The Sawdust King Spits Out His Scorn

Time it was, my friends, when prog rock was intellectually respectable; when a triple-disc live album could be hailed as more of a good thing; when Greg Lake was thin, Robert Fripp was the thinking man's guitar hero, and Phil Collins was not yet the Anti-Christ but just a drummer.

That time was the early 1970s, and highly-proficient, symphonically-inclined, cerebral rock music was living on borrowed time in the days before punk turned it into a punchline. It was into this rarefied moment that Genesis released The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.

It's a double album. And a rock opera. Or maybe a concept album: I've never been clear on the distinction. In any case: Of all Peter Gabriel's work with Genesis, this album makes it hardest to take seriously his protestations that he never did drugs—or argues most strongly that perhaps he should have done. Certainly the storyline for The Lamb is not the work of a man whose brain chemistry is entirely right. Dig this partial synopsis, distilled from François Couture's exhaustive review at the All Music Guide:

It is early morning in Manhattan and, as the city awakens, Rael, a young bum, comes out of the subway where he painted the letters R-A-E-L. Amid the low-life activities of the city, a lamb lies down in the middle of Broadway street... [W]alking on the street, Rael sees a dark cloud lowering in Times Square and slowly moving toward him. He starts to run, but ... he is being sucked into another dimension (or a parallel universe, if you will)... Rael regains consciousness .... in a cave where stalactites and stalagmites grow very quickly, forming a cage and pressing on his body. Rael sees his brother John looking at him placidly, responding to his cries with a single tear of blood. As [John] walks away, the cage dissolves and Rael starts spinning. When it all stops, he finds himself standing on a factory floor. A salesgirl shows him around, explaining that the expressionless human beings packaged and stacked are available for purchase. Rael recognizes old members of his gang along with his brother John. Fearing for his safety, he runs... into a reconstruction of his old life in New York. We learn a little more about the character, his rough life in a gang, and how he affirms himself through violence. Here he pictures his fluffy heart being shaved by a razor blade....

As Rael comes out of his daydreaming, he finds himself in a carpeted corridor where kneeling people slowly move towards a spiral staircase leading to a big wooden door. One of the Carpet Crawlers explains that going into the next chamber is the only way out. The hero rushes to the door.... only to find himself in a large hemispheric chamber. 32 doors are at equal distance of each other on the wall and people come in and out of them, looking for the only door that doesn't lead back into the room. Trapped in the chamber ... Rael hears among the crowd noises a blind woman asking for help. If the boy was to guide her to the center of the room, she could feel where the breeze blows and find the only door that doesn't lead back into the room. So they do and she takes Rael through the corridor and into a dark cave where she asks him to sit on what appears to be a throne of stone and wait....

...Rael smells a strong perfume. ...[H]e finds a small crack from which the scent entered. ... Following the odor, he enters a room lit by candlelight in the middle of which is a pool. Three small half-snake/half-woman creatures welcome him. He enters the pool and, swallowing some of the water, his life energy starts to escape his body. The lamias drink his energy, caressing him all the while. But when they get down to his blood, they quickly die and Rael, out of passion, eats their lifeless bodies before leaving the room from where he entered. As he looks back, he sees the stage is back to its initial appearance, awaiting a new visitor...

It goes on like that for a while, growing ever more grotesque and bizarre before culminating in a Freudian Grand Guignol of self-castration. All of this is somehow Euro-Continental in its misogyny and deep, deep headsickness. (Not unlike the Raelian religion, actually -- and though I've never been able to confirm if the freak behind that cult was a Lamb fan or not, for sure the whole enterprise is awash in the stink of prog.) If Les Humanoides were a rock band, they'd have made this record. It's a dysmorphic nightmare to give Kafka the shits, written by Jodorowsky and drawn by Moebius.

The devil of it is that this bastard's got some pretty bangin' choons. Anyone who's heard Jeff Buckley's rip through "Back In NYC" knows that The Lamb's compositional sturdiness shines even through the hiss and dropouts of a crummy four-track: but it's more surprising, maybe, that the title cut was in fact a big radio hit.

Or maybe it's not. There's certainly an immediate musical appeal, from the pseudo-classical piano introduction to the warm tones of the distorted bass—that's a Big Muff Pi, if I'm not mistaken, which might have given Gabriel a moment of amusement in his gynophobic delirium—and the ostinato of rippling 8th-notes over a harmonic framework that reminds me inexplicably of later Duke Ellington. Collins has chops, but he's overly-busy—he had not yet learned to hit a groove and stick to it. Gabriel, though, is at his apex: for all the pomp and self-importance, his phrasing is wonderfully conversational, and his tone makes the most of the inherent drama. The grainy snarl of the verses gives way to the shocking beauty of the brief tag (And the la-a-amb... lies do-o-own...) that serves as a chorus, then turns intimate, almost tender, at the bridge before exploding into the last verse with fresh fury.

And lyrically, it's probably the most accessible piece here. It's a surreal urban travelogue that sets the scene for the rest, but stands on its own perfectly well. The details are pithy and well-observed (The trucker's eyes read "Overload"), and even the introduction of the protagonist doesn't bind the song to the context of the story as a whole—although perhaps that's because for ages I misheard his name: so when our hero lets out his cry of identity I'm Rael, it became instead (for me) a universal cry of individual authenticity in the face of a plastic consensual reality—I'm real!

And I was, you know. And it seemed worthwhile to be reminded, once in a while. When I disovered, years later, that The Lamb was a load of made-up hoo-hah from a sexually-insecure Englishman looking to reclaim his vitality by pretending to be a Puerto Rican street punk, it was a letdown—but I was still as real as ever I was.

Rollin' and Tumblin'

Welcome back to 1975, when a wholly instrumental, fuso-muso wankfest could hit #4 on the album charts, as long as it was produced by George Martin: proof, if more were needed, that mid-70s America was ripped to the tits on Platinum Maxwell House.

Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow is reputed to be one of those "made on drugs to be played on drugs" records—and the name alone, along with song titles like "Diamond Dust," oughtta give you some idea of the drugs we're talking about, here. Never tried the charlie myself (I always liked Bill Cosby's line about the ol' Septum Blizzard: "They say it intensifies your personality. Well, yes. But what if you're an asshole?"), but I've got a fondness for this disc, especially for "Freeway Jam." For all coke's reputation as a drug of excess, "Freeway Jam" is an object lesson in making something out of (nearly) nothing.

(I realize that I'm violating the ground rules I laid out at the beginning of this week, here—endearing this record is, but not actually crummy. Also, Beck's pedigree with the Yardbirds et al. pre-dates the Seventies. But if Beck, like Stevie Wonder—who, not coincidentally, is all over Blow By Blow—came of age in the Sixties, then he, also like Stevie, truly came into his powers in the Seventies—and also like Stevie has ever been pressed to match his triumphs of that decade: while Jeff Beck may have owned the Seventies, the Faustian upshot was that the Seventies would ever after own him.¹)

Cross-fading from the frenetic "Thelonius" (the songs on Blow By Blow segue into each other) in a soft patter of Richard Bailey's snare drum, a series of rolls and snaps resolves into a loose, head-bobbing jive. The band, such as it is, enters for the long intro—just a bass ostinato and a Fender Rhodes ping-ponging sparse chords across the stereo field, with Beck himself (his tone processed to a bowel-loosening roar) sends a series of virtuoso pings and squeals echoing into the spacious groove. So far, there's not a whiff of melody, or even structure—it's not music so much as pure, distilled attitude. It's Mexican stoplight candy, growling at idle, jaw-dropping even when it's going nowhere.

When the melody arrives, it's a simple, pretty thing, soaring over a sudden percolation in the bassline that manages to recall both Steely Dan's "Reeling In The Years" and John Cale's "Mercenaries (Ready For War)." (Undying love and a big wet sloppy kiss to the first home-recordist ProTools geek who creates a mash-up of these three—to be titled "Ready For The Freeway [The War Years]," or perhaps "Road Warrior Reel." Lenlow, I'm lookin' at you.)

Naturally, it's fabulous music to drive by—but without the nervous energy that underlies most great driving songs ("Radar Love," for instance—that's a tension headache with horn charts). It's muscular yet casual, the sound of four tip-top session guys at the peak of their powers, offhanded and unhurried but with horses to spare, a performance vehicle with nowhere special to go, in no particular hurry to get there, just enjoying the drive.

Va-va-va-vrrroom, baby.

¹ Credit where it's due: I first heard this joke about Milton Nascimento, in (I think) an old issue of Musician, which was, for a while, a remarkably well-written magazine—but, as with many things, when the rot set in, it set in fast.

How Do You Like It?

Ah, Andrea True, where are ye now?

It's funny how memory plays tricks on you, and how a visual can effect your perception of a song. I missed "More, More, More" when it first came out, and knew it mainly from a hoary video that used to show up on VH1 now and then—a clip from the old Don Kirschner's Rock Concert, showing Ms. True alone on stage, nearly immobile in movement-constricting hot pants, lip-synching in a perfunctory manner, face blank from boredom or Quaaludes—every inch an autopilot pornbot.

When I remembered the song at all, I recalled something cold and affectless, straight pulsing fours and disengaged vocals—something vaguely European, proto-electro in the Grace Jones stylee.

Imagine my delight, then, to re-encounter the song itself and to hear how joyous and human it sounds. Barrelhouse piano, and sunny acoustic guitars; a horn section that sounds like a moonlightling Dixieland group, eschewing the staccato jabs of Motown for a warm interplay, including an extended flugelhorn solo (!); and a rhythm that actually swings, clip-cloppy woodblock and all¹.

The greatest revelation, though, is Andrea's voice. It's not a big instrument, but her wry, amused delivery suits the wink-nudge lyrics—equating voyeurism with true love—to a tee. (Imagine—a porn starlet sings about the joys of making porno. Write what you know, I guess.)²

¹ I can't find any information about the personnel of that swingin' little band, I fear. And the actual sound of the record is due mainly to producer/arranger Gregg Diamond, who proves equally mysterious: I couldn't even get a definitive spelling of his name, which may in fact have been "Greg."

I gather, however, that he was the same Gregg Diamond who played with Jobriath, the allegedly-unjustly-neglected glam-queer pioneer—to whom I was recently introduced by Fluxblog, and who's sure to merit an entry of his own at some point (perhaps along with the Moby Grape) as an exemplar of the dangers of industry hype.

² So where is Andrea True now? Long retired from the music biz, after recurrent throat ailments robbed her of what little voice she had. She lives in Florida, works as a psychic reader, and to all appearances has her head screwed on straight—which is usually more than one can hope for in from either an ex-porn star or an ex-pop star, let alone both. Good on you, Andrea: that's how I like it.

(Hat + Beard = Jazz) – 64 Bars = Pop

These days, Chuck Mangione is best-known (if he's known at all) for his scoring and occasional self-mocking appearances on King Of The Hill. But back in the day, friends, this elfin, beardy man in his weird Amish hat was a genuine hitmaker—and on the flugelhorn, no less. The last gasp of jazz as a truly popular music, or The Kenny G. Before Kenny G.? Let's investigate, shall we?

It turns out ol' Chuck is a Rochester native (his keyboardist brother Gap still lives and gigs in the Flower City), and is something of a local legend. His biggest hit, "Feels So Good," justifies that legend from a purely compositional standpoint: Listened to without prejudice, it's a flat-out gorgeous tune—soaring and weaving, instantly memorable, simple enough to whistle but unfolding through its three sections with a pleasing intricacy in the changes. Kenny will never write a tune this good.

The band's pretty hot, too—drums, electric guitars, Rhodes, funky bass, and alto sax: they're listening to each other, and having fun. But Chuck can't seem to get out of his own way, and allows himself precious little fun: the album version of "Feels So Good" is nearly ten minutes long, and outstays its welcome.

There are six full choruses, four of which simply state the theme in its entirety: Chuck plays it twice for starters (including a horn-guitar intro in free time), hands it off to the guitarist, then allows a mere two choruses of solos—the big, honking alto rushing off for parts unknown (sounding impatient—at four-and-a-half minutes in, no one has yet done anything that could be categorized as improvisation) and a corker from the guitar—tasteful, imaginative, and impeccably played. Then we're back to Chuck for the wrap-up—and finally, a vamp, Chuck trading fours with the sax over a I-VIm-IV-V two-step until the fadeout. It's the only time on the side when he cuts loose, and it literally only lasts a minute.

There's some interesting stuff going on here, musically—the guitars drenched in 70s phasing effects (recalling the mighty "I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun"), the long pseudo-Latin headfake of a vamp, the contrast of the R&B-style sax with the more bebop influence in the guitar, the nod to Miles in the breathy tone of Chuck's intro. But overall, the album version of "Feels So Good" is the sound of one idea being beaten slowly to death.

But of course this isn't the version I remember hearing when I was a kid. The pop-radio edit was a different beast, lean and nimble—skipping the long solo intro, truncating the band's opening vamp, and eliminating at least one chorus: if I recall correctly, the two guitar solos were spliced together, so that the guitar started off playing the melody and shifted gears halfway through. The end result was tighter—short enough to fit on a 45 RPM single, perfect for pop radio—but also, ironically, more in the classic jazz structure of head-multiple improvs-recap.

Musicians in pre-CD days often bitched about how their songs were trimmed for airplay—Billy Joel, in an early lyric, snarled that he spent years writing the perfect song, but "they cut it down to 3:05"—but the smartest of them will admit that sometimes it works. My opinion of Ray Manzarek skyrocketed when I heard him tell the story of how producer Paul Rothchild did a drastic cut-and-paste (mostly cut) edit of "Light My Fire" for pop radio—without consent of The Doors. After their initial tantrums, Rothchild persuaded the group to listen to the remix as if hearing the song for the first time—and all of them were forced to concede that it was a damned fine pop song.

The album and single versions of "Light My Fire" are two different songs, Manzarek says—one an eight-minute, exploratory rock epic with a Coltrane fixation, the other a two-and-a-half minute teen-pop hookfest. Neither version is "definitive," and which version Manzarek himself prefers depends upon his mood at the time.

Radio: the Reader's Digest of pop.
Remixers: its Strunk and White.

Or something.

Here There Be Dragons

Inaugurating a week-long series on endearingly crummy pop songs of the 1970s. For all the conventional wisdom that the Seventies were the Beginning of the End for Pop (wisdom usually mouthed by our bitter Boomer elders, because everything was so much cooler [read: they were themselves still young and sexy] in their precious Sixties), there's a slapdash quality to the charts of the day that gives the enterprise a certain bracing charm. It's remarkable to think that some of these unlikely songs were ever radio hits.

First case in point...

The Captain and Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" has a resurgent ubiquity, thanks to a US clothing retailer's ad campaign. When I heard the song on the radio a few months ago, not having heard it in about twenty years, I was struck by what an odd-sounding record this is.

It manages to give the overall impression of standard 1970s studio-hack pop, but listen closely: it's all keyboards. There are bits that sound like guitars amid the throbbing pianos, but they're synthesizers. The bass a buzzy MiniMoog. (The drums, courtesy of legendary sessionman Hal Blaine, are real enough, but their pattern is so basic that it may as well be a Rhythm Ace.)

The surface slickness is all down to Toni Tennille's voice, which owes a lot to pre-rock pop. She's a Southern Belle-ter of the Dinah Shore school, and her pipes lend the whole operation an air of class. But the music surrounding her has the funky, homemade goodness of two people goofing around in the studio—which was exactly the case. (Of course, they had the A-list of pro songwriters—in this case Neil Sedaka—feeding them material, so there's that.)

Weirdly, "Love Will Keep Us Together" starts to sound like proto-electronica, and the Captain and Tennille start to look like a blueprint for the electro-duos that followed: the "Captain," Daryl Dragon (who had been a member of the Beach Boys touring band), was the taciturn musical mastermind—when the duo had their own TV show in the 70s, Dragon's shtick was that he never spoke and rarely changed expression—conducting the proceedings from behind immense racks of keyboards, and was known as a control freak in the studio. Toni Tennille, though herself a fine pianist, was the very picture of the extroverted frontperson, all gleaming teeth and big, brassy voice.

You can draw a straight line from "Muskrat Love" to Suicide to Erasure and the Pet Shop Boys to Fischerspooner. Such are the strange secret histories of pop.

This Town Of Lights

Though I lived in Syracuse for a couple of years while going to school, I only ever saw the NiMo one time. I've got a terrible sense of direction and I don't generally stray far from home, so it takes me a long time to really learn my way around a city unless I make a concerted effort; hell, there was a downtown comics shop that Steve and I must have visited a dozen times, and I could never find it without his help. And so with the NiMo—that's the Niagara Mohawk Power building—I just never got down to that end of Erie Boulevard, I guess.

I no longer remember the exact circumstances under which I first saw it—I remember I was driving around lost, but that could have been almost any day; I think it was night-time, and I think I was looking for Rosie O'Grady's Blind Pig Saloon. In any case, I remember how this huge and unexpected Art Deco monster loomed up, a shocking concoction of planes and angles and figurative filigree. I remember I slowed down and nearly ran off the road. I saw something like this:

You've got to keep in mind how absolutely unprecedented this seemed, in the bleak post-industrial cityscape that surrounds it. Imagine a Moorish castle plopped down in the slag-heaps of Pittsburgh—and then forgotten: that's how the NiMo seemed—like an alien artifact left to moulder in an unlikely spot. It gave the impression, in that dusty, gray concrete vista, of being overgrown with weeds—even though there wasn't a patch of green in sight. It was and remains a working building, yes, but it somehow seemed abandoned. Remember the phone booth in the desert, that mini-meme of the Web's early days? The NiMo gave me a similar feeling of mingled wonder and loneliness.

I had no inkling of its historical and architectural significance, then. I could never find it again, and I really didn't want to: in the years since, I became half-convinced that I'd dreamed the whole thing.

But no. The NiMo has been rediscovered, restored, and presented again to the world—and better than I'd ever imagined

For when I saw the NiMo, in the late 1980s, it was darkened: but in its original conception—and in the recent restoration—this temple of electricity, as befits its role, is constructed not just of stone and steel, but of light.

I think of the end of Close Encounters, when the Mothership—which up 'til then has been known and understood only in dreams, obsessions, and prophecies—swells up over the butte, exploding from the world of the visionary into the realm of the real, huge and solid and wondrous and of breathtaking craftsmanship: a bridge between worlds, crafted, like a vast Wurlitzer jukebox, as much from light and sound as matter.