Posts Tagged ‘The Beatles’

Run-DMSteve is shocked, shocked

Posted: October 26, 2014 in music, Record reviews
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Sign O’ the Times
Prince
1987

Back when I worked for Seattle Weekly, I had a conversation with our music editor, Bart Becker, about the fragmentation of commercial radio. Each Seattle station was locked into its own fenced-off musical world. Some formats had Reader’s Digest condensed playlists – Classic Rock had compacted Creedence to about eight tracks, for example. We lamented the lack of a commercial station that dared to play rock, reggae, jazz, classical, blues, punk, and country all on the same day.

Of course we were being unrealistic. No station could turn a profit without focusing on one subset of all radio listeners like a red-tailed hawk on a meadow mouse. I bring this up now for two reasons:

1) Bart’s team, the San Francisco Giants, are playing in the World Series, and with a name like Bart Becker you know he should be holding down the hot corner or frantically calling the bullpen for a left-hander.

2) Even though I have listened to several hours of music a day almost every day since I crawled out of the ocean and learned to breathe oxygen, I had never heard a single note from Sign O’ the Times.

Yeah. Radio is fragmented.

Why didn’t somebody tell me?
Sign O’ the Times is so good that I almost didn’t write about it. I’m not worthy! But I started out to review every album Prince ever made and goddammit I’m going to review every album Prince ever made. (Unless Rhapsody doesn’t have one. Prince is not sending me free merch.)

I started by looking at what critics said about Sign O’ the Times in 1987. Everyone compared it to The White Album, which makes sense because both albums are a mess, but nobody mentioned that The White Album was created by John, Paul, George, and Ringo while Sign O’ the Times was created by Prince, Prince, Prince, and Prince. This makes Sign even more monumental.

The songs here come from three different projects. They don’t belong together, especially the songs from the project in which Prince played a woman and speeded up his voice. It never occurs to me to do projects like that. Sign has something for everyone, but much of it is not my style: super-smooth soul ballads (I’ll only accept Barry White), hip-hop (doesn’t come naturally to Prince – he’s a rocker at heart), songs that are so slow they could be outrun by the walking dead, and God. What’s left is more than enough for a wretch like me, but I’m only going to mention the title track, “The Cross,” and “If I Was Your Girlfriend.”

“Sign O’ the Times” is an updating of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.” In fact, “Sign O’ the Times” would fit perfectly on Gaye’s 1971 masterpiece of the same name. But there is that Prince touch at the end, when he sets aside his concerns about AIDS, natural disasters, and nuclear war and suggests to his listener that we should just get married and have a baby.

“The Cross” is Prince taking on U2 at their most pompous and rocking them right out of Ireland. The song doesn’t even hit its crescendo until 2:28 and it’s over at 4:45. On this album, 4:45 streaks past like a comet. I’m staggered. And I say all this in praise of “The Cross” even though it’s more God.

“If I Was Your Girlfriend” may be the most singular song in pop music. Follow along: Prince, who has a girlfriend, imagines himself as his girlfriend’s girlfriend, because then they could be closer than they could be with him as her boyfriend.

If I was your girlfriend
Would you let me dress you?
I mean help you pick out your clothes
Before we go out?
Not that you’re helpless
But sometime, sometime those are the things
That bein’ in love’s about.

But his real question, and the heart of the song, is:

If I was your one and only friend
Would you run to me if somebody hurt you
Even if that somebody was me?

The music is distancing, almost ominous, and his voice is speeded up (in one spot he sounds like Snoopy), but this line has two points of view plus a gender switch. What is this, literature?

Oh, and the song eventually gets sexual. C’mon, it’s Prince.

Summing up
Sign O’ The Times, flaws included, rates five stars from any pointy-headed critic.

But!

This album is not fun, not like 1999 or Purple Rain or The White Album. Nothing on Sign is as plain silly as “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey.” I realize that I’ve been listening to The White Album for 46 years and to 1999 and Purple Rain for about 30 and to Sign for two weeks, and that artists should always try to grow, but I can already tell that I’m not going to replay Sign O’ the Times, just three or four of the tracks.

I just did…and then I listened to Ringo crooning “Don’t Pass Me By.”

1987 Scoreboard
Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love was the Rolling Stone critics’ best album. The runners-up:

The Joshua Tree – U2
Sign O’ the Times – Prince
Document – R.E.M.
Robbie Robertson – Robbie Robertson
Pleased to Meet Me – The Replacements
Bring the Family – John Hiatt
By the Light of the Moon – Los Lobos
Franks Wild Years – Tom Waits
Babble – That Petrol Emotion

The readers voted for U2’s The Joshua Tree for best album. Their runners-up:

Sign O’ the Times – Prince
Document – R.E.M.
Tunnel of Love – Bruce Springsteen
A Momentary Lapse of Reason – Pink Floyd
Whitesnake – Whitesnake
Hysteria – Def Leppard
Tango In the Night – Fleetwood Mac
…Nothing Like the Sun – Sting
Bad Animals – Heart

If you’re keeping score you may have noticed that African-Americans have been a small part of these Rolling Stone lists. We’ve had Robert Cray, Run-DMC, and Tina Turner once each and Prince three times as opposed to 33 white artists. Los Lobos are Chicano. But what I’m really mad about is that there’s only been two Jews, Paul Simon and Lou Reed. Plus now we have…Sting! You can’t get more Caucasian unless you activate the Perry Como hologram.

Today’s Randoms: WTF Edition 

Thumbs-up
Paul Revere & The Raiders, Collage (1970)
The boys were running on fumes by 1970, plus on this set they’re playing in a higher league: Steppenwolf psychedelia and Guess Who hard rock. This album should’ve sucked the phone.

Wrong! “Think Twice” is good enough to have been the B-side of “Kicks,” “Hungry,” or “Just Like Me.” The tracks “Dr. Fine,” “Just Seventeen,” and “The Boys in the Band” are not bad. “Sorceress with Blue Eyes” is as dumb as its title, but Mark Lindsay shows what his voice can do – a sort of Mick Jagger with Robert Plant’s phrasing – and the guitar break is classic heavy ’60s.

Collage is not worth a purchase – most of it is Crud Gone Wild – but it’s definitely worth a listen.

Thumbs-up
George Benson with the Brother Jack McDuff Quartet, The New Boss Guitar of George Benson (1964)
I only knew George Benson from his lightweight pop of the ’70s and ’80s (“This Masquerade,” “Give Me the Night,” and his signature tune, “On Broadway”). The New Boss Guitar was a happy surprise. This is jazz, alternately cool and funky.

The album was reissued in 1990 with one extra track, their reading of the My Three Sons theme. It doesn’t fit with the earlier cuts, and it sounds nothing like the music from that antique TV show, but Benson and his band were on fire when they waxed this one. All hail the drummer!

 

It never gets easier

Posted: June 22, 2014 in Dog reviews, Miscellaneous, music, Record reviews, Writing
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Cleo at her command post
This dog is guarding the house.

We had to put our dog Cleo to sleep yesterday. She had been gradually losing control of her back legs, but her descent had accelerated and she was spending more time just sitting, inspecting the grass around her and taking sensor readings of the air. It was five months to the day since I first saw her wobbling at high speed around the pen where she was being held. How can one undersized corgi become an oversized part of your life in just five months?

On her last day, Cleo slept on the bed, ate lots of treats, rolled in the grass, took a few steps on her favorite trail, charmed one last stranger, and (briefly) chased a squirrel. That would be a good day for most humans. I’ll miss the war she waged against the chickadees in our backyard, the way she swam through the undergrowth in the forest, and how she would kick me awake at 3am because she was dreaming about chasing down a moose. Like most of us, in her dream life she was invincible.

Cheryl Strayed wrote in Wild, “The universe takes things away and never gives them back.” But the universe also gives you gifts. Cleo was a gift to us in a dark hour, and we’ll never regret taking a chance on her.

Cleo's tulip parade 041414
Tulips on parade.

Horace Silver, 1928-2014
Horace Silver was my favorite jazz pianist, though I didn’t discover him until his 1996 release, The Hard-Bop Grandpop. The man was a jazz institution and I came to him very late in his career. Two earlier albums that I know and can recommend are Blowin’ the Blues Away (1959) and especially Song for My Father (1964). RIP.

I was dreamin’ when I wrote this/forgive me if it goes astray
Let’s change the mood here. The Prince Project is on hold (just when were getting to the most notorious albums) because I am once again participating in the Clarion West Write-a-thon. I’m not going to blog about it because doing that last summer was insane. Instead, I’m signing off. See you on August 2. Enjoy your summer!

Random Pick of the Day
The Beatles, Revolver (1966)
Four things strike me as I listened to Revolver after many years of not listening to it:

One is that The Beatles embarked on 14 separate explorations of new musical pathways and brought each of them home in a concise 2-3 minutes. Arcade Fire or Pink Floyd would still be playing.

Two is that the album begins with something as mundane as taxes and ends with the Tibetan Book of the Dead. (Do the Tibetans read any fun books?)

Three is that “She Said She Said” would fit into any alt-rock radio playlist in 1986, 1996, 2006, and probably in 2166.

Four is that The Beatles’ experiment with Indian music is like punk’s flirtation a decade later with reggae – interesting, but only to a point, which in The Beatles’ case will come the following year on Sgt. Pepper.

A must-own album. But you already do.

Let the Prince project begin

Posted: June 8, 2014 in music, Record reviews
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For You
Prince
1978

Prince Rogers Nelson had already consolidated his name to Prince by the time he released his debut in 1978. The only reason to listen to this album is that Prince was only 19 when he recorded it in 1977. Much of it sounds like second-string disco; “Just As Long As We’re Together” made me think of Tavares and Ohio Players. “Soft & Wet” tries to be sexy, but the most daring thing about it is the title.

The only song that hints at what lies ahead is the closer, “I’m Yours,” a rock/dance hybrid, and even that one didn’t exactly challenge Hall & Oates for radio domination. At this point, Prince can’t even out-punch KC & The Sunshine Band. But that day is fast approaching.

What I was doing at 19: Living in Boston, attending Boston University as a journalism major, writing bad science fiction. I read 53 books, my second-highest season total, though I might’ve done better in grade school when I raced through all the Peanuts collections. I don’t know – I didn’t start my lifetime reading list until the summer I turned 16.

Rolling Stone’s best albums of 1978:

Winner:
Some Girls – The Rolling Stones

Runners-Up:
Darkness on the Edge of Town* – Bruce Springsteen
Running on Empty – Jackson Browne
This Year’s Model – Elvis Costello
Road to Ruin – The Ramones
Misfits – The Kinks

* My friend Andy Krikun bought this one when it was released, took it home, played it, memorized it, and told me the next day it was “a Faulkner novel.”

Random Pick of the Day
Salvatore Bonafede Trio, Sicilian Opening (2010)
Italian jazz pianist who occupies the sonic terrain between the hard bop of Horace Silver and the Peanuts playfulness of Vince Guaraldi. His free-style version of The Beatles’ “Blackbird” is the highlight. He also covers “She’s Leaving Home,” and improves on it by simply omitting the lyrics.

For Salvatore, The Beatles “have got in my life tiptoe.” Hat tip to Loyal Reader Laurel for unearthing this delightful quote.

Random Pan of the Day
Röyksopp & Robyn, Do It Again (2014)
Röyksopp is two guys from Norway. Robyn is a gal from Sweden. Together they make dance grooves from a deep freeze. The synthesizers will take you back to the 1980s; Robyn’s voice will jerk you back to today. There are only six tracks on this release and most of them run on too long and are not actually danceable.

If you listen to a lot of electronic dance music, you’ll recognize many of the effects. “Do It Again” is the main attraction, but Robyn, who has a global following, has done far better (“Dancing on My Own” and “Get Myself Together”).

 

Turn off your mind, relax and read this blog

Posted: May 4, 2014 in music, Record reviews
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Loyal Reader Laurel recently celebrated a birthday. Though she appears to be a mere sprig of her girl, she is old enough to have seen The Beatles 17 times in her native LA. She also carried on a brief but intense postal correspondence with a prominent member of the late George Harrison’s family. In honor of Laurel’s birthday, here’s a quick look at one of the most-covered Beatles’ songs, Revolver’s “Tomorrow Never Knows” (1966).

(“Tomorrow Never Knows” is one of the most-covered Beatles songs? How did I figure that one out? Entirely unscientifically, so shut UP.)

“Tomorrow Never Knows,” the final track on Revolver, is a nightmare of a drug trip complete with lyrics from the Tibetan Book of the Dead (which is currently ranked 8,836 on Amazon, with 78 mostly positive customer reviews). It appeared in August, a month after another altered-consciousness classic, The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” (on the album Fifth Dimension). What a summer that was for non-linear thinking…“Tomorrow Never Knows” features pioneering technical effects and a strong Indian influence. In just 2 minutes and 58 seconds it terrified parents and thrilled middle-schoolers like me.

The Mirage, Tomorrow Never Knows – The Pop Sike World of the Mirage: Singles & Lost Sessions (2006)
The first band to cover this epic song was The Mirage – a British psychedelic act that’s so obscure they’re practically frozen in a block of carbonite. In the fall of 1966 they released their version, which sounds like U.S. garage rock minus the accents. Some simple yet effectively melancholic piano in the middle. Perhaps because they knew their own limitations, they wisely held their song to 2:36 – the only cover here that’s shorter than the original.

801, 801 Live (1976)
801 was a short-lived avant-garde outfit put together by Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera while on sabbatical from Roxy Music. Between my disco phase and my punk phase I had a brief avant-garde phase, which was a struggle for me because I don’t smoke, I don’t look good in a beret, and I have a generally positive view of life. Eno and Manzanera’s version, which they called “TnK,” is the longest I know (6:15). It’s breathtaking.

Monsoon, Monsoon Featuring Sheila Chandra (1995)
Sheila Chandra has an indelible voice. She had a hit in the U.K. in 1982 with “Ever So Lonely.” Sometime in the ’80s she also recorded “Tomorrow Never Knows.” I like this Britpop/Indian hybrid, but it’s maybe a little too comfy, given the subject matter. Running time: 4:05.

Various artists*, The Craft: Original Soundtrack (1996)
The Craft is a sensitive, incisive look at four teenage witches who learn about life and love at a Catholic school in LA. The soundtrack is even worse than what I wrote in the last sentence. However, Canadian rockers Our Lady Peace turn in an excellent 4-minute cover that bows respectfully to The Beatles while also giving you a state-of-the-union message on mid-’90s alternative rock. It’s the opening track, too, so you can hit Eject immediately after.
* When I say “artists,” I’m being generous.

Invert, Between the Seconds (2003)
Invert is, or was, a classical string quartet that inverted the normal string-quartet lineup and presented us with violin, viola, and two cellos. Heavy on the bass! No singing on their cover but lots of spacey space sounds. They clock in at a relatively svelte 3:12.

Emmanuel Santarromana, FAB4EVER (2006)
The Italian Santarromana produced an interesting collection of Beatles covers. His “Tomorrow Never Knows” is more of a novelty number, as fun as Sheb Wooley’s “The Purple People Eater” or Afroman’s “Because I Got High” but not something to place in regular rotation. The vocalist sounds like Max Headroom’s younger brother. Running time: 3:29.

Giacomo Bondi, A Lounged Out Homage to the Beatles (2007)
Signore Bondi hired an Italian Beatles cover band (The Apple Pies) to faithfully record the songs on this disc. Then he ran their work through his software, supposedly to reconstruct (or deconstruct) everything. The songs come out different, I’ll give him that. I vote for “Paperback Writer” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.” The running time on the latter is 4:53, which is too long, and the opening sounds like the last 10 superhero movies I’ve seen, but it’s definitely worth a listen. (There are two versions of this album. I briefly reviewed the one from 2010.)

I like all of the covers here, some much more than others, but I have to say that no one has topped John Lennon and Paul McCartney. As in most things. Happy birthday, Loyal Reader Laurel, and I’ll try to write about The Beatles again before your next birthday.

Antique Parent Land

Posted: March 23, 2014 in Miscellaneous, Record reviews
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In February, Special D and her best friend spent a week on Kauai. I spent five days with my parents in southeastern Massachusetts, where the temperature never left the frozen zone and I crunched across snow like stale pie crust. You can see who got the better end of this deal.

Happy cat roommates
Irving, Gloria, Elliot

Mom and Dad are doing well for two people on the high side of 80. The main question every hour is, “Where’s Elliot?” (The answer is, “Right there.”) They watch the Red Sox in the warm months and Downton Abbey in the cold months and Animal Planet and the World War II channel the rest of the time. They have their favorite breakfast place and their favorite lunch place and at night they’re cozy in the run-down house I grew up in.

Until recently they sold hardware and housewares from two tables at an indoor flea market. Dad has at last sold the business and I no longer have to worry about him hurting himself hefting heavy boxes or of getting an emergency call from the flea market owners that my mother or my father or both have collapsed and would I please fly across the country NOW. Plus the new buyer is carrying off all of the junk that filled two units in a warehouse and most of the basement of the house.

(Consumer report: If in the past I promised you a random box of mystery crap when I inherit my share of my parents’ estate, fear not. The house is still packed full of stuff – the cat never runs out of places to hide – and I will find you a 1960s clip-on tie or something brown or orange and made from velour.)

Always 1982 in Somerset
In the house of my parents it is always 1985.

Among the things my Dad has done that I have not is live in the same place all his life. In 1939, when Dad was 12, his father took him into a new lumber yard, started by a man who had failed as a tailor. Over the decades the lumber yard became a hardware store and branched out into appliances and moved a couple of times. The founder died and his four sons took over. The baby of the bunch, Lester, is the last man standing. He’s 90. The place is run by Lester’s son, who Dad told me recently is a “very nice boy.” I realized later that this very nice boy is at least my age.

Dad has visited this temple of tooldom almost every Saturday since he came back from the war. Generations of store employees have known my father. They’ve heard him talk Yiddish with the owner and they’ve brought him coffee. Sometimes he even helps a customer. Last week, Dad went to his “third place” – his equivalent of the barber shop, the pool hall, the coffee place, the gym – and told everyone he had retired. The staff was relieved, as they all had the same worries that I did, but they had tears in their eyes too and they made Dad promise to come back. He surely will. He loves the coffee.

They don’t make life like they used to
In 1946, flush with his last Army paycheck, Dad marched in and bought his first power tool:

drill

It takes a physical effort to use one of these metal-hulled tools. The metal is cool to the touch in the hottest weather. Drills from this era have no safety features. Modern drills have a trigger lock. That wouldn’t have been considered good sportsmanship in 1946. If the motor in a modern drill overheats, it shuts itself down. If the motor in a drill from the 1940s or ’50s overheats, it shuts itself down by burning itself up. Plus you have to buy a separate attachment to make it go in reverse. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Coming attractions
Visiting my ancestral home has stirred up old memories and unresolved issues. So for the next few days I’m going to take a look back. Starting tomorrow: Sins of the ’70s Week. Our first contestants: Fleetwood Mac!

Random Pick of the Day
Chet Atkins, Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles (1966)
Amiable, with some interesting guitar work, but not too much interesting guitar work. The harmonica, drums, and piano all get their licks in, too. Top tracks for me are “I Feel Fine” and “A Hard Day’s Night.” “Things We Said Today” shows some easy-going bossa nova influence, and “I’ll Follow the Sun” sounds almost Hawaiian. With liner notes by George Harrison.

Random Pan of the Day
Various artists, Harpsichord Greatest Hits (1995)
Harpsichords are charming…for about 5 minutes. After that I feel as if Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy have gone outside, leaving me indoors with the more boring characters.

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