Category Archives: On Music

Keith don’t go

March 12, 2016 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

A wizard, a true star: R.I.P. Keith Emerson 1944-2016

Goddammit. What is the deal with 2016? We’re just over two months in, and I’m feeling like Dave Lister coming out of stasis in Episode 1:

I know its (still) reflexive in some snooty muso quarters to use Emerson, Lake, & Palmer as the whipping boys for 70s excess, but I don’t care…I was an ELP fan then, I am an ELP fan now, and I will be an ELP fan forever. There, I said it. Out, loud and proud. Prog rock rules!

With that said, a shout out now to the memory of one of the gods of the Moog. Keith, wherever you are, know this: Still…you turn me on.

UPDATE: I’m sad to learn that Keith apparently battled depression for several decades, according to friend and band mate Greg Lake:

(from The Sunday Express)

“I have to be honest and say that his [apparent suicide] didn’t come as a shock to me,” [Lake] said.

“The situation with Keith didn’t happen suddenly, it had been developing from as far back as the Works Vol 1 album (1977).

At that point, I began to see things happening with Keith which didn’t look or feel right.”

Lake did his best to help his friend – “when you’re close you always hope tomorrow will be better” – but eventually he became “impossible” to work with.

“I think its a very difficult thing to actually describe what depression is,” [Lake] said.

[…]

“Part of Keith’s problem was that, especially in later years, he’d begun to develop a degenerative disease that affected his hands.

He lost control of some of his fingers.” Lake is reluctant to link this illness too firmly to his death.

[…]

“All I would say is that if anyone does have feelings like that, of being so desperate that they think it’s better off not to wake up tomorrow, then please, go and talk to somebody – the doctor, your friend, anybody.”

Wise counsel. Chronic depression is nothing to be taken lightly; whether it’s yourself or a loved one. Here are some resources:

American Psychiatric Association

American Psychological Association

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance

National Institute of Mental Health

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1 (800) 273-8255 (24/7)

On Music, Tribute

And in the end: R.I.P. Sir George Martin

March 9, 2016 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

1926-2016

Well, the Heavenly Choir just got themselves one hell of an arranger.

In my 2012 review of the film Produced by George Martin, I wrote:

While no one can deny the inherent musical genius of the Beatles, it’s worth speculating whether it would have reached the same dizzying heights of creativity and artistic growth (and over the same 7-year period) had the lads never crossed paths with Sir George Martin. It’s a testament to the unique symbiosis between the Fabs and their gifted producer that one can’t think of one without also thinking of the other. Yet there is still much more to Martin than his celebrated association with John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Much more. Now, he’s gone. Not such a shock at 90, but still I’m sad.

From his early days working for EMI, where he earned his bones producing and arranging everything from comedy records to symphonic sessions, through his legendary partnership with the Beatles, to composing movie soundtracks, and as recently as the 2006 Beatles remixes for the Cirque du Soleil show Love, Martin remained the embodiment of creativity, craftsmanship and class.

The anointment of “Fifth Beatle” has been liberally bestowed over the decades (Klaus Voorman, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, etc.) but no one deserves it more than Sir George. He not only contributed defining orchestral touches to cuts like “Yesterday”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “All You Need Is Love”, “I Am The Walrus”, and “A Day in the Life”, but occasionally sat in, playing subtle flourishes like the harmonium solo on “The Word”, the lovely baroque piano on “In My Life” (both from Rubber Soul), and the harpsichord on “Fixing a Hole” (Sgt. Pepper).

Here are my picks for some of Sir George’s best post-Beatles work:

After the hymn, comes an amen…

On Music

Oi! Happy International Clash Day!

February 5, 2016 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

It’s days like this that remind me why I moved to rainy grey Seattle:

[Seattle Times] It’s official (wink, wink): King County Executive Dow Constantine has declared Friday, Feb. 5 as “International Clash Day,” and to honor it KEXP will be programming 12 hours of music dedicated to the UK punk legends starting at 6 a.m.

KEXP’s DJ John Richards started the idea back in 2013 when he determined that one Clash song was not enough.

“International Clash Day was created because of our love of great music, the rebellious nature of the band, the insane catalog to play from and because there really was nothing else going on that day,” Richards said.

Is that cool, or what? BTW, John Richards has my old job (seriously).

Happy ICD, everybody…stay free!

On Music, Tribute

Have you seen his star tonight: R.I.P. Paul Kantner

January 28, 2016 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

1941-2016

Lemmy started it. Then Bowie, Frey…what, they come in fours, now?!

“If you can remember the 60’s…you weren’t there.” The man who may have coined the phrase (a tired old debate still rages as to who actually did) is no longer earthbound. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Paul Kantner, founder of the Jefferson Airplane/Starship (to paraphrase Dennis Hopper) is out there, man…he’s really out there.

When you think about the 1960s “San Francisco sound”, it’s nearly impossible to not think about the Airplane. Yeah, they were a bunch of dirty fuckin’ hippies, but there’s no denying that they have a pretty deep catalog, and a lot of those songs have held up pretty damn well.

They’re typically lumped in with Bay Area contemporaries like the Dead, Moby Grape, Quicksilver, Big Brother, It’s a Beautiful Day, the New Riders, etc., but I always thought they had a slightly bolder sound. Consider this 1969 appearance on Dick Cavett , tearing it up with an uncensored rendition of Kantner’s “We Can Be Together”:

A bit X before X, n’est-ce pas? And Jorma’s man-bun seems…prescient.

But Kantner wasn’t strictly all about revolution and proto punk. I’ll sign off my tribute with his most beautiful song (co-written with David Crosby), from the Starship’s Blows Against the Empire album:

Documentary, On Music

The last days of disc: All Things Must Pass ***

January 25, 2016 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 23, 2016)

The first time I visited L.A. was in 1975, while still living in Alaska. I went with a friend, a fellow music geek who had grown up there. He introduced me to his “holy trinity” of record stores: Rhino on Westwood Boulevard, Aron’s on Melrose, and Mecca…a/k/a/ Tower Records on the Strip. I went absolutely ape shit (I remember flying back with about 150 LPs in tow). We didn’t have record stores like that in Fairbanks. Especially Tower, whose legend had loomed large in my mind (the import section alone-good god!).

In 1979, I moved to San Francisco for a couple years, where I developed my own “holy trinity”, including Rasputin (which required an excursion to Berkeley via BART), Aquarius in the Castro, and the Tower in North Beach. By the time I moved to Seattle in 1992, vinyl was pretty much on its way out, and the birth of Napster in 1999 assured that the CD would soon join the LP on its long slow death march. One by one, I watched my favorite independent record stores bite the dust, which was sad, but it was only once Seattle’s two Tower stores went belly up in 2006 that it truly felt like the “end of an era”.

Granted, by the time of its demise Tower had become somewhat “corporatized” (for wont of a better term), with worldwide franchising and over 90 stores across the U.S., but there was something about the vibe of the stores (at least the ones I visited) that made music geeks feel warm and fuzzy (notwithstanding the occasional judgmental clerk…but then that was part of the fun, and par for the course at any record store that was worth its salt).

That legacy (as well as that “vibe”) is the subject of All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records, a genial (if unremarkably executed) 2015 documentary by Colin Hanks, just out on DVD and Blu-ray. Hanks begins in the early 1960s, when founder Russell Solomon opened his first modest store in Sacramento, then eventually added the now iconic San Francisco and L.A. locations (in 1968 and 1970, respectively), ushering in the chain’s golden era in the 70s and 80s. However, as the title implies, nothing lasts forever; so Hanks also documents Tower’s slow, sad slide into the cut-out bins of history.

Solomon (pushing 90 and still pretty spry) is on hand to reminisce, as well as some of his former business partners. You do get a fairly good picture of the company’s unique management culture, which took a sort of anti-management approach (let’s just say that it was the 70s, these folks loved to party…and leave it at that).

Several music luminaries also share their anecdotes, most notably Sir Elton John, who went through a period where he would obsessively hit the Sunset Strip store every morning at 9am to check out the latest releases (this isn’t mentioned in the film, but he had a legendarily huge private music collection of 70,000 LPs, 45s, cassettes, 8-tracks, CDs and unique studio tapes, which he sold at Sotheby’s a few years ago to help raise money for his AIDS foundation).

Those of a certain persuasion (borderline OCD music collectors) and/or of a certain age (ahem, twice) may tend to get more misty-eyed toward the end of the doc than the average viewer. Again, it is not the most dynamically produced film, but its heart is in the right place. And if you miss the ritual of pawing through those bins, ogling the cover art and skimming the liner notes and track listing on the back, all the while breathing in that singularly intoxicating bouquet of shrink wrap and petroleum product-feel free to browse.

BONUS TRACK!

The obsessive collector’s mindset is perfectly encapsulated in this slyly multi-layered scene from Barry Levinson’s 1982 film, Diner:

On Music

The Fall and Rise of Ziggy Stardust

January 13, 2016 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

Pushing the envelope, to the last…

Wow. Simply wow.

I had put off watching David Bowie’s “Lazarus” video for several days because I had a feeling it would disturb me on many levels.

It did.

But it also moved me, in ways few music videos have. Many people have observed over the last few days that his new album Blackstar was a final “gift” to his fans. Perusing the comments for the YouTube posting confirms it was (I only made it through a few before I lost it).

In the song, Bowie laments: Look up here, I’m in heaven/I’ve got scars that can’t be seen. But for a parting refrain, he lays a reassuring hand on our shoulder: Oh, I’ll be free/Just like that bluebird/Oh, I’ll be free/Ain’t that just like me? Yes, David, you sly devil…it’s just like you.

The emotional impact of the video reminded me of this swan song:

I am also reminded of Warron Zevon, who released The Wind, just 2 weeks before his death from mesothelioma in 2003 (he had received the diagnosis several weeks before work began on the album.). Not surprisingly, mortality is a running theme through most of the cuts; in “Keep Me in Your Heart” (the album’s closer) Zevon also seems to be offering his fans an epitaph and preemptive grief counseling.

Like Bowie, Zevon begins with impending doom: Shadows are falling, and I’m running out of breath…but finishes: These wheels are turning, but they’re running out of steam/Keep me in your heart for a while.

On the up side, we’ll always have their music. As Jim Morrison sang:

Well the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end

On Music, Tribute

David Jones is on his way

January 11, 2016 Dennis Hartley 2 Comments

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 11, 2016)

1947-2016

Live to your rebirth and do what you will
(Oh by jingo)
Forget all I’ve said, please bear me no ill
(Oh by jingo)

After all, after all

(Pushing through the market square, so many mothers sighing…) I woke up this morning to get ready for work, turned on the Today show (…news had just come over, we had five years left to cry in) and saw the lead story (…news guy wept and told us, earth was really dying…cried so much his face was wet, and I knew he was not lying). No, not him! Fuck!

When one is at a loss for words after a great artist dies, it’s not uncommon to default to the old standby that “(he or she) meant so much, to so many people.” Of David Bowie, it may be more accurate for one to say that “he was so many people, who meant so much.”

Bowie invented the idea of “re-invention”. It’s also possible that he invented a working time machine, because he was always ahead of the curve (or leading the herd). He was the poster boy for “postmodern”. Space rock? Meet Major Tom. Glam rock? Meet Ziggy Stardust. Doom rock? Meet the Diamond Dog. Neo soul? Meet the Thin White Duke. Electronica? Ich bin ein Berliner. New Romantic? We all know Major Tom’s a junkie…

This one is hitting me hard. I’m 59 years old, so I’m getting a little used to watching the musical icons I grew up with dropping like flies…but this is one is hitting me hard. We’re talking Bob Marley and John Lennon; this is a significant loss to the music world.

Favorite Bowie album? For me that’s like choosing a favorite child. If pressed, I’d have to say my favorite Bowie period would be the Mick Ronson years (Space Oddity, Hunky Dory, The Man Who Sold the World, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Alladin Sane, and Pinups). There was something magical about the Bowie and Ronno dynamic; right up there with Daltrey and Townshend, Plant and Page, Ozzy and Tony, and Jagger and Richards. Luckily, this era was captured for posterity in D.A. Pennebaker’s 1973 concert film, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: the Motion Picture. Visually, the film is less than spectacular, but the performances are mesmerizing.

I’m sure his family had understandable reasons for keeping mum on his illness, and I respect that; but I can’t help but speculate on whether or not Bowie’s highly-developed sense of theatre prompted him to choreograph his demise into a sort of farewell installation piece. Consider: his final album (which he had to know was going to be his swan song) was released on his 69^th birthday January 8…2 days prior to his death. It’s as if he anticipated the great sense of loss amongst his fans; it’s a reassurance, a form of grief counselling: “It’s alright. I got my affairs in order; came up with a few odds and ends here to leave you with…it’s OK. Enjoy! It’s only rock’n’roll. After all, after all…”

On Music

Hey Santa! Pass us that bottle, will ya? (A mix tape)

December 21, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

Being that it’s the holidays and all, it seems good a time as any to share my Top 10 favorite songs of the season. Alphabetically…

Alan Parsons in a Winter Wonderland – Grandaddy

The stockings are hung with irony in this CA indie band’s rendition.

Christmas in Hollis – Run DMC

To my knowledge, the first Xmas rap; a classic! The elf is disturbing.

A Christmas Song– Jethro Tull

Ian Anderson decries the commercialization; gets drunk with Santa.

Do They Know It’s Christmas? – Band Aid

Oy, the mullets! Still quite moving 30 years on, and for a good cause.

Happy Xmas (War is Over) – John Lennon

If you give peace a chance, good will towards men will surely follow.

I Am Santa Claus – Bob Rivers

Funniest Christmas parody song ever, by the “Twisted Tunes” gang.

I Believe in Father Christmas – Greg Lake

Such a beautiful song. Great live version with Ian Anderson on flute.

Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth-David Bowie & Bing Crosby

Yes, this really happened. Years before Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga.

2000 Miles – The Pretenders

A lovely chamber pop rendition, and Chrissie’s vocals are sublime.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas– Jacob Miller (w/ Ray I)

An ire, ire, ire Xmas wish from the late great Inner Circle front man.

Happy Crimble and a very New Year!

On Music, Rock 'n' Roll

Blu-ray reissue: The Beatles 1+ ****

December 7, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 5, 2015)

The Beatles 1+ (1 CD + 2 Blu-ray edition) – Capitol

Your degree of enthusiasm for this 3-disc CD/Blu-ray combo set from Capitol depends on what kind of Beatle fan you are. If you are a casual fan, it might be a bit too extravagant; but for completists, it’s a treasure trove. Admittedly, the CD holds no surprises, as it is a straight up reissue of the eponymous 2000 27-track collection of the Beatles’ #1 hits. While the CD tracks are “newly” remixed, I can discern little difference from the belated catalog-wide remix/remasters that were done a few years ago. It’s the Blu-rays that make it worthwhile. One disc contains the official music videos of the CD cuts, and the 2^nd disc features alternate versions of 7 of the #1 hits, plus B-sides and deeper album cuts. This disc is a combination of live performance clips, original promotional films and a few more “official” post Beatle era video workups. Audio and image quality are outstanding on both Blu-rays. Totally gear!

On Music

Sales from the crypt: Elvis is back for Halloween

October 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

The White House, 1970: Two great recording artists meet at last

I’ve never been a huge Elvis fan, but like most ‘murcans who have strolled this planet since mid-century last, I have a sizable portion of his catalog burned into my neurons (how do I know all these lyrics?). But the people who are really into Elvis? They are really into Elvis.

I can’t deny that he’s an icon. Some have suggested he literally is:

The Statue of Liberty thing is spooky; some point even further back:

I digress. This crossed my desk at the radio station the other day:

The sticker on the shrink wrap read: Elvis is back! Really?! You mean all that Weekly World News stuff wasn’t complete and utter shash? The cover photo was obviously archival, but I flipped over the jewel case and sure enough, there it was: copyright 2015, RCA Records. 14 tracks, spanning Elvis’ career, but remixed with the addition of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Conceptually, it’s a comedy premise:

I was intrigued enough to give it a spin, and…it sort of works, depending on the track. For example, “Burning Love”, does not work; “Hunka hunka burnin’ love” and “lush string arrangement” should never appear together in the same sentence, much less the same mixing console (ditto the cover of James Taylor’s “Steamroller Blues”).

On the other hand, “Love Me Tender” is beautiful; the reflective ballad transforms here into lovely chamber pop, in the vein of The Beatles’ “Yesterday” (or George Martin’s orchestral enhancement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” demo for the Beatles Love remix). Unfortunately, the deeper you go into this collection, the more exploitative and schmaltzy it feels. Rabid fans will likely adore it; speaking for myself …let the man rest in peace.

If I Can Dream-Elvis Presley with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

RCA Records CD (Street date: October 30)

Rating: **