Old & In the Way But with Expenses: Will the 70's Please Die?

For those not alive in the 70's: The bad news is it was peak drugs and sex (pre-AIDS). But it wasn’t all good: With sexual indulgence came serious sexism – and like most things, the advantage was all men’s.

Smoking was everywhere and everyone’s parents did it. Every kid would’ve sucked up clouds of it secondhand before they chose to shove that first one between their teenaged lips. There was smoke in elevators, stores, waiting rooms, offices, restaurants – everywhere. Mad Men doesn’t even get you close. (Plus, kiddies could get their own ciggies from machines.) And the drugs – they weren’t bad, in fact, they were the path to enlightenment. Bands and record labels built cocaine into their budgets. (In 1972, Black Sabbath spent $75K on coke; their album at the time cost $60K.) Weed and a bump were the new martini.

And then the music: Also peak classic.

Sorry you missed all that. Well, firsthand at least. You’d be forgiven for thinking that it never went away. Because it didn’t.

More bad news: However aged and decrepit those Baby Boomer acts have become, however many times your parents wanted to relive their teen years on their iPods, most of those acts are still working. Their hips may be plastic but the silver they’re still chasing. (Did no one save up for retirement?) And, now they’re coming to your town (or state, for you hillbillies). Many are promising these to be their final tours. Many are in their 70’s (Mick J is 75; Paul McC is 76) but don’t hold your breath. These coffin dodgers could be back again. And again.

A list of acts recently, currently, or soon to be on tour:

• The Rolling Stones 
• Eric Clapton
• The Outlaws
• King Crimson
• Kiss
• Genesis
• Pink Floyd
• Roger Waters, Us + Them Tour
• Yes (50th Anniversary Tour!)
• Eddie Money
• Uriah Heep (!)
• Deep Purple
• Fleetwood Mac
• Peter Frampton

• Steve Winwood
• Queen
• Dead and Company (?)
• Paul McCartney
• REO Speedwagon
• Moody Blues
• Hootie and the Blowfish
• Hall and Oates
• Jefferson Starship
• The Pretty Things
• Gang of Four
• Aerosmith

• Styx 
• U2
• The Cure
• Judas Priest
• Journey
• ZZ Top
• Bon Jovi
• Ratt
• Journey
• Ted Nugent
• Bob Seger
• Blue Öyster Cult
• Def Leppard
• Poison
• Salt N Papa
• Iron Maiden
• Metallica
• Naughty By Nature
• Dave Matthews
• Bonnie Raitt
• Megadeth
• The Monkees (!)
• The Beach Boys (!)
• Jethro Tull
• Electric Light Orchestra
• Cheap Trick
• Kansas
• Joe Walsh
• Roger Daltrey (playing Tommy)
• Scorpions
• AC/DC with Axl Rose

• Golden Earring
• Ozzy Osbourne
• Foghat
• The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (!)
• Savoy Brown
• Elton John
• Cher
• Jackson Browne
• Smokey Robinson
• Diana Ross
• Kool and the Gang
• Mariah Carey
• Earth, Wind, and Fire (!)
• George Clinton, Parliament Funkadelic
• and endless more...

Google anyone from the 70’s (or 60’s): It’s hard to find anyone who isn’t touring. Literally – I think Rush was the only band I could find that wasn’t. Some, like The Kinks, are still pending. David Lee Roth has been drooling over the prospects of another tour. Sadly, many of these bands are little more than effigies or placeholders. Most, and in many cases all, of the original members are dead or indifferent: The Beach Boys, Foghat, Journey, Earth, Wind, and Fire, The Monkees – time hasn’t been kind.

I remember reading interviews with Jagger from the 70’s talking about his dread for the idea of singing Satisfaction 20 years into the future. (He would’ve never dreamed of still being at it after 40.) Guess which song The Stones close with?

No age shaming here. I support geezers. But, Satisfaction at 75? Blasphemy.

Björk Belts, ca. 1988

Mamma: This is the song that made me fall in love with that voice. (Later, I fall in love with the rest of her but it started here.) My girlfriend at the time and I were playing the first Sugarcubes album in regular rotation. Both of us agreed that the guy screaming from his knees in the vid, Einar Örn, needed to be strung up by a mic cable. (After The Sugarcubes, he’d be elected to the Reykjavík City Council.) This, no doubt, would make her decision to leave the ’Cubes that much easier. (The guitarist would father her first child.)

You’ll need to tune Örn out to fully drink in the pleasures of Björk’s (pronounced B-yerk) prodigious tone and growl. A sound as smooth and biting as the finest single malt you’ll ever sip. Watch for when that mouth goes full wide-open. Whatever comes out will completely humble you. It’s a voice that digs straight into your pink juice. Or call it synchronized vibrations – whichever. But know that your consciousness can only submit. (This is an actual thing: Find the receipts here.)

Sure, maybe I’m little starry-eyed for the diminutive Icelandic Giant. And I’ll confess, while I’ve always respected her voice, her viking confidence and courage, and that steadfast and telescopic artistic vision, I haven’t always found her music easy. Some of it can be a slog. And full disclosure, I haven’t really paid that much attention to her after those early albums. Never mind: I still love her.

It shouldn’t be hard to see why.



Birthday: Maybe not for you but this one brings fat bitch tears to my eyes. Just so you know, she’d an an album of jazz released in Iceland – and later worldwide – when she was 12. This isn’t just gush: The pixie is a genius.



The above is good, but it’s the album version that’ll break your heart.



And this, a snippet from an interview in Icelandic before the release of Debut, her first solo release. In it you’ll hear her pronounce her name and say everything exactly as she should.



Question: Will the album he as successful as The Sugarcubes? 

She says (and I paraphrase, loosely): Probably by only a fraction. I don’t care. This is music I have to do. This isn’t a fashion show. I won’t worry if people don’t buy it. I’m not here for the musical salt licks.

Love her.

Nadine Expert May Not Actually Be One

Why is it the French insist on adding cream to everything?

With Nadine, that’d be whipped: In this video of I Wanna Be a Rolling Stone from 1978, French pop singer Nadine Expert shows herself – or was handled – to be quite the provocateur, if only not musically. Not much to be found on her online that wasn’t written in Russian or French so I’ve no idea of her backstory; maybe she doesn’t need one. The one upfront seems to be the one that mattered most. According to a Facebook page, she released three singles, an album, and appeared on French television. She was 21 when the video was shot.

Around the same time as this video, a friend would drag me to see the very popular stage show Beatlemania. At the time I saw it, they’d a McCartney look alike on bass who’d learned to play left-handed. None of that changed the fact that it sounded like a bar band in costumes standing before screens of contemporary newsreels. My friend didn’t seem to mind: But then, he was from Las Vegas. I just kept thinking, Forget this. I should go give those records another listen. I’d be way more absorbed by Ms Expert’s performance here.

You can’t help but like her spunk.

Omnivores, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Some Beloved Evergreen Cheese

Listen up, kiddos: Once there was a band called Led Zeppelin and they ruled the world. Back in the dinosaur-friendly Jurassic – 1969-1976, the period before the In Through the Out Door album, I don’t bother with that one – many Western cave shelters had Zeppelin records on their shelves sitting next to a whole variety of other eclectic musicks. For my older sister, my gateway to the band, they were played in rotation with Cal Tjader, Pentangle, and Barbra Streisand. (My sister is way older than me.)

If you’re of a generation riper than Millennial, you may already suffer from a classic rock radio-induced Zeppelin fatigue. Try to forget that: Take some cleansing breaths and dig into this. (See the vid below.)

First some data: According to a study, music fans are divided into three categories: omnivores, univores, and a third group of omnivores that listens to fusty classical in addition to rock and pop. The majority of us are univores; people tend to be more like univore-like these days.

I’ve personally had some Zeppelin revisionism recently, influenced by the highly disputed (by the band itself – it’s not flattering) but very compelling band muckraker, The Hammer of the Gods (1985). (FYI: Some of its juicier bits are verifiably true, like Jimmy Page’s relationship with a then 15 year-old girlfriend. Google Lori Maddox.) While I can't deny the greatness of some of their output, I’ve had to take them down a few notches.

(Plus, Page’s post-Zeppelin legacy is pretty dismal – c’mon, Cloverdale Page and The Firm? Anyone? – and those weatherbeaten Page and Plant reunions. Though, you have to give props to Plant’s more recent work, especially with Alison Krauss and John Paul Jones’ work with Diamanda Galas and Them Crooked Vultures. Come to think, Page is the only stinker.)

Anyway, for me, the true Zeppelin evergreen has always been Since I've Been Loving You. If you’ve a low threshold gag reflex for unctuous cocktail lounge cheese, you may balk at where Corinne Baily Rae steers this gem to start. If so, then trust me, you’ll love the second half. I prefer the first but whatever: When people without Robert Plant’s Herculean wail try to go toe-to-toe with the original, they come off like a suckas. Rae doesn't go there. She journeys elsewhere else and it’s a brilliant choice.

She does it right:

Vote! (Unless you're going to vote stupid. Then don't. Please.)

For the young 'uns that won't know: Ron Mael of the legendary Sparks of olde.

Where the Joy Never Was Before: "Love Will Tear Us Apart" Properly Joyed Up

I took some time off from this blog. Was busied with other things. In that time had a daughter grow into womanhood with an appreciation of (much of the music that) I love too. She also tells me I need to move myself into the 21st century. I promise to do that.

But first, a bit of revisiting done proper. Recommended for anyone who needs a lift right now – and really, who doesn't?

Cats: Punk AF

What's your petty, whining anarchy compared to a cat's?

Long-hair Metal Poodles Come Up Short! (Sorry Ethiopia)

For a generation drunk on histrionic power ballads, coke, over-indulgent fashion, and the constant threat of thermonuclear war, Live Aid may've seemed the perfect sedative:
The problem: A severe drought in Ethiopia causing catastrophic stress on food resources. This in turn made worse by the abuses of a ruthless local government. Eventually, as many as 8.5 million would be effected.
The response: Back when televisions bulged thicker than the Berlin Wall, the West witnessed the catastrophe play out from the distance of the evening news. The leaky-bleaky hearts of rock's (white) elite community would be spurred into action, or song at least. This spur would eventually take the form of Band Aid in 1984, and then Live Aid a year later.

The brainchild of Irish and Scottish do-gooders and middling has-been rockers Bob Geldof (Boomtown Rats who was temporarily knighted for his effort, the Irish) and Midge Ure (bubble-gum era Ultravox, the Scottish). Beginning successfully with the recording of Do They Know It's Christmas under the moniker Band Aid, the record raised $24 million. (It'd be re-recorded in 1989 and 2004.)

Live Aid was to be a double concert extravaganza that would live telecast a simultaneous performance from both sides of the Atlantic (London and Philadelphia). The event would also inspire same-day concerts around the world including the Soviet Union, Japan, Canada, and Australia. For its part, the London concert would famously feature The Greatest Live Performance in the History of Rock Music! 

In the end, the positive effect of Live Aid has been the subject of debate. It was estimated that the concerts ultimately raised $225 million (£150 million) – that's $526 million in 2018 dollars. Though, it was later estimated that a fat portion of that money was siphoned off by the country's ruthless president and, even more sadly, the starving in Ethiopia only continued, being even worse today.

Back to the viking north of 1985: Wanting to toss their coins to the cause, Sweden responded with their own fund-raising performance featuring 80 of its top metal poodles, blonder than the Playboy mansion grotto and enough flammable hair product to fuel several Hindenburgs. With heaving hearts and unctuous vocalizing, the moussed mob stood together and sang a Joey Tempest ditty (he from the Swedish band best remembered for The Final Countdown) written for the cause: Give a Helping Hand. Take note: The pitchiness in the video may've been an omen: The record sold a paltry 50,000 copies – not enough to cover even Live Aid's craft services. (Though, note that the gender representation is far better than Live Aid’s)

Beyond simply fueling sniggers for our endless amusement, the vid may've also documented the last dying gasps of Nordic hair metal. Several years later the much rawer genres of death and black metal would become all the rage in the hinterlands and these coiffed cuties would be curbed for evermore.

Morricone in the Raw

Hipsters have long thought Ennio Morricone was golden cool. This old Italian dude just thinks it’s goodtime music.

If you've seen any of Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti western” Dollars Trilogy (or man with no name trilogy) and heard Morricone's score, you may be amazed at the unique palette of sounds. This was borne out the films’ low budgets and the inability to afford a full orchestra. Instead, Morricone used gunshots, cracking whips, whistle, voices, jew’s harp, trumpets, and the new Fender electric guitar which set his soundtracks far apart from what were the orchestral conventions of Western standards à la John Ford.

In that vein, the old dude’s raw tribute does Morricone its proper justice.

The Genius of Animals: Transcribed Beasts Crying for Beats

Why is this happening only now? A composer transcribes birdsong and the result is strikingly similar to the quirky 12 tone mannerisms of Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg of a hundred years ago. Why hasn't a hip hop producer put bird loops or whale song (see below) to beats yet?

Pete Wyer is British so his bird melodies will have a particularly limey bent – blackbirds, robins, chaffinches, goldfinches, wrens, song thrushes, and maybe an odd parakeet in the mix. The piece was created by working from recordings of birdsong, slowing them down, and transcribing them for human voices.

The actual singing begins at 1:20:



John Cage took a similar swing at whale music in 1980. The piece is described as a 25-minute monody with two uncannily similar voices (Alan Bennett and Paul Elliott) using only five notes in antiphonal phrases. The piece will require patience. It sounds much like a Gregorian chant or other early music.