Joe Walsh On Howard Stern
I play "So What" all the time.
I know, I know, you’re supposed to play "The Smoker You Drink" or "But Seriously Folks", not the disappointing follow-up to the hit. But I drop the proverbial needle and it makes me feel so good!
Now I was there at the beginning. Well, close to it. A girl I had a relationship/crush on turned me on to "Yer’ Album" by the James Gang. Way past the peak of our connection, I stopped by her house to play mini-pool and while she and her girlfriend just about ignored me she spun the James Gang’s debut. Which gets no love today. Then again, that was forty years ago, more than that.
But the big hit came on the follow-up, "Rides Again". "Funk #49" was a staple in the bedrooms of wannabe guitarists, you know, the kids who grimace when they play air guitar. And then Joe made a third album with the Gang and went solo, to…nothing.
"Barnstorm" was a complete stiff. Barely had any airplay, just a bit for "Turn To Stone", and Joe’s living in Colorado, mowing the lawn thinking he’s got to have a hit.
And that’s when it hit him. The riff. For "Rocky Mountain Way". He wasn’t sitting in the studio, trying to eke out a bowel movement. But when he was distracted, inspiration hit, but what were the lyrics, what was it he had to say? He looks up at the snow-capped mountains in the distance and the song starts to write itself, with lyrics about his old band, about their manager, suddenly his career was jump-started, when the track came out he was JOE WALSH!
That’s the story Joe told on Howard Stern. I just took an hour out of my life to listen to the interview. You see I’m that big of a fan. I don’t send him e-mail, I don’t press his music upon friends, I just play it.
Which is why I gave his new album a chance. Maybe I was intrigued because it was his first one sober. It’d been so long since he’d done something good. "The Confessor", back in the eighties. And lo and behold, the title track, "Analog Man" was good…
I cruised YouTube for a live version.
I listened to the entire album four times, "Analog Man" was not the only good track. But I wasn’t sure where Joe should go from here.
And the Stern interview was not helpful. Because Joe was not forthcoming. He wouldn’t say a single negative thing about Don and Glenn, hell, he wouldn’t gossip whatsoever. But when he told the tale of "Rocky Mountain Way" it made the whole hour worth it.
Pete Townshend told Rush it was worthless to make an album:
"Waste of time, making albums these days."
Joe Walsh said rock was dead. Or close to it.
And you can either be a baby boomer, resting on your laurels, dreaming of the good old days, or reinvent yourself.
First you’ve got to realize no one’s paying attention. To just about anybody or anything. We’re down so low in our niches we can’t see anything surrounding us unless we’re tapped on the shoulder. So if it doesn’t really matter to you, if you don’t really need it, don’t even start. If you’re not willing to play at least 100 dates a year, maybe 200, for at least five years, give up, just go on the oldies circuit and play your hits. But you can reinvent yourself. If you care, if you’re really damn good.
Second, you’ve got to have good music. There’s enough on "Analog Man", but unless you’re me, no one’s gonna listen to a whole new album of Joe Walsh stuff. Better to build up the live business and go on the promotional victory lap after you’ve gained a head of steam. You can do it the old way, get a bit of ink, sell five digits of albums, but it’s almost like you never even played. Whereas if you go on the road and give away the one or two or three good tracks, you’ve got a chance.
Third. You do have to play live. But where is a whole ‘nother thing. Your best option is to play festivals. If you’re a rocker you need to do Bonnaroo. Forget about the oldsters, they’re too stuck in their ways, you’ve got to appeal to newbies, who care more about music and performance than their mortgage or car payments. They’re looking for something new, they want to spread the word. I’m not saying Joe Walsh should have played Coachella, that festival’s more about eighties rock, but imagine if he did, imagine if he swallowed his pride and played a tent and blew everybody away. Then he’d have a chance of spreading the word.
Fourth. You build it live now. The album, the new music comes last. Instead of announcing from the stage that you’ve got a new tune from a new album that people should buy, just play it. And if it’s not as good as what came before, leave it out of the show, which is why you don’t need an album, because most of your new stuff is nowhere close to your classics, and when you’re a star, no one wants to hear your work tapes, your crap.
Joe’s done so much right. Tied in with ESPN, made YouTube clips, even gone on the Stern show, but all that’s peripheral to where the rubber meets the road… Yes, he’s got to go on the road. And do his damnedest to play to young people. I’d forget the old people almost completely. Are you dead?
P.S. "Analog Man"
The problem with this track is the riff isn’t quite memorable enough, and the verse ain’t either. But then the song changes and reveals its magic…
The whole world’s glued to the cable TV
It looks so real on the big LCD
Murder and violence are rated PG, too bad for the children
They are what they see
And then the track makes way for a break with a Walsh solo better than any of the guitar work that came before…
I’d recut this track, emphasizing the lyrics and the changes more than the riff, because the hook is the changes and the lyrics.
In other words, this track is gonna make no headway, but if it sounded closer to "Life’s Been Good", people would laugh in concert, it might gain some traction.
P.P.S. The second track is supposed to suck, but in some ways "Wrecking Ball" is even better than "Analog Man", once again, it’s the changes. They’re unexpected. And since the second track was so good, I continued to play the album.
P.P.P.S. "Lucky That Way"… This is closest to the magical seventies sound that broke Joe Walsh so big. If you haven’t got a magical riff, don’t build a song around it. This is the kind of track that fans love, then again, how many fans are gonna actually know about this album, never mind listen to it?
P.P.P.P.S. "Band Played On". The problem with Jeff Lynne productions is they’re thin, whereas Joe’s best records were rich and fat. Still, the Eastern-sounding instrumentation is so inviting.
One of the reasons rock died is it sounds so bad on digital. CDs or files. Rock, when done right, is rich. It occupies a spectrum from low to high. The only music that sounds good compressed is the crap you hear on Top Forty radio. This record sounds like it was made without wood, and it was that wooden sound that added so much naturalness and believability to all of Joe Walsh’s music.
