You probably won’t be surprised when I tell you that this has been the hardest post for me to write since Popdose started. I mean, it’s been a damn month: what’s the holdup? Well, the truth is I discovered it is a lot easier to write about straight-up criminals like the members of Mötley Crüe, or hardcore divas like Diana Ross, than smug, pretentious assholes like today’s subject, Roger Waters. Simply put, it’s rather entertaining to write about individuals in the former categories. To write about Waters, however, is as trying a task as actually listening to his solo work in an attempt to find if any of them are worth talking about in this column. But I was able to find a good one, or a “good” one, depending on one’s ability to stomach conceptual prog joints. First though, a refresher on Herr Waters’ crimes of pomposity.

-Waters became the default main writer in Pink Floyd after Syd Barrett’s descent into mental illness, apparently exacerbated by a horrible LSD experience. And while Waters often spoke about how he wished to find and kill the man who gave Syd bad acid, this level of care did not apply to the addictions of other members of the band. Waters made the unilateral decision to fire founding Floyd member and keyboardist Richard Wright during sessions for The Wall, when he deemed Wright’s addictions too much of a distraction. Then, as an added slap in the face, he hired Wright back as a session musician to complete the album and go on the abbreviated Wall tour. In other words, Wright was not messed up enough that his talents couldn’t be used, but was messed up just enough that Waters wished to symbolically disassociate himself from him. Charming.

-More than just the main lyricist, Waters made himself de facto leader of the Floyd, taking complete creative control of the direction of the group. This culminated in refusing to put any Gilmour’s songs in 1983’s The Final Cut, then leaving the group after its release and declaring them over, with that album as their final, definitive statement, as if the rest of Pink Floyd really wanted to have their last album be a de facto Waters solo album: The record jacket even said “The Final Cut by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd.” Waters then sued the other members of Pink Floyd to stop them from carrying on under that name after he left the group. His defense was that Pink Floyd should not be allowed to continue because he was the creative leader of the band, and additionally there remained only one original member (Nick Mason) who wanted to carry on. In other words, though Gilmour had been the musical centerpiece of the group for two decades, he was still nothing more to Waters than a hired hand to replace Syd Barrett, so f-all what he wanted. (more…)

When thinking about Rick James nowadays, it seems easy to slip into one of two moods: One is the enjoyment of the way Dave Chappelle satirized his life so humorously, making the phrases “I’m Rick James, bitch!” and “Cocaine’s a hell of a drug” part of the pop culture vernacular for umpteen months. The other is a sense of pity and sadness at a man who was cut down before his time, first by a stroke in 1998, then by death itself in 2004 at age 56.

What these two portraits painted of the original Slick Rick end up doing, though, is making people forget the things he did that went beyond simply having a “bad boy” reputation for loving to party, loving the ladies, and loving to imbibe in the various medicinal cocktails easily obtainable in the 70s and 80s. Things such as:

-After joining the US Naval Reserve at the ripe age of 15, James decided within a year that he preferred music to the military. So, he did what anyone would do in that situation: he just didn’t show up for involuntary weekend training, and went to gigs instead. Then, when word got to James that the military found out about his actions, he went completely AWOL and fled to Canada. Mind you, this was during a time when other members of the military were starting to head to Canada as well. But most of them were at least 18 years of age, and were doing it to avoid war, voice conscientious objection to the war, or both. In Rick’s case, he simply was trying to avoid paying the piper for choosing to spend his weekends holding a bass instead of an anchor.

-James first spent time in prison in the late ’60s — in a military brig, to be exact, after he snuck back into the U.S. to sign with Motown and record songs with his band the Mynah Birds (featuring a young Canadian by the name of Neil Young). As as result of a likely increase in success and income with a record deal, Rick and his bandmates informed their manager that they needed someone who could better manage their new day to day needs. Their old manager handled his dismissal surprisingly well, and with a lot of grace and…oh wait, no, he didn’t. He ratted Rick out to the Feds. (more…)

[Note: Tom Werman, the producer discussed in this post, has disputed several elements of the story. To read his response, click here. --Ed.] We’re not too far away from a new resurgence of Mötley Crüe, with both a new album due soon (the first with all four original members in 11 years) and a big-screen version of the band’s “autobiography,” The Dirt, due in 2009. (Christopher Walken as Ozzy Osbourne? If it happens, I am so there.) The new album, Saints of Los Angeles, is supposed to follow the storyline of The Dirt to varying degrees, so fans will get to hear the boys tell their story two more times in the next year or so.

Needless to say, while the Crüe are sure to be reveling in tales of their debauchery and their “redemption” from personal addictions, I suspect they’ll gloss over some of the more corruptible behavior that they continue to indulge in even now — the type of stuff for which this series was created. So today you get five dicks for the price of one, as I’m covering each of the band members and the infamous a-hole producer of perhaps their biggest albums. Roll call, please …

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It seems almost mind-blowing to think this now, but at the end of the 1980s there was no bigger star in the pop sky than Bobby Brown: Don’t Be Cruel sold over seven million copies in the United States alone. He was dating pop princess Whitney Houston (they got married in ‘92). He appeared in Ghostbusters II, sparking excitement over a burgeoning acting career. He even made New Edition a big name once again simply by being part of a rumor that he was going to rejoin the group.

Only one problem — Bobby Brown couldn’t stop “being Bobby Brown.” And what more and more people would learn over time was that “being Bobby Brown” meant being a complete fucking idiot:

• When Brown defiantly rapped “Bobby Brown was good to go solo” in the 1989 remix of his top-ten hit “Every Little Step,” he neglected to mention that it really wasn’t his choice: Brown got voted out of New Edition by the other members in early ‘86 because he was giving them a bad image. Specifically, he wouldn’t stop simulating intercourse onstage at their concerts. Solo success only emboldened Brown in this area: while appearing as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 1992 to promote Don’t Be Cruel’s follow-up, simply titled Bobby, Brown and two backup dancers spent what seemed like a good 30 seconds of their dance breakdown dry humping the floor. It’s a tradition that Brown proudly carries on to this day, as confirmed by this concert review from Australia’s The Age newspaper last July: “At a very nineties venue in Melbourne last night, a very nineties star arrived to show his diminished legion of fans he still had it. Just what that was is unclear, but one thing’s for sure — he had me in fits of laughter. Who knew watching a former rapper, who’s pushing 40, hump the mike stand, the floor and the air would have such entertainment value?”

• Brown finally rejoined New Edition for 1996’s Home Again and headed out on tour with them. The result was, as I believe the French call it, une piece du merde. Brown left the tour halfway through its scheduled route, partly because of complaints from other members of the group about his well-established humping techniques and for extending his solo sets longer than originally planned. Brown was also put off by the fact that, at least in his own mind, he was a still a solo star. As he explained it — I’m paraphrasing — “I can make 40K a night by myself. Why should I come out here and split that with five other guys?” Reality wouldn’t get in the way of his actual artistic skills, either, as Brown proceeded to fire producers like Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis from his recording sessions, and write and produce his next — and, to date, last — solo album, 1997’s Forever, all by himself. This tank job led to the past decade of Bobby Brown, best known for drug addiction, divorce, and reality TV.

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Berry Gordy is a powerful man. Not only did he found Motown Records, building a musical empire that allowed blacks to crossover into what had pretty much been a white-controlled music industry, but almost as amazing, he was able to convince a young Diana Ross that her crap doesn’t stink, and she has not deviated from that belief one iota over the past 45 or so years. In an industry of big egos, the one belonging to Miss Ross (remember, she must be addressed as such or you will be thrown out — and don’t you dare look her in the eyes!) is likely the biggest, and she has wielded it to not only obtain her huge success, but to build herself into a prick so immense that it would make porn stars gasp. Here are but a few examples of Miss Ross in action:

• While neither the best singer nor most attractive member of the Supremes, Ross did have one important thing up her sleeve, namely, Mr. Gordy’s penis. After unsuccessfully pursuing Smokey Robinson, Ross set her sights on (the married and 15 years older) Gordy. As the mistress of Motown’s founder, she was able to gain full power over the group, becoming its lead singer, getting its name changed to Diana Ross & the Supremes, and upstaging the other members, eventually leaving and employing the full power of the Motown promotional machine behind her solo career, while the Supremes were left to sputter out slowly over the course of the ’70s. Ross, meanwhile, ended up bearing Gordy’s child in 1971, but did not publicly acknowledge who the real father was for 22 years, until she released and was promoting her autobiography (which actually didn’t mention who the father was, either).

• Not only did she upstage the other Supremes throughout their career, she upstaged former Supreme Florence Ballard at Ballard’s own funeral. She went up to the front of the church during the service, grabbed the mike, and announced that she and Mary Wilson were going to lead a silent prayer. Wilson at the time was in a back pew and had no idea what was going on.

• In 1983, she agreed to do a one-off Supremes reunion with Wilson and Cindy Birdsong (Ballard’s replacement in the group) for the Motown 25 TV special. But Ross said she would only do one song instead of the requested four, and refused to practice for it. She also wanted the other two women behind her throughout the song, and when Wilson, who wasn’t informed of Ross’ demand, tried to step forward during the performance, Ross shoved her (this part was cut out of the final broadcast).

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“That’s Leonard’s Jeep,” Robert said as we walked his dog past the monastery. My wife and I had driven north about ten miles, most of it curving two-thirds of the way up Mt. Baldy, to watch my professor’s cabin while he was away on a business trip. The most important part of the job was to make sure his old dog, Toby, was looked after, and walked twice a day. As he showed us the normal route that Toby liked to go, he pointed over to the Buddhist monastery right across the street, halfway between his cabin and the public campgrounds. There were a few vehicles outside the building, all of them likely part-time visitors who would come up for a few days at a time to gain peace and wisdom at the feet of the monks. Among the vehicles there was a silver Jeep, which was likely bought by the unofficial Poet Laureate of Canada to make his nearly-weekly trips from Los Angeles to Baldy, trying to shake a depression, a “cloud” that had settled over him sometime in the early 1990s, and had literally kept him unable to create anything new, either on the page or in the studio, for nearly a decade.

“We’ve had breakfast a couple of times,” Robert added, as he let Toby off the leash and let him wander the ravine separating the monastery from the road. And that was that. No juicy gossip would be forthcoming. But, then again, I wouldn’t have expected any. Not about Leonard Cohen, who even before his period at Mt. Baldy seemed to already carry an almost Buddhist sense of mysticism, both in his work and his very presence. The man was a study in Taoist contradictions: a poet who became a songwriter, while most popular artists went about it the other way around. A man with a voice once called “the worst to ever be signed to a major label,” yet one that perfectly suited both the man and his songs: full of passion, mystery, and the texture of a well-aged port. An Anglo-Quebec native with much more in common, it seemed, with the artists of continental Europe than the Quebecois or English who surrounded him. A Jew whose most well known songs were populated with associations to Christian imagery. A man who looked and sounded like a philosophy professor, and yet always came off as the coolest motherfucker on earth. (more…)

The theme to Moonlighting (1985-1989) was one of those great TV theme songs that was able to set the mood for the program that followed it. In just under a minute, the combination of the smooth arrangement, Al Jarreau’s even smoother vocals, and the very simple lyrics painted a quick but encompassing picture of the show’s basic premise: a combination of style meets intrigue, where a former fashion model, Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd), “moonlighted” as a private investigator in order to get back on her feet and ended up in a complex relationship with her business partner, David Addison (Bruce Willis), all with the supergloss of 1980s Los Angeles as the backdrop. The theme song fit the vocalist, the show, and the era perfectly.

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Rod Stewart’s 1991 cover of Robbie Robertson’s “Broken Arrow” (download) is perhaps the biggest hit that I’ll cover in my series. The third single off of Rod’s Vagabond Heart album, “Broken Arrow” peaked at #20 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart and #3 on the AC chart, and the video (featuring Rod’s latest blonde at the time, Rachel Hunter), was a staple for months on both MTV and VH1, (yes, yes, back when they actually played videos). It could be assumed that the reason Rod gives such a heartfelt performance here is because of his love for Ms. Hunter at the time of its recording. For, while it is true that Stewart has moved from woman to woman throughout his life at almost regular intervals, it does seem that for the period of time that he is with his latest paramour, he is genuinely in love. And judging by his performance on this track, Stewart must have been quite smitten with Hunter.

In “Broken Arrow,” like many of his performances discussed in this series, Rod once again gingerly walks the tightrope of his most obvious vocal impulses of this period — screaming and whispering — without tipping over the edge. In the original Rolling Stone review for Vagabond Heart, Don McCleese states that Rod “doesn’t quite connect” with the song, but I don’t agree. I think McCleese probably got sidetracked by two things about the recording — things that in my opinion actually show the strengths of Rod’s performance. (more…)

It is an inescapable fact that while George Michael left Andrew Ridgeley far behind in his rearview mirror, and while the Faith album proved Michael was capable of being the British Prince — writing, playing, and producing virtually everything, and doing it well — a certain craving for musical partnership has kept him coming back to collaboration time and time again. You can definitely see it here in the tracks connected to this, the fifth and final post of my All Wham! weekend.

And while George Michael likely contained close to 99% of the musical talent that made up the Wham! partnership, there is still an extremely large percentage of people who long for a Wham! reunion. Mind you, these may be the same people who love “Last Christmas” to such a degree that they don’t even know if they love it ironically or not. On top of that, there is a great nostalgia factor involved that continues to allow (much) lesser ’80s acts like Bananarama and Rick Astley to sell a cartload of tickets as part of package shows throughout the British Isles and select parts of Europe. And as the world moves so quickly in this age of lightning-fast technological advancement and instant gratification, most of what we deal with in our lives changes from “now” to “nostalgia” in the blink of an eye. And with nostalgia comes that warm and fuzzy feeling that softens the edges of our memories, or at least coats our mental lenses with a bit of Vaseline. (more…)

When I was 17 years old, I had my first serious makeout session. When George Michael was 17, he wrote the song that has arguably led to more makeout and baby-making sessions than any other ’80s song: “Careless Whisper“. Damn, Larry and Balki almost got busy with their stewardess girlfriends on an episode of Perfect Stangers because of it. Historically, it was a song that predated Wham!, and one whose success expedited George Michael’s solo career, and the end of Wham!.

The song also had a extra kick in the teeth for both men in Wham!. Ridgeley had to deal with the song being labeled as a George Michael solo single in the UK, and as “George Michael feat. Wham!” in the United States. And Michael had to deal with the fact that the song was listed as being written by both Michael and Ridgeley, even though Michael wrote it by himself, and Ridgeley didn’t even appear on the recording. Why was this? Well, when the group started out, there was an initial agreement that their first few completed songs would go the Lennon-McCartney route, and they’d each be listed as co-writer, no matter who the main writer was. However, that agreement soon ended, as it became clear that Ridgeley really had nothing to contribute in the way of songwriting. Or singing. Or instrumentation. In fact, though he would “play” an electric guitar in their concerts and videos, it is widely believed that it was never plugged in.

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