Sunday, January 20, 2008

Neil Young’s Blue Period, or Why “Tonight’s the Night” is Better Than “Harvest”

I ran into a friend in late 1978, a short time after Neil Young released “Comes a Time”, and we both agreed that it was great that Neil had finally come out with another pretty record. It had been a long time since “Harvest”, and we just didn’t get that other stuff he was doing for a while… I guess I’ve changed my mind since then.

Don’t get me wrong. I like pretty. I’ll even tolerate pretty but dumb, but not pretty and offensively dumb. This is not a philosophical quibble. Who wants to be around the perkiest person in the room? After a while, you want to punch them in the face. The miserable bastard, however, is great to be around when he’s in a good mood. That‘s why my favorite pretty Neil Young record is, well, “Comes a Time”, but later for that.

Neil went from being an FM darling to a hit maker (only one, really – “Heart of Gold”) to an FM darling that everyone was hoping would produce another hit. His fans were extraordinarily patient, and he used to drive them crazy at concerts by playing whatever the hell he felt like – usually brand new or unreleased stuff - to the exclusion of what people may have come to hear.

But are we talking about his CSNY songs? Not really. Buffalo Springfield? As great as they were, most of his fans by now thought that they were the band that Paul McCartney was in before Wings. So that left his solo stuff. His first record was good but the only one people remembered from it was “The Loner”. “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” was sharper, and came out when long guitar solos were still big. It didn’t hurt that the songs were really good. They get even better on “After the Goldrush”. And even though there’s less guitar, it’s still clear as a bell and very, very soulful, even in the quiet parts.

Obviously “Harvest” was very popular, but I wonder how many people loved it. It’s certainly got some good songs (“Old Man”, “Needle and the Damage Done” and “Harvest”) but the rest of it is kind of bland. I just hear a lot of pedal steel, or worse, orchestras. When it wasn’t serious, it was awfully mellow. Okay, that’s enough to make a lot of people happy, and it was such a hit that it would give him the momentum to go off the beaten path for a while without suffering too much commercially.

Without going into the exact order of events, let’s say that life pointed Neil Young the artist towards a darker side, which he explored over several records with no hits on them. People kept buying them because Neil was the Great White Hope before people knew they were looking for one. (What were they going to do, buy Steven Stills records?) Then Springsteen came along, and Neil was off the hook.

But here’s a reminder of what he accomplished while he was off the beaten path:



Time Fades Away

Time Fades Away
A live album of all new material, it’s not quite a great album, but it is quite good. It’s also the first clear indication that Neil was turning his back on slickness. He’s also keeping a firmer grip on rock and roll, which, frankly, was becoming more problematic for those who preferred CSN to Y. By now, Danny Whitten, the guitarist from Crazy Horse, is dead, so Neil uses Ben Keith on pedal steel. But this time around, instead of sentimentality, it conveys chaos and desperation.



 Tonight's the Night

Tonight’s the Night
A dark night of the soul, and not a good place to be for very long, but it’s his best record. “New Mama” is as beautiful as anything he’s ever done. “Albequerque” sums up his take on stardom. “Roll Another Number” disposes of Woodstock in the space of a verse. “Tired Eyes” is the climax, and Neil’s rarely done a record as soulful, even if he and the band don’t hit all the right notes. “Mellow My Mind” is the dark heart of the record. “World on a String” is so primal that it’s hard to believe it was done in the Have a Nice Day Seventies. (Neil wasn’t the only one exploring this territory, though. There’s also Sly Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” and Big Star’s “Third”. Don’t listen to these records all at the same time.) It’s understandable why a lot of people didn’t like Tonight’s the Night when it came out. It definitely wasn’t pretty. Not lazy, either – drunk yes, but lazy no. And in 1975, when most of us were moving away from rock and roll, this record lands squarely in it.






On the Beach

On the Beach
A strange experiment. Nothing here is quite right. A fairly straightforward rocker, like “Walk On” gets a little goose from a slide guitar. “See the Sky About to Rain”, done better both by the Byrds, and Neil himself on solo piano on a very powerful bootlegged live version, is kind of anesthetized here. The rest of side one is not bad. It’s kind of funny, weird and topical. But it’s really side two that gives off the eerie glow. “On the Beach” and “Motion Pictures” are slow, quiet and hypnotic, if you give them a chance. “Ambulance Blues”, on the other hand, doesn’t care if you like it or not, and it’s one of his greatest songs. It’s late night music. Actually recorded after, but released before “Tonight’s the Night”, it’s like the hangover after a particularly nasty binge.

Zuma

Zuma:
Most of his demon’s exorcized (but not the misogynist one), Neil reforms Crazy Horse and plays it straight, for him, anyway. I prefer “Danger Bird” to “Cortez the Killer”, which is saying something. “Barstool Blues”, “Pardon My Heart”, “Lookin’ for a Love” and “Through My Sails” are all great. As loud as it can sometimes get, it still strikes me as one of his calmest records. Was Neil in rehab? I doubt it.





 American Stars 'N Bars (Reissue)

American Stars and Bars:
Neil seems to be gathering strength here. Half a new album (“Hey Babe”) and half bits and pieces lying around “Like a Hurricane”, “Star of Bethlehem”. Only with Neil will the bits and pieces be better. The other gems are “Bite the Bullet” and the great , strange “Will to Love”.



 Decade

Decade:
This is one of the few triple disc sets that I could listen to all the way through. (I think it fits on two CDs though). It skimps a bit on the dark side, but makes up for it with the previously unreleased stuff (“Deep Forbidden Lake”, “Winterlong”, “Campaigner”). Plus it’s got almost all of his best songs from Buffalo Springfield.



 Comes A Time

Comes a Time:
The cover shows a smiling, older and wiser-looking Neil. You know by now that he’s been through hell, so the simple melodic beauty is breathtaking. It’s as though he’s saying You want pretty? I’ll give you pretty. I’m better at it than anyone else! And he’s right.


So it’s a happy ending, if you see “Rust Never Sleeps” as a vindication, which it is. And although the rest of his career is uneven to say the least, it's also very interesting. But we probably agree on that. My point is that you may not appreciate the above records, even though you probably own a lot of them already. So go down to the basement and get them out! I think you’ll find they are like antique furniture that may have not looked as pretty as new furniture at the time. But a lot of that other stuff is looking awfully tacky now, whereas Neil's has stood the test of time.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Sometimes the Wife is Right – Ian McCulloch’s “Mysterio”

MysterioOccasionally my wife reminds me that all the good music drifting through our house doesn’t originate solely from my CDs. She has a habit of telling me things I don’t want to hear.

Once, she told me that she heard of REM before I did. I scoffed at this. I had naturally assumed that she liked them because I, her boyfriend, liked them, and that she’d follow me anywhere. Or something like that.

The city we’re in is known for its music scene, but our radio stations were and are still pathetic. But the Mrs. reminded me that, at the time, her job took her out of town, where she got the reception to bring in the station that played “modern rock”, like Depeche Mode, the Cure, the Smiths, U2, New Order and, um, REM. So while her assertion can’t possibly be right, it might be technically true.

But back to her first assertion. She reminded me of an album she got that I had held out little hope for, Ian McCulloch’s “Mysterio”. Ian played guitar for Echo and the Bunnymen, a band I’ve never quite gotten. So the idea of sitting through one of their solo albums wasn’t very appealing to me. I was resigned that the ongoing pollution of my record library was to continue in this way. (It all began with the Great Merge of the record collections that took place right after we got married.)

I like my guitars chiming, which is why I don’t really love grunge or heavy metal the way I’m supposed to. Those bands play chords that are heavy and flat, more percussive than tuneful. The distortion dulls and limits the sound rather than expands it. Power chords without any real power.

But Ian likes his guitars chiming, too. And echoey! He seems cool to an old guy like me because he’s got that “modern” sound that’s been around for about thirty years now, and although there are three guitar players, this record’s bigger on tone than on decibel. Spacey rather than loud, it can be played at any volume and it sounds good. If you have company over, you can lower the volume and still hear the higher trebly notes. If you want rock and roll, you can turn it up and make a good noise. It’s a great record to put on during the summer with the windows wide open.

Something tells me to avoid delving too much into the lyrics. Ian only puts one verse of each song in the booklet, as if to say, c’mon, you’re here for the guitars! One of them goes:
“one and one and five make seven,
One and one and three make five…”
Although I can’t fault the arithmetic as such, I’ll assume that there’s some algebra that brings it all together eventually, but I haven’t noticed it yet. The rest seems kinda portentious, or pretentious, or something, I don’t know. So there’s a silliness factor to be considered, or ignored. And if the guitars sound good enough, I say ignore away.

This record has made me slightly more inclined to try out Echo and the Bunnymen, but I haven’t taken the plunge yet. For now, Ian McCulloch by himself is just the right combination of silly and fun. One guy can take himself too seriously if he plays real good. I don’t know if I can deal with four of them, though.

Despite all my snide remarks to the contrary, I have to admit that this is a very easy record to listen to. So, in the words of many a husband before me, Yes, dear.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Hit by a Train: Old 97s "Satellite Rides"

Cover of Cover of Satellite Rides
Out on the road today,
An “Old 97s” sticker on a pickup truck,
A voice inside my van said “don’t look back! You know, you never could drive…”

Hey, what do you think? I actually did see an “Old 97s” sticker on a pickup truck. So that makes me the new Don Henley, right? OK, moving on…
It was August of 2002, and I had just received my order from BMG (my record club). I was feeling buyer’s remorse, punishing myself, as I always do, with the self loathing that will ensure that I do exactly the same thing in three months. I do this by putting myself through a litany of questions, like:
Why, or why, did I buy yet more music?
Shouldn’t I have enough CDs by now?
And with 9/11 last year, aren’t there more important things I should be thinking about?
Shouldn’t I be saving up for my children’s education?
And yet, there I was with yet another CD by yet another pop band. I mean, really, how good could it be? Etc. So you’re probably thinking, just return it, right? What, are you nuts?
When I got over myself and put it on, I proceeded to have that all too rare experience: knowing, on the first listen, that I was hearing a great album. How could this be? Haven’t all the great songs been written already? Isn’t rock and roll dead? Isn’t there really nothing left to say anymore? So why do I keep hearing all of these good songs when I just want to sit here and be miserable? Yeah, I’m a lot of fun to be around.
I’m talking about the Old ‘97s – named after a train, which is apt - and their fifth album, “Satellite Rides” (2001). I understand that they started out leaning towards the “country” end of “country-rock”. By the time I caught up with them here, they were leaning the other way. Their prior record, the slightly more country oriented “Fight Songs”, is very, very good. It has some high points that are even better than anything here, but this one is more consistently great.
Rhett Miller is the pretty-boy singer, who is also the pretty-brainy songwriter. He has the energy and the voice to put these songs over, and never seems to run out of hooks.
The first song - “King of the World” – is typical. It has just way too much energy. It starts with a crack of the drums and before you know it, the guitar player is right in your face. And why is Rhett so happy? Well, partly because they recorded it before 9/11, but mainly ‘cause his girl makes him feel like, you know, James Cameron, I guess. But where’s the irony? (I need irony in case the artist turns out to be just marginally talented.) But instead of that, they go for a key change, which revs it up even more. What, he wasn’t happy enough?
And these lyrics! He actually sings “Don’t count me out, ‘cause I’ve got your number” and gets away with it, because the band knocks you over before you had the chance to think about it. By the time you do, you are totally buying it.
On “Rollerskate Skinny”, they do it again. At the end of it, Rhett sings “I believe in love, but it don’t believe in me” over and over gain. And instead of laughing at the self pity, you’re singing along. Maybe that’s the irony I was looking for, thrown in as an added bonus.
So by the time “Bird in a Cage” comes around (“I may be a bird in a cage, but at least it’s your cage.”) sadness is just not an option.
“What I Wouldn’t Do” to be friends with you. Friends. Yeah sure. Great rock and roll, though. “Question” is a ballad about popping the big one, and it earns every bit of the emotion it gets out of you. And it won’t make the guys squirm, either. And if you like philosophy, there’s “Weightless”.
About the band: the guitar player isn’t a virtuoso, but he’s so single minded that his solos hit like a hammer on nails. And the drummer is always there to say, you will pay attention! I haven’t noticed the bass player yet, but I believe that’s his job.
And they really know how to deploy harmony, too. Unlike some artists who use it like ketchup on a hamburger, they only put it where it counts, like when it will make a simple chord change feel like you’re driving down a hill too fast. Yeah, that feeling down there!
All of these elements come together to turn perfectly good songs into great ones. This is not just stupid, good-time, party music, but if that’s your thing, just ignore the words. Rhett sneaks in stuff about break ups, infidelity and even death. But the music does what great music always does - it admits to how lousy life can be, but by its very existence says, isn’t it great, anyway?
And that’s exactly the message I needed at the time. “Satellite Rides” threw a bucket of cold water on my post 9/11 depression and reminded me that it was still possible to have a good time.


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Now playing: Old 97's - King of All the World
via FoxyTunes
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