Rubber City Review

Psychedelic rock: I know I shouldn’t try to boil down an entire sub-genre of music into a few sentences. But here’s my take on psych rock.

First and foremost, it changed my life – starting with the moment I first heard Jimi Hendrix coming from the tiny speakers of my transistor radio (a mind-blowing event that I covered here). There was no denying the power of the opening riff to Purple Haze. Just two notes, like a siren’s blare. And rock ‘n roll would never be the same. Purple Haze

I eventually got a Heathkit POS (piece of shit) stereo and kept it tuned to WMMS in Cleveland, where DJs like Billy Bass (“the classical gas, the man with the special stash”) turned me on to Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, The Doors and other heavy bands from the late-‘60s. But eventually psych rock lost its appeal… and the best way to explain this is by looking at the changes that took place at roughly the same time in the Catholic Church.

You see, the Latin Mass I remember as a child was all about mysterious ritual (brightly colored vestments, odd choreography, ornate dinnerware), exotic sounds (Latin, Gregorian chanting), intoxicating fragrances (incense) and a solemn act of communion (Communion). Then, almost overnight, most of those grand mysteries were replaced with shiny happy teenagers singing crappy folk songs. At that point I knew exactly what was going on – the church was pandering to me, and I wasn’t buying it.

Essentially the same thing happened with psych rock: mysterious ritual (Morrison the Lizard King, Hendrix the Fire God, Janis the Whiskey-Swilling Earth Mother), exotic sounds (said opening to Purple Haze), intoxicating fragrances (weed) and a solemn act of communion (smoking of weed)… All of it was eventually co-opted by ad campaigns straight from Madison Avenue and lame-ass TV shows like The Partridge Family and Laugh-In. I wasn’t buying that crap either. But the music lives on, along with a few choice videos from the era.

I love the fact that early purveyors of psych rock, like Roky Erickson and the Austin-based 13^th Floor Elevators, somehow snuck past Dick Clark’s Vanil-O-Meter and made their way onto American Bandstand. Here’s a great clip of the Elevators attempting to lip synch their way through You’re Gonna Miss Me… Apparently they were just a couple tabs of acid from a perfect take.

Here’s another clip from Cleveland’s entry into the Bandstand sweepstakes, Upbeat. This segment from ’68 features The Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, notable for the fact that Page is faking Jeff Beck’s recorded solo. It’s another one of those trippy collages that cropped up way too often during the Sixties (although singer Keith Relf looks very groovy during the guitar solo).

It’s hard to find a better artifact from the era than Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 appearance on The Smothers Brothers Show, where they performed White Rabbit and Somebody to Love. First of all, White Rabbit remains one of the best examples of psychedelic rock – a wonderful stew of thinly veiled drug references, moody minor chords over a quasi-bolero beat, Jorma Kaukonen’s snaky guitar, and that amazing voice (to me, Grace Slick will forever be 28 years old). Second, the Smothers Brothers were a surprisingly subversive force on Sixties TV as they continually battled with CBS network censors over skits that took on, among other issues, racism and the Vietnam War. But their main stock in trade, of course, was being silly – in a mildly anarchic way. Those of you of a certain age will recognize Dick Smothers’ comment about “smoking a banana,” which at the time was rumored to give you a cheap high (never tried it, so I can’t confirm). And the visuals on these clips are vintage Sixties… There must be something inherently disorienting about tiny people floating in an oil lamp.

I’d be remiss if we didn’t include the godfathers of psych rock, the Grateful Dead. And this lengthy clip from Playboy After Dark (1969) is mind-blowing in several respects. Let’s start with the segment up front, as Hef and a few other well-scrubbed dandies (or “beautiful people,” as someone hissed in a youtube comment) “rap” with Jerry Garcia. I love Garcia’s description of the two-drum attack: “It’s like the serpent that eats its own tail, and they go around and around like that, and if you can stand in between them… they make figure eights on their sides in your head.” I think Hef’s intended response was “eh, that’s great, Jerry… let me go fetch another martini.” But mainly, this encounter reflects the whole co-opting process I mentioned earlier. I’m not suggesting that the Dead sold out by showing up at the Playboy Mansion. Hey, it was a simple business decision – and probably a good one, which is why the band stuck around for another 25 years.

You might want to pass on the first number, Mountains of the Moon… pretty dreadful. Pick it up at around 7:10 as the Dead launch into one of their signature freak-outs, St. Stephen. One more sidebar: You’ll notice the relative lack of dancers – unavoidable in most “After Dark” videos (although the St. Stephen clip includes the ghostly image of an unrecognizable soul man gyrating throughout). That’s because you’d probably need a tab or two to dance along to the song’s constantly shifting time signatures.

Of course, psych rock never really went away. But it sure seemed a lot less relevant to pimply faced teenagers in the Seventies (like me) who spent way too much time dazed and confused, listening to good old-fashioned crotch-rock from the Midwest and across the pond. Bands like Grand Funk Railroad, The James Gang, Free, Humble Pie, Savoy Brown, Foghat… riff-heavy bands that rarely strayed from the pocket and left the noodling to the experts, like Sonny Rollins. Mark, Don and Mel (need I say more?) first showed up at the Playboy Mansion right after the Dead, in ’69. But they seemed to come from an entirely different time and place. Note the return of the After Dark Dancers, looking fairly ridiculous on the stairs.

Let’s say I did psychedelic drugs… I doubt the trippy videos from the Sixties would raise my consciousness. But this one would earn me a trip to see Nurse Ratched.

Here’s an idea I stole from our good friends at iCrates: What’s the first record you ever owned? (Kristian at iCrates described the joys of receiving Guns n’ Roses’ “Appetite for Destruction” as a Christmas gift.)

Depending on how old you are, maybe that should read “stole” instead of “owned.” Or it could reference any of the following: 8-track, reel-to-reel, cassette, CD, mp3, mp4, streaming audio, youtube or telepathic transubstantiation (new technology we’re working on here at RCR).

For those of us who grew up in the Sixties, it boiled down to one of two formats – 33 or 45 RPM. And my first buying decision was informed by a small transistor radio that I had perched on the sill of my bedroom window.

Up until I was about 10 years old, that radio was primarily used to broadcast play-by-play coverage of Cleveland Indians games, which I listened to religiously even though the Tribe rarely won. Meanwhile, my first real exposure to rock music involved sitting outside the closed door of my brother’s bedroom while he and his buddies played early albums by the Stones, the Animals and the Young Rascals. God knows what they were doing in there – and I wasn’t really willing to find out. Entering that room would surely lead to great ridicule and maybe even physical abuse. I was all about listening to the music… from a safe distance, of course.

Then I started hanging out with a friend down the street, whose older brother had a curious mix of rock and jazz albums that seemed to capture the spirit of ’67 – The Doors, Thelonious Monk, Jefferson Airplane, Coltrane, Cream, The Beatles (Sgt. Pepper’s)… My friend’s brother made me feel a little more welcome, probably because he was way too stoned to care that a couple of 11 year olds were rifling through his record collection. I also spent a lot of time at the local recreation center, where I heard the song “Light My Fire” about 1,400 times. Literally. (72 summer days x 20 listens per day… my wife checked the math.)

Given my newfound interest in hippie rock, I started to tune out the Tribe games on the radio and tune in to CKLW, also known as “The Big 8” – broadcasting out of Windsor, Ontario. Now I don’t mean to give short shrift to the birth of free-form FM radio in Cleveland with progressive rock stations like WMMS and DJs like Billy Bass, “the classical gas, the man with the special stash.” But that little phenomenon didn’t begin to take hold until more than a year after the Summer of Love. Before then, you had to really scour the dial to come up with something worth listening to. And even though CKLW was technically a Top 40 radio station, those wacky Canadian DJs would still manage to weave in a few soul and Motown nuggets – not to mention an acid-fueled rock song or two. Eventually, the station was forced to add more Canadian content (known in the biz as “CanCon”) at the expense of American soul. Goodbye Marvin Gaye… hello Gordon Lightfoot.

Anyway, I probably still had a couple of fresh box scores on the bedside table when I first heard Jimi Hendrix on my Japanese transistor. And I distinctly remember the experience (so to speak). It was like I’d accidentally dialed up a transmission from a distant galaxy, where advanced lifeforms had developed amplifiers powerful enough to vaporize our entire planet. The opening riff of Purple Haze was like nothing I’d ever heard before… It sent a jolt right through me. I kept a watchful eye on my Sony, expecting it to burst into flames at any second: Purple Haze

I had to find out right away who it was. The DJ never mentioned the artist, and the founders of google were about five years from taking fetal classes in computer programming. Luckily, the words Purple Haze were now seared into my skull. So I walked over to my friend’s house to ask his brother. “Oh yeah, that’s Hendrix, dude… he’s heavy.” Haze, Hendrix, Heavy… Time to scrape together all the change I’d gathered from around the house and head down to the O’Neil’s department store with my dad, who’d let me roam while he “rubbernecked.”

O'Neil's, left; Polsky's, right

In 1967, O’Neil’s was the epicenter of downtown Akron – a massive structure that housed every basic item you’d need for the modern American lifestyle (and if you couldn’t find it at O’Neil’s, you simply walked across Main Street to shop at the store’s doppelganger, Polsky’s). O’Neil’s had a record department on the 6^th Floor, and you’d get there by taking a series of escalators that became increasingly narrow and rickety as you neared the summit.

I survived the climb and walked over to a young, crisply dressed man who looked like he managed the New Christy Minstrels. “Do you have anything heavy by Hendrix? Purple Haze, perhaps?” He looked at me like I had a third arm growing out of my forehead, then suddenly remembered the exotic artifact that somehow got filed next to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. On the cover: an odd-looking black man flanked by two even stranger-looking white guys, all three with afros. Inside: some of the wildest sounds ever committed to wax.

I plopped down my four or five bucks – which, if you account for inflation, would mean you’d need to secure low-interest financing to purchase an album today – and made the precarious descent to the first floor, ready to defend my new purchase from any form of assault. If I had somehow lost my balance and fallen head-first, I would’ve sacrificed my face to get that record home in one piece.

I barricaded the door to our family room, carefully took the record out of the sleeve and delicately placed the needle on “Are You Experienced.” And it opened with that classic riff from Purple Haze. Clearly, I was being way too careful with my new find. This damn thing could protect itself… maybe I should’ve been more concerned about dad’s cheap Heathkit hi-fi.

I could go on endlessly about the many pleasures of Hendrix’s first album. And not all of them had to do with powerful, mind-melting riffs.

The Wind Cries Mary – one of the most beautiful and lyrical rock songs ever written… The Wind Cries Mary

Third Stone from the Sun, which took thousands of impressionable young teenagers on a trip across the galaxy (and we didn’t even have to leave our bedrooms)… Third Stone from the Sun

Hey Joe – a truly great blues song, right up there with anything by Muddy or Wolf… Hey Joe

And Manic Depression – Mitch Mitchell’s ultimate throw-down to any rock drummer who followed… Manic Depression

As you can probably guess by now, I went on to buy hundreds of albums, even more CDs and enough mp3s and 4s to fill an 80GB iPod. And I have a wall of cassette tapes in a closet that I’m afraid to toss, because one of them might hold that long-lost piece of music that I’ll never be able to get back. But “Are You Experienced” remains my greatest find, and I don’t think I’ll ever feel as transformed by a new sound as I did when Purple Haze first melted the plastic cover off my half-watt Sony.

Jimi Hendrix live – showing off a couple of tricks he probably learned from watching Earl Hooker:

(c)BarryFeinsteinphotography.com

How many of you are heading to Akron for the holidays?

Actually, once you get past the startling lack of color and “fresh as the driven slush” look of our winter landscapes, this time of year has its charms in the Rubber City. Especially when you can avoid the chill outside by checking out the current attraction at the Akron Art Museum – Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present.

Akron Art Museum

The touring exhibition features 174 photos and 8 videos by 111 photographers and videographers, including Richard Avedon, Anton Corbijin, Diane Arbus, Annie Leibovitz and many more. It landed at our world-class museum on October 23, so of course it’s time for RCR to announce its arrival (we’ll celebrate the 40^th anniversary of The Numbers Band sometime next year). Besides, our good friend Barbara Tannenbaum, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Museum, assured us that even a plug from the barely educated beer-swilling contrarians at RCR would be welcome as the holiday season quickly approaches.

“No form of music has ever been as integrally tied to the visual arts as rock and roll,” says Tannenbaum. “Photographers of rock did not just document the musicians and concerts. They helped create identities for the performers and their musical styles, providing visual equivalents as thrilling and entrancing as the music itself. This exhibition reveals, for the first time, the nature of the relationship between photography and rock and roll.”

Even though many of the photographs are by now familiar to the rock faithful, they still deliver a jolt – reminding us how the transcendent power of a great rock show could turn your standard multi-use facility into a sacred place of worship. Of course, the stars themselves look fabulous in settings that range from subterranean sleaze (the Ramones) to high-fashion glitz (Grace Jones). And who can resist the seduction of Amy Winehouse in bed, er… seducing herself? But the exhibition serves more as a tribute to the unsung heroes of rock ‘n roll – the photographers and artists who helped create the form’s most lasting images, including a few that focus on frenzied crowds and fans as well as the stars they idolize.

The Ramones, Ian Dickson/www.late20thcenturyboy.com

“Rock and roll was a bipartite revolution: the sound and the image,” said guest curator Gail Buckland. “The music alone could not create the revolution. The kids were reacting to the hairstyles and the clothes and the body language. And the people who gave rock its image are very, very important. Revolutions have to be documented to be believed.”

The exhibition offers a rare public look at some iconic rock ‘n roll images, including a 1963 photograph by Philip Townsend of the Rolling Stones half in the bag at an Australian pub; a candid shot of James Brown in curlers by Diane Arbus; Jean-Paul Goude’s working photographs and album cover for Grace Jones’ “Island Life”; the full sequence of never-before-exhibited photographs by Ed Caraeff of Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967; Richard Avedon’s four classic 1967 Beatles portraits (as well as his stunning shot from 1961 of The Everly Brothers in Las Vegas); Ike and Tina Turner at Club Paradise in Memphis in 1962 by the African-American photographer Ernest Withers… And let’s not forget one of my favorite images – Alfred Wertheimer’s photograph of Elvis in rock’s golden year of 1956, canoodling backstage with an unnamed admirer:

Elvis Whispers Softly, (c)Alfred Wertheimer, The Wertheimer Collection

I also was captivated by Ebet Roberts’ 1993 photograph of The Cramps at New York City’s legendary CBGB club, with Akron’s own Lux Interior in all his sartorial splendor – wearing a skin-tight black vinyl jumpsuit with matching gloves and black pumps.

Some of the best photographs show image-conscious rock stars in private, unguarded moments. The previously mentioned shot of Amy Winehouse, Buddy Holly on a bus, Kurt Cobain breaking down backstage, Keith Richards having a smoke in Prague, Paul McCartney looking through his car’s rearview mirror… “People who later became icons were on the brink of their careers wondering whether anybody was ever going to notice them,” said the late photographer Linda McCartney. “That’s what made it exciting to be taking photographs. It was before the self-consciousness set in. I wanted to record what was there – every blemish, every bit of beauty, every emotion. I wasn’t interested in manufacturing a show business image.”

The exhibition also features music videos, a rock-and-roll chronology made from actual album covers, and an 80-image slide show by Henry Diltz – evocative of that whole Sixties back-to-the-land noble-hippie mythos that never seemed to get much traction in the Rubber City. And The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame generously contributed several rock costumes for display as part of the exhibition, including Phil Spector’s Gold Star Recording Studio jacket, Elton John’s sparkly “Hercules” suit, Tina Turner’s silver mini-dress and Madonna’s Girlie Show Tour purple velvet stage costume.

If that embarrassment of rock ‘n roll riches leaves you wanting more (or if you can’t make it to the Rubber City during the holidays), you can always spring for the exhibition catalog – a hardcover book authored by Buckland. “Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to Present” contains 298 color and black and white photographs, along with commentary about each image’s photographer, their influences and relationships with the musicians. The catalog will be sold in the Museum Store for $40, or can be purchased online at AkronArtMuseum.org.

Above: Wilson Pickett and Jimi Hendrix – Michael Randolph, Executor to the Estate of: William “PoPsie” Randolph.

Who Shot Rock & Roll is organized by the Brooklyn Museum with guest curator Gail Buckland. The exhibition will be at the Akron Art Museum through January 23, 2011. Also, the Museum will be open two extra days – Monday, Dec. 27  and Tuesday, Dec. 28 – to make it more convenient for those of you visiting from out of town.

Technically, this ain’t rock ‘n roll… but the Campbell Brothers rock a lot harder than anything on Cleveland radio. They’re a sacred steel gospel group from Rush, NY, with the mighty Chuck Campbell on pedal steel. This clip was filmed in ’98 at their home base, The House of God Church. If they open one in Akron, I’m in. Thank you Brother James…

Congrats, Dan and Pat! Four Grammy nods for The Black Keys:

• Best Alternative Music Album (“Brothers”)
• Best Rock Song (Tighten Up)
• Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals (Tighten Up)
• Best Rock Instrumental Performance (Black Mud)

Also, Pat’s brother Michael Carney was nominated for Best Recording Package for his “Brothers” artwork, which we touched on in our previous post.

Justin Bieber, beware… The Black Keys’ march toward world domination goes right up your backside!

How’s that for a blowhard title?

The operative word being “moments”… which speaks to one of several fundamentally different ways that we experience music.

Some folks like it in the background, like aural wallpaper. Now, I’m not going to waste valuable bandwidth trashing smooth jazz, Enya or Muzak. I actually felt a tinge of sadness when I found out that Muzak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year. But I tend to have a hard time ignoring ambient music – I’m always trying to figure out what song is being reprocessed, and whether or not it’s an actual improvement over the original.

Years ago, I was toiling away in a Muzak-fed workplace when I kept hearing this nagging melody… Why is this so disturbing? Then I suddenly realized I was listening to an orchestral remake of Journey to the Center of Your Mind by Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, and my head almost exploded. I found out later that Nugent actually tried to purchase Muzak just to put it out of business. So I’ll give the company credit for following through on this diabolical act of revenge.

Other folks just wanna dance. Nothing wrong with that… In fact, that’s probably a far healthier approach to music than this constant need to analyze every song and identify every conceivable influence.

Some of my more literate friends are all about the lyrics. They trace their musical lineage back to Dylan, who begat the Beatles who begat Elvis Costello who begat a whole slew of contemporary indie poets. Unfortunately, some of these modern-day bards approach things like rhythm and musicianship with an attitude bordering on contempt.

I recently came across a quote from guitarist Geoff Muldaur (Paul Butterfield’s Better Days, The Texas Sheiks) in the Austin Chronicle that seemed to describe where I come out on this issue:

“I’m miserable at listening to singer-songwriters, because I’m not interested in the (singer-songwriter’s) music, and I don’t listen to the words,” Muldaur said. “Zero. I come at it from the music. If the lyrics hold up, if the music is compelling, I might listen to words – if they’re spectacular and draw me in. Take ‘Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You,’ as an example. ‘Love makes me treat you the way I do. Gee, baby, ain’t I good to you.’ That’s it.”

Which brings us to the malcontents at Rubber City Review and other obsessive-compulsive types – mostly musicians and record collectors – who simply can’t get certain guitar licks or horn parts or vocal flourishes out of their heads. Sadly, these retained musical moments don’t go away – they begin to crowd out other basic thoughts, such as those involving food, personal hygiene and the speech patterns of spouses and family members. Help stop this terrible affliction…

OCD-related maladies aside, I’ve always noticed that musicians use these moments as shorthand to describe what they like about a certain song, artist or genre.

When I was putting together my post on Robert Quine, I came across a tribute from an old friend of Rob’s, Procter Lippincott (from the music site Perfect Sound Forever). Here he describes a process that should be familiar to most musicians:

“We never listened to whole tracks together. In fact, on most occasions, as I recall, we listened only to that particular instant on any track that we felt made it great, even breathtaking, in its impact. It might have been A Thing of the Past, for instance, where Shirley of the Shirelles’ voice cracked on the first word of the phrase, ‘Thi-i-s-s is the moment to decide’ (my choice), a syncopated line on ‘Waltz for Debby’ (Bill Evans’ ‘Live at the Village Vanguard’… his), or the pregnant pause right after the head in Power to Love on Jimi Hendrix’s wildly uneven ‘Band of Gypsys’ album, before Jimi cranks up the volume to take another unearthly solo (mutually appreciated). Quine typically was not as accepting of my choices as I was of his, but we kept at it endlessly, searching for our secular epiphany.”

Here’s that moment (and more – I just couldn’t cut off the solo) from “Band of Gypsys”: Power to Love/Jimi Hendrix

In the best spirit of this process, I’ve asked brothers Jack and James to join me in sharing some of our favorite musical moments. I promise to be accepting of their choices – even if I’m convinced they suck – and I look forward to joining them at the upcoming Rubber City Roundtable: “Why Our Opinions About Music Are Much More Important Than Yours.”

Tim: Charlie Parker may seem like an obvious choice, but I wonder how many jazz musicians became junkies after hearing Bird’s ultimate throwdown to his fellow be-boppers? This is from a compilation of his recordings on the Savoy and Dial labels (one Dial collection even included this sample as a separate track, listed as the “Famous Alto Break”): Night in Tunisia/Charlie Parker

Jack: This is one of those slow blues that only a good blues singer can sing. I’m talking about Muddy Waters. With a top-notch band that follows his every breath. “Don’t say I don’t love you, cause I stays out late at night long… You know I’m a country boy and I don’t know what’s going on.” It’s great, but the growl and cry at the end really nails it. Country Boy/Muddy Waters

James: It had to be the mid-’70s when I first heard Reconsider Me coming from a record vendor’s booth at a Pensacola flea market. When I asked who the singer was, the vendor said he thought it might be Tom Jones. “Tom Jones can’t sing like that,” I said. Not even in his dreams. It turned out to be New Orleans crooner Johnny Adams. For reasons I still don’t understand, the song was included in a compilation album called “The Streak,” which also featured that Ray Stevens ode to exhibitionism. I don’t know how to categorize this sound. Swampolitan? I do know there aren’t many vocalists, alive or dead, who could sing with this particular combination of sophistication and scary passion. Listen to Johnny’s bloodcurdling falsetto on the chorus. Reconsider Me/Johnny Adams

Tim: Couldn’t resist another perfect falsetto – this one from gospel singer Claude Jeter, who passed away in January 2009. You probably didn’t read about it in the paper or see it covered on Entertainment Tonight. Which makes sense, because he had one of those transcendent voices (like the previous example) that seem to exist in another world… one that would relegate Madonna Ciccone to a lifetime of obscurity. Here’s my favorite moment – actually, two soaring falsettos by Jeter – from my favorite tune by the Swan Silvertones: Mary Don’t You Weep/The Swan Silvertones with Claude Jeter

Jack: The great James Booker… Is he playing in front of the beat or behind the beat?  You figure it out. He sure is creating a lot of excitement with just a couple of chords. Keep On Gwine/James Booker

James: I Ain’t Got Long has to be one of the most deep and moving performances I’ve ever heard on record, and the story behind it is incredible. A prison warden overheard the legendary Bahamian musician Peter Elliot singing the song in his cell, where he was awaiting execution, and was so moved that he arranged his release. Elliot later fell to his death through the open window of a Nassau bar. The song is performed by a group of Elliot’s friends in the same alley where he died. It’s from the classic collection of field recordings, “The Real Bahamas.” This is as real as it gets… (we’ll just play the whole thing) I Ain’t Got Long/Sam Green and group

Anyone else want to weigh in? Doesn’t even have to be an actual piece of music… I’ll leave you with this little slice of studio banter between Leonard Chess and Sonny Boy Williamson (warning: don’t play this for the kids) as you ponder which nugget you’ll send me for a future post: Little Village/Leonard Chess and Sonny Boy Williamson

Today’s Record Store Day… Go spend some cash at one of the 700 independent record stores left in the U.S. so they can stay open for another year.