Chris Ryan

Neil Young – The Troubling Duality of “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere”

Posted on May 11, 2014 by chrisryanwrites

It is impossible to pick the definitive Neil Young album because he has put out so many classics. Some will say the easy choice is Decade but I am working with a rule that anthologies and greatest hits and live albums are separate entities. We will discuss some classics from those categories at a later date, but for now we are discussing classic albums of once new work from artists we want to celebrate.

Thus the problem.

Neil has too many that fit into this “classic” criteria. So I have to resort to personal choice for favorite classic Neil. And that is Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. Yes, I love Harvest, and On the Beach, and Tonight’s The Night, and so many more, but the all time most classic for me is Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. One of the reasons is because there is a troubling duality to this work; it is at once gloriously light and free, but at the same time can be seen as something very, very dark. After all these years, I still hear both, and it continues to fascinate.

Let’s drop the needle…

“Cinnamon Girl” lets us know, from the first thickly fuzzed, slightly sloppy chords, that we are in vital territory. Neil always sounds especially right with Crazy Horse, and here he creates an ode to the ultimate band girlfriend, a woman as ephemeral as all of our romantic dreams. We never find out much about her beyond “my baby loves to dance” but the speaker is clearly attracted. And here we have our first hint of trouble. This song is more about the speaker, “a dreamer in pictures, I run in the night” and the lyrics suggest there may be more than one girl who fits his profile, “the drummer relaxes and waits between sets for his cinnamon girl” and “I could be happy the rest of my life with a cinnamon girl”. She is an ideal, a specific type, and only in retrospect later in the album does this become worrisome.

Perhaps my favorite Neil song ever (and that is saying a lot) is “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere”. I knew most of the other songs in this album from Decade, but one hot summer hanging out in Roger’s family apartment, drinking beers to cool down because there was no escaping the baking heat inside or outside the lab rat maze that was Parkchester in The Bronx, he tossed this album on, and it became the soundtrack of that summer. When I met this song. I was not a country music fan, but this is indisputably country, with a catchy Neil guitar hook, and lyrics that spoke directly to how we felt about where we lived. It just vibrated summer, and made the place more livable. Even today, as I enjoy where I live, this song transports me to that summer, in that place, with that beer, and I am grateful for the trip. However, the ideas in this song, the boredom, the lunatic “lalalala lalalalas”, they all flip on the listener later, as does the coda “everybody knows, everybody knows….”

“Round & Round (It Won’t Be Long)” extends that summer feeling while also thickening this loose plot of boredom and the slightly asylumesque undertone; this song could go either way. Easy going and lyrical, this mellow tune is a dream starter, almost hypnotic in feel, with just enough hints about dealing with your own shortcomings to inspire some quiet reflection, or maybe something more … off. Even the backing vocals here that are always slightly behind Neil, like Robin Lane is singing with the radio, or is out of phase with the speaker’s narrative about “losing inside”. And then there is this: “How slow and slow it goes, to mend the tear that always shows, it won’t be long, now the hours will bend through this time that you spend ’til you turn to your eyes, and you see your best friend looking over the end, and you turn to see why, and he looks in your eyes, and he cries…”

Uh oh.

And then, it’s on.

“Down By a The River” is so many things at once; mellow groove, masterful coming together of the Neil Young and Crazy Horse sound, classic harmonies, and the soft, calm narration of …. a murder?

What the Hell?

This has been a question considered, discussed, and grooved to for the song’s entire history. Neil is not a violent man (Crazy Horse solos aside), and these lyrics stand apart from his usual topics, and can be troubling if considered too closely. (I would have hated to read about some guy who was high and listening to this when he did violence to his girlfriend. Thank God I never have). But this track is so disturbing it alters the perception of the rest if the album.

Meanwhile, the band embarks on one of the all-time great slow jams of the era, and definitely of Neil’s career, allowing us time to consider, really consider, the lyrics. That basically one-note lead doesn’t give us much relieve either, allowing us to focus on what is going on here, and maybe suggesting a bit, too. Talk about saying a lot with a little.

And then the soft, calm, mournful Neil voice is back, “This much sadness is too much sorrow, it’s impossible to make it today….” Somehow perfect, and worrisome again because it leads into the troubling chorus, “Down by the river, I shot my baby…”

The second instrumental break is more elaborate. I suspect Danny Whitten takes lead here, but I am not sure. In any event, this is Neil and Crazy Horse at their musical best, at least for my ears and soul.But the lyrics, oh those haunting lyrics, “She could drag me over the rainbow and send me away,” followed by repeated confession. If a murderer confesses his crime where no one can hear him, is anyone saved? Or safe?

“The Losing End (When You’re On)” is another country song, though the lyrics are universal. The singer is looking for someone, talks to some others, bums about it being “so hard to make love pay when you’re on the losing end, and I feel that way again.” We understood this feeling even before our own heartbreaks, when we were yearning for that unapproachable girl, or whatever, or in fact going through our own break ups. But he’s also kind of pulled us in as accomplices. If this song is taking place after “Down by the River” and if it is the same speaker, suddenly we are in the head of a murderer after the deed, and wonder exactly what he is doing. And, having recognized ourselves in the lyrics, what does that say about us?

“Running Dry (Requiem For The Rockets)” is another misty, ghostly Neil tune, with Bobby Notkoff’s violin weaving around this mournful song of remorse, but who’s remorse? “I left the girl I loved with water in her eyes… I’m sorry for the things I’ve done, I’ve shamed myself with lies, cruelty has punctured me and now I’m running dry, I’m sorry for the things I’ve done, but soon these things are old and done and can’t be recognized.” I always wondered if the speaker here is the same guy from “Down by the River” mourning, then rationalizing himself away from guilt and responsibility before moving on to the “Cowgirl in The Sand”. If so, this album takes on an ominous undertone. I hope not…..

“Cowgirl in The Sand” starts out as if the band is just fiddling around, then boom, we are there, walking up the dune to the beach. This opening instrumental prelude can be cool, or, if we consider the meaning of the last few songs, it can be heard as the soundtrack for the killer arriving and stalking his next prey. “Hello cowgirl in the sand, is this place at your command?” The weight of this theory is too much; I prefer to argue that the narrative does not hold up (though the minor notes in the song can be offered as threatening this poor girl). Lyrically, this song is merely a come on, a hello, a hope that something connects and the cowgirl will pat the blanket next to her and invite the speaker to stay. But the edge of the long interlude, the attack of that guitar solo, opens darker possibilities. What if these were the come on lines that the speaker used when he met the girl who ultimately ended up “Down By a the River”? For that matter, is that song telling the fate of the “Cinnamon Girl”? It is too much to consider, but the dark music….

This is a testament to the power of “Down by the River” that I am still worried four songs later. And that it flips the whole album for me. So, is this a beautiful album full of love and hope and escape from boredom, or is it a concept album told from the perspective of a serial killer?

Neil, after all these years, you are still killing me….

</ Ryan is author of City of Woe, available on Kindle and Nook, and in print. For more info, click here.<

Posted in America, love, Music, pop culture, writing | Tagged #classicrock, #CrazyHorse, #murder, #music, #NeilYoung, #rocktalk | Leave a comment

“David Johansen” Might be the Perfect Album

Posted on May 4, 2014 by chrisryanwrites

While reading One Way Out a really strong, engaging oral history of The Allman Brothers Band, I began thinking about all the great music I grew up with, and how so much of it is now being relegated to fading memory. I believe it deserves more, so I am going to revisit these albums, and write my impressions, share the memories they conjure, and I hope they spark renewed interest in the music and stir up your memories of when and where you were when you heard this great art. Please feel free to share those memories and your impressions of the music here. Let’s keep our love alive for the work of these great artists.

In 1978, I’m a junior in high school, and like most guys that age, I really don’t have a clue. Or, to be more accurate, I have thousands of clues but no idea which ones are true, or matter, but I am learning.

The crowd I hung around with loved Zeppelin, so I listened, and then I did too. My brother Soupy told me Bob Dylan and the Allman Brothers Band were required, so I listened, and agreed. A friend Kevin turned me onto Yes and Frampton and Elton John, and I connected with those as well. Roger turned me onto Genesis and Peter Gabriel; mind blown.

And then their was Head. This friend was given this nickname because he had a uniquely shaped noggin, but that wasn’t his greatest attribute. Head’s true talent was being ahead of the curve musically. He was into Aerosmith with “Get Your Wings” right before they exploded with “Toys in the Attic”, Nugent before he broke big (and wayyy before his current incarnation), Judas Priest before they made it, and so on. He was uncanny.

He once casually sold me the New York Dolls “Too Much Too Soon” and shattered my definition of music as a visceral experience.

And then he turned me onto David Johansen’s debut solo album. All the other music was fun and great and amazing, but David Jo’s album hit me right to my core, energizing my then youthful spirit, my imagination, my idea of what New York City was, and my sense of what rocked my feet, my fists, and my heart.

I have never been the same.

With help from fellow Doll Sylvain Sylvain and guests including Joe Perry, Felix Cavaliere, Nona Hendryx, and Seventies violinist-to-rock-stars Scarlet Rivera, the album’s sound was dirty, sloppy, beautiful, and always right there with you. Sometimes it was huge, with guitars slamming into horns, chasing bass lines, other times it was just a the sound of heartbreak in the form of Rivera’s mournful violin, or broken down cafe piano that built to … well, at that age, it built to a whole world.

For me, this album was the defining sound of lower Manhattan, the Bowery, the Village when I first began sneaking down there to check out that wild, dangerous, creative scene, sneak into the record stores and book shops, and, a little while later, the pubs and small concert venues.

“David Johansen” was my introduction to entire genre of rock, a lifestyle, a life. And it has never really left me. So let’s celebrate.

From the first drum roll into the dirty guitar and rhythm groove of “Funky But Chic” I always get energized. I find it impossible not to dance to this song. Not club dancing, David Jo-style moving, like Jagger in a dive bar. The words shuffle on the edge of logic and they don’t care if you understand them or not — If you do, you’re in, if not, you gotta go. man. This is party as lifestyle, bopping down the sidewalk in the Bowery or the Village, or, for me, The Bronx. i wanted those shoes that made him “feel rockin’.” Still do.

“Girls” summed up all my desires about the opposite sex at that age. The excitement of being around them, thinking about them, seeing one walking down the street, as adolescent and goofy as it was, that was exactly who I was in 1978, and so was just about every cool guy I knew. Girls were magic, as sexist as that sounds. They were our obsession and our aspiration and the reason we strived to accomplish anything. These days, I have been married 27 years and most of my motivation is still to impress the Girl. Some things don’t change, ancient primal attraction is one of them, and this song celebrates it.

“Pain in My Heart” starts like a second cousin to the Doll’s “Stranded in the Jungle” but then comes right back down to reality, and heartbreak. As an awkward teen, I lived with this pain constantly, and when this rollicking song came on, everything was better. That’s the pure power of Rock’n’Roll and Johansen delivers it with a special immediacy and approachability that just doesn’t age. Great song.

Can we pause for a moment to talk about David Johansen’s voice. His is the kind of voice that gets thrown out of the church choir. And the Glee Club. Low and rough-edged and infused with that glorious New York City accent. Part croon, part shout, part blues, part ragged howl, part heartbreak, and part joyful yelp, Johansen’s voice shouldn’t work at all. But it does, every time, because every “flaw” is laced with character, each supposed defect is infused with heart. No matter what he is singing about, David Jo means it to the core of his being and that’s what connects us to the Dolls, and his solo work (such as this gem), and every other persona he’s embraced. Thank God for his voice.

“Not That Much” sounds like an Aerosmith song on a really cool day in the studio. There’s a good reason for that; Joe Perry handles the lead guitar work here. The crunchy fuzz of the groove is enough to make this a classic, but the lyrics are a treatise on reluctant love and the burden of past traumas on a relationship that is mired in past pain — “compared to what she had to do last year” — and is paid off in the very last line — “to all the times her heart was full of FEAR!”

“Donna”. Oh my God, what a heartbreaking ballad. When I heard this, I fell in love with Donna, too, whoever she was. And I played the Hell out of this after every break up. My parents were probably were wondering who this Donna was in the neighborhood who kept crushing me. David Jo does melodrama so well, and this song is an Oxygen channel movie waiting to happen, just so much cooler. The guy sounds like he’s on a street under a dim lamppost singing up to a tenement window. And the coda suggests he’s there all night looking up, waiting for just one more chance.

This album came out back when albums were albums, heaven sent vinyl. With two sides. And how each side started was always key. Side two here starts off like the launching of a rock concert, or the roaring of the coolest Mustang down your street, windows open blaring that sound of rebellious freedom and lust and owning the night. “Cool Metro” is the kind of cool song that echoes the Dolls and Aerosmith and the Stones, and that feeling on a summer’s night when you were with all your friends and everything was possible and probable and this was the greatest place on Earth, not matter where it was. “I FEEL COOOOOOL!” Yeah, boyyyyyy. All this plus Perry again. Perfect.

“I’m A Lover” starts with Jo talking heart to heart with his love, then slams into pure Dolls, complete with the most attitude-filled “yeah, yeah, yeah” chorus in all of rock. Sylvain Sylvain is all over this song. Pre-rap bravado sounds best like this. Against a wall of raunchy energy, David Jo declares “I wanna be your man! So what if it’s all true? I wanna be whichu!” Fantastic.

The last two tracks are the best. Melodrama rules in “Lonely Tenement” as tragic as “Porgy and Bess” and as beautiful. The heartbreaking victims in this song work their damnedest to survive, but times have gotten tough on all levels, and they are hanging on through the worst of it. Scarlet Rivera soars above the over-the-top arrangement, all heartache and bemoaning of life, simultaneously, all catharsis. It sounds like the darker parts of New York City, at a time when The Bronx was burning, the Sanitation Department was striking, the City was going broke, and President Ford was telling it to go to Hell. What a song….

“Frenchette” made me replace this record a few times. As Head once said, I played the grooves off that record. perfect heartbreak/screw it song. Everything is less that the singer wants it to be, so he does what we’ve been doing the whole album, he escapes into the music. “I can’t get the kid of love I want, so let’s just dance, and I’ll forget.” This song pushed all the buttons, acknowledging what wasn’t working, the painful disparity between what we dreamed about, lusted after, romanced about, and the colder reality that stubbornly existed, and then offered a way to make it better. All in one cathartic build that to this day never let’s me down. This song may very well be the cure for heartache, and it is the perfect transcendent finale to a truly classic album.

Let’s just dance.

</ Ryan is author of City of Woe, available on Kindle and Nook, and in print. For more info, click here.<

Posted in America, Music, Uncategorized, writing | Tagged #classicrock, #DavidJohansen, #music, #NewYorkCity, #NewYorkDolls, #rock, #Seventies, #SylvainSylvain | 5 Comments

Music Mondays: Steely Dan’s The Royal Scam

Posted on April 27, 2014 by chrisryanwrites

While reading One Way Out a really strong, engaging oral history of The Allman Brothers Band, I began thinking about all the great music I grew up with, and how so much of it is now being relegated to fading memory. I believe it deserves more, so I am going to revisit these albums, and write my impressions, share the memories they conjure, and I hope they spark renewed interest in the music and stir up your memories of when and where you were when you heard this great art. Please feel free to share those memories and your impressions of the music here. Let’s keep our love for the work of these great artists.

My wife can’t stand Steely Dan. Not the music, which she terms “okay”. It is Donald Fagan’s voice. I’ve often wondered what it is about Fagan’s voice that puts her on edge. Sure, he’s not the most-vocally gifted performer, but my goddess loves Jagger, who never set standards for tone or range, has accepted my Dylan worship (vocally, enough said), and an entire range of blues and punk and even Neil Young. Tone isn’t the main problem. Listening to this week’s album, I think I understand what she loathes. My wife is an infinitely positive person, a woman of faith, a peacefully passive, positive soul. Fagan? He is a scathing, mockingly sarcastic man of caustic cynicism, a grim agitator with a slouching, smirking soul that misses no tricks and sings about all of them.

And, sorry honey, I love him for it.

This is only one of the elements that make Steely Dan’s material so classic. And while we will eventually have to discuss their other work, including Aja, which deserves its own blog entry, this is about forgotten classics, and The Royal Scam is most definitely that.

Other Dan albums have a hits, but I always prefer their deep cuts. Can’t Buy A Thrill has “Do It Again” and “Reeling in the Years” though I prefer “Dirty Work”, Countdown to Ecstasy has “Showbiz Kids” and “My Old School” while I prefer “The Boston Rag” (oh God, thy name is Skunk Baxter), Pretzel Logic has “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” while I prefer “Any Major Dude” and “With a Gun” Katy Lied has “Bad Sneakers” but the entire album is amazing.

The Royal Scam doesn’t really have a hit. Some might argue that “Kid Charlemagne” still gets occasional airplay but even that tends to be categorized as a deep cut. And this is why The Royal Scamis my choice for Steely Dan’s forgotten classic album; the entire album is deep cuts!

When researching this album, I noticed it came out in 1976. While the rest of the country was celebrating the Bicentennial and the rock world was overwhelmingly embracing the pop positiveness ofFrampton Comes Alive, Steely Dan unleashed arguably their most scathing album.

Unrelenting in its skeptical view of the world and it’s rich, textured, dynamic musical arrangements and killer grooves, this album flies in the face of all the hopes and smiles of the age.

Damn, I love this album.

Even the ugly-ass cover makes sense. Steely Dan do not see the beauty of what is going on around them, even while contributing to it with lush, complex playing. But this album isn’t classic because of the cover, so let’s get to the music.

We open with “Kid Charlemagne” and from the first punching note of bass and cymbals, it is on. This is going to challenge us, groove us while it does, but boom, we’re in it. “Did you feel like Jesus?” “Could you live forever?” “Could you feel your whole world fall apart and fade away?” “You are obsolete. Look at all the white men on the street.” The happily sung, almost jinglistic lyrics are steeped in pessimistic, mocking revelry at a fallen idol. In 1976. Damn, that is amazing. And can we discuss the pocket the musicians are playing in? Holy Moses, that syncopated groove is complex and pure, intricate and organic, all at the same time. I will argue that track for tack, The Royal Scam has some of The Dan’s best playing.

The opening, doomish horn notes of “The Caves of Altamira” continues the tone of this album, but most of the rest of the song sounds so positive, until the chorus. “Before the fall when they wrote it on the wall when there wasn’t even any Hollywood” “the beast without a name”, all these ominous lines are sung with game show happiness, and that only makes them more intriguing. The horn solo, the groove, the horn section, man this is a huge sounding song. Should have been a hit. If America could have handled it.

“Don’t Take Me Alive” opens with a wrenching solo by Walter Becker that is enough reason to call the song classic. Then Fagan starts in, “Agents of the law, luckless pedestrian, I know you’re out there with rage in your eyes and your megaphones….” This song about a fugitive barricaded in and surrounded by law enforcement shows us a mind on the edge of the abyss. Considering all that’s happened since ’76, maybe The Dan were on to something. Great playing, great sound, even great singing on this one (sorry, hon). “I got a case of dynamite, I could hold out here all night. I crossed my old man back in Oregon, don’t take me alive.”

“Sign in Stranger” is the more dangerous cousin to “Hotel California” with its similar setting but way more lethal lyrics, “You zombie, be born again, my friend. Won’t you sign in, stranger?” Among the great riffing piano and jaunty music, it is easy to miss one of the in-jokes about Steely Dan; most of the time, their lyrics do not hold up to close scrutiny. Here the lyrics almost become non sequiturs reflecting what little made sense in that era, but their weight is saved by the gorgeous playing, as always.

To further that point, we have “The Fez”. The entire, almost Latin dance number has only one lyric, “You’re never gonna do it without your Fez on, oh no.” With only a break line “That’s what I am, please understand, I wanna be your holy man” accompanying it. The rest is soap opera cha-cha ballroom back alley groove, all at once. Perfect.

The much more urgent “Green Earrings” has a bass line to heal your soul with the rest of the arrangement built around it, audibly at least. Fagan confidently delivers another lyrical collections of important-sounding images that are strung together more through the tastefully playing than any coherent narrative. God, the music here is luscious and awesome. “Green earrings, I remember the rings of rare design, I remember the look I your eye….” The look is from the playing, Don, not the earrings. Hot damn.

“Haitian Divorce” almost laughs right from the first wah-wahhing riff. A Caribbean if not Jamaican rhythm underscores Fagan’s deep black cynicism, loosely commenting on more of our crumbling of society, and the celebrating in the ruins that is so often central to America’s excesses. “No tears and no heartbreaking, no remorse, this is your Haitian Divorce.” Again, I think of The Eagles’ Hotel California and how this album kind of takes that one into a back alley and beats it with a lead pipe.

“Where did the bastard run is he still around? Now you’ve got to tell me everything you did, baby.” That’s how “Everything You Did” begins. Confession time, America! Fagan even mentions the aforementioned hit makers, “Turn up The Eagles the neighbors are listening” using them to cover the horrors to come.

And those horrors culminate in “The Royal Scam”. From the first ominous notes, the driving beat, and the one keyboard note held dissonantly throughout the opening, we can feel that Armageddon has come while we slept. “And they wandered in from the city of St. John without a dime….” Image after image of doom and ruin and conquest and fear and babbling for gold pile up while the music builds over that straight ahead, militaristic beat. Almost Biblical in its vague prophecies, the lyrics suggest the society they are reflecting as truly being full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, “See the glory of the Royal Scam.”

Indeed.

</ Ryan is author of City of Woe, available on Kindle and Nook, and in print. For more info, click here.<

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Music Mondays: Lost Classic – Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes’ I Don’t Want to go Home

Posted on April 20, 2014 by chrisryanwrites

</ Ryan is author of City of Woe, available on Kindle and Nook, and in print. For more info, click here.<

Posted in America, love, Music, pop culture | Tagged #classicrock, #Jersey, #Jerseyrock, #music, #rocktalk, #seventies #Bruce #LittleSteven, #SouthsideJohnny | 2 Comments

Music Mondays: Rainbow and Deep Purple

Posted on April 13, 2014 by chrisryanwrites

While reading One Way Out a really strong, engaging oral history of The Allman Brothers Band, I began thinking about all the great music I grew up with, and how so much of it is now being relegated to fading memory. I believe it deserves more, so I am going to revisit these albums, and write my impressions, share the memories they conjure, and I hope they spark renewed interest in the music and stir up your memories of when and where you were when you heard this great art. Please feel free to share those memories and your impressions of the music here. Let’s keep our love for the work of these great artists.

Remember when album covers were works of art we’d stare at foray entire side of the record? Ahhh, the digital generation will never know the joys of the album cover, will they? And few covers are as memorable as Rainbow Rising. Full disclosure, I have painted the cover of Rainbow Rising more than any other picture in my life. At least three “dungaree” jackets were adorned with my half-assed recreation of this outstanding pulp painting.

And the cover is just the beginning of this classic album that may very well embody the moment when “hard rock” turned into “heavy metal” (I look forward to your debates on this).

Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow grew out of Deep Purple, which we will discuss in a moment. All personal drama aside, this band signified a very different sound to support Blackmore’s rapid fire riffing. While Deep Purple had more swing, Rainbow arguably had more power.

Or should I pronounce that Powell?

Cozy Powell is a force to be reckoned with on this album, a drummer of more athleticism than groove, more dramatic power than rhythmic movement, and the rest of the band responded to that power, fitting their work between Cozy’s driving beat and Blackmore’s fierce guitar work (this madman shredded before the term was invented).

And can we get some love for Ronnie James Dio, perhaps rock’s most perfect sword-and-sorcery writer? On this album, his themes of wizards and supernatural chicks and howling and mystic enslavement bonds
Blackmore’s sound to the pages of Weird Tales and the result is glorious.

The album starts off with “Tarot Woman”. Tony Carey’s eerie keyboards shift from slow and atmospheric to quick and riffy (he was working for Blackmore, after all), and then Blackmore himself rides in from far off, insistent guitar hook rising through the keyboards to the fore just as Powell kicks it into high gear. Dio’s lyrics and vocals are all dread and foreshadowing. Casting magic spells and flying and warnings to beware the fortune teller in question gives Blackmore license to ride herd on all the rhythmic chaos, building, ever building.

Next, we “Run with the Wolf” through an “unholy light” from a “hole in the sky” where “something evil’s passing by” and you “run with the wolf”. Yep, we’re in a werewolf movie. A catchy, rocking werewolf movie, but, still…

We land on earth, sort of, with “Starstruck” but only because the evil here is more earth bound — a crazed groupie stalker. I love the bouncing beat Cozy Powell and bassist Jimmy Bain create, and that Dio somehow makes this as much a monster movie as “Run with the Wolf”.

A pause for romance, please, Dio style. “Do You Close Your Eyes” is still supernatural –“I see a glow around you”– but here Dio is supremely confident, “I know a poor man, a rich man, I know I can talk to a king, so nobody here is gonna make me believe one thing…..” And what does he want to know? Is she a witch? A demon? Is that what he wants to know? Nah, “Do you close your eyes …. When you’re making sweet love to me?” So yeah, a pick up song….

And then onto the opus!

“Stargazer and “A Light in the Black” form an epic tale throughout side two of this album, telling of thousands enslaved by an evil wizard to “build a tower of stone with our flesh and bone, just to see him fly, I don’t know why.” This Dio at his most cinematic, complete with descriptions of setting– “hot winds moving fast across the desert” –and melodramatic build to the climax “in the heat and rain, with whips and chains, just to see him fly” as Blackmore’s extended lead shows us this wizard ascending to his glory, building, building to the very peak of the tower…. until Dio narrates the surprise twist, “All eyes see the figure of the wizard as he climbs to the top of the world! No sound as he falls instead of rising! Time standing still, then there’s blood on the sand. Oh, I see his Face!” The coda allows Dio to characterize the slaves’ confusion, “I see a rainbow rising, out on the horizon, and I’m coming home! Time is standing still, he gave me back my will! … And I’m coming home! ….My eyes are bleeding and my home is… Leaving here!”

Cozy kicks off “A Light in the Black” with power syncopation. This is the tale of the slaves fleeing, confused to be free after so long and so many deaths. “Has he really let us go? All the time that’s lost, what’s the final cost? … What to do now, I don’t know…. Something’s calling me back, a light in the black, and I’m going home!” I was never sure whether the narrator was seeing a light to lead him home to safety or was being pulled back by the so ehow resurrected wizard. And I still don’t….

These two songs formed side two of this classic piece of vinyl and for young teenage boys, well, we were with Blackmore for every riff, the band for all their power jams, and Dio for every B movie horror adventure. A seminal metal album if there ever was one.

Rainbow, however, led me further back, to see the roots of this album by revisiting Deep Purple, Blackmore’s previous group. And while some will argue that Made in Japan is a better representation of the band, the classic work has to be Machine Head. And listening to that album after almost thirty years shocked me. It is full of grooves!

>

Okay, it doesn’t start out grooving. “Highway Star” is stereotypical, an almost one-note driving power song with ridiculous lyrics about loving a car and a girl. In the 70’s, what else did teenage guys really want? Come to think of it, things haven’t really changed, as long as we throw in a Smartphone.

The grooves start with “Maybe I’m a Leo” which pays 70’s white boy Brit tribute to R&B with the rhythm section of drummer Ian Paice and bassist Roger Glover –and keyboardist Jon Lord in the pocket with them– really laying on the slow swampy groove throughout.

“Pictures of Home” splits the difference between the feel of the first two cuts by coming up with a driving groove and climbing bass break that is refreshing in its retro-ness. The jam is cool, but this album should win a “Most in Need of ReMastering” award.

“Never Before” embodies most of the era’s clichés, sounding like Humble Pie for awhile, then like a precursor to the power ballad, then like a blue print for Lynyrd Skynyrd riffing (yes, you read that correctly, go listen).

Next comes the iconic “Smoke on the Water” which, oddly, does not stand out here, mainly because we’ve heard it consistently for three decades. This known commodity does not disappoint, however, as the plodding first-bass line-we-all-learned still throbs through us, and we’re watching the hotel burn down once more.

The best groove of the album is on “Lazy” which has a great feel and is a fun jam, including a harmonica, perhaps from vocalist Ian Gillan. Simplistic lyrics– “if you’re lazy, just stay in bed” –are time keepers until the jam starts, which is worth the price of download all by itself.

But just in case some aren’t going to be convinced yet, “Space Truckin'” brings us to real metal groove jamming. “Come on, let’s go space truckin'” is as silly seventies as it gets, but the jam still brings me back behind the ballfield with Bud nips and lots of guys standing around a portable radio turned up full blast.

I came away from this visit believing Blackmore was more musical with Deep Purple, more powerful with Rainbow. But both albums offer rich rewards for those who loved them oh so long ago. Is it too late for us to go Space Truckin’? Nah, just turn it up, reallllll loud….

</ Ryan is author of City of Woe, available on Kindle and Nook, and in print. For more info, click here.<

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Music Mondays: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Posted on April 6, 2014 by chrisryanwrites

While reading One Way Out a really strong, engaging oral history of The Allman Brothers Band, I began thinking about all the great music I grew up with, and how so much of it is now being relegated to fading memory. I believe it deserves more, so I am going to revisit these albums, and write my impressions, share the memories they conjure, and I hope they spark renewed interest in the music and stir up your memories of when and where you were when you heard this great art. Please feel free to share those memories and your impressions of the music here. Let’s keep our love for the work of these great artists.

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Elton John just put out a completely remastered, super-deluxe boxed set version of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Is there another album that deserves such lush treatment as much as this one? I doubt it.

A double album so stocked with hits that more than a half dozen songs still have life on classic rock radio formats, including “Candle in The Wind” which has been a top hit on the charts in three successive decades, and arguably, it isn’t even the best song in this amazing collection.

Beyond the hits, I suspect there is a strong reason why this album continues to be such a masterpiece; it represents the 70’s so well as to, from the distance of 40 years now, stand as an accurate artifact representing the decade that birthed it. The population of Goodbye a Yellow a Brick Road is decadent, indulgent, self-centered, and, very often, dead. The body count of this album is pretty astounding for such a lush, happy-sounding disc. Glorious, exciting, inventive, adventurous, self-distructive, fatal, and full of love, that pretty much sums up the album … and the era.

The remaster offers the most fantastic versions I have ever heard of these songs. Incredible job, opening new depths and details, and pulling the listener in like the first time this album was put on turntables. Hard to do in the often cold sounding digital age.

Let’s start with “Funeral for A Friend” which, of course, opens the album with wind and eerie howls and ominous church bells, then organ. Where’s Vincent Price when you need him? Sumptuous and gothic, the opening suggests nothing about what is to come, but is a perfect opening any way, especially once the synthesizer-created horns blare. The piano actually ushers us in, accompanied by a moaning guitar, and we do seem to be walking down the aisle of a church to a funeral, complete with bluesy lead guitar lines. Who are we mourning? The 60’s? The 70’s? The characters in this album’s world? Ourselves? Is this whole collection a eulogy? Then the crackling main melody starts and we take off. The joy rises like the end of a New Orleans funeral (sans that region’s jazzy swing). Drama continues to build, it start sounding like a Hollywood soundtrack. And then…

We’re into “Love Lies Bleeding” and we begin the impossible uptempo singing and music under incredibly downbeat lyrics that defines this project. “Everything about this house was born to grow and die.” And throughout this opus, almost everything does. Simultaneously, love is everywhere on this album. “You’re a bluebird on a telegraph line, I hope you’re happy now. Well, if the wind of change comes down your way, you’ll make it back somehow.” An odd, downbeat hope, and well wishing to the listener while “love lies bleeding in my hand.” These two songs, instrumental and rocker, actually offer a pretty honest blueprint for what’s to come.

“Candle in the Wind” is so well known it is hard to say something new, so I won’t. But this remastering puts you right in the 22nd row alongside Bernie Taupin and Elton John himself, and from a perspective of four decades later, this ode to Marilyn and fame sounds more fatally beautiful than ever. The lush backing vocals really shine here, too. Regret and loss and love and immortality; we’ll see these themes throughout.

From one tragic woman to another, we join the applause for “Benny and the Jets”. The memorabilia-loaded hard bound book that comes in the boxed set includes an essay that identifies this eponymous band as being all-girl, which I never realized. We learn something new every day. This song brings me back to Tony’s candy store in the Bronx, and Creem, Rock Scene, Circus, Circus Raves, Hit Parade, and Rolling Stone magazines (yeah, I read a lot growing up), and the big playground during the summer, when this song eased out of Kevin Haran’s various portable cassette players, his homemade cassette versions of this album adorned with art and graffiti-style labeling.

His art lingers around for “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” as well. This song is so gloriously melancholy, I wonder how it didn’t wreck the feel of the album. But it doesn’t, I suspect, because there is a validation, a triumph in the singer’s declaration of freedom from his victimizer. I often thought of this song as the speaker breaking away from Hollywood, or fame, or riches, to a simpler freedom, in his case, a farm, a more down to earth reality. After Marilyn and Bennie, that’s a triumph.

“This Song Has No Title” harkins back to Elton john’s earlier albums, earlier song writing, but with a much more extravagant arrangement. Here again, death reigns, the artists die and the singer does “cry for the darkness to come down on me” but at the same time there is hope- “if we’re all going somewhere, let’s get there soon”. Does he mean a party, an artistic event, heaven? We never find out.

“Grey Seal” is another mix of the old and the new. I was surprised to learn this was a re-recording because it fits so well here. Another mix of loss and hope, of reality and fantasy, real life and screen life, interior declarations and appeals to the spiritual – “tell me Grey Seal how does it feel to be so wise?” The great instrumental coda may be the only answer we get to that question but it is a damn good one.

I never understood what “Jamaica Jerk-Off” is doing on this album. It fits, but barely, ages more poorly than all the other songs, and is strewn with racial stereotyping. That beat kills, though. Doesn’t forgive the goofy-ass background mugging. And yes, it can be argued to be a love song to Jamaica, but, the island Amos and Andy voices are embarrassing.

Next we hit a streak of hidden treasures, songs that should have been huge hits in addition to all the others off this classic. “I’ve Seen That Movie Too” is lush, bluesy, devastating, cinematic and intimate, a truly great break-up song. My little twelve-year-old ass used to sing my heart out to this one in complete ignorance of what was really being said, the emotions here are that strong. The remastering only brings out the bitter triumph of this kiss off more gorgeously, right down to the heart-rending backwards guitar solo.

“Sweet Painted Lady” is a sailor’s ode to a hooker, a broken, debauched love song from the heart to one who doesn’t love. What a wonderful, singable sexist anthem, which continues that theme of joyous negativity that seems so Seventies. “Getting paid for being laid, I guess that’s the name of the game.” “Love’s just a job and nothing is said.” It sounds so cold but is sung so warmly. I have read about how cold and self-centered this decade was, but I didn’t experience it that way. I was a kid just discovering everything, and it was amazing, especially the avalanche of music is dived under. To me this was a love song (it was awhile before the whole hooker angle really sunk in, ahhhh, youth).

Back to the movies for another great song. “The Ballad of Danny Bailey” is pure narrative, melodious noir, bouncy obit. Lush backing vocals supporting a gangster shoot out. A prohibition tale told like an old Cagney movie. Glorious chorus as the body count rises once more.

Sexism raises its problematic head again for “Dirty Little Girl” but then again, this is a 70’s album. The problem here is that the hook and the energy of the performance make this song so much fun. The lyrics won’t fly these days, but roll up the car windows and sing at the top of your lungs, you know you want to. Just tell yourself this is about one person, not a gender. “Here’s my belief about all the dirty girls…” Damn. …. The song stands up as another hidden gem despite the sexism. And I do still find myself singing along with enthusiasm. Mea culpa, mea culpa.

Perhaps the most glorious of this string of hidden gems is “All The Girls Love Alice”, the devastating tale of the doomed little lost lesbian sex toy for suburban housewives. Yeah, that was a lot for a young kid to digest. “Poor little darling with a chip out of her heart, It’s like acting in a movie when you got the wrong part. Getting your kicks in another girl’s bed, and it was only last Tuesday when they found you in the subway dead…” Alice’s tale of being used to ease boredom is told to a driving, tense, dramatic beat, an urban thriller soundtrack. Another celluloid tragedy on an album full of them. The car crash ending just underscores the devastation here.

And we’re still not done!

We do get a break, though. A bit of Shakespearean comic relief. “Your Sister Can’t Dance (But She Can Rock’N’Roll)” is an Elvis movie, if the King was playing a pedophile. There is no mistaking the lighthearted lust for the sixteen year old that the singer is experiencing. There is no menace, but plenty of desire which may suggest why the next song follows right on its heels.

“Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” sounds like it is sung from the perspective of the previous song’s friend. This one talks about his own sister “looking good in her braces and boots, a handful of grease in her hair”. All this guy wants is another drink “I’m a juvenile product of the working class whose best friend floats in the bottom of a glass” and maybe a fight. Rocking, hard edged, this remains an anthem of stupidity from the same mentality that narrated “My Generation” and may be a flashback from the narrator of the next song.

“Roy Rogers” slows us down, ages us, and we meet an older guy, living in suburbia, and just wanting to watch an old cowboy flick on TV while the wife and kids sleep. Is this what awaits the tough guy if he survives all his Saturday night fighting? Or is it us? Forty years on, many of us are sitting in our comfy chairs and Elton is our evergreen hero on this LP. Oddly sweet, this song means more to me now than it did then, and has become another jewel. Love the hoof beats and cows at the end, too.

“Social Disease” with its country sound and out of kilter narrator has always been problematic for me, but I have a take on it now. This guy represents the others, the ones who didn’t wind up watching comfort television like Roy Rogers, and didn’t find themselves among the body count. This guy is one of those who bought into the debauchery (listen to that sax sounding like the first season or so of Saturday Night Live) and got stuck there. He’s a casualty of the Seventies, still living there, still rocking. Still lost.

And, improbably, it all ends on a love song. But “Harmony” is not a happy ending. This song, too, is bitter, or bittersweet- “Hello, I said hello, Is this the only place you thought to go, Am I the only man you ever had, Or am I just the last surviving friend you know?” And it sounds more and more like Elton’s love-lost ode to the era that saw him at his best. “Harmony and me were pretty good company, looking for an island upon the sea, Harmony, gee, I really love you, and want to love you for ever. I dream of never, never, never leaving Harmony.” With this remaster, it sounds like he never did.

For all it’s contradictions, or because of them, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road continues to be among the very best of the incredibly rich era of classic albums. This fortieth anniversary remaster honors it well.

</ Ryan is author of City of Woe, available on Kindle and Nook, and in print. For more info, click here.&gt
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Posted in America, love, Music, pop culture, teenagers, Uncategorized, writing | Tagged #classicrock, #EltonJo #music, #GoodbyeYellowBrickRoad, #rock, #Seventies | Leave a comment

Music Mondays: The Allman Brothers Band (first album)

Posted on March 30, 2014 by chrisryanwrites

While reading One Way Out a really strong, engaging oral history of The Allman Brothers Band, I began thinking about all the great music I grew up with, and how so much of it is now being relegated to fading memory. I believe it deserves more, so I am going to revisit these albums, and write my impressions, share the memories they conjure, and I hope they spark renewed interest in the music and stir up your memories of when and where you were when you heard this great art. Please feel free to share those memories and your impressions of the music here. Let’s keep our love for the work of these great artists.

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From the very first full band blast of “Don’t Want You No More” off The Allman Brothers Band’s first album, I am back In the Bronx, walking the brick maze that was Parkchester particularly, the North quadrant specifically. That mix of church organ and jazz drumming and driving rock beat brings me right to my roots. Behind the ballfield on those itchy green benches of the playground, someone had a radio/cassette player (okay, the older guys had portable 8-tracks), and odds were someone was blasting The Brothers. In The Bronx, not the South, those guitars were wailing.

That mix of swampy, church, jazz flourishes and soaring rock arrangements taught us so much. This song announces that we are in new territory, and invites us in.

And then during the opening riffs of “It’s Not My Cross to Bear” Gregg Allman roars his entrance. A rough, weary, hurt yet defiant voice, Gregg’s instrument was unlike any other in rock during that era. And no other singer of that time could front that sound, not Jon Anderson or Robert Plant or Ian Anderson or Ozzie. Gregg had much more in common with Chicago blues man like Muddy Waters and BB King or R&B singers like James Brown or Otis Redding. Gregg’s strength of voice unlocks the soul of the band, paying off the precise soaring note-to-note work of Dickie Betts and the mournful slide of Duane Allman, giving words to the power of that triple rhythm section: the jazzy fills of Jaimoe, the hard driving beat of Butch Trucks, and the interweaving of Berry Oakley. The edge in Gregg’s voice, countered with the deep soul of his organ playing, demands acknowledgement that this is something else entirely coming out of speakers, this is hard truths and heartbreak spoken by men still standing after it all went down.

I remember being shocked at the lyrics, too. The epiphany came during “Black Hearted Woman” when I realized Gregg was talking about being cheated on, betrayed, cuckholded, which should have reduced his masculinity, but was doing so with a defiance that lent power rather than stripped it. Gregg wasn’t having any of this, and the woman would realize her loss soon enough. Damn, Gregg, turn those tables, brother. The playing on those songs is also masculine, powerful, defiant, celebratory, and religious. The chant unifies this band as the brothers they are, the laughter at the end of it testifies to the joy embodied in the music, no matter the lyrics. Such is life, brothers and sisters, embrace it as the music does.

“Trouble No More” revisits familiar heartbreak themes, but the playing is what shines here. The bouncing beat and the biting slide answering each line of singing is the real lyric here. This music lives to heal, to rise above the cheating women, the heartbreak, the blues. Dickie and Duane’s trading guitar break celebrates that, and the bopping groove prevents those lyrics from bringing us down. Gregg has triumphed over some woman again. When Berry, Dickie, Duane take turns riffing it seals that deal, and Gregg has the power to dismiss the woman after that. Music saves him, and us.

“Every Hungry Woman” delves into different lyrical terrirtory; desperate women left to fend for themselves, and the biting, dirty guitar, the stiniging aspect of Duane’s playing, the repeated build, all create that sense of being on the hunt and running out of time. Gregg here is the observer, not unsympathetic, but detached, letting the desperate woman know she’s isn’t the first or only woman to have so much dumped upon her. The guitar break builds power, Gregg feeds on it when he comes back. The power of sharing the blues, defying the odds, rising up despite the weight of everything on her shoulders give that woman, and us, hope and strength

“Dreams” shows us another side, voiced by Gregg’s organ to begin with, a slower, more mournful, early a.m. blues we’ve all had. Now we have a soundtrack to help us through it. And the band shares the Dreams and the Blues, rising up at the chorus. The guitar break shows us another gift from The Brothers, as the guitars dance around each other, then join to soar to new heights that have become staples of the best Allman Brothers shows. Dickie’s precise, melodic symphony takes flight, and we fly with him, then Duane slides in and we become impossibly more fluid, soaring gracefully now. Glistening and building, Duane takes us up further and further. Gregg sounds like he’s singing from the top of the hill so far below, grounding us again. But what a flight, and the coda takes us back down that hill, ready to face the day, ready to chase those dreams again.

“Whipping Post” ahhhh, this song. I remember sitting in class in St. Raymond’s Elementary School, an eighth grader new to the feast of rock music, listening to Sr. Margaret Marion, bored and defeated by a clock that refused to move. Then Berry Oakley’s bass announced The Brothers were nearby. Local guitar legends, Dougie Jaffa and his brother Mousy, lived one building over, and one of them was about to wail with The Brothers. Duane, Dickie, and a Jaffa? Sister Margaret Marion didn’t stand a chance. The Jaffas playing with this record saved me that day, proved there was a God, and a Savior, and neither played by the rules the sisters were spouting.

I prefer to pray with The Brothers any day.

</ Ryan is author of City of Woe, available on Kindle and Nook, and in print. For more info, click here.&gt

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Use Whatever You Have to Help Others

Posted on January 12, 2014 by chrisryanwrites

Okay, I am an independent author with some modest sales numbers, but if I am honest, I know James Patterson and Stephen King are not shaking in their boots about the new competition on the block. I am fine with that. And while I keep working to get to a level where they may notice and welcome the competition (I particularly believe King would enjoy my work; he seems cool like that), I still believe in using whatever gifts I might possess to help others if the opportunity arises.

Last year, I displayed my debut novel at our town’s library and they got a chunk of each sale. It did not allow me to retire, did not add a new wing to the library, but it was fun.

In a couple of weeks, I will join with two other authors. Caseen Gaines and Toney Jackson, to offer our work and our time to help raise funds for a young colleague who is battling leukemia. The young lady got a tough break, and we are going to do what we can to help make her battle a tiny bit easier.

This does not make me a hero. It is just a good exercise in building confidence and sharing publicly what I do. I believe in these activities even though they won’t make the difference in my career. No big break comes from this, but it puts my work right where I want it to be, as part of my community.

I encourage all writers to consider doing the same.

</ Ryan is author of City of Woe, available on Kindle and Nook, and in print. For more info, click here.

Posted in America, comics, digital publishing, ebook publishing, education, fiction, film, husband, independent publishing, kids, love, politics, pop culture, self-publishing, teaching, Uncategorized, writing | Tagged #fundraising, #JamesPatterson, #leukemia, #StephenKing, #writingadvice, #writingtips, writing | Leave a comment

The Life Saving Qualities of the “Extras” File

Posted on January 11, 2014 by chrisryanwrites

I am about a third of the way into the sequel to CITY OF WOE and I know where I am going and I have written some very strong chapters and things are good.

So why did I slam out of sleep this morning, sit bolt upright in bed absolutely freaked about the ramifications of one particular chapter that puts one particular very popular character in peril and forces a location change? Why did it feel like one of my sons was missing? Why was it an absolute certainty that there would be no more sleep for me until this is settled?

Because that is how my particular process works. It is different for everybody. Mine is immersive, all consuming, and distracting at times, like I live in more than one world. My wife finds is charming, so extra points, but it is normal for me. And not devastating.

Because I embrace the “extras” file.

The extras file is a separate file on my laptop where I put sentences, paragraphs, or, in this case, entire chapters that may not fit or be the best for a particular writing project. That’s it. And it works wonders for me.

You can do this too. Just open an extras file on your computer. Then, take the section of writing, you know, the part that might need to be killed but which you are afraid to kill because what if you’re wrong and oh my god you lost that suddenly priceless piece of writing, and then your career would be over, take that part and cut-and-paste that bad boy into the extras files. Then hit save, go back to your main file, and move on.

If you have never tried this and have a problem section of a project, one that you suspect is taking your project in the wrong direction, dump it in an extras file. Okay, place it lovingly in an extras file. You will be amazed how easily you can move on knowing your potential piece of brilliance is safely tucked away should you need it.

Wanna know a secret?

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you will never need it. You will move on, finish your project, edit it, proofread, rewrite, and so on. You will publish it, release it to the world and it will be what it is going to be, all without that important bit. And then you will be perfectly fine with deleting the extras file or renaming it and filing it away if that is safer for you.

And then on to the next project, and a new extras file, with confidence and safety, and, yeah, still the occasional sudden jolt awake. The process is the process is the process.

Write on, brothers and sisters. Write on.

Christopher Ryan is author of City of Woe, available on Kindle and Nook, and in print. For more info, click here.

Posted in comics, digital publishing, ebook publishing, fiction, independent publishing, self-publishing, teaching, Uncategorized, writing | Tagged #editing, #writersblock, #writingtips, writing | Leave a comment

Happy New Year, and one Last Look Back

Posted on December 31, 2013 by chrisryanwrites

It has been a great year for me creatively, and I thank all those who helped make it happen, and those who shared in the experience. Here’s what happened: