This month I received my last issue of Rolling Stone magazine. After being a subscriber since 1974 I have cancelled my subscription. There were many reasons that led me to finally cut the cord after 45 years but first let’s look back on the history of the magazine and my relationship with it.
Rolling Stone was launched in 1967 in San Francisco by Jann Wenner and Ralph Gleason. Rolling Stone was a biweekly and its original format was as a tabloid newspaper that folded over. The first issue featured John Lennon in costume for his role in the movie “How I Won the War”. The name of the magazine came from numerous cultural sources: Muddy Waters’ song “Rolling Stone”, The Rolling Stones themselves and Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”. When RS first appeared, the Beatles were still together, The Rolling Stones were just hitting their stride and Led Zeppelin was just forming.
Rolling Stone launched the careers of some of rock’s most celebrated journalists. The list includes Paul Nelson, John Rockwell, Lester Bangs, Ben Fong-Torres, Greil Marcus, Cameron Crowe and David Fricke. There was also the photography of Annie Leibovitz who was responsible for so many of the iconic covers. Her January 1981 cover of John and Yoko, taken on the day of Lennon’s murder, is considered one of the greatest covers of all time.
The record review section was must reading. The magazine could be notoriously elitist in their view of popular bands. They were famously unimpressed with bands like Led Zeppelin and the Eagles. The acrimony between the Eagles and RS escalated to the point that the band challenged the magazine writers to a softball game that was covered in the next issue.
Rolling Stone was the cultural touchstone from the late sixties through the eighties. They followed the ascendency of the legendary artists like the Stones, Zeppelin and Bob Dylan; punk’s response to these bloated rock stars and the next generations of mega-stars like Bruce Springsteen and U2. From the political side they provided insightful coverage of Vietnam, Watergate, and the fall of Richard Nixon, and the Reagan years. I didn’t pay that much attention to the political stories but gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, the magazine’s frequent contributor, was entertaining.[1]
The glory years of Rolling Stone as depicted in Cameron Crowe’s 2000 film “Almost Famous” were also the years that music was becoming an important part of my life. In the mid-seventies before cable TV, the internet and social media, your source of musical information was only magazines and late-night music programs like Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert[2] I waited dutifully for my twice monthly Rolling Stone for updates on the music scene and my favorite artists. One of my most treasured memories was in August 1975 when I found the latest issue in the pile of mail on my kitchen table. There on the cover was a drawing of Neil Young in a white cowboy hat and flowing black hair. On the inside was an exclusive interview with Cameron Crowe. Life could get no better. Other indelible memories include the magazine’s complete coverage of the Rolling Stones 1975 tour of the Americas. Starting with the rehearsals at Andy Warhol’s house in Montauk all the way to the tour’s end in Los Angeles it felt like a war correspondent’s biweekly dispatches from the front.
In 1981 Rolling Stone moved their offices to NYC and changed the look of the magazine from its newspaper format to a standard magazine format. The first cover featured Bruce Springsteen ice skating. Through the nineties and into the new century Rolling Stone continued to provide music, cultural and political coverage to new generations of readers but change was in the air. The magazine became more entertainment oriented in the nineties featuring celebrities and movie stars and ushering in their annual “Hot” issue. Then came the internet that not only changed the music business but also how news about music was distributed. Rolling Stone went online but as the internet exploded there were many other options for music reviews and features. In 2017 Jann Wenner sold 51% of Rolling Stone to Penske Media who then acquired the other 49% in 2019, that was previously sold to BandLab. The magazine then became a monthly. Wenner was the soul of Rolling Stone and once he sold out to big media it became Rolling Stone in name only.
So back to my decision to cancel my subscription. In the end it was many things. The internet and access to information in an immediate and very specialized way makes a monthly magazine seem quaint and anachronistic. Also, Rolling Stone moved away from some of what made it an important read every two weeks. For example, the record review section now features only two albums and a page of capsule reviews per (monthly) issue. I get 25 reviews a week in my inbox from All Music. The magazine was balancing being hip covering the new artists and keeping the Boomers in the tent with more stories about Mick and Keith and Pete Townshend that were well past their shelf life. We grew apart until we had nothing left but memories of the glory years. Still when I think about when I was coming of age and falling in love with music I will always think of Rolling Stone magazine.
ARTS ROUNDUP
Books – “Where’d You Go Bernadette” by Maria Semple. I’d been meaning to read this book for a while and I finally took the plunge and I’m really glad I did. Bernadette Fox is a mildly agoraphobic Seattle housewife married to a Microsoft executive. They have one child, a daughter name Bee. Bee comes home with a perfect report card and reminds her parents that they promised her a trip anywhere as her reward. Her choice? A trip to Antarctica over Christmas break. The story is told from multiple points of view and as the trip approaches we watch Bernadette, and those around her, start to unravel until… well the title tells you what happens next. Really good read. Next up, the movie version with Cate Blanchett in the title role.
Movies – “Ford vs. Ferrari”. The true story of Ford’s development of a race car to compete with Ferrari in the 24 hours of Le Mans. Henry Ford II enlists the famous automobile designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) to develop the car. Shelby enlists the rebellious Ken Miles (Christian Bale) to help him and be his driver. Shelby and Miles wind up fighting a two-front war against Ferrari and the bureaucratic and interfering Ford Motor Company as they continue to refine the car that can win at Le Mans. Damon and Bale are in top form as is the supporting cast. See this movie even if you are not an auto racing fan.
Music – “The Band (Deluxe Edition)”. The Band’s self-titled second album is fifty years old this year. Deluxe editions are most times all sizzle and no steak, stocked with alternate versions of songs that are interesting only to the really hard core fan. This deluxe edition has those alternate takes but it also features the complete set from their 1969 performance at Woodstock. The Band was always more rocking on stage and this set is no exception. Worth picking up (or streaming) just for the Woodstock set.
[1] RS also published Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” in serial form. Something they repeated for other writers like Tom Wolfe (“The Right Stuff”).
[2] And you had to stay up and watch it. No DVR and even VHS recorders were a few years away.
Brendan Byrne was the 47th governor of New Jersey from 1974 to 1982. During his tenure much of the Meadlowlands Sports Complex was built starting with Giants Stadium in 1975. The indoor arena was completed in 1981 and was named after Byrne. It was the home of the Nets (basketball) and Devils (ice hockey). Throughout the 80’s and for much of 90’s the Brendan Byrne Arena was also host to some great rock shows. I was fortunate enough to see some of them. What follows are my favorites from that time.[1]
Bruce Springsteen (July 1981). The arena opened in July and Bruce officially opened Brendan Byrne with six shows (the Devils and Nets were not available being their off season). This was the second leg of “The River” tour that started in the fall of 1980. I had seen Bruce and the E Street Band in Providence the previous December (a mind blowing four hour show) but I had no plans to see them at the BB. As luck would have it my neighborhood friend had an extra ticket for the July 3rd show that came my way. His father was the ticket manager for the New York Yankees and the New York Giants and they had a block of tickets for the shows. The seats were on the floor and the show was, again, awesome. Bruce mixed covers into his sets at the time and I remember a rocking version of Creedence’s “Who’ll Stop The Rain”.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (August 1981). One month later we were back at the BB to see TP and the boys on their “Hard Promises” tour. We were seated in the first row off the floor behind the soundboard. I remember when Petty came on that the first few seconds the sound was muddy. Then suddenly all the various instruments came into focus. Benmont Tench’s keyboards and Mike Campbell’s guitar were crisp and clear as a fall day. The added bonus to this show was Stevie Nicks joining the band to perform her Petty-penned hit “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and “The Insider” from “Hard Promises”. This was the only time I saw TP but it was a good one.
U2 (September 1987). This was the “Joshua Tree” tour. The worst seats I ever had at the BB. Top of the house up against the back wall. Thank God, it was the second loudest show I ever attended (Led Zeppelin in 1975 was the loudest). Not only was it loud but Adam Clayton’s bass was so amped up that the upper tier was shaking. I was thinking uneasily about the arena construction going to the lowest bidder. This was New Jersey after all. Nevertheless it was a great show and it was special to see U2 perform their masterpiece for the first time.
Keith Richards (December 1988). The Stones were on hiatus with Mick and Keith feuding so Richards released his solo album “Talk Is Cheap” and went on tour. For this show we were in my sister-in-law’s corporate box (she worked for a NJ bank at the time). The boxes were between the upper and lower tiers so it was a good seat at about two o’clock from the stage. It was stocked with food but alas only non-alcoholic beverages. As an added bonus The Replacements”, one of my favorite bands at the time, opened the show. No one else in the box had heard of them but I was pumped. The ‘Mats could be a little “unfocused” live but they played it straight with Keith and the set was tight and punchy. Keith’s band, The X-Pensive Winos, was stacked with the likes of Steve Jordan (drums), Charlie Drayton (bass) and Waddy Wachtel (guitar). The Stones patched it up and went back on tour in 1989 behind “Steel Wheels”.
I attended a few other shows at the BB, that I am choosing not to mention[2] or have forgotten, but these were the best.
Postscript: In 1996 the arena was renamed for Continental Airlines. Then it became the Izod Arena and today it is just the Meadowlands arena. The Devils moved to Newark and the Nets are in Brooklyn. The concerts are also gone. Today it is just rodeos and monster truck shows.
Arts Roundup
Podcast – “Off Camera with Sam Jones”. Jones interviews are mostly actors but he also branches out to musicians and writers. So far I listened to his interview of Michael Connelly (author), Carey Mulligan (actress) and The Edge (guitarist from U2). I am hooked on this series. It’s really good stuff, especially for long car rides. This is also a show on some obscure cable channel that is only available on Direct TV. The podcasts are available on Spotify and the show’s first three seasons are on Netflix.
Books – “The Bird Boys” by Lisa Sandlin. This mystery novel takes place in Beaumont, Texas in 1973. Tom Phelan has just founded his private investigations business and his first move is to hire Delpha Wade as his secretary/assistant investigator. Delpha is fresh from 14 years in jail for killing a man in self-defense. Their first case, and the center of this novel, involves an old man from New Orleans who wants them to find his brother who he believes is living in Beaumont. Sandlin’s writing is rich and deliberate. The slowly unfolding story has the feel of hot, humid day in Texas. This is a sequel to her first novel “The Do-Right” also featuring Delpha Wade.
Streaming – “Goliath Season 2“. Billy Bob Thornton is back as lawyer Billy McBride. After winning a big verdict in season 1 and buying an expensive home in LA, Billy is still living in his long-term motel in Santa Monica. Billy gets involved in a case involving a friend’s son accused of a gang-related double murder. What seems like a straight forward murder case grows into something more complicated. At the center of it is a Mexican American woman running for mayor and the mysterious goings on involving a real estate mogul, corrupt cops and a brutal Mexican cartel leader. Billy, assisted again by his reluctant legal partner Patty (Nina Arianda), follows it all down.
[1] A quick word about the layout of the arena. Unlike Madison Square Garden, where you ascend to your level by escalator and then enter that tier, at BB you enter in the middle of the arena and go up to the top tier or down to the bottom tier. I think the floor had its own entrance.
[2] Ok, I’ll mention one. I saw Neil Young there in 1983. This was in the midst of his 80’s genre experiments. This tour was to support his 50’s rockabilly album “Everybody’s Rockin” performed with his backing band The Shocking Pinks. Luckily the Pinks didn’t come out until the encore and by then we were long gone.
I remember sitting in English class my sophomore year of high school, my mind far from the educational task at hand. I was thinking that Bob Dylan had just announced his first major tour in eight years. The added bonus was that The Band would be backing him on the tour like they did on his last tour back in 1966. This was big news. Other than a few random sightings[1]Dylan had been largely out of sight. [2]
In the winter of 1975 Led Zeppelin announced a major tour to support their new album “Physical Graffiti”. This was the hottest ticket in the land. Everyone cut school the day the tickets went on sale. There was a near riot in the neighboring town at the small record store that housed the nearest Ticketron machine. Very few got tickets. Then somehow one of my closest friends scored a pair for the February Nassau Coliseum show and I was in.
The seventies rolled on with big tours from the likes of established icons like the Rolling Stones and emerging superstars like Bruce Springsteen. Lisa Robinson covered the Stones 1975 Tour of the Americas for Rolling Stone filing bi-weekly dispatches, like a war correspondent, from various cities. After his game-changing (and career-saving) “Born to Run album” in 1976 Springsteen’s subsequent tours became must-see events in ever-larger venues. This included tours in 1978 for “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” (theatres), 1980-81 for “The River” (arenas) and 1984 for “Born in the USA” tour (stadiums).
The eighties brought us bands like U2 and their 1987 tour for their masterpiece “The Joshua Tree”. After that the I became less aware of the big tours. I don’t remember any tours generating the kind of buzz like in the seventies. What changed? A few things may have contributed to this:
The seventies fans got older. Yes we go to shows less but we have more disposable income. I’ll come back to this one.
The cost of concerts. Related to the above point. No more $6.95 tickets that we knew in the seventies. Even nosebleed seats these days will set you back some serious coin. This favors the boomers who have more money, but admittedly less time, to see shows. Boomers are not generally adopters of new bands so most of their concert dollar is spent seeing the old bands. Which leads to the next possible explanation.
Fewer mega-stars. One of my good friends has a tee shirt that reads: “I may be old but I saw all the cool bands”. This is a tough call but it is a bit like Tiger Woods and golf. There are a lot of really talented golfers today but when Tiger plays everyone tunes in and the excitement ratchets up. There are a lot of great bands today but with the changing musical landscape (the aforementioned factors) the excitement is spread wider and thinner. When your favorite band tours you’re getting that ticket. The difference is there is less widespread excitement over a few big bands. Again golf with and without Tiger. Then there are the secular changes like…
Technology. The Internet, particularly products like YouTube, provides access to live performance videos thus creating less need to go to shows to see your favorite artists. This started back in the 80’s with the television broadcast of the Live Aid benefit show.
Bands tour more regularly today. This is a big one. In the streaming age bands make most of their money from touring. Part of the thing that made the tours of the seventies such an event is that artists and bands didn’t tour every year. Dylan was out of sight for eight years before the 1974 tour.[3]Before the 1975 tour The Stones hadn’t played the U.S. since 1972. Scarcity creates demand and excitement.
Festivals. Related to the last point, we now have annual multi-day musical events showcasing dozens of bands from icons like Paul McCartney to little known up and comers. Events like Coachella, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza have now institutionalized Woodstock into annual events.
Finally, and this may be the simplest and most probable explanation, perhaps concert tour excitement is for the young. I hope they are having their time like we had ours.
ARTS ROUNDUP
Books – “The Paris Diversion”, Chris Pavone. This is a sequel to Pavone’s award-winning first novel “The Ex-Pats”. Kate Moore and her husband Dexter are now living in Paris. She is station chief of a clandestine CIA operation (not fully disclosed to her husband) and he is a day trader. The book, which takes place during a single day, opens with terrorist threats being made throughout the city. The center of this activity is a suicide bomber in the plaza outside the Louvre. Kate gets involved, activating her network, trying to unravel what is really going on with these threats. If you haven’t read “The Ex-Pats” I would start there.
Television (Streaming) – “The Kominsky Method” (Netflix). This is a dark half-hour comedy starring Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin. Douglas is Sandy Kominksy an aging acting coach and Arkin is his agent Norman Newlander. The first season centers on life-changing events for both men. Arkin’s exhibits his usual dry wit which balances nicely against Douglas’s more frenetic approach. It has just been renewed for a second season.
Music – Matt Nathanson. During a long drive recently I queued up some of his recordings. “Beneath These Firewords” (2003) is still his best but “Some Mad Hope” (2007) holds up well. For fun there are also some bootlegs from Boston and Washington D.C. from that same time period. He does some crazy covers (e.g., “Jesse’s Girl”). I have to catch up with some of his recent releases on Spotify.
[1]Dylan did a five-song set at The Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 and came out for The Band’s encore at The Academy of Music on New Year’s 1972. That was about it for public appearances since 1966.
[2]The other big tour of 1974, as I have written about before, was the summer stadium tour of the reunited Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
[3]He has now been on tour for the last twenty years.
Neil Young has just released Tuscaloosa, recorded at The University of Alabama on February 5th during his 1973 tour with The Stray Gators (the band that backed him on the Harvest LP). This tour had already been memorialized with the 1973 release Time Fades Away, an album of only new songs. I am a longtime Neil Young fan and am endlessly fascinated by his 70’s period but I have to say Tuscaloosa is a curious release.
Much has been written about the pre-tour drama, Young’s emotional state and the issues with the band. The tour was almost a year after the release of Harvest and was also Young’s first with a band under his control since early 1970. It was also his longest tour (three months) and his first in arenas. It was a lot to deal with and the performances reflected it.
This was a heavily bootlegged tour and there are many recordings available, mostly from early in the tour[1]. Hardcore Neil Young fans have sampled numerous shows from this tour. Young can’t expect to surprise us with the set list, only with the quality of the recording and the performance. While the recording quality is very good the performances are quite ragged even for this tour. What jumps out when you hear the bootlegs, and Tuscaloosa, is that some of the new songs he played were better than the ones he picked for TFA. “New Mama”, “Lookout Joe” and “Borrowed Tune” would end up on Tonight’s The Night. “Borrowed Tune” (a solo piano song) could have replaced “Love In Mind” (the TFA version comes from his 1971 solo tour and not the 1973 tour) and “Look Out Joe” could have replaced “Yonder Stands The Sinner” (perhaps one of the worst songs Young ever wrote). That might not have made TFA a great album but it would have made it better. Meanwhile the original feel of TTN was diluted with these songs that were not part of the original recording sessions. Long-time collaborator David Briggs thought the original version of TTN should have been released. Such is life with Neil.
Tuscaloosa, unlike TFA, has a healthy dose of songs from Harvest. It is not however the complete show. According to his pre-release announcement Young excised “On The Way Home” (“who needs another version”) and “The Loner” (“out of tune”). What wasn’t disclosed is that he also truncated the last two songs from the electric set: “Southern Man” and “Are You Ready For The Country”. Young has a habit of editing instead of just releasing an entire show.[2]This show has the original Gators’ lineup including the renowned Nashville session drummer Kenny Buttrey. Neil praises him in the release notes but there’s more than a bit of revisionist history going on here. Young was so dissatisfied with Buttrey’s drumming that he eventually fired him not long after this show and replaced him with Johnny Barbata.[3] All the band songs on TFA feature the Barbata shows.
By the time Neil and the boys rolled into the University of Alabama the show’s structure was pretty much established. First Young would do three or four songs solo. Then he’d bring out the Gators for a full band acoustic rendering of four songs from Harvest. Next a quick break and the full band would return for the electric set. Tuscaloosa’s shortened solo section features “Here We Are In The Years” (from his first album) and “After The Gold Rush”. The acoustic Harvest section works fine and so far things were more or less under control. Then comes the electric set and things get a little unhinged. This is where Neil rolls out his new songs. The truncated electric set on Tuscaloosa features four new songs and “Alabama” (from Harvest). “Time Fades Away” leads things off. The song sounds unusually loose considering they had been playing it since early January. “Look Out Joe” is all rough edges and “New Mama” gets a much better treatment on TTN. Following “Alabama” (the crowd cheered loudly at the end – they must not have been listening too closely) the record closes with “Don’t Be Denied”. This is an early version of the song that gets tightened up by the time it is recorded for The TFA.
Not sure where Young was going by releasing Tuscaloosa. He said it was a great night but most of the boots I have heard have better performances. Considering the whole tour was recorded it is interesting Young chose this show. Maybe it was Buttrey.
ARTS ROUNDUP
Books– The Overstory by Richard Powers. This beautifully written book just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and could be subtitled “The Secret Life of Trees”. Eight separate stories in the first half of the novel come together in the second half to tell a story of “activism and resistance”[4]. At the center of things is humankind’s relationship with the natural world, in this case trees.
Music– Poco, A Good Feeling To Know. I was listening to a short interview of Richie Furay on Sirius XM and it reminded me of this 1972 album. One of the seminal country rock outfits, this is great early Poco. The highlight is Furay’s soaring vocals on the title song but I love the entire album.
Television – Billions (Showtime) – Season 4 just ended and this show continues to be one the great guilty pleasures on television. As long as you suspend belief that this is how hedge fund managers behave Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) is a stone cold operator. Prosecutor (now State Attorney General) Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) is deliciously Machiavellian. One of the fun things about the show is how the two main characters, and everyone else, seesaw back and forth between being good and evil. Can’t wait until the next season.
[1]The show at Maple Leaf Garden in Toronto, a quasi-official CD release from a radio broadcast, is quite good.
[2]Live at the Fillmore East, another of his archive releases, which showcases his electric set with Crazy Horse, for some reason does not include “Cinnamon Girl”, which was played that night.
[3]Barbata also replaced Dallas Taylor during the 1970 CSNY tour after Young fired him.
[4]From the author’s website.
It’s hard sometimes to realize how far we have come in how we experience music today compared to when I was coming of age in the seventies. The real inflection point came in 1995 with the advent of the Internet. The Internet changed the way we consume and get information about music forever. This is for the most part a good thing. There is so much available at our fingertips. We can have music everywhere and on all our devices. Everything today is available instantaneously, the music is virtual (i.e., streaming services) and just about anything you want is available on YouTube.
When we were young music was mobile too as long as you had a cassette (or 8-track!) player in your car. Then in the 80’s came the Walkman and you could carry your music with you anywhere (one cassette tape at a time). Steve Jobs introduced the iPod in 2001 as “1,000 songs in your pocket”. Our world at the time was more like three cassettes on the dash.
We had elaborate stereos with big speakers and racks of records. Being a music lover required access to physical space. Our walls were covered with posters of our favorite bands. There was something about the tactile experience of holding a gatefold album cover, reading the liner notes inside while listening to the music. For many people today there is no physical music. It mostly exists and is accessed only from the Internet. With each advancement something is lost but only for us who had that experience. To quote an old blues song, “You can’t lose what you never had”.
Our main source for information about our rock star heroes was magazines and occasionally television. I used to wait for two weeks for the next Rolling Stone magazine for an article or photo of one of my heroes. I remember pulling RS from the mail one August to find Neil Young on the cover and the Cameron Crowe interview on the inside. It didn’t get any better than that. Now you can find countless articles online about your favorite musicians.
Before YouTube (and the now prehistoric MTV) music on television[1]was relegated to late Friday night shows like Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert or The Midnight Special.[2]You had to stay up and watch it too. The DVR (and VHS recorder before that) was years in the future.
Because there was so little music on television[3], concerts were really the only way to see your favorite bands. It is difficult to describe the electric shock that ran through your body as the house lights came down in the concert hall and you were about to see your favorite band or artist for the first. Now there are entire concerts available on YouTube. Photos of your favorite musicians are a click away.
Radio was another outlet for new music. There really isn’t radio today like back then. I’m not passing judgment on Sirius XM or today’s FM radio but things were different back in the 70’s. First radio was local and not owned by large national communications companies. One of the results of this was a complete lack of musical genre stratification that started in the 90’s. Even listening to AM radio you could hear Deep Purple, Elton John, Chicago, Johnny Nash and the O’Jays in the same set list. Then came the emergence of FM free-form radio with playlists crafted by the DJ’s on the spot. You had stations like WNEW-FM in New York City and WMMR-FM in Philadelphia. Along with the free form play lists you also got live concert broadcasts[4]and sometimes new albums being played in their entirety at midnight. The DJ’s would count down while the needle dropped for the tapers in the audience (“The record will begin in 3, 2…”). It was pretty low-tech but it worked.
There was a scarcity of information about rock music back in the day. Today it is a never-ending flow of music, reviews, etc. Don’t get me wrong I have embraced this new world of music consumption. I was an early adopter of Spotify and I can go down the YouTube rabbit hole with the best of them. My recent vinyl revival is a bow, a time capsule if you will, to the old days. I wouldn’t want to go back but there was something magical about those days.
ARTS ROUNDUP
Books – “The White Album”, Joan Didion. Didion’s 1979 book of essays covering the late sixties to the late seventies. The title essay, similar to the previous collection “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, forms the foundation of the book. Didion is uniquely insightful in pulling together disparate pieces of the times (California, travel, the woman’s movement) into an integrated portrayal of the seventies culture.
Film – “Green Book”. I’ve seen most of the 2018 Oscar nominated films and I think this one is by far the best. The book of the title being a guide for blacks traveling through the southern U.S in the early sixties. Bronx bouncer Tony “Tony Lipp” Vallelonga (the stellar Viggo Mortensen) is hired as driver and bodyguard for jazz musician Don Shirley (the equally excellent Academy Award winning Maheshala Ali) on his tour of the south.
TV – “The Rookie” (ABC). Nathan Fillion (“Castle”) plays John Nolan a 40-year old rookie on the Los Angeles Police Department. He is one of three rookies paired with veteran cops on this hour-long drama so there are three stories going at all times. The show works because of Fillion and his everyman persona as a humble yet quietly savvy “boot”.
[1]This was before cable television – 12 channels (2 through 13).
[2]Though there were some glimpses of rock stars on the day’s talk shows:
John and Yoko co-hosting the afternoon Mike Douglas show for a week and Jimi Hendrix on the Dick Cavett show (worth finding on YouTube).
[3]Music isn’t the only type of entertainment that has benefitted from technology. Hundred plus channel cable TV packages mean you can access just about any sport at any time. Before I got into music I was an auto-racing fan. I used to wait for ABC’s Wide World of Sports on Saturday afternoons to catch 15 minutes of the NHRA drag races. Now there are dedicated channels that provide hours of coverage of all kinds of auto racing.
[4]One of my treasured bootlegs was a 1979 radio broadcast of a Graham Parker and the Rumour concert. I listened to that show for years until one day the tape broke.
A few recommendations for books and music from this past summer…
Books
“Before The Fall”, Noah Hawley. The author is a writer for a well-known television series and this is his breakout novel. The premise is a local Martha’s Vineyard painter who hitches a ride on the private jet of the TV news mogul and his family. The wife has befriended him and invites him to join them on the flight back to New York City. Eighteen minutes into the flight the plane has crashed and he’s in the water. The only other survivor is the four-year-old son of the family. The artist, an accomplished swimmer, somehow makes it to shore with the boy. Then story unfolds as the media descends and the mystery of the crash is revealed through a series of back-story chapters. It’s winner. If you read one book this year this is the one.
“Dr. Knox”, Peter Spiegelman. I’ve been a fan of Spiegelman’s since his 2012 book “Thick As Thieves” (see my post). I’ve since worked my way through his John March novels and now comes a new series about a doctor who runs a clinic in an LA ghetto. Knox supports his clinic’s overhead by making night house calls to celebrities and criminals who can’t use conventional ER services. The doctor gets involved with a mother and son who come into the clinic late one Friday. The mother disappears and then Knox discovers a Russian mobster and a corrupt industrialist are pursuing them. It’s a winding trip to the ultimate resolution. Hoping to see more of Dr. Knox in the future.
“Everything Else Is An Afterthought: The Writings of Paul Nelson”, Kevin Avery and Nick Tosches. Nelson was a writer for Rolling Stone and The Village Voice during the late sixties and seventies. He is best know for his profiles of musicians like Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, Patty Smith and Bruce Springsteen. The book is split into two halves: The first part is a biography of Nelson’s life with the second part being selections of his writings. Known for getting close to his subjects Nelson truly “made friends with the rock stars”.
Music
Dinosaur Jr., “Give A Glimpse of What Yer Not”. DJ has always been about the guitar shredding of J Mascis. The band has been back together since the mid-aughts, with its original lineup, and this is another worthy addition to the catalogue.
Van Morrison, “It’s Too Late To Stop Now…” – This set collects three complete shows from 1973 (two in California and one in London). It proves that Morrison has always been more of a jazz singer than a rocker. The varied set lists over these three shows is also a testament to how prolific Morrison was during the early part of his career. It’s hypnotic stuff.
Kamasi Washington, “The Epic” – Jazz sax player Washington’s blends jazz, R&B and sixties film soundtrack music (better than it sounds) across this sprawling three-record opus. I bought this one on vinyl at Spinster Records in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas while visiting my sister in June.
And give it up to Nude Beach and their new album 77. This is the third album from this Brooklyn trio and it’s a winner. (I am sampling their last release “II” to get a taste of their earlier sound.) Take a vocal combination of Tom Petty and Jakob Dylan with the jangle of early REM and Buffalo Tom and you get Nude Beach.
Ah the wonders of Spotify… I sought this one out after reading a review in Rolling Stone. Now we know everything in the RS record review section is three stars and up (Rolling Shill) but Nude Beach goes beyond the usual grade inflation of this tiring icon. I only review the best and pass on the rest to give a heads up to my friends on bands and artists worth a listen. My acid test when I’m listening to a new album (old artist or new) is do I want to hear it again? 77 gets a resounding yes! Nude Beach may be the find of the season. This is love song rock; tales of love lost, found and confused. Technically a double album, if you buy the vinyl, it’s consistently strong across its 18 songs. Not easy to do especially for a fairly unknown band. Some of my faves:
“I’m Not Like You” is a 21st century re-make of the Byrds “Feel A Whole Lot Better”. And “I Can’t Keep The Tears From Falling” could be an outtake (a great one) from Damn The Torpedoes. Some songs get a little too close to their influences. “The Witness” comes off like a Wallflowers cover tune. The driving rhythm and a deep set hook of “Can’t Get Enough” is typical of many songs on this album. The pretty ballad “If Only We Had The Time” closes the record with soaring Beach Boys-like harmonies.
There’s a lot going on here. They make a lot noise for just three guys. Every song is packed with raucus drumming, guitar riffs and layered vocals. The same type of dense sound that I love about Buffalo Tom. There’s also some tasty slide (“Used To Be”) and lead guitar (“Time”) sprinkled throughout (which made me wonder how they pull it off live with only one guitar player – guess I’ll have to go see them and find out). I kept thinking that the quality would tail off as this lengthy set wore on but, to take a line from one of my favorite movies, the hits just keep on coming.
There’s a lot to like here so give a listen and pick out your favorites. Definitely a band to watch. Keep your clothes on.