Count: You Can't Count On Me

 

Purchase: You Can't Count on Me, by the Counting Crows

A dual threat here: A warning that you can't count on me, by a band that has named itself by one half after the action of counting. Not by numbers, though but more the collective images of wishing and dreaming. The band has made a wonderful song referring to the children's fairy tale of its own collective, being a murder (that's a gathering of crows). We could throw in a song about murder by numbers, as well, and still be revolving in the same metaphorical and imagistic theatre (that's a song by the Police). 

"You Can't Count On Me" was the second single release from the Counting Crows mid-career reflection on transformation, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings. Here was an album that featured an A side that was a blistering collection of rare, fired up rockers, about fame, about success and excess. The B side was the comedown from the party, softer, more reflective, somber tunes, cottony and easier, as if to sooth the lingering hangover from Saturday night, and the overabundance that often leads to a the guilt of over-indulgence.

"You Can't Count On Me" serves as a bit of a warning, as well as a break up song. Adam Duritz, famous for his dating life (which is a bit criminal, given his talent for crafting poetry that triumphs as song, but is at its heart poetry, nonetheless), writes a lot about love, and the ease at which it fails, disappoints and breaks apart an otherwise resilient soul and psyche. This song is Duritz's final word, so to speak, about the disappointments of love and his acceptance at his own failures. When you listen to the work he's done since 2008, which sadly there hasn't been nearly enough of, Duritz seems more accepting of his losses, and has moved in a direction of his work that isn't as self-introspective. But at the time, "You Can't Count On Me" seemed to serve as the final word on his private life. 

And while the song seems to fit into the Saturday Nights side of the album, it's actually part of Sunday Mornings. Duritz said in an interview that he wanted to write a song about breakups that captured both the sadness of ending a relationship, but also showed the honest truth about the damages he felt he'd caused by coping to his culpability. It's a self-flagellating song, and Duritz pulls no punches on the sadness he knows he has caused. A brave sentiment, but one that fits with his ethos as a writer, to tell truths, no matter how hard, in a beautiful way. He said, "I wanted to write a song about leaving someone that alternated between honest sad feelings about the loss and brutally honest admissions about the damage done. However honest my regrets have been and however much I ‘did the right thing.’"*

The power of Saturday Nights, Sunday Mornings comes from its relatability and realness. One need not be a rock star to regret excesses or the choices we've made. We hurt people, even when we don't intend to; we are self-serving creatures, even if we have the ability to recognize what we've done wrong and how we should have been better. We don't alway achieve redemption despite how hard we might work for it; even after we give up the habits that cause problems, after the initial lightness of freedom, we still feel the sorrow and the grief. Life can't always be a Saturday night; eventually the morning comes and we wake to a clarity, no matter how muddied or sad. 

The quote from the Adam Duritz interview comes from the always phenomenal and long lasting music blog, "Ryan's Smashing Life" http://www.rslblog.com/

(DON'T) COUNT: ME OUT/GERRY RAFFERTY

Well there are a lot of those in the music biz, I thought, on a first mistaken hearing of the title of this piece. Maybe one, then, for another day. But count, that's whole lot trickier. Do I run with one, two, three or go for the title; digits or Dracula? When in doubt I plod my traditional route and ask my i-tunes search, today quite pleased with the outcome. Welcome back, Mr Rafferty, it being some time since he last featured, 2017, I think.

With a golden voice and a seemingly effortless gift for melody, Rafferty could bridge the worlds of folk and pop/rock without giving any clue they could be different genres, with often acerbic lyrics preventing any slide into saccharine. McCartney-esque is a description often given and one I dislike, as I prefer my tea and coffee without ten heaped spoons of granulated. This song, from his 1971 debut, Can I Have My Money Back, typifies my description. With a keening vocal over a strummed acoustic, there soon kicks in some more rhythmic backing, with delightfully choppy electric guitar underpinning the rest of the song. A plea for acceptance as himself, for himself, rather than any easy and more acceptable conformity, berating anyone who may feel a casual acquaintance may offer any deeper understanding of his psyche. This is a subject to which he returns throughout his recording career and nine subsequent albums. Brought up in the rough and tumble of Paisley, then a grim town in the central belt of Scotland, not far from Glasgow, he retained a life long loathing and suspicion of the trappings of fame and fortune, with the paradox that he ultimately did very well from both, at least financially. A grotesque irony comes in the second verse, wherein he passes comment around his fondness of alcohol:
"When the sun goes down You'll find me sitting in a bar in the dark side of the town And if you tell me that I drink too much and that it's going to be the death of me Hear me shout, don't count me out."
Given, nearly forty years later, it was alcohol related liver disease he died of, with his later years awash with disturbing tales of alcoholic mayhem, the runes were already being cast. Indeed, may have been cast long before, his father and brother both succumbing to similar.

This first LP came after his partnership with Billy Connolly, the Humblebums, had foundered, with Connolly, an extremely adept banjo player, finding he preferred the long between song anecdotes to the singing itself. The record was not then a huge success, if a critics favourite, and it might be that it was more the record company that would seek their money back. But these were different days, and record companies, even his label, Transatlantic, a small and predominantly folkie imprint, had more money and faith than now seems the norm. Hooking up with Joe Egan he then formed Stealer's Wheel, as outlined in the previous piece referenced above. Again, no fortunes then made: this was years before Reservoir Dogs, and the pair split in no small acrimony.

A prolonged delay, on legally binding requirements, meant Rafferty had plenty time to hone his craft, second solo record, City to City, not arriving until 1978. With both Baker Street and Right Down the Line present and featured as the lead singles, this was a turning point and he never much had to worry about money again. This was able to give hime sufficient security to increasingly turn his back on the "industry" he despised and to stubbornly do as he pleased. Refusing to re-record or re-release Stuck in the Middle With You when Tarantino could have allowed it to hit paydirt was one such obstinacy. Interestingly, as time went by, his endeavours to remove himself entirely from the control of others preface what is now increasingly everyday practice. 2000's Another World was made at home in his own (mobile) studio, and, to begin with, was only available via his website, an early adopter of this approach, www.gerryrafferty.com, everything, even the promotion directly down to his own efforts. OK, it later received a release on the Hypertension label, but this style of working seemed to appeal to Rafferty, he using his website to be the conduit of new material and information for the next three years, if increasingly intermittently, perhaps as the booze was taking greater hold.

Rafferty has been sadly overlooked and undervalued since his demise. Seen as a two trick pony in hindsight, this simplification devalues the huge body of work up to a similar standard. I would go as far as to suggest he is one of the UK's finer songwriters, and certainly one of the better singers. He also was a capable record producer of others. Maybe it isn't news that he produced the first ill-fated version of Richard & Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights, commonly referred to as Rafferty's Folly, the legacy of which suggests he wasn't up to the game. That is unfair, his style just not bleak enough for the songs. What is less well known is that he also produced the debut outing by fellow Paisley-ites, the Proclaimers. I really think he deserves a decent tribute album to remind how very much more to him than two singles there is. (In fact, there is one, if little known, featuring and performed by his friend, the singer Barbara Dickson, which is possibly worth seeking out, if a little M.O.R. in approach and audience intended.) There was, however, a 2012 tribute concert at Glasgow's Celtic Connections annual festival. Here's Ron Sexsmith:

Finally, and if only because I would be pilloried if I didn't mention the B word, I was uplifted to appreciate the end to the debate as to whether it the sax solo in Baker Street was Rafferty's idea or that of the player, the now also deceased Raf Ravenscroft. Ravenscroft was on record at one time to state it was of his doing, being asked to fill in between verses, and coming up with the iconic riff spontaneously, in the studio. Rafferty disputed this, citing Ravenscroft as not even being his first choice to play with him, although the two continued to work together, even after the argument, for his next few records. The answer to the quandary came with the release of the City to City remasters in 2011, including a pre-saxophone demo of the song. With the same riff on Rafferty's guitar. Like to hear it?

Go, Gerry, R.I.P., I did count on you.

Count/Counting: SCTV's Count Floyd

My last post, about the TV show The Great has, so far, turned out to be one of the least popular things that I’ve ever submitted to this blog, so it seems like a really, really good idea to follow that up with another TV related post. 

I’m not sure why The Theme Picker chose this theme, and frankly, I argued against it, but because I’m only a Theme Suggester and Backup Theme Picker, I lost this round. The first thing that popped into my head was to write about the SCTV character Count Floyd, memorably portrayed by Joe Flaherty. And when I read the Wikipedia article about the character, I was laughing out loud, which I think we can agree is unusual when reading Wikipedia, and that convinced me to follow this route, even it ends, like my last TV related post, with almost universal indifference. 

I’ve written about SCTV before, so I won’t repeat all of the background stuff about the show, but you are, of course, welcome to read that post before continuing.  And I'm still doing this after reading the article in Sunday's New York Times about the racism in the Second City organization.

One of the basic conceits about SCTV is that it is about a generally low budget TV network. There was a time, which I’m old enough to remember, when local TV stations ran shows featuring usually bad , low budget horror movies and/or cartoons, hosted by someone who might be vampire, a clown, an astronaut, or something else. Usually, to save money, these characters were portrayed by employees of the station. Here’s a Wikipedia article about the “horror host” tradition, and here’s the recent obituary for Bob March, who portrayed “Captain Satellite” in the Bay Area for decades. And here’s an interview with the late Frank Avruch, who was a staff announcer at a TV station in Boston before becoming probably the most widely seen Bozo the Clown. 

Count Floyd was created to host SCTV’s Monster Chiller Horror Theater, and was the alter ego of (fictional) SCTV newscaster Floyd Robertson, also played by Flaherty. Although Count Floyd was a vampire, his lack of commitment to the character often led to him howling like a werewolf. The main running joke in the sketches was that the movies tended to be awful, and often unrelated to the horror genre, forcing Count Floyd to struggle to make them seem scary, and often ending in him getting frustrated and breaking character. Count Floyd also tried to sell his supposedly young audience overpriced items, maybe hearkening to the time when Soupy Sales, a children’s show host in New York, on New Year’s Day, 1965, asked his viewers to send him “little green pieces of paper” from their parents’ wallets. 

In addition to the fact that Flaherty was hysterical, SCTV used these sketches to show bits of movie parodies, often badly executed “3D” films. such as Tip O’Neill’s 3-D House of Representatives, Dr. Tongue's 3D House Of Stewardesses, Dr. Tongue's House Of Cats, or Dr. Tongue's Evil House Of Pancakes. (Dr. Tongue was played by John Candy, and his sidekick, Bruno, was played by Eugene Levy, who has been nominated for an Emmy this year for Schitt's Creek).  And even when the movie failed to show up, Count Floyd simply made up a plot and described it. They also used the character in a “Siskel & Ebert” style review show called Scary Previews. There was even a Count Floyd album, featuring, among other songs, “Reggae Christmas Eve in Transylvania.” It was the only non-Bob & Doug McKenzie album related to SCTV. 

Like the vampire/werewolf that he was, Count Floyd didn’t die when SCTV went off the air. Rush used a Count Floyd video to introduce “The Weapon,” on tour in the early ‘80s (see the video above). And fellow SCTV alum Martin Short included new Count Floyd segments in his late 80s animated series, The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley. But that’s not all. There’s a funny Count Floyd video about how to make funny videos. A Count Floyd video about smoke detectors. And the character popped up elsewhere, mostly in Canada, promoting various things. 

Flaherty, who played Harold Weir in the great series Freaks & Geeks, wore a vampire costume in one episode, which you can see about 24 seconds into this compilation clip, and that had to be a callback to Count Floyd. 

As recently as 2014, Canadian band The Wet Secrets used Count Floyd in their video for “Nightlife,” although strangely, he looks a little like Grandpa Munster in some of the shots.

(THE) GREAT : VALERIO

Is there a more chilling song in the the already well-refrigerated canon of Richard Thompson? No stranger to a bleak lyric, this song, from his acclaimed 1974 duet debut, alongside his then wife, Linda, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, says more in the stark description and build up than any delineation or hint of what might come next. Because it doesn't need to. Linda's icy narrative tells exactly where it is going, where Valerio is going. And with him, any dreams for a brighter future. I guess it's an allegory for the futility of love, which is as daunting a phrase to write as to consider, our hearts and souls all praying for the opposite. The album is not short on other such cheerful ditties either, End of the Rainbow being a blunt warning against any hope for anything at all.

Richard & Linda

But I have always wondered whether there ever was a Valerio and it seems there was. In 1863 it was reported that a 'dreadful accident' had taken place as 25 year old Carlo Valerio performed his high wire act at Cremorne Gardens. Here is an excellent blog article that describes it all. Thompson's skill is to weave the tale into a wider perspective, deploying the style of an ancient broad sheet ballad, the traditional folk idiom being full of songs about disasters and death, yet cataloguing a far more universal prophecy.

I have always loved the darker aspects of Richard Thompson's writing. Whilst he always comes across as less pessimistic in real life, engaging a dry wit, heavy with a shy self-deprecation, his songs lightening up (a little) over the years, it is these early shards of nihilism I enjoy(!?) the most. Not for nothing were a couple of early cassette compilations called Doom and Gloom From the Tomb, Volumes 1 and 2. Often asked why his material has such depressing content, here is as good a recent interview, with some possible explanation, as any.

Richard solo

I am an avid seeker of cover versions. So, are there any great Great Valerio's out there? Maybe a reggae version, or thrash metal? Well, if there are, I can't find 'em, most fitting into a similar niche of austerity, artists also with a trad.arr. streak embedded in their marrow. So June Tabor, Maggie Holland, even Barb Jungr; no surprises there. But Cathal Coughlan's maverick Fatima Mansions? The angry and cathartic irish rockers might seemingly have little in common with the chamber chill of this song. But you'd be wrong. OK, it seems a fairly straight facsimile, but Coughlan's voice is way more yearning than the reportage of the original. It works. Similar, yet poles apart.

Fatima Mansions

There's this and this, but you might consider this.

Great: Great Nations of Europe

purchase [ Newman's Bad Love album]


When I was a kid, my folks picked up a couple of Tom Lehrer albums for family entertainment. Being distant/removed from mainstream US life, we listened to our limited collectıon of LPs to the point that we had the full album memorized.  Lehrer's music was pithy and dealt with social and political issues of his day (says wikipedia about him). He played the piano to accompany his satire of current affairs, performing songs like Poisoning Pigeons in the Park and Who's Next (to get the A-bomb).

I suppose not everyone cares for the wry humor that is Randy Newman's trademark. For me, his songs give pause, a chance to stop and think about what his lyrics convey, and more often than not they tease people/animals who consider themselves "great". He's got no respect for the ones at the top.  We're talking <great>, right? There's nothing   that says great is "good" or great is "bad", as in great big mistake.

I wouldn't credit Newman with a great voice - or great piano chops. That's not his style. It's lyrics that matters. They bite, cut and hurt, but make you stop and think about what's right and what is wrong.
How prescient is Newman's Great Nations of Europe, released back in 1999. And while it may be named "...Europe", dont think for a minute that the actual target is that local. As I said, it's aimed at you and me. At the end of the story, it's a bug from out of Africa, not the China virus that's going to come for us all, just like the Conquistadors carried their bugs West in the 16th century. But for now, everyone is as happy as can be.

Great: The Great

[stream on Hulu] 

I watch a lot of TV in general, but the end of almost all outside the home entertainment and, until recently, televised sports, has meant that I have watched even more. One of my favorite shows from the last few months was The Great, on Hulu, which describes itself as “a satirical, comedic drama - based on the occasional historical fact - about the rise of Catherine the Great from outsider to the longest reigning female ruler in Russia's history.” It is completely over the top, barely historically accurate, bawdy, violent, silly, and exciting. Basically, it was a lot of fun, with some great performances (and some of the most amusing color blind casting that I’ve seen). And yes, they address the whole “sex with a horse” thing. (“Fake news,” apparently.) It has been nominated only for best directing and best writing in a comedy series Emmys, which is not nearly enough. 

There are ten episodes in the series, and at the end of each episode, the credits roll over a modern song, and the choices by music supervisor, Maggie Phillips, who had a similar role with The Handmaid’s Tale, are generally inspired. Warning, spoilers follow! 

Episode one, where we first learn of Catherine’s goal to wrest control of the country from her feckless husband, ended with Patti Smith’s strangely faithful cover of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants To Rule The World.” In episode 2, she begins to gather allies, and the credits play over Primal Scream’s “Movin’ On Up.” Cat Power, who titled an album The Greatest, contributed “Free,” for episode 3, although that song is from a different album. In episode 4, Catherine and her officially appointed lover enjoy each other’s’ company, so what better song could play during the credits than Buzzcocks’ great pop/punk song “Orgasm Addict?” And in episode 5, Czar Peter has been poisoned, but Catherine realizes that she’s not ready to take over, so Courtney Barnett’s rocking "Nobody Really Cares If You Don't Go To The Party,” with the lyric "you say you'll sleep when you're dead, I'm scared I'll die in my sleep" highlights Catherine’s ambivalence. 

The second half of the season begins with episode 6, where Catherine attempts to interest Peter in science, to less than positive results. Under the credits, we hear Thomas Dolby’s signature song, “She Blinded Me With Science.” As Catherine seems defeated in episode 7, Phillips chose Sharon van Etten’s lugubrious cover of “(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, And Understanding,” featuring Josh Homme (and if you want more, and I think better, covers, check out this post). But as the treasonous planning picks up in episode 8, the credits play over female hard rock pioneer Suzi Quatro’s “The Wild One.” And as Catherine’s plot seems likely to succeed, the credit music is Cass Elliot’s appropriately hopeful “New World Coming.” 

The final episode ends with a cliffhanger, after a pregnant Catherine sacrifices her lover to save her coup. But is he dead, and does she succeed? (We do know the real answer to the second question.) And in a twist, the season ends with a haunting new cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire,” by Simone Istwa. It is the only one of the credit songs that appears on the show’s soundtrack album, which otherwise features selections of the show’s original music composed by Nathan Barr. Including a song called “Tainting the Borscht.” 

I could have linked to the videos of all of the songs, but instead, just go here, and you can read more about the music, and play all of the songs. And you can look forward to season 2. 

Huzzah!

GREAT: THE GREATNESS AND PERFECTION OF LOVE/JULIAN COPE

So much of what is deemed is great just grates. At least to my ears. I have always had a taste eccentric to the vox populi, preferring and tending to seek out the less well served by collective opinion. I guess as in the same way my favourite dog breed is under. Luckily, courtesy this mouthpiece, my clarion call to the masses, this allows me free rein to inveigle my audience, that's me and my sockpuppets btw, into submission.

The Greatness and Perfection of Love

I bloody loved this album when it came out, World Shut Your Mouth, the first record by Julian Cope after the demise of The Teardrop Explodes. Always prone to overtly english vocals: Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers, Ray Davies, Cope was another who rejected the standard transatlantic twang most UK singers have always tended to adopt, knowing, I guess, the bigger market. Mind you, I had always been pretty keen on the Teardrops, especially the standout single, below.

Reward

Cope was never going to be conventional. Coming from Tamworth, a desultory town slightly north of Birmingham, it was never going to be his provider, that taking a move to Merseyside where his accent would always have been a sore thumb amongst those around him. And perhaps why and how a young Courtney Love took such a shine to him? When the record came out, in 1984, I really thought he would be a big star. Hell, he was even on Top of the Pops with the title track, confusingly not included on the album, it coming out two years later, sporting his own design microphone stand.

World Shut Your Mouth

In the years since he has built a name for eccentricity, inconsistency and a weird sort of reliability to avoid entirely any kind of pigeon holing, with this not the place to celebrate his increasingly bizarre stylistic ricochets. Well, not entirely and not now. But, should his musical meanderings not prove easy enough on your ear, consider the fact that he is a celebrated author on subjects as unrelated as (am I still allowed to call it, even if he does?) krautrock and ancient monuments.

Elegant Chaos

Lunatic and Fire Pistol

Back to the o.p. and why it is so great. One reason is always within the lyrics; is he really singing "the greatness and perfection of love"? Sounds mighty like the "greatest imperfection" to me, so much so I am not going to check, preferring the incongruity. But it isn't by any stretch the only good track on the album, I being drawn also to the oboe led majesties of Elegant Chaos and Lunatic and Fire Pistol, peculiar whimsies of uncertain provenance. This pair stand out, along with Head Hang Low, at full arms length from the poppier, Teardroppier other songs, betraying his then state of mind.

Head Hang Low

Fast forward and Cope is still around, with somewhere around 20 albums under his own name, more if you include ones his many and varied labels have suppressed or rejected, often sneaking out years later under some arcane imprint. Some are good, very very good, some frankly unlistenable, but always interesting and seldom classifiable alongside his peers. Somehow I think I need to return to his muse another day.

World!

Great: "Someone Great", By LCD Soundsystem

Purchase LCD Soundsystem's "Someone Great" from the 2007 full-length Sound of Silver

In life--in our understanding of truths, or our philosophizing a way to a discovery--simple doesn't necessarily mean simple--the most profound truths are the most relatable and easiest to understand. The same goes for songs: sometimes the simplest melody can be the most addictive. “Three chords and the truth” ( I think Bono said that, though the phrase itself has a long history—perhaps in another post?). Think of some of the great rock songs: the power is in the simple structure, repeated over and over again ("Wild Thing", "Baba O'Riley", "Bad Moon Rising"). Things need not be overly complex to be enjoyable. The groove gets cut into your mind, and the song has a nurturing sense. There’s a science to why pop music is so addictive, and so pleasing to listen to--it feeds into pleasure sensors in the mind, which produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is the same chemical reaction one gets from good food, alcohol, illicit drugs--it creates a physical pleasure, and in the car of music, joyfulness. Music is a language that speaks on multiple levels, and while music can be complex, there is no denying that a simple melody, or a fun, jumpy pop song, is addictive. And the understanding of what a guilty pleasure is comes in to play--it's usually the silly, cheesy--simple--songs that get the most play, get stuck in our heads. The songs we keep rewinding when no one else is in the car. I fully admit to having put some serious strain on the speakers to a few Ke$ha songs, and the Black Eye'd Pea's "I Gotta Feeling." Music's power to uplift and raise the spirit is a certainty of our human nature, as real as breathing, engrained right into our DNA. 

LCD Soundsystem, James Murphy's now cult-status musical collective, is an endlessly fascinating band with a wildly interesting catalog of music. LCD Soundsystem are a modern, definition-and genre-defying musical experience. Are they rock, are they electronica? Post-punk, art-rock, indie, or dance? Dance rock? The soundscapes are large, looming, immersive. At their best, LCD Soundsystem are hypnotic and the idea of simple  as applied to their music comes not from a lack of technicality or multi-layered compositional complexity, but from an aural ethos and creative pattern that exists across their catalog. This is sound, built on a singular foundation, that is allowed to grow, and an LCD Soundsystem song is an organic experience that grows in a way that few songs do.

While not simple at all, the music often stems from the simplicity of construction: Electronic keyboards, sounds and beats mix with traditional instrumentation and tones, organic guitars, spoken mantras delivered prayer-like, noises and pulses, not so much mixed, but stacked upon one another to achieve a great big sound from what was simple to start.  How to best describe LCD Soundsystem, as filtered through my own listening experience: One instrument, one beat, repeated over and over, built upon, layered and rising into a complex, multi-faceted composition. LCD Soundsystem's songs are meant to be felt, and the layers of aural texture, while analog and seemingly made of brick and mortar rather than digital and electronic signal, are tangible and blocky, like an old video game blipping and bleeping on a small screen. But, that is to deny the complexity, and the often beautiful and addictive songscapes the band makes. The sound is rudimentary and unvarnished, old school console tech, beamed in from a spaceship from a 1960s sci-fi movie, blinking and pulsing, but still real and perceptible by touch. I know the music is not low-fi; it's probably more high tech than I could conceivably understand. But LCD's sound maintains the beautiful simplicity and masterly complexity of a basement Mozart sending new world symphonies into far outer space via a Radio Shack satellite dish. 

Of their extensive catalog--the songs are long, the albums true long players--"Someone Great" from 2007's Sound of Silver, resonates with me. The song is classic LCD--a simple build, that winds itself up into a full blown celebration of sound that lies somewhere within the realm of New Order at their brightest,  Joy Division risen from the dead, Kerouac talking though an old time radio, and a trip to someplace stellar and aglow, that requires a open-windowed roaring drive on the open, empty highway, and the kind of freeing abandon that comes from dancing in a sea of flashing neon and star light. The thing that makes LCD's music hard to describe is the evocations of sensation their soundscape creates. There is a reckless, yet tightly crafted abandon in their music, and it can feel like flying. No song has this kind of effect more so than "Someone Great" which is a deceptively sad song and a meditation on the process of grief. The sentiment might get lost in the throbbing grooves and ever-building beat if you’re only dancing to it. But that’s the beauty of LCD Soundsystem—you gotta listen to everything. It’s a demand, and Murphy’s music isn’t made for a mindless twirling listen. The kind of rockers who disdain dance music, or techno, want to get on the dance floor and move, but they can't miss the melancholy elegy of the song. The entirety of Sound of Silver is enigmatic in its refusal to fit into one mode, or to be classified as any one type of music. Like Murphy's poetic imagery and his pulsing rhythms and otherworld melodies, there are layers here which grow expansive with every listen. Rolling Stone said of Sound of Silver, "It was an album as raw and honest in emotion as it was clever and slick in execution, and the results appealed to fans from all over the musical map."* The lyrics of "Someone Great" are the most striking part of this brilliant composition, as they capture a concept familiar yet all together baffling: how the world can keep moving and continue on, even when we are wasted and laid prone by our grief. There is a moment in the song that resonates where the speaker marvels at the weather: it's beautiful outside, shouldn't the weather meet me in my pain? Murphy sings, :The worst is all the lovely weather/ I'm stunned, it's not raining."  And indeed the rise and emotional crest of the song itself resembles the strange ride through the ebb and flow of grief--lows and the bright highs that come as we grapple with acceptance and learn to navigate a new landscape. But even in that navigation, there is the endless sense that this sadness will never end. The most powerful moment in the song comes when Murphy repeats, over and over, "And it keeps coming", ending the refrain with a simple answer to his unasked question, "Till the day it stops."

A sad song set to a joyful, upbeat and danceable melody sometimes hits the hardest--but why shouldn't life's worst moments be set to something beautiful? Isn't life meant to be a celebration, most so at the end, as we go home?  A mediation on grief that doesn't shy away from the pain it is trying to convey, but still has the nerve to approach it through joyful, prayerful celebratory sound--that's an act of healing in itself. 

"Someone Great" strikes me as a particularly important song right now, in the strange, terrifying, awful year we are experiencing. I know that despite the terrible lows that keep coming at us--division, anger, fear, loss, separation and isolation--music has been a constant. A comfort and meaning maker when I have trouble making sense of much of what I hear and see, and worse, what I feel in my interior. And being isolated in the way we have been since March, the interior is more important than ever, as we seem compelled to spend a lot more time in our heads, with our anxieties and repetitive thoughts than seems fair. When I am at a loss with what to do with the turmoil this pandemic, social unrest and separation from family and the connections that make life meaningful has allowed, when the world ceases to work they way we've known it to work for so long, music helps me make sense. A beat, a lyric, a rising crescendo and an orchestral explosion of noise and melody is a healing force. Music makes sense when nothing else does. 

Space Voyage Rock 'n Roll 

* Harris, Sophie. “LCD Soundsystem's 'Sound of Silver': 10 Things You Didn't Know.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 22 Sept. 2019, www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lcd-soundsystems-sound-of-silver-10-things-you-didnt-know-110495/.

Great: The Great Pretender

purchase [ Platters version]
purchase [The Band version ]
purchase [ Freddy Mercury version ]

There are many notable version of The Great Pretender and it is no surprise that it was voted one of the greatest songs of all time by Rolling Stone magazine back in 2004 (Yeah, OK, in @ #360, but still...) But the song also carries on our previous mask theme, where the protagonist puts on a public face/performance that just aint true. And it would appear that this is something you just about have to do when you get up on a stage, be you Dolly Parton, Elvis, Freddy Mercury, Roy Orbison or Sam Cooke.

Way  back in  the year I was born, the story goes, a music producer named Buck Ram wrote this song in 20 minutes in a Vegas hotel washroom. At the time, he was the manager for the Platters, who recorded the song as a follow up to their first hit, Only You. When Mercury records signed them in a two-fer deal on the coat-tails of The Penguins (who, unlike the mostly unknown Platters, had a charting hit called Earth Angel), it wasn't at all clear that The Platters would go down in history. But they did- for a number of reasons - and the Penguins mostly did not. They went on to have many hits (something like 40 of them in about a 10 year span), they were like the first cross-overs from doo wop R&B to rock, they included a female in the line-up, and then they rapidly fell out of favor after they were busted.

Sam Cooke did a  version on his 1960 album Hits of the 50's

Dolly Parton covered it in 1984. Now there's someone who was well aware of the need for pretense as part of her show/pesona. Says Michelle Lindsey [link], "‘The Great Pretender’ is what she set out to be as a poor kid playing dress up, writing songs and hoping to become a star. ...  [Parton] admitted, ‘I do it because I’m a show person.’ To drop the pretence, the persona and age like a normal human being is not an option. You see this now in almost every famous person, trickling right down even to the average person in the street."

The most familiar to me is the version from the Band. I guess by that time I was consuming most of the music that was being produced and The Band, as J David recently noted was [link] hot. J David references the Stage Fright album. How appropriate! The best way to get over your stage fright? Pretend.

The version by Freddy Mercury in 1987 has a certain poignance to it in that it immediately predates his HIV public announcement, and most research indicates that he must have been aware of his health issues well before the song came out. That said, there isnt much debate about his sexual orientation at that time, and that, too, could certainly entail an element of pretense. These factors may be part of the strength of his commanding performance of the song. About Bohemian Rhapsody, Freddy's lover, Jim Hutton said "Freddie was never going to admit it publicly, because he had to carry on the charade about being straight, for his family. But we discussed it many times."

Old and In the Way also cover the song in a wonderful country style, this recording without Garcia unfortunately.

None of the above will be confused with the Foo Fighters' song similarly named The Pretender, which is a great song but doesn't pass our theme test for "great" unless you force a match like this :

Great: Not Great Men

Gang of Four: Not Great Men
[purchase]

There’s an old theory of history called the “Great Man” theory, which, not surprisingly, looks at the historical record by focusing on a series of “Great Men,” like kings, generals and presidents. I suspect that this is still the way that many children are taught history in school, despite the fact that most modern historians believe that so many other factors shape history, including people who aren’t men, or aren’t “great.” And as a former history major, I’m happy to see that broader inquiry into the lives of all people, no matter what gender, or what level of “greatness,” has in many ways changed the shape of the historical narrative. I do believe that while there’s still a reliance on teaching history through focusing on prominent individuals, many schools are widening their curricula to take into account the lives and influence of “ordinary” people. Although as John Oliver pointed out on Sunday, there are big problems about how American History is taught.  History teachers, feel free to comment. 

For example, one recent, high profile example of this was The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which investigated the profound influence that slavery had on the founding and development of the United States, from 1619 to the present. And although one of my favorite college professors, among others, have raised questions about some of the premises of the “1619 Project,” the disagreement didn’t dispute the essential conclusion that slavery was an enormous factor in our nation’s development. (And some of the disputed language has been revised.)

But, as I often have to remind myself when I go off on a tangent, this is a music blog, even though my musing was inspired by our featured song, Gang of Four’s “Not Great Men,” from their remarkable and influential debut album, Entertainment!.  Andy Gill, one of the band’s founders and its guitarist (who died in February, possibly as an early casualty of COVID-19) once said about the album,

I remember saying to Rob Warr, who was our friend and managing us at the time, and the others: ‘Do you realize how important this is? Do you realize that this is going to change the musical landscape? Do you realize that they’re going to teach this in schools?’ And they’re like, ‘You’re mad, you’re fucking mad,’ and just basically laughed at me.” As it turned out, “I kind of was right, but everybody else thought I was being stupid and crazy. 

Although I don’t remember the first time that I heard that album at WPRB, I do know that it became a regular part of my shows, and most of my fellow DJs loved it (and based on a quick look at some playlists, they still love it, decades later). The album was unlike anything I had ever heard before, with pounding beats, metallic guitars and political, Marxist influenced lyrics. From 1979’s Entertainment! through the Yellow EP, 1981’s Solid Gold and 1982’s slightly more accessible Songs of the Free, the Gang of Four was incredible. After that, I sort of lost interest, as they went through personnel and stylistic changes and a series of breakups and reformations. I interviewed drummer Hugo Burnham on the air at WPRB, and always assumed that it was in connection with a gig at City Gardens, but my research indicates they only played there at times that I wouldn’t have been on campus. So, maybe it was when they played in another club in the area. I remember being impressed by Burnham’s intelligence, and after leaving the band, he ultimately became a college professor. I think that I eventually did see them the summer after graduation at The Pier in NYC.

“Not Great Men” takes direct issue with the “Great Men” theory of history:

No weak men in the books at home
The strong men who have made the world
History lives on the books at home
The books at home

It's not made by great men [Repeat: x4]

The past lives on in your front room
The poor still weak the rich still rule
History lives in the books at home
The books at home

Political criticism that you can dance to.

Bonus cover: I came across this cover of “Not Great Men” by what appears to be an all-female Javanese gamelan ensemble, Sekar-Melati, which is both utterly unexpected and completely charming.


And, remarkably, there’s another gamelan cover of that gamelan cover, this time with vocals:

Kreasi Bari GFS · Not Great Men (Gang of Four Cover - Gamelan slendro)

Masks: This Masquerade

purchase [ Carney ]

Masquerade is directly/clearly implicated in the the <mask> theme:
a false show or appearance

Two weeks back, I was  going to write up Please Mr Postman as part of our Wait/Don't Wait theme, and toyed with at least mentioning the Carpenters' version. Which curiously came out with their version of This Masquerade as the B-side of the record. Funny how things come around.

You know the story line: it's a couple that is going through a masquerade, pretending they are still in love, when actually they are just too far away from being close together.

Despite the fact that George Benson made the best charting of the known versions, the song really belongs to Leon Russell: his voice is just right for it. It's the only song on Benson's Breezin' album that has vocals.

Russell's Carney was perhaps his best. I would choose Me and Baby Jane as my favorite - something like it's about Janis? But - the album cover, the pesona that Leon was projecting at that time - they seem to fit both the Carney and the Masquerade image.

No, that's not Baby Jane. This is:

MASKS: MASQUE/MANFRED MANN'S EARTHBAND

O, shame the poor wag who suggested the name of the album was a suggestion to the band. Cripes, they aren't that ugly, are they? Hardly Slipknot territory, or the Straitjackets, both those bands clearly victims to the horror of looks only their mothers could love.

(OK, I accept the above may not even be the same line-up as for Masque, and who would? But it is an awkward cantilever to my introduction of an anecdote. Back when my brother was at Uni in the late 60s, and Manfred Mann, as in the then incarnation of his eponymous band, was always riding high in the charts, he too employed on of those natty beard without 'tache numbers. And specs. One day, at Glasgow's Central station, he was shouted at by two girls: "ooo, look it's Manfred." And then they ran off. That's it.)

Manfred Mann, the band, had a pretty damn fine career, littering the charts with singles and getting a rare accolade from Bob Dylan, who had suggested they did the best versions of his songs. (To be fair, have you heard the original of Mighty Quinn?) Having exhausted initial vocalist Paul Jones, who moved onto worlds bluer, and then Mike D'Abo to songs poppier, Mann ditched the band, bar drummer Mike Hutt, for the singularly unsuccessful Manfred Mann Chapter Three. The rest of the band had meanwhile largely found a home in the brief burst of joy of McGuinness Flint. You would think that would be that for the South African piano player.

However, against the odds, Mann bounced back. Always more a jazz noodler than teen delight, prog rock was just the vista his vision required, and the Earthband plunged, fully formed, into the charts with a cover, this time of a 'new' Dylan, one Bruce Springsteen. The song? Blinded by the Light, that perhaps the only part of the lyric discernible to young boys intent on singing along.

Masque was astonishingly their thirteenth (!!) album, and the last ahead of a temporary hiatus, between 1987 and 1996. Unsurprisingly, as is the way of all all warhorses, he pulls a version of the band around to this day. But Masque was the first to really catch my ear. Having been a huge fan of the Nice and ELP, where Keith Emerson would fuse classical pomp with rock, Mann too liked to weld these opposites, his ambition having always been to put out a rock version of Gustav Holst's The Planets Suite. Annoyingly the executors of Holst's estate continued to put a block on this, as they had when the idea was first aired to them years earlier. So only one track, the opener and single, Joybringer, gets the direct lift and a composing credit for Gustav, with other tracks merely alluding to occasional planets, and hints of their musical inspiration. (In fact, Jupiter/Joybringer had had a first lick of paint back in 1973, when Mann first came up with the idea, released as a non album single.) Planets Schmanets, on side two, probably sums up Mann's opinion of the executors. Confusingly, interspersed there are songs with credits to sources as disparate as Horace Silver, Paul Weller and Michael Murphey. It makes for quite a milky way of influences, all in all. If you can keep up the canter between styles, it is well worth the ride, perhaps also explaining the title, each "masque" being applied as the band skip from the classics to 1940s big band jazz to synth pop to singer-songwriter staples. Phew!

Here are the two versions of Joybringer, 1973, above, and 1985, below, for comparison.

So now you know who the Masqued Mann really was!

Here.

Masks: Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets

[purchase The Quality Holiday Revue (Live)]
[purchase What's So Funny About Peace, Love And Los Straitjackets]
[purchase other Lowe/Los Straitjackets music]

A few years back, we did an “Unusual Collaborations” theme, and had Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets been working together back then, it would have seemed to fit right in. But what is more surprising is that their collaboration actually has worked so well and so seamlessly.

Lowe, of course, has proven to be an incredible musical chameleon. He’s done pub rock, punk, new wave, power pop, country, roots music, standards, holiday music and more. He’s a songwriter, a producer, a singer, a leader, a sideman, and instrumentalist. Los Straitjackets, since their formation in the late 1980s, have been an instrumental band playing rockabilly influenced surf-rock. But beyond the quality of their music, what most people know about Los Straitjackets, if they know anything about Lost Straitjackets, is that they perform in Mexican wrestling masks. Why, you ask? Apparently, they wore them at their first gig, and the crowd loved it, so they just kept doing it.

A few years back, Lowe was performing shows focusing on his more country crooner songs, but after the death of drummer Bobby Irwin in 2015, he broke up that band. When Lowe wanted to tour behind his holiday album, his record company suggested label mates Los Straitjackets as a touring band. Eventually, Lowe insisted that the band play his songs as if they were their own, and he’d just fit in. This collaboration allowed Lowe to pull out some of his old rockers again for subsequent tours, and they have released a bunch of songs together. And in 2017, Los Straitjackets released an instrumental album of Lowe covers, entitled, What's So Funny About Peace, Love And Los Straitjackets.

I got to see them perform together last year at the great Tarrytown Music Hall, and it was a great show. The video above, of the whole show was taken by someone in the audience (not me), and you can see how it was structured—A set with Lowe leading the masked Los Straitjackets, a set with just the band, ending with a Lowe cover, and another set together. For the encore, the band returned first, playing tribute to their fellow masked man, Batman, before Lowe rejoined, and then a final encore of a solo Lowe covering his friend Elvis Costello.

Masks: Girl Behind The Mask

Purchase, Screaming Trees, Girl Behind the Mask

So, apparently Gloria Estefan (I'm not sure if she brought the Miami Sound Machine with her on this) has re-recorded "Get on Your Feet" as "Put On Your Mask."

That's good to hear. Even if it's a silly pop song and wedding reception staple, if it gets people to stop politicizing a virus and actually act as if they care about others, I applaud the effort.

I'm not a fan of the MSS (those in the know, know...), but I'm grateful to anyone with a platform who is willing to advocate for good practice, common sense, and most of all, admonishing others to show concern and care for others. And to take responsibility and do their part. There will be a time in our future where we look back on these days, and we will be asked what we did to help, what our role was. And for those who can't answer that question without concrete evidence of contributing to the cause of the cure, or worse, can show nothing more than a few social media posts that help them brag about their strident political hobbyism, I do hope you can get it together and start being part of the solution. If nothing else, listen to Ms. Estefan, and Put on your Mask!

Perhaps the real problem is selfishness and our fetisization of individual freedoms, which is really just giving into our narcissism and indulging our worst instincts of self-satisfaction. Or self-satisfaction. We're a civilization of self-pleasers bent on achieving our individual mandates, regardless of the presence, needs/desires, or hopes of others. Don't believe me: drive a little too slowly in the fast lane.

I know not everyone is awful, but the world sure does seem to be full of assholes who equate happiness to achieving their individual happiness at the expense of others. Or those who believe in conspiracy theories because the bullshit is more interesting, or rather more easy to understand, than the reasoned out and rational truth.

I know I'm generalizing, and most of us are good people, all suffering from the same anxieties and pursuing the same satisfaction of the same basic needs, namely to be happy, safe, loved, and that our default mode is not really selfishness. But, it's really hard to believe in the best of us when I see so much of the worst of us in almost everything we do.

Freedom shouldn't be about making yourself happy or indulging in your own needs without regard for the rest; it's about coexisting with others and doing right by others so they do right by you. That's the golden rule, in so many words. It's a simple concept--do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. I've been hearing it since I was a kid, and it's the one lesson I'm thankful for having been subjected to an awful 10+plus years of Catholic school. I wish I knew how to teach it to everyone...

OK, moralizing--DONE.

Music?
Masks?
Cool.
Gives me a reason to write about Seattle's original grunge pioneers, the progenitors of the scene and the sound, far better than Mudhoney and some of the other noise/scratch rock outfits that get bigger billing.

Screaming Trees--a blues outfit that knew how to channel the metal gods that smiled down upon Seattle in those glorious days of the late 80's into the early 90's and gave us the blessed new anvil pounding symphony from Vulcan's blacksmithery, otherwise known as Grunge. I argue they were the inventors of what became most indicative of what the grunge sound is: metal and classic rock, with a healthy dose of the blues. These sounds are most evident on anything by Screaming Trees, and they are at their best when the sound it somehow comfortable  slipping into multiple timelines.

Screaming Trees hit a major radio blast with their single "Nearly Lost You" and their biggest commercial success, Sweet Oblivion. But Screaming Trees are a band that were a small blip on a big screen that deserve a much deeper listen. Led by Mark Lanegan, who in other times might have been a sage meant to be rediscovered and worshiped long after he was done, Screaming Trees were, to me, quintessential grunge: heavy, heavy rock, played in homage to the giants of blues and doom that came before them, channeling a vibe that spoke of darkness, but resounded with downtuned guitars and what might have been the real and true heavy metal thunder. But, they had pop sensibilities, too, and the sweetness filtered through heavy doses of drugs and getting lost in the woods gave them a sound that was unique. Screaming Trees had potential to grow into something a lot more interesting, had they given themselves the room and time to explore and hadn't been sidetracked by extra-curricular activities. Like so many of the Seattle bands, they were potential cut down well before their prime, ruined and dissipated and finished long before they had reached their potential. There is a good catalog here, full of promise and a lot of sonic what-might-have-been. Screaming Trees deserve a serious and enthusiastic listen. Too bad it didn't get past the excess.
Say no to drugs.
Be kind to your neighbor.
Wear your mask.

Oh, yeah: the song..."Girl Behind the Mask" is from 1987's Even If And Especially When, on the venerable SST label. It's a silly bit of pseudo-psychedelic rock. A love song about a mysterious girl.

I wonder how we might end up thinking about masks, given the metaphorical weight they've carried for so long, compared to essential importance we now give to donning one. Masks used to be something to hide behind on nights and times given over to wanton fun and celebrations. Or when robbing a bank. Or doing some downhill skiing. Now, it's all about saving a life, yours or your neighbors.

The girl behind the mask? The world behind the mask. I hope. Until we get through this. Look out for your neighbor; be responsible; take care of your fellow human being. Let's get through this. We are all responsible.

MASKS: DOMINO

By now you know the score, I type the theme into search on my i-tunes and snarf up anything applicable. Mask wasn't so great, masque slightly better, but nothing that grabbed me or enough. Maybe if I do a second post. So it was to synonyms I sauntered, learning a bit along the way.

No, me neither, I had no idea the sort of mask as above is actually called a domino. Sure, no use against the virus, and pretty damn poor as a disguise, but it is what is is. Very popular in the Venetian Carnival, it seems, whereby folk could get up to all sorts of malarkey, being entirely unrecognisable to one and all, as they spread, no doubt, a good deal more than aerosol droplets.

Damn right, it's Sir George (Ivan) Morrison at the front, with Domino,  his exuberant paean to inscrutability, the meaning, as ever, as clear as murk. If you don't believe me, go check out the lyrics. They are unlikely to be about the board game beloved of the old and simple, so who's to say there isn't some mystical reference to masking up. Cos' Van is always mystical, or was 1980 to about 2000. Now he's just plain grouchy. But, back then, this track from 1970's His Band and the Street Choir, he was on fire, the musicianship and sassy play exemplary. (I read the song was actually a tribute to New Orleans legend, Fats Domino, exquisitely proving my point about it being nothing to do with dominoes. How could you possibly line up 1000 Fats Dominoes and see them tumble as anything wholesome to watch.)

Those nice boys from Squeeze provide our next tribute to limited disguise. In their later days, as glory began to dissipate, this is a fairly typical construction of their very well put together magpie pilfering of styles, built to carry the vocal and lyrical chicanery of Tillbrook and Difford. The title track from 1998 album, Domino. Here there is a mention of tumbling pieces, presumably in reference to the amount of drinking going on, itself another staple of their storybook songs. They play on to this day, I'm pleased to say, perhaps more heritage now than cutting edge, but all power to that.

The Big O, then, and a cat called Domino. Another reference to the big fella from N'Awlins, actually and really called (Antoine Dominique) Domino? I think not, the feline being the factor here, as many a cat has markings evoking a domino. None of this hipster slang, man, as those cats in the Cramps can confirm. From when Orbison was just amongst a cluster of rockabilly rebels trying to catch the crown of the King (Creole), perhaps that is why it seems so reminiscent.

I don't actually think much of this song, a slimmer effort, Domino Dancing,  by the sometimes wonderful Pet Shop Boys. Picking up on the Squeeze song, this again has the masked revellers all falling down as the absinthe hits. (Probably beer in the Squeeze world, but I can't quite ever see the PSB with anything quite so common.)

All in all I feel I have made a sound and sturdy case for my thesis. No more will you think of the Lone Ranger without remembering his mask and its name.

 Quickly before signing off, time again to return to the Belfast Gypsy and his imagery. Sticking to his theme, here is another in the same vein. And this his time truly about Kemosabe.

Go, Domino!

Masks: Steve Miller - the Joker

purchase [The Joker, album]

I think it's safe to say that the visual image most people conjure of the joker is some variation of the classic Batman archenemy - pretty much what the cover of the Steve Miller Band's 1973 album of the same name depicts.

You've got to drill down to the fifth page of a google search for the term <joker> before you can get out links to the movies and reach the Mirriam-Webster definition of the generic term, which is what I was looking for. Looking for because I suspicion that the popular association with the Batman character is relatively recent. The first entry at M-W.com is "a person given to joking". The second is what I was looking for: "a playing card ..". And that is what I suspect would have been the popular visual association up until a few decades ago. Granted, the associated image from a deck of cards is what most of us would term a "jester".

Jester or Joker, Batman or Steve Miller, all "mask up" (Miller's covering and the KISS images that you are familiar with are pretty muchly contemporaneous) You can dig deeper here: there is a Wikipedia category labelled <Masked Musicians> with 114 entries as I write.

We are also aware of the "classical" Greek theater masks, and that's about as far back as written records of their use go. No small number of articles in publications such as Psychology Today look at the masks we all wear, knowingly or not, without actually "putting" them on. When Oscar Wilde said "Be yourself; everyone else is taken.", he was referencing this use of masks - pretending to be something/someone you are not in the face of society.

But this isn't a blog about states of mind - unless you want to consider that music is in fact a state of mind. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to enjoy and consider Steve Miller's Joker. I had been listening to a fair amount of Steve Miller before The Joker. Songs like

Space Cowboy, from Brave New World

and Song for Our Ancestors, from Sailor

I seem to recollect that Joker was a breakout piece for the Steve Miller Band, a trend that continued for a few years after with the similarly well-received Fly Like an Eagle and Abracadabra. The lyrics of The Joker get at the stuff of Oscar Wilde and Pychology Today: a life of many facets. Maurice, the space cowboy, grinner, lover, sinner, joker, smoker, midnight toker. The lyrics also include a "nonce word" [a coined word]: pompatus, as in

'Cause I speak of the pompatus of love.

And there is a Wikipedia article about how that all probably came about.

The list of on-time members of the band include Boz Scaggs, Nicky Hopkins, Les Dudek among another 20 or so that I confess don't mean as much to me. And that is undoubtedly my loss, but one that I can correct somewhere down the road.

Masks: I Advance Masked

Andy Summers/Robert Fripp: I Advance Masked
[purchase through Discogs because Amazon’s prices are not reasonable ]

You’re probably sick of reading how I learned something interesting in researching my post, but this time, I learned four interesting things. And what better way to spend the continued COVID-19 life slowdown than learning three interesting things about music, right?

First, if you asked me who was older, Andy Summers, former guitarist for The Police, or Robert Fripp, King Crimson guitarist, I probably would have said Fripp. Mostly because he’s been pretty famous since the late 1960s, is generally categorized as being a prog-rocker and usually wears suits these days, while Summers became famous as the guitarist in a punk band in the late 70s-early 80s. But that’s wrong. Summers is 77 (!), while Fripp is 74. I think I knew that Summers played in Soft Machine, and with other bands before The Police, but I guess his time in that band made me think he was younger than he is (Sting is 68 and Stewart Copeland is 67. Henry Padovani, The Police’s original guitarist (!), is also 67.)

The second thing that I learned is that Summers and Fripp first met in the early 1960s, when Summers’ band, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, was the regular entertainment at the Bournemouth Majestic Hotel when Fripp was attending Bournemouth College. And when Zoot Money moved to London, Fripp’s band, the Majestic Dance Orchestra, replaced them at the hotel. The Majestic was a Jewish hotel, and the Majestic Dance Orchestra occasionally played weddings and bar mitzvahs. (Interesting thing number three!) Apparently, the two incredible, but different, guitar players remained friends.

We’ll get to the fourth interesting thing soon.

In 1981 and 1982, when both men had time between their Police and Crimson obligations, they met to jam together, and those sessions ultimately resulted in an album of 13 instrumentals entitled, I Advance Masked. To my ears, much of the album, and particularly the title track, displays some similarity to the interlocking guitar work that Fripp was doing with Adrian Belew in the recently reformed King Crimson, except that Summers and Belew’s styles are very different, so it didn’t sound exactly like Crimson. Not being a guitarist, or really a musician of any sort, I’ll let Summers describe how his and Fripp’s styles were different:

We’re still pretty much polar opposites in our playing. Robert over the years has gone down one line, the polyrhythmic single-line approach, and he’s brought it to a degree of perfection where he can improvise on it and play it like no other guitarist in the world. His strengths are playing the sort of fuzz solo, very quirky and very rhythmic. I’m classically-trained, came up playing pop and blues (Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, Soft Machine, Animals, etc.), a regular rock soloist in many ways. It’s hard, but it clicks. Robert gives the music a spine, he’s the masculine element, and I probably represent the feminine side of the duo, but out of it a whole new personality emerges. It’s a beautiful form of alchemy. 

The song, remarkably, also spawned a very bad video:



So, what’s the fourth thing? The title of the song and album was derived from something that none other than René Descartes once wrote in a diary, and which supposedly became the second most famous thing he ever said (although I admit to never having heard it before): “larvatus prodeo,” which sounds like a Harry Potter spell, but means, “masked, I advance.” Apparently, it relates to how Descartes had to disguise his true self to succeed.

OK—there’s a fifth thing I learned, although it isn’t as interesting as the other stuff. On the DGM Live website, the official site for Fripp/Crimson and related projects (and projekcts), Fripp often publishes a daily diary, and since March, he occasionally titles them “I Advance Masked,” and includes a picture of him in a mask. Here’s one recent example.