The Valiants played "She’s Not There" at Ilene Kramer’s bat mitzvah party.\u00c2\u00a0 Held at Hillandale Country Club on a gray February day, I actually danced a few times.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d recovered from being snubbed by Nancy Moss at Bert’s party the month before.\u00c2\u00a0 But what I remember most is sitting at that round table, listening to the Valiants, the best bar\/bat mitzvah band in the land.<\/p>\n
During slow numbers like "She’s Not There" you danced close.\u00c2\u00a0 This was just before you put both limbs around your partner, when you still held one arm stretched out straight, hands clasped, like you learned in dancing school.\u00c2\u00a0 I guess we could feel tits, but although we talked about them, we were not quite as infatuated as we’d later become.<\/p>\n
The party started at four p.m.\u00c2\u00a0 The sun slowly set.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember distinctly hearing this Zombies tune.<\/p>\n
I spent last night catching up with Tom Petty’s Superhighway Tour.\u00c2\u00a0 Seemingly every day, they make another track available for download, or streaming.\u00c2\u00a0 You can take it in MP3, you can download in FLAC.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no restrictions, you pay, you truly get all access.\u00c2\u00a0 Dribbled out over weeks, until the actual release of Tom’s multi-disc live album, when you can have the rest of the tracks.<\/p>\n
But to get it all at once would be unfortunate, because there’s too much to digest.<\/p>\n
You see on every page, there’s a little story about the track.\u00c2\u00a0 A complete set list from the night it was recorded.\u00c2\u00a0 Reviews. Sometimes not complimentary.\u00c2\u00a0 And extra pics.\u00c2\u00a0 And fan photos.<\/p>\n
And commentary.<\/p>\n
On every track, the three (okay, occasionally only two) key band members tell the story behind the recording.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes it feels like Tom’s going through the motions.\u00c2\u00a0 Other times it’s positively riveting.\u00c2\u00a0 And fascinating.<\/p>\n
Did you know that Tom Petty’s wife has "The Wild One, Forever" on her answering machine?\u00c2\u00a0 That Mike Campbell was stunned the audience knew the track "Nightwatchman" just moments after the album came out?\u00c2\u00a0 And that this wouldn’t happen today?\u00c2\u00a0 In an era when the audience is overloaded and only concerned about the hit?<\/p>\n
And there’s a plethora of information on the Superhighway Tour.\u00c2\u00a0 You almost have to clear the decks and not pay attention to anything else, you won’t have the time!<\/p>\n
But going cut by cut you’re confronted with masterpieces!<\/p>\n
Like the band’s performance of "Oh Well" at Bonnaroo.<\/p>\n
I never saw Peter Green play it.\u00c2\u00a0 Lindsey Buckingham does an incredible version with today’s band.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s not in the LEAGUE of this Heartbreakers take.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the pure ENERGY!\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, Mike hits all the notes.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s more than that, there’s the TONALITY of the guitar!\u00c2\u00a0 This rendition is STUPEFYING!<\/p>\n
I’d say to release a single disc package of all the covers, of all the tracks that have never seen the light of the day.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the essence of the collection.\u00c2\u00a0 Not the live renditions of your favorites, but the revelations.\u00c2\u00a0 Like "Goldfinger".\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n
And there’s this unreleased gem, an original entitled "Lost Without You" that sounds like a drive on a hot Florida night.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the sweat is sticking to you, that time is moving slowly, almost too slowly, but this is your one and only life.<\/p>\n
But the piece de resistance is the Zombies’ "I Want You Back Again".<\/p>\n
I thought maybe it was a variation on the Jackson 5 hit.\u00c2\u00a0 I was more interested in hearing the cover of "Friend Of The Devil".\u00c2\u00a0 But as I played the song and then listened to the commentary, I got hooked.\u00c2\u00a0 By this cover of a lost gem.<\/p>\n
Mike says the guitar on the track is understated, that it’s a Vox twelve string, which captures the exact Zombies sound from the original record.<\/p>\n
Benmont admits he didn’t even know the record, that it slid right by him back in the day, even though he was a Zombies fan.\u00c2\u00a0 Me too, I’d never heard of it, never mind heard it.<\/p>\n
Tom says "I Want You Back Again" is his second favorite track of the collection.\u00c2\u00a0 That he knew the song from the radio, and it played in his head for ten years until he found the record.<\/p>\n
Which is pictured on the site!\u00c2\u00a0 You click and you see that Parrot label.\u00c2\u00a0 Distributed by London Records, home of the Stones.\u00c2\u00a0 The credit on the label says "Directed by Ken Jones".\u00c2\u00a0 And the time is 1:58!<\/p>\n
I immediately pulled up the Zombies take on Spotify.\u00c2\u00a0 The song was new to me, I needed to hear the original.<\/p>\n
But it paled in comparison to the Heartbreakers’ remake, which I immediately went back to and couldn’t stop spinning.\u00c2\u00a0 It had a driving, slashing groove, and Tom sang with that intimate intensity he specializes in.<\/p>\n
Somebody help me<\/span> There’s nothing worse than residing in the heartbreak hotel.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing else matters.\u00c2\u00a0 Not work, not play.\u00c2\u00a0 Just her.\u00c2\u00a0 And Benmont’s keyboard conveys the feeling of climbing the walls, which is exactly what you’re doing!<\/p>\n Since you have left me<\/span> There’s that same mid-sixties darkness.\u00c2\u00a0 When the movies were still in black white, before the technological revolution, when the U.K. was still emerging from the shadow of the war, when you wanted to avoid a life of desperation by playing music. They say you can’t deny your history.\u00c2\u00a0 I spend too much of my life searching for it.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be it was deep in the darkness of the past.\u00c2\u00a0 But as a result of the magic of the World Wide Web, you can find old haunts, old people, it’s like the past is riding shotgun with you today.<\/p>\n And some elements of those days gone by still pull.\u00c2\u00a0 Before we were adults, when we were still kids, with time to waste, to listen to these records over and over again.<\/p>\n Listening to Tom’s take on "I Want You Back Again" ad infinitum, I decided to check out the original once again.<\/p>\n This time it was different.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew the song so well, I could hear beyond the song, into the record.\u00c2\u00a0 It feels like it was cut in an alternative "Hard Day’s Night", underground, where there was no chance of advancement, yet there was still a glimmer of hope. For what, I’m not sure.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s what music does.\u00c2\u00a0 Give you gumption to face incredible odds. The waiting is the hardest part.\u00c2\u00a0 For your life to unfold.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, suddenly, too much is in the rearview mirror, you want to put on the brakes.<\/p>\n Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers know those days are done.\u00c2\u00a0 When we fought over list price of a vinyl record, when fans lined up on the date of release with hard-earned cash and after purchasing the record spun it into oblivion, until they knew every lick and every word, being unable to afford anything more.<\/p>\n But no one’s getting plastic surgery.\u00c2\u00a0 No one’s working with Timbaland.\u00c2\u00a0 They did do the Super Bowl, but I’d like to see that as a momentary indiscretion.\u00c2\u00a0 You see Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers was never everybody’s band.\u00c2\u00a0 They were our band.\u00c2\u00a0 However large "our" might have been.<\/p>\n Although composed of live cuts stretching back decades, the "Anthology" recordings don’t sound calcified.\u00c2\u00a0 Listening is akin to opening up a photo album with an old friend, someone who is in the pictures too.\u00c2\u00a0 Not reliving the past silently, but commenting on it.<\/p>\n Yes, it’s the commentary, the extras on the Superhighway Tour that make it all work.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, this was a way for the band to generate extra cash, but you know that constructing this site was FUN!\u00c2\u00a0 The way music used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 We dedicated hours out of love, to get closer, not because we were interested in a paycheck at the end.<\/p>\n
I’ve got to eat<\/span>
Somebody help me<\/span>
To stand on my feet<\/span><\/p>\n
I’m all alone<\/span>
I need your help<\/span>
I can’t stand on my own<\/span><\/p>\n
I want you back again<\/span>
Oh, oh, oh<\/span>
I want you back again<\/span><\/p>\n
Oh baby don’t it feel like heaven right now<\/span>
Don’t it feel like something from a dream<\/span><\/p>\n\n