New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?
John Entwistle (1944 - 2002) played bass guitar for The Who, but "Thunderfingers" was much more than just one-half of the band's rhythm section. Entwistle was a multi-instrumentalist who could sing and write his own songs. His contributions to The Who's overall sound may not seem apparent at first, but guitarist (and musical mastermind) Pete Townshend understood quite well.
John’s bass sound was like a Messiaen organ. Every note, every harmonic in the sky. When he passed away and I did the first few shows without him, with Pino [Palladino] on bass, he was playing without all that stuff ... I said, "Wow, I have a job.”
A quick primer.
As for Enwistle's songwriting, a dry and often black humor was his specialty.
"My Wife" perhaps is best known, with "Boris the Spider" coming next. There's also "Whiskey Man" from the band's earlier days. They're wonderful, and there also are dark horses like "Heaven and Hell," a non-album track at one time featured in The Who's live shows; "Success Story" from The Who By Numbers, a wry tale of rock and roll religion; and the science fiction saga of "905," which is a highlight of Who Are You, the band's final album with Keith Moon.
One I particularly enjoy is another non-album track, "When I Was A Boy," which borrows just a bit of inspiration from the verse in Corinthians:
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Entwistle's song begins accordingly.
When I was a baby I hadn't a care in the world,
But now I'm a man, my troubles fill my head,
When I was five it was good to be alive,
But now I'm a man, I wish that I were dead.
And later:
When I was a boy I had the mind of a boy,
But now I'm a man, ain't got no mind at all,
When I was in my teens I had my share of dreams,
But now I'm a man, ain't got no dreams at all.
The chorus arrives at the point.
My how time rushes by
The moment you're born you start to die
Time waits for no man
And your life's spent, it's over before you begin
Or maybe those aren't the actual words in the last line, even if they're frequently reported as such. What I hear is this:
"And your lifespan is over before it begins," or even better, "And your lifespan is over before it began."
Any way you cut it, it's a downer of a song calculated to step all over your buzz -- and the older I become, the more I can relate to it. At 59, I've outlived "The Ox" by 20 months ... but it's all downhill from here.
As comedian Rodney Dangerfield said, "At my age, if I don't drink, don't smoke, and eat only certain foods, what can I look forward to? From this point on, if I take excellent care of myself -- I'll get very sick and die."
Entwistle didn't wait for old age. He left behind one hell of a legacy, though.
Allow me to begin my lamentation about the passing of a legend with a travel story from Bayeux, France, on July 16 in 1985. I was two months into my first trip to Europe, and was bunking in a Normandy hostel with five other travelers.
One of them, Bruce, hailed from Canada. He was blonde, sparsely bearded, quiet and analytical.
This is not to say Bruce wasn’t capable of being intensely opinionated, as I learned later when I offhandedly remarked that Keith Moon of The Who was rock’s greatest drummer.
Bruce quickly became red-faced, proceeding not only to make a convincing and fully detailed case that Rush’s Neil Peart was far better as a drummer -- in fact the best ever -- but adding that Peart wrote challenging lyrics, and besides that, Canadians in general were key contributors to the history of rock and roll all across the board in spite of what perpetually clueless Yanks AND Brits insisted on thinking.
Canadians were not supposed to be chauvinists, were they? I didn’t think so, either, but here was an example of one. But Bruce was passionate, bright and articulate, and I learned much from him during the coming days -- while choosing my comments very carefully.
And as it pertains to Neil Peart, drummer from Rush who died three days ago, it turns out that this Canadian guy named Bruce, who I met 35 years ago in France and Belgium for a grand total of four days ... well, he was absolutely right.
Peart was better than Moon, and he may have been the greatest drummer of all time, at least in the rock genre. As a lifelong fan of Moon the Loon, that's not hard at all for me to say. Peart was a fan of Moon's too. I close with a story relayed by Rolling Stone.
Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie, a middle-class Canadian suburb 70 miles from Toronto. As a teen, he permed his hair, took to wearing a cape and purple boots on the city bus, and scrawled “God is dead” on his bedroom wall. At one point, he got in trouble for pounding out beats on his desk during class. His teacher’s idea of punishment was to insist that he bang on his desk nonstop for an hour’s worth of detention, time he happily spent re-creating Keith Moon’s parts from Tommy.
Before running down the album list for 2019, kindly allow a bit of belated housekeeping.
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November & December Discs
There were only two purchases. As noted previously, and speaking as a stubborn refusenik when it comes to playlists and non-album-oriented modernity, a great change in my listening procedures occurred during 2018-2019. I've acquiesced to streaming, most often experienced via a nice pair of noise-blocking headphones. What I like, I buy.
The Who … WHO
Coldplay … Everyday Life
First, Coldplay. At this point musical polarization is highly likely; you enjoy the band, or not. Having conceded this, the new album is fun if not entirely free of pretentiousness.
As for WHO by The Who, it's true: I'm biased, having been a partisan for 45 years. It's far better than I imagined.
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Here's the TOP 10.
I've made comments about some of these at the time of release, but the list is enough for now. Click here and you'll find all the posts in 2019 with the label "Roger's Year in Music 2019."
10. Sleaford Mods … Eton Alive 9. Liam Gallagher … Why Me? Why Not. 8. Bastille ... Doom Days 7. Yak … Pursuit of Momentary Happiness 6. Sammy Hagar & the Circle … Space Between 5. The Who … WHO 4. The Hold Steady … Thrashing Thru the Passion 3. Bob Mould … Sunshine Rock 2. Foals … Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost (Part 2)
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HONORABLE MENTION
These two albums were great favorites of mine in 2019. They weren't released in 2019, so down go the asterisks. Sunflower Bean … Twentytwo in Blue (2018) Royal Headache … High (2015)
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NUMBER ONE Fastball … The Help Machine
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During December I listened at length to these two 2019 releases.
Titus Andronicus ... An Obelisk White Reaper ... You Deserve Love
I'll be buying them soon, and they can be added to the comprehensive purchase list that starts ... now.
Album releases 2019, November and December
The Who … WHO
Coldplay … Everyday Life
Album releases 2019, September and October
Foals … Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost (Part 2)
Temples … Hot Motion
Down N Outz … This Is How We Roll
The New Pornographers … In the Morse Code of Brake Lights
Fastball … The Help Machine
Elbow … Giants of All Sizes
Keane … Cause and Effect
The Hold Steady … Thrashing Thru the Passion
Ride … This Is Not A Safe Place
Fontaines DC … Dogrel
Liam Gallagher … Why Me? Why Not.
Album releases 2019, July and August
(no albums purchased)
Album releases 2019, May and June
The Amazons … Future Dust
Bruce Springsteen … Western Stars
Sammy Hagar & the Circle … Space Between
Bastille … Doom Days
Album releases 2019, March and April
Foals … Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost (Part 1)
Royal Headache … High (2015)
Catfish and the Bottlemen … The Balance
Album releases 2019, January and February
Sunflower Bean … Twentytwo in Blue (2018)
Bob Mould … Sunshine Rock
Yak … Pursuit of Momentary Happiness
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats … Wasteland (2018)
Sleaford Mods … Eton Alive
Twilight Sad … It Won’t Be Like This All the Time
2019 was a fine year in music for Roger as it pertains to the sort of music Roger likes. And that's as complicated as it needs to get.
Give me a gifted documentarian, archival footage and original songs and I'm in. Having said this, the reviews I've seen for Rocketman suggest it might be an exception.
Might.
But you see, here's the thing. Elton's autobiography is coming this fall, and if the following is any indication of his skill with the written word, I'd prefer reading the book. They're usually better than the film adaptation, anyway.
My chosen excerpt addresses the chance nature of Elton's acquaintance with Bernie Taupin. For 50 years the pianist has written music to Taupin's words, and the their catalog of songs is astounding. Without that, would we even be having this chat?
In this exclusive article, Elton John writes about his extraordinary life and why he finally decided to give the Rocketman biopic the green light
... Jamie and Taron have even managed to capture my relationship with Bernie, which is frankly a miracle, because I really have no idea how that works. We were thrown together at random. I had failed an audition for Liberty Records in 1967, and a guy from the label gave me an envelope with his lyrics in it as an afterthought, like a consolation prize. I’m not sure he had even opened the envelope and read the lyrics himself before he did it: I think he just felt sorry for me and didn’t want me to go away empty handed.
We were very close right at the start of our career together, but we’re completely different people. He comes from the wilds of Lincolnshire, I come from the suburbs of London. He lives in Santa Barbara and he’s literally won competitions for roping cattle. I collect antique porcelain and the only way you’d get me on the back of a horse is at gunpoint. Neither of us can write if the other is in the room. But there’s a weird bond between us that I felt the minute I opened the envelope – I could just write music to his words straight away, without even thinking about it – and it’s lasted over 50 years.
Rock musicians seem to have disproportionately populated the genre of "songs about being on the road." Perhaps this owes to The Beatles, who helped pioneer the notion that popular musicians can and should write their own material.
Swing era musicians played one-nighters and traveled, too -- quite uncomfortably on lousy roads in buses and private cars, but for the most part they played songs written by professional songwriters who might last months without leaving their big city neighborhoods.
While there may be other notable omissions, two stand out for me, with a caveat: I understand completely that white men wrote these two numbers -- which are quite obviously sexist -- as well as most (and maybe all) of the songs on the linked lists. If you have examples of better diversity in this genre of songwriting, let me know. I'm eager to learn more.
Lynyrd Skynrd's 1977 album Street Survivors was released three days before a plane crash claimed the lives of band leader, singer and primary songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, and Steve Gaines, a singer-guitarist of considerable potential who might have become McCartney to Van Zant's Lennon.
In retrospect, the entire album can be heard as a rumination on the life of a traveling band, but the opening track "What's Your Name" stands out. If you're not aware of what Lynyrd Skynyrd meant in the 1970s, be educated: had that plane not crashed, this album would have been viewed as the advent of international superstars. They were THAT good.
At the top of the page is a video of the ideal "road" song, appropriately titled "Back on the Road Again," as performed by REO Speedwagon. What's more, it's written by bass player Bruce Hall, who also sings it -- and who doesn't love it when the lesser known members of a band get their evening's share of the spotlight?
Hall obviously relishes his solo turn, and I've always been a huge fan of the late Gary Richrath, guitarist extraordinaire, who shreds in this video.
Crossing over to the wrong side of a half-centenary turns out to be a pivotal junction: you are forced to make decisions on what you should not, as opposed to should, be wearing. A lot of men entering their 50s fall into one of two camps (with a minority bridging the divide): those who have given up, and those who don’t know when to give it up, with the old me falling uncomfortably into the latter. I get that now.
As Diana might ruefully note, I'm 58 and blissfully immune to fashion advice of almost all types. However the headline still spoke to me, slightly repurposed: "What music to keep quiet about liking if you are over 50."
Just last week over morning coffee she heard me utter a stunning concession. At long last, I'd accepted U2's irrelevance in terms of new music in larger context. The band has been and will remain a great personal favorite, and in the wider cosmos perhaps second only to the more venerable Rolling Stones as a lucrative heritage act -- but that's still a back-catalog-driven phenomenon.
"Pride (In the Name of Love)" just isn't going to happen again. Ever.
Simple human chronology isn't the only factor in this development. Those of us over 50 periodically have trouble understanding that the world has moved on from the heyday of rock and pop acts heard everywhere from Tulsa to Tbilisi. Almost no one under the age of 50 listens to music in the same way as we do, just as my youthful Black Sabbath ears were tuned differently than my dad's Glenn Miller-tinged memories.
Songcraft is digitalized and hip hop rules. U2 itself is complicit in the confusion, recently trying so hard to remain cutting edge via bells, whistles and production gimmicks that in effect its best songs on the past two albums have been neutered, sabotaged from within.
The point? It cannot matter, since none of them could possibly be "With or Without You" in today's world.
Regular readers know that I mightily resist the temptation to settle comfortably in a classic rock format, and yet they also recall how important U2 has been to me over the years. It's not so much being a fan of the music as watching with ongoing fascination these four Irish guys almost exactly my age navigating a career, one that includes lofty achievements and plenty of missteps and screw-ups ... just like any of us.
As one fully capable of matching Bono for pretentiousness, it's funny. Mentioning the 10th anniversary of Bank Street Brewhouse was a painful reminder that NABC's 2009 downtown expansion was supposed to have been an album like U2's Achtung Baby -- and for me the experience turned out to be more like Oasis' Be Here Now, with craft beer substituted for cocaine.
(Or maybe the movie Heaven's Gate, to mix metaphors.)
At least U2 didn't break up, or have a member leave; new music is a probability, and another megabuck tour. Maybe the group will hire a producer like Rick Rubin and go back to the roots. Accordingly, now that I'm happily employed playing rhythm guitar for my new band, perhaps one of these days enough time will have elapsed for me to fully comprehend the way BSB was tantamount to a nervous breakdown.
For your approbation, owing primarily to the great opening story about Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts. It's a good read, on the glib side but instructive. I've seen similar models at work during my time in the brewing business. Maybe I'll tell those stories someday when I write my autobiography: "What I Remember."
Bands are known for drink, drugs and dust-ups. But beyond the debauchery lie four models for how to run a business
In his languidly titled autobiography, “Life”, Keith Richards tells a story that captures something about the workplace culture of the Rolling Stones and his decades as the band’s guitarist. It’s 1984 and the Stones are in Amsterdam for a meeting (yes, even Keith Richards attends meetings). That night, Richards and Mick Jagger go out for a drink and return to their hotel in the early hours, by which time Jagger is somewhat the worse for wear. “Give Mick a couple of glasses, he’s gone,” Richards writes, scornfully.
Jagger decides that he wants to see Charlie Watts, who has already gone to bed. He picks up the phone, calls Watts’s room and says, “Where’s my drummer?” There is no response from the other end of the line. Jagger and Richards have a few more drinks. Twenty minutes later, there’s a knock at the door. It is Watts, dressed in one of his Savile Row suits, freshly shaved and cologned. He seizes Jagger and shouts “Never call me your drummer again,” and delivers a sharp right hook to the singer’s chin.*
Rock stars sometimes seem to exist in a completely different world to our own. It is easy to forget that they, too, are subject to office politics. Watts was the drummer, and Jagger was the leader, or co-leader, of the band. It was Jagger who commanded stages around the world and took responsibility for the band’s major business decisions. But by calling Watts my drummer, Jagger had upset the delicate balance of deference and respect that sustains the relationships between co-workers in any workplace. Of course, there aren’t many offices in which the principals take industrial quantities of artificial stimulants and launch themselves into fistfights. (Imagine being the HR director for the Stones – the paperwork!) But the dynamics of an incident like this are familiar to anyone who has ever felt compelled to request that their boss get over themselves.
The notion that bands should make music for the love of it was always romantic and now seems positively quaint. Rock groups are mini-corporations (some of them not so mini). Bands such as Coldplay or Kings of Leon operate sophisticated corporate machines that are responsible for multiple revenue streams; at a recent conference, Metallica’s drummer spoke about the importance of using the right customer-engagement software. Yet the music machine ultimately depends on a small group of talented individuals working closely together to create something magical. Once members of a group decide that they can’t stand to be in the same room as each other, the magic stops and the money dries up.
If rock groups are businesses, businesses are getting more like rock bands. Workplaces are far more informal than they used to be, with less emphasis on protocol, rank and authority. Many firms try to cultivate the creativity that can come from close collaboration. Employers attempt to engineer personal chemistry, hiring coaches to fine-tune team dynamics and sending staff on team-building exercises. Employees are encouraged to share lunch, play table tennis and generally hang out. As the founder of Hubble, a London office-space company, put it, “We hope that our team will become friends first, and colleagues second” ...
* Wikipedia relays the tale a tad differently:
One anecdote relates that in the mid-1980s, an intoxicated Jagger phoned Watts' hotel room in the middle of the night asking "Where's my drummer?". Watts reportedly got up, shaved, dressed in a suit, put on a tie and freshly shined shoes, descended the stairs, and punched Jagger in the face, saying: "Don't ever call me your drummer again. You're my fucking singer!"
Hands down my favorite Beatles album, even though I didn't come to it until a few years later, when I was a junior in high school.
I haven't smoked pot for more than twenty years; alcohol does me just fine, thank you; however, if I ever go back for another bowl, let's hope the trip includes this album. It took a couple of Beefeater and tonics to take the edge off tonight's listening, conducted straight through with only a brief pause in the middle for the necessary refill.
Things like this make me emotional. As the author observes, 1967 may have been the Summer of Love, but 1968 was a year for the barricades.
... The Beatles’ naïve and aggressively experimental musicianship propelled their most fractured and divisive project into a kind of accidental perfection. Fifty years later, the record is still good, still indelible, still as clean and pure as its sleeve, requiring no explanation or description beyond the band’s name. As the first century of electricity and world war recedes—the century of radio and movies and television and jazz, the final unconnected century, when teen-agers around the world flooded the seaport docks as new vinyl arrived—these ninety-four minutes endure, preserving the instant that rock joined the pantheon of the highest arts.
Flight documentaries happen when we're flying home after a European sojourn. Eastbound flights are for sleeping, westbound for reading, writing and watching.
Movies? Not for me, although it's usually a good opportunity to explore new music via audio selections.
I readily concede to being only a lukewarm aficionado of David Bowie, but an addiction to music magazines during the early 1970s has assured my lasting familiarity (and belated listening) with Bowie, Mick Ronson, the Spiders from Mars, Mott the Hoople, T. Rex, and the other "glam" period British acts that so influenced personal fave, Def Leppard.
Hence, the vital importance of this snippet from the Freddie Mercury tribute concert in 1992: Bowie, Ronson, Ian Hunter, the surviving members of Queen with Joe Elliot and Phil Collen on backing vocals on "All the Young Dudes."
Ronson was terminally ill and died not too long after his appearance. If you're a fan of music of the period, this documentary is a must-watch.
... After kicking around London for a few years and making little headway and less money, (Ronson) returned to Hull and became a municipal groundskeeper. One of his band mates in a group called The Rats returned to Hull to try to convince the contented gardener to travel back to London to become a member of David Bowie's backup band. Though hesitant after his previous experiences, Ronson made the trip and the rest, as they say, is a history in desperate need of telling, which this film manages pretty well so I'm not going to further synopsize it.
It's clear that Ronson was a masterful guitarist with a unique sound that's in part created by a partly open "Wah Wah" pedal that he matter of factly demonstrates on camera and that by the time Bowie's semi-breakthrough album Hunky Dory was recorded, he'd learned from Visconti the art of arranging and had become a brilliant one.
Rick Wakeman, who plays piano on that Ken Scott-David Bowie produced classic, says in his on-screen interview that Ronson, not Bowie, was the real co-producer and that his string arrangements on tracks like "Life on Mars" were, as all listeners know, nothing short of brilliant. While "Michael Ronson" receives arranging credit, it's kind of buried ...
Turns out I'm not the only person favoring flight documentaries.
Speaking of airplanes, I watched this on the flight back from Amsterdam so I can't get into the technical aspects of the film or the sound, though I did listen on my Jerry Harvey Layla in-ear phones, which are amazing. My conclusion is that while this is a somewhat flawed presentation, it's one every Mick Ronson fan should see as should every Bowie fan. In fact, it's indispensable. When it was over, having "met" onscreen, Ronson's wife and family I was left beyond sad by how this super-talented man, who was never a money-grubber, left this planet too young, under-appreciated and with little money to leave his family.
Welcome to the music playing inside my head. It won't necessarily play to everyone's taste, and that's as it should be. It's my damned blog, and I'll do with it as I please.
In 2018, I've resolved to offer a musical recap every two months. For those just tuning in, note that I no longer can carry a tune across the street without breaking both legs, but music's still playing in my head every waking moment.
I'm completely convinced that when the music stops playing, death will be near.
In addition, I'm the old fogey's stogie when it comes to music; no iTunes or playlists for me. Perversely, no vinyl, either; my albums are stacked over at the Public House, and I don't own a turntable.
As with books, each year I research and buy those CDs that seem best suited to my tastes. They're usually augmented with impulse buys and random excursions, and of course I listen to snippets of radio, YouTube and the like.
Before proceeding, here is a vicious and deadly accurate assessment of my deteriorating condition. Still talkin' 'bout my generation? That's nice, but my generation is utterly irrelevant.
... Music has changed irrevocably. You can see that by looking at festival bills, where hip-hop and R&B artists sit alongside rock bands, the never-the-twain tribal divisions of the past dissolved. You can see it in the fact that online distribution of music has created a generation gap in music again, by creating an audience of teenagers who consume everything online, who listen to music that has bypassed the traditional gatekeepers of press, radio and labels. And you can see it in the fact that music journalists – the people who traditionally define the canon – are no longer overwhelmingly men. That more women and people of colour are now creating the narrative around pop is surely a good thing, even if it sometimes feels uncomfortable for those of us brought up on the certainties of Led Zeppelin and a narrative that begins with Robert Johnson and traces a line through the Beatles and the Smiths.
I suspect we may be at the end of the age of the canon, for now at least.
Nolo contendere.
Hann's right, and I support his conclusion: "It won’t be a list that reflects my tastes, and I’m fine with that. My canon is dead. Long live the new canon, whatever it might be."
Obviously, I remain a pop-rocker. For me, classical music is WUOL-FM and my CD collection, and the latter suffices for jazz listening and world music (internet radio helps). I've nothing bad to say about hip hop or country; they're just not my taste.
In 2018, live music has been restricted to the Louisville Orchestra at the Ogle Center (see list below). I'd like to be more supportive of local music, and concede that this is the 800-lb chink in my armor. It's a constant struggle, but the fact is that I don't indulge in nightlife any longer, and when dining and drinking out, our preferences run to conversation, which tends to be precluded by loud music. So it goes. It's all about me, and what I like.
Following are CD purchases from July and August, 2018, randomly listed. I've spent my money wisely these past two months.
Houndmouth … Golden Age
Houndmouth's stylistic reboot has been a summer's highlight. There'll be dissenters, but I love the new sound. Our local favorites have spent the past few years re-contextualizing themselves in the aftermath of Katie Toupin's departure; they couldn't have possibly remained the same, and have evolved accordingly by reaching inside. These are my favorite sort of life lessons from music, and let's hope the progression continues.
James … Living in Extraordinary Times
I was barely aware of James' existence prior to the band's 2014 release, La Petite Mort. This is the band's second album since then, and serves as an overt and often angry riposte to Brexit, Trump and the numbing stupidity of our contemporary world. This fact duly noted, it's the music and not the lyrics commanding my attention. Repeated listens are highly rewarding. You'll hear new, good things each time.
Gaz Coombes … World’s Strongest Man
Gareth Michael Coombes was the genius behind Supergrass, for my money the most criminally overlooked of late 90s-era British bands. His newest solo release begins eccentrically with self-directed cynicism and a dramatic falsetto, then gradually yields to a pleasing blend of old traits and new flourishes, as with this song's piano intro. It might be refashioned from "Imagine" by John Lennon, or closer still, The Who's "Gettin' in Tune," and overall, it's very solid pop from a gifted performer.
Florence and the Machine … High as Hope
On her latest, Florence Welch sings autobiographically, and the lyrics appropriately fascinate, alternately visceral and nostalgic. Arrangements are nuanced; the music creeps through more so than bursts out. There have been no ear worms for me, just a greater appreciation for her craft after multiple immersions.
Peace … Kindness Is the New Rock and Roll
It transpired by sheer coincidence that the very period of this album's heaviest rotation in my cranium coincided with Matt Brewer's tragic death.
Overnight, the tone of a largely upbeat, sassy pop-rock album became elegiac. Phenomenons like this probably can't be helped. Your brain experiences a dialectic, as opposing emotions clash -- in this instance, sadness and exhilaration -- and must somehow be resolved.
Listen to this song, and then I'll continue.
For anyone who knew Matt, the ultimate resolution is obvious. Matt's whole life was about kindness and the sheer exhilaration of living, and while his premature departure from this planet is sad and tragic, we're left with a legacy of joy and love.
Simply stated, I'll never be able to listen to this album without thinking about Matt, and so to close this musical rumination, here's a song dedicated both to Matt and his wife Brook.
Following are links to music-related articles from the past two months.
In 2018, I've resolved to offer a musical recap every two months.
For those just tuning in, I can no longer carry a tune across the street without breaking both legs, but music's playing in my head every waking moment. I'm convinced that when the music stops playing, death will be near.
I'm old school -- no iTunes or playlists for me. Perversely, no vinyl, either; my albums are stacked over at the Public House and I don't own a turntable. As with books, each year I research and buy those CDs that seemed best suited to my tastes. They're usually augmented with impulse buys and random excursions, and of course I listen to snippets of radio, YouTube and the like.
For me, classical music is WUOL-FM and my CD collection, and the latter suffices for jazz listening and world music (internet radio helps). I've nothing bad to say about hip hop or country; they're just not my taste.
In 2018, it's looking as if live music will be restricted to the Louisville Orchestra at the Ogle Center, unless anyone has cheap seats to the Def Leppard/Journey show at Yum next week (hint).
I'd like to be more supportive of local music, and concede that this is the 800-lb chink in my armor. It's a constant struggle, but the fact is that I don't do much in the way of nightlife any longer, and when dining and drinking out, our preferences run to conversation, which is precluded by loud music.
So it goes. It's all about me, and what I like.
Following are CD purchases from May and June, 2018. They're in approximate order of preference, and I can tell you now that Marr and the Manics will be among the year's most listened for me. It cannot always be said with confidence, but verily, I've spent my money wisely these past two months.
Reviews have been chosen because they're fair and balanced according to the verdict of my ears. I typically skim reviews before making purchases, then read them voraciously afterward.
Recent archival digressions included the complete CD set of Artie Shaw's Gramercy Five, acquired a few years back and filled with deliciousness, and the 1970s oeuvre of Edgar Winter, both solo and with his band at the time, via a brief free trial with an on-line music provider (I've no physical copies of his output). Winter had a spectacular run from his debut to around 1977, and no more versatile performer could be found during that period.
Through the same medium, I listened to several live performance of The Who from the pre-Tommy period. Glorious days, indeed, and a rare treat for me.
An aside: Usually Glastonbury keeps me abreast of contemporary Brit Rock, though not this summer, as it's a break year. But there's much of the recent Isle of Wight fest to be viewed on YouTube, and my friend Jerry and I continue to split the cost of a yearly subscription of Mojo magazine.
There have been 12,787 posts since October, 2004, and while I try to write about topics with some measure of resonance apart from the prerequisites of my own inner world, the blog still functions as a diary at least part of the time. Writing about music probably isn't why you check in, and that's fine. It's something I do for me.
That said, I'm almost a month late in fulfilling my self-directed mandate to regularly summarize the music I've been enjoying, preferably at two-month intervals.
Following is a video sampler of the CDs purchased in March and April. They appear in no particular order, because I'm not organized enough to manage things like chronology.
The Vaccines … Combat Sports
The Decemberists … I’ll Be Your Girl
The Len Price 3 … Nobody Knows
Neon Waltz … Strange Hymns
Gumba Fire: Bubblegum Soul & Synth-Boogie in 1980s South Africa
The Charlatans …Tellin’ Stories (1997)
The Charlatans … Modern Nature (2015)
Travis ... Where You Stand (2013)
Of these, Combat Sports is my favorite, with the three-year-old Modern Nature finishing second. Both proved to be ear worms, and Combat Sports probably will place highly in the year's end Top-Something list. The songs are short, snappy and melodic, with traces of the Kaiser Chiefs.
One of my goals for the year in music, 2018, is to relax and allow myself to follow the passing butterfly. New releases were of spotty interest for me in March and April, so I did something I rarely do and indulged in a few "classic rock" tangents and digressions.
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The 20th anniversary of Bring It On, the first album released by the British band Gomez, came on April 13. I celebrated by listening to all of Gomez' albums. After an extended seven-year hiatus, it seems the group might be going back into the studios. This makes me happy.
Another anniversary (the 40th) of Van Halen's debut album in 1978 had me thinking, and it appears my position has evolved. I wasn't a fan of the band's David Lee Roth era, which ended in 1985. However, I liked Van Hagar. Now, with greater distance, I can see how groundbreaking and revolutionary the early material really was; not just Eddie's guitar, but the sound and attitude, too.
To be sure, Sammy Hagar -- he's 70 years old now -- remains a rock and roll everyman, and an enduring performer to be appreciated. As for Van Halen's mercifully brief third aggregation, my annual listen to the horrid Van Halen III has confirmed that after 20 years, it hasn't gotten any better.
In early April, I accompanied my wife to her appointment for dental work, taking along a book and enjoying a couple of hours of reading.
Unfortunately, the Sirius channel of choice in the waiting room was devoted entirely to Top 40 hit songs of the 1970s, like "Afternoon Delight" and "The Night Chicago Died." Several Bee Gees songs also were aired; at the dentist, as during high school, this band was inescapable. I subsequently retreated to YouTube to give a few Bee Gees hits a second listen.
It's hard to do, but if you can ignore the clothes and wash the palate clean of pop culture at the time and focus on the music, it's far better than I ever thought. The singing, songwriting and production are stellar. Pop music after the Beatles seldom witnessed such an epic, unholy roll as the Bee Gees enjoyed at the band's peak. Here's my favorite song, which was released in 1975 just before the tsunami. You never heard the lovely bridge on the radio; it got chopped.
"Play some Skynyrd," crooned John Eddie back in '03, and of course he was referring to "Free Bird" and "Sweet Home Alabama," among other memorable songs from Lynyrd Skynyrd's heyday in the 70s. Everyone knows about the plane crash in 1977, which put a premature end to the juggernaut, killing singer and principal songwriter Ronnie Van Zant.
Lynyrd Skynyrd later reformed, and has been on the road as a working band for decades, stocked by an ever shrinking number of plane crash survivors until now only guitarist Gary Rossington remains. Nothing against the reconstituted Skynyrd, which in its second life became something the same and yet far different, because it's hard to imagine Ronnie Van Zant devolving into parody, like Charlie Daniels.
This prompts a question: exactly what is Lynyrd Skynyrd, and at what point does it cease being so? The farewell tour is underway, and along with the many other summer touring announcements coming in March and April, another rabbit hole opens.
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Lindsey Buckingham's departure from Fleetwood Mac may or may not be noticed by a majority of the ticket-buying fillers of arena seats, but for the pundit class, it ignited all sorts of commentary along the lines of when, if at all, an aging band's replacement parts render it no longer original enough to pass muster.
The discussion is interesting, and ultimately ridiculous. Obsessive true believers like me always have been outnumbered 10-1 or greater by casual thrill-seekers, and so it will remain forever more. In music, you're whatever you say you are, until people stop paying you. Then it changes.
The received wisdom is that older rock and pop artists still possessing the clout and back catalog to fill venues are referred to as "legacy" or "heritage" acts; few fans attend their shows for the purpose of hearing what they've recorded lately, but expect to hear the hits. Because the business model has been flipped, and performance is the money-maker, the hits are what these audiences are sure to hear.
The subtleties quickly become immersed in contradiction. To even casual fan, Buckingham and Stevie Nicks might seem integral to Fleetwood Mac, and yet the band began as a hardcore blues outfit featuring guitarist Peter Green, and it has taken a variety of shapes with various musicians before (and since) Buckingham and Nick first joined.
And, Buckingham left once before.
There are no original members in the band Blood, Sweat & Tears, currently touring with American Idol contestant Bo Bice as vocalist in the job made famous by David Clayton-Thomas. However, Clayton-Thomas wasn't the band's original singer; he came aboard after the group's debut release.
Former singer Clayton-Thomas is 76 years of age and Bice is 43, and therein lies an important lesson, because it comes down to money, as in any business, and if many musical aggregations can plausibly say it's all about the style of music paying customers want, and the songs they want to hear, then it's of less importance who performs it.
Granted, there are on-off talents that cannot be replaced, like Jimi Hendrix, but at the same time, if people will turn out to hear passable renditions, then capitalism will provide them.
Accordingly, tribute bands have changed the world. Journey famously plucked singer Arnel Pineda from the Philippines via the internet. Current Chicago tenor Neil Donnell, the guy singing Peter Cetera's and Jason Scheff's songs, was a member of a Chicago tribute band in Canada.
KISS speaks of keeping the band alive with no original members at all, and Robert Lamm of Chicago confided similar thoughts to a journalist, and if this makes no sense to you, allow me to observe that in the past few years, I've seen multiple shows by the Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, neither of which might possibly have "original" members any younger than about 95 years of age.
Miller famously died in WWII, and neither Dorsey brother made it to the 1960s, and yet there's nothing stopping musicians fresh out of college, as well as older players happy to have a regular gig, from performing Swing Era arrangements. The precise experience may not be the same. If you close your eyes, it's also not tremendously different. Symphony orchestras have been doing it since Beethoven was still alive.
As age-depleted rock legacy bands and their tribute bands become one and the same, the chief considerations are legalities: who retains the rights?
Once the lawyers are happy, it's all about selling tickets.
Of course, these lists are contrived click bait, but Mojo does them better than most. The first brief video snippet includes a fleeting glimpse of the Kaiser Chiefs, a band I greatly enjoy. There are so many more: Suede and Waterboys receive honorable mention, and what about Travis and the Charlatans? Simple Minds? I remember reading somewhere that Squeeze wasn't huge in America, either, apart from the hit song "Tempted" and the early 1990s greatest hits CD.
I'm delighted to report that my CD collection includes discs from 7 of the 10 bands mentioned in the Mojo video. The * means I have all the group's albums.
10 Supergrass*
7 Kasabian*
5 Stereophonics
4 Manic Street Preachers*
3 Pulp
2 The Jam (and Paul Weller)
1 Stone Roses
Here's the sequel, with a twist.
Some of these are big favorites, too, with Blur and The xx meriting honorable mention.
9 The 1975
8 Florence + the Machine
6 Muse
4 Oasis
3 Arctic Monkeys
2 Coldplay
1 Radiohead
For me, I've always liked rock and pop music from the UK and Ireland. I've liked it more than American music of the same genres. It's okay if you disagree -- just be musical about it.
Perhaps I should pay closer attention. I was neither aware of this book, nor that the author is booked for a gig at the Carnegie Center this Saturday.
Carnegie Center for Art and History
201 East Spring St.
New Albany, IN 47150
It crushes my soul to write these words: in 2018, it will be 40 years since Keith Moon died. It's almost as hard to imagine a 70-year-old Moon as it is a Miller Lite that actually tastes great. We've been without John Entwistle since 2002, but Roger Daltrey has a solo album coming out soon. Pete Townshend remains the one musician of his era who I'd join for a pint in the pub if given the chance.
I'm going to try and make this one.
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JOIN TOGETHER: THE WHO & THE SIXTIES SATURDAY, APRIL 14 ... 1:00 - 2:00 PM Casey Harison will depict the social impact of the British rock band on the youth culture in his presentation. Registration is requested and can be easily done by calling 812.944.7336 or emailing Delesha Thomas at dthomas@carnegiecenter.org. The presentation will take place in the Jane Barth Anderson Meeting Room. The Who were one of the most successful bands of the 1960s British Invasion. They set themselves apart from other bands by their smart and timely songs, loudness, and habit of destroying instruments at the end of their performances. If The Who had done nothing else, they would have secured a place in rock ‘n roll history for high volume, smashed guitars and kicked-over drum kits. But The Who also played a role in the American and British counterculture movement of the late 1960s. This presentation reviews the encounter between the band and the counterculture generation from the ‘Summer of Love’ in 1967, through Woodstock, the album ‘Tommy’ and the failed ‘Lifehouse’ project of the early 1970s. Casey Harison has been a Professor of History at the University of Southern Indiana since 1992, and in 2011 was appointed director of the USI Center for Communal Studies. His research mostly revolves around Modern French and Atlantic history and teaches on several specialized courses such as the French Revolution and Napoleon, European Revolutions, History and Film and the Holocaust. His focus on The Who and their effects on the Counterculture led to the publication of his book, “Feedback: The Who and Their Generation.” Other notable accomplishments include the publication of a second book, “The Stonemasons of Creuse in Nineteenth-Century Paris,” two books as an editor or co-editor, and a number of articles that made appearances in journals like “French Historical Studies,” “Journal of Social History,” “Atlantic Studies,” and more.
Previously I threw my hands into the air, made a belated list of favorites, and called it good for 2017. The long awaited and much belated account of Roger's Year in Music, 2017. In 2018, the revised plan calls for a musical recap every two months. Will I stick to the regimen? Beats me, but it's worth a try.
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I cannot fathom how I've managed to miss The Charlatans -- not just the band's most recent album from 2017, but its entire career since the early 1990s.
From the offset, 'Different Days' is an album drenched in colour. Opener 'Hey Sunshine' bursts with lavish kaleidoscopic synths, whilst The War On Drugs-esque follow up 'Solutions' drives with zealous passion. Elsewhere on the LP, 'Let's Go Together' and 'Not Forgotten' are the record's most anthemic moments and see The Charlatans rising in a concoction of electric organs and Madchester swagger.
Music like this is my sweet spot, so it's time to catch up.
Conversely, I'm fully aware of Travis, which was the opening act for Oasis the first time I saw the Brothers Gallaghers at the then-Murat in Indianapolis. Like The Charlatans, Travis came on the scene around 1990.
I completely missed Everything at Once, the 2016 release.
In a packed-to-the-rafters north London venue, Travis are launching their (latest) comeback in an ultra-Travis manner: playing two sold-out shows in one evening in a pub. No stunt-casting venue-hire or fan-teasing viral gimmickry required.
Thanks for the tip, Joe. It's a stellar collection of songs.
Another missing link in recent years is the Len Price 3 (a tip of the hat to Shea). Last year's album was Kentish Longtails, and at Louder Than War, Ged Babey hones in.
There seem to be a lot of targets the band unleash their vitriol on in their songs; Trendy Camden bands, social climbers and flash bastards, bullshitters, liars, female airheads with debatable morals, ‘screen zombies’, vacuous Pop-puppets. Eight songs out of fourteen are venomous attacks on the people they ‘hate’. The word ‘morons’ appears in two songs. This almost puts me off the band a bit – but then, most of the targets deserve the abuse they get.
The beautiful thing about the Len Price 3 is that one needs only hear the opening chords of a song to know what lies ahead, so brief samples suffice. The band has been compared to early-days-old-school Kinks and The Who, and it's easy to see why.
The catchiest song of the year to my quivering ears comes from Django Django:
In the ear worm rankings, Django Django is followed closely by this anthem of disaffection from South London's post-punk group Shame.
They’re as ferocious as their acknowledged inspirations the Fall; even when the guitars aren’t turned up to a jet roar, Steen’s furious sneer gives them urgency (“My voice ain’t the best you’ve heard / And you can choose to hate my words / But do I give a fuck?” he asks on One Rizla). Best of all, though, they have huge, anthemic tunes to go with the anger.
I rediscovered the joys of both Franz Ferdinand and Sparks when the two bands produced the FFS collaboration in 2015:
This is not a meeting of equals, and it doesn't have to be. It's a marquee-name band throwing their weight behind a cult act that clearly inspired them—and the cult act showing who's really in charge.
FFS had the salutary effect of causing me to positively reassess both bands; I could hear echoes of Alex Kapranos in last year's Hippopotamus by Sparks, and now I think of the Mael brothers while listening to Franz Ferdinand. It's not a bad thing at all.
When Manic Street Preachers were promoting Futurology in 2014, James Dean Bradfield and Nicky Wire were unstinting in their praise for the Scottish band Simple Minds as a major formative influence.
The shadow of Simple Minds’ early work shrouds the record, ‘Dreaming A City’ is a bona fide steal of ‘Theme for Great Cities’ and lead single, ‘Walk Me To The Bridge’, openly acknowledges singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield thoughts, “Simple Minds were crystalline gods to me.” Yet, the Manics have not created a clumsy homage to those electronic art-rock records: the sound is genuine, and these pieces are emblematic of the whole record.
Americans tend to think of Simple Minds as a one hit wonder courtesy of "Don’t You (Forget About Me)" in 1985, but the truth is considerably more extensive. As more than one reviewer notices, Simple Minds has been far more successful at preserving its classic sound amid changing times, while still adapting and reinventing around the edges, than a band like U2.
The latter might choose at some point to select a single producer and make an actual rock record, but I'm finished holding my breath. Meanwhile, Simple Minds is sounding great.
The strange, accomplished and hypnotic sound of Wild Beasts has intrigued me since Two Dancers, released on my birthday in 2009. I don't listen often, but certain occasions beg for it.
The group's new (and last) album following the announcement in late 2017 that it would be disbanding is called Last Night All My Dreams Came True. It's a "live in the studio" collection of reworked previous songs, and to be honest, I've have preferred a benedictory offering of new material.
By means of introduction to Insecure Men, this excerpt from the review by Alexis Petridis of The Guardian.
It’s seldom that anything involving Fat White Family comes with a heartwarming story attached. They are, after all, a band who describe themselves as “an invitation, sent by misery, to dance to the beat of human hatred”, whose artistic obsession with the ugliness of life is apparently reflected behind the scenes. Their music springs from a grimy personal world of penury, mental torment and hard drug use: “heartwarming” isn’t really on the agenda.
And yet, there is something at least vaguely cheering about the story behind the eponymous album by Insecure Men, a project that really came to life when the band’s chief songwriter, Saul Adamczewski, was asked to leave temporarily after – and this is a very Fat White Family kind of story – refusing to vacate the Paris venue the band were playing on the night of the Bataclan attack because he’d arranged to meet a heroin dealer there later on.
After a fairly harrowing spell in rehab, Adamczewski emerged not only clean, but eager to make music more tuneful and less unsavoury than the oeuvre of Fat White Family, in the company of his schoolfriend Ben Romans-Hopcraft.
Adamczewski has this to say about Sean Lennon, who produced the record.
We’re really close friends and I love working with him, and I’d rather work with him than anyone else, he’s my favourite person to work with. He hasn’t got much of an ego. He’s just happy to nurture people’s ideas – even if they’re crap – all the way to the end until they realise they’re crap.
That's beautiful.
Finally, we heard the Danish String Quartet on NPR last fall, and apparently so did everyone else, because it took three months to get Last Leaf on back order.
Classical and folk music continue to intermingle in fascinating ways. The intersections stretch back far beyond Bach, who cleverly slipped a German folk song into his Goldberg Variations. Later, composers like Ralph Vaughan Williams and Béla Bartók combed the countryside, collecting tunes from villagers. And a recent piece, Steel Hammer, by Pulitzer-winner Julia Wolfe, draws inspiration from the folk ballad "John Henry."
The members of the Danish String Quartet also have affection for folk. They are plenty happy playing Haydn and Brahms, but their new album, Last Leaf, is entirely devoted to old Nordic folk melodies and dances, which they've arranged for string quartet. The oldest date to around 1300, but there are newer ones, and even a couple faux-folk tunes composed by the group's cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin.
Very compelling, this mixture.
Now, a selection of video documentaries, interviews and concerts. First, Propagandhi, a veteran Canadian band occupying the intersection of the musical and the political.
On the flight back from Porto, I watched The Rolling Stones performing Sticky Fingers Live at the Fonda Theatre 2015.
Rolling Stones fans who snagged one of the precious few tickets to catch the legendary British rockers performing a secret show on May 20, 2015, in Los Angeles at the historic Fonda Theatre were given a truly rare treat. The Stones performed their classic 1971 studio album Sticky Fingers for the first time ever in its entirety and those who missed out can finally get their first view of the show when “Sticky Fingers Live At The Fonda Theatre 2015” drops on Sept. 29 via Eagle Rock.
The video contains band member interviews and background, helping to explain why the set list is re-arranged from the original running order on the 1971 album -- and failing to solve the question of exactly whose zipper was featured on the LP's cover. To put it simply, the performance reveals a band of old-timers still capable of surprises in an intimate setting, if not in the stadiums. Specifically, Stones fans will enjoy guitarist Ron Wood's channeling of material that featured Mick Taylor, a very different lead player.
Having announced a seemingly endless final tour prior to retirement, my attention was drawn to a 2010 BBC documentary about Reg Dwight's climb to the top.
Documentary exploring Elton John's childhood, apprenticeship in the British music business, sudden stardom in the US at the dawn of the 70s and his musical heyday. Plus the backstory to the album reuniting him with Leon Russell, his American mentor. Features extensive exclusive interviews with Elton, plus colleagues and collaborators including Bernie Taupin, Leon Russell and others.
Finally, as referred to previously, two hours of a dinosaur band playing a set list composed of songs I've heard hundreds of times, performed by a couple of guys in their early 70s.
At one point, Townshend held up his signature Stratocaster in the soupy fog and in a nod to Woody Guthrie said, “This red guitar kills fascists!”
Pete Townshend has told numerous interviewers that somewhere in the middle of The Who's 50th anniversary concert tour, he began feeling renewed seeing large numbers of young people in the crowd. Seems the pedant in one of rock's finest songwriters again felt the need to begin dispensing education along with the music.
Swap power chords for beer, and I can relate to this sentiment. Here are a few other posts about music that appeared in January and February, 2018.
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