bongo fury (1975) –zappa/beefheart mothers: discreet records, ds-2234

History has this neat little quirk where often times there will be several key players in the same field, at the same time, in the same general area. Hector and Achilles, Newton and Leibniz, Gaugin and Van Gogh, Mussolini and Hitler, the Beatles and the Stones, Watson and Crick. You get the idea. For some reason life’s currents seem to bring like-minded people doing the same thing together. Sort of like how convergent evolution sees two different populations independently evolve similar traits in order to adapt to similar environmental situations. The dorsal fin of sharks and porpoises is an example.

So, we really ought not to be surprised that fate would throw both Don Van Vliet and Frank Zappa together in the desert outskirts of Southern California back in the late 50’s. Nor that these two would bond over a shared taste in music and eventually become two of the pillars of experimental rock.

The story of Frank and Don is as old as time itself: two awkward teens bond over a shared affinity for blues and r&b and dream about becoming musicians. Both eventually achieve their goal, but their careers take different trajectories, and they grow apart. Finally, they come together one last time and create something that brings out the best in both, but which also marks the effective end of their friendship.

That’s the very brief, and very superficial story of Bongo Fury, which was recorded during a couple of live performances featuring Zappa and Captain Beefheart (Van Vliet). And to paraphrase an old saying, the candle that burns with two searing flames, burns only half as long.

Side 1: Debra Kadabra Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top Poofter’s Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead 200 Years Old
Side 2: Cucamonga Advance Romance Man With The Woman Head Muffin Man

Beefheart first appeared with Zappa on Hot Rats, providing the vocals for Willie the Pimp, but otherwise the two only collaborated behind the scenes, with Zappa acting as producer for some of Beefheart’s stuff. Except, of course, for this album.

There are many stories about how Zappa and Beefheart had their falling out, including tales of friction during the recording of the epic Trout Mask Replica album. However, regardless of why the two grew apart, it’s a sad thing, because this album really showed how good they could be if they ever managed to find a way to get together.

For all of their shared history, common background, and early influence, Zappa and Beefheart’s music was quite different. Beefheart was more beat poetry, while Zappa was more cohesive structure. And this difference is quite evident in Bongo Fury, where the styles are almost as distinctly identifiable with one of the other as water is from air. Debra Kadabra, Sam With The Showing-Scalp Flat Top, and Man With The Woman Head are clearly more Beefheart, while the rest are unequivocally Zappa. Only Poofter's Froth comes off as an actual collaboration.

But that’s really oversimplifying things, because the Zappa-ness of the music is present on the “Beefheart” songs. Even during the jazzy coffee-house music behind the Beefheart spoken word Sam or Man With The Woman Head the music is unmistakably Zappa, down to the trumpet farts and guitar noodling.

In the end, as I was listening this time, I came to feel that as good as Bongo Fury is (and it really is a spectacular album), it suffers from this disjointed quality. The Zappa songs Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy and 200 Years, show a clear relationship to the more guitar-rock centered stuff found on the albums Over-Nite Sensation and Apostrophe (‘). Advance Romance provides a foreshadowing of the upcoming Zoot Allures, sounding very much like the fraternal twin of The Torture Never Stops. Meanwhile, Muffin Man actually predicts the end of Joe's Garage. Yet, the addition of the Beefheart material – particularly the spoken word interludes – makes the ride just a bit too bumpy. In fact, support for the notion that this album is really a distinct collection of Zappa stuff and Beefheart stuff is given by the anecdotal stories that during the performances, Beefheart would actually be sitting off on the side of the stage, scribbling sketches or smoking during the Zappa-centric songs. Come to think of it, the alleged conflict between the two would go a long way to explaining the awkward cover photo where the two men share a table in obvious discomfort.

But that doesn’t mean the Beefheart addition is bad, or ruins the album. Far from it. One just wonders whether the Beefheart element would have been integrated with more elegance into the Zappa element if the two were on better terms. Because, as both Debra Kadabra and Poofter’s Froth showed, adding a little Beefheart to Zappa (and vice versa) could be sublime.

Up next: Just another band from East LA

beggars banquet (1968) – the rolling stones: london records, ps-539

The late 60’s were a busy time for the Rolling Stones. Think about it for a moment: they were at the height of their “competition” with the Beatles for being the most important band in the world. They were considered the enfants terrible of rock for no other reason than the fact they wrote the song Satisfaction that had (gasp!) suggestive lyrics, and perhaps also because they were much uglier than the Beatles.

However, they were prolific. Between 1964 and 1967 they averaged two albums a year, with all except their debut finding their way in the top-5 on the US charts (the debut hit 11). That they did so by avoiding the sort of cutesy-pop sound of other British Invasion groups like Herman’s Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, and the Kinks (and the Beatles), focusing instead on gritty, gnarly, hardscrabble blues and American roots music makes their accomplishment even more impressive.

However, both their prolificacy and adherence to American roots ended when they put out Their Satanic Majesties Request, which not only took a very long time (by Stones’ standards) to record, but was also really just a hot mess of forced pseudo-psychedelic claptrap, intended to be an answer to Sgt. Pepper’s. Even Mick Jagger noted that, “there’s a lot of rubbish on Satanic Majesties.”

Which might explain why their follow-up in 1968 marked a deliberate return to the more basic blues/roots based music without the pointless decorations of artificial psychedelic arglebargle. Beggars Banquet not only signaled that the Stones knew what their music was, but that they were embracing it without reservation. It also was the start of a string of five incredible freaking albums, starting with Beggars Banquet and culminating with Goat's Head Soup, which finally proved that from 1968 to 1973 the Stones were, without doubt, the most important band in the world, beating the Beatles, the Who, Led Zeppelin, and all others.

Side 1: Sympathy For The Devil No Expectations Dear Doctor Parachute Woman Jigsaw Puzzle
Side 2: Street Fighting Man Prodigal Son Stray Cat Blues Factory Girl Salt Of The Earth

Beggars Banquet is really an astounding album. The groovy bongo-fueled Caribbean vibe of Sympathy for the Devil segues into the slide-guitar cowboy atmosphere of No Expectations, and from there it just keeps going touching on country, rock, honky-tonk, folk, and more. For a band that didn’t stray very far from traditional American roots they sure did have a wide range.

Of course, this indulgence in American music isn’t for everyone, and it certainly wasn’t for my 10th grade self. Sure, I already knew (and loved) Sympathy and Street Fighting Man, but by the time I got to Jigsaw Puzzle on side one, I started to wonder if I’d made a mistake in buying an entire album just for two songs. Then a funny thing happened: I heard side two with it's more nuanced impression of traditional American music, and more importantly, bits and pieces of all the songs continued to stick with me. The bluesy bridge from Parachute Woman and the chorus from Factory Girl became something of an earworm. By the time I went through my third listen the album hooked me – countrified slide guitar and theatrical nasally cowboy whine-singing and all.

Which makes the gatefold photo, of the lads dressed as Victorian English lords wallowing in gluttonous hedonism sort of incongruous.  But whatever.  It was the 60's after all.

(Cantankerous Old Coot Rant: Here’s reason #746 why the late 70’s/early 80’s were way better than today: there were scores of record stores all over the place selling tons of absolute kick-ass used albums for dirt cheap. For example, I picked up Beggars Banquet when I was 10th grade from a used record store for only a few bucks (about $9 after adjusting for inflation). A couple of weeks back I was in one of the very rare used record stores still around and saw a previously-owned copy of this same album. It cost $35. End Rant)

Now that I am older and somewhat more catholic in my musical tastes, I have a greater appreciation for the depth of the music and influences on this album, and much less prejudice toward genres to which I normally do not listen. In particular, I noted the remarkable subversive nature of the music, given the state of the world at the time. Remember, 1968 was the height of international protests both in the US and Europe. It was when MLK and RFK were both gunned down by savage geeks; when North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive; when Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave the black power salute at the Olympics, and when Nixon was elected. Yet, while musically Beggars Banquet featured safe blues and country, almost all of the songs carry subversion within the lyrics. In the context of the day, even Factory Girl comes off as a direct confrontation of the status quo.

The test of music, of course, is how well it holds up regardless of context. A good song will remain as listenable, enjoyable, and lyrically relevant today as it was when it was first recorded. It’s that timeless quality that separates, say, Get Up, Stand Up from Pass The Dutchie, or Solsbury Hill from Sussudio. By this measure, Beggars Banquet is a classic album, and after finishing this listen, I felt a solid sense of appreciation that I didn’t the first time I listened to it, all those years ago.

Up Next: I was told there would be bongos.

beauty and the beat (1981) – go-go’s: irs records, sp-70021

Me telling you that male performers dominate rock is about as revelatory as me telling you water is wet. For every Heart there are dozens (if not hundreds) of Aerosmiths.  The punk revolution of the late 70's and early 80's helped reduce gender imbalance somewhat as the shift in the musical landscape brought all-girl or female-led bands like the Slits, the Pretenders, Nina Hagen, the Runaways, Blondie, Lene Lovich, the Plasmatics, Siouxie and the Banshees, Cyndi Lauper, the Waitresses, Josie Cotton, Kim Wilde, Berlin, and Missing Persons and many more than I can list.  And all of them found at least a decent level success.

But perhaps no single band encapsulated the gestalt of the advance of Grrrl Power in music more succinctly than the Go-Go’s.

Today we remember the Go-Go’s as a simple bubblegum band - sort of like the female version of the Archies.  What we forget is that these were women with serious cred. Belinda Carlisle (lead vocals) made her bones playing drums for the Germs (under the name Dottie Danger) before providing backup vocals for Black Randy and the Metro Squad (please, if nothing else, go listen to I Slept In An Arcade, right now!). Kathy Valentine (bass) got her start playing with the British female metal group Girlschool. And lead guitar player Charlotte Caffey began as the bassist with local LA punk band The Eyes.

Clearly, these women were not dilettantes. These were serious, hard, OG, bona fide punk rock chicks. Which makes the fact that the Go-Go’s ended up as anything but a serious, hard, OG, bona fide punk rock group somewhat odd. Especially when one considers that the Go-Go’s started out as a serious, hard, OG, bona fide punk band, often billed with serious, hard, OG, bona fide punk rock acts like X, Fear, and the Plugz. But when Charlotte joined on guitar they began to develop their signature new wave power-pop sound, and found a level of success that eluded the serious, hard, OG, bona fide punk bands like X, Fear, and the Plugz.

Beauty And The Beat was their 1981 debut, and is one of those truly eruptive albums. It seemed to come out of nowhere and wound up everywhere overnight. It was like a musical-ebola outbreak or something. It struck the sort of pop culture nerve that bands like the Plimsouls could never manage, reaching number 1 on the Billboard album charts, and spawning two hit singles in Our Lips Are Sealed, and We Got The Beat. It was also the first album by an all-woman band in which the women played their own instruments, wrote all their own songs, and hit number 1 on the Billboard charts.  Grrrl Power, indeed!

Side 1: Our Lips Are Sealed How Much More Tonight Lust To Love This Town
Side 2: We Got The Beat Fading Fast Automatic You Can’t Walk In Your Sleep (If You Can’t Sleep) Skidmarks On My Heart Can’t Stop The World

Now, I probably heard every song off  Beauty And The Beat a hundred times before I actually bought it back in ’81, because, as I mentioned, it was every-freaking-where, especially in LA. It was a staple at high school parties; at least five of the songs got massive and regular airplay on KROQ; it was on regular rotation at shopping malls where boys could go watch the Hot Dog On A Stick girls make lemonade in time to the music; no school dance would be complete without at least one Go-Go’s song; and one would hear it playing in cars as they drove by, or on radios or cassette players on the beach.

In fact, to this day I simply cannot hear We Got The Beat without immediately being transported back to the volleyball courts on Toes Beach in 1981. With good reason. Not only did this thing explode during that magnificent summer before my senior year in high school, it was also the perfect 80’s beach song, much as Surfin’ USA was a fantastic 60’s beach song, and Don’t Stop was a great 70’s beach song.

Besides, one needs to remember, that the Go-Go’s were an LA band. Not just a band from LA, but an LA band (if you grok what I mean). And even though people in other parts of the US could listen and enjoy and be fans, the Go-Go’s were ours, not yours, in the same way that the Ramones belonged to Queens, or the movie Dazed and Confused belonged to Austin. It didn’t matter that only Belinda and Charlotte were SoCal girls – the Go-Go’s were quintessentially LA, and they provided an idealized version of SoCal to the country: pretty girls, carefree life, sunshine, tans, endless summer and non-stop partying.  This was probably best exemplified by the Our Lips Are Sealed video in which the girls go cruising along in a vintage, peach, Olds convertible selling the SoCal dream to the punters in the midwest (and let's face it, having the telegenic Belinda splash around in that fountain at the end didn't hurt!):

The real accomplishment was they were able to sell this fantasy of LA even while openly acknowledging what a hollow and superficial place it is in the song This Town:

Change the lines that were said before,
We're all dreamers - we're all whores
Discarded stars like worn out cars
Litter the streets of This town

This town is our town,
It is so glamorous,
Bet you'd live here if you could
And be one of us 

Yeah, that's pretty cold right there. It's rubbing it in the faces of the poor slobs in Nebraska, Maine, Minnesota, etc by admitting that even though LA might be a cesspool of plastic people and crushed dreams, it's still better than where they live. Harsh.

Unfortunately, that hollow and superficial angle is what really stood out for me during this listen. Aside from Automatic, all of these songs are basically interchangeable. The fact that We Got The Beat and Our Lips Are Sealed became hits while How Much More, This Town, and You Can’t Walk In Your Sleep didn’t seems more a matter of a coin flip than anything else. Not only that, but during this listen I found the bouncy, perky, sparkly songs on the album showing their age in the same way that the bouncy, perky, sparkly me of the 80’s is now showing my age. This album is clearly a child of its time, and now may only really be suited for purposes of nostalgia for salty old bastards like me, or for kitschy 80's-themed parties that stupid millennial hipster douchebag kids seem to think are ironically cool (oh, and stay off my lawn).

Yet even though the songs now just run into one another and I find it hard to locate any significant substance within them, I have to admit I was smiling as this played. Because everything else aside, this album is still fun and it is still music that calls to mind pretty girls, carefree life, sunshine, tans, endless summer and non-stop partying.

You know, rock and roll.

Up Next: You are cordially invited …

bat out of hell (1977) – meat loaf: epic records, pe-34974

In many ways, Bat Out Of Hell is the quintessential Rock Opera because the hyper-exaggerated melodrama upon which the art of opera is built extends well beyond the actual tracks on the record. The arias started before the recording began and the fat lady’s singing continued long after the album hit the stores and started getting airplay. From concept through creation, from marketing and into legacy, Bat Out Of Hell isn’t just the ultimate Rock Opera, it’s also the ultimate Rock Meta-Opera.

Bat Out Of Hell's story is so incredibly bizarre that it really ought to have been sung by Caruso. Briefly: Jim Steinman fancied himself a bit of an auteur, having been involved in annoyingly “artistic” experimental musical theater since the 60’s. You know, the sort where one sees a man in a white suit playing a piano engulfed in flame, whilst a dancer covered in blood convulses in a grotesque charade of sexual innuendo around a cabbage. Yeah, that sort of thing.

Anyway, Steinman got it into his head that he wanted to write a rock opera about some motorcycle dude who ends up a grease-spot on the road. The entire story happens during those very brief moments between crash and death, wherein our intrepid motorcycle dude hero relives key moments in his relationship with his main squeeze, only to eventually die and wind up in hell.

Or something like that.

Now, fate had it that Steinman had met Meat Loaf during a National Lampoon travelling show (yes, this is true), and Steinman immediately realized that this long-haired, over-fed ogre would be the ideal front man for his motorcycle dude hero. Meat liked the idea very much, and eventually the two of them ended up trying to pitch the album to record companies by going in person and auditioning some songs live. Imagine that for a moment … you’re a record exec and you get an insufferable “artist” and a very large man in your office screaming pretentious rock arias at you. Needless to say, it didn’t work.

Until they met Todd Rundgren, that is. Rundgren saw the absurdity and the creativity in the two, and ultimately shepherded the album through the recording process.

But the drama doesn’t stop there. Once recorded there was a question of ego. The label felt that Meat Loaf should be the name on the album – it was catchy, short, and very memorable. Steinman, however, felt slighted because the album really was his creation. The spat eventually had an unsatisfactory resolution with the addition of a lesser credit,  “Songs by Jim Steinman” printed in very fine, light, and small font along the bottom.  Trust me, it's there.  Look very closely and you can see it.

And with that, Bat Out Of Hell was finally released.

Side 1: Bat Out Of Hell Your Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night) Heaven Can Wait All Revved Up With No Place To Go
Side 2: Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad Paradise By The Dashboard Light Paradise Let Me Sleep On It Praying For The End Of Time For Crying Out Loud

My introduction to Bat Out Of Hell came unexpectedly while I was settled in to watch Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert late one Friday night.

(Side note for the kids out there: Back in the 70’s we didn’t have MTV, but instead had these shows like Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, which were anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes long and featured either filmed or mock-live performances by bands.)

To continue: I was watching Rock Concert when the video for Paradise started. My first reaction was excitement, because I recognized Meat Loaf from his role as Eddy on Rocky Horror Picture Show. And then the song started, and I was blown away. For a 14 year old kid, Paradise was deep, man. It combined Springsteen-like music with clever lyrics and told the story of a dude who would do just about anything to get laid, only to have some serious regrets about it later. Plus, the video had Karla DeVito in a skin-tight white leotard lip-synching to Ellen Foley’s singing, and I thought Karla was smoking hot.

Let’s recap: there’s a video with Eddy from RHPS and an incredible sexy Karla DeVito singing a long, complicated song about teenage lust. So I ask you, what choice did I have? How could I not get the album?

And so I did, back in 1978. And I’ve listened to it many times since then. And did it again just last night. And it’s still good for all the wrong reasons. By any objective measure, Bat Out Of Hell is a horrible album.  The lyrics are the kind of self-absorbed bad poetry found in leather-bound journals of surly teenagers suffering from suburban angst and are often too clever by half. I mean, get a load of this back-and-forth opening from You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth:

[Boy:] On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
[Girl:] Will he offer me his mouth?
[Boy:] Yes.
[Girl:] Will he offer me his teeth?
[Boy:] Yes.
[Girl:] Will he offer me his jaws?
[Boy:] Yes.
[Girl:] Will he offer me his hunger?
[Boy:] Yes.
[Girl:] Again, will he offer me his hunger?
[Boy:] Yes!
[Girl:]And will he starve without me?
[Boy:] Yes!
[Girl:] And does he love me?
[Boy:] Yes.
[Girl:] Yes.
[Boy:] On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
[Girl:] Yes.
[Boy:] I bet you say that to all the boys!

Okay, now imagine this done by two kids in a Sophomore seminar in enhanced emoting during recitation, and you’ll just begin to get an idea of how agonizing the lyrics can be.

Meanwhile, the music tends to follow a formula of multiple false-endings, in-song time-signature shifts, and soaring grandiosity typical of stuff where the sheer volume and weight of the pomposity is intended to hide a lack of real quality.  Now, some have compared Steinman's work on Bat Out of Hell with Springsteen's work on his first three albums.  Now, while there are similarities in the structure and arrangements, Springsteen was in love with the Big Rock Band sound, while Steinman seems is more in love with theatrics that is so far over-the-top that it’s actually bumping up against the bottom.

In short, Bat Out of Hell (and, by extension, Jim Steinman) takes itself way too seriously.  And normally that would be a fatal flaw. But here’s the thing: despite the juvenile emotional catharsis of it all and the nauseating posing, Bat Out Of Hell is saved by the fact that at its heart it’s genuine, and not just pretense. In short, Bat Out Of Hell works because it really is ars gratia artis – art for art’s sake. And that forgives the sins of laughably smug lyrics and indulgent music.

So yes, during this listen I found that even though Bat Out Of Hell is a complete clusterfuck, at the same time it’s simply sublime. And album that is unintentionally comical, but also genuine in its depth. Something so godawfully bad it is a masterpiece.

Well done, Mr. Steinman. Well done.

Up Next: Power-Pop Grrrls!

an evening wasted with tom lehrer (1959) – tom lehrer: reprise records 1966 reissue, r-6199

Political satire has a tradition going back to the times of the court jester pointing out the foibles of the ruling class through the guise of jokes. Writers like Chaucer and Boccacio in the 14th century, Cervantes in the 16th century, Swift, Voltaire, and Fielding in the 17th and 18th centuries established an institution of telling the truth using oblique means.

America also has a very rich history of satirists holding up a magnifying glass to speak to the hypocrisy of government leaders. In the 19th and 20th centuries men like Mark Twain and Will Rogers were adept at laying bare the absurdity of government through the surgical use of humor and story-telling.

Now a truism of political satire is that it is a reaction to the current powers that be. During the Eisenhower years (when this was recorded) America was at the height of the Cold War, and reactionary anti-communist sentiment in the form of McCarthyism, as well as a conservative resistance to things like civil rights were rampant, so satirists at that time tended to be liberal. Makes sense. After all, context is everything.

And it also makes it the perfect environment and time for a young, pointy-headed, New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, socialist summer camps, father with the Ben Shahn drawings, strike-oriented, red-diaper type* to make his mark.

You know, someone like Tom Lehrer and his debut album An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer.

Side 1: Poisoning Pigeons In The Park Bright College Days A Christmas Carol The Elements Oedipus Rex In Old Mexico
Side 2: Clementine It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier She’s My Girl The Masochism Tango We Will All Go Together When We Go

A bit of personal background is probably in order at this point. In the 3rd grade my best friend’s mom was the perfect result of the social revolution of the 60’s. She was young, single (widowed), intelligent, independent, liberal in her attitude, and was bringing up two boys with the help of her mother, who lived with them. All of this made her very dangerous for a suburban mom simply because she was not the same as every other suburban mom. In short, she was exactly the sort of person who would own an album like this. And we would listen to this repeatedly whenever we were over there.

We loved Tom Lehrer songs. They were funny, clever, catchy, and even as a kid I could tell there was a definite layer of something dangerous and seditious lurking somewhere beneath them. I mean, leaving aside the clearly impolite aspects of Poisoning Pigeons In The Park or the geek-tasticness of The Elements that even an 8-year old could grasp, the subversive nature of songs like Oedipus Rex and It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier filtered through. And even if I didn’t quite entirely get it, I still “got” it. If you know what I mean.

While the very nature of listening to all of my albums is nostalgic, this listen was special because it reached back to the very beginning of my musical awareness. It really is one of the first actual albums to which I would listen all the way through. In fact, probably the only album that I can recall preceding this one is Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron featuring such kid songs as On Top Of Spaghetti. But this one was different. Tom Lehrer was adult music, not kid music, and it tackled some heady stuff. In many ways I think that this may well have helped shape my current frame of mind and social values.

I suppose the unanswered (and likely unanswerable) question is whether I grew up to be a liberal atheistic tree-hugging pacifist because I liked Tom Lehrer as a kid, or if I liked Tom Lehrer because even as a kid I was a liberal atheistic tree-hugging pacifist.

Up Next: What if Rocky Horror wasn’t a musical comedy?

*Yes, I know it’s wonderful reducing someone to a base cultural stereotype. I admit I am a bigot, but I’m a bigot for the left, so it’s okay.