Tony's Picks - Westerns

I like movies. I like them a lot. I especially like war movies, film noir, and Westerns. If I was to list every Western that I like I would never be able to finish this. These are the Western movies that immediately come to mind as “must see.” Ask me in a month and the list might change [slightly]...

The Wild Bunch [1969] – This is Sam Peckinpah’s masterpiece. Up until the making of this film, no Western had ever been this violent or this bloody. Peckinpah’s vision was to have his audience feel what it was like to be shot. Until then, people got shot, people fell down, and they didn’t bleed very much. One didn’t see many bullet holes in people. Peckinpah’s use of slow motion amplified the effect of what bullets can do to “soft pudgies” once they made impact with human flesh. This is the story of Pike Bishop [William Holden] and his gang of aging outlaws [Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson] looking to make one last big score because they are all looking at the “end of the line.” Deke Thornton [Robert Ryan] is a former member of Bishop’s gang who is “hired” by a railroad boss [under the threat of going back to prison] to kill Pike and his gang. You know that when Bishop utters the line “if they move, kill ‘em”, that it’s “game on.” This movie features several Oscar winners [past and future] – William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmund O’Brien, and Ben Johnson. Warren Oates and Robert Ryan weren’t too shabby either. The Wild Bunch is my favorite Western.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [1969] – Unlike The Wild Bunch, this movie with Paul Newman and Robert Redford is a more light-hearted affair, but it’s just as serious. The theme is similar – two aging outlaws are facing an uncertain future in fast-changing times. Like Pike Bishop and his gang, they too are staring the end of the line dead in the face. After robbing one train too many, Butch and Sundance [together with Katherine Ross] are pursued all the way to Bolivia by a dream team of lawmen [hired by a railroad boss – sound familiar?], whose only mission is to catch and kill Butch and Sundance. This is one of those movies that if I’m channel surfing and come upon this movie, the surfing stops, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. “Who are those guys?”

The Searchers [1956] – John Wayne didn’t think much of Clint Eastwood’s anti-hero Western characters, and yet Ethan Edwards is as big an anti-hero as any portrayed by Eastwood. This is by far [it isn’t even close] the Duke’s best performance. John Ford once remarked “I didn’t know the sonofabitch could act.” Ethan Edwards is a Civil War vet [a Confederate] for whom the war never ended. He would never swear loyalty to the Union. He liked fighting so much that he went to Mexico to fight the French. A racist, unreconstructed rebel, he also thinks the only good Indian is a dead Indian. When Edward’s brother, his sister-in-law and nephew are killed and their daughters Lucy and Debbie are kidnapped by Comanches, Edwards [with his nephew Martin Hawley (Jeffrey Hunter)] goes in search of his nieces. The search takes five years, during which time Lucy is found by dead [and presumably raped by said Comanches], further enraging Edwards. Edwards mutilates the Comanche corpses he finds, gouging out their eyes so their spirits would wander forever in the afterlife. Edwards and Hawley catch up to Debbie [a sixteen-year-old Natalie Wood], who insisted she wanted to remain with her Comanche captors. Edwards thought “better dead than red” and tried to kill Debbie. But ultimately, Edwards and Hawley bring her “home.” The last scene is a poignant one. There seems to be an unspoken agreement between Edwards and all the other characters that although his dirty job is done, he has no place in a world of domesticity. A door literally closes while Edwards walks away.

Unforgiven [1992] – As great Westerns go, this movie deserves every bit of praise showered upon it. Clint Eastwood had the script of this movie in his stack of stuff for years, but he waited until he was old enough to play Will Munny. Character development is deep in this film. The Munny character is a sober, repentant widower with two small children and a drunken, violent outlaw past. Gene Hackman’s sheriff Little Bill Daggett is especially loathsome after he refuses to jail a cowboy who slashed a prostitute’s face. Richard Harris’s “English Bob” is a braggart who wastes no opportunity to trash America and has the conceit to travel with his own biographer. One does not feel sorry for English Bob when Little Bill beats the shit out of him for not surrendering his firearms. The movie’s payoff comes when Munny, after hearing that his partner Ned Logan [Morgan Freeman] is killed by Little Bill, starts to drink. Once he takes that first sip, there’s an “oh shit!” moment and you know that Munny is about to flip a switch.

High Plains Drifter [1973] – Carol and I always referred to this movie as the “Paint the Town Red” movie. There is a bit of the supernatural at play when a stranger with no name enters the mining town of Lago. He’s able to gun down three gunfighters without getting as much as a scratch. He manages to avoid getting shot when a prostitute tries to kill him while he’s taking a bath. He has dreams of the local sheriff and the night he was whipped to death by outlaws while the townspeople of Lago did nothing and watched it happen. Is the stranger the ghost of the dead sheriff? It’s never said, but it’s implied. When the outlaws who killed the town sheriff  are released from prison and return to Lago [by which time all the buildings are painted red] to settle old scores, they kill several of the townspeople, and take the rest to the saloon. The town [which, unknown to everyone, the stranger renamed “Hell”] is set on fire. One by one, the outlaws end up dead. It seemed as if he was both nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The next day, a tombstone with the dead sheriff’s name is placed at his hitherto unmarked grave. The dwarf who made it says he never caught the stranger’s name, but the stranger tells him he already knows it. He rides off into the shimmering desert heat and vanishes. Clint Eastwood made a similar movie [Pale Rider] in 1985. Only in this movie, the stranger is a preacher, but he’s really one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse [Death].

The Outlaw Josey Wales [1976] – Josey Wales [Clint Eastwood] is a Missouri farmer whose home is attacked by pro-Union Kansas militia. They kill his wife and son and burn his house down. Wales joins a Confederate guerilla band. When the Civil War ends, Wales’ band of guerillas are offered amnesty if they surrender and swear loyalty to the Union. Wales refuses. When his band surrenders, they’re quickly massacred, while Wales escapes and becomes a fugitive. Wales is hunted by the Kansas militiamen men and bounty hunters alike. His mission is to kill those who killed his family before they can kill him. When confronted by a bounty hunter we hear the best line of the movie – “Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’, boy.” When he’s identified by a snake oil salesman [“my God, it’s Josey Wales!”], Wales wastes little time in killing a group of Union soldiers who are dumbstruck by the sight of him [“Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?”]. There’s a predictable but satisfying climax when Wales and the militia commander finally meet. Chief Dan George provides the necessary comic relief to keep things from getting too serious.

Bad Day at Black Rock [1955] – Five Academy Award winners – Spencer Tracy, Ernest Borgnine, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, and Lee Marvin. Robert Ryan brings his usual intensity to a cast that [with the exception of Spencer Tracy] has a very dark secret to hide. This film is essentially a crime drama but is considered a neo-Western. Set in a California desert town after the end of World War II, one-armed Spencer Tracy travels to the town of Black Rock, where a train hadn’t stopped in over four years. The townspeople are suspicious of the stranger in their midst and act accordingly. Tracy’s mission – to give a medal awarded to the son of a man named Komoko, but Komoko is dead [the “very dark secret”]. One year before The Searchers, racism is addressed head on.

No Country for Old Men [2007] – Joel and Ethan Coen make a lot of off-the-wall movies, but this neo-Western [their first] isn’t one of them. Set in West Texas, this is a story about what NOT to do if you see a drug deal gone bad. Leave the investigating to the professionals. If you don’t, a psychopathic hitman with a birth control haircut will come after you and probably kill you for inconveniencing him. This psychopath will be like Robocop. If he gets hurt, he’ll shake it off like a minor inconvenience and keep coming for you. He’ll kill you, he’ll kill your wife, and he’ll kill anybody who tries to help you. Running away to Mexico won’t help you. If you’re a county sheriff and this happens in your jurisdiction, take one look at this carnage and ride off into the sunset of retirement.

Hell or High Water [2016] – Like No Country for Old Men, this is another neo-Western set in West Texas. The film is an advertisement for avoiding reverse mortgages. A family is about to lose its ranch due to foreclosure. Toby Howard [Chris Pine] and his ex-con brother Tanner [Ben Foster] have other ideas. To save their ranch, they rob banks all over West Texas. They launder their stolen money through an Indian casino in Oklahoma. They have the casino convert their winnings into a check made out to the bank that has the reverse mortgage on the ranch, making the money untraceable. Marcus Hamilton [Jeff Bridges] and Alberto Parker [Gil Birmingham] are the two Texas Rangers who are after the Howard brothers. Hamilton, who is constantly making Indian jokes at Parker’s expense, is close to retirement. But he and Parker figure out how Howards’ methods and their next target. Margaret Bowman steals the show with her portrayal as a very salty waitress in a restaurant that serves only T-bone steaks. Parker doesn’t survive the movie, nor does Tanner Howard. Toby Howard pays off the reverse mortgage and puts the ranch into a trust for his two sons. The ranch has oil under it, and it makes the trust a fortune. Ironically, Toby uses the same bank that tried to screw his mother out of the ranch to administer the trust, and the huge monthly checks that are deposited into it. Afraid to lose Toby’s business, the bank doesn’t cooperate with law enforcement to solve the Howards’ crimes, so they get away with it.

Hud [1963] – If a honey badger took human form, it would be Paul Newman’s Hud. He didn’t give a shit about anybody except himself. In his mind, rules that he doesn’t like don’t apply to him. He’ll screw anything that walks or crawls, especially if they’re already married. The Bannons have a housekeeper named Alma [Patricia Neal]. Hud’s nephew Lonnie also lives at the Bannon house. He practically worships his uncle Hud. Hud’s father Homer Bannon [Melvin Douglas] doesn’t like him very much. He blames Hud for his older brother’s death. Hud is highly annoyed with his father. Hud wants to lease parts of the ranch to oilmen to bring some much-needed cashflow into the ranch, but Homer wants nothing to do with oil. It’s a constant struggle between a man’s disappointment with his son, and a son’s constant anger at his father because Homer hates him. Things come to a head when their entire cattle herd has to be slaughtered because some of the cattle purchased by Homer have foot-in-mouth disease. A drunken Hud tries to rape Alma [saved by Lonnie]. Homer dies shortly thereafter, Alma leaves the Bannons for parts unknown, and Lonnie gets over his Hud hero worship. Lonnie leaves the Bannon ranch. One assumes Hud leases the ranch to the oilmen but that is never revealed.

The Long Riders [1980] – Four sets of brother actors [David, Keith and Robert Carradine, James and Stacy Keach, Dennis and Randy Quaid, Christopher and Nicholas Guest] star in this excellent movie from director Walter Hill that tells the story of the James-Younger Gang. You get the sense of the close-knit community of family, neighbors, and strangers who just hate banks that will go the extra mile to protect their local folk heroes. The outlaws are presented as family men. Jesse James has a moral code, booting Ed Miller from the gang after he kills a bank teller in a robbery. Before their last job, he got his nose out of joint because the rest of his gang were entertained at a brothel while he stayed at home with his wife. The Pinkertons who are trying to apprehend them were depicted as trigger-happy incompetents. The real Belle Starr was an outlaw, but Hill turns her into a prostitute. There’s a great knife fight between Cole Younger and Cherokee Sam Starr.[Younger wins]. The climax is an ambush scene in Northfield, Minnesota that pays homage to Sam Peckinpah. He would be proud. The post-Northfield downward spiral is completed after Bob Ford shoots Jesse James in the back. Frank James surrenders to the Pinkertons to bury his brother. Fade to black…As a bonus, Ry Cooder created a superb soundtrack which I highly recommend.

The Shootist [1976] – I have a soft spot for this one because it’s John Wayne’s last movie, and it’s a good one. It’s not great, but it’s good. J.B. Books is an ageing gunfighter who has many kills to his credit. He lives by a simple creed - “I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, I won’t be laid-a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people and I require the same of them.” It’s the beginning of the twentieth century [January 1901]. He’s dying and wants to see a doctor he knows [James Stewart]  in Carson City, Nevada for a second opinion. The doctor confirms Books’ original diagnosis. He gives him six weeks, maybe two months left to live, and that it will be painful at the very end. Knowing this, Books plans ahead for his own death. He doesn’t want to die a bedridden, agonizing death – he wants to go out in a blaze of glory. Until that time comes, he rents a room from Bond Rogers [Lauren Bacall]. Her impressionable son Gillom [Ron Howard] takes a liking to Books, who teaches him how to shoot. Meanwhile, two crooks try to kill him so they could gain notoriety for being the guys who killed J.B. Books [he kills them instead]. An old flame tries to marry Books, only for him to find out she wants stories of his exploits so she can “be somebody.” After ordering his own tombstone from the local undertaker [John Carradine], he invites three men to have a drink with him at the local saloon on January 29th, his birthday. One man [Richard Boone] has a longtime grudge against him. The other two [Hugh O’Brian and Bill McKinney] are eager to earn fame by killing the famous gunfighter. In the end, Books and his guests have their shootout. Books’ “guests” all die, Books is shot in the back by the bartender and subsequently dies, and Gillom kills the bartender. Given that John Wayne died of cancer three years after this movie, one can’t help but think this film is art imitating real life. The Duke wasn’t dying yet, but The Shootist is a very poignant elegy.

Trilogies

Fort Apache [1948] / She Wore a Yellow Ribbon [1949] / Rio Grande [1950] - John Ford’s Cavalry Trilogy. If you don’t like these, you’re unAmerican.

A Fistful of Dollars [1964] / For a Few Dollars More [1965] / The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly [1966] – What is understood need not be discussed. Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western trilogy that made Clint Eastwood a star. Any questions?

Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic and The Royal Scam

Steely Dan is one of those bands that people love to hate. George Carlin once listed people who should be beaten with heavy clubs as “people who sort their garbage, jog with their dogs and listen to Steely Dan.” Last year the recently departed Steve Albini, a self-proclaimed “punk that shits on Steely Dan,” wrote some tweets about how much he loathed and despised Steely Dan, saying that they sounded like a Saturday Night Live warm-up band and wondered why they would expend so much effort to sound like one. Writer Joe Goldberg referred to their music as “Hippie Muzak.” Carol absolutely hated them. So, to avoid being beaten with heavy clubs by She Who Must Be Obeyed, I stopped listening to them. Things have changed… I listen, but only in small doses. One can take only so much of Donald Fagen’s voice before wanting to hear something else.

But what’s the appeal? Dark humor and cynicism, something that’s right up my alley. Their music is a skeptical view of American culture populated with interesting characters, be they sleazy, creepy, desperate, obsessive, jealous, other various lowlifes, lots of losers and very few winners. Fagen and Becker didn’t take themselves too seriously. After all, they took the name Steely Dan from a steam-powered dildo in William S. Burrough’s Naked Lunch. Their lyrics were equal measures of humor, irony, and sarcasm. They finished each other’s musical sentences on both sides of the music and lyric divide.

Whatever one thinks of Steely Dan, they’re still better than the Eagles…

In 1977, Steely Dan crafted Aja, an album that is widely recognized as their best album. It's sound quality is such that if one wanted to test a car stereo, one could pick either this one or Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. When Walter Becker died in 2017, I wrote that Aja was my favorite Steely Dan album. Things have changed in the years since then. As good as Aja sounds, I prefer a couple of their earlier releases, Pretzel Logic (1974) and The Royal Scam (1976). Their notorious studio perfectionism started here.

Steely Dan started as Denny Dias’ band. A jazz guitarist from Philadelphia who had his own band, he put an ad in The Village Voice that read "Looking for keyboardist and bassist. Must have jazz chops! Assholes need not apply!" [little did he know…] The keyboardist and bassist were Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. They were Brill Building songwriters who met at Bard College in 1967. Dias, Fagen and Becker moved to California to seek fame and fortune. Guitarist Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, drummer Jim Hodder, and vocalist David Palmer joined their band and Steely Dan was born. They recorded two albums - Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972) and Countdown to Ecstasy (1973). Palmer sang lead on a few of the songs on Can’t But a Thrill but was relegated to background vocals on Countdown to Ecstasy. They recorded Countdown to Ecstasy in a hurry by their standards]. As Fagen and Becker didn’t like the sound of Countdown to Ecstasy, things would change for the next album.

Pretzel Logic is the album where Steely Dan entered its Plastic Ono Band phase. John Lennon described the Plastic Ono Band as a group where the membership varied from time to time, meaning that the group was whoever was in the room at the time. And so it was with Steely Dan. They stopped being a band and became a concept. Since Fagen and Becker were the songwriters, they took over the band, much the same way as Jagger and Richards did with the Rolling Stones. And since Steely Dan was now Fagen and Becker’s band, they decided to enlist studio musicians at the expense of Baxter, Dias and Hodder. Fagen and Becker didn’t like touring and preferred studio work. Skunk Baxter was a road dog who lived for touring. He left and joined the Doobie Brothers after touring for Pretzel Logic was done. Jim Hodder opted for session work [he later drowned in his swimming pool in 1990]. Denny Dias continued to play on Steely Dan albums, but as one of many session musicians. Pretzel Logic is the transition between Steely Dan the band and Steely Dan the concept. The core of Becker, Fagen, Dias and Baxter appear on every song. The first band casualty of Fagen & Becker using hired guns was drummer Jim Hodder. Relegated to background vocals, Hodder is replaced by Jim Gordon [Derek & the Dominoes, Traffic] and Jeff Porcaro [later of Toto fame], sometimes both on the same track. Bassist Chuck Rainey makes his first appearance on a Steely Dan record.

Countdown to Ecstasy had six songs that exceeded five minutes. The album had no hit singles. Their record company wanted shorter songs and hit singles. Out of Pretzel Logic’s eleven songs, only two of them were over four minutes and they were the singles [Rikki Don't Lose That Number (#4) and Pretzel Logic (#57)]. Both songs are still in Steely Dan setlists. I like nine of the eleven songs, to wit:

Rikki Don't Lose That Number – Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes there aren’t any hidden meanings in song. This is Donald Fagen giving his phone number to a crush in college, who was married AND pregnant at the time. Fagan is an obsessed admirer of Rikki. That percussion instrument that opens the song [cut from the single version] is a flapamba. The piano figure is “borrowed” from Horace Silver’s Song for My Father. Skunk Baxter plays the solo.

Night by Night – An ode to life on the streets with lots of horns and two guitar solos from Skunk Baxter that slay.

Any Major Dude Will Tell You – This one is a message of sympathy from one friend to another. Yawn…

Barrytown – Social satire set in a New York hamlet not far from Bard College. A commentary on racial integration perhaps? "I'm not one to look behind/I know that times must change/but over there in Barrytown/they do things very strange/and though you're not my enemy/I like things how they used to be/and though you'd like some company/I'm standing by myself/go play with someone else." Just a tad cynical…

East St. Louis Toodle-Oo – Duke Ellington! Becker uses a talk box guitar to simulate muted trumpets [very effectively]. Skunk Baxter uses a pedal steel to mimic a trombone [also very effectively].

Parker's Band – A funky tribute to Charlie Parker. Is the lyric “We will spend a dizzy weekend smacked into a trance” a reference to Parker’s heroin habit? I think so.

Through with Buzz – At 1’30”, this is Steely Dan’s shortest ever song. It’s also a throwaway. I treat it as such.

Pretzel Logic – A moody, bluesy time travel fantasy with traveling minstrels and Napoleon. Becker plays the guitar solos. A classic.

With a Gun – Biting satire with a “country” [?!?] shuffle. This is Steely Dan’s idea of a murder ballad. The humble narrator tells the story of a man obsessed with vengeance against those he perceives as doing him wrong, using a gun, of course.

Charlie Freak – How does one follow a murder ballad? This one is really dark. It’s told from the point of view of a guy who buys someone’s last remaining possession, a gold ring. The seller buys drugs with the money and dies of an overdose, all to the sound of jingle bells.

Monkey in Your Soul – Fuzz bass, great horns, and a nice solo from Becker. “I’ll pack my things and move so far from here…” Sounds like somebody’s had enough and can’t get away fast enough.

The Royal Scam is Steely Dan’s “guitar” album. Here Fagen and Becker made the full transition to their “band” being more of a collection of musicians at any given time. With the addition of R&B musicians Chuck Rainey [bass] and Bernard Purdie [drums], this is also one funky album. Becker put away his bass and switched to guitar. He thought Rainey’s presence eliminated the need to bring his own bass to the studio. Fagen and Becker employ guitarists Larry Carlton, Denny Dias, Elliot Randall [who played solo on Reelin’ in the Years], and Dean Parks. They also employ five background singers, Michael McDonald and Timothy B. Schmit among them.

As with Pretzel Logic, I like all but two of the songs [see below]…

Kid Charlemagne – Lead guitar: Larry Carlton. Based on LSD chemist Owsley Stanley. Rainey and Purdie make their presence felt immediately. That’s Becker chugging along on rhythm guitar. A classic.

The Caves of Altamira – Prehistoric cave paintings in Spain and a youngster who finds peace and solace among them. Lot of horns on this one.

Don't Take Me Alive – Lead guitar: Larry Carlton. This was inspired by crime in Los Angeles. The criminal in this story is suicidal.

Sign In Stranger – Lead guitar: Elliot Randall. Fagen and Becker do reggae [Walter loved reggae]. This one is a sci-fi place where a criminal can go to establish a new identity. "Do you have a dark spot on your past?/ Leave it to my man he'll fix it fast/Pepe has a scar from ear to ear/He will make your mug shots disappear…"

The Fez – Lead guitar: Walter Becker. A throwaway song about having sex with a condom. 

No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on/Oh no

No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on/Oh no

That's what I am/Please understand/I wanna be your holy man…

That’s all there is to this to this song. In my version of Hell, this song on repeat. I can do without this one.

Green Earrings – Guitars: Denny Dias and Elliot Randall. With clavinet all over this song and the playing by Rainey and Purdie, one can be forgiven for thinking this sounds almost like a disco song…almost. Some very tasty solos from Dias and Randall. The lyrics are about a jewel thief who shows no remorse.

Haitian Divorce – Lead guitar: Dean Parks. More reggae from Fagan and Becker. Engineer Elliot Scheiner asked for some time off during recording so he could fly to Haiti and get a quickie divorce. Fagan and Becker made a song out of it. Becker put Parks’ solo through a talk box. A good idea, but the talk box wears out its welcome. Depending on my mood, this can be a “skip” song.

Everything You Did – Lead guitar: Larry Carlton. Becker and his girlfriend fight over infidelity, and he wants to hear about everything she and her lover did before he finds him and kills him. Apparently she played the Eagles a lot [probably too much for Becker’s liking], to which he says “turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening…” This song could have been about my high school girlfriend, who also cheated and listened to the Eagles too much for my liking. If a Steely Dan song has vicious lyrics, chances are they were written by Becker.

The Royal Scam – Lead guitar: Larry Carlton. Just what is the “royal scam”? If you’re an immigrant, it’s the American Dream.

Pretzel Logic and The Royal Scam – two albums that maybe are not as immaculate sounding as Aja but definitely more interesting, and infinitely much better than the Eagles [or as my friend Alan calls them, the Egos].

I’m not the only one to rag on the Egos. I found this little bit written by someone under the pen name Streetmouse who had this take:

There's a Pretzel Logic conspiracy that suggests that the movie The Big Lebowski is a coded tribute to Steely Dan, and that much is related to this album. Most obvious is the prominence of the 'Dude' word, and the underlying attribute of the warm hearted ideal that bad times indeed don't last forever. Things get even more suspicious when you consider that The Dude's (Jeffrey Lebowski/Jeff Bridges) bowling teammates are named Walter and Donald, along with the ever-present bartender who is named Gary (Gary Katz, producer of Steely Dan's music.) There's also The Dude’s hatred of The Eagles, where The Dan and The Eagles both reference each other in verse, all with good natured ribbing.

The Beatles - Tony's Top 25

It’s all my sister’s fault. She gave me my first records. They were all Beatles records. When I was a little kid I listened to them all the time - Rubber Soul, A Hard Day’s Night, Meet the Beatles, Beatles ’65, and Yesterday and Today. She also gave me a 45 [more on that later]. All of that music was from their “mop top” era. I remember when the Beatles were still together. On the night we got our first dog way back in 1966, Help! was on TV. I don’t remember what it was about, I didn’t watch it [I wanted to play with the dog]. I just remember it being on TV and my sister watching it. I didn’t find out until many years later that George was her favorite. When I was old enough to buy my own records with my own money, I realized I was a “John” guy. His songs were the weird ones. They were the most interesting songs and they sounded cool on headphones. He was the sarcastic one with the acerbic wit. It wasn’t until many years later that he was also a bit of an asshole. Despite all of his foibles, I’m still a “John” guy. I remember where I was at 1030pm on December 8, 1980. It was a very bad day. The next day wasn’t any better. On the flipside, when Dana Carvey was on Saturday Night Live he used to do impressions of Paul McCartney. He often repeated the phrase [in his best Liverpudlian accent] “Inka Dinka Doo.” It doesn’t mean a damn thing, but it conveyed the feeling that Paul was a bit of a lightweight. He was the guy who wrote all the “silly love songs.” He always came across as a teacher’s pet. He was a bit too cutesy, which meant he was a bit annoying. But he got better… He’s still annoying, but he did write Back in the USSR and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, so he’s got something going for him. Ringo was, well, Ringo. He was the most likeable one [he still is].

Ok, here’s my Top 25 [25+ 1 honorable mention]

Honorable Mention - I Want You [She's So Heavy] [Abbey Road, 1969]

25. A Hard Day’s Night [A Hard Day’s Night, 1964] - the Big Bang - Beatlemania starts here

24. All My Loving [With the Beatles, 1963] - The first song from February 9, 1964 [Ed Sullivan]. If I can play John's rhythm part, I'll die happy

23. I Saw Her Standing There [B-side, 1963]

22. Hey Bulldog [Yellow Submarine, 1969]

21. Old Brown Shoe [B-side, 1969]

20. Let It Be [Single, 1970] - this one and Get Back are a bit repetitive, but I like them anyway

19. Get Back [Single, 1969]

18. Back in the USSR [The Beatles, 1968]

17. I’ve Got a Feeling [Let It Be, 1970] - this one is from the Apple rooftop live

16. Yer Blues [The Beatles, 1968]

15. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) [Rubber Soul, 1965]

14. Taxman [Revolver, 1966]

13. Rain [B-side, 1966]

12. Tomorrow Never Knows [Revolver, 1966]

11. Revolution [B-side, 1968]

10. While My Guitar Gently Weeps [The Beatles, 1968]

9. Come Together [Abbey Road, 1969]

8. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help From My Friends [Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967] - I can never hear one without the other, so I count these as one song...

7. Nowhere Man [Rubber Soul, 1965]

6. Dear Prudence [The Beatles, 1968] - the best song on the White Album

5. Here Comes the Sun [Abbey Road, 1969]

4. A Day in the Life [Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967]

3. Strawberry Fields Forever [Magical Mystery Tour, 1967]

2. I Am the Walrus [Magical Mystery Tour, 1967]

1. Help! [Help!, 1965] – This is the aforementioned first 45. This was my favorite song the first time I heard it over 50 years ago. It still is…

 

R.E.M. - An appreciation...

I didn’t get R.E.M. in the Eighties. Their music was something you heard on college radio, and I never listened to college radio. College radio program directors and I didn’t remotely have the same musical tastes. I was into classic rock, hard rock, heavy metal, and I began a love affair with the blues. I liked The Police, Pretenders, U2, and Peter Gabriel. I liked the Clash, and I liked English pop [there were quite a few one-hit wonders therein]. R.E.M. was one of those bands that was “political” with a small “p.” They weren’t partisan per se, but whatever political cause there was [environmentalism, what is now called “social justice,” gun control, abortion rights, Tibet, etc], you could count on R.E.M. [and singer Michael Stipe specifically] to lend their voices to the chorus. I wasn’t interested. I wanted to kill Communists. R.E.M. were critical darlings. Rolling Stone loved them. That fact alone made them suspect in my eyes. But the passage of forty years has a way of changing things. R.E.M. is but a memory, Rolling Stone discredited themselves with false rape story, and the Evil Empire is long gone. The issues R.E.M. were concerned with are still around, but they aren’t around to rub your face in them. Their music, which I avoided then, sounds a lot better today. Their music has endured, which is as it should be. I like it now.

Here it is thirteen years since the band called it a day, and only now can I appreciate the music. When Carol was in her final illness I became [and still am] ever more nostalgic for that time when we were the happiest – the 1980s. Given the sorry state of music these days, R.E.M.’s music sounds pretty damn good. What was the music’s charm? Spin Magazine described them as a cross between the Velvet Underground and the Byrds. Guitarist Peter Buck was a guitar anti-hero who eschewed guitar solos. His jangly Rickenbacker sound was the hook. Bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry were a rock-solid rhythm section. Singer Michael Stipe was the wildcard. One never knew quite what he was singing about. Perhaps he didn’t either. Maybe the hardcore faithful knew, but I grew up on I Am the Walrus and other John Lennon songs about nothing. What do I know? Stipe’s lyrics were oftentimes more than a bit obtuse. To compound that problem, he couldn’t enunciate to save his life. But somehow it worked. They had three distinctive phases – the college rock radio days when they were on an indie label [I.R.S. 1983-87], alt-rock superstardom after they moved to Warner Brothers [1988-96], and their final “three-legged dog” phase [Michael Stipe’s description] after Bill Berry retired from music [1997-2011].

Their fifteen studio albums can be neatly broken into each of the band’s phases [five each]. I know they didn’t plan it that way, that’s just how things worked out. Although the band were ubiquitous during their alt-rock superstardom [thank you, MTV], I find that my favorite R.E.M. came from their college radio days. It’s a cliché to like a band’s music before they move to a major label and hit the big time, but in this case it happens to ring true. I can skip their first two albums – Murmur [1983] and Reckoning [1984]. The songs were ok – the production was a bit thin. They hit musical paydirt with their next three albums – Fables of the Reconstruction [1985], Lifes Rich Pageant [1986], and Document [1987]. Fables sounds a bit hazy [as if that was a bad thing – it’s not], but Lifes Rich Pageant and Document are clear and punchy. One glance at my playlist below and you’ll know these are my favorite R.E.M. albums.

After Document, they signed with Warner Brothers. Green [1988] didn’t do anything for me – it still doesn’t. It hasn’t aged well. But the two albums that came next have aged very well. While U2, a band to whom R.E.M. was often compared, decided to become loud, detached rock stars with Achtung Baby, R.E.M. went the other way. After being on the road to support Green, they unplugged and made two rustic, mostly acoustic albums [Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992)]. Where there were once loud guitars and drums, there were acoustic guitars, mandolins, pianos, and bouzoukis. They didn’t tour to support them. They didn’t need to. MTV was in full flight, still showing music videos, of which R.E.M.’s were in heavy rotation. These albums sold by the boatload. After five years of being off the road, the band decided to plug in again. This band was a different animal than the one that last toured five years previously. The Rickenbackers were out, to be replaced with Gibsons and Fenders, all solid-body guitars. There were some good songs [which I like very much] from Monster [1994] and New Adventures in Hi-Fi [1996], but their jangly calling card was missing. It was as if they were trying too hard to justify the megabucks they were making at Warner Brothers. Or maybe they were trying something different for the sake of being different, and maybe that was the point. I guess if you want to grow artistically you have to try different things.

Peter Buck used to tell interviewers that his vision of the band ending was to play a show on New Year’s Eve 1999, and when the clock struck midnight the band would break up. I confess that sounds like a cool way to end a band. However, it didn’t turn out that way. Bill Berry had a brain aneurysm on stage in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1995. He made a complete recovery, but it made him rethink his priorities. In 1997 he decided he didn’t want to be in the music business anymore. There were other things in life he wanted to do. He showed up to the band’s very first session for their next album [Up, 1998], gave them the bad news, and left. The remaining three guys didn’t want to stop, but soon they realized the extent of the hole created by Berry’s absence. He wasn’t just “the drummer.” He was a songwriter, and his lack of songwriting going forward upset the balance. It showed in the music. Exit Bill Berry, enter the drum machines, tape loops and synthesizers. These elements might work for some, but not for R.E.M. Electronic music was not their thing. Up showed they could do it, but it doesn’t work for an entire album. Three good songs an album doesn’t make. Reveal [2001] upped the electronic quotient with uninspiring results. There were no catchy hooks and most of the songs sounded the same. It was pretty dull. There are maybe four good songs, but that’s it. Even worse was Around the Sun [2004]. There’s one good song – Final Straw. Why? It’s an acoustic song with the electronics kept to a minimum.

I found a very good article about the last third of R.E.M.’s career by freelance author Brady Gerber. Here he writes:

“R.E.M.’s final chapter is the story of how a family publicly tried to carry on after losing one of its own. In that sense, these last albums loosely and unintentionally play out as different stages of real-life grief. The coldness of Up is the sound of shock and denial, with drum machines replacing the human Berry. Reveal, touted as the “happy” record upon its release, is full of aimless and muted anger, but in that Brian Wilson way of feeling helpless and bitter on a beautiful day. Around the Sun, having nothing to say, awkwardly tries to bargain with new ideas…”

Damn, I wish I could write that well. Despite the doom of the first three albums post-Berry, the R.E.M. story has a happy ending. The fourth album of the period, Accelerate [2008] is a damn good album. It’s the album that Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi should have been. The synths were gone, the guitars were back, and they were loud. Michael Stipe enunciated! There’s an energy that was missing from Up, Reveal, and Around the Sun. This quality carried over to Collapse Into Now [2011]. The band found their mojo again, and having done so, they thought it was a good time to put R.E.M. to bed. One has to admire a band for working through a rough patch, rediscovering why they became beloved by many, and having the sense to quit while they were ahead. Not only did retire somewhat gracefully, they’re still friends today.

Tony’s R.E.M. playlist
Fall On Me [Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986]
The One I Love [Document, 1987]
Cuyahoga [Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986]
Swan Swan H [Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986]
Driver 8 [Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985]
Feeling Gravitys Pull [Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985]
Maps and Legends [Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985]
Old Man Kensey [Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985]
Begin the Begin [Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986]
King of Birds [Document, 1987]
Oddfellows Local 151 [Document, 1987]
The Flowers of Guatemala [Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986]
Welcome to the Occupation [Document, 1987]
Disturbance At the Heron House [Document, 1987]
Fireplace [Document, 1987]
Bad Day [Document, 1987]
Man on the Moon [Automatic for the People, 1992]
The Great Beyond [Man on the Moon (Music from the Motion Picture), 1999]
Losing My Religion [Out of Time, 1991]
Drive [Automatic for the People, 1992]
Low [Out of Time, 1991]
Try Not to Breathe [Automatic for the People, 1992]
Half a World Away [Out of Time, 1991]
Monty Got a Raw Deal [Automatic for the People, 1992]
Fretless [Out of Time, 1991]
Crush With Eyeliner [Monster, 1994]
Bang and Blame [Monster, 1994]
I Don’t Sleep, I Dream [Monster, 1994]
You [Monster, 1994]
New Test Leper [New Adventures in Hi-Fi, 1996]
Undertow [New Adventures in Hi-Fi, 1996]
Bittersweet Me [New Adventures in Hi-Fi, 1996]
Suspicion [Up, 1998]
Diminished / I'm Not Over You [Up, 1998]
The Lifting [Reveal, 2001]
Imitation Of Life [Reveal, 2001]
Final Straw [Around the Sun, 2004]
Houston [Accelerate, 2008]
Until the Day Is Done [Accelerate, 2008]
Living Well Is the Best Revenge [Accelerate, 2008]
Supernatural Superserious [Accelerate, 2008]
Horse to Water [Accelerate, 2008]
Discoverer [Collapse Into Now, 2011]
Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I [Collapse Into Now, 2011]
All the Best [Collapse Into Now, 2011]

Stephen Stills - Manassas

After their summer 1970 tour, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young imploded. With 20/20 hindsight, it seemed inevitable. As if having four highly opinionated musicians with titanic egos to match wasn’t enough, Stills’ girlfriend Rita Coolidge decided dump him and run off with Graham Nash. David Crosby wrote the coolest song of his career about the entire saga, Cowboy Movie. She was the little Indian girl in the story [Raven], Stills was the fast gunslinger from the South [Eli], and Nash was the group’s dynamite expert [The Duke]. Stills’ subsequent album after CSNY’s implosion [Stephen Stills (1970)] was a very fine album that mixed folk, rock, blues, and gospel. It is the only album to feature both Eric Clapton [Go Back Home] and Jimi Hendrix [Old Times Good Times]. Stills dedicated his album to “James Marshall Hendrix,” who died two months before its November 1970 release. The second album incorporated horns, and this is where things began to slip. Stephen Stills 2 was ok, but not as good as the first album. The Memphis Horns were just NOT a good fit.

The beginnings of Stills’ third album after CSNY started with a 1971 chance meeting Stills had with Chris Hillman in Cleveland. Stills was on tour with bassist Calvin “Fuzzy” Samuels, drummer Dallas Taylor, and the Memphis Horns, promoting his first two solo albums. Hillman later opined that Stills and his band sounded really shitty that night in Cleveland. I’ve heard the Live at Berkeley 1971 release – he wasn’t wrong. Hillman’s Flying Burrito Brothers were having their own problems with losing money and continuous turnover in personnel [most notably Gram Parsons and Bernie Leadon]. Stills and Hillman had known each other since the mid-1960s. Stills was with Buffalo Springfield while Hillman was in the Byrds. But in 1971 both men were at somewhat of a career crossroads. Hillman was weary of the chaos that was the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Stills wanted a foil with whom he could collaborate. Stills jettisoned the horn section, and went to Miami to record with Samuels, Taylor and two other musicians from his band – keyboardist Paul Harris and percussionist Joe Lala. He also invited Hillman and fellow Burrito Brother Al Perkins to join them. Magic ensued and Manassas was born.

Stills earned the nickname “Captain Many Hands” because he can not only play guitar, he also plays bass, assorted keyboards, and percussion. He handled most of the instrumental work on Crosby, Stills and Nash’s debut album as well as his first two solo albums. But Manassas is a different animal. It is the work of a band. Stills still played lots of parts, but he didn’t have to do all the work this time. Hillman played rhythm guitar [as opposed to his usual bass as he did in the Byrds and the Burrito Brothers] and mandolin. Al Perkins is not only proficient on guitar but is also an excellent steel guitarist. Paul Harris can play piano in any style. Stills, Hillman, Samuels and Lala sang four-part harmonies that sound better to my ears than those sung by CSN.

How does Manassas sound? The debut solo album effortlessly mixed folk, blues (acoustic and electric), hard rock, R&B and gospel. Manassas does that and more, adding country, bluegrass, and Latin textures to the mix. The songs of the album’s four sides are thematically grouped. Side One is The Raven [three guesses what the theme here is]. Latin-influenced blues rock, the sides five songs are arranged such that there are no gaps between the songs, like the medley on the second side of Abbey Road. The band would play these songs as-is from start to finish in concert. Side Two [The Wilderness] is the country/bluegrass side of the band. Chris Hillman and Al Perkins show of their talents here, bringing the Burrito Brothers vibe. There are steel guitars, fiddles, mandolins, acoustic guitars, and lush vocal harmonies that would make David Crosby and Graham Nash jealous. The Wilderness is the contemplative, back-to-nature side. One can experience the healing power of the Rockies [Colorado], lick his wounds and lament a lost love [So Begins the Task], then try to recover from it [Jesus Gave Love Away for Free]. Conversely, Fallen Eagle is a bluegrass protest song about helicopter-flying ranchers who kill endangered golden eagles for fun. Don't Look At My Shadow takes a detour to Bakersfield.

Side Three is Consider. This is the folk/folk rock side of Stephen Stills, Chris Hillman and Al Perkins. It Doesn’t Matter [which would appear with different lyrics on Firefall’s debut album in 1976] is my favorite song on Manassas. I first heard it in Fort Collins and it always reminds me of Carol. Johnny’s Garden is Stills’ tribute to the gardener who worked at the English house he bought from Ringo Starr. Bound to Fall is a Stills/Hillman duet that again strays into Burrito Brothers territory. The Love Gangster is a co-write with Bill Wyman that goes back to rock territory. It doesn’t fit with the rest of Side Three, but because of the constraints of vinyl it had to go somewhere. It is a good segue to Side Four - Rock & Roll Is Here to Stay. Right Now addresses Rita Coolidge running off with Graham Nash. Stills didn’t drop any names, but… What to Do is a commentary on CSNY. The Treasure [Take One] is “jam city.” There’s a better, shorter version to be found on Stills’ box set Carry On. Manassas ends with Blues Man, a solo acoustic blues dedicated to Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, and Al Wilson [of Canned Heat]. It’s a companion piece to Black Queen from Stills’ first album.

Manassas is for Stephen Stills what Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is for Eric Clapton – it is both a masterpiece and a career high water mark. And like Derek and the Dominos, the band that made Manassas didn’t last long. Chris Hillman was distracted by an ill-fated Byrds reunion in 1973, while Atlantic Records [and Ahmet Ertegun in particular] were more interested in a CSNY reunion, which happened in 1974. What a shame. Manassas is better than anything he did with CSN [and sometimes Y].

Albums I Listen To The Most

There I was… I haven’t written a music blog in a while, because after more than 300 entries, what else is there to write about? Then I found something on YouTube – “Ten Albums I Listen to the Most.” If you’ve read my blog before, you know that I don’t usually listen to “albums” per se – more like “playlists” [it is the digital age, after all]. I like compilations, especially ones that I can make. I can cherry-pick what I like and forget the rest. But where do I do the cherry picking? On closer inspection my playlists tend to skew toward albums that I really like a lot. There are times where I will listen to a lot of one thing. This week it could be Motorhead. Next week it could be The Clash, or Waylon Jennings. Who knows – maybe next month I’ll have a “what am I listening to this month.” But there are some albums that are my “go to” albums. Yes, there are a couple of Beatles-related things here, but unlike my teenage years this isn’t “all Beatles all the time.” Even I have my limits. Unlike the creator of the video that inspired this blog entry, I can’t narrow it down to ten, but I’ll try to keep it short. Here they are…

1.      The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East [1971] – The original six [Duane Allman, Gregg Allman, Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks. Jaimoe] recorded four shows on a weekend in March 1971 and captured lightning in a bottle. The original four-sided vinyl release contained seven [!] songs. There was so much material recorded that they had two and a half vinyl sides leftover for Eat a Peach. When it was time to do a deluxe version of At Fillmore East [2003], all the songs from the original release were there, Polydor added the live tracks from Eat a Peach and made a double CD package with thirteen songs. This is the version I listen to. In 2014, Polydor went the whole hog and released all the shows recorded in March 1971, and also the final-ever show at the Fillmore East [June 27, 1971]. I passed on the super deluxe version. The double CD was enough for me. My only complaint – no Dreams. They played it at the Fillmore West six weeks earlier – why not the Fillmore East?

The songs

Statesboro Blues / Trouble No More / Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’ / Done Somebody Wrong / Stormy Monday / One Way Out / In Memory of Elizabeth Reed / You Don’t Love Me / Midnight Rider

Hot ‘Lanta / Whipping Post / Mountain Jam / Drunken Hearted Boy

2.      Abbey Road [The Beatles, 1969] – This isn’t their best album [I think Revolver is], but it’s my favorite. It’s the last one they recorded, and it’s their best-sounding album. George Harrison’s two best Beatles songs are here [Something, Here Comes the Sun], as is John Lennon’s last great Beatles song [Come Together]. Ringo’s Octopus’s Garden is thought by some to be a children’s song [it’s not], but there’s some tight playing from all four Beatles and great guitar work from George. The medley on side two was a novel idea that worked fairly well. The only thing that keeps Abbey Road from being the perfect Beatles album is Paul McCartney’s Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. It has been and always will be a stupid, stupid song. “Granny music” indeed – just as crappy as When I’m 64, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, and Honey Pie. I don’t know what possessed Paul McCartney to put out such dreck. I loathe and despise this song [as did John, George and Ringo]. But even with this significant flaw, Abbey Road is still a great album. I wished there was more to follow, but these guys were done. They broke up at the right time.

3.      All Things Must Pass [George Harrison, 1970] – Of all the albums that came after the Beatles breakup, this one is the best. As much as I like John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band [1970], All Things Must Pass for me is the closest thing I will ever get to an Abbey Road follow-up. To my ears it sounds the most like Abbey Road. Paul’s first album [McCartney, 1970] had its moments [Maybe I’m Amazed, Every Night], but it was a decidedly homemade, lo-fi exercise. John’s album was a stark contrast to the slick Abbey Road. Ringo’s first solo venture was Sentimental Journey [1970], a collection of standards. ATMP was the best-sounding of all the immediate post-Beatles albums [having Phil Spector as a co-producer didn’t hurt], and most of the songs are of the highest quality. There isn’t a bad one in the bunch. I even like the extra disc of studio jams, cut mostly by musicians who would become Derek & the Dominoes later in 1970. This album demonstrated it was wrong for Lennon and McCartney to ignore George’s songwriting.

4.      Who’s Next [The Who, 1971] – After two years of flogging Tommy, Pete Townshend searched for a new idea to follow it. After much thought, he found one in the form of Lifehouse. He hit on an idea that combined spirituality, music, and a dystopian future. The problem with the concept was that he was the only one who got it. The rest of the Who were puzzled. The concept was hard to explain. Fifty years later it’s still hard to explain. After a year of trying, PT just couldn’t get the idea to work. He was about forty years ahead of his time. Lifehouse was supposed to be a double album, like Tommy. Carol and I had a running argument over which was the best Who song ever. She said it was Baba O’Riley. I said it was Won’t Get Fooled Again [we never settled the argument]. One begins Who’s Next, the other one ends it. Bargain, Behind Blue Eyes, The Song Is Over, and John Entwistle’s My Wife are sandwiched in between. Those are some pretty good songs. As good as Who’s Next is, it could have been better. Pure And Easy and I Don't Even Know Myself are better songs than Getting In Tune and Love Ain’t For Keeping. I’m on the fence about Going Mobile.

5.      Machine Head [Deep Purple, 1972] – We all came out to Montreux… On Made In Japan, Ian Gillan says of Machine Head “it tells the story of how we recorded it and what went wrong when we did it…” Smoke on the Water is one of rock’s most recognized, most indestructible riffs ever. But Machine Head has some much more – Highway Star, Lazy, Space Truckin’, Pictures of Home, Maybe I’m a Leo, and Never Before [probably the weakest track but still good]. My only complaint about Machine Head is what was left off – When a Blind Man Cries. As Ian Gillan said, “Ritchie no likee.” This is Deep Purple’s perfect album, and that’s saying something because they also have Deep Purple In Rock.

6.      Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures [Rush, 1980 & 1981] – In the 1970s, Rush did three albums of progressive rock that had long [sometimes side-long] songs with complex arrangements and science fiction themes [2112, A Farewell to Kings, Hemispheres].   As good as the albums were, you didn’t hear much of them on the radio, except maybe late at night when DJs could still play whatever they wanted. And let’s face it – one can take only so much of Geddy Lee communicating with bats. But starting with Permanent Waves, the songs became shorter, the arrangements were tighter, and Geddy Lee toned down the vocals. The Spirit of Radio opened the floodgates. More and more Rush songs began to be heard on the radio. While synthesizers had been a part of Rush’s sound [think Xanadu], here they come forward on songs like Jacob’s Ladder and Entre Nous. There isn’t a note wasted on Permanent Waves. All of these elements contributed to Rush becoming more “radio-friendly”.  The only “epic” is Natural Science.  I remember Geddy Lee telling Rolling Stone about making Permanent Waves that it was “time to come out of the fog and put down something concrete”. If there’s such a thing as a “perfect Rush album”, Moving Pictures is it.  Moving Pictures is the ‘big brother’ of Permanent Waves.  Synthesizers begin to come to the fore - the single Tom Sawyer and all of the album’s second side.  We get an unforgettable song about the price of fame [Limelight], fast cars in a world where they are banned [Red Barchetta], and an instrumental [YYZ].  Witch Hunt begins a three-album arc of songs about what scares people [it’s subtitled Fear, Part 3].  For me, the centerpiece is The Camera Eye.  This song is a very good balance between the old [Lerxst’s guitars] and the new [Geddy’s synths], and so it was for Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures. After these two albums, there was an imbalance between guitars and keyboards that wouldn’t be corrected until 1994 with the release of Counterparts.

7.      Master of Reality [Black Sabbath, 1971] – This is my favorite Sabbath album [with Vol. 4 and Sabotage close behind]. It must be the band’s favorite album as well, because when Carol and I saw them in San Jose in 1999, they played seven of the album’s eight songs [they didn’t play Solitude]. To these ears, Master of Reality is Sabbath’s heaviest album. Tony Iommi tuned his guitar down three steps as did Geezer Butler with his bass. The resulting sound was darker with a significant sludge factor.

8.      Physical Graffiti [Led Zeppelin, 1975] – Ask any Zeppelin fan what their favorite album is, chances are the answer will be the LZ IV or LZ II. Not so for me. Most of this was recorded in 1974. There were too many songs for a single album, but not enough for a double. They had leftover songs from the LZ III, LZ IV, and Houses of the Holy. Physical Graffiti has two blemishes – Down by the Seaside and Black Country Woman [I can’t stand Robert Plant screeching about having beer in his face]. The first and second sides are perfect.

9.      The Dark Side of the Moon [Pink Floyd, 1973] – What is understood need not be discussed…

10.  Workingman’s Dead/American Beauty [Grateful Dead, 1970] –American Beauty could well be sides three and four of Workingman’s Dead as they are similar. Carol’s favorite Dead song was Box of Rain. My favorite is New Speedway Boogie [Bertha is a very close second]. Box of Rain is Phil Lesh’s ode to his dying father, while New Speedway Boogie is a commentary about Altamont [Jerry Garcia pleading “one way or another this darkness got to give…”]. On both albums the Dead dispensed with psychedelic jams and concentrated on songcraft.

11.  Morrison Hotel/L.A. Woman [The Doors, 1970/71] – These are the first Doors albums I ever bought. Jim Morrison supposedly “whipped it out” at a concert in Miami in March 1969. The Soft Parade [1969] had horns and strings, two things that shouldn’t be on any Doors album anywhere. What to do after the disaster that was 1969? Seek solace in the blues. I wouldn’t go so far to call these “the blues” [except Crawling King Snake] but they are “bluesy.” Gone was the psychedelic acid-drenched music from the first two albums. The Doors became a hard rock bar band here. The music was no frills, no bullshit. One thing hadn’t changed - this music sounds best when played at night, especially L.A. Woman and Riders on the Storm.

12.  Superunknown [Soundgarden, 1994] – Not quite as old as the rest of the albums on this list, this is a monster of an album. Of its fifteen songs, Soundgarden played nine of them when Carol and I saw them at Red Rocks in 2011. These guys could be as dark and sludgy as Black Sabbath and as psychedelic as the Beatles. Superunknown is dark, moody, fast, relentless, intense, and thunderous. It’s also plodding when it needs to be. In my opinion, it is the last truly great album made by anybody. I miss Chris Cornell.

Tony's Picks - Dave Alvin

I saw Dave Alvin live once, though I didn't know it at the time. It was the summer of 1983 at Red Rocks. He was in a band called the Blasters, and they were opening for Eric Clapton. I had no idea who these guys were. They played music that sounded like a throwback to the 1950s. They looked the part too – greased back hair and blues bowling shirts.  KILO never played their music, so I had no clue about them. There wasn’t much of a music press back then. Rolling Stone was more interested in stuff like Duran Duran and various and sundry New Wave shit. They were no help – I still no clue. The Blasters were an unknown quantity to me. I couldn't name a single song of theirs. They played for about thirty minutes. Their music wasn't bad, but I just wasn't interested. I was there to see Clapton, who had yet to enter his Adult Contemporary Hell phase. While I didn't rush out to buy any of their music, I hadn't forgotten about them either.

About three months ago I was searching iTunes for new music when I came upon a couple of albums by Dave Alvin [Eleven Eleven and From An Old Guitar: Rare and Unreleased Tracks]. I know him by his reputation for being a damn fine guitar player. I knew he wrote Long White Cadillac [Dwight Yoakam]. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I did find was pure roots music gold. Alvin once wrote on his Bandcamp page “There are two types of folk music: quiet folk music and loud folk music. I play both.” This is the best description I have found anywhere that describes the music that writers classify as ‘Americana.’ Alvin’s music incorporates elements of blues, R & B, rockabilly, country, jazz, gospel, Western swing, Tex-Mex and Cajun music. Gram Parsons had a different name for it – he called it Cosmic American Music. Whatever one chooses to call it, I call it my latest musical addiction. As addicts are wont to do, I’m always searching for my next fix. Right now, Dave Alvin is the next fix that will do for awhile.

A fellow Scorpio, Dave Alvin was born November 11, 1955 [“Eleven Eleven”] in Downey, California. He and his older brother Phil [two years older] used to frequent places like the Ash Grove and the Shrine Auditorium. They would see the likes of Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Buddy Guy, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Not only did the Alvin brothers watch these guys, they got to be friends and hang out with them. They learned roots music from the source. They and their friends formed The Blasters in 1979. They were rockabilly but a little bit more, including blues, R&B and country. Their music could easily have come from Sun Records. The Blasters were contemporaries of Dwight Yoakam, Los Lobos and X. In the early 1980s they weren’t in the picture as far as musical interests go. English hard rock and heavy metal and American blues rock were more my speed, but as they say, better late than never. All was not well in the band, though. Phil Alvin was of the mind of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Dave wrote most of the songs and wanted to go in a more singer/songwriter direction. The Blasters lasted three albums before they imploded. Phil got his way, and Dave went solo. Of the band, Dave Alvin said: 

“The Blasters were 5 guys who all grew up together loving old blues, rockabilly, etc. So we were/are all brothers and we all played together and fought like brothers. It wasn’t just Phil and I who were fighting. We all did. That emotional intensity between all five of us is why I think we were such a tight and, well, intense live band. I left for too many reasons to go into but that intensity that I just mentioned, got to be to too much to take on a daily basis.”

Eleven Eleven and From an Old Guitar were the hook. I figured that whatever he did in between the two albums had to be good as well. He recorded two albums with Phil - Common Ground: Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin Play and Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy [2014] and Lost Time [2015] – and one with Jimmie Dale Gilmore - Downey to Lubbock [2018]. All three albums were done with the same band, The Guilty Men. The two albums with Phil were blues records. The album with Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the “hippie country singer” with a high lonesome voice, was a little of everything [blues, country, folk, rock]. It’s all good and I was “all in” – I had to get the rest. Not only is the choice of material first-rate, but I like the band. Alvin plays with another guitarist [Chris Miller] who plays slide. They trade solos much like two guitar players from a band of renown from Georgia. Phil Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore are great singers. Dave Alvin isn’t as good, but he doesn’t embarrass himself, either. He does that “half-singing, half-talking” thing the way Frank Zappa did.  Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore are recording their second album together as I write this. It will be mine!

Dave Alvin’s music is fairly eclectic, and I can put it into three different “boxes”: blues rock, singer/songwriter, and musicologist/song interpreter.

Blues rock

Romeo's Escape [1987] – After Alvin left The Blasters, he joined The Knitters [recording Poor Little Critter on the Road], a country folk offshoot of X. In a “seemed like a good idea at the time” moment, he joined X, long enough to record See How We Are. But Alvin wanted to go his own way. This album was Alvin’s first as a singer, about which he said:

“I had never sung before, and I had to get drunk to do it. So when I listen to it, I hear a drunk caterwauling. Now, I'm more gentle about it. It's taken a lot of years to figure out how to sing.”

Here Alvin rearranged three Blasters songs [Long White Cadillac, Border Radio and Jubilee Train] and the one song he wrote for X [Fourth of July].

Blue Blvd [1991] & Museum of Heart [1993] – If Raymond Chandler wrote songs instead of novels, this is what they would sound like. The songs are very good, the musicianship is top-notch. I have only one complaint – the drums are too loud. If I was “king for a day” I would fix that and put them lower in the mix. Dave Alvin’s songs don’t need an arena rock sound.

Ashgrove [2004] – After two albums of acoustic music [King of California and Blackjack David], Alvin plugs back in and looks back. The album alternates between blues rock and country folk. The opening title song describes the long-closed LA nightclub where Dave Alvin and brother Phil would see their musical heroes – Big Joe Turner, Lightnin’ Hopkins, the Rev. Gary Davis and many more. Not only does he look back but he also describes his own life of being a musician and all it entails. The blues are spread out in Black Sky, Black Haired Girl, Sinful Daughter, and Out of Control. He leaves the blues of the Ashgrove and heads for Texas where he does a country tune, Rio Grande. Another country tune, Nine Volt Heart, is a nostalgic look back on the importance of the radio in peoples’ lives. The hushed, fingerpicked The Man In The Bed is a eulogy to his late father. Somewhere in Time co-written with Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo and Louis Pérez which appeared on their release The Ride, released a month before Alvin’s version here. Alvin’s band of minstrels, the Guilty Men [including Greg Leisz], are superb.

Singer/Songwriter

King of California [1994] – Alvin decided, after three records with an electric band, to cut his next batch of tunes acoustically. Relieved of the burden of having to compete with a loud band, Alvin found his voice, to which he credits producer Greg Leisz. As with Romeo’s Escape, Alvin decided to re-record several songs from his back catalog [Border Radio, Barn Burning, Fourth of July, Bus Station, Little Honey, Every Night About This Time]. These songs from loud electric bands [The Blasters, X] are done in a quiet, intimate setting. He added some well-chosen covers [East Texas Blues (Whistlin' Alex Moore), Mother Earth (Memphis Slim), and What Am I Worth (George Jones), a duet with Syd Straw].  The 25^th anniversary release also includes a duet with Katy Moffat (The Cuckoo), and a very fine cover of Merle Haggard’s Kern River. The addition of several covers goes a bit against the “singer/songwriter” thing, but it does add to a quitter, acoustic direction that accommodates Alvin’s limited singing range. He’s not a shouter like his brother Phil, but with these songs he doesn’t need to be. The quiet arrangements and his low baritone voice are a perfect fit.

Blackjack David [1998] – Blackjack David picks up where King of California left off. Like King of California,  Blackjack David  is produced by Greg Leisz and was recorded with pretty much the same team that created King of California. Unlike King of California, Blackjack David has only one cover – the title track. The two albums complement each other very well.

Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women [2009] - Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women [2009] was done with an all-female band [most of whom are from Austin], excellent musicians all. The most notable collaborator is Cindy Cashdollar on dobro and steel guitar. The drummer is Lisa Pankrantz, who replaced Don Heffington in the Guilty Men [making them the Guilty Ones] after he passed away. There are two fiddle players [Laurie Lewis and Amy Farris], one other guitarist [Nina Gerber], bassist Sarah Brown, and singer Christy McWilson. The band came together as a one-off to play San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, but Alvin like playing with these musicians so much he wanted to cut an album with them.  The music combined folk, blues, rock and roll, Western swing,  bluegrass, R&B, rockabilly and Cajun. They change the Blasters’ Marie Marie into a zydeco number. Boss of the Blues is a Western swing nod to Big Joe Turner, with whom Dave and Phil Alvin got to know and hang out as teenagers when they would see him at the LA nightclub the Ash Grove. Nana and Jimi is about Dave’s mom dropping him off at the LA Forum to see a Jimi Hendrix concert. Downey Girl is about Karen Carpenter. They even recorded Que Sera, Sera [!].

Musicologist/Song Interpreter

Public Domain [2000] – As the title suggests, these are traditional songs that have been around so long nobody knows who wrote them  Instead of note-for-note recreations that would be museum pieces, Dave Alvin does these old folk, country and blues tunes in a most nontraditional way.

West of the West [2006] - Unlike his collection of traditional folk and blues songs, this one is a tribute to California songwriters. I am unfamiliar with some of the songwriters - Kate Wolf, Kevin Blackie Farrell, Richard Berry, Jim Ringer. Conversely, everybody knows the others – Merle Haggard, Jerry Garcia, John Fogerty, Jackson Browne, Tom Waits, and Brian Wilson. He also gives Los Lobos a shout. Wait! A Beach Boys song? Yes, Surfer Girl. It has to be heard to be believed. Dave Alvin the musicologist gives us a California history lesson in song.

I put the two albums with Phil Alvin and the one album with Jimmie Dale Gilmore in the Musicologist/Song Interpreter box

Just when I thought I’d heard all of Dave Alvin there was to hear, along came The Third Mind. He read a biography of Miles Davis that detailed how he made such works like Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson. Miles gathered musicians in a studio, picked a key and a groove then had the musicians play for days while he recorded the whole thing. Once recorded, Miles and producer Teo Macero would edit the music into compositions. Alvin had the same idea. He said “I had a crazy idea and was looking for musicians who perhaps didn’t think it was so insane.”  Alvin had a safety net that Miles Davis didn’t have [or need]. He picked music that was associated with the 1960s underground from the likes of Michael Bloomfield, Fred Neil, Alice Coltrane, and Roky Erikson. The musicians didn’t rehearse. They decided on a key and started recording to see what happened. They sat in a circle, watched and listened to what each other played, and improvised, as much as one can within the confines of known songs. Hearing an improvised 16-minute take on Bloomfield’s East West is well worth the purchase. It’s a tuneful psychedelic freakout.

In 1980, a guy named Chris Desjardins [aka Chris D.] formed a punk band in Los Angeles [The Flesh Eaters]. This band had three members of The Blasters [Dave Alvin, drummer Bill Bateman, and sax player Steve Berlin] and two guys from X [bassist John Doe and percussionist D.J. Bonebrake]. They recorded one album - A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die [1981]. Band members came and went with regularity. Chris D. recorded six more Flesh Eaters albums between then and 2004. In 2007, the ”all-star” lineup reformed and played shows whenever schedules allowed. They went back into the studio in 2019 and created I Used to Be Pretty. Of the album’s eleven songs, there are two new songs, three covers, and the rest are new recordings of songs from the previous six albums. Alvin gets to be just the guitar player here. Alvin gets to rip your face off on Peter Green’s The Green Manalishi, and the 13-minute finale Ghost Cave Lament reminds me of those really long Doors songs like The End and When the Music’s Over.

What about that Blasters music that I ignored forty years ago? In 2002 Rhino Records compiled Testament: The Complete Slash Recordings. I didn’t feel like paying $55 for the set on Amazon, but I found two live recordings from the reunited original band - Trouble Bound [2002] and The Blasters Live: Going Home [2004]. Of the 33 songs between the two albums, only four of them appear on both. This is a comprehensive enough overview of the Blasters, and it’s live [even better].

Here's my recommended playlist:

The Green Manalishi [The Flesh Eaters, I Used to Be Pretty – 2019]

Downey to Lubbock [Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Downey to Lubbock – 2018]

World's in a Bad Condition [Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin, Lost Time – 2015]

Mister Kicks [Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin, Lost Time – 2015]

Silverlake [Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Downey to Lubbock – 2018]

Harlan County Line [Eleven Eleven – 2011]

Johnny Ace Is Dead [Eleven Eleven – 2011]

Dirty Nightgown [Eleven Eleven – 2011]

Who's Been Here [From an Old Guitar – 2020]

Highway 61 Revisited [From an Old Guitar – 2020]

Sonora's Death Row [West of the West – 2006]

Murrietta's Head [Eleven Eleven – 2011]

Mobile Blue [From an Old Guitar – 2020]

Signal Hill Blues [Eleven Eleven – 2011]

Downey Girl [Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women – 2009]

Marie Marie [Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women – 2009]

Beautiful City 'Cross the River [From an Old Guitar – 2020]

Never Trust a Woman [Eleven Eleven – 2011]

On the Way Downtown [From an Old Guitar – 2020]

Southern Flood Blues [Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin, Common Ground – 2014]

Wee Baby Blues [Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin, Lost Time – 2015]

Get Together [Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Downey to Lubbock – 2018]

Dry River [Blue Blvd. – 1991]

Andersonville [Blue Blvd. – 1991]

Thirty Dollar Room [Museum of Heart – 1993]

As She Slowly Turns to Leave [Museum of Heart – 1993]

Stranger in Town [Museum of Heart – 1993]

King of California [King of California – 1994]

Fourth of July [King of California – 1994]

Border Radio [King of California – 1994]

East Texas Blues [King of California – 1994]

Bus Station [King of California – 1994]

Mother Earth [King of California – 1994]

Blackjack David [Blackjack David - 1998]

California Snow [Blackjack David - 1998]

Evening Blues [Blackjack David - 1998]

1968 [Blackjack David - 1998]

Shenandoah [Public Domain: Songs From The Wild Land – 2000]

Out in California [The Best of the Hightone Years – 2008]

Ashgrove [Ashgrove – 2004]

Rio Grande [Ashgrove – 2004]

Black Sky [Ashgrove – 2004]

Black Haired Girl [Ashgrove – 2004]

Loser [West of the West – 2006]

Kern River [West of the West – 2006]

East West [The Third Mind, 2020]

Ghost Cave Lament [The Flesh Eaters, I Used to Be Pretty – 2019]