The Band weren’t so big in their heyday.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe they were just a bit too ahead of the game.\u00c2\u00a0 By time the Englishmen had soaked up their influence, the Band had run out of creative gas.\u00c2\u00a0 Robbie Robertson could write music in the STYLE of his great works, he just couldn’t create any new ones.<\/p>\n
In ’68, only hipsters were listening to underground FM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Most markets didn’t even have a free format station.\u00c2\u00a0 It was still about hits on AM.\u00c2\u00a0 You learned about bands like the Band from friends.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like the Internet today, word of mouth, but MUCH slower.\u00c2\u00a0 By today’s standards, most of the album rock groups of the sixties would have been dropped before their second records, because they just didn’t sell.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no assumption that records would be universal, that everybody would own them.\u00c2\u00a0 That really didn’t happen until ’75, with Fleetwood Mac.\u00c2\u00a0 When suddenly hipdom and the mainstream merged, and that album sold and sold, fueled by endless singles on AM radio and constant airplay on FM.\u00c2\u00a0 And by time "Rumours" hit, FUGETTABOUTIT!\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, record companies realized the safer you made something, the more people it appealed to, the more copies you could sell.\u00c2\u00a0 Until the public figured out the joke.\u00c2\u00a0 Corporate rock killed the scene, disco replaced it, and if it weren’t for MTV one wonders whether there EVER would have been a rock renaissance.<\/p>\n
Oh, by the early seventies FM bands were selling out everywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, they didn’t see a million people a tour.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, the business was PROFITABLE, but there weren’t the elephant bucks reaped by today’s hit acts.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a very good living.\u00c2\u00a0 You could afford drugs and you could screw all the groupies you could handle, for free.\u00c2\u00a0 You see rock music existed not quite on the fringe, but in an alternative sphere, akin to the one that video games are just emerging from.\u00c2\u00a0 You know a scene is over when profits start drying up.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you’ve been checking out Electronic Arts’ stock, you know that the heyday is past, a company playing it safe rather than renegade has stalled.<\/p>\n
So, the Band could do good business on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 But, it was about singles.\u00c2\u00a0 Which, they ultimately delivered, with "Up On Cripple Creek", which they could never follow up.\u00c2\u00a0 So, they had their moment in the sun, but then went back to marginality.\u00c2\u00a0 With "Stage Fright".\u00c2\u00a0 If an act released "Stage Fright" as a follow-up today, they’d be hailed as the best in the business, alas that record, without a hit, was a comedown after the act’s second record, the eponymously titled "The Band".<\/p>\n
Many people believe "Music From Big Pink" is the best.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, these are the same people who believe "This Was" is the best Jethro Tull album and Eric Clapton has never eclipsed the work he did with John Mayall.\u00c2\u00a0 For those of us less iconoclastic, not worried about impressing our buddies, we go with the second record.<\/p>\n
"Across The Great Divide" is just a man yelping in crackerville until twenty seconds in, when Levon hits his drum and the whole band joins in, when it becomes a jaunt, a party, encompassing the frontier vibe better than not only "Heaven’s Gate", but "Deadwood".<\/p>\n
But, it’s eclipsed by "Rag Mama Rag", the track that follows it.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the singing fiddles, with just enough edge to remove them from the city.\u00c2\u00a0 The song is DOWN HOME!\u00c2\u00a0 These backwoods folk are having MUCH more fun than the urbanites.\u00c2\u00a0 But what really sells the track is the bridge:<\/p>\n
Hail stones beatin’ on the roof It’s like the "Beverly Hillbillies" with sex!<\/p>\n It’s like that Don Henley song…<\/p>\n I’m not easy to live with You can’t deny it, despite all the arguing, despite the ups and downs, we belong TOGETHER!\u00c2\u00a0 Come over, throw off your clothes, strip off your undergarments, jump under the covers and let’s FOOL AROUND!<\/p>\n Then comes the hit.\u00c2\u00a0 For Joan Baez.\u00c2\u00a0 She lightened up "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", whereas you hear the world-weariness in the original, it’s like the soldiers have been fighting all day, and they’re just worn out.<\/p>\n This is the kind of thing the Stones used to do.\u00c2\u00a0 Start an album with three killers.<\/p>\n But my favorite track is the one that ends the second side.\u00c2\u00a0 "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" is a better union movie than "Norma Rae", never mind its second-rate brethren.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t hear a rich man singing about the plight of the worker, this track SOUNDS like the workers.\u00c2\u00a0 And, it gets under your skin like a day of manual labor.<\/p>\n And I love "Look Out Cleveland" on the second side too.\u00c2\u00a0 The raging piano intro, and the boozy feel.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, don’t you love ANY song that starts with the chorus?<\/p>\n I was in a rush today from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills.\u00c2\u00a0 I decided to hop on the freeway for a few exits to speed my arrival.\u00c2\u00a0 And when I got off the 10 at Overland, after I rounded the exit bend and stopped at the sign, I heard the opening track of side two of "The Band" and suddenly all was right with the world.<\/p>\n Funny, despite having a marginal sales career almost forty years ago, the Band has survived.\u00c2\u00a0 Because those initial records were authentic.\u00c2\u00a0 They were not made with the audience in mind.\u00c2\u00a0 They were fully-realized OUTSIDE the system and then presented to us.\u00c2\u00a0 And those of us who were exposed to them LOVED the peek into another world.\u00c2\u00a0 God, that’s why we wanted backstage access, we wanted to meet these people who played by their own rules, who didn’t care about the bullshit of society.<\/p>\n The Band didn’t wear outfits.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t about look, but MUSIC!\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, if you can play it doesn’t matter WHAT you look like.<\/p>\n And nobody told them what to play.\u00c2\u00a0 You couldn’t tell anybody what to play back then.\u00c2\u00a0 You felt privileged to just ride on the coattails of their art.\u00c2\u00a0 You gave them the money and told them to EXPLORE!\u00c2\u00a0 There was no market research, no focus groups, you just plugged in your instruments and played what felt right, your only desire being to DO YOUR BEST!<\/p>\n "Jemima Surrender" is a minor Band track.\u00c2\u00a0 On a classic album.<\/p>\n We didn’t want the single, we wanted the whole enchilada.\u00c2\u00a0 And, after purchasing an album, we devoured it.\u00c2\u00a0 Ate it till the grooves turned grey.\u00c2\u00a0 We knew every note.\u00c2\u00a0 So, when we hear one of these tracks today, we’re jetted right back to where we used to be, who we used to be.<\/p>\n Classic rock radio doesn’t even play "Up On Cripple Creek".\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why I must applaud Lee Abrams’ programming philosophy at XM.\u00c2\u00a0 The hits aren’t even ON Deep Tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a whole other station.\u00c2\u00a0 For those with casual tastes.\u00c2\u00a0 Deep Tracks is for fans.\u00c2\u00a0 The kind of people who read the paper every Sunday to see who was coming to town, who lined up to buy tickets, to a group seance the likes of which haven’t been seen since.<\/p>\n Jemima surrender, I’m gonna give it to you Ever get titillated, turned on, feel like you’re following your member like a divining rod?\u00c2\u00a0 Then you know what this song sounds like.<\/p>\n But you don’t want to put it in indiscriminately.\u00c2\u00a0 You want someone on the same page, who’s gonna get physical with ABANDON!<\/p>\n Jemima surrender, I’m gonna give it to you What do today’s acts do to seduce girls?\u00c2\u00a0 Bust a move and crank up the autotune?\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t you know girls fall for MUSICIANS?\u00c2\u00a0 I do.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I can recite the legion who wouldn’t screw me because I can’t PLAY!<\/p>\n Jemima surrender, I’m gonna give it to you Oh, he’s determined.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s being up front.\u00c2\u00a0 But he wants her to know that not JUST anybody can play.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, he’s horny, but not for someone indiscriminate, but HER!\u00c2\u00a0 But his fishing expedition isn’t hooking her.<\/p>\n I hand you my rod and you hand me that line Oh, we LOVE the cheesy sexual metaphor.\u00c2\u00a0 This is not a sophisticate.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no private plane, no tux.\u00c2\u00a0 Just a guy with his personality and desire.<\/p>\n And underneath it is this ROLLICKING tune.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is enough to seduce her in its own right.\u00c2\u00a0 The piano is tinkling.\u00c2\u00a0 The guitar is picking.\u00c2\u00a0 And the horns are adding bump and grind EMPHASIS!<\/p>\n You know she gave it up when this song ended.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Band weren’t so big in their heyday.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe they were just a bit too ahead of the game.\u00c2\u00a0 By time the Englishmen had soaked up their influence, the Band had run out of creative gas.\u00c2\u00a0 Robbie Robertson could write music in the STYLE of his great works, he just couldn’t create any new ones. 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The bourbon is a hundred proof
It’s you and me and the telephone
Our destiny is quite well known
We don’t need to sit and brag
All we gotta do is rag
Mama rag, mama rag<\/em><\/p>\n
I know that it’s true
You’re no picnic either, babe
And that’s one of the things I love about you<\/em><\/p>\n
Ain’t no pretender gonna ride in my canoe<\/em><\/p>\n
I’ll bring over my Fender
And I’ll play all night for you<\/em><\/p>\n
Ain’t no pretender gonna see my tattoo<\/em><\/p>\n
That’s what you do<\/em><\/p>\n