|
A LOADED PROPOSITION:
Joe S. Harrington Picks the All-Time Top 100 Or...Who Pulled
The Trigger?
Installment
TWO of FOUR
75.
Greetings From LA—Tim Buckley (Warner
Bros., 1972):
The Buckler was always crazier than a loon and this
may be his most demented opus.
It’s MUCH different than his Elektra-Reprise stuff
(although “Get on Top” does kinda sway to that same almost
gypsy raga thing as “Gypsy Woman” on Happy
Sad). One thing’s
for sure: whereas the older stuff was merely “somber,” this
shit is downright depressing—and INSANE. By this point the
Buckler must’ve wiped right the fuck out—convinced he was
NEVER gonna be a hit (and hey, in the sixties, in light
o’ the British Invasion and Dylan they all
thought they were gonna be a hit) he retreats into a
kind of soulful self-loathing.
Listen to him stutter like an absolute insaniac on
“Get on Top”—I can’t tell if he’s singing in Italian or
doing Van Morrison one better w/ a melismatic sweep o’ mouth-utterings.
The musicians here are a whole new cast as opposed to the
usual gang of idiots (i.e., Ian Underwood etc.) and we can
hear Buckley already drifting towards the more soulful bent
o’ Look at the Fool
(his swangsong before he croaked). But what this album represents most of all, like a good deal of
the albums on this list, is an artist coming to terms with
his ever-lovin’ id as far as the whole psychic chain o’
command from thought to emotion to motion. There was never a dishonest word on any Buckley
album, the guy always strove for his own universe and placement of said universe within the context of,
I dunno…all of our
universes. So in the Buckler’s eyes, this was his attempt
at making a typical-for-the-time LA studio LP. “Nighthawkin’” for instance sounds kinda like
Randy Newman by way of the Doobie Brothers. The songs are
short, no “Making Love From Room 139 of the San Pedro Hotel”
or whatever it was called—this is the closest Tim ever got
to an ordinary “rock and roll” LP. But you have to understand
it’s through the filter of lyrics like “I’ve gotta shoot
me a gook before dawn” and two—possibly
three—whole songs about S&M. On the inner sleeve
he’s wearin’ a gasmask which some folks might’ve thought
wuz some hippie-ecological commentary on the smog plague
of LA but I suspect, given the evidence o’ the aforementioned
songs, that it was more of a bondage
get-up but Icould of course be wrong). Once again, the
guy was a self-loather on an almost Manson level. And where
his kinda hippie-dippie sixties albs placed him in the sensitive
minstrel category, what this album makes clear is what a
wiseass he was. More of a wise-ass than
Kari Maples. I remember
talking to my friend Josh one day and telling him my reaction
of a preview o’ Greetings: “Well, the guy was some kinda
S&M freak…” What else can one make of songs like “Make
it Right,” where he literally cries out “beat me, whip
me, make it right again”?
And in “Move with Me” he volunteers to be a female’s
“houseboy.” Just the title “Get on Top” alone makes it clear
that he’s never been opposed to assumin’ a more supine posture.
Every song on this album is about fuckfuck fuck—but
it doesn’t sound happy and joyous like, say, Lisa Suckdog. It sounds painful and agonizing by a man who was courting death
already (altho’ he wouldn’t officially kick off for 4 more
yrs). There usta be this guy around Portland named
Opus Glen—he was one of the first real freaks in town, the
kinda guy who liked the Stooges in the seventies
(prior to that we never knew ANY actual geezers who
listened to the shit other than the ones we read about in
Creem—all the
old farts in Portland in those days were hippies but, if you noticed, I made the distinction that good ol’
Glendora, frog-faced bastard that he was, was a freak as opposed to smelly hippie). The whole time I was growin’ up he worked in a record store (of
course the ultimate
el slacko job for the burgeoning hipster—as opposed
to hippie—even
now) but later on, he drifted into the cocaine. Last time I ever saw Opus Glen it was in a Portland barroom circa
early ’90s. The
guy did NOT look good…and he knew it.
Infact, I distinctly remember him saying something
chilling that night, something to the effect of
“the way I’m going I’m probably going to be dead
soon” (see Black Flag circa ’81: “If I keep on doing this
I’m going to end up dead”).
Anyway, the other
thing I remember distinctly about that night is him
telling me that Greetings From LA was “the greatest album
ever” (a title he’d previously reserved for Trout Mask Replica). Six months
later he was dead, gone to join the Buckler in the great
beyond, another miserable turd on a bumride.
74.
Disconnected—Stiv Bators (Bomp, 1980):
Another dead guy, but this guy did not
check out in a self-strangulating fit of misery ala
the Buckler or Ian Curtis—to the contrary, he wanted the
party to continue even as he lay hemorrhaging in a French
hotel room (or was it Italy? Goddamn we all know his own
cunt-tree expatriated him etc.).
An eternal outcast, in the good sense o’ the word (as opposed to “little
weirdo” like today’s diaper-wearing pierced-and-branded
ninnies) Stiv-oid believed in the eternal power of rock
n’ roll in the same way Johnny Thunders did, and this album,
recorded just post-Dead Boys, is everything a rock n’ roll
album should be. It showed Stiv for the retro-affected smoothie
that he’d later dive-bomb into in the Lords of the New Church
with spiffy covers o’ sixties punk classics “It’s Cold Outside”
n’ “I Had Too Much to Dream, but more importantly, it showed
the guy was NOT just all teeth—what we’re talking here is
“power pop” rendered the way only a handpick few have ever
been able to render it.
Sure Poppa Greg Shaw’s participation—and the nascent
“indie” trappings—enabled Sid to finally explore his more
“subtle” and “tender” side (for want of a better adjective).
But the snarl is still in place, it’s just that, on this
alb Sid sounds like the type o’ guy who could be slumberin’
with Bebe Buell on the coast o’ Maine (bein’ introduced
to her parents and
all) one week and laying in the gutter behind CBGB’s the
next. Listen to the kind of stun-stroke o’ “Ready Any Time”
and think John Felice o’ the Real Kids (who also did their
stint on Bomp). Also contemplate the Black Halos in light
o’ this alb (both them and
you will look better for it). But most of all be prepared
to have yr fuggin’ clothes stunned right off like wax offa
the wick by the totally fuckin’ great “I Wanna Forget You
(Just the Way You Are)” which is worthy o’ Scotty Miller
(and that AIN’T FUCKIN’ HAY and “Circumstantial Evidence”
ain’t far behind). I
mean we’re talkin’ Big
Shot Chronicles / Lolita
Nation Scott Miller. Bators almost curves it the same
way, but Miller would really put the slope on it. And the ages fuckin’ burned baby (don’t ever let the cynics,
squares and non-sexoids tell you otherwise).
Special credit once again for pre-cognitive fatalism
(in the form o’ the self-explanatory
“The Last Year on Earth” as well as “Ready Anytime”
in which he sez: “I ain’t afraid to die/Because I know there’s
life after death”—he might’ve been in for a rude awakening).
73.
Drums of Passion—Olatunji (Columbia, 1959):
Gotta be in
here, it more or less birthed “world muzak” and while I’d
hafta basically agree w/ yer first piqued-up reservations
about that, Jack, at the same time, y’ can’t blame Olatunji
(who usta hold residencies in the early Kennedy era hipster
world o’ New York City at venues like the Village Gate and
Five Spot in between stints by all the ace jazzers o’ the
day) for Nusrat. A transplant from Kenya, he came over here
at the behest of one or another numbnuts I can’t quite recall
the name of—but the resulting album must’ve blown a lot
of doors (if not windowpanes) with its COMPLETE non-kitschy
TRIBAL vibrations. Moe Tucker usta practice to this album when
she’d gotten sick of Bo Diddley. You
can kinda hear it. You can also trace the evolution of the
“mamacia mumaa ci die monkazar” (and that’s a VERY loose
translation from admittedly a yank who’s paler than pink
even upon full blush) chant from Drums of Passion to “Soul Makossa” to Michael fucking Jackson. Which I guess makes this pretty much near the
top o’ the heap as far as introducing the whole afro-vibe
into blues/soul/jazz what-have-you.
Can you believe there was even a volume
two!? Columbia/Legacy claims to be reissuing this one
soon (thank God Randy Haecker’s such a swell guy).
72.
This Year’s Model—Elvis Costello (Columbia,
1978): Some albs‘re actual events
and this was one of ‘em.
If you’d been following this little tweaze-eye for
the scant few months he’d even been extant you’d know how
goddam riveting it
was to witness this
incarnation of his Elvis-ness, as opposed to the first
album, which was made w/a bunch o’ Berkeley area hack-o’-Joes.
It was a good effort no doubt, but with This
Year’s Model, and the formation of the Attractions,
Elvis found his acidic groove. This wasn’t acidic as in
Randy Newman acidic or Zappa acidic or even Johnny Rotten
acidic…it was more overtly sexual
than any of them. In fact, on this alb anyway, Elvoid’s
angst weren’t that far removed from the perverse realm
o’ the Buckler circa Greetings
From LA (see above) and no less emotionally compelling,
although Elvis is actually better because he doesn’t wallow in his misery as much as the Buckler
did, but turns it into venom-dipped darts that he projects
at just about everybody—women, managers, other
musical contemporaries, and music biz smoothies of every
description—
with all the acumen of zen archers flinging buckets of chicken
wings directly into Eric Youngling’s eagerly-awaiting gullet.
Sure, there does seem to be a hint o’ misogyny running thru
the whole goddam elpee, but it’s of the non-smarmy variety—or
maybe I should put it this way: Elvoid, even in his flinching,
seething almost Valerie Solanis-level of
hate, at least presents an interesting view
o’ the whole Battle o’ the Sexes in a way putzes like
Paul Simon and Jackson Browne—whom he actually ended up
having more in common with in the long run than any genuine
“punk” elements—could never grasp w/ their endlessly apologetic
simpering tone. But the real key to the success of this
alb and what made it such a stark contrast betwixt it n’
its predecessor can be summed up in two words: Steve Nieve.
His use of organ here was the most non-cheezy utilization
of that (admittedly often cheezy) instrument since Manzarek’s
psych embroideries in the Doors and wouldn’t be equalled
‘til venerable granddads Yo La Tengo decided to re-introduce
the instrument to the mass (hipster) populace in ’92 (which
is just another thing we have to thank them for, albeit grudgingly).
71.
Wild Gift—X (Slash, 1980): Speakin’
o’ the Doors/Manzarek
…the Noel Ventresco prototype actually produced this alb by these LA banditos
and it kinda makes sense considering “The Unheard Music,”
from the group’s first, also Manzarek-produced album, was
in its own way a pumping Doors homage. Which of course made
it kind of unique amongst the more textbook “LA punk” speedbursts
that surrounded it. But it was on Wild Gift that X really got their groove into a formidable pile o’
splinters. For one thing, “I’m Comin’ Over” was the indisputable
prototype of Rebecca Odes and Love Child…I mean, like…exactly. And anyone who doesn’t know the value of that…well,
all I can say is, your
nineties world must’ve been a lot different than my
nineties world (mine involved people with names like Joan
Musician and Nancy Swinger). Meanwhile, on songs like “In
This House That I Call Home,” John Doe n’ Exene make like
an even more dilapidated Chris n’ Debbie for an even hipper
universe that wouldn’t tolerate Studio 54.
It’s pretty safe to say that no
group perhaps the Angry Samoans really conjured the
absolute horror of
the city—as well as the state o’ mind—called Los Angeles. Billy Zoom of course is a fucker, perhaps the
last one to do
anything remotely original with the whole Chuck Berry formula
(before Alan Licht would come along n’ shatter it to oblivion—an
idea which, admittedly, he stole from Quine, Van Halen,
Greg Ginn etc.). And for co-ed intermingling X were the
single most important prototype of that
whole syndrome as well (of which the aforementioned
Love Child were only the titanium tip o’ the whole radiometric
isotope). Should
I mention also that “Universal Corner” is one o’ the greatest fuckin’ male-female vocal exchanges
in history (if not the
best)? Holy shit, good albs, the best albs…what does it cum down to if not
songs? And on
this album, I shit you not, we’re lookin’ straight into
a whole galaxy of ‘em: “Adult Books,” “We’re Desperate,”
“Universal Corner,” “White Girl,” “Beyond and Back,” “Back
2 the Base,” “When Our Love Passed Out” etc. Each song a
killer and each as “relevant” as the day it came out.
Just say yes—please.
70.
The Modern Lovers (Beserkley, 1975): Came
out in ’75 but actually was recorded way
before that but no self-respecting record company would
release it at the time. Cale once again waxes mercenary,
much as he did with the Stooges n’ Patti Smith, but when
Big John went to work on this record, he was somewhat startled
by what he found—which was, in the form o’ Jon Richkid,
a gimp to beat all gimps who didn’t drink, go out with
women etc. In other words, in ‘72-’73, when these tracks were actually laid
down, that whole element o’ nerdiness was simply not known about. But you had
the Shaggs and you had these guys—both from New England,
not coincidentally: the colonialism of the region adds up
to an environment where folks feel uptight about any
act o’ overt non-id related physicality, from dancing
to sex. Jonathan Richkid was a perfect example of this,
the kind of guy who was bashful around girls and didn’t even get laid in the seventies, the most sexually liberated
time ever! But, like a lot of repressed weirdoes, altho’ Richman didn’t get any, he thought about it constantly (perhaps as a result) and, as this great
album attests, could articulate his lust and angst in a
way that was positively barren
as far as soul-exposition goes…that is, once the man
got in front of the microphone, or wrote a song, or performed,
he lost the inhibitions that made him unable to actually
get any legitimate scuzz on the end o’ his paintbrush. Coming along at a time when Velvets-derived
skizzle was actually uncommon
(as ‘posed to the formalized sub-genre it is now), the
Mod Lovers in a way actually improved
on the Velvets essential slumming-around-Coney-Island-on-a-Sunday-afternoon
texture (think the final three albs: Loaded,
VU and Another View) except they took it to Nantasket
Beach or wherever. The fact the band also housed David Robinson—who’d
go on to drum for the Cars—and Jerry Harrison—who’d be the
organ grinder in the Talking Heads—pretty much seals the
Lovers’ distinction as being the official founders o’ “new
wave” (I mean, what two bands are more important to the
origins o’ that declasse
non-genre than the Heads and the Cars? Hey, don’t blame
them, on this alb they sound positively tough
and there ain’t a skinny tie in evidence anywhere.)
As for Richman, I’ve seen the dude a couple of times
and found his act hard to take, and I care absolutely not
a whit about his post-therapy output (i.e., anything and
everything after this
album). But you
gotta pretty much hand it to the kid, he did kind of invent
something of his own, and Jad Fair and Will Baum and Jon
Reisbaum can all be glad.
And admit it, so can you.
69.
Forever Changes—Love (Elektra, 1967): Due
to its infamy it may seem like a token entry, but I’ve always
liked it, and y’ gotta pretty much admit, in the annals
o’ album-making-as-album-making (i.e., conceptual
entities), this was one of the first, best and most
enduring. Reason? Arthur Lee was a genuine psychedelic
cosmonaut, and he truly believed all the trappings of the
sixties dream—and, like Brian Wilson, when he fashioned
his opus, he dared to get as kozmically grandiose as he pleased. In other words, some might’ve worried that
the more effete tendencies that their psychedelicized brains
were innately pullin’ ‘em towards were a might say pretentious—and
in some cases it was
(cf. Van Dyke Parks). But
Lee somehow struck the right balance between non-rock poesy
and genuine craziness
on a Wilson/Syd Barrett level. Basically, Forever Changes is an alb that could never be reproduced, onstage
or otherwise. It
was Bryan McLean’s last with the group, and the last Love
album to even remotely sell—after that good ol’ Arthur just
got crazier and crazier and the perfection that is Forever Changes is undoubtedly one of the
reasons why. Can
you imagine having to live up to this?
For one thing, the world in which it was created
is so totally obliterated—which
is just another way of saying that it perfectly “summed
up” its time. This was pre-Manson sixties LA at its finest,
and you can bet Arthur Lee wishes it had never ended.
As he told Dave DiMartino of Creem
so pithily in 1981: “Mmmnn!
Who would’ve thought there wouldn’t be anymore hippies?” Forever
Changes is the eternal sixties time capsule LP. In a
word: unrepeatable.
68.
Interstellar Space—John Coltrane (Impulse,
1974): A posthumous album actually, the actual date
o’ its waxing being February 22, 1967, just a few months
before Coltrane died. Everyone knows that Coltrane in those
days was moving in cosmic leaps and bounds, and it was his
idea to do a duo LP with the powerful drummer, Rashied Ali,
who’d already played on Meditations
in concert with Elvin Jones (which pissed off Jones
so much that he quit a month later). By this point, Trane
had moved so far beyond most of his peers that they probably
thought he was genuinely going insane, even as they stood
back in awe and let the man commit his frenzied testimonial.
This was just the reason that Coltrane was finding harmony
with younger cats like Ali and Pharoah Sanders, who weren’t
as afraid of his bold new advancements as perhaps the more
seasoned vets were. But despite Trane’s penchant for way,
way “out there”
sounds during his last months of mortal existence, Interstellar Space is genuinely melodic
throughout—melody was always part of Coltrane’s gift, and
if anything, Ali propels him to new heights of soulful lyricism
(as on the classic “Saturn”). Listening to this album, the really amazing
thing about it is the fact that there are
just two people on it, because it certainly sounds like
a lot more—at least two horn players and two drummers (if
not an enlivened field of bull moose).
On “Leo,” one of the longer pieces on the LP, these
two barons prove once and for all the difference between
having chaos with clarity
intact and all that Knit-Picking Factory crap, which
mostly comes off as aimless blat—it’s “free,” it’s “out,”
but it still sounds like music (albeit very violent music).
There is an air of almost Japanese kabuki-style dialogue
going on, and of course the same blues that infected earlier
Coltrane opuses like “Spiritual” and “Alabama” (albeit taken
to the 800th degree).
Best duo album ever (runner up: Duo
Exchange with Ali and Frank Lowe, the latter being the
true heir to Coltrane anyway, at least until David S. Ware
came along).
67.
Kimono My House—Sparks (Island, 1974):
Other clowns with lace cuff-wearing pseudo-operatic
inclinations were a-pounce in ’74, including Roxy and Queen.
It’s hard to say who influenced whom, but it’s clear
now they were all onto something mighty fetching (and it
was something that anal pedestrians like Bowie and Todd
couldn’t keep up with). These
guys saw the future—and they beheld it in all its suckitude
in that thoroughly detached, post-modern way that would
predate everyone from ultra-ironic Brit cake-paint wearers
like Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Spandau Ballet etc. to heavy
metal queens like Dave Lee Roth to the weird trilling o’
punk gramps Jello Biafra.
This stuff is so cynical that—speakin’
of folks who should be called “gramps”—CHRISTGAU literally
gasped when it came out: “Mmmmmmmnnnn! They’re downright mean!” I’m sure the reigning rock crits
o’ the time thought this was PRETENTIOUS shit—remember,
prog was looked down upon then and in a song like “Thank
God It’s Not Christmas” (in which they predate the “shadamoosh
shadamoosh when you dance the fandango” part o’ Queen’s
“Homosexual Rhapsody”) they go for all the overboard trappings
o’ well-orchestrated seventies rock: the arch-dramatic highs
and lows, the squealing guitars (courtesy o’ Brit session
heavy Adrian Fisher, who along with bassist Martin Gordon
and drummer Dinky Diamond fulfilled the same role for the
Mael Bros. as Denny Dias and the boys did with Steely Dan)
and of course those goddamn ginchy
vocals o’ Russ Mael, which sound like an eel covered
in butter slipped down the front of your two-sizes-too-tight
leather pants by Cindy Crawford while she french kisses
you with dogshit in her mouth. When it comes to “weirdoes”
in rock these former male underwear models are behind only
Beefheart and Kim Fowley in the annals o’ the whole thing
(“weirdo” being something distinctly different from “freak”).
Kimono My House was
the fullblown fruition o’ Sparkdom and every song is thoroughly
brilliant—and laced with contempt.
I’m convinced that “Amateur Hour” contains some of
the most brilliant lyrics in Rock—these guys saw through
the whole sex thing long before Costello had ever wriggled
out of his three-piece suit. Like everyone on this list,
these guys firmly didn’t care that their peers thought they
were “weird,” and that’s usually the root of sheer genius.
Everybody on the fucking planet should listen to
this LP at least once, just like they should listen to Marianne
Nowottny’s Manmade
Girl and thousands of other albums. I mean how much
can I swoon over this LP before you’ll believe me that it’s
one o’ the greatest EVER!? “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for
the Two of Us,” for one thing, is so grandiose that it’s
simultaneously sickening and beautiful at the same time. And speakin’ o’ beautiful—check out the cover
photo of the Maels in kimono drag.
Unlike Lou Reed, at least these guys had the balls
to don the dresses themselves instead o’ sending some lackey
to do it like Lou did w/ Ernest Thormalin or whatever his
name was (he’s probably dead of AIDS now…did I say “probably”?
I meant certainly…)
66.
Get Your Wings—Aerosmith (Columbia, 1974):
As I compile this list, it sometimes scares me how many
CBS-sponsored slabs o’ vinyl have made the honor roll so
far…but Clive knew what he was doin’.
First Raw Power and then this—and I hate to tell
you kids, but this was better
and in a way even more
beyond. Because, while Iggy was willing to dance in
a g-string in Clive’s office just to show how much he didn’t
give a shit, the milltown raunch-hands in Aerosmith, in
a posture DIRECTLY preceding AC/DC (the NEXT great group
of these whole stakes), really DIDN’T give a shit and their
appearance in the whole heavy metal pantheon was the classic
turning point when regular-guy denim-rock became not “hippie”
but BURNOUT…and this album, WAY more than something like
Zep, was the certifier to a whole NEW seventies reality…not
sayin’ it was BETTER than hippie or glam or anything else…but
w/ Get Your Wings, the tenets o’ BURNOUT NATION
became apparent once and for all in the aisles o’ K-Marts
all over America (where, at that time, you could actually
buy albs like this for $3.99). By far Aeroshit’s magnum opus (and
everything after Rocks
of course totally sucks), Wings
is chock full o’ the kinda slow-but-still-punched-up
riffs that literally simmer with bad intent. Listen to Tyler sing “oh lord oh my God what
have we got here” and realize that it was never EVER gonna
be about “Gimme Shelter” or the Beatles or Dylan EVER again…it
was gonna be about the Donnas and everything else to do
w/ instant gratification and no remorse. After a certain point in the counter-culture,
you either GOT it or you didn’t …Get Your Wings IS that point and things would never be the same again.
(Anyone doubting the cataclysmic significance o’ this LP
please consult the interview w/ Glenn Branca in Forced
Exposure #15 in which he basically posits the same thing
I’m saying here…which is that, upon its release, this album
was the BIGGEST THING EVER.
If you’d lived in New England at the time, you’d
know what we mean…)
65.
Machine Head—Deep Purple (Warner Bros.,
1972): Speakin’ o’ classic heavy metal opuses…Purp weren’t
quite as prescient as Aerosmith, but then again, they came
first…and when it cums to a Spinal Tap-like evolution, Purple
are one o’ the prototypes. Anyone who’s heard their great third LP, The Book of Taliesyn, knows that even when
they were sending up the Beatles n’ Neil Diamond they were
a bombastic force t’ be reckoned with and their more kozmik
outings like “The Shield” were at least as good as a lot
o’ concurrent psych-prog-plod. Their first two years on
Warners, which also happened to be the first couple years
o’ the great decade of the seventies, were schizy—albs like
In Rock and Fireball had
their moments o’ brilliance (particularly “Fools” on the
latter) but actually, at that time, they were being easily
outstripped by contemporaries like Zeppelin, Sabbath and
even yanks like Alice Cooper…but with Machine Head they created one of the ultimate
fuel-pumped bludgeons: from the simmering opening notes
o’ the classic “Highway Star” to the final strains o’ “Space
Truckin’” these walrus-mustache-wearing tomfools articulated
a kind of Neanderthal bluster that would put the capital
“H” and “M” onto the heretofore strictly lower-case denomination
o’ heavy metal. I
can guarantee you Dave Lee Roth did a few backflips to this
LP. And every bozo I ever knew
who played guitar in the seventies plucked away on dope-addled
versions of “Smoke on the Water” and “Lazy.” Just essential. If there ever was such a thing as “rock” as a Be-All-and-End-All
unto and of itself, this was it…and these guys truly didn’t
know the difference. In
a word: oblivious.
64.
Moby Grape (Columbia, 1967): Has to
be on here for Skip Spence’s classics “Omaha” and “Someday”
as well as Peter Lewis’s incredible “Sittin’ by the Window.”
Some of it may seem too hippie-dippie at this late (post-Get
Your Wings) date, but even then, these guys were ultimately
always more Monkees than they were It’s a Beautiful Day.
Hence the fact that they tried to release five singles
from the first album at once (admittedly a Columbia blunder
that basically shot the band in the foot for the next umpteen
years—a wound they never recovered from but, umm, drugs
may have had something to do with that too) or that
eventually ever member would put out a solo album (not the
least of which was Spence’s own Oar
which is even more legendary than this LP, but not as
good). They were a band of songwriters in a day and age
where such peers as the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and
the Holding Company were lucky to have even one able-bodied melodicist in their respective outfits. One of the
true sixties classics, Moby
Grape features elements o’ all the most popular motifs
of the day: blues, country, soul, psychedelic and ragas.
Think o’ this alb as the flipside o’ the Byrds’ Younger Than Yesterday—the same kind of
dusty-trail hippie Americana. They’d have a few more fine
moments too: “Seeing” on the Moby
Grape ’69 LP—actually Skip Spence’s final contribution
to the group—was one of the last great psychedelic gasps
o’ the sixties before acid would become just another adolescent
rite o’ passage instead of the eye-opener it once was. Cat
Power fans please note also: she covered “Naked If I Want
To” on her Covers
alb (a testament to something
I’m sure).
63.
The Ramones (Sire, 1976): Well, there’ve
only been three, haven’t there? Elvis, the Beatles and these
guys, who paraded around like a rock n’ roll version o’
the Dead End Kids when they came out, but they were obviously
no dummies. I remember
Noel Ventresco telling me back in the seventies how he thought
these guys were ultimately an “art rock” band and, as the
years have passed, one can kinda see where he was comin’
from…if not “art” than at least “conceptual.”
Altho’ they always claimed to wanna compete w/ Kiss
and the Nuge, they must’ve known that what they were doing at the
time was bound to split the WHOLE HISTORY OF ROCK IN FUGGIN’
HALF. I remember another geezer from that time sayin’
somethin’ to the effect that, when it came to the Ramones,
it was a sound that one could almost swear he’d heard before,
but yet it was different. Sure, the kind of adrenaline bubblegum bounce was reminiscent of
everything from the Beach Boys to Ohio Express, and sure
the over-amped guitars recalled Sabbath and other metalsters—and
even the New York city-scum persona had its antecedents
in the Dolls and whatnot.
But the Ramones somehow articulated it in a way that
was new—and that’s a rare feat. Perhaps everyone in this list accomplished
that to some extent—but the difference is, Sparks or even
Olatunji weren’t gonna set the whole world on its ear.
What they were doing was “singular.”
What the Ramones were doing, believe it or not, was
“universal.” There’s a lesson in there somewhere, and it’s
one the Ramones were deadly aware of—in the annals of GETTING
THE JOB DONE these guys…got
the job done. And I’d have to say we’re all a lot better off for it.
62.
Funhouse—the Stooges (Elektra, 1970): It’s
hard to pick one alb to certify Stoogedom in all its glory—but
both the first alb and Raw
Power have their deficiencies and Funhouse
really doesn’t, unless y’ count “LA Blues” and, y’ know,
considering the circumstances under which this alb was created
(LA, MASSIVE drug use, Don Gallucci as producer etc.), y’
gotta cut ‘em some slack. Sure, compared to the jettisoned
version o’ the band that made Raw
Power, this incarnation is plodding at points—Scott
Asheton seems particularly rudimentary looking back, but
of course he and his brother Ron were the heart and soul
o’ the group…the thing that KEPT ‘EM from being just an
artsy-fartsy exercise for a jerk-who-desperately-wanted-to-be-noticed
named Iggy. Ron in particular is magnificent on this LP,
and on songs like “Loose” and “TV Eye” you can really hear
a whole STYLE of rock guitar playing being born (his use
of the wah-wah is particularly awesome).
Of course Iggy’s fantastic too—he yelps, mewls, screams,
imitates James Brown…every fuckin’ variation of voice-as-instrument
possible, all to the tune of the band’s primal-grinding
guttural howl, which is like the Titanic being driven headlong
into a busload o’ Mormons.
The addition o’ Ann Arbor/Dark Carnival sax player
Steve MacKaye was like an open invitation for punks everywhere
to get hipped to the “energy” potential of jazz as well.
Anyway, you slice it—aesthetics or otherwise—Funhouse is, was and always will be absolutely essential.
61.
The Magic of Juju—Archie Shepp (Impulse,
1968): For all-out free-sax blowing the only other alb
that even comes close is Frank Lowe’s Black
Beings (1973). Shepp’s work since Four
for Trane (’64) had been uneven, but that was mostly
coz he was experimenting with different idioms (like the
funk jounce on Mama
Too Tight). Three
for a Quarter, One for a Dime, the LP just prior to
this one, sure had its moments over the course of one track
that took up both sides (take heed, Jethro Tull). But Juju
is…something else,
man. The opening track, “You’re What This Day is
All About” is a rhythmic tour-de-force featuring a heavy
polyrhythmic base, provided by no less than three
percussionists (Beaver Harris, Ed Blackwell and I do
believe the first appearance o’ Norman Conner) and Archie’s
most soul-searching horn-blowing. I played it for a friend once and even tho’
he wasn’t regularly a jazz-fancier, he had to admit: “This
man has something to live
for.” And that’s just what it sounds like here—if ever there was an alb
that summed up the concept o’ “playing as if your life depended
on it,” it’s this one. Like Coltrane at the same time, who
obviously influenced Shepp (as well as Lowe and everyone
else), Archie is exploring the whole music-as-elevation
principle, but perhaps because of the racial struggle that
was going on at the same time, his chosen weapon o’ transport
is SHEER FORCE and yes it’s still pretty awesome.
And like Coltrane—and unlike
so many other latter-day practitioners (for better or
worse)—he never lost the essential blues
that had inhabited the music ever since Satcho first
picked up his horn back in the Grumpus days. What’s that
in “Sorry ‘Bout That”?
A hint of Hard Bop? Don’t forget, that’s where most
o’ these cats came from and they hadn’t forgotten. Also has one of the greatest album covers ever.
Why doesn’t Impulse reissue it already?
60.
How Could Hell Be Any Worse?—Bad Religion
(Epitaph, 1981): One of the great hardcore albums—when
these guys stormed outta Redondo Beach in the late seventies
the scene was runamok with jock-offs and other suburban
muttonheads. Like the Angry Samoans and Circle Jerks (the
latter w/ whom these guys also shared members in the form
o’ Gig Rig Hetson etc.), these guys loathed the whole Cameron
Crowe culture that surrounded them—and this alb was a mighty
forceful affront ‘gainst all that…but also like the Dead
Kennedys up in Frisco, these guys were politicos as well
and this is also one o’ the greatest punk-protest albs,
taking aim at the Right Wing fervor that was then sweeping
the country (and seems to be making a three-legged reappearance
right now). True to their name, the biggest target o’ their
ire is the Religious Right and on songs like “The Voice
of God is Government,” they tackle the subject more acutely
than anyone since BOB DYLAN ‘round the time o’ “With God
on Our Side”/ “Only a Pawn In Their Game.” But of course
whereas Dylan was basically a fring-fringer, these guys’
re total RK-DK-DK-DK! Oh, they do a lot
of that—in fact, this is one o’ the albs that INVENTED
the whole genre of Super Rock. And whereas a lot o’ their peers were just
basic thrash that made a pt o’ it’s high velocity n’ not
much else, these guys actually wrote SONGS with RIFFS, y’
know, kinda like all the real greats: Black Sabbath, the
Ramones, the MC5 etc. And
they had a pretty good run too (especially considering they’re
still at it altho’ I don’t care a hill
o’ beans about anything they’ve done since No
Control in ‘89—all styles get old after a while, y’
know? And these guys are definitely a STYLE band…altho’
it must be said, the “style” they invented became very easily-applicable
for a whole generation o’ California mofos like Green Day
etc.).
59.
Back in the USA—the MC5 (Atlantic, 1970):
Speakin’ o’
“super rock” prototypes…this alb has been much-maligned
by revisionists, but that’s unfair: it’s not their fault
that Jon Landau turned out t’ be so much of a putz, and
y’ can’t blame ‘em for wanting to formalize their songs
a little more than the (admittedly cathartic) chaos-carnage
o’ Kick Out the Jams.
Furthermore, it’s NOT a complete botched-job as far as the
production goes—he definitely didn’t emasculate them like
latter-day pundits ‘ve claimed—the treble’s too high, but,
considering 3-minutes bursts o’ tit-grabbage like “High
School,” “Tonight” and “Teenage Lust,” it almost makes sense. And as far as teen-angst anthems
go, songs like that were DEFINITELY a direct premonition
o’ the Dictators—which is reason alone for their total enshrinement.
Seriously, in the realm of “high energy,” this alb
is like a fart from the Gods.
In terms o’ evoking sheer male-hormone-driven malice,
the way the “I really need release” part of the bridge cues
Wayne Kramer’s guitar solo is almost as perversely self-confident,
cocksman-wise, as “the oh lord oh my god” part o’ Aerosmith’s
“Lord of Her Thighs.” By this time, these guys were shooting
for more than the “revolution”—they were shooting for oblivion
(not surprisingly 3/5ths o’ the members have already found
it). Need I say it? In the annals of R-o-c-k: vital.
58.
The Trance—Booker Ervin (Prestige, 1967):
Another hot-sax ace that died young…underrated, possibly
because he expatriated to Europe in the mid-sixties. This
album was recorded in Munich in ’65 but not released until
two years later, with a band consisting of Reggie Workman
(bass), Jaki Byard (piano) and Alan Dawson (drums) and it’s
an understated classic. The title cut is a lyrical work
of sweeping suite-like grandeur…”haunting” might be the
way to describe it. Whereas most of the tenor-men of that era were copping Coltrane,
Ervin seemed intent upon following in the footsteps o’ Dexter
Gordon (and in a classic Coltrane/Pharoah Sanders-type pairing
of teacher/student, the two even made an album together).
There’s a swinging romanticism to this album that puts it
in the same league as Miles Davis albums like Milestones and ‘Round About
Midnight (both of which featured Coltrane) for Class
A swank. It’s deeply spiritual, and also bluesy. As for
the gospel thing, 3/5ths of the way into the revelatory
“Groovin’ at the Jamboree,” he shows what he learned from
Mingus as the whole song reaches a fervor point in the form
of a classic piano vamp, courtesy of Byard, that takes on
the sanctified tone of a revival meeting before Booker blows
some gutbucket blues strains from his axe-ola. Ervin, who
hailed from the crazy state o’ Texas, was like the last
clump of true southern soil to get spread around the world
(before it would get doused with fertilizer). And like all
good dirt, you gotta dig it.
57.
Hot Buttered Soul—Isaac Hayes (Enterprise,
1969): This album would be important if only for “Hyberbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic,”
definitely a Hip Hop forebear, not only for its ebonics-like
title, but also the fact that the riff has been ripped off
by countless Rap shit-talkers, from Ice Cube to Public Enemy
to the Geto Boys. Hayes was one of the first true badasses,
from the bald head on the cover to the chains around his
neck—let’s face it, it was probably the first time in American
history that a black man had worn chains voluntarily (and been proud of it). But that was just the kinda in-your-face
non-capitulation that dudes like Sly, JB and this mofo were
coppin’ to at the tail end o’ the sixties. Hayes had been
thru soulsville in and out, but w/ Hot
Buttered Soul he was definitely stretching
out a bit—part of this was an attempt to reach the burgeoning
elpee market, which no soul artist really had yet. Within
a few years you’d have such fullblown masterpieces as Sly’s
There’s a Riot Goin’
On, Marvin Gaye’s What’s
Goin’ On and Stevie Wonder’s Talking
Book, but Hot
Buttered preceded all of ‘em and you’d better believe
the black record-making business would never be the same again. In its syrupy
string sections and laidback laconic haze, Hot
Buttered Soul was the true birth o’ the seventies just
as much as Alice Cooper was (just ask Barry White). But
the real reason this alb ranks so highly is because it contains
the ALL-TIME BEST transformation of a total piece of pop
crap into a certified work of art…mainly, Isaac’s rethink
o’ the Jim Webb/Glen Campbell classic “By the Time I Get
to Phoenix” which he turns into a grandiose paean to human
endurance…SEVENTEEN MINUTES—count ‘em—of what starts as
an almost sanctified kind of meeting-house testimonial and
gradually evolves into a majestic overture with the power
and momentum to sweep away the ages (which it did). The
only other non-jazz examp o’ self-conscious longevity that
even compares is “Sister Ray.”
56.
Get Up with It—Miles Davis (Columbia, 1974):
The goddam problem w/ M. Davis is that he takes too
fuckin’ long to warm up. Whether it’s Kind of Blue
or whether it’s In
a Silent Way, the guy’s albs just don’t get percolatin’
‘til about the midway point.
So, y’ know, give the guy a double album and that’s
a LOT of time for the preliminary blat.
Contrary to Eazy-E’s edict of “I’m putting a ban
on foreplay,” Miles can’t get enuff o’ the stuff…he strokes
and strokes and strokes (as in the preamble to “He Loved
Him Madly”on Disc One o’ this opus).
But in his case, it’s less loverboy and more just
long-winded fuckaround. Give the guy a DOUBLE ALBUM and
he’s off to the heavy-petting races (or zoo). And if y’ recall, Miles was puttin’ out a LOT o’ double albs ‘round
this time (mid-seventies, before the “retirement”)—of which,
I do believe, Get
Up with It is de boss.
For fusion shit, this is probably his most severe
set, even moreso than Bitches
Brew and definitely tops over Agharta,
which came out a year later.
Some o’ this double alb was/is refuse from the Bitches
era anyway (“Honky Tonk” for instance).
All of it pretty much smokes.
I’ll admit, I don’t like the too-long-to-get-into
lone-wolf-call stuff of the aforementioned Ellington homage,
“He Loved Him Madly”—it’s seventies “mood” muzak more than
it is actual jazz or even fusion—but almost every other
track has something redeemable about it. “Maiysha,” f’ rinstance,
is heavily flanged-out soul-murk not all that different
from Hot Buttered Soul when y’ really get down to it. It’s got Sonny Fortune on flute, who beats
hell on Hubert Laws, and the whole piece kinda nods n’ slowly
gesticulates like a worm in the bottom of a bottle o’ Mezcal
if it was still
alive. Eventually it builds up to a more rubbery groove,
but Miles’ whole thing is repetition—he’ll
repeat the same phrase ad
infinitum which is the essence o’ the blues after all,
and Miles has never lost it. So what if he adorns his blues with the garbage
guitar o’ Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas (who pretty much emit
wildly fluctuating layers of demon-squawk on this track
that have little to do with the song’s original samba/soul
intent I get the feeling). Speakin’ of the blues, the aptly-named
“Honky Tonk” (NOT the Bill Doggett song) is the most obvious
blues ref Miles ever made—it’s almost comical in fact when
the band (in this case consisting o’ Herbie Hancock, Keith
Jarrett, John McLaughlin etc. etc.—you know, that whole
Bitches Brew gang
and this track indeed dates from that era) ease into the
most stereotypical kind of blues shuffle…just the kind of
thing you’d think Miles ‘d say was “Uncle Tom” so that must
be the reason he’s doing it, right? It’s “ironic” and Miles
was one o’ the few jazz-os to get
that whole thing (Mingus was another).
But a track that ain’t
ironic is “Rated X,” which dates from around the time
of On the Corner and features a topographic maze o’ weirdly enveloping
“atmospheric” burble via guitar, electric sitar, Fender
Rhodes and tabla. It’s a haunting track t’ be sure, and
it ends the first disc. The second one opens with “Calypso Frelimo,”
along w/ “He Loved Him…” the other “long” track on the LP
(which is a relative term with Miles…I mean “long” as in
over thirty fuckin’
minutes—several of the other tracks clock in at 12,
15 etc.)…it’s a sign of things to come, as this disc seems
to be a bit funkier overall. “Calypso” features Miles on keyboards, which
he plays just like he plays the trumpet, which he also plays here (must be overdubs, that was the era of ‘em—cf. Stevie
Wonder playing all the instruments on Talking Book etc.). In other
words, he finds a motif and he STICKS WITH IT…for thirty fuckin’ minutes. But
there’s more stuff here too, including more flute (courtesy
o’ Dave Liebman this time) and Cosey and Lucas once again
conducting their fluctuating madness.
Long spirals o’ sound evoke a near religious psychedelic
experience…bet this alb woulda sounded great on acid in
’74 (too bad all the acid heads in those days wasted it
on Deep Purple n’ New Riders o’ the Purple Sage).
“Red China Blues” is probably the most ordinary-sounding
song on the album (it sounds in fact like it should’ve come
off of Zappa’s Hot Rats). “Mtume,” meanwhile, is a spattering cluster o’ wild harmonic
flux where Miles once again employs atonal flourishes and
straight boogaloo jive. Speakin’ of which…that leaves “Billy
Preston”—Miles had this thing in those days about namin’
tracks after actual persons, like “John McLaughlin,” “Willie
Nelson” (Willie Nelson?)
etc. Only in this
case, y’ can kinda see why
he named it after the Stones’ favorite afro’d organ-player
because it has that same kinda Sanford and Son-type funk rhythm. Wonder
if Miles donned a fake afro to get the right vibes like
the Beach Boys, for similar reasons, donned firehats during
the recording o’ Smile? Once again, this track shows how Miles, at least during the
first half of the seventies, was going for some kozmik funk-fusion
merger, and while I prefer Disc Two to Disc One, admittedly
Get Up with It is one of the more ambitious musical projects ever
undertaken by anyone and that includes Miles himself, never
one to shrink from ambition (even if he’s always been more
of an “up and down” type performer than a “straight ahead”
one).
55.
Radio City—Big Star (Ardent, 1974): Although
I never listened to much Game Theory in the eighties, in
the last five years I’ve been listening to anything by Scott
Miller (the Gamers, the Loud Family) obsessively.
There’s something about the way that man sings—I
guess it’s the way other generations felt about Sinatra.
There’s simply no
comparison to the way that man curls his way around
a pop tune—Brian Wilson, the Beatles, Cheap Trick, anybody.
Because Miller’s essential ginchiness
also has to do with a fully-realized post-everything
hipness…it’s as if the goddamn guy snorts up the entire
HISTORY o’ the shabazz for breakfast, and then coughs it
back up as a hot tar-infused loogie aimed right for the
spot marked “x” (for hickey) on your craning neck.
Like the Ramones, what Miller does sounds
e-z, until you really get into the meat of it.
It’s like the other day, in the car, I was listenin’
to HARRISON’S “Only a Northern Song”—a relatively minor
song, even in the minds o’ Beatlemaniacs—and I realized
that the thing that made the Beatles, even George, what
they were was this incredible harmonic lilt
that they infused into literally EVERY step of the way…call
it goddamn “hooks” if y’ want (even tho’ Lester hated the
term)…and that’s something almost NO-ONE has bettered…EXCEPT
Scott Miller. I
mean, we’re talkin’ a stream o’ conscious that runs from
the Beatles early works like “I’ll Be Back” and “Every Little
Thing” straight thru the Hollies’ “It’s Alive,” the Byrds’
“I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” and “The World Turns Around
Her,” the Beau Brummels’ “I Want You” and then it dies about
there w/ the birth o’ “heavy” and all that—and not to say,
like sum wimps, that that’s an entirely bad thing, but y’
know, this tunefulness was in a way its own incredible GIFT
and it was also as easily a transport to the stars as the
sex/drugs that no-one denies ‘re at the essential cusp o’ post-mod living. That is, UNTIL these guys (and admittedly
Rundgren on the first two solo albs). So I guess what I’m
sayin’ is, these Memphis mofos copped that ethereal harmonically-twisted
Beatles curvature to the nth degree along w/ some post-modern
hippity hop (“I wish I had/a joint so bad” etc.). I’ve always
dug Big Star—dug Cheap Trick’s In Color, Badfinger, you name it.
If it’s ginchy—but so selfconsciously ginchy that
it’s actual unselfconscious in a way—then I want to
hear it, because I’ll tell you Jack, my heart flutters to
the same schoolboyisms…the girls make me swoon, what can
I say? And to me, the way Miller literally fuckin’ THROWS
HIMSELF INTO IT w/ such completely heart-dipped aplomb…I
mean, that takes more balls than to rant and rave anyday,
and besides, his whole delivery is so goddamn “eeeh” that
he succeeds on another level altogether (as well) which
is the cherished “making fun of everything” stuff (i.e.,
the Dictators, Meltzer, Mad
magazine etc.). He is, in fact, rock’s greatest artist
(which means, on average, most good songs consistently per
alb of anyone),
and the quicker people realize this the better. Scott Miller is so fuckin’ great that just the fact he lives in
the Bay Area has somehow magically anointed the whole dang
region to the pt o’ a goddamn renaissance (not that those
doggies in the Jonesclown Massacre, the Vue, Donnas, etc.
would admit it…probably the only ones who would are Imperial
Teen). Dunno what this really sez about Chilton, other than
to say that the great God Miller has acknowledged time n’
again that Clinton was his biggest influence, and listening
to Radio City the
other day I think I’m beginning to understand it—Miller
basically did as much of an ape-job on Chilton as Steve
Wynn did on Lou Reed, but Miller of course took it much
further (umpteen albs, whether under the Loud Fam or
Game Theory moniker, all great). If y’ listen to
this alb, I mean, not just the harmonic twists n’ turns
that keep the music stimulating throughout, but also the
voice—the Sinatra
analogy in the beginning wasn’t/isn’t entirely unfounded:
these guys croon because they’re so crazy about the
la-la ladies.
If you do anything to the nth degree it’ll eventually overpower
everything and, I dunno, these two guys, Chilton n’ Scott
Miller, have created a universe where the sub-atomic thrust o’ meat-in-motion has trumped all
and sex truly is everything.
That’s what I get out of it anyway—to me it’s kind
of a cousin o’ Lisa Suckdog’s whole I’d-prefer-to-do-the-raping
stance…and Miller and men like him (and me) are saying “take
me baby, I’m yours.” Big Star GOT that, way back in Memphis in 1974—and
that’s what ultimately makes ‘em BETTER than the Beatles. Meanwhile for evidence o’ the sunglazed Scott
Miller content of which I speak, check out “Way Out West,”
“She’s a Mover,” “I’m In Love with a Girl,” “Back of My
Car”…oh alright, every goddamn song on the LP.
Don’t you get it? The ginch level in these tracks
FREED UP Miller to get real gone on his own, kind of in
the same way that Coltrane freed up Shepp, Frank Lowe, Pharoah
Sanders etc. Big
Star—Chilton in particular—were the CATALYSTS for a whole
wave o’, I dunno, glistening sex-music that I’d been waiting
to hear my whole life. Also, the whole pt of rock n’ roll, the fuckin’
DEFINITION of it, is to, thru music, tell us each time something
new and fresh about SEX that we never even pondered before…on
this alb, Chilton did just that w/ “September Gurls,” perhaps
the most beautiful song in the English language.
And “Mod Lang” is like going to bed with Sue Fisher
and waking up to find she’s turned into Laci Roberts. For
all such wish-granting mutations, let Scott Miller be your
genie (or Santa Claus ‘cept he ain’t fat enuff and never
WILL he be fat for all the aforementioned reasons).
54.
Way Out West—Sonny Rollins (Riverside,
1958): The greatest trio record ever. Of course concepts
like “cohesion” and “interplay” govern such intimate settings,
and what we’re talkin’ here is a three-way musical dialogue
where each participant understands the notion of space and
time. Rollins of course is bountiful on this alb—I’ve always
considered the mid-fifties pre-“retirement” era, which this
hails from, his finest period (think Saxophone
Colossus, another excellent alb, or stuff like “Manhattan”
from the ill-fated Brass alb on Verve) and Sonny’s at his
best when he’s swinging freely, which the medium tempos
and small-group setting of this affair enables him to do
perfectly. Check out the mellifluous solo in “Come, Gone”
for the absolute peak o’ post-Bop fifties cosmology. He knows his way around a ballad too, as “There
Is No Greater Love” proves. What it’s all about is creating
a voice, a language that’s distinctly one’s own…and
it was around this time that Rollins was starting to do
just that. The choice o’ Roy Brown and the underrated
Shelly Manne on bass n’ drums, respectively, was more happenstance
than any great calculation on the part o’ Sonny—what this
alb actually comes down to is Rollins’ attempt to ape the
West Coast persuasion that was sweeping jazz during those
years. Since that
was a mostly whitey-led phenom, Rollins’ take on the whole
thing is somewhat satirical, right down to the cover photo
of him in a ten-gallon hat (GREAT fuggin’ cover too, this
was the era when album cover art was just that—mainly, an
artform, particularly in the realm o’ jazz). The choice
o’ Manne as drummer is obviously a result of Rollins’ assimilation
o’ “cool” but one must remember, during these years, Manne
also sat in with ORNETTE, who was also out in LA at the
time, so y’ know, he at least had the foresight to see beyond
the tepid stylings of most of his peers. And Roy Brown literally
happened to be playing across the street so they nabbed
him for the record. One of the highlights of this alb is
Brown’s very patient
solo on “Wagon Wheel.” Elsewhere his playing is superb.
Give these guys the golden donut for this one—and
if y’ haven’t heard it, purchase immediately since it’s
inconceivable there could a killjoy in the world who would
not delight to its sweetened strains.
That means even you, Jason.
53.
Lately I Keep Scissors—Barbara Manning
(Heyday, 1988): It’s almost inconceivable that the original,
on the little San Francisco label of Heyday, came out in
1988 coz, at that time, femme-folkie strum still meant major
label crap the likes o’ Tracy Chapman or Suzanne Vega. The
whole “revolution” o’ girl-power hadn’t quite occurred yet,
which makes the honorable Ms. Manning—THE greatest female
solo artist of this generation or ANY generation—even more
omnipotent. I mean, not to even mention the fact that it’s
just a great fuckin’ record, by singer/songwriter standards
or any standards (check out the versatile Ms. Manning’s
use o’ cello on “Breathe Lies” to give the whole song its
ominous undertow)—BUT the fact that nowadays, sometimes
when y’ play it for people, they act like “oh, just another
chick-with-a-guitar album” only proves how totally far ahead
of her time she was and how what she was doing THEN has
been absorbed into the ether o’ the here and NOW. 1988!
Listen to “Somewhere Soon” (w/ it’s great refrain “even
the trees are upside down”…that’s the acid, and it must
be remembered that Manning was a champion o’ the neo-psych
as well, right up there w/ Bevis Frond, Spacemen 3 and the
shoegazers): total ’91 or ’92 by the sounds of it…but nope,
out there in Frisco Barbara and her little friends like
Greg Freeman and Cole Marquis were up to such antics a full
five years prior. The use of Velvets-like falling-spikes
textures mixed w/ ethereal female vocals, not to mention
the whole male/female gender interaction o’ this as well
as Barb’s other various concurrent line-ups (World of Pooh,
SF Seals) obviously predated a good deal of subsequent indie-spew—in
fact, other than Beat Happening, I’d be hard-pressed to
think of anyone else who was doing it at the time. Barbara’s
voice—where she utilizes an aloof register that in many
ways echoes the “little girl voice” first employed by Grace
Slick on “Lather” but also Moe Tucker—was definitely an
ironic tool that later, in the hands o’ Rebecca Odes, Mary
Helium, the Breeders, Veruca Salt etc. would open many doors.
And as for the chick-with-a-guitar thing, at least Barb
was rendering such visionary material as “Mark E. Smith
& Brix” instead of trying to pass off cockteasing and
potty-mouthed antics as “feminism” (hi Liz).
52.
Easter Everywhere—13th Floor
Elevators (International Artists, 1967): Once again,
has to be in here. You think these teens knew when they created it
that it’d live in infamy? Doubtful, but that doesn’t mean
that this alb from the very start wasn’t infused with a
vision to at least rival Arthur Lee or Brian Wilson or the
Beatles. It’s just
that, well, let’s say…if you thought those
guys were weird. I
mean, the Elevators were on the forefront of the drug revolution…everything
about them, from their name to their album covers to the
label they recorded for to their communal living arrangements,
preached a kind of acid-will-triumph-over-all gestalt.
It’s obvious they believed it, especially considering
Roky’s later mind-bending excursions (both literally and
figuratively). The
only other group I can think of who made acid as much their
raison d’etre is
the Dead, and sure enough, certain songs on this great album,
like “Nobody to Love,” “Slip Inside This House,” “She Lives
in a Time (of Her Own)” and others, rival the completely
loopy euphoria of the first Grateful Dead album. But whereas
the Dead was laidback, the Elevators were intense—listen to the heaviness of the
chords of “Slip Inside…” there’s an almost ANGRY SAMOANS
type resonance…and listen to the slippery wail of Roky,
as passionate about the insane revelations he’s setting
forth as Eric Weisbard is about his Bob Mould press kits.
Not to harp on one song too much, but if you listen to “Slip
Inside…” what you hear is a complete mantra-like juggernaut…these
guys were wrapped up in this, they were proselytizing
and the music—and drugs—were pulling them along on their
mission. And I dunno, that kinda totality
when it comes to a musical unit (not to mention album) doesn’t
come along all that often. Like other later bands like the
Sex Pistols and Kilslug, the Elevators weren’t just a band,
they were a way of life and Easter Everywhere was the peak of their whole Godless crusade.
51.
Elvis Presley (RCA, 1956): This clown wasn’t
good for much, album-wise.
The Sun Sessions, generally considered his
“best,” wasn’t even officially released until 20 years later.
And almost everyone universally agrees that the stuff he
did for Sun—and p’rhaps the first one-and-a-half years at
RCA/Victor—was the only good stuff he ever did really. But
what good stuff it was, and we don’t have to reassess the
repercussions of its holy caterwaul for the 8 billionth
time. Needless to say, the King really did rock the
world and he had help from several ample buddy-boys, all
of whom are present here: DJ Fontana, Scotty Moore and Bill
Black. Elvis did NOT fucketh his friends when he ascended
to the golden throne…infact, he brought them along for the
ride. Lucky for us, because, as this album, his first, proves,
without them he really would have been only slightly more
lethal than Harry Belafonte. The Sun sessions created the
universe, true, but Sam Phillips didn’t deal in albums at
that point, and RCA scooped up the King so fast that they
hardly had an ample supply o’ tunes in the can…so when it
came time to release that essential first alb they were
partially reliant on stuff from the Sun canon, and that’s
half of what’s here: “Trying to Get to You,” “Blue Moon,”
“I Love You Because,” “Just Because” and others date from
the pre-RCA period. Most of the other stuff would eventually be
compiled on such patchwork albs as Elvis, A Date with
Elvis and For LP Fans Only.
All of them are great, authentic rockabilly for the
most part, and the fact that they imploded on the album
market in the middle of Montavani and Nat King Cole in the
fifties was testament to a groundswell o’ mass-cultural
perversion that outdistanced even the impending Russkis
or martians in the minds o’ most god-fearin’ folks. Like
the early Beatles and Stones albs in America, this album
wasn’t made as an album—it’s a compilation, more
or less, but even the post-Sun stuff, when Elvis was first
feeling his oats as perhaps the first TRUE “superstar” the
world had ever known, is all swaggering goodness. Check
out Scotty Moore’s solo on “Heartbreak Hotel” for one thing.
Also check out Elvis’s knock-offs of such “popular”
material as “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Money Honey” and “I Got
a Woman,” versions so goddam “authentic” that he eventually
came to own them. No
doubt about it, this is one of the great firsts in rock
history, and it blows away the argument that they didn’t
make good albs in the fifties—and that goes for the artwork
as well because we all know how influential the cover of
this album, with its pink n’ black presentation o’ the King-in-motion,
was. Need I only point you towards London Calling twenty-five
years later? Anyway you slice it this album was the catalyst
for much mayhem. When he died, they shoulda embalmed
him in bacon fat.
MORE
o' that ol' Joe S. Harrington blastitude:
Why
Does Everyone Hate The Strokes? (Issue 11)
Top
100 Albums of All Time #'s 100-76. (Issue 11)
About
Joe S. Harrington's book
|
