Murphy's Law

When I first took this job I got in the habit of referring to the time—admittedly too long—spent in the service industry as the bad old days. It wasn’t because I had no fun (I did) or that I thought there was any future in it (I didn’t). It wasn’t that I felt joining the corporate world (grad students and waiters refer to it as the real world) was any type of instant ticket to peace or fulfillment. But it did remove one from the front lines of a scene with too many lives on the fast track to nowhere. Most people there fail to understand where they are, and where they are not going.

And when I think of the place some people never find a way to leave, it makes me remember one person in particular. More than the implicit slights suffered or the stalled potential each day I strapped on an apron, when I think about what I could never afford to lose, I think of Izzy. That, of course, was not his real name, but it was what everyone called him. When he and I first met I would have sworn he was in his mid-forties, but in fact he had only recently turned thirty-six. Not old in the nine-to-five arena but ancient in the restaurant business. A lifer who had never been promoted to general manager, he was a satellite drifting through the soiled orbit of a franchised business. He was never handed his own place to run, and he seemed entirely satisfied with that arrangement. In fact, as I came to see for myself, he counted on being an assistant behind the scenes, the hardened soldier who could close up shop and count the checks. We were often the last two left, hours after the final customer had called a cab or rolled the DWI dice. After a shift that started at 4 PM Izzy would set up camp in the sweltering office in the back of the kitchen, going about the unexciting but excuses-free business of closing up.

When Izzy showed up for his shift the following afternoon he always looked like someone had scraped him off the bottom of a greasy skillet. Red eyes blurred, his neck shrieking in silent agony from the burn of a blunt razor, the cigarettes and coffee escaping in sluggish waves from every inch of his sagging skin. Head bowed not in deference but disdain of the daylight; he could scarcely formulate the words being signaled from bruised brain to long-suffering lips. He would step up to the bar, shake his head and ask me to call him an ambulance. Then he’d disappear into the men’s room for a minute or two, emerging like a televangelist with a badly ironed shirt. He could barely tie his shoe, but after his magic act in the crapper he would be ready to plate a thousand entrees and run laps around the building in his wingtips (managers who wear comfortable shoes are never taken seriously, but they don’t realize until it’s too late that it’s not because of the shoes).

For the next eight-to-ten hours, in between return trips to the powder room (occasionally he may have even used the toilet), Izzy was constant, awkward motion. All the waiters were in awe of him and all the waitresses were repulsed by him (especially the ones he had slept with). Izzy could sweat out more alcohol in a single shift than most of us could drink in an entire weekend, and he never missed a day of work during the two years I knew him. Even if you didn’t catch him ducking into the bathroom you always knew he had recently refueled because he would suck his teeth like someone trying to extract snake venom. The lip smacking and teeth licking were, to me, the black and blue collar stage of development between rock star and burnout, the line so many in the service industry straddle before they get out or go under.

None of this fazed me, which isn’t to say it was not unsettling, but grunts in the trench don’t offer advice to their sergeants, so I mainly focused on my own unsavory habits. But I could never figure out how Izzy, when he retreated to the office each night to match receipts, guest checks and time sheets, was able to polish off an entire bottle of peppermint schnapps. When he finally went home, closer to sunrise than midnight, that bottle he took back with him would always be empty. At first I figured he was trying to impress or even intimidate me (full success on both fronts), but after months of the same scenario, I had no choice but to acknowledge that his appetites and obsessions had, at some point, evolved from unhealthy to superhuman. That bottle was not something he wanted, and was no longer something he needed; it was simply something that he required, along with the bathroom breaks and the air his lungs inhaled. I worked dozens of shifts where I didn’t see him eat a scrap of food, but he never went into that office without his bottle of schnapps. And at least once a week he’d arrive at work with fresh bottles he kept to stock the bar. I could never fathom the physics, or biology (or algebra) that enabled a man to drain a fifth each evening and still function, but I also learned the hard way in high school that some subjects would, for me, remain forever mysterious.

By the time he took his transfer to the next location (never a demotion but never an advancement) he looked like he could collect social security. How long can that lifestyle sustain itself? I asked myself, then, and ponder it now. Where is Izzy today? Is he in an assisted living facility somewhere, or at the bottom of a river? Will I find him patrolling an intersection one night, not embarrassed to ask for tips after all these years? Or did he take the hard way out and start a family; his bad habits replaced by baby bottles, dirty diapers and manicured lawns? Has he subscribed to a different sort of salvation, whacked out of his skull with sobriety?

(*From a fictional work-in-progress, inspired by unreal events that may or may not have happened.)

I’m so proud of my Pops.

Last night, quite out of the blue (or, out of the black as the case may be), he said he had to ask me a “technical question”.

I braced myself, prepared to disappoint him. A “technical” question had to mean he was going to ask about computers and I would have to remind him that, despite working closely with them for almost two decades, I probably know less about the inner workings and mechanics of these things than the average ten year old.

To my considerable relief, it was a question about music.

To my considerable delight, it was a question about Black Sabbath.

“So I heard a Black Sabbath song on the radio the other day…they were actually a really good band huh?”

“Are you kidding? They were a great band.”

“But I mean, they were seriously good musicians…”

“Arguably some of the best, instrument for instrument, in all of rock.”

“That drummer…he is pretty impressive!”

“Bill Ward is a very bad man.”

I asked him what song he had heard, assuming it had to be “Iron Man” or “Paranoid”, as those are the only two Sabbath songs I’ve ever heard on the radio. I dared to hope that maybe, somehow, some station had sagely determined that “War Pigs” would, in fact, be a very welcome addition to the heavy rotation so many other lesser songs enjoy on classic rock channels. He could not confirm what song it was, and I remain intrigued, because I’m pretty certain he would recognize the first two songs. And other than “War Pigs”, I can’t think of another song that seems commercial enough for even more progressive-minded classic rock station to consider. But there are certainly plenty that could be.

And therein lies the rub. There are tons of Sabbath songs that could peacefully exist with the largely underwhelming and predictable numbers you hear every time you listen to the radio. (The other issue, of course, is whether or not anyone actually listens to FM radio anymore. Well, my old man does.) It’s not a quality issue; if that were the case, we could discuss the dozens of bands who get little to no airplay (King Crimson, Captain Beefheart and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, to name a few). And it’s not an issue of accessibility: even the acts who do get plenty of airtime (Yes, The Doors, Rush, Neil Young), it’s for the most part a surface-level shuffle of their half-dozen most successful and/or “popular” songs. I think I’d drive off the road if I ever heard Neil Young’s “Powderfinger”, but at least when the firemen showed up to pull me from the wreckage I would have a smile on my face. The point, then, is not that FM radio, for mostly understandable (if ceaselessly self-defeating) reasons, plays it safe and consistent; that could be an entire discussion in and of itself.

Give this one a whirl and see if it doesn’t make almost everything you hear today, and a great deal of the good stuff from back in the day, sound safe, generic and half-ass:

No, the issue here is of and about the band Black Sabbath. A case could be made (and I have made it) that Sabbath is by far the most misunderstood and underrated band. Ever.

I wrote (in a piece I now notice went live on my father’s birthday last year, causing me to consider if larger forces are at work here) that the band’s name, which certainly caught people’s attention, also has always worked against them:

The all-too-easily disparaged (and, for the easily offended, objectionable) appellation Black Sabbath ensures that the band could never really be taken all that seriously. Not only is this a damn (albeit not a crying ) shame, it is enough to make one wish they had simply stuck with their original name. Earth, as the band was initially known in industrial Birmingham, England, is, incidentally, a much more appropriate word to associate with this very blue-collar and bruising band. Earth is the opposite or air, the ground is not ethereal, and water turns it to mud; if ever a band basked proudly and beautifully (and always unabashedly) in the mud, it is Sabbath. And despite all the silly mythmaking, the only thing demonic about this band was its proclivity for employing the musical tritone (also known as the Devil’s Interval) in its music.

Sabbath, not Zeppelin, had more to do with establishing what came to be known (however lazily) as heavy metal. And that is not a slight on Zeppelin; indeed, it is a compliment. To pigeonhole their blues and folk-based sound, as well as the possibly unrivaled virtuosity of Jimmy Page and severely under-appreciated compositional acumen of John Paul Jones is a disservice on several levels. More to the point, there is little, if anything, on any Zeppelin album that sounds like what most people call (or called) heavy metal.

Sabbath, on the other hand…

Like Zeppelin, their early material was heavily grounded in blues, and both of their debuts were recorded virtually live in the studio without overdubs. Both bands were restless and productive, and within a few years each had cultivated a sonic template that substantially exceeded –and improved upon– the uncomplicated formula of their early work. Where Zeppelin began incorporating folk, country and even reggae into their increasingly technicolor albums, Sabbath found its sweet spot in the black and white riff-centric blitzkrieg. That sound, raw and hungry on the first album, irresistibly flowed with the current into heavier and darker waters, culminating in the visceral assault of Vol. 4. After the transitional, and experimental (and quite successful) Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the band upped the ante on Sabotage and in the process, created a song that launched a thousand imitations. Behold, the birth of thrash metal:

To plagiarize again from the earlier piece:

And yet—and this is the larger and often overlooked point—the music this band made was, for the most part, dead serious: from the live-in-the-studio cauldron of blackened blues debut album, to the riff-heard-round-the-world title track from their follow-up Paranoid, this was an act with a considerable chip on its shoulder, and few punches were pulled until Ozzy, muddled and miserable, was asked to leave in ’79. From their eagerness to take on tough-talking politicians who can never quite find the courage to fight in the wars they start (“War Pigs”), to the dangers of hard drugs (“Hand of Doom”), to the pleasures of soft drugs (“Sweet Leaf”), to the ambivalence of drug-induced oblivion (“Snowblind”) to proto-thrash metal (“Hole in the Sky”) to all-encompassing attacks on the system (“Over to You”), it is ignorant, even a bit hysterical, to dismiss this group as a simplistic one-trick pony.

Consider “Cornucopia” from Vol. 4: it only takes the band four minutes to distill the entire message that much heralded fin de siecle flick The Matrix tried to impart. Bonus, it’s actually enjoyable, and it does not feature Keanu Reeves. But seriously, check out those 20 seconds that begin at the 1:44 mark: the sludgy static of guitars, bass, cymbals and gong smashes simulate the surreal and unsettling frenzy of postmodern life as well as any movie or book; indeed this song anticipates the information overload chaos connecting computers and our minds by about three decades. Granted, their music is not for everyone, but in this iPod age it would be a compelling experiment to cue up a track list that includes “Planet Caravan”, “Orchid”, “Embryo”, “Laguna Sunrise”, “Don’t Start (Too Late)”, and “It’s Alright”, then give an uninitiated listener ten guesses to name that band.

Indeed, if you can’t play “Air Dance” — a truly moving song (!) about an aged ballerina (!!) – for your significant other, it might be time to reconsider that relationship. A more sustained – and entirely subjective – analysis of Sabbath’s magnum opus, Never Say Die! is overdue, but for now, this track can represent the whole. ”Air Dance” features some truly astonishing work by Tony Iommi, who was increasingly able to add nuance and texture to his multi-tracked guitar parts (check out the jazz guitar and piano interplay, and then the calibrated frenzy of the final solo, and then…is that brass being deftly applied to embellish the coda? You better believe it is.) Simply put, as brilliant (and in some ways innovative) as Sabbath’s blues-drenched debut was, the growth and expansion demonstrated between 1970 and 1978 is as impressive and ambitious as just about any other band’s, including you-know-who.

Finally, from my previously mentioned piece, I conclude thusly:

Once Ozzy exited the picture, it is fair to assume that the band would have faded into the void if they had made the courageous decision to soldier on with drummer Bill Ward assuming vocal duties (the aforementioned “It’s Alright” and the last song on the last album, “Swinging the Chain”, offer evidence that this experiment may have worked out quite nicely). It was never going to happen, but they would have arguably made better albums in the Ozzy aftermath if they had given it a shot. Instead, with the very unsatisfactory Ronnie James Dio grabbing the mic, the good old bad days stayed in the ‘70s.

Looking back, one wishes they had just pulled a Brian Wilson and gotten Ozzy his own sandbox, or let him work the wet bar in the caboose of his custom-made crazy train. But then, he had to leave; it had to end so we could have the subsequent Behind The Music special. Without Ozzy hitting rock bottom there would be no rebirth, no Randy Rhoads, no PETA protests, no reality TV show. The Sabbath singer had worn out his welcome, but Ozzy’s work was not yet done: there were ants to snort, dove’s heads to decapitate, and most significantly, the Alamo to urinate on (and let’s face it:  someone had to urinate on the Alamo).

And so, in the end, it is as it should have been: one band, one decade, one legacy—everything that came after comes with an asterisk. Nevertheless, the records need to be set straight: Sabbath is one of the very few bands that is actually better than it sounds.

So, in sum, what Sabbath do you need? Eventually, you’ll want all of the stuff from the ’70s, but most people start with Paranoid and go from there. And remember, Never Say Die!

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.

Kind of like the situation in Guantanamo, it seems that all that can be said has been said of the soul-raping of American citizens by the Wall Street masters of the universe. Unfortunately, the deeper one digs, the uglier it gets. Matt Taibbi, who needs a Pulitzer ASAP, has been doing some ridiculously heavy lifting in the service of truth. Some of his previous efforts were celebrated here and frankly, I’ve little to add regarding the latest (and most disgusting) connecting-of-the-dots. I’ll humbly and gratefully get out of the way and let him get the System in his sights. This is must reading, folks. There is his piece that drops in Rolling Stone here and then the follow-up here.

Here’s a taste:

That a company as rich and powerful as Goldman would stoop to peering through the web version of a locker-room peephole to make a few extra pennies either front-running random trades or somehow using visitor data “not for their benefit” shows how completely and utterly morally absent this company is. There is not an ill-gotten dollar they will not chase, no matter how small or insignificant the sums might be.

Word should be spread about this and anyone who used the Goldman 360 portral for trading should seriously investigate this situation, as it is entirely possible you’ve been ripped off — legally, perhaps, although how much “legality” a disclaimer like that can confer is a serious question in my mind.

More to the point, the fact that Goldman is getting enough public pressure that it feels it has to respond to these queries shows that the company is reeling. And the fact that their public statements have been so hilariously transparent and clumsy shows that they’re rattled and don’t know how to handle this kind of heat, which they’re not used to getting. Kudos to Zero Hedge for applying the pressure; readers who want to see Tyler’s very funny response to Canaday should read here.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/9640/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-live-at-the-fillmore-east/

Neil Young and Crazy Horse
Live at the Fillmore East
(Reprise/Warner Bros.)
US release date: 14 November 2006
UK release date: 13 November 2006

by Sean G. Murphy

Crazy Horse rides again, for the first time.

There is considerable controversy surrounding this anxiously awaited release. For Neil Young fans, this is an unexpected gift—a live show of the first, short-lived incarnation of Crazy Horse in all their ragged glory. For Neil Young freaks, this is an overdue, unconscionably abbreviated version of a two-night stand at the Fillmore East that has long been legend. The verdict? For anyone who enjoys good music, this is a no brainer that comes heartily recommended, period.
Long story short: it is well known amongst aficionados that the always enigmatic Young has compiled a veritable treasure trove of live recordings that he—in typical fashion—predicted would begin to see the light of day over a decade ago. The hope was—and remains—that this disc signals only the beginning of a thorough appraisal of Young’s live career via “official” bootlegs, drawing inevitable comparisons to Bob Dylan’s critically worshipped and well-received series of sanctioned releases. So far so good. So what’s the problem? Well, this particular concert (actually a two-night engagement: March 6 & 7, 1970) was more than twice as long as the material collected and presented, leading to inexorable, and somewhat understandable claims of carelessness and even greed. If this inaugural release does not warrant a two-disc set, why not at least use up all 80 minutes available on the one disc (or 60, or 50)? Clocking in at 43 minutes, it is not unreasonable for the consumer to feel a tad cheated, particularly in our pirating-for-free era that has given rise to an online community that illicitly trades live recordings. One might conjecture that the bean counters at Reprise Records would want to entice as many legal and lucrative transactions as possible. Of course, there is the rub: how long until we see the “original, remastered and complete“ version of this show hitting the streets for double the price?
For all the folks aghast that Neil Young did not contribute detailed liner notes, or commission a self-serving essay by a pointy-headed musicologist, they should be the first ones to understand that this is not how the man operates. Indeed, the fact that Young is still alive and kicking and making music is sufficient cause for respect, and appreciation (and possibly awe: Young lived as hard and fast as many of his compatriots, yet his pace and output have scarcely slackened over the years). In short and in sum, one can hardly fault him for refusing to rest (or rust) on his laurels and journey through the past—he already lived it, and he’s still living.
Ancillary baggage hopefully accounted for and dispatched with, only one issue remains: what does this concert sound like? It sounds like what it is: a remarkable document of one of the better bands of its time, performing live with palpable purpose and passion, achieving something pretty close to perfect. To appreciate why Young seems so enervated on these proceedings, it’s important to remember that he was, at the time, emerging from the first of many moves that seemed inscrutable and career-killing when he made them-in this instance having bolted from the hugely popular and influential band Buffalo Springfield. His first, eponymous solo album was somewhat slight, but still wonderful in its way, not straying too far from the distinctively psychedelic folk sound he’d developed in the mid-to-late ‘60s. It was the following year, on his second album, that rock’s real chameleon made his first major transformation. No one could have predicted the way Young—and his new band Crazy Horse—would sound because no band ever sounded like them before.
Their masterpiece, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is the big bang that spawned guitar grunge and the iconoclastic figure the flannel-clad Young cuts on the album cover, of course, would find its way onto countless stages and music videos more than 20 years later. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is as unvarnished and unpretentious as rock ever got, and that is one of the myriad reasons it has retained its unique vitality to this day. The production is clear and crisp, but it has that garagey vibe that has caused more than a few fans to wonder: what did these guys sound like live? The answer, finally available for those not fortunate enough to be around them in 1970, is, unbelievably: better.
The three songs taken from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere reveal a band that is tight and locked in: the confidence and chemistry of their interplay sound more like a band that had played together for years, not months. Put simply, Billy Talbot (bass) and Ralph Molina (drums) are the ideal rhythm section for Young, and it speaks volumes that for all the styles and big-names he’s worked with over the decades, he continues to record and tour with Crazy Horse today. They surround Young like bark on a tree during the shorter, focused tracks, like “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” and an early, more aggressive version of “Winterlong”. On the longer workouts, they offer Young a safety net of sound that frees him to indulge his irrepressible energy and ideas. It is, incidentally, on those longer songs (”Down by the River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand”) that the contributions of guitarist/vocalist Danny Whitten can be properly assessed, and appreciated.
The wasteful death of Whitten from a heroin overdose barely two years after this recording devastated Young, and while the tragedy inspired some of his best and most haunting work (”The Needle and the Damage Done” from Harvest and the deeply personal and dark classics Tonight’s the Night and On the Beach), it also cast a gloomy shadow Young fought for years to emerge from. Whitten’s loss was crippling not only to Crazy Horse (though he was ably replaced by Frank “Poncho” Sampedro who has remained with the band ever since), but to rock music: aside from frequent collaborators Crosby, Stills and Nash, it is arguable that any single musician pushed Neil more or provided a natural and positive pressure that brought out his fighting best. To hear Young trade licks with Whitten is truly something to savor: you can catch yourself nodding along and suddenly realizing, “Holy shit! This is rock and roll”.
Nothing can really touch the studio version of “Down by the River”, but the sizzling take on “Cowgirl in the Sand” surpasses the original, making it-improbably-sound almost safe by comparison. Whitten and Young go for broke, and the entire band is on fire, churning out a take that is at once longer, louder and more dangerous: no words from Young could articulate what the loss of Whitten signified, it’s obvious in one listen. Whitten’s original number “Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown” was, until now, known from its inclusion on the seminal Tonight’s the Night, and now it is put in its proper, unedited historical context. In Young’s introduction to this song, his indication that he planned to record an album with Crazy Horse providing guitar and back-up vocals is a revealing-and tantalizing-tribute to the respect he had for his band mates’ abilities.
Finally, the most intriguing, and possibly most enjoyable song is the short, sublime “Wonderin’”. In typically optimistic fashion, Young introduces this tune as one that will show up “on the next album”; fans would actually have to wait until 1983 to hear it recorded in a radically different (see: rockabilly) form. On this number the services of Jack Nitzsche, who contributes electric piano, are most evident. His understated playing is never particularly noticeable-not surprising with the ceaseless twin guitar assault-but nevertheless serves purpose, providing contours and further space for Young and Whitten to thrash around.
And so, despite minor quibbles about its completeness, it is hard to fathom why any fan of Neil Young could pass on this release, which also comes strongly recommended for anyone who wants to hear live music performed with honesty and intelligent abandon. Context, as always, is key in rendering some final thoughts: indispensable as a historical document of what Crazy Horse sounded like in concert, Live at the Fillmore East is essential. And when one considers that Young was less than two years from dropping Harvest, the scope of his astonishing gifts and vision come into fuller focus: this perennial outsider was never a self-conscious stylist. As he famously remarked, traveling down the middle of the road became a bore so he headed for the ditch. Every time people have wondered (sometimes with good reason) where the hell he was going, he has always had the last laugh, proving that he knew where, and who, he was. As for the glories of the moment or remembrance of things past? Those things are already gone. Besides, everybody knows this is nowhere.

12 January 2007