Secret History: 1979

Welcome to another - and long overdue - edition of Secret History, this time for 1979.

My last one was for 1979 about five years ago. I kinda slacked off, because I was concerned that I was getting too close to the present. (wtf?)

So it’s back, and I’m less sure than ever there’s anything secret about it.

The punk big bang happened in 1977 and the asteroid chunks were still flying around. Everything seemed possible at the time, like 1968 compared to 1967. What could go wrong, right?

While 1978 was a year of consolidation 1979 was a kind of where do we go from here? year. And not all of the directions hinted at really panned out.

We ended up with a lot of great music but it was spread out over too many records. So there were not as many flat-out great albums but a lot of really good ones.

Hey, what do you want? Humans were involved.



The Roches

The first song is so cute I wouldn't blame you for wanting to smash the record into a hundred small pieces. But the rest is so beautiful you end up feeling bad and love it anyway. I’ve been waiting 36 years for Mrs. Jaybee to get past that first song though, so I’m not providing her grade. A



Roxy Music: Manifesto 

With Eno now long gone, RM keeps getting more and more normal, and thus, less powerful. But more fun, too. A-



Gang of Four: Entertainment!

Not much fun here, but pile-driver rhythms, angry politics, and almost disembodied voices. Their best. A



Nick Lowe: Labour of Lust

But fun is important. Good old modern ironic pop music, even if old Nick now swears he was playing it straight the whole time. A-



Graham Parker: Squeezing Out Sparks

I once had the pleasure of hearing this played in its entirety on a beach in the Hamptons, where it pissed off all the right people. What better recommendation can I offer? So intense that it might be better than Heat Treatment or Howlin' Wind.  What?  No way. Way! A



The B-52s

If “52 Girls” is one of the high points of the years, “Dance This Mess Around” is one of the high points of my life, except that (or maybe because) it also clears the room. I recently got into an argument with someone on Facebook about this record. (Someone may have called someone else a Nazi… But that’s not important.) This is one of the most delightfully weird records ever. Who wants rock n' roll to be normal, anyway? And when you get past all that, Kate and Cindi sing great, and the guitar and bass really rock.  A-



Marianne Faithfull: Broken English

“Guilt” was stunning on SNL, so actually listening to the album is a slight let down.

She barely survived the sixties and she’s here to tell you about it. And by the way “now” is not so hot, either. The subject matter was risque for the time, but the music is actually a bit slick.  But that voice cuts right through it.  A-



Michael Jackson: Off the Wall

With rock n' roll revitalized, it would have been easy for me to continue to ignore music by African Americans. I needed this one to remind me that there were other types of vital music that didn’t involve an electric guitar. This is Michael as I like to remember him. From my limited perspective, one of the greatest R&B albums ever. A



Buzzcocks: Singles Going Steady

This being a collection of their first eight singles (all the side As on side one of the album and all the side Bs on side 2), it could be considered a bit of a cheat, but surely it’s one of the best records of the era. A


I purposely omitted some records, like Rust Never Sleeps, because it's too fucking obvious (it's supposed to be a secret history, remember?), and others like Fear of Music, Breakfast in America and Damn the Torpedos because they’re overrated. (Sorry Tom!).

Now, looking at the above I wonder what my reservations about this year were exactly. Probably the stuff I left out.

My next Secret History will be the first step into that hellscape that is the 1980s...

Secret History: 1976

If you ask me about 1975, I can tell you a hundred different great things that happened (and some that didn’t, since I put the Ramones, Eno and the Wild Tchapatoulas there instead of here where they belonged). When you ask me about 1976 I’m likely to give you a blank stare.

It was kind of a crappy year. Punk hadn’t quite exploded yet, Steely Dan and Dylan had peaked the year before, and singer songwriters were getting positively annoying.

So where did that leave us?


Rock and Roll:

Well, there was Graham Parker. Jaybee Sister One is a big fan who by now could run circles around me regarding Parker's later career. My preference is for his earliest stuff, which somehow got mixed up with/lost amongst punk. He also lost a close election that year for Angriest Young Man to Elvis Costello.

It's too bad because he's not a punk at all. He comes out of the English pub rock tradition and has an approach very similar to Bruce Springsteen. His first record, Howlin Wind is a bit more soulful, with horns being pretty prominent. His second, Heat Treatment pushed the guitar and organ up front. The production is clearer too, so even though it's only got ten songs, I prefer it to Howlin’ Wind. But both are great.

Jonathan Richman has had a long strange career, but The Modern Lovers is where it all starts. This is the one with “Roadrunner”, one of the all time great rock and roll songs. Also, he rhymes Picasso with asshole. You won't find that in a Rhyming Dictionary.


Songs:

I'd like to say that Have Moicy! by Michael Hurley, The Unholy Modal Rounders and Jeffrey Fredericks and the Clamtones (whew!) is simply a bunch of great songs. But I'd be a liar if I left out all the twists and turns, like Peter Stampfel's funny voice and the human digestive tract as subject matter. But I’ll take it over The Pretender any day. I made a point of buying this record when some idiot radio DJ criticized Robert Christgau’s “Best of the 70s” choices, singling this out because she never heard of it. This same idiot DJ (Carol Miller, actually) is still playing the same lame classic rock songs, doing her part to make sure you never hear anything interesting ever again.

Don't hate Kate and Anna Mcgarrigle just because every critic on earth loves them. You really can't blame them because their first record is one of the great singer-songwriter records of the decade. Take that James Taylor, Jackson Browne, etc.

Almost as good is Warren Zevon’s first record - another in the ongoing Chronicles of Albums Jaybee's Brother hated. “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” is a great rock and roll song (and a ding to the abovementioned singer-songwriters to boot) done a disservice by Linda Rondstadt. The real version is here.


Pop:

David Bowie was always at least one step everyone (and two ahead of me) but on Station to Station he makes it easy to like him. No obvious androgyny to make male teens like me uncomfortable. No fey/fake soul music. Just pop. “TVC15” is one of his best ever.


Guilty Pleasure:

Turnstiles is probably my favorite Billy Joel record. He’s not quite a superstar yet, but he’s coming back home anyway. It’s easy to hate the guy, and sometimes I do. I prefer guitars to pianos and strings, but below all that bs, I think his heart’s in the right place. And for a time he was the greatest pop melodist since Paul McCartney.


Wait'll Next Year:

So, my faulty memory makes it kind of a sucky year. My fact checking proves that it wasn’t so bad. But hold onto your hats. The times, as they say, were a-changin’.

The Evil That Men Do, Part 2 - Gift Giving

When it comes to the holidays or a birthday, we all agonize over what to get that special or not so special someone. I suspect that we all fall back on certain types of gifts. After all, kids buy their dads neckties (definitely NOT a hint), so it should come as no surprise that I would fall back on music. My wife attributes it to a lack of imagination. I’d argue if I could think of something.

For the most part, my friends would never be so presumptuous as to reciprocate. They probably feel that I can be presumptuous enough for the all of us.

On the surface of it, I sincerely think I can find something that the person will enjoy. Of course, if someone tried this on me, I’d be annoyed. I mean, really, how dare they (do exactly what I would do)? We all have delusions about being good at certain things. Mine is that I can impart good music to my poor friends, who in fact, were perfectly happy with their music before I got involved. So a little deeper down, I suspect I’m just trying to show off. (What, I wonder? That I have no taste?)

It’s great when the recipient actually makes an unsolicited positive comment about the gift. Occasionally I’ll get a rave (Graham Parker’s “Heat Treatment”, or Squeeze’s “Singles on 45”) but most often I’ll get the essentially non-committal “It was good” (which means It wasn’t worth the effort of going over to the stereo to smash it into a million pieces.) And sometimes I get no reaction at all, which usually translates to Let’s not speak of this again. This might have been Brian Eno, which is a shame, because that record (“Another Green World”) is still one of my absolute favorites. But maybe you need to know that.

Still further down is a presumption not only about the recipients taste, but about the recipient him or herself. I’m telling them I know you. I know what you like. Therefore, I know what you will like. I’ve got your number. I’ve got you figured out. Who the hell wants to feel like they’ve been figured out?

So I’ve recently hedged my bets a little by moving from pre-recorded CDs to mix CDs. This gives me the chance to mess with the variety and pacing. It also gives the recipient a break in case they totally hate a particular artist. It’s also a little less insulting because it says These are some of the songs I’ve heard recently that I like. You may like some, too, so you take it from there. This is far more modest. And it’s an invitation to let someone figure you out. Hey, whose idea was this, anyway?

On the few occasions I’ve gotten mix CDs, it’s been…problematic. If I was worried about people figuring me out, I’m past it now.

Lately, there’s been the fad of making mix CDs to give out as wedding favors. In theory, this would appear to be pretty sound, but the result is usually a lot of sentimental crap. Who the hell wants to hear a bunch of sappy songs about people in love? It’s almost as bad as having them over for dinner. I’d much prefer that people made such CDs with themes like “What I Happened to Be Listening To While Considering Suicide” or “The Music They Piped in at Rehab”.

As a matter of fact, I will be writing to my congressperson, recommending legislation that says if you gave out a mix CD at your wedding, you are now required by law to make one for your divorce. Now that would be a good CD.

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Now playing: Graham Parker & The Rumour - That's What They All Say
via FoxyTunes

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Now playing: Squeeze - Up The Junction
via FoxyTunes

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Now playing: Brian Eno - Everything Merges With the Night
via FoxyTunes