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Covers
When the second edition of my book, "The L.A. Musical History Tour," was being prepared in mid-1998, I had an idea for a cover and described it to graphic artist Kathee Schneider. She came up with a whalloping rendering, which we submitted to the execs at 21361 Press. They liked it plenty, but went with another fine design.
So Kathee's effort doesn't get lost in the pages of time, here it is for posterity.
Click for Blow-up
Creepy Crit-ers
When I mentioned to Nick Sands, a friend from England, that Bobby Bland's "Two Steps From "The Blues"* was the best album ever made, he told me that a British blues reviewer is still living down his 1961 dismissal of it as "more like two HUNDRED steps from the blues."
I had to laugh, though. That line was funny. Cutting remarks are funny. Slashing remarks are funny. Putdowns are funny. Positive remarks are rarely memorable ("I have seen the future of rock & roll" - ugh!) and seldom fun. Thusly, negativity propels criticism.
Recently, Big Chief L.A. Times rock-music crit Robert Hilburn assailed a 20-year-old newcomer's performance. "She had no more business on that stage than xvxvxv pitching for the Dodgers" he thundered (approximately, I can't find the article), characteristically,** and artlessly, killing a fly with an elephant gun.
Did anyone but me find this a little....unseemly? A young gal made a record, and it was a hit, and she was swept on a world tour. That she disappointed people was, maybe, apparent from the review.*** But to have this 61-year-old man plunge his none-too-sharp verbal knife into her for her loss of nerve or balance is too much. I don't know her, and will never probably hear her music. I just resent ANY key-pecker trouncing the failings of someone with talent.
Similarly, almost-forgotten rock & roll scion Shuggie Otis made a recent appearance at an LA venue, and was trounced by LA Times Richard Cromelin for...being prompt. Though Cromelin's story (7/7/01) led with the notion that Shuggie's propensity for not showing up was lending him a reputation like Sly Stone's, you read further to learn that Shuggie was there on time! The problem, such as it was, was that some behind-the-scenes people had the jitters bec they hadn't heard from him til he showed up. Nobody in the audience knew this, yet it is presented by Cromelin as if the entire room, not just the "insiders"****, were on pins and needles.
A graph or two later, you learn the source of Cromelin's tsuris. To bolster his heretofore unsubstantiated characterization of Otis as a no-show, he tells us that Otis had cancelled some interviews with "major publications." A ha! - He cancelled one with Cromelin!
Still, the show was by all accounts a train-wreck***** of ill-preparedness.
But if the writer was truly disappointed bec he is a fan whose expectations were not met, he still ought to cool it. Someone with no press does not need bad press. When your idol falls, let him fall quietly, out of the eyes of the populace, 99% of whom never heard of him. Don't write anything, or say the show ran badly but he's good....******
Graciousness in a rock review is rare, but not impossible.
Pass The Pea(k)s
There's a phrase going around like "three steps from" whatshisname. It's "Jump the shark," and it marks the point at which a tv series falls from its plateau, so that all subsequent episodes erode its initial reputation, i.e. Rhoda getting married, George's fiancee dying.
I hate the phrase, but have none better. Yet I think it's a good concept to apply to records. When did Elton John peak? Goodbye Yellow Brick Road? Surely Capt. Fantastic was on the wrong side of that peak. For me, the Beatles stopped with Revolver: the White Album had too much junk on it. I quit Elvis in the early 60s, maybe with "Surrender." A friend says that Hendrix's second album was a letdown, as it repeated some of the ideas of the first. Discuss.
Speaking Of Elvis (Surprise!)
I watched an Ed Sullivan Rock & Roll******* show about Elvis, and noticed for the first time that on his final Sullivan appearance in Janury 1957 he was pandering blatantly to the screaming girls; he was good, but his manner indicated it was a joke to him. Nick Tosches says Elvis sold out with his second Sun single, "Milk Cow Blues Boogie," when he did a calculated false start. Truth be told, Elvis had something to say when he was on Sun, and by RCA he was coasting.
Icon-Mania
Each time I see the word "icon" in the L.A. Times I eat a donut. I've gained 300 pounds! (Not exactly true.)
"Icon" is an idol, like a Virgin Mary statue, or a symbol, like an icon on your computer screen. However, in the Toy Department********* it is used for anyone who is known and getting older. (Paul Simon and Paul McCartney? Icons!) The veneration attached to 'icon' is both heady and embarrassing; old hitmakers must get uneasy with such overblown reverence. Overuse and misuse of "icon" is rampant.
In the 1990s several new words/phrases either cropped up or become tiresome**********: sea change, poster boy, don't go there, do the math, wake-up call, you are/I am toast, spin-this and spin-that, famously, the devil (or God!) is in the details, flavor of the month, train-wreck.
In 1989 I mailed a list of words and phrases to excise in the 90's to various newspaper and record company acquaintances.********** To look at this list today fills me with anguish, as so many of these tired and mock-clever************ words and sayings have hung in and prospered.*************
The End, Arguably
By far the most misused journalistic term is "arguably." The idiots (I mean this kindly, as an out) who abuse it are so oblivious I go reeling. Arguably is thrown in to hedge what you're saying - so why say anything at all? The only certainty it brings is that you are uncertain. "She is arguably the best singer of the decade" means someone else might be better.
The test of "arguably" is simple. Say these sentences sincerely:
- You are arguably an intelligent person.
- I love you arguably with all my heart.
Gotcha!**************
Music, Music, Music
What great song was left off someone's Best Of or Greatest Hits album? Last AFM I mentioned "Womanhood" being left off Tammy Wynette's big CD comp. And not so ethereal, I remember that "Me Japanese Boy" was left off a 70s Bobby Goldsboro's greatest hits album because the compiler, a Sansei, had suffered grievously from it in high school. The 1990s Fats Domino four-CD comp omitted "You Done Me Wrong," which I heard only*************** on the early 1970s UA comp "Cooking With Fats," and is to me his greatest and hardest-rocking song. Sufferer Gene Sculatti buys Wilbert Harrison CDs in vain hoping to get the exquisite (Gene says) "Near To You."
In a semi-sequitur, Gene said that Rick Nelson's 1963 "Summertime" was the base for the Blues Magoos "We Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet." Malcom Leo, later that day in another context **************** started singing "I Count The Tears" by the Drifters, noting that it was the basis for the Grass Roots "Let's Live For Today." I said that Kenny Dino's "Your Ma Said You Cried In Your Sleep Last Night" was the foundation for the Dave Clark 5's "Bits & Pieces," and, as these conversations go, added that Al Casey's guitar on "Surfin' Hootenanny" and the bass line on Herman's Hermits' "I'm Henry The Eighth I Am" set the stage for the Ramones.
Hope that clears everything up.
Finally, The Final
Some of you saw the 100-question final exam I gave to my UCLA rock & roll history class. Of course, young people today aren't as sharp -- old, that is -- as you and me, so here are a couple of noteworthy questions and answers from der kinder.
Q: What effect did Jerry Lee Lewis's 1958 marriage have on his career?
A: He and his wife formed a duet and became very popular.
Q: Who was Pat Boone?
A: He invented Heavy Metal. (I think one of my guests said that in jest.)
Q: John Fogerty led what late-60s hitmaking band?
A: The John Fogerty Band.
Q: (Multiple choice): What duet did "Soul Man" and "Hold On I'm Comin'"?
A: The Everly Brothers
- 57 -
* Enough plugging of this album! By all the "ink" I've given it it's probably replaced the Eagles Greatest Hits as the biggest selling album of all time. In a perfect world.
** From Randy Lewis's 7/14/01 review of Sugar Ray: "Four years ago, only the most foolhardy gambler would have wagered on Sugar Ray's career continuing" bla bla bla. Never mind whether it's SO unlikely as Lewis contends, what about the awkward "foolhardy gambler?" If this wasn't ghost-written by Hilburn...heaven help us, there's more of them.
*** Though you can never be sure. Cracks in a performance are seized upon by reviewers like a pack of chickens pecking a weak one to death. (Crits = clucking chickens. Neat!)
**** (c) Patrick Goldstein, for all time.
***** See "new cliches" in the Icon-Mania section ahead.
****** The near-ubiquitous Neal McCabe offers:
"I'm essentially a positive person, so nothing is more painful to me
than having to criticize a declining virtuoso. No one knows better
than he what he has lost, and no one suffers more. I know from
experience the corrosive pain criticism produces in the already open
wound in every artist. How many times - at the risk of appearing
negligent or uniformed - have I remained silent for lack of anything
good to say. Of course, I maintain this respectful deference only for
genius or talent; towards pretentious mediocrity I will always be
pitiless." This was written by Théophile Gautier in 1846. He was frequently criticized for being too positive, but he pointed out that the people onstage were trying, and he was looking for beauty where he could find it.
******* My friend the Big Record Producer says an Ed Sullivan rock & roll retrospective or the Time/Life rock & roll series is as fitting as a comp of the Third Reich's favorite Jewish composers. Sullivan and Time/Life were sworn enemies of rock & roll at its beginning.
******** Called the Calendar Section in the L.A. Times.
********* I might have said buzzwords, but buzzword is itself a buzzword, and as such a cliche.
********** Matt Groening came out with a list just like it about 3 months later, but that's just a kwinky-dinky.
*********** You thought maybe I was going to say "faux"-clever?
************ Baby-boomer, Back To The Future (USE THIS AND BE BEHEADED!), belly of the beast, bottom line, Catch-22, classic, don't even THINK of ---, dragged kicking and screaming, drop-dead anything, -esque, famous for 15 minutes (USE OF THIS SHOULD BE A CAPITAL OFFENSE), glitz, go figure, go for it, ....grows up, hands-on, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, I'm out of here, in the fast lane, it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it, it's only rock & roll, just when you thought it was safe to --- (ANOTHER DEATH-SENTENCE), legend in his own mind, legendary, make my day, anything-meister, No, no holds barred, no-nonsense, none other than, not to worry, (anythings) of the world, on a roll, power-(lunch, brunch, anything), pushing the envelope, quantum-, "Quick, name ---", quintessential (THE UNNECESSARY SHOW-OFF WORD OF ALL TIME), read my lips, 10/20/30/40-something, state of the art, streetwise, survivor, syndrome, upscale, -- "is doing very well, thank you," window, (anything)-word, world-class, Yes, "Yes, Virginia," you've got to love a, Yuppie, -zoid.
************* I know it's a cliche. Just thought I'd see if you were paying attention.
************** Word order is very important to me. To have said, "I only heard it" would mean I only HEARD it, I didn't see it, or feel it, eat it. The song "I Only Have Eyes For You" always bugs me, as it says I only have eyes for you, not legs, feet, elbows, etc. But then, I am crazy as a loon.
*************** This was at lunch at the Cat & Fiddle on Sunset. The seating was myself, Todd Everett, and Leo, so, in this case, Malcom was not in the middle. However, Malc showed us a 1973 clip of Bobby Darin really rockin' -- first time I've ever said that -- on the piano singing "Splish Splash."
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