Unfolding Enveloping Missiles of Soul

Pretty cool! A listening project I joined with some of my friends at Rdio was gathered together, edited and turned into a very readable and entertaining post spanning the career of the Beach Boys, published this morning on Modern Superior, "Toronto's premier podcast network and blog for content featuring comedy, pop-culture, film, craft beer, general nostalgia, music and more."

I meant at some point to get around to writing about the experience here but the idea came from my Rdio pal Dave Roberts and involved tackling one Beach Boys album a day for a month, or until they were done, to mark the 50th anniversary of the band. I got into it while concurrently reading Timothy White's excellent bio, THE NEAREST FARAWAY PLACE, which tells a comprehensive tale the sad and troubled family at the heart of so much great original American music.

As I relate in the remarks, I arrived in the Beach Boys story as the ENDLESS SUMMER compilation of 1960s hits arrived in my sister's record collection when I was a 4th grader. I was an instant fan but it was a mixed blessing for the band which at the time saw attention including mine diverted from their own efforts to stretch out musically. This so-called "progressive" period under Jack Rieley's management (roughly, the SUNFLOWER to HOLLAND albums) was something of a revelatory listen for me, and only reinforces the sadness of witnessing the group's spiral into the cruise-ship band they'd become by the 1980s.

Author Dan Gorman of the Modern Superior piece put together the below playlist of obscure but very listenable Beach Boys tracks:

You Can Only Hope to Hear Me

Joe Jackson's A CURE FOR GRAVITY ends where the musician's career begins: Having established an aggressive-but-accessible new wave sound and a snotty persona to accompany it. The year was 1979.

Though I might not have been able to express it this way at the time, it was clear that the attitude even then was thick with bluster and irony. Joe Jackson didn't really look sharp: He was a skinny, balding geek desperate to convince himself of his sharpness. You gotta look sharp, he said, as though looking in a mirror. The same sentiment is more directly confessed --  "I wash my hair and kid myself I look real smooth" -- in the snarky "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" from the same album.

As a pissed-off, pimply 13-year-old it resonated deeply. Here was a loser I could get behind. Tight, tuneful, energetic. Sharp.

A CURE FOR GRAVITY -- the book is 15 years old, but I read it only recently -- documents how Joe got there, from piano lessons as a sickly child in the rugged port city of Portsmouth to his pursuit of a degree (in percussion) at the Royal Academy of Music in London where his classmates included a young Annie Lennox. In between, Joe (then an aspiring composer going by his given name of David) performed in a variety of styles, from piano bars to lounge acts, school jazz bands, a fringe theater group, and a struggling rock band, Edward Bear, which given the right breaks just might have consigned the artist to a career like Greg Hawkes of the Cars: the quirky, odd-looking keyboard player and nobody's idea of a front man.

This eclectic education helps to explain the frequent shifts in styles Joe would pursue following establishment of the "Look Sharp" sound of his beloved first two-and-a-half records (film scores, baroque pop, Latin, swing, jazz etc). At the time of this book he was pushing SYMPHONY No. 1, which I still haven't gotten around to yet but in my opinion most of what Joe has tried he's succeeded at: And not entirely because he's a pissed off guy determined to prove it but because he deeply believes in the power of music. The book is very candid and at times quite funny: Joe doesn't pull a lot of punches and writes eloquently, whether he's debating performance vs. art, recalling the random violence of the 70s club scene in depressed England, or discussing doomed relationships including a nightmarish first marriage.

I checked a box on the bucket list when Joe Jackson came to New York a few years back to support his recent collection of Duke Ellington interpretations. Longtime bassman Graham Maby was not there (dervishy percussionist Sue Hadjoupos from the NIGHT AND DAY group was) but the band otherwise was outstanding, highlighting Joe's skill as an arranger. The below video (from Paris about a month later) was about the same show we got. Dig the tuba-banjo-accordion reworking of "Is She Really Going Out With Him" at 1:34ish but really the whole show is great if you got the (1-2-3-4!) time.

Shout It Out Loud

For a guy who allegedly hates KISS, I finished my third book on the subject.

I'd learned in the last one I tackled that it was Paul Stanley, and not as I had long assumed, Gene Simmons, who was the real force behind KISS, yet as entertaining as that book was, there was much of the Starchild yet to be revealed. While I'm sure that was to some degree intentional (Paul is the last of the original Kissmen to pen a bio), Paul Stanley would have you believe that taking off the makeup, so to speak, was also quite difficult.

One other thing I guessed wrong: Paul wasn't gay, he was deformed! Turns out he was born with a condition called microtia which left only his left ear fully formed, and his deafness and deformity became the subject of childhood bullying leaving him deeply withdrawn, insecure and distrustful. On top of that, Paul writes, he lacked understanding parents and grew up with a troubled sibling, retreating almost completely behind the Starchild alter ego of his performances.

Teenage Paul sought treatment from a therapist on his own, and in a page out of the Brian Wilson-Eugene Landy playbook years later would hire the guy to manage the band to predictable results. One thing about KISS is, they never learn. Paul discusses one move after another -- personnel changes, management agreements, personal relationships, concept albums and so on -- that explode in his face like a stream of fire from Gene's mouth. And while Paul never really stops seeing himself as a deformed, picked-on, lonely kid -- in fact explaining just about all of his issues on it --  he comes to a good place realizing somewhat late in life (as I have) that his children are why he's here.

Today he describes a life of gourmet home-cooked Italian meals, oil painting, a loving family, and reflection gained from an irony-rich turn playing the lead in a production of Phantom of the Opera. And he's totally OK with the notion that anyone could put on the makeup and continue serving his role as the singer of KISS. In fact he wishes it so, explaining his seeming insensitivity to the fact that the band continues to tour (and rake in the cash) behind impostors in the costumes of Peter and Ace.

This perspective no doubt colors Paul's understanding of the band itself. While he pities Ace's self-destructiveness, and takes Gene to task for his phoniness and self-serving devotion to the KISS cause, he can't manage to even mention Peter without also ripping him a new one. Not only did the KISS drummer's sour demeanor undermine the mission of the band, but, Paul suggests, he's also an idiot and a lousy musician.

"Peter could barely read or spell, and he wasn't a thinker. Peter didn't understand the basics of song structure. Verse, chorus, bridge - it all meant nothing to him." 

"Peter was not what you'd call an intellectual. He seemed to get off on causing problems with the band."

"Peter seemed to resent everything he was given ... as far as I saw it, Peter never succeeded before he hooked up with us because he had no idea what it took to become successful or sustain success. He was along for the ride and couldn't help trying to hamper things and create strife."

 "'Detroit Rock City' in particular had a very challenging drumbeat, and it took a lot of effort and patience for [producer] Bob [Ezrin] to get Peter to play something he couldn't have learned to play on his own if his life depended on it." 

"Peter's chances of being able to sing a song off the cuff were about as good as my chances of throwing a penny and hitting the moon."

Me-ow. And those are but samples. I might have liked a more honest assessment of the music Paul was responsible for -- I've given it all a shot, and can't honestly say it's improved since 1974 -- but as the chronicle of the band's only fully devoted member FACE THE MUSIC is the best solo effort we're going to get from these guys. Rock on, Starchild.

Something Inexpressable

Sometime in Junior High Bob moved to town from Los Angeles and brought a lot of exciting things with him. He dressed differently -- corduroy OP shorts, and surf hoodies from Pier Connection. The music he liked was fresh and at times impossibly exotic for a suburban Long Islander like me -- names I heard for the first time, like Black Flag and Oingo Boingo, and those I was only scantly familiar with, like Devo and the Police.

Bob's house adjoined woods at the harbor and we spent a summer exploring back there. You could walk the beach all the way to the Vanderbilt property where we we'd hang out in an abandoned seaplane hangar. The mischief we got into then didn't involve drinking or drugs, but rather the thrill of being where we didn't belong, and breaking whatever we could find once we got there -- bottles, buildings, anything. One time we were on our way to the woods when Bob's dad suspected we were up to no good -- maybe the jar of gasoline we were carrying had something to do with it -- and after a lengthy interrogation Bob finally gave in: "We're gonna burn this G.I. Joe, awright Dad?!?" It didn't occur to me until just now what a great metaphor for growing up that was.

Bob's enthusiasm for smashing things aligned with his particular admiration for the Police and its energetic drummer, Stewart Copeland, and before long Bob was performing with a group -- my biology partner Andy on bass, the hilarious and tragic Chris, whose family could afford all the equipment, on guitar, and Andy's talented young cousin John singing and playing keyboards-- that may as well have been a Police tribute band and would go on to dominate battle-of-the-bands contests in a five-mile radius. Its not exaggerating to call the Police a kind of Beatles of our particular moment: They had a distinct sound and style, very modern, and they inspired fans to play. And while "album-oriented" WPLJ made it difficult to distinguish one New Wave band from the next it was clear to us that as early as REGATTA DE BLANC the Police were on their way to superstardom and we'd be the ones leading the charge.

That's all background for the state of mind reawakened reading Andy Summer's memoir, ONE TRAIN LATER. The Police guitarist tells an origin that was far more interesting than I'd known and insightfully articulates what went into the Police's unique sound.

About half the book -- the half I didn't know -- focuses on Summers' education as a guitarist, dating back to jazz lessons and a teenage apprenticeship under 1960s British R&B legend Zoot Money; informal jams with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton; and stints with psychedelic acts like Dantalion's Chariot, the Animals and Soft Machine. Those travels landed Summers in Los Angeles in the 1970s where he he had a short marriage to Robin Lane (later to front new wavers the Chartbusters) but bottomed out professionally, working as a part time music teacher.

Returning to England with a second wife in 1977, a chance encounter on a train with Copeland -- the event referred to in the book's title -- was critical in the coming together of the musical acquaintances. As Summers tells it, punk was the rage and Copeland was determined that the Police -- then with a hack guitarist named Henry Padovani, the Pete Best of this story -- be a part of that scene. Summers in the meantime sensed a musical kinship with singer Sting and describes how Sting's songwriting combined with inspiration from reggae and the reeling in of his own playing -- the Police, like the punks, didn't do solos -- came upon a fresh and exciting formula. Summers describes it as "the sound of tight compromise."

The Police won fans a few at a time on lengthy tours of the U.S. and the world. I imagined an early visit to LA won Bob, or at least his influencers there. Summers writes well of the experience."Each night despite the hours and the miles traveled, we work and push to galvanize the audience into heated response, beat them into submission, bend them to our will, seduce, collude, conspire, transform. We don't leave the stage until we've won."

My favorite Police album is probably REGATTA, though its followup ZENYATTA would be the first one I owned myself -- unwapped the plastic still in the mall to inspect the inner sleeve for lyrics, but found only photos and triangles. They were still ascending by the time GHOST IN THE MACHINE came around, headlining a concert at Madison Square Garden we all saw with the Go-Gos opening, but as it turned out both me and Andy were having issues. The Police sound was evolving toward Sting's taste for the jazzy world-beat thing he'd go for in his solo career. "Personally," Summers writes, "I like about half the album and hate all the un-Police saxophone shit." Right on, man.

1983's SYNCHRONICITY would of course be the coronation -- huge enough to keep Michael Jackson from his customary perch atop the pop charts and the first of what I'd consider the Holy Trinity of starmaking rock efforts that year -- Van Halen's 1984 and Springsteen's BORN IN THE USA would soon follow. Although Summers makes it clear the Police were inevitably headed toward oblivion by then -- not because of infighting but because Sting's muse had departed and there was little the band hadn't conquered -- he insists the Police had not yet reached their potential, and calls for a proper reunion tour (which would occur following the 2006 publishing of the book).

I haven't seen Bob for more than a decade but he was drumming for many years, and mutual friends tell me he's been blessed with a daughter who shares his legendary temper. Pianoman John is still performing and Andy still plays bass in cover bands for fun. Chris passed away tragically several years ago. I'm still listening.

Tell Me What You See

It doesn't declare a winner, nor does it even argue for one; rather John McMillian's BEATLES VS. STONES filters the story of the Beatles through the perspective of the Rolling Stones and vice-versa, examining the obvious and subtle ways they informed, influenced, imitated and irritated one another.

As a guy well-versed in Beatle history, I appreciated McMillian's telling of familiar material from a unique angle; and as a guy largely ignorant of the Stones' story, I learned a few things.

Central to the story is an examination of the paradigm of the respective group's origins and early marketing: The Beatles were minor criminals from hardscrabble Liverpool presented by manager Brian Epstein as the huggable moptops-next-door while the Stones, hailing generally from better homes, economic conditions and opportunity around London, cast as menacing rulebreakers by their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham.

These images were enduring, and played into a supposed rivalry fanned by the press. While the bands themselves largely got along, a bit of a frenemenship emerges. McMillian describes how John and Paul casually school the young Stones with an impromptu studio writing session, which no doubt sped the Stones' transition from blues interpreters to rock songwriters, which eventually, would spur the Beatles to new heights. Occasionally this would lead to the sincerest forms of flattery, as when the Stones followed SGT. PEPPER with SATANIC MAJESTY'S REQUEST, rankling the caustic Lennon in particular.

As their respective success and influence grew (not to mention their use of drugs), McMillian documents how they were perceived by the counterculture they played to ('Revolution' vs. 'Street Fighting Man'); and finally how their business interests collided, first when Paul and Mick pondered joining the band's interests; and finally when Mick enticed John to seek Allen Klein's representation despite knowing Klein to be a thief. This issue would eventually tear the Beatles themselves apart, just as the Stones enjoyed their greatest artistic triumphs.

Favorites of 2014

Nothing takes the fun out of determining a Top 10 albums of the year list like spending whatever free time you have in December desperately pawing through the albums on other people's lists you couldn't or wouldn't get to in an attempt not look so damned ignorant. So before that continues any further I have to make peace with my ignorance, and give what I got. As usual I spent considerably more time re-examining stuff from the 1970s than keeping up with the contemporaries this year. But who knows, those guys probably missed some stuff too.

As always, this list isn't "best," or even most worthy, just those that were released during the calendar year that I gave sufficient chance to, and enjoyed the most.

And now, on with the Dadrock Top Ten...

10. The Hold Steady TEETH DREAMS
It's missing the Roy Bittan-y piano that marked their best stuff but a nice comeback from their last record, with all the manic energy and shaggy doggedness, and when they rock out they almost kill me. I got the sense that some listeners were turned off by the massively hooky "Wait A While" but I can't imagine why.




9. Christopher Denny, IF THE ROSES DON'T KILL US
OK, so this is one of those I plucked off someone else's best-of list just a couple weeks ago and I'm a little suspicious of its new-ness to me, but there's no denying this guy, even if his songs aren't destined to last, has a voice I'll remember for a long time. Like John Fullbright (read on) Denny is probably best classified as a "country" artist but he's mixing in soul, gospel and rock, all of it a bit off-kilter.



8. The War on Drugs, LOST IN THE DREAM
Atmospheric, evocative and contemporary take on rock, a little more lustrous and hazy than I normally go for but I'll confess to giving them a shot mostly as a result of having come across a video of them impressively covering Springsteen's "The Ties That Bind." Speaking of legends, the chilly intimacy, chiming guitar and echo reminds me of Lindsey Buckingham's solo work.



7. The Both, THE BOTH
Veteran singer-songwriter Aimee Mann teams up with indy-punk guitar slinger Ted Leo for a set of charming power-pop duets. Suffers a little bit from that soft/loud thing but solid overall and at times catchy as hell. I mean, this song:



6. Bruce Springsteen, HIGH HOPES
When I heard this was a collection of leftovers, rerecordings and covers I was hardly excited (the shittiest album cover of his career didn't help) but Bruce is an exception to most rules, and naturally the political thread running loosely through this collection turned out to be especially prescient. The defining element of this album is the addition of guitarist Tom Morello who brings a blood-and-guts edge to Bruce's songs including vicious interpretations of "American Skin" and "Tom Joad." It doesn't always work when the Boss himself engages in profanity, but I get what he was going for here.

Bruce being Bruce, he soon issued a leftover-from-the-leftovers EP featuring the terrific, nonpolitical "Hurry Up Sundown" also worth a pursuit.

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5. Weezer, EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT IN THE END
I understand where Weezer fans probably feel the joke is on them: They've been so disappointed waiting for a record that sounds like their classic "blue" album that when the band finally does so it comes with a glib apology: "Sorry guys I didn't realize I needed you so much. I thought I'd get a new audience. I forgot that disco sucks!" singer Rivers Cuomo confesses in the irresistable throwback "Back to the Shack." Weezer were so off my radar I hadn't realized they'd been out sucking, but I'm glad they're back anyway. This record, like "blue" is knowing and funny, and packed with angsty hooks. (See also the 50s inspired duet with Bethany Cosentino).




4. John Fullbright, SONGS
In a year without a great many revelations I was pleased to discover this Oklahoma singer/songwriter who sounds a little bit like a cross between Steve Earle and "Closing Time" era Tom Waits. The album's not perfect -- it drags at times and I recognized a guy acknowledging his own creative frustrations in "Write a Song" -- but his ability is plain as day as demonstrated in this crusher:



3. The Empty Hearts, THE EMPTY HEARTS
I was a born sucker for this supergroup including musicians from three turn-of-the-80s bands I've admired forever: Singer Wally Palmar of the Romantics; guitarist Elliot Easton of the Cars; and Blondie's great drummer Clem Burke. Together with bassist Andy Babiuk of the Chesterfield Kings they made a record based on the sounds they admired growing up -- not 80s new wave but pure 60s garage rock. It hardly breaks new ground but there's not a bad cut on it, and played exactly as you'd imagine old pros just doing what they love would.



2. Roddy Frame, SEVEN DIALS
The former Aztec Cameraman sings about a personal rebirth and practically has one right there on the record, his first in seven years. I don't know how much is autobiographical but if you told me he'd been through a soul-crushing divorce and went to find himself in San Francisco I'd totally believe you. You can practically smell the Pacific on "Postcard" referencing Fleetwood Mac with a chorus ripped right out of the Eagles' "One of These Nights." A sparkling, moving, grown-up record.



1. Chuck Prophet, NIGHT SURFER
"Look out all you losers, here I come!" Chuck Prophet warns the world on "Wish Me Luck" ("not that I really need it!"), an ironic keynote to a 13th solo album by a guy most people have never heard of. NIGHT SURFER isn't likely to break Prophet's remarkable obscurity, despite so much to recommend it. He's a strong songwriter, a wicked guitarist and an expressive, conversational singer with a gift of innovating his delivery in the manner of Jim Carroll. It's straight-ahead greasy rock-n-roll at its core but also well structured, with strings and precise background vocals counterbalancing Prophet's wild attitudes and observations.


I'd recommend going beyond the embedded vid for all of these records, and/or pressing the little blue triangle on the below mix of songs that caught my ear during 2014. Thanks to my tastemaking pals out there in the virtual world for the recommendations. What did you like this year?

Live a Little, Be a Gypsy, Get Around

What happens after you've accomplished it all and you haven't yet turned 30? The dilemma hangs heavily over Paul McCartney as he restlessly struggles to craft a post-Beatles life in Tom Doyle's biography MAN ON THE RUN. Based on a series of revealing interviews with the subject and richly detailed reporting, Doyle paints McCartney as far less calculated, and in a sense, more complex, than I would have guessed: In fact, Paul was adrift, depressed, and stoned for much of the 1970s even as he rarely dropped the jolly exterior and optimistic outlook he projected.

Cast as too domineering by George and too uncool by John (both accusations appearing accurate), the Beatle breakup left Paul with a kind of post-traumatic distress he medicated with pot, musical excursions both brilliant and banal, and life with a young family.

Periodic encounters with John Lennon recounted in the book illustrate a complicated and heartbreaking estrangement between the famed songwriting duo. John's public posture was many times more savage than what he'd share privately with Paul, whereas McCartney would frequently come off more flippant and careless than he'd intend, particularly his unfortunate "it's a drag, man" soundbite that carried the day upon Lennon's assassination. As Doyle tells it, Paul spent much of the 1970s in a vain search for a foil to provide the kind of competitive spark and counterforce that Lennon did, even if unconsciously so. The murder left him devastated and confused.

The book also provides a useful framework for understanding McCartney's inconsistent post-Beatle recording career, which even for us fans is something of a complicated narrative. McCartney's self-titled earliest effort largely resulted of therapeutic play in a home studio, while the 1971 followup RAM, conceived amid the legal unraveling of the Beatles, were both savaged by contemporary critics, although RAM's stature has greatly benefited upon reconsideration. "RAM was something of a marvel," Doyle argues. "Really the true successor to ABBEY ROAD, in its baroque detail and flights of imagination, it was variously funny, daft, touching and knowing."

Living a hippy lifestyle on a rural Scottish farm, Paul's next venture was, in his words, growing a band from a seed. Wings grew, all right, morphing from the dull, ramshackle outfit of the debut WILD LIFE, to the Peppery BAND ON THE RUN, to arena rockers of VENUS AND MARS to the radio popstars of SPEED OF SOUND and its successors. Part of this was Paul's unwillingness to reel in his outrageous versatility, but it was also his inability to keep another group together, with only himself, musically dubious wife Linda and ex-Moody Blues utilityman Denny Laine a presence throughout the Wings' career. One problem? He paid them too little.

The dissolving of  Wings Mark 2 (guitarist Jimmy McCullough and drummer Joe English, who joined following BAND ON THE RUN and accompanied the founding trio through the WINGS OVER AMERICA triumph) seemed to serve as another disappointing setback for McCartney, who even at the top of his game was always courting doubt. But, as Doyle points out, McCartney's growth from a guy who seemed lost without his Beatle bandmates to an artist who could fill a triple-live album almost entirely with non-Beatle cuts you know by heart in a matter of a only few years, is simply remarkable, even if it came with some filler.

The book takes us through McCartney's adventures in recording (the near-fatal chaos of BAND ON THE RUN's creation in Lagos and high-seas hijinx for LONDON TOWN); his idiotic drug busts in Scotland and in Japan; the deaths of Lennon and ex-Wingman McCollough, all leading to what Doyle suggests is the dawn of a calmer, more stable period to follow.

The below playlist includes representative cuts from Macca's singles, LPs and other projects during the decade: