During my formative dating years, there became a point within the relationship where I would introduce the young woman to the other love of my life: Kate Bush.
It could be a very daunting moment because, admittedly, Kate is an acquired taste, and she sometimes wasn't received with the same amount of enthusiasm as I possessed. From this point, depending on the reaction, a few ladies were taken farther into this woman's work. These ended up becoming weirdly significant in terms of how deeply I felt about the person in the relationship. To love Kate was to love a part of me, I suppose, and if they could somehow see the brilliance of Kate then they could somehow relate to me better.
And they always understood that I would leave them at a moment's notice if Kate ever called up to propose.
Midwestern Top 40 radio (yes, the region makes a difference) was an unexciting mix of uninspired hits and Wonder bread melodies. Sometimes you would hear a track bubbling under the Top 20 songs, but these spins were restricted to evenings and overnights. There was very little space provided to chance and anything deemed too "urban" for these stations was avoided like the plague.
Bush managed to crack the U.S. Top 40 with "Running Up That Hill," a song that did ease its way into the area radio stations before quickly retreating once again. A few girlfriends vaguely remembered the track, but admittedly, this song was somewhat of an anomaly compared to her album tracks.
Moving backward reveals a weirder muse working with Bush, and those earlier records also add a touch of youthful flamboyance. It's in full view on the Live At Hammersmith Odeon concert, a video released in the early 80's that remains as the only recorded document of her 1979 Tour Of Life shows. For a few "lucky" ladies, I would whip out a shitty vhs dubbed copy of this performance and wax on and on about how great of an artist Kate was.
The Tour Of Life is getting a lot of attention lately, thanks to the huge news that Bush would be returning to the stage this Fall in a 15 date tour being called Before The Dawn. Trouble is: these 15 dates are in London, as the reclusive Bush is reportedly not a fan of flying, making the idea of a world tour highly unlikely.
So if you want to get a pair of tickets for the shows, you're left with this option: try to find them at one of the four dates in August or any one of the dates until September 19th at a venue in London that only holds about 3,600. The servers to Kate's website crash when news of these new live dates went public, so I would imagine that these 3,600 x 15 seats will go insanely fast. Edit: They sold out within 15 minutes. They've now added 7 additional dates to the initial 15, but those have also sold out.
This proves to be an issue for a fan like me, from Iowa, and without suitable resources that I can drop everything this September and fly over to London to catch a show, never mind the near impossibility that I could even get a ticket to begin with.
The murmurs about Kate's return to the stage began a few years ago. It was believable to the point where I could actually see how the current state of the music industry may the idea of Bush performing again a reality. I'm guessing that her semi-retirement and loonnnggg stretches in between records was funded by consistent record sales, sales that have all but shriveled up.
While I certainly don't expect Ms. Bush to divulge her bank ledger to the world, I can't help but wonder if this entire project is financially motivated. But whatever. In the end it's prompting Kate to work in a medium that hinted at enormous potential the last time she graced the stage.
Which begs the question: Why did she leave the stage after her promising debut?
The rumor was the death of a young lighting crew member during one of the tour dates caused her to avoid live performances, but there was very little supporting this theory.
In 2011, she cited "exhaustion" to The Telegram, which if you've seen the Hammersmith-Odeon video, you can clearly understand how plausible the explanation is. There are numerous costume changes, ridiculously theatrical choreography, and a sprite Kate utilizing a microphone headset while running around the entire stage for a solid 90 minutes. It's both hard to watch and hard to look away from, but when you consider it's the warped vision of a 20 year old woman and compare it to the hyper-sexual theatrics of a Miley Cyrus concert, you tend to appreciate it more. Kate is clearly working from a more advanced inspiration during these shows.
Ironically, the attempt to promote or report on the sexuality of her performances was another reason Kate walked away from live performances. Her early records are filled with songs of sex, lust, menstruation and pregnancy-all very striking statements from someone just barely of age. The live performances don't exactly exploit these topics as they do visualize them, and more recently she's cited the uncomfortable feeling she had with that focus on her sexuality as another reason she's isolated herself in the studio ever since.
Looking at the output she's provided since that tour from 1979, I'm fine with that decision. But I'm also hugely intrigued at her return to the stage and hope that it's not a retirement set. I'm also hoping that the reports of her fear of flying don't prevent her from coming to America at some point, but I'm realistic and understand that this will probably never happen.
I've already begun to formula a dream set list for the London dates, but even the title Before The Dawn seems to indicate there's something special afoot. Of course, that's always been the case with Kate. And if I ever want to be reminded of that, I can always return to the color-saturated video of the Tour Of Life that still resides in the few vhs tapes that have made it this far.
I couldn't let it go.
Unlike all those former girlfriends who were treated to a showing of this flawed relic, I'm still true to my first love.
The last few weeks have produced a buttload of hits for Sarah O'Holla, a librarian who has thankfully understood how awesome her last name is while probably enduring a lifetime of continually canned lines like "Yes, that's my real name" and "Yes, I'll give you a 'holla' back soon."
Sarah is married to a guy named Alex Goldman and he has about 1,500 pieces of vinyl which, as anyone who has a record collection and has had to move into a new abode know, can be a real pain in the ass during moving day. After one such move, O'Holla pondered "What the fuck is with these things?" while Goldman probably didn't even bat an eye as he carried milk crate after milk crate of such titles as Adam Ant Friend Or Foe (I'm partial to Strip) and Anthrax's Among The Living.
But rather than complain about how stupid it is for lugging up all of these pieces of antiquated technology, O'Holla decided to learn a little bit more about the man she married by digging into those crates and checking out the records-one at a time-and record her thoughts on them for her website, My Husband's Stupid Record Collection.
The title alone got record geeks across the country a bit pissed, in a way where I'm almost embarrassed to acknowledge it. Believe me, any record fan with a hint of self-awareness has uttered these same words every time they've lugged up another box of these things, contemplating the need to have a document of something that has already burned a hole in their memory.
For some, just the hint that their passion was "stupid" brought out the fangs, and soon message boards were full of comments suggesting that O'Holla had no right to write about such things, particularly when she doesn't even get the vernacular right. On one post, she's lambasted for calling a gatefold sleeve something other than "gatefold sleeve" and another she's chuckled at for getting transfixed by a locked groove.
Within days of this, the online media caught wind of the kerfuffle and began reporting on it from a variety of different angles. One of the most prominent was how the record collecting culture is very male driven, to the point where the entire "teacher/student" aspect of how male music nerds attempt to "school" potential ladies into the club. Of course, then the entire notion of how men never really want the ladies into this exclusive club is introduced and supported by several examples of female critics dishing out examples of how men totally discount a woman's opinion of something, based entirely on their gender rather than their knowledge of the subject matter.
I began to think about my own interactions with women, and I can attest to contributing to some of this same behavior. I have a history of trying to "teach" people about new music, and I was probably less subtle about it when I was younger than I am now.
I can think of several examples of relationships where I made instructional mix tapes, promoting an agenda of music that I thought was cool, in an attempt to change the person away to whatever music they may have enjoyed previously.
The problem is, as I considered beating myself up over coming across as a snob abuser, was that I didn't exert this kind of behavior exclusively to women. In fact, there are probably double the number of examples of the teacher/student role within my own gender than any kind of condescending attitude towards music based on the other person's sex.
In fact, any kind of music instructions towards the ladies was coated with plenty of things like accessibility and lyrical hints, because, let's face it, a lot of this behavior was based on an idea that you're beginning a soundtrack of a potential relationship.
Any woman who possessed a modicum of interest in music or displayed a knowledge of facts regarding it was almost immediately placed on a higher level than any other woman. Think of that scene in High Fidelity where the bald dude hooks up with that chick from Roseanne and you've got a good idea of how men tend to melt when faced with a musical equal. It's what we're all secretly striving for inside.
But the Internet is a much different place, and definitely a much crueler one. I can't imagine the amount of straight-up anonymous hatred that O'Holla has probably endured already, feeding the idea that this discussion is legitimate one, even when it should be nothing more than a defense mechanism created by a bunch of uber-defensive babies with retarded social skills.
Because at the end of the day, that's what a bunch of us music geeks really are.
I looked at O'Holla's blog and thought, how lucky this man is. Not because of Sarah's physical appearance-she looks like a normal 32 year old woman and her and Alex seem to make a perfectly adorable couple. No, I was jealous at the fact that his wife took a harebrained idea over a few drinks and totally dug into the project.
Her words are wonderfully touched with the ears of a novice, but they also suggest that she possesses a certain amount of passion about the topic. Maybe not in the same manner that her husband seems to have a penchant for Adam Ant records, but ones in the sense where she considers every title with open ears.
What kind of man or woman wouldn't want a partner like that? Doesn't every one of us strive to find a partner who loves both the person that we are as well as the road that brought us there? To love Alex Goldman is to also love Prince Charming.
Photo courtesy of the My Husband's Stupid Record Collection blog.
From a personal standpoint, I would love it if my wife or other partner ever thought of such an idea, and even the thought of their amateur opinions on the subject matter increases the appeal. I love the idea of such observations as being fixated on Adam Ant's guitarist rotund appearance and the white tennis shoes of Anthrax, thereby eliminating any perceived threat of violence, despite what their lyric sheet might suggest.
I'm reminded of the women in my life who taught me a thing or two about music, holding their own with the other snobs to the point where their gender wasn't even a factor because their authority washing away any of the same nonsense being tossed around in O'Holla's direction.
Who knows. Maybe by the time she reaches the "G" section we can move beyond the dialogue of the walls that are needlessly put up because of O'Holla's gender and focus on her reaction as she discovers more about the life of her husband and the music that provided the soundtrack to it.
And from that freedom, we may be able to learn about some music that can become a part of our own lives in the process.
I'm happy to say that, because of the blog's review of The B-52's debut album, there is a metal version of "Rock Lobster" floating around that I music get my hands on.
Now that it’s Spring, let’s pick up with a Glam-Racket
tradition: making fun of the band KISS.
You really didn’t think that I would be able to ignore the
almost daily statements coming out of Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons concerning
their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, did you?
To be honest, I almost did, as the two co-founders
reluctance to perform with the other two co-founding members was nothing that
would really surprise the most fair weather of KISS fans, so why comment on it.
But what’s different here is the constant barrage of whining complaints
about the Rock Hall process, which has been a continual complaint by anyone who noticed how the RRHF overlooks certain genres and is managed by a few rich white boys with a limited view of rock music. Just because Gene and Paul have
suddenly brought the hypocrisy into the spotlight once again doesn't mean that we have to listen, particularly since their own actions are riddled with hypocrisy too. We have been talking about the lack of legitimacy and transparency in the RRHF for quite some time now and we will continue bitching about it long after these two wealthy men have hung up
their platform shoes and worked out a retirement plan with whoever wants to
assume the moniker for future KISS Army mouthbreathers.
Let’s begin there, where Paul Stanley suggested that KISS
will continue long after he and Gene call it a day. His first ridiculous
mistake is to suggest that the band KISS and the KISS corporation are two
separate things. If he wants to hint that someone will be granted the authority to
dress up like the band's characters and continue peddling KISS shows to whoever
wants to don the makeup, then he should be able to understand that there are a lot of people who resent this idea, particularly those who are drawn to the original members that got this band rolling.
Gene and Paul can remind us all they want that it was their idea and their hard work that made it all possible, but to pretend that Ace and Peter are not entitled to a certain amount of higher praise than later "members" is extremely shortsighted. If he is really sincere about letting other people use the original member's make up scheme and appearance, then all of his
phony baloney complaints about how other KISS members are deserving of a RRHF induction is suddenly irrelevant. He has
every legal right to allow other people to continue on with his band’s image,
but he doesn’t have the power to dictate to the rest of us how this line-up
will be received, or how many more fans feel that it was the original members that made the band what they were.
Obviously, to anyone with an ounce of logic in their head
recognizes that replacement members will only further taint the band’s reputation and secure
the very real fact that the band’s brief output featuring Gene, Paul, Ace and
Peter is the only part of KISS that's worth examining. And as someone who straight-up
hates this band, I’m smart enough to recognize that this original line-up was
hugely influential and deserves to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
What’s so disingenuous about Paul’s constant complaining is
how he's suddenly incensed and has now assumed the role of the heavy. That has traditionally been
Gene’s m.o. He has a history of slighting Ace and Peter and questioning their contributions. To
now point out how these two members were often m.i.a. for much of the line-up’s
later records is silly, particularly since Paul and Gene signed off on trying
to pull the wool over their fans by suggesting that Ace and Peter were still active members when
the liner notes told otherwise. To only now fess up to their diminishing
contributions and continually suggest that their roles weren’t essential to
building the “product” is childish. There is nobody in their right mind that
will suggest that Lick It Up, Revenge or Sonic Boom is as influential as Destroyer
or Rock and Roll Over or that posters
of Tommy Thayer and Vinnie Vincent line the bedroom walls of rock and roll fans
around the world.
Besides, both Gene and Paul have cock-blocked Vincent’s
contributions and for years have suggested that his role in rebuilding KISS
during the mid-80’s unmasked period was not pivotal. The very reason that he
left the camp was because Gene and Paul never allowing him to be a true
member even when his material was essential in providing the band with their first gold record since Unmasked, even without makeup. Even Eric Carr, the drummer they
love to refer to and eulogize was never a full fledged member of KISS’ and never received full corporate authority with any of their licensing opportunities. They were paid to play, and anything with a logo at the merch table helped fund only two parties: Gene and Paul. So why
on earth are they now whining about not allowing anyone besides the
original line-up into the RRHF when they didn’t even offer these people full membership to begin with?
For many years, Paul seemed to be the most rational of the
two, particularly in regards to white-washing Ace and Peter’s struggle with
addictions and in acknowledging their contributions. Gene was usually the one
who brought up the stories of their abuse and lack of creative input, which is
ironic considering how Gene himself checked out during most of the 80’s,
leaving Paul alone to entertain his commercial drive, usually with outside
help.
Now, it seems that the roles have reversed: Gene seems
almost amiable when discussing the possibility of Ace and Peter joining him and
Paul onstage for a song or two.Paul, on the other hand, goes ballistic at being told by the Hall of who is being honored and who isn't. Stanley seems bent out of shape that he wasn't consulted in all of this, and how the Hall wasn't interested in having the current configuration of the band perform during the ceremonies. Of course, Paul has a new autobiography that’s out, so it appears that
all of his fucking commentary is just another way to build interest for his pocketbook, never mind the fact that his band is now comprised of two poseurs who are merely hired hands.
Stanley likes to use the Grateful Dead as an example of how
unfair the RRHF has been to KISS and their desire to put on the makeup with
their two staff members and play during the induction ceremony. But nobody
gives a shit about the current configuration of KISS, so why not just admit
that you’ve run your logo into the ground, be a man and take the honor without
performing, an honor-by the way-that you fucking owe to the poor saps that
lobbied hard on your behalf?
All of Gene and Paul’s talk about how their fans are the
most important thing has been sullied by this entire fiasco. You could tell
that the two were hurt after being overlooked for so many years, but as soon as
they get in-under the condition that only the original membership gains
entrance-they pout and take their toys and go home. I believe that I even read
where one of them dared to suggest that the RRHF would be making money from
KISS’ legacy, so why would they allow the Hall’s leadership to dictate how
their band was going to be presented?
How about the fact that all of the band’s archives are only
taking up space in a warehouse at the moment, draining Gene and Paul’s
pocketbooks in rental fees when they could be placed in a venue designed to
display them, in turn building up interest in the band and opening wallets in
return. But neither KISS member likes the idea of someone else mucking up the
supply chain of KISS dipping directly in their fan’s pocketbooks.
Need proof?
Walk up to
Simmons in an unauthorized KISS t-shirt and ask him to autograph something.
Changes are he’ll refuse based upon the origins of your attire and then
browbeat you how you’re not a real fan by wearing a knockoff.
They also aren't very good at planning a business model beyond what's happening with their next, immediate product. After that, well it's just Paul Stanley talking a bunch of horseshit (does he really think fans are going to pay top dollar for an officially licensed cover band?) and Gene Simmons reminding us all how he's smarter, wealthier, and more promiscuous than the rest of us.
The band's immediate plans are a summer tour with Def Leppard, a package deal that enables them to capture an audience that might consider dropping $75 for a good seat to see both bands, but certainly not for one as the only headliner. I mean my wife saw Lep at a frigging county fair a few days after the boy was born, and that was nearly 11 years ago.
If KISS thinks that all of these incessant press releases that Gene and Paul keep issuing are going to translate into more ticket sales, then they are mistaken. For all of this talk to try an legitimize the band's current line up or to build any kind of sympathy for Stanley's bullshit concern for all of the other band members hired hands, they are merely showing how greedy and ego-driven they are by pretending that they are anything but a brand that based more on their history than any current creative output.You see a lot of references to the band's 40th anniversary, but let's be honest here: those four decades continue to pull from the original line up years quite heavily.
All they had to do was play nice for a night. Christ, they could have easily just gathered at the end of the performance for a one-off version of "Rock & Roll All Night" and then gone their separate ways. Instead, Simmons and Stanley needed to make it a fighting match after they've already won and gotten exactly what they wanted. Rather than confront the anger and bitterness for a mere three minutes and thirty seconds as a thank you to those fans that brought them out of their shitty little existence that was Wicked Lester, they piss on their own food supply.
I discovered Ghost with the second album, Infestissumam, a regrettable decision that was made in haste and nearly derailed any additional interest in the band. Take it from me, don't make the same mistake: begin your exploration of this Swedish sextet with their debut, Opus Eponymous.
If it weren't for the band's wonderful religious imagery and their incessant praising of Satan, chances are good that I would have probably ignored Ghost completely from that moment on.
Call it the devil's work or blame it on some subconscious backwards masking, but there was something compelling to me about a band working with an image that is most associated with aggression, volume and lots of testosterone while using an abundance of pop and melody in their quest to acquire your soul for the underworld.
The dichotomy was addictive, and the more I immersed myself in discovering Ghost, the more I began to appreciate their unique mission statement.
You have to understand that I grew up during a time where any association with the devil was viewed negatively. Sure, it may have been a little titillating to have a hint of Satanic imagery to gain interest in your music, but if you had any desire of financial success or commercial intent, you had to suppress the pentagrams and play nice. And part of "playing nice" meant making sure your product was acceptable to the record buyers of Sam Walton's joint and the God-fearing local business owners who made Motley Crue turn in their barely visible pentagram for the cover of Shout At The Devil into a boring quartet of photos of the band in garish make up.
Things were so bad that even televangelist Jim Bakker's network in the early 80's gave an hour a week to a show devoted entirely to "outing" bands with Satanic references and other suggestive evil matters. When the devil material got light, they would often spend an inordinate amount of time looking for backward masking on records and other issues of concern like sex, drugs, and doing drugs that may lead to sex. If it wasn't for this show, I would have never known the message "It's fun to smoke marijuana" could be heard if you played Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" backwards.
My point is this: had the band Ghost tried any of this Satanic jive back in the day, they would have been crucified (ha!) by religious leaders and other do-gooders who didn't see the band's over-the-top theatrics as anything but a complete threat to our nation's youth.
I mean, you've seen Paradise Lost, right?
By 2010, the world was ready for a confirmed group of devil worshippers, at least not the kind that burn historic churches and eat the brain splatter of a fellow band member's successful shotgun suicide. No, Ghost are the palatable devil worshippers, the kind where their look oozes irony and their lyrics read like make believe Latin and lazy memories of the Anglican Book of Common Prayers. Fronted by Papa Emeritus, a Pope-like religious figure in skull make-up and supported by 5 masked and anonymous musicians known as "nameless ghouls," Ghost slightly suggest some elements of evil on a visual scale, but the shear audacity of their bold religious image is hard to accept as anything more than an ironic statement of our world's curious history with Christianity and evil.
This is all confirmed within moments of Opus Eponymous, the band's debut album. They're from Sweden, which also contributes to their lack of possessing any real threat against humanity, particularly since some of the band's initial seed money came from art grants divvied out by the Swedish government .
But the real nicety is found not within the band's peripheral image or religious doctrine, it's in the music itself. While undeniably a hard rock record, Opus Eponymous noticeably light on the aggressiveness. The keyboards are mixed as high as the guitars, leaving Papa Emeritus with plenty of room to sing without the aid of any cliched metal effects whatsoever.
Opus Eponymous reveals hints of Blue Oyster Cult's more accessible moments as well as hints of late 80's prog metal favorites Voivod, if they'd pointed their songs towards the bowels of hell instead of outer space.
"Lucifer, we are here/For your praise, evil one" sings Emeritus, showing neither much conviction in the topic itself, or much concern for intimidating the listener. His ambivalence towards metal's notorious history of nutswinging machismo is unsettling at first, but positively refreshing after repeated listens. And thanks to the record's good melodic sense and abundant parade of hooks, it is quite possible that Opus will amass more listens than you probably should admit to.
The guitars are impeccably appropriate, closely following warm, retro tones and vintage appointments. Besides tactful organs which are used abundantly throughout Opus, Ghost have enough smarts to let the bassist-again, listed as another "Nameless Ghoul"- tackle the low end without letting it be ruined by endless drop-D tuning strategies. Everything is wonderfully recorded in what sounds like a very analog environment. The performances are clever and tactfully restrained, representing a very respectful tribute to the era of music that it is obviously indebted to.
The impeccable musicianship makes it so much easier to sing and quietly giggle along with Emeritus' constant praises of Satan ("The Devil's power is the greatest one"), usually bordering on Cliffs Notes edition of religious phrases ("Hear our Satan prayer/The anti-Nicene Creed") with the occasional songs about Elizabeth Bathory, a royal Hungarian 17th century serial killer ("Her acts of cruelty/Her lust for blood/Makes her one of us").
Opus Eponymous is perfectly suited for vinyl, with its tidy running time and its cheesy Gothic cover art. As with any bit of seventies worship, Opus comes complete with the album's lyrics found inside its gatefold sleeve, written in some impossible read font that's as fun as shit to follow along to while you're giving it a spin. You'll be able to confirm the lyrics online if needed, and certain sites even provide song meanings as supplied by fans and devoted listeners of the record. The site that I visited listed "It's about Satan" as the explanation of every song on Opus Eponymous, and that explanation is entirely correct.
Not that it matters. You'll be able to recite every single ridiculous chorus, particularly since they're so infectious and enormously fun to sing along with. It was suggested that I failed to notice that important element -"fun" - in my review of Ghost's second album, and I suppose that criticism is somewhat fair. But it works better here on the band's debut, because the record's focus is so tightly centered on one topic (Satan) and the band's blueprint is based entirely on spreading the message of evil in the guise of a very entertaining thirty-five minute long package.
The pop elements, the strong performances, and the band's theatrics all combine perfectly to create a refreshing and unique approach that works surprisingly well in today's ADHD culture. For me, I think that the appeal was discovering a band that focused on something beyond the walls of reality, right out of the gate to the point where I relished the idea that Ghost isn't content with modest intentions. Ghost seems to be arena-ready from the start, a goal that is practically unheard of since hair metal got buried with Nevermind's ascension over two decades ago.
Maybe it's taken that long to be ready for such blatant attempt at lofty desires. Or maybe it's taken such the dramatic appearance of a make-believe Pope and his Darth Vader masked minions to make this kind of yearning to be acceptable again.
One thing is for sure: if you sit down and put on the second side of Opus, you'll find that it's damn near perfect- that is, if that corn cob of pretentiousness that's lodged in your ass isn't too out of reach. It's a great blend of hard rock's mid-70's worship with a very legitimate attempt to recreate some similar magic for today's rock and roll virgins. Because - I don't know if you've noticed - hard rock isn't what it used to be, and its lack of eye-catching excitement probably has something to do with it no longer being the bond of our youth. And while I'm certainly not suggesting the death of hard rock/heavy metal's is here or even imminent, I do notice a decline in its influence among our youth.
To correct this, I see nothing wrong with eliciting the help of Satan himself to make sure the impressionable ears of our youth at least give hard rock a chance. Perhaps that's achieved with a band working something that's bigger in scope that what their garage or basement can provide or what their laptop can help create.
Perhaps that's achieved through the efforts of a Pope, his evil minions, and a few songs about the devil.
And that's fine by me too, because everyone knows that Hell's got all the good bands anyway.
Pretend for a moment that you're the drummer for America's most popular rock band. Despite not being a very accomplished drummer and an even less talented singer, you've managed to score a Top 10 single that propels your group to superstardom and your limited drumming skills are still recognized enough to be considered "influential," albeit mostly for appearance rather than ability.
Is all of this enough to cash out and go solo?
Some may claim it was Peter Criss' ego that led him to quit KISS, while others may cite the drugs, pressure or the sheer displeasure of having to work with Gene Simmons. Whatever the reason, if Criss' first solo record from 1978 was any indication that embarking on a solo career was the wrong career direction entirely, his second offering Out Of Control confirms it.
Teaming up again with longtime collaborator Stan Penridge, a friend from his pre-KISS days who co-wrote "Beth" and is all over that 1978 solo monstrosity, Out Of Control was supposed to serve as Criss' first foray into post-KISS independence. And like the solo record before this, life on his own seems to be a very challenging place for Criss as it resides in the middle of his hard-rock persona and his obvious comfort with more standard rock fare.
"Looks like this time I'm on my own/Starting over again" Criss muses with the syrup-laden opener "By Myself," an obligatory nod to the obvious. But whatever all by myself jive that Criss tries to impose from the get-go is nothing but baloney, particularly when the second song reaches into KISS' own limited arsenal of hooks and lifts straight from nemesis Simmons' hit "Calling Dr. Love" for "In Trouble Again." In fact, the rest of Out Of Control is so dismal that you almost wish Simmons' would have sued Criss for copyright infringement, thereby preventing it from ever obtaining a release date.
It is the work of mere obligation instead of any real inspiration. Out Of Control is a lazy recording of two mildly talented buddies pissing away one man's lottery winnings on the misguided notion that there is an audience for a old top cat who has used up his nine lives already.
Let's say you're like me, a masochist, and you set out to review the first Peter Criss solo album from 1978, released as part of the band's solo record project where all four members released their own solo record simultaneously, but as KISS.
Follow me?
Anyway, during the course of reading about why that record was such a piece of shit you discover that Criss drummed for another band called Chelsea, and they actually released a record for Decca several years before KISS had ever formed.
And as a masochist you dig deeper, to the point where you actually go and check out this lone Chelsea record, because you are curious: "Just how bad can this band be?"
I suppose it depends on what you consider to be "bad," but the short answer is "pretty bad" with the asterisk by the overall rating indicating that it "has some weird vibe" to it that qualifies Chelsea as a worthy garage sale find, if not for the fact that it contains Peter Cris(s)' first recorded offering, but because it is a slice of how clueless record companies were in 1970, seemingly signing bands with such blind (and deaf) reasoning that an album like this was even considered.
But here are the things that make Chelsea weirdly alluring:
It was produced by the same dude that produced Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and Moondance.
That same dude also produced John Cale's Vintage Violence album.
John Cale performs viola on Chelsea for two tracks.
One of the tracks features him with oodles of reverb, giving the performance a very droney and weird vibe.
The lone track composed by the entire band, "Polly Von," is clearly designed to be the band's "epic" and is somewhat intriguing. It comes complete with strings and an endless guitar solo on one channel while a reverb-laden one is found on the other.
More reverb.
There are many more things that make Chelsea less alluring, primarily:
Chelsea-the band-never seem to discover what kind of band they are. One moment they're folk, another they're a trippy psychedelic band, sometimes they get a little bluesy, and others they want to rock out.
The singer is devoid of personality and an awful songwriter.
Peter Criss' drumming is notably shitty.
The best that frontman Peter Shepley can come up with is along the lines of "It's a long long river/So just let it run/It's a long long journey/But there's only one" ("Long River"), which was probably heavy as fuck at the time, given the amount of drugs these N.Y.C. hippies were ingesting. The worst would have to be the line "hard rock music" repeated over and over ("Hard Rock Music") while Criss inexplicitly bangs on some bongos.
Squint hard enough and you can hear some kindred spirits with the Velvet Underground, particularly with Cale's brief cameo. But such squinting can also make a migraine, which is ultimately ill-advised since Chelsea can produce enough of a headache on its own thanks to the band's endless parade of indecision and meanderings.
In other words, Chelsea is much better than Criss' 1978 solo offering and, to be completely honest, it's better than a bunch of titles in KISS' catalog. But other than the novelty of serving as a footnote to KISS' pre-makeup history...excuse me, kisstory...there is very little need to seek out Chelsea.
When the members of KISS decided to take advantage of their stardom by releasing four records simultaneously, the decision merely accentuated the reality that the band's real talents were noticeably restricted to just a few members - and even then, the talent was either in short supply or frustratingly sporadic.
With Peter Criss, there was at least a sliver of potential since the drummer of "the hottest band in the land" was the only member to actually have a major label deal with a record company prior to his cat makeup, albeit briefly with the one-record offering of his previous band Chelsea.
The band imploded while recording their second album, which is not saying a lot since they were never really that good to begin with. So why on Earth would Criss return to leftover material from Chelsea's second album when it came time to slop together songs for his first solo record after being blessed with KISS' golden ticket success?
Chock it up to drugs, pressure, or that aforementioned talent void, because Peter Criss not only ranks as the worst offering in KISS' misguided solo project venture, it quite possibly be one of the worst records ever presented with a platinum disc for sales exceeding 1,000,000 units.
Dreadfully overproduced and rigidly performed to the point where any passion has been sucked dry from the performance, Peter Criss is a mirror of the excess that began to infiltrate the KISS line-up. It's also a testament to the KISS Army for how much they were willing to endure for the logo and the band members who facilitated mediocrity.
Criss peppers his solo album with weak and misguided attempts at what can only be described as jazz/disco/soft rock blend, propelled by his tepid drumming and his Chelsea cohort Stan Penridge's anonymous guitar work. Female backing vocalists are added to sweeten the mix while horns pop up on several tracks, making some songs sound like outtakes from the jingle factory. A pointless cover of "Tossin' & Turnin'" is added as a nod to Criss' youth, while side two finds him giving up the percussion duties entirely to a session player, giving him more time to focus on his vocal abilities. Admittedly, the vocals probably deserved a session player more than the drums
Clocking in at a mere 35 minutes, Peter Criss could be viewed as a bold attempt to distance the artist from the choreographed bombast of his more notable group offerings, or at least a glimpse at the kind of music Criss really enjoys outside of the make-up and pyrotechnics. But that would require at least a hint of some fundamental ability or at least a desire to create something somewhat memorable.
There is no evidence of either on this record. Instead, Peter Criss marks the first KISS record that confirms every single critic's complaint about this band while gutting their credibility entirely.
"The name of this tune is 'The Funky Drummer'" I told my son as we left the parking lot of Target. He came with me to pick up a few needed items for dinner that night, mainly because he was driving his Mother crazy at home, the result of some serious cabin fever for both of our children because of the never-ending winter we seem to be experiencing this year in the Midwest.
I pushed play and James Brown began to count off the song, a seven-minute long classic that would easily make its way into my "greatest songs of all time" list, if I ever thought I could compile one. The only reason "The Funky Drummer" made its way into the stereo of our minivan this evening was because I thought it would be perfectly timed from our journey from Target to back home, hopefully ending with Brown's naming ceremony at the end of the song as soon as we pulled into our driveway.
My son tolerates such impromptu music lessons, because if I don't occasionally target a few of these acknowledged classics for him, his musical knowledge would be dictated by the playlist of our city's Top 40 station, and influence he listens to nearly every night when he goes to bed.
I suppose I did the same thing at his age, but my upbringing was a lot more musically adventurous that what he currently displays. He loves music to some extent and even sings in his school's chorus, but there is little evidence that he has the same passion for music that his father has, and every now and then some tutoring is needed.
"This is one of the most sampled songs in history." I explained, immediately remembering that he probably has no idea what sampling is. The explanation is going nowhere, but then he asks something that hints at being remotely interested in what I'm telling him.
"When was this song recorded?" he asks.
"1969." I answer affirmatively.
"No it wasn't!" He corrects, even though I know he has no idea what the hell he's talking about. I take my Rock & Roll history somewhat seriously, primarily out of necessity of self-preservation rather than attempting to be a trivia snob trying to assert authority. Considering this, I retort with the commanding "E, you don't know anything about James Brown, so how do you think you know when 'The Funky Drummer' was recorded?"
I swear to God, this is how I interact with my son. With that being said, his historical knowledge of professional wrestling is impressive. He even reminded me once that Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka may have killed his girlfriend in 1983.
"James Brown?" replies my son. "I thought you were talking about Chris Brown!"
It's true: "The Funky Drummer" will turn 45 this year, and the drum break that inspired Mr. Brown's last minute song title has been the foundation for untold numbers of rap and R&B tracks during the last three decades, continues to inspire countless artists and listeners with its infectious beat.
If sheet music exists for "The Funky Drummer," it probably only takes a page. The basic pattern of the song would run a full measure before the instruction on the next measure read "Vamp til ready" and then ended.
Each member of The James Brown Orchestra gets a nod, punctuated by Brown's own verbal observations and direction. He enthusiastically yells "Bring on the juice!" before saxophonist St. Clair Pinckney starts his solo. When Pinckney gets near the end of his spot, Brown affirms "Still good!" allowing the horn player to blow for a few more measures. When things really begin to cook, it prompts a few "Good God!" and "I got to holler!" a few times throughout the rest of the song's seven minutes.
By the fifth minute of the track, we had pulled on to the last street leading to our home. There was no way that I would disrespect the Godfather of Soul by ending "The Funky Drummer" early, particularly if it's because of my inaccurate travel time calculations.
We would simply drive around the block.
This of course led to the inevitable chorus of "Are we going around the block?" and "Why are we going around the block?" almost overshadowing Brown's notice of what his band was up to.
"Fellas! One more time. I want to give the drummer some of this funky soul here." James interrupts. "You don't have to do no soloin' brother. Just keep what you got!" he instructs the man keeping such an impeccable ass-shaking groove. Clyde Stubblefield probably made $40 for his work on November 20th, 1969, possibly earning enough for a decent Thanksgiving meal for his family. I'll leave it to you to ponder if this is sufficient compensation for a drum pattern that ended up being used on million sellers and providing other artists with much more financial security.
"Don't turn it loose...'cause it's a mother!" James advises Stubblefield, before telling the rest of the band, "When I count to four I want everybody to lay out and let the drummer go. When I count to four I want you to come back in."
And just like that, Stubblefield is left alone with his spontaneous spark of genius. For eight full bars, Clyde delivers his groundbreaking drum pattern unaccompanied, becoming the focal point and namesake of the song itself.
By the time Brown counts off the second time, we've made our way around the block and I hit the garage door opener to the faded refrains of "The funky drummer...The funky drummer" "So! Wasn't that one of the best songs you ever heard in your entire life?" I ask my son as we slow into the garage, sure of what the answer will be.
"It was OK." he responds, completely lacking anything resembling enthusiasm.
He's on his way inside while I stay seated, jaw dropped that he didn't have the same kind of visceral reaction that I did when I first heard "The Funky Drummer."
"Cut off the lights." I mutter to myself as I kill the headlamps on the minivan.
In high school, I worked as a lifeguard for the municipal pool during the summer months. The managers were usually a few years older than the guard staff, so every year they would come back from college during summer break and tell us how awesome university was while tempting us with their driver’s licenses and breaking out some bullshit pool hierarchy whenever we underage drinkers asked for a hand in buying some booze.
One of the things that they did share with us was the occasional mix tape featuring “college music” and other tracks from what students supposedly listened to while they were away from home, their cabinets filled with plastic Chinet plates, Graffix bongs, and copious amounts of Everclear grain alcohol.
Their music taught me that my concept of college life was completely off. I mean, how can you explain one manager’s love of Phil Collins and Supertramp? There was obviously nothing remotely smokeable coming from that dude’s dorm room and nothing to indicate that he was actually putting that collegiate independence to good use.
But another manager did have a few challenging tapes that he would bring to the pool, some of which actually fell outside of the idea of “mainstream.”
One afternoon, he popped in a cassette in the pool’s primitive stereo system that pumped music over the weatherproof speakers and provided customers with the hourly routine pool checks, where we would force everyone out of the pool at the top of the hour and see if we missed any dead bodies sinking to the bottom of the pool.
Playing a personal cassette over the p.a. system was a big no no. We were under some vague instructions to leave the radio tuned to the local top 40 station as it was enjoyed by more customers. But hear me when I say that after an afternoon, twirling your whistle in 90-degree Iowa humidity, the last thing you wanted to hear was Michael Sembello‘s “Maniac” four times during your shift.
So it was a great relief to hear a foreign, yet familiar sound of a Beatlesque guitar coming from the tinny fidelity of the pool’s all-weather speaker. It was hard to make out the words, but the voice sounded similar to that of John Lennon’s, singing about “Squinting faces at the sky / A Harold Robbins paperback.”
The record—Squeeze‘s Argy Bargy—continues to serve as one of my own musical clarions to announce the summer solstice. It is the closest that the band got to their well-deserved Fab comparisons while managing to point to a direction that may have ultimately transcended those lazy associations.
The song I heard that day, “Pulling Mussels From The Shell,” and the track that kicked off side two, “If I Didn’t Love You,” are the two most recognized gems from Squeeze’s primary songwriters, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrookn. They may have been college radio favorites at the time they were released, prompting my manager to tape a copy of Argy Bargy for his own collection, but the rest of the record was full of wonderfully smart pop songs that the manager agreed to let me tape with his dual cassette dubbing unit.
The source tape was his TDK SA90 cassette, which I used as well for my copy. It was a little more expensive than the cheap blank cassettes that I used, but I figured that the dude was in college, so he must know that chrome-oxide tapes sounded better than those normal bias ones.
The second-generation tape hiss wasn’t too bad, and I attributed it to the bitchin’ high-bias tape I bought and the treble-killing Dolby B noise reduction that I used during the high speed dubbing process. Upon playback, I noticed something weird during the awesome song “Vicki Verky,” a great slice of up-tempo acoustic Beatlemania towards the end of the album.
In the middle of the song, the Squeeze composition suddenly dropped out and I could hear the familiar refrains of a Beatles song playing backwards for about 15 seconds. Always up for a game of Beatles trivia, I determined the vocal part of the chorus was none other than George Harrison and the song in question was “Love You To” from Revolver. How it ended up on my tape is unknown and why it plays the segment backwards is one of life’s mysteries.
But it gave my dub copy of Argy Bargy character and I kept that cassette even after I properly got my own copy on CD many years later.
What isn’t mysterious was how Argy Bargy managed to cross-generational boundaries. A few years later, I became one of the managers of that municipal pool, and one of my first acts as a big shot was to put in that tape of Argy Bargy, just like old times. Years later, one of the female lifeguards remembered that tape, and evidently inquired about it after I played it. She got the annunciation wrong, but I understood her perfectly when she asked if I could make her a copy of that “Argee Bargee” album that I used to play at the pool during the summer.
There was also my own father, who became a fan of Squeeze after allowing me the opportunity to play Argy Bargy in the car on our way to a short getaway one summer. To get through an entire album without my father advising, “Let’s listen to something else now,” was a rare event, but it was even rarer to have him request, “Put in that Squeeze tape!” when we ended up on the beach off a lake where my aunt and uncle lived in Illinois. Maybe the Fab melodies got to him, or maybe it was just the after effects of the lake that cooled the nuclear power plant nearby.
I think it’s the melodies; they’re as fresh today as they were thirty years ago. The melodies are the reason you’ll still catch a one of their most popular classics while shopping for groceries. In fact, “Pulling Mussels From A Shell” came up the other day while the iPod was on shuffle as I was cooking dinner.
“That’s where I’ve heard this song from!” my wife announced, explaining that the song would frequently play at her store’s music channel, causing her to break into a spontaneous, “And I feel like William Tell,” in front of her co-workers who weren’t as familiar with the work of Squeeze.
The truth is, everyone should be a bit familiar with them, and I hope with additional spins of Argy Bargy my wife won’t begin to think of her place of employment the next time she hears their songs.
Because Argy Bargy is great enough that it should be honored with worthy memories. In fact, the band themselves point that out during “If I Didn’t Love You” with a line that has pretty much served as the Cliff Notes of my own musical obsession: “Singles remind me of kisses / Albums remind me of plans.”
A lot of both were created with this frequently overlooked gem.
I’ve told the story of how I stumbled upon Talk Talk‘s Spirit Of Eden before, but that story doesn’t illustrate much into how jaw-dropping brilliant the album is and how because of that it can inspire other bands to make like-minded epic statements.
To start with, we need to go back twenty years ago…the year that Spirit Of Eden was made…and try to convey how completely unexpected it was. Leader Mark Hollis had made a few Talk Talk albums up to that point that were literal definitions of New Wave music. In fact, he made good New Wave albums, the kind you weren’t necessarily ashamed of, but nothing that demonstrated that they were capable of much beyond the genre they were originally attached to.
They were successful at it, scoring a few hits here stateside (“It’s My Life” and “Life’s What You Make It”) and probably even a few more in their native England. To try to deviate from their proven method was probably met with enormous resistance from band members, record company executives and fans alike. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…and Talk Talk seemed to be pushing ahead just fine. Why Hollis then chose to create album number four with such a huge gulf compared to his previous work is curious. It only becomes clearer the moment you hear Spirit Of Eden for yourself: it’s because Mark Hollis was channeling something much more than sheer muse itself. It was as if there was indeed a higher power manning the controls of Hollis’ pen and the studio control room.
You hear it immediately: organic instruments, horns, strings, choirs; these are major steps away from Talk Talk’s previous synthesizer tinkering. Hollis’ voice also seems to be channeling cathartic powers as he muses on such themes as addiction and loss. There’s a moment on “I Believe In You,” a song about the perils of heroin, where Hollis musters a defiant “Enough! Ain’t it enough, crippled world?” that brings tears to my eyes two decades after first hearing it.
With six tracks clocking in at forty minutes, Talk Talk cleverly place jazz-like arrangements underneath wide melodramatic atmospheres. It’s slowly paced (the first hint of “rock” takes seventeen-and-a-half minutes to appear) but never boring. The drama that Spirit Of Eden creates keeps you glued to it for that entire forty minutes and will stay with you for years afterwards.
Formerly known as Follow That Bird! Austin, Texas' Mirror Travel have grown to become a local favorite, while national notoriety has become somewhat more eluding, thanks to the label nonsense holding their debut hostage for some time and the cement block of their previous band name holding them back some too.
You can almost hear the band's rebirth in Mexico, as the recording of the debut transpired in Marfa, Texas-a progressive high desert community of 2,000 people. The isolation afforded Mirror Travel to focus on their arrangements, and what's finally offered is well worth the wait and well suited for a larger listen.
The extra focus is critical as Mirror Travel mine dreamy shoegaze soundscapes with an honest link to their psychedelic grandfathers. What follows often begins with a few measures of garage rehearsal before opening up the garage doors to pay homage to vast array of desert stars with extended moments of textured jams.
The gnarlier basement blasts are found towards the front, particularly with the rapid-fire "I Want You To Know" and the three-chord/two-thirty title track. By the time you've made it to side two, the tracks start edging past the five minute mark and the additional time unleashes a completely new identity for Mirror Travel.
With "Pinholes," Mirror Travel have made the leap to dream pop bliss even before they double-time everything around the two minute mark and really make it purr. Around minute five, it feels like they might be ready to wrap things up, but then drummer Tiffanie Lanmon puts a little extra umph in her ride cymbal and starts the whole thing up again, until it finally crumbles to a close about a minute later.
Lanmon is a wonderfully intuitive drummer, providing nuances that would have been lost with a heavier hand. Her touch contributes greatly to the airy bounce that compliments the ever-present reverb found on Lauren Green's vocals.
While lacking in noticeable range, Green's voice does offer Mexico a very distinct personality. But it's her guitar performance that is the record's biggest surprise and most impressive contribution. As a power trio, there is a rather large void to fill in the required dynamics of any rock band, particularly one that navigates with such dream pop intentions. And since Mirror Travel rely on matters like distortion very conservatively, Green doubles up her guitar duties with some textured picking that's pretty intricate at times. It's two very distinct personalities when she takes on this role, and it seems to suggest that she's able to adapt her playing, offering a range that isn't noticeable in her vocal abilities.
On "Young Gold" they break out the old "So You Want To Be A Rock and Roll Star" one-two and reprise the whole garage biography before unleashing the album closer "Stoner." Again, there's little beyond a few chords and a questionable beat, but that's enough to muster up some pretty awesome dramatics captured in this West Texas studio.
Mexico resembles the long drive that begins at dawn and ends in the middle of nowhere, perhaps a dangerous spot in Mexico where there's a chance you may not have the necessary means to get back into safe hands. As the record clearly demonstrates, the road leading to this drama is both strangely compelling and infectiously mysterious.
It's no wonder why I kept making repeat journeys with this alluring soundtrack.
Now that practically everyone can piece together a digital workstation that enables musician to have unlimited tracks and unlimited editing capabilities, you'd think that recorded music would be completely devoid of any noticeable mistakes, either performance wise or from the actual recording itself.
But what about the idea that there's nothing wrong with a warts-and-all document? Have we completely moved to a point in our recorded history where everything must be perfect? Do we auto-tune those vocals that are a tad sharp in one spot? Do we punch in a better drum pattern when the drummer speeds up during the second chorus? Do we wipe away the scratchy guitar cable in the middle of a solo and replace it with a better take?
While there is still a group of musicians who relish the idea of documenting a performance rather than record one, the notion that we can "fix it in the mix" has become more of the norm than simply leaving well enough alone. There are lots of recorded examples of bands, producers and engineers who just decided "Fuck it" and left their noticeable mistakes on the final mix for us to hear, catch and wonder "Why didn't they fix that?"
The short answer has got to be "money," as a lot of these selections were probably recorded under tight deadlines and financial restrictions that prevented the band or artist to stop and give it another shot.
Another plausable reason is that some of the engineers might have thought that 99% of the listeners wouldn't even catch the mistakes, creating a climate where it wasn't even worth addressing since only the obsessive would catch it. To prove this point, consider how many of the following titles you've hear multiple times from the list below only to be surprised that there's a mistake at all.
And then there's my favorite reason of all: the artist just doesn't care. They wear the mistake like a badge of integrity, reminding us that rock and roll is a product of passion more than technical prowess. By its very definition, rock music should not get so bloated that a proficient performer gets top billing over a novice who's bottled magic within their three chords and naughty rhythms.
Rock music does a pretty good job of reminding us about this about every decade or so, but here are 13 of the best examples of when mistakes were left on the final takes and inspirations on letting the tape roll on and allowing listeners to hear that rock and roll isn't supposed to be perfect all the time.
“Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen is arguably the greatest rock and roll song in the history of the genre because it represents the art form to perfection. The story begins when a group of teenagers from Portland, Oregon notice their peers getting up to dance to Rockin’ Robin Roberts’ version of the song every time the song plays on the jukebox. They decide that they need to cover the tune, with the hopes that they can elicit a similar reaction from their audience. They rehearse the song for a whopping hour-and-a-half, entirely by ear, rushing the tempo without even realizing it. The next day, the five members pool together $36 for an hour-long session at a local recording studio. The studio only had three microphones, with the third one serving as merely an open mic, rigged from the ceiling. Jack Ely, vocalist for The Kingsmen, had to yell above the din just to be heard. On the first take, Ely came in on the third verse a bit too early. “No problem,” he thought, “this is just a run-through. We’ll do another take.” But no another take was ever committed to tape, and to The Kingsmen’s chagrin, the first and only take of “Louie Louie,” a song they had just learned how to play, was used as their debut record. Because of the primitive recording technique, and because Ely had a mouth full of braces, the lyrics were widely interpreted to be offensive. “I smell the rose in her hair” suddenly became “I shot my load in her hair” among other ridiculous examples of mondegreen. Ultimately, The Kingsmen’s version of “Louie Louie” – warts and all-shot up to #2 on the charts, surpassing any other version of the song. Ely’s mushmouth delivery and pre-mature third verse, made no difference, and may have even added to the song’s raw glory, further spurring the dreams of garage bands across the country that anything is possible, even on the first take.
2.) Syd Barrett – “She Took A Long Cold Look” > “Feel” > “If It’s In You”
Recorded on the last day of a marathon session (for Syd) in a make-or-break effort to fill out an album’s worth of material for Barrett’s debut solo album after being kicked out of Pink Floyd. This trios of songs were placed towards the end of the record in an almost audio-verite document of the artists declining mental health. The songs feature Syd with only an acoustic guitar, the songs barely rehearsed and obviously still in progress. It’s high drama some forty years after they were recorded, and it must have been even more shocking when it was first released. You can hear Barrett fumble with a notebook as he reads the lyrics for “Long Cold Look,” one hand still strumming the guitar while the other turns the page. At the end, he knows that it won’t be enough for his two hard-nosed producers, David Gilmore and Roger Waters, hired with the sole intention of getting something, anything, out of this crumbling genius to widen The Madcap Laughs running time. “’Bout short” he sighs, knowing that he still needs to provide more material. He struggles through one take of “Feel,” trying to find the chords and, perhaps finding meaning in the words “Away/Far too empty/Oh so alone/I want to go home/Oh find me inside a nocturne.” By the time he tackles “If It’s In You,” he’s had it. He struggles with the high note before telling the control room “I’ll start it again…I’ll start it again.” There are moments of banter between Syd and the control room before he pleads for them to just let him get through the song. It’s a challenge. He rushes it, hitting a verse too early before giving up entirely, reducing the words to gibberish (“Yummy yam yum yum”). As the song reaches its tense ending, you can hear Barrett mutter something, perhaps his plans for escape and a life of seclusion.
3.) The Beatles – “I’m Looking Through You” (US Version)
Capitol Records, the label most associated with The Beatles’ early U.S. releases, would notoriously cherry pick through the bands recordings, add a bunch of reverb to them and then repackage them to unsuspecting American fans. As stupid as this strategy sounds, these treated masters were what most of the band’s fans ever knew, until their catalog was corrected and unified in 1987, when all of the titles were released on compact disc. Then a strange thing happened. A lot of people (including myself, who grew up listening to and who practically learned how to talk to such titles as Meet The Beatles, Yesterday…And Today! and Beatles VI) missed those blasphemous mixes. Since Capitol Records is in the business of selling the same shit to you over and over again, they re-introduced some of the Beatles Capitol albums and mixes in two box sets (still waiting on Volume 3, fellas). Within minutes, Beatles fanatics knew that something was afoul with the mix for the American version of Rubber Soul. Not only did the record have a different track listing and sequence, it also featured a brief flub by George Harrison at the beginning of “I’m Looking Through You.” For some reason, the mistake only appeared on the American version of that album, and fans who spend their every waking moment noticing things like that suddenly wondered why the mistake was nowhere to be found on the mono mix of the song. You read right, the error was only noticed on the mono version of the song (The Capitol Albums, Volume 2 featured both stereo and mono mixes). It was discovered then that Capitol had inadvertently included a “fold-down” mono version of the record instead of the true mono mix. These created a shit storm among Beatlemaniacs who demanded an explanation as well as a new copy of the mono mix. Harrison’s flub is, literally, a few seconds, but to Beatle fans, it was the principle. Of course, Capitol Records offered a full swap if you sent the offending disc back to their pressing plant in Jacksonville, Illinois-something that I took advantage of. Between you and me: I wouldn’t have even noticed the difference until someone else had a conniption. The irony of all of this is that Capitol Records created another rarity with this error of an error, and I’ll bet you $100 there are plenty of Beatles fans out there with both copies in their collection, probably even sealed.
If I’m going to put the Beatles on this list of mistakes, I’ve got to make room for their Satanic counterparts, The Rolling Stones. This one was easy, and is probably a song that everyone reading this has heard a million times without even noticing the mistake. And the reason why you don’t even notice the mistake is because the mistake is so fucking awesome. If you’ll recall, the Rolling Stones were just the second album into their unbelievable run of records. The year was 1969, and Let It Bleed perfectly mirrored the horrific events of the day. With the Vietnam War in full swing and America’s penchant for assassinating anyone that seemed to be trying to change the course of things, it was perfectly understandable that our world seemed destined for annihilation. Stones vocalist Mick Jagger penned the appropriately titled “Gimme Shelter” for the record and knew he needed to have a duet partner with extra-ordinary abilities to help him with the track. At first, the Stones wanted to have vocalist Bonnie Bramlett sing it, but she was ill and not able to perform. Legendary soul and gospel singer Merry Clayton was solicited next and she arrived at the studio with not only an impressive resume, but also with an unborn baby inside of her. The tape rolls and the two go at it, building with the song’s tension until Merry’s voice breaks during the second refrain of “It’s just a shot away.” Immediately after this line, she pushes further, until her voice completely gives out during the third and final refrain of “Rape! Murder!” The emotional delivery causes Mick to yell “Wooo!” which is audible in the final mix of Let It Bleed. The mistake and Jagger’s reaction to it was left on the track because it transformed “Gimme Shelter” into one of the greatest songs in rock history, but the cost of the performance had an awful price: Merry had a miscarriage of her unborn child after she returned home from the recording session. Here's an unbelievable isolated track of the the vocals:
Part of what makes Motorhead so awesome is their fuck all attitude, and that attitude is in full display on “We Are The Road Crew,” the band’s three minute ode to their roadies. Like practically everything else the band did, the song is a breakneck juggernaut, more than likely fueled by copious amounts of speed and an unrelenting sense of economy. For example, the song features not one, but two blistering guitar solos by “Fast” Eddie Clarke, with the second one featuring him going apeshit on his wah-wah pedal. At about the 2:22 mark, Clarke loses his balance in the studio and falls to the floor, causing his guitar to feedback uncontrollably. The tape continues to roll, and Eddie takes about 10 seconds to get back on his feet, the guitar continuing to squeal the entire time. Fully stabilized and completely unfazed by the incident, he then continues to solo through the song’s remaining half-minute fade out. The fall remained on the final mix of the track for their classic Ace Of Spades release, and its attitude is what makes the record as vital today as it was when Eddie first took the plunge onto the studio floor.
Steely Dan constants Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are notorious perfectionists and, as far as albums are concerned, their 1977 release Aja is about as perfect of a recording as you’ll ever hear. Hell, for the song “Peg,” the two nitpickers made guitarist Jay Graydon perform take after take of solos until they found one to be satisfactory. All of this perfection came before the idea of Pro Tools was even created, so that meant that either 1.) you had to redo a live performance until you got the performance right or 2.) you had a swift producer who was able to “punch in” certain performances into a complete take, a strategy that really only works for easy issues with vocals or, occasionally, instruments. But what if you’re in the middle of a complex, eight-minute long title track with tons of Mingus-style chord progressions, and even a few complex tempo changes thrown in for good measure, when your drummer suddenly fucks up in the middle of a drum solo? If your drummer is legendary jazz percussionist Steve Gadd, and the offending mistake is a very audible click of his sticks, you play it off legit! For nearly twenty years, jazz scholars praised the offending “click” as an intentional and brilliant break, before Gadd admitted in an interview once that he fucked up. Fagen and Becker may be perfectionists, but they are far from stupid. Gadd simply crushes the rest of the song, and since the offending mating of his drum sticks is miraculously in time and in the middle of an incredible solo, let wisely left it on the final take.
Dusty Springfield was both a perfectionist and very insecure about her abilities. When she arrived in Memphis, Tennessee in November of 1968, she met with legendary producers Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin and Tom Down to record an album that was designed to match Dusty with the same creative team in which her own idol, Aretha Franklin, had found success with. They even presented her with “Son Of A Preacher Man,” a song that The Queen of Soul had originally rejected, but they felt it still had potential. Dusty fell in love with the track, but she struggled with her vocal takes, citing that she felt uneasy about not being able to match the same level of talent of the artists that graced the studio before her. Perhaps she should have listened a little more closely to Memphis Cats’ bassist Tommy Cogbill, who is far from perfect in his low end delivery. At around the 1:25 mark, Cogbill returns to an A note a bit early, but it’s so brief (and his performance is so smooth and sultry throughout the rest of the song) that the mistake stayed on, and “Son Of A Preacher Man” reached the top 10 in the States. As far as Dusty was concerned, she ended up scrapping all of her vocal takes in Memphis and recorded her parts in New York City. The irony of this story is that when Aretha heard Dusty’s version of the same song she passed on, she went and recorded it for her This Girl’s In Love With You album. When Dusty caught wind of Aretha’s version, she demurred to the Queen of Soul and began adopting her phrasing whenever she performed it live. And speaking of bassists and Dusty Springfield: while recording in New York City, Dusty stopped by Atlantic Records’ headquarters and told the top brass that they should sign her old bassist’s new band. That bassist’s name was John Paul Jones.
So how do you make skinny little, open-shirted Robert Plant sound like a conquering Viking? You put a bunch of echo behind his voice as he yells “Ahhhhahhhhhhhaaaaa!” The trouble is, studio equipment-like echo machines-were very primitive back in 1970, and if you’re Jimmy Pages, putting together tracks for your band’s latest record while touring, you tend to forget things like, oh, I dunno, like TURNING DOWN THE POT TO THE ECHO UNIT AS YOU BEGIN ROLLING TAPE! Hammer of the Gods, my ass! The echo unit starts to pick up the ambience of the tape hiss, it reproduces the hiss, making it grow louder and louder with each passing cycle until you’ve got a bunch of it inadvertently counting off the first track of your third record. But like the waves crashing against those massive Viking vessels, the mistake worked and was left on.
While vocal mistakes are much more noticeable, have pity on the lowly bass player who not only seems to be a recurring offender in this Baker’s Dozen list, but probably gets a ton of grief for stuff that nobody notices, except maybe other band members. Trevor Bolder was the bassist for David Bowie’s band during the Hunky Dory/Ziggy Stardust years, so his place in rock music is secure. Bolder just passed away in May of this year (2013), but you might say that he first died forty years when his boss caught him fucking up a bass part and chastised him on record, leaving a permanent reminder of his error. “The Jean Genie” was Bowie attempting to channel New York City, while guitarist Mick Ronson was obviously trying to channel Bo Diddley. Meanwhile, poor Trevor was just trying to channel a basic 4/4 time structure, hitting the notes designated for the chorus a measure too early and causing his boss to exclaim “Get back on it!” Life after Bowie for Bolder consisted of following fellow bassist John Wetton, stepping into his role for both Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash when Wetton departed. Of course, for me at least, fucking up “The Jean Genie” still ranks higher than any one of Bolder’s later projects.
Written by John Phillips the morning after a blackout night, one in which he woke up naked in bed next to daughter Mackenzie Phillips (too soon?), “I Saw Her Again” was another one of those harmonic, sunshine pop songs that the Mamas & the Papas were notorious for. The origin of the song is actually just as drama-filled as my lame attempt at humor: Papa Denny Doherty co-wrote the song with Phillips after having a brief affair with John’s wife, Michelle. The result of the affair led to Michelle getting temporarily fired from the band while giving the quartet another Top 5 hit in the summer of 1966. At the start of the third verse, you can hear Doherty come in a measure early with “I saw her…” before stopping and then picking up again at the proper point. You’d think that someone would have the sense to simply erase the offending mistake, but it actually was created during the mixing process. Bones Howe, the engineer of “I Saw Her Again” attempted to punch in the vocals for the final verse (so much for thinking everything recorded in the 60’s was live), but did so a tad early. He quickly rewound the tape and lined up the verse perfectly. Trouble was, he forgot to erase his mistake, so when producer Lou Adler heard the mix he also heard Howe’s error. Surprisingly, he thought it was cool and told Howe to leave it. From that point out, they acted like the mistake was intentional but even Paul McCartney wasn’t fooled. “That has to be a mistake.” he told the group. “Nobody’s that clever.”
Producer Tony Visconti is known as a man with impeccable precision and the pallet of a classical arranger. But put a couple of pretty boys in front of him and add a few joints to the control room and watch him let those rock and rollers walk all over his perfection. For Marc Bolan’s only U.S. Top 40 hit, “Get It On”, Visconti let Bolan add Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman to the final mix by adding only a piano glissando to the tune. Then, he let Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan from the Turtles-known to you and I as “Flo and Eddie”- join as background vocalist. At around 3:20, one of the two tried to add another “Get it on” before the guitar breakdown, realizing at the word “on” that they had overstepped the break. A quick laugh, and all is forgotten as Bolan probably told Visconti to leave the mistake in the final mix. Meanwhile, I’m still thinkin’ that Chuck Berry wouldn’t have allowed it.
I swear to god, one of the first comments I saw on You Tube while listening to this song was this: “This dumbass son of a bitch sold his soul around 1976, but GODDAMN this tune is unreal.” The sins of Rod Stewart are enormous, but the vitriol like that commenter accurately points out is deserved when you hear how awesome Stewart was before he squandered his talents for commercial tripe. “Every Picture Tells A Story” is one of the best examples of how good Stewart could be, even when he screws up the timing. Not that it matters much as the song is a musical mess. It’s sloppy, drummer Micky Waller doesn’t always keep perfect time, and everything sounds like it was recorded on the first take. In other words, it’s perfect. But what makes “Every Picture Tells A Story” a work of art is Rod Stewart and Maggie Bell singing off each other. There’s no rhythmic meter in their delivery, but they seem to be singing in unison. Except for when Rod rushes the line “Look how wrong you can be.” You can hear him start the verse, but stop as soon as he realizes that Maggie isn’t alongside with him. If only Rod would have headed those words, he may have saved us from such later garbage like “Young Turks.”
One of Gene Clark’s standouts, “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better” originally found its home as the flip to “All I Really Want To Do,” but because it’s so awesome, enough dj’s played Clark’s side to have it reach #103 on the charts. During the last verse, bassist Chris Hillman flubbed the bass line during the “I’m not gonna play your games anymore” part. This has caused me to wince every time I hear this beautiful song, because everything else in its 2:35 wake is perfect. This mistake has bugged me for so long that it became the entire reason for this list. And while other mistakes are far more noteworthy, Hillman’s flat note continues to be the one that bothers me the most.
