Masterpiece: Music From Big Pink

[Today: Going to the country...]

Every summer during my childhood, my brother and I were booked for two solid weeks at our grandma’s place in Dora, OR. Eighteen miles of winding gravel road from that metropolitan capital Myrtle Point, my grandma’s farm was a quarter mile from the nearest neighbor. It was bordered by a cemetery (where she’s now buried) on one side, and backed up into national forest service land, so it was quiet, deep country. Music From Big Pink is credited with sending popular music back to the country in search of a simpler sound, but it was also one of the soundtracks of our three-hour drives to grandma’s house – over the hills and through the woods, past Winston and Roseburg, and right into the wild west.

My grandmother picked ferns and mushrooms, could identify plants on sight, and wrote a regular column for the Myrtle Point Herald on canning vegetables and such. Her farm had chickens, rabbits, and goats, a lone horse, and a beagle named Snoopy. My brother and I used to disappear into the woods in the morning and not return until dusk. We hiked logging roads, climbed trees, hunted salamanders, drank goat’s milk, shot guns, and soaked up nature. Sleeping under the shooting stars with bugs in our hair, it was easy to feel like the whole world was ours, and those visits always went by too quickly.

Inevitably, our parents would show up to retrieve us in their orange VW Bug. One year on the way home a news flash came over the radio – Elvis Presley was dead. Putt-putting along in our VW, that news barely caused a ripple in the front seat. My parents’ muted reaction that day was in stark contrast to my mom’s stunned disbelief nearly a decade later at the news that The Band’s Richard Manuel had committed suicide by hanging himself. “What a loss… such a voice…” she gasped, before retreating into herself to process the news.

I didn’t understand her grief then (I barely knew who The Band were, let alone Richard Manuel), but I do now. The Band was creatively driven by lead guitarist and chief songwriter Robbie Robertson, but Manuel’s voice was a big part of what gave them their centuries’ old sound. Like Hank Williams, Manuel’s fragile, haunted voice belonged to a man with never-ending heartache, someone who’s seen things he can’t un-see, and that kind of musical wisdom is rare and precious. An older, better world is brought forth in every note of The Band’s music, and even if you’re not driving down a one-lane road in Southwest Oregon, Music From Big Pink can carry you back.

Listen: Chest Fever

Listen: To Kingdom Come

Listen: Long Black Veil

Buried Treasure: Music, Mayhem, And More!

[Today: A good old-fashioned variety show...]

In the late-70′s, every Sunday night around 8pm found my brother and I freshly scrubbed, in our pajamas, and sprawled out in front of the television in full anticipation of The Muppet Show. Marlin Perkins was usually closing up shop on Mutual Of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, summarizing that day’s adventure with Water Buffalo, while we impatiently squirmed, waiting for The Great Gonzo and Fozzie Bear to take center stage.

The Muppet Show was a good old-fashioned variety show in the mold of The Ed Sullivan Show or The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. There were skits and jokes, celebrity guests and regular characters, and plenty of singing and dancing. As Barney The Dinosaur and countless children’s shows since have proven, the music could have been terrible and the show would have still been a huge hit (kids aren’t the most discerning music critics, after all). It’s to the show’s infinite credit that that not only was the music enjoyable for kids and adults alike, it has also held up remarkably well.

Of course, the Muppet Band (aka Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem) was a killer unit, with the inimitable Dr. Teeth on vocals and keyboard, the lovely Janice on guitar, the mysterious Zoot on saxophone, the delightfully-named Sgt Floyd Pepper on bass, and the energetic Animal on drums. Part Keith Moon, part Tasmanian Devil, Animal had trouble getting through any performance without destroying his kit. This was brilliant, hilarious theater, and it always left us wanting more. The show usually featured first-rate musical guests, including disparate notables such as Alice Cooper, Dizzy Gillespie and John Denver. But the Muppets didn’t just lean on their guests for great songs – they had plenty of their own, including ‘Mahna Mahna’ and ‘Can You Picture That?’.

Music, Mayhem, And More! collects all the best songs from The Muppet Show and their subsequent movies. Kermit T. Frog’s ‘Rainbow Connection’ (from the original Muppet Movie) is a beautiful little tune about the nature of dreamers, and it’s since been covered by Willie Nelson, Dixie Chicks, and many others. Statler and Waldorf – the old curmudgeons in the balcony – may not have liked it one bit, but me and my brother couldn’t get enough.

Listen: Rainbow Connection

Listen: Mahna Mahna

Listen: Can You Picture That?

Magic Moment: KISS at Budokan

For the 6-9 year old dk, no band was hotter or badder than KISS. My younger brother and I were card-carrying members of the KISS Army, and we each had massive, wall-sized posters of the group that took up considerable real estate in our bedrooms for a number of years. ‘Detroit Rock City’ and ‘Rock & Roll All Night’ were good tunes, but for my money ‘God Of Thunder’ represented the height of KISS’ powers. This version, from Budokan in 1977, features a showy drum solo from Peter Criss. But this song is really about Gene Simmons spitting blood, assaulting his bass, playing to the crowd, and robbing you of your virgin soul…

Doubleshot Tuesday: Greatest Hits 1974-78/Wings Greatest

[Today: The spirit of '78...]

A hundred years from now, when some young whippersnapper asks me what it was like to be a kid in the 1970′s, I’ll hand over these two albums. Both were released in 1978 and, for better or worse, could be the soundtrack to a certain section of my youth. ‘Twas a time of Spirograph, Atari 2600, Farrah Fawcett posters, bellbottom trousers, shag carpets, and Casey Kasem. The songs on these albums were staples of FM radio in the late-70′s and early-80′s, and the familiar strains of ‘Live And Let Die’ and ‘Take The Money And Run’ surely accompanied every family picnic in Jasper Park and weekend afternoon spent splashing around with my cousins in their above-ground swimming pool.

Even if I hear it a million more times, ‘Jungle Love’ will always remind me of Skate World in Springfield. The opening strains of this song, with its Star Wars-ish sythesizer sound effects, always raised the level of excitement for the skaters in that particular venue, and a squadron of amped-up 10 year olds on roller skates is more dangerous and thrilling than the mosh pit at Lollapalooza. I’m skating in my mind whenever I hear this tune.

Wings Greatest was nearly as omnipresent as Steve Miller Band’s Greatest Hits during that era, but it was an album I tolerated more than enjoyed. Certain tracks – ‘Live And Let Die’ and ‘Mull Of Kintyre’ – grabbed me, but the rest seemed like an elaborate joke. I remember listening to ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’ with my brother and waiting for the laugh track to kick in. ‘Silly Love Songs’ was an oddity – a song making fun of shitty songs that were exactly like it, this was the musical equivalent of an M.C. Esher painting of a toilet. But then I grew up and these songs suddenly reminded me of being a kid, and all (or most) was forgiven. My 80′s equivalent of this phenomenon is Journey, which still baffles me.

Neither of these are epoch-changing records. Both have some nice, radio-ready songs that stick in the memory, and both sold like gangbusters in their time. One could say that they’re both products of the big-rock mentality of the 70′s, but what they lack in avant-individualism is recouped by the collective conscious that’s behind this music. You can’t put memories in the bank or spread them on your waffles, but they’re real enough, and sometimes they draw you to the darndest music…

Listen: Jungle Love [Steve Miller Band]

Listen: Live and Let Die [Wings]

Listen: The Stake [Steve Miller Band]

Listen: Mull of Kintyre [Wings]

Weekend Playlist

“You got to have smelt a lot of mule manure before you can sing like a hillbilly.” ~ Hank Williams

Hank Williams | 40 Greatest Hits

Duke Ellington | At Newport

The J.J. Johnson Sextet | J.J. Inc.

Donald Byrd | Long Green: The Savoy Sessions

Arnett Cobb | Smooth Sailing

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry | Chicken Scratch

Eugene McDaniels | Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse

Moby Grape | The Place And The Time

John Mayall | Blues From Laurel Canyon

The Modern Lovers | The Modern Lovers

Black Uhuru | Black Sounds Of Freedom

Freddie King | Texas Cannonball

Bonniwell Music Machine | Ignition

Gilles Peterson & Patrick Force | Sunday Afternoon At Dingwalls
[Album cover not pictured]

Lyrics Born | Everywhere At Once

Fania All-Stars | Live At Yankee Stadium, Vol. 1

The Art Farmer Quintet | Blame It On My Youth

Miles Davis | Nefertiti

Dave Alvin | Public Domain

Bo Diddley | The Chess Box

De La Soul | 3 Feet High And Rising

Kris Kristofferson | The Silver Tongued Devil And I

The Meters | Look-Ka Py Py

Iron & Wine | The Shepherd’s Dog

Stuck In My Head: Ellis Unit One

Are some criminals too evil for maximum security? Are some crimes so heinous that they demand capital punishment? When governments exercise the death penalty, do they cede their moral authority on murder? The use of the death penalty is a thorny issue that comes connected to so many questions that it’s like a large display of dominoes – tip one over and it rapidly cascades out in a hundred directions at once.

Written for the 1995 movie Dead Man Walking, Steve Earle’s ‘Ellis Unit One’ is a chilling portrait of a death row guard and the guilt that attends his job. Following in the footsteps of his dad and uncle, this small town boy signs on at the prison after a stint in the service, but his job takes a turn for the worse when he’s transferred to death row. The execution chamber of Ellis Unit One comes to haunt his dreams:

Well, I’ve seen ‘em fight like lions, boys
I’ve seen ‘em go like lambs
And I’ve helped to drag ‘em when they could not stand
And I’ve heard their mamas cryin’ when they heard that big door slam
And I’ve seen the victim’s family holdin’ hands

Last night I dreamed that I woke up with straps across my chest
And something cold and black pullin’ through my lungs
‘N even Jesus couldn’t save me though I know he did his best
But he don’t live on Ellis Unit One

In December of 2006, Ángel Nieves Díaz was executed in Florida for the 1979 murder of a strip club manager. Díaz took 35 minutes and two injections to die, and MSNBC reported that he “…was moving as long as 24 minutes after the first injection, including grimacing, blinking, licking his lips, blowing and attempting to mouth words.” This botched procedure caused governor Jeb Bush to stay all executions – an action that was followed by three other states.

When convicted, Diaz was already in jail for killing the director of a drug treatment organization by stabbing the man 19 times while he was asleep. Clearly this was not a nice person, but while his 35-minute ordeal of an execution became a rallying point for anti-death penalty activists, it’s unclear why Diaz was deserving of a more peaceful death than his victims.

While I support the death penalty in certain cases, I have some serious reservations about the practice, particularly how it’s applied in the United States. Religioustolerance.org reports several interesting facts on this subject, including these doozies:

• The vast majority of those executed were poor. About 90% could not afford a lawyer when they went to trial. They had to rely upon a court-appointed lawyer.

• The homicide rate in those states with the death penalty is almost double the rate in states without the death penalty.

Additionally, by 2006, 14 death row inmates had been proven innocent through DNA evidence. It’s fair to ask how many innocent people have died for the crimes of others, and that in itself is probably enough to give anyone pause about this irreversible form of justice.

Surprisingly, the United States, Japan and Singapore are the only three fully developed countries that still administer capital punishment. Tellingly, the following six countries execute the largest number of their citizens (in order, drumroll please):

1) China
2) Iran
3) Saudi Arabia
4) Pakistan
5) United States
6) Iraq

Regardless of how you feel about the death penalty, that’s some pretty rough human rights company to be in. No tea party of civil liberties there, to be sure…

There are currently nearly 3,700 prisoners on death row in the 37 states that use capital punishment.

Listen: Ellis Unit One

Buried Treasure: King Of California

[Today: Finding the American Voice...]

Buried deep within Dave Alvin’s 1995 book of collected writings, Any Rough Times Are Now Behind You, is a short poem called ‘Madonna’s Kiss’ that explores the idea of the American Voice. For him that meant a bland, Armed Forces Radio announcer’s voice coming through his walkman headphones. But over three decades of making music, Dave Alvin has come to resemble the American Voice of music for those in the know.

Alvin played with roots rockers The Blasters from 1979 until 1985, and joined X for a single album before embarking on an adventurous solo career that has seen him release more than a dozen albums. King Of California (1994) might not even be his best solo release (2000′s Public Domain was off the charts), but as it reinvents a number of his songs in a stripped down setting, it’s the album that best sums up his American roots sound – a seamless blend of blues, rockabilly and country. Alvin is a storyteller in the tradition of Woody Guthrie, and many of the tunes here come from the point of view of characters who are down on their luck and hanging on for dear life.

‘Fourth Of July’ takes place “on the lost side of town in a dark apartment” where the narrator sits on the steps, smoking a cigarette, watching fireworks and wondering how his woman – and his life – slipped away from him. Every nook of Alvin’s songs are suffused with a literary feel. The man doesn’t just write catchy songs, he crafts short stories about the human condition that happen to be perfectly set to music.

Alvin is far from a household name, but he’s unlikely to sell out anytime soon. “There’s just no reason to go downtown in the music industry,” he quipped in a July 2002 interview, “because that’s where Britney Spears lives.” The nature of his art demands that Dave Alvin inhabit a dark apartment on the lost side of town, because that’s where the American Voice can be found.

Listen: King Of California

Listen: Fourth Of July

Listen: Barn Burning