Tantamount to Treason Volume 1-- Michael Nesmith's Overlooked Gem

In a couple of hours I'm going to take the 12 minute walk from my apartment to downtown Northampton, like I've done a thousand times before. But I won't be going to work, or to play a show, or to buy a bottle of wine or to the ATM. I'll be going to see Michael Nesmith play a show at the Iron Horse.

Until I started this essay last night, I was having a hard time getting genuinely excited for this show. This was worrisome. He was and is among my favorite singer/songwriters etc. But to tell the truth, for the last two weeks, I've been on a huge Beach Boys binge. Really. As in, Nothing. But. Beach. Boys.

Now,  I've liked the Beach Boys forever, but I'm diving deeper and obsessively reading forums and articles and blogs. I've adopted a few new favorite Beach Boys songs, like "Celebrate the News", "Steamboat" and "How She Boogalooed It".

It's all been very satisfying and educational and has made me very happy, but I wonder if part of it is a defense mechanism so that I don't get too excited for the Nesmith show. Could be.

Prior to the announcement of this tour, like around the New Year, I went through a week or two of obsessing over the two 1975 Nesmith UK bootleg shows that are findable online. They're great, and led me to also seek out and fall in love with the original 1975 mix of The Prison, which, in my opinion, is a much more enjoyable listen than Nesmith's 1990 remix of it. Perhaps in 1990, the Roland drum machine and 70's production were embarrassing to Nez, but I think now, they'd be seen as pretty darn cool--much cooler than the shimmery New Age gloss he replaced it with.

I've had the idea for this essay for a couple weeks now, but just in the last couple days have I encountered things that lit the fire under me:

1) Compiling a personal "Best of" culled from Nez's UK shows in 1974 and 1975. I used my bootleg version of the ZigZag Concert, to keep the sound quality consistent and bootleggy. So much good stuff, however, Nesmith, as he's wont to do,  talks A LOT, veering between funny and bizarre, friendly and lecture-y, self-important and self depricating,  singing wonderfully and playing some nice solo acoustic guitar. It got me to thinking how, through all this talking, it seems like Nesmith REALLY wants everyone to be on his level--which at that time was all about universal love, but on a clear-headed level--not a idealistic, naive level. Also, stuff like awareness and cosmic consciousness. Anyway...

2) The other thing that motivated me was hearing this new 9+ minute song by The Minus Five. Wow. I'll leave it at that. Give it a listen.

I have a draft of a much farther-reaching Nesmith essay that I started, but it was going nowhere, covered ground I've already covered, and besides, I wasn't feeling it--until I got to the part of the essay that concerns perhaps the most mysterious album of Nesmith's career:

"It rocks, it socks, it soothes, and it erases the tension of modern rock country's frenetic ennui."
--Rolling Stone Magazine review of Tantamount to Treason, December 23, 1971.

"The one I (album) listen to least is 'Tantamount to Treason,' although it is probably one of my best."
--Michael Nesmith, from an interview in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, April 9, 2013. 


A brief timeline, for context:

1969: Nez quits the Monkees after 3 years.

1970: Forms the First National Band with pedal steel guitarist Red Rhodes, bassist John London and drummer John Ware. Those three had been Linda Ronstadt's backing band (along with Bernie Leadon) the year before. FNB release three albums in very short order:

July 1970: Magnetic South
November 1970: Loose Salute (the best, in my opinion. everyone should own this one.)
May 1971: Nevada Fighter.

All in all, 22 Nesmith-penned songs and a handful of cover songs. "Joanne" and "Silver Moon" were moderate hits, but the albums sold very poorly. 

The FNB broke up during the recording of Nevada Fighter, and Nez got James Burton, Glen Hardin and Ronnie Tutt (all from Elvis' band) to fill in. Not bad.

So, then came The Second National Band's debut album, Tantamount to Treason, Vol 1.
(there was never a volume II). 

 This album is often glossed over in Nez's career overviews, if mentioned at all. It's sometimes referred to as "odd", "misguided", "meandering", "weak" etc. This is usually a sign that the writer hasn't actually spent any time listening to the album. Because it's none of those things.

I think that this album might be one of the few times that Nesmith released something that sounds perfect for the time in which it was released. Perhaps this was conscious, so that he'd finally start selling some records and be accepted by the serious rock fans of the day.
If this was the tactic, it didn't work. Or perhaps he was already in the middle of recording, and thus, more excited about, his next album, out the same year, And The Hits Just Keep On Comin', which is the polar opposite of Tantamount (just acoustic guitar and Red Rhodes on pedal steel), and which contains songs Nez has kept in his live rotation ever since. Whereas, except for some "by request" versions of "Wax Minute" in 1974-75, Nez seems to have chosen to not even regard any of Tantamount as worth mentioning. A shame. I think "In the Afternoon" would be mesmerizing live.

(Funny, one song on And the Hits... that I never could get with was "The Candidate", until I realized that musically, it's the one musical bridge between his two 1972 albums. Now I dig it a lot. "The Candidate" seems to have come from the same musical pod--as in peas and as in aliens-- as "In the Afternoon". Anyway...)

I've read that RCA hated Tantamount to Treason, and thus didn't hype it (boy were they dumb to not hype it) It was strike four. against Nez. It also seems as though Nez didn't tour behind the album. Oh, man...if that band took the Tantamount sound on the road...woulda been something.

Anyway, Tantamount sold as poorly as his last three albums, so, Nez ironically titled the next album And the Hits Just Keep On Comin'. 

How to describe Tantamount to Treason? Well, it seems to be the first time Nez decided to "let it all hang out" on a record. He's having fun. Or maybe he was miserable and was "forcing the mirth", or whatever he warns his audience not to do during one of his between-song lectures at the 1974 Zig Zag concert. Miserable? Nez? Why? Well,  let's count the possible ways: 1) Three strong albums in 18 months had not sold 2) the good reviews in such rags as Rolling Stone didn't endear him to the hip demographic--or any demographic 3) The First National Band broke up  4) his marriage to Phyllis came to an end, and 5) according to this article, he was arrested for weed in Colorado.

Here's a picture taken around the time of Tantamount (I think). At least, it kind of sums up the vibe of the album:

 By the way, the only other Nez album that seems to reflect a desire to get out of his head and have mindless fun is 1979's Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma ("all I wanna do is dance and have a good time.."). But that seems to be more of a Malibu disco and blow vibe, though I have no way of knowing what Nez was up to behind the scenes in those days.

Where was I? Oh yes. What does Tantamount sound like? I'll take you song by song, but on the whole, well, it sounds like 1972. 1972 seems to be when "the 60's" ended. 1972 seemed to be the breaking point for those teetering on whether to let their freak flag fly or not, even if just for a moment. A prime example being Neil Diamond's unhinged Hot August Night. It was perhaps the last year for many of the 60's rockers where the balance between work and play was in check, and the drugs still worked for bands like The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead, both of whom had new songs coming out of every pore and membrane that drugs couldn't get into. The Beach Boys suddenly had two South African guys in their band (Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chapman, invited into the band by Carl Wilson), contributing more, musically and vocally, than some of the original members and getting the band into some serious grooves that sounded nothing like The Beach Boys. Neil Young was entering a dark and creative phase. CSN had long since peaked and splintered. Lou Reed had been rescued and redefined by Bowie. The Kinks were reinvented as theater glam rock. Weird, transitional times.

There's a recording of Nez appearing live on KPFK, Los Angeles in 1972 doing a solo "Joanne" and he sounds rather loose and care-free (read: a tad high?) especially compared to his serious, deep between song patter in 1974-75. As I've said before, this album, to me, reeks of weed. I even think that the beer recipe on the back is to distract from this fact ("Ain't nothing illegal here! Just good ol' suds!"). But the music inside smells sweeter than barley and hops.

Nesmith live in1972

So, why is this album so unique? Well, for starters:

--who are these dudes in the band (besides mainstay Red Rhodes on the pedal steel)? Where did they come from? Where did they go? Keyboardist Michael Cohen plays like Thelonious Monk meets Little Richard meets Keith Emerson. Drummer Jack Ranelli (hey, another Italian drummer!) is the loosest, grooviest drummer Nesmith ever played with. Polar opposite of the atomic clock of John Ware.

--Jose Feliciano on congas? But. I. Don't. Understand. 

--the cover features sewage and junk floating in water that has apparently risen almost as high as the Statue of Liberty. In the background, rainbows outline some mountains, and a rather stoned looking drawing of Nez looks at us from the top center.

--the back cover features Nesmith's recipe for beer.

Now, the songs. 

The album kicks off with Nez's heaviest riff ever and a lusty, un-Nez-like lyric about a "Mama Rocker" who's "pickin' up the music and passin' out the favors". I wonder if this is about Marianne Faithfull, who Nez once described as the "rock and roll mama of all time" and said he unabashedly flirted with her at the Beatles "A Day in the Life" recording session? Besides the heavy riff, the music is a heavy Chuck Berry-esque 12 bar boogie with a great distorted pedal steel solo. Nez still wasn't a guitar solo guy at this point, and in fact, there is a solo section that is just his electric rhythm guitar, bass and drums. To my ears, it sounds a lot like Keith Richards circa Exile. I love Nez' rhythm guitar playing. Check it out.

Mama Rocker



 Next comes "Lazy Lady", which introduces a theme that Nesmith returns to a few times in his next couple albums--I believe it's the dissolution of his marriage. Or a "subject/object trip" as he describes in the ZigZag Concert. See also: "Tomorrow and Me", "The Upside of Goodbye", "Release" and "Continuing". All five seem to be Nesmith consoling himself and the woman in question. Trying to put a happy and brave face through the turmoil.  Composition-wise, it's sort of a half-realized song, in my opinion. Good verses, but then the pedal steel break seems to recycle that of "Thanks For the Ride". It's the only song that could have been on any of the FNB albums--except for the fact that there's a trippy Moog fading in and out, and Nez' acoustic is drenched in echo.
Also worth noting is that the title is never sung in this song. However, "Mama Rocker" DOES mention the "Lazy Lady" TWICE. Hot damn. 

Then, another anomoly in the Nez canon: "You Are My One". The lyrics? Look no further than the title and repeat about 20 times. Halfway through, insert a jam on Nez's cool four-chord progression (sort of the stoned cousin of "Calico Girlfriend") with some trippy pedal steel and some loose-ass drumming, and you wouldn't be blamed if you thought this was an outtake from the first Jerry Garcia solo record (also from 1972) or The Dead's Wake of the Flood from 1973. Then there's the "Shhh/Peaceful"/"Riders on the Storm"-esque electric piano... It's perfect driving-with-windows-down-on-a-perfect-summer-day music. Preferably with a mountain somewhere in the near or far distance.

The first side ends with yet another oddity: "In the Afternoon" paints a vividly dusty picture of a tired ranch hand at the end of his sweaty workday. It's wordy (your average ranch hand doesn't use words like "domicile"), it's trippy, it's expansive, it's got a two-songs-in-one structure (in a way, it's like Carl Wilson's "The Trader"--slightly awkward, but works beautifully in the end) and by the end of the bridge, Nez is singing at the very top of his range. In some ways, it might be the seed of The Prison. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a metaphor for Nesmith's post-Monkees life:
"Turn and dig your heels in the road/Don't be bound or trapped by the old/Take from the past what you need/To Give to the new life you lead.." See what I mean? Fuck the Monkees, fuck the critics, learn from your mistakes and keep on keepin' on (which he reminds himself on his next album).

In the Afternoon




Side Two is made up of all non-Nez-penned songs. It starts with the one song I always skip, but I will listen to now, to refresh my memory: "Highway 99 With Melange", written by keyboardist Cohen.
The beginning is cool, and Nez seems to be revisiting the "cut and paste" method of the beginning of the Monkees' HEAD soundtrack. There are snippits of other cuts from this album fading in and out before the song starts with an early Little Feat type groove. But it doesn't stay there long. Nesmith talk/sings a story about wanting to get with his best friend's lady while riding in a broken down car up Highway 99. The music is willfully messed up--speeding up, slowing down, skipping beats, adding beats... I've given the song a few chances, and I just can't do it anymore. Too "kitchen sink". Sorry, guys.

Next comes what might be the best song on the album--"Wax Minute", written by semi-obscure Canadian singer songwriter, Richard Stekol. You wouldn't be blamed if you thought it was a Nez song, with its break-up theme and non pop-song words. The band absolutely gels on this one. Cohen and Red Rhodes exchange solos that start melodic and descend into insanity. Nesmith's vocal delivery is one of his best on record. The way the song fades when it seems Nesmith hasn't finished what he's singing is a bit odd but lets the listener down gently. Jose Feliciano's congas are awesome on this. You will dance to this one and you will enjoy it.

Wax Minute




"Bonaparte's Retreat" is an old fiddle tune from the late 1800's which was turned into a country standard after Pee Wee King's hit version in 1950. It was covered by Glen Campbell and Willie Nelson among others. However, only Nesmith's version features a free form jam in the middle. It's pretty neat. The beginning is jarring, though. I think the mastering on this album is a bit off--at least on the CD version. "Wax Minute" always seems too soft and "Bonaparte's Retreat" seems too loud. Or maybe it's too loud because I turn it up during "Wax Minute".

Hey, you know Bill Chadwick, right? Look at your Monkees records and you might see his name.
He tried out for The Monkees but didn't make it. He hung around, became Micky's stand-in (see why in the photo below) and ended up writing or co-writing (and sometimes playing/singing on) songs like "Zor and Zam", "French Song" and "You and I". Nesmith tapped him for a great song called "Talking to the Wall", which is next on side two. In fact, in 1969, Nez produced Chadwick's version of this song for a single that is now extremely hard to find. I'd love to hear it. I said, I'D LOVE TO HEAR IT.  Excellent song, but I feel a bit sheepish when it comes on because I realized (too late) that I kind of ripped off the opening riff for one of my songs. Still, it's a spooky little downer of a song with a great pedal steel solo and nifty 12-string electric work by Nez.

Nez with Bill Chadwick on the set of The Monkees.

At the end of this trip comes a very sedated, 3 am-sounding treatment of George Jones' "She Thinks I Still Care".  Best version of this song by anyone? Yes. I will say it loud and proud. From Nez's opening guitar riff to his most impassioned singing on record to the solo section where...the....tempo....drags....
In any case. Yes. Excellent way to end the album. All the west coast country rockers should have bowed down to Nez after hearing this one. Fuck them.

She Thinks I Still Care




Some semi-coherent, kitchen sink closing remarks--

 It's impossible to guess what path Michael Nesmith's career would have taken had he not been cast as one of The Monkees. We know that live performance has never been his natural thing, and that he was one of many young songwriters in LA in 1966, and had achieved some success. So, perhaps he would have been a faceless songwriter whose name would be recognizable only by those who care about writing credits. Perhaps he would have been a Byrd. Perhaps he would have become a hotshot young producer.

Amazingly, these are all things he did to varying degrees even WHILE he was a Monkee (yes, he was a Byrd for one gig in 1968. See THIS post). But he would have been able to do so without any stigma of having been a TV star, a Teen Magazine fixture, and have spent much time on the top of the charts.
Nesmith tried to be underground in an environment in which such a thing would be impossible. So he rebelled, giving his songs incongruous titles, having Frank Zappa on the Monkees, putting very uncommercial songs on Monkees albums, and looking pretty unhappy in most Monkees pictures.
He figured out pretty quickly that his career had been hijacked. That he, this multitalented, proud, ambitious Texan, had been used and spat out, left to spend his last year as a Monkee playing to dwindling crowds, while the albums that were featuring more of his innovative country-psych were barely scraping the top 50. And no matter how he tried, how much he tried to distance himself from the pack o' Monkees, he wasn't being featured in the underground press alongside the other young innovators in pop and rock.

As far as I can tell, Nesmith never blamed the Monkees for his lack of solo success. There does seem to be some quirks in his character that didn't allow him to achieve all that he deserved (as a singer songwriter. Of course, he's achieved quite a bit in quite a lot of fields. Thus, it's hard to define the guy). Perhaps it's ADD--one source has him taking Ritalin during the Monkee years (when it was a pretty new drug).
Of course, this is all my usual arm chair psychology, but damned if I haven't thought about this a bunch.

I think that, as independent-minded as folks like Bob Dylan or Neil Young seem, they did have their extremely hands-on managers carefully guiding their image and disappearing when the cameras and microphones arrived. 

After The Monkees, Nesmith was probably so shell shocked from all that had happened over the last 36 months, that he wanted no one telling him how to sound, what to wear, who to appeal to...
And this seems to have continued to the present (though I think only recently is he accepting his fans' love and understanding why they--we--love what we love).

Possibly, it would have been great if, after The Monkees, Nesmith had a symbiotic relationship with a manager, like Neil Young and David Briggs, or Springsteen and Landau, who could have artfully explained Nesmith to the music world.

Instead, he made seven wonderful records in five years, each selling close to nothing, while he played a series of questionable gigs that did little to expand his fan base.

As "defiant" and strong-willed as Nesmith seems to have been, he also seems to have developed a few defense mechanisms to keep his pride in check. Nez knows how awesome he is, and it must hurt to be derided again and again. He played a gig with The Byrds, and was heckled. The First National Band played a festival with the Flying Burrito Brothers and were laughed at by the fucking band (who, live, couldn't play their way out of a paper bag).

But he pressed on, with a confusing persona that mixed a slightly "I'm smarter than you" attitude with an uncontrollable urge to lapse into self-depricating humor. The Monkees experience left him with an intense need to explain himself and define himself to whoever would listen. But then, turn people off with arrogance, and then try and get them back with humor and then take a left turn to somewhere no one expected, or was willing to follow him to.

And all he needed was to shut up and play his music. Because from 1970 to 1975, Michael Nesmith was not a film maker or an author or a virtual reality innovator--he was just a singer/songwriter with an arsenal of great songs (and sometimes a record producer). Unfortunately, he had The Monkees on his back, and all the mixed messages he gave off were just the result of having survived that experience and being hell bent on leaving it in the past.

One possible reason why I think some folks don't "get" Nez is the lack of passion in his voice. He almost always seems above-it-all. He's not curled up in a narcotic or hungover ball with a microphone hanging over him. Nesmith sings his own lyrics in either a detatched croon or a slightly lecture-y way, which is underscored by his use of unlikely (for pop lyrics) words. Gram Parsons could make folks cry singing "Rubber Ducky". But Nez singing his own sad songs still sounds like him reading from a text as opposed to spilling his guts.

There's a snippet of conversation on that mini movie that comes with Bert Janch's 1974 album L.A. Turnaround, produced by Nez, in which Jansch is heard saying something about squeezing so many syllables into a measure--we don't know the context of this statement, but, given that Nez is sitting across from him, I wonder if Bert is critiquing his producer's songwriting.
If anything, I'd like to think that Jansch is referring to the verse in "The Upside of Goodbye" (from And the Hits Just Keep On Comin') that goes:

So the bitterness that usually set in was effectively undone by the girl's uncommon grace
And the thrust of the experience was the enrichening and lively sense
She gave to my life and to it's pace 

This is how you can tell a non-English major. More is not more.

In any case, hearing Nez sing about love lost is not as moving as hearing, say, Leonard Cohen or Jackson Browne or Gram Parsons or Neil Young. In fact, the most emotional Nez sounds on any song I can think of is on the cover of "She Thinks I Still Care".

 This is related to another reason why perhaps Nesmith wasn't championed as a leader among 70's singer/songwriters: his defiant, proud, always-ready-with-a-joke, but-dropping-intellectual-concepts-that-he-knows-are-over-everyone's-heads tendencies just didn't jibe with the sensitive, sincere, pour your guts out, confessional vibe of 70's singer songwriter music.

This photo (from the inside of And the Hits Just Keep On Comin') sort of exemplifies Nesmith's hard-to-understand-ness in the 70's.




Now, this picture is hilarious, right? But it's also weird, creepy and disturbing. There are a few levels to it. It reminds me how Nez ends one of his 1975 shows by saying "Thanks, I've enjoyed it on a few levels". He wants everyone to know he's a complex, thinking man and possibly too smart for this rock business. But as soon as you think that, he'll tell a joke and accentuate his Texas accent. Nobody wants to be reminded how smart the person they're listening to is. You want to just know it and learn from it.

Damn. I really didn't want to start getting all critical. Especially over music that came out the same year I did. I guess I just want to show that I totally understand why some people who love other great music just can't get into Nez. At the same time, I can't understand why they can't.

I've tried for so long to get friends, girlfriends and musician friends into Nesmith's music. I've made so many mixes to state my case. "Yeah, he was a Monkee, but he hated it and punched a wall and was responsible for them becoming a real band". "He is just as responsible for country rock as Gram Parsons". "He released 6 excellent albums in three years following the Monkees".

But there's always a roadblock. Nez is unpredictable.  Peter Tork referred to him as a "contrary bastard".

Nesmith himself wrote "You and I travel to the beat of a different drum". It's a song to a woman, but it could easily be to his fan base. In other words, "I'm not gonna be the rock star you want me to be".
More to the point, on 1992's Tropical Campfires, Nesmith wrote a song called called "I Am Not That", in which he lists dozens of things that he is not and ends each chorus by saying that he's not even singing this song. He's refused to be pigeonholed and thus, we've gotten things like a New Age album in 1994  (Grammy-nominated The Garden) and a drum machine/synth/flashy guitar album in 2005 (Rays). I've tried and failed to enjoy these albums and I'm OK with that. Yes, it'd be nice if Nez had a grip on why people love him and followed that road--perhaps a Rick Ruben-style production on a Hits Just Keep On Coming vol 2 (I'm sure that will never happen).

This ambivalent feeling of Nezhead-dom is exactly what the Minus Five song is about. We love him and know that he's awesome, but goddamn, he's done some stuff that makes it hard to explain to others why you love him so much. And you know what, that in itself is awesome. 

A personal history of Robyn Hitchcock fandom

I'm happy to dedicate this entry, my first in an embarrassingly long time, to Robyn Hitchcock, who will be turning 60 years old this Sunday, March 2, 2013.
Before I begin, I would like to hype an event that is happening on his birthday, and which inspired this post: a multi-artist tribute (oh, how Northampton loves those!) which will take place this Sunday, March 2 at the Parlor Room, on Masonic Street, Northampton, MA.
Starts at 7:00.  Doors at 6:30.  $10.  BYOB.
Robyn will not be there, but many of your local faves will (and, why yes, I have a great twofer planned with Sitting Next to Brian).
And, proceeds go to Valley Free Radio, which is awesome so supportive of local artists. Let's give back, shall we? 

The first I ever heard of Robyn Hitchcock was around 1988 when my sister was at the height of her high school Deadhead phase and had a subscription to Relix Magazine. I believe they published a review of Globe of Frogs which piqued Alyssa's interest, since just a year or two before that, she was listening to anything considered post-punk/college rock etc and had no doubt heard Robyn on WFNX or on a college station. She was still a big REM fan, and the review probably mentioned that Peter Buck guested on the album. So this was a collision of good things.
Why was Robyn, and not, say XTC, Morrissey or The Cure, being reviewed in Relix Magazine? Because he'd gotten the seal of approval from the Dead's inner sanctum.
It's a convoluted tale, so let's let Robyn himself tell the story.
This is an excerpt from an interview a then Boston-based journalist named Dave Carroll did with Robyn in 1989:

CD: Speaking of odd relationships, there's a picture that's been going
around in the music trade magazines, taken backstage at the Oakland
Coliseum, of you, Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. How did that ever come
about?
RH: Well, they were there. They were watching the show. (listen to that show here)
CD: Are they fans of yours?
RH: Well, they did one of my songs, "Chinese Bones", with Suzanne Vega
at Madison Square Garden, and Jerry said his daughter or his daughter's
boyfriend was a fan. They seemed to enjoy it, actually, and he's really nice
chap, Jerry Garcia. He's on the case, you know? He's not an old spaceball.
He's very humorous and self-deprecating. He said, "Ha, took us twenty
two years to get a hit record.", he chuckled away. He's quite fast as
well. I thought it would be like talking to someone who was moving through
a bowl of viscous fluid, slow motion and things, but not at all.
CD: Seeing you with the two of them flashing peace signs--some people
were in a state of shock over that picture.
RH: It was my idea, actually. Yeah, it was just a great--I thought, "We've got
to do this!"

(if anyone knows where to find that photo of Robyn w/ Garcia and Weir, please let me know in the comments! i've googled and googled and...nothing.)

 I've already discussed the Garcia/Vega connection in a previous blog.

Robyn has been known to cover the Garcia/Hunter 1970 classic, "Candyman",
not to mention Dylan's "Visions of Johanna" and Paul McCartney's "Let Me Roll It", which Garcia also covered at various times. 






In 1989, when I was in the habit of programming my parents' VCR to watch Letterman, I taped one where Robyn (and bassist Andy Metcalfe, relegated to background "oooh"s) did his current (and still great) single, "Madonna of the Wasps", which Boston's WFNX was playing a whole bunch. Look closely and I'm pretty sure Robyn breaks a string in the beginning of the opening riff--then during the solo goes and tells Andy and Letterman guitarist Sid McGinnis. By the way, 1989 was a great year for live music on Letterman--at least for a 16 year old in Nowheresville.





I'd begun to read more about Robyn and, of course, the Syd Barrett comparison would always come up. 1989 was the year that I discovered and became obsessed with Syd, so to have a modern day artist who had a bit of a Syd thing going on...well, now I just had to find out more.

First off, I borrowed a Soft Boys album, Two Halves for the Price of One, that my sister had brought home from U Mass. It was live on one side (including a cover of Syd's "Astronomy Domine") and a studio EP on the other (including "Where Are the Prawns?" and "Only the Stones Remain"). I put the album on a cassette that had Syd Barrett's Opel on the other side. Loved it but kept it to myself--no one I knew at the time was into Robyn.





In spring 1990, I borrowed Queen Elvis on cassette from a friend (by then, I knew a couple people who had his most recent couple of albums), and put it on the other side of my dub of Dukes of Stratosphere Psonic Psunspot. I was getting out of my retro psychedelic party of one and into the current day, and this tape was one of the roads I took to get there. Basically, I had to be able to accept 80's production and this helped me with that--big 80's reverb on the drums...on everything, really. It just bummed me out, the way that girls with big perms did. 1990....But if the music (or girl) was cool enough, it could be overlooked.

For a little while I stopped listening to Queen Elvis because I associated it with a teenage bummer night. It was a spring night in 1990 and I drove around for a couple hours with Queen Elvis playing on repeat (the borrowed, not the dubbed cassette) while the girl (who did not have a perm) in the passenger's seat and I sat in silence. Not in a cute shy way or a "this moment is perfect without words" way or a "let us not interrupt the genius of Robyn" way. More of a "it was a mistake to hang out tonight, but neither of us wants to go home" way. Meanwhile, Robyn sung about the Veins of the Queen, the devil poking his blood red horns out of his food, and...matching the mood perfectly, venting at a girl who likes someone else better ("Freeze"). After that song, "Superman" always seemed silly--but was my companion's favorite.
I also remember it being a wet, warm night, when running over little frogs was an inevitability. I made a lame joke about it being a "globe of frogs". Not appreciated. Bad night.

Not sure about you, but I usually can't appreciate a sad song unless it hits home. In the early summer, suffering my first real heartbreak, I realized what a sad song "Autumn Sea" is, while I used to just think of it as "that ballad with the funny spoken bit in the middle". Now I thought of it as "that unbearably sad song with that stupid spoken word bit in the middle". Tables turned.

That fall (still in 1990), my sister, now living on State St in Northampton (with one Joe Pernice as a housemate), called one night and said "Robyn Hitchcock is coming to the Iron Horse! Wanna go?"
It was "visiting prospective colleges" time for me anyway (senior year) and so this seemed a good excuse. My friend came along who wasn't too familiar with Robyn's stuff, but was happy to come along. He liked the song in which Robyn says my friend's name (I'll let you guess, since Robyn says lots of names in his songs). Anyway, under the pretense of visiting U Mass Amherst, we arrived in Northampton, "pre-gamed" and went to the Iron Horse. Four years later, I'd be playing on that stage. Today I can say I've played on that stage dozens of times. Next month I'll be seeing Michael fucking Nesmith playing on that stage. But that's another story.

Opening for Robyn on this night was The Jody Grind. The main thing I remember about them was a song where the vocalist, Kelly Hogan, sung the alphabet. Really kind of jazz/soul/quirk/pop if I that clears it up at all. (not long after this, I was stunned to hear their name mentioned by Kurt Loder on an MTV News break, regarding half the band dying in a van crash).

I bought a t-shirt that night, designed by Robyn. It said "I'm growing Betsy in a bag"--a line from "Satellite", off of his recent album, Eye. In college, I gave it away to a girl named, you guessed it, Wanda.
No, a girl named Betsy. Which is good, because that means it didn't burn in a fire like all my other old stuff. So perhaps it's still out there. It looked like this (but without the autograph):

Anyway, we loved the Iron Horse show--it was October in Northampton, which is a great month for feeling chilled and maudlin and poetic, and that's exactly the kind of show Robyn gave. Plus, we saw him afterwards on the street, walking with some Chinese Lantern flowers. Too perfect.

Little did I know that at least two people who would be (and still are) very important people in my life were also there: Ken Maiuri and Henning Ohlenbusch.  If someone that night gathered up Robyn, Henning and me in a room and said, "in the year 2005, you three will be photographed playing music together in a small club a few yards from where we are now. Oh, and Lloyd Cole will be watching in the picture", I'd point to Henning and say "who's that guy?"

HAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Then what? Oh, I really didn't get into Globe of Frogs until the summer of 1991. That was a really fucking hot summer, and a really great summer for me. Just graduated high school, had two bands I was psyched about, had cool friends...
The tapes that lived in my car that I blasted on those scorching days and groovy nights tearing up the back roads of North Andover, were The Pixies' Surfer Rosa, Dinosaur Jr.'s Green Mind, The Cavedogs' Joyrides for Shut-Ins, Throwing Muses' The Real Ramona, XTC's English Settlement, and Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians' Globe of Frogs.

So, the last day of that summer, I went into Harvard Square to buy some clothes for college, and, the brand new Robyn CD, Perspex Island.
Did I like it? Eh...it reminds me of saying goodbye to the little hometown gang of misfits that I spent most of the previous 18 months with. We all hung out, played music, dated, blew our minds, listened to and talked about music, watched movies and music videos, hung out in parking lots doing all of the above, hung out in Dennys and Friendlies drinking pots of coffee and smoking tons of cigs...Them days is done. I regret nothing. Well...maybe some things, but nothing of import.
It was the end of an era that will always be with me. And Robyn can't help if I got teary whenever I heard "She Doesn't Exist Anymore", while a prime time TV montage of girl faces floated by, most of whom really loved me... as a friend. (Yeah, I was that guy. Too nice--though at the time I interpreted it as "gross and undesirable." A self image I kept for a long time. Made me a better drummer.)

That spring, Robyn and the Egyptians played at Pearl St in Northampton, with Matthew Sweet opening. This is another show where people I didn't know then, but would get to know quite well in a few years, were in attendance.

I really loved the 1993 single "Driving Aloud", but didn't buy that album. This was the start of formulated grunge and jock-i-fied alt pop displacing smart jangle pop, and those not willing (or too proud) to change were dropped from their major label deals in favor of timeless bands like Sponge and Eve's Plum.  

In any case, in the spring of 1995, I was in a band called Sourpuss with Ken Maiuri, Todd McMurray and my sister Alyssa. We were psyched to hear that Robyn was going to do an in-store at For the Record in Amherst! We were even more psyched because we were doing an in-studio at WAMH in Amherst the same day, and thought "hey, maybe Robyn will tune in!". I doubt that happened.

I was a faithful journal keeper in those days and I found what I wrote about that whole experience:

April 9, 1995: 
A year ago--well, 370 days ago-- Kurt Cobain was still alive, Todd was living at home, Alyssa wasn't in a band and none of us knew who Ken was. If you had told me then that on April 9, 1995 I'd be playing with my band Sourpuss on WAMH and meeting Robyn Hitchcock on the same day, well...(I'll spare you the rest of that sentence, for it reflects the mind of an overworked 22 year old writing in his private journal).

Unfortunately I have very little memory of what he played that day. The only thing I remember, oddly, was some between-song spiel about psychotherapy being another form of suicide and no worse than drug addiction. Or something like that. It seemed to be coming from somewhere I wasn't yet ready to go (again, I was only 22). I had him sign my copy of Perspex Island, which I don't have anymore.
Fortunately, I did take a photo that has survived....

Robyn Hitchcock at For the Record in Amherst, MA. April 9, 1995.

Incidentally, my next entry in said journal reads as follows:

April 17, 1995: 
10 months, 17 gigs, dozens of songs and one 7" later, no mo' 'puss. (Sourpuss, that is).
(only ten months!? I was also a full time student at U Mass and a part time Stop and Shop employee with a girlfriend and a social life. Thank god I kept a journal because I remember little). 

Oh well.

When I met and started playing music with Henning Ohlenbusch, our shared Robyn fandom was always a source of musical bonding--still is. I remember one Aloha Steamtrain show where he and I did an impromptu version of "Superman", joined by Joe Bartone on Hammond B3, while Lord Russ changed a string or got a drink or something. 

In 1998 or 1999, Henning and I went to see Jonathan Demme's Storefront Hitchcock  at Cinestudio, Trinity College, Hartford. At the time, I was underwhelmed--or maybe it was a mix of two geniuses that didn't taste great together.
Much like when Robyn and Andy Partridge co-wrote a song that was 5x blander than either of their blandest stuff. You can't have two eccentrics share authorship. They cancel each other out.

Hey wait...I think I heard that somewhere before:

Chicago Tribune,
May 29, 2009: Mark Caro's Pop Machine column

PM: What was the driving force behind (Andy and Robyn's songwriting collaboration)?
Partridge: I liked him. I got together with him one day to write something for an album of his, and we came up with about six ideas, one of which he finished up, and it was called “[‘Cause It’s Love] Saint Parallelogram,” and he put that on an album of his. He is so quick witted, and he is a very creative fella. No sense of rhythm. He’s very creative. He just grabs stuff from the air, which I find very stimulating because that’s kind of how I tend to work as well. So to some extent it was like dealing with a mirror reflection of myself creatively. Maybe this is why the thing is not happening. Maybe we’re too alike.
PM: Except for your work habits.
Partridge: No, no, I like to get in there and get working, and we’re doing an album, let’s do it. But I think he’s addicted to globetrotting by the sound of it. I don’t know. Like I said in my e-mail, it could be that thing where it’s two forces that get together, one fire and one ice, and all you end up with is lukewarm water.

Lukewarm Water, exhibit A:



Then came that night in 2005. Henning was asked to open for Robyn at the Iron Horse. He also borrowed his black Telecaster--hey Robyn often played a black Telecaster!
And the weirdest thing was, Henning and Robyn wore very similar outfits.
No, that wasn't the weirdest thing. The weirdest thing was that I ended up playing drums for a slightly drunk (by his own admission) Robyn at the Basement later that night when a slightly more drunk Chris Collingwood convinced him that I was someone that Robyn needed to play with. I'll forever be thankful to Chris for that.

Here are photos from that night, taken by Debbie Way:

And here's how I described it the next day on The Living Rockumentary:

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

I think that Lindsey Buckingham should start a band wth Morris Windsor called The Castles. Morris Windsor, anyone? Anyone? Respond to Your Own Rockumentary.

Right, so Robyn. Here goes.

I met DWay at the Iron Horse. What a rainy walk it was. They started to seat us upstairs. Hmm...haw...what else you got? The very front+center table? We'll take it (why didn't you offer that first?)!!
Ugh, we may have to sit with strangers...NO! It's Rick and Sarah! Groovy! Get me another V+T and let the show begin!
Henning did a perfect job. Striped shirt, red pants, glasses. The chip joke went as follows:  He said it was so quiet, he could hear all the eating sounds. And something about instead of the audience requesting songs, he could request different eating sounds. Just then, Sarah bit into a nacho real loud. Henning asked if the show was being recorded, and if so could someone send him a bootleg MP3 of that awesome version of "Chip"

So, Robyn. Just the parts Henning didn't mention or experience.

Striped shirt, purple pants, vest.
my friend MZ saw him in Brooklyn a few months back and mentioned how it was all request. I thought "how special". Well, I guess that's just how he does things these days. When he took the stage he invited everyone to write requests down. Because we were next to the stage, Rick and Debbie were the cut-off people who would then relay the napkin/note paper onto the stage.
I requested "Cynthia Mask" and "Wax Doll".
When he got to my napkin, he said "oh, those are nice" and played "Cynthia Mask". He said "I'm sure I played this here in 1990" (at the show Ning and I were at)
As he was reading one of the napkins, a woman behind us whispered discreetly "it looks like he needs reading glasses" and Robyn said "he does".

Later he did a funny monologue in which, when you get home from the show, your pet gerbil (who gets turned on by the sound of a guitar tuning) asks you "did he play any Soft Boys songs?".
This prompted me to draw a rodent on a napkin, asking "Did he do 'Where Are the Prawns?'", which Debbie did not just put on the stage, but nudged it (while he was out in the auduence doing the medly) on top of one of his pedals. Unfortunatly, he was, by then,not reading the napkins anymore.
It was awesome seeing him play Henning's guitar, and I realized, on Letterman in 1989 he also played a black telecaster (I just found that old tape and transfered it onto DVD--but I swear he breaks a string at the top of the song)

But he did note that he had no Republican fans, and thus felt ok doing his new song "Everybody Knows Dubya Sucks (and Rumsfeld is the Antichrist)".

OK, over to the Basement. Groovy of Lloyd for inviting him over there, and many thanks to Chris and Henning introducing me to Robyn and telling him I'd be playing drums (well, not telling him, but they kept strongly suggesting it).
It was cool, as I was mostly sequestered in a corner talking to Bezo and Debbie, to look over and see Ning with those three rock stars..
I imagined that Robyn was the 5th Gay Potato, having replaced Philip (sorry Philip).

So after a few Open Mic acts, and a few rounds of drinks, Hebert introduced RH to the stage. How friggin' surreal. He began with Bob Dylan's "Please Mrs. Henry", one of the funniest things in Dylan's catalog--from the Basement Tapes (this was his 3rd Dylan song of the night, including Gates of Eden and She Belongs to Me at the Iron Horse).
Then he invited the Gay Potato Three up on stage. We did the following:

Waterloo Sunset (the Kinks)--I can't believe I'm playing one of my all time favorite songs with one of my favorite songwriters. I think it went well. At the end he segued into the end of Syd Barrett's "Arnold Layne". Damn, I'm in heaven.

Something (the Beatles)--I layed out on some of this, and played lightly. Robyn looked back at me one time when I stopped, so I took the high road and assumed he meant "come on, then". So I stepped it up a bit for the bridge and last verse.

Some sort of weird drunken dialogue over the mic with Chris happened here. I can't remember what it was, but Robyn started singing like Buddy Holly. So, I started playing the "Peggy Sue" beat (tom rolls). Robyn took the cue and said "yeah! Peggy Sue!" so we did that. Pretty good.

I think here, Robyn went on some rant about how drugs aren't good for you. Then he thanked "Mr. Brian on drums--not drugs".

We then ended with "Happiness is a Warm Gun". When we got to the part towards the end where like the bass plays in 3 but the drums play in 4, I felt conflicted and thus played kinda wrong. This didn't get past RH, so he incorperated me into the lyrics "when I hold you in my arms, and I feel my finger on your trigger, Brian, no one can do me any harm".

I'm glad I'm posting this now while all these little details are still swimming around. It was a total thrill, and I ran half the way home I was so excited.
I really didn't think I could feel such a thrill at my advanced age. Thanks everyone.

PS: Just a couple more drippings from the Hitchcock show
1) when I told him I'd requested Cyntian Mask he said that that and "my Wife and My Dead Wife" were his favorites of the evening.
2) MY favorite was "Chapter 24". Seeing him play such an obscure Syd/Pink Floyd song, and such a cool piano arrangement..I couldn't stop smiling.
3) I really wish Max and Ken could've experienced the evening.

Damn. I haven't read that in a long, long time, and totally got the same feeling over again--at even a more advanced age.  

Anyway, happy 60th, Robyn, thanks for a couple decades of memories, and I hope my medley of "This Could Be the Day" and "The Queen of Eyes" goes down well on Sunday.  

DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK...

 ...just call it one or more of the following: make-up; dancing lessons; a mullet; rehab; a pastel blazer.

TOPIC: 1980's video breakthroughs by artists who debuted in the 1960's.

The irony is not lost on me.
Had I posted this blog entry, oh, six weeks ago, I could have afforded to bring the snark. As in, "here's your super productive music blog guy back again, and this time, we're here to look back in amusement at the period in a certain generation of artists' careers in which they, despite having more than proven their artistic merit for the previous 15-20 years, found themselves bowing to the cheeseball conventions of the time. Pastels, drum machines, dancers...MTV and 80's pop culture...blah blah.."

Then I'd possibly riff about these legends having to play the MTV game if they were to keep their mansions, antique cars and pay their lawyers, rehab bills, etc.

But here I am, the one recently so bereft of inspiration, who hasn't posted in, what, two months? And finally returning with a fluffy, obvious topic, and one which,  I'm sure, has been done before, and better, by other writers.

I am Robert Plant, and this is my new single,  "Tall Cool One".
(stay tuned for why "Tall Cool One" isn't on this list after all). 

Whatevs. The point is, these artists did come back.
And so have I..

..And in my defense, I was actually writing, but in other areas. Like new songs and stuff.
But what I will plea guilty to is chipping away at this entry over the course of the last six weeks, and completely losing focus, as you may notice below. Wait--Who am I apologizing to?

As I state in the title of this entry, DON'T call it a comeback. I should say that, to their credit, these artists didn't resist the times. A good portion of their generation were also proudly donning mullets and Don Johnson duds to keep them feeling young. Those who didn't want that still had Family Ties' Steven Keaton (played by Michael Gross) to have as a role model.

Don Johnson. 80's archetype for Jagger, Winwood, Daltrey and Robertson.

Michael Gross. 80's archetype for Crosby, Garcia, Dylan and Davies.

I will now say that I don't presume that most baby boomers were looking to prime time TV to guide their fashion choices. It's just that I was watching a lot of TV in the 80's, and my own parents were too old to be baby boomers. Thus my view of what boomers were up to in the 80's was/ is completely informed by what I saw on TV. Not even cable TV. We didn't get that until 1990. So to be honest, when I mention seeing these videos as a youth, I was actually seeing them on either V66 or daily afternoon shows like Hot Hit Video with Bill Smith. MTV was only seen when I was over a friend or band mate's house. 

For every one of the below examples, there was another artist who would have killed to have successfully crossed over from FM to MTV, but was relegated to nostalgia shows or mid-sized clubs. For every Eric Clapton, there was an Eric Burdon. For every Monkees, there was a Turtles. For every Stills, there was a Furay. For every Robbie Robertson, there was a Richard Manuel.

Management, luck, discipline, desire, willingness to kiss butts and play the game...there's kind of no one definitive reason why those who weathered the 80's, did. But they did, and at the time,  I was at an age where they seemed old, but not embarrassingly so. 

And in many cases, they crossed a necessary--if sometimes embarrassing in retrospect--bridge that afforded them a very nice artistic license as they cruised toward the sunset in the 21st century. They were just doing what it took to survive. Plant had to experience "Tall Cool One" to get to his Grammy in 2008. Paul McCartney had to do "Broad Street" to get to his amazing revival in his last several albums. For these artists, the 80's was their mid life crisis. The generation that thought they'd change everything was now being told what to do by RISDi grads half their age (if they were lucky).
How did they weather it?


Criteria: Song+Video: where does it stand in the artists' greater work? What did I think of it at the time and what do I think of it now?

Rating System: 1 to 5

A "1" means it DEPENDS on the past/the artists' legacy and/or FORCEFULLY/SELF CONSCIOUSLY EMBRACES the 80's. (Don Johnson/Miami Vice mid life crisis.)

A "5" means the song stands up and the artist is fully aware of the fact that this bizarre video is just how the game is played now. They aren't trying to fool anyone. (Michael Gross/Family Ties dad who has happily changed with the times, but still embraces his 60's values.)

note: as the writing of this dragged on, the above criteria began to get a bit slippery...


Santana-Hold On (1982)
song: 4
video: 5

We all know that "Santana" is basically a name brand. Any song with a cowbell and Carlos Santana playing a guitar solo means that the song can be on a Santana album. Doesn't matter who wrote it (probably not Santana). Doesn't matter who's singing (definitely not Santana). It's Santana nonetheless. I don't know how that all works, but it must be some karmic reward for something. I will not listen to any of the formula crap he's been doing since the 90's. Who am I kidding? I don't listen to Santana, period (though I do like "Hope You're Feeling Better" from Abraxas.)
But I do think that this song has a killer chorus, and is early-80's enough that despite its undeniably 80's video, the song could be from 1978. And Carlos maintains his dignity in the clip.




The Rolling Stones-Under Cover of the Night (1983)

song-5
video-5

Oh my. Just to let you know how sporadically I've been chipping away at this entry, I'll tell you that before settling on this video as the definitive representation of The Stones' entry into the MTV era, I had 1989's "Mixed Emotions" (too "comeback"-ish), then 1986's "One Hit to the Body" (too....not really The Stones), and 1981's "Waiting on a Friend" (too not-quite-80's). But "Under Cover of the Night" has it all: a bit of acting, a plot, and the song has some 80's dance music quality to it. Listening to it now, it still stands up. It's really an anomaly in the Stones catalog, sort of how "2000 Light Years from Home" is.
When I was 11, the fade out/fade in bits of this song kind of scared the crap out of me, particularly while laying in bed listening to the clock radio late at night on the weekend (ahhh...WBCN late night in the early 80's. Now that was Rock School.) The video is still kind of scary, though it was years before I saw the "unedited" version.








Bob Dylan-Sweetheart Like You (1983)
song: 3
video: 4

High grades all around for boring the crap out of me when I was 12. I knew he was a legend and was supposed to be bowed down to, but I just thought, "he probably smells bad and is mean to kids and boring to be around.".
As an almost 40-year old musician, if I appear cool to a 12 year old, lord knows it's not because I'm trying. Now I see that they got the right guy to make the video.






Yes-Owner of a Lonely Heart (1983)

song: 5
video: 5

The aging nerd-herd also score aces.  I LOVED this song and video as a 12 year old.
They were wise to get an actor to be the main focus of the video, because Yes has never been a pretty sight.
And the song--perhaps the poppiest in their catalog? Plus, the samples and drum machine patterns etc were totally state of the art. You can tell that this was a very rewarding song for Yes--a lot of hard work, and yet fun as hell to work with all that new technology. And it came out perfectly.





Robert Plant-Big Log (1983)

song-5
video-4

I admit, I had 1988's horrible (though I liked it at the time) "Tall Cool One" all set to go, when I remembered, "Planty actually had a couple of great singles and weird videos in the early 80's!".
This song and "In the Mood" were both more "vibes" than songs, and yet both made the top 40. In 1983. That kind of rules, doesn't it? When you think of it, 1983 was a pretty great year for pop music. Human League? Eurythmics? New Wave was old, but this was the year it broke! And Robert Plant's hits were kind of New Wave, weren't they? He cared not at all that Def Leppard etc were the new cocks of the walk.
Especially since in 1983, "Led Zep Rules!" was the rallying cry for pimply teens working at the mall, wearing acid wash denim, and this song bears none of the Zep vibe.
"Zep Rules!" was also the rallying cry for the handful of older kids from the Catholic school who occupied the back of my 5th-8th grade school bus, and who, every morning, would BLAST Zep, Aerosmith and Floyd from the last couple seats, exhaling their Marlboro Lights out the open windows, and taunting the bus driver.  Didn't matter that it was different kids each year--they all had the St. Michael's uniform, brought a huge boom box onto the bus, smoked cigarettes and taunted us kids and poor ol' Mrs. Potter the driver.
Anyway, I hadn't watched this video in decades, but it's great.
Plant stares, perplexed, at a pinwheel for an awfully long time. And writes on a chalkboard. A bit "Man Who Fell to Earth".
I may give The Principle of Moments a spin soon. 






Lou Reed-I Love You, Suzanne (1984)

song: 3
video: 3.5

Well, this song is kid of boring, isn't it? Especially when one knows what Lou can do. I didn't love it then, or now--and in 1984, my sister was loaning me Transformer and VU, so I was no Lou novice.
In retrospect, I'll give it an extra .5 because it sounds like mid 80's Feelies sounding like Lou Reed.
The video....Lou, Lou, Lou.
Really? Bad acting, and a stunt double dancing? (that is a stunt double, right?)

**bingo....extra point....bingo....extra point....bingo....**
THIS IS THREE YEARS BEFORE GEORGE HARRISON'S VIDEO FOR "GOT MY MIND SET ON YOU" USED THE SAME DANCING-STUNT-DOUBLE SCHTICK.
**bingo....extra point....bingo....extra point....bingo....**

It seemed perplexing and weird when I was 12, but I had my sister to explain why it was funny.
Still, in retrospect, it seems like a newly-sober Lou doing whatever it takes to project a cartoon image of himself for the MTV.





Tina Turner-What's Love Got To Do With It? (1984)

song-5
video-5

Because you really can't diss Tina Turner. 




CSN-Southern Cross (1984)

song-5
video-4

The other day I was in a CVS and this song was playing. I totally dug every minute if it. CSN in CVS.
There's nothing "eighties" about this song. It's pretty classic. The video...well, it's hard to diss. Because it shows the three guys pretty accurately. Stills was a living, breathing "Yacht Rock"-er. Crosby is firmly in freebase-land. He and Jerry Garcia were on parallel paths throughout the 80's. But Crosby was into guns and that's why he served--and quit the hard stuff and is still alive. More about Garcia later.
Nash...now he's the one who embraced the 80's, with his mullet and aerobics-instructor stage demeanor. One point off because of his solo song "Innocent Eyes" with a video featuring John Ritter. I'm not gonna link to it.  Why a point off for a song that C+S had nothing to do with? It's that bad.





Paul McCartney--No More Lonely Nights (1984)

song-4.5. Wait. Take 1.5 off for his embarrassing dance version and even more embarrassing video for it where he's wearing a Bill Cosby-esque sweater and stiffly dancing in a disco surrounded by real dancers. Add .5 because this is classic McCartney.

video-2

--Linda's gifts were photography and cooking. Shame on Paul for encouraging her to sing and act. I think her legacy would be a lot cooler had he not.
--It's from a horrible movie.
--I love seeing Ringo do anything--he's got great stage and screen presence. But it's sad to know that this was in the years where he (and Elton and Clapton) was the last guy at the booze n' blow rock and roll party--all his mates were dead or in rehab. A few years after this, he finally rehabbed and this is why he is still kicking today.








The Kinks-Do It Again (1985)

song-5
video-5

I loved it then and I love it now. This may be the last perfect Kinks song?  I think so.
Kudos to Ray Davies' production. Especially compared to the average 1985 fare, this sounds like a 4 piece rock and roll band playing together. The snare drum sound is sweeeeet. As is Dave's solo.








Pete Townshend- Face the Face  (1985)

song-5
video-5

I was way into The Who when this came out and this seemed pretty cool. I didn't buy White City,  because I didn't really get the concept. But I dug the single, and I remember thinking the distorted harmonica solo was a guitar.
The video was fun and fitting and not embarrassing, then or now. Seeing Townshend's daughter Emma in the video was a bit puzzling at the time, but now it seems quite cool. 





Roger Daltrey-After the Fire (1985)

song-3
video-2.5

I know Pete wrote this song, but there seems to be an obvious reason why he gave it to Roger for his solo album. Daltrey's not a songwriter nor a visionary in any way. After the "fire" (The Who's break up), Pete could still write, record and perform as a solo act and sell records, tickets and get good reviews. All Roger could do (and still does) is rest on the legacy of The Who. This song seems like Pete letting Roger be his mouthpiece one last time. But for me, it doesn't work. Because it's not The Who, because Pete's not there hearing Roger sing his words and so the words don't ring true. To hear fit 'n trim Roger in 1985 belt "I gotta stop drinking, I gotta stop smoking" just sounds like a Broadway actor portraying a rock star. If you've ever heard Pete's demo for this song--much like hearing his demos of any Who tune--you hear the truth from the horse's mouth (or horse's neck, ho ho). Roger's album's title track, "Under a Raging Moon" was a tribute to Keith Moon--with several drummers playing solos on it. So, yeah. Only three years post Who, and Roger was already clinging to nostalgia to sell himself. When that song came out, as I said above, I was way into The Who and worshiping the Moon, and thought, "5 session guys soloing (with horrible 80's reverb) doesn't create 1/5 of the excitement of Keith". 





Eric Clapton-Forever Man (1985)

song-3
video-4

Not a bad song, and a great video to present Eric Clapton to the MTV generation. Here's this guy everyone says is God, on this cold looking sound stage, in an overcoat and not playing at all to the camera. He seemed God-like enough to me--a distant and cold God, but that was cool.  Plus, I was just getting into Cream at the time, so I knew his best work.
Unfortunately, a couple years later came "It's in the Way That You Use It", beer commercials,  sobriety, that annoying one-length haircut and all the jocks and cheerleaders in my school becoming huge Clapton fans. Blechh.





John Fogerty-The Old Man Down the Road (1985)

song-3.5
video-3

1985 was when I was getting into anything Classic Rock, and so it was great that everyone I dug (I was on a CCR craze at this time) was coming back, bright and shiny for the MTV (or whatever video show/channel I was watching.)
I never bought any of these artists' new stuff, because I already knew that there was no beating what they'd done in their youth. This song was great because it sounded like CCR (that would have been a 5 when I was 13, but is a 3 now--thus, the 4).  Fogerty was (and still is, albeit, quite well), rehashing his three-year creative CCR blast. This was the start of that. This video is all about the bayou, and Mr. Oakland still being sold as Mr. Louisiana. It's a bit boring (conceptual and bayou don't mix well) and the pay off at the end? Hey, there's old John, smirking at the camera, looking a bit not ready for prime time.







The Moody Blues-Your Wildest Dreams (1986)

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This song is actually what birthed the idea for this entry. I don't normally partake in tributes, but within the same 3 week period, I found myself partaking in a Jerry Garcia tribute and a Moody Blues tribute. In each,  I got to play the big 80's song they each had, along side their more classic, vintage stuff. And in both cases the 80's hits stand up because they really could have come out at any time in their respective careers. 
In 1986, I wasn't crazy about this song. Now, I appreciate it. It's classic Moodies, and, yeah, you can complain about the cheesy space synth or the new age cosmic lyrics, but they were ALWAYS about that.  But, yes, you can complain about the hair and wardrobe. But no points off because the Moodies know they aren't trying to fool anyone (like the aforementioned Garcia/Dead). They are who they are--weird middle aged dudes-- and that's refreshing. 




 Paul Simon--Call Me Al (1986)

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Hammy and not-trying-to-be-hip. And so, it's pretty hip. Maybe the last cool thing Chevy Chase was ever involved in. And anything associated with Graceland gets aces.

UPDATE: I said that thing about Chevy Chase before I'd ever seen an episode of Community.
So, I take it back. He's awesome in Community.
Carry on.






Steve Winwood--Back in the High Life (1986)

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A Baby Boomer anthem for the 80's. A supermarket anthem for all eternity. Great to hear Winwood's ageless voice, but ugh. When this came out I was just getting into the awesomeness of Traffic and this was really kind of gross. Synth-y, targeted to the boomer generation, plus Stevie's been totally remade. The mullet, the dancing...if you've ever seen, say, Traffic Live in Santa Monica, 1973, that's vintage Winwood, singing and playing his heart out, and yet, seemingly broadcasting from another planet. Here, he still seems distant, but it comes across as a guy not totally convinced of "the new Steve". Still, the yuppies bought it and at the very least, it's better than 80's Joe Cocker (what isn't?).






Grateful Dead-Touch of Grey (1987)

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This sure surprised....I guess everyone who was paying attention, which apparently was a lot of people. The Dead had been performing this song since 1982, but before this video, not too many non-Deadheads were going to their shows, so it was new to the world. What the recording did was force the Dead to settle on a tempo and a feel and Jerry to settle on the order of verses. How did this become a hit?  Did Jerry lose 50 lbs, wear something besides his t-shirt and jeans and learn some dance steps? Nope, still the same Garcia.
Did he go for a Steve Vai tone for his solo? Nope. Clean and noodly. In fact, at the time, I had a hard time convincing my Van Halen-loving friends that Garcia was, in fact, a great guitar player. Did the band undergo a makeover? Nope, still a ragtag bunch wearing the same Goodwill wardrobe.
Well, ok, drummer Bill Kreutzmann seems to have dyed his greying hair brown, but that was probably an attempt to make up for his rapidly receding hairline (and perma-mustache).
You mean the Dead were presented, in sound and vision, as they really were, and the song became a top 10? You mean "straight folks" were drawn by the thousands to their shows (and either were scared and bored and said "well, that was...interesting", or found a new religion), thus creating a big problem for the band and their fans? Yup.
Mullets and MIDI, rehab and embarrassing videos followed, but it didn't really matter. The Grateful Dead were still The Grateful Dead, jamming and forgetting lyrics and doing drums and space at every show. Deadheads got younger and thought that the horrible 90's were good, but after this song's moment in the sun, the Clapton/Winwood contingent stayed away.






The Monkees- That Was Then, This is Now (1987)

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I don't really have to explain why, do I?






George Harrison-Got My Mind Set on You (1987)

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It was so cool to have George back. Yes, the production is very 80's, and the album cover of Cloud Nine could have been a bit--well, a lot--cooler, but if you listened to the album, you could tell that George was still George. Philosophical, funny, biting, and pining for simpler, more psychedelic times--and not caring (he was already dismissive of new music by 1974).
The song loses a point just because George didn't write it, and because it's kind of repetitive.
The video loses half a point because Lou Reed had already done the stunt dancer bit. Otherwise, it was awesome to see George in a somewhat trippy video, totally poker faced--but with those ancient wise man eyes that let you in on the joke.







Robbie Robertson-Somewhere Down the Crazy River (1987)

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I don't like this song very much at all, but how it came about gives it an extra point. According to producer Daniel Lanois, he secretly recorded Robbie while he was telling a story about hanging out in Arkansas with native guide and Band mate,  Levon Helm. But otherwise, out of that context, it's annoying and pretentious.
The video doesn't help matters. Lip syncing to spoken word is always a dicey business. Plus Robbie has a mullet, overacts and there's that whole steamy, sweaty Cinemax After Dark vibe to the song.






 Pink Floyd-Learning to Fly (1987)

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I'm gonna cop out because I don't really speak Floyd post-72. I guess it's all fine if you're into that sort of thing. I remember hearing this a few times on WBCN but wasn't a Floyd fan (a couple years later I'd become obsessed w/ Syd Barrett, but never got into the famous mid/late 70's Floyd stuff). And I vaguely remember seeing this video at a friend's house.  "Eh" then and "eh" now.





We'll end this with two bummers.

If this was actually a fair and balanced blog entry, you know what video would go here, don't you?
Yes. "Kokomo" by The Beach Boys.
Not that any of the songs above and below represent the pinnacle of any of these artists' careers, but that song was a crime against society, and thus, will not be featured here.
Plus, my typing teacher in high school used to put it on to get us to "get into the rhythm of typing".
Really.
And, Fucking Stamos. And Mike and Bruce breaking up The Beach Boys mid-reunion.

And by the way, why isn't there a video for Brian Wilson's "Love and Mercy"? I'd put that here and give it a 5. No, a 4.5 for the use of the word "crummy", which musn't ever be heard in a pop song again. 


(fail) Jefferson Airplane--Planes (1989)

I  won't bother grading this. Most of you probably forgot that the original Jefferson Airplane--no, not Jefferson Starship, and no, definitely not Starship--reunited in 1989. My sister and I saw them at Great Woods. It was good. Unlike their comeback album or this video, which were both sort of a failures on all fronts. And I really loved the Airplane at this point. But at this point, they were a mish mash of: Grace Slick still radiating Starship (though she totally quit music shortly after this), a newly sober Jorma (and Jack?), a totally "oh, right! That guy!"-worthy Marty Balin, who seemed to be taking Davy Jones lessons, and most importantly of all, Mr "I Love Drugs", Paul Kantner (who actually did utter those words at the Great Woods show we saw. We repeated that many times afterwards. It seemed to be some sort of fightin' words to the sober contingent. Sad and bizarre).
Ok then. I cannot wait to hit publish. I have no closing words because I have no editor. And you just came here for the videos anyway. Goodnight.

JG70--In the End There's Just a Song. And a Show!

What are you doing July 27 at 10pm? If you live within striking distance of Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, MA, you may want to check out what will hopefully be a pretty neat show that I dreamed up, pitched and organized (that's less of a pat on the back than a "so you can blame me if something goes awry").

It's a celebration of what would have been Jerry Garcia's 70th birthday. I'm calling it "In the End, There's Just a Song: Happy 70th, Garcia!".


Or, code name: "JG70".

It's also a benefit for a great guy. 

Details below.

It will be a night where a series of well known area musical figures (many of whom you wouldn't expect to be part of something like this) will each take a turn on stage to sing one Garcia-penned song with the "house band". There are a lot of performers and only so much time, so this will insure that the night is long on songs, and short on jamming. Things may well get weird, but they won't test your attention span. We'll keep it interesting.  I want this to be a night for music lovers--not just Deadheads. 

The above graphic is a cropped and zoomed image of Garcia from the back of the Mars Hotel album (1974). Unlike the images that are often associated with Garcia (older, heavier, not at the top of his game, a victim of cultural icon-making by the press), I chose this one to promote the show. 1974 was just about the peak of an extremely productive and ambitious decade for Garcia. No, he didn't go around dressed as a cartoon space-reptile, but he was clean-shaven (for part of the year anyway), thin and bursting with energy and ideas. 

In real life, at that time, he looked like this:

Yale Bowl, July 31, 1974

 Anyway....What's the deal with the show? Well, I thought of it in a flash, driving one evening. When I got home I got right on the computer and emailed the Iron Horse people with the concept, before I could talk myself out of it. I of course knew that I was setting myself up for being known as "That Grateful Dead guy". But hopefully people, in this city at least, know that, depending on which way the wind is blowing, I can also be "That Smiths Guy", "That Pavement Guy", "That Bee Gees Guy" etc. But there's a bottomless pit of Dead lore, so many interconnections with other artists,  and I'm a pop music/pop culture history junkie, so I keep diving back for more and coming back up with more. (some Deadheads would cringe at my calling the Dead "pop". Pop is short for popular. The Dead sold out stadiums. Bam. This is Pop!).

Anyway....So, uh..Wot's the deal?

July 27 at 10pm at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton (a few days ahead of the actual JG birthday)

House band:

Bruce Mandaro (Bruce Mandaro Band, The Knot): Guitar
Peter Sax (Mobius Band, Conjure Beat): Bass
Joshua Sitron (composer of some famous television show music!) : keyboards
Brian Marchese (here) : drums

Of the four of us, only Bruce has extensive experience playing these songs. The rest of us know and love Jerry G, but have spent our careers playing different stuff (indie pop, electronica, new wave, punk, children's music, ambient, alt country...). So together, we should get an interesting and fresh take on things.

I won't give away the songs (which will be only Garcia/Hunter songs..), but the performers (and I think this is the confirmed list) are:

Jim Armenti (Lonesome Brothers), Jason Bourgeois (Bourgeois Heroes, The Novels), Thane Thomsen (The Figments, Goldwater), Jason Johnson (National Carpet), Terry Flood (Drunk Stuntmen),  Lesa Bezo (The Fawns), Zip Cody aka Scott Lawson Pomeroy (Orange Crush),  Henning Ohlenbusch (School For the Dead, Aloha Steamtrain), Stephen Desaulniers (Scud Mt. Boys), Kevin O'Rourke (Lo Fine), Mark Mulcahy (Miracle Legion, Polaris, solo artist), Alex Johnson (Drunk Stuntmen), Katy Schneider (Katyland), Ray Mason (Ray Mason Band, Lonesome Brothers), Matt Silberstein (Flashbangs, Salvation Alley String Band) Scott Hall (Drunk Stuntmen, Burn Pile), Dave Houghton (Fancy Trash), Ryan Quinn (Salvation Alley String Band) and Tony Westcott (School For the Dead, Humbert).

And, doncha know, proceeds for this show will go to help with our musician brother Kevin Smith's enormous medical bills. Kevin's been undergoing treatment for cancer for a couple years now, and doing well enough that he's returned behind his drum kit, gigging and recording with his band National Carpet.  However, a genetic heart defect (unrelated to the cancer) caused him to lose consciousness during a recent show--luckily his band mates and a medically-inclined fan or two were able to keep him alive while the paramedics were on their way. More time in the hospital, more tests and procedures, and more mounting bills. He's out and about now, but could use a bit of help in the bills department.

Come, do!

Ticket Info Here: http://www.iheg.com/iron_horse_main.asp

Two Great Quotes by Garcia:

"You have to get past the idea that music has to be one thing. To be alive in America is to hear all kinds of music constantly--radio, records, churches, cats on the street, everywhere music, man. And with records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it. ... Nobody has to fool around with musty old scores, weird notation, and scholarship bullshit: you can just go into a record store and pick a century, pick a country, pick anything, and dig it, make it a part of you, add it to the stuff you carry around, and see that it's all music." 
--The Rolling Stone Rock 'n' Roll Reader. Edited by Ben Fong-Torres. New York: Bantam, 1974.

"I’ve got nothing but limitations! I mean, I’m limited by everything. I’m limited by my technique. I’m limited by my background. I’m limited by my education. I’m limited by the things I’ve heard. I’m limited by all that stuff. I’m limited by being a human being. Yeah. I think in a way that a musician – and particularly a musician with a distinctive style – is, in fact, a product of their limitations. What you’re hearing is their limitations, really. I assume that almost everybody plays at the outside edge of their ability, so that’s usually what you’re hearing – as good as they can do."
-- Frets Magazine 1985



Extra Notes: 

Why "In the End, There's Just a Song"? 

Short answer:  Because songs are a tangible thing that a songwriter can leave behind. Because it's a night that's all about the songs the man wrote. Not the jamming or the hundreds of cover songs in his repertoire.
The line comes from one of the best loved (and darkest) songs from the Garcia-(Robert) Hunter canon, "Stella Blue"; a song Hunter wrote the lyrics to while staying in the Chelsea Hotel in 1970. Garcia eventually put music to it, and the studio version appears on 1973's Wake of the Flood LP.

And in the end, there is in fact just a song--or rather 70 or so songs--that Garcia wrote in his lifetime (music only--he wasn't a word guy except for a couple clumsy early efforts).

Garcia had other talents, but you can't leave behind a bunch of improvised guitar explorations. Well you can, but those weren't meant to be set in stone. Songs are. Plus, it's hard to immediately impress upon a lot of people what was special about his unique playing style. I want those who only think of Garcia as "that guy who jammed a lot" to know that he was a songwriter that was--especially between 1969-1979--every bit as original as contemporaries Robbie Robertson, Neil Young, Elton John (another music-only guy) etc. It's just that because The Grateful Dead were such a circus with no focal point and a lot of obnoxious, culty fans with few social graces (I'm saying SOME, not all), it's sometimes hard to remember Garcia's songwriting talents.

Modern day jam bands can jam til the cows come home, but how many have well written SONGS? The things with verses, bridges, choruses, hooks, melodies? That people will want to cover 20 or 50 years later? Garcia understood what makes a timeless song, having great admiration for songwriting greats from Irving Berlin to Chuck Berry, Jimmy Cliff to Warren Zevon, and of course, Beatles/Stones/Dylan. 


Random Thoughts Regarding Why I Wanted to Put This Gig Together:  

The more I read and get into Garcia's fascinating life, the more I'm afraid that his legacy will be (or already is) that of an overweight, white haired, lethargic addict who forgot lyrics and played meandering guitar solos to stadiums full of tripping folks who had not a critical bone in their semi naked bodies (what did the Deadhead say when he ran out of drugs....yadda yadda)

You can't have a super-successful 30 year career based on conning your drugged fans with crappy songs, sub par performances and interminable space jams. Sure, they were there, but there are a lot of great, well-written songs that Garcia and Hunter came up with over their 25 year partnership. Those (as well as a handful of Weir songs and a lot of covers) are the foundation upon which all the rest was built.

Not that I'm a shill for the Grateful Dead's big corporation, but I am for the slightest re-branding of the Dead/Garcia for a new generation that either never saw them, or only saw the sad final years. People's final impressions of Garcia while he was alive had nothing to do with all the hard work he put in during his prime. Like how, at age 11, I thought Bruce Springsteen was just "Born In the USA" and "Glory Days" because that was my first exposure to him (and thus, I was turned off for a long time), many folks born in the last 30 years have a skewed idea of what Garcia was all about. And most won't be interested enough to correct their misconceptions. And misconceptions burn me up!

Neck tie designer?
Ice Cream flavor?
"The Fat Man"?
Benign Santa Claus with a damaged voice?
Guy with too many quibbling wives?
Burnt out junky figurehead?

Well, kind of yeah, but also a whole lot of NO!


For the first, say, 15 years of The Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia was a healthy (as any rocker in those days), clear-voiced, animated presence on stage. Not motionless and shoegazing, but roaming the stage, gesturing,  making eye contact with the whole band as well as the audience. He was the proud Leo, king of this musical jungle leading his pack (as opposed to the aged, tired, wounded lion of his final years).
A Dead show during that first decade and a half was like an unpredictable music lesson. Country, motown, disco, space, jazz, reggae, noise, pop, blues and of course, rock and roll all swirling in and out of the mix.
Jerry could have focused this mess, born leader that he was, but he never wanted that responsibility. Never wanted to be the one to determine Good from Bad, Right from Wrong. *

(*For a brief time in '68-69, Garcia and Phil Lesh wanted to cut Bob Weir and Pig Pen out of the band, thus eliminating the white boy blues and the prep school cowboy elements out of the band. 
But Bob and Pig refused to acknowledge their walking papers and the rest is history, for better AND for worse--hard to think of the Dead without Weir, as spotty as his output was).
As a result, there's always some crap one must wade through to get to the good stuff.

When not playing with the Dead, Jerry had his solo career. His first four solo albums are all full of great moments, excellent players, and classic songs.
Add to that his lending a hand to his bluegrass projects (Old and In the Way), ambient noise projects (Seastones) AND guesting on albums by such varied folks from Link Wray to Art Garfunkel, and (later) Warren Zevon to Thomas Dolby.
This is why I get upset when reading, say, YouTube comments by clueless folks who will just say "fat hippie sux" or something else along those Doctorate-level lines.

We love to reduce artists to just an image on a dorm room poster. And it's easy to forget why that person gained fame in the first place. They CREATED STUFF. They CHANGED STUFF.

Many old school Deadheads like to hold fast to their belief that "you can't know if you weren't there".  That's true, and it's fine to hold to that subjective opinion...if you want the legacy of the Grateful Dead to be that their fans clung so tightly to their exclusivity that they scared off anyone from future generations from wanting to find out what the hubbub was about.

Yeah, I too wish that I could have caught 50 Dead shows between 1967-83. (I could even probably list which 50!) I also wish I could have seen Charlie Parker, Coltrane with Elvin Jones,  The Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, The Who with Keith Moon, Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett, Led Zeppelin, The Stones in '72, Television,  XTC, The Clash and The Smiths. But the point is, I can't.

It may have been nice if you were there, but soon, all there will be is an image. And you need something substantial to have there be more than just the superficial stuff. So...SONGS! They are the voices from the past. The windows to the soul. (when eyes are on vacation, at least)

Many people I know who under normal circumstances would enjoy a lot of Grateful Dead music would rank finding themselves in the middle of a throng of dancing Deadheads somewhere between french kissing a llama and waking up hungover in a dumpster behind a seafood shop on a 95 degree afternoon.
I know that, while I can name 25 awesome "Dark Star"s, I still would feel much more at home at a Morrissey or Cure show circa 1989. It's just my personality. I'm not very communal. I do my Dead listening alone. I get uptight at semi naked, bare flesh dancing in front of me. (This is probably why I'm a drummer. I can make people dance without having to deal with them coming too close).
For the record, I also don't like mosh pits. 
So, since there is no "being there" these days (unless one wants to go to see a tribute band), what do the kids do today to be turned on to the music? Oh! I know! Listen to the music. And I'm talking just starting with the album versions of the songs. At its best, it's unique and unlike anything else before or since.

"Doin' That Rag"? "Wharf Rat"? "Eyes of the World"? "Bird Song"? "Blues for Allah"? "Terrapin Station"? How the hell do you define those? Neither derivative nor contemporary nor ahead of their time. They just exist in their own time and space. And totally original.

This is what seems to have gone on lately among the indie "hipster" crowd, with the recent acceptance and embracing of the Dead. They're not interested in jamming, or foregoing bathing, tripping for weeks on end, growing dreads or following a band for a month or two. They are interested in songcraft, and the Dead, especially Garcia, had a very unique take on it (to be fair, Weir and to a lesser extent, Lesh, each have a few examples of songwriting genius.).
And they're interested in where Garcia's songs stand in the fabric of late 20th century popular music. 

This is what I want to be on display at this show.
I hope you can come.