Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland

Jimi Hendrix died on this date 42 years ago, and it's about time I wrote something about him.  Are You Experienced from the Jimi Hendrix Experience was one of the best debut albums in the history of rock, and its follow up Axis: Bold As Love was definitely not a sophomore slump.  How does one top these albums?  In 1968, Jimi Hendrix did just that when he created his masterpiece, Electric Ladyland.  Jimi and his producer/manager Chas Chandler had a falling out over Jimi’s work habits.  The album started in London like the previous two albums, but then production moved to New York.  Jimi liked to invite friends to the studio, and they usually came by.  Jimi would entertain his friends rather than get any work done, much to Chandler’s annoyance.  When Chandler quit the project, Jimi took the production reins himself and indulged his every sonic fantasy that he could given the technology of the time.  Luckily for him he had a sympathetic engineer in Eddie Kramer who had shared Jimi’s vision of sonic perfection.  Electric Ladyland saw Jimi expand beyond the power trio format of the original Jimi Hendrix Experience.  For the first time, Jimi collaborated with other musicians besides Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell.  Jimi was a perfectionist who liked to record many takes of the same song, much to the annoyance of bassist Noel Redding.  Electric Ladyland took several months to complete, but the results are well worth the time spent to create it.  Given all the sounds Hendrix got out of his gear using various amps, pedals, feedback and overdubs, Electric Ladyland is a sonic goldmine.  He covers a lot of musical bases – soul, jazz, blues, and psychedelic rock.

The songs:

And The Gods Made Love – This opens the album the same way EXP did for Axis: Bold As Love.  Completely unnecessary, but Hendrix wanted to play with his studio toys.

Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) – Hendrix plays soul.  Hendrix was insecure of his singing voice, but given this soulful piece dedicated to the “electric ladies” of his life, he needn’t have been.

Crosstown Traffic – A fast-tempo, stomping track with the Experience that’s a bit of a shock after Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland).  And yes, that is a kazoo playing along with the guitar parts.  He sings to a woman who is “hard to get through,” just like a traffic jam.

Voodoo Chile – Jimi goes to the Delta and takes Steve Winwood and Jack Casady along for the ride.  This is 15 minutes of live-in-the-studio jam that lyrically goes to “the outskirts of infinity” and “Jupiter’s sulphur mines,” but this is pure blues.  Mitch Mitchell’s playing is simply spectacular on this jam.  It sounds like it was recorded after an all-nighter at a New York club [it probably was].  A shorter version can be found on Jimi Hendrix: Blues.

Little Miss Strange – The Noel Redding song on Electric Ladyland.  It’s interesting to hear Hendrix play guitar and not have to sing while doing it.  During the making of Electric Ladyland things were beginning to sour between Hendrix and bassist Noel Redding.  This song may have been included to keep Noel happy for the time being.  This being a Noel Redding song it feels a bit out of place compared to the rest of the album.

Long Hot Summer Night – Of all the songs on Electric Ladyland, to me this one is the most forgettable.  Just my opinion…

Come On (Let The Good Times Roll) – One of two covers on Electric Ladyland.  This is a gem from bluesman Earl King.  It’s not bad, but not essential either.  Stevie Ray Vaughan covered this one on Soul to Soul.  He called his version Come On Part III – the Earl King original was Part I, this Hendrix cover was version two, and his own version was Part III.

Gypsy Eyes – When I first bought Electric Ladyland in college, this was the headphone song given all the panning between the stereo channels.  I've always loved it.  I pictured him singing it to a girl with big brown eyes.  Very psychedelic!

Burning of the Midnight Lamp – This is another blast of psychedelia from Hendrix which boasts a cool combination of harpsichord and wah-wah guitar.

Rainy Day, Dream Away and Still Raining, Still Dreaming – As Neil Young would once say about his own music, this is all the same song.  Jimi split it into two parts to bookend 1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)/ Moon, Turn The Tides…gently, gently away. I made a mix CD one time and spliced both together – they fit perfectly.  Michael Finnigan [later of Crosby, Stills & Nash fame] plays the organ here, Buddy Miles is on drums.  This is a jazzy, laid-back groove where he gives the wah-wah pedal quite a workout.  This piece is not really essential, but it does give a peek into Hendrix’s interest in jazz.

1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be) – Jimi uses the studio as an instrument to make this hallucinogenic dream his most trippy sound collage.  This 14-minute excursion into science fiction is Hendrix at his most cosmic.  Jimi plays the bass solo.  Chris Wood from Traffic lent his flute talents here.

Moon, Turn The Tides…gently, gently away – this is another sound effects thing that Hendrix tacked onto the end of 1983.  It gives 1983 a soft landing.

House Burning Down – Jimi takes a stab at social commentary.  Here he wonders why black people who are rioting in the streets of America’s big cities are setting their own neighborhoods on fire.  His guitar sounds like it is on fire at the very end.

All Along The Watchtower – This is the definitive version of Bob Dylan’s vision of the apocalypse.  Even Dylan said he likes the Hendrix version better than his own.  Dave Mason from Traffic played the acoustic 12-string, while Jimi himself played the bass.  Dave Mason originally played the bass on the song since Noel Redding walked out of the session [he liked Dylan’s original better], but Hendrix thought he could do better.  I can’t argue with the results.  His three-part solo [slide/wah-wah/straight – 2:00-2:50] is perfect.  The stereo panning of this solo bounces around the inside of your head.

Voodoo Child (Slight Return) – This is a great way to end an album.  Just when you thought All Along the Watchtower would be hard to match, Hendrix came up with this.  Unlike the blues jam of Voodoo Chile, this one is a much faster-paced reprise that featured just the Experience.  The wah-wah drenched intro is iconic.  Like All Along the Watchtower, the soloing is panned all over the place and it too bounces around your head.  Stevie Ray Vaughan had the balls to cover this on Couldn’t Stand the Weather and did a masterful job doing so.

How could Hendrix possibly top Electric Ladyland?  He couldn’t – this was the artistic peak.  After the tour to support this album, the Jimi Hendrix Experience broke up.   His next outing would be Band of Gypsys, a live LP recorded New Year’s Eve 1969 over which he had no artistic control due a contract dispute with another producer and another record label.  Jimi fought and beat a drug rap in Toronto, he began construction of his new studio in New York [Electric Lady Studios], and he had to gig like mad to finance both the new studio and his drug trial.  That didn’t leave a whole lot of time for creating another studio album.  Jimi’s studio follow-up to Electric Ladyland, The First Rays of the New Rising Sun, was a work-in-progress at the time of his death. Some of those songs [Freedom, Drifting, Ezy Ryder, Room Full of Mirrors, Bleeding Heart] indicated he was working on a pretty strong follow-up, but since he wasn’t around to finish it we’ll never know if was a true continuation of Jimi Hendrix’s vision.

Electric Ladyland is a must-have for any serious music freak.  It is one my “desert island” discs.  This album cemented Jimi Hendrix’s place at the forefront of rock guitar playing.  Forty four years after its release, guitar heroes of today are still trying to catch up. 

Why I Like Rush

A long time ago [I was all of 14] I was in San Antonio visiting a friend who used to live nearby when I lived in Ohio.  He was an Air Force brat who moved there because his dad got transferred to Randolph.  He knew I was a music nut, so while I was visiting he turned me on to a group I had never heard before.  There were lots of guitars, the bass was wailing, and the drummer was great.  The only thing was the singing – who was this shrieking chick and why is she screaming like Yoko Ono?  Only it wasn’t a girl, it was Geddy Lee when he was still communicating with bats.  The album was A Farewell to Kings [at that time it was brand new]; the song he played me was Xanadu, complete with Kubla Khan references from Coleridge.  This was during a time when disco was king, so anything that sounded like guys playing real instruments to music that something other than a four-on-the-floor beat was refreshing.  So when I got home I got their 2112 album.  And when it was new, I also got Hemispheres.  Little did I know then that I would still be a Rush fan in the same year when I’m about to turn 50.  After 36 years of listening to them, why do I like these guys?

They’re a power trio.  I love power trios!  Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience established the template for what a power trio should sound like.  Rush stuck with the guitar-bass-drums template with Rush, Fly By Night and Caress of Steel, the little by little they started to alter their sound.  Although they changed their sound through the years, it was still just three guys making the sounds.

The sound.  These guys play with the precision of Pink Floyd and the power of Black Sabbath.  Their arrangements are complex which require a high degree of technical skill to play.  Think of progressive music like Yes or Genesis, only with emphasis on the guitars instead of keyboards and you get the picture.  Like Pink Floyd, what you hear on the record is pretty much what you’re going to hear live, only the bass is a bit more pronounced - they have a thunderous bottom end.  Geddy Lee is a busy guy on-stage – he plays the keys, the bass, pedals, and sings.  When he switches between his instruments the transitions are seamless.  Geddy Lee is a monster bass player.  Lerxst [Alex Lifeson] is not mentioned in the same breath as Beck, Page, Hendrix or any of the other guitar heroes of mythic stature, but he more than holds his own.  He plays both rhythm and lead like Pete Townshend or Tony Iommi.  When he plays lead, the man can shred with the best of them.

Neil Peart.  The best drummer in rock – period.

Lyrics.  Sometimes the lyrics can be spot-on about human existence. Other themes might include science, science fiction, morality, death, dystopian society.  Neil Peart's topics are numerous and various.    Here's a few:

Distant Early Warning is a nod to the fears of the Cold War.
Afterimage is asong about death and is quoted on the inner sleeve of Different Stages.  Neil Peart’s daughter and wife each died within a year of each other, and as a dedicated to them the band quoted the following – “Suddenly...you were gone...from all the lives you left your mark upon..."
Red Barchetta – a car song during a time when cars are banned, like guitars were in 2112.
Subdivisions gets right to the point of the high school experience – either you’re with the cool kids or you weren't.
Limelight deals with feelings being in the spotlight and the difficulties of fame.
Between the Wheels looks at life and the inability to keep time from passing you by.
Red Sector A makes illusions to the Holocaust, a subject that would hit very close to home for Rush since Geddy Lee’s parents are Holocaust survivors.
Nobody’s Hero is a lamentation on the death of a two people – one a friend of Neil Peart who died from AIDS-related complications, the other a girl who was murdered in Neil Peart’s hometown.
The Way the Wind Blows laments the rise of religious fundamentalism everywhere.
Earthshine is about the phenomenon of light reflecting off the Earth back onto the dark part of the moon.

Tom Sawyer - "His mind is not for rent to any god or government" [the individual vs the collective].   I’m still trying to figure out “catch the spirit, catch the spit.” 

Influences [as told in various interviews] - the guys who influenced them are the same guys I listen to, and you can hear these influences in their music.

Alex Lifeson-

1.      Pete Townshend [The Who] - “he taught me how to play rhythm guitar and demonstrated its importance, particularly in a three-piece band.”

2.      Jimmy Page [Led Zeppelin] – “my biggest influence. I wanted to look, think and play like him. Zeppelin had a heavy influence on Rush during our early days. Page’s loose style of playing showed an immense confidence, and there are no rules to his playing.”

3.      Jeff Beck – “If I had to pick a favorite guitarist of all time, it would probably be Jeff Beck. The notes he squeezes out of that thing with a whammy bar, a volume control knob and his fingers are simply incredible.”

4.      David Gilmour [Pink Floyd] – “I also had a meeting with David Gilmour when he was here. It was the first time I’d seen him play. I went back to say hello, and he was a very engaging, charming guy. We talked a lot about the power of the acoustic in terms of writing, because it doesn’t lie. It tells you straight up whether an idea has merit.”

Geddy Lee –

1.      Chris Squire [Yes] – “I’d never heard a bass player placed so upfront in the mix. Chris Squire hadsuch a driving, aggressive sound… Squire’s melodies were brilliant, and they were definitely out there.” 

2.      Jack Casady [Jefferson Airplane] – “His tone was very different from other American bassists; it was edgier, and his riffs were really challenging — they aggressively pushed the songs along. I like when a bass player gets a little pushy and won’t keep his place. He steps out of line, but in a great way.”

3.      Jack Bruce [Cream] – “Cream were one of my favorite bands, and a very influential band to me when we first started out. Alex felt the same way; we used to play a lot of Cream songs.”  He “wasn’t content to be a bottom-end, stayin'-the-background bassist.  He’s playing a Gibson bass obviously too loud, to where it’s distorting the speakers. But it gave him this aggressive sound and a kind of spidery tone, and I love everything about it.”

4.      John Entwistle [The Who] - "John Entwistle was a bit more overt and flashier than Jack [Casady]     was. John Entwistle, especially on “My Generation,” just threw it all out there, and for a young bass player that was so admirable and ballsy and audacious."

Humor –Geddy Lee doesn’t use on-stage amps; he runs his bass directly through the front-of-house sound.   So what does he use to occupy this space that should be taken by stacks of amps?  Coin-operated clothes dryers or rotisserie chicken ovens.  During the Test For Echo tour, he had a fully-stocked household refrigerator there [stocked with Molsons or Labatt’s].  I read he also had a sausage maker for the last Time Machine tour.  I was watching the R30 DVD and saw these clothes dryers on his side of the stage and thought “what the hell are they doing there?”  That’s when I found out he doesn’t use on-stage amps.  And to make this seem even more strange, be they clothes dryers or chicken ovens, they’re miked!

Alex Lifeson is a pretty funny guy too.  As I watched the Rush in Rio DVD toward the end of playing La Villa Strangiato, Lerxst stepped up to the mike and started a nonsensical stream-of-consciousness  ramble to introduce the band.  He referred to Geddy as “the Guy from Ipanema,” at which time Geddy started playing The Girl From Ipanema.  The audience ate it up – I laughed myself silly.  On Lerxst’s solo project Victor, he did a “song” called Shut Up Shutting Up.  The “vocals” are his wife and her girlfriend yapping at each about men, all the while Lerxst keeps yelling at them to “shut up!”

Concepts – Their latest album, Clockwork Angels, is a concept album [their first] in its entirety.  To borrow from my last blog about Rush:  “In a young man's quest to follow his dreams, he is caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos. He travels across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy, with lost cities, pirates, anarchists, exotic carnivals, and a rigid malevolent Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life.”    

2112 [1976] is a full album side story of a guy who discovers music, despite the efforts of dictatorial priests of the Solar Federation who frown on such relics of their collective past.  The priests don’t like the guy’s discovery, and destroy the thing with “wires that vibrate and give music.”  The whole piece is a tale of the pursuit of individual freedom.

Cygnus X-1 is divided into two “books” that appear on different albums – Book I- The Voyage [A Farewell to Kings – 1977] and Book II-Hemispheres [Hemispheres – 1978].  Cygnus X-1 tells of a space explorer who is sucked into a black hole.  The explorer ended up in a world called Olympus, where he witnesses struggles between those who follow Apollo [the logical thinkers] and the people who follow Dionysus [the emotional people].  He is horrified by the lack of balance, the polarization of the people.  After Apollo and Dionysus hear the explorer’s silent screams, the deem him Cygnus, the god of balance.

Fear was originally three songs over three consecutive albums [Witch Hunt (Part III) - Moving Pictures (1981), The Weapon (Part II) - Signals (1982), The Enemy Within (Part I) - Grace Under Pressure (1984)].  Rush added Part IV [Freeze] on Vapor Trails.  Neil Peart once said that the idea he got for this series was something he heard from an old man about how the biggest motivating force in a person’s life isn’t money, possessions, or love, but by fear.  Each of the parts of Fear deals with a certain aspect of fear – the things that scare people [The Enemy Within], how anything that scares someone can be used against him/her [The Weapon], and the mob mentality [Witch Hunt].  Part IV [Freeze] is the fine line between running away from one’s fears and facing them down head-on.

Instrumentals – In Neil Peart, Rush has one of rock’s more cerebral lyricists, but sometimes it’s best to just let the music do the talking.  Rush is one of the few bands to record instrumentals.  Sometimes they work very well [YYZ from Moving Pictures, The Main Monkey Business from Snakes & Arrows], other times not so much [Where's My Thing? from Roll the Bones], but at least they do them.  La Villa Strangiato from Hemispheres is simply astounding.  Most bands won’t even try such a thing.

Mid-course corrections.  For Rush, anything worth doing is worth overdoing.  After the science fiction epics that graced 2112, A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres, they opted to slim down their arrangements to make their music more accessible to a wider audience [some would call that “selling out” – Geddy Lee called it a need to “come out of the fog and put down something concrete”].   The immediate results [Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures] speak for themselves about the wisdom of that decision.  After Grace Under Pressure, they went too far with the keyboards.  I can’t listen to Power Windows or Hold Your Fire.  Luckily they saw they strayed too far from their roots as a classic power trio.  I think Lerxst put his foot down about wanting to get back to guitar-based rock.  The producer they hired for Presto and Roll the Bones [Rupert Hine] was somewhat aghast that a guitar band smothered their music in keyboards.  Those two albums were more guitar-oriented, but they lacked balls.  By that, I mean the productions were thin-sounding, tinny, and had no bottom end.  Enter Kevin Shirley, who prodded the band to record “old school” – use analog recording equipment, get away from the electronic drums, digital recording, use vintage guitars/amps.  The result of this collaboration was Counterparts, one of my favorites.  Vapor Trails was too loud, mastered too high, and had all of its dynamics crushed out of it, especially anything with an acoustic guitar.  Snakes & Arrows and Clockwork Angels fixed all of those problems.  Throughout their history Rush have been able to see when they’ve gone too far in a certain direction and make a correction.  It’s like they actually hear and act on criticisms from their fans – very refreshing.

Live Albums.  Rush has put out eight live albums to date.  I have six of them [A Show of Hands, Different Stages, Rush in Rio, R30, Snakes & Arrows Live, Time Machine 2011: Live in Cleveland].  Different Stages is unique – the first two discs document the Counterparts and Test For Echo tours.  A third disc captures them in 1978 at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, so you have a nice “then and now” comparison.  They play with the same precision in a live setting that they do in the studio, but you know it’s live.  From Different Stages on to the present, their live sound is captured well – bottom end and all.  The separation between the instruments is very clean.  To hear them play La Villa Strangiato live [as heard on Rush in Rio and Time Machine] is especially impressive when one considers they had to record it originally for Hemispheres in three parts instead of all in one go. 

The songs I like:

Rush [1974] – Finding My Way, Working Man

Fly By Night [1975] – Anthem, By Tor & the Snow Dog

Caress of Steel [1975] - Bastille Day, The Necromancer

2112 [1976] – 2112, A Passage to Bangkok, Tears

A Farewell to Kings [1977] –  Cygnus X-1 Book I-The Voyage, Xanadu

Hemispheres [1978] – La Villa Strangiato [instrumental], Cygnus X-1 Book II-Hemispheres, The Trees

Permanent Waves [1980] – The whole thing

Moving Pictures [1981] – the whole thing

Signals [1982] – Subdivisions, The Analog Kid, Digital Man, The Weapon [Fear Part II], New World Man

Grace Under Pressure [1984] – Distant Early Warning, Red Sector A, The Enemy Within [Part I], Red Lenses, Between the Wheels

Power Windows [1985] –Mystic Rhythms

Hold Your Fire [1987] – Force Ten

Presto [1989] – Show Don’t Tell

Roll the Bones [1991] – Ghost of a Chance, Bravado

Counterparts [1993] – Animate, Stick It Out, Nobody’s Hero, Between Sun & Moon, Leave That Thing Alone [instrumental], Alien Shore, Cold Fire, Cut to the Chase, Everyday Glory

Test for Echo [1996] – Test for Echo, Driven, Half the World, Limbo [instrumental], Totem, Carve Away the Stone

Vapor Trails [2002] – Earthshine, One Little Victory

Snakes and Arrows [2007] – Far Cry, Armor and Sword, Spindrift, The Main Monkey Business [instrumental],  The Larger Bowl, The Way the Wind Blows, Hope [instrumental – Alex Lifeson solo guitar], Bravest Face, Malignant Narcissism [instrumental], We Hold On

Clockwork Angels [2012] – the whole thing.

Note:  I don’t have a copy of their covers EP, Feedback.  I’ve heard four of the songs [Heart Full of Soul, The Seeker, Crossroads, and Summertime Blues] on R30.  They aren’t bad – they’re just faithful covers of songs from their musical heroes.  Heart Full of Soul was different as it was done acoustically on R30.  It’s very weird to hear a band that utilizes so much technology to unplug.

They endure.  The band has been around since 1968.  Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee were still teenagers when the band formed.  In that time, many genres have come and gone – punk, New Wave, disco, grunge, boy bands, etc – but Rush has done their own thing and have endured.  They went on a 5-year hiatus after Neil Peart lost his daughter and his wife, but they came back when Neil was ready and they continue to endure.  They’ve made progressive music even though music critics over these many years don’t hide their disdain for anything progressive.  They still have their fans from way back when, and now the children of those fans wave the Rush flag.

Ry Cooder - Election Special

Ry Cooder has had a long, distinguished career as a guitar player.  He played with Captain Beefheart, Taj Mahal, and Randy Newman.  He recorded with the Rolling Stones [the slide on Sticky Fingers’ Sister Morphine is his].  In the 1970s, he was content to record other peoples’ songs.  He recorded music from the likes of Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Sleepy John Estes, Blind Willie Johnson, and other songs that are in the public domain.  In the 1980s he began to compose music for movies [Paris, Texas, The Long Riders, Alamo Bay, and many others].  In the 1990s he’d moved on from film music to work with musicians from other countries [Ali Farka Toure, Vishna Mohann Bhatt, and the Buena Vista Social Club].  He also worked with John Hiatt, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner on two albums – John Hiatt’s Bring the Family and the only album they recorded under a group name – Little Village.  In 2005, he started to write and record his own material.  In a trilogy of albums about California [Chavez Ravine, My Name is Buddy, I, Flathead] he told stories of the Mexican neighborhood that used to be where Dodger Stadium is now, stories of the adventures of a cat named Buddy and his friends during the times of anti-Communist and anti-labor feeling, and stories of a guy who drag-raced cars on salt flats.

All of this previous work has given Ry Cooder the label of a pre-eminent musicologist.  He’s well-versed in blues, Tex-Mex, rock, folk, gospel, soul, and old-timey string music.  After his California trilogy he turned his musical concerns to contemporary events.  On 2011’s Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, Ry Cooder discovered his inner Pete Seeger and became a latter-day populist.  He railed against Wall Street bankers [No Banker Left Behind], George W. Bush [Christmas Time This Year], Republicans in general [I Want My Crown, If There is a God], and rich people [Dirty Chateau].  He wished Jesse James would return from the dead and open a can of whoop-ass on Wall Street [El Corrido Jesse James], addressed the plight of Mexicans crossing into Arizona [Quick Sand], and he imagined a world where John Lee Hooker was president.  This year he continues in that vein, and this being an election year, Ry Cooder sharpens his focus with Election Special. 

One thing Ry Cooder makes very clear on Election Special – he doesn’t like Republicans.  The opening song, Mutt Romney’s Blues, is told from the point of view of the unfortunate Seamus, the family dog who used to travel with the Romney family while trapped in a dog carrier strapped to the roof of their car.  On one particular trip, Seamus literally got the crap scared out of him, and when the Romneys reached their vacation destination, Seamus ran away, never to be seen again [poor doggie].  In Ry Cooder’s world, Republicans are depicted as “evil” [he uses that word to describe the Koch brothers on Brother Is Gone].  They will take away your voting and reproductive rights [Take Your Hands Off It], re-introduce Jim Crow laws if they defeat Barack Obama at the ballot box [Cold Cold Feeling, Brother Is Gone], screw the “99 percent” [The 90 And The 9], bring back state’s rights, bring back Willie Horton and blame everything on Mexico [Going to Tampa].  There’s a song protesting the existence Guantánamo, and another about Wall Street that would have fit right in on Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down [The Wall Street Part of Town].  This album is a lot like Neil Young’s indictment of George W. Bush, Living With War.

As always, Ry Cooder’s playing is top-notch.  He’s pared the instruments down to guitar, mandolin and bass, with son Joachim playing the drums and other percussion.  There’s more mandolin playing than I’ve heard from him in a long time.  His guitar playing is still the envy of many.  His “singing” [and I use that term loosely] is an acquired taste, but I don’t buy Ry Cooder albums for his singing.  I buy them for the musicianship.  If you’re a Republican who is easily offended, this is not the album for you.  To those folks, Ry Cooder will come across as a crotchety old-blowhard know-it-all.  If you’re a Democrat, you are the choir to whom he preaches. 

Bob Dylan once said of his contemporary Phil Ochs “You're not a folk singer, you're a journalist.”  With Election Special, Dylan might say the same about Ry Cooder.

The Who - Who's Next

In 1969 The Who had finally broken as a big act with the “rock opera” about a deaf, dumb and blind boy named Tommy.  Tommy’s success created a problem for the band – what to do next?  Until Pete Townshend [hereafter referred to in this piece as “PT”] could find inspiration for a Tommy follow-up, the band released Live at Leeds.  Then PT got an idea – an idea that today, 40 years later, is still hard to explain.  PT’s idea was called Lifehouse.

“How could I make my subject of this new piece, this Lifehouse piece?  I want the story to be about music, I want it to be about the future, I want it to be about hope and vision, but it’s got to be rooted in reality…how could I make my character effectively deaf, dumb and blind without doing it again?  I’ll make him live in the future, and I’ll put him in a suit.  And he’ll be in the suit and he won’t live “real life,” he’ll live “pretend life,” he’ll live “spoon-fed life,” he’ll live “couch potato life,” he’ll live the life that filmmakers, storytellers, advertisers, political manipulators and brainwashers want him to live.  And thus he’ll be effectively deaf, dumb and blind to his spiritual potential, which is his freedom to congregate with other human beings, interact with other human beings and live what we now call life.” 

The reason people had to live in the suits [the “Lifesuits”] was because the environment had become so polluted the people needed the suits to survive.  The suits were connected to “The Grid,” which is similar to today’s Internet.  In this dystopia, rock and roll didn’t exist.  But a guru [like PT’s own spiritual avatar, Meher Baba] emerged to tell the people of rock and roll.  He told of how people could reach a certain Nirvana by listening to it.  And there was a guy named Bobby who hacked The Grid and advertised to all who wore suits about a rock concert where all the concertgoers can have all their personal information programmed into a computer.  Each individual’s information then created their own personal song.  As the band [The Who] is playing, everybody’s individual songs also get played by the computer simultaneously, and in one magical moment everybody’s songs combined to make that “one note,” what PT would call a “celestial cacophony.”  Once that “one note” was struck, all the participants would disappear into Nirvana.  The concert would be broadcast like pirate radio to those who wore the Lifesuits, and they too would achieve the musical Nirvana.  Got all that?  The group didn’t get it – not many people did.  Roger Daltrey picked up on one of Pete’s ideas, that being if you were going to find the meaning of life it would be a musical note.  The story of Lifehouse was told in the song Pure and Easy – “There once was a note pure and easy, playing so free like a breath rippling by.  The note is eternal, I hear it, it sees me, Forever we blend and forever we die.”

Baba O’Riley – This is one of the best opening songs on any album by any recording act.  Few if any are better.  Carol and I have a running argument on the best Who song ever – she thinks it’s Baba O’Riley, while I think it’s Won’t Get Fooled Again.  From the opening notes of the synthesizer you know that this is going to be a much different Who album than anything that came before it.  As part of the Lifehouse story, it’s sung by Ray, who wants to take his wife Sally and the kids and head south from London to Scotland [to “travel south cross land”].  That makes absolutely no sense as Scotland is NORTH of London, but I digress...Ray and his family make their living growing produce for the urban areas of the UK that are still polluted [Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals, I get my back into my living…].  This song shares a lot with the song Teenage Wasteland, hitherto unreleased by The Who but is part of PT’s DVD Music From Lifehouse.  The song itself was a nine-minute synthesizer demo.  PT originally wanted to input information of Meher Baba’s life into a synthesizer.  PT had come up with the idea that one could have all the facts and figures of one’s life fed into a computer to generate a person’s unique personal “song.”  This is what he calls “the Lifehouse Method.”  PT revisited that theme on the song Fragments on the Endless Wire album [2006].  PT took his inspiration for this piece from minimalist composer Terry Riley.  His name and that of Meher Baba are the origins of Baba O’Riley’s name, a tribute to both from PT. 

Bargain – This is the most spiritual song on Who’s Next.  I’m not sure where it fits into the Lifehouse narrative.  This is Pete Townshend’s song of devotion to Meher Baba, the one for whom he’s gladly give up everything to find and to be with.  To me, the song works within or outside the Lifehouse story.  It can stand alone and the message will work just as well.  PT’s acoustic guitar, sometimes heard alone on the song, sounds like it could through wheat like a reaper’s scythe.  PT’s electric solo is probably one of his most angry ever captured on tape.  He sounds angry, but he’s in control.

Love Ain’t For Keeping – This song is Who’s Next only bum note.  It’s under three minutes long, has no synthesizers, and is dominated by PT’s acoustic guitars.  It’s happy, it’s cheerful, but to my ears it’s also a throwaway.  The themes are living in the moment, share love instead of keep it.  I always hit the “skip” button here so I can get to My Wife.

My Wife – The only song on Who’s Next not written by Pete Townshend is this gem from John Entwistle.  The Ox said this was a leftover from his solo album Smash Your Head Against the Wall.  It was not a part of the Lifehouse story.  The Ox sings lead, plays the bass, piano, and all the horns.  My Wife became John Entwistle’s on-stage vehicle, a prime example of which can be found on the soundtrack album The Kids Are Alright.  On stage, there were no horns, The Ox’s bass was much more prominent, and it allowed extended soloing from PT.  Like most of John Entwistle’s work, the lyrics of My Wife are devilishly funny.  His wife must have been a force to be reckoned with when she got angry.  In the song, our hero has had too much to drink and got arrested [“I picked the wrong precinct, got picked up by the law and now I ain’t got time to think...”].  Of course his wife doesn’t know that – she might think something else is going on with another lady.  He’s going to have to buy all kinds of weapons [tanks, airplanes], hire body guards and go on the run if she even thinks he’s been with another woman.

The Song Is Over – In the Lifehouse narrative, this was to be the last song.  The Lifehouse concert has happened, the “One Note” has been struck, and all the participants, plus those who tuned in while wearing their Lifesuits, have disappeared and achieved Nirvana.  PT and Roger Daltrey alternate the vocals, Nicky Hopkins plays the piano.  The last line quotes the song PT was central to the story, Pure and Easy [“Sent him one note, Pure and Easy, playing so free like a breath rippling by…”].

Getting In Tune – This is a song about the power of music, something that is at the core of the whole Lifehouse story.  But who is Pete Townshend tuning in to?  Meher Baba? A woman?  I haven’t any idea the object of the tuning.

Going Mobile – This is sung from the point of view of Ray.  He doesn’t care about pollution because he lives outside of London.  He and wife Sally decide to pack up their air-conditioned motor home [“I don’t care about pollution, I’m an air-conditioned gypsy…”] and travel to London to go look for their daughter Mary, who has headed that way to participate in the Lifehouse event.  The Who recorded this as a trio, live in the studio.  The only overdub was PT’s guitar fed through an envelope follower that gave it a wah-wah effect but fuzzy.  I always thought it was kind of a goofy song but at least it sounds like PT is having fun for once.

Behind Blue Eyes – This is sung from the point of view of the villain in the Lifehouse story, a guy named Jumbo.  He’s the “bad man” in the song who operates The Grid, who wants to stop the Lifehouse event from happening.  Pete Townshend once said he wrote this song to illustrate how lonely it is to be powerful.  Up to this point it was unheard of for a Who song to have Keith Moon silent for over a minute.  The instrumentation is just PT’s acoustic guitar and The Ox’s understated bass. PT and The Ox provides Beatlesque harmony vocals until Moonie makes his entrance at the 2:18 mark.  

Won’t Get Fooled Again - Is THIS the best Who song ever?  I think it is, but others [including my wife Carol] will disagree.  The live performance of this song as captured on The Kids Are Alright soundtrack is what got me hooked on The Who in the first place.  The words “Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss” suggest that revolutions can and do have unintended consequences.  As fate would have it, WGFA was the last song from the original band to be played live.  Keith Moon died four months after the video below was filmed for The Kids Are Alright.

Lifehouse was originally going to be a double album.  But when it turned out the only person on the planet who understood the concept was Pete Townshend, the band scaled down the ambitious project.  Glyn Johns was convinced the songs were strong enough to stand on their own outside the context of the Lifehouse story; he was right.  So with that, Lifehouse the double album became Who’s Next the single, nine-song album.  Three extremely good songs got left off Who’s Next as a result – Pure and Easy, Let’s See Action, and I Don’t Even Know Myself.  I would replace Going Mobile and Love Ain’t For Keeping with them, but that is just Monday morning quarterbacking.  As time marched on, PT didn’t give up on the Lifehouse concept.  The Who continued to record more songs that fit in the story.  These include Join Together, The Relay, Put the Money Down, Too Much of Anything, and Slip Kid – just to name a few.  The main character of Lifehouse, Ray High, resurfaced on PT’s Psychoderelict and The Who’s Endless Wire.  A few years ago PT put together a six-CD package of Lifehouse material titled The Lifehouse Chronicles.  Two CDs are PT’s Lifehouse demos, one is called Lifehouse Themes and Experiments, one is Lifehouse Arrangements and Orchestrations, and the final two CDs contain the BBC Radio 3 radio play of Lifehouse.  I’d like to own it but I think I’d need a second mortgage to pay for it.  So until that happens, I’ll have to enjoy Who’s Next and all the bits of Lifehouse that I can round up from all my sources.

Jon Lord RIP

This is a blog I didn’t think I would write for years, but fate intervened.  This morning I received the sad news via the Internet that a brilliant musician, Jon Lord, had passed away.  Last year he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had been receiving treatments for that disease.  It was during one of those treatments that Mr. Lord had succumbed to a pulmonary embolism.  I had the pleasure to see Jon Lord with Deep Purple twice.  The first time was in 1985.  The album was Perfect Strangers.  The place was McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado.  My circle of friends in college all loved Deep Purple, so when we heard they were reforming, we waited in the ticket line for four hours, and it was worth it.  We scored fourth row seats on the floor, and as fate would have it, we were on Jon Lord’s side of the stage.  It was quite a night.  The band played everything we wanted to hear.  In the cacophony of sound that was Deep Purple, it was quite the spectacle to see Jon Lord rocking his Hammond organ back and forth.  We all thought it might tip over at some point because a Hammond is a pretty heavy machine, but it never did.  The next time I saw Deep Purple was again in Denver, this time at the outdoor venue Fiddler’s Green.  They were touring in support of the album Abandon.  Dream Theater and Emerson, Lake and Palmer were also on the bill.  Jon didn’t abuse his Hammond like he did in 1985, but to hear him do call-and-response solos with Steve Morse was simply breathtaking.

Who was Jon Lord?  Jon Lord was not a household name in the Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston sense, but in the rock community Jon Lord was a legend.  He was a founding member of one of my favorite bands of all time, Deep Purple.  He was their keyboard player, but he wasn’t just any keyboard player.  After the 1960s turned into the 1970s there were three hard rock bands to come out of England to gain worldwide fame – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple.  Zeppelin and Sabbath were four-piece bands – guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.  Zeppelin had their secret weapon in John Paul Jones.  He is a multi-instrumentalist who could really play anything that had strings or a keyboard.  Sometimes on-stage he would swap his bass for a keyboard instrument, usually an electric piano or a Hammond organ.  Black Sabbath stuck with their four-piece set-up.  If they had a keyboard player [usually Geoff Nichols], he would perform behind the stage curtain – you’d never see him on stage.  This is what set Deep Purple apart from Zeppelin and Sabbath.  Jon Lord was an integral part of Deep Purple.  A classically trained musician who had a love for the blues and rock and roll, Jon Lord was the instrumental counterpoint to guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, a fantastic but mercurial musician.  Jon Lord’s contribution to Deep Purple was taking a piece of furniture, the Hammond organ [then known mainly as a jazz instrument], linking it with a Marshall stack, and turning that “piece of furniture” into a fire-breathing, smoke-belching metallic beast.  He gave Deep Purple a second solo voice that set them apart from the rest of the hard rock/heavy metal bands of the era.

In 1968, Jon Lord founded Deep Purple with Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Paice, Nick Simper and Rod Evans.  The band recorded three albums with this line-up – Shades of Deep Purple [1968], Book of Taliesyn [1968], and Deep Purple [1969].  They had a Top 5 hit with a cover of Joe South’s song Hush.  During those early years Deep Purple searched for a direction.  Those first three records saw Deep Purple playing psychedelic rock, and some progressive rock with tinges of classical music thrown in.  Given that, the foreshadowing of things to come arrived with the songs Mandrake Root and Wring That Neck.  Each was a fairly short song on record, but in a live setting those pieces became vehicles of wondrous improvisation for both Jon and Ritchie.  In 1969 the Ritchie Blackmore had an epiphany.  He saw that Led Zeppelin had become successful by playing riff-based hard rock, and why couldn’t Deep Purple try it as well?  Jon Lord and Ian Paice agreed, so Rod Evans and Nick Simper were out, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover were in.  The first thing they took on as a group was Jon’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra.  This project was written by Jon, with lyrics from Ian Gillan.  It was a labor of love for Jon, but the band knew that they weren’t going to play with orchestras forever.  They let Ritchie have his way, and a monster band was born.  

What came next was a succession of some of the best rock ever committed to vinyl – Deep Purple In Rock [1970], Fireball [1971], Machine Head [1972], Made In Japan [1973], Who Do We Think We Are [1973], and Burn [1974].  My favorite Jon Lord moments with Deep Purple – Speed King, Flight of the Rat and Child In Time from Deep Purple In Rock, Highway Star, Lazy and Space Truckin’ from Made in Japan, the title track from Burn, and Mandrake Root [In Concert 1970/72, 1980].  Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left Deep Purple in June 1973, to be replaced by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes respectively.  They made one great album [Burn, 1974] and one not-so-great album [Stormbringer, 1974], Ritchie left the band in 1975, to be succeeded [not “replaced”] by Tommy Bolin.  Deep Purple made Come Taste the Band with Bolin.  It was a good album, definitely better than Stormbringer.  A highlight for me was the Lord/Hughes piece This Time Around/Owed to “G.”  Things didn’t last long with Tommy Bolin, and Deep Purple split up in 1976.  A couple of years after that split, David Coverdale formed his own band, Whitesnake.  Jon Lord joined as a hired hand.  He wasn’t a soloist in Whitesnake like he was with Deep Purple. Whitesnake was a two-guitar blues rock band, so Jon added “color” to the music of Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody.  But out of all the music that Whitesnake produced during Jon Lord’s stint in the band, I fondly remember one song – Here I Go Again.  It was originally released in 1982 on the Saints & Sinners album.  On this album, it wasn’t the fluffy, synthesized arena rock crap that came out in 1987.  This version was more earthy and more real, more so because of Jon Lord’s Hammond organ.  He stayed with Whitesnake until Deep Purple reformed with the Mk II line-up in 1984.

Jon Lord stayed with Deep Purple until 2002.  The band maintained a very busy touring schedule, one that began to wear on him.  So he amicably left the band to pursue his love for classical music.  Although he played hard rock with Deep Purple and Whitesnake to pay the bills, Jon Lord still maintained an interest in and a commitment to classical music.  He recorded several works during that time – Gemini Suite [1972], Windows [1974], Sarabande [1976], Before I Forget [1982].  Since leaving Deep Purple, Jon Lord composed and recorded several classical works – Durham Concerto [2007], Boom of the Tingling Strings [2008], and To Notice Such Things [2010].  He recently re-recorded his Concerto for Group and Orchestra which will sadly be released posthumously.  They’re available as MP3s, so I think I will check them out.  The last thing I heard from Jon was a song he played on from Ian Gillan and Tony Iommi called Out of My Mind.  This was released under the banner WhoCares for charity.  The charity is support for Armenian music schools, a thing very near and dear to both Gillan and Iommi.  It was very cool to hear Jon Lord and Tony Iommi on the same recording.

Jon Lord left behind him a large musical body of work. One never wants to see a favorite musician or actor pass away, especially when he/she is still active and creative.  I knew he was sick with cancer but I didn’t know how sick he was until he canceled an appearance in Germany not too long ago.  That said, he had a helluva ride and left behind a lot of great music which I will enjoy for the rest of my days.  Hopefully you will too.

RIP Jon – say hi to Ronnie James Dio.

It’s unthinkable that Jon is gone.  My thoughts are for his wife Vicky and all his children and family at this sad moment in their lives.  I wish them all strength.
A great sadness and sense of loss hangs over me.  Not only has the music world lost a fantastic musician but a gentleman of the finest order.  He was a giant in my life, a great friend, a fellow traveler, a teacher, not only of music, but of life.  I am devastated at his passing - Roger Glover

Our beloved Jon passed away on this day Monday 16th July 2012.
We have lost a dear friend, a brother and a wonderful musician.
His dignity and graciousness touched us all. His music was an inspiration and took us to places beyond our imagination…
A truly great man.
We humbly express our eternal love and great respect.
Deep Purple

Friends: I have just landed in LA from London, to hear the sad news of the passing of our brother Jon Lord. I will miss him. – Glenn Hughes

All the members of Whitesnake & all at Whitesnake.com wish to express their sincere condolences to Jon's Family, Friends & Fans...David Coverdale said "It was an absolute joy & pleasure for me to know him & to work alongside him. He is missed already."

The news today has hurt me like no other loss of a musician I have known. I can only thank him for the legacy he has left us all with his great music, great vision and for his kindness as he was one of the most gentle and kind persons I have ever had the pleasure of being able to call my friend. My heart goes out to Vicki his wife and all his family. – Rick Wakeman

"Farewell To A Gentleman.
Jon has left us now but his music and inspiration will live forever.
I am deeply saddened by his departure."- Keith Emerson

A statement from his representatives reads simply: "Jon passes from Darkness to Light".

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

I’ve been writing this blog for years, but I haven’t written much about Led Zeppelin.  That’s about to change.  1975 was a good year for rock and roll.  Bob Dylan gave us Blood on the Tracks, Pink Floyd provided us with Wish You Were Here, and Queen broke out with A Night at the Opera and their calling card Bohemian Rhapsody.  Add to those albums Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti.  A double album, Physical Graffiti covered a lot of musical ground, Zeppelin’s sixth album and their first for their own label, Swan Song.  There’s hard rock, funk, blues, folk, country, pop and Middle Eastern music.  In my humble opinion, I think it’s their best album.  Given what came after, 20/20 hindsight shows Physical Graffiti to be Led Zeppelin’s peak.  In 1974, Led Zeppelin gathered at Headley Grange, an English country house where they recorded music for their untitled fourth album.  They finished eight songs at Headley Grange.  They had more music than a single album, but not enough for a double, so to fill out a double album they added outtakes from LZ III, the fourth album, and Houses of the Holy.  There are fifteen songs total, thirteen of which I like a lot. 

Custard Pie – This is a straight forward rocker with a crunchy riff. Jimmy Page’s riff sets the mood for the album and displays Led Zeppelin at their “tight but loose” best. Robert Plant later sampled [others would say “stolen”] for his song Tall Cool One.  And speaking of stealing, Robert Plant pinched the lyrics word for word from the Sleepy John Estes Drop Down Mama.  It wasn’t the first time [nor would it be the last] time that Zeppelin appropriated someone else’s work without giving them credit.  The music is all Zeppelin though.

The Rover – This one is an outtake from Houses of the Holy.  It’s another straight ahead rocker.  Unlike the rest of the songs on the album, the guitar sound here has quite a bit of distortion.  John Paul Jones’ bass plays along note for note with the guitar riff.  The Rover was a bit hard for Houses of the Holy, as was Walter’s Walk [later released on Coda], so saving it for another day was a good call.

In My Time of Dying – The longest studio recording by Led Zeppelin, the band travels south for some blues.  This is one of the few songs where Jimmy Page uses a slide.   He uses an open A tuning (EAEAC#E).  Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham are locked in tight.  This time Robert Plant took the lyrics from the tune of the same name from Bob Dylan’s debut album.  On that album the song was credited “Trad. Arr. Dylan.” Dylan’s arrangement was based on Blind Willie Jefferson’s Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed, but every word from the Dylan version appeared in the Zeppelin version.  At least the music is all Zeppelin.  It’s long, but because it’s so good it doesn’t seem like it.  Some long songs drag on forever – this isn’t one of them.

Houses of the Holy – By all rights this song should have appeared on the Houses of the Holy album.  By Led Zeppelin standards this would qualify as “pop.”  Perhaps it wasn’t strange enough, but it’s definitely a better song than The Crunge.

Trampled Under Foot – Thanks to John Paul Jones’ clavinet, this song is Zeppelin at their funkiest.  Page’s guitar weaves in and out and around the clavinet.  It’s a very good song.  At their last show in London in 2007, Robert Plant said this song was based on Robert Johnson’s Terraplane Blues.  Here’s an interesting footnote – when John Bonham’s son Jason was old enough, John let Jason play this in his place during a soundcheck.  I heard it on the radio a long time ago.  This was the one time Bonzo got to “see” Led Zeppelin.

Kashmir – For any people, Stairway to Heaven is their favorite Zeppelin song.  My favorite is Kashmir.  Inspired by a road trip through Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, this Middle Eastern tinged song is played in the DADGAD tuning.  I think this song more than any other captures Zeppelin’s essence.  The strings playing along with Page’s riff was a cool idea, and John Paul Jones’ Mellotron gives the song more of an eastern character.  There’s no guitar solo, but Kashmir doesn’t need one.  I don’t have any idea how the “Kashmir” reference got in there since it’s nowhere near Morocco, but that is just a minor quibble with a great song.

In the Light – This one gets a bit strange.  The song starts with what sounds like a hurdy gurdy drone, Jimmy Page drawing a violin bow across an acoustic guitar, and a synthesizer that sounds to me like whale calls.  IMHO, the song is about two minutes too long, but again that’s a minor quibble.  This is another cool Zeppelin song.

Bron-yr-aur – In My Time of Dying was Zeppelin’s longest studio recording.  This solo acoustic piece originally destined for Led Zeppelin III is their shortest song.  Page used a C6 tuning (CACGCE).  I will learn how to play it someday…

Down by the Seaside – This was recorded during the sessions for the untitled fourth LZ album.  I utterly loathe and despise this song, maybe because of the one line “Can the people hear, What the little fish are sayin'.”  I just don’t have any use for songs that sound like a country song recorded underwater.  It just doesn’t work for me. They made a good call in not putting it on the fourth album.  They made a bad call by letting it see the light of day.

Ten Years Gone – Robert Plant once said this song was about a girl who made him chose between her and his music career.  This one has a lot of overdubbed guitar parts, so many that I wonder how Page played it in concert. 

Night Flight – This one is an outtake from the fourth album.  JPJ’s Hammond organ didn’t fit the vibe of the rest of those songs, and they already had a “keyboard” song with Misty Mountain Hop.  This song was too good to let gather dust for too long, so I’m glad they unearthed it for Physical Graffiti.  Robert Plant once said this was about a draft dodger avoiding Vietnam by fleeing to Canada.  It’s one of the few Zeppelin songs to not have a guitar solo.

The Wanton Song - This song has a neat riff and backwards echo on the guitar.  During the guitar solo it sounds like it’s played through a Leslie speaker.  The Wanton Song is a powerful hard rocker.

Boogie With Stu – This is another fourth album outtake.  The “Stu” in question is Ian Stewart of Rolling Stones fame.  This is the first song I learned for mandolin.  The words are lifted from Richie Valens’ Ooh My Head, but at least the band gave credit to his mother.  This song is filler, but at least its fun.

Black Country Woman – Another filler, but unlike Boogie With Stu this one grates on my nerves.  The song begins with the words “Hey hey mama, what’s the matter here?”  The answer is very simple – this entire song.  If it was a newborn baby, it should have been shot at birth.  Why would I want to hear Robert Plant screeching about having beer on his face?  That’s right…I wouldn’t.

Sick Again – This is Robert Plant’s ode/lament to young groupies, whom he called the “L.A. Queens.”  John Bonham is relentless, as is Jimmy Page.  Like Ten Years Gone, Sick Again has many layered guitar parts.  Jimmy Page must have been one overworked guitarist in a live setting.

Led Zeppelin did two more studio albums after Physical Graffiti – Presence [1976] and In Through the Out Door [1979].  Each had their moments, but they didn’t scale as many heights, didn’t have the musical diversity, or didn’t swagger like Physical Graffiti.