Rock on gold dust woman
Take your silver spoon
Dig your grave

I hate oral histories, but I love this book.

Because it’s fiction. In non-fiction it’s a device, often of laziness, just tell me the true story, don’t make we wade through the various opinions, oftentimes shading and not telling the truth.

But oral history is a genius move in telling the story of this fictional band.

The reviews weren’t spectacular. But “Daisy Jones & The Six” became a best-seller. Proving once again, you’ve got to look at art through the eyes of the target audience. You don’t send a dyed-in-the-wool rocker to review BTS and you don’t let someone from the literati review a book that’s the best rock tome in eons, a landmark.

Sure, “Daisy Jones & The Six” is based on Fleetwood Mac, author Taylor Jenkins Reid reveals her devotion to Stevie Nicks in the acknowledgements at the end of the book, but really it’s the story of the seventies, when the boomers came of age, before the legitimization of greed by Reagan, when we were all still in it together, looking for personal fulfillment as opposed to riches, when music drove the culture and if you wanted to take the pulse of the nation you turned on the radio.

Now if this were still the twentieth century, prior to the social media explosion and the fragmentation of the music business, never mind society, “Daisy Jones & The Six” would be the talk of the town, certainly of Hollywood, of the whole industry, akin to “Hit Men,” because Taylor Jenkins Reid captures perfectly the ethos of yesteryear, takes us back to the garden when today music has lost its way and all the excitement is on the internet, when personal stories were the gossip we were interested, when there were not manufactured feuds played out in the tabloids, on the internet, to give their perpetrators traction.

We all formed bands. That’s what the Beatles inspired us to do.

And some stuck with it.

Life was hard. The girls were good, the dope soothed your soul, but you didn’t get rich. You started out at weddings and bar mitzvahs, school dances. Then you graduated to clubs, and from there you went on tour, locally, east coast, the south, the northwest, building an audience no one was aware of unless you lived there. Labels didn’t look at the numbers, they listened to the music.

And then if you had the balls, you moved to Los Angeles. Sure, there was a punk movement starting in the midseventies in New York, but L.A. was for the experienced, the skilled, the hungry, the beautiful, not the antiheroes.

And you lived in one house and scuffled, played gigs, made connections, and if you were lucky you got signed.

Meanwhile, there was a social infrastructure propping this all up. Sure, you’ve heard of the GTOs, Miss Pamela, but there were a lot of other groupies haunting the Strip who were unknown, and boys as well as girls, it was a vibrant scene that started in the sixties, with Pandora’s Box and “For What It’s Worth,” and the progenitors had impact, but in the seventies it was those influenced by the prior decade who made their mark.

Daisy Jones is a child of privilege, a free-rein kid back before parents were afraid to let their kids walk to school, never mind go downtown unsupervised. A whip-smart woman whose young beauty was so stunning it got her in, the Whisky and the Riot House, and taken advantage of by rockers who didn’t care she was underage.

That’s right, this book is accurate. Except for the hazy timing of “Tapestry,” Taylor Jenkins Reid got it right. Hell, she even spells “Whisky” correctly, without the “e.” If you lived through the era, you won’t be wincing, you’ll be nodding your head and lapping it up.

And the Dunne Brothers were from Pennsylvania, without a father, like the Allman Brothers, like so many other damaged musicians who’ve succeeded.

And the band was made up of personalities, not all in agreement, tension permeated.

And everybody worried about how to follow up their big hit.

And the producer and the label had input, but not the final say, and were oftentimes very convincing.

And if you didn’t have a college degree, it didn’t matter. You didn’t want your wedding in the “New York Times,” you were not building a resume, but a career, all based on your talent and your wits.

And the first LP didn’t have to be a smash.

You developed your act. If it was going in the right direction, it was all right.

This was the era wherein the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac sold in excess of ten million albums, when everybody knew not only the songs, but the names, when “Rolling Stone” ruled the roost and everywhere you went current music was on the stereo.

You start realizing this is the story of Fleetwood Mac when the Six record at Sound City, where Buckingham and Nicks famously met that band in crisis. But there’s enough different to keep you interested.

And Daisy Jones is uncontrollable.

But she guests on a single and then…

She becomes a member of the band. Sure, I’m giving something away, but hell, IT’S IN THE TITLE!

And Stevie Nicks doesn’t get enough credit. Our nation is ruled by identity politics, we keep hearing about the lack of women in music. But the thing about Stevie was she did not sacrifice her femininity to win, she stood up to the men, did the drugs, she eclipsed the rest of the singers in the band and illustrated in art you can triumph by just being yourself, if not in the corporation, there’s no glass ceiling in music.

Then again, maybe in country music.

But this was a different era. When radio was just looking for hit records, and they’d play anything if it resonated. We were all addicted to the sound. And yes, rock ruled, which it does not today. Hell, “Daisy Jones & The Six” is more rock and roll than any record released this year. Because it’s not self-conscious. It’s not so out there that no one can relate. It’s refining the ground we tread upon, not trying to reinvent a wheel that cannot be, after all, Clapton, Beck and Page, were influenced by Delta blues records from decades before.

Remember when you used to go to the record store and buy a highly anticipated LP, come home and break the shrinkwrap and drop the needle and digest it, listen to it by yourself, over and over until it penetrated your soul, that’s what reading “Daisy Jones & The Six” is like. You won’t be able to put it down, I finished it in less than twenty four hours.

If you lived through the era…it’s like discovering a time capsule that gets it exactly right, unlike those documentaries on CNN and those biopics.

We had extra time back then, we could get bored, there was not only no internet, but no HBO. So reading books was a regular thing. “Cat’s Cradle,” “The Bell Jar,” “Catch-22,” they were building blocks, they were rabbit holes you went down to not only inform you, but make you a citizen, part of the conversation, back when society was still coherent, and an album could be universal, and I don’t mean the label, hell, MCA was the worst in the business back then, there was Universal Pictures but no Universal Music and A&M and Island were still independent and Warner Brothers was artist friendly.

Well did she make you cry
Make you break down
Shatter your illusions of love
And is it over now, do you know how
Pick up the pieces and go home

Sexual tension, unrequited love, these are the essence of life, not the money and the trophies. Your bank account won’t keep you warm at night, but another person will, and if you’ve got a crush you won’t be able to sleep, it’ll be the only thing you can think about.

WISDOM

“We love broken, beautiful people.”

That’s why they’re stars. We could stay off drugs, we could save money, but we could never become stars to begin with.

“I am not the muse. I am somebody. End of fucking story.”

Talk about female power.

“Men often think they deserve a sticker for treating women like people.”

Ain’t that the truth. Just because you’re not raping women that does not make you part of the solution.

“I think you have to have faith in people before they earn it. Otherwise it’s not faith, right?”

Today no one has faith, no one can see your potential, you’ve got to prove it yourself and then they skim the cream and take the lion’s share.

“Women will crush you, you know? I suppose everybody hurts everybody, but women always seem to get back up, you ever notice that? Women are always still standing.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. One plays arenas, the other plays clubs. Case closed.

“Daisy Jones & The Six”

Come for Aerosmith, stay for John Lennon…you’ll hear stories that will blow your mind!

Listen:

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Apple

Spotify

Stitcher

That’s rock and roll.

This exhibit is so much better than the reviews. By the time I was finished I was in shock, as if I’d just endured a Zeppelin show, or another aural assault by our favorite bands of yore.

A bunch of instruments from famous musicians…doesn’t sound like much.

Unless you were there, unless you lived through it.

It starts with Chuck Berry’s Gibson. To think that this is the guitar he played “Johnny B. Goode” on. That’s a rock STAPLE!

And then there’s Bo Diddley’s box guitar and you turn a corner and right there are Ringo’s drums. Turns out the bass drum was lost, and this is a replica, but not the rest of the kit, not George and John’s guitars.

Now I’ve met Ringo. He called out to me at the Greek, during sound check. But when you see those drums you’re taken right back to ’64 and the Sullivan show and you start to tingle. The energy, that was IT!

Furthermore, they tell the story of the logo, with the dropped “T.” It was the shop owner’s idea, not the Beatles’. That’s the history of music, what we believe was labored over was done thoughtlessly in a pinch. Now it’s iconic.

And then you see Blackie, Clapton’s composite guitar.

Those are two things that strike you. How many of the guitars are hybrids, put together from this and that.

And the sensibility. Never forget that Keith Richards went to art school. These guys were NEVER on the right path, the straight and narrow, they were always a little bit off.

But it’s when you go into the annex room that your jaw drops.

There are the rigs.

I stopped first at Jimmy Page’s. It’s astounding how the equipment has aged, or had rough edges to begin with. That was the analog world, not the digital world we now live in. Today we expect everything streamlined, designed by Jonny Ive, to work straight out of the box and forever. But back then? Electronics were touchy. Boxes were hammered together. Everything had rough edges. That’s the essence of the sound.

And they had video.

You know the modern Jimmy. He looks like a tall slim grandfather, and despite his demonic image, he’s got a soft high voice. But he starts telling tales. This one Telecaster was given to him by Jeff Beck, when they were together in the Yardbirds. He played it on Led Zeppelin I. Huh? There’s an actual instrument and…

Jimmy talks about his double-neck Gibson and then he starts to play.

“Kashmir.” Come on, we know it’s hard to get that sound and Jimmy’s old and he moves his fingers on the frets and he picks the strings and it’s the exact same sound from way back when, it’s incredible. And “Stairway” and the theremin in “Whole Lotta Love”…

And you see Eddie Van Halen’s 1978 rig. The speaker cabinets look like they’ve been on the road. And Eddie tells the story of building his original red and white Frankenstein guitar and plays a bit of “Eruption” and then you go in another room, and there it is.

Eddie wanted Gibson pickups in a Fender guitar, because of their humbucking properties. Forget the surgery, when you see the actual guitar… IT LOOKS LIKE IT WAS PUT TOGETHER WITH BUBBLE GUM! In between the two pickups there’s a floating piece of metal that’s attached by wires and if it was your guitar, you wouldn’t let it leave your bedroom, you’d think it’s too fragile. But this was the axe that Eddie jumped around on stage with and cut all those legendary tunes… This instrument has gravitas.

And the Boss’s half Esquire and half Telecaster, the one he wore slung on his back on the cover of “Born To Run”…IT’S ALMOST WORN OUT! It’s down to the wood in places, there’s no lacquer, same deal with Clapton’s Blackie. These instruments have been USED! And they have not been under glass, protected, they’ve been on the road, they’ve seen miles, they’re a badge of honor and the sounds that emanated from them are emblazoned upon our brains.

And Jimmy’s dragon suit. And then a movie of him in it. It makes it all come alive.

That’s the key to the exhibit. They list exactly when these instruments were used, what year, what records, sometimes what songs. And then they sing out to you, even though they’re silent. It’s like being up close to living history. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? This is the guitar that Hendrix played “The Star Spangled Banner” on at Woodstock? This is the organ that Keith Emerson plunged knives into?

It was show business, artifice, we were never that close. But if we had been, we’d have seen the imperfections. Rock and roll was built from whole cloth, some of these instruments were literally built by their players. And sure, they became rich and famous. But it was a long hard road to rock and roll. Practicing eight hours a day like Tom Morello. Looking for sounds. Trying to get it right.

And the rock stars gave instruments away. Sold them. Normal people would never do this. You cut a track with an axe and then you gift it?

But these people are not like you and me, never were. They were a different breed, called to action by their instruments. They had no other path. And they stumbled and studied and learned along the way.

And the exhibit was crowded with tourists who were looking but didn’t seem to get it. I only wished someone was there with me, so I could turn to them and say…DO YOU BELIEVE THAT?

These instruments were the bedrock of rock and roll. Which was the bedrock of our generation. The music was not passive, it was active, and it was everything. We went to the shows to communicate with the band, not shoot selfies. We were into the gear, we knew the models, we went to Manny’s to check them out. All those memories are stored in our brains. Ready to be activated…

When we see these instruments.

It’s like your deceased relative come back alive. Speaking to you. All the time you spent with them is in vivid color. It’s magic. And even though we were all there together, it was personal. The music entered our brains and set our minds free, led us to drugs, standing up to the man, sex…

That’s right, rock and roll was the root of all evil. The oldsters hated it.

But the little girls understood, along with a whole generation.

Music was everything back then. And if you were there you’ll be overwhelmed.

Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock and Roll

Tune in today, Tuesday April 30th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

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