Marking Time with Music

(note: this originally posted on www.planetback.com in 2008.  I've editted it for this posting)

Quick.  What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I mention the year 1979?  A birthday?  A graduation?  Your first kiss?  A song by the Smashing Pumpkins?  If you’re like me, and God help you if you are, your mental timeline is marked not so much by life’s personal milestones, but by album release dates.  It’s my way of attaining order in a random universe. 

Take the year 1975.  Springsteen’s Born To Run and Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti come to mind, though I was only seven years old that year.  Age doesn’t really matter when it comes to marking time (at least it didn’t until I turned forty); I’ve retroactively pegged years from long before my birth.  1954?  Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock” (not an album, per se, but you get the idea).  1967?  The Beatles’ St. Pepper and Hendrix’s Are You Experienced.  Of course, more recent years have the added benefit of intertwining personal experience with album release dates.  Peter Gabriel’s So and Paul Simon’s Graceland came out the year of my high school graduation, and Ben Folds Five and Alanis Morissette both debuted albums in 1995, the year I was married.

1979 stirs up memories of my very first album purchases.  I started boldly, with a live double album from Aerosmith, graduated to Supertramp’s Crime of the Century and Led Zeppelin’s In Through The Out Door, and finished off the year with Pink Floyd’s magnum opus, The Wall.  This was the album that had everybody talking.  Whatever side of the Floyd fence you fell on, there was no disputing The Wall’s significance. 

Memories of my family’s trip to Florida the following spring are inextricably linked to the unwavering play lists of rock stations from Milwaukee to Tampa: “All of My Love,” from Zeppelin, “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” by Charlie Daniels (with the phrase “son of a gun” replacing “son of a bitch” for radio play – oh the innocence!), and the ubiquitous “Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2.”  This is the Floyd song that features a disco beat and a children’s choir singing “We don’t need no education” (both moves a stroke of production genius).  It was an unmelodic piece, almost childish, but that didn’t stop me from buying the sheet music to expand by blossoming piano repertoire.  When I handed the music to my appalled piano teacher, Mrs. Trotier, she produced a sigh that could have signified the end of society, but to her credit, she helped me plod my way through the song, deciphering the complicated rhythms of David Gilmour’s transcribed guitar solo.

Meanwhile, schoolteachers from all around the country feared mutiny.  The lyrics to “Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2” clearly had appeal to any student with an ounce of deviance, but my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Middlestead, didn’t quite see it that way.  He decided to facilitate a class discussion on the topic, an admirable move except when considering his audience.  He copied the song’s lyrics on the chalkboard at the front of the classroom and asked the students to read along while the song played.  After pressing stop on the tape player, he asked, “What is it about this song that you find appealing?”

We offered nothing except shoulder shrugs and blank stares.  None of us really knew why we liked the song.  We just did.  It was on the radio, and it was sort of funny.  But no one was brave enough to say so.  Finally, after watching my teacher die a slow death in front of the classroom, something inside me – probably vanity – provoked me to speak up. 

“This song isn’t even as good as the other two.  Part 3 is way better.”  I was referring to an almost identical song with slightly different lyrics on the album’s second side. 

My teacher’s eyes widened.  “That’s what I’m trying to get at.  You think this is the worst of the three ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ songs, and yet this is the one that’s attracted so much attention.  Why?”

“I don’t know…but Part 3 is really cool.  It starts out with a guy smashing his TV!” 

I raised my hands to mimic the action, but halted when Mr. Middlestead placed a hand on his forehead.  Then, starting to sense my own death, I turned to my classmates for support and distinctly remember Jon Lewis giving me a look that he’d previously reserved for the class dork.  I had just doubled the number of dorks in our classroom and completely negated any crumb of respect I’d garnered from my classmates all year. 

Damn you, Roger Waters!

So what’s the upshot of all this?  Nothing really, except to say that while 1979 is a highlight in my mental timeline, and could be for almost any music fan, I don’t imagine today’s kids will look back at the year 2014 with the same fondness.  And that’s not just because I’m an old guy hankering for the old days; today’s kids are already wallowing in the past.  Look around and you’ll see teenagers wearing t-shirts with the logos from Zeppelin, Rush, The Who, Nivana and the Stones.  It reminds me of a conversation I had at a party back in 2008 when a familiar song began to play in the background. 

“Oh, I like this song,” a woman said.

“Yeah, Warren Zevon,” I said.

“Who’s Warren Zevon?”

“The guy who does this song.”

“No.  It’s someone else.  Kid somebody?”

“It’s Warren Zevon.”

And then a voice began singing an alternative melody right on top of Warren Zevon’s original classic!  So all 2008 had going for it was a hit by Kid Rock based on based on samples of two songs from long ago: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” from 1974 and Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” from 1978. 

Wallowing in the past.

Supertramp, 1979

1979.  The year of The Knack, Led Zeppelin’s first album in over three years, 52^nd Street, Tusk, The Long Run, and…

Breakfast in America. 

Living in Milwaukee in 1979, there was nobody bigger than Supertramp.  Already mainstays of Milwaukee radio from their previous three releases, Supertramp was kept in constant rotation on WQFM and WLPX, with “Logical Song,” “Goodbye Stanger,” “Breakfast in America,” “Take the Long Way Home” and “Lord Is It Mine” all making the airwaves.  Supertramp played at Mecca Arena on March 22, and then returned to Alpine Valley for three consecutive shows on June 15-June 17, just a week after exiting the Billboard best-selling album ranking (only to return a week later).

The tour culminated six months later in Paris, after selling over four million copies of Breakfast in America in the US alone, the fifth-best selling album that year, eventually winning the Grammy for the best engineered recording.  The Paris show was recorded and subsequently released as a live LP, and though the concert was also filmed, it wasn’t made available in video.  This glaring omission in rock concert libraries has now been rectified, as the show is now available on DVD and Blue Ray.

I missed the 1979 tour.  As an 11 year-old, too young to see rock concerts, I was filled with jealousy when my brother returned home from one of the Alpine Valley shows with a t-shirt in hand.  I made the next Supertramp concert at Alpine Valley on August 28, 1983, for what would be Roger Rodgson’s last tour with the band, and I have terrific memories of Bob Siebenberg starting the show with the kick drum from “Don’t Leave Me Now” as a giant tightrope walker appeared on the film screen behind the stage and the band launched into the song “Crazy.”

Watching the Breakfast in America DVD last night brought back fond memories of that show, but I was also able to watch the band with perhaps a more discerning eye than back in 1983.  A few thoughts:

• Davies and Hodgson have no stage presence whatsoever.  Hodgson sings most of his songs with his eyes closed, and Davies has a twitch that makes him look like he’s expending the greatest of effort even when he’s playing the simplest of keyboard parts.  I remember both of the band leaders having little to no interaction with the audience in 1983 as well, with the exception of Hodgson announcing his decision to leave the band (just before playing "Give a Little Bit").
• John Helliwell, in addition to being a great woodwind and keyboard contributor, is the voice of the band, adding a much needed sense of humor and dialogue with the audience.
• Hodgson is a very underrated guitarist.  I liken him to David Gilmore; perhaps his chops aren’t extraordinary, but his choice of notes and sounds are flawless.  Just hearing him play the tasteful guitar solo in “School” was enough for me to take notice, and I still love his work at the end of “Goodbye Stranger.”
• The stage setup is interesting, so that even though Davies only plays keyboards (and harmonica), he positions himself in one of four different places on the stage: one for the front stage Wurlizer, one for the grand piano, one for the Hammond and other keyboards stage left, and another keyboard setup that allows for Hodgson and Helliwell to have easy access during songs that require guitar and woodwinds.  In effect, you have three of the five members moving around regularly, which makes for a more fulfilling visual experience.
• The highlight of the concert for me is the inclusion of “Another Man’s Woman,” a Davies tour de force and completely unexpected.  Hodgson’s understated guitar work during this song is another example of how less is more.
• Perplexingly absent from the set list are Davies’s contribution to Supertramp's latest release.  Only one of his songs from Breakfast in America is performed, the hit “Goodbye Stranger.”  In the notes from my concert program for the …Famous Last Words… tour, is states, “Rick Davies was so sure that Breakfast in America would not reach the top 5 on the American charts that he bet Bob Siebenberg $100 that it wouldn’t.”  Perhaps he didn’t really like the tunes from this record, which would explain why he played all four of his songs from Crime of the Century, but only one from the best-selling album in the band’s history.
• The screen behind the stage is used fleetingly, and I suspect this was a rather extravagant and expensive proposition in 1979.  On the DVD, film is used only for the songs “Rudy,” “Fool’s Overture” and “Crime of the Century.”  When I saw them in 1983, I recall them using the screen for "Crazy" and “Child of Vision” as well.
• Why the cameras didn’t roll during “Ain’t Nobody But Me,” “From Now On,” “A Soapbox Opera,” “You Started Laughing” and “Downstream” is a mystery, and one wonders if Rick’s contributions to the band were overlooked in favor of the hit-making Hodgson, since four of the five missing tracks are Davies songs.  Luckily, the audio is included for these tracks as a DVD extra.

The legacy of Supertramp has been minimized in my mind due to Hodgson’s departure in 1983, a few uninteresting albums since that time, a lot of extended time off, and the inability of Davies and Hodgson to come to a settlement that would culminate in a reunion tour.  Other bands have stayed relevant without new material (The Beatles, anyone?  Or Billy Joel?), but one has to wonder if Supertramp is one of those bands that’s going to disappear entirely from people’s playlists in the next ten or twenty years.  If so, it’ll be a shame, because Supertramp had a remarkable knack for walking the balance beam between creativity and accessibility.  There is no reason in the world that a song like “School” should have gotten radio play, and yet it did.  Supertramp achieved something remarkable, and I have to wonder if after the inclusion of Heart into the Rock and Roll Hall-of-Fame last year, if they shouldn’t be considered.  I doubt it'll happen, but if the year 1979 is any indication of the band’s impact on the music world, perhaps it should.

Aging Like Peter Gabriel

Aging can be scary.  Just ask my daughters about Peter Gabriel.  But first, a little background…

In 1994 I mentioned to my friend Julie that I thought my hairline was starting to recede.  “Well, duh!” was her response.  Apparently, I was the last to know.  Or maybe the last to know was Alice, my wife, because I managed to snare her prior to my long descent into baldness.  2013 helped spur the aging process, as I put on about seven pound and purchased my first pair of reading glasses.  I figure it’s only downhill from here.  There are exceptions to men aging in unattractive ways: say, George Clooney, Cary Grant, and every man who’s ever played James Bond.

But for me, I think I’m going to go down the path of Peter Gabriel (except for the world stardom part).

Gabriel didn’t really reach world stardom until his album So in 1986 when he was thirty-six years old, a fairly elevated age for a rock performer’s peak, but even six years later, when he toured behind his follow-up album Us and sang about aging issues like divorce, he looked good.  Svelte.  Tireless.  Exuberant.  When my daughters were young, we would play Gabriel’s Secret World DVD over and over, mesmerized by the visual spectacle of the show as much as the musical performances.  Still own it.  Still love it.

And then…

As Gabriel is wont to do, he stayed largely hidden from public view for a number of years, but appeared in 1999 at the Academy Awards to sing Randy Newman’s song “That’ll Do” from the movie Babe - Pig in the City.  You could almost hear the audience gasp as he came onto the stage.

Check out the reaction that people shared on-line immediately following the Oscars (under the heading “Peter Gabriel YIKES”).

My favorite line is: “My husband came into the room and asked me why Marlon Brando was singing.”

Big deal, right?  People age.  Except it was only SIX YEARS AFTER the Secret World tour!  The man went from this…

…to this…

...from the age of 43 to 49!

I’m 45, smack dab in the middle of the road that goes from “tolerable looking” to “ewww”.

Four years after Gabriel’s Oscar performance, I rented the DVD of his Up tour, excited to once again show my daughters an inspiring Peter Gabriel concert.  I don’t want it to sound like I’ve raised two shallow-minded girls, but they practically cowered while watching the hairless, bloated figure on screen.  They were only six years old, but they knew a cover up when the saw one.

“This is the same man?” they asked.

“It is.”

“Are you sure?” 

I wasn’t.  They went back to playing with their Barbies, and I finished the DVD, searching for a melody in tunes like “More than This” and “Growing Up.”  It was as if the songs had suffered the same fate as their creator, plodding along, suffocating beneath their own weight.

It’s said that people see themselves at a certain age, frozen in time, and are shocked and betrayed when the mirror shows their true age.  But better to live by that internal age then the external one.  Better to be surprised when looking into the mirror than validated.

I guess that's the trick.  So I've decided I'm going to live like I'm twenty-one and see what happens. Should be divorced and homeless within a month's time.

Tripping on the (Prerecorded) Wire

Watching two bands perform last night at Evantson’s SPACE – a splendid venue, by the way – I noticed how dependent live performance has become on prerecorded tracks.  This is nothing new, of course, as even bands with reputations for being authentic – whatever that means – have enhanced their shows with the extra hands that sequencing and loops provide.  The band Rush has been relying on prerecorded tracks for decades.  Geddy Lee sings a lead vocal, and suddenly two more Geddys join him in the background.  And watch closely when he plays the keyboards and you’ll notice that often he’ll press one note on the keyboard that triggers a more elaborate arrangement.  Modern cover bands often employ the same tactics – backup vocals sound especially impressive when they’re dubbed over a layer of lush, prerecorded voices. 

Neither band I saw last night – headliner A Silent Film and opener Hands – relied so heavily on prerecorded tracks that it diminished the talent or energy displayed on stage (both bands were excellent), but it doesn’t take much for live performance to become predictable, and this is exactly what playing to prerecorded tracks demands: predictability.

Back in the day, recordings were meant to capture live performing, but along the way that method was turned on its head; soon, live performing was meant to emulate the recording.  Some bands – The Cars come to mind, but almost any top 40 band could be an example – performed their songs exactly as they sounded on the record.  Others – The Who and Led Zeppelin, for example – managed to perform a high wire act that took listeners on a journey that could either flop or mesmerize but never bore, as they played songs that were contradictorily both recognizable and an exploration of new territory.

There’s room enough in the world for both strategies, but more and more it seems that bands are relying so heavily on pre-sequenced material that any hope to elevate a performance to transcendental levels is squashed from the outset. 

And this is a problem.  In an era when the recordings have become disposable and live performing has become the one think keeping both listeners and performers invested and interested, the need for spontaneous performances has never been greater.

Sure, Hands did a fine job last night, and there’s no question that the band has talent and live chops (particularly drummer Sean Hess), but the songs relied so heavily on Geoff Halliday’s sequenced synth tracks, that each song was undoubtedly performed exactly the way it had been performed the day before and the day before that.  There’s simply no room for improvising.  No possibility of a happy accident.  If a particularly inspired groove or guitar solo happens to develop, there will be opportunity for it to flourish.

Hell, even The Who can’t be spontaneous with songs like Baba O’Riley or We Won’t Get Fooled Again, since they have to rely on the synth tracks Pete recorded over forty years ago.  Luckily for The Who, back in the day these songs were the exception to an otherwise spontaneous performance.

A Silent Film, which relied much less on prerecorded tracks than their opening act, announced a few songs into the set last night that they were going to perform without a set list, insinuating that this was A Big Deal.  Perhaps these days that’s what passes for spontaneity – playing songs exactly like the record, but in a different order.

But will it keep audiences coming back?  Will it breathe life into a faltering industry?

Art: What We Bring to the Table

Recent movies and commercials have highlighted our tendency to mishear lyrics, especially those by Bernie Taupin, who penned Elton John’s “Rocket Man” and “Bennie and the Jets”:

But sometimes the lyrics we think we hear are more revealing than the words actually sung.

My favorite mishearing of a lyric is Paul Simon’s “Song About the Moon” from his Hearts and Bones album.  I was certain Simon sang the words, “You really can’t remember what you can’t replace” and thought it yet another example of Simon’s artistry.  A more careful inspection revealed that the lyric is in fact, “Think about the photograph that you really can’t remember but you can’t erase,” a fine lyric, but to me far less compelling.  So I did what any songwriter would do – I stole the line I originally attributed to Simon and used it as my own on the first song of my first album.  In “A Fine Place to Start”  I sing (and, ironically, in the line prior I reference the aforementioned “Rocket Man”):

               “Rocket Man” is sent to me

               By tantalizing frequencies

               It sets my tempo at the right pace

               It reminds me of a girl I used to know

               I wonder why I let her go

               But I really can’t remember what I can’t replace

Recently, I read a lyric on-line of Yes’s song, “Your Move,” and was convinced that it was incorrect because I own an old biography of Yes in which Jon Anderson quotes the line: “Cuz his time is time in time with your time and his move is captured.”  It’s not a meaningful lyric, but it’s kind of cool, and even makes a little sense to me.  His time is in time with your time.  Has a nice ring to it.

Well, I was wrong.  I rechecked the line in the book (my memory be damned), and it’s the same as on all the various lyric websites.  “Cuz it’s time it’s time in time with your time and his news is captured…”

Not nearly as good, I think, and now I wish I’d never have looked the lyric up!

In the liner notes of Seal’s second album, he writes:

One of the most popular questions people seem to ask is “why don’t you print your lyrics on the album?”  Well, the answer in that is that quite often, my songs mean one thing to me and another to the listener.  But that’s OK because I think it’s the general vibe of what I’m saying that is important and not the exact literal translation.  How many times have you fallen in love with a lyric that you thought went, “Show me a day with Holda Ogden and I’ll despair” only to find that it went “Show me a way to solve your problems and I’ll be there.”  I guess what I’m saying is that the song is always larger in the listener’s mind because with it they attach imagery which is relative to ther own personal experience.  So it is your perception of what I’m saying rather than what I actually say that is the key.

Nicely done, Seal.  I couldn’t agree more. 

What we bring to the table is really what makes art work in the first place.  I see a painting that means one thing to me, another thing to you, and something completely different for the artist.

My friend recently played Oscar Wilde in a play, and although he researched the author in preparation for his role, he told me he didn’t find it particularly helpful when it came to acting the part.  “That had to come from me,” he said.  An actor has to pull from his own experiences to imbue a role with emotion.

It reminds me of a story about the playwright Harold Pinter.  It’s said that a director once asked Pinter about what the characters were up to before they enter the stage, thinking it might help him stage the scene.  Pinter replied, “Mind your own fucking business.”

Which only goes to show that Pinter’s demeanor was as poor as some of his plays.

But it also hits upon the point that what each of us brings to the table is what feeds the art.  It’s what makes Yo Yo Ma’s interpretation of a Bach concerto different than Emmanuel Feuermann’s.  Or, if we want to stick to the Elton John theme, what makes his version of “Pinball Wizard” distinctive from The Who’s original.  It’s what makes one staging of Macbeth unique from another production of the same play in the same town, but by a different theater group.

In this sense, we are all creators of art.  We extend the life of and shape the meaning of a work of art by fusing it with our own life experiences.