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.

 

Random Record Revisited

Fighting – Thin Lizzy [1975]

   By 1975, Thin Lizzy was a band on the move. After guitarist Eric Bell unexpectedly quit literally on the eve of 1974, bassist / songwriter Phil Lynott and drummer Brian Downey recruited Scotsman Brian Robertson and American Scott Gorham [soon to be Lynott’s main onstage foil but unfortunately also his drug buddy] and delved into a harder edged sound which would come to full fruition with 1976’s masterwork Jailbreak.

   The opening track, a cover of Bob Seger’s Rosalie has two versions: the original album version clocks in at 3:11, the American mix a mere 2:57 – by my simple calculation, the American version is sped up about 16 beats [4 bars] per minute. The American mix is noticeably brighter, undoubtably mixed for radio. With a funky little backbeat, it’s really not far off of what Aerosmith was doing. For Those Of Us Who Love To Live kicks off with some great twin guitar harmonies before falling into a short shuffle. Two verses and two choruses, some more really tasty twin lead work over some really pumping bass by Lynott and then it’s over. Suicide dated back to the Eric Bell years – it was called Baby’s Been Messing and had different lyrics [obviously] and it lacked the twin guitar ‘duel’ that is the last two minutes of the song. Wild One harkens back to the Irish roots and Whiskey In the Jar but also contains one of Lynott’s recurring motifs – a mid tempo set of chord change that will recur in Fight Or Fall [Jailbreak], Fool’s Gold [Johnny the Fox], Downtown Sundown [Bad Reputation] and Didn’t I [Chinatown]. Fighting My Way Back ends side one with the tough hard rock that Lizzy will perfect on Jailbreak.

   King’s Vengeance [musically] seems to be something Queen might have done on one of their pre-Night At the Opera albums. Maybe the chords owe a bit to Seven Seas Of Rhye? Of course Lynott’s reedy voice is nothing like Freddie Mercury’s and Lynott writes lyrics from a definite blue collar, working poor point of view. [“Down and out in the city / Won't you give a boy a break/ Juvenile on trial before committee / Taken all he can take / But the king shall have his vengeance / Especially on the poor / Some say preaching to converted / Me, I'm not too sure”] Vengeance flows into Sprit Slips Away, another slow/mid tempo number noted by the chiming main riff that recurs throughout and some really tasty and tasteful guitar solos and fills – the volume swells of the outro also seem to hold a little of the Queen / Brian May influence.  Brian Robertson’s solo penned Silver Dollar follows a jumping little boogie shuffle that seems to quote the opening riff of Joe Walsh’s Welcome To the Club [So What, 1974].   The phasing / chorus effect also seems to harken to something Walsh might have done. Freedom Song is another good mid tempo twin guitar workout. Lynott’s vocals reach that great level that power the best of Lizzy’s works. This is another one of those songs that points to what Thin Lizzy is capable of and will briefly become. It’s one of those songs that leads to something greater. Lizzy also has a great tradition of not usually ending on the ballad – Nightlife’s Dear Heart being an outlier [one also might call Bad Reputation’s Dear Lord a ballad but it’s just a mid tempo subtle rocker not really a ballad]. But despite the title, Ballad Of the Hard Man is as good a slice of hard rock as anything else Thin Lizzy ever put to tape. Great wah-wah by Gorham or Robertson [or both]. Might be one of those really under-rated Lizzy tracks that only true Lizzy fans get.

   The European Deluxe Edition released in 2008 includes a second disc including the B-side of the Rosalie single, the funky reggae track Half Caste [another commentary on social class]. Unexpected from a hard rocking band like the Lizzy but a fun track. That faster US mix of Rosalie. Three Live at the BBC tracks – Rosalie, Suicide and Ballad Of the Hard Man. And yes the guitarists pull off that great dueling at the end of Suicide and that wah-wah stuff on Hard Man. On the BBC tracks, one really gets the sense of how Lynott’s bass lays the bed but also pumps the whole band along. And a few incomplete out takes and / or demos.

   The BBC stuff is where the band really shows their power. A live album of this tour UK Tour ’75 was issued in 2008 but it’s recording quality leaves a lot to be desired – Lynott’s bass seems to be buried under the guitars. But I can same the same thing of 1978’s high energy, oft praised Live And Dangerous.

   As for Fighting, it’s not the same quality of Jailbreak but it’s the step the band had to take before getting to that peak. Taken with that grain of salt, it’s an enjoyable record, as enjoyable as Jailbreak’s follow up Johnny the Fox.

 1978

A year which heralded the arrival of two albums which would kill the 70s sound. Two albums and bands that would set the blueprint for the 80s. Both completely fresh and timeless. Both contained multiple staples of FM / Classic Rock radio. And both are self-titled releases, too. I’m speaking of course about Van Halen and The Cars.

 

Van Halen became the hard rock band of choice for my generation. They were THE band that blasted out of car cassette decks in high school parking lots and cruising down whatever drag the teens cruised down to see and be seen. Yeah, we liked the classics – Zeppelin, Skynyrd, etc. but Van Halen was our band.

 

The formula itself wasn’t new – guitar [or in some cases like the Doors keyboards], bass, drums and lead singer was a rock and roll staple. But from the needle drop on Runnin’ With the Devil Van Halen sounded different. This was NOT Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath or the Who. This didn’t sound like anyone who came before. One might say they’re related to the Beck-Ola [Rod Stewart, Ron Wood, Mickey Waller] Jeff Beck Group. But as original as Jeff Beck is [was], they still wear their influences pretty heavily. On Van Halen, only the cover songs [Ice Cream Man, You Really Got Me] seemed even related to anything that came before. And maybe I’m On Fire. That’s a tough trick – usually for the first album or two a band wears its influences. Van Halen seems to come from outer space somewhere. Eddie Van Halen said he was heavily influenced by Eric Clapton but there is almost nothing on this record that sounds anything like the blues or even Cream. The rhythm parts, the solo [2:05 – 2:20], the runs [right side 2:38 – 2:47] and the closing 16 seconds of Ice Cream Man may touch on blues scales, however, Eddie’s sound is so unique with the pinch squeals and dive bombing vibrato with the “whammy bar” that this doesn’t sound like anything Clapton or Jimmy Page or even the incredible Jeff Beck would do. Well would do THEN. Beck later sorta copied Eddie and then became a master of using the volume knob and vibrato arm to prove why he is the best guitar player on the planet. [Since he is buried here on Earth, I stand by my statement.] However, I freely admit that Edward Van Halen may have been the most influential guitarist ever.

 

Let’s add to that. David Lee Roth is [was] one of the most charismatic front men in the history. He had the looks to go with that and really he’s a good singer. Would that personality get old after 14 days on a tour bus? Hell yes. But for that 90 minutes on stage, I’m sure he was must see entertainment. *

I think Alex Van Halen is credited as a very good drummer and Michael Anthony hold the whole thing down. Is he bass playing simple sometimes? Sure. But because of what Eddie is doing, Anthony doesn’t want to play John Entwhistle against that. That’s too busy. Lock down with the drums, keep it simple.

 

Credit where credit is due, too: Michael Anthony and Eddie do great background vocals.

 

Van Halen didn’t sell 10 million of their debut album selling only to guitar nerds. People bought Van Halen because it sounded different – and because Van Halen put the fun back into rock. Van Halen is a pure party rock record. Young folks gathered in parks, around cars, in living rooms and on patios passing around joints, drinking squat bottles of Budweiser and ‘hanging’ and few would say no to the mighty Van Halen on the stereo.

 

The other sounds like nothing else album is The Cars.

 

The band the Cars may have defined the term New Wave for a lot of people in middle America. The album had two top 40 singles [Just What I Needed and My Best Friend’s Girl] and an almost Top 40 [Good Times Roll stalled at # 41] so they got onto Top 40 radio. You’re All I’ve Got Tonight, Bye Bye Love and Moving In Stereo were played on FM radio like they were top 40 singles [at least here in DFW]. Moving In Stereo got another boost when it was featured in Fast Times At Ridgemont High [though it was not on the soundtrack] in 1982. All the males know what scene I’m referring to: “Doesn’t anybody fucking knock?!?”

 

And yes, Talking Heads had already had their debut out and would drop More Songs About Buildings And Food about a month after the Cars debut but Talking Heads did not have the ‘Pop’ sensibilities of the Cars. Psycho Killer may be catchy as hell but for shear pop, My Best Friend’s Girl stomps all over it.

 

Talking Heads do not have two lead vocalists. Yes, Ric Ocasek’s vocals may occasionally sound robotic and feel so out of place on anything like a hit single. He’s obviously not a handsome man [the local paper may have described him as ‘a mantis-like figure]. But the man had a gift for writing a pop hook like no one’s business. [There are are rare examples of ‘just okay’ Cars songs: I’m In Touch With Your World on this record, Lust For Kicks and Got A Lot On My Head on Candy-O, Leave Or Stay on Door To Door.]

 

But the Cars was a band put together to maximize Ocasek’s songs. Ocasek adds rhythm guitar though sometimes wonders if his amp is even turned on. Elliot Easton on lead guitar adds the colors and the exclamation points, the lightning and the counterpoints that themselves become hooks that grab the listeners ear. Did Ocasek have that little riff that opens My Best Friend’s Girl? Maybe. But Easton added that little trill the ends each chorus. [Easton admitted in a Musician article he unconsciously lifted it from the Beatles I Will. If you steal, steal from the best right?] The fill lines that run between the choruses in Just What I Needed, how Easton and keyboardist Greg Hawkes find the way to leave each other space and how Easton rips off a solo so perfect. memorable and hummable it becomes yet another hook. [This is a link to Rick Beato’s What Makes This Song Great breakdown of Just What I Needed. Rick Gets very technical musically but his love and enthusiasm just so infectious you can overlook SOME of that.]

 

Easton IS the secret weapon of the Cars. He plays just the right amount and he plays to fit the song. He doesn’t do the run up the neck and weedely weeddely wee wee wee to draw attention to himself like other guitar players. It’s almost egoless but he takes the challenge to fit something that is perfect for whatever the song seems to be asking for.  Even on the songs he is allowed some freedom [a lot of the longer songs on Shake It Up] Easton seems to find a spot that feels right and sticks there. At the end of Cruiser [a favorite], he seems to take pleasure reenacting the guitar duel from the Beatles The End. If you recall or don’t know, each of the Beatles took a line; in order they are Harrison, McCartney and Lennon. You can tell when John Lennon plays because its not pretty but rather he “makes it move and howl.” And Easton has the chops to pull that kind of thing off.

 

Greg Hawkes may have been the most important add. [I forgive the moustache on he inner sleeve that makes him look like Walter Becker’s cousin.] The last to join this incarnation, he had worked with Ocasek and Orr in a previous band. Hawkes was Ocasek’s unofficial left hand, officially cowriting three album tracks and one b-side  and appearing prominently on Ocasek’s two 80s solo LPs. The album is keyboard heavy but nothing the keyboard like Jon Lord’s B-3 with Deep Purple or Emerson Lake and Palmer. Not Roxy Music or Brian Eno. This is a totally new sound. Maybe Electric Light Orchestra but they are not used the same way. The sounds on Moving In Stereo are not like anybody that I have heard used synthesizers up to that point.

 

And then there is the late, great Ben Orr. To call Orr the Yang to Ocasek’s Ying sells Orr short. The bass player with looks with a great rock voice. Ocasek’s voice was great for some things but there is a warmth in Orr’s voice that adds depth and breadth that Ocasek’s reedy voice can not. For example, Bye Bye Love might have been fine with Ocasek singing but it seems hard to imagine him pulling off that little pre chorus semi whispered bit [“It’s an orangey sky / Always it’s some other guy / It’s just a broken alibi…”] without it sounding corny or warble-y. It’s Orr’s voice that fits down in the lower ranges on Moving In Stereo and All Mixed Up. There’s a smoothness inn Orr’s voice that was the reason that he sang the Cars biggest hit, 1983’s Drive. Even though Orr sang fewer songs as the Cars progressed Orr’s counter balance to Ocasek is sorely missed on 2011’s Cars ‘reunion’ Move Like This. [Orr died in 2000 of cancer] **

Again to give credit where credit is due, drummer David Robinson holds the whole thing together. He’s not flashy or powerful but he plays tasteful fills – can you imagine You’re All I’ve Got Tonight without his fills and that galloping beat coming out of the choruses? And Don’t Cha Stop is just the first example of Robinson being asked to hold the beat one way while guitars and/or vocals do something totally different [see Since You’re Gone on Shake It Up or Panorama’s Touch And Go].

 

The backing vocals by all of the band members are spectacular. How much producer Roy Thomas Baker [who also did Queen’s albums 1973 – 1976 including A Night At the Opera] influenced or helped with is open to speculation. But they sound amazing and add another hook to the songs.

 

For all the airplay and love it has received The Cars has only sold 6 million albums. But to this day no band sounds like the Cars. Obviously The Cars is not as rousing or as much of a good time party record as Van Halen. Yet both are albums that one could put on with almost any group of people and no one would complain.

 

* I was thinking last night about the difference between the Roth and the Hagar albums. With 5150 and Sammy’s arrival, it seemed that the sound of the band changed – more than just a new vocalist. The sound of the DLR years is very midrange heavy, like someone draped a towel over the tweeter of your speakers. As soon as 5150 hits the platter, it’s a very bright album. One might say that the bass has been castrated or at the very least put on a taunt leash. But Eddie’s guitar seems the be more room miked than a mic placed three inches from in front of his cabinet. And the kick drum sounds like it’s hitting a cardboard box – there’s no boom to it. [This may be an 80s thing – I just checked some of my tracks for OU812 and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and OU seems to sound similar but the bottom is back on F.U.C.K.]

 Of course the arrival of Hagar opens up a higher vocal range, too being that Dave is basically a baritone. And lyrics like U.S. Prime, Grade A Stamped guaranteed/ Grease it up And turn on the heat / You got to throw it down And roll it over once /  Maybe twice / Then chow down, down, down, down… That’s nothing David Lee Roth would write.

 

 ** Orr released one solo album, The Lace in 1986/ The album was co written by Orr and Diane Gray Page and Orr [and produced by ‘Mutt’ Lange’s associate Mike Shipley] showed that he had learned a lot alongside Ocasek and Roy Thomas Baker [or that some of his talents were not being utilized by the Cars]. Just as Ocasek did on his solo records, Orr programmed drum machines and added keyboards as well as bass and he was wise enough to bring in Elliot Easton to add some guitars. The album if pretty much synth pop not far from the Cars but due to it being mostly keyboards, it lacks power and punch of anything like Just What I Needed or You’re All I’ve Got Tonight. But it’s a good album. It had a top 30 single with Cars like Stay the Night. You might recall the album track Too Hot To Stop getting some airplay as well.

 

   Almost Famous was on Turner Classic tonight. [It came out in 2000? It doesn’t feel like that long… but then again it does.] Yeah, I know It’s not a Great Great Movie but the subject is near and dear to my heart. Words and music. And it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, so I put up the recliner and settled in for an evening with some “old friends.”

  Every time I see it, especially when Sapphire [Fairuza Balk] swishes her magic hips backstage [oooooh yes!] then talks with Russell and pops that line about truly loving “some little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts” -it still gets me right here [points to heart].

   Words and music. I always felt connected to music – radio especially. Of course, I dreamed to be a DJ. I guess I sort of was / am with mix tapes and eventually my car CD collections. Then I wanted to be a writer for Rolling Stone or a local music writer. One problem was that I was terribly afraid to talk to people I don’t know. I didn’t have the confidence to assert myself, present myself with authority. Could that have come with practice? Maybe. It’s an overly long, twisting story that breaks into some very heavy introspection that I’m not going into here.

   I always appreciate the soundtrack choices. There are a lot of songs from my childhood that are ingrained in me and when I hear them, they just raise my spirits and / or take me back to days before “obligations,” “responsibility” and adultery…er, adulthood. The featured Timy Dancer from my beloved Madman Across the Water 8 track/ LP / CD is one. Traffic’s Glad [John Barleycorn Must Die] is another one. Stillwater’s Love Comes And Goes [the set opener that starts with the electric piano in Cleveland] is so obviously based on Bad Company. I did spot a song that was not out in 1973 in the Topeka party scene: Deep Purple’s Burn. Great song, just a few months early as the album would not come out until February 1974.

   Anyway, I enjoyed it a great deal. It’s like going to Burleson and getting a Gina’s Pizza [or if you’re not familiar with Burleson, some other favorite restaurant you haven’t had in a long time]. Or finding that favorite t-shirt that somehow ended up under the bed or behind the dyer.