Rockin in 1970

ON Friday I have a New York Times review of an interesting if imperfect new book called Fire and Rain, which looks at the year 1970 and the making of four hugely popular records -- The Beatles' Let it Be, CSNY's Deja Vu, James Taylor's Sweet Baby James and Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water.

If you love all these artists, by all means pick up David Browne's book. Otherwise -- as I get into in the review -- it's a mixed success.

Browne's key records sold like crazy at the time -- but even then there were people who considered them insubstantial. "I consider his soft sound a cop out," Ellen Willis wrote of Paul Simon in the New Yorker. "And I hate most of his lyrics; his alienation, like the word itself, is an old-fashioned, sentimental, West-Side-liberal bore." (My guess is that she was rocking out to CCR at the time.)

(This BBC video of James Taylor from 1970 is better than almost anything on his albums, by the way.)

More on all this later. What's your favorite record from 1970?

The Beatles in Hamburg -- on Record

OF the many great shows your humble blogger attended last year, one of the very finest  was a performance by Bambi Kino, a kind of indie-rock supergroup formed to pay tribute to the Beatles ragged, rockabilly-loving years in Hamburg.

The show, at Echo Park's Taix, was full of so much energy and musical invention (Guided by Voices' guitarist Doug Gillard was especially inspired that night) it made The Misread City crave a document of this quartet's triumph. (Here for my earlier post on Bambi Kino and its mission.)

So I'm happy to report that this group -- made up of members of Catpower, GbV, Nada Surf and Maplewood -- has just released an album, recorded at Hamburg's Indra Club, that captures the spirit of its shows quite well. It's made up, of course, of the music the Beatles were playing in 1960 and '61 -- Chuck Berry's "Talking About You," Buddy Holly's "Crying Waiting Hoping," Johnny Kidd's "Shakin' All Over" -- played with the roughness and speed of the leather-jacketed Liverpudlians.

Rhythm guitartist/singer Mark Rozzo, a longtime friend of The Misread City, recently chronicled Hamburg's current scene for the New York Times magazine.  Rozzo laughs at the irony of his band -- which sometimes plays as much as 60 songs a night and put on a marathon show at Taix -- putting out a succinct, 12-song LP.

Courtesy The New Yorker 

"We didn't want to do any song that ever appeared on a Beatles studio album and we wanted to include a couple of numbers the Beatles were known to have performed but never recorded at all.  Meaning, they were never used for auditions or BBC radio shows or were never bootlegged.  Those would be 'Wild Cat,' by Gene Vincent, 'Ramrod,' a Duane Eddy instrumental they apparently used when they backed strippers, and 'Shakin' All Over,' by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, a big hit in the UK in 1960 that also happened to be Pete Best's audition number.  They were almost certainly playing all of those numbers at the Indra Club in 1960.  We also wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to sing a couple of numbers.

He calls the songs "all insanely fun" to play live.  

"Specifically of the 12 on the album, I'd have to nominated 'Some Other Guy,' because it's our traditional lead-off number and just says so much about Bambi Kino as well as what the Beatles were about in the early days.  'Besame Mucho' is a riot to play; so much going on and it's all so goofy and it also totally rocks. Erik just nails the singing on that one.  Maybe 'Ramrod,' because it's such a stomping instrumental and Doug does something amazing on it every time we play it. 'Shot of Rhythm and Blues' I like because that's one number where you see every single person in the club kind bobbing up and down, rocking out."

(Here they are, by the way, playing "Slow Down," a song not on the album.)

What's the future of Bambi Kino, Mark? 

"The future is the past!" he says. "Let's see... we've got a residency lined up at Bowery Electric in New York for April and then a probable return to Hamburg at some point in 2011. There are more 50th anniversaries on the way, of course. One thing: I don't ever see us putting on suits and wigs and Beatle boots. But we'd like to keep this going for a couple of years and try to learn another 100 songs or so. "

A Happy, and Sad, 70th to John Lennon

THIRTY years ago, on a cold December morning, I woke up to see my mom, a bit addled, standing in my bedroom doorway. "I've got some bad news," she said. "John Lennon was shot."

"Well, is he okay?" I asked.

I was in 6th grade, and I'd spent much of the previous few years sitting in the basement while my head spun along with the turntable to the Beatles music -- especially "Revolver" and an album my best friend had given me the year before, "Rubber Soul"; I especially liked the psychedelic "I'm Only Sleeping," the reflective "In My Life" and the darkly romantic "It's Only Love."  Of course I liked all the Beatles, but John was my first and fiercest cultural hero; I memorized the lyrics to his songs and read everything I could about him.

Not everyone was as zealous as me, and some friends preferred Paul or George, but it seemed inconceivable that someone might not like the Beatles.

I trudged to school, where the teacher was a supposedly "tough" customer who'd taken a special liking to me for some reason -- she was a kind of hero of mine as well. Partway through school, maybe at the lunch hour, she brought up Lennon's murder.

She was shocked, in fact -- because an opera singer had died the day before and no one had noticed. And here this "druggie" had been killed, and people were crying in the streets. Why all the fuss for a rock n roll singer?

Of course, this didn't exactly endear me to my beloved teacher. What was even weirder than the pitting of high vs. popular culture -- something I've always hated and still fight against, and especially wrong in the case of John -- was the fact that none of the other kids seemed as shaken up as I was. I knew my folks were upset, and an old friend from my previous school called me later in the day and we talked forever about it. But had I landed in some baleful alternate universe where nobody liked the Beatles? The conversation moved on to another topic, but I didn't.

I'm the kind of person that likes to reconcile opposing points of view, to understand people's perspectives in the widest possible context. Maybe on the 40th anniversary of John's death -- which will also be the day before his 80th birthday, as today is the day before his 70th -- I'll be able to see my teacher's reaction with more detachment. But today, I'm still so upset about John's death, and realize that day -- the end of his life -- was the beginning, for me, of the distrust of authority that I'm now old enough to read in his songs and life.

In September David Kamp wrote this funny and heartbreaking interview with Lennon as if he were preparing to celebrate his 70th: "Lennon, who will turn 70 on October 9, remains enviably slim and has a deep late-summer tan. The longish hair is mostly white and a bit thinned out on top but becomingly so, in the manner of late-period Richard Harris."

RIP John Lennon. It's a cliche' to close a recollection of an artist's life by talking about how his art will endure, but it's rarely seemed as true as it is with Lennon. My four-year-old son Ian, who, oddly, prefers Paul, is proof of the way Beatles songs grab people at all ages. (He can name about every song on Beatles for Sale.) 

And while at this time of year, the song "Imagine" always gets overplayed, I'm gonna dig a bit deeper into the Lennon solo catalog tonight. One of my favorite of his songs is "# 9 Dream," which lends its name to the first novel by one of my favorite writers, David Mitchell. It's melodic, profound, and imperfect -- the chorus is almost bad enough to wreck the song and the orchestration is too much. Good and bad, it's a fitting tribute to the man himself.

Bambi Kino at Taix

Just a quick post to say, Saturday night I went out after my bedtime to see Bambi Kino, a newish band formed around the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance in Hamburg and with the goal of recreating those raw early years. ("Slow Down" is here.)

I've seen some great shows recently -- Sonic Youth, Pavement, Belle & Sebastian -- but in its very different way this was as thrilling. Even as a Boomer-disdaining Xer, my musical taste was founded on early exposure to the Beatles, a band I've never seen live. To see the blend of rockabilly, girl group songs and early Lennon-McCartney tracks ("Ask Me Why"!) was a rare thrill -- especially because this stuff is not the Beatles songbook overplayed on AOR, commercials, etc.

Not to mention how well all this stuff was played, with great enthusiasm and on vintage instruments and amps. I hope this group has an afterlife. (With Doug Gillard, the band has a virtuoso guitarist of the sort the Beatles never did.) Most of the surviving recordings of the Beatles playing these songs are marred by bad fidelity, screaming girls, or both, so seeing it this way was a gas.

My interview with a Mark Rozzo, rhythm guitarist for the band (whose members are drawn from Guided by Voices, Catpower, Nada Surf and Maplewood) here.

Let me fly an R.I.P. here for the great soul-singer who struck gold during the Beatles' era, Solomon Burke. His early Atlantic sides will always endure. His Joe Henry-produced Don't Give Up On Me, from '02 is a landmark of a different kind and, and was a very important record for my then girlfriend, now wife, in the year or two after it came out. King Solomon will be missed!

The Beatles Come to Hamburg (Again)

Almost exactly 50 years ago, the Beatles came to Hamburg's tawdry Reeperbahn district and, dressed mostly in black leather, transformed themselves into the best rock band in the world. Later this month, a group of American indie rockers will play the band's old club, the Indra, to commemorate the raw, fast, very early Beatles.

Named for an X-rated movie theater where the Liverpudlians stayed when they first hit town, Bambi Kino is made up of drummer Ira Elliot from Nada Surf, bassist Erik Paparazzi from Cat Power, guitarist Doug Gillard from Guided by Voices, and guitarist Mark Rozzo from Maplewood. (Here they are playing "Slow Down" at the Bowery Ballroom, by the way.)


[Update: Bambi Kino plays at Taix in Echo Park on Saturday, Oct. 9, which would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday.]


Rozzo -- a gifted writer I know from the journalist trenches, who is so talented can forgive his wrong-headed advocacy of Paul over John -- spoke to the Misread City about the band's upcoming gig. 

What did the Beatles sound like during their Hamburg period and what were their shows like?

Well, they actually evolved a lot during the 28 months they went back and forth between Liverpool and Hamburg.  They started August 17, 1960, at the Indra as a five-piece band with a bass player (Stuart Sutcliffe) who could barely play and a drummer (Pete Best) who hadn’t even been in the band a week.  (His big audition number was “Shakin’ All Over,” by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.)  They ended New Year’s Eve 1962 at the Star Club with Paul on bass, Ringo on drums, and their first single (“Love Me Do”) climbing the British pop charts.  (They were, in fact, pretty bummed to be in Hamburg during that crucial time, but the residency had been booked by Brian Epstein months before.  These are the shows captured on the famous Star Club bootlegs.)  

It’s pretty easy to get an idea of their sound through various bootlegs, audition tapes, and the backing they did with Tony Sheridan in Hamburg in the summer of 1961.  It was, to quote John Lennon, “straight rock” – a pretty raw and pounding sound.  In fact, they seemed to set out to be the loudest, rawest band anyone had ever heard up to that time.  But that’s really selling it short.  It was quite a mix of rock and roll, R&B, rockabilly, and the odd standard (“September Song,” “Over the Rainbow”), and as time went on they became better and better at showcasing the individual members and, as they went into 1962, started streamlining their sound, in response to some of the newer music coming out of Motown.  It’s as if the old 50s tailfins were coming off the chassis.  

But the Hamburg shows are famous for the Beatles’ response to the German encouragement to “mach schau” – to make a show.  So they did all kinds of wacky stuff, like playing sets with toilet seats around their necks, stretching out “What’d I Say” for half an hour, having a contest with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes (Ringo’s band) to see who could be first to destroy (literally) the stage at the Kaiserkeller club.  (The Hurricanes won.)

How did you and others recover these songs and the way they were played... Do recordings exist?

Many recordings of the Beatles exist from the period of 1960 to 1962, which we’ve claimed as our Bambi Kino turf.  You can begin with the home recordings done at Paul McCartney’s house at 20 Forthlin Road in the spring of 1960, which includes early versions of “One After 909” and “I’ll Follow the Sun,” along with covers like “Matchbox” and “Hallelujah I Love Her So,” which they would play for years.  Next would be the Tony Sheridan sessions recorded in Hamburg in the summer of 1961, with Paul now playing his trademark Hofner bass.  (Think “Ain’t She Sweet.”)  

Then there’s the disastrous audition for Decca Records on January 1, 1962, which gives an idea of the Beatles’ almost too-broad set list, which by this time literally ran into hundreds of songs.  They did their first BBC broadcast early in ’62, and then the tests and sessions for EMI at Abbey Road that year, a recording for Granada TV at the Cavern in August of ’62 (just a day before John Lennon got married and not long after Ringo joined; you can hear the crowd yelling out “We want Pete!”), and then the Star Club bootleg, from December of 1962.  The first LP, “Please Please Me,” was recorded February 11, 1963, so that gives a good idea of what the band sounded like and what they were playing in 1962.  

But what really interests me for Bambi Kino is the material that never got recorded, which includes anything from Ricky Nelson’s “Lonesome Town” to Duane Eddy’s “Ramrod” to the aforementioned “Over the Rainbow,” which they modeled off Gene Vincent’s rockabilly-ballad version.  Many of their set lists have been documented and they do total up to hundreds of songs; I couldn’t tell you the exact number.

What were Hamburg and the Reeperbahn like in the early '60s?

Hamburg was then all of 15 or 16 years out from being leveled by an Allied bombing raid.  I believe it was then perhaps the largest port in Europe.  But much like today, the city had an educated, bourgeois population despite the gritty reputation.  It was no accident that the Beatles’ first avid fans were so-called “exis” – self-styled existentialist art students from middle-class backgrounds, most famously embodied by Astrid Kirchherr (Sutcliffe’s beautiful photographer girlfriend) and Klaus Voorman (who would go on to play bass with Manfred Mann and collaborate with various Beatles on various projects).  

Then as now, the Reeperbahn was the most notorious sex district in Europe.  The Beatles used to like walking down the walled-off Herberstrasse, where prostitutes still hang out of windows in states of undress and fire squirt-bottles full of urine at women who dare enter.  Many of the young Beatles’ fans and friends were drawn from the local population of sex workers.

This is kind of a below-the-radar indie supergroup... What was the thinking in putting the band together?

We didn’t want to be a traditional tribute band that dresses up, does all the mannerisms, plays everything note for note.  That can be a fun experience, but sometimes you end up paying more attention to the haircuts and boots.  I liked the idea of drawing great musicians from great American bands; musicians who have made albums and written songs and toured and generally had experiences of being actual musicians.  Musicians with personality and creativity to bring to the project.

Everyone has a favorite Beatle. For these gigs you play guitar -- George's instrument -- but you are a dedicated Paul guy. What draws you to him over the others?

Remember, John Lennon also played guitar.  And Paul McCartney played guitar in the band until the spring of 1961 (and then, of course, later on many Beatles recordings).  We don’t do role-playing in the band (I know, it sounds like SM), so each of us might sing songs originally sung by John, Paul, George, Pete, or Ringo.  


I’m not sure I’m a dedicated Paul guy.  I don’t think I’d ever say that, but I’d always gravitated toward him for whatever reason.  I think when I was younger my singing voice most closely matched his and I do think he’s a melodist of a very high order and quite obviously the most capable and complete musician in the band.  He was essentially the Beatles’ musical director and the way I’ve said it before is that McCartney is a musical genius while Lennon was a pure artist.  In Bambi Kino, I sing many more John songs than Paul songs.  I don’t have the top of my range that I used to have (remember:  Little Richard sang “Long Tall Sally” in F and McCartney raised it up a notch, to G!) and, since I play guitar, there’s something more organic about singing John’s stuff.  (Although, just to get annoyingly technical, John’s and Paul’s vocal ranges were much more closely matched than most people assume.)  


And yet… oddly enough, when Maplewood was opening for America on some shows last month, a lady came up to me after we played and said, in a mega Jersey accent, “You remind me of Pool McCawtney!”  Um, OK.  Not that I see it!


Photos show Sutcliffe and Harrison up top, George, Paul and John below.

Nada Surf at the Troubadour

The Brooklyn band Nada Surf are one part '90s indie, one part chiming power pop, one part '60s songcraft, and last night they melded all three styles in a loud, forceful Troubadour show that left my ears ringing. The tour -- which continues tonight at the same club -- supports their new record of idiosyncratic covers, If I Had a Hi-Fi.

The show, of course, wasn't perfect, with a few songs that didn't entirely connect, and I'm not sure about the bassist's dreadlocks. But generally this is one of the most exciting bands in indie rock and I'm particularly impressed with their unpredictable way of engaging with music history.

Case in point: While most of the show was given over to their very fine originals, an early highlight was their cover of The Go-Betweens "Love Goes On." Pop-savvy readers of The Misread City need no introduction to this brilliantly wistful and now sadly defunct Aussie alt band, but many audiences do. Nada Surf gets major props both for bringing their names up and for hitting this bittersweet song even more squarely than the its originators did. (A fan handed lead singer Matthew Caws the CD of a Go-Betweens tribute record -- I'd love to hear more about this, which I see here.) Anyway, "Love Goes On" and Bill Fox's surging "Electrocution" were highlights of the show as well as the new album, which drops June 8.

And while it took the band a minute to get the groove right, they played what may be their best song -- "Blonde on Blonde," which captures a retro kind of music love better than anything I know since Philip Larkin's "Reference Back," the anthemic "Whose Authority," their early "The Plan," and "Happy Kid." (I cant stop trying to get the meloody "I'm just a happy kid, stuck with the heart of a sad punk," across on my guitar.) I would have liked to hear the bic-lighter-inspiring "Inside of Love."

Nada Surf, of course, are part of a small but proud cadre of formerly major label bands that went on to thriving artistically on indies. (Spoon and Velvet Crush come immediately to mind.) Their early (and, in retrospect, slightly annoying) mid-'90s hit "Popular," made them seem part of a cynical and "ironic" turn in alt-rock, but they band was soon dropped and has done its best work since on records like Let Go and Lucky. (The new album is very fine, if not as consistent as I'd like: They do manage the musical alchemy of turning out a pretty good version of a Depeche Mode song, something I would have judged impossible. And the album's production may be the best of anything they've recorded.)

I could talk about this show all day but must switch off because the band is about to go onto a KCRW/Morning Becomes Eclectic performance. Let me close by mentioning that besides Caws' skill on the Les Paul (and strong vocals), the band also included Ira Elliot, one of the most inventive drummers in indie rock, and guest axe-man Doug Gillard of Cobra Verde and Guided by Voices. (Gillard's record with GbV's Robert Pollard, Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department, is by far Pollard's best "solo" record.)

Here's an addendum: Drummer Elliot will be part of an indie supergroup of sorts, including members of Cat Power, Maplewood, and Moby'd band, in Hamburg to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beatles arrival there. Elliot, like my friend the top-shelf writer/musician Mark Rozzo, is also a member of canyon-rock revivalists Maplewood. (The group will be opening for soft-rock heroes America on some dates this summer.

John Lennon vs. High Culture

Twenty nine years ago, on a cold December morning, I woke up to see my mom, a bit addled, standing in my bedroom doorway. "I've got some bad news," she said. "John Lennon was shot."

"Well, is he okay?" I asked.

I was in 6th grade, and I'd spent much of the previous few years sitting in the basement while my head spun along with the turntable to the Beatles music -- especially "Revolver" and an album my best friend had given me the year before, "Rubber Soul"; I especially liked the psychedelic "I'm Only Sleeping," the reflective "In My Life" and the darkly romantic "It's Only Love."  Of course I liked all the Beatles, but John was my first and fiercest cultural hero; I memorized the lyrics to his songs and read everything I could about him.

Not everyone was as zealous as me, and some friends preferred Paul or George, but it seemed inconceivable that someone might not like the Beatles.

I trudged to school, where the teacher was a supposedly "tough" customer who'd taken a special liking to me for some reason -- she was a kind of hero of mine as well. Partway through school, maybe at the lunch hour, she brought up Lennon's murder.

She was shocked, in fact -- because an opera singer had died the day before and no one had noticed. And here this "druggie" had been killed, and people were crying in the streets. Why all the fuss for a rock n roll singer?

Of course, this didn't exactly endear me to my beloved teacher. What was even weirder than the pitting of high vs. popular culture -- something I've always hated and still fight against, and especially wrong in the case of John -- was the fact that none of the other kids seemed as shaken up as I was. I knew my folks were upset, and an old friend from a different school called me later in the day and we talked forever about it. But had I landed in some baleful alternate universe where nobody liked the Beatles? The conversation moved on to another topic, but I didn't.

I'm the kind of person that likes to reconcile opposing points of view, to understand people's perspectives in the widest possible context. Maybe on the 30th of John's death I'll be able to see my teacher's reaction with more detachment. But today, I'm still so upset about John's death, and realize that day -- the end of his life -- was the beginning, for me, of the distrust of authority that I'm now old enough to read in his songs and life.

RIP John Lennon. Tonight I will blast "Rubber Soul" for my Beatles-loving three-year-old son all the way through.

John Lennon and "It's Only Love"

SIXTY-NINE years ago today, one of the greatest artists of the rock era, and my first cultural hero, was born in a hospital on liverpool's oxford street.

especially with the madness over the beatles mono and stereo reissues still fresh, john lennon does not need my defense or explication here. i'll just say that i lost most of my elementary school years blasting my parents' beatles records, and all but levitated when i discovered the scarred depths of "plastic ono band," the one solo beatle LP that stands up with the group's work. (here is my old colleague bob hilburn on lennon.)

instead of diving into the man's amazing achievement and apparently contradictions -- his mix of generosity and bitterness, idealism and disillusionment -- i want to focus on just one song, and an overlooked one at that.

"it's only love" is a kind of orphan in the beatles' catalog. it was released on the american, but not the british, "rubber soul" -- in the UK it appeared on "help." over the last decade or so we've seen through the collaborative fiction implied by the "lennon-mccartney" songwriting credit: this is really john's number. he wrote it in a rush, and lated called it "a lousy song." paul knocked it as a "filler" song for its weak lyric.

let's listen to the song though: my favorite version is the incomplete third take on the "anthology 2" set. first of all, it's one of john's best-ever vocal performances: all the bite, the translation of the pain of the blues, is here, and he digs into the ambiguity of the lyrics -- this woman that he wants to love, but cant. or cant love, but does. (we've all been there.)

john's refrain of "but it's so hard, loving you" is as good a document of the group moving from its moptop phase into its darker, more complex middle period, which i think happens between "help" and "rubber soul," as i can think of.

musically, this has the byrdsy, folkrock sound the beatles were beginning to explore, and an unusual chord progression yoked to an unforgettable melody.

is the kind of tune which, if released today, would absolutely captivate people for its songcraft, but the beatles output in the '60s was so incredible it was seen as failed or forgettable.

(let me admit here that the song was recorded 15 june 1965 -- a few weeks from the day my parents were married. a shrink could probably unravel my almost unanimous fondness for the culture of 1965 and '66, but that's another story.)

but it's not just me who thinks this is a great song. bryan ferry recorded it, to good effect, in the '70s.

either way, let's raise a pint to one of the greatest musicians in history today, and wish we'd had more of him.

The Late, Great Elliott Smith

YESTERDAY would have been the 40st birthday of elliott smith, perhaps the finest songwriter of my generation, and a musician who killed himself six years ago. my wife -- a longtime music journalist who considers him the deepest artist she's ever interviewed -- and i remember that dark day well.

smith, of course, came up through the portland band heatmiser, and released some powerful and very spare solo records up there before moving to LA... he came to the southland a few years after i did, and i was lucky enough to see him perform several times, as well as to sit next to him at the bar at the troubadour, where he was nursing a guinness and clearly did not want to be disturbed. (i also recall, maybe a year before he died, smith waiting in line behind me in line at amoeba music, with a basket full of vinyl. his girlfriend had to lead him to the register like he was an overmedicated old man.)

HERE is my piece from 2004, in which i interviewed his girlfriend, producer, biographer, and musical friends, and look back at his life and then-controversial death. as sad as i still am to have him gone, he's one of the people who reminds me of how emotionally direct and inventive the music of the indie-rock movement can be. also: as influenced as he was by indie and by the british invasion (especially george harrison), smith was, musically, every bit his own man.