more old shit i've been listening to lately
perhaps reading the crawdaddy book has made me nostalgic about the past, but whatever the reason, i've been going back and listening to stuff i was into when i was still a snotnose, some of which i hadn't heard in 30 yrs or more. my punk rawkin' honky tonk gal rolls her eyes white upwards when she hears some of this "hipi music," but (bless her) still puts up with me. f'rinstance:
butterfield blues band - east-west: paul butterfield was the template for every white blues guy w/greased-back hair and shades, a lawyer's kid from chicago's north shore who started going down to the south side to hang out 'n' learn from urban blues masters like muddy waters, howlin' wolf, little walter, junior wells et al. around 1960. by 1965, he'd mastered blues harp well enough to be mentioned in the same breath as the aforementioned giants. his band (including gtrists mike bloomfield and elvin bishop) achieved some notoriety by backing bob dylan when he "went electric" at the '65 newport folk festival. bloomfield was a trust fund kid (his family's company manufactures the coffee makers still used at every mcdonald's, guh) who came to electric blues thru the folkie backdoor and was _the_ rawk gtr hero for 15 minutes until clapton 'n' hendrix came along and usurped his mantle. the 'riginal butterfield band's finest hr was this alb, from 1966, on which they started branching out from basic I-IV-V blare into the wider improvisational realms of jazz and raga. the title track, which sounds kind of dated now, was a revelation in its time simply 'cos bloomfield was extemporizing at length in modes other than the pentatonic. the san francisco bands were paying close attention, so i guess you can blame butter 'n' bloomer for the whole jam band development, from the dead 'n' quicksilver up to phish and who knows what-all. after east-west, both of 'em discovered acid 'n' kinda went soft, but this remains a watershed for those with a sense of historical moment.
animals - animalization and animalism: elsewhere i've railed against "the mentality that produces reductionist marketing bullshit like lists of the 'top 100 albums of all time' or radio stations that attempt to distill 50 yrs of music down to 3 songs each by 100 artists." case in point: the animals. while clear channel radio and licensing deals have assured that i don't need to hear "house of the rising sun" or "we've gotta get out of this place" evereverever again, these guys (fronted by eric burdon, who devolved, post-acid, into enough of a hipified joke for him to serve as the model for lorenzo st. dubois in the producers) still played r&b better than any of their brit contemporaries, and burdon (like van morrison with them) could actually sing the shee-ot out of it, too. these two albs, produced by tom wilson, who'd also done dylan's "like a rolling stone" and invented simon & garfunkel, are prolly the animals' strongest and most consistent, and indicative of how confusing it can be sorting out the discographies of '60s brit bands. most of animalization appeared in the u.k. as animalisms (plural), minus three u.s. hits that are its finest moments: "don't bring me down" (a kind of follow-up to "it's my life"), "inside looking out" (electrified field holler later covered by grand funk), and best of all, "see see rider" (dig the big tension-building intro, the sassy strut of the gtr-organ unison riff, the "jenny take a ride now, hey hey" fillip eric throws in). animalism (singular) came out in the u.s. as the wheels were coming off the band and wasn't even released in the u.k. by this time, burdon was covering donovan and fred neil as well as ray charles and howlin' wolf, and even collaborating in the studio with frank zappa (who gets a writer's credit on my cd copy for "all night long," even though it's derived from the same blues root source as the yardbirds' "lost woman"). sure, he went on to perpetrate atrocities like "san franciscan nights," but that was later. this is the air i was breathing when i started playing music.
pretty things - come see me: the very best of the pretty things and s.f. sorrow: these guys, contemporaries of the stones and yardbirds, didn't make it to the states until the '70s, but in their heyday, they could bang out endless bo diddley-style crash 'n' thump better 'n anybody. their gtrist, dick taylor, had played bass in an embryonic version of the stones, while their drummer, viv prince, had the same drumkit-falling-down-the-stairs attack and penchant for misbehavior as the who's keith moon. their earliest singles (most notably "rosalyn" and "don't bring me down") are chaos incarnate (in a good, punk-anticipating way); a little later, they got their shit together enough to cut more coherent (but still wild) stuff like "midnight to six man" and "come see me." around '66, taylor and frontman phil may started striving to improve as writers (chasing the kinks, indicative that they at least had good taste), and they replaced a coupla founder mbrs with newbies (wally allen and jon povey) who could sing tight harmony. shameless trend-hoppers, they went psychedelic with a vengeance on singles like "defecting grey" and "mr. evasion" before cutting their magnum opus, the "rock opera" s.f. sorrow. pete townshend admitted (then subsequently denied) that sorrow was an inspiration for tommy; when it comes to revisionist history, he's almost in the same league as lou reed. the alb was cut at abbey road around the same time as sgt. pepper and the piper at the gates of dawn with norman smith producing; how could you go wrong? sorrow's ur british psych, song (rather than jam)-focused, a lot less utopian than pepper and a lot less twee than piper; in fact, it's pretty dark, as things like this go. listening to this for the first time in awhile, i'm struck by the way dick taylor's gtr on "balloon burning" sounds downright frippertronic, the arrangement on "trust" sounds like something the 'oo might have done, and the heavy rifferama on "old man going" anticipates sabbath. throughout their career, these guys were such archetypes that they coulda been the blueprint for spinal tap or something. but my buddy geoff in philly saw 'em when they toured the states a coupla yrs back and said they were the real deal, playing everything from "rosalyn" to sorrow and beyond. i believe 'cos i wanna believe.
jefferson airplane - after bathing at baxter's: in spite of the fact that they quickly devolved into strident hipi polemicists and wound up sucking much arena-rock ass thru the late '70s and into the '80s as jefferson starship, i still find this summer of love artyfact pleasing to the ear, and its best moments really exhilarating. while not as archetypal as s.f. sorrow, in its own idiosyncratic way, baxter's represents the ultimate flahring of 'meercun psych. at the time of its release, paul williams saw this alb as the culmination of the byrds-butterfield-lovin' spoonful development in american rock ca. '65-'66, wherein folkloric roots were wedded to experimentalismo, and that kinda makes sense in light of the '67 airplane's confluence of clever 'n' imaginative songwriting, three strong lead singers who also harmonized well together, an agile 'n' inventive riddim section, a lead gtrist who was figuring out how to incorporate distortion and feedback into a blues-based concept, and an overall willingness to take musical risks. while you'd expect self-indulgence from hipis (and indeed, the airplane were milking their record company's largesse they'd earned with a coupla chart-topping hits, booking hours of studio time over five months and developing material as they went), the toons 'n' arrangements here are surprisingly well-crafted and focused. there's a lot going on, including an affinity for push-pull / tension-and-release dynamics that you don't need to be, um, _experienced_ to appreciate. i first heard this around the same time i was discovering live at leeds and funhouse and didn't listen again for over 30 yrs. i suppose for me, it owes a lot of its resonance to crawdaddy editor williams; it reminds me of the time when i was starting to _think_ about music.
now it's time for me to start listening to stooge-related musics again and woodshedding toons to learn in time for matt's return from the underground railroad tour.
butterfield blues band - east-west: paul butterfield was the template for every white blues guy w/greased-back hair and shades, a lawyer's kid from chicago's north shore who started going down to the south side to hang out 'n' learn from urban blues masters like muddy waters, howlin' wolf, little walter, junior wells et al. around 1960. by 1965, he'd mastered blues harp well enough to be mentioned in the same breath as the aforementioned giants. his band (including gtrists mike bloomfield and elvin bishop) achieved some notoriety by backing bob dylan when he "went electric" at the '65 newport folk festival. bloomfield was a trust fund kid (his family's company manufactures the coffee makers still used at every mcdonald's, guh) who came to electric blues thru the folkie backdoor and was _the_ rawk gtr hero for 15 minutes until clapton 'n' hendrix came along and usurped his mantle. the 'riginal butterfield band's finest hr was this alb, from 1966, on which they started branching out from basic I-IV-V blare into the wider improvisational realms of jazz and raga. the title track, which sounds kind of dated now, was a revelation in its time simply 'cos bloomfield was extemporizing at length in modes other than the pentatonic. the san francisco bands were paying close attention, so i guess you can blame butter 'n' bloomer for the whole jam band development, from the dead 'n' quicksilver up to phish and who knows what-all. after east-west, both of 'em discovered acid 'n' kinda went soft, but this remains a watershed for those with a sense of historical moment.
animals - animalization and animalism: elsewhere i've railed against "the mentality that produces reductionist marketing bullshit like lists of the 'top 100 albums of all time' or radio stations that attempt to distill 50 yrs of music down to 3 songs each by 100 artists." case in point: the animals. while clear channel radio and licensing deals have assured that i don't need to hear "house of the rising sun" or "we've gotta get out of this place" evereverever again, these guys (fronted by eric burdon, who devolved, post-acid, into enough of a hipified joke for him to serve as the model for lorenzo st. dubois in the producers) still played r&b better than any of their brit contemporaries, and burdon (like van morrison with them) could actually sing the shee-ot out of it, too. these two albs, produced by tom wilson, who'd also done dylan's "like a rolling stone" and invented simon & garfunkel, are prolly the animals' strongest and most consistent, and indicative of how confusing it can be sorting out the discographies of '60s brit bands. most of animalization appeared in the u.k. as animalisms (plural), minus three u.s. hits that are its finest moments: "don't bring me down" (a kind of follow-up to "it's my life"), "inside looking out" (electrified field holler later covered by grand funk), and best of all, "see see rider" (dig the big tension-building intro, the sassy strut of the gtr-organ unison riff, the "jenny take a ride now, hey hey" fillip eric throws in). animalism (singular) came out in the u.s. as the wheels were coming off the band and wasn't even released in the u.k. by this time, burdon was covering donovan and fred neil as well as ray charles and howlin' wolf, and even collaborating in the studio with frank zappa (who gets a writer's credit on my cd copy for "all night long," even though it's derived from the same blues root source as the yardbirds' "lost woman"). sure, he went on to perpetrate atrocities like "san franciscan nights," but that was later. this is the air i was breathing when i started playing music.
pretty things - come see me: the very best of the pretty things and s.f. sorrow: these guys, contemporaries of the stones and yardbirds, didn't make it to the states until the '70s, but in their heyday, they could bang out endless bo diddley-style crash 'n' thump better 'n anybody. their gtrist, dick taylor, had played bass in an embryonic version of the stones, while their drummer, viv prince, had the same drumkit-falling-down-the-stairs attack and penchant for misbehavior as the who's keith moon. their earliest singles (most notably "rosalyn" and "don't bring me down") are chaos incarnate (in a good, punk-anticipating way); a little later, they got their shit together enough to cut more coherent (but still wild) stuff like "midnight to six man" and "come see me." around '66, taylor and frontman phil may started striving to improve as writers (chasing the kinks, indicative that they at least had good taste), and they replaced a coupla founder mbrs with newbies (wally allen and jon povey) who could sing tight harmony. shameless trend-hoppers, they went psychedelic with a vengeance on singles like "defecting grey" and "mr. evasion" before cutting their magnum opus, the "rock opera" s.f. sorrow. pete townshend admitted (then subsequently denied) that sorrow was an inspiration for tommy; when it comes to revisionist history, he's almost in the same league as lou reed. the alb was cut at abbey road around the same time as sgt. pepper and the piper at the gates of dawn with norman smith producing; how could you go wrong? sorrow's ur british psych, song (rather than jam)-focused, a lot less utopian than pepper and a lot less twee than piper; in fact, it's pretty dark, as things like this go. listening to this for the first time in awhile, i'm struck by the way dick taylor's gtr on "balloon burning" sounds downright frippertronic, the arrangement on "trust" sounds like something the 'oo might have done, and the heavy rifferama on "old man going" anticipates sabbath. throughout their career, these guys were such archetypes that they coulda been the blueprint for spinal tap or something. but my buddy geoff in philly saw 'em when they toured the states a coupla yrs back and said they were the real deal, playing everything from "rosalyn" to sorrow and beyond. i believe 'cos i wanna believe.
jefferson airplane - after bathing at baxter's: in spite of the fact that they quickly devolved into strident hipi polemicists and wound up sucking much arena-rock ass thru the late '70s and into the '80s as jefferson starship, i still find this summer of love artyfact pleasing to the ear, and its best moments really exhilarating. while not as archetypal as s.f. sorrow, in its own idiosyncratic way, baxter's represents the ultimate flahring of 'meercun psych. at the time of its release, paul williams saw this alb as the culmination of the byrds-butterfield-lovin' spoonful development in american rock ca. '65-'66, wherein folkloric roots were wedded to experimentalismo, and that kinda makes sense in light of the '67 airplane's confluence of clever 'n' imaginative songwriting, three strong lead singers who also harmonized well together, an agile 'n' inventive riddim section, a lead gtrist who was figuring out how to incorporate distortion and feedback into a blues-based concept, and an overall willingness to take musical risks. while you'd expect self-indulgence from hipis (and indeed, the airplane were milking their record company's largesse they'd earned with a coupla chart-topping hits, booking hours of studio time over five months and developing material as they went), the toons 'n' arrangements here are surprisingly well-crafted and focused. there's a lot going on, including an affinity for push-pull / tension-and-release dynamics that you don't need to be, um, _experienced_ to appreciate. i first heard this around the same time i was discovering live at leeds and funhouse and didn't listen again for over 30 yrs. i suppose for me, it owes a lot of its resonance to crawdaddy editor williams; it reminds me of the time when i was starting to _think_ about music.
now it's time for me to start listening to stooge-related musics again and woodshedding toons to learn in time for matt's return from the underground railroad tour.
posted by stashdauber at 7:01 AM
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