There’s a thing I gotta say. Ad I gotta say it here because number show no one is listening here. I don’t want to start a family feud or split my group of friends.

   I was watching The Daily Show, John Stewart hosting because it’s Monday night [3/11/24]. I take it with a grain of salt because I know he leans to the left but he’s still funny.

   As usual they were taking on Donald J. Combover and I was shocked by persons claiming blind allegiance to The Don. One basically said “If he wants to be a dictator, let him be a dictator.” Another said “He could commit a murder on the White House steps and I would still be with him.” [Never mind that murder is not only a crime but is one of the No No’s expressly forbidden in The Bible, that other document besides the Constitution that these same people seem to believe so deeply in. Mr. Trump will have immunity – he hopes.]

   The sad and scariest part was that these people were not joking. The fact that 60 % of the “Republican” Party still think that the 2020 election was stolen from “Them / Donald Trump” says a lot about something. Unfortunately, I think it says that Mr. Combover has tapped into a pool of ugliness and hatred deeper than any Saudi oil reserve, cloaked it in an American Flag and “patriotism” and “taking back the country” and “making America great again” and a whole lot of people bought it hook, line and sinker.

   The sadder part is that the rejection of Hillary Clinton that brough Mr. Trump into the Oval Office was taken as a mandate by the Bible thumping, God fearing prigs that they spoke for Everybody. And when Everybody spoke in 2020 and Mr. Trump lost as fair and square as he won, suddenly the game was rigged.

   I voted for Trump in 2016 because I dd not want Mrs. Clinton as the President. But after watching Mr. Trump in action for four years, I would not have voted for him if he was the only candidate on the ballot. Nor did I vote for a lot of his friends and people he endorsed. I did not like the way the country was heading. If that makes me “Un-American” and a traitor in the eyes of some people, so be it. I exercised my right to vote as guaranteed by the Constitution you all claim to love so much.

  I will concur with Mr. Stewart on this point [I paraphrase]: “If you want to pledge your allegiance to Mr. Trump, if you like what he says, go to the rallies, buy his shoes, sing his praises and vote away – but please don’t call it Patriotism.”

   Don’t tell me he is the only person who can “save” America or make America “Great” again. America will be fine once we get over bickering over every petty little thing and reunite in the things we share. When we see our neighbors as people again – maybe with different ideas, traditions and values but people none the less. Once we remember that compromise is necessary and not everything is “my way or the highway.”

    Four more years of Donlad Trump may turn into the biggest bloodbath on American soil since the Civil War. I do not for a moment believe that Mr. Trump has any interest in leading or legislating any longer. I think he is blinded by the thought of taking revenge against those who stood against him – which means everyone who was not blindly loyal to him. And unfortunately, the Republican Party which once stood to unite the country has become a party of divisiveness who can be the biggest uptight prig on the planet.

   History tells us that this swing to the hard right will eventually swing back toward the middle and that this great national anger will dissipate. I hope to see that but I do not expect it anytime in the near future. Meaning any time this decade.

 Random Record Revisited
The Wall – Pink Floyd [1979]
 
   I was in the library last week picking up a couple of books [Only ONE book on poker? In the whole Fort Worth library system? Come on!] and wandered into the “other media” section. One of the CDs I spotted was Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Now I have not had a physical copy of the album for years, having sold my LP in one of my purges. I have actually been very down on this record for a while. Probably about the time I decided I can’t do Tom Petty anymore. Anyway, that was a week ago and The Wall had been drifting in and out of my head for a few days but yesterday I woke up singing In the Flesh and I decided I needed to revisit this album. So after a 45 minute wait at CVS [don’t get me started], I went over and checked it out.

   I had played The Wall a lot in the 80s.I sang “We don’t need to education” a thousand times and played air guitar to Comfortably Numb, saw the movie at the midnight movies and on VHS. But listening is sometimes not the same as hearing and hearing is not always the same as understanding. So I had an acquaintance with The Wall. But this time, I was listening with headphones. And I mean HEADPHONES, not ear buds or earphones but full 1970s / 1980s Nova 40s that I’ve had since high school. And this time I wasn’t half listening doing something else – not reading, not writing, not “not doing my homework”. And in the dark recesses, the furthest corners of The Wall, I found some disturbing things.

   A little backstory or those not familiar with the “concept” of The Wall. During of their 1978 tour, bassist and main songwriter Roger Waters became jaded with playing concerts, feeling that people were there for some experience [“to feel the warm thrill of confusion, that space cadet glow…”] but not really listening. At one point, Waters spat on some overly excited fans in Montreal Canada. It lead Waters to create a concept for the next Floyd album, Bricks In the Wall. [An alternative concept Waters offered would become Waters’ first solo album The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking.] After the band accepted the concept, the band hired producer Bob Ezrin [Lou Reed, Kiss, Alice Cooper] and he helped shape a working script to remove some of Waters autobiographical elements and creating the character “Pink.” [A reference to the lines from Have A Cigar “the band is just fantastic, that is really what I think! Oh by the way, which one’s Pink?”] The album itself [per Wikipedia – link:  The Wall - Wikipedia] explores abandonment, isolation and existentialism symbolized by a / the wall.

   To summarize the plot, all of those traumas we go through growing up [in Pink’s case the death of his father, nasty teachers, an overbearing mother] cause Pink to isolate himself by building that metaphorical wall to try and protect himself. All of this on side 1 [and the first song on side 2]! Side 2 is adult Pink, married, a musician, on the road calling home to have the phone answered by a man. He brings in a groupie for some revenge but he instead has a freakout and decides to close himself off, completing the wall. Side 3 is Pink locked into his room, deeply depressed and flicking the TV channels and contemplating it all. But the show must go on and the tour manager breaks in to find catatonic Pink and give him some sort of something to get him to the stage. Side 4 is Pink hallucinating that he is not a rock star but a Hitler-esque dictator ordering violence against “those folks who aren’t like Us” and rallying to take over Britain. As the drug wears off, Pink places himself on trial and determines in order to carry on he must tear down the wall and rejoin the world and thus he tears down the wall. The end.

   Now remember – YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO UNDERSTAND ALL OF THIS THROUGH NOTHING MORE THAN THE RECORD AND THE LYRIC SHEET. And the lyric sheet looks like it was written by Hunter Thompson on a speed rush with a leaky fountain pen.

   There is no script, no booklet explaining all of this, it’s just you, two LPs [or one cassette] and your brain. Maybe you get a few pages in some magazine with the band explaining the idea behind the record but that’s it. So the average Joe putting this on in 1979 or 1980 sitting in his living room only had lyric sheet and the vibes he got from the music itself. Was some of it really bitchin’? Sure. Was some of it pretty? Yes. Was some of it dark and spooky? Definitely! Did he understand the concept? Probably not.

      Pink Floyd had been doing concepts and themes for a while. Wish You Were Here [1975] spoke to alienation and the music business. Animals [1977] spoke to class structure as depicted in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Dark Side Of the Moon [1973] was about the various aspects of human nature. But The Wall is an attempt to tell a story. This is where it runs into problems. It’s one thing to have several songs linked around a theme like the stages of life or critiquing capitalism but the "story" of The Wall is incomplete by itself. It requires someone to say "this is about THIS and this part refers to my father dying before I knew him, then that part is..."

   Music probably isn’t the best form for storytelling since it leaves too many gaps. Just listening to the soundtrack of Oklahoma probably doesn’t get the story across. But neither does the Who’s [first concept album / rock opera] Tommy. Their second, Quadrophenia certainly doesn’t. I can’t speak to Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway as I’ve never made it all of the way through.  

   Most casual listeners like myself didn’t get the theme or didn’t listen too deeply. Maybe this proved Waters’ point that people were more interested in concerts as events or having the latest “cool” band in your stack of records and that the audience wasn’t really listening / paying attention to what was being said. I paid my 12 or 13 or 15 dollars and it’s up to me how I listen or don’t listen. And double albums are hard anyway. It’s hard to keep an audiences full attention for 60 - 80 minutes.  On The Wall, the suite of Another Brick In the Wall and Mother on side one is pretty good. Side two opens well with Goodbye Blue Sky / Empty Spaces / Young Lust but drags after that. Side three has the great opening [Hey You] and closing [Comfortably Numb] tracks. Side four has Run Like Hell… and a bunch of weird shit.

   Under the headphones, listening closely I had a few of those “aha” moments. Like One Of My Turns – somehow I associated “turn” with taking one’s turn like playing a game but it’s actually meaning a mood swing, a turn from okay to depressed or turning manic. Of course in the film, this is where Pink destroys the room, scaring the bejeusus out of the groupie who has no idea what he’s angry about. Deep in the lyrics of Don’t Leave Me Now, the phrase “you know how I need you [need you, need you, need you] / To beat to a pulp on a Saturday night” jumped out. What the hell!?! Did I hear that right? Yes I did.

   Of course, one always heard the “Are there any queers in the audience tonight? Get the up against the wall.” And “that one looks Jewish and that one’s a coon / Who let all of this riff raff into the room?” during In the Flesh. But the list of things during Waiting For the Worms – the things “We” are going to do…[ in the movie this is the red and black hammers marching.] “Clean up the city [well, okay], cut out the deadwood [okay]… put on the black shirt [uhhhh], weed out the weaklings [uhhhh], smash in their windows and kick in their doors and for the Final Solution to strengthen the strain … turn on the showers and fire the ovens for the queens and the coons and the reds and the Jews to follow the worms.”

   EW.

   It always gets back to the Nazis doesn’t it?

   This is supposed to be a drugged out delusion of poor Pink [or a comment on how the power of the stage has been / can be misused?] but how is one to understand that?

   I think my final takeaways from revisiting The Wall are this:

   Art is always open to interpretation.

   Roger Waters needs some serious help.

   The Wall is as simple or as dense as the listener wants to go. As a musical work it’s pretty good but it will always be eclipsed by Dark Side Of the Moon.

 Random Record Challenge:

Rainbow – the Ronnie James Dio Years [1975 – 1978]

    I’m probably not going to make a habit get into doing requests but my Facebook [and real life friend] Mike Bond is apparently in a group that has challenges – listen to this and we’ll discus in a week or so. And the record recently was Rainbow’s 1978 LP Long Live Rock And Roll. So I have taken the challenge. But I have all three studio albums of the Dio years remastered so I’ll go over them all really quick.

   Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore originally recorded a standalone single – a cover of Quatermass’ song of Black Sheep Of the Family and the original instrumental composition Sixteenth Century Greensleeves with vocalist Ronnie James Dio and drummer Gary Driscoll from the American band Elf. But after splitting from Deep Purple in 1975, Blackmore brought back Dio and Driscoll and the rest of Elf [keyboardist Mickey Soule and bassist Craig Gruber] to record a full album which became Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow [1975]. It’s odd production has a dulling effect in that a lot of the high end seems to be compressed – cymbals just “sploosh” instead of crash and splash. Drums thud instead of thundering. It’s very noticeable when compared to the wide open range of 1976’s Rising.

   Blackmore’s Rainbow is a good album but not a great album. Of course the lead track Man On the Silver Mountain is just brilliant as much for Dio’s great lyric as Blackmore’s great riff and playing. Listen how Blackmore supports the lyric with great runs under the pre-chorus [0:45 – 1:00, 1:37 – 1:52, 2:50 – 3:04]. The galloping Black Sheep Of the Family is a great vehicle for Dio. The centerpiece of the album is the ballad Catch the Rainbow. Ballad? Ritchie Blackmore? Yes! Power chord banished [at least for this song], Blackmore lays wonderful spidery slide [!] licks all through this six and a half minute masterpiece. The notes Blackmore plays through the long fade [3:53 – 6:39] are some of the saddest, haunting lines ever laid to tape. Dio matches the subtlety needed for this song brilliantly as a Mellotron lays soft waves behind them both.

   Snake Charmer kicks off side two with a slice of funkiness that would have felt right at home on the Mark III [David Coverdale / Glenn Hughes] Deep Purple albums. And no, it’s not about one of those road ladies who charms the ol’ one eyed trouser snake. Just more of Ronnie James Dio’s lyrics about seekers [and wizards and maidens]. On Temple Of the King, Blackmore brings out an acoustic guitar for some very nice playing and the slide is back for the very short solo. If You Don’t Like Rock ‘N’ Roll is a great little stab of old rock and roll – maybe a little tip of the hat to Led Zeppelin’s Rock And Roll? Sixteenth Century Greensleeves is a good little chugging riff akin to Purple’s Maybe I’m A Leo from Machine Head.

  The second album, Rising [aka Rainbow Rising] [1976] is this era’s peak. Dropping the whole Blackmore’s Rainbow band, Blackmore and Dio brought in keyboardist Toney Carey and bassist Jimmy Bain [both of whom lasted one studio album and the live On Stage. Bain would later join the Dio band from 1983 – 1978. Carey when ton to form the Planet P Project in the 80s, best remember for 1983’s single Why Me.] and former Jeff Beck Group drummer Cozy Powell [who would last three studio albums as well as On Stage]. A mere six songs but five amazing songs with a hot shit band that allowed Blackmore to soar in ways he hadn’t since Deep Purple’s Burn. The album kicks off with the insistent burning riff of Tarot Woman. Run With the Wolf is the filler feeling song on this album. It’s not terrible but it certainly isn’t up to the standards of the rest of the album. Starstruck has Blackmore matching Dio’s vocal line [or Dio matching Blackmore’s riff?] and has been a favorite since I heard it a long time ago on 1981’s The Best Of Rainbow. Do You Close Your Eyes is a great riff which David Coverdale would rip off for Slide It In. This album is worth the price is just for Blackmore’s middle eastern tinged solo [3:27 to 5:10] on Stargazer. And Dio’s vocals and lyrics rose to the same level, just as they had on Catch the Rainbow. A Light in the Black allows Carey to stretch out some. To be sure he’s no Jon Lord but there is [was] only one Jon Lord, R.I.P.

   Finally, there’s 1978’s Long live Rock ‘n’ Roll. Blackmore, Dio and Powell bring in keyboardist David Stone [Tony Carey plays on three of the others] and bassist Bob Daisley [soon to join Ozzy Osbourne’s Blizzard Of Oz band] for three tracks. [Blackmore plays bass on the rest.]  If Blackmore’s Rainbow sounds flat, LLRnR suffers the opposite problem – it’s incredibly bright, wide open in the mid ranges and treble but the whole bottom when bass thunders and the kick drum pumps is just completely dead. Of the two, I’d rather have the Blackmore’s Rainbow production. The lead off title track is just undeniable, one of the best Rainbow tracks ever. Lady Of the Lake is another vintage Blackmore riff. L. A. Connection just plods and never really gets off the ground. Gates Of Babylon feels like a return or a leftover from Rising but it was actually the last song recorded. By the time is was recorded Daisley and Stone had been out on the road with the band on some European dates, so maybe they had a better idea of what Blackmore and Dio expected. Kill the King is another great slab of rocking in he vein of the title track. Unfortunately, it’s the last great track on the record. The Shed is another plodder. Sensitive To Light is a good riff but there’s no urgency to the song – it feels like a filler track. The solo is interesting in that it feels like Blackmore is channeling Brian May’s [of Queen] tone. Rainbow Eyes… I just have no interest in it after the first 30 seconds which is really just recycling the lick from Catch the Rainbow with a few Hendrix chords thrown in. Metallica will make it better when they turn it into Nothing Else Matters.

   Rating one to five, I say three and a half stars for Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, four stars for Rising and three stars for Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll.

 

Random Record Revisited

Eldorado – Electric Light Orchestra [1974]

   ELO was the first band I found on my own. It was 1977, we had recently moved to Texas and the sad Telephone Line was all over the radio. For Christmas I asked for Out Of the Blue. This was [sort of] an error on my part – I had seen this at the record store [probably the Musicland in the Forum Mall] and I has ass-u-me-ed this hit single was on that record. Of course I was a bit disappointed that me recent favorite wasn’t on this record but it was chock full of great songs thorough all four sides [admittedly I lost interest at the end of side 2 [Believe Me Now and Steppin’ Out] but boy the Concerto For A Rainy Day on side 3 [Standin’ In the Rain / Big Wheels / Summer And Lightning / Mr. Blue Sky] – just wow! And two new great singles with Turn To Stone and Sweet Talkin’ Woman. And A New World Record would soon be in the collection – although I seem to recall being grounded when I got it for my birthday so I had to wait some time before I finally got to enjoy it.

   The next ELO in the collection was the compilation of pre World Record songs, Ole ELO. This album allowed me to connect Jeff Lynne and company to some songs I was familiar with from the radio – Showdown, Can’t Get It Out Of My Head, Strange Magic and Evil Woman. But for some reason I never went back into the 1972 – 1975 catalog until Fry’s was selling off their CDs for $ 5.00 apiece. But I didn’t follow the band after 1981’s Time either.

   One of the CDs I picked up was 1974’s Eldorado. Which I played while sitting here playing poker on line. I played On the Third Day [1973] too but I found Eldorado more interesting. So I’ll explain why.

   In 1974, ELO was a band in transition. Not yet the pop leaning hit machine they would be in the later 70s, they are also no longer the experimental - progressive band Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood and Bev Bevan created out of the ashes of the Move back in 1971. The songs were beginning to tighten up and song lengths were coming down. [Everything on ELO II was clocking in at a 7-minute minimum like a fucking Yes album! I might find ELO more listenable than Yes but not that much – it has only been spun through a couple of times.]  With the incredibly talented but equally eccentric Roy Wood gone [to form the short lived Wizzard] On the Third Day found Jeff Lynne as the sole songwriter. The album still leans heavily on the Orchestra part of the band’s name but the stand alone single [which was added to the US release of the album at the last minute] Showdown made some noise [# 12 in the UK, # 53 in the US].

   Lynne continued streamlining the sound a bit and channeling his inner Beatle for Eldorado. It is supposed to be a concept album [“The plot follows a Walter Mitty-like character who journeys into fantasy worlds via dreams, to escape the disillusionment of his mundane reality.“ Isn’t that why we all listen to music?!?] but I haven’t gone deep into the lyrics or old interviews to confirm, that for myself. Four of the songs still clock in over 5 minutes but they don’t get repetitive or meandering [read: boring] and it’s not Rock by Math. I listened to this album several times [at least 4 full passes] over the 3 days it took me to get this “on paper” and at no point was I bored with it, it didn’t feel like a chore to listen.

   The album kicks off with the sound of violins and twinkles [like in the cartoons when someone goes from awake to dreaming], a spoken poem ala the Moody Blues though this is heavily reverbed and not entirely clear and a minute of orchestration [the Overture] featuring manic strings and the orchestra crashing asunder – like something might here as the hero chases down the bad guy and finally gets a kiss from the girl as the end of a silent movie. This is the first appearance of the orchestration [full orchestra not just the three players associated with the band] and choir arrangements by Lynne, keyboardist Richard Tandy and arranger Louis Clark which will be all over the next 3 or 4 albums. These wind down to a soft dreamy sound that brings in a simple piano and leads into ELO’s first US top 10 song – Can’t Get It Out Of My Head.

   If Wood and Lynne’s original concept of the Electric Light Orchestra was to pick up where the Beatles left off with I Am the Walrus, then this song hits that mark. The lyrics hold some of the dreamy quality of Lennon [think Julia] even if the arrangement has the things Paul McCartney hated on Phil Spector’s mix of Let It Be. Kudos here to Bev Bevan on the tubs. Bevan enters here and plays very Ringo like – straight and spare and just what the song needs. In fact, Bevan plays that way across all of this record and most of the ELO catalog. He’s channels the Zen of Ringo and the late Charlie Watts, laying out when he is not needed and holding the beat but never interfering with any of those arrangements or those multi-layered vocals.

   A short fanfare, some more shimmering strings serve as a bridge and then you’re into Boy Blue, one of ELO’s songs that was a single for some reason failed to catch on. Again, this is prototypical of this era: Lynne’s slightly crunchy guitar to start and get your attention, then it falls back into the mix until the very Harrison like snaking slide lines in the last verses. I personally love the hook in the arrangement of plucking the strings through the break between the first chorus right through the final verses. The final chord of Boy Blue winds into an odd guitar intro and into Laredo Tornado. The lyric laments changes in the common ELO theme of summer fading into cold and rain. This song was a discovery for me and has flown to the top of favorite ELO album tracks. Poor Boy [The Greenwood] is a short little stab of late 50s / early 60s rock & roll that the late period Move used to do: California Man, Down On the Bay. At the end it spins back into the flurry of strings and vocals theme from the Overture and that served as the interlude between Can’t Get It Out Of My Head and Boy Blue.

   Side two kicks off with Mr. Kingdom, an ode to the King of Dreams and the many words one can visit through dreaming. It reminds me that Morpheus once cautioned a young girl named Chloe who had just woken from a dream of being lost that “You can indeed become lost, in dreams. And you may not always find yourself when you wake up.” [The Sandman by Neil Gaiman] Nobody’s Fool feels like a send up of vaudeville, based on the Minnie the Moocher [i.e. Willie the Weeper]. Despite the ritzy title Illusions In G Major, the song is a pure send up of 50s Elvis / Jerry Lee Lewis rock & roll. The finale is the title song and the Eldorado Finale [which is just a recap of the Overture theme]. Eldorado is a fitting finale, a full on homage to Roy Orbison’s]. great ballads and those schmaltzy final “I will overcome / I will be free” songs form the movies. Make no mistake, Lynne is NOT Orbison but he swings high with his limited voice and holds those notes a lot like Orbison. It still works.

   Eldorado is a fine piece of work from ELO. I will even go as far as to call it a masterpiece.  They finally settle into their own style after meandering a bit with their first couple of records. It suggests the streamlining and stepping closer to the pop music that will come with A New World Record and especially Out Of the Blue. As I said, I ran through it several times and it still felt fresh and interesting and one can hear more little details the deeper one listens.

 Random Record Revisit

Queen II – Queen [1974]

   Queen had quite a remarkable run of success in America beginning with the November 1974 release of Shear Heart Attack through 1980’s The Game. In time, many went back to 1973’s self-titled debut and declared it to be an overlooked masterpiece. [I personally think the first side is brilliant, the second, not so much.] But Queen II remains as kind of the forgotten record of the catalog, much like the much-overlooked 1976 album Presence in the Zeppelin catalog.

   Queen II was initially released with the two sides of the record titles Side White - featuring four Brian May compositions and on by drummer Roger Taylor - and Side Black featuring five Freddie Mercury songs.

   The White side kicks off with the multi layered guitars of Brian May building a majestic theme [Procession]before an echoed note fades into an arpeggiated phrase and the band crashes in and Mercury puts forth Father To Son. May’s words remind that wisdom is passed, ignored, learned and dutifully passed again from generation to generation. In trademarked fashion, Father To Son slides into soft guitars of White Queen [When It Began]. If March Of the Black Queen begat Bohemian Rhapsody, then White Queen is the stepping stone to May’s The Prophet Song, his statement piece on A Night At the Opera. The ghostly sad white queen is as far from earth as she is from Mercury’s black queen. May plays layers of guitars the way Queen layers vocals. The solo in the song is a guitar specially rigged to sound like a sitar. Some Day, One Day follows, May’s one lead vocal on the album. Simple and majestic, driven by acoustic guitar as most of the songs that feature May as a vocalist are. The side ends with the heavy metal thump of drummer Roger Taylor’s Loser In the End. One of those rare songs that stretch out at the end and allow the band a little time to jam at the end.

   Side Black kicks off with Ogre Battle, which had already been in the set list for years before being immortalized on tape. It certainly proves that Mercury could rock as hard as any the other bands out there, aided by May’s multi layered guitars and of course more of those the multi layered Queen harmonies. Ogre Battle flows into the paranoid beat of The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke attempts to describe Richard Dodd’s painting of the same name. FFMS then flows into the brief interlude of Mercury’s piano and some ethereal vocals over Mercury’s representation of a heartbroken lover sent away down the path of Nevermore. March of the Black Queen with its many sections and vocal gymnastics seems a precursor to what will come in next year’s Bohemian Rhapsody. [Reminder: Queen put out four albums between July 1973 and November 1975] After a 45 second intro section, the band kicks into 20 seconds of instrumental and vocal buildup before falling into the main song, full of camp lines that only Queen could get away with. [“Now I’ve got a belly full / You can be my sugar baby / You can be my honey child” “My life is in your hands, I’ll fo and I’ll fie / I’ll be what you make me, I’ll do what you like”] After the false ending at 6:06, Mercury hits a campy, vaudevillian line on the piano and delivers the 25 second coda with the vocals melting into Funny How Love Is. Funny How Love Is might be the most joyful thing Queen ever put to tape even if it seems to be speeded up about 5 – 10 %. The side ends with the second most unlikely Queen song to chart, Seven Seas Of Rhye. Taking the riff from the brief instrumental that ended the debut, Mercury fleshes it out with tale of a fantasy world Fredie and his sister dreamed up as children. And in true Queen style it fades out to the British music hall song I Do Love To Be Beside the Seaside.

   Definitely the heaviest album in the Queen catalog.  Definitely in my top 3 Queen albums. Truth be told, I prefer May and Taylor’s White side, although I love Funny How Love Is and I think I need some repeated listening to March Of the Black Queen.

 A rare New Music Review [but it's an old, old band]

Hackney Diamonds – The Rolling Stones [2023]

Short take: It’s the Rolling Stones, they’re motivated and the producer kept the bullshit away.

  

   It’s been a long time since we had an album of new material from the Rolling Stones. Not yet another compilation with one or two new songs to force completists into buying Tumbling Dice or Jumping Jack Flash for a 10^th or 20th time. Not yet another live Stones record. It’s been so long that vinyl is back in style!

   What’s been the hold up? Keith said “when the singer says he’s ready, you go and record.” For his part, Jagger said they had demos that were okay but they needed to knuckle down and set a deadline [which was how Jagger and Richards had gotten over their mid 80s bickering charged into Steel Wheels] and Richards agreed. New producer Andrew Watt picked about 20 songs from a hundred plus [Did I mention it’s been a long time between albums?] demos and the band got to work.

   I admit I had to be a tad skeptical about new Stones music after Bridges to Babylon and A Bigger Bang [sorry N8]. But my hopes were raised by Angry. Angry is Rock & Roll – capital letters intended for emphasis. Does it sound like they’re some auto-tuning going on? Yes. Maybe it’s just there for effect. But the band is just kicking ass. One wondered if / how much the late Charlie Watts would appear on the record [answer: 2 cuts]. I for one could tell from one listen that this is Steve Jordan on the drums – Steve has a heavy right foot. But the other joy was that the lyrics weren’t just sophomoric generic “Let’s rock / I wanna rock you” lyrics. But Jagger is still in fine voice – I mean he knows he has to take care of his instrument!

   I really avoided getting into the hype so I could judge the album on its own merits. I did track a compressed version this evening after work while finishing up some things before going to the record store and I must say I was impressed even with a low-fi version. I thought this was easily the most cohesive and best album since Steel Wheels.

   But then… hearing the words “featured” or “special guests” is usually a bad sign. But they’re not there to overwhelm the Stones or dazzle with some virtuosity. If you weren’t told that Paul McCartney was playing bass on Bite My Head Off, you wouldn’t be able to tell it was Paul McCartney. There’s none of those inventive bass lines one remembers from the Beatles. It’s just a straight ahead rocker that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Some Girls with a nice simple guitar straight ahead solo by Ronnie. Probably Ronnie. Elton John on a Rolling Stones record? Actually both Get Close and Live By the Sword are nice middle of the road numbers. I really don’t hear the piano on Get Close and it’s pretty deep in the mix on Sword, although there are a few fills here and there. It really could be anyone playing. Sword is one of the numbers that Charlie Watts is heard on [Mess It Up is the other and the drums sound distinctly different on those cuts] and the number that Bill Wyman played bass on. Stevie Wonder adding the gospel touches on piano on Sweet Sounds Of Heaven, the same touch that Billy Preston [R.I.P.] would have added in the 70s. It was probably a gas for those guys to get people almost their own age in to play and swap old war stories. Lady Gaga – immensely talented but her voice lacks… how can I say this… the soul of a Merry Clayton [or touring vocalists Lisa Fisher or Sasha Allen]. That’s my opinion only!

   Mick’s exaggerated English accent on [especially Whole Wide World] is probably the worst offense on the record. Which really isn’t saying a whole lot. Dreamy Skies could have slipped into that syrupy shit kicking voice he uses occasionally but fortunately it doesn’t.

   Keith’s vocal on this record, Tell Me Straight is a haunting little cut in the mold of Slipping Away. A damn fine vocal from Keith, too.

   At the end it’s just Mick and Keith and the blues – covering Muddy Waters Rollin’ Stone [aka Rolling Stone Blues].

   The best way to sum up this record it’s the Rolling Stones and that’s it. No bullshit. Just some almost guys still doing what they’ve been doing for 60 years – that’s 6 decades! That's older than me and a lot of you reading my take on this record!

   Let’s also not forget, this is the Rolling Stones still breaking ground. There are a couple of 80 year olds [Dylan, Paul] still making records but there is NOT another 60 year old band full of seventy and 80 year old men still making records.

   The real fucking shame of it is that it took Charlie Watts’ passing for the Stones to realize that their time really is limited and they’d better get serious about their work. One hopes that when this publicity blitz is over, they get back in and see if they can polish up some more diamonds. Because in the end, it’s only the legend and the music that’s going to be left.

   IF Hackney Diamonds turns out to be the last “official” album [i.e. not a Tattoo You style collection of left overs that get finished], it is a good one to go out on. This record sits proudly next to the ones you know and have loved for years.

   Bill Graham put a line on the marquee of the Winterland announcing a set of Grateful Dead shows: “They aren’t the best at what they do, they’re the only ones who do what they do.” As a 60 year Rock & Roll band, the same can be said of the Rolling Stones.

 

   As to the marketing: Am I amazed [or disappointed] with the number of cover variants ? Oh My God, yes! “In limited numbers” sure seems like a cash grab, creating instant collector’s items. Couple of picture discs, one color variant and one other cover variant. There are three CD issues also, the plain jewel box, a digipack with a 64 page booklet or a deluxe package and a CD-DVD [hi-res Dolby (surround?) mix and booklet. On the other hand, if people want to plunk down their hard earned cash, the Stones and the record company would be fools not to take it.

 

To Carla
   Xmas 1971

   One has to think that a book inscribed like that had been chosen carefully and given in love or great friendship. But it’s in my collection now. I have to wonder how it ended up in the used book store.

   Was it gifted someone on a moving day?  “I know you loved this and it will remind you of me.”

   Was it left somewhere on a moving day? Was someone leaving in a hurry and just left all sort of things are left for the landlord to clean up?

   Was it purposely left on a moving day? “I don’t want to be reminded of you every time I see this on my bookshelf!”

   Or was it carried many places? Was it a treasured memento between two people back to the start of a long and amazing journey together. Or was it a treasured memento of a time and place and someone just for Carla?

   Did it find its way to the bookstore because a home had to be cleared out for the downsizing move or passing?

   We all have these things – boxes of old letters and Christmas cards and our books and records – that someone will have to go through when our soul has moved on to the next phase. In my case, notebooks full of my years of thoughts and observations.

   A lot of things will end up in the trash. But some may find their way to Half Price Books or Forever Young.

   I wonder if someone will pick one up of my CDs and say “I wonder how this ended up here in the used record store?”

   Someone might just pick up Carla’s book the same way I did.