Sonic Cool

A few years back, someone created a cool diagram of the history of rock that was designed to look like the map for the London Underground subway. Sonic Cool, a 2002 book by Joe S. Harrington, functions much the same way – it’s a satisfying, thorough, point-to-point history of rock music. This dense, 500+ page tome connects the many dots between Elvis Presley and modern music, and while there are literally tons of books on the market that attempt to tell the story of Rock & Roll, Sonic Cool lays it all out as well as anything else written on the topic. In spite of my criticisms, this is a strong book that deserves serious recommendation.

First the good – Harrington writes in a breezy style, and he’s done a fine job of seamlessly connecting the many offshoots of rock history. He’s to be commended for not being afraid to back up and repeat certain points that are essential to multiple strains of Rock (The Stooges, MC5, and New York Dolls justifiably feature in many chapters). He also deserves a medal for his two sentence description of Rock & Roll, which alone trumps many volumes on the subject:

“The common denominator between both Blues and Country was the funky down-home quality that enabled one to let go of his/her emotions and not feel self-conscious about it. Elvis realized this, and it was through his realization that the synthesis of these two musical forms could finally take place (hence “Rock ‘n’ Roll”).”

Harrington’s no-holds-barred writing style is best exemplified by his entertaining description of Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson:

“A raving bearded satyr who looked like he hadn’t taken a bath in two months, his stage antics included leaping around the stage wearing a codpiece and honking on his massive flute. The most well known flautist in Rock, Anderson was also an outspoken detractor of other bands and a tireless promoter of himself. His air could be summed up in one word: pompous.”

But this book starts to run into trouble with the second half of its subtitle, The Life & Death Of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Because the history of rock has been written so many times, one can assume that Harrington was encouraged to put a unique twist on it: hence, in his opinion, rock “died” sometime around 2002. His reasons for this conclusion aren’t abundantly clear, but they seem to revolve around the rise of music videos, the triumph of style over substance in music, and the ascendence of Hip-Hop.

At any rate, he runs into the same problem as kooks who predict the end of the world – namely, what happens the day after the prediction, when the world is still turning, or rock is still going?? Much can be said about the troubles of the music industry, but nobody in their right mind thinks that rock is now dead. By wrapping his book around that conclusion, Harrington comes off as a doomsday crank, and dates his book in the worst possible way.

The same could be said about his tendency to project the worst bits of a musical genre on its audience. In particular, his ranting about Grunge and Generation X are the literary equivalent of foaming at the mouth. I’m squarely within the demographic of Gen X, and a lot of my fellow X’ers will probably be surprised to learn that we’re part of “a generation of self-loathing, doubt, and anxiety… a generation with low self esteem that aspired to nothingness.”

Even more reprehensible is Harrington’s conclusion, based on a woman’s comment that her grandmother owned a copy of Grandmaster Flash’s ‘The Message’, that “Granny was a former coke whore who chain-smoked and spat venom.” If that’s the lone borderline racist comment in this book, it’s certainly not the only time that Harrington draws a reckless, sweeping generalization that’s based on questionable musical profiling.

Harrington is an astute music critic, but he stumbles when he tries to connect the history of music to larger events. For instance, his assertion that “The defeat of [George] McGovern in ’72 left a big scar on the collective psyche of the baby boomers” is a laughably unnecessary reach (Vietnam, yes – Kennedy assassinations, yes – McGovern? Please…). Thankfully, Sonic Cool overcomes its obvious flaws because it’s mostly dedicated to unraveling the absurd, complex, entertaining history of Rock.

Five Good Books

Chances are, the MUSIC section of your local bookstore is stuffed to the gills with books you’ve never heard of. In an effort to break that stalemate, here are five good reads that I’ve recently enjoyed, and recommend without hesitation:

So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star | by Jacob Slichter – The ex-drummer for Semisonic (I hadn’t heard of them either), Slichter recounts his group’s crawl through the slime pit of the music industry. Part Catch-22, part Spinal Tap, this hilarious memoir reveals the bufoonery that runs rampant in every corner of the industry, and acts as a first-rate primer on why the music business finds itself in the dumps. Chapter 7, entitled ‘The Band Looks Stunning’, details the group’s efforts to shoot a video for MTV, and reduced me to a puddle of laughter. This book absolutely, positively needs to be turned into a feature film.

Telling passage: “In the autograph booth after a show, it wasn’t unusual for a fan to smile and say, ‘Hey, I threw that bottle at you!’”

Love Is A Mix Tape | by Rob Sheffield – Using a box of mix tapes and a pile of memories, Sheffield tells the story of Renee, his late-wife who died in his arms after only five years of marriage. This story of love lost is so vividly and heart-achingly rendered that by its end you’ll feel like you knew this girl, and you’ll miss her too.

Telling passage: “I was lucky I got to be her guy for awhile.”

One Train Later | by Andy Summers – The title refers to a chance encounter on the metro with Stewart Copeland during the formation of The Police (one train later, and he may not have been in the band), but this musical autobiography covers Summers’ entire journey through music. Charming, self-effacing, and funny, Summers tells his story with a joy that’s contagious.

Telling passage: “I begin having expensive cloaks and trousers made in places like Thea Porter. One of my more memorable pieces is a stunning bell-sleeved wizard’s coat in brilliant reds and greens with gold stitching around the cuffs. I play onstage with this beautiful coat, feeling like Merlin. We all want to feel like wizards now, have magical powers, transform and subvert people’s minds. The coat helps.”

Black Monk Time | by Thomas Edward Shaw and Anita Klemke – Shaw isn’t the most gifted writer, but his story is so good that it hardly matters. As the bass player for pre-punk heroes The Monks, he had a front-row seat for the creation of their volcanic sound and strange look, and their many trials with the music industry. In spite of a healthy following in Europe, the group released just one album before their label dropped them and they broke up. This musical autobiography isn’t just stranger than fiction – it also rocks a lot harder.

Telling passage: “The idea that Americans were dying for a questionable reason was the catalyst that had caused us to sing ‘Monk Time’. It was a screaming incomprehension caused by the growing suspicion that a government may not reflect the real interests of its people.”

Egotrip’s Book Of Rap Lists | by various authors – Featuring hundreds of lists that cover every facet of hip-hop past and present, this book is a must-have for anyone with even a glimmer of interest in the genre.

Telling passage: [From 'Sir Mix-A-Lot's 10 Signs That You're Being Player Hated] “2. You drive a Benz. You love soul food. The four niggas standin’ in the doorway at the restaurant key your shit while you’re eatin’.”

*****

And one very discouraging read:

The 100 Best Selling Albums Of The 90s | by various authors – Viewed strictly through the prism of record sales, the 90′s looks like a cataclysmic stew of Rap-Metal, bad Country, boy bands, and Hootie & The Blowfish. Of the Top 20 selling albums of that decade, only Metallica’s self-titled “black album” (#12) and Pearl Jam’s Ten (#18) have endured artistically – the rest will make you hold your nose. If you keep the 90′s close to your heart musically, run screaming from this one.

Telling passage: [From Garth Brooks' Ropin' The Wind, the #9 selling album of the decade] “Garth Brooks was a great admirer of Billy Joel. The inclusion of ‘Shameless’, on Ropin’ The Wind illuminates the links between the two artists’ brand of blue collar balladry, as well as illustrating Brooks’ easy ability to straddle the country-pop divide.”

Crossroads: The Life And Afterlife Of Blues Legend Robert Johnson

Blues legend Robert Johnson lived a short life shrouded in shadow and mystery. Rumor of the day had it that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his sudden musical prowess, and that he was fatally poisoned by a jealous husband in 1938 at age 27. Johnson left behind just 41 recordings of 29 different songs, but his influence on modern music stands in inverse proportion to his limited discography. He was a favorite of British Blues-Rock guitartists of the 60′s – including Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, and Peter Green – and through them his effect on music continues to the present day.

Crossroads: The Life And Afterlife Of Blues Legend Robert Johnson is a compact little book (114 pages) dedicated to setting straight the limited record of Johnson’s life. The book tackles all manner of myths and tall tales, but there are two significant legends that author Tom Graves very thoroughly but simply explains away:

1] Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for musical glory – Graves charts the case of mistaken identity behind this defining rumor about the great bluesman. This fable was invented about Tommy Johnson, but got stuck to Robert on accident (the Coen brothers got this detail right in their movie O’ Brother Where Art Thou? when they put Tommy – not Robert – at the crossroads). Graves locates the original quote about the deal with the devil at the crossroads (by Tommy Johnson’s brother) and just like that, unravels one of the biggest legends in the history of music.

2] Robert Johnson was poisoned by a jealous husband - Graves pretty logically points out that the details of eyewitness reports of Johnson’s last hours are inconsistent with the symptoms of fatal poisoning. A more likely cause of death – bad rotgut moonshine liquor – lacks the drama of of the jealous husband angle, but squares with descriptions of Johnson’s death. Of course, Graves adds a layer back onto this mystery when he astutely points out that although a dozen or so people have claimed to be at Robert Johnson’s bedside when he died, not one of them reported any other persons present.

Graves tells his story in a straightforward manner, and smartly concentrates on the key points that this book adds (or more to the point, subtracts) from the myth of Robert Johnson. His claim that the 1986 movie Crossroads (starring Karate Kid‘s Ralph Macchio) “…may have done more to introduce the world to the legend of Robert Johnson than the cover versions of Johnson’s songs recorded by Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones” is a mighty stretch, but the rest of this book shines a welcome light into the shadowy corners of Johnson’s short life.

Listen: Love In Vain Blues

Listen: Terraplane Blues

You Can Be An Author!

It sounds like utter spam, but it’s true. It’s National Write-A-Novel Month and the good people at 33 & 1/3 are putting that idea into action – they’re accepting book proposals until December 31st. If you don’t know about the 33 & 1/3 series, here’s the idea in a nutshell: pamphlet-sized, 100-120 page books, each focusing on a classic album, and each written by different authors in wildly varying styles. The 33 & 1/3 editors have cultivated an eclectic collection of writing styles that mirrors the breadth and adventure of a good record collection.

Notable titles in the series include Music From Big Pink, Forever Changes, Paul’s Boutique, Dusty In Memphis, Exile On Main St, Electric Ladyland, and many more. The series now exceeds 60 in number, and almost every title can be recommended to any serious music fan.

Anyway, I’m in!

At first I thought there was no way I could write a book proposal, but when I thought about it in blogging terms, it became much more realistic. The required 2000 word proposal + 500 word qualifier represents a week of blog posts here. It’ll take a couple of weeks of research and work, plus the requisite couple of weeks of polish – but put in those terms this doesn’t seem like such a Herculean task. Certainly well worth the opportunity to get my name on one of these great books.

Last time 33 & 1/3 accepted proposals (two years ago), they received 450 proposals, and handed out 20 contracts. You can do the math, but those don’t seem like such long odds to me.

Just for the heck of it, I’ve created a mock-up of what my book might possibly definitely look like:

[click for full-size image]

But this post isn’t about my book, it’s about your book.

If you could write a book about any album, what would it be, and why?

[I'm not even asking for a 2,500 word, multi-part proposal, just a comment...]

Caught In The Crossfire

This nifty biography chronicles not only Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rise to guitar god status, but also the West Texas music scene that allowed him to develop, and the guitar slingers who inspired him, including T-Bone Walker, Freddie King, Johnny Winter, and his brother, Jimmie Vaughan. The book opens with Stevie getting pounded for borrowing Jimmie’s guitars without permission, and SRV is rarely without a guitar in his hand for the rest of the book’s 271 pages. Caught In The Crossfire details his time in bar bands such as The Sidewinders, Blackbird, and Triple Threat, and paints a vivid, dusty picture of the Austin and Dallas music scenes of the 70′s.

Authors Joe Nick Patoski and Bill Crawford are to be commended for doing justice to such legendary subject matter. Crossfire covers all the biographical details, but never feels like a rote recitation of facts. Rather, Vaughan’s life story flows naturally, like notes from a well-played guitar. If Stevie Ray is often portrayed as a man on a mission – Luke Skywalker with guitar in his hand – it’s because he was. “He played every note like it was his last. That’s how you’re supposed to play. He did it” marvels fellow musician Stephen Bruton, and it’s the overriding sentiment expressed throughout the book by those who knew him.

The book also details Vaughan’s struggles with drugs and alcohol that nearly cost him his life. That he became an inspirational champion of AA for three years before his tragic death in a helicopter accident in 1990 only makes his story more compelling. “I have been gifted with something, and if I don’t take it to its fullest extent, I might as well be farting in the bushes” he said. Luckily for us, he took his gift to its fullest extent, and beyond.

For The Record: Sly & The Family Stone

Sly Stone had a weird, wild career. A successful Bay Area DJ when he formed the Family Stone in 1966, the man once known as Sylvester Stewart quickly became one of the leading faces of funk. With black, white, male, and female members, Sly & The Family Stone stood for racial unity, sexual equality, and the brotherhood of music. But behind their catchy, hopeful melodies lay a mountain of turmoil that would eventually undo the group. When hard drugs (particularly PCP and cocaine) entered the picture around 1970, their musical mood changed significantly, and it was a short trip from there to the gutter.

For The Record: Sly & The Family Stone is built entirely on first person quotes from the people who were in and around the band during its heyday. This narrative format is both the book’s strength and weakness: the story doesn’t get bogged down in unnecessary biographical details, but conflicting points of view are left unresolved.

Of course, the central figure of the tale – Sly himself – is not involved in the dialogue, and this is where a narrator could really help things along. A little context for Sly’s misadventures, along with a grounding of some of the tall tales told here would go some way towards making this a more insightful biography of the band. But as it is, the book takes on the tone of a lurid game of show-and-tell. For example:

“When Sly did the PCP… he was just out of it. He was doing shit you would expect to see in some kind of institution for mentally retarded people. He and Freddy (Sly’s brother) walked around the house all day like zombies. I started sleeping with a pistol.” – Hamp “Bubba” Banks

and…

“I was through. Guitar was out of key and I couldn’t tell it until forty minutes into the set. Everybody else was sounding bad. No purpose, nothing happened, there was no magic. Nobody wanted to do it. Nothing held together.” – Freddy Stewart

In the end, all this talk doesn’t really lead anywhere, except to the conclusion that the members of the Family Stone barely knew Sly at all, and certainly had no idea what made the man tick. The paradox of For The Record is that by the end of it, Sly Stone seems more of a vanishing enigma than ever before. If you come to this book with the expectation of getting to know more about the man and his band, prepare to walk away disappointed.

Stranded: Rock And Roll For A Desert Island

The ‘desert island album’ was already a dusty cliche by the time Greil Marcus asked 20 writers to submit essays on the topic in 1978. The resulting book, Stranded: Rock And Roll For A Desert Island, features the writers that Marcus most wanted to work with at the time, including critics known (Lester Bangs, Nick Tosches, Langdon Winner, Dave Marsh, and others) and unknown (Ariel Swartley? Grace Lichtenstein? Joe McEwen? Tom Smucker?). As you might expect, the essays are hit and miss, depending on who you’re stuck on that island with.

One critic (Lichtenstein) chose to strand herself with The Eagles’ Desperado, which led me to contemplate – for the first time in my life – the phrase ‘If I were stuck on a desert island with an Eagles album, I’d ____________’ (in case you’re curious, some representative answers were a) drown myself, b) go raving mad, and c) break the thing over my knee).

On the positive side, Langdon Winner makes an excellent case for Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica as the perfect desert island album. According to him, “[it] offers two features that other records do not: 1) an enormous variety of musical puzzles that require a considerable amount of time and concentration to figure out, and 2) a seemingly inexhaustible supply of unfinished ideas that one can fill in oneself.” Winner’s essay doesn’t just stand out in this collection, it’s perhaps the most persuasive argument ever put forth on behalf of Beefheart’s offbeat classic.

Stranded is stunning in its lack of musical breadth, and shows how many critics of the day were drinking directly from the same punch bowl. The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison each get two essays, and the four black artists represented were pre-Beatles artifacts. Very little of the music represented here lives outside the rock canon of the 60′s and 70′s. Robert Christgau laments as much in his forward to the 1995 edition (pictured above), “It would be nice to encounter James Brown or George Clinton or Public Enemy in this context.”

A profane phrase in Nick Tosches’ essay on Sticky Fingers offended the publisher so much that publication of the book was delayed by nearly a year. To his credit, Marcus refused to let the book be released without the offending phrase. If all the essays included here had the wit and edge of Tosches’ piece, this would really be something. Yet as it stands, Stranded is a book that all too often leaves you feeling just that.

*****

AND THE OBVIOUS QUESTION: What’s your desert island album?

*****

Some great answers…

Gene says Dire Straits: “…[an] excellent air guitar album — and when you’re on a desert island you don’t have to worry about being seen…”

Rob M says The Wall: “…every time I listen to that album, I hear something I never heard before…”

kdub says Golden Age Of Radio: “…two of my DI albums would be two you introduced me to: Alabama 3’s Exile on Coldharbour Lane and Josh Ritter’s Golden Age of Radio.”

Punker Foo says Bad Brains: “The range of this album is fantastic and it has so much raw material to work with, it is to the music lover what a set of Lincoln Logs would be to a stranded architect.”

EZ Rawlins says People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm: “…deep, wide, and soulful. It’s a journey.”

DancingTool says Never Mind The Bollocks: “It’s the perfect blend of anger and frustration with just enough pop riffs to keep me from talking to a volleyball.”

Jimmy James says War Of The Worlds: “Richard Burton narrating War Of The Worlds. Incredible.”

CindyPinc In The Stink says Sgt Peppers: “I’ve already proved to myself that I can listen to it over and over and over and over again and never lose interest.”

Cordell says Girlfriend: “Now I’m going to have trouble sleeping as I sit and wonder if I chose correctly.”

Pricklee Pete says Pelican West: “…it’s an album that will always make me feel good even when I’m pondering how high up my leg I’ll need to amputate to keep the gangrene at bay.”

Rob F says Five Leaves Left: “…if only for Cello Song which, despite the fact I’ve heard it a million times, never, ever fails to make my bones ache (in a good way).”

Dylan says Zenyatta Mondatta: “Solid songs start to finish.”

LC says The Very Best Of Elvis Costello & The Attractions: “It has the right song for almost every emotion.”

RKelly says London Calling: “It’s a no-brainer.”

Arlo Chingaderas says Life Is… Too $hort: “A true west coast classic.”

jkg says Abbey Road: “I can rediscover songs on that record over and over again.”

As Time Goes By

During two tours of duty as a press officer for The Beatles, Derek Taylor was a main point of contact for anyone wishing to get in touch with the group. This made him one of the last lines of defense between the Fab Four and a endless parade of journalists, sharks, groupies, seekers, con men, and freaks. And as he makes abundantly clear in his 1973 book about his time in the music industry, As Time Goes By, it was a role that he didn’t especially relish. “This book is my Personal Statement I guess, and I am going to call it ‘Foul Stories of Necrophilia, by Derek Taylor” he writes.

Between his stints with The Beatles, Taylor worked for a wide variety of clients, including The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Mae West, and a host of others. “If you rolled me up and smoked me, you’d be on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ by Independence Day” winks Taylor about his ability to generate buzz for his clients.

This lightweight memoir benefits immensely from being written so near to Taylor’s time in the industry. He offers candid, often insightful portraits of the people he worked for, and doesn’t run his opinions through a sterile PR rinse. After speaking fondly at length of The Beatles, he admits, almost to himself, “But they are very tough too, and working for them has made all of us uneasy… because they are four very hard, tight men – not callous, but calloused.”

Unfortunately, As Time Goes By offers more anectode than analysis, more surface gloss than substance. At times it borders on the kind of ‘Right on… groovy… shagadelic!‘ nonsense that nearly comes off as self-parody. Taylor certainly lived in a world of sizzle and shine, and he no doubt captures the tenor of his times perfectly. But even though he was an extremely charming gentleman and keenly aware of the absurdity of his position, this book ends up as little more than a sad peek behind the magic curtain that hides the mechanics of fame.

*****

[back cover]

Jazz Is…

Nat Hentoff is a longtime journalist and legendary jazz critic who has become known in recent years as a quotable civil libertarian. As an associate editor of Down Beat magazine from 1953 to 1957, he took the first steps towards what would become one of the most celebrated careers in the history of music journalism.

If Hentoff’s name is recognizable, it’s because his liner notes have graced literally hundreds of jazz albums. Along with Ralph Gleason, Leonard Feather, and Ira Gitler, Hentoff virtually invented the field of jazz writing. If you have a jazz album from the 50′s or 60′s, chances are very good that the liner notes were created by one of those four writers. But Hentoff didn’t merely write about music – he worked in the industry as an A&R man and producer, overseeing sessions by musicians as talented and diverse as Charles Mingus, Otis Spann, Abby Lincoln, and Cecil Taylor.

This 1976 book is well-served by Hentoff’s insider status. Here he writes like a fan, while drawing on a wealth of anecdotes and personal experiences to illuminate the music and methods of some of the biggest names in jazz. Because jazz had a stroke in the early 70′s and has remained paralyzed ever since, Jazz Is still serves as an excellent primer on the subject. Indeed, it could have been written last week, as it speaks eloquently about Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, Thelonious Monk, and several other luminaries.

Midway through the book, Hentoff references a conversation with John Coltrane, during which Trane told him “The music has to speak for itself. I’d much rather you didn’t put anything technical in the notes. It might get in the way of people finding out what there is in the music for them.” Coltrane needn’t have worried – Hentoff’s writing has always been more about the feel of music rather than its technical properties. And besides, most of us need some help to comprehend the beating heart of jazz, and few guides have proved to be as reliably sure-footed as Nat Hentoff.

The Fillmore, For Beginners

I picked up this snazzy little relic during a recent excursion through our local flea market. It’s a pretty lightweight book, and the Fillmore franchise is used here merely as a flimsy pretense to pimp the biographies of nine rock bands. Only the first and last chapters actually touch on Fillmores East & West, and even those aren’t worth much except unintentional humor. Here’s a sample describing the Fillmore East crowd, circa 1970:

“And what are they wearing to the Fillmore tonight? Surplus Army clothes are dropping off somewhat. Safari hats are making a comeback. Maxis are minimum in number. Shawls and ponchos are still in. Boots seem on the way out. Jeans will apparently always be with us. On and on the fashion models file into the Fillmore. Beards are bigger than ever – though John Lennon’s new haircut has had a startling effect on a few of the trendsetters. Outsize colored glasses, properly referred to as “shades,” have reached a new peak.”

Whew! For a minute there I thought my ponchos and shawls had slipped out of style…

The last chapter of the book – by far its most perversely interesting – recounts the author’s visit to Fillmore East for a tripleheader that included The Allman Brothers Band, Love, and the Grateful Dead. After spending considerable time explaining why the opening band rarely measures up to the groups that follow, the author reveals that the freakin’ Allman Brothers were the openers that night. But, having sipped extensively from his own cauldron of Kool Aid, he pans them mercilessly for playing too loud.

In short, this is a poor excuse for a book. But it’s an excellent excuse for me to pick up the baton where “James A. Hudson” (no doubt a PR pseudonym) dropped it, and recount some of my own Fillmore memories. While I never made it to Fillmore East (it closed its doors on June 27, 1971 with a concert headlined, coincidentally, by the Allman Brothers), I’ve enjoyed plenty of shows at The Fillmore in San Francisco. By chance, it reopened for business in April 1994 – after 5 years of seismic retrofitting – just a few weeks after I moved to the city. It quickly became one of my favorite places for a night out, and I’ve spent countless evenings in its cozy confines. Here are ten memorable shows I’ve seen in this shrine for music:

Johnny Cash [11/9/96] – This remains the single greatest concert I’ve ever attended, bar none. Memorable for a thousand reasons, though probably not so memorable for my ex-girlfriend, who passed out in the Ladies’ Room midway through the show. Cash had the crowd-of-all-ages in the palm of his hand, and delivered a legendary performance for the ages.

Primus [4/29/94] – My first trip to the Fillmore, a few weeks after I moved to SF, and the second concert put on at the reconstituted venue. I immediately fell in love with the place and its aura of rock god sweat and history. I was particularly thrilled by the upstairs lounge, which is covered wall-to-wall in vintage Fillmore posters, and stands as a veritable museum of rock history.

Blackalicious/Public Enemy [10/10/02] – Blackalicious opened, PE closed. Go ahead and believe the hype, because Public Enemy is every bit as good in concert as they are on disc. Chuck D growled and prowled, Flavor Flav cracked wise, and a whole room full of white people spent an evening shaking their collective arse to a bunch of songs about what a bunch of devils they are. Brilliant fun.

Iggy Pop [4/29/01] – My buddy Furr called me the the night of the show with an extra and I went along on a whim. Iggy immediately blew me away with his urgency and energy, repeatedly leaping into the crowd and slamming his mic stand to the ground. He and his band ripped through a greatest-hits-like set of classic Stooges and Iggy songs, culminating with an absolutely flammable version of ’1969′. Awesome.

Steve Earle [3/13/01] – This was another fortunate last second Furr ride-along. I’d not heard of Earle at all before this 2001 show, but was quickly won over by his storyteller presence and liberal-minded monologues. He and his band capped an incredible performance with a blistering version of The Stones’ ‘Sweet Virginia’. Gracias, el senor Furr!

Femi Kuti [6/19/04] – Fela Kuti’s gifted son put on an amazing display of Afrobeat prowess, but this one is memorable because it was my first chance to take my Uncle Henry to The Fillmore. He lived in SF during the late 60′s and early 70′s and visited all of the rock ballrooms of the day, so it was especially cool for me to be able to take him out for a night of music. And so there was great music, and much dancing ensued…

The Strokes [10/16/01] – This show took place right after their first album was released. In fact, they played for just 35 minutes, going through every song on their debut, but with such energy that every person there got full money’s worth. The evening was summed up by lead singer Julian Casablancas flicking his lit cigarette at the velvet stage curtains – one way or another, this group was determined to burn the joint down.

P-Funk All-Stars [9/12/98] – Without a doubt the loudest show I’ve ever been through. This was like standing in the middle of a funk hurricane, as George Clinton and company pranced around in costumes and rocked the house to its ever-loving foundation. CAN I GET TO WHAT?!?

My Morning Jacket/M. Ward [5/9/04] – MMJ represents the best of Southern rock, reincarnate, and they never fail to put on a full-throttle evening of rock & roll. These guys are probably the closest thing to the vintage Allman Brothers that I’ll get to see in my lifetime. Take an evening of extended, red-hot guitar jams, throw in M. Ward as an opener, and what you’ve got is one incredible show.

Shuggie Otis [7/7/01] – Hands down the worst show I’ve ever seen. Shuggie was high on something other than life, and the Fillmore went from packed full to three-quarters empty in less than 30 minutes. Shuggie limp-wristed his way around the guitar and organ, slurred his vocals, and spewed the kind of weak, show-bizzy jive between songs that made you almost happy to watch him crash and burn so spectacularly. Hey, I said ‘memorable’, not ‘best’…

Bill Graham surveys his domain.