got LIVE if you want it!

So. We have clearly established on this blog, like here and here and plenty of other places, our thoughts on the Rolling Stones as a live outfit. We're fairly consistent. They suck. As Scott is wont to say, they suck suck suckety SUCK live.

But guess what? They didn't always!

I know. Crazy, right?

Recently for the first time in at least 25 years and maybe longer, I listened to their first live album, got LIVE if you want it! from 1966. And my eyes got opened pretty wide.

Charlie and Bill play like what they always sounded like on the albums, a rhythm section with an intricate knowledge of each other and clear view from each other as to where they go next. Brian Jones rhythm lines are crisp and delightful, while Keith actually seems into playing the guitar, something he obviously could do quite well when he felt like it. The way he and the notoriously quirky Brian play off each other on a lot of these tracks, such as "19th Nervous Breakdown," is awesome. The musicians bring it throughout all 10 songs (there are 12, but apparently two of them are not actually live. Pretty sneaky sis!).

But more than anything...Mick.

Mick Jagger is rock-n-roll incarnate. For 55 years or so he has strutted the strut like few ever have, ever inch of him oozing "rock-n-roll star." It's who he is and it's now embedded in his DNA. And he made the name for himself not just by dripping sexuality and outlaw intrigue, but by having some serious fucking chops as both a singer and songwriter.

The Rolling Stones began their long, long LONG journey as the most badass white boy blues outfit the world had ever seen (although Led Zeppelin would then show up and take that title from them just as the Stones hit their peak and began a long, long LONG descent into something that can only be described as "not peak"). They were raunchy and dangerous, they had soulful swagger and such a deep love of the American blues they even borrowed their band name from a Muddy Waters song. Their early records, the ones leading up to got LIVE, were explorations of that American Blues Songbook, some well-known and some obscure. And damn did they play it well.

At the center of it was Mick Jagger's voice, one of the truly unique voices in modern music history. It wasn't as pretty as, say, Paul McCartney's or as powerful as Roger Daltrey's. He couldn't screech and howl like Robert Plant and he didn't have the crispness of, say, Chuck Berry or even one of the Beach Boys. But what he had was a perfect voice to sing sexy, sassy blue-eyed soul more convincingly than anyone since the British Invasion made its way ashore. It's funny to think of a lead singer as being a band's secret weapon, but in some ways that's kinda what Mick was.

And if you listen to his live output from the last 45 years or so, maybe a little longer, you hear basically none of that. Instead you hear a toneless drawl, like he's just trying to spit out the syllables and get to his next hip shake. That's really what the Stones have sounded like, by and large, since the early 70s. It's not all Mick's fault. Keef detaches more easily than a boxer's retina, and while Charlie usually seems up to the task, Ronnie Wood...well...he tends to get distracted by bright shiny objects and just go along with what his lead-playing sidekick is doing. And again, that sucks. Because they had the talent to do so much more in front of a live audience.

But on got LIVE, Mick is unfathomably good. His voice is strong and strident, and everything we love about it on the studio recordings--the pout, the confidence, the ability to go from gentle to acid in about three seconds--it's all there. From the opening strains of "Under My Thumb" and into a purely joyous "Get Off My Cloud" which follows (the happiest celebration of curmudgeonism ever written), Mick is just SO on. He nails it through and through. And the strength and power of his voice holds up all the way through the end on "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." I have to tell you I was ferschimmeled. I've seen the Stones live and heard them play live countless times and have never been impressed. THIS impressed me.

Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! seems to get all the love from the critics and fans alike as the definitive representation of the Stones at their live best. And in fact was where the "Greatest Rock-n-Roll Band in the World" thingee really took off. But to this I say, "Feh."

got LIVE has it over the latter live set in every way. Sure, I know two of the songs were recorded in a studio and then had crowd noise piped in. Cheesy, sure. But the other 10 songs on the album give you an up close, grimy and emotional look at a then-young band on their way up, up and up. A band with an almost pathological connection to its audience in those days, something that seemed to be shared in the bloodstream with them. It's a live look-in on what it took to get them on the path to superstardom, and what made them so intoxicating in the first place. As live albums got from young bands on the journey skyward, only The Who's Live at Leeds can match it. Yes, I said that. (Actually I wrote it. Hee!)

Apparently the band later scoffed at got LIVE and basically disowned it, due to the overdubs and who knows what else. But what do they know, right? On 10 of these 12 tracks we hear live music as visceral, tight and passionate as any band is capable of putting together. Their greatest studio years were about to arrive, but they were never this good live again. Probably because they figured they didn't have to be.

And that's a damn shame. Because got Live shows just what happened when the Rolling Stones struck a match to their particular kind of gasoline. And it's staggering.

Come Sail Away

This is just all kinds of groovy.

One of the many, many MANY things this COVID-19 pandemic has taught us is, fortunately, we live in an era where we can stay in touch with each other easier than has ever been possible. Zoom, WebEx, GoTo Meeting, Google Chat, Skype and I am sure things I am unaware of to date have given us mechanisms to remain connected and to even see each other while we all socially distance ourselves for the foreseeable future.

And that goes for creativity too. A global health crisis doesn’t stop the flow of art, it only hinders it a bit. People are still writing, still drawing and still singing and playing, whether alone or with friends via one of those platforms mentioned above. And thank JVJH for that—creation is something we all desperately need right now, innit?

Which brings me to this. This is just supercool.

OK, first I need to offer a confession. I love this song. Yes, I know it is goofy and precious and silly as prog can get. It’s overwrought and overwritten. (“We’ll search for tomorrow on every shore.” Wow). But I love it still. Love the water droplet piano opening. Love the odd verse-verse-chorus-chorus structure. Love the power chords when the songs shifts into overdrive. And I do love the way Dennis DeYoung sings it; dude was a Grade A Goofball, sure, but he had a set of pipes on him that most would kill for. Or at least maim for. The notes he hits twice on “To CARRY on” are pretty remarkable.

So I love the song, OK? I just do.

But these four kids…my goodness. Look how young they are! And they nail every INCH of it. They’re apparently called Leave Those Kids Alone (clever!) and are from Canada, and the youngest seems to be nine years old. You can check out their Facebook page for this and a ton of other terrific takes on classic rock songs. This sure as hell brightened my day and just may do the same for yours.

Play on, players!

American Girl

Someone recently asked what the point of the halftime instrumental section towards the end of Tom Petty's "American Girl" is, and whether or not it was just an attempt for them to stretch the song out to be a full 3:30—long enough for a single.

While I think that's a perfectly valid reason to add a section, I doubt it's the reason here. I'd actually argue it's an interesting compositional experiment, using that halftime breakdown in the place where a guitar solo would normally go, and serving a similar function. But it also mirrors the opening section, which is just 18 long bars of D major, leaving no doubt as to what the song's home key is. (Although the bass plays different notes, supplying the harmonic interest in what could otherwise be an overly static section...but which really very much isn't. It's also a nice twist on the usual pedal point situation, which has the bass playing the same note for an extended period, while things change over the top.)

After two verses and two choruses, we get to the instrumental section in question. As mentioned, it shifts into halftime, with a sweet groove courtesy the outstanding Stan Lynch (whose hi-hat work on this song is exceptional, not only providing relentless and energetic forward motion worthy of Benny Benjamin, but choosing some really unusual and extremely tasty places to open his hats). But whereas the intro had just hammered on the tonic, here we move to the V chord. By sticking almost entirely to the dominant, it imbues the section with a slight uneasy feel: we know where the center of gravity is, the center of gravity has been firmly established, and it ain't here. The halftime should make things feel nice and easy, perhaps even a bit lethargic after the workout of the first half of the song. But because we're on the G instead of the D, we're on edge. We're pretty sure we're gonna get back home, but we're not entirely positive. So when we do leave the V and return to the I, and the regular tempo kicks back in, we feel a sense of relief and release, despite the speedy nature.

It's an interesting choice on Petty's part, but then there was a pretty fair amount of formal experimentation in those days. Even leaving aside the things like 20-minute prog epics (oh, "Supper's Ready," you are so silly and so magnificent. I love you madly, "Close to the Edge," and I always will, despite your existence giving birth to the likes of, well, the entire Tales from Topographic Oceans LP), and the interesting and fascinating examples of songs with unrelated musical codas ("Layla" and "Thunder Road" being perhaps the two most successful examples, both of which have more than a little to owe the daddy of 'em all, "Hey Jude"), there's the strange tinkly intro to the Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane," which seems entirely unrelated. Don't get me wrong, it's lovely, and I dig it...but it has nothing to do with the body of the tune.

(Then again, the "wine and roses" bridge is also strange, which may be why Lou Reed sometimes nixed it when playing live.)

There's the guitar solo section of "My Sharona," which is nothing like the Neanderthal nature of the rest of the tune but instead goes into a sort of if the band Boston played power pop reverie. It's a bizarre tangent down a completely unforeseen sideroad, and absolutely makes the tune, even if it's not one of the first half-dozen things you think of when hearing the song's title.

I've always found the brief "hey" sections after the choruses and before slipping back into the verses strange if effective in Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but those are short enough to not really count.

Most of all, of course, if you want to discuss unexpected and seemingly unreleased sections in pop songs, you should probably either start or end with the master: Brian Wilson's uses of a not-dissimilar contrasting section in "Wouldn't It Be Nice" not only also slows things down to a crawl for his sweet teenage pathos:

but the bizarre baroque section in "God Only Knows" comes out of nowhere, has little relation to the rest of the song, shouldn't even remotely work and, of course, is beyond genius.

Listen to that! No matter how many times you've heard it, it's always worth hearing again. Because it should not work. It's so out of nowhere, so out of place, and it somehow—despite coming crazy early in the song, even!—makes perfect sense in the moment. Impossible, and yet there 'tis.

So why did Tom Petty go into that halftime section? My guess: 'cuz it felt great and sounded better.

Bruce Springsteen's prog leanings

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "Jungleland" — wherein Bruce Springsteen goes prog.

That’s right, I said it. Bruce Springsteen, blue-collar hero of meat and potatoes rock and roll, comes up with one of his most beloved songs, featuring multiple distinct sections, abrupt tempo shifts, long instrumental passages, unexpected modulations and an overtly melodramatic storyline. In other words, prog.

Oh, sure, it wouldn’t seem to have a lot in common with ELP or King Crimson, musically. And lyrically it’s got nothing in common with Yes since the lyrics are, you know, comprehensible. ("Mountains come out  of the sky and they stand there" — and that ain't cherrypicking, that's from their most popular song.)

But it’s not far off from what Genesis was doing its last few years with Peter Gabriel—in fact, given the radically different backgrounds of its creators, it really is like the American cousin of Selling England by the Pound’s “Battle of Epping Forest.”

Both take scenarios thoroughly steeped in their own local mythologies—Robin Hood’s old stomping grounds as a setting for a gang war versus the New Jersey Turnpike and a more mundane urban street scene—and craft a relatively straightforward narrative around them, both shot through with violence and ending in death. (SPOILERS!)

There are more than a few differences, of course: for one thing, Peter Gabriel’s lyrics play up the absurdity for comedic effect, and the variety of voices he utilizes only emphasizes that. Springsteen, in contrast, is aiming for high tragedy, complete with heartbreaking catharsis.

But even the names—the Magic Rat and the Maximum Lawman, Liquid Len and Bob the Nob—are of a piece. Both feature slower, softer instrumental intros which burst into uptempo rock and roll. (Well…something kind of approaching some sort of rock and rollian, rock and rollesque approximation, in the case of Genesis.) Both feature prominent keyboard parts as the dominant instrument overall, but “Jungleland” makes outstanding use of Clarence Clemons’ saxophone for its long, arduously composed and recorded solo, the most memorable part of the song—no small feat, given the gorgeous piano and violin intro, or the fine guitar solo, whereas ace Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett was, as all too often, relegated to textures (at which he was exceptional) and mixed too low.

And coincidence that the only time Springsteen released a song like this was in 1975, during the height of prog, when it was pretty much the most popular genre going at the time? And he wouldn’t do anything even remotely approaching it for 35 more years? Nay, I say—I say thee nay.

Which isn’t to say "Jungleland"'s not great, of course. ‘cuz it is, and I say that as someone who admits he’s got a fondness for prog. In fact, one of the big differences between the two songs is their relative quality: "Jungleland" succeeds in everything it tries to do, whereas "Epping Forest" is, as almost all the musicians involved admit, more than a bit of a mess: musically overly busy, even by prog standards, and massively overstuffed lyrically; comparing it to the same albums "Cinema Show" or "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" make clear how powerful these ingredients can be when mixed in the proper proportions...which they aren't here.

“Jungleland” is epic and sprawling and gorgeous and ambitious and moving and sums up the entire Born to Run album perfectly. It’s the last gasp of a tenacious young kid willing, happy, desperate to try anything, to toss the kitchen sink and anything else he can find into the pot, hoping to discover the ideal medium for his message. He’d find it when recording his next album, and things would pretty much forever be far more stripped down and direct. So enjoy this last gasp of Bruce Springsteen figuring out who he is.  Once he figures that out for sure, things might get even better, maybe, but there’s nothing quite like the rush of a young artist exploding into full promise.

I've Got a Feeling

What else is there to say about the famous rooftop concert? Just this: every time you watch it, you pick up something new. And that something new usually can be summed up thusly: good GOD what a band.

Paul McCartney's critical reputation has been on the upswing since before this century started, so it's sometimes surprising to remember just how much the critics savaged him and his music in the 1970s. He was often lumped into with other saccharine popsters of the day, writing and singing empty confectionaries, just chasing chart success. And to be fair, that's not entirely inaccurate. Except you know which of his peers up there at #1 could sing balls to the wall rock and roll like he so casually does at about 0:29 there? None of them. (Well...Rod the Mod. But he doesn't count.)

John Lennon, of course, is at his coolest here—and when he was cool, there was absolutely no one cooler—obviously emotionally invested, and just gliding through the proceedings with that amazing voice, playing some sweet guitar, and occasionally (such as at 1:54) unleashing that zillion watt smile of his. Obviously, he was one of the great rock and roll screamers of all time, but here he goes the smooth route, gliding above everything casually, knowing that's the most musically effective way to provide counterpoint to Paul's grit.

Even the famously unhappy by this point George Harrison mainly looks pleased, and outright happy a bunch of places—usually but not always when smiling at Ringo, and who can really blame him?—all while playing that frankly weird-ass guitar part that no one else would have come up with and with fits absolutely perfectly.

Speaking of, notice the way Ringo Starr is pounding those toms. There's a very clear difference in timbre between drums hit hard and drums not hit hard, and Ringo is bashing those poor things, getting the best possible tones out of them. And check out that brief, tight and not terribly characteristic fill at 1:28, with its sweet syncopated hi-hat bark. But most of all, listen to the way he brings them back in after the breakdown, around 1:17, as George smiles and Paul hits that perfect high note. They're on a damn rooftop, having not played live in years, they're freezing--several of them wearing their wives' coats in an attempt to keep warm—and them come back in at precisely the right millisecond. If the top studio musicians in New York or Los Angeles stumbled upon these guys playing in some dingy club and heard that bit, they would have turned to each other in shock. "Did you just hear that?" "Of course I did. Good god, who are these guys?"

Easily the best band ever, that's who.

Just What I Needed

Sure, the band's name—Dwayne Gretzky—is what first caught my eye. But damn if this cover band doesn't do a fantastic job of reinterpreting unbelievably well-known songs without dipping into formula.

Country Radio

Always nice to hear from old friends, especially when they're still turning out songs as good as this.

California Stars

Having first heard this song very shortly before we moved to California, it's long been one of my favorite Wilco songs—I won't claim it's one of their very best, but it's definitely got a very special place in my heart.

But this live version from a few years ago, featuring the great Jason Isbell guesting on guitar, is really something else. While, sure, it could have been even better if Isbell had joined in on vocals, even without that, it's a lovely version of a lovely song.

Until the end. Isbell plays a nice if occasionally meandering solo. But then impossibly fantastic guitarist Nels Cline—who's already played a sweet solo earlier in the song—joins in, and the two guitarists engage in an absolutely perfect dialogue, reminiscent of the end of "Sultans of Swing," if that were a meditatively melancholy duet. Absolutely the only flaw is that it doesn't go on for another hour.

Manic Monday

In which we learn that punks can grow old gracefully. (With luck and if they so choose.)

RIP Adam Schlesinger

A sage once said, “There's a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours.” Well, there's always a shortage of perfect pop songs, and the writer of one of the most perfect of all time has died. It wouldn't be accurate to say I was exactly a fan of his, but looking over his catalog, I surely was a massive fan of at least a few of his songs, and am finding myself crushed that we'll never again get a chance to hear him write another perfect new song from the 60s or 80s or 70s or 90s.

A Demon Went Down to Georgia

Forty years after I first heard (and loved...and was perhaps a bit frightened by) this song, it suddenly occurred to me today, out of absolutely nowhere—I wasn't even listening to the song, or had just run across it somewhere or anything and the brain is a weird damn thing—that the line

The devil went down to Georgia he was lookin' for a soul to steal He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind And he was willing to make a deal

Wait...why was the devil behind? The devil's got quotas to meet? Does he have a boss he answers to? Meaning either God, or else it's not really the devil, is it? It's more like a demon. But I guess "A Demon Went Down to Georgia" isn't quite as catchy.

Also, even as a very superstitious child, I thought the devil kicked Johnny's ass from Valdosta to the Chattahoochee National Forest and back again. 

Waitin' on the End of the World

Here's hoping not so much...but just in case, a good soundtrack always helps.

For one deadly love like a disease I came to you crawlin' on my knees
Your eyes filled with rain I can feel poison runnin' through my veins
I'm waitin'
I'm waitin'
I'm waitin', waitin' on the end of the world

Maneater

Baggage—boy, we carry that weight a long time. Even when we're aware of it, it's often got its hook in us so deep we can't dislodge it.

So I always liked Hall & Oates, even as I thought they were lightweight piffle, and thought the notion that Daryl Hall had one of the great voices in rock, as he claimed in their mid-80s Rolling Stone cover story,  absurd. (He did, of course.)

I'm not sure there was any stage of my music obsession where I didn't like pop. I liked it before I discovered the likes of Led Zeppelin, I liked it when I was deepest in my Pink Floyd or David Bowie phases—I not only saw no problem in liking, say, Black Sabbath and Madonna, I reveled in it—I liked it when I was all about the Replacements and REM. So of course I liked Hall & Oates.

Except for this damn song. We played it in marching band, the one year I did marching band (staggeringly poorly) and man did those wounds go deep. Deeper than I know. So that whenever I hear this song, I recoil, even as I love "Sara Smile" and "She's Gone" and "Method of Modern Love."

So when I saw this bass-centric mix come up, I shuddered. And yet I clicked play. And sweet fancy moses, that bass line by Tom Wolk is deeper than the Marianas Trench, and it turns out there are lyrics to this song! Who knew? (They're...watching a wedding? That can't be right...) And I'm reminded that the fourth line of each verse, which has that incredibly groovy rhythmic displacement thang goin' on, is absolutely fabulous. ("Mind over MATTer.")

At the end of the day, it still might not quite be "Rich Girl" or "Out of Touch," and, sure, the lyrics might be more than a touch misogynistic, but my god that bass line.

the greatest drum fill in rock history

One of the things that I've learned over the past few weeks is that some people are apparently unaware of the single greatest drum fill in rock and roll history.

It's played by Doctor William Scott Bruford, aka Bill Bruford, formerly of Earthworks, formerly of King Crimson, fomerly of Bruford Levin Upper Extremities, formerly of Anderson Bruford Wakeman and Howe, formerly of Bruford, formerly of UK, formerly of Genesis (touring only), formerly of Yes.  And indeed this is a Yes song, a little-remembered ditty by them known as "Roundabout."

The fill in question occurs at 6:28 of the original recording, but here is it, semi-isolated for your listening pleasure. (I've chosen the version that's got Chris Squire's thunderous bass, and a little bit of Jon Anderson's vocals, for context, but there's also a version that's just Bill Bruford and, yes, entire days have gone by where I've just played his isolated tracks on repeat and so what if I do?)

The clip embedded should start seven measures before the fill, at 6:20. The fill itself lasts for one measure, so you can be prepared for the greatness, which begins at the 6:33 mark.

Here's what la partie de batterie inégalée sounds like without the bass (more or less):

There are at least two different transcriptions of this fill currently online. One looks like this:

while the other like this:

You'll note both agree on the first eight 16th notes, but then diverge as to what he does with the second half of the fill. While I find the first version more aesthetically appealing, the second version sound more correct to me, if still not quite accurate: I think it's correct in its number of bass drum notes, but I think Bruford used two different floor toms, where it only notates one. On the other hand, I've listened to the fill at half speed a dozen times and could never have even made a stab at notating this myself, so I'm probably wrong too and massive props to those devoted and erudite scholars.

Here's the thing that makes this fill so astonishing. First of all, it just is: it's technically difficult, it fits the music, it kicks the music into an even higher gear, and it sounds cool as fuck. But much or most or all of that could be said for so many other drum fills, so why this one? Because while technically difficult, it's far from the most difficult: there are oodles and boodles of fills by jazz and metal drummers which would make this seem rudimentary.

Two main reasons. The first is that it was improvised—unlike many other difficult fills which are planned, written, practiced ahead of time, this is jazz devotee Bill Bruford we're discussing, so this fill was, as with most of his fills, totally spur of the moment, played for that take and that take only, and never repeated. It just came to him as the measure approached, or maybe didn't even, maybe his limbs just took over and that's what happened.

The other thing is that this fill doesn't really sound like Bill Bruford, per se. I mean, it obviously does, and not just because he's playing it. But it's not as typical a fill as, say, the one he plays in the eighth measure of the song:

 

or the brief one shortly before the greatest ever:

I've always loved this other fill, incidentally. It's so short, it's almost like he refuses to do a typical rock fill, just tossing this unexpected bomb off casually, with the crash coming in on the 4 of the bar, rather than the 1 of the next measure, as is far more typical and would therefore be expected. As Bruford once said:

"Surprise, attack, understate, or overstate, but whatever you do, avoid the two cardinal sins of being either boring or predictable."

("And when in doubt, roll.")

But the main fill, the fill we're talking about, doesn't really sound like him. It's not like when Ringo swings a fill, as was his style, even during songs with a straight feel. It's not like a Bonham triplet, which are always awesome. It's not like when Collins plays double-speed at the end of a fill, as he so often did. It's not like when Tony Thompson would end a fill with an accented snare on the 4 at the end of a fill, before crashing on the subsequent 1. It's not like Steve Gadd's fill that kicks "Chuck E.'s in Love" out of the bridge and back into the song, which is so badass and so tasty but quite stylistically typical of Gadd in every way (including being badass and tasty). Those are all awesome and part and parcel of those awesome drummers' awesome styles.

But this ain't that. This fill is atypical of Bruford, it's a one-off, which sounds like nothing he'd ever do again, even as timbrally it sounds so clearly Bruford. Put all those factors together and you've got the single greatest fill in rock history, on a song which has been played to death for 50 years, and yet somehow it still skates by unnoticed.

[For the record, the greatest drum intro ever is, of course, on the Temptations classic "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," played by one of the Funk Brothers drummers—in this case, apparently, Uriel Jones (and not the also amazing Pistol Allen or Benny Benjamin). Unbelievably versatile, musical, tasteful and kickass, it easily beats out, in my mind, also phenomenal intros by the likes of Charles Connor, Ringo Starr, John Bonham, Stevie Wonder, Steve Gadd, Stewart Copeland, Phil Collins, Jeff Porcaro, Larry Mullen Jr, Dave Grohl and so many other brilliant drummers.]

Crossroads, and How I Learned to Love Rush Again

The death of Neil Peart and the amazing outpouring of affection that followed sent me onto something of a Rush listening/watching jag over the past few days.

My thoughts on the band were fairly simple. I was a big fan until I was about 14 and then my attention turned elsewhere. From that moment on I always appreciated/admired their talent and connection to the fans, and I continued to like those songs with which I was familiar (you know, six or seven really well-known tunes). I had just decided the music wasn't exactly for me.

Funny. Even at age 51 and set in our ways, we're able to learn new things. And change our lines.

Because after a few days of listening to Moving Pictures, then Permanent Waves, then 2112, then Signals, then Hemispheres and then, most recently A Farewell to Kings, I have to say, this is music for me. Without question. The mindbending precision. The chops all three have. The songwriting. The integrity. I spent nearly 40 years not really appreciating it, but damn, I do now. It took a re-listening to the Side 1 suite of 2112 for the first time since the Reagan Administration. And Alex Lifeson's advanced mathematics on "La Villa Strangiato." And the joyous musical wonderland explored in "Xanadu," led by vocals from Geddy Lee that remind you just what kind of singer he truly is. And the brilliant, signature-bending ride (not to mention the songwriting) that is "Spirit of Radio." And yes, "Limelight" and "YYZ" and "Tom Sawyer." There is so damn much good here; unfortunately I spent all these years not paying much attention. But I am paying attention now.

And it hasn't just been listening. I watched Beyond the Lighted Stage the other day and, I have to say, I have never seen a better rock doc. Their openness (even the legendarily shy and reclusive Neil) is staggering, and the material is so comprehensive that you get exactly why these three worked as a band for 40+ years. And you walk away with the sense that Neil is one of the smartest people to ever play rock-n-roll, and Geddy and Alex are just two of the most decent people in rock-n-roll history.

I've watched a few concert snippets online as well and reached the same conclusion. Terrific stuff. And I watched their induction to the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 and thought it was amazing. Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins couldn't have given them a better or more reverent intro. And Neil, Geddy and Alex knocked it out of the park with their speeches. And yes, to me, Alex's ballsy  "blah blah blah" speech kept getting funnier and funnier.


But it was the end of that night in 2013 that is the impetus for this post. It's long been one of my favorite rock-n-roll moments, and very possibly is my favorite jam session I have ever seen. The sheer talent onstage is staggering. Watch, and a few observations will follow.



I love this clip, and this version of a truly legendary piece of music, so much it is difficult to say.

• Not sure how this is possible, but on a stage that had all three members of Rush, the Wilson sisters. Dave and Taylor, John Fogerty, Chris Cornell, Tom Morello, Darryl McDaniels and Chuck Freaking D, Gary Clark Jr. still manages to emerge as the coolest person on the stage. Damn does he have charisma!
• To that end, following Chuck and Darryl's awesome intro, I love how they gave it to Gary to take the first verse and get them out of the gate. THAT'S respect.
• I also love how it doesn't take Geddy long to pick up the hip-hop beat on the bass and start to flesh it out.
• Dave and Taylor still have their old school Rush kimonos on for the song. Bless their hearts.
• Taylor + Neil = about what you'd expect. Which is to say, yes please.
• So cool to occasionally see Chuck and Darryl running around the stage in the background. Adds to the level of fun they are all having.
• Good GOD can Annie Wilson sing!
• Around the 1:48 mark, as Ann sings, Tom and Gary exchange a look which seems to speak to how much they love this.
• Ah, Chris Cornell. Hard to believe's not with us anymore. But it felt good to see him belt it out. And the extended shots towards the end of him and Tom together are very cool.
• There are quite a few times where you see Geddy in the back just grooving along quietly on the bass. And that struck me. This is a guy who spent 40+ years as a front man, so it might've seemed a little weird being "behind the scenes" for a little while, if you will. But Geddy seems to be enjoying himself.
• Little random moments. Darryl watching Tom play and looking kind of amazed. Chuck holding his mic up to Geddy's bass. Geddy laughing with Chuck at the 3:00 mark.
• Alex's solo. SWEET JESUS is that man a monster player.
• While Alex is playing, his oldest and probably closest friend in the world gives Tom Morello a look and reaction at the 4:27 mark that likely explains exactly what Geddy thinks of Alex.
• Two different solos for Mr. Morello. Both done in his thoroughly unique way. And no one seems to be complaining.
• And Geddy is given the final verse. And naturally, he nails it. You can't spend a career as a master prog player without having an advanced understanding of the rock-n-roll basics. Geddy proves it there. And his high five with Fogerty at the end is a little silly and a lot sweet.

It's a damn shame, once again, that it takes a death to spur my listening to some great musics. But I am glad this brought me back to Rush. Very few bands possess this advanced level of talent. None of them have a greater connection to or appreciation of their fans.

THAT is one hell of a legacy. One that deserves plenty of attention be paid to it.

You Either Die a Hero or You Live Long Enough to See Yourself Become the Villain: Robbie Robertson and the Band

This guy.

So thanks to the footage—and the subject matter—this looks like it'll be utterly riveting...in parts. And because of the damn guy being interviewed, the titular character, the villain of the piece, it's going to be equally insufferable in parts. I mean, I nearly punched my computer screen twice just watching the trailer. Every word that comes out of his mouth feels like it's been written and rewritten and rehearsed a dozen times before the cameras even started rolling. (And thanks to The Last Waltz, we know that's far from unlikely.)

As anyone who's perused Reason to Believe even a bit probably realizes, both Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton are in my list of Top 10 Favorite Artists ever, and Van Morrison's way the hell up there, and his recent dumb comments notwithstanding, I'm a huge Martin Scorsese fan. But it's highly telling that the ones interviewed for this here documentary—or at least who are most prominently called out in the various pieces about the film and in the trailer—are all...solo artist types. They've either never really been in a band or it's been a long damn time since they were and when they were it was for brief periods before imploding.

(Although Springsteen is right on the money when he says:

"There is no band that emphasizes becoming greater than the sum of their parts than The Band."

and nothing makes that more crystal clear than Robertson's perfectly fine but lightyears from legendary solo career—a solo career that's now 43 years long, well over four times as long as the Band's career.)

"Something got broken and it was like glass—it was hard to put back together again." Yeah, d-bag: and you were the one who broke it. You broke The Band. One of the greatest bands ever, and you destroyed it. You knew—or maybe you didn't really know yet—how amazing the chemistry was between these five incredible musicians, and yet you decided you had to be the leader, and virtually the sole songwriter, despite how vital the songwriting contributions of the others (especially the fragile as crystal Richard Manuel) was.

Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt working with those guys was hella difficult, especially once the drugs and drink really started to take hold. But come on, man. Enough with the revisionism. "We thought, let's come together one last time: The Last Waltz." No, homeboy. The others were very clear about it over the years: You decided. They wanted to keep going. Hey, if you want to quit a band, you get to. But don't lie about how and why it happened.

I mean, even the damn title: Robbie Robertson and the Band. They keep talking about how magical it was when these guys got together, and yet the guy who broke them up still needs to have his damn name in the title, even though it runs counter to the precise thesis of the damn film.

Feh.

You know what would be great? Not just for this documentary—although hell yeah it would've—but in general? Interview guys from bands that were or have been together for a really long time about how goddamn hard it is to keep bands together. Interview the guys from, say, U2 and REM and Pearl Jam and Rush and ZZ Top about what it's really like to be in a band with the same guys for decades. 'cuz there's a reason so few bands stay together for that long.

Footage looks amazing, of course. Can't wait to see it.

(For a much more accurate view of what The Band was really like, check out this video of a 1970 concert. There's little indication of Robertson's future narcissism, and absolutely no indication that he or anyone thinks of him as the band's leader; just the opposite, in fact–if you didn't know better, you'd probably think it was Rick Danko, who sings or co-sings all four songs [including a little ditty he wrote with some jamoke named Bob Dylan] and whose ability to sing beautifully and with such a unique timbre while playing completely independent, deep, finger-busting funky grooves remains astonishing. Or listen to Levon Helm singing "The Weight" for what must already be the thousandth time. This has to be at least the 10th live version I've heard him do, and I don't think I've ever heard him sing those so well known lines the same way twice. What a monster musician. Like all the rest of The Band.)

RIP Neil Peart

One of the giants of drumming died today. Apparently Rush drummer Neil Peart had been fighting brain cancer for years and told next to no one. Which is about as Neil Peart a thing as I can imagine.

There have been few big-name drummers who cared more or thought more deeply about drums and drumming than Peart. He may not have had the ability to make odd time signatures swing as effortlessly as Phil Collins, nor Bill Bruford's restless desire to never, ever repeat himself—to name two of the three other major prog rock drummers of the 70s—but no one ever strove for perfection like Peart. He'd spend months writing and rewriting and tweaking and honing and finally recording his parts, wondering if a flam here would be more effective or perhaps a ruff would work better or maybe it should simply be played as clean straight notes. And, of course, once the final part was settled, he'd meticulously recreate it night after night in concert, live, with tens of thousands of adoring eyes on him, and tens of thousands of adoring ears listening to every ghost note, every hi-hat bark, every perfect 32nd note paradiddlediddle.

And Peart, notorious perfectionist owner of staggering technical abilities, every one of which he worked relentlessly at, was open about how often he made mistakes. And, sure, he was almost certainly the only one who ever noticed them, but that's not entirely the point: the point is, he did notice them. And whereas a Collins would think, well, that sucks, but the show must go on, and push it out of his mind, and a Bruford would think, well, that didn't work but was really quite interesting, I wonder if there's anything to be learned from that, Peart would obsess over it, determined to do better next time. And the time after. And the time after.

And few professional musicians have ever dedicated themselves to reinventing their technique as late in their career as he did in the 90s, studying with master instructor Freddie Gruber, and changing up his approach to the drums—an idea which would have have been, was, beyond absurd to the generations of drummers would have given their left splash cymbal to have had half Peart's original technique.

But when I think of Neil Peart's drumming, I don't think of the title track to 2112, or the beloved instrumentals like "YYZ" or "La Villa Strangiato," I think about "Spirit of Radio," both because it's one of his finest lyrics, and most of all, because of the sense of humor and obvious love for music that comes through in every measure.

There are places where he seems to almost anticipate the gospel chops of the next century in his (perhaps Steve Gadd-inspired) linear fills, and it changes time signatures more often than most drummers change their socks, but it's the places where for measures on end he plays...the bass drum. Just unadorned quarter notes on the kick drum. The kind of thing he could have played after one lesson as a kid. Hell, the kind of thing he could have played before taking a single lesson. But it was right for the music, so monster drummer Neil Peart—who wrote the part—played the simplest thing possible. What's more, besotted (as the rest of the band was, along with pretty much everyone in the world was) at the time by the Police (and in Peart's case specifically the playing of the band's utterly dissimilar Stewart Copeland), he goes into...reggae. About as un-prog-like a musical style as is imaginable. But it felt right, it fit the song, so into reggae they went, by god.

Sure, there are those other parts where it goes into 7/4, 'cuz hey, that too fit. (And most amusing of all, when the song leaves 7/4 and goes back into 4/4, that's actually the measure which feels wonkiest, as the beat is displaced, ala "Sunshine of Your Love" or "Bell Bottom Blues." A tricksy bagginses, that Peart.)

The world has moved on. And we're unlikely to see the likes of a prog god like Neil Peart ever achieve mass popularity again. So pour one out for the reclusive percussionist, even though he'd probably hate it.

Stairway to Heaven

Talk about What Might Have Beens.

Every few years I rewatch this video and it's pretty much always the same. Or, well, the video's always exactly the same, but my reaction is pretty much always the same. Which is that with Steve Winwood on keyboards, Bill Wyman on bass and Simon Phillips on drums, this instrumental version of "Stairway" should be phenomenal.

But, sadly, Jimmy Page was deep in the throes of his heroin addiction and his playing—which even at his most incendiary and risk-taking best was rarely precise live, to put it mildly—is shockingly sloppy. Just listen and you'll hear fumbled notes, slurred chords, terrible timing, and some embarrassing intonation.

What's more, the recording itself isn't always as clear as would be ideal. Or, perhaps, given that Jimmy wasn't at his finest here, maybe that's not the end of the world. Still, a bit of clarity would have been nice, and having the audio properly synched with the video would definitely be a plus.

And yet. And yet when Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck come in at the end of the solo, it can't help but become nearly glorious, as Beck plays and plays with the last phrases of Jimmy's famous solo over and over on his Tele, and Clapton plays Robert Plant's original vocal line on his Strat. In some ways, it makes it all the sadder how much greater this could have and should have been. On the other hand, we get to see Clapton, Beck and Page, all three of the Yardbirds famous lead guitarists, playing the most famous song any of them ever wrote, and even at sub-optimal conditions, that's pretty damn cool.

RIP Neil Innes

Whenever I think of my favorite musical artists ever, Neil Innes never comes to mind. And yet the man who wrote "Knights of the Round Table" and "Brave Sir Robin," among so many others, probably brought me more joy than all but a tiny handful of musicians.

Owner of a Lonely Heart

I am amazed by this video. Amazed that it took me nearly 40 years to witness its majestic awfulness. Amazed that this was made by the same band at roughly the same time as the other video they did for the same song—a video that would be (justifiably) played to death by MTV. Amazed that they decided to cut away from Trevor Rabin just as he's about to sing the echo to the title in the chorus. Amazed by the comments it's engendered:

That looks like something a junior-high school band did for their drummer's aunt's public access cable TV show.

"MOVE YOURSELF."
Hardly moves

The ratio of awesome music to awkward visuals is staggering

No parrot has been harmed in the making of this video, several stylists and visual artists died during production though.

The setting sucks. Was the whole budget spent on the parrots?

Mom! Dad's singing in the living room again.

The singer even looks like he rushed from his summer job at the Thrifty Drug ice cream counter and forgot to take his nametag off.

If you mute it, the singer appears to be a daytime kids TV presenter talking over educational concepts for the kids who were too ill to go to school.

When every contestant in the "world's least cool man" competition wins!

Holy shit this is bad. They must have felt amazing in the studio: "look Trevor Horn is making us sound like the future". And then they made this.

Good god that’s awful. I couldn’t get through the whole thing but assume the sand worm from Beetlejuice came along and ate all of them.

Now I know why so many serial killers like prog rock

I mean...just look at this thing. Are any of those comments wrong? Or even unfair?

(Okay, this one may be a little unfair. But funny!)

I feel sorry for their lonely hut. Someone should move in.