Gary Clark Jr. in Oakland

Gary Clark Jr. Photo by Mark Rudio

Like many people, my first exposure to Gary Clark Jr. was seeing his 2010 performance of "Bright Lights," filmed during Eric Clapton's Crossroads festival. As I watched him tear through two blistering solos on a red, hollow-bodied Epiphone, and was taken in by the song's refrain, "You're gonna know my name by the end of the night" which sounded more threatening than boastful, I thought to myself who is this guy?

The clip compelled me to check out the Bright Lights EP (2011), four tracks which cover a lot of ground, including solo acoustic versions of "Things are Changin''" which hinted that Clark was a lot more than just a new guitar sensation, and "When My Train Pulls In," an eight-minute display of hard acoustic blues, built on a riff that's as much "Rock Candy" as it "Voodoo Chile," with some flamenco tones thrown in for a little extra flavor. But it was the menacing, fuzz-toned title track that seared itself into my brain.

Bright Lights signalled Clark was someone to watch, but it didn't quite set the stage for 2012's Blak and Blu- a hard-rocking master class  in which Clark mines sixty-odd years of black music for inspiration and comes up with gold on every track. Opening with the sixties-tinged soul of  "Ain't Messin 'Round,"  followed by a molten electric version "When My Train Pulls In" he moves easily through scorching blues, fuzzed-out rock, some Glimmer Twins-infected glam, pop, hip-hop, and more. It's a remarkably cohesive album which succeeds in its intent to defy easy categorization or be pigeonholed into a single genre (or three). On top of all of that, Clark can sing (almost) as well as he can play the guitar- it's as easy to hear strains of Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke in the music as it is Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn (Clark, like Vaughn, hails from Texas).

The day after his first local headlining show at the Fox Theater was announced, Margarita and I were watching the first episode of House of Lies which ends (appropriately) with "Bright Lights" playing over the ending. About 10 seconds into the song she turned to me and said, "I really like this- who is it?"  I told her, mentioned the upcoming show, and plans were made then and there, including her cancelling a trip to L.A..

The Fox show sold-out, and there was a palpable buzz in the crowd when we entered the theater around 8:45. The floor was packed, but we snaked our way toward the front. Shortly after 9 the lights went down, the band strode onstage, and the Johnnies (Radelat on drums, Bradley on Bass) kicked it off with a thumping intro to  "Ain't Messin 'Round" which moved every hair on my body. Bradley plays the bass like it's a second kick drum, creating an enormously fat-bottomed sound. Radelat's style leans on heavy on the beat with few fills and a disdain for flourishes. Together they form a rhythm section that pounds like a jack hammer. Eric "King" Zapata is the second guitarist in the band, and I hesitate to describe him as a rhythm guitar player- in any other band he'd probably be the fucking star. His style is wholly different from Clark's; his more rock-oriented approach creates a stark contrast to Clark's acid-fuzz when he takes the lead, but together they create a monstrous, Spectoresque slab of sound. Zapata and Clark traded licks through an extended jam during the song, with Clark casually quoting the riff from Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman" at one point. It was obvious there would be no "warming up."

From there they launched into blues territory, including a cover of Albert King's "Oh, Pretty Woman,"  followed by "When My Train Pulls In" with Zapata playing a double-neck guitar. Hearing it live, the opening riff sounds like a twist on Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" and the two vastly different solo sections on the album version made a lot more sense to me listening Zapata taking the first one as the band began to sound like Crazy Horse on an extremely good night, then Clark followed with ample evidence of why he's being hailed as the "next Hendrix."

That's an probably an inevitable comparison, but not necessarily the right one. If Clark were white, people would probably say he's the "next Vaughn," yet this would still miss the mark, though as a guitarist he is undoubtedly that good. However, a more apt comparison may be that he's the next Prince, as the next song was the title track of the recent album- a turn in direction neither Hendrix nor Vaughn would have made in a million years, but a display of versatility that's a given for the Purple One, who. like Ernie Isley, has never been properly acknowledged for being an extraordinary guitar player because his (and Isley's) music wasn't geared toward rock audiences.

"Please Come Home" was another highlight, which found Clark doing his best Smokey-flavored vocal impression before melting the soul groove down to a metallic base, his right hand strumming so fast the sounds emanating from the guitar became a hazy blur wafting over the ballad's beat.

Throughout the two-hour set the band never let up and it's nothing against Clark's outsized talents to say they deserve to be recognized as more than a back-up band. This is a solid outfit and my previous comparison of them to Crazy Horse is deliberate: these guys kick ass, and while Clark's proven through numerous appearances with the Rolling Stones and others that he can hold his own with anyone, the trio behind him had a lot to do with making this one of the best gigs I've seen in some time, and Zapata especially, is hugely talented. Though this was evident from the beginning of the show, as they launched into the medley of "Third Stone From the Sun/If You Love Me Like You Say" it became obvious that this is a band that can play as they churned the sludge into a funky, reggae-tinged stomp that had the audience dancing along to a savage groove.

Clark's tour is taking him to smaller venues around the country through November. If you don't see him now, chances are the next time his train pulls in it's going to be at bigger venues. Believe the hype- you're gonna know his name.

Fitz and the Tantrums at the Warfield

On Sunday night GG and I caught a triple bill of L.A.-based bands at the Warfield. The openers were The Colourist, a pop band whose enthusiastic singing drummer Maya Tuttle hit her kit with delightful force and rhythm. Their songs aren't especially original, but they're strikingly well-crafted and performed, especially the single "Little Games." They're certainly a band worth checking out and keeping an eye on, with an EP titled Lido coming out on August 20th.

L.A.'s The Colourist

Next up on the bill were Hunter Hunted, which is apparently the duo of Dan Chang and Michael Garner and three supporting musicians, including a highly versatile woman who plays multiple instruments. Sadly, these guys don't seem to see fit to list the band member's names anywhere, but the woman, drummer, and second guitarist (they were introduced onstage as twins) were good players. The band performed without a bassist, unless that second guitar was actually a six string bass. I couldn't really tell because Hunter Hunted played at a volume with Garner's vocals and keyboard mixed so painfully loud that I had to leave the hall in search of ear plugs, which I found in the basement. Going to and fro, I passed by the open rear door of the theater and was overcome by the stench of urine pouring in from out back. The entire rear quarter of the Warfield stinks like piss- it's disgusting. Now, I've been seeing concerts for a long time. I like it loud, but this wasn't loud- it was distorted and stupid. According to someone who works at the Warfield, the band had their own sound guy on the board and this is the way they wanted it. The ear plugs didn't even do the job, and I had to hold them pressed firmly into my ears in order to even remain seated. But even filtered, one can't deny these guys write hook-laden, catchy songs in a Coldplay vein. It would have been a pleasure to hear them mixed by someone who knew what they were doing.

Fitz and the Tantrums

Headliners Fitz and the Tantrums are a somewhat traditional Philly-influenced soul band. I say somewhat because the songs are performed mostly without a guitar, an instrument that lead singer/leader Michael Fitzpatrick supposedly doesn't care for. The band is tight- especially the rhythm section of bassist Joseph Karnes and drummer John Wickes. Sax and keyboard player James is an excellent sideman and singer Noelle Scaggs has the chops to front her own band. And maybe she should, because the weak link in the band, at least live, is Fitz. The tall, lanky man can't dance, he can't move, has no stage presence whatsoever, and peppers his trite, by-the-numbers stage banter with enough unnecessary "fuck"s that he seems to have a latent hostility toward the audience, which resembled a grown-up frat party (all white) who came to party and did so with abandon. That's not to say the man can't sing- he's got a voice like Daryl Hall, but with his pseudo-Flock of Seagulls hairdo, apathetic demeanor, and physical gawkiness, the hard-working band behind him expertly churning out the party music behind him falls curiously flat. They should take a cue from the much more exciting live act Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and learn some choreography, or even better, hire a trio of back-up singers to take the attention off of Fitz. Their sound was horribly mixed as well, with the vocals being completely undecipherable.

Catching up, looking forward... (odds and ends)

Paradise: Love

Though I’ve seen Marc-Andre Hamelin perform a couple of times in the past two years I had yet to be swayed that he was really all that, as so many claim. My opinion changed after hearing him perform with the San Francisco Symphony last month in a terrific concert which featured the pianist soloing in Ravel’s Concerto For the Left Hand as well as Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Hamelin performed with nuanced beauty and a heady authority during the Ravel and if the Rhapsody didn’t quite reach the same heights it was due to conductor David Robertson’s less than wholly convincing control over the jazz elements in the score, which resulted in a performance which sang but didn’t quite swing. The concert also featured a knockout opener of Elliot Carter’s Variations for Orchestra and closed with Ravel’s La Valse. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again- it’s inexplicable to me that Ravel is not given more respect as a composer- he was as good and often better than any of his contemporaries. During the intermission Lisa Hirsch and I had fun trying to determine the identity of the timpanist, Michael Israelievitch, who was terrific and hopefully is being considered for the seat being vacated by what-his-name.

In the second of three concerts in their inaugural season, Curious Flights celebrated the Britten Centennial with a diverse program featuring the Valinor Winds performing the Movement for Wind Sextet, the Friction Quartet with violist Jason Pyzowski performing the Phantasy in F Minor for String Quintet, tenor Brian Thorsett in a stunningly gorgeous Canticle III¸and best of all, Movements for a Clarinet Concerto- a work cobbled together from an unfinished concerto originally intended for Benny Goodman. This was performed by what was essentially a 50-odd piece pick-up orchestra featuring Curious Flights founder and prime mover Brenden Guy as the soloist, and led by Marin Symphony Music Director Alasdair Neale. Hearing this orchestra one would have never guessed they were organized for this particular concert- they sounded well-rehearsed and played at an exceptional level all around. The next program by Curious Flights, Transatlantic Crossings, will take place on October 18^th and will feature collaborations between contemporary British and Bay Area composers, performed in the concert hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Tickets ($15 GA, $10 for students) are available here. Program here.

Last weekend at The Lab in San Francisco’s Mission District, the Other Minds Festival brought Rhys Chatham to town as a warm-up of sorts for the November West Coast premiere of A Secret Rose (100 Guitars). Chatham was one six people playing electric guitars (with all amps seemingly turned up to “11”), and with a phenomenal drummer whose name a didn’t catch and a bassist who provided a booming Geezer Butler-ish bottom, they tore through an enthralling re-working of his Guitar Trio¸ renamed G3 to reflect the additional instruments. It was the most exhilarating 30 minutes of music I’ve heard all year, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store come November 17th. If you’re a local guitar player who wants to take part, contact the Other Minds Festival or apply online here- they are looking for people to participate ranging from talented amateurs to serious pros, and the rehearsal time will be minimal, but it promises to be a maximum pleasure, maybe even the event of the year.

This coming week has the SF Symphony performing lots of Stravinsky, and over at YBCA I'm really intrigued about the screenings of Ulrich Seidl's Paradise trilogy- three films under title Love, Faith, and Hope happening now through June 30th. Check their website for the full schedule, but the films are being screened sequentially so don't wait- Love only has screenings left on 06/15 & 06/16. It's not necessary to see them all, but if it turns out to be your kind of cinema it would be a shame to miss one. Note that the films are deemed provocative and controversial, raunchy and explicit- Seidl had been compared to Fassbinder by none other than John Waters. Works for me. And of course Ojai North is taking place this weekend- last night's performance was, in a word- sensational (more to come on that).

Prince at the DNA Lounge- late show, Wednesday night April 24

Prince and 3rd Eye Girl in Vancouver. The lights for the DNA show were set up differently, but the vibe is similar.

The word from the Swede, who had gone to the previous night's late show, was that is was guitar-heavy rock and roll, with almost nothing he recognized during the first hour, but with which the mostly younger audience seemed well-versed. He said he wanted to get in line for the next night's show at 8:30. Having worked all day at my day job (people are constantly surprised I have one- as if this  beast somehow paid my bills) I needed a wee bit of downtime before meeting up with him.

Sometime around 9:30 I found him near the front of the line, and once I had made friends with the folks around us he ditched me to get a half-pint of Makers. Returning, he opened the bottle and took these little itsy-bitsy swigs, then took out a pack of blue American Spirits, lit one, and then gave one out to everyone standing behind us. I was the only one not smoking and not drinking and I taught this fucker the pleasures of both bourbon and cigarettes and there was something about this entire situation that was just incredibly wrong.

The line to get into the 800 capacity club was incredibly long, snaking all the way down the block. I had no idea how all those people were going to get inside, but I also didn't really care because we were pretty close to the front of the line. I know I mentioned that already. I know I'm gloating. So?

Soon the line began to move and I noticed a half-pint of Beam, more than 3/4 full, sitting on the sidewalk, discarded next to the bus stop. It looked so sad there. I knew the Swede's Makers was going to soon join it and even though I gave up booze over a year ago, I still hate to see it go to waste. Fucking amateurs, just leaving it there on the sidewalk for the bums. Pros like me had soft-sided flasks. That's comme il faut.

We got inside and staked out a spot about 15 feet from the microphone placed center stage. A voice came on the PA and said anyone taking pictures with their phone would be removed from the audience. The Swede said they weren't joking about this, since he saw them give people the boot the night before, but as it turns out I did see a couple of people who thought this didn't apply to them turn out to be right.

When these shows were announced, along with their hefty prices, I took umbrage to a comment I saw on a friend's Facebook that the audience would be full of "douches" because obviously who else could afford such tickets. This ended up becoming an online debate between us as I stuck up for my peers, who had just been called douches by some 30-something slacker/hipster, and though the crowd was for the most part quite nicely appreciative, enthusiastic, knowing and behaved, I did have the distinct misfortune of standing next to two of the most obnoxious assholes I've encountered in a very long time, one of whom felt the need to tell everyone within earshot that Slash is the worst guitar player ever and Jeff Beck is the best. Repeatedly. 300 fucking times. Okay, maybe only six times before I looked at him with an annoyed look and asked him to shut up. What an asshole. Only creepy douches walk around telling people Jeff beck is the world's greatest living guitar player. What an asinine thing to say. Jeff Beck isn't even in the top ten. Everyone knows that. Try humming a Jeff beck solo from after 1971. See? Idiot. Jeff Beck. Jesus. Dumbshit. Then there was his pal, who was just a creep, trying to manipulate this young guy who was there with his girlfriend, saying he shouldn't let her out of his site because someone might give her a roofie. He seemed like just the type of Humbert Humbert wannabe scumbag who would do such a thing. He really creeped me out. Meanwhile, however, the young guy's girlfriend, who was also Swedish (but raised here), felt it incumbent to keep pressing her large breasts forcefully into my back and arms and resting them there. As if I should know them. And I wanted to. Douches aside, so far the show was great and Prince wasn't due onstage for at least half an hour.

The lights went down at 11:35, the crowd went crazy, and Prince and the three women who comprise 3rd Eye Girl walked onstage and accommodated us with a slowed-down, grungy blues version of "Let's Go Crazy" and I immediately wished I had brought some ear plugs, as I could feel every hair on my body rise and begin to move like underwater plants. It was incredibly loud, to the point of painful, but it also felt good and soon my ears adjusted to the volume.

Now let me state this without reservation: 3rd Eye Girl- Donna Grantis, guitar, Ida Nielsen, bass, Hannah Ford, drums- is the perfect back-up band for Prince when he's in a rock and roll mood, and that's exactly what this tour is about. . While Grantis gets to trade licks with Prince, it's really Ford's drumming, and her never-ceasing exuberant smile, which propels the band and makes this foursome rock solid. It's also a seamlessly tight band, but the audience expects that from Prince at this point.

At the age of 54, he's just starting to show signs of aging (it's almost imperceptible, but you can see it in his skin and in his body movements if you look closely and pay attention) but musically the man is still in his prime and obviously going strong. Of course it helps to have a body of work like his, which he made plain to the crowd when he taunted "Do you know how many damn hits I have?" in the middle of a medley of some of the bigger ones later in the hour and forty-five minute show. But the new material- guitar oriented, hard driving, muscularly beat out with slashing chords and a stomping beat, sounds hot, and the band played both the new and the old with equal fervor. Still, the funk was there. During "Housequake"(my favorite of the night if only because I didn't expect it), Prince commanded "Everybody jump up and down!" and we did,  to the funky beat, and it was good. It was fantastic. It was like 1987 because for some reason Prince decided to play more songs off of Sign O' the Times than any other album, and who would have expected that?

If you didn't already know Prince was one of the greatest guitarists of all time, then this band and these shows may not be for you. For those that do know, and that's a lot of folks, it doesn't get much better than this. Loud, raucous and funky- this band kicks ass, and with the electric lights pulsing behind them, the music cranked, the women shredding and smiling,  it's like they're the house band in a Tarantino remake of Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! 

The set list, as I could recall it the next afternoon...

Let's Go Crazy
Let's Work
You Got the Look
Endorphine Machine
I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
Screwdriver
Bambi
Guitar
Purple Rain
Adore
She's Always in My Hair
I Like It There
FixUrLifeUp
Boom Stratus
Sign O the Times
Hot Thing
Housequake
I Would Die 4 U
When Doves Cry
A Love Bizarre
Alphabet Street
Fragments of Nasty Girl/Single Ladies
Pop Life

Let us bleed: the high price of concert tickets

Of course it's only rock and roll...

After reading comments on his Facebook page about the high prices of tickets to the upcoming Prince DNA shows and Stones concerts, I challenged my friend and fellow-blogger Gordon Elgart, who is Editor-in-Chief of the website Spinning Platters, to a debate on the subject. He believes acts like the Stones and Prince are sticking it to their fans with these high-priced concerts, and worse, that younger music fans lose out when prices get to the level where they are obtainable only by people with large amounts of disposable income. I disagree with him.

You can read our exchange here.


but I still like it. Yes I do.

"I knew you when we were young..."

I skipped Hardly Strictly Bluegrass this year. Though it was tempting, in the end I didn't want to wrestle with the ghosts of Penelope and Thaïs that surround my memories of the festival. The decision was made even easier by the fact that Patti Smith, one of the main draws for me this year, was going to do a show at the Fillmore the following night, making me feel like I wasn't going to miss out entirely.

I never really heard much about Smith's appearance the day before, but the Fillmore show was a surprising disappointment. Smith is one of the most incendiary performers I've ever seen onstage, but this gig started off with a subdued "Kimberly," followed by a couple of tracks off her latest album Banga- "April Fool" and "Fuji-San," all set snugly in mid-tempo groove and Smith and her band seemed in no particular hurry to turn up the heat. She talked about her expensive dungarees, Obama, John Walker Lindh, and some other Patti-banter, which the audience ate up. She was in an avuncular mood, perhaps too relaxed from the massage she received before the show, which she also told us about.

It wasn't until "Beneath the Southern Cross" that the show really started to burn, but after that she left the stage for Lenny Kaye's medley slot, which also felt rather perfunctory and dialed-in, and the momentum flagged again. I ran into CC and her longtime boyfriend in the audience early on, after I moved toward the rear of the crowd to escape two Neanderthals who were yelling at each other as a means to communicate over the music, and was standing next to them as Smith came back on to sing "Maria" from the new album.

The song includes a refrain with the lyrics "I knew you when we were young," and I couldn't help but think of the woman now standing next to me, whom I used to date almost 20 years ago, with her current partner on her other side, and how much both of our lives had changed in the ensuing years. How they've gone in such different directions. I remembered sitting in the living room of her Pacific Heights flat, which was filled with carefully-cultivated succulent plants, and how she would tell me of her appreciation of Marlon Brando when he was younger; of the night we went into The Owl Tree for the first time. It was late and in the middle of the week. We were the only people there, seated at the bar, and C Bobby said in his own inimitable nonchalant way, looking out the open door at the fog rolling down Taylor while cleaning an ashtray, "It's a perfect night for a murder." 

Suddenly I was filled with this melancholy sense of loss I couldn't shake, which only gathered its own momentum as Smith went into "Because the Night"- a madeleine song for me like few others. "Pissing in the River" didn't bring me back from that ledge, and "Gloria" sounded obligatory.

The audience, many of which seemed to have never seen her before (including CC and a charming vamp I met before the show), seemed to made up of a number of the curious rather than the converted, and ate the entire thing up, bringing Smith back for a three song encore which began with a pompous-sounding "Banga" and ended with "Rock and Roll Nigger," which Smith dedicated to Obama in the evening's one true moment of vintage Patti.

The next day, I was at work when I received an email from CC saying she and her boyfriend had gotten into an argument about our plans to see the Mariinsky Ballet together later in the week and that she wasn't going to be able to go. If she had to upset a man, it wasn't going to be the one with whom she's lived for more than a dozen years. I left my desk to take a walk down to the Bay and ended up sitting at the end of a pier where a woman had once thrown her two children into the water. The lyrics to Smith's "Redondo Beach" came into my mind, creating yet another madeleine.

The Rolling Stones @ 50

It was 50 years ago today, July 12, 1962, that the Rolling Stones performed their first gig at the Marquee Club in London. The Stones were formed in April of 1962. I was born a month later, making us contemporaries of a kind. I find that the older I get the more I appreciate them in ways unmatched by any other performers of popular music, with the possible exception of James Brown. When I was younger, the Stones were never my favorite band but they were always there, and now, oddly, they're there more than ever as I become increasingly fascinated by their music, legacy, and longevity. If I have a favorite band now, it is certainly The Rolling Stones. I know it's only rock and roll- but I like it.

The Rolling Stones, July 11, 2012. Photo by Rankin.

My recent deep interest in the group began by reading Keith Richards' autobiography Life, and since the book's sold more than a million copies, I doubt I'm the only one. For me, the best parts about Richards' book aren't about his feelings about Mick Jagger, his relationship with Anita Pallenberg or his bouts with drugs. It's when he writes about the music that the book really comes alive: how he adopted five-string tuning to get his unique sound; recording acoustic guitars through the tiny amps of cassette decks in order to get something just right; his approach to how rock should sound; and how his musical influences have manifested themselves within the music of the Stones. It's fascinating reading and has prompted me to go back time and again to listen to the music, hearing it differently now. I also appreciate Jagger's lyrics much more now than I did when I was a kid.



Richards once said something along the lines of "Nobody complains about Muddy Waters still being out there touring- why do they criticize us?" And yet there's the rub-  Muddy Waters performed until he died in 1983, at least 25 years after his most influential work. The most recent album by the Stones, 2005's A Bigger Bang, was no embarrassment to their legacy and is a strong enough album that had it been released in the 80's, would have resulted once again in the press claiming "a long overdue return to form" (which some indeed did).

Did I need to hear it? No, of course not. But it did present a recent chapter in the continual evolution of a group of extremely talented, knowledgeable musicians who had been performing together at that time for over forty years. And that creative longevity interests me. While a similar case can be made for the likes of Paul Simon, Paul McCartney and a handful of others, what can I say? They just don't rock me the way the Stones do. Nothing they've ever written has held a life-long hold on me like "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and "Midnight Rambler" have managed to do. If I never heard either Paul's music again I doubt I would notice- but I would with the Stones.

Anyway, they certainly don't need me to justify their legacy. The music speaks for itself. I'm just fascinated by how well it's held up. So to mark their anniversary, I'm going to be posting thoughts on their 29 studio and 10 live albums over the next few months, starting in chronological order with the first releases. The early albums which have US and UK versions will be combined.  Links to the tracks and albums at MOG will be included in each post. If I haven't exorcised the bug by then, maybe I'll include the films. Compilations (there are 30 so far) will be left out. For the record, the first album of theirs I bought was Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!- and yes, I still have it.

And yes, I do plan on being at Glastonbury next year for their final gig- which will be thirty five years after I saw them for the first time in 1978. Until then, let it rock- while it would be difficult to choose a very favorite song, this is certainly one of the contenders:

The Wall in San Francisco

No, I'm not at the Roger Waters concert tonight, but I can hear it quite clearly from my apartment over a mile away and right now "Run Like Hell" is thumping its way across a foggy San Francisco sky, probably because I live in a high-rise building with nothing really blocking the air between my windows on the eleventh floor and the stadium where the show is taking place.

I looked up the dates of the original concerts, performed by Pink Floyd of course, which I saw at the LA Sports Arena in 1980. Yes, thirty-two years ago. They were incredible shows- unlike anything else that had ever been done. I ended up going twice, partially because the mind-altering substance I took the first night caused me to disbelieve almost everything I saw, so I had to go back and confirm it. It didn't really help, because I ended taking more of the same stuff, but at least the second time I didn't think the Beatles were onstage when the wall came tumbling down.

I read on Wikipedia that David Gilmour and Nick Mason tried to talk Waters into taking the show on a more profitable tour of stadiums so they could recoup some of the cost and even make some money, but given the theme of the material- the distance and alienation between the performer and his audience, he felt it inappropriate. I guess he no longer does, and also doesn't mind charging astronomical prices that tens of thousands of fans are willing to fork over. Ah, money- it's a gas.

But this is what I don't get: out of all of the classic Pink Floyd albums, the one that doesn't stand up over time is "The Wall." In fact, more than thirty years later, I think it's self-indulgent and morbid to the point of being unlistenable except for perhaps four tracks, maybe five (all of which feature Gilmour prominently). And yet across town there are more than 30,000 people who paid hundreds of dollars to see and hear a replica of something that happened 32 years ago. Why? And why participate in something so obviously cynical? Do people really think "The Wall" is that good?

Welcome to the machine, suckers, and have a cigar. Do you remember when you were kids and you would scoff at people who went to Elvis impersonator shows or concerts featuring oldies acts? Well, surprise- you've just become the people you used to mock. You can thank Waters with your dollars for the privilege.

Now... up against the Wall!

With apologies to those who went and enjoyed it- Waters' cynicism brings out my own.

Ella Hirst, aka Ms. Clawdy

I've been reading Ellen Willis' immensely enjoyable Out of the Vinyl Deeps. More than once she mentions 70's era Bay Area singer Ella Hirst, who was in a band called Eyes, later was the singer for Rosie and the Riveters, and then performed under the name Ms. Clawdy. I appreciate Willis' taste and she lists Hirst as one of her favorite singers.

I can't find any of her music online and would especially like to hear the song "Night Blindness" or at least find the lyrics.  If you know where I can find it, please send me an email or make a comment. Thank you.

It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)

Last week saw the release of The Rolling Stones Singles Box Set (1971-2006), a mammoth collection of 173 cuts featuring every single released from 1971's Sticky Fingers through 2006's underappreciated A Bigger Bang. While that includes a lot of filler, or tracks only the most die-hard collector would be interested in (8 versions of "Out of Control?  5 mixes of "Anybody Seen My Baby"?), there's gold in the set that makes it fun to take a spin through, since it also includes the B-sides like 1963's cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On." It also features a ton of rarities that haven't shown up previously on any of the what must now number in the hundreds of previous compilations: "Cook Cook Blues," the 12" mixes of "Miss You," and "Mixed Emotions," a cover of Muddy Waters' "I Just Want to Make Love to You," and live versions of "All Down the Line," "Like A Rolling Stone," and "Ruby Tuesday" along with everything else you would expect from the release's title. 80 of the tracks aren't on any "official release"- a dubious claim since there are so many alternate mixes of songs from the late 80's through the 00's, but still- there's a ton of stuff I've never heard before or haven't heard in decades that are going to take up a few afternoons of listening.

At almost $120 retail on Amazon, I can't see putting any more money in the Mick and Keef's pockets, but the entire set is available on MOG. Why am I pimping MOG so much lately? Because I think it's a fantastic deal for music lovers. For either $4.99 or $9.99 a month (depending on how many devices to which you want it delivered) you can access more than 10 million tracks and complete albums with no commercials and no limits.. That's just an incredible deal in my opinion and it's not pirating any music because it's the labels who are providing it to MOG.

I signed up as an affiliate to promote it, hence the ads now on this site, for which I get some revenue for anyone who signs up for it through A Beast. So do yourself and Marcher a favor and sign up for your free two-week trial via that advert link box beneath "A Beast Recommends MOG." Just make sure you have a few hours to kill, because there's more music on it than you can ever possibly listen to- old and brand new. One more thing- MOG's local, based in Berkeley, and they're really responsive to the customer. I sent them an email last week asking why there was no Ozzy-era Black Sabbath on the site and someone wrote back to me within an hour with an answer. It's pretty weak as far as the classical selection is concerned, but for all other genres of music it runs pretty deep. If you can hear it on Spotify, Pandora, My Space, All Music, Rhapsody, Last, etc. (I've tried them all and found something lacking with each one), you can let it rock on MOG without commercials and without having to constantly keep clicking your mouse. Who says you can't always get what you want?

Oundjian and Biss, Beethoven and Brahms, and Marcher's peculiar peccadillos

Peter Oundjian, Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, began a three-night stand with the San Francisco Symphony tonight with a program featuring Christopher Rouse's The Infernal Machine, Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto (Emperor) and Brahms' 3rd Symphony.

This was the first performance by SFS of Rouse's piece, which is now part of a larger work called Phantasmata. It's a delightful bit of crazy business, GG described it as a "musical Rube Goldberg machine" and that's a pretty apt description. There are many interesting percussion elements and rhythms that chug along at a Looney Tunes clip. It went by in a flash and the only thing I can really say is it made me want to hear more- especially the entire work.

Now I'm going to take a detour. Beethoven's piano concertos are what really drew me into classical music. I vividly remember sitting in my living room one night in 1995 getting ready to listen to my weekly assignment for the Music 101 class I was taking at the time.  That week it was the 3rd Piano Concerto and I went and bought a recording by Emmanuel Ax with the Royal Philharmonic, conducted by Previn, of the 3rd and 4th. I put the CD in the stereo and proceeded to half-listen to it at a moderate volume until I heard the piano make its entrance in the 3rd's first movement.

"What the hell was that?" I thought to myself. I went over to the stereo, turned up the volume and started it over. When the piano came in again I went "whoa," smiled, and knew I was listening to something fundamentally different than what I expected. It felt like rock and roll. Hard rock and roll. It was like hearing Black Sabbath for the first time all over again. I cranked the stereo. Cranked it like I was back in 8th grade listening to Kiss Alive! when my mom wasn't home. It turned me into a Beethoven fanatic, a fate which was forever sealed once I started listening to the late quartets a couple of years later. To this day I still don't understand people who think there can possibly have been a greater composer.

However, the problem was I fed myself a steady diet of Beethoven recorded via modern methods and played at Metallica-level volumes. It was thrilling to say the least. Maybe you can see where I'm going with this.

This of course leads to a problem in the concert hall, because with the standard orchestra for Beethoven's works it's just not very loud. It should be, but it's not- there's only so much you can do with what is essentially a small orchestra compared to what Wagner and Strauss call for. And yet in my head the music has this enormous volume and that is how it should be heard. The reality is different in the hall. So in my opinion the conductor and the orchestra have to make up for the lack of volume by playing Beethoven with a fervor that borders on the ecstatic. Sometimes this happens, most of the time it doesn't. When it does, it's like doing really good drugs or having really fantastic sex. In other words, it's exhilarating beyond anything else. I've only experienced this a few times, most notably with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the LA Phil in an amazing performance of the 5th Symphony two years ago, the SFS with Nigel Kennedy performing the Violin Concerto, and the SFS led by MTT in revelatory 9th a few years ago. Usually I enter the hall with great hopes and am prepared to leave disappointed.

Tonight Jonathan Biss was the soloist for the Emperor and from the first chord I knew it was going to be disappointing. I told GG beforehand, who was unfamiliar with the piece, that the 5th was the classical equivalent to what Eddie Van Halen did on his band's eponymous debut album. In other words, it's extreme rock and roll, except it's dressed in classical clothes. What we heard tonight was stately, reserved, mannered and while it wasn't bad per se, it wasn't the balls-out performance the 5th requires to make it work live in the hall. It was a museum piece.

Biss, who has the most enormous hands I've ever seen on a human being (ladies take note), can play, but he also exhibits the excessive performing mannerisms so prevalent in musicians his age that always strike me as just so much showboating. He holds his left hand aloft as the right works the keys in a way that seems to be making some statement but what that statement means is beyond my comprehension.

Oundjian didn't help matters by leading the orchestra through a performance I heard as plodding and perfunctory. But what do I know? Biss and the orchestra received quite an ovation from the full house so don't listen to me- I obviously don't know what I'm talking about.

After intermission came the Brahms. I have to admit to being mentally distracted during this part of the night. April really is the cruelest month and for me it has been a doozy. My mind wandered during this, but try as I might, I really couldn't find a way into what Oundjian and the orchestra were doing after the first movement, which was quite beautiful, if highly mannered.

For an encore, they performed one of Brahms' Hungarian Dances. I thought this odd, and it was the second thing Oundjian did that was unusual- the first being addressing the audience before the Brahms (and giving shout-outs to Eric Idle and an old lady), the second performing an encore. Is he campaigning to be the successor to MTT? I certainly hope not- I've made it clear I think Petrenko should get the job.

And there you have it. Weird. Not what you expect. But that's life- right?

Prince in Oakland

Prince came to Oakland for three nights and though I didn't plan on it, I ended up going to every show. When he announced this tour Prince said every night was going to be different. That proved truer than I would have ever expected. While it's true no two concerts or performances are ever alike, the Purple One gave this maxim an unprecedented spin.

The first night Prince was in kind of a Teddy Pendergrass mode. It was essentially an updated version of TP's "For Ladies Only" concerts back in the 70's. He had his guitar over his shoulder for half the concert at best and seemed more interested in preening and teasing than playing it. The first show had some great parts- Santana coming out to burn it up on "Soul Sacrifice," gorgeous renditions of  "Purple Rain" and "Adore," and finally some scorching Hendrix-flavored guitar during "Dreamer," but it wasn't enough to make me forget how awesome he was back in 2004 when the Musicology tour hit town and blew everyone away. This show was what I expected back then, and since he raised the bar so high the last time, while the first night was good, very good at times, I wouldn't say it was great. I have more about the first night here.

As I approached the arena on the second night (Wednesday) a woman was looking for a ticket and I almost sold mine to her. I wasn't very hopeful the second show was going to be much better than the first, and I almost didn't go at all. But I decided I really didn't want to waste the money and I knew the setlist would be different so my curiosity won the day. I skipped the opening set by Graham Central Station this time around completely, arriving at the arena at about 8:45 and I settled into my seat just as they were ending their set.

At 9:15, just like on Monday, the lights went down and I soon sensed this was going to be a far different show. Opening with "Let's Go Crazy," Prince started off with four songs from 1999. There was a keyboard player way off to the side of the arena I hadn't even noticed on Monday and when Prince called him "Mr. Hayes" I thought "wow- Isaac Hayes is playing with him tonight!" I was really looking forward to hearing Prince do the "Theme from 'Shaft'" for the next hour or so until I remembered Hayes died a couple of years back. I have no idea who this Mr. Hayes was, but he did resemble the dead one (at least while he was alive) and musically he injected some serious funk that was missing from Monday's set, especially on "Kiss" which received a harder treatment, including the extended part from the 12" single version, and "Controversy"- done in a raunchy, crunchy "Batdance" way.

The 1999 songs had already put this show on a far different footing than the first night, but as Prince began chanting "People call me rude- I wish we all were nude..." (absent in the version from Monday's show) it hit overdrive and never turned back. Prince picked up a bass for the next song and soon was leading the New Power Generation through cover versions of Chic's "Le Freak," the Ohio Players "Love Roller Coaster," and Wild Cherry's "Play that Funky Music." And the funk just went on and on.

More than an hour later, he closed the show with The Time's "Jungle Love." I walked out of the arena feeling like I had just seen a show by a completely different performer than the one I'd seen Monday. I called Fetkuk to see if he wanted to play hookey from work so we could catch the next night's show. I was kind of bummed he'd seen Monday night's version instead of this one and now I was hyped to see what came next. He thought about it and then declined, but when I got home at around 1 in the morning I went online bought two tickets anyway, hoping the Femme Fatale would go with me.

The Femme was sick and irritable so I found myself looking for someone else to go with. It turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. After asking four people, the Minister's Rebellious Daughter texted me back after initially declining and wrote "What am I thinking? YES- if you still have the ticket."

I tried to dissuade her from seeing Graham Central Station but she was having none of it, so we met at the arena at 7:30. There were noticeably fewer people coming to this show and though I bought tickets for the same price for Monday's show, these were in the lower level and much better seats. In fact they were great seats. The first two shows were filled to the rafters all the way around the arena and completely sold-out. On Thursday night sides of the upper section were curtained-off and it was obvious two days notice wasn't enough to fill the hall, despite the online buzz about the previous night's set.

If you've read this blog for awhile, you may recall the Rebellious one and I go back a bit and we have some traditions, mostly centered around drinking copious amounts of liquor and going to the theater- usually in that order, though not always. As we stood in line for our second round of doubles (it was way past the starting time for Graham Central Station based on the previous nights) we ran into Anne Enigma- the only person I have a longer history with in the Bay Area than the Rebellious one. Introducing them to one another, I was suddenly acutely aware of how long I've lived here- the Rebellious one was a teenager when we met and Anne was a bit of a wild woman when she hit on me at the Holy Cow almost 20 years ago. Now Anne's married and has two kids and the Rebellious one runs her own successful business.

We were still in line for more booze when the lights went down at 8:30 and I thought this was going to be a long night if it was just getting started. But it wasn't Graham Central Station onstage, it was Prince, alone with his guitar, playing "The Love We Make." It was the first sign this show was going to be something altogether different than the other two.

For the next three hours Prince hardly left that guitar alone. The setlist had more than a dozen songs he didn't play during the previous shows, including "Nothing Compares 2 U" and "She's Always in My Hair."

"Guitar" however, was the key moment for this show, setting up everything that was to follow. Prince's skills on the guitar are often overlooked or under emphasized. That's to be expected I suppose for someone with so many other obvious talents and he himself downplayed them during the first show by barely playing the thing. But on Thursday he showed those skills off with a formidable display, turning "AnotherLoverHoleInYourHead" into a metallic jam, riffing on "Rock Lobster," rocking hard on "Alphabet Street" and issuing a blistering solo before Sheila E. took the stage to play the fiercest version of "The Glamorous Life" of the entire three night stand. He simply burned on guitar for almost every song.

When he eventually turned to the piano after a couple of hours, playing sampled bits "Darling Nikki" and "Single Ladies" among half a dozen others, the audience was going nuts. The Rebellious one proclaimed the Purple one to be "sexual chocolate and tiny porn" and said the entire audience wanted to have him (she put this slightly differently). For the duration of the show most of the audience remained on their feet. When it was actually all over- the encores featured at least eight songs- I was amazed.

Three nights, three completely different sets with very little overlap, and most impressively, three completely different performances that felt unlike the others. Who else can do that? I don't know, but the last night was one of the best performances I've ever seen. Considering all three together, I suspect it will be a long time before anyone impresses me as much as Prince did last week.

The setlists:
Monday, February 21
Wednesday, February 23
Thursday, February 24

1973 Hendrix documentary

I believe it used to be called "A Film About Jimi Hendrix" but whatever it's now called, this 1973 documentary about the musical genius is available on Netflix's "Watch Instantly" and is well worthwhile. It features interesting interviews with his father Al Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend and Mick Jagger to name just a few, as well as some fantastic performance footage and Hendrix's appearance on the Dick Cavett show.

Reeling and rocking a Saturday night

The Greek and I share certain proclivities and tastes. What better wingman for a Saturday night double-header? Add to this we were in similar mental states at the start of the evening and let's just say I'm pleased to find upon inspection I have every thing in my possession this morning that I had with me when I left my apartment last night.

The first gig was Slavic Soul Party at the Swedish American Hall, another of SFJazz's outside the box shows. SSP is a nine-piece, New York based band who take Roma music (that's the politically correct way to identify anything you might want to label gypsy, fyi) and filter it through a variety of musical influences, whipping up a pretty irresistible brew of dance music. It's Baltic funk, anchored in the rhythm section of Matt Moran on snare drum and cow bell, Chris Stromquist on bass drum and cymbal (only one!) and the tireless Ron Caswell on tuba. Who needs a bass when you have a tuba?

The rest of it is all brass and an accordion and it rocks harder than you would believe unless of course you've seen this kind of thing before. Roma music tends to start in one place before moving on to somewhere you don't expect- yeah, kind of like a pick pocket. Almost all of SSP's tunes started off in one groove and then morphed into an entirely different rhythm, sometimes subtly, sometimes not, always led by the drummers, who have an uncanny way of taking the most primitive instruments and using them in highly sophisticated ways. One of the best things about this ensemble is how they take what initially sounds like a glorious mess and turn it into something that's deceptively sophisticated. It looks easy, but it's certainly not, though the sold-out crowd dancing through it all probably didn't even care.

SFJazz has had a pretty great run for their fall festival, which is winding down this weekend with sold-out shows by Roseanne Cash and Vijay Iyer today. The remaining gigs for which tickets are available are Marcus Shelby on 11/20 and Arturo Sandoval, who'll be performing on January 8th after postponing his gig last month due to the death of his mother. I have to tip my hat to this vital non-profit for bringing a great array of artists to the City this year, as they always do- this is a very well-run organization who really make an impact on the local music scene with their fantastic programming. They are currently planning on building their own venue on Franklin and when that becomes a reality it's going to be fantastic- you can learn more about it here. Get on their mailing list to make sure you don't miss what's coming in the spring- they are putting on some of the best shows in the Bay Area.



The downside to the Swedish American Hall is there's no bar- you have to downstairs to the Cafe Du Nord to have a drink and the Greek and I found ourselves down in the hole, so to speak. Eventually we got out of there and made our way to the Red Devil to see AC/DShe.

The band was great. 5 women playing nothing but Bon Scott-era AC/DC songs. Lead singer Amy Ward sounds so much like Bon and is such a great performer I think the guys should fire Brian Johnson and hire her to replace him. How awesome would that be?

The remainder of the evening shall remain unwritten about. At least by me. Let there be rock.



AC/DC's Back in Black- 30 years later

Recently I received an email from AC/DC announcing the 30th anniversary of Back in Black's release. The best part of the email was a link to where the original band members and Brian Johnson talk about what it was like to go forward in the wake of Bon Scott's death. Now, to be frank, I'm a purist and in my opinion AC/DC has never been the same without Bon. Embarrassingly, I still remember how I felt upon hearing about Bon's death- his is the only "celebrity" death which ever brought a tear to my eye. I loved Bon Scott, and all these years later, he still epitomizes to me what a "Rock and Roll Singer" should sound like more than anyone else- Jagger, Plant, Rose, Mercury, etc. No one compares to Bon Scott. Period. Of course it wasn't the "quality" of the voice, because let's face it, Freddie Mercury was probably the finest singer ever to sing rock and roll, but no one sang rock and roll better than Bon Scott, except maybe Jagger, Joe Strummer or Johnny Rotten, and that's a heavily qualified maybe.

In April of 1980 I went to Moby Disc on Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks, Cali and they had a big-ass sign announcing the new AC/DC album had been released and the "singer sounds a lot like Bon Scott" (how is it I remember this stuff?). I was skeptical but willing to give it a listen because it was AC/DC after all, and I basically trusted the people who worked at Moby not to talk out of their ass because at that point it was the best record store in my part of L.A. - and that's saying something.


When I got home, unwrapped the cellophane wrapper and removed the inner sleeve, I expected some mention of Bon but there was none to be found. The solid black cover was going to the sole acknowledgement. Fine, I thought- let the music do the talking.  I put it on the turntable. Looking at the label of record itself  I noticed the song line-up didn't correspond to the outer sleeve. No biggie. What I really wanted to know was what did it sound like?


"Hells Bells" is the lead track and the "bells" themselves rang out as a perfect tribute to Bon. At this point there was really no reason to mention his death at all on the cover or the inner sleeve. I got it (I wonder at this point how many people own this record around the world who have no idea why the cover was solid black or the back story behind it).


Back to the bells: so far so good, and when Malcolm starts off with that slow, churning riff it sounds fantastic.
But it sounds noticeably different. Angus's guitar comes in behind Malcom's and the chugging beat starts and it sounds like AC/DC and yet it doesn't. The guitars sound nothing like those on "Highway to Hell" or any of the records produced by Albert Productions. The crunchy, raunchy, sharp guitar sound is gone, replaced by a muddier, thicker-sounding sludge that would be omnipresent in every subsequent release. It was like listening to something you knew by heart broadcast from an entirely different planet- recognizable yet wholly different because they were using a different medium to speak through.


Brian Johnson then makes his entrance and my mind reeled and I thought to myself "Those dumbshits at Moby Disc have no idea what they're talking about!" Johnson sounded nothing like Bon. Not even close. Bon's voice had character and he delivered the lyrics and double-entendres with wit and a "devil-may-care" wink that let everyone in on the joke and the fun. Johnson sounded like he took all of this way too seriously. There is no fun in his voice at all. It's just a raspy, creaking frog sound that can scream when needed. And the lyrics? Banal. Juvenile. Not clever, not funny. It was immediately obvious that Brian was not Bon Scott and never would be.


And yet I ended up loving this album and can't even begin to count the number of times I've heard it . True, it was never my favorite of theirs, which forever will be If You Want Blood, but I understand why it is one of the best-selling albums of all-time and the single best-selling rock album ever. Why? Because despite it being a very different AC/DC then they were with Bon, the record kicks ass all the way through in a way that transcends language barriers, genres, and whatever else you want to come up with to pigeonhole your particular favorite flavor of rock and roll. AC/DC with Bon was probably too raw to ever achieve the status they got with Brian. The reboot accomplished something different- it removed the threat (sexual and libertine) and replaced it with a party spirit that would prove irresistible worldwide. Bon-era AC/DC was salacious, raunchy, fun and unique. Brian Johnson turned them into the world's hardest-rocking party band. It was never going to be the same, but it was still going to be a very good time.


In the thirty years which  followed, AC/DC released album after album, and each one seemed to be a little less interesting than its predecessor, though they always seemed to be able to come up with at least one great song per album ("Thunderstruck," "Big Gun," "For Those About to Rock," Heatseeker" to name a few). Their sound never really changed again, the lyrics continued to be middle-of-the-road dumb, and AC/DC became the rock equivalent of comfort food. They did their thing, and no one complained because they always delivered exactly what was expected- especially onstage, where the shows continued to have a power that was surprising for guys their age and hasn't really changed that much since 1980.


Last year's "Black Ice" was widely heralded as a "return to form"- their best, tightest album since "Back in Black." I'll admit it's the first one I've listened to all the way through in years. The guitars have more of a "Highway to Hell" sound to them, which to these ears is a welcome return, and though there are some bluesy touches that hearken back to the Albert years, it's probably too late for me to get that excited about it. Yeah, I like it, but it's not going to return me to a fold I left a long time ago.


However, when I put "Back in Black" on my turntable for the first time in many a year I was blown away by how great the album is and how well it stands up after all this time. In fact, I'd have to say that it's a better album than I thought it was. As far as their studio albums go, it's as good as "Highway to Hell," though that's an admission I can only make after all these years. Still, there's nothing like AC/DC with Bon at the helm but "Back in Black" is the next best thing- and it kicks ass.


Track by track:

Hells Bells: the most ominous opening riff since the first Black Sabbath album, a monster by Malcolm. Brian Johnson enters and announces himself with the subtlety of a punch to the face- "I'm rolling thunder, pouring rain I'm coming on like a hurricane." It has a beat you can dance to, and many people did. Catchy, immediate, nothing else of the era sounded quite like it, and besides it had the great line "if you're into evil you're a friend of mine" which guaranteed every teenage boy would be singing along with this song. It's genius, and the solo, while slow, is memorable, as if the riff, which is irresistible. The lyrics actually suck, but who cares?

Shoot to Thrill: more than any other song on the album, this sounds like Bon and I would bet this one, though listed as a Young/Young/Johnson song was actually something the Young brothers had worked out with Bon before his death. It's all there- the double-entendres, the riffs, the break in the middle where the percussion forms a danceable beat that would please strippers all over the world with Brian talking shit over the top of it, with "shoot you" becoming a metaphor for jizzing wherever you want to, this song is the best of the album. It kicks ass and they know it.

What Do You Do For Money Honey: Riff-wise, this is the closest to the old-school AC/DC we get on the album and you know if you've ever seen them live the Young brothers love performing this song. It's nasty, it's fast, it's dirtry. It's Bon without  Bon, but Brian can't sell it in the same way so it's up to the Young brothers and they do it with an almost punk vengeance unique to the record. Musically, it may be the most rocking track on the album. A true classic.

Given the Dog a Bone: musically this song rocks, but the lyrics are lame beyond belief. This is the future, and it ain't pretty. The riff is irresistible, but who wants to sing these lyrics? They suck beyond belief and are only repeatable/singable once you're drunk.

Let Me Put My Love Into You: see above- great music, embarrassingly banal lyrics and vocals. Thank God it's the last song on side one. If my memory serves, we would have to be really shit-faced not to turn this one over at this point, because you have to be seriously drunk to want to be rocking out to "let me cut your cake with my knife" and think it's going to work with any woman except the biggest skank you've ever met. It's probably the single-most ever song responsible for spreading myriad venereal diseases that's ever been recorded.

Side Two:

Back in Black: One of the most instantly recognizable openings ever. Ridiculously simple, devastatingly effective, simply irresistible. Maybe the biggest song they've ever done, the dumb lyrics are almost like a rock and roll nursery rhyme, but when you have a riff so huge that even Shakira ends up covering it, you have one of the most enduring rock songs of all time.

You Shook Me All Night Long: lyrically the best song on the album pants down. It all makes sense, it may be the best song about unbridled lust ever, which is why it's their biggest hit. A contender for the hardest rocking pop song ever made- but it's definitely pop.

Have a Drink On Me: Bon personified, and why you hear this song in San Franicsco's Whiskey Thieves and other hard-drinking bars around the world all the time. 'Nuff said.

Shake A Leg: the fastest song on the album and the closest thing to having the sound of the Australian/ Highway to Hell records. It's reminiscent of the glory of "Whole Lotta Rosie" but falls slightly short. Okay, way short, but still, there's an adrenaline rush built into this one. For that reason alone it may be the album's best track. Okay, so that's the second time I've written that, and in truth the reason this album has endured so long is because it's impossible to decide which song is the best one, since 9 out of 10 are great and 5 of the nine are - what? Classics- that's what.

Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution: another loser as far as lyrics, but irresistible because of the riffs. Again pointing to what the future of the band would come to be- it's fun, it rocks, but isn't as thrilling as the greatest stuff on the record or in the past, and epitomizes the somewhat characterless, working-man, cliche-ridden AC/DC that would go on for another 30+ years and counting. And yet how many times have you sung the stupid chorus?

One final note: if Brian Johnson ever meets his demise and the band wants to rock on, they should hire Amy Ward of AC/DShe to replace him. Hell, they should just go ahead and do it anyway. She sounds just like Bon Scott and how cool would it be for AC/DC to have a hot woman fronting the band at this point?

In Dreams

"tuned in to something I've been thinking a lot about lately -- the bridge between classical and contemporary music, and where one leads to another." - Renee Fleming

Hey Renee!

Over here, anytime you like. Just drop me note and I'll happily meet you anywhere. Want to see Shakira with me?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/06/opera-singer-renee-fleming-goes-pop.html

Photo by Andrew Eccles

schadenfreude

Yesterday I received an email from Ticketmaster offering up to 8 free tickets to see the upcoming Foreigner/Styx/Kansas concert out in Concord. Seriously.

Even if it were closer, say right next door, they would still have to throw in a free dinner, drinks, Marisa Tomei and a $100 gift card to make it worth sitting through what would be the concert going equivalent of a 4 hour long wait at the DMV.

Those bands sucked then. They suck now. And now they're sucking it, suckers.

The T.A.M.I. Show!

The T.A.M.I. Show, which stands for Teenage Awards Music International was originally conceived to be an annual event. In reality, it only happened once, for two performances on October 28 & 29 at the 3000-seat Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The details of how the concert came together are explained in the liner notes of the DVD, so I'll skip how The Rolling Stones, James Brown, The Beach Boys, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Miracles, Leslie Gore, Chuck Berry and the others all ended up on the same stage for a five hour show. The film of the concert came out in theaters two weeks after the shows, played for months and then disappeared until last March except for some bootleg copies and some footage that was added to the T.N.T. show and released on a video in 1982. The Beach Boys had their footage cut from every print after the run, and it only re-surfaced in their own recent anthology and is now included in the DVD. Remastered and gloriously restored to fullscreen format, the DVD release presents the entire concert from October 29th in its entirety for the first time in 46 years.

I caught it quite by accident more than 20 years in the TAMI/TNT version and as I mentioned in my earlier post, was floored by how great it was. Ever since then I've wanted to see it again, and I bought a copy of it the day it came out. Since then I've watched the whole thing 6 or 7 times, and the James Brown segment at least a dozen times. What has impressed me with each viewing is how phenomenal the entire show was, and how it captures a time in the pop music scene that is forever irretrievable, even though festivals such as Outside Lands, Coachella and Lollapalooza try to make a modern day version of it. As great and diverse as the contemporary festivals are, it's not the same. But then there is little, if anything, that's the same in pop culture now as it was in 1964.

To put it in perspective, in 1964 Chuck Berry had his biggest hit with "Nadine," but he was already considered an "oldies" act by that time, since he'd been making records since 1955, debuting with "Maybelline". Elvis was already making two movies a year. Beatlemania was in full bloom and men were starting to be drafted into the Vietnam war in large numbers. The Jackson 5 wouldn't release their first single for another 5 years. Concept albums didn't exist and it would be another year before the Beatles released their first song that wasn't about a girl ("Nowhere Man"). The Civil Rights Act had just passed.

Now consider that Pink's first album came out ten years ago. Beyonce' has been singing since 1997, the Stones are still touring and most pop careers span decades without the stigma of being "oldies" acts. For example, U2's first album was released thirty years ago, Madonna's in 1983 and Radiohead's in 1993. Rap is more than 30 years old. Barack Obama is president. In 1964, listening to the equivalent of some of today's most popular pop artists would have made you a fan of early Bing Crosby, Tommy Dorsey and Perry Como while your contemporaries were listening to I Want to Hold Your Hand and Pretty Woman.

Okay, enough of that, because while the subject what changed in the United States that made American culture synonymous with pop culture is really fascinating, what I really want to discuss are the music and performances in the show.

After a somewhat lame title sequence featuring hosts Jan and Dean skateboarding to the Civic while "Here They Come From All Over the World" plays over the titles, we're smack in the show with our hosts introducing "the man who started it all back in 1958 [where the hell did they get that date from?]... Chuck Berry!"

Berry, who maintained his tradition of being paid before he hit the stage for this gig, causing it to start late, looks great as he launches into "Johnny B. Goode," complete with go-go dancers tearing it up on risers behind him. The back up band in this case is Phil Spector's Wrecking Crew, which at the time included Glen Campbell and Leon Russell. Next comes "Maybelline," and Berry starts to look like he's having a blast. After the first chorus, Gerry and the Pacemakers take the song over, giving it a distinctly British Mersey meets Nashville flavor that really works. The Pacemakers are a pretty homely looking bunch, but they can play. They then launch into their big hit, "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" and one realizes how brilliantly this particular band summarizes British pop of the early 60's. From the same city as the Beatles and managed by Brian Epstein, Gerry Mardsen's vocal style is easily recognizable as influencing everyone from the Beatles to the Clash. They tear into "It's Gonna Be Alright," a garage anthem before the term was ever coined, which sounds like something that could easily have been done by Social Distortion.

Berry comes back for "Sweet Little Sixteen" and what becomes obvious is what a great guitar player he is, in a thrash and burn kind of way- a sound that becomes so ingrained in rock that it's easy to forget he's the one who largely invented it. "Sixteen" is cut short so the Pacemakers can romp into "How Do You Do it?" which sounds like a Beatles tune of the same era.

Now we come to "Nadine" and this is truly the first of many great moments to come. Chugging at full steam with the Wrecking Crew rocking in full blast behind him, the camera frames berry from the waist up so we can see him playing his Gibson in the low part of the frame. Above him on risers are two female dancers frugging like mad. One is in her pajamas and pigtails and to her right is a girl dancing with wild abandon in a bikini who likes like she belongs in a Russ Meyer movie. Not only is the bikini-girl built to thrill, but she dances her ass off and seems to be defying gravity. Berry never even looks back over his shoulder at them, but his performance is so charged it seems like the bikini-vixen is dancing right in front of him. The audience sounds like its completely freaking out at this point, and the camera cuts away to the Pacemakers hilariously clapping along way off the beat.

Berry brings "Nadine" to a close way too early, clearly leaving the audience (and this viewer) wanting more.

Gerry and the Pacemakers then pick up the pace with "I Like It" which sounds like it could have easily been on The Clash's Sandinista- which I find a bit shocking when I first hear it, but after repeated viewings it makes sense to me and has given me lot of respect for this band that has somehow been remembered for being lightweight, which this video certainly proves is wrong.

Next up are the Miracles, before Smokey Robinson's name was placed in the front. Wilson's voice is already gold at this point in their career. Beginning with "That's What Love is Made Of", when Smokey sings "snakes, snails, puppy-dog's tails, sugar, spice, everything nice," you see a singer so in command of his talents that it's no wonder that he became a superstar. And he can belt it out- when the Miracles sing "You've Really Got a Hold On Me" the smooth Smokey is nowhere in sight and he's much more reminiscent of Sam Cooke trying to work up to Otis Redding's world. The Miracles, dancing and singing back-up, are the definition sixties soul cool. "Mickey's Monkey" is a rave-up that the recorded version doesn't even come close to capturing. Robinson really puts on a show with this number. When the Miracles all remove their jackets and get down low to wind it down before winding up the ending and walking offstage while the music is still playing, it makes me think had Marvin Gaye never come to Berry Gordy's attention, it would have likely been Smokey who would have been seen as Motown's sex symbol.

Thankfully Marvin did show up and he follows the Miracles. Looking super dapper in a white tux with a bandolero type jacket, Gaye exudes extreme confidence and youth as he sings "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" and "Pride and Joy." But there is little evidence of what was to come a few years later, either in the material or the presentation. At this stage he's just a beautiful man with a great voice singing standard Motown pop. During "Can I Get a Witness" two dancers come up on each side of him and he doesn't seem to know what to do with them. You don't get that impression with Smokey and the Marvin of a few years later would have handled it very differently. "Hitchhike" is his last number and he does some uncomfortable looking dancing (Gaye was never known to be a good dancer), but vocally at this point he's fully warmed-up and he sounds great.

Leslie Gore, who was one of the top-billed acts of the show, was for me the biggest surprise of the concert after watching a few times. All these years later, it's easy to remember her for the silliness of "It's My Party" and "Judy's Turn to Cry," both of which have been parodied and used in advertisements for so long it's hard to hear them as anything but novelties. But Gore begins her set with "Maybe I Know" and then launches into "You Don't Own Me" which kind of floored me not only because of its strong feminist statement, but she delivers it with such haunting conviction it made me think Debbie Harry was nothing but a poseur in those early Blondie years. Gore was the real thing. The rest of the set is "You Didn't Look Around" and a sneering, sassy "Hey Now" before the two crowd-pleasers mentioned at the top. Gore looks ridiculous in her tight curl and painful looking eyebrows, and she's dressed like her mom, but Leslie Gore is the epitome of the "girl group" sound of the sixties and her set, which has the most songs because of her popularity in 1964, is a true highlight on a disc that has a lot of competition. She was all of 18 when this was filmed. Amazing.

Jan and Dean then do "Little Old Lady from Pasadena" and "Sidewalk Surfin'." Even though they predate the Beach Boys, by fully adopting the surf music sound the Beach Boys refined to perfection, if not art, Jan and Dean have always struck me as second tier, even though they had a ridiculous number of solid hits and were solid songwriters. They're appealing in these two songs, though Jean looks slightly bored during "Sidewalk Surfin'" Dean looks like he's having a really good time, singing, dancing and riding a skateboard around the stage.

They then introduce "the real surfers- The Beach Boys!" Brian Wilson is with them, one his last appearances with the band, and their four-song set is comprised of: "Surfin' USA,"" I Get Around,""Surfer Girl," and "Dance,Dance, Dance." There is so much I could write about what is onscreen and what comes through the speakers over the next nine minutes that it would take me all night and there are still five more bands yet to take the stage. So to summarize:

• The rivalry between the Beach Boys and the Beatles never made sense to me until I saw this.
• The Beach Boys ability to harmonize, better than probably any other pop group ever, was not a studio creation, but the real thing.
• They could play their instruments really well.
• Dennis Wilson must have been a lot of fun to hang out with.
• Mike Love had the worst comb-over ever in the world of rock music.
• Chuck Berry really did start it all, just like Jan and Dean said he did.
• Brian Wilson is a genius.

After the Beach Boys, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas (who?) are introduced and perform four songs, beginning with their smash hit "Little Children." Kramer and the Dakotas were also managed by Brian Epstein, and they had Lennon-McCartney songs at their disposal, three of which- "Bad to Me," "I'll Keep You Satisfied," and "From a Window" are the remaining songs of the set. For awhile, these guys had some big hits, especially in England. "Little Children," however, is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen, ranking a solid ten on the ick factor, that makes it comically absurd. I don't care what the song's defenders on Amazon say, there is no way you can listen to this song in 2010 and not think pedophile creep. Especially with the then 21 year-old Kramer looking like a complete ponce. It's startling. Fascinating. Creepy. Yuck. And as much as I hate to admit it, it's really great in a Herschell Gordon Lewis kind of way. It causes one to forget the remaining three songs, written by Lennon and McCartney, are actually pretty good and sound exactly like the Beatles except sung by a much less talented singer than John and Paul were.

The Supremes, who like the Miracles at this point, didn't have Diana Ross' name out front, are from my perspective the only relative disappointment of the show. Not because they were bad, but because the show was filmed before they had made some of their best music, though "Baby Love" and "Where Did Our Love Go?" follow "When the Lovelight Starts..." and "Run, Run, Run." Their voices sound great, they look great, but there just isn't much excitement coming from them. They're a very polished trio at this point already, but maybe they don't have the awareness of what they're about to become within the next two years. They come across as a really good girl group with two great songs, but considering what's come before them, it's just okay, though the crowd obviously loves "Where Did Our Love Go?" and the choreography on that song for the dancers is among the most fun of the show- especially Teri Garr in a Target logo sweatshirt long before the logo ever existed.

The Barbarians are only there because someone associated with the show put out their single, "Hey Little Bird,"- a mod rave-up that sounds like a grungy version of the Who at that time. They also had a drummer with a missing left-hand, 30 years before Def Leppard had one.

Which brings us to the highlight of the concert- in fact, to one of the highlights of pop music period- James Brown on the TAMI show. With the Famous Flames tight on his right and part of his band handling the rhythm and percussion, Brown delivers eighteen minutes of scorching R&B that is simply unforgettable and has been the chief reason people have clamored so long for the release of this film. Once you've seen it you want everyone else you know to see it to. It's that fantastic.

The band and the Flames (at this point consisting of Bobby Byrd, Bobby Bennett, and "Baby Lloyd" Stallworth) are onstage and launch into "Out of Sight" with Brown shimmying in from the side on one leg. When he hits center stage and grabs the mic stand it's game time. It's obvious from the first minute of this performance why the Stones didn't want to go on after him and waited more than hour after he was finished to take the stage. The Flames are in total sync, giving Brown a vocal and dancing counterpoint at every beat. The Wrecking Crew's horn section are right there with them. When "Out of Sight" comes to a pause, only start up again with even more propulsion, Brown's already laid out the foundation of musical tension that is about to become funk. He holds back ever so slightly, so that the listener (or dancer) is anticipating the downbeat right before it actually arrives, and when it arrives it's all the more satisfying. Brown was still in R & B territory at this stage, but funk was beginning infect everything he did, making these performances of the songs "Prisoner of Love" and Please, Please, Please" so much more satisfying than their recorded versions.

"Prisoner of Love" is a ballad, but it doesn't feel like one at all- with the Flames alternating with Brown on the title words over and over, until Brown falls to his knees pleading and then screaming, they turn the song into a piece of theater. Everyone hits their mark- everyone onstage has a role. Brown is like the central figure in a Greek tragedy and the Flames are the chorus. Brown seems like he's opening up his chest and throwing his heart on the stage for no other reason than there's an audience in front of him who deserves such a sacrifice.

The theatrical nature of the performance just erupts during "Please, Please, Please." Pleasing, screaming, dropping to his knees on the beat, we are then treated the often imitated, never duplicated scene of Bobby Ray bringing James his cape and walking the exhausted performer offstage, where he can recuperate from giving everything he had to the audience. Brown takes a couple of steps, with Ray and the Flames looking concerned for his well-being (while singing the chorus, of course), throws off the cape and comes back to give more- because he must. They try to lead him off again, and Brown takes almost a full minute to walk four feet, before- wait! No!, He's back! Not only that, but then he breaks in a trotting-dance move singing "PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE" a dozen times in a row before finally bringing it to a close. The only thing that comes close to this as far as excitement goes is Michael Jackson's moonwalk on the Motown 25 special.

Closing it out with a hyped-up version of "Night Train" Brown hasn't even delivered all his tricks yet- call and response from the crowd, maniacal dancing from him and the Flames, the band in overdrive, the splits three different ways, it's just fucking incredible. The audience shots show people going nuts and others with a look on their face that can only be read as "what the fuck is this?" Simply put, it's James Brown for nineteen minutes of pure musical performance perfection and his segment alone would be worth the price of the dvd and the reason everyone should see this.

The Stones are last, and in a nice touch start off with Chuck Berry's "Around and Around." Jagger does some moves that make him look silly for even trying after James Brown, but the crowd is primed for the Stones and Richards and Brian Jones are completely engaged. As the set goes on Jagger loosens up and during "Off the Hook" the band is pretty much back to its own confident self. "Time is On My Side" makes the audience go wild and features a strong performance from Jagger."It's All Over Now" follows, featuring Jagger mugging for the camera and Jones throwing off some pretty nice guitar licks. Richards looks like a happy kid in this set, dancing and bopping his head like he wants to be a Beatle. Jones looks like a superstar. Bill Wyman, playing a really interesting looking bass and already wearing flower power duds, has his stoic stage persona already in place at this early stage of their existence and Charlie Watts looks like he's still having fun being before he simply accepts being the best drummer in all of rock and roll. In other words, it's a great set by the Stones, but they aren't the best thing here, and how many times are the Stones going to be outgunned?

The show closes with the Stones beginning "I'm All Right" alone on stage and then all the dancers pour onto the stage, followed by all of the performers, giving you the chance to see the Stones as the back-up band while James Brown, Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson, Leslie Gore, Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross all dance in front of them. It's a once in a lifetime close to a once in a lifetime show. It can be summed up by one word- awesome!