Sometimes I wonder if I’m nuts, thinking about music so much. I mean, it’s not like I even play an instrument very well. Perhaps it’s that very lack of ability in music that causes me to overcompensate by listening and reading and writing so much about it.
The term hobby sounds harmless enough. Obsession is actually kinda sexy. But the bleak reality is an ever growing stack of CDs, forever tipping over and taking up more room than my actual children.
So it’s a cause for worry. Jaybee, I’ll tell myself, maybe it’s time to grow up and merely like music.
But then along comes a guy who outdoes me by a mile, leaving me feeling both very relieved and a touch jealous. His name’s David Bowling, and he writes for BC (blogcritics)
Here’s his bio, with my admittedly envious commentary:
I have been collecting vinyl records for over forty years….
Yeah, so what? I’ve been doing it for…..forty SIX years! In your face DB!
…and my collection is approaching 50.000 records…
Holy shit, I’ve got barely 1,400. Okay, I surrender! The guy’s officially my hero.
My wife Susan and children, Stacey and Amy, have learned to humor my passion.
And suffer from starvation no doubt. And I thought my wife and kids were good sports.
I am now settled in beautiful Whispering Pines, North Carolina...
No doubt because the Band told him to.
…where I work hard…
Allright, stop showing off.
…listen to music…
No shit. You’d better, or else eat those records.
… and write reviews for Blogcritics.
What, and get paid for it too? Well, it’s official now: FML.
And what’s his method? He takes an artist and - get this - REVIEWS EVERY ONE SINGLE ONE OF THEIR ALBUMS!
Why, you might ask? The same reason why a dog licks his balls, I guess. Because he can! He apparently has every record ever recorded. His house isn’t in Whispering Pines, NC. His house IS Whispering Pines, NC.
With all due respect Mr. Bowling, we all have a limited time on this Earth, so it’s okay to give in to what Al Capone link would call our “enthusiasms” and ignore the rest. We are not meant to be encyclopedias, after all.
Besides, there are very few artists who deserve such attention. And someone who would dutifully review the 17th album by Yes link (or the Allman Brothers link , for that matter) had to have something wrong with him. He carries completism – a concept I’ve now officially come down against - to it’s (il)logical extreme.
Someone who listens to music so comprehensively simply cannot be very passionate about it, I tell myself.
But I’m wrong, and I know it. Encyclopedias are exactly what the professionals are supposed to be, god help them. Meanwhile, I get to f*ck off and only write about what I feel like. Base envy has led me to mock David’s dogged commitment, and for that I apologize. (By the way, per David, Yes’s 17th album is slightly better than their 16th, but quite up to par with their 15th. Or was it their 14th? What a life, I thought…)
My method is more like:
• I don’t even have the first album, but I remember hearing it at my friend’s house in 1973. I therefore conclude that the artist has “potential”, but is somewhat “unfocused”.
• I really should listen to the second, but it’s in the basement. I can save a LOT of time by just calling it a “lost masterpiece”.
• I only have the third and fourth albums on 8-track, so I really don’t remember them. Let’s call this a “transitional period”.
• And the rest I don’t have, and I’m frankly am not interested. Hence, my conclusion is that the artist has met with commercial success and I need not add anything to the prevailing wisdom, or that this is a late “unappreciated” (especially by me) period.
Thus with a minimum of time and effort– between dinner and the dishes, let’s say - I can provide you, dear reader, with “fresh insight” or “a unique perspective” on “the high points” of an artist’s career.
But David’s a better human being than me, and I just can’t stand people like that. It’s a love/hate relationship. I love me and hate him. Not true, I hate me most of the time, too.
For the moment, though, I love him, because he’s doing Carole King, which, as David reminds us (not in a nasty way. David’s better than that.) does not begin with “Tapestry”, but, rather, with “Writer”, which is always flying under my radar.
And yes, I could avoid this whole problematic relationship, by just going to allmusic.com link and reading about her whole career and discography, but that’s a place of collective knowledge and opinion. And while it does have its virtues, it does sometimes result in each record in an artist’s discography viewed as being the best, because each review is written by someone different. Sometimes it’s better to just have one consistent viewpoint taking on each record, one after the other (after the other).
So long live David. He makes me feel like shit. He makes me feel great. And, him being the nice guy that he is, I’m sure this is all very, very important to him.
Plus he uses the baby’s picture in his profile. (Oh, David, I so want to hate you. Why do you make it so hard?)
Come on David, do Elton John next. I dare you!
Showing posts with label Elton John. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elton John. Show all posts
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Sunday, November 14, 2010
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...
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...
Sunday, March 14, 2010
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:
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?
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:
- Listen to a song
- Decide that they either:
- Like it
- Don’t like it.
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?
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