{"id":2186,"date":"2009-08-25T10:20:27","date_gmt":"2009-08-25T18:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=2186"},"modified":"2009-08-25T10:20:27","modified_gmt":"2009-08-25T18:20:27","slug":"royal-scam-at-the-gibson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/25\/royal-scam-at-the-gibson\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal Scam at the Gibson"},"content":{"rendered":"

1<\/span><\/p>\n

Never trust a surfer.<\/p>\n

I was told that early in my tenure in Utah.<\/p>\n

The surfers came from California.\u00c2\u00a0 They were used to living on the beach.\u00c2\u00a0 The only requirement for the sport was a board.\u00c2\u00a0 They weren’t used to lift tickets, lodging, they’d steal you blind.<\/p>\n

But the rest of us ski bums, growing up in the frigid northeast, were not much better.\u00c2\u00a0 We might have thousands of dollars worth of ski equipment, but our bank accounts were empty, if we even had one.\u00c2\u00a0 So when my sore throat persisted, I impersonated my friend Al at the University of Utah clinic, where I was told nothing was wrong, to just wait it out.<\/p>\n

A week of skiing in Sun Valley and an inability to swallow had me dialing for dollars, to my dad, to ask him for money to see a real doctor, who did a more exhaustive test and told me I had mononucleosis.\u00c2\u00a0 At 22?\u00c2\u00a0 Wasn’t it a teenage kissing disease?<\/p>\n

I became an expert on Johnny Carson.\u00c2\u00a0 I continued to sleep on the couch.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the season was over and my roommates moved on, I had to leave the City of Salt.<\/p>\n

So I went to Odyssey Records on State Street, bought six cassettes, gassed up my car and headed east, to my homeland, Connecticut.<\/p>\n

Should I be driving?\u00c2\u00a0 OF COURSE NOT!\u00c2\u00a0 But who was I going to leave my still almost brand new machine with?\u00c2\u00a0 I just popped in one cassette after another, dashing downhill, to the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Steve Miller was pretty good.\u00c2\u00a0 Nils Lofgren was disappointing.\u00c2\u00a0 McCartney’s album wasn’t as good as the one from the summer before, they let Linda SING?\u00c2\u00a0 But the album that got me through was…"Royal Scam".<\/p>\n

That’s what the cassette says.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got it right here.\u00c2\u00a0 Not "THE Royal Scam", just "Royal Scam".\u00c2\u00a0 In a blue plastic box.\u00c2\u00a0 Manufactured by GRT for ABC.<\/p>\n

What’s worse, in an effort to save tape, i.e. money, the order of the songs was rearranged.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t know until this week that "Don’t Take Me Alive" was on the first side.\u00c2\u00a0 Or that the title track CONCLUDED the album, as opposed to side one.<\/p>\n

There was one stretch, from Denver east.\u00c2\u00a0 I could not find a place to crash.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d been on the road for eleven, maybe twelve hours.\u00c2\u00a0 I stopped at a gas station, the song emanating from my speakers was "Don’t Take Me Alive".

I’m a bookkeeper’s son<\/span>
I don’t want to shoot no one<\/span><\/p>\n

The media shows bad boys.\u00c2\u00a0 I was never a bad boy.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn’t a pencil-protector nerd, I was just…average, indistinct, like the protagonist in this song.<\/p>\n

I played "Can’t Buy A Thrill" whenever I went to Nick’s dorm room.<\/p>\n

I skipped "Countdown To Ecstasy", but I eventually bought it and its follow-up, "Pretzel Logic", from the Record Club of America.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t know you could make records with so much surface noise.\u00c2\u00a0 But ah, the music.<\/p>\n

So I purchased "Katy Lied" when it came out.\u00c2\u00a0 Unlike "Pretzel Logic", it had no hits.\u00c2\u00a0 But it did have "Your Gold Teeth II".\u00c2\u00a0 And "Bad Sneakers".

Bad sneakers and a Pina Colada<\/span>
My friend<\/span>
Stompin’ on the avenue<\/span>
By Radio City with a<\/span>
Transistor and a large<\/span>
Sum of money to spend<\/span><\/p>\n

Sung so FAST, a blend of west coast alcohol with east coast sensibility.\u00c2\u00a0 You bond not with the records with the hits, but the ones that seem to make little impact on the media, that you alone own, that make you feel if you could just meet their creators, you’d all be buddies, your life would be complete.<\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/p>\n

So I know every lick of "Royal Scam".\u00c2\u00a0 Albeit in incorrect order.<\/p>\n

But I wasn’t expecting much last night.\u00c2\u00a0 I was psyched for the second part of the show, when the album had been completed and the band let go.<\/p>\n

But last night was different.\u00c2\u00a0 Because of LARRY CARLTON!<\/p>\n

We baby boomers revere our virtuosos.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what made Clapton God.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’s God today?\u00c2\u00a0 Some no-name producer laying down beats for a flavor of the moment "singer"?\u00c2\u00a0 Honestly, Larry Carlton was a bit to the side, he was not a rocker, more of a jazzer, but we had a high opinion of anybody who could play.\u00c2\u00a0 And after hearing Larry Carlton last night, I’ve got big respect for him!<\/p>\n

It’s the same axe, the same instrument for everyone.\u00c2\u00a0 But certain people can make it sing, can make you laugh and cry with what they extract.\u00c2\u00a0 Larry’s not using effects, creating a wall of sound.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, he’s picking the notes, building to the point where our heads our exploding like the audience members given automobiles by the faux Oprah on "Saturday Night Live".\u00c2\u00a0 You should have heard him on "Third World Man".\u00c2\u00a0 He took us to a place that was familiar, but we’d forgotten existed. Where the notes of a guitar make us feel ecstatic, powerful and wistful, all at the same time.<\/p>\n

But it wasn’t only about Larry.\u00c2\u00a0 He brought the whole band up another notch.\u00c2\u00a0 Not in proficiency, but ENERGY!\u00c2\u00a0 Last night there was a heretofore unseen power. Like this was the greatest band in the world, and they wouldn’t be denied.<\/p>\n

But isn’t the greatest rock and roll band in the world the Rolling Stones?\u00c2\u00a0 That band that’s so uneven live that they specialize in mistakes?<\/p>\n

Or maybe it’s U2, the kings of spectacle.<\/p>\n

Or maybe Steely Dan isn’t rock and roll anyway.<\/p>\n

What is rock and roll?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe a mind-set.\u00c2\u00a0 Wherein those not beholden to a system test limits and their audience is liberated from everyday pressures and obligations.\u00c2\u00a0 A music that isn’t constrained, not made to formula, but writes its own rule book.<\/p>\n

Rules.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what we’ve got in the business today.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s why oldsters pooh-pooh the Top Forty crap.\u00c2\u00a0 Where’s the innovation?\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t anyone aspire to greatness?<\/p>\n

3<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the great things about being a Steely Dan fan is you don’t have to convince anyone.\u00c2\u00a0 These shows are not a victory lap, an occasion for the press to fawn. The press is too busy writing its own obituary.\u00c2\u00a0 Trying to appear up to the minute, fearful twentysomethings will eviscerate not only their business model, but their relevancy.<\/p>\n

Once again, music exists outside the system.<\/p>\n

If last night was a rent party, Steely Dan occupies some heavy real estate.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was a party.\u00c2\u00a0 With the feeling of those impromptu gatherings in the seventies.\u00c2\u00a0 When you made a few phone calls, passed the word on the street, and people squeezed into an apartment where the music lubricated minds and feet, and for a few hours, you felt fully alive, like if you died tonight, you wouldn’t give a shit.<\/p>\n

It’s the light in my eyes<\/span>
It’s perfection and grace<\/span>
It’s the smile on my face<\/span><\/p>\n

Tonight we’re going to chase the dragon again.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure the water will turn to cherry wine.\u00c2\u00a0 A little birdie told me they’re going to do "Any Major Dude" from "Pretzel Logic".\u00c2\u00a0 CAN YOU IMAGINE?<\/p>\n

Maybe you can’t.<\/p>\n

But if you’re a fan…<\/p>\n

4<\/span><\/p>\n

I can tell you all I know, the where to go, the what to do<\/span>
You can try to run but you can’t hide from what’s inside of you<\/span><\/p>\n

We baby boomers have got the music inside of us.\u00c2\u00a0 We can get iPhones, update our Facebook pages, but what truly gets us off is music.\u00c2\u00a0 Spinning a record, going to the show.\u00c2\u00a0 We enjoy the one hit wonders.\u00c2\u00a0 But when we hear the legends, we’re returned to who we used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, there are more doors open than shut. We still feel there are possibilities.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing the President, nothing Congress says can make us feel this way.\u00c2\u00a0 Our bank accounts won’t keep us warm at night.\u00c2\u00a0 But when we hear the music, we’re set free.\u00c2\u00a0 With our brothers.\u00c2\u00a0 The so-called Woodstock generation.\u00c2\u00a0 Which realized that music truly could make a difference, truly could save the world.\u00c2\u00a0 That musicians were not the tools of corporations, to play music and sing songs you wrote was the highest calling on earth.\u00c2\u00a0 The music came first.\u00c2\u00a0 The money was a result of the pursuit of greatness.\u00c2\u00a0 Now it’s the reverse.\u00c2\u00a0 But not for us.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 Never trust a surfer. I was told that early in my tenure in Utah. The surfers came from California.\u00c2\u00a0 They were used to living on the beach.\u00c2\u00a0 The only requirement for the sport was a board.\u00c2\u00a0 They weren’t used to lift tickets, lodging, they’d steal you blind. But the rest of us ski bums, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-live-shows"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-zg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2187,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions\/2187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}