If only this was on Warner Brothers… Then Emitt Rhodes’s Dunhill debut would have been considered a masterpiece, he’d be part of the firmament instead of living in the South Bay broke and disillusioned.

But that’s the music business…the game is hard, even if you play to win, oftentimes you lose.

Sure, there were hits on Dunhill Records. Like Barry McGuire and the Mamas & the Papas… But the company could not make the transition to the album era, when singles were secondary and airplay on FM was all that mattered.

Furthermore, “Emitt Rhodes” was released before the age of irony, before people admitted they loved the Carpenters, before Axl Rose professed his love of Elton John. In 1971, Jethro Tull was taken seriously. Yes was breaking through. Music was heady and deep, whereas “Emitt Rhodes” was all sunny and bright, it skipped off the atmosphere, only a few people got it, but those who did…

“With My Face On The Floor”

A riff that’s instantly memorable, that’s only secondary to Emitt’s pure voice… “With My Face On The Floor” has everything Paul McCartney was selling, but at the time it wasn’t different enough to be given props, even though this album is better than most of Paul’s solo stuff. It’s got the changes of the Beatles’ music, the harmonies… What’s not to like? NOTHING!

“Somebody Made For Me”

Kind of like “Dear Prudence” follows “Back In The U.S.S.R.” on the White Album, “Somebody Made For Me” is a bit slower, a bit quieter than “With My Face On The Floor,” albeit without the haunting quality of “Dear Prudence”… Still, who doesn’t dream of someone made for them? And there’s even a bridge… Emitt studied, he knew what worked, you tell a kid about including a bridge today and they think it’s got something to do with that Led Zeppelin song…

“She’s Such A Beauty”

It’s the keyboard that entrances. This sounds like a McCartney romp from the aforementioned White Album… An almost meaningless trifle which feels like the best spring morning, makes your problems fade away. And if you’re keeping score, and you should, this is three winners in a row! Even in the album era, this was rare, despite all the backward-looking rewriting of history.

“Long Time No See”

This has got that haunting feel. And the sounds are exquisite, from the cymbal to the guitar, still it’s Emitt’s vocal that truly puts the song over the top. This was my favorite track on the album, because it was not made for the radio, but just for me, the at home listener, in front of the stereo, needing to have my life saved by music.

“Lullabye”

“Martha My Dear”? “Blackbird”? “Rocky Raccoon”?
This is the kind of song McCartney used to throw off effortlessly that now eludes him. Paul’s now trying too hard, like with the originals on last year’s “Kisses On The Bottom” album. Whereas he used to write not worried about being self-conscious, just like this.

“Fresh As A Daisy”

The piece de resistance! The track that made a bit of a dent, the one we played to try to enchant newcomers.

But either you were on the Emitt Rhodes train or you were not. Even back then, the masses were prisoners of the radio, and if it wasn’t blasted over the airwaves, people didn’t trust themselves to like something.

It’s got the changes, the feel, and an anthemic quality!

You could do nothing but pick up the needle and drop it on the opening cut once again, to hear this masterpiece of a first side over and over again.

The second side is not quite as good…

But be sure to listen to “You Take The Dark Out Of The Night,” with the guitar right off of “Beatles VI.”

And “You Should Be Ashamed” has that same personal quality as “Long Time No See.”

But the absolute winner on the second side is the opening cut, “Live Till You Die.”

I have to say the things I feel
I have to feel the things I say

That’s it. That’s what being an artist is all about. A need to express yourself, honestly. It’s why I decry the made by committee music of today. Because the artists don’t feel the things they say. The late sixties and seventies were the apotheosis because the artists wrote and performed their own material, unfettered by labels. Yup, the label gave you the money, and then you just went off and did it your way. And success was such a big tent, there was little pressure to sound like everybody else, just to be good.

You must live till you die
You must fight to survive

And that’s much harder than you think. To not check out, to not either commit suicide or become an automaton in a boring job just to get by. Life is a fight. No matter how rich or poor you might be. And it used to be that music helped us in that fight. Sure, the sound empowered us, but the words ran shotgun, kept us company.

I bought “Emitt Rhodes” because of the reviews. I don’t do that anymore. Reviewing is no longer an art, but a way to fill up space in a publication. Or else it’s so comprehensive, covering so many releases, that your eyes glaze over.

But in the heyday of “Rolling Stone,” “Fusion” and “Crawdaddy,” the reviewers were searching for truth, we followed them like beacons. And sometimes we discovered stuff like this.

You know what it’s like to drop the needle on an album you’ve heard not a note of and become immediately enamored?

That’s what it was like with “Emitt Rhodes.”

Sure, he was in a band before, the Merry-Go-Round. But they never made it to the east coast.

And the similarity to McCartney and the lame label tarnished Emitt unfairly. As he moved forward, Emitt separated himself from Paul, on the follow-up, “Mirror,” Emitt was definitely his own man.

But it was too late.

Singer-songwriters were making quiet music, akin to folk. Anybody who rocked a bit harder, like the Eagles, was looking to Nashville instead of London, country influences rather than the British Invasion.

I remember getting “Emitt Rhodes” in a box of albums from the Record Club of America. I remember spinning it incessantly that April. Singing the songs in my head as the fraternity tried to get me to join as I drank their Boone’s Farm and ogled their girls, with no intention of signing up.

And all these years later, the album doesn’t sound dated, kind of like the Beatles’ music, it’s forever.

Check it out. You’ll love it!

P.S. Just like McCartney, Emitt Rhodes played all the instruments, engineered this album himself, producing with Harvey Bruce and assisted by mixdown engineers Keith Olsen and Curt Boettcher… Etched in the inner groove was “Recorded At Home”!

P.P.S. He was cute!

Rhinofy-Emitt Rhodes

Previous Rhinofy playlists

I’m gonna be in trouble tonight…

I had no idea what a burrito was. Never mind a taco. It was right there on the cover of “Burrito Deluxe,” studded with rhinestones, but I was still clueless.

Until I got to L.A.

First you go to Tito’s. Down on Washington Place. In Culver City. Where they keep the chips in garbage cans and you line up for food so cheap, so filling and very good…

Until you start experimenting and get a frame of reference.

There was a place back in the seventies. It’s gone now, called Burrito King. They had this concoction called the “Machaca Burrito.” With stringy beef and oozing sauce, it was delectable. Hell, that’s when I learned what a burrito truly was, the difference between corn and flour tortillas.

And Burrito King was a stand. Painted orange. Never in a good neighborhood. And after eating there I realized…don’t judge a Mexican place by its looks.

And there were detours to the Gardens of Taxco, where the waiters insisted on prix fixe and you felt ripped off.

And the legendary El Tepeyac, with its Manuel’s Special, literally big enough to feed two. On Evergreen Avenue, in the barrio.

And it was a seventies outing, going in search of the best Mexican food. You never went to Taco Bell, you didn’t want anything that institutionalized, with hamburger meat in the pre-made shell….

But back in the eighties, someone decided to go upscale. A restaurant called La Salsa popped up in a strip center at Pico and Sepulveda and eventually morphed into a chain. It wasn’t dirty and the salsa was plentiful and free.

The salsa…

That’s one thing you devoured, with the chips. You rarely could finish your main course, having devoured bowls of chips, which when done right, were oily and sticky and hot and delicious…like at El Compadre on Sunset. You just couldn’t stop.

But at La Salsa, there was a variety of salsas. A smorgasbord of salsas, not just the green and the red.

But then La Salsa was trumped by Baja Fresh. Yes, when La Salsa took its eye off the ball, was busy raking in the profits, a competitor emerged that was cleaner and healthier and… Emblazoned over the counter it states there are no freezers, can openers or microwaves…the food is truly fresh.

And so is the salsa.

That’s where I just had lunch.

Now as one visits Los Angeles Mexican restaurants, one starts to encounter this bowl… Especially at stands. There may not be any salsa displayed, but there’s a bowl of yellow peppers, which look like they’ve been there since the fifties. And I love all peppers. But if I eat these things that have been sitting in the hot sun, am I going to survive?

And at even more authentic stands, there’s a bowl containing carrots and green peppers and white onions, and the whole stew is immersed in a liquid so milky, you think you need one of those purifying straws to consume. I usually avoid these bowls. It’s like refusing a drink, or a joint, you want to, but…

But today at Baja Fresh, they’d just made a fresh batch of this brew. And it was settled in ice. There was no visual attrition. And the ratio was right, there were tons of carrots.

That’s what you want, the carrots. When done right, they take on the spiciness of the peppers. They’ve got a bite. They’re delicious. Everything you’ve always hated about carrots, the firmness, the bland taste, these will close you. Hell, they’re oftentimes a bit soft, from having sat in the liquid.

So I’m waiting for them to serve up my fajitas, and I go over to the salsa bar and see this delectable carrot, pepper and onion concoction. I get one of the tiny cups, drop some in, spear a carrot with my fork, and I’m in heaven!

I can’t stop eating. I’m standing there at the salsa bar. Consuming.

And when my food was finally ready, I poured this stuff on my plate. This was the Cadillac of concoctions, the Mercedes-Benz, the ratio was right, the carrots were crunchy yet peppery and there were even baby yellow peppers thrown in, which were just mild enough to savor.

Either you’re clueless or you know exactly what I’m talking about.

P..S. I know, I know, I didn’t mention El Cholo, where I seemingly spent every weekend in the seventies. No one knows if the food there is any good, because they’re so messed up on margaritas.

P.P.S. Metamucil. Don’t be ashamed. This is the best way to avoid the back end burn. Suck it down before you go to bed, you’ll thank me.

P.P.P.S. If I spent the seventies at El Cholo, I spent the eighties at Los Tacos, around the corner from Freddy and Demi Moore’s apartment. They would crisp the flour tortillas just right!

“Burrito Deluxe”

Titos Tacos

Burrito King. Turns out there are a couple left. I’ve eaten at this one on Sunset, not as good as the one on Vermont used to be, still:

The Gardens of Taxco

Manuels el Tepeyac

El Compdare Restaurant (The one across the street from Guitar Center.)

La Salsa

Baja Fresh

El Cholo (You want to go to the original one, on Western Avenue.)

Los Tacos

“If you look around the room, and you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.”

Whew!

First I listened to Alec’s interview of Kathleen Turner. I’d like to say it’s fascinating, but you don’t really want to hear an actor interviewed, they go on about everybody else’s work, the writer, the director… Actors are self-centered, better seen than heard. But at one point, Alec asked Kathleen if she ever burned out.

This is the secret. Do anything long enough and you go through periods where you don’t want to do it anymore. Ms. Turner was so busy talking, she missed the question, so Alec asked it again. And she said she did not. But I do.

There was a moment in the 80’s, after buying my Mac Plus, after starting my newsletter, that I thought of chucking it all and becoming a computer consultant. Progress was so slow and the music was no good.

It happens today. I’m inundated with so much mediocre stuff I want to move on to something more important. Then I go to a show or hear the right record and I’m reinvigorated.

Alec said the same thing… He wavers. It’s a function of getting older, you gain some perspective, you ask yourself, is this it? Is this important enough, should I focus on this to the exclusion of everything else?

Then they referenced the wisdom of Lorne Michaels. Right there in the podcast. His aphorisms… Hell, the podcast is called “Here’s The Thing” because that’s what Lorne always says, before he drops words of wisdom.

And observe SNL and the penumbra of hype long enough and you come to hate Lorne Michaels. He’s smug, above it all. But listen to this podcast and you’ll be utterly intrigued.

He references Malcolm Gladwell, another Canadian, and his 10,000 hours theory…

Lorne is in L.A., working on a summer replacement series, doing twelve shows in ten weeks.

You’ve got no idea the amount of effort involved. And you can never ever get it exactly right.

But this is where Lorne broke through.

It’s about the sheer effort.

Everybody’s so busy getting it perfect today, that it’s wrong. Whether it be artists in the studio or people making movies. That’s one of the reasons TV is now so great, the constraints. Of both money and time. You’ve got to focus on the story, not the look… Anyway, people are seeing it on a small screen.

You should go into the studio with the people making Top Forty music. They’re not trying to catch lightning in a bottle, they’re busy sculpting Michelangelo’s David. So busy getting it so right they sap all the soul from the endeavor. Whereas those great sixties hits still playing on the radio? They were cut quickly, some of them contain mistakes, easily identifiable, but their magic endures.

Then Lorne said “I really believe that if you’re going to stay champ, you have to take fights.”

What he means by this is you can’t rest on your laurels. There’s always someone younger and hungrier eager to take your job. He referenced the writers on SNL… Their offices were larger than their apartments. They didn’t care about money, only the work.

That’s what’s wrong with the old farts. Especially in the music business. They’re so busy resting on their laurels, they don’t want to take a chance, they’re eaten alive by youngsters experimenting in new forms, taking risks.

And Lorne goes on about loving L.A. and learning how to fire people, but what I loved most was the above quote.

It’s hard to be around people smarter than you. Because you feel uncomfortable, you feel inadequate. We’re wired to find comfort, to be accepted, but that doesn’t lead to progress.

That’s why people come to L.A. and New York. Now, with the Internet, you can make it from anywhere… But can you be stimulated enough to create great work? It’s like going to an Ivy League college, discovering that even though you were the smartest person in your high school, you’re positively middle of the road in your new environment.

And that’s the secret to an elite college. It’s not the professors, it’s not what you learn in class, it’s what you’re exposed to in the student body. You learn how to interact. I grew up in the melting pot suburbs of Connecticut, I thought a doctor was rich, then I went to Middlebury. Eileen Rockefeller, Betsy Bass… The guy whose father ran Green Giant. I’m not telling you to impress you, but to tell you I learned how to interact with these people, such that when I’m with a rock star or world class manager I’m not a sycophant, but do my best to play on their level. That’s a secret. Tell a rock star how great he is, go on about every time you’ve seen him, and you’ll be brushed off and ignored. But relate to him as a person, and you’ve got a chance.

Everybody’s so busy pooh-poohing the elite, the winners, that they’re holding themselves back. If all you can do is criticize those who are on top, you’re never gonna advance. Get to know them. Get to know how they got from there to here.

There’s a story behind the story, always. Find the person who can tell it to you.

And know that if you’re down the food chain you’ve got to earn entrance. Knocking on the door is not enough, it’s closed to you. How can you open it? If you think persistence is the key, you’re reading too many self-help books. What do you have that the person above you needs? A record exec is only interested in your music if it can make him money. Instantly. If it can’t, if you just want kudos and encouragement, stay away. Money is always a good entrance point. But few have it. You’ve got to find your entrance point.

If you’re hearing the same damn thing every day, having the same experiences, do something different. Take a risk. Take a class. Hell, I went to UCLA Extension not because I was gonna learn anything, and I didn’t, but because I wanted to meet like-minded people, which I did… And it opened a few doors, but it taught me first and foremost that I could play.

Can you play?

Lorne Michaels learned he could play in Canada. But he found out it was a backwater, no matter how loyal to his homeland he wanted to be.

He agreed to do SNL live because that meant he didn’t have to make a pilot, which he’d done before, which always failed and never made it to air.

And he learned if the audience for the rehearsal was too hot, the ultimate live performance sucked.

Hell, Lorne’s full of insight. Listen to this podcast and see.

If only music was as smart.

“Here’s The Thing,” Episode 8, Lorne Michaels

“Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world’s champions.”

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., novelist (1922-2007)

http://wordsmith.org/words/pugilist.html