Steven Wilson’s Benefit – Spotify

RADIOACTIVE TOY

Prog rock bands were kind of like hair bands. They ascended from nowhere and imploded overnight. And one can argue that the pretentiousness killed prog rock, the capes and the multi-sided albums, but unlike hair bands, prog rock did not begin with cynicism, rather it was an exploration, a group of players who knew how to play who decided to test limits, before punk came along as a reaction to all of it and made simplicity a virtue, one can argue that the ability to play has never recovered, it was a badge of honor to be able to not only wail, but noodle, hang together as a band, when Rick Wakeman and Yes peaked they were positively deserving of the attention.

Stunningly, prog rock still survives, but it’s a minor scene, sub-metal, for diehards only, but one of its foremost practitioners is Steven Wilson, most famous for fronting the band Porcupine Tree, and long before they had their ill-fated Lava deal, they were making music deserving attention, and as evidence of this I point to this live rendition of “Radioactive Toy.”

I only discovered it the other night, on my late night hejira through Mr. Wilson’s oeuvre, I searched for the studio take on the plethora of streaming services and all that came up was this live iteration.

“It’s the last song of the evening, it’s called ‘Radioactive Toy.'”

Live recordings usually pale in comparison to the studio versions. Maybe they’ve got more energy, but they fall flat, the instruments don’t soar, there’s not the same atmosphere, but not here.

Run through forests on a hot summer day
Trying to break down walls of numbing pain
Give me the freedom to destroy
Give me radioactive toy

You’re immediately taken away, this is not the immediacy of the Top Forty, this is an aural journey to a distant landscape which only like-minded people inhabit, back when going to the show was a religious experience wherein you paid fealty to the performers, taking photos of yourself and your buddies was anathema. Hang in there until the guitar starts to wail, you’ll be stunned you’re the only one aware of this 1997 rendition of a 1992 original, when Wilson implores the audience to sing along, saying “You!” and everybody comes in on time with the correct words, whew!

(Meanwhile, if you’re interested in the studio original, for some reason it’s not on streaming services, but it is on YouTube:

Porcupine Tree – Radioactive toy

TRAINS

Having been blown away by this live rendition of “Radioactive Toy,” I decided to go deeper, I decided to see what the most played Porcupine Tree songs on Spotify happened to be. And I was stunned that my personal favorite was number one, with 6,232,614 streams.

Andy Karp had signed Porcupine Tree to Jason Flom’s Lava label. A full service enterprise akin to Bob Krasnow’s Elektra, no two Lava acts sounded alike, they were as different as Kid Rock and Matchbox Twenty and the Corrs and Porcupine Tree.

This was back before streaming, before Bluetooth in cars, before the satellite radio revolution, back when you had a CD changer in the trunk and had your six favorite discs installed, one of mine was Porcupine Tree’s “In Absentia,” I used to pull up “Trains” and drive around L.A. in a trance, nodding my head, singing along.

A TIME FOR EVERYTHING

I don’t believe in remixes. Because by time they’re done redoing the record it no longer resembles the original, and it’s the one I know I want to hear, kind of like some tracks should only be heard in mono, certainly not fake stereo. So when I heard Steven Wilson remixed Jethro Tull’s “Benefit” I shrugged, I did not care.

“Benefit.”

Purists will tell you the best Tull album is the first, “This Was,” with Mick Abrahams. And the funny thing is once you go back to it you see how special it was, I can see fans being turned off by what followed, but I didn’t hear “This Was” first, I got hooked by “Benefit.”

Now at this late date I’ll tell you the best is the second, “Stand Up,” which did, as in when you opened the gatefold cover the band popped up, but I have such memories of “Benefit.”

It started with “To Cry You A Song,” the one the critics hated, because it was not far removed from riff rock. And it was one quite powerful riff, but it was the soundtrack to one of the most frightening moments of my life, the first weekend of college, when John Morosani gave us a ride back from the President’s reception in his Trans Am and slid through the corners at a hundred miles an hour on Route 125, laughing all the way.

I was sitting on the transmission hump in the back, where there was no seatbelt, I saw my life ending before classes had even begun. But I lived through the experience, Moron’s time at driving school paid off. And after removing “Benefit” from the 8-track he inserted Frijid Pink, which I have not heard since, but after that ride I needed to own “Benefit.”

And late at night, long after midnight, when I cannot relax, I oftentimes pull up aged classics on Spotify and wallow in the sound. But what’s fascinating is these records have been reissued and remastered so many times that you oftentimes get hooked on songs you weren’t planning to hear to begin with. Like Elton John’s “Bad Side Of The Moon.”

“Tumbleweed Connection” is a better LP, but at this late date it’s the American debut I keep spinning, it’s the sound, like it was cut in a cathedral, just listen to “Sixty Years On” or “The King Must Die,” you’ll get what I mean. But the remastered version of the American debut has a studio take of “Bad Side Of The Moon,” which most people have never heard but dedicated fans know, because it’s the opening cut on side two of “11/17/70,” one of the four albums Elton put out that year, a live recording that originated as a radio broadcast on that date. The rest of the tracks had been previously released, all except for “Bad Side Of The Moon” and “Can I Put You On.”

But, a studio take of “Can I Put You On” came out, on the soundtrack to “Friends,” with the dynamite title track and…

I work for the foundry for a penny and a half a day
Like a blind street musician I never see those who pay

Now you’re a member of a secret society, you’re one of the very few who’s ever heard this cut, and if you’re an Elton fan you’ll swoon, first and foremost there’s that intro guitar sound, enough to make you feel you’ve died and gone to heaven, and then Elton tickles the ivories and sings about that blind street musician and you feel like you’ve been transported to Newcastle Upon Tyne, even if you’ve never been there before.

And this is what my late night listening is like, I get inspired to hear one record and that leads me to different tracks and that initial Elton album was a staple on my turntable at the same time as I was spinning “Benefit” so I searched for that Tull album and found this Steven Wilson remix. And of course I started with side two, so I could hear “To Cry You A Song,” but it was the following track, “A Time For Everything,” that was the revelation.

Hold on to your hat, grip your seat, put on your headphones and be prepared to be blown away.

First there’s Martin Barre’s stinging guitar, it always got you in the gut, but today you can feel the sting.

And Ian Anderson’s vocal is not buried in the mix, he’s at the center and you can hear every word, along with his flute, and suddenly you realize you can hear each and every instrument and it sounds like the original only more vibrant and more immediate, it’s a REVELATION!

SOSSITY YOU’RE A WOMAN

This is ultimately the best cut on “Benefit,” and you need to listen to it, you need to hear this entire remix of “Benefit,” even the unearthed bonus track “17,” which is dark in a way most people who hate Tull don’t realize is an element of the canon.

“Sossity” is the closest to what came before, what came thereafter was gigantic, “Aqualung” made Tull superstars, and then they pushed the envelope with “Thick As A Brick” and became legends, because that’s what you did back then, you used your success as a platform to innovate, to jump off and do something different.

And if you think these LPs are set in amber, irrelevant, you’ve got to listen to Steven Wilson’s remixes, because he makes them sound like they were cut today, they’re so alive. He demands that Tull be completely reevaluated, and you never would have heard these recordings if it weren’t for streaming services, wallow in your good fortune.

I went to public school. When taxes were high, there was enough paper for the mimeo machine and Mr. McCann taught music in the basement.

We pledged allegiance, learned that anybody could be President, but it don’t really happen that way at all anymore.

Ever get the feeling the game is rigged? Those who voted for Trump famously say this, but I feel this way too. I grew up and never saw a Ferrari. An exotic vacation was a family trip on Eastern Airlines to Florida, a journey I never took, and we all agreed that Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor were speaking the truth.

Of course there was that blip on the radar screen called the Vietnam War, and as one got older it scared the living daylights out of you, because you realized you might get your ass shot off in an unjustified meaningless conflict, but LBJ countered his aggression with his Great Society plan and even Richard Nixon opened China and now I’m looking for the silver lining in Trump’s victory and I can’t find one.

I know, he won, we lost. I got it. Fair and square. I won’t even complain about the Comey letter or Russian hacking. Hell, I won’t even bring up the lopsided popular vote. But I will bring up gerrymandering. Where Democrats win the House but lose it. Where Republicans lose their seats to right wing zealots. Where our country is pulled in a direction where it’s every man for himself, women and minorities are second-class citizens, and the rich run herd over the rest of us.

Amway is a pyramid scheme. And its heir, with no experience in public education, seemingly no experience in education at all, is now in charge of the learning of the nation’s students. Expect the gap to get bigger. Expect the disadvantaged to fall further behind. Meanwhile, all the blame is heaped upon the backs of unions.

Did I have lousy teachers in school? Of course! Did people get tenure who I wish had not? Of course! But please explain to me what society you want, one in which no one can ever lose their job or a pure meritocracy with no safety net.

The truth is there are inefficiencies in all businesses. Money falls through the cracks. But there’s a fiction that when it comes to government, all dollars must be accounted for, spent wisely, or else the beast needs to be starved.

Well, education is being starved right now.

I went to one of America’s finest colleges. My father paid full freight. And the truth is that although I learned tons outside of the classroom, the teachers I had in my public high school were more influential. Mrs. Hurley taught me to challenge authority. Mr. Harrity taught me how to write. Mrs. Spitalny took a student with a progress report in Algebra, who was doing it by trial and error, and made him the smartest guy in the class, with an A+ in both Geometry and Alegbra II. And none of these educators got rich, they were doing it for the love of inspiring students.

And there was no religious instruction. And we thought that the world was our oyster.

And today most students cannot contain two opposing thoughts in their brain at the same time. They don’t know how to analyze a situation. The focus is on creating automatons who can perform on the test when the truth is education should be about developing the person, making not only good workers, but good contributors, people who make our society whole.

But a segment of the population wants to leave the rest behind. Take their God and their privilege to create private enclaves where the rest of us are left out and told either to follow in lockstep or be forgotten.

How did we get here? Where everybody believes they’re entitled to every dollar they make and the general good is irrelevant, where those who triumphed financially believe they can run herd over those of us who have not?

So the same Republicans who fought Trump now support him.

And the President is a one man disinformation campaign.

And there’s no accountability because the proletariat can’t understand the issues and isn’t paying attention anyway.

We are in this together folks. And the best candidate for a job may be a woman. But not this woman.

P.S. We may be winning the immigration battle, but not only have we lost the education battle, but we’re going down for the count on financial issues and truth just went out the window. And if you wonder how the President can lie and get away with it I’ll point to an entertainment industry that lies for a living, which the news media does not call them on, busy boosting their false heroes. All those shows the newspaper says sell out? Oftentimes they do not. But if the media can’t get it right on the small stuff, what are the odds it can get it right on the big stuff? What are the odds that an abused public is gonna be outraged when a President spews falsehoods when everybody is lying and cheating to get ahead? Bill Gates is a national hero, yet Microsoft succeeded by charging for Windows whether it was installed or not.

P.P.S. It can’t happen here, but it has. Ever since election day I’ve been in a black mood. And I understand those who voted for Trump out of frustration with the status quo, but this guy has thrown the baby out with the bathwater, he’s a bull in a china shop. And if you think he’s making you more safe, getting you a better job with a higher wage, keeping the immigrant from taking your gig, then you should have lobbied your congressperson to vote against DeVos, because you got a bad education, you can’t see that they want your support, but they don’t want you, you’re just a pawn in their game.

P.P.P.S. The only way we can reach the vast swath of voters and change this country’s direction is via entertainment, because it’s the only thing people are paying attention to. It’s incumbent upon movies, television and musicians and other artists to stand up and speak truth. But they’re all silent, because they’re afraid of jeopardizing their income. Tech companies lobby against immigration nonsense, musicians sign sponsorship deals. One can argue strongly that the plight of the native American didn’t reach national consciousness until Marlon Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather on stage to accept his Oscar. He was derided at the time, made fun of, but he brought the issue to a head. And his performance in the “Godfather” lives on while I challenge you to name the head of the Academy at that time, never mind the channel the show was broadcast on. You’ve got to start somewhere. There are more of us than them. Our only hope is to mobilize. This is a long hard slog that so far is going in the wrong direction and until you and me start standing up and organizing, we’re doomed.

The dirty little secret is most “Shark Tank” deals don’t close anyway. Because the devil is in the details and most sellers obfuscate and when the sharks dig down deep and do their due diligence they often walk away.

But why do the pitchers walk away?

I have “Shark Tank” on permanent record on my DVR. And I’ll be honest, I’m a bit o.d.’ed on the concept, which is that everybody can come up with a good idea and get rich and that those who are already rich need to be respected for their acumen. In a world where most managers never find a hit band, just because you’re successful in one enterprise, why do I believe you should succeed in another?

But one thing rich people have is relationships. And relationships are everything. Poor people believe the idea is king. That if people only knew what they were selling, they’d triumph. But in today’s world it’s almost impossible to get your message across. And what the rich people with relationships do is get your message in front of others, to see if it sinks or swims.

And the truth is that is even getting harder.

Used to be if you had a TV show, you’d made it. Now there are in excess of 400 scripted shows a year and the odds of syndication are almost nonexistent so getting a deal is just getting started. A record company, if you’re lucky, can get you on Top Forty radio. Other than that, it can’t do much. And I know this is overwhelming but if you get an opportunity…

Don’t turn it down.

So I’m watching last Friday’s “Shark Tank” and a guy who makes earplugs turns down Mr. Wonderful’s offer. What is he thinking? That he can go it alone? That being on television is enough to put his company over the top? How can he be so dumb?

You need help. You need a team. You cannot do it alone.

Of course there are exceptions. And if you’re the kind of person who looks to the exceptions to justify your efforts, good luck, chances are you’re gonna hit a brick wall. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. You’ve got to give up to get.

The problem today is everybody’s too sophisticated, everybody’s wary of being ripped-off. They don’t know their partners…are not interested unless they can make money. Want to excite a potential partner? Show them how much money they can make, don’t try to keep them at arm’s length.

You need friends. You cannot make it without them. You’re counting on their effort to push you through. A network of many far exceeds the power of you, unless you’re a superstar.

That’s the conundrum. One person can change the world. But they rarely do it alone. When help is offered, TAKE IT!

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) – Spotify

I had to hear “It’s Alright, Ma.”

“Highway 61 Revisited” is the legend, but I prefer the previous LP, “Bringing It All Back Home.” “Bringing It All Back Home” is a bit darker, a bit less trebly, but it does not contain “Like A Rolling Stone,” so people defer to “Highway 61 Revisited.” And one of the memorable moments of my life is driving in my sister’s Sienna outside of Minneapolis and seeing that highway sign, you pinch yourself, you don’t think these landmarks really exist. And “Highway 61 Revisited” also has the put-down song “Ballad Of A Thin Man,” with its annihilation of Mr. Jones, and “Desolation Row” and “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry,” which Al Kooper made famous on side two of “Super Session” with Stephen Stills, but “Bringing It All Back Home” has “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”

Back in ’65, almost nobody had seen the D. A. Pennebaker film, with Dylan nonchalantly discarding the cards with the lyrics upon them. But that was the reality of Bob’s early career, the audience was always late to the party, there were early adopters who got the memo and then with hits the hoi polloi went back and realized his brilliance.

And “Bringing It All Back Home” also has “Maggie’s Farm,” which became part of the revolutionary lexicon back in the sixties, we weren’t gonna work on her farm no more.

And there’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which the Byrds ultimately made so famous.

And “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” which the Byrds performed too, along with Joan Baez and so many more.

And then there’s the almost creepy “Gates Of Eden,” wherein Dylan spits truth and we can just try and digest this manna from heaven.

But the piece de resistance is “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).”

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Trying. This was ’65, with Lyndon Johnson in office, when rather than agitating for change you dropped out, went on your own hejira. It wasn’t quite defeat, but more akin to liberation.

And in the next verse, Bob utters words so famous that most people don’t even know he wrote them, they’ve become part of the fabric of our nation…

He not busy being born is busy dying

Dylan’s dropping wisdom left and right in this seven and a half minute song, I listen to it every week, it’s as fresh as yesterday, but when I searched in Spotify that’s not the version that came up, not the studio take, but a live iteration from a double CD package entitled “The Bootleg Series Volume 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 – Concert At Philharmonic Hall.” I owned it, but I don’t think I ever really heard it. But listening over the Christmas holiday it became my favorite album.

Because of the immediacy.

What did Woody Guthrie’s guitar say, “This Machine Kills Fascists”? Well, this double live album wakes you up and inspires you all at once. We live in an era where it’s all about the trappings. You don’t even take the stage without a huge investment in hair and makeup, certainly not in New York City.

And the album starts with “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” which comes across as a warning, not a detailed accounting of what’s going on, but what is to come. Imagine if you bought a record, broke the shrinkwrap and when you dropped the needle you found out what was gonna happen TOMORROW!

But the revelation is “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met),” which I wouldn’t be surprised to find John Lennon spun incessantly before composing “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).”

And the truth is “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)” graces the “Last Waltz” package, but it never impressed me much there. It was just another album track on “Another Side Of Bob Dylan,” but in this live version…whew!

She invited him into her arms, then kicked him to the curb.

This never happens in today’s musical world. Egos rule. No one is bruised. If you’re famous you must be rich, you must always win. But this woman tied Dylan’s emotions in a knot and sure, the song’s got the character of a kiss-off, but you can tell he’s wounded. He’s vulnerable in a way we’re unprepared for. And even though this track was cut fifty years ago, it sounds like he’s telling you what happened last night, literally.

And be sure to listen to “Who Killed Davey Moore,” a questioning of responsibility for the death of a boxer akin to today’s most prominent artist singing about CTE instead of groveling to perform at the Super Bowl.

But the song that brought me to the album was “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).”

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

Ain’t that the truth, it’s the bloviating religious zealots who live in glass houses. This was written back when religion was dying, before every Grammy Award winner thanked the Lord, before anybody playing popular music worth listening to attended the Grammys.

And the song is littered with famous phrases. Dylan reunited with the Band in ’74 and when he sang “But even the President of the United States, Sometimes must have to stand naked” the audience cheered. Nixon resigned months later, if only today’s music could comment so honestly about and have such an impact upon our present Presidential predicament.

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

America is about selling you false hope. You can be thin, you can be rich, you can triumph, when the truth is unless you dismiss the tsunami of b.s. and accept who you are you’ve truly got no chance. Back then hipsters abandoned football, today the lemmings drink at the trough of Super Bowl commercials, believing that corporations will be their savior, having lost faith in artists, and why not, since the artists are sucking at the tit of the corporations harder than anybody.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destiny
Speak jealously of them that are free
Raise what they grow up to be
Nothing more than something they invest in

This was back when there was a false belief that institutions cared about their inhabitants, the students, the workers, before colleges became a way for bloated administrations to become rich and corporations wanted no employees at all, everybody became a contract worker, lifetime employment was a pipe dream. Dylan’s poking fun at the puffed-up mindless who are placing their faith in fake institutions, now the people who used to question these enterprises prop them up and the proletariat is even more desperate.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape by society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

Used to be it was the middle class that was bent out of shape by society, now it’s the unthinking lower class, which wants to give everybody above them the middle finger not knowing the joke is upon them, but they lost all hope long ago and if they’re gonna sink further the rest of us have to go with them. Furthermore, these words are the essence of internet hate. They want to drag you down into their lair of failure. Try to evade it, but it’s hard.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security

Let me see, there’s a little man in the sky, who sees everything you do, and he’s gonna save you when you die and if you don’t believe it beware on your way to the abortion clinic.

For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

We’re all gonna die. And whether it be Ted Bundy or Lee Atwater regretting their behavior on their death bed don’t let this be you, don’t spend your life standing up for something that will become irrelevant when you pass, which you most certainly will.

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

He’s willing to lay down his truth, he doesn’t care about the consequences, because duplicity is a loser’s game and you only get one go-round. But no one with a profile is following in Dylan’s footsteps, they’re all afraid of blowback and loss, sponsorships will evaporate into thin air, television invitations will dry up, you’ll be ostracized in a world where there’s nothing so important as being a member of the team, but an artist sits outside the game and speaks his truth.

And when you listen to this live concert from 1964 you’ll be overwhelmed, stunned that someone cares that much, has thought about it and is standing naked on stage with just his guitar and his words knowing they’re so powerful that if you just listen to them your life will be changed, you’ll see the world differently, you’ll be empowered.

That’s the power of a song.