SIDE TWO
TRACK 1: "GIVE THE DRUMMER SOME"
I begin by bestowing the proper homage to two world class drummers who happen to share the same birthday of May 8, 2013. The first is Chris Frantz, the drummer most known and celebrated for his work with Talking Heads from the band's inception in 1975 to its demise in 1991. As I celebrate is 62nd birthday, I am honored to pay my respects to a drummer who, to me, is very much in the same class as Ringo Starr, Jim Keltner or Mick Fleetwood, as he is a drummer who knows how to listen and then deliver exactly and precisely what the song in question needs. Given the breadth of David Byrne's songwriting and musical vision, Frantz is one of rock's most versatile percussionists as he stretched his talents so seemingly effortlessly from post-punk rock and new wave, to ambient soundscapes and studio wizardry, the funk, soul and club music, to straight ahead pop and regional rock and roll to the elastic poly-rhythms of African and Brazilian music. And of course, as one half of Tom Tom Club, the fat groove he laid down for the classic "Genius Of Love" (single released September 6, 1981) would alone be a grand reason to celebrate this world class musician.
The second drummer is one that possesses a more signature style and even his overall sound as the snap of his snare drum is unlike any other drummer I have ever had the pleasure to listen to. On this day, I also celebrate the 60th birthday of Alex Van Halen.
Alex Van Halen is one extraordinary drummer whom I have never really felt has gotten his fair share of attention, obviously due to the focus placed upon the sheer guitar superheroics of his brother Eddie Van Halen and combined with any internal drama made public between the band any whomever happens to be their lead singer for a time. While A.V.H. contains more than his fair share of rock and roll bombast and herculean power, he also has shown a supreme amount of versatility as well. I will forever love and remain in awe of his double bass drum attack from "Hot For Teacher" but do check out the full jazz swing and flair he displays on that track, plus a host of others throughout Van Halen's entire recording career. While he has more than retained his powerhouse presence on Van Halen's most recent album "A Different Kind Of Truth" (released February 7, 2012), some of my favorite work from him appears upon the album "Balance" (released January 24, 1995) where he flies from power pop ("Can't Stop Loving You"), ballads ("Not Enough"), punishing hard rock ("Don't Tell Me What Love Can Do"), African sounding polyrhythms (the instrumental "Doin' Time"), monolithic metal ("Baluchitherium") and the shifting time signatures contained in the wrenching final track "Feelin'."
Happy Birthday to both percussion masters!
TRACK 2: "THIS IS NOT MUSIC. THIS IS A TRIP."
I celebrate the 25th anniversary of Prince's kaleidoscopic spiritual masterpiece "Lovesexy," which was originally released on May 10, 1988. Of course, the album cover was highly controversial and was indeed the visual shocker when I ventured into record stores as the end of my Freshman year of college. But as I listened to the odyssey of which we were caught in between Prince's then consistent battle between sin and salvation (as represented by the holy "Lovesexy" and the heathenish "Spooky Electric"), I realized that the album cover artwork was not lascivious but one of spiritual rebirth.
The story behind the evolution of "Lovesexy" is legendary. In the fall of 1987, Prince announced that he was set to release an album entitled "The Black Album," mere months after he had already released "8" (released in the Spring) and "16" (released in the Fall), two jazz/fusion/ instrumental funk albums under the pseudonym of Madhouse. And of course, there was "Sign O' The Times" (released March 31, 1987), the double album juggernaut under his own name and which was culled from several aborted multi-album projects including the proposed double album with The Revolution entitled "The Dream Factory" and the proposed solo triple album called "Crystal Ball." As the sonic palate of his album's moved further away from R&B and funk and included more rock, pop and psychedelic elements (read: "white"), some members of his African-American fan base began to question whether Prince could deliver the funk ever again.
In retaliation Prince crafted "The Black Album," a musically dark collection of heavy funk selections peppered with profanities and mind searing guitar work that included digs against rappers ("Dead On It"), and especially sexually explicit songs like "Le Grind," "Superfunkacalifragisexy," and "Rock Hard In A Funky Place," a track all about the decidedly male problem of having an ever present erection. And then, there was "Bob George," the album's most infamous track, on which Prince electronically altered his voice to play the profanity laden role of a jealous lover who angrily chastises his girlfriend for stepping out with the titular Bob George and then shoots her and himself in a murder/suicide scenario that is simultaneously terrifying and surprisingly hysterical. It is as if he prefigured gangsta rap by a good four to five years, not that unlikely for someone who has typically been light years ahead of the curve.
The problems stemmed from the fact that Prince, who allegedly experienced some sort of spiritual crisis, declared the defiant "fuck you" of an album as "evil" and at the very last minute, pulled the album from release, locking "The Black Album" away in his vault of unreleased material for years (the highly bootlegged album--of which even I purchased a vinyl copy in '87--was eventually released on November 22, 1994 during his epic battle with Warner Brothers).
Wanting to then create music based completely within his spiritual epiphany, Prince crafted the "Lovesexy" album over seven weeks at his Paisley Park studios with his superior "Sign O' The Times" touring band, which included the outstanding Eric Leeds and Atlanta Bliss on saxophone, flute and trumpet, respectively and the inimitable Shelia E. on drums. Designing an album experience meant to represent being immersed in the supreme, ethereal power from a higher being, "Lovesexy" was a bright, pop oriented yet extremely complex and heavily layered experience on which I am still hearing new sounds 25 years later. It was an album that was meant to be digested in its entirety, not as one song at a time, or through cherry picking favorite tracks over others as the CD version of the release displays the album as having only one track. Unless you have the patience to slowly fast forward (how's that for an oxymoron?) through various songs, "Lovesexy" demands to be listened to from start to finish or not at all.
After the brief nursery rhyme styled spoken words ("Rain is wet, sugar is sweet, clap your hands, stomp your feet...") which open "Lovesexy," Prince and his band launch the listener through the horn driven selection of spiritual affirmation in "Eye Know," the hand clap augmented rock/soul/rap hybrid of "Alphabet St.," and the astounding rainbow colored glory of "Glam Slam." Prince's spiritual leaning s become more overt on the extraordinary ballad "Anna Stesia," and he then takes us completely down the rabbit hole with rhythmically head spinning songs like "Dance On" and the title track. "When 2 R In Love," the only holdover from "The Black Album" arrives to give the listener a chance to catch their breath from the aural collage and "I Wish U Heaven" soothes the soul in absolution. But the grand finale is the spellbinding "Positivity," seven plus minutes detailing our on-going struggle between our better and worse selves, the duality that exists in everyone and Prince's pleas to for all of us to "hold on 2 your soul."
"Lovesexy" was an album that confused the hell out of me when I first heard it and perhaps through even countless subsequent listenings. But, once the music and messages took hold, the power of the album was unquestionable and for my ears, has remained one of Prince's highest recorded achievements and a most incredible capper to a period of music during which he established and created his entire musical language that was and remains unlike anyone else before or since.
You know...I think that tomorrow morning, I need to head into the WSPC library and dig it out to experience once again.
TRACK 3: "RETURN OF THE SUPERVIXEN"
Garbage makes their return appearance in the WSPC Liner Notes, partially to celebrate the May 7th release of their new single, a cover version of Patti Smith's classic take on the Bruce Springsteen composed "Because The Night," a collaboration with the band Screaming Females. But I am primarily including Garbage this time to celebrate the 15th anniversary of their second album "Version 2.0" (released May 12, 1998). And of course, there is an anecdote...
One early weekend Spring morning in 1998, my wife and I were on State Street for the purpose of stopping inside the now defunct Spex eye glasses store in order for her to select a much needed new pair of glasses. After she had chosen her glasses, we had hit a lull in the ordering/purchasing process and I decided to venture next door to B-Side Records for a few minutes to kill some time. I picked up a copy of the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine and as I thumbed through the pages, I found a blurb about the then upcoming release of Garbage's second album. As I was reading a few quotes places by the band's drummer Butch Vig, I happened to hear, through the din of indoor and outdoor conversations combined with the music which blared through the store, someone who said, "...why don't you just give me a call at the studio when it comes in." My ears perked up at the sound of that phrase and I turned my head to see who uttered it out of curiosity, expecting to see some sort of insufferable hipster dude. Imagine my shock and awe and the occupant of that request was not some insufferable hipster dude but it was none other than BUTCH VIG himself!!!!
I was gobsmacked. Absolutely, positively, completely gobsmacked as the surreal nature of this musically cosmic moment was not lost upon me. And then there was just my own sense of amazement as I never tend to think that famous people would ever appear in any place where I happened to be and entirely without the context of why said famous person happens to be famous in the first place. I looked at Butch Vig and I just could not move or find any impetus to take three steps and and just say something. I had no idea of what "Garbage etiquette" was and I was afraid that he just didn't want to be bothered since he was essentially rock royalty and hometown rock royalty at that. So, I stared while trying not to stare and yes, dear listeners, your favorite DJ and fellow drummer said nothing and just watched Vig make his purchases and walk out of the store. I returned to Spex and somehow uttered to my wife of who I had just seen, a story which was over heard by the owners of Spex who chastised me for not saying anything as they insisted that he was a hometown cat and he would;d have been cool with any gracious greetings.
At any rate, "Version 2.0" hit the airwaves and stores and I was very fortunate to even have WON a copy of the album through a radio contest on the now defunct alternative radio station WMAD-FM. By the time, I cracked the jewel case open and began to listen, I was satisfied more than I ever thought that I could have been. "Version 2.0" is exactly as advertised, a slicker, tighter, harder, more focused, faster and stronger set of tracks than their debut release, "Garbage" (released August 15, 1995). Lead singer Shirley Manson's persona as the "Supervixen" was made so brilliantly complete as she took over all of the band's lyrics and in combination with the full band's sonic delivery, they created an album in which every track was a killer, filled with labyrinthine studio and performance wizardry, punch, power and stunning melodicism. "I Think I'm Paranoid," "Push It," "The Trick is To Keep Breathing," "Special," "When I Grow Up," "Sleep Together," the heartbreaking "You Look So Fine" and others made for a speedball of an album that never let up for a moment, disappointed in the least and perfectly set the stage for then future releases. And as I look back, I really think that "Version 2.0" was indeed one of the best albums of the 1990's, in the alternative music scene or otherwise.
TRACK 4: "LIFE AFTER DEATH"
Another one of the very best albums of the 1990's for my money was De La Soul's second album "De La Soul Is Dead" (released May 13, 1991) which now celebrates its 22nd anniversary.
It was the album that pole-vaulted over the "sophomore slump" as the band, in collaboration with genius hip hop producer Prince Paul, crafted an edgier, riskier, and even more of a head trip of an album than their predecessor, the classic "3 Feet High And Rising" (released March 3, 1989). The title stemmed from how the band attempted to aurally kill off their so-called "hippie" persona from their debut release, as referenced by the cover artwork image of a flower pot knocked over with three daisies laying limply in the soil. They succeeded amazingly with an album that is transportive with its musical headspace which is conveyed through sonic pictures, layers upon layers of sound, the delirious creativity in their music sampling choices, collection of characters, stories, running jokes and social commentaries like the incredible tracks "My Brother's A Basehead" and the disturbing "Millie Pulled A Pistol On Santa."
I listened to this album endlessly in the summer of 1991 when I was covertly working in the college campus' Memorial Library even after I had graduated! Whenever I listen to this album, it just takes me back so blissfully. At the same time, it is saddening because that album was so forward thinking and I cannot believe that so much of hip hop has remained stagnated in the overly vulgar, carton violence filled, misogynistic, image driven field that it has been for over 20 years. "De La Soul is Dead" showed where all of hip hop could go creatively and if people are listening, this album can still show us all how high and how far this art form can ascend to.
And with that, let us close the gatefold...until next time!!!
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