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Eric Clapton (Do I have too much?)

ALBUMS: History of Eric Clapton (1972 2-record compilation); EC Was Here (live)(1975); Backless (1979); Crossroads (6-record boxed set 1988)

MVC Ratings: Boxed 5.0/$$$$$; History 4.5/$$$$$; EC 3.5/$$$$; Backless 3.5/$$$$

Do I have too much Clapton?

Like an unbalanced 401/K plan do I need to liquidate some Eric Clapton. Should I re-rebalance my portfolio of 678 records (which I am writing about in this blog) by selling some Clapton.

For example, I could sell some Clapton for Albert King, a key Clapton influence whom I don’t have. But that would almost be like buying more Clapton, an artist steeped in blues music. Or, should I diversify and maybe buy some Django Reinhardt, a Gypsy jazz guitarist from yesteryear who was at least as influential as Clapton but had a totally different style, outside the realm of blues.

As you can see above, I only have four separate Clapton ‘products’ But as you can also see, one is a 6-record box set, and another is a  double record chronology.  Pretty comprehensive.

That’s 10 vinyl slices totaling about six or seven hours of Clapton. That doesn’t include my two Cream albums, my Yardbirds album and my Derek and the Dominos double album set, all of which have Clapton in the mix.  I will review separately when they come up in my alphabetical line-up. (I’m in the C’s so we’ll be doing Cream pretty soon).

I think I will hold off liquidating immediately.

If you are a Clapton fan, it is good to see the arc of his playing.

He is praised for his fluid improvisational guitar solos, mostly in a blues context. And he is cursed for his fluid improvisational guitar solos because they infiltrated rock and roll and pretty soon everybody and their brother-in-law’s cousin was strapping on a Fender Stratocaster aiming to be a lead guitarist.

As the low-solo 50’s melted away to the 1960’s, there was a nuclear arms race over how fast and long that guitar solo should be. Too many times the result was guitar for showmanship’s sake and not for song-sake. Granted these guitar jams tended to be used and abused more in the live concert setting, than in the studio.

In the studio you had a producer saying, ‘Uh, Jimi, I think we are good with that 37-minute version of the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’ You can flesh it out a little more on stage tonight if you want. I sure hope our flag is still there.’

Clapton can be accused of starting it. He and John  Mayall developed a cult following in London, immersing themselves in blues.

“‘Clapton is God’ graffiti began appearing around the city, defining  a central tenet of the Clapton mythology to this day,” wrote Rolling Stone writer Anthony DeCurtis in the Crossroad’s liner notes.

I don’t have ‘Tears in Heaven’ on any of these records. The soft rock tear-jerker about the tragic death of his child was one of his biggest hits but also fed into this view that he was going ‘commercial or soft as he got older, especially since he used to be such a purist.

Clapton himself said in the biography ‘Clapton!’: “I’m far too judgmental and in those days I was a complete purist. If it wasn’t black music, it was rubbish.”

Now we should give the man the benefit of the doubt on his sincerity behind ‘Tears’ given the subject matter.

But these softer songs and big hit covers like ‘Cocaine’ and ‘I Shot the Sheriff’,’ I think unfairly led to some in my generation and later generations to suggest he was overrated.

Um, no.

Listen to all six vinyl records in Crossroads. That includes his work with Mayall, the Yardbirds, Cream, Delaney and Bonnie, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominoes.

D&D the double record studio production with Duane Allman and Eric  trading licks on old school blues tunes and the ever-great title song is one of my desert island albums.

Sure he had some commercial schlock (full disclosure, I and mi esposa like ‘Wonderful Tonight’ as one of the soundtracks of our first dates in high school.) A critical observation may be’ look at what he hath wrought.’

But overrated? Don’t think so.

David  Fricke, a rock critic for Rolling Stone magazine, said this:

“Clapton’s economy of style, clarity of technique and improvisatory firepower are the standard by which nearly all electric guitarists, blues or otherwise, have been judged for over twenty years.”

Like I said, a curse and a blessing.

 

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The Coolest Cover Yet of ‘Angel from Montgomery’–by WPC

In this blog post  is  a song.

Play it.

Christopher M. Viner. and Sasha G. Alcott  PHOTO CREDIT: Cait Bourgault

Push the sideways triangle.

It’s a cover by When Particles Collide  of ‘Angel from Montgomery’ and it may be a challenger for  the best  cover yet of that song or at least puts it  in that conversation.

And believe me that’s saying a lot considering who has covered this John Prine classic:

  • Bonnie Raitt (she has done duets of this song with Prine, Tracy Chapman, Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby and more.)
  • Susan Tedeschi
  • John Denver
  • Cameo
  • John Mayer
  • Dave Matthews
  • Ben Harper
  • These are just a few who have covered it. The list goes on and on.

See what you think.

You, audience, are the first to hear this outside the inner circle. It’s a little different than Raitt’s famous version(s). It hits you with a little more force, urgency. It replaces melancholy and hopelessness with the beginnings of raw pain, and anger. For me the flies take on a  bigger buzz.

There’s flies in the kitchen
I can hear all their buzzin’
And I ain’t done nothing since I woke up today
How the hell can a person
Go to work in the morning
Come home in the evening
And have nothing to say

When Sasha sings the above, she spits out the last four lines and we suddenly wonder what the woman has done. The ambiguity in Prine’s  poetry starts to melt  away.

Give a little listen  w headphones.

Back ground here: Earlier in these bloggies, I wrote about this great  group When Particles Collide. I saw them  several months ago, a husband-wife band, performing on the back porch of my  basketball buddy Eric Stockman’s home here in the Birmingham area.

These 40-somethings from Maine had quit their day jobs and took WPC out on a 14-month U.S. tour. I picked up a record of theirs and loved their hard rocking style.

I wrote that I’d like to also hear some softer stuff, such as “Angel from Montgomery” cover of John Prine, which they had  played in the back porch concert.

I requested the song from this band and  like all good bands they played it. Not only played it, but recorded it and sent it to me. (I can’t swear to these time sequences, they may have already had this song recorded or plans to record it before I made the request about a month or so ago. But I like to think they fulfilled my request in the  rock and roll tradition.  And, as I have announced, they are coming out with an acoustic album , Eric tells me.

Learn more by going to WPC’s website.

www.whenparticlescollide.com/

To comment  or weigh in on the best ‘Angel’ cover, click the blog title and scroll to the end.

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Tracy Chapman — 592

ALBUM: Tracy Chapman (1988)

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$

Forget the hole in the head Cracker, the world needs another folk singer like Tracy Chapman.

I had a feeling that I could be someone, be someone

For me it wasn’t that the words blew me away Or the music and playing was so much better than many other great folk singers. For me it was all these things together and the voice. Yes the voice. I can’t really describe it. There are certain voices I really appreciate.  And hers,  singing about race, domestic abuse, poverty and just plain heartache and heart break, sounded real

That the voice comes from a gay black woman, and seems shot-through with wisdom brought by pain makes it all the more remarkable that it connects so powerfully with an older balding white guy, me, and I’m sure many others like me.

She’s got her ticket is a song about someone in pain who wants to fly away.

She’s got her ticket I think she gonna use it                                                                      I think she going to fly away                                                                                                 No one should try and stop her

And from this Grammy award-winning  album, her debut,  came probably her signature song: Fast Car.

That song plays on the same theme of escape, and is cathartic in its slow down, speed  up sound.  The words are potent but the song transcends the words and  should be heard. See video below.

You see my old man’s got a problem
He live with the bottle that’s the way it is
He says his body’s too old for working
His body’s too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody’s got to take care of him
So I quit school and that’s what I did
You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away
We gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way
 =–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Another of her biggest hits here.
NOTE: I talked about certain voices that I like and somehow writing and listening to Tracy made me think of another one of my favorite singers: Phil Lynott (now deceased) of the Irish band Thin Lizzy. But the singers are nothing alike other than a smooth sounding voice. See video below.
 Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Alex Chilton — 593

 

ALBUM: High Priest (1987)

MV C Rating: 3.5/ $$$

Boy wonder vocalist out of the chute at the speed of sound.

Sweet 16 and burning white soul-boy vocals with the Box Tops.

Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane 
Ain’t got time to take a fast train 
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home 
My baby, just-a wrote me a letter

Killer opening. What’s the encore?

Alex Chilton was going to be a Big Star.

He was, and he wasn’t.  The star fell without anyone seeing it.

Oh, but a few did. An influential few remembered the shooting star.

A song by one of the world’s coolest bands, The Replacements, was titled Alex Chilton. REM declared him a divine inspiration.

Big Star had some big expectations. How could their three albums, or just one of them not set the world on fire.

After that didn’t play out, Chilton did something many would do. Screw it. I’ll do what I want, start an indie career where you put out albums like this one where songs like Volare — are you kidding me?– become part of the buoyant fun. Toss off a Carole King song here, an obscure instrumental, and not so subtle (or sexy) invitation to get naughty.

All in fun. And it was, sort of. Sad, too.

Chilton died at 59 in 2010.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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The Chambers Brothers — 594

ALBUM: The Chambers Brothers’ Greatest Hits (1971)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

The question is did  people know what they were getting into with the Chambers brothers. The band’s hit ‘Time has Come Today’ is relatively straightforward on the edited version that charted on the radio, under three minutes.

But good gosh, the 11-minute album cut pulled out a little Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly and Soft Machine into a psychedelic stew of soul and gospel.

Most of the rest of the album is good old soul shouting and grooving. Decent cover of People Get Ready. Hard to top Curtis on that though. Entertaining music for a ride into the county on Saturday night headed to a  barnstormer in the morning.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the soul songs and I like the long song.

There is a TIme and a Place: Juke Joint.

(PS this song would have worked well on my ruminations on time)

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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The Cars — 598, 597, 596, 595

ALBUMS: The Cars (1978); Candy-O (1979); Panorama (1980); Shake it Up (1981)

MVC Rating: Cars 4.5/$$$; Candy-O 4.0/$$$; Panorama 4.0/$$$; Shake it Up 3.5/$$$

Let’s see. The soundtrack of my high school days:

Born to Run, Springsteen in 1976.

Night Moves, Seger in 1977.

Just What I Needed, The Cars in 1978.

The Cars? It’s almost like which one of these things doesn’t belong game.

But their self-titled first album sold 6 million. That’s a lot of high school soundtracks. Overall the group is well past the 20 million mark over a span of a half dozen or so records.

Yet, I played the first Cars album recently for one of my daughters, now 31, and she asked who that was copying David Bowie?

Controversial Vargas pin-up was cover of 2nd album, Candy-O

Or could it be Roxy Music knock-offs?  For some reason,  the Cars seem to be this mega-grossing band that turned into a passing phase. (Enter good  car analogy here. No not the DeLorean.) It seems that the group  zoomed through the 70s and 80s  at 100 mph and disappeared in a -cloud of dust. I like the analogy ‘Vanishing Point,’ the movie. Shift into 5th gear if you get that reference.

Ok, here’s how I break it down. The debut is dynamite, first to last song. These guys had a sharp austere playing style with catchy hooks. Very precise crunching chords and quick pick bass lines. It’s all within the framework of power pop. They were just better at it than anybody else. Their sound popped, probably courtesy of producer Roy Thomas Baker (Queen).

Earlier I reviewed The Beat, led by Paul Collins, and mentioned one of their songs ‘Don’t Wait Up For Me,’ one of power pop’s best songs. It was a Cars-like song. Only the Cars had  about 10 or so of that quality over the course of their half-dozen or so albums. Many if not most were on that first one. I have four Cars albums and I don’t listen  to them too much anymore. The lyrics were about nothing or nothing much, arch, bouncy but never really went beyond the hooks’ catchphrases.

I am one of a seeming minority that actually liked Panorama which had a little more complicated songs and a little more  experimentation. But truth be told, the Cars were never as good as that 1st album. Indeed few artists had debut albums that strong.  In the end, they fell victim to a  formulaic sameness. But there were moments on later albums: ‘Touch and Go’ and ‘Shake it Up.’

On that debut, there were sharp guitars and radio friendly songs throughout — with the band nailing the walk-off with the  last three songs of side 2:  “It’s all Mixed up.””Bye Bye Love”and “Moving in Stereo.”

However, when I feel myself nostalgic about those HS cruising days, I  usually go back to Springsteen, Seger, a little less, or the classics, Rolling Stones  (I even enjoyed the Stones’ and Rod Stewart’s disco eras. Don’t quote me on that.)  Daddy I’m a Fool to Cry.

One soundtrack that  can’t go without mentioning here came out when I was about 17. Elvis Costello’s ‘My Aim is True’ album. Opened my ears to a new style, on a similar road,  paved the way for the Cars.

Had the Costello  on cassette. Played that in my Mustang until it broke. And of course there was Zeppelin.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Peter Case — 600, 599

ALBUMS: Peter Case (1986);  Peter Case EP ‘Selections from Peter Case’ (Promotional 1986)

MVC Ratings: 4.0/$$$

 Peter Case is an artist I bought most likely in Birmingham at Chuck’s WUXTRY. It was Case’s self-entitled debut and a great record. I thought he was going places, and he did, I suppose. I just lost track of him after a CD called Six Pack of Love, which I should go back and give a listen to see  why he kind of fell from my listening purview.

He started young in a power  pop New Wave band, the Nerves, and followed with a pretty successful run in a band called the Plimsouls (which I will review later).

promo ep

For his debut he turned into a Woody Guthrie/Dylan styled singer-songwriter. His hat (fedora?) is on his noggin on both the album cover and back picture. And it’s on in his slightly different cover shot of his five-song EP promotional edition, which gets you an accoustic version  of Steel Strings.  Back photo shot is of Case walking  away down the road, in slightly oversized suit (w/hat) and carrying a case that looks too small for a guitar.

His music sounds like that. Lots of strumming, lots of melodious story-telling. Best one is ‘Small Town Spree’ about a friend’s burglary splurge.  The Van Dyke Parks’ arrangement, with strings accenting the steel strum goes like this:

It all started at Gate’s liquor store,  you helped yourself to a bottle of  scotch; Strolled down to Miller’s Drugs, forged a check and borrowed a watch

I do like his version of the Pogue’s song “A Pair of Brown Eyes’ — good pub song. If you think you would like a more seriousTodd Snider or a more bluesy Shawn Mullins, Case may be worth checking out.

In the liner notes Case writes: ‘My sister told me on the phone she heard someone on the radio singing about small towns in America.’

Case continues. ‘I said I didn’t know any songs about America – these songs are all about sin and salvation.’

NOTE: Case was in the Nerves with Paul Collins, later of the Beat, a power pop juggernaut.  A who’s who of artists assisted on this Case debut, including T Bone Burnett, Van Dyke Parks, John Hiatt, Jim Keltner, Mike Campbell, Roger McGuinn and Victoria Williams, among others.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Camper Van Beethoven — 601

ALBUM: Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (1988)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

This is an important album by an important band. Camper Van Beethoven have  something to say.

These California, early indie, alternative songmakers make you work to figure out what they were trying to say. But in the work therein lies the answer, or at least the point. And that point? Something about skewering and deconstructing suburbia, and making fun of popular culture and Patty Hearst. All legit rock angles, for sure.

Whether it was about the Eye of Fatima or figuring it all out, it was well played and it sounded about right.

One of these days
When you figure, figure it all out
Well be sure to let me know

David Lowery’s voice drips rock ‘n roll irony, as guitars get circled by a violin. This is a band whose first real ‘hit,’ if you can call it that, was: “Take the Skinheads Bowling.’

Every day, I get up and pray to Jah  And he increases the number of clocks by exactly one
Everybody’s comin’ home for lunch these days
Last night there were skinheads on my lawn
Take the skinheads bowling …

If you like this Camper Van Beethoven album, you might  also explore Key Lime Pie, a follow-up album which has that wonderful take on human optimism, ‘When I Win the Lottery.”

Also,  I highly recommend a spin-off band, Cracker, which I also have digitally only. Kind off like a more rocking Camper stripped of artsy flourishes (and violin).

Cracker was known for the song that had  the line: Cause what the world needs now is another folk singer like I need a hole in my head.

Good stuff. Cracker and Camper. David Lowery is the common key creative  force here. He looks at things a little differently.

For example thanking Patty Hearst, the Revolutionary Sweetheart, for making life more interesting.

Oh, my beloved revolutionary sweetheart
I can see your newsprint face turn yellow in the gutter
It makes me sad
How I long for the days when you came to liberate us from boredom
From driving around from the hours between five and seven in the evening

My Beloved Tania

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Warning: Attempted Poetry (new category)

NOTE TO HIDDEN POEM SEARCHERS: YOU NEED TO CLICK THE TITLE OF THE WARNING POST. THE NEW ‘HIDDEN POEM‘ IS AT THE BOTTOM (‘THE SWITCH IS REAL IS OLDER)’

As a short preamble to what I am attempting here, I write this note. At best, I’ve dabbled in poetry. I took it in college at Auburn under the esteemed  Dr. John Nist, now deceased, who said he thought i showed promise. We had to read our poems in front of the class. He was encouraging, yes, until I actually started to process what he said. What’s promise in the poetry field?  I wondered. I went into Journalism, which at that time post-Watergate, was a popular major.  I continued to dabble in poetry. I took literature classes, admired poets from Blake to Yeats to Hopkins and American poets Emily Dickinson, Lewis Carroll, ee cummings, Whitman, T.S. Elliott,  and Dylan Thomas. And, of course, Nobel Prize winner  Bob Dylan.

Gerard Manley Hopkins Wikipedia public domain

But I can’t say I’ve looked at poetry or seriously thought of  writing it again until this brain diagnosis. I will  tell you I still can’t read two pages of Joyce’s Ulysses  and make sense of it — but it does fascinate me, the word play, the obscure and dense references, and the stream of consciousness, kind of like a  Capt. Beefheart album. 

So, without further ado, here’s my poem:

This Switch is Real 

The expansive Sleep fell away

To consciousness just like the Big Switch

On, off.  On, again?

She drinks the clear water.  And puts the biscuits up.

Yesterday’s coffee at bedside. Like every day.

But it’s not my coffee. Not my bed. I dreamed I looked at my hands last night. And feet.

I had shiny black shoes. I need to grab the railing.

There are cereal bowls with milk on the bottom. Silly soft cotton pajama bottoms.

Morning? It’s Friday, no, Thursday. A 24-hour interval intervenes, droops over the table.

I fold the clocks. Put them in that space. TV blares for argument sake. In another space. What a good space, she says. Toast burns.

Hello? Hello? I want to hold my girls Hannah, Emily, Claire.

Catherine. Himmelman name-check. God Bless You.

The flowers match the curtains, how odd, yellow-green.

Not the matching colors, the flowers. Are they real?

Buzzing voices hum with low talk.

They are all here. I know them all but do not really.

The light dims with time. Lord knows what time it is.

Are they my hands?

How can it be?

Music is hard to hear in the air. Need a better conductor. Stand By Me.

No. Let It Be. The hardcore life is not where it’s at.

Heavy, I helped lower the titanic vehicle into the hole.

I’m typing my letter of resignation. It was an interesting experiment. I made a ripple; Everyone makes  ripples. So many ripples. Fat-skinny ripples. They crash, clash and push against each other until finally smooth.

Am I alive?

Bang, you’re dead. This Switch is real.

I Am.

Oh My God

(Mike Oliver, Jan. 14, 2018)

NEW POEM 

Congratulations you have found the Hidden Poem. Now explain it.

Ha! Not so easy. Even for me.

Lots of riffing off rhymes, after market sand blasting. Still doesn’t blast, far enough to find the underlying truth. The truth, lying under.

So here we go.

The Hidden Poem

This is about the  mind.

Brain drops keep falling

But a hard rain yet to come

Burn the Beatles, shake it up

Like a hurricane

Keep in mind. Keep your mind.

Cross out the triangle and orchestrate a reversal to a circle. It’s a dance.

Burn the Beatles shake it up

Here in Birmingham.

Play date. Replay. The grievance system all day.

OK, OK,

Call the man, go ahead call the Man.

Burn the Beatles break it up.

Combo unit, turntable, CD,

Blue Ray, Radio, TV,

AM/FM., PM, LMNOP.

TeeeVeee.

Burn the Beatles. Shake it up.

Remember and hit save. For later you ex-Hume the past. I Think.

Therefore. You Are. Don’t put DesCartes before the hors

Tainted from an Apple byte.

Don’t Soft Cell my brain sell.

Burn the Beatles. Shake it up.

The MC is KC. Discipline. Words.

Word.

Badger, banter. Re-Cognition.

Not fragile words fall to the ground and shatter into a thousand pieces. What? OK, a million pieces. What? Okay, a billion pieces.

No sunshine needed KC. Shake your booty, Shake your groove thing. Shake like Alabama Shakes. Towns in splinters from winds of violent change. Like a bent fire hydrant.

And red white and blues from an orange tyrant

What Marvin said. Mercy.

Keep in mind.

In mindfulness you will find.

Keep in mind there’s no revelation.

Except for this: You are the cherry on top of creation.

Mind it.

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‘I Put a Bean in my Nose’

True story, this week, Birmingham metropolitan area.

Two brothers. Two years old, each. Correct, they are twins.

First boy comes running up to pre-school teacher.

“I’ve got a rock in my nose,” the young one says.

No, really? The teacher is skeptical but concerned.

Is there a bean in this nose? By Jeremie63 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0
She looked up his nose and saw it.

Then she ran her fingers over the outside of his nose. Pebble pops out.

“See,” said the giddy kiddie. “I put it there.”

(Lecture follows about never putting rocks in orifices.)

At this time, brother runs up, equally giddy.

“I have a bean up my nose,” he posits.

No! Teacher approaching exasperation mode.

She looked but could not see a bean.

Are you sure? Teacher asks.

“I put a bean in my nose,” says the chortling darling.

Teacher is concerned but not positive because of boy’s history of tall tales, but brother had a pebble in his nose. Hmmmm.

Teacher rushes child to office where flashlight was employed. Light flooded the nasal canal but still no visual on said bean.

Are you sure you have a bean up your nose? The fledgling otolaryngologists queried.

Shoulders shrugged, hands palms up, smiling, the boy said, “I put a bean up my nose.”

“Here blow your nose,” one said, handing him a tissue.

He took the tissue and did a giant nostril sniffy, not a nosey blowsy.

No. No. No. came the chorus of fledgling ENTs. “BLOW”

Sure as shooting, a bean came flying out.

Sources say there is no truth to the rumors that the bean — an uncooked Pinto  — went through a plate glass window like a bullet.

Moral of the story: Who nose where you bean?