Message in a Bottle, Stewart Copeland, and Artistic Blindness

I've been an obsessed music fan for more decades than I like to consider, and one thing that has hit me over and over is just how wrong so many great artists can be about their own art.

Today's installment: drumming great Stewart Copeland's absurd opinion of his own performance on the Police's all-time greatest song:

“There are some things I would have done a little different now,” said Copeland. “There are too many drum overdubs. It’s such a great song, and then it comes to the end, and [if I hear the song on the radio] I’ll switch over to another station because I screwed up.”
However, Copeland isn’t taking all of the blame for the over-the-top drumming in the hit’s last few seconds.
“Where was Andy [Summers, Police guitarist] at that moment?” he mused. “Andy was a really good filter, because we all overdid it, but then usually Andy would say, ‘No. Too much. Too much. Less is more.’ And he was usually right. Where was he when I needed him at the end of ‘Message in a Bottle’?”

It's a fascinating insight...until one listens to the recording in question, at which point Copeland's POV is unambiguously revealed to be completely and totally wrong.

(Sidenote: how silly does a drummer look air-drumming? Even the great Stew-Cope can't make that look cool. Fortunately, the World's Coolest Man—and at that point he really was a serious contender—is next to him in a bowtie to take quite a bit of the heat.) 

I mean, seriously, just listen to this guy! He could have gone on like, unaccompanied, for another twenty minutes and it still wouldn't have been enough. 

America the Beautiful

Happy birthday, baby.

"Needless to say, my mind was blown again."

Scott and I frequently like to play the "Can you imagine?" game.

It basically imagines what it must have been like to hear something amazing for the first time. Like "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Thunder Road." Or The Beatles in Hamburg in 1961. Or to be with Brian Wilson or Stevie Wonder in the studio when they were creating Pet Sounds or Innervisions. To be the proverbial fly on the wall. But also to be able to recall what the hell it must have been like to hear something so game-changing for the very first time.

I have just one of those memories with one of my pantheon-level bands, which I documented a few years ago here.

But thanks to an old buddy from my journalism days nearly 25 years ago, here's another one for you. Which I hope you'll enjoy.

When I first became a just-outta-college daily newspaper reporter in Connecticut in 1990, I was fortunate enough to meet some of the most seminal people of my life right off the bat. One was my (and is my) always and forever wife, whom I annoyed right from the start on my very first day. One was my first editor Ron Winter, an accomplished journalist and decorated Marine from the Vietnam War who taught me not only how to be concise but thorough, tough but fair, but also taught me about loyalty and how to treat people.

And another was my buddy Steve Starger, a brilliant arts writer who also had (and still has) one hell of a personal history as an author, musician, songwriter and recording artist. He played with a psychedelic band called NGC 4594 in the 60s. He played with a terrific horn band called Sunship in the 1970s. His review of Miles Davis' Jack Johnson is referenced on that album's Wikipedia page. His poems and writings have been published in myriad publications for the past 40+ years. He's written plays and a biography of comics giant Wally Wood. And, as he once proudly told me, he once lit Aretha Franklin's cigarette!

Steve's now semi-retired and living the good life with his good wife in Rhode Island. Harkening back to our "Can you imagine?" game, here is something Steve told me about his reaction to a certain rather important piece of music, while he was serving in the Army in Puerto Rico in the mid-60s, as the Vietnam War was ramping up.

“You asked about my coming home from Puerto Rico and freaking out (so to speak) at what was happening in the country. The story goes like this: My friend Chas Mirsky (NGC 4594's guitar player and a man of exquisite wit and mental acuity) and his then-wife, Arlene, came to visit me when I was in the Army in Puerto Rico in 1966. We of course had a great time, and Chas brought with him a copy of the just-released Revolver. Needless to say, my mind was blown again. I had heard Rubber Soul and Freak Out while on leave the previous year and said "What the fuck???" any number of times. Revolver deepened my curiosity and the feeling that I was at least a year out of the time-flow back on the mainland.”

I would say that is a rather perfect reaction to what this rather perfect rock-n-roll album meant to America's (and the world's) dramatically changing existence at the time. An example of just how crazily and indelibly we were changing culturally, politically and ever other way you could imagine. Mayhap you agree.

I mean, for the love of Mike (not to be confused with Mike Love, because fuck Mike Love), just listen. And imagine what it must have been like to hear this for the first time in 1966, after being away for the previous couple of years.

Blow Away

This is such a horrible video. Even granting that the medium was in its relative infancy, it's still pretty terrible, thanks to George looking typically tense and awkward as he's being forced to mime in extreme close-up, dance, and frolic with, among other absurdities, a giant bath toy duck.

If you've never seen this before, no, that's not a typo. A giant bath toy duck.

But saying he was "forced to," despite appearances, isn't actually right. The video's director was Neil Innes, best known for sharing a birthday with me and for working extensively with Monty Python—so much so that he was sometimes known as The Seventh Python, and not without reason, writing or co-writing many of their songs, and appearing as (among other characters) the lead minstrel following Brave Sir Robin around in Monty Python and— the Holy Grail. Oh, and of course, he was the creative mastermind behind something called The Rutles. So I guess it's safe to say George—producer of (and actor in) Monty Python's Life of Brian, had some idea what he was getting into when he tapped Innes to direct this thing.

But that's not why I posted it. I posted it because it came up in my playlist this morning and listening the opening few seconds I realized that while no one in the world would put George Harrison in a list of the Top 10 Best Slide Guitarists, I will say that he very well may be the single most distinctive slide guitarist ever. His tone, his style, his melodic approach bears no resemblance I can hear to Elmore James or Duane Allman, leaning instead on his pop instincts, as well as perhaps his beloved Indian music—which, given the slide's ability to glide to or lightly touch upon notes a regular fretted guitar can't, might have allowed him to more closely approach Indian music's use of microtones.

Also, the goofy smile he gives the very first time he sings "be happy" is itself reason enough for this video. This horrible, horrible, wonderful, glorious video.

Youngstown

So the great Nils Lofgren, the second (of three) 2nd guitarists in the E Street Band, offers online guitar lessons.

This

is considered "intermediate."

Early Led Zeppelin live

Imagine this:

You're a kid, a big music fan, and you've heard there's a band putting on a show for a television program and you can go watch. Maybe you've heard of the band, maybe you haven't—their debut album was only released about two months earlier, and this is the first time they'll ever be on TV—but what the hell, right? Might as well go. Nothing else do to, and the price is right.

So you all just file in, as the cameras are already rolling, and sit down in front of the band, that are themselves just sorta milling around, watching you watching them.

And then. This happens.

The guitarist hits a chord and then starts semi-casually strumming, soon joined by a bassist who's casually bringing it, and a drummer who keeps time on his hi-hat before coming in full. The singer's very first syllable, "hey," is in a low register, nothing impressive, before swooping upwards a few octaves for the following word—"girl," of course.

The band's good. They're really good. They're loud and they're tight. But they're just warming up.

Come the solo and suddenly you're watching a guy that just may be, on this night, the second greatest rock and roll guitarist in the world.

The band goes to an expected, and unexpectedly funky, half-time, before bringing the tempo back up to bring it all home.

Seconds later, the bassist starts a slinky bassline, to which the guitarist adds some strange, spooky harmonics and bends, and the singer begins moaning his lyrics. Then the drummer decides he's going to prove that, great as the guitarist is—and he is—he's not even the greatest master of his instrument in the band, and starts unleashing fills the likes of which you've heard before, for the fairly simple reason that no drummer in rock and roll has every played quite like this before, combining the right foot with both hands unlike anyone else ever, as speeds it's impossible to believe.

Just imagine if you knew the bassist might be better than both of them.

...what in the hell? A violin bow? Who are these guys?

They come out of it all and the drummer seems to be trying to beat his drums through the studio floor and the singer's lost any trepidation he might have had, howling like a banshee and the entire band's locked into each other and you're just staggered.

And the show's only a little over a third of a way through.

You watch this and with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it's absolutely no surprise they went on to become the biggest band in the world for 10 years.

Bay City Rollers We Love You

While the title of this here post is indeed entirely accurate, it's also the name of the first ever all-Nick Lowe single. That's right: the great Nick Lowe recording a mash-note to the Bay City Rollers. Which just...I mean.

Also, it's pretty swell.

[H/T: the amazing Dangerous Minds, which has the whole story.]

First Ballot

So the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, while finally nominating the great and influential Replacements this year, still did not find them worthy for induction.

Such a damn shame. Peter Gabriel, Nirvana and the Replacements. Three of my all-time favorites. Would've been awesome to see all three go in together. Especially considering the influence that this:

...had on this:

Oh. And KISS got in (of course they did), as did Cat Stevens.

Cat Stevens.

(sigh)

And I suppose I should say "Who cares" to all of this, right? To follow the lead of Johnny Rotten and remind everyone what a joke the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame is.

Only, well, I just don't believe that. I love the idea of a Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame existing. Just love it. I love that someone has thought to quantify the unquantifiable and label so many deserving artists (and yes, some undeserving and, yes, some OH MY GOD HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???????) ...

...

...sorry. Where was I? Yeah, I do love the idea of so many deserving artists being worthy of the label "Hall of Famer."  Particularly in a business where stats don't always show the true import and impact and, well, greatness of a band or artist. I really appreciate that the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame exists. I just think it's a damn shame that one band is not in.

A Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame without The Replacements is like the Football Hall of Fame without Gayle Sayers. Neither had particularly long careers. Sayers never played on a winning team; The Mats never had a gold album. Both went away in what should have been their primes. And both, when they were around and doing their thing at the height of their game(s), were breathtaking to watch. Exhilarating. In sports parlance one final time, both changed the way the game is played. For good. And for better. Sayers is a member of that exclusive club; he was a first-ballot member. The Replacements should have been. Only aren't. Damn.

So. Good for KISS, I guess (but, man, they were really not that good, even in their crazy-popular prime). Good for Linda Ronstadt and Hall & Oates, who brought plenty to their respective tables. Good for Nirvana, whose brief and astounding presence resonates still. GREAT for Peter Gabriel, so long deserving of the honor.

I don't hate the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame. Not one bit. But for as long as that building stands in Cleveland and The Replacements are not honored inside of it, something is missing. And it will always make me a little sad.

"Don't break your neck when you fall down laughing."

Highway to Hell

I...