Rob Nichols

Tom Petty Albums: The Essential 7

by

tom petty1 In the two-plus years since Tom Petty’s passing, his music rings true as ever, and sounds just as it was meant to be -timeless.  Let’s rewind and take a listen to the band that has best represented American Rock music for 40 years – a deserved title for Petty and the Heartbreakers. Sounding not from one place (belying the band’s strong Florida roots), and instead sounding like they were from everywhere enabled them to connect with rednecks and hippies, East coast attitude and West coast shine. They rocked loud. And Tom could become acoustic and quiet. Lyrics resonated. Petty could also sweat and smile at the same time. It is a band with a long history; one that made music that goes back to the original Mudcrutch days. Giving them the nod as the quintessential American rock and roll band is no small honor. Petty and his boys owned the package of accessibility, writing, passion and sweet-ass rock and roll hooks.

Here for you, my friends, is the RockForward list of Petty’s 7 Essential Albums (and a couple that were too good to leave off).

1. Damn the Torpedoes (1979) – Straddling intersecting lines of power pop, rock and roll, and new wave, Petty made the record that, all these years later, more than any other album, defines him. Is it his best record? Always debatable but I’d have trouble saying there is one better than Damn the Torpedoes. The songs that became classic rock radio staples have stood the test of musical time; they still sound essential. The album cover art is iconic. And an album cut like “Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)” sounds just as good as classic rock radio choices. Producer Jimmy Iovine worked the band endlessly to get the sound he wanted. They recorded live, in the same room, take after take. It worked.  It is the album that made superstars of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.
ESSENTIALS: “Refugee”, “Don’t Do Me Like That”, “Even the Losers” and “Here Comes My Girl”
HIDDEN GEMS: “Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)”, “Louisiana Rain”

fullmoonfever2. Full Moon Fever (1989) – Shine it up, Jeff Lynne! Let’s make a pop/rock masterpiece!  The ELO mastermind had Tom without the band (except for the liberal use of guitarist Campbell) and crafted a smashing hit. The hard-edged heartland rock of Petty’s previous few records was augmented by a California gloss, banks of acoustic guitars, washes of Lynne background vocals, and drums that sound like tambourines are chained to the snare. It is a slice of brilliance. Listen to the album today because there’s a pop music sweetness that Petty, though he would try, would never again duplicate.
ESSENTIALS: “Running Down a Dream”, “Free Fallin'”, “Long is a Long Road”, “I Won’t Back Down”
HIDDEN GEMS: “The Apartment Song”, “Dependin’ on You” “Face in the Crowd” “Feel A Whole Lot Better”

3hardpromises. Hard Promises (1981) – Maybe the follow-up to Damn the Torpedoes was even better than it’s predecessor. The songs are more ambitious, deeper lyrically, and show some lyrical maturity –  and jadedness. Many of the tunes have been Petty concert staples since the 1981 release. Still, there weren’t radio hits quite like the previous record’s songs. “The Waiting” is an enduring standout track, but in 1981, success to rock and roll artists like Petty was radio airplay. Not that hits = a great record, but this one ranks this high for the depth of the bench, not the superstars.
ESSENTIALS: “The Waiting, “Insider”, “Something Big”
HIDDEN GEMS: “A Thing About You”, “Letting You Go”

4. Long After Dark (1982) – This is where you get to beat me up, as Long After Dark is an overlooked record that essentially completed their first run of big success.  It could be heard as dark and lacking a spark, but I don’t hear it that way. Instead, I hear a band that is rocking and rolling and powering through the making of another album in a string of records that have taken them to a question “OK. What now?”  Where Hard Promises was edgily introspective, Long After Dark was angry.  Let’s forgive “You Got Lucky” – the synthesizer dates it terribly. Listen to tough shit like “Finding Out”, “Change of Heart” and the title cut. It’s all played aggressively and passionately, slathered with enough of the sweet Petty sound to make it engaging. Of all his releases, it is the one truly lost great Tom Petty album.
ESSENTIALS: “Change of Heart”, “Deliver Me”
HIDDEN GEMS: “The Same Old You”, “We Stand a Chance”

Tom Petty - You're Gonna Get It -5. You’re Gonna Get it (1978) The best of his early period, The band took the template of The Cars – or The Cars stole it from Petty – and made their initial leap from new wave to straight-up rock and roll. Even a buried cut like “No Second Thoughts” shows the progression and maturity, sounding like something from Exile on Main Street. The album was an essential indicator that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were as good as anybody else in 1978.
ESSENTIALS: “Listen to Her Heart”, “I Need to Know”. “When the Time Comes”
HIDDEN GEMS: “Hurt”, “Magnolia”

liveanthology

6. The Live Anthology (2010) – With 58 songs, it isn’t one you will sit down to listen straight through. But it very much is an album that you can fire up, choose a random track, and never be disappointed. Never. Hits like “Free Fallin'” and “Breakdown” are here, but so are album heroes like “Louisiana Rain” from Damn the Torpedoes, “Have Love, Will Travel” (one of the few keepers from The Last DJ ) and “Oh Well”, a song from Fleetwood Mac that later became a hit for the Detroit band The Rockets in the late 70’s. It is a sprawling testament to what American rock and roll sounds like. The album encapsulates everything musically righteous about a band that not only made essential records but celebrated them live.
ESSENTIALS: Most of it
HIDDEN GEMS: The rest

7. Echo (1999) – A return to his classic sound, it is the final album with bassist Howie Epstein before he died. An aggressive and intimate record, it showed the band could still fight. Epstein, in the final stages of his long drug battle, struggled to even show up (he’s not in the cover photo) and Petty has said he was absent himself for too much of it. Somehow, the raw power of band overcame all those problems to create a keeper. A sprawling 15-song album, producer Rick Rubin helped maintain an aggressiveness without it getting messy. “Free Girl Now” is one of his best rockers, and “Swingin'” sounds like nobody but Petty. There are a whole lot of guitars, drums and strong Petty vocals.   It is really the last album he made that has a distinct echo back to Damn The Torpedoes. This inclusion may get the argument started about the validity of the whole list. I don’t care. Echo sounds good loud, so crank it.
ESSENTIAL: “Free Girl Now”, “Swingin'”
HIDDEN GEMS: “This One’s For Me”, “Room at the Top”, “Accused”

Four more for the road (Honorable Mentions)
tompetty2Wildflowers (1994) – His second album minus the Heartbreakers, it is an organic yet surprisingly lively rock and roll record. “You Don’t Know How it Feels” and “You Wreck Me” fit right into the Petty classic canon. The title cut is one of his best aching love songs. I know friends who call this their favorite album.  He was at the top of his mid-career writing game. LISTEN

Into the Great Wide Open (1991) – Some great tunes (trademark Petty with “Learning to Fly” and the narrative title cut) with rockers (“Makin’ Some Noise”, “Kings Highway”) that came up slightly short in the enormous shadow that was cast by Full Moon Fever. Drop it into another year in his catalog (say 2006), and it might feel stronger in that different context. LISTEN

MOJO (2010) Here’s a prediction: The Mojo album will eventually be hailed as one of his brilliant moments. It was the album where Petty let the band loose to play modern blues, kept familiar by the Florida nasal twang of the frontman. He loosened the grip on the boys, probably smoked a little weed, and told the band to play what felt right. LISTEN

Pack Up the Plantation (Live) (1986) – I’m still not sure TP and the band needed a horn section, but what the hell. Back in the mid-1980’s, it sounded good because it was all we had if we wanted to hear them live. We couldn’t hop on YouTube and find an audience recording of the previous show. We still needed live albums to hear the rough-and-tumble side of the band, and the album was their first sloppy, endearing, officially released memento of the road-weary rockers. Includes “American Girl”, Refugee”, “The Waiting” and Breakdown”, but it isn’t really a greatest hits record. The single from the album? A heartfelt cover of The Searchers’ “Needles and Pins”, sung with official Heartbreaker groupie, Stevie Nicks. LISTEN

 

BONUS: A terrific song from She’s The One, the soundtrack-that-was-really-an-album release.

Long Player: The Knack – Get the Knack (1979)

by

Another in the series called “Long Player – Listening to Vinyl”. We pull out an actual vinyl 33 1/3 rpm LP from the sleeve, put it on the JVC turntable and let ‘er rip.  Our opinion, honesty and gut feelings follow…

This edition features the late Doug Fieger’s band
The Knack – Get the Knack (1979)
Yeah, it’s gonna be about girls and love and sex. And if you listen to the words, it’s also the story of someone who covers up most of his vulnerability with bravado. Get The Knack was recorded in just 11 days for a miserly $17,000. Isn’t that the way it should be? According to the web, The Knack performed the songs “live” with minimal overdubs, as producer Mike Chapman (who had hit big with Blondie’s disco-fied “Heart of Glass” single) basically slammed the record button and let the band play. He would go on to produce the follow-up album that sold significantly fewer copies, so this record was capturing magic – the band would never be bigger than the summer of 1979. Let’s let the record roll…

SIDE 1:
“Let Me Out” – Keith Moon drums, punk-with-lip gloss vocal shouts and a rhythm section that threatens to push Doug Fieger to keep up. “Tonight! Tonight! Tonight! followed by 25 “Let me Out!” and a scream. It is, really, fucking brilliant. Call to action: we’re gonna hit it hard tonight.

“Your Number or Your Name” – Here’s we get that Beatles influence. (Whooo!) vocals atop a 60s rocker. They beat REO Speedwagon to the sound that would send the Illinois road dog band to a zillion album sales a couple of years later with Hi Infidelity. Just a clean, powerful production. Again – flying drums from Bruce Gary.

“Oh Tara” – I love guitars that duel out of each speaker. Georgia Satellites were one of those underrated bands whose albums were so much more than “Hands to Yourself”.  They split dueling rock guitars into one big hairy, raunchy snarl of rock. “Oh Tara”, a lightweight lyric, is saved by a rock and roll band. Nobody ever listens to anything other than “My Sharona”, but dammit, they should.

“(She’s So) Selfish” – Bo Diddley beat. See. They get it. Hiccup vocals ala Buddy Holly. Firmly planted in the Elvis Costello sound, which launched a year or two earlier. This, though, is a part of the misogyny argument against the band “She’s got you by the short hairs” pops up midway through the tune. Girls ain’t giving the boys the respect – or sex – they want. So Doug shouts “Gimme, Gimme Gimme.”

“Maybe Tonight” – A ballad, in the tradition of Sgt Pepper. As close as they get too psychedelic. Gentle, by band standards. The yearning, shy side comes out of the Knack. They want the girl but haven’t had the courage. Maybe tonight. A counterpoint to the whole misogyny thing.

“Good Girls Don’t” – the other hit from the album. Leering lyrics, from the high school viewpoint, about the girl who wants “it”. Or so the guy tells himself. Great, angry, wrong-and-right pop song. It’s the tune that critics point to when they want to trash the band, Yes, it’s sophomoric. And it’s a song that sticks in your ear after the album is done. Teen lust hitting us over the head with a backbeat.

SIDE 2
“My Sharona” – I think we have enough distance between the summer of 1979 and now that we can look at the song as a near-perfect slice of American power pop. Did you know there is a raunchy, two-bar quick guitar solo right in the middle? Almost out of place on the glossy cut. That helps to make the song even more of a brilliant pop-rocker. And the band lets loose like a skinny tie freight train near the end of the song. A musical tension build and release (complete with false song ending) that pushes the tune to be more a rock and roll piece than just a slice of radio pop that burned too bright to survive.

Doug Fieger

“Heartbeat” – Buddy Holly again. Really?  A 50’s throwback – lightweight and odd in its placement on the record. Why here, after the best song on the album? The production is even a bit muddy. Somebody must have been hungover behind the mixing board.

“Siamese Twins (the Monkey and Me)”
I hear Graham Parker in the grooves. And these boys like to repeat lyrics. They take a line (“he’s on my back”) and chant it, yell it, croon it. Again, the guitars of Fieger and Berton Averre save the day. Sing-song lyrics about escape fall flat. But the guitars are garage.

“Lucinda” – This second side isn’t nearly as good as the first side. The more one listens, the more this side sounds like early 80’s midwest rock. And I don’t think that is good or bad, only less-than-groundbreaking. Fieger sounds like Kevin Cronin, while the song is about “cutting down” Lucinda, and “it’s going to hurt you”. That’s just not nice. Beatles “Hold Your Hand” ending.

“That’s What the Little Girls Do” – Boy tells girl she’s the one. Girl runs away, because “that’s what little girls do – to you”. Boy begging on his knees. She says she’s sorry. She doesn’t mean it. Guitar solo. Boy dreams of girl. Girl doesn’t give a shit. Music crashes to a cold ending.

“Frustrated” – Here’s a book that needs written: analyze the last songs on rock albums. They are usually different than the other songs on a record. Many are hyper-personal. Somebody usually plays like they are high, and there are assorted screams, clunked notes and odd bits that were put off until the end. Like Fieger chirping, howling and gurgling for the final :45 seconds of “Frustrated”. We hear the fading lyric “I need it, I want it” behind a band banging its way through a loose garage-rock throwaway. A perfect ending.

I will call “Get the Knack” a classic. Are you arguing?  Listen to it before you do that.  Music worthy of a template called power pop.  And they nearly killed the genre by being so successful. And most of this album (especially side one through “My Sharona”) is as great as that kind of music would get. It was essentially the same sound as Tom Petty was making at the time, until he hit another gear with Damn the Torpedoes, and songs like “Refugee” and “Don’t Do Me Like That” toughened up the sound to make the sound inviting to radio again…
Do the Knack deserve slings and arrows?  Were they poison or worthy of Rock Hall of Fame love?   I’d say certainly much closer to the hall (though they will never get in) than the arrow, if only because of side one of this record.

“Good Girls Don’t”

“My Sharona” (Live 2005)

read Doug Fieger NY TIMES obit

Long Player: Bryan Adams – Into The Fire (1987)

by

Long Player: Bryan Adams / Into The Fire
Is Bryan Adams underrated with his legacy of loud rock and roll, filled with generic lyrics, cranking guitars, slamming drums, and hooks made of bubblegum? How has time treated the music of a guy who best took the Mellencamp/Springsteen template and covered it with a bunch of sugar? We look back at the album that came after his career-making Reckless record. Is Bryan Adams an overrated rocker, tainted by three or 12 too many vapid soundtrack songs?  Or not? Bryan_Adams_Into_the_Fire

Here’s what I did. I slapped the 1987 Into The Fire album on the turntable (yep, the vinyl LP) and gave the volume knob a pretty good twist. It’s the album that followed Reckless, which ranks as one of the 10 best rock albums of the 80’s. (Argue if you want. “Summer of ’69?” “Run to You”? That shit sounded great coming out of the car radio. And the album tracks on it were just as good). The problem for Adams was by 1987, he had worked hard for the better part of ten years.  This is the album that came from that place.

Into the Fire is a loud, excessive, indulgent record, with more 80’s reverb lacquered into grooves than necessary. But turned up, with a beer in hand (which is how Bryan Adams music should be consumed, right?), it was worth a loud listen to recalculate Adams at the time, and his place in 80’s (and after) rock and roll.

Side 1
Track 1 “Heat of the Night” was the first song sent to radio, so this was the first chance to hear him since the previous album’s smashing success. The sound is trademark Bryan Adams, but the song didn’t soar like the tunes on the previous record. A little leaden.

Track 2 “Into the Fire” – Everything said about track one applies here, and even more overwrought.

Track 3 “Victim of Love” is a forgotten power ballad that could be one of his best, nicely straddling a line of schmaltz and balls.

Track 4 “Another Day” is the first tune on side one that gets a little loose, and harkens back to the “Cuts Like Knife” era. The band goes nuts at the end before Bryan pulls them back together.

Track 5 “Native Son” sounds Canadian, in the tradition of the Tragically Hip and other 80’s and 90’s Canadian rock bands. (Remember Honeymoon Suite?) It’s one of two similarly-themed songs on the album, along with side two’s “Remembrance Day”. Bryan is shooting for an anthem, though didn’t quite make it. But dammit, the drums sound good.

Bryan Adams legacy? Sugar-coated rock and roll.
Bryan Adams legacy? Sugar-coated rock and roll.

This record echoes those snares on the U2/Alarm/Simple Minds albums that had a slammin’, gated reverb sound. So did Phil Collins, Springsteen, Prince and nearly every band that made rock records from 1983-1987.  It resonates with a part of my soul that responds to that specific sound, in the midst of rootsy guitars and raspy vocals.

So, when Bryan lets “Native Son” die down, before kicking back in, it’s good. The record may have gotten too beaten up by critics. Hell, it still sold more than a million copies. It got radio play. But I remember disappointment after the hits of Reckless.

Side 2

Track 1 “Only the Strong Survive” is uptempo plodding, if that’s possible.  Bryan again straining; it doesn’t connect.

Track 2 “Rebel” trying to replicate his “Heaven” ballad gene, and it proves to be a rewrite that sounds OK but no home run. Again, though, the drums sound good.

Track 3 “Remembrance Day” continues the anthem push. A bit of Canada namechecking seeps in, with Kingston and Brighton. The guitars panned left and right are killer, and the strings at the end work nicely. Adams’ voice – that  whiskey Rod Stewart roar – is one of his gifts;

Track 4 “Hearts on Fire”, buried on side two, is the “Summer of 69” rewrite for the album and was actually written for the Reckless album. The cut is a blend of all that is good about Bryan Adams before Mutt Lange got to him and “Def Leppard-ed” his sound.  With keyboards emulating a Hammond B3, and a start-stop chunking twin guitars from longtime band guitarist Keith Scott and Adams, the music pushes forward with the best energy on the record. And I hear cowbell too.

Track 5 “Home Again” tries too hard and ends the record with a thud.

Adams came back after this release with another couple records, teaming with producer Lange, and had hits with his post-Def Leppard, pre-Shania Twain recipe of sound. By the mid 90’s, Bryan was essentially musically spent. His later records work to varying degree to echo the classic sound but have never quite recaptured the mystery of what made him memorable.

So is where is Bryan Adams’ place in rock and roll? In the end, his music library holds up because it is tightly constructed rock and roll ear candy, done smartly. And it certainly sounds like American rock music. I listened to the whole record, and never wanted to turn it off. His four album run of Cuts Like A Knife, Reckless, Into The Fire and Waking Up The Neighbours was the peak of his career arc.  Through this run, even the mediocre songs contain moments of rock band thrills and noise that make my dumb rock fan heart expand. I would argue there is great value in hearing music that penetrates to your musical soul, whether it stays forever or for just a few moments. Adams was able to do both.

After 10 albums, Will Hoge’s still delivers on heartland promise

by

willhoge2015Will Hoge has scuffled on the edges of success for more than 10 years, whether you count his major label signing to Atlantic in 2002 as a starting point, or his mid-1990’s independent release Spoonful.

He is midwestern heartland rock and roll, with a dose of country, some Dylen-seque folk, cracking drums and loud guitars. His Small Town Dreams record, dare I proclaim, is his best record to date. It might be the best album John Mellencamp never made.  It is an album will hit that fans of that Petty/Seger/Springsteen/Mellencamp/rock and roll with a slap on the back and a punch in the gut; a reminder of what they love about rock music.

But he’s got a lot of miles behind him, both literally (as a touring rocker) or metaphorically (he’s been putting out good stuff for years, with little victories and incremental successes).

With his album Small Town Dreams, Hoge recorded his Scarecrow.

Small Town Dreams is Hoge’s first collaboration with producer Marshall Altman.  Hoge self-produced his last three albums, but wanted to get Altman after hearing his work on Eric Paslay’s “Friday Night” and Frankie Ballard’s “Helluva Life”.

He brought in Altman, who Hoge said was already a friend and fan. It works. It is American rock and roll.  He’s crafted and dirtied-up lots of good stuff that sounds heartfelt, from-the-gut, rowdy and beautiful. Real and whiskey-smoked.

I stumbled onto Hoge one night at the Rathskeller almost ten years ago in downtown Indianapolis, on a warm July night.  I enough to show up at the show.   I realized that Hoge had brought ex-Georgia Satellites singer Dan Baird along to play guitar. I saw a gangly dude next to the beer tub, and thought to myself  “What?  Wait. Shit. That’s Dan Baird.”  Turned into one of best small venue shows “I’ve seen.

The single “Middle of America” jumps out as an anthem, the slow burn of “Just Up The Road” is a pounding plea to the promise of escape, and the leadoff track “Growing Up Around Here” strikes a Seger sound in the verse with some big piano chords and a midtempo majestic ride throughout.

For nearly 20 years, Hoge hasn’t disappointed.  His music has grown into full-throated rock and roll.  His music has heart and ache and guitars.  And a few dreams.

 

Remembering Prince on his 59th Birthday

by

Today would have been the 59th birthday for Prince.  In the year and a few months that have passed since he died, my realization (which is nearly the same feeling as on the day he died) is this:
He was one of a startlingly select group of musicians who make it all look way easy.

We see it.  We feel it when we see it.  Bruno Mars has it.  Micheal Jackson had it.

Prince was the master.  Remember the legendary Super bowl performance?  Watch the short documentary about that night. Amazing

It’s that thing that seems to flow from a natural spring inside their soul.  Whereas Springsteen is unbelievably great as a live performer, his magic seemingly includes lot of sweat and hard work to get to that place.

The Michael’s, Prince’s and Bruno’s had to work at it too.  Nobody is naive enough to think it’s all about natural ability.  But there is an effortlessness that make  them seem lighter.  Magical.
They make the very difficult look really easy. They make me smile when I watch the old Motown 25 and Michael Jackson introducing the moonwalk. Or when I watch Prince playing that solo with Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne.

Here’s the piece I wrote the night Prince died.  I think it makes sense to read it again today.
Midwest Kids and Prince
Here’s the thing about Prince: to a Midwestern guy back in the early 1980’s, Prince wasn’t necessarily in the cassette player. To most of us dudes, it took a while. For me, it took my friend Ron Hefner turning me on to the Dirty Mind and Controversy albums, and letting me borrow them back in 1983. I gave them back and went out and bought both.

And I’m not sure why. It certainly wasn’t Bob Seger. It wasn’t John Mellencamp. It wasn’t really quite like anything on the radio. It was adult and juvenile at the same time, with keyboards and groove. Funk. And sex. Lots of sex.

But with the 1999 album, on the title song and especially with “Little Red Corvette”, the Midwest boys started to get it. And maybe it was because the Midwest girls already did. They knew Prince had the goods that made it easy to dance.

Then it was Purple Rain, and the movie. The explosion.
Look up his catalog on Wikipedia. I did. Amazing. Ubiquitous on the radio for ten years. Hit songs – ah, career songs – for other artists: Chaka Khan. The Bangles. Sinead O’Connor. Sheila E. Did you know he played the synthesizer that is so crucial to the sound of Stevie Nicks’ hit “Stand Back?

Tonight, I’ve been listening to 89.3 FM The Current, an NPR station in Minneapolis that has been playing nothing but Prince music since a little after 1:00pm. They’ve done marvelous work.
It’s midnight now. They are playing “Jungle Love” from The Time. It sounds good. Damn good.

The thing is, everything they have played has sounded good. Everything. The drum and keyboard sound that is the Minneapolis Sound – the Prince sound. It reminds of the brilliance of his guitar playing and the twist he made on the mixture of Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, George Clinton and his own brain.

Maybe it’s the filter of loss that makes the music sound more alive. Maybe it’s because we are now able to somehow hear the soulfulness and heart and guts of Prince’s music more clearly.

What I hear when I listen tonight is intelligence and the groove. Funk and the smarts. Rock and roll and charisma. I’m glad it sounds so good, through the lens of a rewind. Happy to know the music was really that good, and our memories hadn’t tricked us.

I’m elated that we have the music to remind us of his genius. And so very sad that it’s where we are tonight.

My Lou Reed Tribute – Three Chords Were Jazz

by

cannes-lions-2013-lou-reed-99Lou Reed has died. Remembered more as an artist influence than hitmaker, Reed was one of those musicians whose brilliance was nuggets amidst noise.

My perspective is from inside Middle America.  Indiana and Michigan, with two years in Illinois thrown in when I was in elementary school.
Heartland. Small towns. Medium towns.
Not many big towns.

It was the guitar rock of Reed that made sense to me. The noise? The avant garde material? Not so much. I leave that part of his legacy to the East Coast historians.

Instead, it’s the “Sweet Jane”, “Rock and Roll”, and “Dirty Blvd” parts of his catalog that I return to tonight. Reed wrote the perfect rock song with “Sweet Jane”. You can hear a “Sweet Jane” riff in dozens of songs.Hear it while driving. Say “Sweet Jane!” to yourself.

I do.

(Beautiful little video of Lou and Elvis Costello talking about the riff and the “Secret chord”.)

Lou Reed 1978

As a radio DJ in the 1980’s in a small town in Michigan, our little radio station rocked at night (at least when I worked) and I remember we had 1976’s Rock and Roll Heart album.  How did that happen?  I remember putting “Senselessly Cruel” on the turntable. Why? Because it was Lou Reed, and I was convinced I wore the crown of cool, smart rock guy who knew how to find a song the Midwest rock and rollers would like.
Was I right? Maybe. We were an AM station, broadcasting to a town of 7.000, and I was way too young to be as good as I thought I was. Couldn’t have been anyone listening, right?

At the time? Subversively brilliant.
lou-reedIndiana is home now. I dragged my Michigan influences with me and am what I am.  Yet Lou Reed is a tiny-but-still-influential part of it.
A product of small towns, I’m Kiss and Wings and John Denver 45’s. BTO, REO and ELO 8-Tracks. And Bob Seger albums. A lot of those.

But Reed was a peek into the “Who knew?” part of NYC backroom of rock and roll and painters and artists debauchery; heroin overdoses and metal machine music. He was the noise and weird and cool. His nuggets of rock music felt different. Smart and strong and vulnerable and not from where I was from.
Still, Lou kept doing just enough straight-with-a-twist rock and roll. Or I found the pieces on my own.

I played the shit out of his 1989 album “New York”. It is one of my favorite albums of that period. Raunchy-but-sweet guitar and words that build into lyrics deep and dark and real; dense yet simple.  Cinematic snapshots of down and dirty, and resiliency too.

Tonight, I go find Lou. Like the old friend you were tight with for a few years and then lost track of. Or at least never talk to. But you think of him. That’s Lou Reed and me. It’s about remembering the sounds that made those of us in the middle of the country like Lou Reed.

It’s a live version of “Sweet Jane” from his Rock n Roll Animal live album; dueling guitars into an anthem.

It’s Reed mixing it up on a killer live version of “Dirty Blvd.” with David Bowie.  Bowie rocks here.  Reed’s really good on this clip, but Bowie steals it.

But what I best remember tonight, for whatever reason, is the band Detroit (featuring Mitch Ryder) and their cover of “Rock and Roll”. It’s a Lou Reed song, turned into an uncharted classic by Mitch and his post -“Detroit Wheels” band.

The song is named the same as a genre he weaved his way through.  Reed played rock and roll  –  his way.  Not our way.  He seemed like he didn’t care what anyone thought. Tough rock and roll guy.
He lived “Walk on the Wild Side”, right?

I reflect on how Lou Reed found a way to connect with those of us here in the Midwest who never partied with Andy Warhol.  We love the sound of those “Sweet Jane” chords, shot full of melancholy and joy, straight into the heartland.
—-
(Dig the cheese of Music Mike on the intro. and the cool Lou Reed trivia he throws in…)