RE-ASSESSING THE BYRDS 1973 REUNION ALBUM

In 1973, the original five members of The Byrds reunited for an album.  By 1968, only Roger McGuinn was left of the original line-up.  He toured and released albums with a mach 2 version of The Byrds to increasingly less success until finally and mercifully ending the band.

The Byrd’s first six albums are all excellent – the first two with the full line-up of McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke MR TAMBORINE MAN and TURN TURN TURN, the next two as a four piece without Clark – FIFTH DIMENSION and YOUNGER THAN YESTERDAY (My favorite Byrds album), as a trio minus Clark and Crosby - THE NOTORIOUS BYRDS BROTHERS, and the ground breaking country rock masterpiece SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO which was McGuinn, Hillman, and Gram Parsons.

So a lot was expected of this reunion album and in keeping with the strength of these expectations (and the resulting disappointment), the negative criticisms that were heaped on this record were plentiful and across the board.

As the story goes - 1.)The individual members were saving their songs for their solo albums and so only contributed half-baked secondary material 2.) David Crosby basking in the glow of CSN and CSNY’s success took over as producer and attempted to superimpose that sound on The Byrds 3.) The band was too high on various drugs to produce anything good.   All of these have become the popular explanations for this album’s perceived lack of quality.

But the truth is it’s not that bad a record.  Clark, Crosby, Hillman, and McGuinn each contribute two songs.  There are also three cover versions – two Neil Young songs (“Cowgirl in the Sand” and “See the Sky About to Rain”) and a Joni Mitchell one (“For Free”). 

Both Clark songs are excellent with “Full Circle” on my short list of his greatest songs.  Clark also sings both Young covers and his vocals are heartfelt and beautiful especially on “Rain” the closing track.  He is my favorite single member of the Byrds and  I am a huge fan of his solo work too.

Crosby reworks “Laughing” from his first solo album IF ONLY I COULD REMEMBER MY NAME.  I prefer the version here which is much more naked and stripped of psychedelic studio trickery.  I also like Crosby’s flawless vocals on “For Free” as well.

Hillman chips in with a mid-tempo rocker “Things Will Be Better” which puts one in the mood of his four songs on YOUNGER THAN YESTERDAY.  The only weak tracks here are the two McGuinn songs which are totally faceless, not much character.

This is interesting as McGuinn as gone from the leader of the band to a secondary performer on this record.  My biggest criticism here is the lack of McGuinn’s 12 string.  Most songs are dominated by acoustic guitar and mandolin.  Michael Clarke’s drumming is also downplayed. 

However, I reject the criticism of the harmonies.  Yes, they are a tad higher and put one in the mind of CSN not the raga drone style of “Eight Miles High” and other earlier songs but they are still pretty and there are plenty of them here which is nice.

The Byrds are my favorite American band of all time and one of the reasons for this is their ability to adapt their music to each scene  creating several new musical genres along the way.  I see them doing that here as country rock had metamorphosed into singer/songwriter folk rock.  All stem from The Byrds original west coast rock.  The Byrds reunion record is not a failure but neither is it a masterpiece.  It sounds just like five friends jamming at someone’s house on a weekend afternoon and that makes for a relaxed, enjoyable set. 

  

  

    

MUSIC ROUND-UP - JUNE 2012

Violens - TRUE

Violens, very simply put, practice a poppier lighter variation of the shoegaze/dream pop hybrid.  The guitars here are not loud or altered (for lack of a better word the guitars shine) and the vocals bring to mind 60’s AM radio pop.  Violen’s real talent is their melodies which are immediately memorable and complimented by the relatively short length of these songs.

Soap and Skin – NARROW

21 year old Austrian wunderkind Anja Plaschg who records under the name Soap and Skin’s second album (an EP really) extends her sonic palette with additional instrumentation and in doing so gives this music a more organic feel than her debut.  There is life here, some emotion, not just lockstep military type sturm and drang and on “Cradelsong” she gives voice to her inner humanity.

The Straylings – ENTERTAINMENT ON FOREIGN GROUNDS

The English man/women duo The Straylings sound like a cross between late period X, Richard and Linda Thompson, and The Smiths.  These songs are fiery in places, also haunting- A good debut  The whole album can be listened to here.

http://straylings.bandcamp.com/album/entertainment-on-foreign-grounds  

WAR FEVER - SYRIA EDITION

It has been clear for some time that the United States is itching for another war.  The continual war economy would be a boost to America’s defense manufacturers and an economic model that predicts dividends for the aggressor nation.  It will also be a boost to Obama by distracting voters away from an economy that has not improved as hoped.  It would also satisfy the neo-cons itching for more US hegemony under the phony guise of “exporting democracy”.  There are also those who still want to punish someone, anyone for 09/11.

If one would like to speak in a more conspiratorial way, the US being the world’s dominant superpower now perhaps plans to take what it needs in terms of natural resources from the countries that have them ( and are weak enough to fall to an invasion quickly).  To that end, a reason for military action must be manufactured.

Top on the list the last couple years has been Iran.  This also satisfies another group the Israel lobby who want the world to be in slavish devotion to the Zionist state.  However, much of the rhetoric directed at Iran is like the rhetoric coming out of Iran – it’s bluster, hot air.  I think the US knows it would be a disaster to attack Iran and also that Iran is nowhere near developing a nuclear bomb.  Israel’s language towards Iran has been an attempt to play chicken or psych out with them.  However, soon the hardliners might find themselves talked into a corner and in a situation where they must take some action against Iran because they’ve talked about it for so long.  For now though, more threats from America and Israel  directed at Iran but that’s all.

Then there’s Africa.  KONY21 stands revealed as a big hoax perhaps a CIA propaganda ploy that didn’t work.  The creator of KONY21 was arrested making lewd acts while naked in public.  Oh well at least he didn’t bite someone’s face off.  So Uganda has not panned out and neither has Nigeria.  The attempt to make fringe group Boko Haram into some kind of Al Quaeda monster has also failed.  People are a lot more knowledgeable about the world these days – they won’t just believe what they are told on television or on the Internet on so-called “respected” news sites, they will do research.  Africa is important because of its abundant national resources and America and other nations want and need them.

This leaves Syria as the nation it would be easiest for the United States to get away with attacking.  For one, there is a valid concern in Syria.  Assad is an evil bastard and he and his cronies refuse to let go as they wage a war against civilians in what is being called a “civil war” but is really a brutal crackdown by a scared dictatorship – scared of the Arab Spring and the fate of Quaddafi and Mubarak.

That being said what is the right approach to the Syria situation?  Every day I open my Facebook page to see well meaning friends posting pictures of dead babies and other carnage but I don’t see a lot of discussions about solutions.  I would support something similar to what happened in Libya last year but anything of that nature would be vetoed by the Russians.  They feel suckered by the west in the Libyan conflict- they were told it was defensive action to stop genocide, it ended up being regime change.

So with no international coalition coming together, the only thing left is unilateral intervention by the US.  This would be a tremendous mistake.  If you think there’s death and destruction, wait until the US gets involved.  More instability for the Middle East – just what they need.  And just what the American taxpayer needs-another Iraq.

There has never been a situation in the world made better by US unilateral military intervention.  For now, the US is discussing plans to arm the Syrian resistance but it is going to take more than that to get rid of the Assad dictatorship.

Mark my words, war is where we are headed.  All the pictures of massacres, all the fevered war talk, that’s pushing us towards another American war.   And if they get away with this, it will not be the last in the near future.

 

          

THE BURU QUARTET BY PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER - PRE-READING NOTES

The story behind the writing of THE BURU QUARTET  by Pramoedya Ananta Toer (Which is comprised of four books THIS EARTH OF MANKIND, CHILD OF ALL NATIONS, FOOTSTEPS, and HOUSE OF GLASS) is worthy of a couple of novels itself.  It’s a story of tremendous perseverance over violence and torture.

Toer, Indonesia’s greatest writer, was detained in the infamous Buru Island prison as a political prisoner for ten years by the US backed dictatorship of Suharto.  He was denied paper and pencil and so told this story orally to other prisoners who helped him remember the details so he could write it down later when he was finally released.

It was a travesty that Toer never won the Nobel Prize for literature but the US working with Indonesia may have had something to do with that.  More on Toer’s life and times here http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/05/02/on-the-death-of-pramoedya-ananta-toer/

THE BURU QUARTER, I’ve read is perhaps semi-autobiographical, with Minke, the main character, as a stand-in for Toer himself or other Indonesian anti-colonialist nationalist leaders.  The forward to the first book describes this type of writing as creating “a new historical personality in the process of being forged by history itself”

I’m really excited to start these books.  I’ve read THE GIRL FROM THE COAST by Toer which I reviewed here http://rgdinmalaysia.blogspot.com/2011/02/girl-from-coast-by-pramoeda-ananta-toer.html as well as a number of his short stories but this is regarded by pretty much everyone as his masterwork.

EYELESS IN GAZA BY ALDOUS HUXLEY

EYELESS IN GAZA by Aldous Huxley is a beautiful mess.  Beautiful I say because of the structure of the book – each chapter has a specific date heading and takes place at a certain point in time, the narrative moves forward and back in time.  This literary device could be confusing but Huxley uses it to make us understand the base motivations and evolution of the characters especially the main character Anthony Beavis.

I say mess because while this is an interesting story told in an interesting way, it is not written that well.  Huxley inserts long sections of philosophy that are surprisingly shallow and unclear.  They slow the narrative down and do not add anything.  He also writes too much in describing a scene, a little less description would have helped the story.  This book could have used much better editing.

The hero, Anthony Beavis, is a bit of a marshmallow, one to whom life happens to rather than one who makes life happen.  Throughout the book, he consistently takes the path of least resistance until the end when it is implied he is about to do something that could cause himself great bodily harm.  This is meant to be the great positive character change – novel writing 101.

We are shown Anthony’s life up until the present in EYELESS IN GAZA – his mother’s death as a child, his friendship with stuttering, mother fixated Brian Foxe and its tragic outcome, his relationship with an older woman Mary Amberley and subsequently her married daughter Helen.  We see Helen and Brian and another friend Mark Staithes make decisions about their lives and act on them.  This is in direct contrast with Anthony who does nothing.  In fact, I realized after finishing reading that I still have no idea what Anthony did for a living.  His career is never discussed at all.  Nor do we get a sense of what he looks like physically.  This may not have been deliberate on Huxley’s part (I’m not sure he’s that good a writer) but it certainly works in establishing the nothingness of Anthony.

In fact, there are no truly admirable characters in this book.  All are shown to be lacking in one way or another and this opens the door for Huxley to apply philosophy.  It’s well known Huxley was as much a philosopher as he was a novelist and he wasn’t a very good philosopher so this gets in the way of the writing.  It also explains why he’s not more celebrated now aside from his masterpiece BRAVE NEW WORLD which is a truly an insightful vision of the future and more like how I see the world becoming in the advent of so much access to everything. 

Still, I did enjoy this book because of its structure and because of the desire for literary invention I sensed behind it.  I would read more Huxley but I think I have to be in the right tolerant mood in order to overlook the other problems.    

A REVIEW OF THE RETURN OF THE MAGNIFICENT NINNY

A review of  my first book of poetry THE RETURN OF THE MAGNIFICENT NINNY AND OTHER POEMS from the good folks at Pulsar Poetry Webzine - Short and sweet but hits the target!

http://www.pulsarpoetry.com/Pulsar%20Book%20Reviews.htm#The_Return_of_the_Magnificent_Ninny_and_Other_Poems,

70's REVIEW PROJECT - SPARKS - KIMONO MY HOUSE, GENE CLARK - NO OTHER, CHEAP TRICK - DREAM POLICE, THE ADVERTS - CROSSING THE RED SEA WITH THE ADVERTS, BIG STAR - #1 RECORD

KIMONO MY HOUSE by Sparks (1974) The Mael Brothers inability to find success in the US and subsequent relocation to the UK resulted in their refining of glam and producing the proto-new wave album-all cool keyboards, mechanically strummed guitars, hiccupping vocals, and Ron’s great songs – Hasta Manana, Monsieur, Thank God It’s Not Christmas, Falling In Love With Myself Again.

 

NO OTHER by Gene Clark (1974) Worth every penny of its legendary budget, Gene Clark takes the purity of his pop vision to new heights.  His vocals and songwriting are as perfect as ever while still rooted in the traditional. The arrangements are epic not cluttered modern and sleek like a new skyscraper in an otherwise older neighborhood.

 

DREAM POLICE by Cheap Trick (1979) Never mind the mullet wearers who blasted this from the radios in their trans-ams when it first came out and never mind the world tours and FM patronage, this is a power pop album and a very good one.  Heavier, faster, harder than most which makes it all the more enjoyable.

 

CROSSING THE RED SEA WITH THE ADVERTS by The Adverts (1978) With better songs than  both The Clash and The Sex Pistols, this may be the definitive punk album.  It certainly is the best sounding.  These guys sound like they have been together for 20 years so tight are the arrangements and the songs like “The Great British Mistake” contain what I call punk wisdom. 

 

#1 RECORD by Big Star (1972)  Not so much the Velvet Underground of power pop as a continuation of the music of the 1960’s both in feel and attitude.  Chris Bell was equal partners with Alex Chilton here and they produced great music – The Ballad of El Goodo, Thirteen, Give Me Another Chance.