BILLY JOEL'S HUMMABLE SMARM

Slate contributing editor Ron Rosenbaum asks rhetorically early in his   hissing 2009 hate – note on Billy Joel about why he should spend a column excoriating the songwriter who's already had his reputation vandalized by critics, snobs and lipless influencers for decades? Well, yes, why another hate jerk off at the expense of the much and justifiably maligned Billy Joel? The author needed something to write about that would less use of brain power and more use   of embedded knee-jerk responses to Billy Joel's name. This wasn't an overview of a bad musician's career; rather, it's an allergic reaction expressing itself with words  instead of hives and welts. Rosenbaum couldn't help himself, Joel is that rash, he was incapable of not scratching.  Truth needs to be told, though. Billy is a bit better than naysayers would have you think. Joel is not the genius he presumably thinks himself to be, but he does merit a measure of defense .  Billy Joel is a mixed blessing. An effective and versatile vocalist, a genuinely gifted writer of not so obvious pop melodies, a frequently maudlin, pretentious lyricist (although he redeems himself when his pop sensibilities rule over his desire to Be Meaningful), a technically proficient pianist, a smarmy ham bone. One may not like him on principle--I don't care for him--but I have to admit he's done some work that merits a second and a third listen. He's a cross between Harry Chapin and Elton John, I guess, with a strong aftertaste of the worst brands of smugness that typifies pop music in general. What sinks Joel is his lack of any ironic sense of himself and the material he writes to address foul matters brewing in the world; despite his working-class roots, the idea of an unfathomably successful pop star sing a catchy--hummable, all so meaningful ballad to the laid off factory workers of “Allentown” informs us that his protest songs are not about the poor nor the destitute, but in making Billy Joel feel good about himself and looking good to the fan base at the same time.Joel's sins of pretentiousness are numerable over a long career , something I noted with his first hit “Piano Man”, a bloated imitation of  Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man” , to the point where I stopped paying attention to him altogether with the name-checking orgasm that comprised the hit “We Didn't Start the Fire". The obviousness of his conclusions, the cartoon likenesses of his characters, the clichéd contours of his examples, the barely concealed arrogance of his narrative air are the kind of thing that makes the smart people like you, Rosenbaum and I slap our foreheads and make us desire to grab either a gun or a cold beer. Unlike Rosenbaum, I'm unwilling to muster the indignant heat it takes to do another body slam on Joel's oeuvre . It's a matter that I've done so in print and online repeatedly, and that comes a moment in any writer's career when he or she realizes they're merely rearranging all the old complaints. I'll forgo the oratory and leave my summary judgement on B.J.'s body of work as this, a skilled journeyman with delusions of being something greater. I relate on an emotional level to that status, and I don't think it unlikely that many of us wanted to go beyond our limits and reach for the greatness of giants. The difference , the not-so-sour truth, is that Joel was actually fairly good at putting together a memorable melody and an occasionally astute rhyme. And middle brow as he might be, he got paid handsomely for the effort. 

ROOTS ROCK, SAN DIEGO STYLE

 

The Innocent Bystanders are a San Diego-based troupe of roots-rockers who’ve assumed the mantle of being this area’s premier practitioners of a music that is often called Americana. To clarify, Americana is a contemporary musical approach that combines and blends many kinds of American roots-oriented genres. There is a always the threat that unrestrained eclecticism can make a flavorless goulash, but the knowing musicians, those with the fabled “big ears,” able to craft skillfully, the plaintive, the soulful, the swinging, and the rocking from the disparate schools of folk, blues, rock, country, and soul (most definitely soul), speaking to audiences in ways commanding attention. More than that, the best of it supplies the shock of recognition: the insistent blues licks, the ethereal gospel-tinged choruses, the plaintive, scrappy vocals drawing from Appalachian and Memphis influences, which send a shiver down your spine, makes you at various times needing to laugh aloud or shed a tear for no immediate reasons. You have the feeling that you’ve just returned from a long adventure to unknown parts and met a bevy of fascinating Americans in doing so. Then the lights of the living room lights come back on and in the quiet realize you’re transported.

This is the magic that the best of the Innocent Bystanders creates. Comprised of vocalist Deborah Darroch, Jessica LaFave on tenor saxophone and backing vocals, Ben Nieberg overseeing acoustic guitar and vocals, Steve Semeraro on electric guitar, Donny Samporna on bass, and Steve Berenson behind the drum set. The band brings their distinct skills for the marvelously funky and frayed variety that occupies their second, The Book of Life. The tone is gritty and soulful in ways that transcends barriers and speaks plainly on matters of life on life’s terms, death, getting beaten down but getting up again, and putting one’s shoulder to the wheel again. You get this feeling of strength and resilience on the album’s opener, “No Place to Go,” tenderly offered in a Stevie Nicks-ish croon by Darroch, guitars; drums and bass lay a delicate yet sinewy weave of rhythmic momentum as the tale of hard years, travel, an uncertain fate haunting the troubled road unfolds. Darroch’s vocal delivery hasn’t a trace self-regret; this is a person making peace with their regrets and sorrows with the conviction to move onward, forward. A remarkable song about seeking in the midst of desolate circumstances.

The mood kicks up a notch later in the record’s flow, especially with the saxophone oomph of LaFave’s tenor sax goosing the gospel/ soul-train testifying of the suitably chugging “This Train.” Steady as she goes, Nieberg proffers suitable rhythm and blues wailing on his vocal. This train might be the same conveyance that Curtis Mayfield foretold his listeners with the classic “People Get Ready,” an evocation of that same train as it pulls from the station and goes through the quizzical paces of leading a full and useful life. 

The Book of Life covers a broad swath of musical approaches that are lovely to behold in the effortless expressiveness the Innocent Bystanders bring to their well-wrought expanse of American styles. The concluding song, “Lost Things,” evokes Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, with a trace of the Arc Angels making this rugged ballad even more alluring than it might have been. Nieberg’s vocal takes on a husky rasp, the band swells and recedes and swells again at points in the narrative for splendid dramatic effect, and you find yourself imagining that there is a man in the center spotlight taking stock of the trajectory of his life and realizes that each trauma, heartache, birth, death, celebration, and catastrophe has all been worth the years of struggle and hard-learned truths. The song seems, to me, to be the point where one’s experience evolves from a sullied timeline of conflicting emotions to becoming wisdom, a living philosophy. The Book of Life is wonderfully unpretentious in the blessedly small-cap wisdom the songs bring us. This is rich, evocative music in a very American grain.

💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋

Originating from Des Moines, IA, San Diego based singer-songwriter-and guitarist Michael J. Dwyer has a voice that has an appealing husky texture, dusty and measured in how it mulls over a lyric and shares it with an audience. He sounds like the better moments of Dylan or Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, throughout the length of his new release of eight original songs, Borderland 2. As the flinty edge of his voice suggests, the disc is a series of confessions, admissions, declarations, resignations, estimations of life lived long and fully enough that a timeline of hard living, fast loving, revelry, and ruination mark the beginnings of wisdom.

The material here, however, aren’t about ruing a past of blown chances or plans that didn’t pan out; Dwyer speaks additionally speaks from resilience, putting his shoulder to the cracked a wheel again and persevering. Borderland two is less the tales of a survivor, but a man who relishes the life he has yet to lived. This is somebody who isn’t hanging up his guitar or walking stick anytime soon.Borderland 2 is a fascinating evocation of divergent styles, be it folk, country, blues, or rock and roll. In other words, Americana, the alluring synthesis of North American roots music. Electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards, banjo, harmonica, and drums are the essential seasonings here, organic textured, earthy, and homey, creating an evocative intimacy as the stories unfold. One would expect an entire ensemble to provide a musical outlay this rich, but the credit goes to two musicians, Dwyer himself on guitars, harmonica and vocals, and his associate Ronald E. Golner, who handles the other instruments, who also oversaw the recording, mastering, and production of the sessions. (Let’s note that trumpeter Brett Wagoner provides his skills to good measure on the track “Fuego Grande,” a sizzling Spanish-flavored torch song). The sound resonates, punchy, each note and chord landing precisely on target.

Again, the record is not sallow caterwauling of life gone wrong. Dwyer informs us that he’s got a lot of life left and a lot of fight to go with it, amply laid out in the opening track “I’m Not Afraid.” This is the telling of an old timer, declaring himself as a fool who might have dismissed in some instance, that he’s too old to dread what life might bring to him that do, that he’s been alive too long through too many circumstances to care what the world at thinks of how he lives his life. He sounds more than willing to put up his dukes to defend his right to not care what you think. 

 Resilience is a theme that runs through these songs. These are notes from an ongoing journal of a man who arises again and yet again after that, convinced to his core that the shame isn’t in falling down, but in staying down. “There Comes a Time” ends the album with the message to the young, the impatient, the impudent, the cocky, the alienated, the arrogant, the afraid, to anyone convinced that their life is at a hopeless dead end so early in their years to take chances, take risks, be unafraid to make mistakes, to fail, to get up and go again when your face is in the dirt, to complete something, to do many things to ensure that on reflection  that one didn't spend their life weeping. Michael J. Dwyer, a traveler, a songwriter, a man tempered by time and dared to feel his experiences deeply, tells us with Borderland 2 that it’s worth it all, and he’d do it again if he could.

GARY BOOKER OF PROCOL HARUM, RIP

 "A White Shade of Pale"  is among the many classic rock tunes who'se virtues and demerits have been a persistent source of ambivalence in my decades of  forming a  hard line on any number of classic rock artists. Concerning AWSOP, it might be enough to say that for all the grandeur of the Bach-like organ that defines the song, the Elizabethan vagueness of the lyrics and the soulful vocal that invested the opaque lyrics with more drama than was warranted, I've grown sick of the tune and hope never to hear it again. The exhaustion has more to do with exasperation since the band that did the song Procol Harum, had quite a catalog of albums containing better, more adventurous songs. Now one of its key members has passed, and a moment to appreciate what he and Procol Harum accomplished is in order.

 
Gary Booker was a fine and expressive singer /keyboardist for a grand British band, Procol Harum. The band was never really a blues band, but the blues were never that far from their original songs, all of which featured lyrics by Keith Reid. Reid was considered a full member of the band since his agile handling effectively sketchy terrains involving of mystery, alienation, resignation, gallows humor and world weariness. His skill at creating odd atmospheres with is stanzas had as much to do with creating the public's perception of the band as their instrumental styling. Robin Trower, another founding member, brought his serpentine and stinging blues influence to the more classical and disparate folk influences that informed the band's catalog of tunes.

Booker, a restrained vocalist who magically combined nearly perfect diction with an effective suggestion of a blues wail boiling under the tonal calm, was fine , even brilliant interpreter of Reid's curt surrealism. This song for consideration here, "Juicy John Pink" from their 1969 album A Salty Dog, is a blues, a straight ahead blues sans classical garnishment, reveals the combination of vocal, lyrics, and guitar that brings us a tale of a soul on his last day on earth entreating the Lord to take him to Heaven rather than the dull agony of Hell. Gary Booker, RIP.

ROBIN TROWER:MUSIC FOR TRICK KNEE

 

Old guitar riffs do not die as long as I live, as they are the soundtrack of many a routine and daily walk up the stairs to work, treks to the stores, adventures in scattered beach area parking lots, the journey to the forbidden and familiar knowledge behind a girlfriend's front door. Or the entrance to a doctor's office, for that matter. I had often joked  that each of  us requires a “signature riff”,  a power chord mini-anthem  ourselves that with which we have on constant mental standby as we go about our routine tasks and  past times; I often imagine the open  assault of “Mississippi Queen” commanding a room's attention once I enter, if only to perform the mundane obligation of paying a gas bill.The theme song changes, to be sure--there is no channel changing that's faster  or more assured than what goes on the car radio dial of the mind--and there are those days when what I carry in my imagined soundtrack in my imagined movie are the genteel whispers of Paul Simon's three-hankie whining, the grating,  rusted scraping of  early Velvet Underground, the  guitar amnesia of  Larry Cor yell. It varies according to mood and what lies on the to-do list that day. (Not that I actually have a to-do list. 

It's actually what I remember to get around to accomplish, get over with, or finish from an earlier, half-hearted attempt. I am not so organized. I am a fifty-eight-year-old man, almost fifty-nine, who has the personal habits of, say, your average 17-year-old, just in college, in his first off-campus apartment, with a room of his own). That said, the last few days have been one of stupid-making idleness, since I tripped in my apartment earlier in the week and ran my already-game knee into something hard and unforgiving. The last four days have been missed work, icing the swollen knee --no breaks or fractures, thank goodness-- and diving into an old record collection. Some of this stuff does not sound so bad.

Robin Trower, for example; the former Procol Harum guitarist, is very possibly the only Hendrix inspired fret specialist who fully established his own distinct approach to guitar melodrama while still maintaining the ethereal quality of his Mentor's style. Twice Removed from Yesterday, his debut, was a wonderful tone poem start to finish, emphasizing mood and atmospherics, by way of the dreamier parts of Electric Ladyland. His choice of Jim Dewar, ex of Stone the Crows, for a lead vocalist  inspired, a gritty, soulful belter whose lower register gravitas gave the core idyll ism of the lyrics something very solid to wrap around. "I Can't Wait Much Longer" is that rare breed of power ballad that actually manages to make you feel the ache of the heart that hungers for a love that won't reciprocate. 

Bridge of Sighs veers from the mystical tone and lands on a hard rock style, with a solid grounding in r and b grooves: solid riffs and rhythms, charging solos, veryyyyyyyyyyyy fluid guitar work. Where the first album was strong on thick overlays of guitar tones and coloration to produce a spaced-out elegance, Bridge shifts more towards hard rock and rhythm and blues, up-tempo, hooky riffs and blockbuster vocals. Dewar and Trower are as fine match of lead singer and guitar hero as we've seen emerge from the cantankerous era  of Sports Arena rock, as finely twined on production and material on their these two releases as Robert Plant and Jimmy Page were on Led Zeppelin's entire body of work or, more appropriately, as Paul Kossoff, guitar and Paul Rodgers, vocals, were in their seminal blues-rock band Free. The secret might be that the two of them are aware of each other's strengths and weaknesses--they compliment each other with nuance, style, a  bit of emotional reserve that makes the tension of their best songs here--"Day of the Eagle", "The Fool and Me", "Too Rolling Stone"--continually satisfying. Trower is a blues guitarist at heart and knows the value of fluidity and restraint; during his solos,  he continues the vocal line established by Dewar and seems to continue the tale in choice selected notes, not words. Dewar himself is perhaps the best of the British blues vocalist, a rich, grainy baritone with a supremely dark texture.  This band, to be sure, had a penchant for writing the phony-baloney Dungeons and Dragons fantasy lyrics that laid waste to two generations of budding Ira Gershwins, a subject and concomitant imagery wholly unsuitable for the quality of Dewar's voice--imagine  Little Milton singing "In the Court of the Crimson King". In these instances, Dewar sounded silly, blustering, bombastic; this is a lesson that bad songs happen to good singers. Ironically, the supreme example happens with this otherwise fine album's title tune. Overall the swirling guitar melodrama, Dewar intones with his best game face and sounds more like a dog barking at car lights casting across a garage wall rather than a strong bluesman. I vote for the bluesman every time.

MUSIC AS FURNITURE

 

Ted Gioia is a jazz critic , music historian and journalist who's become provocatively concerned with the seeming devolving status of that of his occupation, music criticism.His commentary  caused to choke with the shock of recognition, as it appears that the coverage of music, old and new, fresh , middling and downright putrid, are accorded the same rhetorical standbys when they are covered on arts pages, in print or posted to lifestyle websites. It's been as though that no one among an invisible, snarky and uncommitted ranks of entertainment writers have a passion for music as such; critical estimations in so many record reviews I've come across over the last ten years have skewed toward the lazy reshuffling of conventional wisdom a 60s Old Guard of music judges managed to  render into meaningless pulp by the end of the 70s. Musicians, bands, their music  seem more fetish items, articles of acquisition that would reinforce a sophisticated listener's idea of themselves as Hipsters keeping a faith with some forgotten notion of living by values that transcend the merely material.

 But it is materialism we're addressing here, and music is less, much less the vehicle for any kind of new poetry, the space where what can't be said or explained about an existence whose purpose and meaning behind the flesh and blood circumstances of our routine gets expressed in a manner unforgettable and which provokes more earnest self-examination, and instead makes all the sweet music into tones that compliment the carpets, the view of the ocean from the top of the hill, the selection of unread books on sparsely occupied shelves.  In fact, it's not that music criticism has devolved  down to lifestyle reporting, it is merely being replaced by  editors and publishers by a species of celebrity journalism.  Musicians  replaced Hollywood movie stars in large part as famous and rich folks that fans of popular culture obsess about and, as it goes,  in a world where media is now a  24-hour concern, filling up those column inches online and online and , for the love of god, all over those cable shows, the fastest and most ready  bit of material for reporters to bring to a drooling public's attention are the trivial doings of what these people do in their daily lives. 

In an atmosphere where everything is up-to-the-minute, the second, the nanosecond, music criticism only takes you so far. I was a music editor for several years and I know the dread of having holes in your section layout--that is , no stories, no reviews, no ads to fill up a gaping white space on the page you're trying to ready for publication. As much as I wanted to maintain my integrity and reserve my editorial  copy to matters of considered cultural criticism and the arguing  for the greater good of all, as a practical matter my standards had to be modified when I decided to run a substandard, gossipy,  trivial bit of celebrity worship on my pages. Nature abhors a vacuum,  and so do editors. The Village Voice, Down Beat, Rolling Stone, Filter, Pitch Fork, Jazz Is, all present straightforward criticism of musicians and their work, and the quality varies publication to publication, of course. A basic consideration, though, is that back in the day, when  music, basically rock and roll, was considered a force for change by the media that tried to understand it, we saw a rise in earnest young intellectuals--Paul Williams, Greil Marcus, Robert Christgau, Jon Landau, later Lester Bangs--who took the music seriously and attempted to essay forth the underlying movement of history in the notes played and the rhymes sung. This gave us a particularly potent kind of literary commentary; there was a lot of good writing that came out of that. Moreover, though, much more nonsense written for music criticism, and  it appears that readerships no longer believe that music, as such, represents a Hegelian transformation of History; it meant a good time, period.  The basic message is that cultural commentary of the highest regard will dominate the arts pages of general interest publications, online and off, only when the zeitgeist has us believe that music and art in general have a meaning and direction that is more, much more than the technical achievements . 

I think we need critics, informed , passionate and committed critics, to discuss and eventually provide readers with articulate view of works of fiction, drama, movies, visual arts to give one context, stylistic analysis, author /musician/poet/playwright (etc) theme tics and development there of, and how well the current subject of review stands up , merit-wise, with the best of the artist's body of work so far. This is more academic, I suppose, than merely "reviewing", which tends to be terse consumer guides that opine on much bang for the buck a consumer gets. I've gravitated toward more long form, deep dive opionists--Kael, Christgau, Greg Tate,Walcott, Stanley Crouch, Sarris , LeRoi Jones--who incite disagreement but who , nonetheless, provide the basis of conversation and points where informed dissent can expand the conversation. I buy music, books, go to films and attend poetry readings (and the like) because I enjoy having my assumptions of form and coherence tweaked. And I enjoy good writing about such matters as well. It's a cliche, yes, but a good critic, a great critic can make the art experience more meaningful. A great critic helps you realize that a paycheck, a roof and a warm bed are not enough for the good life. Something more is needed and art is that something that might provoke someone to dive deeper into their experiences and feel the rhythms of existence vibrate through the particulars of whatever they are engaged in. John Dewey had a few things to  say about this aesthetic state of being that one can carry around with them through the ebb and flow of daily discourse, work and play, and considered such a state something that needn't be reserved for those set a side periods one dedicates to reading, listening to music, watching a play. I'll spare you a word paraphrase of Dewey's ideas, but they can be found in his book Art as Experience. His is not the most flowing prose ever placed in print--he has none of the elegance of fellow pragmatist William James--but the ideas are arresting; they've been an immense influence in my thinking  and my conversations involving the hairy warhorse of a subject, "what good is art?"

 It makes for a dull time generally , I suppose, and limits nuanced discussions and general intellection on guitar solos and the genius of lyrics to a smaller, shriller, more adenoidal crowd of folks, but that is the spirit of the time we live in.The element of discovery is out of the equation, since no one has to look neither long nor far for music that  might interest them, the new sounds, the new vibe. Critics are no longer the explorers or explainers of new sounds . Everything is already found, and the smaller circles of pundits , it seems, find themselves aggressively agreeing with one  another, give or take an instance of ritual snark.

A CONVERSATION WHERE KEITH MOON AND LED ZEPPILEN ARE MENTIONED

Who do I prefer among classic British drummers, Keith Moon of the Who or John Bonham from Led Zeppelin? Keith Moon any day. Moonie might not have been able to keep straight time--that job fell to Entwhistle, indeed a brilliant bassists--his ad libbing tempos brought excitement to the band that was missing from most of the Who's contemporaries. Within the four, five, or six chord frameworks that constituted the bulk of Townsend's songwriting, Moon's overplaying, speed and general sense of flash presented us with a live enterprise that was about power, passion, rage. Townsend wanted to write more delicate pop tunes, get psychedelic and increasingly relevant as concept albums and the mania for rock-lyrics-as-poetry overwhelm album output for years, but Moon's playing, quick, primitive, not disciplined in any way a more studied drummer would understand it, came close enough to his marks to keep the Who on its does musically, at least live. He was a natural fit for the Who. The Who never recovered musically from the loss of him. John Bonham need how to keep time, I am assured, and Led Zeppelin had a range of songs in time signatures, grooves, and structure that required more formal drum kit knowledge than what Peter Townsend's standard 4/4, 1-1V-V compositions, and surely Bonham was that man. He did a job that I can't imagine Moon doing. But what Moon does with his furious bashing on Live at Leeds takes the prize for me; he ventures into Tony Williams territory. 

Now this matter of Led Zeppelin's serial plagiarism. There are too many gross examples to set forth here in the limited time I have before charging off to my current place of employment, but there is this crucifying YouTube video of that band's thievery that will bring you up to speed. These fellows liked shiny things they came across and removed them from their proper ownership.

There are , actually, a good number of  YouTube documenting Led Zeppelin's tendency of “extreme borrowing” of other's ideas without credit or payment, and there are videos that would argue that the case in point, a rock band's thieving from another musical artist, merely illustrates the natural process of art making. My view is muddled, as perhaps  yours might be: I know what they do  is wrong, but the music they make from it sounds great. Severe fence sitting, I suppose. The issue makes you aware of the meaning of the world “problematic” means, a situation that will forever remain a problem.

Ritchie Blackmore isn't the first to say it, but the maxim goes “the professional steals, the amateur borrows.” The difference being that the amateur really has little idea of what to do with a musical idea they've stolen; they act as though they might break a precious thing, which makes the music dull. The professional does not borrow, he or she takes possession of an idea, changes it, alters it, makes it new, makes it their own. The results from that attitude are much more interesting. I mention Blackmore over anyone else because we are talking about a rock and roll band's habit of taking credit for music they didn't create. 

I don't care what the original quote might have been; the origins at best are apocryphal, and besides the fact that there is an element of truth. An element of truth, not an essential truth. There is a difference; suffice to say that the results among professional thieves, let us say, will vary like anything else in this life. Honestly, most efforts by others to rip off and attempt to own something not of their creation suck, groady drumsticks. But Led Zep, for all the amorality of their thieving, did develop intriguing permutations with what they took and presented to the world (falsely taking credit as sole creators) sounds that were fresh takes on old sources, takes that were, in effect, the future of new music. Led Zeppelin will be held to increasingly severe judgements regarding their theft of other artist's music ideas, but it can't be denied that what did with their booty gave us plenty of great sounds that sound very fine until now. The morality of plagiarism being done by the few geniuses that have walked the earth is a discussion that will continue without resolution throughout all the arts. Books, movies, plays, poems, paintings, deep in the bowels of the academy.

JAGGER QUESTIONS THE POSE

  

AIEEEE!!!

It's my personal and picayune view that the album It's Only Rock and Roll by the Rolling Stones to part of that Seventies streak when the band seemed to run on fumes. There were songs on each of the underpart discs that were good and in fact rise to the best of the Stones work, but overall, it was my impression that efforts like Goats Head Soup, IORR and Black and Blue nearing the finish line, ready to collapse. But I do love the title song here: “It’s Only Rock and Roll" is one of the few times I'm aware of when Jagger stepped outside all his many personas and contemplating something of an existential crisis. The  song was like walking into a room you thought was empty and finding someone talking to themselves. He addressed maybe being outdated, old, trivial, that his worth is measured by how much the audience adores him and little else.

There is a bit of tension here, as all the questions posed go only way--how and what can I do to make you continue to need me in your lives? How much of a freak must I be? Reflection, though, was never Jagger's strong suit; he has generally spent a career doing the occasional bit of self-examination before spinning off in a self-infatuated tizzy and continues what he's been doing, with glee. It's ONLY rock and roll, it's a minor, even trivial thing in the bigger inventory of what merits our attention, and he is banal by association, BUT he likes it. So, fuck off, bugger off, take a walk and go find another bliss to piss on. The song rocks for sure.

 Jagger's ambivalence on matters of politics, satanism, sex, and love seemed an edgy pose of the moment. Many fans who couldn't completely discard the traditional morality and ethical stances they grew up with were irked by his apparent lack of interest in grave issues and concerning matters.Those he confounded and resented him for his lack of “authenticity” miss an essential part in Jagger's greatness was what he did with his career choice of being the Generalized Other, that personification that upsets expectations. It didn't always pay off in good songs or convincing portrayals --the Stones have a nice fat chunk of their catalog of songs that are pompous, grandiose, spiritually , intellectually, philosophical beyond Jagger's ability to fake--but in their best moments, which is more often than not, Jagger could frame a persona around a solidly conveyed attitude, a situation, and dispatch the narrative wonderfully with genuine irony. The irony here is that It's Only Rock and Roll, the song, is as genuine a Jagger we're ever likely to come across, the man breaking the fourth wall, so to speak, and addressing his audience: WHAT DO YOU GUYS WANT OF ME? He doesn't ask in that way, definitely, but the question is out there

BEWARE ROCK STARS WHO THINK AND THEN TALK AFTERWARDS

The worst offenders are the truly repellent likes of Yes, Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull, those bands with wind-up toy time signatures, castrati vocalists and reams of wretchedly vacant philosophizing that was so steeped in skull-fuckingly dull clichés that I suspect even  Edgar Guest would call these guys grunting , formless worms choking down their own fecal trails. Still, there is some of this ambitious stuff that I think works, on their own terms--King Crimson, The Mothers of Invention, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. The lyrics from all three bands were idiosyncratic and free of pud wilting platitudes, and the music for the three of them was, overall, unique and entirely original blends of marginal influences that, when stirred the right way, created something just as original. Peter Townsend had been called an intellectual so often by both the rock and the mainstream press that I suspect he came to believe and sought to live up the image of the Thinking Artist. The irony was that he already was doing Art, a special and original kind of music; his sagging jock strap of an ego trip with Quadrophenia robbed him of that talent,which is to say his wit, which is to say again, his mojo, saying finally, his pretensions made him hand his balls over to the Muse , who was done playing with him. He never got his groove back. I do think good rock and pop musicians and songwriters can be taken seriously to a degree, but there is always the danger of pomposity and self-congratulating bombast, the inflated sense of importance, that nearly always saps the music of real inspiration and vitality. Yes, even the best of our generation's singer-songwriters have been maudlin, precious and bordering on hard-edged baloney-mongering. But they have a knack, in general, to recover from their worst work and give us something actually inspired, focused, full of conviction. Still, others have not regrouped from their worst efforts. Sting, post-Police, is an auto-didactic tourist in other culture's music; he is lost in his pretensions, lost to us. Joni Mitchell decided she wanted to be a composer and a poet of an extremely diffuse, Eliot ilk and tried to merge meandering imagery with badly conceived, Mingus inspired impressionism; she has been minor league ever since. Peter Gabriel, in turn, has been largely quiet on the solo front and involved himself instead in other projects; this keeps our memory of his music a fond one.

 Robert Christgau said it back in 1969, reviewing his album “OUTRAGEOUS”:

 “…. Fowley is such a gargantuan shuck that he ought to be preserved in a time capsule. …” 

That line has stuck with me and characterized Fowley for decades, and now it comes full circle where we have an opportunity to examine how the Sixties counter culture produced marginal sorts who were happy to have a niche somewhere in the music greatness of others, and those like Charlie Manson who wanted to change the world into a larger version of their insane selves. It was a crap shoot either way, and lucky for us, Fowley wasn't as crazy as he pretended to be. It's always been my impression that Kim Fowley, who died January 15, 2015, preferred you spoke about him in the past tense when you were in his presence. One imagines he would have relished the chance to eaves drop on what was said at his own funeral.

Only a fool too fast of tongue of slow to truth would argue that Fowley didn't have some kind of observable genius in the happenstance of his life. He was an Ezra Pond sort his era, someone with a smattering of talent themselves who had a more acute instinct for the large talent of others . It can be a tedious thing to hash through again, but it bears repeating that Fowley's greatest masterpiece was creating a series of performance oriented personas, all the extreme, gaudy, tacky, neurotic and, rather, desperate in their attempts to equal the art being produced by artists he was attracted too. Fowley was someone who, like thousands of others at the time, were trying to berserk themselves into genius who, despite hard work and an unblinking commitment to the mask he was wearing, never convinced anyone that there was anything there but an egocentricity that was oddly ingratiating Fowley , I suspect, knew that we were onto his game from the get go and let it remain as such. Fowley was someone who wanted to leave his mark on history and didn't quite much care what damage to his reputation he suffered in doing so. It wasn't damage at, I think he'd have explained to us, since this was a reputation he was reputation he was creating in place of one that didn't exist in the first place. What he wanted was to be known, to be creative, to be a part  of the throng at the higher creative plain. He wanted to leave his mark on history, not change it, not destroy it, not change to course of things to come. He desired to be in the perennial now of whatever was intense at the musical time and space, and to have a sufficient version of his cover story to accompany. He was man who lived his life in the present tense. 

What is remarkable is that he remained in the game as long as he did. Fowley was a fake, which was the source of authenticity. He decided to "act as if..." and never stopped acting.I regard Fowley's whole life as being something like Kafka's Hunger Artist; the man who refuses to eat draws a crowed around him, and it's that artist's job to keep the crowd distracted while maintaining his cover. Fowley kept the mask on but remained an approachable anomaly . No easy thing to do.

 He's following what Grace Slick did when she retired from music. "All rock and rollers over the age of 50 look stupid and should retire." As much we argue that the muse for some rock musicians keeps on bringing on new ideas and new perspectives, rock, and roll are the music of the young which means being confused, prone to emotional extremes, being naive, arrogant, self-loathing, the entire gamut of lesson-learning all of us suffer through on the way to becoming adults, citizens, parents, taxpayers. For someone in their fifties to be singing old songs about being a rebel and such and writing newer tunes that don't have much to add to what they've already committed to chord progressions indicates someone who hasn't learned anything. 

That's why novelists and poets have the advantage in the aging process, as they are allowed to get older, become grumpy, maybe more confused and fatalistic, so long as the language they choose to write in, the quality of the actual writing, sustains the narrative. So, bravo Rollins. Of course, we are speaking broadly here, and there are more than a few songwriters who can negotiate to age and write engaging material. I can think of a dozen artists who are like that, and likely another dozen after pausing to consider a second round. But I think the output becomes more erratic as you get older, more difficult, perhaps if you've already created a large body of work over a several-decade span. There is that need to keep producing work even though you're aware that you have more misses than hits. 

Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, dozens of others pursued new work into their later years, and there is that aspect where the fresh ideas reappear as recognizable formulas in newer songs. But this aspect of the aging artist, that later work will, in most cases, not be consistent in quality, is evident in the other arts, whether fiction, poetry, film making, drama. There are poets such as John Ashbery who likely published ten books beyond his best days as a bard, Clint Eastwood's movies have become more minimalist and brutally efficient in terms of film storytelling, sometimes to the extent that some of his later flicks seem like parodies of his best days, and novelists like Updike, promiscuously productive, had an extended string of novels and short story collections and poetry that were, at best, exercises in keeping oneself busy. 

We do have to tread carefully in this area and temper our expectations for older artists who continue to create new work since it should surprise none of us that artist styles, approaches, subjects of concern change over years of living experience and that judgment of new material over what's considered their "best" work needs the context of the long view. Often enough the new approaches, new designs are valid in their own right and are powerful statements of where an artist happens to be at a later stage in their life. This does not imply that the work is bullet-proof from critique or that it works aesthetically. It requires a more nuanced discussion than the rate-a-record approach most of us grew up with.

From the vault, a too short favorable review of My Aim is True published in my college newspaper

 If nothing else, one of the things that the Seventies have given rock and roll is the chance for a new artist to regurgitate the most glaring of cliches and be considered by older critics who long for their youthful heyday (first cigarette, the first bout with sex, first visit the free clinic) as something in the vanguard of the movement, a "fresh and invigorating voice that outlines the future of rock and roll," and so on. Bruce Springsteen combines elements from Phil Spector records, old rhythm and blues tracks, and bare rock and roll with the lyrical free form-ism of Dylan, resulting in a pastiche of styles that sounds forced, histrionic and bone dry of motivation. Patti Smith wants to merge early Sixties rock, ala Stones, and "Louie Louie" with the legends of dead poets, sounding in the end merely silly. Tom Waits combines black jazz hep jive with Jack Kerouac and sounds stupid. The more jaded among us from this parade of pretenders are leery of anyone trying the same thing. 

My Aim is True by Elvis Costello takes one by surprise. Like Springsteen, the backbone of Costello's music is old rock and roll. But apart from that, they differ radically. Springsteen has a tendency to stretch his material to the breaking point, pouring crescendo upon crescendo, verse upon verse, trying to create an epiphany that never culminates into prosaic glory. Costello, though, is stripped down to a vernacular toughness, and Costello's singing, similar to Springsteen's but more tactful, is full of buoyancy, emotion, and conviction, without any overkill. The songs number twelve in all on the disc, unusual for a rock disc, and each exists as polished lyrical gems of a cynical, penetrating working-class intelligence.

Costello's strength, a virtue that Springsteen, Smith, and Waits lack, is his ability to use rock cliches for their total value. Costello gets the heat to the meat instead of brandishing them like a set of museum pieces that one is supposed to bow to in historical awe and respect. The rockability stuff is done with a verve that equals Buddy Holly, his use of reggae captures the required gloomy, sinister mood, and his boogie material does a lot more than plot the course for the band. His lyrics, though, are imbued with a seventies sensibility, an awareness of absurdity works minor miracles with motifs that one might have considered as resources of comedic irony in this current,post-hip climate. The gifts would be nothing less than restoring to all the old rock and roll and pop music styles the capacity for emotional impact. Though not notable for originality or innovation, My Aim is True is a real piece of work, and Elvis Costello has an intelligence that can develop into something more complex and rewarding. My aim, for now, suffices as an excellent example of rock revisionist traditionalism.

THE BYRDS AND THEIR PUNK VERSION OF HEY JOE

 

Hey, Joe by the Byrds on their 1966 Fifth Dimension album. This song was recorded by too many bands over the decade, and there is not much difference among the 50 or so versions I'm aware of. The reason I was drawn to the song as a naive teen was because it broke the mode the cycle of love-sick Gene Pitney/Leslie Gore pop melodies and melodramas that dominated my conscious mind at the time and gave me and other unsuspecting youth a taste of a real tragedy concerning the consequences of cheating on one's partner. 

In this case, the cuckold wasn't going to sob and bleed all over the carpet as would be the metaphorical case for Pitney or Gore. Instead, this fellow answers questions from an inquiring pal about what his game plan is, and Joe makes it plain, he's going to get a gun and shoot her dead. That's getting proactive in the worst sense of the word. I was aware that it didn't put women in the best light and would hardly suffice as an example in problem resolution. Years later, after bitter experience and summary reeducation by sharp females who tolerated my foibles, I became aware of the idea of misogyny, the outright hatred of women. I've been trying to mend my ways ever since. 

But at the time, I was engrossed by the sheer drama of it all, the portrait of a lonely guy so anemic in self-esteem that he would rather kill his cheating girlfriend than calm down, feel the feelings, and seek another less destructive path. The one thing I would say as regards anything resembling a defense of the song's treatment of women was that it was an introduction to the idea that emotions are not only dramatic but infinitely and witlessly complex as it goes. It was part of education. But as we say, quantity changes quality, and the surfeit of versions of the renditions leeched the drama from the lyrics and made the ascending chord progression less a measure of tension building than it was a model of metronomic monotony. 

 But the Byrds version is unique concerning the tempo, which is jacked to nearly punk-pogo dynamics and David Crosby's vocal, which is breathless and sounds winded and excited on adrenaline as would a criminal who had, as the lyrics let on, shot his wife. Forget the sultry and soulful writer of the ballads Everyone's Been Burned or Guinivere, the tunes of sensitive minstrels rhyming away life's ironies. Hey Joe is a blunt revenge fantasy, and Crosby sounds wicked, a man who wants blood. But the biggest payoff is Roger McGuinn's twelve-string work, which aligns itself with that Coltrane-inspired note clustering he did for Eight Miles High. He riffs throughout the tune, swift, jabbing riffs, odd chord accents, more jabbing and dissonant riffing, a busy counterpoint to the pulsing bass, the earnest cowbell throughout, the bated vocalisms: this has the drama that comes at that moment when watching a two-story house on fire and the structure collapses in unredeemable sparks. This is the best version of the song ever released.

BLUE CHEER DESTROYED ALL POWER TRIOS

 

It wasn't hip at all to like Blue Cheer when their 1968 debut Vincibus Eruptum was released. It was the usual accusations as the established critics expressed their disgust. Out of tune, they cannot play their instruments, unbelievably bad imitations of Hendrix and Cream. Some of us liked what these three guys were doing, though.I liked them precisely for the reason that others hated them for, for being atonal, loud, feedback, distorted in ways that had nothing to do with conventional ideas of texture and musical color and everything to do with making you aware of the nature of the sound, which sheer electricity wielded by some angry and impatient men eager to make a noise where there was stultifying silence previously. Blue Cheer was the perfect band for the coming age of speed freakery. The chemical essence wants to take things apart and then reassemble them rapidly, haphazardly, inspired, and excited momentarily by new combinations of components be had from that which was gutted. Like it or not, something new was occurring here, and it was something that could only happen if the players--Dickie Peterson bass and vocal, Leigh Stephens guitar, Paul Whaley drums--had more than a competent grasp of their instruments.

I was introduced to the solar skronk and abrasive swing of Sun Ra at the time through many visits to the Grande Ballroom and developed a taste for the mind fuckery of free-jazz that came from Coltrane Pharaoh Sanders, Ayler, Coleman. It helped that WABX, the FM underground station in Detroit, played some black Avant grade music. So I found similarities between what Blue Cheer was doing and the esteemed black musicians who (may have ) influenced them. The band may well have had no idea of what they were doing conceptually, and the conceit is mine alone. Still, all the same, Blue Cheer handily deconstructed the entire power trio format, pushing into to its three or four-chord limit with long jams that were groaning, grainy, belching, aggressive nonlinear improvisations keyed to only emotion.

They were to the power trio what Neal Cassady was to drive. I consider Dick Peterson an able, if not great, bassist. Still, unquestionably, one of the most terrific white-blues screamers of all time--his singing was rage, self-pity, and uncontrollable impulse fused in each frayed, corrosive syllable he spat out.  His bandsaw -on-steel vocals, joined with guitarist Leigh Stephens' PULVERIZING ATONAL GUITAR SOLOS and drummer Paul Whaley's trash can demolition, Peterson and crew lay the groundwork for a generation of metal and punk bands to come: MC5, STOOGES, MOUNTAIN, LED ZEP, RAMONES, MOTORHEAD, DEAD BOYS. Even the Velvet Underground, with their feedback skronk, couldn't match Blue Cheer's steel-belted forays into electrified abandon; the Velvets merely taunted the strings of their guitar, Blue Cheer sounded like they punched holes in oil tankers. And Peterson's vocalizations were the perfect match, screech, rasp, and banshee wail all rolled into one bag of verbal outrage, maintaining a punk's slouch. His was the rusty yowl that deserved to be praised and dreaded for the unflinching combination of fear and rage it represented. 

Leigh Stephens' broadsides were genuinely beautiful cascades of dissonance, pulverizing atonal breaks, the emphasis on pulverizing. I saw these guys at the Grande as well. It seems to me that I think about it decades later that this was not a man of sub-competence flailing and noodling about the frets, but someone who knew what he wanted to sound like and could get the result he desired, and that he was someone who could duplicate that sound on command.

Paul Whaley, in turn, had the most expansive, most enormous, most sledgehammer-like drumming style of the period. His sound was of every building and bridge that ever collapsed under its own weight. This is to say that I think the first two Blue Cheer albums need to be reconsidered.