Month: November 2021

I am somewhat embarrassed by my obsession with The Beatles. How banal and mundane. When asked what about music, I am hesitant to say that The Beatles is my favorite band, and that I still constantly listen to them. You can see the yawn being stifled, and the usually futile attempt to hold back the inevitable response of “Can you be any more boring?”. 

I have often thought that I need to come up with a more eclectic response. Maybe assert my love of Folk punk (let’s put on some Violent Femmes, or The Pogues), or perhaps Instrumental Rock (tough to beat Jeff Beck, or Soft Machine). Better yet, disavow pop altogether and proclaim my love of Free Form Jazz (wasn’t the Free Form Jazz Odyssey the best part of The Spinal Tap movie?), or classical Futurist music (all hail The Art of Noise manifesto). 

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Alas, I am stuck with who I am. I am doomed to listen through the entire deluxe box sets of Sargeant Peppers, The White Album, Abbey Road and Let it Be (The White Album Esher demos are especially good). I was inexorably drawn to an 18 month “Masterclass” in Beatles lore, dissecting every album and controversy. (Did you know that the first British performance of the Beatles as a group was at the Casbah Coffee Club). I get mad when I perceive that my favorite Beatle (George) is being dissed (He was right to walk out!!!!!). 

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While I grew up on Beatles music, my obsession really started in college with The White Album. I listened to it over and over again, mesmerized by what I heard (unfortunately, so did Charlie Manson). I and my friends used a pencil to playing it backwards, listening for Paul is dead clues (John definitely says “Paul is Dead. Miss him. Miss him. Miss him.” at the end of I’m So Tired). I bought most of my Beatles albums used, and still anticipate skips in certain songs 40 years later. 

I keep asking myself what keeps drawing me back to these songs. Some of it is no doubt nostalgia (oh no, there’s that word again). Beatles songs certainly evoke memories of a time and place. But then again, so do many other songs and I don’t listen to them repeatedly.  

There is also the complexity of the songs, which reward multiple listenings. The Deconstructing the Beatles series by Scott Frieman (one of my Masterclass instructors) highlights the myriad nuances and influences embedded in these tracks. Those influences have led me other directions, like to an appreciation of Indian music (maybe I can use that as my go to response to questions about the music I like). 

The incredible progression over the eight years of recording is definitely a factor. There are light years between I Want to Hold Your Hand and the Abbey Road medley and yet you can see the steps leading from one to the other. Witnessing that growth is fascinating. 

Finally, there are the Beatles themselves. There personalities were established in A Hard Day’s Night (the best rock and roll movie ever), and built from there. Few have faced the glare of fame with as much humor, honesty and aplomb. Knowing those personas, even if it is through the lens of media, enhances the performances.         

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All of this is coming to the fore now because of the long anticipated (at least by me) Peter Jackson retelling of the 1969 Get Back sessions. I have watched the official trailer and all of the various promotional videos many times. I have read every interview I could find about the making of the documentary. I cheered the expansion from a 2-hour film to a 6-hour extravaganza. I am ready!!    

I saw the original Let it Be movie at midnight showings when it was still available. I never bought into the narrative that it was a film of a band breaking up. After all, Abbey Road followed. I am looking to Peter Jackson to set the record straight.  

Peter Jackson could not have been a better choice. While still best known for his Lord of the Rings, he vaulted to my list of favorite directors with his WWI documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old. I have mentioned this film before when discussing my preoccupation with WWI. It is the epitome of bringing the past alive, and I trust him to bring the same magic to this film. 

More than anything else, this will be a chance to wallow in my obsession. I can spend multiple nights devoted to my favorite band, and justify it as witnessing a cultural event. Even if, for public consumption, my real love is Psychedelic Soul or Acid Jazz, there is no need now to hide my latent Beatlemania. I can put on my mop top wig, John Lennon glasses and Beatle boots and scream to my heart’s content. I can’t wait. 

*This was actually written before Get Back premiered on November 25, but I got caught up in holiday planning (I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving), and have been in a bit of a tryptophan haze over the last couple of days.

I seriously dislike the word nostalgia. It is a musty word. A word that connotes clothes that have been too long in a cedar closet. Or a gumball covered with lint emerging from your pocket. And yet, if you keep it in the right context personal nostalgia can be both incredibly enjoyable and illuminating. 

I spent ten days over the last two weeks engaging in some personal nostalgia. I visited friends from my college days at the University of South Carolina, and then went to Charlottesville, Virginia to spend time with a close friend from my working life. The trip was very gratifying, not least because it was good to be on the move again after the COVID isolation, but also because it forced me to think back on who I was at specific times of my life and how that long ago self still inhabits who I am today. 

Life generally forces us to live in the present. There are so many things that must be dealt with on a daily basis that it is not possible to give much thought to our past iterations. Even when we do so, it tends to be very cursory, calling to mind a memory here or there that makes us smile, or cringe. We (or at least I) rarely think hard about the odyssey that got us here. 

Immersing myself in that past, even for a few days, forced that reflection, especially as my trip entailed many hours alone in a car with a cell phone that would not recharge (just try to find a decent radio station outside Fayetteville, North Carolina). The memories flooded back. I conjured up people I haven’t thought about for years, even though I often could not recall their names. I thought of times that were great fun, as well as times of great guilelessness and stupidity. The person I was seemed both a distant relative and a boon companion. 

Spending time with lifelong friends takes you down that rabbit hole even more. People often comment how very quickly you fall back into comfortable patterns of communication and interaction with old friends. How a part of you that you haven’t seen for some time reemerges. I find that very true.  

I think, however, it is more than just a passing dive into nostalgic revery. The person I was 40 years ago has never left me. The essence of who I am today is tied very closely to who I was then. The so-called formative years were not only childhood, but each swerve along the path, through college and law school, into the early years of working up to my last days before retirement, all leading up to where I am now. 

That doesn’t mean that things haven’t changed. It’s impossible to go through life, with its many twists and turns, and remain exactly the same. I know that fewer things strike me as funny than once did, and I miss that. I also know that I was ridiculously naïve and innocent, and while innocence may seem like a blissful state, it is unsustainable, and not even preferable, unless you’re willing to put your head in the proverbial sand.  

Regardless of those changes, falling back in old rhythms for a while strikes me as very healthy. It reminded me that, even now, personality is not static. Time never stops, and neither does our development. I continue to build on the edifice (shaky as is) of what has gone before. Who I am is an on-going question that is never fully answered. 

Just as important, it is great fun. Being able to kick back and relax with people who have seen you at your best and worse is cathartic. You’re able to pull out refences that make sense to no one else (e.g., the trestle, home run derby, Fencourt), and riff on them. And there is nothing to do but laugh at yourself and the silly things you did. 

Testing memory is, of course, a mixed bag. Many incidents come rushing back, but how many of those incidents are as I recall, is very up for grabs. Did I really do the things I think I did, as I remember doing them? Maybe yes, maybe no.  To what extent am I editing my history? Who’s to say. My friends’ memories are as suspect as mine, and luckily there were no cell phone cameras in those days to resolve any discrepancies. 

All that being said, I would not want to live in that nostalgic haze. The temptation to do so is why nostalgia has such a negative connotation. Memory has a tendency to whitewash the past. I remember much more of the good than the bad. It is dangerous to get too caught up in that and see the bygone days of youth as some idyll. The reality of the present can sour in the glare of such a fantasy, and that is a living death. 

The truth of the matter is that I would not want to go back. There would be too much to give up. For all of the ups and downs of the last 63 years, there are still things to look forward to. And while the past inhabits who I am today, it is no longer me, with all my flaws, anxieties and regrets, but also with all my hopefulness (still somewhat an innocent) and excitement about each new day. 

I know that I am going to keep connecting with old friends. They are just too important to discard, and too much fun to be around. Plus, in a way I can’t really define, looking back at the past helps me appreciate what I have now. It’s a very odd process, this thing called life.    

            

The induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame went forward on October 30. While I generally think that the whole concept of a Rock Hall of Fame is anti-Rock and Roll, and suggests little, if anything, about rock greatness, I still like to see who is being inducting and who is left out. It’s especially interesting now that most of the obvious inductees have been in the Hall for quite a while.   

This year’s inductees are a typically mixed bag. I am glad to see Tina Turner make it, especially when the Hall inducted a much less talented and influential Stevie Nicks a couple of years ago. You have to admire Todd Rundgren, though his overall output is spotty. I enjoyed the Go-Go’s, but did they do anything after Beauty and the Beat? Not that I know of. 

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With the inductions come the inevitable complaining about Hall snubs. Kiss member Gene Simmons called it disgusting that Rage Against the Machine and Iron Maiden didn’t make it this year. Personally, I think that it’s disgusting that a band like Kiss, better known for their faux-goth make-up and Simmons ginormous tongue than their music, is in there.   

To my mind, there is one snub that outweighs them all. One snub that pushes the Hall to the edge of irrelevance. One snub that should make the current inductees blush with shame. I am, of course, taking about Weird Al Jankovic.  

Starting with the immortal My Bologna in 1979, through 1986’s Fat, 1993’s Bedrock Anthem and 2006’s White & Nerdy, Weird Al has provided us with some of the most unforgettable rock anthems of the last 40 years. Can any of us listen to Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit without picturing Al trying to sing with marbles in his mouth on Smells Like Nirvana? Isn’t the Dire Straits Money for Nothing that much better with Al’s converting it into a tribute to the Beverley Hillbillies? 

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Some may complain that Al doesn’t write his own songs, but that ignores his incredible polka output. Who else can find the common polka heart in such songs as LA Woman, Smoke on the Water and Hey Jude as Al did with the Polkas on 45 masterpiece? And let’s face it, Bohemian Polka more than rivals Queens Bohemian Rhapsody for audacity and musicianship.  

I am the first to admit that Al’s career has not been without controversy, but isn’t that part of Rock stardom? I do wonder whether his continuing snub is tied directly to his squabble with Coolio over the exquisite Amish Paradise. Apparently, Coolie did not appreciate the brilliance of this piece (who else can write lyric’s like “I’m a man of the land, I’m into discipline. Got a Bible in my hand and a beard on my chin. But if I finish all of my chores and you finish thine, Then tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1699”), and took affront. But similar controversy’s (alright, maybe not similar) have not kept Ringo Starr (33-year-old men shouldn’t be singing You’re Sixteen, Richard) or Genesis (Nice Latino accent on Illegal Alien, Phil) out. 

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Many of you may think that I am kidding about this nomination, but I am not (or at least not entirely). Rock and Roll is at its worst when it gets pretentious (the same can probably be said about this Blog). And that is from someone who is a big prog rock fan (Yes to Yes). Weird Al is the antidote to that pretention. 

Let’s face it, for all of the hullabaloo about rock stars being artists, 90% of rock lyrics are downright inane. The Hall already has plenty of examples, such as “You say ‘black’ I say ‘white’. You say ‘bark’ I say ‘bite. You say ‘shark’ I say ‘hey man ‘Jaws’ was never my scene’” (Queen, Bicycle Race) or “Bonafide ride, step aside my johnson. Yes I could in the woods of Wisconsin”. (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Around the World). Weird Al’s “Have some more Yogurt. Have some more spam. It doesn’t matter if it’s fresh or canned. Just eat it. Eat it! Eat it!” is no less frivolous than “Showin how funky and strong is your fight. It doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right. Just beat it (beat it, beat it, beat it)” from the King of Pop. I could go on, but you get the point. 

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Faced with this kind of junk from feted artists, we need someone to confront the silliness. We need someone to step up and cleverly point out again and again that rock and roll is something to enjoy. Something to bop your head to. Something to bring a smile to your face and a bounce to your step. And Weird Al is that man. 

There is no place on earth that needs this lesson more than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They want to be the gatekeeper to the realms of rock royalty. But the whole concept of rock royalty is heretical. At its heart rock is a bunch of kids in a garage banging away on their instruments trying to come up with something that their parents will hate and people will dance to. Weird Al embodies that spirit like no one else. 

There’s my argument. Next year we must all unite to get Al into the Hall. Only then will it fulfill its mission to truly reflect the essence of rock and roll. It’s drive. It’s joy. It’s power. And, yes, it’s wackiness. It’s daftness. It’s zaniness. All hail Rock-and-Roll. All hail Weird Al Yankovic.