Music to Quarantine by — vol. 4 (wk of 4.6)
Because…really…enough with The Tiger King. Seriously.
Because…really…enough with The Tiger King. Seriously.
6 April 2020
Robert Plant
Pictures at Eleven
1982
The first solo album by Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant is certainly of its era. This is not to say Pictures at Eleven is bad…far from it. It’s just that the sound…well, it sounds like it was recorded to a click track in a well carpeted empty dance hall.
In any event, Plant has one of the most identifiable voices in modern music and once the needle drops, you know who it is.
Listening to Pictures at Eleven, you can’t help but wonder what it might’ve sounded like with his three former band mates in Led Zeppelin.
But then trying to listen to any Robert Plant album without placing it in some kind of Led Zeppelin context. That’s challenging now, but in 1982 it was a fool's errand.
After the once-mighty Zep collapsed after the death of drummer John Bonham, the then 34-year-old Plant was far from retirement age. And as this album proves, he still creatively restless and more than creatively viable.
Now lyrically, I must admit to having no idea wtf he is singing about but as near as I can decipher, it’s not Tolkein influenced.
Plant’s voice is his voice. In the 50+ years, he’s been recording and performing it’s as reliable, and noticeable, on Pictures at Eleven as it was on Led Zeppelin I or on Raising Sand.
Now, you have to imagine that it takes a serious amount of intestinal fortitude to be the guitar player tasked with filling Jimmy Page’s shoes. Luckily, Robbie Blunt was up for the task.
Come to think of it, any musician that was going to back Robert Plant had to fill the shoes of Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham — immense shoes to fill. But like Blunt, bass player Phil Martinez and drummers Cozy Powell and Phil Collins (yep, that one.)
The first song, “Burning Down One Side” is a tight song that might not have been out of place on In Through the Out Door. The three songs kind of meander along (which would’ve been Side 1 of the album). Pictures at Eleven comes alive again with the double punch of “Worse Than Detroit” and “Fat Lip”, that would’ve been the first two songs on Side 2.
The 1982 release of the vinyl album had just eight songs because, at the time, you could only have 23 minutes of music per side. So when you have three of the eight songs being A-level songs, that’s a pretty good ratio (that ratio diminished with the industry acceptance of the compact disc.)
Robert Plant has spent the remainder of his career doing whatever the fuck he wants to.
Sometimes he scores hits — “Big Log”, “Tall Cool One”
Sometimes he crushes it — Raising Sand with Alison Krauss
Sometimes not so much — Priory of Brion
BUT — he’s always challenging himself and his listeners — Band of Joy, Sensational Space Shifters.
As an artist, Robert Plant is the rock and roll personification of “all who wander are not lost.”
7 April 2020
Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds
Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds
1992
Izzy Stradlin is probably most famous for being the rhythm guitarist for Guns-n-Roses.
Lesser known is the fact that he was not only the real rock and roll spirit of the band, he was also the best songwriter.
All those songs you like on Appetite for Destruction? While all tracks on that album are attributed to the band, it’s no secret the biggest hits were mostly written by Stradlin.
Then he got caught peeing in the aisle of a commercial flight, got arrested and then got sober.
All those songs you like on the Use Your Illusion albums? Also Izzy…except here, the band divided up the songwriting credits so you can more clearly see who wrote what.
Stradlin’s sobriety coincided just as the band began to bloat from its own success. After realizing just what a shit show Guns-n-Roses had become, he abruptly quit in 1991…at the peak of their popularity.
Certainly, an argument can be made by saying that leaving a band at the height of its success a career-limiting move. The music industry and Izzy fans would soon come to realize would they always subconsciously knew, Izzy does his own thing.
It’s not that Izzy doesn’t care…it’s just that he doesn’t care what you think.
Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds dropped in autumn of 1992. The album was loaded with bluesy sounding songs that lent themselves to Izzy’s relaxed singing style. It’s safe to say that Izzy’s singing is anathema to his former bandmates shrieking.
Now everyone knew who Izzy was, but who and what were the Ju Ju Hounds?
The Ju Ju Hounds were:
Guitar — Rick Richards (Georgia Satellites)
Bass — Jimmy Ashurst (Broken Homes, Buckcherry)
Drums — Charlie “Chalo” Quintana (The Plugz, Social Distortion)
Guests included Craig Ross (Lenny Kravitz), Marc Ford (The Black Crowes) and Ron Wood (The Rolling Stones).
If you liked “14 Years” and “Dust and Bones” from Use Your Illusion, you weren’t surprised by what you heard here. The album covers the scope of Stradlin’s writing abilities. Songs like the seemingly sloppy “Shuffle It All” and “Somebody Knockin” yielded some modest radio success.
But it’s the deeper cuts that highlight just how good a songwriter he was. From the shredder “Cuttin’ the Rug” to the almost saccharine “How Will It Go” you can hear why Stradlin had to get out of Guns-n-Roses.
Frankly, any of these songs would’ve been right at home on FM radio in the early ’70s, but by 1992 radio had changed as was much more rigid.
The hopes for this album were high but despite a solid effort by the label, Geffen Records and Izzy himself, the album only yielded some radio success and failed to burn up the charts. This left many wondering how wise Izzy was to leave G-n-R.
To me, the bigger question is why would G-n-R let Izzy leave?
Ever wonder why Chinese Democracy was such a dud? It’s not that it was just a bukkake of sounds, there was no Izzy…or any other member of the band. It’s consistent in its inconsistency.
Izzy Stradlin’s success in Guns-n-Roses proves he was one of the better songwriters to emerge from that LA hard rock scene of the '80s.
During the embryonic stages of supergroup Velvet Revolver, his former band mates Duff McKagen, Slash and Matt Sorum asked him to join. His reluctance to tour and work with a lead singer again (go figure) led him to bail.
But despite Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds, or his other solo albums, having no real commercial success here in the United States (he’s quite popular in Japan) Izzy continues to do whatever the fuck he wants to.
Izzy Stradlin’s post-Guns-n-Roses output, his periodic playing with Axl Rose over the years, and his reluctance to re-unite with them because they “wouldn’t share the dough equally” proves that he wasn’t just one of the better songwriters to emerge from that LA hard rock scene of the ‘80s…Izzy Stradlin was one of the strongest and singular voices of that era.
And really, what’s more rock and roll than doing whatever the fuck you want?
8 April 2020
Son House
Delta Blues
1991
I’m not one of those white guys who says that they like the blues to sound cool — I’m not cool, never was cool, and will not ever be cool.
That said, I do like some blues. Like any genre, there is enough of it that I can find something. Son House falls into that field.
Despite influencing both Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, tour and recording support from the “King of the Delta Blues” Charley Patton and being recorded by the famous American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in the ‘30s and ‘40s, Son House never found a national audience.
So, in 1943 Son House packed it in and moved from the Mississippi Delta to Rochester, NY. There he served as a train porter and chef.
Then in the mid-’60s, the folk revival was in full swing when some record collectors (fellow music nerds) found him. They encouraged him to come out of his self-imposed exclusion.
And then in 1964, he discovered a community and a home when he played the Newport Folk Festival.
Son recorded and toured the world until 1974 when his poor health forced him to retire again. 14 years later, Son House passed away in Detroit from cancer of the larynx.
His indelible print can be heard on countless artists, across numerous genres but most recently in artists like John Hammond, Bonnie Raitt, and Jack White.
Some blues artists are worth listening to. Son House is one of those artists.
9 April 2020
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
1989
I recall buying The Stone Roses debut album on cassette in 1989, giving it a listen and then shrugging my shoulders.
I had the good fortune at the time to be in love with a girl who, among her many attributes but most impressive to me had impeccable taste in music. She put “She Bangs the Drums” on a mix-tape for me and this time my ears perked up.
The Manchester, England band opens their debut album with “I Wanna Be Adored” — the audio equivalent of a smoke machine announcing the arrival of the band. The Stone Roses arrived with equal amount hubris and talent.
Any album that begins by giving a shout out to one of rock and rolls greatest myths about selling your soul to the devil is both cheeky and bold — “I don’t have to sell my soul, he’s already in me”.
This is a clarion call for listeners to serve the Stone Roses one clear goal — to be rock stars.
This debut is a nod to jangle guitar rock with fair amount of psychedelia — owing as much to The Byrds as to Pink Floyd.
It’s this musical knowledge that allowed them to update these two genres without diluting or destroying them— only modernizing it. And somehow making psychedelia palatable.
Don’t be fooled by Ian Brown’s laconic singing. In particular listen to “Elizabeth My Dear” — there is just as much punk venom here as The Sex Pistols “God Save the Queen”:
“Elizabeth My Dear”
Tear me apart and boil my bones
I’ll not rest till she’s lost her throne
My aim is true my message is clear
It’s curtains for you, Elizabeth my dear
It’s “I Am the Resurrection” that brings the foursome’s talented bouillabaisse to a boil. Reni kicks it all off, driving the beat, then Mani comes in laying a nice Bootsy Collins vibe before Brown starts singing with Squire laying down just enough nuance and color to suck you completely in. And then it all comes together for the exuberant chorus.
Critics in the U.K. and the U.S. didn’t initially get the Stone Roses…fans did.
Critics eventually warmed to the band and this debut album has consistently ranked in the upper echelon’s of many “Best of” lists and even won a Mojo Classic Album award in 2010. In 2013, Oklahoma natives and critics darlings The Flaming Lips (and friends) paid homage to the album with an entire re-working of it called The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down… What a Sound.
The Stone Roses would come to serve as an almost call and response on the mix-tapes with that girlfriend. The relationship lasted just about as long as The Stone Roses did and as that album resonates, so does she.
The Stone Roses lay dormant from 1997–2011 and then reunion rumblings began. After a documentary about the band re-uniting, The Stone Roses: Made of Stone, a couple of singles — “All for One” and “Beautiful Thing” — at their final live show in 2017, Ian Brown said to the crowd:
“Don’t be sad it’s ending, be happy it happened at all.”
Ain’t that the truth.
In an interview with the Guardian in September of 2019, John Squire announced that the Stone Roses had officially disbanded.
10 April 2020
Van Halen
Van Halen
1978
The musical landscape on which Van Halen released their self-titled debut album in February of 1978 was diverse.
The Bee Gees were at their apogee and Peter Frampton was the guitar god of the moment. A Sisyphean task if ever there was one because Van Halen was equal parts Black Sabbath and Rick James (with just a flare of Elton John and James Brown).
Sure, now we can say unequivocally that Van Halen is classic rock, but at the time? They were a hybrid genre unto their own. Not quite hard rock and not quite pop. Recognizing the genius of Eddie Van Halen, FM radio programmers quickly added the first single, a re-make of The Kinks “You Really Got Me”.
Side one opens with “Runnin’ With The Devil” and ranks as one of the best songs to introduce a band to the world. The second track is “Eruption”, a 1:42 minute guitar solo. A guitar solo as a second song is a strong statement by any artist . . . that’s some serious chutzpah.
And then following that with the Van Halen-ing of “You Really Got Me”. The Kinks? Seriously? That’s some intrepid musicianship.
The rest of Van Halen is a barrage of originality. Yes, Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth are unique, but to discount the contributions of drummer Alex Van Halen and bassist Michael Anthony would be a mistake. Van Halen, the album, and this line up of the band, is bupkis without them.
1978 wasn’t only a diverse year for established music, but there were some fractures being created with the new music being released (Elvis Costello, The Cars, Blondie). Van Halen’s debut album only helped widen that crevasse.
41 years later, and ignoring all the Page Six nonsense, Van Halen sounds just as fresh and still sounds so fucking good. A testament to not only the band but to producer Ted Templeman and engineer Don Landee.
With Van Halen, the band built the template for what followed in the 80’s: guys wanted to be them, girls wanted to be with them . . . and parents were terrified of them.
A rock band, and record label’s dream come true.
Van Halen is arguably the most consistent, if not the best, Van Halen album.
This is the album that will continue to shape musicians for generations to come.
11 April 2020
Wu-Tang Clan
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
1993
I mentioned in an earlier post that I was a latecomer to hip-hop…and as I have said elsewhere, good music transcends time, space and race.
As the genre was moving away from sampling other artists (because by 1993, copyright owners were being rather litigious…and winning) the genre began relying more on beats.
But much more than beats, what Wu-Tang did was establish a template that would shape much of 90’s hardcore hip hop. Now, where you personally land on that is up to you. I like to think of it this way: I don’t like reality/unscripted shows as a rule BUT that first season of almost any of them is usually pretty good.
The same is true here. Many took the template and ran with it, but there is only one original.
That said, the amount of talent in the Wu-Tang Clan is like a who’s who in modern rap — RZA, GZA, Method Man (or Cheese if you’re a fan of The Wire), Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, et al.
Now, during this time of the pandemic, why no one thought to do a version of “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ ta F’ With” titled “Wu-han Cough Ain’t Nuthin’ ta F’ With”…yea, you’ll never hear that song the same way again…you’re welcome.
How on earth anyone was able to corral this much talent is jaw-dropping. And don’t be misled by the seeming simplicity of the beats and production…it belies its genius.
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) proves what Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (and many others) have said:
“In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”
12 April 2020
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul
Men Without Women
1982
Back in the day, I wasn’t a huge Springsteen fan, so I had very little knowledge of who Little Steven was.
My cousins open my eyes to both Springsteen and Little Steven. Without going into the complex relationship and friendship between the two, suffice it to say after listening to this, there is a truth that members of bands suppress their skills to rally behind one vision.
What Men Without Women did was introduce the world to the depth of talent that The Boss already knew too well…that whirling dervish guitar player in the E Street Band was loaded with talent.
As a young kid from Ohio, Little Steven and Men Without Women oozed New York City (yea, even then I knew he was from New Jersey). It’s really from this album that began my love affair with NYC…a love affair that continues to this day…even if it’s not reciprocated.
For the rest of my time in Ohio, Men Without Women became my lifeline to NYC.
What makes Men Without Women work for me is the sound…it sounded like, well, it sounded like rock and roll. Over the years, I’ve heard that Van Zandt recorded the band, the Disciples of Soul, in one room. Apparently so they could see one another and to capture the vibe of the songs and perpetuate the solidarity of a band.
With the growth of multi-track recording by 1982, this technique had largely fallen out of favor.
The songs themselves are a blend of garage rock, bar blues, a touch of pop, and good old-fashioned rock and roll. It’s like a musical bouillabaisse made just for me. And given the stature of Steven Van Zandt, the Disciples of Soul is also a bouillabaisse of who’s who of both studio and touring musicians of the day…and all the E Streeters make at least one appearance on the album.
And lest you be confused, there was no bad blood between The Boss and Little Steven, he provided backing vocals on “Angel Eyes”, “Men Without Women” but most noticeably on “Until the Good Is Gone”. Little Steven would stay on E Street long enough to record and produce Born in the U.S.A. before fully embracing his solo career (returning to E Street in ’99).
He’s also found success as an activist, a songwriter and producer, Sirius DJ, entrepreneur and showrunner on Netflix’s Lilyhammer.
But he’s best known for playing consigliere Silvio Dante on HBO’s The Sopranos. A role he slipped into easily after having been Springsteen’s consigliere for years.
Sometimes albums may be of their era but it’s the rare ones that can transcend their era.
Men Without Women is from the latter.
PLAYLIST:
Music to Quarantine by — vol. 3
Because you’ve just finished watching Ozark.medium.com
Music to Quarantine by — vol. 2
Albums worth dropping the needle on…or pressing play.medium.com
Music to Quarantine by — vol. 1
While you’re self-distancing and doing the shelter in place thing, and your eyes are tired from binge-watching, here…medium.com