I was at Triple O Burgers in Asia Square. I ordered a salad, which has four main ingredients: salad, chicken, croutons, sauce. I got the salad in a covered-over serving. When I got back to my table, I discovered that there were no croutons (one of the four main ingredients, as advertised on the menu board) in the whole salad. I went to the guy, explained that there were no croutons in the salad:
- there are no croutons in this salad, give me a partial refund.
- ????
- the sign says that this salad comes with croutons but there are no croutons in this salad.
- yes, we were out of croutons.
- well, couldn’t you have told me this when I picked up the salad?
- but I replaced the croutons with cucumbers.
- so what? I paid for a salad that is supposed to come with croutons? give me a partial refund on this salad.
- I can make some more croutons. but it will take some time.
Yeah! – When you see the names Peter Bagge and Gilbert Hernandez, two of the biggest names in underground comics, attached to a new venture, you take notice. Yeah! is the tale of three ladies (Krazy, Woo Woo and Honey) who are Shonen Knife-like rockers in New Jersey; the main point of the story is that the girls are struggling in their musical careers on Earth, despite being major celebrities on other planets, and possibly maybe the biggest band in the universe (their manager Old Crusty has a great connection with the scene on Uranus and Jumpiter).
The book goes from episode to episode in languid, goofy Archie-esque fashion, the characters enduring plenty of silly episodes, various humiliations from mean people (the sleazy music mogul, the nasty musical rivals, the former best friend who has become an enemy, heartbroken ex-fans turned adversaries, a conquering alien force, etc), and all sorts of other nuttiness. Love the onstage catfight during a concert at an all-girls Catholic school.
After getting to know our lovely ladies briefly, Bagge and Hernandez turn back the clock and show the nutty way in which the band came together. Awww!!! Later on there’s a cool story-line where Old Crusty gets a groovy alien girlfriend, and when the lead singer of World War 1234, Hobo Capiletto, falls in love with Woo Woo (on a date with her and Krazy, who gets jealous); there’s weird media mogul goings-ons, and later on the fighting Yeah! troops get involved in a space war (!!!???). At the end there’s a very cool sub-plot with Peter Bagge showing us “A Day In The Life Of The Snobs.” Great, great, great!!!
One of the coolest things about this comic is seeing with what great ease the creative duo come up with great names for bands. And it’s not just Yeah! (and the anti-Yeah!, called !Heay), the book also refers to nonexistent bands called The Ramoans, World War 1234, the Snobs, Miss Hellraiser, and others.
Reading the foreword, it’s clear that Yeah! didn’t take off the way the creators had hoped. Fans of Hate, and Love And Rockets (Bagge and Hernandez’s respective comics) just didn’t enjoy the innocent fun, and new audiences didn’t latch on to the stories or the characters (for the life of me I just can’t see why not – how could you not love characters with names like those, man?!?!). It’s a shame really, but I’m sure glad I came across this lovely little comic. Congrats, Bagge, man, good going Hernandez – let’s have some more Yeah!
The Ramoans
Little Miss Hellraiser
Oh, we’re from CANADA!!
- Where do you girls originally hail from?
- We’re from… er… Canada.
- Canada? No wonder they look and act so different than us.
Lemmy: Lemmy the movie and White Line Fever, the Lemmy autobiography – April’s been Motörhead month for me, with me reading his autobiography and then taking in his movie. Great stuff there for both things. Which will I review first…?
WLF
White Line Fever, Lemmy with Janiss Garza – I’d heard good things about this book, and I knew I needed to know more about Lemmy, so I went out and bought it. Good thing I did!! It’s great fun, and like nearly every autobiography I’ve ever read starts with a modern life anecdote before heading into the usual “when I was a lad…” stuff, about growing up, in Lemmy’s case with a single mum, a deadbeat dad (who he at least acknowledges with a picture in the pictures section) and not-much-better jailbird stepdad.
It quickly gets into music, which some people would sneer is an alien concept for this noisemaker and hellraiser. For a hardass like Lemmy, people may be surprised that his favorites are Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, the usual stuff that punkers and heavy metallers usually don’t refer to. But then again, you have to remember – Lemmy’s old enough to have seen them when they were starting out, even if his heart is as young as the snottiest upstart metal brat (there’s a great quote in the movie that Rollins relates: “I remember before there was rock and roll. I remember when there was only Rosemary Clooney records. Then we heard Elvis Presley and there was no turning back.”). He talks about the mods and the rockers. “The Mods used to wear eye make-up too, especially the boys. The crowd of people I was in disliked them, but in retrospect, it was no worse than what we were doing. I mean, we thought they were sissies, and they thought we were yobs – and you know, we were both right.” There’s a great story about befriending Jon Lord of Deep Purple, then living with a young Ron Wood and Art Wood. He also hung out with the Beatles (and, as we find out in the documentary, had a child with a girl who lost her virginity to John Lennon).
The Beatles revolutionized rock ‘n’ roll, and they also changed the way everyone looked. It seems ludicrous now, but for those days, they had very long hair. I remember thinking, ‘Wow! How can any guy have hair that long?’ Really, it was just combed forward, with a slight fringe over the collar. We all had quiffs then – before the beatles, it had been ducktails and Elvis.
He compares the Beatles and the Stones, overturning the impression that the Beatles were mellow and the Stones were dangerous: the Beatles, being from a tough town like Liverpool, knew how to take care of themselves, whereas “the Rolling Stones were the mummy’s boys – they were all college students from the outskirts of London.” There’s also the great story of him working as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix for a year and a half (and in the documentary he talks about helping Hendrix score acid, ten hits at a time – Hendrix was generous and would take seven tabs, and give Lemmy the other three.
When he performed, he would drive the chicks fucking nuts. I’ve seen him go in his bedroom with five chicks – and they’d all come out smiling too. And of course, the road crew got the spin-offs. A stud, Hendrix was; and I’m crass enough to think that’s quite a good thing. I don’t know what’s wrong with being a stud – it’s more fun than not being a stud, that’s for sure!
In the movie there’s a funny quote from Lemmy: “people ask me what I think of Prince; I say ‘I’ve already seen Jimi Hendrix.’” A funny tale about the other guys in The Experience:
I liked the other two guys in the Experience, too. Noel Redding was all right, only he used to wear a nightshirt to bed, and Alladdin-type shoes with the curly toes and a nightcap with a tassel. That was quite a sight. Mitch was nuts, as he still is today, in fact. One time I was standing on a traffic island in the middle of Oxford Street and Mitch bounced up to me, wearing a white fur coat, white trousers, white shirt, shoes and socks – complete vision, you know. ‘Hello, I don’t know who I am!’ he said and ran off again. I don’t think he knew who I was, either!
He talks about some of the albums he played on in the early days, throwing out lines like “I must get a copy of it one of these days”, which means that someone will read this and send him a copy. Nice move.
For most of the second half of the book, Lemmy is consumed with writing about the recording of albums. “We went into the studio and did an album… then we did the next one… then we did the next one…” He also talks a bit about tours, memorable shows, line-up changes, and management grief. Occasionally he pauses for an anecdote, or a bit of philosophizing. Sometimes he talks about writing a song for someone else (Ozzy, Lita Ford, Girlschool, etc), and how he made more money off of writing songs for Ozzy than he ever did in 15 years with Motörhead. He also describes how he got involved in a few unlikely pairings, such as a supergroup he was in with the Nolan Sisters that there’s a cool little video for.
(Note the cheesy birthday wishes – those will live into immortality – and the image of Lemmy dancing around the 1:20 mark!)
The Nolan Sisters were great fun – we used to run across them quite a bit because they were on the charts at the same time Motörhead was. Everybody thought they were soppy little popster virgins but they weren’t. They’d been around – they’d played with Sinatra at the Sands in Vegas. They were tough chicks, managed by their father, but they were really great. And funny as shit. Once our manager, Douglas, was talking to Linda Nolan in the Top of the Pops bar, and he dropped some money on the floor. When he bent down to pick it up, Linda smirked and said, ‘While you’re down there…’ That was the last thing he expected out of a Nolan sister! Maybe wishful thinking and he dreamt it up, but it shocked the shit out of him.
Naturally, being fired from Hawkwind gets the full treatment.
Ultimately, the first half of the book is way better than the second half, as autobiographies tend to be.
Great book. Anybody who’s ever rocked out to Motörhead songs that they didn’t pay for, do yourself and fork out for this; everybody else should as well.
Lemmy
Lemmy, the Motion Picture – I adore the subtitle of this film: “49% motherfucker, 51% son of a bitch” (although they eventually go to some pains to show that he’s neither). The film is a very satisfying documentary that covers nearly all of the bases, even if it is a bit heavy in its praise; I guess Lemmy just isn’t as complicated as Anton Newcombe, the guy from Brian Jonestown Massacre who was profiled in Dig, which is fine by me – he’s just as fascinating, if not more.
The documentary starts off real slow, with scenes from Lemmy’s life – playing video games in his cave in LA, frying up some chips, rummaging through things, explaining some of his tour memorabilia (the Nazi and war memorabilia comes later), going down to Amoeba Records to buy the Beatles re-release mono version, maybe check out a bit of Pat Benatar; Amoeba doesn’t take AmEx, so he had to pay with Visa. Hmmm… I can relate.
The first part of the movie is an endless series of quotes from celebrities about the greatness of Lemmy. Dave Navarro, Dave Grohl, Nikki Sixx, Billy Bob Thornton (“When you stop being hungry, you’re fucked. When you’re number one, you’re fucked.”). He’s called a radioactive cowboy, a hard rock Johnny Cash, a World War II Sheikh!) and Kat Von D calls him her “dream dude.” Some talk on how Lemmy fits into LA… or how LA fits itself around Lemmy. There’s discussion of his look, which was cultivated in the 1950s, then built up with stuff he’s come across since.
We get to meet Lemmy’s bootmaker (cobbler?), Pascal Cooper, who creates his “western jackboots.” And after we’ve seen these marvellous creations, we can’t help but notice when Lemmy’s just wearing normal boots (or white tennis shoes, like in the bad old days, ha ha…). Drummer Lars Ulrich is quoted extensively throughout (and Lemmy in his autobiography often calls Lars, and his band Metallica, out for being the band that pays the best respect to people like him). “Lemmy should be a verb.” I guess so. One of the great additions here is Jason Everman, who had roles in Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mindfunk – WOW!!! – who went off to fight in the marines and tour Afghanistan and Iraq. Not the regular on-the-circuit rock documentary commentator like Lars, Ozzy, Slash. And Lemmy himself, he’s always talking about Anvil, or any old band! (Gwar’s Dave Brockie is notable absent in this department, incidentally – everyone’s favorite talking head, that one.) Where did they dig Everman up anyway? Glad that they did, though, nice to see the man now. Naturally, he wore Motörhead t-shirts in Iraq, confessing that Motörhead is good war music.
Steve Vai wants to be Lemmy. Dave Vanian got Lemmy to fill in bass for Brian James at a Damned show, which he did for a bunch of songs, and even played ABBA’s “SOS” (he pulled it off unrehearsed – a real pro); they then slaughtered the one Motörhead song that they wanted to do; Vanian talks about how Lemmy loves to do slots (and that’s where his nickname came from – “lend me a quid for the slogs”, lend me… lemmy… Lemmy). “They should do a Motörhead slot machine – if you get three Lemmys you win” (and then we see it in the DVD’s main menu – nice touch). Scott Ian tells a wicked laugh-out-loud story about Lemmy’s short cutoff jean shorts. Renegades discussion – Lemmy, Little Richard, Buddy Holly… where are the renegades now? (In his book Lemmy talks about the real rebels of the 1960s… who gave birth to a generation of storekeepers and accountants; the revolution’s over). He also mentions the gay Mr Brownsword in the movie, a living joke that he also describes in his book. Love Lemmy’s “Canada & US Motörhead” jacket.
There’s a bit from his old school in Wales; Lemmy may have been expelled from it for playing guitar in school, but the kids there now play “Ace Of Spades” on piano, accompanied by a choir for the chorus. Funny. Pics from Lemmy’s youth, from his early bands, and the days when he didn’t have the biker look that started to come together just in the Hawkwind days. There’s a long piece with his son Paul that becomes kind of gross when they talk about swapping girlfriends twice in the same year; there’s also a nice clip of the two of them playing together.
A great segment of the film shows Lemmy going off to hang out with some World War II enthusiasts and drive their tank! He also gets to shoot a round out of the cannon!! At this point we also get to see all of the swords Lemmy has – Nazi daggers he’s been collecting for 19 years, bayonets, Damascus steel. This is where, of course, he addresses the “are you a Nazi” question. He doesn’t accept it, and seems hurt by the question – “I’m as far from it as you could get”… despite the German war memorabilia he wears to the supermarket. Mentions the six black girlfriends he had (including the love of his life, who he one day found in the bathtub dead of a heroin overdose), jokes about being a Nazi and taking those girlfriends to Nuremberg to introduce them to Hitler. “If the Israelis had cool uniforms I’d collect them instead.”
One of the highlights are a great old video of Hawkwind from 1972 playing Silver Machine; the greatness that was Hawkwind in their prime is broadly misunderstood. The directors provide a great accompanying clip of Rollins saying he adores Hawkwind, with Jarvis Cocker noting that Hawkwind were the prog rock band the punkers were allowed to like and Peter Hook confessing that New Order’s “Temptation” and “Everything’s Gone Green” are direct rip-offs of that Hawkwind drone (decide for yourself by clicking on the links below).
Stacia, Hawkwind’s dancer, is interviewed, and her great tits are remembered by Tony James and Mick Jones. Lemmy reminisces, so does Nik Turner; apparently Lemmy was on the wrong drugs for Hawkwind – he was into speed and other chemicals, while the rest of the band was into the organic stuff; Lemmy calls it “Seventies drug snobbery”. He also admits that he’d still be in Hawkwind if he hadn’t been fired, so maybe it’s worked out for the better, so maybe there is still some love there in between all of the mess and betrayals…
Great early clip of Lemmy and Philthy mugging that they’re beating up a journalist. “You hold him and I’ll cut him. What’s it feel like being killed by Motörhead?” There’s more of the early stuff on the documentary (the “classic lineup” of the band is hardly to be seen on this disc, except mainly in the extras section, and Wurzel is not seen at all). Dave Grohl gives his crazy “Fuck Keith Richards” speech, which sounds like a quite childish attempt to stand behind rock ‘n’ roll integrity (or to make up for being embarrassed by a misunderstood Chuck Berry anecdote that Lemmy set him straight on).
Mike Inez tells a great story about Lemmy passing him and Zakk Wylde a bottle of Jack Daniels… they thought it was to share three ways, but then Lemmy opened up two more so that they had one each. James Hetfield talks about how he’s never seen Lemmy get completely out of it, fall off the stage, or say something stupid (he’s also never seen Lemmy completely sober; Ozzy said the same sort of thing in his book too, I believe). Dave Navarro recounts how the first time he met Lemmy he was offered crystal meth! Crazy. Lemmy’s advice to his son Paul: “Don’t do coke. Just do speed – it’s much better for you.” Lemmy’s clearly as sturdy as an ox, and he’s not going to change, despite his diabetes (!!!). Let’s see what happens with that.
Funnily enough, all of the “Big Four” thrash bands are interviewed in one form or another… except Slayer. What’s the beef between Slayer and Motörhead? We get to meet a member of the road crew, Dan Halen. Seriously, that’s his name… Dan Halen? Van Halen – Dan Halen? Maybe that’s his real name… Nice demonstration of a decibel reading at a concert, hitting 120. “That’s what people want – they want it loud, they want it fast, they want it Lemmy.” In Ozzy’s book, he talks about one nutty Motörhead fan who dunked his head in a Marshall cabinet for the duration of the show and freakin’ died!! It might not be true, but I’m happy to believe it.
Some of the best celebrity quotes are near the end in a section about the Motörhead sound:
“We put my bass through his channels on the deck… and it sounded like shit [laughs maniacally].” Peter Hook of New Order, recounting how they once used a studio immediately after Motörhead had finished up.
“When I think of Motörhead, I don’t think of subtlety.” Alice Cooper
“It makes me think of a door blown open.” Jarvis Cocker
“His voice is rasp. It’s like eating fucking nails.” Marky Ramone
“It’s more like a wind coming at you.” Jarvis Cocker
“I have the impression of someone coming up behind me and spanking my ears.” Peter Hook
“When the lights go down and that motherfucker hits the stage and blows that cigarette out of his mouth and winds into the bass, it’s game over man. You can drag anybody to a Motörhead show and their jaw is going to drop.” Pepper Keenan, Corrosion of Conformity
By now the film is moving along quickly after a pretty slow start with too many celebrity interviews. The band seems to watch a lot of Family Guy in the tour bus. There’s a whole tattoo sequence, with plenty of fan tattoos (including Thomas Hultz, who has 21 Motörhead tattoos including the word Motörhead written in katakana tattooed in a line down the middle of his belly, next to the Alien creature and the Motörhead war pig). Lemmy signs one girl’s chest, she gets that signatured tattooed so that it’s permanent. The girl from Nashville Pussy relates some story about her ex-husband that’s quite memorable as a “sweet old Lemmy” tale (the bonus DVD has plenty more). The camera lingers on the “Don’t Worry Be Happy Fish” (weird).
This is a great documentary. I recommend that everybody watches it repeatedly and shows it off to all their friends. Tattoo it on your forehead – Motörhead!!!
“Don’t Forget Us. We Are Motörhead And We Play Rock ‘n’ Roll!”
The first DVD has as bonus material a concert. There are nine songs, 33 minutes, the first seven recorded in Finland (or Berlin?). “Possibly you got the wrong idea about rock and roll – rock ‘n’ roll does not sound like KISS.”
On “Killed By Death”, the band is joined onstage by Danko Jones, with Mikkey Dee throwing all of his drumsticks into the air behind him. Final song of the live set is “Ace Of Spaces”, Lemmy changes the lyrics quite significantly in the “you know I’m born to lose” part. Interesting…
Then there’s a great blues jam on “Whorehouse Blues” with both Phil and Mikkey playing acoustic guitars and Mikkey banging away with one foot on the bass drum and another on a tambourine shaker. Awesome! (In the bonus features disc we see Matt Sorum doing the same, from the time he filled in for Mikkey Dee when he took part in Kändisdjungeln, a Swedish version of I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here!) The set closes with a soundcheck version of “Backdoor Man.” They are Motörhead and they play rock and roll. YES!
Bonus DVD – Starts off with the rehearsals with Metallica for their September 14th 2009 gig together in Nashville, from the Death Magnetic era, which is featured later… the footage begins before Lemmy arrives, when Metallica are hanging out, with Robert Trujillo looking lovingly at the scrollery and woodwork on Lemmy’s bass. Two basses, playing “Damage Case.” Matt Sorum hanging around. “Too Late, Too Late.” There’s a great scene of a highly disciplined Lemmy reviewing lyrics and practicing before the gig; sure, the gig was great, but not as good as the lead-in.
In the “Making Of…” segment, the fat and ugly guys who made the movie hog their moment of glory, going into a wonderful explanation of how they were tricked by Lemmy into cleaning his kitchen so that they could record him frying chips in it. “Fifty percent of the film is a negotiation.” They describe the amazing accidents, such as Lemmy hitting 777 while the cameras rolled, visiting spots all around Europe with the band, meeting Metallica. Nice!!! The extras are awesome, mainly because there’s so much material, and almost all of it is excellent. More importantly, we get way more Lemmy than we get in the movie itself.
There are sections of funny stories, sections that talk about what a nice guy Lemmy actually is, and all sorts of wisdom from the man. “Water isn’t good for you anyway. Fish fuck in it.” Musical inspirations are Elvis, MC5, Jerry Lee Lewis, some Elvis, Eddie Cochrane. Deplored Philadelphia boys like Fabian and Bobby Rydell. “It was just rock and roll or fuck off.”
“I hope there are pool tables up there, because if there isn’t, I’m going down there. Well, can you imagine eternity without a game of pool? Fuck off.” Lemmy presents his arguments in the case for reincarnation being the inexplicable interest people might have in one period of history over another. “Nothing stays the same – not you, not the places you went, not the people you know. Most of the people I knew are either dead or old, and I got nothing to talk to them about because they got old and I didn’t.” (Lemmy was 62 at the time of that interview.) Mourns the death of Sid vicious, who he says was truly innocent, and with no axe to grind, just a lost boy; his mentor was Nancy, she turned him into a clown and he died of it. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers were tremendous. Pistols, the Damned, the Who were so violent on stage. Loves the US, but is very ironic about it.
“I don’t like improvements, they always make things worse.” Talks about why he loves the Rainbow, and is always self-deprecating. “Good night and good hunting.” Lemmy at his 50th birthday party with Metallica, greetings from Ozzy and Dimebag. Mike Inez was there, talked about how Metallica dressed up like Lemmy. “The Soft Side of Lemmy” includes great stories, like one from James Hatfield, who once told him “It’s great to see you, brother”, to which Lemmy responded “Yes, we’re brothers – more than you know.” Deep… or maybe just weird. We also find out that Lemmy’s the only guy who can call James “Jimmy”.
Johnny Knoxville, Sebastian Bach, Scott Ian, Slash and Duff talk about the first London shows Guns N’ Roses did, the band’s first time abroad, and visiting Lemmy in the studio where he was making Orgasmotron. It was Lemmy’s “welcome to the cub” gesture, or as Duff put it “Once Lemmy accepts you, everybody else can kinds piss off. Lemmy thinks we’re cool – that’s good enough for me.” Extended Slash, Duff, Pepper Keenan quotes. Sebastian Bach tells a story about Lemmy’s pep talk after Skid Row had a bad gig in Brazil, just before they broke up. Jason Everman’s backpacking anecdote. Lemmy lent Joan Jett and the Blackhearts his equipment for their first tour. Steve Vai played two songs with Lemmy on Inferno in 2004. “So, you can’t play slow, can you?” Lemmy sent him a Zippo lighter as a thank-you, which Steve treasures. Moa tells a story. Freaked out, short over-compensator CC Deville also has a memory of Lemmy playing with him impromptu at The Rainbow’s jam night on one occasion. “It meant the world to me. It meant the world to me.” Sweet story from Christine, the bartender at the rainbow about sullen Lemmy’s gesture of friendship. The disc has 20 minutes of funny stories, led by two bad jokes by Lemmy. James Hetfield and Slash tell stories about their own first meetings with Lemmy, in Slash’s case Lemmy was chatting up his girlfriend Renee at The Rainbow (my ex-colleague Paul had the exact same story, apparently, but in Slash’s story it was Renee who didn’t know who Lemmy was when the situation was unfolding, in Paul’s it was he who didn’t know who Lemmy was). Dave Grohl talked about how rock ‘n’ roll Lemmy is, sitting in his underwear taking a call at noon with a smoke and a JD and coke in his hands. Steve Vai talks about the Monsters of Rock tour, and how all the rock guys tried to keep up with Lemmy through five days of debauchery, no one could keep up. Never stumbles or falters, always eloquent when he speaks. “After a while you just… coast…” quotes Robert Trujillo. Rollins talks about how he remembers one occasion when his band and a bunch of other travelers were angrily waiting in a small plane in Finland for the last band to arrive. “You smell tobacco and leather… it’s Lemmy!!” He sits down next to Rollins, orders his cola, gets his whiskey from his road manager, and tells Rollins “I will not be betramelled by a mere airline attendant.” Jason Newsted talks of meeting one of his three heroes (Geezer Butler, Geddy Lee and Lemmy), introducing himself, and Lemmy adding “I know who you are, ya cunt.” Rainbow barmaid Misty talks about Lemmy taking his shirt off one hot Labour day. “Go ahead, Lemmy, just play there – naked.” Joan Jett tells the Darby Crash story. Lemmy offered Dee Snider some lines, but he passed. “Oh, more for me.” Girlschool talks (they haven’t aged well). Marshall amp, Murder One re-designed from the 1976 model. Eight minute “We Are The Road Crew” mini-documentary. Lemmy apparently treats roadies very well, as he was once a roadie himself. We meet Tim Mitchell, Lemmy’s bass tech for 30 years. Plenty of scenes from the JD-cam, and a video of the road crew playing “We Are The Road Crew.” Lemmy plays on a persian rug onstage – WTF? Check out Phil’s Coke bottle bottom glasses! In “We Are The Superfans” we meet the people like Thomas Hulz, Adrian, Robert, Klaus with the crazy tattoos (Hulz has 21 of them), who’ve seen over 100 shows, who have all the various pressings of the albums. Amazing!! One of these guys had the record that was stolen from Lemmy’s apartment that time that his gay roommate was murdered there (hmmm… it might be nice for him to give that back to Lemmy…).
There’s a mini-interview with “Fast” Eddy Clark, who met Lemmy first in 1968 when Lemmy was ever-present on the scene. Lemmy was fired from Hawkwind in May 1975, had Motörhead up and running by August. Explained how they wrote Overkill!! Ice T talks about the Body Count days when he’d tell his band to watch Motörhead videos. Eddie also supports use of speed – constant, good energy, spot on, won’t go up and down, can have a drink, consistency of energy, slim figure. Motördamned was formed from members of those two bands, reports of Motörhead fisticuffs. Triple H tells an anecdote of Motörhead playing Wrestlemania Seattle. Interview with Dave Grohl goes on for 20 minutes, talks about Chuck Berry, Hendrix and how he only made three albums “the rest were shit. He wasted time in the studio ‘thinking.’ Hendrix wouldn’t have released ‘Cry For Love’”. About groupies from the sixties, Lemmy notes that “Jimi’s leftovers wore me out.” Talks of the plaster casters tracking Jimi down and getting his johnson plaster-casted. Dave Grohl tells the story of the Backbeat soundtrack, talks about Pat Smear and the Germs and the LA renegades.
Heavier Than Heaven – While I don’t still listen to Nirvana much, I can’t deny that when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came out it was really a triumph for people who liked guitar music to hear it constantly on the radio; and being a young university student in those days, I really felt a lot of the frustration that was expressed in the song. It was a great time for music, with tons of really great bands coming to the fore – the explosion of the Seattle scene offered a rich back story of important bands to investigate that included Nirvana, Tad, Soundgarden, the Melvins, and all of the hinterland bands that inspired them; all of these were a breath of fresh air on top of other great music coming from other parts at the time, like Guns N’ Roses, Faith No More, Warrior Soul, and so many others (in the UK there were the Jesus and Mary Chain, Stone Roses, the Cure, the Sisters of Mercy, Pop Will Eat Itself, so many many many…).
Heavier Than Heaven is a great introduction to this world, communicated through the eyes of its greatest son, Kurt Cobain. Providing some background to the story, we find ourselves in Aberdeen, Washington, actually even more out-of-the-way than even Seattle was in those days before Microsoft and Starbucks, when Boeing was the only big name in the region, and where the only bands that had a Seattle connection were Heart (who had to go to Canada to get their career going) and Jimi Hendrix, who went to London. Through extensive interviews with dozens of key people in Cobain’s life, author Charles Cross pieces together the life of a young boy, born into a beautiful-but-poor working class family, the first son and first grandson in the family, doted upon by all the relatives and blessed with a life filled with great joy and light; this sours quickly as the parents divorce (the reason why is never discovered, at least not by Cross), and into young Kurt’s life come financial difficulties, moodiness, school challenges, general runtiness, an identity crisis, and an aimlessness only cured by the blessing of good music and being in a band; there’s also mental illness in the family, with several uncles on his father’s side committing suicide (he apparently claimed that he has “suicide genes”). Cobain comes across as a pretty horrible kid, a nightmare to his parents, prone to doing shitty things like torturing cats, drawing deformed babies and other cracked anatomy, while putting himself out of reach emotionally. This turned around temporarily as his band picked up in popularity, but then things quickly went downhill with his drug use. Ever the selfish individual, he ultimately took himself away from the people who committed to him (and to his baby, whose love for him was the only one that was unconditional). He also went on bouts of puritanism, refusing any booze or drugs and preaching to those around him who were partaking; yes, a strange individual, even if he was blessed with musical talent, success, and good looks.
The roots of his problems seemed easy to spot all along:
Ryan Aigner lived one block away and from the moment he met Kurt, he remembered daily conversations about death. Once Ryan asked Kurt, “What are you going to do when you’re thirty:” “I’m not worried about what’s going to happen when I’m thirty,” Kurt replied in the same tone he would use to discuss a broken spark plug, “because I’m never going to make it to thirty. You know what life is like after thirty – I don’t want that.” The concept was so foreign to Ryan, who viewed the world with a young man’s sense of possibility, he was momentarily speechless. Ryan could recognize a torment inside Kurt. “He was the shape of suicide. He looked like suicide, he walked like suicide, and he talked about suicide.”
Cross identifies multiple anxieties in his life, one being that his golden pubes didn’t make an appearance as early for Kurt as they did for others, provoking embarrassing teasing for our sensitive little lout (there’s also the weird point made how Courtney Love snipped some of these pubes at his funeral). There’s the story of how he got arrested for writing “Ain’t got no how watchamacallit”. Cobain was a drifter, living alternately at the house of his father, his mother, and then a string of other homes and crash pads. Cross describes patterns in Cobain’s life as being “intimacy, conflict, banishment, isolation”. Even at age 20, Cobain was already binging on drugs, then drying out, while living in a shack and abusing pot, acid, beer, or huffing aerosol, getting hammered in the middle of the day. Cross claims to identify his first sexual encounter, which got cross-wired somehow.
He was afraid of full-time work, and was afraid of injuring his guitar-playing hand, claiming that if he cut his hands and was unable to play, it would end his life. There’s the weird tale of the accidental death of his pet rat during one spider-hunting episode, and the weird diary entry he made about it.
He was a slob, and Cross indulges from time to time in humor when he describes Kurts malcontentism:
He would rise at around noon and eat a brunch of sorts. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese was his favorite food. Having tried other brands, his delicate palate had determined that when it came to processed cheese and pasta, Kraft had earned its role as the market leader.
Cross also describes his endless journal writing and the strange art projects he engaged in, as well as his weird doll collecting and dedication to Speed Racer’s monkey Chim Chim and other pop culturisms. He also describes the strange early relationships that he had, including a doting girlfriend in Tracy Marander, Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill, and Boston train station singer Mary Lou Lord. After having chosen the name Nirvana, he had to explain what it was, and he considered himself a Buddhist at the time, “though his only practice of this faith was having watched a late-night television program [on the religion].”
As a young band, Kurt poured his energy into getting this part of his career going – the only option he had for the fame he bragged he’d achieve, really. Interesting that Nirvana shopped their early recordings to SST, and even offered to pay Touch ‘N’ Go to release it, eventually settling with local label Sub Pop (with whom he’d eventually battle). “My opinion on them was that they were not that original, that they were by-the-numbers alternative,” Greg Ginn of SST is quoted as saying in the book. “It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.” Nobody at Touch ‘N’ Go remembers getting the demo. Mark Arm of Mudhoney dismissed the demo as being “similar to Skin Yard, but not as good.” Skin Yard? Interesting anecdote about how Kurt wanted to call the first album Too Many Humans (like the Fear song?), but went with Bleach after having seen an anti-AIDS poster that said “Bleach your works.”
Cross finds an interesting description of the band from an early review in The Rocket. “Nirvana careens from one end of the thrash spectrum to the other, giving a nod towards garage grunge, alternative noise, and hell-raising metal without swearing allegiance to any of them.” There’s a groovy description of that early tour of the UK (didn’t every punk band go through this?) where they found a better-than-expected reception. The tour was with Tad, fronted by 300-pound Tad Doyle, whose “freakish obesity” lent the tour its title, Heavier Than Heaven (and now also this book’s).
Chapter 13 chronicles the start of the final phase of Cobain’s life, the one that was dominated by heroin. Ironically, he had a fear of needles, and once chided a friend who wanted to try it (irony?). “Why do you want to kill yourself? Why do you want to die so badly?”, he apparently told his friend. It it also leads into Chapter 14, which chronicles another potentially fatal addiction – to Courtney Love. While Cross is generally sympathetic to Love, nothing can deter the sense of danger that she brought into his life. In their first encounter, she told him she looked like Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum; he wrestled her to the ground, even though she was bigger than him (what a match!). Living Colour was playing on the jukebox!!! He’d met “the coolest girl in the world”, she’d met a life-mate; they tied up quasi-relationships with other partners like Billy Corgan and Mary Lou Lord, and got married.
Lots of details here – I didn’t know, for example, that Love knew Dave Grohl before Grohl knew Kurt, via her friend Jennifer Finch, Grohl’s girlfriend at the time. Like, wow, man! Around that time she also sent him a heart-shaped box. Nice… The band got kicked out of their own album launch party for Nevermind. Fame caught up with him – one night, after an in-store, Kurt signed autographs on the “Sliver” single – a song he wrote about his grandparents – for two guys from the town his grandparents lived in. Surreal?!?!? It was at that point that he realised he was famous, and when things started to get really weird. “It was more than we bargained for,” said Krist Novoselic.
There’s an interesting anecdote about the night Nirvana played Boston on September 22nd:
Kurt was looking forward to seeing the Melvins on this rare night off. Yet when he tried to talk his way into the club, the doorman hadn’t heard of Nirvana. Mary Lou Lord, a Boston singer-songwriter who was standing by the door, chirped in to say she’d heard of Nirvana and they were playing the next night. This failed to sway the doorman, and Kurt finally paid the cover.
Once inside, Kurt turned his attention to Lord, rather than his old friends. When Lord said she was a musician who played the subway platform, he asked her favorite bands, and she listed the Pastels, the Vaselines, David Johnston, and Teenage Fanclub. “Bullshit,” replied Kurt. “Those are my favorite bands, in order.!” He forced her to name songs by each artist to prove she wasn’t pulling his leg. They talked for hours, and Lord gave him a ride on her bicycle’s handlebars. They ended up talking all night, and the next day Kurt went to her apartment, where he saw a picture of Lester Bangs hanging on the wall. He asked Lord to do a song, and when she performed two tunes from the yet-to-be-released Nevermind, he felt like he’d been bewitched by this rosy-cheeked girl from Salem, Mass.
Seems like the early record chart rise of Nevermind happened by itself – the record company didn’t really do much promotion, and they were caught short on copies of the album itself. But those early days of success seemingly (or literally) didn’t register any impact with Kurt. At one backstage meeting with old friends, Cross records the following incident:
Steve Schillinger, once one of Kurt’s closest friends and a member of the family that had given him shelter when he was sleeping in a cardboard box [told him] “You’re really famous now, Cobain. You are on television, like, every three hours.”
“I didn’t really notice,” Kurt said, pausing for a moment to search for the classic “Cling-On” comeback that would disarm this condition of fame, as if words alone could halt something that was now unstoppable. “I don’t know about that,” Kurt replied, sounding very young. ” I don’t have a TV in the car I live in.”
Things got better, but things also got worse… over several years of record company voodoo, drugs, and surreal hijinx. The band recorded another album, did a masterpiece live album on MTV, and hit the road. The problems didn’t go away. Cook recounts the Munich show before his Rome suicide attempt, when the Melvins opened (“he loved the Melvins more than he loved Nirvana”). That day Kurt had called his cousin Art Cobain, with whom he hadn’t seen in nearly 20 years, and after the Melvins played Kurt met Buzz Osbourne for a complaint session.
Buzz had never seen Kurt so distraught, not even when Kurt had been kicked out of [his mother] Wendy’s house back in high school. Kurt announced he was going to break up the band, fire his management, and divorce Courtney. Before he walked onstage, Kurrt announced to Buzz, ” I should just be doing this solo,” “In retrospect,” Buzz observed, “he was talking about his entire life.”
Seventy minutes later, Nirvana’s show was over, prematurely ended by Kurt. It had been a standard set, but, strangely, had included two covers by the Cars – “My Best Friend’s Girl,” and “Moving In Stereo” – and after this latter tune, Kurt walked offstage.
Everything comes to and end, and the end of this book is also the end of its subject’s life. But somehow the book doesn’t give a satisfactory description of the final days of Cobain’s life. Maybe that’s the point, though – there was so much anarchy, so many scumbags around him with things to hide, that no decent recreation was possible. He died alone, probably, and miserably – spiked with a deadly dose of heroin and a shotgun blast in the brain. A sad destiny, but probably one he had been preparing for. It’s like Guy Clark said when he played an elegy for Townes Van Zandt: “I booked this gig 30 years ago.”
He was only two years old than me by birth, but I’ve lived (we all have) 19 more than he did. I’d never give those 19 years up for anything!
I’ve read a bunch of Batman comics recently, might as well review them all on the same page. Comic collections are now turning up at the local library, which is helpful and saves me money (and storage). Sometimes comic sets are conclusive, meaning that they include an entire run of a certain limited series (Batman Year One), while others re-package related issues from here and there (Batman Versus Bane, Birth Of The Demon, etc).
Batman Year One – Stunning storytelling, with great stylized art to go along with it. Fresh bande desinee-style sketches that are warm, even when they’re violent, and the story strums along, picking up with Bruce Wayne coming back into town after 18 years away training on the top of a mountain, with a young Jim Gordon coming into town with a pregnant wife, up against a corrupt commissioner and his creepy henchman Flass. Great story about Gordon’s encounter with corrupt cops who don’t want him causing trouble, and then his revenge on them; at the same time, Bruce Wayne’s on a mission in the corrupt East End, where he tries to take down a pimp while in disguise – not the scary avenger garb of the Batman, but some leather duds and some face paint (a fake scar) to throw people off the scent. It’s a failure. But Wayne learns. He also comes across Selina Kyle, the Catwoman. Nice. There’s the first appearance of the psychopath Branden and his SWAT team, a hostage taker that Gordon takes out single-handedly, paralleled with a near-failure from Bruce Wayne as the caped crusader. Gordon meets Sarah Essen, the Batman takes on the crime bosses, he gets trapped in an abandoned building with the cops chasing him, he makes fools of all of them. It would make a great movie!
The book builds and cooks, seemingly not very real in its depictions, but of so real in its situations and emotions. There is nothing truly clumsy about the story developments, and it’s very mature throughout.
The bonus materials at the end of the book are also very good, showing artist David Mazzucchelli’s submission samples to DC from 1981 and 1983, as well as a cute little thing that he drew when he was six yeas old in 1966.
Batman Versus Bane – Adventures that both precede and follow the “Bane broke Batman’s back” episode. The first tale tells the unimaginably cruel tale of the birth of Bane, in a prison, for the crimes of his father (who, we later find out, is known to Ra’s Al Ghul). It also introduces his gang – Zombie, Trogg and Birdy Colossimo (the dude with the blonde mullet). Then there’s his first encounter with the Batman, which takes place after he wipes out two mob families (one of them includes three stooges that look like Larry, Moe and Curly). The cops bust in on the scene before these guys can confront each other, so it’s really no big deal.
The next episode follows Bane on his return to Santa Prisca, first to kill the monk that once showed him kindness as he seeks the identity of his father, and then when he narrows his search down to one of four possible men based on the fact that three of them are dead, off we go on another wild goose chase (his ego won’t allow him to consider that his real father might be among the three dead men). Great. Lots of scenes of Bane single-handedly taking on armies of armed goons… and killing them all. Nice. And so, he discovers a satanic sect of creeps linked to one of his possible fathers, and the trail leads him to… Singapore (it’s amusing to consider the irony of how DC tends to create cities like Metropolis for New York and Gotham City for Chicago, while Marvel tends to go for real city names – except for Singapore, which Marvel calls “Mandripoor”). It’s here that Bane intersects with Thalia and Ra’s Al Ghul’s people. He enters into bizarre deals with them, at one point bedding Thalia before she turns on him and gets all snooty, “you amused me, now you sicken me” (funny to see him get all soft and gentle. It also turns out that they can’t speak Middle Eastern languages in front of Bane because, well, he’s taught himself how to speak Farsi and Urdu and Dhari and… whatever. And Thalia, like a little princess, orders men to their deaths with great regularity. Bane is unmasked throughout this second tale. Ra’s comes along and does his whole macho “any man would die for less than this” sort of medieval thing. Hard to tell why Bane and Ra’s are allied in the first place, other than both are psychopaths. By the end of the book it seems like Batman is about to come into the picture. Very good. Too little too late, though, I’m afraid…
ASBARTBW
All Star Batman And Robin The Boy Wonder – If Batman Year One was the birth of the bat in Frank Miller’s Dark Night universe, where Batman is an antisocial grouch who looks down on his fellow crime fighters, then this is the introduction of Robin. The book is full of gorgeous artwork from Jim Lee, who manages to take all of the best elements of John Byrne without being overly sentimental, also incorporating fantastic cityscapes and skylines, only rarely indulging in an ÃœBER-muscular Hulk-like Batman.
The tale starts off with Dick Grayson, whose parents are assassinated by a thug working for the Joker (yes, this deviates from the regular story). Bruce is, of course, in attendance with Vicky Vale, and as the Batman he saves Dick from corrupt cops in a wild chase that gets splashed across the headlines. The tale follows with episodes from the life of Batman, but also a few random non-Batman episodes – Vicky Vale on the case, the Black Canary in a barroom brawl, a heavily-tattooed Joker murdering a lawyer, Barbara Gordon dressing up as a bling-laden Batgirl, an encounter between the Justice League of America where they sing “how do we solve a problem like the Batman…”. Wonder Woman is, of course, a total bitch.
And there are a lot of problems with the Batman. He’s a prick to 12-year-old Robin, who’s just seen his parents murdered, he uses the Batmobile to into his own Rolls Royce, killing Vicky Vale and injuring Alfred (?!?!). He hardly tries to come up with an alibi for Robin not being Dick Grayson, after it became headline news that he’d kidnapped Dick following the death of his parents, and he lets Robin nearly kill the Green Lantern (rendered powerless in an all-yellow room – how lame is that?). He deals with his Vicky Vale problem (she’s dying because of him) by bullying Superman into retrieving heart surgeon “Ekhart” from Paris, which he does by picking up the poor guys limo and running across the Atlantic with it like some Kryptonian errand boy. Yes, weak story telling at its weakest. Jim Gordon doesn’t show up at all, except talking on the phone with his ex-girlfriend Sarah Engel while his long-suffering wife loads up on whiskey (what a creep, man…).
The best thing about the edition, though, is the amazing six-panel pullout of the Batcave, which apparently “just doesn’t end”. Nice reference to the dinosaur robot later on too… Also, great splashes of Batman stalking and jumping. Nice. The episodes where he takes out a gang of would-be rapists is good, as are the strange panels showing a very buff Alfred Pennyworth in the gym. The lettering is also inventive – colour-coded according to the author (Batman, Alfred, Dick, the Joker), with appropriate font as well (Alfred’s is crisp and bold, the Joker’s is Joker-ish). Lots of “goddamn Batman” in the text; apparently this has become a joke/internet meme. Nice. Nice horny shots of Batman and the Black Canary making out (and one of Supes and Wonder Woman making out – despite him kind of being a dick and her being a bitch). The Catwoman, sadly, is only seen in two panels. There’s also a funny spot where Robin contemplates calling himself the Hood, after Robin Hood (with a costume that includes a hood too – clever!) that Batman mocks by tugging fiecely on the hood. “Lost the hood. You’re Robin.” So much for picking your own identity.
BOTD
Birth Of The Demon – There are some comics that are thematic reprints of other stories, this one collects two tales of Ra’s Al Ghul. The first one is a Batman adventure, and in it Batman allies with Ra’s to fight a common enemy, a former lieutenant of Ra’s who eventually went by the name Qayne, after Cain, the original murderer. He’s helping a central Asian dictator to hijack American technology to control the weather. The story is a bit disjointed and silly, and in the end we learn that Thalia is to marry Batman. She carries his child. But she lies to him that it is lost. In the final panel we see an orphan abandoned on a doorstep. Corny.
The second tale is much better, it is a tale of medieval cruelty and the evil prince and king who created Ra’s Al Ghul, or at least the ones who set him on the mission to destroy a corrupt humanity. Nice.
B:ADITF
Batman, A Death In The Family - Chronicling the 1988, 1989 and 2006 adventures of Batman and Robin, all three versions of him. Principally concerning itself in the first half with the fate of Robin Mark II, the book follows Batman’s crisis as he broods with his cape a-blazing, across the deserts of Lebanon, Jordan and Ethiopia, as Jason Todd searches for his real mother, focusing on three possibilities, each one more horrible than the last. Todd dies in an explosion (readers phoned in to vote on his fate, agreeing in the end to send him on his way). The Joker comes into the picture, even posing for a moment as the ambassador from Iraq to the UN (he tries to kill them all, unsuccessfully – not like Mars Attacks, where the House Of Representatives is wiped out by grinning ambassadors making speeches), before he’s chased out of the building into a sure death (which is never what it seems).
In a later episode, they have some fun with a newscaster talking about a spelling champion. “Nine-year old Moon Caplan returns from her meeting with George Bush. Asked what she thought of the President, the adolescent abecedarian said ‘read my lips,’ and spelled something not suitable for family listening.” There’s some stuff about Dick Grayson returning to the circus he was raised in, to the Batcave, to another partnership with Batman as they confronted Two-Face (no adolescent quips any more – why not?!?!? Nice upside-down room, and a mystery really no-one saw coming. Too bad Two-Face, after all this trouble, was dispatched so quickly. Comics really aren’t worth the time of day…
H
Hush – Not a flop, but also not really a great book; of course, the art by Jim Lee is stunning (the sculpted drawings simply call out to be touched and fondled; the influence of artists like Todd McFarlane, John Byrne and John Romita Jr is clear). Writer Jeph Loeb is clearly intent to produce a masterpiece, so he calls up every single major Batman foe and gets them into the picture. Batman confronts the Killer Croc, Two Face (handsome after an extensive bout of plastic surgery). Poison Ivy, a bewitched Superman (yes – like The Dark Knight Returns, Batman gets to beat the snot out of Superdude), the Riddler, the Joker, Scarecrow, Lady Siva, Clayface, Harley Quinn and maybe a few more – oh yeah, Ra’s Al Ghul too. But, meanwhile, there’s a hidden plotter manipulating everybody, and Batman gets to figure out who it is… sort of. And, of course, there are plenty of ghostly flashback scenes to make everything in the past very alive and relevant. Nicy kryptonite ring. Interestingly, all of the Robins also make an appearance – Dick Grayson (as Nightwing), the undead Jason Todd, and the mini Tim Drake). And, of course, there are also three guys wrapped up in Hush bandages. Outrageous!
In one of the sillier scenes, he hijacks Thalia’s private jet mid-air in order to provoke her estranged father out of hiding (did I mention that she now runs Lexcorp, which Lex Luthor has had put in trust while he serves his term as President of the United states. Ooooo-kay!! Did I mention that he’s now in love with Catwoman?
The most infuriating element is the resurgence of Thomas Eliot, a childhood friend we’ve never heard about before, who uses the word “hush” in an early scene… c’mon, how can he not be the character Hush?!?!?!? Loeb nearly throws us off the trail once, but eventually it all comes together – and how many times does he need to talk about it being a game before we clue in to the flashback scenes of Bruce and Tommy playing chess. Oh yeah… let’s not just observe a detective in action, but maybe we can also be a bit of a detective ourselves. The writing is very show-offy and grandstand-ish, and in the end, even with the story concluded, Loeb still can’t resist giving it another layer, so… the Riddler did it. Wow… my mind is blown.
Hey, I put out a new book, it’s called “Meet The Hofliches”. It can also be sung to the tune of “Rudolph The Red Nosed Raindeer.”
Meet the Hofliches!
Meet Bruno Hoflich
Meet Renate Hoflich!
Meet Naoko Hoflich!
Meet Zen Hoflich!
Meet Peter Hoflich!
Bruno the sailor boy, has a very shiny boat
And if you ever saw it, you would say that boat can float
All of his friends and family, love to go out for a sail
And if you cannot make, he’ll tell all about it by email
Then he came to Singapore, for some weeks to stay
Opa with your smile so bright, let us eat and drink tonight
Oma the tennis player, also loves to swim and ski
And when she comes to Singapore, concerts she just loves to see
When she goes out for shopping, bargains she just loves to find
Then she’ll cook cordon bleu, Oma you’re just too kind
Then she came to Singapore, for some weeks to stay
Oma with your smile so bright, let’s play monkey game tonight
Naoko the pretty housewife, always love to cook and bake
And if you want some pretzels, that’s something she’ll surely make
She sings and plays the guitar, it’s a wondrous sight to see
She likes to sing Spitz songs, but she loves Arashi
Then she came to Singapore, for some years to stay
Naoko with your smile so bright, won’t you sing for us tonight
Zen-chan the softball champion, loves to swim and play catch ball
He has some Star Wars Lego, and he’ll want to build them all
He only speaks three languages, Chinese Japanese and English
And when he was in Canada, he tried his best to catch a fish
Then he came to Singapore, for some years to stay
Zen-chan with your smile so bright, let’s build some Legos tonight
Peter the writer rocker, has a very giant nose
And when he sings with Supertzar, on the stage you’ll see him pose
He loves to play his guitar, and to make a lot of noise
Sometimes he’ll write some nice songs, like these Christmas lullabies
Then he came to Singapore, for some years to stay
Peter with your smile so bright, what’s your big surprise tonight
Far out, man, in 1967, when Keith and Mick had been busted for drugs, The Who recorded “Under My Thumb” and “The Last Time” to support them. Somehow, far from being crushed by the case, The Stones came out of it stronger and more popular.
Pink Floyd, The Dark Side Of The Moon, Immersion set – I’m a sucker for this sort of thing… and not only is Dark Side of the Moon one of my favourite all-time releases, I really really love box sets! This is one of the very good ones, as it comes with all sorts of goodies, with three regular CD recordings, audio and video on DVD, and audio and video on Blu-Ray, presenting all together ten different versions of the classic album in different formats and different mixes (CD, DVD and Blu-Ray). The sound part of the box include the regular release, a 1974 concert of The Dark Side of the Moon, and extra audio tracks that are linked to the release – this is a hodge podge that includes an early mix by Alan Parsons of the whole album, a song from the abandoned post-Dark Side of The Moon project “Household Objects”, and various live sequences that bridged album songs but are not on the album, along with an early demo of “Money” with Roy Harper singing. The video material shows two pre-Dark Side of the Moon songs performed live (hodge-podge territory again here – it’s “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” and “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”), a 25-minute documentary on the recording of Dark Side of the Moon, as well as the concert screens (animation, colours, patterns) shown at parts of the concert, but changed for various tours; three tours are shown here – the British Tour of 1974, the French tour of 1974, and the North American tour of 1975. Groovy.
Music review
Dark Side of the Moon (original release) (42 minutes long) – The 1972 release with the pretentious themes (life, death, war, money) is a truly insane recording, starting off with heartbeats (“Speak To Me”), pop (“Breathe In The Air”), nutty dogfight and plane crash sequences a la electronica (“On The Run”), weird booming bass and clock sounds and rock (“Time”), a long WHOOOOAH-WOOOOOOOOAHHH-WOOOOOOAHHHHHH gospel piece that mimics the last minutes of life (“The Great Gig in the Sky”) as the continuous tapestry of the first side. The second side gives the “Time” treatment to the concept of money (“Money”) with sound effects, and then rock, lovely piano bits that also soar in a song about the madness of war (“Us and Them”), the weird synthesizer bridge “Any Colour You Like” (also the longest track on the album), the guitar pop of “Brain Damage”, and finally the sweeping crescendo of “Eclipse” and its chants. The most complex piece on the album is “Time”, with its sound effects, booming bass, and three-part act that ends with… magic… and leads into the haunting wordless threnody. I listen to the album constantly and am not sick of it. But I’ve never owned my own copy, which makes this the right time to buy it and in the right and complete form. Unfortunately, curiosity in the additional bits is only that, and they neither truly improve or supplement the pleasures that the album itself holds.
The Dark Side of the Moon live at Wembley, 1974 (55 minutes long) – As the album fades in with “Speak To Me”, the live version introduces new sounds, a voice sample, and other strange noises, ticking clocks (to hint at “Time”, which is to come later), ghostly voices come in, and finally… “Breathe In The Air”, which has new guitar parts. David Gilmour sings it more gruffly and huskily than it is on the recording. Being a live concert, there’s no need to take a break between sides, and before “The Great Gig In The Sky” is over, you already hear the coins of “Money” coming in, and the song takes off. In “Us and Them”, the echo is provided by the backup singers, a bit cagey. “Any Colour You Like” goes off very differently than the studio version, sounding at times very Tangerine Dream-like, but with a bit of a drum beat. Great big long spacey guitar meander.
Most of the songs, especially the instrumental bits, are longer live (this means “Speak To Me”, “On The Run” and “The Great Gig In The Sky”, while “Any Colour You Like” is more than twice as long), as are “Money” and “Us And Them.
Extra audio tracks – First up is the original and early mix, which is 40 minutes long. The 1972 early mix of Dark Side of the Moon by Alan Parsons is largely the same as the final product, although sounding a bit rougher with some of the transitions and drum fills feeling unfamiliar. The initial “Speak To Me” intro is appended to some simple sound effects that only last 25 minutes, rather than the slow, silent heartbeat buildup that lasts just over one minute. “Breathe In The Air” sounds like the final version, albeit a bit stripped down, with the odd extra sound to it. The transition to “On The Run” is stark and doesn’t sound very well-mixed, but the track is very similar to the final version, except slightly shorter and perhaps with more emphasis on the running sounds, more airplane sounds, fewer voices, and no spectacular plane crash at the end, just a simple blend into “Time”, which sounds the same, albeit the chiming clocks at the intro are less intense and dramatic. The biggest difference in the recording is the absence of Clare Torry (and the final version’s sound samples) from “The Great Gig in the Sky”; here she is replaced by the voice of Neil Armstrong’s speech from the moon. While it sounds odd for people like me who have listened to Dark Side of the Moon hundreds of times, but it does give a nice opportunity to concentrate a bit more on the instrumental bits that were blasted to pieces by Torry’s splendid wailing! The new arrangement with Torry also lengthened the track, probably due to the passion and sophistication of Torry’s composition. “Money” is fairly faithful to the final mix, although it is half a minute shorter, with the final bit containing some slightly different guitar parts. “Us And Them” is also very different from the final version, being much more a duet between piano and saxophone, with an extended intro. It is nearly a minute shorter than the final version. Weird vocal echoing in the mix, much different from the final version in the “Up… and down” verse. In “Brain Damage”, the manic laughter is different, and in this case highly fake-sounding and annoying, like some hellish circus clown trying to drive someone insane; it enters the song at two points. The final version is way better. It is the only really startling thing about this mix. “Eclipse” has a guitar part on it that is not used in the final, where the pounding vocals are supremely high in the mix.
After Alan Parson’s early mix of Dark Side of the Moon, there’s a mish-mash of various songs and fragments, all instrumental until the last track, a demo of “Money” with Roy Harper, rather than Roger Waters, singing. “The Hard Way”, not really part of the Dark Side of the Moon project at all, is a trippy blend of hand claps and deep bass boogie, augmented later by spooky percussive and chiming sounds and echoing chatter, really trippy. The band wanted to make a whole album of sounds produced by household objects, if every song had come out like this one it would have really worked! But I understand that they only really laid down two songs (the other one is on the Wish You Were Here box) before they moved on to other things. Although it doesn’t really belong here, it’s nice that it was included. “Us And Them” is a light piano piece by Richard Wright from the Zabriskie Point film project that was never released as a soundtrack, it’s sweet but a little boring, and the ear strains to hear the brilliant vocals in the final album version. “The Travel Sequence” is echoey guitar that sounds more like something from The Wall than of this era, although there’s a little bit of jazz keyboard and piano there too. Nice jam. “The Mortality Sequence” sounds like an intro to “Us And Them”, but with more droning keyboard sounds, and new voice samples, such as an invocation from a priest, or someone speaking in a hospital. It goes into the sound of clinking coins, possibly as a setup to Money. “Any Colour You Like” is there too, from a live show in Berlin, but it’s baffling that they’d include just a fragment of a whole concert – where’s the rest of the show? What was so special about this short version of the classic cut from Dark Side of the Moon? It sounds great, but it also leaves you hanging. “The Travel Sequence” is jazzy, poppy instrumental funk with some swelling electronic burbles. Finally, the demo of “Money” with Roy Harper singing is interesting, as are the prototype money sounds that the song puts just after the middle, very different, of course, from the final version.
The set also comes with an audio-only DVD that contains five mixes: 5.1 Surround, 448kbps (2003), 5.1 Surround, 640kbps (2003), LPCM Stereo (1973), 4.0 Quad 448kbps (1973) and 4.0 Quad 640kbps (1973). I listened to them all in a full surround sound version, it was good fun. And loud! I liked the Quad mixes the best.
Video review
The live songs – In “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”, Roger Waters has the main role, firing up his bass and cooing the strange tics and howls of a madman, playing with a burning cigarette in the strings at the head of his bass, howling evilly, very scary whispering and cackling through a toothy, tight-lipped grin, great keyboard swells, fires ablaze, smoke pots burning. In “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”, Waters sings without playing bass, then at the crescendo of the song he dons the bass but doesn’t play it. Smashes the gong again, it burns around the edges! Waters plays bass finally, and then the live video breaks into nature scenes, for some reason: scenes of lava, golden ripcurls, etc.
The documentary – Mainly going song-for-song throughout the album with explanation and discussion, the four band members talking about what went on during the recording sessions for Dark Side of the Moon. “On The Run” is about the fear of death, the fear of flying, with Roger’s lyrics finally really coming of age as they discuss the pressures of life. Mature themes. Rick Wright explains that “The Great Gig In The Sky” goes from B minor through a series of changes, to finally end in B flat. No mention of Clare Torry at all (she had sued for co-songwriting credits and settled out of court, they probably don’t like her very much any more)! Waters descries his potter wife’s metal mixing bowl and how he put a mic and coins in the mixing bowl to get the sounds at the beginning of “Money”. Describes weird process, and then says “and that was it”, as if it was all very easy to do. “It was a dream fulfilled”, he says about the album, noting that if the band had any guts, they would have called it a day right there (and not produced Wish You Were Here, Animals or The Wall, of course). “But it’s a good thing we didn’t, because out of all the anxieties and enmities that were left in the rubble of the explosion and all the success [of Dark Side of the Moon] came all sorts of wounded creatures that had their own stories to tell.” Roger Waters hadn’t listened to Dark Side of the Moon in 20 years until this mix, but says he’s very happy with it (of course). Wright notes that “Us and Them” stands the test of time better than others, on account of what it can say about “this punitive war in Iraq.” There’s also an interview with Storm Thorgerson, who designed the iconic cover of the album, with him telling the tale of coming up with several ideas for the cover, but anyone who looked at them was immediately drawn to the prism and there was no discussing any of the other ideas – much to Thorgerson’s frustration. I wonder what they were, though, the band and everyone else is very silent on the topic (they must be around here somewhere… of course Thogerson may have also recycled them for other groups’ album covers over the years). Then he goes to explain how he did the various other covers for the re-releases over the years, etc.
The onstage screen visuals These are somewhat interesting, and there are clips of the films that were played together with the live performance of songs during three various tours: British Tour 1974 (six clips, 16:16), French Tour 1974 (seven clips, 18:27) and North America Tour 1974 (seven clips, 23:45). For the British Tour 1974, the videos open up with animated and beat-driven spectrum-influenced animation. the colours seem burned away and not crisp. There’s an exploding bookshelf, TV, fridge – which results in a flying chicken carcass. The French Tour of 1974 favoured fire, and has video for “The Great Gig In The Sky” showing a priest, then a burning cross. There’s an unusual clip here for “Assorted Lunatics”, which is just a sound collage of the spoken bits already familiar on the album, and then there’s solar flares for “Eclipse.” In the North America Tour of 1975, there’s more literal interpretation, with an ambulance, hospital hall, surgery, and scared eyes. While Clare Torry is singing, there are crashing waves, with some spectacular sun-through-lip-of-water shots. “Money” has a naked model and scenes of the old and the poor to juxtapose decadent wealth and youth with crushing poverty and age. There are also weird slow motions scenes of a squad of office workers walking down the street, their bodies twisting to a strange rhythm, scenes also of their pant cuffs and shoes moving in rubbery half-step.
The box set also comes with a Blu-Ray disc that contains all of the audio visual material, along with the five mixes found on a DVD in this set.
Packaging
One of the main points about Pink Floyd is packaging – lyrics sheets, gatefolds, big images, colours, design, architecture, it’s all there. This has it all too. To describe what you get it is:
- the box, which is heavy and durable and big enough to contain LPs, although it doesn’t contain LPs
- three marbles in a black velvet sack: the over-sized marbles show the endless circle of the white light becoming its six colours through one pyramid, and then re-melding into white light through another. Groovy… there are three people in my family, so I feel that this is special; if I collect the three Immersion sets (Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, The Wall), I will have 3×3 marbles, how nice
- Disc 5 and disc 6 in their own cardboard cases (each disc has its own triangle/light design) with groovy triangle/light motifs on their covers, but each in its own concept. I like disc 6, with its Magritte splotch concept, very nice.
- a scarf that is 1.5 metres long, with the six colours/heartbeat (in the green zone of the red-yellow-orange-green-blue-violet spectrum), nice feel to it
- a 12-page grey booklet of credits
- an immersion “memorabilia” envelope, which contains a Pink Floyd Tour 1973 sticker, and a ticket stub for Friday, February 18th, the Rainbow Theatre, Astoria, Finsbury Park, London, seat A29, Block C, whatever that means.
- a series of nine beer coasters, with the letters P-I-N-K-F-L-O-Y-D, and nice illustrations on the other side
- an envelope containing four cards of a series of cards; I got numbers 7 (horse on head), 21 (airmen), 42 (sand swimmer) and 55 (echoes). They are also very nice.
- a giant A4-sized envelope with a hand-written card describing the process of gathering the ideas bandied about by about the voices on Dark Side of the Moon. Was it, perhaps, written by Alan Parsons?
- there’s a beautiful Dark Side of the Moon “Liechtenstein” lithograph (but… what’s a lithograph?)
- a beautiful 36-page that includes all things triangular and light-like, meaning that there’s the original cover of the album on the cover of the booklet, then there’s the lyrics and some pretty pictures, there’s some of the original images from the album release (band pictures, etc), and then some pics of Dark Side of the Moon-inspired automobiles, fashion, design, stained glass, word art, tour posters, real pyramids at Giza from many many views, and an essay on the album cover design by Storm Thorgerson.
- a 24-page booklet of photos of the band from that era, including the great Clare Torrey, who sang backup, and who took over “The Great Gig In The Sky”; pics taken from 1972-1974
It’s been a few months now that I’ve been obsessed with Exile on Main St, the Rolling Stones record made in 1971, released in 1972, when I was three years old. Yes, it’s a great piece of gospel-rock-country-blues that I have just swallowed whole the way I would Dark Side of the Moon, Moving Pictures, and… I don’t know what else. Magic. So, here are a couple of CDs, a couple of books, a couple of DVDs… about that LP.
EOMS
Exile on Main St (2010 extended CD) – It’s always beautiful when a double album (four sided, lots of flipping of discs) fits onto a single CD; now the band has resurrected some other songs from the sessions, a pre-Exile songs, and upgraded songs that were never given any further attention with new vocals, new harmonica, new guitar, or in some cases (perhaps) recorded entirely new songs outright. The Stones recorded Exile On Main Street primarily in the south of France, rambling sessions that produced 13 of the 18 tracks on this release (five pre-existed the Villa Nellcôte sessions). The band had approached recording with the goal of producing a single LP to follow up the colossal chart-topper “Sticky Fingers” that was just coming out in April 1971 as they were settling in Nellcôte (Sticky Fingers had been recorded in the summer and autumn of 1970 in Mick Jagger’s manor home Stargroves in the UK as well as other studios in the US); in the end, however, they had too many songs, and decided to put out a double album. In truth, it seems that they had enough songs for a quadruple album, and now – with the extended songs – Exile On Main St becomes a triple album.
The original songs are well known to all Stones fans; the popular legend is that this is the most-loved of all Stones albums. Most certainly, it is one of those “better-than-the-sum-of-its-parts” if it is weighed between the brilliant songs that it contains (and the wild, swampy atmosphere it exudes) and the fact that it contains nary a radio-recognisable single or standout crowd-pleaser other than the first single, “Tumbling Dice”, a nugget if there ever was one. Clearly, if the Stones had only made this album, it would have had an unstoppable, juggernaut, snortin’ life of its own.
To be precise, the album starts off with the snortin’ “Rocks Off”, which launches the double LP with a kick, a snort and a yelp, before taking the mood into the stratosphere about a minute in with magnificent horns provided by the legendary Bobby Keys (born on the same day as Keith Richards, but in Lubbock, Texas) and Jim Davis. No finer opening track has ever been conceived, even when the song wavers into burbling acid-trippiness (love the matter-of-fact lyrics too – “I was making love last night/With a dancer friend of mine”); “Rip This Joint”, besides being a splendid song title, is probably the fastest (ergo rip-snorting) song the band ever performed; incidentally, there is a nice version of the song on “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones.” “Shake Your Hips”, a cover, is as swampy as a song can get, with freaky percussion, boogie guitar, Mick’s voice, some horns, and not much else. “Casino Boogie” is the weird imagistic song full of Mick and Keith interplay, with wonderful sax all over it, and some nice Mick Taylor slide with Keith interlaying, plus that cool honkey tonk piano from Nicky Hopkins, the eighth Stone. “Tumbling Dice” is the full production number with the full sassy background singers (the first time we hear them on the album, and they are here at their brassiest – we’ll get more of them on the new songs, as well as a demo of “Tumbling Dice” called “Good Time Women”), although actually only one is credited (meanwhile, four are credited for “Shine A Light”, the closing track); incidentally, there is a nice version of the song on “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones.” “Sweet Virginia” is wild, wild country music with lovely guitar work. It is quite overtaken by Mick’s voice and the other drunken, shamboling singers that fall in with him in time (and that ever-present sax); incidentally, there is a nice version of the song on “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones.” This is the song that has the “got to scrape the shit right off your shoes” line. “Torn and Frayed” is that sort of old, squirming bluesy, honky tonk song, with the cool distant Keith Richards background vocals, and Mick sounding like he’s from some other part of the world than Dartford, Kent. Mick Taylor’s guitar solo is wondrous, it glides slinky all over the song. “Sweet Black Angel”, the first song on this album I really fell in love with (I admit it – I didn’t like the album on first listening, since it was so “un-Stones”, but this hypnotizing little track reels you in with the first listen), with its doop-doop-doop feeling to it, and the cool and groovy crustiness of Mick Jagger. I’m curious about who really played marimba on the recording – the credits say it is someone called “Amyl Nitrate”. “Loving Cup” is full of grand piano, and a heavenly pleading tone to it, humbleness and a wicked drum thread that just zooms and zooms. “I’m the main who brings you roses… when you ain’t got nooooone!” It ranges the emotions from humility all the way to aggressive sexuality and dead-drunkenness. Sweet oblivion, thy name is “Loving Cup” (there’s an alternate version of the song, the “drunk” version, on the new release that is interesting). “Happy” is that wonderful song that has the really perfect Keith Richards vocals added to it – it could be the best song on the album, Keith’s best song with the Stones, or the best song that the Rolling Stones ever recorded. Heaven; incidentally, there is a nice version of the song on “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones.” “Turd on the Run” is crazy, creepy janglo-rock with a shuffle beat and some “Midnight Rambler” harmonica. Splendid and turgid as its funk drones into a nutty post-production haze. “Ventilator Blues” is white-man blues at its craziest, going right down to the freaky percussion (what’s with the backbeat?), and the swelling horns that nearly sweep the song away, the call and response that is all call, and righteous shiftiness – in a song that is actually about the sweltering heat of the Nellcôte basement. OOH! “I Just Want To See His Face” is one of those weird pieces of psychedelia that you’d hear in a Jim Jarmush movie… except it’s the Stones, sounds coming out from here and there, you don’t know what it is or what it’s about. Is this what a drug trip is like? It’s gospel, but it’s not heavenly message that is coming our way! Or is it? Oddly, three bass players are credited, but only two guitarists. “Let It Loose” is a sort of weird little electric gospel number with several male voices floating in and out, six (!!!) backup singers are credited, although it’s Mick’s voice that cuts through it all (unlike the newer recordings, where the backup singers can overpower) and goes on and on (it is the longest song on the album. Drums, horns, voice; drums, horns, voice; drums, horns, voice… “All Down The Line” is real rabid rock ‘n’ roll, train-like, shooting along the tracks, with squeaky Mick Taylor lines, it’s a total party song with those rabid Keith Richards shots, the sassy singers, the saxes, and that screaming Mick; incidentally, there is a nice version of the song on “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones.” “Stop Breaking Down” is wild whistling, great blues riffs, spooky squawks, and great Mick Taylor slide! This is as sweet as it comes, from this sweet, sweet Robert Johnson song. Before long it’s a battle between the two Micks, voice versus slide guitar, which is very high in the mix. Keith? Bill? Charlie? Who’re they? “Shine A Light”, unlike other songs, blends into the previous song, and begins with a piano and Mick’s voice, reminiscent a bit of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, going very gospelly with keyboards and piano, with plenty of lovely Mick Taylor riffs floating in and out like evening sun. Sweet, slick production. “Soul Survivor” ends the album with dirty blues, scruffy rock ‘n’ roll and sassy, sexy soul. The song really kicks out the jams in terms of ultimate mojo (Keith lends his voice to an alternate take on the second CD, demonstrating that this song is all Mick’s, especially in the ferocious second half, when Keith seems to lose his way/lose interest). That’s it – Exile on Main St.
The new CD has new recording elements on all tracks, except for “Good Time Women” (a version of “Tumbling Dice”) and the Keith Richards-vocals “Soul Survivor”, with Mick coming up with new lyrics for the other eight tracks and harmonica on some of the songs (he had been absent a lot in Nellcôte as he was a newlywed at the beginning of the sessions, and his pregnant bride gave birth to Jade Jagger at the end of the sessions). Mick Taylor turned up to record guitar for “Plundered My Soul,” while Keith Richards added bits to “So Divine (Aladdin Story)”. The new CD starts off hauntingly – how do you top Exile on Main St? “Pass The Wine (Sophia Lauren)” doesn’t really sound like an old song – Mick is straining his voice the way he might have on “Under Cover (Of The Night)”, while the organ zooms, the groovy power of the background singers swells up, the ludicrous lyrics tease… and then the horns come in… and we’re back at Villa Nellcôte
(Jimmy Miller, who died in 1994, also makes an appearance here with a percussion credit, as he does on the fifth track, “Dancing In The Light”). The first song is a lot like the rest of the album, a mish-mash of various eras, more “Tattoo You” (which was formed of abandoned tracks rescued from many sessions, including one called “Start Me Up”) than anything else (but, then again, aren’t many Stones albums, including Exile On Main Street, mish mashes of various sessions anyway?). “Pass The Wine” has some good “Midnight Rambler” mouth harp on it, and plenty of sassy backup vocals, dirty lyrics, and Mick Jagger pawing at your girlfriend through your speakers. No redemption in 2010, son. “Plundered My Soul” sounds very new in all respects, but it has quite nice and Stones-y lyrics: “I thought you needed my loving, but it’s my heart that you stole/I thought you wanted my money, but you plundered my soul.” Wistful loser-ish, very post-fame Stones and not of the bright young Nellcôte era – not really. But fun nonetheless in a sneering ’90s Jagger-esque way. It’s a good song, I’m not sure it fits in with “Stop Breaking Down”. Played back-to-back you’d wonder what was going on. Some sounds are old, but most are new. “I’m Not Signifying” is the first real throwback to Nellcôtete, sneering lyrics, angular honky tonk piano, snazzy drums and leftover horns and sweet lead guitar, along with some latter day hot harmonica by Sir Mick. Real swamp, along with the righteous blues. This would have not felt out of place on the original album, with its freaky drum beats – the difference is that it comes in on a piano, not on a guitar (Keith’s) as most of the songs on Exile on Main St do (“Loving Cup” comes in on a piano, but it’s an exception). “Following The River” is the very strange song on the pack – it starts out with piano and Mick’s voice, then builds up to become the only tune with strings on it (the background singers sound like they just came from a session with Leonard Cohen). This cannot have any remnants of the Exile on Main St sessions on it!! “Dancing in the Light” is a funky rockin’ country number that gets pretty weird at the end, it sounds mock-sincere, stamped with patented Mick Jagger sauce. “So Divine (Alladin’s Story)” starts off with a riff that you think will be “Paint It Black”… but then it tricks you by becoming something else. After many listens, you kind of get used to it. The song, with new lyrics and guitar from Keith Richards, doesn’t at first appear to have anything left from the 1971 sessions, but then mystical horns pop in, with weird precision – great, groovy oriental howling. Nice music!
The real stuff comes from the four tracks at the end, and it’s probably no coincidence that the number of players (from three to six) on it are less than in the previous six tracks (up to 13). There’s an “alternate take” of “Loving Cup” that has a different Mick Jagger vocal over a different version of the song, which is apparently the marriage of two different outtakes (this makes this version of the song one minute longer than the album version). The song sounds drunken and bluesy, fuzzy, crazy, swampy, full of great Mick Taylor guitar, with sweet shamboling (that oh-so-Exile word again – here it means that instead of the tight Nicky Hopkins piano riff at the beginning, it’s a loose piano, some drums, and several sleepy guitars coming in during the intro) and some nuttiness around the “BZZZZ” part of the song. Great snarling backup vocals from Keith there, the elongated-ness of the song is superb. “Soul Survivor” with Keith singing to the same track as Mick did is pretty weird, as he’s so laconic, while Mick gave it everything he got (and at the end he does this weird “et cetera!!” thingy that just doesn’t work. But that’s okay, we still love you Keith. “Good Time Women” is a lovely, authentic song form the 1971 sessions that just squeals and grooves. Mick’s voice is low in the mix and Mick Taylor’s lead guitar jams ahead, dominating and pleasing women and men alike. It’s a lovely little number and a top lead single, total memorabilia from a glorious era. Final track, “Title 5″, is from sessions that pre-date Exile, probably from some time in 1967, and features only Keith, Charlie and Bill, fuzzing away with effects. It’s a sweet little rockin’ instrumental form an irrelevant era, tossing together with a lovely little CD full of scrappy shavings and tarted-up yarn. Love it all.
The packaging is okay – there are pictures all over the outer packaging, apparently replicating about 75% of the original packaging (the outer covers, the inner gatefold, and one of the two lLP slipcovers layouts). The 12-page booklet has 10 pages of pics from the Nellcôte sessions, including one that spreads over the folded-out front/back cover that shows basement loneliness and ventilator blues, while the centre-fold contains credits for both versions of Exile on Main St, helping us to see quite plainly that, even if Robert Greenfield’s book on the recording of the album claims that “Happy” was recorded with a wink and a grin near-spontaneously with a few Stones and sidemen on hand, the rest were added in anyway in post-production.
RSLATMC
Rolling Stones, Live at the Marquee Club, March 26th 1971 – Coming off of 17 shows in nine UK cities, all cities but one double shows (with hardly a night off), the Rolling Stones prepared for their tax exile-ship (and the recording of Exile On Main St) by recording this concert video, which featured eight songs: Live With Me * Dead Flowers * I Got The Blues * Let It Rock * Midnight Rambler * Satisfaction * Bitch * Brown Sugar. Mick wears his baseball cap askance at the stop (eighties hip-hop already in the early seventies, Mick was), Bill Wyman’s bass starts out the cool set ,Bobby Keys resplendant on his sax, Keith hanging out by the amps, Mick Taylor lookin’ cool with his Gibson SG, probably the smallest stage the Stones have played in a while, Mick doing weird jogging actions off to the side, clapping like a madman, fast cutting on the video. Very happy to see Mick Taylor playing a Gibson SG this time around, since I play one too. “Dead Flowers” is so countriefied. Mick Jagger looks so happy. “I Got The Blues”, then “Let It Rock” with Keith doing the lead. Shots of the audience – horrific eyewear!! Another novel intro to “Midnight Rambler” (there were so many on this tour). Lots of Mick vs Keith shots, one shot has the two Micks and Keith in the same shot even! Weird fast-cutting “psychedelic” strobe segment in the middle, around the Mick Taylor solo. Crazy. Mick Jagger does the “go down on my baby” thing. Mick does a lot of clapping. There’s no reaction from the crowd – were they playing on a sound stage, with the crowd scenes edited in? We do see the crowd at the beginning and a the end, but it may just be a bit faked. Mick’s voice sounding raw in “Satisfaction.” Keith solos on “Bitch”, but it’s obvious he’s not as good a soloist as Mick Taylor is, as seen in the last song, “Brown Sugar.” Good night!
The whole 37:26 minute video can be found online here.
Every morning Keith would be up at 8:30 in the morning, ready to jump into his car, looking after his kid Marlon. Nobody knew the Stones in the South of France, so they were able to act and live normally, we would go to the zoo or the beach. In the afternoon, Anita would look after Marlon and Keith would play music. Every morning it would be the same. It was a normal way of life.
Keith dating Bianca. Mick posing with Keith’s guitar. Bill Wyman complaining about living in France, Charlie too, because they couldn’t get their British creature comforts there. Rare picture of Mick Taylor smiling. The late Jimmy Miller, the album’s producer, noted in a recording that the band chose convenience over sound and used Keith’s house. Brought in the BMC sound truck. Audio from recording sessions. Commuting around the South of France, Charlie lived six hours away. Gibson acoustic. Eight-man band with kids, and technicians. Can’t separate family life from professional activity in the tribes. Random images like album cover. Difficult recording conditions. Crazy entourage setup. “Mick’s rock, I’m roll,” says Keith. Marshall Chess with a nice mullet. Mick playing a Flying V. Jammin’. “As unrehearsed as a hiccup,” says Bobby Keys, “it wasn’t exactly spontaneous combustion.” A very nice blues jam with Mick and Keith going away, with Mick also playing guitar.
The Stones playing pool, Mick swigging from a flask. Jake Weber’s father was a race car driver, drug smuggler and adventurer, Jake was 8.5 years old at the time. Describes downtime and creative process. Picking away at guitars, the basement at night was the epicentre. Great picture of Jake with five classic Keith guitars – a flying V, the famous ampeg Dan Armstrong plexiglass guitar, an SG and a big Gibson ES-355. Swigging from bottles of Jack Daniels. A glimpse into the recording process. Andy Johns, recording engineer, noted that:
they would play very poorly for two or three days on whatever song. And then if Keith got up and started looking at Charlie, then you knew that something would go down. And then Bill would get up and put his bass at that sort of 84° angle, and you’d say “ah, here it comes, they’re going to go for it now, ha ha ha.” And it would turn into this wonderful, God-given music.
Some funky animation from still photos of Keith’s fretting hand moving, Bill’s bass shifting to an 84° angle (how did they do that?). The giant dinner, everybody gathered once a day. Jake’s function in life was to roll joints. A decadent life, everything was out in the open, this was the light before the moment of darkness. Charlie Watts: “everybody had a great time, but it was very stressful. You’re having a good time, but ready to go back home. The only one who wasn’t like that was Keith, of course, who was being supplied in his mansion, with his band downstairs, it must have been heaven for him in a way.” A real live rabbit in a tray next to the guitars. The anecdote of Keith in the bus saying “oh, I forgot something, we have to go back,” then he proceeded to simply drop a TV out of the balcony. Keith singing “Happy”.
Keith and the band address heroin. “With a hit of smack, I could walk through anything and not give a damn.” Keith’s voice heard more than Mick’s, until the end. “We always went to LA to finish our records. That was our modus operandi.” Keith: “It was kind of fun playing it to lots of musicians and friends in LA. It was interesting to get their input, because everything that went in at Nellcôte was a just bubble, really.” Mick: “We’d never made a double album before, so we were a bit naive about it. It was just a bit too much work, considering that we’d had all these pressures, plus we were a bit burned on it.” Mick made “Tumbling Dice” out of a conversation with the maid, “Casino Boogie” had no lyrics, they were desperate so they used a cut-up method. This is illustrated with visuals. Beautiful. Description of the after-production at Sunset Sounds. Overdubs gave the songs a new twist. Little jams improve the original sessions. Awesome Robert Frank session footage of the band walking down the street, Mick Jagger yawning and stretching his face, and then it’s up on a billboard. Wild post-release pastiche of the media swirl of radio, billboard and magazine-cover (Rolling Stone), with a great “Rocks Off” images melange, Kasey Casem voce-over, playing with Stevie Wonder. Don Was: “Exile on Main Street dramatically altered the vocabulary of record-making. There are textures on that that no-one ever laid down before.” Irrelevant statements from Sheryl Crow, Martin Scorsese, Benecio Del Toro and others at the end.
Extended interviews:
Keith Richards: 33 minutes. Wanted to get started in the basement, then decided to keep it on, so much experimentation because of the sound of the various basement rooms. Dense sound down there. First month was touch and go, then it started to flow. Wanted to be a soul band, added horns with Bobby Keys and Jim Price. Two guys fitted into the size of the band, gave it extra texture and turned into a soul band. Bobby and Keith found out after many years that they had been born within hours of each other. Never intended Exile to be a double album until they realised that they’d recorded so many songs that they didn’t know which to cut.
According to Bill Wyman, the engineer and the producer and the band couldn’t see each other, and they had to communicate by voice, and it’s a miracle that it worked out, the whole band was only there 30% of the time, sometimes they were all there, except for Keith, who was just upstairs, despite Charlie coming five hours from where he lived, Bill and Mick Taylor coming two hours from where they lived, Bill coming one hour from where he lived. Mick Taylor was, musically, the better musician than any others in the band; he was young, and some of the things he had done were amazing, but he was incredibly boring onstage despite doing these incredible licks and solos.
Mick Taylor: he talks! Keith and Anita were mixing domesticity and art. Although the recordings were in the basement, there were constant power failures, and primitive and basic procedures. Ended up being a holiday resort for the Stones’ friends and all their friends, “and in the midst of all this partying, we were trying to make an album.â”
Anita: the guitars get the best seats. Kids are kids, they can sleep with any noise. They had a great attitude for adults, and the adults had to deal with them, especially Jacob and Charlie. Confronting adults and playing with them. Good vibe. A freeloading brigade. Anita became a bouncer as the freeloaders piled up, throwing everybody out. Moved from room to room. Weird sailor shoot-outs when they were in town. “It’s rock ‘n’ roll and drugs and sex, in that order.” Charlie bought an Edwardian villa, still has it. Keith is very easy to play with, very comfortable. Exile picked up a lot of stuff that was missed off of earlier releases.
An interview with Ronnie Wood: “I’d never played the songs, but I knew them. It hits the nail on the head whether the songs are mixed or not.”
Return to Stargroves: Jagger: completely, exactly the same. “I had this house for 1970 to 1975. It does have a lot of memories, because one of the reasons is that we recorded here, but it has other memories for me too, children, my parent, all that sort of thing, my brother lived here a lot. He liked it a lot, my brother, having this very large house. I don’t blame him.: Earliest recordings for Exile, such as Sweet Black Angel, were recorded there. “Old recordings, boring. Who gives a shit?”
Extra interviews: Sheryl Crow’s comments the best, listens to “Loving Cup” and “Sweet Virginia”. Will.I.Am is a moron. Kings of Leon guy, from Memphis, is too childish. Jack Black is savvy. Martin Scorsese is the only commentator of the same age as the Stones, maybe also Don Was, who talks passionately about the extra tracks, like “Sophia Loren” and the new mix of “Loving Cup.” Very expressive and passionate about the band.
Packaging is not that great – three-panel foldout booklet contains a pic of Charlie, a pic of Keith holding an acoustic, and a pic of Mick with a flying V guitar. The other side has a collage of Robert Frank pics. Through the transparent DVD case you also see a pic of Keith and the two Micks jamming.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones – Super ugly Nazi Stones logo up front, there’s darkness and some flashes, you slowly hear the Stones’ voices, then they come out, you notice the side-stage shot with Bill Wyman’s bass cord across it, Mick’s sparkle spots at the temples and the middle of the forehead, shirt knotted at belly (for some scenes – the show was recorded across four nights, so Mick “changed costume” repeatedly, there was no sense of costume continuity). Bobby Keys in full blow, Keith with shawl in Brown Sugar, fast cuting on band but the camera really lingers on the dynamic Mick Jagger. In “Bitch”, Keith is lead, Mick is rhythm, “Gimme Shelter” flatish, Mick Taylor wailing eventually. Where’s Merry Clayton? “Broken Fowers” is Mick and Keith at the same mic, Keith with dyed patches in his hair. Great Mick Taylor solo. Call from the audience to play “Sweet Virginia” (they would comply later in the evening). They play “Happy”, it gets huge applause. Why? Audience loves songs from the critically unpopular new release, “Exile on Main Street”, or would they simply have been anxious for something new? “Sorry you didnt’ get to see Stevie Wonder, they must’ve overslept.” Tumblin’ Dice’ sounds empty without the background singers. Mick whispering, “We’re gonna do a little tune up, can you hear us in the back?” Mick’s right wrist, nice bracelet. Love In Vain, Mick Taylor’s great slide guitars. Dumb cameraman angle with Bill’s cable stretched across it is all wrong. Mick Taylor’s stunning solo. “We’re gonna play a little acoustic guitar. Why aren’t you in church anyway? “Sweet Virginia” has two acoustic guitars with Mick on harmonica. Calls out Bobby Keys, fixes mic for him. Keith’s vocals, “Be it crack or smack, or…” You Can’t Always Get What You Want showing Keith riffing. Funky, big Down The LIne, sounds simplistic and bombastic. Mick Taylor’s slide. Bill Wyman statuesque, song gains bluster, Mick goin’ nuts. Swigs Jack Daniels (or is it tea?). Nice Mick harmonica work. Mick’s jumpsuit pajamas with red sash, Mick howling/fucking onstage. All in moody/creepy red lights. Charlie’s good tonight. Over 10 minutes. “Bye Bye Johnny”, Chuck Berry song. Very good funk/punk blues. Mick does onstage yoga, doing the upside down thing, then the crossed-legs thing. “Jumping Jack Flash” and good shots of Keith playing towards Charlie. Keith really cuts loose on last two classic tracks, “Jumping Jack Flash” and “Street Fighting Man”. Mick throws rose petals into audience and onto Charlie, who’s wearing a nutty rhumba shirt (hey, that’s nothing – check out Mick’s satin jumpsuits). There’s a rain of sparks and the crowd cheers. Indian rose petal blessing, playing Cat Stevens on PA after, no encore. Thanked John and Yoko and Cat Stevens and the Who in the credits. In the bonus material, you get to see a cool “Hip Shake”, with Keith singing along (as he often does), with him playing lead guitar. “Tumbin’ Dice”, no Keith backups, though. Bottle of Jack available, plus shot glasses, on full display. Keith and Charlie jam. “Bluesberry Jam” is Mick-less. There’s an interview with Mick on the Old Grey Whistle Test where he talks about the loose recording process, praises the collaborative process John and Paul had writing as a band (ironic?). No place in the UK has the energy that Madison Square Gardens has, although it is a good place to base yourself in – better than France. Mark Bolan is good, better even when he plays acoustic (is this a backhanded compliment?). Mick mentions maybe doing things outside of the Stones. Charlie’s rhumba shirt is from Western Costumes in LA, the band raided it for costumes and satin, anything. Mick goes on to talk about clothes, gold belts, and the beginning of glam. “Bye Bye Johnny” was super-fast, mad tempo, buildup to end, leads up to “Rip This Joint.” “Rocks Off” was in the set, but not in movie, Mick and guitar were both off tune. Shot for cinema, not TV or home viewing. Film styles different, static process, people wanter and out of frame, no attempt at clothing continuity either.
The packaging is okay, with a 36 x 36 fold-out that has band pics on one side, and a poster of a stage shot on the other side. Through the transparent DVD case you also see a pic of the band onstage.
EOMSASEHWTRS
Exile on Main Street, A Season in Hell with The Rolling Stones, by Robert Greenfield – There have been a few books written about Exile On Main Street, including some from survivors of the Villa Nellcôte sessions in the south of France from June 1971 to September 1971 (although the band shows up at Nellcôte around April 5th, 1971 – which is tax day in the UK and tax exile is the reason that they’re in France instead of the UK – and post-productions sessions in LA lasted from December 1971 to May 1972). But this, Spanish Tony’s tale, and a slim 33 1/3 volume of 175 mini-pages are the only ones that are in print.
Greenfield’s book approaches, with plenty of sass, the familiar story of how the Stones, in their heyday, went into tax exile on the advice of their blue-blooded banker Prince something-or-other, before it was popular, and suffered for it – in terms of loneliness, alienation, personal injury, death of loved ones, and freakish drug abuse and addiction – but, in the meantime, produced great art. Like the Stones In Exile DVD documentary, the book covers the tax exile, the house, the sessions, the entourage, the hijinx, the drugs, the LA post-production sessions, ultimately jumping to present-day by the end of the book (Greenfield has no choice – his Exile material only covers the first 199 slim pages, he needs to fill out the volume to keep it from looking too slim). But Greenfield uses other source than the Stones-endorsed producers of Stones In Exile do, some of whom are protected under the moniker “Stones insider” (we can guess who some of them are). For example, while it is true that he could have described Villa Nellcôte, which still stands apparently, by visiting it as you or I could, he then also describes what Keith sees as he wanders into Nellcôte on a day in April in 1971.
Outside Nellcôte’s great front doors, gravel skitters beneath the wheels of the car as it comes to a stop. Keith gets out with Marlon, followed by Jo [Bergman] and Shirley Arnold. Before anyone can knock, the young French couple who have been hired to look after the cooking and the gardening come to welcome the new lord of the manor. Although they do not have very much English, the French couple are nothing if not polite, extending their hands to Keith in smiling welcome. “Nice,” Keith says succinctly, looking over their heads at his new home.
Looks like a scene from a movie. But while Greenfield likes to be coy about his sources are, his source of this very specific description here would have to be either Jo Bergman or Shirley Arnold, who he names more than once in books where barely anyone else was present… or it could also come from his own rich imagination. We get several scenes like this throughout the book (neither Berman nor Arnold are listed among his eight interviewees at the back of the book, nor are any of the actual Rolling Stones). A major source for the book was Tommy Weber, a semi-aristocratic race car driver, socialite and drug smuggler who, along with his wife Puss, forms a significant part of the backdrop of the Exile sessions, and his two sons Jake and Tommy (Jake, later an actor, appears in the Stones in Exile DVD as an I-was-there interviewee) who were Tommy’s drug mules and joint-rollers – sad but true. Weber’s soap opera is part of the dynamics of the goings-on at Nellcôte, not the least because his institutionalised wife Puss had had an affair with Anita Pallenberg, and subsequently committed suicide when she found out she’d be barred from leaving the country on account of her mother’s machinations. Yes, free spirits all – the body count began with Puss and piled higher and higher among the Stones’ free-spirited and hard drug-taking cohorts and colleagues.
The madness includes Mick Jagger’s wedding in France with Bianca Jagger, and all of the celebrities that showed up, including (a badly junk-sick) Eric Clapton, Paul and Ringo of the Beatles (who didn’t talk to each other), and several other big names, all in one charter flight over. The impromptu jam at Mick’s wedding reception – which Keith passed out at, the only time he ever missed a Stones gig apparently – must have really been something. The tale recounts Keith’s re-entry into heroin following a strange episode where someone may have had sex with Anita while everyone else was passed out in the same bed; the re-entry may also have been due to emotional trauma around a gun incident with some harbour toughs/cops and an Italian tourist Keith and Spanish Tony had a car run-in with (an incident Keith describes differently in his auto-biography Life than Greenfield does here), but is more likely the result of a go-cart wreck where Keith flips his vehicle and scrapes along the surface on his back, removing several layers of skin (he was on prescribed and medically-applied morphine after that to kill the pain, which quickly led to self-medication with heroin).
He also mentions in great detail an anecdote of Paul and Yoko visiting Nellcôte that he seems to have gotten from Anita Pallenberg herself. But the times were catching up to them and casualties within their entourage of friends include Madeleine d’Arcy, a girlfriend of Tommy Weber’s who got badly strung out on heroin and died young, Michele Breton, who had been in Performance with Mick and Anita and who eventually drifted around the drug world, then sold her passport and all her possessions in Kabul in order to support her morphine habit. Then there are the Gettys, the richest and most fashionable couple in the world among the hippies, who invited the Stones and the Beatles to their palace in Marrakesh. Talitha Pol Getty, after having an affair with aristocratic drug dealer to the stars Jean de Breteuil (he supplied Jim Morrison with the heroin that killed him), died of a drug overdose, as did de Breteuil. Photographer Michael Cooper, whose pics from theNellcôte sessions adorn the pages of this book, visited after his wife died of an overdose; eighteen months later he went the same way. Then there’s a rediculous story involving Tommy Weber and Timothy Leary: “On Christmas Day, Tommy was waiting for them in Cairo at the pyramids when Leary and Harcourt-Smith were arrested in Kabul and returned in custody to the United States.” Huh?
Greenfield describes the crazy recording van that was used to record Sticky Fingers, as well as “Sweet Black Angel”, which appeared on Exile, that was eventually used in lieu of using an actual French recording studio, none of which were up to scratch at the time. The first two weeks of jamming produced no music worth using, and then Keith would stay upstairs through whole parts of the sessions, spacing out with his guitar or mellowing out with junk, with even Mick scared to go up and bring him down to continue work. Weird tales of Keith being jealous of and even publicly humiliating Mick Taylor, their young new guitarist, for being a better guitarist than him, or of Mick Jagger hitting on Mick Taylor’s wife Rose just to piss him off; then there was Mick Taylor’s descent into heroin use himself, and the eventual divorce. Greenfield notes several cases of Mick Taylor being too scared to get out from under the blankets to be with his bandmates, especially Mick Jagger, who was in pursuit of his wife, and he then quotes Anita Pallenberg saying “you know, Jagger’s bisexual.” So, seven weeks went by with no songs recorded. Seven weeks in the south of France with youth, drugs and beauty to enjoy, not to mention a mansion, powerboats, and other toys.
The band, at this point, began phasing out Jimmy Miller as a producer, having learned to do what he did (they thought that the could do the same to engineer Andy Johns, but they had to bring him back in after trying to fire him. Great anecdotes of Bill Wyman’s eccentricities, switching from cigarettes to joints in order to quit smoking, taking pictures of nude sunbathers by telephoto lens while beautiful women from the entourage were nude sunbathing nearby, or asking women if he could photograph their breasts, constantly chronicling stuff. Keith cutting “Happy” with Bobby Keys on sax and Jimmy Miller on drums. Claims that Keith preferred self-service to having sex with the stunning Anita Pallenberg.
Once the album is done, the band goes on tour. They start off in Vancouver, playing most of the songs from Exile, but eventually settling on “Rocks Off”, “Happy”, “Tumbling Dice”, “Sweet Virginia”, “All Down The Line” and “Rip This Joint”, leaving off “Loving Cup, “Torn and Frayed” and “Ventilator Blues”. The 1972 US tour, also known as the Stones Touring Party tour, was a 29-date odyssey that started in Vancouver in early June, and ended with four nights in Madison Square Gardens in late July. Greenfield recounted the proceedings from this tour in another book, called Stp: A Journey Through America with The Rolling Stones, while it was also documented in Robert Frank’s controversial Cocksucker Blues (the full 95-minute film can be viewed here, by the way), and the four nights in Texas were captured in the 1974 concert film Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones, which was released on DVD in 2010.
Greenfield quickly jumps into a middle time, such as telling anecdotes of Jake Weber running into Mick Jagger by chance, recreating what seems like the entire conversation of Mick brushing off Jake, who had been eight years old when Mick knew him at Nellcôte. “As is his wont when confronted by someone from his past, Mick said, ‘Oh, right…. That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?’” There’s phrases like “Bill Wyman recently noted, ‘Keith used to say Mick’s a lovely bunch of guys.’” There’s a great recount of how Ameriquest sponsored the band’s A Bigger Bang tour, back in those heady sub-prime mortgage days when the sub-prime people had more money than ever; another passage describes the contortions of the Superbowl concert (where the lyrics “come” and “cocks” were censored in order to “preserve the virgin ears of more than a hundred and forty-one million viewers who had never before heard these particular lyrics, despite all the records the band had sold”), and another describes a reunion with Marshall Chess, the one-time CEO of Rolling Stone Records, who meets the band backstage. Keith shows off the area where the band does meet and greet with rich big shots, or where they strike a deal for campaign fundraising with Arnold Schwartzenegger and his circuit. Awesome to read about the women in Rio who had t-shirts that said “MICK JAGGER – FACA UM FILHO ES MIM”, which means “Mick Jagger, put a baby in me.”
The book is far from perfect: despite not being able to interview a single interview with one of the Rolling Stones, the author also has the annoying habit of inserting things that only a Stone would know, think or feel. He also, on many many occasions, refers to Mick Jagger with his full name, or parses Who and Beatles lyrics as part of his text. He’s also infamously guilty of referring to “Jumping Jack Flash” as being on an album that it wasn’t a part of (getting lots of slag in the Amazon reviews for that). But, if we take the proceedings with a grain of salt, it does make for an informative, if patchy read.
KRL
Life, by Keith Richards – This book is reviewed elsewhere in this blog, but I can at least revisit the pages he deals with Exile on Main Street, right?
Keith mentions the recording and release of Exile on Main Street, and its subsequent tour, over about 14 pages in the book in the second half (the first half of the book is his childhood, and early pre-heroin days as a Stone), and most of Chapter Eight is about the Villa Nellcôte era and the Exile on Main Street gang, as well as the release of the album and its subsequent Spt (Stones party tour) extravaganza. He describes the over-grown garden, the mirrors and twenty-foot ceilings and marble columns and grand staircases, where there was grandeur after the shabbiness of Britain. Bill ended up hanging out with Marc Chagall at the time. He describes his feeling, developed over time, about Bianca Jagger (very smart, very powerful – “if she’d had a sense of humour I’d have married her”), but Mick had just met her, gotten her pregnant, and she gave birth to their daughter Jade, all during the Exile on Main Street sessions; Mick was torn. Keith talks about the big bag of pure heroin that he bought from Fat Jacques that kept him and Anita and many others going from June to November that had to be mixed 3 parts heroin to 97 parts lactose or it would kill the user. There were tales of parties, of boating off to Italy for breakfast after an all-night session recording in the basement, of the navy coming into town and Villefranche filling up with hookers and drugs. Keith describes writing song s like “Rocks Off”, Happy, “Ventilator Blues”, “Tumbling Dice” and All Down The Line” quickly, with five-string open tuning. Songs that never made it onto the album (or the 2010 expanded and revamped re-release) had titles like “Head in the Toilet Blues”, “Leather Jackets”, “Windmill”, “I was Just a Country Boy”, “Dancing in the Light”, “Bent Green Needles”, “Labour Pains” and “Pommes de Terre”. “Happy”, of course, was recorded in only four hours, with only Keith from the Stones there playing bass and guitar and singing, with Jimmy Miller on drums and Bobby Keys on sax. The influence of Gram Parsons is in “Dead Flowers”, “Torn and Frayed”, “Sweet Virginia” and “Wild Horses.” Great pretentious quotes about drugs like “But that perception of time – Einstein is pretty right: it’s all relative.” Keith describes his work ethic, being in the studio mixing for days on end, a taskmaster, throwing moods so he’d be able to go off and shoot up, not letting up, being thoughtless and not telling people he was going off for a while, always operating on Keith Time. There is the tale of the drug bust, and the escape to LA to master the tracks, add chorus, backup singers, or extra percussion (on page 339 he admits that the album “wasn’t even that highly rated when it came out”, but then says that “it always had incredible reviews”). He explained that the double album format seemed at first like it would be the kiss of death that so many record company executives had said that it would be… “but then it just kept going and gong and getting bigger and bigger.” Keith had a perverse sense of responsibility – he didn’t want to be a junkie on tour as arrests would have band’s fate: “the idea of putting the whole tour on the line because I couldn’t make it was too much.”
Cocksucker Blues – The film begins slow and languid, with people coming into the frame: Mick, Bobby Keys, Keith Richards, Jim Price, with good lighting. Keith is strumming his Telecaster, does a little boogie. Mick jamming in a rhumba shirt, the band is jamming, the camera is on Charlie. Marshall Chess tells the story how “Cocksucker Blues” got its name, with songs like Dr John’s “How Much Pussy Can You Eat”? The song “Cocksucker Blues” plays, Mick is on the piano, then he storms off, Keith looks great playing piano standing up. Mick masturbating, Mick poolside, rolling doobs briefly, shattered table. Flms his cover pics billboard passing by in car. Interspersed cuts. Mick explains in an interview that, from the new album, he particularly likes “Sweet Virginia” and “All Down The Line” and “Ventilator Blues”. Weird conversation between the interviewer, Mick and Keith:
Have you thought about writing a hit for Chuck Berry?
No, I never have actually, we ain’t been gettin’ on too well recently.
He writes for himself, he’s got his equilibrium.
He’d probably like a hit, but it’s probably other people’d do it.
Pan around entourage. Great editing – Keith and Bobby chilled out on Air Stones, hear band intro, flashes of them in plane is discongruous with the music. Radio interview/intro bits over airplane scene with naked girls. At 17:12 we see Bill Wuyman with his own camera, grinning sheepisly when caught on Frank’s, there’s some on-plane sex, an in-air orgy is going on. Someone’s getting a blowjob. A roadie in a “Cocaine” t-shirt that looks like the Coca Cola logo. Rare bit of Keith at 23:00 being very Captain Jack Sparrow. Before show talking about gig, then coming off after the show (seems as if the gig never happened, that the backstage life is more important – only 15 minutes of the 94-minute film show any of their songs). Encore time. Snortin’ coke, black girls. “I thought it would be good, because they’re so good, but I didn’t think it would be this good.” Yeah, check out 31:00 as “Midnight Rambler” goes on! Mick howling in yellow jumpsuit then white jumpsuit. Mick attacking stage. “It’s not possible to get addicted to cocaine because it’s too expensive. The camera doesn’t lie, am I right, Bob?” Stoned groupie. Mic man did cocaine. Girl with syringe! Camera in mirror Keith nodding. Ahmet Ertagun there. High society backstage after rock ‘n’ roll blitzkrieg – Andy arrives, Truma Capote also. Some woman vocalist hanging out with the band hits a beautiful long sustain before someone puts a leaf in her mouth. Big kiss between Tina and Mick. Gay designer and Bianca and Mick on Mick’s birthday in cavernous suite. Band members driving around. “Getting away from the 39 people” Mick. Old coot with guitar at gas station. Playing pool with which blues legend? Mick brings out Stevie Wonder. Mick looking old with his hunch-backed short steps, Stevie’s “Uptight” jam morphs into wild “Satisfaction”. Wild funk ruckus, 30 people onstage, including topless black woman. Mick dancing with Stevie, who throws pie into audience (footage over several nights as there’s a costume change for Stevie Wonder). Girl after sex. Boys playing cards and listening to country – Keith, Bobby, Jim. Mick Taylor walks into room with three nude people to smoke a joint and have an intellectual conversation (we hardly ever heard him speak in those days, so it’s a treat) in Indiana. Mick watching himself on TV as he orders room service. Pregnant groupie shoots up. Shadowy corridor. Mick and socks. “Getting rid of Leroy.” The mentality of those people.” Bouncers in halls. Triple mirror shots – white man talking jive, fixin’ in another hotel room. Tomb of the unknown junkie, made of discarded spikes. Excederine commercial and Charlie. Drugs OTC or otherwise. Keith and Bobby tossing a TV out of a hotel room window (like Ozzy and everyone else). Dick Cavett? Charlie and makeup. Mick dressing up in a jumpsuit, backstage preparations. Mother on acid, she wants to see the Stones, Life’s already half-wrecked, could jump off a bridge, they took her child away because she was on LSD. “She was born on acid. It blows my mind.” Ends with big flashes, perp march. Keith and handler, Wiliam S Burroughs quoting “Brown Sugar.”
Australian tour documentary – Focussing on a short-haired Mick Jagger, shows the band playing “Brown Sugar”, then gets into intros: Leslie Perrin, PR manager, Peter Rudge, tour manager, Nickie Hopkins, Keith Richards (“he won’t live to 70″), Bill Wyman (“perhaps he’ll be the first to leave the Stones”), Mick Jagger’s bodyguard Leroy Leonard, Mick Taylor (“Jagger treats him gently, he seems rather fragile”) and Charlie Watts. They note that there no screaming girls outside the hotel. Interviews with hot chick rock fans, “we don’t go out to the airport to see the band any more, we just listen to the music; that was a long time ago like with the Beatles.” Interview with Patrick Stansfield, production manager, with shots of roadies setting up. Clip of the band playing “Bitch” in the mid-afternoon sun. Cool interview with Keith: “I’ve always felt more sexual than political; I could never get very worked up about Edward Heath.” Media insists that there’s a rumour that someone tried to smuggle pot into the country. “Who? What kind?” In the press conference, talk of Australia joining Southeast Asia. They harp on the fact that there’s no really big news during this visit, other than Mick’s bedsheets being auctioned for A$400. Leslie Perrin interviewed, quite dull of course (he’s a PR man). The documentary appears to end 33 minutes into this 50 minute documentary. They then play “Love In Vain” to video from the Gimme Shelter movie. Looks like there was more footage at the end of the “documentary” showing what may be unreleased footage from the Madison Square Gardens concert that was shown in part in Gimme Shelter. At the end, there’s the band playing “Walk The Dog” on a TV broadcast, with Brian Jones, and a few other songs.
I’ve been a Rush fan for most of my life, but since I’ve not been an avid all-time Rush fan, I’ve often missed what the band means to me. I go through Rush phases, particularly when they have an interesting new CD/DVD set, but I don’t listen to them all the time any more.
I recently borrowed from a friend Beyond The Lighted Stage, the 2010 Rush documentary by Scot MacFayden and Sam Dunn (the directors of “Metal: A Headbangers Journey”, “Global Metal” and the “Flight 666″ Iron Maiden documentary; Scot, apparently, grew up not far from me and went to high school with close friends of mine) because I had to experience for myself this incredible rock ‘n’ roll journey by one of the most long-lasting bands around (only the Stones have existed longer as a unit, but with more lineup changes). It’s been the same three guys since 1975, although Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee have been playing in bands since 1968.
The key themes of the movie are, of course, friendship, musicianship, development, passion, and (bad) fashion. It charts the history of the band, with key moments being when the directors bring the members of Rush back to the places where they started out – the church, where they played their first gig, they return to for the first time since they played there in 1968.
The films starts off with scenes of the band warming up, of Neil throwing a drumstick into the air and then dropping it (rare – how often would that happen?) and then goes quickly into celebrity interviews: Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, Kirk Hammett of Metallica (who couldn’t believe that the band could produce so much sound with only three members when he first heard them), Tim Commerford of Rage Against The Machine, Jason McGem of Death Cab For Cutie, Vinnie Paul of Pantera, Zakk Wylde, Les Claypool of Primus, Dana Carey of Tool, Matt Stone of South Park, Taylor Hawkings of Foo FIghters, Jimmy Chamberlin of Smashing Pumpkins, Sebastian Bach of Skid Row (who claims to be Member #3 of some Toronto-based Rush fan group), Jack Black (who gives multiple funny speeches, such as the one about rock sauce), Gene Simmons (“There’s no other way to describe Rush than just… Rush.”), and Billy Corgan, who notes that the Beatles and the Stones (the only other bands Rush can be compared with) have been over-explained… but not Rush.
But hey – where’s Marilyn Manson?
The film goes into historical mode, explaining that the parents of Geddy Lee (nee Gary Lee Weinrib) were both Polish Holocaust survivors (here’s where the similarities to Robb Reiner, the drummer of Anvil and a key player in the other great Canadian rock ‘n’ roll documentary, come in) who relocated to Willowdale, a suburb of Toronto, where they were one of the first Jewish families. Geddy’s dad died when he was 12, meaning that he had to go into 11 months of mourning. Geddy’s mom, Mary Weinrib, talked about Geddy as a kid (the nickname/stage name “Geddy” came from her pronunciation of Gary through her thick Polish accent; he’s since had his name legally changed to Geddy). The story covers how Geddy met Alex Lifeson in high school, there are plenty of cool pictures of Geddy and Alex as young shorthairs together in school (incidentally, Rick Moranis was their classmate, a fact that led to their collaboration with Geddy on “Take Off”, the hit single of the Bob And Doug MacKenzie  album “The Great White North“).
Alex seems to have had a relatively steady upbringing, his parents both having immigrated from Yugoslavia, dad had been in a prison camp. The film interviews his mom, Melanija Zivojinovich. Both kids got guitars from their moms, Alex was promised his if he brought home good grades, which was no problem as he was a teacher’s pet and was a master schmoozer. Geddy and Alex shared the same grade nine homeroom. First gig was in a church basement in September 1968, the drop-in centre called The Coffin, they got $10, having played to 35 kids, went to eat at Panzer’s Deli. Scenes of Sam The Record Man and A&A Records on Yonge Street, discussion of the Yorkville scene (see also Neil Young’s Archives 1), and the local hit band The Poppers. Ray Danniels got them as a manager, saw them as talented 16-year-olds who could play a high school circuit with drummer John Rutsey (1953-2008). Pic of three of them in their undies, very early footage, nice red and white star shirt, playing in basement. Alex quit school in grade 12, there’s a high quality video of him talking to his parents about his decision, sitting with a girlfriend at the kitchen table talking about it, it looks staged, but that is because it is from a 1972 scare movie about teen pregnancy and school-leavers called “Come On Children” from 1972). “Bullshit”, he yells at one point, what an actor. There had been a turning point in the Toronto band scene in 1971 when the drinking age was dropped to 18. Yorkville’s cafes, hippy and revolutionary, were shut down, and good-time rock ‘n’ roll was encouraged for a rockin’ younger drinking crowd. The film quotes famous Canadian musician Kim Mitchell talking about the scene. Rush was playing six nights a week, at places like Abbey Road pub. “Garden Road“, a never-released song from that era, is played in the movie. The band put together their own first album, and it was heard in the US, where it got attention. “Rush” was the perfect album for Cleveland in 1974, especially songs like “Working Man”, which resonated with many Clevelanders (is it a coincidence that their new live CD Time Machine was recorded there?). The phones lit up with people calling in to ask for the record, thinking it was the new Led Zeppelin release. There was no record industry in Canada at that time, only outposts. John Rutsey was more into Bad Company, Geddy and Alex were into Yes and Genesis and Pink Floyd. John not healthy enough to tour, would have been okay for the home circuit. So, with a US tour coming up, they looked for a new drummer.
Neil Peart was from a farm in Hayville, cursed by skating on ankles, learned to knit because it was a challenge, suffered physical abuse in the smoking area as a result of being a bit weird and growing his hair longish. Drumming became an instrument of self esteem. The footage shows both parents, who were supportive of his career in music. Was in a band called JR Flood, playing the double bass drum even then. Dad encouraged Neil to audition for Rush in Ajax. Geddy thought Neil was goofy, Alex thought he was not cool enough for Rush. Then he played… “He was so good!” Mullet man. First tour was opening for Manfred Mann and Uriah Heep. Mick Box of Uriah Heap loved them. Â Eleven days on, one day off, brutal schedule. The film shows posters of their bills with the New York Dolls, Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith, Rory Gallagher, Rod Stewart and the Faces, Montrose, KISS (who loved them, playing 50-60 shows together – the two bands got close). Geddy says that there was no harder working band then KISS, he said it was “fun to watch their hotel”. Two-band pic with big “happy birthday” cake, KISS in make-up, Rush just in jeans. Kim Mitchell’s story about the lady’s bowling league staying on the same floor as Rush and partying harder than these boys. Neil very literate, opinionated, weird, serious, always the new guy, buying a lot of books, a reader. The band worked on songs after shows. “By-Tor” the start of thematic stuff. Audiences got smaller and smaller, toured with Ted Nugent on Caress of Steel when he was also a small act, depressing tour. The discussion of 2112 begins at 37-minute mark of the DVD, the band says that they felt at the time that 2112 may have been their last hurrah, despite pressure to become a rock/pop band, they were determined to go out guns blazing.
Billy Corgan describes how he once could play all of Side 1 of 2112, the release also encouraged a 12-year old Sebastian Bach to go out and buy Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, to which the LP had been dedicated. “2112 bought us our independence,” they realised (“We have assumed control”, the final words of Side 1 of “2112″ really carry new meaning!). Critics hated it. “Unintentionally funny.” “A cancerous network of haphazard key and time signature changes.” “Smug, hypocritical, pseudo-symbolic drivel.” “Flagrantly derivative music.” Constant insults from media, but not from fans. “Best band in the galaxy” the posters at shows said, with the 2112 back patch on thousands of jean jackets. A people’s band. Canadian VJ JD Roberts gives his comments, now and also from ’80s footage. No fashion clue. In San Francisco they found kimonos. First UK tour, where they actually charted! Â Nice shots of a Hammersmith Odeon marquee, Rush with Max Webster opening. Geddy and Alex at this point both with double-necked guitars (SG and Rickenbacher). UFO made fun of them – furry slippers nailed to the stage, calling Geddy “Glee” (oh how ironic now). With “Hemispheres” they embraced long songs, recorded in Wales, experimenting. Determined to record La Villa Strangiata in one take. The song made a huge impression on Kirk Hammet, who called them the high priests of conceptual metal (a title, I suppose that Metallica now owns, having become a less rockin’ band than Rush now is, a poor man’s Rush of sorts). Various musicians explain that Rush was a musician’s benchmark of sorts – if you could recreate Rush, you would be ready for anything. Jack Black explains meeting the band, first Alex and Geddy, then… the master, who is “eerily precise. If you went in with a computer, Neil Peart would be right on the beat to an atom.” The band played 200 concerts a year, and at one point 17 one-nighters in a row.
Babies started to arrive, the band felt that they couldn’t be selfish any more, and began recording bringing the family closer to the process. But they had their biggest successes in front of them. The band is very family-oriented – Alex married in his teens and had kids early, he introduced Geddy to his wife. Cool pic of Neil wearing an FM t-shirt. Permanent Waves was an important stepping stone, there would have been no Moving Pictures without Permanent Waves. Hemispheres was recorded in La Studio, a happy time with family. Concert audiences doubled with 2112, the band shifted from a theatre band at the start of the tour to doing stadium gigs at the end. Three nights at Maple Leaf Gardens. Moving Pictures made them what they are, Neil said that it was a mixed blessing, strange people came out of the woodwork. There’s a scene of a fan approaching Alex and Geddy in a cafe that brought tears to my eyes, I was sniffing and near-blubbering – I started wondering what thoughts would come to my mind, what overflowing emotions would come unbottled, if I came across Alex and Geddy somehow, somewhere the way this waitress did when they wandered into her establishment (which, I think, is Pedro’s, the spot where Panzer’s Deli had once been, as shown in the outtakes section). And, oddly enough, I think that the last two times that I was overcome by emotion, Rush was involved (the R30 DVD, and also buying Alex Lifeson’s “Limelight” instructional video). Neil struggles around fans, not comfortable. Fans are so different, hardcore fans of old, male, very intense. Billy Corgan recounts tale of playing “Entre Nous” to his mom, as a way to reach out to her. Jack Black: “They had honesty and integrity, which was in short supply.” Christopher Schreberger, fan (yes, they interviewed fans for this DVD too, but only a few), noted that “Subdivisions” really related to him – because he lived in a subdivision (ooohhh – aaaahhhh). Terry Date was the fourth member of Rush. Peter Colilns, a pop producer, was brought in for the next album, Grace Under Pressure. Neil: “No protective nature of what Rush was.” Alex” “Hard to work with keyboards on Power windows.” Geddy: Hold Your Fire pushed them far away from Rush. Rupert Hine brought them back to power trio mode. Counterparts had more hair on it. Â Neil worked with Freddie Gruber on jazz drumming for a Buddy Rich tribute that meant re-learning the motion of the hands and feet of drumming. Taps drums two ways. Neil turned grip around. Test For Echo. “Ghost Rider.” When Neil suffered a double tragedy, they were so worried about him, he disappeared on a road trip, friends and family formed a network to update each other as to when they’d hear from him. Alex lost interest in music as well even, for one year not picking up his instrument at all. Landscapes, highways and wildlife revived Peart. The band have 6,000 nicknames for each other, he sent lifelines signed as one or the other of these nicknames. Had to stop moving before he could think about doing it again. Slow process to get his chops back. Pure and truthful energy on Vapour Trails. Amazed at the Sao Paolo show, when 60,000 fans showed up. The band appeared on the Colbert Report, interviewed and supported by a new generation of entertainers as the real thing. “The people have generally, consistently voted for them.” Billy Corgan very intelligent comments. Geddy reading The Sound And The Fury on a flight (brave man, I couldn’t get into it at all). “We had our own stream, and it wasn’t the main one, but it wasn’t too far away,” Â says Geddy Lee. Nonetheless, they actually have a devoted following, people turn their kids on to Rush. “There’s a comfort to know that those same three guys are out there. It’s also special to see three guys who can tolerate each other after all these years and make good music,” says Les Claypool. “They’re on a righteous path,” Trent Reznor.
The extras are also very good: Long scenes of reminiscing around the Fisherville Junior High School, running greaser gauntlet at the bus stop, built snow man on the front lawn, rode a bike because it was the only mode of transport. Riding around Toronto. First time back to The Coffin since their gig there. Gas station Geddy used to work at. Pantzer’s now Anton’s. Les Claypool first concert was Rush, Hemispheres tour, Pat Travers Band opened up, he was 14 years old. All of Hemispheres was recorded a semi-tone too high for Geddy’s voice. Alex plays golf on days off. “Birds chirping, horses neighing, bones cracking. Golf is about tempo and rhythm and not trying too hard, not getting in the way of your swing, much like playing an instrument, just let your instinct take over and play.” Geddy collects art, baseballs – players and presidents. Neil – model car building, cycling, reading. Motorcycles. Practicing throwing stick up in the air. Rush Con 7 – Rush trekkies. Rush karaoke and Guitar Hero. Guy with Queens of the Stone Age t-shirt. “Kim Mitchell, Helix and Rush, nice camera, eh,” that must be the directors improvising. Alex doing ole honkin’ blues in a backstage warm-up. “Working Man” with John Rutsey at a high school show doing the intros from behind the drum kit, great, except for Alex’s music notes shirt. Groovy “La Villa Strangiata” cuts, off funky intro. Dedicated “Between The Sun And Moon” to John Entwistle, first time they ever played it, in 2002. Twelve minutes of dinner conversation with Rush. Geddy calls Alex “Lerx” in conversation. “I’ve got my notepad here.” Neil’s drunken laugh. Alex playing a Telecaster, looking very David Gilmour. Commentary on Neil Peart’s outrageous mustaches.
I am happy that this movie exists, for people like me to remember what a great band this is, and to set the record straight. This is also an important movie for the masses, Rush fans and non-fans alike – people who are not Rush fans and are perplexed why their friends like Rush so much, for example, watch the movie and they finally get it.
At the same time, however, I’m confused why this film was made. Here you’ve got guys who have everything – they have fame, they have fortune, they have friendship, they have a massive fan base, they have achieved anything a musician can achieve (except, maybe, admission into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, whatever that means); they are private people; why do they need this? Did they agree to do this for the fans? Â The fans know everything that there is to know about Rush anyway, much more than is in this movie. Were they somehow talked into going along with this? Is Rush Corporation at a stage in their development where they need to take it to the next level, finally, or it’s never ever going to happen? Everyone’s getting older, of course. Were they astounded by the success of the Anvil movie and wondered why they never thought of it earlier? Â Some of the aspects of this film do have the appearances of contract publishing – the band has so much brutal honesty, and they seem like guys with very little to hide, that you can’t suspect that the documentarians went easy on them, but it’s still a perplexing piece of work in some ways. It’s amazing, really.
Finally, I’m further convinced at how important the song “Limelight” is to the band and its fans. It provides the lyrical reference to the DVD’s title, the band is often quoting it (Neil notes the relevance of “I can’t pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend” at one point in the video). I am confirmed, also, in my belief that it is justified beyond just personally liking it for it to be my favorite Rush song.
The packaging is pretty good, with beautiful pics all across the outer case, a huge concert pic from the inside package, pics of the guys in their younger days, and a gorgeous full-colour 12-page booklet.
