Murphy's Law

She nodded. “Make it extraordinarily squalid and moving,” she suggested. “Are you at all acquainted with squalor?”

I said not exactly but that I was getting better acquainted with it, in one form or another, all the time…

–J.D. Salinger, “For Esme — with Love and Squalor” (1950)

Spin me back down the years and the days of my youth, as the song says.

April, 1988.

More time has passed since those days than had passed since I’d been born.  There has to be a more eloquent way to put that, but I’m having a difficult time coming up with it. More to the point, I am increasingly unable to avoid calculations like this. Why? Because the balance has shifted and, going forward, more years (and things) will have transpired in my life, but few of them will be as indelible. So there’s that.

Everyone talks about how reading The Catcher in the Rye is one of those seminal rites of passage. Now that J.D. Salinger has gone to that big field of rye in the sky, everyone is talking about it all at once. I would be a phony, I figure, not to include myself (and all). For starters, what do you call a rite of passage involving a lot of middle-aged (or older) folks talking about the passing of an author who wrote one of the ultimate rite of passage novels? Indulgent? Inevitable? Ironic? All of the above?

By the time I got around to Holden Caulfield, I was already a senior in high school. Too young? Too old? Just right? For better or worse, I was either too old, or not alienated enough, to feel the full force of Salinger’s operetta of adolescent angst. Of course, I’m selling it short (or am I?), but I’ve heard very few adults whose opinions I admire mention falling under this novel’s spell while revisiting it as an adult. Myself, I couldn’t tell if it was too obvious this book was the result of a grown man trying (diligently, and in that overly mannered, oft-imitated style) to sound like a disaffected but acutely sensitive sixteen year old, or if it’s because he succeeded so thoroughly that, even as a seventeen year old, I wasn’t especially simpatico with his anguished, if solipsistic observations. Which is not to say that his plight did not move me, or that his situation is not, at times, rendered with profound artistry by Salinger.

(This is the squalid, or moving part of my observation: after getting several paragraphs of analysis and personal reflection put down, my power went out for a second, and I lost everything I had just written. Everyone knows, whether they are writing an essay or an e-mail, how indescribably frutrating this can be. Nevertheless, I had to chuckle thinking Salinger’s spirit was taking the piss out of my piece, or else the collective force of so many Holden Caulfield acolytes simply snuffed me out in midstream as a sort of karmic correction. Duly noted, and a discouraging setback but not enough to tempt me to pull a Seymour Glass.)

Perhaps it would be a bit unfair, if mostly accurate to conclude that The Catcher in the Rye is the archetypal novel of adolescent alienation for teenagers/young adults who don’t read a great deal of fiction. Just as there are certain types of movies and music that, through a perfect storm of critical consensus and a groundswell of contagious public approbation, get anointed as authentic touchstones of a particular moment in time (I would say “tapping into the zeitgeist” but I try to avoid using the dreaded z-word if at all possible).

Regarding the almost half-century of silence that followed his initial burst of creativty, Norman Mailer decreed Salinger “the greatest mind to ever stay in prep school.” That is harsh but it is also –based on the available evidence– pretty indisputable. On the other hand, when people hold up The Catcher in the Rye (or even Franny and Zooey) as the zenith of Salinger’s oeuvre, they are overlooking (or more likely, have never read) “For Esme –With Love and Squalor”, in my estimation one of the five best American short stories of the 20th Century. Indeed, what Salinger accomplishes in those twenty-odd pages greatly exceeds the sum total of Mailer’s voluminous, if mostly perishable output. Everything that Salinger didn’t do, or didn’t do convincingly, or didn’t do well enough to reward subsequent readings by a more mature audience, in his canonized novel, he does in spades with this short story. It is a compact, devastating illumination of the cruel machinery we, for lack of a better or more appropriate word, call adulthood. How fittingly ironic, then, that a writer celebrated (and minimized) for being the consummate chronicler of what Pete Townshend later called “teenage wasteland” actually wrote a shattering treatise from the trenches (literally and figuratively) that endures well into a new millennium. Of which, more later.

As it happens, when I first experienced The Catcher in the Rye I was in the early (but intense) stages of what became a lifelong infatuation with Jethro Tull. Which naturally coincided with my burgeoning obsession with all-things progressive rock, which happened to coincide with the release of so many classic recordings on that new-fangled technical revelation called compact discs. It would be near impossible for anyone who didn’t live through those days to imagine a world when you waited for anything: i-Pods and online access have made everything that has ever happened available, immediately.

Back then, waiting for certain Rush, Yes, King Crimson and especially Jethro Tull albums to get their digital reincarnation was like patiently awaiting Moses to deliver a new sonic commandment every other week. The upside of this, of course, was that it was still a time when you had time (you had no choice) to savor and spend time with a new purchase, and by the time you’d (temporarily) exhausted your enthusiasm, you had ample funds to get the next installment. This was also, as many will remember, a time before information itself was a free 24/7 proposition. As such, each trip to the record store was loaded with possibility: you never knew what might have been released, including albums by bands like Genesis and Pink Floyd, that you never even knew existed. And, it should go without saying that the prospect of upgrading scratchy vinyl (or tape-recorded) copies of Beatles, Stones, Doors, Zeppelin and Hendrix albums was something slightly beyond orgasmic.

Anyway, it was during the winter and spring of 1988 that the back catalog of Jethro Tull was being released, a couple at a time, on compact disc. It was around this time, having already devoured Thick as a Brick and still patiently awaiting the arrival of A Passion Play, that I had my first sustained go-round with Tull’s third album, 1970′s Benefit. In April 1988 it was the right album at the right time. Remarkably, it still is.

But before you can fully appreciate what Tull achieves on Benefit, one has to consider (and understand) the brilliant album that preceded it, 1969′s Stand Up. In addition to the handful of gems that still get radio play (“Nothing Is Easy, “Bouree”, “A New Day Yesterday” and “Fat Man”), there were a couple of standard coming-of-age type middle finger salutes to the establishment: “Back to the Family”, which features a blistering guitar coda from Martin Barre and album-closer “For A Thousand Mothers”, where Ian Anderson not only spits on, but laughs at the naysayers. This song is notable for perfecting  a sort of “garage flute rock”: once you hear that joyously spiteful noise, this might not sound like such an oxymoron. (And incidentally, if you don’t realize how incendiary and downright dangerous this band was capable of sounding circa ’69, get a load of this.) The two most surprising, and surprisingly abiding, songs are “Look Into The Sun” which Led Zep could have put on their third album (and indeed they may have been listening to this one before taking their somewhat left-field, and awesome, acoustic turn in 1970) and the best song you’ve never heard, the sublime and ethereal “Reasons For Waiting”. But the one that stands out (or stands up, as the case may be) from the rest is the ceaselessly astonishing “We Used To Know.” Check it out:

How many 21 year olds write songs like that? The world weariness of those vocals (not to mention the lyrics) and the masterful subtlety of Martin Barre’s embellishment through the first half make the song ache with longing and arid resignation. But then after the flute solo bleeds into the guitar solo, the song explodes into the clear-eyed appraisal of a man who has fully taken stock of the world, and the reigns of his destiny. As we know now, he never looked back. (A few quick words about that guitar solo: more than a few folks, including Ian Anderson, have noticed that The Eagles’ much more famous “Hotel California” seems to have borrowed more than a little from “We Used To Know”. Personally, I think it’s a tough case to make as the two songs are so different, but this does present an opportunity to lament the fact that Joe Walsh, lovable rascal that he is, would be easily identified by approximately 100% of people who know anything about rock music, while Martin Barre might be recognized by one in ten, and that is being generous. Such is life, and don’t weep for Mr. Barre who can wipe his own eyes with the piles of money he has earned. Joe Walsh, who left his talent and most of his brain cells in that holiday weekend of excess called the ’70s, endures as an avatar, and casualty, of that era: he is the coke-stained hundred dollar bill that says so many things about a time and a place where certain people did certain things because they quite simply could afford to. Mr. Barre, on the other hand, is a vintage Jaguar –pronounced Jag.U.R.– that may have neither the flash or immediacy of newer, more colorful models, but discerning eyes can assess its value, and class, with little difficulty. In hindsight, listening to him in song after song after song, it becomes increasingly clear that even some of the most accomplished –and celebrated– guitarists of the ’70s were using crayons while Barre had already figured out how to use water colors.)

So where were we? Ah, 1970. The growth evidenced between Tull’s blues-drenched debut and the follow-up, only a year later, is unequaled by any other rock band’s first and second albums. This is in no small part due to Barre’s arrival (replacing Mick Abrahams, who lost his battle to co-lead the band and continue down the British blues revue road) and the almost incomprehensible maturation of Ian Anderson’s songwriting proficiency. To the band’s credit, their ambition knew no bounds, and part of their strategy for the third album was to recruit John Evan to agument the sound with his considerable piano (and organ) skills. It was a move that paid substantial dividends, immediately evident on the first song, “With You There To Help Me”. Evan’s welcome presence is in full effect on the deceptively simple, almost waltz-like “Alive and Well and Living In“, which details the dynamics of a failing, probably abusive relationship. The flute and acoustic guitar bely the heartbreakingly familiar subject matter (a woman stuck in the rut of on-again/off-again romance with a man who is distant and then demanding, while she is quick to forgive but not quite able to forget), but Barre’s abrasive guitar tone articulates the anger steadily being buried beneath the surface. It’s a cautionary tale for the teenage listener who has yet to embark on a meaningful romance (written by a young man who could not have had a great deal of experience himself) that an older listener can still admire, decades later.

But the centerpiece (thematically, aesthetically) of the album –and a song that absolutely ranks in the upper echelon of the Tull catalog– has to be “Nothing To Say”. If “We Used To Know” grapples with a wary nostaligia that accompanies the resolve to make one’s own way (as an artist but also as a young adult going out into the world),  ”Nothing To Say” confronts the pressures (of an artist or a young adult out in the world) of conformity or, in Anderson’s case, the expectation that he will embrace the role of countercultural guru, ready to dispense words of wisdom for his young acolytes (a role many artists are quite satisfied to assume, and much more so today than in 1970). Anderson’s ambivalence about this scenario signals, as much as any rock song of that era, that the ’60s are over. Anderson who, to his credit, did not pay much more than lip service (intellectually, lyrically) to the free-love surface level ethos of the festival-flocking hippies, takes aim at both sides of the system and espouses a creed of personal responsibility. What at first might be read as a surly refusal to take a stand is actually an admonishment that everyone needs to figure it out on their own; certainly Anderson was not willing to be a de-facto spokesman for anything political or otherwise. The world was, in many ways, a mess, but every concerned citizen is personally accountable for finding their way and bringing about whatever change is warranted:

It’s not my power
to criticize or to ask you to be blind
To your own pressing problem
and the hate you must unwind.
So ask of me no answer
there is none that I could give
you wouldn’t find.

At this point, Anderson has dealt with the past (Stand Up) and the present (Benefit); his burgeoning confidence would prompt him to combine those elements in an attempt to grind some axes that probed quite a bit deeper than the typical sociopolitical commentary on offer (then, now). As it turns out he had plenty to say, which brings us to Aqualung and the semi-dreaded concept album, wherein Anderson turns his attention, and lacerating wit, to the institution of organized religion. First off, it’s one of the more unfortunate, if trivial, missteps in rock. Naming their fourth album Aqualung was akin to Black Sabbath changing their name from Earth. In both instances, a less appropriate moniker makes the work easier to dismiss. Considering the thematic scope of the album, and the central thesis of how religion affects us all, especially when we are at a young and formative age. It is tantalizing to imagine how much more street cred this album could –and would– have accrued if it were named after almost any of the other ten songs, specifically “Cheap Day Return”, “Up To Me” or “Wind Up” (particularly as a pun for what this expression signifies in British slang–as a comment on the song and the album, and the material, which was sure to “wind up” some listeners). But most of all, this album absolutely should have been named “My God” which, again, would be appropriate on the micro and macro levels.

In any event, anyone who has made it this far most likely has at least a passing acquaintance with this particular album (perhaps beyond the excellent title track and the radio staples “Locomotive Breath” and “Cross-Eyed Mary”). While the first side of the LP concerns itself with, for lack of a better cliche, man’s inhumanity to man, the second side takes on religion with a righteous indignation that has not been improved upon by many (if any) other mainstream artists since ’71.

I wrote a bit about this one (while attempting a succint overview of the band’s career here) and here’s an excerpt on a couple of songs from Side One: the one-two acoustic punch of “Cheap Day Return” and “Mother Goose” are archetypes of a sort; the kind of whimsical British folk that Tull perfected: the songs seem straightforward and pleasant enough (and they are) but are cut by their topical, and occasionally unsettling, lyrical import. This is Anderson’s calling card, and nowhere is it in better effect than the one minute and twenty-four seconds of perfection entitled “Cheap Day Return”. In astonishingly succinct and effective fashion Anderson deals with his own alienation, offers a sardonic appraisal of his own budding super-stardom (What a laugh!), and his father’s imminent death, all in a song that sounds innocuous as a nursery rhyme.

Side Two is a remarkably ambitious –and successful– attempt to look at the racket religion has degenerated into (or was it always thus?) and after getting some licks in on the clergy, Anderson turns both barrels on the men who have sought to create a  convenient God in their own image. Pretty sophomoric stuff, eh? Well, that’s partly the point (more on that in a moment), but what’s remarkable is that these songs have lost none of their power or perspicacity. It still sounds pretty audacious today, but was downright defiant to pen tunes like this in 1971 (check out “My God” and “Hymn 43“, which includes the incendiary couplet “If Jesus saves, he better save himself/From the gory glory seekers who’ll use his name in death). In just one minute Anderson nails, for all time, the opportunistic hypocrisy of the materially rich but spiritually depraved amongst us who compensate (figuratively) for their nagging consciences in the confessional or in the collection basket (“And you press on God’s waiter your last dime/As he hands you the bill”). But on the literal levels, these are the people we all know: our peers, parents and especially our politicians, and Anderson sardonically nails these weekend warriors to their crosses of gold.

He saves the best for last, when in “Wind Up” he recalls being shipped off to church, eventually concluding that God is “not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays”. I can trace the trajectory of when I first heard this album, early in high school, and loving the “hit” songs, to eventually gaining a fuller appreciation of “My God” –in terms of the lyrical import and the inspired way Anderson multi-tracks his vocals to imitate, and satirize, a sanctified choral hymn– and the other songs on the second side. But it wasn’t until college that the full effects of “Wind Up” revealed themselves to the not-so-innocent, recovering Catholic who had served mass as an altar boy only a couple of years earlier:

In your pomp and all your glory you’re a poorer man than me/As you lick the boots of death born out of fear.

I’ll decline to further recall how profound those lyrics seemed to a nineteen year old, but I’ll argue they retain their poetic import even now. Of course one comes to an age where they can see through the self-serving charade and the fake humility and the sickening appropriation of the holy for personal, earthly gains. Et cetera. But this sort of material goes several steps beyond fighting the power or endorsing the punk rock anarchy; this stuff is gospel for a young sensitive soul, alienated by everything and earnestly (sensitive souls are nothing if not earnest) looking for Truth with a capital T.

Which, at long last, brings us back to Salinger. If the holy trinity (sorry) of Tull albums comprised the ideal, if occasionally uncomfortable, source material for making that awkward (but earnest!) leap from adolescence to young adulthood, “For Esme — with Love and Squalor” is among the handful of indispensable short stories (along with Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well Lighted Place”,  Tolstoy’s “The Three Hermits”, Kafka’s “First Sorrow”, James Joyce’s “Eveline” and especially Joao Guimaraes Rosa’s “The Third Bank of the River”) that resonate on profound and permanent levels with a certain type of person at a certain age.

Perhaps, as already acknowledged, I simply came to The Catcher in the Rye too late (although, as already suggested, I am uncertain it was capable of working its celebrated charms on me, not because I didn’t relate to Holden Caulfield on some levels, but more because as I read I kept thinking “Yeah? Is this all you got?”). There can be no doubt that I came to “Esme” at exactly the right age: after digesting Catcher and spending many a session (and, the writer would be remiss to overlook, at least one enchanted, and mycologic evening) uncovering the ultimately not so mysterious mysteries of Aqualung. I was, inevitably, an ardent if confused soul quite concerned with “again becoming a man with all his fac– with all his f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s intact”.

Like the very best literature, “For Esme — with Love and Squalor” is every bit enjoyable and edifying to adult eyes as it is to, say, the wider eyes of a college sophomore. In fact, Salinger’s achievement is that much more poignant (and devastating) to an older audience who has actually known people who have been wounded or killed in war. But the narrator of this story is reeling from actual experience in the real world, so it resonates to a young reader about to enter it, and certainly a more mature reader who has seen and felt some of those proverbial slings and arrows. If there is a more  quietly coruscating image in literature than the narrator lifting Esme’s (KIA) father’s wristwatch, which has shattered in transit, out of the care package, I’m not aware of it. The question, as the story ends, is: does that broken glass represent the narrator’s spirit, or will he rally to once more become part of the world?

This is the question so many (but apparently not enough, considering we are still fighting wars and still taking less than acceptable care of our veterans) young adults grapple with at a crucial time in their lives.

This is the question J.D. Salinger may or may not have answered, in his own inscrutable fashion, once he turned his back on fame –and his fans– and spent the last decades of his life in a golden cage of his making. Whether or not he was quietly desperate, or just quiet, will presumably be answered once those elusive and much-discussed manuscripts see the light of day.

Once it seemed there would always be
a time for everything.
Ages passed I knew at last
my life had never been.
I’d been missing what time could bring.
Fifty years and I’m filled with tears and joys
I never cried.
Burn the wagon and chain the mule.
The past is all denied.
There’s no time for everything.
No time for everything.

–Ian Anderson, “A Time For Everything” (1970)

Meanwhile back in the year…1978?

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. The progressive rock monolith (immortalized, or infamous, from the cover of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Tarkus… or the cover of any Yes album) was lurching toward its bloated end-game. This was unfortunate, or overdue, depending upon your perspective. If punk rock did not quite reign supreme, there was no question that its DIY ethos was gaining steam. If one image (besides a disco ball) could express the disfavor the stadium-rock old guard was falling into, consider the (calculated) mileage Johnny Rotten received for scrawling “I Hate” above his Pink Floyd t-shirt. Pretense, all of a sudden, was anathema—and if the cash registers were still clanking, they would be replaced by synthesizer sounds and round-the-clock music videos in short order.

Back to basics? How about back to the 18th Century? That is the vibe Jethro Tull was emanating circa 1978. The band that dropped not one, but two single-song album suites (ingenious or insufferable, depending upon your perspective), had evolved into a proficient troop of professionals that incorporated strings, lutes, fifes and harpsichords into their repertoire. Beginning in 1975, with less irony than some might assume, Tull released consecutive albums entitled Minstrel in the Gallery and Too Old To Rock and Roll; Too Young To Die!. Then, as if doubling down on their never hip (but, to their credit, never affected) sensibility, they released Songs From The Wood (’77) and Heavy Horses.

To put more plainly, the same years The Clash, The Ramones and The Sex Pistols were establishing a radically new and brazen rock aesthetic, Ian Anderson appeared on an album cover flanked by two Clydesdales. Out of time and possibly out of touch (but still remarkably successful, for all the right reasons), Jethro Tull were, first and foremost, a band for people who craved intelligent and occasionally challenging music, played convincingly by exceptional musicians. How quaint.

In any event, it was while touring for the recently released Heavy Horses (the title track being a prescient—and unironic!—tribute to the working horses of England who, much like prog rock, were soon to step aside; their demise having less to do with trends and tastemakers than technology) that the band had the privilege of transmitting a show live, via satellite, from New York City to Britain. That Jethro Tull was the band selected for this historic occasion should adequately signify how huge they were at that time. Not for nothing (even though 1980 and alas, a new line-up ushering in a lesser era lurked unknowingly, just ‘round the corner), this was arguably Tull’s ultimate cast of characters.

The band, including mostly unheralded drummer Barriemore Barlow and the brilliant keyboardist John Evan, along with David Palmer (arranger/keyboardist) and Tony Williams (gamely filling in for bassist John Glascock, who would pass away a short time later at the absurdly young age of 28) as well as Anderson’s right hand man, lead guitarist Martin Barre, were a force to be reckoned with. These lads brought the noise—so to speak—in the studio and were quite capable of recreating their material on stage.

And the above point gets to the heart of the matter in regards to the merits of this new release. For a band that has toured almost ceaselessly for four decades (!), there is painfully little footage available of Tull in their prime. The year 1978, then, finds them suitably confident and eager for the occasion, and they acquit themselves with flying colors. The DVD, like the gig, was necessarily unorthodox: the satellite feed was transmitted to UK households watching The Old Grey Whistle Test. As such, the band was obliged to play a three song “warm up” (seen only by the live audience at Madison Square Garden), then re-start the concert, play until the allotted time ran out, “end” the show and then come back out for several more songs (again only seen by the live crowd).

This detail is intriguing not only as back-story but to marvel at how incredibly far we’ve come, technologically speaking, in only a few decades. The evening’s performance is included on this DVD, which generously includes a bonus CD with the same tracks (a fact that should elevate this offering from interesting to imperative for Tull fans).

The show itself is quite satisfactory: Ian Anderson, ever the showman, may have slowed down a step from his “Mad Dog Fagin” days, but he—and the rest of the band—is still fit, trim and full of fire. The highlight of the concert (and the “opening song” for the UK audience) must be “Thick As A Brick” which represents (at least for now) the definitive live version of this extraordinary tune.

The recent albums are nicely represented with spirited takes on “Songs From The Wood” (wherein the audience is literally challenged to “join the chorus if (they) can”), “Heavy Horses” and “No Lullaby”. As always, the band is obliged to perform crowd favorites “Aqualung” (which never translates particularly well live) and “Locomotive Breath” (which does), and there are some pleasant surprises such as “My God” and “One Brown Mouse”.

Live At Madison Square Garden 1978 is indeed a very worthwhile—and somewhat overdue—addition to the Tull catalog, and hopefully this signals an imminent willingness to explore the vaults for more (preferably even earlier) material.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/117708-jethro-tull-live-at-madison-square-garden-1978/

Can we top last week? That’s up for the Internet (and the people who appear on it) to determine:

Il Buono: Hope Sandoval.

I’d love to take credit for prompting the return of Hope Sandoval after an eight year absence — a circumstance I lamented earlier this year. Little did heartsick homeboys like me know she was already wrapping up work on her second album, the recently-released (and highly recommended) Through The Devil Softly. She is touring now, so catch her if you can. I was delighted to discover that she was appearing in D.C. at the historic 6th and I Synagogue: I finally had the opportunity to see Hope Sandoval sing (!) in an intimate venue (!!) performing new music (!!!). She did not disappoint. And, as has been well documented over the years, her shyness is not an act. Or, it’s a very successful act: the only words she uttered for the entirety of her performance were “Thank you” once the concert ended. No encore, no fanfare, no problem. We weren’t there to hear her speak; we were there to hear her sing. And just see her, in person. And, for the record, she is as beautiful as ever.

Il Brutto: (Like last week, bad as in badass: check out this nine year old stud! Ted Leonsis, offer this kid a contract!!)

Il Cattivo: Meghan McCain.

I guess it’s safe to conclude that, as ever, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Or, in Meghan McCain’s case, bad publiciTITTY.

Bonus Footage:
Unbelievable find on YouTube. 1982 interview with Ian Anderson on David Letterman. Look how young both of them are! The Internet WINS!

It was twenty years ago today…

No, seriously. Twenty years. Fall semester (because the world was still measured in summers and semesters), sophomore year. Out of all the indelible memories amassed during that four year odyssey, the concentrated experience of ’89/’90 contained a little bit of everything: the good, bad and ugly –and that was just my wardrobe. Things I did and things I saw still impact my waking hours; things I recall and things I couldn’t control still influence my subconscious and work themselves out in novels, poems and blog posts.

So, among many other things, autumn ’89 was a fortuitous time for legendary bands creating stunning and defiant statements of purpose. Neither burned out nor ready to fade away, these artists defiantly informed the world that they were not all washed up, and quite capable of making some of their career-best work. Jethro Tull, Rush and Neil Young all had ups and downs in the ’80s: all relying too much, at times, on the synthesized sounds that were de rigeur (along with laughable music videos). Rush always found their audience, but Jethro Tull and Neil Young seemed to be on the ropes. Then, as summer vacation slipped into a new school year, the first salvo was fired by a one-legged flutist.

Tull came seemingly out of nowhere (particularly after the snyth-drenched period piece Under Wraps and Ian Anderson’s well-documented throat issues, leading some to wonder if the band was a spent force) with ’87s Crest of a Knave. The album was a minor revelation and led to the very controversial Grammy award (oh poor misunderstood Metallica!). So while ’89s Rock Island caused less waves and sold less copies than its predecessor, it is in some ways the superior album. There are a couple of throwaway tunes and a couple of mediocre moments, but this one also contains some of Anderson’s finest compositions. The band remains in fine form, as you can tell here, here and here. The live performances of these songs were also remarkable, and of all the times I’ve seen Tull, this was by far the most impressive (an experience enhanced by a certain fungus, and a story that shall be revisited another time…)

As it happened, this late ’80s renaissance was a last gasp of sorts: Tull made a few more albums throughout the ’90s (each worse than the one before) and things were never the same. There is enough tolerable material on 1991′s Catfish Rising and 1995′s Roots To Branches to avoid wishing the band had called it quits altogether, but it is more than fair to proclaim that Rock Island was the last time they made truly relevant music (Ian Anderson still had one more masterpiece in him, the mostly ignored, but very worthwhile Divinities: Twelve Dances With God). I believe what I wrote earlier this year holds up as a generous enough assessment:

As some may be surprised to know, Jethro Tull still roams the earth, and while new albums aren’t being produced at the former pace (based on their post-’95 output, this is a good thing for all involved), they are still playing to crowds who happily pay to see them. If Pete Townshend decided he did not, in fact, want to die before he got old, it seems fair play for Jethro Tull and their fans to keep living in the past.

Now Neil Young is a different story. Crazy as it may sound twenty years (and about 300 albums) later, by the end of the ’80s a lot of people had given up Neil for dead — creatively and commercially, if not literally. Some may recall that Young was actually sued by David Geffen for making “unrepresentative” music. This incident serves to reinforce what an insane (and at times soulless) decade the ’80s were, what swines record label executives are, and how iconoclastic Young has always been. He has made a career out of being crazy like a fox: almost every time he seems congenitally impelled to derail his own success, he winds up looking like he merely creates crises in order to pull another Lazarus act.

All of which is to say Freedom was like Kirk Gibson’s home run off of Dennis Eckersley the year before: utterly unexpected, miraculous and instantly indelible. It’s impossible to overstate how shocking it was not only to hear Neil Young back from the Oz of his own making, but the sheer quality of the work. (Young, alas, is one of those artists whose work is systematically policed on YouTube, so samples from Freedom are scarce, but here’s an acoustic version of the great El Dorado and he made some noise (literally) on Saturday Night Live. I remember watching that, on campus, and thinking how cool it was that there were still some hippies from the ’60s who scoffed at convention and attracted an audience.

Neil has continued to have his hits and misses, but there is no debating the fact that Freedom served as a defibrillator for his creative juices, and he has been riding that recharged heart of gold ever since. Long may he run!

September brought Tull and October brought Neil; what on earth could November deliver?

Well, Rush started off en fuego in the ’80s (Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures and Signals can stand alongside any tri-fecta any rock band has delivered in the last thirty years) and while Power Windows suffered from the excesses of the time (too many keyboards and heavy-handed, inhuman production), Hold Your Fire was arguably the band’s first lackluster effort. It’s far from a failure (in spite of the grief the group took for this video, “Time Stand Still” is a tremendous song and it was a daring idea to include the delectable Aimee Mann) but it raised questions about where the band was going and what it had left to say. Plenty, as it turned out.

Presto is, like Rock Island and Freedom, an album that stopped even fanatic and longtime fans in their tracks and made them shake their heads in happy disbelief. I remember sitting in my friend’s dorm room on a Sunday night, listening to the “pre-release” broadcast on a crappy boombox. For whatever reason, the DJ played side two (perhaps because it leads off with the title song?) and I still recall the immediate reaction: Holy shit, this is incredible!For one thing, the employment of acoustic guitars…how refreshing. But more than that, the band sounded focused and locked in; they seemed hungry. This was when CDs still sold more poorly than cassettes (in other words, they were still somewhat of a novelty and a very expensive one for destitute college kids), and I was staggered by how great the sound quality was on this new disc. The content cops have been cracking down on Rush songs previously available at YouTube, so here are some great live versions here here and here.

Peart was assailed, sometimes understandably, for a decade of lyrics that relied a tad too heavily on themes liberally borrowed from Sci-Fi, Classical Literature and the high priestess of Objectivism, the insufferable Ayn Rand. For the Dungeons & Dragons circuit, this was biblical scripture; for older or less…imaginative fans the lyrics are occasionally embarrassing and have not exactly aged like a single malt scotch. However, the intelligence and unquenchable curiosity always existed, and Peart increasingly harnessed his considerable prowess with the pencil in the ’80s.

Starting with Permanent Waves he turned his attention (as most adults invariably do) to the world we live in and the ways it shapes us and vice versa. In hindsight, it is more than a little remarkable that the same person who penned the lyrics to “Natural Science” and “Freewill” also contributed “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” and “The Necromancer” (which are both excellent songs in their way, but about 99% of their redeeming value is musical). His lyrics for the rest of the decade are on par with the work Roger Waters did during the ’70s: pound for pound, nobody was coming close to being this consistently engaging and erudite.

In many regards, then, Presto found him at the height of his skills and confidence and the results are extraordinary. But more than that, this particular album seemed written especially for sensitive, inquisitive and occasionally confused young adults. Sophomores in college, say.

Hope is epidemic
Optimism spreads
Bitterness breeds irritation
Ignorance breeds imitation

All my nerves are naked wires
Tender to the touch
Sometimes super-sensitive
But who can care too much?

Pleasure leaves a fingerprint
As surely as mortal pain
In memories they resonate
And echo back again

I’m not one to believe in magic
Though my memory has a second sight
I’m not one to go pointing my finger
When I radiate more heat than light

Static on your frequency
Electrical storm in your veins
Raging at unreachable glory
Straining at invisible chains

Twenty years. More time has passed since these albums came out than had passed at that point in my life. But any 39 year old who has learned anything understands –and accepts– that the chain lightning of youth comprises both the pleasure and pain (and everything in between) that made us what we became, and are becoming. Some days we can’t believe how far we’ve come, other days we would give anything to get even an hour of that magic back. Or, as Peart writes, The moment may be brief, but it can be so bright…

If I could wave my magic wand, would I do anything differently? I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t, and each passing year fuels a sporadic nostalgia that is at times so overpowering it unnerves me. Other times I marvel at what I learned and saw, and feel fortunate to have been a wise fool at the end of one decade, incapable of imagining we might all live to see the year 2000. Mostly, I hope I did my best to get it right the first time. Then and now.

Most people knew Jethro Tull had been around forever, but more than three centuries??

Oh. You mean the actual British dude, Mr. Tull, whom the progressive band was named after? (Wait, so that isn’t the singer’s name?) Quite an arbitrary choice, though certainly more cerebral than many of its era (Strawberry Alarm Clock, anyone?); and considering one of the early choices was Candy Coloured Rain, I think we can all appreciate that less acid-addled minds prevailed.

So who was this Jethro Tull and why is he important, aside from being on the cover of this album? Well, do the words seed drill mean anything to you?

Eventually, as agricultural improvement became fashionable, more interest began to be taken in Tull’s ideas.  While several other mechanical seed drills had also been invented, Tull’s complete system was a major influence on the agricultural revolution and its impact can still be seen in today’s methods and machinery.

Suffice it to say, this was the iPod of its day. Arguably, the Agricultural Revolution would have taken longer to reach its full…flowering without Mr. Tull, and for that we can be grateful. No Agricultural Revolution, no Industrial Revolution. No Industrial Revolution, no electricity. No Electricity, no phonograph. No Phonograph…well, you get the picture. Without Jethro Tull…no Jethro Tull!

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After three impressive albums, Tull signalled that they were around to stay with the release of Aqualung in 1971, an ambitious quasi-concept album that dealt with organized religion and man’s inhumanity to man. The title track (which features one of the great rock guitar solos of all time courtesy of Martin Barre) and “Locomotive Breath” became, and remain, FM radio staples. It is (as is often the case with “classic” albums) the somewhat lesser-known tunes that retain their true staying power. The one-two acoustic punch of “Cheap Day Return” and “Mother Goose” are archetypes of a sort; the kind of whimsical British folk that Tull perfected: the songs seem straightforward and pleasant enough (and they are) but are cut by their topical, and occasionally unsettling, lyrical import. This is Anderson’s calling card, and nowhere is it in better effect than the one minute and twenty-four seconds of perfection entitled “Cheap Day Return”. In astonishingly succinct and effective fashion Anderson deals with his own alienation, offers a sardonic appraisal of his own budding super-stardom (What a laugh!), and his father’s imminent death, all in a song that sounds innocuous as a nursery rhyme.

They were on top of the world (and the charts) in ’72 when Thick As A Brick became the first pop album comprised of one continuous song to reach a widespread audience. The concept may have been audacious, but the music is miraculous: this is one of the handful of holy grails for prog-rock fanatics: the ones who bought this album on vinyl, then, and the brave souls who have no shame in their game, now. Simply put, many beautiful babies were thrown out with the bath water by hidebound critics (then, now) who were content to dismiss the more ambitious (pretentious!) works that certain bands were putting out as a matter of course in the early-to-mid ’70s. And by works I don’t mean this but I do mean this (at least side one). And for every one of these there was one of these. And before he (rightly) became a more mainstream iconoclast, Peter Gabriel was the driving force behind albums like this and this and especially this. As could correctly be said of any artistic era, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times.

Inevitably, Jethro Tull lost some of that same audience (more than a handful forever) with their next opus, the more challenging (and, upon initial listens, less rewarding) A Passion Play. It was a shame, then, and remains regrettable, now that folks don’t have the ears or hearts for this material, as it represents much of Anderson’s finest work. His voice would never sound better, and he was possibly at the height of his instrumental prowess: the obligatory flute, the always-impressive acoustic guitar chops and, for this album, the cheeky employment of a soprano saxophone: it is a gamble (and/or a conceit, depending upon one’s perspective) that pays off in spades. All of the above is amply demonstrated in the opening section, embedded below. Not for nothing is this considered the masterpiece of the Tull oeuvre amongst die-hard fans (an encomium that only adds fuel to the fire for the legion of Tull haters, snot running down their noses).

Tull plowed ahead, making music their own way, and cranked out an album per year through the entire decade. In another nice bit of art imitating history, Anderson recorded the second album of his “pastoral trilogy” (including the majestic Songs From The Wood and the fin de siecle-inspired Stormwatch), ’78′s Heavy Horses.

In 1731 he published his book, ‘The New Horse Hoeing Husbandry’, detailing his system and its machinery. It caused great controversy at the time, and arguments continued for another century before his eventual vindication.

We can hope that the scales of artistic justice will have a similar fate in store for Anderson, and that his tour de force (the title track) is fully vindicated in the eyes of critics and casual music fans everywhere (though it’s difficult to protest too much for an artist who has sold many millions of albums). Nevertheless, it’s an embarrassing commentary on how close-minded so many folks are that they probably have never even heard this song. Of course,  the professionals who write most often about rock music in the ’70s are not known for their fondness of multisyllabic words and material that obliges a modest understanding of world history.

The early ’80s were not particularly kind to Tull (or, put another way, the Tull of the early ’80s was not particularly kind to fans), and after the synth-heavy Under Wraps, it seemed like the time might be right for Anderson to turn more of his attention to salmon farming. But the (sweet) dream was not yet over: toward the end of the decade Tull unleashed back-to-back albums that recalled some of the better work of the past while being (mostly) entrenched in the here-and-now. The best moments on Crest of a Knave (’87) and Rock Island (’89) stand (mostly) alongside the best work the band did in its prime.

Farm on the Freeway:

Strange Avenues:

The ’90s were a time when bands who made double-albums in the ’70s replayed that material, live, to the retro crowd, working that nostalgia circuit in very profitable fasion. To Tull’s credit, they still toured regularly, and also made new albums from time to time. To say the results were mixed indicates a generosity that only the most unfaltering fan would deny. Still, Anderson had a few tricks left in his codpiece (figuratively speaking), like the surprisingly satisfactory Divinities: Twelve Dances With God. As the title suggests, it is a musical meditation on faith (all different types). The topic alone is cause for critics who wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone in the ’70s to suffer a fresh outbreak of the Herpes they contracted while covering The Sex Pistols, but the material holds up.

As some may be surprised to know, Jethro Tull still roams the earth, and while new albums aren’t being produced at the former pace (based on their post-’95 output, this is a good thing for all involved), they are still playing to crowds who happily pay to see them. If Pete Townshend decided he did not, in fact, want to die before he got old, it seems fair play for Jethro Tull and their fans to keep living in the past.

Bad new abounds.

Financial companies? Publishing houses? Newspapers? Magazines? Consumer electronics corporations? Manufacturers? Detroit automotive? Et cetera…

Whatever.

But when you read something like this, it catches your attention.

Starbucks to close 300 more stores, lay off 6,700 workers