RIP Kathi McDonald

Kathi McDonald passed away on October 3rd. Who? you might be asking. Kathi was the Northwest's own link with ROCK in a big, big way, but I doubt if any of the rock mags mentioned her passing.

Kathi was a member of Leon Russell's circus troupe that supported Joe Cocker on his Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, she sang with the Stones on the "Exile on Main Street" album, she sat in the Janis Joplin chair with Big Brother and the Holding Company on some of their post-Janis albums --- and much, much more, as they say. She continued recording and performing here in the Northwest, still plugging away at it.

I think there's a fascinating story to be told of performers who were part of the earlier rock 'scene' who managed to continue their careers long after their early peak. I remember talking to a rep from a great (at the time) LP distributor in California and realizing "Crap, I was just on the phone with somebody who was in Big Brother!" or their resident Gram Parsons expert who went on to form his own band AND write a biography of Gram. These guys and so many like them managed to continue to work somehow in the industry they loved, certainly not at the same level as in their youth, but still.

So a tip of the hat to Kathi and the many more like her that had their brief shing moment and carried on. Rock and roll never dies, but sometimes it gets paid by the hour.

Last of the Summer Whine

Great summer ? Not so much for me, but, oh, those "golden autumn days", as Van said. The last few weeks were wonderful, so I managed to get in the last few spins of my favorite 'say goodbye to summer' albums, just before I dig out the Nick Drake and Sandy Denny.

So, four exhibits:

 

 

 

Exhibit One: "The Turning Point" by John Mayall. John's not a great vocalist, but what a band, what a langorous, stretched-out feel to "So Hard to Share", "California" and "Thoughts About Roxanne". Open the front door, open the back door, share the music with the neighbors...

Exhibit Two: "Hot Tuna" . For some reason, I play this when it's really hot (although when it's 'don't move a muscle' hot, it's time for the flutes, tablas and sitars). I know, white rich people play acoustic county blues. Politically, I should hate it, but I enjoy it too much.

One thing that ties the last two CDs together is that they both have bonus tracks -- no surprise in CD vs LP time -- but the bonus tracks are really good, and would have fit well on the LPs had vinyl been able to handle the 60+ minutes.




Exhibit Three: new Van Morrison! "Born to Sing: No Plan B". There's a reason this is #3, if you know anything about dramatic tension. This is the yes/no before the final thumbs up, just around the corner...
Bottom line: Van's assembled a crack band for this one. No, they're not even close to the Pee-Wee Ellis or Georgie Fame  bands, but they might be close enough, and they may expand in live performance. My dear wife and I underpacked our CD selections for our overnight trip to Concrete, so we heard this one A LOT. A few times through, we're sharing first impressions: a few 6-minute plus tracks work, lyrics hmm plowing the same furrows. But...there's a big media/promotion push -- Van's first studio album since 2003's "Keep It Simple"...and crap, librarian alert, there are a few major typos. Jeez, Van, can't pay a proofreader? It smacks of "here you go, I'm an artist, I don't care about marketing" -- but they got YOUR OWN LYRICS WRONG -- and they misquoted them in the fawning liner notes.

Finally, my latest summer favorite: the soundtrack to "The Descendants", and I haven't even seen the movie, so I'm not listening with some film scene in my mind. I know next to nothing about Hawaiian music, other than the Alfred Apaka LP my parents had (shrink-wrap bound and played never, except by me).

It's a very well selected collection, some instrumental slack-key guitar, some vocal, all of it seamless. It's not the tourist-centric music you may be familiar with, and for that I'm grateful to be able to hear a part of native culture I was totally unaware of. Great job!

Random Thoughts Part 2

I'll admit it -- I can be pretty slow on the uptake sometimes. Here's a recent example:

I read "Nile-ism" about the band The Blue Nile a few weeks back (oh, great pun in the title), mostly because I was curious -- how does a band that only releases albums every seven or eight years make enough to eat? I love The Blue Nile (as I mentioned in an earlier post, oh faithful reader) so I was naturally curious. Turns out that some of the band members (of which there are usually 3) eke out a living performing film scores, (and with the band apparently on permanent hiatus, I guess that's how it will stay.) But songwriter/singer Paul Buchanan said he survives because some big names have recorded his songs. Clue #1.

A friend of my wife is in a band, a band you'd probably recognize if I told you their name. She's recently had to stop performing for a while, and she revealed what a hardship it was. "People think because I'm in a successful band that I'm rich. But I have no health insurance, touring is expensive and I have to pay for it, and if I don't perform, I don't get paid. We don't write our own material ---THAT'S where the money is." Hmm, and she's recorded a song by the above-mentioned Paul Buchanan. Clue #2.

Finally I was reading an article about the late Levon Helm, former drummer/vocalist with The Band. This article focused on his post-Band work, his cancer, his recovery and lastly, his final bout with a return of his illness. I recalled earlier interview with Levon where her took Robbie Robertson (The Band's guitarist and main songwriter) to task. There was some deep bitterness there, and finally things began to line up for me.

Put the case, as the Beedle said in "Great Expectations" (I'm merely suggesting, I admit nothing) -- put the case that you're in a band. Another band member comes to rehearsal with a song they've sketched out. You work it over, tease it out, the bass player comes up with a killer lick, the piano player suggests a different spin on the chorus, and after a few hours, with a lot of hard work, a hit is born. Put the case that later an album is released, and all of the songwriting credits list 1 band member. Would you be pissed? And as it continues from album to album, do you think you might become bitter? And when the publishing royalties make the 'songwriter' very wealthy but you're basically paid as a musician for hire, what then? Do you think the remnants of bands now performing state and county fairs are doing it because they love touring?

Some bands credit the whole band for songwriting to deal with this problem, and then if you're not carrying your weight (drugs, whatever), you get booted, Fair enough, at least you have a portion of the song publishing to keep you somewhat solvent.

I know this is a gross simplification, and I don't know 90% of what's really going on, but I'm a little closer to understanding how bandmates can turn into enemies. Money's at the root; 'twas ever thus. 

Random Thoughts, Part 1

Listening to the radio on the way to work Saturday, heard one of my favorite shows - "The Big Bandstand" on KSER (90.7). Music of the '20s, '30s, and '40s. (Then I find that it's on the same time as the reggae show on another station. Curse you, programming gods!) So I bounce back and forth, and let me tell you, THAT'S a mash-up you won't believe!

I wondered, why does big band music still have the ability to keep me entertained? It's rhythmically stilted, sentimental, and completely out of sync with our current time. I mean, there's so much junk on the airwaves now, and yet the big band era shines -- what's up with that?

I think it boils down to math and history, two of my worst subjects. Nobody knows what's going to be a hit, so the record companies throw as much as they can against the wall to see what sticks. Working at record stores I'd see so many new releases that couldn't possibly make it onto the charts, a mixture of mimicry (sounds like another band that's a hit!) and test-tube experimentation (let's mix hip-hop with metal and see what happens...) and sometimes it works. Who knows? (I ignored the cynical American Idol machine.)

History (mostly) sifts through the chaff and leaves us with the wheat. I think the reason why big band music sounds so good is because time has let the crap fall by the wayside. I mean, the radio show covers the '20s, '30s and '40s -- 30 years and we usually draw from, what, 300 or so tunes?

"Not so fast, smartypants", you're thinking, "following your line of reasoning, that would mean that classical music would now be boiled down to the best of the best of the best." Well, yes, you might think so, but composers relied on selling their music to publishers, who then sold the sheet music to performers. Let's just say, they wrote more than they sold, they wrote like machines to give the public more of what they liked, and earnest scholars dig through dusty libraries to unearth hidden "gems", as yet unrecorded. Well buddy, there's a reason they should remain unrecorded....

More on publishing and why many of your favorite bands members hate each other next time!

Old Dogs, Revisited

Well, here's a different kettle of fish -- new albums (sorta) from The Beach Boys and Jethro Tull (or more properly, "Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson"), 50 years on for The Boys, 40 years on from the original Thick As A Brick (TAAB), and I think 45 years or so from JT's first album.

The good news: not terrible in either case.

Let's face it, nobody expected anything from The Beach Boys. Name their last good album, then count how many albums they managed to squeeze out since then. Product, product, product, with no sense of quality control. Then there's the whole inter-band strife (troubled genius Brian vs talent-free egomaniac Mike Love is the USA Today/pap digest version). Oh, and a few of the Wilson Brothers died. So now what? Once again, Brian is writing to a deadline (the tour starts tomorrow!! Where are the songs!!) And the results are...surprise! Mixed!

"That's Why God Made the Radio" relies a lot on Brian Wilson's touring band, so they know how to give a good approximation of those golden Beach Boy harmonies. Add Mike Love's nasal whine, but cushioned with pillows of background vocals, plus he's miked pretty close, so not much straining -- and we have, well, this year's version of The Beach Boys. There are 12 songs, 4 of which are really good, 2 aren't terrible, and the rest are not bad. Yeah, I know -- but this could have been a total wipeout! There are cute touches: we hear some of Brian's favorite sounds in the mix (tack piano, bass harmonica, bicycle bell), but the predominate theme is nostalgia and the sunset of our lives. Several of the lyrics refer to "can we just go back" (remember "Do It Again"?)

Most of The Beach Boy albums were suffused with melancholy; it was couched in 'summer is so short and the sun's going down', but us sensitive types figured it out. On "That's Why God Made the Radio", I'm not sure if The Beach Boys are underlining this theme for the rubes, or if they're just figuring it out themselves: "Hey, summer's gone -- it's a freakin' metaphor for life!!"

That said, I really enjoy the 'single', "That's Why God Made the Radio", though why it sounds like "Theme from Midnight Cowboy" confuses me. And the last 3 songs are really good; "Summer's Gone" is one of Brian's best songs, hampered by the too-too much arrangement, but the opening wind-chimes, and the fade-out wind-chimes/ocean surf -- if that's Brian's last production, he can go out a champ.

Then we have "Thick As A Brick 2". I've listened to this in bits, so I'll just give first impressions. But, some background first: the "Aqualung" album broke Jethro Tull big time, follow-up "Thick As A Brick"?: one 'song' spread over 2 sides of an LP. Parody of prog-rock excess or Ian's ego exercise? Discuss. In any case, it was a massive hit. 40 years on, why a sequel? The critics will have a field day! (Umm, a critic hasn't written about Jethro Tull since  Johnny Rotten was in short pants.) 

First, this isn't really a sequel; it follows the life story (or rather, the options) of the 'author' of the original -- oh hell, why am I writing this? If you got this far, you know the story. Here's my first impression: Ian looks back musically, trains a new crew to  approximate the JT sound, and he writes his musical version of Joyce's "Ulysses", via Dickens and BBC kitchen-sink dramas. Heck no, it's not that profound, but Ian's hidden so many musical clues (not just Jethro Tull songs, but Fairport Convention-ish folk appropriations and classical motifs), that it entertains strictly on the whole Spot-the-Clue entertainment aspect.

Sound-wise, this will be a major disappointment if you jump from TAAB to this 'sequel", but if you've followed Tull through the years, you might find this a fun crossword-puzzle of past glories and more recent album tracks. As Ian sang many years ago, "it's only solitaire", and he's done a great job of entertaining us with his own one-upmanship.

   

Serendipity?

I continue at my Sisyphus-like task of paying off credit card debt, but sometimes theres a silver (ha!) lining -- turns out I've earned 'bonus points' which I get to redeem for stuff. Woo-hoo!  

Part 2: I've mentioned this before, but there are suggestions (libraries are debating how to handle this)  that CDs are headed for the dustbin (are there still dustbins?) within the next 5-10 years. So...I snap up what I can when I can before the oasis dries up.

Back to Paragraph One: turns out that Best Buy will accept my bonus points! Online, the catalog is a mess: postage stamp graphics, no track listings, just a tiny picture -- good luck!

But I found Peter Lang's first Takoma album "The Thing at the Nursery Room Window" and was reminded how good it was. Under the shadow of Leo Kottke and John Fahey, Peter's work wasn't as popular as it should have been, so I was happy to get a copy again. And, surprise, surprise, there was a Skillet Lickers album available too! Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers recorded in the '30s, and were a major influence on the '60s old-time music revival.

And here's the thing -- Best Buy would NEVER carry these in their stores. Heck, the Skillet Lickers album is on Document Records, which is like this dry, dusty "released in chronological order" label that we library types get all excited about.

And...Part 3: Found Disc One of "The Leroy Anderson Collection" at Community Thrift in Mount Vernon for $2.49. Yeah, I know!! Leroy Anderson wrote entertaining pop-classical tunes like "Fiddle-Faddle", "Plink. Plank, Plunk", "The Syncopated Clock" and "The Typewriter". If I could insert music files here, you might recognize them -- my generation's first exposure to "light classical".  (You'll most likely know him from that Christmas perennial "Sleigh Ride" -- heck, even Phil Spector covered it!)

Of course, you take your chances with thrift stores -- turns out that the Leroy Anderson disc is only part 1 of a 2-disc set. I'm sure it's orphan brother is far, far away, but that won't stop me from testing my luck again.

RIP, Andy Griffith (Goober says "Hey!")

"The Andy Griffith Show" ("starring Andy Griffith!") many times gets lumped into the low-brow TV fare of its day that included "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Petticoat Junction" and all the TV crap that portrayed the South as full of hicks and hayseeds. And that may have been true in the early days of "TAGS" (Andy, mouth full of teeth and cornpone cliches), but soon the show found its rhythm. I sincerely think that there are several seasons (1962-1964)
of "The Andy Griffith Show" that can stand with the best of television.

Those would be the Don Knotts/Barney Fife years. Yes, yes, Don was wonderful in the role, but the way that Andy the actor stepped back and let Don take the spotlight was a great lesson in putting the writing first. My favorite bits seemed improvised -- after dinner, on the porch, Andy strumming his guitar while he and Barney seem to do the southern version of "Waiting for Godot". Gonna watch TV with Thelma Lou, maybe going to the pictures to see "The Monster from Outta Town" -- great, great stuff, played so relaxed and unhurried.

So many favorites, one of which is "Opie the Birdman". Opie, playing with his new slingshot, accidentally kills a bird, her babies now without a mother. Opie insists on taking the place of the mother, Andy implies this may not work out so well... but Opie persists, feeding the babies before leaving for school. Eventually, the caged birds must be freed, and Opie turns to his pa, saying "The cage seems pretty empty", while Andy responds with the classic line "Yeah, but don't the trees sound nice and full" (Apologies if my memory fudges the exact lines.) 


Andy, Barn and Goober have gone to that ol' fishin' hole in the sky, God bless 'em. Thanks so much, guys.