Magic Moment: Captain Beefheart Blows

Step right up, step right up and watch Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, live in Cannes, circa 1968…

Sleeve Notes: Weasels Ripped My Flesh

Creepy, funny, eye-catching, colorful, weird. Neon Park’s artwork for Frank Zappa’s 1970 album Weasels Ripped My Flesh pretty much sums up my feelings about Zappa as an artist. “I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird,” claimed Zappa. But album covers like this certainly moved the needle in the direction of weird, which (in spite of his protestations) suited his music just fine. Park would go on to create a whole string of album covers for Little Feat, but none of those got as dark or strange as this. RZZZZZ!

Buried Treasure: Horse Rotorvator

[Today: The four horsemen plow up the world...]

Think back to when you were a little kid, and you first deduced that death was inevitable. For your parents, siblings, friends, pets, extended family – EVERYONE WAS GOING TO DIE! If you’re like me, this dark eureka moment occurred late at night, around 4 or 5 years old. After consulting with my parents for a few tear-stained questions, they retreated to their bedroom and suddenly death seemed immediate and ever-present. It was a phantasm, waiting to reach out from under the dresser, grab somebody I loved, and take them away forever. My bedroom was suddenly painted with death and it was closing in on me from every angle.

COIL’s 1987 album Horse Rotorvator is a chilling slice of death and decay that will make you feel like a scared little kid, huddled under the covers and staring into the dark for an approaching grim reaper. The album cover features a shadowy, semi-sinister shot of a bandshell that was the site of a notorious IRA bombing of a military orchestra (‘Penetralia’ recreates that band’s dying notes). The album title refers in part to another IRA bombing, this of a parade of horses and soldiers that left spectators covered in gore. The bombs that ripped across the United Kingdom in the 80s might be the subtext of this record, but death is death is death, and this influential industrial album is all about the final curtain. Asked about the meaning of the title, COIL’s Peter Christopherson laughed and cryptically replied, “It is apocalyptic. It has already been, and what we have left is the remains. It’s over – finished.”

“On the eve of the apocalypse… the four horsemen betray their steeds – slitting open the animals throats,” reads the text on the album cover. “The four then fashion an immense earthmoving device from the collective jawbones – the Horse Rotovator – with which to plow up the waiting world.” This album is very much the soundtrack for such a scene – black, bubbling synthesizers, swooning strings, weepy horns and myriad voices (chanting children, operatic singers, fire-and-brimstone preachers) play out like a long waltz to hell, and song titles such as ‘Blood From The Air’ and ‘The First Five Minutes After Death’ provide signposts along the carnage-strewn path. It’s little wonder that COIL created music (later withdrawn) for Clive Barker’s movie Hellraiser – they’d been there before…

Listen: Slur

Listen: The Golden Section

Listen: Penetralia

Masterpiece: Doolittle

[Today: Pixies come to life...]

“It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open…” So begins life for Dr. Frankenstein’s monster in Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece Frankenstein. That monster was composed from parts of cadavers, sewn together with surgical twine, and animated with electricity – one musical beast that rose out of Boston in the late-80s was constructed from similar materials. Pixies split the difference between Cheap Trick and Hüsker Dü, while providing a non-stop assault on the senses. Behind brutal guitars, lead singer Frank Black (aka Black Francis) screamed his head off about UFOs, guns, scary movies, broken bones, toxic sludge and dead animals.

Listening to their early albums is like having an electrode jammed into your spine, while a madman paces back in forth in front of you, spouting deranged incantations like the world depends on them. If that doesn’t sound like fun then you obviously weren’t subjected to the soul-less, cookie-cutter dreck that passed for music during the bulk of the 80s. The Pixies’ sound – a whole bunch punk, a little bit pop, and a lot of crazy – was the perfect antidote to a decade of polished MTV bands, and played a big part in inspiring what the first half of the 90s would sound like.

You might as well flip a coin to pick among their first four albums – all of them are pretty good. Many fans prefer Surfer Rosa, and it’s a fine record, but Doolittle gets the nod here because it provides a full tour of their sound. Scare-fests like ‘Debaser’ and ‘Tame’ are balanced by serene, almost-sweet tunes like ‘Here Comes Your Man’ and ‘There Goes My Gun’; ‘Crackity Jones’ is pure, throwback punk and ‘Mr. Greives’ inspired a group as far-flung as TV On The Radio. When Kim Deal gets weird and spacey on ‘Silver’, you can almost hear a new decade dawning.

“You should never rely on interviews with musicians as being factual. Most of them are mangled and even have made up stuff in them, that is to say, made up stuff by the writer or editor,” said Frank Black. It’s up to you to figure out if I made up that quote or not, but trust me on this: Doolittle kills.

Listen: Debaser

Listen: Here Comes Your Man

Listen: Wave Of Mutilation

A Letter From The Chairman…

In this 1990 letter to the LA Times Calendar Magazine, Frank Sinatra chides George Michael for his comments about shunning fame, and urges him to “Loosen up. Swing, man.” Can I get an amen?

[Special thanks to Word Magazine for bringing this to my attention...]

Sleeve Notes: Amorica

The cover of The Black Crowes’ 1994 album Amorica was lifted from the July, 1976 Bicentennial cover of Hustler magazine. “Just because I publish pornography,” said Hustler founder and publisher Larry Flynt, “does not mean that I am not concerned about the social ills that all of us are.” Flynt pursued his freedom through pubic hair and pornographic imagery, and ended up becoming a fierce first amendment advocate. Black Crowes founders Rich and Chris Robinson have expressed their freedom through both bong and song. Noted rapscallion, philosopher and freedom fighter Ben Franklin claimed that “It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.” Franklin, Flynt and the Robinson brothers form an unlikely intersection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…

*****

[A million thanks to my readers for pushing this blog over 2,000,000 page views...]

The 25 Greatest Live Albums Of All-Time

“A concert is not a live rendition of our album. It’s a theatrical event.” ~ Freddie Mercury

*****

Punch your ticket to 25 of the best live albums of all-time…

25] Yardbirds | Five Live Yardbirds – A young Eric Clapton flashes the skills that would earn him all kinds of silly nicknames, and influence half a generation of guitarists…

Listen: Smokestack Lightning

24] Black Lips | Los Valientes Del Mundo Nuevo – “This is gonna be the greatest live album ever,” yells one of the Lips during this set recorded in Tijuana, Mexico. It’s somewhere closer to the best live album of the ’00s…

Listen: M.I.A.

23] Grateful Dead | Reckoning – Freed from psychedelic pyrotechnics, the Dead shine on this stripped down, pre-Unplugged set…

Listen: Deep Elem Blues

22] Thin Lizzy | Live And Dangerous – Thin Lizzy capped a glorious run of mid-70s albums with this double-live epic…

Listen: Jailbreak

21] Various Artists | Woodstock – A bit of the good, bad and ugly, but Richie Havens, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Country Joe, Canned Heat and Alvin Lee save the day(s)…

Listen: Soul Sacrifice [Santana]

20] Bob Dylan | Live 1966: The Royal Albert Hall Concert – Dylan’s willful clashes with his audiences in ’66 would be echoed by Johnny Rotten in ’77 and Axl Rose in ’88, but the original punk is still the snarlin’est of them all…

Listen: I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)

19] Eric Clapton | Unplugged – Clapton rejuvenated his career – and gave his fans a new way to hear his songs – with this groundbreaking MTV Unplugged show…

Listen: Layla

18] Talking Heads | The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads – What do you know, they actually were punks! The first album comes from the years 1977-79, while the second covers 1980-81. Both trump Stop Making Sense…

Listen: New Feeling

17] Otis Redding | Live In Europe – Recorded in March 1967, during the Stax/Volt ensemble tour of Europe, this album overflows with the enthusiasm of the audience, and foreshadows Redding’s knockout performance at the Monterey Pop Festival just a few months later…

Listen: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

16] Muddy Waters | Live At Newport 1960 – At the 1960 Newport Folk Festival, Muddy Waters wasn’t yet a Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame inductee or Chicago Blues titan – he was simply a man with a band trying to impress a whole bunch of white people. This soulful yet blistering set did the trick, and sent him on his way to all those accolades…

Listen: I’ve Got My Mojo Working

15] The Rolling Stones | LiveR Than You’ll Ever Be – The original concert bootleg was recorded in Oakland, CA on November 9th, 1969. Highlights include a ferocious version of ‘Midnight Rambler’ that lays bare the psychotic violence at the heart of the song, and a tough-as-nails take on Robert Johnson’s ‘Love In Vain’. This is one of the best documents of the self-proclaimed ‘World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band’…

Listen: Midnight Rambler

14] Led Zeppelin | How The West Was Won – Taken from a pair of Southern California shows in June of 1972, this is the live showcase that Led Zeppelin always deserved. Jimmy Page considers the group to have been at its artistic peak during this period, and How The West Was Won bears out such an opinion…

Listen: What Is And What Should Never Be

13] Neil Young | Live Rust – Recorded at the Cow Palace on October 22nd, 1978, this double LP is the audio twin to Young’s concert film Rust Never Sleeps. The CD version omits ‘Cortez The Killer’, so stick to LP…

Listen: Sugar Mountain

12] AC/DC | Live From The Atlantic Studios – Originally released as a promo for radio stations, this show was captured on December 7th, 1977 at the Atlantic Recording Studios in New York City. AC/DC was a purring beast by this point, and the sublime aggression of songs like ‘Live Wire’ and ‘High Voltage’ come through loud and clear…

Listen: Live Wire

11] Dzihan & Kamien | Live In Vienna – Aided by a grant from the Austrian government, Vlado dZihan and Mario Kamien threw a very special release party for their 2003 album Gran Riserva. Featuring three percussionists, a horn section, five violins, a viola, a cello, a DJ, bass, guitars, a sampler and keyboards, and a host of exotic middle eastern and african instrumentation, the dZihan & Kamien Orchestra created live electronica like you’ve never heard it before, and likely never will again…

Listen: After

10] Little Feat | Waiting For Columbus – The best concerts are parties, and no band this side of the Dead threw a better party than Little Feat. Filled with pure boogie and swinging grooves, Waiting For Columbus includes definitive versions of ‘Fat Man In The Bathtub’ and ‘Spanish Moon’. Recorded in August of 1977, less than two years before group mastermind Lowell George suffered a fatal heart attack, this album remains a fan favorite…

Listen: Spanish Moon

9] Lynyrd Skynyrd | One More From The Road – The plane crash that killed most of Lynyrd Skynyrd remains the largest scale tragedy in the history of rock, and not just because of the body count. When that plane went down on October 20th, 1977 it took one of the best live acts of the ’70s. Ronnie Van Zandt was a good old-fashioned ass-kicking frontman, and his moxy is on full display throughout One More From The Road. Recorded July 7th-9th, 1976, this one’s a keepsake…

Listen: Call Me the Breeze

8] Ramones | It’s Alive – The Ramones were straight ahead, no bullshit rawk-an-rowl. No “We love you Cleveland!” or “There’s a story behind this next number…“, they just blasted away. Recorded at the Rainbow Theatre in London on New Year’s Eve 1977/78, It’s Alive features 28 songs in 54 minutes – you do the math. Better yet, just sit back and get blasted…

Listen: Blitzkrieg Bop

7] Nirvana | MTV Unplugged In New York – Recorded just months before Kurt Cobain’s death, this album functions as a roadmap of Nirvana’s influences. The covers included here shed light on several of the band’s musical relatives; from Leadbelly to David Bowie to Meat Puppets to the Vaselines, one can connect the dots among a number of influences that might not otherwise have been readily apparent. By all reports, Cobain was seriously addicted to heroin and in poor health during the weeks leading up the Unplugged date in November of 1993, and alienated his bandmates to the point that Dave Grohl offered to quit the group during rehearsals. [read full review]

Listen: Where Did You Sleep Last Night

6] The Band | The Last Waltz – Scorsese. The Band. Guest stars aplenty – Dylan, Neil, Van, Muddy, Joni, etc. Critics have quibbled over some of the performances captured here, but The Last Waltz is still the classiest goodbye from any band of the rock era. Rather than ending in death, insanity, internal strife or commercial failure, The Band threw a party. And you’re invited…

Listen: It Makes No Difference

5] Jimi Hendrix | Live At Winterland – Hendrix may have lit his guitar on fire at Monterey, but he burns down Winterland on the shows captured here. ‘Killing Floor’, ‘Fire’ and ‘Crosstown Traffic’ find their ultimate expression in these live versions, and the album is topped off with an epic, note-perfect reading of ‘Red House’. Live At Winterland is not only a fine place to wade into the guitar legend of Jimi Hendrix, but ultimate proof that he was a man apart on his instrument…

Listen: Red House

4] Jerry Lee Lewis | Live At The Star Club, Hamburg – The Star Club in Hamburg, Germany is the cabaret where The Beatles perfected their live act before conquering America and the world. It’s hard to say whether that connection played into the fire that Jerry Lee Lewis played with on this particular evening, but from the word go he assaults his piano with a beautiful fury that is breathtaking to behold. His backing band, The Nashville Teens, were clearly in over their heads, and spend the entirety of this show holding on for dear life and trying to keep up with The Killer (“Play that thing right boy!” Jerry Lee yells at one Teen during a cover of Ray Charles’ ‘What’d I Say’). From the first notes of ‘Mean Woman Blues’, this is a nasty, snarling, unhinged performance that presages the nihilism of punk rock. “Jerry, Jerry…” he chants along with the crowd at one point, before cutting them off with an acidic “Alright already!”. Johnny Rotten, your grandpa is on line one… [read full review]

Listen: Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On

3] James Brown | Live At The Apollo – Recorded on October 24th, 1962, Live At The Apollo was more than just a financial gamble. Live albums were unusual at that time, and this particular album was recorded before The Apollo Theatre’s famously fickle and unruly Amateur Night crowd. The audience was well-mic’d, and their squeals, screams, and gasps of delight are no small part of what makes this such an amazing document. JB’s sizzle comes blasting through the stylus, and at times he toys with the crowd, cajoling them to give it up before unleashing his own orgasmic yelps of joy. Regarding his stage presence, Brown explained that “Sometimes I feel like I’m a preacher as well [as a singer], ’cause I can really get into an audience.” [read full review]

Listen: Lost Someone

2] The Allman Brothers Band | At Fillmore East – This LP finds Duane Allman at a short-lived peak – he would die in a motorcycle accident in Macon, GA just a few months after the release of At Fillmore East, and a few weeks shy of his 25th birthday. His epic soloing on ‘Whipping Post’ and ‘In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed’ reflects Coltrane’s ‘sheets of sound’ approach to playing, and stands as some of the most outstanding guitar work of the rock era. ‘Whipping Post’ goes for 22:40 and sees Duane build up an amazing piece of musical architecture, before tearing it down piece by piece. It ends the album with a few bars of the intro to ‘Mountain Jam’ – which itself would occupy two entire sides of the double album Eat A Peach. Even if he’d lived to be a hundred, it’s hard to see how Duane Allman could have topped his work here. [read full review]

Listen: In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed

1] Johnny Cash | At Folsom Prison – Johnny Cash was one of the most charismatic performers to ever set foot on stage – put him in front of a delirious and potentially dangerous audience on one of his best days, and you’ve got a recording for the ages. If you want to hear how thrilling live music can be, and find out what happens when a legendary performer is driven ever higher, until he reaches something close to the zeitgeist, pick up a copy of At Folsom Prison. [read full review]

Listen: Folsom Prison Blues

*****

25 More That Are Worth A Spin…

Curtis Mayfield | Curtis/Live!
Tom Waits | Nighthawks At The Diner
Van Morrison | It’s Too Late To Stop Now
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers | Live Anthology
Various Artists | Wattstax
The Clash | From Here To Eternity
MC5 | Thunder Express
Jay-Z | Unplugged
Duke Ellington | Ellington At Newport
The Kinks | BBC Sessions 1964-1977
Bob Marley & The Wailers | Live
J. Geils Band | Full House
Charles Mingus | Mingus At Antibes
Fred Neil | The Sky Is Falling
KISS | Kiss Alive II
The Byrds | Live At Royal Albert Hall 1971
The Stooges | Live In L.A. ’73
Elvis Presley | ’68 Comeback Special
Jeff Buckley | Live @ Sine-E
Ozzy Osbourne | Tribute
Velvet Underground | The Quine Tapes
The Jam | At The BBC
Miles Davis | Live Evil
Stevie Ray Vaughan | Blues At Sunrise
The Steve Miller Band | King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents…

*****

And 6 More That Should Come With Earplugs…

Elvis Presley | Having Fun On Stage With Elvis
Bob Dylan | Live At Budokan
Led Zeppelin | The Song Remains The Same
The Beatles | Live At The Hollywood Bowl
Jimi Hendrix | Isle Of Wight
The Doors | Absolutely Live

Masterpiece: At Folsom Prison

[Today: Johnny Cash goes behind bars...]

By the year nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, Johnny Cash had been pestering Columbia Records for more than six years to let him release a live album recorded in a prison setting. Cash had already played a number of penitentiaries, including Folsom Prison in 1966, and the experience gave him confidence that the atmosphere would lend itself to an excellent live album. But Columbia wasn’t having it, and the idea was a non-starter until Cash started working with maverick producer Bob Johnston, who’d previously produced Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde. Johnston instantly recognized the merit of such an enterprise, and made it happen by simply picking up the phone and calling Folsom and San Quentin to see if they’d be interested (Folsom called back first).

Cash’s difficulty in convincing Columbia to let him record a prison album only underscores how low his career had fallen at that point. While not exactly washed up, he was four years removed from his last Top 40 hit, and his label could be forgiven for assuming that as the 60s bloomed into their full psychedelic splendor, Johnny Cash was a man of the past, little more than an oldies act (it wouldn’t be the last time The Man In Black would overcome that particular misperception). At Folsom Prison would revive his career and cement his legend.

On the cold, grey morning of Janurary 13th, 1968, Cash entered the gates at Folsom with June Carter, Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, his band the Tennesse Three (guitarist Luther Perkins, upright bassist Marshall Grant and drummer W.S. Holland) and an entourage that included producer Johnston and photographer Jim Marshall. The group was tense and humorless on entry, and Marshall’s photographs show Cash nervously eyeing the walls of Folsom liked a caged animal. But once they got to the rehearsal area off the main cafeteria, their mood lightened considerably. They were scheduled to play two shows that day (9:40am and 12:40pm) as insurance against an awkward recording process and/or a sluggish performance.

Carl Perkins and the Statlers each played a few songs to warm up the crowd, before MC Hugh Cherry stepped to the mic and primed the prisoners for the show, urging them to “respond” to Cash’s performance and asking them to wait until he introduced himself before letting loose with cheers. And so At Folsom Prison opens with a moment of silence before Cash uncorks his standard “Hello I’m Johnny Cash” intro, and an eruption of cheers practically blows the roof off the joint. Luther Perkins plays the first few notes of ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and we’re off on perhaps the most exciting concert performance ever captured on tape.

Cash loaded his set with songs that touched on gallows and alibis, sheriffs and district courts, trials and juries, dark dungeons and the green, green grass of home. In the wake of the massive success of At Folsom Prison, it’s taken as an obvious decision, but Cash threatened overwhelming his audience with concerns and subjects they were all too familiar with. Instead, he fed off their energy and vice-versa, creating an electric synergy that jumps menacingly from the grooves even 40 years later. In 1999 he reflected on his state of mind in Folsom that day: “Let it blow. We are in the timeless now. There is no calendar inside the cafeteria today.”

Fifteen of the album’s 17 songs came from the early show – Cash was on fire that morning, radiating outlaw cool and throwing off sparks with every quip and stray curse word. Author Michael Streissguth compared his performance to a runaway freight train, speeding out of control without ever leaving the tracks. Cash was certainly one of the most charismatic performers to ever set foot on stage – put him in front of a delirious and potentially dangerous audience on one of his best days, and you’ve got a recording for the ages. If you want to hear how thrilling live music can be, and find out what happens when a legendary performer is driven ever higher, until he reaches something close to the zeitgeist, pick up a copy of At Folsom Prison.

Listen: Folsom Prison Blues

Listen: Cocaine Blues

Buried Treasure: Donny Hathaway Live

[Today: Donny Hathaway shines...]

His music is so uplifting, so filled with the eternal promise of gospel and the spirt of soul, that it’s hard believe Donny Hathaway’s life ended with a violent plunge from a 15th story hotel room window in New York City. But on January 13th, 1979, Hathaway – distraught over a botched recording session and suffering from acute depression and schizophrenia – neatly removed the window from his hotel room and stepped into the void, bringing the curtain down on one of the great, distinct, unheralded soul voices of our time. He was just 33.

In the decades since his suicide, Hathaway’s stature has grown exponentially within the music industry. Unlike most legendary soul and funk musicians of the past, he isn’t just sampled, but name-checked by a surprising number of artists, including Prince, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z and Common. Hathaway’s name itself has come to represent something of substance among the young, gifted and black, and a quick spin of Donny Hathaway Live confirms why.

Recorded at the Troubadour in Hollywood (Side A) and the Bitter End in New York City (Side B), …Live is 7/8s cover songs (only ‘The Ghetto’ is a Hathaway original), but still the best place to discover the full scope of his brilliance. The album opens with a stirring cover of Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’ that has audience members crying out and testifying at the top of their lungs. It should go without saying that you have to be extremely confident and talented to cover an artist like Marvin Gaye, but Hathaway was a master arranger and interpreter. His abundant gifts enabled him to take songs by Carole King (‘You’ve Got A Friend’) and John Lennon (‘Jealous Guy’) to a higher plane.

His re-working of ‘Jealous Guy’ is a masterful interpretation of a rather flat song. Hathaway’s soaring, soulful inflection gives Lennon’s bruised lyrics a soft bed to lie down in, and makes this one of the greatest covers of all-time. By the time Hathaway gets to ‘The Ghetto’ he’s got the crowd singing along and eating from his hand. “Music is one of the controlling factors of the universe,” he said in a 1971 interview. “It seems to be one of the few things that really brings all kinds of people together.” His music is still powerful enough to lift a broken spirit, bring sunshine from the clouds, and make a crowd of strangers sing out as one…

Listen: Jealous Guy

Listen: The Ghetto