Tag Archives: Classic Rock

IGGY AND THE STOOGES “Raw Power”

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Raw Power

IGGY AND THE STOOGES
Raw Power
(Columbia)

I shouldn’t really have to tell anyone about this album, but I’m going to talk about it anyway because this is the 5th anniversary of my music blogging activities, and I always use this date because today was the day I witnessed Iggy and the Stooges perform in Philadelphia in 2007. The original start date of my original music blog is lost to the ether, but it did start in April of 2007 so I adopted this day as the anniversary.

This forthcoming Record Store Day, Columbia is reissuing a special double-vinyl edition of Raw Power to commemorate, with one record containing the original and controversial David Bowie mix that was firt released in 1974, and the second containing Iggy’s equally controversial 1998 remix. Now, there is no doubt that every music lover should have a copy of this album (either store-bought or legally downloaded from someplace like iTunes or Amazon – fuck that torrent shit). If you don’t have a copy, which version should you get? Both versions are in print and easily found.

For those unfamiliar with the situation behind the two mixes: Iggy had already done a final mix of the album in London after the band finished recording there, but either Columbia or his management rejected it (stories vary but I understand it to be the latter) and insisted that it be remixed… preferably by the management’s golden boy, Bowie. Apparently, Bowie’s management didn’t like the idea of Bowie, who was one of the Stooges’s biggest fans, insisting on their handling the Stooges in the first place, so they played some serious mind games with both Iggy and Dave – the aforementioned insistence to Iggy that someone else remix the album or else it wouldn’t come out, and then the same management’s insistence to Bowie, “You foisted this asshole on us, Mr. Bowie – now you can remix his album if you’re such a big supporter of him.”

Bowie’s mix, done in a day in a cheap Hollywood studio, did enable the album to come out… but, probably because of how the mixes sound, they didn’t exactly set the mainstream music world on fire. Not yet anyway… The future members of the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and Clash – and their peers and immediate descendants – would proceed to recover this particular fumble and run with it.

Raw Power first came out on CD around 1989… I have this original CD release, and to be honest, the sound SUCKS. Which is where Iggy come back in. He didn’t like very much how the album first sounded when it was released with Bowie’s mix (probably because of an average at best mastering and pressing job on Columbia’s part at the time), and he hated the original CD even more, stating “It sounded worse when it got to CD.” That, plus the fact that Columbia was releasing the new mix on its reissue label Legacy (Iggy liked it because it was dealing with an important part of the Stooges’s legacy) spurred Iggy to revisit the taps and deliver a mix that lived up to the title.

Not long afterward, a 180gram edition of Raw Power came out using the original Bowie mix… while this was a somewhat disappointing development for me when I bought my copy, it actually made sense to me at the time: the original Bowie mix seemed to be more vinyl-friendly, and more importantly, a new master had been cut for the vinyl version, giving the mix a little more detail and warmth.

Not counting the forthcoming double album reissue and the aforementioned early 2000′s heavy vinyl release (now presumably out of print), the original David Bowie mix is only available on the 2-CD Legacy Edition (released in 2010 and containing on the second disc a live concert from this era and a couple of outtakes) and on a four-disc special edition (same as the Legacy Edition, but with a bunch of other cuts from the same period on the third disc, and a documentary DVD on the fourth disc, plus a reproduction 45 of the Japanese “Raw Power”/”Search and Destroy” 45. Iggy’s remix was issued as a single disc only in 1999. (Why Columbia didn’t include Iggy’s mix on that box set edition in its entirety is beyond me…) Quite honestly, those two CD editions are the best the original Bowie mix is ever going to sound.

But supposing you’ve never heard this album, ever? What version do you get, then? Simply up, go for the Iggy mix (single CD, 1999 copyright date, Iggy quote on the back cover) first. It lives up to the album’s title. If you fall head over heels in love with the album and you get curious, then go for the 2CD Legacy Edition. Or, if you have a turntable, you could wait until Record Store Day next Saturday and get both versions.

Just this one Stooges fan’s opinion.

Iggy’s mix:

Bowie’s mix:

VAN HALEN “A Different Kind of Truth”

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VAN HALEN
A Different Kind of Truth
(Interscope)

I really don’t need to tell anyone about this album… anything I could have said in a review was already said by the authors of this review which said everything I could have said here or at TGML.

Speaking of TGML, however, another review by a less attentive “writer” (translation: jaded hack) here led me to again reconsider the nature of reviewing records, a couple of years after I first ruminated it. That post should be up on TGML in the next day or two.

VAN HALEN “Women and Children First”

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VAN HALEN
Women and Children First
(Warner Bros.)
Available on CD, iTunes, AmazonMP3, eMusic, and Spotify

Well, talk about bad planning… I found out halfway through the day that today is Eddie Van Halen’s birthday. Depending on who you ask, he’s either 55 or 57. Doesn’t matter. So, screw it, even though I did DLR’s first solo album yesterday and 1984 two weeks ago, I’ll overview another Van Halen album.

Women and Children First was Van Halen’s third album – and the first I ever bought. I still have the vinyl. Yes, this is the album that had the famous Helmut Newton photo of David Lee Roth chained up against a chain-link fence. The poster was never hung up – and not for any reason other than it was also serving as the inner sleeve for the record itself. I’m not sure why Warner Bros. – or whoever was in charge of their record pressing plant at the time – chose to have the poster double as the inner sleeve. Right now I’m sure some collector is cringing…

Notable note about this album #1: No cover versions to be found. You wouldn’t hear any more covers from VH until Diver Down a few years later – and then almost out of necessity.

Notable note about this album #2: This was the first Van Halen album to feature keyboards – in this case an electric piano played through a Marshall by Eddie on “…And The Cradle Will Rock”. DLR got a little socially conscious on this one, it seems… but it wasn’t the first time for him doing that, at least if you count the “They found a dirty-faced kid in a garbage can” line from “D.O.A.” on Van Halen II.

Notable note about this album #3: A rare Van Halen all-acoustic moment – the only one in the original six-album tenure of Roth-led VH – in “Could This Be Magic?”. Very cool acoustic blues with Roth on rhythm acoustic guitar, Eddie on slide, and Nicolette Larson adding her voice to the ensemble.

The rest is typical VH rockin’ – “Everybody Wants Some” is a VH set list standard now, “Fools” has some cool call-and-response going on in the intro between Eddie’s guitar and Dave’s voice. “Romeo Delight”, which is said to be one of Valerie Bertinelli’s favorite VH songs.

The album isn’t perfect – there’s really only eight new (at the time) songs (“Tora! Tora!”, which kicks off side two, is really a few seconds of backwards tape of the band going a bit avant-garde), and I doubt too many people would recommend it as a first VH album, but it was mine and I became a fan anyway. No regrets here.

DAVID LEE ROTH “Eat ‘Em and Smile”

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DAVID LEE ROTH
Eat ‘Em and Smile
(Warner Bros.)
Available on CD, iTunes, AmazonMP3, eMusic, and Spotify

Two weeks, y’all. Two weeks until the new Van Halen album. I can’t wait. I’ve been mixing a lot of DLR-era VH in my musical diet lately in anticipation, but I didn’t want to write about any more of the albums until their new one came out, and even then that’ll be going up on the mothership that week.

As a minor break in the saturation of DLR-era VH, I threw on Diamond Dave’s first full-length solo album. We all know he did a great EP of covers the previous year, Crazy from the Heat, but that was meant at the time as a side project – a little musical vacation before he went to work on the follow-up to 1984. What was that about the best laid plans…?

To set up the situation behind the release of this album: Roth had suffered an unfortunate split with Van Halen a year before this album was released; while Van Halen regrouped with a new singer (Sammy Hagar, who proceeded to change the dynamic – quite frankly, not for the better in the long run – of the band) and started cranking out slick, almost formulaic albums. Roth pretty much stayed the course, bringing his wit and his distinctive voice into play with the help of musical partners: guitarist Steve Vai, fresh off finishing work on Public Image Ltd.’s Album, and bassist Billy Sheehan, late of Talas and later of Mr. Big, and infamous already amongst musicians as the four-string low-frequency equivalent of Eddie Van Halen.

Eat ‘Em and Smile would succeed commercially and artistically because all Dave had to do was be himself. Van Halen’s first post-Roth album 5150 had come out a few months earlier, and as OK an album it was, it was too slick and too serious. With Vai and Sheehan supporting him, and longtime Van Halen producer Ted Templeman sitting behind the mixing desk, Diamond Dave brought the two things lacking in “Van Hagar” – soul and wit.

Dave being Dave, of course, wasn’t going to bring out ten headbanging tracks, hand them to Warner Bros., and call it a day. The rocking Dave does dominate the proceedings on Eat ‘Em and Smile, but the other sides of Dave – the soulful side (“Ladies Nite in Buffalo!!”), the crooning side (a fine cover of Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life”), and the barband buster (another cover, this time of the garage band chestnut “Tobacco Road”) are represented as well. Anyone who enjoyed classic (read: non-Hagar) Van Halen and Crazy from the Heat would, of course, adore this album.

How did Van Halen react? By calling their next album OU812 (a Hagar-spawned, childish/jealous fuck-you to Diamond Dave) and cranking out another formulatic, slick, and pretty much soulless album. Meh. That ended up being the last Van Halen album I bought until A Different Kind of Truth went on preorder a couple of weeks ago. Dave kept on being Dave (even when the public wasn’t paying attention) while Eddie was being driven to drink by Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony.

Eat ‘Em and Smile still holds up. I wish I could say the same for 5150.

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND HIS MAGIC BAND “Trout Mask Replica”

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CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND HIS MAGIC BAND
Trout Mask Replica
(Straight/Reprise)
Available on CD and 180g double vinyl LP

Today would have been the 71st Birthday of Donald van Vliet, a/k/a Captain Beefheart. And yes, perhaps picking Trout Mask Replica is too obvious of a choice to commemorate the good captain’s date of origin. And no, I don’t need to go on and on about the album myself, when you can just as easily seek out the fine 33 1/3 book on the subject. You either know it’s not an easy listen, or you can sit and listen to it like it’s the most normal collection of music on the planet.

However, it’s always going to be a jarring listen at first, no matter how open minded you are, and odds are good that your first impression of this completely fucking out there music will not be its last and you’ll keep returning to it whenever the mood strikes. Perhaps you know how fucking crazy of an album it is after just one listen, and you want to give it another spin, but something is stopping you.

It’s understandable. I’ve been there. And I’ve pinned down why.

Now, I am far from a format nazi – when it comes to the three most accessible formats currently available for music – vinyl, CD, and digital format – I’ll take it in whatever way I can get it. 90 percent of my listening is going to be via digital format since I carry an iPod most everywhere I go.

My first exposure to Trout Mask Replica was via CD. One of my close friends had caught wind of a CD release of the album by Reprise/Warner Bros. before I did, and even went so far as to proudly display the longbox from the CD in his bedroom. I later got my own copy – from Columbia House, of all places! – and started to dig into it, fully appreciating it after a couple of listens, even though it tended to be overwhelming at first.

A few years ago, I started snatching up heavy-vinyl reissues of most of the Captain’s back catalog – primarily his Warner Bros. and Buddha releases (the rest, save for his infamous “commercial” albums, I haven’t seen on reissued vinyl yet, so I’ve dealt with the CDs there). Sitting with the heavy-vinyl edition of Trout Mask made me realize one thing. This is not an album you can easily digest from beginning to end like a CD or an iPod playlist. It’s best heard one side at a time. No, this doesn’t mean you have to go running out an buying a turntable and a vinyl edition of the album, unless you really want to. What I mean is you should program your CD player or do up iPod playlists that replicate each side of the original vinyl.

At the time of this writing, Wikipedia’s entry on Trout Mask Replica gives the track listing as it originally appeared on vinyl – apparently whoever edited the article also realized that the album is best heard one side at a time. In case someone rewrites the album’s track listing there to come off as a single CD rather than a four-sided album, just program your playlists (or your CD player) like this: The first six tracks on the CD are side one. Tracks 7 through 13 are side two. Tracks 14-20 are the third side, and the rest are the final side.

I emphasize how to listen to this because this album should be listened to more than it is talked about… unless you’re a musician (like myself) and want to talk about it with other musicians. Hell, later editions of Beefheart’s Magic Band (particularly the lineup that recorded his last two albums) ­consisted of younger players who actually had the balls to learn how to play the songs off of Trout Mask Replica by ear! Now go listen to it.

Happy Birthday, Don.

THE DICTATORS “Go Girl Crazy”

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DICTATORS
Go Girl Crazy
(Epic)
Available on CD, iTunes, AmazonMP3, eMusic and Spotify

So, how many of your Facebook friends have been on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon?

OK, I ask that half-jokingly, but I have a lot of my many punk rock heroes on my Facebook, and one of them, Handsome Dick Manitoba from the Dictators, was on Fallon’s show Tuesday night, promoting his Sirius XM Radio show, his bar in Manhattan, his forthcoming shows with his new band Manitoba, and his newly-released Throbblehead. I’ve interacted in Richard quite regularly on FB over the past couple of years – the man’s a sweetheart.

Back in 1975, you probably wouldn’t have thought that, given how he was first presented to the world on the cover of the Dictator’s first album, Go Girl Crazy – posing in a locker room in total character as a professional wrestler, cutting promos on everyone from now-legendary wrestlers Verne Gagne and Haystacks Calhoon to Blue Oyster Cult frontman Eric Bloom.

The Dictators are often posited as one of the first American proto-punk groups, and in the case of Go Girl Crazy, the emphasis on that word should be on the prefix proto. Most of the songs are at the normal rock tempos of the day; the punkhere is more of an attitude than a musical style. Musically, the band are informed not only by the Stooges, but by 50′s and 60′s rock. At the time this album came out, The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash were still a couple of years away from putting out records (even though the Ramones were already starting to make a name for themselves in New York as a live act), Kiss were still struggling after three albums, and the Stooges had fizzled the year before. Disco was right around the corner, and arena rock still ruled. That’s the whole setting that this album wandered into.

The album opens with applause sound effects and Manitoba in full heel wrestler character , cutting a typical promo: “This is just a hobby for me! Nothing, you hear? A hobby!” Then, right into “The Next Big Thing”, an anthemic little tune that could be about either a rock star or a professional wrestler.

After that, there’s seven more tracks of solid original songwriting from Andy Shernoff (curiously credited as Adny for reasons never explained on the first three Dictators albums as well as their ROIR release New York New York Live). Musically, there’s the whole 50s and 60s rock filtered through Stooges-inspired playing, with covers of Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” and Joe Jones’s “California Sun” (two years before the Ramones would cover it on Leave Home.).

Lyrically – forget about it. Everything is goofed on (including themselves – which explains the “They didn’t know we were Jews” line in “The Next Big Thing”, for example/starters). If you didn’t get enough of a clue from the fact that “I Got You Babe” becomes a Manitoba/Shernoff duet as well as Manitoba’s pro-wrestler persona creeping up before certain tracks, song titles like “Back to Africa” and “Master Race Rock” should have tipped you off.

After a label change to Asylum and a somewhat odd stumble with their more pop-oriented Manifest Destiny album, the Dictators would find their footing completely with the excellent Bloodbrothers album. But Go Girl Crazy is a nice – and often funny – start to the Dictators legend.

VAN HALEN “1984″

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VAN HALEN
1984
(Warner Bros.)
Available on CD, iTunes, AmazonMP3, eMusic, and Spotify

Since Van Halen’s new single came out today, I figured a quick look at the last real Van Halen album (sorry, I am not acknowledging the Sammy Hagar era or “Gary Jabroni” very much, if at all – they lost me after OU812) was in order.

Let’s be real: Listening to this album last night, then “Tattoo” this morning, and thinking back to the “Van Hagar” output, reminded me that there were two key components to the classic Van Halen sound, one of which was sorely missing for a good twenty-year period.

1984 is Van Halen at both their commercial and artistic peak – which is icing on the cake given all of the gold to be found on the first six Van Halen albums.  The group had moved their recording operations into Eddie Van Halen’s newly-built recording studio 5150 and you could already sense the liberation they were feeling compared to their previous output.

Everybody reading this knows “Jump”, “Panama”, and “Hot for Teacher”, so no need to discuss those songs any further. You know they’re diamonds, I know they’re diamonds, so let’s cut to the chase and deal with the rest of the album.

“1984″, the opening title track – all Eddie on synthesiser, sounding as majestic as John Entwistle’s overdubbed horn parts on most of the Who’s albums. I can’t imagine the album starting with anything other than this – it’s a perfect opener.

“Top Jimmy”, which resonated with me a little more than most people because I knew exactly who David Lee Roth was singing about from day one – the lead singer of the legendary Los Angeles punk-blues band Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs. I had seen Top Jimmy and his band play several times on the late night cable program New Wave Theatre and wished I had been able to obtain whatever recorded output they had – but alas, even though they did one album that I know I have, all I have is memories of those TV appearances and this tribute. (And if recent recollections from Henry Rollins and Joey Shithead Keithley have been any indication, Diamond Dave was already more than interested in what was going on in the punk rock underground at the time.)

“Drop Dead Legs” – said to have originated from an idea Eddie had sung or played into a tape recorder in a hotel room closet while then-wife Valerie Bertinelli was sleeping – is a typical VH rocker with shades of both ZZ and Zep that would have just as easily fit anywhere else in the Van Halen back catalog at the time. Not to say that the boys were on autopilot. only that they had their basic style downpat and could get tracks like this down without a sweat.

“I’ll Wait” – a minor hit compared to the “Jump”/”Panama”/”Hot for Teacher” troika – does in retrospect point towards a ballad style that Eddie Van Halen would undertake as a composer early in the Van Hagar era. Unlike the Sammy Hager-spawned cheese of tracks like “Love Walks In” and “Dreams”, Dave’s lyrics and vocals here reek of sincerity and poetry, rather than Sammy’s half-assed greeting card doggerel.

“Girl Gone Bad” is something most band would kill for as far as song quality goes. Every time I listen to it, I lose track of how many different sections of music there are in it. This isn’t just verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge stuff.

“House of Pain” – first originated publicly as the b-side of the “Jump” single – is again typical of Van Halen’s deep cuts and could have fit anywhere on their early albums – probably because the song itself originated back in the band’s salad days.

This album is what I’ll be almost invariably comparing A Different Kind of Truth to when it comes out next month. If “Tattoo” is already any indication, Dave, Eddie, and the rest of the gang may already be on the right track.

ACE FREHLEY “Anomaly”

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ACE FREHLEY
Anomaly
(Bronx Born/Rocket Science)

Three things led me to look at this more recent release – something I actually reviewed at TGML when it first came out. (And for the record, I stand by every word I wrote in that review.)

1) Reason one, the most mundane, came from a Facebook conversation started by friend and ex-Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes (aka “Chavo” on the Jealous Again EP), where he waxed rhapsodic about his love for KISS in general and Ace in particular.

2) Reason two: His former band just announced that they’ve completed recording the follow-up to their 2009 album Sonic Boom (which itself got reviewed at TGML, albeit not as glowingly as Anomaly).

3) Reason three: Another Facebook conversation between two other friends, none of them famous but both still musicians, about this album. One friend lamented that he had gotten it for a birthday gift, loved it, lost it (ouch!), had trouble finding another copy, and was considering just downloading a new copy from iTunes.

I, unashamedly, had pre-ordered the iTunes edition, unsure of whether I’d get to the record store on release day and wanting to start off my work day by listening to the album anyway. Somehow I managed to get to the store anyway. I also, equally unashamedly,  ordered a signed double vinyl copy from Ace’s website. Why did I all this? Well, like I told Ron Reyes this evening – and like I pointed out at the start of my TGML review of Anomaly – Ace Frehley, for all intents and purposes, put that guitar in my hands back in 7th grade; all of my punk rock guitar heroes helped keep it there.

Well, out of curiosity, after the conversation mentioned in Reason Three, I did a little curious peeking around regarding Anomaly. Guess what? Good luck finding a copy of the American edition. In fact, it isn’t even on iTunes anymore.

Anomaly was manufactured and marketed here in the States by a company called Rocket Science. They handle distribution for artists on an independent basis using a non-traditional  platform, and under short-term licenses. I’m not sure what happened, because Anomaly came out in September of 2009, and 2012 only just got started a week ago – the third year isn’t even half-over yet, unless something transpired where either Ace and Rocket Science had a parting of the ways,  but anyway you look at it, there’s no way to get a copy of Anomaly without either ordering an imported edition or trolling eBay. And that shouldn’t be. A “comeback” album that good shouldn’t be lost to the ether. At the very least, it should have remained available digitally. And if I were Ace Frehley and his people, I’d be looking into that now minus one. 

HUMBLE PIE “Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore”

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HUMBLE PIE
Performance: Rockin’ The Fillmore
(A&M)
Producers: Humble Pie
Availability: CD, iTunes, AmazonMP3, Spotify

Peter Frampton was reunited this week with something he never thought he’d see again in this lifetime: the black Gibson Les Paul Custom guitar that was immortalized on the cover of Frampton Comes Alive. 32 years ago, the cargo plane carrying his equipment back from a South American tour crashed in Venezuela, and the instrument, like the rest of Frampton’s gear, was believed lost forever until a couple of enterprising fans in the region .

Writing about Frampton Comes Alive in commemoration of this great reunion of man and guitar would have been too easy, too obvious. It is a great, classic album, but you don’t need me to tell you that. Instead – as obvious as it might be to some diehard Frampton fans – we’ll use this album, Frampton’s last with Humble Pie and more relevantly, the album on which he is believed to have first played the guitar in question!

Frampton had been using a semi-hollowbody guitar during the band’s stand at the Fillmore [stories differ as to whether it was actually during the time when this album was recorded, or a previous three-night stand at the venue, but we'll go with the former for our purposes] when he started having some feedback issues due to the peculiarities of the venue’s stage. A fan named Mark Mariana approached Frampton the next evening and offered him the use of his black Gibson Les Paul to solve the problem. Frampton tried the guitar, liked it, and offered to buy the guitar off of Mariana after the show, but was rebuffed… Mariana actually one-upped Peter and gave him the guitar.

What a guitar, and what a guitarist! Steve Marriott’s vocals might have been intended to be front and center, but it’s Frampton’s lead work throughout this double album that is the star of the show for me. As easy as some people might easily have dismissed Frampton for the image that was put forth by him and his management around the time of Comes Alive and his studio follow-up I’m In You (both Frank Zappa and Cheech & Chong poked fun at him for this – the former with his song “I Have Been In You”, the latter in a skit on their penultimate album Let’s Make a New Dope Deal), it’s understandable why it’s easy to forget that Frampton is one hell of a guitarist.

The recording itself is quite intimate sounding despite the power of the band and the acoustics of the venue – you can literally hear someone drop a beer bottle at the beginning of the band’s side-long cover of Dr. John’s “I Walk on Guilded Splinters”, and you can also hear snippets of conversation between band members and members of the audience. But again, it’s Frampton’s playing that is the main focus, as far as I am concerned, on this album. There are a few times throughout the album’s sequence where the playing threatens to devolve into blooze-rawk boredom rather than blues/rock ecstasy, but those moments are rare. Mind you, this album was made at the tail-end of a time period when rock bands were usually expected to not play three-to-four minute pop songs, and the Fillmore was a venue were the audience was very receptive to such excursions.

An incident (probably anecdotal) where Marriott had handed the band’s manager what was supposed to the final mix of the album only to be told afterward “Great… but where’s the audience?” probably didn’t help matters – Marriott  had apparently been a little too out of it on “chemical refreshment” (to borrow a Zappa-ism) to realize he had erroneously mixed the audience reactions out of the mix at first.

The album ended up being Humble Pie’s first gold album in the States, helped by a cover of Ray Charles’s “I Don’t Need No Doctor” (one of two of the Genius’s songs covered here – “Hallelujah I Love Her So” being the other) being excerpted, edited to fit on a 45, and serviced to radio. But by that time, Frampton had already walked away from the band, black Les Paul at his side – him and Marriott had bumped heads one too many times – and a few years later, of course, he’d immortalize that guitar on another double live album for A&M in another San Francisco venue.

[Advance warning for Spotify users: Two of the songs, including the aforementoned "Guilded Spinters", aren't available on the service. Not Spotify's or even A&M's fault – probably that of the song's publishers, since they're both covers. My apologizes in advance.]