40 Year Itch: God Damn Us All

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From out of the same South Side of Chicago scene that spawned the Art Ensemble of Chicago , Sun Ra's Arkestra and The Pharaohs came the righteous Black Power sounds of Boscoe. "Writing on the Wall" is a defiant spoken word piece that reveals the band's politics and serves as a snapshot of a moment in history. 

But this band's horn section could also lay down a righteous groove. Witness "Money Won't Save You" below.

For more information on Boscoe and the Chicago scene, check out this blog 

40 Year Itch: Cult Classics from 1973

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   With gorgeous melodies from the classically trained guitarist, Duncan Browne features the 1972 UK #23 hit "Journey". Love Nick Drake but want something less dour for your Sunday mornings? Try this fetching collection. One of 1973's gems.

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Recorded just days before serving a 13 month prison term for selling marijuana, the 3000 copies of Gary Higgins's Red Hash became a collectors item selling for hundred of dollars. Now Drag City has re-released the album. Mellow and trippy but never dopey.

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"My first four albums have been, for me, an apprenticeship. The new album.....is my thesis".- Al Stewart

    For his fifth album, recorded just three years before Year of the Cat made him a worldwide star, storytelling Al Stewart made this concept album in which each song is a portrait of a decade. There's a tune about President Harding and another about Hitler's rise to power. "Roads to Moscow" is sung from the point of view of a Russian soldier fighting in World War 2.

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On the double album Marjory Razorblade, former psychiatric nurse and drug counselor Kevin Coyne sings about - and from the point of view of - characters who exist beyond where the buses run. Not to be neglected!

40 Year Itch : Stuck Inside These Four Walls

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On December 5, 1973 Paul McCartney and Wings released their top selling and most critically acclaimed album Band on the Run. 

    Those who've wisely purchased the two disc remastered Band on the Run will know the entire story. The short version is after Red Rose Speedway and the "Live and Let Die" single did so well, McCartney wanted to shake things up. He found a list of EMI studios around the world and picked the one in Lagos, Nigeria. Just before the band flew down to Africa, both lead guitarist Henry McCullough and drummer Danny Seiwell balked. So it was the McCartneys, their kids, Denny Laine, two roadies and engineer Geoff Emerick

   They ran into all kinds of trouble in Nigeria. The 8 track studio was a ramshackle affair. The McCartneys got robbed at knife point. McCartney had  a medical scare when he couldn't catch his breath one night in the studio. And to top it off Fela Kuti accused the band of stealing African rhythms . ( That would be a different Paul a full decade later)

  Somehow they recorded the masters, with Paul playing drums and lead guitar parts.

After six or seven weeks, McCartney and the rest of his team returned to England for overdubs and mastering. The first single would be "Helen Wheels", named after the land rover the McCartneys drove around their Scottish estate.

Upon its release, Band on the Run received all kinds of positive reviews. From Rolling Stone's Jon Landau:

   Band on the Run is closer to the Beatles' style than Ringo, which, though it utilized all the members of the group, is more Richard Perry than Ringo Starr. With the possible exception of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band (Band on the Run) the finest record yet released by any of the four musicians who were once called the Beatles.

From Creem's Janis Schacht:

It's been such a long time since anyone of the mighty foursome has given us something to really scream about. I mean, sure, by comparison with most of the stuff that comes out of John, Paul, George and Ringo have been excellent, but, compared to their united efforts of yesteryear, they've been nothing. Now, Paul fans, you may scream, screech, and yes, rejoice. Band On The Run is absolutely brilliant. From the first strains of the title track there is an obvious difference. Suddenly all the subtleties of McCartney melody lines are back. And the vocals? Not since Abbey Road has Paul delivered such clear and satisfying performances.

Here's an interesting idea lifted from a Beatles fan: Had Band on the Run not been a critical success, The Beatles might have gotten back together. Both Lennon ( with Mind Games) and Harrison ( with Living in the Material World) were floundering. Both had made their critically acclaimed solo albums ( with Plastic Ono Band and All Things Must Pass respectively). Ringo is Ringo even with Ringo's success.  With another Red Rose Speedway, the former Beatles would have met in the studio as equals. 

  

Instead, Band on the Run , a triple Platinum mega hit, gave Paul the upper hand.

Even John Lennon had to agree, calling it "a great album --you can call them Wings but it's Paul McCartney music. And it's great stuff." 

Inside Llewyn Davis: The Trouble With Cats

For my regular job I interviewed some of the stars of the terrific new Coen Brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis. based very loosely on some of the stories Dave Van Ronk tells of the folk revival scene in Greenwich Village in The Mayor of MacDougall Street.

                                                                      

   That's when I learned Oscar Isaac has nothing nice to say about some of his co-stars: the five orange cats he had to work with. You see, five years ago he was bitten by an alley cat he was trying to pet:

Oscar

The next day I woke up with a red line going up my arm. I had to go to the hospital for two days. It got into my lymphatic system. And then cut to five years later, I show up at the Coen Brothers set and they have five cats that they're going to tie to me at any given moment and have me run into the subway. So that was definitely a fear that I had to overcome. Cats are very hard to train and I don't recommend making movies with them.

-They weren't literally tied to you were they?

-They were literally tied to me.

With time running out I asked some of the actors and T Bone Burnett to tell me about the folk music they were listening to for the movie.

Oscar Isaac

I was listening to a lot of folk music--Dave Van Ronk above all. His repertoire. Everything of his and also I really fell in love with Karen Dalton

T Bone Burnett ( in a voice right off of Proof Through the Night)

I would say check out Jean Ritchie. She's really deep and important, I'll give you that one for now and we'll go to more later.

Stark Sands ( on left) who played a Tom Paxton inspired character

To get ready for the movie I listened to Dave Van Ronk. I listened to Bob Dylan which was a little after the fact but I wanted to know what we were preceding. I listened to the Kingston Trio. I listened to Peter Paul and Mary because my character is a little more polished and buttoned up than Llewyn.

40 Year Itch : This Ain't No Mudd Club

50,000 Bands and 1 Disgusting Bathroom

-CBGB movie trailer

On December 3, 1973 Hilly Kristal, having put up boards on the wall and fixed the slanting floor under the bar, opened up his country, bluegrass, blues bar CBGB in the Bowery. It took him a few months to realize the country, bluegrass and blues scene wasn't really happening in the city.

"But I covered myself, " Kristal told Spin Magazine. "The place's full name is CBGB and OMFUG. The OMFUG stands for 'other music for uplifting gourmandizers'. 

With the collapse of the Mercer Arts Center and Max's Kansas City booked, CBGB eventually became the only place for local bands to play. Kristal had two rules: Play your own music and haul in your own equipment.

On March 31, 1974 Television made their CBGB debut. Five months later The Ramones played their first CBGB show.

Most of the bands that followed have long been forgotten. But the ones who made it were among the most exciting musical acts in the world : Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, The Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunders, The Dead Boys .

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The Police played their first American gig at CBGB on October 20, 1978.

In the 80's CBGB became a hotbed for the US punk rock scene. Bands like the Bad Brains, Beastie Boys and Misfits all played there,

The club close in October of 2006 with a final concert by Patti Smith. Kristal died the following year. 

Today there's a clothing store standing in its place.

  Oh, and somebody made a movie

The Very Very Best of 1973's Greatest Hits Albums

As Christmas 1973 approached, record buyers bought friends and family members greatest hits albums released that year by such acts as The Carpenters, John Denver, The Beatles, Bread and Simon and Garfunkel. These were the best selling of the "Best of"s, stacked with hits we all know. But 1973 also provided music fans with far more esoteric compilations. Here's just a few:

Cashing in on Bowie's stardom, Decca releases four sides of Bowie singles B sides and his entire debut album. Notable, for Bowie's Anthony Newley impressions and the horrid "Laughing Gnome" which somehow climbs into the UK Top 10 in late '73.

Double disc collection pairing the first Move album with a collection of singles and B sides. Ignore the rest of the band's output at your own peril.

A very decent sampler of songs from Rod Stewart's first four album, Sing It Again Rod includes "Maggie May", "You Wear It Well" , "Handbags and Gladrags" and a classic album cover.

Six disc collection and informative liner notes make this a solid introduction to the world of jazz, with tracks ranging form the birth of jazz to the early 60's "free jazz" of Ornette Coleman.

Songs Van recorded in 1967 including the powerhouse title track, the hit "Brown Eyed Girl" and early versions of Astral Weeks classics like "Madame George and "Beside You". Released without Van the Man's approval. Deep cut choice is "Ro Ro Rosey".

40 Year Itch : Bog Blast All Of You

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Even today, I find that the music, compared to the previous records, has more class about it, more arrangements, more shine if you like and it's more adventurous. It was a leap forward. We used strings, and God knows what else; we really expanded. That's why, for me, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was the pinnacle.

-Tony Iommi, Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell With Black Sabbath

On December 1st, 1973, Black Sabbath released , Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, their most ambitious and intricate album --a far cry from the plodding sludge of their earliest works. The band originally planned to record the follow-up to the coke fest, Vol. 4, in the same LA studio but, thanks to drugs and alcohol,  motivation was lacking. On the verge of breaking up, Sabbath rented haunted Clearwell Castle in Gloucestershire. It wasn't long before the band saw its first ghost. As Brian Aberbeck writes in Black Sabbath: Pioneers of Heavy Metal

Whatever the explanation, Black Sabbath, the scariest band in the world, was too scared to stay overnight in Clearwell Castle.

In those creepy surroundings, Iommi came up with the "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" riff and the band was off to the races. 

   Rick Wakeman came in to play keyboards on "Sabbra Cadabra" .With its acoustic guitars, strings and prog rock arrangements, Sabbath suddenly found itself celebrated by critics. Gordon Fletcher of Rolling Stone wrote 

The use of tempo changes and electronic keyboards to cast liquid emotions makes Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath an extraordinarily gripping affair. Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath is nothing less than a complete success.

Ozzy himself considers Sabbath Bloody Sabbath the band's last truly great album:

Even the artwork was spot on: it showed a bloke lying on his bed being attacked by demons in his sleep, with a skull and the number 666 above his head. I fucking loved that cover. And with the music we'd managed to strike just the right balance between our old heaviness and our new "experimental" side. On the one hand, you had tracks like "Spiral Architect"  which featured a full orchestra and "Fluff", which sounded almost like The Shadows...On the other hand , there was "A National Acrobat", which was so heavy it was like being hit over the head with a lump of concrete.

   Sabbath Bloody Sabbath reached number 4 on the UK charts and number 11 on the US charts and eventually went platinum when the album sold more than a million copies