GRAM PARSONS - GRIEVOUS ANGEL (1974, Reprise)

GRIEVOUS ANGEL

I'll Never Get Out of this World Alive

Gram Parsons descends upon a band like a plague that bears both love and locusts. Like a hostile alien in so many sci-fi films (or maybe a tape worm), the Harvard troubadour devours a band and instantly his involvement will usher in a flood of creative energy, refreshing takes on decade old tunes, and some of the most heartfelt interpretations on heartbreak in the popular music canon. However when Parsons departs he leaves the band in ruins, struggling to find a voice. Examples? The International Submarine Band didn’t really exist without him. The Byrds were down to just old Roger and his twelve string once Gram lured away Chris Hillman. The Flying Burrito Brothers were an only child. Even the Rolling Stones were wise enough to separate themselves from this romantically feverish pariah before Keith became TOO stoned to play. This all being said, of course it was only a matter of time that Parsons would desert his own solo career by, well, dying. Before he left, Gram did leave us with one of his crowing achievements: Grievous Angel.


For me, it is impossible, in this case, to separate the legend from the music. The Harvard drop out from a rich but troubled family who, like the wandering minstrels of yore, traveled from band to band. In between he slummed with Keith Richards at Nellcote, stole the Byrds from underneath Roger McGuinn, and did a great deal of cocaine. Even after death, Gram remains an enigma whose body was stolen right from its grave by his manager. The idea of this coked out purveyor of “cosmic American music” only enhances the desperation and loneliness of his material. Aiding Gram, who produced the album himself, were no shortage of fine, more level headed, musical talents led by ex-Elvis/Orbison picker James Burton, reverberating pedal steel by in-demand session man Al Perkins, barrelhouse piano by Glen Hardin, and of course, the close harmonies of Ms. Emmylou Harris. Mr. Parson’s did his best singing with a partner and like Chris Hillman, Ms. Harris didn’t wiggle into the spotlight but haunted from the wings, shifting with his mournful cries.


On "Return of the Grievous Angel", Parsons sounds a little hazy and liquored up but his voice lifts over the smoky room surroundings. It gives me chills just to listen to his voice on the chorus and the way he bends the notes on the word ‘town’ and how his voice jumps the octave on the final repetition. A particular standout is the not-quite-live "Quebec Medley", recorded in the studio with "live" bar sounds such as hoots, hollers and breaking glasses overdubbed later by a gaggle of cohorts that included the legendary Kim Fowley. His take on “Cash on the Barrelhead”, with its lighting quick banjo picking is less Louvin Brothers than country Chuck Berry. The Grievous Angel rendition of “Hickory Wind” is definitely superior to the Byrds version if only for the Harris harmony part.


I first heard “Love Hurts” as sung by Nazareth in the movie Dazed and Confused. Then I listened to the Roy Orbison take in which the original pope of mope placed his unmistakable stamp on a heartbroken hero. But here Parsons and Harris do the impossible. By singing in unison, rather than solo, the song somehow becomes lonelier and more desperate. Will he hit the notes? Will they get together? It’s the definitive version of an American songbook classic. “Ooh Las Vegas”, a Parsons original with Rick Grech, is a fantastic rocker with clever lyrics about, perhaps the closet thing in the 1970s to the Old West. Those bass riffs that form the basis of the tune keep it moving at a driving speeding, giving plenty of room for Perkins’ own rhythmic phrases to duck in and out. The final Burton picked solo during the fade out leads the listener to the last second. The final number is a death bed plea full of, like the man himself, contradiction. “In My Hour of Darkness” is hopeful and exuberant but deadly and lulling. He really sounds like a man, at his wits end, who is trying to hold it together and sing the best he can gosh darn it. The Grand Ole Opry is collapsing around him but Parsons will keep belting through it all. The fact that this LP was released posthumously only enhances the last writ ambiance of the track. Harris, joined by Linda Rondstadt, creates a white gospel choir of heavenly angels lifting our balladeer away.


Those who shun country music on principal or are only using Carrie Underwood and Toby Keith as their examples, don’t know what they’re missing. Gram may not be “purist country” but he reflects the genre’s spirit and, as the song goes, “lived the life you sing about in your songs”. Hank Williams, where ever he is on that old lost highway, would be beaming.

CAN YOU FEEL IT BABE?

IGGY POP may reunite with JAMES WILLIAMSON for a RAW POWER Tour!

Fans of sweaty, greasy garage wailing were pleased as punch when in 2003 Iggy Pop reunited with Ron & Scott Asheton to reform their legendary psychedelic sludge-fest known as THE STOOGES. Along with Funhouse sax man Steve Mackay and Minuteman Mike Watt, the new Stooges played Coachella, released a horrible album, and toured the world fairly non-stop until Ron's tragic death from a heart attack this January.

In some ways, this seemed to put an end to one of the most topsy turvey careers in rock. However, there were some of us who wondered why the party had to end especially since so many fans of The Stooges had been disappointed by the almost complete absence of Raw Power, the boy's seminal 1973 screecher featuring James Williamson on guitar, Ron on bass, Scott on drums and David Bowie occasionally behind the boards. This lineup, more commonly known as Iggy and the Stooges, continued to tour until it imploded in a cloud of brown junk and derivative clunkers. Williamson and Pop continued to work together on and off through the end of the decade, at which point Williamson left the music business to pursue a career in electronics.

In a recent interview with The Australian, a (ahem) Australian online newspaper, Mr. Pop stated “I had a meeting in LA last week with James (Williamson). It was the first time we had seen each other in 30 years. So we talked about doing something together. Raw Power would be the repertoire.'' Pop said that while the original Stooges ended with Asheton's death, “there is always Iggy and the Stooges, the second growth of the band''.

Williamson had stated that he would certainly join The Stooges onstage if they were EVER inducted into the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame but didn't seem confidant about a full reunion. Let's hope he's changed his mind.

While we wait, Iggy is releasing a new Tom Waits-esque jazz inspired album called Preliminaires at the end of May.

THE MISFITS - STATIC AGE (1997, Caroline)

STATIC AGE

More than just a t-shirt!








Aah, those t-shirts. The "Misfits" t-shirt is as omnipresent as a "Che" t-shirt and just as irritating. Walk down St. Marks Place in NYC and you're bound to cross an endless amounts of tourist catering storefronts loaded to the brim with ghoulish grins plastered on cheap cotton/polyester blend. For years I avoided The Misfits for this reason alone but then I listened to their albums and lo and behold... they also blew. To some extent this is a side effect of time. Like an observational Seinfeld oneliner, The Misfits brand of bare bones but melodic punk, spun off from the Ramones and the Damned, has been done over and over again by any kid with a guitar and half a brain. Think about your high school talent show. I'm sure there was a gang of zit faced tykes in black eyeliner, inappropriately sandwiched between a Phish cover band and a chick with a guitar, banging out two cord rockers about death and other subjects that teenagers know a lot about. Today the angst ridden youth of America can choose between the more aggressive sceamo or the more pleadingly melodic emo to Live Journal to, thus making The Misfits' brand of punk seem as old as their parents. And, in 2008, like any band that has lasted nearly two decades, The Misfits have gone through countless line up changes to the point where it's only Jerry Only and his flock of seagulls carrying the B-Movie banner. (For evidence of this Misfits check out "Campfire Stories", a particularly crappy EC Comicesque horror flick starring the NY Dolls' David Johanson and Jamie Lynn "Meadow Soprano" Sigler. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244452/)

Then there's Static Age and this is a different Misfits all together. Culled from multiple EPs and unreleased recordings, all of which was ultimately released in 1997, Jerry Only and company create seventeen tracks of slightly depraved, truly original punk. Part of punk's initial appeal was that bands as wildly different as Blondie and The Clash could exist under the same banner but retain their uniqueness. This concept faltered when bands simply tried to replicate their successful counterparts, eventually falling into the same trap as the mainstream white boys club, albeit with a better fashion sense. Although they certainly pull inspiration for their beats and melodies from The Ramones and lyrical themes from The Cramps the combination, sealed in vibrato by Grenn Danzig, is completely original. It is Danzig's matinee croon that removes any real danger from their songs but makes them all the more eerie and unsettling. The opening one-two punch of satirical rebel rousing in "Static Age" and "T.V. Casualty" hooks you in while the two best songs come up next, the stadium sing-a-long "Some Kinda Hate" and the oddly beautiful "Last Caress" which features some great lyrics about killing a couple of babies and raping a few mothers sung by a man who is probably a weird opera fan who strangles cats in his basement. Later there's "Teenagers from Mars" and the great triple headed beast of "Hollywood Babylon" (possibly a reference to gay occult film director Kenneth Anger's memoir), the spectacular "Attitude" which is both tough and tuneful, and the Jackie/JFK saga "Bullet" which claims 'Texas is the reason that the Presidents Dead'. From time to time, I find myself mumbling the words "We are 138" as I wander down the street, often forgetting where I even heard that phrase. "Come Back" while noticibly longer than the other tracks, bounces along with rockabilly beat that would make Poison Ivy wilt.

Despite its seventeen tracks, this LP is a brisk listen with Only's bass being particularly catchy. Even more than Dee Dee's playing, Only's bass carries the theme of each song and gives the listener something to hold on to. Franche Coma provides guitar bursts that sound somewhere between Johnny Ramone and Steve Jones, though they are more vibrant riffage laid down on a Sex Pistols track all the while Mr. Jim pounds the toms like Tommy Ramone on a caffeine bender. Bellowing over the bray, Grenn Danzig, whose solo work has easily eclipsed his former bands' late career, is the unsung mystery man behind this album. Is he dark and depraved or just a guy whose seen a lot of H.G. Lewis movies? Does he want to listen to records by the Stooges or sit around the piano singing old Irving Berling standards? (Intrigue is important in a front man) Danzig is the most successful when he grabs a shining bit of 50s/early 60s pop culture and paints it black but not before adding a little humor (missing far too much in the later punk scene) and showmanship. He's the Roger Corman of rock!

With Static Age, Danzig and his Misfits prove they had the ability to be true masters of the 1:30 song a gift which unfortunately escaped them in later years. Like the gore filled, schlocky horror films, surviving on low budgets and big tits, Static Age thrills, amuses and keeps you dancing on the graves of the uptight squares.

WHAT IS APEMAN HOP?

This blog will be dedictated to essaying albums, singles, and live performances from rock'n'roll acts, as well as their predecessors and followers, from yesteryear, today, and tomorrow.

It will also include reviews of and postings about rock'n'roll happenings in the Big Apple.

It is the mission of this blog to encourage and explore music that follows in the footsteps of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Elvis, the Ramones, MC5, the Rolling Stones, Half Japanese, and any other act that just wanted to boogie woogie (and quite possibly get laid). In this sense it will avoid acts that could be considered more "pop" than "rock".

Little Robbie Reverb, a native a New Jersey, is the vocalist for The Black on Brown and currently resides in NYC.

ROLLING STONES - SOME GIRLS (1978, Rolling Stones Records)

SOME GIRLS

Hodge-Podge Rock from the Glimmer Twins, true masters of mishmash music.

If two businesses that market the same product are in competition said contention should create a better piece of merchandise on both sides. For several wayward years leading up to Some Girls, the Rolling Stones coasted on the assumption that their age old, dual guitar riffs and Mickey’s cockeyed lyrics but never forced delivery would be all they needed to reign supreme as the “Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World”. This postulation, that they were the “end all, be all” of popular music, whether they tried or not, resulted in several hit and miss (and at their worst cringe worthy) albums and songs in the years following their gargantuan 1972 world tour in support of Exile on Main St. While the three post-Exile LPs certainly all have their share of gems, the group was marred by the departure of Mick Taylor, too much Billy Preston, and with the absence of an outside producer, the fledgling and often shaky productions of The Glimmer Twins. It took the finally-in-place Ronnie Wood, who had been covertly lending the Stones his talents since It’s Only Rock and Roll, a greater command of the boards, and perhaps most of all, the competition raised by the punk and new wave movements to shock life into age old chords and clichés.

When folks talk about Some Girls, they are always keen to bring up the influence that punk and disco had on the Stones, namely Mick Jagger, but these genres are only remotely audible on this album. Of course “Miss You” has a disco beat but it’s all a little too organic and what disco song ever had a blues harp perform the main hook. Certainly “When the Whip Comes Down” and “Shattered” have snarls and punk-lite cords and beats but most punks wouldn’t include a pedal steel solo. Instead, most of this album is cut and dry Stones but the material sounds fresher and is played more vibrantly then anything since 1973 with this recording featuring only the core band (keyboards on just two songs!) and a revitalized guitar sound with Jagger and Woodie weaving around Keith’s grounded contributions. “Respectable”, “Lies”, and “Some Girls” are all standard Stones fair, albeit with more speed in the formers' case. They all sound great despite a bit of dust, especially “Respectable” which consist of repetition upon repetition, a common Jagger/Richards technique. “Shattered” is just a weird track and the choice to use the “phaser” effect on the guitars may have sounded great in 1978 but now rings hopelessly dated. On that subject, Keith and his cronies have always sounded uncomfortable with wah-wah, Leslie speakers and the like. To see the true punk edge that "Shattered" holds try the distortion heavy, low-fi recording by Richard Hell and The Voidoids (with searing Bob Quine guitar) from their live compilation Time which also features a bonkers version of “Ventilator Blues”.

The radio favorites “Miss You” and “Beast of Burden” transcend their classic rock DJ fetish to become statements by this aging band. On “Miss You”, Billy Wyman, who often struggles with anything that’s not a standard walking blues bass line, fits his throbs in perfectly between Charlie’s rather wack-a-mole take on the four on the floor beat. Ian MacLaglan’s electric piano seems at first quite noticeable but quickly merges into the songs fabric. Above it all Jagger seems to be having a hell of a time. For the first time in years he has new lyrical subjects and aspirations, somewhere between Lou Reed and David Johanson, and seems his most malevolently dance crazy since “Star Star”. The boys seem to be enjoying themselves on “Imagination” and it doesn’t sound like THE mandatory soul cover included on most of their albums around these last two decades. In fact, with its Keith & Ronnie backing vox and ringing chords, this "Imagination" has much more in common with 60s blue eyed garage soul than with The Tempations, who recorded the original version in 1971, a mere seven years earlier. “Far Away Eyes” may make some people cringe but Jagger has always been wry and cheeky and I love to hear him drawl on about “music on the colored radio station”. When Keith and Ronnie add their harmonies on the chorus the song bursts to life and becomes more then a put on. Speaking of Keith, his solo turn on "Before They Make Me Run" is one of his better. In later years he immersed himself in ballads or pointless, poorly written rockers but here his occasionally double tracked vocals really stand out as do his Tin Pan Alley cum cowboy lyrics about “booze, and pills, and powders”. Both “Before TheyMake Me Run” and the LP’s best track “When the Whip Comes Down” feature pedal steel guitar breaks by Ronnie which really enliven both of these non-country songs in a way not usually found in rock music. “Whip” features one of the all time best Jagger couplets: “Mama and Papa told me I was crazy to stay/a gay in New York was just a fag in LA”. Here we are presented with a bored, materialistic hustler who doesn’t much care that he’s “plugging a hole” as long as he’s getting something in return. Returning to their buried vocals approach, when you do hear the lyrics they are full of clever turns of phrase with a great enigmatic chorus consisting of only the title. Deep in the mix, Charlie pounds away with a volatility never heard from him before.

Radio play may have diluted Some Girls' power and its unofficial title as “the baby boomer generations favorite Stones album” doesn't help. But this LP may be their last great LP, right down to its cover. The cover, a mock up of old magazine fashion ads featuring the Stones in cut & paste drag (not the first time) is pastiche art. The music, with its gloriously jumbled mess of ragged country, amped-up soul, rough edged punk, and Studio 54 dance strut results in pastiche music which is essentially rock'n'roll itself.