Whip It!

Ok, I love Ellen Page. I’ve seen her in four movies and I liked every one of them. The most recent one I saw was a couple of weeks ago. It’s called Whip It! In this movie, she is Bliss Calendar, a 17-year old misfit in the small town of Bodeen, Texas [for those who are checking, Bodeen is a fictitious place]. She works at the local diner called The Oink Joint [complete with a giant pig on the roof]. Her best friend is Pash, who has dreams of getting out of the soul-stomping hellhole that is Bodeen by going to an Ivy League college. Her mom Brooke [Marcia Gay Harden] thinks Bliss’ ticket to a better way of life is to enter and win beauty pageants. Bliss isn’t too crazy about beauty pageants. She doesn’t know what to do with her life, but she knows she wants to get out of Bodeen in the worst way, and for her beauty pageants in definitely NOT the answer. In the opening scene we see Bliss dyeing her hair blue at one of these pageants. When she is introduced to the judges, she walks on-stage with blue hair, shocking the judges and horrifying her mother. Yes, it’s that kind of movie…

One day Bliss and Pash go on a shopping to the Austin for some retail therapy. While there they run into a bunch of women who belong to the local roller derby league. For Bliss, this is a revelation. She decides she wants to go check it out. Bliss and Pash go back to Austin to watch roller derby under the pretense of going to a football game. Bliss’ dad Earl [Daniel Stern] is cool with it. He’s a big college football fan. I think he wears a Texas Longhorns shirt in every scene he’s in, which makes sense because he seems to spend every waking moment of his life watching football on TV to get away from his overbearing wife. After seeing roller derby up close and personal, Bliss decides that roller derby is what she wants to do, even if it’s just for now. She lies about her age [needed to be 21], tries out for the “Hurl Scouts,” finds she’s the fastest skater and makes the team. She adopts the name Babe Ruthless. She fits right in with Maggie Mayhem [Kristen Wiig], Smashley Simpson [Drew Barrymore], Rosa Sparks [Eve], and Eva Destruction [Ari Graynor]. Iron Maven [Juliette Lewis] is the über-competitve leader of another team. All of these women love kicking the crap out of one another.

Roller derby is every Thursday night. In order to get out of the house, she tells her parents she enrolled in a SAT tutoring class to prepare for the exam. She doesn’t have a car, so she rides a senior citizen bus to Austin every week. She improves her game, falls for a guy in a band, learns life lessons and bonds with her new “family” of rollergirls. All the while the “Hurl Scouts” [who wear Girl Scout uniforms when they play] find out that they want to actually start winning their games. They aren’t satisfied with just kicking ass every Thursday night. They have a coach named Blaze who actually came up with a roller derby playbook. When the Hurl Scouts start running Blaze’s plays, they start winning. All is good until Pash is busted for under-age drinking at the roller derby. Pash’s parents find out, they call Bliss’ parents about it, and Bliss is busted. They aren’t quite sure if they’re more pissed because Bliss is doing the roller derby thing or because she lied to them about the SAT class. At any rate, there is a definite difference in opinion. Bliss doesn’t want her mother to cram her “1950s vision of womanhood” down her throat.

There is the inevitable championship game, which happens to be on the same day as another beauty pageant which Bliss said she’d do to get her mom off her back. Earl is sympathetic, maybe because all of his neighbors post signs of their football-playing sons in their front yards [Earl doesn’t have any sons]. Bliss’ mom is disappointed when Bliss chooses the roller derby over the beauty pageant, but she ends up going to watch Bliss at the roller derby championship anyway. Bliss redeems herself when she gives the pageant gown her mother had been slaving over to another contestant that didn’t have as pretty a gown [she ends up winning the pageant]. At the end of the movie, Earl posts a sign of his own in his yard because now his girl is a roller derby legend.

This is Drew Barrymore’s debut as a director. Ellen Page proves that her highly-acclaimed-performance in Juno was no fluke. This is a fun film to watch.

Neil Young - "Bobfest"

Way back in October 1992, a day or two before I went to Korea for a year, I saw a broadcast that celebrated Bob Dylan's 30 years as a recording artist. Everybody was invited, and everybody came. By far my favorite performance of the entire show was Neil Young's two-song set. To put this in context, he was the next act on-stage after Sinead O'Connor got booed off the Madison Square Garden stage. She ripped up a poster of the Pope on Saturday Night Live not too long before this show, and the folks in New York were still pretty bent about the whole Sinead thing. They let her know in no uncertain terms what they thought about her.

The first song NY played was Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues. As always, very ragged and very Neil. Before he went into the next song, he introduced it by saying "this song's for you Bob - thanks for having Bobfest." With that, he and Booker T. & the MGs kicked off All Along the Watchtower. Only Neil Young could make the MGs sound like Crazy Horse. As usual, compared to most of the acts on the bill, Neil blew the roof off MSG. If you ever wonder what Stephen Stills meant by describing Neil's playing as the "spear in the back dance," you'll see plenty of evidence here. As one can surmise, I can never get too much Neil. Eric Clapton soon followed with a fiery rendition of Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, but it wasn't nearly as intense as Neil's performance.

It's George's Birthday!

If he was alive today, George Harrison, the Quiet Beatle, would be 67 years old. Here is a true story. Back in November 2001 I was on a business trip to Washington DC. I knew George had been ill for quite some time, but I wasn't sure how ill he was. On the morning I was to come home from this trip, I woke up and the first thing I said to myself was "Goodbye George." Why would I say such a thing? I had no idea. As far as I knew George was still alive. So while I was getting myself ready to check out of the hotel and head to Dulles Airport, I turned the TV on to CNN Headline News. The next thing I knew, they were going to a commercial break, but not before saying "when we return, more on the death of George Harrison." I can't explain it. How did I know he died, especially when he did so while I was sleeping? So I checked out of the hotel, headed to the airport, and drove around awhile to kill some time. During that drive, one of the local radio stations started playing lots of George's music. For anyone who lives or has ever lived in the DC area, you know that local radio there pretty much sucks, so to hear this one station play George Harrison's music was a welcome surprise. This trip home was a very surreal experience.

So to celebrate the life of The Quiet Beatle, here's the first song from his All Things Must Pass LP from 1970, He wrote it with Bob Dylan. It's called I'd Have You Anytime. It's one of his most beautiful songs. The chorus All I have is yours/All you see is mine/And I'm glad to hold you in my arms I'd have you anytime... make me think of how much I miss my wife whenever I'm away. So listen and enjoy!

Ry Cooder’s California Trilogy

Guitarist Ry Cooder has done it all. He started off playing with bluesman Taj Mahal in the Rising Suns and almost replaced Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones. Many of his best albums are movie scores, including the folk-culture clash of 1985's Alamo Bay and the purple-prairie atmospheres of 1989's Paris, Texas. My favorite is the score he did for the western The Long Riders. A lot of his movie music can be found on the double CD Music by Ry Cooder. Having explored North American music — blues, country, rockabilly, R&B, gospel, minstrelsy, Hawaiian, folk, Tex-Mex, Cuban — over four-plus decades, and with numerous awards and accolades under his belt for boundary-crossing collaborations with global legends like the late Ali Farka Toure, Manuel Galbán and Cuba’s Buena Vista Social Club, Cooder is an authority on how music has been able to transcend diverse cultures.

Add to his legacy his “California Trilogy.” In this day of the music business trying to get you to buy music on the Internet one song at a time, Ry Cooder has done three (!) concept albums over the last four years. The first part of the trilogy, Chávez Ravine, is a tribute to the long-gone Los Angeles Latino enclave in the late 1940/early 1950s. This is the story of a hillside Chicano community whose poor inhabitants were paid or forced to leave their community in a failed property development in the '50s. This community was eventually bulldozed to make way for Dodger Stadium. Sung in both English and Spanish, there are short tales of head-busting GIs, boxing matches, UFOs, red scares, cool cats, and J. Edgar Hoover.

Part Two of the trilogy is My Name Is Buddy. This is the story of workers who left the “dust bowl” in the 1930s for what was thought to be the “Promised Land” – California. The story is seen through the eyes of three fictional characters; Lefty, a left-wing mouse who's looking for a socialist utopia; blind Tom Toad, who has lost his religious faith, but is 'looking for a way out of darkness'; and Buddy himself, who 'being a cat, is looking for his next meal.' During their journey to California, they encounter the Klan, unions, big boss union busters, company cops, hobos, strikes, voter fraud and trains. J. Edgar Hoover makes another appearance in the form of a pig (get it?) that used to be on the farm where Buddy the Cat lived. During his travels, Buddy encounters Kash Buk, a country musician who almost went on tour with Ray Price but decided not to. Buddy sits in with Kash’s band to sing a song called Three Chords and the Truth. There’s never a dull moment with Buddy, Lefty and Tom Toad.

The third and final part of the California trilogy was released this week. Its title: I, Flathead: The Songs of Kash Buk and the Klowns. Not only is Kash Buk a country musician, he also races souped-up cars on salt flats [hence the title]. In this part of Ry Cooder’s tale set in the 1950s, Kash Buk [the same Kash Buk with whom Buddy the Cat sang] encounters circus freaks, meat packers, drag racers, and an alien named Shakey who cruises the desert in his flying saucer when he isn’t making chewing gum, glue, or making cars go faster. Kash Buk pays homage to Johnny Cash, laments how he’s written 5,000 country songs that no one has recorded, and sings of dancing the “Pink-O Boogie.”

As one can surmise, the creator of this trilogy has a more-than-slightly left of center tilt in his politics. That doesn’t detract from this work being fine entertainment that’s done with tongue planted firmly in cheek. It's all just a little bit weird, but this trilogy appeals to my warped sense of humor.

Tony's Picks - Neil Young

I've got a fairly large CD library. In my collection, one of the artists that is a big part of my collection is Neil Young. My wife Carol and I found out early in our relationship that we each had a mutual liking of Neil. I have almost everything he's put out [almost]. There's lots of gold in those CDs as well as quite a bit of trash. Maybe that's why he's so endearing - he's willing to follow his muse, whether it results in good or bad. The good far outweighs the bad. Here is my Top 25 picks of what I think is the best of Neil Young. Others have their own favorites that do not match mine. Without further adieu, not in any particular order...

1. Revolution Blues – from the 1974 On the Beach LP. Inspired by Charles Manson, whom NY met during his Topanga Canyon days. Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars/But I hate them worse than lepers and I'll kill them in their cars. This song always bothered Crosby, who played rhythm guitar on the record, along with Rick Danko and Levon Helm from The Band. The first time I heard it was at a solo acoustic show in Denver in 1983. It was great then, still great now.

2. Powderfinger – from the 1978 Rust Never Sleeps LP. Reprised [no pun intended] on 1979’s Live Rust. An excellent story-telling song performed with Crazy Horse about some backwoods family doing something illegal and getting caught by the Feds (moonshining perhaps?). I heard this one at the same Denver show that I heard Revolution Blues. I always thought the lyrics “then I saw black and my face splash in the sky” were the best ones in the song - “wow – a dead guy is telling this story…"

3. Cortez the Killer – from the 1975 Zuma LP. Another song performed with Crazy Horse that just so happens to immediately follow Powderfinger on Live Rust. I was immediately hooked with the words He came dancing across the water with his galleons and guns/Looking for a New World and a palace in the sun…References to Montezuma, beautiful women, cocoa leaves and pearls paint a vivid picture. Guitar solos abound!

4. Like a Hurricane – from the 1977 American Stars ‘N Bars LP. Yet another Crazy Horse song [see a pattern?]. I first heard this one as a freshman in college in 1981 in Boulder, Colorado. A guy from La Junta who lived down the hall from me would always play this one real loud before all of us had to go take a math exam. This is the song that got me hooked on Neil Young. Many thanks to Phil Gerard, the guy who got me hooked.

5. The Old Laughing Lady – the original version of this song is from NY’s 1968 debut LP. It’s a long slow meditative production piece. I prefer the version he did on 1993’s Unplugged – just him and a twelve-string guitar. This one opened the 1983 Denver show.

6. Ohio – a 1970 single with CSNY. NY said the 1970 Kent State shootings that inspired this song was probably the most important lesson taught at an institution of higher learning. But what was the lesson?

7. Eldorado – from the 1989 Freedom CD. This one takes place in Latin America. It starts fairly quietly with a strumming acoustic guitar with an electric playing some fairly-restrained fills. This arrangement goes on for most of the song. One hears about a drug deal going down [“the briefcase snaps goodbye…”], the mission church, the villas, beautiful women dressed in diamonds and sables, a mariachi band playing next to a garbage heap. The final verse has a bullfighter dressed in gold lame, killing the bull for the excited crowd, then suddenly the loudest Neil Young guitar power chords you’ll ever hear. If that doesn’t wake you up out of a trance, nothing will. Priceless!

8. When God Made Me – from the 2005 Prairie Wind CD. This one is one of NY’s most thought-provoking songs. This one reminds me of Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind. He asks ten questions about God –

· Was he thinking about my country, or the color of my skin?

· Was he thinking about my religion, and the way I worshipped him?

· Did he create just me in his image, or every living thing?

· Was he planning only for believers, or for those who just had faith?

· Did he envision all wars that were fought in his name?

· Did he say there was only one way to be close to him?

· Did he give me the gift of love to say who I could choose?

· Did he give me the gift of voice so some could silence me?

· Did he give me the gift of vision not knowing what I might see?

· Did he give me the gift of compassion to help my fellow man?

Who knew Neil Young was a philosopher?

9. When You Dance I Can Really Love – from the 1970 After the Gold Rush LP. This one is a three-minute quickie with Crazy Horse and Jack Nitzsche on piano.

10. Cinnamon Girl – from the 1969 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere LP. Another three-minute quickie with Crazy Horse. What Neil Young list would be complete without this one? This song probably started many a garage band.

11. Down By The River - from the 1969 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere LP. A minimalistic 10-minute guitar workout with Danny Whitten. I can identify with the guy who found out his girlfriend cheated on him one time too many. I think I’d shoot her too.

12. War of Man – from the 1992 Harvest Moon CD. I’m not really sure what this one is about. An animal’s eye view of the planet, as suggested by David Downing [author of Dreamer of Pictures]? That explanation is as good as any I guess. I like the arrangement – the acoustic guitars, fretless bass, drums, soaring female vocals. This one is all about atmosphere.

13. This Note’s For You – from the 1988 This Note’s For You CD. Remember a time when MTV used to play music videos from guys who played instruments? This song with his “big power swing band” rejects all kinds of corporate sponsorship that was just becoming prevalent in the music business. NY takes the piss on Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Pepsi, Coke, Budweiser, Jovan perfume, etc. This annoyed the MTV suits, who banned the video. NY got the last laugh because this video won the MTV Video of the Year the following year. Very humorous.

14. Rockin’ in the Free World - from the 1989 Freedom CD. Jimmy McDonough, in his Neil Young biography Shakey, tells the origins of this song. Frank Sampedro, the other guitarist in Crazy Horse, saw a newspaper article on Ayatollah Khomeini’s funeral and remarked “Whatever we do, we shouldn't go near the Mideast. It's probably better we just keep on rockin' in the free world." NY asked if Frank was using that in a song, Frank said no, so NY said he would instead. Two versions of the song appear on Freedom: a live acoustic version recorded at Jones Beach, NY at the beginning of the CD, and the electric version at the end. This song came out right around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, so many people thought it was a celebration of capitalism over communism. It isn’t. The lyrics criticize Bush 41 [“we got a thousand points of light for the homeless man/ we got a kinder, gentler machine gun hand…”], drug-addicted mothers, pollution [“Styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer…”]. An intense song. Check out YouTube for his performance of this song on Saturday Night Live if you don’t believe me.

15. My My, Hey Hey [Out of the Blue]/Hey Hey, My My [Into the Black] – from the 1978 Rust Never Sleeps LP. Like Rockin’ in the Free World, this song begins and ends Rust Never Sleeps – an acoustic beginning, an electric ending. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols was very much on NY’s mind, and he’s lamenting what he thought was his own self-perceived irrelevance to the music scene. Little did he know he created a classic. From the first few notes, you know exactly who it is.

16. Love and Only Love from the 1990 Ragged Glory CD. This CD came out shortly before I deployed to Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield. I heard all the songs on the CD over and over, and this is the one that stuck. Over ten minutes, it’s a very loud guitar workout with searing feedback. But what else does one expect with a CD with Crazy Horse?

17. Pocahontas – from the 1978 Rust Never Sleeps LP. Another acoustic piece inspired by the person who portrayed an Indian who refused Marlon Brando’s Oscar for The Godfather. I heard an electric version of this with Crazy Horse in 1996 – it sounded like shit. The acoustic version is so much better. Pocahontas, Marlon Brando and me. Did he sleep with Pocahontas to see how she felt? Was Marlon Brando sitting by the fire talking about Hollywood, the Astrodome and the first TV? Pretty surreal stuff. Right up my alley…
    

18. No Wonder - from the 2005 Prairie Wind CD. The star on this acoustic gem is Ben Keith and his pedal steel. Spooner Oldham’s Hammond B-3 only adds to the atmosphere. NY evokes 9/11, name-checks Chris Rock and Willie Nelson. Sometimes I think this is some kind of lamentation of mortality, but then again NY did this CD right after he was told he had a brain aneurysm that had to get fixed soon.

19. Peace and Love – from the 1995 Mirror Ball CD. NY recorded this CD with Pearl Jam over a couple of weekends in Seattle. The very nimble Pearl Jam could play rings around the lumbering Crazy Horse, and often does on this CD. Blistering.

20. Act of Love - from the 1995 Mirror Ball CD. A song about abortion. The first time I heard this song when NY was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In fact, NY debuted the song there. Who else but Neil Young would do that at that event? NY played this song with Crazy Horse but recorded it live with Pearl Jam for Mirror Ball. Another blistering workout [see Peace and Love].

21. Birds - from the 1970 After the Gold Rush LP. I heard Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers once refer to the “most beautiful Neil Young song.” I think this one is it. There are three recorded versions of this song, but this one is the best. It’s just NY playing piano with Danny Whitten harmonizing.

22. Old Man – from the 1972 Harvest LP. NY’s song about the caretaker of his ranch. James Taylor’s banjo and Ben Keith’s pedal steel add just the right color.

23. The Needle and the Damage Done - from the 1972 Harvest LP. Recorded live at UCLA’s Bryce Hall, this is probably the best anti-drug song I’ve ever heard. NY said in the liner notes of Decade that he wasn’t one to preach, but hard drugs took a lot of good people. Foreshadowing of Tonight’s the Night. Speaking of which…

24. Tonight’s the Night, Part 1 – from the 1975 Tonight’s the Night LP. This one was recorded before, but released after On the Beach. NY said that the success he received as a result from Harvest pulled him toward the middle of the road, so he headed for the ditch, where he met a lot of more-interesting people. This whole record was inspired by the drug-related deaths of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and CSNY roadie Bruce Berry. NY, the remains of Crazy Horse, Jack Nitzsche and Nils Lofgren all got together had a drunken bash, recorded for posterity to commemorate their dead friends.

25. Soldier – from the 1972 Journey Through the Past LP. NY solo with piano and a roaring fire from a sawdust mill. NY sings he doesn’t believe in Jesus because “you can’t deliver right away” to wishes and prayers. He sings of the soldier whose “eyes shine, they shine like the sun.” Is this a reaction to what this soldier saw in Vietnam?

Well, there you have it. Feel free to disagree, which I'm sure you will. Thanks for reading.

The Byrds

I have a hobby that drives my wife Carol absolutely nuts. I like to make mix CDs. I’m a sucker for Greatest Hits albums, but they almost invariably leave out a favorite song or two. So with the power of technology, I can make my own “greatest hit” CDs for my car or at work, especially work since I can’t take my iPod there.

One such mix CD is of The Byrds. Their first hit was in 1965 with a Bob Dylan song called Mr. Tambourine Man. The group had great three-part harmonies with Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark. The only Byrd to play an instrument on it was Roger McGuinn with his 12-string Rickenbacker. The rest of the players were Hollywood studio musicians known by industry pros as “The Wrecking Crew.” They played on a lot of Beach Boys songs too. One would be tempted to put Mr. Tambourine Man on a mixed CD. It’s a good song – better than the Dylan original but there are other Byrds songs I like better. So without further adieu, here are my Byrds songs in the order they appear on my mix.

1. Eight Miles High – from 1966’s Fifth Dimension LP. The Byrds recorded this song, about The Byrds’ trip to England in 1965, twice. The first song was done in late 1965 in RCA’s studios in Hollywood. Since The Byrds recorded on Columbia Records, the record execs made them cut it again in a Columbia studio. That’s the version that gets all the radio airplay. My CD has the first version from RCA. It’s a better take. It sounds more “alive.”

2. Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) – from 1965’s Turn! Turn! Turn! LP. This is an old Pete Seeger folk tune adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

3. 5D [Fifth Dimension] - from 1966’s Fifth Dimension LP. Roger McGuinn, who wrote the song, was a science fiction geek. He thought the universe was “height, width, depth, time, and something else.” His point is that the universe is infinite, that the Fifth Dimension is the threshold of scientific knowledge. Whatever. Too much to think about in a 2 ½ minute song. I just think it’s a good tune.

4. Mr. Spaceman - from 1966’s Fifth Dimension LP. Roger McGuinn’s expression of hope to communicate with friendly aliens. Sometimes NASA uses this song to wake up the Shuttle astronauts.

5. So You Want To Be a Rock 'N' Roll Star – from 1967’s Younger Than Yesterday LP. Co-written with Roger McGuinn, this is one of five songs from the pen of bassist Chris Hillman. Some rock critics think this is a song about the Byrds’ cynicism about manufactured pop groups like The Monkees. What these same critics failed to realize was The Byrds were the same kind of group when they came together in 1964. Trumpeter Hugh Masekela males a guest appearance. Later covered by Patti Smith and by Tom Petty on his Pack Up the Plantation live LP.

6. Have You Seen Her Face - from 1967’s Younger Than Yesterday LP. Another Chris Hillman song.

7. Time Between - from 1967’s Younger Than Yesterday LP. From Chris Hillman, this country-sounding song features the guitar playing of Clarence White, who would become a full member of The Byrds in later years.

8. Everybody's Been Burned - from 1967’s Younger Than Yesterday LP. This song was written by David Crosby. It sounds a lot like his song Guinnevere from the Crosby, Stills & Nash debut album from 1969. Crosby likes to use strange guitar tunings for some of his songs rather than the standard EADGBE. This is one of them. This song is also proof that David Crosby, who fancies himself more as a harmony singer, has an excellent voice to sing lead.

9. My Back Pages - from 1967’s Younger Than Yesterday LP. Another song from the Bob Dylan catalog. This song has been seen by many as Bob Dylan’s kiss-off the the folk “protest song” community with which he was becoming disillusioned. This was the last Byrds song to reach Billboard’s Top 40. A great tune.

10. Lady Friend - from 1967’s Younger Than Yesterday LP. Originally a single, but later included as a bonus track on the remastered Younger Than Yesterday. Another song from David Crosby. Chiming guitars, complex vocal harmonies, and brass. It didn’t chart very well as a single, but I like it anyway.

11. Goin’ Back – from 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers LP. This song is from Carole King and Gerry Goffin. Crosby hated this song. In fact he refused to participate in its recording. This song was the source of one of the many arguments the band members were having at the time. Crosby wanted his own song Triad on the album. McGuinn and Hillman liked this one better.

12. Natural Harmony - from 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers LP. Chris Hillman once said he wrote this while taking an LSD trip. I believe it. It’s sufficiently trippy.

13. Draft Morning - from 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers LP. A song started by Crosby and finished by Hillman and McGuinn. This one’s a song about the horrors of Vietnam and was a protest against the draft. Complete with bugles and machine-gun sound effects.

14. Wasn’t Born to Follow - from 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers LP. Another King/Goffin tune. This one has more of a country influence, given there is a pedal steel guitar trading lead with Clarence White’s Telecaster.

15. Change Is Now - from 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers LP. A McGuinn-Hillman song that Roger McGuinn describes as “another one of those guru-spiritual-mystic songs that nobody understood.” Significant for being the only Byrds song to feature both David Crosby and Clarence White.

16. Old John Robertson - from 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers LP. Written by McGuinn and Hillman, this was the flip side to the Lady Friend single. Another country-type song, it’s about a retired movie director who lived in Chris Hillman’s native San Diego. He wore a white Stetson hat and had a white handlebar moustache. He was kind of a Wild West kind of character.

17. Tribal Gathering – from 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers LP. This is a jazzy song played in 5/4 time by David Crosby. The song was inspired by a hippie gathering in Los Angeles in 1966.

18. Triad – the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. Among other things, this is the song that got David Crosby fired from The Byrds. This is a song about a ménage à trois. Another very fine lead vocal from Crosby, it’s a good song, but one definitely of it’s time. Crosby wanted this song on The Notorious Byrd Brothers, but McGuinn and Hillman didn’t think the song worked as well as Goin’ Back. I think The Notorious Byrd Brothers would have been a stronger LP if it included Triad.

19. You Ain’t Going Nowhere – from 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo LP. Enter Gram Parsons. With Crosby out of the band, McGuinn and Hillman wanted another musician to take his place. Hillman met Gram Parsons in, of all places, a bank teller line. They got together and discovered they had a shared love of country music. The Byrds hired Gram Parsons. Roger McGuinn once remarked about Gram “we thought we hired a piano player, but instead we got George Jones in a Nudie suit.” When it came time to record Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Roger McGuinn had originally envisioned it as a tribute to all kinds of American music. But Gram Parsons, along with his willing accomplice Chris Hillman, convinced McGuinn to go “all in” and make a straight country record. It wasn’t well-received at the time, but Sweetheart of the Rodeo has since been recognized as a certified country-rock classic way ahead of its time. This song from Bob Dylan kicks off Sweetheart of the Rodeo and sets the mood for the rest of the record very effectively.

20. This Wheel’s On Fire – from 1969’s Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde LP. Exit Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, enter Clarence White. As the title suggests, the record has a split personality between country rock material and hard-edged psychedelia. This Bob Dylan/Rick Danko song falls in the latter category. This song sounds like the apocalypse is coming, and the ending is complete with an atomic bomb explosion and searing feedback. Cool stuff this one.

21. Nashville West - from 1969’s Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde LP. This is a Clarence White instrumental from his previous band, which was also named Nashville West. The song demonstrates great interplay between Roger McGuinn’s 12-string Rickenbacker and Clarence White’s Fender Telecaster. Short and to the point. Great stuff.

22. Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man - from 1969’s Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde LP. Before Gram Parsons left The Byrds, he wrote this song with Roger McGuinn. Played in country 3/4 time, the subject of their ire is Ralph Emery, who didn’t treat The Byrds very well on his radio show when The Byrds were trying to plug their Sweetheart of the Rodeo album in Nashville. The song has a litany of Redneck stereotypes, and starts off with the line “He’s a drug store truck drivin’ man/He’s the head of the Ku Klux Klan”, with a pointed “this one’s for you, Ralph” at the end of the song. Ralph Emery wasn’t a KKK member, but you can tell that McGuinn and Parsons were pretty bent about their short experience with Mr. Emery.

23. Lover of the Bayou [Live] – from 1970’s [Untitled] LP. Roger McGuinn and Broadway impresario Jacques Levy had an idea to take Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt story and transpose it from Norway to the 19^th century American Southwest. The concept was called Gene Tryp. The production of Gene Tryp never got off the ground, but McGuinn and Levy wrote many songs for the production. This song is one of them. This song, recorded live in New York, is set during the American Civil War and portrays the hero of Gene Tryp as a smuggler, bootlegger, and gun runner. With the addition of Clarence White on guitar, Gene Parsons on drums, and Skip Battin on bass, The Byrds were a much better live band than in previous incarnations, and it shows on the live cuts from [Untitled].

24. Positively 4th Street [Live] - from 1970’s [Untitled] LP. One of two Bob Dylan songs to appear on [Untitled].

25. It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) – the other Dylan song from 1970’s [Untitled] LP. The Dylan songs and Lover of the Bayou ably demonstrate The Byrds’ newfound prowess as a live band.

26. Hickory Wind – a Gram Parson classic from 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo LP. This song describes Gram Parsons’ bittersweet nostalgia for his native South. During The Byrds’ one and only appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, Gram Parsons pissed of the country music establishment by playing this song instead of Merle Haggard’s Life in Prison. He wanted to play this song instead and dedicated it to his grandmother. It was Gram Parsons’ signature song.

27. Farther Along – from 1971’s Farther Along LP. One of the few Byrds songs sung by Clarence White. Two years after the release of Farther Along, Clarence White was killed by a drunk driver in Palmdale, California while he was loading his equipment into his vehicle after a show he just finished playing. During his funeral service, Gram Parsons and Bearnie Leadon spontaneously broke out in an a capella version of this country standard in tribute to their departed friend. I thought this would be the perfect song to end a mix CD of The Byrds.

These are all the songs I could cram into a single 80 minute CD. If I could put one more song on it, it would be Gene Clark’s I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better from The Byrds’ 1965 Mr. Tambourine Man LP.

Tony's Picks - 2009

It's that time of year where music critics everywhere list their "Top 10" music picks of the year. As for me, I didn't hear a whole lot of "new" stuff, but of what I did hear this year, here are my thoughts.

New Music

Alice in Chains – Black Gives Way to Blue
For me, this was the surprise release of 2009. This band is literally back from the dead. Lead singer Layne Staley died from a drug overdose in 2002, and guitarist/songwriter Jerry Cantrell hasn’t released anything since his 2002 album Degradation Trip Vols 1 & 2. With new singer William DuVall in tow, the band put together an album that finally fuses the elements of their best work [the electric Dirt and acoustic Jar of Flies] into one album. Black Gives Way to Blue is their first collection of new music since 1995 [the Alice in Chains CD]. The ease with which AIC fuses Black Sabbath menace with Beatles melodic sense is still there. William DuVall does not try to copy Layne Staley, but still manages to pull off the great harmonies with Jerry Cantrell that highlighted the band’s previous work. Cantrell’s sludgy-yet-melodic guitar is still present in spades. A new beginning indeed, and a very welcome one at that.

Heaven & Hell – The Devil You Know
Formerly known as the Ronnie James Dio-version of Black Sabbath, Dio, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and drummer Vinny Appice finally record a follow-up to 1992’s Dehumanizer. In order to keep their fans from confusing them with the original Black Sabbath [and to keep Sharon Osbourne out of the picture legally], these guys renamed themselves after the Black Sabbath album of the same name. The Devil You Know is everything you’d expect from these guys – ear-splitting, skullcrushing, gorilla-stomping riffage. With Tony Iommi’s face-melting riffs, Geezer Butler’s pummeling bass, and vocalist Ronnie James Dio in top form, The Devil You Know is a more-than-worthy addition to the Black Sabbath/Heaven & Hell canon. A must-have for metalheads. On a side note, Ronnie James Dio has stomach cancer. The docs caught it early, so I think Ronnie will slay this dragon. Cross your fingers.

Gov’t Mule – By a Thread
With all due respect to the late James Brown, Warren Haynes is now the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. When Warren isn’t recording and touring with his own band Gov’t Mule, he’s touring with the Allman Brothers Band or The Dead. And when he isn’t doing any of that stuff, he’s working on solo stuff. After having recorded Déjà Voodoo, High & Mighty and Mighty High with Andy Hess on the bass, Gov’t Mule has a new bass player in the form of Jorgen Carlsson. He’s a more “in your face” kind of player in the mold of the late Allen Woody, Gov’t Mule’s founding bassist. The songs on By a Thread reflect that aggressive attitude. Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top makes a guest appearance on the opening Broke Down on the Brazos. It's fun to hear The Rev. Willie G. and Warren swap solos. My favorite is Railroad Boy, a smoking arrangement of a traditional blues song. Not far behind are the Hendrix-esque Any Open Window and Inside Outside Woman Blues #3. Almost every Gov’t Mule album ends with a long, slow bluesy number. World Wake Up, recorded while Andy Hess was still in the band, is it for this album. It has a weird Pink Floyd-like vibe. It’s a good way to end an album. By a Thread is not as good as Dose or Life Before Insanity, but it’s a helluva lot better than their last effort, the way-below sub-par dub-mix Mighty High. It’s pretty good.

The Allman Brothers Band – Live at the Beacon Theatre, New York 3/19/09 & 3/20/09
This year commemorates the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Allman Brothers Band. To celebrate this milestone, the band dedicated every one of the shows they played a during their 2009 Beacon Theatre run to Gregg’s older brother Duane. During the Beacon run, the Brothers played with many guest stars, a lot of whom knew Duane personally and worked with him “back in the day.” I got these two shows for one reason – it’s the first [and so far only] time that Eric Clapton ever shared a stage with the Allman Brothers Band. Duane was an integral part of the Derek and the Dominos album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, which is beyond any doubt EC’s masterpiece. Since the shows were a tribute to Duane Allman, EC was a must-have for the tribute. On both nights the band would play classics from Eat a Peach, Brothers & Sisters, At Fillmore East, then they’d bring out EC to finish the show. They played several selections from the Layla album [Key to the Highway, Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad, Anyday, Little Wing, and Layla], plus selected ABB songs [Stormy Monday, Dreams, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed]. Layla was the encore for both nights. I’ve heard other shows over the years where Warren Haynes took the lead vocal for this song, but for this special occasion, EC did the deed – it is his song after all. Not only are these shows historic, but the musicianship is fantastic. It was every ABB junkie’s fantasy finally coming true. It’s not likely the Allman Brothers Band will ever record another studio album, so I have to be satisfied with these live releases.

Ricky Skaggs – Solo: Songs My Dad Loved
If ever there was truth in advertising in an album title, this is it. Ricky Skaggs has an outstanding bluegrass group called Kentucky Thunder, but on this CD, this is Ricky Skaggs the one-man band. Ricky sings all the songs, overdubbed all the harmonies himself, and played guitar, mandolin, banjo, bass and piano. Unlike his albums with Kentucky Thunder, some of which contain a warning that listening to them will cause speeding tickets, this one has a more relaxed pace. Containing many traditional bluegrass numbers, this is a logical follow-up of the concept he did with his previous album from 2008, Honoring the Fathers of Bluegrass: Tribute to 1946 & 1947. This is an excellent CD from an outstanding musician.

Levon Helm – Electric Dirt
Band singers Rick Danko and Richard Manuel are still dead, Garth Hudson is performing piano and vocal works with his wife as well as continuing as a much-in-demand session musician, and Robbie Robertson has confined himself to creating music for movies. That leaves Levon Helm, the lone American in The Band, to carry the torch for The Band. Electric Dirt, the follow-up to 2008’s Dirt Farmer, is full of blues-gospel shouters, soul-country laments, New Orleans jazz, and mountain-folk reveries. Not bad for a guy who almost lost his voice to throat cancer.

Bob Dylan – Together Through Life
This album originally started as one song. Director Oliver Dahan, the guy who made the movie La Vie en Rose about French singer Edith Piaf, approached Bob Dylan to contribute a song for his new movie My Own Love Song. Dylan gave him Life is Hard, but he soon found himself on a songwriting roll, and Together Through Life was born. Once again recorded with his road band, this album showcases not only a very tight band that can play honky-tonk roadhouse blues with a Tex-Mex flavor. The real fun is the lyrics – they’re Dylan at his caustic, sarcastic best and are [dare I say] fun. Included are tales of lustful desire [Jolene], henpecked husbands [My Wife’s Home Town – which, BTW, is Hell], repentant drunks [If You Ever Go To Houston] .. Then there is Dylan’s latest vision of the apocalypse, It’s All Good. The story starts off bad ("Big politician telling lies/Restaurant kitchen, all full of flies/Don't make a bit of difference"), and gets worse ("Brick by brick, they tear you down/A teacup of water is enough to drown"). In Dylan’s America, it’s survival of the fittest. When Dylan was much younger, he wanted to sound old. He’s there now, sounding grizzly, pissed off and lusty, all at once. Is this Dylan’s best since Blood on the Tracks? No [that honor goes to 2001’s “Love & Theft”], but this album is still worthy of more than just the occasional listen. Unless you’re my wife Carol, in which case “the less heard the better.” After all, Bob is an acquired taste.

Tom Waits – Glitter and Doom Live
What can be said about Tom Waits? On Wikipedia I read the following about his voice: it sounded "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car.” Good enough for me – I can’t think of anything better. Tom Waits’ voice is unique – it is his instrument. One cannot pigeonhole his music – he’s all over the stylistic map. He draws inspiration from folk, blues, country, jazz ballads, polkas, waltzes, cabaret, swing, popular ballads. In addition to the standard guitar/bass/drums/piano, he also uses such instruments and objects as such instruments and objects as the marimba; trombone; brake drum; banjo; bell plate; bullhorn; conga; accordion; mellotron; maracas; pump organ; basstarda; chamberlain; harmonium; viola; sticks; chairs and musical saw . His label’s website describes his live shows as “part distorted vaudeville, part big top, part piano bar and part stand-up, live shows are meticulously orchestrated to have all the grace and excitement of a derailing train.” That sums up what Glitter and Doom Live sounds like. It captures all those elements. It’s a two-disc set. The first disc is 17 songs recorded in various cities on his 2008 tour. That’s a shame because I got bored one day and counted the number of different songs he did on that tour – I think it was around 64, give or take a couple. But there is a podcast of the entire Atlanta show on NPR’s website. It’s a must-have for, well, ME! As far as the song selection goes, Tom Waits sticks to stuff released after 1990. The second disc is “Tom’s Tales.” These are lots of monlogues that he does in between songs that are all spliced together into one 36-minute recording. We get treated to such things as “Do you know how many omelets you can get out of an ostrich egg? Fourteen . . . that’s a lot of omelets. I’ve gotten along with most of the ostriches I’ve met.” "Shrimp -- they never give anything to charity. That always bothered me until someone told me, well, basically, they're shellfish." I learned the origin of the phrase of 'graveyard shift' and 'dead ringer'. I learned about Nazi alphabet soup. I wish I saw this tour. It sounds like it was a long, strange but very enjoyable trip.


Archive Releases

Neil Young – Archives Volume 1 [1963-72]
This sucker has been in the works for over 20 years, but it finally saw the light of day in three formats – Blu-Ray, DVD, and CD. If you want the Blu-Ray or DVD versions, take out a second mortgage. The eight-CD version is much more affordable. This volume of the archives covers NY’s beginnings in Canada, through his days with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby Stills Nash & Young, and his work under his own name with and without Crazy Horse. Basically, these are the songs that made Neil Young famous. There’s quite a bit of previously-unreleased material here, different versions and/or mixes, and rare tracks. The stuff that has been released before sounds infinitely better than the CDs on which these tunes were originally released. Also included are complete solo acoustic shows in Toronto in 1969 and 1971, and a 1970 show with Crazy Horse recorded at New York’s Fillmore East. Hardcore NY fans probably have most of this stuff, but with the remastered sound, this archive is worth every penny.

The entire Beatles catalog remastered
Ok, what is understood need not be discussed. The entire Beatles catalog was finally remastered and unleashed on the world on Sept 9th, 2009 [Number 9, Number 9, Number 9…]. They all sound great. Buy them!