Children of the Danned

They looked like insects, with no vibe coming from them. Like librarians on acid.****** 

Kenny Vance

The Book of the Music:

Did you see the "movie of the book"? (I don't really care. Just work with me on this, okay?)

I didn't name either a movie or book but you are nonetheless aware of the phrase and its meaning, which is when they (yeah, those bastards again) make a (usually shitty) movie out of a (pretty good) book.

I want to talk about the "book of the music". 

What's that, you say?

Quantum Criminals, by Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay (2023)

The music in question is by Steely Dan. The text* [Note to self: remember to trademark any/all other coin-able phrases identified here for future monetezation.] is by Alex Pappademas, and the drawings* * are by Joan LeMay.

Pappademas seems to know everything Steely Dan-related, musical or personal. He is painfully aware of this level of his obsession. Yet, it pays off. He is insightful, imaginative, and (very) funny. LeMay draws pictures, not only of the members of Steely Dan (itself a slippery concept) but also - crucially - of the characters in the songs***.

In fact, the book is structured around those characters, whose names emblazon the chapter**** headings. Some are based on real people. Some are real people. The rest are products of Becker and Fagen's twisted imaginations, all intersecting with the lives of Becker, Fagen, et al in some unlikely fashion. LeMay's drawings capture them in all their seedy glory and absurdity, thus adding even more humor and pathos to the occasion. (Actual photos would have ruined the bad vibes.)

Thus, making this one of the best "books of the music" I've ever read. If you're an SD fan be prepared to pull out your old albums to listen along as Pappademas gives his take on Hoops McCann and the El Supremo, the latter of whom I first thought was a person, I then read it on a can***** of the coffee we drink and thought it was that, and now I'm back to it being a person. So, it's an educational experience, too. 

A pretty great book of undeniably great music.

A

The Blog of the Music:

Speaking of which, since you didn't ask, here's my incomplete list of Steely Dan albums in order of preference: 

1. Katy Lied (1975) 

I don't know anyone who puts Katy Lied first, but there you are. It's got everything: great rock guitar, transcendent sax by Phil Woods on "Dr. Wu", sweet and sour singing by Donald Fagen, with occasional help from troublemaker Michael McDonald, dark/heartfelt/both lyrics. And a lot of beautiful music.  

Even a lightweight song like "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" serves to balance out the more soul-wrenching stuff, like "Any World I'm Welcome To". SD with their heart on their rolled-up sleeves, which is a ridiculous thing to say. What can I tell you? My very favorite albums get me to say ridiculous things.  

Great production, too. The book talks about this album as a great attempt at a sonic experience not  quite achieved. I can't imagine what that could have sounded like. 

A+

2-4. A tie between Can't Buy a Thrill (1972), Countdown to Ecstacy,(1973) and Pretzel Logic (1974). All different. All wonderful. 

Thrill is a great early seventies commercial rock album with excellent production. The songs still hold up. A

 

Ecstacy leans more into jazz (and guitar!) and as far as I'm concerned it beats all their later forays into that genre. A

Logic somehow balances all of these elements while keeping each song short and to the point. A 

5-6. A tie between The Royal Scam (1976) and Aja (1977).

Scam, while quite good in terms of execution, is slightly lacking in all the other categories, making it less than compelling. Long on SD attitude, but a little short on SD magic. The only great moment is the guitar solo on "Kid Charlemagne". A-

Aja is their Pretender. a commercial breakthrough that's good but overrated, at least when compared to what they'd accomplished before. A-

7. Gaucho (1980)

Ah, Gaucho amigo! Lately, you've been touted on various internet sites as their real masterpiece. I'd like to attribute this phenomenon to how "art speaks differently to us over time". but it's really more about the internet's voracious appetite for content, which forces it to run the same music through a seemingly random-best-of-list-generater, and then leaving it to some poor schmuck to somehow justify the results. (How about Neil Young's masterpiece Everybody's Rockin'???)

I'll admit to loving "Time Out of Mind", "Third World Man", and to some extent "Gaucho", but    the rest sounds like a band SD might once have mocked. (The Little Feat phenomenon?) One       song can act as a meta-comment or parody. Three or four is a puzzling end-point in their                 misguided quest to sound "sophisticated" (whatever that word means anymore). 

They were fans of 1950s jazz but by the time they were of age only had 1970's jazz to work with. Bad fusion would have been a disaster, but Quiet Storm is just Easy Listening to me. SD               embalmed. And for all that, pretty good.

At least Aja had uniformly excellent solos and highlights like "Deacon Blues". It's a shame it        starts with the infernal electric piano that Donald insists on playing. Give me that good old            unplugged piano he played on albums 1-5.

          B+

As you can see, I'm into early Steely Dan, which they dismiss as "juvenilia". I'd politely tell them to f*ck off but they'd just smirk. Plus, Walter already did.

This all led me to their reunion album. (Everything Must Go is not on my to-do list, nor are their solo albums, except for Donald's wonderful Nightfly, which ranks alongside SD 1,2 and 3.

Two Against Nature (2000)

My first thought was that I wished Donald and Walter still loved rock 'n roll electric guitar as much as they seemed to love jazz electric piano. The jazzy-in-the-worst-way riff three minutes into "Gaslighting Annie" is not appreciated.

The good news is that the singing and playing here are quite good. I do, however, miss the days when you didn't have to wait for the lyrics kick in before liking it. The music would hook you for life and you'd have the rest of your life to get to the words, which here are pretty straightforward, anyway.

Fagen's singing is technically his most skillful. More emotionally remote but also more humorous, and Becker plays a nifty guitar throughout-ish.

It's not as immediately catchy as their best stuff. But at least they're trying here. And it's snappy, unlike Gaucho, which - even now - is still just getting up off its ass.

At the moment in Jaybeeland it has bested Gaucho - not its high points, but way better than its low ones - and is now fighting it out with Scam. I don't see it beating Aja let alone any of the first four albums.

Overall, I could have lived a full, happy life without it, but now that it's here in my house, I'm glad.

A-

"Cousin Dupree"

EXPLANATORY NOTES:

         * text of the book (TM)

       ** drawings of the book (TM)

     *** characters of the songs (TM) obviously

   **** drawings of the characters of the chapters of the book of the music (TM!!!)

 ***** can of the coffee (you can have this one for free)

******  Oh, yeah, that quote at the top is from the man who would become Jay 2.0 of Jay and the Americans, giving his first impression of our heroes when he first met them. Long story. But let's break it down into three parts and assess:

1. Okay, fair.
2. Unforgivable!
3. All is forgiven.

The 13th Annual Jaybee-bies: 23 and Me

Alex G, Not Jesus C

Executive Summary:

Music: Pop good.  Jazz and Blues great.

Music/Personal: Still striving for competence on guitar. 

Personal: I'm a grandfather now, and getting close to retirement.

Politics: Too many wars, dictators, climate deniers, and general assholery.

Abstract:

Pop in a holding pattern.

Jazz strikes back. 

The Blues never went away.

Oldies make a comeback. 

Fascists making a comeback, too, and way too many people are okay with it.

(Note: Shouldn't abstracts be longer than executive summaries??)

Humans:

Best:

The same group as last year but with one addition:

• An ex-President - Jimmy Carter

Worst:

And the bar just keeps getting lower:

• Jim Jordan
• Tucker Carlson/Jesse Watters/Marc Levin/Laura Ingraham (what's plural for despicable?)
• Elise Stefanik
• An ex-President. You Know Who.
• The Usual Suspects

Best Books:

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead - Pre-Civil War slavery with a bit of fantasy thrown in. 
• The Known World by Edward P. Jones - Pre-Civil War slavery with no fantasy, or illusions, for that matter.
• Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe - The Troubles. F*ck you, Gerry Adams. 
• Quantum Criminals by Alex Pappademas and Joan Lemay - Steely Dan, for better or even better than that.

Best Movies:    

• Poor Things
• Oppenheimer

I'm sure there were other good ones, but I don't get out much.

Best TV:

• Ted Lasso
• The White Lotus
• The Bear
• Baby J
• Slow Horses
• Reservation Dogs
• Catastrophe

Suddenly I'm a couch potato.

Best Concerts:

None. I'm still waiting for one that's worth time/trouble/$.

Music Awards:

Most Work (But Worth it): 

• Various Artists: The Music of Erik Satie

Most Work (And Possibly Not Worth It): 

Educationally worth it, musically, not so much: all that time spent on Lou Reed, and specifically his first five solo records. Granted, it was wonderful to re-listen to the VU albums, and the good LR solo-ish records. But I was hearing those first five from scratch. And none of them cracked my top ten. Some way to spend the summer, huh?

Most Surprising (and Not Necessarily in a Good Way): 

But this year it is in a good way! (Lou Reed doesn't count, because I didn't have high hopes to begin with. Thank god for the Steely Dan book. I finally got to it after Christmas. I should have read it sooner. It reminded me of how they produced way more great music in the 1970s than Reed managed. They weren’t exactly summer breezes either but at least they had something to show for it.

Most Disappointing: 

The Dismemberment Plan: Emergency & I

Best Nostalgia:

Talking Heads: The Name of this Band Is Talking Heads - They really were a great band with great songs, just like I thought.

Best Artist: 

Miles Davis, due to sheer volume. 

I got ten (eight new) albums by him, and aside from Bag's Groove and Aghartha, I haven't gotten to the bottom of any of them yet.

The eight new ones came from two "Four Classic Album" collections. Here they are:

• Cookin'
• Steamin'
• Workin'
• Relaxin'
• Miles Ahead
• Sketches of Spain
• Porgy and Bess
• Elevator to the Gallows

I will get to this before I die.

Best Albums of My Year:

At first, I felt like I had to split genres this year because it seemed ridiculous to put Alex G ahead of Roots of Jazz Funk. But because I lean pop-centric, I'm enjoying Alex more right now. In a couple of years, though, who knows if that'll still be true? 

But goddamn it, my pop-democratic brain decided to mix them back up. The only true genre is Good, and that's subjective anyway.

1. Alex G: God Save the Animals
2. The Beths: Expert in a Dying Field
3. Various Artists: Roots of Jazz Funk
4. Galaxie 500: On Fire
5. Duke Ellington Orchestra: At Newport
6. Talk Talk: Spirit of Eden
7. The Smile: A Light for Attracting Attention
8. Miles Davis: Bag's Groove
9. Fleetwood Mac: Live at the Boston Tea Party, Vol. 1.
10. Thelonious Monk: Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 2

Honorable Mentions/Also-Rans/Tieds for Tenth: John Coltrane: Africa Brass, Forlorne: Daydream Hangover, Sun Ra: Lanquidity, Alvvays: Blue Rev

Oh, and Mrs. Jaybee's Favorites:

• The National: The First Two Pages of Frankenstein
• boygenius: the record

What can I say? She's way better at staying current than I am.

Best Compilations:

1. Ella Fitzgerald
2. Coasters
3. Billie Holiday

Album I listened to the most but had the least to Say About (Due to Density – Mine, not the music's.)

Erik Satie: The Music of Satie

Some of the best songs - including some great jazz - I heard this year can be found here.

Conclusions:

A new granddaughter has pushed my musical concerns back to somewhat normal proportions. A positive development I think.

Pop was good but not great, a crucial difference. It does make me wonder if I'm all Popped out. Maybe I'm at that point where I get off the fence and stick to finding great older records and give up on current stuff. I've felt this way before and what typically happens is that someone puts out a pop album that completely dominates my imagination. I hope it happens. I'd like to avoid geezerdom if possible.

Jazz and blues filled the gap. The former via new records and the latter by dipping into ones I already had, more or less. (Sorry that BB and Sonny Boy count as 2022 records I just hadn't gotten to yet.)

Still nice to still have a democracy. But I'm worried.

Blackstar 2: Kendrick Lamar Doesn’t Care If I Like It Or Not

So I guess I was lying about dinner with Kanye, but facts don’t matter anymore, so sue me.

It’s usually after dinner when the amazon $5 mp3s strike. They say don’t go food shopping while you’re hungry. I shouldn’t go music shopping when I’m full. It gives me too much endurance. Like Superman, I could climb tall record-store racks in a single bound. So paging through a few dozen pages worth of amazon mp3s is a snap. (But my advice is to stick to the $5 ones, the $3.99 ones - 400 pages worth - are a little sad, even for me.)

But it does give me more opportunities to catch up on this decade. It’s where I found an artist whose record will definitely show up on a lot of Best of the Decade lists.

And he’s already released a couple of new ones! So here I am, as usual, one record behind.



Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)

“Be honest. Do you really enjoy that album?” Mrs. Jaybee asked me today

It’s a fair question. Hip-hop isn’t a genre I’d ordinarily gravitate to. Plus, she must have found it funny to watch a sixty-year-old white guy listening to this.

So we both went through the album, rating each song from ick/meh/pretty good/great. And I showed her that my overall answer to her question was a guarded, but definite, Yes.

Not that Kendrick Lamar is losing any sleep over this. He’s got more important things on his mind.

But I’ll do my best to say why, with some half-assed observations based on my limited knowledge. I’ll use Kanye (as a crutch) for comparison purposes.

Like Kanye, when he bothers to meet me halfway, I enjoy it the most. I could swear he’s sampling Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues” on “These Walls”, but can’t prove it. (It’s really “Hit the Quan” by Iheartmemphis.)

And my oh my, what a cool piano on “What a Dollar Cost”!

And where Kanye’s always talking about himself, Kendrick, in talking about himself, is really talking about an entire community. So while any of us can have a good laugh over Kanye bragging or feuding with someone, For Kendrick, the stakes are just too high.

And while I enjoy the parts less where he doesn’t meet me halfway, there’s no doubt that it’s my problem. The samples he uses are almost uniformly unknown to me, which puts into greater relief how African American culture is doing just fine without me, f*ck you very much.

And as difficult and painful as the story is, by the time you get to “i” (sampling the Isley’s “Who’s that Lady?”) the joy is real and well-earned.

So while Kendrick isn’t as funny as Kanye he’s also less of an egomaniac.

And where Kanye uses rock n' roll on Fantasy as an obvious crossover move, Lamar gracefully deploys jazz because he likes it.

Kanye’s first album ends with a 12-minute monolog about getting a record deal, this one ends with a 12-minute meditation on what it means to be an African-American man in America. (Kanye tries to do this on Fantasy, but could only come up with a dated and sexist Gil Scott-Heron poem.

So I give the edge to Kanye on sheer entertainment value, Kendrick gives me much more to think about.

I don’t get all of this, by any means, but that’s on me.

B+

Secret History: 1975

What was the world at large listening to during 1975? Dylan, of course. Springsteen, or course. Me, too. I had a mixtape made up mostly of just the two of them. I played it during one of my senior class trips, which tried the patience of a classmate, who wanted to put on “Disco Tex and His Sex-o-lettes”. He’d have his revenge in a year or two.



But what was the year like? It’s hard to objectively say since so much seemed to happen to me. There was heartbreak, high school graduation, getting a driver’s license. I guess the normal stuff associated with turning 18.




Some memories: It’s January, and I’m trying to study for the regents, but the radio plays “Blood on the Tracks” all the way through. It’s the first time I’m hearing it. Then June, at the beach during another class trip, I hear “Born to Run” for the first time. Then hearing Springsteen live from the Bottom Line. Buying “The Basement Tapes”. Yeah, they pretty much owned the year.




But there were other records, too, and many that would become my all time favorites:



Well, there’s Neil Young’s “Tonight’s the Night”, but I already go on about that record far too much.



Then there’s “Siren”, by Roxy Music, where Bryan Ferry seemed to get the last laugh on Brian Eno, by making this not very weird pop record. It’s a great expression of his romanticism, and doesn't skimp on guitar either. “Love is the Drug“ is the "hit" but there are plenty of others that are just as good.




But, of course, Brian Eno is doing just fine, and “Another Green World” is another all time favorite. It's just too difficult to explain.




"Katy Lied" is probably my favorite Steely Dan album. It's got “Doctor Wu”, “Any World I'm Welcome To” and several other very emotional songs from a band that would normally be snickering.




“The Basement Tapes” by Bob Dylan and the Band, is probably the most consistent double album ever made. I can still listen to it all the way through without stopping. A lot of people just don't get it, but it's the perfect distillation of Dylan and Band at one time. So what if the sound is lousy? Just pretend you're listening to it on your old Victrola.






And here are a few records that I missed at the time, but I’ve been trying to make it up to ever since:




Newly minted respected author and photographer Patti Smith could actually get her first album “Horses” played on the radio back then, even though her band were proto-punks, and she wasn’t the greatest singer. In a normal year, she would have been called on all the hype she got, but remember this was the year of the Boss on the cover of Time and Newsweek. She risked looking ridiculous waxing poetic about “boney maroni”. But if you ask me, she holds up better than Genesis.




I couldn’t say if “Natty Dread” is Bob Marley’s best album or not, but it seems to be as good a place to start as any. The production is warm and intimate. It’s rousing and soothing at the same time. “Lively Up Yourself” is just wonderful.




Nils Lofgren had a few lives before becoming an E streeter, one as the leader of the band Grin, who I'll have to sample before I die. Then there was a short stint with Crazy Horse, and doing sessions with people like Neil Young. But he was also a solo artist. He's put out several records, but I've been told that his first is the keeper, and I believe it.




Nils runs through some high strung pop and rock. He's a really sharp guitarist with his own distinctive style. His songwriting is very tight, too. Highlights include “Back It Up”, Carole King's “Going Back”, and “Keith (yes that Keith) Don't Go”. To Toronto, that is, where our favorite rock and roller was in a bit of a spot with the police. My brother hates this record.




The Ramones first album might seem like a gaunlet being thrown down, but it's more of a beer can being squirted in your face. The suds get in your ears so the great production values ($6,000 worth!) are somewhat muffled. No sensitive singer, no guitar solos, can you blame me for hating them on principal? Plus, there was so much other great music going on that I didn’t realize that it was all dying. So I didn't get around to even trying them out until 1979.




Dolly Parton managed to put together another “Best of”, and it’d only been five years since the last one. This one’s just as good, too. Beautiful voice, great songwriting.




If you knew nothing of New Orleans – and I didn’t at the time – you could look at the cover of the “Wild Tchoupitoulas” and feel like you were getting Native American music. As it turns out, you’re merely seeing the band decked out in ceremonial garb for Mardi Gras. And the music inside is as simple and fun as any you’re likely to hear. This is a great place to start to learn about New Orleans music. Not for snobs, though.




Which narrative do you believe about Keith Jarrett? The one that says he's hardly a jazz musician at all? Or that he completely clears his mind of any musical thoughts before a concert, and does pure improvisation? “The Koln Concert” is a great way to make up your mind. Sixty five minute of just Keith playing his piano. The sound is amazing.






Whatever else it was, 1975 was also the beginning of the end for what would later be known as classic rock. Anything else that was good was being forced further out onto the fringes, only to come back and haunt good old rock and roll for years to come.


And like I said, although it isn’t thought of as a great year for music, I still considered it one of the best. But I’m open to the possibility that for once life made music better rather than the other way around.

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.

Secret History: The Seventies – Feat Fetish, or Half-Life of a Genius

Perversity:

I was doing the laundry the other day and decided to look up the word fetish. (It was on the extra rinse cycle.) Actually I was trying to think of a clever title for this post. (What do you think?)

Anyway, amongst the less fun definitions of fetish is the following:

       any object eliciting unquestioning reverence or devotion.

This sounded a lot like when I’d “get into a band”, which was when I’d choose a band and methodically buy their records, one by one, until I got at least one too many. Groupies did much the same thing, except they’d have intercourse with each band member until they had one too many STDs.

Now, this isn’t quite the same as “complete-ism” which is the methodical collection of every single recording by the artist, bootlegs and all. Those people know that not everything they get is going to be great. But the occasional finds make it worthwhile. The fetishists grimly buy each official release, record after record, hoping the next one will be better than the last.


Feat First:

This happened to me with Little Feat in the ‘70s. Never heard of ‘em? Don’t worry about it. A lot of people haven’t. And if their music didn’t eventually become bland enough for Americana radio stations to pick up on, they wouldn’t have heard of them, either.

Little Feat was formed by Lowell George, a one time guitarist with Frank Zappa, in 1970. Their most famous song during the early part of their career was “Willin”, but not even their own versions - they did it twice. Instead, it was Linda Rondstadt who made it kind of a hit. (I don’t know why I have such a problem with Linda. She made a lot otherwise obscure singer-songwriters famous. Oh, THAT’s why. Just kidding, they weren’t all bad.)

The first time I heard of Lowell George was on Jackson Browne’s “Your Bright Baby Blues” (from “The Pretender”, the beginning of his Lame period). Lowell played slide guitar on it, which I immediately resented since I missed David Lindley. He also co-wrote it and sang. Looking back now, I think it’s one of JB’s best songs.

And if I looked a little closer, I would have found Lowell George’s name on the back of about half of the records coming out of LA at the time.

This finally sank in in 1977, when Little Feat officially hit my radar. Friend Billy walked into the bar (no joke) and told me he was still feeling a high from the record he just listened to - “Cold Cold Cold/Tripe Face Boogie”, from “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now”. That was back when I could still take bar opinions about music seriously.

Another, very cool, friend Petey, who was big into Frank Zappa, also began to murmur good things about Little Feat. In the same bar, of course.

Then, while thumbing through an old Rolling Stone, I saw an ad for, you guessed it, “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now”, with a blurb that said that they were “the best band in America”. I didn’t take personal offense to this like I used to, when I was certain that the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead were the two obvious best ones. Instead I was intrigued enough to look into them.

There was a time in my life when I would have gone about this in an insanely orderly way, starting with their first record, and proceeding from there. For once, however, I took a strictly hedonistic approach to it, just looking for good records.


My First - Their Fourth - and the Best:

As was usually the case in my beta max life, while punk rock was exploding around me in the early summer of 1977, I picked up “Feats Don’t Fail Me Know”, which was their fourth record, and to me, their peak, released in 1974. At the time, they had just released their sixth, “Time Loves a Hero”, which was a minor hit.

In typical first listen fashion, it all went by in a blur. It was murky and funky (the band was interracial, something rock bands weren’t too good at in the seventies) where I was expecting loud, and then manic just as I was getting a grip on of it.

Lowell George was the coolest dude on earth, whose wacked-out, stream of consciousness liner notes rivaled Bob Dylan’s. His slide could be as intense as Duane Allman’s, even if he didn’t have Duane’s chops. Plus, with songs like “Oh Atlanta”, I assumed I was listening to a Southern rock band. And the lineup resembled the Allmans in a superficial way - two guitars (one slide), two percussionists, keyboards, etc. But the rhythm was very stop and go, and the songs were less bluesy and more funky. More New Orleans than Macon.

It was easy to understand friend Billy’s excitement about “Cold/Tripe” (yummy!) Over ten minutes long, it starts as a dirge but keeps getting faster and more intense as it goes, until the rip roaring and funny slide guitar flourish that climaxes the record.

But it was side one that eventually won me over. Pretty soon, this record was on heavy rotation - to the point of obsession - on my stereo, if not on the radio, but that’s an old story. These guys were definitely worth checking out further.


My Second - Their Third - and Very Good:

In the fall of that year, I picked up “Dixie Chicken”, their third, which again reinforced the southern rock impression. Although a little slicker than “Feats”, it still had the intense rhythmic interplay. It's just a notch below “Feats”. It’s got a very mellow “Roll ‘em Easy” (I really like Linda’s rockin’ version.) and the brilliant “Fat Man in the Bathtub”.


My Third - Their Second - and Very Good:

Right around Thankgiving of that year, I picked up their second album, “Sailin’ Shoes”, and was immediately entranced by the chiming guitars of “Easy to Slip”, and the melody of “Trouble”, but now I’m hearing a very different band. I see on the cover that there are only four of them, and one of them is new (old). The slide is less obvious, and the songwriting is more central, and odder, and with drug references galore. There are earlier, stranger versions of both “Cold, Cold, Cold” and “Tripe Face Boogie”. I’d learn later that Little Feat didn’t have a problem rerecording stuff when the mood hit them. This is supposedly the great Little Feat album – the perfect balance of strange, funny and strong songwriting - “Texas Rose Café” is the epitome of this - but I still preferred “Feats”.


My Fourth - Their Seventh - and Not Bad:

Come 1978, and they came out with a live album - "Waiting for Columbus" - which wasn’t bad, but it had that loud concert-y sound that loses some essential details or blows them way out of proportion. Around this time, I finally caught them live a couple of times. I was shocked to see that Lowell George was, well, a big guy, and I began to understand their lack of success. In his white overalls, he was referred to as the “Pillsbury Doughboy of Rock and Roll”. But big guys couldn’t be cool. The first show was more or less a retread of their live album. The second time around was more of a real show, with a lot of great music.


My Fifth - Their Fifth, too - and …Good:

So I kept on, getting “The Last Record Album” (#5), which, while not brilliant, is very representative of their overall sound. Certainly worthwhile, but not essential.  Friend Petey's favorite, though.


My Sixth - Their First - and Excellent!:

So I no longer trusted where they were now, and decided to go earlier, to their first album. I’d understand if you wondered why I didn’t stop, but that’s a fetish for you. And it turns out that everything is cranked up a notch here. The lyrics are more surreal and Lowell George’s slide is positively fearsome. There’s a good imitation of Howlin’ Wolf, some country, like “Truck Stop Girl” (also done by the Byrds), “Takin’ My Time” (ditto Bonnie Raitt) and “I’ve Been the One”. Then there’s the beautiful “Brides of Jesus”. Overall, my second favorite.


My Seventh - Their Sixth - and Kinda Boring:

I almost forgot “Time Loves a Hero”, which is the most sensible reaction to it. Not bad exactly, but you can feel the half-life ticking. It’s got a sheen, but almost no spark.


Suspended Animation, and Death:

After that, I’d occasionally see them in the oddest of places – Hollywood Squares (I swear). Their manic drummer, Richie Hayward would play with Robert Plant for a while. If an album were recorded in LA at the time you could virtually guarantee that at least one of them would be on it. Around the same time, Lowell George released a solo album that only occasionally showed his talent. I caught his show at the time, which wasn’t bad, but he was very into New Orleans music at the time, and I wasn’t. A week later he was dead.


My Eighth - Their Eighth - and It’s Nearly Over:

By the time “Down on the Farm” comes out (late 1979), the original spark is nearly gone, and my head has now been turned by punk rock and new wave. Little Feat’s time had passed, but truthfully, it had passed before I’d even gotten into them. I think I got this one for Lowell’s sake.


Number Nine - Number Nine - Number Nine….

In 1981, my girlfriend got me a collection of their stuff – “Hoy, Hoy” which is a perfectly respectable record, with moments of genius, but that would be the last time I’d enjoy their music.


Cold Feat:

I occasionally catch them on the local Americana station, pushing some new product. They’d usually have a Lowell George clone on hand to play slide. That just gave me the creeps.

The pieces had now all fallen into place for me. They had started as a very weird little band, carrying influences equally from Howlin Wolf, Captain Beefheart and the Band. They progressed through other configurations and styles, occasionally hitting sheer brilliance. But along the way, while polishing their rough edges, they fell for the canard that said in order to be a great band you had to play “sophisticated” music. Steely Dan did much the same thing. They loved Weather Report – a jazz fusion band – and aside from Lowell George, wanted to be like them. This resulted in some very dull music, like “Day at the Dog Races” – a record Lowell actually refused to play on. He had a better – though hardly perfect - idea of where they should be.

For moments, they were a great band. Their stuff has been covered by everyone under the sun. But their own day in the sun never came. And they kept on, way past the point of true inspiration or relevance.

And I guess I can’t get too upset at guys who’ve been going at this for forty plus years. For two of those years - I loved them.


But it’s over.

Decade: 2001

Winter:

In the cold January of 2001, what does one do with the balance left on his record store gift certificate? If you’re me, you get obscure depression era folk music – to cheer yourself up.

Okay, so maybe it's not party music, but I found great comfort in Harry Smith’s Anthology of Folk Music. This six CD set covers the odd - sometimes very odd - folk songs that floated around this great country of ours during the twenties and thirties. It kicks off with a singer who makes Grandpa Jones sound like Tom Jones. Of course, it’s about the perfidy of wimmin. From there, we get to thwarted love, misunderstood outlaws, murder and fiddles, in various combinations. The cast of characters includes Stagerlee, Frankie and Johnny, President Roosevelt (the second one), John Henry, King Kong and God. How do you feel about old people singing? I ask because everyone here sounds old. But I'll bet none of them were over twenty five at the time. And every once in a while, there’s the odd lyric you could swear you’ve heard before. And you did, because Bob Dylan “borrowed” it.

Valentine’s Day:

I somehow rated a present that year, and got Ken Burns’s Jazz – Charlie Parker. It’s easy to go wrong when trying to get a good compilation of a major jazz artist, but this single CD sounds fine to me. Parker was a brilliant improviser, with major chops, who, along with Dizzy Gillespie, revolutionized jazz. How did they even think of songs like “Koko” and “Salt Peanuts”, let alone play them?
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Now playing: Charlie Parker - Salt Peanuts
via FoxyTunes

Take This Job and Shove It:

Around this time I changed jobs, and decided to stamp this major life event with new music. (I did something similar when I tried my first slice of anchovie pizza, and got Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies.)

Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew had been calling out to me since it came out in 1970. I held off because I suspected that it would be one of those albums whose reputation was greater than the actual music. Overrated, for short. I can’t possibly appreciate it for what it represents in the evolution of jazz. It’s kind of like trying to appreciate sound pictures when you didn’t live through the silent era. So, yes, to my ears it’s overrated, and you can get a shorter, sharper sampling of similar music on the great A Tribute to Jack Johnson.

Then there was the Fugees’ The Score, which was a bit out of my reach at the time. Stressful times call out for soothing, familiar music. The Fugees were neither, and so I put it aside. Now, eight years later I’m hearing it more, but neither cover (“No Woman No Cry”, “Killing Me Softly”) sounds different enough from the originals for me to care much. Good, not great.

Earth Wind and Fire’s Greatest Hits - If you asked me what type of music I didn’t like in the 70s, this would be it. Rhythm, horns, a male vocalist singing in a high register, style, commercial appeal, etc. - all no-nos for an awkward teenager like me. But this isn’t bad at all, their version of “Got To Get You Into My Life” notwithstanding. “September” is simply undeniable. If you don’t like it, check your pulse. And the rest is much better than I ever realized.

Father’s Day:

I invoked the rule “have someone else buy something for you that you may never get around to getting on your own”. This resulted in Nirvana’s “Unplugged”, which is a good record with some great moments, but only “On a Plane” offers something different from the original version. “Where Did You Sleep?” is the grim highlight at the end. Miss you, Kurt.

The Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers” held up very well, even if I didn’t need to hear “Brown Sugar” or “Bitch” ever again. “Sway” and “Dead Flowers” are great, “Moonlight Mile” is a classic, and “Wild Horses” just never seems to tire out.

The Calm at Labor Day:

So there I am in my favorite downtown record store, only up to the B’s when a bunch of firemen burst in. Oh no, I’m thinking, how hot and smoky would it have to get before I aborted? It turned out to be a smoke condition down the block, so I got back to my obsession.

Two weeks later, these very same firemen would get a call that would be anything but routine. Did even one of them make it out alive, I wonder? But in the meantime, I, not knowing what was about to come, really enjoyed playing the CDs I got.

Like the gentle folk and noisy guitar extremes of Yo La Tengo’s “Electro Pura”, which is almost as good as their masterpiece “I Hear the Heart Beat As One”.
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Now playing: Yo La Tengo - Tom Courtenay
via FoxyTunes

Then there was David Bowie’s “Hunky Dory” (link) a pop record from before his stateside fame.

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Now playing: David Bowie - Life on Mars
via FoxyTunes

Van Morrison’s “Bang Masters” is okay, but it’s really just an awkward stepping stone between Them and “Astral Weeks” (which I’m still waiting to be remastered).

And although I don’t think you can ever have too much noisy guitar, Archer’s of Loafs’s “Vee Vee” and Sleater Kinney’s “Dig Me Out” made me rethink my position. While both are good, neither could quite win me over. The latter was a particular disappointment since I’m a big fan of their previous one “Call the Doctor”.

Massive Attack’s “Protection” opens with the fantastic title song, but the rest of the record just can’t keep up. It averages out to pretty good, but the strings bug me. Better was Tricky’s subsequent soundscape “Maxinquay”, which offers no hint of salvation.

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Now playing: Massive Attack - Protection
via FoxyTunes

Thelonius Monk’s “Brilliant Corners” is considered the one to get by him. It’s very good, but I have several others records by him that I like even more. (Misterioso!)

But the one that got me through the time after those first two weeks was the wonderful, spacey voice and chimy guitars of Luna’s “Penthouse”. (link) What was pretty before 9/11, also seemed regretful and resigned after it. Perfect for 9/12. And I wouldn’t be able to listen to anything else for a while. (Hell, I heard a guy blasting Enya out of his car that week. Even I couldn’t blame him.)

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Now playing: Luna - Moon Palace
via FoxyTunes

Embers:

It took a pre 9/11 BMG order, arriving in late September for me to finally get a CD that came out this decade – Outkast’s “Stankonia”, which is a perfect example of music that isn’t in my favorite genre (hip hop) but that even I can tell is great. This fast, funny, wordy and often thoughtful CD is what I put on when I’m in the mood to take on a difficult book. (link BOB, Ms. Jackson)

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Now playing: OutKast - Ms. Jackson
via FoxyTunes

My wife had to console herself with Andrea Bocelli, and if you have to as well, please get Sogno, and not that power ballad collection disguised as Euro-sophistication Romanza. Christ.

Thanksgiving:

John Coltrane’s Blue Train was a disappointment at first because the title track turned out to not be that amazing song I heard on the radio twenty years ago (which I’m still trying to track down). But I’m past it now, and this is a very good record - as good a place to start getting into Coltrane as “My Favorite Things” which I got at the end of the year. Some day I’ll find that song…

Then there was Iris Dement’s “My Life”, which my family can’t stand because of Iris’s country vibrato and the traditional-type melodies that scare off the city folk. Otherwise, it’spractically flawless. But it takes an effort, and I’ve got enough to do around the holidays. But if you're feeling like you don't matter in this world, listen to the title song.

Christmas:

So I retreated to comfort music, and replaced some vinyl, by getting the Velvet Underground’s “Peel Slowly and See” and Citizen Steely Dan for Christmas.

The surprising thing is that I gravitated to Steely Dan, instead of the Velvets. Considering that the former set had virtually no new music on it, you'd think I would have tired of it quickly. But it was the latter, with the extra, and often unnecessary, new stuff that put me off. And how could they leave off the official live double album, and "She's My Best Friend", one of their greatest songs? And did we really need a whole CD of demos of five songs? On the other hand, the remainder is some of the greatest rock and roll ever made.

I guess I was priding myself that my black-as-ink outlook would enable me to handle the infamous subject matter of both bands. Not so. Steely Dan was practically sweet in comparison. And as much as I wouldn’t admit it, I needed sweet.

The Best:

• Anthology of Folk Music
• Luna - Penthouse
• Yo La Tengo-Electro Pura
• Charlie Parker
  

Two years into Our Decade and I’ve only gotten one record – Outkast - actually released in it. And I admire that record more than I love it. I guess there were worse things at the time, like the f’ing world coming to an end.