Family Tree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roots:

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

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

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

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Branches:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Autumn Leaves:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Growth:

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

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

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

Secret History: 1970

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

More to come.

Jaybeephrenia: A Rock Opera

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

Or something like that.



Prelude/Intro/Medley/Overture:

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

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


Exposition:

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

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


Complication:

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

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

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

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


Crisis:

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

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

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


Climax:

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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.

Secret History: 1969

While recognizably great bands (the Beatles, the Stones, The Who) were busy making great albums (wow, didn't I say we were spoiled?) some other folks did it, too:

After two studio albums and another one that was a mix of live and studio recordings, The Grateful Dead finally break down and say What the hell, we're better live anyway, let's just do a live album. And "Live Dead" now works better on a single CD now because the first three vinyl sides should have run together anyway. They manage to spend over twenty minutes on "Dark Star" without ever seeming like they're noodling around. They improve on the studio version of "St. Stephen", and blow the roof off with "The Eleven" and "Turn on Your Love Light". Put that guy Garcia on your handy "Great Guitar Player" cheat sheet.

The Velvet Underground's self-titled
third album is quiet, but not mellow. Tuneful, but not pretty. Lou Reed proves that he's not a one shot wonder, writing more great, if sometimes chilling, songs. Very, very worthwhile.

How do you top "Music From Big Pink", a record lots of people thought changed the course of rock and roll? The Band's answer is the make a better one. I actually like their self-titled second album - the brown one - more than "Big Pink". There's less hype. Less Dylan, too. It's more melodic and more fun. It delivers - song after song after freaking song. My favorite? Once you get past the obvious classics, you still can uncover treasures like "Rocking Chair" and "Whispering Pines". I have to sit down!

Gram Parsons had crashed into the Byrd's and they would never be the same. After he leaves, he takes a couple of pieces with him to form The Flying Burrito Brothers, and proceeds to make "The Gilded Palace of Sin", simply one of the greatest country records ever. (Okay, I don't really know that. Sue me. Warning, geezer moment approaching. It's way more real than what passes for country music these days. See, I told you.) Anyway, back to Gram. What the hell else is he going to do? You just wait.

The Beatles went out in a blaze of thunder and grand philosophical statement with "The End", the finale of Abbey Road. We and the Stones finally figure out that "You Can't Always Get What You Want" at the end of "Let it Bleed". But after those two, my next favorite end of the sixties/end of album moment is "Pilgrim's Promise" which ends Procol Harums's "A Salty Dog". The first part of this song is pretty, with admittedly hackneyed lyrics, but then, just when you might say, oh, that's nice, it breaks into a snappy and yet stately piano theme with haunting wordless vocal. Perfect. The rest is merely excellent.

Way back in the sixties, most British pop singers were happy to just crank out variations of their first hit over and over again. And most of them were right to do so. Not Dusty Springfield. She somehow gets it into her head that she can sing soul music, and ends up doing a fine job of it, too. "Dusty in Memphis" contains
the hit "Son of a Preacher Man", but don't miss "Don't Forget About Me" – yet another unknown Carole King classic. Even Randy Newman makes an appearance or two. It's way better than anyone had a right to expect.

Meanwhile, Miles Davis is getting tired of watching all these young white people making money hand over fist making pop music, while he was merely reinventing jazz every couple of years. So on "In a Silent Way" he decides to cash in and adds an electric guitar and organ. It's still not rock yet, but it is one of the most accessible records you could ever get. It even flirts a bit with muzak but never quite gets there. And then, before you know it, woosh! It's gone.

When a group as great as Creedence Clearwater Revival can quietly make great record after great record, you know you must be living through some kind of Renaissance (take that, DaVinci!). On "Green River", John Fogerty's songwriting just keeps getting better and better, and the band is just as tight and rocking as a rock and roll band can be.


 
The Weirdness

Captain Beefheart is an acquired taste, to say the least. His double album "Trout Mask Replica" is his big statement, if you will. It's not quite the weirdest record I've ever gotten, but it's up there. It sure caught my then five year-old's attention. Supposedly a blank slate at her age, she still commented on it. ("Dad, those horns are kind of …loud".) With song titles like "Neon Meat Dream of A Octafish", "Hair Pie" and "Pachuca Cadaver" and music to match, you get the idea. But like gangrene, he grows on you. The spoken word "The Dust Blows Forward" is pure poetry, and you've just got to hear his "Moonlight in Vermont".


 
A Bang and a Whimper:

So that was it. With August comes Woodstock but by December, it's Altamont. And little did we know it, but for all intents and purposes, the Beatles were no more. (There was this great new song – "I Want You Back" - by a new Motown act the Jackson Five, though…). We were on our own now.

On a more personal (i.e., pathetic) note, instead of wildly celebrating like I thought a twelve year should, I passed the New Year sitting miserably in a relative's house, watching "The Joe Franklin Show", the so-boring-it's-hypnotic late night talk show. Not exactly the end of the decade, or era, I was counting on…

Secret History: 1968

Ahh, the Summer of Love ('67, in case you missed it) has by now ushered in the Age of Aquarius, and at the beginning of 1968, it's clear that everything is going to be just great. (No wonder I prefer music to real life.)

Let's start off with a couple of records that were really released in late 1967, but didn't make their mark until 1968:

First, there's Bob Dylan's "John Wesley Harding". I was going to ignore Dylan, but I really like this record. Now if he would only take harmonica lessons and I could forget Hendrix's version of "All Along the Watchtower", I'd say it was love.

And then there's The Who Sell Out, which is just my all time favorite album. Now when you buy it, you're going to listen to it once and say, what the hell? Will you please put it on again? And again? At some point, you're going to realize that the Tommy references are pre-Tommy references, the commercials are hilarious, and the ballads are as beautiful as any Pete Townsend ever wrote. And who doesn't like Heinz baked beans?

The Byrds kept pretty busy. When they weren't busy killing each other, they were making their two best albums. First, there's "The Notorious Byrd Brothers", which is an artful suite of tunes, the most famous of which – but not the best, mind you - may be Carole King's "Going Back". Then there's "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" which takes on country music, with great enthusiasm and respect, thanks to Gram Parsons. This is truly one of the highlights of the decade. Greatest American Band of the Sixties, you say? Hard to argue with you, sir.

And although I'll admit that "Moondance" has more soul, Van Morrison's
"Astral Weeks" is (warning: bs phrase approaching) full of jazzy poetic mystery.
It is also where
I first wondered
if Van was out of his mind. At first I was taken aback by all the growling, scatting and general weirdness. But it's clearly Van at his most hypnotic.

The Zombies scored early in the decade with a couple of great singles ("She's Not There" and "Tell Her No"), but then struggled for years for a follow up hit. "Odyssey and Oracle" was their last shot, but it came a little too late. "Time of the Season", didn't become a hit until 1970, two years after they called it quits. They deserved better, because this is a wonderful record. "Care of Cell #44" is brilliant, and a couple of others ("Hung Up on a Dream", "Brief Candles") are as good as anything else the sixties served up.

The Kinks could always be counted upon to create a brilliant side of music every year or so. And side one of "Village Green Preservation Society" is
one of their best ever. Side two was always their Achilles heel, and here they do wander off a bit to the village green. But that's the Kinks for you. But definitely worthwhile nonetheless.

And if you're as sick of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" as I am, you might want to try "Bookends" by Simon and Garfunkel. Besides "Mrs. Robinson", it's got "Fakin' It" and "America". Not too shabby, although I still maintain that Art Garfunkel is the luckiest man alive. At least Ringo can drum.

Spirit boasted
great
musicianship and excellent songwriting, if not the most electrifying singing. Maybe that's why their first record went by the wayside. They would later become more famous for "I Got a Line On You" and "Nature's Way", but this record is very fine. Check out the acoustic guitar of "Taurus", which Led Zeppelin "borrowed" for "Stairway to Heaven".


 
The Weirdness:

While the Beatles were telling us that All You Need Is Love, some people were having none of it. Frank Zappa being one of them, he felt the need to make his own heartwarming philosophical statement – "We're Only In it for the Money". Now I always found Frank to be a bit overrated. I always felt like I was supposed to like his stuff. Well, any record that calls out both the cops and the hippies appeals to the misanthrope (curmudgeon?) in me, and this is one record for which I'm happy to make the effort.

Back when Peter Rowan and David Grisman were hippies, they formed Earth Opera, whose first record sounded dated before they finished recording it. Slow, weird, and with weak singing. But there are tunes here. I think.


 
In sum, people were so inspired by all this great music that 1968 will always be remembered for its racial brotherhood, a curious dearth of assassinations, and peace in Vietnam.

Fire in the Garden

My son asked me early this year what band I would most want to see in concert.  I had a hard time thinking of anyone worth taking the trouble for.  Of course, “trouble” used to mean waiting hours on a line during work or school hours.  Now it means going on line and finding the exact seats you want, so there aren’t any excuses, except for the astronomical prices.  Green Day were relatively reasonable ($50 for good seats) compared to the outrageous (over a hundred) for the Black Eyed Peas. 

So what are my objections to concerts?

Well as a notorious cheapskate, I like to get my money’s worth.  I want a long show.  I described one of my first major disappointments (Eric Clapton) in a previous post.  Springsteen puts on a nice long show - you can practically take a lunch break during it.  And there are some where a nap is more appropriate.  By contrast, when I caught Elvis Costello in 1978 the big worry was that he was only playing for a little over an hour.  Well, those were the most furious 75 minutes I ever spent in a concert, and by the end I felt he gave us everything he had.

And the volume.  I’m all for loudness, but sometimes it’s not called for, and it can take a geezer like me a few seconds to even figure out what song I’m hearing.  The details - some of which I treasure - can get lost.  I guess I’m an album person.

And I can NEVER make out what anyone is saying.  When the singer has some clever patter between songs, and everyone laughs, I can usually be found asking my friends what was said.

But the real reason why I’m not willing to say that the show was great is because I’m a god damned perfectionist, pain in the ass, killjoy, buzzkill, Mother Superior, no fun at all, sit while everyone else stands and dances lameass.  While at a show, I’m constantly on guard for the thing that’s going to ruin everything for me.  I remember going to a Little Feat concert in 1978 and being so afraid of missing a SINGLE SECOND (I hadn’t seen them before), that I had gone to the bathroom three times before the show even started.

Then there’s the standing.  I used to not stand at shows, and learned how ridiculous that was.  I can recall shows where I’d rage against the people who sat in the front row, but still felt that they had to STAND UP.  What do you mean you can’t see?  You’ve got the best seats in the house!

And I’m always looking out for the basketball team/group of assholes that’s going to take its seats right in front of us just as the show is about to start. 

I won’t even tell you the evil thoughts that go through my head when people would scream or yell during the quiet songs.  Or when some jerk off yells for a song that you know they’re going to play.

Then I remembered the Arcade Fire.  Now that’s one band I’d love to see.  Word had it that when they  played it was with an abandon few other bands could match.  And sure enough, a few weeks later I found out that they would be playing locally.  And Spoon - Metacritic’s Artist of the Decade - would open for them!  Mrs. Jaybee and my son Michael were very happy to hear I got the tickets and I was pretty pleased with myself.

But then of course I begin to remember all of the things that make shows less than spectacular for me and my enthusiasm waned.  So much so, that before it actually begins I tell Mrs. Jaybee that this may turn out to be the “Inception” of concerts.

The show was opened by Owen Pallet, who used to work with the Arcade Fire.  He’s out on his own now, playing violin and using tape loops to “build” a performance right in front of you.  He would start by playing a motif on his violin that he would then sample (Geezer alert: sampling is the recording of a piece of music, legitimately or otherwise, for use in your own performance or recording).  He would play the “loop” (Young person alert: “loop” comes from tape loop, which was what you got when you recorded a sound or a piece of music and then spliced the tape in the form of a ring or “loop” so that when played, the sound would play over and over again.) repeatedly, and then play something else over it.  He would then sample that, and continue to add layer upon layer to it, sometimes with the violin and sometimes by singing.  There were some magical moments that only listening to a new artist can provide, then it wandered and sagged a bit in the middle, and then finally rallied at the end.  Overall, a very good performance by a new young artist.

Then came Spoon, whose 2002 album “Kill the Moonlight” is one of the best records I’ve gotten this year.  And even though they only played one song that I knew, they rocked really hard, and weren’t the least bit fazed by either the big venue or the headliners.  Britt Daniels appeared to be having the time of his life.  An excellent set.  So, what’s my next Spoon album going to be?...

Now it’s after ten, my wife and I are beat, so I tell her I’m afraid this is going to be the Inception of concerts, and on comes Arcade Fire.  Their first record was one of my favorites from last decade, their second, after an initial disappointment,  just kept growing on me.  They just came out with a there new record two days before the show, and we were still trying to absorb it.  (More on that record at another time). 

So, how were they, you ask?  Well, I sang at the top of my lungs through most of it, along with 15,000 other people.  That’s pretty rare given what a snob I am.  And some moments were, as my son put it, epic.  Like “Laika”, “Haiti”, “No Cars Go”, “Lies”, “Wake Up” and a new one “Sprawl II”.

But was it great?  I don’t know.  But I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a great show.  Okay, Springsteen in 1978 was great, and several others have come close.  But I think it’s an overused word and have resolved to only use it when I mean it.  So maybe the answer is no.

Why?  Maybe because some of the newer, mellower songs don’t quite fit into the typical ecstatic roar the Arcade Fire are known for.  What is a brave move for a third album isn’t necessarily a good idea when planning a show.  By contrast, “Laika” from the first album is kind of a crazy song, which was why it was so great in the show.  “Haiti” is a little more mellow, but they upped the ante for the show and Régine Chassagne really wailed on it.  

And even if the new songs turn out to be great, I need a little more time to take them in.  I can’t always appreciate them when they’re being played for the first time, especially at a show.  It’s a  mistake to release an album either shortly before or during a tour, but it’s one a lot of performers make.  Instead, they should put the album out, let it simmer in public for a while, and then tour.  But I really envy the people who are going to see them a few weeks from now. 

Maybe it was the distracting videos (which I guess is why they were there?).  Maybe they should have just trusted that their own frantic behavior during and between songs would be enough to keep us interested.

As to the show itself, I want to love every second of it, so every song that isn’t transcendent is a wasted opportunity.  For instance, why did they do “Crown of Love” - a perfectly good song, but a bit of a plodder - a strange choice for an otherwise ecstatic ritual?  Why not the faster/louder, “Anti Christ Television Blues”, or, if they felt they had to slow it down, what about or “Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)”?, or “Une Annee Sans Lumiere” with it’s fast windup?

But enough nitpicking.  There were more than enough wonderful moments at this show.  I think the real reason for my less than ecstatic reaction is that I’m fifty three years old, and that I came to the show after a long day at work, and that AF didn’t even come on until 10:15pm, which is when I am about to crash. 

What I’m saying is that I was TIRED, and the fact that I enjoyed it as much as I did is a real tribute to the band.

So I guess what I’m saying AF, is that it’s not you, it’s me.