Jimmy Cliff - "Trapped"

Reggae superstar Jimmy Cliff passed last week.  I originally knew of him via Bruce Springsteen's cover of "Trapped", which started to get radio airplay when it was released on 1985's "We Are the World" soundtrack.  I always liked it, and it was later when I heard the original (1972) and learned that Bruce turned an otherwise triumphant song into a dirge (surprise!).

Much later I learned about the movie "The Harder They Come" (and soundtrack), and their influence on bands like the Clash.  

Although I'm not sure he was ever "popular" in the US, he was extremely influential on artists that are popular in the US.  Everyone knows about Bob Marley, but Jimmy Cliff is probably the second most influential Jamaican musician. 

Jimmy Cliff - "Trapped" (studio), "Trapped" (live on David Letterman) 

Bruce Springsteen - "Trapped" (live 1984)*

* I consider myself lucky that when we saw Bruce in DC in 2023, he performed "Trapped".  Drew & fam saw the previous show in Greensboro, and they got "Darlington County" instead; "Trapped" is a far better song. 

Tangerine Dream - "Zeit" (LP review)

Herbert suggested that I highlight some eclipse-inspired music to mark the "Great American Eclipse" of 2017, but other than tired Bonnie Tyler references is anything relevant?  Perhaps Holst's "The Planets", but solar eclipses aren't really about planets.  Instead, I'm going with Tangerine Dream's third LP, "Zeit", from 1972.  Obviously the cover artwork is appropriate, but "Zeit" is also a seminal work in the genre of "space music", so you could make a pretty good argument that this what an eclipse "sounds like" (even though "Zeit" means "time", and the message of the LP is about how time is an illusion, etc.).

Herbert and I were also recently chatting about how formats (vinyl, CD, MP3, etc.) influence the structure and presentation of music, and this LP is a perfect example.  It's a double LP, with a total of four songs (one per side of vinyl), and while there are examples of songs being split across sides of a vinyl record, it's certainly not ideal and you have to consider that the approximate limits of 20 minutes per side was in the back of their minds while composing.  If this were recorded in age of CDs, would there be fewer than four tracks?  Or if post-CDs, just a single MP3?

I should also acknowledge my college roommate Frey who initially turned me on to Tangerine Dream, ca. 1990.  I didn't like them at first, but I was a big fan of Kitaro at the time and Frey pointed Kitaro's sound was influenced by TD's Klause Schulze in the mid 70s.  Exploring Frey's extensive TD discography, they quickly grew on me and I acquired many of their CDs after graduation.  It's certainly not a complete discography -- that's nearly impossible -- but it's a good sampling of their 1980s and earlier work.  "Zeit" actually stands alone in their discography, sounding a bit unlike other LPs in their canon.  It's dark, slow, ambient, percussion-less, slightly menacing, and quasi-orchestral: a perfect soundtrack for an eclipse.

In researching this post I also learned that Edgar Froese died in 2015, somehow I missed this when it occurred.  Edgar was a founder of Tangerine Dream and the only constant member from 1967--2015.  Tangerine Dream continues without Edgar, although it is worth noting that his son Jerome (who played with TD from 1990--2006) does not approve of TD's continuance without Edgar.   

While there are technically four tracks on the LP, they really can't be separated and they should be consumed as a whole, so I'll skip the regular LP review format.  This is an important, but demanding LP -- the kind that you only listen to once every year or two.  But you don't have to wait until 2024...

Final score: 9/10

Full LP: Tangerine Dream - "Zeit"



Bonus link: You know Tangerine Dream from the soundtrack to "Risky Business". 

Hawkwind - "Silver Machine" (forgotten song)

Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister died this week at the age of 70.  If you don't know what Lemmy means to metal, or just rock in general, then I'm not going to be able to explain it to you.  Exhibit A: NPR did a story about his passing.  NPR.  Think about that.  Words like "icon", "legend",  and "pioneer" are often casually tossed around, but in this case they're appropriate.  Quoting from a Guardian story from this summer:

Lemmy is as much a collection of myths and legends as a man. In the popular imagination, he’s made up of equal parts Jack Daniel’s, amphetamine sulphate, Nazi memorabilia and extreme-velocity noise. The myths and legends cloak him as surely as the black shirt, the black jeans, the custom-made boots, the cowboy hat with its “Death or Glory” insignia and the Iron Cross around his neck.

Of course, Lemmy is best known as the vocalist & bassist -- and only permanent member -- for Motorhead.  Motorhead, of course, is the seminal band that first combined outlaw biker imagery with a punk style / ethos & metal heaviness, although Lemmy always insisted they were simply a "rock-n-roll band".  Furthermore, he was innovative in that he played bass like it was a lead instrument and not rhythm.  But before there was Motorhead, there was Hawkwind -- the seminal space rock group, featuring fluid membership, Michael Moorcock inspired imagery & lyrics, and nearly limitless Spinal Tap-esque cliches (including one of the first appearances of the heavy metal umlaut). 

I could memorialize Lemmy with any of numerous excellent Motorhead songs, but instead I'll choose Hawkwind's 1972 single, "Silver Machine", which he didn't even write but I believe was the first song on which he sang lead (he was not the primary vocalist for Hawkwind), and turned out to be Hawkwind's only "hit" song.  Although Lemmy would not be fired from Hawkwind for another three years, this is probably the song that set him on the path from "band member" to "band leader". 

I believe this video is the one shown on BBC's Top of the Pops in 1972 (instead of having the band in the studio lip syncing).  It features Lemmy in his pre-Motorhead, all black garb.  The sound is early-70s groovy, the studio version is badly synced with the concert footage, which features bubbles, a flautist (!) and, of course, a dancer.  You can't make this stuff up.  Despite (because of?) all that, the song rawks and I love it.  Danette hates it, for all of the same reasons listed above, though she does like Motorhead in general.

A month ago, The Atlantic had an article featuring Lemmy and entitled "Twilight of the Headbangers: How long can the legends of heavy metal keep on rocking?".  Not long enough, though I think we have to count ourselves lucky that he made it to 70.

Hawkwind - "Silver Machine"

"Born to Lose, Lived to Win"

Pink Floyd - "Live At Pompeii" (concert)

I own well-worn copies on VHS and DVD, but at work I've recently been playing Youtube versions of Pink Floyd's 1972 concert film "Live at Pompeii" in the background.  I've already covered the similar but far more rare "An Hour With Pink Floyd (KQED)" from 1970.  The latter was never commercially released and is regularly purged from Youtube, while the former concert film is still commercially available and also easy to find on Youtube.  Go figure.

This is an historically important film, showing the group on the cusp of their 1973 watershed, "Dark Side of the Moon".  But I just recently discovered that the interstitial studio footage of the band composing songs for DSOTM was 1) faked, and 2) added for the 1974 re-release of the film.  It is this 1974 version that I have on VHS. 

Somewhat unfortunately, the 2003 DVD version is the "director's cut", and nicely demonstrates that more is not always better.  The songs are the same, but director Adrian Maben has added all kinds of unnecessary of additional space and planetary stock footage.  I get it, "Pink Floyd == Space Music".  But one of the strengths of the original film is Pompeii as a character, almost a fifth member of Pink Floyd.  The long tracking shots of the empty Amphitheatre, the mosaics, volcanic imagery, all help to establish the film's feel, and the director's cut undermines the beautiful (albeit sometimes modishly incorporated) imagery.  Fortunately the 1974 version is an option on the DVD; the 2003 version is to be avoided.

Enough complaining about directorial revisionism -- Maben does deserve credit for making a concert film without an audience (has this been done since?) as well as not attempting to hide the small army of staff supporting the AV gear.  Replacing the audience with staff and infrastructure and playing to an empty Amphitheatre somehow captures the desolation of Pompeii.  The songs are split between 1968 and 1971, with only "Controls" and "Careful" appearing on the "An Hour With Pink Floyd (KQED)".

1. "Intro Song"
2. "Echoes, Part 1" (from Meddle, 1971)
3. "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" (from Point Me At The Sky, B-side, 1968)
4. "A Saucerful of Secrets" (from A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968)
5. "One of These Days I'm Going to Cut You into Little Pieces" (from Meddle, 1971)
6. "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" (from A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968)
7. "Mademoiselle Nobs" (from Meddle, 1971)
8. "Echoes, Part 2" (from Meddle, 1971)

Rather than linking to individual songs, all versions uploaded to Youtube in their entirety:

Live At Pompeii: 1972 Version
Live At Pompeii: 1974 Version
Live At Popmeii: 2003 Version

Bonus Links:

From the DVD, an interview with Adrian Maben: part 1, part 2, part 3.

And finally, you can't mention "Live at Pompeii" and not mention the Beastie Boys "Gratitude", in which the entire video is a love letter to "Live at Pompeii".

Deep Purple - "Child In Time" (forgotten song)

Jon Lord, the keyboardist and a founding member of Deep Purple, died today of pancreatic cancer.  I was a big fan of Deep Purple growing up, but I've only mentioned them in passing so far (e.g., the "Born Again" and  "Rainbow Rising" reviews).  The various studio LPs were good, but I was especially fond of their 1972 live LP "Made in Japan", one of the sprawling, indulgent live LPs that were de rigurer in the 1970s.  MIJ had two highlights: a 10 minute version of "The Mule" (which we'll save for when Ian Paice dies), and a 12.5 minute version of "Child in Time".

"Child in Time" features a memorable keyboard intro from Jon Lord and then builds into a good workout for the entire band.  It was released as a single in 1972, but it comes from the group's breakthrough 1970 LP "Deep Purple In Rock".  Various Deep Purple songs are still staples on classic rock radio, but I'm not sure I've ever heard "Child In Time" on the radio. 

I'll eventually review "Made in Japan", but for the moment we'll have to remember Jon Lord with this song.

Child In Time: studio version,  1970 Live TV audience version (quite good), 1972 Made In Japan version

Bonus Link: Mick Jones likes "Child In Time" as well; it is sampled at the beginning of BAD's 1991 single "Rush".

Townes Van Zandt - "Pancho and Lefty" (the song remains the same)

In my previous post I introduced Ronnie Montrose to illustrate the concept of popular vs. influential. Continuing in that theme we now look at Townes Van Zandt, a songwriter's songwriter. You probably haven't heard of Townes, but he was an enormously influential on and respected by artists you do know, as we will see.

One reason Townes never achieved greater fame is that he was his own worst enemy, embodying all the cliches of "Bad Blake" in Crazy Heart, but without the happy ending. His death could be a movie by itself. Somewhere, Townes must have heard that you need to suffer to be a good songwriter... and he was a very good songwriter. As Steve Earle once said:

"[Van Zandt is] the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that."

My first introduction to Van Zandt's music was long before I even knew who he was. In 1983, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard released a collaborative album entitled "Pancho & Lefty". I had a lot of exposure to country music at the time because my mother played it 24-7 and even though I was into metal then, I knew "Pancho and Lefty" was a compelling song.

It tells the story of the two outlaws, Pancho now dead and Lefty retired (for the record: it is not about Pancho Villa). They live a hard life on the run, but perhaps their freedom is a farce:

All the Federales say
We could have had him any day.
We only let him slip away
Out of kindness, I suppose.

Eventually Pancho is "laid low" and Lefty escapes:

The day they laid poor Pancho low,
Lefty split for Ohio.
Where he got the bread to go,
There ain't nobody knows.

The exact details of what happened are never revealed. One reading of the song is that it is a retelling of the universal theme of betrayal, but even though the evidence suggests otherwise I like to think Lefty didn't flip on Pancho (read the rest of the lyrics to decide for yourself). The story that Townes tells is simple, direct, and powerful; there are no wasted words. It is a perfect match for Willie Nelson's voice, who absorbs the story and the way he sings the opening stanza gives me chills:

Living on the road my friend,
Was gonna keep you free and clean.
Now you wear your skin like iron,
Your breath as hard as kerosene.
You weren't your mama's only boy,
But her favorite one it seems.
She began to cry when you said goodbye,
And sank into your dreams.

Before Willie and Merle recorded it, Emmylou Harris recorded it for her 1977 LP "Luxury Liner", and it first appeared on Towne's 1972 LP, "The Late Great Townes Van Zandt". As you can see below, you can take almost any combination of country and folk singers and find a live version. Some of the notable versions are:

Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard: studio (1983), live

Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan: live

Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris: live (2000)

Emmylou Harris: live (1977), live (2008)

Steve Earle: studio, live (2009), live (2009)

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings: live (1997)

and of course:
, live (ca. 1975, from "Heartworn Highways")
Townes Van Zandt: live (1993), interview + live (1984), live (ca. 1975, from "Heartworn Highways")

Black Sabbath - "Vol. 4" (LP Review)

This review goes out to Butch @ Squealer Music. Butch and I share an interest in drone & doom music and he's turned me on to some cool bands like Earth, Sunn O))) and Deathprod. I plan to review LPs by those artists later, but first I thought I'd start with our mutual interest in the progenitor of doom, Black Sabbath.

Unlike most metal bands from my youth, I can honestly say that I enjoy Sabbath nearly as much now as I did then. And who doesn't, really? People who do not count themselves as fans probably sing along to songs like "Paranoid", "Iron Man" or maybe even "War Pigs". Ozzy-era Sabbath has a popular music legacy that is larger than most casual fans might imagine.

Having said that, Sabbath is probably best well-known for their great songs, not necessarily their great albums. For every "Paranoid"-quality song on an LP, there seemed to be something like "Planet Caravan". OK, so "Planet Caravan" is kind of cool in its own way, but check your iTunes play count and tell me how it rates compared to other Sabbath songs. Be honest.

Butch and I discussed our favorite Sabbath LPs one time, and while I think he went with "Master of Reality", I have to say their greatest LP is 1972's "Vol. 4". It has fewer hit songs (I'm not sure any get current radio airplay), but it is arguably the strongest start-to-finish LP they released (at least in the Ozzy era). I could make an argument for 1973's "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", but the inclusion of keyboardist Rick Wakeman made for interesting songs, but ones that rawked less.

I'm not entirely sure why the songs from Vol. 4 don't get airplay on the classic rock stations: standouts like "Wheels of Confusion", "Tomorrow's Dream", "Supernaut", and "Under the Sun" are upbeat, have killer riffs and are very heavy. It might be that none of these songs have sing-along choruses like "Paranoid" and "Iron Man". For example, you can probably sing along with the guitar riff of "Supernaut" (which is at least as good as "Paranoid") better than you can remember and sing along with the lyrics ("I want to reach out and touch the sky / something something something / something something something..." -- there's actually no chorus).

Come to think of it, "Changes" is pretty much is the only song that you can sing along too. I also consider it the weakest song on the LP. It is not really bad, and you do have to give them credit (blame?) for basically inventing the metal power ballad genre, but it clearly not as enjoyable as the other songs. I'm ambivalent about the cocaine-themed "Snowblind", its neither bad nor good. The only truly skippable song is "FX"; 1:44 of electronics noodling which I guess seemed cool at the time.

"Laguna Sunrise" is the "pretty" instrumental Sabbath has on nearly every LP that serves as a vehicle to demonstrate Tony Iommi's guitar virtuosity. "St. Vitus Dance" is a nice example of Sabbath doing "hippie metal" -- it even has acoustic guitar in parts.

Another thing I like about this LP are the medleys: "Wheels of Confusion" leads into "The Straightener" and "Under the Sun" interpolates "Every Day Comes and Goes" -- sort of a metal version of "A Day in the Life". The song writing and arrangement is at Sabbath's zenith here. This is the last LP where the drugs amplified their creativity instead of hurting it.

So despite the limited radio / single impact, I think this is their finest LP. They had recorded better individual songs before and after this, but as a collection of songs this is their high water mark.

Standout songs: "Wheels of Confusion / The Straightener", "Tomorrow's Dream", "Supernaut", "Cornucopia", "St. Vitus Dance", "Laguna Sunrise", "Under the Sun / Every Day Comes and Goes".

Skip 'em songs: "FX", "Changes".

Final score: 9/10. "FX" and "Changes" keep this from being 10/10.

2010-06-18 Edit: Butch insisted I include this link for "Snowblind". I'm surprised at how many high-quality, 1970s concert videos you can find on YouTube.

2012-07-05 Edit: The entire LP on YouTube.  

Slapp Happy - "Blue Flower" (the song remains the same)

This installment of "the song remains the same" is based on a suggestion from Danette. The focus is on the song "Blue Flower" which first appeared on the 1972 LP "Sort Of" from Slapp Happy. Haven't heard of them? Well, don't feel bad because nobody else has heard of them either. In fact, although this entry is about Slapp Happy's song, I've never actually heard the original. I can't find any trace of the song online and I'm unwilling to spend the money to purchase the LP. last.fm has some of their material online and you can get an idea of what it might sound like, but they don't have "Blue Flower". (edit: via crescentius, there is a version on blip.fm).

However, most people probably have heard the Mazzy Star version from their 1990 debut LP "She Hangs Brightly". Despite being best well-known for their lazy "dream pop", Mazzy Star gives a jangly, straight ahead version that is probably close to the original. There is a good live version on YouTube as well as the studio version.

In 1992, Pale Saints also covered the song on their "Throwing Back the Apple" EP (and at least one version of the "In Ribbons" LP released on Warner Brothers). The Pale Saints cover the song in the typical early 90s style of fellow 4AD artists: lush and epic -- very much in the shoegazing style. The studio version can be found on YouTube (a 1991 live version is also available).

A great song regardless of arrangement.