Murphy's Law» Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix Experience: Winterland

Sean Murphy — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:06:13 +0000

More Hendrix? For anyone who has—or who has not, for that matter—been paying attention the last couple of years, a major initiative has been underway to get the world to experience the guitarist whose star refuses to fade. In fact, the purpose of these releases (ahem, aside from the money it will generate, of which more shortly) is at least in part to ensure that Hendrix is fully and properly appraised, more than forty years after his death.

The inevitable question must be asked: when is it too much of a good thing? With Hendrix, the answer for most folks would be “never”. To this point, each wave of reissues and special editions has included rare or unreleased content, improved audio fidelity, and reasonable price points. As such, the novice and the aficionado have been provided ample incentive to upgrade or get acquainted with Hendrix’s catalog.

As is typically the case, releases like this will allow both fanatics and haters to have a field day. Is it overkill, another example of a label squeezing the soul out of a long dead legend? Or is it an imperative acquisition, a touchstone to be celebrated for both its quality and historical import?

As is inexorably the case, there is no easy answer. However, let it be forcefully stated that this new offering is definitely not an instance of the same old shit being repackaged, once again, for completists and chumps.

With this latest installment, attention is turned to Hendrix as live performer. The key, eagerly anticipated cornerstone of this roll-out is the definitive set of Winterland performances from October 1968. Way back in 1987, a compilation from this three-night stand was issued, and it was fairly revelatory. Fans in the know have long been aware that much of the material had been recorded, and now just about all of it (typical and understandable quality issues have made some of it impossible to release) is now available in the four-disc set Jimi Hendrix Experience: Winterland.

The question here is pretty simple: are you curious or insatiable enough to covet four discs, each set repeating the same songs? To be certain, this is Hendrix, so even if the sets were mirror images (they aren’t), it would be intriguing. However, there is some variety and, more to the point, none of the takes sound the same. Hendrix, perhaps more than any rock guitarist before or since was willing—and able—to improvise, so it’s intriguing to hear his ever-evolving interpretations of songs he had, at this point, played live a million times. Appreciating how differently he attacks the same songs, sometimes in the same evening, confirms that Hendrix approached this material as a launching pad for exploration.

As with most artists worth studying, hearing how they recorded in the studio informs an understanding of their live performances and vice versa. The Hendrix concerts captured for posterity unlock some of the mysteries involving what keeps him such a compelling and inimitable musical force. Even with the comparatively primitive technology the late-‘60s studios afforded him, Hendrix was still a tinkerer, an experimenter and a perfectionist. Listen to the multi-tracked guitars throughout, say, Axis: Bold As Love, or especially the less refined (or less-embellished) track-in-progress of “Castles Made of Sand” from the recent West Coast Seattle Boy set. These miniature miracles, most clocking in at under three minutes, are brimming with ideas and innovation and underscore the ways in which Hendrix had to think up in his head before he worked it out in the studio. On stage, he simply had to play it. And Winterland, if nothing else, amply illustrates how prime Hendrix, in concert, was an occasion to savor.

Still, who but the most ardent enthusiast would want or need to own a set with multiple takes, however varied, of “Hey Joe”, “Lover Man”, “Are You Experienced?” and “Red House”? Add in a bonus interview, an extended, engaging conversation with Hendrix backstage at the Boston Garden from November 1968 and the question will still answer itself, depending on who is asking.

If you’re still on the fence, here’s some pros and cons. One issue that is worth mentioning involves a concern Hendrix himself struggled with: the sound of his own voice. He was notoriously uncomfortable, particularly in the early years, with his singing skills even though he consistently proved to be a capable, often extraordinary vocalist in the studio. Live, he is seldom as satisfying, even while his guitar playing soars. One hypothesis: listening to this material it is, once again, instructive to note how quickly and confidently Hendrix builds his extemporaneous mansions of sound. It is as though he is so busy flying the plane he doesn’t have the time—or inclination—to talk. As such, the vocals seem almost a distraction to him, and he occasionally sounds like he can’t quite keep up with all that he is thinking and feeling. As a result he is obliged to speed up his delivery to keep pace. Conclusion: much of this material would be stronger with less singing, and this observation comes from a writer who believes Hendrix is one of the great voices in rock.

For evidence of this proposition, there are several instances of instrumental jams that stand out above the rest. Hendrix’s cover of “Tax Free” is an awesome exhibition revealing how his mind works, transferring a unique energy and feeling to his fingertips. Both takes are over ten minutes and never become stagnant or repetitive; they are the musical equivalent of observing a great painter attacking the canvass. Another cover, of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” employs the full range of his skill: the track smokes, slows to a standstill, and effuses the bluesy soul Hendrix could conjure at will. We are treated to an early rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner”—the incendiary statement that he later immortalized at Woodstock. He also pays homage to Dylan, doing a more than credible cover of “Like a Rolling Stone”, though it is on this particular track that Hendrix’s tribute would have been even more effective without vocals. The languid guitar-only introduction of the version on Disc Two is truly affecting, and hints at what might have been had Hendrix thought even more outside the box.

Before Winterland, the band had already recorded Electric Ladyland, but unfortunately the only preview of that as-yet unreleased work is a scintillating rundown of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”,which is too bad since more tracks from this masterpiece would have raised the stakes considerably. Still, at this point the trio, with drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding, was battle-tested and beyond comfortable playing to each member’s strengths. Redding is solid throughout and content to hold down the middle while Hendrix and Mitchell joust and instigate. Special mention for the ever-underrated drummer: Mitchell was fast and ferocious, but while his speed and dexterity made it sound like two men playing, he also kept everything anchored with a true timekeeper’s élan.

Here’s the bottom line: Hendrix was never bored and incapable of being boring. He was simply too brilliant a player—and performer—to sound uninspired when he strapped on his Stratocaster. He was, as we know, on the verge of new adventures and altogether different sounds with both the Band of Gypsys and the progressively idiosyncratic material that would comprise his work-in-progress First Rays of the New Rising Sun, and a great deal of that momentum spills out during these songs. This set, on its own, represents a series of successful concerts from a seminal trio at the height of their powers. More, it is a crucial historical document that transitions the early Hendrix sound and the unfettered, utterly rewarding ground he would break before his untimely death.

Winterland, then, must be regarded as a welcome release and a valuable addition to the ongoing reassessment (and remastering) of the proper Hendrix catalog. Taken together, this work is a canon, representing one of the great artists from the last century—a genius we remain fortunate to have so much documented evidence of. For casual fans, it might be best to pick and choose tunes or at least listen to samples since, though there is a single-disc compilation, it seems disingenuous to recommend a collection that does not include “Tax Free”, “Red House” or “Killing Floor”. This won’t necessarily be the one you return to most often, at least by comparison with the earlier masterworks, but it is good and necessary that these recordings are finally seeing the light of day. As his estate continues to clear out the vaults, more than enough of us will be delighted to wait—in a suspended state of hope and disbelief—until there is yet more evidence to further establish Hendrix’s already unassailable legend.

September 18, 1970: God is (still) Not Dead

Sean Murphy — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:17:50 +0000

We lost three big J’s, all in just about a year (Janis, Jimi and Jim Morrison). Debates could –and should– rage about how much Janis and Jim could –and would– have offered had they lived. But no one with ears and a fully functioning central nervous system could –or would– deny that the loss of Hendrix requires arithmetic we can’t process with numbers and machines. The singular loss, musically, of the 20th Century. As ever, as indescribable a loss this remains, we can –and should– console ourselves with the astonishingly rich and varied legacy he left us with. In the final analysis, we are incredibly fortunate to still have what we got.

On the occasion of his passing (he has been gone as long as I’ve been around), below is a piece from December, “Honing in on Hendrix” which contains links to two major features I wrote for PopMatters.

If you had told me one year ago that I’d have not only one, but two opportunities to write feature-length pieces on Jimi Hendrix I would have been excited, inspired and intimidated. And not necessarily in that order.

In March I happily grappled with the newly remastered deluxe editions of the official Hendrix catalog here.

The long and short of my piece follows, directly below:

It is exceedingly refreshing to see that Sony’s Legacy Recordings is making the most of this opportunity and reissuing the official Hendrix catalog, with bonus (DVD) material at incredibly—bordering on unbelievably—reasonable price points. Ten bucks for remastered sound and a mini-documentary DVD? This is no brainer, redefined. Which brings us to the crucial question: what more can possibly be said, at this point, about Jimi Hendrix? Actually, it is entirely fair to propose that we have not yet said enough about him. As it has long since been established that he is the Alpha and the Omega of electric guitar, conversation tends to stop there: what more needs to be said, we say, when we don’t say anything more. As a result, the actual scope of his virtuosity tends to, however unintentionally, get reduced to stock phrases (see above) and the sorts of encomiums that preempt elaboration. So how do we explain the truly singular genius that is Jimi Hendrix? Aside from the innovation (he did it first), apart from the obvious (he did it best), what sets him apart?

When it comes to Hendrix, there is really no conjecture. The growth he displayed in only a couple of years is unlike anything we’ve witnessed from just about any other musician or composer, ever. We’re talking light years, the universe expanding; real quantum type shit. Put it this way: Miles Davis, who didn’t have many good things to say about even the best jazz musicians, made no bones about his desire to get Hendrix in the studio to collaborate. That’s like Michael Jordan saying he’d like to play some pick-up, or Sugar Ray Robinson asking you to spar with him.

In August I took the opportunity to take exception with Gibson’s list of all-time best guitar albums, with Hendrix at the top of my alternate list. Here is the key takeaway from my assessment of Axis: Bold As Love:

Axis: Bold As Love did not have as many instantly accessible singles, but in spite (or because) of that, the second album is unquestionably a major step forward in several regards. This is the disc to slip into any discussion regarding Hendrix’s indisputable, but underappreciated compositional acumen. The guitar is consistently front and center (while Redding and especially Mitchell remain impeccable, as always, in the pocket), but the emphasis on Jimi’s vocals turns purposeful attention on some of the best lyrics he ever penned. While Are You Experienced remains the sonic boom that cleared away all competition, even the best moments on that effort could never in a thousand years have anticipated songs like “Little Wing”, “Castles Made of Sand”, “One Rainy Wish” and “Bold As Love”.

I’m currently devouring the latest release, and gift for Hendrix freaks, a four-disc, one DVD box set called West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology. (Full subsequent feature here.)

Interestingly, (at least to me) is that, while the first disc specifically looks into the oft-overlooked, or altogether forgotten/unknown work Jimi did as a sideman before the incendiary double-dose heard ’round the world in 1967, I am finding myself utterly agog (again!) at how perfect a drummer Mitch Mitchell was for Hendrix. I should not be surprised since, a little over two years ago, I wrote about Mitchell (a couple of days after his death, whereupon he became the last of the three original Jimi Hendrix Experience mates to depart our planet) in a piece entitled “The Perfect Engine“. Considering this is some of what I had to say, then, I can’t help but be amazed by how repeated listenings (when it comes to this material and my ears, we’re talking a more than a quarter-century of heavy rotation) only deepen and augment the impression of how perfect Mitchell was on every single song:

Hendrix went in so many amazing directions, in order for his vision to be consistently realized, he needed a drummer with the chops and versatility to keep up with (and, at times, complement) him. Enter Mitchell. No rock drummers sounded like this, then. Keith Moon certainly hit the ground running and, throughout the mid-‘60s, showed the signs of a controlled frenzy that would reach its full flowering on Tommy. Ginger Baker kept time with Cream, the first super group, holding his own with Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton. But Mitchell never needed to evolve–he came into the equation fully formed and ready to contribute.

Mitchell named jazz drummer icons Elvin Jones and Max Roach as two of his primary influences. Normally, name dropping like this (certainly from a rock musician) sounds too clever by half, and more than a little presumptuous. Mitchell, however, provided ample evidence that he had absorbed not only the complexity, but the unique approaches that Jones and Roach brought to bear. Roach’s supple dexterity and Jones’s jackhammer pyrotechnics are in abundant display on all of the Jimi Hendrix Experience recordings.

A few obvious examples: songs like “Hey Joe” and “Manic Depression” would be pretty complete regardless of Hendrix’s accompaniment, but there is no question that Mitchell’s passive-aggressive assault renders what is already whole and fully formed something a bit above and beyond. On the indelible “Third Stone from the Sun”, Mitchell is not just keeping time, he’s making time: inventive fills, and propulsive but never busy embellishment. On the other hand, “The Wind Cries Mary” is a clinic in doing more with less. Mitchell was fast, he was clever, he was edgy and he was original. He was the perfect engine for Hendrix’s inimitable machine.

It is unadvisable (and impossible) to not pay attention to Hendrix on any song (his guitars, his voice) but if you focus as much as possible on the drumming you’ll get an ideal overview of Mitchell’s stunning acumen:

So this is what Hendrix does for me: truly the gift that keeps giving.

As I said, I was excited –and intimidated– enough earlier this year to wrestle with his recorded legacy. I was intimidated and possibly overwhelmed at the notion of doing critical battle with an entire box set, but for understandable reasons, it had to be done. And so as I wallow in all-things Hendrix, in addition to all the new and previously unreleased music (!!!) I’m absorbing, I’m also being driven, once again for the millionth time, to the versions many of us know and love so well.

It is an aesthetic vertigo that only music can so fully and consistently deliver, and obliges me to quote T.S. Eliot:

We shall never cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Here is how I concluded my feature in March, when I figured I had written the last word. I should have known better. There will always be more to say, especially if there is even more music in those vaults:

The magnitude of his loss remains unfathomable. There is no question, absolutely no doubt whatsoever, that he had years and years of untapped magic to explore and nourish. On the other hand, perhaps Hendrix did live and record for four decades; he just crammed it into four years. Hendrix and the gift of his music are subjects that can never be exhausted: the songs hold up, they should be studied and dissected, and above all they should be savored. They are, like the man who made them, incapable of ever being forgotten.

To be cont’d…

(No really…it never ends. The imminent release of the four-disc set from Winterland is en route from Sony records and a feature celebrating that seminal series of live recordings will follow in short order. So, stay tuned…)

Four Albums and a Film: The Best Summer Entertainment*

Sean Murphy — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:03:05 +0000

The Congos – Heart of the Congos (1977)

Great art knows no seasons. Nevertheless, some music is made for—or at least can be fully appreciated during—specific times of the year. Reggae, which many people still believe means Bob Marley’s music, tends to get broken out only once the flip flops and hibachi grills come out of hibernation. For an alternative that’s both inspiring and educational, the first reggae disc you should turn to as soon as the weather warms is Heart of the Congos. Shepherded into existence by the incomparable Lee “Scratch” Perry at the height of his uncanny powers, this album functions as a timeline of history invoking “songs and psalms and voices” to create a soulful, occasionally unsettling tapestry of deep cultural roots. On many tracks, Perry’s production sounds like a remix already, maximizing a slightly disorienting tension between the push of straight ahead riddim and the pull of echoing voices: Gregorian chants funneled through the heart of darkness into the light. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever heard, yet it’s somehow, impossibly, familiar.

Jimi Hendrix – Electric Ladyland (1968)

Electric Ladyland is not merely one of the ultimate summer albums, it is summer. From the hot-town-summer-in-the-city chaos of “Crosstown Traffic” to the midnight lightning of “Voodoo Chile” and the sexual swagger of “Gypsy Eyes” to the sweat-soaked croon of “Long Hot Summer Night” (!), this double-disc oozes with bright lights (“House Burning Down”) and warm remorse (“Burning of the Midnight Lamp”). Even the Apocalyptic imagery, properly psychedelicized in “All Along the Watchtower” (the only time Bob Dylan had his own work improved upon) mutates from cryptic folktale to field report from the steamy jungles of Vietnam and/or the sweltering streets with police staring down protestors. And then there’s the extended suite that occupies all of Side Three: it starts with a saxophone and a smile (“lay back and dream on a rainy day”) and then slips underwater, literally: our feet find the sand and the sea is straight ahead. By the time the moon turns the tides (gently, gently away) you have most definitely been experienced: it’s a hot, sweet and soulful adventure. Electric Ladyland is a trek through sights and sounds that only one man could convey, and he seems like he’s eager to shed his skin and get to a place where his body will not constrain him.

Pink Floyd – The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)

It’s not so much that Floyd’s debut helped define the Summer of Love (though it did), or that there is necessarily anything one can associate with hot weather in those sounds. It’s more than that: from the echoed cadence of roll-called planets to those last surreal goose honks, Syd Barrett’s guided tour through the miniature landscapes and dreamscapes he was imagining does transport you to other places, but also another time: youth. Everything about the execution, and realization, of this spectacular album exudes the uncorrupted innocence of a novel conception. More inspiration than insanity, Barrett’s acid-inspired reveries unlocked the obvious genius teeming inside his head. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is an enduring and ever-relevant document of unbridled and ecstatic creativity realizing its initial and immediate fulfillment, a full-flowering burst that would not (could not?) be duplicated. Listening to it, especially during months that might remind you of a (sigh) more innocent time, it’s not unlike a trip to the beach for your mind.

The Who – Quadrophenia (1973)

“The beach is a place where a man can feel he’s the only soul in the world that’s real…” The Who’s masterwork Quadrophenia could almost be described as “accidental beach music”. Most of the narrative details the mercurial urgencies of young Jimmy, the disenchanted Mod. As such, the words and sounds and feelings are alternately frantic and claustrophobic—the story of a sensitive, chemically altered teenager uncomfortable inside his skin. There is only one release for him: the beach. The album opens with crashing waves and ends with electrified air of a summer storm; in between there are seagull chirps, scooters careening out of the city into open spaces, and bass drum thunder and cymbal-splash raindrops. The album, like the protagonist’s mind, wrestles with itself and rises and falls like the moods of adolescence, until the fever breaks, the skies open and the air is dark, cool and clear.

Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)

A confident, if impetuous detective sits patiently at the top of a sloping cliff, overlooking the Los Angeles coastline as the day’s light drops into evening. He waits, lighting cigarette after cigarette, totally unaware that he has already stumbled into a hornet’s nest of corruption. The beauty of what he sees (and we see) perfectly conceals the brutal ugliness of what is really going on: unwittingly, Jack Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is about to lift up a rock and behold the guts and machinery of what gets sold as the American Dream. It is hot and dry; indeed, the backdrop of the story is a severe drought that is wreaking havoc on local farmers. Over the course of a few scorching days, cars overheat, people drown in dry riverbeds, and a great deal of blood, sweat and tears indelibly compensate for the rain that won’t fall and the relief that never comes.

14 Songs For Turning 41

Sean Murphy — Thu, 12 May 2011 15:26:02 +0000

To know the man, get to know his music. (Or, to paraphrase Al Pacino in Serpico, “If you love the man’s music, you have to love the man!”)

There are thousands of songs that I could choose; songs that elevate above the others and, in some ways, speak to me, or speak for me, or speak to things that I am unable to speak convincingly about. These are some of those songs, and they are all deeply connected with what I hope are the better angels of what I’m capable of being or even imagining.

Abdullah Ibrahim: “Mandela”:

Booker Little: “Opening Statement”:

Mozart, Symphony No 36 “Linz”, 2nd Movement (conducted by Karl Bohm):

Herbie Hancock: “Tell Me A Bedtime Story”:

Charles Mingus: “Orange Was The Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk”:

Roky Erickson: “Unforced Peace”:

The Who: “I’m One”:

The Congos: “Open Up The Gates”:

Jimi Hendrix: “Pali Gap”:

Vernon Reid (et al): “Up From The Skies”:

Charles Lloyd and Billy Higgins: “Supreme Love Dance”:

Khan Jamal: “The Known Unknown”:

Freddie Hubbard: “Here’s That Rainy Day”:

Gabriel Faure: “Requiem, Op 48, IV (Pie Jesu), (performed by Oxford Camerata)

West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology

Sean Murphy — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:18:38 +0000

All These Colors: Without Names, Without Sound

Jimi Hendrix has been dead for a long time, and the only thing we have to reconcile the senselessness of how young he died is the legacy he left behind. This is true, of course, with any artist who goes away too soon, except that with Hendrix it is more so. The loss is unparalleled, but then, so is the music he made. Depending on whether you care to see the cosmic glass as more than half-empty or as one that forever runneth over, we celebrate him for what he did in direct proportion to mourning what we still should have received. It is selfish, but understandable. Hendrix with horns in the ‘70s? With samples and scratching in the ‘80s? Mentoring (or obviating the need for) the grunge movement in the ‘90s? Collaborating with musicians from all over the world, releasing live jams on his website today? Or just continuing to do what he was doing practically until the last second he drew breath. Whatever it might have been, it would have improved the playing field, and he would likely still be eons ahead of his peers.

This year marks the fourth full decade since his death, meaning he has been gone 13 years longer than he lived. As such, 2010 has provided an excellent opportunity to reassess and celebrate the music he made. Earlier this year we saw the welcome reissue of his proper studio albums, all lovingly re-mastered with bonus DVDs. Now, to bookend this milestone year, we get a new collection that delivers four discs of previously unreleased material. Considering how opportunistic and unprincipled the supposed custodians of Hendrix’s legacy were for most of the last 40 years, it has been a welcome—and long overdue—development to see his family assume control of his estate. West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology should provide solace and sustenance for several more years while we commemorate this solemn milestone.

How to describe, much less review this music? Let’s just say that every time we think we have adequately grappled with what Hendrix means and what he achieved, more evidence emerges from the vaults, leaving us back where we began: awestruck, speechless. Listening to this new set is like getting to heaven only to realize there is an even better place. Fans will likely greet this the way they embraced Valleys of Neptune earlier this year, only this release is more than four times as long and about one hundred times better. The box set compiles tantalizing outtakes, live tracks, and alternate versions, many of which have surfaced on myriad bootlegs of dubious quality over the years. This set, finally, does the job of assembling them in one place, cleaning up the sound, and offering extensive liner notes with vital stats (who, when, where) of every single track. This, in short, is the most welcome, if unexpected, musical gift of the year.

Serious fans of Jimi Hendrix understand he did not simply explode on the scene in late ’66 like midnight lightning. Rather, Hendrix had worked for years as an axe for hire (real serious fans know who he worked with, what he played on, and where to find copies). This collection does everyone an enormous favor by dedicating the entire first disc to these early years, which were equal parts formative and invaluable in terms of his development. Hendrix learned as much about what he did not want to do as what he hoped to someday accomplish while he toiled, with increasing impatience, as an apprentice. The fact of the matter is that Hendrix struggled to support himself and paid serious dues on circuits old school enough that his being an African-American mattered. And I don’t mean mattered like he got static; I mean like getting hurt or being hired in the first place. It was under these circumstances that the very young Jimi (still Jimmy) Hendrix found employment playing with the likes of Little Richard, Don Covay, and the Isley Brothers. Incredible as it sounds, this was a time when it signaled a welcome breakthrough for Hendrix to share the same stage as these names.

The first disc showcases Hendrix’s two-year stint as a young and promising guitarist. Only 21 on the first track, the Isley Brothers’ hit “Testify”, Hendrix already shows signs of the smokin’ soloist he would shortly become. The next four songs—two by Don Covay and two by Rosa Lee Brooks—are remarkable and border on revelatory; they provide a useful roadmap for understanding how Jimi got from the Chitlin’ Circuit to Monterey Pop so quickly. The impressive technical skill is abundantly established and already finding ways to harness a teeming imagination: we hear the swamp grooves meeting the south side of Chicago and the roots he would revisit on cuts like “Red House” and “Killing Floor”. It’s a faster, fully electrified advancement of the classic blues recordings, and we hear the vibe that everyone from Sly Stone to Stevie Ray Vaughan (and even early ZZ Top) picked up on. Fans of Amy Winehouse might be stunned and delighted to recognize the guitar vamp and vocals that were appropriated for the track “He Can Only Hold Her”, courtesy of the Icemen’s “(My Girl) She’s a Fox”.

Chas Chandler (bassist for the Animals who became Jimi’s mentor/manager/producer) should always be celebrated as the one who saw, immediately, how good Hendrix was, and how unbelievable he could become. Taking him to England liberated Jimi from the by-then boring grind that threatened to suffocate his restless creativity and ambition. Perhaps as importantly, it gave the young guitarist the necessary confidence to imagine being a front man who could sing as well as play. From obscure to Are You Experienced?: the most dramatic, unparalleled transformation in rock history. A case could probably be made that even if Hendrix had disappeared after this first album, he would still be recognized as the best and most important guitar player in modern music. That is how crucial and influential that debut was and remains.

The second disc might be the most interesting for Hendrix aficionados, as it is crammed with early sketches and alternate mixes of familiar favorites (“Long Hot Summer Night”, “Angel”) and specific takes that were improved upon for the official albums (“Fire”, “May This Be Love”). Listening to the stripped-down “Are You Experienced?” illuminates how busy Hendrix and Chandler were in that studio. Also, considering the relatively low budget and short timeframe of these sessions, we understand how little was left to chance. Jimi was certainly creating and refining on the spot, but he also came to each recording with an obvious idea of exactly what he wanted to do. Nowhere is this more apparent than the early take (sans bass) of “Castles Made of Sand”. Hearing the lead guitar without the subsequent overdubs helps us analyze how Hendrix constructed these mini epics, and also savor the ways in which he made all those sounds. This trial run, where Hendrix is still struggling to find the ideal speed and feeling, offers a clinic in the ways he balanced subtle and dramatic elements to capture, in the studio, what he already heard in his head. After digesting this, one is compelled to return, for the millionth time, to the master take from Axis: Bold as Love and undergo that familiar shock of recognition.

And then there is the new shit. “Little One”, featuring Traffic’s Dave Mason on sitar (!), precedes the Indian fusion of Bitches Brew by more than two years. It was technically recorded early in the Electric Ladyland sessions, and if it is hard to imagine where it could have fit in, it is much stronger in its way than “Little Miss Strange”. “Cat Talking to Me” is another previously unreleased jam with a furious lead that anticipates “South Saturn Delta”—only trippier—and we get a fascinating cover of the Band’s “Tears of Rage”. Among the embarrassment of riches are two songs recorded two days apart, one of which is familiar, the other one that soon will be. First, we get an expanded alternate take of the stunning instrumental “New Rising Sun”, which plays as a kind of hybrid of the phasing from “1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)” and the new textures he would create on “Drifting”. Having had horribly edited and/or tinkered with versions, this definitive take should take its rightful place as an indispensable gem in the catalog. Next is the studio workout “Calling All the Devil’s Children”, which finds the band—and the assorted guests Jimi encouraged at his sessions circa ’68, and which drove Chandler to distraction during the making of Electric Ladyland—blowing off some steam while creating a sonic brushfire.

The third disc gets deeper into the frenzy of activity and inspiration Hendrix experienced in ‘68/’69, post-Electric Ladyland, when he began actively exploring new ideas and sound combinations, and collaborating with old friends Buddy Miles and Billy Cox. Virtually all of this material will be new to even dedicated Hendrix fans (serious fans will likely own copies from various bootlegs and semi-official releases). We get a studio jam session entitled “Hear My Freedom” (with an unidentified organist) and an alternate version of “Room Full of Mirrors” which segues directly into another original, “Shame, Shame, Shame”. There is another rundown of “Hound Dog” that is reminiscent of the version from the BBC Sessions, as well as intriguing live renditions of “Purple Haze”, “Fire”, and “Foxey Lady”. Of particular note is the ’69 live version of “Star Spangled Banner”, evidence that Jimi’s incendiary performance at Woodstock was not the first time he set his sights on that anthem. The most intriguing and enigmatic track is the prolonged studio pas de deux “Young/Hendrix”, featuring jazz legend Larry Young: for over 20 minutes the two trade licks, quotes, and a tireless stream of ideas. Another most welcome rarity is “Mastermind” with (excellent) vocals by Larry Lee, where the band perfects the rough idea they fleshed out, with mixed results, at Woodstock.

Disc Four pulls together more odds and sods from various bootlegs, although most of these versions—courtesy of still-existing master tapes—should now be considered close to complete and as definitive as we can expect. Curiosities abound, from an inspired live sprint of “Stone Free” and an expanded instrumental run-through of “Freedom”. “Everlasting First”, from 1970, features Hendrix playing along with Arthur Lee and Love; this is an alternate take which can replace the truncated version previously available only on Love’s False Start album. “Red House”, one of the first songs the Experience recorded, was a personal favorite that Hendrix reworked constantly in concert. The version here, from 1970, might be the most expressive and satisfying he ever laid down.

Two highlights of the final disc, and the entire collection, are the previously unreleased “Burning Desire” and an unedited version of “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)” which restores the missing first section (“Bolero”). “Burning Desire” is just under nine minutes of the guitarist (accompanied by Billy Cox and Buddy Miles) exploiting virtually every weapon in his arsenal while boasting some new tricks for good measure. It is a non-stop merry-go-round of riffs, blues motifs, and pyrotechnics that could only come from one set of strings, and should take a place amongst the all-time Hendrix masterpieces. Until now, we’ve only had the six-minute version of “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)”; it’s finally been revealed that on July 1, 1970 the tapes rolled for five minutes and 31 seconds beforehand, recording a track entitled “Bolero”. It is unforgivable that we’ve had to wait this long to hear the appropriate version of what turned out to be one of Hendrix’s final statements, but of course we must be grateful for the overdue opportunity. The set ends on a sweet but somber note with “Suddenly November Morning”, a home recording from the spring of 1970. This work-in-progress clearly was meant to be further developed in the studio, and at the very end we hear a few lines of what would become “Drifting”—one of the many songs Hendrix was assembling for the final album he never quite completed.

As remarkable as all this music is, the inclusion of a 90-minute documentary is, needless to say, almost too much of a good thing (almost). Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child uses letters, diary entries (read by Funkadelic alum and funk legend Bootsy Collins), as well as rare interview and concert footage, to examine Jimi’s young years, military experience, early struggles, and inevitable ascendency. Postcards, cocktail napkins, and hotel stationary with scribbled lyrics along with family photographs underscore the obvious love and care that went into compiling this joyous document. Seeing Jimi speak and listening to his reflections and predictions is occasionally unsettling, but mostly awe-inspiring.

In the end, it always comes back to the same impasse: once we’ve gotten beyond the music (which we never get beyond, because, thus far, there has always been new material, causing us to celebrate our good fortune and hope we might get more) we catch ourselves asking the two questions that can never be answered: why and what. Why did it have to end so abruptly, so appallingly? And then, if and when we allow ourselves, the attempt at imagining what else there could have been… what else he would have left for us if he had not accidentally left us behind?

Honing In On Hendrix

Sean Murphy — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:46:32 +0000

In March I happily grappled with the newly remastered deluxe editions of the official Hendrix catalog here.

The long and short of my piece follows, directly below:

I’m currently devouring the latest release, and gift for Hendrix freaks, a four-disc, one DVD box set called West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology.

So this is what Hendrix does for me: truly the gift that keeps giving.

It is an aesthetic vertigo that only music can so fully and consistently deliver, and obliges me to quote T.S. Eliot:

We shall never cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

To be cont’d…

Laugh While You Weep with ‘Bill Hicks: The Essential Collection’

Sean Murphy — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:57:31 +0000

It’s a crying shame that Bill Hicks is no longer with us; we sure could use him right about now.

It’s a laughing shame (the sort where you laugh until you cry) when it occurs to you —and if you’re a Hicks fan it’s always occurring to you— how relevant his material remains. Of course this has less to do with Hicks and more to do with us: our collective chicanery copies itself, evolving with each succession of charlatans who occupy our public offices. And, naturally, there is never a shortage of slack-jawed and self-righteous types in our media, our academic institutions and especially our self-worshipping entertainment industry. In fact, as they get better (i.e., worse) with each new wave of mutilation, truth tellers like Hicks are more essential, if elusive, than ever. And his routines and ineffable one-liners still kill, allowing you to actually laugh while you weep.

They say geniuses are seldom recognized, or appreciated in their lifetimes. They also say the good die young. They say a lot of other things, and whether or not any of them are true, here are two facts: Bill Hicks is, as hindsight makes increasingly clear, the most gifted and enduring comedian of his generation, and he died entirely too young—at 32—intolerably too young. It makes you want to destroy something, like your TV, if you linger on it. But keep your boob tube intact and pop in some Hicks. While we’re fortunate to have the recordings and videos, up until now the sample size of available material, considering Hicks’ brilliance, is painfully slight. It is, therefore, a most welcome development to get a new and exhaustive installment. And this should tide us over until the next batch of unreleased goods are released from the vaults (we know there’s more in there and we want it).

Bill Hicks: The Essential Collection might not be the ideal introduction for prospective Hicks fans. Those folks should probably begin with the DVD Sane Man or the compilation Bill Hicks Live –Satirist, Social Critic, Stand-Up Comedian in order to see him bringing his fully-formed A game. For anyone who already has the available merchandise, this set should answer some prayers. For Hicks freaks, this qualifies for pinch-yourself status. An extremely generous four-disc package comprising two CDs and two DVDs, along with an online code for an album of original music, this sucker is well worth the price for the video footage alone.

The two CDs constitute a “best of” culled from his seven official releases, including a handful of unreleased nuggets. Quite simply, whether considered as an introduction, bonus material or a refresher course, these discs are just a jukebox of comical bliss. Some of his immortal bits are represented, like “Marketing and Advertising” (“if anyone here tonight is in marketing, kill yourself”), “What is Pornography?” (“the Supreme Court says pornography is anything without artistic that causes sexual thoughts. No artistic merits and causes sexual thoughts. Hmm…sounds like every commercial on TV doesn’t it?”), “Burning Issues” (“no one has ever died for a flag…they might have died for what the flag represents, which is the freedom to burn the fucking flag!”).

The DVDs, however, are where things get really interesting. The first disc, featuring four sets recorded in his hometown of Houston (and one in Indianapolis), covers the years 1981 —when Hicks was still a teenager— through 1986. The quality is hand-held sketchy, but it is remarkable that this footage exists at all. We see the actual development of Hicks, both in terms of his material and his incendiary stage presence, as it occurred in real time. From the start, a disdain for authority and an astute eye for sanctimony were the obsessions that informed his sardonic observations. It is fascinating to see the whip-thin comedian initially deliver PG-rated material, then slowly incorporate topics like drugs and a new cigarette habit into his routine. (“Can I bum a cigarette from someone? I left mine in the machine.”)

By the 1985 (Indianapolis) show Hicks is sufficiently confident to begin working in his airtight —and hilarious— eviscerations of the carnival of hypocrisy that is our American Fundamentalist Christian/religious right-wing. Needless to say, it’s a topic that provided him with ceaseless ammunition, and while he relished tipping over those sacred cows he was, as usual, distressingly prescient about the political clout these cynical hucksters (and their obedient flocks) would bring to bear in the ensuing decades.

The 1986 Houston (in two parts) gig illustrates the first signs of serious envelope-pushing, with Hicks testing —and occasionally cajoling— the crowd to see how far he could go. It is worth mentioning that Hicks never crossed the line unless it was in the service of hammering home a point. And if he succeeded at anything, his special gift was in delineating the prurience —and profit-seeking— that has always hidden in plain view beneath the puritanical façade our politicians, priests and TV producers obligingly maintain. Another classic bit all Hicks fans will recognize is his vision of the ultimate advertisement; the one they want to show: it involves nudity, flirtation and an almost incidental mention of the actual product. We’re not there yet but we’re a hell of a lot closer than even Hicks would have imagined 20 years ago.

The second DVD contains the oft-bootlegged, much-discussed cult film Ninja Bachelor Party, a multi-year side project/drug-inspired labor of love Hicks worked on with good friend Kevin Booth. This will be a huge draw for the people who follow Bill Hicks the way some folks follow Harry Potter; for almost everyone else it will qualify as a semi-amusing lark that won’t require repeat viewings. The other interesting, ultimately expendable feature is the inclusion of Lo-If Troubadour, a collection of original Hicks songs available via a download card. Hicks, as his act repeatedly indicated, took music very seriously and he spun gold out of observations that venerated his heroes (think Hendrix) and annihilated the hacks (think Debbie Gibson and Billy Ray Cyrus, among many others). Hicks is a competent guitarist and he acquits himself more than respectably. The lyrics, alas, are a bit embarrassing and his voice, while intriguing, probably won’t make many people wish he’d spent less time on his comedy.

The real gift, from the second DVD, is The Austin Bootleg Series and it includes gigs from 1991, 1992, and two from 1993. This is Hicks while he shone brightest, just before cancer overtook him in early-1994. This material was recorded at and around the same time he was doing the material collected on CDs like Arizona Bay, Rant in E-Minor and the DVDs Relentless and Revelations. There is less politics (though there is plenty to savor: commenting on the shameless spectacle of well-remunerated politicians admonishing the citizens to tighten their belts —sound familiar?— Hicks volunteers to tighten his belt—around their necks) and more sociology, and it is clear he has spent time tweaking—and perfecting—his carefully cultivated sad clown/angry guy misanthropy. Segueing from a scorched-earth bit about abortion and pro-lifers, Hicks teases the parents in the crowd and reminds them that their kids are not “special”: “I’ve wiped entire civilizations off my chest with a grey gym sock—that’s special.”

His riff on “company man” Jay Leno will make you cringe and then laugh, loudly. He dismisses fellow comedian Carrot Top by describing him as the alternative for people who didn’t “get” Gallagher. And then there is the stuff that is at a whole other level, like the famous “Positive LSD story” (“Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There’s no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we’re the imagination of ourselves…here’s Tom with the weather!”) Suffice it to say, the outlaw comic is firing on all cylinders, and this is exactly the soul medicine we count on from Hicks.

So what else is there to say, other than suggesting you make it a priority to own this set? A few final words might be in order. Read the liner notes, watch the interviews, go to the Internet: try to find someone, especially a comedian, who was not impressed with or influenced by Bill Hicks. (Take Denis Leary, please. While the damning and irrefutable evidence of Leary’s wholesale thievery is well documented and old news, seeing vintage Hicks skits again is an often painful reminder of the career Denis built on Bill’s coattails.) Speaking of painful: boy is it enticing to imagine what Hicks would have made of George W. Bush, The Patriot Act, Katrina and Change We Can Believe In. By losing Bill Hicks we lost incalculable opportunities to laugh, learn and “explore inner and outer space together, in peace.”

When we discuss our departed artistic MVPs, too often it involves the clichéd and tragicomic self-induced sabotage by drugs or drink. More distressing, and inexplicable, are the geniuses who are almost cruelly snatched out of their own rarefied air. Hicks, though he had an appetite for destruction for many years, was clean, sober and stalking the world like a lion when Fate intervened. Life is just a ride, he often said at the end of his shows. He knew it and was probably better prepared for it, however short it turned out to be. Perhaps, in the final analysis, it wasn’t so much that he died but became, suddenly, extinct. We certainly won’t ever see anything like him again in this world.

Don’t Let Them Fool Ya…

Sean Murphy — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:50:10 +0000

Not much to add here (other than a h/t to my boy Jamie, who passed it along).

Hey Gibson, Let’s Talk Guitar Albums

Sean Murphy — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 01:36:10 +0000

Okay.

Gibson (the fine folks who bring us some of our best guitars) has recently announced their selections of what they deem the Top 50 Guitar Albums ever.

Now, as someone who writes about music (and who has offered up a few lists of my own), I am acutely aware that one person’s list is another person’s purgatory. Put simply, when it comes to matters of taste and ranking (a particularly combustible combination), there is no pleasing everyone. In fact, there is no pleasing anyone, since the list makers themselves are invariably disappointed or frustrated. When you are talking about the best of the best, it is like boiling the Pacific Ocean to get a handful of salt.

So it is in the spirit of augmenting and not critiquing (though there are many items on their list I find objectionable) that I offer up an alternative Top 10 with some (very) honorable mentions. To avoid redundancy, my list will not duplicate any of the ones already selected by Gibson. Fortunately, there are more than enough to go ’round, and despite some genuine head-scratchers (there are many items on their list I find offensive, aesthetically speaking), it’s silly to quibble too much with a list that features most (but certainly not all) of the usual suspects.

Let’s review their Top 10:

10. AC/DC: Back in Black, 9. The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Electric Ladyland, 8. Cream: Disraeli Gears, 7. The Allman Brothers Band: At Fillmore East, 6. Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin II, 5. Guns N’ Roses: Appetite for Destruction, 4. Derek and the Dominoes: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, 3. Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV, 2. The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced, 1. Van Halen, Van Halen.

Nothing really outrageous there, I reckon. I would say The Who should be in any list before AC/DC and having Eric “God” Clapton in there twice is a bit much (particularly at the expense of Tony Iommi). I’ll just wryly suggest that putting Van Halen (a worthy Top 10 entry for sure) before Hendrix is equal parts laughable and ludicrous. And if you do –and you should– have Hendrix in there, put all three of his albums in there, because a case could be made that they go 1-2-3.

There are many predictable (and inappropriate) selections rounding out the other 40 selections, such as Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. Really? Those guys who could barely play their instruments made one of the 50 best (#15, in fact) guitar albums of all time? Give me a personal break and slip a safety pin through it. Another AC/DC (Highway To Hell) but nothing by Rush? Of course. Oasis but no Living Colour? Oh. Et cetera.

So I won’t spend more time bitching about the unconscionable omission of albums like (insert anything by Black Sabbath) or (insert anything by Rush circa 1970-something) or Aqualung, The Queen is Dead, Selling England by the Pound, Morrison Hotel, (insert virtually anything by Frank Zappa), Superfly, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Time’s Up, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Rubber Factory, Let It Bleed, Animals, The Royal Scam, The Woods, (insert anything by Sonic Youth), and one or two (dozen) others.

Here is my alternate Top 10, with respect to their mostly unassailable final selections.

10. Yes, The Yes Album

Let’s start out with Yes since, other than Rush, this band gets the least love from the so-called critical establishment. Nevermind the fact that (like Rush) their musicians, pound for pound and instrument for instrument, are as capable and talented as any that have ever played. Steve Howe is the thinking man’s guitar hero. His solos are like algebra equations, but full of emotion. His mastery of the instrument colors almost every second of every song, and his ability to create texture, nuance (check out the extended midle section of “Yours Is No Disgrace”) and bombast (check out the blistering work on “Perpetual Change”) is, on these proceedings, unparalleled.

9. Kiss: Alive

Before the sex, drugs, alcohol and the gravity of expectations vs. ability set in, Kiss was lean, hungry, unappreciated and angry. They also wore make-up. But circa 1975, the hardest touring band in show biz was firing on every conceivable cylinder. Their overproduced, somewhat half-baked studio work did not adequately represent what outstanding musicians they all were (no, seriously), but their genius decision to put out a live album (before they were big) and make it a double album was what put them over. And it still sounds incredible; easily one of the best live albums of the era. The star of these proceedings is Ace Frehley, who was always better than he sounded. He is a rock god on this outing, and he never really sounded better than this. Every single song features a solo that is logical, concise and utterly original (check out his restrained but authoritative work at the 1:50 minute mark here). All those candy-ass hair bands in the ’80s weren’t even trying to emulate this because they knew it was impossible.

8. Bad Brains, I Against I

No Bad Brains, no Living Colour.

Maybe not literally (and that is not said to deny that the amazing Vernon Reid would –or could– have ever been denied), but if you want to talk about stepping stones, Bad Brains are the Viking ship that launched a thousand mosh pits. Side one of this sucker, their masterpiece, is one of the most pure and potent distillations of unclassifiable genius in all rock. It’s all in there: rock, rap, reggae, hardcore, metal and yourself. And it’s all good.

7. Pretenders, Pretenders

Prediction: if James Honeyman-Scott (and his partner in crime, bassist Pete Farndon) had not overdosed, The Pretenders would have owned the ’80s. As it happens, “all” they did was make three perfect albums, one right after the other. While assessing their first two records (back in 2006 when they were reissued), this is what I had to say about the guitar playing: James Honeyman Scott—whose guitar playing throughout announces the advent of a major talent—uncorks a solo that somehow manages to soar while remaining subdued, transporting emotion without the flash, substance without the shtick. Virtually every note he plays defines his less-is-more style, which is not an exercise in minimalism so much as the confident restraint of an artist who could speak for minutes but conveys it his own way in seconds. Importantly, his contributions are the very opposite of the much-maligned self-indulgence of the mid-’70s prog rock the punks so scornfully (and gleefully) piled on, but also a million miles away from the sterile sheen and hair band histrionics that dominated the scene after he checked out. Need more evidence? Three words: “Tattooed Love Boys”. Of all the mini masterpieces that make up the album, this short blast of bliss might be its zenith: no other group at any other time could ever make a song that sounds like this (the music, the words, the vocals, the vibe. To listen again is cause to celebrate and mourn the senseless loss of Honeyman Scott: even if we are fortunate that he essentially distilled a career’s worth of talent into two classic albums, it’s simply a shame to ruminate on how much more he had to offer.

6. King Crimson, Red

The progenitors of math rock on their last album of the ’70s. Red is the Rosetta Stone that every pointy-headed prog rock band worships at the altar of (even if they don’t realize it, because the bands they do worship once worshipped here). The title track is a yin yang of intellect and adrenaline, underscored with a very scientific, discernibly English sensibility. It is the closest thing rock guitar ever got to its own version of “Giant Steps”. Robert Fripp has never been boring or unoriginal and he outdoes himself here. Finally, few songs in rock history have the emotional import and uncanny feeling Fripp conjures in the album’s final song, “Starless”.

5. Santana: Caravanserai

Abraxas gets most of the recognition, even though Santana III is better. Yet not enough people name-check Caravanserai, which is a shame since it’s not only Santana’s best album, it’s one of the great documents of a great decade. If you’ve heard their big hits on the radio (and who hasn’t?) it’s familiar yet also elusive. There is an unforced exotic vibe the band taps into, and from the first cricket chirps to the last frantic arpeggios, the listener is definitely in another place altogether. The playing throughout is so obviously in the service of a singular and uncompromised vision, it still sounds primitive and from the future all at the same time (something the band itself acknowledges, literally, in the title of one of the more indescribable pieces). No serious fan of rock music should be without this album and that it didn’t make the cut for Gibson’s list is indefensible.

4. The Who: Quadrophenia

Sure, the Gibson crew got Live at Leeds and Who’s Next, but Quadrophenia is, in no particular order, The Who’s best album, one of the five best albums of the ’70s and an all-time guitar-playing tour de force. This is it. Townshend was never this energized or inspired again, and it all came together in a double LP that is not as immediately accessible or endearing as Tommy, but once you get it, it gets inside you –and it never leaves. From extended workouts like “The Rock” (which sounds a bit like an updated and plugged in version of Tommy’s “Underture), to slash and burn mini epics like “Bell Boy” to pre-punk (and post-Mod) anthems like “5:15″ (check out PT’s lacerating but always-in-control frenzy toward the song’s coda).

I wrote at length about The Who last year and here is what I had to say regarding Quadrophenia:

The genius of Quadrophenia (an album that manages to get name-checked by all the big names and seems universally admired but still not quite revered as much as it richly deserves) is yet to be fully detailed, at least for my liking. Less flashy than the “rock opera” Tommy and less accessible than the FM-friendly Who’s Next, it is, nonetheless, significantly more impressive (and important) than both of those excellent albums. Everything The Who did, in the studio and onstage, up until 1969 set the stage for Tommy: it was the consummation of Townshend’s obsessions and experimentations; a decade-closing magnum opus that managed to simultaneously celebrate the death and rebirth of the Hippie Dream (see the movie and ponder this, this and especially this). Everything Townshend did, in his entire life, up until 1973 set the stage for Quadrophenia. It’s all in there: the pre-teen angst, the teenage agonies and the post-teen despondency. Politicians and parents are gleefully skewered, prigs and clock punchers are mercilessly unmasked, and those who consider themselves less fortunate than everyone else (this, at times, is all of us) are serenaded with equal measures of empathy and exasperation.

And the songs? It’s like being in a shooting gallery, where Townshend picks off hypocrisy after misdeed after miniature tragedy all with a winking self deprecation; this after all is a young misfit’s story, so the bathos and pathos is milked, and articulated, in ways that convey the earth-shattering urgency and comical banality that are part and parcel to the typical coming of age cri de coeur. And the band, certainly no slouch on its previous few efforts, is in top form throughout. Being a double album (quite possibly the best one, and that is opined knowing that Electric Ladyland, Physical Grafitti and London Calling are also on the dance card), it’s difficult to imagine a better song to open side three than the immortal 5:15. Unlike most double albums that tend to drag a bit toward the end, this one gets better as it goes along, and none of the songs feel forced. Some of the songs on Tommy seem shoehorned to fit the storyline but that’s never an issue with Quadrophenia; Townshend had a unified vision and the songs tell a cogent and affecting tale. As great as Who’s Next really is, you can have “Baba O’Riley”, “Bargain” and “Behind Blue Eyes”; give me “Cut My Hair”, “Sea and Sand” and “Bell Boy”. And then there is the song Pete Townshend was born to write (and no, it was not “My Generation”, although only he could have written that one, and all the other great ones), “The Punk and the Godfather”.

3. Led Zeppelin: Presence

This is not a guitar album; this is guitar. Aside from Hendrix and Iommi, you could fill the rest of the list with Led Zeppelin albums and call it a day. Ridiculous though it may seem to some (many?), beloved and lionized as the Mighty Zep is, they actually don’t get enough attention for what unbelievable songwriters and musicians they were. Not too many people would argue –at least with any credibility– that Plant is one of the great rock vocalists and Bonzo is on the short list of rock drummers and John Paul Jones is the unsung hero and jack of all trades for this outfit. But Jimmy Page, aside from unimpeachable Golden God status, seems most known for his “Stairway To Heaven” solo and the work he did between ’69 and ’72. The blues-drenched debut and the next three albums helped define post-Beatles rock music and they need little elaboration. But let’s have some love for the last four albums. Houses of the Holy gets sufficient respect, sort of, but Physical Graffiti (#48 on Gibson’s list) should be acknowledged as what it is: one of the ten best albums of the ’70s. Some people give it up for the last hurrah, the (very) underrated In Through the Out Door (mostly because of the radio-friendly hits “Fool in the Rain” and “All My Love”, even though Page does some of his finest playing on “In The Evening” and “I’m Gonna Crawl”). But what about the dark horse, the heroin needle in the haystack, Presence?

If Led Zeppelin II is the Story of Creation and Led Zeppelin IV is The Resurrection (and Physical Graffiti is Ecclesiastes), Presence is The Book of Revelation.

One thing most everyone can agree on: Presence is the most obscure, misunderstood and maligned album, even if it represents the most perfect balance of studio proficiency and unpolished bluster (anyone not in the know of its origins, but interested, start here). This is the effort that sees Page’s multi-tracked majesty playing hide and seek with some of the more raw and visceral playing of his career.

It comes crashing out of the gate with what may well be Page’s crowning achievement: ten minutes of electric guitar pyrotechnics and peregrinations called “Achilles Last Stand”. The vision (to imagine all these sounds) and the dexterity (to actually pull it off) is staggering and it features the solo: the impatient may proceed directly to the 3.43 mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFRFtnTd620

It concludes with the laconic “Tea For One”, the slowest and saddest blues Page ever pulled off. In between, there is intensity (the anti-cocaine “For Your Life”), depravity (the “borrowed” blues lament “Nobody’s Fault But Mine”), playful Elvis parody (“Candy Store Rock”) and a spicy tribute to the Big Easy (“Royal Orleans”). What it adds up to is as intimate a glimpse as we mortals would ever get at Zeppelin at their most vulnerable and naked (emotionally and musically). Page’s playing is, as always, a see-saw of acumen and urgency, but he was never this insistent or soulful before or after.

2. Black Sabbath: Vol. 4

Simply put, this is an electric guitar rock symphony. This is the wall of sound (or for hardcore Sabbath fans, I should say “The Wall of Sleep of Sound”), plugged in and performed by one man: Tony Iommi. It got different (for them, for us) but it never got any better than this.

I’ve had more than a little to say about Sabbath, so I’ll let anyone interested in reading (or revisiting) go here and here. The best thing you can do is just listen to the magic, which is very black and very brilliant.

1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Axis: Bold As Love

Not in Gibson’s Top 10? Okay.

Not in Gibson’s Top 50? Oh.

Look, any of Hendrix’s three “proper” studio releases could fairly be claimed as number one (Are You Experienced because it came first; Electric Ladyland because it was better –and it was a double album) but one might end up quite contentedly in the middle and claim that Axis: Bold As Love is the guitar album of all guitar albums. The best? Who knows. The most important? Who cares. The most satisfying? Who could argue?

Here is what I said earlier this year, while discussing Hendrix’s legacy:

The songs on Axis: Bold As Love, for the most part, are concise and unencumbered (the clarity of sound on these remasters more than justifies their acquisition), and this is in no small part due to producer (and then manager) Chas Chandler, who brought a strictly-business professionalism to the proceedings all through ’67. He explains his old school M.O. on the companion DVD: “If a band can’t get it in two or three takes they shouldn’t be in the studio.” How can you not love this guy? And watching Eddie Kramer at the console, isolating guitar tracks and vocals while recalling how the songs came together is a treat true Hendrix fans will lap up like voodoo soup.

There is also an air of adventure and daring that augments the sometimes disorienting edge of the debut. Hendrix is clearly pushing himself, each day coming up with new ideas and electrified with the air of possibility. That vision is convincingly and definitively realized, and we can only lament the comparatively primitive technology that prevented alternate takes from surviving the sessions. Imagine, for instance, where “Little Wing” continued to go after the tapes fade out. If there is one particular moment on any of these tracks that best illuminates Hendrix’s insatiable creativity and unerring instincts, it comes toward the end of the incendiary “If 6 Was 9”. After declaring, in one of the all-time great rock and roll F-offs (“I’m gonna’ wave my freak flag high!”), a sort of whinnying, high-pitched noise slips into the maelstrom. Kramer explains that there happened to be a recorder lying around the studio, and Hendrix simply picked it up and started wailing. Kramer then applied the appropriate effects and echo, and the rest is history. In the final analysis, there is no way to improve upon practically any part of Axis: Bold As Love: this is as good as music is capable of being.

Four Poems For Four Decades

Sean Murphy — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:39:17 +0000

You’ve Seen Me Before (1989)

I am the nimble sparrow who is surprised
By eager claws that approach without a sound.
Security lies in lofty branches, overhead
But I feel safe with my feet on the ground.

I am the clever trout that is landed
By the barbed hook of the child on shore:
Each time instinct warns me of the trap
Compulsion makes caution easy to ignore.

I am the hurried fox that goes to ground,
Tracked by hounds that are flanked by men.
I escape only to renew the game:
I stop and the cycle begins, again.

I am the solemn man who cannot smile
When the sun sharpens a cloudless sky.
Since I know that in another place
The rain has caused someone else to cry.

October 20, 199_ (1991-2009)

Jim Morrison, I saw you today at a Chinese Buffet
($6.95 all you can eat).

And I could not help but notice:
The dull complacency, even exhaustion
That I saw in your eyes;
Obese stumbling gait imitating
Your svelte Lizard King Prowl;
A resigned beard,
An indifferent slouch,
A (scarcely audible) southern drawl
Has replaced your butterfly scream.

What’s your story?
The tyranny of boredom,
Or a dream deferred:
For the safety of TV dinners
And insipid comfort of re-runs
Before bedtime?

How was it?

To grow old and die at 27
Then: To start over again.
A play-thing of the gods.
The frenzied productivity
Of acid-fueled creativity;
A papier-mache soul,
A black and blue ego.
Everyday was Saturday,
A lifetime of summers
In only six years.

(What was it like?
To die nightly
And live only to die.
Survival wasn’t part of the script,

You know.)

How is it?

Now: Mysterious no more.
Burned inside-out
From your aimless wandering.
Now it’s Church on Sunday:
A banana peel reality.
Once you told us to wake up but have you
Yourself awoken?
Trapped in this new-fangled slumber.
Remember the message?
Even now it echoes, falling fast

Asleep in the ears of idle downloaders.

Recess (1992)

His eyes shifting, never still
Following the frenzy
Of random feet.
Dust flies around the heels
Of the schoolboys.

Thoughts roll by aimlessly
Like unhurried clouds,
Frozen in time:
This eager moment
Of envy and desire.

(in his mind he is free:
floating over the playground
and running, feeling
every blade of grass underneath)

Peaceful vision in his quiet solitude.

And then there is nothing
But the same fearful tears,
As the spiteful sun glares
Off the silver spokes and steel:
This spiral prison that is a part of him.

Old School (2002)

This is old school, I say
To my niece who, at five years old, is now
The same age her uncle was when his parents
Transported him to this place—new then, old now.
Old school, she repeats, repeating things
I say because I am older, because I am
Still interesting, because I am…old school.
Even I can see that.

You Can’t Go Home Again, someone once wrote
And he was wrong.
Of course you can—all you have to do is never leave—
Leaving it behind does not mean it leaves you.
(And certainly I can’t be the only grown child
who returns often—in dreams, in memories and yes,
in my mind, I must confess: earnestly, ardently, often—
to the old streets that I came to outgrow
the way we outgrow games and bikes and friends
and exchange them for jobs and cars and co-workers).

You can always go home, and you need to go home,
It is only when you want to go home that you should
Start asking yourself some serious questions.

“Did you play kick the can?” my niece does not ask.
Nor does she ask if I ever played
Red Rover Come Over or Smear the Queer.
Those games got outgrown, or else we learned
To play them in ways not measured in bravado & bruises.
And I wonder if we are better off:
Growth granting us the eventual awareness that everyone is
Queer and no enjoys being…

I put away childish things each time I think
About them, storing them safely inside my heart
Where grown-up games can’t make them say Uncle.

“Uncle, did you play?” she does not say.
(She does not know everything but she knows
enough to understand that her uncle was never young
the way she is and the way she’ll always be and
far be it from me to tell her any differently).
Question: Can you play?
Remember when that’s all we used to say—
Summers summarized in a phrase we learned
Eventually to outgrow.

This uneven field (Field of Dreams, I’ll never say)
Was our Fenway and with tennis ball and wooden bat
We righted the wrongs of an evil world, where
Yaz never struck out, Bucky Dent was a blip
And the Curse of the Bambino played off-Broadway
Those days, that ceaseless, sweltering summer in 1978.
(Summer, seventies, Schlitz—not malt liquor, my friend,
this was strictly old school—no bull. I remember
block parties, warm beer, burnt marshmallows, mosquitoes
and putrid bug repellent that didn’t kill anything
but made us stronger (Don’t let the bed bugs bite, I’ll never say).
I had no idea how much I did not know but
I knew this much: if there was a beer besides Schlitz or
Bud I was unaware of it—that’s all
The adults drank back in the bad old days.

Play ball! no one needed to say because we played ball
Anyway—ball was our business and business was good,
Get it: the ball would invariably make a break for it
Ending up in the gutter (we called it sewer but, of course,
We were old school). Without a second thought
We pried off the manhole cover and dashed down into semi-darkness.
We never thought twice about it—we were young.
The game must go on! no one needed to say, we knew.
(I look now, and think: I would not go
into that hole for all the allowance money I never earned—
I know there are rats and who knows what else
Down there: the things our parents never realized
They should warn us about).
We never worried about the things that were not
Waiting for us, down there in the darkness.

“What are they doing?” I do not ask aloud,
Noticing—just in time, before I can call attention to it—
Two cats in coitus, doing what they do when they are young & free.
That’s something I’ve never seen and as I worry about
My niece asking me about it I understand: I’m old now.
Old school, I cannot say (to myself I say this).
That’s how it happens.
This would never have happened, then—
(I did not know much, but I knew this:
cats did not fornicate and kids fought only with fists).
But this is what happens when you go away.
Back then, in our close and cloistered community
Even the cats had discretion (they were old school)
Or maybe they were mortified, because
Bent over with booze or barbiturates they were
Silently screeching behind closed doors—
All of us, unknowingly, out in the light
Winning the World Series, while wicked women
Garrisoned themselves in dark alleys, behind
The anodyne of automatic garage doors.
It is quiet, now. Our mothers were so quiet, then.
Please allow them to have been happy,
In our memories if not in their actual lives.

I don’t remember but I have a feeling
That if I think hard enough I will recall
The things that were never said and therefore never forgotten.

I drink in the past and am reminded of youth,
Which tastes unlike anything other than what it is: freedom.

Cold, sour Schlitz (of course I took a taste)
With those incredibly awkward silver ring-tabs
We pulled off for the privilege of first sip.
That is old school, I do not tell my niece.
It’s only when you’re older that beer tastes
Like freedom, but it’s a borrowed brilliance,
A manufactured feeling, just like in school
How it’s cheating if the answer is already in your lap.
It’s the things they can’t package or make you pay for:
Those things that they never tell you about until you are old enough
To know better: that is what freedom is.

Curiosity killed the cat, someone once said and
Maybe they were right.
But something is going to get all of us
Eventually, whether we ask for it or understand it.

The cats are gone, maybe they have gone home
(they can always go home), back to their families—
The heavy silences and signified banality of routine
(do they still have strict rules about no TV
and everyone present around the table when
dinner is served at six-thirty sharp?
I certainly hope so, for their sakes).
Or maybe they are getting down to business—
Dirty deeds and dirty work go hand in hand—
Down in the darkness, doing their thankless task,
Keeping the sewers safe from rats and reality.
Curious or content, we know enough to take
Whatever it is that life decrees.

We went into the sewers the way we went into the world:
Unafraid, unwavering, unencumbered and
Above all: unconcerned about all those things
Older people were kind enough to never…

“Old school!” my niece repeats, curious
because she does not comprehend at all.
Old school, I do not say, reticent
Because I do remember it (all).
If curiosity doesn’t kill us, contentment gets there quicker.

How did we go down there, then?
How do we go out there, now?