Levon Helm - Ramble at the Ryman

The Band had three vocalists – Levon Helm [the only American in a band with mostly Canadians], Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel. Levon Helm sang my favorite Band songs [Up on Cripple Creek, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Ophelia, The Weight, The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show, Mystery Train (with Paul Butterfield)]. As the lone American, Levon witnessed traveling minstrel shows as a kid growing up in Arkansas. One such minstrel show was the F.S. Wolcott's Rabbit's Foot Minstrel Show, immortalized in The Band’s The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show [W.S. Walcott rolled off the tongue easier..]. The Rabbit's Foot Company (also known as Rabbit Foot Minstrels) was a long running minstrel and variety troupe that toured as a tent show between the 1900's and 1950's. The company had a brass band and traveled in its own private railroad car. The show included minstrel performances, dancers, circus acts, comedy and musical ensemble pieces. It was owned and operated totally by African-Americans. After the minstrel shows, there would be the rambles. In The Last Waltz, Levon talked about the Midnight Rambles of his youth:


“After the finale, they’d have the midnight ramble. With young children off to bed, the festivities resumed, but with a rowdier feel: the songs would get a little bit juicier, the jokes would get a little funnier and the prettiest dancer would really get down and shake it a few times.”


Toward the end of The Band’s run in the 1990s, Levon was diagnosed with throat cancer. He was told he’d have to have a laryngectomy, which would deprive him of his voice and his livelihood. Levon opted for radiation treatments. For awhile Levon was voiceless, and because of his medical bills he was almost homeless too. According to Levon, "You got to pick one -- pay your medical bills or pay the mortgage. Most people can't do both, and I'm no different." So before the bank took the house and the barn, Levon would start having Midnight Rambles like he saw when he was a boy. Levon’s friends [and Levon has LOTS of friends] would show up and play the shows with him. As a result, Levon’s medical bills were paid, he got to keep the house and the barn, and he also re-started his career. He’s recorded two highly acclaimed studio albums, Dirt Farmer [2008] and Electric Dirt [2009].


Levon Helm still keeps the spirit of the rambles alive with his weekly Midnight Rambles at his barn/recording studio in Woodstock, N.Y. He’s been doing this since the early 2000s. Over the years the rambles featured guests too numerous to mention here. Every now and then Levon and his band take the show on the road. In 2008 they took the show to the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Like the rambles held in Woodstock, this ramble also had many guests. Lucky for us, the show was recorded too. Buddy Miller showed up to sing his own Wide River to Cross, which Levon recorded for Dirt Farmer. John Hiatt dropped in to sing Rick Danko’s parts on the show’s finale, The Weight. Larry Campbell, the evening’s Master of Ceremonies, added a touch of the Grateful Dead with Deep Elem Blues. He owned The Band’s Chest Fever, which he not only sang but also provided a nimble Garth Hudson fugue on his guitar. This guy has played with Dylan, Phil Lesh & Friends, and now Levon Helm. Why is this man not a star in his own right? Teresa Williams [Mrs. Larry Campbell] offered a sassy Time Out for the Blues. Bluesman Little Sammy Davis chimed in with Fannie Mae and Scratch My Back.

Not to be overly critical, but why Sheryl Crow? How come she keeps popping up as a “guest” with other people [the Stones, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, etc]? Maybe it’s just me but her voice sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard. Does she have pictures of all these people that are suitable for blackmail? She sang a duet with Levon on The Band’s Evangeline, but she sounded lost. She sounded ok on the Carter Family’s No Depression In Heaven, but Emmylou Harris she is not. The keyboard player Brian Mitchell sang a very raspy [almost TOO raspy] The Shape I’m In. If he tried to sound like Richard Manuel, he missed the mark. That aside, the horn section sounded great, and Larry Campbell played a blazing solo.


I like the tracklist. There are just enough Band songs to keep things rooted in Levon’s own history [six], but there enough is other material to keep this ramble from being too much of a nostalgia trip. Levon sings his share of the songs, but there are enough good singers to insure Levon doesn’t have to carry all the vocal weight by himself. Levon’s voice is not what it once was, but considering what he’s been through this CD [along with Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt] is proof that miracles can and do happen. This is a great-sounding set played by people who sounded like they were having a lot of fun doing it. Ramble at the Ryman is a "must buy." Buy Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt too. No fan of The Band should be without them. With these releases Levon’s keeping the spirit of The Band alive.


The tracklist
Ophelia / Back to Memphis / Fannie Mae / Scratch My Back / Evangeline / No Depression In Heaven / Wide River to Cross / Deep Elem Blues / Anna Lee / Rag Mama Rag / Time Out for the Blues / A Train Robbery / The Shape I’m In / Chest Fever / The Weight

Neil Young - Rust Never Sleeps

Awhile ago I wrote on one of my favorite Neil Young albums, On the Beach. I thought I’d step back into the time machine and look at another Neil Young gem. Rust Never Sleeps is one of those few albums that one gets to see two sides of Neil Young. One side is the acoustic folk hippie first encountered on Harvest. The other side is the future “Godfather of Grunge” with a little bit of punk thrown in for good measure. This album came out in June 1979, when vinyl was still king and there were two sides to an album. On Rust Never Sleeps, the two sides of Neil are neatly divided. Side 1 has all the acoustic songs, one of which was recorded circa 1975 [Pocahontas] and the other recorded with Nicolette Larson [RIP] during the Comes a Time period [Sail Away]. This is the second time where Neil uses the device of using the same song to begin and end the album [Tonight’s the Night being the first]. He’s use this device again with 1989’s Freedom [Rockin’ in the Free World]. The album begins with the acoustic My My, Hey Hey [Out of the Blue], and the electric version Hey Hey, My My [Into the Black]. Except for the aforementioned Pocahontas and Sail Away, the rest of Rust Never Sleeps was recorded live at various venues in 1978. The audiences were for the most part mixed out, but from time to time you can hear them.

In My My, Hey Hey [Out of the Blue] Neil has two rock icons on his mind – Elvis Presley and Johnny Rotten. Elvis died only a year before these tracks were recorded [the King is gone but he’s not forgotten…], but with the advent of punk the torch had been passed to another generation [this is the story of Johnny Rotten…]. He laments its better to burn out like the punks than to fade away like Elvis. I’m not sure about Thrasher, but there does seem to be commentary on Crosby, Stills & Nash [they had the best selection, they were poisoned with protection, there was nothing that they needed, nothing left to find…so I got bored and left them there, they were just dead weight to me, better down the road without that load…]. Ride My Llama is just plain strange, with Neil playing guitars with aliens and then deciding to ride his llama from Peru to Texarkana. Pocahontas, one of Neil Young’s most enduring songs [and one of my favorites of his] is a track from the lost album Chrome Dreams. It is Neil’s lament on the condition of the American Indian, with references to American pop culture thrown in [Marlon Brando, the Astrodome, televisions, etc]. These days he plays the song with an electric arrangement. I like the acoustic treatment here much better. As he tells the Indians’ tale of woe he sings the song from the first-person point of view as if he was an Indian himself. Did he ever get to sleep with Pocahontas to see how she felt? He wonders if he and Pocahontas get to talk with Marlon Brando [he who sent an Indian actress to refuse his Oscar™ for The Godfather] around a campfire about TV and other stuff. I like Neil’s surrealism. J His use of the surreal is one of his enduring qualities. Its like he channels Salvador Dali at times. Sail Away is a lovely duet with Nicolette Larson. It would have fit in right along the songs from Comes a Time. That’s good enough for me.

Powderfinger kicks off Side 2. Neil’s lyrics immediately take us back to a distant time, perhaps right after the Civil War [look out Mama there’s a white boat comin’ up the river with a big red beacon and a flag and a man on the rail, I think you’d better call John cause it don’t look like he’s here to deliver the mail…and it’s less than a mile away, I hope they didn’t come to stay, it’s got numbers on the side and a gun and it’s makin’ big waves]. Whose white boat was it – the Feds? Again told from the first-person point of view [Daddy’s gone, my brothers out huntin’ in the mountain], the protagonist is the 22-year old guy left alone to do the thinking, only to find himself killed by the guys “when the first shot hit the dock.” Were Neil and his family moonshiners? The song doesn’t really say. This is another NY favorite of mine [two in one album!]. Welfare Mothers is very repetitious – the riff, the background vocals [Welfare Mothers make better lovers…]. What else are you going to do with a song about getting it on with divorced moms on welfare? It’s a bit of harmless fun. Sedan Delivery is more in the punk aesthetic. But it’s all stream of consciousness, meeting Caesar and Cleo in the Milky Way, getting away from it all, meeting a woman with varicose veins, etc. His sedan delivery job was really hard to find, as he tells us over and over again. It’s more harmless fun. The Ramones would be proud. The finale is Hey Hey, My My [Into the Black], the counterpoint to My My, Hey Hey [Out of the Blue]. End the album as begun, only with high volume, much distortion, phenobarbital riffs.

Back when Rolling Stone magazine was a music magazine and its editors’ opinions meant something to some people, they named Rust Never Sleeps their Album of the Year for 1979. After this and the live album Live Rust that came out four months later, Neil’s artistic output became both erratic and extremely frustrating to his fans. To wit, NY wouldn’t return to this standard of excellence until 1989’s Freedom. Regardless of what came later, Rust Never Sleeps is a testament to Neil Young’s validity in the face of the onslaught that was punk. A must have!

Neil Young - A Treasure

For most of his career, Neil Young has followed a fairly predictable path. He would alternate quiet, acoustic-based albums with noisy rock and roll albums with Crazy Horse [or a reasonable facsimile thereof]. The 1980s were an interesting time musically, with the advent of MTV. New Wave replaced disco as the next big thing. Michael Jackson became a huge star, as did Prince and Bruce Springsteen. If you’re a Neil Young fan, the 1980s were a very frustrating time. In 1979, NY came out with both Rust Never Sleeps and Live Rust. True to form, Neil put out the mostly acoustic Hawks & Doves in 1980, followed by Re•ac•tor 1981. But after Re•ac•tor, things got very strange. NY left Reprise, his long-time label, and signed with Geffen Records. In 1982, Trans appeared. With its vocoders, synthesizers, computerized drums and such, one could only wonder “what the hell is this?” I thought “ok, this is just Neil being Neil, he can do whatever he wants.” The following year came Everybody’s Rockin’. Instead of acoustic stuff or Crazy Horse, this was a rockabilly record [?!?]. Ok, first computers, then 1950s retro-rock – this only added to the “WTF factor.” Not only were his fans confused, so was his record company. They were so confused they sued NY for not making “Neil Young music.”

Did NY return to making “Neil Young music”? Well, sort of. His next release was Old Ways. This was a country record. But I could tolerate that because NY had been in this kind of territory before, with 1972’s Harvest and 1978’s Comes a Time. Geffen didn’t think much of it – it wasn’t pop enough. It’s more traditional country than anything he had done before. This was just more of Neil Young being “artistically uncharacteristic.” Such was the relationship between NY and Geffen that he once told them “quit telling me what to do or I’ll turn into George Jones.” And knowing Neil Young, he would have done it too. This brings me to the real subject of this blog – Neil Young’s newest CD, A Treasure. A live document of the Old Ways period, A Treasure mixed some of the Old Ways material and re-worked some of his older material to fit in the country music context. As one looks over the tracklist of A Treasure one will note there are several previously unreleased songs [noted below with *]. NY was more than capable of acting on his threat to turn into George Jones.

The tracklist

Amber Jean*/ Are You Ready For The Country / It Might Have Been*/ Bound For Glory*/ Let Your Fingers Do The Walking*/ Flying On The Ground Is Wrong / Motor City / Soul Of A Woman*/ Get Back To The Country / Southern Pacific / Nothing Is Perfect* / Grey Riders*

This CD got its title from Ben Keith [RIP], who remarked that the music contained therein was “a treasure” once he and Neil Young found it in the archives. The International Harvesters boasted some of the cream of Nashville musicians. Longtime co-hort Ben Keith on steel guitar, Rufus Thibodeaux [RIP] on fiddle, keyboard player extraordinaire Spooner Oldham, pianist Hargus "Pig" Robbins, bassist Tim Drummond and drummer Karl Himmel all played with the International Harvesters.

A Treasure contains several pleasant surprises. The first among these is the old Buffalo Springfield song Flying On The Ground Is Wrong. One review said this sounds more like the Flying Burrito Brothers than the Buffalo Springfield. I have to agree – after one listen I could picture Gram Parsons singing this tune. Are You Ready For the Country sounds a lot tougher than it originally did on Harvest. Other surprises include Motor City and Southern Pacific. These versions are much better here than what was done earlier with Crazy Horse on Re•ac•tor. The addition of Rufus Thibodeaux’s fiddle to Southern Pacific adds the spook that was missing from Re•ac•tor. The final song, Grey Riders, is unlike anything I’ve heard from Neil Young. There’s plenty of electric guitar courtesy of his “Old Black” Les Paul, but the tone is much cleaner without the over-amped distortion one is used to hearing from him. The high volume is there, just not the distortion. Country music doesn’t sound like Grey Riders, but Neil makes “Old Black” work well with Rufus’ fiddle. Neil hadn’t abandoned his rock roots altogether. During this “country” period I saw Neil Young and the International Harvesters perform on Austin City Limits. Back then all you saw on that program was country acts. The audience was just eating up all the music NY was feeding them, but at the very end you could see many looks of confusion on the faces in the audience when he strapped on “Old Black” and played Down by the River. Grey Riders would have left a similar look on their faces that day. If he put out more stuff like that I would have been ok with it – it’s that good. It was much better than Trans or Everybody’s Rockin’. But given the times when Neil Young was a musical chameleon, that prospect would have been highly unlikely.

A Treasure comes from a strange period in Neil Young’s history, but it is a very good listen. At the time of its recording, Old Ways stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. Had this live companion album been released during that time it too would have stuck out. That wouldn't be the case now. He would go back to that countrified sound on Harvest Moon, Prairie Wind and Silver & Gold, so twenty-five years later the live document A Treasure is not really out of place in NY’s catalog. It is a welcome addition.

Flying on the Ground is Wrong



Southern Pacific



Grey Riders

Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive!

If you were alive in 1976, you heard Frampton Comes Alive! whether you knew it or not. It was everywhere. In my neighborhood, it literally was everywhere. My friend Mike put his stereo speakers in his bedroom window and broadcast it every day for everyone to hear. Luckily for him, he forced a good album on all of us, otherwise he surely would have died a quick death. In this age of digital downloads, Mike still has his vinyl LP. Why was this such a good album, and why did it sell by the truckload? I have one theory. During that time we all had to suffer a disease that was afflicting the music industry. That disease was called disco.

I won’t get into a long diatribe about how bad disco was. Suffice to say, if you hated disco as much as I did, Frampton Comes Alive! was a welcome respite from that “musical” [and I use that term loosely] scourge. If you don’t buy this argument consider the following. Peter Frampton later teamed up with the Bee Gees, purveyors of that monstrous musical form, to make the movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Frampton had sold out, he had taken up with “the enemy” and his fall from grace was as sudden as was his rise to fame. I dare say that it took his career over 20 years to recover. Yes, the movie had nothing to do with disco, but the mere thought of a musician of Peter Frampton’s caliber associating himself with perpetrators of such crap was just too much to bear. But enough about disco…

Disco isn't the only reason Frampton Comes Alive! was a monster hit. What was the appeal? Sure, he had the teeny-bopper good looks, the long-flowing blonde locks that the girls loved at the time. They liked the pretty songs like Baby I Love Your Way. For the guys [and girls too] there was a damn fine guitarist. His band was as tight as they come [the immortal Bob Mayo, Stanley Sheldon, and the late John Siomos]. From the opening moments of Something’s Happening, the energy of both the band and the audience leap out of the speakers. Frampton’s element was on-stage. He comes across as a nice guy who has an excellent rapport with his audience. He had strong material, even though it didn’t sell well in the studio incarnations. I think the hook for many people was the talk box. I know of only two people who used it with guitar before Frampton did [Joe Walsh and Jeff Beck], and when people heard Frampton do it, people thought “that was cool” [at least I did anyway]. Was it a case of “right place, right time”? It probably was, but it sounded good. Hell, it sounded great!

What about the songs? With the exception of one song [Shine On], all the songs are from the first four albums Peter Frampton made after leaving Humble Pie [Wind of Change, Frampton’s Camel, Somethin’s Happening, Frampton]. He left Humble Pie because he thought the hard rock direction they were taking overwhelmed his talents as a player. Unlike the balls-to-the-wall attack of Humble Pie, Frampton liked to mix his music with both electric and acoustic textures. Additionally there’s more of an emphasis on melody. This approach is also reflected on Frampton Comes Alive!, but fear not – Frampton did not forget how to rock out just because he left Humble Pie. There was the talk-box excess of Do You Feel Like We Do. There was the white-boy funkiness of Doobie Wah. How can one NOT like Show Me The Way? My personal favorite is the Humble Pie song Shine On, which follows Do You Feel Like We Do on the 25^th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. Also on the Deluxe Edition, there are four extra songs that weren’t on the original album for space reasons. One of those, White Sugar, immediately follows Shine On and flows right into PF’s inspired take of the Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Where the original album ended with Do You Feel Like We Do, the Deluxe Edition ends with Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Peter Frampton re-sequenced the Deluxe Edition to reflect what his setlist really looked like at the time, such is the luxury of not having to squeeze music onto pieces of vinyl.

The original album track listing:

Somethin’s Happening / Doobie Wah / Show Me The Way / It’s a Plain Shame / All I Wanna Be (Is By Your Side) / Wind of Change / Baby I Love Your Way / I Wanna Go To The Sun / Penny For Your Thoughts / (I’ll Give You) Money / Shine On / Jumpin’ Jack Flash / Lines on My Face / Do You Feel Like We Do

The 25^th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Somethin’s Happening / Doobie Wah / Lines on My Face / Show Me The Way / It’s a Plain Shame / Wind of Change / Just the Time of Year* / Penny For Your Thoughts / All I Wanna Be (Is By Your Side) / Baby I Love Your Way / I Wanna Go To The Sun / Nowhere’s Too Far (For My Baby)* / (I’ll Give You) Money / Do You Feel Like We Do / Shine On / White Sugar* / Jumpin’ Jack Flash / Day's Dawning* [live-for radio session]

Peter Frampton is celebrating the 35^th anniversary of Frampton Comes Alive! this summer by playing the whole thing, start to finish [including the extras]. That’ll be just the first set. I assume he also play a heavy dose of selections from Fingerprints and Thank You Mr. Churchill. I suspect he’ll play While My Guitar Gently Weeps and I Don’t Need No Doctor. At least I hope so because I plan to buy tickets to see this show in Pensacola in October this year. It should be a great show.

Soundgarden - Superunknown

Of the four big bands to come out of Seattle in the early 1990s [Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden], Soundgarden was the first to get a major label record deal, but the last to get the big break. In a strange twist of fate, Chris Cornell’s one-off tribute to Mother Love Bone’s singer Andrew Wood, Temple of the Dog, was a big hit before Soundgarden got a hit. They got people’s attention with Badmotorfinger (1991), but in 1994 Superunknown launched them into the stratosphere. Everywhere I read about these guys they’re described as “grunge.” They sound like a cross-between of metal and hardcore punk to me. Kind of Black Sabbath sludge mixed with Black Flag. Wait! I think I just unknowingly defined “grunge” [duh!]. Since I’m going to see Soundgarden in July, I’ve been listening to them a lot lately. With that said, here are my thoughts about my favorite Soundgarden album, Superunknown.

Superunknown opens with a thunderous one-two punch of Let Me Drown and My Wave. If these two songs don’t get your heart pumping, nothing will. There’s lots of monstrous fast-paced riffage [especially for Soundgarden] from Kim Thayil here. Kim is a human riff machine like Keith Richards and Tony Iommi. The rhythm section of Ben Shepard and Matt Cameron grabs you by the lapels and then kicks you in the ass. Chris Cornell’s scream at 2:33 of Let Me Drown is otherworldly. How the hell does he do that? Check out Ben Shepard rocking the wah-wah with his bass on My Wave.

Fell On Black Days is dark and very moody. It’s time to exhale. After Let Me Drown and My Wave, Fell On Black Days slows it down and turns down the volume. It doesn’t get loud until the bridge [“How will I know that this could be my fate?”]. Chris Cornell provides a very controlled vocal for this one and saves his banshee vocals for the bridge.

Mailman is one of Matt Cameron’s songs. As the title says, it’s about a mailman, only this one is about to go postal [“I know I’m headed for the bottom…”]. Kim Thayil pours the sludge on thick with his detuned guitars in a grinding riff, and Ben Shepard’s bass makes the sludge even thicker. Add to that a Mellotron to push the song into “psychedelia land.” This one has got a sinister vibe to it. Yeah I’m riding you all the waaaaaayyyyyyy…

I have no idea what Superunknown [the song] is about, and I don’t care. It’s loud, it’s fast, it’s brutal in its intensity, and it’s relentless. It absolutely has to be played LOUD! If you don’t, you’re wrong! Chris Cornell continues to amaze me. How does he sing the way he does without blowing out his voice? Much wah-wah drenched madness from Kim Thayil in the solo. Ben Shepard and Matt Cameron are kicking ass. This is Soundgarden at the top of their game. It’s my favorite from the album [My Wave is a close second]. Alive in the Superunknown indeed…

Black Hole Sun is the monster hit from Superunknown. Peter Frampton covered it on his Fingerprints instrumental album. The band made one of the strangest videos I’ve ever seen to promote it – MTV fans loved it [they still showed music videos then]. This one sounds like “Black Sabbath meets the Beatles.” Critics have said Chris Cornell has a Beatles fixation. If that’s true I must be missing something because this is the only Soundgarden song I know that has that vibe. During the chorus [“Black Hole Sun won’t you come and wash away the rain…”] the guitars sound like they’re being fed through a Leslie speaker, one of George Harrison’s favorite effects. When Kim Thayil steps up to take his solo, it’s a wah-wah drenched atonal psychedelic freak-out. Black Hole Sun is more of a mood than a song, but that’s ok.

Spoonman is another fast one…and another hit. What has gotten into these guys? Uptempo tunes just aren’t Soundgarden’s thing, except for Jesus Christ Pose from Badmotorfinger. Street musician Artis the Spoonman makes an appearance. Whoever sequenced this album knew what he was doing.

Ben Shepard contributed two songs – Head Down and Half. I guess they recorded these to show their musical diversity. It’s experimentation for experimentation’s sake. My reaction? Meh… At least Head Down provides a soft landing after the madness that is Superunknown, much in the manner of Long Long Long after Helter Skelter on the White Album. But all is not quiet for long as it goes “from a whisper to a scream” in a hurry.

Limo Wreck is more detuned sludge. Chris Cornell imagined what it would like if there was a multi-car pile-up on LA’s freeways and made a song out of it.

The Day I Tried To Live. This one goes back and forth between straight 4/4 time and 7/8 time. I thought this song was a suicide note, but I have since learned that is not the case. Chris Cornell said it was about a guy who tries to understand what is going on around him and get along with other people rather than hiding in a cave. Whatever you say Chris… Not one of my favorites.

Fresh Tendrils is another Matt Cameron song. I’ll show my ignorance here…what is a “tendril” anyway? It’s not a bad song, but it’s not essential either.

4^th of July sounds like a leftover from the Alice in Chains eponymous album. I can do without this one. I can do without Kickstand as well.

Like Suicide closes the album. It has a quiet intensity to it. Kim Thayil and Ben Shepard lock together very tightly. Soundgarden released an acoustic demo of this on the multi-media Songs From the Superunknown. I like that version better – it’s a bit more moody and intense. This version is pretty good though.

Soundgarden [and Chris Cornell in particular] likes to use different tunings for their music. Most bands stick with the standard EADGBE tuning, but not Soundgarden. I count eight different tunings on the Superunknown album. For those who are interested, here’s a breakdown song-by-song:

Let Me Drown [DADGBE “Dropped D”] / My Wave [EEBBBB – 5/4 time] / Fell On Black Days [EADGBE – 6/4 time] / Mailman [CGDGBE] / Superunknown [DADGBE “Dropped D”] / Head Down [CGCGGE] / Black Hole Sun [DADGBE “Dropped D”] / Spoonman [DADGBE “Dropped D” – intro in 7/8 time] / Limo Wreck [CGDGBE –3/4 time] / The Day I Tried To Live [EEBBBB - 4/4 and 7/8 time] / Kickstand [DADGBE “Dropped D”] / Fresh Tendrils [DGDGBE] / 4^th of July [CFCGBE] / Half [CGCGGE] / Like Suicide [DGDGBC].

When Soundgarden broke up in 1997 I thought that one of the few bands from the 1990s that was worth a damn would stay that way – broken up. Now that they’ve reunited [for how long, who knows?], I’m looking forward to hearing a lot of these songs at Red Rocks in July.

Korea - Then and Now

[Written at and posted from the World Hotel in Songtan, Korea] When I was but a baby Captain in the US Air Force, I had the pleasure of serving my remote tour at Osan Air Base, Korea [1992-93]. When I look back at my short AF career I can say that the Osan tour was one of the best assignments I ever had. I had some great people working for me, some of whom I am still friends with today. There were quite a few very bright people, so being their boss made my job extremely easy. It being an overseas tour, the togetherness we all shared was unmatched by any other assignment I had. The only real downside to the whole experience was that I missed Carol terribly. We had been married only five years at the time, and it was tough being away from her. Some of the people I worked for were great, some of them were assholes, but then you find that in any walk of life. Just as there was much change at Osan from the time before the 1988 Olympics to when I first set foot in Korea 19 years ago, much has changed since then.

There are many clubs that I used to go to that are now gone – ancient history. The Golden Gate, Eagles, Smitty’s, Easy Riders, Heavy Metal, the Hilltop, the Phoenix, the Batman, the Paradise, the Playboy, the Penthouse – all gone. The Golden Gate and Eagles were always numbers one and two on the ITO. We dropped lots of Won on Soju colas there. Some dropped even more Won on the Korean juicy girls. The UN Club [catty-corner from the VFW], the Stereo, Xanadu, My House Up and My House Down – they’re still there. But they are all shadows of their former selves. Back when I was stationed here, the girls who worked the bars were all Koreans. On one of my return trips in 2002, I found the Koreans were replaced by Russians. THAT was interesting. That was solid proof that we had won the Cold War – the Russians were dancing for us! I asked one of the Russian girls how long she had to be in Korea. She told me “we do one year tours just like the GIs do.” Since then the Russians have been replaced by Filipinas. The main place for GIs to change money off-base [the Doll House] is no longer there. In its place sits a 7-11. So many places are gone, but then again, so is my youth.

During my time at Osan, a curfew was in effect. From Sunday through Thursday, you had to be out of the bars by midnight. On Friday and Saturday you had until 2am. Now there’s no curfew. When the curfew was still in effect you’d see people down in the Ville starting around 7pm. Now the pub crawlers don’t come out until much later. A good friend of mine lived off-base and he used to watch the girls walk to work every night around dinnertime. Now, without the curfew, one is lucky to get a drink before 8pm. It used to be that once you walked into a bar, the juicy girls would swoop down on you like vultures, wanting you to buy them a drink. Not so anymore! On one night several of us went into the Stereo Club to get something that had Soju in it. A female Lt [Danielle] with us was celebrating her 24^th birthday [ouch!] and never had Soju in her life. After we had our sushi we went to the Stereo and waited…and waited…and waited. After waiting for awhile I just got up and said “screw it, I guess they don’t want my money here.” This would have been unheard of back in the day. We went to Xanadu. I ordered a Soju cola. To my surprise and disappointment, I could barely taste the Soju. It was so watered-down that if I drank Soju colas continuously between now and then, I still wouldn’t feel a buzz. And get this – Xanadu serves Soju slushies! Oh the humanity!

Some things are still the same. You can still get Miss Kim’s sloppy burgers. These would be regular hamburgers, only with a Far East twist. Instead of special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun, a Miss Kim burger would have some mystery sauce, cabbage, carrot strips, and a fried egg thrown on top, thus making the burger “sloppy.” These burgers taste better when you’re slightly toasted, and you’ve got a raging case of the munchies. A Miss Kim burger sounds like a much better idea at the time when you’re hammered. Miss Kim used to have a little mobile stand that even had a McDonald’s logo on the top. Now she has a stand without wheels right in the middle of the Ville, and not only does she still sell her sloppy burgers, she’s branched out into other pub-crawling fare like Yakitori and yaki mandu. The Flowwa Lady is still here, but she has some assistants now. The older Madames still approach guys and ask them if they want a “nice lady.” Ma’s Boogie House is still there for you to drink your snake shots and get your t-shirt. There are still plenty of places to get bootleg copies of new movies. The orange Soju tents are history. The barber shops and the massage parlors are still off limits, as are the local pharmacies. There are still plenty of places to get blankets, cheap shoes, knock-off Rolex watches and Coach purses. There are still plenty of places to by knock-off athletic apparel of your favorite sports teams. Mr Lim still makes party shirts for your mess dress. You can still go to the marketplace and get happily lost in the maze of alleys as you look at all the different kinds of raw seafood [squid, cuttlefish, mussels, shrieking eels, octopus], about 20 different kinds of kimchi, all kinds of stuff.

There are still lots of great places to eat. In fact, there are more places to eat here now than when I lived here. There are Brazilian churruscara places [I counted three of them]. There are Filipino restaurants where there used to be none. There are still plenty of bulgoggi houses to choose from, but my favorite [Sam Il] is gone [a moment of silence please, I need a moment…]. Instead of serving great Korean food, they now sell blankets where Sam Il used to be. The Mud Hut bulgoggi house is still here. My favorite Thai place, Thailand 2, is still here and still serves great food. My favorite Chinese place [Kum Yung], which is upstairs from where the Burger King used to be, is still there. They still show movies on the big screen TV while you eat. There’s a new Japanese Sushi place on the main drag. We took Danielle there for her birthday – she’s a sushi fanatic. I’m happy to report the Sushi is outstanding. There’s a Japanese Fusion restaurant called Izmir [isn’t that a city in Turkey?] at the end of Aragon Alley. There’s a Vietnamese Pho place at the end of Young Chon alley. There’s a McDonald’s in the Ville. They serve the normal things, but they’ve also got the “bulgoggi burger.” Do yourself a favor – DON’T TRY IT!!! Yes, it’s that bad. There’s a Popeye’s chicken place where the Wendy’s used to be.

The biggest [and most shocking] changes are on-base. Instead of the “Wild West” show that used to be Osan, it is now more like Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The first thing you notice when you get on-base is the high-rise buildings. This used to be a one-year remote tour for most people, and “command-sponsored” billets [those two- and three-year assignments where you can bring the family] were few. There are so many families here now, the Air Force had to build more places to put them. It looks as if the condo developers from Destin came over here and had their way with the place. There is a high school and a middle school next to the dorm I used to live in [Bldg 736 next to the hospital]. Dependent children used to have to ride the bus to and from Seoul to go to school, but that is not necessary now. La Cantina [affectionately known as “La Can Kill Ya”] is gone. Now if you want Mexican food, the base has a Chili’s Restaurant. Popeye’s and Burger King had to re-locate because the school buildings now stand where those two fast food places used to be. The BX has moved. It’s bigger and better than it was, just not on the scale of that huge monstrosity at Ramstein. The arcade shops that used to be down the street from the base theater are now located at the BX. The food court is fairly large. Instead of just Anthony’s Pizza, Robin Hood and 31 Flavors, GIs can now choose from Pizza Hut, Capt D’s, Taco Bell, and Subway. There’s a Krispy Kreme here. We don’t even have one of those in Fort Walton Beach! The last sign that it’s not “my” Osan anymore is the presence of Starbucks. The Oriental House at the golf course has a new building. With all of this new construction and the presence of a lot more dependents, I guess the Air Force has assessed the North Koreans won’t be paying a visit anytime soon.

Yup, it’s not “my Osan” anymore, but that’s ok. Nothing lasts forever...

The Traveling Wilburys - Tweeter and the Monkey Man

The story of the Traveling Wilburys has been told by many [including me], so I won’t bore you with their history. The whole album was done for a laugh, and by far the funniest song on the album was Bob Dylan’s Tweeter and the Monkey Man. Until I heard this song I never knew Bob Dylan had a sense of humor. I always saw him as a “serious” guy. After Tweeter and the Monkey Man my perceptions of Bob Dylan changed forever. I first thought this was Dylan taking the piss out of Bruce Springsteen. The song even takes place in New Jersey, with a couple of places called out by name [Rahway Prison, Jersey City]. The song is filled with words that often crop up in Springsteen lyrics: Vietnam, nobody gives a damn, freedom, Jersey, highways, young marriages, car crash, surrender, gun, prison and to run out of gas. With all the Springsteen song titles present [Stolen Car", "Mansion On The Hill", "State Trooper", "Factory", "Mansion on the Hill", "The River" and a Tom Waits song covered by Springsteen “Jersey Girl”] how could it not be? But I’ve since learned it was just a playful homage since Dylan actually likes Bruce. Oh well…

The story tells the story of two drug dealers, -- Tweeter and the Monkey Man -- their nemesis, "The Undercover Cop", and the nemesis's sister, Jan. It is hinted that Tweeter is a male-to-female transsexual, in the lines: "Tweeter was a boy scout / before she went to Vietnam..." Throughout the song, Bob tells the story of the the fall of Tweeter and the Monkey Man [Tweeter and the Monkey Man were hard for cash/they stayed up all night selling cocaine and hash to an undercover cop who had a sister named Jan/for reasons unexplained she loved the Monkey Man...]. Jan kills her brother, because she loves the Monkey Man [even though she was married to a racketeer named Bill], and the story climaxes with a shootout on a bridge: "She took a gun out of the drawer / and said 'It's best if you don't know' / the undercover cop was found face down in a field... /" and "The monkey man was on the river bridge using Tweeter as a shield / Jan said to the Monkey Man, 'I'm not fooled by Tweeter's curl' / I knew him long before he ever became a Jersey girl'...". The verse that always got me laughing was “Now the town of Jersey City is quieting down again, I’m sittin’ in a gambling club called the Lion’s Den/the TV set was blown up, every bit of it was gone/ever since the nightly news show that the Monkey Man was on...” The line in Jersey anything's legal as long as you don't get caught brings The Sopranos to mind. Just sayin'... :-)

George Harrison’s twelve-string slide was the hook that got me interested in Tweeter, but with lyrics as humorous as these, how could you not like it? And not only that you can actually understand what Dylan is singing. That was a rarity at that time, or so I thought until he came out with Oh Mercy in 1989. So if you haven’t heard it before, take a listen. If you have heard it, listen again and enjoy!

This is my last blog before I head out to parts west tonight. Tomorrow Bob Dylan turns 70. With that said, Happy Birthday, Bob!

Tweeter and the Monkey Man