“It’s a wild time, I see people all around me changing faces”: After Bathing at Baxter’s (Jefferson Airplane)

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Year: 1967

Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Acid Rock

Preceded by: Surrealistic Pillow (1967)

Followed by: Crown of Creation (1968)

Related to: not available yet

 

 

A wild time it sure must have been, those final years of the sixties. In mainstream culture those wild times are mostly associated with Woodstock, but this event in fact took place two years after the one and only year that can fully identify itself with the declared ideals of peace, love and music. 1967, a year that has meanwhile acquired a glorious reputation in pop music’s historiography. A year about which, when you didn’t witness it yourself, you can only fantasize and presume. It helps of course to actually read this history to give shape to these thoughts, but a picture, or in this case ‘a sound’ is worth a thousand words. No other band succeeds better to offer you this sound than the one described here, so hop on the Jefferson Airplane one more time and lets fly to 1967.

It’s a wild time, I’m doing things that haven’t got a name yet. Another lyric from ‘Wild Tyme (H)’, fifth track on Airplane’s third studio album: After Bathing at Baxter’s. It’s January14th 1967 (ten days after The Doors opened pop music’s bumper year with their debut album) and people around San Francisco are gathering in the Golden Gate Park. To change faces, to question everything about their environment (especially authority) and to do new things. To raise consciousness in the first place, encouraged by performing poets, psychology professors and bestselling novelists and supported by underground chemists. The music is provided by local bands like Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead. We’re flying a first time over the crowd with this track from Paul Kantner. Together with Grace Slick and Marty Balin he fills in the fantastic vocal harmonies here, all three chased by Jorma Kaukonen’s (soloing) guitar. It all builds up to this great apotheosis: And it’s new, and it’s new, and it’s oh, so new! I see changes, changes, all around me are changes!

February 1967, the Airplane releases its second studio album: Surrealistic Pillow . Although it were the two songs that female vocalist Grace Slick brought along to her new band that launched this album to great success, Marty Balin was the principal songwriter on this breaktrough album. He founded the band two years before by gathering some talented fellow folk musicians around him, but here on Baxter’s there’s only one song of his signature left: the beautiful ‘Young Girl Sunday Blues’. Echoes of Pillow still can be heard on this song, as it might remind of ‘3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds’. Interesting about this track is the combination of the totally laid-back lyrics (‘I walk beside you laughing and I’m high, don’t try to touch me with words’) with another great uptempo guitar performance by Kaukonen. Balin is vocally backed by Kantner here, while Slick is left out. Again, this song builds up to a liberating conclusion: Ah! Come into my mind, let yourself wander free and easy.

The dwindling role of Balin within the group indicates a new trail the band started to follow after Pillow, with Paul Kantner impersonating this definite conversion from the bands folk roots to harder and pure psychedelic rock. Of course this evolution was caused by some developments in the music scene, as Hendrix turned the world upside down with his blasting debut album in May while a growing number of people were travelling to San Francisco to plunge themselves into the psychedelic subculture and the proclaimed ‘Summer of Love’. This summer reaches its peak at June 16th(two weeks after The Beatles introduce Sgt. Pepper’s to the world from over the ocean), when the three day Monterey Pop Festival kicks off.

Airplane performs as headliner on the second day, and closes its set with ‘The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil’, one of Kantner songs and the opener of Baxter’s. The title refers to two sources of inspiration for Kantner, that is A.A. Milne’s books of Winnie the Pooh and folk artist Fred Neil. Some of the lyrics are borrowed from Milne’s poetry, whose childhood images are mixed with delicate questions like ‘Will the moon still hang in the sky when I’m high, when I die?’. This results in an anthem where the fabulous harmonies (from Paul, Marty, Grace and Jorma) are once more combined with a catchy guitar riff, even adding a bass solo here. It directly flows over (the album is classified into five suites but is in fact one big psychedelic medley) to  ‘A Small Package of Value Will Come to You, Shortly’, a track from drummer Spencer Dryden. It’s some kind of audio collage that reminds of Frank Zappa’s work and it shows that it’s possible to limit such collections of sounds to exactly 100 seconds, contrary to what John Lennon would do one year later.

Three more songs from Kantner are to be found on this album. First there’s ‘Martha’, which is definitely  my personal favorite. It’s a ballad with combined acoustic and electric guitars, on which Kantner himself takes the lead vocals. The soothing way in which he does this, makes this song being the closest to the bands original folk roots. The song was written about a girl named Martha Wax, who must have been a teenage runaway/groupie of the band in those days. The instrumentals are less pronounced than other tracks, moving the spotlight to Kantner’s poetic excesses like: ‘Martha she keeps her heart in a broken clock and it’s waiting there for me’, supported by Slick on backing vocals. Second there’s ‘Watch Her Ride’, perhaps his least on this album. The lyrics never reach the level of ‘Martha’ and also musically this song is not that great, despite the, again, nice harmonies. So it’s kind of strange that this track was chosen as the first single of the album (without much success), although it shows at the same time that the group had turned into an album band now.

So what about Grace Slick’s songs, couldn’t she deliver another hit single like she did with ‘White Rabbit’ earlier? Not really, although ‘Two Heads’ will stick in your ears the  longest when listening the album the first couple of times. Her voice reaches the same level as on those earlier hit singles, while some kind of mystical atmosphere is added this time by eastern sounds. The lyrics make use of stream of consciousness image-forming, just like her other song here. This one’s her best on the album and is called ‘rejoyce’. Did she honour Lewis Caroll earlier, now it’s time for an ode to James Joyce’s Ulysses, making use of her strong and enchanting voice again. While Jack Casady outshines here with a fast moving bass line (also noticed by Hendrix, asking him to play bass on ‘Voodoo Chile’ the following year), Slick questions societal norms in her typical prosaic way.

Unfortunately, those songs might be considered the endpoint of this trend within the band, that continued to search for louder songs on latter albums. This direction is already announced on Baxter’s with ‘The Last Wall of the Castle’, a Kaukonen song on which he takes the lead vocals for the first time. Although the lyrics are not that elevated, this is a real showcase for Kaukonen on the electric guitar. We ended up in August meanwhile, and the influence of Cream (playing at San Francisco’s Fillmore West at that time, releasing Disraeli Gears later that year) clearly can be heard on this track. Kaukonen also co-wrote ‘Spare Chaynge’ with Cassady and Dryden, a long instrumental that somehow was heralding what was going to happen with this tremendous band as Kantner, Balin and Slick are totally absent here.

It’s November 1967. The Summer of Love is officially declared over one month earlier with the ‘Death of the Hippie’ ceremony in Haight-Ashbury. After Bathing at Baxter’s is now released by Jefferson Airplane as the musical chronicle of this memorable year. Just like the peace and love-generation, the band started to disintegrate slowly after 1967. Kaukonen and Casady proceeded with their blues rock project Hot Tuna, Balin became dissatisfied with the direction the band was evolving and Dryden ended up burned out by acid and disillusioned by the events of Altamont. The band would however deliver two more good albums, Crown of Creation and Volunteers, before totally disintegrating in many dubious spin-offs.

Let’s end like the album does, as there’s still one song undiscussed here: ‘Won’t You Try/Saturday Afternoon’. During this closing duo track, Paul Kantner looks back at the day when it all started, with the Human Be-In in January. Being a serene song, the stage is offered to the enchanting harmonies one last time. We enter the plane and return to the Golden Gate Park to conclude our flight:

Saturday afternoon,
Yellow clouds rising in the lune; acid incense and balloons
Saturday afternoon
People dancing everywhere; love is shouting I don’t care

Top Tracks:

1. Martha
2. Young Girl Sunday Blues
3. Wild Tyme (H)

“And if the Devil is 6 then God is 7 ”: Doolittle (Pixies)

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Year: 1989

Genre: Alternative Rock

Preceded by: Surfer Rosa (1988)

Followed by: Bossanova (1990)

Related to: Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II

 

 

What do Sgt. Peppers, Meddle, White Light/White Heat and Doolittle have in common? They are all among the respective bands’ best albums, with the absolute masterpiece at the very end of it. It’s 1989 and Pixies are at the center of the emerging alternative rock scene.

The Pixies formed in Boston in 1986, when singer Black Francis and lead guitarist Joey Santiago met at University. Kim Deal was the only person that responded to their absurd advert for a bass player and so she joined them without ever having played the instrument. After contacting drummer David Lovering and a random look in the dictionary they had a new band: Pixies. After releasing a first EP (Come On Pilgrim), the first LP quickly (it was completed in two weeks) followed in the beginning of 1988: Surfer Rosa. The raw guitar sound with little surf rock ingredients and the yowling voice of Francis gained the band acclaim in Europe.

So as measured by their record sellings, the Pixies were initially most successful in the UK. In the US, their music found its way to the listening crowd through the underground music scene, which was flourishing during the late eighties. While the radio stations played new wave and hair metal, youngsters were looking for pure guitar music and the Pixies offered them exactly what they desired. Together with bands like Sonic Youth they even nurtured the new subgenre of ‘grunge’. Kurt Cobain himself loved the band so much he wished he was in it. You can ask yourself which music stimulated the Pixies themselves to pick up this raw rock sound again. Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin (especially Led Zeppelin II) are often cited, just like Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s distorted guitar sound. But each time I listen to Doolittle, it sounds to me like a modern remake of The BeatlesWhite Album, with short uptempo tracks like ‘Glass Onion’ (with muscular intros and a scream now and then), happy melodic songs like ‘Bungalow Bill’ (with ‘naked’ verses and heavily orchestrated choruses) and simple musical intermezzo’s like ‘Why Don’t We Do It in the Road’.

First of all, Doolittle has a much cleaner sound than its predecessor, probably due to the quadrupled budget. Contrasting with this sound are the dark subject lyrics, ranging from surrealism to death and whores. No surprise the original album title was Whore, as Francis (who wrote all tracks) was inspired by the biblical figure of the whore of Babylon. All songs are separate shots of different kind of energies, which are launched at such a speed by their masterly intros that they’re already over before you know it. I think there’s only one ‘weak’ track on it (‘Dead’), and even that one has a nice sinister intro.

The other 14 tracks can be categorized in four kind of songs. First there are the happy sixties sounding songs that can bring you into a good mood on every moment of the day. ‘Wave of Mutilation’ for example has some very melodic vocals, reminding of the early Velvet Underground. Didn’t know until recently that the song is actually about suicidal Japanese businessmen. Even better is ‘Here Comes Your Man’, including catchy Byrds-style guitar riffs and some beautiful vocal harmonies in the chorus. No surprise this song was the commercial break-through for the band. At the same level is ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’, which gave the inspiration for the album cover. It also has the riffs and harmonies, with the lyrics being about environmental disaster. The song features one of the absolute highlights of the album, being the crescendo bridge towards the end where Francis screams that God is seven. The ultimate sixties song on the album however is without any doubt ‘La La Love You’. It has this awesome intro and it’s sung by drummer David Lovering, who happens to sound exactly like The Smiths’ Morrisey.

Still melodic but averagely shorter and slower songs are ‘I Bleed’ (with this typical Pixies bassline), ‘Mr. Grieves’ (a kind of beatlesque sing along), ‘There Goes My Gun’ and (to a lesser extent) ‘Silver’. ‘There Goes My Gun’ always sounds to me like a retake of ‘Here Comes Your Man’, with the title covering all the songs’ lyrics. ‘Silver’ to the contrary prolly is the strangest song on the album, however very interesting. I think I can describe it best as Kate Bush meets some seventies instrumental western band like The Buoys. So are there also any longer tracks on the album? Yes, ‘No. 13 Baby’ and ‘Hey’, lasting 3’51” and 3’31” respectively. The first one really stands out for me because of its awesome instrumental outro. For one time, it’s not about the intro and the band takes its time for some pure instrumental performance like they did on Surfer Rosa. ‘Hey’ forms a beautiful tandem with this one and is even better, definitely a personal favorite.

What’s left are those songs that really defined that typical Pixies sound throughout the years: pounding drums, distorted guitars, yowling vocals and the characterizing soft-loud approach. First of all the album opener: ‘Debaser’. Already during the first 30 seconds of the song you get the idea that this album is about guitar music. Call it a ‘grunge-light’ song, with it’s clear bass notes and the surrealistic lyrics with references to movies like Eraserhead and Un chien andalou. This song immediately flows over into ‘Tame’. It can’t get more ‘quiet dynamic to sudden loud’ than this. The verses feature a simple bassriff and basic drums, ready to end up in a screaming chorus each time, bringing aggression into alternative rock.

Another ‘musical intermezzo’ is ‘Crackity Jones’, but a much more uptempo one than the melodic ‘There Goes My Gun’. Like ‘Tame’, the basic drum is there, the tempo is there and the aggressiveness is there. It just sounds like some crazy Spanish punk song, and happens to be about a former roommate of Francis, a ‘weird psycho gay’ according to his own words. But the absolute masterpiece (imho) is of course the final track: ‘Gouge Away’. The delicious guitar riff, the sharp vocals, the perfect soft-loud progression, this will always be an all-time classic for me.

Pixies released some more albums after Doolittle, but disbanded already in 1993 after tensions between Francis and Deal. Francis subsequently persecuted a solo career and Deal had success with her new band The Breeders. However, they never reached the same level again as on Surfer Rosa and Doolittle, two albums that can not be compared because of their different styles, but still both sound like masterpieces. Thom Yorke once said that, while he was in school, the Pixies changed his life. Maybe the same can happen to you, whether you’re in school or not.

Top Tracks:
1. Gouge Away
2. Here Comes Your Man
3. Hey

“And I’ll probably feel a whole lot better when you’re gone”: Mr. Tambourine Man (The Byrds)

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Year: 1965

Genre: Folk Rock

Preceded by: –

Followed by: Turn! Turn! Turn! (1965)

Related to: Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited, The Beatles – Rubber Soul

 

 

The Byrds are called a source of inspiration for several bands a number of times here, and I’ve declared that it’s time for one of their own albums now: Mr. Tambourine Man. Just like with The Doors, the sublime debut album is the perfect starting point in this case. It’s an absolute must-have for all Beatles-fans out there, as this album is the missing link between Bob Dylan (which is covered four times) and The Beatles, being the American forerunner of Rubber Soul.

The Byrds formed in Los Angeles about a year before releasing their first album. It all started when core members Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark started to perform together in California, mainly covering early Beatles songs. They originally played in different folk bands, just like David Crosby, who joined them a little later. They called themselves The Jet Set and tried to mix this traditional folk music with the sound of the then emerging British Invasion bands. This resulted eventually in the band’s distinct trademark: the wonderful vocal harmonies of McGuinn, Clark and Crosby combined with McGuinn’s jangly Rickenbacher guitar. Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke were recruited on bass an drums respectively, they changed their name to The Byrds and defined the new genre of ‘folk rock’ with the album Mr. Tambourine Man.

The album opens of course with the famous title track, one of the four Dylan covers. However, the song immediately introduces you to that specific Byrds-sound, with the typical guitar intro followed by the vocal harmonies of the chorus instead of a first verse. McGuinn is the only Byrd playing an instrument here, as the rest of the band was not yet adapted to each other at the moment of recording. You can ask yourself what Dylan exactly wanted to tell with the lyrics, but Mcguinn turned them into a kind of psychedelic prayer. The other Dylan song on side 1 is ‘Spanish Harlem Incident’. Dylan would have written it about a gypsy girl he once saw, but the remarkable thing about his song for me is that McGuinn sounds like the perfect mix of Dylan’s and John Lennon’s voices here.

Other Dylan compositions on side 2 are ‘All I Really Want to Do’ (b-side of the single ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’) and ‘Chimes of Freedom’. The latter one is the longest track on the album, on which McGuinn shows another good effort to match his voice with the one of the original songwriter while singing about a lightning storm. This was the last song of the album to be recorded as Crosby initially refused to sing on it, wanting to leave the recording studio. After being physically forced to stay they recorded the song after all, luckily for us, as the harmonies are really awesome on this track.

So what is this, some kind of release of a Dylan coverband? Certainly not, this thing has way more to offer you. Listen for example to ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’, one of the songs from Gene Clark (who was the band’s primary songwriter) and for me personally the ultimate Byrds song. It’s an upbeat song, very Beatlesque and with the geniusly added word ‘probably’ into the line ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’. Talking about Beatles, listen to ‘The Bells of Rhymney’ and ask yourself where George Harrison got that sweet guitar riff from ‘If I Needed Someone’.

And there’s more. You can already hear on this album how The Byrds would evolve later on the sixties. ‘Here Without You’ lyrically is a kind of love song, but reminds me of the group’s later psychedelic anthem ‘Eight Miles High’ with it’s typical intro. On side 2 there are two similar songs: ‘I Knew I’d Want You’, sounding like Jefferson Airplane would do a few years later, and ‘It’s No Use’, with that British Invasion ingredient. The last two songs are covers again, ‘Don’t Doubt Yourself, Babe’ even adds a little fifties rock ‘n roll to the album and ‘We’ll Meet Again’ is a reinterpretation of Vera Lynn’s classic war song.

In the years following Mr. Tambourine Man The Byrds (with Roger McGuinn being the only consistent member) would release another number of excellent albums in the genres of psychedelic rock and country, but on this one they define the genre ‘folk rock’ for the first time in rock history. Besides, it’s a great example of how bands were propelling themselves to unique heights by continuously influencing each other. It’s well known that Brian Wilson made Pet Sounds in reaction to The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, but those guys were inspired themselves by an American band that once originated as… a Beatles coverband.

Top Tracks:
1. I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better
2. Mr. Tambourine Man
3. Here Without You

“Architects may come and architects may go and never change your point of view.”: Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)

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Year: 1970

Genre: Folk Rock

Preceded by: Bookends (1968)

Followed by: –

Related to: Paul Simon – Graceland

 

 

Today we return to 1970, the year Déjà Vu was released. We also return to quarreling band members and vocal harmonies, because not only The Beatles broke up in 1970, so did their American contemporaries of the sixties, Simon & Garfunkel. But before they did, they delivered the world a last pièce de résistance with Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel met each other in primary school while growing up in the state of New York. The first group they formed was labeled with the artistic name ‘Tom & Jerry’. It was not until 1965 that they acquired world fame with their monster hit ‘The Sound of Silence’ as Simon & Garfunkel. Other albums and singles followed, until they recorded their fifth and final album Bridge Over Troubled Water, after which they broke up. Garfunkel was pursuing an acting career at that point, starring in the movie ‘Catch-22’. Remarkable detail: the role that was assigned to Simon was completely erased from the original script.

Bridge Over Troubled Water (on which Simon wrote all the songs except the covers ‘El Condor Pasa’ and ‘Bye Bye Love’), was named after the opening track which became a rock classic. Especially the piano work of Larry Knechtel, band member of Westcoast group Bread and session musician for amongst others The Beach Boys and The Mamas & the Papas, is outstanding. However, this track is not at all representative for the album, which contains very cheerful tracks like ‘El Condor Pasa’, ‘Cecilia’ and ‘Keep the Customer Satisfied’.

‘El Condor Pasa’ was based on traditional Andean folk tunes, brought together in a full-fledged song by the Peruvian Daniel Robles. Simon picked it up and made it the most famous western song featuring panpipes. It’s followed by ‘Cecilia’, and whether it’s about  some lover or a songwriter’s block, it’s a real earwig. The trilogy of joy is completed by ‘Keep the Customer Satisfied’, one of my personal favorites.

After all the joy comes resentment part one, with ‘So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright’. Originally, Garfunkel (who had studied to become an architect) just asked Simon to write a song about the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Simon had no clue who this was, but turned the song into an announcement of the upcoming breakup with his former pal. Simon also addressed Garfunkel with the song ‘The Only Living Boy In New York’. Garfunkel went to Mexico to act in his movie, leaving Simon behind in New York, writing songs for this album.

In between this tracks is a single (‘The Boxer’) and it’s B-side (‘Baby Driver’), which were released already in 1969. ‘The Boxer’ became one of the duo’s greatest hits, despite (or maybe thanks to) the lyric-less chorus. It’s an autobiographical song, with Simon telling us he feels unfairly criticized. He temporary filled in the chorus with ‘lie-la-lie’, but never came up with replacing lyrics afterward. The penultimate ‘Bye Bye Love’ is a live recording of a song most famous in it’s Everly Brothers version, later also recorded by former Beatle George Harrison.

The duo reunited to tour again every decade since 1970, for example in 1981 with the famous concert in Central Park, entertaining over 500,000 people. Each time they play a range of songs from their last album, on which it’s crystal clear that this is a duo about to break up, but those guys decided to throw one big last party together.

Top Tracks:
1. The Boxer
2. Keep the Customer Satisfied
3. El Condor Pasa (If I Could)