Around 9:25 in the pm, Friday night, I was feeling a bit lethargic and thought about making my way to The Belmont a little late. “Eh,” thought I to myself, warily, “bands probably won’t even start until 11. I’m just going to hang out here and do nothing for awhile” To pass some time, I thought I’d listen to the Jason Croff’s solo stuff on his MySpace page, which I had been putting off for no other reason than laziness. Croff tickles ivory for The Dead Bodies (a Post-Rockist fave) and Four-Hour Friends, and would be playing his original songs at The Belmont that night under the moniker Croff Family Band.
And after just one minute of listening, I was off my ass and in action. (Continued)
It took me a while to come around to Elvis Costello, despite that fact that one of my best friends, whose taste I shared in nearly everything, was and still is obsessed with the man. As usual, it turns out he was right: Costello is incredible. The Desert Island pick that he’s always been pushing on me is Get Happy!!, which has been in constant rotation on my iPod this summer. The video above is a promo off that record for the song “High Fidelity,” and it’s a real joy to watch.
I’m going to see Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band tomorrow night, and I haven’t been this excited for something since that time when I got an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle for Christmas a few years back. That’s right, the Boss is coming to St. Louis to anthemically rock out the very un-rock & roll Scottrade Center, and I’ve got tickets. Tickets that I paid nearly $70 for and which will still seat me way up the nosebleed section, but tickets nonetheless.
In anticipation I’ve been listening to tons of old Bruce records, everything from Greetings From Asbury Park (1973) through Born in the U.S.A. (1984), and picking things back up again with The Seeger Sessions (2006) and Magic (2007). I don’t have any records in between, so as far as I know he just took 22 years off to focus on his cameo on High Fidelity and play some shows for that John Kerry guy. So, hoping that he plays nothing but material that I’m intimately familiar with, I’ve compiled some outstanding past performances the Boss and co. have put on through the years and around the world. One, two, three, four!
With his deep, mellifluous baritone and his gleaming, bald dome, Mr. Hayes, dubbed Black Moses, was one of the first black music superstars of the 1970s. A later generation of fans knew him as the voice of Jerome “Chef” McElroy, the school cook on the animated TV show “South Park.”
(all selections from Sotheby’s Reel, 1969-1970, commercially unavailable)
Nothing ruins a good Stones song more than a sax solo. Or so says one of my dear friends whose anti-sax solo vehemence may have some reasonable claims to make his point: too cock rocky, too faux-bluesy, too distracting from Keef-y. All valid complaints, and there’s no doubt that “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” would be ten times better if five minutes of Santana-like jazz band soloing was left on the cutting room floor, but would all Stones songs be better served without the brass intrusion?
“Brown Sugar,” the improbable hit single from 1971’s Sticky Fingers that delves into heroin use and pedophilic slave rape (apparently popular topics among mainstream 1970s rock and roll fans), features a prominent saxophone throughout that snakes around on the verses before bursting out to center stage during Bobby Keyes’ climactic solo. Commercially, the instrument served its purpose, in that listeners hear the song and think, “You should have heard ‘em just around midnight — they were having a saxophone party!” instead of, “You should have heard ‘em just around midnight — he was whipping a poor, young black girl with sadistic glee,” but musically speaking, the look-at-me gusto with which the sax is played does get a little old.
Thankfully, there are sax-free versions of “Brown Sugar” available out there in bootlegger land. Recording engineer Glyn Johns put some of the Rolling Stones’ early Muscle Shoals demos onto acetate and the difference is striking. When you get to the part where the solo typically goes, it feels like there’s a giant hole missing from the song. But listen again, and you’ll notice Mick Taylor playing a skillful and, dare I say, cerebral guitar solo. It’s fascinating to listen to, but ultimately “cerebral” wasn’t the mood they were looking for, so Keyes was unleashed on the sax to give the song the libidinal thrust it deserved.
The Sotheby’s Reel (as the tapes came to be known, after being sold at the venerable auction house) features several other glimpses at an alternate-universe Stones catalogue. Some of my personal favorites include:
A marble-mouthed Mick handling lead vocals on Richards’ “You Got the Silver” from Let It Bleed;
An alternate piano intro on Exile’s “Loving Cup” that plods along at a slower, hazy tempo, where they really do sound “fall down drunk.”
The bluesy jam “(Can’t Seem To) Get a Line On You” with pianist Leon Russell at London’s Olympic Sound Studios that turned out to be an early version of “Shine a Light.”
Sometimes I forget how great of a band the Rolling Stones are, and then I hear how solid they are on rehearsals like this and it all comes rushing back to me.
“Strange Overtones,” the first song off Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, the latest collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno, was made available on the album’s website yesterday, and a few things are instantly noticeable:
1. It sounds nothing like their previous collaboration, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Thank God. Be honest: despite all the gushing reevaluations the album received for upping its hipness cache by making the individual tracks available for digital remixing, the pseudo-political collages set to world music beats isn’t exactly the sort of vibe you get down to very often. It was an interesting album, but it didn’t come close to the greatness of either of their respective personal discographies.
2. Brian Eno no longer takes top billing. Why is that? It definitely sounds more like an Eno song. (I realize that’s a somewhat dubious claim to make, considering how many years Byrne spent imitating Eno and Eno spent imitating Byrne to the point that their respective idiosyncracies have become hard to distinguish, but I’m going with my gut on this one.)
3. Actually, this really reminds me of the sorely underrated 1990 collaboration between Brian Eno and John Cale, Wrong Way Up. Now there’s a match-up where you’d expect the two egotistical, experimental producers to concoct a dense, unlistenable ambient mess, but instead they pulled out a remarkably straightforward and enjoyable pop record. It’s a surprisingly pleasant and mostly excellent record that I’ve been revisiting a lot this year; well worth checking out if you’re a fan of either Eno or Cale. Now, is it too much to hope for a mega-collab between Byrne, Eno, and Cale one day? Probably.
At any rate, David Byrne has announced the tour dates for his upcoming “Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno” tour, sans Eno. Amazingly, he’s swinging by St. Louis and only a short drive away from Detroit (hey, Ann Arbor is a heckuva lot better than Plymouth, or whatever sinkhole is stealing your shows these days). Dates after the jump. (Continued)
Dearest Interneters,
The Post-Rockist is based in Detroit and St. Louis, with writers also in Milwaukee and San Fran. We cover national and local music. Contact Todd for St. Louis, Scotter for Detroit, and both for everything else.
