Which George Can Handel It? - All Things Must Pass vs. The Messiah*

Then :

In 1970, I bought myself “All Things Must Pass” for Christmas. Yeah, that’s right, I did it. George Harrison’s triple(!) album magnum opus, all for me.

I had gotten my first part time job that year, so my mom said that, now that I had my own money, I could get myself a present. I took her at her word. This only sounds ridiculous to someone who doesn’t know her.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, she went to A&S and got it for me, too. I guess this was meant to be a heartwarming Christmas surprise for me. More like Festivus - the recriminations were a bonus.

It’s gone down in family lore as one of those disputed stories – my mom telling everyone how generous it was of me to get myself a present like that. It’s been futile trying to remind her that I did exactly as she said, since I didn’t expect anything from her.

So, from the beginning, it was to be a tainted present – one that I would never fully enjoy without a pang of guilt. I even came down with a stomach virus that Christmas Day, and will always remember how the smell of the album cover and colored record sleeves would turn my stomach.

Now:

We have everyone over for dinner on Christmas Eve. And although, there’s a lot of cleaning up to do on Christmas morning, especially in the basement where all the kids would hang out, it’s also kind of peaceful. It’s the first day in a long time when we can just relax.

When we sold my mom’s house earlier that year, I ended up with her old record albums. It’s kind of ironic given my checkered history with them. (Link) But I needed to find a place to put them and I decided to slide my own records over to make room for hers. This meant moving other records from shelf to shelf to make more room as I went. But instead of just doing this, I decide to listen to some of these records as I went. This made a process that should have taken minutes drag out for weeks.

By Christmas Day, I was up to the letter H, and found Handel’s Messiah (right there where it belongs: between Arlo Guthrie and Emmylou Harris). On vinyl, it’s a triple album. What the hell, I figured. I was tired, and needed something soothing. Now that Christmas Eve duties have died down, I needed to get away from the new DVDs playing on the TV upstairs. So I gave it a whirl.

And it was perfect.

So I continue with the H’s, and what do I find, but another triple album - George Harrison’s, All Things Must Pass. It’s kind of beaten up – after all, it’s been 40 years since I got it. The paper still has that faint odor that made me nauseous back then. I put it on.

Then, Again:

In 1970, I told myself it was a great album, and continued to think so for a few years, until my tastes began to undergo a change, and I began to look upon my heroes with a colder eye.

Over time, I’d tell myself that Phil Spector did the usual - and in this case, lousy – everything-but-the-kitchen-sink production on this record. It took a stronger personality than George’s (like John Lennon on Plastic Ono Band - a record I don’t usually put on at Christmas time.) to keep Spector in check and ensure that the record sounded the way he wanted it to. But listening to ATMP again, I know that with the occasional exception, I was wrong.

I don’t know anyone else who’s impressed by the lead off cut, “I’d Have You Anytime”, but it’s one of my favorites. Just hearing it all the way through is a kind of victory. Our Victrola had several pennies taped to the tone arm, because it had a habit of skipping on the first (or last) song of any album I really wanted to hear. (It just knew.) If it persisted in skipping, I’d help out by pressing down on the tone arm. As often as I’d get past the skip successfully, I’d apply too much pressure and gouge a new groove into the record, making a unique and much foreshortened version of the song. You’d have to catch it on the radio or your friend’s house if you ever hoped to hear it the right way again.

Never being a huge fan of fifties music, I didn’t realize that “My Sweet Lord” was an obvious rip-off of the Chiffon’s “He’s So Fine”. And it took me a while to admit it, even though the evidence couldn’t be clearer. But hey, it’s a good record. I just wish he’d have admitted doing it, instead of getting his feelings all hurt about it.

So, what do I think if this record so far? This is how I feel about it:

• My mother thinks I’m selfish
• I’m sick to my stomach
• The cover smells
• The first song skips
• On the second song, George tarnishes my “Beatles Can Do No Wrong” memories.

Are you with me so far?

I used to love “Isn’t It a Pity”. It was long and slow and sad, and it seemed to be about the Beatles breaking up, and it sounded like “Hey Jude” at the end. In other words, it was Serious. And I was a sucker for Serious. Serious was important! So naturally, over the years I forgot about it. Listening to it now, I can think of all the reasons I shouldn’t like it but it still blows me away.

I really enjoy sides two and three, and only wince when Phil botches the title track, adding that awful pedal steel guitar. I could do without the second version of “Isn’t it a Pity”, and the Apple Jam could have fit on a single side if they really tried. In other words, we’ve got a triple that would have made a great double, but I guess George couldn’t confine his philosophical musings to a mere three sides. Man, for someone who was not Lennon or McCartney, George sure took himself seriously.

So to sum up, my feelings are...mixed.

Now, Again:

If I wanted to act all grown up, I could pretend that I preferred Handel’s Messiah to ATMP. But I don’t.

So, what’s my verdict then? Good. Not great, but very, very good. And what more can I ask of someone who has given me so much pleasure, even if he wasn’t Lennon or McCartney? Thank you, George.

And now he’s gone, and I want to cry whenever I see him (or John) in “Hard Day’s Night”.

So I’m not sure exactly where I’d put it in my pantheon, but I do know that ATMP is Major Zeppelin Fan/Pal Joey’s favorite album. Or so he said 35 years ago. I’m certain he hasn’t changed his mind.

* Not the actual Messiah.

Costco Rules: Rule #4 - Checking Out, or, Getting Out Alive

The Check Out Line:

Management should consider having more than one cashier when the line has reached the tire section.  Or when customers start eating the rotisserie chickens – or each other – while waiting.

But you can help speed things up by having your ID and credit card ready.  The little old ladies who wait until everything is rung up before searching their purse for money won’t make it here.  I believe it’s called justifiable homicide.

And I do mean a credit card, by the way.  Cash payers are idiots.  Have you ever been stuck behind one when they don’t have enough cash?  I did, but since he was two feet taller than me, and didn’t look like he appreciated good sarcasm, I kept my mouth shut.

And be efficient in how you place items on the check out conveyor belt.  When packed snugly, they really don’t have to take up that much room.  However, when placed end to end, the total length exceeds the distance from the earth to the sun. 

The Parking Lot:

In the parking lot, try to keep out of the way of the moving cars, especially mine.  So don’t walk down the middle of the lane.  I'd hate for you to get run over, because an ambulance would block my way to the exit.

 And yet paradoxically, don’t stand directly behind a car that’s backing out of a spot.  You could get run over twice – once by me backing out, and then again when I complete my turn.  It might look suspicious.

I’m ambivalent about where to return your cart.  You can return it to the corral, or leave it near your car.  Either way works.  Just don’t leave it behind my car. 

In From the Cold:

On the drive home, you begin to relax.  The satisfaction for having finished your Christmas shopping, or securing needed supplies for your family has washed over you.

But just then, you slam on the brakes because the driver in front of you maneuvers his car much like he pushes his cart.  The apple pie you so carefully secured atop the cat litter is sliding off and landing top down on your back seat, where you threw that bottle of conditioner.  The pump breaks through the pie’s protective cellophane and squirts a repeat rinse’s worth directly below the crust.  But that doesn’t matter, because the pie filling is now easing its way into the fabric of your back seat.  The loaf of bread that rested atop the pie has fallen next to the cat litter, which has tipped over, and landed on top of it.  The bread is now in its original dough shape and size before baking.  (Note to self: Try microwaving to restore to original size.) 

But it’s okay.  That stuff was just blocking your view through the back windshield anyway.  It’s now time to go home and bask in the warmth of your family’s gratitude.

There’s no spot in front of the house.  You’ll have to double park, or walk half a block with your neighbors getting an intimate view of your toiletries.  You double park.

You gallantly grab the heaviest item – the 50 pound sack of dog food - before the rest of the family comes out to help.

Your wife greets you lovingly:

“That’s the wrong dog food.”

But it’s all academic now, because the dog just ran past you into the busy street.  For some reason, you’re okay with this.

“I needed shampoo, not conditioner,” your daughter says, as she runs past you, after the dog.  (Your son didn’t want either, especially in his favorite pie.)  You admit to yourself that she may have mentioned this to you.  Your wife and son follow her, muttering words like douchebag, jackass, and nitwit, but they are soon drowned out by screeching breaks, yelling and barking.  The epithets resume but this time they are directed at a driver who took umbrage at the dog crossing against the light.  You decide that it’s the dog food that requires your immediate attention.  Once you’ve brought that in, you get the beer, then the cat litter, the copy paper and finally the four cases of soda.  Your wife, son and daughter return with the dog.  One of them grabs the napkins.

“You remembered to pick up your favorite ice cream, right?” your wife asks.  “Remember, we finished it last night?”  Something in your expression tells her to put everything else away for you.

An hour or two later, you’re alone.  They’ve all gone out for some reason.  You finally sit down to relax when you notice a smell coming from the kitchen.  The frozen chicken wings are still sitting on the counter, and they're beyond thawed - more like a soup, really.  You want to clean up but can’t find any of the paper towels you just bought.

 

A few minutes later you look for a beer.  You know you have 20 because only four hit the floor when the cardboard handle ripped.  But there are none in the fridge.  You do find the paper towels there, though.  Your son later explains that there was no room for the paper towels in the pantry.  Several days later, long after your urge for one has passed, you do find the beer – in the pantry.

Welcome home.  Time to start a new list.

Costco Rules: Rule #3 - Basically, Get Out of My Way

I could give you all sorts of reasons for the following, but what it really boils down to is that it's much safer for all of us if you just let me by.

Okay, first, write out a damned list.  You don’t have to use it.  Just look at it occasionally so that I don’t think you’re just winging it. 

And get out of the way.  This applies particularly to when you first enter the store.  Don’t stop and stare right at the door.  There are a thousand shoppers right behind you.  Get a move on.  It’s not the Emerald City.  That annoyed looking person behind you is me.

And as long as you’re getting out of the way, remember that cart?  Get that out of the way, too.  Don’t leave it in the middle of the aisle.  Don’t double park it.  Don’t park it next to you while you stare at the shelves.  And don’t, don’t leave it in the middle of an intersection.  If you do any of these things, it means years in purgatory.  (Really.  It says so on your receipt.)  And if you leave the cart there unattended, you are going to hell. 

And if you insist on blocking the aisle, be warned.  I AM coming through.  If you’re there, I’ll say “excuse me” twice, the second time even more sarcastically than the first.  If you’re not there, I will move your cart to another floor, and maybe out into traffic. 

Do leave it right up against the shelves.  If I need something, I’ll move it out of the way.  As a matter of fact, I recommend leaving your cart out of the way at the end of the aisle.  Yes, you can carry that case of copy paper all the way down the aisle.

No wandering aimlessly, and no doubling back with the cart.  If you failed to pick something up, you’re out of luck.  You should have checked your list, which, ideally, is sorted by aisle.  You can get the toilet paper the next time you’re here.  (Okay, you may double back later, but without the cart.  If you can carry the copy paper, you're ready to carry the big screen TV.)

When you’ve changed your mind about something you picked up, go and put it back where it belongs.  Don’t leave thawing bag of chicken wings with the gardening supplies.   Maybe this situation could have been avoided if you had spent a little more time on that shopping list?...

Next: Reading, Riding, Other Stuff

Costco Rules: Rule #2 - Kids and Other Annoyances

Kids:

Strap them into the cart.  No, I don’t care how old they are.  I notice that some of you put them in the basket part of the cart when they’re too big for the seatie.  My preference is that you tie them to the front of the cart.  On the outside.  No, really.  It’s legal.

And don’t let them use the karaoke machine.  Come to think of it, you don’t use it, either.

No babies.  I want to avoid any unnecessary tragedies.  You might mistakenly leave the kid and take home a sack of potatoes.  And we both know that sacks of potatoes don’t scream or go in their diaper.  However, the kids do have more flavor…

Eating Kids:

Sorry.  Typo.

Speaking of eating, if you’re hungry, what on earth are you doing here?  (Oh, I'm sorry, I meant to say enjoy the free food samples.  Just     don’t     block     the     aisles!)  And, for heaven’s sake, show some class.  Don’t take more than one sample.  Besides, do you really need to sample the ice cream?  Guess what?  It tastes like ice cream!  They really should put up a full length mirror near these displays.

And let’s face it, there’s gonna be a line for the good stuff.  If you don’t want to wait, all you’re getting is a cracker or a piece of dried fruit.  And I really don’t want you to wait.  You’re just going to get in the way.  So here’s an option:  DON”T HAVE ANY SAMPLES.  Don’t worry, you’ll make it home alive, unless you run into me.

The Reading Aisle:

If, while in the book section, you insist on actually reading an entire book, at least move your cart out of the way so that some of us can see the odd cover or two.  I know a guy who making his way through Harry Potter this way.  He’s up to Goblet of Fire.

What Dress Code?:

And ladies, don’t dress up.  Especially the high heels.  You're not going out on the town.  You're buying 50 pounds of cat litter.  I know these seem like very similar activities but just trust me on this.  

And I realize that when you actually are going out dancing, men make the opposite mistake.  They/we dress like we’re going to Costco.  But that’s whole other post.

Proper Identification:

And if you’re dropping by after work, take off your ID.  Otherwise, people will think you work there, and ask you where the DVDs are.  (Aisle 7.  And by the way, haven’t you ever heard of Netflix?).

Moo:

And it won’t kill you to walk on the down escalator.  No, your cart won’t come down any faster, but we'll all look a little less like cattle.

Next: Common Aisle Courtesy, or, Get Out of My Way

Costco Rules: Rule #1 – Shopping Carts

First, you will need a cart. Did you think you’d be carrying that flat screen TV on your back?

Next, get your own. Yeah, you. That’s my Nexium you’re tossing out during your attempted cart-jacking. Thought I wasn’t looking didn’t you? Now put it back, and step away from my cart.

Then, to prevent yours from being stolen (I wouldn’t dream of it), I recommend putting something heavy into it immediately, even if you don’t intend to buy it. This will discourage the potential cart-jacker. This is more for the Home Depot crowd where cart jacking has hit epidemic proportions. I had my cart stolen twice in one shopping trip. First, by the lady who removed the (not heavy enough) potted plant I threw in there. She acted all innocent when I caught her red handed. The second time was while I was distracted by a bright fellow who asked if the propane tanks that came with the barbeques came filled. (He was having trouble starting the one he bought the day before.) After I broke it to him, I turned to find my cart gone. I think he was the husband of potted plant lady.

Stores that continue to use carts with broken wheels should be boycotted/sued/burned down, or something equally reasonable. Why, you ask? Have you ever pushed a cart filled so high with dog food, cat litter and beer that you can’t see what’s in front of you? You push and push and push, but since the cart is veering rightward, when you stop to clear any pedestrians from your wheels, you find not only that you’ve given yourself a back spasm, but that you’ve gone in a complete circle? This is a true story. (Well, it should be.) I should send them the bill for my MRI.

Ditto carts that screech or rattle. Beyond the obvious reasons, they are also an atrocity because they announce your presence at the store. If it’s one of the better stores, it’s not so much of a problem. However if it’s K-mart, where start questioning your own humanity within minutes of getting there, meeting someone you know is akin to running into them at an AA meeting. It could be consoling or humiliating, depending on what you think of them in the first place.

The other problem is that I don’t want you to know that I bought the store brand tissues. It screams cheapskate, or financial trouble. It may even cast suspicion on your birthday gift which we put in the Coach box. Okay, it was a knock off, but you didn’t need to know that.


Next: Rule #2 - Kids

Costco Rules: Behind the Iron Curtain

Well, behind the chain linked fence of the parking lot, anyway.

You’ve been dropped off in hostile territory. All around you are seemingly ordinary people. Yet potential enemies lurk amongst them. And even those who are not outright foes have agendas that conflict with yours. If it comes down it - a choice between them and you - you know what they’ll do. You must be prepared to do the same. The normal rules of civilization don’t apply.

Today, Costco Rules are in effect.

Okay, it’s not quite like that, but you are somewhere you definitely don’t want to be - the local superstore. It could be worse - you could be at the local Pathmark, where it’s every man (the women are worse, and don’t turn your back on the old ladies) for himself. Here at Costco, you can assume a certain modicum of decency, if not compassion.

Strangely enough, there are people who actually like being here. You, on the other hand, harbor delusions of having a life, and so would like to get in and out as quickly as possible. You want to savor those hours of discretionary time you’ve earned, but have somehow unwittingly committed several of them to the acquisition/storage of crap.

And there are also the people who, if they can’t actually accomplish something themselves, are only too happy to thwart your attempts. They wander through the aisles like tourists, wreaking all kinds of havoc. Don’t let their blank expressions fool you. They’re enjoying this.

So next are some of the rules for surviving the mega store. Admittedly, they won’t make the difference between life and death, unless of course, they prevent you from blowing your brains out, if only to avoid the slow torture of the checkout line.

Next: Rule #1 – Shopping Carts

Secret History: 1971

1971, especially the summer, sticks in my mind for a number of reasons. Before going back and (re)discovering the music of the time, I’m going to look at that year strictly through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old.



All About Me(’ve):

I had just graduated from a Catholic grammar school, and would be going to a public high school, relieved to not have to deal with the Franciscan brothers that my older brother warned me about.

No sooner had we graduated and the summer begun when two of my closest friends – brothers – moved away. And my family would be going to Ireland that summer. We’d be gone for five weeks – an eternity to a thirteen year old. I’d be away from the few friends I had left.

I was also ducking my father’s direct gaze, because it would sometimes be accompanied by a demand that I get my hair cut. After all, it fell onto my forehead and lightly brushed the tops of my ears. I tried to stay one room ahead of him, but since we didn’t live in a mansion, I’d quickly run out of rooms.

While in Ireland, I obsessed over “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Street Fightin Man” – hit singles in Europe at the time. T-Rex was big, and I got to love “Get It On” way before people in the USA heard it.

Upon our return to the States, I found out that my pseudo-girlfriend had tired of our pseudo-relationship, and slipped into the arms of another man. Well, another thirteen-year-old, anyway. Ah, well, the whole girlfriend thing seemed a bit scary anyway. Better to stick to music.

Otherwise, it was great to be back. There seemed to be so much going on.

The Fillmore was closing. I remember hearing about all the great bands that would be playing there that weekend. There were rumors about Dylan and Clapton showing up, but, as my brother told me, “they weren’t needed”. A friend of his was there to witness the Allman Brothers Band close the place down. If the general public was puzzled by the choice of a closing band, everything would be cleared up the next year when the Allmans released one of the greatest live albums ever.

On one Saturday night in August, a local AM pop station played John Lennon’s newly released “Imagine”, in its entirety, one cut at a time. In between songs, they had listeners call in with their reactions. Could you imagine such a thing now?

Alas, it was becoming clear that, in the Good Music Wars, we were losing on the AM radio front. Girl favorites like “Billy don’t Be a Hero” and “Seasons in the Sun” were pushing us boys to the harder stuff on FM.

This might explain the popularity of Grand Funk Railroad at this time. I admit that I was tempted to dip in – they had some good songs, like “I’m Your Captain” - but never did. Looking back, I’m not sure I missed anything.

Aside from the Jackson Five and the Temptations, Motown had somehow lost its appeal, too. I attribute this as much to the audience as to the music. Boundaries – musical and otherwise – were tightening.

My friends and I made a trip to the record store right before school started. Somebody picked up “Who’s Next”. Another got Santana’s “Abraxas”. We heard these records for the first time sitting on his stoop. I had to satisfy myself with Creedence’s latest single, “Sweet Hitchhiker”. (It could’ve been worse. I could have bought the album, generally considered their worst.)

I also picked up a book called “A Child's Garden of Grass” by I forget who, which was a manifesto on smoking pot. It was just like me to read about the stuff that everybody else was actually doing. Earlier that summer, I had gotten Bob Dylan’s first book, “Tarantula”, which I understand even less now than I did at the time.

But enough about me. What have I found in that year that I didn’t notice at the time?


Ringers:

Is there anyone out there who still doesn’t know that Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” is a great record? No, really. (Mrs. Jaybee disagrees ‘cause she can’t stand the voice. I admit it takes a bit getting used to, but it’s worth it.) The songwriting’s top notch: “River”, “The Last Time I saw Richard”, “A Case of You” and my favorite, “Little Green”.

Cat Stevens is in his mid twenties, but sounds a thousand years old on “Tea for the Tillerman”. So he’s a bit of a buzzkill, which explains why he’d peace out and find religion after a while. But man, I love this record, my favorite song being the intensely quiet “Into White”.


Happy Surprises:

When not playing with Neil Young, Crazy Horse managed to put it together for one album. Hey, they had Danny Whitten, Nils Lofgren and Jack Neitchze contributing. All the drugs in the world couldn’t stop one good album from coming out of this. Big brother hated it, though. (link)

The first New Riders of the Purple Sage album is a wee bit lightweight, mostly because of Marmaduke’s vocals, but very tuneful nonetheless. It’s also way better than their subsequent records. Bad records happen when Jerry Garcia leaves your band. But this first one is as good as it seemed at the time.


Singer/songwriters:

Gordon Lightfoot’s “Summer Side of Life” isn’t consistently great but it’s got some real beauties on it, like the title song, which, if it doesn’t make you cry, means you’re not quite alive.

John Sebastian was acting like the 60s never ended on "Live", and more power to him. He and the audience are having the time of their lives. He mixes in Spoonful favorites along with folk and blues classics. Wow, talk about a moment in time.

It would be easy to dismiss Elton John’s “Tumbleweed Connection” as just another EJ album, and a country themed one at that, if there weren’t so many good songs on it. “My Father’s Gun”, “Burn Down the Mission”, “Amoreena”, “Come Down in Time” and "Where to Now, St. Peter" have the greatest staying power for me. If he was a baseball player, he’d get the award for most at bats, and a great on base percentage.

After “Everybody’s Talkin’”, but before he started rubbing shoulders with John Lennon and jumping into the fire, Harry Nilsson made “The Point”, a lovely little fable about a boy named Oblio who lived in the land of Point. It would later be made into a cartoon. It’s right up there with his best records.


Survivors:

The old timers - the ones that were still left, that is - still kept coming up with the goods, if not the greats. No one would call “Surf’s Up” their favorite Beach Boys album, unless they weren’t Beach Boy fans to begin with. It’s too cute by half, but then again, it’s got treasures like “Until I Die” and “Disney Girls”.

On “Muswell Hillbillies”, the Kinks are slowly losing steam, which is ironic since they keep adding the brass. There are some great songs on this record, like“20th Century Man” and “Oklahoma USA”. For a lot of other bands, this would be a career album, but for the Kinks, only good.



The Great Ones:

John Prine’s self titled first album is a quiet masterpiece. The front cover couldn’t be less assuming. There’s Prine sitting on a bail of hay. But the sly devil is actually sitting on a pile of great songs. He may have been the most deserving of those given the title of "The New Dylan". He’d be rivaled only by Neil Young in his ability to churn out great songs using the same three chords

Quiet in a more ominous way, Sly and the Family Stone’s “There's a Riot Going On” let down a lot of people who wanted more of the positive, energetic music Sly was known for up to that point. It’s in the same universe as Neil Young’s “Tonight’s the Night” and Big Star’s “Third”. Heroin hovers over it like an angel from hell.


New Frontiers:

Man, John McLaughlin (Not my old grammar school classmate. He’s a good guy.) used to piss me off. How could I keep insisting that Eric Clapton was, as I put it "the best guitar player of all time" when McLaughlin was playing like this? The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s “The Innermounting Flame” is very intense. There's a bit of dopey violin playing, and Jan Hammer is good for a giggle now and then, but overall this is jazz disguised as hard rock music (or vice versa), if not rock and roll, exactly.


And I feel I have to add a category called

Not as awful as they may seem now:

Does anyone like Emerson, Lake and Palmer anymore? I wonder. C’mon now, they weren’t that bad. There first record has some pretty nice things on it, like “Take a Pebble” and “Lucky Man”, but the rest of it is very pretenscious and thus deserving of some ridicule. As Monty Python would say, very, very silly.

“Stephen Stills 2”’s badness first comes out of sheer boredom, and egregious taste. Did anyone even put the record on before regretting that they got it? (Don’t look at me, I only paid $2.) I guess we all got through the first listen, and then put it away for a while. When you try it out later, having dragged your expectations way way down, it doesn’t seem so bad. And how can you not like, “Change Partners” and “Mary Anne”? I even like the spoken word “Word Games”. But the rest just disappears upon impact. Along with the Kinks, Stills shouldn't be allowed near a brass section. You might enjoy it a bit while it's on, but when it’s over, you'd probably wish you put on a better record instead.

And in case you conclude I’m an idiot, here’s allmusic’s take on the year.

I'll admit they know a thing or two...

Family Tree

I’ve been buying - I don’t like the word “collecting” - records - vinyl, cassettes, 8-tracks(!), and CDs - for about 45 years now.  And if you do anything like this for long enough, you’re bound to amass quite a stack.

It’s now hovering at around 1,300, which is way more than what a normal people would have, but it is what I consider to be an eminently sane amount.  Any more than that is surely nuts.  Anything less hints at old fogeyism and out of touchness.  Yeah, my number is just right. 

But seriously, I'm not very proud of it.  These records seem less like and accomplishment and more like evidence of an obsession or that got totally out of hand.  At least drinkers throw away their empties.  I keep (but get to replay) my records.

Now 1,300 may say “collection” to you, but it's not.  The word “collection” has the aura of completeness about it.  And collectors tend to fill the gaps in what they’ve already gotten.  They have most of Neil Young’s albums, and plan on getting the rest.  I prefer to just get the ones I want.  The gaps I want to fill are of music genres I’d like to get to know better.  (I know, hooray for me! Right?)  So if I don’t have a lot of country music, I might try to find some that is both great and representative.

I do this for the selfish reason of wanting to enjoy more types of music than I currently do.  This broadening of my horizons might sound like a chore, but in the end, it enables me to enjoy that much more music.  A win, win, I say.  The other guy is busy getting “Landing on Water” but I’m getting what I hope will be George Jones’s best record.  The other guy has all of Neil Young’s albums.  I only have the good ones.

But that’s me.  And this semi-aimless wandering has, over the long haul, gotten me part way into a lot of types of music and a whole lot of great music, some of which I'd never hear if I hadn't wandered a bit.  So I rest my case.

But I sometimes pretend that my record library - another word I don’t like, but it will just have to do for now - is something pure, original and mine alone, built up slowly and methodically over the years.  A life’s work, if you will, to make up for the lack of an actual life.  But this is a load crap.  One’s music library rarely grows from scratch.  It branches off from one thing and may combine with another.  It’s more like a family tree.

Roots:

First, there’s the library I was born into.  It was made up of lots and lots of Irish music.  Bridie Murphy, Paddy Noonan, and a lot more where they came from.  These records were pretty hard to take, especially with the British Invasion breaking out all around us.  A little easier on the ears were the Clancy Brothers, and individual songs like “The Patriot Game” - the inspiration for Bob Dylan’s “With God On Our Side”, and simply one of the greatest songs ever written.  At least these tunes had tunes, and energy.  Oh, and guitars.

In a previous post (link), I related how I struck the first blow against this monopoly, by dropping a stack of records on the floor.  It was the mid-sixties, and vinyl LPs were heavy, thick and brittle.  So just like that, I took out at least three of them, and all I got was a verbal reprimand.  Nothing personal, Mr. Noonan.  It was an accident.  I swear.

But there were some records from this time that we all loved, like “The Sound of Music”, which was played endlessly, and the “Bing Crosby Christmas” Album, which we’d play even in July.  I’ll even throw in a shout out to Larry Cunningham, whose record - the last of the great Irish albums - got a ton of plays even as this period was ending.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn:

One friend specialized in getting Beatles albums.  Another built up a nice stack of 45s.  But even after a lot of begging and pleading, we only managed to amass a couple of  singles that never played all the way through without skipping.  We didn’t get our first albums - “Revolver” and “Meet the Monkees” – until 1966. 

But that was a start.  There would be more Monkees and Beatles albums to come, and each birthday and Christmas brought with it at least another album.  After a few years, we had about fifty.

In 1974 or so, a neighbor decided to give me his old albums.  “About a thousand”, he said.  I was flabbergasted, and couldn't fathom where I'd put them all.  But alas, I was new to the world of adult bs, and he showed up with about forty of varying quality.  But there were some great ones in there, and we now had almost a hundred.

Things picked up considerably when we got part time  jobs.  We fell into a payday oriented buying routine, my brother specializing in the Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, and all of those other bands from California, and me straying off to the odd corners of things.  By a weird coincidence, the country was celebrating its bicentennial right around when we were celebrating our 200th album. 

And by we, I mean me and my brother.  I wonder if we would have intermixed our records if we didn’t share a bedroom.  We sure didn’t intermix our two younger sister’s records.  One of them was at least in the ballpark musically, with Linda Rondstadt, but the other was dipping into disco, and the Beach Boys, which we were having none of at the time. 

My parents would fight back, and half heartedly get a Wolftones record here or there, but who was kidding whom?  The tide had turned and they knew it.

Branches:

But then I moved out when I turned twenty two, and took “my” records with me.  Figuring out which ones belonged to whom was easier than I thought it would be.  It was kind of like figuring out who wrote which Lennon-McCartney song.  You kind of just know.

Roommates Mike, Bob and Tom each in turn brought their own records which occupied the same bookshelf, but were never intermixed with mine.  And when they left (they always leave, don’t they?) they took their records with them.

Then I got married.  And if I thought my sister’s taste in music was questionable, my wife’s had “irreconcilable differences” written all over it.  It took until several weeks after our honeymoon for me to break down and intermix them.  To be fair, she had a decent mix of records (they broadened my horizons just as much as I ever broadened hers) with only the occasional abomination (Bobby Sherman, Salsoul Orchestra).  Looking back, it’s hard to see what the big deal was, but at the time it was traumatic for me to be sliding ABBA next to the Allman Brothers.  But I’m a man of the people and did it.  Intermix accomplished!  That’s love for you.

When the kids came along, we’d get the occasional album for them.  Never actually kids music, per se.  More like “For Our Children”, an AIDS benefit album by various artists, which sort of slipped into our collection, but by rights it belonged to our daughter Theresa.

After that, Tess went her own way and ended up as a huge fan of Broadway music.  Along the way, she ran the pop music gamut from the Spice Girls to the Backstreet Boys.  I’ve not yet coveted anything from her collection.  Well, there is that Blink 182 record…

My son Michael’s taste in music is much closer to mine.  He’s always had his own CDs, though.  Until this year, when the lines got really blurry.  Michael turned my wife and I onto Vampire Weekend, and he was the one pushing to get "The Suburbs" by Arcade Fire.  And yet, he considers this latter record to be mine "because you turned us on to them”, rather than my wife’s, who drove all the way out to Best Buy to get it.

Autumn Leaves:

Now that my mother has moved out of her house, I’ve inherited the Irish music.  And you know what? It’s not half bad.  I might even intermix them with my records.....

And now I can’t help wondering who’ll get my albums when I’m gone.  I even have a list of names.  A list, but few illusions. 

There are plenty of records that my wife and I grew old together with, and I hope she cherishes them.  But I don’t think she’ll want all of them.  How is she going to handle that, I wonder?  Will it be like my clothes?  Will she hesitate to get rid of them out of loyalty or guilt?  What about the ones I loved and she hated?  Will she give away anything she knew I liked?  I guess I should tell her that she need only hold onto the ones she likes, and give the rest away.

I began to think about this at a ridiculously young age, and continued to develop the scenario as my life got more complicated.  And now I can imagine this big stack of records getting passed around from wife to kids, to siblings and friends until there was a much smaller (hopefully) pile left.  What would happen to them?  Would they end up at some garage sale?

That thought really bothers me, because I rarely bought records from garage sales.  My thinking at the time was, why buy an album from someone who didn’t want it anymore?  It wasn’t like shopping in a record store, whose owner could care less what I bought.  A garage sale record was one that someone consciously bought, listened to, and ultimately rejected.  How good could it be, I thought?  Now I know better. 

What a sad thought, that something so valuable to me – a small piece of my life, really - could end up on a shelf or in a box, ignored by everyone.  Hopefully, someone smarter or more open minded than me will find and enjoy those records, and add them to his or her family tree.

Ah, so what?  Dead leaves on the dirty ground, and no one else around.

New Growth:

I’ll always regret not enjoying music more with my parents.  Aside from Julie Andrews and Bing Crosby, they had theirs and we had ours.  Such was the generation gap at the time. 

My wife and kids do not share my exact taste in music but we do share many more enthusiasms than I ever did with my parents.  I'm very thankful for that.  And as much as I hope that my records will end up with the people who would like them the most, I also know that some of the stuff I love just won't resonate with them.  And it may never.

That's okay.  My kids can take it from there.  They've got their own music to listen to and their own trees to grow.

Secret History: 1970

In January 1970, well meaning but silly people were asking “Are the Sixties over?”. I know. I was one of them. And smart asses were answering “Technically, yes.” The real question was whether it mattered or not.

So the prior decade had barely ended, and everyone was already prepared to engage in sixties nostalgia. But it’s years like 1970 that make me question the need. Putting aside the obvious choices for great albums, like “Plastic Ono Band”, “After the Goldrush” and “Moondance”, we’ve still got:

The Velvet Underground are getting tired of making great music and not such great money, so they set out to make “Loaded”, their fourth, and most accessible record. Link. They partly succeed, making accessible music, even if nobody accessed it, except for “Rock and Roll” and “Sweet Jane”. So Lou Reed upped and left, and it’s ALL YOUR FAULT! I hope you’re happy.

Meanwhile on the West coast, the The Grateful Dead have decided to completely reinvent themselves with “Workingman's Dead”. Anyone who had just gotten over the electric mayhem of “Live/Dead” must have been shocked to hear the acoustic guitars and harmony of “Uncle John’s Band”. And over the course of the album, the Dead prove that this is no fluke, and with the help of lyricist Robert Hunter, practically invent Americana. Okay, the Band got there first, but the Dead were their worthy counterparts. I hated “Casey Jones” when I first heard it on the radio, where it just sounded slow and repetitive. But now, hearing it the end of this record, it sounds like a summing up of past and present. I don’t know how “Black Peter” managed to not become a classic. (Love those death songs!) This record has some of the best songwriting of the era.

Having just finished throwing jazz into an uproar with “Bitches Brew”, Miles Davis settles down into simply making a great record. With John McLaughlin on guitar, playing rock and roll, “A Tribute to Jack Johnson” is the record I think Miles was trying to make in the first place. It’s shorter and more to the point. And I’ll take it over “Bitches Brew” any day.

On “Five Leaves Left” - Nick Drake’s first album - a gentle soul distinguishes himself from the other singer-songwriters by his use of (non-syrupy) strings and the occasional jazz chord. And not emoting too much. What a relief after hearing Jackson Browne always telling us how miserable he was. (A hundred times better than Kenny Rankin, too.) Brits have more class than that. But then they die.

While they’re not white hot like on some prior records Creedence Clearwater Revival still make their next to last album “Pendulum" pretty great. Hidden away on it are the heartrending "Hideaway" and "Just a Thought", two of my favorite John Fogerty songs. And believe it or not, it’s nearly all over.

For a very short time after leaving Traffic, Dave Mason managed to avoid sounding like a lounge act. Luckily a tape recorder was on, and “Alone Together” is one of those AOR solo albums that is well worth the time. (My vinyl looks like vomit, by the way. How about yours?) Dave never quite got it this together again, alone or otherwise, even if he did make more money. The guitar playing is effortless, and I love the intermix of acoustic and electric. But it was all downhill from here.

It might seem that David Bowie could never resist a gimmick, but if you catch him early enough – pre- Ziggy Stardust let’s say - he’s satisfied just writing great songs. “Hunky Dory” is proof. (link) Jump in.
The critical consensus on Paul Kantner’s “Blows Against the Empire” is that it sucks, but I disagree. The lyrics are pretty weak, but Jerry Garcia brings the guitar, and David Crosby manages to not be a complete jackass. Ok, so Paul’s politics sound a bit dated. I still like the toons.

Before fame, but with several classics, Joni Mitchell’s “Ladies of the Canyon” isn’t quite on par with her very best, but it’s definitely worthwhile. For several songs, Joni manages to avoid her feared vocal swoops and leaps, as well as the background chorus’s reverent “oooohhhs” and “ahhhs”. She starts off with “Monday Morgantown” “For Free”, “Conversation” and the title song, and all I can say is Wow! And I’m not being ironic. She’s combining great melody, words and voice, and appears unstoppable. Then things bog down a bit with a few songs that involve DJs, priests and Graham Nash, in descending order. But Joni has a big ending planned for us, with “Woodstock”, “Big Yellow Taxi”, and “Circle Game”.

I should hate the slick “Time Passages”, but I love it. I should hate the slicker “Year of the Cat”, but I just don’t care. And I wouldn’t blame you for hating Al Stewart’s “Love Chronicles”, which came way before either of them, but I don’t think you will. The highlight is the nearly side long title song about a young man's sexual coming of age. By the way, that’s Jimmy Page on guitar, I guess in case that Zeppelin thing doesn’t work out for him. This album can also be found as part of the double disc “The Early Years”, which has many other great early moments.

Randy Newman pioneered the “so hateful you’ve got to like him” style of songwriting, and “12 Songs” is as unsentimental as it gets, featuring stalkers, racists and perverts. The best line comes early: “I’ll talk to strangers if I want to, I’m a stranger, too.” This is the most rock and roll – as opposed to rock - of Randy’s records, and very strong stuff. It’s also one of his best. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

And what the hell was going on with the Dead, anyway? Not content to put out one great album this year, they follow up with “American Beauty”, and suddenly, they’re songwriters. And singers, too! (Okay, not really.) Even Phil Lesh, whose “Box of Rain” is one of the most beautiful songs of the decade. If “American Beauty” is not quite as great as "Workingman's Dead", that's just fine with me. How many records are? My mom - not a Dead head, in case you were wondering - freely offered her approval of "Ripple", but "Broke Down Palace" is even better.

With Dolly Parton being such a “character” now, it’s hard to remember how way back when, she was one of the great singer-songwriters in country music. “The Best of Dolly Parton” (1970) is the proof, in the form of ten nearly perfect songs from the late sixties. Another master of melody with a soaring voice, her stories hold you to the end. What a beautiful soul.


So you see the world didn’t come to an end, musically or otherwise, when the sixties ended. But, as you can see from the abovementioned records, it became a little harder to find great music.

When I see a documentary from the seventies, the hair styles and fashion tend to make me, and I’ll bet you, want to run screaming from the room. And yet, while I would never suggest that Sixties music didn’t burn very brightly, I still admire the steady glow of the music of the Seventies.

More to come.

Jaybeephrenia: A Rock Opera

Subtitled "or, How to Not Buy CDs", sub-subtitled "the tragedy resulting from the conflict between one man's inner music lover and his even further-inner, inner cheapskate".

Or something like that.



Prelude/Intro/Medley/Overture:

Let me set the scene for you. It’s eighty degrees out. It’s sunny and there’s a slight breeze. In other words, it’s a beautiful late summer’s day - the kind of day that makes you feel happy to be alive.

So where was I? Playing basketball in the park? Fishing? Family picnic? Not quite.


Exposition:

I was out for a leisurely walk, fantasizing about punching slow-walking tourists in the back of the head, when I happened upon my favorite record store. A complete coincidence, I swear. But there I was, and well, it just wouldn’t have been right for me to not go in. They owners might think I was mad at them.

Even I knew that it would be crazy to spend my usual average two hours in there on such a nice day, so I negotiated a settlement with myself, limiting him to the bargain rack. And in this store it’s a pretty good one – it’s got CDs for $5.99, so although young downloaders may scoff, old geezer habits die hard, and I find it’s always worth a “quick” look. And of course, I wasn’t expecting to find anything…


Complication:

Alas, there’s the Grateful Dead’s first album. I was very pleased with "Anthem of the Sun" – their second album – which I finally got around to earlier this year. By now, I’d gotten pretty much all the worthwhile studio albums, except this one, so I thought that maybe this was the time. First I had to check if the Dead filled up the CD version of the original forty minute album with there usual additional 30 minutes of extras, like they had done with the other reissues? Why, yes! Put that one in the basket!

Then I see Los Lobos’s “Colossal Head”, one of their lesser known but still highly regarded records. I loved their first, admired their third, and liked their offshoot Latin Playboys. That settles it. Two.

Then there was “Safe as Milk” the first album by Captain Beefheart (and his Magic Band, of course). It’s been about thirty years since I got anything from the Captain, and over forty since this record came out. And it takes about that long to recover, so it was about time for another plunge. I'm sure it's what I’d call a summer record - light, melodic and cheerful, something that's enjoyable to offset the oppressive heat, or to complement today’s gorgeous weather. And so what if all the other records I've gotten by him are heavy, jarring and really, really strange? I'm sure this one's fine. After all, no one was doing anything weird in the sixties, right? That makes three!

And what’s this? Jeff Buckley’s “Grace” – one of those records that I keep hearing great things about, but I just don’t believe them yet. But at $5.99, maybe it's time. Four!


Crisis:

But four is a bit much for what was supposed to be a quick drop in. I should really put something back.

But then I look up and see the sign that says “2 for $10” and think, oh my. Or a variation thereof. Now, getting four is practically my duty. Otherwise I will have wasted the time of the security guard who checked my bag. It would all have been for nothing.

But my conscience says do the drill  anyway. So I begin my world famous winnowing process.


Climax:

Now all four CDs pass manage to get through the official rules without too much damage. But there turn out to be a number of rules I didn’t even know I had (a good thing – otherwise I’d have even more CDs and probably at least one less kid) and they kick in about now.

And the first thing I notice is that Jeff Buckley does a version of Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah" - a song that I love. But it’s just so damned intense that I'm now doubtful. I’d been feeling kind of down at the time, probably because of my 53rd birthday, that I realize that I’m just not up for it. Later, Jeff, when I’ve rested. Three.

Then I think, do I really need another Los Lobos album? I know it will be good, but how good? Enough to take up that precious and dwindling space on my CD shelf? Space that should be reserved for a world masterpiece like Handel's Messiah, or the Ramones third album? For now, I have to say no. Two.

Then there’s the Dead. It breaks my rule number three and there’s an unofficial semi-rule that says if you bought something by a band this year already, if you buy another, you’ll be sorry. It’s not really borne out by the facts – the music is usually just as good, but if you’re me, you’ll feel bad anyway. (But if you’re like me, you feel bad about the whole Garden of Eden thing.) So back you go, Dead. See you in 2011. One

And then there’s Captain Beefheart. Well, if I'm not quite up for Jeff Buckley, I'm nowhere near ready for the Captain. So it goes back in the rack, and then there were none.

That's right. I put 'em all back. AND WALKED OUT OF THE STORE! Aren’t you proud of me?


Denoument/Epilogue/Coda, or Other Fancy Term for Later:

In a completely unrelated incident, I got two CDs for my birthday.

And, well, there were those two I ordered from the record club the week before.

Hey, I practically had to!  My son Mikey wanted one, and, well, they were on sale and that would have been a missed opportunity, and …


To be Continued….For the Rest of My Freaking Life