Broken English and Rubber Soul

Pribek said that John Lydon wants to work with Britney Spears.

Most comments said that nothing would come of it besides maybe John getting a happy. Which might be true. But I can't help thinking that something interesting could come from it.

I picked up a copy of Performing Songwriter. Like so many of these kind of magazines, you don't read it because you're a performing songwriter, but because you want to be one. In the news bits section, they have this:

Clive Davis, the behemoth starmaking producer and CEO of the BMG music label, recently mused on star inevitably wanting to craft their own material. Davis, who groomed such stars as Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys and the now independently artistic Kelly Clarkson, said such pop acts should leave the songwriting to the machines that made them. In a recent conversation with Billboard Music and Money Symposium Davis remarked, "The odds are already against you. You have got to go over the best material, and that should win out, not withstanding any track record. I don't care how many No. 1s you [a professional songwriter] have written in the past, have you written a new No. 1? Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra didn't write, and they are among Time magazine's greatest artists of the century.

Of course, that gets to me. How not rock'n'roll is that? But really, it's not Clive Davis' job to be rock'n'roll. It's his job to sell.

But there's a bill of goods that I bought a long time ago. Gary Busey as Buddy Holly explaining that he's the A&R guy taking the songs he wrote to the be arranged by him and then performed by the band he formed and leads. The old way is when the A&R connects songwriter to arranger to producer to "artist" (singer) and musician. The Beatles are good, by this thought, because after the early cover tunes, they did this. The Outlaws, Willie and Waylon and the rest, were cool because they wrote their own material and used their road bands in the studio. Punk was all about the DIY. My heroes have always been songwriters, and they still are today, to mangle Willie's words.

Consider how the pop acts are marketed these days. T-shirts, posters, etc. How is that substantially different from the Beatles when they first came to America? But we know that the same band that knocked out the hits like Meet the Beatles! can create things like Abbey Road and the White Album. (I'm a Stones guy, but I respect what the Beatles did and I like a lot of it.)

I kept hoping for the Spice Girls to break the mold and come up with something interesting. Obviously, they took their money and split well before that happened, but I held out that possibility. And I hold out the possibility for Britney.

Remedial Songwriting 102, or Pray for the Thunder and the Rain

Consider the first verse of "Sweet Child O' Mine". Not lyrically. The lyrics are a scary, scary place. "Her hair reminds me of a warm, safe place where as a child I'd hide"? No. Let's consider it musically.

Guns 'n' Roses tuned down a half-step. If they played something that looks like a G, it's really an F#. Or, since we're flattening, a Gb. It makes it a bit easier to assume they didn't, even though Slash's opening bit sounds wrong tuned standard. So, going by our fiction, the verse progression is D C G D. It starts in D, so we can say it's in some sort of D, but if it was D major, it would be C# major.

Why?

This is two octaves of D.

D E F# G A B C# D E F# G A B C#

Chord theory says that a chord is made up of the root, third and fifth. For a D chord, that's

D E F# G A B C# D E F# G A B C#

For the G, that's another major

D E F# G A B C# D E F# G A B C#

And, for the C#, that's

D E F# G A B C# D E F# G A B C#

That's a C# diminished. There's no place in D for C.

Unless we think modal and call it D mixolydian, which is essentially playing G from D to D instead of G to G.

D E F# G A B C D E F# G A B C D

D E F# G A B C D E F# G A B C D

D E F# G A B C D E F# G A B C D

We have our major chords and we're happy. We have a wistful, nostalgic verse. Now it's time for our chorus.

And it's A C D.

Sounds like something you diagnose in an uruly child. But let's go back to that D mixolydian scale.

D E F# G A B C D E F# G A B C D

A C E. That's an A minor. And they play an A major. (Ab major, but remember our agreed fiction.)

What happened? In what theoretical universe is there an A major and a C major next to each other? Do we skip temporarily into D major for one chord and switch back for the next one?

Somehow, theory can explain it, I'm sure. Someone can bend theory to say "this actually does work". Thing is, it does work. Listen to "Sweet Child 'O Mine", knowing what you just heard. Pull out the acoustic and strum a few bars. Then try it with an A minor.

Music theory shouldn't be used to proscribe your creative impulse. It's a way to communicate it, and it gives a set of rules you can follow if the element in question isn't your primary focus. But if you can make it work, make it sound good even when theory says it doesn't make sense, then you have something.

Because, as Duke Ellington said, if it sounds good, it is good.

Songs You Know By Heart

The Lefsetz Letter is on about belonging.

I just finished reading the Eagles story in "Rolling Stone". Halfway through I wondered why. I decided it was because it was written by Charles M. Young, one of the legendary second wave "Rolling Stone" writers, and because I cared, I had an investment. I’d bought the debut on a whim, knowing it contained "Take It Easy", but discovering it contained not only "Witchy Woman", but "Earlybird" and "Tryin’". I bought the follow-up because that’s what you did. Buying the debut was like purchasing stock, owning a piece of the band, you were devoted, you didn’t need to hear a new single to be convinced, you purchased the follow-up without hearing it first. "Desperado" was just another cut, on a failed album, financially. But I purchased the third record, which had "My Man" but wasn’t quite as good, and then the band broke through and started to be hated for its wimpy ballads. That’s what success breeds, hatred. But I soldiered on. I bought "One Of These Nights", and on the day it came out, "Hotel California". When I dropped the needle and sound started pouring out of the brand new stereo I purchased as a reward for attending law school, I was stunned. The track was not on the radio, hipsters were not debating the band… Everywhere I went I told people about this one track… That they had to hear the new Eagles album.

I guess that’s what had me reading the "Rolling Stone" article. My sense of belonging.

Me, I could care less about the Eagles, but it would require invasive surgery. But I get his point. His point is, we want to belong. We hear a band and we get involved. It becomes part of our life and we want to be part of their life. I bought a copy of American Songwriter because it has a small interview with Gary Louris in it, and in 1992, Gary and others were in a band called the Jayhawks, who recorded an album called Hollywood Town Hall. There is no way that Bob Lefsetz would consider the Jayhawks a classic band — his idea of classic ended when Diamond Dave was kicked out of Van Halen, I think — but for me, they were. When I was in college the first time, Hollywood Town Hall was folksongs, because everybody knew the words.

I drove with my eldest yesterday. I knew my MP3 player was near dead, so I grabbed a CD. When it died, I put it in. I play music for my eldest, who is thirteen, that I wouldn't for my other two because he's older. He won't reject it because it's "not the Beatles". (I'm a Stones man, myself. I'm alone in the family that way.) I stick in Trace by Son Volt. It's a CD I've had since 1995. Basically, it's a CD I've had as long as I've had my eldest. And I started singing. Because I knew every word.

This music is not evanescent. It’s part of our collection. We carry it in various formats, everything from vinyl to cassette to MP3… Not that we truly need a copy, because it’s embedded in our brain, our DNA, it’s part of us.

Just call it a Stir-Fry, Waka-Waka, Vaguely Insulting Post

This is not what I normally blog on, but it has been bugging me for a while.

Chevy has been pushing it's environmental image these days. "From Gas Friendly to Gas Free". There's a whole bunch of arguments one could make about environmentalism and green-friendly vehicles, and I'm not going to touch on them.

I'll touch on the ads.

You have a bunch of kids. Impressionable. Short attention span. Unlearned. Not serious. They're the environmentalists.

And you have a condescending adult. This is the voice of GM. He's a funny, black condescending adult, but ultimately, he's a condescending adult.

He says "I have a big shiny thing, and it's good for the environment". No evidence. Just proof by vigorous assertion. And the kids say yay! Sometimes he goes to far, showing his contempt: "You can just call it a stir-fry, waka-waka green machine" or whatever.

I don't really have a problem with greenwashing. I object to cut-rate greenwashing. When Subaru says "This is our plant in Indiana. Look how green it is!", I'm fine with it. I drive past it every day and used to park cars there. I have friends who work there. It doesn't look like Grizzly Adams' backyard, like you'd guess from the commercial, but there's a fair amount of woods there. But the Chevy ads scream out "Hey, stupid! Buy our cars!" How can that even work?

Tying This Back In

Black Flag is where we get Henry Rollins, but it is also (and mostly) the band of guitarist Greg Ginn.

And Greg Ginn played an Ampeg Dan Armstrong, until it got swiped.



He played through solid state amps, because he couldn't get the sharp treble he wanted through tube amps.

Storing your treasures

It isn't my favorite album. If I had to choose a favorite album, I'd have to choose either Layla and Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos or Hollywood Town Hall by the Jayhawks. But it is my most treasured album.

Program: Annihilator.

It's a sampler for SST Records. SST Records was the home of Black Flag. I heard of Black Flag the beginning of my freshman year of high school, as what seemed like a quarter of the student body was wearing new and red Slip It In t-shirts. But I didn't hear Black Flag until later.

Circus magazine was switching from covering punks to covering metalheads, I think, and there was an ad from SST advertising a free sampler. I was a driver, so this was at least 1986. Anyway, free is the right price for a teenager, and I sent away. And one day, it came in. I opened it up and right away, I was jazzed. It has the coolest liner notes ever, or at least what a 16-year-old would think of as the coolest liners ever.

A WARNING FROM THE PROGRAMMER: EXTREME CAUTION is mandatory with all use of this psychic program material, for while - with proper use - this program information will tune the listener to sufficient destructive capability to get any job - no matter how dirty - done. If mishandled, this psychic fuel program (Program: Annihilator) may overload the Subject's receptive capacity, which could result in indiscriminate violence of an intensity the Programmer can only assume the Subject will consider undisirable. THE PROGRAMMER THEREFORE HEREBY DISCLAIMS ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACTIONS OF THOSE WHO WILLINGLY MAKE THE DECISION TO AVAIL THEMSELVES OF Program: Annihilator.

What red-blooded American teenager could resist that?

I put it in the cassette deck while driving with my friend Mason to the comic book shop.

And I immediately pulled it out.

"War Is Our Destiny" by Saint Vitus.

Sucks.

Imagine second-album Black Flag meeting Blue Cheer. Now make it suck 45% more. That's what Saint Vitus sounds like. Mason liked Rush. I liked Iron Maiden and Metallica. Neither of us liked Blue Cheer wannabes.

The first four tracks are Saint Vitus. I can only think of it like the beginning of 40-Year-Old Virgin, with Cal going on about the Tijuana donkey-sex show he saw. It's supposed to make you uncomfortable, so you appreciate it more when the good stuff comes.

Which it did eventually. I fast-forwarded past all the crap Saint Vitus to finally hear Black Flag. And I heard Black Flag. "Annihilate This Week". "Society's Disease". "You're Not Evil". "Beat My Head Against The Wall". "Thirsty and Miserable". This is crucial stuff. You think Metallica and Mötorhead are hard, then you hear this, your concept of hard transforms. Immediately.

And the rest! DC3! Overkill! "Ladies in leather! Submit or you'll only upset her!" SWA! "Baby, baby, now what you need is a little bit of my surgury! Let my love show you all that it could be!" Wurm! "There's a knife behind my smile!" I loved this thing. Except for the first four tracks. Which were Saint Vitus and are made of suck.

I went to college, and one of the first friends I made introduced me to Bad Religion and Big Black. In return, I let him borrow my treasure, my Program: Annihilator. He gave it to someone else, having her return it to me, but she put it down, and someone with sticky fingers picked it up.

It took me five years of hunting record stores to find it again. I found it in the Vegas Tower Records. It cost me $20 to replace the recording I had originally received for free, and I thought it was cheap.

What is your treasure? The irreplacable recording? The great thing that you have to dig out and play for friends?

Your History is not History, or My Favorite Year

Blame Petty.

By time David Crosby and Chris Hillman were gone, those in the know had given up on the Byrds. It was just Jim/Roger McGuinn running on fumes. So, when Muddy Waters at the end of Hepburn Hall my freshman year at Middlebury purchased "Untitled", I laughed on the inside. Hadn’t he gotten the memo? But there was this one song that emanated from his room, "Chestnut Mare"… And then the reviews started to come in, saying the album was a return to form. Then, Clarence White, the superlative new guitarist, was cut down by an automobile after a gig and Roger McGuinn didn’t get another slice of fame until he participated in Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review. Is that where he met Jacques Levy?

No, in this case, the influence went in reverse. Roger met Jacques first. Or at least used him first. Jacques wrote the lyrics for "Chestnut Mare" and…"Lover Of The Bayou".

I only found this out the other day, when I fired up Petty’s cover. Not that I knew it was a cover at first. I was entranced by that classic guitar figure. The performance was almost garage rock. I was getting in the groove. Had Petty come back? Then, when they reached the line: "I’m a lover of the bayou", I realized I’d heard this before.

Minor research told me it had been done by the Byrds. But WHEN?

The first white act I remember mentioning the bayou was John Fogerty, singing about being born on the bayou (and that’s my favorite Creedence track… "And I can remember the fourth of July, runnin’ through the backwood bare"… Fucking record SOUNDS like it was cut on the bayou!) I didn’t remember Roger McGuinn singing about the bayou… And to do it after Fogerty seemed kind of lame…

This, says Bob Lefsetz.

Just so there's no doubt, he looked up late Byrds because he loved Mudcrutch. I want Mudcrutch because I like the Byrds. No. I accept the Byrds. I really like Clarence White, and he went hardcore electric with the Byrds. If he had joined the Stones, I'd have seven Rolling Stones CDs instead of Byrds CDs. Well, I have some of those anyway. Exile on Main Street is a great album.

I have a conception of 1969, musically. It involves the Stones and Jimi and the Byrds and Creedence. I know that's only part of it. Even within rock, I'm missing the Doors and Janis. I've heard the Doors; I won't go so far as to say all of it, but I'm sure that anything I missed isn't too significant. I could do more with Janis. This was a high point for Simon and Garfunkel. The Grateful Dead were just getting heard outside of Frisco. And that's just when we're discussing hip music.

My kids love I Love The 80s and such. While elements come up, the 80s they talk about on those shows isn't the 80s I experienced. Like 1984, when many people I knew left middle school wearing long hair and Sammy Hagar shirts and started their freshman year with much much shorter hair and bright red Black Flag shirts that said Slip It In. It was at least two years until I was similarly hip to Black Flag, and by then it was too late.

Bob has a 70s that he believes Petty shares, where the Byrds were Roger McGuinn and the Backing Band, where they were a joke, except for certain tunes that bubbled up. I suppose everyone has their own years. I can tell you that in my 1992, I did not know anybody who didn't own Inhale Pink and Exhale Blue by Billy McLachlan and Hollywood Town Hall by the Jayhawks. And that's the year I read the Uncle Tupelo interview in Option where they said in high school they weren't friends with anyone who wasn't into Black Flag.

Black Flag was part of Jeff Tweedy's 80s, too. Probably the same show.

But clearly by Anodyne someone had played 'em Sweetheart and maybe Untitled....