Little Feat: Waiting For Columbus
Posted: 07.16.2010 Filed under: 1978, Little Feat, live album Leave a comment »
“You folks are crazy,” a bewildered-sounding Lowell George half-laughingly says to a wildly applausing audience, just before he begins his signature tune, ‘Willin’’. It’s strange to hear him sound so timid, having just ran through an electrifying set of countrified Little Feat songs, but this apparently reluctant rock star never seemed comfortable in the limelight, and by the time Little Feat hit the road in the summer of 1977 to support their Time Loves A Hero album, they had achieved a cult status – they were big with college students and something of a musician’s band, meaning that luminaries like Jimmy Page, Mick Jagger, and Robert Palmer could be found backstage, grooving along with the music.
What’s surprising about this album is that the band were at their lowest ebb, with George supremely disinterested in the direction they were going, and guitarist Paul Barrère and keyboardist Bill Payne picking up the slack, but turning the band into a jazz-fusion combo instead of the good-time Southern rock band they had been at the start of the 1970s. This was apparent in their two most recent releases, The Last Record Album and the aforementioned Time Loves A Hero; but the California sheen and overall ennui that had dogged those long players is gone onstage, with even some of the weakest songs from those albums transformed into barnstorming rockers. George’s enthusiasm seems to have returned, which in turn makes the others play even better.
The set starts with an a capella performance called ‘Join The Band’, which the band would sing every night in the dressing room as a sort of call to arms; it’s as if the listener is right there with the band, following them down the hall as they wait in the wings to be introduced by the emcee. And that’s exactly what we hear: the emcee gets the crowd riled up and starts a game of “repeat after me”; Feat walk onstage and launch immediately into ‘Fat Man In The Bathtub’, which shows off George’s sense of humor along with his unparalleled vocal strength. What follows is 70 minutes of hits, misses, and jams (“hits” is a pretty strong word to use, as Feat never really had any “hits”, per se), and it’s clear that they’re enjoying themselves on the 15-minute medley of ‘Dixie Chicken’ and ‘Tripe Face Boogie’.
There are other gems to behold here, as well: Payne’s ‘Oh Atlanta’ is a rollicking boogie-wooger of a song, while Barrère’s ‘Old Folk’s Boogie’ expands on the version on The Last Record Album, with the presence of the Tower of Power horn section an added bonus. ‘All That You Dream’ and ‘Mercenary Territory’ are both superior renditions, taken at a faster clip than on their standard album versions, with the latter title becoming an almost-anthem: with Lenny Pickett adding a suitable sax solo, this sends a shiver up the spine, and not only is it one of the best songs on the album, it might be one of the best recorded Feat songs in their catalog.
There are two brief missteps, with a medley of ‘Time Loves A Hero’ and ‘Day Or Night’, which don’t quite work, but all is forgiven with ‘Rocket In My Pocket’, ‘Spanish Moon’, and the closing five songs of ‘Willin”, ‘Don’t Bogart That Joint’, ‘A Apolitical Blues’ (with erstwhile Stone Mick Taylor on slide guitar), ‘Sailin’ Shoes’, and ‘Feats Don’t Fail Me Now’, the last title the closer of the original album, with the band truly cookin’ along on a groove, and even breaking it down into a percussive-led sing-along.
As I’ve written elsewhere, I’ve decided to stay away from reissues of albums, but I can’t avoid it here in this case: the 2002 expanded reissue of this album has made it a supremely delectable album, with an additional 10 tracks (including ‘Day At The Dog Races’, which clocks in at 12 minutes, and doesn’t feature George at all, who hated the song; ‘Rock And Roll Doctor’, which should have been on the original album; ‘Skin It Back’, which should have been on the original album; ‘On Your Way Down’, which should have… oh look, all the bonus tracks should have been on the original album!), three of which were eventually released on the 1981 compilation, Hoy-Hoy!. While bonus tracks on a live album might seem strange, the addition of these songs are certainly worthwhile, and help enhance an already excellent live album.
The Who: Live At Leeds
Posted: 07.15.2010 Filed under: 1970, live album, The Who Leave a comment »
In stark opposition to yesterday’s Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!, which has been called the greatest live album ever, I hereby submit to you the definitive, inarguable greatest live album ever, The Who’s Live At Leeds. Whereas their contemporaries were either playing up the image of rock’n’roll through decadence (the Stones) or playing proficient but insanely boring and lengthy improvisations[1] (Led Zeppelin), The Who shot into first place in the race for the greatest rock band in the world by releasing this, a live album documenting a powerhouse selection of hits, covers, and even a new song or two.
(Perhaps I’m biased, because I’ve stated many times here that The Who are my favorite band ever, second now only to Elvis Costello. Oh well.)
I’m slightly conflicted over which version I should review. I’ve stated before that the intent of this website is to review albums as they were originally intended, with no bonus tracks; however, the original 6-track album exists only on vinyl, and the 15-track CD, released in 1995, is no longer in print. Because I have both the 1995 CD and the 2001 deluxe edition, I’ll go with what’s widely available, which is the latter. (For the sake of preserving my sanity and not being repetitive for when I do end up reviewing Tommy, I’ll forgo reviewing the actual second disc. All you need to know is that it’s superior, performance-wise, to the studio version, especially the improvisational parts — ‘Listening To You’, most notably — but the album recording wins in terms of atmosphere and sheer cultural impact.)
The Who were on a live high by February 1970, having taken Tommy around the world several times and perfecting their chops nightly. Needless to say, by the time it was decided to release a live concert, they were tired of playing Tommy and were ready to move on to something bigger and better — namely, Pete Townshend’s failed rock opera, Lifehouse (which morphed into Who’s Next). However, their fatigue with the material doesn’t show on this album, and, to use a well-worn comparison, they were firing on all cylinders as if they had never played this material ever before.
The set opens up with John Entwistle’s ‘Heaven And Hell’, allowing Townshend and Entwistle the chance to show off their improvisational skills, not to mention their prowess on their respective instruments. It’s interesting to compare this introduction with that of Ya-Ya’s; on that album, the Stones are introduced as if it were an event, whereas on Leeds, the Who simply walk onstage, plug in, and launch into the song. Without barely a chance to breathe, they’re off into ‘I Can’t Explain’, faithfully reproduced almost note-for-note here, as were three other of their hit singles of the day: ‘Substitute’, ‘Happy Jack’, and ‘I’m A Boy’, which form a sort-of medley. (Townshend cheekily introduces the songs beforehand, taking lighthearted jabs at their relative failure in the charts.) Following ‘I Can’t Explain’, the band slow things down with a cover of Allen Toussaint’s ‘Fortune Teller’, taken at a lugubrious pace, with stacks of power chords and anthemic joint vocals from Roger Daltrey and Entwistle. Then, an awkward transition into ‘Tattoo’, a twee but enjoyable song of “what makes a man a man” — evidently, Townshend has decided that it’s ink from a needle, instead of “brains or brawn or the month you were born”.
‘Young Man Blues’ is the second chance for the instrumentalists to show off their abilities, and serves as an anthem of sorts for the post-Woodstock malaise: the drugs were wearing off and the hippie dream was viciously crushed by Altamont. Daltrey and Townshend, despite being in their mid-20s at the time, identified with the plight of the youth, and often spoke highly of “the kids”. ‘Young Man Blues’ transforms Mose Allison’s original lament into a highly-charged, proto-punk workout with Daltrey caterwauling in his leonine scream while Townshend, Entwistle, and Keith Moon thrash away.
‘A Quick One, While He’s Away’ follows the aforementioned trio of hits, and is a powerful performance in preparation for Tommy (which followed, but was placed on a second disc to make for easier listening). However, it’s the introductory dialog that’s a real scream: Townshend spends five minutes going on about what ‘A Quick One’ is about, with Moon occasionally interjecting with lewd and off-color jokes and remarks. Townshend, always an engaging speaker, sheds some light on the intent behind the song, while playing off Moon’s good-natured jabs and barbs with great humor. The performance itself is electrifying, and easily stands as the best version of the handful already released.
Eddie Cochran’s ‘Summertime Blues’ and Johnny Kidd’s ‘Shakin’ All Over’ follow, and are as magnificent and devastating as ‘Young Man Blues’; the former employs Entwistle’s basso profundo voce as Townshend gleefully solos, while the latter stops and starts with conviction. It’s all a prelude to the final 25 minutes, with 16 of those 25 minutes taken up by ‘My Generation’ and the last nine made up of ‘Magic Bus’. ‘Generation’ has come a long way since its debut five years prior, with the band transforming it into a powerhouse barnstormer, making the single recording sound almost like a jaunty walk in the park. Elements from ‘Sparks’, ‘The Seeker’, and the then-unreleased ‘Naked Eye’ are incorporated, and the 16 minute running time may seem intimidating at first, but it’s never boring or indulgent. ‘Magic Bus’, meanwhile, starts off (comparatively) gently, with Moon clacking away on claves while Entwistle holds down the rhythm with distorted bass; Daltrey and Townshend, meanwhile, banter and barter over the price of the otherworldly transport vehicle in question, and just as it seems the Bo Diddley rhythm is getting a little too monotonous, and the band have stretched the audience’s tolerance to its limits, Moon grabs his sticks and leads the band into overdrive as Townshend slashes away on his guitar and Entwistle’s fingers dance up and down his fretboard. The whole thing comes to an orgasmic conclusion, and as the listener sits there, unsure what s/he just heard, there’s still the matter of listening to that second disc…
[1]I have no problem with improvisation, and Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham were/are all magnificent musicians. However, I can do without a half hour of fiddling about on a guitar or 15 minutes of dicking around on drums (and I say that as a one-time drummer), because it may be interesting while under the influence of heavy narcotics and while one is witnessing it first-hand, but on record, it becomes a frustratingly tedious listen after the first 30 seconds has passed.
The Rolling Stones: Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!
Posted: 07.14.2010 Filed under: 1970, live album, The Rolling Stones Leave a comment »
“I think I’ve burst a button on me trousers, hope they don’t fall down,” Mick Jagger coyly purrs after opener ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’. “You don’t want them to fall down, do ya?!” he shouts to overexcited applause and cheers. Even after two years not on the road, which saw the Rolling Stones rocked with turmoil (a series of drug busts for Jagger, Keith Richards, and Brian Jones, as well as the untimely and tragic death of Jones in July 1969, four months before this set was recorded), Jagger still reveled in being a provocative and oversexed frontman.
Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! The Rolling Stones In Concert (to give it its full title) has long been called the greatest rock album of all time, but its effect has been worn down a bit over time, especially with 1970′s other devastating and far superior live album, The Who’s Live At Leeds. It’s true that, of the Stones’ many live album releases, Ya-Ya’s is the best, with the well-oiled five piece (augmented by Ian Stewart on piano) still performing for the sake of performing, instead of as backing musicians to Jagger’s onstage, androgynous antics. The majority of the songs come from Madison Square Garden in New York City, but there’s none of the airiness that would plague future live albums like Love You Live, Still Life, or Flashpoint, which sound like the band were recorded from the back end of a vast, faceless stadium; Ya-Ya’s finds the band firing on all cylinders and is recorded closely and in your face.
The well-known hits are here – ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’, ‘Honky Tonk Women’, ‘Street Fighting Man’ – as well as three songs from the newly-released Let It Bleed – ‘Live With Me’, ‘Midnight Rambler’, and a cover of Robert Johnson’s ‘Love In Vain’. There’s even two Chuck Berry covers, ‘Carol’ and ‘Little Queenie’, the later of which hadn’t yet appeared on a studio release – and still hasn’t. They’re performed exceptionally well, of course, with Keith Richards not quite yet reduced to the blown-out junkie that would affect his abilities throughout the 1970s, or the self-parodic poseur of the 1980s and beyond; Mick Taylor ably steps in as Jones’ replacement, offering up fluid and beautiful guitar licks, and it’s his solo on ‘Love In Vain’ that is particularly arresting. The rhythm section of Bill Wyman (bass) and Charlie Watts (drums) feed off each other instinctively, chugging along and allowing the Micks to improvise and extemporize as they feel fit.
The highlights are undoubtedly ‘Midnight Rambler’, a lengthy, 10-minute workout that starts off stridently and, midway through, grinds down to a halt, allowing Jagger to crawl around on all fours and act the victim of the murderous titular character. ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ is also transformed from the dark and brooding samba of the original recording to a lively rock song, and while some of the menace is lost (indeed, this is also true of ‘Stray Cat Blues’, which is probably the only clonker on this set), it’s still a corker of a song. The same can be said of the two closing tracks, ‘Honky Tonk Women’ and ‘Street Fighting Man’, which are especially devastating and serve as a one-two finale, proving that the Stones didn’t really need fancy effects or large inflatables to put on a good show. The Stones of today could easily take a cue from the Stones of 1969 for the next time they hit the road.
Warren Zevon: Stand In The Fire
Posted: 07.13.2010 Filed under: 1981, live album, Warren Zevon Leave a comment »
Having been on a massive Warren Zevon kick for at least a few months now, it’s only inevitable that I would listen mostly to his more famous albums – Excitable Boy, The Wind, and A Quiet Normal Life – before getting around to some of his lesser-known stuff. Stand In The Fire always struck me as an oddity of an album, mostly because of the out-of-focus cover shot with Zevon prominently displaying his crotch and giving a double thumbs-up that would make even Fonzie jealous, and, I suppose this was down to my own ignorance, I consistently confused this album with The Envoy. Why, I don’t know.
So in one of my earliest attempts to listen to every version of ‘Lawyers, Guns And Money’ that I have, I discovered that this album is an excellent source of energy, and contains what may be not only the best version of that song, but the best versions of all the songs, period. Clearly, Zevon and his band were on fire on this night, though chances are he didn’t remember it; he has stated, notably on an appearance on David Letterman’s show, that this was the one album he didn’t remember at all making. It’s plain to hear that he’s possessed by “mysterious forces” here; each song is leagues above the familiar studio versions, with Zevon obviously enjoying himself and changing lyrics to nearly every song to suit his mood.
The set opens with the title track, one of two exclusive-to-this-album songs that’s decent, if not particularly great; this was probably an incentive to get fans to purchase what was practically a rehashing of his then handful of best-known songs. ‘Jeanie Needs A Shooter’, written with The Boss, comes from his most recent album, Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School, and is transformed into a slow burn of a rocker. (Only ‘Mohammed’s Radio’ slows things down exclusively, but in a good way, mind you.) In fact, this is true of most of the more uptempo songs here; ‘Werewolves Of London’ and ‘Lawyers, Guns And Money’ both benefit from the guitars being turned up to 11, Zevon wailing away drunkenly and adding seemingly improv’d lyrics about Jackson Browne’s perfect heart and the titular lycanthrope on the prowl for James Taylor. On ‘Excitable Boy’ he interjects each verse with an excitable “Huh?!” or alters the phrasing to “Well he’s JUST an exCITable BOY!”, while on ‘Poor, Poor Pitiful Me’ he namechecks his road manager George Gruel, calling him his best friend before howling for him to get out on stage and dance, “Or I’ll kill ya!”
The second new song, ‘The Sin’, is infinitely better than the title track, with a rousing chorus and a set of lyrics about a girl being cruel for cruelty’s sake. ‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead’ blends in easily with ‘Pitiful Me’, and while it lacks the distinctive harmonica accompaniment, it does maintain the Spanish interjections and the menace of the original, with Zevon growling of consuming hot-brake motor oil and Bombay gin (I’d rather have the motor oil, to be honest). Instead of a .38 special he now has a .44 Magnum, and instead of threatening to kill himself if he starts acting stupid, he now has no intention of using it on himself. Thank goodness for that!
The original album ends with ‘Bo Diddley’s A Gunslinger’, a rousing performance that uses the Bo Diddley “bum-bum-bum-ba-bum” riff to good use, and concludes one hell of a live set that showed that Zevon was not only a mordant lyricist with a dark sense of humor, but could also be a rousing showman. The audience is having a blast, the band is bouncing off Zevon’s energy, and you can tell that he’s just soaking up all the fun as quickly as he’s pounding down the liquor. It’s difficult to listen to the pristine studio versions of these songs after Stand In The Fire is over, but I’m okay with that, really.
Queen: Live At Wembley Stadium
Posted: 07.12.2010 Filed under: 1986, live album, Queen 1 Comment »In order to keep my interest in this blog going, and perhaps to kick-start my interest in not only writing about music, but also listening to music to the point where I feel compelled to write about it, I’ve come up with the brilliant idea of “theme” weeks. First up is live albums; I also have one other theme in the wings, which I plan on working on once I return from my vacation in the middle of July. For right now, however, let’s jump right into the theme of live albums!
Back in 1993, after my mom got me News Of The World for my 10th birthday, I made it my mission to acquire practically everything ever released by Queen. This meant scouring Trac Records for hours (not necessarily on end, but multiple times in a week, that’s for sure) and digesting every bit of information that my grubby little hands could grab in the shrink-wrapped confines of cassette tapes. (I didn’t have a CD player, so looking at CDs made no sense to me.) Once I got tired of looking at albums I couldn’t afford to buy, I then went on to the VHS section. One tape grabbed my attention: it was Queen’s Live At Wembley ’86, a heavily truncated video representation of the band’s homecoming concert at London’s Wembley Stadium. (I read all this on the back of the tape, although the “heavily truncated” part I didn’t discover until later.) I bought the video and promptly wore it out with repeated viewings; I knew every song by heart, and when I got tired of watching it – or wanted to listen to the music instead of having to watch the video – I asked my dad if he could record the audio onto a cassette tape for me, which he happily did.
Then, one evening, my dad and I were walking around Suncoast Video, which also had cassettes and CDs (by this time, I had purchased a CD player, much to my relief), and I saw Live At Wembley ’86 in a longbox and immediately purchased it – least of all because, instead of the 15 songs that I knew about, the two-disc set had nearly twice that amount. My little 11 year old mind was blown that I had been missing out on 13 songs!
But what of the concert itself? Queen were at their live peak in 1986, having just wowed the world with their legendary appearance at Live Aid; they were unanimously voted the best band of the day, not only by the viewers, but also by other acts on the bill. It had a lot to do with Freddie Mercury’s famed grandstanding, as he made a deep connection with everyone from the front row to the back of Wembley Stadium; additionally, the band were well-oiled and ready to impress the world. There were far too many people watching to not be prepared. (Oh, and maybe a few mouths were fed in Africa along the way.)
They returned in 1986 with the multi-platinum selling A Kind Of Magic album, big on hits but light on substance – just the kind of album that could be toured around the world. With a renewed sense of purpose, they set out on a massive European tour, eventually returning “home” in July to perform to ecstatic and enthusiastic British audiences. Four of the nine new songs – ‘One Vision’, ‘A Kind Of Magic’, ‘Friends Will Be Friends’, and ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’ – were regulars in the set list, and, stripped of their layers of generic synthesized fluff, sound actually quite good in the live setting; additionally, songs from The Works (‘Tear It Up’, ‘Radio Ga Ga’, ‘I Want To Break Free’, and ‘Hammer To Fall’) were transformed from nice, inoffensively pop songs to muscular rock songs, while old chestnuts like ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, and the inevitable pairing of ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’ (rudely interrupted by an out-of-place ‘Friends Will Be Friends’) are serviceable but immensely enjoyable. Only on the brief medley of ‘In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited’ and ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’, and the acoustic trio of Elvis’s ‘(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care’, Ricky Nelson’s ‘Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart)’, and Little Richard’s ‘Tutti Frutti’ (transformed midway into a barnstorming electric rocker), offer any real surprises whatsoever; otherwise, this was a set list that offered strictly hits to the audience who may have recently become converted fans. (This is obvious when the band start ‘Lap Of The Gods’, which gets only sparse applause as the first notes are played.)
Postscript: I didn’t realize this until after I published this, but the Wembley Stadium concert performance happened exactly 24 years ago this day. Funny how that happens!
