So I am reworking some CDs as usual – “jeez, do I really want Jungleland there? I’m not a huge Boss guy or Born To Run guy and those nine minute epics get a little schmatltzy. I think a little Tenth Avenue Freezeout works better there…” And I’m at the spot where Billy Joel is needed. Now on the first mix, I had The Stranger here – good song, flexes a little muscle without being overpowering – but after Freezeout, it doesn’t quite roll right. Because of the long opening and coda with the whistling. So I tried a couple of things – right now All For Leyna from Glass Houses is holding the spot but I haven’t road tested this one yet, so we’ll see. But also considered Vienna and Get It Right the First Time [The Stranger] and Stiletto from 52nd Street.

But it got me to thinking about LPs I’ve had for a long time. And who listens to the B side.

Now The Stranger happens to have a couple of hits on the B side – Only the Good Die Young and She’s Always A Woman – so maybe it had a few more listens than the average album. Aerosmith’s Toys In the Attic side 2 kicks off with Sweet Emotion which slams into the really good No More No More. The Who’s Who’s Next has Going Mobile and Won’t Get Fooled Again on side 2. The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Are You Experienced has one of the greatest side 2s ever: The Wind Cries Mary, Fire, 3rd Stone From the Sun, Foxey Lady and the title track. I love side 2 of Little Feat’s Feats Don’t Fail Me Now with the medley of Cold Cold Cold and Tripe Face Boogie. I might argue that side 2 of Kiss’ Dressed To Kill is BETTER than the A side!

But Glass Houses? Probably could have been blank as far as most people are concerned. It is not littered with Joel’s best songs. The vocals on I Don’t Want To Be Alone and Sleeping With the Television On sound like they were recorded in desperation like two nights before the album was due and Billy suffering a head cold. C'Etait Toi (You Were the One) with William Martin Joel singing in French?

Having said all that, side 2 of Glass Houses was one of my bedtime albums. As was side 2 of the Cars Panorama. And The Beatles [aka ‘the white album’]. One might think that putting an album on to go to sleep to it would indicate a complete lack of interest, an argument not without merit. One thing I notice is that they winddown into softer 3rd songs [well nothing really hard on the white album – Don’t Pass Me By is maybe the hardest thing], so maybe 8-9 minutes to get settled in the a calming thing? But Panorama ends with a couple of upbeat numbers, really a couple of my faves: Running To You and Up And Down. Maybe the tone arm lifting after that last chord of Up And Down was the signal that it was over and it really was time to get to sleep? 

But all of that got me mulling over Billy Joel and I have finally come to the conclusion I was looking for. People LIKE Billy Joel or they like Billy Joel's songs. But no one's FAVORITE ALL TIME SONG is a Billy Joel song.

Billy Joel just doesn't inspire fanaticism like Led Zeppelin or the Beatles or the Stones or the Who or Kiss. You might turn up the radio when a particularly favorite Billy Joel comes on but it's not like Free Bird or Born To Run or Jumpin' Jack Flash or Won't Get Fooled Again. Not Big Shot [which I like] Piano Man [which I don't] Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, Just the Way You Are, Honesty, We Didn't Start the Fire, Captain Jack, New York State Of Mind... None of them are someone's all time favorite.

It's weird because Billy has sold millions of records. But he's not cool. Liking Billy Joel was cool from about 1976 to 1982 when you couldn't escape the man's records. But none of those records no matter how many they sold are talked about in the same breath as Born To Run, Rumours or Hotel California. Because it's Billy Freaking Joel!

 

I was watching Dan Rather’s The Big Interview last night – Dan really does some good interviews on this show, catch it on AXS TV. On this John Fogerty interview, ol’ John piped up that as soon as he wrote Proud Mary he knew it was a classic. Classic. “So what makes a classic?” Dan had to ask. John thought about it for a minute and he said “I don’t know if I can put it into words. But you know it when you hear it.”

And with a few words, John Fogerty confirmed what I have been contemplating for a little while now. Any list of the 10, 100, 500, 1000 Greatest Anythings is total bullshit. Any list that says 10, 100, 1000 books you have to read or records you need to here or places you need to see [etc., etc.] before you die is also bullshit and needs to be ignored. [ESPECIALLY if it’s put out by some magazine with the initials R.S. that hasn’t been relevant since the end of Reagan Administration but keeps on churnin’ stuff out there anyway.]

I say that with some tongue in cheek because sometimes I do read [or view on You Tube] like Pete Pardo’s Sea Of Tranquility where he will or he and one of his buddies will pick their 10 favorite Thin Lizzy songs, Aerosmith songs or rate the Deep Purple studio albums. That’s fun. And they’re not putting it out as any gospel truth. As a matter of fact, they quite frequently say “this is our list, opinions just for fun, disagree if you like.” [And many do but the did drive me to re-evaluate Jefferson Starship’s Freedom At Point Zero. Meaning I found it as better than I recalled with some good moments but not earthshaking.] And in response I wrote some lists of ranking various catalogs of classic rock artists. They were fun to think about and a reason to revisit some albums but I don’t expect anyone takes my lists as the gospel truth [either]. Honestly I assume anyone reading my blather is just bored to tears because they’re reading the brain droppings of one lonely music lover with too much time on his hands, a guy writing just to fuckin’ write.

Taking one of the earliest songs I can recall being in love with – there is no way to explain how I feel when Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through the Grapevine comes on. I can ramble about the chill up my spine when those smokey electric piano notes creep out of the speakers. I can try to explain the heartbeat of the kick drum and the high hat [and the space I swore there was a rattlesnaking tambourine in the intro but I seem to be mistaken. And I checked the mono and stereo versions. But there are different mixes of these all over the place too.] Then the rising tension as the guitars and the horns and strings rise up for a few seconds. And then the bass kicks in carrying the whole melody. You have heard people talk for years about how great the Motown bassist James Jamerson was. Listen to this bass line.

And then there’s Marvin himself. How can one describe Marvin Gaye’s vocal performance here? How his voice [higher than his normal range, insisted on by producer Norman Whitfield] just clamps the top down on all of that great instrumentation like the whipped cream and the cherry on top of a sundae. How it soars, swoops and dives like an eagle on the wind. The phrasing – “I can’t heeeeeeeeeeeelp, bin confused…’ Oh man that just slays!

I mean it’s sold millions of copies so it has connected with a lot of people in 55 years. But me trying to explain it is like trying to describe a rainbow to someone who has lived in a darkened cave all their life. And yes, all of those people can agree man that’s a great song and compile their lists of favorites and compare them and tally them in some sort of points system to come up with “The Greatest However Many Songs Chosen By One Set Of People” and have someone write a few paragraphs trying to summarize the song [like I just did]. 

But I get that same feeling with other ‘agreed upon great songs’ like the Stones Jumpin’ Jack Flash, the Doobies Rockin’ Down the Highway, James Taylor’s take of Handy Man, Jerry Jeff Walker’s Desperados Waiting For A Train… but I also get that from deep down ‘nothing’ tracks like Three Dog Night doing Ain’t That A Lotta Love, little two minutes fifteen second filler [the soulful Corey Wells on lead vocals] on Suitable For Framing.  Or Jaded Strumpet, a second side filler on Steppenwolf’s For Ladies Only. Or Jailbait, lead track from Aerosmith’s Joe Perry-less album Rock In A Hard Place. Hell, Aerosmith’s 2001 single Jaded! And I snarl and cringe at almost everything after 1989’s Pump album. Don’t get me wrong, Jaded is no Rats In the Cellar in the grand scheme of great Aerosmith songs but it’s a damn catchy song.

I guess it’s my fault for having taken such things waaaayyy too seriously when I was young. I wanted to amass the greatest coolest music collection ever – well, among my friends anyway. But I read those lists and buy or listen to some of those records and scratch my head and say “ I don’t get it.” The Beach Boys Pet Sounds for example.  When I read that it had inspired the Beatles to make Revolver and Sgt. Pepper, I guess my expectation was for something different from what I heard when I put Pet Sounds on. [For the record when I heard the Zombies very psychedelic Odyssey And Oracle, I said “This is what I always expected Pet Sounds to sound like.”]

For one thing, the Beach Boys are a vocal group. A damn good one. But they don’t rock. Or roll. [A criticism I once heard of the Eagles though they could occasionally rock once Joe Walsh joined the band.] A trio of undeniably great songs like Sloop John B, God Only Knows and Wouldn’t It Be Nice. And I will admit that the songs on Pet Sounds are unlike almost anything that was going on in music then. For a Pop [as in Popular] record it’s quite ambitious. It’s an influential record in a way. “Look pop music can go far beyond three chords and ‘I love you, you’re so fine’ lyrics.” I get it. But Pet Sounds would not even make my top 500 albums. Maybe 1000 if I had to put a pen to paper and ‘in no particular order and excluding compilation records.’ In fact, I do not own a copy. I who desired to have the coolest record collection ever do not own a copy of one of the most influential albums in rock history.

But I don’t own The Velvet Underground & Nico album either [merely okay in my list]. Or Nirvana’s Nevermind. I don’t really care for Radiohead either.

Some of the things I fond enjoyable would probably perplex a lot of the people who do make lists. Decidedly ‘uncool’ records ala aforementioned Rock In A Hard Place album David Bowie’s Never Let Me Down and the Stones Black and Blue albums. Barry Manilow’s Mandy – oh yes, I love that song! And that’s fine, too. I’m sure some of them have things in their collections we call ‘guilty pleasures,’ things so uncoo0l we feel ‘guilty’ for loving them.

Anyway, my point here was “like what you wanna like and fuck what everyone else says about it.” Unless someone is stuck in the car with you on a three day cross country drive, what anyone else thinks about your musical taste means nothing.

 I got a bunch of records – vinyl records – from Mom last weekend. A lot of “I don’t listen to this, why do I have this?” things. A couple were records I had replaced with clean copies and left my old ones – notably the Cars Candy-O. Most were records that Dad had bought or were bought for him – Bob Seger’s Nine Tonight, Petty’s Damn the Torpedoes [mom HATES Tom Petty!], Head East’s Flat As A Pancake. I also took some of those original records that I loved for so long – warts and all. Joe Cocker’s With A Little Help From My Friends [with that scary blood red cover art!], Three Dog Night Suitable For Framing, a very old [but not valuable] Are You Experienced. [Never mind the ones that made it out the door with me when I moved out like Jefferson Airplane’s Flight Log collection.]

These are not pristine collectable records mind you. These records were played. Mostly on an old console stereo with a record changer. Remember those? You’d put on two or three and when one record ended the next would drop on top of the other and the tone arm would swing over and start playing the next album? I’m sure it makes some people cringe now but let’s face it, records are made to be PLAYED. It is the only way to enjoy the music in the groove, right?

All that using the records gives them character. One example as my old copy of Aerosmith Rocks. Even though I got a brand-new copy for graduation, from the first play, it had a pop right at the end of Combination. The song would come to its metallic screeching halt [ending the first side] and not half a second later – POP. Now I always wanted my records to sound good so sometimes this drove me bananas when I would be making a tape. But over the years I have found myself remembering that pop when I play that song and MISSING the old pop.

This pile of freshly arrived vinyl made me think back to high school days when I’d make these tapes for Robin. The problem is that music always meant that much to me. I found it hard to express myself [all those long notes to the contrary] and I tried to use other people’s words to express my own feelings. It’s a thin line sometimes. I’d sit there and cram songs that I thought were cool on them and write long sappy notes about what I thought about the songs and basically pour my heart out. One of those songs that I always associate with her is Petty’s Even the Losers. I didn’t smoke and we sat on the trunk of my car in her parents driveway instead of the roof. I tried to show her some things that maybe she never noticed before – “stars [you] never could see.”

It did work both ways though. She was the first person to turn me on to U2 [Under A Blood Red Sky – she loved I Will Follow]. She saw the Tears For Fears video for Everybody Wants To Rule the World – because she lived in the city and had cable / MTV – and said “hey you look like that guy.” [I felt sorry for Roland Orzabal for looking like me.]

Do I really know what Robin thought of those tapes? Not really. I know there were maybe some things that connected. Those tapes became a part of the soundtrack for a couple of years in her life. For my part, I eventually learned not get all starry eyed and be such a trusting, giving person and not to pour my heart out. But it would be a while.

 The "greatest" songs take a little piece of your heart and soul and a sliver of time and file them in your memory banks so that when you hear them again, you're taken back and you feel what you were feeling then. Like stepping inside an isolation chamber and you hear the music and you smell and the memory washes over you. Some of these little moments are common moments - concerts or that one hit that was all over the radio that one spring / summer / fall of the year...

Some of them are a little more personal. Like Magic by the Cars. Sure, Magic was almost a top ten hit in the summer of 1984 and maybe it was one of those songs for some other folks that year - especially after seeing the video. [Although Drive would be released as a single a couple months after "Magic" and become the Cars highest charting single. "drive" brings up a whole 'nuther range of emotions for me.]

But for me, Magic represents that last summer of innocence. The last summer of no expectations and being 'just a kid.' About a week after school let out, I drove that shitty faded out lime green Duster up to the Sears at Seminary South - an outdoor mall - at an ungodly hour [in the summer] to get tickets to the see the Cars in September. Maybe eight or ten of us waited around. There may or may not have been a boom box. When time came, we walked up to the Ticketron and waited our turn. And when I left I had the Cars tickets I had been cruelly denied in 1981 [because uncle Mike and Uncle Rich wanted some coffee].

But when I hear Magic it still take me back to that summer. First job, drinking Buds out of those squat little brown bottles in the parking lot after work. Finding more and more music to wrap my ears around.

What's one of those songs for you?

The Cars - Magic (Official Music Video) - YouTube

So a couple months back, I was in Born Late picking up my Deluxe copy of Liquid Sound Company’s Psychoactive Songs For The Psoul [link to album on Bandcamp], when I spotted a fave in the reissues bin, the Steve Miller Band’s Book Of Dreams. I don’t think I’ve ever owned a clean copy, so I plopped down some greenbacks in the fine establishment and hit the road.

 Another album I haven’t owned a clean copy of is [was] the predecessor, Fly Like An Eagle. I recently picked this up, too. Why Capitol records had one of the greatest albums by an American band pressed on 180 gram vinyl in the Czech Republic is beyond me. I guess it saved them a few pennies that they could put into their endless repackaging of the Beatles.

Is the title track overplayed? Yes, yes it is. [I saw the SMB on Austin City Limits and the keyboard player hit the sample of that climbing synthesizer riff about 15 times too many. I hope Stevie Guitar beat the crap out of him backstage.] But the rest of the album is nothing to be dismissed. I mean six of ten [dismissing two short instrumentals] made the Greatest Hits album! [Fly Like An Eagle in a shortened single mix.] My parents had the 8 track of this and it’s just another one of those albums I have just always known. I’ve heard it so many times, I know every note of this backward and forward.

What I have not done – probably since 1978 or do – was listen to this classic on headphones. So today I did.

The vinyl itself is incredibly clean and quiet. The thing that jumped out to me in a new way was the sound of this. Hearing it on the stereo with four good speakers or at the stadium or the skating rink it sounds huge and fills the place. But in the headphones [and maybe just because I was listening closely and to a good new, clean copy] I noticed just how much space there really is. On most of the tracks [besides the title track and the always a favorite Wild Mountain Honey] it’s apparent that this is basically a trio recording. Vocals tend to be edged to the right channel.  Highlights are the return to the blues of Sweet Maree with former Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters harmonica man James Cotton blowing. And the great cover of the K.C. Douglas song Mercury Boogie [retitled Mercury Blues] is a track I almost never get tired of. The organ led The Window is a refreshing more atmospheric piece that kind of hints at what will be coming on Book Of Dreams. [The basic tracks for both albums were recorded at the same time.]

The total waste of vinyl is Steve’s cover of Sam Cooke’s You Send Me. If I could program vinyl to skip a track, that would be the one. Still one bad idea [dismissing the :53 second Space Intro like Blue Odyssey] does not ruin a pretty damn fine record. Still 4.5 stars.

 So I was watching Color Me Obsessed,  last night [instead of lie sleeping or something important like that.] It's the 2011 film [meaning there's not even a hint of the Filthy Luchre Reunion shows] of fans and critics talking about how the Replacements were the greatest "____" band . 

It made me think about my own fandom of the Replacements. I am one of the rare birds - a fan of the later Replacements albums. 

I guess I was too old to "punk" by the time I found Sorry Ma... Hootenany has a few moments but is mostly forgotten. Let It Be is a good album although Favorite Thing and We're Coming Out have not held up well. Tim is only moves me half the time - Bastards and Hold My Life, of course. Swingin' Party and Left Of the Dial. It's been in and out of my collection a couple of times [currently: out]. And it sounds like it was recorded with a blanket in front of the microphones.  But the last two? HUGE fan. I used to have Don't Tell A Soul and All Shook Down Back To Back [see what I did there?] on a 90 minute cassette and I would play it over and over and over for a week at a time, back when I was in Burleson and I had to drive at least 20 minutes to get anywhere. When I was driving 45 minutes to an hour each way to get from Burleson to downtown Dallas five days a week. 

My introduction to the band was 1987's Pleased To Meet Me. [And I might not have ever heard that had I not been working in a record store. But I did and I fell [mostly] in love. Nightclub Jitters still doesn't do anything for me.  The Ledge moves the needle a bit but not much.]  Since this was my introduction to the band, I had no idea about the politics going on over recent releases, the firing of Bob Stinson or even what the band sounded like before this release. Therefore, I was not appalled by the use of horns or strings or acoustic guitars or any of the things that offended "original band" or "from the start" Replacements fans. I'm pretty sure I didn't know about the Twin Tone releases until the Inconcerated EP brought Answering Machine and Here Comes A Regular into my orbit. [I  didn't know Another Girl, Another Planet was a cover either until many years later when I heard the original.] 

That opening salvo of I.O.U, Alex Chilton and I Don't Know though - FUCKING FANTASTIC. That whole second side smokes and then suddenly there's the super quiet Skyway. And then the sheer brilliance of Can't Hardly Wait - which if it isn't my favorite Replacements song most days, it's surely top three. [You know what makes it such a great song - besides that riff? It's the breaks - the skidding to a dead stop for two bars. It gives you a second to absorb what you've heard - and a second to anticipate everything kicking back in again. And those horns. Just like Jim Price and Bobby Keys on Exile On Main Street - they give it just a touch of soul, just a punch  to put it over the top.]

Since I joined the party so late, I also didn't know to be horrified by the purely poptasticness [po + fantastic = poptastic] of Don't Tell A Soul. Maybe the first couple of times I tracked it I was "Boy this sure doesn't sound much like the last record" but I soon fell in love with it for a different reason. It could rock some [I'll Be You, I Won't, Back To Back, We'll Inherit the Earth] but when they slowed down the wrote some really pretty songs. I was 21 when I got Pleased To Meet Me - Paul Westerberg would have been 29.  Staring 30 in the eyeballs, he could have been asking himself "Do I want to be caught up playing some cartoonish over the top boob when I'm 30 or 35 like the god damn Ramones? Or do I want to say something?" Hearing DTAS, I think he wanted to say something. He did say something to me. Don't Tell A Soul touched me in a way that's hard to explain. Part of it was the times - the people I was running with, the girl I was hopelessly head over heels for. The moments it seemed we were together and the sudden "we have to talk" and "losing" what you never really "had." [But that doesn't really mean anything when your heart is dedicated.] I found a lot of solace in Achin' To Be and They're Blind and Darlin' One. Many nights achin' to be on her canvas. Many nights pondering the things I held dearly that were judged once and then swept aside. 

Then came All Shook Down. The ridiculously low selling finale, the all but in name Paul Westerberg solo debut. People hate and loathe this record and I don't get it. It's not that far removed from Don't Tell A Soul which sold a respectable 300,000 copies. I guess if you were a fan of a certain narrow form of expression like 2 minute bursts of energy of Sorry Ma, then All Shook Down [and Don't Tell A Soul] are complete "sell out" records. "What, they want to be pop stars, have hits and get played on the radio? Fuck that noise!" But then, Let It Be would be a sell out record too. Too polished and professional sounding. But I like it. It continues the slide to mainstream but on the Replacements own terms. Merry Go Round, One Wink At A Time, Nobody and When It Began are pretty good "Pop" [as in Popular] songs but they have those weird little bits that are pure 'Mats. The guitar solo on Nobody - the song kind of a winking tip of the hat to I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock & Roll - is just too weird to be on top 40 radio. Otherwise it's a great dose of power pop. the lines in One Wink At A Time ["The magazine she flips through / is the special double issue / smells like perfume / she leaves it on the plane"] don't fit anyone's play list. I love the line in Bent Out Of Shape: "A little sleepy time tea / spiked with a heartache."

But the killer here is the worldy weary Sadly Beautiful. I don't have the words to describe the emotions this brings up. Open to interpretation of course, it seems to be about someone admired from far away who only occasionally crosses your path but each time they do, you notice them slipping into some sort of darkness that they finally give into [Think No Place From You from 2002's Stereo] or succumb to. 

The "second side" [i.e. everything after When It Began] starts really getting a little weird. but on cassette, 70 MPH on a darkened interstate, you're committed. Plus it's not BAD, just weird short little things. Happy Town is a little slice of Pleasant Valley Sunday [lyrically] run through Westerberg. Maybe a warning to the bands following - attention Goo Goo Dolls! The duet with Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano [My Little Problem] is a hot little rocker. 

As far as the movie, well, it was interesting hearing how the Replacements impacted some people. I guess they had an impact on me as well but not to a fanatical level. I never saw The Replacements, though I have seen Replacements  -Westerberg once, Tommy twice [once solo and one with the short lived Bash & Pop] even short set by Bob 'Slim' Dunlap. I still enjoy putting those records on from time to time but I admit Bash & Pop's Friday Night Is Killing Me is the one I've probably played the most in the last decade. [I had that on a cassette with Izzy Stradlin & the Juju Hounds - another one that I could play over and over.] 

fataal Flaw

Fatal Flaw

I wish that I could be

Some special someone to you

Someone more than just another one

Just anyone you sort of know

But I could not, I would not

I dare not take a shot, a chance

On something that could be

Mysterious, adventurous, grand and magical

Because the twins of pride and fear whisper to me

That I cannot take another crack in my heart