Crash the Generations

My 7-year-old son is learning to play Jake Bugg's "Lightning Bolt" on guitar at the YMCA. It's with no small pride that I learned he suggested that the class learn it -- and that his young hip teacher had to look it up first.

And I'm thrilled -- only secretly -- on those days he comes home from the Y requesting I play some awful autotuned pop-rap he heard after school, and load it onto the playlist for trips in the car. He likes music. I like music. We share what we like with one another.

"Just about everyone I know gets excited when they talk about sharing their favorite music with their kids," says Garland Jeffreys, writing on a new website devoted to that very topic. And he's right. The site was inspired by the new song, "Collide the Generations" that itself was inspired by the musical relationship between Jeffreys and his daughter. The song sounds like an exciting new take on "Gimmee Some Lovin" and the video -- consisting of photographs submitted by fans of their kids -- is pretty cool too.

Garland Jefferies has been around since I was a kid. I can remember ESCAPE ARTIST getting some play on WPLJ in the early 1980s but nothing much ever seemed to come of it. Further explorations of his soulful and gritty stuff only reveals how massively overlooked an artist he is. Play this one for your kids:

The Hottest Band in the Land

Gene $immons doesn't need to squeeze another penny out of the KISS merchandise vault so I urge you: Do like I did and get the new biography NOTHIN' TO LOSE from your local library, and not from your local or virtual bookstore. I'll be returning my copy to Mid-Manhattan Library at 5th and 41st any day now so there's at least one out there.

The book, credited to Gene, bandmate Paul Stanley, and longtime KISS Kronikler Ken Sharp, is an oral history focusing exclusively on the period between 1972 and 1975 when KISS was formed, signed, released four albums, toured the country, and transformed from complete unknowns to fire-breathing arena superstars. It is a remarkable and absurd American success story.

Back in the 70s, my brother was a Kiss Army soldier, so I was quite familiar with the band, particularly the versions of songs off their first three studio albums whose live versions comprised 1975's careermaking ALIVE! double-set. Strongly influenced by prevailing critical opinions and a need to zig where my brother zagged, I outwardly expressed disdain for it all, even as I found the whole thing psychically and visually intriguing. Musically, I could take or leave them. Paul can be an exciting vocalist, and they had some fun rockin' tunes, but I found the lyrics idiotic even then. Their vision of being a heavier version of the Beatles was better conceptually than ever executed. They were a band for 9-year-olds when I was 11.

I learned some interesting things: Paul and Gene walked away from a record offer from their first band together, Wicked Lester, mainly because they themselves didn't believe in the music or the band's prospects. And they describe how they reached to find musicians to achieve their musical goals, even as it meant gambling on guys who'd prove difficult to work with: The sour and doubt-riddled drummer Peter Criss; and the talented but hard-partying lead guitarist Ace Frehley (whose own autobiography, NO REGRETS, skims over entire years he simply cannot remember). Weird, green, outer-borough Jews they may have been but KISS knew what they wanted. Their naked ambition to make it saw them hauling empty boxes disguised as Marshall amplifiers to shows, shop for costumes and props at pet stores and S&M shops and learn stage tricks from vaudeville magicians. They played local shows infrequently, giving audiences the illusion they were out touring the world while in reality they were incessantly rehearsing in a 23rd Street loft. Carefully manipulated appearances and press (thanks, Gene) helped them leapfrog contemporaries with more experience, bigger fanbases and better chops.

The big idea behind the kabuki makeup and stageshow was to consolidate the gains the band Alice Cooper had made in terms of rock theatrics, but advance them by making each member of the band as distinct as Alice Cooper the singer. It was brilliant (Alice Cooper, as noted in the below post, was just about to recede). And Kiss showed a terrific instinct for image-conscious management: they employed a gay game-show producer, Bill Aucoin, as their manager. Aucoin's lover, Sean Delaney, would take charge of their flamboyant stage show. And when they signed a record contract, it was with bubblegum maven Neil Bogart's upstart Casablanca label, which might have been the only company crazy enough to bankroll KISS through its spectacularly unprofitable early years when they toured like crazy but sold almost nothing and were all but ignored by radio. The music by definition almost always took a backseat. Even fully-realized early KISS classics like "Strutter" tend to be marred by muddy recordings, and the studio albums from this period (KISS and HOTTER THAN HELL from 1974 and DRESSED TO KILL from early 1975) were hasty affairs largely written and performed on the spot between punishing cross-country road trips.

A wealth of interviews with KISS' road crew -- not to mention remarks from bands unfortunate enough to share billing with KISS in those years -- will leave you with little doubt as to KISS' work ethic. Yet the 500-page book still doesn't tell quite enough: Paul Stanley of all people emerges as the most instrumental of KISS's creators: A young, ambitious frontman, graduate of a Manhattan performing arts high school, and a student of English psych-rock groups like the Move. We also get the impression he's a sensitive former fat kid. Of course, he's got his own autobiography in the works, perhaps he addresses the elephant of his sexuality and his other motivations there.

The band-approved bio never strays too far from the company line. While KISS's alleged skill at blowing other bands off the stage is repeated over and over, about the worst thing other quoted musicians have to say about them in the book was that their music was "dumb" or the act was "corny" (true and true). Most in fact speak about how gentlemanly and gracious they were. The book is admirable in scope: It includes remarks from the kids pictured holding the banner on the back cover of the ALIVE! album and the photographer who got the shot; club owners; DJs; roadies; PR folks; lawyers; and fans. There's a funny chapter devoted to a kissing promotion built around the cut "Kissin' Time" -- a Bobby Rydell cover the band had no interest in even recording but was snuck onto copies of the first album at Bogart's behest. The photos are great and include Gene Simmons' handwritten notes (he liked Paul's hilarious raps in ALIVE!).

The book ends as ALIVE!'s success and sold-out arenas begin at last to generate some money after years at the brink of financial ruin -- and before Gene's arrogant materialism and the band's refusal to evolve became an attribute of the KISS brand every bit as recognizable as the greasepaint. KISS would have a few more good tunes in the coming years but not a whole lot of new ideas. Their most recent album includes a song where Gene and Paul sing about, uh, a cruise ship -- "Take Me Down Below" -- with lyrics so stupid its as though they were daring us to recall Marty DiBergy: "...treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality. ... the musical growth cannot be charted..."

Of the LPs covered in the book, the debut album -- including songs like "Deuce" and "Strutter" that are as old as the band itself -- offers the best representation of what KISS was aspiring to. I even like the spiritedly ridiculous remash of "Kissin Time." (In general, I like the songs where Gene and Paul trade vocals, even the Catman gets in a verse in Kissin Time). The band itself have few good things to say about the rushed follow-up HOTTER THAN HELL, though it includes Gene's weird horror-movie love ballad "Goin Blind." DRESSED TO KILL contains their eventual breakout single "Rock & Roll All Night" but also, Gene reveals, stuff dating to their Wicked Lester days as they were typically crushed for time. From this I like Paul's Todd Rundgren ripoff "Love Her All I Can." Of course many of these tunes are best showcased on ALIVE! which as Paul remarks in the book, really puts the listener in the middle of the crowd, and at the just the right moment.

Here's a playlist I whipped up from the first three, plus the aforementioned naughty nautical from 2012. Enjoy! Rdio is free!

Hello. Hooray!

Michael Walker's WHAT YOU WANT IS IN THE LIMO isn't nearly as salacious as the title or the cover art suggests, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's a fast account of three bands (Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin and the Who); their respective 1973 albums (BILLION DOLLAR BABIES, HOUSES OF THE HOLY, QUADROPHENIA); and the associated American tours that, as the book's subtitle suggests, marked the birth of the modern rock superstar and the death of the 1960s.

That last point is the central theme and common thread linking these stories, as Walker argues how these three tours represented the moment at which the appetite for rock created by the musicians of the 1960s is sated only without what Walker calls that era's "boring poli-sci socio-overlay" of bands that felt they needed to be in solidarity with their audience. The tours of 1973 -- played in sports arenas, by bands that arrived by private jet, fueled by drugs, elevated by onstage theatrics, sleazed up by groupies -- illustrated a cold new remove from fans that is the common lot of the Superstar.

A key to this newfound power were strong-armed managers --Led Zeppelin's thuggish Peter Grant for one -- who flipped the traditional financial model, giving the entertainers the gate proceeds and forcing promoters to line up for a cut. This slick innovation afforded the excesses of drugs, private planes and bills for destroyed hotel rooms the tours became notorious for.

Having only recently suffered through Pete Townshend's dull autobiography, the Who's struggles to bring the innovative but then-underappreciated QUADROPHENIA to life were quite familiar; my takeaway from Zeppelin was a new appreciation for Robert Plant's desire for stardom and John Bonham's propensity to be a violent douchebag. That left the tale of Alice Cooper, whose theatrical shows reached a new peak in '73 just as the band was splintering under the strain of drink, drugs and the act itself. And though Cooper would be the first to fall, all three bands entered a decline phase following 73, culminating of course in the drink/drug related deaths of Moon and then Bonham by the decade's end.

I gave BILLION DOLLAR BABIES a whirl to accompany this book and was impressed with the muscle and glam (produced by Bob Ezrin who'd do a similar trick polishing Cooper's descendant KISS-- another topic I hope to get to soon). Overall, LIMO isn't as quite as electrifying as the albums or tours it covers but as a succeeds as a quick overview of the wild era that birthed them.

Sundown

Any writer who's ever been frustrated by an inaccessible interview subject ought to appreciate the unique and daring workaround Dave Bidini finds in his gonzo biography of Canadian folk balladeer Gordon Lightfoot.

WRITING GORDON LIGHTFOOT has Bidini -- himself a Canadian musician -- writing about Lightfoot by writing to him, in a series of direct and slashingly revealing letters. These are interspersed with chapters detailing Toronto's 1972 Mariposa folk festival in which Lightfoot met Bob Dylan, and other goings-on that week in Canada and in the world (the Fisher-Spassky chess match in Iceland; the largest jailbreak in Canadian history; controversy over Bobby Hull's flight to the WHA; the solar eclipse mentioned in "You're So Vain" etc etc etc). His stuff on the jailbreak and hockey is often hilarious and serves to flesh out a sketch of the cultural landscape of the time.

The heart of the book are the letters, through which we learn that Lightfoot is not just famously private but may or may not be harboring resentment over remarks the writer himself had made in the past. Lightfoot is a huge figure in Canada, basically the first pop star to sing about Canada, but maybe also, a bit of an asshole, particularly in 1972. Telling that story while ostensibly addressing said asshole directly I found to be just astonishingly daring as a writer and one conclusion you could draw is that it takes one to know one. But as said above it's also very funny, and softens a bit as Bidini sort of takes in what he's done. I give it two lightfeet up.

Years ago, driving from Toronto to Montreal and back we tuned in a public-radio station doing a countdown of the most important Canadian songs of all time. As I recall it, Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" topped the list: I don't know if I'd ever heard it before then. Like many of my classmates in fifth grade, I owned a copy of his "Edmund Fitzgerald" on 45 -- what I didn't understand then was that it was true story, almost to the detail. The one that still gets me today though is "Sundown," a gorgeous song with vicious lyrics detailing a volatile relationship and substance abuse. Also a true story.

What I Like About Them

It's not entirely accurate to describe the Romantics as a band that never got its proper due. After all, they authored a song that will live for as long as there's consumer brands desperate to appear energetic and fun; and they were all over the place in 1983 behind the huge hit "Talkin in Your Sleep." Plenty of bands out there would do well to be remembered for less.

All the same, there was more to the Romantics than irresistible dance-rockers bludgeoned into oblivion in beer commercials.

The Romantics emerged from Detroit in the late 1970s bringing a lively mix of influences: Hard-rocking Detroit garage staples like vintage Bob Seger and the MC5, and an obvious affection for British Invasion pop of the Animals, the Beatles and the Kinks. They played with energy and style, though the red-leather suits and boofy hairdos would contribute to a sense of their datedness soon enough.

Their 1979 debut album deals one splendid power popper after another, leading off with the frenetic "When I Look In Your Eyes" -- an inside-out version of "What I Like About You" with the benefit of not having been played to death. Energetic rockers "Tell It to Carrie," "Keep in Touch" and "First in Line" roar to life behind the spastic drumming of Jimmy Marinos and simple licks from guitarists Mike Skill and Wally Palmar. Ramshackle delivery was part of the charm: Palmar sung lead of most of their songs with a slight lisp.



The following album NATIONAL BREAKOUT (1980) was nearly as accomplished as the debut but didn't reach the prophecy of its title: Despite candidates like the rockabilly opener "Tomboy," it didn't produce a hit. "What I Like About You" in the meantime was ascending: Its initial release charted as high as #49 in the U.S., but then it flew to #2 in Australia, then slowly crept into rock-radio playlists, and finally went over the top accompanying Budweiser commercials. At some level I think the song's appeal is in its cheerful immediacy: There's probably quite a bit not to like about this girl who really knows how to dance, comes over whenever you call, whispers in your ear, etc., but this isn't about that. Not right now it's not.

New guitarist Coz Cansler brings a louder, harder edge to STRICTLY PERSONAL (1981), the Romantics' third album which sounds more Proto Hair Metal than Retro British Invasion. Slightly toned down and slicker, IN HEAT (1983) would be their biggest seller, producing radio/MTV hits like "Talkin in Your Sleep" and "One in a Million" along with more underexposed rockers like "Rock You Up" and a sizzling cover of Richard and the Young Lions' "Open Up Your Door."

Personnel and management issues would eventually consume the Romantics. Mike Skill departed for PERSONAL but returned as a bass player for IN HEAT. But they were never quite the same after Marinos departed following IN HEAT (the Internet suggests he had a solo/frontman career in mind but it never took off). For the Romantics it was as if Keith Moon died: The 1985 album RHYTHM ROMANCE flopped commercially and critically. Years of lawsuits followed, some chasing down revenues lost to widespread and unauthorized licensing of "What I Like About You" (according to Wikipedia the song was used to promote Budwesier, Barbie Dolls, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Papa John's, Esurance, Disney, Sea World, Toyota and T.G.I. Fridays, among others. No wonder we're all sick of it). But it wasn't their only accomplishment, if you wanna love them some more.

My Date with the Bee Gees

I learned something new on just about every page of David N. Meyer's new Bee Gees biography, although your mileage may vary. The Bee Gees aren't one of those bands I simply hadn't gotten around to: This was a group I'd spent most of my life purposefully avoiding.

A little context: I was in sixth grade when SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER went nuclear, though my opinion on the whole phenomenon would be expressed best by The Who, who said goodbye to "Sister Disco" and preached "Long Live Rock." This all fed a strong adolescent distaste for dancing, falsetto singing voices, music that girls liked, white satin costumes, "bands" that were really singers backed by studio pros and orchestras, on and on. It was an enduring prejudice of mine, surely injected at some level with racial and homophobic overtones, but one shared by almost all of my friends then, and many, I'd guess, still today. If nothing else, the Bee Gees of the 1970s and 1980s were awfully popular and what was cool about that?

As such they've become one of great challenges of the Desert Island Mix Tape project, and I accompanied Meyer's book by streaming the entire backcatalog of the Brothers Gibb at Rdio.

Let's begin with the book, which is deeply researched, and assertively told, mainly through revisiting contemporary accounts. The Gibbs (Barry, and his twin younger brothers Robin and Maurice) were born on the Isle of Man where their father Hugh worked as a semi-pro musician. They relocated to Manchester, then to Brisbane, Australia -- a common solution for post-war English families on the dole.

The Gibbs, Meyer writes, were delinquent middle-school drop-out pyromaniacs who otherwise were consumed by singing and encouraged -- but not overbearingly so -- by loving if insensible parents. Success as teen recording stars in Australia fed a hunger for more back in England, which came almost immediately through a fortuitous connection with manager Robert Stigwood, who had outsized ambitions of his own.

Some early Bee Gees recordings recall the Beatles, but others sound the Band, or the Kinks. Early masterpiece "To Love Somebody," Meyer writes, was the greatest Otis Redding song never performed by him. The Bee Gees wrote all their own songs (I didn't know that) and Barry emerges as a kind of brilliant craftsman in the medium of pop: He could crank out songs in almost any style, with a particular skill for capturing what was on or close to the edge of what's massively popular, carried through with wonderful three-part harmony singing ("a sound only brothers could make," as Stigwood described it).

At the same time, the Gibbs couldn't read a note of music, and, as Meyer notes, were often publically ridiculous and wrenchingly naive. Tensions emerge between alpha brother Barry and the melodramatic Robin (Maurice, the youngest, may have been the best pure musician of the three but adopted a conciliatory, "middle brother" role and didn't often engage in the ongoing competition for the spotlight between his brothers, Meyers writes). The brothers carried out these battles on the pages of the rock press with such tactless naievete it will make your hair hurt.

A reconciliation, Barry's discovery of a falsetto range, and a new producer (Arif Mardin) encouraging pursuit of a soul groove, led to 1975's groundbreaking MAIN COURSE album featuring "Jive Talkin'" and "Nights on Broadway," and it was off to the disco from there. Their tunes would provide the backbone for Stigwood's FEVER film and Barry would settle into a decade-long groove penning No. 1 singles for anyone (the Bee Gees, Kenny Rogers, Barbra Streisand, Dionne Warwick, his doomed youngest brother Andy, etc etc).

The ensuing disco backlash and their subsequent participation in Stigwood's awful "Sgt. Pepper" film (to which Meyer devotes an entire chapter) again turned the Gibbs into a kind of inconsequential, non-rock joke. At the same time they very much lived like rock stars: Robin battled an amphetamine addiction most of life; Maurice drank to excess; and Andy's taste for cocaine killed him at age 30. Barry (a pothead, but mostly high on his own gigantic ego, Meyer suggests) outlives all three of his younger siblings.

Meyer's book is loaded with strong and wildly varying opinions on the Bee Gee's music and its critical reception. Jive Talkin' is "one of the best singles ever cut" while entire albums are dismissed as "shockingly weak" (E.S.P.) or "by any reasonable standard, terrible" (High Civilization). As such the book has encountered plenty of criticism from fans, including some who have pointed out enough factual goofs to cast some doubt on Meyer's larger conclusions. In the end though, even the most ignorant haters (like, uh, adolescent me) ought to be convinced of their importance and place in rock history.

Spinning nearly the entire BeeGee catalog (more than 20 original albums not including solo Gibb records) generally reinforced the common perception that even the worst Bee Gees album can be counted on to include two or three strong pop tunes. Beyond the early standards ("New York Mining Disaster," "Massachusetts," "To Love Somebody") I was surprised at the listenability of lightly-regarded LPs like 1970's off-kilter CUCUMBER CASTLE. The sterile, "light rock" aim of the latter records make them considerably less attractive in my opinion, but they might still surprise you. I stayed alive anyway.

Favorites of 2013

Another December, another realization that I hadn't the vaguest notion as to what was hot and/or well-regarded this year, despite consuming what for me felt like a lot of newly released music. And so the countdown below once again is my favorites of the year -- not necessarily the best.

For me, 2013 challenged expectations as new albums from artists I'd only recently came to know had me reassessing on the fly. Frank Turner and Brett Dennen each made good records in 2013 but I'm not sure if either artist really evolved to my satisfaction. There are fewer artists from my youth cracking the 2013 list than in 2012; but the sounds of the old days remain well-represented.

And so, on with the Dad-Rock Top Ten. Thanks to the youtubers out there!

Ron Sexsmith: FOREVER ENDEAVOR
The gentle Canadian folkie eschewed the big rock production of his last LP and did a delicate thing loaded with french horns and strings, and in the case of the below song -- a classic soul knockout punch I never see coming.


Jonathan Wilson: FANFARE
I'd never even heard of this guy until a few months ago, but he did a terrific sounding, evocative double-album recalling 70s artists ranging from John Lennon to Dennis Wilson to CSNY to Steely Dan in the below cut:




The Candles: LA CANDELARIA
This is Norah Jones' backup band doing an easy country rock groove, reminiscent of Ben Kweller's recent work. Goes down easy.



The Virgins: STRIKE GENTLY
In the year that Lou Reed died, here's a very New York City-sounding band whose intimate vocals and relaxed coolness might remind you. (Don't get too attached, as I just read this band has already broken up).



The Fratellis: WE NEED MEDICINE
And here's a band that got back together in 2013: Gallops out of the gate with five straight rip-roaring, beer-chugging anthems. They don't hold much back.



Jake Bugg: SHANGRI-LA
I have seen the future of skiffle .... and it's name is Jake Bugg.



Johnny Marr: THE MESSENGER
I never cared for the Smiths, Johnny's not much of a singer, and the production is too loud, but the man can rock.



Josh Ritter: THE BEAST IN ITS TRACKS
Folkie explores unraveling relationships and grief with maturity and eloquence. This song about collateral damage just knocks me out even though (because?) it reminds me of Paul Simon's "Under African Skies." Beautifully done.



Valley Lodge: USE YOUR WEAPONS
Power-pop band led by comedian Dave Hill delivers on the power and comedy. Not too serious but serious fun: Put your restless heart in my restless hands.



John Paul Keith: MEMPHIS CIRCA 3AM
Sun Records style roots rocker recalls Elvis, Johnny, Roy, Marshall Crenshaw and Chris Isaak. Sizzling!


But there's more! I culled these 10 from an an ongoing list of songs I liked as I streamed them at Rdio. The playlist probably works best as a shuffle.