There’s a YouTube video out there which isolates Entwistle playing bass on ‘Won’t get Fooled Again.’ It shows he really can play the hell out of the bass. One of the best of all time other musicians agree.
So, that’s a good way to listen to this album. If the song doesn’t grab you, or more likely, if the lyrics seem bad, — then listen for the bass and marvel at the bass runs. You do have Peter Frampton on this record, playing some nice lead guitar. And there are some good tuneful songs here that must have seemed much more intelligent to my 19-year-old ears then after 40 years of life experience after that.
I remember liking this album a lot more than I do now after three or four listens, For me in my now self, it is good but not at all the undiscovered gem that I thought I remembered. Alternatively, the Dave Davies solo stuff, another band member of a major group, stands up better over time. Such are the surprises when you pick through your past.
Maybe it’s songs like ‘I Feel Better’ and ‘Who Cares’ and which come across as angry break-up songs with not a shred of humor or, maybe, perspective.
From ‘I Feel Better,’ ‘You can’t keep an animal that ain’t been tamed, you didn’t even know the fellow’s name.’
‘Who Cares‘ is one that if you ignore the lyrics, the bass and guitar interplay is pretty amazing as the song does a long fade.
From ‘Thinking it Over’ he sings: “Thinking it over I decided not to worry, I decided to take my own life.’
Dark and funny I appreciate. Dark and not funny is, well dark.
I pulled this out of the collection and couldn’t recall a song on it but had the feeling that I used to like this. Ely, pronounced Eeelee, is a Texas roots rocker who was once good friends with Joe Strummer and played with the Clash.
Great guitar player, good songwriter and club-disciplined live performer.
He defies classification. That said, I wish I had more of his records. Hi-Res is good but has a little bit of that 1980s over production veneer. Songs of notice: ‘What’s Shakin’ Tonight,’Cool Rockin’ Loretta,’ and probably my favorite ‘Letter to Laredo,’ which has some nasty guitar licks, and also some not-so -nasty Duane Eddy-like bass string ‘twang’ reverberation.
According to Wikipedia, which I am careful with, Ely toured with the Clash, ultimately performing together in Ely’s hometown of Lubbock, Texas. The Clash even name checked Ely in their song ‘If Music Could Talk’ off of the Clash’s Sandinista. Ely was preparing to record with Strummer when the Clash front man died.
Here’s from ‘Laredo:’
As I was rolling across the Mississippi, I stopped there and I cried, no use for a man to keep a mighty river all dammed up inside
I jumped bail from Sweetwater County, now I’m on the run, on my head is a five-number bounty, for a crime I never done.
Take this letter to Laredo to the one I love, tell her to stay low, beneath the stars above, her love is my only alibi, it’s for her love I lied
Ah, rock and roll. Smooth unfiltered like good Kentucky bourbon. It’s Berry DIddley and for Everley Buddy Lee Lewis.
(Well that last sentence sort of belies the unfiltered description. Maybe filtered just right like Marlboro Lights? Not so good but I am deviating again.)
I picked up on Dave Edmunds from the group Rockpile’s ‘Seconds of Pleasure,’ which is similar to this best-of (although Rockpile is better). It is just rock and roll with Edmunds, and when Lowe was involved, there were some great lyrics to go with the three or four chords.
Dave is primarily a cover singer. Here he does Crawling from the Wreckage’, a Graham Parker song and John Fogerty’s ‘Almost Saturday Night’ and Elvis Costello’s ‘Girls Talk.’ And he covers his buddy Lowe, or does he expose himself?
Nick and Dave lent a hand in Carlene Carter’ very good album ”Musical Shapes,’ which has an Edmunds-Carter duet that seemed very friendly.
And Nick married Carlene.
And Nick wrote the song “I Knew the Bride (When she used to Rock and Roll).
And Dave Edmunds covered the song, coming up with what most say is the definitive version. Nick recorded several versions to lesser success than the Edmund’s.
Carlene and Nick divorced.
Subject for further research: the timeline that the above happened.
Sample lyrics.
Take a look at the bridegroom smilin’ pleased as pie Shakin’ hands all around with a glassy look in his eye He got a real good job and his shirt and tie is nice But I remember a time when she would never even look him twice
This Lindsey Buckingham-produced album is a perfect cutout. High expectations for this. It had one ‘hit.’ A couple of good songs. The rest, fodder.
Plus it had a big portrait of the artist’s face on the cover, similar to the cover of a Buckingham solo project I reviewed here.
The hit was ‘Magnet and Steel’ which sounded nice — the whole album had high production values but the analogy?
‘You are the magnet and I am the steel.’
Two albums, two different people. but you think Lindsey Buckingham (L) who produced Walter Egan’s album, and Egan went to the same photographer for cover shoot>
Really? I’m trying to quit the use of ‘Really? But really? Go away simplistic and utterly useless metaphor. It conjures up scenes from a car junkyard with that big old magnet thing coming down from crane: Whomp, I am the magnet, you are the crumpled up steel that used to be a car. How about you are the honey I am the bee, or, bear, or, you are the pile, I am the fly. OK being gross. But didn’t any one of his Fleetwood Mac buddies say anything?
I was a senior in HS. I remember going what? Sounded like a TV show. Tonight’s episode of “Magnet and Steel’ will see our crack detectives solve another crime and then come together like, well, “Magnet and Steel.”
If this is a sexual reference as I saw one commenter suggest, then this critique may be a little harsh, in other words, at least it has a two-level meaning for ‘steel.’
Now there are a couple of songs I do like. ‘Make it Alone’ is good stuff. Hard riff, break-up song, guitar driven. ‘Hot Summer Nights‘ was on the radio momentarily. My favorite though is ‘Just the Wanting,’ a torrid little piece of a love song with one-bended guitar string all the way through. (see video below)
Neuroscience says this one song reduces anxiety by 65 percent
Given the venom I’ve seen spewed toward the Eagles, I’d guess it’s not ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling.’
I don’t know the science behind it but I do know music has helped me tremendously in my fight against Lewy body dementia, a degenerative brain disease (cousin of Parkinson’s).
I can think of lots of records/songs that help me relax, like George Winston or the soundtrack to Local Hero or some Miles Davis. Catherine, my spouse, has CDs specifically designed to help her meditate and relax
So what about this one song Hack Spirit is telling us about?
The website writes: A team of UK neuroscientists conducted a study on sound therapy. Participants had to attempt to solve puzzles, which induced stress, while wearing sensors attached to their bodies. They then had to listen to different songs while researchers measured brain activity and recorded their heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure, reports Inc.com and Ideapod.
According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top track to produce a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date was “Weightless” by Marconi Union.
Well, I listened to the song and it sounded like the quieter parts of a Pink Floyd album. You know where they just drift off into a low rhythm space. It’s just like that — though at any moment I expect to hear David Gilmore’s guitar phase in. Tangerine Dream might be another reference point for you aging Baby Boomer rockers.
I did feel relaxed and almost felt like a nap after listening to ‘Weightless’
Kind of cool. If you’re feeling extra stressed Hacker Spirit has found nine more sleep inducing tunes and have posted them on their site hackspirit.com, including one by Adele and one by Coldplay.
ALBUMS: Biograph (1985 5-record box); Infidels (1983); Slow Train Coming (1979); Blood on the Tracks (1974); Greatest Hits (1967)
MVC Rating: BIograph 5/$$$$$; Infidels 4.5/$$$$; Slow Train Coming $4.5 $$$; Blood on the Tracks 5.0/$$$$;; Greatest Hits 5.0/$$$$.
For a private, quiet person, Dylan is a man of many words.
Before I start this essay on Nobel winner and influential singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, I want to point out, once again we are talking about words. (A favorite topic of mine).
Dylan (L) with Bruce Springsteen. From Biograph booklet.
A friend asked me a long time ago if I thought Dylan knew what he was talking about or is he just throwing words up on the wall. From experience I can say, he probably does and doesn’t.
Know what his words mean, I mean.
As with many writers, words are chosen for different things: The sound of the word, the meaning of the word, the secondary meaning of the word, the meaning of the word in context with the other words. Writers make choices about what words to use. Sometimes straight prose is what it says it is, like a recipe for a casserole. Add one cup of grated cheese.
Other times it’s more of an ink blot test and that’s where song lyrics can become part of an artistic presentation that means different things to different people.
Dylan was just better than almost anyone else at that.
By that, I mean the nimble word use that leaves you wondering, visualizing, thinking or letting it seep into your subconscious (for use later by your brain, for a dream perhaps). Of course it means something. It means something just by its very existence on the page. But it may mean nothing much or a whole lot. It may mean different things to different people. It may be Jabberwocky. That was Dylan’s art.
Of the big three: Elvis, the Beatles and Dylan, Minnesota-born Dylan aka Robert Zimmerman, probably did the most to influence the song in pop music, just my opinion.
(And a quick acknowledgement here on race and gender. These ‘Big 3’ —actually six when you add Beatles — white men climbed a foundation laid by many black artists and female artists such,as Robert Johnson, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Carole King, Scott Joplin, Chuck Berry and so on. I picked the ‘Big 3’ based on the type of change and measure of change they brought to modern pop music. Though blessed with talent, the Big 3’s influence was largely circumstantial — or, to paraphrase Dr. John — they were in the right place at the right time.)
Dylan’s influence was greatest yet most subtle. It showed people that rock and pop songs could mean something. ‘Love Me Do’ to ‘A Day in the Life.’ His singing had obvious influences on such artists as Tom Petty, Mark Knopfler, and even the Beatles.
But let me anticipate the argument against this pick.
Many casual Dylan fans or non-fans say Dylan could write some good songs but that was about it, he couldn’t sing, he wasn’t a musical game-changer.
But that’s wrong.
I know I’m hypocritically and arbitrarily wiping away your right to your own ink-blot interpretation, but I’m using a writing device to debate or persuade you to my side.
Sure Dylan has a nasal vocal delivery that sounds like he gargled with Liquid Plumber. And then, periodically he would stop his rap and blow into a harmonica making honking, choo choo noises as a proper Woody Guthrie acolyte should.
But those are the pieces, what was the result of the whole. Dylan melded the words of the lyrics into the music’s structure and tied it all up with phrasing.
From Biograh album booklet.
Dylan made the song reinforce the words. And his voice, my gosh, his voice was that of a dying man’s last words backed by guitar.
One of his best songs was ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ Let’s deconstruct a verse or two:
Once upon a time you dressed so fine [up and down with his voice here like a sarcastic nursery rhyme] Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you? [Internal rhyming in this 1965 song sound like today’s rappers). People call say ‘beware doll, you’re bound to fall’ You thought they were all kidding you You used to laugh about {Yoooo Yooooost toooo — stringing it out for effect] Everybody that was hanging out Now you don’t talk so loud Now you don’t seem so proud [steps down in lower timbre for a Dylan scold –‘seem to proud,’ he spits. About having to be scrounging your next meal [How about his dragging the word ‘scrounging’ out just in case I haven’t humiliated you enough.]
How does it feel, how does it feel? [how does it feeeel….I can hear the Dylan imitators popping up in every pub and street corner). To be without a home Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone
More memorable lyrics from the Nobel Prize for Literature winner:
My Back Pages
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.
‘Positively 4th Street’ – 1965
Yes, I wish that for just one time/You could stand inside my shoes/You’d know what a drag it is to see you
Tangled Up in Blue
And later on as the crowd thinned out I’s just about to do the same She was standing there in back of my chair Said to me “Don’t I know your name?” I muttered somethin’ under my breath She studied the lines on my face I must admit I felt a little uneasy When she bent down to tie the laces Of my shoe Tangled up in blue
Tangled up in blue (more)
Then she opened up a book of poems And handed it to me Written by an Italian poet From the thirteenth century And everyone of them words rang true And glowed like burnin’ coal Pourin’ off of every page Like it was written in my soul From me to you Tangled up in blue
The Times They are a Changin’
Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won’t come again And don’t speak too soon For the wheel’s still in spin
The times they are a changin’
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Walk on your tip toes
Don’t tie no bows
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows
So that’s my take on Dylan. For now. Of my many records listed at the top, I’d recommend Biograph, the 5-record box set. It is a very well done compilation containing everything from his classics to never before published gems. Liner notes in a separate booklet enclosed is by Cameron Crowe and many comments on the songs by the man himself. Any of the other albums I’d recommend highly. The Greatest Hits from his 1960s songs was my first introduction and my hook. Blood on the tracks is just great, and Slow Train Coming and Infidels taken from his sometimes maligned ‘Christian’ conversion period are very good. (Actually Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone founder, called Slow Train Dylan’s finest work.)
UPDATE 6:22 p.m. 4/21: Back from record stores. Long walk. I got two records one at each shop at 5 points. Roy Clark’s ‘ Spectacular Guitar.’ He’s one of the best guitarists and perhaps underrated by rock fans. Grass Roots, some personal reasons I picked ‘Golden Grass’ which I will talk about at a later date. Fine day to shop, came in under $15 for two I wanted. Don’t tell Catherine. I’m still trying to find the right time to tell her about my growing stack of albums.
I did confess to getting Neutral Milk Hotel’s Aeroplane record on newly minted vinyl during a recent road trip to see family. It’s an album I had on CD, but I love it and couldn’t resist a purchase at WUXTRY in Athens, Ga., where the band lived and, I believe recorded the album.
Hey all,
I published another Countdown update on AL.com. Click here.
I am going right now to 5 pts. South to Record Store Day at the two stores there, Charlemagne and Renassance. And Seasick little later.
I’m still taking this week all in as my colleague and friend John Archibald won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
I’m off …….Oh wait a minute!
Coincidence or not department. The Difford and Tilbrook vinyl record I have as my latest review has a song I singled out “Picking up the Pieces.”
My five snippits I introduce to AL.com readers today contains the Average White Band’s famous hit ‘Pick up the Pieces’ a totally different song from different eras and genre………wow.
OK maybe not so Wow but it is kind of strange…OK maybe not strange at all (I’m going now).
Listen to the AWB video piece of my post and watch the (totally white) crowd try to dance … funny (OK I’m going now.)
ALBUMS: Brothers in Arms (1985); Making Movies (1980); Dire Straits (1978)
MVC Ratings: Brothers, 4.5/$$$; Making Movies, 4.0/$$$; Dire Straits, 4.0/$$$
I was hesitant about doing Dire Straits. They have become so big that it is almost cool to hate them. Like the Eagles; people love to hate them. That hate campaign was generated I believe by the classic character ‘The Dude’ played by Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski.
But I think it’s unfair. Both to the Eagles and Dire Straits.
Just because you have heard Hotel California 343,000 times doesn’t make it a bad song. Just because the “Walk of Life” sits in your head ready to come to life at anything resembling the Hammond B3 organ intro to the song, doesn’t mean it’s terrible. Annoying, maybe.
But Dire Straits and the Eagles are very good, yes, great bands. I’ll deal with the Eagles later in my blog, soon actually when I get to the ‘E’s’.
It’s the phenomenon of the cliche’ — a word or phrase overused to the extent it becomes dull. But how did it get to be a cliche’ to begin with? People used it, liked it. It was, at the end of the day, a way to put a bottom line on it. Moving forward, if you know what I mean.
Do the walk of life to that one hotel that’ll let you check in but never check out. But of course that’s so 1970s.
I especially like Dire Straits because of a concert I saw at the Agora Ballroom in Atlanta in my formative years. It was Nov. 8, 1980. They were just out, touring America off Making Movies, their third album, and were relatively unknown or at least unknown enough to be playing the US in these smaller venues.. The now-defunct Agora was large for a nightclub but still a small venue for a concert. It was previously called Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom. It burned down in 1983 (some stupid with a flair gun…no, wait that’s another tune, sorry.)
As I remember the Agora was across the street from another great venue, The Fox Theater.
Knopfler (left) and Dire Straits
We sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the stage. I still vividly remember the now emblematic guitar solo from Sultans of Swing and watching his hands move through the chords and his finger-picking as it increased speed.
Knopfler is one of a few electric guitarists who doesn’t use a pick. With a pick, I’d imagine he would sound a lot like Eric Clapton. But the finger picking takes a little sting out. It is distinctive and slightly muted.
That doesn’t mean he can’t crush some chords as he does in the very popular “Money for Nothing,’ arguably one of the top recognizable riffs after Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water,’ or the Stones’ Satisfaction (or ‘Honky Tonk Woman.’)
It was Nov. 8, the day before my 21st birthday , and I was taking it all in. I was sipping Toohey’s out of an Australian oil can. (It would be several years before they upped the drinking/nightclubbing age from 18 to 21.)
The small venue, the front row seats and the friends (including Catherine, my soon-to-be wife, made for one of my most memorable concert experiences ever. Dire Straits went on to sell an astronomical 100 million albums over their career. (The Eagles have sold even more, 150 million).
That’s not to say that I think Dire Straits was the greatest band ever.
Although, Knopfler sings a bit like Dylan, he certainly was no match for Bob in the songwriting department. See what I just did before I say, his lyrics sometimes wandered into cliche’.
That’s all from this department although stay tuned for my piece on the Eagles and related: Mark Knopfler’s soundtrack album, Local Hero. Great movie, great soundtrack.
If you have any doubts about whether this man can play, watch the Sultan’s video to the end. And to think I saw that about six feet away.
ALBUMS: The Real Donovan (1965 ); Hurdy Gurdy Man (1968); Barabajagal (1969).
MVC Ratings: Hurdy 4.5.$$$; The Real Donovan 3.5/$$$; Barabajal 4.0/$$$$
I am skipping ahead here only slightly in my alphabetical placement. I should be doing my Dire Straits and Bo Diddley and db’s before Donovan.
But in the previous post I compared up-and-comer Mac DeMarco to Donovan and since I brought him up, I figured let’s review my three Donovan records before I get back to my not-so-strict alphabetization. At least we’re keeping it in the D’s.
If Donovan sounds interesting to you, I’d probably start with one of his several greatest hits albums. The three records I have cover most of his hits: Sunshine Superman, Hurdy Gurdy Man, Atlantis, Catch the Wind, Mellow Yellow and Colours to name the bigger hits.
The first song of the 1965 album is called Turquoise and it was what first made me connect DeMarco’s style to Donovan. And from DeMarco, Salad Days, the title song, sounds like a whimsical Donovan song.
As for other comparisons, the Donovan song Atlantis with its repetitive singalong chorus could just as well have been an Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ song, had Donovan not done it 40-something years ago.
Donovan was born in Glasgow, Scotland and was a high school dropout and sort of wandering beach bum, according to his bio. His early work seemed heavily influenced by folk music and Bob Dylan. Although Donovan has said some of his songs that people say sound like Dylan were composed and recorded before Donovan even knew who Dylan was.
Donovan comparisons go only so far. Donovan isn’t or wasn’t as ‘chill’ as DeMarco, at least from what I hear on Salad Days. Donovan had some pretty heavy electric guitars in Sunshine Superman, Hurdy Gurdy Man, and Barabajagal to name some.
While DeMarco’s ‘lo-fi’ sound has just a tincture of psych, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck played on some of Donovan’s songs and Donovan dove head-long into that 60s psych-o-melodics. (My word, just going to try it out for a while.)
And then there’s Mellow Yellow and the ‘electrical banana’ — yes he wrote that.
‘Glad All Over,’ ‘Bits and Pieces,’ ‘Catch Us if you Can,’ ‘Do you Love Me’ — the hits kept coming from this Fab Four plus One.
No, not really close to the Beatles in both performance and songwriting, although ‘Glad All Over’ and “Because’ and ‘Can’t You See that She’s Mine’ — which the vocalist, Mike Smith, vows to ‘keep on holding her hand — sound just like early Beatles. ‘Because’ is the name of a Beatles song — but not this one.
This is one of the better British invasion bands and there were many.
The interesting anomaly here is Blueberry Hill, the song made famous by Fats Domino. Smith does some hard-kick vocals here, channeling, or trying to channel Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding and gets close enough to make it interesting.
