HBO Trailer: https://t.ly/8aLxv

This is pretty terrible. And to think I was looking forward to it. All you’ve got to know is they spelled Mo Ostin’s name Mo “Astin,” what’s next, TOETO?

What we’ve got here is the guys who created the web series saying that really they respect this music, which I don’t believe for a second, otherwise why make fun of it, and a bunch of irrelevant talking heads and a few of the players from the era. It’s a big fat “Behind the Music” episode, only it’s twenty five years later, and what did Bob Dylan sing, “things have changed”?

Forget that everybody streams and MAX is a lame service. If you’re not on Netflix, it’s almost like you don’t exist. No, that’s not exactly true, but I bet your inbox is not overflowing with hosannas for the new Beatles documentary, because that’s on Disney+, and unless you’re a kid or a “Star Wars” fan, there’s no need to have a subscription.

So what is yacht rock?

We can debate that.

But once we decide which acts are included and which are not…we want to go deep. Into the personalities, into the making of the records, we want complete stories telling us stuff we don’t know.

Instead this doc is a bad version of a college 101 course. A survey. About as deep as Olivia Newton-John.

Fealty is paid to Steely Dan. But then…

You can’t lionize Kenny Loggins, who did his best work with Jim Messina. What came thereafter is flavor of the moment, evanescent stuff that was made for its day and is a curio now. Whereas those Steely Dan songs…THEY’RE FOREVER!

What inspired them… They’ve got Gary Katz, they’ve got Jay Graydon testifying as to playing the solo on “Peg”… But we want to go much deeper.

The members of Toto played on so many records, wrote so many songs, but all we’ve got here is “Rosanna” and “Africa” and “Thriller,” with a little Boz Scaggs thrown in.

Yes, there is information here, but unless you’re brain dead, if you lived through the era you’ll learn almost nothing.

This doc is made for those too young to have experienced it firsthand. But it’s too lame to create word of mouth. It’s not the Motley Crüe movie and it’s certainly not the “We Are the World” movie, which was fantastic, despite the song being so lame. “The Greatest Night in Pop” set the scene and painted beyond the numbers. Huey Lewis’s fear, the endless session so deep into the night that it became morning. The genius of Quincy Jones.

But here…

Do I really give a f*ck what Bethany Cosentino has to say about yacht rock? Of course not, this is a paint-by-numbers production that needed a young female musician, and she fit the bill. Couldn’t they at least get a woman famous for her playing?

And I must admit Questlove ultimately says some good things, but he’s so damn overexposed. He’s become a joke just like Michael McDonald back in the day. McDonald’s on EVERY record? Questlove’s in EVERY documentary?

And then we’ve got the rock critics who finally get to be on camera, before they retreat to their parents’ basement, where they truly live.

I mean what is this documentary supposed to be about?

The web series? That would be interesting, and the creator Huey’s got some good words here, but that’s just the framework. We know nothing about the personalities, what did they expect, did they make any money, what are they doing today?

And rock critics philosophizing… That’s like asking your kid about quantum mechanics. Way out of their league.

And then you’ve got the music and those who made it. Michael McDonald is pretty good. As is Christopher Cross. But so many of the players are absent.

And then there’s the endless drivel about the sound being embraced by the Black community. They’ve got multiple Black people saying this, but not one white. The producers are bending over backwards here, it’s all about surface, it’s all about the scorecard as opposed to the je ne sais quoi of how this music came to be and what it represents.

Yacht rock evolved from…

In the early seventies being able to play was a badge of honor. We had Rick Wakeman and other classically trained musicians. And recording went to 24 tracks. And records threw off so much money you could spend eons in the studio getting it right. And the boomers had licked their wounds after the Vietnam war and were looking to have fun, had become hedonists.

But this music was not made on a lark. Rather those who created it were talented and serious. But this documentary is not serious.

Then again, it was made under the aegis of Bill Simmons, who made an overall deal with HBO, flopped on camera and is ultimately responsible for this POS. It’d be like having Steve Lukather executive produce a documentary on the 1988 World Series.

Today you’re narrow and deep, not broad and surface. You could get away with this when there were so few channels. Now if it’s a trifle, no one is interested. You’ve got to go deep. A multi-part documentary on the acts of yacht rock… That would have people talking. Or the arc of web series, those who created the initial ones and how it did or did not pay off for them.

I want to dig down deep.

And I want respect for the era I lived through.

That does not mean you have to only say good things about the past, but at least involve those who lived through it. Other than the musicians, everybody involved here is a youngster. Which bugs me about rock history, it’s being written by those who weren’t there.

You won’t hate this documentary, but you’ll want your hour and a half back. You might learn a couple of things, glean a few nuggets, but…

This is AM in a world that is no longer even FM.

These acts, like Steely Dan, occasionally they were embraced by AM radio, but if you look at what else was on the chart at the time, a lot of it was drivel. There was exploration involved in these tunes And there’s only passing mention of disco. Not how the music got so slick, became so common denominator that punk came along and then the whole industry cratered before MTV resuscitated it.

I wanted more. I was looking forward to this.

But there’s nothing here to see.

Don’t bother.

Tune in Saturday November 30th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

X/Twitter: @lefsetz

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

I missed this one.

The funny thing is to look back at Blues Image and realize not only did the band contain Pinera, but Joe Lala. How in the hell did Joe end up going from Blues Image to working with Stephen Stills? Was it a Florida connection? Something to do with Criteria? “Stephen Stills 2” was the first album cut at Criteria. So many of the major connections in rock and roll have been delineated ad infinitum, like Neil Young being spotted in his hearse on Sunset Boulevard by Stills, Richie Furay and Barry Friedman and as a result Buffalo Springfield being born.

Joe’s dead too. I kinda remember that. But now they’re dropping like flies.

Wikipedia tells us that Blues Image opened for Iron Butterfly on the “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” tour, and that’s probably how Mike Pinera ended up in that band, and maybe that’s how I know his name, even though the Iron Butterfly album “Metamorphosis” that Pinera played on was a complete stiff, the public had moved on.

And then Pinera ended up in Ramatam, whose music was overshadowed by the sexual orientation of the band’s female lead guitarist April Lawton, who turned out to be born a man. This was long before everybody knew a trans person, never mind have one in your family.

But Pinera’s most famous moment, not that we had any idea who he was, Blues Image was a faceless band, was as the co-writer, guitarist and lead singer of “Ride Captain Ride.”

I never heard that song on FM radio, but when it was a hit, in 1970, not every automobile had FM, as a matter of fact that was rare, and “Ride Captain Ride” was a smash on AM. I just figured Blues Image was a lightweight pop band a la Looking Glass, which had a hit two years later with “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl).” That’s another track I never heard on FM. And I’ve been stunned to hear it on yacht rock playlists. Doesn’t fit in my playbook. Too early, too outside, no credibility. Just because it’s soft, that does not make it yacht rock. Yacht rock is soft rock by credible acts. It’s a pejorative, but a lot of that music was not only popular, but stands the test of time. Being able to play and sing, what’s the problem? Somewhere along the line the rock press made it that if you weren’t punk, if you weren’t wearing leather, you were no good, and that is patently untrue.

But “Ride Captain Ride”… It was that noodling piano intro that put the track in the Top Forty camp. Can’t say I’ve ever heard an intro like this in credible rock. It sounded like your piano teacher demonstrating something completely out of touch and time.

But then there was a downbeat and Pinera started to sing:

“Seventy three men sailed up

From the San Francisco Bay”

Now this was the era of the Tallahatchie Bridge. Songs set in locations based on history or fiction or…

So had seventy three men really sailed up from the San Francisco Bay or was this made up, and if so, why did this lightweight pop group set this number in the epicenter of America’s credible rock and roll?

“Rolled off their ship and here’s what they had to say

‘We’re callin’ everyone to ride along to another shore

We can laugh our lives away and be free once more'”

We had “Groovin’,” we had “Get Together,” this was a constant theme at the end of the sixties, all of us coming together on a mission…to make a statement, to have fun.

“But no one heard them callin’

No one came at all

‘Cause they were too busy watchin’ those old raindrops fall

As a storm was blowin’ out on the peaceful sea

Seventy three men sailing off to history”

Raindrops? Like in the Cowsills’ “The Rain, the Park & Other Things”? This was obviously fantasy, and kinda stupid to boot.

But that damn chorus, boy was it hooky.

“Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship

Be amazed at the friends you have here on your trip

Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship

On your way to a world that others might have missed”

Bogus lyrics, as if written by middle-aged men in New York City, trying to glom on to youth culture. Just one step beyond bubble gum. Then again, can I admit I loved “Yummy Yummy Yummy”? Which I bought along with my Cream and Hendrix albums?

And there’s a kind of simple, almost weak, guitar solo…then again, the solo in the extended version of “Light My Fire” was not so special. And at the end of the number, the guitar wails.

But really it was about the verses. The way the melody went up and down. But even more the rich vocal. Little did we know it was Mike Pinera. It’s not like Pinera had the absolute best voice, it wouldn’t win on a TV competition show, but it was perfect for this story song. You almost believed the story was true purely on Pinera’s delivery, before you realized it absolutely was not.

And “Ride Captain Ride” was a hit and then disappeared. You’d hear it occasionally on oldies radio, but by that time we were all deep into FM rock. And then came classic rock and it fell through the cracks. But with the internet and satellite radio I now hear “Ride Captain Ride” on a regular basis, AND I LOVE IT!

It’s not nostalgia, it’s not a museum piece. It’s just that on some level it feels so right.

I hope Pinera kept his publishing.

But I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.

He’s dead.

Spotify: https://t.ly/JRoaM

YouTube: https://t.ly/-_1xu

Spotify: https://t.ly/MD1gv

YouTube: https://t.ly/0JaoZ

Spotify slipped into “Sweet Black Angel.” Never my favorite track on “Exile on Main Street” but I love the sound…it’s sparse, nearly naked, and today everybody is covering up.

I’m always interested in what Spotify will play after my chosen tracks/albums are done. To see what the algorithm presents. And hearing “Sweet Black Angel” I was inspired to go deeper down the rabbit hole, back to the return to form, “Beggars Banquet.” People don’t remember that for a long time that was considered the best Stones album, before time marched on and “Some Girls” got love and people looked back on “Sticky Fingers” fondly and I always favored “Let It Bleed,” but “Beggars Banquet” was a complete surprise, a 180 from the overblown “Satanic Majesties,” it was stripped down, no dross, and all the ink was always about “Sympathy For the Devil” and “Street Fighting Man,” the former a deserved classic, the latter very good, but not quite as great, yet it was always the album cuts that resonated with me.

Of course there was “Stray Cat Blues,” with that salacious intro, “ah…yeah…” before the lyrics even began. And I’m loath to admit that for a long time my favorite has been “Parachute Woman”…”land on me tonight,” even though the meaning was slight compared to the rest.

The piece de resistance is the closer, “Salt of the Earth.” But the rest of the tracks…

Waiting for a factory girl? Man, don’t we live in a different society today.

“Waiting for a girl who’s got curlers in her hair

Waiting for a girl she has no money anywhere”

At this point the Stones were stars. And it’s not like Mick came from a lower class background. But this was just when England was emerging from black and white into color, when the grit was still baked into the buildings, and people are people…and usually those no one is paying attention to are the wildest and most interesting, because they see no need to color inside the lines.

And “Prodigal Son” sounds like anything but London. This is the England of 19th century literature.

But the song I was inspired to play after hearing “Sweet Black Angel” was “No Expectations.”

“Take me to the station

And put me on the train

I’ve got no expectations

To pass through here again”

Regrets. Leaving with your tail between your legs. Hoping to recover your good feelings, by never returning to what once was.

This was when Brian Jones was still functional. His acoustic slide guitar is key. Just like so much of “Beggars Banquet,” this is wooden music, as Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young put it. And the ignored Bill Wyman’s bass is key.

Today everybody is a winner. The external is key. But that’s not what the greats of yore were selling. It was a seamier side of life. Internal. After dark.

And Nicky Hopkins is a fifth member of the band.

But I wanted something more electric, so I skipped over to “Let It Bleed.”

Now let’s be clear, at this point I’ve forgone Spotify for Qboz, where I can hear these tracks in better than CD quality. The sound is so immediate. Right there. You’re inside it. It’s striking and pure.

Now let’s be clear, “Monkey Man” is just an album track, far from “Let It Bleed”‘s best, but this is back from when you couldn’t easily pick and choose, you had to get up off the floor, the couch, your bed, to lift and drop the needle to hear a song again, rather you let the album side play right through.

The second side of “Let It Bleed” starts and ends with absolute killers, “Midnight Rambler” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” but I didn’t want to hear anything that overplayed.

“I am a flea-bit peanut monkey”

I didn’t know Mick was singing “flea-bit peanut” until I looked up the lyrics online. Don’t forget, most albums released back then didn’t have lyric sheets. That was part of the magic, you had to figure the words out, and oftentimes you got them wrong.

But “Monkey Man” does not start off like a typical Stones song, in that it begins with Nicky Hopkins’s piano. And Bill’s bass. And a bit of ethereal guitar, more feedback than the notes.

And then…

Keith comes in. He plays all the guitars on this track.

And he’s just hitting a few strings. And when he gets into it, there’s just a bit of distortion, the sound is dirty. This was before the seventies, when everybody was experimenting with sounds beyond the strings themselves. Of course we had Hendrix and Clapton, but once Jimmy Page penetrated our consciousness an undistorted, a thin not fat guitar sound was rare.

But unlike the more modern productions, “Monkey Man” breathes. Because there’s just not that much there. Nicky in the left ear, Keith in the right.

But then Keith falls into a groove. I wouldn’t quite call it soul, but your head starts to nod. And Keith seems to be playing accents more than continuously. Seeing no need to dominate the track.

Although in the right ear there’s a quieter guitar that gets louder as the song plays, but really it’s Mick singing and then that fat guitar sound of Keith.

“And all my friends are junkies

That’s not really true”

Only when you’re at the peak can you undercut yourself. Today no one admits any faults. No one we knew was shooting heroin, but we knew what a junkie was, and the Stones had a bad rep, Mick is boasting of being a bad boy…and then he’s admitting he’s not quite that bad.

“I’m a cold Italian pizza”

Was this a reference to the album’s cover, that ‘za squeezed into the cake concoction?

“I could use a lemon squeezer

Would you do?”

Funny how the previously released “Led Zeppelin II” spoke of lemon squeezing… A term unused in the U.S. that we instantly became familiar with. When rock stars were at the bleeding edge of sexuality, before anyone could Google porn.

“I was bitten by a boar

I was gouged and I was gored”

“Gouged and gored” I always heard, but not “boar,” at least not as in an animal…

“Yes I’m a sack of broken eggs

I always have an unmade bed

Don’t you?”

I heard “eggs” and “unmade bed,” but in the pre hi-res audio days, when we listened on less than perfect stereos, we only caught certain words, and Mick was famous for slurring and the Stones buried the lyrics in the track to the point on “Exile” they were nearly indecipherable.

“Well I hope we’re not too messianic

Or a trifle too satanic

We love to play the blues”

I caught all that. And it was hard to hear “satanic” without thinking of “Sympathy for the Devil,” but the attitude evidenced…they were the other, they weren’t offering salvation, they just wanted to play the blues, but they were DANGEROUS!

That’s what permeated the track, the danger.

That’s what struck me, the difference between then and now. For a long while hip-hop sold this danger, to some degree it still does. And in active rock you hear anger, I’m not quite sure danger, but for a long time there was no danger in rock and maybe that’s why it expired.

The bluesmen were not brought home to mother. How did Robert Johnson die?

Musicians were a cult. They actually knew how to play. And they lived an alternative life. With sex, drugs and…rock and roll. They invented this!

And then everybody glommed on, grew their hair long and lost their ethos.

Taylor Swift has built a career on complaints. No one was complaining back then, they were living the life of Riley.

And those on the Top Forty were not even in mind.

That’s why the ’72 tour was such a thing. This was not about the money, this was about bad boys raping and pillaging across the country… Maybe we can use that term once again. It was a state of mind, not actual rape. But now you can’t even test limits with speech, never mind action.

And what exactly was “Monkey Man” about?

Now the Urban Dictionary will tell you it’s “A person who does drugs (specifically cocaine).”

That sounds right. The Stones were famous for using drugs. It was part of Keith Richards’s identity.

But Wikipedia says “Monkey Man” is ” a tribute to Mario Schifano, whom they met on the set of his movie ‘Umano Non Umano ((Human, Not Human!'”

Now as into foreign film as were back then, I’ve never heard of Mario nor his film, which doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page, which means it might as well not exist, but “Human, Not Human!” could mean monkey.

Or…

It’s not really about the lyrics at all. Except for the words that stick out here and there.

“But I’ve been bit and I’ve been tossed around

By every she-rat in this town

Have you, babe?”

“She-rat”? That’s sexist, abusive… We don’t even want to hear your explanation, be lucky you’re not #MeTooed.

Then again, the Stones and the other bands drew women to them like lemmings.

Let’s be clear, sex was part of the package.

“Well I am just a monkey man

I’m glad you are a monkey woman too”

We are in this together. Ultimately, rock was not exclusionary. You just had to throw off your preconceptions, society, and join in. The Fortune 500 were anathema.

Of course, things changed. The Stones were the first to do a major sponsorship deal, with Jovan, talk about a forgotten brand.

And somewhere along the line it became about the money.

And then all the people who stayed away needed to get close, go to the show, even though it was too down and dirty for them  in ’69.

And there’s that darkness, but baked into “Monkey Man” is also FUN!

You wanted to be Keith Richards throwing off those riffs.

Charlie and Bill holding down the bottom.

And then there was that sound, encapsulated in the notes emanating from Keith’s guitar. They penetrated you in a way the words did not. Mick was just the icing on the cake.

And the way the track seemed to accelerate at the end. It didn’t fade out so much as disappear into the distance, a train of debauchery pulling away from you.

What was that?

These are just human beings, but how did they come up with this sound? This attitude? This life?

We were drawn closer to the flame. We were even willing to get burned a bit in our journey. You could not get this anywhere else but in the grooves of a record or live at the show. It wasn’t on TV. Not even in the movies. The rock stars were kings. You don’t nod your head when you use Facebook, never mind other social media. Music might throw off money, but money never ever has had the power of music.

And you need to remember that.

I don’t know if we can get back to the garden.

But I know if we do the people who lead us there won’t be like you and me. They won’t care about societal convention. They’ll just be concentrated on getting the lightning of sound in a bottle.

We’ve come so far from that magic…

It’s just not the same.