Today’s Playlist – Spotify

“The Song Of Purple Summer”
“Spring Awakening”

Do they do “Spring Awakening” at high schools yet? I’m kinda stunned, this is from 2006, over ten years ago, and I can’t say the rest of the score resonates with me/I remember it, but I absolutely LOVE THIS!

It reminds me of the finale of “Fame,” I guess I love the majesty, the melody, it simultaneously makes you want to conduct the choir and sing along at the same time.

Your hitmaking era is usually brief. Give Duncan Sheik credit for realizing this, and you must realize how hard it is to have a Broadway success, not only to write but get it mounted and stick on the Great White Way.

ALL SHALL KNOW THE WONDER OF PURPLE SUMMER!

“So Little Time To Fly”
Spirit

From 1969’s “Clear,” and it’s amazing how crisp and clear this sounds considering that was almost fifty years ago.

I never knew that this was covered by Status Quo, just found that doing research, and I won’t say it’s as good, because the English band is lacking the exquisite vocal of Jay Ferguson, who is most famous for “Thunder Island” and is still around, but no one seems to know this, unfortunately.

But when you listen to the original…

You’ll get an idea of what it was like way back when, when underground FM ruled and it was anathema to have a hit on AM, when you bought the LPs and played them in a marijuana haze and nodded and knew every note and went to hear your favorites live more than to take selfies at the show.

It’s impossible to listen to “So Little Time To Fly” without nodding your head, without feeling you want to get behind the wheel and lower the window, put your arm on the sill and mash the accelerator.

Actually, I didn’t know this way back when, we couldn’t afford everything, it surfaced for me during the Napster/download era, of course I’m deep into “Dr. Sardonicus,” but this is just as magical.

“Sewn”
The Feeling

If you’re under twenty five have you ever heard this?

Certainly not if you’re living on this side of the pond, the Feeling had some huge success in the UK back in 2006, and if you’re the type of person who loved the Raspberries, who believe catchiness is cool, who believes the ability to sing and employ melody are a good thing, you’ll love this, it’s magical.

I yearn for the return of stuff like this.

I feel I’m gonna have to wait a very long time.

“Sewn” is deceptively long, be sure to hang in there until the transition at 3:25 when the guitar slashes and the song gets intense and builds to a release, you cannot listen to this and feel you’re alone, you believe you’re part of a vast audience with this mellifluous sound washing over you and it feels so GOOD!

“The Long Goodbye”
Paul Brady

Being a songwriter used to be different, you weren’t a topliner, improvising, your goal was to capture life in verse, a few minutes, much shorter than a book or a movie but encapsulating life even more accurately and powerfully, that’s the essence of music, sure, it’s a sound that makes you move your feet, makes you feel good, but…

Sometimes I ask my heart did we really
Give our love a chance

That’s something that went out the window with the turn of the century, commitment. Or maybe we’ve got to go back to the seventies, or back to the sixties, with the birth control pill, when everybody thought there was something better around the corner if you could just break up and take the risk.

I don’t believe this is true. I’m not saying you’ve always got to stay together, sometimes breakups are right, but too often one partner is unwilling to do the hard work, it’s so hard to get this far, to find someone, to click, to get along, you don’t want to throw that away too fast, without thinking about it.

“What Comes After”
Stories

Michael Lookofsky, aka Michael Brown, is gone now, but his work with the Left Banke lives on, deservedly so.

And after that act Brown was in a band called Stories, which ultimately had a hit with “Brother Louie,” but that’s not representative of what the band was about, “What Comes After” is.

Now music has become communal, despite being listened to via earbuds, it’s all about being a member of the group, but “What Comes After” is for you personally, I had the album “About Us” on a cassette I played driving cross-country, to hear “What Comes After” made me feel like it was all gonna be all right, and I don’t always feel that way…

“Blue Of Your Backdrop”
Honk

Be your own saving grace
Tip your hat, take your place
And shine on

California used to be different. Actually, it’s different once again, only in a different way. It’s the anti-D.C., the anti-Trumpland, we’ve got our own emissions standards, we’re fighting for a more equitable society and taxes are high but no one wants to leave because living is so damn good, even if real estate is astronomically expensive. And if you don’t believe that, you probably don’t live here, so save me your exhortations, that’s what’s wrong with America, everybody telling everybody else they’re doing it wrong, if you like to live where it’s every person for themselves, sans safety net, be my guest, but don’t rain on my parade.

But the mentality used to be different, before the world shrank, when the Golden State was three hours behind the rest of the country and didn’t care, when it went its own way and let its freak flag fly.

This is from the soundtrack of one of the greatest surf flicks of all time, “5 Summer Stories,” and you don’t have to see it but everybody active back in the seventies knows this album and this band from the soundtrack.

I want you to shine on. I want you to cast off the shackles, stop worrying about the limitations, forget about who your parents want you to be and be your best self.

I’m gonna try too.

“Dandy”
The Kinks

Did you know it was a Kinks song first, before Peter Noone and his band of merrymen made it a ubiquitous hit?

Of course, it all makes sense when you listen…

“Fountain Of Sorrow”
Jackson Browne

From back before he was a rocker, before the Fender became upfront and center, when he was America’s wise before his years troubadour without a hit but a growing audience.

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you

My father took slides, but that was an era of snapshots, I wish I had some now. Every once in a while someone will send one along from back then and I’ll be stunned, was I ever that young, that thin, why was I so insecure?

And the thing about memories is they fade but they never go away, you’re alternately haunted and elated by what once was, and fifteen years ago, maybe ten, it was cool to reach out to all those you’d been disconnected from for decades but I did not, because it’s too unsettling, there’s a reason you left them behind or vice versa…and I’m not a stalker, I don’t want to see what an ex-girlfriend is doing every damn day, and I don’t think they’re stalking me, but what if they are?

There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true

Why does everybody hate themselves in photographs, why do they hold themselves up to unattainable standards, when done right a photo captures a part of you, but not all of you, and that part of you is true.

“Fountain Of Sorrow” is nearly seven minutes long, and when I say they don’t make them like this anymore, I mean it. No one’s shooting this high, a record is what you use to rationalize the tour, and even if you nail it you’re just part of the endless wash, why be new and different and independent when even those playing the game can’t get recognized?

I’m not sure.

But “Fountain Of Sorrow” cut us to the bone, it was unforgettable, it’s stuff like this that keeps us still going to the show today.

“Tell Me Why”
Taylor Swift

All of the above songs are from my iTunes Top 200. I go back there now and again, to reconnect, when I need to be rooted, the app is so damn bad and I never download music anymore, I’m a streamer, but when I hear these old songs they remind me…

Of 2009, when Taylor Swift was still a secret, only known by the country world and her fans.

I took a chance
I took a shot
And you might thing I’m bulletproof
But I’m not

How brave, how inspirational! They keep telling us to take a risk, we get it, but it’s so hard to do…

You took a swing
I took it hard
And down here from the ground I see who you are

This was back when Tay Tay was still punching up, when she was still the geek, the underdog, before she achieved world domination and felt it was her duty to be loved by all and to excoriate those not on her team. And that’s just plain sad, that she grew up in the spotlight, that she doesn’t realize that no one really cares, that we’re all equal and forgettable, only known for a moment. Fame has its perks, but it’s got its costs too. She’s licking her wounds now, and that’s good, but I wish she’d go back to rock and roll/country instead of the pop tripe she’s purveying today, hey, look even her old paramour Harry Styles has!

I’m sick and tired of your attitude
I’m feeling like I don’t know you
You tell me that you love me then you cut me down

Look at this through the lens of 2009, not 2017, she was hurt and she was expressing her anger, this was before she evolved into her GOTCHA! persona, when she started to settle scores, when the truth is you never can, you’ve got to declare individual victory and march on.

Tell me why
Why, tell me why

In ten short years the world has turned completely upside down, Taylor Swift was once the great white hope, and then she bought in and helped bring the whole edifice down.

It was all about sincerity, credibility, changes and the ability to sing along, those first two Taylor Swift LPs are exquisite, documents nearly equal to Joni Mitchell’s peak, in their sheer honesty and insight, and listening now you do wonder how much responsibility she had, her voice is thin, she’s not playing the instruments, but it’s her name on the record.

We’re all just people. Insecure. With more questions than answers. Geeky. Taylor Swift too.

But she made a career out of it, and an audience clamored for her authenticity, it could not be gotten anywhere else, she invented the paradigm and now…

She’s standing up for stuff that doesn’t even matter.

You know this isn’t even on Spotify?

Why?

What battle is she fighting here? One she’s already lost. Along with all that money.

And I think Taylor Swift is too old and too experienced to recapture the zeitgeist, but…

Imagine if she pulled back the layers and sang the truth about what she’s been through this past ten years, the journey from zero to hero, nowhere to everywhere, everybody wanting a piece of her but fumbling towards ecstasy in public, that’s an album I’d want to hear.

Like “Tell Me Why.”

Tell Me Why – YouTube

Could anyone have been plastered over the mainstream press more than Sheryl Crow? She even made the cover of “Parade,” talking about her home life.

But nobody wants to listen to her new album, on Spotify not a single cut has exceeded one million plays, which means if she’s counting on streaming revenue to pay her bills…she might be able to buy a hamburger.

Meanwhile, someone e-mailed me about this track by this act Russ, “Losin’ Control,” an act you’ve probably never heard of, and it’s got 63,982,611 streams, another cut, “What They Want,” has 98,875,488, and the most any cut from Crow’s album “Be Myself” has is the 649,847 for “Halfway There,” and two more cuts have broken six digits, barely, but the rest are in five.

How about Bob Dylan’s “Triplicate,” his covers of classics that we had to read about endlessly. Well, on Spotify they’ve just got a sampler, ten tracks instead of the entire package, but not a single cut has been streamed a million times either, although all are in six digits, albeit in most cases low six digits.

What is going on here?

People are ignoring the hype, if they even see it at all. They know that’s what it is.

And old fans are just not that interested in new material by people who’ve burned them so much in the past. For all the people trumpeting Dylan’s later work, there are zillions who are saying NO MAS, who just don’t get it, as for Crow, she hit the jackpot but then she went in search of coin, jumped to pop and country and no one’s quite sure what she stands for anymore, although people will still go to see both acts live to hear the hits of yore, that accompanied their upbringing.

Turns out it takes a lot to get people to click to stream, even though it may not take a train to cry. That jump from printed page, even from webpage, to Spotify, is gigantic. Forget the initial sales burst, the idiotic Top Ten you see in the newspaper based on rabid fans going out and buying CDs, the truth is most new projects by old acts disappear immediately.

Deservedly so?

I’ll let you decide.

I found this on Deezer.

I wonder, at some point in the future, will a younger generation go back and discover the classic rockers the same way boomers and Englishmen went back and discovered the Delta bluesmen?

They were hiding in plain sight. Harvard students looked them up in the phone book and brought them up to Cambridge to play. All those legendary names, most had given up their itinerant musician ways and were working straight jobs, or were retired, eking out a living on Social Security. But the recordings, they were percolating, being played in dorm rooms and flats, and they were the basis of rock and roll.

Rock and roll is in a death spiral. Primarily as a result of abuse, after a splintering amongst its acolytes, who couldn’t agree whether it was attitude or skill, whether it was better to be a punk or a prog rocker, although we know how that worked out, since all the punks got into the R&RHOF before the proggers, because a coterie of writers and insiders are more interested in perceived credibility than music, but it’s the music that survives, or does it?

“Find The Cost Of Freedom” was the b-side of “Ohio,” but this was back when people had given up on 45s and were buying LPs, and the only version most people owned was the live one on “Four Way Street,” at least until the greatest hits package “So Far” was released in ’74, but by that time the bloom was off the rose, Nixon had resigned eleven days before, Ford was President and boomers were licking their wounds and going back to the land. CSN would re-emerge in ’77, Neil Young would continue to be a fixture, but their sound was superseded by tracks crafted to fit Lee Abrams’ SuperStars format on FM.

Not that you never heard “Love The One You’re With,” it’s just that that’s all you heard, all the rest of Stephen Stills’ oeuvre receded into the bedroom, you played the records at home or in your head, but they ceased being in the air, everywhere.

When I get restless, what can I do
When I need someone, I think about you

That’s from “Sit Yourself Down,” the second side opener of Stills’ solo debut. It was not the hit, but it’s my favorite cut on the LP, because of the changes, from verse to chorus, with the background vocals in a waterfall, it’s a production tour-de-force built upon a great song. They don’t build them this way anymore, because it costs too much money for so very little in return. Spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars in the studio, partying, getting it right, and you’ll find you release it to a limited audience with limited revenue, best to stop recording and just go on the road, playing to the already converted, that’s where the money is.

And he cries from the misery
And he lies singin’ harmony
She is gone there is no tomorrow

That’s from “Do For The Others,” song two on side one, quiet after the exuberance of “Love The One You’re With,” it expresses the pain of a breakup, something we rarely hear in today’s popular music. Sexual harassment was worse in 1970, despite nascent feminism, opportunities for women were limited, but men were more sensitive, they could reveal their vulnerabilities, their pain. That’s something we’ve lost in the coarsening of America, no one can appear weak, no one can be a loser, it’s all victory all the time, to admit you’ve got more questions than answers is anathema, you just put your head down and march forward, internalizing any doubt. But it didn’t used to be that way.

So, after playing “Find The Cost Of Freedom,” going back to Stills’ debut, I decided to search online to find out if the CSNY live box from ’74 had made it online.

It hadn’t.

But that’s when I discovered “Transmission Impossible,” a forty five cut album of previously unreleased live cuts by Stephen Stills, it was like finding the Dead Sea Scrolls, unearthing this previously unheard work of a master, some recorded during his heyday, some as late as the nineties, but it’s positively…

Stills.

I’ll be honest, I pulled up “4+20” first, there are two iterations, one from the King Biscuit Flower Hour in Portland in ’78, another from the Bread and Roses Festival in Berkeley the same year.

Four and twenty years ago, I come into this life
The son of a woman and a man who lived in strife
He was tired of being poor
And he wasn’t into selling door to door
And he worked like the devil to be more

Twenty four is not what it used to be. Now there’s a great bifurcation, either you’re on the path to riches or not, you went to college or you didn’t, you’re a winner or a loser, but way back when it was much less clearly defined, fewer people went to university, which was not a glorified trade school, but a place to expand your mind, and it wasn’t uncommon to find yourself at that age being completely lost, wondering how did you get here and where are you gonna go?

A different kind of poverty now upsets me so
Night after sleepless night I walk the floor
And I want to know, why am I so alone
Where is my woman can I bring her home
Have I driven her away is she gone

So different from the bitches and ho’s ethos of today, wherein you abuse them and then kick them to the curb, at least that’s what popular music tells us, the truth, amongst the hoi polloi? I think Stephen Stills has it right.

And “Transmission Impossible” is a cornucopia of covers and originals, there’s even a rendition of “Midnight Rider,” because a great song is a great song, even though this version is mostly a curio, but still, when you’re going deep, when you’re a fan, you want to hear everything.

And you’ll want to listen to “Helplessly Hoping,” live from the Palladium in New York City back in ’76, an almost completely forgotten song from the CSN debut, it’s another number with magical changes, hopscotching through your brain.

And from that same show is a combo of “49 Bye-Byes” and “For What It’s Worth,” which segues into a cover of “Everybody’s Talkin’.”

But the ’78 shows are better, Stills is in better voice, I loved listening to “Fallen Eagle,” because that Manassas debut is even better than Stills’ initial solo, but it’s like it doesn’t exist. Which brings me to my favorite cut on “Transmission Impossible,” a live version of “So Begins The Task” (mislabeled “SHE Begins The Task”), which segues into “Johnny’s Garden” from that same Manassas debut, recorded at the Joint at the Hard Rock in Vegas back in ’95. And the most amazing thing is like so many cuts on “Transmission Impossible” it’s just Stills and his guitar, no trickery.

Live material used to be dribbled out. You’d go to a bar and they might have a King Flower Biscuit Hour on reel to reel tape, recorded off the radio, but labels parsed out their material, they didn’t want to overload the audience, there was no YouTube, there was a dearth of this stuff.

And then during the heyday of file-trading, all this stuff surfaced.

And then it disappeared. Funny how legality does this.

And I’ve got no idea of the legality of “Transmission Impossible,” it’s not on Spotify in the U.S., but you can buy the album on Amazon, both in the U.S. and the U.K.

So…

Now I wanted to go deeper. I found that Stills is still recording, with Barry Goldberg and Kenny Wayne Shepherd as the Rides, I saw they played at that theatre in Northridge a year or two ago, but people today care about combos of superstar rappers, not classic rockers.

And after the splintering of CSNY over David Crosby’s ill-considered words about Neil Young’s personal life, Stills is touring this summer with Judy Collins. And the truth is although Stephen’s picking is intact, is voice is not, but he’s still out there, available, like the rough-vocaled Delta bluesmen of yore.

If you’re a boomer, you know. You’ve probably seen him, with or without his compatriots, but if you’re under thirty, certainly under twenty, you’re probably clueless.

And maybe it skips a generation, maybe it’s a decade or two out, when word starts to spread and people go deep into the talent of someone who shined so brightly back then whose star has dimmed considerably.

Or maybe not.

“Transmission Impossible” (UK version with track-listing)”

“Transmission Impossible” (US Version)

I blame Bill Clinton.

Oh, all you lefties don’t have to get your knickers in a twist, I know, I know the Republicans were after him but he did it and parsed the language and that’s when the baby boomers bought this country, he was one of them, we messed it up.

It started under Reagan. When he legitimized greed and self-interest. But the boomers could have said no and they didn’t.

Kinda like the rockers. No wonder disco made a dent. They might have blown up records at Comiskey Park but if you don’t think disco won, you haven’t listened to the radio, or checked the Spotify Top 50.

We went from the Allman Brothers wearing their street clothes to spandex jumpsuits and Lee Abrams codified FM playlists and there was a ton of money in it but no soul.

And then came MTV. Remember when Martha Quinn was America’s sweetheart? On the tube more than the acts she presented? Well now she’s a footnote, ground down under the relentless need of the media machine to titillate us with something new, which proves if you’re doing it to become rich and famous you’re on the wrong path. I hear from Martha now and again, she’s very nice, this is not karma, this is reality.

And the reality is there was much more money in overproduced pop videos than the work of classic rockers. Duran Duran had some substance under those expensive clips but by the end of the eighties, it was all formula, the nineties were worse, and then the internet came along to blow it all up.

It was the great hope. Never mind net neutrality, remember back in ’96, when it was a thrill just to connect with people online? Now it’s all been commercialized. By the ISPs, the Frightful Five, Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft, and the surfers themselves. First they put Google ads on their blogs and then they made YouTube clips for the commercials and now they’re influencers on Instagram, pretty soulless, don’t you think?

And you can’t find a single person who won’t sell out, no one with cred who will say no. The handlers know they’ll outlast the acts and they want their commission and the players want some of that private jet lifestyle, and that costs, most acts can’t afford it, but they want it, now that you can’t indulge in hookers and dope, backstage blow jobs, since everybody’s got a camera in their phone.

So that’s the world we’re living in. John Lennon imploring us to give him some truth?

THERE IS NONE!

That’s right, Roger Ailes muddied the waters, used a news channel for advocacy, and Chris Cornell is doing the endless grind on the road because he’s got to make a buck, he’s got bills, and NBC makes Donald Trump a superstar, that’s right the self-promoting blowhard is blown up and is this any different from what the musicians are trying to do? Trying to get someone national to feature them, make them a household name?

Now it used to be when the other team was in power, you squirmed and squealed, hated how they parsed the language, but no one can believe a word Donald Trump says, he’s got no credibility, it’s like listening to Kim Jong-un or Vladimir Putin, it’s just self-serving hogwash.

And that’s frustrating, because you and me, the fabric of this country, we didn’t get a chance to make hay, they sold us opportunities that don’t exist, it’s a giant Ponzi scheme, and the brilliant media has us fighting against ourselves when we’ve got more in common than different, but…

I’m not gonna get into name-calling. Not gonna say how the right made “government” a dirty word and neutered the “New York Times.”

I’m just gonna say life is about character. And character begets relationships, friends. And you can’t go through this game alone, no way, it’s a web of personalities. You know that, despite the shitshow you see in the news every day. If you lied and cheated all day you’d be an outcast.

But as soon as you get a chance, a leg up, those you meet say no, you’ve got to play like the big boys do, you’ve got to become a lying, cheating, scumbag.

We need a reset. Just like the Republicans founded the Federalist Society decades back to put right wing judges on the bench, we need credibility, honesty and the American Way to re-infiltrate our society.

And you know where it starts?

With artists. Because they are role models, no matter what they say.

The artists have to realize there’s enough money if they’ve got fans. And believe me, fans want to believe in you. Ask all those aged acts plying the boards. You know why the Eagles can still sell so many damn tickets? Because they never sold out. Of course they made great music, but there was never a movie, an endorsement deal, and Don Henley might rub you the wrong way, but the best artists always do, ever interact with Van Morrison? They’ve got to do it their way, the right way, or the whole thing doesn’t work. They don’t believe in compromise. They’re beacons, for you, telling you too can believe in yourself and make it.

And that’s the way it was from the Beatles to corporate rock.

But then, the whole world went topsy-turvy, cash ruled, and you had to get you some.

I’ve been on the private plane, it’s nice. But when I fly commercial in the back I don’t want to fly out of Van Nuys anymore, I just want to hate on the airlines, who’ve ground us into dust, by playing to our mercenary ways.

And United messed up, and there was blowback, but you’ve got no choice, you’ve got to fly them if you live in so many hamlets, cities and burgs.

And I don’t want to get off point, I just want to say the game is rigged, most definitely, but we can untie the knot.

We just need people to believe in.

P.S. Remember that guy Ian MacKaye, and his band Fugazi? Every one of the major labels was up his ass to make a deal, they wanted the billing, the imprimatur, the glow, but he said no. He had to do it his way, with his own label, stickering LPs so retailers wouldn’t overcharge for them. His only flaw was he was operating in the pre-internet era. Ian MacKaye and Fugazi today? GODHEAD! That’s the paradigm, not to wake up at the crack of dawn to play the “Today Show,” but to release the music you want to make and tour to support it, building a fan base with direct access online. That’s the world we’re living in now, every act is a cottage industry, other than the two-dimensional nitwits conceived, executed and propped-up by the machine. Where are those popsters years down the line? They’re only as big as their last hit, which they lack, where acts like Fugazi, they’re FOREVER!