too, so when we look at music, sadly, quality is not the standout arbiter of quality.
But, this is not the case with John Prine, the old-soul minstrel and bard of American music. From his withered voice, to his minor key arrangements, Prine reminds me of troubadour of old, singing to tell a story, using words and story with the musical accompaniment as an afterthought. Let’s say this: Prine’s influence as a songwriter is beyond measure. Does he need a great voice, when the hand of God moves his pen? Probably not.
Sam Stone is a song about a veteran returning from an overseas war who comes back to his family with “shattered nerves” and “shrapnel in his knee.” Our soldier, Sam Stone, with a “Purple Heart and a monkey on his back”, turns to drugs to ease his pain. What we have is a story, told through the bleak imagery of isolation, emptiness and the lingering odd sensation of how one sees the world when they are high. What is most striking is the underlying idea that even though the battlefield is nowhere near, our protagonist is still in dangerous proximity to death. In reality, Sam Stone left one war behind and came home to another one, and it is this war with his own demons that finally kills him and leaves his family broken and abandoned.
Prine has always been interesting to me: his voice can be grating. I imagine a lot of people who don’t know Prine would be inclined to turn him off, much like they would hearing Dylan’s distinctive delivery. But, lyrically, he is unrivaled. Reading Prine is like delving into a modern Whitman, sans the listing and cataloging. This is the writer of the everyman, vulnerable to the failings of the human heart, of age and distress, of societies’ brutish business and the dangers found lurking in the landscape of our everyday world. His melodies are lush, complicated and complex, building from a simple phrase and growing outward to gorgeously orchestrated compositions. Deceptively simple. Subtle. Beautiful. John Prine’s music works in ways that is rare – more than songs, carrying the emotional weight of a poem.
Now, let’s move on to the other song. I feel a little ashamed calling any song by the great Merle Haggard cheesy, but A Soldier’s Last Letter is a classic, but it’s also classic silliness. Penned in the epistolary form, A Soldier’s Last Letter is just that: a last letter written from the battlefield, from a soon to be dead soldier to his mother. The first two stanzas deal in the classic motifs of duty and remembrance, while the second half of the song details the mother’s reaction to the letter, reading it long after her darling boy, the one she used to yell at for coming home with mud on his shoes, has been killed. It’s a pretty song, I suppose, but what gets me is the way it ends: the mother, distraught at the loss of her son, goes down on her knees to pray. She prays the God will watch over all the other sons, but she also prays: “…dear God, keep America free.”
It strikes me as odd that a song like A Soldier’s Last Letter is considered a classic. It is classic only in playing on the same silly tropes so many patriotic songs use: mom, freedom…
It starts off interestingly – but to think a mother, in the immediate wake of learning her son is gone, still finds it in her heart to pray to keep America free? It’s the kind of song that evokes lots of cheers and chanting – patriotism, especially in a country song, is a notion vulnerable to misuse and to childish sentiment. You think about performers that bandy about the stars and stripes as part of their image rather than the hard fought and contentious concept that democracy and freedom really is, and conception gets muddy. Merle Haggard speaks to freedom, hard living and independent, rugged individualism. That’s great. That probably is American. But then what about some 10-cent jackass like Toby Keith, and his knee jerk patriotism, or Eric Church (who I do like, but I think his metaphors are bargain basement cheap) and you can see a difference. Perhaps country music has to delve into those overused ideas—it could be an essential part of the genre, just like something jumping out of the shadows is key to horror films. I don’t know.
I reluctantly use The Hag as a bad example - a silly song in an otherwise pretty great catalog - of what is frustrating in country music. I listen to a lot of modern country, by virtue of Spotify (I get to listen, rather than buy, so it’s easier than ever to get a feel for what is trending). And, I’ve been really bothered by how shallow a lot of it is - and how bad songwriting is so easily considered “good.” Merle isn’t a bad songwriter, by any stretch, though I have always hated Okie from Muskogee, and the conservative, asinine divisiveness of that song and the point it tries to make in attacking one set of values in favor of another, equally oddball set. But, it’s an old song now, a relic of an era.
So much of today’s country music comes off as lazy—overused clichés meant evoke the most predictable response. I guess those easily recognized values are best to create mass appeal. But, when you look at great writers and how they don’t ever achieve the status that so many lousy ones do, it can be frustrating. And make for some bad music.
In the USA, protests against the government's military involvement in the Vietnam War grew in strength throughout the 1960s and culminated with the US withdrawal in 1973. Although the rage against the government continued to the end of the war, 1968 to 1971 may have been the bitterest years: at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago (President Johnson still in power), the protests raged out of control. Whereas the Johnson administration intially was inclined to play down the riots as mis-management by the Chicago police, the Nixon administration took it a step further and convened a grand jury that lead to the infamous Chicago Seven trials. Before long, the Nixon administration was calling protestors traitors, and in May of 1970, the National Guard ended up killing 4 student protestors at Kent State University in Ohio. Released in 1970, Crosby, Stills and Nash's Deja Vu may have had the seeds of their political affiliation roiling uder the surface. But the message came across as more hippie-dom than political , the album featuring Flower-Power messages such as Woodstock, Almost Cut My Hair and Our House. By 1971, although the group was in the process of going their separate ways, they were each mostly overtly political: Ohio directly targets the afore-mentioned events. Chicago, likewise. Graham Nash, for his part, penned Military Madness (as well as many other of the CSNY songs - Ohio included), in which he laments, but offers no solutions to, the troubles of his (soon to be) adopted country: And after the wars are over And the body count is finally filed I hope that man discovers What's driving the people wild Military madness Is killing your country Nash didn't and couldnt offer solutions to the Military Madness (madness it was) of the Vietnam War - it was a madness that (likely , rightfully) directed the nation toward a more democratic sense of the power of one man's vote (culminating in Nixon's abdication - eventually). I leave it to your perception to see how this relates to the 2016 US elections.
I'd toyed with a tease, asking what the 'Wolf had to do with Mars, but I have way too much respect for my reader, hi, Mum, to insult you with that, the name of the writer of their classic hit being etched on the mind of every pop quiz aficionado. But did you know Mars Bonfire, for it was he, also released a later version, on his 1969 solo album, 'Faster Than the Speed of Life'?
Neither did I, nor that he had penned anything much else or worth. In truth, he hasn't, his pickings being decidedly slim, but, hell, if you had to only write one song, o would that it be this one, still a staple of any and every advertising agency needing a quick link to motor bikes, leather and rebellion.
Born to parents, Elmo and Annie Bonfire, both big fans of roman mythology, he was their youngest child, after elder sisters Venus and Juno, a fact that has never failed to astound me, were it true. Sadly and more prosaically, he was born Dennis McCrohan, already changing his name once to Dennis Edmonton as he and his brother formed the precursor band to 'Steppenwolf', before his more exotic nom de chanson came in. Gallingly, as 'The Sparrows' morphed into 'Steppenwolf', he had left, but his brother remained, on drums.
Luckily the anthemic nature of the song was way more successful than his career, to date the song appearing 102 times in films. (I trawled the list, somewhat desperately, seeking the sight of any of his other songs, there being but one reference, and that uncredited. How that must have hurt.)
And cover versions are equivalently plentiful, with at least 63. Time for a couple? Here are two of the quirkiest together with one just plain daft........
(Wilson Pickett, with secret added ingredient of Duane Allman, to give a touch of biker 'credibility', an irony given his later death thereby, in an accident)
(80s UK popstrel Kim, daughter of 50s rocker Marty, Wilde)
Last week I talked about my worry that in writing for a blog
about music, I should do more to highlight unknown bands and songs. The
relationships a music fan has with a band that no one knows, that he can lay a
personal claim to, is a special one.I
have plenty of those bands in my playlists—been to their shows, bought their
t-shirts—and I still feel a little territorial when someone says, “Hey have you
ever heard so and so?” Of course I have! I still feel very protective of Philadelphia
based rockers Marah—I was listening to them when no one else was. If someone tells me about them, asks, “Have I
heard …” I get that odd, big-brother sense of over-protectiveness.
Perhaps it’s more a possessiveness, wanting to keep
something so good to myself, so it doesn’t change. So the sound isn’t
corrupted. Isn’t that dumb, that sense we get of wanting to jealously guard our
favorite music? It’s the need to be part of an exclusive club, private
membership in a special fraternity. And
yet, in the same breath, I feel bad that a band like Marah hasn’t made it big,
sparked a rock n roll revolution, become the superstars they deserve to be.
They even had a guest spot from Bruce Springsteen (maybe you’ve heard of him?
And, no, you cannot borrow my CDs…) on an album, Float Away with the Friday Night Gods, produced by Owen Morris, who
was responsible for Oasis’ first three albums (You might have heard of Oasis,
not really sure…). So, if Marah hasn’t made it, it’s not for lack of trying.
You just haven’t been listening. Which, according to my own strange and selfish
standards is how it's supposed to go I guess.
Why, though? I still haven’t gotten anywhere close to an
answer for why we like to keep our favorite bands as our own thing.
I’d welcome
your comments on your own musical omerta for bands that you’ve been hiding.
So, on to the theme for the month: Mars, or some variation
of that myriad meaning word. I was hoping to find a song about Marvin the
Martian from Warner Brother’s Looney Tunes, but I pretty much kept hitting
David Bowie’s Life on Mars. There’s
been plenty written by writers far more talented than I about Bowie, and the
powerful, sweeping and lasting influence he had and will always have on modern
music. One can’t forget Bowie’s (or really, Ziggy’s) Spiders from Mars—if there is any positive at all about the icon’s
passing it is that, personally, I was able to reconnect with that most brilliant
album and take that long, analytical and nostalgic look at perhaps one of
rock’s greatest albums. I don’t think I would have paid as much attention to
the album had Bowie not passed away.
That is a little strange, I guess, but it brings up another
strange phenomenon—the way we glom onto a dead celebrities body of work in the
turbulent wake of their leaving us. Spikes in album or book sales is so commonplace to really need no mention as a
result of one’s passing. Does it take someone’s leaving us to assert their
value? Or is it simply that human truth that absence makes the heart grow
fonder? That is an adage reserved to describe a separation of lovers, but I
think it applies to how we treat the memory and work left behind when an icon
passes. Sometimes, I think our newfound obsession is simply a human need to be
involved and part of a story. But, it’s still hard not to find fault with
people who use an artist’s death to proclaim their deep and profound love for their
body of work or their cult of personality. It’s a little like all these
teenagers I see wearing Kurt Cobain t-shirts, but then, it’s not really like
that at all. Maybe more like all these idiots who took to Facebook to declare
Whitney Houston one of R&Bs greatest of all time after she died…Or maybe,
it’s just Facebook, and this sudden lack of privacy and the ultra ubiquity
of…of everything and anything at all that gets broadcast as an endless feed of
information, each trend, idea, oddity, stupid joke or new sensation, insisting
upon its own importance, screaming too loudly for our already frayed and ruined
attention?
I digress. Too much.
This month’s theme: Mars.
There’s a cool band called Ash from Northern Ireland, and
while they may not be one of the “best kept secrets” I dare say their
popularity has never really reached too far in America. I don’t know much about
them, but I know people love them. They have that certain kind of cult status
that comes to bands like I was talking about earlier.
Written in 1993, Ash’s biggest hit, a dirty bit of pop
perfection, “Girl From Mars” was featured on their major label debut, 1977. A little grungy, a lot boppy,
“Girl From Mars” sits in a perfect niche between all the sounds that the 90s
produced, but it fits best in the overdrive-dusted guitar, verse chorus verse
hymns of the late Brit Pop movement. A little—a lot perhaps—influenced by what
Oasis brought to rock music, Ash, at least on1977, delivers a brilliant, car ride radio sound—drums, guitars,
four on the floor rock, with the distinct British twist.
The song itself is silly little idyll about a love affair
from the past and memories of “dreamy days by the water’s edge/…summer
nights…/fireflies and stars in the sky…” Pretty standard stuff as far as the
kind of love affairs we might write songs about go, until you realize that the
singer is wondering why the love affair was unrequited (“I
know you are almost in love with me”), and the reason is that the girl herself
is from Mars. Maybe she wasn’t even there? Is it metaphor? Was she just his
imagination, his ideal girl, the kind we fall in love with simply because the fantasy
is so perfect we know it won’t ever be achievable in real life, with a real
girl. Some of us fall in love with movie stars and their images moving across
the screen. Some of us invent fantasies and chase ghosts trying to make those
fantasies real. And some of us fall in love with girls from Mars…because sometimes
girls from Mars are the only girls we can find…
Stay away from these girls, though...
Comments, please, on any of the
nonsense I’ve put down here today. I’d love to know what you think—about your
favorite unknown bands, or girls you’ve fallen in love with who might, or might
not, hail from outer space…
First, a little plug—In addition to continuing to contribute here, I have started a new blog to allow me to write about music and life, without being limited by the bi-weekly themes we have here. Please check out Another Old Guy....Writing About Music, and like its Facebook page. Thanks.
I’ve written in the past about the pleasure that I have gotten from going to concerts with my kids. There was a brief period in each of their lives where they were old enough to want to go to shows, but not old enough to go there by themselves, or where the location was deemed inappropriate for attendance without parental supervision. And, being the lover of music that I am, I often was designated (or volunteered) to be the supervising parent.
When my son was in his early teens, he and his friends became fans of The Mars Volta, and I had to agree that they were an interesting band. It is always interesting to play “spot the influence” when you listen to new artists, and the first thing that came to mind when I heard The Mars Volta was King Crimson, due to their complex song structures and the mix of rock, jazz and avant-garde sounds. One difference, though, was that while later Crimson lineups incorporated some elements of New Wave music, they never really adopted more hard core punk sounds, or emo. The Mars Volta, with their roots in At The Drive-In, though, cite, among many others (including King Crimson), Throbbing Gristle and Black Flag, as influences.
Although I had only listened to a relatively small amount of their music, I was intrigued, and when my son and his friends wanted to go see the band, at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC in 2005, it was not a hard sell to get me to drive them in, see the show (and provide appropriate supervision) and drive them home.
It was quite an experience. As I thought about writing this piece, I tried to remember back 11 years (almost exactly), to how I felt about the show, and I found this review, which pretty much nailed my experience:
Admittedly, their “noodling” did get boring at first (I wondered if I was going to like the show during the first 20 minutes), but I actually grew to like it more and more as time went on. What seemed a little boring at first, completely swept me away with it by the end.
Another influence that added to The Mars Volta’s eclectic mix is Latin music, which is no surprise considering the background of a number of the members. For the show that we saw, the band invited salsa music legend Larry Harlow to join them on stage. You can see him in the blurry picture above that I found online. Harlow, who is not Latino, but is actually from an Eastern European Jewish family, has had a long, celebrated career as a multi-instrumentalist (with piano a specialty), songwriter and producer in the salsa world, and is nicknamed “el Judio Maravilloso.”
Harlow’s piano adds a traditional Latin touch to the great song L’Via L’Viaquez, both on the album cut on which he played, and live, as you can hear in the featured version.
I haven’t listened to The Mars Volta much recently, and I don’t think that my son does, either, but whenever one of their songs pop up on my iPod’s random shuffle playlist, I remember both how inventive they are, and that night at the now, regrettably closed, Roseland Ballroom.
purchase Country Joe "Feel Like ..." You've likely seen "The Martian" and you may have read some of the debate regarding the accuracy of the depicted storms on the planet (Yes, there appear to be winds: No, they don't appear to be as severe as shown.) However, embedded in the psyche/definition of Mars, is a certain amount of stormy violence. Mars is the Roman god of war. A rather stormy entity. And then, there is the whole Venus/Mars conceit: men are stormy/warlike; women are beautiful and pacific - but, it is opposites that attract. It's human nature for men to be martially inclined and for women to be ... "lovely". After all, Venus is the Roman god of love, and the related word roots apparently go back as far as Sanskrit - leaving us with War and Love/Aggression and Beauty. Ergo, it seems logical that you could expect a plethora of "ballads & odes" in popular culture/music/literature that delve into our theme this week. And, there are many - depending on the path you take through the memes related to Martial/Martian/Mars-ian. I guess I chose this here post partly because of my age, and partly because of my beliefs: I would have registered as a "Conscientious Observer" if I had not been exempt from the draft as someone who was eligible for a one-way trip to Vietnam on my 18th birthday back in the early '70s. Sadly, I was a fraction too young to get parental permission to attend Woodstock, but - well before the movie and related hype - was following Country Joe "Fish". And so his iconic "Fish Cheer" and "Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die" represented much of what I and much of my generation believed in. Because, the end result of much that is martial is that someone has to perish. Often - on the personal level - in vain - despite the glories of nations and ideologies. And that's not my bag. Perish? We all do. To "support" a misguided government's agenda? Ask Country Joe. Talk about stormy relationships with your society ... Sheesh!
A pair of weather-related tunes from the great Creedence Clearwater Revival: Have You Ever…and Who’ll Stop…The Rain.
One of the great rock bands of the 1960s, the defining term rock being used here to delineate music of that era that is unadulterated by the tripping trappings of psychedelic flower power, and paying homage back to blues and folks roots. Creedence’s output was backbone straight front porch swinging country-blues-folk tinged rock, a pure specimen in an experimental time. Troubled by forces from within and without, CCR didn’t last nearly as long as they should have, but what they put out stands as the litmus test for the pure and good in rock ‘n roll.
I struggle with this blog sometimes—should I be trying to unearth rare gems, from unknown and unsung bands, and give them some exposure, or is it OK to dwell in the past and give the sometimes all to familiar and taken for granted a fresh listen? I don’t have an answer for that quandary. I do love going back and really digging into a song though, even when it is one I've heard so often that it has become a comforting background soundtrack rather than a song that gives one pause.
Who’ll Stop the Rain and Have You Ever Seen the Rain are songs that you know, that you can sing along to, that you’ve heard a million times or more as staples of classic rock radio. When I did a Spotify search for “Who’ll Stop the Rain”, it was amazing how many times it has been covered, and in so many different styles. So what is there to say about the songs we’ve heard over and over? The universality of songs like these two from CCR strikes me as something worth nothing and exploring. Even if you’ve heard a song it is worth taking another listen. Sometimes, it’s not about shedding new light so much as appreciating a song by rehearing it, giving it a bit of an investigatory listen with a finely conditioned ear.
Released exactly one year apart, let’s look first at Who’ll Stop the Rain. This is a classic rock/folk ballad, and it listens like alt-country before alt-country was really a thing. Lyrically, Who’ll Stop the Rain takes on the classic form of a lament. And while it doesn’t delve into the realm of intense grief or mourning, there is sadness to this song about answers that haven’t arrived or appeared, despite the nature of the search and the fact that the search has lasted for what might be a lifetime. Despite its lack of clarity, there is universality of optimism giving way to sadness that speaks to the era it was written in. One can’t help but hear the song as a reference to the broken optimism of the 1960’s flower power and peace movement. The ‘60s are great to look at as a sweeping social movement—the changes that were wrought from turbulent times were amazing and I think the power of the times reverberates to this day. But (and I am saying this as someone who wasn’t part of that generation, so I’m no expert), it seems that certain influences—drugs being the chief one—corrupted that movement and took from it a certain power that it had to make generation-spanning changes. But, that’s just my opinion. The '70s followed the '60s Followed by the '80s, to the '90s to now…times change, but the course of human events (wars, crime, poverty) follows the same sad course…maybe the world is just meant to be that way. Still, maybe I am looking too hard at the song, asking it to be something it’s not. It’s an imagistic little fable, and maybe it’s just talking about the weather?
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band traditionally open outdoor shows with the song when it is raining. I saw Bruce on the Wrecking Ball Tour in Munich, Germany a few years ago, and it was a frigid, rainy day in May. I was milling around outside the stadium, thinking I had plenty of time to get into my seats, when I heard the opening chords of “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and realized—holy crap! Bruce is on stage! The rain did not stop that evening, and it was the coldest show I’ve ever been to. They did do Born In The USA from top to bottom as a thank you for coming out in the rain—pretty incredible.
1971’s Have You Ever Seen The Rain, from Pendulum, is yet another fittingly glum track that explores the melancholy that so often accompanies images of the rain. This track is a little more straightforward in terms of interpretation. It has been written that the song is a lament, again, but one directly related to the “fading idealism” of the 60s, that I talked about earlier.
But, John Fogarty himself has said that the song is about the tension in CCR that led to Tom, his brother, leaving the band. Also central as a theme is the well-documented fact that despite their popularity and success in the charts, CCR were still miserable. The most revealing line is simple, and as a metaphor, it doesn’t have to work too hard to get the point across: “Have you ever seen the rain/ Coming down on a sunny day.” Not exactly TS Elliot, but then profundity need not be draped in mystery.
CCR were a troubled band, despite being famous and achieving their rock n roll dreams. It’s been sung about before—fame and riches do not guarantee happiness. The sentiment, that it is sometimes hard to be happy despite the obvious reason one should be, is a universal idea. Fans and critics tend to jump all over ‘whiny rock stars’ for complaining about finding the troubling side to the dream the rest of us would give up anything to achieve (think Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder). Yet, those most vocal about the sobering reality of a dream come true are the voices we tend to sing along with the most.
I think certain songs, because they give utterance to the feelings we all share, but don’t always admit to, are all the more popular because they can speak for us. And we can sing along, which means we don’t have to talk about it…
I suppose this should really be a learned discourse on the origins of this oft-covered stalwart of the idiom, but, hell, no, let's cut to the chase and forget the earnest original and celebrate Duane, Gregg and the boys. Is this live track not the most uplifting downbeat song ever? Tacked on with Statesboro' Blues on 'Live at the Fillmore' (1971!), this was my introduction to the Allman Brothers and it remains their pinnacle, something I can listen to for time eternal.
Of course, in their decades long history, 1969 - 2014, give or take the odd recess, they have produced a zillion live albums and a trillion live versions of this old warhorse, but it is this outing I always see as the template, even comparing other artists to it, as if it were truly the original. So, then, what of the song? Penned by T-Bone Walker, it was a hit as far back as 1948, although maybe a decade or so elapsed before Bobby 'Blue' Bland cut the version many see as definitive. Indeed, as I much later learnt, much of the phrasing and a lot of the licks were lifted wholesale by the Allmans.
The lyric is the age old simple lament of the working man, the grind of the week, trajecting through to payday and the celebration of the weekend, grounded with some sunday religion, before it all starts again. Whilst Bland seems more celebratory of the contrast between the highs and lows, poor old Gregg Allman sounds completely dragged down by the repetition of the cycle, his vocal as downbeat a lament as any sharecropper half a century his (then) senior. So the then contrast as his hammond kicks into an unexpected jaunty and jazzevocative statement is all the more pronounced. Has he ever produced a more inspired burst of soloing? (In truth I find it hard to recall any other piece of soloing by him at all, making it all the more remarkable.)
Anyone else come close? Well, any blues legend worth his salt, such as Kings, Freddie, B.B. and Albert, most of the white boys, like Clapton and Beck, as well as wild cards like Eva Cassidy and ? and the Mysterians have all given it space. But I guess my other favourite is the one by Jimmy Smith, maybe no surprise if it is the organ that so appeals to me in the Allmans, Smith being the jazz-blues maestro of the same. Here it is in all its instrumental glory:
Now is Tuesday really just the same after any of these? Hell, I hope not.
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.
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)
[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.
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