Secret History: 1973

Like the Big Bang, the explosion of music in the sixties hurled huge chunks of brilliance through space.  As time went on, they were no longer the size of stars, but rather that of planets and asteroids.  The great music was there, just not in your face.  It was more spread out and harder to find. But it was there.  I swear.



But we were arguing about it more.  We didn’t all like the same things anymore.  Or rather, we were starting to dislike stuff, instead of just being indifferent to it.



And speaking of arguments, it's a bit embarrassing for me to write anything about the New York Dolls for a couple of reasons.  One is that I hated them on principle at the time.  I was a big Allman Brothers fan.  The Allmans weren't exactly fashion plates, which suited me fine, as I was of the belief that my music heroes, unlike the super-heroes in the comics (link) I loved, should not have uniforms or costumes.  Music was all.  Everything else was a distraction, especially a bunch of guys dressed as women.  David Bowie was a macho man in comparison, and I didn’t like him, either.



But now the other reason to be embarrassed about expressing an opinion about them is that I might overcompensate and go to the other extreme, in the urge to make up for past wrongs.  I don’t want to do that.  I’d look like an idiot.  And you know, that never happens.



But screw that.  I'm here to repent.  The first New York Dolls album is simply one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever.  It's loud, brash, noisy and yes, trashy.  In other words, it’s everything rock ‘n roll should be.  It took a couple of years for me to really take it in.  At first listen, it's just a lot of clatter.  But when you find yourself loving the fourth song on side two, you know you've got a record that goes deep.



John Prine may have been overcompensating, too.  On his third album, “Sweet Revenge”, he moves away from the stripped-down-to-practically-nothing sound of “Diamonds in the Rough”, gracefully avoiding “pretty”, and ends up with what might be his best record.  Funny, rocking and sometimes beautiful.



I always found that reggae sounded best when it was hot as hell outside and you were sitting by some water, getting high.  Since my house doesn’t face a body of water, and my kids have no interest in seeing me high (I think it would ruin it for them), I don’t get much opportunity to experience this optimal setting.  That’s where the soundtrack to The Harder They Come comes in.  It’s a perfect introduction to reggae, and if you’re lucky like me, you’ll get the anniversary edition which contains a bonus disc of other hits from Jamaica (“I Can See Clearly Now”, “The Israelite”) at the time.





Countdown To EcstasyThere were no big AM hits on “Countdown to Ecstasy”, Steely Dan’s second album, (unless you count “My Old School” or “Show Biz Kids”).  But, in a lot of ways, it’s the quintessential SD album.  Fans love “Razor Boy”, “The Boston Rag”, and “Boddissatva”.  The guitars are working overtime here.  And not too jazzy.  Yet.







AquashowElliot Murphy made one of the all-time “Records That Annoyed Jaybee's Brother” with “Aquashow”, and I still can’t figure out why.  We've got the guitars and organs to give you that “Blonde on Blonde” feel.  The subject is a bit more Velvet Underground, though.  Okay, Elliot doesn't have the greatest voice, kind of a high pitched whine actually, but everything else coalesces into a great rock and roll record.



Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.And then there’s Bruce.  The Boss.  Whose “Greetings from Asbury Park” kinda gets lost amongst his other records.  I can still recite every word to “Blinded by the Light”. (His is still the best version. The Hold Steady were probably conceived while this song was playing), “For You” and “It’s Hard to be a Saint in the City”, especially the wordy bridges.  I know you love “Spirit in the Night” and “Growing Up”.  But I love “The Angel” and “Does This Bus Stop on 82nd Street?”  Maybe my second favorite Springsteen album.



O Lucky Man! (LP Version)Back when weird movies were just beginning to entice me to into the city, “Oh, Lucky Man!” had the added attraction of the having the band playing not only on the soundtrack but right in the middle of the action.  Alan Price used to be in the Animals, playing that great organ on “House of the Rising Sun”.  (You can also catch him hanging with Bob Dylan in “Don't Look Back”.  How cool is that?)  Here he gives a slightly skimpy eight songs to this strange film, but they're all winners.



Valley Hi/Some Days You Eat the Bear and Some Days the Bear Eats YouThere are a number of attractions on “Valley Hi” by Ian Matthews.  One is his covers of early Jackson Browne, Richard Thompson and Mike Nesmith songs.  The other is his pretty voice.  He also does the version of “Seven Bridges Road” that the Eagles stole for their totally useless live album.  But anyway, this is pretty as heck.







BlondelIf you can handle Valley Hi, you’re ready for “Blondel” by the Amazing Blondel.  But be warned, the inside cover shows a guy sitting in his bare feet.  It’s that kind of record, and a prime example of mid-seventies English folk music with a pop gloss.  Depending on your point of view, this is either a beautiful masterpiece, as I thought at the time, or something that should come with a warning label for diabetics.  I’m betting you’ll like it.



ByrdsThe Byrds briefly reunited for an eponymous and much maligned album.  It does suffer in comparison to their earlier albums.  For some weird reason they do two Neil Young songs - one a great version of “See the Sky About to Rain”.  Chris Hillman and Gene Clark add the melody.  Roger must have needed the cash.  Not bad.  Really.







Journey's End/I'll Be ThereMatthew Fisher is the guy who wrote the organ melody on “A Whiter Shade of Pale”, and it took him over forty years to get the royalties for it.  And he spends most of “Journey's End” - his first solo record – feeling sorry for himself about it.  He's got the whiny voice to match, too.  But he writes nice melodies so it all goes down nicely.  It was truly made for sensitive sixteen year old boys like me, who hung our in out rooms listening to music like this, instead of going out and having a good time.





And maybe that was the problem.  When I look at 1973, I see a lot of music suited for isolation, and not much for community.  What did we agree on?  Maybe “Innervisions”, but not much else. 

And that lame metaphor I started with?  All I can say is that it’s easy to see the stars at night.  But you need a telescope for the other stuff.

Big Brother Is Listening For You

The Song Remains the Same:

There’s this song that I like.  Do you know it?  It kind of goes like…well, I can’t sing.  But the words are about…well, I forget.  But you know which one I’m talking about, right? 

Why, of course!  What, am I a mind reader?

And mind reading alone wouldn’t cut it, since when you did read that mind, it might be blank.  You would need something stronger.

But isn’t it great when our friends attribute such magical powers to us?  It’s like when they ask you if you saw that movie they loved.  You know the one, right?  Of course, they’ve forgotten the title.  (I spend my life trying to forget the movies I hated.  How is it that they forget the ones they loved?)  It’s the one with that guy in it. 

Oh, yeah.   That one. 

As dumb as this all sounds, it appears that I’ve lowered the bar even further, because there really is this song I like - I know the title and how it goes.  It’s not that I don’t remember what song it is.  I just don’t remember which song it is (although “Pictures of Matchstick Men”, “The Mighty Quinn” and “Hurdy Gurdy Man” are among the usual suspects)  And it’s important because this song has an usual history for me. 

Most people I know have a system for judging music.  They:

1. Listen to a song
2. Decide that they either:
1. Like it
2. Don’t like it.

That’s pretty much it.  It’s a simple system, really.  And I occasionally use it, but not for this song. 

Around the time I turned forty, this song went from the Hate It column to the Like It column.  This isn’t unusual – our tastes do change.  Songs that first sat in one column move to the other, and vice versa.  It’s just a matter of running the song through the system again, only this time you get a different result.

But the weird thing about this song is that, when I turned forty, I admitted to myself that I liked it, and probably always did.
So why would I lie to myself and tell myself I didn’t?  Well, it was because my big brother didn’t like it.

No, not the well-respected, fifty-ish family man who's a year older than me now, but rather, the nine-year-old (but still a year older than me) then.  Now, as smart as he is, and was, perhaps I shouldn’t have been so beholden to his opinion.  So, after thirty years, I came to the inescapable conclusion that I had no reason to dislike the song other than the fact that a nine year old boy disliked it.  In 1966.

But by 1997, I was ready to come out from behind my brother’s nine year old shadow, and begin to think for myself.  A somewhat less than inspiring coming of old age story, I’ll admit.

And who knows?  Maybe even he likes the song now.  If I could remember which one it was, I’d ask.


Mom's Listening, Too:

I’m not saying that it took me forty years to figure out my own musical tastes, and suddenly throw out all the records my brother liked.  It’s just that my experience with this song is a good example of how you can think you’re having your own thoughts when you’re really having someone else’s.

In the early seventies, my brother and I stood united on all the crucial musical issues of the day (Grateful Dead vs. Led Zeppelin, Allman Brothers vs. Led Zeppelin, Beatles vs. Led Zeppelin, etc.).   But there were isolated episodes when I wandered off the righteous path.  So I guess my own thoughts were starting to form…


1971
Elton John: Tumbleweed Connection
I seem to remember getting a less than enthusiastic reaction to this one.  Being an Irish household, it may have been that all non-Beatle Brits were suspect.  I know that my mom wasn’t happy that I spent my allowance on it, as the following primal scene attests:
Mom:  What happened to all your money?
Me:     I spent it.
Enter, two younger sisters, as Greek chorus, to provide moral support, to my mom as it turned out.
Mom:  On What?
Me:     An album.
Greek Chorus Younger Sisters: A sharp intake of breath, in unison.
Mom:  What album?
Me:     Tumbleweed Connection
Mom:  I prefer his first record.  How much was it?
Me:     Three dollars.
GCYS:Very, very sharp intake of breath.  In unison.
(Everyone blacks out, as all the oxygen has been sucked from the room.)

1972
Emerson, Lake and Palmer
I went through an ELP phase (72-74), which didn’t sit well with my brother’s Allman Brothers phase (72-present).  Those Brits again.

1973
Kinks: Everybody’s In Showbiz
I could see the look of disappointment in his eyes.  (It wasn’t hard.  He was calling me an idiot at the time.)  After all, there were so many Hot Tuna records to get, and so little money.  My first Kinks album, and one of the weaker ones, as it turns out.  Brits, too, but big drinkers, and so, honorary Irish.

1974
Advice to younger siblings sharing a room with older siblings:  Don’t play side two of pre “Born to Run” no-name Bruce Springsteen’s “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle”, while getting ready for work/school.  Your older sibling was out late last night, and is still trying to sleep.

1975:
Pre-E-Street-Band-no-name Nils Lofgren’s self titled solo album, and to-this-day-still-no-name Elliot Murphy’s “Aquashow”.  For some reason, these two records really got on his nerves.  Maybe Nils was a little too bouncy/hooky for what was his more boogie/jammy taste.  Elliot’s voice was a little nasally, but his attack is right out of “Blonde on Blonde”.  I’m still a bit mystified.

1976
Warren Zevon’s (or to my brother, Warren Zero) first record.  I admit that I got it because it was produced by Jackson Browne, who my brother thought I had a crush on.  Warren’s voice is a bit husky and awkward, but the songs are great.  His version of “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” demolishes Linda Rondstadt’s.
Crazy Horse’s first album, with soon-to-be-topic-of-Neil Young’s “Tonight’s the Night”, Danny Whitten, and repeat offender Nils Lofgren.  One song in particular annoyed the hell out of him, with a vocal by who knows who (it sounds half Danny/half Nils, but with a head cold), run through a phaser of some kind.  He thought they were saying “Finkelstein” (I does kind of sound like that) but the actual title is “Beggar’s Day”.

1977 and So On:

I think by now he’d given up on me.  Besides, we were both working and could buy whatever records we wanted.  I guess, in retrospect, his focus on the tried and true allowed me to go off the deep end.  I’d spend hours in the cutoff bin bringing home stuff like Earth Opera (because Peter Rowan was on it), and Nektar (because I liked album-long suites), while he filled in the West Coast catalogue.  In all, it was a good balance.

But I can’t leave well enough alone.  As adults, we’d exchange Christmas presents, and I couldn’t resist getting him CDs – Eno and Roxy Music being the most egregious examples.  (Jesus, more Brits.)  Then I went the burned CD route.  Best of Crazy Horse, anyone? 


And So Forth:

But since the whole point of this blog is to turn you on to something you haven’t heard yet, I will be going back to retrace some of my steps.  I expect to find a few times where I went wrong, but hope to find a number of instances where I went right, because there are a lot of great records out there that I think you’d like to know about. 

What was that song, anyway?