Bob Dylan “Street Legal”

I’ve never heard this record before and I’m guessing, but not sure, that when it came out in 1978—the year I graduated from high school and was avidly reading Rolling Stone magazine—it got a less than favorable review—or maybe I was just over Dylan by that time, temporarily—or maybe his previous album was too weird and inscrutable—who knows. Anyway, the first thing that’s striking to me is that in the live performance, black and white, photo on the back, he looks just like Freddie Mercury—did people, when this record was released, talk or write excessively about about how he looks just like Freddie Mercury? It looks like a picture from the Renaldo and Clara/”Rolling Thunder Revue” era, but wasn’t that years earlier? Anyway, it’s just a bit of a mystery. On the front cover there’s a picture of him standing in a doorway wearing some really awful jeans and a black leather vest, looking left, down the street like he’s waiting for someone, or a bus.

“Baby Stop Crying” is a nice song, pretty soulful (though the sax break does sound a little St. Elmo’s Fire (my shorthand for lameness). I just noticed the photos on the inside sleeve, two out-of-focus, B&W photos of Bob and a dark skinned man (really wish I had the Big I to look this up) at what looks like a really great tea shop. Bob’s wearing that polkadot shirt you see in a lot of photos (I’m assuming he had more than one, but who knows). It almost looks like a much earlier photo. Can you date Dylan pics by his shirts?

Kinky Friedman “Kinky Friedman”

This is a true story. I went through a Kinky Friedman phase when I was living in New York. I read one of his mystery novels, and liked it a lot, and then read some articles about him, some interviews—maybe there was some particular thing I read or watched that I can’t remember now. Anyway, I didn’t go as far as seeing a live show or buying a bunch of old records, but I did find his website and order a kind of gift set of Kinky Friedman cigars, coffee, and coffee mug. He’s really into all that good stuff. So, one of the cigars was one of those big-ass killers, and I saved it for a particular evening, smoked it, and then had a horrible pain in my lower back, on one side, that lasted for like a year. I was too afraid to go to a doctor and admit I’d smoked a Kinky Friedman cigar and that’s what brought it on. Can you die from smoking one cigar (that isn’t an exploding assassination cigar, I mean)?

This record from way back in the gold year of 1974 (it may be his first, given the title) is pretty straightforward, like here’s a guy with songs he wants you to hear. There’s a picture of him on the cover either relighting a cigar or looking at a text on his flip-phone; neither option makes much sense, as I don’t think he’s a guy likely to let a cigar go out, unless of course he going on about some subject he’s more passionate about than cigars, which, who knows? The back cover has him holding a cigarette. An unrepentant smoker, as of this writing Kinky Friedman is still alive (though there are still three days left in 2016, so I’m nervous saying that). (It’s now one day before Summer 2018, and if we’re to believe Internet, he’s still puffin’ away!) The songs feature some fine musicians, but I think the lyrics are the thing, so I’m going to have to listen closely. A couple are too jokey—this was before the time people had discovered that humor isn’t best underlined by goofy accompanying sounds.

Bob Lind “Don’t Be Concerned”

I picked up this album knowing nothing about Bob Lind except that he’s probably that young, clean-cut guy on the cover with an acoustic guitar, so I assumed it would be acoustic guitar and singer music, but I was wrong, as there is a full band and instrumentation on these songs, and in fact a very big sound. I don’t know who is playing on it, so I’ll assume studio musicians. I like the sound, and I’m thinking: I would have liked it less if it was just Bob Lind and his guitar, though we’ll never know, now, will we? The record is from 1966, on the World Pacific label. There are liner notes on the back by Jack Nitzsche, who also produced and arranged the record, and is quite a familiar name, though I realized I don’t know that much about him—and just got sidetracked reading about him on the internet—and you should, too. He worked with Phil Spector, which doesn’t surprise me, listening to this record. I like the liner notes a lot, too, pretty funny, but then ending with this lovely sentiment (about Bob Lind): “His songs will remind you of summer, a love you once knew, autumn smells, bad times turned good with age, and yourself.” I’ll tell you right now, I’m going to steal the phrase “Bad Times Turned Good With Age”—in fact, that might end up being the title of my autobiography.

While you’re reading about Jack Nitzsche, check out the same internet for info about Bob Lind, because it’s pretty fascinating. His Wikipedia page doesn’t have any of those warnings like, “This reads like a novel”—but it does, kind of; dude has had a pretty interesting life. He also has a website, and as of this writing is out there on tour—so if you’re lucky you could check him out—maybe even have a word with him. Someone made a documentary about him, too, which I’m going to try to find after writing this—I don’t want to keep being sidetracked—back to the album. Apparently the song “Elusive Butterfly” preceded the album and was a huge hit, and was covered by a ton of big name artists. Somehow, even though I’m kind of old, the song has eluded me, over the years, and even now, I find its charms elusive. I’ll have to listen more closely to the lyrics, later.

As for the rest of the songs, I like several of them better than “Elusive Butterfly.” The second song, “Mister Zero,” has a nice atmosphere, with some haunting strings, and lyrics that go on bizarrely long. Then the next one, “You Should Have Seen It,” is even better, with this kind of forward urgency and big sound. More interesting lyrics, and same with the next one—I’m not taking the time to take in all the lyrics on this listening, but I’m making a mental note to sit down with it sometime. This is definitely a record that I’ll put on again, on purpose. Hey, then the next one, “Drifter’s Sunrise”—this one is very good too, and has a line about drinking coffee, which is sure to get through to Speen.

Side two has three songs that feature women’s names (Julie, Dale Ann, and Cheryl). Assuming these were written about real people, I wonder if any of them were jealous. Then my favorite song on the album, “It Wasn’t Just the Morning”—which is kind of scary, and addresses someone called “you.” Which is common for songs, now that I think of it. I’d imagine it’s hard to be romantically involved with these romantic singers. Which got me to thinking: have I ever felt like I was referred to in a song (not directly by name, of course, but possibly)? Yes, I have, and it’s kind of a weird experience!

Now back to the song, “Elusive Butterfly.” Okay, it’s about how love is elusive like a butterfly. Kind of lame, but I read somewhere that there were lots and lots more verses, so who knows—it could have gotten more interesting—but apparently they wanted it shorter, to have a chance at being a hit record—and only Bob Dylan was allowed to do those songs with like 80 verses. I want to hear about how he catches the elusive butterfly (of love) in a net, and then tries to take it out of the net and accidentally rips its wings off, or pins it to a board and then realizes it’s no longer beautiful, wild, and free—just a sad, gruesome taxidermy version of what was once beautiful. That’s a love metaphor I could get behind.

Depeche Mode “Some Great Reward”

I picked out this one because I thought it was another robot vs. humans album cover, but it’s not a robot at all but some kind of elevated industrial tower structure, with a huge factory building in the background. In the foreground there’s a young man and woman in wedding attire—it would not be outlandish for me to believe this was an actual wedding photo—kind of an “alternative” one, the romantic embrace in front of an intimidating industrial backdrop rather than a pond with flowers and swans. If you think about it, it makes as much sense—though what it means in this setting, I can’t tell you. On the back is a sliver of a different take of the same photo, with a quote: “The world we live in and life in general.” SO… there you go. Means absolutely nothing. Or maybe not—on the song “Lie to Me”—“lie to me/like they do it in the factory/make me think/that at the end of the day/some great reward/will be coming my way.” Marriage, the factory… you’re smart and cynical enough to know it’s all a load of bollocks. But you can still dance.

I am familiar with Depeche Mode, of course, but I’ve never listened to them. This record came out in 1984, and is on Sire, which was a label I saw a lot of in the 80s. In 1984 I played in two bands, was in school, and had two jobs, so I feel like I missed popular culture entirely—no TV, no movies, very few new records. I stopped being caught up on new records coming out, though I’d heard earlier Depeche Mode and didn’t like them, as at that time I was turned off by anything I thought was remotely pop music, and also stayed far away from anything remotely “electronic” or that even employed synthesizers. I had gone through a “progressive rock” phase in the Seventies, but when punk came around I rejected all of that. But that was just another phase, of course. Now I don’t reject anything, necessarily, and like to take everything in with an open mind if possible, but actually seem to like less music than ever—so essentially, I guess, I’m more opinionated than ever.

On one listening I can tell there are some very hook-y pop songs here, some of which would probably resonate with me after repeat listenings. Remember the old days when you’d buy maybe one record a week or month, that first listening, so exciting, and then you’d try to hold off a few hours for the vinyl too cool down, or until the next day for the next listening, and when the songs would start to take hold, due to familiarity, it would be like a new record. And then you could go deeper, with the lyrics, maybe. I don’t know, but I don’t think people listen to music like that anymore—well certainly not on computers. This record sounds pretty much exactly like I thought it would, so I guess I know what Depeche Mode sounds like, and I’m not going to like them any more now than I ever did. Whenever I look up bands, I’m kind of surprised to see that they’re still playing, but then, why not? If you can make money at it, why would you stop doing that—to work at a haberdashery? Of course—stay in the band! Just try to stay away from the drugs!

Okay, one song here really grabbed my attention so I’m listening to it over. It’s called “Somebody”—nice song title. It’s the least electronic song on the record (which no doubt is why it grabbed my attention) with just acoustic sounding piano and singing (and some tapes of background noise, sounds like people at park). It starts out with some syrupy sweet sentiment that leads you to believe it’s going to drop the irony bomb in about three minutes. But here is the surprise, it’s actually sincere all the way through—but with reservations, questioning, not having it all figured out, but trying. I could paraphrase some of the lyrics, but I kind of hate when people writing about records do that (I know, I did it earlier), and this one works better as a whole. I’m assuming you either know the song, or know how to use the internet and can listen to it if you want to.

Pink Floyd “The Wall”

I am on vacation in the “North Woods” once again, but this time staying at a place with the internet, so I can’t use ignorance as an excuse like last year, but I’m also only here for a few days—at this rustic cabin with a stereo system and some vinyl records—enough records, in fact, to overwhelm me a little; I just spent an hour trying to devise a random system for picking out a record, but seeing how my time is limited, I decided instead to just browse through until I see one I’m curious to hear, then write about that—but limiting my writing time to the time it takes to play. The first thing that caught my eye was Pink Floyd’s 1979 LP The Wall, which I’m sure many of my contemporaries know backwards, but I’ve never actually dropped a needle on, as it came out after the Pink Floyd had fallen out of my favor—for whatever reason. I loved this band a decade earlier—if I’d been asked to guess, I’d have guessed this record was from the Eighties, but not quite. The cover, which is a simple depiction of a brick wall, is more depressing than oppressive, and as it’s a double album, the inside reveals the wall being penetrated by some stoner art, which is little relief. Most of this I feel like I’ve never heard before, so that’s interesting, but it sounds, naturally, like Pink Floyd. The song, “Another Brick In The Wall,” however, I’m more than familiar with, and it’s a song, if I reached the end of my life without ever hearing it again, that’d be just fine.

It’s funny, I was thinking about this record earlier today while I was getting my tire fixed in a remote survivalist style outpost up here, while CNN played silently but closed-captioned and I happened to see the news of this Trump character’s “tweet” about “the wall” he wants to build—seemingly desperately, at the Mexico border. It was my impression that Trump apologists, wanting to alleviate his apparent insanity, keep scrambling to explain that he’s on one hand a “street fighter” who just can’t help his crude and offensive speech, while on the other he’s a sophisticated user of metaphor, and when he talks about “the wall” it merely means “security.” This explanation, however, seemed to enrage him, and he tweeted, “The Wall is the Wall”—emphasizing that no, he means an actual physical structure. This got me thinking about this record, and wondering what it all meant, since I didn’t get immersed in it back in the day. I don’t think this is the time for me to find out what it’s about though, because I’m just listening to it once through, without focusing on the lyrics—which are actually printed on the inner sleeves, though all but unreadable, in a font that might be called “Ralph Steadman.”

It’s weird—in a way, this doesn’t sound like Pink Floyd to me—in a way. Didn’t the band members start feuding with each other at some point?—could this be the beginning of that, or the result of it? Okay, here’s a beautiful song—it’s the first one that grabbed me—called “Comfortably Numb.” This band can put together a lovely pop ballad when they want to, that’s for sure. I realize I’m being kind of dismissive of this record, which I’m sure for some people, this was the record of their youth. It’s okay, call me an idiot. Anyway, thinking about the Trump Wall got me wondering about the similarities of the Reagan years (which this record butted into) with the times we’re now suffering through. I just mean—the support of Reagan—who was obviously brain dead for much of his presidency—if only because of the blanket of power he provided those bastards. I suppose one thing all presidents want is to build monuments to themselves, which maybe isn’t so different than rock stars. But Trump wanting to build this actual wall as a monument to him—that would almost be refreshing, in it’s simplicity and stupidity, if it wasn’t so depressing and frightening.

Endless Boogie “Focus Level”

Another double album, though there are only 11 long songs, some mostly instrumental, and some with singing that reminds me a little of the Chinese Electrical Band (my first band, not at all Chinese). I can’t make out a single lyric to save my life. The cover opens up to reveal, inside, a huge painting of a party consisting of a bunch of young people in an era several centuries past; it actually looks to me like a computer generated photo collage treated to look like a painting, but I don’t know, really, and honestly don’t care; I kind of like it, but then there was always something annoying to me about albums that opened to reveal more art—you’ve got the front and back cover! And then there is one of those annoying one sheet inserts for the credits, but it’s mostly more art and tells you very little, like who’s in this band and playing what?

Or who is even in the band. I heard one of these guys—or was it two?—or is there only one?—on the WTF podcast and it was pretty interesting, but I don’t remember any of the details. I’m not supposed to remember things, that’s what the internet is for! Anyway, some of these songs make me think of an annoying roommate who you want to take the guitar away from. But then some of them remind me of the first few times I went to see punk bands in Cleveland (at the Drome) and some of them sounded more like hard rock than punk, but that was okay because it was pretty severe, and heavy, and it was live. And then some of the other songs make me think of high school, going to see a local hard rock cover band at the marina or the county fair; one of those bands who has a cobbled together, homemade “light show” and is playing stuff like that “Slow ride, take it easy,” song (Foghat?) and that “Now you’re messin’ with a… sonofabitch,” song (Nazareth?)—not that any of this is a bad thing, it’s all about positive and visceral memories. In fact, those county fair bands made a much bigger impression on me than Blue Oyster Cult at a sports arena, capacity 12 billion. I thought BOC were pretty wanky, actually, though the bad pot didn’t help, nor the fact that they followed Bob Seger and ZZ Top. Anyway, I really like a lot of this stuff. There’s a fine line between wankiness and art, and if you take the chance to be wanky, sometimes, you might be able to make art you wouldn’t have been able to come up with if you didn’t venture into wankyville.

Vikki Carr “Nashville by Carr”

Vikki Carr has always been there, it seems like, but I realized I knew nothing about her. I was reasonably certain that Mr. and Mrs. Carr didn’t have a daughter and name her Vikki. Her story is kind of fascinating, and you too can read about her on the internet if you’re so inclined. I hoped for more from this record, the pun of the title kind of implying it’s her “country record,” but it’s not really very country, though she does do some great songs by some great songwriters, and it’s recorded in (you guessed it) and some heavy studio guys play, but overall, the arrangements strike me as flat as the photo collage on the back album cover. The problem is, the surface of this album cover is a very porous cardboard—actual textured surface, like something you do pastels on, but when you reproduce photos on it, especially smaller ones with a lot of detail, you get fuzzy, flat, sadly unimpressive images (and it doesn’t help that she has a Bride of Frankenstein hairstyle, like the guy singing with the James Gang in 1974—maybe he was influenced by Vikki Carr). The album opens up, revealing a 12 by 14 inch panoramic photo of Vikki Carr sitting on the white fence of a horse farm; the problem is, the art department was so obsessed with symmetry, they put Vikki right in the crease, making her look like a Mad Magazine inside back cover “fold-in.” It’s an appropriate album cover given the arrangements.

Overall, this record strikes me as so uninspiring that I’m listening to it over and over, thinking there must be buried treasure there somewhere, because I expect more from 1970. I keep listening, but no. I guess the one thing that’s good is I can play this record and not get annoyed by it—but is that what you’re shooting for, as a musical artist?—to not annoy people? Okay, here is one interesting thing—she does Kris Kristofferson’s pretty great and fairly over-the-top song, “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.” Now, this isn’t a gender-specific song, but there is something about the imagery that you just really picture it being a man singing, there, in first person. Is that sexist of me to say that? I don’t mean that I disapprove—in fact, this is the world that I want: women wandering alone through the park, half drunk, watching a father with his son, smelling bacon cooking somewhere, and longing for something from the near or distant past. I guess if I was a DJ, like in public, what I’d aspire to do is play songs that blew people’s minds—just a little bit. So I could see playing this one. It’s a really vivid song—and I have no idea if Vikki Carr was a drinker or not—but it’s kind of hard for me to imagine her chugging beer for breakfast.

The Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour”

This record sounded fresher to me than the other two, just now, maybe because I’ve always avoided this one. There’s this fantastic song called “Penny Lane” that I’ve never heard before. I’m kidding. I think what I like about this record is my lasting admiration for a few of the songs. Maybe two. When I was a single digit kid, I had the single of “Hello, Goodbye” which I thought was the perfect dumb pop single–it’s almost frightening–and I still think so, pretty much. But then on the other side of that record was “I Am the Walrus” which completely intrigued me, and maybe was frightening in a different way. I admit, I still haven’t gotten over that “yellow matter custard” business. I imagine there are entire support groups for people who were traumatized by that phrase. It should surprise no one that there is a band called Yellow Matter Custard. But really, right now, I wish I didn’t know that. Sometimes the internet makes the world seem really, really small. But of course, that’s all an illusion. Because with all that information at your fingertips, it’s still impossible to know another person, really. It’s pretty much impossible to know yourself. The internet is just a hall of mirrors. I’m really hating the world, and myself, a little bit right about now. I mean, how many hours did I spend on this glorious morning looking at designer pot and glass pipes on slowly loading, clumsy web pages? The answer is: TOO MANY.