Rhino Records laid off a lot of people two weeks ago. Some think the company is dead, while others, including former Popdose staffer/new Rhino guy John C. Hughes, implore us to be patient. As the poet said, “Time will tell just who has fell, and who’s been left behind …” But no matter what happens going forward, I hold in my hands a box set that will become part of the awesome Rhino legacy, and further confirm that Rhino is/was one of the last great record labels.
Big Star: Keep an Eye on the Sky is the shit, that thing the fanboys have been waiting more than 30 years for. It’s the validation, the vindication. It’s the drug, so open your veins, because now when your friends look at you blankly when you mention Big Star, you can sit them down, stick this in, all 98 tracks spread over four discs, hand them the beautiful 100-page booklet that comes with the set, and wait for them to finally acknowledge you as the trendsetter that you’ve always thought yourself to be.
That booklet I mentioned is as good a place to start as any. As usual, Rhino didn’t just dig up a bunch of moldy photos and hire some hacks to write trite copy. Following opening remarks from Ardent Studios owner and producer John Fry, we’re treated to a wonderful essay by noted Memphis musicologist Robert Gordon. Gordon gives us an oversight, the crucial details of Big Star’s career, such as it was. The story begins in Memphis in 1971 with creation of the band’s original lineup of Alex Chilton and Chris Bell on guitars, Jody Stephens on drums, and Andy Hummel on bass. The brilliant first album, #1 Record, that went nowhere. The departure, and later the death of Big Star co-founder Chris Bell. The even more brilliant second album, 1974’s Radio City, that once again got lost in the music business shuffle. The fateful decision to try one more time, the result being an album, Third/Sister Lovers, so dark and so fragile, that it wouldn’t be released for four years, and then only by a label, PVC, that had little to lose. (more…)
Feel that tension building in your neck, that stress in the spinal cord that feels just like a piece of rope with the twine extra-wrapped? Feel that chafe of fraying fibers, rest to snap inside there? Let it go, man. Just let it go. You’ll feel all the better for it.
Last week Nada Surf was the most popular selection, as Sarah Sebestyen’s fans showed up en force to deliver her 49 percent of the vote — almost three times as many as anyone else. Join us again next week as we match up songs about Fading to Black. Song suggestions for next week are welcome in the comments!
Nighttime and an electrical storm in the Mexican heat flashes, high on acid, the lightning breaking out – there! – there! – and the electricity flows through him and out of him, a second skin, a suit of electricity, and if the time was ever now it is – Now! – and he hurls his hand toward the sky to make the lightning break out where he points – Now! – we’ve got to close it, the gap between the flash and the eye, and make it, the reentry into Now … as Superheroes … open … until he falls to the beach and Mountain Girl finds him holding his throat and choking as if he is gagging on sand …
Beyond acid. They have made the trip now, closed the circle, all of them, and they either emerge as superheroes, closing the door behind them, and soaring through the hole in the sapling sky, or just lollygag in the loop – the loop of the lag – Almost clear! Presque vu! – many good heads have seen it – Paul telling the early Christians: hooking down wine for the Holy Spirit – sooner or later the Blood has got to flood into you for good – Zoroaster telling his followers: you can’t keep taking haoma water to see the flames of Vohu Mano – you’ve got to become the flames, man – And Dr. Strange and Sub Mariner and the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four and the Human Torch prank about on the Rat walls of la casa grande like stroboscopic sledgehammer Cassady’s fons et origo ::::: and it is either make this thing permanent inside of you or forever just climb draggled up into the conning tower every time for one short glimpse of the horizon:::::
I was too young to experience many of the groups and performers featured here when they were in their prime. Sure, I heard the music of Led Zep, Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Who, et al growing up, but I didn’t own any of their albums until the ’80s when I starting my serious record collecting phase — which tends to happen when you get older and get a job.
Musicians, like everyone else without a trust fund, have to make a living, too — even those who made millions in the ’60s and ’70s. By the late ’70s/early ’80s, many “older” rockers tried to stay relevant by incorporating stylistic flourishes that later became known as New Wave. New Wave often (though not always) meant that that soulless contraption known as the synthesizer would find a way to weave itself into the fabric of a song. Sometimes having synth sounds or electronic drums would be great; other times it would miss the mark and sound kind of, well, crappy. Whatever the case, here are six songs from very well known artists whose music was caressed by “The New Wave Effect.” (more…)
I’m running through the streets of industrial Los Angeles cursing to myself. My eyes are searching, desperately scanning the sidewalk and disintegrating asphalt for a coat hanger. The sun beats down on me, I’m sweating profusely, and behind me my car is parked with the engine running and the keys locked inside it. Welcome to L.A., baby.
If there is a Horatio Alger rite-of-passage story in my life, it takes place during the summer of 1991. For three months I worked as an intern for Alterian Studios, a special effects company in Hollywood. I was a 21-year-old kid — or at least I felt like a kid.
March 1979, New York, New York: When discussions started turning serious about the real possibility of interviewing Pete Townshend, I began shaking. Exhilaration and trepidation battled for headspace and left me sleepless for three nights. I kept running the scenario through my head of me sitting in a room with the man who had written Who’s Next, which I’d always thought was one of the 10 greatest albums of well, forever. For all I knew, Pete hated the record. But I’d now have the opportunity of asking him firsthand.
I prepared for our meeting. I listened and absorbed and made notes about every lick he’d ever played and every lyric he’d ever rhymed. I knew he was a passionate and deep-thinking individual, and probably wouldn’t suffer fools lightly. Pete was also a devotee of the Indian teachings of Meher Baba. “Baba O’Riley,” the first track on Who’s Next, was an ode to his guru mentor. In order to try and connect with the guitarist on as many levels as possible, I even tried engaging in my own brand of self-affirmation. I really did. Every evening before going to bed, I’d close my eyes, attempt to slow my breathing, and mutter mantra-style, “You’re not an idiot. Don’t worry. You’re not an idiot. Don’t worry.” But it didn’t work. For the next eight hours, tossing and turning in an insomniac’s hell, I heard my sleep-deprived brain mutating the chant into, “You’re an idiot. Worry. You’re an idiot. Worry.” (more…)
In early 1964, a London-based R&B club band called the Detours – rhythm guitarist Roger Daltrey, lead guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle, drummer Doug Sandom and singer Colin Dawson – were struggling to take things to the next level. They were fairly successful on the local pub and dancehall circuit, and, having seamlessly incorporated American style R&B (think Motown) into their act, started making inroads into the burgeoning mod scene, a 1960s subculture that incorporated cutting-edge fashion, Vespa scooters and such music genres such as rhythm and blues, soul and Merseybeat (think the Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers et. al.).
After Dawson left for a number of reasons (not least of which was Daltrey’s rough-and-tumble personality and bandleader status), Daltrey became the singer, leaving all guitar duties to the more-than-capable Townshend. They then changed their name to the Who, after discovering a band also sporting the Detours moniker. When a failed audition for Fontana Records precipitated the departure of the less-than-convinced Sandom and the arrival of Keith Moon, the lineup that would help change rock history was in place.
Around this time, they were “discovered” by Pete Meaden, himself a mod, with all the baggage participation in that scene implies: drugs (mostly amphetamine and other uppers), fashionista-like spending habits, and a generally overdriven lifestyle that was as untrustworthy as it was energizing. Totally enamored of the mod subculture, Meaden wanted to remake the former Detours as a mod magnet band. First order of business as their manager/publicist? Changing their name…again. Meaden rebranded them the High Numbers, a reference to the numbered T-shirts favored by mods at the time (ie, that month, or that week). Second order of business? A hit single calculated to appeal to their notoriously fickle audience, and to entrench the High Numbers as the mod band. (more…)
The press materials for The Who at Kilburn 1977 describe this DVD as “a holy grail for fans after decades of anticipation,” and that’s no piece of bull dreamed up by somebody in marketing. Die-hard Who fans (a group of which I proudly include myself as a member) have long since obsessed over obtaining audio and/or video from a handful of legendary shows, including, but not limited to:
• London, 5/2/69: the premiere of Tommy to the press at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club;
• Newcastle, 11/5/73: the sixth night of the Quadrophenia tour, when the band’s backing tapes failed, resulting in Townshend pulling longtime soundman Bobby Pridden across the soundboard, ripping out backing tapes and smashing equipment, all to the disbelief of the rest of the band … and the entire crowd;
• Kilburn, 12/15/77: aka the second-to-last Who concert to feature Keith Moon, filmed for inclusion in Jeff Stein’s masterpiece rockumentary The Kids Are Alright but shelved because of a subpar performance by an out-of-practice band (save for the inclusion of “My Wife” on the TKAA soundtrack and a few 15-30 second clips over the years).
Audio from the Kilburn show surfaced on a bootleg in the early part of this decade (oddly enough, most likely from one of my cassette tapes, but that’s another story) and last week, the full concert, warts and all, was finally released in all its six-camera, 35mm glory, along with a second disc featuring footage from a Tommy show at the London Coliseum.
So now, the questions can be answered: were the ‘oo truly ‘orrible? Is the Kilburn show nothing but a display of mediocrity? Were the Who justified in shelving it for all these years?
Dan Wilson (Trip Shakespeare, Semisonic, solo artist)
Okay Darren, here are my picks! I’m sure if I thought about it more I’d only come up with a bunch more bonus picks, so I’m sticking to these.
Joni Mitchell’s Hejira album. If it were one song I’d say “Hejira” — there’s something so heartbreaking about Jaco Pastorius’ bass melodies intertwining with Joni’s lyrics. And the song is about love, travel, the temporary fixes of modern life, and the quest for something lasting. What more could you ask for in a song? (more…)
Rhino Records laid off a lot of people two weeks ago. Some think the company is dead, while others, including former Popdose staffer/new Rhino guy John C. Hughes, implore us to be patient. As the poet said, “Time will tell just who has fell, and who’s been left behind …” But no matter what happens going forward, I hold in my hands a box set that will become part of the awesome Rhino legacy, and further confirm that Rhino is/was one of the last great record labels.
(1998)
(1972)
(1981)
(1995)
(1985)
(1996)
(1997)
(2001)
(1985)
(1990)
I’m running through the streets of industrial Los Angeles cursing to myself. My eyes are searching, desperately scanning the sidewalk and disintegrating asphalt for a coat hanger. The sun beats down on me, I’m sweating profusely, and behind me my car is parked with the engine running and the keys locked inside it. Welcome to L.A., baby.
March 1979, New York, New York: When discussions started turning serious about the real possibility of interviewing Pete Townshend, I began shaking. Exhilaration and trepidation battled for headspace and left me sleepless for three nights. I kept running the scenario through my head of me sitting in a room with the man who had written 
