Hard to get over lonely people.

That is a line from a very famous song, although those are not the correct words. Those are the words I heard, which sounded and seemed real enough, until my older ears eventually understood that I had in fact been making a great song even better—in my mind anyway.

Ah, look at all the lonely people, I think. To myself.

A vision:

Cats are everywhere.

How did this happen? When did that slippery slope of sentimental turn from simple companionship to disconcerting, then beyond even that? It’s not your fault: you could see the other cats coming, waiting out there in the evening; and yourself, inside, able at any time to make it all better. All of these overlooked lives, are they the symptom or the antidote for that feeling you cannot constrain? Are they serving a separate purpose, a preemptive action against isolation? An excuse to keep connected, in some small way? A strategy to keep from slipping, to stave off starvation? Or the streets, which are always hungry, always eager to be kept company when nights bring the cold comfort of winter?

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

Yes, you think (to yourself again): it could be all of those things, eventually. Inevitably. But mostly (you know), any effort you might someday make would be driven by the fear of becoming that person. The person who everyone knew, the one who had patrolled the same city corner for as long as anyone was able—or wanted—to remember. The man with his hand-scribbled signs, capital letter screeds against the machine, words that sought to explain who he was and why he was here. His message, excusing himself from any culpability, of course, and allowing everyone who took the time to try and make sense of it all that they were either with him or against him; if they did nothing to intervene, they were abetting the not-so-secret society that could snap a finger and take everything you owned, including your identity. He stood at the intersection for years, outlasting several politicians who recycled themselves in public office, sworn to uphold the status quo and ensure that the have-nots would not, and keep everyone else safe from the crimes committed by people who could not close their eyes.

And then, one day, he was no longer there. He had just disappeared.

How does this happen?

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

You’ve seen some things, of course. You have heard them, read about them. The things people talked about when they talked about crazy people. The sort of people who, after numerous squabbles with long-suffering neighbors, finally had to have it out with Johnny Law over the piles of junk spewing out from their cellars, piling out from inside, forming extensions of the hand-me-down universe they’d created (in their own image?)—misguided gods of an always-imperfect world. These people who would holler and curse, and show up in court, when convicted, to protest that there was a method to their madness (they wouldn’t call it madness at all), a purpose to their paranoia, that it was no one else’s business if they found some sort of salvation in other folks’ debris, redeemable lives otherwise left for dead. Exasperated landlords, forced to take pictures in order to appeal to the proper authorities, having to prove that they weren’t capable of fabricating this sort of insanity: carpets pulled up from the floors, the linoleum in the kitchen removed, presumably by hand, the stacks of unread newspapers, the insects. And the pictures, of course, only half told the story, since pictures don’t move, pictures don’t stink, pictures only imitate what they are programmed to report. The stories that go far beyond the obligatory shit-smeared-on-the-walls sort of psychosis that always seems so overdone in bad movies (because the movies are bad; because truth always outpaces our best efforts to expose it). 

Then what happens?

You are (of course) left asking questions that always better unaddressed. Who could explain the motivation behind behavior like that? Who would want to? Who could comprehend where a mind has been, or is going, to find sense or security in this imitation of living?

*Excerpted from a work-in-progress entitled Please Talk About Me When I’m Gone

Here’s the thing about the ’60s: the decade died a long time ago, and it will never die.

You could say the same, of course, about any decade. But in terms of cultural, if not historical import, the ’60s can, depending on the audience, conjure up entirely different visions: Progress, Change, Peace, Unrest, Indulgence, Experimentation, Evolution, Emancipation, Immorality, et cetera.

As such, the decade will have a long shelf life in our collective memories, if for no other reason because so much music was created during those years. Like any decade, there was brilliant music, boring music and everything in between.

Which indirectly brings us to Davy Jones, and the fact that he has died at an age most of us consider entirely too young to die.

I think the outpouring of grief and love (aside from the fact that Jones was well-loved and…lovable) also has a great deal to do with the fact that seeing icons from iconic times start to pass away is more than just a sad occasion. It is definitely that, but more, seeing someone –particularly someone as eternally youthful as Jones– die abruptly is a stark and unpleasant reminder that we will all join him, sooner than later. We remain in the early stages of an extended period where we’ll inexorably watch the majority of superstars from the ’60s, and eventually ’70s, start to die. They rose to the top on our watch and many of them will expire while we watch. It is what it is.

His legacy? For me that is square in the middle of who knows/who cares, because however happy a guy he may have been (or however one cares to measure his artistic import) he made a lot of people happy, and that happens to count for a hell of a lot. We don’t need to lionize or minimize his achievements (and I’m certain they’ll be plenty of both going on in the next days/weeks) to simply say: our world would have been a bit less cheerful and colorful had he not been a part of it. At the end of the day, how many human beings can we say that about?

Of course, you probably had to be there. Even as an eight year old (when the re-runs played on TV) I understood they were watered down Beatles rip-offs. And I still could not resist songs like “Last Train to Clarksville” or “I’m A Believer”. My world was big enough for The Beatles, The Monkees…and Kiss. It still is.

The Monkees were, arguably, one of the –if not the– first fully manufactured boy bands. Except back then there were man bands. Young, sure, and the target demographic was younger girls (same as today for the most part) but there was something at once more and less calculated about The Monkees. Certainly, a group of guys chosen for their looks and not their musical abilities is the height of cynical commercialism. Except that it worked. (It always works, one might argue, but I also wonder if the boy bands of the last two decades will get as much airplay, two decades from now, as The Monkees still do.) The songs were good, the guys looked the part and eventually (allegedly) they actually played and sang. Who cares? They made their mark, and I’m not hearing anyone who bought their albums (then, now) complain. If you can’t hang your hat on that, see you in the recycle bin.

Rest in peace, Davy.

Pure pop bliss.

Take The Beatles, add some Yardbirds, pour a whole lot of sugar, mix it up and you get one of the Monkees songs I can still stand:

Bottom line: if he was good enough for Marsha Brady, he’s good enough for me.

Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or gracious thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest idealized significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul.

–Melville, Moby Dick (Chapter 42 – The Whiteness of The Whale)

Well, the album’s not not white. It is so appropriate for it to be a blank slate–figuratively speaking–because perhaps more than any other Beatles album, it has served as an ideal canvas upon which fans can project their opinions, insights and arguments. It is, to belabor the Melville metaphor, kind of the white whale of the greatest rock band’s canon, with fans so many Ahabs, trying to capture it, or understand it, or truncate it, or elevate it, or diminish it. Or all of those things, and more.

It was, after all, the album that signalled the end of THE BEATLES: every moment after its release a slo-mo implosion, those fractured pieces of ego and ambition the Flotsam and Jetsam that became Let It Be and Abbey Road, and later, the solo albums. Or was it? Was it, perhaps, merely a collection of uneven, ultimately amazing songs from a band at the apex of their superhuman powers? Probably, it’s something right around the middle of those extremes. It was what it was: the album the Beatles released, 40 years ago this fall. And while many fans (and/or critics–but who cares what they think?) would concede it’s not their best album, most people acknowledge that it might just be better than Sgt. Pepper (let me stand up and be counted here).

In terms of an engaged critical appraisal, arguably the only true way to grapple with this behemoth is to submit to a detailed, song-by-song analysis. What holds up? What doesn’t? Which songs, often easy to dismiss, still manage to surprise? (“Piggies”, “Rocky Raccoon”); which ones have never ceased to astonish–even after a thousand listens? (“Happiness is a Warm Gun”, “I Will”, “Long Long Long”). The songs themselves: 30 songs that constitute a sum far greater than their parts? (Does that even make sense, though? It’s the songs themselves that add up to the whole, and each song contributes to the overall effect, that ultimate achievement.) Perhaps it is actually the messy superfluity (an embarrassment of riches that is both, at times, embarrassing as well as rich) that somehow squares the circle. While fans have obssessed from day one about how much better it would have been as a single album (of which, more shortly), a compelling case can still be made that the ostensibly expendable songs, taken along with the master strokes, make a dovetail joint out of the assembled bits.

That last, debatable assertion, is worth expanding upon. In the contemporary climate of iPods and songs on sale for a buck apiece (or else snatched online, for free), it is difficult to imagine the suddenly old fashioned world of compact discs. It is harder still to imagine a seemingly black-and-white movie world where people purchased–and listened to–actual LPs for the simple reason that this was their only choice. Without waxing rhapsodic about wax, it’s probably safe to recall with some conviction those pretty-good days when a new album was an experience and it was experienced. Start to finish. (This is not to imply that people don’t eagerly immerse themselves in new releases today but, again, back then there was no other option.) In those days, unless you were going to jump up, run over, and move the stylus yourself (imagine actually getting up to change the channel on the TV…), you were in for the duration once the needle dropped. All of a sudden seemingly stolid things like flow and symmetry enter the equation. Suddenly the exhaust of the airplane ending “Back in the U.S.S.R.” segueing limpidly into the earthbound chords of “Dear Prudence” gives a subtle extra significance to both moments. The flamenco guitar flourish (actually a canned recording from the then-cutting edge Mellotron) functions as both a perfectly surreal coda to the cacophonous “Wild Honey Pie” but also as a perfect (and perfectly bizarre) introduction to Lennon’s wonderfully acerbic “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill”. Ditto for the saloon piano at the end of “Rocky Raccoon”–or is that supposed to be the beginning of “Don’t Pass Me By”?

Is it just habit (or worse, sentimentality) informing the observation that Side 2 would suffer if it began with, say, “Blackbird” instead of “Martha My Dear”? Or that Side 1 has to end with “Happiness is a Warm Gun”? Or, that, of course, Side 3 has to end with “Long Long Long” knowing that the slow, smothered coda will be resucitated with the studio chatter and false start of “Revolution 1″ opening Side 4, the effect like a light switch being flipped on? Could the one-two punch of McCartney’s “I Will” and Lennon’s “Julia” possibly do anything other than close Side 2, a calming comedown after the narcotic maelstrom that preceded it?

I could put together a perfect two-sided version of this white whale. So could you. But I’d be willing to bet that like snowflakes, no two fans would have the same songs in the same running order. More, even though it would arguably sound better to cut some of the fat and flab, would “Cry Baby Cry” sound quite the same not knowing (dreading?) “Revolution 9″ was about to follow? Would “Cry Baby Cry” even make the cut? Speaking for myself, if I had to pare down this beast, I am pretty sure I could safely lose “Back in the U.S.S.R.”, but I can’t imagine a single song that could reliably kick off the proceedings as well. Likewise, “Julia” could be an ideal closer on any other album, but not the white album. It is perfectly placed right in the middle, the marrow of this very gnarled and fibrous bone.

9. The Rolling Stones: Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)

Stupid title. Silly cover. Blatant attempt to steal some thunder from The Beatles, who were possibly at the height of their critical and commercial influence following Sgt. Pepper. So what? The fact of the matter is that this is far from a failure, no matter how many people want to slag off this lesser Stones album. Perhaps time was on its side, or there has been some retribution, equal parts ironic and inevitable, which has seen Sgt. Pepper taken down a few pegs, while there isn’t quite as much venom spewed about Satanic. This was certainly not the Stones effort that spilled over with hits (again, so what?) but taken one by one, there is much to like—or at least defend—in lesser-known tunes like “Gomper”, “The Lantern” and “Citadel” (think Iggy Pop listened to that one a few thousand times?).

And then there are the winners: “She’s A Rainbow” (which gleefully rips off Arthur Lee and Love’s “She Comes in Colors” more than it does anything from Sgt. Pepper) and the band’s unique, convincing and corny stab at psychedelia, “2000 Light Years From Home”. And then the masterpiece that inexplicably brings together both Kiss and Wes Anderson: “2000 Man”. It may not be “A Day in the Life” but if you had to listen to one song once a day for the rest of your life, which one would you pick? I know which one I’d go with (and my kids, they just don’t understand me at all).

The historic import of this one is not inconsiderable, either: up until now The Stones were forever in the Fab Four’s shadow, enjoying (or being consigned to) being bad guys and competing as best they could. This was the last time they played the underdog role and beginning with Beggars Banquet their albums were never compared unfavorably with The Beatles’, or anyone else’s for that matter. On this album, even though it sounded very little like Sgt. Pepper, imitation was still the sincerest form of flattery. Its ostensible failure likely caused the band to realize that the rules they had been following were largely self-imposed, and once they got outside that box nobody could stand in their way. They took their lumps, upped the ante and then gleefully kicked every other act out of the way.

Since it happened to be Keith Relf’s birthday, it seemed appropriate to pay tribute to him on Tuesday. Plus, as I attempted to articulate in that piece, he warrants celebration as a unique and influential singer (and harmonica player).

That said, the issue of the guitar players in The Yardbirds still necessitates elaboration. For perfectly understandable reasons, people assume or don’t realize they are wrong to think Eric Clapton was the primary –and most important– guitarist in that group. Simply put, this is not the case. Clapton was there for the very early blue-sy recordings and Page was there for the short and sloppy swan song, but it was Jeff Beck who played on all their essential songs. Put simply, Jeff Beck was The Yardbirds, with all due respect (and I offer tons) to the other members.

Jeff Beck demands more attention, since he’s not gotten nearly enough of it over the decades. Not for nothing: he is the only guitar god who roamed the earth in the ’60s who is still very much active (and in top form) today. He is, pound for pound, the best living guitarist right now. I can’t think of anyone else who can begin to match his proficiency, his gob-smacking ability and his track record. He is an inspiration in terms of integrity and dedication (he does not just naturally get better; he is committed to his craft and treats it like it’s the most important thing in his world, which it clearly is).

Here is a brief career-spanning sampler of his greatness.

“Steeled Blues:

“Jeff’s Boogie”:

“Freeway Jam” (he manages to make fusion sound…cool):

“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” (I can’t think of another, or better way to put this: the original, by the immortal Charles Mingus is one of my all-time favorite compositions –from one of my all-time favorite albums– and I sometimes think Jeff Beck almost takes it to another level. There is no point, or need, to compare –and for the record, Jeff Beck is God but Charles Mingus is GOD– but I only hope to underscore the fact that it takes more than audacity and goodwill to cover uncoverable songs, like this, and make them arguably better. As we’ve heard, Jeff Beck can shred like nobody’s business, but he also can play slow and soulful perhaps better than anyone else who has ever strapped on a guitar. It is, as is often the case when talking about the best of the best, extremely difficult to avoid cliches: but check out the feeling and soul oozing out of every line; this is something beyond sublime):

“Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” (I can’t recommend the recent DVD Live at Ronnie Scott’s more enthusiastically; in addition to being a fantastic concert, it is filmed and produced wonderfully, affording constant close-up action on the magician going to work in a live setting and showing that musical deities can age gracefully and even improve (!!) as they get older):

“A Day In The Life” (Having always been overshadowed by Clapton (and Page), it was wonderfully fortuitous that Clapton was unable to MC the 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert: finally the world had an opportunity to witness –because it could not ignore– the brilliance that has been woefully unappreciated for entirely too long…and speaking of uncoverable songs…getting better? Only Beck could do this once; only Beck could do this twice):

Hard as it is (for me, anyway) to believe, this November will be the 10th anniversary of Harrison’s untimely passing (of course it’s devastating enough to consider that we’ve already passed the 30th anniversary of Lennon’s departure).

Respectfully, I wish Harrison’s spirit best birthday wishes and will celebrate by picking five of my favorite songs (and I will intentionally not include “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Here Comes The Sun” and “Something”).

“Think For Yourself”

“I Want To Tell You”

“Blue Jay Way”

“Long Long Long”

“What Is Life”

2010: In pace requiescat!

This one hurt. The spectacular career of Bob Probert had already ended; his life ended entirely too soon (at the absurdly young age of 45), on July 5 while smoke from the previous day’s fireworks still hung in the air.

Quick tally: #24, over 3,000 penalty minutes. Member, along with Joe Kocur, of the legendary “Bruise Brothers” tandem back in the days when the Detroit Red Wings were more feared for what they could do after the whistle stopped play. Participant in a handful of the all-time classic fights in hockey history. Man who inspired t-shirts that read “Give Blood. Fight Probert.” Simply put, if one were to try and create the ideal enforcer (especially for an era that may not have been the toughest or most iconic era but was one of the most enjoyable), one could hardly imagine a more suitable cartoon character than Bob Probert.

As The Kinks once sang, Let’s All Drink To The Death Of A Clown.

And lest anyone think I’m using the word clown carelessly or disrespectfully, it is in fact chosen with the aim of being both accurate and approbatory. (A Probie-tory, if you like.)

Think about what a clown does: he is the minor but essential character who shows up at a circus with the objective of instigating misconduct. Above all, his purpose is to entertain with a mixture of mischief and cheer. A superficial assessment might conclude that a clown is simply doing, in make-up, what any drunk idiot might do. But of course whether it is juggling, dancing or doing tricks, not just anyone could be (or would want to be) a clown. It’s a job.

Think about what a hockey enforcer (what we used to call a goon just like we used to call escorts hookers or stockbrokers sociopaths) does: he is the minor but essential figure who shows up in an arena with the object of instigating misconduct (hopefully without receiving a game misconduct). Above all, his purpose is to settle scores and entertain a crowd while uplifting his teammates. A superficial assessment might conclude that an enforcer is simply doing, in a colorful costume, what any drunk idiot might do. But needless to say, trading bare-fisted blows (sober or especially drunk) in a bar is considerably different than standing on skates and going toe to toe with an opponent who is well-prepared (and in some cases, well-paid) to kick your ass in front of thousands of people. Many people without athletic ability are very capable goons; only an extremely select group of individuals are able (much less willing) to abide by “The Code”. It’s a job.

A much longer appraisal of his life, and the odd algebra of hockey enforcement here.

The best hockey fight of all time (please appreciate the affectionate head-butt and head-pats at the end):

The dog daze of summer got a bit more unbearable with the passing of Harvey Pekar. I gave him as loving and thorough an appreciation as I could, and his loss can be summed up with the understanding that we won’t get many, if any, like him down here anytime soon.

And while Pekar was groundbreaking in a way for making the primary source of his subject material his own life, his life story is more remarkable than anything written by or about him. To go from a genuinely obscure misanthrope living in squalor to becoming the mostly obscure misanthrope living mostly in squalor…that’s America. It’s definitely the American Dream, through a broken glass darkly.

It’s almost impossible to envision now, with everyone’s daily trials, tribulations and ablutions the focus of a billion blog posts, or the solipsistic Greek chorus of the Twittering class, but what Pekar did, then, by pulling the soda-stained cover off his personal life in the service of art was a revelation. Certainly, the subject of our immortal Self goes back to cave drawings and Don Quixote, and only official autobiographies are truly fictional. But when it came to the more postmodern type of tilting at windmills, Harvey Pekar was the patron saint of the unshaven, recalcitrant crank (actually crank is too harsh by half; he was more misanthrope who looked at life the way a chronically ambivalent dieter regards that piece of cake: he knows better but he just can’t help himself).

With Robert Crumb’s divine (artistic) intervention, his efforts captured the disaffection of the underdog and gave words to the shmucks destined to be forgotten. To become a meaningful artist one must be intolerant of cliche. To become a meaningful human being one must be intolerant of untruth. Although it came at a considerable cost, Harvey Pekar was incapable of cruising along the soul-crushing streets of quiet desperation. In becoming the poet laureate of disinclined endurance he helped remind America that there is a splendor in our shared obsolescence.

In October we lost Barbara Billingsley. This was a rite of passage, however symbolic, for many people who remember black and white TV (and I don’t mean knowing about it, I mean watching it).

I don’t know about calling her “America’s mom”, as I’m sure many obituaries will claim, but she was inarguably the “sitcom mom”.

It’s funny. My peers and I (born in or around 1970) were, obviously, not around in the ’50s, but that earlier era loomed large in our lives. Let me explain: the people who raised us did live in that time, and they were invariably informed by the mores and cultural imperatives of that era. As such, many of our parents were either inculcating or reacting against the buttoned-down (repressed?), black-and-white (i.e., white) reality shows like Leave It To Beaver portrayed. Hence the hippie sensibility that at least had a fighting chance for a few years before the door slammed shut in the back-to-the-future adventure of the Reagan years.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Many of us watched syndicated repeats of shows like Leave It To Beaver at an age when the TV functioned as a stop-gap between swim practice and spending the majority of the day at the pool, or in between morning chores (remember those?). It was all about the escapades that Beaver and Wally got into, and Ward and June were, well, not older so much as ageless. Ward was kind of like God (a very white God): firm, upright, not one to be fucked with. But He brought you into this world and he always had your best interests in mind, even when you screwed up. Billingsley was, to the average eight year old (I’d imagine, unless I’m alone here), less a woman than a matron; equal parts perfect casting and appearance. She was kind of like Jesus (or Mary?): she helped hold down the fort and there was never any dissension in the Cleaver crib. But she was the (ahem) kinder, gentler hand, the one whose shoulder you could cry on and the one who would buck you up even if you let her down. That, after all, is what mothers are for. (The adult looking back on clips from that show can’t help but notice Barbs was a fine-looking woman indeed. One imagines that outside of the kitchen, once the boys were tucked in and a few very dry Martinis later, with Ward nodding off in his recliner after another heroin fix, our all-American mom was ready to party; let’s hope for all of our sakes this was the case. Just kidding, mostly.)

All of which, I guess, is one way of trying to articulate the obvious: if America needed a manufactured (but, according to colleagues, family and friends, more than half-genuine) mother figure to enshrine in sit-com heaven, we all could have gotten much worse than Barbara Billingsley.

A little over a week later we lost the great Gregory Isaacs, AKA “The Cool Ruler”.

A fond adieu to one of reggae music’s silken voices. Certainly not as known or celebrated as many of his peers, Isaacs has always been a reggae-lover’s reggae icon. Those in the know appreciate his understated charms and subtle mastery. Of the many artists we can –and should– say this about: Isaacs was meant to sing and make music, and we should be grateful to the forces of the universe (however fickle they might be, and however many other angelic voices they’ve not deemed fit to anoint) that the Cool Ruler was able to find his way onto record, and into our hearts.

The hockey world lost one of its heroes in November when cancer finally got the best of Pat Burns.

You have to hand it to Cancer. It does not discriminate: all it requires is a living body to inhabit and attack. That’s it. Certainly, if you are impoverished or unable to acquire adequate medical care, this disease will make quicker work of you. But even the wealthy, well-connected and powerful are ultimately susceptible to the Big C.

This week the universally despised and dreaded ailment claimed another influential life. And it proved that no matter how tough you are, it likes its chances if it can remain undetected long enough to get a head start. If there is any human whose prospects I’d wager on in a mano a chemo battle, it would be Pat Burns. (Decent overviews of his career and achievements here and here and especially here.)

This excerpt pretty much sums it up:

“As for my career,” he said at the arena ceremony, “I always said to my kids, ‘You don’t cry because it’s over, you’re happy because it happened.’ That’s the main thing. I’m very happy that it happened.”

A few weeks later, Mr. Burns said he could not imagine himself being anything other than a cop and a coach.

“No, that’s all I was,” he said.

November turned out to be a rough month indeed when we lost the inimitable Leslie Nielsen.

Anyone who can remember the era when Beta briefly held sway over VHS will surely remember seeing Nielsen in Airplane! (Don’t call me Shirley). Impossible as it might be to believe, nobody from this generation had any idea who he was, which only made him funnier. As in: who is that old guy and holy shit, he’s hilarious! And he was. I’m sure you’ve already read more than a few career retrospective/obituaries that detail his long, patient struggle to make a mark –meaningful or otherwise– in Hollywood. (If you haven’t, they won’t be hard to find). It was, clearly, as unexpected for him as it was for audiences all around America when he ended up stealing the show in that low-budget 1980 movie.

(It is both ironic and a tad eerie to see Nielsen pass a little more than a month after the other enduring scene-stealer from Airplane!, Barbara Billingsley. In fact, that movie was a vehicle to give America’s mom one last moment that lasted forever, while for Nielsen it served as the springboard that launched his most unlikely late-career ascent to superstardom.)

And aside from Airplane he’ll be best remembered for his almost too-perfect-to-be-possible role as the bumbling Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun series. (Nobody begrudged Nielsen milking that particular cow long after the udder ran dry, because the brilliance of the first film made up for the increasingly lame follow-ups).

For an extended appreciation of my favorite Nielsen work (hint: it’s not in Airplane! or The Naked Gun) check it out here.

December 7, 2010 had the dubious distinction of being the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. I’ve written quite a bit about it, and him, in recent years, and you can find them here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Some samples are below:

It was thirty years ago today…

John Lennon’s death, not too many people would debate, was our generation’s JFK. I think people my age might more easily remember where they were when the Challenger blew up on that frigid day in 1986 (or the aforementioned Len Bias tragedy, which still manages to shock, in June of the same year). But the murder of Lennon (like JFK), by gunfire, was the same brutal, irrevocable blow that never really registers. We do our best to make sense of what we’re left with, but the act itself is never really reconcilable or, in many regards, believable. I still can’t quite believe John Lennon was killed, right outside his home, a few weeks before Christmas (and less than a month after the release of what turned out to be his last proper album, the remarkable return-to-form Double Fantasy).

Lennon, despite the perfectly legitimate and understandable lionizing he was subject to during –and especially after– his life, was, arguably, the most human Beatle. Ringo and Harrison were more down to earth (partly because their abilities, frankly speaking, kept them more firmly grounded), and McCartney has always seemed a genuinely friendly fella (his long and by all accounts happy relationship with wife Linda until her death speaks eloquently of the superficial Sun-King entitlements he was able to avoid or eschew, to his considerable credit). But Lennon, ever inscrutable, bigger than life –and Jesus–(he said, he said) and impossible to pigeon-hole, must be, in the final analysis, the most easy to understand, on human and artistic levels.

It didn’t need to end; it had to end. How could they keep going; they kept going.

Of course, as the ‘70s showed, (not unlike Cream before them, or Pink Floyd after them) no one amongst the Fab Four came close to making music on their own equal to the work they did together. (The people who think Imagine and Plastic Ono Band are superior to any proper Beatles albums, aside from outing themselves as “John people” — not that there’s anything wrong with that — are arguably not true Beatles fanatics. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that).

In short and in sum: John needed Paul, and Paul needed John. It’s as simple as that, and I’ve yet to hear a compelling argument to the contrary — and I say that as someone who accepts the fact that the break-up was probably inevitable, in the grand scheme of things. Mourning what could or should have been seems churlish, like wishing Shakespeare had lived a bit longer and written another half-dozen plays. With an embarrassment of riches like this, it’s insane to quibble (and, in a confession that marks me, for better or worse, as a Beatles fanatic, I find much to enjoy in all of the solo albums: as always, Ringo is best in small doses and each other member indulges a tad too much in their obsessions for my liking. In closing, they needed each other, perhaps more than they ever realized).

As anyone who reads this blog well understands by now, The Beatles are, for me, like the mafia was to Michael Corleone; every time I think I’ve said all I can (should) say, they pull me back in. And if I’m going to be pulled back, I’d better Get Back.

Finally (I hope, as we still have a few days left in 2010), just before Christmas the cruelest blow of all: Don Van Vliet thumbed his nose at the planet, cosmically speaking.

To say Don Van Vliet was unique is rather like saying the sun radiates heat: it doesn’t quite capture the enormity and impact of the subject. To assert that he was brilliant would be almost insulting, if that is possible. A genius? Let’s just say that if he wasn’t, then no other pop musician has ever been either. Even that is not quite right, since pop refers to popular and Captain Beefheart was anything but popular. He was highly regarded, and always will be, but the circle of aficionados who gravitate to his uncanny catalog is likely to get smaller, not bigger. Also, it just doesn’t work to call what he did pop music; he was an artist. Literally. When he walked away from music, forever, in the early ‘80s, he concentrated on his painting and made far more money from that. (Calling to mind another eccentric genius, Syd Barrett, who turned his back on the scene and quietly tended to his paintings and his plants.)

So, sui generis? For sure, but even that won’t suffice. You almost have to make up words, so I will. Don Van Vliet was Chop Suey Generis. You need not hear a single note to be smitten; just consider some of the song titles: “Grown So Ugly”, “She’s Too Much For My Mirror”, “Steal Softly Thru Snow”, “Grow Fins”, “My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains”, “Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles”, “Woe-is-uh-Me-Bop”, “The Clouds Are Full of Wine (not Whiskey or Rye)”, “Cardboard Cutout Sundown”, and, of course, “Zig Zag Wanderer”.

But then there is the music. And that voice. When doing his gruff, evil blues, he sounded more than a little like Howlin’ Wolf, but he wasn’t mimicking so much as channeling him (yeah, I know…), and it came out through his soul sounding like a narcotized sci-fi monster with an ashtray heart of gold. Add the lyrics (they range from simple to impenetrable but are always original and clever to the point of being intimidating) and you have a result that, love it or loathe it, could not in a billion years be imitated or even approximated by anyone. “High voltage man kisses night to bring the light to those who need to hide their shadow-deed” he wails on “Electricity” –a song that anticipates punk as much as it exhausts the possibilities of the avant-garde. Speaking of Howlin’ Wolf, this sounds like the great Chester Arthur Burnett cloned as a machine, doused in Lysergic acid and forced to stick its finger in a light socket.

In the end, Van Vliet’s obscurity tends to confirm many things we know about the way art is created and received, especially in America. If music like this was successful it would almost cause us to question the calibration of our planet. Besides, Beefheart had as much of a chance at being understood as Jesus Christ at the trading floor on Wall Street. The message was sent, and it’s still out there for anyone who cares to hear it. The biggest blessing is that we can listen to this magical music and be reminded that it’s real, it happened. He happened, and some of us will spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out how we managed to get so lucky.

I can’t go on, I’ll go on…

When it comes to The Beatles, I feel obliged to invoke Samuel Beckett.

Everything has been said; enough can never be said.

So let me say this: as long as I have eyes, ears, fingers and a keyboard, I’ll be talking about The Beatles.

And that is just referring to the band’s official discography. What about the incalculable covers of their catalog? With a band as beloved and unavoidable as The Beatles, we’ve heard it all. Especially the stuff we didn’t want or need to hear and, unfortunately, the stuff that can never be unheard (you know exactly what I’m referring to, right?). That said, while nothing, of course, can ever compare to the real thing, there are some amazing tributes out there. Naturally, the more unorthodox ones tend to fare better, if for no other reason because they retain the spirit of the original without drawing an overly direct comparison, which is always a losing proposition.

I can think of several; so can you.

How about Eddie Hazel’s funkadelic deconstruction of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”? Or Joe Jackon’s plaintive take on “Eleanor Rigby” (talk about covering the uncoverable: check it out). Or the enchanting Allison Kraus’ version of “I Will”? Or Jimi Hendrix straight-out impounding of “Sgt. Pepper”. Or anything by Electric Light Orchestra…oh wait, those weren’t covers? Nevermind. The best one I’ve seen in ages, and one I suspect I’ll never tire of, is St. Vincent’s stylized, sexy-as-all-get-out take on “I Dig A Pony” which needs to be seen, immediately.

The wise, but not necessarily safe bet is to stick with instrumentals. Think Grant Green’s take on “I Want To Hold Your Hand” or Brad Mehldau’s laconic version of “Blackbird”.

Understanding, then, that there is always room for more Beatles, the question still must be answered: is there really room for an entire album of Beatles covers? Well…

For this to work; for it to even be conceivable, the band would have to be tight, confident and attack the music with a sufficiently appealing combination of purpose and irreverence. Enter Soulive, the funk-jazz (or is it jazz-funk?) trio that has been dropping worthwhile music for more than a decade. If you’ve never checked them out –on record or on stage– their new tribute might be an ideal point of entry. Let’s start with the title: Rubber Soulive. I don’t know about you, but that had me at hello. If you have the ingenuity, or audacity, to come up with a title like that, you better be ready to deliver.

The good news is: they do. The better news is: the high points on this release are quite high indeed. The best news: there are no low points. Wisely, the band keeps it relatively simple, and succinct: clocking in at well under an hour, there is little danger of getting bored, or overwhelmed. It is an impressive, mostly joyful, occasionally eye-opening experience and any Beatles fan should find something to love. Speaking of “Something”, it’s one of the finer moments. Here’s a representative live version:

I feel that. First off, an organ/guitar/drum assault is an ideal way to approach The Beatles with an all-instrumental agenda. The organ takes care of the bass and the second guitar (it has the heft to boost the bottom and the edge to color the lead runs and fill any/all gaps); the drums are solid (they won’t make you think of Ringo, but they won’t make you miss him…what more can you ask for?) and, above all, the guitar shreds tastefully and Eric Krasno joins the select and not necessarily long list of artists who “get” The Beatles.  His playing here is capable of making your heart break (more than a little now that George is gone) while smiling, just like the original. I’m not sure I can think of a more genuine or generous form of praise.

Other winners include their appropriately foreboding take on “Eleanor Rigby” (a perfect song for some brooding organ) and an uproarious rendition of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. There are generous samples on YouTube of the band performing these songs live, so if you’re not yet convinced, take to the Internets and hear what you’ve been missing.

The pinnacle of this effort, for me, is their semi-miraculous rundown of “In My Life”. There are plenty of Beatles songs you just don’t go near unless you can handle it, and Soulive handles it. Once again, Krasno seems to effortlessly manage the MacBook-thin line between reverential and revelatory. Less is more (like the song itself, it is deceptively simple, but it’s power resides in its unadorned statement of purpose, lyrically, vocally and musically: Soulive understands that and conveys it, while putting their own rather indelible signature on one of our best-loved songs).

My work is done here.

Check them out online here and acquire a copy of Rubber Soulive; it will put you in the appropriate state of mind as the cold settles in and you battle the crowds to play Santa for friends and family (if you want to make them believe in Santa again, pick up a copy for their stockings as well).

This is definitely a musical blessing in 2010, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

Living is easy with eyes closed/Misunderstanding all you see,

It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out/It doesn’t matter much to me.

Those aren’t just defining lines from a defining song by the defining band of all time. They are lines written by the closest thing we humans get to a super hero, at the top of his game, having just shouted down from the mountain top on one of the most innovative, shape-shifting songs of all time, “Tomorrow Never Knows”.

(Don’t take my word for it. Listen to the color of your dreams):

If some people, understandably, think the everything-plus-kitchen-sink approach on the subsequent Sgt. Pepper was in places a tad too haphazard and indulgent, no such concerns can apply here: Lennon knew what he wanted, telling MVP producer George Martin he wanted his vocals to sound like “a hundred chanting Tibetan monks.” No worries, right? Martin, with appreciable assistance from an always-game McCartney, sliced, diced, looped and spliced, and second by painstaking second, reel-to-reel tape transported the magic from Lennon’s mind. To say that this song set the tone for experimentation and was influential across multiple genres, including –or especially– ones that didn’t even exist yet, scarcely does it justice.

Revolver, whether or not it is the “best” album in rock history (who can authoritatively claim this, and more importantly, who cares?), is probably the most important. It inspired Pet Sounds which in turn inspired Sgt. Pepper which in turn inspired everything else: the good, bad and ugly that followed; tomorrow never knew what hit it. It is also perfect. If you disagree, it’s not the album, it’s you. And that’s fine. But move along, because you’re wrong. But (she said, she said) “What about Yellow Submarine?” How can an album that is not filled with perfect songs be perfect? Because.

Lennon, despite the perfectly legitimate and understandable lionizing he was subject to during –and especially after– his life, was, arguably, the most human Beatle. Ringo and Harrison were more down to earth (partly because their abilities, frankly speaking, kept them more firmly grounded), and McCartney has always seemed a genuinely friendly fella (his long and by all accounts happy relationship with wife Linda until her death speaks eloquently of the superficial Sun-King entitlements he was able to avoid or eschew, to his considerable credit). But Lennon, ever inscrutable, bigger than life –and Jesus–(he said, he said) and impossible to pigeon-hole, must be, in the final analysis, the most easy to understand, on human and artistic levels.

It is, therefore, revealing that “Strawberry Fields Forever”, a song that now stands out among (if not above) all others as the most singular Lennon composition (yes, taking into account “In My Life”, “I Am The Walrus”, “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”, “Dear Prudence”, “Come Together” and “Across The Universe” –just to name the true heavy hitters in the Beatles canon and not even taking into account his ten years of solo work) had such humble origins. Listen to the evolution of a masterpiece:

In late 1995 (15 years ago, already?) when The Beatles Anthology series came out, the assorted demo cuts and false starts were something beyond revelatory. Aside from bootlegs (and pre-digital files or the ubiquity of Internet content) this was the first opportunity many people had to peak behind the golden curtain and listen to the best band ever struggling to assemble the songs we learn and sing. The Beatles were sufficiently god-like that we not only never saw them sweat: literally after ’66 as they did not appear live, figuratively in the sense that they were operating at a level approximated by few collectives before or since, dropping new Songs in the Key of Life every other month.

Put another way, The White Album was released three years after Rubber Soul. Three years. Actually stop and think about that for a second. It is—or at least was—tempting to imagine that these albums were dreamed into life through a combination of drugs, meditation, competition and the inexplicable forces of Fate decreeing that these four lads from Liverpool would be the Oracles of our era. In actuality, we now know these magicians sometimes struggled to conjure their spells and in some cases it required a patience and faith we mere mortals are quite accustomed to. Put less pretentiously, making some of the best rock music of all time was hard work. Rather than diminishing the import of these songs, this concession augments it.

Hearing a frustrated Lennon sigh “Canna do it, I canna do it” less than thirty seconds into the first take reveals a Lennon most of us are not accustomed to, or comfortable hearing. He sounds almost defeated and entirely human. That he stuck with it and saw it through is illuminating as it is inspiring. It is also intriguing to hear one of the ultimate psychedelic dreamscapes in its formative stages as a simple acoustic song. While it is always insightful to see the scribbled notes of a poem or story in process, hearing the development of a song so indelibly enshrined in our collective consciousness is arresting, and invaluable. It still doesn’t mean we can comprehend how exactly this song (these songs!) came to be, but it helps us understand and appreciate. One more time, for the first time, forever.

Everyone knows what happened next. Just before Sgt. Pepper helped define the Summer of Love and introduce the mixed blessing also known as the concept album, The Beatles released what is arguably the most transcendent single of all time. McCartney (as always, making it sound easy), contributed “Penny Lane”, which is neither as oblique nor unsettling as “Strawberry Fields Forever”, but is disarmingly rich in detail and the product of a songwriter firing on all cylinders. Lennon, of course, had agonized over his snapshot of youth seen through the glass hazily, and with the final touches –as was often the case circa ’67– of the visionary George Martin, saw his simple reminiscence mutate into the surreal sound-bomb it remains today.

Nothing is real. And nothing to get hung about.

Strawberry Fields Forever.

Cranberry sauce.

What he said.

It was thirty years ago today…

Where were you?

I was in my mother’s bedroom, kissing her goodbye before I caught the school bus, and I heard the horrible news on the clock radio (incidentally, I was in this same room when news of Len Bias — the other devastating death of the decade– flashed across the bottom of the TV screen). As a burgeoning Beatles fan (fanatic), this hurt. And I was old enough to know that this was a major blow: on an artistic, social, human scale.

John Lennon’s death, not too many people would debate, was our generation’s JFK. I think people my age might more easily remember where they were when the Challenger blew up on that frigid day in 1986 (or the aforementioned Len Bias tragedy, which still manages to shock, in June of the same year). But the murder of Lennon (like JFK), by gunfire, was the same brutal, irrevocable blow that never really registers. We do our best to make sense of what we’re left with, but the act itself is never really reconcilable or, in many regards, believable. I still can’t quite believe John Lennon was killed, right outside his home, a few weeks before Christmas (and less than a month after the release of what turned out to be his last proper album, the remarkable return-to-form Double Fantasy).

What else is there to say?

There’s probably been more written about Lennon’s death than any other public figure from the 20th Century (except, possibly, JFK), and there is nothing anyone can say to make his premature passing sensible or acceptable. Certainly, his legacy was –and remains– quite secure and as PopMatters recently proved, it seems impossible to say too much about The Beatles. I’ve said it before and I’m obliged to say it again: where the younger fan might ask “What kind of God would take a person like this?” the older fan should answer “The same one who gave him to us”. That’s not good enough, not by a long shot, but Lennon blessed us with as much remarkable music (and joy, and inspiration) as any artist we’ve seen or heard, so it is childish to begrudge what we didn’t get: we ought to celebrate what we did get.

I’m not going to invoke “Imagine” or “A Day In The Life” or “In My Life” or (insert appropriate, but entirely-too-obvious Lennon song here). I was thinking about which songs resonated with me, and were distinctly John Lennon songs. Necessarily, these were post-Pepper compositions as that was when the band began increasingly going their own way. I could think of other examples, so could anyone else, but for me –for now– these five seem to sum up everything great about John Lennon, the artist.

“Across The Universe”

“Dear Prudence”

“Julia”

“Revolution (1)”

“Don’t Let Me Down”

McCartney’s shell-shocked, refreshingly curt response (everyone wanted to hear what he would say, and the reporters were, I reckon, only doing what they get paid to do…but one watches this now and appreciates the guarded and honest reaction: no camera-friendly crocodile tears or mawkish speechifying; this was one-half of Lennon/McCartney coping with the staggering news that his artistic soul mate (sorry Linda, sorry Yoko) had been killed: in many regards, the day that Lennon died was the first day of the rest of Paul’s life).

I couldn’t deny that this phenomenon was not in play while The Beatles were still a working band, but there is no question that Lennon’s posthumous lionization seemed to separate fans into facile camps of “Lennon people” versus “McCartney people”. You know the drill: if you like “Hey Jude” and “Penny Lane” you are a PM person; if you prefer “I Am The Walrus” and “Come Together” you are a JL person (if you prefer “Revolution 9″ you are a weird person…just kidding –sort of). The implication, of course, is that Lennon was the more serious Beatle, the more witty and acerbic and, therefore, worthwhile Beatle. This whole formula is idiotic, insulting and should really be retired as soon as possible. (Put another way, if you have ever said anything along the lines of “Lennon was the only Beatle that mattered” then you are a poser and quite possibly a hipster, neither of which are anything to be proud of.)

To me, real Beatles fans have always looked at that question the way they would if asked who their favorite parent was. Do you have to decide? And why should you? The bottom line is: as claustrophobic as it got in the Beatles universe post-Ono, it is understandable that Genius of that magnitude would eventually bristle at the compromises required to keep the machine running. Not to mention, quiet genius #3, the increasingly confident George Harrison, resented having his artistic wings clipped and understandably bristled as his (increasingly superb) songs got left on the cutting room floor.

It didn’t need to end; it had to end. How could they keep going; they kept going.

Of course, as the ‘70s showed, ( not unlike Cream before them, or Pink Floyd after them) no one amongst the Fab Four came close to making music on their own equal to the work they did together. (The people who think Imagine and Plastic Ono Band are superior to any proper Beatles albums, aside from outing themselves as “John people” — not that there’s anything wrong with that — are arguably not true Beatles fanatics. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that).

In short and in sum: John needed Paul, and Paul needed John. It’s as simple as that, and I’ve yet to hear a compelling argument to the contrary — and I say that as someone who accepts the fact that the break-up was probably inevitable, in the grand scheme of things. Mourning what could or should have been seems churlish, like wishing Shakespeare had lived a bit longer and written another half-dozen plays. With an embarrassment of riches like this, it’s insane to quibble (and, in a confession that marks me, for better or worse, as a Beatles fanatic, I find much to enjoy in all of the solo albums: as always, Ringo is best in small doses and each other member indulges a tad too much in their obsessions for my liking. In closing, they needed each other, perhaps more than they ever realized).

Check this out: “Hey Bulldog” (a rare YouTube instance of archival video that consists of actual footage from the recording session and not clever cut and pasting: this was one of the unfortunately rare instances when the band filmed themselves in the studio). This, above all, is a near miraculous moment in time captured for posterity: it is priceless because it affords a brief but beautiful window into this other world, the laboratory where the magic got made. And this is most definitely magical; it is also exceedingly bittersweet. This track was cut as the group was beginning to put together the puzzle pieces that ultimately comprised The Beatles (White Album) and things had begun to unravel. This, then, is not merely an illustration –albeit a wonderful one– of the organic process of inspiration and improvisation, but a document of the Lennon/McCartney engine powering along at full steam. Watching the interaction (look at Mac’s ebullient body language at the 2.50 mark!) removes any doubt that at their best, these two amigos required ingredients that were always lacking once they went their separate ways.

If you’re lonely you can talk to me…