“Tommy: A Bluegrass Opry”

Sometimes the best entertainment is free.

“Tommy” was not an immediate smash, but it was in my house. It was led by the exquisite single “Pinball Wizard” during the winter of ’69, which got little airplay and was not worth buying as a single since you knew the double LP was coming, and in the spring, it did!

Not sure it’s the same experience anymore. First you had to drive to the store. After you knew the album was coming. This was before the rock press matured, you depended upon the radio, and free-form had invaded the New York market, I drove with my newly-acquired license to E.J. Korvette to buy the double LP.

And we treated them like gold. At least I did. Sure, packages would get scuffed as time went by, there’d be wear and tear, but when you got home they were still brand new and you broke the shrinkwrap and opened them so gently, removing the LPs by the label and edge only, dropping them on the turntable and waiting for…

Those first notes you’d never heard before.

Kinda liked dropping the needle on “Hotel California” the day it was released, the only thing that was on the airwaves was “New Kid In Town,” I had a brand new stereo with JBL L100’s and I dropped the needle on my direct drive Panasonic and…WOW!

Kinda like buying “Band On The Run” when all you knew was “Helen Wheels.”

In the ensuing weeks FM played elements of “Tommy,” but I was still part of a very small club, which over time grew bigger, to tell you the truth what really blew it up was the “Woodstock” movie the following spring, suddenly everybody was involved, SEE ME, FEEL ME, TOUCH ME, HEAL ME!

But there was not another hit on “Tommy,” hell, in America the Who’s only real hit had been mild, with “I Can See For Miles,” and most people still weren’t tuned into FM, if they even had a radio that could receive that band, so I dug deeply into the rock opera and told everybody about it, had my mother send the album to Chicago so I could turn the frat rats in the basement on to it as we resided upstairs and they smoked dope downstairs.

And at this point I’d been to the opera, that’s the luxury of living so close to NYC, the school takes you, the best one was “Carmen,” my mother had a policy, when it came to the arts there was an unlimited budget, and just like those productions in Manhattan, “Tommy” began with an overture, and when the HillBenders blew into the “Overture” Friday night, tears came to my eyes.

It was better than seeing Roger and Pete, they’re going through the motions, I’m just gonna be reminded of what was, seeing them with Moon and Entwistle do it straight through at the Fillmore, it would be nostalgic, it would be a bit creepy, but this bluegrass version…IT WAS FULLY ALIVE!

None of the HillBenders were alive when “Tommy” first came out. They were playing classic music, with a twist.

Oh, what a long strange trip it’s been. Not only to fans of the Dead, but to those of us who lived through the classic rock era, who saw the pop acts wiped off the map by the Beatles, who sparked the free-format era, the concept album concept, and then the explosion of FM leading to corporate rock and then MTV to…

Here.

I don’t know where here is. All I know is it won’t be fully free of constraints until the baby boomers pass the torch, which they’re loath to do. They hate electronic music, they hate rap, they hate everything the streamers care for. But you can’t hold back the future, and we’re getting somewhere great.

But I’m not sure it’ll be as great as where we once were.

On paper, “Tommy” is a stupid concept. But, like the initial live performances of “Quadrophenia,” the HillBenders explained it. And it kind of made more sense.

But to those of us who were there, we’d transcended the story, we knew the music by heart, even if we rarely played it, it’s in our DNA.

And these free shows are dominated by geezers and grazers, people out on a lark, getting out of the house on the hottest night of the year, it could be anything on stage, but to gain their attention…

You have to know how to play, to perform, your material’s got to win.

And seeing these pickers in action, you were wowed.

But they were playing some of the best material of all time.

I never checked my phone. And I do that at shows of today’s greats.

All I could do was sit there, nod my head, sing along at times, and marvel at where I once was and how I got here. Being nowhere in the suburbs and making it to L.A., climbing the ladder, going somewhere, the movie of my life unfolded in my brain. Since this was a new band playing the music with the aforementioned twist I didn’t have to compare it to what once was, I didn’t have to feel old, but then the memories came flooding back, of not only seeing the Who, but where I was when I was listening, memories that are so deeply buried some of them haven’t resurfaced since the sixties.

Is classic rock the new classical music?

It’s amazing how many bands have fallen by the wayside. Has anybody played a Seatrain album recently?

But then there’s stuff that sustains.

Other stuff that’s rarely played but people know.

And when you hear it you marvel at the creativity embodied, the great leap forward artistically, the Who went from a middling band to the absolute bleeding edge, they only got bigger from there, one can argue “Who’s Next” was superior, many people believe “Live At Leeds” is the best live LP extant. And you wonder how Pete came up with this stuff.

And the HillBenders worked through songs we know by heart, the transition from the “Overture” to “Captain Walker,” they played “Pinball Wizard” with as dramatic a transition as the original, do you remember listening on headphones waiting for the explosion to arrive in the other ear, and there were appearances by Uncle Ernie and Sally Simpson and then…

Welcome to the camp
I guess you all know why we’re here

Actually, we didn’t. We were just going about our business, going to school, being on the swim team, and then the whole world went topsy-turvy, the sixties truly arrived, that’s what that first installment of the Grateful Dead movie depicts so well, suddenly the establishment was done and the hippies took over. And leading the charge was MUSIC!

We weren’t gonna take the old crap anymore. The youth were not divided, we were all on the same page, gaining strength all the time.

We got the music.

We felt the heat.

We millions saw the glory.

We got opinions.

We got the story from rock acts like the Who.

And what we wanted most was to be seen, to be felt, to be touched, the music healed us.

And when “We’re Not Gonna Take It” faded into the ether there was only one option…

A STANDING OVATION!

The first ten minutes is the best advertisement for the music business this decade.

There’s been too much focus on the negative for this entire century. And it’s all about the decline in revenue of recorded music. There’s industry infighting, bitching about streaming, hosannas about vinyl, meanwhile the public doesn’t care.

It’s a struggle out there. You either make it or you fall behind. The people need hope. And “The Defiant Ones” gives them hope.

First there’s money. Jimmy and Dre made tons. And they’re not bitching (at least not yet, supposedly in Episode Four Jimmy goes off on YouTube and free). They won. Not by music business standards, but by AMERICAN STANDARDS! The line of demarcation is a billion, and they surpassed it, they’re in the league of the financiers and the techies, only they made their money through creativity.

Think of that. They didn’t pay their dues in school. Didn’t jump through hoops. They created their own path, when they didn’t know where they were going, knowing only that they wanted to get there.

I mean really, do you want to sit inside and code? Sure, Mark Zuckerberg is rich, but do you want his job?

YOU WANT JIMMY AND DRE’S JOB!

And that’s the essence. Sure, you want the fame, but there are twenty four hours in a day, your image is not enough to sustain you, you’ve got to work, and watching Jimmy and Dre in action you feel this is the work you want to do. One in which you make creative decisions, spend all your time and get rich.

Sure, not everybody can succeed, but if you don’t think “The Defiant Ones” is gonna inspire people, you didn’t see the Beatles on “Ed Sullivan.”

And sure, the footage of John Lennon is breathtaking. And Bruce Springsteen is loose and relaxed. But for far too long the establishment has focused on white at the expense of black. And if you don’t think black rules, you haven’t checked out the Spotify Top 50, we now live in a hip-hop world more than ever. And sure, the old farts, the baby boomers, want to see their heroes on screen, but even more exciting, especially for millennials and younger, is to see the Dr. Dre story. From Compton to Beverly Hills. Well, actually he lives in the Valley last I heard, but the truth is not important, it never is, it’s all about image, people at home want some of what he and Jimmy have got!

And to see Dre spin discs in that blue doctor’s outfit is like opening a time capsule with the cure for cancer. Wow, you can feel the heat.

And when he implores Eazy to rap…

You make it up on the fly, as you go along, but don’t believe watching “The Defiant Ones” you can walk in their footsteps, you’ve got to go on your own path, make your own way.

And this show won’t move the needle significantly on Apple Music. That meeting with Zane Low falls flat. He used to be famous, now he works for Apple and he’s a household word on the inside, but the outside just doesn’t care, they don’t believe in radio, it’s an on demand world.

And Jimmy works for Tim Cook and Eddy Cue, but they pale in comparison to him and Dre, they’ve got no charisma, they’re businessmen, whereas Jimmy and Dre are businesses, MAN!

That’s the American Dream. You come from nothing and you get to the top.

You’re supposed to be happy… So far the losses, the divorces and the deaths, are not portrayed in this show. It’s not so much that it’s sanitized, it’s just that certain stuff is left out, they’re building a myth.

And they’re doing an excellent job.

You remember myth-making, don’t you? The Boss and Dre, all the legendary acts, your greatest desire was to meet them, hang backstage, share a bite. And the truth is so many of them are incomplete people, far from normal, you can’t connect, they can do this one thing well, and that’s it. But this show flips the script. Which is how you do it today. You appear to give everything, boosting your image and credibility, you give the illusion of access, it’s not about holding back but pushing it out, on your terms.

Jimmy and Dre did it on their terms.

This is hagiography.

But so far you don’t wince, because you’re thrilled to have a peak inside.

So some people will believe college is unnecessary. Some will go to USC and believe they’ve got their golden ticket. And it’s good to start with a leg up.

But disruption always comes from the outside, from people who don’t fit in, who have to do it their own way.

Like jimmy and Dre.

Luke is eight.

I love talking to the little kids. They answer you honestly, they miss the nuance, they’re fountains of information presented unfiltered and when Luke told me he was listening to TheFatRat I had no idea what he was talking about.

He immediately told me he’d found him on his favorite YouTube channel, featuring an explanation of his favorite video game.

And at this point he handed it off to his older sister Annabelle, who’s twelve, he credited her for the sleuthing. And she told me all about AnimalJam, turned out the whole family was into AnimalJam, an online game that’s addictive. It dominated breakfast discussion, so even their father Brady saddled up and got hooked. And then Luke pulled out the iPad and attached it to a speaker that looked like a panda and he played me his favorite FatRat tune…

It had 75 million views on YouTube.

I started to research. I pulled up TheFatRat in Spotify and quizzed dear Luke.

He knew every song within seconds, if it took that long, even the name of the EP!

That’s the power of YouTube, that’s the power of children, that’s the power of electronic music.

Yes, they couldn’t put a moniker on it, but that’s what it was, they were dancing around the driveway to the beat. They showed me a clip of TheFatRat creating video game music.

That’s the era we live in today. One wherein kids find it themselves, not on radio, but on the internet. Where they’re not cloistered by what’s in the orchestra and not limited by radio. Where they find what feels good and they go deeper than we ever could.

This is the modern world.

TheFatRat-“Unity”-75,216,059 views

“TheFatRat-“Monody”-39,929,632 views

“TheFatRat mixing video game music with EDM”

If You Still Want My Love – Spotify

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where the new Cheap Trick song is a smash, a complete return to form, proving the band’s still got it when we gave up hope decades ago and have considered them an oldies act ever since?

Come on, I love “Mandocello” from the initial LP. My favorite is the second, “In Color,” but I was along for the ride with “Budokan” and “Heaven Tonight” and then there was the occasional winner, like the Jack Douglas produced “Tonight It’s You” that never got the attention it deserved and the worldwide smash they did not write, “The Flame.”

And now this.

They throw down the gauntlet with “If You Still Want My Love” and you wonder…how do these sexagenarians do it, how do they recapture the magic we’ve long thought gone?

Not that anybody would know, “If You Still Want My Love” is a bonus track on the deluxe version!

I mean I gave up listening to Cheap Trick new albums, they were too disappointing. Oh, I always gave them a quick chance, but you get so disillusioned when your heroes can no longer climb the hill.

And today’s world is incomprehensible. If I told you I knew what was going on, I’d be lying. I doubt ANYBODY knows what’s going on! There’s just too much of…EVERYTHING! Too much news, too many movies, too many TV shows, too many songs, and I just want to belong. Used to be radio was the filter, along with “Rolling Stone” and the rock press, you could make sense of it. But now I listen to Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” and I hear something reasonable, and I don’t even recognize the act, DOES ANYBODY RECOGNIZE THE ACT? And then I just give up. Think about going to the “Top Fifty,” at least I can feel a member of the group. Or maybe on to “Hot Country,” but I decide to give “Your Release Radar” a chance, and it bugs me, because too many tracks are reissues, like a stereo version of “Wild Honey,” I love that, but that’s not new, certainly to me, and I’m feeling disconnected and depressed and then I hear THIS!

And even though I’m walking around the neighborhood, I want to do nothing so much as go home and fire up the big stereo and BLAST IT! Nobody’s got enough power anymore, but I do, I’ve still got all my vinyl records and my turntable and my stereo amp with enough watts to blow the house down. And nothing thrills me more than to close all the windows, turn off the lights and crank it to the max and dance around the house as the sound envelops me, drowns out the rest of the world.

So I’m listening to “If You Still Want My Love” and I think it’s another track that’s close but no cigar, but then it starts to build, majestically, like “White Punks On Dope,” like Cheap Trick specializes in.

I fire up my phone to do research, WHAT’S UP?

That’s when I find out the album was released last month and this is a bonus track and the LP is on Big Machine! If anybody can bring the classic rockers of yore back to life it’s Scott Borchetta, but even though he gave Steven Tyler a good shot, it didn’t take, even though I heard a hit, and his Motely Crue covers album did not have success equal to its quality, in some cases better than the originals, SO WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS?

I don’t expect the youngsters to care.

I don’t expect radio to care.

But I know YOU care!

You who bought a guitar when you saw the Beatles on TV, who spent all your lunch money on LPs and never gave up the dream.

But we thought the dream was over. It’s too creepy to go see the oldie acts. With replacement members, plastic surgery, looking younger than their same age audience, play forty or fifty year old tracks for the umpteenth time.

And even though Tom Petty nailed today’s country music by calling it “the rock music of the seventies,” he hasn’t hit one over the fence in eons. And he’s the Great White Hope. And then this little old band from the middle of nowhere, steps up to the plate and hits one hard and high and all you can do is MARVEL!

This is not a song for headphones, even though you’ll get it there.

You’ll be nodding your head, thinking it’s okay, and then…

Don’t put me in the middle of
Don’t put me in the middle of
DON’T ME PUT IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR HELL

And all you want to be is at the show, with the band picking their axes, the sound blasted through giant amplifiers, washing over you as your lift your arms in the air, point your head to the sky and sing at the top of your lungs.

This is the rock and roll experience.

This is all we can ask for.

THANK YOU CHEAP TRICK!