Just sharing, and slightly re-arranging a set of songs I heard on Deep Tracks Sirius yesterday. These fit together surprisingly well: at least it surprised me. 


From the wonderful, and wonderfully diverse, Untitled (1970) by the Byrds:

then this, from Led Zeppelin III (both released in October 1970--whoa, I think we're having a Crowley moment here)

Finally, this from Get Your Wings, four years later.

Put 'em all together, and you have: I'm not sure yet, but I like it. 

Hearing "On Your Own" by the Verve on satellite radio, it flashed on me that the British group, the Verve, ended up in a very interesting place on their last record, Urban Hymns (1997), achieving a remarkable blend of indie rock and early seventies mellow soul. You can hear the transition in "On Your Own" from Northern Songs (1995); I hear Curtis Mayfield in the resigned lyric, the melancholy vocal, and above all, in that silky-smooth groove that you want to go on endlessly. Unlike so many of the countless other attempts by white rock bands to do something soulful, it doesn't seem self-conscious at all.   

In the same vein, from Urban Hymns: 

Not that I don't equally admire the style of the early Verve, and their mash-up of U2 (U2 trying to sound like Zeppelin that is, i.e., "Bullet the Blue Sky) and Can. It's just that I don't feel the mellower Verve is any less powerful. 

Not a Hater

The title says it all; I feel bad my last post, hating on the Boss and All. I would delete it, but it gave my friend Tim some pleasure to see my getting all worked up for no reason. 


The truth is, there's so much great music to think about that it makes little sense to dwell on the negative. So today, here are some inspirational words from Lewis Shiner's short story, "Steam Engine Time," about a young kid, modeled on Robert Johnson, who invents "blue music." Turns out the world isn't ready for it, and a woman asks the guitarist:


"Was that supposed to be some kind of minstrel song?" ...
"No," he says, "it wasn't no minstrel song."
"Ain't heard nothin' like it before," she says. 
"Not supposed to have. Things everybody heard before is for shit. 'The Little Old Cabin in the Lane.' Songs like that make people the way they are." 

How does Bruce Springsteen Get Away With This Shit?

So: I haven't posted a blog in like, forever.  Now that I'm finally writing a new post, it's not even on topic; in fact, it's just a rant.

Welcome to the Blogosphere, friends.

I heard Bruce Springsteen's "American Land" today on SiriusXM: it's from the new record, Wrecking Ball. How does Bruce get away with this shit? It sounds like he knocked it off in ten minutes: or at least I hope he didn't take longer than that to write it.  It's a tale of immigrants in America, with Bruce singing like he's a Clancy Brother. Except that he's not. It's a second rate rewrite of the Pogues' "Sally MacLennane."  It's official: Bruce now sounds like his copyists. Except that he's not as good. Not only is the song second rate Pogues:  it's second-rate Gaslight Anthem.

Apparently Bruce can get away with all this because he's the Last Rock Populist Standing.

And they call it democracy.

Listen to this instead:

sickle clowns in Notting Hill

Heard this the other day, and it was a revelation. I had forgotten how wonderfully loose and fluid the Pretty Things were circa Parachute (1970; Rolling Stone's record of the year).  It's also a great curio from a particular time and place: Notting Hill, late 60s. The Pretties were hanging with the  new hippie bands in the 'hood: with the Pink Fairies, the E. Broughton Band, the Deviants, and Hawkwind.  the hippie dream was still alive, but just barely: it was altogether an edgier, angrier,  aggressively anti-social crew.  But as you can hear here, the Rock was doing just fine. Something in the water or the dope seemed to have made for wonderfully loose, effortlessly expressive playing. This track percolates nicely all the  way through: no mean feat, for a seven minute song (I never realized the length till now, which tells you something): 

I don't work, I just speed

"That's all I nee-eed!"

"Just in case..."

been a long time been a long time been a long

The Stones' Rock and Roll Circus program was filmed 43 years ago today.

Tony Iommi recalls: "The Who were there and Taj Mahal and all the people who were in the movie, but I didn't know a soul and felt like a spare dinner."

Also: "half the people in that show are now dead. John Lennon, Keith Moon, Brian Jones, Mitch Mitchell. .. it's a Rock and Roll Circus all right." 

My Friend Jackie told me that John Cage conceived of a Music Circus as a populist avant-garde event. More on that when I catch up on my Cage...