Sell Out!
I miss the days of “selling out” in rock and roll. It’s hard to fathom the purist fury that fans once generated over “plugging in” or signing to a major label. These days, not only does the clearest act of selling out – licensing music for teevee commercials and even performing in such commercials – not generate controversy, it is rewarded by higher sales!
The once-underground techno star Moby became famous by licensing all of the songs off of his 1999 album, “Play,” for use in movies and commercials. For many, it was their first exposure to his music, and it led to more radio airplay and huge record sales. Established “catalog” artists discovered that this strategy could work for them as well. An old Who album cut, “Bargain,” has become a classic rock radio staple after being used in some car commercial. New Who “best of” collections had to be assembled to include the track, which sold like gangbusters.
What’s worse is that some stars are appearing in these ads. As a fan, I want to go to concerts and see rock stars, not ladies’ lingerie salesmen. Yes, fine, my objection is partially some kind of hipster elitism about what is cool. So shoot me. It’s also based in my commie revulsion of crass commercialism. But, while many artists may not have once shared my objection to such commercialism, and thus can’t be argued to have sold out any of their own principles, they are still selling out something precious by licensing their back pages.
“People lost their virginity to this music, got high for the first time to this music,” says former Doors drummer John Densmore. “That’s not for rent.” That’s well said, even if his refusal to allow Doors songs to be licensed in commercials is a high-minded cover for his longtime estrangement from his former bandmates.
Still, Densmore is passing up a $15 million payday for sticking to his guns. That kind of money is something of an aberration, I’d wager. My friend, Alan Amalgamated (himself a rock drummer, who spent years in the industry), predicts that one day corporations will make artists pay for the privilege of having their music promoted in these ads. Already, with so many artists willing to sell out, I’m sure the market price of one’s soul has dropped considerably. $15 million for a famous rock song like “Break On Through,” which is not yet associated with any corporate product is kinda understandable. But what about a song like “Lust for Life.” That bugger’s been used for everything. What corporation is going to pay the big bucks for someone else’s sloppy seconds?
The problem for many of the artists is that they get robbed left and right, by producers, managers, directors, A&R men and many more. It is not uncommon for rockers who are made “millionaires” by their major label record contracts to wind up “thousandaires” once the final accounts are settled.
Recording artists desperately need some sort of collective action to balance the power at the major labels. Fans should engage in some kind of boycott themselves. I would say, don’t buy any song that’s used in a corporate advertisement. Don’t encourage this lousy system. If you like what you hear, and don’t already own it on scratchy, dusty vinyl, then, by all means, illegally download.
Even better, throw your teevee out the window, like I did years ago. You won’t even know who’s selling out anymore, and you’ll have more times to simply listen to the music.
“Children by the Million”
The disastrous magnitude of Hurricane Katrina’s impact on the Gulf Coast is almost inconceivable. I’ll hardly bother with a political commentary on the government’s woefully inadequate response to, and preparation for, this utterly predictable storm. I don’t think that we, as a society, are going to learn the lessons we need from this.
Global climate change is real, and it’s magnifying the size and impact of storms like Katrina, but don’t expect Bush to sign the Kyoto treaty. The National Guard belongs here, protecting the nation, not occupying foreign nations, but don’t expect our governors to demand the immediate return of their states’ troops. Natural disasters are much more likely, and predictable threats than fantastic terrorist threats, but don’t expect the Department of Homeland Security to focus on coastal evacuation. We’ll learn nothing, and this will happen again. Perhaps next time it will be Long Island.
I haven’t been near a television this week, so it’s hard to comprehend reports of dead bodies floating in the water and the thousands who are feared dead. And so, paradoxically, I am focused on one man.
Alex Chilton is missing.
Chilton is not a celebrity, or even a rock star really. He’s kinda the ultimate cult figure. The invisible man who can sing in a visible voice.
He first hit the top of the pop charts as a 16-year-old in the late 60’s with the band the Box Tops. His deep growl, which powered hits “The Letter” and “Cry Like a Baby,” was produced by the amphetamines he was force-fed by his producers (the same svengalies who likely pocketed all the dough).
He resurfaced a few years later with the first significant power pop band, Big Star. Their first two records undersold, although, like the Velvet Underground, it seems as though everyone who bought those records formed a band. (A cover of one of their songs, “In the Street,” served as the theme song to the sitcom, “That 70’s Show” and probably provided Chilton with the biggest paycheck of his life.)
Big Star’s unfinished third record is the stuff of legend. The band, their relationships and even their record label were disintegrating during the recording of “Sister Lovers.” The result is haunting. Some songs are pissed off and defiant. Others are sad and resigned. Some trail off into nothingness. The record finally saw the light of day a decade later when Chilton became a cult figure.
He produced the Cramps and became a hero of the punk movement, touring London on a legendary bender. REM praised him. The Bangles covered him. The Replacements recorded a tribute to him, simply called “Alex Chilton.”
Chilton, meanwhile, continued to be a legendary fuck-up. He left plenty of unfinished records, his own and even half of a never-completed Replacements record. Finally, he sobered up and frustrated his new young fans by recording R&B covers instead of new paeans to young love and angst.
I saw Alex Chilton play live twice. The first time was at the old Bottom Line club, when he delivered a set of those R&B covers. The club is intimate enough that you could whisper your requests to him. Every plea for “September Gurls” or “I’m In Love With a Girl” would be met with a sly smile, a promise that that was the next song on the set list and another R&B cover. I loved him for it.
The last time I saw Alex Chilton was at the World Trade Center, which hosted a free lunchtime oldies concert every Tuesday during the summer of 2001. Chilton played with a reunited Box Tops for an audience of grey-haired old-time fans and pink-haired new fans. I remember looking up during the show to watch a few seagulls fly in between those two towers, scraping the sky. Two weeks later, that image, and the sound of Alex Chilton’s voice, haunted me as I watched images on teevee of seagulls flying out of the thick plumes of smoke and debris that rose from the collapsing towers.
And, now, there’s another national disaster and I’m thinking about Alex Chilton again.
According to his record label, Alex Chilton remained behind at his home in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approached. He hasn’t been heard from since, and his name is listed among the missing on the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s website.
In his old tribute, “Alex Chilton,” Replacements singer-songwriter Paul Westerberg concludes “If he died in Memphis, then that’d be cool,” but he was probably imagining a death of old age after a long life and career of writing and recording beautiful, sad, frustrating, awe-inspiring songs. At 54, Chilton is hardly old. He deserves the chance to make it back to Memphis. This is not cool.
(Thanks to Tommy for bringing this to my attention.)
Great Live Concert Moments
Former Washington Post music critic David Segal just published the sort of “goodbye to all that” article that gives rock-n-roll nerds like me big ‘ol boners. Segal writers about the Ahab-like quest for “great live concert moments” – moments during a live concert that are so unique and memorable that you realize you are sharing a special intimate moment with the band a few hundred fans (I don’t attend arena concerts as a rule, so it’s never more than a few hundred).
So, I’m thinking of some of my own great live concert moments. The first to spring to mind was a 2001 New Years Eve show by the Fleshtones at Handsome Dick Manitoba’s little club on the Lower East Side. The Fleshtones would gladly admit to being a party band, but their party that night was truly cathartic as we bid goodbye to that awful year. We counted down to midnight several times and danced the night away.
In the summer of 2002, I saw Spoon play a triumphant gig at the Bowery Ballroom. A few months earlier, I caught lead singer-songwriter Britt Daniel test drive his new songs at a solo acoustic gig at the Mercury Lounge to a room that was not near the 500 person capacity. The Bowery show came after rave critical reviews for their “Kill the Moonlight” cd and was sold out weeks beforehand. Britt was visibly uncomfortable with having such a large audience shouting out requests and singing along to all the songs, new and old. An unrelenting audience lured the band out for an unplanned second encore. They played “Jonathan Fisk” with such ferocity that Britt broke his guitar strings, which I’m sure left him relieved that the concert could finally end. (Fast forward to this past July, when Spoon triumphantly headlined the Sirens festival in Coney Island. Britt Daniel has grown into himself as the lead singer, and seemed to truly enjoy the whole show, particularly the delighted screams that came from the Cyclone.)
The eels delight in unexpected encores. The first time I saw them, in 2000, I had already left the Bowery Ballroom by the time they returned to the stage to deliver a surprise, second encore – twenty minutes after the show had ended (the song they played – “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues” was an unlisted final track on the album they were promoting at the time), and the bouncers would not allow me to return inside the building to seem them play that last song. A year later, when the band returned to the Bowery to preview another disc, I knew to stay well past the last song. Sure enough, I – and thirty other hearty souls who stuck around – were treated to a solo rendition of the band’s sole pop hit (1996’s “Novocaine for the Soul”) by drummer Butch, who accompanied his drumming with a monotone delivery of the lyrics. Butch paused mid-song to admonish the remaining crowd for botching the lyrics. (Well, how were were supposed to remember the words if the band refused to play the song live for so many years?) Ten minutes later, the rest of the band came out and played another four or five songs for the few fans who remained. Without hundreds of bodies to absorb the sound of the instruments’ feedback, the music reverberated off the walls and sounded truly bizarre. The eels have kept this up as a tradition, stretching out the wait between encores for a half hour or more, occasionally breaking the tedium with a bit of break dancing.
I could think of many more, but I’ll only mention one: a Chuck Berry / Little Richard double bill at Westbury Music Fair that demonstrated that rock geezers deviating from the script can be entertaining (listen up, Mick and Keith). Chuck Berry has famously spent the last forty years touring without a band. Instead, he tells the venue to provide him with a drummer, bassist and pianist (and they have to be union, too!). There is no practice beforehand. “Practice” is the first thirty minutes of the show, whippersnapper. After the first half hour, the true King of Rock-n-Roll – who did not seem to be working from an established set list – asked the audience for requests. Chuck accepted a request for “Promised Land,” but when it became clear that he couldn’t remember the lyrics, he launched into “Sweet Little 16.” Nevermind that it was the second time he had played it during the show. The second time was so much better.
Little Richard upstaged Chuck Berry’s great live concert moment by promising fans that he would sign autographs in the lobby after the show. After security made clear to fans that such a fan interaction session was verboten in the lobby (despite the contract), a few dozen of us waited outside the venue, near the backstage entrance, for a little one-on-one with the Georgia Peach. After about a half hour, we watched a flamboyant white, stretch limousine pull into the parking lot to observe us, and then pull away to return to the hotel. Shut up!
School Days Mixtape
It’s only a few more weeks until I go to school. I’ve started burning mix CDs for the road trip to Amherst. For a bit of fun, I’ve compiled some of the better school-themed songs.
“Fuck School” by the Replacements. The Mats picked up the speed and dumbed down the jokes on their 1982 e.p. “Stink.” Whereas a song like “Goddamn Job” has a certain pathos, “Fuck School” is impotent, class-dropping anger.
“School” by Nirvana. From the heavy metal guitar feedback to the lyrical refrain “No recess!” this is early Nirvana at their most obvious. Eh. Everybody’s gotta start somewhere.
“College Man” by Bill Justis. Justis is best known for the instrumental hit, “Raunchy,” the twangy guitar and sax ramble that was pure sex on the airwaves in the 1950’s (Bit of trivia: George Harrison had to prove that he could master this song in order to join the Beatles). “College Man” was a lesser hit, a cocksure strut through the halls of campus driven by a wailing sax. Hail to dear old alma mater.
“High School Confidential” by Jerry Lee Lewis. Justis’ Sun Records labelmate, the Killer loves to shake it at the high school hop, although Jerry Lee probably should stay away from teenage girls. Speaking of which…
“Pussy Walk” by Iggy Pop. Mr. Ostenberg understandably gets a little randy when thinking about pussy, but when he confesses impure thoughts touring the “high schools and junior high schools and other centers of learning in this wonderful land,” well, I get a little squeamish. The high schools I can understand, Iggy, but the junior high schools?! You naughty little doggie.
“Modern World” by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. Cousin Jonathan’s classic first record is all about college girls; the pretty, intellectual, artistic goddesses who attend Massachusetts’ post-secondary educational institutions and date pot-smoking hippie losers instead of taking guys like me and my cousin to the Museum of Fine Arts and explaining what it all represents. This is one of his more Mass-centric songs, with its exhortation to “Drop out of B.U.!” and all that driving past Stop-and-Shops. The Modern World is not so bad…not like the students say.
“School Days” by Chuck Berry. The true king of rock-n-roll, Berry not only wrote the guitar riffs that new players cut their teeth on, he laid down the basic lyrical themes of rock: girls, school, cars and dancing. Hail, hail rock-n-roll!
“Straight A’s In Love” by Johnny Cash. Schoolyard romance is out of character for the man in black, but at least he’s rebellious enough to flunk out of school while getting all that action.
“Straight A’s” by the Dead Kennedys. The reverse of JC’s song, this self-loathing student gets the grades but not the girls. “Girls, they kick me in the eye / Want answers to the tests / When they get them they drive off / And leave me home to rest.”
“Life Sentence” by the Dead Kennedys. A more relevent DK song for grad school is the one that warns “You stayed too long in school.”
“Be True To Your School” by the Beach Boys. They were probably thinking of homecoming and state championships. I think of protesting CUNY budget cuts.
“UMass” by the Pixies. I can’t think of a song about CUNY, but at least my new school, in the sleepy west of the woody east, was feted by the mighty Pixies. It’s educational!
“We Rule the School” by Belle and Sebastian. A graffiti boast from the album that Stuart Murdoch recorded for a Business course in college. LIke most of their stuff, it’s twee and bittersweet.
“Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” by the Ramones. The Ramones tore a page from the Chuck Berry songwriting textbook for their movie theme song. Don’t wanna be taught to be no fool.
That’s just scratching the surface. I’ve skipped the Mekons, the Talking Heads’ taunting dismissal of college and night school and a certain ubiquitous Alice Cooper song. It’s a work in progress. Make your own suggestions.