To me, Joe Strummer should not be referred to in the past tense. He should be alive and well and doing great music even now. But in December 2002, he breathed his last breath, and the world is a lot sadder for his absence.
I think Strummer's death was the most shocking "celebrity death" I can recall in terms of someone that I was a fan of, up until Adam Yauch's passing a little less than ten years later. Both men excelled at their craft, making the music style that they were known for (Strummer in punk, Yauch in rap) so much better than had they never lifted their voices to begin with. Granted, you could argue that Strummer made his most vibrant music twenty years before his death, with the Clash, and that everything since the band's dissolution had been window dressing on a well-earned reputation as a punk icon. But for the sheer force of his personality, Joe Strummer remained important right up to the last hour of his life. It's hard to believe that the Clash would've cashed in and taken the easy route (a reunion tour like the Police), but we'll never really have that option again, now will we?
I blame Sid Vicious, though perhaps I could put Buddy Holly, Johnny Ace, and (going way, way back) Thomas Chatterton, Shelley, and Keats for the world's fascination with rock stars or literary figures who are gone way too soon, but by punk standards Joe was an "old man" of fifty. Many of his contemporaries who didn't meet an early grave (Vicious, Ian Curtis, etc.) didn't manage to hang on much past the turn of the century (three-fourths of the original Ramones died within a three- or four-year span of one another). It could be the heavy drug culture that surrounded the scene in the late Seventies (punks did their fair share), though some of the forefathers of the movement (Iggy Pop, Lou Reed) took rhino-sized portions of cocaine and other goodies and live today as revered father figures. John Lydon, the former "Johnny Rotten" of the Sex Pistols, is another survivor of that era, and when I first read his takedown of Strummer as being "inauthentic" as a source on punk for the movie Sid and Nancy, I took him at face value. Early on, I preferred the Pistols to the Clash, and the myth of their rise and fall in less than two years was more attractive than the Clash's solid ten-year existence (though I later learned that existence was anything but solid, especially after Mick Jones left the group in 1982).
Like a lot of things I believed in when I was young, the notion of what makes someone "authentic" when they claim to speak for something has changed. Sure, Strummer (real name: John Mellors) came from a fairly posh background, as the son of a diplomat, while Lydon's parents were poor Irish living in squalor in London. But Strummer, like a punk-rock Buddha, came down from his heights to survey how the less-well-off were living. And he embraced the young audience for punk in a way that Lydon never has and never will. The Pistols were notorious, and attacked because of it; the Clash were beloved.
I guess I can see how Lydon might rankle a bit at the idea that Strummer was better at the punk game than he was (after all, the Pistols started the whole damn thing, whether or not it really was just a ploy by Malcolm McLaren to get more people buying in his clothing shops), but the Clash were the one group to emerge from that initial wave to rival and, in time perhaps, surpass the masters. They stayed together longer, put out more music, evolved in their style (none of the original punk bands would be considered "punk" in the didactic, rigid sense of what "punk" is as believed by people who don't know better), and made the world safe for rap with their single "The Magnificent Seven." In my leaner economic years, I sold the "best of" CD that had this song on it, and I regret it to this day. I still have the dynamic first album (which includes "Police and Thieves," the song I was going to write about until I changed my mind), but there's not enough Clash in my record collection right now. I hope to right that wrong soon.
Strummer wasn't "authentic," but he was intelligent enough to speak for those who couldn't pick up a guitar and speak for themselves. The Clash really did care about their fans. In an article he wrote in three installments for NME in 1977, Lester Bangs described the band's close relationship with their fan base (which often included sleepovers, not in the dirty groupie "rock star" sense but genuinely decent acts of kindness). You know that such relationships can't exist today, despite the so-called "connectedness" of our digital age. You think Belle and Sebastian would invite me in for tea if I just showed up at their rehearsal space (okay, maybe they would, they're nice people, but you get my point). The world lost something when it lost Joe Strummer, and I doubt we'll ever see it again. But we have the music, and thank God (and Joe Strummer) for that.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Al Green, "Love and Happiness"
My grandmother, who is convinced that I'm going to hell because I don't go to church anymore (good thing she doesn't know that the reason I don't is because I've converted to Rastafarian Satanism with a touch of Scientology thrown in for good measure), recently observed that I wouldn't like gospel music because it's more spiritual than the kind of stuff I listen to. I beg to differ.
Music is always a spiritual experience for me, no matter how secular the artists or songs involved. Whether a song moves me to tears or moves me to change the radio station, it always leaves some kind of impact. And I *do* listen to gospel music, of a sort. The soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a treasured piece of my CD collection, and I'm pretty sure the Band has some soul to them, as well as Marvin Gaye (though his soul was always torn between the phyisical pleasures of the world and the divine pleasures of the spirit world). And then there's Al Green.
It is hard to put into words my affection for Mr. Green (an actual honest-to-God reverend, with his own church in Memphis). I have always like solo soul and R&B artists like Sam Cooke, the marvelous Marvin, and Al Green. Interesting tidbit: Cooke and Gaye added the "e" to their last names for showbiz purposes, while Green dropped the "e" at the end of his name for the same reasons. All three had backgrounds in gospel music but struck out to reach a wider audience in the secular world. And while Green is still alive (Cooke and Gaye were both shot to death twenty years apart from one another), he had his own brush with mortality (the infamous time when a woman he was seeing threw hot grits on him and then killed herself).
After that crisis, Green returned to his roots in the gospel world, putting out spiritual albums and eventually becoming the licensed reverend that he always was in spirit. And while I once would've marveled as to why anyone would turn their back on worldly success for the spiritual life, as I get older I see the superficiality of the modern, secular world, and I can understand why that is tempting. Hell, has worldly success worked out for Lindsay Lohan? Exactly.
A lot of the time when I'm at work, I find myself whistling the chorus to "Love and Happiness" aloud, not for long but just at intervals to keep my mind off the drudgery and other shenanigans that occur in workplaces. I think I've said it before, but it bears repeating: art has a way of lifting you out of the common ordinary and into an appreciation of something more than yourself. If that's not "spiritual," I don't know what is. Whatever my belief system (and I was raised Southern Baptist, so I still retain some of that awe-struck fear that my transgressions will come back to haunt me, be that transgression a horrible act or simply not reading my Bible enough or at all), I can appreciate that there are just some things that defy rational thought and logic. And the song just makes me feel good, even if I'm simply whistling it a little (or a lot) off-key. I doubt anyone at work would identify it as "Love and Happiness" if they heard me whistling, but then again they might.
It's been a long summer, and it looks like the fall might be more of the same in certain ways, but different in others. I'm hopeful that some job oppertunity for which I am qualified may come along, but til then I got bills to pay. Life just keeps on and on, and it's the little things that make days that suck more bearable. I guess for me, it's whistling "Love and Happiness" whenever the moment strikes me. Whatever it is for you, as long as it works I'm down with it.
Music is always a spiritual experience for me, no matter how secular the artists or songs involved. Whether a song moves me to tears or moves me to change the radio station, it always leaves some kind of impact. And I *do* listen to gospel music, of a sort. The soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a treasured piece of my CD collection, and I'm pretty sure the Band has some soul to them, as well as Marvin Gaye (though his soul was always torn between the phyisical pleasures of the world and the divine pleasures of the spirit world). And then there's Al Green.
It is hard to put into words my affection for Mr. Green (an actual honest-to-God reverend, with his own church in Memphis). I have always like solo soul and R&B artists like Sam Cooke, the marvelous Marvin, and Al Green. Interesting tidbit: Cooke and Gaye added the "e" to their last names for showbiz purposes, while Green dropped the "e" at the end of his name for the same reasons. All three had backgrounds in gospel music but struck out to reach a wider audience in the secular world. And while Green is still alive (Cooke and Gaye were both shot to death twenty years apart from one another), he had his own brush with mortality (the infamous time when a woman he was seeing threw hot grits on him and then killed herself).
After that crisis, Green returned to his roots in the gospel world, putting out spiritual albums and eventually becoming the licensed reverend that he always was in spirit. And while I once would've marveled as to why anyone would turn their back on worldly success for the spiritual life, as I get older I see the superficiality of the modern, secular world, and I can understand why that is tempting. Hell, has worldly success worked out for Lindsay Lohan? Exactly.
A lot of the time when I'm at work, I find myself whistling the chorus to "Love and Happiness" aloud, not for long but just at intervals to keep my mind off the drudgery and other shenanigans that occur in workplaces. I think I've said it before, but it bears repeating: art has a way of lifting you out of the common ordinary and into an appreciation of something more than yourself. If that's not "spiritual," I don't know what is. Whatever my belief system (and I was raised Southern Baptist, so I still retain some of that awe-struck fear that my transgressions will come back to haunt me, be that transgression a horrible act or simply not reading my Bible enough or at all), I can appreciate that there are just some things that defy rational thought and logic. And the song just makes me feel good, even if I'm simply whistling it a little (or a lot) off-key. I doubt anyone at work would identify it as "Love and Happiness" if they heard me whistling, but then again they might.
It's been a long summer, and it looks like the fall might be more of the same in certain ways, but different in others. I'm hopeful that some job oppertunity for which I am qualified may come along, but til then I got bills to pay. Life just keeps on and on, and it's the little things that make days that suck more bearable. I guess for me, it's whistling "Love and Happiness" whenever the moment strikes me. Whatever it is for you, as long as it works I'm down with it.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
The Rolling Stones, "I Am Waiting"
If you'd told me at the age of fourteen or fifteen that I would ever, *ever* like the Rolling Stones, I'd have slapped you in the face (if you were male. If you were female, I'd have said "no!" emphatically). I came to rock music and a deeper appreciation of it through the Beatles, and in the divide between them and the Stones (to some extent manufactured by the Stones to get attention, but very real in some aspects) I was firmly in the camp of John, Paul, George and Ringo. I'd have made the argument that the Fab Four stopped while they were ahead and, barring John's tragic death in 1980 (when I was one year old, mind you), they could very well have reunited and been just as important without soiling their legacy. Whereas the Stones, off and on, have been around since the Kennedy administration, and apparently still liking rock and roll enough to keep on with a series of albums that I'm guessing would satisfy only those rare completists in the Stones camp (though I've never listened to any post-1969 album in full).
Sure, the Stones rock, especially in that fertile period between 1965 (the debut of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction") and 1978 (I'm sorry, but I will not apologize for liking "Miss You." You can't blame Mick and the boys for jumping on the disco bandwagon that year, anyway). But for the longest time I was of the opinion that their legacy was as also-rans, nowhere near as balls-out rocking as the Who (and I didn't get Pete Townshend's devotion to the Stones, either. His was the better band, right?) and without the storied legacy of the Beatles. I preferred the Yardbirds when it came to authentic (or what I took for "authentic," which is a bit of a misnomer in certain circumstances anyway) British blues-rock (Eric Idle's famous definition of the blues in The Rutles as "black music performed by whites" certainly applied to the way in which America was introduced to a rich legacy of blues and R&B thanks to pasty English kids who sang of the Old South with a Cockney accent). As I hope has become well apparent for anyone reading this blog regularly, I can often times be fucking stupid.
Because, as it turns out, the Stones were not and never have been also-rans. And their take on R&B early on developed into their own unique, powerful version of the blues, which is still there just under the surface. One criticism I'd level at heavy metal (a genre that I don't necessarily hate, but which I'd be hard-pressed to enjoy listening to except on occasions when I want my face melted with the awesomeness of an Angus Young guitar solo) is that it almost completely eliminates any traces of the R&B/blues roots of rock and roll (though conversely, you couldn't find any traces of the country & western strain that helped cement rock and roll in heavy metal, either. I think this negates any argument to be made about any racist overtones in heavy metal, so please if you're a metalhead reading this and getting pissed at me understand that). You still hear the influence of Muddy, Robert Johnson, B.B. King and other paragons of blues past and present in Mick's singing, Keith's guitar work, and the band as a whole.
Also, their story is almost as good (if not better) than most of the other "rock histories" you'll find. Yes, they came along in the shadow of the Beatles, and they could've easily folded under the weight of that (as countless bands like the aforementioned Yardbird, the Byrds, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, etc., did). They forged their own path, however, and when I came across first Symphony for the Devil by Philip Norman (author of another important book, Shout!, all about the Beatles), I got a taste of how interesting they were. When I took a film class that covered all the genres and included the documentary Gimme Shelter, about the Stones' concert in Altamont. Seeing Mick Jagger wince as he saw the murder of a fan by one of the Hell's Angels hired to provide "security" at that event humanized him for me, and I started to see that the cocksure, strutting wildman of legend was in many ways simply the creation of a young man looking for an identity beyond that into which he had been born. Isn't that what we all seek to do, over time?
All of this is a long way towards getting into why "I Am Waiting," a minor song that doesn't often get included in the "greatest Stones tracks ever," is the one I'm writing about here. The film Rushmore took over my life for a period beginning in early 1999 (after I'd bought the soundtrack album at Christmas without even seeing the film first) and continuing for some time after. "Waiting" wasn't on the soundtrack, but as I learned when I finally saw the film, it was included almost in its entireity as part of a montage showing the fall (and subsequent rebirth) of Max Fischer. I considered dressing up like Max in his iconic (to me, anyway) blue blazer and khaki pants, his uniform to navigate the halls of a high-end private academy that he dominated through his arrogant intelligence (hmm, sounds like someone who fronts a very popular, long-lasting band if I do say so myself). I was going to do so for Halloween in 1999 (I was working at a grocery store at the time, just in time for the Y2K madness sweeping the nation, and we were encouraged to dress up for that day if we were working), but a co-worker talked me out of it with the words "I have no idea who you're talking about." A few years later, needing something formal to wear (either to my aunt's graduation or to a wedding, I can't remember which), I picked up a blue sports jacket and thought myself quite dashing in it.
Anyway, the song "I Am Waiting" was something of a gateway drug for me, allowing me to sneer at the songs people already knew (and which I secretly liked, though don't tell the Beatles crowd that) and say "well, this is one of their best songs, acutally." When I finally got iTunes, this was high on my list of songs to buy, and later on I got a nice collection of Stones cuts. Over time, I became less concerned that liking the Stones would lessen my love of the Beatles (did I mention how fucking stupid I can be?). In fact, it made me love the Beatles more, to see that their competition with the Stones (and the Beach Boys) pushed them all to heights never experienced in popular music before. Yes, the Stones carried on for far too long in some aspects, but I didn't get why this didn't matter until I read Keith Richards' autobiography (my earnest desire to do so would have struck my fourteen-year-old-self as idiotic, though the only official word from any of the Fab Four was George Harrison's brief autobiographical section in I Me Mine). The reason the Stones continue is because they found something that they love to do (make music, be it for their fans but mostly for themselves) and they want to do that for as long as they can. Don't you wish you could say that about your job?
My passion is writing, and writing about music has been and continues to be something that I love to do. And yes, my song choices might be off the beaten track sometimes (though as in the case of Jay-Z or Queen, I'd probably be seen as the kind of guy who just listens to whatever's popular on the radio by people who don't bother to read anything else I've put here). But I love doing this, I love getting the inspiration for doing it from my buddy Jonathan Garren, and I love being able to share songs that might not be on everyone's iPod (but they should be). "I Am Waiting" kicks ass and takes names, in an understated way that someone who only knows the Stones of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" might not understand. It may not be their best song, but it's probably my favorite (though the song and restaurant chain "Ruby Tuesday" inpsired my favorite piece I've ever written for McSweeneys). I doubt I'll ever love Mick and the boys the same way that I love the Beatles, but I think that's okay.
Sure, the Stones rock, especially in that fertile period between 1965 (the debut of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction") and 1978 (I'm sorry, but I will not apologize for liking "Miss You." You can't blame Mick and the boys for jumping on the disco bandwagon that year, anyway). But for the longest time I was of the opinion that their legacy was as also-rans, nowhere near as balls-out rocking as the Who (and I didn't get Pete Townshend's devotion to the Stones, either. His was the better band, right?) and without the storied legacy of the Beatles. I preferred the Yardbirds when it came to authentic (or what I took for "authentic," which is a bit of a misnomer in certain circumstances anyway) British blues-rock (Eric Idle's famous definition of the blues in The Rutles as "black music performed by whites" certainly applied to the way in which America was introduced to a rich legacy of blues and R&B thanks to pasty English kids who sang of the Old South with a Cockney accent). As I hope has become well apparent for anyone reading this blog regularly, I can often times be fucking stupid.
Because, as it turns out, the Stones were not and never have been also-rans. And their take on R&B early on developed into their own unique, powerful version of the blues, which is still there just under the surface. One criticism I'd level at heavy metal (a genre that I don't necessarily hate, but which I'd be hard-pressed to enjoy listening to except on occasions when I want my face melted with the awesomeness of an Angus Young guitar solo) is that it almost completely eliminates any traces of the R&B/blues roots of rock and roll (though conversely, you couldn't find any traces of the country & western strain that helped cement rock and roll in heavy metal, either. I think this negates any argument to be made about any racist overtones in heavy metal, so please if you're a metalhead reading this and getting pissed at me understand that). You still hear the influence of Muddy, Robert Johnson, B.B. King and other paragons of blues past and present in Mick's singing, Keith's guitar work, and the band as a whole.
Also, their story is almost as good (if not better) than most of the other "rock histories" you'll find. Yes, they came along in the shadow of the Beatles, and they could've easily folded under the weight of that (as countless bands like the aforementioned Yardbird, the Byrds, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, etc., did). They forged their own path, however, and when I came across first Symphony for the Devil by Philip Norman (author of another important book, Shout!, all about the Beatles), I got a taste of how interesting they were. When I took a film class that covered all the genres and included the documentary Gimme Shelter, about the Stones' concert in Altamont. Seeing Mick Jagger wince as he saw the murder of a fan by one of the Hell's Angels hired to provide "security" at that event humanized him for me, and I started to see that the cocksure, strutting wildman of legend was in many ways simply the creation of a young man looking for an identity beyond that into which he had been born. Isn't that what we all seek to do, over time?
All of this is a long way towards getting into why "I Am Waiting," a minor song that doesn't often get included in the "greatest Stones tracks ever," is the one I'm writing about here. The film Rushmore took over my life for a period beginning in early 1999 (after I'd bought the soundtrack album at Christmas without even seeing the film first) and continuing for some time after. "Waiting" wasn't on the soundtrack, but as I learned when I finally saw the film, it was included almost in its entireity as part of a montage showing the fall (and subsequent rebirth) of Max Fischer. I considered dressing up like Max in his iconic (to me, anyway) blue blazer and khaki pants, his uniform to navigate the halls of a high-end private academy that he dominated through his arrogant intelligence (hmm, sounds like someone who fronts a very popular, long-lasting band if I do say so myself). I was going to do so for Halloween in 1999 (I was working at a grocery store at the time, just in time for the Y2K madness sweeping the nation, and we were encouraged to dress up for that day if we were working), but a co-worker talked me out of it with the words "I have no idea who you're talking about." A few years later, needing something formal to wear (either to my aunt's graduation or to a wedding, I can't remember which), I picked up a blue sports jacket and thought myself quite dashing in it.
Anyway, the song "I Am Waiting" was something of a gateway drug for me, allowing me to sneer at the songs people already knew (and which I secretly liked, though don't tell the Beatles crowd that) and say "well, this is one of their best songs, acutally." When I finally got iTunes, this was high on my list of songs to buy, and later on I got a nice collection of Stones cuts. Over time, I became less concerned that liking the Stones would lessen my love of the Beatles (did I mention how fucking stupid I can be?). In fact, it made me love the Beatles more, to see that their competition with the Stones (and the Beach Boys) pushed them all to heights never experienced in popular music before. Yes, the Stones carried on for far too long in some aspects, but I didn't get why this didn't matter until I read Keith Richards' autobiography (my earnest desire to do so would have struck my fourteen-year-old-self as idiotic, though the only official word from any of the Fab Four was George Harrison's brief autobiographical section in I Me Mine). The reason the Stones continue is because they found something that they love to do (make music, be it for their fans but mostly for themselves) and they want to do that for as long as they can. Don't you wish you could say that about your job?
My passion is writing, and writing about music has been and continues to be something that I love to do. And yes, my song choices might be off the beaten track sometimes (though as in the case of Jay-Z or Queen, I'd probably be seen as the kind of guy who just listens to whatever's popular on the radio by people who don't bother to read anything else I've put here). But I love doing this, I love getting the inspiration for doing it from my buddy Jonathan Garren, and I love being able to share songs that might not be on everyone's iPod (but they should be). "I Am Waiting" kicks ass and takes names, in an understated way that someone who only knows the Stones of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" might not understand. It may not be their best song, but it's probably my favorite (though the song and restaurant chain "Ruby Tuesday" inpsired my favorite piece I've ever written for McSweeneys). I doubt I'll ever love Mick and the boys the same way that I love the Beatles, but I think that's okay.
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