This Ain't the Summer of Love

Hiatus

As you may have noticed, this project seems to have run out of steam. I’m hoping that this is merely a temporary pause in the action; but the truth of that matter is that I’m experiencing a bit of a block. For various reasons, I just can’t seem to write at the moment. My experience is that these things come and go. When it will go, however, is unpredictable.

My collaborators, as always, are free to post when they’ve got something. I’ll be doing the same. And hey, if you think you might like to take a whack at it, email me.

In the meantime, I’d like to point to toward a couple of sites that might be of interest. If you’re at all into early electronics, psych, or prog, I highly recommend checking out Mutant Sounds. I’ve found a lot of really interesting and obscure things there – along with a few duds, of course, but that’s to be expected.

On the soul side of the scale, there’s, um, soul sides; top-notch commentary and history, plus some great music. In a similar vein, Funky 16 Corners is also worth a visit.

I hope to have some new content here soon. We’ll see what happens, I guess.

It's Been Such a Long Time

As you have probably heard by now, Brad Delp, the lead singer for the band Boston, died Friday.

I can’t remember the last time I thought of Delp or his band. They certainly weren’t on my list of possible subjects for This Ain’t The Summer Of Love, yet I find myself more strongly affected by news of his death than I would have thought. I’m not sure why that is, although I’d guess it’s got something to do with how evocative of a certain time and place their music is for me.

Now, I’m not here to argue that Boston was an important band or anything. They didn’t redefine what rock & roll sounded like, for the most part, and they didn’t push any sort of artistic agenda that I know of. There’s nothing revolutionary or subversive about them or their music. It’s all just big dumb fun – which, if you think about it, would also be a pretty good definition of a large portion of rock. Big dumb fun is a concept that I will defend, if not to the death, then at least until the point where I’m breathing hard and bleeding in a couple of places.

Career of Evil

I have hit something of an ethical dilemma here. Science Girl says I’m over-thinking it. She may be right – the odds are certainly in her favor there – but it’s still something I’m thinking though. This seems like as good a time as any to take y’all along on my train of thought. Please keep your hands and arms inside the car at all times.

As I’m sure you already know, the RIAA are evil. Through their single-minded focus on their clients’ bottom line, they are doing their level best to destroy the music industry they exist to support. Their latest unbridled dickery is their (quite likely successful) attempt at crushing streaming radio with unreasonable, if not astronomical, “licensing” fees. Fees which are not levied across the board, by the way – deep-pocketed creeps like Clear Channel pay no such fees. Big surprise there, eh?

As a sometime streaming broadcaster (I had my own stream for awhile & occasionally spin at a community website), this is yet another slap in the face. Get slapped often enough and eventually you tire of turning the other cheek. Most of the contemporary music that I buy is released on independent labels; for the rest, I would happily turn “pirate” at this point, if it weren’t for the fact that I firmly believe that artists should be compensated for their work. (Don’t let the RIAA fool you on this count, by the way; they represent the interests of the labels, NOT the artists signed thereto.)

What does all this have to do with a blog dedicated to music of the seventies? Well, back in the bad old days, if you didn’t record for a major label you most likely didn’t record at all. I would venture to say that something on the order of 90 – 98% of the music I want to cover here was/is released through RIAA-member labels. By encouraging people to go out and hunt down the music of the artists I write about here, am I in turn promoting the idiocy of their record labels? I’ve been working on a piece on Blue Öyster Cult. They originally recorded for Columbia, who’ve since been swallowed up by Sony. BÖC mean a lot to me; they played the first concert I attended, they provided the name for this here blog, and their first four LPs (Blue Öyster Cult, Tyranny and Mutation, Secret Treaties, and the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees) are perennial faves of mine. Yet I feel uneasy finishing the piece now, as I don’t want to direct custom toward the dunces bent on killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

While I certainly have no intention of shutting things down, I’m unsure as to how to proceed. I’d be interested to hear what you folks out there think about this.

I Want You Back

Editor's note: I'm still feeling like somebody beat me with a stick. I was hoping to have something written up by now, but it's hard enough concentrating on writing a simple introduction. Fortunately, we have another fine piece from Lisa Iannucci to pull my biscuits out of the fire. Huzzah!

I was eight years old when I first started listening to the radio. It was the late ‘60s, and Top 40 was king. I lived in Washington DC, and as it was in most places, you could turn on the radio and hear almost anything without having to change stations. From British Invasion stalwarts to novelty tunes, from bubblegum pop to country ballads, from one-hit wonders to stone cold soul, it was all on your AM radio dial. I fell in love with The Beatles and Donny Osmond. And I practiced the dance moves I learned from the Jackson Five in front of the mirror in my bedroom.

Michael Jackson was six or seven years old at the time—just about my age—and his joyous smile and undeniable talent were irresistible, especially to a sheltered, shy kid like me. He and his brothers had a weekly cartoon show on Saturday mornings, and I was enthralled. The music of the Jackson Five wasn’t serious and cerebral like John Lennon or simplistic throwaway pop like The Archies. Here was a bright, rhythmic sound that seemed to encapsulate joy itself, that made you want to get up and just move. To a kid raised on Joan Baez and The Kingston Trio, it was truly exotic and just a little scary. I wasn’t sure what this music was called, but knew I wanted more. My grandparents gave me a little transistor radio when I was nine or ten, and I carried it with me everywhere. It was like a secret world had opened up to me that my parents weren’t a part of; my friends and I would discuss our favorite songs, endlessly debating the meaning of song lyrics. Just what was Patti LaBelle talking about in “Lady Marmalade?” I made a friend of mine go ask her French-speaking mother. Of course, the answer to our question wasn’t really a secret, but we were more than a little scandalized nonetheless. And in truth, the sociological ramifications of the song eluded us. We just liked it because it annoyed our parents, and because we could dance to it.

Intermission

Sorry for the lack of posting this week. I’ve been dealing with some ongoing health issues, the treatment for which is currently kicking my ass up one side and down the other. I’m hoping things will settle down a bit next week.

In the meantime, let me steer you back over to jefitoblog, where he’s featuring a King Crimson boot, circa 1973. I haven’t had a chance to listen to all of it, but what I’ve heard was top-notch angry-sounding prog. So yay for that.

I Want To Know About The Mystery Dance

Say hey, kids! Since I am in a very sophisticated mood indeed, it’s a very special week-end edition of This Ain’t The Summer Of Love. I just want to let those of you who dig vintage Elvis Costello know that there’s a must-have live boot of young Declan, recorded in 1978, over at jefitoblog. I have a vinyl copy of this one somewhere, and I’m here to tell you that the band is absolutely breathing fire throughout. Plus, it includes the coveted “Dallas version” of “Less Than Zero”. Go now and make your ears happy.

Trees - On The Shore

Here’s my understanding of how British folk rock came about: Psychedelia and blues rock ruled Britannia until the first copy of The Band’s Music From Big Pink hit the island. Upon hearing it, half the bands then in existence dropped their hookahs and said, “My God! We must celebrate our English heritage!” Poof! Away went the caftans and paisley, just like that.

No doubt I’m missing a few details. Close enough for rock & roll, as they say, or in this case, close enough for folk psych.

Do Death Dwarves Dream of Narcotic Sheep? Part Two: Don't Wanna Be No Hero, Just Wanna Be A Zero

“A hero is a goddam stupid thing to have in the first place and a general block to anything you might wanta accomplish on your own.”
- Lester Bangs, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves," March 1975

Lester Bangs, through no fault of his own, is one of the people who made me want to write. The other big culprits are Hunter S. Thompson and Richard Brautigan. All three had what we now so quaintly refer to as substance abuse issues. All three are dead now, by their own hands. Thompson and Brautigan both shot themselves, and Bangs floated out of this world and into the next on a cloud of painkillers. Not intentionally, of course. He’d had the flu, he took some Darvon (and maybe some Valium, too – no one seems too sure), and he died. I don’t imagine a lifetime of self-inflicted chemical imbalance did him any favors in that respect. Not quite as speedy as gun to head (Brautigan) or chest (Thompson), although the result was just the same.

Of the three, Bangs is probably closest to my heart at this late date. Not so much what he wrote – some of his pieces are staggeringly off the mark – but the way in which he said it. I try like hell not to ape his stylistic tics, with varying degrees of success. Hey, at least I cop to it. The other big draw for me is his passion for what he wrote about. Yeah, I know, the word “passion” has been misapplied and misused so many times now that it verges on being almost meaningless, but I really do think it is the best description for what he was about. I suppose we could say “enthusiasm” and it wouldn’t be inaccurate, but it does seem a bit pale, really. “Passion” suits him much better.

Lester had this real love/hate relationship with Lou Reed, as documented in the book Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung. (If you don’t have your own copy, drop everything RIGHT NOW and rush out to your local independent bookstore and get one. You cannot hope to lead a fulfilled life without it.) I’ve been flipping through my very dog-eared copy while putting together this piece.

Do Death Dwarves Dream of Narcotic Sheep? Part One: Rock & Roll Animal Reconsidered

“Lou Reed is the guy that gave dignity and poetry and rock 'n' roll to smack, speed, homosexuality, sadomasochism, murder, misogyny, stumblebum passivity, and suicide, and then proceeded to belie all his achievements and return to the mire by turning the whole thing into a monumental bad joke with himself as the woozily insistent Henny Youngman in the center ring, mumbling punch lines that kept losing their punch.” -- Lester Bangs, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves, or How I Slugged it out with Lou Reed and Stayed Awake," March 1975.

One of the things that spurred me to start This Ain’t The Summer Of Love was a sort of throw-away comment in this post from Timedoor: “Hey, people of 1970s Earth: how were you ever able to sit through the ‘Intro’ to Lou Reed’s Rock & Roll Animal to find out if the record was any good or not? I can’t last 30 seconds through that atrocity without turning it off. How in the sam hell did you do so when skipping ahead meant getting up, picking up the stylus, and putting it down again and again until you found where the lameness mercifully stopped?”

Rock & Roll Animal (recorded live at Howard Stein's Academy of Music, New York, on December 21, 1973 – the day before my thirteenth birthday, for you completists out there) was one of the touchstone albums of my teenage years. I played the hell out of it at home; on my show at the high school radio station, I don’t think I ever completed a shift without playing either “Sweet Jane” or “Rock & Roll”. It was just huge for me, a key album that led to exploration of things other than the hits of the day. I don’t think it’s going too far to say that it helped make me the musical idiot I am today.

Neil Young - "Like A Hurricane"

Editor’s note: Hey there, kids. I was really hoping to have something new for you this week, but I’m dealing with some ongoing health issues – nothing major, but enough to slow me down – and work has been kicking my ass on top of that. Instead, here’s something I posted over at the dearly departed Number One Hit Song just over a year ago. I’ve lightly refried it a bit here, but it’s mostly untouched. I promise to have something shiny and new next week.

Dana has asked that I write about my favorite. Favorite what she’s left up to me, just so long as it is indeed a favorite. Oy. As soon as choose one, I feel as if I’ve essentially negated everything else, ad infinitum, in perpetuity throughout the universe. I’ve had all sortsa favorites over the years – favorite songs, artists, albums. I gotta choose one?

OK, here goes: “Like A Hurricane”, by Neil Young. I’ve been able to return to it again and again for almost thirty years now and it still seems as fresh as the first time I heard it. That’s as good a definition of a favorite as anything else I can think of, so let’s go with that.