John Cage opens the door to this bit of silliness, which was also broadcast on a popular TV show on a network when there were only three channels. Lots of civilians watched.
Zappa is similarly affable, aware that he’s crossing the line and at the same time using that to expose people to a pretty radical idea. And Steve Allen is funny.
I was at a museum the other day that was showing the work of Amy Silliman. She makes abstract paintings with some figurative elements, or maybe it’s the other way around. She also has some fun with words.
I liked her earlier more figurative and allegorical paintings more than the later, more abstract and cagey paintings she’s been doing in recent years. Though one series, 70 some odd rooms–painted from memory–in which she remembered feeling shame, resonated conceptually.
As a sidebar, Amy Silliman and someone else curated their own show of things they thought should be in the museum. This is an interesting idea, and I think helped me get a handle on what Sillman was about. But what I really liked about it was a video of John Cage, the experimental composer, appearing on the ancient TV show, “I’ve Got A Secret.”
Fortunately, the clip is on YouTube, so I can share it. The key thing to note is that this was a TV show broadcast in 1960. Dwight Eisenhower was still the president. Jim Crow laws still ruled the south. The US only had a few hundred advisors in Vietnam. The Beatniks were kind of old hat at this point. And John Cage was still a young man, resembling maybe the young David Lynch, with the same knowing smile and the same ability to present the outlandish with all seriousness.
This clip is not rock. Cage is hardly a remnant. But there is so much going on here (Cage has to rewrite the piece because the stage craft unions are unable to figure out how he can turn on the five radios in the piece, as the score dictates.) that I have to share.
I’m not sure what I think about the work. I kind of agree with the Herald Tribune review that’s quoted in the piece to show that Cage is taken seriously by music critics. He is no joke. But I love that this exists, plus the cigarettes, and am glad Amy Sillman introduced me to it.
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
Today’s SotW was written by guest contributor John Spallone. John and I first met through a mutual friend in the late 70s when he was in Optometry school in Boston. We instantly bonded over our shared interest in great music. We attended many memorable concert performances together (both national and local acts) and couldn’t begin to count the hours spent listening to records. Exposure to new music was a constant part of our lives back then (and still is to some extent). John has been living and practicing Optometry in San Francisco for some 35 years.
The opening track of a number of debut albums have announced, “Fasten your seat belt. You are about to experience something completely like you never have before.” “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times” are two prominent examples from the 1960s. The SotW for this week was another of those signal moments in the popular music of the late 20th Century.
In 1971, John McLaughlin, a jazz guitarist who had moved from England to New York, decided to form a band. He had cut his teeth on the jazz scene of London in the early 60s, playing with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in the Graham Bond Organisation. After coming to New York, he teamed up with Tony Williams (drums) and Larry Young (organ) to play innovative music that combined the power of rock with the intricacy of jazz. The Tony Williams Lifetime briefly incorporated Jack Bruce (post-Cream) into the group, before breaking up. McLaughlin then recorded with Miles Davis, in sessions that would yield Bitches’ Brew, A Tribute to Jack Johnson and material that would appear on Miles’ albums for years to come. Miles encouraged him to strike out on his own. McLaughlin recruited: drummer Billy Cobham (who had also recorded with Miles), from Panama; bassist Rick Laird, from Ireland; pianist Jan Hammer, from the Czechoslovakia; and violinist Jerry Goodman, from Chicago (and The Flock, another of the jazz-influenced rock bands the emerged from the Windy City). They created a mix of Indian raga, English folk music, European classical music, funk, psychedelic rock, and high-energy jazz. They initially appeared as an opening act for a number of well-known rock bands. McLaughlin’s white suit and peaceful greetings at the introduction would at first draw hoots and jeers from audiences that were primed to “boogie, man!” Then, the band would launch into a wildly pyrotechnic set, played at a sound level that could become unbelievably loud. The music was sometimes pastoral, however, sometimes shimmering (especially when McLaughlin would play on the twelve string neck of his custom double-neck guitar), and the interplay among the band members was remarkable. At the peak moments, the five musicians would be playing complex, high tempo figures that fit together amazingly well. By the end of the concert, the audience was left limp and cheering for more.
Soon, the Mahavishnu Orchestra was a headline act, and the pressures of touring and big money rapidly took its toll. The first incarnation of the MO disbanded in late 1973. McLaughlin took the Orchestra through a few other iterations before changing directions completely with Shakti. Although jazz-rock fusion music soon took on a reputation for rapid riffing without any real soul, in its early days (i.e. before journalists starting calling it “fusion”), there were moments of the excitement of hearing something that had not been done earlier.
This week’s SOTW, “Meeting of the Spirits”, is the opening track on the first MO album, The Inner Mounting Flame.
The piece opens with power chords by McLaughlin, Hammer and Laird, soon joined by Goodman, with Billy Cobham’s frenetic drum fills between the chords. There is a moment of McLaughlin’s shimmering guitar before the band takes the tune into warp drive. Over forty years later, it can be difficult to remember that there was a time that music such as this could not have even been imagined, much less created.
For those interested in checking out video footage of the band in its early days, the link below takes you to a recording made in April of 1972.
Although the picture quality is not great (washed out black and white), the audio quality is fairly good for a live recording made at that time. Also interesting to see is the interaction among the band members, before the tensions of touring had set in.
Enjoy… until next week.
Unlike Pianow, I will not tip my hand by sharing my super-secret point allocation.
1. Hey Jude: Hypnotic, sweeping, majestic. So disciplined in its sonic momentum. And lyrically a tonic for a very turbulent time, evoking a shared spirituality that transcends labels and even religion itself.
2. I Am the Walrus: Only the Beatles could perform this song. Lennon’s lyrics are not merely trippy but completely unsettling. And it’s always on the verge of being torn apart by its ambition, yet somehow triumphs.
3. Here, There and Everywhere: The perfect song. A strong case can be made for it being No. 1 but unlike the top two it’s so modest in its performance, not letting anything get in the way of the pure poetry of McCartney’s finest lyric.
4. A Day in the Life: Hypnotic, sweeping, majestic. So disciplined in its sonic momentum. And lyrically a tonic for a very turbulent time, evoking a shared spirituality that transcends labels and even religion itself.
5. Here Comes the Sun: It’s perhaps ironic that Harrison, who spent so much songwriting energy on overt religiousity, would convey happiness and hope through such a simple metaphor with its spot-on musical accompaniment. Ringo somehow keeps seven-and-1/2 time.
6: Strawberry Fields: Lennon one-upped McCartney in their nostalgic odes to Liverpool by cleverly not talking about a place really at all, but rather a state of mind. The song sounds like it’s coming from inside your head.
7. For No One: McCartney really owns Revolver, quite a feat given how amazing Lennon’s songs are, too. Far more musically ambitious than Here, There and Everywhere. Delicate and poignant but also so self-possessed. And ultimately that’s what really gets you, its resignation.
8. Dear Prudence: Lennon is rarely so charming. The song also has one of the most thrilling finishing kicks in rock history, due mostly to McCartney’s incredible drumming filling in for the AWOL Ringo, whose misfortune is being a musical genius in a band with three bigger geniuses.
9. Happiness is a Warm Gun: One of rock’s great singers really belts it out without the voice alterations he often insisted upon. Both McCartney and Harrison have said this is their favorite song on The White Album. Seeming to thread together different songs, perhaps it planted the seed in McCartney for the Abbey Road medley.
10. Long, Long, Long: Ringo again is the hero and I love the mix with its almost whispering lyrics. The music is so good that it’s immediately clear you should be straining to listen. This is the moment, for me, when George’s became far more than some third wheel.
I’m thinking about 1974 because this weekend there is a high school reunion featuring the Smithtown High School class of 74 out on Long Island. I’m upstate and can’t get away for what would be a fun time hanging with old friends. I wish I could.
Which got me thinking about the songs of our senior year. These are the songs, if I was there, I would hope would evoke tears and lovely hugs, which reminded us best of how much more civilized we are now than we were than.
So I started sifting through the top pop songs of 1994 and discovered that the first song I could embrace esthetically was also a killer dance tune and just one of an amazing album’s worth of songs in a variety of genres by a band that would late become emblematic of disco dreck. But that was later.
But for one album, called “Wild and Peaceful,” Kool and the Gang were not only a great funk band, a great soul band, a great jazz band, and a great pop band, but, um, a great band.
If I were able to get out to the Marriott in Islandia tomorrow night and join in a rocking dance floor, the first song I’d want to hear is this one. Hello all!
For this exercise, I did go through the Beatles catalog (I did for the Stones, too, to be fair) but even without looking to see if I forgot something, I knew the top four songs without much thought. And, that is not because I have made a list like this before: rather I know the songs that I not only love, but the ones I have continued to cherish in my memory bank.
It is odd that nothing from St. Pepper made it, as that is generally considered the band’s landmark/seminal album, and though I have nothing to say against it, in the rear view–at least to me–it doesn’t hold as strongly as Rubber Soul, Revolver, Abbey Road, or especially the White Album (which is all over the map, but is so damned interesting).
That said, saying there is a bad Beatles album is kind of like saying there is a good Starland Vocal Band album (remember, they got a best new artist Grammy, and well the Beatles as a band never got one until Let It Be which counted as a movie soundtrack).
Here goes (but scroll to the bottom for some honorable mentions):
Please Please Me: Dynamite the first time I heard it, and it is still dynamite today. How did they do that? The harp and machine gun drums (shades of The Locomotion?) and those staccato guitar chords and thumping bass. And the couplet: “I do all the pleasin’ baby It’s so hard to reason with you, why do you make me blue?” is so beyond brilliant it is scary. More than anything, Please Please Me defined the band, the sound, and everything that came dragging on its coattails. That is pretty good.
And Your Bird Can Sing: I have written about this song before. It was part of the best bass lines ever piece on this site, but maybe the opening guitar riff belongs in a similar Lick Hall of Fame. The only problem with the song is it is too short as in I want it to keep going. But, since the tune is as close to perfect as one can get, that observation is moot.
It’s Only Love: God how I love John, and I think a lot of it is he is cynical (Ballad of John and Yoko) and obscure (I am the Walrus) and a rocker (Revolution) and such a romantic, as in It’s Only Love. This song is so beautiful and sweet, and when John sings “why am I so shy” he is telling us he is just like us, Beatle or not. And, we should all relate.
I am the Walrus: Speaking of which, this one is just mesmerizing. It is psychedelic pop at its very best and is a song that instantly hooks, and keeps me humming, trying to figure which vocal part to sing with at times. Does anyone have a clue what this song is even about? Better, does anyone care? That is pretty good when we love a song and no one has any idea about its essence.
I’ve Got a Feeling: Such a great opening riff, and such a great song, and such great vocals, especially at the end when the “Everybody had a high here” is double tracked in rounds with itself. I get shivers just thinking about it. Great double vocals. Great drums. Great bass. Great rhythm guitar. Just great.
It’s All Too Much: Always a sucker for George’s songs, and even though Yellow Submarine is really a thrown together soundtrack, this song just sends me. It’s hypnotic. The opening alone–basically 30 seconds of feedback–defines it all. Kind of like Moonlight Mile is to the Stones, It’s All Too Much is to the Beatles for me.
Tomorrow Never Knows (TNK): Goddam, how did they know to do the things they did to get all those–at the time–crazy sounds in this wonderful song? Was it George Martin, or them? And, how much fun might it have been to simply watch them brainstorming this stuff? I also want to give cred to 801–the Phil Manzanera/Eno jam band–who more than did justice to this song as well. I tossed it in for fun.
And, 801 doing the song more than justice.
Day Tripper: One of the first riffs I was able to figure out on the guitar, was the opening to Day Tripper. The bridge into the solo with the crash cymbols ringing is just spectacular. Solo is pretty good too.
I Need You: Such a lovely song from George, and one I prefer to Something. Again, a great opening lick, and better, when the bass kicks in after the head, god, is it good. Advanced guitar effects too. Just a great song.
Here Comes the Sun: Everything I have already said about the preceding nine songs applies here. Again, just a beautiful piece, with great guitar. And, the deadly farfisa organ that comes chiming in after the bridge just destroys me. It always did is the thing. I have played a few Beatles songs live in various bands, but this is the only one that was rehearsed, and I played the lead acoustic guitar part (capo on 7th fret, if memory serves) and I did an ok job. Sang it too. Always proud that I think I did it justice.
Honorable mention (in no particular order): Revolution, I Feel Fine, 8 Days a Week, Back in the USSR/Dear Prudence, She Said, While My Guitar Gently Weep and You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.
BTW, three points each.
I found this much easier than the Beatles list. Not that it was easy though. Rather than link all the songs via YouTube, let’s try a Spotify playlist.
1. Gimme Shelter: What is that opening guitar? A riff? A lead? Whatever it is, it’s unforgettable. Everything comes together almost magically; the backup singer woken up from sleep with no notice and too hoarse to sing somehow leads to rock’s greatest mistake.
2. Moonlight Mile: Jagger steps out of character and the result is a warm intimacy that feels perfect whether he’s coming down from a cocaine high or a long, cold and lonely night on the road.
3. Tumbling Dice: Odd that something so laid back and groovy could be the product of 150 takes. The way Richards and Mick Taylor play off each other just slays me. There’s a fever in the funk house, alright.
4. Sway: Like “Moonlight Mile,” rumored to be actually a Jagger-Taylor composition. Taylor’s guitars shine regardless. Has anyone ever played better than on Taylor’s solo outro? Doubtful. That’s the sex, but the intro riff is what first seduces.
5. Miss You: Maybe the most bad-ass thing the Stones ever did was record a “disco” song when their fans were busy rioting over its sudden prominence. Of course, Miss You isn’t a disco song at all, whatever that even is. But it’s damn fine on the dance floor.
6. No Expectations: Much of Beggar’s Banquet seems posey to me: satanic (Sympathy for the Devil), salacious (Stray Cat Blues), revolutionary (Street Fighting Man), Dylanesque (Jigsaw Puzzle), blue collar (Salt of the Earth). But this seems very real and a fitting, beautiful swang song for Brian Jones.
7. Under My Thumb: Sounds as cool as the narrarator suggests he is as the winner of this sexual power struggle, a hallmark of all post-adolescent relationships. Accusations of misogyny are just lazy. The marimba riff works. And Marc Bolan made a career out of mimicing Jagger’s use of his breath as an instrument.
8. Memory Motel: One of the few (only?) songs where Jagger and Richards alternate lead vocals. Love the piano and the sha-la-las. I like the songs where Jagger as principle lyricist seems like an actual person.
9. Let It Bleed: For all its tongue-in-cheek perversion, it’s really a song about needing someone and being willing and even eager to reciprocate in kind. In other words, nice. They backed into it.
10. Ventilator Blues: You feel like you’re doing something wrong when you listen to this song. It’s one of their nastier riffs, fittingly: Your woman’s cussing/you can hear her scream/You feel like murder/in the first degree….
Just in case you skipped the intro, you can listen to this album, of sorts, right here via Spotify.
We could call this an obit, Johnny Winter died today, but I’m going to bed with this one tonight. His first album is one of my all time faves, full of highlights. This is the one I think of first.
by Les Ogilby
A Rolling Stones Top 10?! Impossible! I agonized while eliminating favorites from my initial list of about 18. I also thought, “How much credibility can I have when no songs from Exile made my top 10?” As I looked at my list that leans heavily on the Stones’ 60’s output, I think I figured out how this happened. When Mick Taylor joined, they were introduced at concerts as “The Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World” and they were! As a live act, no one could touch them. They had all these great songs, and in concert they put a different spin on every song every time (prompting us to buy stacks of bootleg concert LPs), and they had the unsurpassed guitar interplay of Mick Taylor and Keith Richards. So unless I just say that my top 10 list is everything on “Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out”, I gotta go with these brilliant, creative and mostly 60’s studio efforts that often featured unique musical ornamentation by Brian Jones. The first five get 4 points each and the last five get 2 points each. I hated leaving off “Ruby Tuesday” and “Mona”.
Under My Thumb – What a brilliant intro. That rolling drum rhythm, Brian Jones’ marimbas and Mick’s fabulous singing! How was this NOT a single? Biggest mistake since the Beatles not releasing “Yesterday” as a single in the UK. I also love the 90 mph version of this song kicking off the “Got Live If You Want It” LP.
Sympathy For the Devil (Beggar’s Banquet) – How did Keith come up with that sinister guitar solo? Who else could come up with a solo like that? Also love the Mick T. and Keith guitar solo trade-off on the live version on “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out”.
Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (UK) – I credit this song for plunging me into record collecting. I heard it on a late night FM station about 1969. The DJ (Humble Harve – Los Angeles) explained that this was the UK version from the “Rolling Stones No. 2” import. Import?!I didn’t even know there were import versions of Beatles and Stones albums before that and I had to find them. This recording is usually referred to as the long version, but it is really the only version that was supposed to be released. The wrong master was used on the USA “Rolling Stones Now!” LP, so we got the shorter, live in the studio, raw run-through, instead of this carefully crafted masterpiece. Also, it is worth seeking out the stereo version of this recording – It will change your life.
Spider and the Fly – I took up the harmonica because of this brilliant song. Mick and Keith write their own blues classic.
Paint It Black – Brian and Keith attack with sitar and guitar! Brian just picked it up the sitar (after hearing George Harrison) and without researching the proper way to play it, started playing it his own way and it rocks!
Going Home – The ultimate jam. It wasn’t supposed to be nearly 11 minutes long, but the Stones were all dialed into one another and they just kept the tapes rolling. Mick’s best vocal performance ever.
Brown Sugar – When I first heard this I just couldn’t believe how great it was. Has that trademark Stones’ electric guitar plus acoustic guitar thing happening.
Let Me Go – from 1980’s “Emotional Rescue”. A lot like “Hang Fire” but better. It wasn’t until 1978’s “Some Girls” that their recording engineers finally figured out how to mic Charlie Watts’ drums and crank him up. We finally can hear him loud and clear and he is the star of the show on this track.
Long, Long While – a great forgotten ’66 b-side that is really spooky.
Faraway Eyes – The Stones dabbled in country music with songs like “Dear Doctor”, “High and Dry”, “Factory Girl” and “Sweet Virginia”. They pioneered country rock with “Dead Flowers”. “Faraway Eyes” is a bit campy, but the music is undeniably great and Jagger’s spoken parts are unique, charming, and really funny.
By Steve Moyer
Let me preface by saying the Stones don’t drive me crazy. I like them a lot and respect them even more, but I don’t know the entire catalog, nor have I ever seen them live. And, at this point, I probably never will. Not all that interested in watching a bunch of grandpas who are two miles away from me from a giant TV screen. I’d go if someone invited me for free.
#1 – 5 points – Rocks Off – Doesn’t get any more rock ‘n’ roll lyrically than “The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.”
#2 – 5 points – Gimme Shelter – Makes one feel bad like a rock song should. Kick ass Hellacopters cover. Nothing wrong with the Stones version either.
#3 – 5 points – Sympathy For The Devil – Lovely buildup song. Lovely Bryan Ferry cover.
#4 – 4 points – Dead Flowers – Three open chords – D A G. Just like all the best music. Next time you’re at Guitar Center and all the annoying little kiddies are wonking away, grab the most expensive Martin acoustic and let ‘er rip. Sing loud.
#5 – 3 points – Rip This Joint – Had to double-check that this was even a Stones-written tune. Sounds like it could be from some moldy old blues guy. Boogie woogie rock ‘n’ roll.
#6 – 2 points – Brown Sugar – The guitar’s gotta be alternately tuned to play this correctly and that gives it extra points (but only one). It’s cooler to say “Exile” is your favorite, but I’ll admit, mine’s “Sticky Fingers.” Take note that I’m with the masses on this one.
#7 – 2 points – Bitch – Arranged, played and sang this in a throw-together band for a festival at my church years ago, the only time I’ve ever worked with a horn section (part of the church orchestra). No one noticed the words.
#8 – 2 points – Shattered – What a weird little song, 70 percent studio production. Every live version I’ve ever heard of this is horrible.
#9 – 1 point – Hang Fire – Sort of a throwaway song from a throwaway album, but I always liked it, in a silly “perfect pop song” kind of way. Watched the “official” video as a refresher and Keith Richards still looks mostly human at this point.
#10 – 1 point – You Can’t Always Get What You Want – Here in great part because I would always sing this to my young kids when they were upset about not getting something they desired. Which made them cry more.
