Rubber City Review

The recent reissue of the Rolling Stones’ classic “Exile on Main St.” made me nostalgic for the days when a new Stones album was something worth arguing about…

Beatles or Stones? It’s one of those big questions – Republican or Democrat, paper or plastic, roll from top or roll from bottom (toilet paper, of course) – that supposedly reveal the very essence of your personality. And don’t believe those folks who say “I simply can’t choose between the Beatles and the Stones… they’re both so vital and important.” That simply proves that the person you’re talking to is a) full of shit; b) an inveterate fence-straddler; or c) both.

Put me in the Stones column. Don’t get me wrong – like every other kid on the block, I couldn’t resist the many charms of the Fab Four. I remember sitting on the family room floor with my older brothers and sister, watching the Beatles’ first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Can’t say I fully understood what was going on, but judging from the near-psychotic reaction of my siblings, I got the sense that things would never be the same.

But I took a certain amount of pride in telling everyone that I preferred The Dave Clark Five. The band was named after a drummer who played like a caveman, for chrissakes! And I loved the big, stomping, four-on-the-floor beat of their hits Glad All Over and Bits and Pieces… not to mention their singer, Mike Smith (everyman name, everyman voice), who sounded like he’d been thrown out of the Beatles for bad behavior. So maybe the stage had already been set to embrace the sheer, decadent glory of the Rolling Stones.

Although my older brothers eventually became blues hounds and Dylan freaks, they certainly could appreciate the Beatles’ evolution from cute popsters to acid-fueled poets. I distinctly recall one bizarre conversation at the kitchen table that involved Jack and James deconstructing the lyrics to I Am The Walrus. I think they somehow discovered the true meaning of “yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye”… only to forget it a few minutes later.

But it was just this sort of blowhardian (is that a word?) nonsense that made me realize I needed the rock ‘n roll equivalent of Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed in my life. Leave the free word association to the experts, like Allen Ginsberg and Norm Crosby. Give me the primal poetry of Keith Richards’ grinding rhythms: Can’t You Hear Me Knocking

Keep in mind, the album from whence this awesome riffage sprang – “Sticky Fingers” – was recorded the same year that the Beatles finally went down in flames, following several years of sonic excess (e.g. “Sgt Pepper’s”… sure, it was mind-blowing when it first came out, but has anyone listened to it lately?) and other forms of self-indulgence (Number 9, anyone?). Thankfully, they woke up in time to record one minor masterpiece, “Abbey Road,” in ’69… and that was pretty much it, unless you count “Let It Be” (not me).  Before long, Paul had turned into the British dance hall dandy he always wanted to be, crooning strange odes to Uncle Albert and other misguided dreck.

Back to the Stones… At the tender age of 16, I attended my first Rolling Stones concert – at Akron’s unfortunately named Rubber Bowl. I couldn’t believe my parents let me go. Maybe I’d convinced them I was going to watch late-night soap box derby races at the adjacent Derby Downs. It’s hard for me to remember much of what happened on July 11, 1972. I recall enjoying Stevie Wonder’s opening set, until police in riot gear tried to make an arrest on the field (they had to beat a retreat under a shower of flying debris). Then I made my way close to the front of the stage, where I watched what seemed like a sloppy, drug-addled performance of songs from the Stones’ sloppy, drug-addled masterpiece, “Exile on Main St.,” which was released in May of that year. When I first saw the apocalyptic action film “Mad Max” some 10 years later, it reminded me of the Rubber Bowl at the end of the Stones concert – zombie bikers with hollow eyes, stray dogs roaming nearby, small fires burning everywhere… OK, I’m exaggerating (just a little).

The relative letdown of seeing the Stones live didn’t stop me from wearing out my copy of “Exile” that year, just as I did with “Sticky Fingers” the previous year. I couldn’t get enough of the thick, sweaty groove that Charlie Watts and company laid down on this one – a blues that had something to do with the lack of ventilation in the basement of Richards’ vacation rental in southern France, where most of “Exile” was recorded… Ventilator Blues

From a creative standpoint, things seemed to go downhill for the Stones after “Exile.” And the next time their roadshow hit the area – ’75 in Cleveland – my college friends had to drag me to see them. I’m glad they did. They were in great form, much better than the Rubber Bowl show. Although guitarist Mick Taylor was gone, they’d added Ronnie Wood and brought along both Billy Preston and Ian Stewart on keyboards. Preston was amazing… he had scored huge hits over the previous three years with Outa-Space, Will It Go Round In Circles and Nothing From Nothing. So we were more excited about seeing him than the Stones.

Jagger and the boys regained some relevance in ’78 with “Some Girls”… and any band that hires jazz sax legend Sonny Rollins as a guest artist (“Tattoo You” from ‘81) gets a lifetime pass in my book. But I have to admit, I haven’t paid much attention to them since then, except for the occasional remastering of their classic stuff from ’63 to ’72.

I don’t even mind some of the revisionist experiments that Jagger conducted on the bonus tracks from “Exile.” What’s not to like about this one? I’m Not Signifying

But mainly, the “Exile” reissue sent me back to some of my favorite cuts prior to ’72 – including a few of the tunes they recorded as unabashed imitators of their beloved Chicago blues idols. Here’s just a short list of some of the stuff I’ve been digging into from their back catalog…

It used to bother me that the Stones started out as a second-rate blues cover band. Now I can’t help but admire how ballsy these guys were, barely reworking tunes by Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Don’t play Muddy’s original right after listening to this one… it would only ruin the moment. I Just Want To Make Love To You

A hidden gem from 1964′s “12 x 5.” This is one of those quintessential Sixties rock songs that make you picture a gang of teenage punks hanging out in someone’s dingy basement rec room – swilling Blatz beer, smoking cigars, shooting pool, busting each others’ chops… No self-respecting jukebox should be without this tune. Congratulations

Anyone who was surprised by the punk-rock attitude of the Stones’ 1978 comeback album, “Some Girls,” obviously never heard this number from “Got Live If You Want It!” A collection of small-club recordings from ’66, “Got Live” is far from essential. But their cover of the Bobby Troup classic has an undeniable edge… I’m guessing subtlety wasn’t a strong point of their mid-’60s shows. Route 66

If the Stones had disbanded right after recording this song, they’d still be considered legends of rock – and the tune’s signature riff remains Brian Jones’ greatest contribution to the form. The Last Time

I love the fuzzed-out bass that opens this very obvious tribute to the home of Chess Records, where this song was recorded in ’64. I’ve heard people say that Jagger’s a poseur… thought that a few times myself… also enjoyed the “rooster on acid” parodies… then I listen to his harp-playing on this tune and give the man his due. 2120 South Michigan Avenue

From “Beggar’s Banquet” – 1968. This may be the most underrated song in the Stones’ catalog. The opening sounds like something The Black Keys would be proud of. Then it builds into this glorious noise of scratching guitars and Jagger’s perfect howls… It’s no capital crime, but it’s still dangerous. Stray Cat Blues

We’ll end where we started – with Keith Richards playing rhythm, the way God and Chuck Berry intended. Listen to how this song breaks down to the brutal riff that kicks it off… then hear Richards answer himself with some tasty slide. Sorry, Beatles fans. This is why the Stones once ruled the world. Monkey Man

Keith Richards and Ron Wood, struggling to film a promo for MTV… I like how they snap into focus and nail it at the end. I’m guessing a few of their recording sessions went something like this.

Akron is full of entrepreneurs. Some do their work out in the open, others operate on the fringes. My old friend Jim Rauh exists somewhere in between, so when he first talked to me about his latest brainchild, I was a little skeptical. Basically, it goes something like this…

A certain company’s manufacturing process generates a fair amount of byproduct – a highly absorbent, cross-linked foam material. According to Jim, this stuff is completely non-toxic and non-hazardous.

But more to the point – e.g. The Gulf – it absorbs 20 times its weight in oil. It also absorbs water, of course, but that water is displaced as the material comes into contact with oil. And the absorbed oil can be used as fuel or possibly extricated and reused.

So why am I turning into a believer? I’ll blame this youtube video that Jim made with his son, Teddy. Granted, it’s not exactly Shamwow-quality, but I think it gets the point across fairly well…

Desperate times, desperate measures… Someone tell me why this won’t work. Jim sent the video to BP and the office of Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. Stay tuned for updates!

LeBron, post-LeBacle

The Cavs crashed and burned, the team’s fragile chemistry in ruins. LeBron’s making noise about leaving town. The Indians can’t hold a lead, and Asdrubal Cabrera broke his arm diving for a ball. Meanwhile, in my mom’s hometown of Milledgeville, GA, world-class whackjob Ben Roethlisberger is doing his best General Sherman as he cuts a wide swath of destruction through the countryside.

And that’s just the bad news in the world of sports. The economy’s still in the crapper… Dan of The Black Keys is thinking about moving to Nashville (Pat’s already in NYC)… Oh, and HBO’s “Treme” still sucks, for the most part – even though the music is first-rate.

I got the blues, baby, and I got ‘em bad.

Of course, the best antidote is more blues – or maybe a little old-school soul or rock ‘n roll. Anything to get my mind off this sad state of affairs here in America’s heartbreak… I mean, heartland.

Now, I won’t weigh in on the many rumors swirling around the Cavs following yet another gut-wrenching postseason in Northeast Ohio. And I have no idea who will show up to play when the team gets back together later this year for training camp. But I can’t help but think that “the plan” LeBron keeps referring to is all about getting a Ring for the King, no matter where he plays. Meanwhile, the goal of bringing the next major sports championship to Cleveland remains as elusive as Lady Ga Ga’s good taste.

Future home of RCR

Lots of theories about where LeBron will end up. I’m guessing Cleveland is now a long shot, even though the Cavs built the Taj Mahal of training facilities only minutes away from LeBron’s Dubai-scale house, which is just down the road from a large architect’s model of Rubber City Review’s new world headquarters (at right: pending stimulus grant approval). One theory has him hooking up with Dwyane Wade and several other A-listers in Chicago, where they could bring back the glory days of Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen. But I think the great bluesman Jimmy Reed knew all along where LeBron would land – so if you’re from Northeast Ohio, listen and weep… Jimmy Reed

Actually, at this point I’m sort of agnostic when it comes to LeBron and The Black Keys leaving town (in Dan’s case, it gives me another cool place to visit). But I’m also not sure how it would help advance their careers. We live in a world where some punk kid skyping in his bedroom in Duluth can become a global phenomenon. Why would anyone think that someone like LeBron needs a bigger stage to achieve his goal of world domination? Hell, he’s already there. Might as well stick it out in Akron, where livin’ is easy and people pretty much leave you alone. And besides, it’s easier to find a qualified contractor who can maintain a home that’s the size of a shopping mall.

The Tribe? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over seeing them lose the ’97 Series – in extra innings of Game 7, no less – to this Frankenstein creation of a team from Florida. A team with absolutely no tradition. A team that was systematically dismantled the next year by its owner, like he dumped off a bunch of cats on someone’s farm after they killed all the rodents in his house. I was devastated. But I have to admit, I thought of this next song when I was sitting in a beach house in Captiva, watching Game 1 on TV with the snow falling in Cleveland… Muddy Waters

With Roethlisberger, I could take the easy way out and simply play “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” but there has to be a more appropriate song… one with a lot of big, dumb swagger – preferably by a band with a strong connection to the Deep South. Yeah, I got it right here. Just imagine this tune being reworked by that big-voiced blonde chick from American Idol. Whatever the hell her name is… Lynyrd Skynyrd

I can come up with a whole slew of songs about economic hardship. How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live, Money Honey, Depression Blues, All My Money Gone, Sidewalks of Chicago, Hard Times Killing Floor Blues… But I get tired of all that bitching about not having two nickels to rub together. In these times of short-selling scam artists and massive ponzi schemes, I want songs of retribution. I want to know that, even though my ill-conceived investments have tanked, some former Wall Street wunderkind is getting passed around federal prison like a joint at a jam-band concert. Time for a sermon from Rev. Scott H. Biram… Scott H. Biram

Then there’s “Treme,” which I already complained about a few posts ago. Fact is, even a half-baked show with great music is better than anything involving real (incredibly annoying) housewives or snotty rich kids from California.

So I’ll try to end on a more hopeful note. Here’s hoping that the Cavs rise from the ashes and the Indians rise above .500 and the South Rises Again and my bank account… well, you get the picture. But when everything seems to be swirling down the drain, the best way to lift my spirits is to play me some funky brass-band music – straight from a city that makes sports heartbreak seem trivial. Funky Liza/New Orleans Nightcrawlers

Everyone’s an expert… Dan and Pat of The Black Keys weigh in on LeBron and the miseries of Cleveland sports (starting at 1:25). Excuse the commercial at the beginning:

Robert Quine backing Richard Hell

My cousin Robert Quine was a bona fide guitar hero (number 80 on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” – right after Cliff Gallup of Be Bop a Lula fame and before Derek Trucks). But I wasn’t aware of his playing until a couple of years after he blasted his way into New York City’s vibrant punk scene with “Blank Generation” by Richard Hell and the Voidoids: Blank Generation/Richard Hell and the Voidoids with Robert Quine

In the liner notes to “Spurts: The Richard Hell Story,” a very thoughtful Hell had (hath?) this to say about what you just heard: “It sounds to me like the solo is coming from another dimension. I don’t know if it has any relationship to anything in history. Though of course everything does, and that solo specifically refers to certain records Quine liked.”

I was raised on jazz, blues and bluegrass music, so punk rock wasn’t something that I naturally embraced. Then a college buddy took me to CBGB in New York’s seedy Bowery area to see The Dead Boys from Cleveland (even though I could’ve driven a couple of miles from my mom’s house in Akron to see them at the Crypt).

The first thing I noticed when we walked in the club was the disproportionate number of people jammed into the back of the room, by the bar. Meanwhile, a big bouncer separated the “hoi polloi” from the empty VIP section, which was the entire expanse of the club (in other words, about 30 feet) in front of the stage. Must’ve been a showcase gig for a record label. My buddy and I did some quick thinking and convinced the bouncer that we were reporters from some rag back in Ohio, and we grabbed a table up front.

The opening act (name escapes me) made quite an impression when the lead singer tossed his mic over a pipe hanging from the ceiling, pulled the cord back down around his neck, hung himself in the air for a few seconds and then collapsed on stage. That, my friends, is rock ‘n roll! The Dead Boys’ set wasn’t nearly as memorable, although we were invited backstage by a band member’s mom for some birthday cake. I have to say, seeing a middle-aged matron and her friends handing out birthday treats to Stiv Bators and Cheetah Chrome was a surreal experience, especially in that shithole.

But I was glad to visit an American rock shrine, the place where bands like the Voidoids, the Ramones, Patti Smith Group, Television, the Talking Heads and Blondie defined New York City punk and new wave in the late-‘70s.

Robert Quine was probably the least-likely rocker of them all. Born in Akron in 1942, he went to a prep school in the area, eventually earned a law degree (from Washington University in St. Louis), and even passed the Missouri bar, but never practiced law. Rob (his parents called him Rob, so I did too… most everyone else called him Quine, which I didn’t for obvious reasons) probably shared a few stray genes with his famous uncle, Willard Van Orman Quine – a brilliant philosopher whose work in analytics and “semantic holism” remains an essential touchstone for deep thinkers around the world. Just don’t ask me what it all means.

Rob moved to San Francisco in 1969, where he first met Lou Reed while taping a gig by Reed’s influential band The Velvet Underground. Rob was obsessed with the band, and his tapes of several performances in the Bay Area and at Washington University were released in 2001 as a 3-CD set called “Bootleg Series, Vol. 1: The Quine Tapes.”

He landed in New York City in ’71, where he wrote tax law treatises for a publishing company, worked at a film memorabilia shop and eventually fell in with a rag-tag group of downtown musicians, like fellow guitarist Tom Verlaine (Television) and Richard Hell. Then “Blank Generation” set the stage for Rob’s strange musical odyssey, which included studio work for Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull, Matthew Sweet, avant-gardist John Zorn, R&B legend Andre Williams, and many others.

Richard Hell and the Voidoids

Someone once described him as looking like a “deranged accountant,” which pretty much nailed it. He usually wore a sport jacket and almost always wore shades, even indoors. And he was quite a bit older than most of the folks he played with (although Reed also was born in ’42).

I never saw Rob play live, but I visited with him several times at his parents’ house in West Akron. His dad, Bob, and mom, Rosalie, were good friends of my parents and also were close with my sister Mary and her husband, Chuck, who lived a block away from the Quines. Bob had inherited his father Cloyd’s business, Akron Equipment (mostly tire molds), but he apparently had little enthusiasm for management and especially the brutal realities of labor relations. He retired at the first opportunity and spent the next 30 or so years of his life traveling the world with his charming and colorful wife Rosalie (she grew up in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn and claimed to have been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party in her younger days, which seems almost quaint today when you consider the horrors of 9/11).

By the time I met Rob, the Voidoids had already imploded and he’d gained greater notice as Lou Reed’s guitarist. Critics fawned over Rob’s solos on “The Blue Mask,” which was widely viewed as a return to form for Reed after years of abusing various substances. Although I can’t say that “Mask” is one of my personal favorites, I’ll admit that anyone who records a solo like this has balls of steel (Rob claimed that Reed annoyed him so much in the studio that he could barely contain himself when they rolled the tape on this one): Waves of Fear/Lou Reed with Robert Quine

Rob recorded two more albums with Reed – “Legendary Hearts” and “Live in Italy” – before he left due to differences that were probably personal as well as musical. He told me the record company sent a test pressing of “Legendary Hearts” to his parents’ house in Akron, and he was so infuriated with the final mix (some of his guitar parts were mixed out altogether) that he grabbed a hammer, walked out on the driveway and smashed the record into little pieces.

Rob would spend a couple weeks in Akron every year, mainly to decompress and get away from the indignities of life in New York’s Lower East Side, back when squatters and drug dealers were taking over empty buildings (he said he was mugged twice just taking out the garbage).

Rob’s social skills were somewhat lacking, to put it kindly. Rosalie would invite us over, but I think Rob would’ve been perfectly content spending his time in Akron without seeing a soul other than his parents. He would barely acknowledge my presence when I first showed up, then when he realized I wasn’t leaving right away, he’d reluctantly engage in a little conversation – mostly quick responses to my questions about his guitar playing and influences.

But once he decided I actually knew what I was talking about, we were off and running. His stories (like the driveway incident) could be hugely entertaining, and he had a wonderful way of describing other artists – his rants about Lou Reed were priceless – and the recordings that really inspired him.

I was surprised to find out he had a jazzman’s sensibility and a deep, heartfelt appreciation of the blues. He actually took a few lessons from the great jazz guitarist Jimmy Raney, whose work with Stan Getz alone was enough to make him a legend. And you can hear a little of that jazz influence in Rob’s later recordings with Zorn, drummer Fred Maher and percussionist Ikue Mori. Here’s a cut from “Painted Desert,” Rob’s 1997 collaboration with Mori: El Dorado/Ikue Mori with Robert Quine

Rob’s first great inspiration, though, was the country-influenced string-bender James Burton, who made Ricky Nelson’s rockabilly sides far more legitimate than they should have been and eventually settled into a comfortable living as Elvis Presley’s main guitarist. Although he seldom played it straight, Rob seems to pay tribute to Burton in this strangled solo from Reed’s “Live in Italy”: Betrayed/Lou Reed with Robert Quine

Rob with The Hound (far left), WFMU studio

Rob told me he had a blues radio show when he was at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, and one of his favorites was Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. He also loved Jimmy Reed – which I also found surprising, given Rob’s shrieking, atonal solos with the Voidoids and the other Reed. On another occasion, he asked me if I’d heard of Ted Hawkins, the former street musician from Venice Beach whose warm, soulful voice seemed to convey a world of sadness. Once again, I was floored… Is this the same guy who shredded his way through Love Comes in Spurts?

During one of Rob’s visits to the Rubber City, my sister Mary and I stopped by and asked him if he wanted to head up to Kent with us to see the legendary 15-60-75 (aka The Numbers Band). I could probably spend the next 12 paragraphs or so trying to describe the Kidney Brothers and their amazing legacy in Northeast Ohio (future post?). But if I had to offer a brief description of their four-decade career, I’d say they play highly original, somewhat eccentric and often frighteningly intense blues-based music – basically street poetry for rubber rats. Here’s a little taste, recorded live in ’75 at the Cleveland Agora when the Numbers opened for Bob Marley during his first American tour: About Leaving Day/15-60-75 The Numbers Band

Back to Rob and our invite… he threw us another curve by agreeing to go. We strolled into the Numbers’ main home, JB’s, which smelled a lot like Marley’s dressing room, and stood near the stage to watch an especially riveting set. I thought their guitarist, Michael Stacey, would recognize Rob – his playing seemed to have that punk-rock edge to it. But Rob went mostly unnoticed. Although he kept glancing over his shoulder (with shades on, of course) in an odd kind of way, like he was expecting some crazed Kent State student to jump on his back and start pummeling him. Just when I thought we should whisk him back to the security of his parents’ house, he admitted that he enjoyed the band and really appreciated us dragging him along.

The last time I saw Rob was after his father passed away – probably around ’99. By then, he’d married a lovely woman named Alice, who was everything socially that Rob wasn’t. She appeared to be his complete support system, which Rob sorely needed given his paranoid nature and darker tendencies. He had just bought the complete Columbia studio recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, which was playing in the background. “What do you think of this?” he asked. I told him I was working my way through it too and loved virtually everything Miles recorded in the Sixties. He nodded quietly, way beyond the point of being phased by our shared tastes in music.

In 2003, Alice died suddenly at their Soho loft (for an intense account of this event and others involving Rob, check out this piece by The Hound – one of my favorite bloggers and probably Rob’s closest friend when he was living in NYC). Without Alice’s love and support, Rob went into a tailspin, and he died from a heroin overdose less than a year later.

Rob is conspicuously absent from the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, which probably suits him just fine. But he remains a major influence on younger musicians like my nephew Dan, who once took the short walk to Bob and Rosalie’s with guitars in hand to jam with Rob.

Dan Auerbach on Robert Quine… “Pat (Carney) and I had just formed The Black Keys and signed a deal with Fat Possum. Meanwhile, my dad browbeat Rosalie into letting me stop by to meet Rob, who begrudgingly agreed to do it. I’m sure he was expecting a high school kid with a shredder guitar and a Limp Bizkit CD. Then I showed up with a couple of Japanese Teisco Del Reys and some stuff by Junior Kimbrough and T-Model Ford. He walked out of a really dark study, with his shades on, and complained that he had a hangover and a headache – could’ve been in withdrawal – but once he saw those guitars he took off his shades and his eyes lit up right away.

“I played him ‘All Night Long’ by Junior, who he’d never heard of, and he was completely blown away. Then we talked for a couple of hours about music and even noodled around on guitar together. He told me everything he did was just a variation on Chuck Berry. He also spoke fondly of (guitarist) Marc Ribot… said he was very grateful for all the gigs that Ribot lined up for him. Of course, Pat and I later brought Marc in to play on ‘Attack and Release,’ along with Pat’s uncle Ralph.” Ralph Carney and Robert Quine played together on Tom Waits’ classic album, “Rain Dogs” (along with Keith Richards) – an unusual connection with The Black Keys that’s rarely mentioned.

“Robert used a Peavey solid-state amp [Dan prefers tube amps], which made sense when you consider the sound he became known for at times – so jagged and in your face. A lot of punk-rockers’ guitar playing came across as ‘fake’ aggression… Robert had the ability to be atmospheric and airy or aggressive and edgy but in a ‘real’ way… and in a style that became all his own. Probably all that pent-up rage from getting sent off to prep school by his parents!”

They got together again after that, and Rob encouraged Dan to look him up in New York City. “He said he’d always been in the phone book – spelled ‘Kwine.’” But Dan never had the opportunity. “We had our first sold-out show in New York in 2004, I think it was at the Roseland Ballroom, and I was really looking forward to having him at the show. But he passed away right before we hit town.”

One of the tragic realities of Rob’s passing is that he never had an opportunity to collaborate with Dan in the studio. But Marc Ribot’s biting guitar on Oceans & Streams gives us a sense of what could have been: Oceans & Streams/The Black Keys with Marc Ribot

Robert Quine on video… Nasty guitar solo from a night with Lou Reed, 1983. Lou needs to work on that Clint Eastwood impersonation.

Little Women (clockwise from top left): Jane, Kat, Alice, Sis and Margaret

My mom grew up on a farm in central Georgia. She was the youngest of 10 children, and her family spanned generations in a way that was unusual even for the Deep South. Her father, Wirt Little, was born at the tail end of the Civil War and had his first child with his much-younger wife, Kate, when he was in his 50s. Mom’s oldest brother, Buddy, died in World War I from mustard gas, which the Germans used to turn the Allied trenches into killing beds.

Her other siblings were every bit as colorful as their names, which included Marshall, Kat, Sis, Bib and, my personal favorite, Longino. That name had a typically Southern origin… Kate went into labor during a horrible storm, and the local obstetrician, Dr. Longino, survived a rough trip in a horse-drawn buggy to deliver the baby, which was named Longino in eternal gratitude to the good doctor.

Mom and Longino, down on the farm

I loved visiting the farm as a kid and seeing all my aunts, uncles and cousins (Wirt and Kate were long gone by then), but the drive south in the early Sixties definitely had a Joad-like quality to it. The interstate was largely unfinished, so my dad would test the very limits of our Dodge station wagon – fully loaded with mom, six kids and luggage strapped to the roof – by negotiating the hairpin curves on Route 441 through the Great Smoky Mountains. It was a nerve-wracking, three-day trip, which made all of us even more delirious when we arrived at the Georgia farmhouse with the fragrant scent of the boxwood shrubs along the front porch (remnants of the Victorian tastes of Georgia’s early settlers). To this day, the smell of boxwood takes me back to the wonderful summers I spent in Milledgeville.

Kat and Sis lived in the farm’s main house and always welcomed us by “putting the big pot in the little one,” as mom would say. Fabulous southern dinners with big roasts, squash soufflé, cornbread and mashed potatoes were often followed by bowls of homemade peach ice cream with Kat’s famous pound cake. Nothing in the Rubber City – not even the first-rate Italian dinners on North Hill – could compete with these feasts on the farm (although mom’s cooking came damn close).

I’d wake up to the sound of a rooster and a few cows outside our small guest room. During the day we’d go down to a dock on nearby Lake Sinclair and swim for hours. If it rained, we’d sit together on the porch and listen to my Uncle Longino, his droll wife Dunk and our older cousins tell stories about the rattlesnakes and water moccasins that apparently killed hundreds of small Yankee children every year.

Milledgeville was filled with notable characters – Southern Gothic author Flannery O’Connor among them – and Longino was near the top of the list. He received a Purple Heart in World War II after taking over a troop of soldiers by default (the officers lost their lives on or just after D-Day) and getting riddled with machine gun fire. He came home with a little lead in his side and a slight limp, and spent the next 20 or so years earning a pension with an uneventful assignment at the Robins Air Force Base near Macon.

An early, failed attempt at Southern cooking in the Rubber City

But Longino was an entrepreneur at heart. He always seemed to have two or three ventures – moneymaking or otherwise – going on at the same time. At one point or another, he ran a par-3 golf course, a teen dance club and a small restaurant. He also bought a few houses and other property throughout the area, which he would tend to almost as an afterthought. The only piece of his kingdom I wanted, though, was his WWII Willys Jeep. I may have been too young to drive in Ohio, but down south I tore through the woods in that jeep like Richard Petty’s demon seed.

I spent one summer working for Longino, doing odd jobs at his various properties. He was constantly frustrated with my ham-handed approach to basic tools, like hammers, saws and paint brushes. And if I did a particularly good job of screwing something up, he’d let loose with one of his oddball Southern expressions, like “boy, you remind me of the ox that walked a mile to shit on an axe handle!” Guess that meant I took the long road to nowhere… but I never bothered asking Longino for clarification.

His most humiliating admonishment, though, was completely non-verbal. I was doing some light construction at the “clubhouse” of his par-3 course, and he asked me if I could knock a wall into place by hitting a 2×4 with the flat end of an ax – without burying it in the drywall, of course. I said sure and swung away, missing the wood by a couple of inches. Longino studied the fresh, gaping hole in his wall, looked down his nose at me, then calmly pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote my name under the hole. Ouch!

Longino gave my mom a log-cabin structure that once housed a restaurant (and whorehouse, as I found out later). Against all odds, my mom had the cabin moved down the road and onto the 50-some acres of pine forest she inherited just outside of town. Longino then went to work replacing one of its side walls and building a massive family room – and that cabin became my main summer destination, with or without my parents, throughout my high school years.

In the early Seventies, central Georgia was both way behind the curve and ahead of it. For example, the “Summer of Love” that Time and Life magazines documented ad nauseam in 1967 finally hit Milledgeville around 1972. My cousin Shep led the charge with his long (albeit well-groomed) hair and newfound prowess on his Gibson Les Paul. He also was a star on the ultimate stage for local stoners, the foosball table. His cousins and their friends from “Up North” became his hapless posse – and it’s probably best that we avoid any more discussion of the summers of ’72 and ’73.

Meanwhile, 30 miles down the road in Macon, the Allman Brothers Band blazed a new trail by layering jazz-like improvisations over tight, rootsy arrangements. They had an arsenal of talent few other rock bands could match, with Greg Allman’s deeply soulful voice and Hammond organ serving up the blazing twin guitars of brother Duane and Dickey Betts. The Allmans single-handedly created, and then completely dominated, a new sub-genre labeled “Southern Rock” – much in the same way that Bob Marley cast a long shadow over the rest of reggae. Here’s a little sample… Done Somebody Wrong/The Allman Brothers Band (live)

I think my mom got a charge out of the Allman Brothers – especially when they became “The Nation’s Official Rock Band” after Jimmy Carter won the election of ’76. By then, mom had become very active in Rubber City politics and even served as a delegate for Carter at the Democratic Convention in New York City that year. She also ran the district office for Congressman John Seiberling, became the first woman to chair the Summit County Democratic party, and helped launch more than a few successful political careers.

Mom had qualities that worked well in politics. She was whip-smart and very determined, but always masked her intentions with healthy doses of down-home charm and wit. Like many Southerners, she used a combination of sweet talk and brute force to get exactly what she wanted from unsuspecting Yankees. And she didn’t take shit from anyone, from the Congressman to her kids.

In the 40-plus years she lived in the Rubber City, my mom never lost her Southern drawl. And she hung on to the same crazy-ass expressions shared by her family back in Georgia. If someone handed her a ridiculous assignment, she’d say “what do you want me to do, stand on my head and stack BBs?” Which usually led to the room-clearing “I’m so mad I could just spit!”

Mom and Kat

Over the next decade or so, we continued making pilgrimages to Milledgeville for family get-togethers at the cabin. It remained a magical place that seemed worlds removed from whatever problems we were dealing with back home. I never saw my father happier than when he stood in the corner of the big family room, holding a bourbon-fueled drink while listening to his kids play bluegrass music.

After my dad passed away in ’86 – and the rest of us began raising families with their own preferred holiday destinations – the log cabin became more of a burden for my mom, who eventually sold it and the surrounding acres of pine forest to Shep. My wife and I made a bittersweet trip back to Milledgeville nearly 20 years ago, but I haven’t visited since. Maybe it has something to do with the growing sense of loss as Sis, Kat and Longino passed away. Then my mom’s passing in 1999 closed the book on a farm family with especially deep roots.

I know we’ll make the trip back to Milledgeville someday – and it won’t have anything to do with a wedding or funeral. I’m sure I’ll be saddened by everything that’s changed, but maybe some quality time with Shep, cousin Jane and the next generation of Littles will help fill the void.

Since this is usually about the music, I’ll end with a gospel number that we sang at my mom’s graveside – I’m sure Jane sang along too. Angel Band/The Stanley Brothers

Spoken-word Jane… When we realized mom wasn’t long for this world, my sister Caroline started taping her stories about the Littles. I highly recommend this to anyone else who’s in the same situation. Here mom recalls how her parents found out about Buddy’s death: Buddy’s Death

More spoken-word Jane… Hey, I’m just doing this for my own enjoyment – bail out any time you want! Wirt gets ready to meet his maker: Wirt’s Last Goodbye?

Jane meets The Black Keys… Dan pissed off more than a few buyers of “The Big Come Up” with this hidden tribute to his grandma Jane, which followed about 20 minutes of silence in the album’s final cut. Jane with The Black Keys

Welcome to Rubber City Review.  It’s not intended to be Akron-centric, but I should probably kick things off by asking the question:  When it comes to roots-rock and other mutant forms of modern music – Devo, The Black Keys, The Cramps, Chrissie Hynde, The Numbers Band, Tin Huey founder and Tom Waits sideman Ralph Carney, punk guitar trailblazer and former Lou Reed sideman Robert Quine, Vaughn Monroe (Vaughn Monroe?  More on that later)… what makes Akron so damn special?

Growing up in Akron, I always felt that “bastard stepchild” vibe when I talked to hard-core Clevelanders.  There was never a sense that they were missing out on something by not taking the 30-minute drive south to check out Akron (although I can’t say that our meager live music scene was much of a draw).  Maybe we just had a little more to prove.

You could argue that the lack of a vibrant music scene forced many aspiring rockers into the garage – or, in the case of the Keys, literally underground – where they could tinker like mad scientists without fear of failure.  How else could you explain this hidden track on The Big Come Up? 240 Years Before Your Time

I’ve also heard that legendary late-night TV host Ghoulardi (aka Ernie Anderson, father of indie director Paul Thomas Anderson) had a huge impact on a young Erick Lee Purkhiser of Stow, OH before he morphed into psychobilly king Lux Interior of The Cramps, and that members of Devo were devotees as well.

Akron writer David Giffels expands on the Ghoulardi influence in the book “Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!”:  ”The Ghoulardi aesthetic seemed to capture a much broader and more significant notion:  Akron and Cleveland were a noirish sci-fi movie.  In Cleveland, it was steel.  In Akron, rubber.  But both places were defined by aging brick factories with round chimneys that breathed fire and smoke.”

Purkhiser also was under the spell of local DJ Pete “Mad Daddy” Myers, whose fast-paced chatter drew listeners into a carny sideshow of space-age sound effects and oddball rock ‘n roll… Songs like Teenage Machine Age by The Travelers, or this classic by Link Wray…Rumble

(Many examples of Mad Daddy in action here)

The Mad Daddy

In the late ’50s, Mad Daddy became an underground fixture in Northeast Ohio — occasionally hosting sock hops in his patented Dracula outfit.  But he never caught on at his next stop, New York City, where he eventually killed himself with a shotgun.

Now, I could go on at great length about The Cramps and the seductive powers of guitarist Poison Ivy (and I probably will down the road), but I’ll let this video clip speak for itself… You can almost hear the spinning sound of “the Singing Brakeman,” Jimmie Rodgers, who wrote this one back in 1930!

I love the TV show host at the end… Just another day of depravity at the station!

As this clip suggests, if there’s a common musical influence that connects all these bands, it’s probably rockabilly – which makes sense, because Akron’s rubber factories pulled in a lot of folks from the South who had little trouble adapting to a more urban environment.  You can hear some of that influence in Robert Quine, who was a huge fan of Ricky Nelson’s guitarist James Burton.  I’ll go straight to the source on this one – Burton’s blazing solo on Susie-Q by Dale Hawkins… Susie-Q

About 30 seconds of pure goodness… and cowbell to boot!

Since Chrissie Hynde moved back to town (part-time), her music has taken on a harder, more rockabilly edge — which is especially evident on this cut from Break Up the Concrete… Don’t Cut Your Hair

Maybe there’s something in the air, emanating from the primordial ooze of the Cuyahoga River.

But one thing is clear – there really isn’t anything you could remotely define as an “Akron Sound.”  The most obvious reason is that we never had a major studio in town with a forceful personality like Sam Phillips or Berry Gordy running the show.  Hell, Hynde didn’t even find her sound until she moved to London, and you could argue that The Numbers Band has never been properly recorded (Dan?).

And that sense of disconnect brings me to the odd man out – Vaughn Monroe, also known as “Old Leather Tonsils” and “The Baritone with Muscles”…

Back in 1920, Monroe was just another young punk with a rubber rat for a father.  He lived around the corner from my dad in Akron’s Goodyear Heights neighborhood, created by its tire-building namesake to house a small army of plant workers and their families.  But he eventually became one of the best-selling artists of the Forties – a big-band vocalist who wrapped his warm baritone around hits like Let it Snow and this one, Ghost Riders in the Sky… Riders in the Sky

I’m sure Monroe’s huge success appealed to my father’s belief that hard work and a modicum of talent can take you anywhere.  Here’s to Vaughn Monroe, the Godfather of the Akron Sound!

This just in from our Florida Bureau (brother James)… an entirely different take on Ghost Riders in the Sky — from Ned Sublette, author of “Cuba and its Music” and “The World that Made New Orleans” (more on those two books here):

Bonus video from Dan… We share a love of the late, great bluesman Freddie King.  I’m partial to his “surf-blues” recordings for the Cincinnati-based King label in the early-’60s — tunes like Hide Away, widely covered by blues bands around the world, and this one… Sen-Sa-Shun

But Dan came across this gem from Freddie’s later years, probably around 1972.  Watch him work out on Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine.  I like how he takes his time strapping on his guitar, tosses off a perfect blues lick, and then kills it!