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The Chair is not my Son.
There’s no way not to feel sorry for Michael. The guy’s life had become an absolute disaster. Yes, some of it was of his own making. And the child molestation stuff is obscene and wrong and I was among those who thought that perhaps a little jail time, i.e. a dose of REALITY, might do him some good. But then you have to consider his upbringing. As much as some magazine editors want to coo over the Jackson Five, those were the years when Michael’s life basically went over the falls. He never really had a chance for happiness after he was about 10 years old. His life was predestined to be a head-on collision before he was even a teenager. The myriad of bad decisions he made afterwards proves this out. Sharing his bed with young boys? And then defending it on camera? Absolutely perverse. Clearly, he was not properly equipped to deal with life, or reality, or anything approaching normalcy. Adding fame to that kind of twisted personality is a sure recipe for nihilistic narcissism. There is some truth to the fact that the damage was done early. It’s always been fashionable to bash Joe, and in the end who knows how much of it is true. Although Michael talked openly about his father beating him, let's just say that in my opinion Joe has always looked mean, what with those pointy sideburns and those burning eyes. Any yet, it seems as if when Michael got out from under Joe, he soon fell into a pattern of making bad decisions. In some cases, catastrophically bad decisions, that sapped his strength both as a person and an artist, and enmeshed him in costly legal swamps for the balance of his life. You got the feeling some years ago that Michael had ceased caring about much. Even music. His gluttony was too reckless and too empty. The marriage to Lisa Marie was a pathetic scam. Neverland Ranch which was intended to be his fantasyland, crawled with psychoses. And finally, his constant self-mutilation was a horrific sign that something inside Michael had turned terribly wrong. Even now I can’t stop looking at the frightening mask in the Santa Barbara mug shot. The greaseapint. The lips. What was once a nose. What besides an enormous of self-hate would possess a person to do that to their face? Related to that visage is the image of Jackson on South Park. The character, “Mr. Jefferson,” came complete with a fake mustache, a high, wavery Michael-like voice and Jacksonesque statements like “Noooo, that’s ignorant,” and “They have doody in the their souls.” If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth seeking out episode 117 from Season Eight that was first broadcast in 2004. His nose continually falling off is an unreal, unforgettable sight. Despite America’s increasingly disturbing tendency to speak no ill of the dead, let’s agree that Michael Jackson’s impact on music was some 20 years in the past. It has been a long time since he made a good record. To my ears, Off The Wall will always be his best record. By Thriller you can hear the rot setting in. It could also be the fact that Off the Wall was not played to death by the radio. And also like everyone alive during Michael’s great run (the three Quincy Jones-produced records, 1979’s Off The Wall to 1987’s Bad), I can remember exactly where I was when his music first struck me. I can vividly recall when I first heard, “Don’t Stop `Til You Get Enough,” (on the dance floor of Dooleys, Tucson, Arizona) and the girl I was with (Tracy Dawn Stebbings). The raw power and immense talent that throbs off those records, aided immensely by the Q, is still astonishing. On Thursday, June 25, 2009, a very sad end to an increasingly sad life.
New Depression Songs
Loudon Wainwright III has for years been that for me, but that’s all changed. Yeah, I know his hit, his nightmare come true that he has to sing every time he plays, “Dead Skunk,” but it was always clear that that tune was an anomaly, the unlikely hit that became the bane of his existence. This Wednesday at Madison Square Park in Manhattan I got a chance to see Loudon do his thing and it was superb. He’s currently working on a very cool project, an album of Charlie Poole songs, High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project. North Carolinian Poole (1892-1931) was sort of a crazier version of Jimmie Rodgers. He was a drinker, raconteur, baseball player, ladies man, the works. He died in 1931 after what has been reported to be a 13 week drinking binge. There's also a story about a doctor giving him a mysterious injection. Whatever the case, like a lot of great musical figures in American history, his death is shrouded in controversy. Not a songwriter, Poole nevertheless owned whatever material he chose to cover. He had an idiosyncratic way of playing the banjo that has influence players to this day and his band the North Carolina Ramblers had a number of hits the biggest being, “Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Blues." Along with the Poole songs, Wainwright also did a number of new tunes that he wrote. A pair, “Fear Itself” (After FDR’s famous phrase) and “Krugman Blues” (which pokes fun at economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman), were full of the kind of intricately fitting lyrics that are a Wainwright specialty. At one point the singer/songwriter who is quite the jokester on stage, switched over to ukulele which was out of tune. “This Ukulele is out of tune… (pregnant pause)…You know this is a free concert… (much laughter)… so I’m not going to tune it.” Even better was his tune “Susie” about an incident he had where an airline broke his guitar. The lyrics are a hoot. Wildly funny. Live shows being about the only way musicians make money these days, I also saw Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow get together and play again as The Posies. There are some positive linings to this recession, one being the return of customer service, especially in restaurants. Many formerly snooty, even outright nasty New York restaurant employees (and owners) are now much more solicitous of your needs. It’s about time. Uppity bastards. Another favorable trend in these economically challenged times is that bands are suddenly playing some of their best albums of the past, from beginning to end. Lucinda Williams did it last year. Steely Dan is doing it now. And The Posies did it last Friday when they played their best, Frosting on the Beater, in its entirety. God, it was good to hear those tunes and those two part harmonies again. It was 1993 all over again. Kurt Cobain was still alive and Bill Clinton was president. Don’t wake me I want to dream…all day.
Jay Bennett
Sad to hear of the death of guitarist/keyboard player/singer/songwriter/mad genius Jay Bennett at age 45. I don’t want to be a hater here but like many others, his portrayal in the Wilco film, I Am Trying To Break Your Hearthas always been very problematic for me. If you’ve seen the film it’s clear that Bennett had his issues. He talks too much, has an endless capacity for arguing over minutiae and can in general be scattered but insistent. Speaking from personal experience, an interview with both Tweedy and Bennett at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel just after Bennett joined, the man chain smoked and was astonishingly disheveled, but he was an amiable, mild–mannered guy. Unfortunately for Jay, Tweedy and the rest of the band oversaw the film’s editing and so Bennett comes off like an addled nutjob. In a strange way, the unbalanced portrait of Bennett, the way they piled it on, reflects badly on the remaining band members because the way Bennett is publically dismantled in the film makes them look more mean–spirited and small–minded than they really were. You can feel the band’s emotional support for Bennett slipping away as the film wears on and he loses a power struggle with Tweedy. The part in the film where Bennett says that no one opposes Tweedy because no one in the band wants to lose their cushy gig is hard to watch. Jay is obviously shocked and floundering at that point. Having your public disconnection from the band become the highlight of the film had to have been tough. Bottom Line: I think they humiliated him more than was necessary. After Bennett’s exit from Wilco, there were whispers about he and Tweedy trading accusations about popping pills and being difficult to work with, but the truth I suspect will always lie somewhere in the middle. Jay was clearly never the same person after his brush with fame. Much bad blood remained between he and Tweedy. Last week, he filed suit against Wilco for $50,000 for royalties he claimed he was owed for Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and, believe it or not, his appearance in the film! His post–Wilco solo records were craggy and had their moments but were generally nowhere near the brilliance of his work with Wilco. A really accomplished musician, he was one of those guys who could play keyboards as well as he could play guitar. His electric guitar work in particular added a lot of much needed heft and balls to Wilco’s early sound. His engineering skills meant that the band’s records also began to sound infinitely better. Because of Bennett, studio wizardry, to use an overworked term, also became part of the band’s arsenal of talents. He was also the first virtuoso in a band that has now become a collection of them. A very talented guy who is gone way too soon.
Doug and Gaff
Louder...or at least easier on the eyes than words
SXSW, Part 1
Sounds Like?
Etta Gonna Kick Yo Ass
Catharsis
Why New Orleans Matters
Xmas R.I.P.
The Time is Now!
Dylan on the Radio
Modern R&B Beware
Fun, Fun, Fun
They Just (Look) a Little Weird
True Love
All Together Now, the DVD that details the making of Love the Beatles collaboration with Cirque du Soleil is coming out on October 21 and from the looks of the trailer it could be fun. I hear there are flashes of Yoko being a dragon lady (now there’s a shock), McCartney being a doofus of sorts (another revelation) and some great bits with George Martin which, all kidding aside, might make this worth the price. The subtitle in this trailer that says, “Yoko hates it,” is a classic.
Guitars and Digital Only
Wexler
Fuck and Run
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