CD Review: The Waterboys, Modern Blues

The Waterboys

Modern Blues

Harlequin And Clown, CLOWNE1 (2015)

Bob Dylan has long admitted to being a fan of Scottish bard Robert Burns and has also stated that “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” was based on old Scottish ballad. Perhaps then it’s not surprising that he has had an enduring influence on modern-day Scottish singer-songwriters. Perhaps the first was Donovan, who endured criticism (not least from Dylan himself) that he was a Dylan wannabe. Certainly “Catch the Wind” owed a clear debt to Dylan’s lyrical and musical style of the time (1965), but poor Donovan certainly wasn’t the first, last, or only to be so charged.

In the 1970s, the next Scottish singer to carry Bob’s torch was Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople. Pressed into service as the lead singer, he all but mimicked Dylan’s drawling delivery on Mott’s first album. Thereafter, the influence came out more in his introspective lyrics; to this day, Hunter remains a fan. In a 2012 interview, he said, “If I listen to anybody these days it would be Bob Dylan because he’s the yardstick. You write a song like ‘Jokerman’ or ‘Every Grain of Sand’ it’s hard to get anywhere near the same league. That’s the only guy I would listen to today because I think he’s amazing.”

Edinburgh-born Mike Scott came to modest fame in the early to mid 1980s as the leader of the Waterboys. Poetic, spiritual, and frequently changing his band’s musical style, he is much like Dylan, except less oblique about revealing himself to his fans. He has also hailed Dylan’s influence and has covered several Dylan songs over the years.

The point of all this is really just to say that I hear a lot of Dylan in the brand new Waterboys album, Modern Blues. It’s more of a hard rock album than Dylan would do, and that itself is reflective of Dylan’s own changeling nature. After all, the previous Waterboys album comprised a set of Yeats poems and writings that Scott set to music. Over the course of 11 studio albums, the Waterboys evolved from a horn-driven, highly literate, post-punk soul band (biggest hit, “The Whole of the Moon” from 1985’s This Is The Sea) to a roots-oriented band with emphasis on fiddle and mandolin (biggest hit, the title track to 1988’s Fisherman’s Blues), to a guitar-driven band singing of spiritual ecstasy and romantic despair (no hits to speak of).

In recent years, Scott has been bouncing Neil Young-like from one extreme to the next, from 2003’s haunting and meditative Universal Hall to 2007’s rip-roaring Book of Lightning, to 2011’s psychedeliterate An Appointment With Mr. Yeats, to the current disc. If there’s a problem with this, it’s that Scott’s second banana, Irish fiddler Steve Wickham, a fan favorite, sometimes has not much to do. Wickham came on to the scene at the end of the This Is The Sea sessions, and was a key factor of the Fisherman’s Blues era (in fact, he co-wrote the title track with Scott). When Scott decided to bring electric guitar to the fore, Wickham left, not to return until more than a decade had passed. In concert, he is to Scott what Richards is to Jagger, what Perry is to Tyler, what Page was to Plant; yet on the recent albums, he seems not to have a lot to do. On the current album, he plays “fuzz fiddle,” turning in a fiery solo on the opening track that I originally thought was electric guitar. Beyond that, I don’t hear him. It seems like his role is to fulfill the Fisherman’s Blues-era songs in concert and otherwise to fit in by playing loud and electric. He has much more than that to offer, but knowing Scott, it’s likely that his compass will at some point shift again to a position more welcoming to acoustic fiddle.

As for the album itself, two songs were previewed on the band’s last concert tour: “Still a Freak” and “I Can See Elvis.” Ironically, they are the two I care for least, not because they are bad or familiar, but because they seem tossed off in comparison to the depth of thought and feeling that is apparent in the other songs. The former is the defiant crow of an aging rocker, insisting “Things disappear but I’m still here” and “I ain’t been gagged/I’m still flying the flag.” The latter is a fantasy about Elvis partying in heaven with other dead rockers and famous figures from history. Had he not mined this idea already with “The Return of Jimi Hendrix” in 1993, I would be more forgiving of it.

The rest of the nine-song, 51-minute album, however, is pure gold, the kind of songs you wish they’d play on the radio but you know they never will. Inspiring my Dylan thesis, many of the songs are lyrically dense, long, and rich. The opening song, “Destinies Entwined,” is not only a powerful rocker, the lyrics scan almost perfectly with Dylan’s “Up to Me,” a beautiful outtake from Blood On The Tracks, and the story they tell is not too dissimilar from “Isis,” which appeared on Desire.

Her point of view was radical, more than just a change of plan

She sold me her proposal which I did not understand

She said the secret’s in the road, I tried to decode the signs

And followed her for seven years, all eyes and ears

Our destinies entwined

The following track, “November Tale,” is another relationship song, where Scott meets a woman from his past and her religious orthodoxy and his more organic spirituality clash. Scott’s vocal delivery, more spoken than sung, is reminiscent of Dylan’s but with better articulation. “The Girl Who Slept for Scotland” is beautifully written and compelling, but I have to be honest I have no idea what it’s about. Still, it’s a wonderful listen, even as Scott gets uncharacteristically sexual:

Yet I remember a day by a river wild

When she clung to me hard like a darling child

And a night in the sheets of a Dublin bed

When she moaned like a woman and gave sweet head

Similarly obscure, in “Rosalind (You Married the Wrong Guy)”, Scott sings (apparently) to the heroine of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, casting aspersions on her marriage to Orlando. A bluesy pub rocker with fierce Hammond organ by Waterboy newbie Paul Brown, the song kicks butt and that’s good enough for me.

The most radio-friendly song is “Beautiful Now,” featuring a poppy melody and a happy lyric (“You were beautiful then, sweet angel/You’re way more beautiful now”). That’s followed by the more mournful “Nearest Thing to Hip,” in which Scott laments the passing of a café where jazz played on the box, an old record store that went out of business, and a bar and a bookstore that no longer stand. It’s actually rather reminiscent of Ian Hunter, who in his later years has turned his keen sunglass-covered eyes on the things we and he have lost.

The album closes with “Long Strange Golden Road,” a 10-minute, 10-verse epic poem on the scale of “Desolation Row” or “Sad Old Lady of the Lowlands,” but with that chugging electric guitar (this is the only song on which Scott takes a solo, though two other lead guitarists ably drive six other tunes). The song is preceded by an excerpt of an old scratchy recording of Jack Kerouac (another Dylan reference) reading from On The Road, and the lyrics tell of Scott’s desire to hit the road himself, inspired by Kerouac’s words and voice.

I was longing to be wooed, I was ready to be humbled

By the words that you had written, by the syllables you mumbled

Yeah, I was ready in my heart to have my heart invaded

By the fervor of your passion, yes I came to be persuaded

But when I heard your ragged voice something switched in my perception

And I knew I was the victim of a beautiful deception

All my once exact beliefs like tangled threads unraveled

I walked out stunned and liberated and so began my travels

For the most part, Steve Wickham excepted, “The Waterboys” is Mike Scott and whomever he hires to play with him. On Modern Blues, recorded mostly in Nashville, most of the band have no more Waterboy experience than the last U.S. tour (drummer Ralph Salmins dates back to An Appointment With Mr. Yeats). Yet the recording does feature the all-star presence of bassist David Hood of Muscle Shoals fame, who keeps it nice and funky.

All in all, I have to say that as a Waterboys fan, this is yet another winner from Mike Scott. Which is to say it will sink like a stone. But I hope I’m wrong about that because more people should know about the Waterboys and more Waterboys fans should embrace their new recordings. Because to paraphrase something Dylan sang 50 years ago, there’s something happening here and not enough people know what it is. And that’s a damn shame.

Rebooting the Blog: Introduction/King Crimson Concert Review

Have you ever looked up the definition of a word that you already know what it means, just to see what the actual definition is? I just did that with “reboot” and the definition was “boot again.” I guess it serves me right. After all, my life philosophy is “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” (a line by Bob Dylan), which to me has always meant, “have faith in your own instincts and intelligence, you don’t need an authority to tell you what’s clearly obvious to you.”

So why did I bother in the first place? Because I am rebooting my blog and I thought it would be fun to do it dictionary-style. I was wrong. And I may be wrong about rebooting my blog but since most of my readers are probably people who found it by accident, it doesn’t really matter. But to me and to anyone who has actually popped by with any regularity over the last few years, it does matter, or it should.

From the get-go, my blog was intended to be one way of building what the dying publishing industry calls a “platform” – an established area of expertise one has, along with a built-in following who might be interested in purchasing one’s books. The platform I chose – perhaps more accurately, it chose me – is music. After all, my first novel, The Grave & The Gay*, was based on a 17^th-century English folk ballad, while the second one I am currently struggling mightily with was inspired by a song by jazz singer Cassandra Wilson.

Maintaining a blog is no easy deal, as I soon found out, and I have frequently written posts that have nothing to do with music. That may prove to be true as well in the future, but to help invigorate my blog and infuse it with meaning, I have decided to reboot it primarily as a concert and CD review site. I have plenty of both to get me started, but if you are reading this and you have a CD you’d like me to review, please contact me via my website – http://jasonmrubin.com – and I will tell you how to send it to me.

I should note that I have a particular interest in prog and jazz, but am a fan of rock, pop, soul, and folk, as well as ethnic/world music and anything that doesn’t fit neatly in the dying music industry’s various marketing labels. I also write CD reviews and features for Progression magazine, and reviews and articles for the Arts Fuse online magazine and Musicovation blog, so I’m not a complete dodo.

Before I launch into my first review, I want to remind/inform my readers (intentional or accidental, you both are welcome here) the meaning behind the blog’s title, Dove Nested Towers. It is a typically inventive phrase by Van Dyke Parks that is part of the lyrics to the Brian Wilson masterpiece composition “Surf’s Up.” Originally written in 1966 for the Beach Boys’ aborted Smile album, the song eventually appeared in 1971 as the title track of the band’s LP offering that year. Brian did his own version in 2004 on Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, and five different versions appear on the 2011 Smile Sessions boxed set. It is my favorite song.

*http://www.amazon.com/Grave-Gay-Jason-M-Rubin/dp/098496309X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411849518&sr=8-1&keywords=the+grave+and+the+gay

Concert review: King Crimson, September 16, 2014, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Any band still going that started out in the late '60s by now will have experienced any number of lineup changes. Typically these are due to death or the intentionally vague “musical differences” and they tend to involve a single player. King Crimson is anything but a typical band. When they have a lineup change, it usually means everyone but the guitarist has been let go. Indeed, Robert Fripp, the seated lead guitarist who dresses and appears as composed as an accountant but plays like a zombie slayer, has been the one and only constant in what has now been eight different lineups since 1969.

These lineups have included a trio, quartet, quintet, and a double trio composed of two drummers, two guitarists, and two bass/Stick players. The eighth lineup may be the oddest one yet: seven musicians, including no fewer than three drummers who are set up in the front of the stage (Gavin Harrison, Bill Rieflin, and Pat Mastelotto), with two guitarists (Fripp and Jakko Jakszyk), bassist/Stick master Tony Levin, and sax/flute guru Mel Collins comprising the second line.

One reason for the many lineup changes (the band has accommodated a total of 21 full-time musicians in its history) is that it periodically breaks up and reforms. The first hiatus was from 1974-1981. By 1974, the band had endured three lineup changes in five years. The 1981 lineup had a successful three-year stint before ceasing operations until 1993, when the double trio was introduced. Two more hiatuses take us to the present day.

With each tour, Fripp takes pains to warn fans not to arrive at the venue with expectations that anything from prior lineups will be played. Typically, some older songs are included in the set lists, but the idea of a “greatest hits” repertoire is anathema to Fripp, who regards Crimson as “a way of doing things” rather than as an ongoing jukebox.

So it was that I arrived at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston to experience how King Crimson would be “doing things” after 45 years of stops and starts. In spite of Fripp’s warnings, lineup #8 did seem to suggest that a retrospective approach to song election was possible. After all, Harrison was with the band in 2008; Jakszyk performed in a Crimson alumni band and has collaborated with Fripp, Collins, and Harrison; Mastelotto and Levin have done a few stints with Crimson together and apart, and Collins goes as far back as 1970.

What transpired was beyond all my expectations and, dare I say, fantasies. It should be noted that my favorite era of King Crimson was 1973-74; that three-album span featured my favorite rock-oriented drummer, Bill Bruford, as well as bassist/vocalist John Wetton, a brilliant player who seemed ever to be in search of fame and finally found it in 1983 in the band Asia. That era was particularly well-represented, and in fact the set’s opener (“Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part One”) and closer (“Starless”) came from those albums, along with four other songs (“Red,”, “One More Red Nightmare,” “The Talking Drum,” and “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part Two”). That, for me, was well worth the price of admission.

The rarely acknowledged Islands album from 1972 (the last of three that Collins appeared on) surprisingly offered two songs, “The Letters” and the jazz-metal instrumental workout, “Sailor’s Tale.” Collins was also proud representative of the 1970 tune “Pictures of a City,” blaring on sax with the force of a Peter Brotzmann (look him up). Collins, whom I saw on Roger Waters’ first solo tour in 1984, was one of four MVPs of this show, playing soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone sax in addition to flute.

Of the eight remaining songs, six date from after Bruford left the band, at which time I took my own hiatus from Crimson’s only-constant-is-change gyrations. As such, I was not familiar with them, though the level of musicianship was consistently amazing throughout the show. As a final encore, the band rocked through the touchstone tune, the opener on Crimson’s 1969 debut album, “21^st Century Schizoid Man,” which featured an astounding drum solo by Harrison, who was another MVP, as was Tony Levin, who played three different basses and Chapman Stick and had the unenviable responsibility of anchoring the heavy, complex playing of this seven-legged sea monster.

The final MVP I would give to Fripp himself, who says nothing on stage and yet says all there needs to be said on his guitar. It could well be said that Robert Fripp is also a way of doing things, and like the band he has carried on through thick and thin, there is no one who does it anything like he does. As for the three drummers, I feel that Harrison could have done the job himself (as, indeed, Bruford could have done, and maybe would have if he and Fripp were not currently as close as Ray and Dave Davies).

It is inevitable that this lineup will cease to exist and another hiatus will begin. But Fripp is 68 now and one has to wonder how much more of this he can take. One night was powerful enough for me; imagine being in the midst of it night after night. He has finally plumbed the depths of the King Crimson catalogue and past lineups so if there is a ninth lineup, it will be a challenge to make it a surprising one. But setting up and facing challenges is ultimately what King Crimson is all about; indeed, it is what it does best.

Another book review: for Dylan fans

When I posted the book reviews from my company's website before, I had the sneaking suspicion that one was missing. So I went back and looked again and sure enough, this one was out behind the service entrance smoking a butt when I went looking to round up my reviews. Here it is.


Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña
By David Hadju

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, various forces and influences converged to gave birth to the folk revival. Chief among them were the eastward migrations of Joan Baez with her family from California (by way of earlier stints in Staten Island and Baghdad) to the Boston area, and Bob Dylan from Minnesota to New York City. Baez was the first to become a star, but when the two found each other, it signaled the start of a whole new era in music history. As Hadju’s extremely well-researched book shows, these forces and influences were ultimately just plain human beings – astonishingly talented, to be sure, but also full of flaws, foibles, uncertainties, and contradictions. Baez thought she was ugly (in fact, Dylan and many other men were more attracted to her younger sister, Mimi, who was still living with her parents while a new youth movement raged on just beyond her reach), while Dylan and Fariña – both true visionaries – told so many lies about their early lives that no one still knows for sure who they were before they became famous. But the highlight of the book is Baez and Dylan’s unusual, brief, and intense personal relationship. It’s only when she hears his first great songs that she doesn’t consider him a buffoon. He criticizes her as being slow to sing about social and political issues, then she becomes the more vocal activist, complaining about the more personal songs that started to surface on 1964’s Another Side of Bob Dylan. The book ends in 1966 with the eerie coincidence of Fariña and Dylan’s motorcycle accidents (Fariña’s fatal) occurring just three months apart, Baez facing her waning popularity, and Mimi the always-cared-for child now left alone. Dylan was clearly prescient when, in 1965, he sang, "It’s all over now, baby blue." Jason M. Rubin

So, like, what's up with the Heroes and Man Crushes?

Do people still have heroes? Are there heroes to be had? I don't know, I was young and impressionable in the mid to late 1960s and it was still a fairly unjaded, hagiographic time period. If Horatio Alger was out, there was still Boy's Life magazine and the "Goofus and Gallant" features in Highlights for Children to set you straight. I was born on Lincoln's birthday and read all the myth-making biographies for young readers; because of the connection, I was always drawn to non-fiction books and biographies, and throughout my life I have been open to being inspired and influenced by other people's lives and actions. My wife will tell you (should she start her own blog) that she can often tell who I am speaking with on the phone, because I take on their verbal mannerisms. Which is not to say that I am easily led and that anyone I like automatically becomes a hero. But I do have heroes and I do find it meaningful to have heroes, if not specifically to emulate then at least to take inspiration from their words, lives, and actions.

More recently, with the advent of the term "man crush," I have acknowledged having some of them, too, and I also think a man crush is something worth having - assuming you're confident enough in your masculinity. Here, then, are my heroes and man-crushes, explained.

Abraham Lincoln. I've already mentioned I was born on his birthday. His 154th to be precise. From a young, pre-literate age, my family had always made a big deal out of this, as if it were some kind of omen. I was often given pennies. As I grew older and began to learn about Lincoln, an uncle who was an educator would quiz me on the Gettysburg Address. He would recite it and make intentional mistakes (such as "far above our poor power to add or subtract") that I would have to correct. As I grew older still, I read more sophisticated books about him, eventually studying in college with one of his premier biographers, Stephen B. Oates (see below). The more I learned about the true Lincoln - his fears and uncertainties, his depressions and his fatalism - the more I admired him. As his flaws became exposed, he became more life-size, more approachable, more real. He and I were more alike than I ever could have thought. His writing ability and his boundless compassion are beyond my reach, but they are standards to strive for. He is my oldest, deepest hero.

Brian Wilson. It was 1975 or 1976, so I was either 12 or 13. I came upon Endless Summer, a 2-LP collection of Beach Boys hits. Twenty songs, each one indispensable. I had never heard 20 brilliant songs in a row before. How could it be that one man could create such a body of work? One song, though, stood out. "In My Room." The lyrics and music touched me deeply. "There's a world where/I can go and/Tell my secrets to/In my room." My own room was such a place. I knew he knew the same feelings I had felt. That artistic and spiritual kinship was very powerful to me. The more of his music I heard, the more of his life that I learned, the more knocked out I was by his genius, his endurance, and his incredible childlike wonder and innocence. He has no business being alive at age 66 in 2008, but he is and he's still creating wonderful works. He is a very special hero to me.

Bob Dylan. As a writer, my ideal is to be able to express a big truth in as few words as possible. No one does this better than Bob Dylan. My favorite line of his is "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" ("Subterranean Homesick Blues"). I also dig "When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose" ("Like a Rolling Stone"). I once saw an exhibit of photographs of Elvis, Dylan, and the Beatles. In one room was a giant portrait of Dylan, the one from the cover fo the Biograph boxed set. I said to my wife, "If we had that on a wall in our house, I would bow and pray to it every day."

Mike Scott. Mike Scott is the leader, singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the Waterboys. He qualifies as a man crush. I'm not specifically attracted to him, but he has such rock star looks that he is sort of physically irresistible. But it's music that really makes me such a big fan of his. He's very literate and very spiritual, and both influences come out very overtly in his writing, singing, and playing. In fact, I almost called this blog "Light in My Head," a phrase from "Fisherman's Blues," but it was already taken. These days I'm pushing the Waterboys on everyone I meet, so I clearly have a crush, but I wouldn't be surprised if one day he became a hero.

Michael Nesmith. Not just the most talented Monkee, but an exceptionally unique songwriter with a voice that kills me. He's also a successful entrepreneur and a deep thinker. More a crush than a hero, but I do admire him a lot.

Carl Yastrzemksi. My all-time favorite Red Sox player. Part of what I love about him is the fact that he never won the World Series. He's a tragic hero. But that classic stance, that potato farmer work ethic, and that Impossible Dream season make him the most emotionally laden of all my heroes to me.

Tom Brady. Pure man crush. What can I say, he's just a winner, pure and simple.

Stephen B. Oates. OK, I've dealt with a president, then the musicians, a couple of athletes, time for a couple of literary folks. As I mentioned above, I studied with Oates at UMass Amherst. Yet while still in high school, I had read his Lincoln biography, With Malice Towards None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. I took his "Civil War Era" class and read it again. In the 23 years since I graduated, I've read it three or four more times (not only because I love it, but because for a while he would send me every new edition of it, signed). What I love about Oates (and he's a crush who became a hero) is his brilliant writing style, but also his extraordinary lecture skills. I took two classes with him and every minute was riveting. He brought the characters on stage to tell their own stories. The class in which Lincoln was assassinated was one of the most moving moments of my life. At the end of the class, I literally could not move. I felt as though I had witnessed the horrific act in person, as if a member of my own family had just died. Oates brought me closer to Lincoln than anyone ever could or ever will. I'm no longer in touch with him, but he's a highly intelligent and dignified man who taught me more than he intended.

James Thurber. I don't know, maybe he's neither a hero nor a crush of mine, but there's something about his clear, witty writing and deceptively simple drawings that has stayed with me for decades. Because of him, I created for myself the distinction between a comedian and a humorist: a comedian makes you laugh, a humorist makes you smile. Ultimately, it really feels good to smile.

Max Rubin. I'll post more about my great-grandfather later. Suffice to say, more than a century ago he fled persecution in Russia to build a new life for himself in America. He left behind two children and a pregnant wife. Max stayed with his brother in New York until the Great Chelsea (Mass.) Fire of 1908. A carpenter by trade, he figured there would be a lot of work for him there. So he moved to Chelsea and in so doing ensured that his progeny would be Red Sox fans instead of being Yankees fans. Eventually Max was able to send for his family, and he fathered 11 children in all. I found out only a couple of years ago that he and my great-grandmother Rose are buried a five-minute drive from my house. Now I visit often.