Geordie – “Electric Lady” (1973)
More from Brian Johnson’s pre-AC/DC band Geordie. They had a few glam rock hits in England during the years 1972-74, sounding quite a bit like Slade. Then they disappeared, as did Johnson for a few years before the untimely, unfortunate death of Bon Scott, gave Johnson his big chance at stardom.
Geordie – “Can You Do It” (1973)
Brian Johnson, pre-AC/DC – from 1973. This song was a #13 hit in England. Geordie had a big Slade, hard rock/glam feel. They broke up in 1976 and Johnson later replaced Bon Scott in AC/DC. The rest, as they say….
Tangerine Dream – “Phaedra” (1974)
Written by The Seth Man for the Head Heritage / Unsung website – from June 21, 2000. I hope he doesn’t mind me printing this here…
In 1981, I believed this to be the trippiest album I had heard in my life. I came to this conclusion after I traded in a pile of second rate space rock like Oxygene, Video Magic and all the solo Vangelis I owned, plumping the proceeds towards the then-recently released T-Dream 70-80 box set. It included nothing off Electronic Meditation, and side one was a quick sampler of Alpha Centauri, Zeit and Atem too brief to give me any real impressions of their formidable qualities at the time, unfortunately. But side two included the first and last tracks off Phaedra, and they were so out there, I immediately scored the entire album soon afterwards. This was Tangerine Dream’s first release on Virgin, and it heralded the beginning of their shift in musical direction, a scenario played out over and over again by almost all progressive bands of the seventies. As time began to slip closer and closer to the eighties, newer keyboard and recording technologies would see these same bands (all of whom had previously lumbered through earlier LPs with freakstorms of mellotron, organ and early VCS3 synthesizers) tone down entirely, change to overt pop or zip through the stratosphere on their battery of “improved” equipment that altogether changed the sound and feeling of their keyboard-based into wimped-out luxury Yamaha, Roland or birotron hurdy-gurdy doldrums. But Phaedra was the only place where the presence of sequencing synthesizers were used in harmony with the mellotrons and previous keyboards that created space-outs as lush and epic as some of their later Ohr pieces. It did begin a trend where T-Dream’s sequencer use would become so relied on that by the late-seventies, Trouser Press’ satirical “Believe It Or Don’t!” column featured a report of the world’s longest concert: the one where Tangerine Dream forgot to unplug their sequencer weeks after a concert!
Phaedra features an Edgar Froese blue and grey painting on the cover, and it captures the overall mood of this synthesizer and mellotron-dominated album: mysterious and diffusive. And the gatefold features ten further Froese psychedelic, light show blob paintings, one of them a disturbing photograph of his then young son, Jerome, drowning in a sea of maroon and blue ectoplasm. The title track is a group composition, taking up side one in its entirety as pulsating and diffusive synthesizers emerge. Then, their brand new sequencer starts up all rigid and echoed as crystal synthesizer patches pass by, twinkling like stars. Soon, only the sequencer remains and mutates into the dominating role as mellotrons waft in and out. Then a three-way mellotron/Moog/sequencer cross talk builds then falls away, leaving Froese playing a repeating surf guitar riff to nowhere as the sequencer returns, picking up speed and pinning you to an undetermined axis in space. Plenty of synthesizer tunnelvision ensues, all trancey and dominated by the unswerving sequencing. As it funnels into inner space, low, low moog chords rumble as lightly touched, reverberated synths dance with further electronics. VCS3 frills and modulated sizzle-Moog appear, and the sequencer labyrinth becomes higher pitched and slowly speeds up, followed by more knob-twiddling sizzling and it’s quickly becoming a dance on the edge of a precipice …on and on until it dissolves into a galaxy of atomic particles and all is “aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.” All that is left is a desolate universe of unearthly caws in the echoed distance, looming closer and closer until the majesty and power of Froese’s mellotron creates a hymnal at the beginning of the universe, a wonderously huge choral that is accompanied by echoed, singly hit chords that operate more like marimbas. The ending sequence is a mellotron-dominated swell-out depicting a deserted beachscape of power, beauty and neglected hope. Then a final coda of mellotrons draw the curtain…until a delayed resurfacing where schoolchildren can be heard playing on a sunny day through the opposite side of a puddle. The classical Greek myth of Phaedra, daughter of Minos, dying by her own hand after her love was rejected by her stepson, Hippolytus, was one of pure tragedy. But leave it to T-Dream to wind up stressing a hopeful end, by the slight return of the schoolchildren voices, perhaps representing her two surviving sons. Side two is broken into three pieces: “Mysterious Semblance At the Strand of Nightmares”, “Movements of A Visionary” and “Sequent C’”. “Mysterious” is just that: all massed mellotron storm clouds with VCS3 knob-twiddling in a place where the only rhythms are amplified sequencers or carbonated synth-fizzing. The opening goes on until it even slips into a phrase from the opening track of “Clockwork Orange”, all swelling and phase-shifted beyond all reasonable-ness. Perfect. “Movements of A Visionary” is full of synthesizer exercises evocative of crabs scuttling across a huge ocean bed, whorls of sand and sea dust kicked up by the shuddering electro-vibe. “Sequent C’” is the finale, wistful but not entirely sad, and winds up diffusing itself into eternity in the fade. And yet, something even stranger underlies all of second side–it was accidentally mastered backwards.
The Seth Man
Paul Kantner / Grace Slick – “Sunfighter” (1972)
Lester Bangs’ interesting review of this 1972 album by the Jefferson Airplane pair. Taken from the March 2, 1972 issue of Rolling Stone (#103)…
First it was groups, then it was solo artists, now all of a sudden it looks like Couples. John & Yoko got us into this mess, Paul & Linda weren’t about to be outdone, and Grace & Paul are shaping up as a source of composition, performance and sheer product at least as potent as the Airplane themselves. Funny thing about these couples, they all sing about themselves. Or each other reflecting back and forth. John & Yoko captured all the press and turned themselves into a pair of avantsy postures, while Paul just sings about eating at home, which, of course, beats doing it in the road but’s just about as bare (musically speaking). Paul & Grace see themselves as part of something bigger, and amidst all the drugstore fire-brandishings of Blows Against the Empire they placed “A Child Is Coming,” all about how the stork was due to call.
Well, the kid’s here now and we can all admire her. China, nee god, is one of the easiest babies on the planet to bill and coo over right now, because the Blows lovebirds have put a big color pic of her square on the cover of their new album. The title refers to the kid, too, implying that she’s a child of destiny and it’s only a matter of time till she too will someday come down on you, government man. And the family album takes up just exactly where “A Child Is Coming” left off, with “And we walk in the sand my lady and me/And we watch and see the child grow.” She’s getting all the love and care any toddler needs despite her folks being such famous musicians and activists, and I’m glad to hear it.
But that’s too easy. Everybody loves romance and everybody loves a baby, but not everybody loves Grace & Paul. Why? Well, for people of such thicklaid Revolutionary profession you don’t see ‘em in any active side of the Movement much, and Blows Against the Empire and the seeming outtake from it at the end of Bark were pompous as hell, and all that has irritated a lot of people across a wide range of political persuasions. Time was, Surrealistic Pillow and Baxter’s days, when the Airplane were one of the most universally respected of American groups, but Volunteers started a trend that Blows Against the Empire laid the epitaph on, and people all over are discovering how fashionable it’s become to dump on the Airplane, especially Grace & Paul.
It ain’t fair. Music should be considered as pure music first and the morality or cogency of its message second, hard as that is sometimes, and especially should rock & roll music be so considered. The other thing is that, as heavyhanded as G&P regularly are, just about every important recording artist you can think of has gotten pretentious or at least portentous today, it’s a disease of the times, and at least the ersatz and probably synthetic fury of Blows is preferable to the involuted, introverted sortings of varying strands of navel lint indulged in by several other chart-topping Heavies I’m not gonna get in trouble by naming again.
There has always been an element of sheer juggernaut rock & roll thunder in the Airplane’s music, most often laid to Jorma and Jack, but with the inescapable desultoriness of Bark and the relative vigor of Blows and this album I’m beginning to wonder if the balance of energy in the band hasn’t shifted. It’s not so much that Sunfighter is an appreciably better album than Bark as that even in its excesses and lyrical embarrassments it seems to have more of what you originally came to the band for.
The thematic grist is as sturmund-drang topical as ever, with a two-part song about the Weather-woman Diana Oughton who died in the bomb factory blast last year as well as Paul’s expected and by now more than stereotypic see-my-people – come – together quasi-anthemics, but they have a much firmer grasp of their materials than on Blows, more time has been spent on the album and the material itself is mostly far superior, real songs with sense and structure as opposed to amorphous rants, seemingly ad-libbed in the whirl of titanic rushes, like “Mau Mau Amerikon.”
Try “Silver Spoon,” which isn’t about cocaine like you thought but about prey and consumption in the cycle of life, with a bit of cannibalism thrown in for seasoning. Structurally it’s tight as an aboriginal bongo, with stark block piano chording and Grace delivering her patented modal, droning vocal style with more success than she has in some time, more even perhaps than in something as walled into history as “Two Heads.” This style was always a risky proposition, at its worst like Buffy St. Marie freaked out on strychnine experimenting with a sort of vocal menstruation (the commercial the Airplane did for White Levis was the best example of that, though “White Rabbit” was nothing you’d want to play for your own little Sunfighters). Here, however, the innate fury and passion that is Grace at her best come searing through, managing as well to hold onto a rare tightness and discipline, so it builds and builds like the mighty bricks in the Sphinx and never loses the current summit with glottal excess. And the words are startling, to say the least: “Throw down all your silver spoons–eat all of the raw meat with your hands/Pick it up piece by piece … Shove it in your mouth any way that you can.”
Brother, that’s primal. Primeval, too. And, with their insistence on simplistic political imperatives and imagery derived from the elements and mammals, Paul & Grace manage to get next to something very basic that penetrates easily and almost, but never quite, touches you in a strange place the Doors used to try for as well as Michael McClure in his Beast Poems–the snarling, smiling peristaltic Mammal in you. Check Paul’s “When I Was a Boy I Watched the Wolves,” the best song on the album and possibly Paul’s best writing to date: an eerie, flashing riff that builds with perfect precision to a furiously driving floodtide, and: “When I was a boy I watched the wolves run/… till the mornin’ sun/And as I grew I soon found the wolfpack grow on me/Laser bright feel the lunar light comin’ down on me/… No light shines on the fang neglected/Run with the wolfpack.”
That’s not just weird, that’s the stuff of bone and stone and blood, drawing imagistically on what remains of nature outside the fences of man while retaining the big piston drive of the city in its rhythmic guts. Which is why Grace & Paul make it and all these bucolic hippies singing about planting cannabis seeds by country roads don’t. Even in the song to “Diana,” the context is pre- or post-civilization: “Sing a song for Diana/Huntress of the moon and a lady of the Earth/Weather woman Diana.”
Not everything is that paleo-lithically pristine, of course; the album has its relative clunkers and unmemorable bits, and Paul still ain’t no Balin when it comes to vocal chops, but he’s getting better and really cooks for someone who sang his first non-bathroom vocal in “Let Me In” on Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. And what compositions don’t knock you up against the wall on first hearing probably mellow into viperous bloom with age and atmosphere; I snickered at “Titanic,” one of those moog-and-electrosmear abysses you can’t dance to, thinking if I still smoked grass it’d probably flip me out, until a friend of mine who still does told me he listened to it psychedelicized and it did. A little something for everybody. This album has been one of the pleasantest surprises of the Santa solstice, and at this point I’m anticipating the next Kantner-Slick opus with far more interest than the Jefferson Airplane album that could conceivably never arrive.
Another denizen of the Plane pack worth checking out in his solo bow is Papa John Creach, the old fiddler who added a few fills to Bark and failed to resuscitate Hot Tuna. On his own he’s a spry, sly delight, and surprisingly turns up as one of the few musicians able to take on a passel of Superpassengers and still sail his ship straight and true. You wouldn’t even know that Jerry Garcia and the other peripatetic palaverers were there. Papa John has a way with the fiddle distinct in this day, a facility for playing straight gospel blues and making it sound somehow classical but never strained or mawkish, and a rare and subtle sense of humor, as when he begins W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” (and when was the last time you heard somebody do that?) with a riff straight out of Hungarian gypsy cum Bela Lugosi atmosphere music, or selects “Over the Rainbow” of all songs in creation and turns you around by not only making it palatable but actually, with his courtly-sweet phrases that teeter on the edge of cloying dreck but never quite lose their jive thread, a lot of fun to listen to. Which is pretty damn rare said of any record these days.
Lester Bangs
The Kinks – “Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround Part One” (1970)
John Mendelsohn’s Jan. 1971 review from Rolling Stone. Mendelsohn wrote a very entertaining book about The Kinks back in 1984 called “The Kink Kronikles”…
So, apparently having forgotten the Byrds’ words of caution, you wanna be a rock and roll star, eh? Before you trade in your stereo components toward the price of an electric guitar, there’s this latest rock and roll essay by Ray Davies and his boys that your ears just have to read. Paragraph by paragraph it goes like this:
‘The Contender’ – silly quasi-bluegrass yielding to some of the most energetic rock and roll noises the Kinks have made since their live-at-Kelvin-Hall LP. Impatient to get out of the life you’re presently leading but not content to be a constructor of highways or a sweeper of sidewalks, you resolve to bust out by playing rock and roll.
‘Strangers’ – a beautiful song about how people come together in the face of tragedy with excellent words and a soulful gasping vocal by Dave Davies, who, on the strength of stuff like this and ‘Mindless Child of Motherhood’, is starting to loom ever larger in the Kinks legend. A footnote to the idea of the quest introduced in ‘The Contender’ rather than an actual part of the statement.
‘Denmark Street’ – conceivably an intentionally grating non-song. Herein you meet the music publishers, who, although they hate your words, hate your tune, and think your hair too long, sign you up anyway in the event of the public’s taste conflicting with their own.
‘Get Back in Line’ – the album’s masterpiece: lovely musically, most poignant lyrically, and with an extraordinarily soulful vocal by Ray. It gets to the point where the union-man decides whether or not you eat, let alone bring your woman home some wine.
‘Lola’ – what praises remain to be sung for this perfectly magnificent piece? Let me mention only that, contrary to the belief of those who celebrated it in its single incarnation, Ray never comes out and tells us whether or not Lola is indeed a transvestite – the most he says is, “I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man, and so is Lola.” This fits in the essay contextually rather than thematically; that is, not because of its plot but because it was the hit record our attention is directed toward in –
‘Top of the Pops’ – the two most banal riffs Ray could remember, namely modified versions of those from ‘Louie Louie’- and ‘Land of a Thousand Dances’. As your single makes its way up the chart you discover all manner of friends that were never around before, the press becomes interested in your polities and theories on religion, women scream at you and the prominent queens invite you to dinner. As your record reaches No. One, which prompts your agent to suggest that here’s your chance to make “some real money,” celestial organs start to play.
But everyone thinks himself entitled to a Cut of the profits from this song he’s never heard, which puts you on ‘The Moneygoround’. By the time you’ve had your solicitor serve the necessary writs, you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown, having wound up with “half of goodness knows what.”
Given so mixed-up, muddled-up, and shook-up world as this, it’s no surprise that your fancy turns in the face of the horrors of the rock and roll life to simply escaping, the idea with which side two of the essay is most concerned.
Escaping to a blissfully uncivilized existence is what the delightfully catchy follow-up to ‘Lola’, ‘Apeman’, is all about. Herein Ray, affecting a West Indian accent, delivers such unforgettable lines as: “Come on and love me / Be my apeman girl.” Light harmless stuff reminiscent of Something Else, but don’t allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of security, for these are, after all, the post-Arthur Kinks, and they paint pretty horrifying villians nowadays.
Like the fat black creatures with “pinstripe minds” in Dave’s ‘Rats’ and the Hitler-emulating music-publishing ‘Powerman’, who are introduced to us in two crushing rockers in which the Kinks rediscover some of the heavyisms they were playing years before Led Zeppelin.
What with all the rats and powermen about even the dubious freedom of hopelessness that is the theme of ‘This Time Tomorrow’ seems inviting. What’s crucial, they remind us in ‘Got to Be Free’, a knock-out finale in which Dave, the rocking kid brother, and Ray, who’s older and more apt to take things philosophically, rebound off of one another’s lines and music, is simply to get out of this life.
This just may be the best Kinks album yet. And, brother, that’s saying one heaping mouthful.
John Mendelsohn
Pere Ubu – “Dub Housing” (1978)
Jon Savage’s review of Pere Ubu’s second album. Written for the longtime British magazine Melody Maker, Nov. 4, 1978…
A week is a month and you could be forgiven for thinking that the times would catch up with Pere Ubu (and overtake them) as they do so many others.
You know: ads and mentions in the music press which, on working on the equation that space = importance, pre-suppose an ‘up ‘n’ coming’ if not ‘major’ band, new major record company with a better reputation for breaking acts, attention from the ‘quality press’ of various description (The Guardian, Harpers), and critical accolades waiting to trap and assimilate by faint or excessive praise.
Here, on their second album (discounting the Radar hybrid), Pere Ubu outflank and transcend these pressures. Not gratuitously but through the breadth and consistency of their vision (I think I like it.)
At very first, Dub Housing appears harsh, impenetrable and repellent. Not as immediately flowing as The Modern Dance, it seems to be working on some hidden internal ‘logic’, from some parallel and disquieting universe. On subsequent listens, the ‘logic’, if indeed the tapping of the subconscious and intuition can be called logic, becomes clearer; the album remains baffling, infuriating, haunting, menacing and ferociously funny. (It’s all a joke, mon).
De dum de dum (Whistles.) It’s very easy to overanalyze a finished product which is arrived at by processes far removed from analysis: for Ubu, to be pinned down to exactly what they’re saying is to destroy a lot of what they’re about. Realising this, they make things difficult: the lyrics – some of which are excellent – and one-line jokes, are buried, sobbed and deliberately thrown away by David Thomas. They refuse to pose for band shots. They shy away from precise explanations about the songs (not why they do them). Occasionally this can reek of deliberate esotericism, but it fits (and works).
Like the theatrical character whence the name, Ubu bluster, swagger and provoke. What they’re aiming for is sweeping, mass-ive. It’s at the same time rewind and fast-forward, recalling as it does earlier, less rational ages while being (erk) modern: Ubu aren’t above perversely accommodating paradoxes. The most basic is that while the music is apparently anarchic, teetering on the edge of collapse, and full of squeals, belches and wails, the band are disciplined and know exactly what they’re doing. (Even when to be intuitive. Ha ha.)
No hits to pick, sorry. The album is such a unit that there are, indeed, no singles to be found there. For reference’s sake, the tracks can be dealt with as follows: ‘Navvy’ and ‘I Will Wait’ open each side sparse and fast. The former is a masterpiece. Moving frantically over the lean rhythm section, Thomas lurches desperately: “I’ve got these arms and legs flipflapflipflap… I have desire… freedom! Freedom!” leading to the viciously sardonic chorus “Boy, that sounds swell!” ‘Drinking Wine Spodyody’ (not the old Sticks McGhee hit) and ‘(Pa) Ubu Dance Party’ occupy the central position in side two: two dance and party songs with… undertones. ‘Drinking Wine’, an obscure reworking of the previous ‘Cloud 149’ (flip of ‘Final Solution’ and to be found on the Radar thingy), quivers and wavers around a circular, repetitive riff, reminiscent in mood of some of the Brecht/Weill songs (circus bitter-sweetness masking deep malaise). The band play some hot mid-Sixties hi-school garage band licks at the start of ‘Dance Party’, but things start, inevitably, to go funny when the taped voices intrude as an undercurrent (as they do throughout the album) and the singer gabbles away. The vamp at the end slightly spoils the generally impeccable standard of endings that Ubu achieve. (When I get to the bottom I go back to the top.)
‘Blow Daddy-O’ is an irresistible and deceptively complex instrumental: the immense forward drive is given by the synthesizer loop, with all the other instruments merely embellishing. It outmekaniks almost everyone. ‘On The Surface’ and ‘Caligari’s Mirror’ both tap what can only be described as a jaunty terror: the former is built around a cyclic, reedy organ riff, sounding almost like a bagpipe; Allen Ravenstine’s synthesizer bubbles and percolates near the surface.
‘Caligari’s Mirror’ is another masterpiece: based loosely on the old song ‘What’ll we do with the drunken sailor’, it keeps the sprawling, uncontrollable swagger of this original, with hints of its deep, cruel terror. The crazy syncopation of the “walked around – took a bus” snatch only reinforces the mood. And it’s funny; the humour is difficult for us English to grasp, used as we are to wit aimed at a target; this is a much more general, wider, humour which is more a way of looking at the world.
‘Thriller’ and ‘Codex’ reveal a fascination with late-night movies, and that the band should be writing film scores. The former is a montage of taped movies, slowed down and speeded up, over a loose, sliding background. The album’s ritual unlistenable moment – meant to stretch and polarise – occurs at the end where a noise which sounds like nails being dragged over blackboards intrudes and finally obliterates the soundtrack. Yechh. ‘Codex’ suggests that Werner Herzog should give them a job when Popul Vuh take a vacation. The title track is similarly cinematic in its depth and evocation of images: “The windows reverberate the walls have ears a thousand saxophone voices talk…” – the sax bleats “A thousand insect voices pitter patter laughter filters in from another room.”
Rama lama ding dong. The monster that has become pop has many functions, and tugs, however, obviously, at every kind of human response. When millions, in unabashed and grateful escapism, turn to brilliant, synthetic confections like Grease and Saturday Night Fever it’s as well that Ubu are out on the other edge, confronting an often desperate ‘reality’ and then carving out adjustment that’s neither glib nor chicly dehumanised. As in The Modern Dance, they stomp all over ‘rock ‘n’ roll’s’ accepted language and then create, with fire and discipline, one of their own. The end result is not superficially ‘attractive’ and it may initially bore and annoy, but they are there and they won’t go away. This album will last…
Jon Savage
The Sex Pistols – “Never Mind the Bullocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols” (1977)
Taken from Trouser Press, January 1978, Ira Robbins’ review of this classic album. It was seen as a slight disappointment at the time by many critics…
Ho hum, another album from the Pistols. No, seriously, this is it. After all the controversy, bannings, bullshit and speculation, the Pistols finally have something tangible for the American audience to judge them by. While England has been exposed to four singles from the group you love to hate, America only knows what it’s read; most of that has, unfortunately, been utter rubbish. This stateside release has one track not appearing on the initial British copies, but otherwise it’s the real thing.
How does one approach NMTBHTSP as an entity after all the buildup, the fact that all but two songs were co-written by the long-gone Glen Matlock, that the recording was done in pieces over a year’s time, the unconfirmable supposition that Chris Spedding plays most of the guitar parts on some tracks, and that four of the 11 tracks have been previously released? Do you pretend that this is a disjointed piece of plastic that arrives without prejudice or preconception? Do you play dumb? How do you work up an opinion after a year’s pondering time?
Reviewing this album presents quite a few problems. Am I supposed to tell you that this is the future of rock ‘n’ roll? It isn’t, and I can’t suggest otherwise. If you’ve never heard anything by los Pistoles, you’ll have to make up your own mind which side you’re on. If you know some of the four singles, you may understand the problem. To go back about a year ago: ‘Anarchy in the UK’ came out and everybody I know was completely knocked out by it – rightly so. In one beautiful sweep the Pistols created a sound, sharpened and defined it, and delivered a statement of attitude that did more to counteract the efforts of old men stagnation-rock than any other single piece of plastic in music history.
There was no way to get away from the fact that ‘Anarchy’ was one incredible motherfucker of a record. So was ‘God Save the Queen’ – maybe even better, at that. ‘Pretty Vacant’ didn’t get to me right away, but after seeing a videotape of the Pistols miming it for British TV (TOTP), it began to rise in listening pleasure, so that it now occupies a comfortable seat as my third favorite Pistols single. The trouble began when ‘Holidays in the Sun’ was released in October. Not only did it lack uniqueness and originality, but the opening riff was a direct steal from’ the Jam’s ‘In the City’. Somehow, ‘Holidays’ didn’t cut it with me, or many friends who heard it. I shudder to say it all sounds the same, but three is about my limit when it comes to sound-alike records. Fortunately the album has a few songs that show off the Pistols’ raw ability to carve hunks of sound into varied formats that stand up as individual creations. Of these, ‘Liar’ and ‘EMI’ are the obvious standouts.
I can’t tell you that this album is a disappointment, because it contains two songs that rank high in the all-time list of great rock recordings. It also has a couple of powerful statements on various subjects that are worthy of the Pistols. The rest of the material – ‘Submission’, ‘Problems’, ‘New York’, ‘Seventeen’, ‘No Feelings’ and ‘Bodies’ – is of varied interest, but there’s no way to consider them seriously in light of the importance of those first trio of singles. The Pistols, were they not seen by most of England (and America) as some vague threat to life and liberty, would have been just another punky band, and this would have been a fairly satisfying product thereof. But it’s not, they’re not, and all the fuss and mumbo-jumbo that surrounds the group and its records make the release of this album a media event of sizable proportions. There’s no way it’s gonna live up to those standards; nothing could. Let’s get simple: If you haven’t heard the Sex Pistols, you better buy this album. If you know and love their singles, proceed at your peril; you may be in for a letdown. Ain’t it the truth.
Ira Robbins
Ira Robbins – “Cheap Trick: Smart, Sleek and Debonair” (1978)
Written for his now-defunct magazine Trouser Press, from the February 1978 issue. Robbins was always a big champion of Cheap Trick…
America’s a funny place for rock music. Just when you assume that the well of talent that unleashed classic outfits like the Velvet Underground, Doors and Young Rascals had long since been tapped dry, along comes a band out of the heartland with enough talent and verve to set a good number of Brit bands back a few ego notches.
Considering that 1977, for everybody who pays attention to such things, was the best year of the ’70s rock-wise, any new American group faces stiff competition. To cap it all off, the band in question comes from Chicago, Illinois, home of the stockyards. As far as I knew, the last sensible being to escape that town was my old man, and that was years ago. It must be one of those 40-year sunspot things.
When you get right to it, yer basic run-of-the-mill rock ‘n’ roll band has exactly six guitar strings, a set of drums, four bass strings and some vocal chords. What they achieve with those raw ingredients can range from misery to ecstasy; that’s what makes horse races. If we forget about groups that regularly use extra musicians or massive overdubs in order to create a sound, the level of excitement that four rockers can generate by themselves is directly traceable to their abilities as musicians. Unless they hide behind volume or costumes, the protection a talentless group has from an attentive audience is rather fragile indeed. However, when a band has what it takes, the unencumbered results can be amazing.
Enter Cheap Trick. Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson, Bun E. Carlos and Robin Zander. Four guys, no smoke pots, no orchestras, just themselves. Judging by two albums and two live shows, they can cut the mustard on their own strengths; that makes them pretty special. It’s hard to pin down the pre-cise appeal of Cheap Trick, but their songs are hummable and danceable, their sets thrilling, their image ludicrous and their codeword fun. In a sea of bands where the only identifying factor is costume or stage effects, making it via sheer aptitude is odd indeed.
At first encounter, there’s nothing special about the records. The guitars are loud and rough, the bass and drums pound along confidently, and the lyrics are delivered in a strong voice whose rasp is reminiscent of Rod the Mod’s. No heavenly choirs, no organ swirls, no disco/funk horn arrange-ments. But it isn’t the Ramones, either. After a few spins it becomes evident that the melodies are strong, the lyrics intriguing, the arrangements and production intelligent and imaginative. The essence of Cheap Trick can be summed up by an unfair comparison: Heavy Metal Rubber Soul.
Thanks to the extraordinary voice of Robin Zander (which requires live evidence to clinch the description) and the sicko guitar playing of Rick Nielson, CT has a definite sound of its own; in fact a few of them.
Before suggesting that God has seen fit to create Cheap Trick because there were no good American rock bands, it might help to point out that, like so many other “new bands” of any merit, Cheap Trick has played every bar in the Midwest, painfully gathering up the experience and discerning ability to choose and arrange material. During the lean years bars provided the main source of employment for a group without a contract, and the constant ex-posure helped create strong local followings in some areas.
To most Americans the mention of bar bands brings Springsteen to mind more than anyone else. In the great English tradi-tion, however, quite a few currently “in” artists were members of the pub rock scene a few years back. There’s something magic about stomping grounds which turn out the likes of Nick Lowe, the Motors, Ian Dury and Graham Parker. At the time, pub bands were criticized for sameness, but there’s no confusing the Blockheads with the Dave Edmunds band. Far from being a discard pile, bar bands act as showcases for budding talent. And Cheap Trick have been budding for quite some time. Their history, mottled by fabrications and faulty memories, is imprecise at best, but the Nazz connection and the European excursions seem real enough. Rick digs back in the memory banks for the story.
“Tom Petersson and I were in a Midwest band called Fuse. The guys we were with were all rinky dinks; they’re probably pumping gas now. Tom and I had the stick-to-it-iveness and positive thinking to know what we wanted to do, so we split the band and went off to hang out in England. We were big fans of the British bands; we always thought British bands were the coolest. I met Todd Rundgren in the Marquee Club — it was 1969 and he had just quit the Nazz to go solo. When we got back I checked around and found the other guys from Nazz: Thom Mooney was in California and Stewkey was in Texas. The four of us had a band for several months; me on guitar, Tom on bass, Thom on drums, and Stewkey on keyboards and vocals.”
It wasn’t the Nazz, and it wasn’t Fuse. In fact, an old drum head provided the group with one of its names: Honey Boy William-son and the Manchurian Blues Band. De-pending on who booked the gigs, and where they were playing on any given night, they were billed as any of the three possible appellations. To add to the confu-sion, the third Nazz album was released during this period, having been assembled (without the defunct group’s participation) from out-takes. The ex-Nazzers were not amused. Tom remembers the evening they walked into a record store somewhere and Thom and Stewkey noticed their pix on a new LP. “They were going, ‘Oh Christ — these pictures are worse than on the first album!’ They were from the same photo session. ‘Look at this — I’ve got a Paisley nehru on.’ They were going crazy — ‘Oh God, not these songs!’ We were laughing like crazy.”
The band only lasted a few months. Ac-cording to Rick, “We were never too serious about it. We never rehearsed and we weren’t all that good. It could have been real good, but we were very into alcohol and other things. We never could get it together.”
To elucidate on the early days a bit, Fuse began sometime around ‘66-’67, and was the first pro band for either Rick or Tom. Their first release was a single for Smack Records (7) of ‘Hound Dog’ coupled with an item ostensibly entitled ‘Cruising for Beaver’. After a few singles for Epic, the group recorded an album which Epic released in 1968. Don’t go running out looking for it though — it’s not Cheap Trick by a long shot. Rick plays keyboards and guitar, and has nothing good to say about the record: “That Fuse stuff stinks. We don’t stand by it.” By Tom’s account, “The band was much better than the album indicates. When it came out we were disgusted. The producer was an idiot.”
What about Rick’s early keyboard experience? “I used to play guitar in the band I had before Fuse, but Tom had this other guitar player and I had more money, so I could afford to buy a Hammond organ and a mellotron. I had one of the first mellotrons in the country. The third to be exact; CBS television got the first and Stevie Wonder or the Beach Boys got the second.”
Despite extremely sketchy details sur-rounding this era, Rick and Tom ended up (sometime during the Nazz/Fuse/Honey Boy outfit) hanging out in Europe again. They called their band Sick Man of Europe but I’m not sure who was in it. The next definite detail in this complex story occurs a few years later, when Stewkey rings up Rick and asks him and Tom to meet him in Philadelphia, where he was recording demos with a possible solo contract in the offing. “He liked my songs, and I was brought in as a writer and guitarist. We did a demo, then another one. That’s the origin of those bootleg Nazz tapes.”
Bun E., ever the vigilant archivist, remembers a few details, although he wasn’t involved at the time. “There were four series of tapes. Some with that Ron guy on drums, some without Tom (Petersson). The stuff I have is mostly from rehearsal halls recorded with a little mixer. Only one set was done in a studio.”
Back to Rick: “‘So Good to See You’ was originally called ‘I’m a Surprise’ when we did it with Stewkey. ‘Mandocello’ is an-other song we did together. Nothing ever happened with those demos, but Stewkey’s a good singer and someday he’ll be record-ing again. Right now he’s in San Francisco, looking for work. He looks exactly like he did in the old pictures, but he’s a lot taller than people imagine.”
So why didn’t Stewkey end up as Cheap Trick’s vocalist?
“When we were looking for a lead singer we lucked into Robin. We think he’s an all around singer; he’s better for Cheap Trick.”
Back to the story…
Tom: “After we split up with Stewkey nothing really happened. We split for Germany, met Bun E. and decided to try it again.”
Rick: “The material was good and the ideas were good. We played the songs for Bun E. and he liked them, but we needed a singer. All of a sudden Robin appeared. He had been singing in Scotland or someplace.”
That brings the evasive (elusive) Bun E. Carlos into the story. Also an Illinois boy, Bun had started his professional drumming career doing rock ‘n’ roll revival tours around the Midwest. “In 1967 I did a single with a group called the Pagans. We did Van Morrison songs. By the way, I want to announce that I have a lot of good stuff to trade. I’d like to trade obscure stuff like Move, Beck, stuff like that. I have the best copy of ‘Open My Eyes’ on tape — the Move did it at the Fillmore. Just write to me care of Epic Records.” Astute TP auction ad readers might recognize Bun E. from his large purchases of rare records. By the way, he’s not kidding about the trades.
Despite appearances and press releases, Bun has never been involved in either the coffee exporting business or the spy game. In fact, if it weren’t so apple-pie American, I might reveal the family business Bun E. was supposed to go into. Suffice it to say that rock ‘n’ roll would be about as far off the mark as you could be if you hazarded a guess. Nonetheless, the Carlos wit adds quite a bit of the funky charm to the band, and his solid drumming provides a loud backdrop to the songs. Ever the trooper, Bun refuses to tape his hands even though the gigantic sticks he uses at the end of their set do all sorts of evil things to his palms.
Getting on track again, we find ourselves back in the USA with the newly formed Cheap Trick. “When we first started out, we were doing ‘Mandocello’, ‘So Good to See You (I’m a Surprise)’ and ‘Downed’. The Terry Reid song on the first album — ‘Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace’ — was an early song we did. We tried to learn that number for about two years. We had about fifty different ways of doing it. It evolved. Fuse opened a couple of shows for Terry Reid in Chicago in 1968 at a place called the Kinetic Playground. He had a great band.”
“We used to do an Oscar Brown song that Rick played electric violin for.”
After lots of tracking around the bar cir-cuit, Cheap Trick hooked up with Epic Records and their first LP came out at the be-ginning of ‘77. With a great band pic on the cover (that led more than one talented rock critic to make stupidly obvious observa-tions about the faces and clothes of the band) and no B-side (it has an A-side and a side 1), it’s an excellent debut disc, with high energy production from Aerosmith master Jack Douglas. Full of slow builds and high-powered romps, the album shows off both Robin’s voice and Rick’s songs with a minimum of overdubs and studio trickery. Rick’s psycho imagery filters through silly titles like ‘Daddy Should Have Stayed in High School’ and ‘He’s a Whore’, with mucho lyrical emphasis on age, money and love.
Have you seen her face?
She’s got a face that could stop a clock
And with a face like that
I surely won’t stop to look her in the eye.
So you missed some school; you know that school’s for fools
Today money rules—and everybody steals it.
I’m 30 but I feel like 16
I might even know your daddy
I’m dirty but my body is clean
I might even be your daddy
He hates you/he loves money
Like the Beatles he ain’t human
Now the taxman is out to get you.
Besides the witty lyrics, Rick provides a few songs that have stories behind them. Tunes like ‘Oh, Candy’ have a lot of bizarre thoughts behind the words that are too obscure to figure out. Just as Dylan’s acid period songs make sense up to a certain point but are not fully understandable because of missing information that re-mained in Dylan’s acidified neurons, lines like:
Why did you do it?
You should have called me on the telephone
I didn’t expect that you would call me
‘cause I didn’t think you were alone
Why did you do it?
You didn’t stick a needle in your veins
You just got so damned depressed
We all liked you except yourself
You won’t be coming around no more
while lacking the allegorical nature of Dylan’s epic tales of woe still require some attachment to reality (in this case, a photographer friend of the group who hung himself). That’s Nielsen’s style, not to give it all away; there’s always a certain bit he’s not telling. While some of the subject matter on the first album is very obvious (how image-laden could a song about the IRS be?), it’s the songs on the second album that show off how vague Rick’s writing can be. But not to get ahead of the story; there’s still the musical content of the first album to consider.
It’s taken a few months, but I’ve finally realized that more than any other facet of the band, it’s the creative bass playing of Tom Petersson that most defines the Cheap Trick sound and raises the group way above the rest of the hard rock contenders. Currently wielding a newly designed 10-string axe, he gets lots of chords and guitar-like sounds out of his bass in a style that could have been learned from John Entwistle. Instead of speed he’s got ideas, and in many sections of the first album what sounds like overdubbed guitar is actually Tom’s bass work. Because of his ability the group is able to use guitar for punctuation and accent rather than having to rely on it for melody. Fortunately, Rick’s lead guitar playing is ideally suited for such a task; he dives in headfirst when the band really gets going, but can drop back to an occasional quick chord when Tom picks up the rhythm parts.
Robin has an amazing voice. One second he sounds as if he’s straining at the limit of his vocal range; then all of a sudden he de-livers twice the power from some magical source. In racing that’s called the “kick”, but with Robin it’s just an indication of what an ace rock singer he is. Never mind that he photographs like Frampton; he can range from frenetic screaming to soulful crooning, all with a smoky flavor that draws the Rod Stewart comparisons. To boot, he sounds different on every song — from cutesy to macho, depending on the mood the track demands.
Although Jack Douglas’s production is a bit stylized, there isn’t much evidence of fussing; but that doesn’t mean that the sound is bland. In the never-ending quest for fun, some joker in the organization saw fit to dub the sound of a telephone ringing madly during the chaotic intro to ‘Elo Kiddies’. Not one time that I’ve listened to the side have I failed to turn the volume down and wait for the second ring before answering the phone. Tricky tricky. Then there’s the whispered vocals during the fade of ‘Cry, Cry’. It sure sounds like some lines from ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ to me. A laugh a minute.
There’s been a bit of a Beatle controversy around Cheap Trick, mostly because of some discernible nicks and nuances in the album. While the group will not state their feelings about the Beatles succinctly, Tom was kind enough to venture his opinion on the schmaltzier moments of the Fab Four. “I hated songs like ‘Ob La Di, Ob La Da’ and ‘Yesterday’.” Bun E.: “I’m a big Stones fan myself.” In any case, the Beatles are re-ferred to musically on a regular basis, so make of it what you will. I’m getting out of that discussion while I still can.
The group’s second album, In Color, has a side two, a cover photographed at the site of the old World’s Fair in New York, and another song named ‘Oh…’ But that’s where the similarity ends. With the produc-tion guidance of Tom Werman (who otherwise occupies himself with little projects like Ted Nugent and Jeff Beck), the group has largely traded blast for deftness. Where a Douglas version would have a fair amount of blare included, Werman gave the group a subtlety that can easily delude a first-time listener into a fallacious sense of restraint or simplicity. The range of material is broad-er, and includes a song or two originally recorded with Douglas but left off the first LP. After hearing the out-take version of ‘I Want You to Want Me’, and giving the released version another listen, it’s like day and night. In place of roaring guitars and high-speed tempo, a honky-tonk piano and insidious guitar figure appear; the results are unique and endearing. If I had never heard Cheap Trick before and had been exposed to the original recording of the song, I probably would never have given the group another listen. As it happens, it’s one of their best tracks, which should in-dicate the difference between the two albums.
Rick’s writing has retreated a bit, letting his mind enjoy its private jokes a bit more than the audience. The illusion of simplicity is just that; even a simple concept like the fiercely rude ‘Big Eyes’ gets the full treat-ment with lyrics like “You’re such a losing cause/why don’t you go get lost/Who says you write the laws?” suggesting a little more than meets the ear. In the long run that’s why Cheap Trick is a tremendously welcome band, and Rush or Starz or Kiss or REO Speedwagon or Styx or etc. are such dreck — Trick have imagination and humor. Even when they do a fairly obvious song about kids hanging out the lyrics say some-thing. And when Rick chooses to be weird, weird it is. What dumbo heavy metal group would ever try singing:
I’m gonna live on a mountain
Way down under in Australia
It’s either that or suicide
It’s such a strange strain on you.
You think you’re Jesus Christ
You walk on water but don’t bet your life.
Don’t stop to think what you’re doing
I’ll surprise you every time
Don’t stop to do what you’re thinking
You’re just wasting your time
On this album Tom’s bass is more aggressive and less chord-oriented. Rick uses guitar not to punctuate but to shade, with broad slabs of sound clearing the way for Robin’s vocals. Bun E. is still chain smoking at the drum kit, in tight symbiosis with Rick and Tom. The end result is a deceptive record that takes a little getting used to, but one that will last you many long nights of humming. A masterpiece of ’70s hard rock. But what of the group’s oh-so-important stage presence?
Not to worry. Cheap Trick on stage is abit of the Who, a bit of Kiss, a bit god knows who. Rick plays as if it were slightly less thought-provoking than breathing; he tosses guitar picks over his shoulder, flicks them into the audience (on a good night, he can send one flying 20 or 30 rows — how’s that for R&R talent?), leaps, apes, gapes and does more ridiculous things than Beppo the trained seal. With the chops to carry it off and the artillery to break a few hundred strings before running out of usable guitars on stage (not counting the few dozen off stage), he is about as exciting a rock guitarist as I’ve ever seen. The idea of sardonic stardom — an idol who cares about what he’s doing, not how, and has the audacity to be himself in public — makes for truly exciting visuals. Contrasted with the handsome Zander and the ever-thumping Bun E Carlos (who, behind his drum kit, always looks like a commuter running for the 7:52 from Huntington, to me), Tom and Rick charge around, enjoying themselves and making fun of all the stupid movie star-tripping rockers are wont to indulge in. These guys have been everywhere, seen everything, done it all, and now they’re ready to do it to you. Are you ready to rock?
Ira Robbins
The Pogues – “Peace and Love” (1989) / The Men They Couldn’t Hang – “Silvertown” (1989)
Written for the Waterbury Republican - Aug. 13, 1989 — by Fran Fried…
New Album Grows Past the Pogues’ Newfound Popularity
The Pogues have been called everything from a Celtic band to the world’s best punk band. While, on the surface, they’ve purveyed the former over the years and done it well, their spirit has been well-planted in the latter, coming from the angry young streets of dirty old London, where the rebellion of a decade ago hasn’t died; it’s just regrouped or taken different forms.
Thus, keeping in that spirit, it was no surprise that these hell-may-care Englishmen with Irish roots began to grow away from the old sod stuff last year on If I Should Fall From Grace With God, one of this paper’s top 10 of ‘88. And their fourth and latest LP showcases a group which hasn’t let success or popularity get the best of their sense of reason – or stunt their further growth.
They set the tone for the LP with the instrumental opener, “Gridlock.” It’s almost a Part II of the brassy, cosmopolitan, art-deco/Celtic “Metropolis” off the last album, only the roots influences are gone. What we get is bongo fury and jazzy horns wrapped in a hectic swirl and a blaze of activity. Perfect.
But that’s not all that’s different. The group’s becoming more democratic in its old age; for the first time, other band members are speaking up on the vocal and writing ends, lending a bit more welcome variety to the record. Most notable is the work of Terry Woods. His straining desperation on “Young Ned of the Hill” is something not heard from this bunch before, a sharp departure from the time-honored rotgut voice and tongue-in-cheek of Shane MacGowan.
This doesn’t mean they’ve departed the tried-and-true Irish free-for-alls, though – not by a longshot.
“Cotton Fields” shuffles and shimmies on a gravelly MacGowan vocal bed, a sea shanty written on speed, or at least caffeine. “Down All the Days” features stirring instrumentals and emotions on a pop base. The Jem Finer-penned “Night Train to Lorca,” which lets the instruments best express the tinges of sadness, arrives low-key but has the impact of a punch to the midsection. And on “Boat Train” and Woods’ “Gortloney Rats,” there are the dizzying, reeling whirls of fun which were manifested last year on “Bottle of Smoke.” If you can’t get a rise out of these two songs, call a morgue.
There’s one problem, though, and it’s a glaring one, but one that can be easily corrected. For some inexplicable reason, the vocals are muffled, buried in Steve Lillywhite’s mix. MacGowan’s voice, especially on “Misty Morning, Albert Bridge,” “Down All the Days” and “Boat Train,” suffer the most. It’s a testament to the strength of the music and a source of frustration at the same time. It’s not the first time the veteran producer has worked with them (he handled the last album as well, with fine results), so why this happened is a mystery.
“It’s a bit of a grower, this one and it’s a bit more confusing than our other records,” said Woods in the accompanying press release. He’s right. This is a group in transition to who knows what, but wherever they’re going, they’re doing it well.
Meanwhile, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, another mongrel mix of Britons (a Welshman, three Scots and a Yorkie) doing Celtic-rooted music, is also on its fourth album and after a bunch of stop-starts brought on by bad timing, they seem ready to bludgeon their way into your hearts as well.
They probably could have been about as popular now as The Pogues are now were it not for bad timing. Elvis Costello, who produced their first album, was introduced to the band by Pogues’ co-founder Philip Chevron. But all that aside finally, they’ve delivered some quality goods as well and are poised to pounce on America – with the grace of someone, anyone, in the radio industry with a good set of ears.
In all, they’re more straightforward, more overtly political than The Pogues; not as entertainingly fun, but well worth the money you would’ve spent on the next MTV band-to-come-along.
The ever-impassioned singing of Stefan Henry Cush drives the best of this lot along at a fiery pace. You can feel the back of his neck straining and turning red as he puts his all into the two best songs, the angry young football tale “Rosettes” and their immigrant song, “A Place in the Sun,” a nugget packed with adventure (a journey to Marseilles to make a living), hope, desperation and barbed pop.
They also convey well a working-class toughness, almost to the point of stealing some guttural “arrghs” from Van Morrison. Again, passion is the byword on “Rain, Steam & Speed,” as the song churns like a mighty steam engine. “Company Town” straddles gentle balladry, ruggedness and the viciousness of its lash at Margaret Thatcher. And “Lobotomy Gets ‘Em Home!,” their song about Frances Farmer, is hi-test Pogues Celtic cowpunk.
Their bitter passion doesn’t overcome all on their swipe at gentrification, an otherwise average “Blackfriar’s Bridge,” but you know their heart is there. And you realize there’s plenty more hellfire where this record came from. Watch for these guys. They’ll probably prove as durable as their name implies.
Fran Fried
Diane Di Prima – “July 28, 2000″ (2000)
so I am printing out poems to send to the 26 magazines who want them
or say they do
I figure I’d better get on it while I have the time
my book is done
at Viking even now getting messed with in unthinkable ways
and I have the time and I better use it
yesterday I went to visit a friend who’s dying and that always reminds me
get the poems out while you can, youknow
and everything else for that matter
not to mention I had a dream last night that wasn’t so good
so I am printing out poems and the phone rings and it’s someone from the Examiner
and only this morning I read the Examiner will soon be extinct so I wonder
how the guy feels about that and I pick up the receiver
he says he heard Gregory Corso died last night and he wants a quote
they always want a quote and usually I ignore them
but this time I say he had the greatest lyric gift of any of them
Allen, Jack
and the greatest innate genius
yeah says the guy but you know genius and discipline don’t often go together
I have discipline the guy says but no genius
I am finished printing a poem to Sharon Doubiago and want to get on with it
before we all drop dead, you know? so I tell him to call Allen’s office
Allen will still have an office after we’re all gone
and that office will always have quotes for everything I am so grateful
and he wants to know about Gregory’s time in San Francisco
and I tell him to call City Lights and then I hang up
by this time my printer is spitting out old haikus
I only have 68 poems and 25 magazines want them or say they do
and I want to send at least three poems to each, so they’ll have a choice
and I’m trying to figure this out when the guy calls back he says
he got thru to Allen Ginsberg’s office and the woman who answered
said only “He Breathes!”
that’s good I said and I thought about Ray Bremser
and Jack Micheline, and my friend in Mill Valley and all the rest
me too, soon “She Breathes No Longer” they’ll say and somebody
will mention my lyric gift but no discipline
and what a bitch I was so I get my sweater
and go to the Asian/American Restaurant, it’s Chinese/Peruvian actually
but suddenly I decide I don’t want to leave the house
so I cook some pasta and think about Gregory breathing and I write this
while the pasta is getting cold
and I can’t help it I wish I could give him some ziti with summer sauce
and Sara Raffetto my friend breathing not so good
Allen too
and he wasn’t even Italian
