Month: May 2007

5. rockcritics.com

On 31 January 2002, almost a dozen years since I’d last seen anything published by Paul Nelson, I posted a public query to the Elliott Murphy mailing list:

Does anybody know what ever happened to rock critic Paul Nelson? 

Within the hour, some kind soul directed me to rockcritics.com. Almost two years earlier, in March of 2000, the website had published an extensive interview with the elusive critic. Written by Steven Ward, a staff writer for The Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the article was appropriately titled “What Ever Happened to Rock Critic Paul Nelson?”

“I never heard of Paul Nelson until 1990,” Ward remembered last year. “I was 22 and a friend had given me a Christmas present — a prized possession then and now. The present was Kurt Loder’s Bat Chain Puller, a book collection of my favorite music writer’s articles from Rolling Stone.” In the acknowledgments, among the many individuals Loder thanked, was “the legendary Paul Nelson.” “So I immediately hit my college library, attacked the microfilm machine, and started looking through old issues of Rolling Stone. I started reading everything Nelson had written. It was unbelievable stuff — especially his long cover feature on Warren Zevon from the early Eighties that zeroed in on the songwriter’s demons with alcohol.”

Ward made a promise to himself to track down Paul Nelson — something that wouldn’t happen until late 1999.

The resultant interview marked the first of what has become, thanks to the Canadian music writer Scott Woods, rockcritics.com, a treasure trove of articles and interviews devoted to critics (not all of them rock & roll). And Steven Ward’s piece stands as the definitive Paul Nelson interview.

Everything Is an Afterthought draws from subsequent, previously unpublished interview material with Paul to explore the many whats and whys raised by Ward’s excellent article.

Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

5. rockcritics.com

On 31 January 2002, almost a dozen years since I’d last seen anything published by Paul Nelson, I posted a public query to the Elliott Murphy mailing list:

Does anybody know what ever happened to rock critic Paul Nelson? 

Within the hour, some kind soul directed me to rockcritics.com. Almost two years earlier, in March of 2000, the website had published an extensive interview with the elusive critic. Written by Steven Ward, a staff writer for The Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the article was appropriately titled “What Ever Happened to Rock Critic Paul Nelson?”

“I never heard of Paul Nelson until 1990,” Ward remembered last year. “I was 22 and a friend had given me a Christmas present — a prized possession then and now. The present was Kurt Loder’s Bat Chain Puller, a book collection of my favorite music writer’s articles from Rolling Stone.” In the acknowledgments, among the many individuals Loder thanked, was “the legendary Paul Nelson.” “So I immediately hit my college library, attacked the microfilm machine, and started looking through old issues of Rolling Stone. I started reading everything Nelson had written. It was unbelievable stuff — especially his long cover feature on Warren Zevon from the early Eighties that zeroed in on the songwriter’s demons with alcohol.”

Ward made a promise to himself to track down Paul Nelson — something that wouldn’t happen until late 1999.

The resultant interview marked the first of what has become, thanks to the Canadian music writer Scott Woods, rockcritics.com, a treasure trove of articles and interviews devoted to critics (not all of them rock & roll). And Steven Ward’s piece stands as the definitive Paul Nelson interview.

Everything Is an Afterthought draws from subsequent, previously unpublished interview material with Paul to explore the many whats and whys raised by Ward’s excellent article.

Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

Almost all that’s on my mind lately is the book. …

Almost all that’s on my mind lately is the book. With that in mind, here’s the first random 10 songs from my iPod when I hit shuffle.

  1. The Mountain Goats – “Pale Green Things” (The Sunset Tree)
    This is the kiss-off final track from The Sunset Tree, a downer of a song cycle (so says the author of the forthcoming 33 1/3 book Shoot Out The Lights) about, presumably, John Darnielle’s abusive step-father. The elegaic feel of this song, both a curse and promise, is unbelievably poignant, a way of making a semi-fond farewell to someone hated more than loved. The lyrics talk of a trip to the racetrack, and end with these lines: “My sister called at 3 a.m./Just last december/She told me how you’d died at last, at last/And that morning at the race track was one thing I remembered/I turned it over in my mind/like a living chinese finger trap/seaweed and Indiana sawgrass.” My poetry professor used to say that most song lyrics are doggerel made more meaningful by the way they are sung, and I think he was mostly correct about this. This is the exception.
  2. The Embarrassment – “Song For Val” (Blister Pop)
    Just over a minute of a poorly recorded little punk anthem. “I don’t care for old people,” goes the lyric.
  3. Dinosaur Jr – “Start Choppin'” (Where You Been)
    Man, this is a surprising collection of songs! This is a post-Lou power-pop song layered with a couple of dozen J. Mascis guitars. I’m not a huge fan of later Dinosaur Jr, but this is one of the keepers.
  4. The Mountain Goats – “Woke Up New” (From a free eMusic Pitchfork Festival sampler)
    This song also appears on Get Lonely, which I also have, so hey, it’s a duplicate and I can delete it to make room for new music. Yay! I must have my random factor set to be more likely to repeat artists, because I can’t believe I’d have enough Mountain Goats out of the 4,178 songs currently stored on my iPod to bring them up twice in the first five songs otherwise. Get Lonely is an ok album, but the lyrics never rise to the poetic heights of the previous few albums and the artiface of the songs actually seems to distance me from Darnielle’s characters, rather than drawing me towards them, also unlike the 2-3 immediately preceeding albums.
  5. Isis – “Backlit” (Panopticon)
    I think Darnielle, a metal fiend currently working on a 33 1/3 book on Master of Reality, would dig this transition. Isis plays trippy, expansive metal. I understand many of their longtime fans dislike this album, but I like it a lot, almost as much as the classic Oceanic. See, I love long post-rock tracks (meaning that the music relies on jazz-like textures and moves through suites rather than verse-chorus-verse structure), and this sounds like the metal version of that. As much as I like Isis, I wish they’d join Mastodon in dropping the cookie monster vocals, although I think that may be the primary way that metal fans identify Isis as a metal band these days. Did I mention that this song is nearly 8 minutes long and features as great stripped-back bridge part? Like it.
  6. Tom Ze – “Dulcineia Popular Brasileira” (Tom Ze)
    From the master of mindbending tropicalia, this is a somewhat unsuccessful early fusion of 60s-era radio pop with Ze’s distinctly odd sensibilities. There’s better examples of what Ze can do when he’s cooking with grease.
  7. Devendra Banhart – “Anchor” (Cripple Crow)
    A short burst of sweetness that may also be called “Canela”. I put this on a bedtime mix I made for my 2-yr-old.
  8. Bill Evans Trio – “Peace Piece” (Everybody Digs Bill Evans)
    I’m taking this as proof that my iPod would rather be laying in a shady hammock in a cool breeze. This track, a slow sort of ur-New Age ivory tinkling, but with, y’know, tons of heart (unlike George Winston, f’rinstance), always sounds like it should score the inevitable final compromise between the protagonists and antagonists in a Miyazaki flick.
  9. The Mekons – “Cocaine Lil” (Mekons Rock ‘N Roll)
    A spacey, sing-song tale of a coke addict. The lyrics read like a Victorian morality tale.
  10. Prince – “New Position” (Parade)
    Wow, I had no idea I had any songs from Parade in my iTunes at all. I’m completely unfamiliar with this song. It ain’t Prince at his maximum brilliance, though.

Dwight Makes Right

There’s too much good music out there to stop this pace now, so here’s another review of a recent music revelation!

Featuring one of the overlooked heroes of the power pop genre, this CD from Austrailia’s premeir reissue label Raven Records manages to salvage two mid-period albums from songwriter extraordinaire Dwight Twilley!

So, even though Twilley don’t mind, here goes:

Dwight Twilley – Twilley/Scuba Divers
Raven Records

Thanks to this Raven Records’ reissue, many fans of the oft-maligned subgenre of rock and roll known as power pop are finally seeing their musical dreams come true by having this reissue of one of the genre’s heroes brought back into the light of day from the proverbial dusty vault. Long a hero to people who worship Beatlesque melodies, Dwight Twilley has never really gotten his just due for being an influential icon to many bands of the ’80’s.

Enduring all of the myriad storied, almost cliched rock and roll problems, from record company indifference to flat-out being hustled by one of his labels, no doubt played a huge part in his close-but-no-cigar career. Thankfully, his handful of stellar albums keep his name alive in music circles. These are but two of his exquisite works of musical brilliance his fans keep bothering the labels about. If left to the suits, these two albums would be undoubtedly hidden forever.

And I know what you are going to say – so many worthy artists have the same troubled backstory. All I can say is Twilley’s had it way worse. Let me put it in perspective for you: the only difference between Twilley’s tale and what happened to the group Badfinger is the amount of dead bodies.

After years of neglect, two of Twilley’s most sought-after recordings are finally seeing the light of day after languishing in the dusty record company vaults!

While not worshipped quite as much as his first two albums on Shelter Records, these two albums nonetheless contain some of the most consistent of Twilley’s work and should have been huge if only the labels had put the proper effort into promotion. And, remember: up to the point of these two recordings, Twilley had suffered the kind of career neglect that would have ruined most other recording artists.

Starting his career on Shelter Records, Twilley and his longtime partner in power-pop crime Phil Seymour had a monster hit with the song I’m On Fire. Combining Twilley and Seymour’s two great musical loves, The Beatles and Sun Records-era rockabilly, that song (and more than a few of their other great tunes) benefitted greatly from a curious and ear-pleasing combination of modern pop craft and slapback echo which would both end up being bedrock elements of Twilley’s music.

Along with well-crafted pop songs, of course.

Despite the song’s massive success, problems at the label kept Twilley from following it up and a new album did not arrive until 18 months later! Soon a pattern would emerge: singles would come out and flop due to poor distribution and promotion and albums would finally come out long after these great singles would come and go, scuttling sales and keeping Twilley from getting the breakthrough he deserved.

Eventually, Seymour (who had been a part of Twilley’s musical career since they met in 1967) decided it would be best if the two of them split and followed their own career paths. One could hardly blame Seymour for leaving his friend. Twilley’s name was front and center and the albums weren’t selling anyway, despite scads of great songs and killer hooks.

So, Twilley embarked on his first solo album totally solo, except for his brilliant resident guitar player and band lynchpin Bill Pitcock IV. Pitcock had been an early member of Twilley’s band and decided it was still worth it to keep his scintillating guitar work in the Twilley fold. Even so, for the most part, Twilley was on his own.

Not that you could always tell.

Thanks to Twilley and Seymour stockpiling several hundred songs (it’s true – from the days from the early ’70’s when they called their musical partnership Oister up until they went their seperate ways the two had cranked out pop songs like a machine) the album “Twilley” reaped the benefit of several of these tracks. Once again, if only for a few songs, Seymour and Twilley were reunited and the use of the tracks bridged the sound gap between Twiley’s old band and Twilley solo.

Typically for Twilley’s career, the album tanked even though it sounds fantastic.

Jumping to EMI for Scuba Divers did Twilley little good. Once again, there were problems with the album and it came out in a vastly different form than Twilley originally wanted. While still a nice pop confection, it was Twilley’s weakest album to date. Stalwart guitarist Pitcock was still on board but a lot of the life had been drained out of Twilley by this point. Songs seemed re-hashed and Twilley’s formerly bright energy was absent. He would soon find his groove again with his next album Jungle and last-ever hit “Girls” (featuring fellow former Shelter artist Tom Petty on background vocals) but Scuba Divers sank like a rock.

Although Twilley still manages to put out the occasional album today (including a great live set last year) for the most part his chances at having a big hit single and big selling album are over. Music freaks will forever wonder how a talent such as his met with so many disheartening obstacles when success seemed so close. Whatever the case, we still have Twilley’s music to enjoy, and thanks to these reissues, we have just a little bit more than we had before.

Hopefully the scads and scads of demos Twilley recorded with Seymour (who died in the early ’90’s due to lymphoma) will eventually come out. The real pop genius of Twilley is probably in those long-unheard tracks. Until then, we’ll have to make do with this. We, if not Twilley himself, are the lucky ones.

Lucky indeed, as Twiller DOES keep rolling on, letting these misfortunes roll of his back like rain. One of the genuinely nicest and most upbeat men in rock and roll, Twilley deserves as much success as he can get and hopefully one day will see his contributions to music rightfully honored. Until then, pick up some Twilley and see how power pop should be done.

The Music Nerd Don’t Mind……….

Missteps. I love missteps.

It’s bedtime. I’m in no condition to be writing IN MY WAAAAH IN MY WAAAAH IN MY BLOG. Here are some creative mistakes that bring a great big smile to my incredibly handsome face:

1. Illbient -  When you have a genre spearheaded by a man that subheads his already perfect-storm-of-stupid moniker with “That Subliminal Kidâ€Â, well, you have a pretentious (yet mercifully brief) movement that is deservedly slotted to wash through the cracks of music history, hopefully never to return. Say it to yourself: “ILLBIENTâ€Â “ILLBIENTâ€Â “ILLBIENTâ€Â

2. The Black Dahlia – It takes real talent to fuck up a story/book quite this bad. DePalma deserves to be locked in a room with the Yoko Ono boxed set!!! Un-f*cking-believable!!! I gave the seven foot tall “daddy-oâ€Â of noir James Ellroy a ride to the airport once. What a walking cartoon.

3. Paris, Texas – Wim Wenders is officially my OVERRATED DIRECTOR OF THE WEEK. Paris, Texas? Uh, I have shit to do this afternoon…can’t make it. â€ÂOh wow, watch how he utilizes space and silence!!â€Â Yeah, watch nothing happen for the sake of a flimsy story. Check Puh-leeeeeze!!! No more movies for people that f*ck to NPR!!!!

 

 

Four Seasons In One Day Or Down In The Valli

Back again my friends to the blog that never ends!

I am sure that each one of you in blog land has your musical “guilty pleasures.” You know, the band or artist that you love that probably would make your friends laugh because they are out of style or or are involved in a particular genre of music which is not considered “cool.” I will bravely step out on a limb and give you two of mine: The Bee Gees and The Four Seasons. While talents all, they don’t really come up too often on top ten lists or when people are asked to give their favorite bands of all time. Still, at one time or another, both of these bands were very, very popular and no one can deny their careers or their talent.

Today, I am going to talk about some recent reissues of some of the best of the Four Seasons’ albums and we’ll just forget I mentioned the Bee Gees at all, okay? Thanks…..

Four Seasons – Folk Nanny/Born To Wander
Four Seasons – Working My Way Back To You/The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette
Four Seasons – Reunited Live
Four Seasons – Streetfighter/Hope and Glory
Four Seasons – Half and Half/Helicon
Collector’s Choice

When contemplating the best bands in rock and roll history with an acquaintance or two, you’ll get a lot of interesting choices – from the popular to the obscure. You’ll get the obligatory Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC etc. and then you’ll get the slightly weirder choices like Badfinger, Raspberries, Atomic Rooster – that kind of thing. I can guarantee you’ll never hear the name Four Seasons when taking that kind of poll, despite all of their hits. Unfortunately looked upon as lightweight and a throwback to the Vegas-like showmanship of vocal groups like The Four Lads and their ilk due to their polished style and effortless harmonies, they are often looked upon as the Englebert Humperdincks and Robert Goulet’s of rock and roll.

And that’s just wrong for so mnay reasons!

After listening to a great deal of their output due to the new reissues listed above from Collector’s Choice, I’ve figured out there is way more to this group than most realize. A hit-making act from the early ’60’s all the way to the early ’80’s (the band has had some “re-mix” hits since but we won’t count those) lead singer Frankie Valli and the rest of the Seasons (who wrote most of their own hits thanks to member Bob Gaudio) epitomize streetcorner cool. A real Italian tough guy who is brazen enough to hit the highest, most feminine notes and dare you to say something about it, Valli (like Dion and Brian Wilson – two other extraordinary vocalists not afraid to sing in a high register) can floor you just as fast with his voice as with his fists. His “gang” of buddies are also no slouches in the vocal department, either. Their harmonies are gorgeous and the instrumental work on the album is always geared for the song but never maudlin or sappy.

That being said, both the early albums Folk Nanny and Born To Wander sound really dated to my ears. Not only does the stodgy folk material not lend itself to great treatment by these glorified doo-woppers, but the songs they have picked are pretty cliched. As the era of the Four Lads and Hi-Los were coming to an end, making a way for doo-wop and rock and roll, these albums seem meant to bridge the gap and carry the group from one audience to another. Sadly, those interested in the exciting pop sounds of the band will find little to like here as these sides are very restrained and tame. Folk fans may be disappointed as well as the songs are not really direct and powerful, the way the best folk music should be. These two albums can be described as Vegas folk and are for the die-hard fan only.

Working My Way Back To You is vintage Four Seasons. Containing the monster hit of the same name and several other hits, this album features the sound of the band as most remember it. Street corner tough guys working their modified doo-wop and blue-eyed R&B sound to perfection and scoring radio hits by the busload. This is one of their all-time classic albums and every fan of the band should definitely pick this one up. It is sure to provide a lot of trips down memory lane for people who were around in the ’60’s and listen to this.

In other words, sublime pop-soul music.

Paired with the album Working My Way Back To You is the weirdest album in the Four Seasons’ catalog and possibly one of the weirdest albums in all of pop music. At the time the concept album Genuine Imitation Life Gazette was recorded, psychedelic albums like The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds among many others were popping out every day as many musicians started to stretch the boundaries of rock and roll. Not wanting to be left behind and seen as old fogeys, the band decided to get with a young, hip songwriter and do a concept album. Grabbing Jake Holmes (the original writer of Led Zep’s Dazed and Confused before Page and Plant “borrowed” the song and “forgot” to put Holmes’ name on the credits) from the Greenwich Village folk scene, the band immediately hired Holmes to craft a concept album. To hear Valli and the rest of the Four Seasons try to stick with their vocal group style while singing over a weird melange of piano playing, psyche-guitar doodlings and mellotron madness is interesting to say the least.

Though certainly not their best work, the band gives it a college try and doesn’t come off too badly. In some circles (weird ones) this album is looked upon as a classic. I say: proceed with caution. There’s no hits on here and it strays far from the Four Seasons you’re used to hearing on the radio.

The albums Half and Half and Helicon were recorded almost a decade later, in the mid-70’s, during a period when Valli was trying to exit the group for a solo career, though, as albums, they sound quite cohesive despite Helicon not having much Valli on it. Half and Half is actually what the title implies: an album featuring half Frankie Valli solo material and half featuring Valli with the Four Seasons. Since Valli was the main vocalist for the group, the album doesn’t sound all that much different from a totally Four Seasons album.

That was really the problem with Valli’s solo career attempts as a whole. When he did do solo stuff it wasn’t really all that indistinguishable from the Four Seasons anyway. All of Valli’s solo hits would sound pretty much the same if he would have included the group on them. As it is, Half and Half is a fine album despite not having anything in the way of a hit on it. The band’s next album Helicon is a little weirder as Valli only has one solo lead on the whole album. By this time, Valli knew he was leaving the band for an extended period of time.

As the Four Seasons were gearing up for a tour to follow the album, the band needed to focus on a new lead singer as Valli wouldn’t be performing with them on the tour. Hence, Valli is featured mostly in the background and, except for the one song stated previously, has to share his leads with the two new singers in the band. While the new singers are fine, they’re not Frankie Valli and their voices are somewhat indistinguished and without the singular personality Valli’s voice conveys.

The album Reunited Live is exactly what it the title says it is: a rousing live document of the tour that saw Valli forego his solo career once and for all and join back up with the group instead of hedging his bets as he had done for years. The fact that Valli was way too old for a solo career by that point was notwithstanding – he had a good run for a couple of years thanks to the movie Grease and felt vindicated by his solo success, saw new wave coming and decided to get back with the group he never should have left. That the band really never had another hit is secondary – after a twenty year span full of hits their time as hitmakers had simply come to an end – nothing to be ashamed of, just ask Bob Dylan.

As a live document, this album stands with Frampton Comes Alive, at least, from the sound of the worshipful crowd. The group does not disappoint, giving the audience full versions of at least half their hits and short, medley versions of another fifteen or so chart toppers.

The band’s next two albums Streetfighter and Hope and Glory, recorded during the ’80’s, are mostly vanity enterprises albeit above average ones. You can’t blame the band for trying to score some hits, but the reuniting of the band in 1980 along with the successful tour and album was a fairy-tale ending that should have maybe been left as the ending. That said, for synth pop done for the most part by artists over 40, there’s a generous helping of quality stuff here and Valli’s voice soaring over a bank of synths (Valli’s voice soaring over anything is a beautiful thing) is definitely not the worst thing in the world.

It helps that the synths are programmed and played sympathetically and are not machine-like. Any Four Seasons/Valli fans will love these albums and most listeners would be surprised at how well the band adapts to the changing musical landscape and soundscape.

Those who have forgotten how much they loved the Four Seasons or for those who simply knew their name but not their sound would do well to pick up a couple (if not all) of these CDs and be transported to a time when great vocals didn’t depend on Auto-tune and electronic gizmos and great songs were common place. More than some of you will be surprised at the greatness of their work but the best thing is just listening to Valli’s voice coming through the speakers as if he was singing about you and your girl. Great stuff.

Along with Dion, Valli’s voice is one of the few that make me swoon the instant I hear it. The man could sing the phone book and I would be happy. Great stuff all in all, and well worth picking up if you are into 60’s and 70’s pop music.

Richmond –Peaches (What’s It All About)

Richmond –Peaches (What’s It All About)/Work For My Baby –Dart ART 2044 (1974 UK)

Good and strong 2-sider from Richmond. They also had an album out on Dart and at least one more single. I saw a mention that the album was folk, but this single, at least, is as far from folk as could be. Peaches is a medium-paced Glam cracker highlighted by some screeching dual Watkins Copicat delayed lead guitar. The catchy tune is a bit like one of those slower Glitter Band numbers and will surely ingrain itself into your brain. The B side ups the tempo and is a solid Boogie/Glam workout again with some great loud guitar chops.

Click on title for edits of Peaches and Work For My Baby

THE APOTHEOSIS OF PSR

That’d be “primitive sh** rockâ€Â, as discussed in this forum here and documented in amazing, glorious detail here. Well, my favorite PSR song of all time needs a fair hearing, too. This nasty, downer of a 60s garage track from THE MODDS came out on “American National Recordsâ€Â, but I’m a little unclear as to what date it came out – I’m guessing ’66. All you can hear is the scarily fuzzed-out guitar; slurred, I’ve-just-been-dosed vocals, and what appear to be maracas shakin’ in the background, but legend has it there’s actually an entire band lost in the murk there somewhere. What a friggin’ masterpiece. Deservedly resurrected by the CHEATER SLICKS on their “Whiskeyâ€Â LP in 1991.

Play or Download THE MODDS – “Leave My Houseâ€Â