Take It To The Limit
We won.
I’ve been reading this coffee table book about the Eagles. Unfortunately, there’s not much in it I don’t know, but the pictures are fascinating. David Geffen before dental work. And Stephen Stills too. When no one got up close and personal with a rock star unless they were having sex.
By time they formed the Eagles, the four band members were seasoned. They’d been in multiple groups. They’d made records. This time they were gonna make it work.
So David Geffen signed ’em and sent ’em off to Aspen, to play night after night, honing their chops. And then they opened for Yes and Jethro Tull, two bands who sounded nothing like them with audiences that didn’t care about them. This is not a story of winning over the naysayers, rather it was about enduring the abuse, gaining experience that would be drawn upon for years. You can only be unknown once. What you learn then is used forevermore in your work. But breaking through is the hard part. And the Eagles broke through on their very first album.
But not to the degree it appears in retrospect. Really, it was only when they jettisoned the controlling Glyn Johns for Bill Szymcyzk that they became America’s biggest band. "Desperado", both the single and the album, were relative stiffs. And "On The Border" languished in the marketplace upon release. Then, it was "One Of These Nights".
What happened on those nights?
We read about it. And we died to live it. Died to be inside.
In the pre-Internet era, when only rich people had video cameras, when film was not yet digital, when there were no blogs, barely fanzines, the rock and roll world was a cutthroat business where rapacious scoundrels ripped each other off and the successful acts lived bacchanalian lives more akin to Fellini’s "Satyricon" than "Leave It To Beaver".
Yes, it started with the Beatles. A zillion bands were formed in their wake. And the idea was to use your creativity to make it in this alternative universe. Where you could literally rape and pillage, live like kings.
Yes, the photograph that struck me most in the Eagles book was the shot of them in the private plane. This was back when many Americans hadn’t even been on a plane! And this wasn’t the tiny pencil-thin private jet of today, but a converted commercial airliner. Maybe there was waste involved, but the Eagles and Zeppelin and the other huge bands of the day could pay for it.
And everybody wanted in, everybody wanted to get closer.
That’s what the eighties were about. Suddenly, greed was legitimized, the baby boomers could hoard their own. And then came the giant separation between classes. The rich emulated their heroes, they got private jets, hookers and groupies and cocaine. They learned all this from the rock stars. These same people who could move audiences with a glance, who campaigned for political candidates, who seemed to be in charge of their own nation.
The Tea Party? Used to be the Music Party! Only this one kept growing and was larger than any other. Jimmy Carter needed the Allman Brothers to get elected. You ignored the musicians and their culture at your peril.
But suddenly you could make more money playing baseball. And then basketball. And your expenses were lower.
And Apple went public and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak got rich overnight.
And the rules on Wall Street were loosened and a whole coterie of nameless people got rich.
And how did all these newly minted millionaires act?
LIKE ROCK STARS!
And then the wannabe musicians weren’t in it for momentary good times, they desired world domination from the outset, dues-paying was for pussies. Just get me on TV. I’m worth it.
So we’re starting all over. Knowing that you can’t get as rich playing music as you can in other endeavors. But music is one of the few spheres that allows complete self-expression. The new acts don’t even have labels, certainly not ones that tell them what to do. They’re on their own. Playing. And they’re enjoying the late nights of dope and sex in between the long rides cooped up in vans and buses.
We’re rebuilding the scene. We’re focusing on the essence, the music, because really, the rest is just trappings. And there are better places to get these trappings than music. If you want cheesecake go to the strip club. But if you want someone who says something, who stands for something, go to the show.
