I loved this when it came out. I would have only been like 8 but it got played to death on the regional radio station of my childhood 3MA when I lived in Buronga. Of course I wouldn't have realised the Stevie Nicks connection. Maybe I thought it was Fleetwood Mac though, I mean it's co-produced by Lindsay Buckingham. I think I actually only learnt that a year or two back!
This was on a hits compilation (Chartbusters?) when I was like 10. I wouldn't have realised who he was until at least 5 years later. I remember my sister thinking he was a bit of alright. I dunno though, he's stacked on a few pounds and isn't as cool as he was during the Rumours/Tusk era or even circa The Dance. Is this a good tune? I have no idea. I can't get it out of my head though.
What I've been tryin to get to for a while now is this: Gene Clark's No Other. Here's another record I don't really need to talk about as some of the greats have written about it here and here. Anyway this is a record that is still building its cult. It'll probably be 5 to 10 years before he gets to that stage that, I dunno, someone like Nick Drake ended up in 10 years ago. A sort of saturation point where you've gone from cult figure to everyone who's ever gonna know about you knowing about you. I guess Rodriguez is reaching this position now, sure a doco helps! As does an Academy Award for said doco. Anyway David Geffen apparently pumped a hundred grand into Clark's magnificent 1974 opus and upon receiving it in the flesh promptly chucked it in the bin in a hissy fit because it only had 8 songs. Geffen refused to promote the LP and it came and went in a flash. Clark's career never recovered and he allegedly became a tragic figure until he died in 1991 before the No Other cult had gained much momentum. This LP is up there with the best 70s West Coast records by Fleetwood Mac,Steely Dan, Sly Stone and Dennis Wilson and could possibly be the best of the lot. I reckon we definitely get our $100,000 worth. It's lush. It's sublime. This album is the perfect amalgamation of songs, performance and production. It does not get much better than this if indeed it does at all! There's something intangibly magic about this LP and framing it in Gram Parson's term 'Cosmic Americana' doesn't do it justice. This ain't no hippy hillbilly record. However there is a dichotomy at work here. Clark wrote this album during a deep spiritual time but then recorded it in the grips of out of control cocaine use/abuse. An interesting footnote to Australian readers is that Venetta Fields, yes she of John Farnham's band, sings backing vocals on the trax Life's Greatest Fool & Some Misunderstanding.
Well I was trying not to be obv with my drums pick. Before I remembered that great Not Drowning Waving track It was The Chain all the way!
Well really it was gonna be Tusk but we thought that way too obv as well.
More Drums
It must be admitted here and now the Mrs a lovely Welsh lady was seen once air drumming to this track with a little help from her friends Death Proof stylee but it was only at home, not in a car so she didn't die.
*Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat/Fugazi & Dego & Mac of 4Hero were both at the forefront of Hardcore lineages albeit very different ones but funny that they were both straight edge. I didn't even realise when I was writing that the other day. Also both had a Mac in the group. Can I somehow get a Fleetwood Mac connection here as well? I fuckin' doubt it as they were the antitheses of straight edge.....er....all 3 had great rhythm sections. If you can call what 4Hero had a rhythm section?
**After purchasing Torque, the compilation on No U Turn from 97, the other day I realised that in fact I knew most of those tracks either from the radio, clubs, a friend of mine-some kind of osmosis anyway and hey me likey very much.
***Discussions among a few different people recently has ended up in this question: What ever happened to R & B? That lineage seems to have come to a halt doncha think?
****What about Hip Hop? A lost cause or what?
*****Indie Rock? Any life left in that? I doubt it.
******What about Exotic-Retro Psych/Funk/Rock and its Hybrids? Those compilations seem to be arriving less & less. I think I've only bought 2 this year. One from Iran and one from West Africa.
*******Is there anything out there apart from Skrillex & K-Pop?
Here's the only track off the new LP that I can find on the youtubes, it reminds me a little of The Go-Betweens well instrumentally anyway because nobody sings like Ariel does. Just listening to the album again and is it Tina Turner on Baby? I'm thinking now these tracks could've been recorded anywhere between The Doldrums and Before Today. It's more upfront in it's new waviness ie. not swathed in so much hiss or noise but also not as overtly Hi-Fi or reverby as Before Today.
*What I meant by it not being his In Utero (Nirvana's follow up to Nevermind) is that he wasn't trying to go back to street cred/noncommercial roots due to a loss of nerve ala Cobain Stylee. You know second guessing himself and all that and being torn between mainstream and indie culture. I don't think Before Today sold that many units for Ariel to be having such an artistic/existential dilemma of this kind. It was probably good in the end that it wasn't his Nevermind (Before Today that is) now.
*And what I meant by it not being Ariel's Dirty (SYs 2nd major label LP) Sonic Youth's follow up to Goo their first LP for a major label. On Dirty is where Sonic Youth went off with budgets and production and everything. They went OTT and it was a brilliant move but a hard one to come back from. I think at the time time Thurston was calling it their Aerosmith LP. They had the opportunity to make a massive budget album so they just said why the fuck not?! Ariel going way more Hi-Fi would have been good too or ending up with something like a Tusk (Fleetwood Mac's follow up to the multi-platinum Rumours) which was great but weird and well Mr Pink already ticks those boxes.
*I had this whole theory a couple of years ago now that Before Today was his Nevermind. But instead of him pilfering from ten years of the whole of the American underground you know Flipper, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Wipers, Mission of Burma, Black Flag, Scratch Acid, Big Black, Dinosaur Jnr, Meat Puppets, UK Post Punk and Metal, that Ariel Just pilfered from his own 10 years (at least) of underground activities as he really was the only happening thing in the US in the 00s bar a couple of misc. artists. I really thought that's what Before Today was his very own Nevermind. You know a cleaned up radio friendly version of the past 10 years for the masses to consume in vast quantities. Then when he was on Jimmy Fallon I thought yeah he's gonna do it! It was weird after like 8 or 9 records that all of a sudden someone was willing to throw money at him. He was nearly forgotten then all these acolytes turned up, swarms of them, and putting out good records as well (just before the signing/recording of Before Today). I had all these other parallels that I can't remember now something about gender issues Rape Me/Menopause Man similarities, the effeminate, being a female identified male heterosexual........... was the gist of it. So maybe it was happening in reverse-now there's going to be ten years of other groups underground activities inspired by A.Pink (we'd already be in our 4th or 5th year anyhow) I don't know how many units he shifted of his last LP. I suppose he got halfway......well probably not even that far. You know what they say in showbiz 'better to be lukewarm than hot.' He's always been hot with me but you know what I mean?
There were even image parallels. That's Ariel not Kurt!
*When I said his other classic 8 I meant from The Doldrums onwards including Oddities Sodomies Vol 1. & The Holy Shit EP. Haunted Graffiti 1:Underground is good but it's not in the same league as the rest.
God I could on forever. Don't get me started Peter Hook, Tina Weymouth, The Contortions, Gang of Four, The Fall, The Moodists, ESG, The Slits, Ian Rilen, The Pop Group, 70s reggae, PIL, liquid Liquid, Joseph K, Can, every band from the 60s, Michael Henderson, Bootsy fuckin Collins, every soul/funk band from USA in the 70s, Paul McCartney, Fire Engines, Minutemen, Jon Entwhistle, Died Pretty, Pete Wells, Gary Gary Beers, Mark Ferrie, James Freud, Steve Hanley, Andy Rourke, Bruce Lose/Will Shatter, Debbie Googe, Grant McLennan, Steve Kilbey, Kim Deal........somebody stop me.
Just one Fleetwood Mac track
Me & the Mrs agreed on this one.
The Chain
Now this one is a bit more complicated because there' kinda 2 basslines. They're both great but that synth bass wow. Fucking awesome Nick Launay production and performances from Duffield and Freud.
Hmmm...Do you think The Flaming Lips, Built To Spill, My Morning Jacket and Turdlake were into The Mac?
So don't tell me all of a fuckn' sudden you like The Mac!
